#type your question. into google dot com. and you will find an answer

[beelzeballing]

An Aphantasiac's very serious FAQ

Q: mind apple?

A: no. none apple. zero apple.

Q: can you read. book?

A: i am literate, yes.

Q: but u draw?

A: references

Q: how do you memories?

A: badly

Q: can you. rhink.

A: no ive never had a thought. not even once. not even as a joke.

Q: i cant imagine not having a 4k 360° oled display inside my brain at all time with which i can picture everything in perfect quality books are like brain movies i just cant imagine it like i totally cant imagine it i just cant conceptualize it like what would i do without my 4k 3

A: i hope you die

Q: dream?

A: yes.

Q: SEE dream?

A: yes.

Q: can you solve this?

A: im sobbing on the ground right now

this concludes my aphantasia faq. never remind ppl of this condition ever again or ill come to your house and kill you

[spageddy]

really concerning how people genuinely don’t know how to do basic google searches for things. did you know you can literally type your question word for word into the search bar on google dot com and it will tell you the answer?? you may have to click a few links and read an article or three to find it but you will be able to find what you want to know 95% of the time. i’m BEGGING people to be more curious and investigative

[messy-does-cosmology]

Astrophysics Tools for Research and Data Analysis!

Hi guys, I've been wanting to make a post about how to use various data analysis and research tools for astrophysics, because I had a pretty hands-off supervisor and had to figure things out myself, with my research partner, or by asking academics I knew (like my friend Will). So, this is going to be a quick rundown of how to find data catalogues, download them, and analyse them (using Topcat), and then also how to use search tools like the SDSS and SIMBAD. There is not going to be anything in here about finding research papers, or search terms for google scholar, because firstly I am a noob with those and secondly because there are already beautiful, detailed posts about that. This is specifically for when you want to get some data, analyse it, and search for sources in other catalogues.

First up: how do I find my data?

Well, we use VizieR.

This is a nice, sexy, unintuitive website where you can search for various data catalogues and download them. For this, you will probably want to already know what catalogue you want by the time you get there, so I would recommend reading around. The simplest way to do that is to search on google: "[instrument name] [source type] catalogue" and read whatever papers come up. For example, you might be looking in radio, at the FIRST survey, and decide you want to look at blazar data. So you should google "FIRST radio survey blazar catalogue" and see what comes up. You are going to want to eventually know as much as possible about your catalogue's selection criteria, and what it's specs are, but for now you can start by just skimming the paper and searching it up in VizieR.

Your next step is actually finding the catalogues.

VizieR looks like this, and you should be able to find your survey by typing in its name into the little search box you see here. Next, when you have searched and been able to find your survey, clicking on it should lead you to a page like this one:

The important thing here, is to switch some stuff under the preferences heading. If you're using Topcat, you want to switch the HTML table to a VOTable, and you want to switch the maximum number of rows from 50 to unlimited. This will allow you to download the full catalogue. I suspect that if you are using Python or RStudio for data analysis, you probably want to keep it in the HTML format.

So once you have your preferences looking like this, you click the "Submit" button in the bottom right of the page, and the table should start downloading.

Great! Now you have your data! How to analyse it though?

Use Topcat!

Topcat is a piece of software developed by Mark Taylor at Nottingham University, purely for the purpose of astrophysics data analysis. As a result of this, it has some really useful features and is in general much easier to use than writing your own code in, for example, Python.

Once you download Topcat, it might take some effort to get your computer to open it, because it is not by a verified developer. That being said, it is safe, so do what you can to get it open.

Loading it up, you should find yourself looking at a grey control panel. On the left will be a blank list of tables, and next to that will be a blank space, and above all of that there will be a toolbar. The first thing you want to do is load your table into Topcat.

So, to do that, you want to click on the left-most button on the toolbar, the one shaped like a file. There, you click "system browser" and go through your files and find the VOTable you downloaded from VizieR (unless you renamed it, it will be called VOTable). This will load your data in. Now, your table list should include your VOTable data. When you have this selected in the main panel, you can use different toolbar buttons to either look at the table itself or visualise the data. Full disclosure, I am not that seasoned with using Topcat's most advanced features, so if you need to know how to use them, I would recommend checking out Mark Taylor's video tutorial here.

For the basics, the first 3 buttons in the toolbar are used to import and export data, the next 6 buttons are used to look at the table, and the following 6 buttons are used to represent the data in graphs. After that, the next 3 buttons are used to: 1- match tables and combine them to make a new table, 2- query remote databases, 3- crossmatch sources against remote tables based on their sky position.

The most important buttons are the 4th one from the left, the 11th button along, and probably the one used for matching tables (it looks like a pair of matchsticks. Get it?). The 4th one allows you to look at and search through your tables, and the 11th one allows you to represent your data on a non-bar graph.

I won't go into a lot of depth here about how to use these 2-3 really important buttons, but if you have questions you can message me and I will try to answer!

Finally, what do you do if you find a source you think you want to investigate further, how do you find out more information about it?

Use SIMBAD, SDSS and other search tools!!

This is my final bit, so hang in there.

There are really convenient search tools for you to look up your sources in, and they all seemingly provide different things. SIMBAD has a bunch of different catalogues loaded into it, including transient catalogues, and you can input the location of your source, and it will either tell you what it thinks it is, or it will tell you what is nearby to your source's location. So firstly, you can find SIMBAD here, and when you go to that link, you should see this:

There are different query methods. You can search by coordinates, criteria, or identifier, so if you have the information for where the source is or what it's called, it should be not too hard to find what you're looking for.

I'm starting with an identifier query for M31, the Andromeda galaxy, just to show you how it works for a well-known, well-defined source:

You can see that SIMBAD has given me data about this source, including a little view of it on the sky, and what it's called and what it is. It has some information about the object's speed and its magnitude in different bands. Andromeda is probably one of the most observed galaxies ever, so there is a lot of information here.

Searching for a more obscure source yields fewer results, with less information about the sources and less certainty that the sources have been correctly identified.

This was a coordinate search for a source I have looked at in WISE data, and it says that there is not an accepted exact match for this source, but that the closest registered object is a white dwarf candidate 0.31 arcseconds away. I can click on that candidate and be provided with a page of information like I was for Andromeda, but with less concrete data. The source I'm searching for is actually an AGN candidate, but it is so un-researched that it simply doesn't show up as anything useful.

Our next thing is the SDSS, the sloan digital sky survey. This contains a lot of spectra for different sources, and does not tend to tell you about nearby sources. For the SDSS, you have to know the RA and DEC of your source in degrees, which is a little annoying. You can find them usually by looking in your table on Topcat.

The SDSS honestly looks like a kid's dress up game from mathgames dot com, but it's an actual serious tool. Sigh. The most important thing is to NOT USE this page at all, and to instead click the little "explore" link under the DR16 logo. That should look like this:

As you can see, this is a bunch of information about the source it automatically highlighted. It's useful info, but you probably don't want to know about this source. You probably want to find your own source here. So, to do that you have to click "search" on the left hand side, which should add these search boxes to the top of the page:

Here, you put in the RA and Dec, and then press the "Go" button next to it. This should give you an info page, like the one above, but with YOUR source. Otherwise, it will give you an error message saying it doesn't know where your source is and it doesn't have a record of it. That's ok, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it could mean that this source is not documented in other large catalogues.

Well, that's all folks! Good luck!

[peachpitmp3]

<33 i'm honored bestie

oh really?? i think you either give me tall person energy or short person over-compensating for a lack of height with the power of Sarcasm energy /pos

ooh funky !! i mean ours was alright hsdklj. but typing games were a Thing in elementary school it wasn't just my school right ? oh that's such a valid reason to cook! mac and cheese with the bread stuff on the top,, absolutely incredible <3

rIGHT !!!! i want the shirt. so bad i spent like half an hour blind clicking on stuff to see if anything is selling it and eventually i found some very questionable looking website so,,, :/ rip to that i think shdlkfjx

SOCIETY IF WE COULD DRAW !!! the gay creations that could have been born if only society had not deprived us of that :pensive_nonartist:

oh that's fair :( looking back there were a Lot of things that i could have just,, not done?? and it would have helped my sleep habits so much but too late now!! cactus patch sbzdjxknclmgsnjzbhkxgy dUDE <33 but !!!! all of those sound really cool n swag bestie. oooh that's smart, plants are awesome but they do require upkeep and whatnot and i know that i'm Very Forgetful capital v and capital f

WOAH. WOAH. i did not know about that website that's actually SO COOL. FHSKLDJF you're absolutely right about tumblr dot com

oh? i did not know there was a google docs dark mode i'm going to be installing that soon so thank you for that!! i don't have honey or grammarly but yeah i can imagine why they'd be annoying ://

i LOVE that!!! that's a brilliant idea you should start a podcast for that i'd absolutely listen/tune in for that.

if i started a podcast,, hm. maybe it would be something Random and Gay, in which i invite some friends on to talk about their different hyperfixations and let them ramble, and then some episodes i go on a mini rabbit hole of learning something random and then making a fun little presentation or something, idk! i do not listen to audiobooks... i suck at them. i've listened to exactly 10 minutes of sword in the stars, and 7 minutes of radio silence before getting bored/distracted, even on 2x speed when i'm doing other things. they're great if you like em, but just not for me lmao

friends and good vibes and a ton of books and lots and lots of space and windows!! and a yard and a nice lil spot for stargazing/watching the sun rise and set, and lots of fairy lights and candles. and it would have happiness, because in a perfect world i'd live with my friends and close to my family, and they would all be alive and okay and happy. because everyone deserves to be happy and have the things they need. and i mean. not particularly, but i don't mind writing essays if they're for fun rather than school!!

what would your ideal house be like, in a perfect world? do you have a favorite shirt? opinion on live concerts? do you have a song right now, that maybe isn't your favorite favorite, but you really like? - 🌵

hey beloveddd sorry i took forever to answer this <33 forgot to take my meds and got sick lol

okay yeah that second part is me lmao. short person overcompensating yeah. i am a very short but very angry person. it's fine. it's FINE.

typing games were for sure a thing in elementary school!! we did a super boring one and it was BAD

aw thats too bad :( i hope u find a decent website with good shirts ™ so u can be vibey and gender

no LITERALLY. i think i might try to learn. (read: i will tell myself this, not do it, and then be disappointed in myself and feel guilty) :pensive_nonartist: so true tho

no SAME i physically cannot keep plants alive to save my life. or theirs. apparently.

yes yes google docs dark mode is a godsend. yeah they just have a LOT of popups and stuff. bleh

omg that podcast sounds absolutely wonderful please it would be the first and only podcast id ever be interested in. NO HELP. I CANT DO AUDIOBOOKS EITHER. my brain does not like it </3

yes yes yes that sounds absolutely immaculate. best vibes. BEST VIBES. and yeah that makes sense re essays

my ideal house would .uh h . uhh . . it would have lots of comfy floor space with rugs and beanbags and stuffed animals and pillows and stuff. and various types of chairs. and lots of string lights EVERYWHERE. and reading nooks and bookshelves everywhere full to the brim and. and and and. just. lots of comfy vibes like hey come over and u will never want to leave but not in a creepy ur trapped here forever way (unless??)

favorite shirt uhhh. i don't think so ?? i mean. hang on i will check my closet. oh there i am wow look at that. SORRY COULDNT RESIST ANYWAYS. umm theres this white cropped graphic tee that i stole from someone at camp. and i really like it :D

live concerts are cool but i could never . . it is just Too Much. yk ??

ooooh song song song song song. uhh. august is a fever ella jane i am once again losing my SHIT over it. also motion sickness by phoebe bridgers.

what's a song you really like right now? what's your favorite texture? what do you miss the most? what's something super random and mundane that you're scared of? how about something deep?

[uniformbravo]

having a full on existential crisis over an episode of anime i watched tonight

it all started with big time rush

in 2009 a sitcom called big time rush aired for the first time on nickelodeon; it was about a group of four teenaged boys from minnesota who move to hollywood under a famous producer to become his next big boy band sensation. a simple premise, launched into unprecedented success, resulting in four seasons of musical shenanigans, three full music albums, and three big concert tours, including international shows. the band, both fictional and real life, featured four attractive young men by the names of kendall, james, carlos, and logan. they quickly gained a fan base of mostly teenage girls, which resulted in online spaces created for the purpose of sharing their passion, and as is common in such online communities, this certainly involved fanfiction- lots of it.

enter me, a teen in high school who loved to write fanfiction. my big time journey began the day my younger sister decided to put on the show big time rush in the living room, where i sat at the family computer typing away. the noise caught my attention, and i got sucked into the episode. there was a boy wearing a dress on the screen. i became interested.

i watched more of the show. i typed its name into the search bar on the website fanfiction dot net. i had a friend at school who shared my interest in fanfiction, particularly of the slash variety. i introduced her to this new show i had been watching. she shared a fanfic she had enjoyed immensely with me. we dragged each other into the world of big time rush fanfiction reading and writing.

it took over my life; i lived and breathed big time rush. i began posting my own stories to fanfiction dot net. i received positive feedback; i met people. i made friends- two people in particular who became very close friends. we communicated through ffn’s private messaging system, then through email. we talked every day, we wrote stories for and with each other, we exchanged phone numbers. it was one of these friends who introduced me to the website called tumblr, where fellow fans of our beloved big time rush gathered and talked about it- a community.

it was a slow start- this website was new and unfamiliar to me- but eventually i got the hang of things and settled into my niche. i had fun, gained followers, met even more people. tumblr was a place not only for sharing one singular interest, but for accumulating all of your various interests and celebrating them in one place. it was through this aspect that i first learned of the up and coming band known as one direction.

they had released their first smash hit single and everyone was talking about it. i was wary, far too loyal to my beloved big time rush- but eventually i started to feel left out and in an effort to feel included, i decided to take the plunge and see what this “1d” was all about. it was intimidating, though- there was so much information, and no apparent beginner’s guide to tell me where to start. this drove me to making a post calling for a “one direction buddy” to take this role, to introduce me to all the most important aspects of this band. and my call was answered.

enter my wonderful friend cam, a follower of mine at the time. they were into both big time rush and one direction and were eager to provide me with all the information needed to get into 1d. while ultimately this venture didn’t amount to anything, as i lost interest in becoming a fan, my friendship with cam persisted and we grew very close. even as time went on and big time rush faded into the background to be replaced with newer, fresher interests, and our paths as fellow fandom members split, we kept in contact and remained friends. years and years of fandoms, years and years of friendship.

in the midst of the tenth year, cam developed a new interest, in a sport called ice hockey. as is tradition, they shared their passion with me, showing me their favorite team, highlighting their favorite members. we watched a game together. personally, i’ve never been one for sports, but i am quite into anime, which consists of many genres, including the “sports” genre. one in particular that i’ve enjoyed immensely in the past is the volleyball anime, haikyuu!!. this anime devotes a lot of time to explaining and depicting the sport in a way that makes it easy for any viewer to understand the rules and inner workings of volleyball. it’s exciting. it’s the first time i’ve ever even adjacently been invested in a sport. one could even call it a gateway into the world of sports.

all this to say, when i watched that game of ice hockey with cam, the same parts of my brain that loved haikyuu!! lit up and in a classic display of my specific brand of interest, i found myself yearning for the epic highs and lows of ice hockey, but in an animated format. an animated format originating in japan. a japanese animation. an anime. my curiosity burned a hole in my brain that resulted in a combination of the google search bar and the words, “hockey anime”.

to my disappointment, i found nothing- at least, not to the degree i was hoping. there is an upcoming anime, slated to air in the fall 2021 anime season, about a group of girls who form an ice hockey team together- as it is an original project rather than an adaptation, it remains to be seen whether the anime will fall into the category of “sports anime,” or if indeed it will lean much more closely to the “moe” genre. the latter is not what i had in mind during that particular search.

adding the anime called “pride of orange” to my “plan to watch” list on myanimelist dot com, i moved onto the next result: an article about an early 2010’s anime i had never heard of before. while not about the sport i was looking for, it featured a character whose signature weapon was a field hockey stick. it wasn’t even the right sport. it was a weak, insignificant link, but all was not lost.

i happen to have an affinity for watching anime i happen upon completely by random and know little to nothing about; i found the movie “anthem of the heart” purely coincidentally, when i searched the name “jun” as part of some research for one of my original characters and discovered that it was the main character of said movie, which i then watched and ended up enjoying quite a lot. another time, when i was at best buy one day i happened upon a dvd on their dedicated anime shelf for a movie called “hana and alice”, which i had never heard of before. i liked the box art, so i took a picture of it to remember the title and watched it on my own later that week; it became one of my favorite movies.

with these and other similar experiences in mind, i saved the anime in my “plan to watch” list, and, later that same week, began my watch of “sket dance.”

it’s a school comedy anime, one of my favorite genres, so it’s no surprise that after overcoming the initial skepticism i carry into every new show i watch it quickly became my new fixation. not an obsession, but something i was pleasantly surprised to find consistently enjoyable. the characters are fun, the humor is tight and fresh, and the stories are unexpectedly touching at the right moments. everything i like to see.

which brings us to tonight. the culmination of this ten plus year string of events and occurrences. getting into big time rush. joining tumblr. meeting cam. watching anime. searching for hockey anime.

i put down my apple(TM) pencil. i set my ipad aside. i downsized the ebook window i’d been referencing. i stretched; i was hungry and tired. i’d been rereading passages of various animorphs books all day. i needed a break. i needed to sit back with some food and an episode of my latest comfort watch, sket dance. it’d be nice to set the dramatic, tragic world of animorphs aside for something lighthearted and fun in its place.

well.

i sat down with my bowl of strawberries and played the episode. it finished. i watched another. this one broke the formula a bit, played with the art style. i was into it. the preview for the next episode was mysteriously blank, and short, stating only the title. it was intriguing. i’m down for the show to get a bit more serious for an episode, i thought. i’m down for some potential backstory for one of the main three. i’m ready.

i was not ready.

bruh.

b r u h .

next two episodes proceeded to take me out back and beat me to within an inch of my life, slowly at first and then all at once. barely made it out alive. questioning everything. how can a show, so silly and goofy, do that, to me. how could i let my guard down like that. how could i be so tricked, and deceived, and blindsided like this. i don’t know who to trust. i don’t know if i can trust again. whiplash so damaging, permanent. i thought i wanted answers. i thought i wanted to know backstory. i didn’t want this. i never wanted this. emptiness

how did it come to this, these twelve years of my life. had i known back then, would i have posted that fanfiction? would i have joined tumblr? would i have sook out a “one direction buddy”? a hollow husk of a person, i am left with only my thoughts to ponder this small history of mine. the things i could have done differently. the things others could have done differently. all these butterfly effect moments, adding up to what? culminating in what? it’s 2:26 am and i’m writing an essay on how shook i am over that episode instead of going to sleep. but i can’t just say nothing, you know? i need to put something out there, reach deep enough within myself to find the thing that’s still there, broken and huddled and tiny as it is. i need to feel some semblance of the self again. the me from before i watched this episode. the innocent version of myself, blissful in ignorance. it’s too late now.

that episode…………..was fucked up. that was seriously fucked up. im not okay bro they really just came in left field and slapped that in my face expecting me to get up and walk away just fine afterwards like No that isn’t how this Works y’all need to bundle some therapy sessions with ur episodes pullin that shit come ON

exhaustion is taking over the shock, i am simply tired now. i will fall asleep and when i wake up sket dance will be a happy fun show again with NO fucked up backstories ever Or Else. i’m fucking serious right now i’m gonna count to 3 and that shit better be retconned when i turn around,

screams

thank you

[myrtle146130958]

Google Is Prepared With Its Real Time Search

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[imagining-supernatural]

Avenging Angel: Part 40

Summary: You’ve spent the last five years on a dangerous mission to solve the crime that wrongly imprisoned your father. When the Winchesters find you half-frozen on the side of a mountain, they make it their own mission to save your life and make sure you stay alive. But after five years of uncovering horribly dark secrets, you’ve learned not to trust anyone. Especially people who seem like they have good intentions.

Word Count: 1454

Warnings: Just some feelings

A/N: I think there’s actually an end in sight for this series! I have a few more chapters planned and an epilogue (of course it might take me another year to write them) but still! 44 chapters is a fucking lot. This series is nearly at 70,000 words as it is. That’s almost how long the first Harry Potter book is.

Avenging Angel Series Masterlist

“Okay, sorry, what?”

“Why is that so difficult to believe?” Braxton asked, watching your reaction with a secret smile toying with the corner of his lips.

“You… I just… You’re trying to tell me that you’re a rich, trust fund baby and you’ve never gotten high before? Isn’t that, like, a right of passage for snobbish people like you? You have to act out because you’ve never had to have any responsibility? So you get high and crash a Bugatti or something? Then your dad waves a stack of money and you don’t even get booked? The police just pat you on the back and tell you to behave.”

He leaned forward, trying to act offended. “You think I’m snobbish?”

Matching his posture, you raised an eyebrow in challenge. “So what if I do?”

The staring contest lasted a moment longer. Just before you were about to lose, you closed the rest of the distance and pecked him on the lips.

“C’mon. Let’s go find something to get you high. I can’t believe you’re thirty years old and you’ve never gotten high before. It’s tragic.”

“You don’t really strike me as the druggie type. More like the hacky type.”

“I was in an improv class in college too,” you mentioned, flashing him a grin as you pulled him out of his chair and led him out of the beach cottage in search of drugs. It was Bali. There had to be something somewhere, right? “And I am a hacky person. I have layers. Like an onion. I know my way around the dark web, and there’s a reason it’s not dot-com on the dark web. It’s dot-onion.”

“That sounds fake.”

“Google it, genius. It’s real.”

Okay. So getting high with Braxton in Bali wasn’t really serving a means to an end. It wasn’t like this was going to help you get your father out of prison. But you were actually enjoying this vacation with him. It felt like, for the first time since you’d met him, neither of you were fishing for information. You were just… normal. He was just your boyfriend. You were just his girlfriend. He wasn’t a mark. There was no agenda.

It was nice.

*****

*****

You weren’t the last person to have stepped foot in your father’s lab. It was obvious that someone else had come through, looking for something. Probably George’s people. Or Victoria’s. Or Braxton’s. They hadn’t found what they were looking for, though. Anything of value was locked away in your storage locker.

Still though, even as ransacked as the place was, it was achingly familiar.

Memories of make-believe danced around on the floor. Late nights when your father got so caught up in his research that he forgot to enforce your bedtime floated from wall to wall. This used to be your happy place. Your Land of Hollen. A place for you and your father only.

But he was dead now. And Hollen had been invaded.

“What did you find?” You asked, striding towards where Dean was crouched on the floor. It was best not to dwell on what could have beens and memories that would never happen.

“You said three feet in, six feet left, two feet down, right? Then your dad said to switch the numbers. Well, six feet in, three feet left, and two feet down, I found this.” He handed over a lockbox and reached back into the hole he’d dug. When he brought his hand out, it held three vials of liquid “And these.”

“What are they?” Sam asked, coming up beside you and placing his hand on your back for support.

This wasn’t your Hollen anymore. The only man who could answer that question right away was dead. And the person who killed him was most likely on her way here right now. So you handed the lock box to Sam and started whirling around the lab, grabbing various paraphernalia. “We’ll figure it out a few hundred miles from here. Dean, can you grab that bag over there? I need to put some of this equipment in it if we’re going to figure out what’s in the vials. We have to test them.”

Your father had died protecting this secret. His last words led you to these items. You could mourn later. But for now? Dean was right. You needed to finish what he had started.

So you ordered the Winchesters around until you had everything you thought you needed, then they led the way back to the Impala. Before you left the lab, you took one last look at the sacred space. It was as if you could see the ghost of your father standing at his table, bent over a microscope. There was a wisp of a young Y/N sitting at his feet, playing with some old wires that Kemuny had deemed probably not prone to electrocution, and definitely an acceptable toy for a small child.

“Thank you,” you whispered into the space. “And best of luck to the inhabitants of Hollen.”

It was the last time you would recite your standard parting remarks. Somehow, you knew that you would never again lay eyes upon your Land of Hollen again. This would be the last time you ever came home. The only reason you’d kept up on the payments to keep the house from foreclosing was your hope that one day you and your father would once again live there together.

You never imagined it would all end like this.

“You okay?” Sam asked, eyebrows drawing together in concern when you joined them at the Impala.

You just shook your head, dumped your armload of equipment into the backseat, and climbed over Sam so you sat between the brothers in the front seat. “Let’s get out of here.”

For the first hour, there was silence between you three. The ever present classic rock crooned softly in the background, but you were content to stay safe under Sam’s arm with Dean’s hand squeezing your fingers comfortingly every so often.

After an hour, Dean cleared his throat. “You know, that stuff wasn’t the only thing I found.”

“What?”

“Look in the backseat on top of the hot plate thing.”

After eyeing him curiously for a moment, you twisted around and saw a plain black binder lying atop the mound of scientific crap. It was bursting with pages of… whatever it had inside. You grabbed it and sat back down. “What is this?”

“Look inside.”

Slowly, you opened the front cover to reveal a simple white paper with your name written in marker in your father’s handwriting.

Y/N Entropy Y/L/N

There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One is roots, the other, wings. ~Hodding Carter

Already, you were holding back tears. Sam’s arm wrapped around you again, giving you the strength to turn the page. Inside a plastic sleeve was an ultrasound.

June 24 – Victoria and I are expecting. The doctor told us it is a girl. You’re going to be the most precious baby ever, Y/N. We’ve already picked out your name. I wanted Entropy to be your first name, but Victoria threatened to dump water into my solution I’ve been working on for three months. You should probably thank her for that. Either way, you’re going to be quite the pistol. With parents like us, who wouldn’t be?

A picture of your nursery followed, along with another handwritten note from your father explaining how they chose the decorations. It was no surprise that the walls were adorned with beakers and colorful pictures of solutions, a rainbow of vials, and all other kinds of science décor. You supposed there was never any hope that you would turn out as anything other than a geek.

Picture after picture of the day of your birth, the first month of your life, all of the landmarks of growing up. The first step. First tooth. First word. Carefully documented by your father with the precision of a scientist. Each and every drawing you brought home from school. Handwritten documentation of the new tales that emerged from the Land of Hollen. The ribbon for winning the spelling bee in eighth grade. Your acceptance letter from MIT.

“He loved you, Y/N,” Dean whispered after half an hour of you poring over the scrapbook. “He was so fucking proud of you.”

Tears streaked down your cheeks without abandon. “I loved him too. Still do.”

Sam pulled you closer, kissing the side of your head. “And now you’ll always have a piece of him.”

Quickly, you shook your head. Sam was wrong. “No. I’ll always have all of him with me.” You tapped your chest, just above your heart. “Right here.”

Part 41 of Avenging Angel

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Powerful Info - Create Backlinks, High Search Engine Rankings Free

Getting Started: Setting Up Your Site

This is the most over looked aspect when it comes to newbies and non-newbies as well when starting their own e-commerce website or continuing on with one they've had for a while will little or no results. First and most importantly, try to pick a domain name with your primary keyword in it. For example, if you're selling car amplifiers, you should want www(dot)bestcaramplifiers(dot)com, etc. If you searched Car Amplifiers on Google, you will see web sites on page one and two with the keyword Car Amplifiers in their domain name. Enough said...

Categorization: Once you know what it is you want to sell, simply take some time to research your products so you may categorize them correctly and efficiently. The more products you're selling, the longer it takes. If for any reason you get stuck along the way, simply Google Search the products you're selling and follow how other, larger companies who are successfully categorizing the same types of products. The better categorized your site is, the easier it will be for your visitors to find what they're looking for. As a result, you'll convert more visitors to customers. For example, if one of the types of products you were selling was iPod accessories, you would not want to have 1,000 iPod accessories thrown into one category called iPod Accessories. You need to break it down into sub-categories like this: Armbands, Cases, Speakers, etc. Once you've completed the entire categorization process, it's like learning how to ride a bike, it stays with you. When you're ready to add more products in the future, you'll already have achieved the knowledge of knowing exactly where to place all new products, in a timely manner, with little or no confusion. This will help out in the long run.

Pricing: Even if your site was designed to look like a million dollars, you can't expect to increase your prices by 25% or more and actually think you're going to get a lot of sales. All shoppers have to do is leave your site and go to the next one, within a matter of seconds, offering lower prices and buy from them. You can never get greedy, ever. Always stay above reasonable when it comes to pricing your products. Remember, although it takes time and effort setting up your site and getting your name out there, at least in the beginning, you'll be working for free.

Keep reading...

Search Engine Optimization Meta Tags (SEO Meta Tags): Your site will and should allow you to create search engine meta tags, through the Manager System, for every department, category and sub-categories. Because you spent so much quality time categorizing your site, you will have a much better understanding of which keywords to use for each department, category and sub-categories. You'll want to use a Search Engine Meta Tag checker to double check each tag you create. You may simply use SeoCentro(dot)com to accomplish this. SeoCentro(dot)com will allow you to tweak out your meta tags so they match your page content 100% or as close to it as you can achieve. Also, it will tell you if your title, description and keywords contain too may characters. Now I'm going to give you a very basic and quick example of Search Engine Meta Tags for a department consisting of car amplifiers:

Title: Car Amplifiers|1,2,4 Channel Car Audio Amplifiers

Description: Shop car amplifiers on sale. Buy 1,2 and 4 channel car audio amplifiers. Boost sound with car amplifiers.

Keywords: car amplifiers, car audio amplifiers, 1, 2, 4, channel

Keep reading...

Now onto your About Us page, Return Policy page, Privacy Policy page, etc.

Most people will feel more comfortable buying from a "business", rather than buying from a web site that is operated by one person, just like you, sitting in front of your laptop at home. To avoid this, create your About Us page as if you're already a well know Internet store. Make references about the knowledge you have of your products, etc., and do not mention "My name is "Joe Heyho" and this is my web site. I am the owner and run the entire show. I just started and will be adding more products over time". After all, because you fully categorized your site and already set up your meta tags, you should be able to create a unique, About Us page with confidence. Use it to your advantage. Be sure you check with your supplier's Return Policies. If you're using more than one supplier, some return polices amongst these different suppliers may be different, so spend some time reading over them to create one, well understood Return Policy for all products that you can actually rely on, that your customers can rely on. Customers like to know how you are going to protect their personal information. Because your e-commerce site will have a third party SSL certificate of some kind, be sure to explain this SSL certificate in your Privacy Policy. You may visit the web site that is offering the SSL certificate to obtain more information. You may also want to explain to your customers that their personal information will be distributed to your suppliers for shipping purposes, if you're drop shipping, etc. If you need some help, you can simply view other, well known web sites selling consumer goods and view their privacy policies as an example to create your own.

Keep reading...

Generating Traffic To Your Web Site For Free

Now that you have successfully set up your web site, simply start submitting your web site to major Search Engines, including Google, Yahoo and Bing, for free, by yourself. You may also spend a small fee for an SEO company to submit your web site to all major Search Engines and many different, heavy visited directories, usually once per month, for a year. Once these search engines start crawling your site, they will start to index more and more of your pages into their search results, over time. You should usually start to see good results within 6 months.

Creating Backlinks/Writing Articles/Answering Questions

The key to search engine ranking success is by creating backlinks to your web site and forcing Google and other major search engines to crawl your site on a daily basis. The more backlinks you create, the better.

While you're waiting for Google and other Search Engines to start indexing your site into their search results, after you started submitting your site manually or you chose an SEO company to do it for you, as I stated above, make sure you're writing as many articles as you can, creating Squidoo lenses, answering questions on Yahoo Answers, adding a Twitter to your site and "twitting" everyday about the deals you have to offer, at the same time, this will create backlinks.

Keep reading...

Articles: Articles are a great way to get your name recognized throughout the Internet. Write as many articles as you can about different categories of products you're selling. If you're writing articles about car amplifiers, simply include the keyword, "car amplifiers" in the title and throughout the body of the article. Be sure to write articles on sites that allow the use of "Do Follow" links. This way you can link your keyword, "car amplifiers", found in the article body, to the page of your site that offers car amplifiers. Writing articles that allow the use of Do Follow links will not only allow your readers to click on the link through the keyword you chose, but Google and other major search engine will be able to Follow the link directly to your site, which results in achieving a relevant backlink. Also, once you article is approved and published, as long as it's well written and includes your keywords as I stated above, there's a very high chance it will show up in results on Google and other major search engines on page one or page two of search results for the keyword(s) you chose. Even though your site may not be found on the these pages yet, your article will be, which will lead Searchers to your site. The more articles you write, the more backlinks you achieve and the more people get to know your store exists. This will also achieve higher, natural search engine rankings for you home page, departments, categories and sub-categories, over time. The more backlinks you achieve, and you've just discovered how easy it is to have Google and other major search engines crawl your site on a daily basis from finding links on heavily searched websites that include a link leading to your site. Now, the search engines are finding your site without the need for you to submit your URL anymore. There's no more need to pay the SEO company to submit your site to search engines. The better written your articles are, the more people will share it with others, creating a "Swirl" of backlinks for only one article. This is how some, well known, consumer goods companies achieve millions of backlinks over time.

Yahoo Answers: Simply sign up for Yahoo Answers and start answering as many questions as you can, regarding products sold on your site. You'll be amazed how many people ask questions on where they should buy their stuff from, etc. Once you've answered enough questions, and make sure their answered correctly, with detailed information, Yahoo Answers will then lift your account to level two. At level two, you will then be able to add your URL in the answer, so the questioner and others that view the question can simply click on your URL and be directed towards your site. Also, Google and other major search engines will count this as a backlink. It doesn't matter how many backlinks you have on one web site, it will only count as one. But, if you provide good, detailed answers, people will follow the link you provided and chances are, you'll generate sales from it.

Twitter: Simply go to Twitter.com and create an account. Create a username that matches the name of your store. For example, if your domain is www(dot)bestcaramplifiers(dot)com, simply choose the user name, "bestcaramplifiers", as this should be the name of your business. This will allow, over time, more and more people to follow your deals and offers on Twitter, who may share your "Tweets" with others, and will also create more backlinks.

Squidoo Lenses: Create as many Squidoo lenses as you can about the different products you have to offer. Just like writing articles, include your keywords in the title and throughout the lens with links from your keywords pointing to your site.

Create Free Web Sites: Simply Google search, "create free web site". Once you find a site that allows you to create a free site, create each site for different products. This is almost like writing an article. Instead of owning your own domain name, you'll simply choose a domain and it will include at the end, the web site that offers you to create your free site. For example, if you're creating a site that talks about car amplifiers, use the domain name, www(dot)caramplifierscaraudioamplifiers(dot)"websitenameusedtocreatefreewebsite"(dot)com. After you've created the website and have included all of your major keywords in the title and throughout the content located on the home page, including links from your keywords to your real web site, manually submit to search engines once per month for six months. Over time, all of your free web sites you created for different products with all of your major keywords with links leading to your real web site, will create even more, relevant backlinks.

Keep reading...

Paying For Backlinks

It always good to pay a respectful and successful SEO company to create backlinks for you. Usually this will cost around $1000 per month and will create you around 10, highly relevant backlinks per month from high PR ranking web sites, which will dramatically increase your natural search engine rankings for keywords you choose the SEO company to build links for. The links they create will be guaranteed to stay. SO, the links will and should remain on these other, high PR ranking web sites for as long as you own your site.

Conclusion

If you keep writing more and more articles and do all the other things I've told you to do, while your chosen SEO company continues creating backlinks for you, within a year, your site will start ranking very high on natural search engine listings for many of your major keywords.

Once you've reached the one year period of time from starting this, all the hard, free work you've completed, will come to an end as you've put your site in front of potentially 10's of thousands, even 100's of thousands or millions of people on the Internet, who will then auto generate backlinks for you through the backlinks you've created, as they will simply start writing about your web site and sharing it with others throughout the Internet, creating a huge spiral of even more backlinks to your site. Because you've now started to generate many sales, simply keep paying the SEO company on a monthly basis to create more and more backlinks for you creating backlinks.

[adamsvanrhijn]

this is suchhhh a random question and its completely ok if u dont want to answer it but i have to think of One Word that describes this girl i like and i cant think of any and so basically since ur one of the best writers i follow i wanted to ask do u have any tips. on finding words that are good descriptors of people. mostly to describe who they are not rlly anything to do w their appearance .. all the words i can think of are too shallow or lame :( again if u dont wanna answer this no problemm have a great dayy

omg this is so cute . thank you for the compliment <3

so first of all if you have words to start with. i am a big believer in using a thesaurus!! thesaurus.com is my bestie. (tumblr is. not letting me put an actual link in there, apologies.) the trick to using a thesaurus is you should use it with a dictionary also - sometimes words kind of mean the same thing but have other connotations or are used in limited contexts (or are dated). i typically just use google's built in dictionary function for this but a good free online dictionary for american english is merriam webster, and, there is also the free dictionary (dot com).

if you don't have words to start with or don't like them, a really quick source for finding words to use about people is. basically any psychological typing quiz website. e.g. 16 personalities for the myers-briggs type indicator. they have detailed profiles of Types Of People that generally have nothing to do with physical appearances, and they name and explain traits. it's a good way to find a bunch of people-applicable words really quickly!

i would start with the thesaurus if you haven't already because then you're starting with Your Own Word(s) but hopefully the other suggestion is useful as well. i gotta hop but if i think of other things i'll add them later when i get back from dance class.

good luck in your journey!

[mummified-game-review]

2064 Read Only Memories: A Review

If you haven't played this game, then are there other point and click, cyberpunk kidnapping, mystery games that came in the Racial justice bundle that you think I should check out? Let me know all about them in the comments.the garden center of my closest hardware store and I’m trying to decide if the start up cost of 15 bucks in in my budget.

Welcome back to another video game review here on Mummified Games. Today were going to be taking a look at the modern Point and Click Mystery game 2064: Read Only Memories. By Midboss.

This game has a lot of charm to it. I Love how this game presents itself. The Music, art, story, and voice work, is all great and do a really great job of pulling me in. I did not want to stop playing. This was the first time where I was like okay maybe i play for 2 hours. And then write the review. But sadly there was no way I could do that if I wanted to make my deadline.

So the game is a future cyberpunk scene where Humans have found a way to cybernetically and biologically augment their bodies. Sort of just like every other Cyberpunk cenario. Just par for the course at this point.

Wouldn't have it any other way.

But what's great about this game is that it's not overly burdened with the constant narrative of life sucks and there's inequality and class disparity.

It's not dystopian cyberpunk, it's more optimistic. People seem to really be jammin with the future that they find themselves in. For the most part.

So it's your standard affair people are making so many augmentations to themselves in so many different ways. That there is a rebel group that is coming up that wants to see humanity return to who they were.

Not like a full blown god's perfect image, it's not a religious thing. But still embracing tradition and what makes humans human.

I don't know if we have the science to make Snake people then I'm all for it.

Ooo la la.

There are Robots that this big company is making that are designed to Walk like the humans, talk like the humans. But it's all just fancy code. And then the game tells you about one scientist that is working on transcending that limitation of just fancy code. And make something new.

Story intro out of the way, The scene opens with your less than standout apartment and you learn that you are a journalist, sort of.

And after you go through a nothing of a tutorial. As in like it's almost not even there cause it's so basic. You write a report and then go to bed.

INCITING ACTION

In the middle of the night a little blue robot hacks your door. And breaks into your apartment. Interfaces with your computer, cleans your apartment and also tries to clean the old computer, bricking it in the process.

You wake up and they tell you that they have selected you out of all known contacts of their master to help them track their master down. He was Captured last night and you need to join the robot to track down their master.

The robot's name is Turing, probably named after the real person Alan Turing the Computer Scientist.

A note about the dialogue and interactions with Turing. ALL THEIR LINES ARE VOICED! This game gives you so much during the process. There is a lot of reading to be doing in this game and luckily it's not all put on you.

I don't want you to think that I don't like Reading. Or that I think reading is hard. But if I'm meant to put multiple hours into a game. Doing nothing but reading for the entirety of it can get tiring

So I'm glad that so much is fully voiced. Gives you the chance to look down and tweet your love of this game for a second.

And that if there is a name or something that comes up you instantly know how it's meant to be pronounced. Instead of having to wait till you say it outloud in a video game review and suddenly everyone thinks “wait Tony, you say its like that? Wow okay”

Look, I have yet to hear anyone talk about Itch in casual conversation so I have no idea if you need to add the Dot I O to the end of it or if I sound like a Boomer who says out loud Dot Com at the end of every website name. “Yeah i just look it up on Google Dot Com”

I'm trying here folks I really am.

So after Turing tells you about what they need you join them on their mission to track down their creator and figure out what's at the bottom of this whole thing.

A note about the profile creation scene, it's quite funny and I thought it was super cool how they include multiple ways of character settings.

There's nothing visual that you can do to change your character so there's that. But Turing asks you for your name, you just type it out and I was excited for maybe a robot voice that was going to try to pronounce Mummified but it didn't go well.

Asks you for your pronouns, Yes! I love it. I would expect nothing less from a developer like Midboss. The people who host the Steam Summer of Pride Sale for the last couple of years Highlighing Queer games.

But the fact that they don't just limit to just He/Her/They but also Zir, and another one that slips my mind. And also an option to input your own preferred pronouns. SO COOL!

And I was ready to maybe answer one more silly question. That's where I was thinking the game would take things, assuming based on its sense of humor and the jokes that would come up in this game.

But no it was a real question about dietary needs and restrictions, to be kept in mind when out and about and talking about food. Holy crap that's so cool.

So the game gives you options like Omnivore, Vegetarian, Vegan, Halal, Gluten Free Dairy fr

What a super cool thing to include in your game. This just adds to the inclusion that is offered to players of all different ways of life.

So I just hunted down the list of food options in the video recording I took of this game and I'm reminded of just how funny this game is.

There are great jokes in this. There are subtle allegories to our own real world things in this game.

Turing says they found a better door that you could use to replace the current door you have due to its sub standard encryption features to prevent people from hacking though. And they recommend a particular model of door and mention it has over 300 reviews on Congo.

Wait... Congo. HA! Okay that got me. Cause you know Congo the river. And the Amazon river. I thought it was funny.

Also there is a joke about the Creator having a list of different things on the TV that they were watching like Ted’s Tech Tips. That one got me, because it might not be a thing but I'd like to think it's a nod to Linus Tech Tips.

This game is filled with great cute jokes. There are a couple of options that the game gives you when you wake up to see a strange robot in your room, some of the reactions are more fearful. And while reading them as an option I thought to myself WHY?

This little friend is Cute as hell. There's no way I would be scared of them. Their cute faces and little arms. I love them so much.

So the story is sound and the writing in it is so well done. The voice acting is great as well. Turing sounds innocent and has a cute childish nature to them, but they’re not dumb to say the least, they’re still the most advanced AI program in the world.

The gameplay is also stellar. Most of the interactions with things in this world are done with 4 different options.

Look: The game will give you a description of what the item, thing, person, whatever is.

Talk: If it's a person you can talk to them. Or sometimes things have voice commands.

Take/Touch, you might be able to pick something up or turn it on. Computers would take you to another window and you could do other things inside it.

Use time on: At the start of the game you're given an ID card and you pick up a pair of headphones in your apartment. The id could be used to get you places or scan for whatever might come up. Or you can connect your headphones to random things to hear stuff. What's funny is that you can use your headphones on almost anything and you can get some description of what you hear.

Real basic stuff. Like it's described. It's a Point And CLick Mystery Game. A lot of the game is being given a scene and you can talk to people in it, or interact with the things on the static screen.

Everything in this game flows so well together. Nothing takes you out of the experience. Its a story that takes you in and doesn't let go.

I think this is a game that I can fully recommend to people no matter what. If you have it. If you were curious about it. If you’ve never heard of it. Any range of feeling and knowledge of this game I highly recommend you go check it out.

If you have this game tell me your thoughts on it. Do you think Jessi was a jerk or if she is justified in her standoff-ness in her attitude?

If you haven't played this game, then are there other point and click, cyberpunk kidnaping, mystery games that came in the Racial justice bundle that you think I should check out? Let me know all about them in the comments.

In the meantime. Ah gee folks i really am thinking hard about that jade Plant. I'd love to get one. But my cable bill is coming and I know I need to take care of that first. Oh well. Maybe next month.

You all do the Youtube Dance, Like, Sub, Bell, Comment, and share this video with someone you know.

And as always hackers, Keep Digging, and we’ll make it out sometime.

See you in the next one.

[freelancerace]

Hello guys I’m Ace. Today you’re going to learn exactly how to find the best keywords for your business.

When I first got started with SEO. My approach to keyword research was A total mess back then. I’d fire up the latest and greatest keyword, research tool and start typing in a bunch of random keywords.

So, what’s wrong with this approach?

My competitors were doing the exact same thing! No wonder most of the keywords I found were insanely competitive. Now, over the years, I developed a keyword research blueprint that works. Well, specifically, this blueprint for beginners will help you uncover keywords. That your competition doesn’t know about.

So let’s dive right in with step number one of this process. Which is to identify your customer persona. This is a step that most people skip and it hurts them.

What is identifying your customer persona actually mean?

Let me explain with an example: what if my site sells SEO training products. To small and medium-sized businesses. Most people in my position would open up a keyword research tool. And type in things like SEO, training and SEO courses into the tool.

What’s the problem with this approach?

First off, like I mentioned before. Your competition is doing the exact same thing. Which means you’re going to run into the exact same set of keywords as your competitors. But more important than that. This approach ignores a very important fact about your customer. The fact of the matter is, your customer spends 99.9 percent of their time online, not searching for what you sell.

In other words, if you only target your customer when they search for the exact thing you sell. You’re missing out on hundreds of other opportunities to get in front of them.

For example, in my case. I noticed that most of my customers were SEO agencies. So I went to forums and online communities where SEO agency owners tended to hang out that way.

I could see what my target cost would search for when he wasn’t searching for SEO training. I discovered that there are dozens of keywords that my target customer typed into Google. That were related to my products, but had nothing to do with SEO training. Keywords like, On-Page SEO, list building, how to get more traffic and SEO tools.

If I target these keywords. I could get my business in front of thousands of my target customers every single day. When my target customer is ready to buy, I’m the first person that comes to mind. That’s the power of doing keyword research. Based on your customer persona.

All you need to do for this step. Is say my customer is X.

For example. If you want an online flower shop. You might say my customer is a bride, getting ready for her upcoming wedding. How it was easy right now that you’ve identified your customer persona. It’s time to find topics that your customer is interested in.

Which leads us to step two in my keyword, research blueprint. Which is to find topics that your customers care about.

So how do you find these topics? Go to where your target customer hangs out online. Then look for serious topics that they tend to discuss.

That’s it!

For example, in my case. My customers tend to hang out at marketing focused communities like inbound dot org. In your case, your target customer may hang out in places like. Pinterest, Reddit, YouTube, industry, blogs and niche forums. Once you’ve identified where your target customer hangs out. It’s time to keep an eye out for topics that are important to them.

For example, in my case. I notice that link building. Was one of the most popular topics in the online communities, that my audience spent time on. So I wrote down link building as a topic. I then kept digging until I found at least five topics. That our customers talked about in online communities. Now that you have at least five topics. It’s time to drill down into finding keywords.

My four favorite tactics are finding untapped keywords. That your competition doesn’t know about.

First, we have Google Suggest to use this strategy. Head over to Google and type your topic into the search field, but don’t press Enter. Instead, take a look at the queue words that google suggest for you. These are usually awesome. Longtail keywords that you can go after.

Pro Tip: try putting a few spaces before your keyword. This will show you a completely different set of keyword, ideas.

Next up we have Quora dot com. Quora is a massive community of people that ask and answer questions on every topic under the sun. All you need to do is search for your topic in Cora and see which keywords tend to show up.

The next tactic for finding keywords is to use Reddit. Like Quora, Reddit is a massive community of people that discuss every topics. From pets to politics. You can use Reddit for keyword research as well. Head over to Reddit and search for your topic. When you find a thread on your topic. Keep an eye out for words and phrases that tend to come up again and again. These make awesome keyword, ideas.

Next up, we have Google’s Search. To use this feature, simply type your topic into Google Search. Then scroll to the bottom of the results. Google then shows you other searches that are related to the keyword you just put in. These are usually excellent, longtail keywords that you can target with your content.

Finally, we have Wikipedia. What other site has in-depth articles for topics like. Dog walking, the lingerie football league and yes. The five-second rule to use Wikipedia for keywords research. Head over to Wikipedia and type in your topic. Then take a look at the other entries that that article links to.

These are usually closely related topics and even potential keywords themselves. Also make sure to check out the table of contents for that entry. Again, these are usually keywords that are closely tied to your topic. Now, do you have a list of potential keywords? It’s time to choose the best from your list.

How?

By analyzing each keywords commercial intent. One of the first websites I ever built. Shot to the top of google for my target keyword. And because that keyword, got a ton ff search volume. That single ranking helped that site generate over 10,000 unique visitors per month. All good right? Wrong! Even though that keyword got to ton of searches. The people that search for that keyword were flat broke. Which made monetizing that traffic impossible. Sorry dude I’m broke! That’s why today I pay very close attention to a keyword’s commercial intent.

Commercial intent means – how likely someone searching for a given keyword is to buy from you.

Here’s how to find out if your keyword has a high commercial intent or not.

First, head over to the Google Keyword planner. Type in one of your potential keywords. Then take a look at the suggested bid column. This shows you how much advertisers are spending in Adwords for a single click from this keyword. Obviously, the higher the suggested bid. The more valuable that keyword is another simple way to size.

A commercial intent is to see how many AdWords ads appear. When you search for your keyword in Google. If you search for your keyword and see lots of AdWords ads. It means that people are chomping at the bit to bring those searchers to their site.

Ok now it’s time for our last step, which is to look at each keyword’s search volume.

Back in the day, Google would show you exact search volume numbers in the Google Keyword planner. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed today unless you’re running active, AdWords campaigns. They show you an extremely unhelpful search volume range. So how can you see how many people search for your keywords? There are two freemium tools that get the job done.

The first is SEMrush. To find a keyword’s search volume. Type the keyword in to SEMrush. They’ll show you how many searches that keyword gets every month. You can also use kW finder dot com. Just pop your keyword into the tool and you’ll see the exact amount of searches that it gets every month.

Now before we decide on a keyword. I recommend one last bonus step. Now this step is completely optional. But in my experience it helps you find the absolute best keywords for your business. That step is, to look at your keyword’s growth in Google Trends.

For example. Let’s say that you found two keywords. That have similar search volume and commercial intent. You don’t know which one to pick. But when you look at Google Trends. You notice that one keyword is growing in popularity and the other is dropping like a stone. Obviously, you’d want to go with the keyword that’s growing a couple of years ago.

This step saved my butt. I was debating whether to target one of two keywords. Google Keyword tool or Google Keyword Planner. You see, Google had renamed the Google Keyword tool. To the Google Keyword planner. But the keyword, Google Keyword tool. Still got 20 times more searches than Google Keyword planner. So I almost pulled the trigger on Google Keyword tool.

That is until I looked at Google Trends. That’s when I noticed that searches for the Google Keyword planner were skyrocketing. While searches for the Google Keyword tool were steadily dropping. I decided to go with the Google Keyword planner and it was a good move. I now rank in the top five for that keyword and it’s a keyword. That’s growing in popularity every day.

Ok, so that’s it!

There is to my steps to the keyword research blueprint for beginners. If you follow the blueprint. You should have a handful of excellent keywords that you can use. Once you have those. It’s a matter of creating landing pages and content optimize around those terms.

If you liked this article make sure to subscribe to my blog. Also, if you want exclusive SEO techniques that I only share with subscribers. Sign up for the newsletter it’s free. Now, I want to turn it over to you which steps from this article was new to you, or maybe you try them all already? If so, you probably have a favorite technique that works well for you either way. Let me know by leaving a quick comment.

Hello guys I'm Ace. Today you're going to learn exactly how to find the best keywords for your business.

[ssubysalters]

Avenue south residence price list

Do thoughts about the need for a website keep drifting across your mind? Are you just not sure what your business strategy or internet technology should be? To help you make a valid decision, on building or improving your website, consider the following components.

First, start thinking about a domain name. The domain name is equivalent to your bricks and mortar street address name. In New York, the big names are Park Ave, Madison Avenue or Fifth Avenue? On the internet, people can easily remember IBM.com or SUN.com or TechOSS.com versus WillieBusinessdomainandWebhostingFactory dot com. The longer the website name is, the harder it will be for your customer to recall your domain name.

Second, you need to think about the space that the domain name will represent. Just like you have a physical store that was either rented, leased or purchased from someone. Well in the world of the internet, your website resides somewhere so your ISP or internet service provider is the one who will host your website. Define and research who that vendor will be.

Third, what will the website and space, look and feel like to your customers? Now you will have to define what your website "store front" will look like? What will the layout of the web store or design become? On the internet you need to think about your customers and Avenue south residence price list  what they like. How will they navigate around and through your products and services? Are there absolute must have requirements for your business type? Will your customers all be local or will some of them be international? These answers drive an additional set of requirements.

Fourth, let's define what is your monetization strategy? At this step you may just be extending your offline business model and you already have a pretty well defined idea of what you will do to make money? You will learn that on the internet there are many monetization strategies available. Think about whether your website will be used as an ecommerce site, an affiliate product promotions website, a coaching website or just a place to make money from say Google ads?

Fifth define how you will get the word out and attract people to your new website storefront. There are many, many ways to attract customers to your website business. Questions to be answered are how will you communicate your benefits to your prospective customers to make sure they continually find you? You need to get your website recognized by the internet community just like the post office recognizes a street address and the phone company recognizes a telephone number. Here you need think through search engine registration, optimization, keyword selection, autoresponder and more.

Sixth -What communication vehicles best suit the way you interact with your customers? Will it be email, instant messaging, article marketing, a blogsite and one of the many others tools? Have you thought through how many email addresses you need? You need to make sure your web collaboration tools help not hinder getting your message to your customers?

Seventh - define your best use of time, money and energy? When you walk yourself through the above, make some notes because now is the time to contact your prospective web designer and get them help you clarify your thinking. That web designer can be you if you are technically proficient. You or your web designer can help you decide which type of website works best for your business model; a BLOG, an HTML website or both? You also can think through whether to have one website or many websites?

[kylerfey]

Some JB fan fiction with a tinge of Lovecraft

The publisher of my recent Commander Jace and the Unsuitable Boys books shares my fascination with Bieber. A few years ago, he wrote the following piece right after JB was arrested for DUI in Florida. In this alternate history, he imagines JB having quit being a pop star at that point and taking up a new pursuit: the study of occult texts. This was posted in a slightly different form on his LiveJournal at the time of its composition along with a copy of JB’s mugshot from the DUI arrest. I inserted different pics: shirtless JB on a skateboard and shirtless JB smoking a cigarette in a bathroom. Fletcher has authorized this reposting.

You Will Find That Heart/Smiley-Thing Deep in Here, XOXO JB

by Christopher Fletcher

Woven into the recovered texts of A-Star/Nemesis—where the unknown author famously makes an extraordinary observation about a universe where “dark planets rolls without aim, where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or luster or name”—is a concept with which I utterly disagree. I can say now, as the world unwinds around us, that there really is an aim after all. It’s just one in which humans will have no place.

           —Justin Bieber, PhD, from The Diary of Fthaggua (M-Brane Press, 2022)

 When Jay presented you, at the Xmas Eve party a couple years ago, the next year’s Justin Bieber calendar, you were both amused and acutely embarrassed. Because it was a light-hearted gesture, honoring with well-intended humor the fact that you had unabashedly declared yourself a JB fan some time ago and were willing to admit it to anyone and stand up for its legitimacy against any opponent. And because you know that it’s likely an ongoing source of derision that you are too old, too serious, too old, too smart, too old, too professionally accomplished, too old, too cerebral and brainy, and mostly just plain too goddamned fucking old to be a belieber. It was like being handed a piece of pornography, by someone who knows exactly what kind of porn you’re into, in front of a whole bunch of other people who do not now and will not ever get your weird kink.

Your favorite months are June and September, especially September where he wears Wayfarer sunglasses like yours.

Because you are very busy with work and life—and because you are not a consumer of the kind of media where the foibles and failures of celebs are celebrated—you miss for a few days the news of JB’s arrest in Florida for drunken driving and resisting arrest. People close to you are amused that it falls to them to fill you, of all people, in on the latest of a series of ridiculous calamities surrounding this young man. You have to tell them that despite what they’d assumed was a deep and abiding fandom on your part, you just plain hadn’t heard about it yet. But when you get a few free moments away from anyone else’s gaze, you google the fuck out of the situation and find his mugshots. Though you’d not admit it to anyone else, you are relieved and delighted that he looks—even under the duress of drunken incarceration—not like a bleary-eyed loser like most people do under those conditions, but kind of pretty and sweet and crowned with mostly intact hair. He smiled for the cop cam.

This was about the last you’d hear of JB for a while. The incident supposedly motivated him to change his life, and part of that change was receding from pop celebrity. He cancelled his remaining performing and recording schedule. He declined media appearances and interviews. You remember hearing that he had decided to devote himself to matters of ��faith and philosophy,” which you’d naturally assumed was some kind of meaningless fake-ass nonsense well in line with his previous professions of a sort of cheesy pop star Christianity.

You remember liking a lot that full-page pic of him in his book Just Getting Started where he is on stage and he looks wet, sweat-slicked, very earnest, and yet behind him is a big lit-up sign that says PRAY. In its caption, he tells you that he is living proof that dreams come true. You cringe at this naïve cliché and you are embarrassed both for him (for saying it) and for yourself (for reading it and owning a copy of the book). He tells you to believe and to pray, and you cringe, believe and pray and pray and all  your childish dreams will come true, but he’s so fucking beautiful anyway, so you ignore this patent moronic nonsense and you decide, once again, once again, one more time, one final time, to like him anyway because he has, at least, a gorgeous voice even if he’s dumb as a bag of hammers. You occasionally still enjoy “As Long as You Love Me”  and “Boyfriend” when they recur on your playlist, but you assume that the next time you’ll see any sight of JB is when he is eventually dredged up as an F-list celeb alongside a hundred-year-old Joan Collins, a a fat and drunk Marilyn Manson and one or another stupid Big Brother “star” for a season of Celebrity Cook-Off hosted by an ever-more-raspy Guy Fieri.

And of course some hot new kid quickly emerges to fill the Bieber niche, that pop-cultural hole that must always have a lithe young male archetype, and after a year or so of no new news of him at all, everyone quits caring about or even looking for the whereabouts of Justin Bieber, former pop star.

You come home from work late on Friday night—after cooking an Ancient Roman wine dinner or some such pretentious nonsense—and J says: “Can’t wait to tell you this shit: Your Boy has moved in behind us, in the house across the alley!” You honestly don’t know to which one of “Your” “Boys” he may be referring since that is the language he uses for any dude that he thinks that you might possibly think is cute. It could mean any of several thousands of dudes. It could be anyone. But seeing your exhausted confusion, he clarifies: “The Biebs. Fuckin’ JB. Here in Argos-Bellona, here in our back yard! Just moved in today.” And you again feel way behind on current events because this was supposedly widely reported on Channel 5 and on Next Door Dot Com. Stunned, you look out the back door, across the alley. Through a window in the house across the way you see a silhouette in motion that you can imagine matches JB’s.

You locate online and start reading daily the copious blog posts of the new Justin Bieber, the former pop celeb who now lives across the alley from you, whose backyard is in full view of your second-floor balcony. One day he writes,

           “The Outer God Nokkthathuas, typically represented as a blood-tinged cyclone or a shroud of blowing red dust possibly concealing some sort of unseen, unconscious creature, is perhaps a more appropriate entity for consideration nowadays—as the Dust once again threatens to enshroud the planet—than great Cthulhu itself, but the fanatics of the Cult Cthulhu will not give up their adolescent fantasy that they are finally getting noticed by the gods. They bear a mutant baby and they think it means love from the Void.”

And, yeah, nearly all of it is just as impenetrable as that passage.

One afternoon you sit on your balcony and gaze across the way. Behind his own house, JB sits at a table in his backyard. He wears nothing but board shorts and sunglasses, as if he might be ready for a swim, but you suspect (to your despair) that he is never going to get wet in that in-ground swimming next to his table. Because when he sits at that table he does nothing but type and click on a laptop computer. Sometimes he does this long into the evening.  Sometimes, after he has stopped for the day, you check his blog and see that he has just added another long and abstruse post about Cthulhist theology. On Twitter he might say something like, “Some people still want some kind of heart or smile from me. It’s fuckin’ comin’.”

 You go to a local bookshop where you have an appointment to read aloud passages from your novel The Days of the Dust and the Diane Rehm Show and hopefully sign copies of the book, purchased by real readers from the merchant who invited you there. Hardly anyone to date has bought it yet so you hope for a small breakthrough here.

The bookstore manager has arranged several rows of chairs in front of a table that you sit upon cross-legged and read to the guests. The passage you choose involves a dangerous, revelatory encounter between two young men aboard an airship cast in the form of a dream about alternate-history ancient Greeks who are uncovering an ancient horror on an asteroid that rolls in the dark between the Earth and the Moon.

In the front row sits JB. He is somewhat disguised, a Cardinals baseball cap pulled low on his forehead, Wayfarer sunglasses, but it’s plainly him. You attempt to avoid glancing at him too many times, deciding to observe his obvious desire for anonymity since no one else seems to have realized who he is. Honestly, you think, no one but you would probably care even if they did know. He listens to you read, occasionally taps on an iPad resting on his lap. During the question/answer period, he doesn’t ask any questions. Afterward, he buys a copy of the book but he does not get in line to have you sign it.

After he leaves, the bookstore manager says, “That dude who was sitting in the front, the one with the Cards cap, looked exactly like Justin Bieber.”

“I guess it could have been him,” you say, and the guy just laughs. Maybe he doesn't know that JB actually lives in the city now. Or maybe he just can’t picture JB coming into his store for any reason.

Later that night, you take a look at the blog and read this headline:

           “Nokkthathuas and the Zeppelin: A-R Kanayda Shrouds a Deep Truth Inside a Family Drama.”

His first paragraph: “This evening I listened to the author read from the book at a local bookstore. Even though I’d already read it, I kind of wanted to see the person who wrote it in person, speaking aloud some of its weird words, hearing his actual human voice saying these things.”

Below this paragraph, inset within the post, is a picture of you from that night’s reading copied from a fresh post on your own website. You feel, for just a moment, quite nearly as embarrassed as you felt about the calendar at Xmas that year because you understand that you are actually thrilled and flattered to appear on JB’s blog. On the new JB’s fuckin’ blog, which makes not a lick of sense. You’re a fucking fanboy so you do not care that what follows—his nine thousand word review/analysis of just one short segment of your novel—is nearly incomprehensible, freighted with Cthulhist analysis. And you love the fuck out of it when he cross-posts his new entry—about your story—to Twitter with the comment: “There’s a weird smiley/heart thing deep in here.”  You could just die. Die.

 One night you have a lengthy dream in which JB intermittently appears in various roles and guises: college friend, co-worker, boss, lover, brother, son. At one point, shortly before you awaken, he is leaning into you as if to hug you, and you permit this hug and you also permit him to kiss you in an awkward hesitant manner until you both eventually agree to this intimacy fully and kiss wetly with fully open mouths. The streaming spit between you becomes somehow thick and sticky and stringy like strands of rubber cement or semen. It thickens until your faces are bound together in a gluey mass from which you try half-heartedly to escape.

About a week later, you daydream that maybe you could really someday quit your day-job and take up the novelist life because JB’s endorsement has somehow caused Days of the Dust to rise into Amazon’s Top 100 in both Literature and Science Fiction and it looks like you might actually get a decent royalty payment for the first time ever in your life. But then a week or so later, it falls down into the top 30,000 and then down into the top 100,000 and then continues to plummet from there into the millions. But you have another one ready to publish and you can just go ahead and use JB’s endorsement of the first one as a cover blurb on the second one, and so it goes.

You go to the grocery store after work, very late and in a hurry for a shortcut for the pasta dish that Jay wants tonight. You peer at jars of various pestos and pickles and olives and other cured and marinated things at the Italian kiosk where a store chef has prepared samples of porcini mushroom/chicken risotto for the customers. You wonder if there is a container of something flavorful and piquant and oily that you can just dump into a pan with whole-wheat rotini and parm and be done with it.

JB says, “This looks really good, but I have no idea how to make it.”

You look up, turn around, and see him. He looks exactly like he did at the bookstore reading, sunglasses, Cards cap, t-shirt, board shorts. And he is looking at you. And his comment about not knowing how to make something was, in fact, actually spoken to you. Then you realize that you did not change clothes before you left work and that you are wearing a dirty green chef coat and black pants with pictures of fish printed on them. Of course, upon interacting with JB in person for the first time, Fucking Of Course! you’d look like this. And, Of course: he certainly thinks that you are the store chef who is handing out the risotto samples because that dude is not at his station at that moment.

“It’s not that hard,” you say, checking quickly to make sure that you even know for sure what “it” is. The display surrounding the risotto samples has all the stuff that the store wants you to buy to make porcini/chicken risotto. But you disapprove of how it’s really just a bag of some kind of fake-ass risotto product to which you add chicken and the store-brand cheese. You disapprove of the lack of fresh mushrooms, white wine, freshly grated cheese, fresh parsley. “It’s not that hard,” you say again. “But this isn't the way to do it.”

Though you resist the act of literally taking his hand in yours, the effect is similar as you lead him around the store and drop items into his hand basket: Arborio rice, shallots, garlic, assorted earthy shrooms, flat-leaf parsley, a box of chicken stock, a bottle of pinot grigio, a tub of grated parmesan. “It’s easy,” you adhere, “as long as you remember that you need about three times as much stock or other liquid as rice. What kind of kitchen equipment do you have?”

“I have everything,” he says. “I’m just not good at using it.”

“Just remember,” you say, “to not skimp on the heat when you start the initial sauté.  Heat is your friend. And don’t lose patience with the rice. It will be correct at about twenty-two minutes. Google some directions or a YouTube vid if you don't remember exactly what I have told you.”

           Fuck no, he says, you need to come to my place and show me.

Stopped, as they say, “dead in your tracks,” you say this next thing, feeling like a totally stupid tool: “Um. I don’t know about that. But maybe. Do you live in the neighborhood?”

           You, he says, know goddamned well where I live.

When you finally return home that evening, Jay has already eaten dinner. You are amazed that his mood is good and that not a word is spoken about how late you are.

He does not ask what kept you, does not disparage the fact that the groceries that you brought home are too late for tonight’s obsolete plan. He does not inquire as to where you were, and so you do not have to tell him right now the truth that you followed JB to his home behind yours and that you were at once excited and creeped out when JB changed clothes in front of you (which consisted only of removing his shirt and swapping one pair of shorts for another) and that you were delighted to guide his hands, your long arms wrapped around him from behind, as you taught him how to properly chop an onion and smash a garlic head, and how proud you were that you actually did not get a hard-on and knock it against the small of his back while you were doing this. Because no one would have believed you about that.

And how, when you said goodnight just before you drove your car around the corner to your own house, you did not, emphatically not, accept his offer of a kiss goodnight, your kiss-spit remaining just a gluey rubber cement dream.

 END

[corpasa]

Ward’s Science–So Many STEM Resources

One of the most difficult skills to teach in school is problem solving. I can’t tell you how many kids–and parents–ask me, “How do I get an A.” My answer: “By thinking,” which oddly confuses them. We talk about what that means–problem solving, critical analysis, logical thinking–but often, that sounds hard to them–too hard. They want an easier way.

Why is that?

Basically, it’s because there aren’t enough education opportunities that require that sort of skill and those there are, usually rhyme with ‘math’ or ‘science’ which to many kids are “just too complicated”.

Enter STEM–Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

“I don’t think schools can manage without coding and STEM. In Finland, we have had coding in the curriculum starting in the first grade; it is not taught separately, but through the thinking of various subjects.” –Anneli Rautiainen, Head of Innovation Unit at Finnish National Agency for Education

Coding, robotics, and experimentation–integral pieces of STEM–give students the best start possible to the rest of their lives. They are a toolkit of life skills such as problem-solving, coding and thinking. 93% of teachers (in America) believe these sorts of thinking skills in K-12 are critical.

Nothing promotes these better than STEM. Done right, STEM turns the confusing part of ‘thinking’ into fun. I found a partner in my STEM projects. It’s called Ward’s Science.

Who is Ward’s Science

Even after 144 years, Ward’s Science continues to be a leading provider of a full range of science products, kits, and resources for AP Science, Biology, Chemistry, Digital Science, Earth Science, Physics, and more for elementary-age students through High School (and beyond)–including Makerspace environments. Ward’s Science is known to its customers and the industry as the complete solution for materials supporting classroom science subjects. They not only offer project supplies but lesson plans, curricula, how-to videos, tips and tricks, personalized help, and podcasts. They even offer interesting extras like “How to choose a 3D printer”, “Connecting your Makerspace to your curriculum”, and “How to get funding for a robotics program”. Curricula are aligned with NGSS, TEKS, and other states and many of the kits are officially licensed by Science Olympiad. They even offer grant services to support school science programs.

What I really like about Ward’s Science

Ward’s Science makes it easy to find engaging, age-appropriate STEM resources, even if you aren’t quite sure what you want. The website is clean, simple to maneuver, and easy to understand. You type in what you’re looking for and get options. No ads. No animations. Just content.

Some services I didn’t expect and that would be difficult to find in other stores–virtual or physical–are:

histology services–schools can send tissues to Ward’s Science and have them placed on slides quickly and professionally

custom geology services–a collection of minerals and rocks to match educators’ teaching needs

custom kits–organize, label, package, and ship materials exactly as a teacher needs them for their classes, everything in one kit

delivery of live (or perishable) materials–shipped just in time for use so they’re fresh and healthy

Customer service includes not only troubleshooting help but access to scientists at Ward’s Science’s onsite science lab via email, phone, or video chat, all happy to help you with decisions and projects, assistance with ordering, and questions.

Another feature I like is called Ward’s World. In this section of the website, Ward’s Science shares spectacular projects that will energize and excite students such as “Halloween fun with chemical reactions”, “The periodic table of candy–a chemistry lesson plan”, “Physics of the fidget spinner (for elementary and middle school”, “6 live specimens that make great classroom pets”, and “A fun way to teach pH”. Activities and lesson plans are organized by subject (chemistry, biology, geology, physics, and STEM), grade level, and resource type (activity, lesson plan, or video).

One more amazing offering from Ward’s Science is professional development resources. This comes to you on their YouTube channel with more videos than I could count on a lot of science topics such as 3D printers, probes, tarantulas, introductions to a variety of products, quantum dots, and so much more. Visit the YouTube channel for a full listing.

For more detail on the breadth of Ward’s Science offerings, try these links:

Ward’s Grants and Funding Services for Teachers 

2019 Ward’s Science Catalog

2019 Ward’s Science STEM Catalog 

2019 Ward’s Healthcare & Medical Education Catalog 

To give you an example of the types of products offered by Ward’s Science, I evaluated two:

Botley the Coding Robot

Crazy Circuits With Squishy Circuits

Botley the Coding Robot

Learning Resources’ Botley

the Coding Robot is a compact two-eyed blocky robot on wheels. The 77-piece classroom set includes Botley the Coding Robot (no assembly required), a starter guide, programming challenges, a remote programmer, robot arms, coding cards, obstacle course pieces, and everything teachers need to introduce early coding fundamentals to students 5-9. Ready to use right out of the box, Botley

helps students master logic, critical thinking, and other STEM skills with no screen time required–no app, tablet, or phone.

How do you use it

Getting started is pretty simple. Unbox Botley the Coding Robot. Make sure the AAA batteries in the remote control and the robot are fresh and working. Lay out the coding cards with what you wish the robot to do–move forward, back, turn, or any number of other commands. Then, with the handset, program Botley to follow your program. Once students master simple moves, turn on Botley’s object detection function that avoids objects in its path, instigate a loop command for repeated coding functions, and have it navigate an obstacle course using the black-line-following mode. Want more? Check the included instruction booklet for lots of ideas.

Overall, Botley is an easy-to-use, friendly robot that will even talk to kids!

Crazy Circuits With Squishy Circuits

I admit, when I first received this kit, I didn’t get the name–Crazy Circuits with Squishy Circuits. I couldn’t get my brain around all those words until I unwrapped the box and pulled the parts out. Then I got it: This had a ton of promise. If you’ve ever made Play Dough at home or in science class and used it as conductors and insulators–that’s the squishy part. When you poke circuits that light up or run motors or a bunch of other stuff into the dough–that’s the crazy part. With this relatively inexpensive kit, a wide age range of students learn about seemingly complicated topics such as insulators, conductors, resistance, and parallel and series circuits.

This is ready to go out of the box which means no soldering required.

How to Use it

The Crazy Circuits With Squishy Circuits kit includes six containers of colored squishy dough–some conductive and some insulating–and a variety of Crazy Circuits Chips. You don’t have to make anything or buy anything else. Detailed directions, project guides, educational resources, and videos can be found online in the Ward’s Science database. Crazy Circuits are compatible with LEGO

and similar brick building systems.

If you’re wondering how squishy dough can conduct electricity, watch this 4-minute TED Talk. Though the video shows how to make the dough, you don’t have to do that. Ward’s Science sends it as part of the kit. You just attach the circuits, motors, and conductors, and let your creativity flow:

***

Ward’s Science doesn’t pop up right away in a Google search for ‘STEM supplies’ so bookmark this review and share it with fellow science teachers. You’re going to want to find Ward’s Science the next time you’re looking for supplies. You can reach their social media platforms here:

https://www.facebook.com/wardsci

https://www.twitter.com/WardsScience

https://www.youtube.com/user/wardsci

https://www.pinterest.com/wardsscience/

https://www.instagram.com/wardsscience/

#wardsworld  @WardsScience

Ask A Tech Teacher readers Get 15% off  your order total Plus Free Shipping with exclusive promo code 

WardsWorld15TT

Offer valid on web only at wardsci.com. To activate offer, use promo code at checkout. Offer expires 11/31/19. Free shipping includes standard ground shipping only and excludes items with hazardous shipping; standard hazardous shipping fees will apply. Unless otherwise specified, contract discounts and special offers may not be applied to any item priced with a final digit of ‘9’ (i.e. $6.99; $10.09; $129.99.) Offer excludes Somso models due to custom nature of the product. Offer excludes all Triumph Board products. Promotional discounts also may not be combined with other offers, discounts, contracts, or promotions. For more details, visit wardsci.com/terms. Selected items may be or contain chemicals, live materials, or hazardous materials and may be restricted for purchasing by educational institutions only. To purchase restricted items, please log into wardsci.com with your Full Web Profile, or create a new Full Web Profile here using your school’s Shipping Account Number. A full profile also allows you to pay with purchase orders, receive tax exemptions, contract pricing (if applicable), and other advanced features.  Don’t know your Shipping Account Number or not sure what it is? We can help. Email wardscs@vwr.com or Click to Chat on the profile registration page and a Ward’s Science Representative will help you locate your Shipping Account Number or apply for a new one.) 

–While I received these products to review, my opinions are my own.

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Ward’s Science–So Many STEM Resources published first on https://medium.com/@DLBusinessNow

[evnoweb]

Ward’s Science–So Many STEM Resources

One of the most difficult skills to teach in school is problem solving. I can’t tell you how many kids–and parents–ask me, “How do I get an A.” My answer: “By thinking,” which oddly confuses them. We talk about what that means–problem solving, critical analysis, logical thinking–but often, that sounds hard to them–too hard. They want an easier way.

Why is that?

Basically, it’s because there aren’t enough education opportunities that require that sort of skill and those there are, usually rhyme with ‘math’ or ‘science’ which to many kids are “just too complicated”.

Enter STEM–Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

“I don’t think schools can manage without coding and STEM. In Finland, we have had coding in the curriculum starting in the first grade; it is not taught separately, but through the thinking of various subjects.” –Anneli Rautiainen, Head of Innovation Unit at Finnish National Agency for Education

Coding, robotics, and experimentation–integral pieces of STEM–give students the best start possible to the rest of their lives. They are a toolkit of life skills such as problem-solving, coding and thinking. 93% of teachers (in America) believe these sorts of thinking skills in K-12 are critical.

Nothing promotes these better than STEM. Done right, STEM turns the confusing part of ‘thinking’ into fun. I found a partner in my STEM projects. It’s called Ward’s Science.

Who is Ward’s Science

Even after 144 years, Ward’s Science continues to be a leading provider of a full range of science products, kits, and resources for AP Science, Biology, Chemistry, Digital Science, Earth Science, Physics, and more for elementary-age students through High School (and beyond)–including Makerspace environments. Ward’s Science is known to its customers and the industry as the complete solution for materials supporting classroom science subjects. They not only offer project supplies but lesson plans, curricula, how-to videos, tips and tricks, personalized help, and podcasts. They even offer interesting extras like “How to choose a 3D printer”, “Connecting your Makerspace to your curriculum”, and “How to get funding for a robotics program”. Curricula are aligned with NGSS, TEKS, and other states and many of the kits are officially licensed by Science Olympiad. They even offer grant services to support school science programs.

What I really like about Ward’s Science

Ward’s Science makes it easy to find engaging, age-appropriate STEM resources, even if you aren’t quite sure what you want. The website is clean, simple to maneuver, and easy to understand. You type in what you’re looking for and get options. No ads. No animations. Just content.

Some services I didn’t expect and that would be difficult to find in other stores–virtual or physical–are:

histology services–schools can send tissues to Ward’s Science and have them placed on slides quickly and professionally

custom geology services–a collection of minerals and rocks to match educators’ teaching needs

custom kits–organize, label, package, and ship materials exactly as a teacher needs them for their classes, everything in one kit

delivery of live (or perishable) materials–shipped just in time for use so they’re fresh and healthy

Customer service includes not only troubleshooting help but access to scientists at Ward’s Science’s onsite science lab via email, phone, or video chat, all happy to help you with decisions and projects, assistance with ordering, and questions.

Another feature I like is called Ward’s World. In this section of the website, Ward’s Science shares spectacular projects that will energize and excite students such as “Halloween fun with chemical reactions”, “The periodic table of candy–a chemistry lesson plan”, “Physics of the fidget spinner (for elementary and middle school”, “6 live specimens that make great classroom pets”, and “A fun way to teach pH”. Activities and lesson plans are organized by subject (chemistry, biology, geology, physics, and STEM), grade level, and resource type (activity, lesson plan, or video).

One more amazing offering from Ward’s Science is professional development resources. This comes to you on their YouTube channel with more videos than I could count on a lot of science topics such as 3D printers, probes, tarantulas, introductions to a variety of products, quantum dots, and so much more. Visit the YouTube channel for a full listing.

For more detail on the breadth of Ward’s Science offerings, try these links:

Ward’s Grants and Funding Services for Teachers 

2019 Ward’s Science Catalog

2019 Ward’s Science STEM Catalog 

2019 Ward’s Healthcare & Medical Education Catalog 

To give you an example of the types of products offered by Ward’s Science, I evaluated two:

Botley the Coding Robot

Crazy Circuits With Squishy Circuits

Botley the Coding Robot

Learning Resources’ Botley

the Coding Robot is a compact two-eyed blocky robot on wheels. The 77-piece classroom set includes Botley the Coding Robot (no assembly required), a starter guide, programming challenges, a remote programmer, robot arms, coding cards, obstacle course pieces, and everything teachers need to introduce early coding fundamentals to students 5-9. Ready to use right out of the box, Botley

helps students master logic, critical thinking, and other STEM skills with no screen time required–no app, tablet, or phone.

How do you use it

Getting started is pretty simple. Unbox Botley the Coding Robot. Make sure the AAA batteries in the remote control and the robot are fresh and working. Lay out the coding cards with what you wish the robot to do–move forward, back, turn, or any number of other commands. Then, with the handset, program Botley to follow your program. Once students master simple moves, turn on Botley’s object detection function that avoids objects in its path, instigate a loop command for repeated coding functions, and have it navigate an obstacle course using the black-line-following mode. Want more? Check the included instruction booklet for lots of ideas.

Overall, Botley is an easy-to-use, friendly robot that will even talk to kids!

Crazy Circuits With Squishy Circuits

I admit, when I first received this kit, I didn’t get the name–Crazy Circuits with Squishy Circuits. I couldn’t get my brain around all those words until I unwrapped the box and pulled the parts out. Then I got it: This had a ton of promise. If you’ve ever made Play Dough at home or in science class and used it as conductors and insulators–that’s the squishy part. When you poke circuits that light up or run motors or a bunch of other stuff into the dough–that’s the crazy part. With this relatively inexpensive kit, a wide age range of students learn about seemingly complicated topics such as insulators, conductors, resistance, and parallel and series circuits.

This is ready to go out of the box which means no soldering required.

How to Use it

The Crazy Circuits With Squishy Circuits kit includes six containers of colored squishy dough–some conductive and some insulating–and a variety of Crazy Circuits Chips. You don’t have to make anything or buy anything else. Detailed directions, project guides, educational resources, and videos can be found online in the Ward’s Science database. Crazy Circuits are compatible with LEGO

and similar brick building systems.

If you’re wondering how squishy dough can conduct electricity, watch this 4-minute TED Talk. Though the video shows how to make the dough, you don’t have to do that. Ward’s Science sends it as part of the kit. You just attach the circuits, motors, and conductors, and let your creativity flow:

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Ward’s Science doesn’t pop up right away in a Google search for ‘STEM supplies’ so bookmark this review and share it with fellow science teachers. You’re going to want to find Ward’s Science the next time you’re looking for supplies. You can reach their social media platforms here:

https://www.facebook.com/wardsci

https://www.twitter.com/WardsScience

https://www.youtube.com/user/wardsci

https://www.pinterest.com/wardsscience/

https://www.instagram.com/wardsscience/

#wardsworld  @WardsScience

Ask A Tech Teacher readers Get 15% off  your order total Plus Free Shipping with exclusive promo code 

WardsWorld15TT

Offer valid on web only at wardsci.com. To activate offer, use promo code at checkout. Offer expires 11/31/19. Free shipping includes standard ground shipping only and excludes items with hazardous shipping; standard hazardous shipping fees will apply. Unless otherwise specified, contract discounts and special offers may not be applied to any item priced with a final digit of ‘9’ (i.e. $6.99; $10.09; $129.99.) Offer excludes Somso models due to custom nature of the product. Offer excludes all Triumph Board products. Promotional discounts also may not be combined with other offers, discounts, contracts, or promotions. For more details, visit wardsci.com/terms. Selected items may be or contain chemicals, live materials, or hazardous materials and may be restricted for purchasing by educational institutions only. To purchase restricted items, please log into wardsci.com with your Full Web Profile, or create a new Full Web Profile here using your school’s Shipping Account Number. A full profile also allows you to pay with purchase orders, receive tax exemptions, contract pricing (if applicable), and other advanced features.  Don’t know your Shipping Account Number or not sure what it is? We can help. Email wardscs@vwr.com or Click to Chat on the profile registration page and a Ward’s Science Representative will help you locate your Shipping Account Number or apply for a new one.) 

–While I received these products to review, my opinions are my own.

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Ward’s Science–So Many STEM Resources published first on https://medium.com/@DigitalDLCourse

[staple-soap-blog]

11 Questions Tag

Tagged by: @oh-beyond @dandelioner @julietsoddeye @loser-dot-com AND @3kpop2jagi1 (oh boy I get to answer 55 questions lucky me)

Let’s start with @oh-beyond ‘s questions

OK so my 11 questions will be based on this little scenario:

You find yourself with your bias in an elevator that breaks down…

1. He is a whiny baby… what do you do? How do you act around him?

Stand there awkwardly

2. Do you act around him like you know him or like you don’t?

Act like I don’t know him but he’ll probably figure out I know him by the way my cheeks are bright red and I’m on the floor hyperventilating this will be me at kcon

3. There is an obvious language barrier… do you try talk to him in his language (google translate, etc…) ? Or do you go for English and he can figure it out himself?

Start with english and pull out google translate for more complex sentences

4. He starts crying… do you decide unstanning him? Or do you lend your shoulder to cry on?

Lend shoulder. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I am not leaving this earth with that big of a regret if I don’t take it.

5. He finally faints in your lap… do you take advantage? You stare? You touch his eyelashes to make sure they are real? His cheeks? Anything else?

Sit there awkwardly and try and wake him up. Fan his face or something.

6. He regains consciousness and he asks you if you’ve touched him… would you be honest?

I’ll admit to shaking him to wake him up.

7. Do you try making him laugh? Or you act all uninterested to create a mysterious aura so he gets curious? What is your tactic?

If I’m comfortable enough, I’ll try pulling a joke

8. If you decide on telling you stan him. What would be your questions to him? Would you admit he’s your bias or make him jealous telling him you like a different member?

What’s it like being an idol? How much free time do you get? You have the vice of an angel btw

9. If you act like you don’t know him, would you still try to impress him?

Y E S

10. You are taken… if he asks you if you have a significant other… would you lie?

No, I would be honest

11. The lights of the elevator go off and he’s scared and gets too close and his hands are too handsy… would you stop him? Or…?

Nope 😏  

@dandelionder  ‘s questions

1) What would your superhero/stage name be?

Jade is a good stage name. Idk about a superhero. Maybe Lack-of-motivation girl.

2) What’s the first color you always go for when painting?

I don’t paint that much but I guess blue

3) Roller coaster date or campfire date?

Depends on how scary the roller coaster is

4) Thoughts on scented candles?

They’re ok. I don’t own any but I like the concept

5) If you could wake up tomorrow in any country you wanted, where would you be?

Singapore

6) What’s your dream job?

Idm as long as I’m making fat stacks

7) Done any fun activities lately?

No

8) Have you ever been caught hiding in a really weird place?

I can’t remember, and I generally have really shit hiding spots so if a murderous clown broke into my house I’m dead

9) Do you eat cilantro(coriander) willingly?

Yes. An aversion to coriander is actually a genetic thing so if you hate coriander you are weak and natural selection is coming for you

10) Do you have a song you always come back to no matter what, that never gets old or boring? If yes, which one? I’m a sucker for other people’s heart-songs

Bring It Back by Will Sparks. For some reason I can listen to it really easily. I usually get sick of EDM songs quickly because they’re too loud and repetitive but the drop and overlay in this song has kept me hooked for 5 years

11) How the hell do people come up with such good questions? This was so freaking hard. 

Google them

@julietsoddeye  ‘s questions

1. What’s one thing that pisses you off just thinking about?

University

2. What was your favorite music genre when you were about 10-15 years old?

Pop and EDM

3. What is your dream job?

M a k e   m o n e y

4. What is your routine before going to bed at night (or morning if you’re like me lol)

Shower, eat snack, brush teeth, scroll through Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr for 2 hours before finally sleeping

5. If you had to pick a new name for yourself, what name would you pick?

Andrea? Idk it sounds cool

6. Do you have a favorite weird food combo?

Combining the maccas chocolate frappe and the strawberry & banana shake. I used to make this when I worked there but ever since I quit I’ve been too scared to order it because you need to know how to manually dispense the liquids and not a lot of people know how to do that so I feel bad for wasting their time

7. If you were given a chance to sing a song with your bias, would you do it?

Only if I was heavily autotuned

8. What are the 3 best things about you?

I have nice eyes

I tag all my friends in memes

I'm still alive

9.  If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I’d like to be more intelligent

10. What is your favorite day of the week?

Sunday

11. What is your favorite AU fic to read?

Usually supernatural fics. They’re more fun. Also, I need more angel au’s and that’s why i’ve started writing one which will probably take me 6 months to finish but let’s not talk about that

@loser-dot-com  ‘s questions

1. Bias’ favorite outfit? (Include pic of possible please ^_^)

Just kyungsoo in a suit is enough. But here is a pic of Jongin. I want that outfit on ksoo

2. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Pizza

3. What makes your bias so great?

Angel voice, amazing actor, squishy

4. Do you have any allergies?

Penicillin

5. Lemon or lime?

Lemon

6. If you had 3 wishes, what would you wish for? (Besides more wishes :P)

I’d wish for a credit card with unlimited amounts of money, more self confidence and world peace

7. Is your bias older or younger than you?

Older

8. Favorite type of candy?

Gummy bears

9. What song do you listen to when you’re sad?

I listen to the melody of my sobbing

10. If your bias called you beautiful/handsome complimented you, how would you respond?

I’d die

11. You appear in your bias’ bedroom! How do you react?

Steal his hoodies!!!

@3kpop2jagi1  ‘s questions

1. How are y’all doing today? 

I’m doing fine, just a lil stressed :(

2. What’s a food that you refuse to eat no matter how hungry you are?

Seafood. Like, fish and prawns are fine but I won’t eat octopus or mussels. I also can’t eat sashimi.

3. Pick your favorite element. (water, fire, earth, air)

Fire

4. You’re walking down a stone path and you see a table with a drink on it. What does the cup look like, and what does the liquid inside it look like?

The cup is a blue mug with a red interior. There is coke inside it.

5. What’s the last show you binge-watched?

Stranger Things was the last thing I binge watched but I’ve been watching Game of Thrones every week (now that’s done and I have nothing to watch)

6. Do you like ketchup?

Yes

7. You’re stuck in a fantasy world. Where are you? 

The bottom of the ocean with mermaids.

8. What food are you craving right now? 

Steak

9. There’s something in the back of your mind. It’s bothering you. What is it?

The stress of university and course selection and my final exams

10. What’s the last thing you googled?

What is the loss meme?

11. It’s your birthday, you’re about to blow out the candles and make a wish. What’s your wish?

I wish I can get a good job

Well that was a long ass ride. You ready for my questions? Here you go:

1. There is an object beside you. What is it?

2. Do you have any pets?

3. What is your favourite meme? (Attach pic if possible)

4. Would you rather live 10 lives lasting 100 years, or live 1 life lasting 1000 years?

5. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

6. What is your favourite type of sandwich?

7. Do you believe in aliens?

8. What is the meaning of life?

9. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

10. Imagine you are in a dark room. There is an ominous light emanating from behind you. You see a door. You open the door and there is something on the floor. A voice clarifies what that something is. What is the something and who’s voice did you hear?

11. Finish the joke: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Tagging: @xiubaek13 @keypea  @gwaenchanhajagiya @yeollieollie @jinnlypuff