#the short version is in order to practice you need to article

[altschmerzes]

everybody send me your crispest vibes i have two (2) summer job interviews tomorrow and at this point my legal career is kiiiiiind of depending on something panning out

[risunsky]

I am sorry for bothering you, but if you don't mind, can you tell the tips for the very very begginers. I really want to start learning how to draw, but it is overwhelming and I don't no where to start and feel a little at loss

ha! One of these days I'm going to have to write something detailed and well-constructed to be able to answer these questions properly. ^^"

In any case, you're not bothering me at all and I'll try to give you a clear answer, but I apologise in advance if it's too long or if my English isn't good at times. In short version I would just quote Lorenzo from How to think when you draw : source

My long version:

It's hard because everyone functions differently, but I'd say that first of all you need to define a goal or a project that will be your driving force so that you don't lose your motivation. It could be a personal comics project or doing fan art, it doesn't matter as long as you're enthusiastic about it. If you have to choose between academic seriousness and fun, choose fun, because fun make you practice and practice make you progress anyway so you'll be less likely to get discouraged.

It's important to practice as regularly as possible, because your ability to draw is like a muscle that you need to maintain. If you don't practice enough, your progress will be slow, and if you don't practice for too long, you'll lose what you've learnt.

Having said that, learning fast is not an obligation - it depends on your goal.

For the technical aspects that you still need to learn between two sessions of fun, the order that seems logical to me is :

shape and volume || light and shade

anatomy

colour theory

perspective

composition

That's assuming you start by doing just characters before getting into complex backgrounds. And bearing in mind that certain parts are connected together and can be learned simultaneously. For example, I've put perspective towards the end, assuming that you come to the backgrounds last, but it's useful for drawing characters too.

To make each of these parts easier, they need to be broken down into stages.

Shape and volume || Light and shade :

Shape and volume :

Basically, it's useful for everything else. understanding shapes allows you to decompose complex subjects so that you can reproduce them more easily. Absolutely everything around you and everything you want to draw can be decomposed in this way. It will then help you to know how to apply light and shade. A good article here. Light and shade : not knowing how to sum it up in a few words, I found some useful links :

[link] [link] [link] these three articles talk about the same thing, but maybe if you look at what else their authors have in stock you'll find something different or explained in a way that suits you better.

Anatomy :

Once you know how to build a human being with tubes and rectangles, you can go into more detail about anatomy. You can start with the head alone, practising drawing it from all angles, with different characteristics, different expressions etc, then arms, then torso, etc and then gradually moving on to the whole human body. Study the skeleton and musculature, it sounds annoying but it really changes everything. Even if it's possible to know how to position a character correctly without it, the result will inevitably be better with it and it'll make your task easier and drawing skeletons is great fun! This doesn't mean that you have to learn every single piece by heart, just that you know enough to be able to place the bumps and hollows in the right places. a good article for beginners, giving the balance needed to avoid being overwhelmed by the study of anatomy. I suggest as an exercise : with the help of references and tutorials, draw a character 4 times in an identical posture, except that first you only do the skeleton, then the musculature, then a normal nude, and finally with clothes to familiarise yourself with the behaviour of the fabrics. (The folds and drapes are, I think, a sub-chapter of the anatomy part because clothes.) about folds and drapery [link] [link]

Colour theory :

Basically, it's what colour you get when you mix these two together, or which colour is best for shadowing this other one, or to produce a certain mood over the whole illustration, I have to limit my palette to these colours and so on. Again, I can't summarise this easily but it's a big important part. Just type colour theory in google or pinterest and you'll find so many good tutorials. Note: again I think that, colour and light / shade are connected and should be learned simultaneously.

[link] [link]

Perspective :

For this part it's easy to broke it in steps. Start by practising with a single vanishing point to understand the principle, then two points, then three, then the fish-eye effect. I forced myself to do the spiral staircase exercise with the perspective, it was terrible but once you've done it and understood what you've done then you're good. Better, you can test your understanding of perspective by having fun reproducing Escher's impossible constructions. I love his work. 1 point [link][link] 2 points [link][link] 3 points [link][link] [Escher]

Composition :

It's one of the last things I learnt and I can really guarantee that there was a before and an after to it. Composition is one of the fundamental that will make you say: I'm an illustrator, in the sense that I know how to tell a story, evoke a feeling with a single drawing. [link] [link] [link] [link]

To come back to more general things, accept that it can take time, it's OK if it's not great at first, we've all been there. Don't put pressure on yourself and don't make yourself feel guilty by comparing yourself to others. Be curious too, look for new challenges, and always do it for fun. Finding a community in which you can make artist friends with whom you can share projects can also be great, because you feed off each other and that helps to keep you motivated. Don't be afraid of failure, failure is good, failure is your friend. Because once you've identified the reason why you think your drawing is a failure or not good enough, you'll remember to pay attention the next time or it'll motivate you to do more training on that point. Knowing things is good, but turning them into reflexes is better.

Here it is, I hope it helps, most of the resources I learnt with were in French so I quickly tried to find the English equivalent, I checked them quickly, but I think it's ok. And, the links I've found are just entry points, in some cases you'll need to find other resources, like anatomy for example, but just type anatomy tuto on pinterest and see what seems easiest for you to start with. aaand this is the end, I think.

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Substack Mastery for Busy Writers

Substack Mastery for Busy Writers [Concise Version]: Insider Secrets from a Content Strategist & Seasoned Author 🎉

Dear reader, this is the summary of the original and popular Substack Mastery book, which I condensed five times, removing generic content and long descriptions and offering a distilled version to busy writers. I designed this short book to save you time while still giving valuable insights and practical tips.

In this book, I share my experience of how Substack became a powerful tool for digital content creation, marketing, and distribution. Writing this book felt like solving a puzzle. I wanted to give writers and creators a clear path through the noise and competition of online publishing.

With over 40 years of experience in content development, strategy, and marketing, I’ve seen many struggle to find their footing in digital publishing. This book isn't just theoretical fluff. It's packed with hands-on insights based on my own experiences, including how I grew my Substack to 30,000 subscribers.

I’ve always believed the publishing world needed more practical, real-world guidance. Through this book, I aim to help freelance writers and content entrepreneurs develop their voices, grow their audiences, and turn their newsletters into a sustainable business. Whether it's finding your unique perspective, creating content that connects, or building an income stream, this guide covers it all.

The book is autobiographical, rooted in my experiences, triumphs, and failures. It's designed to be actionable and inspiring, with strategies to make your mark in the content world. And, as a bonus, readers get the chance to join my supportive community of writers.

I am here to empower you with practical advice, share my lessons learned, and help you build something extraordinary if you are wilting to do so and ready to start.

It is now available in multiple online bookstores at half the price of the original.

Here is the link to the official website of the Substack Mastery book:

The original version of the book is available via: https://books2read.com/substackmastery

The paperback versions can be ordered via the following links:

I wrote an article about the concise version for my reasons for writing this new edition.

Here is the link to the article at digitalmehmet.com

Here is the version for readers on Medium

Thank you for your valuable feedback and for sharing this post with those who might need this information. I aim to empower freelance writers and content entrepreneurs to scale their writing business.

[nvc-nonviolent-communication]

Nonviolent Communication Doesn’t Work with Narcissists

Nonviolent communication is a great tool when it works. When it doesn’t, it’s a test.

Janet Chui

ILLUMINATION

Janet Chui

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Jan 30, 2023

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Photo by Alex Green at Pexels

Editorial Disclaimer: This article reflects the opinions and perspectives of the author. Narcissism is a mental condition that requires Psychological treatment. Abused victims need professional treatment. The contents of this post can only be taken as words to seek professional help. It does not represent the publication’s point of view nor implies our endorsement.

Nonviolent communication is a way of stating your feelings and requests to another person that facilitates compassion and connection. Whenever I know clients or friends who struggle with communicating with their loved ones on difficult topics, the four parts of nonviolent communication give them a game plan for that conversation. It’s a great tool that helps them assert their needs without veering into distractions and mudslinging.

Author’s own diagram

Nonviolent communication (or NVC for short) offers a bit more structure than the standard advice of using “I” when describing our feelings; it also distinguishes itself from violent communication that may jump to accusations and “always” and “never” statements. Violent communication can sound like: “You’re such a slob! I’m always doing the dishes and everything around the house even though we both work!”

Same request for help in NVC: “I feel disappointed and resentful when I’m alone cleaning up after dinner, especially when we both work and I cook. I’d like to feel that we’re a team and would enjoy cooking more if you could help with washing up.” (Feelings, observation, value, and request in that order.)

When we state our needs and/or values along with our request (eg. “Could you do the dishes every time I cook?”), it also sets the parameters of the conversation so that the other person doesn’t need to guess what we want. It stays out of exaggerations and statements that can put the other person on the defensive.

When two people care about each other, they care about each other’s perspectives, values, feelings, and needs. Negotiations are balanced and open. NVC works well between healthy people in good-faith relationships.

It bombs with narcissists.

The first time I observed this was when the nonviolent communicator was a five-year-old. She had been merrily singing along to a favorite song when, obnoxiously, her grandfather and senior (by at least 6 decades) mockingly sang nonsense words to the same song and laughed. The young girl stopped and said to him: “When you make fun of my music, I feel like you’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not making fun of you!” was the immediate reply.

The five-year-old remained remarkably calm. “I didn’t say you were, I said that it felt like it.”

“I wasn’t making fun of you!”

“You were making the song sound bad.” The conversation kept circling the older man’s denial until the five-year-old huffed and made her request: “Well, please stop doing it.”

The exchange didn’t end there but that’s the gist. I’ve seen more examples since, but this one stuck in my head for years. I knew the girl well, and to hear the NVC script out of her (and at 5 years old) made my jaw drop.

Photo by Alex Green

So if a child can practice nonviolent communication, adults have no excuse not to practice it. Trouble is, all four components of NVC fall flat when attempted with narcissists. Here’s what you can expect.

1. Narcissists will not agree with your observation of reality.

Fragile but inflated egos depend on being exemplary and above criticism, so narcissists will contest your version of reality, especially if your observations imply they’re capable of fault.

Denial and gaslighting will be go-to responses, even if screencaps or witnesses are on your side. They may also bring up irrelevant or irrational counterpoints: “How can you imply I’m selfish when I just gave the cleaner so much vacation time?”

The narcissist can do no wrong and needs to maintain their self-image of savior or hero. Barring that, they can settle for playing martyr or victim, so be prepared for DARVO, when they level all accusations and faults upon you.

DARVO: If You Know a Narcissist, You Need to Know This Term

You’re not crazy, but the narcissist needs you to think you are.

medium.com

2. Narcissists will invalidate your feelings.

“You’re oversensitive” is an easy one. Or, they will argue that you are wrong because you’ve stupidly misinterpreted their actions — or putdowns, or text messages, or backhanded insults.

Another possibility (much like the accusation that you’re oversensitive) will be to control the conversation with explanations of your wrongness because how feelings are only for the weak and feeble-minded. Except when it’s their feelings, of course!

Example: “Only babies and woke idiots are going to be offended about what I just said!”

Narcissists will use any argument or manipulative tactic to let you know that your feelings don’t matter.

3. Narcissists will argue with your needs and values.

People with narcissistic tendencies just fancy themselves better than everyone. If you have different interests, values, ideals, or needs from them, they see this as evidence of your intellectual, moral, spiritual, and even genetic deficiency.

Work-life balance? That’s just laziness! Privacy? You must be antisocial or have something to hide! Self-care? For self-indulgent degenerates! Creative or unusual pursuits? Frivolous and unproductive wastes of time! Struggling with health or financial difficulties? You must have done something stupid or it’s karma!

These judgments can flip-flop or be hypocritical (the criticisms never apply to them), as differences threaten the sense of specialness or superiority they cling to desperately. They are not content with acknowledging differences; it’s all about their superiority.

Even if you may share things in common, you can expect there to be some hint that you’re going about it wrong.

4. Narcissists will undermine your boundaries and requests.

Anyone who’s spent any amount of regular time around narcissists will lose sense of their boundaries and personhood — or lack them altogether, as children of narcissists often do. It’s can be a struggle for them to articulate their needs because they were not encouraged to identify, prioritize, or voice them — especially when it was deemed in “defiance” of their parents.

If anything, many children and partners of narcissists often feel shame for having needs because they are diminished and punished for them.

If you suggest a route or ask for a narcissistic driver to slow down, they may speed up or drive even more recklessly because you “dared” to tell them how to drive.

If you request a narcissist to trust you with more independence and time alone, they may impose more rules and checks on you.

Small asks may be granted, but more frequently, the narcissist conveniently forgets after some time so that things go back to the way they were — with them in control.

Face-Saving Culture

Some cultures have practically enshrined ways to coddle narcissists and hide or normalize narcissistic abuse. Variations of “don’t make them angry” (with “them” meaning abusers or bullies) put the responsibility and blame on victims for the transgressions they endure.

Confucian, hierarchical, and some religious cultures have rules about not contradicting one’s elders even when they’re wrong or hurtful. “They’re doing this for your good” is often trotted out to defend those privileged by generation; Women and children frequently bear the emotional burden of men and/or parents lacking self-regulation, self-reflection, and self-responsibility for their mistakes and hurtful behaviors.

Funny all these movies feature characters who are POC. We know.

Cultural norms created and perpetuated by abusers and victims such as “don’t talk back”, “don’t disrespect your elders”, and “they’ve eaten more salt than you’ve eaten rice” have codified and restricted communication in ways that can make addressing abuses of power nigh impossible.

“Face-saving” is essentially a set of communication rules in East Asian culture that keeps powerful and older individuals protected from embarrassment.

Translated example of a face-saving statement: “I’m sorry I displeased and inconvenienced you to the extent that you had to instruct me (with abusive language and actions).” Bracketed words usually implied rather than verbalized.

Narcissists have fully exploited these cultural norms to place blame and shame on their targets and victims. Instead of “there’s no excuse for abuse”, face-saving cultures frequently save privileged people from embarrassment and accountability by turning it into a conversation about respect and gratitude, which flows ever upwards. It’s the same with apologies. (Hence the meme!) Respect, dignity, and the benefit of the doubt rarely trickle down to subordinates and children.

Nonviolent communication may thus fail or be distorted in certain contexts, such as those with strict cultural hierarchies or power differentials. It’s not necessarily a flaw on NVC, but it just works best between parties in a healthy and mutually respectful relationship.

Ask vs Guess Culture and Nonviolent Communication

NVC is much easier in one of them. Guess which.

medium.com

The Case for Nonviolent Communication

NVC remains one of the best ways to initiate tougher conversations and keep them focused on solutions and meeting needs. NVC has been described as a way of facilitating requests between parties. When practiced by all, it keeps triggering statements and accusations to a minimum and focuses on constructive words and actions.

NVC comes with a learning curve for those who struggle with identifying their feelings and needs, but it’s worth learning as a life and self-care skill.

In situations where NVC does not work, it can be a useful tool (especially for codependents) to “suss out” unspoken cultural or power dynamics, and/or narcissistic behavior in others.

I hope that abuse survivors can benefit from nonviolent communication: Sometimes it’s not that you didn’t communicate “perfectly” or clearly, but that the other person has no interest in hearing you. And that’s not a “you” thing.

[elmadrasahdotcom]

Here is the best learning arabic in dubai experience for Emast

Of course, you always wonder how to excel in learning arabic in dubai and what you should do, and given the great importance of the Emsat test in the United Arab Emirates with its different versions and materials, so many are looking for strategies and advice to help them succeed and excel in this test? If so, in this article we will discuss some of these tips, an overview of the learning arabic in dubai test that will enable you to stand out, and some resources for further study.

To prepare well for this exam, we recommend a few things that put you on the ladder of excellence

Understanding the structure of the learning arabic in dubai test and other tests is essential to success.

The learning arabic in dubai exam is divided into four sections. Each section tests a different aspect of Arabic language proficiency and must be studied separately in order to perform well on the test:

reading comprehension.

As the Reading Comprehension section focuses on your ability to understand written Arabic text, you will need to practise this section by reading passages of varying length and answering questions about the content of the passage.

You should also be aware of phrases and idioms commonly used in the passage that may be unfamiliar to you if you are not fluent in the Arabic language.

Rules and composition.

The Grammar and Structure section tests your knowledge of grammar rules as well as sentence structure in written form.

Questions may include identifying incorrect sentences or correcting incorrect sentences, among other tasks.

It is important to understand the verb tenses used when speaking or writing in formal settings as this can have an impact on accuracy when answering the questions in this section.

writing skills.

The Writing Skills section assesses your ability to write in formal Arabic by having you write a short essay based on a prompt given during the test.

It is important that you understand how to use correct grammar and sentence structure when writing in order to get high scores on this section of the test.

vocabulary.

Finally, the Vocabulary part assesses your understanding of different words used in everyday conversation or writing tasks related to topics such as science, history, politics, etc.

Learning common root words is also useful for improving vocabulary skills for this part.

In the coming lines, we will learn how you can develop each of these sections in the learning arabic in dubai exam.

To excel in the learning arabic in dubai , you must improve your grammar skills by focusing on both the grammatical structure of the sentence and the vocabulary.

Learn the basics of Arabic grammar, such as parts of speech and basic sentence structure.

Once you understand these basics, start focusing on more complex aspects like verb conjugations and tenses.

In addition, increase your vocabulary by studying frequently used words or phrases that you encounter in everyday conversations or texts.

Practice writing sentences to apply what you have learned while reinforcing concepts such as word order and correct conjugation.

Finally, take advantage of online resources that offer tests or practice tests to help you prepare for the learning arabic in dubai..

Through this combination of hard work and dedication, you will be able to hone your language skills and make a remarkable impression on the examiners.

  Here are some steps and tips to help you balance writing with the listening and reading exercises that are essential for anyone preparing for the learning arabic in dubai exam in an effective manner. It is important to be able to understand what people are saying, read and understand written content, and express yourself accurately in writing.

By focusing on these three areas when studying Emsat Arabi models, you can become distinguished in the shortest possible time.

Tags : 

#best_ private_tutor, #elmadrasah_dot_com, #elmadrasah_dot_com_Services, #Private_Emsat_tutor, #Arabic_tutor, #private_Arabic_tutor

[writ8]

The Economist reads | How to write

What to read to become a better writer

Five texts that explain how to write simply and well

A group of young women working on a script in Greenwich Village, New York City, June 1954.

image: getty images

Sep 9th 2022

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This article is part of our Summer reads series. Visit the full collection for book lists, guest essays and more seasonal distractions.

Editor’s update: The Economist has published a revised version of its style guide.

The first words are the hardest. For many of us writing is a slog. Words drip with difficulty onto the page—and frequently they seem to be the wrong ones, in the wrong order. Yet few pause to ask why writing is hard, why what we write may be bad, or even what is meant by “bad”. Fortunately for anyone seeking to become a better writer, the works recommended here provide enlightenment and reassurance. Yes, writing is hard. But if you can first grasp the origins and qualities of bad writing, you may learn to diagnose and cure problems in your own prose (keeping things simple helps a lot). Similarly heartening is the observation that most first drafts are second-rate, so becoming a skilled rewriter is the thing. These five works are excellent sources of insight and inspiration.

Politics and the English Language. By George Orwell. Available on the Orwell Foundation’s website

Starting with Orwell’s essay may seem as clichéd as the hackneyed phrases he derides in it. Published in 1946, this polemic against poor and perfidious writing will be familiar to many. But its advice on how to write is as apposite now as then. (Besides, it is short and free.) Orwell analyses the unoriginal, “dying” metaphors that still haunt the prose of academics, politicians, professionals and hacks. He lambasts the “meaningless words” and “pretentious diction” of his day; many of the horrors he cites remain common. To save writers from regurgitating these, Orwell proposes six now-canonical rules. The first five boil down to: prefer short, everyday words and the active voice, cut unneeded words and strive for fresh imagery. The sixth—“break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous”—displays the difficulty of pinning down something as protean as language. But this has not stopped others trying.

Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. By Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup. Pearson Education; 246 pages; $66.65 and £43.99

In “Style”, Joseph Williams, who taught English at the University of Chicago, instructs writers on how to revise their scribblings into something clearer, more concise and coherent. (Aptly for a text about rewriting, it is the latest in a long line of reworkings of Williams’s teachings on the subject, which appeared under various titles.) Unlike Orwell, who devised high-level rules for writers to wield by instinct, Williams proposes nuanced “principles” and shows how to apply them. Whereas, for instance, Orwell exhorted writers to “never use the passive where you can use the active”, Williams explains how passives can sometimes help create a sense of flow. This forms part of his coverage of “cohesion” and “coherence”, which could upend the way you write. Insightful, too, is Williams’s guidance on pruning prose and on the ills and virtues of nominalisations—nouns formed from verbs (as “nominalisation” is from “nominalise”), which often send sentences awry. Such technical details, summary sections and practice exercises make “Style” the most textbook-like work on this list. It may also be the most useful.

Explore more Summer reads:

Where are the world’s best non-native English speakers? This index held some surprises.

Rapid progress in ai is generating fear and excitement. Two experts argue the world needs an international agency to govern it, in a guest essay for By Invitation.

We went to the school where Russia’s state-television journalists are trained. They are being taught to fight a holy war.

On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. By William Zinsser. HarperCollins; 321 pages; $17.99 and £13.99

Less overtly practical than “Style” but far more fun to read is “On Writing Well”. William Zinsser, who was an American journalist and teacher, is a witty commentator on the writer’s craft with a talent for aphorisms (eg, “the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components”). He embraces slippery subjects like “rhythm” and “voice” that tend to defy rules or principles. But he purveys practical wisdom, too, diagnosing stylistic blunders, exploring genres from memoir to business writing, and analysing passages from well-known works and his own journalism. Zinsser is always encouraging. Introducing a marked-up extract from drafts of “On Writing Well”, a spider’s web of self-edits, he counsels: “Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair.” Zinsser also gives fellow writers much to emulate. His paragraph-ending sentences are a marvel.

The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. By Steven Pinker. Penguin; 368 pages; and $18 and £10.99

An expert on words and brains, Steven Pinker wants to help writers write better by getting them into the minds of their readers. The celebrated psycholinguist argues that “the curse of knowledge” is the biggest cause of bad writing: like children, writers forget that others often do not know what they know. Bad writers tend to dwell on irrelevant points and make logical connections that are logical only to them. Their prose—the type beloved of academics, bureaucrats and businessfolk—abounds in abstract nouns and luxuriates in long sentences. By contrast, good writing (“classic style”, in Mr Pinker’s phrase) assembles concrete words into straightforward sentences that readers find simple to grasp. Why should this be so? Using striking and funny examples, Mr Pinker shows how working memory, which stores syntactic constructions until they are complete, is easily swamped. In closing, he joins the battle over English usage, as our full review of “The Sense of Style” describes.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. Merriam-Webster; 989 pages; $29.95

Every writer needs a reference book to look up troublesome issues of grammar and usage; no one has memorised them all. The quality of such books has improved in recent years, but one from the 1990s has earned its keep since then. Merriam-Webster (mwdeu) is America’s best-known dictionary publisher. This guide contains not exactly definitions, though, but mini-essays: on individual words (can “data” be singular?), confusingly similar ones (such as “comprise” and “compose”) and grammatical conundrums (such as the split infinitive, dangling modifiers and so on).

What distinguishes mwdeu is its relentless empiricism. Where a debatable claim about correct usage is made, it surveys the history of other guides and their recommendations, as well as going to Merriam-Webster’s huge bank of citations from literature, non-fiction and journalism. In many cases, a proposed rule (such as the ban on split infinitives) is shown to be baseless. But in other cases, the guide is conservative. On the “comma fault” (joining two independent clauses with nothing more than a comma), mwdeu finds it in some great authors’ literary work, but warns readers that “you probably should not try the device unless you are very sure of what you want it to accomplish.” Good sense all round.■

_______________

The Economist offers its own advice on writing in “Writing With Style”, our revised in-house style guide, published in 2023; in the Johnson column on language; and in Economist Education’s course on business writing.

Free tools can help. To discover whether your writing is “lean” or in “heart attack” territory, try The Writer’s Diet. This website tests how bloated passages are by adjectives, prepositions and so on. Or paste your prose into the oed Text Visualiser, from Oxford University Press, to uncover the origins of your words. Many of English’s most concrete and vivid words derive from Anglo-Saxon. These tend also to be short and punchy—echoing Winston Churchill, The Economist once argued (entirely in monosyllables) that “short words are best”.

This article appeared in the The Economist reads section of the print edition under the headline "What to read to become a better writer"

The future of war: A special report

[acquaintsofttech]

The role of user feedback in determining and improving your MVP

Introduction

Developing a good product is a matter of meticulous planning and execution. One strategy that has gained considerable acceptance in software development is the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) idea. An MVP is a vital product version that lets developers evaluate its marketability and gather valuable information. In this article, we'll examine the role of user feedback during the MVP development process. We'll explore how user feedback influences the product's direction and highlight the importance of a dependable MVP development company that can provide high-quality MVP development solutions. Let's get started!

Understanding Your MVP

An MVP (Minimum Viable Product) is a critical concept in product development focused on creating a simplified product version with the essential capabilities and features. Here's what you need to be aware of about MVP development:

A. Definition and the purpose of an MVP

An MVP is the simplest product version that lets you evaluate its market viability.

It is designed to address your intended audience's primary issue or needs.

B. Key features and functions of an MVP

An MVP comprises only the necessary elements to provide the best user value.

It must be user-friendly, easy to use, and demonstrate the product's primary value proposition.

Additional features may be added in subsequent iterations based on feedback from users.

C. Benefits of building an MVP before a complete product is released

Reduced development time and costs by focusing on the key features will allow you to launch your product more quickly and at a lower price.

Validation of the product's market fit: MVP development allows you to test your product's hypothesis and validate its market.

Early feedback from users: When publishing an MVP, you will be able to gather valuable feedback from your users and make informed decisions regarding the next steps in development.

The ability to mitigate risks: Creating an MVP lets you detect potential problems or pitfalls early on and make any necessary adjustments.

To ensure the success of MVP development, think about joining forces with an MVP development firm or utilizing MVP development services that take advantage of their knowledge and experience in creating successful MVPs.

The importance of user feedback

Feedback from users plays a vital role in creating the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and determining the product's direction. Here's why it's crucial:

A. Feedback from users as an invaluable source of information:

User feedback provides direct insight into how users feel about and interact with the MVP.

It helps determine what works well and needs improvement for more informed decision-making.

B. Identifying the pain points and areas for improvement with feedback:

User feedback can help identify issues, user frustrations, and areas needing attention.

It lets MVP developers prioritize improvements based on actual user experiences.

C. The importance of user feedback in influencing product direction:

Users' Feedback helps align the product to user needs, preferences, and expectations.

It helps make decisions, ensuring the MVP develops in an order appealing to the intended audience.

In short, user feedback is an invaluable source of data, allowing the identification of issues and influencing the direction of the product. By actively seeking out and listening to user feedback, MVP development solutions can improve their products, increase customer satisfaction and, ultimately, increase the likelihood of success.

Collecting User Feedback

The gathering of feedback from users is essential to build an effective Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Here are some strategies and best practices for collecting feedback from customers efficiently:

A. Methods and Tools to Collect User Feedback

Surveys and Questionnaires Creating and disseminating online questionnaires or surveys can help you collect qualitative data on preferences of users satisfaction levels, satisfaction levels, and issues.

User interviews and Usability Tests: Conducting one-on-one sessions for usability testing lets you examine the user's experiences, identify their requirements, and how they interact with your MVP.

Social Media Monitoring and Sentiment Analysis Monitoring social media channels to collect organic feedback and determine users' opinions about your MVP. Social listening software could be used to analyze conversations and gain valuable information.

B. Best Practices for Inviting User Feedback Effectively

Clear and concise Feedback Requests Make feedback requests easy and easy to comprehend. It is essential to state the reason and the desired result of feedback clearly. This makes it easier for users to give their input.

Encouragement of Users to Share Feedback Offering incentives such as discounts, free trials, discounts, or exclusive content to encourage users to provide their opinions. This increases the number of people who participate and engage.

Create a user-friendly feedback process: Make sure that the feedback process is easy to use and easily accessible. Offer multiple feedback channels, including online forms, email, or specialized platforms for feedback, and ensure they are user-friendly.

By implementing these strategies and best practices, you can collect valuable user feedback to help with your MVP development. By incorporating user feedback, you identify the areas of pain, increase users' satisfaction, and increase the likelihood of developing an excellent MVP.

Prioritizing and analyzing feedback

Evaluating and prioritizing user feedback is essential to ensure that you are constantly improving and iterating your MVP. Here are some critical actions to take:

A. Sorting and organizing feedback data:

Create a system for managing feedback, for example, using a spreadsheet or a feedback management tool.

Classify feedback based on general themes or areas for improvement.

Labels or tags should be assigned to feedback to make tracking and searching for them more accessible.

B. Evaluation of the importance and frequency of feedback

Find the feedback points that are frequent to assess their significance.

Please consider the number of people who provide similar feedback to measure the impact.

Be aware of the potential effects on user experience and general value proposition.

C. The importance of prioritizing feedback following impact and feasibility:

Examine the potential impact of each feedback item on customer experience and business goals.

Examine the possibility of adopting the modifications in the MVP's development timeline and resources.

The MVP must balance the urgency of addressing crucial issues with the long-term strategic goals of the MVP.

By organizing the process of evaluating, prioritizing, and collecting feedback effectively, you can concentrate on addressing the most significant issues and implementing improvements that will positively influence the success of your MVP development. Make sure you continue to refine your product in response to user feedback to develop a user-friendly product that ensures the success of your MVP development company or MVP development services.

Enhancing and Reiterating Your MVP

Regarding MVP (Minimum Viable Product) development, user feedback is essential to refine and improve the product. By leveraging user feedback, you can pinpoint and address issues, implement updates and changes, and verify improvements through user testing. Here's how to effectively improve and refine your MVP:

A. Utilizing feedback to identify and address the User's Pain Points:

Gather feedback from users through interviews, surveys, or usability tests.

Examine the feedback to determine common issues and areas for improvement.

Be aware of the needs and expectations of the user to respond effectively to their concerns.

B. Implementing Updates and Changes Based on Feedback from Users:

Prioritize the feedback based on its impact and feasibility.

Work with your development team to design and implement changes that are needed.

Continuously improve the MVP in response to user feedback to improve the user experience.

C. Testing and Validating Improvements Using Testing with Users:

Conduct tests with users to assess the impact of changes made.

Get insights into usability, the satisfaction of users, and overall user experience.

Integrate the results into future tests to ensure that you are continuously improving.

By incorporating user feedback in the MVP design process, you can create an experience that is more user-centric and fulfills the needs and expectations of your intended users. It allows you to refine and enhance your MVP incrementally, which leads to a better launch.

Communication with Users

In MVP development, transparent and effective user interaction is essential to ensure success. Here are some key things to remember:

A. Transparency and openness when sharing feedback results:

Be transparent about the feedback you receive and how it impacts your product.

Share the insights from user feedback to establish trust and show that you are responsive.

B. Informing users about updates and changes to the product:

Regularly inform users of updates, new features, or improvements.

Use channels like email newsletters, notifications in-app, or blog posts to communicate information.

C. Maintaining the feedback loop for continuous improvement:

It is important to encourage users to provide regular feedback to ensure that they are continuously improving their experience.

Set up a feedback system, for example, a dedicated email address or a feedback form.

Respond quickly to user suggestions and share any actions in response to their feedback.

Remember that effective communication enhances the experience for users as well as creates the feeling of collaboration. By ensuring Transparency, keeping users informed, and actively engaging them in the feedback loop, you'll be able to develop stronger relationships, increase the user experience, and ensure the longevity of your MVP development efforts.

Conclusion

Ultimately, user feedback is crucial in creating the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). MVP development companies and services can improve their offerings by continuously seeking and considering user feedback. Feedback from users is an invaluable source of information, revealing the areas of need and areas to improve. Accepting user feedback drives the product's success and creates an ongoing improvement process. So, please take note of your customers and iterate based on their feedback, then develop an improved MVP that can meet their requirements and surpass their expectations.

[escapetoluna]

How to learn a language when you don’t know where to start:

General Plan:

Weeks 1 and 2: Purpose:

Learn the fundamentals sentence construction

Learn how to spell and count

Start building a phrase stockpile with basic greetings

The Alphabet

Numbers 1 - 100

Subject Pronouns

Common Greetings

Conjugate the Two Most Important Verbs: to be and to have

Basic Definite and Indefinite Articles

Weeks 3 and 4: Purpose:

Learn essential vocabulary for the day-to-day

Start conjugating regular verbs

Days of the Week and Months of the Year

How to tell the time

How to talk about the weather

Family Vocabulary

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 5 and 6: Purpose:

Warm up with the last of the day-to-day vocabulary

Add more complex types of sentences to your grammar

Colours

House vocabulary

How to ask questions

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Forming negatives

Weeks 7 and 8: Purpose:

Learn how to navigate basic situations in a region of your target language country

Finish memorising regular conjugation rules

Food Vocabulary and Ordering at Restaurants

Money and Shopping Phrases

Present Tense Conjugations Verbs

Weeks 9 and 10: Purpose:

Start constructing descriptive and more complex sentences

Adjectives

Reflective verbs

Places vocabulary

Weeks 11 and 12: Purpose:

Add more complex descriptions to your sentences with adverbs

Wrap up vocabulary essentials

Adverbs

Parts of the body and medical vocabulary

Tips for Learning a Foreign Language:

Learning Vocabulary:

What vocabulary should I be learning?

There are hundreds of thousands of words in every language, and the large majority of them won’t be immediately relevant to you when you’re starting out.Typically, the most frequent 3000 words make up 90% of the language that a native speaker uses on any given day. Instead try to learn the most useful words in a language, and then expand outwards from there according to your needs and interests.

Choose the words you want/need to learn.

Relate them to what you already know.

Review them until they’ve reached your long-term memory.

Record them so learning is never lost.

Use them in meaningful human conversation and communication.

How should I record the vocabulary?

Learners need to see and/or hear a new word of phrase 6 to 17 times before they really know a piece of vocabulary.

Keep a careful record of new vocabulary.

Record the vocabulary in a way that is helpful to you and will ensure that you will practice the vocabulary, e.g. flashcards.

Vocabulary should be organised so that words are easier to find, e.g. alphabetically or according to topic.

Ideally when noting vocabulary you should write down not only the meaning, but the grammatical class, and example in a sentence, and where needed information about structure.

How should I practice using the vocabulary?

Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check - Use this method for learning and remembering vocabulary. This method is really good for learning spellings.

Make flashcards. Write the vocabulary on the front with the definition and examples on the back.

Draw mind maps or make visual representations of the new vocabulary groups.

Stick labels or post it notes on corresponding objects, e.g when learning kitchen vocabulary you could label items in your house.

How often should I be practising vocabulary?

A valuable technique is ‘the principle of expanding rehearsal’. This means reviewing vocabulary shortly after first learning them then at increasingly longer intervals.

Ideally, words should be reviewed:

5-10 minutes later

24 hours later

One week later

1-2 months later

6 months later

Knowing a vocabulary item well enough to use it productively means knowing:

Its written and spoken forms (spelling and pronunciation).

Its grammatical category and other grammatical information

Related words and word families, e.g. adjective, adverb, verb, noun.

Common collocations (Words that often come before or after it).

Receptive Skills: Listening and Reading

Reading is probably one of the most effective ways of building vocabulary knowledge.

Listening is also important because it occupies a big chunk of the time we spend communicating.

Tips for reading in a foreign language:

Start basic and small.  Children’s books are great practice for beginners. Don’t try to dive into a novel or newspaper too early, since it can be discouraging and time consuming if you have to look up every other word.

Read things you’ve already read in your native language. The fact that you at least know the gist of the story will help you to pick up context clues, learn new vocabulary and grammatical constructions.

Read books with their accompanying audio books. Reading a book while listening to the accompanying audio will improve your “ear training”. It will also help you to learn the pronunciation of words.

Tips for listening in a foreign language:

Watch films in your target language.

Read a book while also listening along to the audio book version.

Listen to the radio in your target language.

Watch videos online in your target language.

Activities to do to show that you’ve understood what you’ve been listening to:

Try drawing a picture of what was said.

Ask yourself some questions about it and try to answer them.

Provide a summary of what was said.

Suggest what might come next in the “story.”

Translate what was said into another language.

“Talk back” to the speaker to engage in imaginary conversation.

Productive Skills: Speaking and Writing

Tips for speaking in a foreign language:

If you can, try to speak the language every day either out loud to yourself or chat to another native speaker whether it is a colleague, a friend, a tutor or a language exchange partner. 

Write a list of topics and think about what you could say about each one. First you could write out your thoughts and then read them out loud. Look up the words you don’t know. You could also come up with questions at the end to ask someone else.

A really good way to improve your own speaking is to listen to how native speakers talk and imitate their accent, their rhythm of speech and tone of voice. Watch how their lips move and pay attention to the stressed sounds. You could watch interviews on YouTube or online news websites and pause every so often to copy what you have just heard. You could even sing along to songs sung in the target language.

Walk around the house and describe what you say. Say what you like or dislike about the room or the furniture or the decor. Talk about what you want to change.This gets you to practise every day vocabulary.

Tips for writing in a foreign language:

Practice writing in your target language. Keep it simple to start with. Beginner vocabulary and grammar concepts are generally very descriptive and concrete.

Practice writing by hand. Here are some things you can write out by hand:

Diary entries

Shopping lists

Reminders

What could I write about?

Write about your day, an interesting event, how you're feeling, or what you're thinking.

Make up a conversation between two people. 

Write a letter to a friend, yourself, or a celebrity. You don't need to send it; just writing it will be helpful.

Translate a text you've written in your native language into your foreign language.

Write a review or a book you've recently read or a film you've recently watched.

Write Facebook statuses, Tweets or Tumblr posts (whether you post them or not will be up to you).

Write a short story or poem.

Writing is one of the hardest things to do well as a non-native speaker of a language, because there’s no room to hide. 

There are lots of ways to improve your writing ability, but they can be essentially boiled down to three key components:

Read a lot

Write a lot

Get your writing corrected

[breelandwalker]

A Brief History of Tarot

I'm seeing a lot of questions about the origins of tarot going around again, so I suppose it's time to make a Post With Sources. Because from what I'm seeing, a lot of y'all are pulling from some bad information.

I've seen some of the discourse on tarot with regard to the decolonization discussion, but unfortunately, it often veers in the wrong direction. The discourse seems to focus on whether it should be a closed practice because of the Romani/Roma connection, but the origins of this idea are a misnomer.

Tarot cards originated in 15th-century Italy as perfectly mundane playing cards for a game called tarrocchi appropriati. Players would draw cards and use the thematic associations of the artwork to write short poems about each other. The cards were also used to play a trionfi or trumps style game similar to bridge.

The cards later became popular as fortune-telling devices in the 1780s. At this time, standard-suit playing cards (hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades) were already being used for playful divinatory party games that were taken about as seriously as a middle school game of M.A.S.H.

Mystical origins for the pictures on the cards were first suggested by Antoine Court de Gébelin in 1781. The first official divinatory meanings were assigned to tarot cards by Jean-Baptiste Alliette in 1783. The deck was later revised by Mlle Marie-Anne Adelaide Lenormand, Jean-Baptiste Pitois, and Arthur Edward Waite of Rider-Waite fame to become the version we know today. The suit cards became the Minor Arcana and the trumps or wild cards became the Major Arcana.

From there, card-reading became a popular party game and tarot decks were indeed used by Romani/Roma people to tell fortunes. Since most people wouldn't hire them for "honest" work, they had to make money by busking, doing odd jobs, and trading on whatever skills they had, including knowledge of tarot cards and their "mystical" reputation. As mysticism and tarot decks faded from popular mundane use, the Romani/Roma people carried on using them. Eventually, this was the strongest...and only...association that remained in people's minds.

(And if you need an example of how quickly this can happen, just look at how long it's been since Rick Astley's biggest hit has been associated with anything other than internet memes.)

This supposition was only strengthened by the writings of modern occultists such as Éliphas Lévi (who reinforced Gebelin's claim of an Egyptian origin and introduced the idea of Hermetic Qabalistic associations; both ideas rooted in colonial exoticizing of other cultures), Raymond Buckland, and two of the three founding members of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Aleister Crowley also wrote extensively about tarot and it's "ancient" mystical associations in his works and texts related to his self-created system Thelema, including the creation of the Thoth deck.

All of these ideas filtered down through modern pagan and New Age practices as part of the literature on the modern witchcraft movement, but so few authors bothered to look into the mundane history of the cards that their proper historical origins were often overlooked in favor of more mystical explanations. Yes, including their supposed genesis among the Romani/Roma, and all the superstitions pertaining thereto, i.e. your first deck must be a gift, and so on.

In short, cartomancy through tarot is an open practice, the tarot cards themselves are mundane objects that originated on gaming tables, it was never exclusive to one group or tradition, and the only reason we think it first came from some secret sacred practice of the Romani/Roma is because the scholarship that the New Age movement pulled from for their ideas on tarot was done by a whole lot of Western White Guys with imperialist mindsets. (The reductive/racist thought process of the day was basically, "Well, the Romani/Roma allegedly come from Egypt, and Gebelin said the card designs do too, so there it is!")

I also encourage reading of the Wikipedia articles on Tarot and Tarot-Reading, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica article on the same. I know these aren't the end-all-be-all of resources, but they do trace the history of the cards and the parties involved with the changing conversation on their design, origins, and deeper meaning. It's worth noting that many texts discussing late 19th-century occultism are now in the public domain and can be found on Project Gutenberg, if you're interested in seeing how ideas and views about tarot progressed over time in the words of the occult scholars themselves.

It's also worth noting that scholarly speculation on the supposed origins of a practice do not always constitute historical fact, no matter how often they're repeated. (See also: Bede and Eostre.)

So what does this mean for modern tarot users?

It means if you like a deck, you don't have to wait for someone to gift it to you. It means you're not stealing anything if you read tarot, even if you ask to be paid for your readings. It means bad information disseminates faster and more easily than good information, largely because it's shorter and easier to fit into performative agendas. And it means we still need to do our homework when it comes to the history of witchcraft.

[antimonarchy]

How to Create Image Descriptions

So I’ve been creating image descriptions on tumblr for about a month, and I wanted to share some helpful guides I’ve found on how to create them as well as my own tips that I’ve picked up. Video descriptions and transcripts are also necessary, but since I mostly focus on image descriptions that’s what this guide is about. This might get a bit long, so fair warning. 

What are image descriptions?

Image descriptions are a textual depiction of what is going on in an image, as shown with the image below. 

[Image ID: A picture of a person with short black hair working on a computer. They are sitting at a wooden table with a large blue pot of pink flowers in front of a grey brick wall. A guitar is propped up against the wall in the background, and there is a string of lights near the ceiling. /.End ID]

Why create image descriptions?

The primary reason for creating image descriptions is to allow people who are blind/have limited vision to experience visual content. Many people who are blind/have low vision use screenreaders, which read text out loud when it is clicked or hovered over with a mouse. A large amount of online content, such as pictures, graphics, or drawings, is visual and so possibly cannot be experienced by someone with vision problems. As a general rule of thumb, anything that can be dragged or dropped most probably requires a description. In addition, if someone has partial vision and attempts to zoom in on an image, sometimes it can become pixelated and impossible to understand. 

Some neurodivergent people might need a description to understand the tone of an image, such as the meaning of facial expressions of a person to understand what emotion the artist is trying to depict

Some people might not have high speed internet or have low computer memory, meaning that they turn off images in order to save space. This means that they as well might require descriptions of visual content

Are image descriptions the same as alt text?

no, alt text and image descriptions serve the same purpose, but they are different in how they are presented. Alt text, short for alternative text, is included in the html of an image and can be read by a screen reader. However, there are many reasons why many prefer image descriptions over alt text. 

There is a limit of 200 words in alt text on tumblr specifically (and not in other contexts, which makes this information only applicable here), which means that detailed images or graphics are unable to be described fully without possibly cutting out important information. 

People who require descriptions, but who do not use a screenreader, must right-click and search through the html of an image in order to find alt text, but with an image description they are saved that work. 

Who should create image descriptions?

Everyone who is able to should create image descriptions. A content creator is best able to communicate the message of their work through text, as they are the one who created it and thus understand its message the best. While of course it takes practice when starting out, over time image descriptions become second nature when posting visual content. Always check the notes of a tumblr post for an ID rather than reblogging without one. 

What should be included in image descriptions?

There is no simple answer to this question, there are a variety of resources and guides on how to create one, and you should not accept my advice as the ultimate authority, as I am by no means a professional, and only create descriptions in my spare time as part of the effort to make Tumblr more accessible. However, here is my information for those starting out. 

First, consider what type of visual content it is. Is it fanart of a tv show, a screenshot of a tweet, or an informational graphic meant to educate people on a particular issue? 

Then, consider what information is most important in the image. If the visual content is an image of a famous building, then in writing the description the focus should be on the building, rather than describing for instance the color of the sky, surrounding buildings, or the clothing of the people walking by, as they are not the information that is being presented. 

Perkins ELearning has an excellent list of things that should generally be included, which I will include here. In my experience, these are the most important elements to describe

The people and animals in an image

The background or setting of an image

Elements that relate to the context specifically, so if it was an image of a congested highway on a news website, the description would mention the packed cars

The colors of an image (don’t overdo it however, a simple ‘light blue’ will suffice, no need to say something like ‘a color blue that is similar to the color of a robin’s egg’ unless it is crucial to the viewer’s comprehension of an image)

Context for an image. For instance, imagine if someone had drawn a version of the Bernie Sanders ‘I am once again asking’ meme, with Eleanor Shellstrop from the Good Place saying “I am once again asking for there to be a Medium Place.” Rather than provide a description to the example such as:                                          [Image ID: A drawing of Eleanor Shellstrop saying “I am once again asking for there to be a Medium Place.” /.End ID] you would instead say                                                                                                [Image ID: A redraw of the Bernie Sanders ‘I am once again asking’ meme with Eleanor Shellstrop from The Good Place saying “I am once again asking for there to be a Medium Place. /.End ID]

If the image is of a social media post, include the username/handle of the creator as well as the reactions (likes/reblogs) if they are visible in the image, as they may be cut off by the original screenshotter. 

If it is a drawing or piece of art, always look for the artist’s signature when writing a description

How do I write an image description?

To start off, here is an example description written for a piece of art I made myself. 

[Image ID: A digital drawing of Suki from Avatar: The Last Airbender over a gold background.  She is shown from the shoulders up facing the viewer, and has a neutral expression. She is wearing metal armor over a light green tunic, and is wearing her Kyoshi Warriors facepaint and headdress. The artist’s signature ‘Astra’ is written in the lower right of the image. /.End ID]

In this description:

I made clear where the description begins and ends, so that someone with a screenreader is not confused. I usually use brackets ([ ]), write the words ‘Image ID’ (or video/gif/other) and finish with a slash, period, and the words End ID. (/.End ID)

I emphasized the type of image, in this case a digital drawing

I said the character’s name (obviously this may not be known if describing a photo or something you are not familiar with)

I described the background and the character’s clothing

I described her expression

I included the description of my signature.

This is my basic process for writing a description

I first say what the content is, such as a drawing, photo, or screenshot of a tweet.

I then use what is called Object-Action-Context for the most part, which UXDesign has a long article on https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-write-an-image-description-2f30d3bf5546. For example, [Image ID: A photo of a person standing in a crowd waving to someone out of view in front of a river. /.End ID] While obviously I would usually provide more information than that, Person = object, standing + waving to someone out of view = action, and ‘in a crowd’ = context. 

I describe the clothing that might be worn

I talk about the position that people in an image might be in, such as leaning against one another on a couch, or standing with their fingers intertwined

I talk about the expressions on their faces, if shown

I talk about their general appearance (if important to the description) such as hair color/length

As said before, I talk about the context of an image if necessary

If the background is a simple color, I usually include it in the first sentence of the description. However if it is more complicated, such as a river winding through a dense forest, I include that at the end of the description after describing the important elements. 

Typically if I am reblogging an image, I do not add on any commentary after creating an image description, as this allows others to reblog my description without my personal reaction. If I want to add on to an image, I usually reblog my description post. 

In general, it is best to remain objective when writing a description, meaning not including your opinion of the content. However especially in an informal setting, say for instance you were describing an adorable cow, I would see it as fine to say [Image ID: A small drawing of an adorable cow. /.End ID] because the emphasis is on the appearance. There isn’t a clearcut answer, and it really depends on the context. 

What are some tips for writing descriptions/common pitfalls?

If there is an element of an image like a line that represents an emotion, or a sound effect like ‘clang’ if something falls, include that in the description. For instance, [Image ID: ...beside the mug that has fallen on the floor, there are the words ‘sploosh’ indicating the sound of the water that has spilled out. /.End ID]

Put image descriptions first. Don’t hide them under readmores or any other text. If you have something with multiple images and you are the creator, place the description under each image in succession rather than all at the end. Readmores are ableist, as they require someone who has vision problems/one of the conditions described above to do more work to access the message of visual content. 

If you are mentioning the skin color and/or race of someone in an image, make sure you describe it for anyone else who might be in an image. Don’t just describe the race of someone who appears to not be white. This doesn’t mean that you have to describe race, such as if the character is one whose race is commonly known, just that if you do, make sure you do it for all characters/people in an image. 

In order to write IDs effectively, I’ve found it useful to download a screen reader. I use NVDA, which is entirely free and easy to use and can be downloaded here: https://www.nvaccess.org/download/. 

Insert + Q turns it off

While my guide has focused mostly on image descriptions, video descriptions are also necessary. However they are not my area of expertise, and differ slightly, so I would recommend anyone interested in them to check out this website https://www.washington.edu/accessibility/videos/

Transcripts, for those who are d/Deaf/Hard of Hearing, are also necessary for making content accessible, and might be required for content that also has a visual format, such as a Tiktok. I would recommend this website https://www.w3.org/WAI/media/av/transcripts/ for anyone interested in writing transcripts

What are some more resources I can check out?

Here are a series of websites that I have found while researching how to write descriptions

UX Design -  I mentioned UX Design earlier when talking about Object - Action - Context, this article is very useful and examines how to structure a description and provides very useful examples for beginners

Perkins E-Learning - This article is very useful in helping someone what to include in a description, such as clothing or background information, as well as providing some additional information on alt text if you are interested

Meloukhianet - This blog post by s. e. smith goes into detail on the elements of an image to emphasize depending on its context, using the example of a picture of their cat sunning himself. 

SOAP - This article by the Stanford Online Accessibility Program (SOAP) provides a large amount of information on the purpose of image descriptions and what content requires them

HubPages - This article by SOTD and Zera discusses the difference between sparse, lush, and overdone descriptions, which is the amount of information included, and if/when each should be used. 

I hope you found this information helpful, I encourage everyone to check out these websites, and my inbox is always open for questions!

[monsterkissed]

“what can i do to help trans people in the uk?”

i got a bit sick of seeing posts talking about the current ongoing cultural mudslinging and particularly sick of responses to people asking what to do about it that amounted to either “nothing, just keep talking about the awful things endlessly without offering any rationale for any of it or hope for anyone” or “donate to these (american) charities!”

so here we go, a short and very broad list of things you can do to support trans and nb people in the uk. this is not comprehensive and will contain info both for residents here and for people living in other countries as and when they occur to me.

recognise why this is happening: this is a manufactured cultural assault designed to create perpetual vitriolic media buzz. we can get into the nitty-gritty but the short version is that brexit has been and is going to continue to be a disaster, and covid has been even worse, and they are disasters too big to spin into gold. this has created both a lot of internal upset and, unsurprisingly, an upswing in left-leaning consciousness and support, a wholly predictable response that the uk press has completely shit itself over. i cannot emphasise enough how much the uk media and upper echelons would rather be notorious for bigotry than tolerate the existence of the most mealy-mouthed socialist movement going undemonised. so, what’s the response? well, creating a convenient enemy is just what these people do, and it’s hard to go with the usual standard of immigrants when hardly anybody can get in and almost nobody wants to. trans panic is an ideal choice because like all bigotries predicated on a gut feeling of disgust it is highly resistant to being deflated by research and facts, it has the huge added bonus of destabilising support for the left, which trends progressive here, and you can pick at it forever without needing anything to actually happen in order to run stories, (see: the number of news articles that amount to glorified opinion pieces but have flimsy-to-no actual news content) and running stories keeps the machine doing its job. this is a smokescreen and a very deliberate one. if you interpret that as an implication that it is therefore harmless, please google the effects of sustained smoke inhalation.

with that in mind, stop doing tr-anspho-bes PR for them. polls on the general consensus wrt trans people in the uk do not, in fact, show an overwhelming majority of people vocal about especially repugnant anti-trans views. more and more people know a trans person personally, more and more are educated on basic info and are reasonably content to be sensible about our existence and the primary movement for the opposition is composed of a statistically smaller number of very loud, very miserable people. the ones near the top of the social pile make a mint endlessly churning out outrage articles, and the ones down here with the rest of us make a lot of bitter twitter posts about all the friends who won’t talk to them any more. their legal and legislative efforts in practical terms have amounted to stalls and deadlocks at best, embarrassing overturns at worst. they do not have the majority. do not give them the illusion of it, do not credit them with a victory they have absolutely no right to claim. this isn’t their island.

support actual uk trans/trans inclusive charities and activists, i promise they exist outside of america and have donation links. stonewall uk and mermaids are probably the most prominent ones in the public discourse, but off the top of my head there’s gendered intelligence and the lgbt foundation and galop and whichever country in the uk you happen to look in will have their own. google them, ask your local queer hub, look at individual-issue campaigns like the multiple anti-conversion therapy groups, find one of the endless number of us who seem to make extra dosh on the side streaming videogames or debates and see when the next charity stream is live, this is really not a difficult thing to do at all

support/join activist and/or political orgs and movements. please stop making posts saying protesting is banned in the uk, this is not true and does not help. there have been a number of protests around the bbc and other outlets in the past few months alone and we are probably going to be in the need of a lot more protests about a whole range of things in the coming years, so find the people doing it, join up, and boost. do you have a job? are you in a union? you probably should be. and your union probably has people dedicated to supporting, explaining and defending the legal rights of of lgbt+ people in the workplace. find out what those are and whether your workplace is compliant, vote for reps, go to a (probably virtual) AGM, talk to your coworkers, not even about trans stuff! if the people up top are all so frightened of a robust, united left in the uk, give em one.

boost uk trans/nb voices in general, and not just when we are complaining about this stuff. again, turning our entire culture into a constant stream of misery for people who don’t live here or know better to gawk at does not help. boost uk trans/nb people talking about solutions and talking about the good news (and there has been good news, which deserves at least as much attention) and boost them existing and putting out things that are not activism, because living our lives authentically and being creative or constructive or happy after coming out are also things we do, contrary to what certain people would very much prefer. your trans/nb followers here probably don’t want an endless parade of rubbernecking about our sad, doomed little lives, and the people who want to make that gross little pipe dream a reality hate seeing us happy, so it’s a win/win

if you see a shitty article or report in the paper or in the news that is making a mockery of journalistic standards of impartiality, or using absurdly terrible “data” or quoting notoriously vile people or otherwise stepping outside of the paper/channel/etc.s own standards, lodge a complaint, and then follow up on that complaint if/when they fob you off through whatever avenues they are obligated to provide, and let other people know they can do this, too. this is a media circus, make it as tedious and difficult and miserable to run as possible. be specific about exactly what is unacceptable on their own terms (e.g. “this is bigoted, generally” is not going to get you very far, “you claim to cover all sides but only interviewed one” is a provable claim)

if your political candidate (local or otherwise, for any party regardless of your usual voting habits) has been egregiously unpleasant (about frankly any issue that matters in an elected official) contact the party or local office and make a complaint, being clear that this is a question of you feeling comfortable to vote for the party during the next election (you do not need to wait for the next election). again, be very clear about the specific remarks, actions or policy in question. then, when an election does come, follow through. bring it up when people canvas door to door, bring it up in hustings, do the social media thing if that is your thing, make it clear that this candidate, or at least this candidate airing and acting on these particular views, is voter poison, and prove it by not voting for them. a lot of uk politicians are careerists and there is not a single colleague or policy or ideal in their deepest hearts that they won’t eject or erase or sell out if they think it will cost them a popularity contest in a town you could spit across end to end. it won’t work on all of them, but it has worked on some, and it can work again. a whole lot of this entire smokescreen is predicated on the fallout from making a scapegoat out of trans people being less politically and economically damaging than the fallout of the international health and economic crises these people are on the hook for, but, fortunately, and because you are now very cleverly aware of the ruse, there’s no reason they can’t catch heat for both. 

stop talking about the wizard book woman. i know you all care very deeply about which media a person likes and dislikes and how you can read the nature of their soul from the tea leaves of their interests, but you are taking a whole lot of energy that could be spent on anything worthwhile in life at all and spending it boosting the career of a has-been author whose main draw for her followers is purely the fact that people talk about her. yeah if you buy a plastic wand perhaps £0.0000000002 of it might get donated to some unscrupulous character, but jk’s power is not in her ability to throw peanuts at parties whose coffers are already brimming with dirty money. it’s that she’s a famous voice who can be paraded out to do a pity party whenever buzz gets too low. who can speak and write in coherent sentences without making an absolute embarrassment of herself, which is a skill in high demand in frothing hate movements. she’s a hashtag. she’s a mascot. her dwindling fame is one of the few veneers of legitimacy these people have to cling to and that’s why they won’t shut up about her and that’s why you should.

in general, if the bulk of your Serious UK Trans Ally Activism Post is about fandom crap, or a funny joke about how a country you don’t like and the people who live there are bad, perhaps make those insightful and hilarious points on a post that does not leverage the nonsense we are actually dealing with for extra clout, ta

so there you go, a very long short list of things you can do to help uk trans and nb people. there are probably loads more and anyone who has some can feel free to add them on, my only request is that they be educational, actionable, and with a view towards actual improvement of the situation (as opposed to, for example, telling us all to emigrate, which i am sure is well-intentioned but unless you’re willing to pay for a lot of covid tests, transit fare, board, etc., is neither helpful nor practical, nor is it particularly sound long-term tactics to give mouthy little hate groups the idea that if they are simply awful enough, they can have all the minorities they don’t like put onto boats and planes and sent away forever to leave the nation Pure again).

boosts appreciated but you’re not a bad person if you don’t

[mirai-studies-languages]

How to practice listening in a foreign language

Hi! Listening is a tough skill to improve, but I’ve found myself gradually improving as time has gone on, so I thought I would try to offer some advice to anybody who needs it. I think the key to improving your listening is increasing your vocabulary, and practice. I’m basing this mostly on my French (B2) and Spanish (A2/B1) studies.

Figure out what you should listen to! It is important to listen to something that is at your level. For complete beginners, just focus on your textbook exercises and beginners podcasts like Innovative Languages, LingQ and Coffee Break Languages (I highly recommend these by the way). For less difficult languages like French and Spanish (or whatever is close to the languages you speak), you might want to try watching a few Easy Languages videos, since they use topic specific vocabulary. I don’t really recommend this for languages that are very different from the languages you speak though, since it might just be confusing. For upper beginners, you can focus on watching short YouTube videos on topics that interest you (for example in Spanish, I watch a lot of YouTube videos about language learning). You can also try listening to learners podcasts. There are also a lot of YouTube videos out there made for learners that are only in your target language for beginners, like the Innovative Languages YouTube accounts. Just look up “[Target language] beginners listening practice” and something will probably come up. You could also watch children’s shows because of the simplistic language. For intermediate learners, it might be time to start properly dipping your toes into native material. TV shows, podcasts and films are good, but if you don’t like them, then there is a wealth of listening resources to be found on YouTube. Make sure to avoid anything that uses jargon or outdated language, like historical dramas and videos about science. The radios and comedy skits are great for learning informal language (e.g. Cyprien for French). For lower intermediate learners, I would recommend to also focus most of your attention on intermediate podcasts (e.g. For French: InnerFrench and Piece Of French are really good). You should be able to understand about half of it, and as you continue learning French this will increase. I’d say you are at an upper intermediate level once you can understand pretty much everything that is said in these podcasts and videos, and can also understand a fair amount of native material. For advanced learners, historical dramas and university lectures might be good for this. You might also want to look into content for more difficult dialects (unless you are only focusing on one). Just listen to anything and everything that challenges you, and you will start to improve over time. Across all levels, song lyrics are good too!

Read and listen at the same time! Audiobooks and subtitles are the best for this. Make sure you are actually listening instead of just reading. This improves both your listening and your reading skills!

Dictate what you are listening to! Try to write down everything that has been said word for word, and make sure you get the grammar correct too. Once you have finished, compare it to the actual transcription or subtitles and make corrections. Maybe memorise any new vocabulary, and review any grammar points you got wrong.

Shadow! This basically means repeat what is said after it is said. This improves listening AND pronunciation! 

Research how pronunciation changes! When I say this, I basically mean explore how pronunciation changes in the spoken version of a language when compared to the proper version of the language. Read articles with examples on informal and spoken language, and the way syllables will meld together or be shortened. You might want to memorise the most common slang too. Also, for languages with complex politeness levels like Japanese, research that too. Make sure you look out for these in whatever you are listening to, and make sure you listen widely in both informal and formal versions of your target language.

When you learn topic specific vocabulary, listen to content made about that topic! If you learn vocabulary related to the beach, then watch a beach movie. If you learn vocabulary about furniture, watch those DIY videos on YouTube. Learn topic specific vocabulary, and then put it into practice! You will find a wealth of vocabulary resources on this site alone. At first, learn the most important topics, then gradually expand to more niche ones when you become more advanced.

Listen without any help at first! For me, I will get a short YouTube video and listen to it without any help. Then, I will watch it again with subtitles (in my target language), and will pause to turn any unknown words into flashcards. I will go through those flashcards and memorise them. Finally, I will listen to the video again, and again, until I can catch and understand every word. This takes time, but it gets good results. 

Summarize what you just listened to! I would suggest doing this before looking at a transcription or subtitles. Try listening to audio and write a quick summary of what you were told, and then look at the transcription to see how accurate you were.

Replay the audio until you can understand everything! This is especially important for upper intermediate learners, because their goal is to understand everything. If you don’t know a word, then memorise it, and listen again! As time goes on, you will be able to understand everything better.

Adjust the speed of the audio! For beginners and lower intermediate learners, you can make it slower in order to understand it better. For upper intermediate and advanced learners, I recommend speeding it up. The faster it is, the easier you will later find normal native speed.

Just keep listening to your target language! The sounds of a language is something that takes a long time to get used to. You just need to keep on listening, and keep on practicing, and eventually you will start to improve. Listen to your target language whenever you have free time, and over time it will start to pay off. You’ll find that the speed that used to intimidate you will just sound normal, and as your vocabulary increases, so will your listening ability.

Thanks for reading this post! I hope it was useful!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Understanding the aftermath of r/wallstreetbets

A couple days back, I wrote up my best understanding of what happened with /r/wallstreetbets and meme stocks like Gamestop, trying to show how all the different, seemingly contradictory takes on the underlying financial stuff could all be true.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/28/payment-for-order-flow/#wallstreetbets

In the days since, a new series of contradictory takes has emerged, these ones disputing the meaning of this bizarre financial spectacle, and likewise what response, if any is warranted as it unfurls.

I think that all of these takes can also be true, and as with the trading itself, reconciling them requires that we widen the frame.

Let's start with Jimmy Carter.

In 1978, Carter's IRS created the 401(k), a tax-sheltered account for people who wanted to gamble on stocks to fund their retirement.

That was a fringe proposition at best.

The normal retirement system was a "defined benefits" pension where your employer guaranteed you a certain monthly percentage of your salary from retirement to death.

The vast majority of Americans wisely prefered a guaranteed payout to a tax-advantaged gambling account.

Obviously, right? On the one hand, you have the guarantee of a pension (maybe even inflation-indexed); on the other, you have a bunch of bets, that, if they go wrong, leave you literally homeless and starving.

When gamblers remortgage the family home and cash in the kids' college funds to play the tables, we consider them to have a mental illness, a pathological condition that harms them and the people around them.

Giving up a defined benefits pension in favor of a 401k is just the same kind of bet - staking all the money that will support you when you exit the workforce on the movement of stocks and bonds.

Who would do that voluntarily?

Pretty much no one. But the transition from defined benefits to 401k was not voluntary. Finance ghouls like Ethan Lipsig wrote memos to major employers like Hughes Aircraft showing them how they could ditch their pension obligations by moving workers to 401ks.

In the 80s, Reagan created a bunch of legal tools that allowed employers to coerce their workforces into giving up the security of a pension and force them into gambling their salaries on the prayer of a win in the markets.

This was insanely, amazingly great for the finance sector, in three ways:

1. It made companies more profitable. Guaranteeing that the workers whose labor made your company viable wouldn't spend their dotage starving and homeless is expensive.

Helping fund wagers on shares is much cheaper. The finance sector represented the major shareholders of the companies that transitioned to 401ks. The savings were transferred to these shareholders and the finance sector got commissions.

What's more, this temporary inflation of share prices disguised what was going on with the pension switcheroo: workers' defined benefits pensions were liquidated and turned into stocks, just as stocks were going up because their pensions had been liquidated!

Their legs had been amputated out from under them, but so subtly that they didn't yet feel the pain - and now their bosses cooked their legs and snuck them into their dinner, and everyone marveled at how full they felt after that hearty, meaty meal.

2. 401ks brought a lot of suckers to the table. The market was - and is - dominated by "sophisticated investors," AKA predators, who knew all the ways to fleece the rubes who had no idea how any of this worked.

The predatory nature of finance only increased over time. Hedge funds, for example, exist to find unethical practices that are legal (thanks to loopholes in the rules) and exploit them until they are illegal.

3. 401ks created a political force outside the finance sector that would lobby on its behalf. Transforming America into a nation of stockholders meant that workers had to choose between supporting rules that protected their jobs and rules that protected their retirement.

For your pension account to grow, you had to support policies that permitted finance ghouls to offshore your job, or misclassify you as a contractor, or eliminate the safety rules that prevented you from being maimed, or take away your right to sue for compensation.

Every time there's a particularly ghastly bankruptcy driven by PE or hedge funds - Toys R Us, Sears, etc - it emerges that at least some of that money is coming out of a union pension fund.

That's marketization - turning the once obscure, boring business of market-based capital allocation into a matter of import to everyday people.

Marketization begat financialization.

While marketization is primarily about capital allocation (who gets what money), financialization is about bets. Sometimes those bets are about things - businesses, houses, coal and timber - but things are limited. Mostly the financial market consists of bets on other bets.

Bets are infinite. Every time you make a bet, you create inventory for a market in a bet on the outcome of your bet. And that's inventory for a new market: bets on the outcomes of bets on the outcomes of bets.

It's called Wall Street Bets for a reason.

Bets need referees, someone who decides who the winner is. In sports, it's a major scandal if a referee is caught wagering on one of the teams in a match. In the financial markets, it's the norm - referees that lay wagers on the outcome of the contest they're overseeing.

Let's take stock:

Workers are forced to play the casino, and if their bets fail, they spend their old ages homeless and starving;

The vast majority of casino games are wholly abstract - bets on bets on bets - and require layers of refs;

the refs are all crooked.

Every couple of years, we have a massive, systemic financial crisis, and every time that happens, the finance sector lobbies for a no-strings-attached bailout, abetted by suckers who hate the finance sector but fear starving in their old age.

We're about to be engulfed in the second-largest crisis of our lifetime - the reckoning from trillions in capital market gains propped up by the Trump administration's policy of buying all corporate debt as a covid stimulus.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/28/cyberwar-tactics/#aligned-incentives

(the largest crisis of our lifetimes is a few years off, as the climate emergency piles losses on losses, stranding tens of trillions in assets, from fossil fuels to obsolete gas-stations to literally underwater coastal real-estate to whole towns incinerated by wildfires)

That's where we're at: a crooked casino that we've trusted our futures too, a crisis on the horizon, and a bunch meme-stock "players" who have thrown the normal weirdness of the market into stark relief through a spectacular stunt.

A lot of people are angry at Robinhood, the stock-trading platform at the center of all this. Robinhood froze trading on meme stocks, and has only allowed it to come back in a useless, performative trickle that is seemingly calculated to prevent more meme-stock gamesmanship.

Is Robinhood just another crooked ref? Yes…and no. The meme stock run upset the stable cheaters' equilibrium whereby cheating never escalated to the point where the game just collapsed.

For example, the total short position on Gamestop exceeds its total stock issuance.

Translation: there were more Gamestop shares promised between bettors than exist. When the game stops, all those promises come due, and they literally can't be paid off because there aren't enough tokens in circulation to settle all the debts.

Robinhood halted trading in part because the big fish upstream of Robinhood also halted trading, because they have even more at risk than Robinhood does if the game collapses - they the refs for MANY players, all the same size as Robinhood or larger.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-29/reddit-traders-on-robinhood-are-on-both-sides-of-gamestop

But remember, the refs are cheating. And they are both downstream and upstream from other games in which the refs are also cheating.

And the games, as a whole, encompass our economy, including the solvency of the "real economy" (the people who make masks, deliver groceries and drive ambulances), and whether you spend your old age homeless and starving.

So the people who say, "Don't blame Robinhood, they didn't halt trading to help billionaires, they halted trading to prevent the game from collapsing are right."

But they're not the only ones who are right.

Also, there's the people who say that meme stocks aren't making money for little guys at the expense of the big guys. They're right too.

First, because these stocks will all need to be converted to cash, and that means selling them.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/the-gamestop-bubble-is-going-to-hurt-a-lot-of-ordinary-investors/

When the selloff starts, the price will plunge, because even if the stock was undervalued before, it's certainly overvalued now. Every bubble produces wealth for its early bettors who sell out to later players who lose everything when they can't find a sucker later on.

From Beanie Babies to subprime, bubbles burst and leave suckers holding the bag. If you just heard about meme stocks last week, you're too late to make money off of them.

There's another version of the "this isn't little guys, it's big whales" that's *also* true: the main beneficiary of the meme stock runs is giant funds who magnified and the bets from r/wallstreetbets and got out smart and fast.

https://twitter.com/zatapatique/status/1354904995901136896

So given all this, what can we make of calls (from parties as varied as AOC and Ted Cruz) to investigate Robinhood and other retail brokerages to see whether they're honest refs, or in the tank for billionaires?

At Naked Capitalism, Yves Smith calls this a "fatuous uproar," saying that the Senate has more important things to do during the racing-out-of-control pandemic than to investigate a literal penny-ante grift.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/01/the-fatuous-uproar-about-robinhood-and-gamestop.html

Do we really care who the winner is in "a beauty contest between Cinderella’s ugly sisters" ("clueless new gen day traders versus clumsy shorts")?

Smith is right too.

A speculator-v-speculator contest that falls apart when the crooked ref halts play to prevent collapse - who cares who "wins?"

But here's how they can all be right - the "who cares" and the "goliath v goliath" and the "bubble" and the "Robinhood is a plutes' honeypot."

*If* there's hearings, and *if* those hearings expose the absurdity and corruption of the system, *then* there is a chance to build the political will to make real, systemic changes when the crisis comes.

And there's a real crisis coming: two, in fact. The covid junk bond financial crisis, which is due very soon, and the climate crisis stranded asset emergencies, which will unroll with increased tempo and intensity for decades to come.

The half-century cycle of "addressing" finance crises by increasing financialization MUST stop.

If the meme stock spectacle gets us to pay attention to hearings that reveal the irredeemable rot of the system, then it's a unique chance to spread *real* "financial literacy."

And that literacy is the necessary (but insufficient) precursor to taking action when the time comes - and the time is certainly coming soon.

[nietp]

The AI behind Bots of New York: Who will monitor the governments monitoring AI?

If you've ever been intrigued by Bots of New York, and specifically by the texts it generates, or if you were ever skeptical these texts were actually generated by a bot, it's worth looking up the model this bot is using, GPT-2, released in 2019.

Bots of New York was the first Facebook bot to use that model for text-generation, and unlike most bots we were familiar with until then, the text it generates is complex and creates a coherent, believable narrative, just weird enough to be intriguing. Though Bots of New York is looking for texts that always sound funny or chaotic, GPT-2 can generate more believable text: "people find GPT-2 synthetic text samples almost as convincing (72% in one cohort judged the articles to be credible) as real articles from the New York Times (83%)". The release of GPT-2 raised ethical issues and its creators, Open AI, published regular updates on their choices, doubts, and findings. What's especially interesting is that the concern that GPT-2 would be used for propaganda was raised from the start, which should have made the creators especially wary of collaboration with governmental organizations and of governmental use of GPT-2 in general, especially since Facebook had already publicly admitted at the time that its platform has been exploited by governments to manipulate public opinion and it has only been further confirmed since then. Instead, Open AI doubled down on the necessity to work with governments, encouraging them to introduce penalties and monitor AI-use, specifically for what they call "extremist" ideologies which include "white supremacy, Marxism, jihadist Islamism, and anarchism". We'll come back to that later, but first, this is an excerpt of what the creators of GPT-2, Open AI, released on February 14, 2019 when they made part of that model open-source:

Our model, called GPT-2 (a successor to GPT), was trained simply to predict the next word in 40GB of Internet text. Due to our concerns about malicious applications of the technology, we are not releasing the trained model. As an experiment in responsible disclosure, we are instead releasing a much smaller model for researchers to experiment with, as well as a technical paper.

GPT-2 is a large transformer-based language model with 1.5 billion parameters, trained on a dataset of 8 million web pages. GPT-2 is trained with a simple objective: predict the next word, given all of the previous words within some text. The diversity of the dataset causes this simple goal to contain naturally occurring demonstrations of many tasks across diverse domains. [...]

[O]ur model is capable of generating samples from a variety of prompts that feel close to human quality and show coherence over a page or more of text. [...] [The] samples have substantial policy implications: large language models are becoming increasingly easy to steer towards scalable, customized, coherent text generation, which in turn could be used in a number of beneficial as well as malicious ways. [...] On other language tasks like question answering, reading comprehension, summarization, and translation, we are able to get surprising results without any fine-tuning of our models, simply by prompting the trained model in the right way (see below for examples of how we do this), though we do still fall short of state-of-the-art for specialized systems.

[...] GPT-2 achieves state-of-the-art scores on a variety of domain-specific language modeling tasks. Our model is not trained on any of the data specific to any of these tasks and is only evaluated on them as a final test; this is known as the “zero-shot” setting. GPT-2 outperforms models trained on domain-specific datasets (e.g. Wikipedia, news, books) when evaluated on those same datasets. [...]

Policy Implications

Large, general language models could have significant societal impacts, and also have many near-term applications. We can anticipate how systems like GPT-2 could be used to create:

AI writing assistants

More capable dialogue agents

Unsupervised translation between languages

Better speech recognition systems

We can also imagine the application of these models for malicious purposes, including the following (or other applications we can’t yet anticipate):

Generate misleading news articles

Impersonate others online

Automate the production of abusive or faked content to post on social media

Automate the production of spam/phishing content

These findings, combined with earlier results on synthetic imagery, audio, and video, imply that technologies are reducing the cost of generating fake content and waging disinformation campaigns. The public at large will need to become more skeptical of text they find online, just as the “deep fakes” phenomenon calls for more skepticism about images.[3]

Politicians may want to consider introducing penalties for the misuse of such systems, as some have proposed for deep fakes.

Today, malicious actors—some of which are political in nature—have already begun to target the shared online commons, using things like “robotic tools, fake accounts and dedicated teams to troll individuals with hateful commentary or smears that make them afraid to speak, or difficult to be heard or believed”. We should consider how research into the generation of synthetic images, videos, audio, and text may further combine to unlock new as-yet-unanticipated capabilities for these actors, and should seek to create better technical and non-technical countermeasures. Furthermore, the underlying technical innovations inherent to these systems are core to fundamental artificial intelligence research, so it is not possible to control research in these domains without slowing down the progress of AI as a whole.

Release Strategy

Due to concerns about large language models being used to generate deceptive, biased, or abusive language at scale, we are only releasing a much smaller version of GPT-2 along with sampling code. We are not releasing the dataset, training code, or GPT-2 model weights. Nearly a year ago we wrote in the OpenAI Charter: “we expect that safety and security concerns will reduce our traditional publishing in the future, while increasing the importance of sharing safety, policy, and standards research,” and we see this current work as potentially representing the early beginnings of such concerns, which we expect may grow over time. This decision, as well as our discussion of it, is an experiment: while we are not sure that it is the right decision today, we believe that the AI community will eventually need to tackle the issue of publication norms in a thoughtful way in certain research areas. Other disciplines such as biotechnology and cybersecurity have long had active debates about responsible publication in cases with clear misuse potential, and we hope that our experiment will serve as a case study for more nuanced discussions of model and code release decisions in the AI community.

We are aware that some researchers have the technical capacity to reproduce and open source our results. We believe our release strategy limits the initial set of organizations who may choose to do this, and gives the AI community more time to have a discussion about the implications of such systems.

We also think governments should consider expanding or commencing initiatives to more systematically monitor the societal impact and diffusion of AI technologies, and to measure the progression in the capabilities of such systems. If pursued, these efforts could yield a better evidence base for decisions by AI labs and governments regarding publication decisions and AI policy more broadly.

In June 2019, OpenAI testified in Congress about the implications of synthetic media, including a discussion of synthetic text in an Open Hearing on Deepfakes and AI. 6 months after the release of the small 124M model, they released the 774 million parameter GPT-2 language model (so still not the full-size GPT-2 model) and some observations made in the meantime:

Humans can be convinced by synthetic text. Research from our research partners Sarah Kreps and Miles McCain at Cornell published in Foreign Affairs says people find GPT-2 synthetic text samples almost as convincing (72% in one cohort judged the articles to be credible) as real articles from the New York Times (83%).[2] Additionally, research from AI2/UW has shown that news written by a system called “GROVER” can be more plausible than human-written propaganda. These research results make us generally more cautious about releasing language models.

[...] Detection isn’t simple. In practice, we expect detectors to need to detect a significant fraction of generations with very few false positives. Malicious actors may use a variety of sampling techniques (including rejection sampling) or fine-tune models to evade detection methods. A deployed system likely needs to be highly accurate (99.9%–99.99%) on a variety of generations. Our research suggests that current ML-based methods only achieve low to mid–90s accuracy, and that fine-tuning the language models decreases accuracy further. There are promising paths forward (see especially those advocated by the developers of “GROVER”) but it’s a genuinely difficult research problem. We believe that statistical detection of text needs to be supplemented with human judgment and metadata related to the text in order to effectively combat misuse of language models.

In November 5, 2019, the largest 1.5B-parameter model was released by Open AI, though in the meantime NVIDIA Research trained a larger 8.3 billion parameter GPT-2 model. With that came a list of findings, including this:

[...] GPT-2 can be fine-tuned for misuse. Our partners at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies’ Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC) found that extremist groups can use GPT-2 for misuse, specifically by fine-tuning GPT-2 models on four ideological positions: white supremacy, Marxism, jihadist Islamism, and anarchism. CTEC demonstrated that it’s possible to create models that can generate synthetic propaganda for these ideologies. They also show that, despite having low detection accuracy on synthetic outputs, ML-based detection methods can give experts reasonable suspicion that an actor is generating synthetic text.

The Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism is not a governmental organization as such but their research "informs private, government, and multilateral institutional understanding of and responses to terrorism threats". Until 2018, the current director, Jason Blazakis, served as the Director of the Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office, Bureau of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State. Blazakis was "responsible for directing efforts to designate countries, organizations, and individuals as terrorists, also known as State Sponsors of Terrorism, Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and Specially Designated Global Terrorists". Before that, he held positions in the Department of State’s Political-Military Affairs, International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Intelligence and Research Bureaus. Until 2016, the director of the CTEC (then called MonTREP) was Brigadier General Russell D. Howard, a "retired Special Forces officer with thirty-seven years of military service, more than twenty of which were spent in some type of counter-terrorist capacity". The CTEC also partners with a "Master in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies" at the Middlebury Institute, which also partners with the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), giving students access to courses with the Department of National Security Affairs and Department of Defense Analysis. The Master's webpage describes this partnership as follows: "You will learn in a military environment, gaining new perspectives on international security issues and expanding your professional network through NPS faculty and students. This opportunity is only available to U.S. citizens." The curriculum includes a wide array of courses such as "Global Jihadism", "Evolution of Chinese Nuclear Policy", "Terrorism in Southeast Asia", etc. The Middlebury Institute also offers a Terrorism Studies Certificate with courses such as Terrorism and Media in the Arab World, Militant Islamic Movements, Eco-radicalism, State Terrorism, Global Jihadism, Apocalyptic Millenarianism, Terror and Counterterrorism in Africa, Terrorism in South Asia, Terrorism in Southeast Asia, Islam, Islamism, and Politics in Central Asia. The CTEC also partnered with a startup called Spectrum Labs to develop an AI detecting "extremist messaging" in non-English languages, starting with Portuguese and Spanish, and the CTEC "lead research into Brazilian and Latin American extremist movements and trends" (I wonder why they're focusing on these specific countries?). Although Blazakis teaches a seminar on the "Radical Right", there is no mention of white supremacy, far-right ideology or neo-nazism anywhere in the curriculum available on the website. But weirdly enough, when the CTEC trained a local journalist on "how to search for online extremists tied to a certain geographic region", the local extremists they found were a neo-nazi highschooler whose "goal is to become a U.S. Air Force pilot", whose "preferred authors are George Lincoln Rockwell, Julius Evola, Benito Mussolini and Machiavelli" and has "just started reading Mein Kampf", and more damningly, Dave Overton, "an associate professor of warfare of the Naval War College who teaches at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey": the same Naval school the institute the CTEC is attached to partners with. "At least once, Overton promoted the #plandemic conspiracy theory, which serves to undermine public health efforts aimed at sopping Covid-19. He also amplifies dangerous rhetoric by using hashtags #EnemyOfThePeople to attack the press. But his primary issue of concern appears to be the exoneration of Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser."

Though Open AI was right in raising ethical concerns about the release of GPT-2, considering it can generate fake articles, comments, and social media content at a dangerous speed and in a way that's very hard to detect for AI and for humans, it ended up looking for support in these ethical decisions from those who would most profit of it as a propaganda tool. Though online propaganda against socialism and communism can be laughably unconvincing these days, as we've seen with the thousands of identical tweets supporting a coup in Venezuela and more recently Cuba, it wouldn't take a lot of effort to make it much more complex and believable.

[tiramisiyu]

Tears of Themis: Lu Jinghe’s Birthday - 6.13 “Decision to Compete”

Translation Masterlist

Event Story: 6.13 Decision to Compete | 6.15 Personal Instruction | 6.17 Building Block Dolls | 6.19 Participating in the Competition | 6.21 Birthday Celebration

Event Story Interviews: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Art Gallery Boss: Young miss, all pieces displayed at the Rembrandt exhibition this time are priceless authentic versions. Your request is very…

MC: But he really is my very special friend. Just like you, boss, Rembrandt is also the artist that he holds in highest esteem.

Not long ago, I found out that June 21 was Lu Jinghe’s birthday. To give him a birthday surprise, I came to Stellis City’s antique art gallery, where they were about to hold an exhibition on authentic Rembrandt works. 

With Lu Jinghe’s current identity, if he were suddenly appear in a well-known art exhibition, aside from garnering attention, it might also cause additional problems. So, letting him enjoy the works of the artist he so admired without disturbances should be an excellent idea. After a sincere, long conversation, the boss finally agreed to rent out the venue for me before the exhibition opened.

Art Gallery Boss: You absolutely must be careful – do not bump into or damage them.

MC: I will be careful, don’t worry.

After confirming the venue, I opened my notes, checking over the other things I needed to prepare.

MC: Cake… I’ll order taro mousse, but what should I give as a gift? Watches, leather belts, ties? Lu Jinghe definitely isn’t lacking on these.

I logged into the shopping app, and “Today’s Main Recommendations” on the gift recommendation page caught my attention.

MC: These are… building blocks?

On the product pictures, hundreds of building block components piled together, creating a flowing, miniature city. In an instant, the scenes of what happened at the Lu Mansion played in my head…

--

Three days ago.

 Lu Mansion

Lu Jinghe: Careful!

In the Lu Mansion, gift boxes of all sizes were piled up, making it easy to trip if one weren’t careful. Good thing Lu Jinghe caught me in time.

Lu Jinghe: Jiejie, you’re too careless.

MC: It’s clearly because you have way too many gifts here. So is it almost your birthday? Otherwise, why would so many people give you gifts?

Lu Jinghe: Sure enough, I can’t hide anything from you. There’s still over half a month until my birthday, so those people came running over in a rush.

MC: “Those people” are…?

Lu Jinghe: Past business targets, children of other major families, plus some entertainment stars. Lots of people want to get in on the Lu family’s good graces.

MC: (As expected of Lu Jinghe – even his birthday’s got to shake up all of Stellis City.)

Seeming like Lu Jinghe had seen through my thoughts, he laughed quietly.

Lu Jinghe: So… shouldn’t you also send me a gift?

MC: Lu Jinghe, you’re not lacking on gifts, are you?

Lu Jinghe: For those sent by others, of course I’m not lacking on them. But ones sent by you…

MC: Ahem ahem.

After receiving Lu Jinghe’s hint, I faked a cough. Turning my head around, I saw the “main offender” that had just tripped me. This was a meticulously-wrapped box of building blocks, with modern-looking buildings printed on top, with “limited edition” written on in conspicuous text.

MC: Lu Jinghe, you play with building blocks?

Building blocks were a toy invented by the Austin family. They became popular worldwide as soon as they were launched, and now have nearly a hundred years’ worth of history. If they didn’t suit someone’s tastes here, toys like this would not appear here.

Lu Jinghe: I have played with them before – someone probably remembered that up until now. Although, I haven’t played with them in a long time.

MC: Why?

Lu Jinghe started to speak, then stopped, a troubled look emerging in his clear eyes.

--

Building Blocks Room

MC: So many… did you build them all?

Lu Jinghe took me to a room on the second floor of the Lu Mansion. What appeared before my eyes were innumerable building blocks models. From rich, colourful flower fields to the little roads of a foreign country’s streetscapes – there was even a proportionate reconstruction of Stellis University.

MC: Amazing! You must have spent a lot of time to make so many works, right? You’re so talented, so why didn’t you continue?

Lu Jinghe: Because…

Lu Jinghe walked to the French windows, sinking into a short silence. Golden sunlight shone on his side profile, creating a dappled light effect.

Lu Jinghe: On certain levels, I can no longer continue creating with building blocks…

MC: (What… Certain levels means…)

Lu Jinghe: My mother passed away right after I was born.

Lu Jinghe slowly began to speak, his voice quiet. I suddenly regretted asking a little.

MC: If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t need to force yourself. Everyone has their own secrets.

Lu Jinghe: It’s fine. I have no secrets in front of you.

Lu Jinghe’s words were indescribably gentle, but my heart felt like a little like it had been yanked.

Lu Jinghe: Though I lost my mother, my father and older brother loved me dearly. Compared to others, I’ve never been lacking in anything. I even had more than them. Until I noticed that for both oil paintings or building blocks, I couldn’t create anything related to “family”…

MC: (How could that be… Speaking of which, “Z” has indeed never made anything related to “family”.)

Lu Jinghe: Are you feeling sympathetic? Looks like not being able to create “family” is no big deal, because it’ll at least make you sympathize for me.

MC: … Lu! Jing! He!

I faked anger, but my sad feelings had been swept away by Lu Jinghe’s seemingly joking words.

Lu Jinghe: Alright alright, don’t be sad. I thought about it after – perhaps I can’t create anything with a “family” theme because I’ve never had a major female figure around me, ever since I was little. If…

MC: If what?

Lu Jinghe: Ahem ahem… nothing.

MC: …

--

After coming back to my senses, my fingers slid over the screen.

MC: Since Lu Jinghe likes building blocks, I’ll send him a building blocks set as a gift. Although… which set should I send?

--

Home

To find a suitable gift set, I looked up lots of information online related to building blocks after getting home. Among them, an article titled “The first Stellis Building Blocks Competition will be held soon” caught my attention.

MC: Building blocks creator Mr. Austin’s out-of-print posthumous work – the “Future” series’ first public reveal; only one set worldwide. Cabin in the woods, a glass flower room, and an open-air art studio that faces the mountains. This work is called… “Future Home”?

Note: “Home” and “Family” are the same word in Chinese.

MC: (This set… looks like one that Lu Jinghe would like.)

I couldn’t help thinking of joining the competition, but I froze after scrolling to the next article.

MC: “Z” will appear at the building blocks competition as an evaluator, and many fans have signed up… “The Shepherd Girl” may become a competition topic.

MC: (Lu Jinghe’s going?!)

The theme of this competition was “World-Famous Artworks”, where people were to reconstruct world-famous artworks using building blocks. With Z’s works being so famous, becoming a topic of the competition wasn’t out of the question.

MC: (If he really is an evaluator, my participation will definitely be exposed, and I won’t be able to give him a birthday present.)

But would Lu Jinghe really appear in public under Z’s identity? Though this might be something made up by the hosts, I still decided to call and ask Lu Jinghe, just in case.

Lu Jinghe: Hello?

MC: I-it’s me.

Lu Jinghe: What’s the matter, did something happen?

MC: Nothing, I just wanted to ask – do you know about the building blocks competition being held next month? I heard that “Z” was going to be a competition evaluator.

Lu Jinghe: There’s actually this sort of news, huh. The host probably was probably afraid of being low on hype and let out fake news. If you’re suddenly asking this… did you want to participate? Then I can teach you for free.

MC: (Since Lu Jinghe’s not going, getting taught by him is indeed the best introductory method.)

MC: Is that alright?

Lu Jinghe: Of course. If you need it, I always have time. Besides, after today… Z’s appearances may become very rare.

MC: ?!

MC: I-is it because of Pax?

I brought up the guess I had. Sure enough, Lu Jinghe signed almost inaudibly on the other side of the phone.

Lu Jinghe: Yeah, balancing studies and Pax already expends too much of my energy. After graduating, similar impediments will only continue to increase. To an artist, it’s really easy for these sorts of conditions to cut off creativity, so…

Lu Jinghe’s voice had an exhaustion in it that was impossible to ignore.

MC: Lu Jinghe, if you’re working too hard, you can stop for a bit and rest.

Lu Jinghe: … I understand. But unfortunately, no one will give me time to rest. Before being “Z”, I am first and foremost Lu Jinghe of Pax.

--

After hanging up, Lu Jinghe’s words echoed in my head.

MC: So many people clearly like “Z”. Can Lu Jinghe really give it up?

MC: Right! It just so happens that lots of “Z” fans will be participating at the building blocks competition. I should gather some things that they want to say to “Z” and give them to Lu Jinghe! Even if he really can no longer create in the future, the fans’ encouragement would be memories worth treasuring.

--

That night, I submitted a registration form on the building blocks competition official site, as well as an application to interview the participants to the hosts. After registering, a participant list, including methods of contact, was sent to my inbox.

MC: (Next, I’ll practice building blocks as I interview people for what they want to say to “Z”.)

[guzhuangheaven]

hi! so i’ve been reading up on chinese history and mostly going down wikipedia rabbit holes but i came across your posts about qing dynasty hairstyles. just curious, where did you actually find these information? do you have any tips on researching more niche topics like this? i’m having a hard time with it and i’m not able to find solid info with references or are credible :/ maybe my chinese isn’t that good but I find that searching questions in chinese also doesn’t yield a lot of results. Maybe because i’m using google and not whatever is allowed in China? thanks for the tips !! have a good day :>

Honestly the information on the Qing hairstyles posts I’ve been gathering and holding on for so long and it’s all gathered in bits and pieces so I can’t really list individual sources anymore. It’s hard for me to talk about my process of researching information because 1) it’s totally chaotic and 2) it’s usually not born out of like an inherently academic interest but a more practical need. I write Huan Zhu Ge Ge fanfiction, so everything I have ever looked up about the Qing dynasty is because I needed to know these things to write my fics.

I’m not even sure if any tip for searching for information in Chinese I can give is going to be useful for anyone, mostly because the method is very specific to me as a Vietnamese person.  

(tl;dr: use Chinese search engines and search using Chinese characters not pinyin.)

Other than just cultural osmosis from dramas, most of my research for my fanfics come from these sources:

1. Wikipedia

I usually start with English Wikipedia mostly because I’m a third culture bilingual whose default internet language is English, but for topics on Chinese culture and history, Vietnamese Wikipedia can sometimes have full Wiki articles when the English version are just short stubs. If failing that, I sometimes wander into Chinese Wikipedia, but I don’t find Chinese-language Wikipedia articles are as helpful as the Chinese equivalent, Baidu Baike. More on that later.

2. Google searches

Sometimes, you do get some information from cultural blogs/tourism blogs/websites that tell you things about Chinese culture/history in general just through history search but as you can already tell, they tend to be very general.

3. Information already translated into Vietnamese by other people

So this is where in recent years the popularity of dramas such as Zhen Huan and Ruyi come in useful. There are Facebook groups for fans of these dramas where the people running the fan pages do know Chinese and they have translated a lot of information on Qing clothes, customs and historical records into Vietnamese. A lot of our series of posts on Qing dynasty costumes are retranslated from these Vietnamese sources. For the Qing dynasty costumes posts on this blog, I did do a cursory “reverse engineering”? fact check by putting the names of the different clothing articles etc. through Baidu Baike and running through Google-translated versions of those Baike articles, and if they more or less match what the Vietnamese translations were saying, I’m taking them as probably at least somewhat credible/not totally made up.  

(This is why you shouldn’t take everything we say on this blog as irrefutable.)

4. Baidu search engine, Baike and other Chinese sources

Ok, so the thing you need to know about me is that:

I’m Vietnamese

Since the mid-2000s, I have only ever watched Chinese dramas subtitled in Vietnamese (as opposed to dubbed). Watching subbed dramas helps a lot with listening comprehension but also recognition of common Chinese characters because all Chinese dramas come with Chinese subs as well. This does mean that while I can’t speak or write Chinese, I now can watch raw dramas and understand maybe about 40%? depending on how familiar I am with the tropes in the drama.  

In my bored uni days I used to moderate a forum on Chinese dramas, which required, among other things, searching for and translating Chinese entertainment news.

All this means is that over the years, I have developed certain tricks to search for information in Chinese as a Vietnamese person.

Firstly, it is always much easier to search things on the internet using Chinese characters instead of pinyin, which is usually pretty useless when conveying actual information because Chinese is full of homophones. I can’t actually type Chinese, but the thing about smartphone Chinese pinyin keyboards and Chinese search engines such as Baidu is that if you type in pinyin, it will auto-suggest Chinese characters for you. Of course you then need to be familiar with pinyin and able to read some Chinese characters to know that you’re searching for the right thing. This is where my years of watching Chinese dramas with subtitles come in as it means sometimes I can guess the pinyin by listening to the spoken Chinese and use that to search things and/or recognise the corresponding Chinese characters.

(When you see us use Chinese characters on this blog, I’ve basically just opened Baidu, typed in the pinyin in order to copy the Chinese characters. Yes it’s a whole process.)

The search engine Baidu pretty much works as Google does, and if you search a term, of the first things it will give you is the Baike page for that thing. Baike is probably about as reliable as Wikipedia on non-sensitive topics that would not be subject to censorship, which is good enough usually.

Baike is obviously in Chinese, so to understand that, I would Google translate it into either English or Vietnamese. These days, Google translate is surprisingly okay when translating Chinese-English that if I’m not too invested in the topic, I can make do with just getting the general idea through the Google English translation. However, if Chinese-English fails, and I translate it into Vietnamese. Google is usually better at translating Chinese-Vietnamese as Vietnamese does have Chinese roots and shares syntax and grammatical structures.

Sometimes, when Google doesn’t give me the information I need, I will also put bits of the text that Google can’t make sense of into a Han-Viet converter. Without going into the historical relationship between Vietnamese and literary written Chinese, what this essentially does is convert the Chinese text into Han-Viet words, which is the Vietnamese equivalent of probably Shakespeare English? or maybe Middle English. These Han Viet words are now also written in the modern Vietnamese roman alphabet, which means I can now read the words, and understand maybe 50-60% of it, as vocab used in modern formal written Vietnamese still borrows significantly from Chinese words/have Chinese roots. Han-Viet converters online also come with a dictionary, so the bits I don’t understand I can look up the Chinese characters and understand the information that way.  

Reading whole articles in Han-Viet is a pain in the ass and I would never do that, but bits of converted Han-Viet combined with Google translate usually gives me a pretty good understanding of simple Chinese text like Baike articles. 

Keywords

In terms of keywords, it can sometimes be tricky if you don’t already have a term that you’re searching specifically. If you have a more general question then I guess in that case you would either have to know some rudimentary Chinese to search on Chinese search engines, or resort to searching in English. But if you can form questions in Chinese, I would suggest using Baidu for your searches, instead of Google. 

Navigating Chinese internet as a person who doesn’t speak Chinese can be very daunting and I guess...it just takes time to get used to? I’m not sure if I have any advice other than that, to be honest. -h