#or any income at all... hashtag unemployed

[wekillitwithfire]

i've got that itch (need to buy cute stickers) that i can't scratch (don't have disposable income)

[brooklynmuseum]

Stronger Together

Weekend Roundup of Resources for our Community


What’s up Brooklyn?! We’re back with another list of resources for you and yours. The impacts of this pandemic are far-reaching and deeply felt here in Brooklyn. We know there are many needs not being met, and many who are willing to help out where they can. Now more than ever, it is essential that we come together as a community to support each other with social solidarity, even if we are physically distant. Check out new opportunities to support and be supported in this week’s roundup. Let’s do what we do best in Brooklyn… spread love. 

If you have questions, or have more you wish to see or to spotlight, reach out. We want to hear from you. Please email stay.connected@brooklynmuseum.org. 

Also, text 'COVID' to 692-692 to get important COVID-19 related updates sent straight to your phone. You can text 'COVIDESP' to get updates in Spanish.

Follow Our Elected Officials For News:  

The Mayor has a new Daily Message available on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube every morning. If your constituents have questions, comments or concerns, they want him to respond to, they can send them using the hashtag #AskMyMayor 

The Office of the Brooklyn Borough President provides the most up-to-date information and resources to Brooklynites. Follow these pages regularly and follow Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams on social media for real-time updates.

Follow updates and news from Council Member Laurie A. Cumbo on Facebook and Twitter. Cumbo serves as the Council Majority leader for Brooklyn’s 35th District- Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Prospect Heights and Bed-Stuy.

Follow New York City Council Member Robert E. Cornegy, representing Brooklyn 36th District- Bedford Stuyvesant and Northern Crown Heights on Twitter , Facebook, and Instagram for important updates regarding COVID-19 updates. 

Congresswoman for the 9th District, Yvette D. Clark is working hard in Congress to support our local communities. Follow the Congresswoman on her Twitter to receive updates on what is going on in Washington DC and resources available in your ‘hood!

Stay up to date with information provided by Governor Cuomo. Follow our New York State governor on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram for up to date information regarding new health guidelines closures, and executive orders. 

Follow updates from the NYC City Immigrant Affairs office on Twitter interested in renewing your DACA application form. Call ActionNYC at 1-800-354-0365.

Local Business Highlights of the Week: 

Known for their traditional Senegalese cuisine, Cafe Rue Dix takes pride in incorporating fresh ingredients and bold spices to create some of the best fran-senegalese dishes in NYC located right in Crown Heights.  Take out is available from 12-9pm, and if you’re cooking  or working at home, try their signature coffee and hot sauce for a real pick me up.

While we dream of what will come, Berg’n is asking their fellow patrons, who have the means during this time, to donate any tips they would give while visiting this local hang-out. You can donate to their phenomenal team by clicking here.

Census

There’s still time! Complete the 2020 Census today at my2020census.gov. 

It's not too late to RSVP to host a Census Text-a-Thon in your district on April 20th. Participating in a Text-a-Thon from home is an easy and safe way for New Yorkers to do something positive for our City.  NYC Census 2020 will provide access to the peer-to-peer texting tool, Hustle, and will provide all the technical support necessary for people to volunteer to text. RSVP to host a Text-a-Thon in your district on April 20th by emailing Katya Murphy or Jason Reischel.  Support for Artists, Freelancers, and Gig Workers

Freelancers in NYC: If you're facing nonpayment issues, file a complaint through NYC Consumer Affairs, which has a list of worker’s rights! 

The Arts and Culture Leaders of Color Emergency Fund is set up to help those pursuing careers as artists or arts administrators whose income has been directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This fund is for those who self-identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color).

Solidarity 4 Service, is a grassroot effort to connect individuals to each other in efforts to provide relief for those who are unemployed or underemployed due to COVID-19. For more information, visit their Support for Service Industry/Gig/Freelance Workers intake survey. 

The NYC Low-Income Artist Freelance Relief Fund has intentons to collectively raise funds to provide emergency and preventative resources to artist who are at finical ris and low-income BIPOC, trans/GNC/NB/Queer artist and freelancers.

Creative Capital has created a resource fund which helps artists find various national, state and local  grants, mental health assistance. 

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS' COVID-19 Emergency Assistance Fund is helping entertainment professionals meet coronavirus-related expenses and other challenges brought about by the evolving pandemic.

The Jazz Foundation of America provides jazz and blue artists with an experienced social worker to assess his/her situation and provide rapid assistance. 

Queer Writers of Color Relief Fund is offering finicial assistance to queer writiers to at least 100 writers, each writer reciveing $5,000. 

The South Asian Arts Resiliency Fund is a direct response by the India Center Foundation to offer support to South Asian arts workers impacted by COVID-19.

Dance NYC is offering one time grants for dance making organizations with an annual operating budget between $25,00 and $500,00. Eligibility is determined based upon loss of income or incurred expenses due to COVID-19. 

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has issued guidance on applying for the $75 million it was allocated in the CARES Act. If a nonprofit cultural organization has received NEA support in the last four fiscal years, they are eligible to apply for a direct grant. Apply by April 22!

For another roundup of resources for artists, check out artnet’s recent article.

Resources for children and families

For updates regarding the Coronavirus and New York City public schools, visit New York City Department of Education Coronavirus Communicaications page. 

As the weeks of staying at home stretch on, they are taking their toll on many of us. The mindfulness app HeadSpace has teamed up with New York State to offer free guided meditations and other resources to support the mental wellbeing of New Yorkers during this crisis. 

For many, pets are more than just animals — they are a part of the family. As members of your family, they should be included in your emergency planning process. Make sure your disaster plan addresses what you will do when an emergency requires you to leave your home, leave your pet at home, or prevents you from returning home. Visit NYCEM pets planning for more information

No Kid Hungry is offering emergency grants to support local school districts and nonprofit organizations in their efforts to ensure kids get the nutritious food they need. Fill out this grant request form here.

Did you know that you can use your Snap benefits to order groceries online? Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits can be used to shop online for fresh produce and groceries! Use your EBT card to shop securely for fresh produce and groceries at participating stores in the New York City area.

One Week of Free Groceries: The Department of Probation, Neighborhood Opportunity Network (NeON) Nutrition Kitchens, in partnership with the Food Bank of NYC and the NYC Young Men’s Initiative (YMI) have opened five kitchens -- one in each borough -- to distribute free food, available to any New Yorker who needs it.  

Women.NYC, which is powered by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, released a downloadable guide for free and low-cost tech courses in New York City.

DOE Graphics Library: A collection of graphics on the DOE's recent announcements that can be shared with families and educators, in all 9 DOE languages 

For more information about remote learning, activities for students, and technical support go to schools.nyc.gov/LearnAtHome

While Family Justice Centers are physically closed, anyone can call any of our borough centers for help with safety planning, mental health and planning, legal help, or help in connecting to law enforcement agencies. For more information please visit the Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender Based Violence or call our 24-hour Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-621-4673.

Ways to Volunteer and Serve

Visit New York Blood Center to find out how you may be able to donate plasma for those who have recovered from COVID-19. 

For Individuals/Organizations/Companies offering to DONATE PPE, visit NYC Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Donation Portal. 

Help Now NYC is providing New Yorkers with opportunities to find out how they can help others affected by COVID-19 and help New Yorkers find organizations that will help them receive COVID-19 related assistance.

The NYC Share Your Space Survey is critical to helping the City prepare for emergencies and outreach to all of the City's communities. Organizations citywide are encouraged to participate. 

NYCEDC is currently seeking businesses with the ability to quickly source and/or make needed medical supplies (e.g. face shields, gowns, ventilators, masks, and other products as needed) to support the City’s COVID-19 response.

Deliver meals and emergency food bags to home-bound elderly living in a variety of Brooklyn neighborhoods (car recommended) with Heights and Hills. Learn more here.

Corona Couriers is a collective of cyclists willing to courier supplies to people in need for free, using low contact methods. Email coronacourier@protonmail.com if interested. 

Here, you may find a source guide specifically for immigrant communities during the COVID-19 pandemic: Please help by passing it along. Also, FYI, this week is Immigrant Heritage Week!

For People in Need

Domestic Violence: If you are experiencing domestic violence, you locate nearby resources online using NYC HOPE, the City’s Resource Directory for services for survivors. Check out NYC Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based violence to attain more resources for survivors during COVID-19. 

For individuals with disabilities, visit the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities. More information may be found NYC Mayor’s Office of Disabilities Twitter, as well as contacting representatives at 311 or visitor connect via video phone at 646-396-5830.

DOITT has developed a portal, to help guide the City’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The portal is available in 11 languages and allows New Yorkers to self-report COVID-19 information and will help New York City both better communicate with affected people and identify areas that may need enhanced response. Inputs are confidential. People without internet access or who need help, can call 311. 

Possibly Mimbres. Standing Figure, 1100-1000 B.C.E. Stone, pigment). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Expedition 1903, Museum Collection Fund, 03.325.4528. Creative Commons-BY

[jazd801]

Let’s talk about why artists who have their works published in Lezhin Comics refer people to ONLY read it from Lezhin website:

This is originally posted from my Twitter, and is only copy/pasting it here. I am too lazy to edit shit.

I SAW SOMETHING TODAY IN MY TL THAT IS WORTH DISCUSSING AND SHOULD BE ACKNOWLEDGED OF. This is for everyone who are maybe planning to read or are reading #LoveIsAnIllusion by Fargo (yes, they have twitter but I will not mention them because there's even the slightest possibility that Fargo may also be following the #LoveIsAnIllusion hashtag, coz why not, and also can see this post of mine; I honestly won't even mind if Fargo can actually see this post.) 

This is a message to remind everyone.

Thing is, I saw a post that Fargo had replied to (which the OP had deleted after for various reasons) today, because I am following the creator's twitter as well (coz y’know im such a stalker and because Fargo posts a lot of Dojin's sexiness in their TL, haha)

(I decided to delete the OP’s username and even their profile pic to “protect them”)

This OP had asked where else to read the #LoveIsAnIllusion webtoon, aside from Lezhin Comics, which is the official legal site you can, frankly, should only read the webtoon from. You know, asking a question like this is ab-so-lute-ly fine.

However, please remember that Fargo and every creator and artists who have their works published in Lezhin Comics, that these comics they pour every bit of their sweat, effort and time (and honestly, even their physical health), are their other "source" of income in real life.

I am sure these creators/artists are aware that there are other sources where people can even read the webtoon outside of the Lezhin website. And yes, there are a lot generous people who can afford to purchase the chapters and even share them to others who cannot afford to buy each chapters from Lezhin (and even all the Japanese manga out there.) This is the exact reason why scanlation groups exists, because a shit-ton (probably a million, thrillion, quadrillion) of people cannot afford because they are either broke students or unemployed.

My point is, YES, you can read them for free (go thank these generous people who buys the chapters in Lezhin and shares them to you broke doods) but DO NOT forget that Fargo and every comic artists who has their works published legally (like in Lezhin website) and are up for sale, depends on us, people, their supporters and fans, to place food on their tables and pay their monthly bills. If you genuinely enjoy their works, and if you finally managed to land a well-paying job, go and support these wonderful artists and creators!!!

You should also respect all the scanlation groups when they tell you to “please not share their releases outside their Discord/community/website, etc., because in the end, you are only going to make yourself cry. Why? There’s a fuck-ton of reasons why I could think of that you couldn’t but let’s list down the three main possibilities what would happen that would make you cry and for people to hate you, and eventually yourself because fuck what have I done???:

POSSIBILITY #ONE: Let’s assume the original creators of these webtoon already know that scanlation groups exists. They can’t do anything about it (coz they only have themselves) so they acknowledge it as long as there are other people who reads their work and still support them by BUYING EACH CHAPTERS FROM LEZHIN.

POSSIBILITY #TWO: If the original creators of these webtoon start to consider the possibility of “threat” of scanlation groups, they will ask Lezhin or some legit legal company that protects the comic artists from people who illegally do stuff with their comics, coz yeah, scanlating is illegal. These scanlation groups you are reading free webtoons from will take the blame, and they will get scared if they get those scary cease-or-desist letters from legit companies, and they will either stop scanlating altogether or go waaaaay underground, and away from people’s greedy selves. ***Some scanlation groups actually experienced this scary shit because they were working on some licensed titles by Libre Shuppan. This is why scanlation groups never work on any licensed manga and are asking people to stop sharing them when they have become licensed. You don’t want that to happen, right??

POSSIBILITY #THREE (in which you ignore the other two possibilities above): These original creators of these webtoon can always decide by their selves to stop whatever they are doing. They can. But they won’t. How then would they pay whatever bills they need to pay every month or place food on their tables if they stop this other source of income they could think of, because they maybe cannot work outside like normal people do, because maybe they would then jeopardize their physical health???

I hope you all understand whatever I am trying to say... 

Honestly, you can and are freely to gush and fangirl over whatever webtoon you like, you can even message the original creators of these webtoon and let them know how you genuinely enjoy their work. Comments like these fuel each artists’ motivation and inspiration. 

BUT never make a post with the word “scanlation” or even ask where else you can read the webtoon when it is only available in Lezhin, and mention the artists’ username in one message. 

If you don’t know all this, then I am sure you do not know or is not aware, by ignoring these possibilities, how you can ruin a creator or artists of these webtoons’ every day lives. And even the lives of the broke students who are busy studying their majors to hopefully get a job of their own in the future, and the unemployed fans.

Always think before you act.

BY THE WAY, this is also for all the manga you are reading for free in mangago, mangafox, mangareader, mangahere, and any other manga reading sites that is illegal.

Scanlation is illegal. But there are people who are part of these scanlation groups who actually purchase their own manga/manwha/doujinshi and JFC, everything else they can fucking scan that isn’t in English and scan them for the scanlation team they are a member of. So these scanlation groups, even though it is illegal shit/business/hobby/fucking whatever, still have their own rights to be mad when someone decides to fuck them over :)

Again, always think before you act.

Thank you for reading.

[shirlleycoyle]

Bitcoiners Are Obsessed With Inflation. Are They Right?

Over the past few months, some have begun to ring alarm bells about the specter of inflation. Nowhere is this more clear than in the world of cryptocurrencies, where a growing number of enthusiasts have promoted digital coins as hedges against rising prices. 

The typical argument is that loose monetary and fiscal policies are keeping interest rates low and government spending high, which is eroding the value of the dollar while pushing up prices for all goods and services beyond an ideal rate of inflation. Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have a capped and diminishing supply of new units and are thus deflationary, and cannot be devalued by the actions of a central bank or deficit-spending state.

For well over a year now, there’s been an surge in crypto enthusiasts asking #whathappenedin1971―a reference to the year that President Nixon took the US dollar off the gold standard―with the Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeting out the hashtag this week. Cryptocurrency has even been offered as a possible solution to the invasion of Afghanistan by promoters, provided you go back in time and facilitate its mass adoption, because in libertarian thinking, inflationary currencies fund wars.

In political discourse, inflation is often presented as a technical issue independent of politics. In one scenario: if the government spends too much money, the logic goes, there likely won’t be enough goods to consume and prices will increase. If prices are no longer stable, workers will demand higher wage increases, those labor costs will be passed onto consumers in the form of prices, and a vicious spiral similar to the last major inflation crisis from the late 1960s to early 80s (a “wage-price spiral”) will happen.

While most discussion of inflation is concerned with an increase in consumer prices, crypto enthusiasts are more interested in inflation in terms of the supply of money. Central banks, after all, can effectively “print money” by expanding the supply of money available to banks, as well as buying up debts to free up more capital. Bitcoin advocates maintain that over time, the value of crypto will rise relative to the dollar as the digital coin hits its supply limit while US dollars continue to be created.

All of this confuses and assumes a bunch of things all together. The first assumption is that runaway inflation at the moment is a real concern. 

In June, the core Consumer Price Index―which tracks prices for certain goods and services bought by urban workers excluding volatile food and energy prices―rose at its fastest annual rate since 1992 and sparked concern among economists that stimulus programs would cause serious inflation. Closer examination, however, reveals that most of the increased prices experienced over the past few months comes from temporary bottlenecks and specific industries hit hard by the pandemic returning to pre-COVID prices. As economist Paul Krugman pointed out on Twitter, used cars, hotel rooms, and airfares accounted for over half of price inflation for the past three months but are less than 5 percent of the consumer price index.

Today, the price increases that have sparked frenzied debates over inflation are not of all goods and services but very specific groups. More specifically, these are price increases that have come out of supply shocks that represent temporary bottlenecks, not widespread inflationary pressure.

In a recent essay on inflation calculation, historian and Columbia University professor Adam Tooze asks whether any of the ongoing debate makes sense when you consider that some prices go up at different rates for different reasons: "If microchip prices surge because of drought in Taiwan, can we speak of inflation? What, if a spike in demand for lumber in North America drives plywood prices sky high? Is that inflation?"

The policy responses to higher fossil fuel and automobile prices are very different, depending on if you think the rise in prices are caused by inflation or by supply-chain issues. The former would call on us to tighten fiscal and monetary policy by, say, cutting public spending and raising interest rates. But if the problem is a supply shortage, then you would want to pursue public investment and easier access to credit to increase manufacturing production. (Higher fossil fuel prices, however, in the face of impending climate apocalypse, should probably stay.)

Indeed, there seems to be confusion about what inflation actually is among many commentators, including within the Bitcoin crowd. In an interview with NY Mag's Eric Levitz, J.W. Mason—a professor at John Jay College and economist at the Roosevelt Institute—suggests that the way inflation is being discussed is confused, for example insisting on tight links between money supply and inflation when that’s not the case.

Inflation is calculated when you “take all the prices that you can observe, and you average them in some way,” Mason explains. The debate emerges in how you actually do this, however, because you must make choices about what goes in your basket of goods and services and implicitly what group of consumers you are following to understand how prices are developing.

Today, one of the major indicators is the Consumer Price Index, which allows for tracking the prices of a specific basket of goods and services purchased by urban workers. That index itself, as important as it is however, has been politically constructed at various points of its history for different political aims.

"It can't be underestimated how much we politically construct and talk about inflation,” Nathan Tankus, the research director for the Modern Monetary Network, told Motherboard. “It’s associated with this ‘getting out of control’ narrative that overlaps with how crime is talked about in a racialized way in the United States. Inflation's going out of control, we have the crazy Biden administration going out of control with their spending, we've got crime going up, they’re defunding the police, it mixes in a way that's resonant of the 1970s but not as politically potent."

Achieving inflation targets, as well as warning that we are at risk of runaway inflation, are ultimately political moves. As Tankus has pointed out elsewhere, there are real world consequences for keeping inflation at a certain level: unemployment has to be kept at a sustainable level, but the groups left unemployed also have to be managed somehow so that things don’t get out of control.

"Mass incarceration becomes a key piece of austerity, and not just about managing this unemployed underclass, but also integral to the process of regaining control over things that have fallen apart. In that way, the Volcker shock and the rise of mass incarceration, especially as it took off in the 80s under Reagan, but also among the Democrats who gave up any last vestiges of social democracy" Tankus said in a previous interview on this subject. "Therefore, to fundamentally attack the mythical monster of race in America, of racialization, you also have to attack the mythical monster of inflation."

Overlooking the politics of pricing has only made some of the misconceptions about it even worse, poisoning the debates that regularly pop up as older commentators warn of inflation that hasn’t been around for close to five decades. 

One misconception is rooted in a confused understanding of what role the money supply plays in affecting price levels. Mason points to this in an essay on the various “versions” of inflation people talk about, stating that "even mainstream economists have largely abandoned the idea of money stock as a meaningful economic quantity" as well as the idea that "there is a straightforward relationship between money and inflation." This is the viewpoint taken up by many including Bitcoiners, more or less. It’s misconceptions like this that help spark political debates about what should be sacrificed in the name of price stability. 

“Political convenience is obviously a factor,” says Mason. “If you admitted that tight labor markets actually are effective at redistributing income from profits to wages—and that slack labor markets redistribute from wages to profit you would bring the question of income distribution into the political arena. And I think that one of the successes of what we might call the ‘neoliberal’ model of politics was to move those questions offstage.”

There’s a few ways to push against this model, but they all start with challenging common conceptions of inflation. One proposal from Tankus starts with constructing different measures that track price stability through the frequency of prices or the median price, as opposed to an index that changes over a year. 

“If you see that 30 or 40 percent of prices haven't changed in the past year, that gives you a very different sense of what's going on with prices,” Tankus told Motherboard.

"This changes focus from the idea that there's a price setter who changes prices. Instead it focuses on them as products of our corporate dominated economy, as opposed to the product of this fantastical naturalized economics. The parameter of pricing is being filtered through our corporate economy."

Bitcoiners Are Obsessed With Inflation. Are They Right? syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[torixus]

How Hushpuppi will shock Nigerians in no Distant Time

False news stories, often of a sensational nature, created to be widely shared or distributed for the purpose of generating revenue, or discrediting a public figure.  The figure has landed to the court of Raymond Ilolodely popularly known as Hushpuppi.

On Tuesday, the news of a popular Nigerian  Instagram Celebrity and estate Guru, Hushpuppi been arrested by the security agency in Dubai Surfaced online over alleged Freud.

The report have it that the Billionaire man was also arrested together with other Nigerian men in scamming ring Gang and that they are currently under the Police watch.

Twitter have the hashtage, #hushpuppi filled with over 70,000 tweets since the news broke out and thousands of Nigerians seem to be happy with the unconfirmed incident as many say they've long suspected hushpuppi to be a scammer. since no one knows his main source of income apart from the Real estate management which seems to be yielding nothing for him.

Torixus reported last week that he changed his 2020 Rolls Royce wheel for a whipping sum of 6 Million naira and the trend is still having it that he is a scammer that's why he can afford such amount for just a wheel.

Based on several reports issued by many online media especially local media, no authentic statement has confirmed the arrest of hushpuppi not even the FBI who were said to be on top of the matter.

Nigerian Journalist and mother, Dr. Kemi Olunloyo made a publication saying that he is linked to a Freud with some other Nigerians through over Covid-19 palliative. She said they scammed 35 Million Dollars meant for the purchase of a ventilator for an undisclosed country.

#Kemitalksmoney HushPuppi was arrested yesterday in Dubai at his apartment Pallazo Versace along with his entire team. I will introduce them to you one by one. The case belongs to @SecretService @fbi @INTERPOL_HQ and it involves $35M wire fraud meant for #Covid19 test kits pic.twitter.com/5saC7dR7OX

— Dr. Kemi Olunloyo (@KemiOlunloyo) June 10, 2020

Some Videos that Surfaced online showing a clip of American reporters saying that some group of Freud ring in Nigeria has scammed over 100 Million Dollar relief funds released by the United States Government to unemployed citizens during the hard time of Covid-19. Torixus made a research and confirmed that the Incident report bottomed on the internet last 14 Days and as of that time, Hushpuppi is living fine as we saw his latest post on Instagram last four days ago.

The whole controversial claim is uncertain as no propel prove has Surfaced online and we tag the whole claim as, 'Gossip'. It will interest you to know that this is not the first time a false report of the alleged arrest of hushpuppi has Surfaced online.

He always proves those news wrong with a pen of note like, "May success and prosperity not be a

"Once upon a time” story in your life.... Thank you

lord for the many blessings in my life continue

to shame those waiting for me to be shamed".

Our Publication is based on previous counts of false claims concerning the arrest of the Billionaire estate guru and because no official statement has been released by agencies tagged with having hushpuppi in custody.

Kindly Share this Post using the Share Tab below and follow all our Social Media Handles to Keep up with Our Daily News Update.

Click to Follow us on Facebook

Click to follow us on Instagram

Click to follow us on Twitter

Torixus has Loads of hours of work behind it. To keep creating new content, we kindly appreciate any donation you can give to help the Torixus project stay alive. We have many

plans and enthusiasm to keep expanding and making Torixus a better site, but we really

need your help for this. Thank you very much in advance.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3f53HPK

[loribos]

New Post has been published on Toronto Events, Activities and Entertainment

New Post has been published on http://www.torontonicity.com/2018/02/18/techto-meetup/

What Happens at a #TechTO Meetup?

Once a month, and sometimes even more frequently, hundreds of well connected Toronto area tech workers gather in one spot to listen and learn the latest trends and social tactics presented in recent business case studies at TechTO. This meetup has become a much anticipated monthly occasion and a celebration of good ideas and technological innovations. as the leaders of Canada’s largest companies discuss how they use the internet.

Networking at TechTO on Feb. 12, 2018

TechToronto, or #TechTO, is the biggest monthly technology meetup in the city. But it didn’t start that way: this is the little webmaster convention that grew. If you read the About Us section on the TechToronto.org website, Jason Goldlist describes how the first meetings happened in pubs and restaurants. Outgrowing these smaller venues, the meetup group moved about for many years as it grew and grew until it couldn’t possibly get any larger, and now it’s a monster.

TechToronto went mainstream long ago and is now hosted in the most capacious conference rooms of the tallest bank towers in the city. The 2018 conference schedule features rock star executives from A-list companies and super generous giveaways from the biggest corporations on planet Earth. Sponsors include Facebook, Microsoft, and Rogers is in there too of course, and even General Motors. The City of Toronto itself, Canada’s largest urban center and the fourth largest metropolis in all of North America, is also among the proud sponsors.

Entrepreneurs

Below is Tricia Adler with her two-slice pizza dinner. This enterprising #TechTO attendee retails magic charms online at Amulights.com and is a well known female Canadian webpreneur. She comes to this convention every month to network and connect with people who can grow her business.

Tricia Adler of Amulights.com is a Canadian webpreneur.

The Women in Tech Meetup was present in the foyer. Check Eventbrite for Women in Tech events and to get details on their many activities throughout the city. By the way, men are welcome to join and participate.

So what actually happens at TechTO?

As per the mandate on their website, the monthly TechToronto meetup is designed for Toronto technologists to “learn something new and meet someone new.” The entire evening is organized around an idea that goes back to its root origins; five speakers get five minutes each. Each presentation is made by a Toronto technology company, and they use their time on stage to share a lesson learned, a counter-intuitive finding, or to demonstrate and sometimes even “debut a disruptive new technology.”

Yes, the five show & tell sequences last longer than five minutes each; with questions answered they can stretch to fifteen and sometimes twenty minutes per speaker. And remember, there’s forty minutes of networking over beer and pizza beforehand; put it all together and you’ve got a proven model for tech convention success.

A vendor promotes his business outside of the #TechTO conference room.

A dozen or more vendors line the corners and ends of the lobby area outside the main conference room; every business in a booth presenting out here was busy competing for attention and was therefore giving away something. These baubles ranged from paper wrapped chocolates, free mobile apps, colourful (branded) stickers for laptops and rubber squeeze toys.

Hover Domain Registry at #TechTO Meetup in Toronto

Hover domain registry was there giving away dress socks again – they did that at HackerNest as reported on eMagTO, but this conference is much larger, and so many more socks would be required. Over four hundred people attended TechTO on this Monday night, Feb 12, 2018 – such is the appetite for learning and networking in this sector.

There is one more magic ingredient that makes this mix extra special; Jason Goldlist is among the most charismatic and unique MCs in the city. Iconic on his hover board, he marshals the masses into the theatre with his megaphone.

Chris. host of #TechTO Meetup in Toronto

And then there’s another extra special feature that must have evolved into the activities menu and stayed there because its so popular; after introductions and before the first speaker comes on stage there’s a fifteen-minute open mic session where audience members can regal the masses with their own promotional messaging for ten seconds each. Jason stands, or hovers, beside the speaker with his eyes on a stopwatch, and he will, and often does, take the microphone right out of the speaker’s hand, mid-sentence, at the eleven second mark!

This portion of the itinerary always yields an amazing array of orally-delivered classified-ads style messaging. Someone in the audience will stand and say, ‘We’re looking for developers here’, and someone else will say, ‘I’m an out of work techie please hire me’; it’s a highly entertaining segment that has survived the scheduling because it is so popular, helpful and authentic.

Raymi Lauren at #TechTO Meetup in Toronto

Raymi Lauren strategically positioned herself at the back of the room to lay in waiting, ready to pounce as Jason passed during the open mic session; Toronto web development company Full Stack Resources sends Raymi Toronto to these conventions to make friends and influence people. Carrying brochures and questionnaires from Full Stack Resources, Raymi represents an entirely new business model that peddles custom software solutions over hard-to-find IT staff.

Raymi Lauren speaks to the audience at #TechTO Meetup in Toronto.

When Raymi got the mic, she shouted out solicitations to business owners looking to develop online resources, and also to unemployed programmers and coders looking for work. This duality ensured the message was well received and judging by the similar calls that came afterwards, it may have inspired some other software engineers to broadcast their own technical offerings.

Raymi Lauren speaks at #TechTO Meetup in Toronto.

After the pass-the-conch ceremony concluded, the audience was then treated to some words from the sponsors, and among the highlights here was Michael Dingle from PWC – Price Waterhouse Cooper who showed statistics illustrating how much money was pouring into the tech sector, and particularly to new startups where investors believe they can get more ground level opportunities. Michael is a Partner in the Deals practice of PwC Canada and leads the firm’s Deals efforts in the Technology Sector on a national basis. Run by #CDNTech leaders @dulny, @DingleMichael, #MoneyTree Q2 2017 is available now.

Then the speeches started proper, and first up was Mark Opauszky, Co-founder & CEO of LookBookHQ. His company builds software that accelerates B2B purchase decisions by helping marketing and sales educate prospects and customers faster and more efficiently. They have a great reputation among marketing technology vendors, and LookBookHQ prides itself on being proactive about optimizing performance on behalf of their clients. Mark himself and the Lookbook HQ company as a whole has lots of experience to share with hundreds of deployments under their belt now; at this point they can speak confidently about every nuance and use-case for their software.

Next was Dr. Joshua Landy, Co-founder of Figure1. This firm has made medical sharing technology that allows physicians and institutions to effortlessly share medical cases and get second opinions and additional insights on treatments. Their technology saves lives.  Joshua Landy’s discourse was inspirational; more than once he referenced the value of (and the need for) a Hippocratic oath for technology workers.

Don Mal, the Founder and CEO of Vena was the third speaker and he also explored ethics and workplace ‘best practices’. Vena is enterprise class software for budgeting, planning and forecasting with powerful reporting and analytics display tools.

And finally Jordan Wimmer, CEO and Co-Founder of Thrive Savings took the stage around nine thirty pm. This company earned some gasps when it became clear what exactly they do; Thrive Savings is an automated savings program that attempts to customize itself to each user’s lifestyle, income, and spending habits. The software helps people save money by extracting it when they are least likely to notice or care.  But what piqued the audience is how they ask Canadians if they can link to their bank savings and chequing accounts! And more amazingly, how and why so many people are now saying ‘yes’.

This from their website: “Thrive supports all major banks and credit unions across Canada. We’ll analyze your spending and income patterns and use this data to determine how much to save for you. Thrive is secure. We protect your data with bank-grade 256-bit encryption.”

In summary you could say that the #MeToo movement has definitely impacted these bright lights big city technology companies and female equality but also worker empowerment in general was a talking point in all presentations.

Follow Tech Toronto @TechTorontoOrg , ‏a pillar in the Toronto technology community. Search #Entrepreneurs, #Startups or the hashtag #TechTO in any social medium to get real time updates on this entertaining high-tech knowledge network.

[djgblogger-blog]

Merkel's challenge: Governing Germany in an age of rising nationalism

http://bit.ly/2x06YOU

AP

For observers concerned about a resurgence of the far right, the AfD’s showing in Germany’s election raised alarm.

The anti-European Union, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim Alternative für Deutschland will join the Parliament, or Bundestag, as the country’s third-largest party, with nearly 13 percent of the vote. Only Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union – which forms a parliamentary bloc with its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union – and the Social Democratic Party did better. However, both the CDU/CSU and SDP lost significant voter share.

It’s hard not to hear echoes of Nazism in the AfD. Party leaders have described mainstream German politicians as “puppets of the victorious powers” in World War II and recommended that a Turkish-German Cabinet minister be “disposed of” in Turkey. They have requested a parliamentary inquiry into state funding for sterilizing unaccompanied minor refugees and derided Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial as “monument of shame.”

To a historian of 20th-century Germany like me, the appeal of such provocations is shocking – partly because of the achievement of earlier German generations. Despite the temptation to paper over their ugly history, Germans have created a positive national identity based on a difficult reckoning with their own past. Germany now faces the dual challenges of an open attack on this consensus and a weakened party system which itself has uncomfortable historical echoes.

Europe’s radical right – and Germany’s

If anything, postwar Germany is a latecomer to radical right politics. The National Democratic Party, founded in 1964 and often described as a neo-Nazi organization, never managed to gain seats in the Bundestag.

By contrast, the French National Front and the Austrian Freedom Party both had their breakthroughs in the 1980s. The Netherlands’ Pim Fortuyn founded his xenophobic party in 2002; today, Geert Wilders carries the far-right torch there. Right-wing populist Viktor Orbán became prime minister of Hungary in 1998.

The recent elections still show less support for radical-right candidates in Germany than in recent multi-party elections in France (21.5 percent in April 2017) and Austria (35 percent in April 2016).

So, who voted for the AfD and why?

A big gender gap

Sixty-three percent of AfD voters were men, a far higher gender disparity than any other party’s following. Sexual assaults by asylum-seekers were presented as proof that Germans had reason to fear open borders. But if women feared immigrant criminality, they didn’t express it by voting for the AfD. Indeed, the CDU/CSU – the very parties whose policies were blamed for the rash of assaults – enjoyed the largest gender gap in the other direction. Thirty-five percent of women but only 30 percent of men voted for the CDU/CSU.

The gender gap suggests a pattern familiar to societies that have sexually demonized minorities: a claim by men of privileged racial status that white women’s safety depends on the repression of minorities and a gender system in which women rely on men’s protection. White women, however, are more ambivalent than men about that patriarchal order. More broadly, German women have historically been less attracted than men to extremist parties on both sides of the spectrum.

East vs. West

The imbalance between the poorer East and the wealthier West was as striking as the gender imbalance.

East Germans voted AfD at a rate of 20.5 percent, while only 10.7 percent of West Germans did. It’s tempting to conclude that economically disadvantaged Germans felt betrayed by mainstream politics and thus grasped for radical solutions. But the detailed data are more ambiguous. The AfD did well in districts with both low and high unemployment. A study published the day before the election revealed that 39 percent of AfD sympathizers earned above-average incomes; 29 percent were of middle income. According to post-election data, the AfD captured 22 and 21 percent, respectively, of unemployed and working-class votes – yet 73 percent of AfD voters described their personal financial situation as “good.” Still, they felt disadvantaged compared to others in higher numbers than the electorate as a whole.

Anxiety over potential economic hardship may have been as important as actual hardship in forming AfD voters. This would be a striking echo of the findings of sociologist Theodor Abel, who in the mid-1930s examined Nazis who had joined the party before 1933. Some had suffered job loss and economic decline, but far from all. Many had steady employment or small businesses but lived in fear of downward mobility.

By their own account, AfD supporters voted in response to deep cultural anxieties. More than 90 percent claimed to be “very concerned” that German culture was being lost, that Islam had too much influence in Germany and their society was losing cohesion. The general electorate was much less concerned about these issues.

Ironically, with few exceptions, the regions with the most AfD voters were those with the fewest Muslims, immigrants and asylum seekers.

The AfD’s success may, in fact, represent more of a protest vote than a loyal following - albeit a protest vote by Germans willing to approve a xenophobic party in order to register their discontent. Only 31 percent of AfD voters reported voting out of conviction; 60 percent reported disappointment with other parties as their motivation.

It may not be long before AfD, too, proves a disappointment. The day after the election, AfD Chairwoman Frauke Petry declared that she would not join the Bundestag as a member of the party’s bloc but rather as an independent.

Petry’s move exposed rifts that raise doubts about the party’s ability to function effectively in the Bundestag. On one side are radical rightists who prefer to remain parliamentary outcasts rather than temper their rhetoric. On the other side are “conservatives” like Petry, who admittedly recommended shooting refugees at the border in early 2016 – but whose more recent objections to extremist rhetoric makes her moderate by AfD standards.

A party system in disarray

In the meantime, Merkel must form a coalition in an environment that is radically changed – and not just because of the AfD.

In 1949, the founders of the Federal Republic determined that one of the Weimar Republic’s fatal flaws was its system of precise proportional representation. That system had brought as many as 15 parties to parliament at one time, making forming coalitions difficult and giving voters little incentive to reject parties with no serious proposals for governance.

The Federal Republic requires 5 percent for representation in Parliament, a stricture that resulted in a concentration of the vote into three to four parties for decades. This was enough to give voters more of a choice than the United States’ two-party system, but a choice among parties that could all be considered as members of a governing coalition.

The new Bundestag will have six parties, and fully 21.8 percent of seats will be occupied by the AfD and the Left Party (the heir to the East German Communist tradition), which are excluded from any possible coalitions. The Social Democratic Party promptly declared itself in opposition. Doing so saves them from association with a weakened Merkel and Christian Democratic Union. It also prevents the AfD from becoming the main opposition party, which comes with procedural privileges.

The only remaining possibility for a majority coalition then is Merkel’s CDU/CSU, the libertarian Free Democratic Party and the Greens. To call this a challenging prospect is an understatement. The Free Democratic Party and Greens differ profoundly on refugees, the environment, and the EU. The CSU, long frustrated with the CDU’s leftward tilt under Merkel, is inclined to rebuild its right flank after losses to the AfD in Bavaria. This is hardly a recipe for reconciling with the progressive Greens.

The Federal Republic has so far been spared government by a minority coalition. Traumatic memories of this unstable form in the Weimar Republic make the prospect unnerving to Germans. Merkel is a skilled negotiator, and there’s a good chance that German “Vernunft” – sensibleness – will prevent the negotiating partners from venturing into such risky territory. And Germans appalled at the AfD’s gains have adopted the hashtag #87percent as a reminder that the vast majority of the electorate remain committed to parliamentary democracy.

Yet Germans’ postwar rejection of the radical right was not only a matter of pride. It also expressed a nervous self-reassurance that they had safely cordoned off their most frightening temptations. The electoral showing of the AfD, and the prospect of four years of their presence in the Bundestag, feels like the crossing of a threshold. Germany is not headed off a cliff, but something has been lost.

Elizabeth Heineman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

[communistcanuck]

"#StopTheHate. #DumpTrump. #BeUngovernable. #StopTrump and #NotMyPresident and most of the meme stashes and joke repositories do not scare the Pentagon because they offer no door for people to recognize, let alone question the system, not the personalities it throws up. They DO allow the lazy and credulous among us to imagine as Democrats tell us, that “character is destiny,” and Democratic operatives to reinforce that message.

But if a Democrat were installed in the White House till 2020 the black unemployment rate would be about the same as it’s been the last half century, about double the white rate. If a Democrat were in the White House hundreds of thousands with full time jobs would still be homeless and millions more an arbitrary paycheck from it. If a Democrat were in the White House we’d still have 2 million plus people in prisons and jails, mostly black and brown, and gentrification of inner cities and privatization of public education and public resources would continue apace. Big Pharma and Big Insurance, military contractors and corporate media monopolies and parasitic hedge funders would get still fatter off privatized nature, racketeering and theft of the commons.

#StopTheHate. #DumpTrump. #BeUngovernable. #StopTrump and #NotMyPresident don’t scare the Democrat billionaires who who backed Clinton or the Republican ones behind Trump. None of them offer ordinary people a handle to recognize the capitalist system as the problem rather than the despicable character of Donald Trump.

If somebody other than Trump were being sworn in the banksters who targeted millions of low income families with predatory loans and were rewarded with bailouts while the homeowners got millions of evictions – thieves would still be too big to fail or jail. Median black family wealth, as consequence of the housing meltdown fell from a tenth to a twentieth the median for white families. Thousands of water shutoffs per week would continue in Detroit, Baltimore and other places. #StopTrump and marches with big puppets don’t encourage us to remember any of that.

Nearly 95% of all the jobs created in the Obama era were part time and/or without benefits. Does anybody believe Hillary “America is already great!” Clinton has any problem with that? Employers steal more of workers wages than the total of all armed robberies, and annually force millions of workers to declare themselves “independent contractors” ineligible for unemployment and other benefits, and not counted among the unemployed when their jobs end or they are fired. That’s one of the reasons the White House can claim a phony 4.5% unemployment rate when only 66% of the eligible workforce is employed and the real rate may be in the 20-25% range.

#StopTheHate. #DumpTrump. #BeUngovernable. #StopTrump and #NotMyPresident don’t invite us to dive into any of the crimes committed by Democrats, only into the character of Trump. Even #SaveOurHealthCare allows Democrats to pretend that the Affordable Care Act was NOT a blanket full of holes that offered skimpy expensive insurance NOT health care to only half the uninsured and fat subsidies to Big Insurance and Big Pharma. It doesn’t lead us to fight for #SinglePayer which Obamacare was actually engineered to prevent.

Ridicule Is Not Enough.

If we aim to build a movement that cannot be co-opted by Democrats again and again, our hashtags, memes and messages have to educate our people, not just eviscerate Trump. Sure denouncing and hitting the streets to make fun of Big Cheeto is just that. It’s fun, and maybe theraputic too. But as good as they make us feel, storms of ridicule failed to drive Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush from office, and our scorn of Reagan didn’t prevent two presidents Bush or Clinton either. Our mocking of “W” didn’t hold Obama accountable either."

[torixus]

How Hushpuppi will shock Nigerians in no Distant Time

False news stories, often of a sensational nature, created to be widely shared or distributed for the purpose of generating revenue, or discrediting a public figure.  The figure has landed to the court of Raymond Ilolodely popularly known as Hushpuppi.

On Tuesday, the news of a popular Nigerian  Instagram Celebrity and estate Guru, Hushpuppi been arrested by the security agency in Dubai Surfaced online over alleged Freud.

The report have it that the Billionaire man was also arrested together with other Nigerian men in scamming ring Gang and that they are currently under the Police watch.

Twitter have the hashtage, #hushpuppi filled with over 70,000 tweets since the news broke out and thousands of Nigerians seem to be happy with the unconfirmed incident as many say they've long suspected hushpuppi to be a scammer. since no one knows his main source of income apart from the Real estate management which seems to be yielding nothing for him.

Torixus reported last week that he changed his 2020 Rolls Royce wheel for a whipping sum of 6 Million naira and the trend is still having it that he is a scammer that's why he can afford such amount for just a wheel.

Based on several reports issued by many online media especially local media, no authentic statement has confirmed the arrest of hushpuppi not even the FBI who were said to be on top of the matter.

Nigerian Journalist and mother, Dr. Kemi Olunloyo made a publication saying that he is linked to a Freud with some other Nigerians through over Covid-19 palliative. She said they scammed 35 Million Dollars meant for the purchase of a ventilator for an undisclosed country.

#Kemitalksmoney HushPuppi was arrested yesterday in Dubai at his apartment Pallazo Versace along with his entire team. I will introduce them to you one by one. The case belongs to @SecretService @fbi @INTERPOL_HQ and it involves $35M wire fraud meant for #Covid19 test kits pic.twitter.com/5saC7dR7OX

— Dr. Kemi Olunloyo (@KemiOlunloyo) June 10, 2020

Some Videos that Surfaced online showing a clip of American reporters saying that some group of Freud ring in Nigeria has scammed over 100 Million Dollar relief funds released by the United States Government to unemployed citizens during the hard time of Covid-19. Torixus made a research and confirmed that the Incident report bottomed on the internet last 14 Days and as of that time, Hushpuppi is living fine as we saw his latest post on Instagram last four days ago.

The whole controversial claim is uncertain as no propel prove has Surfaced online and we tag the whole claim as, 'Gossip'. It will interest you to know that this is not the first time a false report of the alleged arrest of hushpuppi has Surfaced online.

He always proves those news wrong with a pen of note like, "May success and prosperity not be a

"Once upon a time” story in your life.... Thank you

lord for the many blessings in my life continue

to shame those waiting for me to be shamed".

Our Publication is based on previous counts of false claims concerning the arrest of the Billionaire estate guru and because no official statement has been released by agencies tagged with having hushpuppi in custody.

Kindly Share this Post using the Share Tab below and follow all our Social Media Handles to Keep up with Our Daily News Update.

Click to Follow us on Facebook

Click to follow us on Instagram

Click to follow us on Twitter

Torixus has Loads of hours of work behind it. To keep creating new content, we kindly appreciate any donation you can give to help the Torixus project stay alive. We have many

plans and enthusiasm to keep expanding and making Torixus a better site, but we really

need your help for this. Thank you very much in advance.

via Blogger https://ift.tt/3f53HPK