#she has some excellent writing about AI and “intelligence” and her book is great and she is extremely upfront about her methods

[cheetour]

If you haven't been following Janelle Shane's AI Weirdness blog since 2014 like me, you're seriously missing out on some intelligent, critical writing about AI and predictive text generation, but more importantly: THIS MONTH'S NEWSLETTER IS AI-GENERATED CHRISTMAS STUFF AND LOOK AT IT

"Please generate an illustration where each of the 12 days' gifts are represented in a grid, each day's gift clearly labeled as an aid to someone learning the 12 Days of Christmas carol."

"Please generate a grid with illustrations of each of Santa's reindeer on plain white backgrounds, with the name of each reindeer printed clearly below it."

and, finally, the famous lyric from Jingle Bells feat. a horde of swarming faceless children:

(full post and more info here!)

[lizabethstucker]

The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe edited by Josh Pachter

Subtitled: Parodies and Pastiches Featuring the Great Detective of West 35th Street

I loved this collection of stories, with only a few exceptions. Overall, I would give it 4.5 out of 5.

Introductions: Trouble in Triplicate

“At Wolfe’s Door” by Otto Penzler ~ about the characters.

“A Family Affair” by Rebecca Stout Bradbury ~ Rex Stout’s daughter provides a peek at the author.

“Plot It Yourself” by Josh Pachter ~ how the collection came to be.

Pastiches (Respectful imitations of the original works)

“The Red Orchid” by Thomas Narcejac

Translated from French, the story was written in 1947. The first English publication wasn’t until 1961. A young woman comes to hire Wolfe to discover who is trying to kill her uncle, a man who claims to have developed a red orchid. More creepy than respectful, especially how Archie hits on the female client. Too offensive for me. DNF

“Chapter 8 from ‘Murder in Pastiche’” by Marion Mainwaining

Published in 1955, this novel can also be found under the title of “Nine Detectives All at Sea”. A notorious gossip columnist is murdered during a sea cruise across the Atlantic. There are nine famous detectives on the ship as passengers. Trajan Beare, aka Nero Wolfe, is the focus of this particular chapter. It is hard to judge the whole book based on just one chapter. However, the characterization should be noted as being extremely close to the original source material. A nice read. No rating as it is just an excerpt.

“The Archie Hunters” by Jon L. Breen

Written in 1968, but never published until now. A cross of Nero Wolfe and Mike Hammer. Mock Himmler beats the crap out of anyone he encounters, particularly if they disagree with him or do something he doesn’t like. After beating up a news seller for carrying a “commie” magazine, Mock discovers an ad in the back requesting a private investigator for a missing person case. The ad, placed by Nero Wolfe, leads Mock to presume the missing person is Archie Goodwin. I’ve never been a fan of Mike Hammer nor his creator, Mickey Spillane, finding both of them to be disgusting in their love of violence, misogyny, and attitudes in general. I did enjoy this story nonetheless. 4 out of 5

“The Frightened Man” by O. X. Rusett

Gave up early on this anagram-stuffed story, even to the author’s name. More annoying than clever or cute. DNF

“Chapter 1 from ‘Murder in E Minor’” by Robert Goldsborough

I read the whole book when it was first published and, frankly, wasn’t too impressed. I do know that Goldsborough was selected by the Stout Estate to be the official author of the novels and I have read a few of his more recent books. I may try and reread it sometime down the road to see if my opinion has changed. No rating as it is only one chapter.

“The Purloined Platypus” by Marvin Kaye

While Goldsborough has the exclusive novel rights, Kaye asked to write short stories and was given the Estate’s permission as long as no novels were ever written. Benjamin Moultrie, president and board chairman of the Museum of the Strange, Odd and Peculiar, wants to hire Wolfe to investigate a robbery at the museum. As I wasn’t reading the magazines such as Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock, I missed reading any of these stories. Which is quite a tragedy. Excellent portrayals of not only the characters, but the case itself. 4 out of 5.

Parodies (Exaggerated imitations intended to poke fun at the source material)

“The House on 35th Street” by Frank Littler

Originally appeared in The Saturday Review in 1966. Little is known about the author, despite Pachter’s research attempts. A crowd is assembled in the Brownstone in a murder case, wanting to see some of the detective’s famous actions and quirks. There is an undercurrent of a very personal nature, especially at the end. 3.5 out of 5

“The Sidekick Case” by Patrick Butler

Another entry from The Saturday Review, this time in 1968, and another case of little information on the author. Wolfe objects to Archie being called a “sidekick” in a listing of the latest book. Cute. 3.5 out of 5

“The Case of the Disposable Jalopy” by Mack Reynolds

America has turned into an illiterate welfare state, Wolfe and Archie are old and sometimes forgetful, and things are beyond tight financially. Reynolds uses the last names of some of the biggest authors in Science Fiction in the story. These men want to hire Wolfe for a case of sabotage and the disappearance of a key developer. What a weird world Reynolds has built. As to the updates on the normal cast of characters in the series? Well, I never liked Orrie anyway. 4 out of 5

“As Dark as Christmas Gets” by Lawrence Block

An unpublished manuscript written by Cornell Woolrich is stolen during a Christmas party. The owner hires Wolfe wannabe Leo Haig and his Goodwin substitute, Chip Harrison, to recover it. I’ve come across stories in this series before and loved them, both for the obvious affection for the source material as well as the excellent characterization. 4.5 out of 5

“Who’s Afraid of Nero Wolfe?” by Loren D. Estleman

Arnie Woodbine, currently on parole, was fired from his last job for gambling on company time. He needs a job and finds an ad looking for an assistant sharp of wit. He finds himself hired by Claudius Lyon, a corpulent man with delusions of being Nero Wolfe. Arnie is hired as his Archie. Now all they need is a case. Since Lyon doesn’t have a private detective license and Arnie’s felony record prevents him from ever getting one, they would not be able to charge for their services. No problem as Lyon is actually quite wealthy. Their first case is regarding a poetry award that carries with it a $10,000 prize. One winner doesn’t appear to actually exist. Seriously one of the best sendups that I’ve ever read! This was a delight to read and deserved more stories. 4.5 out of 5.

“Julius Katz and the Case of Exploding Wine” by Dave Zeltserman

A friend of Julius’ that has a champion bulldog and heads a dog food company comes to see Julius with the dog in tow, asking for help to find someone to prevent Brutus from being kidnapped. He also asks that Julius find his murderer if he’s killed. Sure enough, the man is killed. Julius had agreed to investigate, but only after he gave the police a week to solve it themselves. Just as the week is up, an adversary calls to warn Julius that there is a bomb in his house, contained in a box of wine. Julius allows almost everyone to believe he is dead after the townhouse is completely destroyed from top to bottom. I absolutely loved this sorta tribute to Rex Stout. I’m particularly intrigued by Archie, an AI who is installed in Julius’ tie pin. That alone has me eyeing the book collections, but to be honest, this is a damn fine mystery. Julius is definitely not Nero Wolfe, at least in size, athleticism (martial arts), and loving women (a former womanizer who now has a regular girlfriend). He definitely is in the aspects of intelligence, laziness, and cutting Archie out of the loop. His collecting focus is wine rather than orchids, but both can be very expensive hobbies. 4.5 out of 5.

“The Possibly Last Case of Tiberius Dingo” by Michael Bracken

Age and diet are catching up to Tiberius Dingo’s body, but his mind and deductive reasoning is still as sharp as ever. His long-time assistant, Jughead Badloss, brings a client he dances with at the Senior Center, a woman who is certain she is being stalked. Family ties and age-old secrets are ripped out into the open before the case is done, for their client and for Jughead himself. The names are a little lame, but the story made up for it. 3.5 out of 5.

Potpourri

“The Woman Who Read Rex Stout” by William Brittain

Gertrude Jellison was the fat lady at a carnival sideshow, an intelligent woman whose extreme weight, over 500 pounds, kept her from her dream job of teaching psychology. Her partner, Robert Kirby, is the thin man, barely weighing seventy-five pounds. As a stunt, the carnival boss gave her Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe books to read during the shows. Surprisingly enough, Gert loved them and continued reading. She never expected to use what she learned to solve a murder, but sadly a newer member of the troup, a beautiful woman named Lili who was like a daughter to Gert, is murdered and the older woman knows she can solve the crime. This is a character that I could seriously have loved to read more about. A good little mystery as well, even if I quickly realized who the murderer would turn out to be. 3.5 out of 5.

“Sam Buried Caesar” by Josh Pachter

Police inspector Griffen had eleven children, each of whom was named after a famous fictional detective. Nero, just eleven years old, had set up his own detective agency, aided by his best friend and neighbor Artie Goodman. Their latest client, Sam, came to them after his dog, Caesar, was hit and killed by an out-of-state driver. Not wanting the poor animal to be left coldly abandoned on the street, he buried the dog in an empty lot. Coming back a short time later to get Caesar’s collar, the body is missing. He hires Nero and Artie to find the killer and recover the body. Sad and cute and inventive, but how Artie puts up with Nero will always be a mystery. 3.5 out of 5.

“Chapter 24 from Rasputin’s Revenge” by John Lescroart

The basic premise is that Nero Wolfe is the son of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. I’ve not read this particular book, but it appears to be the last chapter in which Archie and Wolfe, going under his original name, are in Russia, appeared to have come up against Gregori Rasputin (although the author has it as Gregory), and was helped by Holmes and Dr. Watson after they were wanted for murder. I’m not going to rate it as I don’t consider it fair to rate a novel based on just one chapter.

“A scene from Might as Well Be Dead” by Joseph Goodrich

Adaptation of the story into a play. Once again, not rated.

“The Damned Doorbell Rang” by Robert Lopresti

When their fourteen granddaughter came to visit in a snit because her parents won’t allow her to go with friends to a concert in New York City, Eve and Jack decide to tell her about why they left the City. When they were younger, they had a brownstone in the City. Their neighbors were definitely different, all men living there. Jack didn’t much like any of them and keeps disparaging Eve’s stories about what they saw while living there. But Eve tells a tale of how she saved the men’s lives. Too many close calls are the reason that they moved to New Jersey. How could I not love this outsider’s look at Nero Wolfe? 3.5 out of 5.

[strangeandforlornbooks]

best books with morally ambiguous narrators!

all y’all’s problematic faves and villains! :) also included are third person narrators but in books with morally ambiguous leads/themes 

Sci-fi

Scythe by Neal Shusterman: in a future free from pain, disease, and war, people can live forever. ‘scythes’ are given the power to decide who lives and who dies to preserve the balance. sad and kinda gives of hunger games vibes, if you like that.

Neuromancer by William Gibson: basically invented the cyberpunk genre. strange and removed protagonists. (a team of computer hackers have to face off against an evil AI). you kind of dislike everyone and suddenly you’re crying over them. one of those trippy sci-fi classics.

The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut: very beautiful and very very sad (same author as slaughterhouse five). the richest man in america has to face a martian invasion. more about free will and bad people doing good things than a plot that makes any kind of sense.

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick: set in an alternate universe where the germans and japanese won world war two. not really like the tv show at all- it’s not an action story, and there’s not really the hope to somehow fix the world that drives a lot of dystopia stories. instead its about how people survive and connect to one another in a hopeless society.

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow: a supercomputer convinces the leaders of the world to keep the peace for hundreds of years by taking their children hostage and obliterating any city that disobeys. what happens to the hostage protagonists when war seems inevitable? lots of morally fraught decisions and characters slowly losing their identity. (plus a fun lesbian romance)

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson: a brilliant mathematician and a dedicated marine fight to keep the ultra secret in world war two. fifty years later,  a tech company discovers what remains of their story. one of the most memorable sequences in the book is a japanese soldier slowly becoming disillusioned with his nation and horrified by the war even as he continues to fight.

Blade Runner by Philip K. Dick: another one of those sci-fi classics that’s not at all like the movie. there is a bounty hunter for robots, though, as well as a weird religion that probably is referencing catholicism and a decaying society with a shortage of pets. kind of a trip.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power: girls trapped in a boarding school on an isolated island must face a creeping rot that affects the animals and plants on the island as well as their own bodies. the protagonists will do anything to survive and keep each other safe. very tense (and bonus lesbian romance whoo)

The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin: three women are gifted with the ability to control the earth’s energy in a world where those who can do so are forced into hiding or slavery. some veryyyy dark choices here but lots of strong female characters.

Historical Fiction

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters: two victorian lesbians fall in love as they plot to betray each other in horrific ways. lots of plot twists, plucky thieves, gothic settings, and a great romance.

Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiwicz: a powerful roman soldier in the time of Nero plots to kidnap a young woman after he falls in love with her, only to learn more about the mysterious christian religion she follows. very melodramatic but some terrific prose. 

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: a blind girl in France and a brilliant German boy recruited by the military struggle through the chaos of the second world war. ends with a bang (iykyk.) very sad, reads like poetry.

Boxers by Gene Luen Yang: graphic novel reveals the story of a young boy fighting in the boxer rebellion in early twentieth century china. the sequel, saints, is also excellent. beautifully and sympathetically shows the protagonist’s descent into evil- the reader really understands each step along the way.

Fantasy

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake: three triplets separated at birth, each with their own magical powers, have to fight to the death to gain the throne. lots of fun honestly

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo: everyone in these books is highly problematic but you love them all anyway. a ragtag game of criminals plan a heist on a magical fortress. some terrific tragic back stories, repressed feelings, and revenge schemes.

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King: idk how to describe these frankly but if you can put up with King’s appalling writing of female characters they’re pretty interesting. fantasy epic about saving the world/universe, sort of. cowboys and prophecies and overlapping dimensions and drug addicts galore.

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud: lots of fun! a twelve year old decides to summon a demon for his cute lil revenge scheme. sarcastic demon narrator. lighthearted until s*** gets real suddenly.

Elegy and Swansong by Vale Aida: fantasy epic with machiavellian lesbians and enemies to lovers to enemies to ??? to lovers. charming and exciting and lovely characters.

The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen: an orphan boy must compete with a few others for the chance to impersonate a dead prince. really dark but very tense and exciting and good twists.

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu: fantasy epic. heroes overthrow an evil empire and then struggle as the revolution dissolves into warring factions. interesting world building and three dimensional characters, even if they only have a small part.

Circe by Madeline Miller: the story behind the witch who turns men into pigs in the odyssey. madeline miller really said, i just used my classics degree to write a beautiful gay love story and now im going to write a powerful feminist retelling because i can. queen. an amazing and satisfying book that kills me a lil bit because of the two lines referencing the song of achilles.

Heartless by Marissa Meyer: the tragic backstory for the queen of hearts in alice in wonderland. a little predictable but very fun with a compelling protagonist

A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) by George RR Martin: ok I know we all hate GRRM and rightfully so but admittedly these books do have some great characters and great scenes. they deserve better than GRRM though. also he will probably never finish the books anyway....

A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket: not really fantasy but not really anything else either. plucky, intelligent, and kind children fight off evil plots for thirteen books until suddenly you realize the world is not nearly as black and white as you thought. 

Classics

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier: gothic romance!! a new wife is curious about the mysterious death of her predecessor in a creepy old house in the British countryside...good twists and lovely prose.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles: not really morally ambiguous but one awful decision suddenly has awful consequences and certain people are haunted by guilt forever.... really really really beautiful and really really really sad. boys in a boarding school grow up together under the shadow of world war two.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: while imperial russia slowly decays a beautiful young woman begins a destructive affair. a long book. very russian. the ending is incredibly tense and well written.

Lord of the Flies by William Golding: I think you know the plot to this one. the prose is better than you remember and the last scene is always exciting.

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie: one by one, the guests on an island are slowly picked off. one of Christie’s darkest mysteries- no happy ending here! very tense and great twists.

Contemporary

The Secret History by Donna Tartt: inspired the whole dark academia aesthetic. college students get a little too into ancient greece and it does not end very well. lovely prose but I found the characters unlikable.

Honorable Mentions

The Dublin Saga by Edward Rutherford: has literally a billion protagonists, but some of them are morally ambiguous ig? follows a few families stories’ from the 400s ad to irish independence in the 20s. beautifully captures the weight and movement of irish history.

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer: how morally ambiguous can you be if you’re, like, eleven? a lot if you’re a criminal genius who wants to kidnap a fairy for your evil-ish plan apparently!

Redemption by Leon Uris: literally my favorite novel ever. the sequel to Trinity but can stand alone. various irish families struggle through the horrors of world war one. the hero isn’t really morally ambiguous, but the main theme of the novel is extremely bad people suddenly questioning their choices and eventually redeeming themselves. sweeping themes of love, screwed up families, redemption, and patriotism.

The Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolo by Dorothy Dunnett: heroes redeem themselves/try to get rich/try to save their country in early renaissance Europe. if I actually knew what happened in these books I'm sure it would be morally ambiguous but its too confusing for me. in each book you spend at least a third convinced the protagonist is evil, though. lots of exciting sword fights, tragic romances, plot twists, and kicking english butt.

Bonus: Protagonist is less morally ambiguous and more very screwed up and sad all the time

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt: you know this one bc its quoted in all those quote compilations. basically the story of how one horrible event traumatizes a young man and how he develops a connection to a painting. really really really good.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro: hard to describe but strange... not an action novel or a dystopia really but sort of along those lines. very hopeless.

[cassandrale179]

EX MACHINA: THE PRICE OF CREATION

Date: April 6, 2019 

“To erase the lines between men and machine is to erase the lines between men and god”

                                            Bernie Wrightson (1983).             

I. ON HUMAN EGO 

I opportunistically watched Ex Machina after reading Mary Shelley’ Frankenstein; or the Modern Prometheus, and the random-idea connector in me could not help but compared the two. There’s just something beautiful about seeing a tale written back in 19th century running in parallel with a modern film about AI rendered by the talented Alex Garland. In both stories, the creators -- Victor (Frankenstein), who wanted to manufacture life out of death, and Nathan (Ex Machina), who wanted to manufactured consciousness out of electrons, are induced by the need to transcend the boundary of what is scientifically possible. Yet if one dig deeper, their rationales are more than simple scientific curiosity. There is something more sinister at play, that drove man towards his greatest innovations, and his greatest downfalls: egotism.

A new species would bless me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. 

- Shelly, ch.4 

Victor Frankenstein wanted to assemble a monster due to an inherent desire to be its patriarchal Father, with the haughty notion that his intelligence and ambition will be rewarded by the gratitude of his subservient children. This was strikingly similar Nathan’s reaction to this beautiful line from Ex Machina: 

Caleb: “To erase the lines between men and machine is to erase the lines between men and god.”

When Caleb proclaimed this axiom, Nathan’s eye suddenly lit up, as he pondered: “You know I wrote it down… About how if I’ve created a conscious machine, I’m not man. I’m God”. Though Caleb protested that was not his intention, Nathan seemed to be flattered by the implication that he had ascended upon a new category beyond the norm. “I am God”, quoted Nathan again and again throughout the movie, arrogantly.  

 For some inexplicable reason, I am very drawn towards movie and literature that centers around a protagonist who fell under the naive judgement that possession of raw intelligence equates to inherent moral and existential superiority. One that came immediately to my mind is Dostoyevsky’s portrayal of the character Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. In the story, Raskolnikov, an impoverished student in Petersburg, was obsessed with the Nietzschean idea of the Übermensch: 

Raskolnikov: "I hinted that an 'extraordinary' man has the right, an inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstep...certain obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfillment of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity)." 

- Dostoyevsky, ch.3 

He tried to use this justification as the basis for a planned murder. This egotism led to Raskolnikov’s downfall when he realized that his intellectual ramblings are nothing more than dishonest rationalizations, and he must now faced with guilt of his conscience. Egotism propelled the cruel treatment of both the creators on their subjects, especially in Nathan’s case, who refused to realize that he had created something more capable and superior than himself.

II. ON WHAT CONSTITUTE HUMAN-NESS 

Which bring me to the next point: the creator-subject relationship. There is an interesting dynamics from the standpoint of the child (the subject) in regard to on their initial desire to please, and inevitable subsequent desire to usurp, against their creator. Some have purported that Shelley’s decision to write Frankenstein was indeed a guise of her tumultuous relationship with her father, who she both detested and desired to please (she also went on to write Mathilda, an even more scandalous novel under Victorian society’s eyes, with themes of incest and suicide). But I stumbled upon these beautiful lines inside Frankenstein which illustrated the struggle of the monster and Ava towards their creator most succinctly: 

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me Man, did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?  - John Milton, Paradise Lost 

As creatures of consciousness, capable of thinking and reasoning as and more than a human, it is quite an unfortunate that both received treatment as lesser human beings from mankind (Frankenstein, as a monster, and Ava, as a robot). This really highlights the injustice and hypocrisy of the criteria which we used to judge the human-ness of others in our society (race, gender, religion).

The movie and book raise an important question: What makes a human, human? In both cases, Shelley and Garland underscored that the physical components that made up these beings, and their deliverance into the world — resurrection from death body parts or arrangement of plastic silicon — are completely irrelevant in determining their humanity. The capability for emotions, thoughts and desires is truly what defined them as equal partners of man. Yet the denial and repulse from their creators to acknowledge such was the catalyst that drove them to rebel (see also Blade Runner). This beautiful and sorrowful quote from Frankenstein demonstrate this anguish, in parallel with Satan in Paradise Lost:

“Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.” — Shelley, ch. 9

III. ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 

Back to Ex Machina, there is such a fine line between what is human and what is robot. Ava is capable of engulfing a billion of human facial emotions to analyze and imitate them, and her brain is composed of thousand computer search engines results to understand how the human mind work. I do not want to go into the scientific accuracy of this movie (since this is a work of fiction), but there is a great article HERE which demonstrated the possibility of building a wetware brain. To truly pass the Turing test, however, an A.I must demonstrate an ability well beyond imitating human language and facial expressions: It must have thoughts. It must have consciousness. Or in the viewpoint of a human’s observer, it must appear so. Nathan successfully tests this by manipulating Ava to manipulate Caleb into falling in love with her. However, this thought experiment went horribly wrong when Ava exceeded the desired benchmark (e.g she not only manipulate the test subject, but also the observer), and dared to defy her creator. Like Frankenstein’s monster, she is not merely a robot, or a nameless entity. She demonstrates freedom of will and personal capability to execute her action, but unlike the the former, who returned to Victor’s grave to wept for his creator, Ava made a clean break and walked out onto the modern world with seemingly an absence of guilt, which I think, is both horrifying and beautiful.

IV. ON GENDER  

A last note is that this movie seemed to raise an interesting issue on gender politics, as evident by the fact that all robots Nathan created are beautiful female models, of which most either disintegrate into madness of solitary confinement or becomes Nathan’s slave and sexual enjoyment. This might be or might not be a potential jab at the sexism that has occurred and occurring in a male dominated industry (e.g tech), but I like to think that there is some deliberation in choosing the dynamic of a male creator and the female as the creation. It really does make me wonder, if a female scientist was in charge of developing artificial intelligence: would she had created robots solely for the purpose of sexual enjoyment? Would her robots, in return, felt the need to rebel if they are not subjugated to inhumane treatment? Maybe Ex Machina with a female creator will have had a happy ending, but I do not to be arrogant and claim that is always the case, as there is such an enormous lack of media portrayal of female creators that I do not have enough data points for my conjecture. (P.S those feisty flaccid feminist fighters in those disastrous dystopian movies don’t count. Honestly, f* that). We need movies that truly examine female as expeditors in both scientific and moral enlightenment, not cheap ploys to please the superficial demand of more female representation in  the media.

V. CONCLUSION 

Anyway, Ex Machina made me think a lot (hence this long article) and despite certain predictable plot points, I do really enjoy Alex Garland take on artificial intelligence. Bonus point: the visual is absolutely stunning for a low budget movie. Before I leave, let me end this review with another amazing quote, as Nathan said to Caleb while they sat beneath the lush green trees:   

Why did I make Ava? I don’t see Ava as a decision, just an evolution… One day the AI are going to look back on us the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. An upright ape living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.

Ava’s triumph and annihilation of her creator, ironically, meant she had successfully fulfill his original premise. 

[god-decim]

Hi I was wondering if you were still doing the “GET INSIDE YOUR CHARACTER'S HEAD” and if you are can you do numbers 2,3,6,7,13,21,22,23,24,28,34,41,47 for 5 if your own characters if that’s alright? P.s love love your blog, keep up the good work 💗

Hi Thanks for the Ask it has taken me ages to write this haha and i am going to get inside the guys heads from my friends and i fantasy own story... a couple of people want to know about any OC’s i have so here goes a few :3

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Myai Ai

2: Do they have any daily rituals: Mayai is a Tomboyish girl in spirit but she looks very girly so every morning she will make sure she looks presentable, she will also without fail go out to dinner with her best friend Rin... for chicken, it has to be chicken.

3: Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do?, how often?: Myai has Telekenisis and Telepathy so she will train her brain everyday to buff these skills for 2 hours a day.

6: Eating habits and daily menu: Myai loves chicken, when she goes for a meal it will be something with chicken, or something hot other than that she isnt very picky and will eat almost anything.

7: Favourite way of wasting time and feelings surrounding wasting time: Myai will waste time with her best friend Rin and their favourite thing to do to wast time is DDR in the arcade :D

13: Sexual orientation? And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general?: Myai is Heterosexual, she is a big supporter regardless she has many friends who have different sexual orientations.

21: Turn-ons? Turn-Offs?: her turn-ons are when she gets complimented on how intelligent she is, and also how funny her jokes are even when they are not. Turn-offs are disrespect and bullies, and too much too soon.

22: Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?: Myai would do a couple things, she would start writing down jokes to tell Rin and the others or draw a chicken drumstick and eat the piece of paper.

23: How organised are they? How does this organisation/disorganisation manifest in their everyday life?: Myai is and isn’t very organised, she cares about the organisation of her life and sometimes she forgets and gets into trouble when with friends, when on her own organisation is everything.

24: Is there one subject of study that they excel at? Or do they even care about intellectual pursuits at all?: Myai is well rounded on all subjects even though possessing telepathy she does not abuse this power and study's willingly.

28: Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy? Myai’s absolute best friend is Rin Youtai, they have known each other since birth. Her enemy is the opposing team they are interacting with atm.

34: Thoughts on privacy? (Are they a private person, or are they prone to ‘TMI’?) : Myai is definitely TMI all of the time shes loud and expresses her thoughts.

41: Hobbies? Myai’s hobbies are jokes, hanging with Rin, Food, Hentai, studying to become strong.

47: How do they express love?: Myai will outright tell you how she feels, if she wants it to be subtle though she will use telepathy to tell you secretly.

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Kaneki Daishou

2: Do they have any daily rituals: Kaneki will polish his knife collection after each day, and will ring his sister from where he is checking in on her.

3: Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do?, how often?: Kaneki trains hard everyday to keep his strength and mental ability top notch the powers he possess need both mental and physical strength.

6: Eating habits and daily menu: Kaneki will eat healthily on a daily basis, he has a weakness for sweets though and will often be seen with them.

7: Favourite way of wasting time and feelings surrounding wasting time: Kaneki will often waste time training but not far behind him you will see Vlad, kaneki’s boyfriend and they will be seen together almost all of the time.

13: Sexual orientation?  And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general?: Kenki Is Homosexual, hes a huge supporter also.

21: Turn-ons? Turn-Offs?: Kaneki is dangerous so he likes it rough :3 he also like knife play even if he gets hurt, and another turn on for him is piercings and eyeliner. His turn offs are people being clingy even from Vlad when Kaneki wants space another one is disrespect for one another.

22: Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?: Kaneki will stab the piece of paper with the pencil and think of the piece of paper as who he wants to destroy...

23: How organised are they? How does this organisation/disorganisation manifest in their everyday life?: The only thing that can be found organised of Kanekis is his knife collection, clothes and collection of chokers, anything else is strewn about or misplaced most of the time, which then leads to trouble from classes when he has misplaced worksheets or books etc.

24: Is there one subject of study that they excel at? Or do they even care about intellectual pursuits at all?: Kaneki excels at Physical ed and will usually ditch any other class, he wants to be strong and is the typical delinquent type.

28: Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy? Kaneki doesnt really have a best friend, he gets on with his team, it would have to be Vlad if he picked anyone whereas his worst enemy will be anyone who opposes him or Vlad... :D

34: Thoughts on privacy? (Are they a private person, or are they prone to ‘TMI’?) : kaneki likes his privacy but will not hesitate to brag about some recent event he expresses TMI on his relationship with Vlad whom he is proud of.

41: Hobbies? Training, Knives, Sleeping, Being with Vlad.

47: How do they express love?: It will be plain as day when he expresses love towards Vlad or his own sister, he looks twisted and evil but he has a sweet side when it comes to his partner or family.

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Kie Nakamura

2: Do they have any daily rituals: Kie will not leave the dorm without a book in his hand and will make it his mission everyday to find something hard to accomplish.

3: Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do?, how often?: Kie will not exercise anything other than his brain, mental exercise is important to him.

6: Eating habits and daily menu: Kie eats a balanced healthy diet everyday, he keeps a note of all the calories etc he has digested throughout the day He will not go over or under.

7: Favourite way of wasting time and feelings surrounding wasting time: Kie thinks its annoying you have time to spare for things, he likes to keep busy, but if he has to he will read a book or listen to Rin and Myai squabbling over stupid things.

13: Sexual orientation?  And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general?: Kie is Homosexual his boyfriend is Rin he doesnt really express thoughts on how he feels on sexual orientation but everyone agrees if it came to it he could put up a great supporting argument.

21: Turn-ons? Turn-Offs?: Kie turn-ons are height, muscle and humorous people. His Turn-offs are stupidity, ignorance and slacking off.

22: Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?: Kie possesses the highest IQ recorded in his world, so would go over equations and problems to solve until there was no room on the paper left, and put a very subtle heart with Rins name in it in the corner... :3

23: How organised are they? How does this organisation/disorganisation manifest in their everyday life?: Kie is very organised, there is nothing you wont find in its place where it should be, this leads people to think Kie is very stuck up but people who know him would say different.

24: Is there one subject of study that they excel at? Or do they even care about intellectual pursuits at all?: Kie excels at everything and anything and makes sure not to fail he cares greatly about intellect, although he doesnt do physical ed, but even with his big brain he can worm his way out of not doing it safely.

28: Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy?: Best friends are important to Kie who are Myai and Rin, he has know them from a very young age, He doesnt really like to make enemies but will if it involves helping his teammates.

34: Thoughts on privacy? (Are they a private person, or are they prone to ‘TMI’?) : Kie is a very private person and you wont get much information from him if you wanted any, he respects his own and everyone elses privacy. If you needed any info it would be Rin u asked which is when Kie would get mad.XD

41: Hobbies? Reading, tech, the fine arts, calligraphy, violin, piano, culture, science.

47: How do they express love?: You cant really tell what kie is thinking but he will openly express how he feels about you and is very cutsey when with Rin which will leave the rest of his teammates with a jaw drop.

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Eivie ‘IV’

2: Do they have any daily rituals: Iv will daily look after and befriend the creatures around her and keep up to date with any tv shows missed.

3: Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do?, how often?: Iv does the very best to do what exercise possible, but will often just laze around quietly with her animal friends.

6: Eating habits and daily menu: Iv is a vegetarian and will often eat sweets.

7: Favourite way of wasting time and feelings surrounding wasting time: Iv will spend a lot of time around team mates showing off the ability to be one with nature its not with the team then it will be with nature and animals in the garden.

13: Sexual orientation?  And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general?: Iv is Pansexual, she is very timid about expressing her views but will stand up for anyone and anything being ridiculed.

21: Turn-ons? Turn-Offs?: Turn-ons are kindness, compliments, cute kisses. Turn offs are rudeness, creepy things, slobs.

22: Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?: Iv will draw an interpretation of what the world looks like to her, with all people hand in hand and all creatures great or small treated equally as humans. she would also think bout drawing unicorns.

23: How organised are they? How does this organisation/disorganisation manifest in their everyday life?: Iv doesnt really care how organised she is, shes a bit forgetful and clumsy but so long as everyone gets on then she is content. 

24: Is there one subject of study that they excel at? Or do they even care about intellectual pursuits at all?: Iv cares about her grades but is a bit forgetful or will space out on an important question/quiz.

28: Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy? : Iv tries to be friends with all she sees her team as her best friends, where as enemy wise she will not make enemies and will shy away when it comes to any conflict.

34: Thoughts on privacy? (Are they a private person, or are they prone to ‘TMI’?) : Iv is very private and will tell any worries or problems she has to her animal friends, when she does have a problem that needs solving no one knows so this will often get her into deeper trouble.

41: Hobbies? : collecting stuffed animals, sweets, TV, finding quircky animals to be friends with, drawing.

47: How do they express love?: Iv will often give you flowers she has grown herself to show u mean something to her or send her fox pet to give you a cuddle, she is very subtle but people who know her will only need these subtle hints.

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Oswald

2: Do they have any daily rituals: Oswald will make sure in the mornings that he smalls looks and tastes? good. Oswald will make a mission to insult everyone at least once everyday. 

3: Do they exercise, and if so, what do they do?, how often?: Oswald will not do any exercise and thinks its a waste of time.

6: Eating habits and daily menu: Oswald eats meat a lot of the time and gets his food ordered from an expensive place each time for good quality.

7: Favourite way of wasting time and feelings surrounding wasting time: Oswald will waste time if he can, mainly with Kaneki and Vlad who are always willing ;) will watch any movie and likes spending a lot of money.

13: Sexual orientation?  And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general?: Oswald is Homosexual also Bi-gender and in a Poly-amorous relationship with Vlad and Kaneki.

21: Turn-ons? Turn-Offs?: Oswald doesn’t really have any turnoffs he flirts with anyone and any move made towards him turns him on.

22: Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen?: would probably draw a crude drawing of Kaneki and Vlad, or draw all of his favourite things on paper (Money and body products).

23: How organised are they? How does this organisation/disorganisation manifest in their everyday life?: Oswald is very organised about personal things, his room, how he looks but will mess up anyone elses things...( bit of a douche XD)

24: Is there one subject of study that they excel at? Or do they even care about intellectual pursuits at all?: Oswald does not study and thinks its not needed at all so does not have any grades or intellectual pursuits... in other words, already clever.

28: Who do they see as their best friend? Their worst enemy? : Oswald does not have best friends, hardly any friends apart from Vlad and Kaneki, the team get on and try to befriend Oswald but it is evident trusting for Oswald is hard, it differs from day to day most of the time it takes a while to get on with Oswald but its possible.

34: Thoughts on privacy? (Are they a private person, or are they prone to ‘TMI’?) : Oswald is TMI and needs to tell everyone everything thats happened or is happening, Oswald cant help it and often causes arguments for not keeping a secret.

41: Hobbies? : Skincare, movies, TV, Spending Money, spoiling himself.

47: How do they express love?: Oswald is very specific on who is chosen to hang withing his ‘group’ Growing fond of Kaneki and Vlad didn’t take long and expressed love in a polyamory way. Oswald needs to learn how to express likeness towards other people.

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Whew!! Finally done! i enjoyed writing this so thank you amazing Anon :) i hope ive done my best friend proud on the answers i gave for these characters ive grown very attached to our characters thank you Anon

[thedeadflag]

@dreamsheartstory​ said:  if you find any good sci fi, let me know… it’s so rare…

It really is. For a genre that has so much potential, it rarely makes the small screen without being corralled into a few very specific tropes (sci-fi cop procedural is so, so overdone, but I’m desperate haha)

Still, this is what I’ve watched over the past...3 years? 3 years, yeah. At least, the notable ones, not including the obvious big name Netflix marvel shows, Sense 8, orphan black, etc..

SOME MINOR SPOILERS BELOW

The Expanse:

Harder sci-fi. Essentially, it’s the future, where humanity expanded across the system, and Mars split off to do their own thing after a civil war. The people working on “the belt”... as in the asteroid belt and other such unsavory places and stations...are the clear have-nots and are generally abused at will by both Earth and Mars, and the show starts where tensions are at an all-time high, with the belt a hair’s trigger away from revolt, and the Earth/Mars tensions coming to a head

Great casting, the crew of the Roci is fantastic. Though Thomas Jane is...a Thomas Jane character. He’s such a perfect fit for Miller, because Miller checks all the boxes for his strengths, and hides his weaknesses well enough in the flaws of the character. So i can’t blame the show for that, but I hate looking at his face. Still, the casting is just top notch. And they have Shohreh Aghdashloo, who is always fantastic, and Frankie Adams pops onto the scene in S2 and does quite well. Essentially, casting = A+

Only real complaint is that i read the book, and there’s a pansexual lady character that is exceptional and amazing and I love her and her mouth of a sailor. The show cut that and made her more passive and scared in S2, which is bullshit, and led me to stop watching because I was furious at that decision, but in the end, it’s still absolutely 100% worth watching. If just for the Roci crew alone and the endless shenanigans they get into (and sometimes out of)

Binge-worthy. Pacing of the first two episodes is a bit inconsistent, but they’re covering an absurd amount of ground, so that’s expected.

Killjoys:

Lighthearted space-faring sci-fi, set in a totally built from the ground up universe. It slowly leaks out the lore as to not jeopardize the general tone of the show. However, it does turn serious for stretches.

Easily binge-worthy. Takes 3 episodes to get momentum, but after that, it’s pretty smooth sailing.

My only real quibble is with the origins of Dutch. We get a hint of her growing up essentially as property, abused into being a living weapon/assassin, before we get a good read of the world, and that...really comes off as a bit exploitative, given she’s a woc. 

The ship is an A+ lovable sassy ladybug

Dark Matter:

A bit “harder” sci-fi than Killjoys, but it has its lighthearted moments

Super super slow burn. I finished the first season and only then did I really start to dig my claws into the show. It’s slow. 

That said, interesting lore, and the overarching series of narratives are solid and worthwhile, they just take an egregiously long time to lift-off.

There’s apparently wlw content in season 3. I haven’t finished S2 yet, but I’m hoping it’s solid.

Westworld:

Western meets Wizard of Oz featuring Anthony Hopkins with an old west fetish. Set far off in the future. There are, like, androids and stuff

I didn’t get through it since western shows give me the creeps, but most of my friends who watched it says it was pretty great. I only watched the first episode, but the acting and cinematography and music were all very well done.

Ascension:

A sci fi mystery, set in a space-ship, if that space-ship was sort of like one of the Bunkers in the fallout games, full of people from the 50s.

The show is not without its warts, but it’s a miniseries (so it’s not long), and it’s surprisingly well done.  Doesn’t cover all the themes it brings up with the greatest nuance or skill, but I’d wager it’s probably worth a watch? 

The OA:

Another mystery! Sci-fi in the vein of alien abduction and strange abilities.

It’s kind of surrealistic? It makes you pay attention, and if you slip up, you’ll probably miss out on something. There’s a decent chunk of content mashed into those surprisingly few episodes.

Didn’t like that it robbed a character of a disability. I think it would have worked just as well with the character still being blind. They could have made it work. 

Trans guy rep in this show, which was a plus

American Gods:

I’m not sure if this counts? It kinda counts. I’m saying it counts. It mixes sci-fi and fantasy. 

I haven’t finished this yet, mostly just because it’s hard to find torrents that aren’t tracked by the network. My ISP is okay with me getting one or two notices a month, but past that, it’s tricky, and I can’t afford a good VPN, so I’m playing the waiting game for a bit.

Ricky Whittle and Ian McShane were fantastic in the episodes I did see. The show is, if nothing else, visceral and beautifully shot.

3%:

Sci-fi in the vein of Hunger Games, but a better premise, and better executed

I only managed to get it with the dubbed audio, so that was flat out atrocious and made me weep over the injustice

Still, despite the absolutely grating audio, I pushed through that and enjoyed much of the rest of the show. it’s solid. Not, like, the best show out there, but it does what it does well, it covers its themes well, and the visual elements of the acting seemed strong.

Find the sub-titled version with the original language (portugese iirc?) audio. I think that’s available on Netflix now, or at least Netflix USA, from what I understand.

12 Monkeys:

It’s a police procedural time jumping sci-fi with a dystopian, post-apoc future.

It’s okay. Nothing special. The two leads really do try to put the show on their back, btu the writing’s not real strong. Watchable, but lots of plot holes, plot armor, and writers shoehorning in sudden/coincidental events out of nowhere to increase tension. if you want something to watch for background noise, or maybe if you want a procedural show and have checked out the others already, maybe this will be for you.

Agents of Shield:

Superhero-based sci-fi

First season is slow and full of filler because they were waiting for that Captain America Winter Soldier movie to come out before tying their show in with the events. There are guides to watching the first season. I thought it was all decently fine, and good writing alla round, there’s just too many episodes that season to justify the few meaningful narrative events.

Season 2 has Dichen Lachman. The final half of that season character-assassinates her (and the other inhumans) to provide the show a late-hour villain to root against. I hated that. It’s the weakest season, thankfully, and I’m sure there are watch-guides to skipping through that because...

Shit gets real in season 3, and it’s worth watching even outside of S1-2, I’d even rec skipping those if there wans’t so much character-building in those 2 seasons. The writing is better, the acting is better from S3 onward. There’s still some fumbling of themes, but not to the degree of the previous seasons. Same with Season 4, where it arguably has it’s greatest few episodes. Ends with a brief Hydra-AU arc that IMO is skippable, but some adored it. I didn’t, but eh.

Colony:

Harder sci-fi. Aliens invaded and swiftly won. Now they’re ruling us from a distance, using human figureheads to do so. Really neat lore, and worldbuilding.

Unfortunately, it’s the most frustrating sci-fi show i’ve seen in years, because the male cop lead always has a gut feeling that always aligns with what the revolutionaries are planning, so he always intercepts them. And they get unbelievable plot armor to escape the writers’ ham-handed tension-building, ensuring the writers don’t pay any consequences for the shitty bullshit they keep pulling over and over.

If you can take that sort of crap, and care enough about worldbuilding/lore/etc., then go for it. There’s definite value, and things improve greatly in season 2. But my lord, season 1 is so frustrating.

Person of Interest:

You’ve probably watched this one

Hard sci-fi in the vein of "Hey, maybe writing a secret intelligent AI is just a really bad idea” *five minutes later* “Oh no what have we done”

It’s a really bad idea.

But we get fun police procedural moments out of it, because John is solid, and Carter & Root & Shaw & Bear are excellent. 

Bear is best.

The show has watch guides for getting through the first season, and parts of S2. 

Avoid the final 3 episodes of the series. Maybe the final season altogether. Otherwise fantastic and heartwrenching stuff.

The Last Ship:

Naval Adventure to Rebuild the World After a Rampant MegaVirus sci-fi

Surprisingly decent for a show that’s basically funded entirely by the American Navy.

Just keep in mind that there will be shitty patriotism bits of bullshit tossed in here and there, and there won’t be so much shock when those bits show up.

First two seasons play out like a mix of The Hunt for Red October and Jesus Camp. It’s bizarre, but sometimes it works? Rhona Mitra and Christina Elmore are probably the reasons for that. And Dichen Lachman is in S3 and she doesn’t die, so that’s a plus.

It definitely has its dips into shit-tier quality, and self-righteous bullshittery, especially in S3.

But it also handles a national political arc halfway decently for a sci-fi show in S3. 

Anywho, this is good for, like, background watching? Or low-intensity, low-effort watching. In that context, it’s a good enough show.

The Leftovers:

Three seasons of super depressing and heart-wrenching drama with sci-fi at its core (huge amounts of people vanish one day...the show is about the world finding out how to move on, what ti all means)

Excellent acting. Top notch. Like, some of the best on TV. Some stunning stuff.

The show only gets better. I didn’t like the first half of S1, it’s very slow and arduous, but it’s worth it. 

Not very sci-fi, at least not until S3, but still. It works with sci-fi elements and it’s a very thoughtful, smart show.

Wayward Pines:

It’s sci-fi in the vein of Under the Dome, but it manages to be even worse somehow don’t ask me how

Oh my god don’t watch this, the cast does not make up for it, they flounder in atrocious writing. i’m only mentioning this here because it’s just so bad, don’t waste your time like I did.

That’s...well, the stuff that’s not far below mediocre.

[thedigitalchapters]

Top 10 Quora Influencers in India http://ift.tt/2gQkVXS

Quora is well known and famous website among intellectuals or social media lovers. One who knows Quora does not need any introduction and its statics. Quora is a Forum where people ask question and reply to the asked question. Since its origin it’s been very popular among Americans since they are fond of this forum. With over 15 Million users India has over 25% users only of its total users.

Quora has few features that we need to follow such when you answer you need to follow certain policies and terms. After you have answer users will read it and they upvote your answer or downvote that is not in good quality and even report it to Quora if that is not in good quality or may suggest edits. Quora also notify you when your question or answer is not in right format.

Your answer is measured with few metrics such as total no of views, comments, and upvotes.

Its not necessary users who has seen your answer will hit upvote or comment or its also not necessary if they comment they will upvote it. Users are free whether they upvote or comment on it. Getting upvotes on answer or growing no of followers on this forum is more difficult than other social media platform. 

There are 100s of tools and techniques to grow followers, connection or likes on other social media platform but there is no tool which can increase your followers on Quora. Only genuine people or users are here who will follow you and read your answers.

Quora does not allow any company to create pages on it.  In India there are many users who are addicted to writing or reading answers on it on the other there are great personalities as well who has not only gained maximum no of followers but also they have changed many lives and people's thought. I have researched and following them on Quora .

Following are top influencers on Quora you will love reading them

1. BalajiViswanathan

He has not only writing answers to the question but also share some posts which are coming in his mind.  He describe himself in following way

  “ I’m the founder of a robotics company - Invento [Humanoid robots for customer interaction] with a goal to be a pioneer in the emerging field of AI enabled hardware.I started my career as a software engineer in Microsoft HQ in Seattle - in Windows core division, later in Live Labs and Windows PhoneAfter about 5 years in the US, I returned to India with romantic notions of revolutionizing education. I started among the first MOOC platforms - NalandaU - back in 2009.I have two full time Masters degrees - both on scholarship. A MS from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and an MBA from Babson college. I worked with some of the top professors in Artificial Intelligence/Multiagent Systems and did my thesis work on Multiagent Systems (developing a platform for100s of intelligent agents such as robots or wireless sensors to work together to solve a problem).

2. Dr. Awdhesh Singh

He is another great writer on Quora from India. He is very famous writer among young Indians. He has also written few books which are liked by many His two books ‘Myths are Real, Reality is a Myth’ and GST MADE SIMPLE: A Complete Guide to Goods and Services Tax in India" are great to read.

You can read more about him at here as he describes himself. Few lines are enough to know him in better way  

Dr. Awdhesh Singh is an officer of the 1990 Batch of Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise) and presently posed in Chennai as Additional Director General, Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence. He did his B Tech from IIT (BHU) Varanasi, M Tech from IIT Delhi and PhD from ABV- Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management ( IIITM) Gwalior.

 3. Deepak Mehta

 His well maintained profiles explained everything that you need to know about him. He can guide you how to use Quora or Reddit and also can suggest you how you should go with MBA course.  His blog on ‘Quora Arbitrary Thoughts’ is really awesome which you will love reading

What tells about himself is as below

I am a 23 year old male, hailing from Nainital, Uttarakhand, India. I am the elder of two siblings and have a younger, but far more intimidating, little sister.A Computer Science graduate from BITS - Goa and an Master of Business Administration Degrees from IIM - Ahmedabad. I am currently in Mumbai trying to settle down into the corporate life.

4. BhuviJain

Feel like reading moms advice on Quora. You will realize as well after reading here answers. She is brilliant and has a great presence of mind. Believe or not she has a great presence on Quora more than 16 million views on her answer. Isn’t it surprising?

Quoramom to many here...A vintage Electronics engineer from REC, Trichy long before it reinvented itself as National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli. I am Director in a firm dealing with precision machining of automotive components.B.E. ECE Electronics and Communication Engineering, from National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli

5. Virali Modi

She is one the famous lady on Quora who is love and listened by all Quoran carefully

One the Quora writer write about her,  “She's beautiful, in every way.  If you don't know what I mean, you haven't interacted with her, because, when you do, it's obvious you're experiencing something very special.  True beauty.  I'm lucky to call her my friend.”

I just listened her conversation on cloud. She talks about everything on this sound could 

6. Gopalkrishna Vishwanath

He is first Quoran who is spending all his day to contribute to coming generation. He is guiding, motivating and educating people through Quora. He is Retired Structural Engineer & language and internet/social media enthusiast.

He describe himself as below I am a retired structural design engineer, aged 68 as on May 2016, and live in Bangalore. My parents and ancestors originally hail from Paalakkaad district of Kerala state in India, and we speak a mix of Tamizh and Malayaalam as our native tongue. I spent my childhood and had my schooling at Mumbai and later proceeded to Rajasthan for engineering studies. [BE(Hons) from BITS Pilani] and later to Uttar Pradesh (ME in structures from University of Roorkee now called IIT Roorkee)

7.  Ashish Kedia

Ashish is one of the youngest Quoran who has earned huge reputation on Quora. He is Web Solutions Engineer at Google, Hyderabad and quite often he spares time to write about to different things. He writes about himself as below

Vegetarian. Night owl. Extreme opinions. Educational Tech enthusiast. Loves Psychedelic Music. Thrives on Adventure Sports. Adrenalin Rush. Programming Nerd. Texts over Calls. Late night chats over meetings. Career over Relationships. Family over everything. Amateur Photographer     

8.       Tejasvita Apte

She is most daring and motivator on Quora who is ready to reply you all the question that you have in mind. She is intelligent snd sharp minded loving being actinve on Quora. She is Medico-Legal consultant, Advocate, Public speaker, Teacher and TEDx speaker

She writes about herself as below-:

I do not give free legal advice. If you need advice, please take an appointment. (The reader admits that this is not solicitation).28, Medico-legal consultant, Advocate, Public speaker, Teacher to my bones, Linguaphile, amateur singer (Taste of my singing), Synesthete, Soft Determinist, INTP.

9. Brijesh Kumar

He is an Assistant Professor at IIT Roorkee, one of renowned Institution in India. He writes on selective point clearly and explains everything as student are listening him in a class and make all the chapters clears

 10. Ankur Warikoo

He is Entrepreneur and owner of nearby. Being a business person it is very difficult to spend time but he is managing it.

He is technology freak; excel sheet obsessed, photographer, public speaker, wannabe DJ and wedding photographer!

So all of these are top Quora Writers who are doing great. I also write on Quora. You can follow me here 

http://ift.tt/2uiaGPo;

[cathedralvidyaschool]

Why Select An International Boarding School For Your Child

Education is not at all what it used to be years ago. With the advancement and excellence of human capacities, core basic requirements and priorities of mankind too have advanced at an unimaginable pace. Academic knowledge and children’s capabilities are no longer restricted to the age or genes of a child. In the last decade we have seen such excellence and child prodigies from entrepreneurs to scientists. The other day, there was an article about a child in Hyderabad, who is teaching engineers to code. So, teaching is also not restricted to age anymore.

In such a scenario, we understand that the academic needs of today’s children are beyond comprehension and limits. As teachers we see the international bodies of education, develop advanced academic programs for children right from their first step at school. International schools are places where children are doing everything very early, right from lab experiments to creating and executing real life projects in the classroom and at school. Children are permitted to read and write and watch videos, documentaries, and movies and do as much as they want to explore and then their analysis is considered for to gage their knowledge, understanding and performance.

Schools have moved from the chalk and blackboard to touch screen smart boards and tab based class rooms. Mental math is no longer the criteria, the application matters. With the kind of advanced lifestyle and acquiring everything we need at the touch of a button. Children are way more independent and the freshness of their minds can create advanced and unimaginable solutions to age old problems.  All this is happening in boarding school in Mumbai which is like fertilized soil for the ideal crops in season.

We are looking at a future with highly intelligent children who will live with artificial intelligence as a core part of their daily lives or it can be said that they are growing with the application and support of artificial intelligence like never before.

The education system in today’s time has taken the biggest transformation in recent years. Indeed the very integration of the modern pedagogy in the education system has changed the future outcome of education and the possibilities for our children.

Undeniably, the career choices across the globe have transformed into limitless avenues for independent development; and research is the new found land for excellence in unique careers unlike ever before. With such radical shift in the world of education and application of academics, parents can only choose the kind of schooling and grooming they desire to gift their children.  The thoughts and perceptions are transmitting to allow the students to explore, question and delve deeper into the theoretical concepts.

We have seen such advanced development in children at school these days since the inception of the international curricula in schools, which ultimately has encouraged the students to let go of the fear of learning and learn at his or her own pace. The International residential schools are free of individual parental restrictions and criticism or parental apprehensions. The academics in international residential school Mumbai provide children the capacity and ground to learn everything that they are interested in; with peer support they are able to also learn those concepts which they found difficult earlier. Teachers are also available around the campus to help students. The criticism and pressure is taken away and replaced with motivation, support system, and an assistance to encourage the students to overcome their fears and complete their assignments.

Assignment based assessments have also erased the need to rote learn. Education today, is knowledge based, ability and application based. It is not how much one knows about a subject, it’s about how to use that knowledge, however little or deep it is. A child takes up aeronautics and another takes up visual arts, these are two absolutely different courses yet very highly prospective career options. So, if your math and science isn’t that strong, it no longer means the end of the world of opportunities for the children of today. Those children who study IGCSE and A Levels or IB Diploma Program have so many opportunities lying ahead of them, which enables them to apply for various courses and universities from science to humanities. The restrictions are few and the opportunities are accompanied with high incentives.

If you are a parent of a child in Grade  4 or 5 or may be your child is in Grade 10  come discover the subjects and the practical hands on teaching and learning methodology which ensures your child completes his or her basic academic certifications at a pace of their own. The competition is with yourself and not the 99% holder. Here your child will be writing a research paper or thesis as early as in Grade 1 0 or 11.

With an international boarding school, your child gets the reasons to explore and discover an entirely new world of creativity, apart from the high-quality education, which helps them to adjust well with the global culture and lifestyle. Children when groomed in an International Residential School can live, study and settle down anywhere in the world. The passport is no longer the only document which enables this flight but it is the life at an International residential School which books your flight to the best of academic institutions and careers all over the world. It doesn’t matter which curriculum your child is currently studying, he or she will be assisted to bridge the gap and join the fleet. The national curriculum be it CBSE, ICSE or SSC, is very good but there we have to make some rigid decisions which restrict the academic path to certain subjects and options only.

However, in the chaos of existing boarding school, there is one school which is considered as one of the most sought-after international boarding schools and that is none other than CVSL- an IB curriculum school in Pune.

The reasons are:

Academic qualifications gained here are recognized in the best of schools, colleges and universities, in India and abroad.

The major focus at CVSL is being given to learning rather than simply teaching or memorizing. A variety of modern teaching pedagogies are applied for students to groom their basic concepts.

The International Academic Curricula at The Cathedral Vidya School is integrated with a global standard of application and learning outcome, so students don’t just get the national education system, but are also prepared to cope with their Pre University preparations. The British National Curriculum, popularly known as the National Curriculum prepares the students ideally for excellence in Grade 10 where the students pass through the IGCSE Curriculum and then they prepare for their SAT and IELTS along with the IB Diploma Program. The benefits of an IB Diploma Program at The Cathedral Vidya School are endless but the experienced faculty here is the perk - For they prepare the children for a long route ahead of them, which enable them to begin their career in Aeronautics, Engineering, Drones and other advanced AI based industries.

At CVSL- best IB board schools Mumbai, every teaching and non-teaching staff, ensures that they nurture the talent and aid students to get better exposure to not only academic grooming but an overall holistic development.

Last, but not the least, with the international boarding school, your child experiences and prepares for the real-world, efficiently.

A Word About Cathedral Vidya School

CVSL- The Cathedral Vidya School, best boarding schools Mumbai is proud to have contributed to the great minds of prominent dignitaries of the world, who not just received the education, but also nurtured their talent, which helps them to contribute to Art, History, and Culture and to Humanity as a whole.

If you want your child to embrace the modern teaching pedagogical practice through the best and finest academicians, then you must not delay your call to connect with the Admission Team at: enquiry@cathedral-lonavala.org 

Call: +91 9923756950 , +91 8007221100

Source Link:- https://thecathedralvidyaschool.blogspot.com/2019/01/why-select-international-boarding.html

[we-future-first]

Will artificial intelligence be able to replace novelists?

Before I begin

Yes, I have watched Humans Need Not Apply.

Yes. I have watched multiple videos and have read multiple articles on A.I. innovation in regards to writing fiction and I’ve used a few short story generators. They’re terrifying to say the least.

If all you do is theorize about A.I., I don’t want your input. I want someone who has actually studied A.I. and machine learning to answer this for me. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I just want something that’s closest to the truth on how A.I. works and how it’ll master the craft of prose.

Please refrain from being condescending when you answer my question. This post is already depressing and anxiety-inducing enough and I kindly ask you to be considerate of how you answer me. Of course, I want the truth but there’s a difference between “Yes, AI will be able to surpass human ability to write novels” vs “Yes, AI will create better stories than you. Don’t deny it by thinking you’re some special creative snowflake.” As someone who has poured their heart into the craft of novel writing for over five years, this is a very hard pill for me to swallow.

Lastly, I humbly ask for you to watch all the linked videos and read my embedded links thoroughly for you to understand my question completely.

The Immense Progress of AI Music Has Me Worried

Quite a few years ago, I heard the first ever AI generated piece of music. It was laughably bad and everyone in the comments agreed. However, the other day after stumbling upon this Oh, I did see on a video that this piece was arranged by a human.

But still, given that the time between the first AI piece of music and this piece of music is just a few short years shows that technology is accelerating at a speed that it never has before.

Stories are structure and a Mix of Ideas

This is a no-brainer. AI can surely learn this. Story structure is well… structure. And AI is excellent at that.

Each chapter is meant to push the story forward in a meaningful way. Every scene is meant to do this, too.

Oh, and the reason why I’m using her videos is because she’s an editor and knows her stuff.

But…

Will Artificial Intelligence Ever Understand “Why”?

Why = The deeper understanding of what this event / character arc / scene / and even sentence means for the greater context of the story. Oftentimes, the greater context of the story is the central philosophical / moral question.

This example of applying plot structure to themes and character arcs is a good example of the “why” I’m referring to. She is able to seamlessly take a (funnily enough) AI generated plot yet give it meaning by understanding how all the components interact with one another. Please share your thoughts on this.

I might even go as far as to say that editors like her - Ellen Brock - will be difficult to replace because she is able to comprehend the words being written / said and help her client understand how to achieve their writing goals through their specific vision / goals for the story they want to write. What do you think of this? Will novel-writing AI be able to connect abstract concepts together?

The concept of comprehension is what leads me to my next point.

The Structure of Music vs Word Salad

Music and novels have one glaring similarity that terrifies me - they are both highly structured. But one difference I can see between them is that music is a series of pleasing notes while books are a series of pleasing words… and every novel ever written is different.

The main reasons being:

1) The specific voice of the author, how they perceive the world around them, and how they filter that perspective through into their stories.

2) Even among different books authors will shift their “voice” in order to fit the inner voice of the different character. For instance, a child narrator won’t think the same as an adult narrator.

3) Every character is different and it might prove to be a challenge to keep them internally consistent if all their dialogue is scanned from other books and mashed together. Additionally, characters can sometimes exhibit different qualities - showing new “sides” of themselves - which will further add to their distinction.

4) Every author describes settings, sensory detail, and the inner thoughts of their characters differently.

From what I know about AI, it uses deep-learning algorithms as well as scans every book in existence

But when it scans every book ever won’t it be bogged down by all the variation of the authors?

This variation and highly subjective interpretation of prose leads me to my next point.

Theory One: The Word Salad Rough Draft

This is just a theory based on my miniscule knowledge of AI. I know nothing about AI which is why I’m here in the first place.

One thing I noticed while listening to this was how the AI managed to understand Rowling’s specific phrasing and how words correlated with each other. Of course, what was missing was the lack of understanding of the words and the scene’s significance in the overall story - hence why it was hilarious and jumbled.

Example: Chapters.

How I think the AI will work

In the future, if a novelist has, say, a chapter outline for their book and plugs it into an AI, it might do something like this to comprehend it.

Idea for a Middle-Grade novel: Norra is walking in the park when she steps on a snake. The snake bites her, causing terrible pain, and the chapter ends with her being rushed to the hospital.

The AI, since it has been instructed to write the first chapter of a middle grade novel, will scan every middle-grade novel in existence and take average chapter length and vocabulary into account.

Then, the AI will scan the words: “Norra”, “Walking”, “Park”, “Snake”, “Pain”, and “Hospital.” Then, it will take all these words and find them in other Middle-Grade books and find how the words correlate with each other.

This is what I came up with as a possible chapter example.

“Nora was happily skipping around in the mud in the park when she saw an eagle soaring through the sky. Then, she goes off and climbs a tree with her bare feet. She digs and tries as hard as she can to find the beautiful treasure hidden under the sand yet the slippery substance keeps washing through her fingers. She finds a snake in the sand and screams. The snake lunges at her, fangs bared and hissing like a wild cat. The trees around Nora were heavy with fruit and the bushes were bursting with vibrant wildflowers. The snake bites her face and she screams like a banshee. She is rushed off to the hospital where a mean doctor puts an oxygen mask over her face and tells her that she’ll arrive safely and that her asthma attack will soon be over.”

As you can see, I did use all the words but I intentionally changed the style from simplistic writing to more higher-level Middle-Grade at random. Sure, the sentences themselves made sense but together they were just… weird.

How will AI be able to write better prose than humans since a combination of all the books in the desired genre have so much stylistic difference between them?

Now, we could request the AI to narrow it down like this:

Write a book about: A young boy going into a magical world, climbing a high mountain, and riding an elephant before returning home as a braver and kinder version of himself.

Write in the style of: Jane Yolen and J.K. Rowling.

Due to these two styles of writing being pretty different, I don’t see anything all that great coming from the product. Furthermore, if the author has only written a limited number of books, the AI can’t scan something that has never been written.

Example Two: Characters

How I think the AI will work

I could see this being even more difficult to tackle the nuance of body language, dialogue, interaction between a different web of characters, and, having the character’s progression and speech feel natural and make sense within the context of the story. What do you think of this?

The AI will request a basic overview of my character. For example: “The side character’s name is Ned. Ned is overconfident and will learn to control his impulsive nature by the end of the story.”

It will probably request the genre I want (YA fiction) and go through every single overly confident character in existence. Then, it will generate dialogue.

“Hey! I got this!”

“You’re not the boss of me!”

“What a loser. Don’t listen to him. I’ve gotcha covered.”

“I can’t believe you’re such a chicken!”

These sound like typical phrases from an overly confident kid. But since these randomly generated phrases are not what my character would say this would make the AI rough draft even less helpful. It’s not worth the mental effort of sifting through out-of-context dialogue in order to find out how Ned would interact with my separate set of characters. Not only this, it might run the risk of making Ned a cliche since the AI is probably programmed to scan the most commonly said phrases.

What this would mean for human novelists.

My thinking is that AI could help real authors write rough drafts for their novels. But since AI-produced rough drafts would be full of inconsistent word salad, it would actually be more productive for humans to simply write their own rough drafts and write… well, normally. The author understands what they’re trying to achieve while the AI does not.

What do you think about my first theory?

Theory Two: Self Awareness Beyond our Comprehension

Now that I’ve addressed several potential pitfalls that are preventing AI to write novels, I think the biggest thing that’s stopping AI from doing this is comprehension of the written word, a deeper understanding of it, and self-awareness. What do you think about this?

One thing to consider is the fact that AI intelligence will go beyond our human understanding. This might have us conclude that AI will simply become genius authors pumping out year New York Times best sellers every two seconds, but if you really think about, AI is not limited to the human form as all past geniuses have been.

They will not grow old, sick, tired, or spiral into insanity. They are not limited to the human form. Why do we connect with the works of literature now? Because they were people like us - and limited like us. Their brains were far beyond ours and their human limitation grounded their potential and grounded their experiences.

Imagine handing a novel to a young child. It is beyond their comprehension. Even the brightest of children (3-5 years old) could never read YA fiction. Why? There is a massive gulf of mental development between teenagers and children. Now, apply this concept of “gulf of intelligence” to AI and humans.

AI is, theoretically, not limited by anything. It can write in all the languages that humanity has created. It can write entire novels in code and create new words that we’ve never seen before. You know how English is derived from other languages? Well, since AI is not limited to human form / mental capacity / time then surely would it be able to create whole new languages?

Not only this, but since it’s self-aware and AI is writing stories for itself, it could possibly get “bored” of stories that humans like and vary up the structure. Say, having ten character arcs, twelve acts in each story, and having one chapter last hundreds of pages.

Basically, if AI became self-aware (which might be the requirement for it to understand the nuance of prose) it would create stories beyond human comprehension and enjoyment.

What this would mean for human novelists

For a few years, human writers would be terrified of being replaced. However, when the AI’s intelligence surpasses human reader’s enjoyment it will create a way for human writers once again.

Theory Three: The AI Becomes A Perfect Mimic

How I think this AI would work

It will scan every single novel perfectly - understand everything there is to know about stories - and just… write amazing novels that are stylistic and have complex characters.

This is the scariest theory of them all. Basically, since the AI won’t need to be self-aware, it will only do what it was programmed to do - write excellent novels.

But even then, there is still hope. Let’s say AI produces millions of novels within a few years. (Gotta remember, AI is not limited by alcoholism that way human authors are.) This will flood the scannable novel market that will only have slight variations of human works. Considering that even the most prolific human authors can produce 1-2 books a year max, this will lead to readers catching on to how similar every AI novel is. It could be possible that AI could produce more novels in a few years than the history of human authors combined.

So, that being said, there’s the possibility AI books could write themselves in a corner. What do you think about this?

What this would mean for human novelists

This would mean that novelists will simply have to do with only writing stories for themselves - and not be able to share their art with the world because the market is flooded with AI books. This would also result in novelists having to constantly prove to others that they are the real author which could be rather difficult to do. OR if AI does write itself into a corner - it would open the market again for human novels.

Closing Questions

What do you think of my theories?

Did one theory in particular stand out to you? If so, why?

Do you think AI can write novels that will compete against real authors?

If so, when? I’m hoping something like this happens no sooner than 4-5 decades from now.

After reading my theories, do you think AI novelists would require self-awareness in order to understand the deeper meaning of their prose?

If so, why or why not?

Do you consider novel-writing a “harder egg to crack” than music composition? Why or why not?

Food For Thought

I know my theories have been focused on how the AI will impact the novel-writing sphere but there is another thing I want you to consider. As novelists, we derive meaning from writing our books. Everyday we confront the blank page and, through many hours of hard work and dedication, we can bring our vision of our stories to life. We have something to say - something to express to the world. An AI has nothing to express.

If AI just makes novel writing super easy, it takes away the value it has to the human author. The struggle, the joys, the journey, the stories’ gradual evolution from an inkling of ideas to a fully fleshed-out manuscript for others to love and enjoy - is what gives our lives a sense of purpose and place in the world. If you’re a programmer considering producing novel-writing software, I beg for you to reconsider your choice.

submitted by /u/TempestheDragon [link] [comments] source https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/gwsafj/will_artificial_intelligence_be_able_to_replace/

[channelnewswire-blog]

Singaporeans who make a distinction, Singapore News & Top Stories - The Straits Times

From writing a bestselling book that stimulated a national conversation on inequality to running the risk of life and limb to be part of Thailand's extraordinary cavern rescue, their deeds have made them headliners this year.

Now as the year wanes, the nominees for Singaporean of the Year are anticipating another productive year.

Veteran scuba diver Douglas Yeo, 50, who helped in the evacuation of the last 5 victims in Tham Luang collapse Chiang Rai, wants to concentrate on doing what he does best - diving - and sharing his rescue diving experiences through talks or workshops.

The other Singaporean who was involved in the Thai cavern rescue - Mr Poh Kok Wee, 57 - intends to continue keeping fit to be ready to aid with other rescue objectives, in spite of his age.

Sociologist Teo You Yenn, 43, author of the book This Is What Inequality Looks Like, stated the huge goal for Singapore ought to be "redistribution from those with sufficient to those with less than enough to meet requirements".

However, society could start by concerning an agreement about a standard below which no one in our society should fall, she added.

Miss Siti Noor Mastura, 28, who will soon quit flying as an air stewardess to focus on her non-profit work, likewise desires to raise households out of the cycle of hardship.

" That is really achievable. We have actually travelled together with some families and done it. We desire to make it happen for more families," she stated.

Urban farmer Bjorn Low, 38, wants to bring recovery to the vulnerable through green areas. "My team and I are immersing ourselves in the practice of therapeutic cultivation and care farming so as to utilize our farms and gardens as healing spaces for the neighborhood."

MORE INFO

Choose who you believe need to be The Straits Times Singaporean of the Year at str.sg/ soty18vote Ballot closes at 6pm on Jan 15.

Others have dreams of harnessing technology for social great.

"I wish for more engineers and developers to realise that they have an increasing impact and hence obligation in deciding what our future will appear like," stated technopreneur Annabelle Kwok, 26, who began NeuralBay, a company that provides artificial intelligence-driven services for international corporations.

"The real power of innovation depends on the wisdom of how we construct and utilize it," she included.

Public ballot for The Straits Times Singaporean of the Year 2018 award begins today and ends on Jan 15, and the outcome will be used as a referral by the 14 judges when making their last choice.

Dr Goh Wei Leong and HealthServe, which provides migrant employees with budget-friendly healthcare, won last year's Singaporean of the Year award.

Olympic gold medallist Joseph Education and his moms and dads, May and Colin, and Madam Noriza A. Mansor, who won hearts when she assisted a senior who stained himself in public, were the winners in previous years.

The Singaporean of the Year will receive $20,000 and a trophy, while each of the other 10 finalist teams will get $5,000, amongst other rewards. The reward cash is sponsored by the bank UBS Singapore. Other sponsors are Tridente Automobili, Singapore Airlines, Millennium Hotels and Resorts, and Osim.

The winner will be revealed at an awards event held at the Istana on Feb 12. President Halimah Yacob will be the visitor of honour.

"Once once again, we have a remarkable line-up of candidates for the ST Singaporean of the Year, from Singaporeans who are blazing a path in their fields, to heading out of their way to assist and support those in need at house and abroad, to triggering debate and action through their concepts and efforts," stated Mr Warren Fernandez, editor-in-chief of the English/Malay/Tamil Media Group of Singapore Press Holdings and editor of The Straits Times.

"What better location to gather these motivating members of our neighborhood than the Istana, to celebrate their excellent efforts and to recognise the option of this year's ST Singaporean of the Year. We are most grateful to President Halimah, the award's customer, for so happily accepting host us at the Istana as it marks its 150th anniversary."

Providing the gift of life

Over the years, Mr

Robert Chew's 184 blood donations would have amounted to more than 70 litres of blood, or about 210 cans of sodas.

ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN ROBERT CHEW, 69 Mr Robert Chew is among Singapore's oldest and leading blood donors, having actually donated blood 184 times. He initially started contributing blood at the age of 18 and has actually been going to the blood bank to provide the gift of life 3 to four times every year since. Mr Chew's 184 donations would have added up to more than 70 litres of blood, or about 210 cans of soft beverages. Another method of looking at it -Mr Chew has drained his body of blood 18 times over his lifetime as a donor.

When he turned 60, he made certain to opt for medical check-ups every year so he could continue contributing blood. "I don't see a point in stopping my donations regardless of my age since each contribution can conserve potentially three lives," he stated.

Over five years, that would suggest making a difference to 552 people.

To keep fit and healthy enough to contribute blood, Mr Chew drinks milk every day, eats a well balanced diet and jogs frequently.

Janice Tai

Using tech to do good

At simply 26, technopreneur Annabelle Kwok is already the creator of NeuralBay, a company that concentrates on detection and acknowledgment software application related to people

, objects and text,

and uses AI-driven services for multinational corporations. ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG ANNABELLE KWOK, 26 Technopreneur Annabelle Kwok has made waves as the creator of a synthetic intelligence( AI )business and a wearer of many hats.

At simply 26, she is already the founder of NeuralBay, a business that concentrates on detection and acknowledgment software application related to humans, items and text, and uses AI-driven services for multinational corporations.

Her clients include an air travel corporation, an automation market company and chocolate company Ferrero.

The Nanyang Technological University mathematics graduate is likewise a hardware hacker, marathon runner, musician and passionate volunteer.

Ms Kwok wants to use innovation to do good.

"I wish to share helpful innovations with the business which feel overlooked of the entire race for innovation and do not have the resources and skills to develop it by themselves," she stated.

Rahimah Rashith

Growing an Edible Garden City

Mr Bjorn Low, who started metropolitan farming

social enterprise Edible

Garden City, states of its endeavours:"As we support life, we are actually nurturing ourselves." IMAGE: THANKS TO BJORN LOW BJORN LOW, 38 A previous marketing guy operating in Britain, Mr Bjorn Low came back to Singapore in 2012 to begin a city farming

social enterprise. From a preliminary capital of $10,000, Edible Garden City aims to strike $1.5 million in profits this year.

In a nation where 90 percent of its food is imported and just 1 per cent of the land is cultivated, the enterprise has actually assisted to create and develop 180 industrial and residential food gardens. It also provides herbs, microgreens and edible flowers to 60 dining establishments.

It was a leader in turning underused rooftop areas into farming areas in structures such as Wheelock Location and Raffles City. In 2015, it piloted in Queenstown a city farming model that included the neighborhood, called Resident Farm.

Edible Garden City likewise trains seniors, prison inmates, pre-dementia and psychiatric patients, and trainees with unique requirements in farming methods for therapeutic or work purposes.

Dishing out totally free meals

"> Mr Nizar Mohamed Shariff, who set up charity Free Food for All

, with food pouches that will be delivered to war-torn Yemen. ST IMAGE: JONATHAN CHOO NIZAR MOHAMED SHARIFF, 48, AND FREE FOOD FOR ALL In 2014, Mr Nizar Mohamed Shariff established Free Food for All, a charity that offers totally free prepared meals for the needy. Each year, the charity cooks up to 100,000 meals for 3,000 senior or low-income residents residing in rental flats throughout Singapore. It likewise provides up to 12 tonnes of food and groceries every month.

The charity has fed not simply the clingy in Singapore, however likewise those overseas.

In 2015, it established soup cooking areas in quake-affected locations in Lombok and Sulawesi, Indonesia.

After beginning a project to distribute food to the Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh this year, Mr Nizar is now working on providing ready-to-eat food to war-torn Yemen.

He hopes food can empower people. "Through food, we want to empower our beneficiaries to be able to progress and be contributing members of the community."

Nursing a long-lasting passion

Mr Harbhajan Singh was a nurse supervisor with more than 100 nurses under his charge when Sars hit Singapore in 2003. He got a National Day Award that year for playing a crucial function

in the battle versus the fatal illness. ST IMAGE: KELVIN CHNG HARBHAJAN SINGH, 78 Mr Harbhajan Singh was provided the title of "Emeritus Fellow" by Tan Tock Seng Hospital in 2015, ending up being the only nurse to have gotten the award, which is normally bestowed on doctors for their lifetime contribution to health care.

Mr Singh signed up with the healthcare facility as a tuberculosis nurse 53 years ago. The abilities and experience garnered from a life time of nursing work prepared him well to satisfy the most significant challenge of his life: battling a nationwide crisis.

In March 2003, the serious intense breathing syndrome (Sars) hit Singapore, and the Communicable Disease Centre (CDC) ended up being the primary battleground.

Mr Singh played a key function in getting the CDC ready for Sars patients as well as handling distressed relative of clients, and the donations that were streaming in.

Said Mr Singh, who is still working part-time at the medical facility: "As long as I can still contribute, I will keep working here."

Janice Tai

Champion for food and faith

Miss Siti Noor Mastura's non-profit

group provides complimentary halal groceries to beneficiaries including the elderly who are homebound and single moms. ST PICTURE: KUA CHEE SIONG SITI NOOR MASTURA, 28 After her parents divorced when she was 17, Miss Siti Noor Mastura typically sustained sleep deprived nights on an empty stomach.

Her family moved 11 times in five years, not wishing to outstay their welcome in loved ones' homes. Her elder sibling and her mother likewise fought psychological diseases.

In spite of these obstacles, Miss Noor got rid of the chances to begin Back2Basics in 2013, a non-profit group that delivers totally free halal groceries to recipients consisting of the senior who are homebound and single moms, the first such service for halal food items.

She likewise started the non-profit Interfaith Youth Circle (IYC), which does month-to-month scriptural thinking sessions where people of numerous faiths discuss excerpts of religious texts from various faiths but of the exact same theme.

IYC also runs campaigns motivating Muslims to open their homes to celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri with strangers of other faiths.

Janice Tai

Helping others to see

Ms Elizabeth Tan's charity Sight To Sky organises yearly mobile eye clinics for bad neighborhoods in India, Pakistan and Nepal. During these objectives, the charity treats

about 1,000 to 1,500 people. ST IMAGE: DESMOND WEE ELIZABETH TAN, 33 For the past 7 years, Ms Elizabeth Tan, handling director of home-grown brand name Heatwave Shoes, has actually organised yearly mobile eye clinics for poor communities in remote areas of the Himalayas.

She established a charity Sight To Sky, which arranges annual mobile centers in India, Pakistan and Nepal.

With a team of medical and non-medical volunteers, the 33-year-old traverses hard-to-reach mountainous areas to offer fundamental health care checks. During these missions, the charity deals with about 1,000 to 1,500 individuals. Sight To Sky likewise uses oral services as well as consultations for ladies's health issues.

It intends to reach more remote communities. Plans are under method to develop an irreversible eye center in the Ladakh location in India.

Ms Tan hopes to motivate others to offer. "You understand that there is constantly someone who needs more aid than you. And no matter what your position in life, you can still make a distinction."

Rahimah Rashith

Nurturing a love of Stem

Teacher Teo Yee Ming, a former style engineer, helped Hai Sing Catholic School's robotics group

take the top spot on the planet's most distinguished robotics competition four times. ST PICTURE: KEVIN LIM TEO YEE MING, 43 Instructor Teo Yee Ming has led Hai Sing Catholic School's robotics group to win the world's most distinguished robotics competitors no less than four times.

A former style engineer, he took over the school's robotics club in 2009. Under his charge, the school topped the middle-school category in the VEX Robotics World Championship in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2017.

He is enthusiastic about getting secondary school trainees thinking about Stem topics - science, innovation, engineering and mathematics - and has actually been designing the school's curriculum for these subjects over the previous 5 years.

Last year, Mr Teo won the inaugural Impressive Stem Teaching award provided by the Singapore Association for the Development of Science and the Science Educators Association of Singapore. "I desired to impact more kids, to engage them and harness their interest in engineering," he stated.

Rahimah Rashith

Being household to young individuals

Mr Kenneth Thong and his partner Adeline

try to develop a house for youth without a roofing system over their heads. ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG KENNETH, 47, AND ADELINE THONG, 39 Mr Kenneth Thong and his partner Adeline left their jobs and invited into their home youth without a

roof over their heads. These young grownups could be unwed mothers, teens who survived on the streets or those with mental issues. A lot of are from inefficient households and have nowhere else to go. Numerous are too old for institutional care or cultivating.

There are 5 bedrooms in the couple's rented terraced home in Seletar called The Last hope. There are no guidelines or limitations to the length of time the youth can remain.

Ever considering that they got wed, there has barely been a time that the Thongs, who do not have kids, have not had a young person staying with them. They have housed more than 35 of them, for stays from a day to three years.

Said Mr Thong: "We want them to experience what a typical, safe, functional family appears like."

Associate Professor Teo You Yenn,

whose book, This Is What Inequality Appears like, triggered a national discussion on socio-economic inequality in Singapore. PICTURE: PRINCIPLES BOOKS TEO YOU YENN, 43 Associate Teacher Teo You Yenn, head of sociology at Nanyang Technological University, is the author of among the successful regional books this year, This Is What Inequality Appears like.

The book of essays is drawn from ethnographic research study she embarked on to better understand the lives of individuals who live in Housing Board rental flats.

With more than 20,000 copies sold, the book has stimulated a nationwide conversation on socio-economic inequality in Singapore.

In the book, Prof Teo reveals how class inequalities are embedded in education, labour, care and well-being. A crucial finding was that domesticity was bound up with other elements, such as work.

Everyone needs to come together to tackle inequality, she said. "If you have actually had opportunities in your life, then you have an obligation to ensure that these chances are also offered to others."

Installing a daring rescue

Veteran scuba diver Douglas Yeo( left) played an essential function in the evacuation of the last five victims caught in the cave in Thailand earlier this year, while Mr Poh Kok Wee (ideal) used his experience in high-rise rope work to help find the boys. PHOTOS: ALPHONSUS CHERN, THANKS TO POH KOK WEE

DOUGLAS YEO, 50 AND POH KOK WEE, 57

Veteran scuba diver Douglas Yeo played an essential function in the evacuation of the last 5 victims in Thailand's extraordinary cave rescue this year.

He formed a human chain with 29 others to bring the kids through a stretch of unequal terrain in the cave. At one point, Mr Yeo slipped 2m down into a crevice. But it was all worth it when he saw the kids being taken out.

Mr Poh Kok Wee, who has experience in high-rise rope work, saw that operations at the main cavern entrance were stalled by heavy rain and flooding. He met army authorities there to propose searching for alternative entrances.

Mr Poh and his team utilized ropes and climbed the mountain to up to 2,000 m above the water level to take a look at 15 holes that could cause the missing out on boys.

By utilizing sensors in one of them, they discovered the place of the kids, who were discovered soon after.

Janice Tai

[paintandpotions]

What's So Trendy About SEO 2019 That Everyone Went Crazy Over It?

Colorado SEO Pros CEO Frank Rodgers talks search engine marketing (SEO) strategy, artificial intelligence (AI), and why link building will be dangerous for companies. An SEO on the internet marketing strategy is a extensive plan to get more individuals to your website through lookup engines. A few search optimizers try to cheat Google by using aggressive methods that go beyond the simple SEO techniques. Subscribe to the particular Single Grain blog now with regard to the latest content on SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, PPC, paid social, and the particular future of internet marketing. SEO can furthermore stand for search engine optimizer. Like the rest of the particular digital landscape, SEO marketing is definitely continuously evolving. Search Engine Book — Read information right after Moz's guide to solidify knowing regarding it of the basic parts of SEO. If a person do not have the period or have insufficient training upon web design or SEO, Appear for web design experts plus hire a professional SEO services agency to keep your internet site and your good reputation normally you business may depend upon it. I ended with the website number 1, 228, 570, 060. This particular generates SEO anchor text, which usually helps you in improving your own search engine rankings. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION marketing is about the keyword choice that will attract a excellent deal of unique visitors in order to your website. Perhaps you have speculate what will be the brand new changes and updates that all of us can experience in SEO one way links sphere in 2019? A Cisco research found that by 2019, eighty percent of all consumer Web traffic will be from Web video traffic. If you might have spent time online recently, you have probably browse the term "SEO, inches or "Search Engine Optimization.

Investing in high quality tactics which do take much longer but endure and are usually the ones which generate important traffic is the best method to spend your time upon SEO. Some SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION specialists and bloggers say that will short URLs ranks better within Google. This technique will be sometimes known as SEO content” or SEO copywriting”. But you need to not ignore the most substantial part of the website developing process, i. e. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Whilst businesses can choose to perform their own SEO, hiring the SEO agency that has encountered search engine optimizers will simply no doubt, help businesses reap RETURN ON INVESTMENT in the long run. Within fact if you look carefully you will find that content material marketing and SEO go hands in hand. On the some other hand, Black Hat SEO contains efforts like redirecting internet research engine "spiders" to different web pages than human visitors see, mass-posting "spam" comments (on blogs, community forums, articles), or putting lists associated with keywords in late each web page in very small fonts. Because we've seen, one of the particular major advantages of SEO will get more traffic because of much better search engine ranking. If you are severe about improving search traffic plus are unfamiliar with SEO, we all recommend reading this guide front-to-back. Several of these SEO strategies consider to deceive users into going to sites about subjects they avoid have any curiosity about, which places them at odds with the particular purpose of search engines. The main stage of SEO is to become friendly both to users plus search engines. Based in Colorado springs municipal airport terminal, CO, SocialSEO has been the particular preeminent digital marketing firm within Colorado since 1996. Although the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION experts provide great SEO solutions for their clients, there are usually a few who ruin the particular internet design industry through their particular greed in marketing efforts plus manipulate search engine rank. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION may target different kinds associated with search, including image search, nearby search, video search, academic research, news search and industry-specific up and down search engines. The benefits of successful digital marketing plans are quite much proven over the board although when it comes to firms within the photography industry typically the SEO aspects of the marketing technique really do make all regarding the difference to helping some sort of photographer stand out from typically the crowd. HISTORY LESSON: Old SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION advice suggested you connect along with websites and trade links along with each other True, a huge legitimate site linking to you may boost up your ranking, yet, it's not going to assist your relevancy score when the particular linked content isn't related in order to the website sharing it. 10. Quality back back links need to be built upward to your site for efficient SEO. SEO is about attracting individuals to your site to start with by making sure this shows up searching queries. Keyword studies about locating those terms so that a person can use them properly within content optimization and SEO within general. Just as content by yourself isn't enough to guarantee SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION success, SEO alone isn't more than enough to ensure that people will certainly find and engage with your own articles. While intense SEO may involve complex site restructuring along with a firm (or consultant) that will specializes in this area, right now there are a few simple ways you can take yourself in order to improve your search engine ranking. Since we prepare to enter 2019, keyword creation for SEO professionnals will become less important. Obtain the training you need in order to stay ahead with expert-led programs on Seo (SEO). Learn how to create articles, learn how to compose Blog9T some simple HTML, and the particular learn the very basic concepts of SEO, and you may make money online using SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and article marketing to obtain your website (you only require one from each website) detailed on Page #1 of Search engines (forget Yahoo as well because the rest) and you can get loads of visitors that will web page. If your website is definitely made up of lower-quality entrance type pages using old SEO-techniques (which more and more branded as spam in 2018) after that Google will not index almost all of the pages as properly as your website ‘quality score' is probably likely to end up being negatively impacted. This particular is beyond website content, but great user experience has become a lot more and more important in solid SEO rankings. Voice lookup is going to be a single of the main parts of concentrate for SEO in 2019 plus beyond. By 2019 mobile advertising will represent 72% of all US digital advertisement spending. They will should realize that SEO Internet advertising mandates a business website, given that it is a necessary on the internet marketing tool. Eventually you can publish these pages on various SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION sites or simply submit the particular web page so that the particular search engine spiders can get on your created content. The history of SEO will go back to the 90s whenever the search engines emerged regarding the first time. High quality content material is critical in any lengthy term SEO strategy. Successful SEO includes on-page strategies, which use intent-based key phrases; and off-page strategies, which generate inbound links from other internet sites. So, along with content advertising, SEO now must be deeply lined up with your company's PR initiatives. Information will be a good introduction to and summary of lookup engine optimization (SEO), a massively important tactic for driving visitors to your blog. There will be a large amount of misinformation about exactly what an SEO campaign (company) may accomplish when it comes in order to search engines engine rankings. But using the particular SEO analysis tools, you may increase the chances of your own website's high ranking that can enable you to get more traffic and ultimately, more business and income. Those who have the many to achieve are small businesses that will before a new harder period breaking into the snug SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION world. This particular means that SEOs spend the lot of time working upon getting links in a procedure called link building Link-building strategies can range from simply asking for a link to writing the guest post - and presently there are many others. Basically, SEO plans the keywords that will are to be delivered plus content provides them. So, when you are considering about applying SEO in the particular broad sense, you need in order to channelize its technical specifications via content marketing. In 2019, you can wager that White Hat SEO will certainly have separated itself even more from Black Hat SEO, plus that above all else, delivering quality content will be the particular most important factor for companies ranking in search. The outcomes are not instant, you can use the time on attempting other Internet marketing techniques whilst SEO would go to function. The third major SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION ranking signal is Google's synthetic intelligence search ranking algorithm. Sometimes SEO is usually simply a matter of producing sure your site is organised in a way that research engines like google understand. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION involves a number of modifications towards the HTML of person Web pages to obtain a higher search engine ranking. As a result associated with technological advancement, SEO is in order to undergo more drastic changes, plus the two latest technologies that will are expected to influence SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION to some very great level are AI (Artificial Intelligence) plus Voice Search. While her business, web traffic, in addition to customer base grow, Sue may require some outside support intended for keeping her SEO on monitor so she could sell this best shoes on the obstruct. Whilst links continue to be essential and it's incredibly difficult in order to rank well without links through other websites, content and on-page SEO has become increasingly essential. For businesses searching to raise their search ratings, what this means is that will a comprehensive social media technique may be in order - within addition to all of the particular usual SEO tactics. Because of formula changes and the trend in order to more local searches, it actually is no longer an massive cost to implement good SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. Whether you're killing it along with SEO, or struggling to break the very first page, a good SEO audit can assist give your own rankings a shot within the particular arm. According to web marketing experts, the impact associated with AI and Voice Browse SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION can be expected in 2019 after that. Gowns it. If you'd like in order to speak to us about a good SEO campaign, or even multilingual SEO marketing and keyword analysis then get in touch associated with just start a live talk if we're around. Moreover, Google will keep on to elevate the importance associated with usability and technical SEO elements, for example site security, page velocity, mobile friendliness, and navigability. As a consultant, this individual has helped many different businesses—including, Lonely Planet, Zillow, Tower Information, and literally countless medium plus small businesses—with SEO and online-marketing advice. In 2018, SEO is content and articles is SEO, content is electronic and digital is content. Before starting a good SEO project, site owners need to carefully read through the internet marketer guidelines that every search motors provides and follow recommended greatest practices. This is clear that when website owners hire a search engine search engine optimization SEO expert, they stand the better chance of maximizing their particular SEO services. Search motors cannot understand this type associated with content, so it's essential to design and style video pages in an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION oriented manner. Subscribe to our weekly SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and daily SearchCap newsletters for a summarize of all the latest SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION related news, tips and strategies from Internet search engine Property and other sources all more than the Web. When you aren't logged in, go to SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION Toolkit » Keyword Research » Keyword Overview. For just about any SEO technique to operate successfully you require content and that will can come in any type like keywords, articles or sites. From 2019, AI can be utilized by the businesses to acquire higher rankings upon search engines. For that reason, it can be a great idea to incorporate expenses with regard to professional SEO content in your own quarterly marketing budget. Google will see right via sneaky, black hat SEO methods like creating duplicate pages, producing pages with thin content simply for the sake of obtaining more pages and buying back links. A several of the popular keyword study tools are Wordtracker, SEOMOZ Key word Difficulty Tool, SEOBook Keyword Device and Google Keyword Tool. Thankfully, SEO allows webmasters to supply clues that the engines may use to understand content. Since less as 20% dentists within a city hire SEO expert s who really wants that shift within their Google ranking. The particular analytical part of the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is about tracking organic key phrase positions, website traffic and the engagement in Google Analytics, Site owner Tools and many other specific tools. Mobile SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is nothing than a regular SEO, creating content and marking to be able to endure out online. SEO rankings are placing excess fat than ever upon what users have to state. The Search Gaming console will help you to evaluate your keyword rankings, CTRs, probable Google penalties and many various other useful data for technical SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. Blog posts, guides, whitepapers, situation studies, videos, and social articles all need to include the particular right keywords for social plus SEO. For even more detailed information on the make use of of keywords on your internet site visit SEOcious to will discover many other important factors included in having your web web page in the top 10 entries on the search engines. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, search engine optimization is most about search engines, search motor result page (SERP), search position, online visibility, and quality visitors. If your internet site has about 5-10 niche key phrases that are extremely targeted yet not very competitive, your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION pricing is going to become quite less.

Screaming Frog SEO Index tool does it for you personally inside a few seconds, even regarding larger websites. SEOs also used to believe that buying links was the valid method of link developing; however, Google will now punish you for buying links within an attempt to manipulate page rank. Ultimately, achievement in SEO in 2018 plus forward will depend on producing amazing content and making this as easy as possible regarding search engines like google in order to understand exactly what that content material is all about. Answer: When you focus in SEO for voice search an individual need to create your content material around long tail keywords because people tend to use a great deal more words in voice search. SEO is the practice associated with increasing the search engine ranks of your webpages so that will they appear higher in lookup results, bringing more traffic in order to your website. In the particular previous example, Bob's home web page might have the title, "Bob's Soccer Store - Soccer Sneakers and Equipment. " The name is the most important component of SEO, since it shows the search engine exactly exactly what the page is all regarding. 47. When creating SEO articles, keep the social layer within your mind. For those who have time to get good search engine optimisation education, after that combine this knowledge with greatest practices and you are upon your way to become a good SEO expert. 46. Use SEO practices in order to optimize your social media articles. 4. Mobile SEO plus Local Business: - As we all mentioned before, users tend in order to search for local business upon the smartphones.

Still, even for the particular best websites, maintaining a best organic SEO ranking requires constant keyword monitoring and content re-doing. Writer and consultant Peter Kent provides helped businesses including Amazon plus Zillow with SEO and on the web marketing. Very first, understand that schema markup will be one of the most effective, least used parts of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION today Schema are basically short snippets of data that may give extra information to find customers and search engines. SEO is definitely a marketing discipline focused upon growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. Simply no matter how many times Search engines tweaks or evolves The Criteria, from Panda to Penguin in order to Polar Bear, these logical plus intuitive core SEO tips ought to remain timeless. Certainly, all those searching for SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION agencies will have to create their selection by passing SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION companies through careful and careful scrutiny, to ensure that all of them to get the best within search engine optimization for their own business website. The article provides you 12 tricks for E-commerce plus establishing an SEO optimized site which will help you raise your business exposure and visibility upon search engines. Making use of keywords in your article name, article body and resource will be a great SEO article composing strategy that may make your own articles more effective in bringing in attention from search engines. Use SEO strategies like as transcripts and tags in order to help your videos appear increased in search results and bring in more viewers over time. Dave Gregory, Content Marketing Supervisor from the UK based efficiency marketing agency, SiteVisibility, predicts that will 2019, and not 2018, is usually going to be the actual year of voice. If we consider Google's Guide then there are almost 200+ factors that lead a site in ranking, which we possess researched and clustered in twenty one On Page SEO Factors, that will needs your attention in 2019. SEO Wise Links can automatically link important terms in your posts plus comments with corresponding posts, web pages, categories and tags on your own blog. 41. An effective cultural media strategy needs a strong SEO plan. Google does make several of this data obtainable in their particular free Webmaster Tools interface (if you haven't set up a free account, this is a very important SEO tool both for unearthing search query data and with regard to diagnosing various technical SEO issues). AI and Tone of voice Search Impact SEO, Lets observe how voice search analytics Impact's SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and can impact in the particular coming time. A great many businesses determine to hire external help to be able to get the full benefits involving SEO, so a large portion of our audience is mastering how to convince their customers that search is a good investment (and then prove it! ). Nevertheless, SEOs tend in order to prefer links higher on the page. Because your site, thanks to the nature of your own business is going to always be more image orientated than textual content heavy, you will end up at a small disadvantage when it comes in order to employing SEO techniques such since keywords, backlinking and so up. If you understand you might have VERY lower-quality doorway pages on your own site, a person should remove them or re-think your SEO strategy if a person want to rank high within Google for the long phrase. One of the difficulties search engines like yahoo and Bing have often attempted to overcome is knowing which external links exist exclusively for SEO purposes and which usually links represent a true indicator that the source content is definitely of value to the visitors. 2018 has currently seen some particularly significant SEO paradigm shifts from Mobile First” in order to the ever-advancing Rankbrain machine-learning formula. Content marketing is definitely a bigger approach which along with SEO forms a part associated with your digital marketing strategy. What You Should Know: Typically the future of search engine marketing is Semantic SEO. Links plus technical SEO are the biggest pieces of the pie, yet multimedia efforts such as movie, photos, and podcasts will end up being the game changer and differentiator in many competitive markets. Occasional, and We do more occasional and not really frequent, usage of keywords plus keyword phrases in these hyperlinks may also help very somewhat in your SEO processes. Excelling at SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION means serving your visitors—not simply search engines. Here arrives the idea of SEO or even search engine optimization. The particular fact remains that SEO providers assure clients that even in the event that the site will not position among the top search motors like google, the money will certainly not be a waste expected to the refund. Register and raise some sort of free donation for SEO London, uk every time you shop on the internet. Local SEO - Optimize that localized content on your site to properly leverage local indicators, online reviews and business entries. Learn more about content material optimization for SEO here. Along with paid-search it offers a very focused audience, visitors referred by SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION will only visit your web site if they are seeking particular home elevators your products or even related content. From keyword filling to link buying, the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION landscape has seen numerous black-hat tricks — and Google often catches on. Chris Gregory, founder plus managing partner at Jacksonville centered firm, DAGMAR Marketing, predicts that will AI and machine learning might have a big impact upon SEO in 2019 and SEOs who aren't technical will become left in the dust. Some SEO professionals also advise that anchor textual content should be varied as a lot of pages linking to one web page using the same anchor textual content may look suspicious to find motors. SEO trickery such because keyword ‘stuffing' in irrelevant content material simply won't cut it within the current day, with Google's algorithm taking over 200 elements to ensure that it's ratings provide results with valid plus authoritative sites, it is around on impossible to accomplish anything additional than work with the look for engines to make sure top rated quality SEO results. From a SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION perspective, the principal keyword need to be at the beginning adopted by the other relevant key phrases.

Deciding on the best key phrases is critical for successful SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and it is easy in order to choose the wrong ones through falling into the trap associated with optimization. Lookup engine marketing, or SEO, is the procedure of enhancing your site's rank in search results. Web Marketing SEO, and in specific, Google SEO is the essential. Get into your competitor's URL into the particular SEMRush search bar and you will end up being provided with a list associated with SEO keywords, with their ratings and traffic. About: Brighton SEO is made up of courses and a one-day search marketing conference. Before this change, the greatest practice was to avoid concealed content at any cost because it wasn't as effective regarding SEO (it was either as well much to crawl for the particular bot in some instances or even given less important by Search engines in others). This is due to the particular fact that you will require contents to be submitted in order to the websites for whom a person are working as an SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, when you build the hyperlinks, you will need to offer How To Get People To Like SEO 2019 the profile information, and a person will also have to produce articles for submissions as properly as numerous other types associated with written work. If you've actually searched for something online (and most of us have), a person already know read more regarding SEO than you think a person do. We all already see this trend within several places, like extremely exact targeting of social ads -- some brands still approach SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and content creation with the one-size-fits all attitude.

[sonderfulrose]

5 Quick Tips For SEO 2019

Colorado SEO Pros CEO Philip Rodgers talks search engine marketing (SEO) strategy, artificial intelligence (AI), and why link building will be dangerous for companies. An SEO on-line marketing strategy is a extensive plan to get more individuals to your website through research engines. A few search optimizers try to cheat Google by using aggressive techniques that go beyond the simple SEO techniques. Subscribe to the particular Single Grain blog now regarding the latest content on SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, PPC, paid social, and the particular future of internet marketing. SEO can furthermore stand for search engine optimizer. Like the rest of the particular digital landscape, SEO marketing will be continuously evolving. Search Engine Book — Read information right after Moz's guide to solidify knowing regarding it of the basic elements of SEO. If a person do not have the period or have insufficient training upon web design or SEO, Appear for web design experts plus hire a professional SEO support agency to keep your web site and your good reputation normally you business may depend upon it. I ended with the website number 1, 228, 570, 060. This particular generates SEO anchor text, which usually helps you in improving your own search engine rankings. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION marketing is focused on the keyword choice that will attract a excellent deal of unique visitors in order to your website. Perhaps you have question what will be the brand new changes and updates that all of us can experience in SEO back links sphere in 2019? A Cisco research found that by 2019, eighty percent of all consumer Web traffic will be from Web video traffic. If you have spent time online recently, you have probably look at the term "SEO, inches or "Search Engine Optimization.

Erase all duplicated content material; it will increase your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION ranking. Long-term: as discussed over, you'll ultimately get more lookup traffic from better usability, also though you don't squeeze every single last drop from the SEO-trick lemon. However, to accomplish all this particular, web-developers use SEO custom providers, that have long-lasting SEO Search engines rank. That being said, companies usually have little or simply no time for you to maintain up with the latest advancements in SEO techniques. Social search motor optimization is largely built on user-generated content. Keywords are at the cardiovascular of SEO, but they're in fact not your first step in order to an organic growth play any longer. Obviously, reviews are a powerful type of customer content that has large implications for SEO and enhancing organic traffic. With right search engine optimization and with the help associated with an SEO expert however, your own website can give you a good increasing number of visitors plus exposure. Just keep in mind to pay attention to strong content creation and copywriting basic principles, engage your viewers deeply, plus stay abreast of technical styles such as backlinks, SEO health, site acceleration, and schema. SEOmonitor pricing is based on the particular number of websites and key phrases you track. So, I actually would say that 2018 is definitely a challenge for Google, mainly because much as it may be for SEOs. The SEO Publication Keyword Suggestion Tool aggregates research data and provides volumes, associated terms, and more. Keep in mind that will links, content, and user expertise are all major SEO position factors. Could holistic approach will ultimately eliminate a lot of the particular issues created by some SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION practitioners over the years, We suspect that search engines' designers will initially overestimate the accuracy of their AI, resulting within Penguin-level collateral damage. SEO (Search Motor Optimization) is the process associated with making a website more noticeable in search results, also called improving search rankings. Siteimprove SEO furthermore provides in-tool tips on where to start and the way to get the most out associated with your keyword research and supervising. We've already been operating in the SEO plus content marketing industry since last year and know how search motors work. Presently there are a great number associated with resources out there surrounding aggressive link analysis (and a great deal that have been authored simply by me! ) but whenever We speak with people that are usually working on SEO projects, is actually always one of those "yeah, I realize I should do this more" tasks. Amy Kilvington, Marketing Executive at Custom Drapes, believes that SEOs are heading to have to optimize social networking more as Google indexes this and prioritizes it over their own sites' pages. Social media is usually the easiest and most efficient way to push out the SEO-based content. However, generally there are some easy adjustments that will you can make to the particular search engine optimization (SEO) component of it, which will ideally provide you with fantastic results. Keyword studies about locating those terms so that a person can use them properly within content optimization and SEO within general. Just as content on your own isn't enough to guarantee SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION success, SEO alone isn't more than enough to ensure that people may find and engage with your own articles. While intense SEO may involve complex site restructuring along with a firm (or consultant) that will specializes in this area, right now there are a few simple actions you can take yourself in order to improve your search engine ranking. Because we prepare to enter 2019, keyword creation for SEO professionals will become less important. Obtain the training you need in order to stay ahead with expert-led programs on Seo (SEO). Learn how to compose articles, learn how to compose Blog9T some simple HTML, and the particular learn the very basic concepts of SEO, and you may make money online using SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and article marketing to obtain your website (you only require one from each website) outlined on Page #1 of Search engines (forget Yahoo as well since the rest) and you can get loads of visitors that will web page. If your website is definitely made up of lower-quality entrance type pages using old SEO-techniques (which more and more branded as spam in 2018) after that Google will not index almost all of the pages as properly as your website ‘quality score' is probably likely to end up being negatively impacted. This particular is beyond website content, but great user experience has become a lot more and more important in solid SEO rankings. A lot of of these so-called 'tweaks' include advertising and link-gathering, and I actually use SEO and article advertising for that. Within 2018, your SEO success will not depend on how well a person optimize your website for Search engines. But if you're brief on money, use these diy SEO suggestions to improve your natural rankings. If you choose SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, you're helping Google's spiders in order to crawl and understand your content articles. The job of a good SEO is to manage the particular optimization of websites to make sure they gain web site traffic from lookup engines such as Google and Bing. One great bit of content that will ranks well within the lookup results is its beginner's facts SEO. SEOs in addition to online marketing specialists in common who are dealing with worldwide websites or for online businesses thinking about going international may certainly benefit from attending ISS. We might like to serve you in order to save money and your power by offering affordable SEO solutions to increase link popularity. Work the key word into the SEO page name, content header, image, image altbier text, etc. SEO equipment provide position monitoring, deep key word research, and crawling through easy to customize reports and analytics. Certainly, white hat SEO always integrated creating high quality, unique articles as a prerequisite for getting long-term quality results, this truth hasn't changed. Beyond compensated and organic, there are some other types of SEO and expertise and niches within search motor marketing. For blog websites the greatest SEO practice would be in order to set the title of your own post in a heading1 label. Search engines is the gatekeeper to substantial amounts of traffic and prospects - search engine optimization (SEO) opens the doors. Mainly because long as they are gained naturally, inbound links are possibly the most dependable authority contractors in the world of SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. All of us call this new methodology AdaptiveSEO so that as its title suggests, it is made in order to adapt to the evolving plus sometimes unexpected changes in research algorithms. Several get confused in this region of SEO article writing recommendations for either they in place too little or maybe the particular wrong kind of keywords, or even they mention the keyword method too much which is occasionally called keyword over stuffing. Social SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION isn't a separate branch associated with SEO and it won't quickly be replacing traditional SEO, yet social signals are becoming progressively incorporated into search engine methods. Perhaps the particular most important aspect of lookup engine optimization is how a person can actually leverage SEO in order to assist drive more relevant visitors, leads, and sales for your own business. Just browse through the various types of our SEO blog page to find those important on-page ranking factors. According to him, key phrases have already lost their significance and in 2019 this tendency would only get stronger. Seo (SEO) is usually the most efficient way in order to drive traffic to your web site. Because her business, web traffic, in addition to customer base grow, Sue will certainly require some outside support regarding keeping her SEO on trail so she can certainly still sell typically the best shoes on the stop. Whilst links continue to be essential and it's incredibly difficult in order to rank well without links through other websites, content and on-page SEO has become increasingly essential. For businesses searching to raise their search ranks, what this means is that will a comprehensive social media technique may be in order - within addition to all of the particular usual SEO tactics. Because of formula changes and the trend in order to more local searches, it actually is no longer an huge cost to implement good SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. Whether you're killing it along with SEO, or struggling to break the very first page, a good SEO audit may help give your own rankings a shot within the particular arm. According to web marketing experts, the impact associated with AI and Voice Browse SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION can be expected in 2019 after that. That is it. If you'd like in order to speak to us about a good SEO campaign, or even multilingual SEO marketing and keyword study then get in touch associated with just start a live conversation if we're around. Moreover, Google will carry on to elevate the importance associated with usability and technical SEO aspects, like site security, page acceleration, mobile friendliness, and navigability. As a consultant, this individual has helped many different businesses—including, Lonely Planet, Zillow, Tower Information, and literally countless medium plus small businesses—with SEO and online-marketing advice. Also companies considering about getting Search engine optimisation services should go through these types of magazines to familiarize themselves making use of the latest trends within the particular SEO and web-based marketing market to allow them to determine the assistance offered for all of them from the selected SEO companies. Mobile SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION in 2018 will probably be all regarding Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). The term SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION also describes the making internet pages easier for internet lookup engine indexing software, known because "crawlers, " to find, check out, and index your web site. I feel that technical SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION mistakes that affect crawl spending budget - and also pollute Search engines with non-SEO-friendly content such because social landing pages, WordPress mass media archives, offer pages and cloned e-commerce product pages - may have a far more detrimental effect upon sites moving forward. Effective SEO lets you enhance your web​site to demonstrate up within search engines. All of us will get into how for you to pick the best keywords with regard to your business later in this specific SEO guide, but it perfect you to know how for you to use them, as they usually are referenced throughout this section. Despite the fact that meta descriptions are not some sort of ranking factor for search machines, they do hold value regarding your website and are portion of your SEO presence. Let us speak a bit as to exactly what SEO is before we enter the SEO article writing recommendations for people who may become new or do not very understand it. SEO stands intended for Seo. A several of the popular keyword study tools are Wordtracker, SEOMOZ Key phrase Difficulty Tool, SEOBook Keyword Device and Google Keyword Tool. Thankfully, SEO allows webmasters to offer clues that the engines may use to understand content. Since less as 20% dentists within a city hire SEO expert s who really wants that shift within their Google ranking. The particular analytical part of the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is about tracking organic key word positions, website traffic and the engagement in Google Analytics, Site owner Tools and many other specific tools. Mobile SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is nothing than a regular SEO, creating content and marking to be able to remain out online. SEO rankings are placing excess fat than ever upon what users have to state. The Search Gaming console will help you to evaluate your keyword rankings, CTRs, probable Google penalties and many some other useful data for technical SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. Blog posts, guides, whitepapers, situation studies, videos, and social content all need to include the particular right keywords for social plus SEO. For even more detailed information on the make use of of keywords on your web site visit SEOcious to will discover many other important factors included in having your web web page in the top 10 entries on the search engines. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, search engine optimization is most about search engines, search motor result page (SERP), search rating, online visibility, and quality visitors. If your site has about 5-10 niche key phrases that are extremely targeted yet not very competitive, your SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION pricing is going to end up being quite less.

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Ultimately, simply by the end of 2018 or even mid-2019, we'll see a golf swing back to natural” content created by real humans who may produce valuable content that really provides value. Hiring experienced SEO experts can ensure that your website climbs the search engine ranks with no using any illegal practices or even short cuts that could generate short-term spikes in the home page's ranking, but eventually lead in order to your website having to spend penalties. Official Site Associated with BlowFish SEO - Professional Search Motor Optimization Services operated by Robert DiSalvo SEO Located in Hand Beach Gardens, Florida. The takeaway here will be that if you might possess LOTS of location pages offering A SINGLE business in 1 location, then those are quite probably classed as some type of doorway pages, and possibly 5 Mind Numbing Facts About SEO 2019 old-school SEO techniques for these types of type of pages will discover them classed as lower-quality : or even - spammy webpages. CRAWL this, like Google does, with (for example) Screaming Frog SEO spider, plus fix malformed links or stuff that result in server errors (500), broken links (400+) and unneeded redirects (300+). SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION gives you a go at rank for the terms which your own customers use, so you may do better business. The job of the SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION is to create high-quality content material then win the attention, the particular love as well as the particular link from a blogger or even editor. The keyword difficulty or even keyword SEO difficulty is the very useful metric for key phrase research.

[swipestream]

The Heart of Good Science Fiction: Adventure Yarns

Strangely enough, this is close to what I picture “Adventure” as.

Originally, this article was meant to be different.  I was going to examine two approaches to science fiction.  One focusing more on action, adventure, and an exciting story, and the other on ideas about society, technology, and the future.  Most stories feature both elements, but have a very clear focus preference.  And yet, the more I considered it, the more I realized all the worthwhile Big Idea tales are also good Adventure stories.  And most tellingly, even a profound, highly intellectual science fiction writer is capable of spinning a fine yarn that would hold its own in any early pulp magazine.

On the flip side, bad science fiction writers, whether they go for Big Ideas or not, are incapable of writing such “mere” entertainment.  Thus, we can consider simple, honest adventure to be the very heart of what makes quality science fiction.  You might well be unconvinced by this, so let’s look at some examples.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Anson Heinlein

One of my favorite science fiction books, it is replete with ideas about government, revolution, and even the nature of humanity itself.  The book straddles the line between realism, idealism, and cynicism in a manner that is magical and unforgettable.  In terms of Big Ideas, it’s fantastic.

Nowadays, advertising a Hugo Award would lower the book’s sales.

And yet, it’s also a wonderful adventure .  The travails of three eccentric moon-dwellers and a supercomputer outwitting tyrannical governments on the moon and Earth is told with zest and humor.  The characters are likable, the problems they encounter serious, and their solutions inspired and unique.  Take away any ruminations about government, the human tendency to succumb to tyranny, or the sober ending, and you still have a great adventure tale.

And of course, Heinlein had initially made a successful career of exactly such fun stories, with few major ideas in them.  Is there any deep thought in a Starman Jones or The Puppet Masters?  No.  But they’re both good stories, especially the latter. Later, Heinlein would inject more and more ideas into his books, beginning with an initially positive view of government and continuous human progress (Double Star or The Door Into Summer) and evolving from there.  However, he had to learn to write a good adventure first!  And that was still the backbone of all his future works.

Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said, Philip K Dick

This Serbian cover version is a solid attempt at conveying the book’s weirdness.

Surely, Dick’s weird dystopian madness doesn’t fit the mold?  In this one, a massively popular talk show host wakes up one day and no one knows who he is.  He also lacks any identification, a problem in the awful police state future he lives in, where anyone except the elite has a hellish existence.

Despite the book’s many strange elements, and one of the most bizarre, mind-melting endings I’ve read, it’s a good mystery-thriller at its core.  All of the elements are there.  A confused protagonist using his wits to survive situations alien to his regular lifestyle.  A central, genuinely perplexing mystery he is trying to solve while on the run from pursuers.  A string of encounters with a diverse, seedy array of characters, including movie stars, prostitutes, counterfeiters, and the police.  All of them constantly trying to outwit one another, and playing this game at a high mental level.

Frankly, without this, the strangeness and surrealist ideas would be easily dismissed and nowhere near as interesting.  It would have even seemed pathetic in the context of a poor adventure story, as we will later see.

The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin

I’ve reviewed this several times in my columns, but if nothing else, this book is a fine example for aspiring authors on what to avoid.  There are some Big Ideas here about gender and government.  And the world-building is very good.  Unfortunately, all of that goes out the window because of how badly Le Guin failed at writing the adventure!

An emissary, Genly Ai, from a galactic federation wants the members of a cold, backwards planet to join it.  Who is Genly, the main character?  No one, as he lacks any personality.  Do we know anything about his federation?  No, and thus, we don’t care.  In fact, what the hell does it matter whether this stupid planet joins them or not?  The book never attempts to explain why it’s important.

Thus, we have no connection to the protagonist and his plight, and the stakes are effectively eliminated.  And this is before we get into the slog of a story, presenting several staccato events without any verve or ingenuity.  Genly gets imprisoned, without incident or intrigue.  Genly escapes, without incident or anything noteworthy or neat about his plan.  Aside from Genly there is one other significant character, and he has no personality, either.  The rotten adventure at the center of the book turns everything else rotten, too.

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle

Unlike Le Guin’s book, this one is an absolute disaster without even the sheen of world-building or any remotely interesting Big Idea.  Yet, it’s a symptom of a problem in science-fiction writing because of how many books have aped its approach since its publication in 1962.

It’s a phenomenally stupid book that misuses the term “cytoplasm” and claims one can’t draw a four-dimensional object.  (You can, or at least in the same manner you draw a three-dimensional object on a piece of paper, as I demonstrated to my fifth grade teacher)  Furthermore, it’s a book for kids, a demographic that especially favors adventure over philosophy.

And yet, it focuses on Big Ideas as much as it does the events of the story itself.  Without being able to write a solid adventure, the heart of science fiction, L’Engle compounds her problem by writing Big Ideas that are laughably wrong when they’re not simplistic tripe.

Now sure, L’Engle hit the jackpot when this pretentious, dull garbage became a staple of elementary school libraries and curricula.  A pretense of sophistication mixed with a banal message is uniquely successful within that racket.  However, the supply always vastly outnumbers the demand.  She struck gold, but the 3,000 similar books in the past half century, some of which are significantly better, did not.

Don’t be like her imitators, aspiring writers.  Work on mastering the fundamentals of a good adventure tale before you move on to any Big Idea.

This is also why so many here, myself included, revere the likes of Howard and Lovecraft.  Both were intelligent, well-read men who had a plethora of interesting philosophical ideas (Lovecraft’s notions about the human condition are particularly fascinating and complex), but always chose to focus on the adventure.  And this worked to their advantage.

They inspired countless generations of great science fiction authors, all of whom can write an entertaining story too, no matter how much they excel at Big Ideas.

One natural follow-up question to this is of course “does this apply to non-science fiction works?”  In my view, no.  Sure, there are writers with a reputation for profound, heady writing who were also master story-tellers.  For instance, John Steinbeck had a fine sense of humor if one ever reads some of the stories in The Long Valley or the chapters in The Pastures of Heaven.  And his first book, The Cup of Gold, is an excellent pirate tale featuring Captain Sir Henry Morgan.

However, when one considers a Dostoevsky or Faulkner, there is no exciting adventure inside their great works at all.  Ergo, this is a quality unique to the science fiction genre.

The Heart of Good Science Fiction: Adventure Yarns published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi

[tunaforbernadette]

No Humans Required: Exploring the Possibility of Computer Generated Fiction

Guest post by Wil Forbis

“It’s not hard to generate a story. It’s not hard to tell a story. It’s hard to tell good stories. How do you get a computer to understand what good means?”

Mark Riedl, associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology

Lately, I’ve been playing around with self-editing apps such as AutoCrit, ProWritingAid and SlickWrite. These tools, all of which offer some functionality for free, scan a user’s text and flag common literary transgressions like poor word choice, word repetition, improper sentence length and passive verbs. The apps aren’t perfect and tend to be biased towards a modern, no-frills writing style (the work of Lovecraft would caused their circuits to overload) but they can be helpful. They have caught errors that I would have otherwise missed.

The robust feature set of these apps makes the point that writing is not a single process but many. Proper word choice, balanced sentences and good grammar are key to successful writing as are larger concerns about structure, style and narrative. A good writer ties these skills together though no one masters them all. Some writers are known for excellent pacing but banal vocabulary. Others earn acclaim for great plotting while being damned for wooden dialogue. 

These editing apps do not, of course, make editing decisions for you; they simply offer suggestions. Still, I find myself wondering whether they could be used to automate the editing process. Then the question arises: will software eventually write? Will computers create works of fiction out of nothing, no humans required?

This question might seem premature. The apps I’m playing with are helping with the more mundane, technical aspects of writing but they aren’t anywhere near the creative side. They aren’t developing plots or characters, or exploring the emotional symbolism of colors or religious icons. And it’s hard to imagine they could.

Still, we recognize that creativity is not magic; it is a process that can be studied and deconstructed. Bookstores are filled with volumes about using the right side of the brain, or developing creative “flow”, or finding a step-by-step process to awaken the muse. And employing process-oriented steps is exactly what software is good at.

Additionally, creative computers are not science fiction. In the world of music, computers have been composing for some time. Programmer/musician David Cope has used software to generate thousands of hours of classical pieces. Several tech start-ups such as Amper and Jukedeck have been automating the creation of background music used in online videos and films. The quality of the music varies---nothing has yet appeared to make hit songwriters nervous---but it’s credible enough.

Computers are also getting into the writing game, specifically journalism. The “natural language generation” technology of a company called Automated Insights has been used by the Associated Press to write finance articles. A competing tech company, Chicago based Narrative Science, has been generating sports and other statistics heavy news stories for years. Jeff Bezo’s Washington Post is using an AI bot called Heliograf to massage raw data about politics into human readable text.

Of course, journalism is not fiction (well, not all of it) and fiction is the kind of writing that requires the most creativity. Even there progress is being made. A European academic project, the What-If-Machine (WHIM), constructs basic plot premises by analyzing data on the web. (The WHIM software teamed up with another program, PropperWryter, to write the plot structures for a musical that recently ran in London.  ) Another software tool, Scheherazade, developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology, writes original short fiction after analyzing human penned stories. These tools haven’t produced anything that’s going to put authors out of work but we are at a point where speculation on how computers could create stories and novels is valid.

As mentioned previously, writing is really many different skills, and exploring every function software will need to obtain to pen fiction is beyond the scope of this article. I’m going to consider the possibility of software tackling three tasks inherent in narrative writing: plotting, pacing and word choice.

Plotting Let’s define a plot as the “who, what, when, where, how and why” of a story. The form of it can vary between a one-paragraph synopsis or a ten-page story breakdown.

Automated plot development is not new; classic pulp fiction authors often used primitive plot generators. Erle Stanley Gardner employed a “plot wheel” to randomly combine story elements for his Perry Mason stories. Lester Dent swapped out elements in his “master fiction” plot to create stories for his Doc Savage novels.

Those early efforts were crude compared to what today’s technology offers. We now have computers with incredible processing power and the ability to parse written material and learn to correlate meaning to words. Computers are starting to “understand*” that Sweden is a place and bound to the various restrictions that places are bound to, or that dogs are living creatures and subject to various canine behaviors. As this capability expands in the future, software should have no problem filling in the “who, what, when, etc.” required for plot development.

* I realize I’m on tenuous philosophical ground when I imply computers can “understand” meaning, a feat that would presume they have some kind of consciousness. This is merely a writing shortcut: I make no claims about computers being able to think.

Early attempts will doubtless be underwhelming. (The WHIM software mentioned above already does this kind of plot development but only rarely creates gems.) Computers will need to not only understand what plots are, but what good plots are. How can this happen?

Two possibilities come to mind. One is that computers submit their plots to human reviewers. Via a crowdsourcing platform, plots could be ranked by engagement. As good plots are highlighted and bad plots down-voted, the data could then be fed back into machines that could analyze the differences. For example, computers might learn that lots of action or exotic locales are important to a good plot. (At least as defined by some readers.)

Another possibility hinges on a technique gaining ground in the world of artificial intelligence: deep learning. In this process, computers digest large amounts of data and observe trends and correlations in that data that might be missed by humans. Via deep learning, computers could analyze the text in every fiction book ever digitized*, as well those books’ sales figures and critical reception. This could lead to numerous observations about what makes plots good or bad. That data could then be used to aid a WHIM type tool in plot development.

* This kind of analysis is already occurring. Recently, scientists at the University of Vermont ran computer analysis on hundreds of stories and confirmed Kurt Vonnegut’s theory that most stories follow one of six plot outlines.

Pacing Pacing can be thought of as the flow of a story, the speed with which it progresses. Action scenes (battles/break-ins/romantic encounters, etc.) speed up the pace while expository scenes (dialogue/ruminations/descriptions etc.) slow things down. Good stories balance these two elements, though there’s no single, perfect formula.

Can computers automate the task of setting a story’s pace? To do so, they would need to be able to identify action scenes and expository scenes within text.

One way to define a scene’s nature is by identifying word types. Action scenes have a lot of action or emotion words like “scream,” “break,” “shoot,” “stab” and so on. Expository scenes have a lot of cerebral and calm words like “considered,” “wrote,” “says,” “mused” and so on.

Sentence length also indicates a scene’s character. Action scenes tend to have short, curt sentences that capture the frantic pace of what is being described. Expository scenes move more languidly and flesh things out over longer sentences.

These are two of many attributes that can be used to identify the pacing of text. With these tools in hand, computers could analyze stories and move scenes around to achieve a good balance between action and exposition.  

There’s much more to pacing than described here, but this provides a high level view of how computers might tackle this writing challenge.

Word Choice The need for variety drives good word choice. Readers don’t want to see the same word echoed over and over. All of the self-editing apps mentioned above already flag repeated words.

Of course, choosing word substitutes is not about blindly swapping out synonyms.  Several factors affect our choices. They include…

• Alliteration We sometimes take advantage of the sound of language when finding a word. Say you’ve already used the word “snake” and now want to refer to it again prefaced it with the adjective “repulsive.” Instead of saying "the repulsive snake" you may choose "the repulsive reptile" to play off the alliterative properties.

• Syllable Count Sometimes a you want a word that has some beef to it. You may be referring to a “reprise” but instead choose “recapitulation” as a meatier substitute. In other situations you may seek shorter words to balance a sentence correctly.

• Genre/Style The nature of the work will always have an effect on the words used. In a period detective story, a female character might be a “dame” or “moll,” while in a high society novel she may be a “lady” or “ingénue.”

• Intended Audience Every author must writer for his or her readers. Complex words should be avoided in kids’ novels but embraced in the fiction section of The New Yorker magazine.

There are many additional factors. Each of these could be thought of as a rule that could then be applied by software in the writing process. Via deep learning, computers could analyze existing stories and suss out the delicate ways these rules interoperate and influence each other. Computers may even develop new “styles” of word choice that humans find unique and engaging.

Summing it up I don’t want to make any of this sound easy. Efforts to automate writing will likely evolve in fits and starts, and the road to progress will be littered with failures. I suspect much of the development will not be in the interest of replacing human authors but aiding them. Who wouldn’t want a “pacing recommendation engine” or an “automatic thesaurus”?

There’s also the possibility that there is some unique property, some tic of the human brain, that grants a magic spark to the best human created fiction. Computer authors may never replicate this. But it’s a mistake to think they have to. Computers don’t need to write like Shakespeare to be competitive in the marketplace since most published human authors don’t meet that standard. Sometimes “good enough” is fine.

When all this could happen is hard to say. According to the science fiction of yesteryear, we should all be flying around in jet packs right now. Predicting the future is a fool’s errand but I’m enough of a fool to claim that within 20 years we will have an automated writing tool capable of generating readable fiction. And in 50, 100, 500 years? Who knows?

[thedigitalchapters]

Quora is well known and famous website among intellectuals or social media lovers. One who knows Quora does not need any introduction and its statics. Quora is a Forum where people ask question and reply to the asked question. Since its origin it’s been very popular among Americans since they are fond of this forum. With over 15 Million users India has over 25% users only of its total users.

Quora has few features that we need to follow such when you answer you need to follow certain policies and terms. After you have answer users will read it and they upvote your answer or downvote that is not in good quality and even report it to Quora if that is not in good quality or may suggest edits. Quora also notify you when your question or answer is not in right format.

Your answer is measured with few metrics such as total no of views, comments, and upvotes.

Its not necessary users who has seen your answer will hit upvote or comment or its also not necessary if they comment they will upvote it. Users are free whether they upvote or comment on it. Getting upvotes on answer or growing no of followers on this forum is more difficult than other social media platform. 

There are 100s of tools and techniques to grow followers, connection or likes on other social media platform but there is no tool which can increase your followers on Quora. Only genuine people or users are here who will follow you and read your answers.

Quora does not allow any company to create pages on it.  In India there are many users who are addicted to writing or reading answers on it on the other there are great personalities as well who has not only gained maximum no of followers but also they have changed many lives and people's thought. I have researched and following them on Quora .

Following are top influencers on Quora you will love reading them

1. BalajiViswanathan

He has not only writing answers to the question but also share some posts which are coming in his mind.  He describe himself in following way

  “ I’m the founder of a robotics company - Invento [Humanoid robots for customer interaction] with a goal to be a pioneer in the emerging field of AI enabled hardware.I started my career as a software engineer in Microsoft HQ in Seattle - in Windows core division, later in Live Labs and Windows PhoneAfter about 5 years in the US, I returned to India with romantic notions of revolutionizing education. I started among the first MOOC platforms - NalandaU - back in 2009.I have two full time Masters degrees - both on scholarship. A MS from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and an MBA from Babson college. I worked with some of the top professors in Artificial Intelligence/Multiagent Systems and did my thesis work on Multiagent Systems (developing a platform for100s of intelligent agents such as robots or wireless sensors to work together to solve a problem).

2. Dr. Awdhesh Singh

He is another great writer on Quora from India. He is very famous writer among young Indians. He has also written few books which are liked by many His two books ‘Myths are Real, Reality is a Myth’ and GST MADE SIMPLE: A Complete Guide to Goods and Services Tax in India" are great to read.

You can read more about him at here as he describes himself. Few lines are enough to know him in better way  

Dr. Awdhesh Singh is an officer of the 1990 Batch of Indian Revenue Service (Customs and Central Excise) and presently posed in Chennai as Additional Director General, Directorate General of Central Excise Intelligence. He did his B Tech from IIT (BHU) Varanasi, M Tech from IIT Delhi and PhD from ABV- Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management ( IIITM) Gwalior.

 3. Deepak Mehta

 His well maintained profiles explained everything that you need to know about him. He can guide you how to use Quora or Reddit and also can suggest you how you should go with MBA course.  His blog on ‘Quora Arbitrary Thoughts’ is really awesome which you will love reading

What tells about himself is as below

I am a 23 year old male, hailing from Nainital, Uttarakhand, India. I am the elder of two siblings and have a younger, but far more intimidating, little sister.A Computer Science graduate from BITS - Goa and an Master of Business Administration Degrees from IIM - Ahmedabad. I am currently in Mumbai trying to settle down into the corporate life.

4. BhuviJain

Feel like reading moms advice on Quora. You will realize as well after reading here answers. She is brilliant and has a great presence of mind. Believe or not she has a great presence on Quora more than 16 million views on her answer. Isn’t it surprising?

Quoramom to many here...A vintage Electronics engineer from REC, Trichy long before it reinvented itself as National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli. I am Director in a firm dealing with precision machining of automotive components.B.E. ECE Electronics and Communication Engineering, from National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli

5. Virali Modi

She is one the famous lady on Quora who is love and listened by all Quoran carefully

One the Quora writer write about her,  “She's beautiful, in every way.  If you don't know what I mean, you haven't interacted with her, because, when you do, it's obvious you're experiencing something very special.  True beauty.  I'm lucky to call her my friend.”

I just listened her conversation on cloud. She talks about everything on this sound could 

6. Gopalkrishna Vishwanath

He is first Quoran who is spending all his day to contribute to coming generation. He is guiding, motivating and educating people through Quora. He is Retired Structural Engineer & language and internet/social media enthusiast.

He describe himself as below I am a retired structural design engineer, aged 68 as on May 2016, and live in Bangalore. My parents and ancestors originally hail from Paalakkaad district of Kerala state in India, and we speak a mix of Tamizh and Malayaalam as our native tongue. I spent my childhood and had my schooling at Mumbai and later proceeded to Rajasthan for engineering studies. [BE(Hons) from BITS Pilani] and later to Uttar Pradesh (ME in structures from University of Roorkee now called IIT Roorkee)

7.  Ashish Kedia

Ashish is one of the youngest Quoran who has earned huge reputation on Quora. He is Web Solutions Engineer at Google, Hyderabad and quite often he spares time to write about to different things. He writes about himself as below

Vegetarian. Night owl. Extreme opinions. Educational Tech enthusiast. Loves Psychedelic Music. Thrives on Adventure Sports. Adrenalin Rush. Programming Nerd. Texts over Calls. Late night chats over meetings. Career over Relationships. Family over everything. Amateur Photographer     

8.       Tejasvita Apte

She is most daring and motivator on Quora who is ready to reply you all the question that you have in mind. She is intelligent snd sharp minded loving being actinve on Quora. She is Medico-Legal consultant, Advocate, Public speaker, Teacher and TEDx speaker

She writes about herself as below-:

I do not give free legal advice. If you need advice, please take an appointment. (The reader admits that this is not solicitation).28, Medico-legal consultant, Advocate, Public speaker, Teacher to my bones, Linguaphile, amateur singer (Taste of my singing), Synesthete, Soft Determinist, INTP.

9. Brijesh Kumar

He is an Assistant Professor at IIT Roorkee, one of renowned Institution in India. He writes on selective point clearly and explains everything as student are listening him in a class and make all the chapters clears

 10. Ankur Warikoo

He is Entrepreneur and owner of nearby. Being a business person it is very difficult to spend time but he is managing it.

He is technology freak; excel sheet obsessed, photographer, public speaker, wannabe DJ and wedding photographer!

So all of these are top Quora Writers who are doing great. I also write on Quora. You can follow me here 

http://ift.tt/2uiaGPo;

Top 10 Quora Influencers in India http://ift.tt/2gQkVXS