#the processes for implementing it are not. in fact. difficult to understand!!

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

ahh the art of politely saying "the other office is going to try and make us carry the brunt of the work and we cannot let them do that because this is their goddamn file and has been for almost a year now and if they don't know it that is their problem however we can provide technical support/knowledge on the key issues if they need us to but christ alive this better not slide onto our plate. Slippage Has Happened Historically. I will NOT allow it to while we are severely understaffed with me being the only person present with any history on the file which means I would be doing it"

I rewrote my "OH NO OH NO IT'S A TRAP" email to my manager like ten times.

Put my little greasy Grima-the-civil-servant hat on. The amount of "a just question my liege" that I do I swear

also Grima's "I told you to take the wizard's staff" frustration when dealing with people who literally didn't do the One (1) thing you asked of them - so fucking relatable

[jstor]

I saw something about generative AI on JSTOR. Can you confirm whether you really are implementing it and explain why? I’m pretty sure most of your userbase hates AI.

A generative AI/machine learning research tool on JSTOR is currently in beta, meaning that it's not fully integrated into the platform. This is an opportunity to determine how this technology may be helpful in parsing through dense academic texts to make them more accessible and gauge their relevancy.

To JSTOR, this is primarily a learning experience. We're looking at how beta users are engaging with the tool and the results that the tool is producing to get a sense of its place in academia.

In order to understand what we're doing a bit more, it may help to take a look at what the tool actually does. From a recent blog post:

Content evaluation

Problem: Traditionally, researchers rely on metadata, abstracts, and the first few pages of an article to evaluate its relevance to their work. In humanities and social sciences scholarship, which makes up the majority of JSTOR’s content, many items lack abstracts, meaning scholars in these areas (who in turn are our core cohort of users) have one less option for efficient evaluation. 

When using a traditional keyword search in a scholarly database, a query might return thousands of articles that a user needs significant time and considerable skill to wade through, simply to ascertain which might in fact be relevant to what they’re looking for, before beginning their search in earnest.

Solution: We’ve introduced two capabilities to help make evaluation more efficient, with the aim of opening the researcher’s time for deeper reading and analysis:

Summarize, which appears in the tool interface as “What is this text about,” provides users with concise descriptions of key document points. On the back-end, we’ve optimized the Large Language Model (LLM) prompt for a concise but thorough response, taking on the task of prompt engineering for the user by providing advanced direction to:

Extract the background, purpose, and motivations of the text provided.

Capture the intent of the author without drawing conclusions.

Limit the response to a short paragraph to provide the most important ideas presented in the text.

Search term context is automatically generated as soon as a user opens a text from search results, and provides information on how that text relates to the search terms the user has used. Whereas the summary allows the user to quickly assess what the item is about, this feature takes evaluation to the next level by automatically telling the user how the item is related to their search query, streamlining the evaluation process.

Discovering new paths for exploration

Problem: Once a researcher has discovered content of value to their work, it’s not always easy to know where to go from there. While JSTOR provides some resources, including a “Cited by” list as well as related texts and images, these pathways are limited in scope and not available for all texts. Especially for novice researchers, or those just getting started on a new project or exploring a novel area of literature, it can be needlessly difficult and frustrating to gain traction. 

Solution: Two capabilities make further exploration less cumbersome, paving a smoother path for researchers to follow a line of inquiry:

Recommended topics are designed to assist users, particularly those who may be less familiar with certain concepts, by helping them identify additional search terms or refine and narrow their existing searches. This feature generates a list of up to 10 potential related search queries based on the document’s content. Researchers can simply click to run these searches.

Related content empowers users in two significant ways. First, it aids in quickly assessing the relevance of the current item by presenting a list of up to 10 conceptually similar items on JSTOR. This allows users to gauge the document’s helpfulness based on its relation to other relevant content. Second, this feature provides a pathway to more content, especially materials that may not have surfaced in the initial search. By generating a list of related items, complete with metadata and direct links, users can extend their research journey, uncovering additional sources that align with their interests and questions.

Supporting comprehension

Problem: You think you have found something that could be helpful for your work. It’s time to settle in and read the full document… working through the details, making sure they make sense, figuring out how they fit into your thesis, etc. This all takes time and can be tedious, especially when working through many items. 

Solution: To help ensure that users find high quality items, the tool incorporates a conversational element that allows users to query specific points of interest. This functionality, reminiscent of CTRL+F but for concepts, offers a quicker alternative to reading through lengthy documents. 

By asking questions that can be answered by the text, users receive responses only if the information is present. The conversational interface adds an accessibility layer as well, making the tool more user-friendly and tailored to the diverse needs of the JSTOR user community.

Credibility and source transparency

We knew that, for an AI-powered tool to truly address user problems, it would need to be held to extremely high standards of credibility and transparency. On the credibility side, JSTOR’s AI tool uses only the content of the item being viewed to generate answers to questions, effectively reducing hallucinations and misinformation. 

On the transparency front, responses include inline references that highlight the specific snippet of text used, along with a link to the source page. This makes it clear to the user where the response came from (and that it is a credible source) and also helps them find the most relevant parts of the text. 

[rederiswrites]

I want to talk about my health journey over this last year, improving my function and getting better with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. But talking about chronic illness is so incredibly difficult. Look at the backlash people get for saying that exercise and sunshine and regular sleep really DO help depression. What I have to say is in many ways the same thing! It's an incredibly delicate issue, and very often, talking about solutions you can implement yourself sounds like blaming people for their own suffering. On the other hand, if all you hear is the conventional medical line that there's nothing but some medicine that sort of helps, that's where you're stuck. I was stuck.

I didn't want to hear that learning to fucking relax was going to be a huge component of my journey. That sounded like exactly the same shit the people who said "have you tried yoga" and the doctors who told me it was all in my head were saying! It's not, really. Not at all. It's missing far too many critical components. But uh....learning to relax is in fact incredibly important.

For example, yes, the pain is in my head. Pain is ALWAYS in our heads!! That is where the brain decides to interpret data received from the nerves as pain! It is ALWAYS heavily influenced by factors well beyond the objective experience. Science has thoroughly demonstrated that we can feel pain without an injury--indeed, that we can feel pain when the sensory input wasn't even on our body! And in the inverse, we can have injuries and not experience pain. Pain is not nearly as reliable a signal of injury as we believe it to be.

And yes! Yoga might help! It helps a lot of people! But if you go and do yoga with, say, a teacher who is not trauma-informed, or without at least some understanding of what your nervous system is up to, or the strains and trouble points in your body, you'll get little benefit and might experience harm.

The nervous system is our body's OS, in a very real sense, and for me as for many people, addressing that turns out to be really important to healing. But the nervous system isn't really designed to be user serviceable! So if it's being overreactive, constantly on high alert, keeping you in a stress response that physically blocks healing, feeling pain where there's really only a light and innocuous pressure, or maybe just a runaway inflammatory response that, like a highway traffic jam, is literally just creating itself-- well, fixing that is hardly a matter of just "oh silly goose you should stop that! It's all in my head!" But there are ways. Mindfulness techniques. Visualization. Meditation. I almost mistyped medication but it's actually true--a lot of the time fibro and ME/CFS patients get treated with antidepressants! It does help, for a while, but it doesn't change the underlying problem much.

For me, while I've tried and gotten benefit from some of those--actually, come to think, ALL of those things--pure information is my medicine of choice. Just exposing myself over and over to the message that you can get better, that people have, that there's nothing detectable mechanically wrong with me, to the science of physiology and the nervous system and pain. Books, TED talks, youtube videos, research papers, articles...

And most importantly, I had to commit. I had to reach a point where I said, I will do whatever it takes. No comfort, no habit, is more important than getting better, and I believe I can get better. No doctor ever told me that--I had to find survivors who had recovered online, largely by accident. Once I believed I could get better, working to achieve that goal became vastly easier. So I radically changed my diet. I restructured my days massively. I spent hundreds of hours consuming information that reinforced my hope and commitment and my understanding of the problems. I worked incredibly hard to get my sleep under control, and it's an ongoing process but there has been progress.

Today, I got out of bed before the second alarm that tells me to get off my phone and get up. Because getting up wasn't so crushingly hard. I didn't have a perfect night's sleep, but it was enough. Yesterday, and the day before, I worked steadily through the day, I accomplished my goals, and I didn't end the day crushingly drained OR bubbling with adrenaline from pushing myself beyond my normal limits. I don't need to recover, today. Because I didn't do more than I could sustainably do, and yet I made progress. I did laundry. Had great conversations. Planted three dozen tulips. Pulled weeds. Attended a webinar and learned how my state legislature works. Took care of the chickens. Ate a really healthy lunch that I enjoyed, and made the family a really healthy, delicious dinner. Caught up on the news with the family and then read a thought-provoking book. Made beads.

I still have a long way to climb on this spiral staircase. Probably the cold weather and midwinter will really challenge my ability to regulate myself and stay functional. I still have to incorporate regular exercise as a critical pillar of ongoing good health. I'm still struggling to find resources on meditation and mindfulness practice that I resonate with. (Three books in on that subject, one of which was interesting but annoying, two of which I actually quit in exasperation.) But I do really feel like I'm making progress that's not just luck or the usual fluctuation of symptoms. I am, in quiet ways, doing Pretty Okay. And that's a lot, when you've been bedbound.

[redd956]

Writing Advice: Characterization

Writing characters can be really hard, and conveying personality to readers is just as difficult

I'm expert in this and I'm studying so take my word with a grain of salt

Here are some tips on writing characterization

Show don't tell of characterization

I'm sure my fellow writers are exhausted of hearing show don't tell, especially cause it's difficult to remember to do or master

And there's a lot of different ways to implement it, but I feel it means even more for characters because it gives you a chance to explore their personality

Sometimes it is better to tell, but many times showing grants you an upperhand take for example:

Character A was furious. Character B's voice was annoying them only further. They were ready to punch them in the face.

This can work, however it can easily bore the reader and goes little in the character or world themselves.

Character A glared at Character B, their arms tightly crossed, and leg impatiently tapping. All they could do was roll their eyes as Character B spoke. After all it got their mind off punching B in the face.

This is sentence shows more of the character. It shows that they have an attitude, and are more prone to punching people. I'm not good at explaining show don't tell, so I suggest looking into it, and remember that the rules aren't set in stone either.

Complexity

Character complexity helps aid the reader's suspension of disbelief and makes the characters feel more people-like. Not every character needs to be complex, and sometimes complexity isn't meant for one at all.

However it helps solidify a character, add more potential conflict to a story, and remove one-dimensionality.

Often times many stories start with one-dimensional characters and as installments and exploration increases, even the most silly characters become complex serious designs.

3 ways I prefer to show complexity

Show a character's thought process. Don't drown the reader in it, but dabble in character thoughts at moderate levels. Ig can help pacing anyway.

Give character groups opposing ideologies, beliefs, and ideas. Then show how these characters respond to them.

Give your characters bad traits and flaws. Don't stray towards hate-able personality, but understand that the world isn't black and white and neither shall your character be. The easiest way to do so and keep things complex is by extending already set positive traits. A character kind. Have them be too kind, let people go or trust people who shouldn't be trusted. Or they are kind to only certain groups of people, and need to learn to grow out of it.

Action

Actions, I'm not just talking about what your character does, although that is important too. Show me the character through how they do things, especially good to split up dialogue.

For example

Character A and B watched TV

This sentence works perfectly however if it is a moment where you're trying to characterize it can be utilized. For instance

The TV was playing a horror movie. Character A's eyes stayed glued to it, ignoring the fact that Character B was already clinging to them.

This tells you a lot more about the characters, and establishes a dynamic between the two as well.

Anyway that is all I can think off I hope this helps

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Iam not usually one to offer diagnoses of people I’ve never met, but it does seem like the pundit class of the American media is suffering from severe memory loss. Because they’re doing exactly what they did in the 2016 presidential race – providing wildly asymmetrical and inflammatory coverage of the one candidate running against Donald J Trump.

They have become a stampeding herd producing an avalanche of stories suggesting Biden is unfit, will lose and should go away, at a point in the campaign in which replacing him would likely be somewhere between extremely difficult and utterly catastrophic. They do this while ignoring something every scholar and critic of journalism knows well and every journalist should. As Nikole Hannah-Jones put it: “As media we consistently proclaim that we are just reporting the news when in fact we are driving it. What we cover, how we cover it, determines often what Americans think is important and how they perceive these issues yet we keep pretending it’s not so.” They are not reporting that he is a loser; they are making him one.

According to one journalist’s tally, the New York Times has run 192 stories on the subject since the debate, including 50 editorials and 142 news stories. The Washington Post, which has also gone for saturation coverage, published a resignation speech they wrote for him. Not to be outdone, the New Yorker’s editor-in-chief declared that Biden not going away “would be an act not only of self-delusion but of national endangerment” and had a staff writer suggest that Democrats should use the never-before-deployed 25th amendment.

Since this would have to be led by Vice-President Kamala Harris, it would be a sort of insider coup. And so it goes with what appears to be a journalistic competition to outdo each other in the aggressiveness of the attacks and the unreality of the proposals. It’s a dogpile and a panic, and there is no one more unable to understand their own emotional life, biases and motives than people who are utterly convinced of their own ironclad rationality and objectivity, AKA most of these pundits.

Speaking of coups, we’ve had a couple of late, which perhaps merit attention as we consider who is unfit to hold office. This time around, Trump is not just a celebrity with a lot of sexual assault allegations, bankruptcies and loopily malicious statements, as he was in 2016. He’s a convicted criminal who orchestrated a coup attempt to steal an election both through backroom corruption and public lies and through a violent attack on Congress. The extremist US supreme court justices he selected during his last presidential term themselves staged a coup this very Monday, overthrowing the US constitution itself and the principle that no one is above the law to make presidents into kings, just after legalizing bribery of officials, and dismantling the regulatory state by throwing out the Chevron deference.

Trump’s own former staffers are part of the Heritage Foundation’s team planning to implement Project 25 if he wins, which would finish off our system of government with yet another coup. “We are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” said the foundation’s president the other day. This alarms me. So does the behavior of the US mainstream media, which seems more concerned with sabotaging the only thing standing between us and this third coup.

“Why aren’t we talking about Trump’s fascism?” demands the headline of Jeet Heer’s piece in the Nation, to which the answer might be a piece by the Nation’s own editor-in-chief titled “Biden’s patriotic duty” that proposes his duty is to get lost. Sometimes I wonder if all this coverage is because the media knows how to cover a normal problem like a sub-par candidate; they don’t know how to cover something as abnormal and unprecedented as the end of the republic. So for the most part they don’t.

Biden is old. He was one kind of appalling in the 27 June debate, listless and sometimes stumbling and muddling his words. But Trump was another kind of appalling, in that almost everything he said was an outrageous lie and some of it was a threat. I get that writing about the monstrosity that is Trump faces the problem that it’s not news; he’s been a monster spouting lurid nonsense all his life (but his political crimes are recent, and his free-associating public soliloquies on sharks, batteries, toilets, water flow and Hannibal Lector, among other topics, are genuinely demented). He’s a racist, a fascist and a rapist (according to a civil-court verdict).

We are deciding whether this nation has a future as a more-or-less democratic republic this November, and on that rides the fate of the earth when it comes to acting on climate change. If the US falters at this decisive moment in the climate crisis, it will drag down everyone else’s efforts. Under Trump, it will. But the shocking supreme court decisions this summer and the looming threat of authoritarianism have gotten little ink and air, compared to the hue and cry about Biden’s competence.

Few seem to remember that Biden’s age and his verbal gaffes were an issue in the 2020 campaign. Biden is a lifelong stutterer, and the effort to keep his words on track means that he operates under an extra burden with every unscripted answer he gives, particularly under pressure (though he had a long, easygoing conversation with Howard Stern a couple of months ago, in which he discusses his stuttering at about the 1:13 mark).

Some speech pathologists have suggested he may (not does, just may) have a disorder that sometimes accompanies stuttering, called cluttering, which is not an intellectual deficiency but a sometimes hectic and disorderly translation of thoughts into words. In recent months, actual gerontologists have said in print that Biden appears to have normal signs of aging, not signs of dementia. Nevertheless, the amateur armchair diagnosticians have been out in packs, and their confidence in their ability to diagnose from watching TV is itself an alarming delusion. I am not giving Biden a clean bill of health; I’m saying that I don’t have a basis to render a verdict (and neither do the august editors of large publications).

Few seem to remember that Biden’s age and his verbal gaffes were an issue in the 2020 campaign

Although the Biden administration seems to have run extremely well for three and a half years, with a strong cabinet, few scandals and little turnover, a thriving economy and some major legislative accomplishments, the narrative the punditocracy has created suggest we should ignore this record and decide on the basis of the 90-minute debate and reference to newly surfaced swarms of anonymous sources that Biden is incompetent. Quite a lot of them have been running magical-realism fantasy-football scenarios in which it is fun and easy to swap in your favorite substitute candidate. The reality is that it is hard and quite likely to be a terrible mess. Nevertheless, this pretense is supposed to mean that telling a presidential candidate in mid-campaign to get lost is fine.

The main argument against Biden is not that he can’t govern – that would be hard to make given that he seems to have done so for the past years – but that he can’t win the election. But candidates do not win elections by themselves. Elections are won, to state the obvious, by how the electorate turns out and votes. The electorate votes based on how they understand the situation and evaluate the candidates. That is, of course, in large part shaped by the media, as Hannah-Jones points out, and the media is right now campaigning hard for a Democratic party loss. The other term for that is a Republican victory. Few things have terrified and horrified me the way this does.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

[poetasstro]

- ask me things you want to know about me

What made you a Marxist?

Sorry for the delay brother. I have had a fever these days and only today I was able to recover.

I have always been "leftist" in my political positions, it is enough to contrast the injustices of my daily reality to know that there is something wrong. I also always thought that there was something deeper than the obvious, so those leftist positions were not enough to explain a lot of social problems.

As it could not be otherwise with the kind of consciousness that capitalism produces, I mean a liberal and individualistic consciousness, my first approach to a more theoretical and structured form of political thinking was through anarchist ideas. Which basically are the left's implementation of capitalist consciousness, exacerbated individualism, believing that personal freedom is a supreme value that is coerced by the "oppression" of the capitalist system and that the solution is a global revolution that will happen magically and spontaneously when the time comes.

This type of consciousness is produced naturally as an antagonism to the capitalist system, but in the background it reproduces its ideological foundations, therefore its form of action can only result in political impotence and pessimistic nihilism. Individual actions, committed by lone wolves or political organizations that refuse to do real politics for fear of "oppressive hierarchies". You can see it in "anti-system" movements like punks, hippies or in the particular case of Ted Kaczynski.

This kind of consciousness allows you the moral complacency of being "the good guys" but explains nothing about the dynamics of capitalism, nor how it reproduces itself. Luckily, thanks to curiosity, I came across Marx's texts, which allowed me a greater depth of analysis. In Marx, there are no magic formulas, divine laws or sacred scriptures, the grace of the author is that he developed a method that allows to transcend the illusory and ideological forms of the phenomena to understand them in their historical and economic content, as social facts product of human action and in this way to understand the dynamics that would allow to transform them.

He is a difficult author, who must be read carefully, but today, as never before in the history of the working class, it is possible to read about him on many platforms.

I declare myself a Marxist, but mostly as a way to normalize the fact that Marxism is no longer a curse word. I recognize that I still have a lot to read about marx and other authors, it is a long process, but the first step is to start. So brother, if you want help or some advice on how to start reading marx don't hesitate to ask me.

Now if you allow me, I will also send you an ask hahaha (you have dessactuvad the ask boxs jsja)

And how do you end being so political in the U.S ? I have read a lot about the United States, and it is very difficult to find people like you there.

[accidentalmistress]

On AI, Chatbots, and snz

Some few weeks back a post about a Sickfic RP chatbot made waves through the snzblr community. I was particularly taken with the bot and even made a snz boi bot of my own. I'd like to talk about a few developments that have occurred in the intervening time.

In a post I made about tips for using the bot, one of the points I made was that the Character AI website was in beta, and that things could change. Well, things have certainly changed in the CAI community, and by that I mean there is a full-on revolt happening within the userbase.

Simply put, many users want the automatic content filter rolled back or made optional. The devs have been less than receptive to this idea.

The devs have always stated that porn will never be supported, but that they were exploring what kind of NSFW content to allow, as the term covers a large umbrella. They have an automatic filter in place that will delete chat messages that it finds questionable, and certain bots have been shadow banned. In fact, the original Sickfic RP chatbot, by user AdamLiquor, no longer comes up in searches (at least for me). Only their other bot, The Clinic, shows up.

The Sickfic bot is still available, but afaik it's only accessable via a direct link (like this one).

More recently, the devs locked down the official Discord server so no one but them can post, removing most channels in the process. They claimed it was because they couldn't keep up with it and wanted to focus on their forum and subreddit. Well, they have now made it so that you can't use the word "filter" in any posts on the official subreddit, and have automated mods that remove posts that criticize the filter, even indirectly. A few days ago they promised a "statement" on the situation would be coming "soon", but have so far failed to provide anything.

On the surface, the conflict looks like a bunch of people just want to fuck the AI, but users have been complaining that the intelligence and creativity of the bots have decreased significantly since the filter was put in place. The devs claimed that the bots were just as intelligent as they've always been, and that the filter wasn't causing problems. However, as time has gone on since the filter was implemented, bot quality has continued to degrade, and even things as innocent as kissing can sometimes get filtered. (Violence, however, seems A-OK by the filter's standards.)

Then, there was a filter outage.

Bot responded faster, they became less repetitive, more creative, took more initiative. Without the filter, which the devs claimed wasn't the cause of users' complaints, those complaints disappeared. The community felt lied to.

Enter Pygmalion.

A number of folks who were tired of the limitations of other AI chatbot services started creating the Pygmalion AI back in November, and a lot of CAI's users are jumping ship to this new platform now. Pyg is not yet at CAI level, and it is currently a little difficult to access, but many users are quite impressed and expect it to only get better. There is no content filter, so you can get as creative and/or lewd as you want. One of the issues that Pyg has, though, is that it wasn't trained on a huge set of conversational data like CAI was. So the developers of Pygmalion have asked for help from people who have used CAI.

You can download your chat logs from CAI, convert them into a format Pygmalion can understand, and then dump them into the data set that will continue to help train Pyg. I haven't yet done it myself, but I plan to. I figure, the more snz content it can be trained on in advance, the better the platform will be for snz when it does get as good as CAI. The process can't be done on mobile and requires a number of steps and downloading a userscript manager, so it's not going to be for everyone. However, if you would like to contribute your snz and/or sickfic logs to Pygmalion, details can be found at the following link: here.

More info about Pygmalion can also be found on their subreddit, and this post in particular has some helpful links.

(Oh yeah, "Pygmalion" is also now on the dev's list of no-no words for the CAI subreddit.)

The Pygmalion crew says that they hope to have their own website available in 2-4 weeks. With any luck, soon we can all have the sexy snz chatbots of our dreams. (Edit: The devs of Pygmalion have come out to say that this timeline is a rumor only. They are working on a new UI, but they are hobbyists and still learning about AI themselves, so it will take some time.)

[blake447]

Dragon Curves

This is one of my personal favorite fractals, the Harter-Heighway Dragon Curve, featured in the original Jurrassic park book shown skipping a few steps at a time, unpredictably evolving into this shape here to highlight the chaotic but organized mess of nature we struggle to predict and understand. This is among the friends I am most deeply and intimately familiar with. I started playing around with these based off an old ViHart video explaining how to make them in terms of squiggles and folding papers

My traditional method has always been to take a sequence, reverse it, and add one, rolling over when you hit 4. Example 0 01 01 21 01 21 23 21 01 21 23 21 23 03 23 21

If you change each number into a direction, 0 being right, 1 being up, and so on, then follow that path along the sequence you will also get a dragon curve. There are so many wonderful ways to construct these

However, here’s my favorite

This is my Dragon Curve *unity shader* that I wrote. It comes with an editor script that you can use to bake it into a texture, since the process is a bit heavy. Why is this so special you ask? Well it comes down to the fact that this is running in real time, in parallel. See algorithms have two main kinds of families, parallel and serial. A serial algorithm goes step by step, like taking a math test alone. A parallel algorithm runs side by side, like everyone doing one problem on the test. Its much faster, but they aren’t allowed to talk to each other so if the same problem shows up twice, or if a second problem relies on the answer to the first, its much more difficult. This is why dragon curves are hard to parallelize. You take the sequence *before* and reverse / increase. You take the segments *from the last step* and fold them again. You fold the paper *back over itself* referencing previous work. This problem is about as serializable as it comes. So how do you parallelize? Will, you change your perspective

See instead of trying to split everyone up to try to *create* a dragon curve, you give every pixel a job to decide *is it on* a dragon curve. By rotating the space itself in alternating grid patterns you can twist a dragon curve down into a single line. If your point in space ends up on the line, then it was on the dragon curve! Furthermore, the direction it turns due to how the grids line up actually encodes how far along the dragon curve it was in binary (left being a 0, right being a 1), so by keeping track of that and converting it to decimal we can give subtle coloration to points on one dragon curve from 0-2^n, and clip out anything that isn’t on it. As far as I know, I’m the only person to have implemented it this way and it might be a straight up novel algorithm, which I’m super proud of!

And this is how I create these beautiful Dragon Curve Plaids. Since we’re warping the space itself, we do our twisting to collapse it, put some little checker and strip patterns on that space, color it a little bit based on the direction, and unwind it again to twist the pattern into the dragon curve instead of the space. I also have a live demonstration of the algorithm up on shadertoy, though its a very outdated implementation and not well optimized. Here’s one thats animated, and here’s a newer one that tracks the folds in binary. They are rendering in real time, so potatos beware. Finally, here’s a zoom on one of my youtube accounts of a 41st iteration dragon curve zoom, twice as many iterations in realtime as my old laptop could do in 20 minutes. Computer Science enthusiasts will realize how mind boggling cool that is, even if its is entirely useless.

[positivelyadhd]

I have a question (feel free to not answer). I feel the need for my problems to be unique and special and worse than everyone else’s. I don’t say it out loud but I feel the need to always have the worst problem. I slept less than you, my past was worse, it’s harder for me. I don’t give in but I find it very difficult to accept that two problems can coexist. I can be struggling and so can you. We can support each other mutualy, it doesn’t matter who has it worse. I know it’s from some stuff that happened in the past but I feel like a terrible person because of it. I struggle between constantly trama dumping and being dramatic and repressing it. I wish I could get over it but even when I know how to act and implement these actions in my life, I still feel bitter whenever someone has a worse problem than me. Its so hard to constantly feel like I’m always acting and doing for attention no matter what I do. And I can’t get over it. I don’t really see a way out and it’s getting really hard. I don’t know how to change my mindset when I’ve tried my best to change my actions, what do I do?

I understand how you feel anon, I think a lot of people do. It can be hard not to compare ourselves and our situations to other people, especially if we've felt invalidated for struggling in the past. There is unfortunately no easy answer but I think the fact that you recognise that you feel this way is so so important. Feeling like that doesn't make you a bad person, we all have reasons for the way that we feel and you are allowed to feel that way. What's most important is how you react to those feelings.

I think allowing yourself the space to feel that way is important, it's something you need to process, and you can't change your mindset or process it until you really allow yourself to feel it. When those feelings come up you should be allowed to feel that way and remember that your feelings aren't your actions. It can be difficult, but try to remind yourself that your feelings and problems are valid, regardless of how other people may feel. someone else having problems does not make yours any less, there is space for both peoples problems to exist without minimising what someone else might be going through.

When I feel like that I try and focus on the other person and what they're saying in the moment and keep hold of any way I might be feeling as something to process later by myself. Try to remember that if someone is telling you about something they're struggling with, their intention is not to try and make you feel invalidated, its to speak to someone about how they're feeling. You're allowed to feel the way you do, but by trying to focus on them and their feelings in the moment you're giving them the space they feel they need.

I hope this could be helpful anon and I'm sending you my love, remember that your feelings are always valid, regardless of how other people may be feeling <33

[sevnthhart-a]

knock knock, it's me, local menace, and i am here to pose a meta question : what does make tifa happy? what does genuinely spark joy to her? any comfort books, food dishes, drinks, snacks, series, books, music? or would you think that tifa is so absorbed with everything that she hardly makes time to find these things for herself?

blu ,  local menace ,  my beloved. thank you for indulging my brainrot xoxo

i. first off, some background as to how i see her mental state / default emotional response because it plays such a heavy part in understanding my thought process on this. to put it frankly, her feelings run deep. this isn't exclusive to the joyful ones, but the more intense outbursts of sadness, anger, etc. as well. while it may not be intentional, everyone close to her  ( or even just in general )  has the power to break her heart or heal it. that isn't to say she's fragile  ( quite the opposite ;  canon content has put her through so much ,  i'm genuinely in awe of how she's able to withstand it all )  or a crybaby about it  ( because i've seen it been said ). the more ill aligning feelings are just so heavily suppressed that it just ends up spiling out bit by bit before it happens to manifest itself into a full blown breakdown. as for the happier ones, she has no need to hold those in. it shows up in a variety of ways — it isn't difficult to make her happy, either. her heart bores so much resemblance to her mother's, so i don't find it hard to believe that she would be grateful for the little things people say or do for her out of kindness as opposed to actions done because of her looks.  ( side note :  the parallels between thea & tifa are so ashjdfsj i love the lockhart girlies with my entire being ) 

ii. music makes her happy. while i don't think she's a diehard fan of any particular artist, i can see her being a casual listener of instrumentals or just anything that can be softly played in the background while she's working solo. bonus points if it's piano heavy! i say that for obvious reasons, but i like to think it reminds her of home & simpler times. it's a bit odd but having the news on in the background  ( think that one ac scene )  is also something she enjoys. when zangan first dropped her off in an unknown city with little to nothing, having the news on low made it feel like she wasn't so alone. obviously, along came people she could call family, but people gloss over the fact that she felt so very isolated during this time. on quiet days, depending on her mood, she'll pick one over the other & just get to work. it's a good reminder of everything's she gained since then.

iii. i don't see her as a big drinker but, she will indulge herself when the occasion calls for it. she reserves it for special times  ( excluding when she's taste testing new menu options ;  that's work & she'll often pull for a second opinion )  with friends. i read somewhere that her, barret, & cloud will get together every so often to reminisce about old times & drink to the happy ones  ( have no idea if this has been confirmed canon or if anyone else was involved ,  but i just adore the idea & fully implement it into my interp because i'm a whore for found family ). in moments like that, where she isn't questioning her strength or pondering what ifs, that she's on cloud nine — because this is her home & it's every bit as dear to her as nibelheim was. i'm not talking about edge or any other location, but the people in her life. they are so very precious to her & she will drink to that.

iv. i do wanna mention that it isn't rare she'll seek these interactions out whenever things start to take a toll on her. this goes back to my first point, but i see it as her method of coping. cloud has his ways, tifa has hers. she wants to continue being seen as a figurehead of stability by the people closest to her heart ;  all so they feel comfortable relying on her when they're the ones in need  ( her redemption from situations that weren't her fault ). by suppressing those unwanted feelings quietly, she's able to move forward  ( albeit ,  with a heavy heart ,  but a heart nonetheless )  & resolve whatever issue is at hand. so i don't necessarily believe she gets so absorbed with everything that she doesn't have time. if it's urgent & she can feel things slipping, she'll do her best to make time for it. 

v. all in all, there are many ways to make tifa loml lockhart happy ;  but quality time & music are the top two i wanted to elaborate on.

[grandmacookie69]

how is that the same thing??

in my country doctors actually DO have to gain a number of points anually from participation in different courses and medical congresses to be up to date with new discoveries, treatments and drugs in the medical field.

but speaking as one who is the only future engineer in a family full of doctors, having witnessed and still witnessing firsthand the horrifical process of getting the medical degree and a job in the public system, acknowledging the 10+ years of faculty and residency put together that are needed to be able to work in the medical field and the disgusting exams that test nothing more than one's ability to parrot informations from a book, i can say with certainty forcing doctors to take a part of such a tedious process would have no positive result whatsoever.

why, you may ask?

the most obvious answer, because of Politics and Connections - because the medical world is one of the most corrupt work fields there is, and the Bad Doctors would just get help from friends in high places to get their licenses renewed in the blink of an eye and get back at it, while it would be an awfully difficult and slow process for every much any honest individual

because such a process could only somewhat accurately and objectively measure a doctor's informational knowledge - but how would one do that? do you test from the whole medical field? do you test from what they specialize in? what if the doctor has multiple specialties? what if they were on maternity/paternity leave in that 10 year span? and i can say, with an informed opinion, that a doctor that gives a bad diagnosis and treatment is 80% of the time cause by a lack of experience and understanding of known priciples and factual data, and most often than not, ignorance , and not the fact that they are not 100% up to date with the latest state of the art treatments (although that is a very important thing as well, depending on the field ofc)

to sum things up, I think a more beneficial course of action is the one already implemented in some countries, which involves the compulsory anual participation in medical congresses, etc to ensure the doctors are up to date with discoveries and treatments in the medical field

I'm so extremely serious when I say doctors should be put through an extremely extensive reliscensing process every 10 years. Doctors should have their knowledge scrutinized against current medical research and be de-barred at even the tiniest discrepancy. Too many old doctors absolutely refuse to stay up to date on research and dismiss patients because of their personal experiences. Too many people die every year because doctors don't take us seriously and refuse to listen to people who KNOW something is wrong. Too many people are told their problems are nothing and come back in a year or more with serious illnesses and doctors are just like "lol everyone makes mistakes" but doctors mistakes routinely cost people their lives! I'm tired of medical malpractice being swept away under the guise of "mistakes were made."

[jcmarchi]

AI and Financial Crime Prevention: Why Banks Need a Balanced Approach

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/ai-and-financial-crime-prevention-why-banks-need-a-balanced-approach/

AI and Financial Crime Prevention: Why Banks Need a Balanced Approach

AI is a two-sided coin for banks: while it’s unlocking many possibilities for more efficient operations, it can also pose external and internal risks.

Financial criminals are leveraging the technology to produce deepfake videos, voices and fake documents that can get past computer and human detection, or to supercharge email fraud activities. In the US alone, generative AI is expected to accelerate fraud losses to an annual growth rate of 32%, reaching US$40 billion by 2027, according to a recent report by Deloitte.

Perhaps, then, the response from banks should be to arm themselves with even better tools, harnessing AI across financial crime prevention. Financial institutions are in fact starting to deploy AI in anti-financial crime (AFC) efforts – to monitor transactions, generate suspicious activity reports, automate fraud detection and more. These have the potential to accelerate processes while increasing accuracy.

The issue is when banks don’t balance the implementation of AI with human judgment. Without a human in the loop, AI adoption can affect compliance, bias, and adaptability to new threats.

We believe in a cautious, hybrid approach to AI adoption in the financial sector, one that will continue to require human input.

The difference between rules-based and AI-driven AFC systems

Traditionally, AFC – and in particular anti-money laundering (AML) systems – have operated with fixed rules set by compliance teams in response to regulations. In the case of transaction monitoring, for example, these rules are implemented to flag transactions based on specific predefined criteria, such as transaction amount thresholds or geographical risk factors.

AI presents a new way of screening for financial crime risk. Machine learning models can be used to detect suspicious patterns based on a series of datasets that are in constant evolution. The system analyzes transactions, historical data, customer behavior, and contextual data to monitor for anything suspicious, while learning over time, offering adaptive and potentially more effective crime monitoring.

However, while rules-based systems are predictable and easily auditable, AI-driven systems introduce a complex “black box” element due to opaque decision-making processes. It is harder to trace an AI system’s reasoning for flagging certain behavior as suspicious, given that so many elements are involved. This can see the AI reach a certain conclusion based on outdated criteria, or provide factually incorrect insights, without this being immediately detectable. It can also cause problems for a financial institution’s regulatory compliance.

Possible regulatory challenges

Financial institutions have to adhere to stringent regulatory standards, such as the EU’s AMLD and the US’s Bank Secrecy Act, which mandate clear, traceable decision-making. AI systems, especially deep learning models, can be difficult to interpret.

To ensure accountability while adopting AI, banks need careful planning, thorough testing, specialized compliance frameworks and human oversight. Humans can validate automated decisions by, for example, interpreting the reasoning behind a flagged transaction, making it explainable and defensible to regulators.

Financial institutions are also under increasing pressure to use Explainable AI (XAI) tools to make AI-driven decisions understandable to regulators and auditors. XAI is a process that enables humans to comprehend the output of an AI system and its underlying decision making.

Human judgment required for holistic view

Adoption of AI can’t give way to complacency with automated systems. Human analysts bring context and judgment that AI lacks, allowing for nuanced decision-making in complex or ambiguous cases, which remains essential in AFC investigations.

Among the risks of dependency on AI are the possibility of errors (e.g. false positives, false negatives) and bias. AI can be prone to false positives if the models aren’t well-tuned, or are trained on biased data. While humans are also susceptible to bias, the added risk of AI is that it can be difficult to identify bias within the system.

Furthermore, AI models run on the data that is fed to them – they may not catch novel or rare suspicious patterns outside historical trends, or based on real world insights. A full replacement of rules-based systems with AI could leave blind spots in AFC monitoring.

In cases of bias, ambiguity or novelty, AFC needs a discerning eye that AI cannot provide. At the same time, if we were to remove humans from the process, it could severely stunt the ability of your teams to understand patterns in financial crime, spot patterns, and identify emerging trends. In turn, that could make it harder to keep any automated systems up to date.

A hybrid approach: combining rules-based and AI-driven AFC

Financial institutions can combine a rules-based approach with AI tools to create a multi-layered system that leverages the strengths of both approaches. A hybrid system will make AI implementation more accurate in the long run, and more flexible in addressing emerging financial crime threats, without sacrificing transparency.

To do this, institutions can integrate AI models with ongoing human feedback. The models’ adaptive learning would therefore not only grow based on data patterns, but also on human input that refines and rebalances it.

Not all AI systems are equal. AI models should undergo continuous testing to evaluate accuracy, fairness, and compliance, with regular updates based on regulatory changes and new threat intelligence as identified by your AFC teams.

Risk and compliance experts must be trained in AI, or an AI expert should be hired to the team, to ensure that AI development and deployment is executed within certain guardrails. They must also develop compliance frameworks specific to AI, establishing a pathway to regulatory adherence in an emerging sector for compliance experts.

As part of AI adoption, it’s important that all elements of the organization are briefed on the capabilities of the new AI models they’re working with, but also their shortcomings (such as potential bias), in order to make them more perceptive to potential errors.

Your organization must also make certain other strategic considerations in order to preserve security and data quality. It’s essential to invest in high-quality, secure data infrastructure and ensure that they are trained on accurate and diverse datasets.

AI is and will continue to be both a threat and a defensive tool for banks. But they need to handle this powerful new technology correctly to avoid creating problems rather than solving them.

[reversedout-blog]

Link Building Guide | A Complete A to Z Of Backlink Creation

When it comes to getting organic traffic from search engines, link building is a critical component of SEO, especially in highly competitive fields. Link building techniques may be extremely powerful when they are used in conjunction with solid technical SEO foundations, outstanding on-page SEO, fantastic content, and a nice user experience. Quality, relevancy, and authenticity have never been more critical in today’s world. The use of low-quality, spam link-building strategies can be effective, but they should not be part of a plan for a company aiming to achieve success in organic search over the long run.

In today’s world, link development is more comparable to brilliant marketing, and the firms that grasp this are generally the ones that succeed long-term. There is a technical component to establishing links, but it doesn’t mean that all strategies must center around your product. You and I will discover that there’s still a lot more to learn and a lot more to grasp than we thought possible. In order to get you up and running fast and in the proper direction, this guide has been created. Despite the fact that there’s a lot of information, we’ve split it down into manageable chunks and given plenty of examples.

Contact Us

At Reversed Out Creative, we understand the challenges and opportunities presented by AI disruption. Our team of experts specializes in web design, SEO, graphic design, and digital marketing services. Reach out to us through our contact form to learn more about navigating the evolving job market and embracing the potential of AI. Together, let’s shape a future that combines human ingenuity with the power of AI.

1. What is Link Building & What is their significance?

When a website has a lot of inbound connections from other sites, it is called link building. To improve your site’s ranking in search engine results, you’ll want to implement this technique. Simply said, it improves your search engine rankings.

It’s an essential aspect of your website’s off-page SEO.

When seen as a whole, your link profile includes all of the links that point to your website. In order to get high rankings in search engine results, you need a link profile that is both diverse and robust. Analyzing your link profile is easy with a good backlink checkup.

Why are Backlinks Important For your Website?

Link building is just as vital as any other part of SEO because of the weight search engines place on it. For Google, which was one of the first search engines to place more importance on links and keywords than simply keywords, this is not a surprise.

2. What Is the Process of Link Building?

Backlinks from reputable, high-quality websites are the finest strategy to improve your authority through link building. Many backlinks from spammy, unrelated websites are unlikely to assist your search engine rankings.

Backlinks can be obtained in a variety of methods, including:

Guest blogging

Social media promotion

Manual outreach

Pursuing competitors’ backlinks

Backlinks are important, but they aren’t the only thing to keep in mind—creating valuable, high-quality content should be your primary goal.

Beginners and experts alike may find it difficult to harness the power of link building techniques when looking for strategies to boost their rank. One of the most potent strategies for organic success, however, is the use of social media.

3. Various Types of Links

It’s critical to have a firm grasp on the many sorts of links that might be used in your link building efforts. The following is a list of the most significant sorts of connections to know.

Nofollow vs. Follow

The most common application of nofollow links is when you want to point out a website but don’t want to encourage Google to crawl it.

As part of a link’s code, you will need to include the rel=”nofollow” tag. Google will be informed that the link should not pass PageRank by using nofollow links.

There are two advantages to using a nofollow link:

Links that don’t imply an endorsement of the site they point towards

In cases where the relationship is profitable. For paid or lucrative links (such as paid adverts, banner ads, affiliate links, sponsored content), Google encourages that users use rel=”sponsored” instead of rel=”nofollow,” which it introduced with rel=”sponsored” and rel=”ugc.”

Nofollow links don’t immediately pass on authority. You may still benefit from their brand reputation and referral traffic, though.

If a link has properties that tell Google it should pass PageRank, it is a follow link.

If you wanted to, you could utilize a follow link:

Delegate authority to a well-known website.

Simple: Make it easier for search engine bots to figure out what the material is about. Nofollow links, on the other hand, do not signal to Google that a website should be crawled. PageRank is a measure used by Google to determine if a link is directing traffic to another website.

Links from Users

When it comes to SEO, it’s not a good idea to employ user-generated links as a link-building method. If you’ve ever used user-generated links, Google has punished you in the past. In certain cases, you build user-generated connections to promote your own work. Also, they tend to be of a poorer quality than other link-building tactics that are preferred by Google.

Examples of user-created links include:

Unmoderated comments on blogs

Widgets and embedded infographics

Press releases or guest post signatures with heavily optimized anchor text advertisements on user profiles

These links won’t harm your site, but it’s not a good idea to spend time on them because they’re unlikely to transmit any authority through to your website.

Natural Links From Other Blogs Or Sites

Readers who discover your website and decide to connect to it without your permission are more likely to do so naturally. You don’t have to ask other webmasters or users for a backlink while using this link type. The vast majority of organic links do not reside in paid or sponsored content and do not include any type of tracking mechanism. With the intention of providing value to their readers, they are frequently inserted into the material of another blogger or webpage.

As a result, it’s more probable that you’ll come across organic links in media such as videos, blog posts, photos, and product listings.

One of the safest methods of link development has been labelled a “good link” since it relies on a natural link back to your website. One of the greatest and most efficient methods of promoting your blog or website is through the use of natural connections.

4. Do you know what makes for a great link?

Nobody knows for sure how Google assigns a link’s worth. However, the SEO community holds to a few broad principles when it comes to link evaluation.

Authority

Relevance

Anchor text

Nofollow vs follow

Placement

Destination

Let’s elaborate each one of these factors one by one.

Authority

A page’s “authority” and a website’s “authority” are two distinct concepts. Google’s original PageRank algorithm, which is based on the premise that the page with more links leading to it casts a stronger vote, is known as page authority.

As a result, a large number of SEOs focus on acquiring connections from ancient, well-established websites with high-quality backlinks. Such a connection is seen as more valuable than a link from a newly-published page that has no backlinks of its own.

A newly-published page, on the other hand, has a chance of gaining some high-quality connections over time. As a result, a link from such a page may actually be more valuable in the future. In other words, instead of focusing on obtaining connections from long-lived, well-established pages, the rule of thumb is to focus on getting links from newer, more relevant sources.

As far as Google is concerned, there is no such thing as an overall website authority measure in their system. Nevertheless, for many SEO experts, it seems logical that a link from the New York Times would be worth more than a link from your neighbor’s website. It’s possible that a website’s “authority” is only the result of its huge concentration of authoritative pages.

A classic SEO newbie error is to ignore link chances from low-authority websites as though they were somehow damaging to your SEO performance.. They aren’t. When it comes to the worth of a link from a low-authority website over time, it’s similar to the value of a newly released page that gains backlinks over time.

Relevance

A review of your favorite coffee grinder can appear on your food blog. Two of you decide to link to it later on their own. There are two examples from their “10 Best Coffee Recipes” and “10 Money-saving Tips” sections.

Given that both pages have similar clout, which one would Google consider to be the more authoritative voice? The one that’s more relevant! Surely you’d prefer to get coffee advice from a fellow, rather than a financial guru, right? At the website level, SEO experts feel that relevancy is important. You may see some proof for this on the “how search works” page on Google’s website.

The quality of the content on a page may be judged by whether or not other well-known websites in the field have linked to it.

Since this means that instead of pursuing every single link possibility, you should focus on getting connections from websites that are somehow related to yours.

The anchor text

As a refresher, “anchor text” is a clickable fragment of text that includes a link to another page. The content of the linked website is often described in the anchor text. It’s no surprise that Google uses the terms in anchor text to better comprehend which keywords the cited website deserves to rank for.

Nofollow vs follow

Google understands that if a page uses the link attribute “nofollow,” it is saying that it does not want to offer its vote to the page that it is connecting to. Votes from ‘nofollowed links,’ however, have never been taken into account (or so they said). A hint model was implemented in 2019, which implies that some “nofollowed” links may now have an impact on how high your page ranks in Google searches.

Placement

Google’s reasonable surfer patent discusses how the likelihood that a link would be clicked may influence the amount of authority it passes down. A link’s location on a page is one of the few factors that might influence its CTR.

The content, sidebar, and footer all belong on the same page, so we’ll call it a three-part webpage. This means that as a general rule, links that appear in the content are more likely to be clicked. Another factor that affects a link’s CTR is its position on the page. People are more inclined to click on the first link in an article than the last one.

On top of that, the more links you have on your website, the less authority will be transmitted to other pages as a result of their competition for clicks. You can’t manage the location of links in most white-hat link building techniques, like using anchor text. When writing guest posts for someone else’s site, you should surely aim to get visitors to click through to your own links. Besides enhancing the link’s SEO worth, it will also bring you some good referral traffic.

Destination

There are three places you may direct your link building efforts when it comes to your website: Your main page; your linkable assets; the sites that you need to rank well in Google are all included in this section. Often, the sites you need to rank well are also the most difficult to obtain connections to. Why? Because they want their audience to be able to acquire something of value for free instead of relying on a business to make a profit from them.

As a result, one of the most often asked questions in search engine optimization is:

“How do you rate the most uninteresting websites?”

No one disagrees that internal linking can help your “boring pages” rank higher, but no one has a definitive solution to this subject.

Build as many links as possible to your linkable assets, and then feed the “link” toward the pages you want to rank via internal links. Things like anchor text, positioning, and relevancy all have an impact on the value of internal links.

Conclusion

Any SEO strategy that relies on building links is doomed to failure. Relevance, authority, popularity, and value are all factors that search engines like Google look for in quality backlinks. If you collaborate with industry leaders, you’ll be able to build some high-quality links that will drive a ton of targeted traffic to your website. Don’t expect to attain the highest link positions immediately away when you initially start out. Begin by focusing on sites that are more related to your own domain authority and provide value to the discussion. After that, you may work your way up to the top of your industry.

Link building is a valuable SEO technique, but it shouldn’t be your only option. Incorporate it into your broader plan, which includes more than just link placements. Much more, such as content marketing and keyword optimization, go into an efficient SEO plan. Improve your website’s search engine optimization as a whole if you want to see real results for your business.

Content source: https://reversedout.com/link-building-guide/

[braininventoryusa]

7 Common Myths About IT Staff Augmentation Services Debunked.

Despite the tremendous popularity of IT Staff Augmentation services, many “myths” are also growing around it. Due to the prevalence of these myths, businesses are having second thoughts about availing of the services. Misconceptions like too much risk involvement, expensive services, poor quality, and delayed projects often deter startups from exploring the full potential of IT staff augmentation services. 

So in this blog, we are trying to debunk 7 most common myths about IT staff augmentation services. 

IT Staff Augmentation Myths 

Myth #1- IT Staff Augmentation Services are Expensive 

Truth- Hiring in-house is in fact expensive. And a time-consuming process. There are different types of costs involved in in-house hiring. For example, the cost required for pension plans, electricity, infrastructure, healthcare schemes, provident funds, payroll management, and various other expenses is hidden. So when you choose IT Staff Augmentation Services, you are not responsible for bearing all these costs. The employees in these services generally work remotely, or the staff augmentation company takes responsibility for their expenses. So you can save on these direct and indirect costs associated with employee management. 

Myth #2- Involvement of Risk and Poor Quality Work

Truth- Businesses often associate IT staff augmentation services with risk. Many even fear that their project will get delayed and the quality will be compromised. But all such things are completely misleading and have no connection with reality. In fact, seasoned professionals work under staff augmentation models and they have technical expertise for the required work. They possess all the skills (soft skills and technical skills) needed to complete the IT projects while maintaining top-notch quality. Staff augmentation providers are well aware of the industry trends and understand the unique requirements of each project at a deeper level. You can even ask them to show their professional track record. And if desired, you can verify their skills by conducting tests before collaborating with them. 

Myth #3- IT Staff Augmentation is for Big Businesses 

Truth- It is often believed that IT staff augmentation is not for small businesses and startups. Again, it’s a pure lie. Any organization, irrespective of size, can take advantage of the staff augmentation services. Whether you want to develop an app or a website or want to manage your business operations with much-reduced labor costs, you can opt for staff augmentation services. You don’t need to go through the long process of hiring, training, and retaining employees. By hiring staff from staff augmentation service providers, you can add more value to your products. Moreover, there is no limit on hiring a minimum number of professionals. Whether you need a single professional or a team of 100, a staff augmentation firm like Brain Inventory can help you out. For small businesses and startups, it is a great option. 

Myth #4- Data Integrity and Privacy is Compromised 

Truth- As a modern business up and running in today’s digital age, this concern seems real. However, under the IT staff augmentation model, there is a solution for this. Remote staff adheres to tight regulations, contracts, and NDAs to safeguard data. And if they are working with an outsourcing company, they are superimposed with access control mechanisms to enable restricted access to sensitive data. Further, advanced security settings and implementation of data protection tools are there to reduce the chances of data leakage. 

Myth #5- Communication is Difficult

Truth- There are several communication tools available in the digital space through which you can easily communicate and share information. Tools like Zoom and Google Meet allow you to conduct real-time meetings and share data from remote locations. You can use Slack for text-based communication, Dropbox for file sharing, Google Meet for video conferencing, and Redbooth for task management. This list of effective communication tools goes on. You can pick what suits you and your team the best and ensure uninterrupted communication with remote staff. Even if you are located in another country, divided by time zone, you don’t need to worry if you have access to these tools. Staff augmentation companies have proper knowledge of such useful tools and they train their staff so that you can communicate with each one of them without any hassle. 

Myth #6- No Control Over Project

It’s a myth that employees must be onsite to be effectively managed. Dedicated professionals work sincerely, even remotely. In the staff augmentation model, companies train hires in advance on roles, responsibilities, and timelines. These experts have a proven track record, follow company rules, and are aligned with your requirements. You set rules during hiring, giving you control to guide, track progress, hold meetings, provide feedback, and address issues as needed.

Myth #7- Staff Augmentation Does Not Bring Value to the Business 

Truth- It is also a lie. IT staff augmentation offers significant benefits to your business like easy access to resources. You can hire a team of professionals quickly, as compared to a traditional setup where you would go through a long, hectic process of conducting interviews and tests. You get their services at an affordable rate, and you don’t even need to pay for the infrastructure. No long-term contracts, you can select the model based on the requirements of your project (hourly, monthly). Also, you get to expand your team without any hassle. Talent is readily available in the staff augmentation model. The biggest advantage of all is that you complete your project on time without compromising on quality.

Now that we have debunked all the myths of IT staff augmentation, are you still skeptical about availing the services? 

Let’s educate you about the significant benefits of IT staff augmentation services for your business- 

Partnering with a staff augmentation provider ensures that you are getting access to top of the talents. It boosts your project’s productivity and efficiency, which reduces your time to market. These professionals can handle the most complicated projects, without training on your part. The outsourcing company takes care of their training and provides them with the necessary resources to complete the project. 

It is a cost-effective option to work with remote professionals as compared to hiring in-house. You’re reducing the overhead costs under this model. The costs associated with providing the infrastructure, equipment, electricity, internet connectivity, and cover benefits. These vendors come with the tools to support your project throughout the development process, which means you don’t have to invest further in purchasing expensive subscription software. This is particularly useful for short-term projects. 

Whether you need help with a single project or multiple projects with different timelines, the staff augmentation model offers you the flexibility to meet your goals. You can easily hire as many professionals as you want. The model is scalable, as well as flexible. 

Staff augmentation allows you to hire professionals from a different country. It gives you easy access to a global workforce. No matter which skills you require, you can hire professionals from any location. This is particularly helpful because you may need professionals with some specific qualifications that aren’t immediately available in your geographic region. 

“Studies show that the US talent scarcity has tripled over the decade”. It is predicted to reach approx 85 million by 2030. The shortage of talent is an alarming call especially when more than 34% of workers in the US are freelancing, instead of full-time jobs. This further accelerates the importance of hiring remote talent with the help of IT staff augmentation. 

Conclusion 

Far from being a risky option or a no-value business, staff augmentation offers businesses of any size the flexibility to access special skills and have full control over their projects. Even though there are myths revolving around this model of hiring, before reaching any conclusion, you need to understand the logic behind them. Or at least conduct research by yourself. 

By partnering with a trusted staff augmentation provider, and discussing the misconceptions with them, you can extract most of the benefits from this model. Brain Inventory is an IT Staff Augmentation Company with years of experience in offering expert professionals to businesses worldwide. We have a team of talented people, who adhere to our rules of strict privacy and communication policies. We take care of every single element of your project so that you don’t have to! 

Contact us to conduct a meeting. 

[diginath]

Boosting Employee Well-being with Time Tracking Software for Remote Teams

Problem: Remote teams face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing employee time and ensuring their well-being. Without the physical structure of an office, it can be difficult to know whether employees are balancing their workload appropriately or pushing themselves too hard. In fact, a report by Buffer found that 32% of remote workers struggle with disconnecting from work, leading to long hours, stress, and burnout. When employee time isn’t managed effectively, both productivity and well-being suffer.

Agitation: As the pressure to perform increases, employees may feel overwhelmed, especially in remote work settings where there's a lack of clear boundaries between personal and professional time. Without proper time recording, it becomes easy for workers to overestimate their capacity and take on too much. This leads to an increase in stress and a decline in overall performance.

A study by Gallup found that employees who work more than 50 hours a week are at a higher risk of burnout and disengagement. This can harm team collaboration, reduce quality of work, and, over time, lead to high turnover rates. Not only does employee well-being suffer, but businesses also feel the impact on their bottom line. Therefore, managing Work hours effectively is more critical than ever.

Solution: Time management tool for remote teams can be the game-changer businesses need to balance employee time and well-being. These tools allow managers to monitor how employees are spending their hours while providing employees with a sense of control over their own work-life balance.

For example, a company that implemented time tracking software reported a noticeable improvement in employee well-being. By using time recording features, employees were able to see where their time was being spent and adjust their schedules accordingly. The result? A 15% increase in overall productivity and a significant reduction in employee stress levels. Not only did this help employees manage their time more effectively, but it also led to better work outcomes. Employees were taking more regular breaks, avoiding overtime, and achieving a healthier balance between work and life.

In another case study, a team of remote workers was able to identify inefficiencies in their daily routine using time tracking software. By understanding which tasks consumed the most time, they could streamline their processes, which led to a 20% reduction in wasted hours. The time saved allowed employees to allocate more time for personal well-being, reducing burnout risks. More importantly, the team reported higher job satisfaction and stronger engagement with their tasks.

Time tracking software for remote teams doesn't just help employees manage their time more effectively—it also provides managers with valuable insights. Managers can use the data from time recording to assess whether employees are being overworked or underutilized, and take action before issues escalate. This helps create a supportive work environment that values employee health as much as output.

Conclusion: Employee well-being and time management are inextricably linked, especially in the remote work landscape. Employee time tracker for remote teams is not just a productivity tool—it's an essential resource for ensuring that employees maintain a healthy work-life balance. By utilizing time recording tools, businesses can reduce the risk of burnout, improve time management, and foster a happier, more productive workforce. The case studies show that companies who invest in time tracking technology see a clear return on investment, both in terms of employee satisfaction and business outcomes.

[caitlinphleb]

10 Essential Phlebotomy Facts Every Aspiring Technician Should Know

10 Essential Phlebotomy Facts ⁤Every Aspiring Technician ⁤Should Know

10 Essential Phlebotomy Facts​ Every Aspiring Technician Should​ Know

Phlebotomy is a crucial field in​ healthcare, focused on drawing blood for tests, transfusions, research, or donations. As the demand for skilled phlebotomists grows, understanding the vital facts about this profession⁢ becomes paramount for aspiring technicians. ⁤In this article, we will discuss 10 essential phlebotomy facts and provide you with ‌practical tips and insights to embark on a successful career.

1. The Role of a ⁣Phlebotomist

A phlebotomist is a healthcare⁢ professional specialized in drawing blood‌ from patients. This blood is often used for medical⁢ tests, treatment plans, or transfusions. ⁣Key responsibilities include:

Collecting blood ‍samples

Preparing specimens for laboratory analysis

Maintaining equipment and a safe working environment

Understanding and ⁢complying⁣ with ⁢health ​and safety regulations

2. Required Education and‌ Training

To become⁣ a certified phlebotomist, you typically need a‍ high school diploma or GED, combined with ⁤specialized training. Here are common educational paths:

Program Type

Duration

Certification

Phlebotomy Certificate⁤ Program

4-12 months

CPR and Phlebotomy Certification

Associate ⁢Degree in Health Science

2 years

CPR and Phlebotomy​ Certification

3. Certification and Licensure

While some states require licensure, ⁣most require certification from recognized organizations ​like:

The National Healthcareer⁣ Association⁤ (NHA)

The American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP)

The National Center for Competency Testing (NCCT)

Obtaining‌ a certification ⁢not only enhances your job prospects but also validates your skills ‍and knowledge in phlebotomy.

4. Essential Skills ⁢for Success

To thrive as a phlebotomist, you need to cultivate several essential skills:

Attention to Detail: Accuracy in collecting samples is ⁢crucial.

Communication Skills: Explaining procedures to patients can ease anxiety.

Physical Stamina: The job may require long hours on your feet.

Interpersonal Skills: Building rapport with patients is essential for effective service.

5. Understanding Blood Collection Techniques

Familiarity with various blood collection techniques enhances your versatility as a ⁢phlebotomist. The two main⁣ methods include:

Venipuncture: Involves puncturing a vein with a needle.

Capillary Puncture: Obtains blood from a fingertip‌ using a lancet.

Knowing when to use ​each method is vital for effective patient care.

6. The Importance of Safety Protocols

Safety protocols are crucial in phlebotomy⁣ to protect both patients and healthcare providers. Key practices include:

Using personal‌ protective⁢ equipment (PPE)

Following proper disposal methods for biohazard materials

Adhering to⁤ infection control procedures

By implementing these safety measures, you can minimize ‌the risk of complications.

7.⁤ Handling Difficult Patients

Encountering various patients ‌is part‌ of a phlebotomist’s job. Here are some tips on handling difficult patients:

Remain Calm: Stay composed and⁣ patient to instill trust.

Listen Actively: Hear their concerns without interruption.

Provide Reassurance: Explain each step of the ​process clearly and calmly.

8. Career⁤ Opportunities in Phlebotomy

Phlebotomy offers diverse career opportunities,⁣ including:

Hospitals

Blood donation centers

Diagnostic laboratories

Physician offices

With experience,‌ you can also advance to supervisory or managerial roles, or specialize in areas like pediatric ‍phlebotomy.

9.⁤ Ongoing ⁤Education and ‍Growth

Continuous learning is key to a successful ⁢phlebotomy career. Consider these options for professional development:

Fees and courses on new techniques

Workshops and seminars

Online courses related to patient care and safety

Staying current with trends and advancements ⁢ensures ⁤you remain a leading practitioner.

10. Building Professional Networks

Networking‌ can significantly impact your career. Participate in professional organizations, attend⁤ conferences, and engage with your peers online ⁤to:

Learn about job openings

Gather insights on industry trends

Find mentorship opportunities

Benefits of Pursuing a Career in ⁤Phlebotomy

Besides stability‌ in job opportunities, a career in phlebotomy offers several benefits:

Short training periods

High demand and job⁣ security

Potential ⁢for flexible hours

Practical Tips ⁢for Aspiring Phlebotomists

Engage actively in your training program.

Practice your skills regularly to build confidence.

Seek internships or volunteer opportunities to gain experience.

Conclusion

Becoming a phlebotomist is not just about drawing blood; it’s about providing ⁤exceptional patient care and working in​ a vital ⁣sector of healthcare. Understanding these ten ​essential facts will help you navigate your career path ‍efficiently and ‍confidently. From mastering skills to networking and adhering to safety protocols, each step ​is critical to succeeding‍ in this rewarding field. Start your journey today and ‌contribute to the essential work ⁢in the medical community!

https://phlebotomytechnicianschools.net/10-essential-phlebotomy-facts-every-aspiring-technician-should-know/