#scientific research takes funding and lots of time and is limited by what you can ethically and outwardly (or with imaging tools) observe

[crownedpuppet]

One of the best things we learned from someone (a professor) who is an Extreme believer in science (to the point we're not sure how much she would consider something true if science couldn't support it -- or maybe it's just that she's only willing to share information science has shown) is that science doesn't "prove" arguments, it only suggests or supports arguments.

Like yeah, if many scientists all have multiple studies concluding the same thing, it's unlikely it will be refuted, but like

When it comes to things like DID/OSDD/systemhood/plurality that are SEVERELY under-studied/under-researched, you can bet that science hasn't "proven" anything about it.

Peoples' experiences will always matter more than whatever a silly book says or whatever doctors say.

[drdemonprince]

I've just started using survey websites like Swagbucks and Branded Surveys to try to make some easy money. Do you have any recommendations for other sites/ what responses to give so that I get more surveys lol

Those two sites suck! You can make a lot more money at Prolific.ac and on Amazon's MTurk. Both sites are used widely by social science researchers as a subject recruitment tool, and in the last decade have really come to be respected even by peer-reviewed journal editors as a reputable place for collecting data. There's significant grant funding behind many Prolific and MTurk projects, and the pay rate for completeing surveys can be decent -- particularly if you take a number of free pre-screening surveys first and identify yourself as someone that researchers might be looking pretty hard to recruit.

That said, I don't really believe that the scientific respectability these sites have is truly well-earned, as even I have lied on Prolific pre-screening surveys to qualify for a well-paying study multiple times. The limitations of self-report survey apply here as they always do, and they are worsened by the payment incentive. Everyone on all of these sites has every reason to lie about who they are and to complete surveys and rapidly as possible in order to increase their pay rate.

But given how widespread other questionable research protocols are in the social science literature and how much we have already done to erode public trust, I can't say anything to discourage participants from doing what they can to make a quick buck. On those two sites that I've mentioned, at least the pay is a bit greater and the questions are a bit more interesting than your standard market research study.

[likeabxrdinflight]

saw some stuff on instagram that was like "the body keeps the score isn't inclusive of all types of trauma so we should throw it out here's some better books instead" and these kinds of takes frustrate me to no end. especially because a lot of the comments were shit like "omg I had no idea the book was so problematic I'll totally not read it now!"

and I just. hmm.

listen. yes the book is imperfect, most of western psychology is imperfect. it's western, by definition, which is a limited perspective. and that particular book really limits it's scope to what I'd call "capital T trauma" or "dsm trauma". I bet the other books recommended absolutely address gaps and weaknesses that the body keeps the score didn't.

but just because that book's scope is limited does not mean the knowledge within it isn't still useful. we can take van der kolk's research and extrapolate. we can ask "okay but how does this apply to different people, cultures, situations?" we can take his work and see where it fits, wonder about where it doesn't, and use it as a base to expand our knowledge. we can acknowledge his contribution to the field while noting where it fails to meet the mark. that's the whole fucking point of science- it is an inherently self-correcting process, so older works are never going to hold up in the same way over time, they're never going to be as ground breaking as when they were published, that's the whole point.

and there's this attitude I see, almost exclusively online but I worry people take this energy out into the world too, that if something isn't perfect we should throw it away. that if a field of study has some problematic roots then it's all worthless. if it didn't get it right the first time it failed. and I just could not disagree with that take less. if a fund of knowledge fails to stand up to (rigorous) empirical evidence that's one thing, but throwing it all away because it hasn't been studied or extrapolated enough??? that's another entirely. nearly every research study you will find will note there are limitations, that doesn't mean we don't still publish the findings.

none of y'all learned how to read or engage with scientific works and god does it show.

[cryptidcaptain]

I understand the above comment's point but as someone whose masters degree is IN history of science: that ^ is not the point of studying it.

The philosophy of the subject is that ALL history of science should be considered useful to study, regardless of how "correct" it is. Simply pointing out that an old theory was incorrect is pretty useless if you don't also study the context surrounding it. "People thought these theories were correct, and now we have evidence that they were wrong, so keep that in mind when talking about current cutting edge theories" is not a course. That is a moral. That takes 5 seconds to say and maybe 3 or 4 examples to get it to sink in.

What WOULD be useful in a HoS course aimed at people doing STEM degrees would be focusing on the fact that science is an inherently SOCIAL activity - I don't just mean that scientists talk to each other and build off each other's discoveries, I'm talking about nurses, lab techs, cleaners - and even beyond that, recognising that scientific knowledge is intrinsically linked to to the wider culture that created it. We have a tendency to view "history of science" as the "history of great minds" (Newton did this, then Boyle did this, then Einstein did this, etc) which is arguably where a lot of the close-mindedness of some (predominantly only 1st year in my experience) STEM students comes from.

This "socialness" of science is also a strike in the "scientists should be left wing" column, when Brexit was being debated, STEM university departments and research groups nationwide were BEGGING to remain in the EU - now that we've left, they've lost a lot of access to EU funding and collaborations.

I agree with you! History of science SHOULD be studied in wider detail by more people (like I said, I'm doing a masters in it, I am very pro more people getting into it) but like all history study, its important to keep in mind the nuances of the time period you're studying; pointing out that old scientific theories were "wrong" or "bad" (in quotes because while some of them are obviously ridiculous, others are more like incomplete than flat out incorrect) is a useless activity if you don't also take into account WHY people thought them in the first place.

(This is a little wordy, and it is from 1976, but does get across what I'm talking about in a medical sense, its Jewsom's theory of "Medical Cosmologies", about how the "frame of reference" for the creation of medical knowledge changed over the course of (predominantly western) history)

Also I'm not American so I'm not sure what the culture is like over there, but I do think that that ^ way of thinking is very much in the minority, and that reducing widespread rise in right wing ideology to people studying STEM is a bit. Odd?

It's almost like there's two points being made in this post, that government spending favouring STEM over humanities subjects has led to a dip in ability to think critically about social issues AND that STEM students are inherently incapable of of thinking critically about social issues. And I mean, while I don't agree, I can see the logic for the first one I *guess*? But as for the second, I think this site has a very limited view of what a "scientist" is and who they answer to, at university level anyway. Ethics committees exist! For all subjects, not just STEM! If you're going to make this kind of claim about STEM students, then by virtue of the university system, there are going to be a significant number of non-STEM students it applies to as well.

The rise of right wing ideology can't really be linked in any meaningful way to favouring funding STEM over humanities - that is NOT to say that this isn't a problem, the perception that only "employable" degrees are worth funding is a Hot Topic here in the UK right now and completely undermines the point of university education, but thats a separate issue.

tl;dr yes I agree people should study history of science but I don't think its really related to the rise in right wing ideology.

[totally-not-an-awkward-okapi]

Ok, so I’m not sure if this is going to be a controversial opinion, but I’ve got to say it:

I don’t think Moira stole Mercy’s tech, and I don’t think it was even stolen.

Ok. Big claim. After all, their technology is widely similar. Same yellow healing, similar beams, even similar suits between their Valkyrie and Blackwatch skins. But, I don’t think this is the case. Not only do I not believe the technology was actually stolen, but I would argue that the situation is actually reversed. I don’t think Moira’s tech is a corruption of Valkyrie tech. It’s an earlier version.

Visually speaking, Moira’s blackwatch outfit was clearly developed and being used on missions before Mercy even started wearing her Combat Medic skin, let alone the valkyrie suit. The Retribution event, which Blackwatch released with, takes place 8 years before overwatch’s present day. Uprising, which Combat Medic comes from, takes place 7 years before the current day. Additionally, it makes more sense that Mercy’s wings would be an addition to the Valkyrie suit- why would they be removed?

It’s technically only a theory that Moira’s teleportation ability is a physical augmentation rather than a piece of tech, but the former does make more sense in her case. Reaper has a similar teleportation ability which is canonically part of his body and a feature designed by Dr O’Deorain. Plus, she’s a geneticist, not an engineer. I bring this up because it could explain why wings needed to be added to later versions of the Valkyrie suit- not all medics likely could or would subject themselves to the therapy needed to develop teleportation- especially not for the inconsistent and painful results.

But, moving away from the visible, let’s explore some more hard evidence. The ages of the two scientists. Sure, Mercy is prodigious in medical science. But she is still nearly a decade younger. From a purely mathematical standpoint, Moira has more time to develop the tech.It’s also highly likely that, based on her age, she had more time as a member of overwatch. Though it’s unfortunately never confirmed that Moira worked for Overwatch, given her statements about them restricting her research and shuttering her work, it makes the most sense (it’s never implied they had the power to shut down random outside scientists). It’s also more than likely that she joined Overwatch during the war. It would explain how she got accepted in the first place.

Moira is a very classical mad scientist, so it makes the most sense that she would be hired during some sort of desperate situation. A world wide robotic uprising makes sense. Especially since some gene therapies were used during the war- both Reaper and Soldier 76 were subjects in the Soldier Enhancement Program. There’s no hint that she took an active role in the crisis however, so she likely only acted as a scientist and emergency medic.

But for now let’s accept that Moira was an earlier member or at least developed her theories earlier.

Mercy and Moira have several interactions in-game, but one of the more well known and oldest ones is this:

The standard interpretation seems to be that this is just skin deep. But with how little lore we get outside of interactions, this could be read as a clue. Mercy usually has quite a bit of wit in her interactions, so it feels almost like it is missing something if all it takes to shut her down is to point out that it does technically work. But there is a whole lot more weight, even enough to end the interaction, behind Moira’s point if Mercy’s tech was inspired by hers. Because though the interpretation that Moira’s biotics are a broken version of Mercy has some weight, I think it makes more sense that it is reversed. Mercy’s weaponry is an “improved” version of Moira’s.

Firstly, Moira refers to her own work like this. Now, whether this is an abject statement that she’s happy that, though flawed, it works or an inside joke against everyone who said her work was flawed, can be debated. But either way, it works well for this theory. Either way her work is old and, obviously, not perfect.

We can pretty safely say that though her work has become more streamlined and elegant, it hasn’t evolved much beyond what it was when she first started testing on herself. Between the scientist skin and her basic skin, she only seems to have gotten more professional looking equipment. Seeing as how her primary roles are as a leader within Talon and Oasis, it makes sense she is still just using what already works. She’s presumably still working and experimenting outside of her leadership roles, but she doesn’t need to work on improving her tech (yet).

In game, though Moira’s healing is stronger in bursts, it is also very limited. It’s range is short, has poor long term healing, can’t differentiate targets, and has little sustainability. Though there's a certain amount of in-system reproduction, it isn't infinite like Mercy’s. To refill it faster and heal herself it needs a source to take energy from. All of which makes sense for an earlier, less refined version, made in a rush to be used in a hectic fight.

Mercy is more refined and focused, even being entirely self sustainable. Her self healing is, though possibly slower, without any clear need for eternal "battery." However, it's also more watered down. She sacrificed it’s strengths to be more effective long term. Which would work excellently for a medical doctor and for a medic with a team that is far more suited to protecting her while she gets healing over time.

To address the accusations of theft, I dislike the idea that either stole from each other. Especially since they are both not above pettiness or revenge. Neither miss an opportunity to make a snide comment, and Moira is one of few characters with a voice line triggered on a revenge kill (killing a player who previously killed you). Both would definitely point out if her tech was stolen but none of their interactions come out and say that. Which makes it seem like they didn’t actually steal anything.

Mercy’s also just not the sort to steal research. Why would she need to- she’s a genius and there’s no implication that Moira was ever private about her research endeavors. Fake it, change numbers, obscure facts? Sure. But the research that ended her career was almost certainly released by her- if someone else had done it (especially another player character) it’s unlikely there would be no reference to them. Moira also goes on to become one of the ministers of Oasis, a city founded on the idea of funding and sharing all sorts of scientific endeavors. By the same logic, she might not actually hold it against someone if they improved her tech for their purposes (which would make the “kindness” interaction even more hypocritical).

(Though if it was stolen it could be an allusion to Watson and Crick stealing the notes of Rosalind Elsie Franklin on her discovery of the double helix. Yes I did just bring that up because people need to still be angry about that.)

Then again, I’ve probably just thought about this a whole lot more than anyone on the Blizzard team did. So who knows.

[lyriquette]

RWBY farming au

Conceived in the Frosen Steel server, a RWBY farming / hydroponics AU. I’ll probably use some of the ideas in this for Rising Snow. Mostly background with scattered pieces of actual fic. - lilac 

If people don’t mind this format, I’ll probably post similar world-building AUs in the future.  

Featuring: Penny Polendina, Oscar Pine, Whitley Schnee.  

Because of the freezing cold and the years of industrialization in Mantle, Mantle/Atlas soil is incredibly poor for growing plants. Most food product is imported from Vale, and in turn Atlas supports Vale in terms of sharing their technology. It's why the two Kingdoms are more modern in appearance than the other two kingdoms, not to mention that they were originally good allies during the Great War.

In this AU, Watts develops his murder machines first and ends up winning whatever contract Atlas was offering. The Penny Project is later realized by Pietro, and Pietro later resigns as he picks up on the increasing militarization in Atlas as if General Ironwood was preparing something big - and he wanted his daughter not to be involved.

Pietro decides to move down to the Crater in Mantle to facilitate that. That way no one would know about Penny. He then creates a small shop to help repair electronics and create prosthetics for the unfortunate. It’s through this change in locale that Penny learns how bad things are down at Mantle. 

The main reason is food. Though Atlas and Mantle do have greenhouses, they're only able to supply food for a small amount of people - and it's usually just to the rich who want to eat fresh produce up in Atlas. The rest of the food is imported and thus expensive. In a way, food is a means to keep Mantle underneath Atlas's thumb because if its citizens don't work, they can't eat. If they quit, someone else would gladly take that job just to feed themselves and their family. Thus, a cycle of control is created where people simply can't break free of the poor conditions nor could they really complain, because to them it's happening everywhere. 

The SDC is the main actor in that, given their non-essential businesses are everywhere. If they decide to forcibly close down those businesses, many many people would be out of a job and likely die. Whether the government would act or not is a coin flip - the SDC needs Mantle for labor, but Atlas could run effectively without it - they have robots for labor, the rich for funding, and a military arm in the form of Atlas Academy. 

---------------

Most of the Faunus who lived in the Crater did not trust Penny and Pietro at first, but given Pietro's generosity and Penny's kind demeanor, they slowly warm up to them. The White Fang within Atlas is more of a community hub that supports each other because they can't afford to be militant; attacks of SDC buildings end up having extremely bad repercussions on Mantle Faunus which includes unofficial anti-Faunus hiring policies or firings - the whim of the SDC can easily kill a couple thousand of them from that alone. 

----------------

Penny initially started this project, not because she wanted to change the world, but because her father had been getting more sick lately, getting thinner, and starting to get sores in his gums and bleeding more easily. She later on would learn that these were signs of malnutrition - scurvy - things that those living more centrally in Mantle or up in Atlas didn't get but was a problem now because of where they lived. Though buying vitamin supplements did help, it didn't quite replace actual food - and nutrients were often better absorbed and palated in the form of food, especially when it came to the nonessential but still important minerals. 

However, she knew that things simply did not grow in Mantle. And the things that did grow were usually hardy weeds turned poisonous due to absorbing heavy metals from the ground. It was all too common to see a desperate man or woman just collapse shaking from eating too many wild weeds because they couldn't eat anything else. Maybe one day, they could plant enough weeds to help improve Mantle's soil quality, but it didn't help her dad now. 

She's heard of hydroponics before. It wasn't exactly a secret; however, the science was in its infancy stages. Part of it was because people in the food importing business did not want others to grow cheap, domestic food - greenhouses were already bad enough for them. However, the main reason was that people didn't quite know what made plants succeed in growing and creating produce (farmers were the least likely people to work in permanently cold Solitas) - usually the plants failed to germinate, died drooping (overwatering), or end up growing but don't create produce (never bore fruit). Even though there was limited success, the yield would be extremely poor, and the amount of time and energy could've just be used to create another greenhouse instead.

But this was okay for Penny cause all she really had was time and energy. And it wasn't like she was selling food. She just wanted to grow produce, so her dad could eat healthier. 

Her dad supported her efforts by getting the short experiment logs of the initial hydroponics projects at Atlas. And it became clear to Penny that there were many holes in that research with the main factor being that there was not an actual farmer to help with the research. And with the arrogance of Atlasian scientists (Watts being the archetypical example), who would bring a down-to-earth farmer who knew nothing of science and the like? Lacking expertise and knowing that the entirety of Atlas would be of no help, Penny sought the CCT for assistance. 

--------------

Oscar didn't particularly like farming. He wanted to become a Hunter, but his aunt wouldn't let him. Too dangerous, she said. He might end up mixing with the darker elements of Mistral because of it, not to mention the fact he’d be fighting the Grimm on a regular basis. Better to be a farmer in central Mistral with a nice stable income like how his parents and their parents and their parents' parents lived. 

Still, he never complained out loud. After going to school in the morning, he helped worked the fields in the afternoon, the same as the other farmhands like his uncle and his cousins.  He was living under their roof, and he knew it was hard to provide for a thirteen-year old who was just starting his growth spurt. He probably ate more than his aunt and his baby cousins combined now. And their family generously paid for his living conditions without forcing him into anything he didn't want to do. 

As of late, he's been a bit happier with his lot in life. Using the CCT, someone from Solitas had contacted him in regard to farming - about how they wanted to grow things in Mantle and potentially revolutionize the lives of people there. But they couldn't due to the soil being bad. In what way, he didn't particularly know. They discussed the issue with each other through voice-chat, talking about their very different lives and even the possibility of something called hydroponics - honestly, it felt like finding a kindred spirit. And he looked forward to the days he could talk things out with his new friend. 

"Hey, wait. Check this out," Oscar said as he checked the CCT forums, "Your thread got replied too." 

"Really?" said a bewildered voice on the other line. 

"Yeah, a Penny123 is asking about farming in Mantle too. Even mentioned hydroponics." 

"...Let's try bringing this Penny in." 

"You sure, Whitley?" 

"Yeah. As much as I want us to keep the credit, it's not like we're going anywhere right now. Maybe this person will have new ideas." 

==========

So a duo became a trio. And Whitley was right. What Penny brought to the table was the scientific expertise. She might not know how hydroponics actually worked, but she did have the means to analyze the soil content (retrofitting some of her sensors for more specialized purposes) and simply put - she was a scientist. On the other hand, Oscar had the farming expertise - he knew what soils worked well with which crop, the habits of each plant he grew, he knew what plants liked more water and which ones preferred less, and what a plant should like when it was growing well.

Whitley was the odd duck in the group. First of all, he wasn't quite doing it for altruism's sake. He was doing it because he disliked his family - and really hated the Schnee Dust Company, seeing that it's responsible for his mother's drinking, his parents' loveless marriage, Winter abandoning the rest of the family for Ironwood and the Hunters/Huntresses, and Weiss's likely plans to abandon ship on him too (he's angry at her for that, but after having Oscar to confide in, it wasn't as bad as being left alone and isolated completely.) 

He's also responsible for making sure that his two partners weren't murdered in their sleep. Going this route infringes upon the interests of several major corporations including the SDC and the food import companies. Seeds and food products coming from and going to Solitas were tracked very closely. Penny is also given some chilling news from Whitley: people have tried building greenhouses at the Crater before, and all of them were destroyed without a perpetrator to be found.

The danger was serious enough that Oscar was also planning to move to Solitas to not implicate his aunt and uncle when he and Whitley finally started the project in earnest. With Penny around, Oscar potentially had a place to stay (Oscar also was like "i can do heavy lifting, the dishes, cooking, farming, etc" as part of his self-advertisement). 

Even Whitley acknowledges that he himself might not be safe. One wrong move on his part - and well, if his father was able to endure nearly a decade of loveless marriage just to take over the SDC, there's no telling what he'll do when he realizes he's working against his interests. 

Penny needs some time to think. She now knows that her tiny project of letting her father eat better is connected to the livelihoods of so many and also brings a lot of danger along with it. Not just to herself but to her father - her dad would also be a target if things go south. With her partners’ agreement (since it's inevitable Pietro would get wind of things since the project will be occurring in his house), Penny talks to her dad about the hydroponics / farming project. He's worried for her but understands what she wants to do - she's filled with purpose now and wants to help the people out. As much as he's scared for her and doesn't want her to do this, he can't help but feel a bit of pride about his daughter growing up. Still, he makes her promise that as soon as things start looking bad, they'll stop. They'll quit and not look back. He asks to speak to the other two, not quite realizing they're a pair of thirteen-year olds, and extracts the same promise for their sake. 

------

As plans for moving and gathering soil samples are being made, Pietro starts building Floating Array. 

Penny begins dragging several abandoned shipping containers to the "backyard" of their store, saying her dad needed some raw material for experimentation when in reality it's gonna be where the heart of their project is. 

Weiss starts getting worried about her younger, now constantly sneaking around and speaking to the scroll in hushed tones. She overhears part of his conversation - about how he'd get in a lot of trouble for a certain course of action (directly smuggling goods in using his authority) - and worries that he's getting bullied. 

Oscar tells his family that his friend found him a job working as an engineer's assistance in Solitas, and he'd like to stay there for a year. His place of employment has already paid for the transcontinental ticket.

[prakhayth]

Understanding The Different Types of Cryptocurrency

January 15, 2021 · 8 minute read

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Cryptocurrencies can act like real money—in a sense, they are real money—but they take a digital monetary form and are not managed or governed by any central authority. A true product of the digital age, cryptocurrencies operate without the involvement of banks, governments, or any middleman. However, in most cases you will need to use a digital currency exchange to buy and sell cryptocurrency.

In 2020, there were more than 50 million blockchain wallet users.

What provides security is that cryptocurrencies are encrypted (secured) with specialized computer code called cryptography. They’re designed like a complicated puzzle on purpose so that they’re hard to crack (and hack).

By September 2020, the number of blockchain wallet users rose to more than 50 million, according to research published by Statista  —with Bitcoin boasting more than 7 million active users.

Insiders call it “crypto,” so that’s what we’ll be calling it going forward.

How Many Different Types of Crypto Are There?

As of April 2021, there are over 10,000 different types  of cryptocurrency.

The different types of crypto generally fall into one of two categories: •  Coins, which can include Bitcoin and altcoins (non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies) •  Tokens

Below, we’ll get into the basics of crypto tokens vs coins.

Crypto Tokens vs. Coins

Encrypted coins and tokens can fall under the heading of crypto. And, generally, they can be listed into two sorts of cryptocurrency: alternative cryptocurrency coins (Altcoins) or tokens.

Alternative Cryptocurrency Coins (Altcoins)

Altcoins usually refer to any coins that are not Bitcoins. Bitcoin is a popular digital currency that’s produced by computational solutions to complicated math problems. It works separately from a central bank or state entity (i.e., government-backed Treasury).

Some altcoins include:

•  Peercoin •  Litecoin •  Dogecoin •  Auroracoin •  Namecoin

In fact, the name “altcoin” actually means “alternative to Bitcoin.” Namecoin is considered the very first altcoin, created in 2011.

Like Bitcoin, most cryptocurrencies listed here have a limited supply of coins—to keep the balance in check and to reinforce its perceived value. There is a fixed number of Bitcoins that can exist—21 million, as decided by the creator/s of Bitcoin, though some remain to be mined. Once all 21 million are tapped (the number changes when new blocks are mined), that’s it. The only way to bring in more is for Bitcoin’s protocol to allow for it.

Though most altcoins are built upon the same basic framework as Bitcoin, many claim to be better versions of Bitcoin. Each system can differ from the next, as they’re created to serve various purposes and applications, and identified in different ways.

Some coins don’t work with the same open-source protocol that Bitcoin does, however. For example, the following list of cryptocurrencies have created their own separate systems and protocols:

•  Ethereum •  Ripple •  Omni •  Nxt •  Waves •  Counterparty

They’re each self-supporting, too.

Tokens

Unlike altcoins, tokens are created and given out through an Initial Coin Offering, or ICO, very much like a stock offering. They can be represented as:

•  Value tokens (Bitcoins) •  Security tokens (to protect your account) •  Utility tokens (designated for specific uses)

They are not so much meant to be used as money as they are used to describe a function. Like American dollars, they represent value but they are not in themselves of value. Tokens are a type of encryption, specifically referring to the long lines of numbers and letters representing the crypto used in a transaction, such as a money transfer or bill payment. In short, tokens cover a number of meanings.

For instance, both Bitcoin and Ether (from Ethereum) are considered crypto tokens.

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The Most Common Types of Cryptocurrency

Here’s a list of popular cryptocurrency types and descriptions:

1. Bitcoin

Bitcoin is a type of digital currency; it is “cash for the internet.” More specifically, it’s considered cryptocurrency since cryptography facilitates Bitcoin creation and transactions.

Possibly the “Kleenex” or “Coca Cola” of all crypto, in that its name is the most recognizable and the most closely associated with the cryptocurrency system.

There are currently  more than 18.5 million Bitcoin tokens in circulation, against a present capped limit of 21 million.

2. Bitcoin Cash

Introduced in 2017, Bitcoin Cash is one of the most popular types of cryptocurrency on the market. Its main difference with the original Bitcoin is its block size: 8MB. Compare that to the original Bitcoin’s block size of just 1MB. What that means for users—faster processing speeds.

3. Litecoin

Litecoin is increasingly used in the same breath as Bitcoin, and it functions practically the same way. It was created in 2011 by Charlie Lee, a former employee of Google. He designed it to improve on Bitcoin technology, with shorter transaction times, lower fees, more concentrated miners.

4. Ethereum

Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum focuses not as much on digital currency as it does on decentralized applications (phone apps). You could think of Ethereum as an app store.

The platform is looking to return control of apps to its original creators, and take away that control from middlemen (like Apple, for instance). The only person who can make changes to the app would be the original creator. The token used here is called Ether, which is used as currency by app developers and users.

5. Ripple

Ripple is one type of cryptocurrency on the list, but it’s not Blockchain-based  . It’s not meant so much for individual users as it is for larger companies and corporations, moving larger amounts of money (its coinage is known as XRP) across the globe.

It’s more well-known for its digital payment protocol more than for its XRP crypto. That’s because the system allows for transfer of monies in any form, be it dollars or even Bitcoin (or others). It claims to be able to handle 1,500 transactions per second (tps). Compare this with Bitcoin, which can handle 3-6 tps (not including scaling layers). Ethereum can handle 15 tps.

6. Stellar

Stellar focuses on money transfers, and its network is designed to make them faster and more efficient, even across national borders. It was designed by Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb in 2014 and is operated by a non-profit organization called Stellar.org  .

Its goal is to assist developing economies that may not have access to traditional banks and investment opportunities. It doesn’t charge users or institutions for using its Stellar network, and covers operating costs by accepting tax-deductible public donations.

7. NEO

Formerly called Antshares and developed in China, NEO is very aggressively looking to become a major global crypto player. Its focus is smart contracts (digital contracts) that allow users to create and execute agreements without the use of an intermediary.

It’s going after its main competition, Ethereum, but NEO lead developer Erik Zhang mentioned  on a Reddit AMA that NEO has three distinct advantages—better architecture, more developer-friendly smart contracts, and digital identity and digital assets for easier integration into the real world.

Ethereum, on the other hand, uses its own programming languages that developers must first learn before creating smart contracts on its platform.

8. Cardano

Cardano aka ADA is used to send and receive digital funds. It claims to be a more balanced and sustainable ecosystem for cryptocurrencies, and the only coin with a “scientific philosophy and research-driven approach.”

That means that it undergoes especially rigorous reviews by scientists and programmers. It was founded by Charles Hoskinson, who is also the co-founder of Ethereum.

9. IOTA

Launched in 2016, IOTA stands for Internet of Things Application. Unlike most other Blockchain technologies, it doesn’t actually work with a block and chain; it works with smart devices on the Internet of Things (IoT).

All you need to do to use it is to verify two other previous transactions on the IOTA ledger, which is called the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), but IOTA creators call it The Tangle.

According to Coin Central  , this means the devices need to be able to purchase more electricity, bandwidth, storage, or data when they need them, and sell those resources when they don’t need them.

The Role of Miners In Cryptocurrency

How exactly do you get your virtual hands on different types of cryptocurrency? You can buy it the old-fashioned way. Or, you can trade it on an exchange using other crypto (for example, using Bitcoin to buy NEO). Some blogs and media platforms pay its content providers in crypto.

Then, there are the miners  . Miners usually don’t pay directly for their crypto; they earn it with their smarts. These tech savvy investors can be compared to the prospectors of the Old West, panning for gold in 1848.

The value is built in because the supply is limited—it’s just up to the complex computers to dig it up by cracking codes and solving complicated puzzles. A lot of it is guesswork, but once the “block” (of the blockchain) is solved, the other miners drop what they’re doing and go on to the next block. No parting gifts—the contestants just turn their attention to the next game round.

If the puzzle is solved, the reward is a certain amount of crypto, and sometimes even voting power on the platform. As of October 2020, the value of one bitcoin had well exceeded $13,000  .

Sounds sweet, but mining isn’t cheap. It requires powerful, expensive hardware and lots of electricity. Also, the number of awarded crypto will be going down, usually by halves every four years or so. Unfortunately, that might not do your utility bill any favors.

Forks, Hard Forks, and Soft Forks

Sometimes, a cryptocurrency—whether Bitcoin or an altcoin—forks. This typically happens when systems need an upgrade or update, or occasional steering (ie a large enough group of miners decide to make new rules for the network.

You could think of a fork like an actual fork, the kind you eat with. Each prong represents a different open-source code modification, but the prongs are designed to work together to assist in the main function.

Sometimes, forks happen by accident when nodes start making copies or if they do not recognize conflicting or unfamiliar information or characteristics. This is what leads to the difference between hard forks and soft forks.

Hard Forks

If a protocol is changed so that the old protocol version is no longer valid, call that a hard fork. This could be problematic, because if the older, now-invalid protocol is still running, it could lead you to scratch your head and say, “what the fork?” It could cause confusion and even possibly a loss of funds, because the old and new protocols running together are butting heads and making mysteries.

An example of a hard-fork problem—with Bitcoin, for instance, a hard fork is a must when making changes and protocol updates to the Blockchain. The new protocol is cool with the changes, but the old protocol becomes a hot mess, not understanding the new activity going on.

Since the old protocol rejects the new changes because it doesn’t recognize them, that causes a traffic jam or worse. The old protocol will claim that the changes and updates are not valid, even if they are. What you then get are two blockchains, one old and one new. As these chains grow, so can your problems.

The hard-fork challenge, then, is to get all the nodes on the old protocol to switch to the new protocol all at once, and at the same time. This sounds easy, but technically it’s easier said than done.

Soft Forks

Unlike a hard fork, a soft fork is totally cool with the new changes and keeps working. The old version accepts the newer version. Harmony! The newer, updated blocks become longer, and it becomes obvious that the older (shorter) blocks are obsolete and unusable. This recognition eliminates confusion over which protocol is now the real deal (it’s the newer, valid one.)

When a soft fork is implemented, there has to be a “majority vote” on whether to accept it into the established fold. If not, the new soft fork fails, and the rest of the chain simply goes on it with its life with no interruption. Hard-and-soft forking can cause all kinds of unintended consequences. When members of the Ethereum community rejected a hard-fork change and decided to keep going with the non-forked version of Ethereum, that old-school system was renamed Ethereum Classic.

When Bitcoin hard-forked in order to add more functionality, a portion of the Bitcoin Cash community was left behind and was cut off from the rest of the network.

The Current View of Crypto

Bitcoin and other crypto have recently come under fire for their ability to be involved in illegal transactions.

Three words—wait and see. And add two words to that—be careful. An October 2020 Bloomberg report  stated that Bitcoin approached its highest valuation since 2017.

Dead Coins lists 1,050 digital currencies and initial coin offerings (ICO) as either “deceased.” Coinopsy  catalogues cryptocurrency lists of more than 1,700 coins as nearly worthless.

It’s possible that a good number of those failed cryptos were scams, and the authentic, true-quality systems remain in place.

Furthermore, from a perception perspective, Bitcoin and other crypto have recently come under fire for their ability to be involved in illegal transactions, thefts, and scams. That’s just one of the reasons that investing in the list of cryptocurrencies out there still carries significant risk. Crypto has also been suspected as being a part of an economic bubble that may still pop.

The Takeaway

While Bitcoin launched a new asset class little more than a decade ago, today there are many different cryptocurrencies for investors to learn about and invest in.

If your curiosity about cryptocurrency is fueled by a desire to start investing, SoFi Invest® can be a great place to start. SoFi members can manage crypto investments in the SoFi app, with the peace of mind of knowing their crypto is in a secure platform.

Find out how SoFi Invest can help you with your investment goals.

Learn More

SoFi Invest® The information provided is not meant to provide investment or financial advice. Investment decisions should be based on an individual’s specific financial needs, goals and risk profile. SoFi can’t guarantee future financial performance. Advisory services offered through SoFi Wealth, LLC. SoFi Securities, LLC, member FINRA  / SIPC  . SoFi Invest refers to the three investment and trading platforms operated by Social Finance, Inc. and its affiliates (described below). Individual customer accounts may be subject to the terms applicable to one or more of the platforms below. 1) Automated Investing—The Automated Investing platform is owned by SoFi Wealth LLC, an SEC Registered Investment Advisor (“Sofi Wealth“). Brokerage services are provided to SoFi Wealth LLC by SoFi Securities LLC, an affiliated SEC registered broker dealer and member FINRA/SIPC, (“Sofi Securities). 2) Active Investing—The Active Investing platform is owned by SoFi Securities LLC. Clearing and custody of all securities are provided by APEX Clearing Corporation. 3) Cryptocurrency is offered by SoFi Digital Assets, LLC, a FinCEN registered Money Service Business. For additional disclosures related to the SoFi Invest platforms described above, including state licensure of Sofi Digital Assets, LLC, please visit www.sofi.com/legal. Neither the Investment Advisor Representatives of SoFi Wealth, nor the Registered Representatives of SoFi Securities are compensated for the sale of any product or service sold through any SoFi Invest platform. Information related to lending products contained herein should not be construed as an offer or pre-qualification for any loan product offered by SoFi Lending Corp and/or its affiliates. Crypto: Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies aren’t endorsed or guaranteed by any government, are volatile, and involve a high degree of risk. Consumer protection and securities laws don’t regulate cryptocurrencies to the same degree as traditional brokerage and investment products. Research and knowledge are 

[aexexchange-blog]

AEX Multiple Financial Models Empower Industry

Nowadays, there are more than 10 thousand digital asset exchanges for cryptocurrencies. Users hope to get benefit from wealth value-added. The top exchanges, led by Binance, Huobi, and Coinbase, have good trading volume, but do they effectively increase wealth for most participants? It is a subject worth considering.

AEX upgrade matchmaking into a digital asset commercial bank integrating trading, finance, lending, and investment to enhance the circulation and benefits of digital assets unprecedentedly, achieving the dual effect of “User Wealth Increase, Enhance the value of Tokens” through multi-chain Defi, community communication space construction and other strategies. While ensuring stability and incentive, AEX makes users really have the right to acquire and distribute wealth and has the widest revenue source.

Multiple financial mode Wide revenue aggregations

AEX provides various financial products to expand revenue sources for users apart from long and short two-way positions to raise money as a trading platform. As for online cryptocurrencies, AEX first focuses on matchmaking to increase the value of tokens.

The spot trading zone drives value through circulation. Four trading sequences of USDT, USDC, CNC, and BTC can meet the rapid trading and conversion between various tokens, and users can seek good opportunities in price fluctuations.

In perpetual contracts, users can take advantage of the rising/falling prices of digital assets by deciding whether they are going up or down and long and short two-way positions.

In ASWAP, AEX automatically makes the market and share trading depth. Users make transactions with the working capital pool with the efficiency of the flash exchange of coins. Due to the great volume of reserve of the capital pool, users do not need to worry about the transaction even for the cryptocurrencies with low popularity and few participants. Users can quickly build positions to implement the cryptocurrency reserve after making investment decisions.

And then, AEX deploys rich financial modules to provide earning cryptocurrency opportunities. The deployment of various financial derivatives can make users’ benefits more diversified. Financial derivatives, such as Financial, Mortgage, and so on, provide a platform for AEX users with enough space to allocate idle assets to obtain ideal value-added.

AEX Financial is the bank model of deposit interest-bear in the digital world, providing a benefits strategy that is timely and convenient. The current saving is flexible and convenient for depositing and fetching. The term saving is more stable, and also can be transferred in the convertible bond market in emergency response.

Stake and loan are benefit strategies without using the principal. By borrowing cryptocurrencies, users can access more revenue opportunities with limited resources. When users are in urgent need of a certain cryptocurrency, they can choose to pledge the existing tokens for lending and obtain the free disposal of other cryptocurrencies. Lenders can gain interest by lending out investments through C2C. The AEX Loan has supported more than 30 cryptocurrencies (such as BTC, LTC, ETH, GAT, etc.) to meet users’ demand for large loans. AEX Loan also developed the function of never bursting the position, presetting the retention period of the position to make the capital more secure.

AEX aggregates multiple fields of the industrial chain to allow users to increase wealth in each step. AEX Mining Supermarket provides token production opportunities through mining and Hashrate makes users grasp the upstream of the industrial chain. Installment Purchase, first created by AEX, allows users to quickly possess cryptocurrencies with high value (such as BTC) and enjoy the benefits of price appreciation in the secondary market in advance. AEX, a company based on information build up a fortune, has a lot of community modules on the home page, such as the latest industry information, disclosure, providing users with communication space to facilitate scientific investment decisions.

 2.Multi-chain DEFI, without cross-chain value regeneration

Nowadays, most Defi projects are built on a public chain and only support assets on their own chain. Although cross-chain technology (currently only one-way) has made it possible for heterogeneous chains to circulate tokens, the on-chain operating difficulty has blocked many people from distributed finance. Moreover, the intercommunication between different chains requires cross-chain communication (such as BSC, HECO, and EOS) to enter the DeFi ecology of the other chain, making the integration between multiple chains quite difficult. If users find good Defi projects on other chains, they need to transfer their assets, which can be cumbersome.

It is clear that with strong on-chain user interaction, two-way assets no crossing, and mutual experience among ecological applications, DeFi project can better leverage the value-added of digital assets. AEX multi-chain structure means that AEX has a steady flow of value assets into the foundation. Non-cross-chain-driven asset injection will provide ample momentum for the continuous expansion of its liquidity capital pool.

ASwap, Multichain Aggregation for Fluid Mining. ASWAP is a fluid mining product developed by AEX based on the Automated Market Maker (AMM) principle. Traditional distributed protocols such as Uniswap, MDEX, and Pancake Swap can only trade assets and liquidity mining on their own public chain protocols. Due to the asset aggregation function in AEX, assets in all chains can be circulated on ASWAP without barriers. ASWAP successfully expands the liquidity mining from one chain to multi chains. Theoretically, ETH, BSC, HECO, TRON, and other protocol assets can freely add relevant transaction pairs to the liquidity pool in ASWAP, and users can participate in the mining of various chain assets without cross-chain to obtain profits. It can also quickly complete the high-yield switch between different capital pools according to the return of the liquidity pool.

DEFI smart mining is an intelligent high-yield pool. Although everyone will choose to invest in high-yield mining cryptocurrencies, the high yield that has been chosen will become low yield due to the market conditions, mining people's real-time changes, mining income in the dynamic adjustment. AEX smart mining service is a strategic mine pool that achieves the optimal return through intelligent scheduling. That means that any asset participating in this business can be used as a foundational asset to gain more cryptocurrencies in AEX. AEX will transfer funds/mine to the higher-yielding DEFI project for mining according to the level of real-time mining income, providing users with a one-click opportunity to participate in the high-yielding DEFI project.

3. Asset self-holding Benefits safety

In the digital currency industry, the effectiveness of income needs to be guaranteed by the self-holding of assets. Otherwise, what you earn may only be a number. Even the principal cannot be retrieved, the income becomes empty. To ensure the safety of assets technically and avoid the artificial risk in the mechanism are the prerequisites for effective payment of income.

AEX mine valuable cryptocurrency and repeatedly create revenue myth. In the selection of more than 10,000 cryptocurrencies, revenue destruction is the most fatal for users, which means they are very worried about the risk of “the issuer stops operation and the asset (revenue) returns to zero”. To this end, AEX considers the listed currencies from different perspectives, giving priority to the potential cryptocurrencies, so that users can make the revenue have the “stable” characteristics at the beginning of purchasing a certain token to improve the probability of high return. For example, DOGE, XRP, BTS, XEM, XLM, and other cryptocurrencies, these cryptocurrencies that were introduced for the first time, have increased by more than 10,000 times. Many regular users also benefit from high-quality tokens. The GAT in AEX returned 1,876 % on its investment, second only to Binance’s BNB among major exchanges.

AEX pledges extreme protection safety and transparent user benefits. Technically, AEX provides multiple protections, such as isolation of online and offline wallets, isolation of network production and research, regular professional anti-penetration tests, isolation of access to specific codes, and early warning of abnormal changes by the intelligent analysis system. The strictly operated data system can deal with all kinds of extreme situations. The establishment of exclusive asset management positions has realized the transparency of all business data and thoroughly solved the risks that seriously affect the user’s asset security, such as internal operation risks, business moral hazard, and asset embezzlement caused by human factors.

AEX performance manifests strength and its reserve guarantee efficiency. Since its establishment in 2013, AEX has been in stable operation for 8 years, maintaining a record of 0 cases of serious system safety accidents, and safeguarding the safety of users’ assets (income). The existence of reserve system improves the transparency of business data to the extreme. For example, 100% reserve and off-line wallet address in five currencies that is DASH, VSYS, KEY, TYT and Atom separately, make the exchange of assets more secure and efficient for users.

Under the comprehensive protection of asset safety, cryptocurrency safety, and platform reputation, AEX ‘s principal and revenue can be withdrawn at any time, and users grasp the right to control assets. This kind of guarantee with a feature of safe investment and steady wealth added make users naturally rest assured to continue to make new investment and financial management and make the income into the underlying assets for value creation.

In addition, AEX also strengthens the connection between diversified financial model businesses through AEX cryptocurrency GAT, which makes AEX assets more liquid, users more interactive and promotes the innovation of financial derivatives more dynamic.

Dealmaking is the basic configuration for users to obtain profits from AEX. The AEX cryptocurrency GAT will participate in the AEX platform ecosystem as an enabling role. DeFi, which does not need to cross the chain, will enable users of all public chains to participate in the platform’s ecological interaction with an unprecedented increase in kinetic energy, contributing a steady stream of users and capital flows to achieve the user’s ultimate dream of continuously acquiring wealth in the digital asset exchange.

AEX: Your Best Asset Guardian

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[pompcoco]

Harold Mews Character Analysis

(Authors note: This essay was made for fun and to educate people more on Mews and my analysis on him. I will be stating and summarizing many facts that some people might not know about Mews because the website I will be mentioning in this essay can only be found from a link in Mews’ page in the Poptropica Wiki. He has lots of information and character to him that the team and creators of Poptropica probably might’ve given without realizing, but honestly, it was good that they did. This will be a long read, so it’s ok to skim through or just read the conclusion and TLDR at the end. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy!)

              Harold Mews is the eccentric millionaire that hosts the contests on Cryptids Island and aids you during your quests to find the cryptids. But during the time on the island, you don’t get to know Mews unless if you pay attention to his dialogue or what other NPCs say about him. There are multiple things you can learn about him from his wiki, an archived website of the Mews Foundation that was created to promote Cryptids Island in the times of its release, and the Cryptids Island Book. In this essay, I will go in-depth on Mew’s character and how he is one of the most developed characters in the Poptropica universe.

           (What we learn from the game)

Mews is the first main character of Cryptids the player first hear about in the game. The player also learns that he is giving one million dollars to get proof of four very well-known cryptids. And before his introduction, you learn from NPCs from the rest of the island that he hides in his mansion, and the public has not seen him in years. He saves you from Gretchen after she nearly drowns you, and comments on how she is a cheater and will do anything to get the prize money. He mentions that he’s always had a fascination for cryptids ever since he was young and wants to prove that their there. When you give him invalid evidence, he doesn’t get angry at you and still believes in you. He provides the helicopter, the motorcycle in New Jersey, and the lab for the contest. And in the end, he wants to create a shelter for Bigfoot but won’t have enough money and will be broke until the player in the script gives up the money prize. From this, we can see that he is a kind man who has a passion for monsters and the unknown to the point of trying to prove their existence, but at the same time is considerate of their safety and does not try to put them in a zoo, unlike Grimlock.

           (From the Website)

           Mews has a biography that can be found in his wiki, sourced from the archived Mews Foundation website. This article explains he was well raised and came from a humble, hardworking family, inherited his family company, and turned it into a big success, Mews Corporation. He had always been adventurous and spent his free time in nature and on adventures. Examples include him riding the Great Booga Shark from Shark Tooth island and challenging Hermes, a literal god, in a ski race, in which he won. Mews, in the Poptropica universe, could’ve been one of the first people to climb Mt. Everest, but left the climber party to follow tracks he believed belonged to the Yeti. He did not find anything, but it made him realize his passion for discovering and researching cryptids. This dream of his was set in mind as years after this event; he retires from Mews Corp to creating the Mews Foundation. Their goal is going beyond scientific boundaries and show proof of cryptids.

From the website itself, it gives more detail of what the Foundation does from the News section. The Foundation does not just do research and expeditions, but they also provide and help the public. They showcase this by supporting and giving hair growth products for the people who turned bald in Spy Island. Despite their charitable acts and innocent goal, Mews and his Foundation have mixed publicity. For example, Mews was accused of helping build Dr. Hare’s Rabbot because Hare had used a navigational device that was developed by Mews Corp. Despite the accusation, a spokesperson of Mews, Cheerful Spinner, defends him and his company by mentioning that they defiantly did not have any involvement with Dr. Hare as well as the fact that adventurers use Mews tech and devices in a daily bases with their blimps. And when the announcement came up for the contest, Spinner comments that it is to stop the negative publicity that the Foundation has.

  (From the Book)

           In the book, it shares more characteristics of Mews. He has the habit of rambling about his adventures, which the main character in the placement of the player, Anne, notes that he is known to do. At the beginning of the story, Anne’s mom adds the fact that Mews does have a negative reputation for others by mentioning he is a “reclusive nut.” More on people’s opinions of him are in the book, but he does still has the humbleness and dislike of Grimlock from the game. For example, he’s sympathy for Anne when Grimlock steals their proof of the cryptids and also tells Anne that Grimlock is the only actual monster that actions should be put in a museum and should be long extinct. (Dang he really roasted her there it’s such a good quote) He also shares his story of seeing Bigfoot at a young age that either adds or is an alternative event to the Yeti search that stricken Mews interest for cryptids.  

           (Analysis)

           From what has been given here, Mews is a man with the lifetime passion of proving the existence of cryptids, and despite being an old eccentric millionaire, he is still very to others and is very grounded and still has an adventurous spirit. A question that still is not answered or explained is Mews’ disappearance from the public and becoming more reclusive and private. There are multiple reasons that could explain his actions. One, he could just be working from home for the Foundation and wants to keep some of his research there, for example, the Cryptid Museum that is set up in his own home, private. Or two, he’s just tired. He’s had a busy life and wants more privacy and rest, especially with his status. And to why he created the contest all of a sudden after years of not being public is unknown. It could be because of the idea of him not proving the existence of cryptids as his life goes by broke him because he had been searching for years, and he was so sure that they existed. He might’ve been scared that everything he had worked for could be for nothing, so he began the contest without hesitation because he wanted all the help he could get to prove his dream to come true, but that wouldn’t go without consequences.

Despite his good intentions and character, he does have flaws. One flaw is that he has is that he is impulsive. He created the contest without any set rules or guidelines that could’ve made the contest safer and less messy. Mews also seemed to know Grimlock before this and knew her means to get what she wanted and could’ve prevented her from getting involved with the contest and hurting the other contestants. Mews is generous, but that is a flaw of his as well. His Foundation was funded from his pocket. He is a millionaire, but there is a limit to spending even with the amount he had. The Foundation website bio stated that they had been around for more than ten years, and they don’t take donations, meaning he had been providing the Foundation for years. Still, he would eventually become almost broke also as well as the Foundation because they did not earn money from their discoveries and expeditions. The inevitability of the Foundation’s lose in money is shown in a News article on the website, where it is briefly mentioned that the expedition leader of the failed Mongolian Death Worm search, Cuddly Fly, was told he would not be paid for the trip due to legal reasons. And as we all know at the end of the contest, Mews tells the player that he’d love to make a sanctuary for Bigfoot, but once he gives away the million, he’s broke due to spending everything on the contest and it being the last drop of money he has from the years of funding his Foundation.  

 Harold Mews is probably one of the most thought out characters in Poptropica. Even if the website was promotional for Cryptids Island, it gives a lot of details and information about Mews and his Foundation, their reputation, and slowly lose money. The book is also very good at showing his personality with his kindness, persistence, quirkiness, and rambles. Many Poptropica NPCs, especially if their not villains, are overlooked because they don’t have much lore or depth given to them due to the storyline of islands and how the player is usually given quests by NPCs and does most of the work. But Mews proves to be not just a normal NPC that makes you do all the work; he is an actual friend to the player by showing them much gratitude, patience, and really helps throughout this island.

 TLDR; Mews is a cool character, and there’s a lot of things about him. He did a lot of things adventurous things in his life and threw away his life in business to go to his true calling and passion for Cryptids. He is kind and generous, but he has flaws since he started the contest without rules that led it to be pretty chaotic if you think about it as well as he ends up broke by the end because of the contest as well as the years of funding his Foundation by himself with no donations and no profit from it.

(Sourses)

Mews wiki

Mews Foundation Website on Wayback Machine (if this link doesn’t work its on the Mews wiki)

Crytpids Island Book you can get on Amazon!

[remotepatientmonitoringgermany]

Content

$17 Virtual medical Care.

requirement Of care.

Back To school: how kid's health In Dallas Is integrating Virtual like help support trainees, Parents & professors.

If you have inquiries or issues connected to the assistance in this paper, please e-mail The prescription is provided for a reputable clinical function by a professional acting in the typical training course of his/ her professional technique.

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Telehealth reimbursement may be changing. How should providers prepare? - Healthcare IT News

Telehealth reimbursement may be changing. How should providers prepare?.

Posted: Tue, 27 Oct 2020 07:00:00 GMT [source]

-- Remote patient-monitoring devices such as blood pressure monitors, Bluetooth-enabled digital scales and also various other wearable devices that can interact biometric information for testimonial. -- Store-and-forward modern technologies that gather images and data to be transmitted as well as translated later. When doctors' needed solution to concerns on adapting to exercising in a pandemic, the AMA created resources to fulfill the demand.

If you have inquiries or issues connected to the guidance in this file, please This document has links to various other web sites as well as content coming from or originating from 3rd parties. Such exterior web links are provided for informational and educational purposes just and are not explored, kept track of or looked for precision, competence, credibility, reliability, schedule or completeness by ASAM.

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Ground-breaking research study in telehaptics as well as online fact might broaden the scope of telerehabilitation technique, in the future. cultural barriers taking place from the disinclination, or aversion, of some doctors to adapt clinical paradigms for telemedicine applications.

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What is the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic?

An outbreak is called an epidemic when there is a sudden increase in cases. As COVID-19 began spreading in Wuhan, China, it became an epidemic. Because the disease then spread across several countries and affected a large number of people, it was classified as a pandemic.

Should inconsistencies of hospital possession have bearing on doctors' capability to speak in complete confidence with attorneys? See everyday video clip updates on just how the AMA is battling COVID-19 by discussing emerging cyber threats throughout the pandemic. From below, our system documents each step with the appointed clinicians on call. Tracking all end results creating everyday openness reports on our client interactions. Complete transparency between TeleHealth Option Service Providers, PCPs, Area Admins showcasing all end results.

[roswelldetails]

RNM 2x06 - Sex and Candy

EPISODE SUMMARY:

Maria’s (Heather Hemmens) investigation into her mother’s disappearance leads her and Alex (Tyler Blackburn) to the home of a mysterious boot maker named Travis (guest star David Anders). Meanwhile, on her journey of self-discovery, Isobel’s (Lily Cowles) night out leads her into the arms of someone unexpected. Finally, after making some major scientific strides, Liz (Jeanine Mason) is dealt a devastating blow. Geoff Shotz directed the episode written by Rick Montano & Vincent Ingrao (#206). Original airdate 4/20/2020.

DETAILS:

Max and Isobel's fight:

Lights start flickering when Max starts getting aggressive and then get brighter as he gets more worked up.

The first attempt to expel it seemed like he was causing an earthquake.  He blew out all the windows in the gym, knocked Isobel down, and there was shaking.  But it didn't seem to go beyond that room - no damage is seen when Michael arrives or around town.

Note, after the earthquake thingie the lights go out 

His hands are doing the electric power thingie and THEN he also grabs the lightning.

I think Isobel used her telekinesis to stop it and then push it away, which seemed to work...but if so then why couldn't Noah do that last season? 

Was it the sheer volume of electricity? There was definitely MORE than with Noah.

Michael uses his telekinesis to manually reset Max's heart.  This is very smart of him. Note that he's using his own heart/pulse to get it right.

They are using the antidote to Liz's serum to try to heal Max's mind. 

Michael says that they've been giving him antidote injections for three days (time jump).

Three days of antidote and no new memories for Max.

Isobel remembered her blackouts within a few hours of getting injected with the antidote in 1x10.

Note: Liz hesitated using the antidote this way in 1x10 because Isobel could still be dangerous and they didn't know about the 4th Alien yet.  There doesn't seem to be a similar hesitation with Max. Because Liz trusts him more? Because him forgetting her is more personal? It's not like there isn't a chance that Max is still dangerous…

Maria arranged a Mexican market in the Pony parking lot to subsidize her income.

Buffy the Beagle is Forrest's dog!

Maria comments that the meteor shower makes animals act strange. And humans too.

Forrest and Maria are organizing an open night mic at the Wild Pony.  Free drinks for performers.

Maria clearly approves of Forrest and Alex getting to know each other.  She smacks Alex for his awkward flirting.

The bootmaker's farm is about an hour outside of town.

The Science:

Kyle and Steph are watching a "surgical separation of craniopagus twins".

Craniopagus Twins = twins attached at the cranium/head. (Aka not a heart surgery).

"Did you know, ever since 1947, twin births in Roswell are higher than the national average? Maybe it's aliens."

Speaking of awkward flirting…. "You're just my favorite person I can't stand."

The Spanish:

Le cambio una bolsa de chiles para mi papá...for the free fries next time you come to the Crashdown.

Liz is bartering.  She says basically, I'll trade you a bag of chiles for my papa for free fries next time you come to the Crashdown. 

Note, the captions for this are wrong and use the Spanish word for grasshoppers instead, but you can clearly hear Liz say chiles. Thanks to @rosaortecho for pointing that out to me.

Max says:

I'm trying to eat clean. Uh, tiene carne seca sin como se dice, preservativos.

He's trying to say, basically, does the jerky have preservatives. 

Quiere carne a sin preservativos?

Basically, you want meat without condoms?

Lo siento. Uh, no lo entiendo.

I'm sorry, I don't get it.

Él quiere decir conservantes.

He means preservatives.

Gracias. Estoy embarazado.

Thank you. I'm pregnant.

Michael asks Max who he's texting. Max says everyone has been messaging him but Cameron is the only one who hasn't responded, which isn't like her.

Wildly curious who he was texting though.  It's not like he's a social butterfly. His mom? The sheriff? Who? As I pointed out to some friends the other day, he spent his 21st birthday getting trashed with his SISTER. This is not a trait of a guy with lots of close friends.

Just as another note, Michael says he ghosted her. When exactly was that? Yes, Max ran out on her in the middle of a handy in 1x03, but they addressed that the next day.  She "broke up" with him in 1x07, but they were still good right up until she left town. 

Isobel:

"Does he seem different to you?"

Alex and Maria playing "Never have I Ever" in the car. Good way to do background on characters.

Maria has never cheated on a boyfriend

Alex has never been in a real relationship. Not even "Kellie Sommer-something".

Alex says that whenever he was with a woman he was trying to disappear.  Except for Sophomore year after Battle of the Bands. Seven Minutes in Heaven in Haley Moore's hall closet. Alex and Maria kissed and it was Maria's first kiss (and boob graze).  She always thought she'd marry Alex. Had to come up with a new plan after he came out. 

Alex says "I did too."

"Kissing you in that closet was the first time in my life that I enjoyed touching someone."

Max picks up Liz for their first date…

Just as a note, Save Tonight was the opening song in the pilot of OG Roswell. During the "oh, Max Evans is staring at you again." exchange between Liz and Maria.  So, it might go well with new beginnings or something ;-)

The Science:

"Psychogenic amnesia limits retrieval of stored memories, but if we light up your limbic system and gustatory cortex with some familiar signals…"

"Your milkshake might bring all my memories to the yard?"

**Note, second reference to this song in the context of Liz bringing Max milkshakes. First was in 1x06 by Isobel. Hmm. 1x06 and 2x06… maybe they should crack this joke in 3x06 too.

"Sometimes when people wake up from comas they have different personalities, different tastes even…"

Everything you ever wanted to know about psychogenic amnesia:

But, my main takeaway is that it's a specific type of amnesia where there's abnormal memory function but no brain damage or other clear cause of it.

Limbic system:

Basically the part of your brain that stores emotion, behavior, and long term memory.

Gustatory cortex:

Basically the part of your brain that processes taste.

Maria compares Michael to Chad because he starts fights and lies.  Alex disagrees and lists ways that he was doing good things:

He lied to protect his family from Alex's family.

He shouldered the burden of a murder he didn't commit for ten years so that Isobel didn't have to.

He pushed Maria away to protect her - which might be a good thing too because of all his baggage. 

First Date:

Max went to Ranch camp one summer and dislocated his shoulder while trying to read Lord of the Rings on horseback. #nerd. 

Liz references the gala as not their first date, but there was also the desert in high school.  I guess she doesn't count that either. 

Side note: Cam and Liz talked about him peacocking in 2x03, but that kinda felt out of character at the time to the Max we knew.  This Max DOES seem like he's peacocking a bit. Got dressed up, taking Liz horseback riding. He admitted to trying to one up whatever they did together before. Just an interesting (to me) observation.

Liz looks panicky when Max suggests truth serum (because Science!Liz probably could make truth serum), but once she realizes he means whiskey she's like, "oh yes, that's fine." Oh Liz… 

Diego details:

They were engaged just last year

Liz left without saying goodbye

Bioengineer 

They were working together on the Denver study

They would come home and keep talking about work

He had ideas to help improve it

They both spoke The Science

He pushed her to get better at The Science

When the funding was cut she realized she loved the work more than him

Liz couldn't figure out how tell him that so she packed her things in the middle of the night, hit the road, changed her phone, and blocked him on Facebook.

**This is the first time LIZ has mentioned social media. Interesting given the crap Maria keeps giving her about it!

Travis and fresh warm milk. What is up with it??

"Nice ring. Does it keep you from burning up in the daylight?"

David Anders introduces himself as Travis.

Just as a point of interest, Maria researched enough to find the bootmaker, figure out where he lives, but she didn't get his name??? 

Vampire Diaries/Originals reference.

Travis says he can't help with car stuff.

The milk was from a cow named Jennifer.  He milked her for the last time today. (Creepy).

Weird contradictory statements from Travis:

"You're the best thing I've seen in a long time."....

"Mm, I'm sorry. So many customers and all their ugly faces get all sewn up and stitched together in my mind."

"Yeah, that's the woman that bought them boots. While back. Nice lady. She paid cash."

Second reference to animals behaving strangely during a meteor shower:

"Meteor shower's got my girls singing a bit off key tonight.  Jennifer, she likes a good lullaby."

"Okay this guy is going to turn us into skin suits." (OG reference? Or just general sci-fi?)

Meteorchella at Planet 7 (Coachella-style party during meteor shower?) with any excuse to add sparkles!

Kyle says he's at Planet 7 because he's trying not to hang out with people from high school.

Isobel says she's trying to have fun without feeling like prey.

Don't think the details of Kyle/Isobel dancing matters all that much, but as a point of amusement I'll share that in the panel on Tuesday night they shared that Lily whispered something different to Trevino on every take...And they got progressively dirtier to the point that she finally felt like she crossed a line and profusely apologized.  Also the lick was a Lily addition. 

Max's confession about killing the drifter:

Kind of an interesting thing, comparing the first version of the drifter story in 1x06 to the 2x06 version. 1x06 was more dramatic, but 2x06 was more personal, I think. 

1x06

"There are moments that define our lives, and there are moments that divide our lives. Incidents that separate us into two different people: who we were before and who we will be after. Forever…One day we were children and the next we were something else. I was a killer. Michael an accomplice.  And Isobel...Isobel was broken."

2x06

"I killed a man once, on a camping trip. This drifter came out of nowhere, attacked Isobel.  I wasn't even thinking. I killed him. With this. I arrest people who kill people. Most of them usually regret what they did. You know, you can just tell that they're forever broken. It's like a piece of them dies with their victims. So when I could feel that darkness, like I had to kill, I wanted Isobel to let me die. Because I couldn't risk hurting even one innocent person. Cause life just wouldn't be worth living."

Kind of an interesting narrative choice to confess to murder on a first date and then have the girl just brush it aside. 

"No, it just hit me why you're so happy and idealistic, and I feel like an idiot. You are that way because you don't remember me. It's a clean slate.  It's like when you got out of the pods with whatever memories you had erased it's probably for your own good."

"Last I heard you were the love of my life."

"Your cohorts, they left out some details. Cause if you had your memories I'm positive the worst thing that's ever happened to you is connected to me. And I can't bear the weight of making you remember that again."

**Note, second time this has been implied.  Last time was by Michael in 1x08 regarding the alien symbol.

"...it's gotta have some connection to us right? Maybe it was something we saw somewhere before the crash."

"Sorry, are you, Max Evans, acknowledging that we must have had lives before we hatched out of the pods? You never want to talk about home."

"Hey, Roswell is home. Look, I'm sorry man. You're right. I've spent a lot of time not talking about where we come from or why we're here.  Keep thinking I can pretend the past away and just be normal. But if Isobel's blackouts are some alien thing, then I need to know more. Okay, and this symbol? That's all I have to go on. I mean don't you think it's strange that we don't have any memories? I mean, no parents, no language. We weren't infants, man. We were seven."

"I just figured our memory faded. Over 50 years in those pods. Maybe it was just time. Or maybe whoever put us in those pods doesn't want us to remember."

Travis and Trevor's house...with added bonus of his ring that Alex comments on.

Leather ribbons/strips on the wall are for (from?) Hayley and Gertrude. More cows, I presume. 

There's also a framed Purple Heart on the wall next to a photo of Travis?

"War really messes with a man's mind.  Gets it all twisted up.

Timeline issue!! Alex says Mimi was missing for 3 weeks, but according to the clearly established timelines in 201-203 it was 4 weeks (or a month ish).  I wrote about this here:

Maria put her jacket on a scarecrow to trick Travis. And did she leave it there?

(Answer: yes. She doesn't wear it for the rest of the episode. Smart of her, actually).

Michael sees Trevor come out of the house and is about to shoot him. Maria immediate knew it wasn't Travis and threw herself in front of Michael's gun

Trevor shoots Travis.

A bullet from the Crashdown shooting falls out of Max's journal.  Does it look like it has blood on it? Or maybe just ketchup? If it's THE bullet it would make a lot of sense that he kept it hidden - evidence that Liz was shot. See this comparison between one of Wyatt's bullets in 1x02 and the one Max finds in 2x06

"Sorry about my twin here. He's had a rough go."

"Combat does not make you an axe murderer."

"No, it wasn't the combat. It was the R&D. If a paramilitary group ever asks you to take part in a study, you run the other way. He showed up a few weeks ago. Locked me up out back. Lucky y'all showed up when you did. Gave me a chance to escape."

R&D is a military acronym for Research and Development. (Aka...The Science.)

Priscilla - the cow Mimi's boots were made from.

This is literally the only direct information gained about the boots from this little sleuthing excursion. 

Well, and that Mimi paid cash, which isn't like her.

Side note - I didn't really know what Paramilitary meant, so just in case any of you are also not good with military stuff, Paramilitary groups are like private armies. Like, I dunno, the private security firm that Jesse and Cam discussed in episode 2x04. 👀

Male doctor operating on Steph clearly states:

"All right we're approaching an arterial junction."

A female doctor replies and its less clear.  What I hear is...Blood gasses are back? Anyone else hear something that makes more sense than that?

He replied something like...the stint through here

She says something about pH levels.

Max admits that he didn't know what would happen when he decided to bring Rosa back.  He just wanted to fix the worst thing that ever happened to all of them.

"I can't believe we were Shyamalan'd by an evil twin."

I think Alex is referring to the twist ending? Or maybe just the insane axe murderer stuff.

M. Night Shyamalan wrote and directed the Sixth Sense, Signs, Split, etc…

During this scene is the first time we see Michael's tattoo… it's on his arm. I struggled with getting a cap of it, but I know there are gifs going around.

I had every intention of detailing the dialogue in the trailer scene, but before I could get to it, Carina posted the script, so I didn't think it was a good use of my time. Here's the script:

The next morning, Alex calls the Sheriff from outside the trailer for an update.

The Sheriff tells him that Travis and Trevor burned their home and ran...weren't caught by the sheriff.  Which means we may not have seen the last of them.

The Spanish:

"Oh my God. Dios mio, Max. I took off your pants before I even said I love you. I'm some kind of zorra."

Dios mio basically is Oh My God! So Liz really was spiraling. She went, "Oh my God, Oh my God..."

Zorra - female version of Zorro. Basically a vixen, bitch, prostitute… the internet has all sorts of fun words that it translates into. 

"I call this one Visceral Werewolf Part 2, dedicated to my boy Chee Chee, may he rest in peace."

Can we have more Bert? Bert is the best. Also kudos to his goofy friend who is wayyy too excited about this.

Forrest's slam poem:

Locked up for days,

Time slipping away,

On my knees I would pray to break free from this cage.

But bargaining for keys, you forget hidden fees.

And wishing for what you’re missing ain’t the same as living the dream. 

And now I’m fighting to stay on this side of the cage.

Even though I know a part of me wishes I’d stayed. 

Ain’t no prophet or rebel or savior or devil

Could have predicted, fought, cheated or leveled. 

A life with potential that’s squandered, 

A comfortable cell is a question I ponder. 

Am I a free man or a prisoner wanderer?

Max's memory flash:

Young Max, chained to the ground as described in 2x03. 

Max looks scared.

He's dressed all in white like the 1947 aliens after the crash (As shown in 1x12 and 2x03).

He's in a cave or something like a cave. 

Holes in the wall are glowing an orangey red color.

The ceiling is like the alien ship material with the alien symbol in it.  

A figure approaches from behind him, bends down, and places a hand on his shoulder.

It mirrors the figure approaching Nora in 2x03 and touching her shoulder before burning the military men...probably the same person? Noah? The stowaway? Someone new?

After the figure touches Max, he looks at the hand, and then a red glow lights his face.

MUSIC:

1. Xocoyotzin Herrera "Esperanza"

2. Jose Luis Lepe "La Carreta"

3. Eagle Eye Cherry "Save Tonight"

4. Lousiana Red "I Done Woke Up"

5. Whissell "Magnetic"

6. Stop Dead "Alchemistress Dance"

7.  Orville Peck "Turn To Hate"

8. Kim Petras "Close Your Eyes"

9. Orville Peck "Queen Of The Rodeo"

10. Moontricks "The Fall"

11. Years & Years "Hypnotised"

12. Jordan Critz Feat. Birdtalker "Through Your Eyes"

This time I couldn't find the Whissell and Stop Dead tracks on spotify - however the Stop Dead track is referenced at being by Chelsea Dawn in the closed captions.  Which I did find. Trying to confirm this. Let me know if anyone else had better luck!

[hengame5-blog]

Facelift and Also Necklift

Why no One Has facelifts any Longer

Content

Air Liquide In The Uk.

points That influence The look Of Cellulite Include.

how Long Will The results Last?

exactly How To prepare For The treatment?

small Injuries & Procedures.

What Is A Hifu Facial?

Numerous therapies are readily available, however the impact is mostly temporary. The dimples arise from fibrotic bands called septae, which cause the fat to be separated right into little pockets. As these start to bulge via the fascial connections in the skin, this creates the formation of dimples and also bumps. Cellulite is usually created orange-peel skin, because of its structure as well as look. Lynton Skincare An unique skincare range created to operate in harmony with any visual therapy, improving treatment end results and also lasting outcomes. EXCELIGHT ® A compact multi-functional platform with clinical quality IPL technology, delivering outstanding hair removal and also skin renewal therapy results. ProductsLUMINA ® A specialist, award-winning laser as well as IPL maker.

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Menopause is a natural part of the aging process which most ladies experience in between 45 and also 55 years old. Handling the uncomfortable as well as irritating signs can be tough however when it occurs prematurely, it can be a huge shock. It shows up in 90% of post-adolescent ladies, even those who placed a lot of initiative right into keeping their bodies slim and also well toned, yet is rarely seen in men. Most of us have something that we wish to improve, yet few of us actually recognize just how to set about it as well as what's involved. You are welcome to check out one of our centers, book a totally free, no obligation appointment as well as find out more regarding your visual treatment options.

As these fat cells gather as well as push skin upwards, the connective fibres that affix skin to the underlying muscle mass pull down, causing skin to distort and dimple. Nevertheless many individuals still wish to understand how to minimize cellulite as it can make them really feel uneasy.

Does HIFU work everyone?

HIFU may not be appropriate for everyone. In general, the procedure works best on people older than 30 with mild-to-moderate skin laxity. People with photodamaged skin or a high degree of loose skin may need several treatments before seeing results.

Plenty of ladies have cellulite, you are not alone and there is nothing to be shamed around. It's suggested that poor blood circulation of the lymph can create cellulite, varicose veins as well as a weakened immune system, which if true, would certainly imply that completely dry cleaning is really useful. Workout assists with weight loss as well as tighten underlying muscles, which helps to improve its appearance. Those who consume way too much fat, carbs or salt go to risk of establishing more cellulite. Since you understand exactly how to eliminate cellulite, checked out the new Origins GinZing moisturiser. Elemis' body-beautifying advancement has been verified to make locations of cellulite appear smoother and stronger.

points That influence The appearance Of Cellulite Include.

This elegant oil has minds along with beauty with scientific-sounding gelidium cartilagineum and cedrol to promote fat loss as well as limitation fat storage, plus white ginger remove aids to lower swelling. Crafted with apple stem cells to assist smooth the look of skin, along with antioxidant-rich mango as well as papaya, one round with this luxurious scrub is a a fast when it comes to improving your skin's appearance.

Some fruit as well as veg is far better than others, brightly coloured ones being the most effective. Try celery, oranges, grapefruit, peaches and also plums, they're low in natural sugar as well as high in fiber. Foods high in vitamin C are also terrific cellulite-busters because they increase degrees of collagen in the skin, advertising elasticity as well as keeping points firm and also tight. Omega-3 fatty acids, which you can locate in oily fish such as salmon, tuna, mackerel as well as sardines are known to reduced cholesterol. This has a knock on impact, due to the fact that by lowering your cholesterol you'll be improving your circulation, which has an anti-inflammatory effect.

There are a few cellulite misconceptions regarding the sources of cellulite that can be complex. When it concerns lotions and also lotions that advertise themselves as 'cellulite smoothing', Dr Rhodes states these are unlikely to work, as they aim to 'eliminate contaminants from the body', but cellulite isn't caused by toxins. Frequently, "producers promote insurance claims that they offer the best cellulite lotions and gels but do they really have the researches and also results to back their claims," asks Dr Edwin Anthony, Cosmetic Surgeon. To target your cellulite, ensure to include a lot of squats as well as lunges in your regular to target the upper leg and also glute muscular tissues. This will aid to boost blood circulation and also trigger far better hormone equilibrium.

What is the fastest way to reduce facial swelling?

More on reducing swelling in your face 1. Getting more rest. 2. Increasing your water and fluid intake. 3. Applying a cold compress to the swollen area. 4. Applying a warm compress to promote the movement of fluid buildup. 5. Taking the appropriate allergy medication/antihistamine (over-the-counter medication or prescription). More items•

One of the biggest misconceptions concerning cellulite is that cardio is the response to a smooth derriére. However the truth is, you require a combination of exercise styles, especially muscle-building movements to improve the tone of the skin. So also if you can't eliminate cellulite, you'll sock it a seriously smooth strike. In between the age of 28 and 54, skin suppleness reduces by 27 per cent, generally affecting the arms, tummy and bottom.

for How Long Will The effects Last?

How long after Botox can you have HIFU?

If you had already done fillers, then the plan should be allowing 3 to 4 months before undergoing ultrasound treatments. By that time, you will decrease the risk of dissolving the hyaluronic acid injected previously.

We have a great deal of celeb people as a result of them not desiring long-periods of downtime with hectic schedules. 100% of participants also saw an enhancement in skin laxity complying with therapy. The Onda is changing the therapy of cellulite, outcomes go over as well as long-lasting, be one of the very first practitioners to experience the Coolwaves ™ revolution. There are a lot of different choices around for cellulite therapy-- from lotions that declare to attack coarse bands to surgical alternatives, that featured risks, downtime, pain, and also certainly, that significant price.

What is the difference between HIFU and ultherapy?

Ultherapy uses micro-focused ultrasound (MFU) beams, while HIFU stands for High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound. While the former is more focused than the latter, they both send a beam through skin layers to get the collagen going. HIFU treatment and Ultherapy both treat the skin at 1.5mm, 3.0mm, and 4.5mm.

' Also, ensure you foam roll in your workouts to minimise the look of cellulite' is Dr Hextal's advice. ' Cellulite can come to be a lot more visible as you age and your skin ends up being thinner as well as sheds flexibility. This exposes the rippled connective tissues beneath,' discloses Dr Dressmaker. What you do need to understand is that cellulite is totally normal as well as can be located on pretty much all ladies - no matter just how fit and toned you are.

exactly How To prepare For The procedure?

minor Injuries & Procedures.

Trust fund a guy to have something to say about Kim Kardashian wearing a bikini and letting the globe see something that torments us all - cellulite. We asked skincare expert Jill Zander to tell us all we require to understand.

To maintain cellulite at bay, you require to be consuming your suggested everyday allowance of water. Operating is one of the most noticeable selection for interval workout, but swimming and also cycling are likewise great workouts to attempt if you intend to deal with cellulite. Comply with up with a body oil to nurture your skin and you'll be seeming like you have actually had a correct pamper at the very same time. Although introducing body cleaning right into your everyday regimen could seem like a great deal of initiative when just discovering the moment to moisturise is hard sufficient, the advantages truly do represent themselves. And when you obtain utilized to finding an added five mins to utilize your body brush, it will certainly become part and parcel of your day without a reservation.

Is HIFU better than RF?

HIFU delivers more precise and more intense fractional ultrasound energy while RF is based on a bulk heating strategy. Second, each technology works in different, but partially overlapping skin layers. HIFU goes much deeper into and beyond the dermis, being able to reach the SMAS layer.

Diuretics generally make us pee a lot as well as also decrease bloating as well as fluid retention. lose stomach weight in vitamin C are likewise outstanding cellulite-busters since they boost levels of collagen in the skin, which advertises elasticity and also maintains points firm and taut. Blast your upper legs with cold water before you get out of the shower to obtain blood flowing to the location. All of us tension over it, but the majority of us are plagued with it - if you're covering due to your cellulite we've got some suggestions as well as tricks to lower it without considering cosmetic surgery. Given that starting to utilize the Onda, we have actually carried out about 1000 therapies which has actually indicated there is a great deal of data to look at.

' Dry brushing can aid to increase circulation as well as collagen production,' claims Shotter. And also the thicker and stronger skin is, the less dimples will certainly show through. View your salt intake, as salt encourages your fat cells to swell.' Excess amounts can result in bloating as well as water retention,' clarifies Wong. The factor extra females get cellulite than males is the framework of our collagen. WAG Coleen Rooney has normal endermologie sessions (a non-invasive deep cells massage therapy making use of a hand-held massaging head). Refined fatty foods, such as sausages, cheese, biscuits as well as cake, are especially bad. They're frequently packed with ingredients, salt or sugar, which can create toxin-overload in the body.

This will certainly provide the doctors a clear image of where the cancer is in the prostate.

HIFU can be given to the whole prostate when there might be cancer in more than one area, to make sure that all areas of cancer cells are dealt with.

You will have regular tests to monitor the cancer that is not treated.

If you have focal HIFU, you could have low-risk cancer in an additional area of the prostate that is not dealt with purposefully.

You may have an MRI scan and also a number of examples of prostate tissue taken.

These might consist of PSA tests, MRI checks, as well as prostate biopsies.

A constant rise in your PSA degree can be an indicator that the cancer has actually come back.

You could likewise have other examinations, such as a CT check, MRI scan or bone scan, to see if the cancer cells has spread to various other parts of your body.

Tone, tighten and strong skin on your face with this introducing treatment.

If you're questioning exactly how to eliminate cellulite, we're here to inform you that it's not impossible, and luckily, it's not also concerning pricey creams and also remedies. Consuming lots of water-- try to drink in between two as well as 4 litres of water each day to aid eliminate contaminants. Demi Lovato sent a tweet on behalf of females with dimpled skin. " I do not have excellent boobs, I don't have absolutely no cellulite-- obviously I don't-- and I'm curved. If cryolipolysis is something that makes women feel empowered at all, that's excellent."

How successful is HIFU?

Results: HIFU overall success rate was 84% (biochemical relapses in only 4 patients out of 25). Success rate was represented as follows: 94.2% in the low risk group, 83.4% in the intermediate risk group and 0% in the high risk group.

' It does tend to raise with age because of hormonal changes', she includes. The only time I'm spiritual about cleaning the life out of my upper legs is a few weeks before a holiday, in the vain hope it'll ravel my orange-peeled skin. As well as with my break turning up, I looked for activity from a pro as well as while the Cellcosmet Swiss Anti-Cellulite Therapy isn't a magic potion for non-dappled gams, it certain assisted. Obviously, if you're actually bothered by your cellulite, you can look for the assistance of a pro-- much like Way of life Editor, Carla Challis, did. This kind of cellulite just has superficial abnormalities and they are fewer in number than seen with various other types; however it is frequently come with by stretch marks.

Update as you expand your organization, adding 24+ therapies to one multi-functional platform. Great Housekeeping takes part in different associate advertising and marketing programs, which suggests we may make money compensations on editorially chosen items purchased with our links to seller sites. While getting rid of cellulite can be complicated, otherwise impossible, there's plenty you can do if you're feeling worried about subjecting your thighs and also bottom on the coastline. Certainly, these are not without their prices and also it's ideal to visit a suggested, totally certified professional to prevent damage to the skin. However, also if you stopped all of these, you can still have cellulite due to genetic tendency. There are specific way of life variables that can have an influence on the quantity of cellulite you have. According to Dr Williams, cellulite often tends to start appearing adhering to the age of puberty.

An accumulation of fluid can occasionally cause cellulite, so, together with alcohol consumption a lot of water, include diuretics in your diet plan. Finally, foods called "diuretics" are also efficient fending off cellulite.

[kounkibou]

HC: Nagito’s Parents

After a lot of encouraging from friends and followers, I’m actually going to make this post. It’s something that I’ve alluded to a few times in posts and replies, but I’ve never said outright. I’m aware it’s a “hot take” among people who RP Nagito, and that’s why I’ve been hesitant.

It’s my RP blog, though, so I can do what I want.

So let’s do this. Let’s talk about Nagito’s parents and his relationship with them.

One of the first things I do when I take on a character is think about their upbringing and what sort of things they went through. With Nagito, a lot of it was put out there in his FTEs. He glosses over most of his traumatic experiences, but we can tell that’s just how he deals with stressful situations. He’s been through so many of them that his coping mechanism is to hope for something good afterward, to count on his luck to give him something in return for the misfortune.

I mention this because stating something like watching your parents die horribly in front of you in a matter-of-fact way with a smile just shows how traumatic it was for him.

The hot take in this headcanon is simple. Nagito’s parents loved him, and he loved them. I understand where the opposite comes from as Nagito in the first trial says (Full Disclosure: this is taken from Ultimate Luck and Hope and Despair but he says pretty much the same thing in game.) “I’ve never received a compliment for my appearance before. Not even from my own mother.” I’ve actually noticed that this is really more of a trend in the English-speaking audience as most Japanese artists I’ve seen imply a good relationship with them. I’m not sure if it’s a translation thing because I don’t know enough Japanese to read the text or understand the audio, but it’s something to think about.

My problem with this is it’s such an offhanded comment, and he doesn’t elaborate on it in his FTEs. In fact, from those FTEs, we can infer the opposite. This is something my good friend Nova ( @theultimatemusemess​ ) pointed out to me way back. If Nagito’s parents didn’t love him, why would they take him on a vacation with them? They could afford for someone to look after him while they were gone. If they really didn’t care, they could even just leave him by himself.

I know quite a bit about wills and/or transferring belongings after death, but not much about how it works in other places. However, Nagito received all of their wealth and possessions. We could put this up to inheritance laws designating the child to be the recipient of properties, and Nagito has no other living relatives. However, these two were wealthy. I imagine they either of their own volition or under someone’s advice put a will in place.

Nagito says that his inheritance gave him independence, which is scary considering how young he must have been. He says he was in elementary school. That gives us an age of 6-12. No matter how you swing it, that’s young to be living on your own.

Why does this matter? Nagito was little when his parents died. That’s a large span of age possibilities. Depending on how young he was, he might not remember a lot of his life before. His parents’ death was a big event. Anything before that pales in comparison. Plus, Nagito has lost so many people, he tries to distance himself from everyone. I imagine he tries to belittle his attachment to his parents to protect himself from the grief.

To put it simply, as I said in my tags, Nagito isn’t a reliable narrator in his own story.

That’s all of the canon and albeit limited research I have to offer to excuse my reasoning. Now, let’s get on to the actual headcanon part. I’m going to introduce you guys to Nagito’s parents, who I lovingly put together as I do parents for most of my muses.

All I have as references are doll makers. (This one specifically) In the future, I’m hoping to have actual references for them, but for now, we have this.

Nagito’s Mother

Here’s the ref sheet that I put together for her. It includes a quick rundown of information as well. Note: For both of them, I took colors for skin/hair/etc. from Nagito himself.

As it says on the tin, Miwako is a real estate agent. She’s high up in a particular agency that deals with foreign properties and buyers. As a consequence, she travels quite a bit and speaks several languages. If the agency is experiencing a problem, they ask her to resolve it as she notices details and remembers things that others put in the back of their minds. She’s been known to work herself too hard and fall asleep where she drops. 

On the outside, Miwako is stone faced and looks like she’s locked on and ready to kill. It comes in handy when she’s working, but it hinders her in her social life. She cares about other people and their well-being. It’s just...hard for her to convey that properly. The only people who can easily do that are her husband, son, and close friends.

The only problem is her work doesn’t leave a lot of time for her child, who she loves very much. She carries pictures of Nagito on her person and goes from :| to :D when asked about him. Think of Maes Hughes pulling out tons of pictures of his daughter, and you have a good vision of how Miwako feels about Nagito.

One thing Miwako loves is reading. She funds a local library and donates books once she’s finished with them. Her favorite way to bond with Nagito is to read to him, starting his love of literature. Sometimes, she enlists her husband to do silly voices so they can all spend time together. A few times, she’s accidentally read Nagito bits from her own book (sleepily) before opening a children’s book when she gets in bed. Oops.

It was Miwako’s idea to get a dog. Since both of them worked so much, they wanted their son to have a companion while they were gone. Thus, they got Taiki shortly after Nagito was born. He ended up being keeping track of Nagito, who, as I’ll touch on in another headcanon post, got into trouble and got lost frequently. This stressed both parents out because that’s their baby and he ends up in these terrifying situations too often for comfort.

Miwako is really a nice person. She just finds it hard to communicate with others on a personal level. She loves her family, but she doesn’t have a lot of time for them.

Nagito’s Father

Kozei is an interesting character. His specialty is medical research, something that he got an interest in as he grew older and watched parents, grandparents, etc. decline in health. He wanted to come up with ways to help ease the pain of aging and improve everyone’s quality of life. 

Partially because of his family name and partially because of his own abilities, he rose up in the ranks and ended up at the top. This is something he isn’t always happy about because he hates doing paperwork and going through valid procedures. He also prefers to do things on his own rather than having other people do them for him. Kozei ends up doing actual work more often than his fellow big-wigs would like. He’s dedicated to his work and truly believes in it.

Personality-wise, Kozei is a bit of an airhead. He seems lazy on the surface, not always dressing formally or caring about his appearance. Getting him to brush his hair is an ordeal. He likes to make jokes and keep things lighthearted, one of the ways he was able to break through Miwako’s tough exterior. He’s a little forgetful sometimes, but when it comes down to it, he’ll remember small things like a person’s favorite color or a food they said they liked one time in passing.

Kozei’s work schedule is just as heavy as Miwako’s, but he gets home earlier and doesn’t have to travel as much. Some days when he feels bad about leaving his kid, he takes Nagito with him and sits him at his desk in his own special chair with crayons and paper. Kozei has so many drawings up in his office, and he’s proud of them. His son made those.

He has the more excited personality out of the two. Kozei’s thing is science. Anything science. Chemistry, biology, physics, you name it. He loves scientific advances and will nerd out about them. He’ll lay in bed late at night and talk Miwako’s ear off about something cool that she doesn’t understand. He’ll explain astrophysics to five-year-old Nagito, who just thinks he’s talking funny and laughs.

If you need someone to pick up your spirits, Kozei is your guy. If he believes in something, he believes in it ride or die, and that includes your friendship as well as his medical research.

Kozei and Miwako’s Relationship

How did these two meet? Simply put, Miwako sold Kozei’s father property, and since Kozei’s father was trying to involve him in his affairs as preparation for the future, he was there. They got to know one another, and on the last day they were going to interact, Kozei asked Miwako if she’d like to meet up sometime...possibly over dinner. At first, she had this face like “Are you serious?” but he did this thing where he gestured expectantly at her with this goofy grin that gradually got more nervous as the silence went on. Something about that tickled her funny bone, and she lost it. This nerd was asking her out, and he obviously knew how much of a stretch it was. She had to say yes, you know? He made her laugh.

They actually dated for a few years since their schedules made it hard to meet up a lot. After a few months, Kozei was on board for the long haul, ready to make the big commitment. Miwako was the more cautious one about things, wanting to feel it out before getting too caught up in the romance. He proposed to her after taking her to the same restaurant they went on their first date. (Obvious Spoiler: She said yes.)

They were fairly set financially, and they both wanted to have a child. However, it took quite awhile for pregnancy to happen. Miwako isn’t the best at doing romantic things, so the way she told Kozei was really just...

Miwako: *walks out* Hey, I’m pregnant. Kozei: Oh. Kozei: Wait what?!

As a couple, they have an open, honest relationship. If they have issues, they talk to one another and make sure they’re both on the same page before talking about doing anything big. Kozei tries to make Miwako laugh when she gets stressed. Miwako lets her guard down in front of him because she trusts him, and he’s a sweetheart. If asked, Kozei would tell you that his wife does most of the hard work and is a genius. He’s her biggest fan.

They’re honestly just really supportive of each other and will do anything to make sure the other is happy.

Nagito & His Parents

Like any new parents, they weren’t experts. They did some kind of silly things. Kozei may or may not have forgotten in a sleepy haze to put Baby Nagito in his crib, and the two of them may have had an exchange something like:

Kozei: Where's the baby? Miwako: I gave him to you. Kozei: shIT! NAGITO WHERE ARE YOU? Miwako: HE'S A BABY! HE'S NOT GONNA ANSWER!

The two of them find him later comfortably on a cushion that fell on the floor.

Because they work so much, they had to arrange for someone to care for Nagito while they were away. They had housekeepers and other staff to help who they paid well for their efforts. (They could certainly afford to, and they weren’t stingy with their money.) A lot of Nagito’s time was spent with a caretaker, but when his parents were home, they doted on him. They loved him very much. Nagito thought the world of them. He couldn’t wait for his parents to get home so he could tell them about his day.

They taught him as much as they could, and he learned some of their behaviors. A lot of Nagito’s body language mirrors Miwako’s, and his excitement about things he’s passionate about reflects Kozei’s. They weren’t in his life for long, but he had a close bond with them. They spent time with him and took him fun places when they had days off so they could all bond.

I wanted to compile some of the funny scenarios I’ve thought of, so here’s a one.

Kozei: Your mother works hard. Without her, I'd be some idiot rambling about science and probably homeless. Nagito: But science is cool. Kozei: I KNOW RIGHT?!

Another where Miwako is teaching Nagito what to do in case of an emergency.

Miwako: What would you do if you found me or your father on the floor and we wouldn't wake up? Nagito: Go to the kitchen and eat whatever I want. Kozei: *snorting*

And one last one after Miwako actually cooks dinner.

Miwako: How was it? Nagito: *not impressed* It tasted bad. Kozei: That's very mean. She went through all the trouble to cook for you. Say something nice about it. Nagito: Thanks, Mama, for trying.

These are just examples of the dynamic and how they’re pretty normal parents.

Their Death

I did way too much research about this vacation they went on. I looked at the location, what things people could do there, and what kind of flights needed to be taken. The last time I checked, it took...three different flights to get from Tokyo to San Cristóbal. (I can’t check right now flights right now are sketchy. Future Tiki who survived the pandemic, fact check me.) It’s a lot of flying.

There’s not a definitive answer as to whether this was right after they landed or right before they took off. I like to think it was the latter because I hate happiness. What’s better than a nice, fun vacation that ends with dead parents? (Heavy sarcasm.) I’m going to go with that.

The basics are that the plane was hijacked and a meteorite the size of a fist killed the hijackers and also Nagito’s parents. The truth of the situation is muddied mostly due to the fact that Nagito only provides that much information. He likely blocked out that memory and is going off of what he’s been told. This is just my take on it, but I imagine his information is so, for lack of a better word, flat because he doesn’t want to remember the situation first hand. His explanation is like that of an outsider, not someone who was there in real time. That and he was a child. (For the record, I place him at about 7 or 8.)

My interpretation of events is as follows. The plane was hijacked still on the runway. The passengers are afraid. These two have a young child they want to protect. They were probably fairly close to the hijackers since we don’t have the details of anyone else being hurt in this situation, though I do think it’s possible there were more.

In order to protect their child, maybe they tried to reason with the hijackers. Maybe they wanted to resolve things peacefully so everyone could go home and the hijackers could get a lesser punishment. Either way, both parties were killed, and Nagito became an orphan.

Now this child not even in double digits is in a different country, his parents just died in front of him, there’s strangers all over the place, and there’s a whole investigation likely happening. He’s terrified and alone. These people are talking around him, and a lot of what they’re saying doesn’t make sense. (Whether it’s the language barrier or just because he’s too young to understand doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s both.) Just imagine how scary that would be.

Imagine this tiny child saying he just wants his mom and dad and that he wants to go home. It’s heartbreaking.

How Nagito Copes With It

I’ve said it several times, but I’m going to put it all right here to make sure my thoughts are together.

Nagito tells Hajime that this event gave him his independence. It was one of the first incidents that showed him his “luck cycle” in action. In hindsight, he sees this event as more evidence that yes this is what’s happening. He looks back on it as a positive to protect himself. He was the last person left in his family, all alone. I like to imagine there were still people who worked in and around the home, but as a whole, he was by himself.

Without fully realizing it, as he grew older, Nagito ended up dealing with this grief by burying the happier memories. He built up this narrative that his parents were indifferent to him in order to avoid mourning them. The reason he doesn’t talk about them, what he says about his mother, how nonchalant he is when he mentions what happened? It’s his way of keeping himself safe. If he thinks of them as people who didn’t have an attachment to him, he won’t miss them. He won’t feel sad.

To put it simply, Nagito fabricated a narrative where his loving parents weren’t as loving in order to keep from feeling the pain of losing them and not having them there as he grew up.

There you have it. That’s the long, in-depth post about Nagito’s parents! If you read through the whole thing, thanks! I’m still nervous about posting it, so hit me up if you have any opinions or ideas or if you want me to talk more about things!

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

September 13, 2020

My weekly roundup of things I am working on. Topics include wildfires, exotic energy sources, speculative energy sources, the Biden housing plan, and creative outlets.

Wildfires in Oregon

Oregon, along with the rest of the West Coast, has been in the news for devastating wildfires that are still ongoing. This is certainly the worst I have experienced, much worse that the 2017 fires in California. Both Oregon and California are having their worst seasons on record.

In Oregon, it started last Monday, when a strong (and unseasonably early) east wind came over an already dry state, drying the air further and spreading fires rapidly. The Portland metro area experienced sporadic bad air quality on Monday and Tuesday, and it has been consistently bad since Wednesday. Today is no noticeable improvement. The weather forecast is for clouds on Monday and some rain on Tuesday, which should finally bring about some improvement.

So far there have been dozens of deaths in the West and several dozen more people unaccounted for and significant property damage. My guess is that most of the damage will be harder to see: the impact of the poor air quality on people who are already vulnerable. These events bring about yet more disruption in a region that has already been reeling from the pandemic, economic hardship, and civil unrest.

I made a facetious remark on Twitter about solar radiation management, but I really have been struck at how much the weather has cooled down. The temperature is at least 20 degrees (F) cooler than it should have been, due to soot particles reflecting sunlight. In my neighborhood, the light-sensitive streetlights are on during the day. I can look directly at the Sun without hurting my eyes. Needless to say, I will need to be convinced that any solar radiation management scheme will not significantly harm air quality before I will believe it’s a good idea.

If anyone is actually reading this, I would implore you not to use the fires merely as a talking point for your pet climate policy. This is something that irritates me greatly. In the immediate term, we need relief and a stronger firefighting force. In the medium term, we need better forest management practices. Greenhouse gas mitigation helps only marginally in the long term. Don’t try to tell me that building a bike lane in New York City is the solution we in the West are looking for. Once the fires are extinguished, most climate activists will lose interest in our land use needs and move on to the next disaster.

Exotic Energy Sources

This week I added an Exotic Energy section to Urban Cruise Ship. I had been considering this for a long time, and I went ahead and did it mainly because I have been stuck on some harder projects and wanted to do something relatively easy. There are no graphics planned, as I don’t see the topic as important enough to justify assigning more work to our graphics guy, but there are a few interesting things.

One recurring scheme is various ways to capture piezoelectricity, which is generated through pressure on a surface, such as when people walk over a plate or cars drive over it. One study in Australia found that with more advanced generators, an educational building at Macquarie University might recover 0.5% of its electricity usage by installing generators at high traffic points. With technology that was current at the time of the study, it’s probably more like 0.06%.

As for roadways, I cited several studies that report levelized costs of electricity in the range of multiple dollars per kilowatt-hour (wholesale prices tend to be in the range of 3-6 cents/kWh and retail on the order of 10 cents). The exception was a California study that reported 8-20 cents/kWh, which as far as I can tell is just an uncritical repetition of claims from the vendor. Also not discussed is the fact the source of energy is kinetic energy from cars, so unless the car is braking, the generators are stealing energy from motorists. We might as well be using diesel generators then.

If I were to make a guess, the pilot project is little more than California burning several million dollars on a patently unworkable scheme because of some marketing by a shady vendor. I’m all for trying bold ideas that are not guaranteed to succeed, but one must draw the line at ideas that clearly won’t succeed or where basic feasibility questions haven’t even been asked.

Biomechanical energy harvesting is an idea that got a bit of hype a few years ago, but now few people seem to still be interested. Making some extremely generous assumptions, I estimated that it would have a theoretical of about 1 exajoule per year, or about 0.2% of primary energy supply. More medium-case assumptions would cut that by at least a factor of five. Plus that doesn’t account for extra exertion required by the person or embodied energy in the devices.

There are probably some niche use cases for piezoelectric generators and biomechanical systems, such as low power distributed sensors and personal electronics respectively.

I even commented on the power from rainfall paper earlier in the year, an idea too silly to take seriously.

Speculative Energy Sources

But even with the above we’re not done. I decided to venture into the realm of speculative physics.

In quantum physics, even a system with zero temperature must have some latent energy due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This has been termed the zero point. So naturally that leads people to speculate that zero point energy could be harvested for useful purposes. The near-consensus seems to be that this is impossible, that it must violate thermodynamics somehow, though I found it surprisingly difficult to find a rigorous explanation of why this is the case. This paper from 2019 is all I found, and even then, it only rules out two of three proposed ZPE extraction methods based on thermodynamic principles. Incidentally, the authors hold a patent on the third method and claim there is inconclusive evidence that it works.

Additionally, there is the NASA Eagleworks project to use the quantum vacuum to develop a spacecraft that can operate without onboard propellant.

There is a lot of interesting physics here that I don’t understand. I was expecting to write a short, dismissive comment for the website, but it would seem that ZPE is a legitimate area of scientific research. Maybe this will actually work for energy production someday. But there is no solid evidence yet, and any claims of a currently working ZPE device can be safely rejected.

Some other ideas that pop up, based in speculative physics, including hydrinos, neutrinos, quark fusion, and the ever popular perpetual motion machine. At least neutrinos and quark fusion are legitimate physics, but as far as useful energy production goes, these are all pathological ideas. I’ll add more as I see them. I briefly covered cold fusion a while ago on the Fusion page.

I expect that when the site is finally done, of the many things people could fairly accuse me of, not being comprehensive will not be one of them.

The Biden Housing Plan

Evidently I am a few weeks late, but the Biden-Harris campaign has a housing plan. The tl;dr is that there might be a few good things here, but I’m not too impressed.

When it comes to housing affordability, the principle I’ve tried to reiterate over and over again is that it comes down to supply. If there are 1,000,000 people who want to live in a city with a zoned capacity for 800,000, then 200,000 people will not be able to live there. It doesn’t matter if you impose rent control, eviction moratoria, inclusionary zoning rules, offer Section 8 or other subsidies, or whatever. As long as the supply is fixed, all these do is change the rationing mechanism from price to something else. Which, it must be acknowledged, is often the intent.

Traditionally, the federal government has a limited role in zoning. That could change of course; the federal government today has major roles in many areas where it previously had a limited or no role. As it is now, I see two plausible hooks for federal involvement in the near term. The first is the Fair Housing Act, where it can be argued fairly convincingly that zoning rules have disparate impact on protected groups, and in some cases intentional impact; and the second is to tie zoning reform to federal Community Development Block Grants or transportation funding, where reform is a matter of insuring that federal spending is actually used effectively.

The Biden plan calls for reinstatement of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which while imperfect, I think is better than what the Trump Administration decided to go with, which is nothing. As for the second, I momentarily got my hopes up when I saw that they were promoting legislation to do just that. But upon reading the details of the HOME Act (which was introduced last year but I was unfamiliar with until now), I see that the list of measures the bill calls for to promote “inclusive land use” are wide-ranging, and only some of them can reasonably be expected to increase the housing supply. It could be a good piece of legislation, but much rides on the implementation. Zoning reform advocates at the state level routinely underestimate the creativity that municipalities will show in evading the intent of their laws.

Anyway, there is a lot of other stuff here on racial discrimination, energy efficiency, and the Davis-Bacon Act (which probably makes housing less affordable by running up construction costs), but I won’t belabor the issues. All in all, it’s a plan that reflects the set Democratic interests pretty well, has a lot of stuff in it, and would do little to achieve broad-based housing affordability.

Creative Outlets

Like many people, I have been continuing to struggle with a variety of stressful circumstances. I took more time than usual this week on some creative projects, which has helped.

The newest one I am calling Project Epsilon, which for now is a maze generator. I’ve long had a fascination with generative content, and I would like to see how far the concept can be taken, but for now it is really just for fun. It is not deployed, but someone knowledgeable with Python and Flask in particular can download and run it fairly easily. Not that there is much to see yet. All it does it let the user input a few parameters and make a maze.

The other is Repair the Cosmos, which is deployed but hasn’t been updated publicly in a long time, despite considerable local activity. This is an incremental game that is meant to tell the story of humanity from the Paleolithic to the far future. I started it in January and have been working very intermittently since then, but I finally have a burst of creativity going for the first time in months. I still expect at least a few weeks before the next update, and I can only go for so long before I start feeling guilty about not doing real work.

[camandsee]

Vingt-cinq, selon ma faveur

Hello!

Today, I turned twenty-five years old. Unlike the excitement and fun brought by the years that have long and previously gone by, turning 25 didn’t wake me up with people singing happy birthday, cake/s in a box, or ended the day with many, many photographs with families and long time friends. This year was different. I celebrated my day with my family (virtually, due to the quarantine) filled with a different kind of excitement that tells me that today marks the day when I finish the first quarter of my life and I embark on the last few years of my prime years. And just like any years, months, days, and seconds that went by, I can no longer go back and undo anything from the past 25 years. I felt that the next quarter of my life was mostly determined by my first quarter and the following, the preceding. No matter where I looked, I felt responsible for every new day that I’ll wake up to--responsible for making each day count towards who I’m going to be when I turn 26, then later 30. 

Turning 18 felt like yesterday. I remember being so young and wild and wishing that I was 21 so I could buy my own alcohol. When I turned 21, things felt very exciting! I was so eager to take on so many things, and I was very aggressive with chasing my goals and dreams. I was relentless, fearless, and excited by the things that I wanted to accomplish for that year! Life was filled with colors. I made a lot of friends I spent a lot of time with, even more than I did with my family. I spent the past years between being 18 and 24 celebrating New Years, Christmases, and Thanksgiving Days in ways I’ve never done before, and avoiding doing the same things twice even in different holidays. I traveled solo internationally for a month, then with my brother the next year. I learned so many things that I only wished I could learn when I was back in our country. I did great in school, and I was able to buy things I didn’t think I would afford before I was 18. It was the time of my life. I had so much fun, and I am filled with gratitude to my younger self for being so fearless and for being passionate about living life to the fullest and for teaching me the wonder of lifelong curiosity and the value of pursuing the things that ignited my heart and soul and of keeping track and really putting in every effort you can to conquer those.

Today, I woke up feeling like a child, when, ironic as it may sound, I am obviously not anymore. Being a fan of holidays and birthdays, I was eager to mark this day doing things that I want to do for the day. So, with my sophisticated taste for fine food, I whipped myself up an enhanced version of Truffle Pappardelle from scratch, inspired by the high-end restaurant in NYC, Scalinatella. I also baked myself a layered Tres Leches cake, with 3 candles and decorative lettering. I wrote a few things about how I want the next years of my life to be, the things I dream of having in the future (because I think that’s where they belong), and just a few other things that I did not want to forget. Right, a checklist is the key to success. At dinner, I had a little toast with my family, after being in a few conference calls with friends, and responding to over a hundred greetings online. I felt very happy with how the day turned out. It outdid my expectations and goals. One thing for sure is that I truly appreciate the people who remembered me, not just due to online reminders, but those who had me in their minds as this month commenced. Their warm wishes alone already made my day, and I did not need the rare and extravagant truffle (no way, I love that truffle pasta! It was to die for, FYI! ) to make myself feel like a million bucks!

In any case, no amount of Truffle Pappardelle could prepare me for the following years, let alone the following day, Monday. I am happy to announce that I recently accepted a high-caliber Ph.D. training offer from a 2-year program at my university, and an undergraduate position at a Biomedical Research Facility focusing on Neuroimmunology. I am incredulous and filled with excitement as I embark on this journey that will dictate and control many aspects of my career and my future. This entire journey, like many journeys I’ve taken prior, is a crucial step in molding my chosen path -- Ph.D. graduate school. As daunting as it sounds, I chose to take the 5th year to dedicate the year after graduation acquiring lab training and conducting research at a well-funded facility, with a well-known program. At this age, resume matters more than the year of graduation. So I do not feel any regrets about my decision, especially that it’s been widely supported by people and respected people whose opinions matter a lot to me. Right, Monday. Tomorrow is my second week at the lab, and we start with piles of scientific publications about the ongoing pandemic -- COVID-19-- which, by the way, I had to read while baking. Notice, I do not put much attention to how I write, unlike I used to back in the days. It is mostly just because I learned that it is better to get to write what your heart desires, then your mind would probably take care of the details later (if that ever comes). Yeah, I’ve learned to embrace spontaneity in things I used to want perfection in. I learned that my spontaneity in other things may be helpful in other things, but that doesn’t mean that I do not want to ever make this entry a bit more flowery.

Look, you know what really matters? What matters to me is that I am alive and healthy, I look forward to so many wonderful and exciting things for my future, my family love and support me, I have real friends I could count on, and I am in a place that I never even dreamed of being in. I do not regret the decisions that I made in the past (good and bad) after thinking long and hard and really considering their consequences, or not thinking about them at all, because those decisions brought me to where I am today. I am in a 4-bedroom apartment all to myself fully paid by my school, with dining money provided by my school. I am safe during this trying time, I make a lot of effort in raising my awareness and keeping myself healthy (mentally, physically, and emotionally), and I am true to everything I say and do. I do not regret anything that I have done in the far and recent past, and when I am fifty I will not look back on any day that I will regret because that is who I am, I make each day count, and any shortcomings I have, I always try to find ways to make it better, especially when making things better is what benefits me and what would benefit my loved ones in the future. I’ve done many things alone, without much support, and now that I am receiving a lot of support, I take all these as an advantage to get myself to where I need to be.

Run with the big dogs, love yourself, love your people, love living, and pour your heart over what sets it on fire, dear self. You were born to live life and pursue what you truly desire without limitations, so don’t create one.

Cheers to twenty-five and so,

Dorothy

[spnfanficpond]

October 2019 Pond LiveChat Recap

We had a great time chatting with @evansrogerskitten tonight! Thank you so much for joining us and sharing your wisdom!

Today, we got together and talked about writing smut! We discussed the legalities around sharing smut on the internet, vocabulary choices, created a spreadsheet of terms we can all share and use, and encouraged each other to not be afraid to just write. A rundown of the chat, as well as general Pond news, is below the cut. Due to the nature of the chat, there may be some parts of this recap that might be considered NSFW. 

To start us off, @mrswhozeewhatsiswrites shared some research into the legalities of posting erotica on the internet as it relates to minors. (We are not legal experts. This information was obtained through Google searches. If anyone can provide links to sources that contradict these, we will add them to this post to ensure the most correct information is provided here.)

Michelle: To try and keep it short and sweet, from everything I read, if a minor reads smut online, it's not the writer's, poster's, or web site's responsibility to keep it from them. It is the parent's, or the school's/library's responsibility. (Basically, whoever is providing the internet connection to the minor is responsible for filtering out content that might be harmful to that minor, not the parties creating or disseminating that content online.) Schools and libraries and other institutions that get government funds are usually required to have some sort of filter in place to prevent minors from accessing porn and erotica. 

What makes this so difficult to research is that written erotica is not mentioned very often in obscenity laws. Most laws focus on images or videos, not the written word. 

No matter what it is, though, to be prosecuted under obscenity laws, the material must first be ruled to be obscene. Legally, there is a difference between obscenity and erotica. Obscenity is generally illegal, and erotica is protected speech. There are many different sets of rules and guidelines that have been used to determine if something is considered obscene or not. The most widely used current set of guidelines is the Miller test. From my research, most (if not all) erotic fan fiction would not be considered obscene because of its ‘literary, artistic, political, or scientific value’.

Some interesting links in relation to this subject that go into detail:

Wikipedia - US Obscenity Law - About halfway down, there is a section on non image-based obscenity cases in the US. The first part of this section, which deals with the written word, is very enlightening about the differences between obscenity and erotica. Further down is a section about criticism of the laws which shows some of the gaps in the law where free speech lives. Continuing on, the section about censorship in schools and libraries explains the part CIPA (Children’s Internet Protection Act) plays in protecting minors from material that could be considered harmful to them.

Online Art Rights - Sexual Content - This site details the many attempts at limiting indecent material on the internet through the years. (Scroll down and click on the plus signs in the black bars to expand each section.) In each case cited, the court ruled that to ban all objectionable material would interfere with free speech because it would reduce all content to a level appropriate for children. They also concluded that since less restrictive means exist, such as user-controlled filters and the like, those tools can be used without reducing all discourse on the internet. The section on Child Pornography at the bottom might be of interest to anyone who writes Weecest smut, though.

The only possible exception that I think would affect the SPN fandom would be those who write Weecest smut. Child pornography seems to be the exception to every rule that protects free speech. Where every other depiction of a sex act might have a ‘but’ that makes it erotica (and therefore legal) instead of obscenity, child pornography in any medium is considered obscenity. Anything that even just looks like child porn is considered child porn, even if no children were a part of the making of it. This includes cartoons and CGI and adults made up to look like kids. If it’s advertised as children in a sexual situation, it’s child porn. So, I imagine it could extend to written erotica IF someone were to decide to push it.

Now, that’s a huge if. Someone would have to read it, object to it, and insist on prosecution for it. I think if that were going to happen, given 15 years of SPN fan fiction, it would have happened by now. But I would still keep my Weecest smut-free, or implied, or at least over the age of consent (which varies, so 18 is just easiest to use). 

Also, AO3 complies with the laws regarding filtering for minors. If you do not have an account, you are required to click through a step that tells you that you are about to view something explicit. That's really all that sites and such are required to do. Hence, Tumblr making you click through and view on dash blogs they mark as explicit.

@emilyshurley I think there might also be a sorta solution just to play it safe. I saw that people who make mods for games like Sims 4 and stuff have a page for terms of download. What that is is that if you click their masterlist it will take you to a post where they list their conditions and have the words "I agree" and link the actual masterlist to that. Now this might take a little effort but we could add something similar before our masterlists.

This is all legal stuff, not site-specific rules. Each site can implement their own decency rules and enforce them how they see fit. For example, Tumblr, as a company, can decide to delete your blog. (They’ve stopped doing this since The Purge, now just marking each blog explicit and making you click on a couple things to get to those blogs they deem explicit.) Should they choose to do this, it does not mean that you’re in trouble with the law.

Now, onto the fun stuff!

Q: What is the first thing you think of when someone asks you for advice about writing smut?

Ash: Word choice- don't make the reader cringe. It's easy to fall into that because smut can be graceful and tasteful if it's done right. And that starts with thinking through word choice and how the scene is flowing. It's not easy to write smut! I think a lot of non-writer readers do not realize that.

Note: During the chat, we created a Google Sheets spreadsheet, with two sheets in it, with lists of words to use to refer to different things when you’re writing smut. The first sheet is Good Words, and the second sheet is Bad Words. Everyone can enter words they like and don’t like on both sheets, and we’ll crowd-source this problem! Check it out and add your favorites!

Michelle: A smut scene takes ten times as long for me to write as anything else. Just keeping track of limbs is difficult! And clothing....sometimes, I just make them dry hump so I don't have to deal with removing all the clothing! Other times, it's just, "Somehow, you suddenly found yourself naked." Like, there's a million great ways to get characters naked, but if I'm tired, angels snap.

@fictionalabyss (Mel): I've read stuff where a position makes no sense and it ruins the whole thing for me. Michelle: I actually bought a couple of those posable dolls from IKEA. (IKEA - GESTALTA, Artist’s figure)  @babypieandwhiskey (Cam): I’ll have to use my daughter’s old Barbie dolls! I can keep track of both limbs and clothing!

Q: Ash, what are a few of the words that turn you off when you're reading smut?

Ash: It's usually words that sound so "romance novel"-ish to me. So "turgid member" is a good example. Please no one ever write that. Mel: Sometimes, keeping it simple is the safest and best bet. Ash: Absolutely, Mel! Sometimes we don't need all the extra words if we're showing the heat that's already there between them. 

[What followed was a long discussion of various terms you definitely should not use in serious smut. They’ve all been added to the spreadsheet linked above, so fee free to check it out.]

Michelle: EVERYONE has those words that squick them, and it's damn near impossible to write a smut scene that doesn't include a word that will squick someone out there. So, don't stress about what words you do or don't use, cuz there's always gonna be someone out there who doesn't like something. Just make sure YOU think what you're writing is hot. If you don't get warm under the collar from it, no one else will, either. Ash: I highly recommend everyone is reading their fics out loud to see how it all flows. You'll catch errors and weird words there too.

Q: Ash, how do you get in the frame of mind to write something you personally have never experienced? For example, certain kinks.

Ash: Whiskey? LOL No, I do a lot of research- google, porn, erotica. Trying something out in person helps too! But we're writing fiction. You can make a kink work for your scenario too.I mean, I've written a reader squirting after 5 minutes to move things along but we all know it takes longer usually. And that's the fun! I've never actually been with 2 dudes but I f-ing love writing it. @atc74 (Angelina): I've always said I don't need to kill someone to write a murder scene. Ash: Smut is all about having an open mind. It lets us and the readers be someone else. 

Question submitted earlier by @erins-culinary-service: I've wanted to try writing smut but never known exactly how to start and what words to use to describe everything. I've had sex so I know the sensations, positions, etc I'm just not sure how to write it all down any advice?

Ash: So sometimes I can't just start from "they kissed..." I start wherever I can see it best. So is it oral sex, or already doing it, I just jump in. And then I come back and fill it in. And I just write, no stopping once I get going. So the "cock into her hole" can be fixed later on my next edit. I just gotta get the idea out and then go back and make it hot. My smut is never hot in my first draft.  Michelle: I think that's what stops a lot of writers, is thinking they have to publish their first draft. Editing is totally a thing. Just get the ideas on paper, and then make them hot later. Ash: Oh yeah, I go through at least 3 drafts per fic. Plus my beta version. Yeah, no one is ever going to see your drafts so don't worry about starting somewhere, anywhere.  Michelle: And remember, practice practice practice - As with any writing, the more you write it, the easier it becomes. I wrote Third Wheel as a way to challenge myself with writing smut. Do a kink bingo or alphabet challenge. Just remember, you’re gonna write crap at the start, but crap makes good compost. Ash: Taking some time between edits is important too. It'll help you see different ways, AND you'll start having breakthroughs during the time away. Bingos are a great challenge that will help a writer grow.  Cam: Writing smut is like sex, you're first time is going to be awkward and things won't be perfect, but with practice it gets better. Mel: I have a series that shows even the millionth time having sex isn't perfect and can be all laughs 🤣. But yeah.

Question submitted earlier by @focusonspn: i wanted to know about ways and words to describe orgasms and how to approach the moment after it without being awkward or forced. some people say those are the easiest things to write, but somehow i always have a hard moment trying to write them.

Ash: Hmmmm, as for the moments after- that's understandable, it is hard because its a transition. I think it's doesn't have to be an extended part of it- unless they're about to have a talk or aftercare needs a scene, it can be as simple as "we drifted off to sleep." Michelle: As always, my advice is to read smut that other people write that you like, and take note of what they do. Mel: Someone can get up and get dressed and leave. They can play in the fluids. They can lay there catching their breaths for a moment. It can be simple. Sometimes it doesn't need a flourish and that flourish can make it seem forced. Michelle: I think it depends on what type of smut fic you're writing. Is it fluffy smut where they're all in LOVE and kissy and stuff? Or is it Soulless Sam and Demon Dean just getting down and dirty and claiming you for themselves? Or, Soulless Sam or Demon Dean just getting their rocks off and they don't give a shit? @emilyshurley (Emily): Also this might be my f*cked up brain but I think if someone is not comfortable with a lot of fluffy buildup to smut trying soulless!Sam or Demon!Dean could be a great start. You also have a little room to do a little out of character.  Michelle: We are blessed with a world that includes all types of characters and all types of situations, from curses (sex pollen, love potions, etc) to supernatural beings, to inspire and give us chances to write all kinds of smut. There are no limits to what you can do in Supernatural, so there are no limits to what we can write.  Ash: Yeah we can really make most kinks work in some way in the SPN worlds.  Emily: Also again with going out of character I read a captain America fic where it could have been a little out of character how he jumped straight to sex (someone commented that) but sex pollen made it work. So basically these tropes/kinks can also be good devices for writing NSFW fics to if you struggle to get the characters write in the beginning.

Other links mentioned:

Emily: I saw this advice list on Tumblr, so thought I should share it: List of Smut Writing Guides

Ash: This one, too: @smut-101′s Smut Tips Masterlist 

And last, but definitely not least...

Ash: Always, always, always write for you. Readers come and go but you have to be satisfied and proud of what you've written. And everyone should get so much credit for trying to write smut. It's difficult but its does get easier and more fun with practice!

General Pond Updates and Reminders

What we’ve got cooking up next: Not much, at the moment, since everyone is busy, so we’re just trying to keep up with the day-to-day at the moment! Our to do list is still long, though, and will not be neglected forever!

Reminders:

Angel Fish Award nominations are accepted all month long! No need to wait to tell us how much you liked a fellow Fish’s work!  IF YOU HAVE SENT IN A NOMINATION, BUT HAVE NOT RECEIVED A PRIVATE MESSAGE CONFIRMING WE RECEIVED IT, WE DIDN’T GET IT. Be sure to use Submit instead of Ask!

Don’t forget to submit your stories to be posted to the blog! When your stories are on the blog, then they are easier to nominate for Angel Fish Awards!

Say hi to September’s New Members!

Check the Pond CALENDAR to see when Big Fish will be in the Skype chat room/discord general channel and other Pond and SPN events are happening! Know of something that’s not on the calendar, send us an ask or submission with the deets info details!  The calendar offers a lot of features, such as showing you when things are in your own timezone! Since we’re an international group, that’s a definite plus!!

We don’t have a topic or speaker set up for November’s event, yet, so if there’s something you want to talk about, or someone you want to talk to, LET US KNOW!