#update: less than a day later and all three mutuals i have targeted have had immensely satisfying reactions ily

[averlym]

,,, had to do it to 'em?

[jessicalynnhepner]

What Every Parent Needs to Know About Child Sex Trafficking

For most police officers, this scene is a familiar one—a young kid gets mixed up with the wrong person and finds him or herself on the wrong side of the law. In virtually every case, this would be the end of the story. The young girl would get a slap on the wrist and be released into her parents’ custody where they could, presumably, set her straight. And, at this point in our story, Officer Scott was prepared to do just that—to trust the overwhelming testimony of prior experience and process this girl out so that he could get on with his shift. But, something was different this time… Discerning the SignsAs Officer Scott sits down to file his paperwork, he’s reminded of last Tuesday’s roll call.  His Sergeant, having recently attended a training seminar on human trafficking, used that day to teach his officers how to identify potential trafficking situations. All of a sudden, alarm bells start going off in Scott’s mind: The Fear — Sure, a kid’s going to be afraid of the consequences. But, this girl seems to fear for her physical safety. She’s acting like there’s something worse waiting for her than an angry mom and dad at home. The Stolen Merchandise – Why did she need a Red Bull and a pack of condoms? Scott recalled that traffickers use starvation to control their victims. Usually, their only choice is to steal the bare necessities. The Boyfriend – Per the owner’s description, this guy was at least 10 years older than she. What were they doing there together in the first place? A New ApproachWith these things in mind, Scott calmly invites the young lady out of holding and brings her to a quieter part of the station, away from prying eyes and menacing glances. She looks cold, so Scott hands her a sweatshirt. As he does, he notices a small tattoo of a crown with the name ‘Hugo’ scrawled beneath it—likely a brand to show who ‘she belongs to.’ They start to chat. This time, he speaks less like a cop and more like a friend. Clearly, she hasn’t had anything to eat for quite a while. Moments later, a female officer appears with a bag from McDonald’s. The three make their way to a private lounge. As they talk, the girl lets her guard down. Scott listens as she describes her broken home life, struggles with friends at school, and her constant search for belonging. All the while, her phone continues to buzz. “Your boyfriend?” “Yes. He just wants to make sure I’m ok.” He really is a great guy, she explains. He’s been there for her when her parents weren’t. He shows her the affection and attention she needs. She feels protected. He loves her……only, sometimes he makes her do things—things she would ordinarily never do. TrustHaving earned at least a glimmer of trust, Scott asks if she would slide her phone over. Reluctantly, she does, and he begins to scroll through the text messages. Wisely, Scott checks his emotions before he begins to read. It doesn’t take him long to realize these are not the supportive words of a loving boyfriend. No, they’re the verbal assaults of a degenerate thug bent on belittling her into submission. Scott does his best to hide his disgust as he reads about threatened consequences for ‘missed quotas.’ Horrified, he sees insults that no human being should ever have to endure, capped off by threats against her little sister for talking to the cops. Officer Scott thanks the young woman for her trust and politely excuses himself to make a call. He can read the writing on the wall: this girl is clearly a victim of trafficking. She needs someone with much more experience than him to help regain her freedom. He picks up the phone, dials his Sergeant, and together, they get to work. What Made the Difference?This story, though generalized in some ways, is rooted in the accounts we hear from police officers every day. The first part of the story is common enough. But, what about the second when, in Scott’s eyes, the girl goes from ‘shoplifter’ to ‘trafficking victim’? Not so much. So, how do we get from A to B? How do we help police officers learn

to look at each ‘punk kid’ as a potential victim, to ask deeper questions, and find the real story lies beneath the surface? Just as in Officer Scott’s story, that turning point comes when an officer recognizes the signs, trusts his or her gut, and decides to unravel that thread. It all starts with that one officer—a soldier on the front lines of the underground battle to set captives free. This can only happen when officials at every level of law enforcement learn to detect the signs and receive the tools they need to bring trafficking victims out of the cruel darkness and into the liberating light of day. National Human Trafficking Law Enforcement Training ProgramAt ERASE, one of the most impactful things we do is train police departments so that they produce more officers like the one in this story. It’s our mission to educate officers to detect the warning signs, identify potential victims, and safely lead them to freedom.  Your donations make this possible. Source Child Sex Trafficking-Not My Child Mom shakes her head and Dad raises his voice. Their 16-year old daughter storms up the stairs. As the bedroom door slams, she collapses on the bed with phone in hand. She’s ready to vent her frustrations one status update at a time. With every angst-laden tap of the keyboard, she lays bare her soul: “Nobody here gets me.” “No one understands!” “I feel unloved.” 📷An hour later, a boy from the next town over reaches out. She doesn’t know him, but they’ve got a few mutual friends, so it’s probably no big deal. He’s cute and thoughtful. And, he seems to understand what she’s going through better than anyone else. For the next two weeks, they exchange messages every day. He’s sweet, a digital shoulder to cry on when nobody else seems to care. They decide to meet up in person, so she borrows Dad’s car “to meet some friends at the mall.” That night, Daddy’s little girl doesn’t come home for dinner and Mom sits up all night. The next morning, they call the police. An officer searches her computer and finds evidence of the girl’s new relationship. Turns out, the boy she thought she knew didn’t exist. And, just like that, she’s gone.Reality check about child sex trafficking At ERASE, we hear heartbreaking tales like this all too frequently. Stories from average families dealing with everyday stresses when out of nowhere, their child is lured right out from under them. Whenever we tell these stories, the most common response goes something like this: “Child trafficking is something that happens to those types of kids out there. We live in a great community and our neighbors are good people who look out for one another. Something like that could never happen to one of my children.” This is the kind of response that makes us cringe. If only parents knew what we know, they wouldn’t be so quick to ignore this real and pervasive threat. Sadly, that very ignorance is what traffickers count on most when looking for children to target. The danger is far more imminent than most parents recognize. If we’re going to protect our children, we need to be clear on the real threats child traffickers impose. Traffickers are Smart, Motivated, and Tech-SavvyA dark and horrific market has grown up around the purchase and sale of human beings. Researchers estimated that, in 2007, Atlanta’s underground sex economy alone brought in $290 million. Even in a far less “saturated” market, sex trafficking in San Diego enables a pimp to pull in over $11,000 per week. Fast forward 10 years and there’s no reason to think that number hasn’t grown. Innocent children aren’t given a pass here. Instead, the most vulnerable among us are routinely bought and sold like property—many of them up to 15 times a day. With business booming, traffickers are working harder than ever to keep up with demand. Leaving no stone unturned, they use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, to research, target, and groom children for sexual exploitation. In fact, 77% of sex trafficking victims

report having been initially approached online. Just as a skilled marketer uses sophisticated keyword searches to identify his audience, traffickers monitor social media for anything at all that would suggest an easy target:Children with social media profiles open to public viewing Teenagers posting introspective status updates about feelings of insecurity Boys and girls who are venting about arguments with their parents Like a lion crouched in his thicket, a predator will scan through lines of text looking for vulnerable children to drag off into the tall grass. How many of those lines will have come from one of your children? Yes, your child can be a victim of sex traffickingThe children that traffickers rip from their happy homes aren’t pretend characters on television or disembodied faces from the evening news. They’re our kids, the ones we work hard to raise and the ones we hope to see grow up happy and healthy. They’re the kids we teach to be smart, to mind their surroundings, and never talk to strangers. And yet, we give them free reign to explore every dark corner of the internet via their cell phone. We must do betterLittle more than half of parents closely monitor their children’s online activity. So, when a stranger asks to connect on Snapchat, it’s nearly an even shot that no one will be looking over that kid’s shoulder. You can count on a child trafficker to take that bet. Do you know which platforms your children are using or who they connect with online? Do they have any secret accounts and how would you find out if they did? If someone asked to meet in person, would they do it? Can you be sure? These questions may seem intrusive and even overbearing. However, considering the reality of child trafficking in the United States, we have to ask these questions.  Every day, thousands of children disappear into slavery. We’d like to hope our kids could never be victims but the facts simply don’t allow us that option. Understanding the facts of child trafficking is the first and most important step in prevention. There is HopeGood people around the world are standing up and fighting back against this great moral evil. You don’t have to live in constant fear for your children. The story we shared at the beginning of this post doesn’t have to be your story. And with some common sense and the will to step intentionally into your kids’ digital lives, you can protect them from becoming a victim of sex trafficking. The question is: will you? At ERASE, we want to educate parents on how best to protect their children from online predators. Please take a look at our tips and best practices pages to see how you can teach your children to be safe online.Juvenile Delinquent or Victim of Human Trafficking? Blog Story of a Human Trafficking Victim It’s midnight. Officer Scott pulls his patrol car into the lot of a small, 24-hour convenience store. As he approaches, he peers through the decal-laden glass door to see a middle-aged man struggling to restrain an agitated 16-year old girl. The store owner had caught this young woman and her boyfriend stuffing items into a small handbag. Her companion—a ‘white man in his late 20’s’—had bolted out the door without so much as a backward glance. The last thing on Officer Scott’s mind was “human trafficking victim”. Scott had seen this before. Some young teenager, looking for thrills, decides to pocket a few items from the local bodega and gets grabbed by the watchful owner. As he escorts the girl to his police car, Scott’s treated to an earful. She can’t stop going on about what a jerk he is, how he had violated her rights, and how much trouble she’d be in if he didn’t let her go right away. “Just wait until I call your parents,” he thinks. 📷 The Same Routine When they arrive at the station, Scott walks this young woman to his desk. She can hear the snide remarks of a few men handcuffed to chairs nearby. As they leer conspicuously at her, she shrinks further into herself.  Scott starts in on his typical line of questioning: name,

age, address, and so on. The entire time, her phone buzzes with one text message after another. She begs Scott to let her reply, but he refuses. “There’ll be plenty of time to talk to your parents later.” “I’m not worried about them,” she snaps back. “They don’t give a crap about me, anyway. They’re too busy arguing to even notice I’m around.” Not sure what to make of that outburst, Scott begins to sort through the items she had attempted to steal: a sleeve of Hostess Cup Cakes, a Red Bull, and a box of condoms. “Must be one heck of a boyfriend to leave you there like that, huh?” “You wouldn’t understand. He loves me. He takes care of me.” Angry and frustrated by this girl’s bad attitude and ignorance about that poor excuse for a boyfriend, Officer Scott escorts her to a holding cell and prepares to process her out.Is This the End of the Story?

https://whateveryparentshouldknowaboutcps.blogspot.com/2020/08/what-every-parent-needs-to-know-about.html

[toogoodmusic]

THE TOO GOOD TEN with Brandon Gorman of Wild Love

With a mission to bring the attitude back to pop music, meet your new favorite band Wild Love. The international band combines singer and songwriter Brandon Gorman from Ireland, guitarist Michael Crecca from New York in America and bassist Saygīn Geçener from Turkey as the three enter a new era of Wild Love. Evolving their sound into a hook-driven pop sound that looks to incorporate their previous sound of lively driven rock without “dropping the guitar” the groups returns with the energetic indie-pop-rock song “I Hate That I Need You.” As the group looks to step “out of the filter” with “no bullshit anymore in their lyrics, sonics or how they present themselves” Too Good Music got the opportunity to ask frontman Brandon about the new era of music, how a chance bus stop encounter led to the band’s formation, their craziest fan encounter and so much more. Check out the full Too Good Ten interview below.

The Too Good Ten. Ten Questions. One Artist. Too Good.

1. Starting from the beginning – you guys all met during a “chance high school bus encounter in Virginia” despite being from all over the world (Ireland, Turkey, New York). What’s the full story there? Did you all know right away you guys would be become a band?

WILD LOVE: The full story is I met out former drummer at a bus stop, but it also stretched out over a few day period. I had just moved to America, and I was invited to a party where I met our bass player Si, but we didn’t talk the whole night. Next day we just happened to be heading to DC for the day with a mutual friend and we just hit it off about music. I told him I was starting a band and needed him to play bass and that was it. We played our first gig two weeks later. I think we did know, because we could sense the passion and there is nothing more attractive than that.

2. Congrats on the release of “I Hate That I Need You.” What’s the story behind this one? How did you decide to release this one as the introduction to the new era of Wild Love?

WL: Thank you, yeah the title kind of says it all like. I was having some issues in a relationship and my internal monologue just slipped out. There isn’t much to it other than what’s there. I’m a fairly frank person and you can tell how I'm feeling by just looking at me, so I definitely have been trying to just channel that into my songs. The song also took about 5 minutes to write, which is slightly annoying because I pour hours of time in songs and half of the time, they are rubbish. Yeah, this one just felt right you know. I think it is a great introduction for what’s about to come from us as a band.

3. For you – what’s one thing you need but hate that you do?

WL: Target honestly and I just can’t stop going, I look for any excuse to go there. I don’t even buy anything, but yeah, I need help.

4. Speaking of the new era – this new music is going to be more pop leaning than the more rock sound Wild Love has focused on. What went into the decision to make this transition? What is it about pop music that made you want to explore it more?

WL: I don’t really think there was much of a decision, it has been the natural progression over the last few years in my writing. I have always been such a huge admirer of Pop music old and new. From ABBA to One Direction to Dua Lipa, it's something that is so undeniably brilliant. I found myself listening less to lyrics and more melodies and I think I wanted to chase those myself. I also felt on the more deliberate side of things that pop music has been lacking an attitude for a while and people also don’t give a shit about rock music anymore because everyone sounds like The 1975. So we found ourselves wanting to go after these sounds and hopefully fill a void that I think is there -- give pop the attitude and frankness that it needs.

5. On September 10th you’ll be playing your first full band, in-person live show with The Foxies in Nashville. What are you most looking forward to for that show? What can fans expect from a Wild Love concert?

WL: Just getting in front of people again. Live shows have been this band’s bread and butter for years, it’s the things that gets us the most excited. So getting into a room with people who are all on the same wavelength and just have this moment with everyone is something we’re clamoring for. You can expect a high energy show. Real instruments being played loud by guys who have watched too many videos of Iggy Pop and Sex Pistols.

FOR TICKET INFORMATION CLICK HERE.

6. What was the biggest thing you learned about yourselves (as a band or individually) from going through the past year and a half in quarantine/pandemic?

WL: I learned that you have to have happiness outside of what you love. Once live shows were taken away, I found myself in a space of really lacking purpose. Writing music was definitely a huge help and something I feel very lucky to have had the time to hone in on, but I needed to find something outside of music that makes me happy. So I hiked more, started going to the gym, and being a more present person in my life and my relationships. So yeah, I learned that I was very much in the music and not in much else.

7. What’s the most memorable (funniest/ craziest/inspiring/etc.) fan encounter you’ve ever had?

WL: A girl we know got our band name tattooed on the inside of her mouth which I think is pretty fucking wild.

8. If you had the ability to headline any music festival or musical event – which would be a dream for you to perform at? What would be your closing song for the event?

WL: Either Glasto or Slane Castle in Ireland. Glastonbury is just so iconic, and it has the best crowd in the world. Then Slane Castle is just a few miles down the road from my hometown. I have been and will be dreaming about both my whole life, so here’s to hoping one day I don’t have to dream. I’d say we would end with “I Hate That I Need You” right? It’s just one of those tunes that you can let loose to.

9. For each member, if you could only listen to (5) artists for the rest of your life who would they be?

WL: For me, it’d have to be ABBA, The Vaccines, Arctic Monkeys, Kelsea Ballerini, and Blur.

For Mike, it’s probably Frank Ocean, Bruce Springsteen, Queens of the Stone Age, Bleachers and Arctic Monkeys.

And for Saygīn, I’d say it’s Dayglow, Tame Impala, Hippo Campus, Jacob Collier and Omar Apollo.

10. What’s the rest of 2021 and early 2022 look like for Wild Love?

WL: Push “I Hate That I Need You,” play some more shows, release new music, and hopefully get out on the road and over to Ireland and the UK. Just excited to get out there and show everyone the new stuff we’ve been working on.

A huge shout-out to Wild Love for the time and congrats on the release of the new single, “I Hate That I Need You.” To keep updated with the group and that upcoming music and shows be sure to follow along by checking out the links below:

Facebook

Instagram

Twitter

YouTube

[rekkingcrew]

Rek DMs, Some Thoughts

Buckle up, it’s Edge of the Empire tabletop Roleplaying time.

Yeah, I know I don’t post here much. I’m still doing the devaron’s angels thing, which is scratching a lot of my online itches, and I’ve got a part time job and full time parenting. 

I’d really planned on doing regular updates of what happened each session. Aaaaand that didn’t happen. Which is a shame, I’d love to be able to have those summaries to look back on. But here’s the short version:

The gang, who are a crew of space chancers and criminals rolling around in a stolen police ship, were doing odd jobs together for a while, including some for the empire. Their contact, a Pantoran spymaster whose cover was as a children’s entertainer, congratulated them on their most recent heist job (where the campaign started in medias res), and gave them a new job: deliver a mysterious sealed orb to the leader of the peskiest rebel cell in the general area, led by a Rodian pirate by the name of Cheng Maxeda. They said maybe, took the orb, and then checked around and picked up a delivery job for their local Hutts going the same direction for some extra cash. 

They were brought in because the Hutt shipments had been interfered with by somebody. Their Hutts weren’t sure who, but were damn sure they were going to pay. The gang defeated a whole crazy mess of people who were being lead and bolstered by a falleen who had been surgically altered to boost their pheromone output. Then they picked up the package and made the poor decision of looking inside. It was the carbonite frozen but still living body of the cop who’d previously owned their ship that they were now knowingly handing over, because they couldn’t bring themselves to cross the Hutts. 

Moral issues aside, it was an easy job, they got well paid, the team failed a bunch of social roles and divulged more information than they should have to the Hutt point man, and Brick, the party’s wall of meat, got signed up for a pit fight. He won his round, but imperial troops broke up the match before he could win completely. TK cornered but lost a rebel bomber, and Eshi got contacted by a rebel who recognized him from a bit of backstory. Nyla chased down one of the other gladiators, an old clone with a sword who’d entered the fight because the prize included a bacta dunk and he had a friend who was hurt and dying after being caught by the Hutts trying to bust up a slaving operation. And that’s when the bomb went off, destroying some major imperial instillation bits and projecting a 40 foot holo-image of Cheng the punk rock rodian pirate queen striding across the smoking crater proclaiming she had come to liberate the outer rim. The party was presented with three job options: 1) after Brick’s pit win, the Hutts were down some muscle for a convoy and ready to pay reliable thugs 2) the rebels were looking for a study ship to bust up the hub of a spy satellite network 3) the clone and his weequay buddy (Edge and Horm) still wanted to stop the slave convoy (which was, as the party figured out, job 1). They opted for job 2, leaving town amidst a firefight with the imperials, and brought along Edge and Horm, providing Nyla with a sword fighting trainer who’d studied under a jedi, without being a jedi himself. 

The guys busted up the satellite base by hijacking a shipment truck coming in (I’d provided them information for a couple of routes, including asteroid hopping amidst giant vacuum-proof winged frog monster creatures, and they figured this best matched their skillset). Inside they found tech that looked a whole lot like our droid character TK, a completely brainwashed cyborg engineer, and the control rods that were their target. TK, who is a droid with multiple program personalities, suddenly and without warning displayed a program personality they had never seen before and destroyed the computer mainframe, remembering nothing afterward. The cyborg also had hardware a good deal like Nyla’s, and contained a message begging for help from someone held against their will and being moved between facilities. They blew up the station, retrieved valuable tech, and flew off, triumphant, to get their payment from the rebels. 

The rebels welcomed the gang, who got to know the faction a little bit better. TK nearly started a gunfight, Nyla got a haircut, and Brick and Eshi developed mouse droid beer pong in order to provide historically unique droid bits to an eccentric collector for the last bit Eshi needed to build his machine from the prototype he’d stolen from the corporate sector in his backstory, which runs on two kyber crystals and provides a similar benefit to the force power “foresee”. He used this to figure out the sphere they were carrying contained an intensely virulent ship killer plague that would likely kill them as well, and they resolved to throw that in the sun. The gang foiled an assassination attempt on Cheng and got a new assignment: break her old pirate buddy out of maximum security prison (again, they were presented with several possible assignments, some of which tied in to other plots.) Nyla and Cheng also worked out mutually that they were both force sensitive. 

The prison break went off well. It was a sort of siberian gulag set up on an ice planet, plus some eight foot carnivorous burrowing worms- yeah, those walls are pretty short, prisoners, but where are you gonna run? The gang picked up some extra supplies by agreeing to break out a Hutt operative while they were there anyway. After some exciting sky battles, Nyla and Eshi turns the ship’s forward shields into a battering ram. They made short work of the guards inside, but discovered that there was an unexpected other party there- a wookie bounty hunter who was looking into the disappearance of the guy they handed over to the hutts. That guy was a tough fight even for the team’s big heavies, and they set a load of prisoners free to help them- taking the risk that the maximum security violent shipjackers would not decide to jack their ship to escape. Luckily between the two heavies and the giant devaronian pirate they just released, they were able to intimidate them into just accepting a ride off planet. Nyla, meanwhile, fought the wookie’s cat beast in an enclosed tunnel and nearly died, but won a pretty hard solo battle, enabling her to pick up the Hutt contact and a delirious nautolan who she had a force feeling about. Eshi forgot he was a reptile and went out in the ice with no coat, then defeated his own personal corpsec bounty hunter’s attempts to come at him with robots. With great success, they headed back to rebel space, got paid, and received a message that their former imperial employer was officially fucking pissed at them. Also, the nautolan was force sensitive and having visions of the inquisitor who tried to murder Nyla. 

Faced with mounting tension and the inability to continue lying to each other, the team pretty much spilled all their secrets to each other in the absolute most fun room mate meeting I have ever witnessed. Nyla is a force sensitive ex-imperial pilot ace, TK has an extra personality, Eshi has an I-assassinated-a-king level bounty and a machine that tells the future, Thirteen (the bothan spy) knew all this and told no one, Brick likes light beer, etc. They decided they really need to murder the children’s TV spy master as their next move. Their bothan spy provided them with a dossier on him and his six lieutenants. Nyla and Thirteen went to go meet the spymaster and try to throw him off, and had to fight the stealth assassin lieutenant, which they survived. Eshi hacked the slicer lieutenant and stole her state of the art surveillance droids. Brick checked up on the Hutt-embedded spy and learned she was a pretty awful person. He also ended up scheduling a rematch with the douwutin he beat in the pit fight, who the Hutts later dropped a word in that they wouldn’t mind if he just happened to kill in that fight. The group’s one cop friend, a red-string and corkboard conspiracy melitto, got attacked by assassins, because the spies and the governor were working against each other. Nyla and TK accidentally killed the master of disguise spy lieutenant without realizing who he was. They turned the surveillance droids on the Hutts and found out the Hutt-embedded spy was working against the spymaster as well. 

The spymaster was scheduled to attend the Chancellor’s day gala on Naboo, which is fancy far outside of anything the party is probably capable of pulling off, but I wanted to give them the opportunity to try. One of the spy lieutenants there, a slimy alderaanean lesser noble, has found a packet of forbidden information that had been stolen and hidden there, and the spymaster is going in person for the hand-off. Rebuffing an offer from the planetary governor, the group made a very temporary alliance with the Hutt spy to kidnap the noble spy and use him to force a meeting with the spymaster on their terms. And that’s where we are now. 

___

All in all, I’m really pleased with how this is going. I’m having a lot of fun and my players are absolutely great. I’d... assumed that would take less time to type up, and it’s leaving out a whole lot of stuff. I started this in October, so that’s about seven months worth of weekly sessions. That it breaks pretty easily into arcs, I feel, speaks pretty well for what I’d intended of it. I have SO MANY FUCKING named NPCs. It’s over 50 at last count. Factions are helping a lot. Each faction has a main plot that’s going to move along no matter what the PCs do, hitting beats whenever I need something interesting for the background. 

I’d like to keep making some posts here about what I’ve learned, what’s worked and what hasn’t, and about each player and their character. I personally think it’s interesting, and it helps me collect my thoughts. But for now I think I’m going to bed. 

[earline-nathay]

Subtle Matchmaking Mice

#VLDRarePairWeek Day 2: Lions / Mice Shidge Fanfic AO3 link

Summary: Allura thinks she's a great matchmaker. Lance begs to differ. Pidge makes them pay. 

One time, when Allura was about eight years old, she made a heartfelt comment to a couple about how cute they were when she met them at a Ball in the Castle. She later discovered that they weren’t a couple when she made the comment, but they also told her that they had been avoiding the subject for too long, and it wasn’t until she brought it up that they finally talked about it and started a relationship.

Since then, Allura was convinced she was a natural matchmaker, and that was the main reason she decided the task of getting the green and black paladins together fell, naturally in, her hands.

Allura liked to think she was observant, but truth to be told, it was her mice who told her everything that happened inside the castle before she could even take a notice of it herself. So, when her rodent friends came with the gossip that certain two paladins were dancing around each other with clear signs of mutual pining, she decided she was up for the task.

She realized that she had to be subtle; she couldn’t risk asking Pidge about it directly. She sill remembered how it went when she tried to make her admit she was a girl. This time, she would have to be smarter, stealthier. Ergo, she decided that the best course of action was to use her mice to create subtle scenarios for the paladins to confess their feelings.

Her first try was to send them to get Pidge one time that Shiro was training alone in the simulation room. They were currently navigating near a system that had not one but two suns, and one of them was a white dwarf, which made even the inside of the ship really hot, and that was probably why Shiro was training with a light sleeveless shirt, and even Allura, who wasn’t precisely attracted to humans, find the vision quite appealing. Surely, Pidge would find it even more so.

The Altean princess was following Pidge not far behind when she finally left her room and followed the mice, whom she had sent to fetch her.

“What?” she asked confused while they prompted her to go down the corridor, “What is it, guys?” she took two uneasy steps. After all, even if the mice sometimes kept her company while she worked, they never quite urged her to stand up. “You want me to follow you? That way?” The mice chirped excitedly. “Okay, okay, I’m going, geez. One would think after piloting a giant robot and fighting against evil aliens this couldn’t get any weirder, but I guess following mice through a floating castle can’t be cataloged as weird anymore, I mean…” she kept rambling while she advanced, with a really happy Allura on her tail because her plan was working.

“Oh, no, no,” she complained when they were arriving at their destination. “I’m not going to train, guys. I was in the middle of…” she interrupted herself when the mice tripped her into the room. “Hey, watch it!”

“Pidge?” the black paladin asked, stopping his punching to the dummy.

“Oh, hey, Shiro,” she said, catching her footing. She looked around and noticed that he was alone. “What are you doing?”

“Hey,” he greeted. “I was training a little. What brings you here?” he asked back.

Pidge looked at her feet, but the mice were gone.

“Um… I was… stretching my legs, you know? I was thinking that I’ve been spending a lot of time inactive, yeah��”

“Oh, then perhaps you’d care to join me in my training.”

“Wh-wha? Me? But you’ll crush me in like, three seconds! 

“I’m pretty sure you can hold your ground,” he stated. “You’ve crushed guys twice as big as me.” 

“Well, yeah…” ‘But they weren’t you’, she thought.

Outside and hidden from view, Allura was losing her mind. “What are they doing?” she asked the mice in a frustrated whisper. They seemed completely unfazed by their attires, making her confused. Lance once said humans reacted when they found the person they liked wearing something they considered… what was the word he used? Hot? Even Pidge was wearing a tank top and shorter shorts due to the infernal heat, so why? She thought they would totally at least get flustered.

She watched as Pidge finally accepted to train with Shiro and they started to spar. Even with all that touching, nothing happened. But of course, that was what she got for coming with ideas that came from Lance’s ramblings. Neither Shiro nor Pidge were people who would drool over each other just because they were showing a little more skin.

She surrendered the mission as lost for any romantic advances when he showed her a move that involved getting out of a hold from behind in which he hold her close to his chest and neither of them reacted. She sighed, almost annoyed, and went back to her own business. They kept training for a few more hours until it was time to go to sleep.

Sadly, Allura failed to notice that despite the lack of romantic advances, they chose to spend the day together, and romantic or not, it was an advance 

Her second try was inspired on her first. She aimed for something simpler and a little more direct. She waited for one of their meals. Shiro usually took a sit at the end of the table and she waited for Pidge to help Hunk bring the food from the kitchen to start her plan 

She made her mice run between Pidge’s feet to make her stumble. Allura was sure that if they acted just on time, Pidge was going to fall right into Shiro’s arms, or perhaps even on his lap if he wasn’t quick enough. But of course, the universe had other plans.

When her mice ran towards the only female paladin, she was currently carrying some dishes. She fell backwards instead of forward, and since Shiro was distracted talking to Keith, he didn’t saw her loose her footing and couldn’t catch her. The food ended up on Lance’s face and Pidge fell on her own ass.

“What is wrong with you guys recently?” Pidge asked the mice with a painful grimace, but the mice just ran away from the dining room to the kitchen. She was glad she didn’t see them again that day.

After that, Allura was starting to doubt her abilities, but after some pep talk to herself, she was back on track.  This time, she was going to target Shiro. After all, if she kept targeting Pidge, it wouldn’t be long before the green paladin would start to put two and two together and catch her.

So, after some well-done planning, she made her mice steal Shiro’s gauntlet, who then preceded to run to hide on Pidge’s lab. Allura, who was watching and waiting from the control room, locked the door closed once he was inside and patted herself mentally on the shoulder. She wasn’t going to let them out until something happened.

The mice left the piece of armor on the lab’s floor and slipped away using one of the small corridors they’ve gnawed around the castle. They joined Allura soon after.

“Oh, hey Shiro,” Pidge greeted. “You need something?”

“Actually, Allura’s mice just came running in here with my gauntlet,” he explained.

“Allura’s mice?” she asked arching a brow, and the princess could hear the gears in Pidge’s head rolling. She started to sweat.

“Yeah, did you see ‘em?”

“Sorry, I was concentrated with this update to my lion, I didn’t see or hear anything, but I’ll help you look.”

“Thanks”

It was a little like a seeking game because Pidge’s lab was an explosion of gears, parts of almost anything, wires, machines and more machines that blended in quite well with the color of their armors.

“You know, I’ve noticed that Allura’s mice have been acting a little weird lately,” she commented.

“They stole your stuff too?” Shiro asked, a little surprised.

“Not exactly, but they’ve been tripping me and trying to grab my attention to get me to follow them,” she explained.  “Ha, found it!” she said after spotting the item under her desk.

“Great. Thanks,” he said when she handed it to him.

“Have they done something else besides still your armor?” she asked.

“No, this is the first time they’ve done something out of the ordinary,” he admitted.

Pidge hummed, pensive, and Allura realized her subtleness was perhaps not as subtle as she thought. She saw how Shiro excused himself and walked to the door just to realize it was stuck. Pidge tried to open it too to no avail and the princess comforted herself thinking that this time, for sure, it had to work, so it really didn’t matter if she was starting to get suspicious.

“It should be a malfunction,” Pidge was saying as she went to her desk to grab some tools. “It’s alright, I can open it manually,” she said, carelessness dripping from her voice.

Allura almost screamed. Of course Pidge could open the door easily. She was an idiot for forgetting that tiny, little detail. She sighed, defeated and impotent when Shiro was free to go after less than a minute.

“What are you doing?” a voice asked from behind her, amused. It was Lance. Allura didn’t hear him enter.

Allura startled and turned around.

“Nothing!” she said, a little stiff.

“It didn’t seem like nothing,” Lance said matter-of-factly, scratching his chin with a smug expression. “It seemed like you were playing matchmaker and it didn’t go well.”

“I’ll have you know that I am a very skilled matchmaker!” she exclaimed, pride wounded.

“Ha!” Lance smirked, “So you were playing matchmaker.”

Allura huffed.

“It’s alright, princess,” Lance said with a comforting, mocking tone. “Not to worry. Lance is here to help.”

“I don’t need help,” Allura started to say, but Lance’s unimpressed expression told her he didn’t think so.

“You just got discovered,” he deadpanned.

“I…”

Just when she was about to reply, the door slipped open and Pidge emerged as if from the confines of hell.

“Allura, I have a question for you if you don’t mind”

Lance looked at the princess and smiled very sure of himself.

“Watch and learn” he whispered.

“Yeah, but before that, Pidge, my man… girl. You think you could check my lion?”

That immediately grabbed her attention.

“Check your lion?” she asked with sparkling eyes, attention completely averted. 

“Yeah, I think something’s wrong with the pedals,” he lied.

He put an arm around her shoulders and guided her towards his lion hangar. Allura pursed her lips and followed them, skeptical. She watched Lance talk her into getting in the lion and running outside when she started her usual excited rambling about her thoughts on the lion and what could possibly be wrong.

“Make sure she stays there, be right back!” he half whispered half shouted before disappearing through the door. The princess saw him go, confused.

“Shiro! Hey, Shiro!” Lance called their leader as soon as he spotted him, making the other paladin turn towards him when he heard him calling his name. “Oh, hey, so glad I finally found you, man! I need your help! Or, more like Pidge needs your help,” he said stopping in front of him and making his best impression of being distressed.

“What happened?” the black paladin asked, frowning in concern as soon as he heard the words ‘Pidge needs your help’.

“She was helping me with some repairs on my lion and she got stuck inside the cabin, I told her she wasn’t going to fit in the space between the pedals but she didn’t listen to me!”

And just like that, both paladins were running towards the hangar again.

Allura saw them enter, Shiro making a beeline for the blue lion and getting inside of it with a frantic expression.

“Pidge!” he shouted entering the cabin.

Lance stood beside a shocked Allura looking very pleased with himself.

“Don’t let them out until they hook up, sweetie,” he told his lion, patting his paw. He then turned to Allura and flicked his hair. “And that’s,” he smirked, “how is done.”

Allura looked at him with a mixture of offense and admiration plastered on her face. Lance made an exit of the hangar feeling like a king and Allura thought it was better to observe from the cameras someplace else when she saw them talking and solving the misunderstanding. Despite she couldn’t hear them, she ran away.

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no!” Pidge grunted with her palm on her forehead and shaking her head. “This is all Allura’s doing, I’m sure.” She stated. “And Lance’s, apparently.”

“You think Allura and Lance wanted to trap us? What for?” Shiro asked.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was her idea. I mean, the mice were one thing, but I didn’t know Lance was a rat,” she spat.

“You lost me”

Pidge sighed.

“The mice had been acting weird, right? Stealing our stuff, making me trip or follow them. When that happened, they guided me to the training arena, that time we ended up sparring,” she started to explain. “They guided me to you, and where did they guide you when they stole your gauntlet?”

“To your lab,” Shiro responded. And then, “Oh.”

She felt her face growing hot.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. “I think Allura’s playing matchmaker and this time I can’t hack the lion to get us out. 

She thought about it for a second.

“Hey, Blue! You think I can bribe you to get us out?” she asked, dubious.

The lion grumbled softly but didn’t open.

“Thought so,” she said.

“It was worth the try,” Shiro said, trying to be optimistic.

“Got any ideas?” she asked leaning against the back of the pilot’s seat and crossing her arms.

“Uh… perhaps he would let us out if he thinks he already completed his mission?” he suggested trying to sound logic, without realizing of the implication of his statement.

“Yeah!” she brightened up, “That sounds like it should work!”

But wait, she made a mental pause, if the mission was to get them together, then that meant…

They looked at each other and felt their hearts jump to their throats in panic.

‘I’m going to murder them when we get out of here’, she swore internally.

Five minutes, a shy “What do you suggest we do?”, a “We can… perhaps, k-kiss?” and a shy peck later, they were still trapped. Twenty minutes, a “Do you wanna give it another try?”, an “Okay” and a little longer, firmer kiss later, they were still trapped. An hour, a “You’re too tall, I can’t reach”, a “Hop up” and several kisses later, they were starting to forget to check if they were still trapped.

Two hours later, they were panting, the cabin was beginning to be a little too hot and, wait. Were they trapped? Perhaps they should check. But just give them a minute. Three hours later, she didn’t even notice she had lost her glasses and if he kept tugging gently at her hair, she was probably going to melt into a puddle. An indefinite amount of time later, the fact that they were supposed to check if they were still imprisoned inside of the blue lion had been long forgotten, time perception disabled. He felt her small tongue run across his bottom lip and oh, was he glad his right hand could feel because her skin was so smooth and warm under her sweatshirt.

When they finally got out, Pidge actually considered thanking Lance. But after she murdered him, of course. However, in case you haven’t noticed, Pidge was a very creative person and that was why two weeks later, Shiro discovered her sitting in front of her lion, with a smug grin on her face. When he looked up, he saw Allura and Lance in the pilot’s cabin. Allura looked desperate, Lance was probably trying to convince her to make out to get out. Shiro knew that that wasn’t going to happen, and even if it did, Pidge was a little devil who wouldn’t let them out immediately.

“What are you doing?” he asked arching an amused brow, even if he already knew the answer.

She looked up at him and with a straight face, said just one word with a grim voice.

“Vengeance”

He looked up at the cabin again through the eyes of the lion and had to admit it was a pretty funny scene.

“Are you going to make me let them out?” she asked him, a little hesitant.

“In a minute,” he responded calmly and sat beside her.

She smiled contently, secretly falling a little more in love. She rested her head against his arm, looked up and enjoyed the rest of the show.

[giancarlonicoli]

The Tesla Model 3 was supposed to be the "entry-level" electric vehicle for the middle class, that "made it up in volume": leading up to the release of the Model 3, it was positioned as the people's EV that everybody could afford and that, once mass produced, would help Tesla generate cash and profits consistently. The car's relatively modest $35,000 price tag was heralded as one of its key selling points, low enough that Tesla could generate the volume needed to gain operating leverage from selling it to the masses.

But as Elon Musk himself admitted this weekend on Twitter, selling a $35,000 Model 3 right now would cause Tesla to "lose money and die".

With production, 1st you need achieve target rate & then smooth out flow to achieve target cost. Shipping min cost Model 3 right away wd cause Tesla to lose money & die. Need 3 to 6 months after 5k/wk to ship $35k Tesla & live.

So, instead of selling this mass-market vehicle, Tesla has focused on selling a more expensive version of the vehicle. A much, much more expensive version, in fact more than double the base price... and, if Elon Musk's Tweets this weekend are any indication, Tesla doesn’t have any near-term plans to start selling the vehicle at anything close to the $35,000 price tag that was initially promised anytime soon.

Instead, Musk was busy introducing yet another high priced variation of the Model 3, this time the dual motor, all wheel drive Model 3 that could run a price tag of just under $80,000.

Cost of all options, wheels, paint, etc is included (apart from Autopilot). Cost is $78k. About same as BMW M3, but 15% quicker & with better handling. Will beat anything in its class on the track.

As Bloomberg details, " Musk unveiled specifications for a faster and more powerful version of the Model 3 in a series of tweets over the weekend. It will cost $78,000, more than double the $35,000 base-model starting price discussed into the run-up before the electric car’s deliveries started last year. And that doesn’t include the Autopilot driver-assist feature."

The increasingly expensive configurations for the Model 3 are planned steps, if somewhat counterintuitive ones, toward Musk’s vision of Tesla Inc.as a mass-production player with vehicles affordable to a broader swath of buyers. The $78,000 sticker puts the electric sedan beyond reach of many consumers, and, by Musk’s own estimations, brings it closer to the realm of luxury cars.

Ever since the Model 3 has started being delivered, the price tag has done nothing but drift higher, fueling critics who have stated that the $35,000 price point once touted would not be achievable. Bloomberg continues:

When Model 3 deliveries started in July, Tesla described the $35,000 price for a Model 3 with a standard battery with a 220-mile range before options or incentives. But its focus was on fulfilling orders for customers who wanted longer-range battery packs with faster charging, pushing the price up to about $44,000.

Tesla said in February a dual motor version would come at midyear and a standard battery pack would be available in late 2018. In a letter to shareholders earlier this month, Musk said that the company would begin offering new options such as all-wheel drive -- and a base model with a standard-sized battery pack -- once his factory in Fremont, California, reaches a production rate of 5,000 cars a week.

Only the expensive performance model was mentioned in Musk’s tweets this weekend. The company’s current business model and financial position -- it’s operating at a loss and has negative operating cash flow -- mean “that this is not the time for a $35,000 Model 3,” Tynan said in emailed comments.

And now, we have Elon Musk touting his new $78,000 model on Twitter, even stating that the price point was about that of a BMW M3. As Bloomberg notes, however, "a BMW M3 sedan has a starting manufacturer’s suggested retail price of about $66,500". Also, M3s are not exactly everyday cars for your average motorist. In fact, quite the opposite.

More bad news: Bloomberg cite an analyst who predicted that those waiting for a plain old, boring, boneheaded, and very much uncool base model of the Model 3 would likely have to wait for years.

The pricey version of the Model 3 is in keeping with Musk’s earlier practices with the Model S luxury sedan and Model X sport utility vehicle -- adding options and higher specifications to help generate cash that can be used to eventually build vehicles for mainstream buyers.

Shipping a minimum-cost Model 3 right away “would cause Tesla to lose money and die,” Musk said on Twitter. The company needs three to six months after achieving production of 5,000 units a week before it can ship a $35,000 Model 3 and survive, he said.

...

The profit is in the higher trims, Ivan Drury, senior manager of industry analysis at Edmunds.com, said by phone. “The idea that it’s supposed to be a car for everyone is kind of laughable,” Drury said. “Anyone who wanted a base model may have to wait years out.”

But wait, it gets worse: because aside from not getting the price point for the car that they were promised, potential Tesla customers also have another reason to give their Tesla purchase a second thought: insurance.

In an article published over the weekend by Clean Technica, the author details how a small dent in a front left fender of a Tesla - caused by hitting a parking sign that the car's cameras also somehow missed - ultimately cost the shocked owner nearly $7,000 to fix and replace. The author of the blog was stunned by the price tag:

I decided to file a claim and asked the body shop folks to coordinate the repair with my insurance company. After a few days without any meaningful updates, I asked my insurance company (Liberty Mutual) what was the hold-up. The claims specialist told me, “Well the shop’s estimate was a bit higher than we expected.” How much higher? “Nearly $7,000, of which $5,000 was labor.” I had heard that the Model S was expensive to fix, mostly due to its all aluminum construction. But the Model 3’s “simple design” and the planned use of steel over aluminum where possible was supposed to make things like this less complicated (and less costly). It turns out that there is still quite a bit of aluminum in the Model 3, as you can read about in articles like this one.

And the cherry on top: to replace the fender on the vehicle, there was a significant amount of the car's body that needed to be removed, racking up thousands of dollars in labor charges:

But more complicated and labor-intensive than the painting is the “R&I” — short for “Removal and Installation.” To repair this fender apparently requires removal and reassembly of much of the left side of the car, including all of the trim pieces, moldings, and the driver’s mirror, as well as the front bumper. And when you reinstall the front bumper, you also have to “aim” (re-calibrate) the front distance sensor. The repair also required disassembly of the rear seats in order to access (and disconnect) the high-voltage battery connectors. Apparently, they do this so as not to electrocute the folks working on the car (always nice to not kill anyone).

The insurance company balked at the estimate and sent their own adjuster. So a few days later, I got the news: the second adjuster’s estimate was not far off from the shop’s own appraisal. It was around $6,250 — about $500 lower than the original appraisal. So the insurance company approved the repair, and I had to wait a few more days for the shop to finish the work.

We can only guess that if baseline Model 3 orders ever do ship, customers will be equally as shocked by what should be soaring insurance costs, given the extensive amount of labor and cost involved with making such a small repair, for a company which was all about rolling out the next big thing while support and maintenance was only a casual   afterthought.

We also assume that Tesla will still be solvent by the time Tesla gets to shipping out the baseline Model 3 which in light of recent developments, is a very bold assumption.

[mygifaubdiggy-blog]

Niche report - Goodone

Goodone was born in 2006. The woman’s wear Brand was created by Nin Castel and Phoebe Emerson and is mainly a ready to wear and knitwear based brand. The Eco friendly orientated fashion brand, has won a few awards for its creative endeavour to help the environment. Goodone ‘specialise in up-cycling and innovatively combining new British and sustainable fabrics with reclaimed textiles. Known for bold, colour-blocked styles, they have developed a design method which is informed by th e use of recycled fabrics, but not restrained by it.’ (goodone.co.uk)

Nin the designer claims that their mission is to:

‘• Instigate positive change within the fashion industry

• Provide a creative alternative for waste reduction

• Exceed people’s expectations of what upcycled garments can be by creating high-end fashion-forward collections’  (goodone facebook page)

Nin Castel grew up on a pig farm near Oxford. In 2001 while doing a Fashion and Business Studies degree at Brighton University she became interested in sustainable design. The business began when she met Pheobe Emerson and the two shared a mutual interest in sustainable fashion "One million tonnes of textile waste goes into landfills every year and around 50 per cent is reusable, so we decided to concentrate on recycled fabrics." (the telegraph) They made a deal with a local charity shop who let them go through all the bags of textiles being sent to the rag factory, and they paid the charity £1 a bag. They then moved into an old car showroom in Brighton. "It was an open space, with two makeshift beds and our studio in the middle. We had no funding, were living on housing benefit and doing part-time jobs to try and get the business Goodone up and running. In 2006 our first customers were local boutiques. We were full of enthusiasm, and rather naïve as we really thought that our tiny business could make an impact on the huge fashion industry."  (telegraph interview) When the business had been going for six months they went on a three-day course for start-ups run by the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship, inspired by this course they then moved to London to a new studio in Hackney, and won a £15000 prize which got there business properly started. "I think we won because we put everything we'd got into the business, and had big ambitions rather than wanting to remain a small creative project," (Nin Castel the telegraph)

Goodone truly began in 2006 by Pheobe and Nin the first studio was in a former slipper factory before the brand relocated to London. In 2007 the pair went on to collaborate with Noki an art brand that stand up against mass produced fashion. In the same year they also became international shipping orders to Japan and Tokyo. In 2008 Pheobe Emerson went her own way to become a human rights lawyer leaving the brand in the capable hands of Nin Castel. The same year Phoebe left Nin developed a capsule collection for ASOS and showed in London fashion week and also created a limited edition collection for the Fashion Targets Breast Cancer campaign. In 2009 the brand found their true calling using off cuts and excess fabric from the industry for their summer collection and then showing it in London fashion week again. They designed a limited edition handbag for Puma and Goodone introduced British made fabrics into the Autumn Winter 2010 collection. 2009 was an important year where the brand found this new evolution to their brand. The brand had always been an eco brand but they managed to find a specialism with in the industry. In 2010 Goodone became briefly available at Topshop.com and at the flagship Oxford Street store launching during London Fashion week. They began to start mixing sustainable fibres with the recycled fabrics they were already using. Later becoming part of the SS11 collection. They were sponsored to walk at Greece fashion week. And that year they worked on a sustainable up cycled project with Tesco re working their ends of roll fabric with off cuts from the factory floor. The brand later began to use reclaimed silks and leather and Nin was asked to teach sustainable fashion at central saint martins with her new partner Clare Farrell and the Ethical Fashion Forum asked Goodone to judge the 2011 Innovation Awards. One of the biggest things they did around this time was the one big factory project (later explained) which opened some doors for some massive collaborations. Slovenia Fashion Week invited Nin to speak at the October finale and also have a catwalk show of the SS12 collection.

Presently Good one have begun to change the way they sell their work from going from seasonal collections they decided that it would be better for them to do a tran-seasonal collection called ‘Goodone is’ getting all the best bits of they’re previous designs and selling that. This is because they decided seasonal collections was too time consuming and it didn’t allow them to focus on these big collaborations especially with the ‘one big factory’ project. They decided to slow down so that they could focus on the things that they felt made the most impact. The ‘Goodone is’ collection is available in shops and on the website and is constantly being developed and updated rather than completely renewed. Goodone also began to slow down because Nin started a family and moved to San Sebastian (spain) with her husband. However she does still work with Goodone and teaches sustainable fashion at central saint martins. They are also extremely active over twitter and face book not just marketing their own brand but really preaching the importance of sustainability (urban times interview 2015)

Collaborations with these brands like Tesco are so important not just for the brand but also what the brand stands for. Eco Fashion is something that is notoriously difficult to get people to buy because often it is expensive and can have a stigma attached with it, “The general public, however, still regards clothing made from discards with a gimlet eye, which means to woo them, style must always trump substance. Goodone has that part covered.” (ecouterre)However Goodone create clothes that are good for the environment, that can be produced for the mass market and are something that people want to wear. “The collection of clothing, made entirely from surplus jersey, factory offcuts, and other textile waste. The collection, which includes paneled body-con dresses, leggings, ands skirts, incorporates many of Goodone’s signature color-block styles” (ecouterre)

The clothes that are produced are very intelligently constructed using small panels and big colour blocks may be part of their design aesthetic but it is also a clever way of using smaller pieces of off cut fabric. And is a clever way of upcycling a garment that is just disguised as colour blocking. They want to challenge the throw away culture associated with fast fashion and make it socially acceptable to wear upcycled things. “Two decades ago there were two seasons in fashion. But advances in technology mean there can now be up to 12, explains Phoebe, who handles the more managerial side of Goodone. "It can take as little as 12 days to design an item and get it onto the shop floor," interjects Nin.” (interview with the BBC 2008) This fundamental shift means it can cost less to buy something new than to get it dry-cleaned or repaired,

Goodone have come very far with there forward thinking including some massive collaborations and winning awards for their innovation and creativity like the Trefor Campbell Award, the Small Medium Enterprise award for innovation, Nin was shortlisted for the RE:Fashion New Designer of the Year Award. They have collaborated with major organisations like Amnesty, Liberty, WWF, Greenpeace, Shelter and No Sweat, as part of a project upcycling old campaign t-shirts. In 2010 Goodone worked on a sustainable up cycled project with Tesco re working their ends of roll fabric with off cuts from the factory floor.

Nin said in an interview with the urban times that she is an upcycling brand and other brands like, Henrietta Ludgate, Aiden and Lou Lou st Cruz were all in a group together with her. She didn’t use the word competitor because in the end they all had the same goal and said ‘its all like a “commandership together” and that its extremely rare to get this in other sections of the industry.  It would also suggest that with in this niche they are also her main competitors. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctts8bYxwWU)

They began a factory in Bulgaria 2010-11 that was named the ‘One Good Factory Project’, which Nin described as a very exciting project. She decided that she really wanted to step up and begin to really be one of the first designers to start truly mass producing up cycled garments. It was developed whist creating there own collections in Bulgaria and on the back of that success they began to recognise the potential for scaling up and offering similar problem solving and manufacturing support to other brands and retailers.

“For the first time we can offer affordable, mass-produced garments for designers and brands across the UK from boutique to high street. We are really excited to be able to facilitate this kind of sustainable manufacturing, particularly given the current economic and environmental climates and the challenges they represent for our industry.” –Nin Castel

It meant Specialist manufacturing for up-cycled garments that could be affordable. They could process pre and post consumer waste textiles, including washing and grading. This may come in the form of scraps, remnants and whole garments. They could provide specialist pattern cutters. And had the resources to work with a range of fabrics from woven’s to jersey, knits and sportswear. Providing Consultancy, identification of waste streams, product/design/range development. They could start Sourcing waste within current manufacturing practice. Work alongside existing design and production teams, develop products to include textile waste and Design and develop whole new ranges based around available materials. With these capabilities they can produce consistent, standardised, high quality products that in the long run could make a serious impact on not just the way designers could begin to start really considering using  up cycled fabrics and designing with sustainability in mind and could be a feasible and easy thing to do but it could also have a massive impact on the environment, which was part of their mission. 

 What makes Goodone different and niche is their forward thinking and true passion for sustainability with in fashion. Goodones aim is not to stand apart from the mainstream fashion industry, but instead to achieve positive change from within it. “It’s evident that Goodone doesn’t believe in preaching solely to the choir, or restricting its affordability to an elite few.” (ecouterre) they have reasonable prices for anyone that want to buy it. They aim to make their clothes as accessible as possible and as well made as they can so that they are durable and even more sustainable. Researching I found no negative impacts this brand could really have. They only have pure intentions for doing the best for the planet we live on. It’s a truly inspiring brand that should be admired by bigger companies showing that mass producing, cool, wearable, well made, well designed and up cycled clothes can and should be mass produces.

[bestnewsmag-blog]

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Mojo networks' tips to secure data protection, safe internet usage

Socal Media Networks Make Global Travel Lodging Easy

  The online marketplace for worldwide accommodations thru social media networks has contributed to the fast unfold of globalization among humans of different international locations. The start framework for our cutting-edge-day computers, tour, and internet abilities happened across the mid-20th century. Over the following sixty years, not possible advances in computer technology and increased accessibility to the sector-huge internet on an international scale have created a large number of travel accommodation options for the avid world tourists. A big a part of this increase in global lodging alternatives for global travelers is due to social media networks. human beings at the moment are able to resourcefully and effectively plan for worldwide tour arrangements the usage of social media networks. travelers can enjoy varying cultures amongst people and local landscapes, main to a unique experience on a global degree. Our global has contracted even as our travel alternatives are actually infinite. As soon as a tourist arrives at a favored vicinity, accommodations in the vicinity may be as culturally immersive because of the traveler goals. In a phrase, globalization of travel has long past digital (Susan Lund).

Not unusual practices for planning an experience, along with contacting an airline, lodge, or making plans an experience through a journey company have to emerge as increasingly obsolete. A quick seek on the internet yields several websites to go looking and explore. A recent article in Forbes listed several beneficial websites for making plans a trip (R.L. Adams). Many of the ten websites indexed, Airbnb.Com and HomeAway.Com stand out as providing global lodging possibilities on a very real cultural degree. Airbnb is a web marketplace and hospitality provider, permitting human beings to rent or rent short-time period accommodations which include holiday rentals, apartment leases, homestays, hostel beds, or in rooms. HomeAway gives an expansion of apartment resorts from cabins to castles to farm homes. Further to those websites, Couchsurfing.Com affords a platform for contributors to stay as a guest at a person’s home, host vacationers, meet other contributors or be a part of an occasion. The Common thread of every of these three sites is their platform to connect the man or woman traveler to a global community establishing their doors to them.

The first website cited, Airbnb, ranks primarily on Forbes’ list. Airbnb became nearly unknown in 2008. Now over a decade later it has grown to be synonymous with lodging at any fee point allowing human beings to list or rent short term lodging. As Airbnb internet site information, the enterprise expands a character’s journey opportunities and opportunities to over 191 international locations. Airbnb promotes that vacationers can experience towns as locals more so than as vacationers. Airbnb has clients from around the sector and believes that people will continually become extra linked to greater cultures, shaping the way that the character tourist engages with the arena.

A second social media community for accommodations options is HomeAway. This website is listed as 2nd on Forbes’ recent article of pinnacle journey lodging resources. It has been set up since 2005 and is making a name for itself by acting as a condominium labeled having over 1 million listings in 22 languages in 190 nations. HomeAway’s website states its’ challenge is to make each vacation rental in the global to be had to each visitor within the international through their on-line market. HomeAway gives a wide-ranging choice of vacation houses. vacationers have greater room to relax with introduced privacy at the same time as experiencing the arena around them.

Having now not made Forbes’ list, Couchsurfing simply stands out, expanding a vacationer’s opportunities to experience global cultures up-close and private. Couchsurfing was founded in 2004 and services over 14 million people in 200,000 cities around the sector. Couchsurfing’s website states that the organization envisions a global made higher by way of tour and travel made better with the aid of connection to foster cultural exchange and mutual appreciate. tourists can hook up with hosts who offer air mattress, couches, or spare bedrooms as lodging – experiencing the sector in a way money can not buy.

In summary, there is a Common thread among these social media networks this is targeted on worldwide lodging: they may actually preserve to play a function in furthering globalization.tips to secure data protection, safe internet usage.

An individual’s journey enjoys will vary significantly relying on which us of he or she chooses to visit. Airbnb, HomeAway, and Couchsurfing are three websites that concentrate on expertise through the share of ideas, culture, and knowledge. Social media networks have the opportunity to connect or disconnect global members of the family, through the cultivation of a shared international citizenship between human beings of all cultures.

Motocross Tips – How to Shift Gears For Maximum Speed

  I have observed that lots of beginning motocross riders often get pretty burdened approximately the way to shift gears properly. Absolutely everyone appears to have a distinct opinion and it may be quite tough to discover instructional materials that clearly cover this essential issue of motocross technique.

There are two ways that I in my view like to shift up gears on a motocross motorbike and I’m going to attempt to explain them in this brief article.

For the first way you don’t must use the grab. Basically, all you need to do is backtrack the throttle, shift up and then get instantly returned at the throttle as short as you may. It’s Adequate to now not use the clutch in this case as the drive is momentarily disengaged.

This manner is nice however considering you need to backpedal the throttle, you will lose a bit of momentum and you can not manage to pay for to try this in a race.

There is a far extra powerful manner of upshifting that will really permit you to move tons faster and also you won’t lose any speed.

All you need to do to is get the throttle pinned huge open, pull in the grasp just a tiny bit so that the engine is just about disengaged, shift up then set free the grasp. Do this as quick as you can and make it one fluid motion. This ill-will let you hold the revs high in order that while you allow the size out, the power is there right away. You might not need to anticipate the strength to dial in again as within the preceding technique.

Now, a variety of humans assumes you have to use the clutch when downshifting however that isn’t always the case at all. whilst you shift down, there is not anywhere near as plenty of a pressure at the engine so It’s no longer without a doubt necessary. In fact, through now not using the grasp you’re able to use the engines natural resistance to help you sluggish down (this is called engine braking). Ideally, the simplest time you need to be moving down is when you are on the brakes. Being on the brakes method that There’s even much less stress positioned at the engine and the blended impact will help you sluggish downloads more correctly.

Use The Power Of The Internet To Market Your Business Using These Simple Tips

  No person or employer can ignore the energy of net advertising. It is a crucial element of aa hit task, something that assignment can be. Pointers including those listed in this article will assist you to get began on aa hit, dynamic internet advertising campaign for yourself or your enterprise.

Suppose visually. Sure, you are trying to sell a products or services, however, think about it: how oftentimes have you stayed on an internet site that you could not stand to study? Make your website easy and attractive in order that people will live long enough to take a look at what you have to offer.

Twitter is a first rate manner to keep your customers updated on information approximately your enterprise. The provider is completely loose to apply and really intuitive for users. That means that brief updates about new merchandise, sales, and other sweets can be brought right to your fans without problems. Twitter is extraordinarily famous with college students of all ages, making it an amazing preference for companies that cater to the underneath 30 demographic.

While reaching out to other sites to link again to you and while you hyperlink to different websites, construct relationships with great/valid sites in place of a handful of semi-legitimate ones. In case you are related to a website that search engines already location excessive on seeking results pages then you too may be favored by the algorithms.

If you are trying to position out your product on the net, It’s miles vital that your internet website does now not get lost in statistics. You need to always remember the fact that the primary factor of your internet site is to catch your visitor’s attention. You have to not lavatory your website online down with an excessive amount of data.

In case you are running a weblog or a question discussion board to your internet site, make certain which you rent a moderator to monitor the go with the flow of content material. Now and again, you could have a person who isn’t always behaving correctly who will be detracting potential clients from traveling your website. Moderating your internet site can assist growth purchaser loyalty.

Try sticking to “honesty in marketing” When advertising. Simply because a few advertisements sell via outlandish claims does no longer imply that you have to into that to make a sale. You may indeed make an honest living by means of certainly marketing your products and services. think about the kind of humans which you want to shop for your stuff and how they will let you get extra customers if what they get is similar to what you marketed.

Social media is extra heavily used now than ever before, so take advantage of it. Create Fb and Twitter pages on your internet site or product. marketing on those websites is also a super concept, as You could goal a certain target audience a whole lot extra without difficulty. advertising and marketing are also pretty cheap on these websites.

Pay attention to the advice indexed in this article. Because of the ever-developing necessity of internet advertising and marketing, It is greater crucial than ever before, to make sure which you live focused and organized in your future marketing endeavors. The energy of internet advertising has been mounted and with the right recommendation, You could effectively enact on-line marketing strategies.