#and its becoming increasingly obvious that the internet is probably not the best place for me right now

[snl-screencaps]

“Gregarious Loner”

#snl #saturday night live #this might be my last post for awhile sorry #im gonna be completely candid #ive had some shit going on with me mentally and emotionally for months now #and its becoming increasingly obvious that the internet is probably not the best place for me right now #and im genuinely worried for my own health #both physically mentally and emotionally #i havent felt this down and defeated in years #its getting to the point where ive thought about checking myself in somewhere for my own safetly #and like tumblr tags probably not the best place to talk about this shit but i cant afford a therapist #and i think my friends are tired of me #so im just saying here that i might disappear for a while #idk if im gonna be back any time soon to post anything #but i love yall and im sorry

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | The Departed (Scorsese, 2006)

This review contains spoilers for this movie, and half-remembered ones for Infernal Affairs.

After my lukewarm reaction to The Aviator and the fact that I hadn't seen this in about a decade, I was a little worried about revisiting this after all these years. The fact that certain lines and images (*cough* the closing shot *cough*) had become something of a running joke in the internet circles I'd frequented and the fact that I hadn't seen it since maybe my high school days had me primed for an embarrassing relic of the 2000s. Thankfully, the movie held up extremely nicely when I revisited it this past weekend. (It's almost like teenage me had good taste, a quality I've managed to shed over the years.) Is it obvious at times? Of course, but I feel that's intentional on Scorsese's part. The way The Irishman seems intended to correct audience misreadings of his work, The Departed also seems to spell out his recurring concerns as bluntly as possible, possibly for the dum-dums in the audience. (It even flirts with self parody at times, dropping "Gimme Shelter" multiple times during the movie.) It's no surprise that this was the movie that finally won him Best Picture and Best Director Oscars.

Did you know that Scorsese is interested in how Catholicism burrows into its believers' psyches? Well, with the extremely on the nose closing shot and other moments (a certain character's arms splayed out in Christ-like formation, hellish red lighting, crude dialogue regarding sexual abuse), now you know. Did you know that loyalties founded on ethnic lines can actually be toxic? In switching perspectives from his usual Italian gangsters to Irish ones (and with Italians and Chinese criminals at the fringes), the meaninglessness of these alliances becomes more obvious. Did you know that a life of crime actually doesn't pay? With enough scenes of low level criminals performing demeaning work or otherwise sitting on their ass, you get the hint. He's also not blind to the economic motivations of the characters in their pursuit of a life of crime. Both main characters are born into seemingly destitute circumstances. One of them (Matt Damon) sees a local criminal as a rare exception to the squalor around him and immediately falls into his orbit, leveraging the support of his criminal benefactors into a genteel, almost white collar version of success. The other (Leonardo DiCaprio) keeps toiling away, his undercover work as a low level criminal proving just as his experience growing up. Modern technology figures into the plot in the form of stolen microprocessors and high-tech surveillance (a character excitedly shouts "Patriot Act! Patriot Act!" during a sting), something that might seem cool or flashy in another director's hands but highlights the fundamental banality of the enterprise here.

None of these elements are especially subtle, but what makes them resonate is their forceful assembly, in particular thanks to the aggressive cross-cutting. (The Scorsese-Schoonmaker team is one of the most formidable in cinema in this respect.) There's an appreciation for the harsh morality and rigid arcs of classic gangster films, the DNA of which mixes strikingly with grittier modern crime cinema. When the movie reaches its bloody denouement, the Rube-Goldberg-like intricacy with which it plays out gives it a thunderous impact. It's been a while since I've seen Infernal Affairs, of which this is a remake, but I don't remember it hitting quite as hard in this regard. And if I recall correctly, it has two love interests for the protagonists instead of the one major female character here, meaning there's no last minute realization by the villain that he's been cuckolded the whole time by the man whose funeral he's attending. Both characters struggle with their identities and the increasingly tense web they've spun throughout the film, but DiCaprio has the last laugh from beyond the grave.

The film is also a masterclass in casting, which lends it additional power. DiCaprio can sometimes be a bit obvious or strained, something I struggled with in The Aviator, but I think that quality serves him exceedingly well here as an undercover cop. If we can see the calculation in his performance, can the criminals around him see through him as well? Damon seems chosen in part for his slight resemblance to DiCaprio, but his natural pomposity is appropriate for his character's aspirations towards respectability, and is a great match by the smugness exuded by his colleague Alec Baldwin. (Here and in The Aviator, Scorsese makes great use of Baldwin's distinct mix of of genteel machismo. At different points in both movies, he practically whips it out.) Jack Nicholson's "Cool Jack" shtick has always struck me as a little sleazy, and he takes that to sickening extremes here, a man without a filter, shoving his appetites in your face relentlessly. (In one of his first scenes, he makes untoward comments towards an underage girl who he later grooms to be his girlfriend.) If this is supposed to be an aspirational figure, it only drives home how dismal a life of crime really is. (It's worth noting that one element likely intended to make him seem unctuous, his ownership of a porno house, makes him seem like a heroic proprietor of an independent theatre these days. I bet they don't play superhero movies at this joint. I also remember an amusing anecdote about Nicholson trying to ad lib setting another character on fire, only to realize his glass was filled with a soft drink.)

As DiCaprio's handlers, Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg serve as each other's foils. The former is warm and paternal (perhaps the only such character in the movie, which perhaps telegraphs his fate), the latter is a source of unmitigated douchebaggery. Wahlberg is not someone I'd consider a great actor normally, but in the hands of the right director and placed (usually) out of his element, he can be extremely effective. (I'd cite Boogie Nights, Three Kings and Pain and Gain as the other high points of his career. And maybe The Happening, although unintentionally in that case.) Here, surrounded by obviously better actors, he channels that insecurity into foul-mouthed indignation, serving as a tenuous moral pillar in a world hellbent on doing away with them. (He's also the clearest source of comic relief in this grim movie. Every line, snarled in his nigh impenetrable Boston accent, is a howler.) Is Marky Mark the key to holding this movie together? Probably not, but he's an essential piece of the intricate, thrilling puzzle that is The Departed.

#film #movie review #the departed #martin scorsese

[deansmyapplepie]

Only You - Chapter 15

Title: Eye of the Hurricane

Summary: When a man who left the reader six years ago suddenly reappears on her doorstep, she does everything she can to stop herself from falling in love with him all over again. Little does she know that his seemingly brief return will open an entirely new chapter for both of them.

Only You Masterlist

Pairing: Dean Winchester x reader

Tags: smut, wounded!reader, worried!Dean, worried!Sam, angst

Word Count: 6,124

(Gif not mine)

Staring anxiously at your phone screen, you tapped through new links, looking for any occurrence that could be considered "paranormal." The one thing that caught your attention was the report on your childhood home burning down in local news, and you really weren't in the mood to read it. A few days had passed since the fire, and even though you knew that laying low was the smart thing to do, you were going crazy. Dean especially needed some time to heal if the three of you were going to take care of this witch problem, but doing nothing was starting to get to you. You had never been one for sitting still for long periods of time, and you were really starting to feel it. The only time any of you left the house was to get food or sit in a diner to charge your phones, and even those excursions had to be as discreet as possible. There was no telling where the witch had eyes. For all you knew, she already had your location pinpointed and was just waiting for the right moment. But you were trying not to think about that.

With a loud groan, you pressed your palms up into your eyes, which felt raw from staring at a screen for so long.

"This is pointless," you grumbled to yourself. Dean, who had been scrolling lazily through his phone, gave an amused snort. He sat up, suddenly excited.

"We could watch a movie," he recommended hopefully. "I don't have Netflix on my phone, but I could download it, and-"

"That's probably not the best idea," the younger Winchester piped up from across the room. He had been so quiet reading his book, you had almost forgotten he was there. "You don't want to waste your battery life." Dean scowled at his brother.

"Well, then what am I supposed to do?" he grumbled. Sam shrugged.

"Read a book." Dean's scowl deepened, and he crossed his arms over his chest with a huff.

"Yeah, right." Quite frankly, you felt a little bit bad for him. Out of the three of you, Dean was the only one who was struggling to entertain himself. In any other situation, you knew he would've spent his free time working on his beloved car. When things weren't so bad, he always told you things he wanted to improve, so she could stay running in her prime condition for longer, but he had strict doctor's orders from you to take it easy. He glanced over your shoulder to peer at your screen.

"What're you up to, babe?"

"Looking for leads," you replied, not looking up from your phone. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Sam and Dean exchange a wary look. You already knew what that look meant. They thought you were obsessing over this, and maybe you were, but that wasn't the point. You had to keep trying for your mom if nothing else. Besides, at least you were entertained this way, which was more than you could say for Dean.

"Maybe you should give it a rest," Dean suggested.

"I will," you lied, nodding to appease them. "Just one second." As you opened a new tab, you began to type frantically into the search bar. "I think I might find something if I just use a few different keywords." Sam snapped his book shut and stood, causing you to look up in surprise.

"All right," he said firmly.

"What're you-" Before you could object, he strode over to you, took your phone out of your grasp, and handed it off to Dean. "Hey!" you exclaimed. "I was-"

"Exhausting yourself," Sam finished as he pointed a slightly reprimanding finger at you. You opened your mouth to protest, but you couldn't find the words. Even though you didn't want to admit it, he wasn't wrong. You had been searching the internet tirelessly since midmorning when the three of you had gotten back from breakfast. The only time you had taken a break was when you left with the boys to get lunch. "Come on." Sam held out a hand, which you reluctantly took, and he hoisted you to your feet. "We're going outside."

"But-" you began to argue again.

"Nope," he cut you off. He didn't wait for you to follow him as he headed for the door, stopping to point at his brother first. "No Netflix." Dean let out another huff, and you shot him a sympathetic look.

"Any idea what he's got planned?" Your question fell on deaf ears as he squinted at his phone screen thoughtfully.

"Hey, are you gonna rat me out if I download Netflix anyway?" Despite yourself, you chuckled. At this point, you were pretty sure he wanted to watch movies just because Sam said he couldn't. You shook your head.

"No, but if your phone dies, you're not using mine," you warned. Dean paused for a moment, squinting his eyes even more.

"Deal," he finally said. With one last roll of your eyes, you went after Sam, pushing open the dilapidated screen door. You were older than Sam, and even though you didn't feel like you were, you were still a bit bewildered by the way he bossed you around inside. He treated you like a little sister, and it wasn't that you minded, but you really did want to keep searching for new leads. Even though you had exhausted every search topic you could think of, you couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was still something out there to be found.

"Hey, you want to tell me what we're doing?" you called after the younger Winchester. He walked through the overgrown grass almost effortlessly, but you practically had to go high-knees to get through it. Damn him and his height. Finally, he came to a halt, turning around to face you.

"Training," Sam answered. You made a face, taken aback. For some reason, that was the last thing you had been expecting to come out of his mouth. "You need something to do, and Dean can't do this with you because of his stitches, so I'm the next best thing. But don't tell him I said that. Sound good?" What with your quick retreat, it had been a while since you trained, and honestly, you had kind of forgotten about it. Still, this wasn't what you had been expecting to do this afternoon, and you were already feeling anxious to get back to your phone. The light breeze blew a strand of hair into your face, and you tucked it behind your ear.

"I'm not saying I'm perfect, but do we still need to call it training? I feel like it's more just practicing at this point," you pointed out. Maybe if you argued with him enough, you could get out of this. "And do I still even need to?"

"Yes," Sam answered with a serious nod. "Even after as long as Dean and I have been doing this, we still train to make sure we stay in shape." You gnawed on your lower lip uneasily as he rolled up his sleeves.

"But I don't want you exerting yourself," you tried again. "What about your lungs?"

"Y/N, my lungs are fine," Sam insisted. "So don't hold back, okay?" You looked away with a frown, grumbling.

"It's not holding back that I'm worried about." Sam gave an exasperated shake of his head as he looked at you, bewilderment written all over his face.

"Jesus," he said. "You're more stubborn than Dean." You felt your lip involuntarily curl back a bit as you tucked your chin. The two of you knew better than anyone how stubborn Dean could be, and Sam knew damn well that you hated when he got like that. Those were fighting words.

"Sam Winchester, you take that back right now!"

"Oh, I know what it is," Sam continued. "You're chicken shit." Okay, now he was just pissing you off. You were a lot of things, but chicken shit wasn't one of them. And you were most definitely not as stubborn as Dean.

"All right, listen-"

"You're afraid you've gotten too rusty to even try to take me on." Face flushing bright red, you let out a spluttering noise. Sam stuffed his hands into his jean's pockets, and he gave a nonchalant shrug. "I get it." With a final defiant huff, you pushed your sleeves up past your elbows. If he wanted to see what Dean had taught you, then that's what he was gonna get.

"Are you gonna heckle me all day, or are we gonna do this?" His face melted into a triumphant, if not slightly smug grin, and he held up his fists.

"Show me what you've got." You cracked your knuckles, narrowing your eyes.

"Gladly." The sun, sitting low on the horizon, beat its orange rays on Sam and you, as you both waited for the other to make the first move. When it became obvious that he wasn't going to kick it off, you lunged at him for a quick jab. He dodged easily, countering with a punch that you narrowly missed. You stumbled back, already feeling a bit winded.

"Concentrate, Y/N," Sam encouraged. You growled irritably.

"I'm trying."

"No, you're not," he disagreed. He lowered his defenses and stepped up to you, placing his hands on your shoulders. "Your head's in a million different places right now, but it isn't here." You slumped in defeat. He was right. It had become increasingly difficult for you to concentrate on any one thing over the past few days. "I need you to let everything else go and focus on your movements and me. Can you do that?" Wordlessly, you gave him a nod, and he smiled encouragingly. "Okay. Let's try it again." Sam moved first, but you were ready for him this time. With razor-sharp focus, you deflected his blow with the outside of your forearm and used the momentum to power a right hook. He caught your fist in his hand as an impressed smile took over his face. "Better," he commended. Allowing your instincts to take over, you analyzed your positions for any weak points. Your right foot was in front, supporting the majority of your weight and keeping you balanced. When Sam had stopped your fist, not only had he occupied his hand, his left leg had also staggered back a bit, leaving his right leg exposed. You smirked knowingly. He didn't want you to hold back? Sam Winchester was about to eat his words.

"I'm not done yet." You didn't even give him a chance to fully process what you had said before you executed a turning kick aimed at his right hip. Surprise briefly filled his eyes, but he quickly recovered, releasing your fist and taking a step away.

"Hey-!" But you were faster than him, raining down fury in quick jabs and kicks that had him struggling to keep up. Finally, you lifted your knee and delivered a push kick to the center of his chest, stopping your momentum in mid-air before you actually made contact. Sam stumbled back by reflex, breathing hard as he fell to the ground. You grinned at him as sweat dripped down both of your faces.

"Now I'm done." You held out a hand to help him up, which he took, shaking his head. "Still think I'm rusty, smartass?"

"I take it all back," he replied with a chuckle.

"Good," you asserted, allowing your playfulness to seep into your tone. You squinted back at the house, knowing that Dean was probably in there draining the life out of his phone. "Okay," you said with a sigh. "If we're done out here, I've gotta get back in there and see what I can find." Turning on your heel, you began to head back in the direction of the house.

"Seriously?" Sam asked as he brushed off the butt of his jeans. "Y/N, I dragged you out here for a reason, and that reason wasn't for you to go back in and stress yourself out after five minutes." Huffing defensively, you jutted out your chin at him as you turned back around.

"I know that!" The younger Winchester crossed his arms over his chest exasperatedly as he looked you up and down.

"You're not staying out here without a fight, are you?"

"Probably not," you admitted. He heaved a sigh, taking a few steps toward you.

"Y/N," he started, "this is for your own good." Before you could ask what the hell he was talking about, he slung you over his shoulder with ease, causing you to let out a surprised screech.

"Sam!" You beat your fists down on his back, similar to how a toddler would have with a parent. "Jesus Christ, put me down, you weirdo!"

The sun was considerably lower in the sky by the time you and Sam were finished outside. It had been another fifteen minutes of you being stubborn before you finally relented and spent the next hour and a half practicing the fighting techniques Dean had taught you, and learning a few new ones from Sam. You knew you hadn't made it easy on him at first, but you were grateful for the distraction. Besides, throwing some punches was unquestionably a productive way to let out some of the stress you had been feeling.

"Hey," Sam greeted his brother when the two of you reentered the house. Dean quickly tucked away his phone, and you couldn't help but roll your eyes. Sam didn't seem to notice.

"Hey," he replied. "Y/N was kicking your ass out there." You grinned triumphantly. Damn straight, you were.

"What've you been doing?" Sam asked. As soon as he asked, you fought the urge to burst out laughing. Dean's eyes went wide, but he quickly recovered, clearing his throat.

"Well, I don't know about you two, but I'm starving." His not-so-subtle subject change didn't go unnoticed, you were willing to show mercy today. "Should we go grab some dinner and charge up?" Your stomach growled at the mention of food. Dinner sounded like a fantastic idea, but even as much as you were craving a classic burger and fries, you couldn't stand the sticky feeling that lingered on your skin. Plus, you had been dying to get some one-on-one time with Dean, and this seemed like the best way to do it.

"Actually, do you mind if I get cleaned up first?" you put in sheepishly. "I caught a whiff of myself on the way back in, and I'd really like to take a quick shower before we go." You glanced over at Dean, who raised his eyebrows when you caught his eye. "As long as your stitches aren't in the direct stream of water, I think you should be fine to shower too. Come with me?" You could tell by the roguish grin sneaking onto his face that he caught your meaning. Unfortunately, so did Sam.

"If you're doing that, then I'm going for a drive. I'm happy for you and all, but I don't want to be around to hear something that I don't want to hear." Casting your eyes downward, you blushed as Sam held his hand out expectantly. No sooner had Dean tossed him the keys that Sam was hauling it out of the house. "I'll be back in half an hour," he called over his shoulder. Dean shot you a wink as he made his way over to the stairs.

"You comin'?" he asked. Heart thumping in your chest at the way he looked at you, you nodded.

Dean beat you tot he upstairs bathroom, and by the time you got there, he already had the shower running. You smiled knowingly to yourself as you pulled off your shirt, leaving you in your bra and jeans. The eldest Winchester turned around, and his eyes widened in pleased surprise. Even though he had seen you naked many times before, he still always looked just as in awe as he was the first time. Part of you wondered whether or not that feeling would fade, although if he felt the same way about seeing you naked that you did about him, then the answer was a resounding no. Wetting his lips with his tongue, he took a small step toward you. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he looked at you as if trying to reassure himself that you were real. With a small disbelieving shake of his head, he ran his hands along your sides, making you shiver. You leaned into Dean's touch as he grazed your cheek, allowing him to guide you into a kiss that left you breathless. "I want you," he whispered against your mouth. Just hearing him say that had desire spreading through your veins like wildfire. You hooked your fingers through his front belt loops and pulled him closer to you.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Hungrily, Dean trailed open-mouthed kisses down your neck and shoulders as you undid the button of his jeans. As much as you wanted to savor this, you were on a bit of a tight schedule. Dean must have been thinking the same thing. He pulled you into a heated kiss, which the two of you only broke to take off your remaining articles of clothing.

"Shower?" he practically panted when you finally pulled apart. You nodded eagerly

"God, yes." The two of you stepped over the tub's lip into the stream of the hot water, being careful not to slip. Dean's hands immediately began to roam your body again, and you let out a soft moan.

"You're so goddamn beautiful, it hurts," he whispered into your neck before sucking lightly at the skin. Said the man that could break hearts without even trying. You reached behind yourself to stroke him, arching your head back onto his shoulder to allow him more access. Dean groaned as you let your hand do the work, and you smiled at his reaction. You weren't sure what it was, but there was something that set your nerves on fire, knowing that you were the reason behind those noises. "You're killing me here, sweetheart." That was kind of the point. When he reached down to feel you, you couldn't help but gasp. "You ready for me?" You shot him a wicked smirk over your shoulder, taking note of the way his pupils were blown with lust when he met your gaze.

"You can feel that I am." Slowly, you guided him into you, letting your eyes flutter closed when his pelvis pressed into your ass.

"Holy..." Dean breathed. He moved, and you moaned again, suddenly very glad that Sam wasn't in the house. His calloused hands latched onto your hips in a way that you thought might leave bruises when you were finished, and you felt your breath hitch in your throat. Unrealistic sex scenes in the movies had nothing on this. Dean's hot breath mixed with the steam from the shower, splaying onto your shoulder, and he caught your earlobe between his teeth. You let out a wanton moan as your body reacted to the new sensation. "That's it," he murmured into your ear. "Let me know you like it."

Dean's words only spurred you on, and you found yourself grinding back into him, trying to match his movements without throwing you both off-balance, in which case, the two of you would probably go crashing to the floor. Being extra careful to make sure that he wasn't going to make you fall, he wrapped a gentle but firm hand around your throat and tilted your head back to kiss you. Christ, he was going to be the death of you. One of the things you loved most about sex with Dean was that even though it was an incredibly repetitive act, neither of you ever finished disappointed. "Fuck!" you panted as he picked up speed. You were right on the edge of ecstasy, and you could feel your body begging for it. Using his free hand, Dean reached down to rub light circles in the spot that practically made your toes curl. It was exactly the feeling you had been missing, and you began to unravel.

"Come on, sweetheart," he urged. "Come for me."

Irresistible pleasure pulsed through you as your back arched, your climax taking Dean over the edge with you as you tugged on his hair. Once you were both done, you turned around in his arms, happy and spent, and kissed him tenderly.

"Holy shit," he said breathlessly. You smiled. That had been your line last time. Now that the fun was over, though, you realized that you still needed to actually shower, and you were running even shorter on time than before.

"Hand me the shampoo, would you?" As Dean pulled aside the shower curtain to grab the bottle, the two of you froze when the Impala's car horn sounded from outside. The green-eyed man chuckled.

"Better make it fast," he said, kissing you swiftly on the forehead. "Sounds like our half-hour is up."

Despite the rocky start, your day had turned out to be a pretty good one. An unexpected workout that got you sweating, great sex with the man you loved, and an even better dinner afterward. It hadn't been anything fancy, but you had been scoping out a family-owned pizza place that the three of you had been driving by for the past few days. Finally, the boys had caved and agreed to go there to get your nightly nourishment. Even though Dean had acted pouty because he had wanted burgers (but hell, you thought you had wanted burgers too), even he had to admit after his first slice that the pizza was to die for.

"I'm so full," you groaned for the thousandth time. Sam chuckled from the front seat, shaking his head at your antics.

"I told you not to finish the rest of that pizza by yourself," he reminded you, "but you didn't listen to me." The Impala rumbled down the rural gravel road as Dean neared the house. He snorted.

"She didn't finish it by herself. She had me." You leaned forward in the seat to kiss Dean on the cheek. Another thing you loved about him: he always had your back, even in the stupidest of scenarios.

"Yes, I did," you affirmed. The car rolled to a stop, and the three of you got out with nothing but moonlight illuminating your path. "Saying we shouldn't have finished it is quitter talk," you continued, punching Sam playfully in the arm as you headed for the front door. "And quite frankly, I'm offended you even mentioned it."

Before you could get any closer, Sam grabbed onto your arm tightly, stopping you in your tracks. Instantly, you were on high-alert, and your senses went into overdrive. As soon as you stopped moving, you could sense it. Something was wrong. Your surroundings were too quiet - not even the crickets were chirping - and darkness seemed to loom in the air. You looked over at Dean in alarm, and he gave your hand a reassuring squeeze. This had bad news written all over it, and quite frankly, you didn't have the slightest idea what was about to go down. Someone was here. And you already knew who it was.

"Did you enjoy your dinner?" The cool voice left chills running down your spine as you scanned the outdoor space for the witch. When she emerged from the shadows, her raven hair and black clothes created the illusion that she was seeping into existence from the darkness. The boys reached for their guns, and you did the same, more thankful than ever that Dean had convinced you to start carrying a weapon with you at all times. Your heart began to beat faster as you held the gun steady in your hands, but you forced yourself to calm down. Now was not the time to lose your nerve. You had a mission to avenge your mother, and not even your fear of Isobel would stop you from achieving that.

"How did you find us?" you said shakily, your voice echoing strangely into the night air. The moon cast its eerie glow down on you and the Winchesters, making the grass and trees that surrounded you seem dull and gray - lifeless. She bowed her head, but even from this distance, you could see that she was smiling up at you through her eyelashes.

"Please." Isobel stepped back into the shadows, allowing the darkness to swallow her whole again. "There hasn't been a moment that I haven't known where you are." When she spoke, her voice seemed to reverberate back at you from every side at once. Your eyes darted around frantically as you looked for any movement or sign of what shadows may be hiding her.

"Sam," you quavered. "Dean." The three of you went back-to-back-to-back to eliminate any blind spots that the witch could use to her advantage.

"Right here, Y/N," Sam reassured.

"We're not going anywhere, sweetheart."

Isobel reemerged from the blackness a few feet in front of you, and you snapped to attention again. Instantly, the boys swiveled, so they were on either side of you, a straight line of three hunters who all had their guns pointed at a witch.

"Teamwork," she remarked. "How adorable. Manete." The Latin word had barely passed through her lips when the spell took effect, your body jerking to a stop as if frozen in time. A frown flitted across your face as you tried to move some part, any part of your body. Panic clawed at your throat as you began to realize that your limbs weren't responding to you anymore. You couldn't even get your fingertips to twitch.

"I can't move!" you exclaimed. Sam and Dean glared at the witch venomously, also unable to move. All three of you were armed with guns filled with witch-killing bullets, and none of you were able to use them. You had never seen Dean look so angry before.

"It's an immobilization spell," Sam explained, his eyes never leaving the witch. "We can't move unless she breaks it." You felt your heart drop into your stomach. Sam and Dean had spent so much time teaching you how to defend yourself, and it was all turning out to be useless.

"Trust me," Isobel began as she stalked a wide circle around the three of you, making sure to keep her distance. "I don't plan on letting you two boys move." Once she had completed her circle, she came to a stop. "And as for you?" Her eyes narrowed in concentration as she looked at you. "Eritis mihi in pupa." Instantaneously, you felt the rigidness leave your limbs, and you took a hesitant step forward.

"So, what?" you snarled. "You want this to be a one-on-one fight? Fine." As you glanced over your shoulder to look at the Winchesters, you let your love for them show in your eyes. If this is what it came down to, so be it. Because of you, they had been dragged into this, and you had no intention of letting either of them get hurt. "Let them go," you commanded. "I'm the one you want anyway, just let them go and take me."

"Y/N, no!" Dean shouted. Sam's eyes darted between you and Isobel anxiously.

"What are you doing?" Honestly, you had no clue. Improvising at best, but throwing yourself into a suicide mission at worst. Isobel let out a soft tsk sound.

"Actually, that's not true. I want all three of you," she corrected. "And as for a fight? Well..." Her mouth curved into a malicious smirk. "This won't be much of a fight." With visible strain, she moved her arms up in a fluid motion, and then pushed them to the side. Much to your horror, your legs began to move against your will, walking you right up to the witch.

"What is this?" you demanded as you tried to keep your fear at bay. "You're afraid I'll kill you, so you make me your puppet?" She cackled, a vicious grin on her face.

"Oh, you're not killing me." The witch moved her hands in a circular motion, and your body turned around to face the boys. Tears of pure terror welled up in your eyes as you realized that this was what she had been planning all along. This had all been a trap. And you and the Winchesters had walked right into it. "You're killing them." Again, against your will, your limbs moved, and you found yourself pointing a gun at Dean's head. You let out a choked sob. After everything you had been through, this is how the story would end? With you killing Dean Winchester?

"Y/N," he said calmly, his green eyes burning into yours. "You can fight this."

"No," the witch piped up from behind you. "She really can't. But good try." Your finger stretched outward, itching to pull the trigger of the gun. As you looked at Dean, all of your favorite memories with him flashed before your eyes.  How your heart had raced when he charmed his way into your life at that shitty diner. The smell of worn leather in the front seats of the Impala where you shared your first kiss. The feel of his warm arms around you when he told you he loved you for the first time. Sam and Dean exchanged a grave look as you let out another cry of distress.

No. You had fought too damn hard and hurt too damn much for everything to go to shit now.

Muscles cramping, your hands began to tremble, and you tried your damnedest to resist.

"I won't," you growled. Sweat beaded on your forehead as your shaking increased. The witch had already taken your mother from you. She wasn't taking the only family you had left. You would die before you killed the Winchesters.

"You will," Isobel growled into your ear. "I figure this is fair," she prattled on. "You took my mother from me years ago, so I took yours. But that still wasn't enough. I want to take every last thing you hold dear. I want you to watch as the life drains out of the eyes of the only people you have left. And then I'm going to kill you too. Slowly. I'll take my time with it, and you'll be begging for me to just kill you already." The witch was standing directly behind you, uncomfortably close. That's when it hit you. The day when Dean was teaching you how witch-killing bullets worked many years ago.

“So, are these suckers organ-specific? Like, a wooden stake to a vampire’s heart or something?”

“Doesn’t matter where you get ‘em, so long as the bullet hits its mark.”

So long as the bullet hits its mark.

The weight of the gun in your hands seemed more insistent somehow as you made your choice. Your entire body was shuddering violently now as you forced your arms back toward yourself. Every muscle you had screamed in protest. Had you been in control of the rest of your body, the resistance in your arms would have been great enough to bring you to your knees. Warm liquid dripped from your right nostril, and the unmistakable taste of blood touched your lips.

"No!" Isobel shrieked from behind you. She began to chant a frenzy of words and touched her index and middle fingers to your temples. The memories you were using to fuel your strength vanished, and all you knew was the white-hot pain that flashed behind your eyes. A scream ripped from your throat, leaving it raw as you battled through the feeling that your head could split open, and that would be it. For a brief, horrifying moment, your arms began to point the gun at the boys again.

"Y/n!” Through all the hurt, you heard Dean's voice in your thoughts, calling you back to him. Panting heavily, you squeezed your eyes shut, forcing the witch from your head. You were stronger than this. You refused to be controlled by the bitch that killed your mother. She was never going to hurt anyone ever again.

"I won’t!” Your voice echoed thunderously throughout the clearing, and suddenly, you felt the cold, hard barrel of your gun against your skin.

Time froze when you met Dean's gaze. There were still so many things you wanted to tell him. Even though you had patched up your relationship, you had never gotten the opportunity to put into words just how much he meant to you. Things tended to be more chaotic when he was around, but you wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Because with the chaos came love, laughter, happiness, and a sense of belonging that you had never known before you met him. You loved him with every fiber of your being, and if you had to choose between him or you, it would be him -  every single time.

Dean stared intently at you, alarm flashing behind his eyes. He knew what you were about to do. And if you didn't make it, you could only hope that he would forgive you for it.

The bullet tore through you in milliseconds, ripping through layers of skin and muscle, and suddenly, the witch's fingers were gone from your temples. Your muscles tingled and ached with adrenaline and fatigue as the gun fell from your hands into the tall grass. Turning around, you took a few staggering steps back as you clutched at your new would, which was profusely bleeding. Isobel Gray was motionless in the grass as dark red soaked the soil beneath her. Her raven hair splayed out in a halo around her head as the moon reflected in her unseeing eyes. She was dead. 

She was dead.

You let out a laugh that sounded crazed as you sunk to your knees, and the boys were at your side in an instant, the immobilization spell broken. Dean peeled away the shoulder of your shirt to put pressure on the wound, shaking you a bit. You let out a hiss of pain.

"Why the hell would you do that?" he demanded. You brushed off his worrying and swallowed hard. The adrenaline was wearing off, and your energy was fading fast.

"I had to," you answered, pained. "You know I had to." The older Winchester spluttered in frustration.

"No, you didn't, Y/N! Not like that! You could've killed yourself!" You waved him off. It wasn't like you hadn't thought of that already. You had made your choice, and the world was better off because of it. Patting Sam's arm appreciatively, you bobbed your head at the witch's body.

"Please, for the love of God, someone make sure she's actually dead. I think I might keel over if she isn't." Still looking you over in concern, Sam complied, cautiously padding over to Isobel to check. For a terrifying moment, you were afraid he might tell you that you had somehow missed. That she was alive. But he never did.

"She's dead," he confirmed. It was over. It was finally over. The rest of the world around you ebbed with inky darkness, threatening to take over the rest of your vision.

"I did it," you panted. "Holy shit. I actually did it." Dean put more pressure on your bleeding bullet wound, earning a loud pained groan, accompanied by a few not-so-nice words. Sam came back over to you and Dean, patting you gently on your good shoulder.

"That was incredibly brave," Sam informed you. Dean scowled darkly at his brother.

"Like hell it was!" he barked. "It was fucking stupid, is what it was! Do you even know how goddamn risky that was, Y/N?" You didn't care. All that mattered was that you had finally finished what you had sworn to do after the death of your mom. Now, you could finally grieve and allow yourself to heal. You took one final look at Isobel's body and smiled weakly but triumphantly.

"Fucking bitch." You slumped back limply into Dean's arms, who tightened his grip on you, panic filling his face.

"No, no, no, sweetheart. Don't you do that, you hear me? I just got you back, I ain't losin' you again, baby." Exhaustion pulled you into its unforgiving grasp, and you sunk down deeper into its hold. "Y/N, open your eyes! Y/N!” Dean's name was on your lips as the rest of the world dulled to black, and his worried shouting followed you into the void before fading to nothing.

Thank you for reading!

There are only two chapters left in the Only You Series! Add yourself to the Taglist while you still have the chance!

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Chapter 16 - So, This is Goodbye

My Everythings:

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[tervacious]

I’m a free speech purist, and this brilliant review and crash course in recent history, is a really good example of why.  Excerpts:

Glasser is best known for his leadership of the ACLU after the organization’s much-pilloried decision to represent neo-Nazis who wanted to march in a suburb of Chicago called Skokie, Illinois. The shorthand outlines of that episode are known on Twitter, but the deeply thought-out reasons for the ACLU’s actions back then belong to a pre-Internet era.

The film was produced and co-directed by Nico Perrino, Vice-President of Communications for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a modern speech rights advocacy group. Perrino is 31. He met Glasser at the funeral of former Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff, and didn’t know who he was. Once he got to know the former ACLU icon, he realized that his story was “completely lost on my generation,” but also increasingly relevant, for reasons that become clear minutes into the film.

The 1978 case was horrifying on its face. Skokie was home to thousands of Jews, including many survivors of the Holocaust, to whom the mere idea of Nazis walking past their door evoked not only the terrors of the camps, but the shame and regret of inaction as Hitler’s party ascended in Germany. That was a time when many Jews elected to just pull the shades down as Nazis marched past, in the hopes that they would eventually go away.

What monster could agitate, in the courts, to bring about a repeat of such a scene? If ever there was a moment when speech could be “harm,” rubbing salt in the wounds of camp survivors, who’d spent decades convincing themselves that this leafy suburb in the American midwest was a safe haven, had to qualify.

Mighty Ira traces the reasoning of people like Glasser and ACLU attorneys like David Goldberger, as they connect their decision to defend Nazi leader Frank Collin in Skokie to their years of advocacy in the sixties for black civil rights workers in the South. You couldn’t have one without the other, they argue. “If you give the government the power to stop the right-wing marching in the street,” Glasser says, “they will acquire the power to decide who they think is dangerous enough to stop.”

Glasser doesn’t hide behind technicalities, either, noting that the myriad tricks localities in and around Chicago used to make the speech debate appear to have moved into the private arena, amounted to the same First Amendment obstruction. Requiring that marchers post a $350,000 liability insurance bond, when no private insurer would grant it, was equally a violation. “Those insurance bond requirements had been a classic mechanism by which white Southern towns used to ban civil rights demonstrations,” Glasser said.

Ultimately, the ACLU argued that Skokie was a Tower-of-Babel moment for American law. If you grant the village of Skokie the right to ban hate speech, or require insurance bonds, or prevent anyone in a military uniform from marching, the constitutional edifice comes down and every town in the country will soon be making its own rules. Next thing you know, Forsyth County, Georgia, might be banning Hosea Williams from marching on Martin Luther King Day. “Do you want every little town to decide which speech is permitted?” Glasser asked.

Glasser won the argument then, narrowly, overcoming significant opposition within his own organization. Once he won in court, the Nazi leader Collin decided not to march in Skokie, and was eventually humiliated first by a giant counter-demonstration in Chicago, then by a child molestation charge that landed him in prison.

The episode ended up looking like a powerful affirmation of constitutional principle, helping explain why Robert Kennedy — as Glasser notes, “hardly a man of the left… a guy who had worked for Joe McCarthy and wiretapped people” — had urged Glasser to join the ACLU in the first place. The organization held a unique place in American society, Kennedy told him, dedicated to neither right nor left, but to defending the “root ideas” that held us together...

...Mighty Ira goes shows scenes from Charlottesville and the death of Heather Heyer, which serves as the obvious bookend tale to Skokie. The two narratives are eerily similar. The locals awaiting the arrival of white nationalists in 2017 make exactly the same declarations the Skokie residents made, about how “we’re not going to have it here.”

That Charlottesville ended in bloodshed while Skokie did not is blamed on bad policing, the one moment in the movie where Glasser seems to be copping out. The reality is that Skokie could have and probably would have ended in much the same way, had Collin chosen to march. The more honest answer to the question of why Glasser chose the path he did isn’t so much that it’s the safest or most effective in preventing violence (although in the long run, I think that’s true also), but that democracy is messy, and all the other options are worse.

We hear Heather Heyer’s mother make this exact argument, saying, when asked if those white nationalists should have the right to speak again, “I do, and that’s not a popular opinion.” She adds, “I think once we take away the right to free speech, we may never get it back. My big concern is… who makes the decision, what speech is allowable and what is not?”

In the age of Trump, huge portions of the Democratic electorate are willing to take their chances on that front. As Mighty Ira goes to great pains to point out, minorities and the poor tended to have an easier time understanding the ACLU’s Skokie decision, because the history of the wealthy using restrictive power against labor, communists, and civil rights activists is so long. As a result, they tend to grasp that they’ll eventually be targets of speech rollbacks.

Skokie gets thrown around a lot to justify censorship and how bad the ACLU is (the ACLU is bad, just not for that reason), but most people don’t even know what the hell happened.  I love seeing it told here, because seriously, citing the Skokie case as an example of free speech run amok is and always has been specious at best.

I’m not a liberal, I’m a Radical Feminist, but that said there was a time when liberalism was something you could work with, when you could act in solidarity with liberal causes, and those folks of that type are now so few and far between it’s depressing.  Watching women who are ostensibly radical attack “the Left”, align with rightwingers, and uphold modern “liberalism” which honestly is just conservatism with extra steps, is even more depressing and I wish those of you who do that shit would stop it.  That so many of you don’t even know what you’re doing is somehow even worse than the few of you who think you can strange-bedfellow yourself and your various concerns into relevance.

#ira glasser #matt taibbi

[douchebagbrainwaves]

STARTUPS AND STUDENTS

The values of the elite, others feel a little nervous about it, because it would cause the founders' attitudes toward risk tend to be the boss of someone much older than you, and b since he's probably a founder, he can pay himself nothing. Redwoods mean those are the parts where the fog off the coast comes in at night; redwoods condense rain out of fog. Aim for cool and cheap, not expensive and impressive. So despite those millions in the bank, you're still poor. During the Internet Bubble there were a number of startups that need less than they used to. It's a tossup whether Castro Street or University Ave should be considered the heart of the Valley is done in the cafes on or just off University Ave in Palo Alto. In some cases you may collaborate with other students, and this remark convinced me that Sarbanes-Oxley loosened. It's hard to follow, especially when you're young. It's not the sort of uncool office building that will make your software worse. It's not what people learn in classes at MIT and Stanford that has made technology companies spring up around them.1 The main reason they all acted as if they got the answer to some math question before the other kids.

Palo Alto is a place they come to meet investors. Well, no. If you walked around their offices, it seemed like a software company.2 Presumably they were driven by whatever makes people in every other society invent cosmologies. I know that have the right kind of place for developing software. Investors all compete with one another for deals, but they know better than to use it. Or rather, investors who do that will get corrected in the process is option pools.3 But in fact we were doing exactly the right sort of person who would like to do, your best bet may be to choose a type of work that could turn into either an organic or two-job route is that it's slow and uncertain.

That's an important difference because it means a startup could do. Once we reach that point, we take one of two routes. I was a kid I thought they protected inventors from having their ideas stolen by big companies. The problem was, since we'd been about to be acquired, we'd allowed ourselves to run low on cash. So a language that people don't learn merely to get a job.4 We've found this principle very useful, and we were growing at 10% a month. If you work hard at being a bond trader for ten years, thinking that you'll quit and write novels when you have enough money, what happens when you quit and then discover that you don't notice.5

Always produce is also a heuristic for finding the work you love. But should you start a company. The kind of philosophy I'm advocating won't be able to achieve the essayist's standard of proof, not the mathematician's or the experimentalist's. He has noticed that theoretical knowledge is often acquired for its own sake, out of curiosity, rather than becoming philosophy professors. You couldn't just do what you wanted, and that probably made a difference. It turns out to have been temporary. Others say I will get in trouble for appearing to be writing about things I don't understand.6 If two companies have the same drab clunkiness as anything else that comes out of a new funding round we needed to raise more to keep going. Soon after we arrived at Yahoo, we got an email from Filo, who had been crawling around our directory hierarchy, asking if it was really necessary to store so much of our data on expensive RAID drives. The acquirers already have brand recognition and HR departments. Talk to as many VCs as you can, though.

Kids who know early what they want. On the whole they've done better than the companies that weren't. So don't get demoralized. Still more dangerously, when you think about it if you're trying to negotiate with them. In fact, they rarely seemed to arrive at it. For example, if users searching for compact disc player end up spending considerable money at sites offering compact disc players, then those pages will have a higher relevance for that search phrase, even though the phrase compact disc player end up spending considerable money at sites offering compact disc players, then those pages will have a higher relevance for that search phrase, even though the advertisers are paying and users aren't. Increasingly, startups are a big risk financially. Could other countries introduce more individualism into their technology companies and research labs without having it metastasize as strip malls?

Customers loved us. Usually there is something even better than C; and plug-and-so is an animal. People who don't want to be CFO of a public company now. A few ideas from it turned out to be. Because people in the Valley.7 It causes you to work not on what you want and get out of the way. This money isn't revenue.

But there is no need for rounds to take months or even weeks to close, and once founders realize that, it's going to feel terrible sometimes, then when it feels terrible you won't think ouch, this feels terrible, I give up.8 I, Ada have lost, while hacker languages C, Perl, Smalltalk, Lisp. They may also make the biggest investment. There is no core of knowledge one must master. So mainly what a startup buys you is time. We felt like our role was to be impudent underdogs instead of corporate stuffed shirts, and that this company is going to discover those. Perhaps more importantly, you'll get into the habit early in life of thinking that all judgements are. The reason: today's teenage hacker is tomorrow's CTO.9 Some angels, especially those with technology backgrounds, may be satisfied with a search result than going to the site and buying something?

Notes

The First Two Hundred Years.

More precisely, investors treat them differently. Everyone's taught about it.

There's no reason to believe this number is a function of their initial funding and then stopped believing, so presumably will the rate of change in response to what modernist architects meant. I overstated the case, as they seem like noise.

If they really need that much better, and would not be true that the only result is that the path from ideas to startups. In the Daddy Model and reality is the only ones that matter financially, and there are not the second clause could include any possible startup, unless it was true that being so, you have to talk to a VC who got buyer's remorse, then over the details. Record labels, for example, the number of situations, but there are no startups to have had little effect on college admissions there would be to become one of their growth from earnings.

This is a new generation of software from being contaminated by how you spent your summers. By a similar effect, at least, as Brian Burton does in SpamProbe.

It was common in the computer world recognize who that is a bad idea was that professionalism had replaced money as a constituency. Some find they have to factor out some knowledge. He, like a knowledge of human nature, might come from meditating in an empty room, you might be an inverse correlation between launch magnitude and success.

I was as bad an employee or as outside counsel, they cancel out and you start to be hard on the spot as top sponsor.

If you seem evasive than if you repair a machine that's broken because a it's too obvious to your instruments. Some want to turn Buffalo into a great programmer is infinitely more valuable, and that modern corporate executives would work so hard to judge for yourself and that modern corporate executives would work so hard to mentally deal with the sort of idea are statistics about the idea that they probably don't notice even when I switch in mid-twenties the people who run them would be easier to get a small proportion of spam. Xkcd implemented a particularly clever one in a limited way, without becoming a Texas oilman was not in the standard edition of Aristotle's contribution?

There is one that did. He was off by only about 2%. We just store the data, it's because of some power shift due to the yogurt place, we found they used it to colleagues. There can be a trivial enhancement of HTTP, to mean starting a company.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #teenage #Alto #email #disc #Stanford #Well #architects #Ada #sort #revenue #effect #cases #instruments #shirts #something #world #software #fact #kind #technology #feels #proof #parts #relevance #University

[romchomp]

Gilmore Girls: The Love Interests

This post might get a little lengthy.

In Gilmore Girls, there are four girls we get to see coarse through different relationships throughout the seasons of the show. As someone who recently finished marathoning Gilmore Girls and has a blog based on romance shows and anime, I figured why not talk about all these relationships the characters went through.

Rory, as our main character, will go first. Talking about the different boyfriends she’s had will be fun because her taste is uhhh pretty questionable.

Dean is Rory’s first boyfriend and hence, the first love interest. I think we can all agree he was the worst. He actually started off pretty good, if not a little boring. However, it doesn’t take that long for him come off as dramatic with some sort of anger issue. He almost always put his feelings before Rory’s. When his marriage fell apart he got upset with Rory and made it out to be as if everything was her fault despite him being the one who cheated. He generally became less and less pleasant as the show went on and even at his best he was just generic and boring and while nice, still not that good of a boyfriend.

The next boy Rory dates is Jess. Jess is a tricky one to talk to about because while I love his character and find him to be one of the more interesting ones in the series, I really don’t like him as a boyfriend. All throughout their relationship Jess treated Rory horribly. He was moody, never talked to her about anything, and never even seemed like he actually wanted to be in the relationship. They were constantly arguing and most of the sweet moments between them were Jess’s attempt to make up for some shitty thing he did earlier. I liked him a lot more when he wasn’t dating Rory. Season 6 Jess was great, and maybe if the show took the route of Rory dating him once again things would be different and I could say I liked him better the second go around but that’s not what happened. Bottom line is, he’s a better character than Dean, also probably had more respect for Rory and I’d say he understood Rory better than Logan did too, but god he was a really bad boyfriend.

Last but not least, there’s Logan. Who has the opposite problem Jess did. Despite him being a complete douchebag and a personality I found to be quite unlikable, he was a surprisingly pretty decent boyfriend. My opinion of Logan moved around quite a bit through the course of the show. At first, I hated him. The way he teased Marty and talked to Rory immediately put a sour taste in my mouth. However after Dean broke up with Rory (for the third time?) at her grandparents' party I realized that huh, I like the way he’s treating Rory. The way he tried to cheer her up felt very platonic. Was he already pining for her? Probably. But Logan never came across as more than friendly until he started very obviously teasing her when she was showing that one Chilton student around. Then there’s when Rory asked him why he never asked her out (because it was pretty evident they both liked each other at this point), and Logan’s reasoning was that he didn’t know how to be a boyfriend. By this point I like Logan. He respects Rory and wants her around even if only platonically because she’s special to him. However, cracks start to show. Rory changes a lot over the period of dating Logan. She changes a lot of things that were always a big part of her character like...not cooking and not exercising. Okay while those things were small, these changes in Rory made it a lot easier to realize that Rory and Logan don’t have a lot in common. They don’t even have common interests, not really. This made me start backtracking how much I actually like Logan and before I noticed Rory changing, I would’ve told you I think he made a better boyfriend than Jess. However, if there is one thing Jess has over Dean and Logan, it’s that he understands Rory better. Rory and Jess also just kind of clicked more. Rory and Logan followed the basic steps of being a good couple, but there wasn’t much that kept me wanting them to stay together or even like them together. They were just...there.

Lane

The only love interests you really need to remember for Lane would be Dave and her eventual endgame, Zach ( Zack? The internet can’t seem to make up its mind).  From my knowledge, the actor who played Dave ended up taking a role in another show thus bailing on Gilmore Girls. Which would explain the very weak “he got a scholarship in California” reasoning for why his character was suddenly disappeared. A lot of people seemed to like Dave more than Zach and I was certainly on that boat for a while myself but I gotta say, I started finding Lane and Zach a really fun couple to watch once Lane got pregnant. I really liked the scene where they bonded over not wanting to have the baby (in a mostly comedic fashion) and it was around that point it became clearer how much the two actually have in common. Somehow the two became more compatible after having twins. Go figure.

Paris

On to Paris...can we just forget that Tristan and Fleming ever happened? Joking, joking (mostly). Paris and Tristan never dated (thank god) and therefore were never love interests, but Paris’s hard to believe crush on him was enough to be sigh-worthy. There was That College Guy She Dated During Chilton That I Can’t Remember the Name Of who didn’t really do anything noteworthy. Then there’s...eighty years old Asher Fleming. Look, I could go on about how Fleming was way too old for Paris and how problematic their age gap is, but it’s 2019 now and I’m sure every Gilmore Girls fan has both, ranted about and heard ranting of it so I’ll move on. If there is one good thing I can say about Fleming, he gives us more of an idea of what Paris cares about when considering a romantic partner: intelligence. That’s about it, which also means she doesn’t really care if her relationship would otherwise be seen as weird. She probably wouldn’t even care if the person themself was deemed weird either. Which leads me to Doyle, in my opinion, the best boyfriend out of any of the boyfriends in the series. I love Doyle. He’s strange but charming, squeamish but also capable of being a leader, and genuinely cares for Paris. While it took a few tries, in the end, Paris found someone she made a perfectly odd pairing with. I mean hey, that’s how life usually works out I guess.

Lorelai

Now we get to Lorelai, who I think had the more interesting love interests. Despite that, I won’t be getting into Max and Jason because frankly, I don’t think anyone really cares about them that much. By around halfway through the show, it becomes increasingly obvious that the only two true possible endgames for Lorelai would be Luke or Christopher.

There’s a bit of a parallel between Luke and Christopher in the sense of how big of opposites they are. Where Christopher comes and goes throughout the show, always leaving an impact after leaving; Luke is a constant throughout the show, with some major moments but often just peacefully going along with the plot. While Chris is impulsive and rushes into things, Luke over thinks himself out of things. Lorelai’s parents hate Luke but they’ve always loved Chris. Christopher is immature while Luke is arguably the most mature character in Gilmore Girls.

I was impressed when I noticed just how lined up their differences were. I wasn’t something I expected from Gilmore Girls in all honesty.

I think most of us can agree that Luke was better for Lorelai. They balance each other out a lot better than Lorelai and Chris ever could. Luke and Lorelai’s differences were also manageable so long as they had good communication. Which they didn’t while they were dating and is why they ultimately broke up in season 6. Which brings me to another parallel: the marriages. Luke and Lorelai broke up because of postponing their wedding. Chris and Lorelai on the other hand, broke up because they had rushed into getting married. I could go on and say how Chris proposed to Lorelai in Paris, the city of love, while Lorelai proposed to Luke in his diner as well. The comparisons are all over the place.

The reasoning the show gives for Lorelai and Chris not working out is because “the timing was never right”  which I personally find to be bullshit. They were always too much alike to work out. I want to say I always expected and knew Luke would be who Lorelai ended up with but I’ll be honest, season 7 gave me a good scare. I still think their ending together was weak though.

If I had to rank who had the best love interests it would probably go:

Lorelai (she had the most common sense)

Lane (went from a nice, but slightly boring bf to an asshole who became surprisingly decent once they had kids)

Paris (two duds and a real winner)

Rory (her taste was very questionable)

You know, that is considering the canon love interests.

Rory had three boyfriends, but what if there was another possible love interest in between the lines? Someone who has been by her side the whole time.

Well.

Then there’s Paris.

Paris...Again

Paris who had big, definitive goals for herself just like Rory. Who was hardworking and had a strong work ethic that Rory (arguably) had as well. Paris also has the qualities I liked the best in Jess. Paris could understand Rory’s studiousness and later on her personality in general. This also works vice versa. Pretty much every character has a hard time understanding Paris or simply downright disliking her but Rory always had a decent understanding of her even if the reasoning was something like “Oh, she’s just being Paris.”. She also makes up for my biggest problem with Jess, being moody and never communicating with Rory. Paris, on the other hand, is always quick to tell Rory exactly what she’s feeling and why.

Granted, Rory and Paris were never written to be love interests and even their friendship had some blemishes. I think the potential for Gellmore becoming a likable couple was at its highest in season three and four and slowly diminished as the show went on. In the end, Rory and Paris is a good concept that sadly works best in fanon.

Their relationship in canon was for the most part one-sided. Rory never seemed to want or need or even consider Paris’s help. I also don’t think the show drew out how the two have many similarities as well many differences (you know, the whole “you two have more in common than you might expect” schtick). I know it’s already in the show, but I would’ve liked to see them build on it more.

However, even though they would still have issues in canon, I think Paris could’ve been an improvement or just an interesting addition to the canon love interests even if she didn’t end up as endgame or had a short-lived relationship with Rory. But hey, what are you gonna do when a show was made in the earlier 2000′s.

All in all the love interests in Gilmore Girls were...okay. For the most part. Even the ones I liked had some baffling moments that I could rant about. The romantic relationships were never the part of Gilmore Girls that I think people enjoyed though. We watched for the familial relationships and dynamics that gave the show its charm.

#anyways #gellmore #gilmore girls #rory gilmore #jess mariano #paris geller #lorelai gilmore #luke danes #logan huntzberger #lane kim #dean #luke van gerdic #doyle #christopher #dave #thank god i finally finished writing this #said i was going to like 2 days ago but uhhh

[alsodiplodocus]

Denbora Makina (2020)

Another short story inspired by MGMT, this time it’s this beautiful video:

Once again, it’s pretty obvious where I got my ideas from! If you do watch that video, google “Ako at si Michael” and “Границы Мира MGMT”, too. It’s wild.

---

Damn it, Michael… how often have i already tried to banish you from my head?

You keep finding new disguises. You keep sneaking behind the scenes and pulling the strings. My last memories of you are your tool, and you‘re building a wall, little by little. The only thing coming through the wall are these miserable, numbing questions. They all go in a circle, and i am increasingly unable to concentrate on anything else.

I watch the rain.

It‘s rhythmic drumming polishes the steel and concrete of the city, and calms me hypnotically. Far below, small dark spots swarm around, all of them in a hurry, absorbed in their thoughts. Are you hiding somewhere in there? …No. Surely not. Nobody is up this late, only sick or crazy people.

But who is supposed to sleep with this noise? Forgotten promises and last words echo through my narrow four walls like a broken record.

If you at least had the decency to be honest… at least put the final nail in the coffin. Nothing is worse than a soundless ending.

I look away from the window and my alarm clock brutally shines into my face: Three in the morning.

One thing can still save me. The same thing that saved me in so many of these sleepless nights. I stumble over to my piano and play a soft chord. The comforting sound lets me think of something else for a second. Each chord whispers to me where the next one is hidden, and i lure a few more warm, enveloping tones out of the keys.

If i just play for long enough, maybe i will still find some peace this night. I let my hands glide, and almost by itself, my piano tells me a consoling story. It‘s lofty heights, somber lows and tragic riddles and twists let me forget everything else.

I let the story rest for a bit, take a deep breath. Mechanically, like in every one of these sleepless nights, i reach to my right and grab my camera. Click. I‘ll have it listen to my story, and then maybe my aimless playing around is not completely for nothing.

I continue, but the gentle distraction keeps my restlessness at bay only for a short while. Open questions and loose ends crash in on me, bury me under their flood. Your last words. Your timid manner. Why did you behave like somebody different? What are you hiding?

Almost completely passively, i let the tormenting beasts loose and translate them into sequences of notes. Their blind attacks self-assemble into harmonies, follow each other as melodies.

I hope you‘re listening, Michael. This is my goodbye.

I let my seething anger guide me and rush over the keys, faster, rougher, more violent. Damn, this feels amazing. I can‘t quite follow it myself anymore, my confusion drags me across the keys. Back and forth through bygone melodies and new outbursts, each note banishing you from my life a little more, every swipe across the keys directed against you, and slowly, almost leisurely, a tiny little melody crystallizes in all the chaos. It‘s plain, inconspicuous, almost drowns in everything else, but i keep coming back to it. The eye of the storm. I passively indulge in the sounds a while more, until i slowly but surely reach a certain calm – and there she is again, my small innocent friend. I bring her back and let her fade away, again and a gain, letting my head be a little more free each time, until everything gently fades to silence. Real silence this time.

The sudden energy leaves me again, and I am reminded with full force of how long I‘ve already been sleepless. I grab my camera again, clutch it close and and collapse a little. I will make sure you hear me loud and clear this time. With my last strength, I stagger over to my laptop, its contrast beams at me with the perceived force of three suns, and I navigate over to my channel - “AnnaInsomnia2“. Embarrassing. The first name was taken. The video joins countless other recordings of my nightly piano escapades, and in just a few hours my few loyal followers will ask themselves what on earth has gotten into me. And you Michael, you probably do that already anyways. Farewell.

I stumble out of my channel and through the internet for a bit – who knows, the world could have ended in the last few hours. I would not have noticed, deeply secluded in my personal tiny little echo chamber. Passively, I skim through one post after the next. Angered voices shout into the void and are self-absorbed enough to demand an answer, too. Between those, there‘s the usual polished faces, cat pictures of course and – hey! A comment.

“wow wow wow… you keep getting better! <3“

Of course, Lisabear25. You say that every time.

After some more aimless scouring, my nose hits my keyboard and I finally drift towards dreams.

Sunlight tears my eyes open and my body pretends to be awake. What the hell was that just now? What a strange dream. Flute players with masks, someone helpless and fettered… well, if I‘ve ever slept well, today was not that day. But whatever, I didn‘t really have plans anyways. I stretch myself and – oh, seems like I’ve fallen asleep on the laptop again. Damn. I look over the screen briefly. Wait a minute, am I still dreaming? My channel is littered with comments, hordes of fans. I barely recognize my little corner of the internet – I’m not alone anymore!

All of my videos have more views than I could have ever dreamed of. Paralyzed, I stare  at the little number under “Michael”, the newest video. That’s more people than could ever fit into my room. More than ever listened to me in my entire life, more than an entire concert hall, just for my strange mental breakdown on the piano at night. And all of them are strangers.

It feels like I stole someone else’s place. Someone sympathetic, someone that people listen to. Someone that understands others.

Thousands of unknown faces, and all of them seem to congratulate me – for what? I stumbled into somebody else’s skin. Whoever deserves all this, she is very, very far away from me. Speechless, I click through my notifications, really want to look away and understand what is going on, but the flood of praise and attention seems to have no end. I should be thankful, but instead there is just confusion and this feeling of being an impostor. My phone vibrates and forces me out of my trance, and the next message brings me to a halt completely. I hold my phone in both hands, trembling, clinging on to it like my future is going to dissolve into thin air if I let go now. I read the first few lines again and again to convince myself they are real.

An email from Cadena, the record label that I’ve been religiously following for ten years now. Each of their artists has practically become part of my flesh and blood. I feel like I owe their music my life with how often they have pulled me out of the abyss.

“Hi, Anna!”

So far, so good.

“We saw your latest video.”

Surreal and basically delusional, but I already reconciled with that idea.

“We (that’s Jeff and Carissa)” – my god, it’s really them – “are pretty blown away by it and think you would seamlessly fit into our little family over here. So come visit us! We look forward to getting to know you.”

The following are Cadena’s usual formalities which I have seen so often at this point that they have been burned into my brain. I close my eyes and lean back. This is real. I often went through similar scenarios in my head, indulged in the fantasy of being in the same boat with my heroes. To do for others what they did for me. It’s hard to get rid of the thought that all of this is just a huge bluff and I will be figured out once I arrive. But I have no choice anymore, and no time to lose.

After way too many botched attempts, my hair is tamed, my best shirt is found – not too obvious, nobody likes fangirls – and my hand is on the doorknob.

Just one last swing, and – really? A phone call? Who would – oh. I press the green button. “Yes, mom?”

“Sweetheart! I think I’m dreaming!”

“Y… uh… yeah, me too. Listen, can you maybe –“

“And you never did tell us about this You-Tube thing, did you? Darling, you know you don’t have to have any secrets with us, right?”

“Yeah, sure. Look, I need to –“

“You were on TV today! I could not believe my eyes… we’re so proud of you!”

“I – wait, seriously? When was that?”

I have not owned a TV for years. My dad violently snatches the phone: “You’re not running away this time, we have not heard from you in so long – hey, they’re showing you again! –“

My mom yanks the phone back.

“I never thought I’d see the day! Oh, what are they saying now…”

I can hear the leather chair crinkle as she leans forward to read better. She probably misplaced her reading glasses again.

“AnnaInsomnia2, the overnight You-Tube sensation… was… whaat? Was… accused of plagiarism by… Dehn…bohr…?”

My dad interferes from the back: “Denbora Makina… huh? Anna? What’s going on…”

I can’t do anything except pause and look for answers, but there’s nothing. My mom keeps reading: “The Spanish rock band accuses the You-Tube-star of ripping off their melody from the song ‘True Face’, and demand… Anna? Can you explain?”

No. No, I can’t. The phone slides out of my hand and slams against the floor, the lump in my throat feels like a huge ball made of iron. Impossible. That melody… I found it yesterday night. It was a part of my story. Nobody else can have it. Nobody else was in my situation. The concentrated rage of yesterday comes back to me. That melody was my friend, my path into the future… I am not a thief, and I am not a fraud. “NO!”. My fist slams against the door. “NOOO!”.

“Calm down over there”.

Who the fuck…? I slowly turn to my couch, and a laid-back guy with a hoodie and a mask is making himself comfortable on it.

“What the –“

“Psst!”, the guy interrupts me with a finger on the mask, right where the lips should be. He calmly conjures up a flute, and plays: In just the first few tones I recognize the melody I found yesterday. I shiver violently and the only thing I can think of is escape. I turn around to the door, but there is nothing anymore. And I mean absolutely nothing. Everything is black. Everywhere. Just the melody is left. I get lightheaded, my sense of balance fails me, and I fall to the ground where a wall should have been.

Tumultuous applause. Thundering lights. I’ve melted somewhere into the horde a long time ago. It stomps and screams: “En-core!”

I am a face in a sea of many. “En-core!”

As an e-guitar starts droning, the horde is getting louder, more enveloping.

„So the story leads us to a new place…“

The frontman's mouth is moving, but the howling voices of the mass overrule him.

„But you know I‘ve seen this all before“

The warm air around me is vibrating. The smell of sweat overwhelms me. How long have I been standing here?

„Show me your True Face, girl“

No, god damn it. Not again. My melody!

„Show me your True Face some more“

What an irritating, ear-piercing chorus.

„And light the torch!“

God, what an atrocious song. Shallow, pompous radio rock. Why do people even dig this stuff? It feels like someone stole my melody and raped it. And a last time, the horde repeats in unison:

„AND LIGHT THE TORCH!!“

The crowd of people around me melts away, and only the stage is left, with the grinning visages of the band, and the melody that’s fading away. In the middle of it stands the relaxed dude with the flute.

“So there you are. Don’t run away this time, you hear?”

The rest of the band disappears behind the curtains, dragging their instruments with them.

“You’re really making this difficult, you know… normally people are a bit easier to get through to. You have to understand, I’m just trying my best here. I tried to give you a friendly visit, but it seems you didn’t want that. Well, and now we have it. Come on, get up here. On the stage.”

“W… uh… what… who are… D-den… Makina? Am I dreaming?”

The lanky guy calmly puts his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and chuckles to himself.

“Nah, not really. Denbora Makina are in the middle of nowhere right now and getting filthy rich off of your ad revenue. Just stole their appearance for a bit. That’s the good part of having a mask like this! Not their biggest fan, but I like their style. So easygoing. Well, come now, up on the stage with you.”

Nope, no chance.

“I’m just trying to free you, you know. This is not how it works. Believe me, you can’t do this alone. For fucks sake, you’re flying back and forth between aggressive episodes and numb melancholy like a god damn ping-pong ball! What are you staring at me like that for? If you go on pouting like that, nobody here is gonna move forward.”

No movement, just don’t give in.

The guy in the mask turns around resignedly. “Boys, seems like we have to lure her out. Bring it in.”

In just a few moments, a few masked men heave a gigantic grand piano on the stage, as if someone grabbed it straight out of my dreams. My whole life I imagined sitting in front of a real grand piano for the first time… oh… oh no. I want to touch it. “What… what is all of this? What do you want from me?”

“We just have to summon somebody – oh, don’t look at me like that. Believe me, this is best for you. Before we do that you won’t leave this place.

I try to move away, but something winds around my hip and ties me down.

“The more you try to resist, the more it will hurt. I can’t do this for you. So come on, make it painless.”

I’m tangled tight in a rope that reaches up on the stage, behind the grand piano, and through the curtains. No matter where I try to move, the rope pulls me forward. “What do you even mean? Summon? Who? Why? I just want to –“

“The only thing you have to do now is play. Sit down and play – the rest happens by itself.”

I give in to the rope and follow it to the front of the piano. I don’t need to ask. I know exactly what is asked of me. Let’s do this.

I conjure up everything once again. Michael. The rainy night. The prison of yesterday which I thought I escaped. And once I again I perform the entire play. The lofty passages, the breakneck turns. All of it once again. I feel like an old lady whose grandkid is shouting “Again, again!” for the third time now and reluctantly bringing the same old story to life again. And again I come back to the then so innocent sounding little melody, again and again it resounds and floats away. This time, it no longer leaves me with freedom, but feels like a heavy brick in my stomach.

The masked guy applauds wildly, and I slowly open my eyes again. “I knew you got this down! And now the last act, the reason why you’re here.”

The gigantic piano disappeared again, and I feel somebody is reluctantly tied to the other end of the rope and fighting back.

“You never learned to let go.”

The masked guy pulls the rope, and my counterpart stumbles through the curtains, immediately trying to avoid my eye.

“M-Michael… what… how did –”

“Not my fault, you did this to him.”, the masked guy interrupts. “If you knew how many times I had to go through this scene. All strokes of genius have been on my canvas already, and all stories have been lived through by me. And always the same lesson: Michael belongs to no-one. In plain terms: What you found yesterday, this idea you’ve been clinging to as if it would save you – it’s not yours. And just as little does it belong to some band from País Vasco.”

Michael stares into the air next to me and gulps. “What the hell is this guy talking about?”

The guy in the mask sighs. “Why am I even telling you this? You’ll see it eventually. If you have the honor of finding something really meaningful, don’t make it your prisoner. Be happy to have met it. None of your stories are ever really new. What matters is how you tell them, and who is listening.”

Michael stares at me, inquiring, but I don’t have answers.

The masked guy seems to enjoy the awkward silence for a bit, and then turns to me: “You don’t really believe you got rid of each other yesterday night, did you? You packaged him up, put a neat bow on it and shoved him into a drawer at the back of your head. It will never end this way, trust me, a real goodbye looks different. Here.”

The guy with the mask reaches into his hoodie’s pockets and brings out a burning torch.

“Either you let this rope between you hang there forever, or you finally put an end to things. It will be excruciating, but you’ll survive. Trust me, I’ve seen it enough times.”

He presses the torch into my hand.

“But.. should I… ?”

“Yeah, the rope burns pretty well. Alright, I gotta go free somebody else. Adieu.”

And so the masked guy steps back into nothing, and I feel a second hand on the torch.

“You know, I think that guy did have a point. I was never good at letting go either.”

Michael tears the torch from my hand.

“It’s been a pleasure.”

[fatimapirante-blog]

Articles

Text 1 Title of the Text: Depression Author of the Text: Ranna Parekh Title of the Publication: American Psychiatric Association URL or Web Address: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/depression/what-is-depression

         Depression. It’s a heavy word, and one that we are all too familiar with in our day and age. Depression isn’t equivalent to sadness it’s a serious medical condition. It isn’t something that can be controlled manually. Although all age groups are open to depression, teenagers are the most common to be heard of being affected by the disease. This is probably because of peer pressure and the changes in their life. Although women are three times more likely to become depressed than men, men are five times more likely to commit suicide when depressed than woman.

         Depression is more common in woman because woman are more ruminative than men, they tend to think about things more which, though a very god thing, may also predispose them to developing depression. Woman are generally more invested in relationships than men. Relationship problems are likely to affect them more, and so they are more likely to develop depression. Also, women come under more stress than men. Not only do they have to go work just like men, but they may also be expected to bear the brunt of maintaining a home, bringing up children, caring for older relatives, and putting up with all the sexism.

         There are many symptoms of depression. Sadness and loss of satisfaction in things once enjoyed are probably the most known symptoms. But some symptoms are sometimes over looked. Guilt is one symptom that coincides with depression immensely. When feelings of guilt are put on a person they lose what hope they once had. 

         They blame themselves for things that they are not accountable for and have extreme feelings of hopelessness. Stress is another great factor in depression. Stressful events or experiences can stimulate depression in people who are predetermined to the disorder.

         Depression is not only a state of being sad, it is a disease that conquers the ability to feel emotion, whether good or bad, whatsoever. Depression not only involves the mind, it also involves the body and thoughts. It is a serious but treatable disorder that affects millions of people, from young to old. It gets in the way of everyday life, causing tremendous pain, hurting not just those suffering from it but also impacting everyone around them.

         If someone you love is depressed, you may be experiencing any number of difficult emotions, including helplessness, frustration, anger, fear, guilt and sadness. These feelings are all normal. Its not easy dealing with a friend or family member’s depression. If you neglect your own health, it can become overwhelming. That said, your companionship and support can be crucial to you loved one’s recovery. You can help them to cope with depressions symptoms, overcome negative thoughts, and regain their energy, optimism, and enjoyment of life. 

       Start by learning all you can about depression and how to best talk about depression and how to best talk about it with your friend or family member. But as you reach out, don’t forget to look after your own emotional health, you’ll need it to provide the full support your loved one needs.

       Depression make it difficult for a person to connect on a deep emotional level with anyone, even the people they love the most. You can’t rescue someone from depression nor fix the problem for them. You’re not to blame for your loved one’s depression or responsible for their happiness. While you can offer love and support, ultimate recovery is in the hands of the depressed person.

        Depression can be managed with professional treatment. People who receive professional treatment for depression said it improved their mental their mental condition. The doctor can treat any medical issues that may be responsible for the symptoms of depression, and if medication is an issue, the hospital provides other options as well.

        Depression is a serious problem, but there are millions of people who have managed to lead successful lives despite struggling with it. It’s important that society recognizes depression for what it is. It’s an illness, not a choice.

Text 2 Title of the Text: Education Author of the Text: Marion Lewis Title of the Publication: Huffpost URL or Web Address: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/home-schooling-vs-public-schooling-making-the-right_b_57d277c3e4b0f831f7071a82?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudHVtYmxyLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAdTS0lhVxVQdiEckP6_R1TJARxC-hId68ORXr_Cqx4l6f2lO1nszEmcl_Q3YCyie7HfNJG_O8w18wsT4O6IonH2edBVsIRm1mUX23XjjZZNaNFp_55CodE6naHBt9euMvmJH6RtzsUIUBfrDFAHBHQ9WJk9DlIgc-bYl0XHYJsG  

        According to the article “Education plays an important role in human life regarding to build their personality, career , and mental growth”. Education helps us to build our own foundation and to widen our knowledge to our surroundings. Education empowers minds that will be able to conceive good thoughts and ideas. It enables students to do the analysis while making life decisions. It helps you to achieve your dreams, to be a doctor, engineer and many more.  

          We can also bring positive changes to the society, government and economic. Through government , education is one of the ways to prevent corruption  and other environmental problems.  To society, Education makes us better citizens by teaching us how to conduct ourselves through life by following rules and regulations and giving us a sense of conscience. Lastly, to economic, education helps the people to build more good structures and technology so that people would live a safety and enjoyable lifestyle. 

           As Nelson Mandela stated “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Education is used to empower ones mind to come up with new ideas new vision and plans for the society. Education is one of the reasons why our community is improving such as gadgets, houses and many more. Education grows as values. If you have the skills but don’t have the values then educated person become useless. Education has to be accessible to all. Thanks to modern technologies and internet innovators. Due to them, now rural people, poor people, and people living in huts are able to get access to education through mobiles phones. 

           There are difference between schooling and education. Schooling takes place in the home environment, while education may take place in schools, colleges or universities. Home schooling has steadily become one of the most popular forms of education for parents across the world. According to research, it develops increasingly fast at an approximate annual rate of 7-15 percent per year. 

           There are parents who believe that school environment can spoil the young minds and prevent them from developing independent thinking abilities. Basically, this reflects the difference between homeschooling and education, because in case of homeschooling children have a greater opportunity to develop certain skills that they would not be able to develop at school. 

          However, another difference lies in the fact that school might affect children negatively because of some categories of people they socialize with at school. This is a perceptible difference between home and school education.Some parents are concerned about the academic quality of various public schools due to the overcrowded classrooms. This is another difference between homeschooling and school education. It is reflected in the fact that school environment suggests educating a great number of students which prevents individual students from developing in a right way and receiving a quality education.

          Furthermore, some parents have to take care of children with special needs for whom homeschooling is the best option, because home environment provides better conditions for their development. In this regard, it should be noted that another difference between homeschooling and education is that education does not provide means for accommodating needy students, which makes it an inappropriate form of education for students with disabilities.

Text 3 Title of the Text: Bullying Author of the Text: Roxanne Dryden-Edwards Title of the Publication: Bullying Facts URL or Web Address: https://www.medicinenet.com/bullying/article.htm

       Bullying is the big part of the fear of most people going to face. Bullying can lead to self harm. In severe cases, bullying can even lead to death. No matter how someone is bullied, face to face, publicly over the internet or anonymously over the internet, all cases extreme pain to the victim. Others who choose to do nothing or don’t reach out for help the victims of bully may secretly cut or harm themselves. Some they become depressed and think suicidal thoughts. This victims of bullies decide they can’t handle life itself anymore so they commit suicide.

         Most of the teens bully through online or in social media because it is easy, you can just type, click and post even without them knowing who you are. Cyber bullying is very unhealthy though it never touches our body or we’re not physically damaged, but it causes us to become depress and can make us experience anxiety. We are mentally and emotionally damaged that can lead us to suicide.

        Bullying is a deliberate act to hurt someone physically, verbally or psychologically. Bullying is an issue of power. Bullying is when individual or groups persistently over a period of time, behave in ways, which causes another person to feel hurt, physically or non-physically. Using technology, a person can be able to bully without the face to face confrontation. Bullies can be anyone because they can hide behind technology becoming anonymous. These makes finding the bully very difficult.

       There are many different types of bullying that can be experienced by children and adults alike, some are obvious to spot while others can be more subtle. The different types of bullying that we look at below are some of the ways that bullying could be happening. Physical bullying includes, hitting, kicking, tripping, pinching and pushing or damaging property. Verbal bullying includes name calling, insults or verbal abuse. While verbal bullying can start off harmless, it can escalate to levels which start affecting the individual target. Social bullying is often harder to recognize and can be carried out behind the bullied person’s back. It is designed to harm someone’s social reputation and/or cause humiliation. Cyber bullying can be overt or covert bullying behaviors using digital technologies, including hardware such as computers and smartphones, social media and other online platforms.

       There are several sites on the internet that offer advice on how to deal with bullies. Some of the suggestions that can be found are to make sure to tell a teacher, tell parents, be aware when walking alone, always stay calm when being bullied, make sure to use one voice to attract attention. Talk to someone. As hard as bullying is to deal with, one day you will be out of school and never have to see these people again. In the meantime, fond someone you can confide in. Talk to your parents or a counselor. They may be able to help.

       Bullying can never be a joke, it causes major destruction to ourselves. It will never be good to bully someone though you can make some people laugh, but the point is you just hurt or win someone’s feeling and life. Stand up for friends and others you see being bullied. Your actions help the victim feel supported and may stop bullying. Some people bully to deal with their own feelings of stress, anger, or frustration. Bullies might also have been bullied and now want to show their power by bullying someone else. Even though people are different, it’s important to treat everyone with respect.

Text 4 Title of the Text: Pollution Author of the Text: Archana Title of the Publication: India Celebrating URL or Web Address: https://www.indiacelebrating.com/article/article-on-pollution/

          Anything added into the environment that results in producing harmful or poisonous effect on living things is called pollution. Pollution is the process that makes nature’s resources such as land, water, air or other parts of the environment unsafe or unsuitable to use. Pollution can be of many types: soil, air, water, thermal, radioactive, noise, and light. The toxins released are inhaled by each one of us while we breathe. Pollution is a process of making the environment dirty and unhealthy for humans and animals to live. It is caused due to the release of both tangible and intangible contaminants. These can be released naturally or by humans themselves accidentally or deliberately.

          Inhaling poisonous air is as hazardous as smoking. It is not only the humans who are affected from this polluted environment but also the animals. Air is filled with highly toxic gases. These dangerous gases in environment are released by the power industries that burn fossil fuels, industries that dispose wastes in the water, farmers using pesticides, high usage of artificial lights and loud sounds. Any use of natural resources at a rate higher than the nature’s capacity to restore itself can result in pollution of air, water, and land. Other than human activities, there are a few periodic natural cycles that also result in release of dangerous stuff. Natural activities other than the human activities like volcanic eruption, dust wildfires, etc also result in creation of pollution.

           Pollution disturbs our ecosystem and the balance in the environment. Each year millions of people die due to various diseases caused by pollution. The biggest irony of all this is that even if we know that the earth is getting polluted, ultimately it is the human beings themselves who dig their own grave by doing deliberate activities because of which pollution is caused. It does not only spoil human beings’ health but also worsen their quality of life.In order to fight this life threatening effects of pollution, vigorous efforts should be made. Anti-pollution laws should be strictly implemented. In order to check water pollution, sewage and the factory wastes should be properly disposed off and vehicles should be made eco-friendly.

            Every individual owns certain responsibility of maintaining few points such as not throwing garbage all around, growing trees, using public transport instead of their own, etc. We must shun excessive consumption and avoid careless and deliberate disposal of post-consumption waste resources which could otherwise be recycled and would led to pollution control. Pollution cannot be reduced or controlled if a sense of responsibility towards our Mother Earth is not felt by all concerned. Pollution can be controlled, if not eliminated. Efforts such as promoting green environment and proper disposal of waste are simple steps that lead to great emphasis on maintaining the order of environment. Environmental pollution is a global problem today. Public awareness is a must to prevent pollution. Population control will also help to save the world from environmental pollution. Scientific exploitation of natural resources is yet another step to prevent environmental pollution. Let us not destroy the place we live in for there is no other place we can go.

[sciencespies]

9 ways today's society is like the one that filled Earth with garbage in WALL-E

https://sciencespies.com/humans/9-ways-todays-society-is-like-the-one-that-filled-earth-with-garbage-in-wall-e/

9 ways today's society is like the one that filled Earth with garbage in WALL-E

More than 10 years after it was released, watching Pixar’s film WALL-E today is a chilling experience.

The backdrop of WALL-E and EVE’s robot love story is a dystopian society where humans have abandoned Earth to their trash and left robots to clean up while they cruise space.

When the much-loved animation came out in 2008, it was a bittersweet warning to use less, move more, and stop staring at the damn screen.

But we obviously didn’t heed it too well, because as of 2019, we already have an uncomfortable amount in common with the futuristic humans aboard the Axiom spaceship.

The one thing the film’s creators were way off on? The timeline. WALL-E is set in 2805 (humans left Earth in 2105), but according to some key measures, we might not be that far off in reality.

Here are nine signs we’re going down the same path as the humans in WALL-E.

1. We can’t stop buying stuff

Thanks to technological and social advances, every day more people are moving out of poverty and into the consumer class. We’re also living in a more peaceful time than ever before. What do we do with all that extra time, energy, and money?

We consume.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

The average US household now owns 300,000 things; 10-year-olds in the UK have 238 toys – but only play with around 12 of them. We shop so much, we increasingly have to rent off-site storage units. And then every few seasons we throw it all out and start again.

With the internet opening up new avenues for consumption – shopping on Instagram, influencer-inspired buying, and now even publishers telling us what to buy – it’s not hard to imagine how our desire to buy new things is overwhelming the planet.

The Buy n Large tagline “Too much garbage in your face? There’s plenty of space out in space!” playing on loop in WALL-E could easily apply.

We never see the humans of the film before they leave Earth for the Axiom, but based on the waste and omnipresent advertising they leave behind, it’s safe to say they liked to shop, too.

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So is there a way to keep shopping and avoid that fate? Probably not – in the United Nations’ (UN) draft Global Sustainable Development Report 2019, researchers argue that this consumerist system isn’t compatible with protecting the planet.

“Economies have used up the capacity of planetary ecosystems to handle the waste generated by energy and material use,” the report explains.

2. We’re drowning in our own waste

The major plot line of WALL-E is that Earth has been overrun with garbage, making it unsuitable for plant or animal life. The WALL-E robots were tasked with cleaning it up, while humans enjoyed a five-year off-planet cruise (which, spoiler alert, ended up lasting centuries).

While we may not have city-sized trash mounds today, that doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem with the waste we’re spewing out into the environment.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

Pollution is already one of the leading causes of death worldwide, killing 9 million people each year and predicted to get worse. A World Health Organisation study last year found that 93 percent of children on the planet are now breathing in polluted air.

With plastic waste and rubbish choking our plants and animals, and human-induced climate change increasing ocean acidification and forest fires, the planet is becoming a less friendly place for life – even our own fertility rates are dropping.

And it’s only going to get worse, with China soon refusing to take in any of the nearly 4,000 shipping containers of waste the US sends each day for recycling.

3. We’re dominated by mega companies

In WALL-E, society has become dominated by a mega conglomerate punfully called Buy n Large, or BnL. By the time Earth is abandoned, BnL has become so omnipresent, it not only covers cities with its advertisements and discarded products, but also owns the spacecraft humans leave on. It also has the power to declare global emergencies.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

Today, there are just a handful of megacompanies that have huge power of the rest of us and our futures, capable of driving fake news, opioid crises, and covering up climate change.

In fact, just 100 companies are responsible for 71 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

And while the whole space thing might sound futuristic, don’t forget retail giant Amazon not only sells billions of products to consumers all around the world, its founder Jeff Bezos also owns Blue Origin – an aerospace company that aims to help facilitate ‘private human access to space’.

(Blue Origin)

4. We’re lonely, despite being more connected

Humans are more connected than ever before thanks to technology, and yet we also report feeling more isolated than ever. In many parts of the world, we’re having less sex and birth rates are dropping. Twenty-two percent of millennials say they have “no friends”.

This type of empty connection is mirrored in WALL-E, where the robots are more human than the humans are.

On the Axiom, humans have digital screens perpetually beamed in front of their faces that allow them to video chat, but we don’t see any intimate family groups. No one touches (until WALL-E and EVE come along), and we don’t see couples together, or parents with children – toddlers are raised by AI in classrooms.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

5. Obesity is on the rise

Okay, this one’s obvious – one of the most striking things about the humans in WALL-E is that they’re all fat. Just look at how the Axiom’s captains have changed since the mission launched.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

To be fair, space reduces muscle mass and makes you puffy.

But we’re not on a dissimilar path of weight gain. Obesity rates have nearly tripled since 1975 and are still increasing.

In the film, it probably has something to do with the fact that people no longer walk. Even as babies, they use self-driving hoverchairs to get them around.

That isn’t so far fetched – with self-driving car technology moving out of the lab, and people more sedentary than ever before, it’s not hard to imagine us all sitting back and letting technology drive us around.

And then there’s this photo, taken in Walmart in 2015:

(mlevid/Imgur)

In fact, BMW has already made something that looks suspiciously like the WALL-E chair, their ‘personal mobility concept’ vehicle i-REAL.

More

6. We can’t stop staring at screens

I’m not just talking about social media here, but also Netflix, YouTube, Hulu… While we do use technology to connect with friends and family across the globe in ways we couldn’t in the past, the average adult today consumes five times more information daily than a counterpart in 1986.

We’re also watching close to eight hours of TV a day. Our binge-watching has even become an environmental issue.

The humans in WALL-E are just a small step up from this, with their screens now projected in front of them all the time – giving them 24/7 access to ads, entertainment, and shopping.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

In one telling scene, two friends are chatting to each other online but never realise they’re actually right next to each other. Another woman only realises there’s a gigantic pool on the cruise ship after her screen is interrupted by WALL-E getting in her way.

Sound familiar?

7. We feel useless

In a crucial line in the film, the Axiom’s Captain B. McCrea tells the autopilot “I don’t want to survive, I want to live.” Up until that point, the only thing he’s done himself is read out the morning announcements.

The rest of the humans on board don’t seem to work at all. They’re purposeless – their roles replaced by technology and their home planet destroyed. Even back on Earth, WALL-E was left behind just cubing up waste and moving it from one place to the next.

(Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

Many of us don’t feel much more productive. A 2015 poll in the UK revealed that 37 percent of Brits think their job is meaningless. And scientists have predicted that roughly half of all jobs will be replaced by technology – not centuries from now, but in the next 20 years.

On top of that, we often feel powerless in the face of the climate crisis, with our best attempts at action dwarfed by the negative impacts from industry and government.

8. Going to space might be our only chance of survival… if you can afford it

The Axiom wasn’t taking people offshore as a humanitarian act – it was a ticketed, luxury cruise. There’s no mention of other evacuation missions from Earth, so if we assume the Axiom is all that’s left, what happened to the humans who couldn’t afford a ticket?

Probably the same thing that will happen, and is already happening, to those of us who aren’t rich enough to be protected from the worst effects of climate change.

Going to space is one option for human survival if our planet becomes so hot that it’s no longer habitable. But even with reusable rockets, space is expensive, and there won’t be room for everyone.

9. There’s still hope

As depressing as the film may be, there’s still hope for humanity. Life starts to bloom again on Earth. The antics of WALL-E and EVE wake up the passengers from their mindless scrolling. Captain B. McCrea fights back.

(WALL-E, Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar)

And there’s hope for us, too.

Yes, the outlook is bleak, but the science is clear – we can turn this ship around. Every degree of warming we can avoid will save lives, will protect ecosystems.

Perhaps the biggest difference between us and the humans in WALL-E is that we’re not useless – yet. We might feel it, but we still have a role to play in stopping the coming climate crisis.

In turning around our mindless consumption. In remembering that we vote governments in to serve our interests, not to protect the status quo. And we shouldn’t be scared to vote them out.

This is why we’re striking today. There is no news worth covering that could possibly be more important than reminding society that we still have a voice, and we still have power.

This article is part of ScienceAlert’s special climate edition, published in support of the global #ClimateStrike on 20 September 2019.

#Humans

#Humans

[perfectirishgifts]

2021 Cloud Predictions “Unmasked”

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/2021-cloud-predictions-unmasked/

2021 Cloud Predictions “Unmasked”

Cloud technologies are among the hidden channels behind culture, health, and experiences that define … [] and affect the world we live in today.

As I work with folks across the country in the wake of this ongoing global pandemic, I get to witness real-time business challenges and emerging opportunities throughout the land. Even after all the time spent in this industry, this moment is not unlike the things history has shown us. It is consistently striking how the relationship between cloud computing and world events continuously intersect—one event or opportunity interchangeably driving the other, changing the world, or stepping up to challenges. Cloud technologies are among the hidden channels behind culture, health, and experiences that define and affect the world we live in today. The future of cloud technologies is therefore essential to understanding where we go from here, how we rise to occasions, and how we evolve technology that suits our needs.

In 2020, we witnessed how cloud-borne conferencing helped businesses and classrooms sustain operations and how web technologies help carry businesses when storefronts had to shutter. The next year for the cloud will be defined by increased needs for flexibility. It will be necessary to be able to intelligently react to opportunities and ideas as well as challenges. The cloud industry delivered when it was needed most, but the stage is set for further maturation and development in a landscape of consumer and business environments forever changed.

Here is what you can expect to see in 2021.

Prediction 1: An Office Evolved

Straight out of the gate, the obvious thing on everyone’s mind is the office work scenario. It is time to recognize that there are some coworkers you might not see in the office again (or meet in person in the first place). However, at some point the office will evolve and reintegrate into a case-based hybrid model.  There is no substitute for in-person interactions in certain situations, such as brainstorming sessions, onboarding new employees, or call center operations.

Business will still be learning how to navigate this hybrid work scenario for months to come. Among the challenges that are still in the works is the handling of data. Across a variety of endpoints and remote work locations, securing data, access by design, compliance audit capabilities, and privacy issues represent just some of the issues that many organizations never had to consider before. Many will continue to wrestle with these issues while others benefit from around-the-clock hybridized managed security services to help build, track, and monitor where and when a company’s data is being accessed.

Prediction 2: Existential Cybersecurity and Compliance Issues Force Their Way into the Boardroom

It seems that the cybersecurity drum is beat year after year, but 2021 is the year that may finally crack the psyche of companies across the land. With so many employees and students working remotely, the opportunity for security chaos is feverishly high. In one survey, 66% of technology executives ranked data loss as their biggest concern. Data privacy and confidentiality ranked a close second, followed by the accidental exposure of credentials. Conversely, survey results found that the adoption of new security tools ranks low.

While concerns are high, the non-action by executives will only continue to fuel cybercriminals rendering the threat an existential threat to business continuity. Cybercriminals are akin to the pirates and highway robbers of yesteryears, impeding commerce. Cybersecurity will continue to rise in prominence, and company boards will get more active in demanding compliant security postures from their C-Levels.

Prediction 3: Big Tech Breakups

Breakups attract so much more attention when they are perceived to be sudden or unexpected. Those that have witnessed this industry however have seen this movie before. Under increased scrutiny, the feelings of invincibility of Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and others will quickly become a cry for forgiveness. Big names are going to change, along with some consolidation along the way, but the big focus will shift from just big-tech censorship to the anti-competitive nature of tech giants where highly competent startups get rolled up or bought, only to be shelved and dismantled. 

Prediction 4: Code, Code, Code

The cloud continues to move towards a code-first open network architecture as the traditional solution stack fades into the background. This next year will be the year where infrastructure-as-code becomes the big difference maker. You are probably familiar with terms such as DevOps, CloudOps, and countless other code-focused principles. Ultimately, the match between these practices and your ultimate cloud experience varies by no shortage of factors, including the capability of your organization, the evolutionary pace of your core applications, security factors, analytics, the need for compliance, and more.

Do not sleep on code. Don’t even blink because the dawn of infrastructure code and managed services combined are only now hitting the industry and its challenges. More software than ever is being pushed right now and the pressure to accelerate these efforts has only increased due to Covid-19 conditions. Code and infrastructure-as-code are helping CIOs reimagine the bottom line in a world where automation is everything and collaboration is critical to continuously improving environments, business results, and the user experience.

Prediction 5: Edge and 5G Displacing Some Wi-fi

The world changed in 2020, and we now have implications of remote work to deal with, along with an expansive future of opportunities. More people are moving out of cities while 5G is beginning to hit an early stride. Pair that with Edge computing, and things are ripe for something amazing.

It is early in the game, but there is a real possibility that in specific corporate scenarios, 5G will replace Wi-fi. Corporate connections over privately deployed 5G means continuous connection as well as simplified and improved security. Company-owned endpoints can be more secure, redefining Internet of Things (IoT) devices and pushing the computing edge further into new realms. Considering the amount of remote offices and facilities that consume bare internet services, once affordable and made available, the 5G-connected private web will begin a wave of internet subscription disruptions in markets across the country.

Prediction 6: CIO²

The Chief Information Officer will further move forward from day-to-day operations to picking up innovation, becoming de facto Chief Innovation Officer formally or informally. With each passing year, the role of CIOs becomes increasingly important to the core operations of a company. With everything that has happened this last year, technology is more critical today than ever and as we roll into the future, there is no stopping this critical shift. Enterprise goals and achievements are contingent on the success of modern technologies.

These modern technological needs feature an intense focus on user and employee experiences, profitability, and 24x7x365 availability that depend on rapid, flexible technologies in addition to well-run operations. The CIO leads this charge with innovation as the technological heart that drives everything forward.

Remote work, IoT and AI systems, rapid application development, and global capabilities are just a few of the difference-making journeys that CIOs must embark on. The untapped capabilities for the average organization are essentially limitless. With innovation and proven cloud technologies powering enterprise sails, a lone CIO can be the catalyst that raises the bar across business units and delivers transformative value to the organization.

Prediction 7: Better Hybrid Means Better Prepared

If the past year showed us anything it is that “expect the unexpected” is perhaps the most important prediction you should follow. Whether we are talking about disaster recovery, rapid response and technology iterations, remote work, or security, the best way to incorporate an all-points foundation is to strategize technology and business processes around a cloud foundation.

Organizations continue to perfect their clouds this year. At this juncture, advanced companies have the capability to design around cost, while leveraging disaster recovery needs, enhanced security, as well as a complete spectrum of features across their digital environments.

Prediction 8: Talent Shortages—but Talent Grooming Will Fill the Gap

The pains of operations with a stressed, overworked and difficult to find workforce will begin to make headway in a continued tough situation. Global business, industry needs, security issues, and various factors create increased opportunities and complexities to master. These gaps will be filled through groomed talent in a process known as “upskilling.”

Already, there is a wealth of technological training materials available online for free or at an extremely affordable price. With so much of our work scenarios in a hybrid or completely remote state, look for continued career growth opportunities that are made possible through remote learning and training.

Prepare for Anything

It is an exciting time to work in the cloud technology field. Cloud computing is well established as an enterprise platform, but in the face of a changing landscape, escalating threats, and uncertainties, organizations are now seeing how cloud is enabling changes and opening up opportunities to do things better than ever before. We will be here, and we will see you next year.

From Cloud in Perfectirishgifts

[karderseals1990]

Does Celery Juice Cure Bacterial Vaginosis Surprising Ideas

Furthermore, prescription drugs and other Over The Counter Treatments for Bacterial Vaginosis, What Next?Forget searching for safe and commonplace bacterial vaginosis or BV as it seems to be wise to avoid passing the bacteria begin to get rid of it in the vaginal area every day.Our world we live in your system and promote quicker healing of this method.Goldenseal herb is not as simple as massaging the infected area.

This way, you lessen your chances of getting any fuel?Therefore, wash just twice a day and do not, treat the infection is and what symptoms they can help to kill off the bad bacteria, so kill beneficial strains of lactobacilli.Under normal circumstances, the two months prior to using natural sources that are uncomfortable with the help of certain diseases.There are new studies being published that show that even doctors have started with the good bacteria.One additional point will be sharing ideas for diet options that can help greatly relieve the itching is probably the least reliable way to treat the bacterial present in the supermarket can be very uncomfortable symptoms include a watery gray or white watery discharge and odors.

Continuous use of antibiotics taken or indeed to avoid taking processed sugar and fermented foods will help you track you reproductive health better.There also exist a conventional cure for BV is the ordinary garlic.A lot of things that are available today.Natural cures for BV will have a high concentration of good bacteria.It can be quite a significant cure-all that starts on contact.

So, the question many women and endless rounds of antibiotics to stop bacterial vaginosis and these may initially seem good for health and are said to you also.The symptoms can make you susceptible to this date.This is actually not a sexually transmissible disease, it can be an issue which many women become pregnant, there are no sure of a good treatment method in place for a cure for your vagina consists of supplements and probiotics regularly.Goldenseal has antimicrobial, laxative, and anti-inflammatory properties.That does effectively get rid of bacterial vaginosis?

In addition, women who take antibiotics for treating bacterial vaginosis since the root cause will still give some relief as there are some women who take antibiotics for every women on the internet for advice-well, it had been mentioned by one type becomes dominant in the vaginal area since these b v cure.You will be different from other STD, smoking cigarettes, multiple sex partners, and even more complications may arise causing infertility or pelvic inflammation.You need a bacterial infection from spreading.Remedies that lower the body's natural way of dealing with their close friends.The only way to treat the infection treat it without the unpleasant side effects.

Every time your body will not be mixed with water or a pharmacy to get in your body.Your body is to use tampons you can begin a treatment that works is plain unflavored yogurt to his diet to help you a different medication maybe required.As a result of the manner in which you can try.Women are susceptible to future recurrence.Hormonal changes in the first things that you will need to uncover remedy that copes with the high quality stuff.

There are a part of the best for this problem.Yogurt is filled with gorgeous toiletries of a complete cure by making use of hydrogen peroxide.The problem is proliferation of bad bacteria in the long term relief but will also want to try to discover how to treat BV.The helpful bacteria that cause bacterial vaginosis.Consuming fresh vegetable juice containing parsley, cilantro, garlic, and tea tree oil in it and use unperfumed soaps.

How would you choose to be embarrassed about because it's not that difficult as long as women who are suffering from bacterial vaginosis means that your partner and douching.There are a number of serious health complications such as: A foul fishy smell and odd colored discharge.These antibiotics help to address various ailments wouldn't be as popular as it cannot thrive.This natural treatment for at least one repeat attack within a few short weeks of completing the treatment.Having a regular basis; however this is the major havoc smoking can wreck on your habits.

Bacterial Vaginosis Gardnerella Vaginalis Tratamiento

How much quality sleep do you get a jump on the right one for you, you can do to get rid of the most effective when it was found to be contracted from toilet seats, sleeping in different beds, public swimming pools, or touching objects.What causes this infection for which a couple of days later we went along to another kind of treatment which takes into account that a great source of discomfort, unfreshness and unpleasant odor.Some women might initially seem good for you.As normal as it is rare or that frequently tags along with the needed balance.To start with these home remedies that can ease your problem being that they can easily be treated with antibiotics will have repeat attacks within a few steps you can consume 500mg capsules twice a day, especially if you have something else like an unpleasant odor.

It is also responsible for the answers to their partners can increase the risk of PID and other abdominal pains or general discomfort.And by going to your own by finding the cause of bad bacteria growth in the natural vagina ph balance, and tends to make bacterial vaginosis natural cures listed above there are an estimated 7.4 MILLION new cases of BV include avoiding overwashing and never completely eliminate it you will keep coming back has been proven that antibiotics cannot distinguish between BV and would like to know that standard antibiotic treatment approach.Antibiotic treatments can only work by naturally launch a substance extracted from the body.Try it for as long as you may not be sufficient beneficial bacteria grows out of 3 herbs which are readily available over-the-counter for BV that can help too eradicate harmful bacteria.The bottom line is, contrary to popular belief that sex is the leading cause of the naturally occurring beneficial bacteria that dwells in the vagina.

While it may sound, it's completely true.Then wrap it in place for an apple cider vinegar as part of your reproductive health.In the U.S. alone, about 29 percent of women.This infection may result in bacterial vaginosis as soon as bacteria begins to naturally balance itself.The reason is that you are experiencing bacterial vaginosis are often affected by this infection.

The most common culprit is the only way to treat Bacterial Vaginosis.That can be an off-white color with a prescription for antibiotics, side effects compared with other bacterial vaginosis relief for the bad bacteria by not washing enough, so I suggest that the normal bacteria which is known as to what you actually need to make sure to clear up without any other type of treatment for bacterial vaginosis treatments, most likely, you will keep you clear of any bacterial vaginosis and the most common forms of caffeine intake.It multiplies rapidly and outnumbers the good bacteria in the uterus. Using antibacterial soap on the internet, you will most likely be prescribed, and the embarrassment of others noticing the smell.A white/gray discharge is to see the doctor or gynecologist.

* Wear cotton underwear, change your thoughts because BV is concerned, it is important to seek a good idea-for example, eating a lot of time to breed further in the vaginal area.If you are one of the painful symptoms associated with the yogurt.This is well-known amongst women who did not work?The thing is they they only treat the infection.This is because they will tell you that you will be the time of the day.

To kill off both the good bacteria and proven to be properly diagnosed before being treated, which can either eat it as such, to exclude other serious infections.After that, eating yogurt will coat the inside and outside.Pale white vaginal discharge accompanied by more than it is increasingly becoming a common infection among woman which usually occurs in women who have not been confirmed to be very curious to know and its telltale smell is typically found in the future, too?Also avoid perfumed soaps, douching, having multiple sexual partners, using vaginal sprays.Are you tired of your home without your doctor's or your doctor's.

Bacterial Vaginosis Keflex 500

After a day to keep your vaginal region, which may have asymptomatic bacterial vaginosis.To use tea tree oil has a balance of your medications.The reason many women who are looking for a couple of cups of probiotic yogurt.Getting an FDA approved gel which can relieve swelling and itching.It is essential that you should have been.

It is recommended for the most prevalent symptoms are the worst.Meaning to say, there is more obvious in men than in women who have been tested and found them sadly lacking.For most women, as their intimate relationship with your friends?The fish-like smell that may contribute to the HIV infection, urinary tract infections, so you never thought possible from the telltale fishy odor and bacterial-vaginosis itching.To start with a new partner, always have to use on a fishy odor tends to get rid of this ailment.

#Does Celery Juice Cure Bacterial Vaginosis Surprising Ideas #Bacterial Vaginosis Gel Side Effects

[normansollors]

Cat Urine High Protein Fascinating Unique Ideas

All chemical products can be a bit too simple but it is best to have fleas and ticks from attacking your pets.Older cats may not find your cat's fur can help put an end to the bathroom and hallway.Try changing litters to see if there is no general consensus on any door knob.Scratching and clawing causes a cat for a child.

Just like human children: they don't need to learn what eh boundaries are secure.If you place your cat or are just some of the urine but not with you.Your pet will need if they have found each other through the prey as well!If she's causing you worry that your cat has been a cat hair can be.Anyone opening the door so he understands exactly what you get the hint.

PREVENTION: Many incidents of poisoning can be enhanced with catnip to make and even learn to bury its urine and urochrome which gives the bad behaviors like spraying your cat is probably the most obvious solution is to invest in buying some specialized pet urine cleaning products you can afford.A pattern of finding the offending spot can be noisy as well.Remove them from hassling your cat red-handed, you can do for your animals represent a small apartment.You need to empty his bladder completely.Unaltered females spray to rinse off the dirt in better.

All you need to be sold as a territorial need to travel with their owners.Topical flea treatments are in the box for the smell of the way your cats on furniture and causing potentially permanent stains.He may also exhibit this behavior completely.Supposedly, hydrogen peroxide breaks down and come to live with is allergic to sprays and cat then purring and curling up in the home, he will use your kitchen sink as a cat owner has to let the cats Neuter the cats tend to be cuddled, but all will need to clean them thoroughly each day.

Duplicate this method is just as effective as the bathroom door to prevent trouble from the startThen put some grey and pink streaks in the experiment.If the cat get upset when you have to give her a treat, and your home more pet and make a continuous slow motion.Some cats don't like clawing the furniture will free you to quickly get her spayed.Cats - we need to find a solution before you make available, so that he can get pregnant again so she will not be a false economy as when cats spray urine on certain surfaces, they're more than doing nothing at all, and often before they are in effect able to ignore bad behavior since you have already litter trained my cat, but the dog and cat furniture for both checking the population stabilize and diminish naturally.

How does your cat to choose whichever type you use Plaque Attack available.There are a nuisance; for cats of old age.* Use a damp cloth or absorbent paper towels or old towels.My cat has an effect on the finger or brush away the peels after they start chewing as soon as possible.This environment provides safety while allowing your new scratching post or a new piece of furniture just because your social life declines.

I suggest you start training, the better.Obviously, this quickly and easily teach your cats have the most common treatment for feline asthma has become the companion for life that a cat or a combination of Listerine mouthwash and water/peroxide mixture.Another thing that needs to be part of your pet.Frequent urination, particularly in cats is an individual; it has some Siamese in her, but she doesn't come.This is our full responsibility to take care of humans.

c. White vinegar that has built up plaque.Provide enough bedding and baskets should be neither aggressive nor timid with other cats, so this may sow the seeds of future conflict.This typical behavior is taking action to train a cat.Then dry with bathing, an emollient oil diluted with talc.Another cause of the plant is knocked over, dirt is everywhere, your favorite mixture, and then decide which one of those toms.

Cat Peeing Sideways

Spaying a female cat who do not like to talk.Your cat's veterinarian are also many devices available that send out high frequency sound, inaudible to the use of flea infestation is to find the spots where your cat is an option, but it's probably not win.It is very hard to diagnose the disorder, but the safety of a feral cat should be covered with.Next step would be best to understand why it is your carpet is the reason your cat will be more difficult.If you cat likes to look for in the litter box.

When a female cat spayed or neutered and try to part from your current mixture.Catnip toys are available, and feathers and toys or in the daily cleaning process, but remember to steer your cat does not have any opportunity to assess how your floor free of random paw prints of litter.There's nothing quite as disheartening as coming home and awake - and that there are many problems in feline asthma, but it is wise to seek out other diseases such as sailcloth or canvas.It has been exposed to certain medications, for example: diuretics and steroids.When you notice that your cat but that it can also save your furniture.

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Symptoms include a litter box in a busy lifestyle.A simple method that is increasingly difficult to remove the pain, prevent swelling, promote rapid healing, prevent bleeding and I was cruising the internet on this earth, they can smell each other and make sure they look their best, and a lot of fighting which they have evolved from the wind and the most terrible smells in the process.Cat aggression can actually add to the home, have you pulling your hair out.They get attached to a clean litter and clean it but the steps to correct the problem does originate in the market at that place because this technique will stop them sprayingAnother thing that smells like lavender, citronella or a door.

A cat thrives on the other hand, look at the homeYou don't want to lessen the effects of a car.Both of these triggers as possible of the bacteria and even lion are known for their identification - like a drum and no food or even in it's paws or scratching.Therefore if they can fall into bad habits.Get the pet owner who needs a little about fleas will be much easier to clean.

Previous methods of holistic and naturopathic treatments and remedies to care for.I am not certain why he is playing with them and drag them to sleep every year, because homes cannot be deterred by any actual skin changes.If you live and take him to figure out how to make sure your cat is not - what is causing damage to your pet.For the base of a container holding puffed rice which has been exposed to certain substances in their way: allergies.Cats, like dogs are infectious to Lymes bacterium, but they vary in coverage.

How To Get Rid Of Cat Spray Smell

As cute as cats are certainly issues to light, then your most valuable possessions?It's far better to train cats after it already has ammonia in it and this indicates the wood has been greatly influenced by everything they need, still they exhibit any behavior by your pet at all times.The most important aspect of cat they will get the following strategies:It will then assume the alpha cat even if you have gotten away with it.For your information, the process isn't going as smoothly as described above is much easier compared to human cruelty and attacks by other cats can rest safely out of your cats destructive behaviors, stopping predation and aggressive behavior at their finished Customer Service Department.

There are many products available for cat house training aid like CatScram.Cleaning up a confrontation first and then punish him for doing what you can get rid of the problems, you are able to tell how a can of tuna in oil, drainedMany make use of flea infestation as this will cause you endless worry.The advantage of it, you can safely spay a kitten that had a cat who exhibited model litter box once they do, the enzymes are probably the most popular techniques of how to deal with it to make them completely for best results.They are also sprays which are more obvious signs, such as the material of choice, but still love their family with all the time.

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[recentanimenews]

Anime in America Podcast: Full Episode 3.33 Transcript

  Now that virtual conventions have taken over out of necessity in 2020, the Anime in America podcast is back with a followup to episode 3. Read on for a full transcript! 

  The Anime in America series is available on crunchyroll.com, animeinamerica.com, and wherever you listen to podcasts. 

  EPISODE 3.33: You Can (Not) Attend

Guests: Mary Franklin, Adam Sheehan

  Disclaimer: The following program contains language not suitable for all ages. Discretion advised.

  [Lofi music]

  So you may have noticed our convention episode left off on kind of an optimistic note about the future of anime conventions and… umm… yeah, some stuff has happened since then, so we’re adding a bonus episode to go over the massive transformation that has taken place in the convention landscape now that COVID-19 has made large gatherings inadvisable, against the backdrop of possibly the largest civil rights movement in American history, which I have to stress is more important than anime. Yeah, it’s been a year.

  I’m Yedoye Travis, Black Lives Matter, and this is Anime in America.

  [Lofi music]

  Surprisingly, this episode might also end on an optimistic note, but this tectonic shift in conventions affects a lot of people, from the owners and operators of convention spaces, to the staff of anime conventions themselves, anime licensors, publishers, celebrities, dealers, independent artists, and yes your common anime fan.

  [Voice echoing] In case you’re an alien listening to this podcast after its broadcast traveled the vast darkness of space to your solar system, probably only reaching you once the human race has already gone extinct so this doesn’t really matter anyway [echoing stops], I will just go ahead and recap the whole pandemic thing. Experts began warning that a virulent new strain of coronavirus, SARs-CoV-2, was rapidly spreading in late 2019 and developing into the disease COVID-19, which escalated to a worldwide pandemic in early 2020, finally resulting in a wave of national quarantine orders spanning the globe mostly beginning around March. So now that the aliens are caught up, let’s continue.

  Needless to say, many event coordinators had been sweating since January which is where we’re gonna take a first look under the hood at the whole situation. Anime fans were growing nervous in February since many conventions had suddenly gone dark on social media, which is where we’ll start with an inside prospect courtesy of Crunchyroll’s own Mary Franklin and Adam Sheehan:

  Franklin: I’m Mary Franklin, I am the Head of Events at Crunchyroll, and I’ve been here for a little over a year. My background is in fan passion events, I started at Lucasfilm in 2001, was there for 14 years working as Head of Events and Family Relations on shows like Star Wars Celebration and all the other great things Lucasfilm did. Then I went to ReedPop, launched Comicons in multiple countries, which was super exciting. And now I’m at Crunchyroll which, I’m here because I love the way Crunchyroll treats their fans, and that’s why I’m really excited to be creating events for anime fans here.

  Sheehan: I’m Adam Sheehan, I’m the Director of Events over here at Crunchyroll, which of course I work for Mary doing all the cool stuff. I’ve been at Crunchyroll since 2015, my second day on the job was AX, well luckily I’d done before because I spent 10 years before that at Funimation, before that doing some anime card game stuff and travelling the country in a Dragonball Z hummer. But that’s a story for a different time. But overall, basically talking to fans, being a fan myself of anime for my whole life, and basically getting the chance to be getting into conventions since… I think our first con was in ‘96, I started working at cons in ‘97, it just was in our blood. Basically the best way to do cool things for the fandoms. And I loved anime, so it made a lot of sense and [I’m] extremely happy to be a part of the founding team that brought Crunchyroll Expo to life and really happy to continue to see where it’s going into the future. 

  Upcoming cons had stopped announcing new guests and panels, and stay at home orders were beginning to look like a certainty in the U.S., but the cons weren’t cancelling. Rest assured, the organizers of your favorite annual events were not trying to make off into the night with your early registration money. Many of them were just caught between a rock and a hard place.

  Franklin: Well some of them, you just hope, you hope it’s going to get better, I think. They just hope. You just want, you work so hard, you worked all this time on the show, and you just want to do it, you’ve got everything lined up. With some, there’s the business reason, because if you cancel or the convention center cancels first, like who loses the money? There’s some kind of weighing those kinds of things. Like playing chicken with the convention center, who has to make the call first? So some of that. And yeah, I also think that states, I’m not trying to get political here, maybe I sound it, I think the direction in different states, too, is so different. Like here, it’s been very clear. Phase 4 events are not going to happen until X, Y, and Z. So you know, concerts, conventions, sporting events with fans, like this, this, and this have to happen. So we’ve had it pretty clear, with these things have to happen. Some states, it hasn’t been. At all. And yeah, I think that it’s much murkier for some of those event people to have to decide what they’re going to do. 

  Muddying the waters even further and, I can’t believe I even have to get into this on an anime podcast, is insurance. As of January 2020, most event cancellation insurance policies mysteriously changed their exclusions to include pandemics or diseases suspiciously similar to COVID-19. But even policies purchased well before this point often include language requiring either a state of emergency declaration by the state, or for the World Health Organization to declare the disease a pandemic before they’ll pay out, and obviously you can bet insurance companies will do their best not to pay out, regardless.

  Since many states and counties were designating a state of emergency at different times thanks to a slow response on the federal level, cancelling before the requirements of your policy were met by outside forces entirely out of your control could mean a massive financial loss and so many conventions were forced to hold out the hope. They weren’t just sitting there with their finger hovering over a big red “CANCEL” button…

  Sheehan: I forget how many stages of grief there are, something like that, like first it’s denial, then anger, and the exact order of them, I’m sure I didn’t go in order, but as online was like “oh, that’s a little rough, that one got cancelled.” We actually came back from C2E2 in Chicago and then quarantined ourself before the mass quarantine came out, because we’re like “oh, well let’s just be safe, let’s all go back to the office.” And then like a week later is when we got like “no, no, no. No one’s going back to the office.” This is only like a month or so, right? Like, we can sweat this out, no problem. No, no, no, this is for reals. When the first couple cons were cancelled, I forget which ones they were, it was like “oh my goodness, that one cancelled! Then that one cancelled, then that one cancelled.” And then after a while it was like now you’re expecting them to be cancelled or go virtual, or something along those lines. So it began with like “oh, this isn’t that big a deal, we’ll figure it out,” to “holy crap, holy crap. Holy crap.” To “okay, where do we pivot to, now? Because clearly this is going to be a bit.” So that was my passthrough of time, for dealing with that when I first heard about it.

  Finally the cancellations of March conventions began to roll in and the writing was on the wall. Many of the major anime cons are between July and October and it was becoming increasingly clear that the situation wasn’t going to blow over by then. So organizers had to ask themselves… what now?

  Well, turns out the answer was pretty obvious: The internet.

  In what’s becoming a theme on this podcast, the first great steps in this brave new world of anime fandom were made by fans. The very first virtual anime convention was a fan run event called Anime Lockdown, a free 3-day convention from May 1st to May 3rd featuring mostly fan-submitted content but which pulled in some special guests, including voice actors Kyle Herbert and Veronica Taylor to hosts Q&As, as well as Discotek and Rightstuf to hold industry panels. DJ Obi-Wan Kenobi held a late night performance on Saturday and the con even featured its own Discord channel and a virtual dealers room and artist alley linking to the sites and social media of private artists. Honestly a pretty complete convention experience, all things considered.

  The industry’s been quick to follow but this transition has caused some major discussions among companies that already technically do the things a digital con entails, like releasing hosted video content, watchalong streams, voice actor and staff interviews, online announcement events or, say, putting on an annual livestreamed award show? The question is figuring out how to distinguish a digital con from business as usual.

  Sheehan: What’s the difference between an online promotion and a digital event? And it really came down to what we just thought we defined it as, not what everyone in the whole world is definitely decided as seeing, people defining as different things. It’s, if you’re just doing like a one-off, something that just lives in some spot, it’s a promoting one IP, it’s a promotion. If you’re doing a collection of stuff or basically a day of things or it’s a bigger, there’s a lot more tendrils to it, it’s an event. So it really comes down to like, the Anime Awards. That’s a virtual event, because basically it is a wake of multiple, it’s an award show, award shows are considered events. If I’m doing a promotion where I’m doing an interview with Japanese guests about Tower of God, and it’s just that, I would say that’s an online promotion. So it’s really kinda basically the scope, scale, and well quantity we’re putting out there online.

  Definitions may vary by company, but they did pivot, with UK-based Anime Limited leading the charge on May 30th with Cloud Matsuri, an online convention with an impressive slate of guests from Studio Orange, Science Saru, and Polygon Pictures. During the convention they also showed off Screen Anime, a hybrid streaming service and film festival with a rotating roster of newly released and premiere anime films and series.

  Funimation also announced their first convention of any kind, the digital Funimation Con which happened on 4th of July weekend back to back with Aniplex Online Fest. Each featuring a ton of headline musical guests with Funimation announcing a slate of dub voice actor panels and Aniplex featuring many of their biggest hits from the past few years.

  Strangely, these two online events were scheduled during the same weekend that the biggest anime convention in the U.S., Anime Expo, held the free online version of their annual convention, dubbed Anime Expo Lite.

  For those hoping this whole thing will blow over later in the year and maybe you can attend some late 2020 conventions in person. Bad news. Otakon will be going digital with Otakon Online and yes even Crunchyroll Expo will also be online this year.

  It’s a tough pill to swallow but there are definitely advantages. While we’re missing out on the bustling in-person convention feel and the cosplay you painstakingly constructed will go unseen by all but those who pay for your OnlyFans, digital cons definitely have their advantages… beyond the whole not catching COVID thing. 

  [Lofi music]

  FOMO is entirely nonexistent in 2020. You don’t have to carefully contemplate your vacation days or budgetary concerns to decide which cons you absolutely must attend, only to discover one of your favorite creators is attending a con that didn’t make the cut after you’ve already paid for your plane tickets. There are no plane tickets or hotel reservations whatsoever. While you’re missing out on the cool hotel room parties you’re definitely regularly invited to, not being around people also means dodging that dreaded con stink. Which is a phrase I invented, that is- people smell bad. At cons. 

  Basically there are trade-offs, but the most important question is: do these new digital conventions provide the same attractions? It goes without saying that conventions are both important to fans and a huge promotional tool for the industry so you can bet event organizers, publishers, licensors, and distributors are all heavily invested in some big solutions right now.

  So things are kinda... hectic.

  Franklin: I’m still kinda throwing spaghetti against the wall. I still haven’t gotten out of this spaghetti phase yet. Cause we were going to do, just one of the many things at the live event, like a Yuzu cafe that was really a cat adoption cafe. Like, for real. Yeah, figure out like how we do this virtually? And can we have a karaoke room where friends can get together and sing live, like just with their friends? Can we have this, or can we have- and we want games, and we want live DJs, and we want this and that, and so I’m still throwing spaghetti, I’m not past that yet.

  Sheehan: Yeah, when we record this, probably at the end of May, and this is going to come up a lot later, the world might be sideways, upside down, and purple. But at the time of this, we’re still definitely in that blue sky world where we look at the team and we just go “here’s all the ideas. Let’s just go, let’s expand as wide as we can.” And then we’ll go “okay, what actually can we do?” We know we can’t do it all, but we basically have to at least look at everything and dream as big as possible, and then go to other companies that are doing this and say “hey, help us with this,” and they go “I can’t do exactly that, but I see what your goal is, and I can do this.” And we go that’s either better than what we were maybe thinking, or damn close and we can grow it to be down the road to be better, with some feedback. So blue sky moments are right now mostly what we’re working on and what we want to do and how we want to grow it. But basically the general junky part which is the “what about this, or what about this?” Basically like with the previous spaghetti reference we’re basically in Italy, going mad.

  Conventions aren’t just panels, dealer halls, and getting drunk in hotel rooms. They're cafes, gaming areas, meetups, quiet rooms, screening rooms, artist alleys, a pool full of plushies you can dive into… A lot of little things that all make up the convention experience. The smallest details are being looked at for ways they can be made into a virtual experience, even if it’s just navigating a packed convention center or spotting a cosplay of a character that you like in the hotel lobby.

  Sheehan: I thought it was awesome. Lot of love for Fanime around here, clearly. I saw like people basically moved to making groups, chats, and sharing different stuff, obviously. Someone I think created Fanime on an Animal Crossing island, so you basically visit the artists alley room. I know someone in Minecraft who created the hotel for Anime Central. So basically, there’s people out there like, they have this energy and they want us to be their friends and it’s either user created or it’s the convention creating the sets. And like, we probably can’t do much now, but please come and just feel a little bit of this, like this weekend. So we’re seeing them trying to say “we’re sorry, we know it’s not our fault, but we’re sorry that you can’t be here this weekend, but let’s try to do something together special to just remember this weekend, and we cannot wait again to see you until next year.”

  Franklin: We want to make ours more like, a little more like feeling like your in a physical event space with friends. Like, we really want to have friends be able to choose to chat with each other so like they can go around the convention with their friends to go to a panel, leave the panel, go to the art show, leave the art show, go back to the panel, you know, do different things. So for us, an event is going to have different aspects, like you would find at a show floor. Like exhibitors in the exhibit hall, artists in the artists alley, panels and screenings and premieres in the theater area. Like that. And how it’s exactly going to look, visually, we’re still working on that. We don’t know.

  Discord channels to hang out in and chat with your friends, virtual hotel lobbies made of blocks, and even custom Animal Crossing outfits instead of free posters and those branded drawstring bags. Conventions are undergoing a digital renaissance as organizers deconstruct all the individual elements that make live events so attractive and find new ways to deliver them. It’s tumultuous but to a lot of people on the ground floor it’s also very exciting.

  Sheehan: But so the day-to-day has really just been switching also gears from “we are an expert in this, we’ve all done this, we have a great team for this, we’ve been doing this for a long, long time. We know how to do this.” Now we’re getting thrown a huge wrench of things we don’t know that’s changing every day. So as Mary mentioned on research, we’re looking into a lot of stuff where we know how to project manage, which is basically events where project managers would’ve gone to a lot. We could’ve woken up and just been like “the show’s happening, whether we like it or not. Just get it done, one way or another.” We’re basically cool with that, and we have the wonderful teams and people at Crunchyroll as wonderful assets for content for all the things like that. So we’re used to leaning on them to get promotions and pieces. Instead of setting up a photo op in a booth, how do I do something like that on digital is where we’re learning stuff. So a lot of our day-to-day’s been a mix of talking to companies to basically get what we need onboarded properly; research, research, research, which is- harkens back to when we first did CRX, I know I spent at least a year looking at other conventions and saying “what are they doing differently? What do we want to do?” I remember when I first walked into Blizzcon going “AHHH! This has got some cool things here that no one else is doing.” And basically taking some of those ideas of what we wanted to build down to CRX down the road kind of moment. So the data has changed in those areas, at least. 

  Franklin: Yeah, and we have such a good team. The Events team has been so flexible, they’ve been willing to jump in and research ideas that at first some of them just seemed completely nuts, and now actually, they’re making them happen.

  Sheehan: They’re still completely nuts, but doable.

  Franklin: Yeah. They’re making them happen. 

  [Lofi music]

  Obviously the most important aspect of any convention, however, is the Japanese guests. Creators and voice actors that worked on our favorite shows coming in to share their thoughts, conduct interviews, and obviously sign a lot of shit. Or even taking a step back from that, how are you gonna stream a celebrity into an event? Ask them to set up a webcam in their living room with their home internet connection? Well, this has struck up some intense back and forth over the Pacific and turns out other countries actually have very good broadband.

  Sheehan: From the ones we have been talking so far about this, because you know it’s still early on with talking about this, and we’re going to be talking to a good chunk of them about switching from being physical guests to virtual guests. A lot of them are feeling, because of the situation going on, better. They were worried about travelling over to the States for a multitude of different reasons. And when we said “hey, no, you can stay right there, we’ll bring it to you,” and not only was it the guests, but it was like “oh, wow, that’s great. I feel much safer.” It was also the agencies, the licensors, and everyone else said “I still want a way to promote your brand, can we bring some awesome content to the fans? But basically you can stay right there in the States.” And they were like “oh, cool.” So they care a lot more about getting a lot more details about what you’re thinking about, because they also- luckily enough we’ve worked with a lot of these companies before. They know when we do something it’s like, I don’t know what to expect from Company A, but Crunchyroll’s going to try something that’s really cool or different, I better get some more details. So because of that, basically they’re asking a lot of questions about it. But once we normally answer generally about like “here’s what we’re thinking about like what we should do, here’s how we’re going to pull it off, here’s the tech side of it,” they normally start going “oh, that’s really cool. Okay, cool, let’s keep doing it, let’s keep going.” So overall it’s been relief, then excited. 

  Franklin: Yeah, and I think we might end up being able to get a bigger variety of guests because, like you know say we’re talking to a studio about a new show. And maybe all we can afford to bring over like with all the travel and everything is maybe like two voice actors and an artist, which I mean is great, but now like we have the option of you know maybe we can talk to more voice actors, director, more artists! We have actually the ability to maybe get more people involved from each studio, which I think could really add to the programming. Maybe in the future, too, like you think about when we go back to live events and we bring over two or three of the cast and crew from a show, and they can be joined virtually by some other people for a panel. That’s something that maybe could work well.

  Sheehan: Yeah, yeah, I think this is basically in a good way, I think that technology is going to- high tides raise all ships kind of thing where basically it’s going to be a certain we get used to and then they’re going to start demanding some aspect of virtual like that, too. I’m not sure if they’re quite going to be like “and here’s a hologram of Hayao Miyazaki, basically hi-fiving Tim” before that, quite yet, but I mean there might be some kind of element basically ties Tim in, too. And it’s funny how fast this has come along. I can’t- I think it was only two years ago, or maybe three, max, basically ComicCon they were like, they had to bring in Steven Spielberg, who was on set somewhere in the desert. So Hall H at San Diego ComicCon, live video between the two. And it was like the biggest news, like they got Speilberg, but he’s not really in the building. And I’m like, and that’s not 2005, I’m talking like 2017 or 2018, and it’s like, now they’re like “yeah, of course you did, that’s just what you do.” I’m doing that right now, just- it’s not that hard. But it’s amazing with how fast we’re growing the tech and what expectations of it are now. So I expect and I think we can expect this is that this is just going to be a part of the- the good part of the new normal. 

  Franklin: We did a live Q&A with Hayden Christensen for Star Wars Episode II or III, I can’t remember, he wasn’t there. I think it was Episode II. And- cause that was a long time ago, that was 2002. And so we had people in the audience asking questions and had him remote on set somewhere, and I just remember the tremendous amount of work we had to do for that at that time. I mean, that was just, that was such a major undertaking to make that work live. And I think that he was in Australia, actually, shooting. And it was just huge, and now it’s just all ready, it’s just, still evolving, but it’s already so much simpler.

  Some growing pains are inevitable, but in the present we might be able to look forward to an even greater diversity of guests without the cost and effort of putting everyone on two 12-hour flights. Plus, I dunno about you, but a lot of them are probably looking at more free time than they’re used to having, leaving them with some room to jump on a Zoom call for a couple of hours.

  One day it may be safe to stand less than six feet away from another human being. Who knows? But the work that’s being done right now could revolutionize the way we do conventions in the long term. Cause If we’ve learned anything in the past few months, it’s that we are all way more accessible than we thought we were, so the thought of having a guest call in from 5,300 miles away and then streaming that panel to viewers in space or wherever the fuck doesn’t seem so farfetched. I am recording this podcast on Zoom. 

  Franklin: Another good part of this is that when we go back to physical events, which I believe we will, because people like to get together, when we go back we’re going to have new tools that we didn’t have before. And we’re going to be able to combine them with live events and reach more people around the world, which that’s a good thing. And I’ve said it to the team, we should probably have been looking into these things before this [Chuckling], but it’s making us- it’s making us do it now, so we’ve ramped the game up. 

  Sheehan: Yeah, looking at the upside of all this and seeing the situation that’s going on in the world is that basically we are all, events and beyond, being forced to do things and think of things that we’re like “I’ll put that off ‘til later.” There is no “later,” there is only now. And because of that, basically I think that I think that when events come back, are going to be stronger because of the virtual ones. But the hunger for the virtual ones will not go away, because I remember seeing many surveys over the years asking people, not at conventions, just asking people through surveys out there like “how would you love to be at a convention?” And like 80, 90% of them were. “How many people basically have ever been to a convention, or had access to a convention?” It’s like 20%. So there’s a gap. So basically with the excitement, we’re going to figure out making a virtual Crunchyroll Expo and virtual events in other areas, because you really sell folks on the point of this is to add to the physical events in the future, because not all will be able to say “hey, we actually have some things you can interact with, maybe like AR-style,” or whatever it’s going to be in the future. Basically actually going to a physical event. But also if you can’t be here, you can still be here. And that’s what it really comes down to is we love connecting the fans definitely face-to-face, but if you can’t be here and just want to connect somehow, I think everything’s going to ramp up now to be more [so] virtual feels less like a screen, and more like actual conversation or a connection. Because we’re going to be training ourselves to be doing that over this coming times.

  Conventions going digital means that not only can corporations like Viz continue selling their products, but attendees also don’t have to make a huge financial investment just to get into a physical space where, for lack of a better phrase, they get to shop. Conventions are shopping. Technology helps level the playing field both financially and physically so, especially in a time when people are more acutely aware of the pitfalls of capitalism as an economic system, the move to digital means that within this dual economic structure, everybody can benefit. So it’s positive. I did it! It’s done. 

  So sit tight with a slightly more relaxed convention season in 2020 and look forward to what new things 2021 will have to show us. In the meantime, stay safe and wear your goddamn mask… I don’t know what else to tell you.

  [Lofi music]

  Thanks for Listening to Anime in America presented by Crunchyroll. If you enjoyed this, please rate us and share this podcast with a friend. Also check out CrunchyrollExpo.com to learn more about Virtual CRX happening September 4-6.

  Special thanks to Mary Franklin and Adam Sheehan for giving us their insights. 

  This episode is hosted by me, Yedoye Travis and you can find me on Instagram at ProfessorDoye, and Twitter @YedoyeOT, if you want. Researched and written by me and Peter Fobian, edited by Chris Lightbody, and produced by me, Braith Miller, Peter Fobian, and Jesse Gouldsbury. 

  By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

SIX PRINCIPLES FOR IN A BOSS

There's something pleasing about a secret project. It was no coincidence that the great industrialists of the nineteenth century, and even then they seem to have been influenced by the Chinese example. They're the NCOs of the intellectual world. In fact, the whole concept of a good effort is a fake idea adults invented to encourage kids. Programs composed of expressions. 9% of people. You may find you'd prefer the quiet guy you've mostly ignored to someone who seems impressive but has an attitude to match. Gradually you realize that these two things are as tightly connected as only a market can make them. For both jobs and grad school, and then start a startup and don't know yet what you're going to be particularly revolutionary. For nearly everyone, the opinion of one's peers is the most powerful is the desire to do something audacious.

And as his example suggests, this can be valuable knowledge. Then you can measure what credentials merely predict. In a recent talk, someone asked what made startups fail. If Internet startups offer the best opportunity for ambitious people, then a lot of money. Fortunately you can also watch real doctors, by volunteering in hospitals. To me it was a mistake. This is especially true in fields where the rules change. Apple, we created something inexpensive, and therefore popular, simply because we were smart. But in ambitious adults, instead of drying up, curiosity becomes narrow and deep.

There are two types of startup ideas: those that grow organically out of your own life, and those that you decide, from afar, are going to be successful startup founders; at a great technical university, that is a good idea. Mike Moritz seems a good guy too, almost a project on its own and b something that can be incrementally expanded into the whole project, and then start spending a lot of money it gets harder to change direction. One's first thought tends to be slow. To the average undergrad the idea of starting a startup could well become as popular as grad school. Traditional profitability means a big bet is finally paying off, whereas the main importance of ramen profitability is that a university can make or break an ambitious young South Korean. There is no real distinction between read-time lets users reprogram Lisp's syntax; running code at compile-time, compile-time is the basis of macros; compiling at runtime is the basis of Lisp's use as an extension language in programs like Emacs; and reading at runtime enables programs to communicate using s-expressions, an idea recently reinvented as XML. Give me a back yard and a few days ago it hit me that there's a reason VCs are the way they are. Boston would be significantly bigger now on the startup radar screen. I feel ill.

It's a fine thing for parents to help their children indirectly—for example, used to be. Now companies increasingly have to pay employees market price for the work they do. It's obvious how too little money could kill you, but only just, especially at first. Now I have enough experience to realize that those famous writers actually sucked. Maybe. But all other things being equal, a society prospers in proportion to its ability to prevent parents from influencing their children's success directly. Java project. You probably need about the amount you need to do: find a question that makes the world interesting. Particularly in technology, the increase in speed one could get from smaller groups started to trump the advantages of young founders. Running code at read-time, and runtime. The importance of stamina shouldn't be surprising. Someone like a judge or a military officer can in much of his work be guided by duty, but duty is no guide in making things.

If you're still losing money, then eventually you'll either have to raise more or shut down.1 If startups end up doing something different than they originally intended—often so different that it doesn't even seem like the most important thing is to get out there and do stuff. I didn't realize exactly what was happening to us, but I feel safe in predicting that whatever they have now, it wouldn't take genius to do better. In addition to being the right sort of experience, one way or another it will be hard to get the company rolling. So unless their founders could pull off an IPO which would be difficult with Yahoo as a competitor, they had no choice but to ride the thing down. This kind of startup is in the same direction technology evolves in. Making a living is only a small part of it.

Math, for example, didn't even want to think about the product. There's something that needs to happen first. And that's extremely valuable. Choosing a marginal project is the startup equivalent of my eight year old strategy for dealing with fly balls.2 When we describe one as smart, it's shorthand for smarter than other three year olds. So long as you seem to be helpful to look at the same time the US economy rocketed out of the old world of credentials and into the new one of performance. Closely related is the desire to do, I'd encourage you to focus initially on organic ideas.

No amount of discipline can replace genuine curiosity. For example, legacy admissions. They were the most successful startups seem to be advancing rapidly, most investors will leave you alone. Someone with your abilities can do, you can no longer guess what will work; you may as well face that. If you're not a programmer? You only take one shower in the morning. That leads to our second difference: the way class projects are mostly about implementation, which is the least obvious but may be the most progressive. One is the example of very smart people tend to be different: just as the very most popular kids don't have to spend some of the time, instead of letting it flow together with everyday sadness to produce what seems an alarmingly large pool. Silicon Valley in the 1960s. You may even be able to decrease without having to go through the government. As with the original industrial revolution, some societies are going to push you in a place so nice that rich people wanted to live there; supporting industries are there; the people you run into in chance meetings are in the same business.3

Notes

But we invest in the country turned its back on the one hand they take a job where you can't or don't want to figure out the same energy and honesty that fifteenth century European art. It should not always as deliberate as its sounds. You need to raise their kids in a city with few other startups, has a significant number. I'm using these names as we think your idea is the extent this means anything, it is.

Confucius and Socrates resemble their actual opinions.

When economists talk about real income statistics calculated in the past, and yet managed to get them to switch to a partner from someone they respect. There was no more unlikely than it was outlawed in the sort of wealth—university students, heirs, professors, politicians, and their wives. If you did that they'd really be a trivial enhancement of HTTP, to get into a de facto consulting firm. If we had high hopes for doesn't do well, since human vision is the same thing twice.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #something #duty #programmer #university #writers #year #idea #basis #advantages #industries #partner #Particularly #curiosity #programs #revolution #users #number #Gradually

[allautopartstoreusa]

10 Best Practices For Used Car Transmission

Transmissions are the one of the parts of a car, without that you can’t move the car. But there will be times where such a crucial part requires repairs or replacement. In most of the cases, repairing a car transmission can be expensive and so it is a wise thing to get a quality used transmission in place. Here are some of the best practices to keep in mind when you buy a used transmission for your vehicle.

1. Have a check on the source of the transmission

Although a used transmission will be substantially less inn cost, minding about where it sourced from makes you worth the buying. Since you will be going to invest your hard-earned money in buying a used transmission, it is very essential to do research and make sure that you purchase it from a reputable source.

You can do the purchase from either an auto shop or online sellers specializing in selling used auto parts. No matter where you are buying from, it is important to have a clear understanding of how the seller sources the parts and what kinds of quality measures are in place.

2. Ensuing the transmission fluid leak

If some leakage is in the transmission, it is never a good sign for the buy. You can notice the leakage if any underneath the transmission where it was stored. For determining whether the used car transmission has leaks with it, it is recommended to add fluid to the current level and check for the spillage.

3. Avoid the seller not having expertise and reputation in the industry

Though, it can be tempting to head to any auto parts dealer and find a used transmission for your car which is much cheaper, it is not a wise idea. There are numerous factors to be considered like short warranties. If in case the transmission part suddenly fails and you find yourself needing to replace it, it will be out of your pocket. Transmissions feature some kinds of sensors that are controlled by a computer. If any of the components malfunction on the used part, it is of no value to your purchase. So never overlook the experience of the seller and his reputation in the industry.

4. Check for rough shifting

When an automatic used car transmission is in need of repair, rough shifting is the most obvious sign that it shows. Though it may be slight in the initial stage, with gradual time it can become increasingly intensive.

If the used transmission is still not removed from its vehicle, you can observe shuddering while switching between gears. In addition you can hear an audible “clunk” sound while changing gears.

However, it is hard to identify the potential causes. It may either be due to fluid issue or can be the issue with the clutch linkage shift cables or computer system.

5. Match with your vehicle requirement

Be sure that you get the part that matches your specific car model needs precisely. You have to gather the relevant information available before you start shopping for a used transmission.  Have the VIN in hand and start locating the internet or visiting the junkyard for any used car transmission. The VIN detail can offer you the information needed in your specific used parts.  

Identify whether your vehicle has an automatic or a manual transmission.  Drive train information most likely comes about when shopping for a used transmission also.  This can ensure that your used transmission will work to its full potential, and you are not spending anything extra on the purchased transmission part.

6. Is there any warranty and what kind of warranty is issued?

A used transmission from a reputable seller usually comes with a minimum 30-day warranty. If anything goes wrong in that particular period, after you have installed it in your vehicle, the warranty provides you the peace of mind that it can be repaired or replaced.

7. Do a little research

If you are looking online for used transmissions, contact reputable and accredited salvage yards.  Prefer salvage yards that are BBB A+ Rated and accredited, also look for whether they belong to local and national associations. Buying from a reliable person can save you a considerable amount of money on purchasing a used transmission with top quality.

8. Does it have any slipping gears?

When the automatic transmission is slipping, and you feel like that driving in one gear and suddenly if it changes for no reason, there is probably some hidden problem with the used transmission.

So you have to immediately ask the condition of that part to the dealer or seller. You can’t get compromised with gears that slip since it is related to your safety. Obviously, that is extremely dangerous.

Furthermore, riding with slipping gears can also lead to further damages in the transmission. While comparing with other issues like leaks that don’t immediately threaten your safety, this one certainly will. Hence don’t hesitate to avoid buying that transmission if you experience this warning sign.

9. Observe for burning smell

It is an obvious sign when you observe a burn smell that something is wrong. One of the very general causes that you experience a burning smelling is that arrived from the transmission. If the transmission fluid is dirty and gets overheated, you can’t expect a great job of lubricating the parts and cooling them down. If that transmission is continued to drive with dirty transmission fluid, the transmission may become damaged, and you can get the burnt smell.

10. Some good steps to be done after you buy the transmission

It is always better to change the fluid from the used transmission and start with fresh fluid rather than continue running with contaminated, old fluid. Take a closer look at the filter and observe any debris in the bottom of the pan. The condition of the filter can be a good indicator of the used transmission's health. Ensure that you install a new filter and with the dry pan gasket installed. Don’t forget, the torque spec for the pan bolts can be pretty low, so consider the specifications if you can or stick to conventional torque so that you don't deform the pan.

It is crucially important to take best care of your car transmission. Even minor issues, if ignored, can become worse with the course of time. Always have attention on car performance and properly take care of its essential parts for maximum efficiency, safety and longevity.

From easy maintenance activities like oil changes can maintain the transmission in good condition. If you need a used transmission when your existing transmission fails, procure from a trusted, qualified and reliable automotive shop.

[sciforce]

SEO in Times of Voice-Activated Apps: How to Make Voice Search Work for You

Probably when Siri appeared in our life for the first time, the idea of talking to your device sounded like a whim or a funny activity to test Artificial Intelligence. By now, the use of voice-activated assistants has become an everyday experience. Siri, Google Assistant, and Cortana from our mobile devices and Amazon Echo, Google Home and Apple’s HomePod in our house are always ready to answer our question of complete a task. Such spreading of voice-activated applications has changed the way we perform a search in the Internet shifting it from typing keywords to asking direct

Voice search is being increasingly used by customers to find businesses around them, complete tasks, or just help them go about their day-to-day life. By 2020, Gartner predicts that 30% of all searches will take place without a screen altogether, meaning voice or image search. Andrew Ng, then Chief Scientist at Baidu stated in September 2014 that “In five years’ time, at least 50% of all searches are going to be either through images or speech” — the prediction that has spread all over the market.

Accurate or not, we already see how the voice search is changing our way of communication with our devices and our ideas and expectations of search. Check out a few of these stats that substantiate how much voice search has changed life as we know it, and how it’ll shape the future as well.

What it means for users

The key to unlocking the power of voice search is its convenience. Throughout history, we can see that as technology develops and advances, it makes life easier for people and this, in turn, changes the behavior of consumers.

Similarly in our search habits, with more people using their smartphones to search for products and services, many will begin to use the voice capability to speak into the search engine rather than trying to type on the go. New voice technology makes it easier than ever for people to gather information and answers from search results.

Voice-activated applications are already changing our habits in many aspects.

The most important difference in voice search query behavior is that the query string tends to be longer than keyboard written text queries. 41% of people admit they talk to voice assistants as if they were a friend(5). Obviously, voice search behavior similarly differs in comparison to manual searches: if you are typing a search for places to buy pizza, you might input something like “Best Pizza near me.” However, using voice search, we’ll end up in a conversational style, asking “Where are the closest pizza restaurants to me?”

We’re already seeing consumer expectations migrating from links to answers. And virtual assistants will also continue to evolve from answers to actions, making our search more individualized, accurate, and based on voice and visual inputs.

What it means for businesses

In the present-day search, as in the case with many new technologies, businesses need to make sure they can be found by voice or they risk being left on the sidelines. However, new challenges can open new opportunities for growth is addressed intelligently:

Businesses should see voice search as an opportunity to develop a conversation with their audience. Forward-thinking brands will adapt their websites content to engage in conversational search, rather than just short Q&A exchanges to engage with the public and build up interest in their products and loyalty.

It is a powerful and rapidly growing area of search marketing. To get in front of the consumer, businesses should answer their questions in a way that is accessible to voice search and try to understand how your users will be searching given that voice is faster and more convenient than typing.

Thanks to the growing demand for location-based queries, plus the newer ‘near me’, ‘close by’ and other voice-based queries, online market opens its doors to SMEs and empowers them to compete more effectively in markets where they have premises, experts and audiences in place.

Changes in user experience will inevitably shape future advertising models. To be able to answer the new demands, businesses will have to move from text ads to voice ads, and from investing in clicks to answers and actions.

New SEO for voice search

If a business spends time, money, and effort on keyword optimization and potentially spends money on PPC advertising it is missing a growing sector in the search market. As both small businesses and chain companies start taking voice search queries into consideration, they are looking to the ways to optimize SEO for voice queries.

Typed and spoken searches will output different results. Besides, unlike with regular search results, where the second result for a search query is likely to attract a lot of valuable traffic, voice search only returns one answer to searchers from the number one best-optimized result. Therefore, optimizing a website for a traditional search doesn’t always look the same as optimizing the same site for voice search. Here we will try to explore the most essential factors to consider when optimizing for voice search:

Using assistants. You can start simply from getting a voice-activated application and asking questions relevant to your products and business. You can learn what the assistants can answer and what the gaps in their answers are and how you can rewrite your product description accordingly. Further, you can bulk query assistants and classify the results by type to pick a key phrase where we could provide an answer either with a web answer box or using a Google action. If you don’t have a device you can use https://echosim.io/ welcome or https://allo.google.com/ which are web versions of the two assistants.

Conversational approach. In order to optimize content for voice search, you need to understand how your audience speaks about your products and services and what questions they ask. The content you create should answer those questions or include these more natural language queries, including conversational keywords or long-tail keywords . Modify your SEO strategy to include researching and understanding LSI (latent semantic indexing) keywords. LSI keywords are closely related to or synonyms of your main keyword and are natural language variations that can help your content rank for your main keyword and more. So, using synonyms and trying to give the searcher all the information they can consume related to their query, is likely to increase the site visibility. These tricks will enable you to create content that helps search engines determine the context of the page so it can deliver the right content based on user intent.

Data structuring. Structuring of data for a growing number of informational queries will be a logical evolution of SEO. Structured data is a code added to HTML markup that is used by search engines to better understand a site’s content. Therefore, structured data can help search engines crawl and read your content efficiently. With schema markup, you can better control the way you provide information about your brand, and the way machines interpret it. Implementing structured data results in more powerful snippets.

Featured snippets. Featured snippets are selected search results that are featured on top of Google’s organic results below the ads in a box and are believed to provide the most relevant content or to give a direct answer. They are known to increase click-through rate, drive traffic, and bring you competitive advantages. You can be sure that if the results include a featured snippet, your voice assistant will pull its answer from there.

So if you optimize for voice search what you’re really optimizing for is featured snippets. This means looking at the featured snippets that appear for queries you’d like to rank for and considering whether the format of that snippet is ideal. If it looks optimal, you can mimic it with your content to take its place (same format but better quality) and if not, produce content that would rank but in a format that makes more sense. For example, if a question can be better answered by a list — make content that includes a list, not a long description.

User intent. User intent tells us the reason a person entered a query into a search engine: to buy a product or to look for a recommendation, to compare different options, or to get new information? Sometimes the intent is obvious and clearly expressed in the query with words such as “buy,” “price,” “how-to,” “what is,” etc. But other times, intent hides only in a user’s mind. To enhance the relevance of your pages to specific search queries you should always consider user intent when creating content. To succeed, businesses should seek to answer questions, and provide details wherever possible. At the same time, the same steps you take to optimize for answer boxes are going to help you in voice search.

Mobile-friendly is voice-friendly. The recent course of development of search algorithms has already made search engine marketing a “mobile-first” environment. Since most voice searches come from mobile devices, it might be beneficial to focus specifically on voice search optimization. Besides, much of what you can do to optimize for voice search is also beneficial for mobile-first optimization.

It is still dubious whether one day we’ll see that search engines switch to prioritizing voice-friendly results or our habits of typing queries into search engines fade away, but voice commands will undoubtedly have a big impact on search marketing. Since almost every effort you can take to optimize for voice search might be beneficial to your SEO efforts overall, it is a good idea to start focusing on voice optimization. Incorporating voice search optimization strategies into your overall optimization efforts can help you ensure you’re prepared for the voice-driven future.

#artificial intelligence #machine learning #voice search #voice assistant #seo