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viviennevivisection · 2 years ago

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Session 29 Notes - “A New Lectern Night” - 3/19/23

-Four offices in the Library -- one for Oran and then one for each of us?

-The cop’s name was Bob (the one who Cass impersonated)

-AACAB - all arcane cops are bad

-The rose from the chalice…something happened there. The blood wasn’t absorbed -- it somehow came from myself. Alright!

-Ellie leaving the bathroom and searching for Noami -- finds her in her childhood bedroom. It’s been semi redone by Joanna since Naomi left -- guest ready. Very plain

-Teaching Ezra and Leah magic? Teaching everyone magic? Naomi would be a good teacher!

-Naomi and Leah trying to mend bridges

-Naomi comforting Leah -- knowing she feels different since her shadow is back

L: “I don’t know where to put all of it. I’m sorry you had to go through it alone. I could’ve been there.”

N: “I figured it out. I thought it would scare you.”

-Pushing back the wedding

-Leah laughing hysterically at the insane day we’ve all had

-Ellie asking Cass to teach her to shoot gun :)

-Ellie transformed the ceremonial dagger into a gun! Pointed it at Cass immediately, who turned the safety on for her. Talking about going to a shooting range to practice/learn (C: “We’ll have to find somewhere safe…for me.”)

-Give Ellie a gun!

-Back at the library, getting Lectern Night set up. It’s like a lecture hall, very dark academia, but less dusty

-We are bringing Cyrus in fluffy, pink handcuffs

-Oran pulled us aside, offering advice

-Be careful on the approach, especially considering their new…connections

-Everyone here knows the power and value of information, be careful on what we share and how we share it

-Checking on the populace, generally, and specially looking for Miles

-Game planning -- whole truth? Half truths? No one wants to lie but the truth is simply so fucking nuts

-THIS is the bridge

-Everyone’s shadows are back

Cass’ Mission Statement: “I want to stop these people that are just…parasites on this world. Making people sick. Just. Taking. And taking.”

-Concerns about a vacancy -- with the Cor gone TC could potentially swoop in and reprogram everyone. It seems unlikely though considering the Pritchards do not own a TV. Despite now knowing the full story, it doesn’t seem like the Corsicans have any love for TC

-There is a bit of buzz among the populace, people seem concerned about the lost time. Parents with children especially know something is up

-Bethany is champion (will potentially champion Naomi’s cause)

-Adeline could be a problem. She was on “””the path”””

-She’s pretending to project a calm aura, but does seem worried knowing something happened, and that the Coralogia members are absent

-Naomi is trying to snatch Adeline’s shadow

-Finding Miles, checking his internal ley system

-No trace of almost anything. There is nothing but a shell here. It looks like it was some version of the “devour intellect” feature, but focused on wisdom. Almost irreversible, would take a LOT of time and resources to fix

-Naomi channeling Rebecca to see if she can help

N to R: “I want to fix him. For you. I thought you might know how to do that.”

-A lot of emotions coming through from Rebecca to Naomi, but she doesn’t know how to help

-Rebecca didn’t understand what happened to her

-Naomi is presenting

N: “I am sorry to bother everyone. To make you all come here.”

-Naomi has their full attention -- people noticed the lack of Coralogia

-Something has changed

-Some people seem scared, others seem to be rationalizing the strangeness

N: “I wanted everyone to hear from me because I didn’t want you to have to go it alone. To do that would go against everything this community stands for. (Pause). We have been kept in the dark about a lot of things. I..I knew something was wrong. I didn't want to talk about it because I thought it was something wrong with me, not that I was being lied to. I want to apologize for not being able to do it alone. Or sooner. There were people here with certain goals FOR us that they weren’t telling us. They wanted to center themselves in our worship. The Coralogia have centered themselves and used our divinity for their own means. They wanted to keep that from you to ascend and become something worth worshiping.”

-A pause -- maybe like a full minute

-People processing -- we cannot go back to moments ago -- before we knew we what we do now

-Adeline is asking for proof

N: “I don’t want anyone to be scared like I was. If you’re willing to see it, everyone in this room has their divinity back. I promise that I’m not the only one here that can do magic.”

-A kid is doing magic -- HI-YA! Did a little punch and sparks came out

N: “Nobody here could do that this morning.”

Adeline: “How do we know these are not gifts from them?”

N: “If that were true…where are they?”

N: “I don’t want there to be things we don’t all know together. I knew that would be hard to hear -- I’m thankful everyone was alright hearing it from me.”

-Bethany has stood up -- “But…where are they?”

N: “When everyone lost time that was because they had attempted to take Corsica where it wasn’t supposed to be. They were trying to do something I don’t fully understand…something scary. I think Corsica came back and they didn’t because what they wanted was too big of an ask.”

-World views are being changed. Coach Cobb is going nuts, yelling, cursing. An outburst like this is almost unheard of in this context (previously)

N: “We have not been dealing with scary, big, and stressful [feelings] for a long time. Expect heightened reactions. I tried to fix things so we could have big reactions again.”

N: “They were doing something to make themselves more important than they could be on their own. I was trying to make sure everyone came home.”

N: “No one..is alone.”

-What do we do…now?

-What if they focused on themselves TRULY? Do what they want, study what they want, share the knowledge they are genuinely passionate about

-Living authentically

-You do what you like and share it with everyone else!

N: “I don’t think a lot necessarily has to change. I think it’s better to continue the pursuit [of knowledge] and bring what you actually like and enjoy.”

-An iconic English teacher has risen: “What we were doing wasn’t harmful in and of itself, it was the way it was being utilized.”

-A pivot in the community has been successful for now

-Naomi being scared that everyone’s shadows are going to, for example, wake them up in the middle of the night holding them down with their faces rotting off

Ellie: “With so much love, I think that might just be a you thing.”

-Oran praised Naomi’s handling of everything

-Filling job openings -- most of the Coralogia hold the important civic titles in the town. Adrien and Leah helping out?

-Trying to keep a low profile with outsiders -- the more eyes on the community, the more needs explained. It may also be hard to explain to outside connections why half of the most important Corsicans vanished overnight

-Ellie took notes on the current state of Mile’s condition -- hopefully to be able to study later

-Whitmer was responsible for whatever happened to him

-Ellie stopped the child who did magic during Naomi’s address, told him to be responsible and try not to hurt anyone, but to have fun. She gave him candy

-On the way back to the Pritchard home and mysterious, gigantic person is walking the wrong way?

-I cannot overemphasize how unsubtly we ran up to them to question them

-Ellie especially

-They are extremely suspicious, have a glint in their eye like Sterling when he detects magic. Unresponsive to question. Maintain a lie that they were just out for a jog

-They want to get drinks?

-Cass tried to get drinks with them and they refused, turned, and said: “I’m sure Molly is free, though.” → a direct threat

-Cass is channeling Saetus (?) to see where this stranger’s allegiances lie

-This could be Alestra -- Whitmer’s TC contact. Maybe TC got wind something was wrong or different and sent them to check it out

-They have no pacts binding them, at least not with Kirruk. There is technology at work, reminiscent of Sterling, but more advanced. This is a living, breathing individual. Cass also saw a vision, time rewinding and seeing this figure standing outside the Pritchard home, and watching.

-This person has to contracts or viruses

-They have a very strong, healthy magical essence about them

-What do we do with Cyrus lol

-There is no jail here

-Where does VE put the dagger and chalice when they sleep? I said they just keep in on their belt, and Sarah dropped it….hmm

-Naomi following up on a promise from a while ago -- letting Dark Naomi sleep

-Dark Naomi is more often than not trying to protect Naomi

-Naomi has exhausted the full capacity of her power, doing this (letting DN) is good for her mortal soul

-We’re all sleeping under Eleanor’s blanket!

-Ellie gave the Bubble to Ezra (since we have the necklaces now)

-Ellie drew of sketch of this mysterious jogger -- Cyrus didn’t recognize them

-Danny Wright did -- somewhere in security, but unsure

-Ellie texted Dr. Cunt to ask her, she said it was a conversation to be had over drinks

E: She just threatened our lives <3 can’t wait for drinks though!

CH: And here I thought it was a more exclusive club to have you all.

-Oran explaining the pools -- they’re very old

-The Pool in the Halls of Innovation (on campus) is the oldest

-They’re all connected

-Use of the Pools

Travel using a teleportation sigil (requires seven combined spell levels to cast)

The Reflection/Baptism (knowledge about this was extremely restricted)

Scrying (five total spell levels -- if the target is near a different pool, it lowers the DC)

-It takes five total spell levels to change the mode from one to another

#dnd #campaign diary

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oidheadh-con-culainn · 6 years ago

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academic articles about queer arthuriana for @intersex-ionality and @gawain-in-green

okay first up i’m not an arthurian specialist, i mostly do medieval irish material, also this is heavily skewed towards medieval french arthurian material with some english influences -- not welsh material (sorry), and not other continental material generally. just bc i did medieval french more than i did anything else, and i did a bit of middle english but i know more about lancelot and chrétien than about malory so yeah

this is a very incomplete list but it’s stuff i have references to (in past essays, or because i have a photocopy of it in a folder somewhere). if i were not so fucking disorganised i would be able to give you so many more but i am a disaster, so.

not all of this stuff is like... directly about queer readings, but it feeds into queer theory (e.g. looking at non-normative expressions of sexuality, construction of gender and so on). also strong emphasis on things that overlap with the supernatural, monster theory, that kind of stuff, because that’s just what i’m interested in

* ‘the armour of an alienating identity’ by jeffrey jerome cohen and the members of interscripta, in arthuriana vol. 6, no. 4 (winter 1996) -- has some good shit, it’s cohen so it’s kinda dense but i found it interesting

* ‘masoch/lancelotism’ by jeffrey jerome cohen in new literary history vol. 28, no. 2 (spring 1997) -- all about the fact that lancelot is the original masochist, some interesting explorations here, again it’s ... dense (why cohen, why)

* ‘the prose “lancelot”‘s galehot, malory’s lavain, and the queering of late medieval literature” by gretchen mieszkowski in arthuriana vol. 5, no. 1 (spring 1995) -- this RUINED MY LIFE, if you want to have feelings about lancelot-galehaut then read this one, i will never be over it

* there is another Extremely Gay article about lancelot/galehaut and i think it is from the book of giants: sex, monsters and the middle ages by jeffrey jerome cohen (who is like half this list)... it made me cry. i think it’s that chapter that @finnlongman posted a couple of excerpts of here

sidenote: i do really rate cohen’s work but omg he’s like... dense af sometimes. his prose isn’t quite judith butler levels of incomprehensible but HE’S NOT FAR OFF. so just be warned about that. you settle into it, it starts making sense after a while, but ... he should use shorter words.

other books that might be interesting, though they don’t deal exclusively/directly with arthurian material:

* monsters, gender and sexuality in medieval english literature by dana m. oswald includes some arthurian material and looks at the differences between old english and middle english material with regard to sex and also monsters woo. we love a monster.

* sodomy, masculinity and law in medieval french literature: france and england 1050 to 1230 by william burgwinkle for some french stuff. don’t think there’s much that’s directly arthurian, but there’s some stuff about marie de france, so that’s kinda tangentially related

* constructing medieval sexuality ed. by karma lochrie, peggy mccracken, james a. schultz (lots of interesting chapters in this one exploring different aspects of sexuality in a medieval context)

also not arthuriana but like. while we’re here:

* ‘“for to be sworne bretheren til they deye”: satirizing queer brotherhood in the chaucerian corpus’ by tison pugh in the chaucer review, vol. 43, no. 3 (2009) has some interesting things to say about the whole idea of oaths of brotherhood within a queer framework/interpretation

* between medieval men: male friendship and desire in early medieval literature by david clark deals primarily with old english / germanic material, so substantially less useful for arthuriana but some useful (?) approaches to queer readings of medieval texts

* sexuality in medieval europe: doing unto others by ruth mazo karras was an interesting read... frustrating for me because of karras’s failure to engage with irish material at all and how poorly defined ‘europe’ was within this book (what does ‘medieval europe’ even MEAN? way too broad), but far from useless re: how sexuality was understood in a historical context so with caveats, would rec

* ‘heroes and their pals’ in one hundred years of homosexuality and other essays on greek love by david m. halperin offers a paradigm for looking at heroic / warrior relationships like achilles/patroclus etc, which can also be explored in the context of medieval material

anyway this is not nearly as complete or arthurian-specific as i’d hoped it would be because it turned out! i keep shitty notes! and i am astonishingly disorganised in how i keep track of this kind of thing! sorry. i tried. there was an attempt.

but i have a few followers who may be able to help, so @ all of youse, pls share your favourite articles on queer arthurian stuff, thank

#arthurian #queer theory #medieval #tc does academia

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incorrect-ulster-cycle · 6 years ago

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How tall was cu?

smol

*** ETA wow the markdown of this post is fucked on mobile, really sorry about that, will try and fix now but idk if it'll screw it up on desktop if I do, argh. here's a better version of the post that's definitely formatted right. it seems impossible to write long posts that are equally readable on mobile and desktop! ***

Okay, actually, there’s not a lot of consistency about this. He’s a literal child in quite a few stories, so definitely small in those, but most of them are more interested in describing his hair than his size. Here are all the actual quotes I found regarding his size from the two main recensions of the Táin. It doesn’t look like he’s described much in other texts, hence the focus on TBC.

[TBC-I: Táin Bó Cúailnge Recension 1, ed and trans Cecile O’Rahilly; TBC-II: Táin Bó Cúailnge from the Book of Leinster, ed and trans and Cecile O’Rahilly.]

Starting with TBC-II because it has the most to say about his size:

Fergus talking about Cú Chulainn:

‘the little lad, my fosterson and the fosterson of Conchobor. Cú Chulainn na Cerdda, the Hound of Culann the Smith he is called’.

Medb compares Cú Chulainn to an ‘ingen’, or adolescent girl; she’s talking about his age, but she could easily have disparaged his youth while comparing him to the boy-troop or something, so I read the phrasing as meant to imply small size and/or failure to adequately perform masculinity (the two can be related):

‘Is áes ingini macdacht ármthir leis’ (he’s only the age of a big girl - Carson’s translation)

Of course, it’s unclear whether she’s just trash-talking him. In the context of the following quotes, though, I’d suggest probably not:

Cú Chulainn to Etarcomol:

‘But if only you knew it, the little creature you are looking at, namely, myself, is wrathful.’

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST, PEEPS. Cú Chulainn is just a litel creacher… he cannot help this…

Etarcomol about Cú Chulainn:

‘I swear by the gods whom I worship never to retreat until I carry off as a trophy the head of yon little deer, Cú Chulainn’

Cúr talking about Cú Chulainn:

‘Ye think little of our valour, ye think it wonderful, when ye match me with a tender stripling such as he’

Lóch about Cu Chulainn:

‘I shall not go on such an errand for I deem it no honour to attack a youthful, beardless stripling’

(Stripling may just be a comment on his youth rather than size, but carries implications of being small)

Láeg repeatedly calls him ‘Little Cú’, ‘little Hound’ etc, but that could be ironic (alternatively, Láeg is elsewhere described as being quite tall, so maybe most people are ‘little’ to him). See also: ‘distorted little sprite’.

Moving to TBC-I:

Fedelm about Cú Chulainn:

‘I see a tall man in the plain who gives battle to the host.’

This line isn’t in her prophecy in TBC-II, where she describes him only as a ‘fair man’ and a ‘young lad’, and the Irish actually just says ‘fer mór’ which could as easily be read as ‘great man’ or ‘famous man’, and certainly doesn’t carry unambiguous height implications.

It’s the only description I can find of him as being tall and it doesn’t seem to hold up to much scrutiny.

He is briefly described as ‘broad' at the very end of the text, but he’s wearing twenty-four shirts at the time, which I think would make anybody broad. The Irish adjective in question is ‘cetherlethan’ which seems fairly ambiguous (it looks like it means ‘four-sided’?) and might just mean ‘capacious’, though what that’s meant to mean in context is unclear – probably why O’Rahilly went for ‘broad’.

Alternatively, Cú Chulainn is square.

Probably those twenty-four shirts that did it.

Láeg calls him ‘little Cú’ again, though slightly less often?

Fer Diad’s charioteer argues that ‘Cú Chulainn is no small hidden trifle’, mostly because Fer Diad was implying he might have failed to spot Cú Chulainn – implication being, ‘Look, he’s not so small I wouldn’t be able to see him,’ but might suggest not reading him as tiny.

On the whole, though, fewer descriptions of his size in the first recension.

So yeah, he’s not described in terms of size very often, but he definitely seems implied to be small based on how often others describe him as a ‘boy’, a ‘youth’, a ‘beardless boy’, a ‘little lamb’, and occasionally there are genuine suggestions of small size, including from Cú Chulainn himself (who probably wouldn’t trash-talk himself).

But while composing this answer I did discover that R1 of the Táin apparently de-emphasises this, so that’s fun. I learned me a thing. Amazing what putting too much effort into Tumblr asks can do for your academic research.

Texts other than the Táin, including ones where he seems to be an actual adult rather than a tiny rage teen:

Mesca Ulad describes him as a

‘little black-browed man, greatly resplendent’

(translation by… Hennessy, I think, but this online edition is appallingly badly formatted as it clearly can’t cope with the Gaelchló and it’s all been rendered incomprehensible; in his introduction the translator seems concerned about this description and tries to explain away why they’d suggest Cú Chulainn is ‘of small stature’.)

The only other text I can find from a cursory search that involves actual physical description of him is Tochmarc Emire, and it doesn’t say how tall he is, just calls him a “dark, sad man”, but does juxtapose this with a description of Láeg as “long-sided” (i.e. tall), so you feel like if he was also tall they’d have mentioned it.

One other consideration is the ríastrad, which makes him bigger in his distortion by stretching him to inhuman size. E.g. in Fled Bricrenn:

'he strained himself till a warrior’s foot could find room between each pair of ribs'

(Henderson’s translation)

In the main description of him in Fled Bricrenn, it also describes him as a ‘sad, melancholy man’ and juxtaposes him with the ‘very slender, tall’ Láeg, evidently drawing on the same ideas as Tochmarc Emire.

tl;dr Cú Chulainn is (probably) smol except arguably during the ríastrad, and I spent way too long pulling out quotes to back that up

#cu chulainn #medieval irish #tain bo cuailnge #tc talks #not a quote #tc does academia #whoops #this is way too long #answered #irish mythology #hiziram

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mysterylover123 · 5 years ago

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My Hero Academia Chapter 272: Dueling OT3s, Then Doom.

OMG Kacchako is back. Sure has been a while since Baku and Ocha talked to each other. And dammit all I swore I wasn’t gonna ship you two anymore.

Now we’re about to hopefully find out WTF was going on with Deku 2 weeks back. I assume.

THE OT3. THE’YRE BACK FOR A PANEL. TDDK CONCERN, BKDK REPRIMANDING. PLZ TELL KACCHAN LATER ON ABOUT YOUR MIND POWERS IZU.

WTF. OMG WTF. HOW DOES OFA1 KNOW THIS?!

1) Who do I want to be Deku’s 3some dammit?! BKDK/ocha or TD/BK/DK? tc tbh 2) OFA 1 how do you know this and if you knew this before A LITTLE WARNING WOULDA BEEN NICE.

WonderDuo in their own panels. And yup. THE HOSPITAL. Yer all screwed.

Heroic sacrifice there Crust. Wow. You will be mourned. I guess. Thanks for being a pro who dies so hopefully no other important hero characters do. PLZ? please please please PLZ PLZ

I WANNA SEE HIS FACE NOW. FULL POWER TOMURA. I WANNA SEE SUPER SAIYAN SHIGARAKI.

I’m gonna sing the doom song now. Doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom doom...

Or maybe not cause 45%. At least there’s that!

Deku i love you. You’re the best. Please save everyone now.

Wonder duo in perfect sync. At least we have that to savor before everyone dies.

Ooh boy that was a lot in one chapter. I’m actually really glad the Other Shoe has finally dropped and Tomura has started wrecking shit, because waiting for him to finally wake up and start killing everyone was making more antsier. Like, the anticipation of the Shit Hitting the Fan is worse than when it actually happens, you know? Glad too that we got to see some cute flirty antics among class 1-A for a few pages before the End of the World as we Know it starts up. Definitely gonna need those to enjoy before anyone else starts dying. RIP crust. Saving Aizawa is probably gonna get you the pledge of eternal love and support from most of the show’s fangirls from this day out.

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rendezvous-ramblings · 5 years ago

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21 Questions

rules: answer 21 questions and then tag 21 people you want to get to know better (I was tagged by @seekingsafety!)

Nickname: My nickname is a shortened version of my first name so I won’t be disclosing that on my blog. My name does actually begin with A though!

Zodiac: Scorpio. If you want specifics Scorpio-Sagittarius cusp.

Height: 5’5″ almost 5′6″. To be honest, every time I fill out an official document I just say 5′6″ 🤫

Last thing searched: I searched tutorials on how to make DIY friendship bracelets. The colorful ones that you probably used to make at summer camp if you’ve ever attended one. I have to learn how to make them for an upcoming orientation for the freshman. I’m going to be leading the tutorial as a bonding activity. I’m part of the scholar's council at my university so I will be attending the freshman mixer.

Favorite musicians: I listen to a lot of smaller Indie/Folk bands alongside the more ‘mainstream’ popular pop songs. Some of my favorite artists include Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, Vampire Weekend, Cage the Elephant, Mumford and Sons, Elle King, and Lumineers. Some of the old school bands E and I share in taste are Queen, Journey, the Police, and Depeche Mode.

Song stuck in head: Shaky in the Knees- Grizfolk

Do I get asks: Yes, but not as often as I used to before I deactivated. I recently started up my blog again. Feel free to ask for advice or vent in my inbox! I loved giving people advice when they asked for it in the tcc!

Following: 115

Followers: 40 (Not too bad since I think I restarted up my blog three weeks ago? My tags weren't appearing initially but now they are!).

Amount of sleep: I usually try to give myself 6-8 hours. I slept for about 7 hours last night.

Lucky number: 4 (I don’t have a reason. 4 is just my favorite number aside from the dates I have associated with E).

What I’m wearing: A grey t-shirt that reminds me of E since it has a logo of his district and cream PJ shorts with an orange floral pattern. I am not planning to go out today clearly.

Dream job: High school teacher, Professor, or a Museum Curator.

Dream trip: A trip across Europe to see the UK, Italy, France, etc.

Favorite Food: Mac and Cheese. Carbs and cheese are my weakness.

Play Any Instruments: I was taught basic piano by my grandfather before he passed away. There was a language barrier so I never fully learned how to read music. He would rewrite the music in a way that coordinated with my fingers with numbers (if that makes any sense?). I don’t think I can play anything from memory but I wish I could.

Languages: English and Cantonese. I learned Spanish in Latin in middle and high school too (not fluent but I recall things).

Random Fact: I’ve never broken or sprained anything before. I don’t intend to ever in my life.

Describe yourself as aesthetics: Academia, coffee shops, gold jewelry, leather, and light indie. I’m basically a nerdy chick who thinks she’s a badass sometimes 😎

I haven’t interacted with a lot of people here on Tumblr. I’m not really the type to contact people first. People usually reach out to me first before I start talking. So, I suppose if you’re reading this you can join in and tag me if you do! I’d like to tag @college-tc, @la-luna-loves-the-sun, @a-lovers-memory-bank, @she-has-tc-tea, and @teachercrushm. They have blogs that I’ve been following since I started my original blog (before deactivating).

Thanks for reading! 💛

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biomedgrid · 4 years ago

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Biomed Grid | Informational Hygiene as A Medical and Biological Tool for Health Preservation in The Digital Era

Introduction

The digital revolution poses new challenges for physicians and biologists. From hygienic positions, the essence of digitalization of economy and society, and also ethical problems and legal regulation of robots, systems of artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality (AR-VR) – generically called cyber-physical systems (CPS) and often mistakenly called robots – ought to be carefully analyzed. Here are intertwined the problems of philosophy, mathematics, physics and engineering. CPSs are used at work and in everyday life, in industry, medicine, education, culture, etc. This new scientific and technical groundwork is developing rapidly, but it is little studied, it does not have many common concepts, which requires special analysis for hygienic regulation. The purpose of the work is to analyze the essence of digitalization of the economy and society, as well as the legal regulation of robotization in terms of the formation of the paradigm of informational hygiene.

The Aim of the Work

The analysis of digitalization from the standpoint of information hygiene for hygienic regulation. The number of CPS is rapidly growing in the world. In 2017, robot sales increased by 30% to 381,335 units. The main drivers of this exceptional growth were the metal industry (+55%) and electrical/electronics industry (+33%). After crossing the mark of 2 million units in 2017, the operational stock will reach the level of 3 million units in 2020 and approach 3.8 million units in 2021 [1]. The proportion of the safety segment is estimated at 10-20% of a total robot installation costs for both products and services [2]. The analysis of such dynamic processes encourages consideration of the ethical-philosophical aspects of the evolution of society, labor and hygienic science for the near future. In the 1990s, information ecology began to form and then informational hygiene as a new section of preventive medicine [3]. Asilomar principles of safe, productive, and moral development of AI systems were adopted [4]. Out of 23 of them the 7 principles are of hygienic significance and can serve as the scientific basis for the hygienic assessment of CPS. The issues of the legal regulation of CPS were widely discussed, e.g. the UNESCO draft and the European Parliament resolution, as well as draft laws of the United Kingdom and the United States, the special groups were organized in Parliaments of many countries, including Russian Federation.

Changing Labor World and Workers’ Health

In the world, the nature of labor is changing; it becomes deserted (robotic), waste-free, etc. The role of the intellectual component of labor is growing, which, with an increase in the flow of information, may be accompanied by an increase in neuro-emotional stress of humans. This confirms the logical chain: new technologies – new risk factors – new diseases of workers – new hygienic tasks. The information loads (IL) were studied as a new hygienically significant physical factor; methodical materials and computer programs were created to evaluate both the IL itself and the mental load from it; they are included in the electronic library “Occupational Risk”. This creates a basis for research to determine the physical criteria for hygienic assessment of IL – textual, audiovisual, and especially from AR-VR devices [3].

The Concept of Allostasis

From biological point of view the concept of allostasis as a model of predictive regulation [5] and allostatic load (AL) as an integrated clinical measure of the influence of stress factors is of great importance. The evolution of ideas of homeostasis and allostasis in publications are still discussed [6]. The emergence of a synthesis of work on biomarkers, methods of determining of ALs and their assessment for different groups of workers are important. So were devised the algorithm for the calculation of the AL index and its computer implementation for storing data for the purpose of verification of the concept of allostasis and monitoring the health of workers in occupations with high stress and responsibility.

The AR-VR Devices need to be Studied Carefully

These create new risk factors and symptoms of motion sickness as a form of their manifestation. The basic theory is that of sensory conflict and then activation of the optic-vestibular-spinal system; one talks about the “disease of virtual reality”. Possible disorders of the human body functions when using AR-VR devices and medical contraindications, as well as health and safety requirements are systematized in Table 1 [4]. All types of robots and AI systems require hygienic assessment. Special attention should be paid to the AR-VR systems, which create specific health risks, especially for vulnerable groups: children, pregnant and breast-feeding women etc. The bases of information hygiene can serve as a tool to preserve the health of workers and the population in the digital age. The methods and criteria for evaluating CPS on the base of information hygiene and specialized hygiene regulations are urgently needed.

Table 1: Possible disorders of the human body systems when using AR-VR devices.

Request from NIOSH on the Priorities of Research of Industrial Robots

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which belongs to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), created the Center for the Study of professional Robotics (CORR) and requests information to determine the priority areas of research. These are gaps in knowledge on the safety and health of people working with industrial robotics, with a focus on the field of occupational safety and health, which are unlikely to be conducted by other federal agencies, academia, or the private sector. The request was signed by NIOSH Director John J. Howard, CORR’s curator is Hongwei Xiao, Ph.D.; CORR funding is provided for by the NIOSH strategic work plan for 2019-2023 [7].

Some National and International Initiatives

Besides the directions of CORR comments, the main information hygiene (IG) developments in Russia are published [3]. The role of sanitary inspection is noted, along with standardization and regulation by competent authorities: the WHO/ILO Joint Committee on Occupational Health, ISO, IEC, etc. In Russia was established the Technical Committee of Rosstandart TC-194 “Cyber-Physical Systems”, which began with terminology. The project ISO/IEC NP 23894 Artificial Intelligence -- Risk Management is also initiated. These initiatives reflect two mainstreams: occupational safety and health for CPS. In this area it is advisable to conduct largescale physiological and hygienic studies in order to develop guidelines for hygienic assessment and limiting information loads on workers and the public, similar to Russian hygienic guidelines on principles and methods and criteria of work-place health risk assessment: R 2.2.1766-03 and R 2.2.2006-05, resp. that are used under Federal Law of December 28, 2013 N 426-FZ “On the special assessment of working conditions”. It would be a new tool for introducing occupational risk assessment into the practice of sanitary surveillance for effective risk management and innovation development.

Conclusion

Informational hygiene is a new direction in occupational health. In recent years, in a number of countries, there has been a change in the structure of occupational morbidity with the shift of the spectrum of occupational and work-related diseases (WHO term, 1985) from the traditional ones (vibration disease, hearing loss, overstrain of organs and systems etc.) to psychosocial and caused by them somatic disorders. The question of information-related disorders is also raised, especially among adolescent workers, that requires participation in medical examinations along with tradition specialists also medical psychologists, etc. In general, we should agree with the OCAEM declaration on the desirability of combining efforts to preserve and promote health both in the workplace and in the environment.

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dtc-greater-noida · 4 years ago

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Our Future has a lot to do with proper planning, preparation, and choices that we make today. Be it in the academic world or the professional arena; be it in the field of sports competition, if one doesn’t plan for the future, the future does not include one in its plan. A Strong Team of Management and Mentors: At DTC, to bridge the industry-academia gap and mentor the students from 2nd year itself, we have a strong training & placement team consisting of Training & Placement officer, faculty placement coordinators & student mentors from. We at DTC follow various innovative channels to offer a strong placement outcome: Placement ERP: For speedy information, placement updates, and monitor students’ participation, we have implemented Placement ERP, Calixpod. Placement cell, students, faculty, and parents all can communicate through this innovative platform. Job Fair: Every Year, we organize job fairs in the institute for B.Tech & MBA students. Around 30 companies visit the institute with offers of placement & internships. Training & Workshops: From 3rd year itself, the institute organizes workshops and training for resume writing, interview skills, aptitude, and programming. The institute hired the corporate firm DreamUny for 45 sessions of corporate training. Assessment Tests: To evaluate the corporate skills of students and prepare them for jobs, the institute conducts the AMCAT test regularly. Student Mentors: The institute alumni who are placed with various big companies also visit the institute and provide mentoring to the upcoming batch. As a result of the continuous and collective efforts of training and placement cell, faculty coordinator, and mentors, our students are placed with big companies like Infosys, HCL, Wipro, TCS, Tech Mahindra, Cognizant, Nineleaps, NIIT, ICICI, etc.

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un-enfant-immature · 5 years ago

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Fiddler Labs, SRI and Berkeley experts open up the black box of machine learning at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI

As AI permeates the home, work, and public life, it’s increasingly important to be able to understand why and how it makes its decisions. Explainable AI isn’t just a matter of hitting a switch, though; Experts from UC Berkeley, SRI, and Fiddler Labs will discuss how we should go about it on stage at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI on March 3.

What does explainability really mean? Do we need to start from scratch? How do we avoid exposing proprietary data and methods? Will there be a performance hit? Whose responsibility will it be, and who will ensure it is done properly?

On our panel addressing these questions and more will be two experts, one each from academia and private industry.

Trevor Darrell is a professor at Berkeley’s Computer Science department who helps lead many of the university’s AI-related labs and projects, especially those concerned with the next generation of smart transportation. His research group focuses on perception and human-AI interaction, and he previously led a computer vision group at MIT.

Krishna Gade has passed in his time through Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Microsoft, and has seen firsthand how AI is developed privately — and how biases and flawed processes can lead to troubling results. He co-founded Fiddler as an effort to address problems of fairness and transparency by providing an explainable AI framework for enterprise.

Moderating and taking part in the discussion will be SRI International’s Karen Myers, director of the research outfit’s Artificial Intelligence Center and an AI developer herself focused on collaboration, automation, and multi-agent systems.

Save $50 on tickets when you book today. Ticket prices go up at the door and are selling fast. We have two (yes two) Startup Demo Packages Left – book your package now and get your startup in front of 1000+ of today’s leading industry minds. Packages come with 4 tickets – book here.

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workfromhom · 5 years ago

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Fiddler Labs, SRI and Berkeley experts open up the black box of machine learning at TC Sessions: Robotics+AI

On our panel addressing these questions and more will be two experts, one each from academia and private industry.

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bharatiyamedia-blog · 6 years ago

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UK Is ‘Very, Very Eager’ to Study India's Means to Create Tech Expertise at Scale: techUK's Simon Spier

http://tinyurl.com/y3xr7s4k In keeping with numbers shared by the British Excessive Fee in New Delhi, as of 2018, over 800 Indian corporations had been working within the UK, using over 100,000 individuals within the area. India is the UK’s fourth-largest supply of FDI initiatives and was the third-largest FDI job creator in 2017-18. Expertise kinds an enormous a part of this commerce relationship, with 31 % of Indian investments within the UK being in tech, with roughly the identical share in jobs creation. The UK, in the meantime, exported £344 million (roughly Rs. 3,015 crore as of date) of digital providers to India in 2016, and up to date occasions have introduced the 2 international locations even nearer. “The UK and India share a singular relationship that has strengthened through the years by dwelling bridge, funding, and cultural hyperlinks,” Amo Kalar, Deputy Director, Commerce and Innovation, British Excessive Fee, tells Devices 360. “There are actually a report 842 Indian corporations working within the UK, using over 104,932 individuals in 2018. That is testomony to the UK’s expert and skilled workforce and this continued funding will assist to create jobs, contribute tax and play an necessary position in deepening and lengthening the longstanding ties between India and the UK.” One of many organisations that has been enjoying an enormous position in enhancing the scope of cooperation between the 2 international locations is a non-profit referred to as techUK. The organisation represents the pursuits of the tech business within the UK, much like what NASSCOM does in India. Throughout Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UK in April last year, techUK and NASSCOM signed a proper settlement to extend the scope of their cooperation. On the sidelines of the London Tech Week earlier this month, Devices 360 received an opportunity to have a chat with Simon Spier, Head of Worldwide Commerce at techUK on the connection with NASSCOM and the way the 2 organisations are working collectively to facilitate tech corporations in each international locations. Listed here are excerpts from the dialog, edited barely for readability. In your position, are you extra targeted on UK corporations wanting outwards, or corporations from India in addition to different international locations wanting on the UK as a vacation spot?It is each. At techUK our position is, we’re not-for-profit, member-funded commerce affiliation. We have now 900 members starting from startups by to massive multinationals, together with the likes of BT and Vodafone, but in addition we have now a lot of non-UK, globally headquartered tech corporations as members — Google, Microsoft, Fb — and so forth. From India, [we have] TCS, Infosys, HCL, Wipro, Genpact, and others are all members. And as an organisation we’re there to assist form coverage — so push for tech-friendly laws — but in addition work on market engagement so [as] to assist corporations’ progress, each within the UK and internationally. Our sister organisation is NASSCOM, in order that’s in all probability the simplest level of comparability, and we work very carefully [with] them. My position as head of worldwide commerce is to work with our members to assist them perceive and realise alternatives outdoors of the UK, to work internationally to encourage and assist funding into the UK. And to work on the coverage to make these two issues a bit simpler, scale back a number of the friction. And we have now a lot of India particular initiatives [as well]. We have now created one thing referred to as the UK-India Tech Forum and we have additionally signed the UK-India Tech Alliance. So the UK-India Tech Alliance is a partnership with NASSCOM — which really kinds part of the official UK-India Tech Partnership signed by the Prime Ministers [of UK and India in April last year] — and the concept behind that’s to assist coverage collaboration supporting bilateral commerce and to take a look at a number of the challenges — whether or not that is kind of expertise and expertise hole — or no matter points could also be when it comes to serving to the bilateral commerce image. We have now additionally fashioned inside techUK, the UK-India Tech Discussion board. This can be a particular group that appears at how can we will, once more, enhance the bilateral commerce image, brings in UK SMEs and Indian SMEs, UK corporates, Indian corporates in addition to different multinationals that play in each the UK and in India. We additionally carry into that different our bodies such because the Federation of Indian business (FII), Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Trade (FICCI), the UK India Enterprise Council, each the British Excessive Fee in India, and the Indian Excessive Fee within the UK, and possibly some others that I am forgetting. And the the concept behind that’s to, once more, have a look at particularly what are a number of the alternatives and challenges because it relates — if I am a UK firm making an attempt to do extra in India, whether or not I am an SME who’s simply getting began in my worldwide growth or whether or not I am a big multinational, what are the challenges I am going through? And those self same questions in reverse. And generally these challenges are massive macro-level points — motion of information, motion of individuals, what our future buying and selling settlement will appear to be between the UK and India, and generally they’re so much smaller units. [For example] a UK firm struggling to know the distinction between state and nationwide degree rules in India, how do they go about navigating them, what’s one of the best place to arrange, these kind of issues. Or [an] Indian firm coming to the UK, struggling, they could have an entrepreneurial visa, however they’re making an attempt to get their partner to come back with them, or they’re struggling to open a checking account — these kind of issues the place there’s some comparatively straightforward fixes to that. And generally it is simply info asymmetry. Or generally it is just a bit little bit of tweaking throughout the system. As a result of we’re taking a holistic method and we’re bringing everybody into these conversations, we’re then how we will take care of a few of these smaller points, which really matter on the bottom. After which how we will use connection for each governments to take a look at the macro points when it comes to what is the migration image and and people kind of challenges. Are there any specific domains that are in better focus, so far as India-UK tech collaboration is worried?Yeah, so the the areas the place I feel there’s maybe probably the most focus and probably the most potential — and this is not to say there is not potential in different areas — however significantly round well being expertise, round id and cyber[security], round FinTech, and round good cities. I feel there is a pure alternative for each UK corporations going out to India — particularly round FinTech and, well being tech, in addition to good cities. I feel, for Indian corporations coming into the UK — India is extremely good at producing tech prepared graduates in a approach that the UK simply is not in a position to do it on the scale that is obligatory. And so simply to increase on that, at any given time there’s all the time a big shortfall within the quantity of staff the UK tech sector wants and what is ready to be provided. Estimates reckon that by subsequent 12 months there will be one million particular person shortfall. So with the ability to herald Indian tech expertise is part of the answer to that. How has the partnership with NASSCOM been and what can one count on within the subsequent couple of years?In order that partnership is ready up and the concept behind it’s that the we are going to herald high-level UK corporations, high-level Indian corporations, they will meet three to 4 occasions a 12 months and they’ll have a look at the altering form of the UK-India commerce as that grows stronger and stronger, figuring out what are a number of the points. So excessive up on the record of points has been expertise, when it comes to UK at any given time has this million particular person shortfall when it comes to what the tech business wants (or will do by subsequent 12 months), how can we work to assist fill that hole, and a part of the problem when it comes to simply availability of labour. So within the quick time period, making it simpler for distinctive expertise to come back right here to the UK is is one resolution, nevertheless it’s not the one resolution. We additionally must encourage extra individuals [in the UK] to be taking STEM topics at an early age, enhancing feminine participation within the workforce. So we have been working with a number of the massive Indian tech corporations abut how they have interaction with academia in [India] and the way they take and the learnings they’ve when it comes to encouraging STEM participation at a big degree. How can we undertake comparable options within the UK. In order that’s one instance, round expertise, the opposite is about the place are alternatives particularly for UK corporations going into India. So UK, clearly, is a world chief in FinTech. By way of a number of the agenda objects which were taken in India — demonetisation, AADHAAR — there are vital alternatives for FinTech options to be launched into India at scale in a approach you could’t do within the UK. So there is a very nice alternative there. That is one instance, I imply, you clearly have large alternatives when it comes to well being tech [and] alternatives when it comes to good cities. And I feel that the important thing factor is although the UK is phenomenal in relation to innovation — we have now 4 of the highest 10 main universities, we have now a well-backed VC neighborhood — the UK market’s restricted to 70 million. Sure, we have now the EU market, which is 500 million, [but] the connection with the EU is clearly altering, we nonetheless must see how that settles. However you’ve gotten a chance of 1.Three billion individuals in India, you’ve gotten a pure relationship. English is clearly extensively spoken in India, culturally they’re pretty comparable, we have now a big variety of Indian individuals dwelling within the UK, the time distinction is negligible — so there’s numerous alternatives in India that if you have a look at different markets of the same measurement maybe there’s completely different challenges. So it is a actually fascinating alternative when it comes to the innovation popping out of the UK and the power to match up with the dimensions and the chance in India. So that is what the alliance is , broadly. Is the connection that you’ve got with NASSCOM is pretty distinctive or do you’ve gotten comparable relationship with equal our bodies in different international locations as effectively?It is fairly distinctive. We do have relationships with numerous our sister organisations the world over, however these are typically extra kind of coverage supporting relationships. This — taking it to a commerce facilitation degree and the form of the formalised settlement that we have now with NASSCOM — is the one one which we have now. We will probably be wanting clearly to increase these relationships however I feel there’s an equal understanding within the UK and India when it comes to the chance for UK-India relations to develop, particularly given the Brexit context. How does the partnership with NASSCOM work on the floor degree — how would a UK startup go about getting assist with the India market, for instance?So we assist them, we work with NASSCOM, we work with a lot of different our bodies. A few of the suggestions that we have been getting — in each instructions — is that there’s a lot of organisations there that may assist — whether or not that is us, whether or not that is NASSCOM, whether or not that is the British Division for Worldwide Commerce, the Indian equal, UK RBC, and numerous different companions. That is within the within the kind of public sector — [then there’s] clearly legal professionals and accountants and stuff. There’s a lot info on the market, and truly, it isn’t essentially a problem to seek out [a] supporter, the problem is to kind of navigate all that info and seeing form of [where] one of the best assist is. We’re really making an attempt to assist map that and make it as straightforward as potential for UK corporations going to India and vice versa, to really navigate that exact journey. And it will likely be a case of — relying on what the corporate is on the lookout for, what stage they’re at, the place they’re seeking to go — the one who can provide one of the best resolution, or one of the best solutions is not all the time going to be the identical. And we are going to carry in several our bodies to assist. So, for instance, if [an] Indian firm is coming into the UK, the Division for Worldwide Commerce could be very useful as the primary level of name, but in addition, relying on the place they’re seeking to go within the UK, there are different our bodies that [can] assist them. So [if] they’re London, [there’s] London & Partners, Manchester, [there’s] Midas, [for] Birmingham, there’s Midlands Engine — there’s all of those completely different our bodies that may assist, and generally simply figuring out how you can map and navigate that’s a part of the problem. We attempt to assist assist corporations with that. A NASSCOM delegation is right here for London Tech Week — what’s usually on the agenda for these conferences?I feel it is these conversations about what’s what’s taking place in India, what are the core strengths [that] India has, and I feel, actually, that the power to create expertise — tech expertise — at scale is absolutely fascinating. And I feel the options that they’ve in India and the way they’ve carried out that in [India], the UK could be very, very eager to be taught, appropriately. And I feel all these massive tech corporations which have carried out so effectively in India, how they will do extra within the UK market, but in addition how they will then use the UK market to enter different international locations — whether or not that is within the EU, whether or not that is within the wider Commonwealth, whether or not that is going to the US, there’s numerous alternatives so I feel it is how they will develop their enterprise within the UK, and the UK is a unbelievable market. You do have phenomenal expertise right here, you’ve gotten nice R&D happening, you’ve gotten entry to capital, and you’ve got good cities to reside in. London is a thriving place; Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Edinburgh, so on, these are nice locations to be. So I feel the UK is a pure market for lots of Indian corporations to come back to, for these causes and in addition kind of the tradition and the historical past. So [these conversation are] about how can they develop their better presence within the UK with their unbelievable options. Disclosure: The correspondent attended London Tech Week on the invitation of the British Authorities’s Division for Worldwide Commerce. Source link

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endenogatai · 6 years ago

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Sunstone Technology re-brands as Heartcore to become a consumer-only European tech fund

Update: an earlier version of this story positioned the €160 million fund as newly announced, when in actual fact it was disclosed in late 2017 and consists of a combination of Heartcore Fund III (seed and series A) and Heartcore Progression Alpha (growth fund following through on Heartcore’s most successful companies).

Sunstone Technology, the tech arm of Sunstone, and an early-stage European venture capital firm with offices in Copenhagen and Berlin, is re-branding today and says that its combined €160 million tech fund will invest in consumer startups only going forward, at seed and at Series A.

The 12-year-old VC firm’s new name is “Heartcore Capital,” and, say its partners, is designed to reflect an understanding that “entrepreneurship is like a crash course in personal development”. In recognition of this, VCs need to provide empathy with founders, first and foremost, rather than simply optimise for returns.

(Admittedly, to some readers that will sound like a rather lofty goal. You can read my push back on the premise in the Q&A below with Heartcore’s Jimmy Fussing and Max Niederhofer).

Also related to the re-brand is a formal repositioning of the firm to be consumer-only focused — both B2C and B2B2C — with a remit to invest at seed and Series A stages. Heartcore’s thinking is that the consumer segment will continue to yield “massive outcomes,” and notes that less than 5 percent of consumer spend globally has moved online so far.

“We want to offer entrepreneurs a superior VC product in this category and believe that we can achieve this through the network effects that come with focus,” Heartcore’s Max Niederhofer tells me, citing the firm’s previous investments such as GetYourGuide, Natural Cycles, Boozt, Exporo, Seriously, Lillydoo, and others. “We want to invest in Europe’s new category-defining consumer brands,” he says.

Meanwhile, Heartcore says it has expanded its investment and partner team to give the VC “truly pan-European coverage” across the consumer segment. Yacine Ghalim has been promoted from principal to partner and is helping to establish a Paris office. Heartcore has also hired Levin Bunz as partner from Global Founders Capital, the $1 billion investment arm of Rocket Internet, and will be based at the VC’s Berlin office. Lastly, Signe Marie Sveinbjørnsson has been hired as a partner and will act as Chief Operating Officer and will be based at Heartcore’s Copenhagen HQ.

Below follows an email Q&A with Heartcore Managing Partner Jimmy Fussing and General Partner Max Niederhofer to find out more about the new fund, the new name ethos, and the pair’s thoughts on Brexit.

TC: Why the name change? If feels like you could be throwing away any brand recognition you already had.

JF: It felt like we were already changing a lot: a new positioning as Europe’s consumer-only VC, the “founders first” ethos. So the name change was a consequence of that. We had been operating as Sunstone Capital since 2007 together with Sunstone Life Sciences, who target a very different entrepreneur. Our founders are often younger, they don’t come from corporate R&D or academia, they tend to wear sneakers rather than lab coats.

MN: Over the last decade a lot of capital has come into the industry. The volume of potential deals has been increasing and we were naturally gravitating towards a consumer focus. There’s a lot of benefit from specialization and the new brand articulates much more clearly what we stand for.

JF: Like the founders we back, we have to take risks in order to offer something truly unique. This new name builds on our history and track. It’s deeply authentic. We like the vulnerability of the pun and that it’s just slightly outside our comfort zone. The objective of VC marketing is to be in the consideration set of the top founders – we think the Heartcore name is very memorable and the positioning as consumer-only VC in Europe is truly unique.

TC: Going forward, the fund is going to be entirely consumer-focussed (B2C and B2B2C), when many other VC firms presumably see B2B and the enterprise as safer bets and, arguably, playing to European strengths. What is the thinking behind going all in on consumer?

MN: VC is a game of power laws, where your largest companies represent much of your return. It isn’t really about risk reduction from a portfolio perspective. There are more large outcomes in consumer versus B2B – also in Europe. And Europe has a century-long history of creating outstanding consumer brands. Even online, think Booking.com, Spotify, Skype, Supercell, Minecraft… we think we can build on these strengths.

JF: Historically we’ve also just been very good at B2C. We backed folks like Boozt, GetYourGuide, Natural Cycles, Prezi very early on. The technology exists to build large consumer companies from pretty much anywhere. Founders all over Europe are rethinking every value chain from the point of view of the end customer – we believe that there is massive opportunity to build truly category-defining consumer companies in Europe.

TC: You cite a stat that says only 5 percent of commerce has moved online worldwide so far. Why do you think that is, what are the bottlenecks?

JF: To some extent, it’s the different nature of value chains of different industries. For example, media was much more readily disrupted by online because of its fragmentation, competitiveness, and zero marginal cost of end product delivery. Retail required setting up a physical delivery infrastructure, which has happened over the last decade and which is why e-commerce is still growing rapidly. Then industries like healthcare or finance have regulations and different gatekeepers that made it a bit more difficult for new entrants. But just look at where the neo-banks are today.

MN: As a person in tech you have a tendency to calibrate digital penetration using the existing platforms like social media or entertainment, and in particular with a skewed view on who the potential consumer is. There’s massive opportunity in old industries that are very physical, like real estate or transportation, and also a huge opportunity to give many more consumers access to better products and services. Think “the bottom 90%” – not just in the Western world, but everywhere.

TC: Digging deeper into your investment remit and beyond warm and fuzzy notions about tech changing people’s lives for the better, what particular consumer sectors, problems or technologies are you seeking to invest in out of this fund?

JF: We have sector-specific investment theses in areas like Direct-to-Consumer Brands, Food, Digital Health, Travel, Finance. We really want to invest anywhere that the consumer spends money. And we have business model-specific investment theses for e.g. Marketplaces or Consumer Subscriptions. And then we have a framework for how we think about problems: what’s the consumer trying to achieve, how does this do a better job, what emotional needs are satisfied in the context.

MN: There’s really two buckets of consumer investing: one is the emergence of new platforms, where consumers adopt a new technology very rapidly. And that’s probably where we’ve seen the bulk of venture returns, like Google, Facebook, and others. But there’s a second bucket where people are applying existing technologies to reinvent old industries and come up with new and better products and services. That’s incredibly promising right now and it is where we spend most of our time. We think the majority of our investments will come in that second category. But we’re certainly always looking for the first as well: what will the adoption curve of voice, VR/AR, or decentralizeded web look like for consumers.

TC: What stages and geographies will the fund invest? i.e. location and average cheque size.

JF: We’re focused on Europe, with the occasional investment in the US. We’re firmly Seed and Series A, with cheque sizes ranging from €250K to €5 million, allowing us to also participate in the large Series As.

TC: You talk about Heartcore Capital being “founders first” and having more empathy for the founder than returns alone. However, in various forms this is the pitch of almost every venture capital firm, perhaps a sign of a frothy market. What is Heartcore actually doing tangidly to put this ethos into practice?

MN: I love this question because it really demonstrates what we’re about. You ask for something “tangible” but that’s just it – venture according to us is not just a game of functional value-add, about what you do. It’s just as much about how you are and how you show up: with empathy and humility, with respect for the entrepreneurial journey, with a coaching mindset.

JF: We have a long list of foundational principles about how we interact with founders that’s totally different to what we’ve ever seen from other VCs. It all comes back to the Saint-Exupery quote on which we base our name: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what’s essential is invisible to the eyes.”

TC: Let’s talk about Brexit… Are you long or short on the U.K. leaving the EU and how do you think it will affect the ecosystem in the U.K., but more importantly, right across the various hubs in Europe?

JF: The U.K. has a very strong and deep startup ecosystem, and Brexit won’t change that. Of course a hard Brexit will complicate doing business in the UK. We’ve seen other European hubs trying to exploit that. Paris, Berlin, and our home market in the Nordics feel like they’re doing very well, which is why we set up local offices and teams there.

MN: But we’re keen to keep looking at U.K.-based consumer startups and Brexit won’t stop us from doing that. London has the best track in European consumer tech and we think it will remain a key hub for us going forward.

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oidheadh-con-culainn · 4 years ago

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Do you have any particularly deep thoughts on the Riastrad/Warp Spasm/Torque (whichever you prefer, I normally use Riastrad). Personally, I find it very interesting how its essentially presented as an antithesis of what Cu is, and how he presents himself. Monster/Hero, Large/Small, etc.

i DO have a lot of thoughts on the ríastrad but i am not sure they are of the sort that can really be articulated in a tumblr post bc they are... well, maybe not thesis length, but at the very least conference-paper-length

(actually i was considering submitting a paper on the ríastrad to a conference this year but. covid happened. so, you know, RIP that paper i never actually wrote)

the other thing about my ríastrad thoughts is that they are... very influenced by other people’s opinions, which is understandable, so it’s hard to articulate them without like. footnotes to say “oh this is actually drawing on jeremy lowe’s article from 2000″ or “yeah I borrowed this from sarah kunzler” and like. academically speaking i always wanna give credit for concepts

(sarah kunzler’s article “inside out... and upside down: cu chulainn and his ríastrad” is available here btw, you don’t need a login, and she refs a lot of other articles that i’ve found useful)

i really like what jeremy lowe says in “kicking over the traces” (sadly NOT available online -- i have a very messy photocopy of this article with my scribblings all over it but nothing else) about how like. the threat of the ríastrad is always present. there is no cú chulainn without it. the name ‘cú chulainn’ refers both to the beautiful hero and to the terrifying monster, and that duality always exists and that danger is always present.

lowe comes really close to talking about gender stuff in this article and touches on the idea of instability on that front but then. doesn’t. but it’s still a really good article and gives me a lot of feelings.

amy mulligan also has some really interesting readings of the ríastrad (some in published articles, some in her unpublished dphil thesis which she was kind enough to send me during undergrad). in particular she looks at how it illustrates isidorean ideas of the body and like. medieval medical beliefs, and how you can interpret it through those frameworks to create some kind of logic to the absurdity of the transformation. i don’t agree with all of her interpretations but i find them very useful in making my own

uh but yeah i have. many complicated feelings about the ríastrad. i would like to one day make them into words so that they don’t just live in my head.

#cu chulainn #riastrad #medieval irish #tain bo cuailnge #tc does academia #answered #oddnub

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incorrect-ulster-cycle · 6 years ago

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I think the lesson we’ve all learned from this is not to send me asks about medieval Irish literature unless you want a one-thousand word academic digression on the subject lmao

(anyone who follows me @trans-cuchulainn probably already knew this -- the ‘tc does academia’ tag exists for a reason -- but that may not have filtered through to this blog yet... so yeah, just fair warning, I will spend an hour researching answers to asks when you were probably only looking for a couple of lines, because I am just Like That)

(also, for those who didn’t realise that it’s an academic/medievalist who runs this blog... now you know. I will not apologise for being a huge fucking nerd, but consider this a fair warning that I have eDIL and I’m not afraid to use it)

#not a quote #tc talks #sometimes i wish any of this stuff was under my real name so i could take credit for it lol

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toomanysinks · 6 years ago

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Sunstone Technology re-brands as Heartcore to become a consumer-only European tech fund

(Admittedly, to some readers that will sound like a rather lofty goal. You can read my push back on the premise in the Q&A below with Heartcore’s Jimmy Fussing and Max Niederhofer).

TC: Why the name change? If feels like you could be throwing away any brand recognition you already had.

TC: You cite a stat that says only 5 percent of commerce has moved online worldwide so far. Why do you think that is, what are the bottlenecks?

TC: What stages and geographies will the fund invest? i.e. location and average cheque size.

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/21/vc-just-got-heartcore/

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fmservers · 6 years ago

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Sunstone Technology re-brands as Heartcore to become a consumer-only European tech fund

Sunstone Technology, the tech arm of Sunstone, and an early-stage European venture capital firm with offices in Copenhagen and Berlin, is re-branding today and that its combined €160 million tech fund will invest in consumer startups only going forward, at seed and at Series A.

(Admittedly, to some readers that will sound like a rather lofty goal. You can read my push back on the premise in the Q&A below with Heartcore’s Jimmy Fussing and Max Niederhofer).

TC: Why the name change? If feels like you could be throwing away any brand recognition you already had.

TC: You cite a stat that says only 5 percent of commerce has moved online worldwide so far. Why do you think that is, what are the bottlenecks?

TC: What stages and geographies will the fund invest? i.e. location and average cheque size.

Via Steve O'Hear https://techcrunch.com

#TechCrunch

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