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thankskenpenders · 6 months

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Sonic Superstars!

Superstars is out! And guess what? It's good! It's a worthy new entry in the series, and I mostly like it. Mostly. Except for the handful of parts I don't. As usual, allow me to share my thoughts.

(For the record, I got the PS5 version of Superstars. I can't speak for how it plays on older hardware like the Switch, or how the weird Steam version that seems to make you log in with Epic runs. But I encountered zero performance issues, personally.)

General thoughts

The thing is, aside from two notable flaws I'll discuss in greater detail below, I can sum up my feelings on most of Superstars quickly. You see, it's... a Sonic game. This will either be a blessing or a curse depending on who you ask. It's not a bold new take on the series that'll blow you away, but they also didn't fuck it up. There's no catch this time! There's something refreshing about that straightforwardness, given how rare it is to get a regular-ass New Sonic Game from Sega. It's just a new classic-style game where you can play as Amy, set on a new island with all new zones, and Fang is in it! This might be damning with faint praise, but that's what it says on the tin, and they did a good job overall.

(It also has co-op. That's nice. I didn't play it in co-op.)

It plays exactly how it should. At no point did anything feel Wrong. The graphics might not have the absolute highest fidelity, but I think the character models look really nice, and the levels look appropriately good with vibrant color palettes. A couple zones like Sky Temple gave me Klonoa vibes, which I like. One zone is an absolutely incredible homage that I won't spoil. The story here is minimal (as expected), but there are a few good moments of telling the story through the gameplay, particularly one very cute sequence with Trip. I did find a couple stage gimmicks moderately annoying (Speed Jungle 2 and Press Factory 2, looking at you), but like... I could say the same thing about Mania, and also damn near every other Sonic game ever made. There's always That One Level. Superstars may not raise the series to new heights, but it generally executes well on the standard beats of the series. It's an easy recommendation for all fans of 2D Sonic.

Really, aside from the two big flaws (we'll get to them), this game's greatest crimes are simply not being quite as good as Mania, and also coming out the same week as the more creative and polished Super Mario Bros. Wonder. If we hadn't gotten Mania, I would easily be calling this my favorite 2D Sonic game since... what, the Advance trilogy 20 years ago? I like the Rush games, but if you asked me to replay one or the other, I might have a better time with Superstars. And, yes, it beats the hell out of Sonic 4. It's not even close. Anyone who says this game is exactly like Sonic 4 is just being a hater.

...I guess I would say that $60 is a bit steep for this, but you know it'll be on sale for a more appropriate $30-$40 in a few months. This isn't a Nintendo game we're talking about here.

Nice little tweaks

Superstars also features a number of welcome quality-of-life updates over Mania, bringing it more in line with the design ethos of modern platformers.

You have infinite lives! No more getting a game over on the final boss and having to redo the whole final zone - or, god forbid, the entire game

Time overs are gone! It'll warn you before you go over ten minutes, but I have no idea why because it doesn't kill you anymore

The game features a hub from which you can easily replay previous levels, rather than needing to beat the game or put in a cheat code to unlock the level select

This means you can easily go back and hunt for any special stage rings you missed. However, as a tradeoff, it seems like you can only get one Emerald per zone now, rather than being able to get Super Sonic by the end of the first or second zone

You can swap characters between levels! No more having to start a whole 'nother save file to play as Tails

And those characters even have optional little movement tutorial rooms available from the hub, which is great for new players who may not know about things like the Drop Dash

And, finally, checkpoints now feature arrows pointing in the direction you were supposed to be going, in case you forget upon respawning

Of course, while you might not be getting game overs, Superstars certainly compensated with some bosses that kicked my ass.

Bosses

Here's what I would consider notable flaw #1.

I have mixed feelings on the bosses in Superstars. I don't think many of them are poorly designed - in fact, a lot of them are good, and offer fun moments of spectacle. But for a 2D Sonic game, they're REALLY long and drawn out, and by the late game this was starting to get draining.

Bosses tend to be the type where you have to dodge their attack patterns for a while until you get the chance to hit them exactly once, MAYBE twice. A few bosses seem to have quicker options if you abuse your post-hit invulnerability or play as a character with a double jump, but many will either be completely invincible or run away to the background for long periods of time, making it impossible to damage them outside of the allotted windows. And even if it seems like you'll be able to get in a second hit, many bosses turn invincible and skip ahead to the next attack pattern as soon as they take the first hit. Again, most of these fights aren't BAD, but because of this behavior they sometimes take almost as long to beat as the entire levels preceding them. This didn't bother me much early in the game, but against the more challenging bosses towards the end that kept killing me several minutes into a long fight, it got tiring. The final boss of Story Mode probably took me like an hour.

While this certainly isn't an uncommon style of boss design, part of me suspects they did this for the sake of co-op players. For one, playing in co-op means that you don't necessarily have to start the entire fight over if one person dies, so I assume the length is less of an issue. But in particular, true classic-style Sonic bosses that you can just hit repeatedly with good timing would go down in a few seconds against a team of four players. Likewise, the swarm of clones from the "Avatar" Emerald power would probably obliterate every Genesis era boss with one button press. So I get why every boss needs all these invulnerability periods, but still. I at least wish they'd made some of those attack patterns shorter and given you more frequent opportunities to deal damage.

Emeralds and their powers

Speaking of the new Chaos Emerald powers: they're neat, I guess? They're fine. I didn't use them much. Actually, I kept forgetting I even had them - although the game will play a noise and show an icon in the corner of the screen to remind you any time you reach a spot where a specific power is useful. Avatar, the first power you get, is at least good for getting a couple free hits in on the trickier bosses. Yellow's ability to slow time is obviously good, but, again, I always forgot I even had it and made it through just fine without it. I was also pleased to realize that the swimming power is useful for the water levels and not just for climbing up waterfalls.

Oh, and the new grappling-based special stages kind of suck, but they're not the worst, and I'll at least give them credit for trying something new. (Motion Sickness Zone from Sonic 1 does return as a bonus minigame, but I only did it once lmao.)

Battle Mode

I haven't played Battle Mode. Couldn't tell you if it's good or not. It did, however, give us official designs for Metal Tails and Metal Amy after all these years, and also it let me make this:

...Okay, enough beating around the bush. Let's talk about the thing that REALLY drags down the experience.

The soundtrack...

(This lengthy section on the music will feature some light spoilers for things like zone names and themes.)

Now, don't get me wrong. There are some bangers in here that I've been listening to on loop. But this is one of the most inconsistent soundtracks I've ever heard, and I'm not sure I've ever played another game where the music has such a sharp dip in quality in the back half.

As anyone following this blog knows, prior to release I was a little obsessed with trying to gauge what the soundtrack would be like. "Jun Senoue" and "new Classic Sonic game" naturally evokes the memory of Sonic 4, but from the start we knew Tee Lopes was involved as well, and almost all of the music previewed before released leans more towards the sound of Sonic Mania than anything else. I was hopeful! I was excited! Jun deserved another chance at doing another classic Sonic OST, and Tee is one of my favorite game composers of all time between his Sonic material and other works like the TMNT: Shredder's Revenge OST. I frequently thought back to this Sonic 4 remix medley by Jun and Tee as a reminder that these two could really be the dream team, bringing out the best in each other's work.

Sure enough, the front half of the game is largely dominated by the Mania sound, whether it's a track by Tee himself or one by an in-house Sega artist that's compatible with his style. Pinball Carnival Act 1 by Rintaro Soma (an up-and-coming composer who wrote a bunch of the Cyber Space themes in Frontiers) takes obvious inspiration from Mania's Studiopolis Act 1, to the point that I was shocked when Sega posted the track and revealed it wasn't written by Tee. Act 2, however, forges more of its own sound by leaning into the act's spooky haunted carnival theme. And despite being the music lead, the only level theme that I know for sure was written by Senoue in the front half of the game (Bridge Island Act 1) was actually arranged by Tee Lopes to give it more of that Mania sound. Hell, the level clear jingle is literally just the one from Mania. A few level themes by other composers don't quite match that style, but they fit in well enough.

But there are early signs that this sound won't be consistent throughout the game. Our first warning of things to come is the boss music:

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When early copies started floating around and the soundtrack leaked, many, many people hoped that this was merely a placeholder, like the literal Sonic 4 Episode II music used in the earliest previews of Speed Jungle, and that it'd get replaced with a day one patch. Oh, those poor, innocent fools...

Even if you don't mind the poor production with the returning Sonic 4 faux-Genesis sound, this is a very simplistic thirteen second snippet of music that then plays a second time in a higher key before it loops. This wouldn't be the end of the world if the bosses were as short as the ones in the Genesis games, of course, but they're not! This theme is used for a ton of lengthy fights throughout the game, including an EXTREMELY long and tedious autoscroller boss at the end of Golden Capital Act 2. Maybe I would've enjoyed the bosses in this game more if they were paired with some earworms that'd get me hyped up and sell how cool and exciting the fights are supposed to be, but grating songs like this just made the minutes spent fighting those bosses feel like an eternity.

Still, boss music (and menu music) aside, all of the level themes in the front half of the game ranged from decent to great, with the peak easily being the phenomenal Lagoon City Act 2 by Tee Lopes. And then... I got to the back half of the game. And the Mania style completely disappeared, replaced largely with the dreaded Sonic 4 sound. That isn't the style for EVERY song in the back half, but even the ones that try something different tend to be weaker than the material from the first six zones, with less engaging melodies and less intricate arrangement. Many sound straight up unfinished, leaning on extremely basic synth patches with no personality. And there isn't a single track from Tee in the back half. He just disappears from the project altogether.

What this means is that we go from this absolute banger by Tee Lopes in zone 6, which elevates what's otherwise a bog standard desert level to a thrilling adventure:

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To... this, in zone 7:

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It's EXTREMELY jarring!

The thing is, this is actually one of the better tracks in this style. I have to assume this is by Senoue, because you can totally hear a good Adventure or Heroes era Senoue track in there once you get past the crude synth replication of the Genesis era Sonic sound. Senoue is still a great composer, as you can hear clear as day with Bridge Island, but he's working with a restrictive sound palette that doesn't play to his strengths at all. If only he'd bust out that damn guitar, or at least pick some better synths.

(And no matter what people will tell you, no, this is not an accurate recreation of what the Genesis's YM2612 chip really sounded like, nor is it representative of what it CAN sound like at its best. Go back to the Streets of Rage 2 or Ristar soundtracks if you need a reminder.)

While I can at least see what the Press Factory tracks were aiming for, some other faux-FM synth tracks are just really bland. They don't have anything interesting going on, and they also don't seem particularly tailor made for the levels they accompany. They're just attempts to mimic what Sonic 1-3 sounded like on a very literal level. Take, for instance, the Golden Capital Act 1 theme, AKA "we've got Sky Sanctuary at home." While the better level themes in this game enhance the mood or even completely carry the vibes of a level, the weaker tracks can really suck all the air out of the room and make a level feel like more of a slog.

What kills me is that there are, in fact, a couple examples of how to do throwbacks to classic Sega FM synth music well on this very soundtrack! They're just not the Sonic 4 type tracks. I love the Frozen Base Act 2 theme, presumably composed by legendary Sega composer Hiroshi "HIRO" Kawaguchi, who's responsible for all-time classic arcade soundtracks like Fantasy Zone, Out Run, Hang-On, After Burner, and more, as well as the hacking and pinball themes from Frontiers. Maybe to an untrained ear this doesn't sound all that different, but it has a catchier tune, better instruments, and stronger production overall. I'm also a fan of the track for Sky Temple, which isn't perfect, but it blends a few Genesis-esque instruments like the Sonic 1+2 snare with other instruments for a richer sound. If the whole soundtrack sounded more like these examples, I'd definitely be complaining less.

I really just have to wonder... how did this happen? How did this end up being so inconsistent? Many fans on social media are jumping to the conclusion that Senoue is just extremely stubborn and refuses to ditch the style from Sonic 4. I can't deny this possibility, but some things just don't add up. The almost complete lack of "retro" style music in the promotional material. The fact that the style just suddenly shifts halfway through the game, then disappears for the final zone, as if that's not the note they want to end on. The complete lack of any tracks by Tee Lopes in the back half. The focus on the Mania-style tracks in the bonus "mini soundtrack." And most perplexing of all, the fact that three of the first tracks you hear in the game were Senoue compositions that were given extra attention with arrangements from Tee Lopes.

This is pure speculation on my part, but it almost seems like they straight up ran out of time.

Perhaps Jun wanted more of his tracks to get full arrangements from Tee, or for Tee to contribute more songs, but things were down to the wire and they chose to leave in some of the raw Sonic 4 style demos. The soundtrack being crunched out in a matter of months at the end of development would certainly explain why Speed Jungle had to be demoed without its music a mere four months ago. It'd also explain why a game that's only a few hours long needs NINETEEN composers listed in the credits. And also the fact that multiple zones just have completely different, unrelated music by different artists across their acts. Did they need multiple artists working on different acts simultaneously, completely independent from each other with no time to cross reference each others' work, due to extreme time constraints? I'd buy it.

Ah well. It's not the end of the world. I've heard worse Sonic music. But I'll always think of what could have been...

At least the final battle with Eggman at the end of Story Mode has a pretty kickass boss theme, which ALMOST makes up for how bad most of the preceding boss music is (and the fact that that very difficult fight doesn't have a checkpoint between phases and took me like an hour to beat lmao). It even seems like it might be written by longtime Phantasy Star Online composer and recurring Sonic contributor Hideaki Kobayashi. That's the guy who wrote NONAGRESSION!!!!!!!

The postgame

Speaking of beating Eggman! It turns out Superstars has a good deal of postgame content, as merely beating the last zone with all the Chaos Emeralds doesn't take you to the true final boss. In order to do that, you'll need to do something else.

Before we hit the big spoiler warning, I'm going to give any future players who are still reading a warning. If you value your sanity... don't force yourself to do all the postgame stuff. Don't make the mistakes I did. It's not worth it, and it may very well knock your personal score for the game down a couple points.

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SPOILERS FOR THE STORY, UNLOCKABLES, AND THE POSTGAME BELOW THIS POINT

YOU'VE BEEN WARNED

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The bonus scenario

Sonic Superstars has a big surprise in store for anyone who beats the main story. For the first time since... what, Silver? In 2006? We finally have a brand new playable character in a new Sonic platformer! (I wouldn't count the player avatar in Forces as a full-fledged New Character.) Yes, after the credits roll, you unlock Trip as the super-secret fifth playable character. I was really excited to see this. Trip is cute, even if her masked appearance from early in the game is perhaps a more unique design than a Sonic-ified lizard girl who can only vaguely look like a real sungazer lizard. She IS the first new Sonic character Ohshima has designed since the '90s, though, so she gets points for that - and she gets even more points for literally turning into a dragon when she goes Super. We love a girl who can turn into a dragon, don't we folks? And her playstyle is fun, too, with a double jump and the ability to roll along walls and ceilings.

But Trip isn't just playable. Like Knuckles before her, she gets an entire alternate story mode of her own, which somewhat remixes the level layouts, generally makes things more challenging, and swaps out Eggman for Egg Robo. I was so excited to see this! It really felt like the game had so much more in store for me than I'd anticipated.

...Then I spent probably around three hours attempting to beat the new final battle with Fang at the end of Trip's Story. And it made me regret doing Trip's Story at all.

Once you learn the patterns, a lot of them are actually piss easy. But the difficulty comes down to a few misguided factors:

The fight is LOOOONG. On a successful attempt the whole thing will probably take the average player about, like... seven or eight minutes? Maybe longer? This is where I really started to get pissed at the game for making me wait through these stupid attack patterns before I could attempt to hit the boss once.

The fight is divided between two phases, one with Fang in a vehicle and another with him in a giant robot, with no checkpoint between them. Dying to one of Fang's bullshit attacks on the second phase means having to redo the ~5 minute first phase all over again. And, worst of all...

Fang has multiple projectile attacks that are guaranteed instant kills, even if you have rings.

Also there's a stupid desperation headbutt attack that can really easily catch you off guard and kill you, but I only got that far in the fight once.

It's the instant kills that got me. If those fucking immobilizing net attacks just made you drop your rings, or you could at least wiggle out of them by mashing buttons (EDIT: apparently you CAN do this but you literally have to button mash so rapidly that it's a crapshoot whether or not you'll physically be able to do it), it would have been totally doable! Kinda fun, even! Slow, but pretty cool in terms of spectacle. But nope! Three hours! Three hours on this! This is, without a doubt, the hardest boss I have ever faced in any Sonic game, period, and one of the hardest bosses I've ever seen in ANY game. All because of one attack pattern where making a tiny mistake means starting over.

The glitches didn't help, either. Something about the way the circular boss arena was set up in both stories' final battles seems to make the floor intangible sometimes for non-player objects. Occasionally my dropped rings, enemies I was supposed to knock towards Fang, or one of Fang's insta-kill projectiles would just fall through the floor randomly. This definitely wasn't my main problem, but it helped drive home the idea that this fight just wasn't worth my time.

After three hours of attempts, I gave up. I just went and looked up the ending of Trip's story, as well as the contents of the Final Story, on YouTube. Turns out I made the right call, because boy, that true final boss looks like dogshit. It's just a very dull fight against a big generic cartoon dragon. Apparently this is the thing Eggman was looking for. It appears and is defeated with little fanfare. I think I liked it better when I assumed the scary dragon being foreshadowed was just Super Trip.

...Also, hey, what's up with The End being very conspicuously visible in the background of the last zone?? I know it's just a cheeky cameo, but, like... isn't it supposed to be sealed away in Cyber Space right now? Should I be taking this literally? Does this have lore implications? This is one hell of a way to remind people that the timeline's been reunified, I guess

Closing thoughts

I really hate to part ways with Superstars on a sour note like this, because like I said up top, I mostly enjoyed my time with it! It's really just a small handful of particularly frustrating bosses and the inconsistent soundtrack that drag it down. Other than that, it's solid as a rock. Maybe wait for sales if you're not dying to play it, but it's definitely worth playing for any Sonic fan. Just... skip the true ending. I would have stepped away MUCH happier with this game if I'd done that.

I wanna try to end this on a more positive note but I'm tired, so, uhhhh... look, you can unlock a Metal Nights skin for your Battle Mode bot!!

Anyway back to jamming to about half the soundtrack on loop while pretending the other half doesn't exist, and looking forward to the continued Fang Renaissance with his upcoming IDW miniseries

#tkp post #other media

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fountainpenguin · 15 days

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"I'm not the kind of girl to get messed up with you- Hello! ... You're all right, but I'm here, darling, to enjoy the party..." (x)

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New Dog's Life chapter today! ~ 3rd Life series fan-season

Chapter 31 - “Flame (Etho, Skizz, Pearl)”

❤️ Read on AO3

💛 Start from Chapter 1

💚 More Pixels Imperfect fics

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Scar files a microaggression complaint with the HALO team. Pearl helps Scott settle in while he recovers from glitchy code. They have a spat that's not about a sticker.

Meanwhile, SnifferMyFeet and Etho separate their souls… and start an honest talk about Sniff's identity as Sniff, not Joel. It was needed. It's for the best.

(First 900 words under the cut)

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Etho - Fox

Status: Resting

Self-taught programmer, full-time hero

💙 💙 💙

He gets it now.

It's like ice in your water. It's like marshmallows in your cocoa. It's like wind beneath your wings. The final week before he's due back in Between (reluctantly, but definitely due), Etho flops on his bed and sprawls his arms to either side. Is he giddy? He doesn't mean to be, but this feels…

… Oh, it's a game-changer. Which is exactly what he texts Cleo after scooping up his admin panel. They won't see it if they've left their private server, and since Session 2 of Dog's Life could be starting any day now, there's no telling how long that may take.

Etho: hey so Etho: remember after limlife 4 or 5 when we talked about burnout?

Grocery shopping. For a family dinner- he and Cleo both made one (like a peace offering) in a way that wasn't really flirty married life roleplay, but more like… regular, everyday person roleplay. Did all their shopping together so they wouldn't cook the same thing. Call it 'date night' if you want; he walked her home and there might've been a little 'dramatic logout' roleplay in there. We don't… We don't need to go into detail about it.

To some people that's romantic and to some it's completely gross. Not really sure why… It's a natural process, isn't it? Soul-eaters can't help being what they are, and you may as well snap at endermen hybrids for struggling with eye contact or shame unthreaded players if they expose their glitches instead of keeping them covered up. This world's too big and life too long for arguing. Do you really want to make enemies and be rude to people who are going to carry the echo of your words for the rest of their lives?

Lend a helping hand. Extend a little kindness. Be polite. Respond to the hurt. Try not to avoid responsibility when others are counting on your strength. Sit with the injured, even when the night is cold. They're simple goals, but so easily forgotten these days.

Etho: I think you said if I felt stuck then I should break my routine for a while

Nothing happens for several minutes. Etho rotates words without meaning through his head, then types out something else.

Etho: you were right. I get now why you go on adventures with Martyn. Why you let him and no one else log you out all the time. Thanks for the advice. Let me know next time you need a favor. Rating this cycle 10 of 10 and I owe you big xD

He takes a long, guilt-free nap in his cushioned bed. Catching up on block updates and videos really drains a guy (especially this close to the end of the Hermitcraft season, not to mention Vault Hunters and a Life series on top of it), but he spent all morning prepping the bed and it's already providing every agonizing tick of its worth. Two hours later, he's stirred awake by a buzz on the admin panel.

ZombieCleo: yay! So glad that worked for you <3 I want to hear all about it. Maybe in a couple weekends you can watch MCC with me and the kids + Martyn? If we catch a minute alone, I can recommend more stuff you might be into ;)

The kids refers to Bdubs and Scar, who skated through Limited Life like energetic teenagers spreading their wings. It's goofy, it's endearing, and Cleo's got her roleplay voice on because she knows it makes him snort. His tail gives a twitch as he tries to keep a smirk from creeping out behind his mask.

Martyn, huh? he muses, but doesn't say that. Cleo circles between lovers, friends, and exes like a pollinating bee.

Etho: whoaaaa Etho: inviting a fox? that's dangerous! ZombieCleo: nose out of your tail, fur boy Etho: dibs on Martyn, I see ZombieCleo: If you're serious about returning the favor, Martyn says Rhetoric's down here and this might be our best chance at smash and grabbing from your mum's museum Etho: Hm… ZombieCleo: I mean, you did leave my eggshell when you rescued Grian and that other soul

Yeah- it looked distressed. Now Sniff's down here. He can actually talk now when he couldn't before. Honestly, not the worst decision he could've made.

If anyone's going to try getting into the Fox Dragon's museum, a fox has the best chance of doing so. It's kept separate from the nesting cave where souls respawn, but even the deadliest traps won't keep foxes out since they'll just respawn. Unless they're traps that can't be dodged even with careful planning, or some sort of system that short-circuits code. The phantom roost is nearby, right? Frankly, phantoms are excellent trackers, they can fly, and they're probably the fastest of all non-swimming hybrids, so a phantom alone provides great security as-is.

Etho: I'll think about it. Not tonight, though. Full moon fox face isn't for me. Also if there are raiders there then that's probably the worst time to show up ZombieCleo: Fair ZombieCleo: I can think of something else, but if you ever get the chance, I want it back Etho: duly noted ✌️ ZombieCleo: btw say hi to Scar and Bdubs when you see them. They've been cracking nonstop jokes since you disappeared. One can only imagine they're attempting humor to bury immense throes of pain Etho: D:

[Full chapter on AO3 - Link at top]

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carltonqgahenneberg · 2 years

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What's A Sensible Contract Audit, And Which Firm Is The Most Effective At Doing Them?

With the growing reputation of sensible contracts, many people are questioning - do I really want to rent an audit agency? We break down the differences in this text.

What's A compare smart contract auditors ?

A wise contract audit is a technique of examining a blockchain-based mostly system to ensure that all agreements between parties are upheld and enforced. A sensible contract audit might be performed by any reputable firm, but there are two that stand out as being particularly adept at the duty: CoinSoft and Ethos. CoinSoft is a number one good contract auditing firm with over 10 years of experience within the trade. They have a staff of skilled engineers who have labored on initiatives equivalent to Ethereum and Factom. Ethos is an auditing firm founded by former Bitcoin Core developer Andrew Poelstra. They are considered to be probably the greatest within the enterprise, and their staff includes specialists in cryptography, programming languages, and security. whichever agency you select, it's vital to make sure they have expertise working with blockchain methods and are properly-versed in the most recent security protocols.

How Much Does It Cost?

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Who Will Do Your Audits For You?

A sensible contract audit is an important step in making certain the security and safety of your blockchain-primarily based transactions. Unfortunately, not all firms are equipped to carry out audits, which implies you’ll have to resolve who to trust. Here are a couple of inquiries to ask when selecting an auditor: -What experience have they got with blockchain? -How nicely do they know the ins and outs of sensible contracts? -Do they have the resources needed to complete an intensive audit? -Will they provide a report detailing their findings? If you may reply “Yes” to all of these questions, then you’re possible in good hands. However, should you can’t reply any of them or you’re unsure, it could be a good suggestion to seek out a reputable agency that has carried out many audits. Here are a few companies that we think would be a terrific match for your needs: Big Four Consulting, Consensys, Blockstack Security Inc., and Chainalysis.

Conclusion

A smart contract audit is a course of that companies use to verify their contracts are as much as code and meet all the necessary legal requirements. A sensible contract audit can assist identify any potential points with a contract earlier than they grow to be severe issues, and may present a company with the insight it wants to enhance its contracting practices going ahead. There are numerous firms on the market that provide this service, however I imagine that Deloitte is one of the best one for doing them. They've years of expertise in the sector, and they've an excellent status for having the ability to get complex contracts accomplished in a timely manner. If you're in search of a wise contract audit, I would advocate speaking with Deloitte first!

#compare smart contract auditors

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lawncareriverviewfl · 3 years

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What to Look For in Lawn Care Programs to Get the Best One for You

The intoxicating perfume of freshly mowed grass tickled my nostrils as I proudly looked at my lush green lawn. A flush of happiness soothed my body and mind because I knew the sight I was staring at was the upshot of organic fertilizers and absolutely no lawn pesticides. I felt confident that I had overcome challenges and was now rotate a option, greater than before mannerism of lawn care. A method of lawn keep that was saving part harshly speaking my water report, keeping neighbor children and pets safe, and protecting the atmosphere even if yet having a beautiful healthy lawn that made my jealous neighbors astonishment why they wharf't made the switch to organic lawn care yet.

The debate continues whether lawn pesticides are harmful to minor children, pets, and the character. It isn't much of a debate these days following numerous option studies coming out providing evidence that many of the materials that were and yet are mammal used in "usual" lawn care will cause cancer and added health problems even if harming our setting. My try of this article isn't to terror homeowners into using safer products or to offer statistics and scientific research re if lawn pesticides are bad. My direct is to educate, and consent to folks know that there is a greater than before pretentiousness of maintaining a lawn through the use of organic materials and recommend them why it is beneficial for them to create the switch. lawn care riverviewfl Hopefully following the by now up of this education, consumers will creation demanding that companies such as Scott's commencement to put more of their large R&D budgets toward safer and more natural products that are as functioning as the chemicals we have been blasting our lawns past for years.

The first event I would recommend is to change your mentality to what a unqualified lawn looks following. Residential lawns are never going to see subsequent to the fairway at your local country club. The sooner you reach this, the augmented. A couple of dandelions showing their yellowish-brown heads is not the subside of the world. It is actually natural and common even upon the most costly lawn program out there. I'm not proverb your lawn can't see same to that fairway, but weeds come and go. That's flora and fauna. Work behind it and not neighboring-door to it.

The second situation I would suggest is footnote yourself your cultural practices such as mowing and watering techniques. Without perky these two things properly, your lawn will continue to stroke flora and fauna on the other hand of in doings when it.

Mowing your lawn to hasty lengths as soon as your country club fairway is not beneficial or precise. Those fairways are usually bentgrass and the exact mowing summit is out cold an inch. Most residential lawns in the Midwest and the northern part of the U.S. are blue/rye/fescue cool season grass mixes. These types of grasses should be mowed at 3-4 inches after creature scratch. If they are mowed the length of to lengths below this you will exponentially create an vibes that is more prone to crabgrass, broadleaf weeds such as dandelions, and a shallow root system that can't accomplishment off drought, insects, and chaos enormously skillfully.

Watering your lawn mysterious is not speculative and your root system will hate you for it. The roots of the grass nonexistence to dive deep into the sports ground to search for minerals and water. By watering ordinary you are keeping those roots unventilated to the surface and creating a feeble root system more prone to stresses. The proper habit to water if you dependence to, is to find the allocation for the grass behind water gone it needs it. Every lawn is rotate, but I usually suggest watering all 4-7 days for approximately 1-1.5 hours per spot. You nonattendance to water extremely and infrequently to train your roots to dive deep into the auditorium.

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makeuptips- · 5 years

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A Beginners Guide to Anti-Aging: New to anti-aging products? Ingredients, Routine, and Application Tips

The world of skincare is a vast and often overwhelming one where the process of purchasing the right products feels much like searching for needles in a haystack. By the time you hit your mid-twenties, your skin’s needs change, and you’ll likely find yourself tempted by bold marketing lingo that promises to “Lift and Plump!” or “Farewell Wrinkles!” The truth is, much like our hair colours, body shapes and personalities, our skin types are unique and individually effected by internal and external skin agers. Therefore, the manner in which we approach our anti-aging skincare routines should be personal and considered.

Skin care expert and Founding Director of UW Collective, Annabelle Personeni has engineered anti-aging products for Johnson & Johnson, Yves Rocher and A’kin. Annabelle explains that while we’re incapable of changing our genetic makeup, we do have sway over a number of external aging contributors, such as exposure to the sun, lack of sleep, smoking and diet choices. According to Personeni, a good anti-aging product “will contain high levels of antioxidants and will have a base which will deeply hydrate the skin and reinforce its barrier integrity.”

We’ve cut through the noise and compiled a basic guide on how to develop your very first anti-aging skincare routine – one suitable for all skin types.

THE FIVE PRODUCTS YOU NEED

In the simplest terms, every skincare routine (especially one targeted towards anti ageing should contain: Cleanser (and a double cleanse at that), an Exfoliant, Serum, Moisturiser, and the biggest essential of all: Sunscreen.

CLEANSER TIMES TWO

Cleansing contributes positively to our skin’s natural renewal cycle. Gently cleansing the skin both in the morning and before bed counteracts the havoc numerous external aggravators can play at a surface level; aggravators including pollution, indoor heating, dirt and makeup. Immediate signs of neglect often include clogged pores, an uneven tone, and dullness. Personeni advises, “it is important to choose cleansing products which respect the skin lipids, the skin pH and the natural microflora,” whereby the fewer additives your products contain, the better your skin will likely react. Opt for cream and oil cleansers in place of ‘soapier’ alternatives that tend to dry skin out (try Fresh’s Soy Face Cleanser or Dermalogica’s UltraCalming Cleanser). This first step will "melt" away the bulk of your makeup without stripping the skin. Follow up with a gentle cleanser, micellar waters work great, try Bioderma’s Sensibio H20 Make-up Removing Micelle Solution or Sisley’s Eau Efficace Gentle Makeup Remover.

TIP: Be mindful when cleansing your eye area. Skin is thin and your eyes are more susceptible to irritation if exposed to chemicals.

AN EFFECTIVE EXFOLIATOR

Exfoliating the skin two-three times per week takes the benefits of cleansing to a deeper level (literally and figuratively). While we often pinpoint the earliest sign of aging to be the development of fine lines, Personeni notes that it’s actually the subtle changes to the skin’s structure and colour that really play a part, whereby “pores become enlarged, the skin surface doesn’t reflect light as well, and starts to yellow”. For a cleanse that is effective without being rough and corase on the skin, try exfoliators containing Alpha Hydroxy Acids (AHAs), like Glycolic or Lactic Acids, also designed to clear away dead skin cells for an evenly pigmented complexion (Chemical Exfoliants: Breakdown and Product Recommendations) AHAs are proven to shorten the skin’s renewal cycle from 28 to 16-20 days, Personeni explains, thereby getting your skin fresher, faster. The trick is to incorporate an AHA-based exfoliator into your routine for a couple of months at a time only (for example, in the lead up to a special event), because eventually your skin will adapt and results will subside. Try Alpha-H’s acclaimed Liquid Gold or Wander Beauty Fast Lane Instant Facial

SUPER SERUM

Often misunderstood yet highly effective, serums are fine liquids designed to plump the skin and target unique concerns. Lighter in consistency than traditional creams and lotions, serums contain tiny molecules that penetrate the skin deeply, providing reparative ingredients to unexposed dermal layers. This process is especially effective when using thin water-based serums gently pressed (not rubbed) into the skin post-cleansing. There are umpteen serums available, so it’s helpful to first identify what it is you’d like to achieve for your skin before ‘Adding to Cart’. As a general starting point, Personeni suggests trying a serum containing plant extracts “which are rich in flavonoids” as they are good “’free radical catchers” and will help protect the skin against the effect of pollution and light”. A great product for this is Innisfree’s Green Tea Seed Serum. Once you become familiar with how a serum works and feels, take your time to research what ingredients will respond best with your skin.

TIP: ”To me, skin care is a tactile business,” Personeni says on her preferred application method. “Our hands know our face, and massaging the skin gently with our fingers and warm palm of the hand is a wholesome way to be in tune with our skin, feel the life in it, be one with it!”

MOISTURISER

Applying a moisturiser is often the first step we take in attempting to slow the skin’s aging process. We’re huge advocates of this, however it would be remiss to choose just any cream to apply. At the first signs of aging, Personeni recommends sourcing products rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory actives that “will help neutralise free radicals and pathways involved in the damage of skin’s vital structures.” Ultimately, you’ll see greater benefit from building the integrity of your skin at this early stage, rather than trying to reverse any pre-existing problems. Look out for moisturisers – whether in the form of a cream, lotion or gel – that contain any one or more of the following: vitamin E (to repair), vitamin C (to lighten), beta carotene/vitamin A (to divert UVA exposure), and Lycopene (to protect). “By keeping my skin at its optimal health level, it is in a much better position to defend itself against environmental damage,” Personeni explains. Try REN V-Cense Revitalising Night Cream to tick multiple boxes in one.

Got acne, but want anti ageing benefits? It’s also not uncommon to experience multiple skin concerns at once (particularly in your twenties while your body goes through varied hormonal highs and lows). If you’re one of many of us trying to stave off adult acne, search for creams containing Niacinamide (a form of vitamin B3 required by the body), like Olay’s Total Effects 7 in One Day Cream SPF 15 which is known to prevent acne while boosting hydration levels required to keep skin looking young. Alternatively, Personeni suggests tackling one problem at a time to allow skin to adapt to targeted products.

TIP: While we’re a big fan of oils, moisturisers often contain particles that are water-soluble and are therefore easier for the skin to soak up. Instead, consider applying oil on top of your moisturiser for a dewy finish.

SAVE THE BEST ‘TIL LAST, SUNSCREEN

You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again – there is no product more reliable to steer your skin away from the signs of aging than a sunscreen. This is essentially due to the fact that a trusty Broad Spectrum SPF containing protection against both UVA and UVB rays will deter light from infiltrating the skin. While a short kick of vitamin D is encouraged, prolonged sun exposure is not. Too much can disturb the reproduction of healthy skin cells like collagen and elastin (that keep skin firm), cause dryness and irritation, not to mention the risk of skin cancer development. While outdoors, choose products containing titanium dioxide or zinc oxide, which work to physically block the sun. And while many of us work indoors and feel we’re exempt from requiring a daily SPF, you’d be wise to opt for foundation and moisturising products containing even a small SPF rating, as light passing through windows and reflecting off screens can be just as damaging. “Foundation formulations are rich in particles to opacify and help cover imperfections,” Personeni says. “Particles do help shield the skin from the sun, but unless it has been tested for SPF, the protection is unreliable.” Again, consider products rich in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory actives, Personeni advocates, because they “quench free radicals generated by light, and limit damage to the skin.” We’ve been using Ultraceuticals Ultra UV Protective Daily Moisturiser SPF 50+ Mattifying for years.

TIP: “In regards to storage, I prefer to store my products at ambient temperature rather than the fridge,” Personeni admits, “as some actives can crystallize at low temperature. Best is to not buy too many products ahead of time!”

THE NICE-TO-HAVE’S (great additions to your skincare routine, but not necessary):

· Toner

· Oil

· Eye Cream

· Masks

· Facials and Cosmetic Treatments

LONG STORY SHORT…

Personeni’s advice: keep it simple. “It is best to have a regular skin care routine with low impact products rather than an erratic routine with episodes of high potency treatments.” Ultimately, the aim of the game when it comes to anti-aging is to keep your skin healthy, in much the same way you do for your body. Opt for products whose brand you’re familiar with, whose ethos you align with, that’s ingredients correspond to your skin type, and all in all, you’d be proud to house in your bathroom cabinet.

Shop This Post:

Fresh Soy Face Cleanser

Dermalogica UltraCalming Cleanser

Bioderma Sensibio H20 Make-up Removing Micelle Solution

Sisley Eau Efficace Gentle Makeup Remover

Alpha-H Liquid Gold

Wander Beauty Fast Lane Instant Facial

Innisfree’s Green Tea Seed Serum.

REN V-Cense Revitalising Night Cream

Olay’s Total Effects 7 in One Day Cream SPF 15

Ultraceuticals Ultra UV Protective Daily Moisturiser SPF 50+ Mattifying

Story by: Hannah Gay

Photography by: Evangeline Sarney

#hannahg #skincare #skin care advice #skincare tips #anti aging #beauty #skin care tips #beauty advice #ultraceuticals #wander beauty #alpha h #sisley #bioderma #fresh #dermalogica #expert #interview #annabelle personeni

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awhitemanlearning · 4 years

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What is institutional racism, and is it currently present in the UK?

Institutional racism is a phrase that has always been with us and is a matter that has rapidly risen to the surface following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, US.

Over the past couple of weeks I have engaged in lots of debate with people about institutional racism. What is it? Is it present in the UK? How can we prove this?

A lot of the discussions I have had with people have been both engaging and insightful, without being particularly progressive. It’s great that we’re talking about the matter, but if we really want to address it – we need to look a little deeper into understanding it.

Below are extracts of studies and reports of institutional racism in the UK that I have sourced online to share with people who are open to learning about the matter. I’m not trying to pass off the below content as my own wisdom or findings, but I have added some interluding paragraphs to give context to today’s situation.

Italics are mine own words.

The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry

One of the most thorough reports into systemic racism was the enquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence – this was based on events in the 1990s, and includes more recent reports to suggest that not enough has changed.

“Stephen Lawrence (13 September 1974 – 22 April 1993) was a black British teenager from Plumstead, Southeast London, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus in Well Hall, Eltham on the evening of 22 April 1993. The case became a cause célèbre; its fallout included cultural changes of attitudes on racism and the police, and to the law and police practice. It also led to the partial revocation of the rule against double jeopardy. Two of the perpetrators were convicted of murder in 2012.”

On 31 July 1997, the Home Secretary Jack Straw ordered a public inquiry, to be conducted by Sir William Macpherson and officially titled "The Inquiry Into The Matters Arising From The Death of Stephen Lawrence", and published as The Macpherson report. Its report, produced in February 1999, estimated that it had taken "more than 100,000 pages of reports, statements, and other written or printed documents" and concluded that the original Metropolitan Police Service investigation had been incompetent and that officers had committed fundamental errors, including: failing to give first aid when they reached the scene; failing to follow obvious leads during their investigation; and failing to arrest suspects. The report found that there had been a failure of leadership by senior MPS officers and that recommendations of the 1981 Scarman Report, compiled following race-related riots in Brixton and Toxteth, had been ignored.

Detective Superintendent Brian Weeden said during the inquiry that mistakes had been made in the murder investigation, including his own ignorance that he could have arrested the suspects four days after the killing simply on reasonable suspicion, a basic point of criminal law.

The report also found that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist. A total of 70 recommendations for reform, covering both policing and criminal law, were made. These proposals included abolishing the double jeopardy rule and criminalising racist statements made in private. Macpherson also called for reform in the British Civil Service, local governments, the National Health Service, schools, and the judicial system, to address issues of institutional racism.

The report was criticised at the time by Michael Gove (later Secretary of State for Education and Lord Chancellor) in The Times, who said, "The tendentious reasoning and illiberal recommendations of that document have been brilliantly anatomised by the ethical socialists Norman Dennis and George Erdos and the Kurdish academic Ahmed al-Shahi in the Civitas pamphlet Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics." The pamphlet referred to by Gove is a publication by the right-wing think tank Civitas, which criticises the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, its procedures, its findings and its reception, as well as broadly exploring what it calls “The fanatical mindset... of the militant anti-racist” with references to Malcolm X among others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stephen_Lawrence#The_Stephen_Lawrence_Inquiry

The full enquiry, which can be found below, is 389 page long PDF - but not all of this is text so isn’t as long a read as it sounds. It also has a 16 page, thorough index which breaks down the investigation, details, and findings; so if you want to save time you can read the points related to the topic.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/277111/4262.pdf

I also found a concise summary about the enquiry by Rachel Morris, who at the time was working for the Traveller Law Research Unit at Cardiff Law School.

The Murder

Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death on 22 April 1993. The incident which led to

his murder lasted no longer than fifteen to twenty seconds, was undoubtedly racially

motivated, and involved five or six white male youths. No-one has been convicted of

the crime. Three of the prime suspects were taken to trial in a private prosecution in

1996, which resulted in acquittal due to lack of evidence. Two other suspects were

released at committal for the same reason. These five men continue to be suspects,

but cannot be retried under the present system of British law; general publicity and

comment about their guilt would prejudice any further trial.

The Inquiry

The Police Complaints Authority engaged the Kent Police to investigate a complaint

by the parents of Stephen Lawrence that the first investigation by the Metropolitan

Police Service had been botched, and the Kent report confirmed that many aspects

of the MPS work could be criticised.

On 31 July the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, asked Sir William Macpherson to

chair an Inquiry into matters arising from the death of Stephen Lawrence, in order

particularly to identify the lessons to be learned for the investigation and prosecution

of racially motivated crimes. Three Advisers were appointed by the Home Secretary

to advise and support the Chairman: Mr Tom Cook, retired Deputy Chief Constable

for West Yorkshire; the Right Reverend Dr John Sentamu, the Bishop for Stepney;

and Dr Richard Stone, Chair of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality. The Report

sets out their unanimous views, based on the material and evidence put before them

during the course of the Inquiry.

Part I of the Inquiry looked specifically at the Lawrence case; Part II was aimed at

the second part of the Inquiry terms of reference i.e. looking more generally at the

'investigation and prosecution of racially motivated crimes'.

The Police Investigation

The police investigation following the crime was found to be 'a sequence of disasters

and disappointments'. The MPS have been roundly criticised in both the Kent and

Macpherson Reports, and they accept that their investigation of the murder was

palpably flawed.

During the Inquiry Mr Neville Lawrence, father of Stephen, concluded his statements

by saying "When a policeman puts his uniform on, he should forget all his prejudices.

If he cannot do that, then he should not be doing the job because that means that

one part of the population is not protected from the likes of those who murdered

Stephen." The underlying cause of the police failure has been found by Macpherson

to be, not purely incompetence, but institutionalised racism.

Witnesses, including those who were also victims such as Mr Lawrence's friend, as well as Stephen's parents, were found to have been treated badly due to stereotyped assumptions

about them and their character based on skin colour.

'We believe that the immediate impact of the Inquiry, as it developed, has brought

forcibly before the public the justifiable complaints of Mr & Mrs Lawrence, and the

hitherto underplayed dissatisfaction and unhappiness of minority ethnic communities,

both locally and all over the country, in connection with this and other cases, as to

their treatment by police.'

Institutionalised Racism

'The Inquiry was not of course an inquiry into the general relationship between police

and minority ethnic communities, and detailed examination of other individual cases

would have been misplaced. Inevitably the Inquiry has heard many sounds and

echoes concerning, for example, stop and search and the wide perceptions of

minority ethnic communities that their cases are improperly investigated and that

racist crime and harassment are inadequately regarded and pursued.'

The Inquiry found that 'Unwitting racism can arise because of lack of understanding,

ignorance or mistaken beliefs. It can arise from well intentioned but patronising

words or actions. It can arise from unfamiliarity with the behaviour or cultural

traditions of people or families from minority ethnic communities. It can arise from

racist stereotyping of black people as potential criminals or troublemakers. Often this

arises out of uncritical self-understanding born out of an inflexible police ethos of the

"traditional" way of doing things. Furthermore such attitudes can thrive in a tightly

knit community, so that there can be a collective failure to detect and to outlaw this

breed of racism. The police canteen can too easily be its breeding ground.'

Sir Paul Condon, then the Police Commissioner, stated that "I recognise that

individual officers can be, and are, overtly racist. I acknowledge that officers

stereotype, and differential outcomes occur for Londoners.

Racism in the police is much more than 'bad apples' . Racism, as you have pointed out, can occur

through a lack of care and lack of understanding. The debate about defining this

evil, promoted by the Inquiry, is cathartic in leading us to recognise that it can occur

almost unknowingly, as a matter of neglect, in an institution. I acknowledge the

danger of institutionalisation of racism. However, labels can cause more problems

than they solve." Sir Paul did not accept that there is institutional racism within his

force, as the Inquiry found.

Institutionalised Racism Defined

The Inquiry struggled to find a definition for 'institutionalised racism' and, while they

arrived at one workable for the purposes of the Inquiry, caution that it should not be

treated as cast in stone:

'The collective failure of an organisation to provide an

appropriate and professional service to people because of

their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or

detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which

amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice,

ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which

disadvantage minority ethnic people.'

'It persists because of the failure of the organisation openly and adequately to

recognise and address its existence and causes by policy, example and leadership.

Without recognition and action to eliminate such racism it can prevail as part of the

ethos or culture of the organisation. It is a corrosive disease.'

The Inquiry also acknowledged that 'Racism, institutional or otherwise, is not the

prerogative of the Police Service. It is clear that other agencies including for

example those dealing with housing and education also suffer from the disease. If

racism is to be eradicated there must be specific and co-ordinated action both within

the agencies themselves and by society at large, particularly through the educational

system, from pre-primary school upwards and onwards.

Part II of the Inquiry

‘ Wherever we went we were met with inescapable evidence which highlighted the

lack of trust which exists between the police and the minority ethnic communities.

At every location there was a striking difference between the positive descriptions of

policy initiatives by senior police officers, and the negative expressions of the

minority communities, who clearly felt themselves to be discriminated against by the

police and others. We were left in no doubt that the contrast between these views

and expressions reflected a central problem which needs to be addressed.'

One universal area of complaint was to do with the use of police powers of 'stop and

search'. Statistics for 1997/98 showed that "black people were, on average, five

times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than white people. The

use of these powers for Asians and other ethnic groups varied widely." Black people

are also "more likely to be arrested than white or other ethnic groups".

The Inquiry concluded that ' It is pointless for the police service to try to justify the disparity in

these figures purely or mainly in terms of the other factors which are identified. The

majority of police officers who testified before us accepted that an element of the

disparity was the result of discrimination. This must be the focus of their efforts for

the future. Attempts to justify the disparities through the identification of other factors,

whilst not being seen vigorously to address the discrimination which is evident,

simply exacerbates the climate of distrust.'

Collective experience was found to be that while senior police officers adopt sound

policies and use fine words, there was rampant indifference on the ground at junior

officer level to racist incidents. There was also a weight of opinion that the National

Curriculum does not adequately reflect or value a diverse multicultural and

multiethnic society, and that school exclusions are disproportionately imposed on

ethnic minority pupils.

Other submissions during Part II asserted that the working definition of 'racial incident' was inadequate; that there was a need for more multiagency partnerships to combat racism; and that the police complaints system was unsatisfactory and not sufficiently independent.

Conclusions

The main conclusions reached by the Inquiry were:

'There is no doubt but that there were fundamental errors. The investigation was

marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a

failure of leadership by senior officers. A flawed MPS review failed to expose

these inadequacies. The second investigation could not salvage the faults of the

first investigation' (para. 46.1).

'There can be no excuses for such a series of errors, failures, and lack of

direction and control. Each failure was compounded. Failure to acknowledge and

to detect errors resulted in them being effectively concealed. Only now at this

Inquiry have they been laid bare' (para. 46.23).

Mr Panton, the barrister acting for Greenwich Council, argued that if the colour of

the victim and the attackers was reversed the police would have acted differently.

'We understand why this view is held. We have examined with anxiety and care

all the evidence and have heeded all the arguments both ways. We do believe,

that institutional racism is apparent in those areas described. But we do not

accept that it was universally the cause of the failure of this investigation, any

more than we accept that a finding of institutional racism within the police service

means that all officers are racist. We all agree that institutional racism affects the

MPS, and Police Services elsewhere. Furthermore our conclusions as to Police

Services should not lead to complacency in other institutions and organisations.

Collective failure is apparent in many of them, including the Criminal Justice

system. It is incumbent upon every institution to examine their policies and the

outcome of their policies and practices to guard against disadvantaging any

section of our communities' (paras. 46.26-27).

'First and foremost and fundamentally we believe that there must be a change so

that there is genuine partnership between the police and all sections of the

community. This cannot be achieved by the police alone. The onus is upon them

to start the process. All other agencies, particularly those in the field of education

and housing must be involved. Co-operation must be genuine and vigorous.

Strategies to be delivered under the new Crime & Disorder Act will provide an

opportunity in this respect. Training will play its part. The active involvement of

people from diverse ethnic groups is essential. Otherwise there will be no

acceptance of change, and policing by consent may be the victim' (para. 46.40).

Recommendations

These are contained in Chapter 47 of the Report and include:

1. A Ministerial Priority be established for all Police Services to increase trust

and confidence in policing amongst minority ethnic communities, using

Performance Indicators, the overall aim being the elimination of racist

prejudice and disadvantage and the demonstration of fairness in all aspects of

policing.

2. The definition of 'racist incident' should be: 'any incident which is perceived to

be racist by the victim or any other person'. Reporting and recording of racist

incidents and crimes should be improved by a new and comprehensive

system.

3. The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) should review its Good

Practice Guide for Police Response to Racial Incidents and other policies, and

that the MPS review their procedures generally.

4. All Police Services should have locally available designated and trained

Family Liaison Officers.

5. The Home Office and Police Services should develop guidelines for the

handling of victims and witnesses.

6. All 'public contact' police officers should receive ongoing training in First Aid,

racial awareness, and the valuing of cultural diversity.

7. Changes to Police Disciplinary and Complaints procedures proposed by the

Home Secretary should be fully implemented and closely and publicly

monitored as to their effectiveness.

8. the Home Secretary, in consultation with Police Services, should ensure that

a record is made by police officers of all "stops" and "stops and searches"

made under any legislative provision (not just the Police and Criminal

Evidence Act). Non-statutory or so called "voluntary" stops must also be

recorded. The record to include the reason for the stop, the outcome, and the

self-defined ethnic identity of the person stopped. A copy of the record shall

be given to the person stopped.

9. the Home Office and Police Services should facilitate the development of

initiatives to increase the number of qualified minority ethnic recruits.

10. Consideration should be given to amendment of the National Curriculum

aimed at valuing cultural diversity and preventing racism, in order better to

reflect the needs of a diverse society.

http://miris.eurac.edu/mugs2/do/blob.pdf?type=pdf&serial=1017225511163

I believe this report, coupled with the clear acceptance by the Police Service, shows that there is an issue with inherent racism, and accurately proves that as recently as the late 1990’s racism, albeit mostly unintentional, drastically increases the black members of the UK chances of facing a life in prison, being turned down for a job, hampered education opportunities, lower chances of finding deserving housing, increased health risks – and that black people are systemically born into this position before any of their life choices and actions effect their treatment by police, figures, and society.

It could be counterargued that this report was two decades ago, changes were implemented, and the problem no longer exists. I do not believe that the message has been remembered, and it is arguable whether the message was ever fully understood. Here is some proof that not much has changed since:

Augustine John (born 11 March 1945) is a Grenadian-born award-winning writer, education campaigner, consultant, lecturer and researcher, who moved to the UK in 1964. He has done notable work in the fields of education policy, management and international development. As a social analyst he specialises in social audits, change management, policy formulation and review, and programme evaluation and development. Since the 1960s he has been active in issues of education and schooling in Britain's inner cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and London, and he was the first black Director of Education and Leisure Services in Britain. He has also worked in a number of university settings, including as visiting Faculty Professor of Education at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, as an associate professor of education and honorary fellow of the London Centre for Leadership in Learning at the UCL Institute of Education, University of London, and visiting professor at Coventry University. A respected public speaker and media commentator, he works internationally as an executive coach and a management and social investment consultant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gus_John

The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, chaired by Sir William Macpherson, has gone down in British social and political history as a watershed moment in British race relations.

For one thing, the 1999 report drew attention to the existence and extent of institutional racism in institutions of the state, public organisations more generally, and most of all the police. Twenty years later, how has that report impacted upon state institutions, their policies and practices, and black people’s experiences of them?

Whatever happened with race awareness training?

Macpherson made 70 recommendations covering matters from policing to education. Following the publication of the report, the then Home Secretary Jack Straw mandated race awareness training for the 43 police forces across the country with Ionann Management contracted to deliver that training.

In 2002/2003, I was commissioned by the Home Office to evaluate the training and what my team and I found, as we went from police area to police area observing training being delivered and interviewing senior police officers, was truly shocking.

Most officers resented being compelled to attend the training and set about making life hell for the trainers. In fact, some trainers were so traumatised by their experience of doing this work that they had to go into therapy, or at least seek clinical counselling, something that their employers did not provide.

The response of police commanders and chief constables to such conduct by their officers was mixed. Some were as appalled as I was, and b about it, others pleaded that such conduct was to be expected, for if it did not exist or was not anticipated, there would be no need for the training in the first place. Yet others were complicit, with one assistant chief constable telling a chief inspector who was passionate about police/community relations that this area of policing was a ‘career graveyard’ and that someone as bright and ambitious as he was should avoid it at all costs if he wanted to ‘rise up the ranks’.

Crucially, however, none of the police forces had put in place measures for assessing the extent to which the training their officers (of all ranks) were receiving was having any impact on their operational performance or decision making. Astonishingly, discussing the mandatory nature of the training, some senior officers protested that they could not see what relevance such training had for their firearms officers, or for their highway patrol officers. Needless to say, those whom they line-managed and deployed into those roles were less than happy to be made to ‘endure’ such training. But then, I suppose some would argue that this was before Mark Duggan, before Tasers and before spit hoods.

Some trainers pointed out that communities were convinced that racial profiling and police abuse of power were largely responsible for the disproportionate number of black people stopped and searched and those who die while in the custody of the police. They suggested that those numbers would be even higher if police were given more powers to stop and search and especially if more police were issued with firearms. Such assertions were met with howls of abuse and accusations of slander and police bashing.

My evaluation report reached many conclusions and made many recommendations, not least about a competency framework for police managers. The overall conclusion I reached was that the entire, nationwide training operation was a costly and wasteful exercise in ‘dipping sheep’.

The police and the state: inseparable partners in institutional racism

In my view, the police as a public institution and a key apparatus of the state, epitomised the weakness in Macpherson’s analysis of racism in the society and in policing. Macpherson failed to situate police failures in the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation within the general context of state expectations. What does the state expect and require of the police in our society if not keeping black people as unwanted immigrants and ‘dark strangers’ in check and under control?

The institutional racism in the police cannot be separated from the structural racism of the state, as manifested in its immigration laws, border control practices, civil service, its failure to tackle the legacy of empire through schooling and education and its failure to guarantee black people’s rights by ensuring compliance with anti-discrimination legislation. The list could go on.

In other words, the state exemplifies the failure to understand how structural, cultural, institutional and personal forms of racism and discrimination intersect and manifest in black people’s experience of everyday life. Following the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report published in February 1999, there was much public debate about institutional racism, with many public and corporate organisations resisting the label. Macpherson defined institutional racism as:

(As mentioned in Rachel’s report)

The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.

More recently, Macpherson’s construct of unwitting prejudice, has been translated into ‘unconscious bias’ that gives rise to attitudes and behaviours which people with protected characteristics (as defined by the Equality Act 2010) experience as discrimination, or exclusion on account of discrimination. The problem with ‘unconscious bias’, however, is that it is more often than not assumed to relate to the actions, behaviours and decision-making of individuals, as distinct from institutional structures, policies, processes and practices. It is for this reason that the late A Sivanandan, then director of the Institute of Race Relations offered this alternative definition of institutional racism:

Institutional racism is that which, covertly or overtly, resides in the policies, procedures, operations and culture of public or private institutions - reinforcing individual prejudices and being reinforced by them in turn.

To expect that Macpherson was going to have any impact upon how the British police treated black people was to fail to understand the British state and its institutions, and crucially the positioning of black people in Britain, British born or not. Since 1999, there have been at least double the number of black deaths in police custody than ever before. Yet, it remains the case that 50 years after David Oluwale was hounded and murdered by officers in West Yorkshire Police in May 1969, not one police officer has been successfully prosecuted for the killing of a black person while in police custody.

Normalisation

And 50 years after activists like myself campaigned about police carrying out ‘fishing expeditions’ to find suspected ‘illegal immigrants’, it has been normalised that the police round up the Windrush generation who have lived here for more than 50 years and cart them off to Yarl’s Wood to await deportation and a woeful existence until death.

So, let us not make Macpherson’s institutional racism our measure of ‘the progress we have made’ since the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry. In this regard, it would be negligent and dishonest not to mention that Macpherson led that inquiry because of the collusion of the police with the visceral racism of Stephen’s murderers. This is something which highlighted the fact that they, the police, were on the same spectrum as those racist murderers. One innocent young man lay dead and his murderers were strutting around the place as if they were invincible, only because the police failed to do their duty by Stephen and his family.

Since Stephen was murdered, hundreds of other young black men (and fewer women) have been murdered and buried in London, Manchester and elsewhere, and their murderers are still strutting around the place. In too many cases, having committed even more murders of young black men, enjoying the protection of people no less black than those who have lost sons, fathers and daughters.

Black lives matter

(Please note for context – this was written May 2019, in a world where Covid-19 was not among us, but George Floyd was).

In typical fashion, the state has appropriated and canonised Stephen Lawrence and crowned his mother, but how many more of the likes of Stephen have we lost at the hands of young people like themselves in the last 20 years? If the Metropolitan Police failed Stephen Lawrence and his family on account of racism, too many of us have blood on our hands and can know no peace because we are complicit in the murder of too many young people, not least by harbouring known killers and hiding guns and knives for them. A mother’s grief, a family’s grief is no less accentuated by the knowledge that their loved one was killed by a black youth and not a white racist.

If those young people whom we have buried in such alarming numbers since 1999 had been white, we would have had a Macpherson type inquiry every couple of years, coupled with calls for national action, because white lives matter. We must never fail to speak truth to power, fearlessly but we as a community too seldom speak truth to ourselves.

If ‘Black Lives Matter’ and they clearly do, we have a responsibility to defend black lives and ‘save the children’, irrespective of who it is that renders them worthless and dispensable. Given the rate at which our young people are slaughtering one another in our communities, why has the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement been so silent on the issue? Is it because we are possessed of such a ‘victim’ mindset that we have no praxis for dealing with the phenomenon of victims taking on the mantle of our murderous oppressors, thus heaping more grief, trauma and misery upon us?

We expect the police to be racist and to see our lives as meaningless. But we are demonstrating to them, to the state and to the entire nation, that we, too, see our young people’s lives as redundant and dispensable. There is surely no more urgent challenge facing us just now than that.

That is why I want to see us focusing relentlessly on what we are doing about it, rather than worrying about whether Macpherson and his report changed relations between the police and Black Britain.

Gus John is an academic and political activist who has been writing on policing and youth matters since the late 1960s. He works internationally as an independent consultant.

My Own Conclusion

Giving the exemplary credentials that the author of this review boasts, remarkably covering all of the niche departments that this report concerns, it is unquestionable that this is a reputable source.

The extensive knowledge on the subject matter that Professor Gus John possesses has enabled him to assess that since the original report by Macpherson on institutional racism, the problem has not actually improved; in stark contrast to the desired effect it appears that the implementations have actually had a negative effect on the racism inherent in our society, institutions, and attitude.

Police were proven to be resentful of the training, and still failed to recognise the irrefutable evidence that racism had to be addressed, and appropriate training had to be provided. It was also shown that at some of the highest level of the police institution, senior figures discouraged young talent from helping to improve ethnic community relations as it was deemed disadvantageous to their career prospects.

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tlbodine · 4 years

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How to Love Revision

A lot of you lovely folks are doing Nanowrimo right now.

Which means that, in a few weeks, you will have a steaming pile of pages. A rough draft. A word-baby, if you will. And you might, at some point, want to turn that messy jumble into a real book, perhaps something to send to a publisher or publish yourself or just share with people.

I see a lot of writing advice about finishing first drafts -- and a whole lot of it is in the vein of “Just write it! Fix it in post! Finished is better than perfect!” which is great advice for pushing through, but does tend to leave future-you -- the editor you-- with problems.

Lucky for you, I happen to love editing (really! it’s my favorite part!) so I am here to give you some advice on how to turn those pages into a proper story without ripping all of your hair out or screaming into the void (but if you need to scream, it’s OK, I won’t judge you.)

First Off: Credit Where It’s Due

My current revision process draws heavily from Holly Lisle’s One-Pass Revision technique: https://hollylisle.com/one-pass-manuscript-revision-from-first-draft-to-last-in-one-cycle/

Her writing guides are golden, and I heartily recommend reading them all, starting with that one up there.

I don’t do one-pass revisions, but her ethos really helped me. Before I found her advice, I would get caught in the endless revise/rewrite cycle. I was going through 9+ drafts of every story and it kept morphing into something new and sprouting new problems, hydra-style, every time I tried to redo it. So nothing was ever finished, nothing was ever satisfying, and I hated it.

So I found a better way! And it freed me! I’ve written six books since then, four of them published (one Wattpad-exclusive) and I learned to look forward to the second draft.

So how does this magic work? Let me show you!

Step One: Put the Damn Thing Away

Editing requires intellectual and emotional distance. So finish your story, and set it aside for a while. Stop thinking about it. Actively put it out of your mind. Work on something else for a while. Read a book. Catch up on all the TV you missed. Whatever. The point is -- you don’t want to come back to revise your story until you can look at it with fresh eyes.

How long this will take depends on you, of course. It’s a very personal thing. It could be weeks. It could be months. For me, a good guideline is to wait until I can no longer quote whole passages from memory.

Now then. Let’s do some triage.

Before you can start editing, you need to know your goals. If you’re a planner, this might be easy because you have an outline you can compare against. If you’re a discovery writer like me, well, this is the time to figure out what exactly it is that you discovered. Grab a notebook (or a notepad file, if you’re a digital native) and follow this process:

Write a one-sentence elevator pitch that roughly encapsulates the concept of the story. It doesn’t have to be pretty -- you’re not showing this to anyone but yourself -- but it does have to be honest. My one-sentence pitch for River of Souls was “Self-aware zombies struggle for equal rights, but the medication they rely on to retain their humanity doesn’t work as advertised.” My pitch for The Hound was “Lesbian thrift shop owners invite the devil into their home after buying a cursed taxidermied dog.”

Write down your theme(s). In the draft, themes might take the form of questions. In this draft, you’ll want some answers. What do you want the reader to feel when they’re done? What is the message you’re trying to tell? When I wrote Nezumi’s Children, I knew it was a story about religion -- “What should we put our faith into?” In the end, I decided the answer was, “We should put our faith in each other.” That dictated the ending. (I also wanted to be careful not to inadvertently support abandoning your pets -- so I couldn’t let the rats be happily feral at the end. A happy ending for them meant being owned and cared for).

Write a 250-word synopsis of the story. Again, it doesn’t have to be pretty. It just has to introduce the characters, the world, and the general shape of the story arc -- the inciting incident, the escalating stakes, and how the character changed at the end.

You may find that you struggle with this part, and that is totally find (and honestly to be expected). You may discover, for example, that your character doesn’t actually change, or that there isn’t a core conflict. That’s okay! That’s what you’re here to fix! I have absolutely, definitely written a book and then discovered 80,000 words later that it didn’t have a plot. It’s OK though, because you’ll fix that problem in the next step.

If you do indeed have a plot and escalating stakes and characters who go through developmental arcs, you’re ahead of the game. Now you’ve got the skeleton of an elevator pitch and the makings of a query letter (or a jacket blurb).

Next: Map Out Everything

When I was in elementary school, I had to start writing my first essays. I was supposed to make an outline, then write the paper to follow the outline. I wasn’t very good at doing it that way, so instead I would write the paper, then hastily draw up the outline to match what I said. Oops. Nothing has changed, honestly.

With your trusty notebook (or blank text document), compile the following:

Write out a list of scenes. Just a couple words describing the events of what happens. Now - are all of those scenes necessary? Are any redundant? Do you need to add foreshadowing or establish something earlier in the story to make sense of it? Are the scenes in the wrong order? Does every scene do some work to advance the plot, deepen the character, flesh out the world? Does the ending resonate with the theme? Re-write the scene list in the correct order, with scenes added or removed as necessary to tell the proper story. Now your scene list is a handy dandy roadmap/outline for your revision!

List out all of the characters in the story. Write down their role in the story. Does every major character have a goal? Do motivations make sense? Does each one change in some way during the story? Are all of your walk-on roles necessary? Are there characters who don’t really do much, and could you combine them?

Fixing plot holes on your scene list is a lot easier than fixing them in the manuscript itself. Keep tweaking your scenes until the story feels like it works. Make sure there’s a logical flow between events -- cause and effect, escalating stakes. Consult structure guides like the Hero’s Journey or the Three-Act Structure if you need some help with your plot.

Here’s a part that’s really important so it’s going in all caps: THE SCENE LIST IS FINAL. Make all the adjustments you need to the plot while you do the scene list, but do not -- DO NOT -- deviate from the story once you move on to the next step. You don’t stop modifying your scene list until you’re happy with the story, and once you’re happy, THAT is the story you’re writing. Get new ideas for things that can happen? Great, save ‘em for the next book.

Now Roll Your Sleeves Up And Get Dirty

Some people like to print their manuscript off and do edits in pen, but I don’t have reliable printer access most of the time and hate wasting paper. So instead, I pull up the rough draft and adjust it so it takes up one half of my monitor. Then I pull up a fresh, empty file and put that on the other half of the screen.

Now, using my scene list as a guide, I pull up the rough draft and rewrite it, scene by scene. Yes, that means re-typing every word. You’ll find that when you do this, you’ll fix a lot of language mistakes without even realizing it. I’m an under-writer, so my drafts usually double in length during this process because I spend more time lingering on sensory details, adding scenes, teasing out character dynamics, etc. etc. etc. Just let yourself go, get immersed into the scene. If you forget what you were doing, just refer back to your outline and original draft to get back on track.

I find this process works best if you can do it quickly. Try not to let the story get cold. Ideally, work on this every single day, or even set aside a long weekend to just hammer it all out.

Finally: Make a Second Pass

Now that you’ve got a second draft under your belt, it’s time to celebrate! Set the book aside. If you have beta readers or an editor, now is the time to send this to them. Hang out for a bit. Figure out who you’re querying, if you’re doing that. Find a kick-ass cover, if you’re self-publishing. Build yourself a Lego mansion. Whatever. Just sit on your draft for a little bit.

Now that a couple weeks have passed, it’s time to make a final pass. Gather all of the feedback you’ve gotten from beta readers and editors and decide what advice you should take and what you can ignore. Here’s a guideline: If someone says something and you think, “oh, yeah! that’s exactly it!” then you take the suggestion. If they say something and you think “uh, well, no, that’s not really the story I was trying to write....” or something similar, you can ignore the feedback. Good feedback will always feel true in the “duh, why didn’t I think of that” way.

Open up your new draft and, starting at page one, just read the damn thing. Make adjustments to the writing as necessary:

Correct any misspellings and typos you come across.

Eliminate weak words and phrases and replace them with stronger ones.

Add some variation to sentence structure if you notice that it’s become repetitive.

Eliminate redundancy. Fix your metaphors. Fix your symbolism. Keep your poetic language on-theme. In The Hound, I replaced a ton of random metaphors with dog imagery. It’s subtle, but it lends thematic cohesion.

Some people use things like Grammarly or Hemmingway App to help with this. I’ve never used them, so I can’t speak to their effectiveness. But if you find that they help, awesome! Use them!

Here’s a really important point: This step can ONLY come AFTER the rewriting stage. There is no point at all in tweaking sentences and fixing up the language in a story that has no plot. Fix your structural issues FIRST, and be sure they are AIR TIGHT, before you start dicking around with the words. Ok? Ok. (Someone go back in time 15 years and tell this to young me please)

And now...you are done!

Spend some time tweaking your elevator pitch and query letter at this point, if necessary. But no matter what, you do not go back into this document and change ANYTHING unless an editor tells you to. The book is DONE. Maybe give it a final proofread before you self-publish it (but honestly, you’re better off hiring someone to do it at that point, you’re going to be too zorched to notice the typos you missed) but otherwise don’t touch it. Don’t think about it. Write the next book.

And that’s it! That’s my mostly painless revision process!

Obviously every person is different, your mileage may vary, etc. But I hope this serves as a helpful jumping off point. I am more than happy to answer any questions or provide clarification on things -- just drop me a line :)

#writing advice #writing tips #editing #writeblr #long post

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carrollstreetstation · 4 years

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SPEAR OF DESTINY: A LEVEL-BY-LEVEL BREAKDOWN

(note: due to the extreme simplicity of wolfenstein’s design ethos, i will be forgoing screenshots, with one exception. you’ve seen one wolf3d screenshot, you’ve seen them all. if you would like to see the game in action, i recommend this LP.)

spear of destiny

with the smash success of the original wolfenstein 3D, it was perhaps inevitable that there would be a followup -- and this time, it was to be a retail release, meant to be put in a box and sold in stores by formgen. developed over the course of two months as john carmack worked on what would form the basis of the doom engine, "spear of destiny" is an "expandalone" of sorts in that it's shorter than the main game by far (only 21 levels) but did not require the main game to play. it stands as a prequel to the "nocturnal missions" (which were themselves prequels to the original episode trilogy. unlike the main game, where the hint manual gave indirect attribution to most of the maps, it's unclear who at id was responsible for which map. the only thing we can say for certain is that the level design is a massive improvement on the original game, generally eschewing the more abstract design ethos as embodied by the likes of episode six for a more realistic setting.

tunnels 1: entrance to the tunnels short and sweet intro to the mapset. opens up similar to the first level of wolf3d ep 2, with BJ infiltrating the castle through a tunnel entrance in the castle's lower levels. no mutants to be found here, though, just regular goons. it's more or less a straight shot to the exit, but there's no harm in poking around.

tunnels 2: corridors of confusion awesome music in this level. in the tunnels deep beneath the castle, this is a confusing maze that loops in on itself repeatedly. mostly staffed by low-level guards and SS goons, this level won't make you sweat much.

tunnels 3: cave-in! another quickie, this one's defined by a long hallway with multiple rooms along it, some of them seeming to be torture chambers. the hallway has been bisected by a cave-in (very cutely done by simply placing a couple of stony-looking wall blocks in the middle of the passage) so you'll need to navigate some tunnels to get around the blockage. very low-key action.

tunnels 4: fortune and glory the castle's treasure vault is a sprawling underground complex. the western half of the map is quasi-realistic castle-style architecture, but get into the secret areas and watch the path turn into spaghetti. it's worth it though -- 1-ups at the end of one secret area, the secret level at the end of the other.

tunnels secret going a bit old-school here, this is a sprawling map made up of different sections, each annoying in their own way. despite being a prequel, mutants make their first chronological appearance in this level, and several sections are designed to take advantage of their utter silence and breathtaking firing speed.

tunnels 5: guardian of the dungeon door unlike the original wolfenstein which was split into six episodes of 10 levels with a boss at the end of each, the 21 levels of spear of destiny are split into much smaller contiguous episodes. the "tunnels" chapter thus comes to an end with this level, an absolute shitshow of guards and SS coming after you from all sides. clear out the bullshit and you'll have to deal with trans grosse ("beyond big" in german) -- a relative of the grosse family by the looks of it. he's enormous, he's got two chainguns, and he goes down like a sack of dead chimps with enough concentrated fire. but with all the goons he's got in his boss arena, your first priority should be clearing out a safe area in which to deal with him.

dungeons 1: dungeon depths pretty standard level. the first area is a blue-stoned dungeon; beyond the dungeon exit is a labyrinthine network of tunnels and hallways in red brick. it's a maze down there and all too easy for enemies to get behind you. otherwise, nothing of note.

dungeons 2: winding dungeons like the last level, this is a bog-standard wolfenstein map split between a blue dungeon area and a separate area, in this case mossy stone. though the dungeon area is large, resistance isn't too fierce. that changes when you get into the lower half of the map, when nazi goons start coming at you from all directions.

dungeons 3: guard post i get the feeling john romero did this one. it's an enormous maze of mostly blue dungeon walls, filled to the brim with enemies. one shot and they all congregate on you, leading to a frantic firefight that requires constantly moving forward to not get overwhelmed. find the key to the locked door and you'll find yourself in a long corridor that surrounds the entire maze, equally heavily guarded as you work your way around to the other side of the map to reach the elevator. great map.

dungeons 4: main dungeon this level can actually be mostly bypassed if you know the secret paths. so you can effectively dodge a room full of SS and officers guarding the key by simply sneaking in past them, and then taking another secret passage that leads directly to the exit. it's a neat little trick that suggests tom hall's involvement. if you choose to do this the hard way, it's a bog-standard map split into three areas with little in the way of resistance, so a bit of a breather after the massacre that was the previous level.

dungeons 5: barnacle wil the jailer similar to the tunnels boss level, this is a map featuring an arena with some heavily guarded antechambers. find your way into the boss room and you'll face barnacle wilhelm, who carries a chaingun and a missile launcher, but he's hardly a threat. the bigger issue are the officers and other losers who attend him, who lie in wait until they see you, meaning it's unwise to move about too much in the boss arena until wilhelm is down.

castle 1: castle entrance the back half of spear of destiny shows some more of the quasi-realistic philosophy behind the level design. the bulk of the level is a confusing maze of rooms that serve no real purpose, but they're surrounded not only by a wall hollowed out by a secret passageway, but an outer wall that serves as the main defense of the castle, complete with two trucks parked in the gateway, the outside world visible beyond. it's a neat touch that adds a bit of a realistic vibe to an otherwise abstract level.

castle 2: barreling through the castle fuck you for this pun, id. (and fuck you for doing it again with doom 2's "barrels o' fun.") the early part of the map is full of ambushes in which barrels are used as barricades, with nazis firing at you from cover and no way for you to recover their ammo. past that bullshit is another standard maze of rooms and halls, with mutants occupying a wing in the southeast.

castle secret: pushwall panic! if there's proof that sometimes secret levels just aren't worth it, it's this one. as the name suggests, the core conceit of this level is pushwalls, pushwalls everywhere. it's a massive, confusing nightmare maze made up of different sections, all of them hidden behind pushwalls. if you're not attempting this with a map like the one in the hint guide, you'll probably go mad.

castle 3: castle hassle resuming the castle shape of "castle entrance," this opens in a broad, cavernous loop around a lower level of the castle. entrance into the castle proper is through the four corners. the level is mostly populated by mutants and a few handlers, so quick reaction times are a must. the interior of the castle is another abstract maze sectioned off into four different areas you must access from one of the corners.

castle 4: militant mutants oh god. mutants are everywhere on this level, especially in the cave section to the northwest. it's honestly a real shitshow. the tension is palpable, but id do reward you with a great fakeout -- throw the switch of the first elevator you see and the wall moves back, revealing health and ammo and a 1-up.

castle 5: gauntlet guards the mutant mayhem continues with this abstract spaghetti of a map partially bisected by two parallel hallways. the opening of the map is very cruel, a gauntlet of thin hallways you must wind your way through while being fired upon by mutants. get past that and the rest isn't too bad provided you know where to go.

castle 6: king of the mutants chriiiist. this boss level is even worse than the tunnel boss level. jammed absolutely full of nazis, ammo is scarce and often behind the very enemies you need the ammo for. the main room has a central area from which dozens of guards can fire at you with relative impunity from behind columns. if you can work your way through the swarm of assholes that dominate the side hallways you'll get the key that lets you into the inner chamber. the big metal box that dominates the room contains the ubermutant, a giant, four-armed mutant on steroids. fortunately, unlike his regular-sized brethren, he isn't nearly as quick on the draw, meaning you have a little time to dive for cover before he opens fire.

ramparts 1: the ramparts top floor. this is most emphatically not a large level -- in fact, it's literally just the castle walls, with a small chapel to hitler of sorts at the center. id software have cleverly managed to make it look like an outdoor section, with the outer walls resembling rampart walls with a sky the color of the dark cyan ceiling this game commonly uses. however, despite the small size, it's wall to wall nazis, without a lot of health or ammo.

ramparts 2: guardian of the spear as boss levels go, compared to the ubermutant level this one is much more forgiving... provided you can get past the death knight, a massive fascist in power armor who takes a hell of a beating and can dish it out just as good. and he's not alone, with an army of officers and their mutant pets. luckily, there is an *assload* of health and ammo on either side of the level, so keeping yourself well stocked should be easy. when the dust settles, you can unlock the chamber holding the spear of destiny, and take it for yourself...

the death dimension WELCOME TO HELL. in what had to have been foreshadowing for what would eventually become doom, grabbing the spear sends you to a nightmarish dimension that very much looks like hell as envisioned in doom's third episode, a cavernous maze filled with skulls on poles, blood and skeletons everywhere, the souls of the damned zooming in on you, and the so-called angel of death, a massive demon who throws green fireballs at you. it's a frightening, unexpected climax to the game, and by far one of the best curveballs a game has ever thrown. even if the boss himself isn't a great challenge -- though watch out for the ghosts flying around, as they can only be put down for a few seconds.

final thoughts: in an era of shareware and games being spread across an episodic structure, a game that just gives you a single adventure across a series of levels was a bit unusual, particularly from id software. 21 levels of nazi murder without a break, split across five different themes, with five bosses to keep you amused. it's a bit of a mixed bag, however. the early tunnel levels are light and easy, letting you dip your toes in. the dungeon levels are more standard wolfenstein, akin to something we'd see out of, say, wolfenstein 3D's second episode. the castle chapter mostly just kind of... sucks. the final two levels are brutal, though not as bad as the ubermutant level immediately preceding. if you can survive the ramparts, the game drops a great surprise finale. overall i'd say that the level design is *generally* better than wolf 3D, but there are some missteps, namely that second secret level. i do like the attempt at creating some semblance of a real-world castle, but in general it seems to be the case that they simply use the basic outline of a castle to construct a more abstract maze within, and even then they don’t do that consistently. still, it’s a nice early attempt at realism in an FPS.

#wolfenstein 3d #spear of destiny #pc gaming #classic fps #classic gaming

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rendiggitydog · 5 years

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Based on the song “Outrunning Karma” by Alec Benjamin (recommend listening while reading for atmosphere)

"Hey Doc, it's been a while!" Etho threw an arm around Doc's shoulders, startling him.

"Etho?" Doc blinked. "Where have you been? I've missed you man!" The shock wore off, and Doc hugged Etho tightly.

"I was passing by and thought I'd stop in!" He chuckled. "How's Hermitcraft?"

Doc smiled breathlessly. "Amazing! There are so many great people here, and I've made so many cool things! I'll have to show you around if you have time!"

"I've only got a few minutes sadly. I'm actually waiting for Beef and Bdubs to meet me here." Etho explained.

"Wait, how did you get into Hermitcraft? You aren't whitelisted anymore, are you?"

"You worry too much Doc, can't you just be happy we're here?" Beef rounded the corner with a smirk.

"Beef! It's been a while!" Doc beamed. "Where are you guys heading? Starting a new world?"

"We've actually gotten back together, and we're playing on Mindcrack again!" Bdubs also bounded around a corner, throwing an arm around Beef.

"Really? That's fantastic!"

"Yeah, well most of Mindcrack is back together you know." Etho pointed out. "Did you not get an invitation?"

Instantly Doc flushed. "Well, I did get an invitation..."

"You sure moved on quick, huh?" Beef sighed.

"Huh?"

"One season, the nHo rules the server, the next you act like we never existed." Beef shook his head.

"No, you know that's not true! We're still the nHo, I'm just-"

"-You're just waiting for us to come back to you. News flash Doc, we moved on." Etho stated flatly. "And you should too."

"Wait- Wait, guys, but what about-?" Doc stammered.

"But nothing dude! We had fun back then, but you know why we all left. Things weren't working out, and they never will. We moved on and got older, while you stayed here and stayed the same." Bdubs shook his head.

"Guys listen to me! What is wrong with you? Where's the goofy Bdubs I remember? And intro boy, Beef?" Doc reeled, attempting to salvage the situation. "What about dorky Etho?"

"You just don't get it! We. Moved. On." Beef sighed, walking away. "I gotta go."

"Doc, it wasn't your fault, but you can't force us to come back and relive old memories! I'm outta here, man." Bdubs chased after Beef, leaving Etho and Doc.

"Etho... Not you too?" Tears poured down his face.

Etho simply looked at Doc. "You're trying to pull your past into the present. Either come back to Mindcrack, or stay with Hermitcraft. You can't have everything Doc, that's your biggest flaw."

Each word stung like a knife in Doc's gut. Suddenly he couldn't stand straight, and he staggered towards Etho. Etho simply watched as Doc fell at his feet.

"Etho... You're my best friend. I can't lose you." He whispered.

"Seems like you're pretty good friends with Ren, I'm sure you'll be fine."

"Etho... but... Can you ever forgive me?" Doc looked up to Etho with eyes red from crying, and was met with a cool, neutral expression.

"This isn't the first time, you know. You always were the weakest nHo member. You're lucky we didn't dump you earlier- you murderer." He spat.

Doc flinched. "Etho... I'm sorry. Everything I did- I did it to protect you. I love you, Etho."

"You've made your choice Doc. Get over yourself." And Etho disappeared.

"ETHO NO!! Not Etho, no no no, Etho, please come back Etho..." Doc's voice cracked and faded, leaving him crying silently on the cement.

Ren placed a hand on his shoulder. "You okay man?"

"Etho.." He rasped.

"Good riddance, right? What a heartless jerk! You've got me and everyone on Hermitcraft! Who needs a couple of dorks like them anyway?" Ren laughed.

"Dorky Etho..." Doc sobbed.

Ren rolled his eyes. "This is why they left, you know. The nHo was a powerful group, but you're a crybaby. Cmon man, maybe you should go back to Mindcrack where you belong." Ren stood and walked away.

Doc lay there, unable to cry anymore. Nobody wanted him. He was a crybaby, a waste of space. He wished for the past but wouldn't leave the present. He was a murderer.

Doc the redstoner; more like Doc the crybaby.

Doc the crybaby.

Doc.

Doc?

Doc, wake up!

"Effho..." Doc mumbled.

"You're awake, thank goodness!" Ren threw his arms around Doc, startling him. "I found you asleep on the cement in the shopping district and I was worried!"

"Wait, but... Etho...?" Doc sat up, glancing around quickly. He could still feel the tears staining his cheeks.

"Etho isn't here man. You were yelling his name and stuff in your sleep- are you feeling alright?"

"I'm outrunning my karma."

#I told you #thinking about the nho makes me sad #rae writes #hermitcraft #ethoslab #vintagebeef #bdoubleo #rendog #nho #docm77

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mrpinchy · 6 years

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Jokes and Flirts for Allied Races

Highmountain, Nightborne, Void Elves, Lightforged Draenei

Not everything has been datamined yet and some things are subject to change or removal. **EDIT: female void elf lines added!**

Void Elf (male):

What am I into? Let's just say some of my proclivities can run a bit... dark.

I do my best work in the shadows. Allow me to demonstrate.

The Void has taught me many secrets. Some of them can be most... satisfying.

As a rule, I don't sprout tentacles. But in your case, I'll make an exception.

When studying shadow magic, one learns to be flexible. Very... flexible.

You sate my hunger... and I'll sate yours.

I know what you're thinking... "Oh goody, another elf." Well... I bet you weren't expecting a VOID elf, now were you?

If you're looking for tall dark, and brooding, that's me. Well, dark and brooding, at least.

Say what you will about the tenets of the Void. At least it's an ethos!

Would you believe purple has always been my favorite color? Even before I went void, I mean.

Alleria is my favorite Windrunner sister. Edgier than Vereesa, but slightly less homicidal than the dead one.

The fact that I wield void energies doesn't mean I plan to consume everything I see. After all, I have a figure to maintain.

Old Gods... I mean, really? Some have mouths for eyes, others have eyes for mouths. Talk about a hot mess...

Void Elf (female)

They say the Void hungers. Let’s start off with a bit of nibbling.

Get nice and close. Whispers are kinda my thing.

Are you checking out my void form?

There is a void in my heart. Have you come to fill it?

Who needs the Light? It’s so much more fun in the dark.

You cannot a-void my charms.

The Void isn’t the only thing that’s insatiable.

No, we do not drink blood–that’s the San'layn. Totally different emo elf.

First was high, then blood, and now void. Get the order right.

Who does my hair? You might have heard of my stylist. It’s called THE VOID.

Gloomy? I’m not gloomy. I just dress that way… and talk that way… and act that way.

You think YOU have a dark side? Elf, please.

Well, yes, technically the Void does want to consume the entire cosmos. But I’ll settle for a smaller bite… for now.

No matter how much you plead, I will not sprout tentacles or turn into a giant eyeball. Well, I might. But not because you asked.

Lightforged Draenei (male)

I like it with the lights on. Not that I really have a choice...

Has it gotten brighter in here? Because you just turned me on.

I thought my tattoo said "Light's Defender" in naaru. I found out it actually says "glowing goat".

This world of yours is very strange. Talking bears who practice kung fu? On Argus, we call that a circus.

After being aboard a ship for so long, it is nice to walk on solid ground again. All those hard surfaces were murder on my hooves!

My life for Aiur... <cough> Argus. My life for ARGUS!

Have you ever seen the bunks on the Vindicaar? I can arrange a private tour.

If one more of you natives calls me a walking chandelier, I swear I'll...

Sorry if my tattoos look a little dim. I forgot to charge my battery last night.

Face tentacles?! We do NOT have face tentacles! If we did, that would mean draenei are secretly emissaries of the Void, gaining your trust as we infiltrate your society so that we can bring about its end. And I'm certain you're not implying THAT... are you?

I'm a draenei on the streets... but an eredar in the sheets.

The Vindicaar is a fast ship. You could say it travels at Light speed.

Lightforged Draenei (female)

When in doubt... touch anything that glows.

No, I do not have a glowing stamp above my tail.

Have you met my dog? His name is Barkenon Puppos.

Toes are overrated. Hooves make pedicures go sooooo much faster.

I don't recommend walking barehoof on the Vindicaar. We keep finding tiny shards of crystal that didn't get swept up.

We haven't crashed the Vindicaar yet... but given our track record, it's only a matter of time.

One downside of being Lightforged is that my S.E.L.F.I.E.S. are always overexposed.

Turalyon was the only human I saw for a thousand years. I assumed all of them were grizzled and scarred.

My turn-ons include my eyes, my tattoos, my armor... I mean, what doesn't turn on?

I may be forged in the Light, but I know how to have fun in the dark.

Have you seen Prophet Velen's new dance? He calls it the Mac'Areena.

Nightborne (male)

Your body must be a font of magic, because I'm irresistibly drawn to it.

You must know magic too, because you just made everyone else in the room disappear.

You've found the Arcway to my heart.

Mmmm, I wanna tap that ley line.

I think I've night-fallen for you.

I've got a feeling we were night-born for each other.

The stars have judged you, and found you... smokin' hot.

Were you picked from the Arcan'dor? Because you're the apple of my eye.

To be honest, most of the time something was quite right.

Why does everyone keep asking me to say that? Ughhhhh. Fine. An Illusion. What are you hiding.

My name is Roy, and I'm a mana addict.

It's what I do. I drink arcwine... and I know things.

Back in my day, there was only one kind of elf. ONE.

I don't know why they call it the Court of Stars. I hang out there all the time and I never see anyone famous.

Let's be honest. Keeping a giant, angry dinosaur caged up in a zoo was bound to end badly.

Nightborne (female)

Is that an illusion in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

No illusions here. Everything you see is real... very real.

My Nightwell brings all the boys to the yard.

Animate? Detonate? I suggest we skip straight to replicate.

I'll show you my ley lines if you show me yours.

I've been trapped in a bubble with the same guys for 10,000 years. You could say I'm ready for a little... variety.

There's no area denial in this raid.

An allusion! What are you implying?

Roses are red, our city is fair. Is that a disguise? WHO GOES THERE?

Care for a glass of arcwine? I jumped on the berries myself.

Tyrande still looks good after all these years. Know if she's seeing anyone?

I met this kal'dorei who told me my dress was the pinnacle of fashion... 10,000 years ago. Ouch! Those night elves really know how to throw shade!

Night elves? More like country elves! They live in trees, sleep in dens... sometimes even grow antlers. They're not cut out for life in a REAL city.

You really must attend one of our parties in the Court of Stars. I've never met anyone more in need of a mask.

Highmountain Tauren (male)

Trust me... I have experience at exploring deep places.

My totem thunders. All. Night. Long.

Beware the deep places... of my heart.

Get as rough as you like. I've got a thick hide.

You must be an alchemist, because we've got great chemistry.

Why does that draenei couple keep asking me where Rocky is?

Let's play a game. We take a drink every time a harpy screeches about earth and stone.

I may be a simple tauren from the mountains, but at least I don't dig through worm dung for loot.

Ha! A buddy of mine convinced this epic-geared adventurer to kick fish into the river! Oh wait... that wasn't you, was it?

A tauren, a yaungol, and a taunka walk into a bar. This isn't a joke--it's my family reunion.

What smells worse than a drogbar? Two drogbar. What smells worse than two drogbar? Nobody knows, because the stench will kill you.

Did you just try to hang your hat on my antlers? What do I look like, a coat rack?

Why settle for horns when you could have a rack like this?

I'm forming a group of tauren demon hunters. We're called the Illi-dairy.

Highmountain Tauren (female)

So... wanna knock antlers?

Are you staring at my rack?

It's not the size of the antlers. It's the motion of the totem.

What do you get when you feed cocoa to a Highmountain tauren? Chocolate moose!

Why are the Rivermane always so calm? Because they've learned to go with the flow.

Brrrrr, it's cold in here. In the mood for some ice cream?

Tauren make the best poets. Their verse is so moooooving.

You know the way to a woman's heart? Hoof rubs. Trust me on this one, darling.

He said my eyes were "milky". Talk about a mood killer...

I know Ethel. She's actually a very fast walker. She just thinks it's funny to mess with tourists.

You know, high-altitude living does wonders for one's stamina. Allow me to demonstrate...

You don't need to be from the Skyhorn tribe to join the mile high club.

We are Highmountain. Unless you're leaving. Then we're Goodbye Mountain.

#bfa spoilers #BFA #BOFA #long post #LOOOONG POST #omg #NIGHTBORNE LADIES CONFIRMED GAY

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elijahjacobs1994 · 3 years

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ethos insurance reviews

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ethos insurance reviews

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Ethos Life Insurance Quote & Application Process

Ethos Life Insurance Quote & Application Process Life insurance is just a financial product. It is a contract between two parties. They can both agree to give each the money they receive as reimbursement for an ongoing medical expense, or both agree to pay the same amount of money as the next monthly payment. If the two parties are willing to allow their respective parties to use an insurance policy as collateral, any payment is tax-deductible upon the death of the other party. If the two parties are not happy with either party, but it is considered good practice by them, both must agree to agree to this arrangement. If one party is not happy with the other one, it is possible for the insurance policy to be split into more than one. You have to know the facts before you buy a policy on yourself and your family members. If an existing family member has a history of needing hospital coverage, this is a red flag. This is because this can affect their ability to get life insurance for the foreseeable future. If it’.

Coverage Options with Ethos Life Insurance

Coverage Options with Ethos Life Insurance The Ethos Life Insurance Company and Life Quotes are pleased to partner with Ethos Life Insurance for your . It offers an array of products including insurance plans and financial products. The most basic policy is life insurance coverage that will support your children’s lives for a specified amount of time. After that time period expires, you want to see if you can keep costs down with a fixed price to keep your rates reasonable. Etho offers a term unlimited policy with in New York for up to 14 years. Eco Life offers universal and term auto coverage. It offers universal and term life insurance policies for the lifetime of the policy, as well as guaranteed-issue life insurance for the lifetime of your dependents. The insurance plan does not cover you in your working years, and your rates, if you have a qualifying disability condition, will be based on your income so it’s very important for your income to be kept flat by the disability, medical expenses, and financial.

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What is Ethos Life Insurance? In the past few years, when I looked into a couple of companies that offer this type of coverage, I was surprised that many of these companies don t accept a client. The most common thing I hear of policies is, “Don t buy life insurance until you’ve won the lottery.” Why? Because when you buy a policy and it goes through a lot of rounds, you get a lot of interest from the company. They will try to get a handle on what the coverage is all the way into the 6th round of applications, and the answer will be, “Don t buy life insurance until you have won the lottery”. They will even claim, “One of the reasons why I tell people not to buy whole life insurance is because a person who is predisposed to certain diseases may not get approved before the policy coverage goes out.” So if you want to buy life insurance for yourself, it may.

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Fidelity Life insurance review…so here’s what you need to know. The good news is, it’ll pay out (at least as much as you have to) anyway. So, what’s the catch? When it comes to life insurance reviews, there’s no score in comparison. We recommend choosing life insurance companies as a team. You don’t want to be under the impression that you’ll find a company that will make you look at the other alternatives later. If you want a company that’s going to be there for you when you need them, it’s going to have to be reputable. As far as the review goes, we’d not be surprised if the company found it to be a great fit. Most of the insurance products on this list are offered, by third parties. If you can provide evidence of your own finances and assets, you can be sure that you’ll have a partner who is financially strong.

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tech-site-blog1 · 3 years

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A Guide To Hiring An SEO Provider

If your company has some on the web components (for instance, an internet site ), then search engine optimisation is critical to the ongoing success of your business enterprise. You may possibly have the priciest internet site on your industry, however minus web traffic (traffic ) compared to this site, it's actually useless. It isn't simply traffic which you require, but targeted prospects. A fantastic grade search engine optimisation service might offer important, consistent world wide web visitors to your web site (s). This guide is going to make it possible for youpersonally, being a non-expert, to distinguish between negative and positive search engine optimization providers. There are lots of of the forms, this guide should allow one to discover the decent ones.

Search engine optimisation has to be executed in a means that's beneficial in achieving your search engine optimization aims and providing that allimportant purposeful presence on the worldwide Internet.

Quality search engine optimisation is a important investment in regards to developing powerful expansion and growth plans.

Ineffective search engine optimization execution, leaves your search engine optimization efforts completely unsuccessful and a waste of your funds.

6 items that you Want to understand and know before Choosing a Search Engine Optimization supplier:

1) Selecting an search engine optimization provider ought to be regarded as an investment in your enterprise. You ought not visualize this as a business investment, but instead a company plan and a good method of enhancing your enterprise presence inside your small business sector. Attempt to not begin with your hunt with the aim of"buying some search engine optimisation". Employing an search engine optimization provider ought to be looked at rather than hiring a worker who knows and cares about your organization and its particular internet objectives.

Few individuals ever visit the next page of their search results . Google is really great at being a searchengine which we kindly expect Google's capacity to supply the most important results on the very first page. Consider how many times you click right through to the page. Which usually means when your company isn't on the very first page, then it's nearly as great as no where. The most notable rankings on page-one receive the clicks, which diminish because you advance back on the webpage.

3) Even the'big' key words aren't every thing. It's preferable to focus on the very first page to get a couple smaller key words, than make an effort to rank for larger key words and perhaps not be to the very first page in any way. By way of instance, an accountancy firm in Preston might well not rank for its highly competitive key word'accountant' (unless they will have lots of search engine optimisation budget and period to wait around for positions ); however, the exact same firm could proactively rank highly for your key word'chartered accountant Preston'. A fantastic search engine optimization provider should research the key words your company could realistically rank on page for and additionally keywords which have enough investigation volume to become rewarding for the organization to decide to try rank for.

4) search engine optimisation is about conquering your contest. There's not any guarantee from the searchengines to express you'll soon be on the very first page of Google should you really do certain issues. Quite Simply, Search Engine Optimisation functions such as that:

The various search engines have their own conventions; internet sites that conform to providing the major search engines exactly what they desire, will see themselves achieving better search engine ranks. The one thing standing between you and the most effective spots from the search positions can be that the own competition. Perhaps not your true small business competitors, however your on line competitions. The internet sites that now have the most effective spots within the various search engines for the keywords are the internet contest, and also you want to overcome them outside of the major spots. Some key words is going to soon be simple to rank forothers will probably be harder. It's just your on line contest that orders that is going to be true for every person key word. A fantastic search engine optimization provider will find out more about your contest for every one of your key terms. Next, following the best key words for the business enterprise have now been identified that they must be put into place in accord with point number three previously.

Search engine optimization is an intricate and hi-tech science, however in order to interview a prospective search engine optimization provider you will need to see there are two chief kinds of search engine optimisation.

On-page search engine optimisation pertains to the facets in your own internet site which affect your search engine optimisation (key words, usability, page headers, inbound links, internal links, etc.).

OffPage search engine optimisation would be the things that are related directly to things out your internet site which affect the search engine optimisation of their site, like backlinks, citationsand social sharing, etc..

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6) a growth in search engine rank isn't fundamentally a rise in leads and earnings. Your entire search engine optimization provider are able to do is receive your site, videos, Google Places, articles, weblog posts, etc. . up the search engine success. They can't guarantee a gain in leads or sales, as that variable is set by your sales funnel. It's maybe not the search engine optimization provider's job to be certain the excess traffic you get will convert into greater sales or leads. Your web site should convert those people with good promotion, that will be a problem for the promotion adviser to manage.

The main differences between'great' and'poor' Search Engine Optimisation suppliers:

Good Search Engine Optimization Providers

Fantastic search engine optimization providers understand and know exactly the things mentioned previously. You may estimate this by their own replies to the questions given after in my subsequent post.

Great search engine optimization providers wish to assemble a good base and also a proper search engine optimization arrange for the company, together with extensive preliminary key words and market (competition ) research. They'll frequently insist upon itif the possibility doesn't find the requirement. On occasion a fantastic search engine optimization provider will won't make use of a client that doesn't need the necessary preparation to be achieved, because they understand that without it that they won't be going to present the customer with the outcome which they need. A fantastic search engine optimization provider might desire to deliver their client using results because their priority. Many times a customer will say"but I have done the key word research ". Many possible customers sit for 5 or 10 seconds to compose all of the key words they think are related for their business enterprise, then think they have done all of the keyword research that's necessary. Real keyword research will be a very long, investigative procedure.

Fantastic search engine optimization providers utilize responsible search engine optimization techniques, like paying more attention to search-engine search engine optimisation, procuring quality rear connections, improving citations, helping social sharing, and ensuring that a fantastic consumer experience, etc..

Bad Search Engine Optimization Providers

Bad search engine optimization providers are going to desire to simply take their customers' money as their priority. They won't conduct appropriate key words and promote research, but can state, by way of instance,"what would be the three key words as well as also your URL you wish to rank for". If it happens (as it regularly does) it is possible to make sure they're simply just plugging your internet site in to applications to acquire irrelevant links all around the world wide web, using spam site comments, connect farms as well as other ways. Oftentimes this strategy is inefficient as the URL, or domainname, might well not fit your customer's keywords. Additionally, this may hurt the standing and also, paradoxically, the longterm search engine optimisation and credibility of the site.

Bad SEO providers utilize lousy quality search engine optimisation techniques (Occasionally called blackhat techniques ), Implementing these procedures could have a very detrimental impact on what your web site is perceived by searchengines. Need less to say it is quite unwanted, as damage similar to it really is extremely tricky to reverse.

Ensure you receive the specialist search engine optimisation who knows just how to highlight the features of one's organization and may draw attention to your products and your services in a manner that actually makes your small business stand up on the global web.

Search engine optimisation and web design it is very vital that you get a site which reflects your web3mantra company integrity and personifies the organization ethos as tightly as you possibly can, afterall; this really is all about you, your organization and the services and products you want to placed up display. Fantastic caliber search engine optimisation ensuring a fantastic consumer experience.

#web3mantra

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mariaclaragomez276 · 3 years

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Independent Minds: Girish Jhunjhnuwala, Ovolo Hotels

A self-proclaimed Negroni enthusiast and neon sign aficionado, Founder & CEO of Ovolo Hotels, Girish Jhunjhnuwala has been shaking up the boutique hotel scene with his disruptive creativity in Hong Kong and Australia since 2002. While his inspiration comes from the rock legends of the 1980s, Girish is very much a man ahead of his time.

Hong Kong born and raised, Girish inherited his strong sense of entrepreneurship from his father while working in his family’s watchmaking business, before taking a chance on a serviced apartment building where the Ovolo brand began. Colourful, cosmopolitan, and contemporary, each Ovolo property has an up-to-the-moment urban edge with a touch of rock and roll. The attention to detail can be felt throughout the wonderful world of Ovolo, immediately recognisable for its distinctly daring approach to design – from the statement lighting at Ovolo Central Hong Kong, the loud wallpaper at Ovolo The Valley Brisbane, to the exposed industrial beams at Ovolo Woolloomooloo, a former wool warehouse in a trendy Sydney district.

Not only breaking the mould when it comes to design, Girish has instilled a fresh and flexible ethos into his hotels by creating a sense of “effortless living” for his guests with the modern traveller in mind – think 24-hour pools, barista-crafted coffee, requestable gaming consoles, and a cocktail menu with a different drink for each day of the week. A firm believer in being “anti-chain and anti-same”, Girish has personally crafted every element of the Ovolo brand to stand out from the creative crowd and stay that way for years to come.

What does being ‘Independently Minded’ as an hotel owner mean to you?

I have created Ovolo Hotels with an underlying ethos of connecting with guests emotionally and being personable, which to me is the meaning of hospitality. With a unique design, unique interiors and passion that can’t be found anywhere else, this is how an independent hotel stands out. Some may think that from a guest perspective, there’s not much of a difference between stepping into a chain hotel and stepping into an independent hotel. I think it makes all the difference. A hotel that’s independently operated tends to have more passion and heart behind it, often telling a story that you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else. A chain hotel on the other hand is exactly the opposite – the whole point is that you will find exactly what you expect, down to the furniture, replicated in another location.

The brand and the experience mean a lot to me, and 10 years later I still choose the wallpaper, the music, the art, and all the above – it’s the part of my job that I love the most – development. I get involved in crafting it from day one. This is a huge reason how and why Ovolo strays away from the cookie cutter approach. Each hotel is different, allowing us to be more nimble, agile and able to change with the times. Thinking from the customer’s perspective has been the cornerstone of Ovolo’s management and is reflected in everything we do, including the way our hotels are designed. That’s why operational freedom is so important to us.

I started Ovolo not only because I had a passion for hospitality, but because there were wrongs that I felt needed to be corrected within the industry. I believed the hotel industry needed disruption. The model hadn’t changed in a long time, and its traditional way of things made life difficult. There was no personality – you couldn’t tell one from the other. I also had a vision – of effortless living and inclusivity. I simply created my ideas based on things that made me angry. Finding things that you disliked, things that provoked you to create something better. Ovolo’s ethos is effortless living – and is inspired by everything that my hotel stays were not: effortless.

What was the inspiration behind the hotels, and where do you continue to find sources of inspiration?

Having grown up in an entrepreneurial family, a lot of dinnertime discussions and chats with my father were about his business, and I was able to learn a lot from him this way. Now having started my own business, I also very much made it a family affair – in my first hotel, my three children would work weekends, make beds, and get hands-on. I’d like to think that they would be able to take as much away from this, as I did from my father.

The way that I came to purchase my first property was definitely a happy coincidence. Hospitality was always a dream of mine, but funnily enough I stumbled upon it by accident. My wife was looking for a location for her restaurant in 2 Arbuthnot Road, the location of my first property. I distinctly remember the agent telling us, “It’s for sale!” to which I said, “Of course it’s for sale!” and he replied, “No! the whole building’s for sale!”. I followed my gut, bought the building, and here we are!

Of course, a lot came from passion. Passion was and is a key part of my entrepreneurial journey. In the initial stages however, I was just looking to survive. Passion came from survival and my ability to survive and persevere led me to be more and more passionate about what I did. People call me a disruptor – but that’s not how I saw myself. I simply created my ideas based on things that frustrated me. Finding things that you disliked, things that provoked you to create something better. So the experience and space that I have created all boils down to one thing: connecting emotionally with our guests. That is something that I will never, and have never, compromised on.

How do you think your hotels stand apart from other boutique hotels?

Bringing back the notion of human connection and emotional experience, I think what sets us apart is our emphasis on making sure everything we do revolves around that. Boutique hotels are naturally more personable and intimate than a chain hotel, however I like to think that we take it one step further.

One of my favourite initiatives that we do (pre-Covid, of course) was the social hour. Guests come down to the lounge, enjoy a couple of drinks and most importantly, socialise with other guests staying in the hotel, or the staff itself. GMs attend the social hour everyday and get to know our guests, whether that be offering up a simple restaurant recommendation or delving deep into personal stories and experiences.

Guests are also able to directly send me an email, telling me about any comments they had during their stay. A CEO feedback email is displayed throughout the hotels, because I always want to hear about my guests’ experiences no matter how big or small the feedback.

If you only had 24 hours to get a taste for the Ovolo experience, what would you recommend a guest must do?

All of our rooms are very nice, but of course I would choose to stay in any of the suites. Named and styled after rock and roll icons, the suites at any of our hotels scream Ovolo.

In terms of what to choose for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I would say any of the F&B offerings that we have within our properties. We just recently went vegetarian in all of our restaurants, so what better way to start and end your day than with a nice, hearty, vegetarian meal? Negroni will always be the cocktail of choice. My personal favourite, Ovolo is all about the Negroni.

In terms of outdoor experiences, my favourite is definitely hiking. With a hike you can best get a glimpse of the city from afar, and you’re getting your steps in as well!

How would you describe your own perfect luxury experience?

For me, a perfect luxury experience would be a safari. I would love to take a couple days and explore the wildlife in Kenya, South Africa, and the likes because this way you truly feel away from home. Returning to a luxurious tent or resort room after a long day in the wild is the perfect experience for me.

On the other hand, there is a lot that disappoints and frustrates me about hotel experiences – which is why I started Ovolo. I couldn’t believe that such luxurious hotels were nickel and diming their guests, and that with every touch-point, there was payment involved. At my hotels, once you step inside all the touch-points are seamlessly included – no paying for a bottle of water in the mini-fridge or a cocktail at happy hour.

Do you have a vision for the future of your hotels?

I think it’s more important now than ever to move ahead with any visions that we have. The hospitality industry is undergoing a massive shift, and it only makes sense to change with it rather than be left behind. Now that the industry is headed towards an uncertain direction, it’s important to be part of shaping the industry rather than just riding along and taking the back seat.

In times of uncertainty, guests are also increasingly scrutinising companies to provide a sense of reassurance. This is when companies need to be proactive, giving them what they need before they even knew they needed it.

Which is why we have very recently launched our new initiative, Year of the Veg. For 365 days, all Ovolo restaurants are going vegetarian! We want to be conscious about what we’re consuming and practice sustainability as much as we can because we believe this can have an enormous impact on the environment and humanity at large. To that end, we’re evolving our food offerings so that our guests can continue enjoying great dining experiences in a more sustainable manner. After going vegetarian across all their restaurants, we will continue to incorporate sustainable and ethical practices throughout our properties as much as possible.

Do you see any new trends emerging for 2021 in luxury hotels?

Design-wise, I believe there will be a trend shifting towards de-cluttering to minimise touch-points. Urban hotels will become more modern with more indoor-outdoor spaces and open windows, as people are starting to value space and openness more than before.

Technologically speaking, I do believe that many restaurants may look into scanning QR codes for the menu and ordering to reduce physical touch-points, but this is not something Ovolo is interested in. As mentioned previously, we value connecting with customers. For me, you go to a restaurant so a waiter can explain the food to you, and for the service. If not, why not just order take-out?

We don’t believe in technology for the sake of technology. Ideas have been floating around regarding a key card that can be integrated into your mobile phone, but checking in at the front desk and being welcomed the way you should be is what makes your stay all that different. Luxury hospitality always needs human to human contact, but technology will find other ways to reinvent our spaces.

Wellness will be given a huge boost as well because of health consciousness. This trend has been on the rise for a while now but has recently become more pervasive with the pandemic, so it will be interesting to see how hotels will incorporate this into their spaces – such as how hotel gyms keep their cleanliness, keeping yoga mats in rooms, walking pads, spas, and such.

I do anticipate that the general trend of travelling will gear towards staycations and domestic travel for the rest of the year, but the travel industry has the ability to bounce back very quickly because of pent up demand. Travelling is a huge part of many people’s lives whether it be for leisure or business, and that is not something that can be replaced. Therefore, although staycations will become more popular amongst those that are wary, international travel will have its momentum back soon enough.

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