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ausetkmt · 2 years ago

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The Atlantic: The GIF Is on Its Deathbed

About 40 percent of my first full-time job was dedicated to making GIFs—a skill I had professed to have during the interview process, and that turned out to be much harder than I thought. It took trial and error to figure out how to make sure the colors weren’t too weird, the frame rate too fast, the file too big.

This was 2015, and GIFs had to be smaller than 1 megabyte before you could upload them to most social platforms. Fiddling with them was worthwhile, because GIFs were very important. You had to have them! They were the visual style that the audience craved. Not only did I make dozens a day for the website I worked for, but I often made extras for co-workers who requested them for their personal use. (I was eager to please!)

GIFs—particularly “reaction GIFs,” such as Michael Jackson chomping on popcorn and Mariah Carey muttering “I don’t know her”—were a lingua franca of the internet and significant enough culturally that in 2014, the Museum of the Moving Image in New York even put on an exhibit of reaction GIFs (titled “Moving Image as Gesture”). “This is the file format of the internet generation,” Tumblr’s then-head of creative strategy, David Hayes, told Mashable in 2016, while more than 23 million GIF-based posts were being uploaded to the site he worked for each day. As the GIF’s star rose, GIF-searching features were added to Facebook, Twitter, and iMessage, making it even easier to find a GIF to express whatever emotion you wanted to convey without words.

And that was the turning point. These search features surfaced the same GIFs over and over, and the popular reaction GIFs got worn into the ground. They started to look dated, corny, and cheap. “GIFs Are for Boomers Now, Sorry,” Vice’s Amelia Tait argued in January. As older adults became familiar with GIFs through the new, accessible libraries attached to essentially every app, GIFs became “embarrassing.” (Tait specifically cites the GIF of Leonardo DiCaprio raising a toast in 2013’s The Great Gatsby, and I agree—it is viscerally humiliating to be reminded of that movie.) The future is dark for GIFs, Tait suggested: “Will they soon disappear forever, like Homer Simpson backing up into a hedge?”

Much, too, has been made of Meta’s acquisition of the GIF search engine Giphy, which regulators in the U.K. have attempted to block. Giphy pushed back by roasting themselves. “GIPHY has no proven revenue stream (of any significance),” the company’s lawyers wrote in a filing with the Competition and Markets Authority. No company other than Meta is interested in buying it—they know because they specifically asked Adobe, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Snap, and Twitter, and they all said no. “Further, there are indications of an overall decline in GIF use,” the filing continues. Without providing any specific figures, they highlight a “drop in total GIF uploads,” a growing disdain for GIFs among social-media users, and “younger users in particular describing GIFs as ‘for boomers’ and ‘cringe.’”

What I would like to suggest is that the situation is even worse than it appears. Not only are reaction GIFs “cringe” to some people, but the entire GIF medium is under serious existential threat.

GIFs are old and arguably outdated. They’ve been around since the days of CompuServe’s bulletin-board system, and they first thrived during the garish heyday of GeoCities, a moment in history that is preserved by the Internet Archive on a page called, appropriately, GifCities.

Read: The battle for the soul of the web

GIFs—as a file format, not as a category of thing you could use to express an opinion without formulating one—were special. “This was an art form that was native to the internet,” Matt Semke, a GIF artist who works under the name Cats Will Eat You, told me. “Videos existed in other places; paintings, photos existed in other places. GIFs just didn’t exist anywhere until the internet.” And they were beloved because of the seamless animated loop, which was not possible with any other file format. Because of their unwieldiness and antiquation, today, many GIFs are converted to MP4 video files, which look good and make life easier but do not loop perfectly. There is always a tiny hiccup when the video has to restart, making them inferior.

For people like Semke, 2007 was the year to be alive. Tumblr debuted and quickly became the home of digital art and fandom, which meant it became the home of GIFs. Originally, users were stuck with the traditional 1-megabyte limit, with a low resolution of 500-by-500 pixels. This may sound annoying, but actually, it was great. Semke recalls that it was “a cool challenge for artists to try to crunch their art down into a file that was so restrictive—the challenge in itself was part of the art.”

But even with the restrictions, optimizing so many animated images became expensive for Tumblr. It needed a way to crunch them down. So the company approached Eddie Kohler, a Harvard computer scientist, in 2013 to help with its GIF-resizing process. This resulted in a platform that was uniquely well-suited to serving its millions of GIF-hungry users an endless feed of GIFs, which is precisely what it has continued doing to the present day.

Tumblr is now a rarity for displaying GIFs at all. Most popular sites—including Twitter and Imgur—convert GIF uploads and serve the animations as MP4 videos. As Kohler explained to me, video compression has improved so much over the years that many video files are much smaller than GIF image files. He pulled a GIF from a movie and a graphic-art GIF to show me the difference. The GIF from the movie was nearly 4.5 megabytes, and the MP4 translation of it was about 20 times smaller, at less than .23 megabytes. “MP4 is the right choice for this kind of image,” he said. “Much smaller, very similar visual effect.”

But not everyone lives their life in pursuit of expediency. For some, GIFs are an art form; therefore, detail matters, and pain is expected. Kohler noted that an image tailored to this format might demand “pixel perfection for its effect,” which makes compression a trickier business. We looked at an example of graphic art where the GIF version was about 5.4 megabytes and the MP4 was about 4.8 megabytes. “MP4 is blurring some of the pixel perfection,” he pointed out, “and MP4 isn’t even that much smaller.” Even so, artists must follow their audience, and much of the digital-art scene has moved from Tumblr to Instagram for greater visibility. Instagram allows only video uploads, and a GIF artist’s page there will appear as a grid with “Play” buttons all over it. A Tumblr archive of GIFs is a living thing, playing over and over. “That’s probably why I’m still on Tumblr,” Cat Frazier, the artist behind Animated Text, told me. Although she has more than 100,000 followers on Instagram, it’s not the same: “If I could just upload GIFs everywhere and not reformat them, I would.”

Read: How the snowflakes won

Tragically, even Tumblr’s commitment to the GIF is now in question. In 2015, it appeared to be unwavering: “The format is woefully outdated, and this begets massive, low quality animated images,” a post on Tumblr’s engineering blog read. “However, as the true ‘home of the gif,’ Tumblr isn’t ever giving up on your gif files!” This summer, though, even Tumblr started “experimenting with serving GIFs as MP4 videos” to a “small subset” of users, with the aim of making GIFs load faster. (Company blog posts discussing the change did advise artists that they could opt out of this conversion by adding a single transparent pixel to the first frame of their GIFs, breaking the conversion and thwarting the process.)

So could it really be the end for the ol’ GIF? Tumblr sees nowhere near the number of posts of any kind that it did six years ago, and not to be crass, but there are constantly rumors that it is itself at death’s door. GIFs are “cringe” in part because they are too easy to make and find—they have been totally devalued by the public. And they are being replaced—Frazier noted that people communicate with other kinds of moving images now, such as TikTok clips with text over them and super-short Twitter videos that add humor by incorporating sound.

But I think there will always be, at least, a handful of masochists who want to struggle to make a GIF and struggle again to post it somewhere—all because they are devoted to the perfect animated loop, and because they think there is something spiritually important about contorting themselves to create it. “[Igor] Stravinsky has a quote about constraints,” Kohler told me. Then he read the whole thing aloud: “The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.”

#The GIF Is on Its Deathbed #Gif #Graphic Interchange Format #graphics #internet history

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ericvick · 4 years ago

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Employers rethink offices, and function matters most

The Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) headquarters stands in Kent, Washington, U.S., on Wednesday, March 4, 2020.

Chona Kasinger | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Last August, REI listed its newly built corporate headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, for sale without ever even moving into the building.

It marked a stunning reversal. In 2016, when REI announced plans for the campus, it said it would create a gathering place to foster creativity and bring together thousands of employees. But with many of its employees working remotely because of the pandemic, the outdoor recreation retailer decided to put the 8-acre complex on the market. It quickly pivoted its plans for office space to incorporate smaller, satellite locations throughout the Seattle suburbs.

The Bellevue building was sold to Facebook by September. And in February, REI announced its first satellite office in Issaquah, Washington — a nearly 70,000-square-foot building that can hold up to 400 people and is surrounded by hiking trails, lakes and parks. The company is also testing a model that allows employees to work from home for up to five days each week.

“We want to create an environment that’s very flexible for our employees,” said Chris Putur, REI’s executive vice president of technology and operations. “We were amazed in 2020 at how incredibly agile and innovative and productive the team could be.”

The Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI) flagship store stands in Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Thursday, May 14, 2020.

Chona Kasinger | Bloomberg | Getty Images

REI’s blueprint for its future workplace is just one story in a bigger shakeout happening in the commercial office market.

One year after many companies sent office workers home to help prevent the spread of Covid-19, corporate leaders are still grappling with how to safely reopen work spaces. They face even bigger questions about how much office space they really need and what incentives they might require to lure people back. Many have learned over the past 12 months that their employees can work from just about anywhere. So that means the office must serve a much more compelling purpose: A hub for collaboration that can’t be accomplished virtually and a place to retain and train an incoming workforce.

“If you look back, maybe a decade or two decades ago, the workplace was a means to an end,” said Sanjay Rishi, CEO of the real estate services firm JLL’s corporate solutions business in the Americas. “Now, workplaces are becoming as much an end in themselves, because … everybody is aspiring to get something more out of the workplace.”

While a number of companies are using the health crisis as an opportunity to get out of leases, some are bucking the trend. Tech companies in particular have been gobbling up office space. That’s despite many of them being first to embrace the remote-work lifestyle. They’re taking advantage of suppressed rents and more flexible lease terms. Many of these businesses also view the office as a perk to lure top talent in the coming years.

According to a report by CBRE, tech companies were the leaders in signing and renewing office leases last year, accounting for 24% of leasing activity by square footage. Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Google all added office space in New York City in 2020, mostly during the pandemic.

“There will be organizations that will look at their [office] portfolio and look at rationalizing some level of that,” JLL’s Rishi said. “But we see this as a trend of dynamically allocating space, and then better managing that space.”

A slow and staggered return

Some employees are more eager to return than others, craving moments like afternoon water-cooler talk or post-work happy hours. Others have adjusted to their work-from-home setups and don’t miss the anxiety-ridden office commutes.

Most executives agree there are advantages to both. As Americans return to work at a staggered pace, plans may favor a hybrid model.

“Most organizations recognize that there is a shift in the way work is going to get done,” said Julie Whelan, head of occupier research for the commercial real estate firm CBRE’s Americas division. “They have recognized it, and no matter how traditional they are about their views, they understand that there is going to be a level of flexibility that they now have to contend with, in terms of office planning.”

For now, though, Whelan noted that most executives seem to be holding off on announcing sweeping plans and detailed timelines to bring people back. There are a few outliers, however, such as Tiffany’s new parent LVMH, which in February started bringing the jeweler’s workers in the U.S. back to the office for two days per week.

In January, CBRE polled 40 of its office clients, which collectively span 245 million square feet of office space globally and found 9% of businesses had already, slowly started bringing people back to work — using socially distanced floor plans, temperature checks, reservation systems and other precautionary measures.

Twelve percent planned to do so during the second quarter, and 21% during the third quarter. Forty percent of respondents still had no plans to return to the office, as of January, CBRE said.

Many business leaders are still monitoring the rollout of Covid vaccinations. President Joe Biden said earlier this month that the United States is “on track” to have enough vaccines for every adult by the end of May. They also are taking into account lifestyle changes that might have transpired over the past 12 months — children still learning from home, new pets, more time spent outdoors, and people relocating from populous urban areas to the suburbs, where there’s less access to public transportation.

“We’re looking at how we can leverage technology, so that those who are physically not present can have the same immersive experience as those who are present [in the office],” REI’s Putur said. “We really want to find a way. And we’re going to try different methods, and I’m sure it’s going to evolve.”

Currently, about 25% of employees across the country are going into offices, according to Kastle Systems, an office security firm that pulls data from more than 3,500 buildings in the U.S.

Employees wear protective masks at a JLL office in Menlo Park, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Of course, that number has ebbed and flowed with the state of the pandemic. Office visits cratered last March and into April, Kastle found, as the health crisis took hold all over the country. They slowly inched up from then, but took another tumble around Thanksgiving, as infections surged over the winter holidays. This year, visits have since been ticking back up — particularly so in Texas, which is likely due to the eased pandemic-related restrictions in the state and lesser reliance on public transportation, Kastle said.

When less is more

As the shakeout progresses, decisions to permanently trim space will stem from many different motivations. Some companies may need to cut costs, or will have fewer corporate workers. Others are pledging to merge teams from different buildings to encourage cross-collaboration.

The upscale clothing retailer Ralph Lauren announced in February it will be cutting as much as 30% of its corporate real estate in North America, to “embrace new ways of working.” Similarly, CVS Health said it will slash its office space by 30%, as part of a cost-saving initiative.

Nordstrom said it chose not to extend a lease at one of its office towers in downtown Seattle, taking into account the personal preferences of its workforce and the state of its business.

“While we will not be a fully remote headquarters, it’s clear remote work can and should continue to play a part in how we operate,” the Seattle-based department store chain said.

Old Navy is also vacating the apparel brand’s headquarters in the San Francisco area to move in with its parent, Gap Inc., just a few neighborhoods over. The company said the move should allow it to foster a stronger culture of collaboration, by mixing employees across its clothing brands.

Office owners coax tenants back

Office owners, eager to get people back to their desks, mostly expect a wave of businesses to return by late summer. Brokers say they have conducted more tours of office buildings since the new year started, especially in key markets such as Manhattan.

Last year, transaction activity largely dried up. JLL tracked 125.6 million square feet of newly leased office space last year in the U.S., a 47.3% decline from 2019. Total vacancy was at 17.1% by year-end.

Boston Properties Chief Executive Owen Thomas said he expects there will be a “much more intense return” to the office by the start of summer and an even bigger return by Labor Day. Boston Properties is one of the largest owners of so-called Class-A office space in the country.

Thomas said not many of the real estate investment trust’s tenants have made major overhauls to their spaces. Instead, he said he’s seeing more “cheaper and more interim measures,” such as adding plexiglass barriers and spreading desks apart, buying contact-free hand sanitizer machines and even sensors that allow for doors to open and shut automatically.

Senior human resources and financial executives say work will be hybrid, with both work from home and some return to offices part of a new normal, and figuring out how to relieve employee stress and isolation are top concerns.

Clara Margais | picture alliance via Getty Images

“There will be more spacing requirements, particularly for employees that have been pressed closer and closer together,” Thomas said. “I don’t think that’s going to work going forward. Even if the virus has been largely eradicated.”

“Employers are also going to have much more collaboration space, for people to eat and collaborate, because I think there’s going to be a lot more of that that goes on in the office,” he added.

Related Companies, a New York-based real estate developer of office, retail and residential spaces, is eyeing unique perks to entice tenants. It’s launching an outdoor workspace program for its four office towers at Hudson Yards, where tenants can book spaces outdoors with Wi-Fi for meetings and calls. Related has also partnered with Mount Sinai Health System to provide employees with weekly on-site Covid testing. It also debuted an on-site child-care program.

Making tough choices

Some workers just want more certainty.

Last March, Melissa, a 32-year-old employee for a retailer’s e-commerce arm, was living in a studio apartment in the New York area with her then fiance, also 32, when both of their offices closed their doors. As stressful as squeezing into a 600-square-foot space with her partner was, the couple successfully worked from home together until June, said Melissa, who asked to keep her last name and place of work private.

She and her now-husband opted not to renew their studio lease and landed a one-bedroom in Brooklyn over the summer, hoping for a swift return to work in the fall. But that still hasn’t happened, and the one-bedroom has quickly grown to be too small, too, Melissa said.

“Talks of even going back to the office — who knows?” she said, adding that she’s heard little from her employer on the issue.

“What do we do now? Our lease is up again in June. Should we stay? Or should we just take the plunge and move to the suburbs?” she said. “If they don’t get us back in the office soon, I’m going to have to make life decisions.”

#Employers #function #Matters #offices #rethink

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twisttech · 4 years ago

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Top 12 Apps to Earn Money from Mobile Phone in 2021

In fact, when we talk about money making apps, people seem to flock to our site. The ability to Earn More Income with your iPhone or Android has something that really excites people. Because people seem so excited about small quick earnings, we actually started writing an entire section in our monthly newsletter about what we call "QCI" which stands for "Quick Cash Infusions". That section of our newsletter became one of our most popular features that really got people excited.

Most people are confused and think that easy money is not the same as work. But making money, online or offline, takes dedication.

It's all about making money from your Android mob. There are hundreds of such apps, with this being the top 12. Install them and get paid while using your mobile device.

You are a student, an employee or a stay-at-home mom, it doesn't matter, earning your usual salary or pocket money is always a good idea. That's why I made a list of the top 9 apps to make real money in India.

Making extra money just got easier with these great apps. You only need a smartphone. Almost everyone has a phone today. Then you can start making money with apps.

Now that we are no longer printing our newsletter, we thought we would bring our QCIs to the blog and share these ideas with the world. In today's post, we rounded up 12 apps that can help you make money with simple mobile apps .

The top 200 apps generate on average $82,500 daily, while the top 800 apps generate around $3,500. Gaming apps also make around $22,250, while entertainment apps make $3,090 daily, so there is no way to firmly say how much an average app makes.

The mobile market has grown substantially over the years and industry experts predict continued growth. In 2018, mobile traffic accounted for 52.2% of total website traffic in the United States, and 3.6 hours that adults spend consuming digital media occurred on smartphones, with desktops, laptops, and other connected devices struggling to keep up.

With such impressive numbers, it’s no wonder that Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurs alike are trying to get a piece of this modern-day gold rush.

Looking for some extra income or just a change in your work routine? You can do that with some special applications.

Today, the traditional 9-5 work schedule can die out with the emergence of a flexible app workforce. Businesses and employees are finding ways to use technology to overcome challenges and achieve higher profits. Companies use these flexible workers to man their business without the burden of a large monthly overhead. Employees use these apps to generate money to close a hole in their budgets, finance a vacation, or raise investment funds.

Many of these income-generating apps are very user-friendly and can be perfectly adapted to a person's daily life without much effort. So why not have a little extra chat while you run errands or travel home? For some people, this new economy means that some people no longer need 'real jobs' as they can just participate in a handful of jobs to make ends meet.

Whether you are interested in working jobs instead of a traditional job or simply to supplement your income, this article will help you learn about some current opportunities out there.

There are money making apps that suit all types of personalities, interests and lifestyles. In this article, I've outlined a few details that can help you discover the right opportunity for you.

While working on my research, I found that there are many of these applications and many opportunities everywhere to make some extra money in a wide variety of industries. Most apps are available for iOS or Android, making it easy to work from virtually anywhere. Most of these programs have certain age and rating restrictions, so you should choose the apps that suit you and your needs.

First, let's take a look at some of the most popular income-generating apps that you may already be familiar with. These include Khatriji, EmpireReEarn, Uber, Lyft, TaskRabbit, Gigwalk, GrubHub and Dogvacay etc as followed have proven their leadership in this growing new industry.

1. Empire ReEarn

Multiple income facilities in ER include self rotation income, referral rotation income, team rotation income and rewards. The ER user will not get the benefit of all that income until they join and complete their ER profile.

In addition to these income facilities, ER also offers online payment and charging services. You can recharge online for your mobile phone, DTH, data card, and you can also pay bills for your landline, broadband, electricity, gas pipeline via the ER app or the ER website: www.empirereearn.com.

2. Khatriji

Whenever the user signs up for Khatriji, buys the product from Khatriji and then joins one of the trees using the Khatriji product key, the user is called Skyomie or Khatriji. Skyomie can expand the tree by referring to her friends and family and if one of them buys Khatriji's product, Skyomie will also benefit from referral revenue. So a tree has been developed and Skyomie has the advantage of Earn More Income from several users it referred. This entire process is called "Your Own Money Creation Tree."

3. Slidejoy

This is a very simple app for Android owners that can show ads on the lock screen. Users are paid an average of $ 5 to $ 15 per month to place ads on their Android device's lock screen. Every time the user looks at their phone, they see a card with news or promotion. Users can swipe left for more information, up to view another map, or right to use the phone normally. A simple way to make extra money without even thinking about it.

4. Swagbucks

Swagbucks allows users to earn rewards (gift cards or cash) by shopping online, watching fun videos, playing games, searching the web and completing surveys. Users can redeem points earned from gift cards at their favorite stores, such as Amazon and Walmart, or even get cash back from PayPal.

5. iPoll

iPoll allows users to complete online surveys to earn money and other rewards such as gift cards. Users are paid to tell iPoll what they think about the products and services you use every day. The options are available on your mobile device from the comfort of your home.

6. GrubHub

Need a quick bite but too busy to buy something quickly? GrubHub allows you to pick up your food and deliver it to your door. Many restaurants and shops now work with the GrubHub app, giving users in their area many options for delicious food, and the concert staff has a lot of potential to make money.

There are some requirements to register, drivers must be over 19 years old, have more than 2 years of driving experience, check an account and have a valid driver's license (or ID if you ride a bike), have an iPhone iOS 8 or higher or have an Android 4.0 or higher and passed a background check. As with Uber and Lyft, many GrubHub drivers also work through the Uber Eats app to make sure they are busy when on the clock.

All of these well-known money-making apps require the employee to leave the house, but here are some other gig options you can complete while still in your pajamas. Some of these may fall into the 'money-saving apps' category, but they are definitely worth considering because a dollar saved is a dollar earned, right?

7. DogVacay

DogVacay is an app my family personally tested. We were able to open our home to local dogs while his family was on vacation. Dogs can be guests with a host family and live in the comfort of home while their owners are away. Hosts can set the dates they have available for an additional four-legged friend, set restrictions for specific breeds, and even set their own rate for their services. We personally thought it was a fun experience and our dogs loved having a new friend hanging out and playing. DogVacay recently partnered with the Rover app, which focuses on similar services and also enables dog walking services. No doubt this is the buzz of a dog lover.

8. Gigwalk

Gig walk is an application that allows users to earn a little of money to take a photo or record data while running errands. The Gig walkers are basically helping with merchandising duties and confirming that the product displays in the store are handled correctly. Users can take on as much or as little contract work as they want by connecting with local businesses that need their skills.

Download the app on your smartphone, register your account and then simply request the concerts you see on the map or list in your area. Concerts pay between $3 and $100 and can range from a few minutes to a few hours. Once you complete the concert, you will be paid via PayPal. The concerts have been published by mega companies such as Google, Red Bull and Unilevel who want to generate data at locations far from their headquarters.

9. TaskRabbit

TaskRabbit is another popular and flexible money making app. With TaskRabbit, you can use your various skills to make money with the TaskRabbit app and website. You can perform tasks in person, or you can do them remotely with virtual tasks - there are a wide variety of tasks, such as building Ikea furniture, repairing sprinkler systems, or researching online. Benefits vary from job to job and give employees the flexibility to choose options that suit their capabilities.

10. Lyft

Lyft is the other mega app in the rides room. While their service area is a bit more limited than Uber's, they offer a very similar service and an opportunity to monetize users of the app. Payment for drivers through Lyft is a bit more generous, so this may be a better option for drivers in larger metropolitan areas. Many drivers work for both companies to optimize their time and get as many trips as possible while available for work. Like Uber, drivers must meet minimum background, age, and auto-check requirements.

11. Uber Eats

Uber recently launched UberEats, which allows drivers to pick up food in addition to driving around town. Drivers can now complete deliveries when travel options are slow and may be tipped in the process. And Offers By one get free on some orders

12. Uber

Uber is one of the best known mega companies in the world of money making apps. This ride-sharing app allows employees to use their own car to pick up Uber app users per ride. There are some rules and restrictions for becoming a director; You must be 21 or older, have a 2001 or newer car (2006 or newer in some cities), and you must pass a background check. Drivers can use the app when it suits them and quickly find users who need transportation in their area. Drivers can earn between $19 and $35 an hour, possibly more if drivers work during rush hours or on holidays.

How To Choose The Best Money App For You

Not every app here is ideal for everyone. Some considerations are made when evaluating money making applications.

We use this method to create this list. Let me explain what and how you can measure these things according to your personal needs.

Pay the amount

Most apps don't get you rich. Many of them did not even qualify as part-time jobs or side hostels.

Select the application based on where you want to receive payment. For example, if you want to earn hundreds or thousands of dollars per month, you can't do it by filling out a survey. You're better off using apps like Uber, Khatriji, Empirereearn, Lyft or Taskerabit.

In such applications, the salary is higher in terms of amount. To try

The next thing you have to do is decide how much effort you want to put into it.

Do you want to do small tasks with your smartphone while sitting in bed or at a coffee shop? Or do you want to go to retail stores, drive, meet buyers face to face, and do some manual labor yourself?

The amount of effort to do something is directly related to the amount paid. Moving furniture on Taskarabit pays more than completing a two-minute survey.

Method and frequency of payment

Some apps allow you to pay with cash. In most cases, cashout is facilitated by payment. But there are some apps that will mail you a check.

Other apps don't offer cash but reward you with a gift card.

Again, you can't escape a handful of Starbucks or Target gift cards. But if you’re doing some small tasks on the side, it will be perfect for your time.

There are redemption restrictions on some monetized apps. You cannot remove the cache whenever you want. So review the payment frequency and full terms before you start.

Fees and initial investment

Many of the apps on our list are free. But some you need to pay.

For example, an acorn membership can cost up to 3 per month. Mercury charges a 10% commission to facilitate all sales in its market.

Overall, these fees and the initial investment are very low. But if you don’t want to spend any money, stick to the free app.

App reputation

Do your best before downloading any Earn More Income mobile app. Make sure the app has lots of positive reviews. Read negative reviews to see what unhappy users have to say.

You can usually sign up for these apps with just one email address. Applications for obtaining sensitive information can be a potential scam.

Many of the apps on our list promise that they haven't sold your data. So if privacy is important to you, stick to that reputable app.

Making money from apps in 2020 has never been easier. Use the apps I listed above to get started.

Do Earn more income Apps Really Work?

Yes! You probably. You do not have the permission required to post.

Which apps pay you the most in 2021?

Gig apps like Khatriji, Empirereearn, Lyft or Taskerabit will always allow you to make more money than survey apps or apps like Sweetcoin.

Source : 12 Apps To Earn More Income From Your Phone You Need to Download Now!

#DogVacay #Earn more income #EmpireReEarn #Gigwalk #GrubHub #IPoll #khatriji #referral income #skyomie #Slidejoy #swag bucks #tree income #Uber #Uber Eats

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easyfoodnetwork · 5 years ago

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‘There’s Nothing I Wouldn’t Do at This Point’

Grocery stores have announced hiring sprees in response to increased demand due to concerns around novel coronavirus. | Mario Tama/Getty Images

Grocery, delivery, and other businesses in-demand during the coronavirus pandemic are on hiring sprees, but for laid-off restaurant workers, making the switch isn’t so simple

Angel de la Torre-Miranda has thrived on a career in restaurants. For almost 13 years, he has worked the line as a cook and a sous chef across the San Diego metro area, most recently preparing cheeseburgers and huli huli chicken at the Boardwalk Beach Club in Coronado. He loved the work, and it put food on the table for himself, his girlfriend, and his almost-two-year-old child.

But with the spread of COVID-19, the Boardwalk Beach Club temporarily shuttered in mid-March, and de la Torre-Miranda lost his job. To support his family, this past week he found himself on the other side of the service industry: driving around town for Postmates, delivering bags full of Carl’s Jr. and 7-Eleven orders. “If I don’t work, we don’t eat,” de la Torre-Miranda says, noting that he earned $40 in two-and-a-half hours. “It’s not rent money but it’s the most money I’ve seen in the last two weeks.”

In the middle of what some economists have predicted to be the eve of a recession, restaurants across the country have closed or limited their dining rooms, upsetting the livelihoods of possibly millions of workers. A number of employees are hobbling along with schedule cuts or reduced salaries, but thousands of others are without jobs.

Unemployment benefits and restaurant relief funds will help keep eligible workers financially afloat in the near future, as will the recently-passed $2 trillion stimulus package, which will give unemployed restaurant workers an additional cushion of $600 a week plus one-time stimulus checks of up to $1,200. But with fallout from the coronavirus almost certainly enduring for several months, and retailers hiring en masse to keep up with the spike in customers’ panic-stricken purchases, hospitality veterans are looking beyond bars and restaurants for their next paychecks.

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do at this point,” says de la Torre-Miranda, who’s applied for positions at grocery stores and medical equipment facilities. “It’s incredibly stressful, because I know what I’m capable of doing in the kitchen.”

The shockwaves from COVID-19 have rippled across the restaurant industry. At least 26 states have banned or restricted dine-in service, and on March 26, the total number of hourly employees going into work at local food-and-drink businesses had dropped by 64 percent compared to the median attendance on the same weekdays in January, according to data from scheduling and time tracking tool Homebase.

But for retail and delivery, business is soaring: shelves where milk, eggs, and seltzer are regularly stocked feature gaping holes; lines at grocery stores sometimes stretch out the door, with customers attempting to maintain the recommended six feet of separation; Instacart app downloads grew by more than 200 percent between February 14 and March 15.

To meet the sudden influx of customer demand, a slew of grocery stores and retailers like Trader Joe’s and Amazon have announced hiring sprees, with some companies making direct efforts to aid restaurant workers. CVS Health, which plans to add over 50,000 workers, is working with the hospitality group Estefan Enterprises in Florida to match up to 300 of its employees with temporary jobs until its hotels and restaurants reopen, a deal facilitated by personal connections between the organizations. Kroger, which has hired more than 23,500 new employees and plans to bring on an additional 20,000, has partnered with the Thunderdome Restaurant Group and Frisch’s to place restaurant workers with jobs in its plants, warehouses, and grocery stores.

Kimberly Yorio, a spokesperson for the grocery chains Kings Food Markets and Balducci’s, says that with daily demand surging exponentially, the companies began a hiring campaign to onboard over 100 full-time and part-time workers, some temporary, at their locations throughout the Northeast. The jobs range from retrieving grocery carts and working the cash registers, to slicing cold cuts at the deli counter. “The largest number of hospitality workers are being displaced right now,” Yorio says. “The grocery industry, on the flip side, has an urgent need to employ people quickly who have skills that are absolutely relevant, and the knowledge of food for all hospitality works is super helpful.”

Echoing other retailers who are recruiting short-term help for the pandemic, job postings on Kings Food Markets and Balducci’s suggest the duration of temporary COVID-19 hires could last a couple of months. However, Yorio notes the possibility for extensions and long-term employment opportunities based on the needs of customers and workers.

But despite the hiring sprees, work isn’t guaranteed for new jobseekers. These days, recently laid-off restaurant workers looking to get a toe in as a grocery bagger or in a warehouse position are potentially competing with millions of newly unemployed. Mariah R.*, a former server-bartender at a Stoney River steakhouse and grill location in Atlanta, Georgia says that after being let go from the restaurant due to the pandemic and applying for several retail positions, she has already been rejected for four different positions at Target. De la Torre-Miranda, who has prior warehouse experience, says that after hearing about companies’ hirings waves, he applied to Walmart, Costco, Target, and Amazon, along with several grocery stores, with few leads as of last week.

But some restaurant workers don’t consider switching to retail a viable option at all. Tim Oliver, who is currently working around eight hours a week as a cook at the taco bar Garage in Binghamton, New York — down from the usual 45 — is holding out for as long as he can before applying for a position at Walmart. His skills and personality, embraced in restaurants, he says, might not be so welcomed in retail. “Everybody’s drawn there for one reason — to make some food for people and they’re happy about it,” he says about working in a kitchen. “To go from the high-pressure job of cooking to stocking shelves, I’m gonna go nuts.”

Jobs like delivering meals or ringing up groceries also put workers on the front lines of the pandemic, sometimes with little protection. George F. *, a career server who lives in Honolulu’s Waikiki neighborhood, says that after being hired for an overnight stocker position at a grocery store, he learned on his first day that several of his new coworkers weren’t sharing his precautionary health measures like wearing a handkerchief or mask and gloves, and that the company wasn’t spraying down the store with cleaning products.

“Offices and break rooms are extremely small with multiple people close together,” he says of his new workplace, adding that it’s a problem “for people to not be using gloves or face masks in those situations.” Still, the former server considers himself lucky to have the job: He now has unionized healthcare and secured employment in an industry vital during the pandemic.

With the sudden jump in the labor market supply, some hospitality workers have been exiting the food and retail worlds altogether, at least temporarily. For over two years, Shawn Ryder poured beer at the beloved local hockey bar Lord Stanley’s and the Annex in DeKalb, Illinois. But when Governor J.B. Pritzker mandated that bars and restaurants across the state shutter to dampen the spread of COVID-19, a Lord Stanley’s regular threw Ryder a lifeline and messaged him about a job opportunity at the plant where he worked.

Instead of chatting with regulars about Blackhawks scores, this past week, the former bartender was learning how to operate heavy machinery to drill holes into plastics and metals as a computer numerically controlled operator. “It was kind of like when I left Ohio and went to California,” Ryder says. “The culture shock — it’s a totally different type of work, a different pace, different way of thinking.”

The total take home pay is roughly $200 less at Ryder’s new job (an amount he used to make in tips), and he hasn’t fully adjusted to the early-hour schedule. But he considers himself lucky to be gainfully employed, unlike many of his former colleagues. “There are definitely worse jobs out there,” he says.

De la Torre-Miranda, the San Diego chef, is hoping for similar fortunes. With another child on the way, the chef estimates that he’s applied to over 50 jobs online, often without reading the job descriptions. Two retail or warehouse jobs plus Postmates delivery work would be ideal for sustaining his family financially, he says.

Like other former restaurant workers, de la Torre-Miranda knows the pandemic will eventually subside, and people will leave their homes to eat out again. But whether he will be back in the kitchen to fire up their entrees when that day comes is a question he doesn’t have an answer to. “I love working with food,” de la Torre-Miranda says. “But it’s so unstable as it is, so when we have something like this happening, and this is the fallout — I don’t know.”

*To safeguard their livelihoods, Eater guaranteed anonymity to any source who requested it. Matthew Sedacca is a writer living in Brooklyn.

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Grocery stores have announced hiring sprees in response to increased demand due to concerns around novel coronavirus. | Mario Tama/Getty Images

Grocery, delivery, and other businesses in-demand during the coronavirus pandemic are on hiring sprees, but for laid-off restaurant workers, making the switch isn’t so simple

*To safeguard their livelihoods, Eater guaranteed anonymity to any source who requested it. Matthew Sedacca is a writer living in Brooklyn.

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bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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The Legacy of Paul Volcker

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Remembering Paul Volcker, the Fed chair “willing to be unpopular”

Paul A. Volcker, who died Sunday in New York at the age of 92, was remembered for helping shape American economic policy for more than six decades, particularly as the Fed chair who tamed inflation in the 1970s and ‘80s. Mr. Volcker arrived in Washington as America’s postwar economic dominance was beginning to crumble and devoted his professional life to wrestling with the consequences, write the NYT’s Binyamin Appelbaum and Robert D. Hershey Jr. As a Treasury Department official under Democratic and Republican presidents, Mr. Volcker waged a long, losing struggle to preserve the post-World War II international monetary system. In his last official position, as chairman of President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, he persuaded lawmakers to impose new restrictions on big banks — a controversial measure known as the Volcker Rule. His defining achievement, however, was his success in ending an extended period of high inflation after President Jimmy Carter chose him to be the Fed chair in 1979. He delivered shock therapy, pushing interest rates as high as 20 percent, the WSJ writes, driving the economy into a deep recession but making him one of the most successful central bankers in history. “Volcker’s mantra, one he told me again and again through 2008-9, was that in a crisis the only asset you have is your credibility,” Austan Goolsbee, an economist at the University of Chicago’s Booth School and a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, tweeted. That quality is one of the best reasons to mourn the loss of Mr. Volcker, writes the WaPo Opinion section: “Unlike so many other public officials, he was unusually — perhaps uniquely — willing to be unpopular.” Mr. Volcker was not sanguine about the future when he talked to Andrew last year. “I’m not good,” he said as Andrew walked into his Manhattan apartment, and he wasn’t referring only to his health. “We’re in a hell of a mess in every direction,” he said. “Respect for government, respect for the Supreme Court, respect for the president, it’s all gone.”

Boeing whistle-blower says production was riddled with problems

Ahead of his testimony before a congressional committee tomorrow, a former senior manager at Boeing is speaking about the concerns he had with the production of the 737 Max airplane. Four months before the first of two deadly crashes of a 737 Max, the manager, Ed Pierson, approached an executive at the company, saying he was worried that the plane was riddled with production problems and potentially unsafe, David Gelles of the NYT reports. The Max has been grounded since March, shortly after the second crash. Employees at the Renton, Wash., factory where the 737 Max is produced were overworked, exhausted and making mistakes, Mr. Pierson told Mr. Gelles. Damaged parts, missing tools and incomplete instructions were preventing planes from being built on time. Executives were pressuring workers to complete planes despite staff shortages and a chaotic factory floor. “Frankly right now all my internal warning bells are going off,” Mr. Pierson said in an email to the head of the 737 program last year that was reviewed by The NYT. “And for the first time in my life, I’m sorry to say that I’m hesitant about putting my family on a Boeing airplane.” Mr. Pierson called on Boeing to shut down the Max production line last year. But the company kept producing planes and did not make major changes in response to his complaints. During the time when Mr. Pierson said the Renton facility was in disarray, it built the two planes that crashed and killed 346 people. “The suggestion by Mr. Pierson of a link between his concerns and the recent Max accidents is completely unfounded,” a Boeing spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said in a statement.

Amazon accuses Trump of “improper pressure” in cloud contract

Amazon has gone to court to accuse President Trump of using “improper pressure” on the Pentagon to harm Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos — whom it calls the president’s “perceived political enemy,” writes the NYT’s Kate Conger. That pressure was intended to divert a multibillion-dollar cloud computing contract to its rival, Microsoft, Amazon said in a legal complaint unsealed yesterday in U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington. Amazon, which has the country’s largest cloud computing provider, Amazon Web Services, had been considered the front-runner for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, known as JEDI. But the Defense Department reviewed outdated submissions from the company and overlooked key technical capabilities, Amazon claimed. Those errors tipped the scales in favor of Microsoft, which won the contract in October, Amazon said. In its complaint, Amazon said the president “launched repeated public and behind-the-scenes attacks” on the contract and the company, the WSJ reports. It would be improper for a president to intervene in the awarding of a contract, according to experts on federal contracting.

Demand grows for educated factory workers

As American factories shift toward automation, jobs are requiring more advanced skills, and workers can no longer get by without higher education, writes the WSJ’s Austen Hufford. Manufacturers are on track to employ more college graduates in the next three years than workers with less education, according to an analysis of federal data. “U.S. manufacturers have added more than a million jobs since the recession, with the growth going to men and women with degrees,” Mr. Hufford writes. “Over the same time, manufacturers employed fewer people with at most a high-school diploma.” • Manufacturing jobs that require the most complex problem-solving skills grew 10 percent between 2012 and 2018. But jobs requiring the least declined 3 percent in that same period. “Investments in automation will continue to expand factory production with relatively fewer employees,” Mr. Hufford writes. “Jobs that remain are expected to be increasingly filled by workers from colleges and technical schools, leaving high-school graduates and dropouts with fewer opportunities.”

The argument for why capitalism’s revival depends on taxation

Capitalism is in a state of crisis, thanks to a lack of revenue, and it can be resolved only by a substantial increase in taxation, Joseph Stiglitz, Todd Tucker, and Gabriel Zucman write in Foreign Affairs. “No successful market can survive without the underpinnings of a strong, functioning state,” they write. Total tax revenue in the U.S. shrank over the last two decades, to approximately 28 percent of national income today from about 32 percent in 1999. This has led to “crumbling infrastructure, a slowing pace of innovation, a diminishing rate of growth, booming inequality, shorter life expectancy, and a sense of despair among large parts of the population.“ Opponents of tax increases claim that corporate investment is the engine of growth, the authors write. “In the real world, however, there is no observable correlation between capital taxation and capital accumulation.” The authors propose “a bold new regime of domestic and international taxes”: • “Only a far more progressive tax code will provide the necessary level of revenue.” • “Eliminate special provisions that exempt dividends, capital gains, carried interest, real estate, and other forms of wealth from taxation.” • “A wealth tax, such as the one recently proposed by Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts who is currently running for president.” • “To curb the evasion of income and wealth taxes, countries will have to cooperate much more with one another.” • “A global minimum tax should be instituted to set a floor on how low would-be tax havens could drop their rates.”

Former DealBook reporter raises $8 million for start-up

Yumi, a baby-food delivery start-up, announced today that it has raised $8 million in a fund-raising round. Investors in the round include the founders of Allbirds, Casper, Harry’s, SoulCycle, Sweetgreen, Uber and Warby Parker, and the C.E.O. of Blue Bottle Coffee. Yumi delivers meals that are high in nutrients and low on fructose and are tailored to a child’s age and developmental stage. The company will use the capital to expand nationwide and develop proprietary software, which would allow the company to create personalized meal plans and educational content. The round brings the company’s total funding to $12.1 million, Yumi said; other investors include August Capital, Brand Foundry and Day One Ventures. • Yumi was founded in 2017 by Angela Sutherland and Evelyn Rusli, a former New York Times and DealBook reporter, with a focus on the importance of what children eat in their first 1,000 days.

Revolving door

As part of a major overhaul at HSBC, Samir Assaf, the global banking and markets chief, will become the bank’s chairman of corporate and institutional banking. Georges Elhedery and Greg Guyett will take over as co-heads of the unit. Morgan Stanley is cutting around 1,500 jobs worldwide. Away, an online luggage seller, said its C.E.O., Steph Korey, was stepping down. Fox News said Bill Hemmer, one of the network’s longest-serving news anchors, would replace Shepard Smith as host of its afternoon news hour.

The speed read

Deals • NortonLifeLock, the $16 billion consumer-software company, has attracted deal interest from a handful of companies including a rival, McAfee. (WSJ) • Tiger Global Management, one of Juul’s earliest boosters, slashed its valuation of the e-cigarette start-up to $19 billion, another sign investors are re-evaluating one-time Silicon Valley darlings. (WSJ) • SoftBank’s Vision Fund has agreed to sell its stake in Wag Labs back to the struggling dog-walking start-up. (NYT) • Goldman Sachs is arranging a $1.75 billion line of credit for WeWork, the first step in SoftBank’s plan to bail out the office-sharing company. (Bloomberg) • Merck and Sanofi, two of the world’s biggest drugmakers, struck multibillion-dollar deals aimed at bolstering their lineups in the fiercely competitive cancer drug market. (WSJ) • A federal judge told lawyers fighting over T-Mobile’s bid to acquire Sprint to skip their customary opening arguments so they could start questioning witnesses, a sign he is seeking a speedy trial. (WSJ) • Pentagon officials have stepped up talks with Japan to choose a U.S. fighter jet over one from BAE Systems, a British rival. (FT) Politics and policy • Records from hundreds of interviews with people who were directly involved in the war in Afghanistan reveal they could not shake their doubts about the strategy and mission. (WaPo) • A long-awaited report by the Justice Department’s inspector general criticized aspects of the early stages of the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation but essentially exonerated former bureau leaders of President Trump’s accusations that they engaged in a politicized conspiracy to sabotage him. (NYT) • Mayor Pete Buttigieg will disclose his management consulting clients, open his fund-raisers to reporters and reveal the names of people raising money for his presidential campaign. (NYT) Impeachment • House Democrats are said to have narrowed the articles of impeachment against President Trump, which are expected to be unveiled today, to abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. (NYT) Trade • Congress is taking aim at China in a defense-policy bill at the same time that the Trump administration is seeking to negotiate a trade pact with Beijing. (WSJ) • The agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, said that the U.S. was unlikely to impose new tariffs on Chinese goods on Dec. 15. (Bloomberg) • Democratic lawmakers are close to an agreement with the White House on revisions to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement; an announcement could come today. (NYT) Tech • New York is becoming more of a global technology hub, as industry giants tap into the work force of a region long known as a banking and media stronghold. And Democrats who torpedoed Amazon’s plans to set up a second headquarters in the city are finding their stance could come back to bite them. (Bloomberg, Politico) • Comcast plans to spend $2 billion on its Peacock streaming service in the platform’s first two years. (Bloomberg) • The E.U. has approved a 3.2 billion euro ($3.55 billion) fund to promote the research and development of batteries. (FT) • Major nonprofits and other organizations critical of Big Tech are pledging millions to groups that are taking on corporate giants. (NYT) Best of the rest • Blackstone’s Jon Gray and his wife are giving $10 million to the University of Pennsylvania to support 10 low-income students from New York City annually. (Bloomberg) • A look at Citigroup’s sweeping renovation of its Manhattan headquarters. (Bloomberg) • Big brands and online start-ups are finding that consumers generally prefer buying household staples in a single shopping trip over enrolling in subscription services. (WSJ) • The first mission to remove space junk from Earth’s orbit is expected to launch in 2025 as part of an initiative to clean up more than 3,000 defunct satellites. (Bloomberg) Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow. We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. Source link Read the full article

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atombail7-blog · 5 years ago

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Healthy Holiday Gift Guide

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

The holiday season is officially here! In case you’re looking for some tried-and-true gift ideas, I thought I’d share some of my favorites with you here today.

Now, keep in mind that I tend to give practical gifts. I like to gift items that I use myself on a daily basis. Items that help make my life a little easier and more enjoyable. That’s what you’ll find in my holiday gift list below, including everything from my favorite kitchen gadgets, to helpful parenting tools, to natural beauty gifts, and more.

Best of all, you can do your holiday gift shopping from the comfort of your own home, because I tend to do almost all of it online. So, avoid the crowded malls and cuddle up in a cozy blanket while you shop!

Gifts for the Kitchen

Instant Pot. This is one of the only small appliances that has earned a permanent spot on my counter. It’s perfect for fixing fast and healthy weeknight meals! (My Fresh & Healthy Instant Pot Cookbook would be a great companion for this one.)

Ninja Coffee Bar. Austin got this for me last year, and I love it! I wanted a coffee maker that could brew a single cup of coffee without using those disposable k-cups, and this one does that! We use it to brew single cups and a whole pot of coffee, when needed.

Inspiralizer. I love turning healthy vegetables into “noodles” and this little gadget is the best spiralizer on the market. I love how securely it sticks to your countertop!

Silicone Measuring Cups. I love that these measuring cups are oven-safe and bend easily to make pouring liquids into a mixing bowl easy, without any drips. I use them for melting coconut oil in my oven on a regular basis! Perfect for an avid cook or baker.

Nutri Ninja Duo. This is the first affordable blender option I’ve tried that actually blends as well as a more high-end, high-speed blender, like the Vitamix. I think it would make a great gift for someone living in a smaller space (like an apartment or dorm room) or for someone making smoothies only for themselves.

Reusable Straw Cups. You’ve probably seen these cups a LOT on my social media feed and in my What I Ate posts. We use them every single day for our morning smoothies! They’re great for a fast breakfast on the go, or for serving kids who might spill their drinks.

Glass Straws. I love this reusable straw option! They’re elegant and make drinking your daily green smoothie a pleasure. So much more fun than using plastic straws, and less wasteful, too. (If you have kids or are worried about breakable straws, try these silicone straws instead. I have both!)

Breville Juicer. This juicer is a great introductory model for someone who wants to start juicing on a regular basis.

Le Creuset Dutch Oven or Buffet Casserole. These pots are one of the most used items in my kitchen. (I use the 5.5 quart for large batches of soup, and the buffet casserole for daily stir-fries.) I love how they can go straight from the stove top, to the oven, to my dinner table as a pretty serving dish. It’s durable to last forever, and the perfect non-toxic cooking dish.

Kyocera Ceramic Knives. I don’t have time to maintain and re-sharpen metal knives, so that’s why I love my ceramic knives. They’re insanely sharp and I don’t have to do anything to maintain them. They make prep work a breeze!

Farmhouse Pottery Mugs. I’m in love with these creamy hand-dipped mugs. Sipping my morning tea out of one makes me so happy!

Nespresso Milk Frother. This frother creates lovely foam from non-dairy milks for homemade steamed milk drinks, but I actually use it most often for re-heating coffee and tea. (It’s an easy way to skip using a microwave!)

Natural Beauty Gifts

Velvet Eyeshadow Palette (Classic) If you or someone you know wants to venture into the world of cleaner makeup products, this eyeshadow set from Beautycounter is a great place to start! It’s the best safer eye shadow I’ve ever tried, and this is the color palette I use myself every day.

Rejuvenating Night Cream. This is the moisturizer I use every night, and then I top it off with the No. 1 Brightening Oil to lock in the moisture.

Lip Gloss. I love Beautycounter’s lip gloss, and I think it makes a great stocking stuffer. I personally use the Rosewood and Fig colors the most, but the Bare Shimmer is a nice option if you want something totally neutral.

Tata Harper’s Regenerating Cleanser. I was introduced to Tata Harper’s all-natural skin care products a couple years ago, and I’ve been in love with them ever since. This cleanser has a fine exfoliator included and it smells like fresh oranges.

RMS Beauty Magic Luminizer. I use this over my makeup or on its own, for a fresh and glowy look!

Wet Brush. I honestly don’t know why this hair brush works so much better than other brushes, but it’s a miracle worker– particularly on wet hair. I have naturally curly hair, and this brush tackle any tangles with ease! I’m never using another hair brush ever again.

RMS Beauty Nail Polish. This nail polish is free of harsh chemicals and comes in several classic colors. (I have the deep red one, but I want the more taupe-looking color, too!)

Books

Fresh & Healthy Instant Pot Cookbook. My newest cookbook is perfect for people who want to make weeknight meals as EASY as possible. The recipes in this book all have a gluten-free option, and many are dairy-free and vegan friendly, too.

Everyday Detox. My first cookbook is an affordable gift to make healthy eating and cooking as easy as possible. My family still uses many of the exclusive recipes in this book on a weekly basis, and as always, I make a point not to use hard-to-find ingredients or have the recipes be too complicated. All recipes are 100% gluten-free, and many of them are vegan and paleo friendly, too.

No Excuses Detox. My second cookbook is perfect for anyone who wants to tackle their health goals, despite a busy schedule, tight budget, or picky family members. All recipes include nutrition information, price per serving, and many can be made in just 30 minutes or less! Gluten-free & vegetarian, with lots of vegan friendly recipes.

How Not To Die Cookbook. If you’re not familiar with Dr. Gregor, he’s the brilliant doctor behind the nonprofit site NutrtionFacts.org. He’s a wealth of scientific nutrition studies, and in his new cookbook he shares vegetarian recipes to go along with his evidence-based diet approach.

Thyroid Healing. If you or someone you know is worried about their thyroid health, I think this book offers an unexpected perspective on the subject with an actionable cleanse and recipes at the end.

Eat to Live Quick & Easy Cookbook. This book is filled with oil-free vegan recipes for those who need to follow a special diet.

Love Real Food. If you’re in need of a new vegetarian cookbook, my friend Kathryne’s book is loaded with delicious options. It’s beautiful, too!

Engine 2 Diet. I love giving this book to the men in my life, because it makes eating plants a little more appealing. It’s written by a firefighter– so they won’t worry about losing their muscle mass, and there’s still plenty of food on this plan to keep them feeling satisfied!

Gifts for Parents

Squeasy Snacker Pouches. These reusable pouches are made of silicone and don’t leak! They’re so easy to use for our daily smoothies. I use the 3-ounce size for my baby, and the 6-ounce size for my toddler.

Door Monkey. If you have a toddler, this non-permanent door lock is really handy. My son likes to have his bedroom door cracked each night, and this lock keeps it cracked while also keeping the door securely in place– my 4-year-old can’t get it open, no matter how hard he tries. I’ve heard it’s perfect for families with cats, who want to provide cats with access to a litter box while keeping kids out, too.

Furniture Straps. We strap every piece of furniture in our house to the wall, just so that there are no easily preventable tipped furniture accidents. These straps make it easy!

OK to Wake Clock. This silent alarm clock has been my life saver during the daylight savings change. When we introduced this new alarm clock, our son soon learned that he couldn’t get out of bed until the “green light” came on– so he happily stays in bed until a reasonable hour each morning, giving our family much-needed sleep. (We bought one for my daughter recently, too!)

Funtainer Straw Cups. These stainless steel straw cups are the by far the best leak-proof travel cups I’ve found. I’ve read that straws are preferred over sippy cups by speech pathologists, so you can use these cups with children as soon as they are ready to drink water.

Ergobaby Carrier. The Ergo carrier is my most-used and favorite baby item, as it let’s you be securely hands-free, while also keeping your baby close and happy. I also love the Baby K’tan wrap for the early newborn days, but if you only want one baby wrap, the Ergo is my #1 choice– particularly because it can be sized to fit a variety of care takers! (So my husband can wear it, too.)

Countablock Book. . This book has been one of my son’s favorites for over a year now. It has helped him learn to count to 100, and I love how sturdy and colorful it is! (Many of our other books have ripped or missing pages…) There are three other book in this series, too: Alphablock, Cityblock and Dinoblock.

Mini Popsicle Mold.. These mini molds are the perfect size for toddlers! It’s just enough of a treat, without it melting down their hands before they get bored with it. I like to repurpose any leftover smoothie that my son doesn’t drink by pouring it into these molds and making colorful (and healthy) popsicles for later. If you have older kids, this larger mold is perfect for making bigger popsicles.

Jolly Penguin Race. My kids are both OBSESSED with this penguin toy. It’s a little noisy, but it’s a great way to keep them distracted while I get the dishes done or dinner on the table. Free time when you’re a parent is priceless!

Whether you’ve found something new for yourself, or to give to your friends and family, I hope you’ll find this gift guide useful!

—

Reader Feedback: What’s your favorite gift to give this year?

Source: https://detoxinista.com/healthy-holiday-gifts/

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laurallama52-blog · 6 years ago

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Healthy Holiday Gift Guide

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

The holiday season is officially here! In case you’re looking for some tried-and-true gift ideas, I thought I’d share some of my favorites with you here today.

Gifts for the Kitchen

Inspiralizer. I love turning healthy vegetables into “noodles” and this little gadget is the best spiralizer on the market. I love how securely it sticks to your countertop!

Breville Juicer. This juicer is a great introductory model for someone who wants to start juicing on a regular basis.

Farmhouse Pottery Mugs. I’m in love with these creamy hand-dipped mugs. Sipping my morning tea out of one makes me so happy!

Natural Beauty Gifts

Rejuvenating Night Cream. This is the moisturizer I use every night, and then I top it off with the No. 1 Brightening Oil to lock in the moisture.

RMS Beauty Magic Luminizer. I use this over my makeup or on its own, for a fresh and glowy look!

RMS Beauty Nail Polish. This nail polish is free of harsh chemicals and comes in several classic colors. (I have the deep red one, but I want the more taupe-looking color, too!)

Books

Thyroid Healing. If you or someone you know is worried about their thyroid health, I think this book offers an unexpected perspective on the subject with an actionable cleanse and recipes at the end.

Eat to Live Quick & Easy Cookbook. This book is filled with oil-free vegan recipes for those who need to follow a special diet.

Love Real Food. If you’re in need of a new vegetarian cookbook, my friend Kathryne’s book is loaded with delicious options. It’s beautiful, too!

Gifts for Parents

Furniture Straps. We strap every piece of furniture in our house to the wall, just so that there are no easily preventable tipped furniture accidents. These straps make it easy!

Whether you’ve found something new for yourself, or to give to your friends and family, I hope you’ll find this gift guide useful!

—

Reader Feedback: What’s your favorite gift to give this year?

Source: https://detoxinista.com/healthy-holiday-gifts/

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middletuna7-blog · 6 years ago

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Healthy Holiday Gift Guide

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

The holiday season is officially here! In case you’re looking for some tried-and-true gift ideas, I thought I’d share some of my favorites with you here today.

Gifts for the Kitchen

Inspiralizer. I love turning healthy vegetables into “noodles” and this little gadget is the best spiralizer on the market. I love how securely it sticks to your countertop!

Breville Juicer. This juicer is a great introductory model for someone who wants to start juicing on a regular basis.

Farmhouse Pottery Mugs. I’m in love with these creamy hand-dipped mugs. Sipping my morning tea out of one makes me so happy!

Natural Beauty Gifts

Rejuvenating Night Cream. This is the moisturizer I use every night, and then I top it off with the No. 1 Brightening Oil to lock in the moisture.

RMS Beauty Magic Luminizer. I use this over my makeup or on its own, for a fresh and glowy look!

RMS Beauty Nail Polish. This nail polish is free of harsh chemicals and comes in several classic colors. (I have the deep red one, but I want the more taupe-looking color, too!)

Books

Thyroid Healing. If you or someone you know is worried about their thyroid health, I think this book offers an unexpected perspective on the subject with an actionable cleanse and recipes at the end.

Eat to Live Quick & Easy Cookbook. This book is filled with oil-free vegan recipes for those who need to follow a special diet.

Love Real Food. If you’re in need of a new vegetarian cookbook, my friend Kathryne’s book is loaded with delicious options. It’s beautiful, too!

Gifts for Parents

Furniture Straps. We strap every piece of furniture in our house to the wall, just so that there are no easily preventable tipped furniture accidents. These straps make it easy!

Whether you’ve found something new for yourself, or to give to your friends and family, I hope you’ll find this gift guide useful!

—

Reader Feedback: What’s your favorite gift to give this year?

Source: https://detoxinista.com/healthy-holiday-gifts/

0 notes

jokerepair74-blog · 6 years ago

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2:00PM Water Cooler 10/2/2018

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Readers, here is a shorter Water Cooler to get you going; I’ll add more when I finish posting on teeth. –lambert UPDATE All done.

Trade

“New Nafta Has American Corn Farmers Breathing Easier” [Bloomberg]. “The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement secured Sunday is expected to allow leaders from the three countries to sign an accord by late November. The accord alleviates the risk that Mexico, the biggest importer of U.S. corn, will turn to competing exporters such as Argentina.” • And just in time for the mid-terms!

“What if Trump’s confrontational trade stance actually works?” [CNN]. “The NAFTA 2.0 agreement, or USMCA as Donald Trump wants to call it — and he would appear to have won the right to call it anything he wants — ought to be sending chills up the spines of diplomats and trade negotiators around the world. Trump largely got his way. And now, no one can tell him his bull-in-a China-shop way won’t work.”

‘Will USMCA affect Canada’s drug prices? Depends on what happens next, experts say” [CBC]. “The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will extend the minimum “data protection” period for an expensive class of drugs known as biologics to 10 years, up from eight. Biologics — some of the most costly drugs on the market — are used to treat a large range of diseases, including many cancers, arthritis and multiple sclerosis. The change could cost Canadian taxpayers tens of millions of dollars annually, according to one estimate.”

UPDATE “Auto makers would gain new certainty on factory investments and other manufacturers would avoid feared disruptions under the new North American trade accord” [Wall Street Journal]. “[The deal] sets the stage for major relief for an auto industry that feared costly new tariffs could unravel two decades of investments under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The new deal is a big win for Detroit’s Big Three auto makers, which rely heavily on factories in Canada and Mexico to build cars and trucks for the U.S. market. But the new rules could also force car companies and their parts makers to alter supply chains to meet tougher new rules on regional content of cars. That’s likely to have more impact on foreign auto makers that source parts abroad.”

UPDATE “Timeline: How a new North American trade deal happened” [Supply Chain Dive]. “Relive the drama of the talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the timeline below.” • No.

Politics

2020

Concrete material benefits:

I want to congratulate Jeff Bezos for doing exactly the right thing by raising the minimum wage at Amazon and Whole Foods to $15 an hour.

Let me thank the hundreds of Amazon workers who contacted my office and the Fight for $15 movement, which has been leading this effort.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 2, 2018

Sanders gracefully gives credit to the real drivers, too. That said, this could be a smart move by Amazon, which needs warehouse workers in a tight labor market. And Amazon is still a predatory monopoly that should be broken up. And why not $20? Nevertheless, take the win!

“Hillary Clinton’s Favorable Rating Still Low” [Gallup]. Well, the voters are wrong. Again.

“Biden Is Preparing for 2020. Can He Overcome the Hill-Thomas Hearings?” [New York Times]. “[Joe Biden’s] name has been invoked frequently in recent days, mainly by Republicans, for leading the 1991 hearings when an all-male, all-white Judiciary Committee aggressively questioned Anita Hill about claims that Judge Thomas had sexually harassed her. The hearings have long been a source of discomfort with Mr. Biden among Democrats who remember the process.” • Er, can Biden overcome condemning a generation of students to debt slavery?

2018

34 days until Election Day. 34 days is a long time in politics (as we are seeing right now with Kavanaugh. And what about Rosenstein?).

“GOP Cuts Into Democratic Lead for Congress” [Political Wire]. “A new Quinnipiac poll finds Democrats leading Republicans in the generic congressional ballot by seven points, 49% to 42% — a drop from the 12 point lead they had last month.” • One poll….

“Polling in Real Time: The 2018 Midterm Elections” [New York Times]. • This is a neat project. OTOH, in the back of my mind, a small voice is telling me “I hope the voters are gaming the Times….”

“Politics and the New Machine” [Jill Lepore, The New Yorker]. From 2015, still germane: “Pollsters rose to prominence by claiming that measuring public opinion is good for democracy. But what if it’s bad?”

NJ Senate: “New Jersey Senate Poll: Menendez, Hugin in Dead Heat” [Bloomberg]. • Too funny. The Senate hangs in the balance, so the Democrat strategy is to force a corrupt hack like Menendez onto the ballot. Go Blue!

NY-12: “Obama announces endorsement for Ocasio-Cortez” [The Hill]. “Obama is supporting a total of 260 Democratic candidates in his second list for U.S. Senate and U.S. House, governor and state legislature.” • Well, I wish he hadn’t.

* * *

UPDATE “Renovation Records Undercut Ford’s Exit-Door Account” [RealClearInvestigations]. “Ford testified last week that she had never revealed the details of the alleged attack until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. She said the memories percolated up as they revisited a disagreement they’d had over her insistence on installing a ‘second front door’ when they had remodeled their Palo Alto, Calif., home…. The need to explain a decision her husband ‘didn’t understand,’ Ford testified, pushed her to say she wanted the door to alleviate symptoms of ‘claustrophobia’ and ‘panic attacks’ she still suffered from an attempted rape allegedly perpetrated by Kavanaugh in high school during the early 1980s….. Ford never specified when the renovation took place, leaving a possible impression that it and the therapy session happened around the same time. But documents reveal the door was installed years before as part of an addition, and has been used by renters and even a marriage counseling business. ‘The door was not an escape route but an entrance route,’ said an attorney familiar with the ongoing congressional investigation. ‘It appears the real plan for the second front door was to rent out a separate room.’… Palo Alto city records show that a building permit for an additional room and exterior door was issued to Ford and her husband on Feb. 4, 2008 — more than four years before the May 2012 therapy session where, she says, she first identified Kavanaugh as her attacker.” • This reads to me like the reporter hasn’t actually seen the documents; otherwise, they would be embedded in the post. So presumably we’re relying on the anonymous lawyer for their interpretation. Big if true, though.

Realignment and Legitimacy

UPDATE “No Law Without Politics (No Politics Without Law)” [Jedidiah Purdy, Law and Political Economy]. “[I]t has been an article of faith–or at least a relentless rhetorical trope–on both sides of the [Kavanaugh] fight that ‘politicization’ of the judiciary is a kind of corruption and crisis…. I think we have to look into the abyss and admit the possibility that politics really does come first, that the question is not for or against politicization, but what kind of politicization.” And: “It is a tragedy of American left-liberalism that this idea has less traction than it should as a progressive ideal precisely because there is so much arbitrary exercise of legal power, and so unevenly distributed, that it is easy and understandable to think of rule of law as an elite conceit.” • This deserves careful study, and more attention than I can give it now.

Um:

Twitter has suspended, and perhaps permanently banned, the account of Georgetown Professor C. Christine Fair, apparently due to this tweet: pic.twitter.com/wN2OvrgRcA

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 2, 2018

To the quesion of fact: Fair can call Kavanaugh a serial rapist if she wants, but that doesn’t make him one. Fair also devalues a serious charge, in the same way that liberal Democrats reflexively emitting “Racist!” devalues that serious charge.

UPDATE “data demystified #4: How liberals and conservatives talk about progressive issues” [Data for Progess]. On college debt: “The clearest disconnect is that language that discusses debt or loans is employed differently by liberals and conservatives. Conservative use this language to talk about their own experiences and how they achieved even with loans. Take this example from someone who identifies as very conservative and opposes free college tuition: ‘I came from a poor economic background, and I have student loan debt. It [was a] choice to enroll in college. It is the student’s responsibility to pay, not taxpayers.’* In contrast, when liberals talk about loans in the context of tuition it is still about their own experiences, but they see it as not wanting others to face the same burden.” NOTE * Which, of course, they do not do.

“Why e-voting is a bad idea for Australia (and maybe the world)” [Asian Correspondent]. • A useful review of how Australia does paper ballots. Ends with a mention of blockchain, though. Get away! Get away!

Stats Watch

No official statistics of note today.

UPDATE Retail: “Study: More People Will Eat Bugs if They’re Up-Marketed as Luxury Item” [Courthouse News]. “According to a study published Tuesday in Frontiers of Nutrition, if marketing can appeal to a person’s self-indulgent tastes they might look past the bug on their plate…. Researchers behind the recent insect study say labels like “eco-friendly” or “fair trade” lose out to advertisements that play up pleasurable aspects, like taste. Insects have not scuttled into the mainstream, but researchers said it’s all about presentation. The study authors note lobster, the marine crustacean with bug-like qualities, is synonymous with fine dining but that wasn’t always the case.” • Fair enough!

Manufacturing: “Primera Air to File for Bankruptcy Citing Airbus Delivery Delays” [Bloomberg]. “[Primera Air], which along with Norwegian Air Shuttle has attempted to upend the existing trans-Atlantic thoroughfare with low-cost, long-haul flights, was forced to pay excessive costs leasing in planes to cover for the ‘severe’ delay in deliveries of the state-of-the-art A321neos. Primera had orders due to be powered by CFM International’s Leap engine…. Airbus’s A320neo family has suffered major delays due to production and design issues with the Leap as well as Pratt & Whitney’s geared turbofan, the competing turbine option on the aircraft.” • Hmm. Both engines?!

The Bezzle: “Unraveling a Tesla Mystery: Lots (and Lots) of Parked Cars” [New York Times]. “In some cases, cars have been marked — with a bar-coded sticker or with grease pencil on the windshield — to indicate that they are inventory vehicles, meaning they have no customers awaiting them. Some markings indicate repairs required before the cars can be sold, like scratches, dents or components that don’t work.”

Tech: “America’s first ‘sex robot brothel’ in Houston faces resistance” [South China Morning Post]. “Kinky S Dolls, a firm that bills itself as the first ‘adult love dolls rent-before-you-buy service in North America’, sells realistic-looking life-size dolls with basic artificial intelligence functions – and also offers them for use by the half-hour or hour at a warehouse in Toronto. Now the firm is targeting Houston as the first market in a planned US expansion, but is meeting resistance from a Christian anti-sex trafficking and anti-pornography group and the city’s mayor.” • Sommi-451, Cloud Atlas: “Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.”

Tech: “Amazon’s Alexa knows what you forgot and can guess what you’re thinking” [Guardian]. “At an event in Seattle on Thursday, the technology company unveiled a new feature called Alexa Hunches that aims to replicate human curiosity and insight using artificial intelligence. ‘We’ve reached a point with deep neural networks and machine learning that we can actually program intuition,’ said Daniel Rausch, the vice-president in charge of Alexa’s smart home features. Once it is activated later this year, Alexa Hunches will observe its owners’ interactions with connected smart home devices like locks, lights and electricity outlets. When Alexa believes it has detected a regular pattern, such as turning off a television set before bed, the voice assistant will remind owners if they forget to do it, and offer to fix the problem.” • If your intuition doesn’t tell you having a device that records your every move and sends it to a corporate server is a bad idea, how good is your intuition?

UPDATE “Fed’s Powell Backs Ongoing Gradual Hikes for ‘Extraordinary’ Economy” (transcript) [Street Insider]. Powell: “The unemployment rate stands at 3.9 percent, near a 20-year low. Inflation is currently running near the Federal Open Market Committee’s (FOMC) objective of 2 percent…. From the standpoint of our dual mandate, this is a remarkably positive outlook. Indeed, I was asked at last week’s press conference whether these forecasts are too good to be true–a reasonable question!”

Honey for the Bears: “75% of the ultra-rich forecast a US recession in the next two years, survey finds” [CNBC]. “The U.S. economy is firing on all cylinders, yet 75 percent of ultra-high net worth investors predict it will hit recession by 2020, a J.P. Morgan survey found. Of those expecting an economic downturn in the U.S., a fifth of respondents — 21 percent — believe it will begin in 2019 and 50 percent expect the next recession to start in 2020.” • It’s like they’re talking themselves into it.

Health Care

“The Real Lesson from the Downfall of Theranos: We Need to Nationalize the Healthcare System” [In These Times]. “[F]or all its insight into the ‘fake it ’til you make it’ culture of Big Tech’s gold rush, Bad Blood [the business history of Theranos] leaves out the same critical point that’s missed in most mainstream media discourse about Silicon Valley’s race to ‘disrupt’ the healthcare sector: It will never, ever happen, and human history offers us no reason to believe that it will. These companies’ business models monetize the failures of our system, and therefore have a vested interest in fortifying the structural barriers to the universal and equitable distribution of care….. Insurers are explicitly incentivized to avoid paying for policyholders’ care, which is why they hire so many administrators to pore over claims in search of technicalities on which to deny them. That’s an inherent tension no app can fix.”

“Taken For A Ride: M.D. Injured In ATV Crash Gets $56,603 Bill For Air Ambulance Trip” [NPR]. “Groggy from painkillers, [Dr. Naveed Khan, a 35-year-old radiologist] managed to ask the doctors how much the flight would cost and whether it would be covered by his insurer. ‘I think they told my friend, ‘He needs to stop asking questions. He needs to get on that helicopter. He doesn’t realize how serious this injury is,’ Khan recalled.” • Impressive. Even “groggy with painkillers,” Khan tries to be a “smart shopper”!

Another world is possible:

Today I had to go to the hospital in Taiwan bc I ruined my knee. The receptionist was hesitant to accept me / I had to sign a waiver saying I wouldn’t sue the hospital for how expensive treatment is for foreigners.

For X-rays, briefly talking to a dr & meds, it was $100 USD.

— Emily Cardinali 柯依薇 (@emilycardinali) September 19, 2018

Police State Watch

“Chile: 20 secret police jailed for Pinochet-era crimes” [Deutsche Welle]. • Finally. I hope the same thing happens to Gina Haspel, one day.

Class Warfare

“Rent control foes hire California NAACP leader after her group opposes initiative” [San Francisco Chronicle].

“The case for paying every American a dividend on the nation’s wealth” [MarketWatch]. “Early in 2019, 100 randomly selected lower-income residents of Stockton, Calif., will start to receive $500 a month. In exchange, they’ll need to do, well, absolutely nothing, and can spend the money on absolutely anything… In many ways Stockton, whose pilot program runs 18 months, is a perfect petri dish in which to rethink and innovate on the centuries-old dilemma of how to give more money to those who need it most. This racially diverse city of about 315,000, 80 miles from far wealthier Silicon Valley and San Francisco, was walloped in the 2008 financial crisis — the median home price plunged almost 70% — and declared bankruptcy in 2012. Though it emerged from that bankruptcy in 2015, Stockton is a stark example of how uneven the U.S. economy’s decade-long recovery has been. The city’s median household income is about $46,000, almost 25% below the national average.” • The headline is deceptive; Stockton’ s residents aren’t getting a “divident” on “the nation’s” [sic] “wealth” because they have no ownership rights. All they are getting is bread (and, presumably, circuses, which Silicon Valley is all too happy to sell them).

News of the Wired

Welcome to the third world:

American tech adoption has flatlinedhttps://t.co/iJgwtZ81kV pic.twitter.com/TVp27emkyt

— son of an asylum seeker, father of an immigrant (@doctorow) October 2, 2018

Poor broadband, lower adoption by elders (no doubt due to the horrible UI/UX of so much software).

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (JG):

JG writes: “We are vacationing in Chile and the vegetation is marvelous. Geraniums are as big as hedges. Roses are in bloom. I have no idea what this plant is but I like the art.”

* * *

Thank you!

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So do feel free to make a contribution today or any day. Here is why: Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of small donations helps me with expenses, and I factor that trickle in when setting fundraising goals. So if you see something you especially appreciate, do feel free to click the hat!

To give more, click on the arrow heads to the right of the amount.

If you hate PayPal — even though you can use a credit card or debit card on PayPal — you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check.

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Water Cooler on October 2, 2018 by Lambert Strether.

About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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tinseltine · 6 years ago

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What'd Ya Think of This Flick? BLACK PANTHER

Tinsel & Tine's Look at

BLACK PANTHER

By Le Anne Lindsay, Editor I don’t follow comic books, but I do consider myself a “Blerd” (Black Nerd). I’m all about superhero movies, Sci-Fi Flicks, Game of Thrones, totally love Fantasy, so I see every MCU & D.C. movie that comes out, but the excitement for BLACK PANTHER starring Chadwick Boseman was palpable, building since Captain America: Civil War. Whenever I’d get depressed about something, I'd console myself by saying, but Black Panther is coming out soon! I took a day off from work to see the press screening, I bought a T-shirt, I even bought a comic book during the @AmalgamPhilly Black Panther panel discussion and party! It’s a major event to have Disney & Marvel provide an A-List Hollywood marketing roll out for a movie starring a mainly black cast, written and directed by a black man (Ryan Coogler) who I got to interview way back in 2013 when his first film came out Fruitvale Station and I’m ashamed to say it, but he seemed so uncomfortable with the attention that movie was receiving at the time, that I didn’t think he’d amount to anything. So I was blown away when he wrote & directed the Rocky movie Creed, but this… Wow, he’s really arrived. And the black community came out to support him. Of course you can’t talk about Black Panther without talking about the strength of the female characters – Tech Genius. Warrior General. Activist Spy. Queen Mother. None of them are fighting over a guy, being catty or needing to be saved. They are fierce, proud, intelligent and capable. How are you not gonna love the all bald female warrior army “the Dora Milage”. Can’t help but wonder who would win in a fight between them and the Amazon’s of Themyscira? It might be the Dora Milage because when Gen Okoya (Danai Gurira) stops that charging armor plated Rhino in its tracks, just by her mere presence, I mean that’s cool! Not to mention, a female Production designer, Hannah Beachler and Costume designer Ruth E. Carter and Oscar nominated (Mudbound) Rachel Morrison as cinematographer. I’ve seen Letitia Wright (Shuri) in that famous episode of Black Mirror with the Black Museum, but didn’t pay the actress as much attention as the show. But she’s got my attention now as the “Q” of Wakanda. I've added to my Netflix queue the movie Urban Hymn (2015) which she starred in about a troubled girl in the system who’s encouraged by a social worker to find herself through singing. From the trailer it looks like Letitia has a great voice too. And Oscar winner (12 Years a Slave) and fashion icon Lupita Nyong'o (Nakia) gets to be the object of affection and desire, while at the same time being all about her mission, which T’Challa totally respects despite obviously wanting her to be his queen. To be fair, I was also excited last year with Hidden Figures portrayal of super intelligent black females at NASA. That movie took pride in encouraging women to enter the STEM fields of (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and now these women in "Black Panther" have taken it all to a new level. As a black woman, my heart almost burst with pride and excitement. Thank you Ryan Coogler & Joe Robert Cole for writing this story and thank you MCU for allowing them the freedom. These guys understand the tropes of good storytelling. They borrow themes we’re familiar with like from James Bond & The Lion King but use them effectively, so as not to feel copied, but a shorthand. I’m also not taking anything away from Anthony Mackie as The Falcon or Don Cheadle in Iron Man, but of course we all know they are sidekicks and really would never warrant their own movie. What I like about Chadwick Boseman’s portrayal of Black Panther is his lack of ego. He’s really there to be King first, Black Panther second and accepts the fact that it literally takes a village to protect Wakanda and their way of life.

After the screening a whole mess of Black Tribbles stayed to tape an episode of SPOILED TRIBBLES which you can listen to below:

which will also get embedded here soon as it posts. And my 2.20.18 live segment on That's Show Biz w/ Chuck Darrow (WWDB-Talk-869) will feature Black Panther, which I'll link to podcast. Which brings us to the simplistic yet inspired storyline of Wakanda itself, which is a wonderfully expressed dilemma; a big part of me feels like a sure fire way of turning a Utopia into a Dystopia is to let in outsiders. On the other hand, if your way of life, technology, funds can help the rest of the world, do you have a duty to share? Coogler says he based aspects of his version of Wakanda on Lesotho, which were able to resist both the Zulus and the Boers, and was only lightly colonized by the British. Which reminds me - love when Shuri calls Martin Freeman’s character “Colonizer” this term for the white race, kinda makes me think of "Muggles" in Harry Potter - those without magic.

I also guested on THE LAMBcast BLACK PANTHER Podcast

On this week's @lambcast we're talking Black Panther with @TryingToBeDJV @jeanette_y_ward @SmallMind @tinseltine & @LifeVsFilm: https://t.co/cozrvUEp51 #BlackPanther #MCU #killmongerdidnothingwrong #Killmonger #FrasierDreams

— The LAMB (@LambThe)

February 23, 2018

Totally didn’t see two villains coming in this movie. I assumed Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) would be a henchman to Klaue/Klaw (Andy Serkis) who is great fun; however, I feel we don’t really get the full sense of his long standing villainy with Wakanda, they talk about never having captured him before, but he doesn’t seem to possess as much power as I understand Klaw does in the comics. I think they down played him a bit because you also have Killmonger, with a great backstory, who truly at times is hard to see as a villain, except when he demands they burn all the purple flowers which gives the Black Panther his power. Which makes me wonder, why don’t they all just drink of the flower and become super human? It takes a lot of loyalty for the people to refrain and agree it’s only for the Black Panther/King to drink.

The first challenger M’Baku (Winston Duke) the leader of the White Gorilla tribe, who have lived separately from the rest of Wakandian society, is also a well-written side character. I understand in the comics he’s called Man-Ape and this is why this movie had to be written and directed by a person of color, because otherwise he might still be referred to as such in the movie, and that would have created a bad backlash. M'Baku is fierce and sexy, but also provides a couple of very humorous moments, telling Ross (Martin Freeman) to be quiet or they’ll eat him, cracks himself up, and then admits they're vegetarians! Gorgeous world building, love the opening sequence explaining the Vibranium meteor that hit this part of Africa and how that created their way of life. I was expecting a slightly more pronounced visual opening of the city. When T’Challa, Nakia and Okoya first fly into Wakanda, we go from seeing the treetops to just being inside the Capital City. However, the Virtual Reality car chase and flight battle - leading-edge! When the Wakandans aren't speaking English they're actually speaking Xhosa, a language spoken by the Bantu in South Africa. South African actor John Kani, who plays T’Challa’s father, T’Chaka, suggested using it while filming Captain America: Civil War and taught it to Chadwick Boseman. Now I just wonder with the success of Black Panther is the D.C. Movie Universe going to move up the Cyborg movie with Ray Fisher which isn’t scheduled until April of 2020.

2.20.18 T&T Weekly Movie Segment on THAT'S SHOW BIZ WITH CHUCK DARROW also featured Black Panther start at 45:40

T & T's LAMB (movie bloggers association) Score: 5 outta 5 #WakandaForever! (Note: all above links take you to the T&T post for that subject) click to COMMENT Share :)

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easyfoodnetwork · 5 years ago

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Grocery stores have announced hiring sprees in response to increased demand due to concerns around novel coronavirus. | Mario Tama/Getty Images Grocery, delivery, and other businesses in-demand during the coronavirus pandemic are on hiring sprees, but for laid-off restaurant workers, making the switch isn’t so simple Angel de la Torre-Miranda has thrived on a career in restaurants. For almost 13 years, he has worked the line as a cook and a sous chef across the San Diego metro area, most recently preparing cheeseburgers and huli huli chicken at the Boardwalk Beach Club in Coronado. He loved the work, and it put food on the table for himself, his girlfriend, and his almost-two-year-old child. But with the spread of COVID-19, the Boardwalk Beach Club temporarily shuttered in mid-March, and de la Torre-Miranda lost his job. To support his family, this past week he found himself on the other side of the service industry: driving around town for Postmates, delivering bags full of Carl’s Jr. and 7-Eleven orders. “If I don’t work, we don’t eat,” de la Torre-Miranda says, noting that he earned $40 in two-and-a-half hours. “It’s not rent money but it’s the most money I’ve seen in the last two weeks.” In the middle of what some economists have predicted to be the eve of a recession, restaurants across the country have closed or limited their dining rooms, upsetting the livelihoods of possibly millions of workers. A number of employees are hobbling along with schedule cuts or reduced salaries, but thousands of others are without jobs. Unemployment benefits and restaurant relief funds will help keep eligible workers financially afloat in the near future, as will the recently-passed $2 trillion stimulus package, which will give unemployed restaurant workers an additional cushion of $600 a week plus one-time stimulus checks of up to $1,200. But with fallout from the coronavirus almost certainly enduring for several months, and retailers hiring en masse to keep up with the spike in customers’ panic-stricken purchases, hospitality veterans are looking beyond bars and restaurants for their next paychecks. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do at this point,” says de la Torre-Miranda, who’s applied for positions at grocery stores and medical equipment facilities. “It’s incredibly stressful, because I know what I’m capable of doing in the kitchen.” The shockwaves from COVID-19 have rippled across the restaurant industry. At least 26 states have banned or restricted dine-in service, and on March 26, the total number of hourly employees going into work at local food-and-drink businesses had dropped by 64 percent compared to the median attendance on the same weekdays in January, according to data from scheduling and time tracking tool Homebase. But for retail and delivery, business is soaring: shelves where milk, eggs, and seltzer are regularly stocked feature gaping holes; lines at grocery stores sometimes stretch out the door, with customers attempting to maintain the recommended six feet of separation; Instacart app downloads grew by more than 200 percent between February 14 and March 15. To meet the sudden influx of customer demand, a slew of grocery stores and retailers like Trader Joe’s and Amazon have announced hiring sprees, with some companies making direct efforts to aid restaurant workers. CVS Health, which plans to add over 50,000 workers, is working with the hospitality group Estefan Enterprises in Florida to match up to 300 of its employees with temporary jobs until its hotels and restaurants reopen, a deal facilitated by personal connections between the organizations. Kroger, which has hired more than 23,500 new employees and plans to bring on an additional 20,000, has partnered with the Thunderdome Restaurant Group and Frisch’s to place restaurant workers with jobs in its plants, warehouses, and grocery stores. Kimberly Yorio, a spokesperson for the grocery chains Kings Food Markets and Balducci’s, says that with daily demand surging exponentially, the companies began a hiring campaign to onboard over 100 full-time and part-time workers, some temporary, at their locations throughout the Northeast. The jobs range from retrieving grocery carts and working the cash registers, to slicing cold cuts at the deli counter. “The largest number of hospitality workers are being displaced right now,” Yorio says. “The grocery industry, on the flip side, has an urgent need to employ people quickly who have skills that are absolutely relevant, and the knowledge of food for all hospitality works is super helpful.” Echoing other retailers who are recruiting short-term help for the pandemic, job postings on Kings Food Markets and Balducci’s suggest the duration of temporary COVID-19 hires could last a couple of months. However, Yorio notes the possibility for extensions and long-term employment opportunities based on the needs of customers and workers. But despite the hiring sprees, work isn’t guaranteed for new jobseekers. These days, recently laid-off restaurant workers looking to get a toe in as a grocery bagger or in a warehouse position are potentially competing with millions of newly unemployed. Mariah R.*, a former server-bartender at a Stoney River steakhouse and grill location in Atlanta, Georgia says that after being let go from the restaurant due to the pandemic and applying for several retail positions, she has already been rejected for four different positions at Target. De la Torre-Miranda, who has prior warehouse experience, says that after hearing about companies’ hirings waves, he applied to Walmart, Costco, Target, and Amazon, along with several grocery stores, with few leads as of last week. But some restaurant workers don’t consider switching to retail a viable option at all. Tim Oliver, who is currently working around eight hours a week as a cook at the taco bar Garage in Binghamton, New York — down from the usual 45 — is holding out for as long as he can before applying for a position at Walmart. His skills and personality, embraced in restaurants, he says, might not be so welcomed in retail. “Everybody’s drawn there for one reason — to make some food for people and they’re happy about it,” he says about working in a kitchen. “To go from the high-pressure job of cooking to stocking shelves, I’m gonna go nuts.” Jobs like delivering meals or ringing up groceries also put workers on the front lines of the pandemic, sometimes with little protection. George F. *, a career server who lives in Honolulu’s Waikiki neighborhood, says that after being hired for an overnight stocker position at a grocery store, he learned on his first day that several of his new coworkers weren’t sharing his precautionary health measures like wearing a handkerchief or mask and gloves, and that the company wasn’t spraying down the store with cleaning products. “Offices and break rooms are extremely small with multiple people close together,” he says of his new workplace, adding that it’s a problem “for people to not be using gloves or face masks in those situations.” Still, the former server considers himself lucky to have the job: He now has unionized healthcare and secured employment in an industry vital during the pandemic. With the sudden jump in the labor market supply, some hospitality workers have been exiting the food and retail worlds altogether, at least temporarily. For over two years, Shawn Ryder poured beer at the beloved local hockey bar Lord Stanley’s and the Annex in DeKalb, Illinois. But when Governor J.B. Pritzker mandated that bars and restaurants across the state shutter to dampen the spread of COVID-19, a Lord Stanley’s regular threw Ryder a lifeline and messaged him about a job opportunity at the plant where he worked. Instead of chatting with regulars about Blackhawks scores, this past week, the former bartender was learning how to operate heavy machinery to drill holes into plastics and metals as a computer numerically controlled operator. “It was kind of like when I left Ohio and went to California,” Ryder says. “The culture shock — it’s a totally different type of work, a different pace, different way of thinking.” The total take home pay is roughly $200 less at Ryder’s new job (an amount he used to make in tips), and he hasn’t fully adjusted to the early-hour schedule. But he considers himself lucky to be gainfully employed, unlike many of his former colleagues. “There are definitely worse jobs out there,” he says. De la Torre-Miranda, the San Diego chef, is hoping for similar fortunes. With another child on the way, the chef estimates that he’s applied to over 50 jobs online, often without reading the job descriptions. Two retail or warehouse jobs plus Postmates delivery work would be ideal for sustaining his family financially, he says. Like other former restaurant workers, de la Torre-Miranda knows the pandemic will eventually subside, and people will leave their homes to eat out again. But whether he will be back in the kitchen to fire up their entrees when that day comes is a question he doesn’t have an answer to. “I love working with food,” de la Torre-Miranda says. “But it’s so unstable as it is, so when we have something like this happening, and this is the fallout — I don’t know.” *To safeguard their livelihoods, Eater guaranteed anonymity to any source who requested it. Matthew Sedacca is a writer living in Brooklyn. from Eater - All https://ift.tt/2xzsXNV

http://easyfoodnetwork.blogspot.com/2020/03/theres-nothing-i-wouldnt-do-at-this.html

#EasyFoodNetwork #ComfortFoodRecipes #EasyRecipes #GoodFood #BestComfortFoodRecipes #TastyFoodv

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higuchimon · 6 years ago

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[fanfic] Rebirth of Kaiser: Chapter 13

Cyber Harpie touched down on the landing field that spread out on the far side of the market town. She didn’t stay there for more than a few moments; that was part of the rules. Those who flew in had to clear off to make way for new fliers landing. Flying in the town itself was also prohibited, mostly for reasons she’d never bothered to look into.

She wasn’t bothered by that, though. She wasn’t nearly as good at walking as she was at flying, but she made her way through the area, searching for wherever she could find anyone that she knew. There had to be someone; Amazons frequented the place with many different items to sell, most of which harpies – and those who would buy from harpies – would put to good use.

The issue there was arriving at the market during one of those times when the Amazons were there. It wasn’t always as easy as she would like for it to be.

Making her way through the market reminded her of how difficult it would be to track her true targets once they arrived there. Without being able to fly, she would have to trundle along behind them in the crowds, which consisted of far more people than Cyber Harpie liked seeing in one place at the same time.

Even the platoon isn’t this big and I know she gathered up all that she could find.

But here there were hundreds of people, wandering this way and that, talking at the top of their lungs, with food vendors filling the air with scents, some of which enticed her appetite and thirst – she stopped at one such to trade a small polished stone for a wooden cup of fruit-flavored water, draining it to the dregs and having it refilled to take with her – musicians joined in with instruments and voices, while jesters of many kinds chattered and tossed balls and amused themselves and all who would stop to watch them.

Cyber Harpie stopped to finish her drink, taking several steps to the side to locate a small and quiet place to take a few breaths in while doing so. Staying here for too long set her off in ways she didn’t dare let wander free right now.

Now, who is likely to be here today? Not the furmakers, they would be too busy hunting their prey and working on the results of previous hunts. Winemakers were possible but not as likely as she would have preferred. Hunters certainly came to mind and she wouldn’t have been surprised at all to see them with haunches of meat hanging anywhere near the butchers.

There were other options as well: jewelers and smiths, weavers, spinners, and craftsfolk of every type and profession. Cyber Harpie spent her time when she wasn’t spying gathering precious items wherever they could be found. She didn’t know everything about what the cycle of making things was like.

I’ll just look around. It most certainly wouldn’t be the first time that she’d done this and she knew it would also not be her last.

She struck off towards the armorers’ area. Even if there weren’t any Amazons that she knew there, it would be fascinating to see what new items those who were there had with them. She could always use new greaves.

Cyber Harpie arrived at the market city in the mid-afternoon. As the sun began to slip towards the western horizon, she carried new greaves, metal polish, and a new file for her claws. Now she made her way towards the nearest inn that cater to one of her people. She would find Amazons in the morning; right now she wanted to eat and rest.

She’d barely crossed into the inn when an unexpected but extremely welcome voice rose in greeting.

“Where have you been hiding yourself all this time?” The person who called would have been known as Amazoness Curse Master by those who only knew her by the card and not by her name. Cyber Harpie whirled on one claw and fluttered over to her, tossing her purchases onto the empty chair.

“Xoana! What are you doing here? I didn’t think you came.”

Xoana shrugged her shoulders. “The Queen needed someone to run errands for her and I was the only one available to come here. But I don’t mind.” She tapped a heavy pouch at her waist. “I made quite a few good bargains of my own.”

Cyber Harpie settled onto the perch nearest to her old friend. “Would you be averse to making another one?” A small sparkling idea had just leaped into existence in her head, and Cyber Harpie couldn’t help but want to put it to use. She was, after all, a harpie, and snatching from other people came as second nature to her. All that made this different would be that she would use someone else’s hands to do the snatching.

Xoana tendered her a suspicious glance before waving one hand to the worker at the bar. “A glass of your best for each of us!” She declared before she turned back to Cyber Harpie. “We can discuss business tomorrow. That’s soon enough, isn’t it?”

“It is.” Cyber Harpie settled herself, looking forward to a splendid evening, hopefully followed by an even more splendid tomorrow.

Honest could feel the worry dripping off of his master. He couldn’t read Yuusuke’s mind – that wasn’t one of his gifts – but since they’d been reunited, he’d found himself far more capable of reading Yuusuke’s moods.

I wish I could read his mind. Doing so would make deciding what to do next much easier. He knew Yuusuke was on a trip with Ryou to the market town and he thought they would be all right together. If anything truly damaging came up, he would be able to get there in moments. And yet there was still that worry.

“What concerns you now, brother?” Roshan asked, one finely carved eyebrow raising upward. “You lose track of what you’re saying so easily.”

Honest tightened his fingers. “Something worries my master. And that worries me.”

“I see.” Roshan flicked one wing carelessly. “I presume there’s also been no word yet from the Herald?”

“He hasn’t been gone all that long. And he has lots of people that he checks up on.”

Roshan made a quiet noise of commiseration. “I thought of returning to the clanhome for a visit while they’re away. Would you care to return with me?” He picked up a cup and toyed with it for a few moments. “I’ll have to make arrangements for my duties to be covered here, of course. But there’s little I can do for Marufuji Ryou while he’s not here, so I had best take care of personal matters while I can.”

Honest could not say that he entirely trusted every word that came out of his brother’s mouth. He trusted Roshan – mostly – but at the same time, he knew where Roshan’s loyalty truly lay. He gave the other a very stern look.

“You’ve yet to tell me why you seek to help him in the first place. If he serves a side, it isn’t the one you serve.”

Roshan waved a hand as carelessly as he could. “I know. I couldn’t not know. But call it...” He hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Would you believe me if I said it was a whim?”

“No.”

Roshan’s lips quirked for one brief moment. “I didn’t think so.”

Honest regarded his brother, wanting an answer and not at all certain that he would get one. Roshan very seldom told anyone why he did anything. He simply did it and let others figure out his reasoning. If he’d ever said more than the most confusing of things, Honest didn’t know about it.

As the long moments stretched on into an uncomfortable silence, Roshan leaned forward. “You didn’t answer me. Do you want to return to the clanhome? I’m going, whether you are or not.” He tilted back now. “But what would you do here by yourself?”

Honest’s lips thinned in thought. So much as he disliked the thought of leaving without letting his master know, Roshan – as always – spoke the annoying and unwanted truth. He could go to Yuusuke and accompany them on their journey, but he’d long since accepted that there were times when people needed to be alone together for whatever their reasons were. Exploring the village would offer some interest, but Roshan had already shown them around, and there wasn’t much that would catch his interest on his own.

“Very well.” He would at least leave a message for Yuusuke, should he and Ryou return first. “When are you leaving?”

Roshan made a point of looking out the window. “Dawn. Do be ready, brother.”

Honest nodded. That would give him plenty of time to get matters organized. It really had been many years since he’d entered the clanhome and he looked forward to seeing some of his old friends.

He did hope that they would look forward to seeing him as well.

Chaos Hunter made her way back to the village, most of her attention returned to the proper duty of her revenge, but still the occasional flicker of thoughts lingering on Daemon Tamer.

Dark Familiar had best have some information for me soon. She didn’t believe that he would have any now. It was far too soon; at best he would have located the Kaiser and spent some time tracking him.

She took the long way around to the village, skirting some of the territory that had once been part of Haou’s realm in the long ago. She spied several moss-covered ruins, with marks of fire hidden where only the eyes of someone who knew they were there could see them.

I remember this place. Chaos Hunter smiled at the sight. She’d almost forgotten it until now. Here there had once been a glorious city, one of the few to survive Brron’s reign.

It hadn’t survived Haou’s. The city dared to stand against him, proclaiming their independence and fierceness. The defenders even repelled several of Haou’s attempts to crush them. She’d stood among the army in those days and hated having to fall back.

But Haou would not be resisted forever. He’d not attended the early battles, having something else occupying his attention in those days. She didn’t know what it was, only that it consumed him entirely.

As the war raged on, most people presumed that his attention remained absorbed either by battle in other areas or the early stages of creating Super Fusion. She’d never wasted her energy on such speculations, seeking instead ways to either bring down the city – and thus bring fame and honor to herself – or to do anything else that would accomplish said goals.

And then he was there. Without any warning. She could never forget that moment, when he’d stood facing down the city’s greatest warriors, not even having his duel disk out.

He hadn’t needed it. He’d brought down the city walls without it, and then the entire army swept in after him, raging throughout the streets, bringing fire and weapons and magic against those who defied their master.

Ah, those had indeed been the days. She couldn’t even remember how many perished in that battle. Or battles would be more accurate; it had taken nearly a week to crush every defender in the city and grind it down to little more than dust and ash. Those who survived were taken to Haou’s dungeons, and there hadn’t been many of those in the first place.

And now look at what he’s become. Chaos Hunter’s lip curled at the thought. She would avoid him still; regardless of how he chose to use that power, he still had it. She’d heard from others about the death of Guardian Baou, how he’d fallen against Haou after the boy discarded his armor and his kingdom.

And now he was a man full grown, experienced in his power, and stronger than she’d seen before. She would keep away from him, she reminded herself. Her revenge centered on Hell Kaiser, as it always had. How could anyone deny her the death of the one who slew her brother?

But as she wandered through the ruins, the faintest hint of someone watching her crept up her spine, and she hurried her steps. The sooner she returned to safety, the better she would like it.

To Be Continued

Notes: Anyone want to see the full story of the city’s defense and fall? There’s so much more Chaos Hunter doesn’t know about what happened.

#fanfic #higuchimon writes #ygo gx #marufuji ryou #fujiwara yuusuke #chapters: rebirth of kaiser

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theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

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Depending on what kind of anxiety you have, doomsday is either far away or just around the corner. Whether it’s the class war, the race war, the rising tide, or the total collapse of civilization, we’ll all need food and water when it comes.

Doomsday prepping is an American invention, born from the nuclear panics of the 1950s. (Before that, survivalism was just called surviving.) Doomsday preppers stock up on the basics, often in accordance with the so-called “Rule of Threes,” which holds that a person in a crisis can survive for three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, three days without water, three weeks without food, and three months without security.

Prepping is a long-term, thoughtful kind of hoarding. It’s inverse, Black Friday, is fast, cheap, and fun — way down at the end of the stocking-up spectrum. This retail tradition evokes its own doomsday: bodies trampled by doorbuster deals, overworked and exploited low-wage workers, families trying to make ends meet.

One might argue that the holiday’s existence is a symptom of an economic system on the brink. Then again, one might use its great sales to load up on necessary items for the end times. I spoke to five people in the prepping business about what they’re hoping to pick up this weekend. (Quotes have been edited and condensed.)

Founder of CanadianPreparedness.com

What are you hoping to buy on sale this weekend, prepping-related or otherwise? Personally, nothing. I have literally everything a prepper could want.

On a shopping weekend as wild as this, how does one decide what is actually worth buying? I’d say nonperishables, ammo, first-aid supplies with no expiration dates — things which probably are not on sale. You can’t eat cheap TVs!

What are three items a non-prepper could buy to be at least a little more prepared? Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers will allow you to preserve many staple grains — rice, beans, and flour — for 30-plus years. Titan Survivorcord is a paracord that includes fishing line, snare wire, and a strand of jute twine infused with wax, for fire-starting. The Inergy Kodiak power generator is one of the most advanced lithium power generators on the market.

Do some preppers get caught up in buying gadgets? Of course. Our society is driven by rampant materialism, and prepping is no exception. The only difference is a $2,000 generator is more functional than brand-name clothing.

Writer, Off the Grid

What are you hoping to buy on sale this weekend? A tarp. For actual survival, a generic blue tarp from Lowe’s isn’t going to cut it. I’m looking for something that is specially designed to help you survive in winter, like [the Xenon winter tarp, $140 and the Old Man Winter by Wilderness Logistics, $160]. They can be used as a tent, as ground cover, to catch rainwater, to patch holes, for a trap, and even to drag back heavy animals.

What is something basic non-preppers should buy? A good flashlight. I recently was gifted this Flateye LED flashlight, and it’s like holding a car headlight in your hand. Not only can it light up the world around you, but you can use it to blind attackers or signal SOS.

How do you decide what kinds of things are actually worth buying? If people are deciding between two items, I always tell them to get the thing that’s more versatile. For example, you can use an air compressor to skin a deer, or set up an AR-15 to hunt deer.

Where are the amazing Black Friday deals? There are plenty of lists out there like this that have good deals for preppers. My advice would be to go to Reddit’s r/preppers on Black Friday itself. People will be posting deals that you’re unlikely to see anywhere else.

Host of Prepper Camp, the nation’s largest three-day prepper event

What are you hoping to buy on sale this weekend? Prepping is more about planning, knowledge, and skills than actually purchasing a lot of useless gadgets. I walked away from the consumer lifestyle many years ago and now live on an off-grid homestead. That said, there are always items that preparedness-minded people, like myself, keep their eyes open for. We are always looking for good deals on all things canning, such as jars, lids, pressure canners, and water bath canners. Or perhaps a higher-ticket item, such as a food dehydrator.

What would you tell a non-prepper to buy? Because water is the most important of your basic survival needs, I’d suggest a means of purification. We all are different, and preparedness is not one size fits all. This item could be tablets you drop into a gallon of water, all the way up to a contraption you put into a pond and drink from.

What’s the coolest prepper gadget you’ve seen? Manufacturers are always coming out with the latest, greatest gadget. I think we all are consumers at heart, preppers and non-preppers alike. I’m past the consumer phase, even though I’ve been known to drool from time to time. If money were no object, I’d love to see a freeze dryer under my tree.

Founder, the Organic Prepper

What are you hoping to buy this weekend? I will be looking at freeze-dried fruits and veggies. Just because there’s an emergency going on, that doesn’t mean I won’t want to give my family balanced nutrition.

What are silliest things you’ve seen other preppers buy? Tactical gear like bulletproof vests, or far more guns than they actually need. It’s really great to be armed and prepared to protect yourself if someone breaks in, but you can’t shoot 10 guns at a time.

What should people stockpile instead? Water is an absolutely enormous gap in a lot of preps, because who wants to go buy a whole bunch of 1-gallon jugs of water? Imagine spending $200 and all you’ve got is that stupid water. It’s not sexy, but you’re gonna use it. Water is actually a really good investment.

Do you see yourself as prepping for a specific kind of incident, or are you just trying to be prepared in general? The No. 1 emergency that most people are going to face is a financial problem, and that isn’t necessarily gonna be the collapse of the American economy. It’s more likely that someone in your family will lose their job, or you’ll have a huge medical expense that you weren’t expecting and can’t pay for. I’m a single parent. About 10 years ago, I lost my job. The fact that my pantry had enough food for several months meant I was able to use my savings and my unemployment payment to keep my mortgage paid.

Berkey Water Filter Sales, Directive21.com

How is your company thinking about Black Friday this year? Are you running any specials? Yes, but people are thinking more about having a good water filter on their kitchen counter than they’re thinking, “Oh, my gosh, the world’s economy is gonna collapse!” Usually the water filter industry is fear-based, or caution-based, or prepping-based. Right now it’s just mainstream interest. But yeah, we’re having specials. People will buy.

You’re saying business is up in the prepper industry? No! They’re buying less! Way, way less. The market is way different. If Hillary would’ve got elected, then it would’ve been completely different for our market — more guns, more bullets, more everything. It would’ve continued what was going on during Obama, for sure. But now people are happy and comfortable. It’s not that they aren’t buying; they’re just buying when they want to have purified water at home.

It’s interesting you say that, because I’m in New York City, and I find that people on the left are very unhappy and uncomfortable. I totally agree with you. I’m not saying this to be negative toward either side, but the left doesn’t put their money into it. I know there is a lot of fear on that side, but they just don’t buy like the other end of the spectrum does.

So you’re not anticipating a huge influx of sales? We have our core. They’ll buy. Cyber Monday is usually the big day for us, but it’s not as huge as you might think. It’s not like Amazon, you know what I mean? When the weekend is over, they’ll do over $10 billion or something. They’re so huge now! But yeah, there have always been ups and downs, business cycles. If we get a Democrat in 2020, business will pick up for us tremendously.

Want more stories from The Goods by Vox? Sign up for our newsletter here.

Original Source -> What doomsday preppers are buying this Black Friday

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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apartmentdiet · 7 years ago

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7 helpful posts from /r/personalfinance

One of my favorite things to read is /r/personalfinance.

Here are seven of my favorite posts from the sub — and what YOU can learn from them.

7 valuable Reddit personal finance posts

1. “Paying rent isn’t throwing away money.”

If I ever go bald, know it’s because I tore my hair out every time I heard people say this.

From the /r/personalfinance thread:

While it is true that when you buy a home a portion of your monthly mortgage payment will be going to principal, and therefore you are paying yourself in some ways, however, the cost of home ownership is significant. Some of the lesser known costs include the lack of flexibility, stress, the risk of home price declines, home maintenance, real estate taxes, and HOA fees.

These are also known as phantom costs — the expenses you don’t normally consider when you buy a house.

OP also offers a great mental reframing of rent, saying, “As human beings, there are several things we need to survive, including food and shelter. Paying money for rent is no more a ‘waste’ of money than paying for food is.”

For more, be sure to check out my article on real estate investing myths and my post on how to buy a house.

2. “Your parents took decades to furnish their house.”

It’s easy to look at someone successful and compare yourselves to them. You start feeling like you aren’t doing enough to reach your own goals and might try to rush things to achieve their level of success.

In reality, the most successful people devoted a lot of time and energy into getting to where they are — and you should do the same.

That’s what’s at the heart of this thread about the importance of patience when it comes to your goals:

If you’re just starting out, remember that it took your parents decades to collect all the furniture, decorations, appliances, etc you are used to having around. It’s easy to forget this because you started remembering things a long while after they started out together, so it feels like that’s how a house should always be.

It’s impossible for most people starting out to get to that level of settled in without burying themselves in debt. So relax, take your time, and embrace the emptiness! You’ll enjoy the house much more if you’re not worried about how to pay for everything all the time.

So whether you’re saving for your wedding or trying to get out of debt, know that these things take time and that’s okay. Once you stop worrying about trying to accomplish your goals quickly, you can focus your mental energy on the things you can control to accomplish your goals.

3. “I found out a coworker with the same job is making twice as much as me.”

A fascinating story about a research assistant who finds out she’s being paid MUCH less than a coworker who joined six months after she got the job.

When she raised the issue to management, her boss tried pulling some corporate trickery that’s common with bad companies:

One week later she called me into her office. She absolutely berated me for thinking I could move into the coordinator position for which I was already doing the work, and complained about my work performance. Last month I had an evaluation, and received very high praise for my performance, and there has not ever been complaints about my performance in the past. All in all, I assume she was making excuses not to increase my pay.

Eventually, she was able to find a job at another place that offered her more than she was currently earning — which led to a bidding war between her old boss and her new employer (aka the best position you could possibly be in as a job seeker).

A few lessons for job seekers from this post:

Negotiate mercilessly. OP could have just shrugged her shoulders and kept quiet when she found out she could be earning more — BUT she didn’t. She addressed the issue and now has two different companies vying for her work. That’s why it’s always in your best interest to negotiate your salary even if you think you’re earning enough.

Adopt an abundance mindset. It’s easy to take any job offer that comes your way — especially when money’s tight. OP had two job offers and knew that if one didn’t work out, the other would be there for her. This is also known as an abundance mentality, and it can be a powerful mental shift for the way you approach finances.

Know your worth. The first step to any salary negotiation is knowing how much you’re worth. While websites like Glassdoor or PayScale can help you get a good sense of this, talking to people in your field about their earnings can give you a sense of what you should be making (like OP did). So don’t be afraid to ask. Top Performers do all they can to know what they’re worth.

Be sure to check out my article on how to negotiate your salary and the Briefcase Technique for more.

4. What to do when a loved one dies.

When tragedy strikes, you find yourself asking questions you’ve never even considered before. This /r/personalfinance thread tries to answer one of those questions: How do I handle my finances when someone I love dies?

While the post deals with money accounts and estate issues beautifully, it also goes into the more lesser known parts of dealing with death, like where to get an urn:

The funeral home won’t tell you this, but you don’t have to buy things like urns and whatnot from them. I chose to, because the prospect of receiving a plastic baggie with my husband’s ashes that I would have to deal with was horrifying. A friend bought an urn for his father’s ashes on Amazon. There are options that are cheaper than the funeral home, but I chose to pay the obscene markup so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the logistics.

Overall, it’s a great read for anyone — even if you haven’t suffered any personal tragedies. It’s an excellent perspective on life, death, and where our finances fit in between it all.

5. “We decided not to buy a bearded dragon.”

For some, a Rich Life means a new car, ordering appetizers at restaurants, or paying off their debt. For others, it’s a desert lizard chilling out in a reptile aquarium in their living room.

Or at least that’s what one Reddit user thought when he got ready to buy a bearded dragon for his son’s birthday. When he ran the numbers though, he realized that the investment he’d be making into the pet would be much more than he bargained for.

[We] learned it needs expensive UV bulbs that last about 6 months and are about $40 each. Also the electricity cost the run this heat 24 hours can be a drain on the electric bill.

Also the beardie needs to go to the vet every 6 months for a checkup. And finally, food. They have a very diverse diet and can eat up to $15 per week in foods. So I did a total cost analysis for a beardie that lives 12 years and it turned out to be a whopping $10,000.

This is a great example of figuring out what fits into your Rich Life. I’m a big believer in spending on the things you truly love and ignoring the rest. So if you believe that a bearded dragon will help you live your Rich Life, by all means buy that lizard!

However, if you find that the benefits of caring for a reptile native to sweltering deserts for a decade aren’t worth the money and energy, don’t worry about it. Your Rich Life is what YOU make of it.

Also LOL at this robotically cold statement from a commenter: “It’s about ROI on the pet. Dogs are more fulfilling companions than a lizard. At least that’s the case with OP.”

6. What to do when you lose everything in a fire.

Sometimes we do all we can to prevent disaster — but it ends up happening anyway. Case in point: Losing everything you own in a fire like this OP.

One former insurance worker offered their incredibly insightful advice on how the insurance company is going to approach the situation and what OP should do to get the most out of his claims.

The biggest takeaway: Use the truth to your advantage. The commenter then used an example of how one guy used his situation to net him a five-figure insurance claim.

I remember one specific customer … he had some old, piece of shit projector (from mid-late 90s) that could stream an equally piece of shit consumer camcorder. Worth like $5 at a scrap yard. It had some oddball fucking resolution it could record at, though — and the guy strongly insisted that we replace with “Like Kind and Quality” (trigger words). Ended up being a $65k replacement, because the only camera on the market happened to be a high-end professional video camera (as in, for shooting actual movies). $65-goddam-thousand-dollars because he knew that loophole, and researched his shit.

This goes to illustrate a big point when it comes to anything insurance related: Do your research. Once you know the rules of the game you’re playing (whether it be taxes, insurance, or salary negotiations), the better positioned you are to win.

7. Explain it like I’m 18/22/30/40.

These threads are the perfect place to start if you’re completely new to the world of personal finance (aside from IWT of course).

These guides break down important themes for your personal finance journey at different stages of your life. They are:

ELI18. For when you’re out of the house for the first time and wouldn’t recognize a 401k if it walked up to you and slapped the fidget spinner out of your hand. Great advice on topics like opening bank accounts, applying for a credit card, and even finding a roommate.

ELI22. So you’ve graduated college and are out in the “real world.” Scary right? This post makes it a little less scary by providing a solid introduction to taxes, contributing to retirement, and paying off your student loans.

ELI30. When you’re 30, a whole new crop of financial questions start coming up. How do I handle money when I get married? How do I buy a house? I have a dog … that’s like taking care of a baby right? This comprehensive post helps answer a few of those questions.

ELI40. The name of the game at 40 and beyond is retirement — rather, it’s making sure your investments are best positioned for when you retire. This post is a great primer on planning for the future and beyond.

Why I LOVE /r/PersonalFinance

You probably wouldn’t say anything if a friend or coworker tells you about a money decision you don’t agree with (racking up credit card debt, buying a house with little income, etc.). But if you saw the same issues on Reddit personal finance, you’d let the world know exactly how you feel about their issues and what you’d do instead.

It’s this level of honesty that helps us see how people really use money — and how to use it yourself.

Whether you’re in your forties planning out your retirement or you’re still in high school trying to figure out what to do with your paycheck, I’m glad you’re here.

I want to give you something that can help you take your personal finances to the next level:

The Ultimate Guide to Personal Finance

In it, you’ll learn how to:

Master your 401k: Take advantage of free money offered to you by your company … and get rich while doing it.

Manage Roth IRAs: Start saving for retirement in a worthwhile long-term investment account.

Spend the money you have — guilt-free: By leveraging the systems in this book, you’ll learn exactly how you’ll be able to save money to spend without the guilt.

Enter your info below and get on your way to living a Rich Life today.

7 helpful posts from /r/personalfinance is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

#Vanessa Napier

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lovebooksgroup · 7 years ago

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Today on Love Books Group we have a treat for you with a special feature with author Susi Osbourne. Enjoy!

Book Synopsis

Following years of sexual abuse and resulting psychological trauma, Angelica Stone has learnt to rely solely on herself. Unwilling to allow anyone to get close to her, Angelica is reluctant to allow her work colleague Lola into her life. Lola, in contrast to the damaged Angelica, is from what appears to be a happy middle-class family. But all is not what it seems… An unlikely bond is formed between the two as they learn more about eachother. As they become closer, a series of life-changing events leave Lola on the verge of ruin. Will the friends be able to better themselves and have the lives they so desperately want? Or will they succumb to the expectations and the path already laid out for them? Angelica Stone follows both characters in their own journey of self-discovery. This close and in-depth look into the lives of Angelica and Lola will see the reader laugh and cry as the two women learn about themselves and the invaluable friendship they have. Susi Osborne worked within the library service and now runs Northwick LitFest in Cheshire, where she lives. Susi also worked as a classroom assistant in a junior school and, in addition, has had first hand experience of social workers and the adoption system.

Susi Osborne

Susi Osborne lives in Winsford in Cheshire with her Scottish husband, her actress daughter and two mischievous little dogs. Their house is termed affectionately (hopefully!) amongst their numerous friends as the Osborne madhouse for obvious reasons. They do a lot of entertaining. Susi also has an adult son and a grandson who live nearby.

Before she became a writer, Susi worked in libraries for many years. She also worked as a classroom assistant in a junior school. In addition to her writing, Susi organises Northwich LitFest, which she has been running for the past six years.

Alongside the writing of her latest book, Angelica Stone, Susi has been raising money for Centrepoint, the charity for youth homelessness, and has set up a Just Giving Page in her name.

Susi is a firm believer in the fact that it’s never too late to do anything. ‘You have one life – go out and grab it with both hands!’ She is available to give talks at festivals, events, libraries and reading groups and can be contacted at [email protected]

Guest Post By Susi Osborne

Hi Kelly – and thank you so much for inviting me to have a guest spot on your blog today.

November already? That soon came around. And I don’t really want this year to end – 2017 has been an amazing year for me with all kinds of good things happening, including meeting some lovely people along the way. Having said that, this hasn’t just been an amazing year, in actual fact it has been an incredible decade altogether for me personally.

It all started in the February of 2008 when I had a milestone birthday. It was one I hadn’t particularly been looking forward to as it really did, supposedly, signify the onslaught of old age. Hmm. People kept asking what I would be doing by way of celebration. I procrastinated at length. Did I really just want to mark the occasion quietly, have a meal with a few close friends? Would that be the beginning of the downward spiral, on the slippery slope towards ‘the end’? Visions of pottering around garden centres, coach trips and worse, drifted past me. No. It could not be.

Maybe it’s something to do with being an Aquarian in The Age of Aquarius, but I’ve always been a bit of a rebel. And so, to mark the dawning of this new decade of my hitherto relatively crazy-free life, I decided to throw… a Tarty Party. It was a red and black themed affair, obviously, and I wore huge red feathered wings and felt a million dollars.

The only downside of the whole evening was that in the heat from all the dancing I did, the dye from my wings came out all over my back and gave me an allergic reaction. But, heigh-ho, it was a great party!

And that was just the start. Just a few days later my very first book, The Ripples of Life, was published, opening up a whole new world that I had really known very little about before. I threw myself into it wholeheartedly. Coincidentally, it was also at this time that I met a person who has since become my closest friend. We met when she gave me my first ever radio interview.

So that was the beginning. Two more books followed – Grace & Disgrace and Secrets, Lies & Butterflies, each with their own whirl of publicity. But, in the midst of all of this, a random thought entered my head. I had travelled all over the country to various literary events and festivals and always found them really interesting. So here was the thought. Why not organise a literary festival in Cheshire, where I live? Great idea, Susi. Have you ever organised anything like this before? No, just summer fairs at my kids’ school. Do you have any funding? No. Do you have any help? No. Great. Let’s do it then.

And so Northwich LitFest was born. I’ve been running it for six years now and I have to say, with the voice of experience – anyone can start one but, it is definitely not a task for the faint-hearted. That very first year was manic, when I stop to think about it. I didn’t have a budget – never have I had to blag so many things for free in my entire life! Convincing venues

that they would love to hold an event there without charge. Convincing writers that they would like to travel to little-known Northwich in Cheshire to speak about their books and stay overnight in my house, if they wished, as I couldn’t afford to pay for a hotel. And, finally, convincing the people of Northwich that they would love to come to the events even though there had never been a literary festival held in the town ever before.

But it worked. I had the lovely Adele Parks as one of the guest speakers that first year and she was wonderful. Despite a somewhat shaky start (for me), as I worried that no one would turn up.They did. In fact more than sixty people came to listen, and were enthralled – it was a great evening. Afterwards Adele sent me a copy of an article she’d written in which she said she’d been unsure what to expect, but I’d attacked the organisation of Northwich LitFest ‘with gusto’ and she was impressed. She wasn’t wrong. And I haven’t changed!

All of that was six years ago, and since then Northwich LitFest has continued to go from strength to strength. There have been some amazing speakers – Stella Duffy, Carole Matthews, Rowan Coleman, Angela Clarke, Paul Burston, to name but a few. Fifteen events in total throughout the month of June each year.

Northwich LitFest is a tremendous amount of work and brings an even larger amount of stress – so much so that at the end of every June I always say ‘never again’. I don’t think anyone believes me any more

though as I’m still here! And next year’s LitFest is already in the planning stages. Laura Wilkinson and Christie Barlow will be here!

Actually, one of the speakers I had at last year’s LitFest was the fabulous Sophie Parkin (daughter of Molly Parkin), who gave a fascinating talk and slideshow entitled ‘Scurrilous Tales of Soho’ which tied in with her book about The Colony Room Club. Sophie and her husband stayed with us for the weekend and we had a crazy day out in Liverpool, visiting an art exhibition, perusing vintage clothes shops, and eating enough food to feed a small army. Afterwards, Sophie asked whether I’d like to hold a book launch celebration for my latest book, Angelica Stone, in her arts club, Vout-O-Reenees in London. Who was I to say no?

My book launch for Angelica Stone was a night I shall remember forever. Vout-O-Reenees is such an amazing place, and Sophie and Jan so welcoming. It was lovely also to spend such a special night surrounded by family and friends, as well as writers, actors, etc, who I’ve come to know through the Litfest, and that they had travelled from near and far to be there to support me. My only one big regret is that we were enjoying ourselves so much that we hardly took any photos!

So, Angelica Stone was off to a great start – I hope it continues. It’s a much grittier story than my first three books. The idea for Angelica originally stemmed from thinking about how you don’t get a choice about

which family you are to be born into. And, if you need to do so, is it ever possible to break free from the cycle of life into which you’ve been born?

Angelica had been sexually abused a young child and was subsequently taken away from her birth family and brought up in care, where she was moved from one foster placement to another and had an ever-changing succession of social workers – until she absconded, apparently without trace. There are so many young people, like the character of Angelica in my book, who can fall through the net of the system and ‘disappear’. Angelica is tough, because she’s had to be. She trusts no one and reluctant to get close to anyone for fear of bringing them trouble.

However, when Lola comes onto the horizon she is a force to be reckoned with – the kind of person who is drawn towards all the lame ducks of the world, wanting to help. At the beginning of their friendship Angelica has nothing and Lola has it all…apparently. But life is not always what it seems. Slowly, as their friendship develops, cracks start to appear in Lola’s hitherto problem-free world. Things are most definitely not always what they seem – who knows what secrets lurk behind closed doors?

Angelica Stone is a book that contains a lot of humour, some captivating characters, a mysterious thread…and a massive twist! According to one Amazon reviewer ‘Both Angelica and Lola became very close to my heart whilst reading and I think they took a little bit of it with them when they left me.’ I hope you will feel the same.

Susi x

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Angelica-Stone-Susi-Osborne-ebook/dp/B0749S2L68/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510321668&sr=8-1&keywords=susi+osborne

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