#not that I think this post would enable that much but err on the side of caution and all that

[haorev]

Gotta say, sometimes I’m doing reading for school and I get real frustrated and sometimes I’m reading and I feel like I’m having such an emotional revelation of some sort

Todays comes from Gershom Scholem’s On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah, specifically in the chapter about the Shekhinah. It’s not even anything super profound. It’s just the way he says that the active female energy of G’d is “the strength by which He eternally gives birth to Himself…” and I don’t know why but that hit me real hard this morning.

Also hit by the truly neutral way that Scholem describes the active and passive attributes of the Shekhinah within the sefirot, mostly bc I’ve had to read too much where things like “creativity” and “spontaneity” are put down as negative in favor of things (usually seen as masculine) such as “order” and “reason”, but to me at least it doesn’t seem like Scholem’s doing that.

[rainbowsky]

Final round-up of fan fic asks

I've gotten a few more interesting responses to the fan fic discussion so I'm going to round them all up here. This will be my final post on the topic until/unless there's a dramatic new development, or a particularly notable response I want to highlight. Thanks to everyone who brought their thoughts and experiences to the topic. I hope everyone at least feels heard.

The biggest piece of advice that I would like to offer is for everyone to focus on what they love rather than what they hate. If we all did that, the world would be a better place. Alongside that, I'd like to remind everyone to please support authors whose work you like. It's so important. Give them a kudos, give them a nice comment, recommend their work to others. You never know what kind of grief and harassment they are dealing with to bring you these great stories, and our support means a lot.

This is in reference to previous posts here and here.

Anonymous asked:

With regard to fandom and fan fic issue, my years of experience being part of very large fandoms has led me to believe that big accounts are v important in facilitating and enforcing the general consensus of the whole fandom. Unless there will be big accs who'll remind everyone of being respectful & just not being a dick over other's preferences, nothing will change.

This is also the reason why I think certain solo fandoms have adapted weird and twisted narratives as their general fandom story because no big acc has tried to police them & and say hey pls be rational. Whether we like it or not, in a place where how far voices, ideas, tweets, posts get heard is based on the number of followers you have, big accs will have the power and influence in creating/curating/shifting the narratives.

So, if you want to know why your/our fandom thinks like this in general, look at what big accs are tweeting/posting, look at what ideas & values they follow, look at their preferences or how strongly they react to certain situations. it's taxing and toxic for big accs given the nature of social media these days, but it's also the reality of system, the more followers/audience you have, the more influence you will have.

So to anyone reading this I hope we all practice more restraint and reflection before we post anything. Remember that words, no matter what medium you write it in, will always carry weight.

So true. It is easy - even for myself who spends a fair chunk of time answering people's asks - to forget that people can sometimes be impressionable and what we say can influence people whether that's our intent or not. I get used to thinking of myself as a regular guy just doing my own thing when sometimes my thoughts and words go well beyond where I initially posted them.

I think it's important for us to be careful what we say, and it's equally important to be careful what we take from what other people say. Especially when it comes to big claims. Always get a second, third, fourth opinion and don't be afraid to ask for clarification if something doesn't sit right or sounds confusing.

It's also important to reflect on how our words and actions might affect other people's experience of fandom, and err on the side of 'live and let live' wherever possible. It's great to have our own preferences and to champion them, but we should try to do so in a way that leaves space for other people and perspectives.

The more unique perspectives and the more friendly, open dialog there is, the healthier the community will be as a whole.

There's nothing wrong with encouraging and guiding growth in the particular areas we are interested in, as long as it doesn't step on, oppress or attack those who are peacefully enjoying something different.

Anonymous 2 asked: bjyx fans attacking gdgdbaby for including zsww/lsfy dynamics in an event named bjyx then turning right around and attacking the zsww/lsfy event organizer for excluding bjyx? god, can you hear my facepalm and sigh of resignation and incredulity from over there? im genuinely not surprised that they're trying to drive an entire part of the fandom out by disgusting them (and me) with these immature tactics. i believe what im about to say next will sound quite bait-y and i respect your decision 1/?

should you choose not to post this. but i do know that it is not only me, in fact there are many out there, that is of this opinion. we just dont talk about it on twitter to avoid the potential mess it will bring lol. okay, here goes nothing. (do note that im talking about the majority here, not every single person is like this) so bjyx fans tend to be cishet females whereas zsww/lsfy fans are more diverse in terms of age and gender, and most of them are part of the queer community too 2/?

i would like to clarify that most of these zsww/lsfy fans are not dynamic exclusive (in the sense that they are friendly and interact with all ggdd fans) they just prefer to "identify" themselves as zsww/lsfy fans (on twitter specifically) just to form a distinction from bjyx fans who mostly are dynamic exclusive (as in; they do not consume non-bjyx content, and straightup refuse to interact with non-bjyx fans, often blocking them). as a result, id say that the zsww/lsfy communiy is way more 3/?

mature and respectful (after all, they're mostly queer people talking about a queer ship) whereas many problems in this fandom, such as the homophobia, adamantly insisting on "drawing lines" between dynamics, stem from the bjyx exclusive fans, comprised of cishet females who "may not know better". so, it is of no surprise to me that they're resorting to these immature tactics of calling gg unsavory names, and organizing retaliatory events with controversial topics in an attempt to "purify". 4/4

I trust that you have arrived at that theory through your own experience and observation. I haven't personally spent much time immersed in this stuff so I can't claim to have any real insight or expertise. If you say that's your experience of it, then at the very least that's how you've seen things up to this point.

I just want to say that I think we should always be careful about making assumptions about people's age, gender/gender identity, etc.

There are plenty of good reasons to avoid doing that; because those assumptions could be very wrong, because those assumptions are often laced with ageism, sexism, etc., because those assumptions - even when correct - might not be an accurate basis for the conclusions we draw.

But the primary reason I recommend avoiding those type of assumptions is because anything that enables us to clump a group of people together in our minds like that will tend to make them easier to demonize and dehumanize. They are no longer individuals who are each responsible for their own unique perspectives, they are now 'the X group' who is known for 'A B C series of easily attackable ideas or behaviors'.

If we attribute undesirable traits and behaviors to a group of people we feel opposed to in some way, that makes us feel more righteous and justified in behaving unfairly toward them, dismissing their humanity and warring with them. It's just risky behavior to engage in, even when it's well-intentioned.

There might actually be some truth to what you're saying. It could very well be that most of these people are young, inexperienced, heteronormative, etc. but if that's the case then we should try to use those traits to better understand and empathize rather than to better dismiss and discredit.

Just my two cents on that.

It can be really frustrating dealing with what feels like other people attacking us, trying to oppress us, etc. - especially when there are more of them than there are of us. In my experience the best solutions to that sort of problem are generally the ones that focus on what we are doing and want to do rather than what they are doing that we don't want them to do.

As I am always preaching, we can't control what other people say, do or think. The only thing we have any control over is what we say, do and think (and how we respond to what they say, do and think).

I have found in my experience that the moment I step out of a conflict mindset and instead step into a problem-solving mindset, everything starts to come together. I feel better, my outlook is more positive, I can begin to see solutions and allies rather than problems and enemies, and most of all, I become more focused on what I am doing than what others are doing.

So I would recommend everyone who is invested in resolving these conflicts focus on that. "How can we best showcase and encourage the types of stories we enjoy?" instead of "How can we stop these other people from doing things we dislike?"

Anonymous 3 asked:

Hello again! It’s anon #3 from the fanfic post. I really do appreciate reading your thoughts on various issues like this, so thank you for always taking time to write in depth. As for supporting without going to war, the simplest way has always been to just show appreciation for the creators, hype them up. Kudos are the easiest way on ao3 but comments in addition are great. This goes for all content—art, fics, vids..etc. Creators love to see and read how people react to their content. Sharing is also great, fic recs are very helpful, just be cautious with art and reposting though. Hope this helps a bit!

Thanks so much, Anon. I think this is excellent advice. And it's true that appreciation is great, but helping to expand the audience is also great. Recommending stories, pointing people to the pages/websites of artists we like (as opposed to reposting), sharing our own ideas and approaches, encouraging people to try new things... all of this helps build healthier communities.

And here's another one: WRITE! DRAW! CREATE!

I urge anyone with creative interests or talents to bring their voices to the community because we all can benefit from hearing from you.

Thanks again everyone for sharing your thoughts on this issue. I hope that over time we can all work in positive ways to improve the situation.

I think this subject has been well-covered now so I'm going to retire it for the time being. If anyone still feels they want to discuss it further please feel free to message me privately. Thanks.

[shipatfirstsight]

On Persuasion

One of my favourite things about Persuasion is that Wentworth has to learn to accept Anne’s form of strength? He thinks that she was disloyal to him in choosing to honour her family’s wishes over their engagement, and so he sees her as weak.  Wentworth cares for Anne so much that I don’t think he can understand that her choice was a sacrifice that she made in part for him. He can’t see that really she choose his success over her happiness. 

Had she not imagined herself consulting his good, even more than her own, she could hardly have given him up.---The belief of being prudent, and self-denying principally for his advantage, was her chief consolation, under the misery of a parting---a final parting; and every consolation was required, for she had to encounter all the additional pain of opinions, on his side, totally unconvinced and unbending, and of his feeling himself ill-used by so forced a relinquishment.---He had left the country in consequence.  

The text sort of sets up Wentworth’s success in the Navy as being due to Anne breaking their engagement but he can’t see that because he wanted it all. He wanted to have her and wealth. He didn’t want to have to give her up. But he might not have taken the same risks if he had Anne at home, which I think other people have pointed out. The brief moment Austen gives us of his perspective is really telling.

He had thought her wretchedly altered, and, in the first moment of appeal, had spoken as he felt. He had not forgiven Anne Elliot. She had used him ill; deserted and disappointed him; and worse, she had shown a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided, confident temper could not endure. 

(Side note: Austen almost makes this sound like a Marianne/Willoughby situation with Wentworth feeling like Marianne, which is interesting)

Part of it could boil down to their awareness of each other; I don’t think there’s any way he wouldn’t have noticed how little Anne’s immediate family gives her emotionally. It might be a pride issue with him--why would she choose her family over him? And Lady Russell’s concerns, while motivated in part by a monetary concern for Anne’s wellbeing, ultimately come down to her not liking Wentworth; this is sort of shown when Lady Russell wants Anne to go to Bath even though she knows Anne doesn’t like Bath.

Lady Russell felt obliged to oppose her dear Anne’s known wishes...Lady Russell was fond of Bath in short, and disposed to think it must suit them all.

It also happens again when Lady Russell wants Anne to marry her cousin. Lady Russell likes him, and while I think she absolutely loves Anne, she’s a little blinded by her own tastes and wants. 

This is part of why Wentworth pursues Louisa after her loyalty speech; he sees her as the opposite of Anne.

‘My first wish for all, whom I am interested in, is that they should be firm.’

However, when Louisa gets hurt, Anne quietly takes charge and they all turn to her and let her lead. I think it’s a turning point in more ways than one for Wentworth, in part because he’s finally forced to see Anne’s strength of character.  

If Anne is as weak of character and feeling as Wentworth resentfully believes at the beginning of the novel, she would have married Charles Musgrove or her cousin. Her own quiet strength enables her to let Wentworth go and do it in part for his own good, but she remains steadfast to him until he comes back and she’s convinced he’ll never forgive her. Her own understanding of people makes her realise that Mr. Elliot isn’t a good person, regardless of her feelings for Wentworth. 

Wentworth is the one that has to learn and grow through the novel, more so than Anne, I would argue. Anne has to learn to trust her own judgement, but Wentworth is the one who goes through the Elizabeth/Darcy process and realises that just because Anne’s character presents itself differently from his does not make it lesser. And it is interesting that Wentworth is more dictated by his emotions than Anne.

‘No!’ he replied impressively, ‘there is nothing worth my staying for;’ and he was gone directly.

Jealousy of Mr. Elliot! It was the only intelligible motive. Captain Wentworth jealous of her affection! Could she have believed it a week ago--three hours ago! For a moment the gratification was exquisite. But alas! there were very different thoughts to succeed. How was such jealousy to be quieted?

Anne’s understanding of Wentworth here, instead of being hurt by his absolute rudeness, is another of those moments that shows Anne’c character. Wentworth understands Anne, except when his judgement is clouded by his emotions and pride. Anne understands him outside of her emotions. At the beginning, she knows he’s not in an emotional place to be able to forgive her, but here in Bath, she’s able to recognise that he’s jealous and never even thinks about being hurt by his words.  

Perhaps most telling, though, is that in his letter, Wentworth clearly states that he’s been the weak one. And he finally admits the depth of his feeling to himself and to her by stating that he’s never stopped loving her in the midst of his anger.

I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan.---Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes?---I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine...You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be lost on others.---Too good, too excellent creature!

He understands her tone of voice, but his judgement is clouded in regards to her emotions towards him and he admits that she is better able to read his emotions than he is her’s. When Anne goes after him

He joined them; but as if irresolute whether to join or pass on, said nothing--only looked.

Wentworth sort of becomes what he told Louisa he did not like; irresolute. He wants Anne to want him, but he’s not sure if she still loves him. Finally he admits to Anne that he’d been wrong about her.

...he had been constant unconsciously, nay unintentionally; that he had meant to forget her, and believed it to be done. He had imagined himself indifferent, when he had only been angry; and he had been unjust to her merits, because he had been a sufferer from them. Her character was now fixed in his mind as perfection itself, maintaining the loveliest medium of fortitude and gentleness; but he was obliged to acknowledge that only at Uppercross had he learnt to do her justice, and only at Lyme had he begun to understand himself. 

At the end, Anne reiterates that she as right to listen to Lady Russell; Wentworth still doesn’t like this but I think it shows us that he’s the one not thinking rationally in regards to Anne. When Wentworth states his worry that she was going to marry Mr. Elliot, she responds:

‘You should have distinguished...You should not have suspected me now; the case so different. If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it was to duty.’ 

Wentworth’s response to this is also very telling:

‘...I could not derive benefit from the late knowledge I had acquired of your character. I could not bring it into play: it was overwhelmed, buried, lost in those earlier feelings which I had been smarting under year after year, I could think of you only as one who had yielded, who had given me up, who had been influenced by anyone rather than by me.’

Wentworth’s anger, despite what he asserted to Louisa, isn’t caused by Anne being persuaded, but rather that he wasn’t able to persuade her to stay with him over the advice of Lady Russell. He is very ruled by his emotions in a way that Anne isn’t. Anne is more able to read the situations around her, recognise that she wouldn’t have persuaded someone under her care in the way she was persuaded, but also that:

‘...I must believe that I was right, much as I suffered for it, that I was perfectly right in being guided by the friend whom you will love better than you do now. To me, she was in the place of a parent. Do not mistake me, however. I am not saying that she did not err in her advice. It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides; and for myself, I certainly never should, in any circumstance of tolerable similarity, give such advice. But I mean, that I was right in submitting to her, and that if I had done otherwise, I should have suffered more in continuing the engagement than I did even in giving it up, because I would have suffered in my conscience.’

Wentworth is then able to recognise that his pride and anger made his and Anne’s separation last longer than if he had been more understanding:

‘...I too have been thinking over the past, and a question has suggested itself, whether there may not have been one person more my enemy even than that lady? My own self. Tell me if, when I returned to England in the year eight, with a few thousand pounds, and was posted into the Laconia, if I had then written to you, would you have answered my letter? would you, in short, have renewed the engagement then?’

‘Would I!’ was all her answer; but the accent was decisive enough. 

‘Good God!’ he cried, ‘you would! It is not that I did not think of it, or desire it, as what could alone crown all my other successes. But I was too proud, too proud to ask again. I did not understand you. I shut my eyes, and would not understand you, or do you justice.’ 

Here, where he finally understands her and her motivations more fully, he is able to better understand himself. This is part of why I love this novel, though, because Anne is so gently faithful and steadfast, and while he loved her before, he has a much deeper understanding of her by the end. When Wentworth says in the letter that his heart more fully belongs to her now, I think it is in part due to his greater knowledge of her, his new ability to try to look past his own emotions to understand hers. 

[topicprinter]

Hey all,Just wanted to add a little preface to this post with some context. My colleague James just wrote a massive piece detailing everything we did to drive a ton of sales from a recent webinar.Unfortunately, James is a big-time lurker, and doesn't have the karma to share it with you. But I do!I've read through this a few times myself and I think he's done a really impressive job in giving you a look behind the scenes when it comes to our webinar strategy.I hope you find this useful! And please, feel free to reach out to me here or on social (not sure if I'm allowed to post it, so I'll hold off) if you have any questions about running your own webinars.P.S. There a quite a few (useful!) images in this article. If you don't already have RES, I'd recommend you go get it. :-)So this is the closest thing I've ever had to something worthwhile to put in this community.I'm head of inbound marketing for a tech startup in Vancouver, Canada, and 4 weeks ago our team met to discuss how we planned to meet our growth goals for Q4.One of the main things we talked about was webinars.I've always enjoyed the sound of my own voice, so I thought I'd give it a go.The webinar we ran, after a lot of trial and error, has driven more than 11k in sales, and I wanted to share how we did it. Not sure if /r/Entrepreneur will take the whole piece, so I may have to link at the bottom.Basically, this covers everything we did in the 4 weeks before going live with my webinar, "How to Increase Sales This Black Friday & Cyber Monday."4 weeks before the webinarWe started with a brainstorming session. Here's the questions we asked:1. What will our target market be interested in learning more about?- A webinar on Justin Bieber may get people to register, but those people wouldn't be particularly interested in buying your email software after the fact.2. What subject is related enough to your business that an offer related to it would be desirable?- Your target market may care about sales optimization, but if your business sells Wordpress themes, your post-webinar offer won't get a lot of interest.3. What do I know about? What am I a genuine expert in?- This one goes without saying. You are the primary reason people register. You need to have a demonstrable expertise in your webinar's subject matter to get them in the door.4. Can this topic be visually-represented? Does it have visual elements?- You talking without a slidedeck or screen capture gets boring fast. Choose a topic which engages your attendees visually.5. Will this topic stand out from the crowd in some way?- You're not the only business or marketer running webinars. Tie your topic into a current event, or put a spin on it (original research, perhaps) which helps you stand out from competitors.After throwing a bunch of ideas up on the board, we landed on one which we felt ticked all these boxes: Black Friday sales strategies: timely, interesting to our target market, and delivering strategies which attendees wouldn't have seen before.And, as important as any of those, this topic gives Wishpond the opportunity to show off the value of our software to prospective customers.The next step was planning:For project management, we use Asana. It allows us to see exactly who's responsible for each task, when that task is due, and (most importantly) to leave little notes for each other - some of which are even relevant to the task!Here's what the Black Friday webinar plan looked like:https://www.wishpond.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/10/Asana-plan.pngThis calendar dictated our responsibilities for the next few weeks.At this point the Wishpond marketing team separated to divide and conquer.Takeaway:Dividing and conquering is the only way to create a complete webinar campaign. There's so much to do. Get your team together and assign responsibilities, and use Asana (or a similar project management tool) to organize it all.3 Weeks Before Going LiveHere's what we needed to accomplish three weeks out:Step 1: Complete the webinar landing page (needs to be done before we can start sending traffic)Step 2: Send a mailout to existing contactsStep 3: Research and decide on a webinar platformStep 4: Complete the website additions to direct visitors to the webinar landing pageStep 5: Complete and launch Facebook AdsStep 1: Create the webinar landing pageWishpond makes the creation of landing pages easy, and we're lucky enough to work for Wishpond. So building a campaign page for our webinar was relatively straightforward.That said, it does help to have Carlo (a graphic designer before I stole him for the marketing team) on hand…Here's the page he designed:https://www.wishpond.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/10/webinar-landing-page.pngThere are a few essentials here, which we made sure to include:The form: You should collect exactly the information you need, and nothing more. More fields will reduce conversion rate. Fewer fields, and you won't be able to personalize your follow-up emails.The countdown timer: Countdown timers increase urgency, and have shown to increase webinar landing page registration rates significantly. Wishpond's editor enables you to drag-and-drop a countdown timer just like this one.The "About your Host" section: You need to prove that you, or whoever is hosting your webinar, is an expert on their subject. "Why should I listen to this person for 40 minutes?" is a pretty serious question you need to answer.The "What you'll learn" section: After all, people need to know exactly what they stand to benefit from your webinar. Don't hide this.Step 2: Send a mailout to existing contactsThis was pretty standard. It looked like this:https://www.wishpond.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/10/black-friday-newsletter.pngSince running this webinar, I've read more about incentivized referrals - basically, rewarding people when they share your brand or your promotion.Step 3: Research and decide on a webinar platformWe needed a webinar platform which worked well, looked great, and connected easily with our other tools.I'm part of a few marketing communities on Facebook, and a timely question from one of the other members was super helpful here:https://www.wishpond.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2018/10/webinar-software.pngDemio. It came up several timesSo we looked into it, and absolutely love the platform.It's clean, affordable and the UX is awesome. I won't wax on about it, but yeah, it's a really solid tool. Check them out.Takeaway:You're not alone. If you have a question about anything to do with setting up a webinar (or marketing in general) there are thousands of marketers willing to answer. Check out Quora and Facebook communities.Step 4: Create website additions to drive people to your landing pageThis, like the landing page, is Carlo's wheelhouse.Website additions, like popups and welcome mats, are an awesome way to drive your website traffic to register for your webinar.He created a popup for the Wishpond blog as well as a welcome mat.However, we didn't end up using the welcome mat, as we determined it could hurt our website conversion rates).TakeawayDon't be afraid to kill your darlings. Creating these website additions took Carlo about half an hour. Having a tool like Wishpond makes it super simple, which means it's okay when plans change. If he'd committed a full day to creating and coding a custom welcome mat, we would have had a harder time throwing it in the trash.Step 5: Create and launch Facebook AdsThis was a mistake.We created the ad designs and messaging, created tests and launched nine Facebook ads.Then we sat back and watched. And the cost per registrant just kept going up.We paused the campaign, created new designs and re-launched. But we couldn't make it work. When we couldn't get below $35/registrant, we had to stop.We'd driven 11 registrants for $400.At our customer value, this wasn't profitable.If we're paying $35/registrant, and only 10% of registrants book a demo after the webinar, and our demos have a 25% subscription rate, we'd need a customer value of $1,400 to make it break even. And we don't have that quite yet.TakeawayIt could be our target market (marketers are notoriously expensive), but my thoughts are that you'll get more bang for your buck if you ignore ads and, instead, get webinar registrants from your website traffic or past customers (i.e. popups and newsletter mailouts).Have you made Facebook ads work for webinars in the past? How?2 Weeks Before Going LiveTwo weeks before going live, we needed to wrap up a couple things:Step 1: Compete the slidedeckStep 2: Write the post-webinar email seriesStep 3: Write the reminder emailsStep 1: Complete the slidedeckI use Google Presentation for every presentation I do. The platform is super simple, and I love the ability to share, co-edit, and add seamless transitions.TakeawayThere are a few things to remember when building your webinar slidedeck:- Include less text than you think. Honestly, go back over your slidedeck a few times and remove text. If you need text prompts, write out notes. Don't ask your webinar attendees to read while you talk.- Add transitions. This is especially relevant between paragraphs and lists. Show only one idea at a time.- Make your images as large as possible. You never know what resolution or screen your attendees are going to be on. Don't bank on them being able to see what you're talking about. Err on the side of massive.Step 2: Write the post-webinar email seriesOnce your webinar is over, you'll need to have a strategy in place to turn registrants into customers.We've found (in other campaigns) that a 3 or 4-email series is the best way to do that.Sent automatically, a real person will get involved as soon as someone replies to the email. Other than that it's completely automatic.Here are templates similar to the three emails we wrote:Email 1: Post-webinar essential infoThank you so much for a successful webinar!Even if you didn't attend, I wanted to send you the recording/slidedeck.Exclusive to webinar registrants, I'd like to give you a [X%] discount to [Your Business] until the end of the month.If you have any questions about anything in the webinar, let me know!Email #2: Webinar follow-upWanted to make sure you received my last email?We're offering a [X%] discount exclusively to webinar attendees until the end of the month, and I didn't want you to miss out!Let me know if you have any questions! Email #3: Won't keep bothering you I won't keep bothering you, as I haven't received a response and I don't want to clutter up your inbox.I did want to send you one last thing. This [resource related to the webinar content], which can [concrete positive outcome].I'm always here if you have questions about [webinar content]!Step 3: Write the reminder emailsThe biggest barrier between a profitable webinar strategy and a failed one isn't the design of the page or the content of the webinar, it's attendance.On average, only 25-50% of your webinar registrants (those people you've worked so hard to get) will show up on the day.So I put serious time into writing 4 reminder emails:An auto-responderA "24-hours remaining" emailA "1 hour remaining" emailA "15-minutes remaining" email1. Auto-responder emailImportant webinar informationHi [First_Name]Thanks for registering for [Webinar Name]!Webinar Details:Name of WebinarDate:Time:I'm excited for the big day, and can't wait to share the strategies we've used to [achieve concrete, positive result].To make sure you don't miss it, use this link to add the webinar to your Google calendar:And be sure your friends don't miss it! Share with your network and get a free Starbucks coffee on me, to drink during the webinar! - [Link]Looking forward to it!To add "Add to Google Calendar" links to your emails, check out this url generator.2. A "24-hours remaining" email:Subject Line: Only 24 hours left!Hi [First_Name]Only 24 hours before we get rolling with [Webinar Name]!Can't wait to see you there at [time].If you haven't already, be sure to share the webinar your friends to get a free Starbucks coffee on me, to drink during the webinar! - [Link]Cheers!To send your registrants a free coffee from Starbucks (which is more than worth it, believe me), check out the Starbucks website.3. A "1 hour remaining" email:Subject Line: [Webinar Reminder]: 1 hour left to get your free coffeeHi [First_Name]We're going live with [Webinar Name] in about 55 minutes!Log in to the webinar waiting room using this link:And you still have time to earn that free Starbucks coffee by sharing this link with your friends: .Only by attending will you get my exclusive [secret strategy] which won't be in the recording!Can't wait to see you there!That's a bit of a gamble, that last sentence. Whether you do want to hold back something exclusively for attendees is entirely up to you. My recommendation would be to test it. Do you get more people to attend (and buy from you) if you do hold something back, or do you get more if you record the whole webinar and send it to all your registrants?4. A "15-minutes remaining" email:Subject Line: [Webinar Reminder]: 15 minutes leftHi thereStart settling in!We'll be going live in about 15 minutes.Grab your coffee and log in to the waiting room by clicking this link: .Can't wait to see you there!I will give you some strategies below for how you can still turn registrants into customers, even if they don't attend your webinar.Week of the WebinarThe week of the webinar was all about setup and rehearsal.We also sent another mailout to everyone who hadn't opened the previous one (didn't want to bother people who had already registered), but I've already covered that.This section will cover the essential steps you need to take the week of the webinar and on the day itself.Step 1: RehearsingI scheduled two full-length rehearsal webinars for the Monday and the Wednesday before going live on Thursday morning. I invited (of course) Carlo and Mateus, but also Ali (our CEO) and a few people from sales. I wanted insight from as many different people as possible.Rehearsal of your webinar does several essential things:Allows you to get a feeling for how long you should be talkingAllows you to record yourself, to see where you're weak and where you're strongAllows your colleagues to give notesGives you confidence in your subject matter and your webinar content Rehearsing is huge. Don't even attempt a professional webinar until you've done the entire thing (with recording) at least a couple times.Step 2: ModeratingNot only do moderators give you that extra little "this is professional" kick, they are also super helpful.My colleagues Carlo and Mateus both acted as moderators during my webinar.Moderators do a number of essential things:Moderate: As in, they kick out anyone who's spamming or trolling the comment sectionProvide relevant links: If you mention your Twitter handle, email address or a demo link, your moderators can put it in the comment section for attendees.Collate questions for the Q&A: Rather than you having to scroll through all the comments at the end of the webinar, have your moderators put all the questions in one place. Then you can answer them more smoothly.Top Tip:This is a bit cheeky, but everybody does it. If there's some information you'd really like to share with attendees but you don't want to appear too salesy, have your moderators "ask" some pointed questions as if they were attendees.For instance, in my last webinar I had a total stranger/my colleague ask "How do we book a demo, again?" as well as "What software do you recommend we use to create the website popups you showed us?"Step 3: Giving people time to arriveOnce I went live, I introduced myself and told everyone how excited I was to start the webinar.Then, and this is crucial, I gave attendees a couple minutes to arrive.My webinar started at 10am. I went live at 10:02 (intentionally) and told everyone I'd get rolling at 10:05. This gave latecomers time to enter the webinar.Have you ever turned channels to find a movie which started 10 minutes ago? You've missed the beginning, which is everything. You can spend the next 2 hours wondering "Wait, who's that guy? Is that the main character or the bad guy? What's he trying to do?" What's the chance you'll stick with that movie?Webinars are no different. A big part of keeping people to the end of your webinar is ensuring they're there when you start. Give them some time.Final thoughtsSo there you have it: the exact strategy we used for our most recent webinar."How to Get More Sales This Black Friday and Cyber Monday" drove 524 leads, 115 of them new to Wishpond. Those leads have turned into over $11,000 in sales, and the follow-up emails are still going out.I'm super happy with how this went. It was nerve-wracking and I was sweating the whole time, but it was exhilarating and fun, nonetheless.I really hope you give webinars a shot, and let me know if you do!If you want to see the original post in its fully-formatted glory, just click here: https://blog.wishpond.com/post/115675437738/guide-to-webinars

[raquel08]

Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

A significant initial phase in any nearby SEO procedure is to guarantee and confirm your neighbourhood business’ Google My Business (GMB) listing. Jumping on Google My Business can build your odds of appearing in Google’s Local Pack, Local Finder, Google Maps, and natural rankings as a rule. Qualifying neighbourhood businesses can guarantee this free listing on Google and incorporate essential data about their organization, similar to their location, telephone number, business hours and sorts of instalments acknowledged.

Numerous neighbourhood businesses simply guarantee their GMB listing and forget about it. What most businesses don’t understand is that there are an assortment of different highlights you can use to improve your Google My Business listing and a few reasons why you ought to as often as possible check your business listing to guarantee that it’s exactness remains flawless. Need to know more?

Complete All The Data Google Requests

There are assortments of inquiries you can reply to finish your Google My Business profile. At the point when done, your listing will have significant information that will make it simpler for potential clients to discover your organization. Furthermore, in the event that you don’t fill that data in, another person could. Numerous business proprietors don’t understand that anybody can recommend a change to your business listing — and that incorporates contenders.

At the point when a searcher taps on your GMB listing they can see a “Propose an alter” choice:

At the point when somebody taps on that alternative they can truly alter your Google My Business listing (and make some truly emotional changes, as well):

This is only one motivation behind why it’s significant that you login to your Google My Business dashboard consistently to guarantee that nobody has endeavoured to roll out any undesirable improvements to your listing. You’ll see a warning that changes are pending in the event that somebody has made recommended changes that need your endorsement.

Likewise, understand that Google supports individuals who know about your business to respond to questions, so Google can adapt more data about your organization. To do this they can just tap on the “Know this spot? Answer brisk inquiries” connect.

In the event that they know the response to the inquiries, they can reply. If not, they can decay.

Presently, some business proprietors have cried foul, saying that contenders or others with malevolent purpose can unleash ruin on their Google My Business listings with this component. Nonetheless, Google’s way of thinking is that this sort of “client created content” forms a network, all the more completely finishes a business’ profile, and enables Google to explore different avenues regarding diverse inquiry procedures.

After you get your Google My Business listing confirmed, keep on checking your listing routinely to err on the side of caution.

Google My Business Posts

Google Posts are “smaller than expected advertisements” that appear in Google search in your Google My Business listing

You can play around with your Posts by including a picture, a Call to Action (CTA), and in any event, including connects to another page or site. In case you’re utilizing Yext, you can make GMB Posts legitimately from your Yext dashboard.

Here Are Only A Couple of Post Thoughts:

If you’re having an occasion (like an online class) you can set up an occasion Post with a date and time and after that add connect to the enrolment page.

Do you have a deal continuing during a particular time? Make a “deal” occasion Post.

Does your most recent blog entry shake? Include a short portrayal of your blog entry and connection to the post on your blog.

New item you need to include? Demonstrate an image of this cool contraption and connection to where individuals can make the buy.

Want to spread occasion delight? Give potential clients an occasion message Post.

The potential outcomes with Posts are huge! Posts stay “live” for seven days or “go dull” after the date of the occasion.

Booking Catch Highlight

Google’s new Booking catch highlight can truly enable your business to stand apart from the group. On the off chance that you have any sort of business that depends on clients making arrangements and you’re utilizing incorporated planning programming, individuals would now be able to book a meeting with your business legitimately from your Google My Business listing. This can make it much simpler to get new clients!

On the off chance that you have a record with one of Google’s upheld planning suppliers, the booking catch is naturally added to your Google My Business listing.

Informing

Did you realize that you can enable potential clients to send you instant messages? This is an incredible method to interface legitimately with potential clients.

In the event that you don’t need instant messages sent to your own telephone number, you can download Google’s Allo application. At the point when you set up your Allo account, utilize a similar telephone number associated with your Google My Business account. Presently when somebody messages you, Allo will send you a warning rather than the message showing up in your own instant messages.

To begin with Messaging, login to your GMB dashboard and snap on “Informing”

This element is still in its earliest stages, however. At this moment, informing is just accessible to portable web clients and isn’t accessible to versatile application or work area clients. Individuals additionally won’t see the Messaging alternative in the Knowledge Panel or on Google Maps.

The ONLY way somebody can message your business is in the event that they play out a versatile web search on Chrome. (I expect that Google will grow the Messaging highlight once they work the crimps out.)

Questions and Answers

Questions and Answers is a moderately new component to Google nearby look. It’s exceptionally cool! Much the same as it sounds, Q&A enables individuals to pose inquiries about your business and you can address those inquiries.

Here are a couple of things to remember about Questions and Answers:

The Q&A highlight isn’t noticeable on the versatile GMB application.

You need to login to the GMB dashboard to check whether you have any new addresses that need replying.

You can’t screen the Questions on a cell phone except if you have an Android telephone.

You can utilize the Google Maps App on Android gadgets to deal with the Q&A highlight as the business. To do this, download the Google Maps application, sign in with the email address you use for your GMB listing, and you will get pop-up messages in the event that somebody asks your business an inquiry.

Google My Business Online Surveys

In contrast to Yelp, which energetically demoralizes business proprietors to approach their clients for surveys, Google urges business proprietors to morally approach their clients or customers for online audits. Online audits show up alongside your listing in Google Maps and your business’ Knowledge Panel in hunt. Surveys can enable your business to stand apart among an ocean of list items.

Moreover, online audits are known to effect query output rankings, shopper trust, and navigate rates.

As indicated by Bright Local’s 2017 Consumer Review Survey:

97% of customers read online audits for nearby businesses in 2017, with 12% searching for a neighbourhood business online consistently

85% of customers trust online audits as much as close to home proposals

Positive audits make 73% of shoppers trust a neighbourhood business more

49% of purchasers need in any event a four-star rating before they utilize a business

Responding to surveys is a higher priority than any time in recent memory, with 30% naming this as key when passing judgment on nearby businesses

68% of customers left a neighbourhood business audit when asked — with 74% having been requested their criticism

79% of customers have perused a phony survey in the most recent year

On the off chance that you pursue Google’s rules for Google My Business audits, you can approach your clients for surveys.

At the point when clients leave surveys for you — positive or negative — ensure you react to them. In addition to the fact that it shows that client that you value their criticism, it additionally demonstrates potential clients that you give it a second thought.

What occurs in the event that you get a negative survey? To start with, don’t oddity out. Everyone has an awful day and a great many people perceive that. Additionally, on the off chance that you have a troll that gave you a one-star audit and left a dreadful remark, the vast majority with good judgment see the truth about that survey. It’s commonly not worth worrying over.

Conclusion:

Google My Business is one of the best ways to maximize the use of your business. All you need is a little optimization strategy. Make your brand known to many by promoting your content to a more-filtered audience. Connect with the experts of SEO in Lakewood, CO to know more about how GMB is beneficial for your business. 

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/are-you-in-control-of-your-digital-footprint-tech-news-top-stories/

Are you in control of your digital footprint?, Tech News & Top Stories

It is easy to think that e-commerce scams and hacking attempts are less of a concern today among digital natives who have grown up with digital technologies.

One such digital native, 27-year-old Hariz Taufik, believes that tech-savvy young adults are generally more aware about safeguarding their data online by making their social media accounts private and refraining from sharing personal information such as addresses or mobile numbers.

This is in part due to how schools are educating students about the importance of online safety, especially in an era marked by a growing number of media platforms, says Mr Hariz.

Living in the digital age also means it’s just as important to be aware of our digital footprint as much as our carbon footprint. Yet, despite a greater understanding of technology and its influence, are we as safe and cautious as we can be?

“Even when we carefully share personal information or upload pictures behind a private social media account, we still lose some degree of privacy,” says Mr Hariz. “Shopping online or enabling the location services on our phone’s apps are some of the ways we unknowingly create digital footprints.”

This phenomenon highlights the importance of considering the various ways our online activity can be used by others, and taking necessary steps to mitigate such risks.

Risk of scams and identity theft

Anyone can gather all the information about a person online and use them with malicious intent. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

Online spaces offer many opportunities for individuals to reach out easily to global audiences. However, it is this same advantage that gives criminals and scammers the ability to prey on unsuspecting victims, according to Dr Jiow Hee Jhee, a Media Literacy Council member and Digital Communications and Integrated Media programme director at the Singapore Institute of Technology.

Anyone can gather all the information available about a person online without his or her knowledge — from interests and hobbies, social groups, or even favourite places to hang out based on one’s posts and geo-tagging — and use them with malicious intent.

This hits close to home for Mr Hariz, whose friends have been victims of such attempts.

He says: “People can easily obtain various information about someone online and facilitate identity-related crimes. Someone once impersonated my friend on Instagram and sent me a direct message asking for my personal information.”

Thankfully, the attempt was unsuccessful as Mr Hariz was careful and had texted his friend via WhatsApp to check if she had indeed sent the message.

While the digitally literate may be less likely to fall prey to scams, they should still be wary about the information they share online.

Warns Dr Jiow: “Your credibility and reputation can be affected regardless of whether a scam is successful or not. By oversharing information online, your friends and family may be more wary of trusting the messages they receive from you, and potential employers could have concerns that you could put their data at risk too.”

Affect employment and further education opportunities

Employers can review an applicant’s digital footprint as part of the hiring process. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

Along with Internet users, employers have become increasingly digitally savvy over the years. According to a Financial Times article in 2018, social media has transformed the job market, with employers taking increasing interest in the online presence and activities of applicants. The article also cited a 2017 survey by US recruitment company CareerBuilder that revealed 70 per cent of companies used social media to screen candidates as part of the hiring process. This increased from 11 per cent in 2006 to 60 per cent in 2016.

Mr Hariz is unsurprised about the practice of reviewing an applicant’s digital footprint.

“I can see why companies analyse online data prior to hiring an individual,” he says, when presented with the statistics. “Hiring the right person is essential for business growth and analysing the data online could be a quick and cost-effective way to get to know the candidate better even prior to the interview.”

It’s thus important to always consider potential repercussions before posting anything online. Adds Dr Jiow: “What you post today or even ten years ago can be saved and used to your disadvantage when you least expect it.”

Cause damage to one’s reputation

Private conversations online can be leaked and used against a person. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

It’s no secret that millennials are online for a large part of their day. Founder of EmpathyWorks Psychological Wellness and registered psychologist Joy Hou explains that it’s also not uncommon for millennials to prefer to update their friends and loved ones about their lives via social media posts. They would also invite friends, loved ones and followers to leave comments or click ‘like’ to show their affection or support.

Such interactions online can occur behind a private social media page and considered personal conversations, but there could be instances where information is leaked and used against a person.

While it’s easy to think that friends or loved ones would never do that to you, Ms Hou says it’s still important to consider the possibility and suggests some reasons why individuals could engage in such behaviours:

To gain attention: They get to be the centre of attention temporarily while the piece of private information goes viral, and they receive numerous likes or shares on social media.

To express anger, unhappiness or envy: Some may engage in such behaviours to hurt those whose popularity, talents, or lifestyles they envy. They may derive a warped sense of fulfilment when the affected party’s reputation is tarnished.

To quell low self-esteem: To temporarily feel secure or superior, some may share information about or judge others.

To feel empowered: Bullied or victimised individuals may exert the same behaviours online for a taste of the power they do not have in the real world.

Ms Hou says: “In cyberspace where millions of people can access information with only one click, fake stories or ugliness about a person can go viral in seconds.”

The ripple effects could grow and include a wider audience, and be permanent.

However, in the digital age where the Internet can be a critical means of communication to bridge and build personal relationships across physical distances, it’s also unrealistic to cut yourself off from everyone else by not sharing any information online at all.

Thus, it’s perhaps more important to simply exercise caution by thinking twice about the personal and private information you post, and being aware of who you’re sharing the information with.

Making better choices online

With the Internet and social media being such an integral part of our personal and professional lives, it’s increasingly important to learn and apply best safety practices.

“It’s always good to err on the side of caution and take preventive steps so that you do not end up becoming a victim,” says Dr Jiow.

Consider applying the tips below to secure your digital footprint:

GRAPHIC: MEDIA LITERACY COUNCIL

GRAPHIC: MEDIA LITERACY COUNCIL

Don different hats to see if what you post could affect present and future personal or professional relationships, and be mindful that the Internet is both a positive and negative tool.

While leveraging the endless possibilities for connection and innovation the Internet brings, being aware of what we share and the lasting consequences of our choices online can empower us to better use it positively.

For more information and tips to Be Smart online, download the tip sheet on digital footprint here.

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[gethealthy18-blog]

Why Kids Need Knife Skills

New Post has been published on http://healingawerness.com/news/why-kids-need-knife-skills/

Why Kids Need Knife Skills

Table of Contents[Hide][Show]

Once I stumbled across some comments on an older blog post about letting kids help in the kitchen. Commenters insisted that they would never let their kids use knives, or would limit them to only butter knives or dull cutting utensils until at least age twelve.

Different strokes for different folks and all that, but my kids have been using a variety of knives and learning to cook since they were toddlers. In my view, kids can learn valuable lessons when allowed to take risks.

Of course, parental judgment is good and necessary. But what if we prepared kids with skills and safe limits rather than saying “no”?

Is It Safe for Kids to Learn Knife Skills?

I must confess, I used to err very much on the side of caution when it came to kids and knives, until I started finding research that delaying a child’s ability to learn to use sharp objects like knives can actually interfere with their psychological development and is akin to “delaying potty training until school age.”

What was that?

I was surprised too, but after some research and careful trial with my research team (aka my kids) in our lab (aka my kitchen), I have to agree that not only are kids capable of using “real knives” at a much younger age than I expected but that there do seem to be some psychological benefits as well.

Knives = Bad, TV = Safe?

This is the other surprising disconnect that I’ve noticed in recent years that has become more and more apparent… we shelter our children from important real life skills that have a small element of danger (like using a knife safely, climbing trees, playing outside by themselves, or riding a bike to the park) but give them easy access to “safe” things that are proven to be very harmful developmentally (like too much screen time, a sedentary lifestyle, etc).

Our kids can work an iPad like a pro but not use a kitchen knife (except for that they probably can, we just don’t let them). They can dominate at Candy Crush  but can’t do common household tasks like mopping a floor, loading a dishwasher, and doing laundry.

We limit kids from any task where they could get hurt, make a mess, or that we could “do more quickly.” Then we wonder why they balk when we eventually expect them to help out and why they lack the desire to do these things themselves.

Benefits of Letting Kids Use Knives

As parents, it is easy to see knives as a dangerous object just waiting to remove the finger/hand/arm of our children or lead them to certain impalement, but objectively, a knife is just a common and very useful kitchen tool. Yes, it can lead to harm if used incorrectly, but then so can a stove, oven, spiral slicer, vegetable peeler, or broom handle in the wrong hands.

On the flip side, a kitchen knife (and other common tools that we often shield a child from) doesn’t just represent a kitchen tool, but a step on the road to independence.

As parents, we have to ask at the end of the day: is our real job is to keep our children “safe” at all times or to raise them to be independent and capable adults? I’d argue the latter.

In fact, in many parts of the world, children are routinely allowed to interact with “dangerous” tools such as knives, hammers, mortars and pestles, and others from as young as age 2 (and even younger in some places!).

Learning Risk Assessment and Independence

This may seem like blanket heresy in our overprotective society, but hear me out…

Exposing children to situations that teach them at a young age to gauge risk accurately actually helps protect them in the long run. Children learn by trying (and sometimes failing) just how far they can jump, how to fall safely, and how to use tools (like knives) correctly.

Yes, there will be skinned knees and small cuts along the way (what child hasn’t fallen down and gotten hurt when learning to walk?), but we all managed to survive the horrors of a skinned knee and our children can too. More importantly, they need these experiences to teach them independence and resilience and that minor setbacks aren’t the end of the world.

From the article, “American Parents Have Got It All Backwards”:

Ellen Hansen Sandseter, a Norwegian researcher at Queen Maud University in Norway, has found in her research that the relaxed approach to risk-taking and safety actually keeps our children safer by honing their judgment about what they’re capable of. Children are drawn to the things we parents fear: high places, water, wandering far away, dangerous sharp tools. Our instinct is to keep them safe by childproofing their lives. But “the most important safety protection you can give a child,” Sandseter explained when we talked, “is to let them take… risks.”

Countries where children are given freedom to take risks develop a well-honed sense of risk assessment. Rather than keep their children indoors, countries like Sweden and Norway design their cities to enable safe walking and biking. This one of the factors that allows them to have some of the lowest child injury rates in the world.

Raising Helpers Who Aren’t Helpless

There is also a theory in psychology that the declining number of children per family in modern times has led us to think of our children as “precious treasures to be protected” rather than future helpers to be nurtured.

Don’t get me wrong, I consider my children the most precious gift I’ve ever received. I am grateful to have been given these years to spend with them and raise them as responsible members of society. Over time, I’ve also come to realize that doing too much for them denies them the chance to contribute in a meaningful way to our family. This will actually hurt them in the long run as they move into contributing to society.

Now it’s one of my parenting mantras: I don’t do anything for them they can do themselves. I made a list of skills my kids need to know to take care of themselves by the time they leave home, and this dictates age-appropriate responsibilities they can help with. These include basic tasks like cleaning, cooking, sewing on buttons, and changing a car tire.

Using a knife safely and correctly is an incredibly useful skill and one that I use daily, even outside the kitchen.

Helps Reinforce Healthy Eating Habits

When it comes to letting children help prepare food and use knives and other tools, there is another direct benefit that can’t be overstated:

Letting kids help prepare food makes them more likely to eat it.

Processed foods often require little or no preparation, but nutrient-dense whole foods have to be washed, peeled and cut. It has been my universal experience with my children that the more a child is able to help prepare a meal, the more likely he or she is to eat it.

In fact, our 7-year-old and 9-year-old started to prepare meals for the family themselves on occasion (especially weekend meals) and have become adventurous cooks and adventurous eaters in the process.

Involving the kids in all aspects of meal prep has shifted the conversation about new foods from “ewww… what is that” to “how do you cook that and what kind of recipes do you use it in?”

In fact, this winter the older kids peeled and grated carrots, kohlrabi, onions, and other vegetables and made a vegetable soup from scratch. And they ate it. And loved it.

In countries like Japan, France, Korea, and others, there are no separate foods for children and no such things as kids menus. Children are expected to eat when adults eat and to eat what the adults eat. In most places, children aren’t even given snack time or food between meals.

Letting children help prepare the food provides a natural sense of anticipation and a more adventurous spirit when it is time to eat. Avoiding snacks or kid-specific foods lets children feel a natural sense of hunger and develop self-control while waiting for meals.

In my experience, there is the least frustration with meals and the least complaining about food when our children are allowed to be involved in every aspect of food, from planning to purchasing to preparation.

How to Teach Kids Knife Skills

Letting our kids use knives has been an interesting growing experience for our family. This is just one representative step in the ladder of independence, but we’ve found it is an important and much anticipated one for our children.

To clarify, we aren’t giving toddlers machetes or giving any child unsupervised access to knives, but rather making it a priority to spend time teaching our kids to safely use knives in the kitchen as part of preparing meals for the family.

I use this great course called Kids Cook Real Food that teaches children how to safely use knives and other kitchen tools and how to make many types of foods. My kids have loved the knife skills class especially. They are offering an incredible deal right now, so check it out!

The result? Our older kids are even now using my Wusthof kitchen knives to safely chop and prepare food and look forward to this time each day.

Here are some other tools and recipes that helped along the way:

Are there ever minor cuts and accidents? Of course, but then again, I’ve been known to slice a finger while cooking every once in a while and I’ve survived… so will they!

What do you think? Do you let kids use knives?

Source: https://wellnessmama.com/61188/kids-use-knives/

[kaygun]

Document Summarization via Nonnegative Matrix Factorization

Description of the problem

Assume we have a matrix $A$ of size $n\times m$ which consists of nonnegative entries. We want to write $A$ as a product $A = BC$ where $B$ has size $n\times k$ and $C$ has size $k\times m$ where $k$ is much smaller than both $n$ and $m$. We also want $B$ and $C$ to consist nonnegative entries. This problem is called nonnegative matrix factorization.

We can think of this problem as an optimization problem where the error function is $$ err(B,C) = \sum_{i,j,\ell} |a_{ij}-b_{i\ell}c_{\ell j}| $$ with a postivity constraint on the entries of $B$ and $C$. I wrote about this before here and here. Today, I am going to apply this to a problem coming from natural language processing.

Nonnegative Matrix Decomposition and Document Summarization

Assume we have a text, and we write a matrix $A$ whose rows are labeled with the sentences appearing in the text and whose columns are labeled with the words appearing in the text. For a (sentence,word)-pair the corresponding entry in the matrix is 1 if the word appears in the sentence, and the entry is 0 otherwise. Dividing each row by the sum of the terms in that row, we convert these 1's and 0's to a probability distribution: in the new matrix for a (sentence,word)-pair the corresponding entry is the probability that that word appears in that sentence.

If we apply the nonnegative matrix factorization to this matrix we get two matrices $B$ and $C$ with nonnegative entries such that $A = BC$. Now, I will use the following hypothesis: a topic is a specific probability distribution over the set of all words appearing in a text. Thus such a decomposition tries to identify k-many topics that one can associate with the text at hand. While $B$ measures how much of each sentence belongs to a topic, $C$ measures the same thing for each word.

An Implementation

I am going to re-cycle the code I wrote in my earlier posts: one for Latent Semantic Analysis to get the relevant matrix from a document, and another for Nonnegative Matrix Decomposition in clojure:

First, let us define our namespace with the necessary libraries:

(ns summary (:import opennlp.tools.sentdetect.SentenceDetector opennlp.tools.sentdetect.SentenceDetectorME opennlp.tools.sentdetect.SentenceModel opennlp.tools.stemmer.PorterStemmer java.io.File) (:require [clojure.string :as st] [clojure.core.matrix :as cm] [clatrix.core :as cc]) (:gen-class))

Now, let us write the functions that create the matrix $A$ from a given document:

(defn bag-of-words [sentence stemmer stop-words] {sentence (as-> sentence $ (st/lower-case $) (st/replace $ #"[^\s\p{Isletter}]" "") (st/split $ #"\s+") (filter #(not (stop-words %)) $) (map #(.stem stemmer %) $) (into #{} $))}) (defn get-matrix [sentences detector stemmer stop-words] (let [raw (into {} (mapcat #(bag-of-words % stemmer stop-words) sentences)) ws (->> (vals raw) (reduce concat) (into #{}) (into [])) n (count sentences) m (count ws) A (cc/zeros m n)] (doseq [i (range n)] (doseq [w (get raw (nth sentences i))] (cc/set A (.indexOf ws w) i 1))) A))

#'summary/bag-of-words #'summary/get-matrix

For the matrix decomposition, first I need the error function and a random matrix function:

(defn cost-fn [A B] (->> (cm/sub A B) (cm/to-vector) (map (fn [x] (* x x))) (reduce +))) (defn random-matrix [n m] (as-> (repeatedly rand) $ (take (* n m) $) (cm/reshape $ [n m])))

#'summary/cost-fn #'summary/random-matrix

Now, the matrix decomposition code:

(defn nnmd [D k cost-fn epocs tol rate] (let [n (cm/row-count D) m (cm/column-count D) s (* n m)] (loop [W (random-matrix n k) H (random-matrix k m) i epocs c tol] (if (or (= i 0) (< c tol)) [W H i c] (let [u (cm/reshape (take s (repeat 1)) [n m]) Wt (cm/transpose W) Ht (cm/transpose H) et (cm/mul rate (cm/div W (cm/mmul u Ht))) mu (cm/mul rate (cm/div H (cm/mmul Wt u))) temp (cm/sub (cm/div D (cm/mmul W H)) u)] (recur (cm/add W (cm/mul et (cm/mmul temp Ht))) (cm/add H (cm/mul mu (cm/mmul Wt temp))) (dec i) (/ (cost-fn D (cm/mmul W H)) s)))))))

#'summary/nnmd

So, let us test:

(def summary (let [sd (SentenceDetectorME. (SentenceModel. (File. "resources/en-sent.bin"))) stemmer (PorterStemmer.) sentences (->> (slurp "data/textc") (.sentDetect sd) (into [])) stop-words (as-> (slurp "resources/remove-en") $ (st/replace $ #"\p{IsPunctuation}" "") (st/split $ #"\s+") (into #{} $)) matrix (get-matrix sentences sd stemmer stop-words) [W H i c] (cc/t (nnmd matrix 3 cost-fn 2000 1e-2 1e-2)) weights (cc/matrix W)] (map (fn [s w] {:sentence s :weight w}) sentences weights)))

Topic 1 Topic 2 Topic 3 Sentence 0.00 0.18 0.36 The Obama administration has backed down in its bitter dispute with Silicon Valley over the encryption of data on iPhones and other digital devices, concluding that it is not possible to give American law enforcement and intelligence agencies access to that information without also creating an opening that China, Russia, cybercriminals and terrorists could exploit. 0.00 0.00 0.18 With its decision, which angered the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, the administration essentially agreed with Apple, Google, Microsoft and a group of the nation’s top cryptographers and computer scientists that millions of Americans would be vulnerable to hacking if technology firms and smartphone manufacturers were required to provide the government with “back doors,” or access to their source code and encryption keys. 0.00 0.18 0.00 Companies like Apple say they are protecting their customers’ information by resisting government demands for access to text messages. 0.00 0.18 0.00 A standoff has grown between the sides as the companies have embraced tougher encryption. 0.00 0.18 0.00 Peter G Neumann, a computer security pioneer, says “there are more vulnerabilities than ever. 0.00 0.00 0.18 Security experts like Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism czar, also signed the letter to Obama. 0.00 0.00 0.18 That would enable the government to see messages, photographs and other data now routinely encrypted on smartphones. 0.00 0.00 0.18 Current technology puts the keys for access to the information in the hands of the individual user, not the companies. 0.00 0.75 0.87 The first indication of the retreat came on Thursday, when the FBI director, James B Comey, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the administration would not seek legislation to compel the companies to create such a portal. 0.00 0.18 0.18 But the decision, made at the White House a week ago, goes considerably beyond that. 0.19 0.00 0.00 While the administration said it would continue to try to persuade companies like Apple and Google to assist in criminal and national security investigations, it determined that the government should not force them to breach the security of their products. 0.79 0.93 0.65 In essence, investigators will have to hope they find other ways to get what they need, from data stored in the cloud in unencrypted form or transmitted over phone lines, which are covered by a law that affects telecommunications providers but not the technology giants. 0.00 0.18 0.00 Mr Comey had expressed alarm a year ago after Apple introduced an operating system that encrypted virtually everything contained in an iPhone. 0.00 0.00 0.18 What frustrated him was that Apple had designed the system to ensure that the company never held on to the keys, putting them entirely in the hands of users through the codes or fingerprints they use to get into their phones. 0.38 0.00 0.00 As a result, if Apple is handed a court order for data — until recently, it received hundreds every year — it could not open the coded information. 0.19 0.00 0.18 Mr Comey compared that system to the creation of a door no law officers could enter, or a car trunk they could not unlock. 0.19 0.00 0.00 His concern about what the FBI calls the “going dark” problem received support from the director of the National Security Agency and other intelligence officials. 0.19 0.00 0.00 But after a year of study and extensive White House debate, President Obama and his advisers have reached a broad conclusion that an effort to compel the companies to give the government access would fail, both politically and technologically. 0.95 0.00 0.73 “This looks promising, but there’s still going to be tremendous pressure from law enforcement,” said Peter G Neumann, one of the nation’s leading computer scientists and a co-author of a paper that examined the government’s proposal for special access. 0.19 0.18 0.00 “The N.S.A. is capable of dealing with the cryptography for now, but law enforcement is going to have real difficulty with this. 0.19 0.00 0.00 This is never a done deal.” 0.19 0.00 0.00 In the paper, released in July, Mr Neumann and other top cryptographers and computer scientists argued that there was no way for the government to have a back door into encrypted communications without creating an opening that would be exploited by Chinese and Russian intelligence agents, cybercriminals and terrorist groups. 0.00 0.00 0.18 Inside the White House, the Office of Science and Technology Policy came largely to the same conclusion. 0.19 0.00 0.00 Those determinations surprised the FBI and local law enforcement officials, who had believed just months ago that the White House would ultimately embrace their efforts. 0.00 0.16 1.29 The intelligence agencies were less vocal, which may reflect their greater capability to search for and gather information. 0.00 0.18 0.00 The National Security Agency spends vast sums to get around digital encryption, and it has tools and resources that local law enforcement officials still do not have and most likely never will. 0.38 0.00 0.00 Disclosures by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden showed the extent of the agency’s focus on cracking and circumventing the encryption of digital communications, including those of Apple, Facebook, Google and Yahoo users. 0.00 0.00 0.18 There were other motivations for the administration’s decision. 0.19 0.00 0.00 Mr Obama and his aides had come to fear that the United States could set a precedent that China and other nations would emulate, requiring Apple, Google and the rest of America’s technology giants to provide them with the same access, officials said. 0.38 0.00 0.00 Timothy D Cook, the chief executive of Apple, sat at the head table with Mr Obama and Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, at a state dinner at the White House last month. 0.19 0.00 0.00 According to government officials and industry executives, Mr Cook told Mr Obama that the Chinese were waiting for an opportunity to seize on administration action to insist that Apple devices, which are also encrypted in China, be open to Beijing’s agents. 0.00 0.00 0.18 In January, three months after Mr Comey began pressing companies for special government access, Chinese officials had threatened to do just that: They considered submitting foreign companies to invasive audits and requiring them to build back doors into their hardware and software. 0.00 0.18 0.00 Those rules have not been put into effect. 0.00 0.18 0.00 The Obama administration’s position was also undercut by officials’ inability to keep their own data safe from Chinese hackers, as shown by the extensive cyberattack at the Office of Personnel Management discovered this year. 0.00 0.18 0.18 That breach, and its aftermath, called into question whether the government could keep the keys to the world’s communications safe from its adversaries in cyberspace. 0.15 0.46 0.29 White House officials said they would continue trying to persuade technology companies to help them in investigations, but they did not specify how. 0.00 0.18 0.00 “As the president has said, the United States will work to ensure that malicious actors can be held to account, without weakening our commitment to strong encryption,” said Mark Stroh, a spokesman for the National Security Council. 0.38 0.00 0.00 “As part of those efforts, we are actively engaged with private companies to ensure they understand the public safety and national security risks that result from malicious actors’ use of their encrypted products and services. 0.00 0.00 0.18 However, the administration is not seeking legislation at this time.” 0.00 1.05 0.74 But here in Silicon Valley, executives did not think the government’s announcement went far enough. 0.00 0.00 0.18 According to administration officials and technology executives, Mr Cook of Apple has pressed the White House for a clear statement that it will never seek a back door in any form, legislative or technical — a statement he hoped to take to Beijing, Moscow and even London. 0.00 0.18 0.00 Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain has threatened to ban encrypted devices and services, like the iPhone and Facebook’s popular WhatsApp messaging service, but has done nothing so far to make good on that threat. 0.19 0.00 0.00 Technology executives are determined to reassure customers abroad that American intelligence agencies are not reading their digital communications. 0.00 0.14 0.22 It is an effort driven by economics: 64 percent of Apple’s revenue originates overseas. 0.00 0.00 0.18 Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft argue that people put not only their conversations but their entire digital lives — medical records, tax returns, bank accounts — into a device that slips into their pocket. 0.00 0.00 0.37 While Mr Obama has repeatedly said he is sympathetic to the concerns of law enforcement officials, he made clear during a visit to Silicon Valley in February that he was also aware of privacy concerns and that he sought to balance both interests. 0.00 0.00 0.18 Technologists responded that, with regard to encryption, no such balance existed. 0.00 0.00 0.18 “The real problem is, I don’t see any middle ground for dumbing down everything to make special access possible and having the secure systems we need for commerce, government and everything else,” Mr Neumann said.

In this example, the third topic seems promising. If we take only the sentences of weight 0.3 and higher we get

The Obama administration has backed down in its bitter dispute with Silicon Valley over the encryption of data on iPhones and other digital devices, concluding that it is not possible to give American law enforcement and intelligence agencies access to that information without also creating an opening that China, Russia, cybercriminals and terrorists could exploit. The first indication of the retreat came on Thursday, when the FBI director, James B Comey, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the administration would not seek legislation to compel the companies to create such a portal. In essence, investigators will have to hope they find other ways to get what they need, from data stored in the cloud in unencrypted form or transmitted over phone lines, which are covered by a law that affects telecommunications providers but not the technology giants. “This looks promising, but there’s still going to be tremendous pressure from law enforcement,” said Peter G Neumann, one of the nation’s leading computer scientists and a co-author of a paper that examined the government’s proposal for special access. The intelligence agencies were less vocal, which may reflect their greater capability to search for and gather information. But here in Silicon Valley, executives did not think the government’s announcement went far enough. While Mr Obama has repeatedly said he is sympathetic to the concerns of law enforcement officials, he made clear during a visit to Silicon Valley in February that he was also aware of privacy concerns and that he sought to balance both interests.

[kitwallace]

Midi controller for multi-parameter designs

[this post never made it out of draft at the time, but posting it may spur me to finish the interface]

I’ve often thought it would be nice to input parameters which define multi-parameter 3D models in OpenSCAD using physical controls rather than typing in numbers. (It would be nice to have the ability to use on-screen sliders).  

I looked at LaunchControl  by Novation which is great but I fancied slide rather than rotary controls.  Korg nanoKONTROL2  has 8 slide controls and many others, has USB output and is USB powered.  This looks like like the job and at about £45 is just the ticket.

But.. I thought I’d like to build my own.  I found this tutorial from Notes and Noise which helped a lot.  The controller code Dave provides is very comprehensive but the details are tucked away in C++ code, so I decided to roll my own.  

I got six 10k slide pots from RS Supplies.  These have a throw of over 60 mm, a length I think is needed to generate each of the values in the MIDI range 0..127. Also a MIDI/USB converter  (I’m already up to £15).   I already had an Arduino Uno spare to brush the dust off. After too much time wasted getting the Arduino IDE set up with the MIDI library, getting the IDE talking to the UNO, understanding the interface to the great MIDI-OX utility, salvaging an old MIDI socket, and mis-wiring the simplest circuits (late at night), a simple single slider is now working.

Since only changed slider values are sent out, there is a problem with jitter as the A2D values are not absolutely stable.  I fixed this by exponentially smoothing the output code which I  put in the range 0.. 100  for ease of mapping to parameter values (rather than the MIDI range 0..127).  

#include <MIDI.h>

MIDI_CREATE_DEFAULT_INSTANCE();

int potPin = A0;    int lastMidiValue = -1;   float alpha=0.5;  // exponential smoothing coefficient

void setup() {   MIDI.begin(); }

void loop() {  int a2dValue = analogRead(potPin);  int midiValue = a2dValue / 10.1 ;  // to get the full range from 0...100  int smoothMidiValue = midiValue *(1.0 - alpha) + alpha*lastMidiValue;  if (smoothMidiValue != lastMidiValue) {           MIDI.sendControlChange(1,smoothMidiValue,1);      lastMidiValue= smoothMidiValue;  }

Before tackling 3D objects I decided to try the hardware on a 2D pattern generated by JavaScript and SVG based on a  three link mechanism. The mechanism comprises connected three links. The path described by a pen on the final link can be described by 3 connected formula which determine the rotation of each of the links. The formula use nine  parameters so the interface should allow the user to connect the sliders to specific parameters,varying the value over a specified range. 

The test web page uses a couple of slider controls which are attached to two key parameters R the rotation of  the second and P1 the phase angle of the third link.

Most browsers now support the WEB MIDI API.  There is a wrapper script webmidi.js to make it somewhat easier to use.  To update a parameter value and generate the curve,  we only need:

WebMidi.enable(function(err) {   if (err) console.log("WebMidi could not be enabled");   else  console.log("WebMidi enabled!");   console.log(WebMidi.inputs);

  var midi_in= WebMidi.inputs[0];

  midi_in.addListener("controlchange","1",     function (e) {$('#nodes').val(e.data[2]);refresh();}     ); });

Both Arduino code and the JavaScript need generalising to support 6 parameters.

Midi wiring

Midi wiring confused me a bit but I found this diagram helpful where Source is 5V, Sink is the TX pin and Shield goes to Gnd.

Building the slider box.

Having first prototyped the circuit on a breadboard, I stuck some header pins in a bit of stripboard  to make a HAT for the Arduino.  I was struggling to figure out how to neatly mount and wire the sliders until I talked over the project with Tom at Bristol Hackspace. Each slider needs connections for 0V, 5V and the voltage divider wire to go to an analogue input.  Tom came up with the great suggestion of using a piece of copper-backed board, with the copper length wise down the middle to make the 0v and 5v rails with holes drilled out for the third connector.  This way the board is both a mount for the sliders and the circuit board - a nice example of what I heard called the ‘Shanley principle’ by my mentor Michael Jackson. 

“In civil engineering design it is presently a mandatory concept known as the Shanley Design Criterion to collect several functions into one part.” Pierre Arnoul de Marneffe, cited by D Knuth, 1974 . A common example cited is the construction of rockets. In 1940-1945 rockets had separate components for fuel tank, outer skin, body frame . However, Saturn-B had a tubular body that was at once its fuel tank, outer skin, and body frame. 

I initially messed up cutting the stripboard to size, and then read the tip to put the board between two pieces of wood and then cut the sandwich  - obvious really.

I made a template out of a plastic lid so that I could drill holes for the pins in the base board.  To attach the leads for the voltage divider pins, I soldered each lead to its pin and added heat-shrink to ensure it was insulated from the copper side of the board.

All this went well until I tested the board.  To check that the joints were sound, I measured the resistance of each slider between the wiper and one end and was very puzzled by the result.  Instead of varying smoothly between a min of 0 and some maximum, the value increased and then decreased?   I thought it must be a wiring problem but couldn’t see how that could create this non-linear change in resistance.  Finally I talked it over with Tom at the Hackspace who was also initially puzzled. Only when we draw the circuit diagram did it occur to us that the error was due to measuring not just the variable resistance, but this in parallel with the other half of the pot and all the other 5 pots. i.e R in parallel with 10-R + (10/5). Putting this into a spreadsheet created this graph:

Despite this, each pot will still work correctly as a voltage divider which I can test when the circuit is built.

Since I now have 6 10k pots in parallel, the resistance of the bank of pots is now 10k/6  = 1.66 k which will draw a constant 5/1.66 k = 3 milliamps.  Increasing the pots to 100k would reduce that to 0.3 milliamps but I will try these pots first.

Other resources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sopfrr1830 This guy has a similar build, with a printed case with sliders mounted underneath the lid  (much better idea) and uses a special chip to get directly to USB HID using a Arduino Pro Micro  https://coolcomponents.co.uk/products/pro-micro-5v-16mhz  and a multiplexer (because there aren’t enough A2D ports)  See also https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/337

Joe Dusta also recommended the USB HID route but not sure how that plays with MIDI -  another approach to look at.

[jam-esc]

About two weeks ago, I came across this post on Twitter:

pervadere #FunkyAF #SummerFilmParty [Sprocket Rocket, Cinestill 50D] pic.twitter.com/ye68ObcRRD

— kim (@kimmiechem2) June 20, 2017

I liked the photo and left a  comment, and Kim replied:

Definitely recommend the Sprocket Rocket to panos lovers. Cheap & cheerful. Definitely is a light hog, however. 🙃

— kim (@kimmiechem2) June 22, 2017

About an hour of research, an hour of hunting for a good price, a debit card number, and 4 days later, I was unboxing yet another toy…

The day before the Sprocket Rocket arrived, Hamish Gill posted an interesting article about his Hasselblad X-pan and why he sold it after only 5 rolls (well, 5 rolls and 18 months).

He bought the X-pan because he thought “…it had the potential to provide me with a unique perspective, that it might challenge my framing, enable me to shoot frames that felt cinematic, and even give me a sense of medium format photography…” but then never shot with it. At $75, my investment in the Sprocket Rocket is not so high, and if I don’t end up using it much, I’m not out much. Plus, while I think the Sprocket Rocket has the potential to provide a unique perspective, challenge my framing, and encourage cinematic feel in my images, I bought it for the fun as much as anything, so I’m not sure I can lose, or, not in the same way as Hamish did with his X-pan.

I was particularly interested in Gill’s general comments around panoramic photography—in particular the “landscape trap”—and I tried (and will try) to keep it in mind when playing with the Sprocket Rocket. 

And with that, the mail carrier arrived, and I got to unboxing…

Now, I really don’t need another camera, but the Sprocket Rocket is one of the most interesting-looking and different cameras I’ve seen in awhile.

Lomography took inspiration from (or ripped off) an old bakelite camera from the late 1930s and early 1940s, made in Chicago, and marketed under about 20 different names, and this gave the camera a fun and funky sort of Art Deco feel that I really love.

With a groovy design in hand, Lomography modified the insides in several ways ways. Where those old cameras had a 50mm fixed lens and produced 4x3cm negatives on 127 film, the Sprocket Rocket has a 30mm lens and captures 36 x 72mm (or 24x72mm) panoramic negatives on 35mm film.

Now, I’ve seen and been intrigued by the cameras like the Hasselblad XPan and Fuji TX-1 and TX-2, and medium format 6x17cm cameras like the the Fuji GX617, Linhof Technorama 617, and other, less famous (and less expensive) panoramic cameras, but couldn’t ever see needing that format, especially for the price.

But at $75, I couldn’t really resist the Sprocket Rocket.

Now, comparing the Sprocket Rocket, another hunk of plastic from Lomography, with precision engineered marvels like the Fuji cameras that I’ve never used may sound silly, but bear with me…

A 90mm lens on a 617 format camera produces negatives that cover about a 90° area of view. The 30mm lens for the Hasselblads and Fujis  cover 94°. But the Sprocket Rocket gives 103° of coverage, and produces negatives 8mm wider (and 10mm taller) than the fancy ‘blads and Fujis.

Sure, it’s all plastic and only has one shutter speed (or two, if you count Bulb) and 2 rather limited apertures, but still.

#gallery-0-19 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-19 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-19 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-19 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Speaking of apertures, Lomography claims the cloudy setting is f/10.8 and the sunny setting is f/16, but virtually eveyone (including Kim, above) claims the camera is light hungry, and the User Manual is explicit. From the section titled “How to Achieve Correct Settings:”

These settings have been designed for using 400 ISO film speed.

Also, under “Trouble Shooting:”

Q: I only got a few images on my roll, and most of them are very dark. A: Most probably you have been underexposing your images or even using slow speed 100 ISO film. Try out a 800 ISO film which is more light sensitive and be sure to use the B shutter in shade and indoor to get more light on the film. A flash will also brighten up any pictures (sic.), day or night!

Now, with a fixed shutter speed of 1/100th and an aperture of f/16, the Sunny 16 rule would indicate proper exposure with ISO 100 film. If you need 400 speed film in bright daylight, then the shutter speed must be faster than 1/100th, or the aperture smaller than f/16, or I don’t understand the Sunny 16 rule.

Jamie Zucek ran some tests on Provia 400: Sprocket Rocket vs. Nikon F100 with 20mm lens. He guessed the apertures to be more like f/16 and f/22.

Not wanting to “waste” any film, I threw caution (and manufacturer suggestions) to the wind and bulk loaded a couple of rolls of Konica Pro 160. I figured late June in North Texas would give plenty of bright, sunny days, and even f/22 at 1/100th should be decent enough on ISO 160 film.

And I was right, mostly.

I started out shooting sprockets, as the camera was designed for. I shot in bulb mode a good bit, trying to err on the side of overexposure, rather than under, and it almost worked.

A selfy, handheld for 10 seconds on the Cloudy setting, turned out surprisingly well.

#gallery-0-20 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-20 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 100%; } #gallery-0-20 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-20 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

But, in general, the Sprocket Rocket really is surprisingly light hungry. Here, for example, are two shots, taken back to back about 1 in the after noon on a very bright day, the first on cloudy, the second on sunny. There are clouds visible, but the sun was out and almost directly overhead. It was bright out, and hot.

#gallery-0-21 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-21 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-21 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-21 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

You can see a bit of flare in the center of the frame. The sun was well out of frame, but still high above. I guess flare is to be expected from a plastic lens, but it’s a pleasant-enough flare, and only popped up in these two frames. (The wild colors in the cloudy shot probably came from bulk loading: the first frames on almost every bulk roll I load are fogged, I think because I’m rolling into old canisters, maybe they’re no longer light tight, or maybe the loading does something to the felt? No idea, but it happens on every roll: I lose about 10″ of film to red fog.)

Even with these, though, underexposure continued unabated… These two, for example, were shot in what I considered broad daylight on, but were somewhat underexposed. Sure, I was in shade, but the sun was blasting the scene. The first was shot about 2pm, and the sun wasn’t overhead, but hadn’t disappeared behind nearby skyscrapers yet; the second was later in the day, maybe 3:30 or 4, and partially blocked by my neighbor’s house, but why is the sky a stop or two under?

This one, shot under evening window light, was way underexposed at 2 seconds on the cloudy setting. I still like it, but it’s really a shame: my darling, adorable wife had some great henna tattoos on her darling, adorable hands for Eid, and I didn’t get this roll developed in time to realize how far off it was.

(The red line and creases in the above two came from some issues I had with humidity in the dark bag while loading: I think they add some interest that wouldn’t be there otherwise.

With a little massage after scanning, I did get some acceptable shots, all on the cloudy setting, if my notes can be believed. They’re still off, but closer.

#gallery-0-22 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-22 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-22 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-22 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

I was pleasantly surprised by the long exposure I took to finish off the roll on my drive into work one morning. I think this was handheld for about 15 seconds.

I really wish I could hold cameras steady in the car at 75mph… Alas.

After that first roll, I inserted the mask, and shot another roll sprocket-less. I won’t bore you with too many of the details, but I like the sprocket-less shots. Pure pano, with no distraction or hipster stuff. I like the extra height from the sprockets, though, and it might be worth trying some unperforated film, if I can find some in 400 speed.

I had some underexposure issues with these too, and learned my lesson about “slow” film in the Sprocket Rocket. (I shot a roll Labeauratoire [kromiəm] 500 at the 4th of July parade that came out a bit better, and God willing I’ll share some shots from that next week.)

So, the Sprocket Rocket.

For $75, it makes a great gateway to the world of Panoramic photography. The plastic lens is surprisingly sharp, for a plastic lens, and the camera is, indeed, cheap and cheerful. I had loads of fun with it, and look forward to putting many more rolls through it.

There is some bad to the camera, as fun as it is. It distorts horribly, but if you know how to work it, you can manage. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I can imagine ways to work with it. It’s imperative to keep the camera level, though, or to keep any horizontal or vertical lines near the middle of the frame.

In the same vein, vertical panoramas are really hard to pull off. They’re just too tall, and the distortion is, again, atrocious.

#gallery-0-24 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-24 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-24 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-24 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Portraits could be interesting, and I can imagine some interesting results with some slow, fine grained film (and high-powered, wide angle strobes). Maybe something like Robert Longo’s Men in the Cities series… I need to write that down.

And one last issue that I haven’t run into yet comes from the frame counter thing.

  On the left side, looking down from the top, between the rewind knob and the flash shoe, there are two circular depressions with little holes in. The one nearest the flash shoe displays the frame numbers; the one near the rewind knob shows a little white dot when you’ve wound far enough for a new frame. This dot is tiny and goes by really quickly, so you must pay close attention when winding.

But those are all just minor complaints: for what it is, primarily a means to shoot sprockets and super-wide angle panoramas, the Sprocket Rocket is great, and it’s cheap enough and as well built as a plastic camera can be. It’s also surprisingly fun and easy to use.

[yasr_multiset setid=2]

Overall, I give the Sprocket Rocket a solid 4

[yasr_overall_rating]

You can pick up brand new ones in a variety of fun colors for $90 direct from Lomography, or brave the wilds of eBay and the internets for used or grey market versions. Lomo was out of stock of the black one when I was shopping, but a nice Chinese firm shipped me one for $75, and if you’re patient, you can probably find one cheaper.

If you want to try out panoramic photography or shoot sprockets, there’s really not a better way, imo… There may be sharper or more optically well-corrected options, but none go as wide, as cheaply as the Sprocket Rocket.

Enter the Sprocket Rocket About two weeks ago, I came across this post on Twitter: pervadere #FunkyAF #SummerFilmParty pic.twitter.com/ye68ObcRRD — kim (@kimmiechem2) …

[caepaecaesurae]

> CC + AC : Stop Tiptoeing

caepaecaesurae I apologize for not restricting my advwice to things that are useful in sparring.  I did not mean to intrude, or cause unease. I'll leavwe off. aberrantcadenza I mean you kind of cause unease just by being as you are, mostly because I don't know you. I don't hate you, because you're with Nadaya, but I don't *like* you because I don't know you. So I don't know how I feel about you, which puts me on edge. It's something I hope to remedy in time. That's not something you're doing, by the way, so it's not something you can really help. I guess I wasn't clear about the context of those posts, so don't worry about it. I still appreciate the advice in truth, I was just... unprepared for it.

aberrantcadenza And especially since my background with psi users is "the one i know best is my best friend who I would lay down my life for in a pusher pump," you can imagine how that advice sounded :'33 When I'm more consciously prepared for a serious discussion, I am curious to hear more. I want to be prepared. I just wasn't this time. caepaecaesurae I...get reactions like this sometimes.  I suspect it's at least partly me, or at least my caste and history, and can't entirely blame anyone for it. All I can do is apologize wvhen a conflict comes up, and try to stick to safe subjects. aberrantcadenza You know you can't keep darting back and forth like this, right? If you're going to talk to me, commit. Don't half-ass it, don't play it safe. If I didn't like you I'd tell you upfront. I'm taking the time to sort this out with you because I WANT to like you. caepaecaesurae In wvhat wvay? caepaecaesurae I'd like that too. aberrantcadenza What is that to? caepaecaesurae You seem close wvith Nadaya, and I knowv you're close wvith Xanthe, though my tie to him is far far lesser.  It leads to a curiosity. You seem pleasant, to those you can stand. aberrantcadenza So I need to work on being more abrasive and awful. Noted. caepaecaesurae WVell, if you wvish to make it a part of your brand aberrantcadenza I wish for people to know they can't mess with me, but mostly that was a joke. Kind of. Nadaya is a friend of mine, and I like to be on good terms with mates and clade of friends. Disliking you would cause tension. Tension is uncomfortable for everyone. caepaecaesurae I find myself in much the same position. aberrantcadenza Then commit. Stop being polite, throw caution to the wind, have fun. If I didn't want to talk to you I would have blocked you already. caepaecaesurae That goes counter to most of my experience trying not to cause upset, but I'll givwe it a try if you like. aberrantcadenza If you haven't noticed, breaking status quo is kind of my thing. :PP caepaecaesurae I'll aim to be less hesitant, then.  Pardon if it takes some time to adapt. ..Also, likely less formal.  I don't knowv wvhy I do this. aberrantcadenza XPP Because you're used to it, probably. Loosen up, have fun, make jokes. Make cat puns if you have to. I act like I'm annoyed but most of the time I'm not. If I'm really annoyed, I'll tell you directly. Oh, and speaking of which: Imperial bullshit isn't going to win you any favors with me. Just saying that now so we're both clear. caepaecaesurae Entirely fair.  I livwe somewvhere wvhere the hemospectrum's been abolished, and rather like things this wvay. aberrantcadenza Doesn't mean you can't still have allegiances. Don't think I missed your comment about not taking sides. caepaecaesurae True enough, I do vwiewv myself as more of a neutral than a rebel. caepaecaesurae Former imperialist, before I got tired of that. aberrantcadenza "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." - Troll Ke$ha, probably. caepaecaesurae Entirely fair. aberrantcadenza Grubmeal for thought, I guess, if not a further challenge to prove me wrong. caepaecaesurae It's a reasonable point. aberrantcadenza And you're doing the evading thing again. caepaecaesurae Does it help that I happened to be in the lead of the team that assassinated Sparks' Empress?  I havwe a photo on my blog somewvhere of his moirail posing wvith the trident. caepaecaesurae If you wvant to delvwe into the depths of my political stances -- current and historical -- wve can, but I suspect you'vwe heard most of it before, from one mouth or another. aberrantcadenza :vv Like I said, if I didn't like you, I'd tell you. Right now I'm just waiting. I don't think it's fair to judge you on that alone, although I'll admit it earned a side-eye. But truth be told, I don't know much about you at all. caepaecaesurae Fair enough. caepaecaesurae ... A pleasure to meet you, miss.  Cronus Ampora, currently a teatrader and helping auspisticise a few conflicts. aberrantcadenza Felide Leijon, no respecter of persons. Felide is fine, and I'd prefer no honorifics - although I understand it's habit. caepaecaesurae Some trolls are vwery selectivwe about wvho is allowved to use their hatch name, so I try to err towvards the neutral.  Yet again. Felide it is, and a pleasure. aberrantcadenza :PP I understand, but thank you for adapting. caepaecaesurae Once upon a time I wvas more or less a typical highblood, absorbed in my owvn concerns.  I thought people should be treated wvell, but owved a duty to the empire to do wvhatevwer role they wvere forced into, suitable for their person or otherwvise.  My caste included.  There wvere sevweral aspects I did not consider, wvhich my moirail Kankri VWantas has expounded on at length. Nowv I'd rather people just do wvhat they're suited for, so long as society remains stable enough around them. caepaecaesurae "Suited For" being personal temperament and skills, for the record. ...since I am a highblood and that is vaguely phrase. aberrantcadenza I'm assuming your Kankri Vantas is... some iteration of the one called Signless? caepaecaesurae He is.  The same wvay I'm technically a "Dualscar". caepaecaesurae Not proud or fond of that title personally. aberrantcadenza Noted. I'm not fond of mine either, so we're even there. ... How you two ended up together is a little surprising, objectively - since I don't know him and barely know you - but. I'm glad you have him. I'm glad, too, that you've been receptive to change. caepaecaesurae WVe first met after death.  After being ashen for a wvhile, wve receivwed memories of a past (Beforan) life, wvhere wve had been friends. Then ashen fell apart, and pale bloomed. caepaecaesurae He's the primary proprietor of the teahivwe.  Another childhood friend wvorks there, and I help find and ship the tea.  I play music most nights, as wvell. aberrantcadenza :oo That... sounds kind of nice. I've never been to a teahive before. caepaecaesurae It mostly smells of herbs and has places to sit. Places to buy pre-made vwarieties, or to mix things arbitrarily. caepaecaesurae I should probably mention that the other friend wvorking there wvas once better knowvn as the Demoness.  Some trolls from other univwerses find that .. more startling than others. aberrantcadenza Death's Handmaid? caepaecaesurae Damara Megido, yes. aberrantcadenza I've met a couple iterations of her... I'm respectful, but not startled. Honestly it kind of sounds like the ideal. :PP aberrantcadenza Do you like it there? caepaecaesurae I'm not sure I actually knewv wvhat happiness wvas before I came here. It's wvorth protecting. aberrantcadenza :33 I'm glad, then. Everyone deserves to have a sense of belonging in a place they're happy. caepaecaesurae An ideal to strivwe for. caepaecaesurae Is it rude to ask if you'vwe found somewvhere like that for yourself? aberrantcadenza Not rude at all. :oo I have... but my "somewhere" doesn't have its own location. It's with my family and loved ones. I never stayed in one place very long, in life, so I form no particular attachment to the places I stay. caepaecaesurae A travweller. caepaecaesurae I spent the vwast majority of my time wvandering from place to place aboard ship, on Alternia. aberrantcadenza You didn't swim? caepaecaesurae Ports are far apart, and I had much cargo to deal wvith. I'vwe nevwer actually liked the wvater.  Ruins guitars, for one. Music and alcohol wvere about all I cared about in that life, and neither wvorked particularly wvell belowv the wvavwes. aberrantcadenza :PP Fair. In all honesty I struggle these nights to stay in one place. Recently my mate and I took a few nights to wander Alternia with our family again, just to sate the need to move. caepaecaesurae There are some vwery clevwer vwalvwed and stoppered bottles that try to enable aquatic bevwerage use, but it just doesn't wvork, and laying on the surface like an otter -- wvhile amusing -- isn't the most dignified thing. caepaecaesurae I think one needs vwariety to stay sane.  WVhether it comes from travwel, or just seeking advwentures to become invwolvwed in. aberrantcadenza Agreed! aberrantcadenza Or well, at least that's true for me. I'm sure there's some people that would prefer to have the same thing every night. caepaecaesurae Sparks finds his in other rebellions, nowv that wve'vwe a peaceful place. I'vwe taken up as Makara's top leaf, wvhich is its owvn unique and indescribable advwenture. aberrantcadenza :oo Congratulations! caepaecaesurae Thank you aberrantcadenza Beforus is too quiet for me... but only because the parts that aren't quiet aren't mine to touch. I shouldn't be here. I'm trying to lie low and be as non-disruptive as I can be, but... :'33 caepaecaesurae I wvant to joke about your rebellious tendencies, but I sympathise slightly too much wvith the attempting-to-behavwe aspect. aberrantcadenza Give it a shot. :00c Cae, about to attempt the infamous joke... caepaecaesurae Tsk, it wvouldn't flowv wvell nowv.  I'm not much for jokes that are labled as such. Today at 3:34 AM aberrantcadenza :'(( What a noble joke is here o'erthrown... Alas. I still end up causing more trouble than I likely should, really. Which is admittedly part of why I'm trying to spend more time on my family's new Alternia... We live out in the desert, so there's less people. Today at 7:53 AM caepaecaesurae It is hard to fight one's instincts.  May I ask wvy you are trying to lay lowv on Beforus?  Or, rather, wvhy you consider it not your place to meddle? aberrantcadenza Well, for one thing, I'm illegal. :'33 My sign is registered to Nepeta, and to my eventual Beforan iteration, who doesn't currently exist, and well... At this point in time, Beforus doesn't actually know the multiverse exists. aberrantcadenza For another... It's just not my planet. I'm essentially a guest here, both on this planet and in this timeline. I was brought here by a friend when I was first revived and I feel kind of weird about causing shit when it's *their* planet, you know? Like going into someone's Hive and wrecking their stuff, except on a much larger scale. caepaecaesurae It's rare, but is it unheard of for multiple trolls of the same sign to exist at once? caepaecaesurae You could probably get some sort of magical frippery from someone in one of the more supernatural timelines, as wvell.  Swvap to a seadwveller or blueblood in public, tell evweryone wvhy they're wvrong and enjoy being listened to for once. aberrantcadenza F uck. caepaecaesurae If they're going to insist on the hemospectrum, use it as you see fit. aberrantcadenza That veers into some different problems for very different reasons, but... I'm currently talking to the government now about registering. My mates and I came up with a story to explain my existence in this timeline, and if all goes well, we might be able to help Xanthe get registered too. caepaecaesurae Havwe you discussed this at all wvith your friend?  WVould they mind if trouble wvas caused? Though...  Legality certainly is a plus wvhen one can manage it. aberrantcadenza X'33 Yeah, my friend would prefer me not to cause trouble. Friend(s) I guess, since my moirail is also included among the people against my brand of rebellion. So I do "soft trouble" now. Annoying the neighbors and all that. caepaecaesurae Compromise may wvin the night, then. aberrantcadenza :33c ! caepaecaesurae I admit soft trouble is far more my style.  I'vwe taught a fewv people to be slightly pickier about wvhich highbloods they listen to, and wvhich ones they use caste authority around. ..Long ago, admittedly. aberrantcadenza No reason you couldn't pick it up again. There's always an opening for trouble somewhere. caepaecaesurae There's a hemoflip timeline I'vwe been looking at lending assistance to, here and there. It's... nice to not be looked at as a highblood, evwen if it's unfortunate that that's the only place I can do so. aberrantcadenza Are you sure you're ready to be seen as a lowblood, though? caepaecaesurae By lowvbloods, yes.  Anything else...  I'm easing towvards. caepaecaesurae It does not seem like an easy or lowv-risk proposition, but it's a perspectivwe I'vwe nevwer seen either.  I'vwe been sticking to sharing resources rom afar. *From Maybe somenight, if a reason devwelops. aberrantcadenza If it does, godspeed. Flipped timelines tend to be particularly vicious. caepaecaesurae I'vwe observwed. caepaecaesurae ..Thank you, though. aberrantcadenza What can I say? I'm always an advocate for raising hell. :PP Those who recognize where wrongs have been done and are willing to stand against them where you can are often my friends. caepaecaesurae I'm still learning to recognize them.  It's important to improvwe the wvorld though. aberrantcadenza The fact that you're making an effort speaks volumes on its own. We're all learning in that regard, and admittedly you have a more significant distance to go, I think. Just in general. Are virtual fist-bumps a thing? They should be. caepaecaesurae I wvas raised in a vwery different time and place, and it's hard not to see things in comparison to it.  ...except for the newv addition of being raised again on Beforus. I imagine they are if one says they are.  Consider the gesture hypothetically returned. aberrantcadenza :?? Raised again on Beforus? caepaecaesurae ...Sorry, I'vwe been babbling about my history and forgetting wvho to. .. Past livwes are strange. aberrantcadenza If you want to talk about it, you have my attention. caepaecaesurae I havwe a fewv centuries of Alternia, and under a decade of Beforus, in me.  My mood leans more towvard one life or the other depending on the night. caepaecaesurae ...The univwerse-chronological gist is that Beforus happened, that Game happened, something in the game reset all of time in that univwerse turning it into Alternia instead, the game happened again, wve wvon, and wvhen wve wvent through the door, wve remembered the first go around. From my perspectivwe, I livwed four centuries on Alternia, sevweral as a ghost, and then suddenly spent a bit under a decade being raised Beforan wvith no memories of Alternia, and then remembered Alternia gradually ovwer the course of a half swveep. Leavwing me rather muddled. Sparks had the same happen, but he had a bit under a decade of Alternia, and then centuries of Beforus wvere pushed into his pan. aberrantcadenza Jesus christ. caepaecaesurae WVell put. aberrantcadenza Honestly I don't know how anyone deals with memories from more than one life, I can barely stand one. :PP But I think I understand now, yeah. Well. As much as I can. caepaecaesurae The end result is that occasionally I am dignified and ovwer-formal and fussy, and occasionally I startle and blush like a ten swveep old. WVhich is somewvhat frustrating at times. ... It is wvhat it is. The really unfortunate part is that quadrants did not match up from one life to the next. Leading to such oddities as my evwerything. caepaecaesurae Or my generation's Captor and Makara havwing unresolvwed pale feelings at eachother to deal wvith, and flush ones at Pyrope wvho hasn't gotten here yet to make that particular decision. aberrantcadenza Oh boy. That's... Eugh. I'm sorry. I can only imagine how much that sucks. caepaecaesurae mm.  I came through light, I only quadranted once across both lifetimes. She's not here yet, I'm largely ovwer her, and she's likely to be summarily executed on sight if she does arrivwe. aberrantcadenza Did you end up keeping that one? Oh jesus. caepaecaesurae ...It's not entirely unjust.  ...I appreciate the implied sympathy though. On the plus side a fewv crushes that nevwer wvent anywvhere havwe resolvwed into actual quadrants.  So...there's that? aberrantcadenza There is that. :00 And I'm glad to hear it. aberrantcadenza Lil remembers his past life on Beforus too. He doesn't tell me much about it... Probably because I never ask. I'm curious, sometimes. The rest of the time I'm aware that knowing about it before it happens in this timeline, while I'm still on Beforus, could be detrimental to the progression of events. caepaecaesurae Kankri did, on Alternia.  Apparently it wvas a bit of a relief wvhen he arrivwed here and wve all remembered too. I think time's sturdier than all that.  It can take a bit of pre-knowvledge, if you don't mind the risk of being the cause of some of it. Also, it does all vwary from timeline to timeline -- things that wvere true in one univwerse's Beforus don't necessarily happen evwerywvhere.  Just like any case of Alternates. I don't think you'd feel particularly resolvwed or complete if you learned evwerything though.  Mostly just more questions. aberrantcadenza Probably. Beforus and its culture are completely foreign to me, and I find myself frequently questioning trolls and their motives. I'd imagine knowing what my Beforan iteration got up to might even frustrate me as a result. :'33 I readily admit to having a touch of alternate-frustration, as we see in several Vantii. caepaecaesurae As do I, for vwarious reasons. caepaecaesurae The Leijon that I knewv wvas young, energetic, and friendly, and nevwer had the chance to become much more than that.  Fond of teasing. It may be wvise to keep the age of your hypothetical beforan self in mind, if you evwer do go seeking. No one is particularly enlightened at that age, and if she became invwolvwed in the game, she likely didn't growv old. caepaecaesurae .. Also, it is remarkably rare for Leijon and VWantas to be romantically invwolvwed on Beforus. aberrantcadenza :(( Age sucks lmao. I would have been content to die at 15. But... at least she had friends? From the sound of it, anyway. caepaecaesurae Many.  I don't think there's anyone that didn't like her. aberrantcadenza That's good, I think. She deserves that. Since we grew up so differently... It doesn't really strike me as surprising that she and her iteration of Xanthe weren't together. We're only alike in genetics, essentially. caepaecaesurae More or less.  The..difference, betwveen Alternia and Beforus, in univwerses like mine wvhere one becomes the other, is that the game purposefully shuffles around the circumstances of one's life for its owvn gain, to make you wvho and wvhat is needed. aberrantcadenza Oh, good. caepaecaesurae There's room to do wvhat you wish wvithin its framewvork, but it wvill stack the world around you. aberrantcadenza So... everything. It was predestined. caepaecaesurae More like shoehorned. Again, if your wvorld wvas like mine. Ewery time the Handmaid changes something throughout history, it is because she is being forced to set up the situations the game requires. ...wvhich leads to many trolls being vwery hesitant about her. aberrantcadenza Fun. Excellent. Awesome. caepaecaesurae ... Sorry aberrantcadenza Oh - no, that wasn't directed at you. I'm basically always cynical and bitter but I try not to let it get the better of me. I'm grateful to know, at least. :00 Thank you. caepaecaesurae There's plenty to be cynical about. Good luck deciding wvhether or not to ask. I think she'd be just as curious about you, and maybe hesitant to ask as wvell.  Knowving wvhat could havwe been is intimidating sometimes. aberrantcadenza If the situation ever arose, I hope hesitation would have won out. caepaecaesurae WVhy so? aberrantcadenza Well for one thing, the story isn't interesting. :PP Nor is it pleasant, nor something to be proud of. caepaecaesurae Young trolls often romanticise tales of struggles against harsh circumstance. aberrantcadenza Struggles that failed. I have no wish to dishearten someone so young with tales like this. caepaecaesurae If you evwer receivwe an anon that brings her around, I'll keep that in mind. aberrantcadenza Anons can do that? caepaecaesurae Magic anons seem to be able to do a number of things.  They seem particularly obsessed wvith the different forms of a person. aberrantcadenza Eugh. caepaecaesurae Muralist wvas swvapped into the body of a near-alternate of his. I wvas once split, so that my beforan and alternian halvwes wvere face to face. caepaecaesurae The Alternian half got cornered to deal wvith some unfinished business that no one wvanted to subject 'Cronus' to.  Cronus spent the wveek mostly alone or wvith Kankri. aberrantcadenza Oh boy. I'd say I've managed to evade them thus far, but... really all I can say is that I've had some good and some bad. With luck none of that will hit me. caepaecaesurae I think the most pleasant one I'vwe evwer had gavwe me chest sacs for a fewv perigees.  It leavwes an awvkwvard gap in my selfie record, though. aberrantcadenza The most recent one I got gave me a purrbeast. :'33 Her name is Karen. caepaecaesurae Congratulations, dare I ask wvhat sort she is? aberrantcadenza A "forest cat" apparently? http://aberrantcadenza.tumblr.com/post/155413389164/a-friend caepaecaesurae I acquired an Earth purrbeast a wvhile back.  Treasure's the bossiest little thing. Quite poofy aberrantcadenza Very - and she's still small. :'33 caepaecaesurae http://68.media.tumblr.com/71de97f78b8ab931c661fcbbc4162d32/tumblr_inline_n2lb35iXZ21rl9cr3.gif aberrantcadenza PRECIOUS. aberrantcadenza I'm so proud of them. Treasure, you said was their name? caepaecaesurae It wvas almost explorer since they wvon't leavwe anything alone, but aye. aberrantcadenza Precious, wonderful, perfect. Please pet them for me. caepaecaesurae I'll be sure to aberrantcadenza I've got work now, so I'll need to go silent for a bit... but I'm glad we talked. Thank you. caepaecaesurae I think I am too.  Any time, Felide.  Havwe a good night at wvork.

[centuryassociates]

Top Five Things to Know if You’re Building Your Cannabis Empire Through M&A

It’s no secret that multiple state-by-state operators are building their cannabis empires through aggressive mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”). Last year, our cannabis business attorneys closed more than $100 million in cannabis company acquisitions, and that shows no signs of stopping in 2019. Cannabis M&A is not your run-of-the-mill business dealing though, and working from boilerplate, rote M&A documents is hugely dangerous. In addition, diligence is oftentimes like a regulatory spiderweb laden with liabilities that other businesses do not face. In addition, the barriers to entry in the cannabis industry are increasingly high, tedious, and protectionist, which can really torture business deals. So, if you find yourself turning into a larger multi-state operator though acquiring cannabis businesses, below are the top five things you need to know.

1. Barriers to Entry

Every state is different in how it treats would-be cannabis licensees. And the differences between states are compounded by whether the state is medicinal, adult-use, low-CBD/high-THC, or all of the above. This translates into not everyone being eligible to own cannabis businesses. And these barriers to entry may include some or all of the following: residency requirements, local control elements that vary by city and county, liquidity standards, background checks, and invasive disclosures of personal information and past conduct in business and industry. Any prospective cannabis business purchaser needs to ensure that they meet all requirements for incoming owners before even contemplating a business purchase and expending time and hours negotiating a deal that may be legally impossible. Note also that localities are increasingly implementing their own barriers to entry (like local residency, past white collar crimes and civil infractions that bar ownership, and license caps), so don’t ignore the applicable municipal code standards either.

2.  Closing Can Be Chaos.

Most if not all states will tell cannabis businesses to report to them when new owners or parties of interest come into the picture. Why? Because of the federal enforcement priorities stemming from the now rescinded Cole Memo, every state must know exactly who is in control of/financing its cannabis licensees. Turning to M&A, every acquisition agreement has pre- and post-closing conditions and cannabis is no different. However, depending on the state or even the city or county in which the cannabis business operates, and due to new owner reporting requirements, conditions to and after closing will vary wildly. Ultimately, they will depend on whether state and local regulators demand that incoming owners close on business interests first so that they may be vetted and checked in that capacity, or they will depend on whether regulators must first examine the purchase agreement, approve the new owners prior to closing, and only then the new owners can take over. This is a very good reason why a one-size fits all boilerplate acquisition agreement is not going to work for your cannabis acquisitions. So, be sure to check what the subject state/locals require when it comes to closing.

3.  Diligence may be a Mess. 

The regulatory histories of most cannabis businesses are likely going to be chalk-full of various entitlements that enable the business to operate. And where cannabis remains federally illegal, a good amount of cannabis businesses are still operating on an all-cash basis and all of them are dealing with 280E. The diligence on these businesses then is usually more intense than other businesses. Would-be buyers need to exercise extreme care when vetting a cannabis business to look for ticking time bombs that surround state licensing compliance, local licensing compliance (which will be different depending on the local government), tax reporting (federal, state, and local) and specifically compliance with 280E (which can be a disaster). See here and here for how a cannabis business should prepare itself to sell. Also, if you’re buying a cannabis business that was operative under older, less restrictive regulations, you may face a situation where there’s little to no diligence at all because no records were kept and everything was done in cash (see Los Angeles for example).

4.  Valuations are All Over the Place. 

Pretty much every cannabis market in the U.S. is still emerging because they’re silo’ed marketplaces designed by state governments that continue to change as industry issues arise. Plus, the oldest regulated cannabis markets are Washington and Colorado (they’re only around 6 years old), which still doesn’t give us a ton of market data or operational history to properly value the businesses therein or in other states. Without a doubt, just having a cannabis license is valuable, but when a business is pre-revenue with, let’s say, a build-out ahead of it to satisfy local laws with constantly evolving state and local cannabis regulations in what will be a potentially saturated market in a couple of years, it’s really hard to say what the right valuation is. That hasn’t stopped certain cannabis businesses selling for pretty large sums though just based on the momentum of legalization and the prospect of market demand.

5.  You’ve Probably Already Violated State and Local Law. 

I cannot tell you the number of acquisitions our firm has seen after-the-fact where the parties violated state and local law from the outset of the agreement. Many folks don’t realize that, on the whole, state cannabis licenses are not transferable, so they cannot be individually bought and sold. You actually have to buy the company that holds the licenses (and all of its assets and liabilities). In addition, in most if not all states, you can’t separate licenses out from a vertically integrated company in order to sell them. And on average you can’t sell local entitlements either without them becoming void. There are also typically strict timing requirements in reporting acquisitions to both state and local regulators and parties usually violate those out of the gate because they’re either not aware or they don’t think that the reporting requirement applies to them. And if you take control of a cannabis business and do not tell regulators, your license is going to be in hot water. Specifically regarding the locals, if you’re dealing with a development agreement or other specific entitlement, assignment isn’t going to be freely allowed. The majority of the time, to get by the locals you not only have to ask for permission, you may even have to have a hearing in front of the City Council or Planning Commission to take over the entitlement. In certain states, taking over a cannabis business may even require cessation of the business and a new license application while the new owners are checked out. For the unwary or reckless buyer who may not know or care about the intensity of the regulations faced by cannabis businesses, their entire acquisition agreement may be completely illegal and grounds for license cancellation.

It’s only a matter of time before regulators begin investigating the nature of cannabis acquisitions to ensure that the transaction complied with applicable regulations. So, err on the safe side and make sure you know the regulations and your eligibility so that due diligence is smooth and compliance is less painful, and so that you don’t waste time and money on an illegal transaction.

Top Five Things to Know if You’re Building Your Cannabis Empire Through M&A posted first on https://centuryassociates.blogspot.com/

[mbaljeetsingh]

Creating a Serverless Meetup API Wrapper

Yesterday I was doing some research into serverless meetups when I encountered something that bugged me about the Meetup.com web site. Specifically, this:

I couldn’t search for meetups until I logged in. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a Meetup.com login, and I could have logged in in about 2 seconds, but this really bugged me. (As an aside, you can just go to http://ift.tt/2usK9kK to skip being forced to log in.)

Even after logging in, I didn’t like that I had to explicitly tell the form to not care about distance in order to find groups across the country:

In this case, their defaults I think make sense. As an evangelist, I’m looking for meetups I can speak at (hey, by the way, I’d love to speak at yours!), so my use case is not the norm. But I was also a bit bugged by the fact that I couldn’t limit my searches to America.

Therefore - I decided to do what any good developer would do - spend 10x as much time writing my own solution versus just dealing with what was given to me!

I knew Meetup had an API and I blogged on it a few years ago (Using the Meetup API in Client-Side Applications), so I figured this would be a great example of how I could use serverless, and OpenWhisk in particular, to build my own API wrapper around their data to build my own tool.

For my wrapper, I decided to build an interface to their Find Groups end point. (By the way, since I complained a bit about their UI I want to point out one thing they do very nicely - not forcing me to login to read API docs!)

Here is the action I created to wrap their API.

const rp = require('request-promise'); function main(args) { return new Promise((resolve, reject) => { let url = 'http://ift.tt/2t8RD8y'+args.key; if(args.category) url += '&category='+args.category; if(args.country) url += '&country='+args.country; if(args.fallback_suggestions) url += '&fallback_suggestions='+args.fallback_suggestions; if(args.fields) url += '&fields='+args.fields; //skipping filter if(args.lat) url += '&lat='+args.lat; if(args.lon) url += '&lon='+args.lon; if(args.location) url += '&location='+args.location; if(args.radius) url += '&radius='+args.radius; //skipping self_groups if(args.text) url += '&text='+encodeURIComponent(args.text); if(args.topic_id) url += '&topic_id='+args.topic_id; if(args.upcoming_events) url += '&upcoming_events='+args.upcoming_events; if(args.zip) url += '&zip='+args.zip; if(args.only) url += '&only='+args.only; if(args.omit) url += '&omit='+args.omit; /* Note to self: I modified the code to return the full response so I could potentially do paging. I decided against that for now, but I'm keeping resolveWithFullResponse in for the time being. */ let options = { url:url, json:true, resolveWithFullResponse: true }; rp(options).then((resp) => { //console.log(resp.headers); /* When using radius=global and a country, the country filter doesn't quite work. SO let's fix that. */ let items = resp.body; console.log('country='+args.country+' radius='+args.radius); if(args.country && args.country !== '' && args.radius === 'global') { console.log('Doing post filter on country'); items = items.filter((item) => { return (item.country === args.country); }); } resolve({result:items}); }).catch((err) => { reject({error:err}); }); }); }

For the most part, this is simply building a URL based on arguments. I’m not doing any validation since the API will do that for me. I’m also not doing any pagination since in my testing, I got over 100 results. I couldn’t find docs on how many max results they would return and I did do a bit of “prep work” for adding support in the future, but for now, it will return at least 170 or so results in my testing.

Note that the action expects an argument for the key. I set that as a default action parameter so I don’t have to include it in my own calls.

The only real interesting part is the manipulation I do for “country”. While the Meetup API has a country argument, it seems to ignore it when you set the radius argument to global. So basically, I can’t say “Don’t care about distance from my home but keep it to America.” Therefore I do my own filtering on the results after fetching them.

This is a great example (imo) of where serverless wrappers can be so useful. I took an existing API and built my own to address the shortcomings (or at least my perceived shortcomings) of it.

And that was it - literally. I “web” enabled it and my API was done. I then built the front end. I’m not going to bore you with my HTML and CSS. You can run the demo yourself here: http://ift.tt/2usrSEk

In case you don’t want to, here’s an example of the output:

Yeah, not necessarily the prettiest demo in the world, but it did give me a chance to finally try Flexbox. I have an idea for a nicer version I’m going to try to get out the door this week, but we’ll see. The JavaScript code behind this is relatively simple. It’s 99% DOM manipulation to be honest.

const api = 'http://ift.tt/2usisc5'; let $keyword, $submitBtn, $resultItems; $(document).ready(function() { $('#searchForm').on('submit', doSearch); $keyword = $('#search'); $submitBtn = $('#submitBtn'); $resultItems = $('#resultItems'); }); function doSearch(e) { e.preventDefault(); $resultItems.html(''); console.log('Ok, search against Meetup'); let keyword = $keyword.val(); console.log(keyword); //todo: leave if no search $submitBtn.attr('disabled','disabled'); let url = api + '&text='+encodeURIComponent(keyword); $resultItems.html('<i>Searching...</i>'); $.get(url).then((resp) => { $submitBtn.removeAttr('disabled'); console.log(resp); if(resp.result.length === 0) { $resultItems.html('<p>Sorry, but there were no results.</p>'); return; } let s = `<p>I found ${resp.result.length} match(es).</p>`; resp.result.forEach((item) => { let itemHtml = ` <h2>${item.name}</h2> <p> <a href="${item.link}#" target="_new">${item.link}</a><br/> Members: ${item.members}<br/> Address: ${item.city}, ${item.state} </p> `; s += itemHtml; console.dir(item); }); $resultItems.html(s); }); }

You’ll notice my URL constant on top sets up a bunch of defaults and when the actual search is performed, I’m just adding a keyword.

So what do you think? If you want to see the code for yourself, you can find it here: http://ift.tt/2t8MYDC

The “action” folder contains my action code (one file) and “client” contains the client-side application that uses the API on OpenWhisk.

via Raymond Camden on Raymond Camden http://ift.tt/2u23452

[lucyariablog]

This Week in Content Marketing: Could Snapchat Be the Next Myspace?

PNR: This Old Marketing with Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose can be found on both iTunes and Stitcher.

In this episode, Robert and I discuss how P&G is rewriting the rules for agencies and media placement. We also examine why a slew of publishers are recreating the media business model, and debate whether Snapchat’s performance decline is an indication that a Myspace-level fail may be in its future. Our rants and raves cover the value of sensibility and a likely strategy for acquiring Twitter; then a listener gets charged up about an example of the week from General Electric.

This week’s show

(Recorded live on February 3, 2017; Length: 0:59:05)

Download this week’s PNR This Old Marketing podcast.

If you enjoy our PNR podcasts, we would love if you would rate it, or post a review, on iTunes. 

1.    Notable news and upcoming trends

P&G lays down new rules for agencies and ad tech to get paid (09:34): Procter & Gamble Co., the world’s biggest advertiser, has outlined a five-point program aimed at increasing transparency and billing accountability in the media service supply chain. To enforce the new standards, P&G’s Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard says the company will no longer pay digital media businesses, ad tech companies, agencies, or other suppliers for services that fail to stay in compliance, according to AdAge. While I admire P&G for trying to emphasize behaviors over views when it comes to contract terms, Robert and I feel there must be a better way to drive this change than bringing in a third-party accreditation group as a watchdog.

Is Instagram Stories snapping up Snapchat’s share of the market? (21:31): TechCrunch reports that analytics providers, social media celebrities, and talent managers have observed a noticeable decline in Snapchat Stories usage since Instagram launched a virtually identical service in August of 2016. Meanwhile, Instagram Stories is experiencing rapidly growing view counts and “insanely high” engagement to follower rates. I see three options here: Snapchat should either pull back on its plans for an IPO and beg Facebook to acquire it, find a new point of differentiation, or just change its name to Myspace and call it a day.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: One Thing Is Killing Content Marketing and Everyone Is Ignoring It

Media firms must diversify to survive (29:11): Support is gathering around one of my favorite topics of discussion: This week, The Guardian published an article that predicts the eventual demise of the traditional media model and recognizes that falling ad revenues are spurring media companies to find new opportunities in areas such as e-commerce and events. The examples cited in the Guardian piece have inspired me to add a bold statement to my previous predictions on the subject: Years from now, the revenue models used by publishers will be indistinguishable from those currently adopted by brands.

Prediction: Publisher revenue models will be indistinguishable from brand revenue models. @joepulizzi Click To Tweet

The Today Show is building tomorrow’s audience through email (34:00): While we were recording this episode, a message came to us from CMI’s PR manager Amanda, and we wanted to pass it along as an encouraging sign of what may be to come. It’s common for broadcast media to reach out to publicists about stories that will be airing on TV. However, the email Amanda received from NBC’s The Today Show this time around wasn’t promoting the TV show; instead, it asked her to subscribe to the show’s email newsletter. This emphasizes just how important email subscriptions are ­– not just for the publishers, but also for any brand that wants to build an audience through content marketing.

Email subscriptions are important for any brand or publisher that wants to build an audience. @joepulizzi Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Prepare to Be Ignored If You Don’t Have Subscription Goals

2.    Sponsor (37:41)

Pressly: The Starter’s Guide to Sales Enablement: It’s no secret that sales and marketing departments have a complex relationship. Each has entirely different objectives, workflows, and methods of measuring performance. But these departments also share the same essential need: Both require the right content, at the right time, in order to do their jobs. Pressly’s “Starter’s Guide to Sales Enablement” dives into how you can align sales and marketing and start building conversion-focused content today. Download it now!

 3.    Rants and raves (39:10)

Joe’s rave No. 1: I caught a recent interview with New York Times CEO Mark Thompson, in which he said that the Times is planning to increase its investment in content promotion in 2017. This was music to my ears, as many companies fail to put enough marketing support behind their content to maximize its potential for success.

Companies fail to put enough #marketing support behind #content to maximize potential for success. @joepulizzi Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: How to Orchestrate the Concert of Paid Content Promotion

Joe’s rave No. 2: At long last, I’ve finally finished reading Tim Ferriss’ Tools of Titans. One of the book’s themes that has stuck with me is the notion that acting sensibly – while often perceived favorably – may actually hold us back from reaching our goals. Many of today’s most successful people achieved their position as a result of not being sensible and not following the rules that others had established. I encourage our listeners to go back to your own content plans and look at whether there’s something you can deliver to your customers that is different, unexpected and, perhaps, not entirely sensible.

Robert’s rave No. 1: Coincidentally, Robert also spent this week trying to make some sense of sensibility. As digital marketers, we often err on the side of what he calls “small marketing.” Unfortunately, he explains, the tendency to play it safe by pursuing small, incremental goals means we will never make progress on addressing the big strategy problems we are facing.

Pursuing small, incremental goals means we will never make progress on big strategy problems. @robert_rose Click To Tweet

Robert’s rave No. 2: Robert also came across a Recode article, which looks at how Google has slowly been acquiring bits and pieces of Twitter’s developer products. While Robert’s predictions for 2017 include the possibility of Google purchasing Twitter outright, he feels the piece-by-piece scenario described here may be a bit more realistic.

4.    This Old Marketing example of the week (50:00)

Listener Asuthosh Nair did the show a solid this week by writing up a comprehensive example of the week entry all on his own. To summarize his endorsement:

The GE podcast theater production The Message, and its successor, lif-e.af/ter, are absolutely fantastic examples of content marketing. I, for one, had no idea of GE’s role in the production and didn’t think much of the ‘brought to you by Panoply and GE Podcast Theater’ strapline in the opening, beyond it being the usual sponsorship message. Turns out, the story is closely linked with GE’s recent work in sonic therapy.

What we all agree is particularly brilliant about these efforts is (as detailed in an article on Neiman Labs, as well as in The Atlantic) that it’s entirely possible to listen to the message without ever realizing GE’s role in it: As articulated by Andy Goldberg, GE’s chief creative officer, in the Neiman Labs article:

I don’t consider it advertising. It’s a podcast show that just happens to be produced by a brand instead of a network… It’s a science fiction story to connect listeners with what the GE brand is about, without selling the GE brand.”

Asuthosh also points out that GE’s efforts totally resonate with This Old Marketing’s recurrent theme of brands as publishers. Robert and I couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Image source

For a full list of PNR archives, go to the main This Old Marketing page.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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The post This Week in Content Marketing: Could Snapchat Be the Next Myspace? appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/02/snapchat-next-myspace/

[centuryassociates]

Top Five Things to Know if You’re Building Your Cannabis Empire Through M&A

It’s no secret that multiple state-by-state operators are building their cannabis empires through aggressive mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”). Last year, our cannabis business attorneys closed more than $100 million in cannabis company acquisitions, and that shows no signs of stopping in 2019. Cannabis M&A is not your run-of-the-mill business dealing though, and working from boilerplate, rote M&A documents is hugely dangerous. In addition, diligence is oftentimes like a regulatory spiderweb laden with liabilities that other businesses do not face. In addition, the barriers to entry in the cannabis industry are increasingly high, tedious, and protectionist, which can really torture business deals. So, if you find yourself turning into a larger multi-state operator though acquiring cannabis businesses, below are the top five things you need to know.

1. Barriers to Entry

Every state is different in how it treats would-be cannabis licensees. And the differences between states are compounded by whether the state is medicinal, adult-use, low-CBD/high-THC, or all of the above. This translates into not everyone being eligible to own cannabis businesses. And these barriers to entry may include some or all of the following: residency requirements, local control elements that vary by city and county, liquidity standards, background checks, and invasive disclosures of personal information and past conduct in business and industry. Any prospective cannabis business purchaser needs to ensure that they meet all requirements for incoming owners before even contemplating a business purchase and expending time and hours negotiating a deal that may be legally impossible. Note also that localities are increasingly implementing their own barriers to entry (like local residency, past white collar crimes and civil infractions that bar ownership, and license caps), so don’t ignore the applicable municipal code standards either.

2.  Closing Can Be Chaos.

Most if not all states will tell cannabis businesses to report to them when new owners or parties of interest come into the picture. Why? Because of the federal enforcement priorities stemming from the now rescinded Cole Memo, every state must know exactly who is in control of/financing its cannabis licensees. Turning to M&A, every acquisition agreement has pre- and post-closing conditions and cannabis is no different. However, depending on the state or even the city or county in which the cannabis business operates, and due to new owner reporting requirements, conditions to and after closing will vary wildly. Ultimately, they will depend on whether state and local regulators demand that incoming owners close on business interests first so that they may be vetted and checked in that capacity, or they will depend on whether regulators must first examine the purchase agreement, approve the new owners prior to closing, and only then the new owners can take over. This is a very good reason why a one-size fits all boilerplate acquisition agreement is not going to work for your cannabis acquisitions. So, be sure to check what the subject state/locals require when it comes to closing.

3.  Diligence may be a Mess. 

The regulatory histories of most cannabis businesses are likely going to be chalk-full of various entitlements that enable the business to operate. And where cannabis remains federally illegal, a good amount of cannabis businesses are still operating on an all-cash basis and all of them are dealing with 280E. The diligence on these businesses then is usually more intense than other businesses. Would-be buyers need to exercise extreme care when vetting a cannabis business to look for ticking time bombs that surround state licensing compliance, local licensing compliance (which will be different depending on the local government), tax reporting (federal, state, and local) and specifically compliance with 280E (which can be a disaster). See here and here for how a cannabis business should prepare itself to sell. Also, if you’re buying a cannabis business that was operative under older, less restrictive regulations, you may face a situation where there’s little to no diligence at all because no records were kept and everything was done in cash (see Los Angeles for example).

4.  Valuations are All Over the Place. 

Pretty much every cannabis market in the U.S. is still emerging because they’re silo’ed marketplaces designed by state governments that continue to change as industry issues arise. Plus, the oldest regulated cannabis markets are Washington and Colorado (they’re only around 6 years old), which still doesn’t give us a ton of market data or operational history to properly value the businesses therein or in other states. Without a doubt, just having a cannabis license is valuable, but when a business is pre-revenue with, let’s say, a build-out ahead of it to satisfy local laws with constantly evolving state and local cannabis regulations in what will be a potentially saturated market in a couple of years, it’s really hard to say what the right valuation is. That hasn’t stopped certain cannabis businesses selling for pretty large sums though just based on the momentum of legalization and the prospect of market demand.

5.  You’ve Probably Already Violated State and Local Law. 

I cannot tell you the number of acquisitions our firm has seen after-the-fact where the parties violated state and local law from the outset of the agreement. Many folks don’t realize that, on the whole, state cannabis licenses are not transferable, so they cannot be individually bought and sold. You actually have to buy the company that holds the licenses (and all of its assets and liabilities). In addition, in most if not all states, you can’t separate licenses out from a vertically integrated company in order to sell them. And on average you can’t sell local entitlements either without them becoming void. There are also typically strict timing requirements in reporting acquisitions to both state and local regulators and parties usually violate those out of the gate because they’re either not aware or they don’t think that the reporting requirement applies to them. And if you take control of a cannabis business and do not tell regulators, your license is going to be in hot water. Specifically regarding the locals, if you’re dealing with a development agreement or other specific entitlement, assignment isn’t going to be freely allowed. The majority of the time, to get by the locals you not only have to ask for permission, you may even have to have a hearing in front of the City Council or Planning Commission to take over the entitlement. In certain states, taking over a cannabis business may even require cessation of the business and a new license application while the new owners are checked out. For the unwary or reckless buyer who may not know or care about the intensity of the regulations faced by cannabis businesses, their entire acquisition agreement may be completely illegal and grounds for license cancellation.

It’s only a matter of time before regulators begin investigating the nature of cannabis acquisitions to ensure that the transaction complied with applicable regulations. So, err on the safe side and make sure you know the regulations and your eligibility so that due diligence is smooth and compliance is less painful, and so that you don’t waste time and money on an illegal transaction.

Top Five Things to Know if You’re Building Your Cannabis Empire Through M&A posted first on https://centuryassociates.blogspot.com/

[centuryassociates]

Top Five Things to Know if You’re Building Your Cannabis Empire Through M&A

It’s no secret that multiple state-by-state operators are building their cannabis empires through aggressive mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”). Last year, our cannabis business attorneys closed more than $100 million in cannabis company acquisitions, and that shows no signs of stopping in 2019. Cannabis M&A is not your run-of-the-mill business dealing though, and working from boilerplate, rote M&A documents is hugely dangerous. In addition, diligence is oftentimes like a regulatory spiderweb laden with liabilities that other businesses do not face. In addition, the barriers to entry in the cannabis industry are increasingly high, tedious, and protectionist, which can really torture business deals. So, if you find yourself turning into a larger multi-state operator though acquiring cannabis businesses, below are the top five things you need to know.

1. Barriers to Entry

Every state is different in how it treats would-be cannabis licensees. And the differences between states are compounded by whether the state is medicinal, adult-use, low-CBD/high-THC, or all of the above. This translates into not everyone being eligible to own cannabis businesses. And these barriers to entry may include some or all of the following: residency requirements, local control elements that vary by city and county, liquidity standards, background checks, and invasive disclosures of personal information and past conduct in business and industry. Any prospective cannabis business purchaser needs to ensure that they meet all requirements for incoming owners before even contemplating a business purchase and expending time and hours negotiating a deal that may be legally impossible. Note also that localities are increasingly implementing their own barriers to entry (like local residency, past white collar crimes and civil infractions that bar ownership, and license caps), so don’t ignore the applicable municipal code standards either.

2.  Closing Can Be Chaos.

Most if not all states will tell cannabis businesses to report to them when new owners or parties of interest come into the picture. Why? Because of the federal enforcement priorities stemming from the now rescinded Cole Memo, every state must know exactly who is in control of/financing its cannabis licensees. Turning to M&A, every acquisition agreement has pre- and post-closing conditions and cannabis is no different. However, depending on the state or even the city or county in which the cannabis business operates, and due to new owner reporting requirements, conditions to and after closing will vary wildly. Ultimately, they will depend on whether state and local regulators demand that incoming owners close on business interests first so that they may be vetted and checked in that capacity, or they will depend on whether regulators must first examine the purchase agreement, approve the new owners prior to closing, and only then the new owners can take over. This is a very good reason why a one-size fits all boilerplate acquisition agreement is not going to work for your cannabis acquisitions. So, be sure to check what the subject state/locals require when it comes to closing.

3.  Diligence may be a Mess. 

The regulatory histories of most cannabis businesses are likely going to be chalk-full of various entitlements that enable the business to operate. And where cannabis remains federally illegal, a good amount of cannabis businesses are still operating on an all-cash basis and all of them are dealing with 280E. The diligence on these businesses then is usually more intense than other businesses. Would-be buyers need to exercise extreme care when vetting a cannabis business to look for ticking time bombs that surround state licensing compliance, local licensing compliance (which will be different depending on the local government), tax reporting (federal, state, and local) and specifically compliance with 280E (which can be a disaster). See here and here for how a cannabis business should prepare itself to sell. Also, if you’re buying a cannabis business that was operative under older, less restrictive regulations, you may face a situation where there’s little to no diligence at all because no records were kept and everything was done in cash (see Los Angeles for example).

4.  Valuations are All Over the Place. 

Pretty much every cannabis market in the U.S. is still emerging because they’re silo’ed marketplaces designed by state governments that continue to change as industry issues arise. Plus, the oldest regulated cannabis markets are Washington and Colorado (they’re only around 6 years old), which still doesn’t give us a ton of market data or operational history to properly value the businesses therein or in other states. Without a doubt, just having a cannabis license is valuable, but when a business is pre-revenue with, let’s say, a build-out ahead of it to satisfy local laws with constantly evolving state and local cannabis regulations in what will be a potentially saturated market in a couple of years, it’s really hard to say what the right valuation is. That hasn’t stopped certain cannabis businesses selling for pretty large sums though just based on the momentum of legalization and the prospect of market demand.

5.  You’ve Probably Already Violated State and Local Law. 

I cannot tell you the number of acquisitions our firm has seen after-the-fact where the parties violated state and local law from the outset of the agreement. Many folks don’t realize that, on the whole, state cannabis licenses are not transferable, so they cannot be individually bought and sold. You actually have to buy the company that holds the licenses (and all of its assets and liabilities). In addition, in most if not all states, you can’t separate licenses out from a vertically integrated company in order to sell them. And on average you can’t sell local entitlements either without them becoming void. There are also typically strict timing requirements in reporting acquisitions to both state and local regulators and parties usually violate those out of the gate because they’re either not aware or they don’t think that the reporting requirement applies to them. And if you take control of a cannabis business and do not tell regulators, your license is going to be in hot water. Specifically regarding the locals, if you’re dealing with a development agreement or other specific entitlement, assignment isn’t going to be freely allowed. The majority of the time, to get by the locals you not only have to ask for permission, you may even have to have a hearing in front of the City Council or Planning Commission to take over the entitlement. In certain states, taking over a cannabis business may even require cessation of the business and a new license application while the new owners are checked out. For the unwary or reckless buyer who may not know or care about the intensity of the regulations faced by cannabis businesses, their entire acquisition agreement may be completely illegal and grounds for license cancellation.

It’s only a matter of time before regulators begin investigating the nature of cannabis acquisitions to ensure that the transaction complied with applicable regulations. So, err on the safe side and make sure you know the regulations and your eligibility so that due diligence is smooth and compliance is less painful, and so that you don’t waste time and money on an illegal transaction.

Top Five Things to Know if You’re Building Your Cannabis Empire Through M&A posted first on https://centuryassociates.blogspot.com/