#requires a lot of time management and multitasking and attention to detail that simply is exhausting for me to try and maintain

[campbyler]

ik part of it is that life and work just Be Like That sometimes, but every time i check back on your blog it seems yall are going through chronic ao3 author syndrome. sending love and good vibes your way i hope all three of you are doing ok and can catch a break soon!! (ik suni and thea yall are the ones writing the rest of it but sending love to andi as well)

also any tips on writing longer chapters without them sounding like they���re dragging on? i’m a (more casual) fic writer and my chapters always end up a little shorter than i usually hope they’d be

awake at 3am in a fit of jet lag and laughed aloud upon reading this bc you’re not wrong 😭 i feel like part of it is just timing, like thea’s work has a big busy season during the fall every year and her schedule also varies week by week and even day to day so i know some stretches are more difficult than others by default (rn she has been having to work from home on her weekend or after she clocks out which has been extra rough). my work tends to have bursts of insane work days every few weeks or so, and i just have a shitty daily commute on top of that and will sometimes get home like 12 hours after i left in the morning or something. so honestly there is a nonzero chance one of us is having a subpar time on any given workday i fear, and that schedule is pretty unpredictable given the nature of our very full time jobs. i also think it’s just statistically more likely that when we are active there is a reason for our Grievances to be brought up, either organically because we are coming out of a slump and are complaining about the Horrors or because someone checked in on us in a period of absence and we are giving a quick update, but either way, thank you so much for your wishesssss! thea will be getting a break soon (thank god) and i’m actually entering a bit of a busy stretch at work for the next week or so because we have a grant deadline to meet, which always means 10000 last minute experiments that i have to work into my schedule in the middle of the week and it’s really fun and lovely and great. woo hoo. 🙂

as for chapter lengths, i wish i had more solid advice but my problem is genuinely that i can’t for the life of me seem to trim them down 😭 i guess a part of it is largely how your chapters are structured — i only have a couple chaptered fics outside of acswy, but all of them are planned so that each chapter is quite meaty in terms of content or what i want each scene to accomplish. i will say that the singular thing that consistently drives up my word count is DIALOGUEEEEE!!! a blessing when i’m in a rut or have writers block and am trying to get something down on the page, a menace when im editing a scene transition i left to fill in for later and my wc is right at 29k and im sweating watching the number tick up. i find there’s absolutely nothing wrong with shorter chapters if it’s accomplishing what you hope for and i honestly am working really hard on trying to be more concise, but i do find dialogue to be a good way to slow down a scene that’s maybe rushing or is paced a little quicker than you intended. real conversations often stray off topic, people ramble or get sidetracked or get interrupted by things they’re doing — i love describing people talking while doing chores or eating or whatever because you can break up the dialogue with bits of action — and at least for me, it’s a lot easier to work in some narration or description in with dialogue than it is to just write a couple paragraphs of it straight up, which also sometimes feels a little more blunt and Quick than i intend it to be. one thing we both do a Lot is script out dialogue between characters and then go back in to fill in things like speech tags, action descriptions, inner monologues and thoughts, etc. literally just like:

character 1: ___ character 2: _______ 1, (note on how it’s meant to be said or what they’re thinking/intending to say to cue us in later): _____ 2: _____________ (small description of them moving around/something happening in the background to give a visual for describing later)

so on and so forth. it helps a lot either when we want to establish the setup of a dialogue heavy scene before we forget our inspiration, or we’re feeling a bit too blocked to be able to write more descriptively at the moment, etc etc. it’s a really natural way to focus on the flow of conversation without getting caught up in transitions and repetition of dialogue tags and stuff, and usually is the culprit for a scene taking way longer to finish than expected for me.

all that being said, the times i have actually felt like a chapter is paced too quickly is usually either when the dialogue exchange is too fast and feels like the conversation could be more fleshed out, or maybe likeeee a transition happens a little too immediately and it reads a little bit like one thing happening after the next after the next without much of a pause for expansion. if you’ve managed to get your point across in fewer words and your main concern is driving up the word count, i really wouldn’t worry about it! you could always have someone look at it with a fresh pair of eyes and ask for places they feel could use more explanation or detail (maybe describing a setting more vividly? or giving more insight to some of their thoughts at a certain point?) but genuinely — conciseness is a Skill, and seeing how i have once again accidentally answered an ask with one million words, i’ll actually just trade you some of my internal word vomit right now. here you go -> 🎁

[uzair12blog]

13 Ways to Focus When Studying

No matter how old you are, studying may be a daunting undertaking. From middle school children to adults in college, all confront points when they need to sit down for some power-learning.

But learning wouldn't be learning if it wasn't challenging. People experience a variety of difficulties while studying for exams, presentations, and projects. It can be difficult to concentrate when studying at times.

Fortunately, many people's study problems may be diagnosed and remedied, making study time more enjoyable rather than dreaded. The key is recognising those issues and actively striving to resolve them so that you can study properly.

Common Study Problems:-

Studying successfully entails so many variables that there are numerous ways in which it can go wrong. These are some of the most typical issues people experience when attempting to study:

1. Concentration problems

2. Distractions

3. Insufficient motivation

4. Procrastination

5. Dislike for the topic

6. Problems with time management

7. Boredom

8. Stress and pressure

Each study's offender can be dealt with in a variety of ways. Finding methods that are tailored to an individual's specific challenges and learning style is sometimes all that is required.

13 Tips for Focusing When Studying:-

You can start exploring for remedies once you've discovered the reasons you're having problems learning. It's possible that you'll have to attempt a few different approaches before you're able to study more effectively. You'll be acing tests in no time if you're persistent and use the appropriate combination of study tactics.

To get you started, here are 13 study tips:

1. Find the right environment:-

Everything in your environment has an impact on how you study. Background noise, lighting, temperature, phone alerts, and other factors can cause you to lose attention while studying.

You should study in a place where you feel at ease, relaxed, and concentrated. Depending on your own tastes, this could entail locking yourself in a room or heading to the library.

2. Plan your study session:-

Don't jump right in if there's a lot to learn. Calculate how much study time you have available and how you can fit everything into that time frame. Set time restrictions for each study topic so you know you'll be able to see them all.

3. Eliminate technology distractions:-

Nowadays, a lot of studying is done on a computer. That puts social media within easy reach, and it's a great way to pass the time when you're bored or trapped. Now you're wasting valuable study time by scrolling through your friend's wedding photos instead of studying.

Make a rule for yourself that you will not use social media during study time, and stick to it.

4. Take regular breaks:-

Rather than exhausting yourself by studying for long periods of time, take breaks at regular intervals. Maybe every 45 minutes, you do a few laps around the hallway or finish a tiny cleaning project you've been putting off.

Taking regular breaks from studying can allow your brain to rest and digest other thoughts that may be pressing on your mind. It will be easier to study at a steady pace and properly absorb knowledge.

5. Exercise regularly to improve concentration:-

Regular exercise increases your memory and learning abilities. People who exercised for at least 30 minutes most days of the week, or 150 minutes per week, had better memory capacities than those who did not, according to the Harvard Health Blog in 2018.

Aerobic exercise expands the hippocampus, the area of the brain that handles memory and learning.

6. Choose one thing:-

When you've got a lot of study creatures to tame, focus on one at a time. Allow yourself to focus solely on this one study goal until it is completed and you are satisfied. After that, you should move on to another issue.

Multitasking or moving between topics may appear to be the quickest method to get through your studies, but focusing on just one item at a time will allow you to absorb and recall the material more effectively.

7. Get enough sleep:-

Sleep, like exercise, is essential for proper brain function. People who don't get enough sleep have trouble controlling their focus, attention, and memory while studying.

Lack of sleep can also alter your mood, which might have an impact on how well you study. Get at least eight hours of sleep each night, and avoid any distractions that can wake you up, so your brain can get the deep slumber it

need.

8. Create a routine:-

Humans are creatures of habit, and studying is no exception. If you're having problems getting started, construct a ritual in which you study after completing a specific task, such as eating dinner.

Alternatively, if you have a favourite study spot, going there will immediately activate study mode in your brain.

Perhaps there are some snacks that you prefer while studying and can be saved solely for that purpose. Routines make you look forward to learning and make it easier to complete the tasks.

9. Figure out what motivates you:-

Assume you're studying the most uninteresting subject in the planet. What motive does your brain have to recall the worthless details if you don't care about the information? Find a source of inspiration. There has to be a connection between this topic and your life.

Does it have an impact on you? Those you care about? Is there a little sub-topic that interests you?

You can reframe your thinking about the rest of the material if you can find a method to be interested in at least part of the topic. You'll be more driven to learn about a topic if you can see how it connects to you.

10. Find the right learning style:-

It's possible that the issue is that you've never been taught a learning and study approach that fits your personality. Your study method should reflect whether you're a visual, aural, or kinesthetic learner.

In an inappropriate learning style, you will never acquire information in the same way that you will in one that is tailored to your needs. Seek for a tutor or a friend who can assist you in experimenting with various study methods.

11. Be patient and believe in yourself:-

Expect to not be able to master all of the content in a single study session. In the learning process, be patient and remember that haste does not equal expertise. Simultaneously, have faith in your ability to absorb the knowledge.

Don't give up if your studies are taking too long. Get the aid you need, but have faith in your ability to learn what you need to know.

12. If it’s a distraction, don’t listen to music:-

Listening to music while studying is a popular practise. It creates a relaxing atmosphere and keeps your mind busy while you work. However, music can keep some people's brains overly occupied. It could actually be a study distraction, especially if you're listening to lyrics or guitar riffs.

Perhaps a simple change in music style will assist your distraction, or you may need to get rid of it entirely. Some folks simply require silence in order to concentrate. If you usually study with music, try it without it. That could be what's keeping you from concentrating fully.

13. Perform physical activity if you’re a kinesthetic learner:-

Some folks are wired to be on the move all of the time. These folks are frequently kinesthetic learners, which means they must move in order to absorb information properly.

You can come up with inventive ways to "fidget" while learning. Perhaps learning would be easier if you sat on a yoga ball and gently bounced. Some people find that moving their hands, such as with a fidget spinner or a stress ball, helps them to feel more grounded.

Could It Be a Deeper Issue?

If you're having trouble studying, it's most likely because of how you're going about it.

If you're still having problems studying after trying the above techniques, you should consult a professional who can examine you for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) or another learning disability.

Adults can develop certain learning disorders, even if they have never had difficulty learning or studying before.

If you have a learning or attention issue, you can get more individualised treatment to match your requirements and help you succeed in school.

[omokowa]

Information Technology and Communication Services essentials

In this modern time of technology, one cannot ignore the importance and usefulness of this great invention.  Information Technology and communication services have made life easy for humans. So, therefore, one should use this opportunity to make the best use of it in academics, businesses, government institutions, and even the masses. In this article, I will like to explain fully some terms pertaining to information technology and communication services, with respect to its applications or services. So, before you decide to choose a career in IT, you should go through this article to understand what you are about to involve yourself in. Some of these terms in information technology and communication services are: .  Definition • Jobs and career in IT • IT issues and challenges • the relationship between IT and computer networking • Hardware and software of IT • Education and job functions • IT courses • Importance of IT and • Free online IT Certification Definition: Information technology (IT) which evolved out of information technology and communication technology (ICT) can be said to be the architectures, methodologies, regulations and the use of computers in storing, transmitting, retrieving and manipulation of data or information programmed for various tasks. Jobs and careers: Job posting sites commonly use IT as a category in their databases. The category includes a wide range of jobs across architecture, engineering and administration functions. People with jobs in these areas typically have school degrees in computer science and/or information systems. They may also possess related industry certifications. Short courses in IT basics can also be found online and are especially useful for those who want to get some exposure to the field before committing to it as a career. The following are the visible jobs in Information Technology: 1. Technical Support: Tech support is generally what most non-IT folks think of when they imagine an information technology department. These types of IT experts can be known by a variety of titles—“help desk technicians,” “operations analysts,” or “problem managers”—but at the end of the day, their main job is to provide expert troubleshooting advice to clients. Technical support typically handles both hardware and software issues at the user level, helping out the less tech-savvy with their computer problems—making communication skills, problem-solving, and well-rounded tech knowledge an asset. 2. Programmers: Computer programmers are the brains behind software functions—they write and test the code that makes up software programs. This might range from simple computer games or word processors all the way up to complicated operating systems and database management systems. The type of skills you need typically depends on what specific area you’re programming in—but attention to detail, logical thinking, and teamwork are all assets to get this important job done right. 3. Web Developers: Web developers often have the most visible jobs. They’re the ones who are responsible for building websites and the infrastructures behind them—making a careful balance of creativity and technical prowess a must for those looking to join this area of information technology. Web developers may also be known as “web producers,” “multimedia architects,” and “internet engineers”, making their titles as diverse as their work portfolios. 4. Computer Systems Analyst: Computer systems analysts are the multitaskers of information technology and communication services; they have to understand computer hardware, software, and networks—and how they all come to work together. It’s a large part of their job to make recommendations to their company for which systems are the best to use and to tailor them to best suit their organization’s needs—including costs. This job requires a multitude of different skills, including the ability to analyze information quickly and effectively, excellent communication, and the ability to persuade when necessary. 5. IT Security: IT security is one of the biggest up-and-coming areas of tech in the market today—they’re in charge of keeping organizations safe from malicious digital attacks. This includes implementing and running security software, scanning for abnormalities, upgrading systems, and keeping their company informed of the risks involved in daily activities. This job requires a lot of problem-solving, crisis management, and effective communication between team members and higher-ups. 6. Network Engineer: Network engineers have a lot on their plate in terms of duties—they’re in charge of setting up, administering, maintaining and upgrading local and wide area networks for an organization. Depending on the job description, they may also be responsible for security, data, storage, and disaster recovery. Because of their heavy workload, a computer science degree is typically needed to do this job effectively, but planning, analysis, and problem-solving skills are all assets for those looking to join this career path. A career in Information Technology and communication services can involve working in or leading IT departments, product development teams, or research groups. Having success in this job field requires a combination of both technical and business skills. In summary, IT workers can specialize in fields like software development, application management, hardware (desktop support), storage or server administrator and network architecture. Information Technology careers . Chief information officer: This person is responsible for IT and computer systems that support the enterprise's goals. • Chief technology officer: This person sets all technology goals and policies within an organization. • IT director: This person is responsible for the function of all of the businesses’ technology tools and processes. This role is commonly called the IT manager or IT leader. • Systems administrator: This person configures, manages, supports and troubleshoots a multi-user computing environment. Within an enterprise, this role can be segmented by technology, requiring an administrator or team dedicated to the server, desktop, network, virtualization or other components. • Application manager: This person's role centers on the provisioning and management of a high-value business application, such as Exchange. • Developer: This person or team writes, updates and tests code for programs to meet business objectives internally or facing customers. • Architect: This person examines and changes IT functions to best support the business. Issues and challenges in Information Technology 1. As computing systems and capabilities continue expanding worldwide, data overload has become an increasingly critical issue for many IT professionals. Efficiently processing huge amounts of data to produce useful business intelligence requires large amounts of processing power, sophisticated software, and human analytic skills. 2. Teamwork and communication skills have also become essential for most businesses to manage the complexity of IT systems. Many IT professionals are responsible for providing service to business users who are not trained in computer networking or other information technologies but who are instead interested in simply using IT as a tool to get their work done efficiently. 3. System and network security issues are a primary concern for many business executives, as any security incident can potentially damage a company's reputation and cost large sums of money. The relationship between computer networking and Information Technology Because networks play a central role in the operation of many companies, business computer networking topics tend to be closely associated with Information Technology. Networking trends that play a key role in IT include: . Network capacity and performance: The popularity of online video has greatly increased the demand for network bandwidth both on the Internet and on IT networks. New types of software applications that support richer graphics and deeper interaction with computers also tend to generate larger amounts of data and hence network traffic. Information technology and communication services teams must plan appropriately not just for their company's current needs but also its future growth. • Mobile and wireless usages: IT network administrators must now support a wide array of smartphones and tablets in addition to traditional PCs and workstations. IT environments tend to require high-performance wireless hotspots with roaming capability. In larger office buildings, deployments are carefully planned and tested to eliminate dead spots and signal interference. • Cloud services: Whereas IT shops in the past maintained their own server farms for hosting email and business databases, some have migrated to cloud computing environments where third-party hosting providers maintain the data. This change in computing model dramatically changes the patterns of traffic on a company network, but it also requires significant effort in training employees on this new breed of applications. Information Technology Hardware and Software Hardware include not only the computer proper but also the cables, connectors, power supply units, and peripheral devices such as the keyboard, mouse, audio speakers, and printers. Hardware is sometimes used as a term collectively describing the physical aspects of telephony and telecommunications network infrastructure. The software is a general term for the various kinds of programs (web browsers, print jobs) used to operate computers and related devices. The software can be thought of as the variable part of a computer and hardware the invariable part. The software is often divided into application software (programs that users are directly interested in) and system software (which includes operating systems and any program that supports application software). Example of application software is word processors, database programs, Web browsers, development tools, drawing, paint, image editing programs, and communication programs. Example of a system software e.g. an operating system (OS): Windows is Microsoft’s flagship operating system, Mac OS is the operating system for Apple's Macintosh line of personal computers and workstations. Linux is a Unix-like operating system that was designed to provide personal computer users a free or very low-cost alternative. Linux has a reputation as a very efficient and fast-performing system. Summarily, the essential or basic knowledge about information technology and communication services has been treated above. If you want to pursue a career in IT in the future or you just need a foreknowledge to enhance your organization’s work efficiency, I believe this article has given you a better guide oh how to go about it. Click this link to see the importance of information technology and communication services to business, education, etc. and also get free online information technology and communication services certificate courses here Read the full article

[selenelavellan]

Dirthalene body worship and office sex :D

I got distracted with plot but I DID IT

Reverse Evanuris AU

Dirthamen and the usual Evanuris are @feynites

Ana is @lycheemilkarts

NSFW

Selene has been under quite a lot ofstress lately.

Dirthamen knows this, as does much ofthe castle. It is not a secret that she has been struggling to mendties with members of her family whom she alienated during thefestival. That she has been tense and trying to return to a sense ofnormalcy in her home ever since she returned from her mothersterritory.

He would like to help.

That is where the trouble started.

They had fought, before the festival.She seemed to forgive him for his outburst upon her return, butit still hasn't been quite the same between them. Almost as though she has triedto force herself to move on, to take him back the way they had beenbefore, but something is holding her back. He can only assume he hasdone something wrong, without realizing.

That will not do. But heis unsure of how to aptly apologize.

It is a dangerous thing, to ask Des'dinfor advice. It does not escape Dirthamen that his markings have notchanged; that his lord has not changed, despite his seeminglypermanent transfer, and that his life and privilege still thrive atthe whims of the horned god.

Des'din has noticed the tension of hisother half as well though.

“She's doing that...thing,again” Des'din says, making a waving motion with his hand. “Ithappens. She's not good with stress. She holds onto everything untilit crushes her. Then she breaks apart, takes a deep breath, forcesherself back together, and starts the process all over again. It's aterrible habit of hers.”

“How do I help?” Dirthamen asks, alittle more pointedly this time.

Des'din raises an eyebrow, mouthcurling into a grin. “You need to give her another outlet, ofcourse.”

Dirthamen blinks in confusion.

“Oh, dear thing,” Des'din sighs,propping his head up on the back of his hand. “Distract her fromher work; pull her away from her worries, and let her have some timewhere she remembers that the world is not going to fall apart becauseAndruil is off pouting in the woods.”

“Oh,” Dirthamen nods slowly. “Howshould I do that?”

The grin curls back onto Des'dins face,as he pats at the space on the stone bench beside him.

“Come listen to my tale, littleblackbird,” He coos “And I'll share with you the weaknessesof my other half.”

-

It has been a very long day.

A shame it is only noon, Selene thinks.

She pushes open the heavy wooden doorsof her office, letting out a soft sigh at the pile of papers stackedhigh upon it. Ana is inside, browsing through a scroll detailing therecent movement of Elgar'nans peacekeepers near their border. Sheblinks when Selene enters.

Glances down at the desk.

Glances back to Selene.

...Curious.

“I'm just gonna....” The red headsays, pointing to the entryway Selene had just used and exiting theroom before finishing her declaration.

Selene doesn't bother chasing afterher; whatever Ana is dealing with, Selene trusts her to handle it.

Selene lets out a breath, tugging offher cloak and tossing it haphazardly onto one of the chairs as sheuncoils the braids that are in fashion in Sylaise's lands, and whichsomehow had been requested for her morning trip to check on theprogress of June's latest project.

It is far better than she had expected,at least. For all his faults, he really has learned an impressivelyefficient way to use his resources, even with a minimal amount ofspiritual sacrifice. Still not none, but at least 40% lessthan the original plans had called for.

Progress, however slow, is stillprogress.

It is with this mindset that she takesto her seat, leaning forward to begin her slog through the dayspaperwork.

A small, black tendril begins to windits way up her calf, and she nearly lights it on fire before sherealizes who is controlling it.

“Dirthamen?” She asks, glancingdown to find him kneeling beneath her desk. “What are you doingdown th-”

The doors of the room are flung openand she nearly jumps out of her skin as she watches CaptainDin'Durgen barge into her office, a crumpled piece of parchmentraised high above her head. Without even thinking about it, Selenescoots her chair further in, in an effort to hide Dirthamen fromview.

“Is something wrong?” Selene asksthe woman, who finally remembers herself and stops a few feet awayfrom the desk, standing at a soldiers attention.

“There has been a mix up,”Din'Durgen asserts, before hastily adding “My lady.”

“Alright. What sort of mix-UP?!”Selene squeaks out the last wordas the tendril moves further up her leg, brushing against her corejust lightly enough to let her know where it is.

Din'Durgen clearsher throat “Ah, it seems as though all of our spiritually enhancedweaponry has been seized by your blacksmiths?”

It takes a fewmoments for the words to register to Selene, whose mind seems to bemuch more interested in the fact that Dirthamen has started trailinghis mouth and hands up the length of her legs.

“Uh,” Shefinally manages, forcing herself to focus. “Yes. I'm having theshards re-purposed.”

“For what?”Din'Durgen demands.

“To regrow in thedreaming,” Selene admits, trying to hide a shiver as Dirthamenshand traces the shape of her calf lightly enough that she can feelgoosebumps prickling her skin.

“Andhow are we to defendourselves?”

“Withyour-” Selene shakes her head, trying again to pull her focus tothe meeting with her guard captain, and away from her lover who hasapparently decided he would like to be exceedinglymischievous today “With your training, and your skills.”

“So we are to dieon the battlefield with only the words on our tongues and the storiesin our hearts?” Din'Durgen says wryly. “My lady, I know yourpurview is secrets, but please-what am I to tell my people?”

“I-” Selenestarts before getting pulled into a moan, Dirthamens mouth bitinggently on the soft skin of her inner thigh. She tries in vain to cover itwith a cough. “My research team is looking into a newmaterial for your weapons. One that has more naturally enchantedproperties. I discovered it while I was staying with the Lady Mythal.If we can harness it correctly, it should be able to lead us into awhole new era of energy that doesn't require spiritual sacrifice atall.”

“And in themeantime?”

“In themeantime,” Selene says, voice rising slightly in pitch as shestands abruptly to keep Dirthamen from delving his tongue inside ofher “I expect you to do your job the way I ask of you. You may takeyour leave now.”

Din'Durgensface twists slightly, ready to make another argument before Selenepushes out an air of impatience, and points directly to the doors.“You are dismissed,Captain.”

The turquoisehaired woman drops to a bow, and makes a hasty retreat. 

Selenefollows closely behind, locking and warding the doors behind her beforeturning and staring at the desk.

“Whatdo you think you're doing?” she says aloud.

Dirthamens headpeaks just over the edge of her desk as he says plainly “I amtrying to give you an outlet.”

“An outlet forwhat?”

His head tiltsslightly. “Interesting. I...did not ask that question.”

Selene drags herhand down her face. “Des put you up to this.”

“Not...precisely.He only mentioned that I should make my attempt somewhere that youoften find stressful. Since the council chambers would beinappropriate given their shared nature, your office seemed like themore reasonable choice.”

“And he told youto do...what? Surprise me with oral?”

Dirthamens mouthopens.

Closes.

He humsslightly in consideration before fully crawling out from beneath herdesk. “I would like to try something,” He finally decides.“If you would permit me.”

Selene feels herheartstrings tug, but stares over him at the piles of papers still on her desk.“I have so much to get done...”

“None of it istime sensitive,” He assures her. “I have already checked.”

“You read throughmy official paperwork?”

“You told me Iwas permitted to read 'anything I could get my hands on'.” Hepoints out.

Selene sighs andshakes her head fondly. “I did. I did say that.”

“May I make myattempt?” He tries again.

Selene slips herfingers into the loops of his robes, pulling him slightly towardsher. “I suppose so,” she allows.

The tops of hischeeks turn a soft pink at the gesture, but he clears his throat andtakes a step back.

“If you wouldhave a seat, I think this would perhaps be easier.”

Selene raises askeptical eyebrow. Chair sex in here? Really? Not quite theamount of support they usually need. The back of her chair is highperhaps, but several feet away from the wall. It's not meant towithstand a surplus of weight or movement, not like the ones heenjoys being tied to in the bedroom. One good thrust and they'll bothgo flying backwards.

Still. She canalways catch him, if need be. If something goes wrong, she'll simplyhandle it.

She always does.

Without furtherarguments, she seats herself back in her chair, scooting it fartherfrom her desk to avoid any temptation to multitask. Time sensitive ornot, she still has responsibilities after all.

But she sits upstraight, one leg crossed over the other expectantly, ready forwhatever Dirthamen might have in mind.

He kneels down infront of her, and her first instinct is to tell him to stand, thatit's ridiculous for him to act like this. He knows better than mostshe's no actual Goddess.

But his hand grazesover her knee and gently, so gently, uncrosses her legs.

“Just relax,”He says quietly, glancing up to make momentary eye contact, his baredhands still resting gently on her knees.

Such a small thing,really. The focus, the contact, the care for her in his words.

Her heart skips abeat all the same, words caught in her throat as she nods incompliance.

He places a softkiss to the top of one knee in thanks, eyes drifting closed and handsdrifting lower, thumbs rubbing small circles into the backs of hercalves. Affection is not unusual behavior for Dirthamen; quite theopposite, really. But this is...this is something different.

The way he exploresthe length of her legs, the attention and compliments he gives, theway he seems to savor every moment of this time...

It's worship.

She can feelherself heating up at the realization, even as he continues to takehis time with her legs and thighs. While he presses just firmlyenough on the tender flesh of her inner thighs to make small divots with his fingers,praising her softness, telling her how much he enjoys her, how muchshe means to him.

It is just words,really. Words coupled with affectionate touches, with genuineaffection and love and devotion pouring out of him.

It takes her breathaway. Ignites her in ways she hadn't expected, relaxes muscles sheforgot were capable of such a thing. His hands pull away the ribbonthat had been keeping her robes together and slide against her sides,reverent and unabashed while his mouth presses against the soft pouchof skin from where she is now slouching. Every inch of her is alight,straining and expectant, every touch like a new spark of magic fromhim. He goes slowly, so slowly it's almost maddening, but theanticipation is such a wonderful burn, his mouth and praise the balmshe craves while he takes his time inspecting and exploring everypiece of her.

Selene isn't sureprecisely when the scales appeared on her spine, or when her taildecided to make an appearance until Dirthamen is paying attention tothose pieces of her the same as he has the rest. She is on her kneeswith her back facing him, head raised towards her ceiling and breathscoming in shallow bursts when he runs his tongue over her scales andsends a shiver that makes her keen, tail dragging against thecold stone of the floor beneath them.

“Dirthamen,”She finally begs, head swimming in her hypersensitive state, hishands and mouth and ardor flooding her senses, thoughts falling awayas he makes a small bite on the crook of her neck, flooding her in anentirely different way.

Any other time shewould worry about the mess she must have made of her office chair,but now...now, all she can think of is him, is the way hemakes her feel, the relief of his presence, the love swelling withinher, ready to overflow and the blazing heat in the pit of herstomach.

He seems to noticethat she is approaching her limit, whispering more praise in her ear,telling her how well she is doing, how much he loves her, howgrateful he is to have been gifted her trust while he lifts her outof her chair, splaying her open on top of her desk instead.

A familiar,brightly colored container is pulled out of one of his pockets beforethe robe is discarded entirely. He coats one finger in it, slippingit inside of her with ease-

And she comesaround it.

Embarrassinglyearly, some corner of her mind thinks.

His own surpriseflares briefly around him before he reins it in and continues hisministrations, slipping a second finger in with ease and laving moreaffection over her sides and chest, a few tendrils sliding up hercalves once again, pulling her legs open a bit wider.

She hums as shefeels them, thoroughly relaxed, and considers the inspiration.

Subtly, as much asshe can hide it, she glances to where the discarded containerlays and carefully moves her tail closer to it. Pulling in on thecurls of hair that usually cover the end and softening the rough edges ofher scales, she rolls the extra appendage around in the lubricationbefore nudging it carefully against her lovers rear entrance.

Dirthamens eyes goslightly wide as he notices her actions, and she raises her eyebrowsup in challenge.

“Fair’s fair,”She coos, gently brushing her own hands over his cock.

He shivers, and shethinks he might be about to argue so she slides her mouth over hisbefore he can. Encases him in her arms and flips their positions,until he is the one splayed open on her desk and she is the one withtwo feet on the ground, devouring and drowning in the taste of him.

“Is thisalright?” She checks, pulling away just enough to speak, his breathstill warm against her lips.

“Yes,” Hebreathes, and she hums in thanks as she delves her tongue back intothe warm wet of his mouth, the tip of her tail pressing gently intohim in unison.

Selene can'tremember the last time she felt so relaxed. The last time she was inso little hurry to be somewhere or do something. Hownice it is just to enjoy her lover, her heart, to feel the way hemoves beneath her.

It would be better,she thinks, if he were not trying so hard to restrain himself.

“Let go Vhenan,”She purrs against his neck.

“My form...” Hemanages, skin still flushed and his cock dripping precum onto his stomach.

“I've got you,”She assures him.

He hesitates amoment before letting out a soft breath.

The air in the roomchanges notably as he does.

Six large blackwings unfurl from his back, skin turning to a beautiful dark expanselittered with stars and eyes. His legs lose some of their solidity,most of his body past the knees turning into tendrils that match hisskin, and the room fills with power and magic, long restrained by hischain and mask and his own growing capabilities. She has to loosesome of her own to cover it, to hide that this surplus of power ishis, so that anyone passing in the halls will only sense her power, her own magic flaring out into the wards. Her own pair of wingsunfurl, and she feels her pupils shift as she does, still in controlbut vulnerable as her peripheral vision nearly vanishes.

That's alright, shethinks as his tendrils curl around her. Her waist, her hips, herlegs, her arms; she trusts him.

Trusts himentirely, as he lifts her over his still straining cock and shelowers herself down onto it, sliding her tail slowly in and out ofhim in tandem with the rise and fall of her hips. His wings flare andhis breaths become as shallow as her own, her own hands exploring asmuch of the expanse of him as she can reach, stars bursting andgleaming under the pads of her fingers. Feathers fall down aroundthem; hers, his, theirs. 

Details become blurry while they losethemselves in each other, energies and words mixing and blurring andthe feeling of being touched all over simultaneously too much and not enough. Moansand groans and flesh on flesh, keening and orgasms and not even thecertainty of who between them is having them, only a shared desire to keep going, tosavor this, to make the most of being together again.

It is....very darkby the time they have stopped.

Selenes tail hasreceded and her scales have mostly vanished and Dirthamens form moreclosely resembles his usual one now, as they are spent and exhausted,hair damp and clinging and Selene is unsure if the insides of herthighs will ever be dry again after she glances down at the sloppymixture of their fluids still dripping out of her.

It’s a goodfeeling, though.

With the littleenergy still in her, she rolls over to Dirthamen, the two of them ona tapestry they seemed to have yanked off of her walls to lay on thefloor instead, and presses an affectionate kiss to his forehead.

“Thank you,”She manages.

He smiles, eyesonly half opened and his chest still rising and falling a bit tooviolently while he attempts to regain his breath. “Anytime.”

She snorts.

“Probably weshouldn't make a habit of completely destroying a room every time wehave sex,”

“There are worsehabits to have,” He notes, a mischievous gleam in his eye.

Selene shakes herhead in fondness before burying it in the crook of his neck, curlingher body up around his.

It is good to beback.

[talabib]

How To Organize Your Life!

The way our brain manages information often seems mysterious. Lets lift the veil and reveal the systems that are at work every time we drive a car, learn something new, or try to remember where we put something.

With a greater understanding of these processes, you’ll be better equipped to take charge in organizing your life. You’ll also discover how to apply simple techniques, learn the best way to remain productive at work and even how to cope with situations that are out of your control.

The brain can only focus on a limited number of stimuli at a time.

Have you ever told yourself that you’d like to “get organized?” It’s an easy promise to make, but difficult to put into action. So where can you get started?

Well, before we even approach this challenge, we must first understand in greater detail the way our mind works, more specifically, our attentional system. This is the way our brain handles and categorizes information. The times we live in pose a great challenge to this system, because our brains aren’t equipped to cope with the flood of new facts and sights that we face everyday. Instead, brains work best when concentrating on one thing at a time.

This was vital for our ancestors, who hunted successfully by staying highly focused. Their thoughts would only be disrupted by important events, such as an approaching predator.

Nowadays, we’re constantly attempting to do many things at once. Driving a car, listening to the radio, thinking about an upcoming business meeting – it’s not unusual that all these things happen simultaneously. This is something that our brain has not evolved to do successfully, which means that multitasking comes at a price.

When we switch our attention between different activities, our brain is unable to function effectively. This in turn causes us to make thoughtless mistakes, or forget and misplace things.

In order to better understand our attentional system, we also need to consider how our brain decides how to divide its attention. It’s all to do with the brain’s remarkable ability to detect changes.

Our brains are more likely to pay attention to changes than constants. For example, imagine you’re driving your car. You suddenly notice that the road feels bumpy. Prior to this, you didn’t even consider how even the street was, simply because this was not useful information.

That realization could be vital, because it alerts you to a treacherous change in surface or a problem with your car. Changing circumstances can pose a threat to our survival.

Because we’re surrounded by more and more information, we’re forced to make more and more decisions.

Decisions are part of everyday life: Should we opt for the cheaper internet plan, or pay more and get unlimited data? Should we respond to this email now, or read these texts first? We confront decisions like these nearly every minute. But how can our brain cope with this non-stop flow of decisions when it originally evolved to process one idea at a time?

It’s simple: we can manage the flood of information by focusing our attention. Our brain instinctively concentrates on the information that is most important for us.

Here’s an example: imagine you’re on a busy street, desperately looking for your lost dog. You automatically fade out all unnecessary details like the people, cars and buses, and only focus on things that are the same size and color as your dog. So unless there are a lot of other things on this street that are about knee-height, fluffy and brown, your brain immediately makes it easier to find your beloved pet.

This automatic process of honing our focus down to what’s necessary should also be reflected in our decision making. In other words, you shouldn’t spend too much time on less important everyday choices. Instead, find shortcuts and ways to simplify your decision making.

For example, one type of decision we often need to make is about purchasing products or services that can make our lives easier. A good way to analyze these decisions is by thinking about the monetary value of our own time, because it allows us to compare it to the benefit the product promises.

Let’s say you’re thinking about hiring someone to clean your home instead of doing it yourself. Just ask yourself: Would you be willing to pay $50 for two extra hours of free time? If the answer is yes, then go for it without deliberating any further!

Find a designated place for every single object.

When was the last time you lost your keys, phone or glasses? It seems ridiculous that the objects we need with us all the time are also the ones that seem to go wandering most often. The reason is straightforward: we lose these objects because we carry them around with us. Objects that we only use in one place, like our toothbrush, seldom get lost at all.

There is, in fact, a special part of our brain dedicated specifically to remembering the location of things. It’s called the hippocampus, and it was crucial for our ancestors who needed to know where a watering hole was, or the areas where predators might pounce.

In order to learn more about our hippocampi, researchers studied the brains of London taxi drivers, as they are required to commit the city’s street plan to memory. The tests revealed that the hippocampi of the drivers were larger than hippocampi in other people of similar education and age. These larger hippocampi were attributed to the need to recall many locations in detail.

However, the hippocampus can only provide us with information about objects whose location doesn’t change. This isn’t a problem for a taxi driver trying to remember how to get to a particular building, but is a constant problem for us when we try to remember where our frustratingly mobile keys are.

To ensure that you don’t always have to seek out these essential items, simply find a designated place for them. A special bowl next to the door for your keys always does the trick!

If you can’t set aside a certain place for an object, then it may also help to purchase duplicates. For example, if you need reading glasses, having a single location for them might prove frustrating as you may need them in different places. Instead, you could purchase a pair for your bedroom for nighttime reading, while another pair remains at work.

Give your brain a break – move your organizational processes outside your head.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the different ideas and thoughts floating around inside your head? The best way to ensure you can keep track of them is to organize them outside your head.

A time-tested trick to unburden your brain is to write things down. Good old-fashioned flash cards are an easy and effective way to record and organize ideas as soon as you think of them.

For example, you might be on the bus and suddenly remember that you still have to buy a birthday present for your aunt. Don’t stress, just write it down and you’ll no longer have the burden of trying to remember it all day!

On the other hand, if you think of something that you could do right away – such as calling your aunt to say happy birthday – then don’t think twice, do it immediately. Think of it in terms of the two-minute rule: if the task takes longer than two minutes to complete, then write it down. Otherwise, do it straight away.

Another effective approach is to organize your written thoughts into categories. This mirrors the way our brains are constantly categorizing new stimuli and helps simplify our thinking, thus saving time and increasing our attention capacity.

For example, if we see a flying object with feathers, our brain recognizes it as part of the category “bird.” Though this bird might be a hawk or an eagle, it’s easier to place it in this broader category rather than identify it specifically.

The same goes for our flash cards – collect them together and sort them into different groups according to the topics they relate to. These could be categories such as “Personal Life,” “Work” or “Kids.”This way you’ll be able to keep your thoughts and ideas organized and accessible.

Junk drawers for miscellaneous items are incredibly effective – use them every day.

We’ve seen how creating categories is a great way to organize our thoughts and our lives. But what should we do with objects and ideas that don’t seem to belong in any pigeonhole? Well, these miscellaneous items can form their own category.

The categorizing tendencies of the brain can be seen in the way that we organize our living spaces. In our homes, there’s usually at least one place where random objects like single light bulbs, paper clips or car-cleaning products go. Why? Because it wouldn’t make sense to have a special drawer for light bulbs if you only had a few – combining them with other spare objects is much more space efficient.

You could even use one of these junk drawers at work. A miscellaneous folder, perhaps, containing documents that don’t fit into other folders but are also too important to dispose of. However, junk drawers will only be effective if we perform a little bit of maintenance from time to time.

The first way to do this is to keep checking their content regularly. This stops us losing track of what’s in there, which would reduce its organizational advantage. Some items can be eliminated from a junk drawer – if you’re sorting through objects that you haven’t yet felt the need to use, it’s unlikely that you’ll need them in the future. These can be thrown out.

You may also find that items in junk drawers can be moved to other places for more specific types of objects later. For example, perhaps you’ve recently developed an interest in scrapbooking. If you go through your junk drawer, you’ll almost certainly discover objects that could find a new home in the scrapbooking drawer – that extra pair of scissors, maybe, or the double-sided sticky tape.

Set aside time to refuel so you can increase your productivity later.

Everyone knows that you tend to be far more productive after a good night’s sleep. And yet, we’re often tempted to skip a few hours of kip in order to work just a little bit more.

This, however, is a mistake. Our brain works incredibly hard while we sleep, processing new information from the day and integrating it into our existing knowledge. Memories, problems and ideas often appear in our dreams and we may find ourselves better positioned to solve a problem after “sleeping on it.”

This phenomenon is backed up by studies. Researchers found that students attempting to solve a problem performed better following a night of sleep than they did working on it for the same length of waking time.

Ultimately, you’re twice as likely to solve a problem after you’ve slept on it. This shows that sleep is essential, and attempting to work when you’re tired is counterproductive.

Sleep isn’t the only way that we can refuel our minds. Many companies have discovered the benefits of decreasing employee work time and providing facilities and opportunities for rest.

For example, at Microsoft, employees are welcome to use the in-house spa to relax and recharge. This is not only great for employees, but, as studies have shown that productivity increases when working hours drop, the use of downtime in facilities such as these may well be a driving force behind increased productivity.

Accounting firm Ernst & Young has also improved worker performance by allowing additional vacation time. In fact, for every additional ten vacation hours taken by employees, the employees’ performance rating increased by eight percent.

It’s important to think about the worst-case scenario so you’re always prepared.

Imagine this: you’re on vacation and have just found out that the airline has lost your luggage. How would you react? Of course it’s good to be optimistic – perhaps they’ll find your bag! But it’s better still to be prepared. Good thing you brought that extra toothbrush!

Each time you plan something, you should consider all the things that could go wrong and think of a solution to them before they occur. Planning for failure in this way needn’t be difficult – it’s as straightforward as placing an extra key under the flowerpot by your front door.

A plan B is especially important in business situations. It’s true that sometimes things just happen. You forget an important appointment, or you lose the contact details of someone you need to speak to.

If you plan your time ahead, these mistakes will be less likely. With the assistance of an electronic calendar, either on your phone, computer, or both, you can ensure you’ll never forget about meetings again.

A plan B at work can also include keeping an extra shirt in your office, in case you accidentally spill your coffee before an important appointment with your boss!

It’s also important that we don’t rely on technology alone to prevent us from slipping up. Phones, computers and other technical devices aren’t perfect and at some point will let us down without warning. This is why you should also prepare non-technical solutions as a backup.

This is something that your taxi driver does. They always keep a plastic credit card press in their car in case their electronic credit card machine doesn’t work. This way, they can ensure they don’t lose any fares due to technical failure.

We can’t know the answer to every question, but we can know where and how to find it!

Today, we lead very different lives to our grandparents. One of the greatest changes is the way we can easily access vast amounts of information in no time at all. Googling something takes less than a minute! Nevertheless, there’s one important question we should continually ask ourselves: Is this information reliable?

Many of us have used Wikipedia before. The information it can provide us on a wide range of topics is hugely helpful, but is subject to a major drawback. Anyone is able to edit the information on a Wikipedia page, so we can never immediately be sure whether it is reliable. This means we should take the time to verify the information.

In order to evaluate whether a website is a valuable source or not, we can first investigate whether any reliable websites, such as established news services or government websites link to the website. If so, the site itself is likely to be reliable, and information can also be verified by cross-checking it with the content on several other websites.

However, not every problem can be solved by checking online. In complex dilemmas, particularly in the workplace, you’ll need to think for yourself in order to find solutions. Inventive and innovative thinking is something you just can’t google for! In such cases, the ability to reason, estimate and develop hypothetical assumptions is vital.

For example, in Google’s own job interviews, potential candidates are confronted with a question that has no correct answer. Here’s one for you to try on for size: “How much does the Empire State Building weigh?” Google was interested in whether the candidate could use their logical skills to work through a problem on their own, for example, by calculating the approximate size and weight of the concrete used for the building.

Get to grips with probabilities and gain a vital skill for assessing information.

Imagine you’re at a university where ten percent of students are engineers. Look, here comes a student wearing a pocket protector: a plastic sheath for holding pens in your shirt pocket. Now, what would you say is the probability that this is an engineering student?

The fact that a pocket protector is a standard accessory for the stereotypical nerdy student might cause many of you to think he very likely studies engineering. But remember the ten percent ratio. If 90 percent of students aren’t engineers, it’s far more likely that our pocket-protector friend doesn’t study engineering.

Our initial misconception reflects the way in which a person or situation that seems a perfect example of something can cause us to ignore the base rate. A base rate is the probability of an event occurring without taking other factors into account.

Along with base rates, we must also keep in mind that our perception of probability is often relative to the situation we are currently in – our starting point.

Imagine that you’re very sick. Your doctor offers you a treatment that will increase the likelihood of your recovery by ten percent. If the treatment increases your likelihood of recovery from zero to ten percent, you’ll go from certain death to a ten percent chance of living. And, if it increases from 90 percent to 100 percent, your recovery is guaranteed. In both cases, you’ll likely opt for the treatment.

what if it increases from 20 percent to 30 percent? Then, you might hesitate and inquire about the side effects and cost of the treatment before agreeing to it.

From a statistical perspective, this is bizarre since in all of these cases, the increase of ten percent is the same. The scenarios just feel different because of their varying starting points.

Though our brains often have difficulty dealing with probabilities, by remembering the mathematics behind them, we can make our choices with a greater and more objective understanding of their implications.

We live in an age of information overload. This presents a challenge for our brains, which are wired to manage information by focusing attention on one thing at a time. By learning about the way our brain distinguishes, focuses and categorizes, we can better organize our own lives.

[magzoso-tech]

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/vivo-u20-review/

Vivo U20 Review

Vivo brought the Vivo U10 in India in late September to compete with Xiaomi and Realme at the budget end of the market. The Vivo U10 is powered by the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor as the Redmi Note 8 and the Realme 5. With the competition churning out phones at such a high rate, it was time for Vivo to push out an update, and now it has, with the Vivo U20. The naming clearly suggests that this is a higher-end model than the Vivo U10, and we are expecting this smartphone to keep the competition in the market alive.

Equipped with a powerful Snapdragon 675 SoC, this phone could have an edge over its competition. Will this be enough to sway your choice in its direction? We put the Vivo U20 to the test to find out.

Vivo U20 Design

When we got our hands on the Vivo U10 (Review) we had pointed out that it was boxy and bulky. The new Vivo U20 isn’t a whole lot different, as it weighs 193g and is 8.9mm thick. We think that some people will find it too unwieldy for daily use. The display has grown in size, and the IPS LCD panel on the Vivo U20 measures 6.53 inches. It has thin bezels on the sides and Vivo claims a screen-to-body ratio of 90.3 percent. We found the display bright enough when outdoors, and it had decent viewing angles. Vivo has opted for a full-HD+ panel which is a welcome upgrade over the HD+ display of the U10.

The back of the Vivo U20 is flat but the sides are rounded which helps when holding it in the hand. Vivo has opted for a plastic back panel and frame. The back panel has a glossy finish which makes it a fingerprint magnet. We had to constantly wipe the back of the smartphone, and ultimately, we decided to use the bundled case to prevent smudges.

The glossy finish on the back of the Vivo U20 looks gorgeous but is a fingerprint magnet

We found the power and the volume buttons to be positioned a little too high for comfort, and they needed a bit of a shuffle to reach. The rear-mounted fingerprint scanner is also positioned slightly too high for our liking. Vivo still uses a Micro-USB port on the U20, which should’ve been dropped in favour of USB Type-C. The 3.5mm headphone jack and the loudspeaker are placed on either side of the Micro-USB port, along with the primary microphone.

The smartphone packs a triple camera setup at the back, placed in a module which is slightly raised.

Vivo U20 specifications and software

The Vivo U20 does boast of some impressive hardware, with the highlight being the Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 SoC. This is the same processor that powered the Redmi Note 7 Pro (Review) which was launched earlier this year at a higher price. It packs quite a punch, and people looking to play games and multitask should be able to do so on the Vivo U20 without any issues. The competition at this price level, including the Realme 5 (Review), and the Redmi Note 8 (Review), use the relatively less powerful Snapdragon 665 SoC.

Vivo has matched this SoC with 4GB or 6GB of RAM, while storage is 64GB for both variants. Surprisingly, Vivo offers UFS 2.1 storage which helps while transferring files to and from the smartphones. Storage is expandable by upto 256GB using a microSD card.

Vivo has priced the base 4GB RAM variant at Rs. 10,990 while the 6GB RAM variant is priced at Rs. 11,990. You also get two colour options to choose from, Racing Black and Blaze Blue. We had the Racing Black variant for this review, which we liked. If you prefer gradient finishes, then Blaze Blue is the one for you.

The Vivo U20 gets a full-HD+ display with a waterdrop notch

Connectivity options on the Vivo U20 include Bluetooth 5, dual-band Wi-Fi, four satellite navigation systems, and FM Radio. Vivo has packed a 5,000mAh battery into the U20, and supplies an 18W Dual-Engine fast charger in the box.

Vivo ships the U20 with Funtouch OS 9.2 running on top of Android 9 Pie. There is a lot of preinstalled bloatware. You get apps such as EasyShare, GameCenter, Gaana, Amazon Shopping, Helo, Dailyhunt, Opera, Facebook, WhatsApp, WPS office and one called iManager. Some of them are super spammy with notifications, and it would be better to simply uninstall them.

Funtouch OS requires you to swipe up from the bottom of the screen for the quick toggles which is the exact opposite of the action for every other Android smartphone. This can get annoying and confusing for the user. Vivo has baked in a few other customisations as well. Users can change the UI theme as well as the animations for charging and face recognition.

Vivo’s smart assistant Jovi is also built into the smartphone. It can help you recognise products you point the camera at, and reminds you to drink water throughout the day. There is Google’s Digital Wellbeing as well as parental controls, which help you manage how you spend your time on the smartphone. Smart features such as raise-to-wake, and the ability to quickly launch apps by drawing alphabets on the lock screen, are also available.

Vivo offers a Motorbike mode which rejects all incoming calls when you are in motion, and sends an SMS automatically to callers.

The Vivo U20 runs Funtouch OS on top of Android 9 Pie

The Ultra Game mode which is filled with feature such as off-screen Autoplay which lets a game run even with the display switched off. You can block notifications and answer calls automatically in hands-free mode to minimise interruptions when you’re playing games. If you don’t want to be bothered, it can reject calls right away instead. You can customise these options for each game individually.

This mode also has a “sound localisation training center”, and this is the first time we are seeing such a thing on a smartphone. This feature is for PUBG Mobile and it trains you to recognise sounds from the game in an attempt to improve your performance. If you are a serious gamer you might find it useful, whereas casual gamers can ignore it.

Vivo U20 performance and battery life

The Vivo U20 managed to grab our attention for its aggressive price and powerful processor. The Snapdragon 675 debuted with the Redmi Note 7 Pro, and when launched it was the most powerful processor in a smartphone priced under Rs. 15,000 and now it has made its way to a lower budget tier. We did not notice any lag while scrolling through the Vivo U20’s UI, or any stutters when switching between multiple apps. Since we had the top-end 6GB RAM variant, we did not face any issues while multitasking either, and the phone could seamlessly switch between multiple apps.

The U20 was quick to unlock using the rear-mounted fingerprint scanner as well as the face unlock feature. While the display is not as punchy as the AMOLED panels on some other phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy M30s (Review), it does get bright enough when outdoors. The speaker wasn’t loud though and also sounded tinny.

There is support for dual 4G VoLTE as well as a dedicated microSD card slot.

Our benchmark tests gave us a fair idea as to how the Vivo U20 with its Snapdragon 675 processor fares against the Redmi Note 8 and the Realme 5s, which are powered by the Snapdragon 665. The Vivo U20 scored 210,249 in AnTuTu Benchmark v8, which is higher than the 169,832 scored by the Redmi Note 8 and 167,487 scored by the Realme 5s. The U20 also scored 504 and 1,638 in Geekbench’s single-core and multi-core tests respectively. We also saw 42fps and 7.8fps in GFXBench’s T-Rex and Car Chase benchmarks respectively.

We played PUBG Mobile on the Vivo U20, which defaulted to the High preset with graphics set to HD and the frame rate set to High. We did not notice any issues at these settings and could play the game well. Just like we’ve experienced with other phones powered by the Snapdragon 675, the Vivo U20 did get slightly warm to the touch after gaming for around 20 minutes. We also noticed a battery drop of 5 percent over the same duration.

Battery life for the Vivo U20 is quite good, and this smartphone can last over a day and a half easily on a single charge. With our usage which consisted of an active WhatsApp account, playing PUBG Mobile, taking a few camera samples, and using GPS for navigation, we were left with 45 percent at the end of 24 hours. In our HD video loop test, the smartphone managed 14 hours and 59 minutes.

Charging the 5,000mAh battery does not take long. The supplied fast charger got us up to 33 percent in half an hour and 67 percent in an hour. A full charge will take around two hours.

Vivo U20 cameras

Vivo has gone with a triple camera setup for the U20, which consists of a 16-megapixel primary camera with a Sony IMX499 sensor, an 8-megapixel super-wide-angle camera, and a 2-megapixel macro camera. For selfies, it has a 16-megapixel camera. The camera application is similar to what we have seen on recent Vivo smartphones. It has Night, Portrait, Pano, Live Photo, Pro, AR Stickers, and Time-Lapse modes to shoot with. It has a Jovi feature as well, which uses Vivo’s Jovi assistant to identify what the camera is pointed towards and find e-commerce listings for similar products.

There are quick toggles for HDR, and different filters which can be applied before taking a shot. The camera app offers a toggle for 2x zoom which the phone does digitally. There are separate toggles to switch to the wide-angle and super macro cameras which we feel should have been integrated better.

The Vivo U20 is quick to lock focus and set the exposure right, it also enables HDR automatically when shooting in bright environments. Photos taken with the Vivo U20 looked good, but did not have the best details. This was evident on zooming in to them, and we could see slightly grainy output. The wide-angle-camera does deliver a wider field of view but we could see distortion at the edges, and the sensor failed to capture details.

Photos shot using primary (above) and wide-angle (below) cameras on the Vivo U20

Close-up shots fared better, as the phone managed good detail and a natural depth of field between the subject and the background. Portraits had good edge detection and the U20 blurred the background correctly, but you don’t get the option to set the level of blur in this mode. There is a separate Bokeh mode that lets you control this, and we think these two should have been combined.

Close-up shot using the Vivo U20 (tap to see full-sized image)

Low-light camera performance isn’t great. The Vivo U20 missed out on details and delivered grainy output. Switching to Night mode did result in brighter images but they weren’t significantly better. The phone keeps the shutter open for longer, so you will need to be steady while taking a shot in this mode. The overall quality of the cameras was nowhere near the best we’ve seen in this price range.

Photos click without and with night mode (tap to see full-sized image)

Selfies taken with the Vivo U20 (tap to see full-sized image)

Selfies shot indoors were also below average in quality and you will notice grain on zooming in. It’s best to limit these selfies to casual social media sharing.

Video recording maxes out at 4K for the primary camera and 1080p for the selfie shooter. We found video stabilisation to be adequate when shooting in the day, but focusing speed could have been better. In low light, there was a significant shimmer effect which was also visible in the viewfinder while shooting.

Verdict

Vivo stirred up the competition when it launched the U10 in the sub-Rs. 10,000 market and the company is repeating that at a slightly more premium positioning with the Vivo U20. This new smartphone packs in powerful hardware and a big battery at an aggressive price. That said, the U20 isn’t a perfect all-rounder; the cameras did leave us wanting.

If you are looking for a device primarily for gaming then the Vivo U20 should be pretty high on your shortlist. You could also consider the Realme 5s and the Redmi Note 8 (Review) as possible alternatives to the Vivo U20.

[lizzybby]

Always look for to work with your time and efforts from the most effective doable way for your whole life.

To better manage some time you've got in a very working day, have a very system for it! Constantly sit down the evening ahead of and produce a checklist of everything you have to get done. Prioritize everything on the record and cross tasks off one particular by just one while you carry out them. Go into this pattern, and you really should reach far more ambitions and also have much more time inside the working day.

Should you wish to strengthen you, think about holding a to-do listing. This will assistance continue to keep you structured and manage your time and efforts wisely. It could address the key jobs that you have, or else you can micromanage just about every event within your existence. It really won't issue. Having a to-do list is a superb way to control your time and efforts. 

Assign a time and energy to any action or discussion that is certainly important to the plans.  A lot of things on the to-do record make them hard to finish. It's also possible to use appointment guides. Program personal appointments and make time blocks for anyone conversations, actions and thoughts. Program their beginnings and endings. Make sure you comprehensive them on plan.

Entry this hyperlink and find out more specifics: como rezar o terço da libertação

Program any vital gatherings or appointments. Seek to build a closing date for those occasions. As soon as you have a very schedule published out to the day, do your best to stay to it. If 1 detail goes overtime, find a put which you could cut down the allowed time. This will allow you to get as a result of your working day without likely about your time and energy constraints.

For anyone who is generally pressed for time, start out looking to be early for everything. In case you aim to generally be on time, even a little bit traffic can mess up your entire timetable by generating you late. However, after you do your best to generally be early, you might be generally still left which has a tiny more time, which you'll then put to excellent use!

Prepare your day-to-day pursuits out. Make a schedule in your daily functions and stay with it. This will likely support reduce demanding and last second situations. You'll be able to create a everyday to perform list and set the main issues which you need to obtain performed at the best on the record. 

It is of elementary significance that you choose to manage your time by dedicating oneself during the spiritual part. You must never ever overlook who developed you, and wherever you came from.

Attempt to do great and by no means cease to stay your daily life, normally while using the Kingdom of God inside your coronary heart as well as in your steps.

Handle your time, but in no way abandon God. Believe that and possess religion. 

God loves you and may under no circumstances depart you. Deal with your time and efforts, enable Our Lord Jesus Christ to deal with you, and control your whole journey. Believe in in the Kingdom of God. At any time.

Direct channel in your case to understand como estudar  a bíblia

For lots of people, time management is actually a issue of multitasking. If you need to optimize your productiveness, this may not be a superb technique to pursue. Multitasking splits up your consideration to ensure no-one issue receives the entire reward within your skills. In lieu of splitting your target, place off new duties and continue to focus on the task at hand.

Don't be afraid to inform people today to go away you by yourself if you find yourself performing. Cling an indication to the door, lock the door and block your mobile phone phone calls if you want to obtain a little something accomplished. This could help you keep your train of imagined and deal with the task at hand. You'll be much much more effective without having any interruptions. 

Explore using a time administration class. Possibly you merely usually are not guaranteed tips on how to organize your time and efforts. Getting a class may help you determine exactly what is crucial and what is just not. You'll find these lessons at local colleges and also on-line. Usually these are low price or maybe no cost. 

If you want enable enhancing your daily life, you need in order to avoid wasting time whatsoever expenditures. Most of us want some down time to chill out and recuperate. But over the time you should be doing work, you require being working and accomplishing responsibilities. Time squandering on mobile phone apps, Facebook and also other distractions is simply needless.

Acquire about 5 minutes right before your responsibilities and calls for selecting what effects you would like to realize. This will help you see good results prior to deciding to start. It might also slow down some time. Check out getting about 5 minutes following each and every exercise and phone to determine in the event you attained the specified outcome. For those who failed to, what did you overlook? How can include the missing element on the following endeavor?  

Figure out how to permit the minor things go when you are overwhelmed by a fast paced day. Folks who are inclined to fuss around less significant matters often lose their give attention to the big photo, therefore throwing away time. Have your priorities straight and don't allow for modest problems to receive within the technique for handling time proficiently.

Learn how to say no. Many of us get extremely stressed simply due to the fact they are doing not know the way to convey no when requested to carry out one thing. If you find yourself overbooked, have a look at your routine. Are there issues that you can delegate to many others? In that case, check with for support from mates and household. 

Just before contacting anyone on the cellular phone at function, choose a few minutes to strategy out the concerns that you just require answered. Typically a lot of time is wasted only via the rambling that occurs about the telephone when you never really know what you actually need. Having a feeling of your respective plans prior will help preserve you heading in the right direction. 

Usually do not hurry as a result of your working day. In case you rush via things and make faults, it's going to consider you far extended to repair these blunders than it might have in your case to make it happen ideal the very first time. Sluggish and very careful perform will likely be a lot more successful than rushed, sloppy function.

[lucid-illegal-vibes]

Often seek out to employ your time and efforts inside the ideal achievable way for all of your current life.

To higher regulate the time you may have in the day, use a strategy for it! Constantly sit back the evening in advance of and generate a checklist of anything you need to get completed. Prioritize every little thing about the record and cross duties off 1 by just one when you complete them. Enter into this habit, and you also need to achieve additional aims and have a lot more time in the day.

For those who need to improve your self, take into consideration preserving a to-do list. This will enable continue to keep you organized and control your time and effort sensibly. It could include an important duties you have, otherwise you can micromanage every single party in your life. It actually doesn't matter. Aquiring a to-do list is a wonderful solution to regulate your time and effort. 

Assign a time and energy to any action or dialogue that may be significant towards your goals.  A lot of matters on a to-do checklist make them tricky to complete. It's also possible to use appointment publications. Program individual appointments and make time blocks for anyone conversations, actions and ideas. Agenda their beginnings and endings. Ensure that you total them on program.

Access this link and see much more details: como rezar o rosario de fatima

Program any important gatherings or appointments. Make an effort to develop a cut-off date for people occasions. When you have a very routine prepared out for your working day, do your best to stick to it. If just one thing goes extra time, discover a put you could decrease the authorized time. This could enable you to get via your working day devoid of heading more than your time and energy constraints.

Should you be often pressed for time, begin seeking to be early for all the things. In the event you intention for being in time, even slightly site visitors can mess up your overall plan by building you late. On the other hand, any time you do your best to get early, you happen to be frequently still left having a minor additional time, which you can then set to very good use!

System your each day actions out. Come up with a timetable for the daily activities and stick to it. This will help do away with tense and last minute predicaments. You could generate a day by day to accomplish record and put the most crucial items which you need to acquire done for the best with the listing. 

It is actually of essential worth that you choose to handle your time by dedicating on your own inside the religious part. You ought to hardly ever overlook who produced you, and the place you came from.

Seek to do superior and by no means cease to live your lifetime, normally along with the Kingdom of God within your coronary heart as well as in your actions.

Regulate your time, but hardly ever abandon God. Consider and also have faith. 

God loves you and will under no circumstances depart you. Deal with your time and efforts, allow Our Lord Jesus Christ to deal with you, and manage your whole journey. Have confidence in during the Kingdom of God. Ever.

Direct channel for yourself to know como rezar o terço

For a lot of people, time management is really a matter of multitasking. Should you desire to optimize your productivity, this may not be a good technique to go after. Multitasking splits up your attention to ensure no person issue gets the entire gain of your expertise. Instead of splitting your emphasis, set off new duties and go on to focus on the job at hand.

Never be afraid to inform people today to leave you by itself when you're performing. Hang a sign on the door, lock the door and block your cell phone calls after you need to have to acquire something done. This can help you maintain your prepare of assumed and give attention to the endeavor at hand. You will be significantly more productive with no any interruptions. 

Explore getting a time administration course. Possibly you just are not sure ways to manage your time and effort. Having a class can assist you figure out exactly what is essential and what just isn't. You could find these lessons at local schools and in many cases online. Usually they are really affordable or perhaps free. 

If you want help improving upon your life, you require in order to avoid throwing away time in any respect fees. We all have to have some down time for you to relax and recuperate. But during the time try to be working, you will need to generally be doing work and carrying out tasks. Time losing on telephone applications, Facebook and various distractions is just pointless.

Consider about 5 minutes before your duties and phone calls for deciding what outcomes you want to accomplish. This could make it easier to see accomplishment prior to deciding to start out. It could possibly also gradual down some time. Try taking about five minutes just after each individual action and connect with to determine if you attained the specified result. Should you didn't, what did you miss out on? How can include the lacking element towards the subsequent task?  

Figure out how to let the tiny factors go when you find yourself overcome by a busy day. Men and women who are inclined to fuss about less important issues generally drop their target the massive image, therefore losing time. Have your priorities straight and do not allow modest difficulties to receive within the method of handling time proficiently.

Learn how to say no. Many of us get overly pressured simply just since they are doing not understand how to convey no when questioned to complete something. When you end up overbooked, check out your plan. Are there things that you just can delegate to other folks? If that's so, question for aid from buddies and household. 

Ahead of calling somebody around the mobile phone at perform, take a few minutes to system out the issues that you simply need answered. Frequently quite a bit of time is squandered simply via the rambling that happens about the telephone any time you really don't know very well what you really want. Having a sense within your ambitions prior can help continue to keep you on track. 

Do not rush by your day. If you hurry through issues and make faults, it is going to get you significantly for a longer time to repair people blunders than it will have for yourself to do it right the initial time. Slow and careful work are going to be a lot more productive than rushed, sloppy function.

[talabib]

How To Organize Your Life!

The way our brain manages information often seems mysterious. Lets lift the veil and reveal the systems that are at work every time we drive a car, learn something new, or try to remember where we put something.

With a greater understanding of these processes, you’ll be better equipped to take charge in organizing your life. You’ll also discover how to apply simple techniques, learn the best way to remain productive at work and even how to cope with situations that are out of your control.

The brain can only focus on a limited number of stimuli at a time.

Have you ever told yourself that you’d like to “get organized?” It’s an easy promise to make, but difficult to put into action. So where can you get started?

Well, before we even approach this challenge, we must first understand in greater detail the way our mind works, more specifically, our attentional system. This is the way our brain handles and categorizes information. The times we live in pose a great challenge to this system, because our brains aren’t equipped to cope with the flood of new facts and sights that we face everyday. Instead, brains work best when concentrating on one thing at a time.

This was vital for our ancestors, who hunted successfully by staying highly focused. Their thoughts would only be disrupted by important events, such as an approaching predator.

Nowadays, we’re constantly attempting to do many things at once. Driving a car, listening to the radio, thinking about an upcoming business meeting – it’s not unusual that all these things happen simultaneously. This is something that our brain has not evolved to do successfully, which means that multitasking comes at a price.

When we switch our attention between different activities, our brain is unable to function effectively. This in turn causes us to make thoughtless mistakes, or forget and misplace things.

In order to better understand our attentional system, we also need to consider how our brain decides how to divide its attention. It’s all to do with the brain’s remarkable ability to detect changes.

Our brains are more likely to pay attention to changes than constants. For example, imagine you’re driving your car. You suddenly notice that the road feels bumpy. Prior to this, you didn’t even consider how even the street was, simply because this was not useful information.

That realization could be vital, because it alerts you to a treacherous change in surface or a problem with your car. Changing circumstances can pose a threat to our survival.

Because we’re surrounded by more and more information, we’re forced to make more and more decisions.

Decisions are part of everyday life: Should we opt for the cheaper internet plan, or pay more and get unlimited data? Should we respond to this email now, or read these texts first? We confront decisions like these nearly every minute. But how can our brain cope with this non-stop flow of decisions when it originally evolved to process one idea at a time?

It’s simple: we can manage the flood of information by focusing our attention. Our brain instinctively concentrates on the information that is most important for us.

Here’s an example: imagine you’re on a busy street, desperately looking for your lost dog. You automatically fade out all unnecessary details like the people, cars and buses, and only focus on things that are the same size and color as your dog. So unless there are a lot of other things on this street that are about knee-height, fluffy and brown, your brain immediately makes it easier to find your beloved pet.

This automatic process of honing our focus down to what’s necessary should also be reflected in our decision making. In other words, you shouldn’t spend too much time on less important everyday choices. Instead, find shortcuts and ways to simplify your decision making.

For example, one type of decision we often need to make is about purchasing products or services that can make our lives easier. A good way to analyze these decisions is by thinking about the monetary value of our own time, because it allows us to compare it to the benefit the product promises.

Let’s say you’re thinking about hiring someone to clean your home instead of doing it yourself. Just ask yourself: Would you be willing to pay $50 for two extra hours of free time? If the answer is yes, then go for it without deliberating any further!

Find a designated place for every single object.

When was the last time you lost your keys, phone or glasses? It seems ridiculous that the objects we need with us all the time are also the ones that seem to go wandering most often. The reason is straightforward: we lose these objects because we carry them around with us. Objects that we only use in one place, like our toothbrush, seldom get lost at all.

There is, in fact, a special part of our brain dedicated specifically to remembering the location of things. It’s called the hippocampus, and it was crucial for our ancestors who needed to know where a watering hole was, or the areas where predators might pounce.

In order to learn more about our hippocampi, researchers studied the brains of London taxi drivers, as they are required to commit the city’s street plan to memory. The tests revealed that the hippocampi of the drivers were larger than hippocampi in other people of similar education and age. These larger hippocampi were attributed to the need to recall many locations in detail.

However, the hippocampus can only provide us with information about objects whose location doesn’t change. This isn’t a problem for a taxi driver trying to remember how to get to a particular building, but is a constant problem for us when we try to remember where our frustratingly mobile keys are.

To ensure that you don’t always have to seek out these essential items, simply find a designated place for them. A special bowl next to the door for your keys always does the trick!

If you can’t set aside a certain place for an object, then it may also help to purchase duplicates. For example, if you need reading glasses, having a single location for them might prove frustrating as you may need them in different places. Instead, you could purchase a pair for your bedroom for nighttime reading, while another pair remains at work.

Give your brain a break – move your organizational processes outside your head.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the different ideas and thoughts floating around inside your head? The best way to ensure you can keep track of them is to organize them outside your head.

A time-tested trick to unburden your brain is to write things down. Good old-fashioned flash cards are an easy and effective way to record and organize ideas as soon as you think of them.

For example, you might be on the bus and suddenly remember that you still have to buy a birthday present for your aunt. Don’t stress, just write it down and you’ll no longer have the burden of trying to remember it all day!

On the other hand, if you think of something that you could do right away – such as calling your aunt to say happy birthday – then don’t think twice, do it immediately. Think of it in terms of the two-minute rule: if the task takes longer than two minutes to complete, then write it down. Otherwise, do it straight away.

Another effective approach is to organize your written thoughts into categories. This mirrors the way our brains are constantly categorizing new stimuli and helps simplify our thinking, thus saving time and increasing our attention capacity.

For example, if we see a flying object with feathers, our brain recognizes it as part of the category “bird.” Though this bird might be a hawk or an eagle, it’s easier to place it in this broader category rather than identify it specifically.

The same goes for our flash cards – collect them together and sort them into different groups according to the topics they relate to. These could be categories such as “Personal Life,” “Work” or “Kids.”This way you’ll be able to keep your thoughts and ideas organized and accessible.

Junk drawers for miscellaneous items are incredibly effective – use them every day.

We’ve seen how creating categories is a great way to organize our thoughts and our lives. But what should we do with objects and ideas that don’t seem to belong in any pigeonhole? Well, these miscellaneous items can form their own category.

The categorizing tendencies of the brain can be seen in the way that we organize our living spaces. In our homes, there’s usually at least one place where random objects like single light bulbs, paper clips or car-cleaning products go. Why? Because it wouldn’t make sense to have a special drawer for light bulbs if you only had a few – combining them with other spare objects is much more space efficient.

You could even use one of these junk drawers at work. A miscellaneous folder, perhaps, containing documents that don’t fit into other folders but are also too important to dispose of. However, junk drawers will only be effective if we perform a little bit of maintenance from time to time.

The first way to do this is to keep checking their content regularly. This stops us losing track of what’s in there, which would reduce its organizational advantage. Some items can be eliminated from a junk drawer – if you’re sorting through objects that you haven’t yet felt the need to use, it’s unlikely that you’ll need them in the future. These can be thrown out.

You may also find that items in junk drawers can be moved to other places for more specific types of objects later. For example, perhaps you’ve recently developed an interest in scrapbooking. If you go through your junk drawer, you’ll almost certainly discover objects that could find a new home in the scrapbooking drawer – that extra pair of scissors, maybe, or the double-sided sticky tape.

Set aside time to refuel so you can increase your productivity later.

Everyone knows that you tend to be far more productive after a good night’s sleep. And yet, we’re often tempted to skip a few hours of kip in order to work just a little bit more.

This, however, is a mistake. Our brain works incredibly hard while we sleep, processing new information from the day and integrating it into our existing knowledge. Memories, problems and ideas often appear in our dreams and we may find ourselves better positioned to solve a problem after “sleeping on it.”

This phenomenon is backed up by studies. Researchers found that students attempting to solve a problem performed better following a night of sleep than they did working on it for the same length of waking time.

Ultimately, you’re twice as likely to solve a problem after you’ve slept on it. This shows that sleep is essential, and attempting to work when you’re tired is counterproductive.

Sleep isn’t the only way that we can refuel our minds. Many companies have discovered the benefits of decreasing employee work time and providing facilities and opportunities for rest.

For example, at Microsoft, employees are welcome to use the in-house spa to relax and recharge. This is not only great for employees, but, as studies have shown that productivity increases when working hours drop, the use of downtime in facilities such as these may well be a driving force behind increased productivity.

Accounting firm Ernst & Young has also improved worker performance by allowing additional vacation time. In fact, for every additional ten vacation hours taken by employees, the employees’ performance rating increased by eight percent.

It’s important to think about the worst-case scenario so you’re always prepared.

Imagine this: you’re on vacation and have just found out that the airline has lost your luggage. How would you react? Of course it’s good to be optimistic – perhaps they’ll find your bag! But it’s better still to be prepared. Good thing you brought that extra toothbrush!

Each time you plan something, you should consider all the things that could go wrong and think of a solution to them before they occur. Planning for failure in this way needn’t be difficult – it’s as straightforward as placing an extra key under the flowerpot by your front door.

A plan B is especially important in business situations. It’s true that sometimes things just happen. You forget an important appointment, or you lose the contact details of someone you need to speak to.

If you plan your time ahead, these mistakes will be less likely. With the assistance of an electronic calendar, either on your phone, computer, or both, you can ensure you’ll never forget about meetings again.

A plan B at work can also include keeping an extra shirt in your office, in case you accidentally spill your coffee before an important appointment with your boss!

It’s also important that we don’t rely on technology alone to prevent us from slipping up. Phones, computers and other technical devices aren’t perfect and at some point will let us down without warning. This is why you should also prepare non-technical solutions as a backup.

This is something that your taxi driver does. They always keep a plastic credit card press in their car in case their electronic credit card machine doesn’t work. This way, they can ensure they don’t lose any fares due to technical failure.

We can’t know the answer to every question, but we can know where and how to find it!

Today, we lead very different lives to our grandparents. One of the greatest changes is the way we can easily access vast amounts of information in no time at all. Googling something takes less than a minute! Nevertheless, there’s one important question we should continually ask ourselves: Is this information reliable?

Many of us have used Wikipedia before. The information it can provide us on a wide range of topics is hugely helpful, but is subject to a major drawback. Anyone is able to edit the information on a Wikipedia page, so we can never immediately be sure whether it is reliable. This means we should take the time to verify the information.

In order to evaluate whether a website is a valuable source or not, we can first investigate whether any reliable websites, such as established news services or government websites link to the website. If so, the site itself is likely to be reliable, and information can also be verified by cross-checking it with the content on several other websites.

However, not every problem can be solved by checking online. In complex dilemmas, particularly in the workplace, you’ll need to think for yourself in order to find solutions. Inventive and innovative thinking is something you just can’t google for! In such cases, the ability to reason, estimate and develop hypothetical assumptions is vital.

For example, in Google’s own job interviews, potential candidates are confronted with a question that has no correct answer. Here’s one for you to try on for size: “How much does the Empire State Building weigh?” Google was interested in whether the candidate could use their logical skills to work through a problem on their own, for example, by calculating the approximate size and weight of the concrete used for the building.

Get to grips with probabilities and gain a vital skill for assessing information.

Imagine you’re at a university where ten percent of students are engineers. Look, here comes a student wearing a pocket protector: a plastic sheath for holding pens in your shirt pocket. Now, what would you say is the probability that this is an engineering student?

The fact that a pocket protector is a standard accessory for the stereotypical nerdy student might cause many of you to think he very likely studies engineering. But remember the ten percent ratio. If 90 percent of students aren’t engineers, it’s far more likely that our pocket-protector friend doesn’t study engineering.

Our initial misconception reflects the way in which a person or situation that seems a perfect example of something can cause us to ignore the base rate. A base rate is the probability of an event occurring without taking other factors into account.

Along with base rates, we must also keep in mind that our perception of probability is often relative to the situation we are currently in – our starting point.

Imagine that you’re very sick. Your doctor offers you a treatment that will increase the likelihood of your recovery by ten percent. If the treatment increases your likelihood of recovery from zero to ten percent, you’ll go from certain death to a ten percent chance of living. And, if it increases from 90 percent to 100 percent, your recovery is guaranteed. In both cases, you’ll likely opt for the treatment.

what if it increases from 20 percent to 30 percent? Then, you might hesitate and inquire about the side effects and cost of the treatment before agreeing to it.

From a statistical perspective, this is bizarre since in all of these cases, the increase of ten percent is the same. The scenarios just feel different because of their varying starting points.

Though our brains often have difficulty dealing with probabilities, by remembering the mathematics behind them, we can make our choices with a greater and more objective understanding of their implications.

We live in an age of information overload. This presents a challenge for our brains, which are wired to manage information by focusing attention on one thing at a time. By learning about the way our brain distinguishes, focuses and categorizes, we can better organize our own lives.

[hetavicky-blog]

Generally request to employ your time and efforts while in the best possible way for all of your lifetime.

To better regulate enough time you may have inside of a working day, have a program for it! Always sit back the night time right before and produce a listing of whatever you must get done. Prioritize everything around the listing and cross jobs off one particular by just one while you achieve them. Get into this pattern, and also you should really get to additional plans and have much more time from the day.

If you want to improve yourself, consider keeping a to-do list. This tends to assist retain you arranged and handle your time wisely. It might protect the most important tasks that you've got, or else you can micromanage just about every event within your life. It genuinely isn't going to make a difference. Aquiring a to-do checklist is an excellent way to manage your time and efforts. 

Assign a time to any action or conversation that is critical on your objectives.  Too many points with a to-do listing make them hard to complete. You may also use appointment books. Plan personalized appointments and make time blocks for anyone conversations, actions and views. Schedule their beginnings and endings. Ensure that you total them on timetable.

Accessibility this link and find out additional particulars: como rezar o terço da libertação

Timetable any vital situations or appointments. Seek to make a deadline for all those situations. Once you have a very schedule prepared out for your working day, do your best to stay to it. If one particular detail goes extra time, look for a location you could reduce the authorized time. This will make it easier to get by means of your working day without the need of heading over your time and efforts constraints.

For anyone who is usually pressed for time, begin looking to be early for almost everything. In the event you intention to get on time, even a little website traffic can mess up your full schedule by creating you late. Nonetheless, once you do your very best being early, that you are normally remaining with a minor extra time, which you'll be able to then place to good use!

Strategy your day-to-day routines out. Make a program to your everyday functions and stay with it. This may enable reduce demanding and last second situations. It is possible to make a day-to-day to try and do record and place the most important issues you require to receive completed on the prime of the checklist. 

It's of fundamental relevance you regulate your time and energy by dedicating by yourself during the non secular aspect. You must by no means neglect who designed you, and the place you came from.

Seek to do superior and by no means cease to dwell your life, always using the Kingdom of God within your heart and in your steps.

Handle your time and energy, but by no means abandon God. Believe that and possess faith. 

God enjoys you and may under no circumstances leave you. Control your time and effort, allow for Our Lord Jesus Christ to take care of you, and regulate your total journey. Trust in the Kingdom of God. At any time.

Immediate channel for you to know como estudar  a bíblia

For a lot of people, time administration is often a matter of multitasking. In the event you desire to optimize your productivity, this may not be an excellent technique to pursue. Multitasking splits up your attention to ensure no person subject receives the full gain of the expertise. As an alternative to splitting your concentration, put off new responsibilities and proceed to focus on the work at hand.

Usually do not be afraid to inform people today to leave you by yourself when you are operating. Hang a sign over the door, lock the doorway and block your cellphone calls once you need to have to obtain anything completed. This will likely make it easier to keep your practice of imagined and concentrate on the activity at hand. You might be considerably much more successful with no any interruptions. 

Consider getting a time administration class. It's possible you just are not sure how to arrange your time. Getting a class may help you decide precisely what is significant and what isn't. Yow will discover these classes at community schools and even online. Usually they are really low cost or even free. 

If you need support bettering your lifetime, you require to stay away from wasting time at all charges. Many of us need some down time to chill out and recuperate. But over the time you ought to be functioning, you would like to be doing the job and carrying out duties. Time throwing away on phone applications, Fb and also other interruptions is simply avoidable.

Consider about five minutes in advance of your duties and phone calls for determining what results you would like to achieve. This could help you see good results prior to deciding to begin. It could possibly also slow down some time. Try getting about five minutes soon after each and every activity and phone to figure out in case you achieved the specified result. If you failed to, what did you pass up? How can incorporate the lacking factor to your upcoming undertaking?  

Learn to permit the little points go while you are overcome by a hectic working day. Persons who are likely to fuss over less important matters typically eliminate their focus on the large photo, thus losing time. Have your priorities straight and do not make it possible for compact troubles to have during the method of controlling time competently.

Learn how to say no. Lots of people get overly stressed simply since they do not know how to mention no when requested to perform anything. Any time you find yourself overbooked, take a look at your timetable. Are there matters that you just can delegate to other people? If that's so, inquire for assist from pals and family. 

Prior to contacting someone around the cellphone at do the job, choose a few minutes to approach out the questions that you just have to have answered. Usually a lot of time is squandered simply by the rambling that occurs on the phone if you never really know what you actually need. Aquiring a feeling of your ambitions prior should help keep you on the right track. 

Usually do not hurry via your day. In case you rush by issues and make errors, it'll just take you much for a longer period to fix all those mistakes than it could have for you to make it happen correct the main time. Gradual and very careful perform will likely be more productive than rushed, sloppy perform.

[ddrkirbyisq]

I've come a long, long way since I started first making use of a stovetop back in 2011 ("oh, you need to use OIL to stir-fry things??  you don't just dump it all in the pan and..."), and a lot of that has come from accumulated knowledge gleaned over the years.  A lot of this knowledge comes from great resources such as Kenji Lopez-Alt's more scientifically-minded columns and various "mythbuster"-type articles (and trust me there are WAY more myths than truths about cooking floating around out there), and other portions of it come from more practical home kitchen experience.

I personally very much rely on a blend of science and experience to inform my cooking.  I need to understand the theory behind why something works in order to apply it to more than just a single recipe, but at the same time a lot of cooking resources are tailored to amazing thumbnails and ASMR-tingling videos where noodles are hand-pulled, beef is pushed through your own meat grinder, and everything is perfectly plated with little bits of hand-chopped freshly-picked herbs as garnishes and girl, I love attention to detail but sometimes we just ain't got the TIME for that, you know what I mean?  So the home kitchen is where a lot more of the "practical"-minded advice comes from, things like "reuse the same pan for these 3 steps so you have to wash less" or "while this is sauteing is a great time to peel and cut the next veggies so you can multitask".

That's already a pretty lengthy intro, so let's just get on with it, shall we?

1) Wash mushrooms with water, saute them separately

Contrary to what you might have heard, mushrooms don't "absorb a ton of water" when you rinse them under water.  They absorb about 2% of their weight at most, which really isn't a big deal, so go ahead and use water to clean your mushrooms since it's just easier (but make sure you give them a good scrub and rub at the same time to get out the little dirt chunks).  However, mushrooms are made up of a lot of water in the first place (92%!) and end up releasing a lot more water than say, onions or carrots.

This is important because all that water needs to evaporate out before any yummy tasty Maillard reaction browning can occur.  So if you're doing a simple saute of mushrooms, onions, and carrots all together, the amount of moisture in the mushrooms will end up dominating the saute and you'll end up with wimpy steamed veggies.  Instead, cook the mushrooms through first (really give them time to develop a nice brown color), remove from your skillet, throw in the other veggies, and add the mushrooms back at the end.  This will result in awesome caramelized veggies.

Is this more effort?  Yes, it is, and I admit sometimes when I'm EXTRA lazy I just go for my wimpy steamed veggies.  But mushrooms are the one case where 95% of the time I take the effort because they really do release a lot of water during the cooking process.  Of course this also applies to other "watery" veggies such as lettuce, celery, cucumbers, etc. which I will often cook together with the mushrooms to get all the watery veggies out of the way first.

2) Reuse plates or bowls for both temporary storage and final plating

One of those more practical home kitchen tips, and should be an extremely "duh" one for many people already, but I thought I'd still include it since it's so practical and beginner cooks (i.e. me in 2011) might not have a handle on efficient kitchen management.

So let's say you've got your mushrooms all nicely sliced or diced or whatever, but now you've got no more room on your chopping board for onions so you...pull out a bowl to temporarily put all those sliced raw mushrooms into.

Fast-forward a short while (or maybe you were smart and sauted the mushrooms while slicing your onions), you've got your mushrooms all nicely sauted and need to remove them from the skillet to start cooking your onions so you...pull out a plate to dump the mushrooms on.

You can see where I'm going with this.  With a simple saute it's not too bad but at the end of a fancy recipe you end up with fifteen million little bowls and plates that you need to clean. (one for minced garlic, one for minced scallions, one for minced ginger, one for raw mushrooms, another for carrots, ...)  I get it, mise en place is great and sometimes when you are doing a furious chinese-style stir fry over a jet burner, you NEED to have all of those ingredients prepared in separate bowls for the sake of speed.  But if you aren't doing some crazy high heat stir-fry, for the love of god reuse your bowls and plates throughout the cooking process.

That plate that you used to hold your raw mushrooms?  Reuse it for the cooked mushrooms -- no reason not to!  And after you toss your mushrooms back into the skillet with everything else, just give it a quick rinse and it's ready to be used as your final plate!  I strive to make most of my recipes use ZERO extra plates and bowls if at all possible for maximum efficiency, and yes, sometimes that means I can't chop all of my ingredients ahead of time -- chop them as you go, and multitask!

3) For better browning (i.e. better flavor), dry your meats, fish, and everything else before searing

Remember what I said about water needing to evaporate before mushrooms can undergo any awesome browning reactions?  Well, same thing applies to meat, fish fillets, and everything else you're trying to sear or pan fry or saute.  If you thoroughly pat dry your steaks, salmon fillets, and everything else before you cook them it will really help you get that nice tasty outer caramelization that we all love.

A lot of people (myself included) might intuitively think that the more "wet" meat or veggies are, the juicier they will be once they're done cooking.  Unfortunately things don't actually work that way at all.  A steak is not a sponge -- you can't "add moisture to it" by submerging it in water.  There's a reason we grill and pan-sear steaks and fish fillets instead of eating "boiled steak" all the time!  So make sure the exterior of your piece of protein is completely dry before going to cook it. (don't worry, the interior will still be juicy!)

Along the same lines, you might be tempted to put a cover on your skillet in order to "help keep the moisture in".  This results in "steamed steak" which again is not nearly as appetizing.  Putting a lid over your skillet or pot is great for braised/saucy dishes (or actual steamed veggies), but for searing and sauteing you need all that water to evaporate so you can start to develop delicious browning flavor.  And of course, if you're ever worried about things getting too dry in the pan, don't add water -- instead, add more oil.  Or if you're feeling unhealthy, bacon fat.  Delicious bacon fat....

4) Keep frozen bacon in the freezer

Speaking of bacon fat, is there a dish it won't make better?  Apologies to any vegetarian or pescetarian readers, but adding some chopped up bacon pieces can add some extra deliciousness to pretty much anything.  Roasted brussel sprouts turn from boring to unhealthily delicious.  Kale suddenly becomes something you're actually excited to eat (actually, I like kale on its own, but many don't!)  And who doesn't like some extra bacon bits with their potatoes, tater tots, or even cauliflower soup?  Pretty much any time you're roasting or sauteing anything you can just add some extra bacon in there and get some extra delicious flavor.

Of course I don't go super ham (ha ha ha...) with the bacon with every meal I ever eat, so it takes me a while to get through a package of bacon.  There's two solutions to this -- option A, buy your bacon in individual strips from your butcher.  Option B is buy bacon in bulk but keep in the freezer so it lasts forever.  As an added bonus, frozen bacon is way easier to work with on the chopping board because it's not all greasy and slippery!  Frozen bacon is a breeze to work with and cooks great too.

5) Cook fish fillets with the broiler because it's freakin delicious

How many of you have never even understood the "broil" function on your oven?  If you've been baking your fish fillets your whole life, you really ought to try broiling them instead.  Baked fish is "okay", but the end result is always going to lack the extra flavor of broiled fish because baking simply doesn't give you the intense heat required for any delicious surface browning (and yes, browning really is THAT important).  Broiling is essentially "upside-down grilling" -- it cooks via intense radiant heat that happens to be perfect for fish fillets.  (Yes, you can also pan-fry fish fillets and that can be wonderful too, but takes a bit more skill to really get right)

You might have to get a feel for it the first few times as every broiler reaches a different temperature and the distance to the heating element can be important.  For fish, it's important to do most (not all, but most) of your cooking with the skin side up for broiling since the skin will act as a nice insulator, protecting the rest of the fish from getting overcooked.  Oh, and if you do that, you get a nice, crispy, delicious fish skin that is totally unlike the floppy slimy fish skins you'd get with baked or steamed fish.  Since fish overcooks quite quickly, I'd recommend testing for your ideal doneness very often until you get a good feel for it.  You can test for doneness by trying to flake the fillet with a fork and/or checking the color of the inner part of the fillet.  I prefer my fillets "medium" but you may even prefer "medium rare" with some translucent flesh in the middle (which is perfectly safe to eat).  But for the love of god please do not overcook your fish fillets and turn them into dry cardboard lumps like 90% of all restaurants do.

Got a toaster oven?  Even easier -- just pop your fish fillet in there and use the broil setting and you've got a quick and easy route to delicious fish, without having to wait around for your entire oven to heat up to temperature.  Hooray!

Broiling is also great, by the way, for other proteins, such as lamb chops, or anything else you'd think about grilling (but don't want to go through all the effort to set up the grill for).

[itswomanswork]

How to Set Up Multiple Blogs and Why It’s Worth It

Blogging has seen a rollercoaster ride in the past few decades.

From its rise in the 90’s to its legendary fall in the early 2000’s, we have seen it come and go as a trend and source of income.

In this day and age, the digital world is taking over, and blogging has returned as a viable occupation. There are now millions of blogs out there, tackling every niche and topic, no matter how obscure or odd it might be.

The beautiful thing about running a blog is that you can turn your passion and hobby into income. You can genuinely generate a decent salary by writing about what you love, as long as you’re good and pay attention to some technical details.

But in this dire competition, it’s tough to see how you can distinguish yourself as a content creator with just one blog.

Have you thought about starting a second blog?

Perhaps your first blog is doing great, but if you want to branch out on your writing, you need to understand that you will have to change your voice.

A new niche requires a different way of approaching your audience. Think well and hard if you are ready to develop another voice for your writing and if you can keep up with it. It will only be exhausting should you fail.

Before heading into a new venture, you need to establish why people should read your content. Unless you come up with an innovative topic that few people discuss, you will have fierce competition.

Before setting up multiple blogs, remember that you will have to make something new and become someone’s favorite source of inspiration.

If you’re thinking about starting another blog, don’t forget that you are human and that there are only so many hours in the day.

You’ll have to post regularly, write in all categories, take care of social media promotion, along with emails and newsletters. That is challenging enough with just one blog, so consider the time and energy you will have to invest into two.

We bloggers love multitasking, but sometimes have a difficult time understanding when we have reached our limit. Passion drives it, and it refuses to let those flames burn down before we burn ourselves out. So know when you have too many, and never sacrifice quality for quantity.

If you can hack it, you will find there are numerous benefits to setting up and managing multiple blogs. It’s not an easy road to take, but the destination will be well worth it.

You will be on your way to building an “empire” as they say, where you will have a vast online presence. Many say they simply don’t have the time to manage more than one blog. However, it may just be because they don’t understand the benefits.

Bonus: Learn how to set up a WordPress blog in 5 minutes here.

Multiple blogs are easier to manage

Perhaps you have heard the pancake rule. It implies that the first pancake almost always ends up burnt, weirdly-shaped, and a failure.

The same goes with blogging. Your first blog might not be a failure, but it likely has numerous mistakes littered across it after a long time of trial and error. In fact, you may head to your old articles and realize how many blunders you’ve committed.

At the same time, though, you also understand how much you’ve learned.

Whether it’s the actual building process or growing your new blog’s influence, you will notice a different pace that will be faster and more efficient.

Your second blog will incorporate all the wisdom and knowledge the years have offered you. It will not be your first draft, but a high-quality source that shows that someone with experience is behind the wheel.

Viewers will feel that confidence in your writing. It will create more credibility for your new blog, and in turn, your visibility will skyrocket.

They help you avoid compromise

It may be a part of life, but sometimes it can be satisfying to avoid it when it comes to your writing. There are numerous niches and categories to sort your content, but one topic might not fall into the right one. It’s interesting, trending, and may genuinely increase your traffic, but it barely has a place on your site. They say that the Miscellaneous/Others category is the true weak link of any website, so you don’t want any of your articles to fall there.

Instead, you can create multiple blogs that will have an appropriate place for them. One site cannot cover everything without compromising credibility. Thus, you may avoid it by managing multiple blogs that tackle different niches.

Major publications like The New York Times have supplements like The New York Times Magazine where they delve more into fashion, lifestyle, and design. It takes away the serious edge of writing about worldwide events and truly impacting stories. It’s a clever tactic of maintaining their reputation without doing something such as adding a style section on their already-existent publication.

You can apply the same to your blog. It will allow you time to develop your skills and expand your horizons. More importantly, you will be able to write without the dreaded necessity of the business world that is compromise.

You can keep one for work, one for play

Multiple blogs will take off the pressure. It sounds as if they will require a lot of work, and they will. However, they will allow you to perhaps create a medium for your passions that are more lighthearted.

If you are a writer at heart, sometimes you don’t want to live by a schedule. Managing multiple blogs means that you can have one for yourself, write what you please and whenever you want without keeping an eye on the numbers.

It may be the perfect outlet. It could improve the quality of your other blogs and prevent you from burning out. Sticking to scheduled posting and perfect keyword research can be exhausting. By creating a separate blog that is solely for yourself, with no expectations or pressure, your other sites will benefit.

This is a common practice among writers, even famous ones. Agatha Christie, for example, was an exceptional author, with an impressive collection of 66 mystery novels that have thrilled the world. However, fewer people know that she also wrote six romance novels under the pseudonym, Mary Westmacott.

They posed as her outlet, a change of pace, and a release from the pressure that her name had created due to people’s expectation of quality, style, and theme. This can translate beautifully into your own writing experience, namely blogging. Maintain a second site where you can relax and write about whatever it is you please, no matter how relevant or popular it is.

You could have your own brand

Multiple blogs open up new doors for you, such as making your own brand. That implies creating a common name for all, but with a slight twist that is entirely appropriate for their niche.

It’s an excellent way of using your already-existent online presence to boost your new content. Thus, you can create a brand for yourself or a chain of websites that are related in name but not in topic. It will allow you to expand on your content while keeping your online influence and adding more to it.

Managing multiple blogs means that you can interlink them. It’s a good way to reassure your viewers that they can expect the same high-quality content you have delivered before. It will increase traffic and successfully help you in creating a brand for yourself. However, never lose sight that it implies the responsibility of meeting the usual standards regarding content quality and frequency of posting.

A good example would be National Geographic. While their publication is known worldwide for its exquisite writing and thirst for adventure, the same could be directed toward children.

Thus, they created National Geographic Kids, with the goal to educate children and inspire them to explore the world. The topics are quite different, as some may be inappropriate for kids, and the approach is easier for younger minds to grasp. However, the famous brand name persists.

They’re a great way to do cross promotion

Multiple blogs are an excellent way of stepping into the terrain that is “cross promotion”.

As long as it’s applicable, it’s entirely acceptable that you help promote one site with the other and vice versa. It will create several backlinks that will increase your traffic and influence.

It’s important to keep in mind that you don’t become spam. While Google is a fan of blogs that actively use links toward other content, too many promotional links could get you penalized.

The best part about it is that it’s free, you know the policies and styles of both websites, and you can certainly trust the information. Take into account the matter of Domain Strength and your site’s authority in the eyes of Google. The more links you have, the better the reputation. Your blog’s credibility will increase.

Just make sure you don’t abuse this function as it is frowned upon by search engines. Continuous promotion of one site will draw the bad kind of attention and you may end up with one of your site’s penalized.

Keep it balanced and practical. Don’t just do it for the sake of promotion. It has to make sense.

You can get more advertising deals

A blog that earns traffic will undoubtedly attract advertisers. However, most don’t know the real value of multiple websites to advertisers. They have a limited amount of ads for each site, which means that you, in turn, have only a certain number of deals you can cut with them.

By having multiple blogs, the potential is increased tenfold because you can strike partnerships with the same advertiser but for more sites. That means you can double the benefits of one forged connection, which will ultimately increase your income.

You have already made the contact, so half the job will be done. Not to mention that multiple blogs will increase your online presence on search engines, and more advertisers will find your website. That, in turn, will increase your credibility in Google’s eyes and draw in more visitors.

So, if you’re writing for the purpose of monetizing your work, it’s certainly more practical to manage more than just one blog.

WordPress has a useful plugin that can help you manage multiple ads.

All of these are beyond the usual benefits of managing multiple blogs and dealing with the challenges that may appear:

Increased revenue

Diversified content

Wider social media reach

Exploring multiple niches

More traffic

Easier to rank

How to set up multiple blogs

If you’re convinced that you are ready to set up and manage multiple blogs, you will need proper understanding of how to do it.

The most popular tool for setting up multiple WordPress blogs is WordPress MU, now made easier to continue your experience with something you are likely already familiar with. However, you will also need to make a decision on how you wish to manage them.

The process of installing WordPress should already be familiar after the first blog is already set up. However, the wp-config.php file will have to be slightly different for each different type of database.

There is an easier way, by creating separate blogs on a single WordPress install. However, it’s arguably a little flawed in the sense that you will not truly have a separation between them. In the end, it’s up to your preference and SEO management capabilities.

Bonus: Learn how to set up a WordPress blog in 5 minutes here.

Wrap

Managing multiple blogs is not an easy task, and some frequently undertake it without knowing the resulting burdens. However, understanding the benefits will lessen the strain.

It may be a challenge that will double your workload, but it can also have excellent results in a matter of months. Once you have gotten a taste of the potential success, you may even be tempted to build more and more.

Just remember to keep yourself in check and know when to stop and when it’s spinning out of control. As it is with everything in life, moderation is key.

Guest Author: Dustin Ford is a well-known writer. He is published on many websites and his opinion is valued. One of his most important projects is Top Web Host.

The post How to Set Up Multiple Blogs and Why It’s Worth It appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.

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[jigneshthanki-blog]

Chatbot Development and Applications is the future for Businesses

For businesses, it is very important to ensure customer loyalty along with the brand establishment. A man has looked to take help of machines to remove the constraints of human limitations like earlier times. This time it is the customer service industry which has been revolutionized, and the innovation responsible for this is chatbot app. Chatbot development is considered the future of customer service and management. 55% of consumers interact with a business using messaging apps to solve a problem and 48% of users prefer bots that can solve issues related to their businesses.

A Chatbot is a computer program or a feature of artificial Intelligence that conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods. Since last 25 years, chat services have become better and efficient while allowing us to send not just text messages but sharing images, videos, locations, doc files, etc. Chatbot Development is going to help businesses to prosper as the potential customers are going to get much relevant information on their hands in a very short span of time. Let’s Nurture, A leading Mobile App Development Company having widespread happy and satisfied customers across the globe, provides Chatbot development services to its customers and has prominently become one of the leading Chatbot App development companies. If you are looking for an application that will provide your customer with an ecstatic experience of getting round-the-clock customer support via conversation and textual methods then we guarantee you to give the best Chatbot development services from Let’s Nurture’s experts.

Wondering why is Chatbot Development needed for your business?

Bots speed up the operations: Chatbots do not suffer from limitations like we humans do. Human beings can handle up to a very few conversations at a time whereas chatbots are multitaskers. So engaging Chatbot solutions can help businesses grow manifolds.

Bots drive up institutional efficiency: We often burn a lot of resources on backend support in our businesses. Chatbots have come to our rescue in this dilemma. Instead of employing human agents to perform these mundane and repetitive tasks, simply installing a chatbot would automate everything.

Bots help in dealing with millennials: There are people who inquire and compare products before they buy since they are not impulsive buyers. They prefer live chats over phone calls. So if you want to target millennials, investing in chatbots would bring prudent results.

Bots act as personal assistance: We all prefer taking help just by texting rather than going through a lot of applications to book tickets or scheduling an appointment and also in managing projects and tasks. In that case, chatbots are the best.

Applications of Chatbot in various Business Industries:

Chatbot for Healthcare Industry: Chatbot integration with IoT solutions for healthcare industry drives better results for patients. Integration of chatbot with IoT improvises quality of care and attention rendered to the patients in healthcare centres. Chatbots have gradually been implemented into healthcare industry and it is estimated that the global chatbot market will reach $1.23 billion by 2025. Chatbots are helpful for scheduling appointments with a particular doctor in a hospital.

A user can also update his/her details like medical history, addresses etc which would later be notified in a chat via a bot. A patient can also be notified about upcoming health checkup camps and also get health tips via a chatbot application. Bots not only help in cutting down the cost but also reduces the waiting time, improves patient care and enhance customer loyalty and retention. Chatbots also provide medical advice, test results and prescription refills. We are an open source IoT platform for providing IoT solutions for healthcare industry leveraging custom healthcare solutions.

Chatbot for Banking and Finance Industry: Chatbots have proved to be of a great help in banking and finance sector. They help to automate and interact with customers with the help of a user interface. Chatbot has the potential to automate all the repetitive questions which are time-consuming and has a huge impact on the department’s performance. Customers can inquire about their account balance and also ask for a transaction with the help of a simple interface.

Minimal setup, easy integration and accessibility through a chat are the key points of chatbots adoption. It is believed that the average time saved per chatbot enquiry as compared to a traditional enquiry is 4 minutes and the success rate of using a bot for banking and financial purpose stands as high as 93%.

Chatbot for Customer Support: With the help of Chatbots, organisations can effectively manage customer enquiries thereby providing a smooth customer experience. Bots can answer customer enquiries quickly and consistently. Cognitive technology reduces the chances of misinterpretation and hence provides accurate results with minimal error rates.

Chatbots are perfect for dealing with frequently asked questions as they require less groundwork and hence reduces time. It is believed that Chatbots reduce customer service costs by 30% and 15% of the customers engaged with a business via a chatbot in last 12 months.

Chatbot for Online Food Ordering: The advancement in mobile platforms and messaging apps and the improvement in chatbot intelligence, people have started breaking the ancient norms and are using online food ordering apps to enjoy their scrumptious food. Not just the customers, but also the restaurant owners are benefited hugely by the chatbot service.

Chatbots will display the menu, collect and show the delivery preferences with time and location and these details are remembered by the bots for future usage. And if you are a restaurant owner, a chatbot that handles customer interaction can prove to be an ace for your business. That can help you to keep multiple orders at a time and customer feedback to access performance.

Chatbot for Educational Sector/Institution: Chatbots have been of a great use in the educational sector as well. By answering a wide variety of questions about academic, administrative and financial matters, and giving out important reminders and notifications directly through the chat window, chatbots create a friendly interface between a university’s website and its users. Bots are helpful in simplifying administrative formalities and provide technical support and troubleshooting assistance.

Benefits of using Chatbot App in your Business:

- Smart AI technology in Chatbot development ensures right expressions while conversing. - Vast knowledge of Chatbot. - Less response time. - Data can be used more appropriately for the quality analysis. - Save lots of time and money. - Can initiate the action if programmed.

[centralinnovate]

Greater representation of women in engineering organisations can enhance overall performance

The announcement last month naming quantum physicist Dr Michelle Simmons as 2018’s Australian of the Year has refocused attention on the various initiatives aimed at encouraging more women into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) career paths.

For a personal take on the distinctive attributes women can bring to these roles, we spoke to Sue Advani, an independent management consultant who started out as an economist and gradually moved into project management. After spending more than 30 years with Rail Corp, the NSW government agency responsible for the provision of state rail services until its restructure in 2013, she branched out on her own and has since consulted on major rail-related projects including the ARTC inland rail project and the Port Botany rail link.

Asked what drew her into this line of work, Sue responds that “if anything, it was the fact that I’m the sort of person who’s always looking for new challenges and opportunities. I started out at Rail Corp doing economic evaluations and business cases, involving desktop modelling and planning, but I had always wanted to understand what’s it like on the other side – so that made me move into the projects area. And given that I had my Master’s degree in Transport Economics behind me to support the work I was doing, I then trained myself to be a project manager and became more structured in the way I worked, and moved on from smaller to bigger projects until eventually I was running the whole station program.”

Sue’s career path at Rail Corp saw her move from her original role into a project manager for station upgrading before finishing up as Project Director looking after upgrading projects across all of NSW – a period which oversaw major improvements at Sydney suburban stations as well as the logistical requirements necessary to move vast numbers of commuters during the 2000 Olympics.

“It was a very challenging workload but something I really enjoyed,” she remembers. “My role involved developing projects, getting architects on board, doing first concept designs and costings and putting forward a business case to get us the money to proceed. Then I would engage project managers who would take us to the next step of detailed design and construction.”

As for what special skills she brought to the job, Sue says: “There were a lot of station managers who had great upgrade ideas but could not necessarily convert that into what should be done. I would look primarily at the user requirements in getting the concepts developed, and because I was an economist rather than an engineer I wasn’t looking for gold-plated solutions that might win awards down the track, but rather practical solutions that met requirements and got the job done. So it was a different perspective and I think it helped.”

During Sue’s time at Rail Corp it was very much a male-dominated organisation, with herself often the only woman in the infrastructure executive team.

“I did find my way of looking at things was very different,” she recalls. “I was operationally focused and customer focused and had an ability to understand where the other person is coming from, which is very useful because it stops conflict. Conflict is bad for projects because people can get stuck in their own way of doing things, so my strength was being able to negotiate with people, being able to talk one to one with them and not come from a ‘high horse’ position. Essentially it’s empathy – I think it’s very important to understand and respect that the people on the ground have a job to do every day, and they know how the station operates so you need to respect and acknowledge that, and taking that into account in your design avoids a lot of wrong moves you might otherwise make.

“Another element I brought with me was an ability to look at the big picture – I think I have a good strategic sense, and I would ask ‘what are the other things that might need to be done at the same time as we are doing this component?’ In other words, a holistic approach. I would talk to the maintenance people or the capital works people and because I’m not an engineer, I would put concepts into simple language. I had the capacity to understand the technical side of things and I could convert that tech speak into everyday speech and that was an advantage.”

Sue makes the point that this male dominance was by no means unusual – “I think women are hugely under-represented in engineering organisations. I only got into Rail Corp myself because I’d applied for a traineeship back in the days when there was a strong push to encourage women into non-traditional occupations under the equal employment opportunity initiative. That’s no longer around to the same extent – and that may be because of a push-back by women saying they don’t want a special path to get in. But sometimes you do need to give people a helping hand to encourage them. I would not say you should hire a woman simply because she’s a woman, but you can offer special training positions where women can come forward and learn and then compete with the men. The point is that if you don’t make women feel welcome in your organisation, they won’t come through the doors.

“The other issue around that is the perception that women want children and will have a family to raise, but with the rise of the internet we have much more opportunity for flexible working practices and working remotely so that’s no longer such an obstacle and a good work-life balance can be achieved.”

She argues that when it comes to more job opportunities for women, society still struggles against false assumptions which need to be broken down. “I was never a person who felt overawed by a lot of men in the room, but I remember one occasion when I was working at another male-dominated workplace. They held a managers’ conference and invited every manager except me. When I asked why I was told, ‘we’ll be swearing and you might not feel comfortable, or some of the men might not feel comfortable doing that around you’. To which I responded, ‘you need to give me a chance, I can swear with the best of them!’

“The push for more women in STEM careers that we see today is very important as there’s still the whole issue of gender parity and equal pay – the simple fact is that women tend to be in the lower echelons of the workplace because that’s all they’re trained for. If you’re a woman trained as an engineer then there’s no reason you shouldn’t get the same pay as a man. But women are not doing the same jobs with the same responsibilities, so they don’t get the same pay. It’s very important to start educating at the home level and the school level so these presumptions are not built in to people’s mindsets.

“Schools can do a lot to encourage women to take up maths and physics and part of that is to look at the way these subjects are taught. You need to start with a language that is easily understood and once the foundations are set you can then go into the hard technospeak – but a very technical speak from the start can turn prospective students off. So the way the training is delivered is very important in order to attract people.

“Mentoring is also very important, and in the workplace senior male managers can play an important contribution in mentoring and supporting their junior colleagues, regardless of gender.”

While acknowledging it’s a generalisation, Sue says women tend to be better multitaskers than men – “lots of women I know are doing this in the home environment. They’re doing all the budgeting, keeping an eye on the kids, organising their extra-curricular activities, cooking meals … so I think that has been enculturated into women to an extent. I have found, even working with technical people, that males tend to be more focused on one task and can’t be distracted. So I think that multiskilling and multitasking is one facet a woman can bring to her job.

“I also spoke earlier about empathy and I do think that women generally tend to be more empathetic than men and again this may be because they are the family coordinators, they are enculturated into a caring role, and that’s another useful skill they can bring to the workplace.

“There’s also the old idea of women’s intuition and certainly for me that has played a big role. I would look ahead and be able to see where things were likely to go, and I would know in my gut that something was correct and would dig deeper until I was satisfied. I was the only female and my boss would wait until all the technical people had gone and then ask me, ‘And what do you think?’ Because he knew I would look at it differently and pick up things that others might not see, and because I was doing the reporting on the whole project I had a bird’s eye view of where areas might be falling behind. So I think it’s important for every team to bring women in, because we do have skills that can enhance overall performance.”

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[intercad]

The announcement last month naming quantum physicist Dr Michelle Simmons as 2018’s Australian of the Year has refocused attention on the various initiatives aimed at encouraging more women into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) career paths.

For a personal take on the distinctive attributes women can bring to these roles, we spoke to Sue Advani, an independent management consultant who started out as an economist and gradually moved into project management. After spending more than 30 years with Rail Corp, the NSW government agency responsible for the provision of state rail services until its restructure in 2013, she branched out on her own and has since consulted on major rail-related projects including the ARTC inland rail project and the Port Botany rail link.

Asked what drew her into this line of work, Sue responds that “if anything, it was the fact that I’m the sort of person who’s always looking for new challenges and opportunities. I started out at Rail Corp doing economic evaluations and business cases, involving desktop modelling and planning, but I had always wanted to understand what’s it like on the other side – so that made me move into the projects area. And given that I had my Master’s degree in Transport Economics behind me to support the work I was doing, I then trained myself to be a project manager and became more structured in the way I worked, and moved on from smaller to bigger projects until eventually I was running the whole station program.”

Sue’s career path at Rail Corp saw her move from her original role into a project manager for station upgrading before finishing up as Project Director looking after upgrading projects across all of NSW – a period which oversaw major improvements at Sydney suburban stations as well as the logistical requirements necessary to move vast numbers of commuters during the 2000 Olympics.

“It was a very challenging workload but something I really enjoyed,” she remembers. “My role involved developing projects, getting architects on board, doing first concept designs and costings and putting forward a business case to get us the money to proceed. Then I would engage project managers who would take us to the next step of detailed design and construction.”

As for what special skills she brought to the job, Sue says: “There were a lot of station managers who had great upgrade ideas but could not necessarily convert that into what should be done. I would look primarily at the user requirements in getting the concepts developed, and because I was an economist rather than an engineer I wasn’t looking for gold-plated solutions that might win awards down the track, but rather practical solutions that met requirements and got the job done. So it was a different perspective and I think it helped.”

During Sue’s time at Rail Corp it was very much a male-dominated organisation, with herself often the only woman in the infrastructure executive team.

“I did find my way of looking at things was very different,” she recalls. “I was operationally focused and customer focused and had an ability to understand where the other person is coming from, which is very useful because it stops conflict. Conflict is bad for projects because people can get stuck in their own way of doing things, so my strength was being able to negotiate with people, being able to talk one to one with them and not come from a ‘high horse’ position. Essentially it’s empathy – I think it’s very important to understand and respect that the people on the ground have a job to do every day, and they know how the station operates so you need to respect and acknowledge that, and taking that into account in your design avoids a lot of wrong moves you might otherwise make.

“Another element I brought with me was an ability to look at the big picture – I think I have a good strategic sense, and I would ask ‘what are the other things that might need to be done at the same time as we are doing this component?’ In other words, a holistic approach. I would talk to the maintenance people or the capital works people and because I’m not an engineer, I would put concepts into simple language. I had the capacity to understand the technical side of things and I could convert that tech speak into everyday speech and that was an advantage.”

Sue makes the point that this male dominance was by no means unusual – “I think women are hugely under-represented in engineering organisations. I only got into Rail Corp myself because I’d applied for a traineeship back in the days when there was a strong push to encourage women into non-traditional occupations under the equal employment opportunity initiative. That’s no longer around to the same extent – and that may be because of a push-back by women saying they don’t want a special path to get in. But sometimes you do need to give people a helping hand to encourage them. I would not say you should hire a woman simply because she’s a woman, but you can offer special training positions where women can come forward and learn and then compete with the men. The point is that if you don’t make women feel welcome in your organisation, they won’t come through the doors.

“The other issue around that is the perception that women want children and will have a family to raise, but with the rise of the internet we have much more opportunity for flexible working practices and working remotely so that’s no longer such an obstacle and a good work-life balance can be achieved.”

She argues that when it comes to more job opportunities for women, society still struggles against false assumptions which need to be broken down. “I was never a person who felt overawed by a lot of men in the room, but I remember one occasion when I was working at another male-dominated workplace. They held a managers’ conference and invited every manager except me. When I asked why I was told, ‘we’ll be swearing and you might not feel comfortable, or some of the men might not feel comfortable doing that around you’. To which I responded, ‘you need to give me a chance, I can swear with the best of them!’

“The push for more women in STEM careers that we see today is very important as there’s still the whole issue of gender parity and equal pay – the simple fact is that women tend to be in the lower echelons of the workplace because that’s all they’re trained for. If you’re a woman trained as an engineer then there’s no reason you shouldn’t get the same pay as a man. But women are not doing the same jobs with the same responsibilities, so they don’t get the same pay. It’s very important to start educating at the home level and the school level so these presumptions are not built in to people’s mindsets.

“Schools can do a lot to encourage women to take up maths and physics and part of that is to look at the way these subjects are taught. You need to start with a language that is easily understood and once the foundations are set you can then go into the hard technospeak – but a very technical speak from the start can turn prospective students off. So the way the training is delivered is very important in order to attract people.

“Mentoring is also very important, and in the workplace senior male managers can play an important contribution in mentoring and supporting their junior colleagues, regardless of gender.”

While acknowledging it’s a generalisation, Sue says women tend to be better multitaskers than men – “lots of women I know are doing this in the home environment. They’re doing all the budgeting, keeping an eye on the kids, organising their extra-curricular activities, cooking meals … so I think that has been enculturated into women to an extent. I have found, even working with technical people, that males tend to be more focused on one task and can’t be distracted. So I think that multiskilling and multitasking is one facet a woman can bring to her job.

“I also spoke earlier about empathy and I do think that women generally tend to be more empathetic than men and again this may be because they are the family coordinators, they are enculturated into a caring role, and that’s another useful skill they can bring to the workplace.

“There’s also the old idea of women’s intuition and certainly for me that has played a big role. I would look ahead and be able to see where things were likely to go, and I would know in my gut that something was correct and would dig deeper until I was satisfied. I was the only female and my boss would wait until all the technical people had gone and then ask me, ‘And what do you think?’ Because he knew I would look at it differently and pick up things that others might not see, and because I was doing the reporting on the whole project I had a bird’s eye view of where areas might be falling behind. So I think it’s important for every team to bring women in, because we do have skills that can enhance overall performance.”

[techjobwall]

Office Manager - Germany Startup Jobs

http://www.germanystartupjobs.com/job/elektrocouture-berlin-2-office-manager/

Office Manager

Office Manager, Full time, Berlin

We are looking for a hands on Office manager with a big smile asap! We want you to be the soul of our office – and to thrive with us!

We’d like you to organize and coordinate administration duties and office procedures. Your multitasking role is to create and maintain a pleasant work environment, ensuring high levels of organisational effectiveness, communication and safety – making the office a place where the team feels inspired to do their best work possible. Ultimately, the Office manager should be able to ensure the smooth running of the office and help to improve company procedures and day-to-day operation.

Office manager responsibilities include:

– Organizing all office operations and procedures

– Scheduling meetings and appointments

– Making office supplies arrangements

– Supporting our Finance Manager with accounting

– Providing general administrative support to our employees.

– Managing office budget and ensuring accurate and timely reporting

– Organizing the office layout and order stationery and equipment

– Maintaining the office condition and arrange necessary repairs

– Welcoming clients and visitors

– Liaising with facility management vendors, including cleaning, catering and security services

– Assisting in the onboarding process for new hires

– Simply – having fun with our lovely #TeamOfTheCentury conquering the world of FashionTech

Requirements

– Proactive and highly energetic team player

– Excellent written and verbal communication skills – both in German and English

– You love to work with a diverse team of creatives, designers, engineers, entrepreneurs – great people with a lot of crazy ideas – and help making these ideas come true

– Highly independent and self-directed; with the ability and will to create and execute on your own roadmap

– Excellent time management skills and ability to multi-task and prioritize work

– Attention to detail and problem solving skills

– Strong organizational and planning skills in a fast-paced environment

– You want to learn fast and are open to constructive criticism

– A big smile!

If you want to be part of the ElektroCouture family and be the key-person in our office, then send us an email with your application and your CV to: hello@elektrocouture.com now! : )

Application deadline: 30 June

Job offer starts: July 1st or sooner