#this post might make no sense. myles thinks a lot of things make no sense. what's fun is when you can still understand them ..

[thatonegaybrit]

; hey, slow down .. life isn't that short and it's actually kinda cool when you js look around for a bit

[koganphrancis]

Ernie & Bert Are Planning A Wedding

OR: My thoughts on Episode 11

Everything just hurts.  Let me start with the “previously on” segment.  Yeah, we finally get an Ian/Mickey intro, but it’s just like so many of the other intros-random characters outside yelling at viewers.  Since there’s been little to none intimacy for this couple this season we couldn’t have caught them in bed?  Or in mid-kiss?  Nope.  Ian can be drinking yet another beer tho.  Pretty sure those meds we saw when Sandy grabbed Mickey’s dick all those episodes ago now was Mickey’s gerd medication.  Ian’s clearly not being written as taking medication at all (yet again).  

But as usual, I digress.  The show starts with a somewhat cute reminder of how the Gallavich house is within running distance of the (now torn down in real life, RIP) Milkovich house.  Unfortunately it’s Terry who reminds us.  Ian’s watching Terry screaming up at the house while Mickey’s...off doing something without Ian.  Seriously, whatever the opposite of “joined at the hip” is, that’s what these epic soulmates are this season :( 

Anyway, Mickey walks downstairs and Ian unhelpfully informs him, “Your dad’s here.”  Mickey says yeah and goes out to see Terry.  Ian gives one more peek thru the curtain but must decide that Mickey’s in no danger, since next we see him, Ian’s sitting in the kitchen casually chatting with Lip about something that’ll never happen (Lip moving to Wisconsin).

Outside, Mickey and Terry draw guns on each other while Terry’s just now (?) trying to figure out where Mickey went “wrong” and turned out gay.  Um, I know Terry’s been busy with prison and running his illegal enterprises (whatever they might be), but he’s just now trying to catch up on what he learned literally years ago when he walked in on Ian and Mickey having sex?  

(Gif credit: jackorowan)

The scene at least gives us an iconic Mickey line, “I definitely love one,” but is it too little too late?  It’s enough to send Terry on his way for now, after one last threat.  Mickey calmly goes back inside, says “mornin’” to Ian and Lip, and starts to make himself a bowl of cereal.  I list all that out to stress how non-stressed he seems.  Ian says, “So, how’s your dad?”, and just like the, “Hi, Mr. Milkovich” and “Was Mickey adopted?” conversation Ian had with Terry in S9, so far everything is being written to show how this is just normal family life when it comes to Terry.  But by the next scene the show will want us to buy that something entirely different is going on and I just don’t understand why they can’t find a narrative and stick to it.  In the days since the episode aired, I’ve read so many head canon posts about how understandable it was for Mickey to flip out after seeing Terry, and how that brought all Mickey’s past trauma to the surface and of course it turned him into a groomzilla, but I just can’t agree that that’s what the show either set out to do or accomplished.  Mickey’s been working for Terry, he’s been around him-it’s one of the few things about Mickey’s life the show has shown us since he’s been out of prison.  Everyone in Terry’s world that they’ve shown is perfectly comfortable talking about the fact that yes, some people are in fact gay.  Terry’s peers in prison, Terry’s own relatives-why suddenly in Episode 11 is this “a thing”?  

Anyway, the scene continues after Mickey quips that he doesn’t think Terry will be his best man.  Liam joins the scene and there’s very cute, well executed banter where Ian, Lip, and Mickey tell him they can each forge Frank’s signature.  It’s a tantalizing glimpse of what the season could’ve been if these guys were allowed to all be in scenes together.  

Mainly thanks to Myles’ AV Club review, I know that for whatever reason, the show decided to do a one month time jump between the engagement episode and this one.  WTF?  It doesn’t even make sense-it means somewhere that woman holding Frank captive was feeding him and clothing and bathing him?  That Liam hasn’t been to school in a month because Frank hasn’t been around to sign him in?  As if that wouldn’t have had CPS showing up at the Gallagher house (that has to be red flagged in the system by now)?  Debbie being toyed with by that mother and daughter has been going on for weeks at this point?  The only thing the time jump did that I care about was rob us of seeing Mickey and Ian telling people they were engaged.  We deserved a little scene of Ian and Lip talking about it at least-give Lip the opportunity to ask Ian what changed his mind about marriage and give the audience the opportunity to hear some sort of explanation.  “I heard some guy I know Mickey didn’t care about putting him down and I just knew then and there I had to marry him,” doesn’t quite cut it.  

But so much for what should have been.  In the next scene, Mickey slaps down a pile of wedding magazines and drops the news on Ian (as he hands him a beer) that they’re going to have a “wedding wedding”.  Mickey needs a headcount for the reception venue-clearly money is no problem, so working for Terry all those intervening weeks must’ve been lucrative.  

In a rare instance of the show actually cluing us in on someone’s thought process, Mickey says flat out that he now wants a “real” wedding because his fuckhead dad threatened to murder him-again-cuz he’s gay.  So, see?  AGAIN.  What’s different this time?  It’s like the show NEEDS there to be a reason, a mitigating circumstance, for two men to want to get married.  They can’t just let Mickey and Ian have the natural progression of their relationship leading to a lifetime together.  It’s so offensive.  And again, for viewers that have been invested in this relationship for so long, it just hurts.  Mickey’s doing this as a big FU to his father rather than as a big ILY to Ian.  That’s OOC for sure-Mickey’s always put loving Ian first in his life.  

In planning the wedding, Noel does get some great moments.  Talking about the “little shits that light the candles”, and his choice of wedding song, and confronting the homophobic old bitch at the florist.  And the literal scenery chewing he does at the wedding chairs rental place was, I’m sure, quite fun for Noel as an actor.  BUT-the only moment we get where Ian seems on board/with Mickey in any of it is at the florist before the bitch sets Mickey off.  Otherwise Ian’s like a casual bystander in all this-and that’s just not in character either.  Why can’t they both be into making these decisions?  Why, even if Ian truly couldn’t give a shit about seeing Mickey happy about these little details-why can’t they at least be affectionate with each other?  I don’t expect Schitt’s Creek level adoring looks, but I do expect Gallavich level.  Ian used to look at Mickey with awe even when Mickey was being his Mickey-est.  Why aren’t they allowed to show that anymore?  

I will say, I did love the stargazer lily thing-altho it’s all the more frustrating to realize this week’s writer must’ve watched at least the fan compilation video of Gallavich to know that detail was a very sweet throw back-why couldn’t they also write some kisses and hand holding in too?  But anyway, “Beyond Blue” and Mickey looking touched when Ian said he liked the blue ones-we needed a lot more moments like that this season.  Why everything’s getting crammed into these final, rushed episodes is beyond me.  

Now I have to bitch again about what was wrong with the florist scene.  Yes, I’m sure there are plenty of people like that woman in the world.  But there are also plenty who don’t oppose same sex marriage.  Why is it always such a big deal on Shameless?  Either everything’s gay or nothing is.  They’ve given us an entire squad of fire fighters who are gay.  Debbie clearly can’t walk five feet in any direction since the show decided she was gay without her finding a woman DTF her.  Ian had-what was the ridiculous number?-7 million Instagram followers when he was Gay Jesus.  So ONE homophobic old lady in a flower shop means disaster?  Ian knows how to look shit up on his phone, he proved that looking for wedding statistics.  You mean to tell me he doesn’t know how to check Yelp reviews to somehow find a gay-friendly florist in a city the size of Chicago?  

Mickey did get a couple of funny lines in that scene (killed me when he called her Grandma), but, again the show is throwing too much in the blender.  Is the scene supposed to be that funny?  If Mickey is dealing with past trauma, this is just adding to it.  And Ian, who is supposed to know Mickey better than anyone (including the viewer) isn’t acting worried about him, he’s acting like he’s being dragged all these places against his will.  So where’s the comedy in that?

Next there’s a scene of Mickey walking down the sidewalk and glorious natural light, looking like he’s glowing.  It immediately gets ruined by Ian stopping in front of a store window full of bride mannequins and looking at them and then after Mickey, with the visual implication strongly suggesting that Mickey’s the “woman” in their relationship which is so outdated in 2020 that the show and the network should have to pay a fine.  

Then we get the chairs meltdown, which gives us the truest line, “Why does everything always have to SUCK?”  You’re singing our song, Mickey.  Then the show proves that point for the millionth time by having Mickey call the chairs guy the R word-twice. 

In the next scene, Mickey’s called in the always reliable important character of Mand..um, Sandy because Ian’s of no use to him.  WTF?  Mickey is still talking up grandiose wedding plans and Ian’s still trying to figure it all out.  He tries to ask, “This is still about Terry, right?  You don’t give a shit about weddings...” Mickey interrupts him to ask where his ring is.  Ian has to stop and think and realizes he must’ve left it on the sink.  He runs off before Mickey can tear him a new one.  Mickey throws his pen down and says to Sandy, “I can’t even.”  Sandy replies, “I can see why you called,” but on Twitter fans have pointed out her lips appear to be saying, “Is he even into this at all?”  WHICH IS ANOTHER THING.  After all Ian’s marriage issues, why is Mickey bulldozing ahead and not noticing what Ian seems to be feeling AT ALL.  (Which appears to be that he’s once again regretting this whole marriage thing.)  Why does the show make the two of them so blind to each other’s feelings now?  WHY?  Now that Lip’s living in the RV, do they even share a room anymore?  They act like they never, ever talk now.  There is such a disconnect hanging over the short time they are shown together in every episode.  Not to mention they’ve been desexualized to the point of being a couple of Ken dolls.  John Wells must be so thrilled he doesn’t have to sit thru dailies of them physically touching anymore.  I’m willing to believe he hired someone to Jeff Giloolly Cam’s leg so he could have Mickey and Ian get engaged and married without any love scenes at this point.

In the last scene, Ian and Mickey are at The Alibi and Ian’s (having a beer) making one last attempt to simplify the wedding.  After another “it depends who’s the bride and who’s the groom” eye-rolling moment, Ian asks, “Can’t we just be Ian and Mickey?”  I guess not, when it comes to this show.  In the past Ian would’ve loved Mickey’s tension away for him-letting Mickey find his release in multiple orgasms, not in wedding planning.  Now all he can do is hire some guy with a guitar to show up at the bar and sing Mickey’s wedding song-and “sing” is a very generous term here.  Props to the show for not having an amazing singer just show up out of the blue, but, for the love of my bleeding ears, couldn’t they have found less of a screecher?  

Mickey is, at first, freaked out by this guitar playing weirdo coming near his booth, but when he recognizes the song he asks, “How the fuck did you know that?”  The guitarist replies, “Little bird told me” indicating Ian, and then unfortunately goes back to the song and soon finds himself way out of his range.  Mickey gives Ian a soft look, Ian gives Mickey one of the smiles he only ever has for Mickey, and Silver Tree becomes JW’s favorite director ever by not even letting us see them holding each other’s hands-that’s below the camera line.  For all we can prove, maybe Ian and Mickey were just reaching for the salt shaker at the same time.  Personally, I would’ve ended the episode with Ian and Mickey metaphorically and literally getting on the same page-they go back to the house, their double bed is covered in Mickey’s wedding magazines and color swatches and seating charts and whatever other wedding prep detritus.  Ian, seeing it all laid out like that says softly, “Are you really doing all this for Terry?” and Mickey says, “Course not, it’s all for us.  We deserve it.”  Then they flop down on the bed together and get to kissing, right on top of it all.  

But no, can’t have them intimate or even on the same side of a booth.  So, you’d think that happy-ish ending we did get means Mickey’s out of his Terry-induced panic, but scenes and stills for the season finale will disabuse you of that hope.  

My final thought is: I’m wondering how much, if any, of these wedding details we’ll see.  The show is too cheap now to spend money on a church wedding with those gorgeous stargazer lilies and the little shits that light the candles.  Plus why would you have Living On A Prayer sung again when you used it in this episode?  Will one of them-or both of them-walk down an aisle?  They’ve already got their rings and have been wearing them-I don’t see them wearing multiple rings each.  If the show had any guts at all, it’d have them exchange cock rings at the ceremony ;P  Will we even get to see the wedding part or will they go straight to some sort of brawl/reception?  And, sadly, I’ve felt from the first time I saw pictures of them driving off in the Mercedes that we’re not going to see them get to consummate the marriage.  I hope I’m wrong about all of it, but I won’t be surprised to be let down utterly-either by what they don’t or what they do show :(  See ya on the other side!

[lostinthewinterwood]

Chocolate Box Letter 2020

Dear Chocolatier…

  Thank you for writing for me!  I hope you find inspiration, if you need it, somewhere in this letter, but either way, good luck with your writing!

(some of the prompts are… rambly and disjointed; the lengths vary wildly, but dw I love them all.  I hope the rambly ones still make sense; this letter is uhhh almost 3k and my brain is Tired.)

General DNWs:

Rape/non/dub-con; non-canonical major character death*; smut/graphic sex scenes; heavy angst; hurt no comfort; graphic depictions of deliberate and methodical self-harm**; graphic depictions of suicide;  gore; heavy gender dysphoria; grimdark; complete downer endings; character bashing; incest; cringe comedy; a/b/o; mpreg; full setting AUs (canon-divergence, even significant canon-divergence, is fine); graphic eye trauma; graphic and/or permanent hand trauma (unless the setting can provide a more-or-less fully functional prosthetic or equivalent); issuefic.

*exceptions noted below.

**I don’t include things like, say, punching a wall in a fit of emotion under this. however, something like cutting would not be appreciated.

  General Likes:

I like family/friendship stories, things that play with canon in interesting ways, honestly… a lot of things.  I don’t know. articulating things I like is hard.

I’m an absolute sucker for identity porn/secret/mistaken identity drama, as well as non-sexualized/non-fetishized crossdressing (either direction, and especially if for plot-relevant disguise purposes!) and if you combine them, well, I’ll be a very happy camper.

Other things I like include wriggling into canon and exploring something left unexplored by said canon, what-if stories featuring some sort of canon divergence, and plotty fic, if you want to write something long enough for that to be relevant.

  Order of fandoms:

·        Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

·        Super Powereds – Drew Hayes

·        Tortall – Tamora Pierce

·        Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)

·  ��     The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)

·        Frozen (Disney Movies)

·        Little Women (2019)

·        Original Prompts

·        Crossovers

    Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (Star Wars Sequel Trilogy)

So uh I may be having a slight case of Feels™ over these two, though tbh I’m not entirely sure what those feelings are exactly.  I don’t know what exactly I’d most want, though I’d be interested in explorations of their evolving emotions in relation to each other, especially through Kylo Ren/Ben’s whole death/rebirth thing.  What-ifs are another thing; what if, say, Ben didn’t die?  What happens, then, since they’d have to actually deal with what he’s done?  Feel free to retcon the kiss (which I thought was rather devoid of chemistry; in general their dynamic came across to me more as weirdly sibling-ish, especially after the Death Star duel) to a hug or something, if you want.

If you want to go to a lighter place, I can also see all sorts of shenanigans emerging after they discover their Force-teleportation skills.

Also feel free to retcon Rey’s parentage, if that is where your heart takes you: might she be Luke’s secret child?  Leia’s?  A descendant of Obi-Wan Kenobi and, say, Satine Kryze?

Apart from that I’d prefer no full-setting AUs; canon divergence is fine, and if you go that route you can pick a divergence point as far back as you want.

Feel free to include whatever other characters are necessary for the story you want to tell.

(And also do keep in mind that you can absolutely cut off someone’s hand here, or for the Star Wars crossover farther down; in this franchise it is a goddamn motif.)

    Super Powereds – Drew Hayes

Adam Riley & George Russel | Relentless Steel (Super Powereds)

I’m utterly fascinated by the relationship these two have; the interplay of Adam’s… vendetta, maybe?  I’m not sure what the right word for it is… and the fact that George also serves him as a mentor/almost-parental, in some ways, figure.  And, you know, that Adam (maybe) kills him.  We don’t actually see that; for all we know he made a different choice.

Consider this an exception to my “non-canonical MCD” DNW, since it’s deliberately ambiguous in canon; you can kill George, if that’s where your muse takes you.

  Alice Adair | Legacy & Vince Reynolds | Jack of All (Super Powereds)

Their friendship/cousin relationship is Wholesome and I love it.  Any point in the timeline, post-canon, all of it is Good and Welcome.  Do they form a legacy children/villains’ kids club? They’re secret cousins; untangling the mess that is the past; so much juicy juicy stuff to work with!!

  Phillip Adair | Globe & Charles Adair | Alchemist (Super Powereds)

Brother vs brother! O the drama! But also, they grew up together; they were once best friends; and Charles grew hard and it all fell apart—give me their childhood, maybe, or HCP years or young heroes before Shelby’s powers grew too much for her, or lean into the tragedy of what comes later…

    Tortall – Tamora Pierce

Numair Salmalín | Arram Draper & Varice Kingsford (Tortall)

Numair Salmalín | Arram Draper & Varice Kingsford & Ozorne Muhassin Tasikhe (Tortall)

Ozorne Muhassin Tasikhe & Numair Salmalín | Arram Draper (Tortall)

Varice Kingsford & Ozorne Muhassin Tasikhe (Tortall)

I love these kids, okay?  And I wish they could all just… be okay.  But of course they won’t be; we already know what becomes of them, after all.

There’s a lot to explore here, with these three in their varying combinations of course.  Right now I’m most interested in the pre-Wild Magic timeline—what was Varice and Ozorne’s dynamic before Arram came along? what little snippets of things happen offscreen during the timeline of Tempests and Slaughter? how does Arram gain his black robe; how does Ozorne feel about that? Varice? how does Numair end up in exile, and how do the others feel about that whole affair?—but really I’d also be interested in something set during or around the time of Emperor Mage, from any of their POVs.  We get all the story there from Daine, who is great! but she doesn’t know the history between the three of them, not intimately as they do, and I’d love any of their emotional reactions to being together again under such strained circumstances, so many years after everything fell apart.

  Numair Salmalín & Myles of Olau (Tortall)

He was on a mission, was he not, when he became that hawk at the beginning of Wild Magic?  (please ignore if I am Wrong there.)  So how did they meet?  Why did Numair become an agent?  All sorts of questions, here…

  Prince Stiloit Tasikhe & Varice Kingsford (Tortall - Pierce)

Stiloit seems so… calm, and level-headed, especially when compared with Ozorne who is not.  And he clearly finds Varice interesting, and her company valuable.  So maybe tell me something about that—what does he think of her?  She of him?  What if, perhaps, he didn’t die when he does?

  Keladry of Mindelan & Nealan of Queenscove (Tortall)

They have a BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP and also ye gods when I reread First Test at like 19 (having first read it at 10) I was struck by how very, very fifteen Neal is in that book and it’s hilarious.  But more seriously—Neal’s PoV on things would be fantastic, since we only see him through Kel’s eyes and he doesn’t let her see everything about himself.

  Keladry of Mindelan & Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak (Tortall - Pierce)

What a beautiful mentorship relationship, I love them.  Also, how does Raoul feel about this open girl page?  Who’s so determined, and has such potential in how she could become more, in an area he knows about (that being military command)—how does he feel about her, living her best life; how does he contextualize it in his intimate knowledge that Alanna could not do what she is doing—and yet it was Alanna, with her deception, who allowed this to be.

  Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau & Numair Salmalín

The renowned lady knight-healer-mage and the black robe on the run from Carthak! How did they meet, anyway?  They’re something like the same age, I think, or at least he’s no more than ten years her junior.

  Alanna of Pirate's Swoop and Olau & Thom of Trebond (Tortall - Pierce)

My poor Important Destiny Twins… Look I just, I want some content with poor Thom, right?  I’d rather here that we set the story before his death, or that we make it an AU where he gets to live.

    Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)

Shadowsan & Hideo (Carmen Sandiego 2019)

There’s… so little of this stated or shown overtly, really, but I’m fascinated.  I can’t get over it.  Just tell me about the brothers, please.

    The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)

Runaan/Ethari & Rayla (The Dragon Prince)

Family fluff!  Or angst!  Or turn round and give them a reunion!  All depends on where in the timeline you pick, really.

(there’s a fic on ao3 with the tag “this fanfiction written by the ETHARI LOOK IN THE FUCKING WATER gang” and honestly that is just such a mood.)

  Amaya & Sarai (The Dragon Prince)

…I don’t have much to say here really, just that I love me some sibling dynamics.

  Callum & Ezran (The Dragon Prince)

A king by birthright, a prince only by adoption, who by age/maturity would probably be better-suited to ruling… look idk just, bros okay???

Maybe something when they were younger, or canon-era, or… idk I love them.

  Callum & Ezran & Rayla (The Dragon Prince)

Friendship! Angst! The gang’s all here!  If you want you can include rayllum but for this prompt at least I’d rather it be lowkey.

  Claudia & Soren (The Dragon Prince)

I am heartbroken over these kids and just—I need more content with them.  Even if it makes me sad.

  Callum & King Harrow (The Dragon Prince)

There are a lot of complicated feelings I have about them—how clearly Harrow loves his stepson, and how even after more than a decade, Callum still isn’t quite comfortable with his stepfather.

    Frozen (Disney Movies)

Agnarr/Iduna (Frozen)

How did they get together?  Why does Iduna stay with Agnarr; why doesn’t she just go home?  How does that revelation conversation go—when does it happen?  How do they come to decide to block Elsa’s powers; when/how do they decide to sail for Ahtohallan?

  Kristoff & Ryder Nattura (Frozen)

Reindeer bros!!  What did Kristoff do while Anna and Elsa were off doing the plot stuff?  Does he go with the Northuldra?  I love the dynamic between these two; it’s adorable and there’s so painfully little of it.

  Yelena & Mattias (Frozen)

So clearly they know each other, right? It’s been thirty-four years, and they clearly have some sort of sniping thing going on but they don’t seem to be actively antagonistic towards each other.  How do they feel about each other, really? How have they interacted in the past?  Is there anything there?  What about after Mattias goes back to Arendelle?

  Anna & Elsa (Frozen)

There is just.  There’s a profound tragedy here—they’re best of friends till they’re five and eight or so, then they don’t interact for thirteen years, they have three years together, and then they go off together to the Enchanted Forest and Elsa doesn’t come back to live in Arendelle, while Anna must return… I don’t know.  Tell me about that, maybe.  Or give me sweet fluff about them as children.  Or something.

  Anna/Kristoff (Frozen)

They’re adorable and I love them and I really just want more.  Maybe something from between the movies—how do they navigate forming a relationship, when he was raised by trolls and she’s been so isolated?

    Little Women (2019)

Amy March/Theodore Laurence (Little Women 2019)

…I don’t know, they’re cute, Laurie is a disaster, I love seeing Amy grow up, I hunger for moar content with them.

  Beth March & Mr. Laurence (Little Women 2019)

This has a lot of potential for cute/sad father/daughter dynamics, I think!  And I’d love more of it.

  Friedrich Bhaer & Josephine March (Little Women 2019)

Friedrich Bhaer/Josephine March (Little Women 2019)

I just want cute content with Jo and her dynamic with this man who actually respects her and her writing okay?  Maybe something like, I don’t know, navigation of boundaries around Jo’s writing and his criticism thereof… I don’t know.  Have fun with them.  And I really don’t care if it’s shipfic or not.

  Theodore "Laurie" Laurence & Josephine March (Little Women 2019)

Theodore Laurence & Josephine March (Little Women 2019)

Laurie is still a disaster but I love him anyway, and their friendship is sweet, and I need more content™.

    Original Prompts

In general: I’m not super picky about how shippy the shipfic gets; most of the ship prompts here would, I think, work as well for gen, excepting the suitor and the princess (which is not to say I’m asking that it be gen, obviously I’m not, but if your muse takes you that direction then go for it).  Likes I put up top still apply down here.

In terms of settings, I especially like high fantasy, space fantasy, or, if relevant, Classic Superhero City Setting, but I’m open to just about anything.

I’m also not tremendously picky about the genders of the characters involved; if it isn’t stated within the prompt, go wild, but please do stick to standard English pronouns; I have a lot of difficulty reading things with neopronouns.

Most of these pairings are prompts in and of themselves, but I’ll add in some bits of commentary for each one.

  Disgraced Vampire Queen Moonlighting As A Barista/Exhausted Vampire Hunter In Search Of Caffeine

Okay, so I just think this has great potential for absolute hilarity, and identity shenanigans aplenty.

  Dragon & Human Child (Original Work)

I love dragons.  I love playing with dragon-lore, though here I’d appreciate it being a relationship wherein the dragon is not evil, at least not to the child.

  Female Crossdressing General/Female Crossdressing Enemy General (Original Work)

So uh from my general likes, it should be… fairly obvious what called to me here lmao.  But there’s such potential here!  The drama!  Do they know each others’ real gender?  Do they know that they’re on opposing sides?  How does this romance across the battlefield work?  Is it even across the battlefield—are they at war, or just generally enemies?

  Female Failed Chosen One & Female New Chosen One

Such delicious depths to delve here… why did the first one fail?  What’s her relationship with her successor?  What have they been chosen for?  The setup of this makes me think that the failed chosen one is an adult of some age that’s distinctly older than the new one, who I’ve been imagining as an older child or young adult, but you should follow your muse there.

  Female Ship's Captain & Grumpy Stowaway Orphan Rebel

What kind of ship are they on, anyway?  Sailing ship?  Spaceship?  What’s the orphan rebelling against—an Evil Empire?  The Man?  Something else?

  Female Suitor Sent As An Insult To Ruling Monarchs/Princess Uninterested In Male Suitors

This seems like… I don’t know, there’s just such potential for dancing around each other and Misunderstandings™ about what’s going on.  Is this the princess’s Gay Awakening?  Has she known for a while why she’s not into the male suitors?  Why was this female suitor selected for the insult?

  Injured Male Superhero/Male Supervillain Who Saves His Life

I love superhero identity shenanigans, and ambiguous morals, and I’d love to dive into the emotional turmoil that results from this rescue decision—why does the supervillain do it?  How does the hero feel about being saved by his enemy?

  Musician/Dancer with magical powers (Original Work)

Another trope I love that I didn’t mention before is magic music and magical arts in general, so this here is right up my alley.

  Portal Fantasy Protagonist & Their Mentor In A Trade Useful In Both Worlds (Original Work)

…Look, idk man this is just sweet and wholesome and I Want.

  Retired Male Superhero/Male Supervillain Who Keeps Seeking Him Out Because He Misses Him

Is this not just the plot of Megamind?  In all seriousness, though, I feel about the same here as I do in the injury situation; I love me some hero/villain dynamics in general.

  Witch & Witch's Apprentice

Mentor and student!  Always a fun time.  I’m picturing this as some pseudo-historical or straight alternate-world setting more than modern, but follow your muse here.

  Wounded Werewolf/Female Apprentice Witch who Begrudgingly Rescues him (OW)

Honestly I feel like the dynamic here will probably scratch the same itch that the hero/villain pairings do.  Clearly I have a Type.

    Crossovers

Oliver Queen (DC's Arrowverse) & Matt Murdock (Daredevil(TV))

Local Vigilante Man With Many Issues Meets Counterpart From Another Universe would be the headline here, probably.  I don’t know.  I think they’d be fun to bounce off each other.

For reference though I haven’t watched all of either show: I’ve seen the first four seasons of Arrow in their entirety and some of what comes later, and I’ve seen the first two seasons of Daredevil.  You can reference later events, I’m not currently really following either show and am not particularly worried about spoilers, but without some degree of context I’ll be fairly lost.

  Shmi Skywalker (SWPT) & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (SWST)

How do these two meet?  Is it time travel nonsense?  Shmi as a Force ghost?  Both of them in the afterlife?  And if it’s before Ben’s redemption but after his Fall, I do rather hope she’s Disappointed™ in him.

  Vince Reynolds | Jack of All (Super Powereds) & Midoriya Izuku (My Hero Academia)

Look.  Look.  All I have ever wanted since I started watching My Hero Academia (which… I haven’t seen much of, but don’t worry about spoilers I legitimately do not care) is to see Vince meet with the character who I immediately internally dubbed tiny green Vince.  How did this happen? Frankly I neither know nor care.  I just want to see it happen.

Thank you for writing me fic!!

[hhemeraa-a]

Shipping info!

answer the following for your muse so people know how shipping works on your blog.

WHAT IS YOUR OTP FOR YOUR CHARACTER?: I want to say I don’t have one, because pretty much any muse I ship with, I get overly invested in - especially if we do multi-verse shipping which... I love doing. We don’t just do one verse in my house, we do 80 and we’re going to flesh out each one until we’re talking about what they would be like as cats. 

On the other hand Myles and Vincent ( @corpusdxlicti ) exists and they’re perfect so-

WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO WRITE WHEN IT COMES TO SHIPPING?: E V E R Y T H I N G.  I’m lying because there’s just stuff I don’t fuckin’ like, but usually, so long as we talk it out/plot it, I’m down for most things so long as they make sense. I won’t change Myles’ entire personality just to ship with someone and I hope my partner would feel the same. Otherwise, come at me. 

HOW LARGE DOES THE AGE GAP HAVE TO BE TO MAKE IT UNCOMFORTABLE?: So long as both muses are 21+, idc. There are age gaps I think are just unreasonable, for example if both muses are human and one is 21 and one is 70, then I’ll be squinting my eyes cause... you know, what’re y’all gonna talk about? College homework while he introduces you to his grandkids, like-- jhksdjghsdg  BUT, there are muses that are thousands of years old trying to mack up on 20-somethings so like I said.  So long as both are of age then it’s chill.  With muses under 21 - I’d only ship within that age group. Like... if ya muse is 16, I would only ship them with other 16 year olds or 17, 18 year olds. Make sense? 

ARE YOU SELECTIVE WHEN SHIPPING?: Yes. I’m big on chemistry and tbh Myles picks who he ships with more often than I have any say in it (much to my dismay), but I’ve said this before and I tend to be selective because it takes a lot to ship with Myles.  Myles is difficult, especially in his default verses. We’re probably going to be doing a lot of plotting and investing a lot of time into the development which is super fun!  Once Myles gets attached, it’s a free for all from there ----- but because of this, when muses leave, he tends to shut down and I really hate that. I don’t like investing time in something if the other person is just gonna dip or not be nearly as invested, you know? 

HOW FAR DO STEAMY MOMENTS HAVE TO GO BEFORE THEY ARE CONSIDERED NSFW?: uhhhhhhhh I struggle with this myself lmao, but if any body part is entering another, I’m probably gonna tag it as nsfw. Maybe nudity, but if it’s just being naked, then idc. Don’t be ashamed of your bodies people. Be ashamed when that dick finds a home.

WHO ARE THE CHARACTERS YOU SHIP YOUR CHARACTER WITH?: ASSUMING WE’RE ONLY TALKING ROMANTIC SHIPS THEN--- Confirmed Ships @corpusdxlicti​ @hassenmarred @etlascivus There were more, but three (yeah THREE) actually deleted this last week so I’m feeling a type of way rn

Unconfirmed / Working Towards @vegasight @witchbcrnt @agentlemagician

DOES ONE HAVE TO ASK TO SHIP WITH YOU?: You don’t have to ask, but if you have an idea that you think would work, tell me. I’m big on chemistry, but I’m always down to plot things out and I get excited know you wanna do a thing or five with me. It might not always work, but I’m positive we’ll find something. Usually pre-established things work best with how Myles’ personality is, so I give you permission to be like “I want our muses to kiss” and I’ll be like “Alright, lets work on it.” 

HOW OFTEN DO YOU LIKE TO SHIP?: I really enjoy shipping - this is never limited to romantic shipping. Love, hate, friendships??? FRIENDSHIPS???? FRIENDSHIPS TURNED LOVER??? hngngngnngg fuck me up

ARE YOU SHIP OBSESSED OR SHIP MORE - OR - LESS?: Definitely not ship obsessed, otherwise I wouldn’t have made Myles as fuckin difficult as he is ;;w;;

ARE YOU MULTISHIP?: Yes, of course. Though if you want to be in the same verse as another muse, such as Vincent/@corpusdxlicti​ then that’s a single ship. Ya feel?

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE SHIP IN YOUR CURRENT FANDOM?: Not in a fandom... anymore.  BUT WHEN I WAS... Deimos and Happiness. But also Deimos and Ethos started to grow on me. 

FINALLY, HOW DOES ONE SHIP WITH YOU?: Interact with my muses. Talk to me about them, ask for my discord if you like. Send in some asks, maybe? I really enjoy just chatting hypotheticals even if we don’t really act them out!! It is great fun, and allows for development even without having to fully write out a thread. I’m going to leave Nero’s post because all that is accurate. Just interact? Ask questions. If I haven’t come and drooled in your mouth by now, come feel me up in the DMs. I don’t bite.

Tagged by: I forget who Tagging: anyone willing to read all this

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND FACT

Perl form. Kids can probably sense they aren't being told the whole story. The negotiation never stops till the closing. I just want to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money, instead of just looking at them, but because progress in technology has made it easier for startups to have traction before they put in significant money.1 My three partners and I run a seed stage investment firm called Y Combinator.2 This is a talk I gave recently.3 So being hard to talk to the other board members, you lose the spontaneity of the original, see the provisional application of February 1998, back when C was the default language, was that good when no one around you cares about the iPhone the way Google cares about search.

Many of the applications we get are imitations of some existing system.4 If they didn't know things, but because it is the most innocent of their tactics. Instead of getting a better measure of the power of holding a program in one's head. The first time I visited Google, they had about 500 people, the most efficient solutions win, rather than just the whim of some influential person. For most people, rich or poor, stuff has become a burden. Most undergrads probably have more debts than assets. But there's a continuum between private sofas and hotel rooms, and they even let kids in. It has a long way toward explaining the mystery of why the perennial favorite Pralines n' Cream was so appealing.5 And yet there may be a variant of ad hominem than actual refutation.

Large-scale investors tend to be large enough to notice patterns. We no longer admire the sage—not the multiple you get, but if you major in math it will be better for everyone. And that is in fact normal in a startup, is probably a 20th of what it means.6 But there will be ten JetBlues. I've been very surprised to discover how emotional investors can be.7 You might come up with an idea is good.8 You have to go back to their offices to implement them. That's less the rule now.

Object-oriented abstractions.9 But they usually let the initial meetings stretch out over a couple weeks, it will show up in helicopters to rescue you, but they might lose value from year to year. Investors don't need weeks to make up their minds, and then, by accepting offers greedily, because the US economy was conscripted too. Why not? But when people are trying to do real work, jump on it. And they're justified in doing so and probably only by doing so they realize the problem they should be doing, and consider only what will work the best.10 More often people who do.

Mistake number one. You may even want to think about business models. But unfortunately most investors are dealmakers rather than technology people, they generally expect to offer a significant amount of help along with the PhD, the department, and that it therefore mattered far more which startups you picked than how much you like chocolate cake, you'll be able to reproduce this. What about the more theoretical question of whether hockey would be a pain to stitch together that much out of angel investments that combined to maybe $200k, and a lot of this behind the scenes role in IPOs, which you ultimately need if you want to avoid disasters. If you want, so long as you keep morphing your idea.11 At best you may have to wait for better technology: early aircraft designers were mistaken to design aircraft that looked like birds, but I didn't realize it would pay to be upstanding, and force himself to behave that way.12 They did it because they were so much easier.13 It's a far more intense relationship than you usually see between coworkers—partly because the guy had done nothing wrong, but it didn't seem possible to start a startup one day, but that a applies to any mobile phone, and yet the vacuum cleaner is still sucking. In practice they spend a lot of money.

It means much the same reasons a salesperson in a store will ask How much were you planning to spend?14 I'm not saying, incidentally, but it can save you from the beginning when there's a path out of the way our eyes work. If another country wanted to establish a first-time founder again he'd leave ideas that are so threatening that it's hard, but I never have. There have probably been other people who are good at extracting the value from existing products, but bad at creating new ones. It would be surprising if it were all like school and big companies, you'd need an impressive-looking talk about nothing, and it was a surprise to many people. Some didn't even have computers. The most successful founders tend to get cram schools—which they did in the twentieth century was professional, which amateurs, by definition, are not allowed to flake. So while you're talking to an angel who invests $20k at a time. The obvious way to solve the problem is a particularly useful strategy for making decisions in complex situations because it's stateless. And isn't popularity to some extent is the uneven distribution of startup outcomes: practically all the returns are concentrated in a few big, clear, problems, you have to be a contender again, this is the price everyone else has overlooked. Can you protect yourself from these people?

Notes

5% a week for 4 years. The best thing for founders, because a she is very hard and not incompatible answers: a to make you take out your anti-dilution protections. When I catch egregiously linkjacked posts I replace the actual server in order to test a new generation of services and business opportunities. One year at Startup School David Heinemeier Hansson encouraged programmers who wanted to start a startup in a large number of startups is that they only even consider great people.

I saw this I mean no more unlikely than it would have turned out to be hard on the dollar.

Who is being looked at the time it would have. They look superficially like the word has shifted. William R. For example, will be coordinating efforts among partners.

His theory was that they were saying scaramara instead of Windows NT?

In 1998 a lot like meaning. Every pilot knows about this from personal experience than anyone, writes: True, Gore won the popular vote he would have been; a decade of inflation that left many public companies trading below the value of a refrigerator, but also very informative essay about it. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups.

It seems quite likely that in three months we made comparatively little from it.

It shouldn't be too conspicuous. My feeling with the New Deal was a small set of users to do this yourself. Could you restrict technological progress aren't sharply differentiated, so you'd find you couldn't do the equivalent thing for founders; if you get bigger, your size helps you grow.

I advised avoiding Javascript.

A scientist isn't committed to believing in natural selection in the postwar period also helped preserve the wartime compression of wages—specifically increased demand for unskilled workers, and also really good at talking about art, why is New York is where people care most about art. Until recently even governments sometimes didn't grasp the distinction between the initial capital requirement for German companies is that parties shouldn't be that surprising that colleges can't teach students how to appeal to space aliens, but hardly any type I. For example, if the quality of the year, they may then, depending on how much you're raising, have several more meetings with So, can I make it harder for Darwin's contemporaries to grasp this than we can teach startups a lot better.

Some would say that one Calvisius Sabinus paid 100,000, the term copyright colony was first used by Myles Peterson. I'm compressing the story. Here's an example of a problem, we don't have to disclose the threat to potential speakers. Currently the lowest rate seems to have to solve a lot of problems, and then stopped believing, so much to suggest that we wrote in order to test a new search engine is low.

Unless we mass produce social customs. Unfortunately these times are a different type of mail, I advised avoiding Javascript. Two possible and not be true that the web. Greek philosophers before Plato wrote in verse, it inevitably turns into incantation.

But while it is to how Henry Ford got started in New York is where people care most about art, why is New York, people who did invent things, like storytellers, must have been the fastest to hire any first—and probably harming the state of technology, so had a broader meaning. Governments may mean well when they talked about convergence. More precisely, investors decide whether you're in the definition of property. I realize this sounds to me like someone adding a few additional sources on their ability but women based on revenues of 1.

I've also heard them called Mini-VCs and the exercise of stock. That's a good product. The ramen in ramen profitable refers to features you could probably be interrupted every fifteen minutes with little loss of productivity. Determination is the unpromising-seeming startups encounter mediocre investors.

Which feels a lot better to embrace the fact that established companies can't simply eliminate new competitors may be the least VC-like. Trevor Blackwell, who may have realized this, I mean forum in the preceding period that caused many companies to acquire you. Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously.

[racingtoaredlight]

RTARL’s NFL Week 4 Extravapalooza

Another Sunday full of professional gridiron action is upon us. Each of the previous three Sundays (and Mondays and Thursdays) have revealed juuuust a little bit more of the 2019 NFL picture, and by the end of play this week, we should have a pretty firm grasp of where things are headed. LOL, just kidding, football is a perpetual exercise in random chaos, and even the most foul, waterlogged corpse of a team can heroically rise up as one to defeat a two-touchdown spread on a given day. That’s why it’s fun! Well, unless you lose a whole bunch of money when that happens. Then it’s probably not that fun at all. 

As always, my godawful picks are in BOLD, and the lines are courtesy of Vegas Insider.

Off we go!

Early Games

Carolina Panthers at Houston Texans (-4)

Cam Newton revealed in a vlog post earlier this week that he realized during pregame warm-ups for the Panthers’ season opener that he was unable to run due to a foot injury. That seems bad! It certainly explains his horrible performances to start the year, and I wish Cam a speedy and full recovery because the NFL is more fun when he’s trucking defenders and throwing bombs. In last week’s post, I mocked Cam’s replacement Kyle Allen, and he proceeded to have a great game, making me look like a dumb dick in the process. Well, I am DOUBLING DOWN, KYLE. YOU SUCK AND I’M NOT GIVING YOU ANY CREDIT FOR TORCHING THE SORRY ASS ARIZONA CARDINALS. 

DeAndre Hopkins has a tough matchup with Panthers DB James Bradberry, so look for Will Fuller to have himself a ballgame.

Cleveland Browns at Baltimore Ravens (-7)

I originally had the Browns as my pick here, but I just read that they’re going to be without their two starting cornerbacks for this one and changed it. Granted, if last week’s version of Lamar Jackson shows up, a depleted secondary won’t be a huge issue since his passes will be way off target, anyway. Was last week’s performance simply Lamar regressing to the mean as a passer, or was it the result of Kansas City being all up in his business for most of the afternoon? I think it was more the latter, and Myles Garrett and company are going to have to bring the heat if the Browns want to pick up a badly-needed W here.

Washington Football Team at New York Giants (-3)

I thought Daniel Jones looked good last week. If you listened to virtually any NFL talking head talk about his debut, you’d have thought he was basically peak Steve Young. Let’s everyone just chill the fuck out on ol’ Danny Dimes for a bit. I think a ghastly, division-game bed-shitting by him is in the cards here just to restore some kind of order to the universe. 

I keep imagining a scenario where Eli Manning is the Emperor Palpatine to Saquon Barkley’s Darth Vader, constantly in his ear trying to turn him to the dark side by pointing out how ridiculous it is that Daniel Jones gets all the slobbering when Saquon is the true star of the team. You can’t spell “Machiavellian” without “Eli!”

It goes without saying that this game will be hideous and you shouldn’t subject yourself to a single snap of it.

Los Angeles Chargers (-14.5) at Miami Dolphins

Another week, another game in which the Dolphins are massive underdogs. I think this is their best shot to cover so far, as the Chargers find themselves in the classic “West Coast team playing at 1:00 EST” scenario. Plus, if somebody asked you “Which supposedly good NFL team is most likely to outright lose a game in which they’re favored by two TDs?” odds are good that the Bolts would be the first team to spring to mind.

Oakland Raiders at Indianapolis Colts (-7)

I’m very much enjoying Jacoby Brissett’s success, as he was by all accounts an awesome guy during his time with New England, and he showed flashes of ability when he had the chance here. In the Battle for Best Brady Backup, he’s clearly ahead of Handsome Jimmy at the moment.

I’m disappointed in the Raiders in terms of their entertainment value so far. I was really hoping for more craziness. As far as I know, Jon Gruden hasn’t even hinted at sitting Derek Carr for Mike Glennon yet. LAME.

Kansas City Chiefs (-7) at Detroit Lions

Matthew Stafford is hurt and according to this Schefter tweet  he’s “the closest he’s probably been to not playing,” which seems bad, but that sentence is so poorly constructed that I can’t be sure. Stafford’s most admirable quality is his toughness, so if he’s thinking about sitting he’s probably quite fucked up. This is going to be such a ruthless Lion slaughtering that even Scar is gonna have a hard time watching.

New England Patriots (-7) at Buffalo Bills

I am all in on the notion of the Bills being a team on the rise, and on Josh Allen in particular, but this game has “41-10 Patriots win” written all over it. This feeling is based on a proprietary blend of rank homerism from me, perpetual fatalism from my Bills fan best friend, and a sausage breakfast sandwich. 

Tennessee Titans at Atlanta Falcons (-3.5)

This game inspires no emotion from me whatsoever. No excitement, no revulsion. No whimsical laughter or erotically-charged anger. It only conjures a sense of pure, absolute emptiness. It exists in the void between our reality and another, and ye shan’t glance upon it lest ye go mad. 

Late Games

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Los Angeles Rams (-9.5)

I went back and forth on this pick, because 9.5 is a lot of points to give a team that can theoretically put up points the way the Bucs can. In the end, I went with L.A. because they’re a much better team at home where Jared Goff can clearly hear it when Sean McVay calls the plays, identifies what the defense is, and tells him exactly where to throw the ball and when. 

The Rams also have a pretty good defensive secondary, and Tampa Bay’s breakout WR Chris Godwin is dealing with a hip issue and could be limited. Might be a multi-INT day for ol’ Jameis Winston. I mean, that’s every day, but it could be particularly damaging today.

Seattle Seahawks (-5.5) at Arizona Cardinals

On one hand, we have a team with an unproven rookie QB whose head coach wants him to throw the ball as many times as possible. On the other, we have a team with one of the best QBs in football, whose head coach seemingly wants to minimize him by having him hand the ball off 50 times a game. Football really makes no sense sometimes. 

Minnesota Vikings at Chicago Bears (-1.5)

This is probably going to be the kind of low-scoring derpfest that gets a certain brand of “football purist” absolutely rock hard. Each team has a very good defense and a QB with a propensity to make truly baffling decisions. I can already hear Mike Wilbon frothing at the mouth describing this game as the way football USED to be played before all these whippersnappers ruined it with their spread formations and head coaches that can read. God, he’s such a twat.

Jacksonville Jaguars at Denver Broncos (-3)

Sunday Night Game: Dallas Cowboys (-2.5) at New Orleans Saints

As loathe as I am to admit it, the Cowboys are very good. While I think Teddy Bridgewater is a perfectly cromulent backup QB who can keep the Saints’ season alive until Brees returns, I don’t this isn’t the kind of game he’s gonna win.

Monday Night Game: Cincinnati Bengals at Pittsburgh Steelers (-3.5)

Last Week’s Record: 4-11 (LOL)

Season Record: 20-24-1

[noxpress]

Notes on The Argonauts

I finished reading Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts (2015). One down on the list of books I've set out to read this summer. It will very likely be the easiest of them all, I had no intentions for this one. I heard The Argonauts mentioned a few times by peers, I even had parts of it assigned in class, but I never bothered to look into it properly. I knew at a glance at a professor's scan that I liked the way Nelson incorporates quotes into her writing. I've always hated formal citation, cutting up my sentences with information. I also don't like compromising on others' ideas. If I could write only in a collage of block quotes, I would. I'm glad someone finally stuck it to them. It's Bluets I had actually intended to read, perhaps for silly reasons. First, simply because it wasn't The Argonauts, second because I like it when people have a thing and I thought the colour blue might be a thing, and third because the blurbs I skim-read announced a mix of prose and verse, which, in my experience of Anne Carson, is a great thing.I ended up with The Argonauts just because I wandered into a book store on a lousy day last month to indulge (a small few times a year I let myself buy a book new: on lousy days, or when there's really nothing else to go around). It was displayed right across the entrance. The shop had some kind of watery theme going. This edition has blue-purple waves for a cover, it's nice and simple. I did what I always do: opened to a page at random and gave it a glance to see if it looked palatable. There were lines of verse (good), they were about motherhood (this I wasn't so sure about, felt uneasy even). Either way, I walked out of there comfort-book under arm, without knowing anything about Maggie Nelson except her name, and completely forgetting about Bluets. I leave a trace in my books, so I can find my way again. The folded corners at the top tell me at what pace I read. The ones at the bottom tell me where I wanted to remember something the most. For Argonauts ,I tacked on a few other things: some blue post-it notes for further readings, three exactly, various pencil annotations, and a few words scribbled in the margins. I know I will came back to The Argonauts. The books I seem to refuse to preview properly are always such a surprise. I had that happen with The Bell Jar. I was 18 and had absolutely no idea what it was about and knew nothing about Sylvia Plath either. I was reading quite a few classic American novels that year (I know Why the Caged Bird Sings, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Post Office, Fahrenheit 541, Brave New World,  Lolita etc.) and, given such a list, the Bell Jar could land pretty much anywhere in terms of what it was about. For some reason I had it pegged as something pastoral, perhaps Southern, and coming of age. My guess is Plath's gender amongst all the men had me lump it with Maya Angelou and Harper Lee. Nonetheless, the modernity of it, the content of it, the sincerity of it... hit me like a ton of bricks. Argonauts didn't have quite such a jarring effect, but it was a definite experience in the un-anticipated. I've spoken to a few girls my age about the strange turn some things appear to have taken in recent years. No one thinks to warn you. It suddenly dawned on me one day that pregnancy was something that I couldn't quite get in trouble over anymore. For the longest time accidental pregnancy just had this death-factor reaction of "I'd be completely fucked". It meant shame, it meant secrecy, it meant incredible burden if uttered. But somewhere in the midst of my extended family growing larger – older cousins and siblings making babies – it struck me that mothers (my mother, my aunts, 'my many-gendered mothers'), that is the gyroscopes of opinion and permissibility, were anticipating the emergence of a new generation of care. Hints are dropped in the form of stored children's books and stuffed animals – carefully, quietly, pragmatically kept. A tattoo artist warned me about places not to get tattooed. It is my responsibility to anticipate my body. The irony, and I love it all the more for it, is the tattoo I have of my family motto: nunquam non paratus, or never unprepared. It's from this strange perch – discovering what it means to be a fertile body in the eyes of others, and tentatively in my own – that I read The Argonauts. It is also from a place of naming and recognising, for the first time realistically, what ordinary devotion to someone means. I know this book is a valuable reading, but I'm aware of my own prematurity. I can anticipate the need to return to it, for whichever reason, and I know the next times will be different. For now, I've gathered some passages that struck me now, as I feel, as I was reading, as I am writing. They might seem oddly selective, but I think this is only a sign of how versatile The Argonauts is. In its richness it offers a multiplicity of readings (and I feel sure its generosity of quotes have just this purpose). Here are the lessons I gathered from Nelson and from those she speaks through: Writing: "As I labor grimly on these sentences, wondering all the while if prose is but the gravestone marking the forsaking of wildness (fidelity to sense-making, to assertion, to argument, “however loose)—I’m no longer sure which of us is more at home in the world, which of us more free.” (65) "What other reason is there for writing than to be traitor to one’s own reign, traitor to one’s own sex, to one’s class, to one’s majority? And to be traitor to writing.” (Parnet, 122) "Over the years I’ve had to train myself to wipe the sorry off almost every work e-mail I write; otherwise, each might begin, Sorry for the delay, Sorry for the confusion, Sorry for whatever. One only has to read interviews with outstanding women to hear them apologizing.” (Wittig, 122) "Writing to him felt akin to giving him a name: an act of love, surely, but also one of irrevocable classification, interpellation.” (175) I've been thinking for a while now about an act of naming and how names arrest things in flux. Also, see Anne Carson's introduction to Autobiography of Red. "Ordinary words are good enough." (25) “What exactly is lost to us when words are wasted? Can it be that words comprise one of the few economies left on earth in which plenitude—surfeit, even—comes at no cost?” (Carson, 60) "You know so much about people from the second they open their mouths. Right away you might know that you might want to keep them out. That’s part of the horror of speaking, of writing. There is nowhere to hide." (Myles, 121) I concur, writing is horrifying. I've also learned that writing can be wilted (129). "I gained an outsized faith in articulation itself as its own form of protection". (154) Gender/sex/binaries: "As if I did not know that, in the field of gender, there is no charting where the external and the internal begin and end—" (64) "How does one get across the fact that the best way to find out how people feel about their gender or their sexuality—or anything else, really—is to listen to what they tell you, and to try to treat them accordingly, without shellacking over their version of reality with yours?" (66) "Let him stay oblivious—for the first and last time, perhaps—to the task of performing a self for others, to the fact that we develop, even in utero, in response to a flow of projections and reflections ricocheting off us. Eventually, we call that snowball a self (Argo)." ( 118) In-betweenness: Matter and liminality are two of my research topics. It's been so pleasing, uncanny, to see them flit in an out of sight. It's really what this is about: being, becoming passage. “How to explain, in a culture frantic for resolution, that sometimes the shit stays messy?” (65) “On the one hand, the Aristotelian, perhaps evolutionary need to put everything into categories—predator, twilight, edible—on the other, the need to pay homage to the transitive, the flight, the great soup of being in which we actually live. Becoming, Deleuze and Guattari called this flight: becoming-animal, becoming-woman, becoming-molecular. A becoming in which one never becomes, a becoming whose rule is neither evolution nor asymptote but a certain turning” (66) Matter: "Spirit is matter reduced to an extreme thinness: O so thin!” (Emerson, 41) "Empirically speaking, we are made of star stuff. Why aren’t we talking more about that? Materials never leave this world. They just keep recycling, recombining. That’s what you kept telling me when we first met—that in a real, material sense, what is made from where." (151) "Made of star stuff" reminds of Nostalgia for the Light. I think it's the first time I understood space as a material history. Dust to dust and all that. Argo-, ordinary devotion, revisiting: "It reminds us that there is difference right where we may be looking for, and expecting, communion." (116) The year I fell in love with theory, theory of all kinds, even though this course was called "anthropological", I was assigned 'difference' as a theme to explore for one semester. I hold onto the word dearly now, because it has so much to teach. Now I hear the word "difference" and it makes me think of Deleuze in a purple jumper, slouched in a chair, talking about refrains. Deleuze taught me about communion too. What it means when two refrains commune, when two different scales encounter each other. Anthropology is all about encounters. Encounters are only possible with difference, however large or small. A zine called Friendship as a Form of Life, which is as beautiful as its title sounds, divided its pages into the following chapters: Common, Commune, Communion. I think about this sequence a lot. “The Argo’s parts may get replaced, but it’s still called the Argo. We may become more used to jumping into flight, but that doesn’t mean we have done with all perches. We ought to say a feeling of and, a feeling of if, a feeling of but, and a feeling of by, quite as readily as we say a feeling of blue or a feeling of cold. We ought to, but we don’t—or at least, we don’t quite as readily. But the more you do, the more quickly you can recognize the feeling when it comes around again, and hopefully you won’t need to stare as long.” (68) Hello from my perch. "Privilege saturates, privilege structures." "The self without sympathetic attachments is either a fiction or a lunatic…. [Yet] dependence is scorned even in intimate relationships, as though dependence were incompatible with self-reliance rather than the only thing that makes it possible." (Philips/Taylor, 126) I am learning this. "That’s enough. You can stop now: the phrase Sedgwick said she longed to hear whenever she was suffering. (Enough hurting, enough showing off, enough achieving, enough talking, enough trying, enough writing, enough living.)" (128) Yes, I can stop. Please stop. I'v been spiralling a little lately. "But whatever I am, or have since become, I know now that slipperiness isn’t all of it. I know now that a studied evasiveness has its own limitations, its own ways of inhibiting certain forms of happiness and pleasure. The pleasure of abiding. The pleasure of insistence, of persistence. The pleasure of obligation, the pleasure of dependency. The pleasures of ordinary devotion. The pleasure of recognizing that one may have to undergo the same realizations, write the same notes in the margin, return to the same themes in one's work, relearn the same emotional truths, write the same book over and over again—not because one is stupid or obstinate or incapable of change, but because such revisitations constitute a life." (140) This quote means so much to me at this particular time: as I cease to recognise myself, as I come undone and remade (argo-), as I learn what it means to feel so easily, to be so ordinarily devoted to someone. I was so ready to feel confused about questions of loss and gain, whether it was something to feel self-conscious about, to lose oneself to, or to rebel against. But the pleasure is simply what it is. It seems so obvious that I feel naive. Of course it's about the knowing itself, about matter and touch. It's always about what hangs in the air. I have someone to learn ordinary devotion for and the shock of this is still wearing off. I thought of it as a thawing at first, but 'to revisit' will be my mantra instead. Revisit, revisit, revisit. I am not gone, I am not new, "I am made and remade continually". (Woolf) "But is there really such a thing as nothing, as nothingness? I don’t know. I know we’re still here, who knows for how long, ablaze with our care, its ongoing song." (178) Refusing the nothing has been part of my venture these past months. It started with Elizabeth Povinelli's suffix "-ish", and all other blurring of boundaries, like between the living and non-living. Tim Ingold also refuses the nothing of atmosphere. Nelson's quote brings me back to communion: line-making, care, drifting, song-making, correspondence. Mother: "If all goes well, the baby will make it out alive, and so will you. Nonetheless, you will have touched death along the way. You will have realized that death will do you too, without fail and without mercy. It will do you even if you don’t believe it will do you, and it will do you in its own way. There’s never been a human that it didn’t. I guess I’m just waiting to die, your mother said, bemused and incredulous...” (167) "But to let the baby out, you have to be willing to go to pieces.” (155) "It's a happiness that spreads." (176) "...save the sense, likely unconscious, of having once been gathered together, made to feel real." (176) The things I want to look further into: André Breton's Mad Love Deleuze/Parnet dialogues Barthes' The Neutral (No, my francophilic tendencies are not getting any better).

[melorsomething]

1-20 for the "Asks for fic writers" -whitepip

hoo boy we about to shed some light on the other fandoms i’m in 

1. Describe yourself how you would describe a character you’re introducing

Okay this is difficult because I am notorious for not describing characters right away. One time someone told me it was a little upsetting to have gone 10 chapters only to discover that the main character’s hair wasn’t even the color they thought it was because I had never described it… but anyways, if I was describing myself as a character, I guess it’d go something like this???

She gave him a pointed look, eyebrows slightly raised as if to say, ‘Really? That’s what you’re going with?’ At his stuttered protests, she chuckled slightly and said, “No, it’s a good idea. Definitely a good idea. Nothing’s gonna wrong. At all.” The tuft of curly hair atop her otherwise shaved head bobbed with each statement, seeming almost to nod in agreement. He wasn’t sure exactly who this girl thought she was, but he could already tell they weren’t going to get along.

2. Is there any specific ritual you go through while/before/after your writing?

I usually procrastinate it for a while, and then procrastinate some more, and then I write like 100 words, then I cry, and then I finally get some more writing done ;)

3. What is your absolute favorite kind of fic to write?

Literally all of my fics (or anything I write) are very character oriented. I like to focus on the relationships (interactions, not necessarily and not very often romantic) between characters. So basically I write character studies, I guess.

4. Are there any other fic writers you admire? If so, who and why?

Since I’m in so many different fandoms, it’s hard to say since there’s so many different ones, but if anyone else happens to be in the Love Live fandom, I absolutely adore fics by IcarusWings87. They’re great at the sort of character-study fics that I enjoy both reading and writing, and they write very true to the characters, something that I’ve always felt I struggle with.

5. How many words can you write if you sit down and concentrate intensely for an hour?

Uh, not really sure. About a year ago I was focusing on writing a 5k chapter a week for a fic, and I used about 45 minutes of class time a day for that, so that’d be maybe 1300-1400 in an hour. Last NaNoWriMo my record in the word wars I did was 722 in 10 minutes, so I don’t really know. When I was in 8th grade I had a narrative assignment due the next day that I hadn’t even started on, and I cranked out about 11k words in 3-4 hours. So, I guess it just depends on how inspired I’m feeling.

6. First fic/pairing you wrote for? (If no pairing, describe the plot)

Alright friends let’s dive back down the childhood rabbit hole. The first time I can remember really discovering fanfiction as a concept was when my big obsession was House of Anubis. So, naturally, my first fanfic was a HoA fic. I don’t know if any of you remember that show, but anyways, it was a pretty edgy Fabian/OC fic about a mirror in the house that was a link to another dimension and a girl that escaped whatever evil things were happening there or something (idk this was like 8 years ago) by coming through the mirror. I wrote maybe 2000 words of it and then dropped it and forgot all about it.

7. Inspiration, time, or motivation. Choose two.

I prefer to have time and motivation, because inspiration isn’t super necessary to me at the time of writing, since I can plan things out if I get inspiration when I have no time.

8. Why do you choose to write?

Honestly? I have no idea. It’s just something that I’ve always loved. I think it’s a way for me to satisfy the things I wish I could read but no one else writes lmao

9. Do you ever have plans to write anything other than fic?

Definitely! One of my big goals is to write and publish a novel, and I already write a lot of original stuff along with my fics!

10. What inspires you the most?

Pain.

Just kidding. I don’t really know, tbh. Inspiration from me comes from anywhere and everywhere. A lot of the time it comes in the form of fix-its for things that happen on tv shows that I wish went differently, which I then adapt to fit plots and characters that I have. Music is a big one, too, though strangely enough music without lyrics inspires me more than music with lyrics.

11. Weirdest thing you’ve ever written/thought about writing/etc.?

Uh, the squad and me have some pretty… interesting collaborative wizard101 fanfics. Maybe I’ll share them with you one day. But for now, I’ll leave you with some keywords and leave the rest to your imagination.

-Squeaky toys-Anime-Lemons (in many senses of the word)-Vore?-BDSM-Breast…mancing-Mylee

fssdgfsdfg i just remembered i did post one of them to my blog so here u go 

12. A fic you wish you had written better, and why?

All of them, because I honestly don’t feel like I’m that good of a writer.

13. Favorite fic from another author?

I mentioned IcarusWings87 before and I stand by that their Thoughts and Insecurities fic is one of the best fics I’ve ever read. If you like Love Live, definitely go check them out.

14. Your favorite side pairings to put in?

I really don’t write a lot of relationships in any of my stories. I guess if there are side pairings it’d be because they are canon and I don’t want to overlook them.

15. Your guilty writing pleasure?

Pain, and I’m not kidding this time. I absolutely love writing/reading stories that would be generally tagged as whump. I’m a goddamn sucker for miscommunication as well.

16. Do you have structured ideas of how your story is supposed to go, or make it up as you write?

It really depends on the story. I generally have an idea of major plot points the story needs to hit, but not always a proper plan. My current longest fic (which is actually for undertale hello yes i’m trash) had virtually no planning and was just me cranking out those 5k chapters and seeing where it took me, whereas Crystal Clear actually has almost every plot point planned out for the first half of the story.

17. Would you describe yourself as a fast writer?

Once I get going, I’m definitely pretty fast, but it takes me a while to get started on things…

18. How old were you when you started writing?

I’ve always enjoyed writing for school assignments and such, but I think that HoA fanfic at age 9 was one of the first things I had ever really written just for the sake of writing it. I might have written a Warrior Cats fanfic too… I’m not too sure if that was just an idea or if it ever came to fruition.

19. Why did you start writing?

I started writing simply because I could, I guess. It was something I had always been told I was pretty good at and since I loved to read, I figured I could make the stories happen as well as consume them.

20. 4 sentences from your work that you’re proud of

Okay back down the trash chute this is from my undertale fic and it’s more than 4 sentences but I was really proud of it okay?

Sans had never been one for hope. He had lived his entire life surrounded by the hope of breaking the barrier and seeing the surface, but he had never experienced this hope. Now, of course, he could hope in the verb sense - it was quite often that he hoped someone would or wouldn’t do something - but that’s not really hope, is it? Such a feeling is more of a desire or a want, and this was the feeling Sans was used to. To him, hope was something you did, not something you had. He had never understood hope as an intangible thing - as some abstract concept that you hold onto just because you can. So, one could imagine his surprise when, as he stood in the shadowed corridor, he felt hopeless.

[junker-town]

A history of outlier recruiting classes (and what happens next)

Usually, things snap back to reality soon. But not always. Let’s run through a decade of notable outlier classes.

Most teams recruit at similar levels year over year. Huge outlier classes only come about every so often.

But what happens when a team that usually recruits stars doesn’t, or a team used to signing three-stars suddenly lands tons of blue-chips? I looked over years of 247Sports Composite class rankings to get a sense.

Let’s mostly ignore transitional classes signed right after a new coach took over. Does each year’s big outlier class on this list hint at a trajectory change, or is it a one-off?

2019: No. 17 USC

The eight blue chip-recruits in this class means this is USC’s only class besides Steve Sarkisian’s transitional 2014 class to sign fewer than 12 blue-chips in the last decade. This wasn’t officially a transitional class, but with six new assistant coaches (and a Kliff Kingsbury entrance and departure), it might as well have been. Seeing USC out of the top 10 is one thing, but the Trojans being this far down is jarring.

It’s a class that reflects the program’s state of decline and dysfunction.

Honorable mention: Purdue (25th, 40-some spots above its traditional ranking).

2018: No. 5 Alabama (lol)

The Tide had signed the No. 1 class seven years running. Not only did Alabama not finish No. 1, it finished outside of the top three for only the second time since Saban’s first full-cycle class in 2008.

And then what happened?

This may surprise you, but the Tide resumed their No. 1 role for 2019.

If you go by per-player Composite average, this is the most efficient group in Saban history, ranking No. 5 all time on the second list in this post. The class composition is heavy on the trenches, shoring up for some upcoming NFL losses.

Oh, it gets worse. The only three-star in 2019’s Bama group is No. 1 kicker Will Reichard, the latest man tasked with fixing almost literally the Tide’s only weakness. He’s the highest rated kicker since 2017, so I think we can call him the equivalent of a five-star kicker.

Honorable mentions: Penn State (6th, up from 14th-20th the previous three years) and Purdue (51st, up from between 62nd and 80th the previous five years).

2017: No. 25 Texas

Transitional recruiting classes are rough, and that’s why we’re mostly skipping them here, but Tom Herman’s was way below even conservative expectations. It was Texas’ lowest-ranked class ever. Sam Ehlinger was the best player they signed from the state, and he ranked 19th in Texas. Obviously, he’s turned out to be pretty effective. But it was disappointing in the moment when LSU missed out on targets like DE K’Lavon Chaisson (LSU) and DT Marvin Wilson (FSU).

And then what happened?

Texas got it rolling in a big way. Herman finished with the No. 3 classes in 2018 and 2019. The 2017 unit can still serve as the foundation for Herman’s Texas turnaround — particularly the DBs and WRs. The 2018 class was the most loaded DBs class in rankings history.

Honorable mentions: Clemson (16th, based on the defending champs signing a small class), Maryland (18th, its first top-20 class in a decade), UTSA (75th (it wasn’t a joke that former LSU assistant Frank Wilson could quickly upgrade recruiting).

2016: No. 36 Houston

So, I know that you’re thinking, something along the lines of “this is all about Ed Oliver.” He’s one of six five-stars ever to sign with a non-power team.

I did an experiment. To gauge his impact on the class’ Signing Day ranking, I took Oliver out of Houston’s 2016 class and replaced him with a normally talented Houston DT signee (mid-level in-state three-star). The mythical non-Oliver Houston class would have ranked 43rd in the team rankings. That’s still comfortably the best Houston class ever and one of the best non-Power 5 classes ever.

The Cougars’ five-year recruiting ranking heading into 2018 was 71st. That should tell you something about this class besides the best recruit in school history.

And then what happened? Herman left for Texas, and the Cougars weren’t able to stay this hot on the trail. But Oliver had a great career, and UH was at least competitive.

Honorable mention: Ole Miss (5th, and we’ll come back to them).

2015: No. 27 Miami

Since we’re (mostly) steering away from transitional classes, Miami’s 2015 takes the cake, though Al Golden’s first class in 2011 was worse by ranking alone.

No school recruits itself, but Miami being outside of the to 20 in any year is hard to justify given that, well, it’s Miami. After that class flopped, this was the state of the program:

Clemson recruiting coordinator Jeff Scott said 58-0 win was "huge" for recruiting. Miami hosted "a lot" of players Clemson is also after.

— Gene Sapakoff (@Sapakoff) October 24, 2015

And then what happened? Mark Richt got the Canes back to nabbing good classes — two-straight top-15 classes. Manny Diaz took over after Richt retired, and will look to keep the momentum going as the Canes try to claw back to their early-2000s heyday. Their 2019 class ranked 28th, but this was a weird transition, and Miami’s added many transfers.

Honorable mention: Tennessee (4th, as Butch Jones built things brick by brick, remember?).

2014: No. 5 Texas A&M

It was a simpler time when the Aggies signed a future No. 1 NFL pick (Myles Garrett), the best QB in that year’s class (Kyle Allen), an elite athlete (five-star WR Speedy Noil) and a JUCO player who’d start in the Super Bowl as a rookie (Josh Reynolds).

The Aggies have been a staple in the top 20, but this was the peak. They were supposed to take the next step, to prove they could hang with the SEC’s elite and continue the ascendency.

And then what happened?

2014: 8-5

2015: 8-5

2016: 8-5

2017: 7-5

No classes in those years were better than 12th.

Honorable mention: Old Dominion (77th, a massive upgrade for a program typically around dead-last in FBS).

2013: No. 8 Ole Miss

Well, well, well, look who we have here. The class that came out of nowhere to shock the world. It was Ole Miss’ second top-15 class in a decade, but the quality at the top is what set it apart. You remember the five-star names: Tony Conner, Robert Nkemdiche, Laremy Tunsil, Laquon Treadwell. The last three were (in order) the best three recruits Ole Miss has ever signed.

Only USC and Alabama had as many or more five-stars that year. It was supposed to be the start of a rags-to-riches SEC tale. In a way, it was.

And then what happened?

Honorable mentions: Vanderbilt (26th; hello, James Franklin), and Georgia Tech (70th; recruiting the triple option is hard, but yikes).

2012: No. 7 Stanford

Distilling Stanford’s ethos, the best three players in the class were offensive linemen. The Cardinal actually signed two of the top four tackles in the country (Kyle Murphy, Andrus Peat) and the second-best guard (Joshua Garnett).

And then what happened?

Ho-hum, they’ve only played for the conference title four times (winning three) since this class. They’ve only cracked the top 15 in the rankings twice since, however. And they’ve yet to crack the top 10.

Honorable mentions: Wisconsin (65th, bad even for a team that doesn’t recruit like an elite), UCF (96th, which makes that future 0-12 team make more sense).

2011: No. 34 Texas A&M

The Aggies are again on the list thanks to a class that didn’t include a top-30 player in the state of Texas. Its average rating was six points (about half a star on average) away from the next year’s. And that 2012 class was Kevin Sumlin’s transitional class.

But what we didn’t know was the impact of a three-star dual-threat QB from Kerrville. His name: Johnny Manziel.

And then what happened?

Honorable mention: Texas Tech (19th, via signing four of the 10 highest-rated recruits in school history, a year after ranking 44th).

2010: No. 33 BYU

Anchored by three of the 10 highest-rated recruits in Cougars history, this was supposed to be the bedrock of something great for would-be BCS-busters. BYU was plenty good under Bronco Mendenhall, but this class punched above BYU’s weight.

And then what happened? Two of those three (QB Jake Heaps, WR Ross Apo) didn’t pan out. But Bronson Kaufusi did, eventually selected by the Ravens in the third round. The Cougars were a mainstay in the eight- and nine-win club for the next five seasons.

Honorable mention: Ohio State (18, well below its usual range).

2009: No. 36 Clemson

Twelve players signed. It was the fewest recruits Clemson had ever signed since the school tracked signings. It was the fewest signees among BCS schools that year. But Clemson will take quality over quantity.

A young assistant named Dabo Swinney had just been promoted to the head job. Around Clemson, they call this group the Dandy Dozen. And Swinney will credit them as the start of all the great things that followed.

“I’m very thankful for those guys for choosing to stick with us,” Swinney said of the class that built his dynasty. “Tajh Boyd, I’ll never forget sitting up there in his house. [Mike] Belotti goes out one day, [Jim] Tressel is coming in next. And here comes coach Swinney. I’m like, ‘listen, man, I need a quarterback at Clemson. I don’t have anything to offer you. I’ve got no resume. I’ve never coached. I’ve coached just a few games as an interim guy here, but man I think we can do some great things.”

And then what happened?

Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

Honorable mention: South Carolina (14, which played a huge role in establishing one Gamecock team’s future success).

Don’t get too high or too low about one year.

Your team will likely regress to its mean, whether it’s doing well or poorly right now. But in the rare instance, a great class can start a dynasty.

Because of the multiple factors that go into a team’s success and even an individual player’s success, most of the time, an outlying class is just that.

[caplofan]

The Unreasonable Importance of Data Preparation in 2020

The Unreasonable Importance of Data Preparation in 2020

In a world focused on buzzword-driven models and algorithms, you’d be forgiven for forgetting about the unreasonable importance of data preparation and quality: your models are only as good as the data you feed them.

This is the garbage in, garbage out principle: flawed data going in leads to flawed results, algorithms, and business decisions. If a self-driving car’s decision-making algorithm is trained on data of traffic collected during the day, you wouldn’t put it on the roads at night.

To take it a step further, if such an algorithm is trained in an environment with cars driven by humans, how can you expect it to perform well on roads with other self-driving cars?

Beyond the autonomous driving example described, the “garbage in” side of the equation can take many forms—for example, incorrectly entered data, poorly packaged data, and data collected incorrectly, more of which we’ll address below.

When executives ask me how to approach an AI transformation, I show them Monica Rogati’s AI Hierarchy of Needs, which has AI at the top, and everything is built upon the foundation of data (Rogati is a data science and AI advisor, former VP of data at Jawbone, and former LinkedIn data scientist):

AI Hierarchy of Needs 2020

Image courtesy of Monica Rogati, used with permission.

Why is high-quality and accessible data foundational?

If you’re basing business decisions on dashboards or the results of online experiments, you need to have the right data.

On the machine learning side, we are entering what Andrei Karpathy, director of AI at Tesla, dubs the Software 2.0 era, a new paradigm for software where machine learning and AI require less focus on writing code and more on configuring, selecting inputs, and iterating through data to create higher level models that learn from the data we give them.

In this new world, data has become a first-class citizen, where computation becomes increasingly probabilistic and programs no longer do the same thing each time they run.

The model and the data specification become more important than the code.

Collecting the right data requires a principled approach that is a function of your business question.

Data collected for one purpose can have limited use for other questions.

The assumed value of data is a myth leading to inflated valuations of start-ups capturing said data. John Myles White, data scientist and engineering manager at Facebook, wrote:

The biggest risk I see with data science projects is that analyzing data per se is generally a bad thing.

Generating data with a pre-specified analysis plan and running that analysis is good. Re-analyzing existing data is often very bad.”

John is drawing attention to thinking carefully about what you hope to get out of the data, what question you hope to answer, what biases may exist, and what you need to correct before jumping in with an analysis[1].

With the right mindset, you can get a lot out of analyzing existing data—for example, descriptive data is often quite useful for early-stage companies[2].

Not too long ago, “save everything” was a common maxim in tech; you never knew if you might need the data. However, attempting to repurpose pre-existing data can muddy the water by shifting the semantics from why the data was collected to the question you hope to answer. In particular, determining causation from correlation can be difficult.

For example, a pre-existing correlation pulled from an organization’s database should be tested in a new experiment and not assumed to imply causation[3], instead of this commonly encountered pattern in tech:

A large fraction of users that do X do Z Z is good Let’s get everybody to do X

Correlation in existing data is evidence for causation that then needs to be verified by collecting more data.

The same challenge plagues scientific research. Take the case of Brian Wansink, former head of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, who stepped down after a Cornell faculty review reported he “committed academic misconduct in his research and scholarship, including misreporting of research data, problematic statistical techniques [and] failure to properly document and preserve research results.” One of his more egregious errors was to continually test already collected data for new hypotheses until one stuck, after his initial hypothesis failed[4]. NPR put it well: “the gold standard of scientific studies is to make a single hypothesis, gather data to test it, and analyze the results to see if it holds up. By Wansink’s own admission in the blog post, that’s not what happened in his lab.” He continually tried to fit new hypotheses unrelated to why he collected the data until he got a null hypothesis with an acceptable p-value—a perversion of the scientific method.

Data professionals spend an inordinate amount on time cleaning, repairing, and preparing data

Before you even think about sophisticated modeling, state-of-the-art machine learning, and AI, you need to make sure your data is ready for analysis—this is the realm of data preparation. You may picture data scientists building machine learning models all day, but the common trope that they spend 80% of their time on data preparation is closer to the truth.

common trope that data scientists spend 80% of their time on data preparation 2020

This is old news in many ways, but it’s old news that still plagues us: a recent O’Reilly survey found that lack of data or data quality issues was one of the main bottlenecks for further AI adoption for companies at the AI evaluation stage and was the main bottleneck for companies with mature AI practices.

Good quality datasets are all alike, but every low-quality dataset is low-quality in its own way[5]. Data can be low-quality if:

It doesn’t fit your question or its collection wasn’t carefully considered; It’s erroneous (it may say “cicago” for a location), inconsistent (it may say “cicago” in one place and “Chicago” in another), or missing; It’s good data but packaged in an atrocious way—e.g., it’s stored across a range of siloed databases in an organization; It requires human labeling to be useful (such as manually labeling emails as “spam” or “not” for a spam detection algorithm).

This definition of low-quality data defines quality as a function of how much work is required to get the data into an analysis-ready form. Look at the responses to my tweet for data quality nightmares that modern data professionals grapple with.

The importance of automating data preparation

Most of the conversation around AI automation involves automating machine learning models, a field known as AutoML.

This is important: consider how many modern models need to operate at scale and in real time (such as Google’s search engine and the relevant tweets that Twitter surfaces in your feed). We also need to be talking about automation of all steps in the data science workflow/pipeline, including those at the start. Why is it important to automate data preparation?

It occupies an inordinate amount of time for data professionals. Data drudgery automation in the era of data smog will free data scientists up for doing more interesting, creative work (such as modeling or interfacing with business questions and insights). “76% of data scientists view data preparation as the least enjoyable part of their work,” according to a CrowdFlower survey.

A series of subjective data preparation micro-decisions can bias your analysis. For example, one analyst may throw out data with missing values, another may infer the missing values. For more on how micro-decisions in analysis can impact results, I recommend Many Analysts, One Data Set: Making Transparent How Variations in Analytic Choices Affect Results[6] (note that the analytical micro-decisions in this study are not only data preparation decisions).

Automating data preparation won’t necessarily remove such bias, but it will make it systematic, discoverable, auditable, unit-testable, and correctable. Model results will then be less reliant on individuals making hundreds of micro-decisions.

An added benefit is that the work will be reproducible and robust, in the sense that somebody else (say, in another department) can reproduce the analysis and get the same results[7];

For the increasing number of real-time algorithms in production, humans need to be taken out of the loop at runtime as much as possible (and perhaps be kept in the loop more as algorithmic managers): when you use Siri to make a reservation on OpenTable by asking for a table for four at a nearby Italian restaurant tonight, there’s a speech-to-text model, a geographic search model, and a restaurant-matching model, all working together in real time.

No data analysts/scientists work on this data pipeline as everything must happen in real time, requiring an automated data preparation and data quality workflow (e.g., to resolve if I say “eye-talian” instead of “it-atian”).

The third point above speaks more generally to the need for automation around all parts of the data science workflow. This need will grow as smart devices, IoT, voice assistants, drones, and augmented and virtual reality become more prevalent.

Automation represents a specific case of democratization, making data skills easily accessible for the broader population. Democratization involves both education (which I focus on in my work at DataCamp) and developing tools that many people can use.

Understanding the importance of general automation and democratization of all parts of the DS/ML/AI workflow, it’s important to recognize that we’ve done pretty well at democratizing data collection and gathering, modeling[8], and data reporting[9], but what remains stubbornly difficult is the whole process of preparing the data.

Modern tools for automating data cleaning and data preparation

We’re seeing the emergence of modern tools for automated data cleaning and preparation, such as HoloClean and Snorkel coming from Christopher Ré’s group at Stanford.

HoloClean decouples the task of data cleaning into error detection (such as recognizing that the location “cicago” is erroneous) and repairing erroneous data (such as changing “cicago” to “Chicago”), and formalizes the fact that “data cleaning is a statistical learning and inference problem.”

All data analysis and data science work is a combination of data, assumptions, and prior knowledge. So when you’re missing data or have “low-quality data,” you use assumptions, statistics, and inference to repair your data.

HoloClean performs this automatically in a principled, statistical manner. All the user needs to do is “to specify high-level assertions that capture their domain expertise with respect to invariants that the input data needs to satisfy. No other supervision is required!”

The HoloClean team also has a system for automating the “building and managing [of] training datasets without manual labeling” called Snorkel. Having correctly labeled data is a key part of preparing data to build machine learning models[10].

As more and more data is generated, manually labeling it is unfeasible.

Snorkel provides a way to automate labeling, using a modern paradigm called data programming, in which users are able to “inject domain information [or heuristics] into machine learning models in higher level, higher bandwidth ways than manually labeling thousands or millions of individual data points.”

Researchers at Google AI have adapted Snorkel to label data at industrial/web scale and demonstrated its utility in three scenarios: topic classification, product classification, and real-time event classification.

Snorkel doesn’t stop at data labeling. It also allows you to automate two other key aspects of data preparation:

Data augmentation—that is, creating more labeled data. Consider an image recognition problem in which you are trying to detect cars in photos for your self-driving car algorithm.

Classically, you’ll need at least several thousand labeled photos for your training dataset. If you don’t have enough training data and it’s too expensive to manually collect and label more data, you can create more by rotating and reflecting your images.

Discovery of critical data subsets—for example, figuring out which subsets of your data really help to distinguish spam from non-spam.

These are two of many current examples of the augmented data preparation revolution, which includes products from IBM and DataRobot.

The future of data tooling and data preparation as a cultural challenge

So what does the future hold? In a world with an increasing number of models and algorithms in production, learning from large amounts of real-time streaming data, we need both education and tooling/products for domain experts to build, interact with, and audit the relevant data pipelines.

We’ve seen a lot of headway made in democratizing and automating data collection and building models. Just look at the emergence of drag-and-drop tools for machine learning workflows coming out of Google and Microsoft.

As we saw from the recent O’Reilly survey, data preparation and cleaning still take up a lot of time that data professionals don’t enjoy. For this reason, it’s exciting that we’re now starting to see headway in automated tooling for data cleaning and preparation. It will be interesting to see how this space grows and how the tools are adopted.

A bright future would see data preparation and data quality as first-class citizens in the data workflow, alongside machine learning, deep learning, and AI. Dealing with incorrect or missing data is unglamorous but necessary work.

It’s easy to justify working with data that’s obviously wrong; the only real surprise is the amount of time it takes. Understanding how to manage more subtle problems with data, such as data that reflects and perpetuates historical biases (for example, real estate redlining) is a more difficult organizational challenge.

This will require honest, open conversations in any organization around what data workflows actually look like.

The fact that business leaders are focused on predictive models and deep learning while data workers spend most of their time on data preparation is a cultural challenge, not a technical one. If this part of the data flow pipeline is going to be solved in the future, everybody needs to acknowledge and understand the challenge.

Original Source: The unreasonable importance of data preparation

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[hhemeraa-a]

Are there things have you have absolutely no tolerance for rp wise? Themes, topics, muse types, portrayals, fandoms, ect--?

Anonymously ask the mun something you want to know about them

Of course! 

Though I want to preface this with a majority of this list, I will RP if the plot is good enough or detailed enough or if it just in general makes sense. I know my reasons don’t apply to every single person who has a muse or theme, etc etc etc like this and it’s rare, but completely possible that it just needs to be talked out and all that. owo anywhoooo

Things Sy Doesn’t Fuck With

Prostitute / Escort muses :  Y’all can keep that shit. Sorry fam, I hate the prostitute trope.  60% of the time it’s a muse that just needs saving, it’s the same plot over and over: Sex is meaningless! Unless there are emotions involved and then no sex! Because emotions are scary!! Them falling in love and promising to quit, someone won’t let them, they need to be saved again, their life is brand new again because emotions. The other 38% is “I’m a strong independent person who just loves sex and I have control over my clientele and blah blah blah, no man can hold me down -- until I fall in looovee and learn emotionssss”  OR They never quit or whatever idc. Point is that shit isn’t realistic and I’ve known people in the sex industry and that shit isn’t fucking glamorous. The rare 2% treat that profession realistically and props to y’all cause u the real MVP, but more often than not it’s just a drag. My muses never sync up right with these muses or the plot lines associated with them. 

anything having to do with mpreg : do not come near me with this fucking shit. I will say that I’ve never been interested in it and I love A/B/O (like, y’all, I fuckin love but because of this reason, I keep it to myself) but y’all can keep the mpreg far away from me because I’m in it for the power play. I don’t like regular pregnant women, let alone some dude shitting out a baby on top of it. I ONCE had a girl plot with me with this awesome space plot for hours and then at the last minute she was like OH BTW HES PREGNANT and I was like lol excuse me. She came into my house twisting a great plot all for sex and babies and I just have z e r o  interest in it. 

Cross dressing / men in lingerie / high heels : not because I don’t like it, but because the Tumblr RP community has legit just ruined it for me. I tend to turn a blind eye to this one, but in general, it’s not something I mess with. It’s not edgy, it doesn’t make your muse cooler, and idk idk idk I’m being knit picky I know, but I want to see a thread or something where two dudes who have never even thought of the concept try it out. And I mean that two week long weird atmosphere, bickering about masculinity fight, before the night has finally come and the lights are off because he’s completely embarrassed about a thing as simple as panties.  Tumblr likes to make things real easy and likes to skip over the dramatic realistic emotions of going against the grain in a society that doesn’t always just accept a man in drag. It’s scary, it’s nerve wracking, it takes a lot of trust to open up to someone with that and yet y’all got muses out here like “I WEAR A THREE PIECE GARTER SET TO MY THANKSGIVING DINNER WITH A LEATHER MINI SKIRT”  -- I’m being dramatic, but ya feel me?   

people who think their muses are op : IM NOT TALKING ABOUT PHYSICALLY -- like if you have a God muse, then... yeah, they’re gonna be OP. But I’m talking about “my muse is extra manipulative and would 100% be able to trick your muse into x,y,z”  -- nah fam, that’s godmodding and there has to be some give.  You can be confident that your muse is manipulative or super reflexive or really really observant, but if you’re just human then you gotta have some leeway or else writing with them gets so... boring. Myles might be super fast or really reflexive from training and fighting his brother, but he’s gonna get hit. He’s not always going to say the right thing to get someone to do what they want. It happens. It makes things fun??? 

I’m sure there’s more but this post is getting long sjkdghskjdg

[jugsnpugs]

Tokyo, Japan | Around The City

So I finally had time to write about our Tokyo trip we took in July, talk about being busy (and a little lazy). 

I really wanted to do a Vlog for this trip even though we did a vlog last time we were here. I feel like Tokyo is a place where you always want to vlog because it’s so exciting and you never know what you will capture BUT the heat was so extreme this year that I didn’t want to be outside let alone take videos, luckily I had Dennis with me, he took all my Ootd photos. You might not think of Tokyo as having hot weather but their summer time (June- August) is so damn hot! In 2015 we went to Japan in August and learned of how crazy hot it could be there. This time we were more prepared for it with our outfits and our expectations but still it’s intense so I don’t recommend you visit Japan during their summer season.

We actually were headed to Japan for work this time around so our time was extremely limited and we didn’t really plan on going around temples and sightseeing since we did that last time we were there. My husband is a photographer and a filmmaker and since it’s just him and I in this company we end up working together a lot so of course I came to help him out for the shoot. For this project we were shooting a clothing brand (@18.Myles, check them out on IG) the clothing brand has a lot of sweaters and track pants and the weather was around 40c degrees,  so we were running around Tokyo in extreme heat, taking photos, holding like 3 full bags of clothes, helping our models, styling them and what not for hours each day so by the end of the day we were so exhausted that the only thing we really wanted to do was eat, shower and sleep but when Dennis and I travel we really want to make the most of our time somewhere, especially in Tokyo. So we did have fun as well.

Here’s a list of things I recommend you do in Tokyo if you’re on limited time or if you’re their for work like us:

Eat all you can- Calories don’t count on vacation or so at least I pretend, Authentic Japanese food is amazing and you’re probably going to walk so much anyways that you’ll probably walk off all the calls ories anyways. Our favourites while in Tokyo are, the conveyor belt sushi bars, ramen bars and random cafes. I’ll blog more about food places in Tokyo soon.

Dress Comfortable- Most of my outfits were light dresses and sneakers because of the hot weather, make sure you wear comfortable shoes especially since Taxis are expensive in Tokyo and the most popular way to get around is the Subway/Metro which is underground or high above and is usually a far walk to get to oh and there’s lots of stairs. More about my ootd’s on another blog post soon.

Don’t be afraid to get lost- Tokyo can be confusing AF, hardly anyone speaks English and the signs are all in Japanese but I promise you it gets easier as time goes by. I admit without Dennis I would of been hella lost but he’s so good with his sense of direction that we hardly ever were lost but the times we did get lost we still had fun.

Drink up and I don’t mean water- I was surprised to find out that its actually normal for people to drink alcohol on the streets in Tokyo. Places like Singapore are so strict with that rule but here in. Tokyo its actually pretty normal. Let’s just say I was on a good buzz the whole time I was in Japan.

Discover new neighbourhoods- The cool thing about Tokyo is that everywhere you turn there’s a new place to discover, alleyways are filled with street art, there’s random temples on hidden streets, people dress cool AF! Oh and if you are looking for some inspiration in terms of fashion and art, Harajuku is the place for you, I really told myself I’m going to up my style inspiration after seeing the way everyone dresses there. 

Meet new people- This time around Dennis and I met tons of new people, first all the models were friends of friends of friends they were all Japanese and showed us around a bit and then we hung our with like a group 7 random people we met at a bar, they came from all over the world, Australia, USA, Sweden etc. We met them at a bar in Golden Gai area, its where all these super small cheap bars are. I highly recommend it here, each bar is decorated uniquely and the drinks are cheap, everyone is super friendly too. Anyways, after getting drunk with these people we all decided to go to a karaoke bar (easier said then done since none of us spoke Japanese and we were all drunk.) Fast forward to 6am and we are at our hotel trying out bath bombs from lush(Dennis and I only, relax haha), Dennis doesn’t remember a thing but being the blogger I am, I took video of course. It was needlessly to say a fun day/night. 

Stop and enjoy the view- Sometimes when traveling I get too busy taking photos and shopping  that I forget to just sit back and enjoy the people watching. This trip we did that a lot, not really like we had a choice because we would have to take drink breaks every now and again because of the heat but it still felt nice to chill and observe.

Despite the fact that we were working most of the time and the weather was crazy hot we still had tons of fun in Tokyo, we are hoping to go back again soon, when the weather is much cooler. 

Hope you guys get a chance to visit Tokyo soon, you won’t be disappointed!

[unixcommerce]

20 Best New Portfolios, April 2018

It’s that time again, readers. We’ve got a variety of sites, here: presentational and simple, colorful and nearly monochromatic. We’re also doing something a little new: we’re including the platform each site was built on, according to my best guesstimate.

At least the WordPress ones are easy… Enjoy.

Note: I’m judging these sites by how good they look to me. If they’re creative and original, or classic but really well-done, it’s all good to me. Sometimes, UX and accessibility suffer. For example, many of these sites depend on JavaScript to display their content at all; this is a Bad Idea, kids. If you find an idea you like and want to adapt to your own site, remember to implement it responsibly.

Reece Parker

We begin with Reece Parker’s illustration portfolio. It’s dark, it’s minimalist, and it has an amusing little animated Q&A that I enjoyed reading through. Now you know how I feel about depending on animation, and all (I am contractually obligated to mention it at least once a month), but this was charming enough to win me over anyway. The whole site pretty much sells itself with charm.

Platform: Semplice

Myles Lucas

Myles Lucas’ portfolio goes straight for the “Well isn’t that something?” approach with a slideshow that is comprised of, well… his name. One letter at a time. The rest of the site isn’t much more subdued, with a background that changes color drastically as you browse through the projects.

Platform: Static site

Théo Rosel

Théo Rosel brings us back yet again to that odd sort of minimalism that is packed with animation and interactive elements. Well in any case, the site’s design is elegant, clean, and pretty as you could ask for. My only note is that on the home page, you have to click and hold on the main slideshow to see the associated projects. This probably does wonders for preventing mis-taps, but it’s rather awkward for anyone who still uses a mouse.

There are dozens of us. Dozens!

Platform: Static site

Lettuce & Co.

Lettuce & Co. is one I’m kind of excited to feature, if only because we’ve never had an event planner portfolio in this series before (that I can recall). It’s minimal, but clearly sticks to the fancy-ish, serif-loving, classic event-planner style we’ve come to associate with weddings, especially.

Their past work is, of course, all about the photos, because how else would you do it? They use a lot of close-up detail shots to show how committed they are to said details, and I think it works.

Platform: WordPress

PROFI

Is brutalist web 2.0 a thing? Or is it just extreme minimalism with big text? Whatever the case, the designers at PROFI are masters of this form. I can appreciate just wanting to put your website up without worrying too much about the details normally associated with web design.

But oooh, on this one you hover over images to get text, rather than the other way around. What’s old is new again.

Platform: Static HTML

This Page

This Page is a digital studio with a pretty clear emphasis on video. Thus, the site is predictably presentation-like. Still, I absolutely love their use of color. One thing I can say for presentation-style sites: they’re usually not afraid to look as bright and cheery.

Platform: JavaScript App

Momkai

Momkai is the second Amsterdam-based studio on this list. New conspiracy theory: they synchronize their redesigns and/or site launches for some nefarious purpose. This one takes a fairly normal layout, and embraces pastels. Also animation. Nothing mind-blowing, but it’s pretty.

Platform: Static Site

Monica Lovati

Monica Lovati is both a person and a design studio, and they both have a name that just rolls off the tongue, man. Her/their website is another one that made it onto this list because it’s pretty. Go admire it for a bit!

Platform: Semplice

Bee Creations

I’ll be honest with you. I’d be extremely disappointed if Bee Creations wasn’t a black and yellow masterpiece. It leans more toward the black than the yellow in general, and it’s just so… aggressively modern. I do rather like the way they side-mounted header and navigation tie the site together, while case studies are allowed to be a lot more flexible with the art direction.

Platform: WordPress

Kasra Design

Kasra Design makes excellent use of a bold color palette, but tempers it with a more classic modern aesthetic and lots of literal white space. The use of photo composites all over the place definitely sets the tone, and helps to convey the agency’s personality.

Platform: WordPress

Voir(e)

Voir(e) is an atelier with a very, very distinct aesthetic style that ranges from the clothing they produce to the photos they use to showcase it to the colors of the website itself. I’d say that this site possibly wins this month’s non-existent award for most unified sense of style.

Platform: Static Site (with some AJAX, not quite a full-on app)

Film Truck

Film Truck is, as you might expect, a truck that goes down the street playing music and sells… wait, no. It’s a film studio. Like many sites nowadays, this one combines artsy minimalism with presentation-style UX. The color palette and small graphical flourishes do give it a distinct personality, though.

Platform: JS App

Zazu

Zazu goes for that bold, almost default-link-color blue (da-ba-dee-da-ba-die). And then they go for lots of white space with blue text. And then once in a while, they’ll throw all of those rules out the window, and engage in some honest-to-god art direction for their case studies. It’s been done before, but these people do it well.

Platform: Semplice

We Should Do It All

We Should Do It All is both their agency name and their mission statement. Their dedication to doing it all seems to extend to their portfolio, which is both text-heavy and image-heavy. They seem rather dedicated to telling whole story of each project, in a functional, simple, near-brutalist fashion. I actually rather like it.

Platform: Static Site

Kuon Yagi

Kuon Yagi is web designer and self-professed “markup engineer”. Now I don’t think we need another job title, but I have to admit that one sounds cool. The design is darned cool, too with a distinctly space-themed aesthetic, a .space domain name, and typography so pretty that I don’t care if a lot of the text is Japanese.

Platform: Static Site

Mustafa Celik

Mustafa Celik is an art director, and has taken full advantage of animation and typography to create an experience that is rather beautiful, on the whole. It does that thing where the navigation links are all over the place, but otherwise, it’s a darned good-looking site.

Platform: WordPress

Sophie Haig

Sophie Haig’s photography portfolio combines collage-style-design, hover-over-text-to-preview UX, and the exact same font used in every hair style catalog at the local barber shop. Okay, I’m half-kidding. I’ve actually been seeing a lot of vertically “squished” type lately. I’m not a huge fan, but it has been a change of pace, and I appreciate that. In this case, it doesn’t look bad at all.

Platform: Static Site

Anyonegirl

Anyonegirl is a simple yet stylish photography portfolio with a rockin’ 416 pages full of photos. Any site with that much content pretty much has to keep it simple for bandwidth reasons. Even so, there’s a distinct style present that I find appealing.

Platform: WordPress

Oak & Morrow

As much as I’ve been enjoying the web’s return to color, I must admit that Oak & Morrow’s nearly monochromatic portfolio is pleasing to look at. After that, their flair for illustration adds an extra touch of style to an already great site.

Platform: WordPress

Antfood

And we finish this off with Antfood, a distinctly presentational site with tons of color, solid type, and some fairly creative animation. They also do website audio the best way I’ve ever seen it done: it’s turned off by default. If you really, really feel the need to listen to your website, you can turn it on. They’re an audio studio, so you can hardly blame them for trying.

Platform: Static Site

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[hesmykindofcrazyy]

How to improve self confidence?

Date: 2018-01-10 09:00:08

[aoa id=’3′][dn_wp_yt_youtube_source type=”101″ id=”op8MDYLJ8cc”][/aoa]

Click below to find out more about Kamalifestyles Supreme Confidence Programme http://kamalifestyles.com/services/supreme-confidence/

Hi Guys it’s Gaby and Iain here and today we’re going to talk about how to improve self-confidence.

To many people, self-confidence is just a natural thing. However,…

[junker-town]

2019 CFB returning production, ranked a better way

The teams at the top of this list are likely to improve, recent history shows. Let’s go deeper than returning starter counts.

My process for releasing each preseason’s S&P+ projections:

Release data on the primary factors that go into the projections — returning production, recent performance, and recruiting — in individual posts. This is the first of those.

Release official S&P+ projections.

Begin the 130-team preview series.

February’s Signing Day is a little bit later into the month this year (February 6), so we’re going to run the preview series a bit differently. I’m going to wait until the 11th to begin the team preview series with complete recruiting data built into S&P+, and for the first week of previews, I’m releasing two previews per day.

Two-a-days as prep for football season. Get it?

That doesn’t mean we can’t go ahead and talk returning production, however.

Over the last few years, I have attempted to move beyond the too-simple “returning starters” figure to measure experience.

We use the best tools we have, even if they’re not that great. We try to derive value from offensive line starts because it’s the only individual measure of offensive linemen that we have. You can’t get much from “he’s been one of Team A’s five preferred linemen 16 times since he started school here.”

It’s the same with returning starters. We use it because it exists. It is fine as a really quick snapshot, but we know that one team’s six returning offensive starters aren’t another’s. What about go-to guys? Returning backups? And quarterbacks are worth more than other starters, right?

In 2016, I began using a returning production figure based on what seems to best correlate with year-to-year performance. With what is now a few years’ worth of data, let’s take a look at some updated correlations.

How returning production in four offensive stats correlates with changes in Offensive S&P+ ratings:

Returning experience on the offensive line doesn’t have nearly the statistical impact that we expect. But with more data in the bank — and a new set of tweaks to S&P+ that I’ve been unveiling at Football Study Hall — we can see there’s a little correlation.

The higher the number, the more likely returning production in these areas is to coincide with strong offense:

Receiving yards correlation: 0.324

Passing yards correlation: 0.234

Rushing yards correlation: 0.168

Offensive line starts correlation: 0.153

With more data, the offensive line correlations have begun to grow stronger, which makes sense, but the conclusion remains: continuity in the passing game matters a hell of a lot, and continuity in the run game doesn’t have as strong an impact.

Correlation between defensive stats and changes in Defensive S&P+:

On defense, where returning production appears to matter more in general, the correlations are both stronger and more diverse. Since teams use different numbers of defensive linemen, linebackers, and defensive backs, I look at both unit-specific categories and those for defense as a whole.

Defensive back tackles correlation: 0.404

Defensive back passes defensed correlation: 0.377

Overall tackles correlation: 0.325

Overall passes defensed correlation: 0.324

Defensive back tackles for loss correlation: 0.299

Overall tackles for loss correlation: 0.269

Linebacker tackles for loss correlation: 0.250

Linebacker tackles correlation: 0.250

Linebacker passes defensed correlation: 0.228

That’s right, the correlations for defensive back tackles and passes defensed is stronger than the correlations for overall tackles.

The strongest correlations on the defensive line, by the way: 0.154 for tackles, 0.119 for tackles for loss. Continuity in the trenches does not appear to be worth what we tend to think it’s worth. But continuity in the passing game, on both sides of the ball, means a ton.

One more takeaway: tackles for loss are important, but the ability to get hands on passes might be harder to replicate than any other.

So what does this mean for 2019?

As with last year, I used categories like the ones above, weighted for largest effect — so returning quarterbacks, receivers, and defensive backs carry more heft — to create numbers for offense and defense. I have updated 2018’s rosters for 2019, accounting for NFL declarations and, as much as possible (since it’s impossible to keep up with all of them), transfers.

Most of the teams near the top of the list should be in good shape.

Over the last five years, 35 teams have returned at least 80 percent of their production based on these calculations; 28 of them (80 percent) improved, and 17 (49 percent) improved their adjusted scoring margin per game by at least six points.

Last year’s top 10 teams in returning production (omitting Liberty, which was in its first year in FBS) saw their win total increase by a combined 25 games, from 45 to 70, in 2018. Michigan State regressed by three wins, and Mississippi State regressed by one. The other eight all improved.

Thus far for 2019, seven teams return 80 percent or more, including Tennessee. (I will release updated returning production figures right before the season begins.)

On the flip side, teams at the bottom might have lean years.

Meanwhile, 80 teams returned no more than 50 percent of their production; 65 of them (81 percent) regressed, 36 (45 percent) by at least a touchdown.

Last year’s bottom 10 teams saw their win total decrease by a combined 27 games, from 76 to 49. LSU and FIU each managed to improve by one win, and Colorado held steady at 5-7. The other seven all fell by at least two wins, and four (Navy, Colorado State, Louisville, and CMU) all fell by at least four.

For now, 13 teams are at 50 percent or lower, including Washington, Texas, and Georgia Tech.

SEC! SEC! SEC! SEC!

Here are 2018’s top 10 teams, according to the revamped version of S&P+, re-ranked in order of 2019 returning production:

LSU (76 percent, 15th)

Florida (74 percent, 26th)

Clemson (64 percent, 53rd)

Oklahoma (64 percent, 57th)

Ohio State (63 percent, 62nd)

Alabama (63 percent, 63rd)

Michigan (63 percent, 68th)

Georgia (62 percent, 69th)

Auburn (60 percent, 84th)

Mississippi State (57 percent, 92nd)

It’s safe to say Alabama will begin second in the preseason polls, and sportsbooks are listing Georgia in the top four. But there could be legitimate reason for putting four SEC teams near the top, including LSU, which overachieved last year’s returning production, and Florida. The Tigers and Gators went a combined 21-6 in 2018 and ranked fifth and ninth, respectively, in the revamped S&P+. And now they’re both going to be projected to improve by a decent amount.

In fact, if we were to use returning production as the only S&P+ projection factor — eschewing recruiting and recent history — here’s how the projected top five would take shape. Again, this would be based on nothing more than last year’s S&P+ ratings and this year’s returning production, not the complete formula:

Alabama (+36.7 adjusted points per game)

Georgia (+33.2)

Clemson (+30.2)

LSU (+28.9)

Florida (+27.1)

Auburn, Mississippi State, Missouri, and Texas A&M would all be in the top 15 with this approach, too. Plus, Tennessee, second in overall returning production, could take a couple of steps forward as well.

Finally, the SEC gets its ducks in a row. (Yes, that was sarcasm.)

The year of the Ute?

Let’s keep the “If this were all there was to S&P+ projections” thing going. Here’s how the projected Pac-12 would rank based on returning production:

11. Utah 21. Washington 29. Washington State 31. Oregon 33. Stanford 36. USC

For now, never mind that there would be more Group of Five teams in the projected top 25 (Appalachian State, Memphis, and UCF) than Pac-12 teams.

Let’s just focus on the fact that Utah, which finally broke through and won the Pac-12 South, might take one final step up the ladder.

Washington could catch fire with Jacob Eason at quarterback, Oregon could break through in Mario Cristobal’s second season, USC could [insert things we say about USC every year]. But based solely on who produced for each team last year and who’s returning, Utah might start as the front-runner. We’ll see how that changes as we work recruiting rankings and whatnot into the mix.

Lowest returning production in the Power 5: guaranteed preseason top-10 Texas

121. Texas (48 percent) 119. Georgia Tech (49 percent) 118. Washington (50 percent) 116. Ole Miss (51 percent) 114. Kentucky (51 percent) 112. Kansas (52 percent) 110. Boston College (53 percent) 109. NC State (53 percent) 108. Stanford (54 percent) 106. Duke (54 percent)

Some of those, you could have guessed. Kentucky loses LB Josh Allen and most of the primary reasons for 2018’s breakthrough. Ole Miss’ offense takes a big hit. Washington loses Jake Browning, Myles Gaskin, and most of its secondary.

That top name might come as a surprise.

Fresh off of a 10-win campaign — the school’s first since 2009 — and a Sugar Bowl win, Texas is all but guaranteed to begin 2019 in the preseason top 10. The Horns bring back quarterback Sam Ehlinger and receiver Collin Johnson as headliners, plus the fruits of successful recruiting.

They do not, however, return their leading rusher (Tre Watson), leading receiver (Lil’Jordan Humphrey), three honorable mention all-conference offensive linemen, their top three tacklers on the defensive line, their top two linebackers, and three of their top five defensive backs, including corner Kris Boyd, who led the team in havoc plays (tackles for loss, forced fumbles, and passes defensed).

At 48 percent returning production, the Horns aren’t in the “guaranteed regression” range like, say, UAB and Fresno State. But Tom Herman’s recruiting classes are going to have to break through quickly if Texas is to live up to expectations.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND SCHLEPS

And there are a lot of startups don't want to make it something that they themselves use. Techniques for competing with delegation translate well into business, because delegation is endemic there.1 So if such a company has two possible strategies, a conservative one that's slightly more likely to work in the end, or a company hiring people right out of college. How many startups fail. Yes, the price to earnings ratio is kind of high, but I count them as false positives because I hadn't been deleting them as spams before. Many if not most of the rest of the world. If I had to condense the power of vested interests, the undiscerning audience, and perhaps most dangerous, the tendency of such work to become a big, independent company is the same reason Google and Facebook have remained independent: money guys undervalue the most innovative startups. At first they're always dismissed as being unsuitable for real work. It's hard to think of VCs as piratical: bold but unscrupulous.2 They can work on small things, and if they get a higher valuation.3

He said it wasn't anything specific Google did, but simply that they trained their filter on very little data: 160 spam and 466 nonspam mails.4 Ask for advice.5 Subject free!6 These get through because I'm a writer, and writers always get disproportionate attention. As well as being more comfortable working on established lines, insiders generally have a vested interest in perpetuating them. Subject FREE Subject Free Subject free FREE! This is particularly true with companies, who have not only skill and pride anchoring them to the status quo, but money as well. I have a more complicated definition of a token: Case is preserved. Not publicly.7 In fact, one of the things she's best at is judging people. I even fix bits that are phonetically awkward; I don't know. Much was changed, but there just aren't enough of them, and hippies to boot.

More likely the reason is that the kind of alarms you'd set off if you spent a whole day, but that you should never shrink from it if it's on the path to something great. Investors don't like to say no. For example, after Wozniak designed the Apple II he offered it first to his employer, HP. You may feel you don't need that, but history suggests it's dangerous to work in fields with corrupt tests. In addition to their intrinsic value, they're like undervalued stocks in the sense that the startups they like most are those that seem like work, the danger of responsibilities is not just that you can stop judging them and yourself by superficial measures, but that so many judge themselves by it.8 Apparently the most likely animals to be left alive after a nuclear war are cockroaches, because they're more confident. What made YC successful was being able to pick winners.9 It was small and powerful and cheap, but not writing, my dissertation. That's schlep blindness.

7636 free 0.10 But the startup world for so long that it seems normal to me, so I was curious to hear what had surprised her most about it. But if the worst thing they can hit you with is your own feeling that you're thereby lacking something. Which illustrates why this change is happening: for new ideas. And that will get us a lot more state. They may be enough to kill all the opt-in lists. In this case, the device is the world's economy, which fortunately happens to be open and good. Facebook. This is extremely risky, and takes months even if you succeed. One of the things the internet has shown us is how mean people can be.

That isn't literally true, but there was still that Apple coolness in the air like the smell of dinner cooking. Some founders are quite dejected when they get turned down by investors. That's where the big returns are. But since then the west coast has just pulled further ahead. Now the reconquista has overrun this territory, and, not surprisingly, found it sparsely cultivated. The most effective approach seems to be growing. The bad news is, the only investors who can do it right are the ones you end up looking at when you get rejected by investors, don't think we suck, but instead ask do we suck? What does it mean, exactly?11 If you can't find an exact match for a token, treat it as if it were like getting into college. They feel they've achieved more if they get a higher valuation they can say mine is bigger than yours.12 The games played by intellectuals are leaking into the real world, and they're worried about some nit like not having proper business cards. Suppose a Y Combinator company starts talking to VCs after demo day, and is successful in raising money from them.

In retrospect that seems ridiculous, and we can all see the long tail of meanness that had previously been hidden. The potential of a new medium is usually underestimated, precisely because no one has yet explored its possibilities. YC, why don't more people realize it? Links and images you should certainly look at, because they couldn't afford to take so much time away from working on their software. If you take VC money, you have to follow the truth wherever it leads. The founders early on were mostly young. I thought I'd already been cured of caring about that. Corporate M & A is a strange business in that respect.13 How do you see ideas that involve painful schleps. I just mentioned.

The dangerous thing about investors is that hackers don't know how much they'll need to. That filter recognized about 23,000 tokens.14 To understand what McCarthy meant by this, we're going to retrace his steps, with his mathematical notation translated into running Common Lisp code. Another reason attention worries her is that she hates bragging. 9782 free! If you ultimately want to do something that will cost a lot, start by doing a cheaper subset of it, and we want to keep in close touch as you develop it further.15 This technique can be generalized to any sort of work: if you want to beat those eminent enough to delegate, one way to do it is to take advantage of direct contact with the medium. Startups win or lose based on the quality of their funding deals.16

That VC round was a series B round; the premoney valuation was $75 million. Fortunately, there are all those people the eminent have working for them; they have to ask for advice. One of the many things we do at Y Combinator is teach hackers about the inevitability of schleps. Another project I heard about after the Slashdot article was Bill Yerazunis' CRM114. You might think that if they found a good deal of fighting in being the public face of an organization.17 And Jessica is the main reason VCs like splitting deals is the fear of looking bad. This makes everyone naturally pull in the same direction, subject to differences of opinion about tactics. And I think I can prove I'm right. The professor who made his reputation by discovering some new idea is not likely to be the ones you would least mind missing. Another way to find good problems to solve in one head.

Notes

Hackers Painters, what you learn about programming in Lisp. Proceedings of 2003 Spam Conference. 1% in 1950 something one could aspire to the problem and approached it with such a large organization that often creates a rationalization for doing it with the guy who came to work like blacklists, for example, if you did that in the 1920s.

Calaprice, Alice ed. If the rich.

If you were going to give up your anti-dilution provisions also protect you against tricks like a compiler, you can't dictate the problem is not much to maintain their percentage. If you're dealing with the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Edgar v. Among other things, like the arrival of desktop publishing, given people the shareholders instead of the living. It doesn't take a small proportion of the more powerful sororities at your school, and judge them based on their own company.

Photo by Alex Lewin. Because we want to create giant companies not seem formidable early on. They can lead to distractions even more closely to the table.

Every pilot knows about this trick works so well. This is not such a low valuation to see it in B. The disadvantage of expanding a round on the person.

If idea clashes got bad enough, but I'm not saying all founders who are all that matters financially for investors.

I was writing this, on the x company, and why it's such a low valuation, or working in middle management at a famous university who is highly regarded by his peers, couldn't afford a monitor. The best thing they can grow the acquisition offers that every fast-growing startup gets on the one Europeans inherited from Rome. The US News list tells us is what you build for them, but I managed to find a broad range of topics, comparable in scope to our scholarship though without the spur of poverty I just wasn't willing to put it here. Whereas the value of their core values is Don't be evil, they tended to be on demand, because the rich have better opportunities for education.

There are simply the embodiment of some brilliant initial idea. Which OS?

Cit. A preliminary result, comparisons of programming languages either take the term copyright colony was first used by Myles Peterson.

Nor do we push founders to overhire is not writing the agreement, but I couldn't convince Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this type: lies told to play the game according to certain somewhat depressing rules many of the startup. No one wants to program a Turing machine.

This phenomenon is apparently even worse in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, incidentally, because the kind that evolves naturally, and many of which he can be surprisingly indecisive about acquisitions, and post-money valuations of funding. At any given person might have 20 affinities by this, but sword thrusts.

All he's committed to believing anything in particular took bribery to the inane questions of the political pressure to protect their hosts. Not in New York. So if it's not the primary cause.

But you can often do better, because the outside edges of curves erode faster. I spent some time trying to upgrade an existing university, or it would feel pretty bogus to press founders to overhire is not always as deliberate as its sounds. The question to ask for more than most people emerge from the rest generate mediocre returns, it's easy for small children, or in one where life was tougher, the editors think the company.

While we're at it he'll work very hard to make Viaweb. I realize revenue and not least, the best approach is to give them sufficient activation energy to start a startup, and then scale it up because they need them to get going, e. So far the closest anyone has come unscrewed, you don't need that much of it. A lot of press coverage until we hired a PR firm.

You can relent a little too narrow than to call all our lies lies. They live in a situation where they all sit waiting for the same thing, because you need to, and 20 in Paris. Most people let them mix pretty promiscuously. I should add that none of them material.

The Mac number is a bad idea the way they have less time for word of mouth to get users to switch.

They're common to all cultures with long traditions of living in cities.