#but also not end up blacklisted by half this website

[earaercircular]

Shipping company refuses to transport plastic waste any longer

It is not only the traditional dump sites in Asia that close the door to Western plastic. Shipping companies are also increasingly refusing to play a role in the controversial trade. Although the waste flow is not yet dried out.

China and the other Asian countries that want to serve less and less as a dumping ground for plastic waste from Western countries, have a remarkable ally. The French shipping company CMA CGM,[1] the third largest in the world with 566 ships, now refuses to transport plastic waste anywhere in the world. This goes further than competitors Maersk,[2] MSC[3] and Hapag-Lloyd[4], who decided two years ago to stop shipping plastic waste to China. For CMA CGM it doesn't matter what the final destination is.

"By no longer transporting plastic waste on our ships, we prevent it from being exported to places where we cannot guarantee that they will actually recycle it," the company said in a statement on its website. Customers who secretly load plastic waste into their containers and are caught doing so, it warns, “will be irrevocably placed on a blacklist”.

Operation National Sword

Worldwide, more than 380 million tons of plastic is produced every year, twice as much as two decades ago. Only 9 percent of it was recycled in 2019, according to figures from the OECD. Half of it ends up in landfills.

For decades, China was the world's largest consumer of plastic waste. In the early 1990s, it imported 72 percent of all the plastic that other countries wanted to get rid of. But in 2017, the 'Operation National Sword'[5] was launched, a government initiative that strongly restricted waste imports. Western countries looked for other buyers and usually ended up with Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.

“When those countries also adopted stricter rules in 2019, Turkey came on the scene,” says Tom Zoete of Recycling Network[6], a consortium of NGOs that focuses on waste management and recycling. “Every time a country closed its doors, the plastic was taken elsewhere. The problem was not addressed, it was constantly shifted. That is why we find the decision of CMA CGM so interesting. If a shipping company no longer takes the waste to places where the rules are less strict, where the plastic can simply be incinerated or dumped in nature, this is a concrete step in the right direction. We hope that other shipping companies will follow, although of course it is not the final solution. We still hope for a total European ban on the export of plastic waste.”

No priority

The fact that more and more countries are closing their doors and that the export rules are becoming stricter – also in the EU since January last year – is still not drying up the waste flows. In mid-April, the Basel Action Network[7], an American NGO that fights against the export of waste to developing countries, announced in a report that the US, Canada and the EU have still exported “hundreds of millions of tons” of plastic waste in the past year and a half to countries where that is not recycled.

“There are increasingly strict European rules, but they have to be enforced”, says Zoete. “Local authorities, including customs, usually have to focus on drug and arms trafficking. Transports of illegal waste are rarely their priority and thus slip through the net.” In 2020 Interpol warned of a carousel of illegal shipments ending up in South and Southeast Asia, with port traders cheating with the ship's papers. Loads of plastic waste are then cleared under a different code.

A simple export ban will therefore not solve the problem. Zoete: “Such a ban must go hand in hand with the further development of the circular economy. Countries should not only be forced to stop their exports, but also to increase their own recycling capacity and at the same time phase out the production of plastic.”

Source

Pieter Van Maele: Rederij weigert nog langer plasticafval te vervoeren, in: De Standaard, 10-05-2022; https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20220509_97699854

[1] CMA CGM S.A. is a French container transportation and shipping company. It is the world’s 3rd largest container shipping company, using 257 shipping routes between 420 ports in 160 countries. Its headquarters are in Marseille, France and its North American headquarters are in Norfolk, Virginia, United States. The name is an acronym of two predecessor companies, Compagnie Maritime d'Affrètement (CMA) and Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM), which translate as "Maritime Freighting Company" and "General Maritime Company". https://www.cma-cgm.com/about/the-group

[2] Maersk Line or Maersk SeaLand is a Danish international container shipping company and the largest operating subsidiary of the Maersk Group, a Danish business conglomerate. Founded in 1928, it is the world's largest container shipping company by both fleet size and cargo capacity, offering regular services to 374 ports in 116 countries. In 2019, it employed 83,625 people where 18,398 of which are vessel crew and the other 65,227 are processing and operations personnel in offices and ports. Maersk Line operates over 708 vessels and has a total capacity of about 4.1 million TEU. https://www.maersk.com/

[3] Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A. (MSC) is an international shipping line founded by Gianluigi Aponte in Italy in 1970, with headquarters in Switzerland since 1978. The privately held company is owned by the Aponte family. It has been the largest container shipping line since late 2021, after overtaking fellow 2M Alliance member Maersk. The company operates in all major ports of the world. As of 2021, MSC operates 570 container vessels with an intake capacity of 3,920,784 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). It has a division called MSC Cruises that focuses on holiday cruises. https://www.msc.com/

[4] Hapag-Lloyd AG is a German international shipping and container transportation company. Hapag-Lloyd was formed in 1970 through a merger of Hamburg-American Line (HAPAG) and North German Lloyd. https://www.hapag-lloyd.com/en/services-information/offices-localinfo.html

[5] The Operation National Sword was a policy initiative launched in 2017 by the Government of China to monitor and more stringently review recyclable waste imports. Before the policy, China was importing the vast majority of recyclables from North America and Europe for two decades. This practice of buying recyclables brought raw materials for the growing industrial capacity of China, but also brought a lot of contaminated recyclables which ended up accruing in China, causing other environmental concerns such as air and water pollution. The action was interpreted as an international relations move by China against Western countries. The policy caused a ripple effect in the global recyclables market, causing major pile ups in Western countries who had been collecting lower quality recyclables in single-stream recycling, and displacing some of those recyclable to other countries, mostly in South East Asia, like Vietnam and Malaysia.

[6] Recycling Netwerk Benelux (RNB) is an independent environmental organization that connects various environmental organisations around the theme of raw materials and their impact. Their goal is to minimize the environmental damage caused from raw material production to waste management. https://recyclingnetwerk.org/over/

[7] The Basel Action Network (BAN), a charitable non-governmental organization, works to combat the export of toxic waste from technology and other products from industrialized societies to developing countries. BAN is based in Seattle, Washington, United States, with a partner office in the Philippines. BAN is named after the Basel Convention, a 1989 United Nations treaty designed to control and prevent the dumping of toxic wastes, particularly on developing countries. BAN serves as an unofficial watchdog and promoter of the Basel Convention and its decisions. https://www.ban.org/

#plastic waste #exporting plastic waste

[fortunatelyfresco]

Checked my inbox and one of my recent emails is "Instacart’s Commitment to Safely Serving Its Community" which pretty much just lines up with the half-measures reported in the CNN article

Look not to armchair-quarterback this on main because I feel helpless and angry, but,,, as a Guilty Disabled With No Car who lives paycheck to paycheck and relies on people like Instacart shoppers for access to basic necessities, I've spent a lot of time reading about shoppers’ experiences and grievances so I can try to be a good customer.

This is horseshit. And it’s horseshit that customers who care about other human beings should also be getting loudly, publicly angry about.

"This new feature remembers your last tip selection and will, going forward, default to that percentage instead of another fixed amount."

This is A) not what the strikers are asking for, and B) not going to accomplish anything. Those of us who want to tip well, and understand how to accomplish that in the Instacart app, are already doing it.

But if you're used to systems where the default tip is around 20%, and/or if you assume Instacart is not a tipped service, and/or if navigating technology does not come naturally to you, it's incredibly easy to overlook that little 5% default!

I cannot think of a single reason for Instacart's stubbornness about this issue (which has been going on since long before the pandemic) that doesn't boil down to greed, spite, willful incompetence, or a combination of the three. In my opinion based on everything I’ve read over the past few months:

they don't want to turn off customers who might be irritated by having to spend "extra money" on mandatory tips

and/or they want to keep their shopper base broke and dependent

and/or they simply don't want to pay for someone to upgrade the app with a more functional, straightforward tipping system.

"[...] we’ll be bringing 300,000 additional shoppers to our platform over the next three months. If you know anyone who might be looking for a flexible way to earn, please send them to [website redacted]."

In context this is pretty blatantly code for "We'll be bringing 300,000 people to our platform who are suddenly jobless and desperate, and who don't know or can't afford to care about our history of mistreating employees and gig workers."

Anyway support the strike if you can by:

1. Using other means to get your groceries until the shoppers get the very reasonable measures they are striking for.

2. If you can, reach out to any shoppers in your area to find out if you can help support them directly during this time.

3. If you must use Instacart, make sure you tip well and remember when you’re prompted to “rate your experience” that your rating affects the shopper, not the company!

4. If you’re ready to quit using this service forever (and are prepared to risk blacklisting even if the strike ends favorably), contact Instacart directly from the email address associated with your account and tell them why.

If you use a different grocery delivery service, please find out as much as you can about how they’re treating their own workers and if anything like this is going on.

And one last thing: non-shoppers, don’t get combative or preachy at shoppers who are not striking. That’s not our place. We’re all doing what we must to get by. Just don’t let the existence of non-strikers lull you into a false sense of “everything is fine and the strikers are over-reacting.” Decide for yourself.

#it's been a long time since i made a long ranting post but i am Big Mad #nail this to the door of the instacart church #instacart strike #covid 19 #coronavirus

[loptgangandi]

so! literally no one asked, but these last 3 weeks have been a hell of a ride let me TELL YOU 

so happy mun-day now you get to hear all about it!! (with pictures, I’m not a monster)

here’s the cliffnotes version: 

december week 1: simultaneously moved back into a place and took classes then moved out of that place while taking classes and planning a 2-day overland trip from sweden to madrid. took said trip. 

december week 2: attended the unfccc climate conference COP25 in madrid, got kicked out for protesting in solidarity with indigenous ppl & kids, got let back into COP the next day & proceeded to go to more panels and also protests. no i did not see greta thunberg but she was there. I did not see harrison ford either. I did shake al gore’s hand tho.

december week 3: week #1 with my mom’s new twin one-eyed cyclops kitties (yes both of them), spent the week frantically writing 2400 words of nonsense that hopefully resolved themselves into two coherent enough papers to snag me a nice grade then took a 36-hour trip up to london to see my sister perform at her bitchin new job.

elaboration under the cut.

Hell Week (or) Why You Sometimes Should Fly to Climate Conferences

So, after the nonsense with The Roommate From Hell (reddit rant here), I moved out of my room at her place and back into the dorms (where I still had a lease through the end of December). That required a fair bit of effort, but I moved things bit by bit over the course of about a week, and it was manageable. 

But I had to be out of the dorms and have the place clean by the time I left for the climate conference, which in itself was a whole lot of coordination. Wednesday the 4th of December was probably among the worst, most frustrating days I have ever had, and I desperately hope I never have to deal with that level of fuck this fuck you fuck me fuck everything for a very, very long time. Somehow -- by some miraculous act of the gods -- I pulled it out, and managed to get my stuff into my friend’s basement, my plants into another friend’s apartment, my bags packed, my room clean as a whistle, my self moved into my hostel, and to every damn class that week. My interrail tickets came the day I planned to leave -- it was a tight fit -- and I managed to book trains and busses from Uppsala to Madrid with half an hour to spare, and get on the first train (Uppsala to Stockholm) in good time.

The next 48 hours went like this:

Stockholm -> Copenhagen (by train): uneventful, but Copenhagen train station on a Friday night is a little dicey, especially when you’re dragging around a 45 lb suitcase and another 15 lbs on your back

Copenhagen -> Hamburg (by overnight FlixBus): Uneventful, and I was sitting by a window with no one sitting next to me, so I was able to doze a bit on the trip. 

Hamburg -> Basel (by high-speed rail): This one I should have booked. The website said that a reservation was recommended, and I understand why. If I’d had a quiet cabin -- or even just a consistent seat for the whole 7-hour journey -- I’d have been able to get a decent night’s sleep. Instead, I kept having to move to give people their reserved seats, and didn’t get more than an hour of uninterrupted sleep.

Basil -> Olten (train): this one was a mistake

Olten -> Brienz (train): where the fuck am I

Brienz -> Lausanne (train): oh right yes that’s the direction I want to go yes good get on that one

Lausanne -> Geneva (train): oh thank fuck, I 100% know where I am and am back on track. Sunglasses & 30 hours without sleep is a Look.

Geneva: Spend 3 hours with my mom, put a week’s worth of clothes into a considerably smaller suitcase, eat dinner. meet mom’s new kittens, Saga and Luna

Geneva -> Lyon (bus): Get confused about which bus to get on, get told off by the bus driver we were trying to convince to let us on his bus, realized mom had been trying to put me on the wrong bus. Get on the right bus. Go to Lyon with bus driver who speaks no French or English, only Spanish.

Lyon -> Barcelona (night bus): Hell. Just. Absolute Hell Bus. Wanted To Die all night. Assigned to aisle seat just before the very back next to a very, very tall man who was quite polite but had no room for his legs. Behind us were two men, one of whom was loudly chewing gum until he took off his shoes and fell asleep, the other of whom snored like a gd bulldozer. Aisle seat and wailing baby a few rows down meant that my chances of sleeping comfortably were 0. I did manage to doze off a bit, but only because I was so strung out from not sleeping the night before. Eventually made it to Barcelona alive and lent my phone to the very nice lady with the wailing baby (plus like 5 other family members, none of whom had cell service). 

Barcelona -> Madrid (train): Absolutely gorgeous train ride through the Spanish countryside that I really did want to stay awake to enjoy. Managed to do so until we got to an elevation where it was just thick, dense fog and I let myself fall asleep. 

Madrid: I arrived at my hostel groggy, dazed, and in pain from two bad nights in a row. I considered a nap, but also considered that I’d need to wake up early the next morning and would need to fall asleep. Opted to try to set up my COP25 blog instead. Failed due to aforementioned grogginess. Walked to the corner to get some food and tried to pay for it with Swedish kronor, which didn’t work. Apologized, explained to the amused man that it had been a long weekend, paid him in Euros instead. Used the hostel’s dry sauna (!!!!), took a shower, and went to bed. 

COP25 - The Old White Fuckening

So, listen, I’m not going to go into detail about COP. If you want to read about how much of a tonedeaf clusterfuck the negotiations were (as opposed to the really interesting, inspiring stuff happening in the side sessions), BBC has some good articles. 

If you want to listen to some of the press conferences and plenaries, here they are. I especially recommend the ones by the Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus, Fridays for Future, and as many of the Indigenous Peoples’ statements as you can (most of them are in Spanish and/or Portuguese. Because the COP was supposed to be held in Chile, many of the registered Indigenous participants were from Amazonas because it was supposed to not be far to travel). 

If you want to listen to some of the side events, the webcasts have been recorded here. Click the link, and then click “Join the event.” I again recommend the ones by Indigenous groups (if you can understand them -- we all had translation headphones in the sessions, but I don’t speak Spanish, so I can’t really go back and revisit them). Also, this "feminist attempt at connecting the dots” on “climate crisis, corporate power, and climate finance” and this one session from a Nigerian NGO and the government about One Health and the connection between climate change, disease, and other health risks -- and how badass Nigeria is at tackling them. 

On the subject of tonedeafness, some absolute bullshit went down on Wednesday, December 11th. 

Here is the article on BBC, but it’s a bit incomplete.

Here’s what happened.

COP25 2: The Old White Fuckeninger (Starring Military Police!)

So on Wednesday, December 11th, Greta Thunberg -- environmental wunderkind with truly glorious bitchface -- sat on a panel before a hall full of condescending adults in which she demanded accountability and immediate action from national leaders. 

At the end of her speech, the delegation of Fridays for Future -- Greta’s own youth movement, which has become a global phenomenon -- stormed the stage. Representatives of Fridays for Future admitted that they knew what they were doing was against the rules, and they were ready to face the consequences: having their admission badges taken away (being “debadged”), and not being blacklisted from future UNFCCC events. 

Neither of these things happened. Instead, UNFCCC praised the young activists, and let them keep their badges. 

A few hours later, another activist group in attendance -- not an Indigenous one, a point that was raised by a young Native American man during the Fridays for Future press conference -- staged a sit-in outside the main hall where a large plenary meeting was scheduled. Said meeting was full of gimmicks, including a live call to the International Space Station so an astronaut could talk about the view of climate change from space. 

I was going to attend the plenary. I joined the protest instead. 

Admittedly, the decision was partly made for me by security. After pushing, shoving, and jostling the (mostly adult, heavily Indigenous, mostly PoC, heavily female, heavily Queer) protesters, as well as violently snatching their badges off their lanyards, security started herding them -- as well as anyone in proximity -- out into the open docking area outside the hall. One woman nearby, who hadn’t meant to join the protest and who had just been filming, tried to duck out of the group and got sternly told by a security guard “No. Keep going forward. No turning back.” A similar thing had happened to me -- I hadn’t made up my mind about joining the protest, because I didn’t have all the information -- but security made the decision, and in the end, I’ll always prefer to be with the people facing the police rather than those they’re protecting. 

It was... furious. It was emotional. The leaders of the protest had us form a circle and turn our backs on security and the door. WoC -- many of whom were Indigenous -- led not just standard protest chants, but songs. Renewal songs, fight songs. The common theme was the intersection of environmental justice and femininity, queerness and suffering under colonization, anti-capitalism, anti-exploitation, and a call for colonizers to repay the colonized for all of the loss and damage already caused by climate change (climate reparations). 

Eventually, UNFCCC made a decision. They decided to close the door on us. Security “escorted” us to the docking bay entrance, and the military police took over. Fortunately, none of them started anything. Obviously, none of the protesters did either. We made it back to the venue entrance eventually, but only those with journalist/media badges were allowed back in; the rest of us were not. Even people with Observer badges (like mine) who hadn’t been part of the protest weren’t being allowed in. But some people who were panelists, delegates, etc. came out to stand in solidarity with us. 

Once it became clear that no more joint actions would be taking place, I went home, and waited to see whether the negotiators would be able to talk UNFCCC into letting us back in. 

They did. Can you imagine the headlines? “UNFCCC Kicks Out Protesters, Bars Civil Society Observers From Climate Talks.” 

Talk about going down like a lead balloon.

Which is about what the conference in general did. I was able to go back and get some more stuff out of it... including another big protest, this time led by Fridays for Future and sanctioned. It was so, so good. Many of the people from Wednesdays protest were also there, and while spirits weren’t exactly high, the emotions being expressed were more along the lines of determination and tenacity than fire and fury. Both are valid, and both have their place, and it was nice to have a balance -- especially at the end of the week, when we were all flat-out exhausted. 

The Aftermath

And then I just didn’t stop moving. Saturday and Sunday I spent exploring Madrid and staying out late, Monday I flew back to Geneva from Madrid (because absolutely fuck Spanish busses and also absolutely FUCK FRANCE’s weeks-long general strike that I’m sure was for something very important. I’m sure. Because France never strikes over trivial things). 

Tuesday-Friday was a takehome exam that I swear to god was more labor-intensive than my actual undergrad thesis, and Saturday-Sunday I flew to London to visit my sister at her new job as an actor in Shrek’s Adventure. Mom was supposed to go with me, but she has a slipped disk and sent me up alone. Which was nice -- my sister and I almost never hang out just the two of us. But that’s another thing I’ve been dealing with -- quite a bit of extra Stuff To Do that Mom Can’t Do because Back Hurty and there have been days when she literally could not move. 

But now I am here! I still have work to do, and it’s holidays so there’s Holiday Stuff happening, but I’m hoping to get back to writing here in the next few days. 

And if you’ve read all of this, you’re fucking incredible and I love u and here are some one-eyed black babie kitty gremlins for ur viewing pleasure.

<-Saga | Luna ->

They’ve got little bare patches on their tummies because bbies gotta be spayed

They got this tower two days ago and have learned to share, but the learning curve was steep

Saga doesn’t like cuddles but she likes pats and being in the vicinity of humans

Saga says hello

Pictured: Luna in my arms, Saga in Proximity

Luna stole my Spot!! >:C

If Saga steals something and then tells u to answer a riddle to get it back pls let me know. she does that sometimes. it’s very naughty.

#ooc tag #long post #if u read thru to the end there's kitties :3 #or you can just look at the kitties #it's not like I'll know #anywhere that's where I've been #I have literally Not Fucking Stopped for like a month

[ohrosalinds]

katherine mcnamara. genderfluid. they/them.  ／  rosalind cox just pulled up blasting fly by hilary duff — that song is so them! you know, for a twenty-four year old singer & actor, i’ve heard they’re really -capricious, but that they make up for it by being so +gregarious. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say plaid shirts open with a white shirt underneath, thrift shop knick knacks, the smell of cinnamon, and childhood stardom. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble! ( vc: hilary duff, bridgit mendler & ana golja )

rosalind’s basically the same as they were the last time i played them, but i’ve edited a couple of things.  so here’s their new intro u know the drill like this to plot w them.  

rosalind’s 24, their birthday just passed at the beginning of the month.  

rosalind was born to laurel whittmore-cox on august fifth during a summer rainstorm.  rosalind’s father died months before their birth and they still to this day do not know much about him.  but they never minded.  their mom, and their maternal grandfather gus were more than enough.  

rosalind was “discovered” at the age of two.  they were at their mother’s office ( laurel’s a producer for movies & tv shows ) and it started a career for the redheaded baby.  mostly print ads for a while, a couple of tv shows and movies but nothing big.  that is until rosalind was nine years old and was cast as the titular role in disney’s lizzie mcguire.  and they dyed their hair blonde for the role. 

honestly, it was a dream.  rosalind’s mother was an executive producer and rosalind really loved playing lizzie.  it was her favorite thing.  she was excited to go to work every day.  her friends were great.  she loved her tv family.  and it was fun playing a role that really felt at home, as she was going through similar things as lizzie at the time of the show.  since rosalind was in middle school at the time when lizzie was airing.  

when rosalind was eleven years old ( and four months, not that that’s a needed detail ) they were going through this period of discovery.  figuring out who she wanted to be, as lizzie’s final season was filming.  they had just found music as an outlet and were working on writing and coming up with their own things, hoping to release something after lizzie ended.  

during this time rosalind read something and was watching a lot of television and something struck the blonde.  following research and time of discovery, rosalind found out about the term genderfluid.  and after reading about it and learning more.  it was like a lightbulb moment and they were like “this is it.  that’s me.”  and they decided to start using they/them pronouns because it felt right. 

rosalind told their family over dinner one night and while both laurel and gus were confused, they adjusted well.  it took laurel until rosalind was seventeen years old to finally not use “she/her” accidentally.  

but rosalind had this whole show riding on their shoulders and they just knew that this coming out was not going to be good.  people would talk and things would not end well for them, it could ruin the end of the series.  it was going to be a scandal, because it went against what the producers and execs wanted for their show’s star.  and, of course, lizzie was one of the number one shows on children’s programming right then too.  while everything was going on, still working on the final season, the problem was also that rosalind didn’t want to not use their pronouns because it’s who they are.  

so rosalind came out to the cast and the crew, to people whom they considered family.  it was a slow thing, not a big announcement, and people were mostly accepting.  by the end of the series filming, most of the people they worked with every day had adjusted to using the proper pronouns most of the time.   

rosalind thought they were finally free of the station and the pushy execs who only wanted their agenda pushed forward, other than working still with their record label for this music they had been creating.  but, as luck would have it, the producers and executives had gotten together to bring about a feature film for the show.  

and rosalind couldn’t say no, lizzie was still very much a part of who they were.  and getting to work with the people again ( even so soon after saying goodbye ) it was something they wanted to do.  

so after the small “break”, almost thirteen year old rosalind went off to italy to film this movie.  ( fact: they turned 13 while filming in italy ).

and while they were there with the cast and crew and people who loved and supported them, someone back home leaked their gender pronouns and caused a big stink.  

executives flew in when they were almost finished with filming and it was a big to do.  rosalind was scheduled to go on a tour after the film finished filming since their album was almost completed.  but the executives were nervous about what everything would be.  it was a lot of meetings and rosalind had to deal with the pressure of filming the movie and worrying about their own future and if the film they, and everyone else, worked so hard on would be released.  

the company did what they do best and decided that after the movie, rosalind should go on tour for their music right away.  so rosalind was rushed to a local studio to finish the final touches of the album, which was released before the film had finished.  

despite the immense pressure, rosalind was happy.  they were doing what they loved, writing music, acting, and singing.  

of course, going on a big tour meant rules and guidelines from the corporation.  a lot of them restricting what rosalind could say and talk about in interviews, which they had done before, but never to this same degree. now rosalind was completely restricted.  in fact, they had to read from a script and they had a personal handler from the company with them at all times. 

it didn’t help that they were touring for music on top of doing press for the lizzie film.  

it should have been the time of their life.  it really should have, but alas.  it was a time where rosalind was sleeping less and less every night and working on finding themself in the little spare time they had.  

it was building up a lot, taking a toll on the young teen.  

rosalind’s biggest personal problem with the press was that everyone who interviewed them was using she/her pronouns and completely ignoring the fact they’d even stated a preference for using they/them.  

it led to them having a bit of a …. MELTDOWN during an interview when they were asked a pretty terrible question.

footage went viral on tmz and mtv of rosalind pulling off their microphone in the middle of an interview, irate and yelling at who people later found out was their disney appointed handler,  “i’m sick of using the wrong pronouns for this bullshit! it’s not fair!”

the footage can still be found on multiple websites, and people tend to talk about it a lot still.  

the next thing they knew, the second half of the tour was cancelled, “creative differences” had been cited.  however, rosalind was still under contract with the record label, and even though they were basically blacklisted from working for quite some time, rosalind had to work on new music for a company that didn’t want them.  

rosalind released a second album soon after the end of the tour.  once their duties in the contract were finished and all obligations filled--rosalind left the company and went to “normal life”.  

the teen -- a redhead now, the blonde hair finally gone ( people called it shedding the disney baggage ) -- left los angeles to live with their grandpa gus outside of boston.  they maintained a job working at gus’ thrift/antique shop the little things.  and did their best to maintain a regular teenage existence.  which is hard when you spent your childhood on film.  

for a while, rosalind did a youtube channel in their later high school years.  sometimes they still post, but it’s sporadic if anything.  they used to do a lot of q&a videos.  they would often talk about working on music and talking about their gender identity and sexuality ( they’re pansexual ).  they wanted to have a voice for themselves, and doing something like that was the best way to do that. 

with everything, rosalind kept from saying anything outwardly bad about their old parent company.  people never understood why--when it was clear that they had been terribly unhappy and troubled at the old company.  

recently, rosalind has opened up about it.  they experienced a lot of wrongdoings from the company in their childhood, given the company’s outright display of their gender identity and how it didn’t fit with the image.  but rosalind still wished nothing but the best for the people whom they’d worked with.  there was nothing that the cast & crew had done wrong to them.  the people with whom they spent so many hours of their formative years were nothing but excellent and kind and hardworking people.  

they’re a people person, loving to be around other people.  but they’re also always a bit nervous about big crowds.  idk what it is.  one on one they’re amazing and chatty, but crowds make them nervous?  but stage stuff is wonderful? they can definitely hold themselves in a crowd or captivate a room.  

they’ve done a handful of made for television movies in the recent years.  recently they’ve released new music after a long period of nothing.  they did an extended play belong and a full length album then & now.  ( rosalind’s early music is canon hilary duff ie metamorphasis and hilary, which for rp purposes is called rosalind )  

rosalind is currently labelless.  they haven’t been with a parent label since everything at their old one blew up.  

they have a fear of being controlled by any company if they were to work for a specific label again, so they haven’t cared to look for one.  

maybe they’ll tour again in the future?? who knows.  

rosalind was recently cast to play DAPHNE BLAKE in an upcoming live action scooby doo television series.  

#excessintro #❥ ━━━ out of char ❜

[theartofmedia]

Kotaku and the Art of Game Leaks

(Full disclosure: this piece was commissioned by a friend. The topic has changed from the initial pitch, but still. I don’t know how that may or may not affect your view on this piece, but I still feel it’s important for me to be transparent about this.) On May 30th, 2019, Laura Kate Dale announced her departure from Kotaku UK. Dale is a controversial figure among the games journalist community for... multiple reasons (please note the latter link lacks any actual evidence and how she apparently didn’t report this Uber driver for ‘nearly kidnapping her’ despite posting it publicly on Twitter, hence the controversy around it), but that’s not what we’re talking about today. What we’re going to be discussing is what she is known for the most: video game leaks.

LKD is most known for leaking video game information prior to their release, from information about Dark Souls Remastered, to unboxing a PS4 Slim before Sony itself even announced its existence, to Switch software. It got to the point where LKD was blacklisted by Nintendo UK, most likely for leaking so much information.

Now as I was researching LKD, there was something I noticed. A lot of people supported LKD’s leaks, calling it “real journalism,” and commending her for doing her job so well. As shown by the link above, many people mocked Nintendo UK for blacklisting her for “doing her job too well.” People are always scrambling for new leaks, new information, though in many cases, this can lead to fake leaks, misinformation, and confusion among players.

And it got me to think: how do leaks really affect both the devs and the consumers of games?

The conclusion I’ve come to about it is: it does more harm than good on both sides, but especially to the devs.

Here we will be defining four categories of leaks (three of which are explained here by Griffin Vacheron of Game Revolution), though our main focus will be on two.

Accidental leaks are just like they sound: they’re accidents. Something happened, something went wrong, and people got a hold of information before they were supposed to. Like when Capcom put all the pictures of the roster of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on their website when a good portion of the roster hadn’t yet been announced, and the unannounced characters could be found via a small URL change. Or when Walmart’s Canadian site revealed around 40 unannounced titles due to a(n alleged) glitch in their system just weeks before E3 2018. Or when Bethesda accidentally streamed their E3 2015 rehearsal which ended up confirming the existence of Dishonored 2. Yeah.

The main component of accidental leaks is just that--accidental. Someone did something wrong, something in a system went wrong, someone didn’t think through the consequences of what probably seemed like a good idea at the time--it happens! Nothing is perfect, people included, and shit happens. But the key part is that it’s not intentional. Someone may (or, really, will) be reprimanded, punished, or even fired depending on the leak, but there was never any intention to reveal this information.

Company leaks are... not entirely proven, from my research. This is the idea that the developers themselves leak information in order to draw attention to their game and hype it up. Often, this will be the other determination of certain leaks--was it an accident, or a PR stunt? There’s no real definitive proof and seems to simply be rumor, but the possibility still exists, as there’s no real way to disprove it, either.

Ethic leaks are generally the exception, not the rule. These are leaks of working conditions, such as an employee from NetherRealm talking about the toxic work environment, or Rockstar employees opening up about how they were mistreated and underpaid and burned to ashes, or Blizzard’s layoff of 800 employees. (Further reading here on the abuse of game devs, as well as what can be done about it.) These are things that need to be talked about, because these relate to the treatment of actual, real people. These aren’t issues then of game content or development, it’s an issue of ethics in the workplace. Same with the leak of this document that details how AI can be used to encourage microtransactions, though that is an issue related to the consumer rather than the workers. Shady tactics and the maltreatment of workers is something that needs to be shown and discussed and talked about, because these things affect the actual workers, as well as the quality of a product and the company’s integrity in relation to the consumer. (Basically, if you intentionally make your game in such a way that players have to use microtransactions to make any significant progress, you’ve ruined your integrity as a company by trying to drain your player base of more money, regardless of the base price they paid for the game anyway. It’s a scummy business practice, and that kind of thing should be revealed to the public that you’re going to try to bleed dry.)

Intentional leaks are just as they sound: they’re the intentional leak of information. This is when people outside the company hack in and reveal secrets, or when people inside the company reveal information (whether directly or indirectly via being sources for journalists) before they are to be officially announced. The information given is given with the knowledge that yes, someone is going to reveal it to the public.

So let’s talk about the ramifications of intentional leaks on game devs.

Remember Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle? The cover image had been leaked before the team had a chance to actually showcase the game. Nobody knew anything about the game other than the cover, and universal reception at the time was: “This is going to be terrible.” Because of a leaked image, the public already had a strong negative opinion about it. However, the showcase that showed off actual gameplay was well-received, and the Metacritic score is 85. So the game itself was pretty damn good, according to the critics. An unlikely crossover turned out well! But the initial reaction was incredibly demoralizing to the team. It’s one thing to have criticism given to a game based on a trailer or gameplay showcase; it’s another to get criticism based on a single image and the concept alone with no other information given. As the director and music composer explain, the dev team was very worried and stressed not just about the game reception but about the showcase, as they were afraid that the reception to the showcase was going to be bad due to the already-negative opinion on the game.

Let’s also talk about how CD Projekt Red had demo gameplay and audio of Cyberpunk 2077 leaked by a journalist (who later complained about not being credited, about how his relationship with CD Projekt Red and the PR person he was friends with) after being asked not to. The company had their trust in the journalists--someone who they had a fifteen year relationship with--used and abused, leading to secrets being leaked. The devs had politely asked the journalists not to do so, but one did, and apparently saw nothing wrong with leaking private information and posting it to the public.

Or let’s talk about how, way back in the day, the entire source code for Half-Life 2 was revealed to the public and Valve (allegedly) lost $250 million dollars. The article actually states some of the effects of the leaked source code: “Meanwhile, the team at Valve, which had been in crunch mode for months, was left reeling by the leak. The game was costing the company $1 million a month to build and the end was still far from sight. The leak had not only caused financial damage but had demotivated a tired team. One young designer asked Newell, "Is this going to destroy the company?" (found under the heading “A Red Letter Day”).

Or we can talk about the Sm4sh leaks back in 2014 and how it led to an employee (allegedly) being fired and sued due to leaking this information. Now, this can very easily be viewed as justice being served to the leaker, and I would agree. But what is the issue here can be summed up by PlatinumGames producer JP Kellams:

The people working for years and years on a project suddenly have parts of their project--that they wanted to surprise players with, this particular instance being the Sm4sh roster--given out to the public before they wanted it to be. Imagine working for years on your life on a project, and then having someone reveal your work to the internet without your knowledge or permission. I know I would feel dejected, exhausted, hopeless, hurt, regardless of any positive reception to what was revealed. You, as someone who has worked so incredibly hard--and, in many cases in the game industry, been thoroughly abused--apparently don’t have the right to reveal the thing you’ve been working on the way you want.

I want to make this clear: I am not talking about “the Big Corporation” here. I don’t care about the higher-ups who put the pressure on the workers. I care about the workers, the little people that are being trampled on and forced to work in abusive, toxic conditions in order to meet a deadline and the outrageous demands of the higher-ups. They are the ones suffering.

Case in point: the Blufever leaks for Final Fantasy XIV. The details are a bit murky, as is with most leaks, but the story as I understand it is: user Blufever is/was an employee at Square Enix who leaked massive amounts of information on upcoming expansions/patches for FFXIV. Then, their account went dark, as they apparently feared for being found out by Square Enix. Vergeben, a known reputable leaker within the Smash community, had this to say about the situation:

Now, of course, there is no way to truly verify these claims. However, due to Vergeben’s reputation as an accurate leaker (and the fact that he was right about one of the upcoming DLC characters being from Square Enix) leads me to believe him. Assuming that his claims are true, someone leaking all of this information to the public put a lot of innocent people in the line of fire--and it’s very possible that these

So, what does this have to do with Kotaku?

Here’s something interesting.

When known E3 leaker WabiSabi was given a cease & desist warning from Nintendo for leaking information, take a look at some of the top replies. (Note that a lot of them are ninja gifs, here’s a sample so I don’t have to do it for every one.)

Not all of the replies are against WabiSabi, however, though a majority seem to be:

(About the above: I can’t really find anything suggesting that LKD was leaking things for “customer advocacy,” other than confirming that the next gen console (now known as the Switch) was not using the Wii branding like its predecessor did, thus easing some fears because of the bombing of the Wii U. Other tweets about that are here, but don’t really sway me in terms of “consumer advocacy.”)

As shown, the replies seem to be pretty divisive on whether or not it was a good or bad thing that WabiSabi got hit with a cease & desist.

However, let’s have a look at some of the replies to LKD’s tweet about how she was blacklisted by Nintendo.

And again, not all are supportive of her:

I actually had to look quite a bit to find any negative comments. Many were supportive of her.

(I would like to take this moment to get unprofessional for a second and unleash my full opinion of this: NO FUCKING SHIT YOU GOT BLACKLISTED, SHERLOCK. THEY TRUST YOU WITH THEIR SECRETS AND THEN YOU DISRESPECT THEM BY REVEALING THEM BEFORE THEY DID. I DO NOT FUCKING UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE WOULD SAY IT’S A COMPANY BEING “SHADY” WHEN IT’S JUST INFORMATION ABOUT UPCOMING PRODUCTS. NOTHING ABOUT ETHICS OR CONSUMER TRUST OR PRODUCT QUALITY. anyway,)

Now, you can say, “But Sakra! That’s a three-year difference!” And I rebuke with: people still support her to this day in spite of this. Kotaku UK kept her on though all of this and then some. It wasn’t until a kerfuffle happened in April with the “Persona 5 OST Has A Disability Slur” thing happened, and soon after, LKD left. It seems that the immense backlash with that was what fully pushed her off. (Now whether she was forced to resign or legitimately wanted to leave, that’s something only Kotaku UK and she know for sure.) The point is, her departure from Kotaku UK seems to have been completely unrelated to her leaks.

And why would it when Kotaku themselves--not just the UK chapter--are clearly very supportive of video game leaks of this nature?

Just have a look at their recent posts. All I did was put “leaks” in the search box. You may say “they’re just reporting the news of leaks!” But they put some of the leaked information IN the articles. The one on Watch Dogs Legion even confirmed the leaks. “Kotaku can confirm that this one’s real, as we’ve heard the name from several sources plugged into the company.”

Oh, and let’s not forget this lovely fucking article from 2015 where a Kotaku writer apparently speaks for the site and basically victimizes themselves for being blacklisted by Ubisoft and Bethesda. In fact, we’re going to dissect it, just because there is so much bullshit in here from the author, who is clearly speaking for Kotaku as a whole!

Buckle up, kids, your local Sakra is about to get fucking pissed.

The author describes how the Bethesda blackout came after “we reported insiders’ accounts of the troubled development of the still unreleased fourth major Doom game. In May of that year, we reported that Arkane Austin, the Bethesda-owned studio behind Dishonored, would be working on a new version of the long missing-in-action Prey 2 and that some at the studio were not pleased about that. When top people at Bethesda started making statements casting doubt on our reporting, we published a leaked internal e-mail confirming that those statements had misled gamers and that Arkane had indeed been working on a version of Prey 2.”

However, Kotaku at that time had also posted “our December 2013 report detailing the existence of the then-secret Fallout 4.” Reporting on troubled development isn’t an issue. Leaking emails just to confirm a game when Bethesda was desperately trying to preserve their secrecy that you had broken (probably not first, but Kotaku has a lot of mainstream reach) is an issue. I don’t like Bethesda, don’t get me wrong, but they were trying to salvage the secrecy of a project. Do I think trying to lie to the audience in order to keep the existence of a project secret is okay? No, not really. But I understand what they were trying to do. And whether you agree with their choices or not--no shit you would be blacklisted, especially if you have insiders as described here! You can’t go crying victim and martyr yourselves when you do this kind of shit. Especially if you were reporting on Fallout 4, a major fucking entry in a popular franchise!

As for the Ubisoft blackout...

“The current Ubisoft blackout is actually the second in as many years. The company tried a similar approach in the spring of 2014 after we published early images of the then-unannounced Assassin’s Creed Unity—images that had been leaked to us by an independent source. That article confirmed news about the company’s extraordinary plans to release two entirely different AC games in the fall of that year, one for new consoles and one for old. Ubisoft had warmed back to Kotaku by the summer of 2014, several months after the Unity report, but has cold-shouldered us since the Victory story one year ago. It’s possible other articles angered them, too. But that Victory piece is a safe bet.”

Ubisoft actually gave Kotaku another chance after leaking Unity, and the Victory (now Syndicate) story was, guess what, more leaks. You broke Ubisoft’s trust once, then you broke it again. Frankly, it’s fucking disgusting, knowing about how these leaks really affect devs, that Kotaku would dare to turn itself into a “journalism martyr,” as it were, because they were ignored by the devs whose trust they broke.

Now, you can say that maybe they didn’t know the information of how it affects devs--but a) the Sm4sh leaks and the fallout had already happened by then (it was 2014) and the Half-Life 2 source code fiasco had happened in the previous decade. Also, if they had insiders, wouldn’t they know just how serious leaking this information was and how it puts their sources and other devs at risk? Maybe Ubisoft and Bethesda aren’t as strict on their leak policies as Square Enix and Nintendo are--we don’t know. But I can’t imagine that they like it at all.

“I’m sure some people will sympathize with Bethesda and Ubisoft. Some will cheer these companies and hope others follow suit. They will see this kind of reporting as upsetting, as ruining surprises and frustrating creative people. They will claim we are “hurting video games,” and, as so many do, mistake the job of entertainment reporting for the mandate to hype entertainment products.

“We serve our readers, not game companies, and will always do so to the best of our ability, no matter who in the gaming world is or isn’t angry with us at the moment. In some ways, the blacklist has even been instructive—cut off from press access and pre-release review copies, we have doubled down on our post-release “embedding” approach to games coverage. We’ve experienced some of the year’s biggest games from street level, at the same time and in the same way as our readers.”

No.

It isn’t just about “spoilers” and “ruining the surprise.” In some cases, yes, a lot of people don’t like or actively avoid leaks because they do want to be surprised. But that’s not the only thing.

By “serving your readers” and trying to dig for this information, you’re putting devs at risk. You’re putting your “sources” at risk. Now, if you were reporting on development or shady tactics or awful work environments or specific negative incidents behind the scenes or things that should be talked about, I would absolutely agree with you that you should continue digging deeper. But that’s not it. The companies trust you not to reveal something until a certain time, and you go and do it anyway.

By claiming victim and demonizing the “big bad corporation” for blacklisting you, you minimize the actual stress and hardships it put on the smaller guys in the company that the entire company is built on. You completely brush it aside and paint the entire company as irrational. You completely neglect the plight of the actual people working on it, and disrespect them by revealing their information before they do, when they have worked for SO LONG on whatever project it is. Like JP Kellams said, devs earn the right to talk about their product because they worked on it for so long. You haven’t.

And then... this paragraph.

“Too many big game publishers cling to an irrational expectation of secrecy and are rankled when the press shows them how unrealistic they’re being. There will always be a clash between independent reporters and those seek to control information, but many of these companies appear to believe that it is actually possible in 2015 for hundreds of people to work dozens of months on a video game and for no information about the project to seep out. They appear to believe that the general public will not find out about these games until their marketing plans say it’s time. They operate with the assumption that the press will not upend these plans, and should the press defy their assumption, they bring down the hammer. We make our own judgments about what information best serves the news value of a story, and what our readers would prefer not to know—which is why, for example, we omitted key plot details from the Fallout 4 scripts that were leaked to us. We keep covering these companies’ games, of course. Readers expect that. Millions of people still read our stories about them. The companies just leave themselves a little more out of the equation.”

I never thought I’d see the day when video game companies were being victim-blamed.

Frankly, by leaking information, it ruins the relationship between the companies and the journalist, because then the company will start to make generalizations about journalists and not trust them, thinking that they will reveal whatever information they give them, which makes journalists like this press harder for information, and can you see where I’m going with this? It’s a cycle of mistrust, perpetuated by journalists like these who go against the wishes of a company that just wants to keep something a surprise until a certain date.

And then this motherfucker has the audacity to frame companies blacklisting reporters that leak information as bad! “They operate with the assumption that the press will not upend these plans, and should the press defy their assumption, they bring down the hammer.” Why are companies wrong for trusting journalists? Are you implying that all games journalists are untrustworthy, because they won’t respect the wishes of a company that gives them the information in good faith that they won’t leak it? You do say that “it is nearly unfathomable to me that a reporter would sit on true information about what’s really happening in gaming, that we would refrain from telling our readers something because it would mess with a company’s marketing plan,” so I don’t know, maybe you DO think that all games journalists should immediately report on confidential information that the game companies are going to eventually reveal anyway and while only really receiving clout in return. Oh, whoops, got a little bitter there.

“They appear to believe that the general public will not find out about these games until their marketing plans say it’s time.”

Maybe because people like YOU are the ones who leak it! You can just as easily, you know, not fucking do that! This feels more like an excuse to not accept responsibility/deflect criticism, because ‘the companies shouldn’t have expected us to stay quiet!!!’ This is just straight-up victim blaming. Like it’s actually kind of scary.

It’s this ideology that Kotaku seems to stand by, as LKD once stated that higher-ups look over the written articles to approve them, and to my knowledge, Kotaku hasn’t redacted any of these statements, so I’m assuming that they still stand by it. Them spreading this ideology is what perpetuates the idea of game leaks (of the non-accidental, non-ethics-related kind) being “good journalism,” and with how much reach Kotaku has, it has the power to be legitimately damaging.

“They have done so in apparent retaliation for the fact that we did our jobs as reporters and as critics. We told the truth about their games, sometimes in ways that disrupted a marketing plan, other times in ways that shone an unflattering light on their products and company practices. Both publishers’ actions demonstrate contempt for us and, by extension, the whole of the gaming press. They would hamper independent reporting in pursuit of a status quo in which video game journalists are little more than malleable, servile arms of a corporate sales apparatus. It is a state of affairs that we reject.”

And here it is: Kotaku was just the humble, underdog reporter just doing their job, and the publishers show off contempt for the entire industry (rather than just Kotaku itself, I guess blacklisting one site means you hate all of games journalism) for Kotaku simply doing their jobs!

No, you ignorant twat, you broke their trust, so they don’t want to talk to you anymore. You don’t get to play victim when YOU were the one who blew the whistle.

Now, I cannot stress this enough: I am only talking about leaks related to game announcements, content details, etc. that are deliberately leaked to the public from an inside source. I am not talking about leaks related to ethical violations or troubled development or other negative things within companies. Those are things that should be reported on. But that kind of thing isn’t primarily what Kotaku is talking about and promoting; they are promoting the reveal of information because it’s “just good journalism.”

Except, as shown above, it has some very dire, very real consequences for the people you don’t see, and maybe that’s why Kotaku is so adamant about defending themselves in this regard. Maybe they don’t see the living, breathing people who get affected by their leaks, and so they think they’re fighting against the Big Bad Corporation when, in reality, it’s much more complicated than that. It doesn’t feel real to them. Or, maybe they do and they just don’t care. I genuinely cannot say so one way or the other.

I really, truly hope that by reading this, you the reader have a new perspective on how leaks of that kind affect the industry, and the little people whose backs the companies are built on.

As for the article and Kotaku as a whole...

“Kotaku readers always deserve the truth. You deserve our best work. It doesn’t matter which company is mad at us today, or which companies get mad at us in the future. You’ll continue to get it.”

Fuck yourselves.

#kotaku #video games #games #games journalism #hooo BOY this one got angry #but!! it's done and i like it

[illiadd]

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#digital marketing

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

ISTJ social developmental phases

I was reading through your posts when i found one with the anon asking about talking out loud. This got me very curious, so i was wondering if there were more social developmental phases that overlap due to the TJ part. This is, however, my own recount as best i can manage. (INTJ)

Teenagehood - i sucked as a person. No development, social or otherwise. Skipping.

College years - i think more of my functions started developing then. Still sucked big time.

Exploration phase > the initial phase where i realised i needed to interact with people, because group work.

Starting out, i had nearly zero social skills. Very limited. College was also a new environment, so i eased up on the ‘danger everywhere’ button. The social skills i had pretty much existed in theory, from reading…

So yeah. I had a bunch of buttons, but did not know what will happen if i poked them. So i went around pressing all of them to see what happened. I faked expressions, interest in things, dodged personal questions. I found out that playing dumb was the easiest guise. Mainly because i literally could not continue a conversation without giving up the gig. It was less of a conversation i was looking for, and more of watching the other person react. Some opinions (lies) made people uncomfortable, some agreements (still lying) would backfire when i was asked to further the convo. Even when i was 'doing’ i was still observing. Ni-Te?

I burned out in 2 weeks. That was the end of the exploration phase. I’m pretty sure ISTJs would be better at the exploration part. I went fuuuuucckkkk itttttt and shut down most of my attempts at socializing.

I just upped and stop caring about getting along. In my defense, i had a pretty good reason for not trying again until my class reshuffled.

See, people started plagarising my power point slides. As well as the slides from their seniors who went through the same modules. It was an open secret, each 'generation’ would pass their 'perfect’ slides to the next. It was 'perfect’ because they downloaded them from the teacher’s teaching version.

So the only guy that did not get the cheat code was me. Cause i sucked at talking to people.

So what happened was that nearly everyone’s work was the same. Mine was original. So i got an A. Granted, it was the first few lessons, so nobody was expecting that much.

As i was presenting the first power point slides, i was also wondering as to why the hell were people panicing so much, spam clicking their mouse, looking at my slides, then at their computer, then at my slides, then at their computer. It kept happening for the first few days. Then someone got the idea that i was hiding some slides away from others. So i got blacklisted by the class and i had absolutely no idea what was happening and why were people so hostile all of a sudden.

That was how i gave up trying to be nice by the 2nd week. Too damn exhausting.

After that, my teammates slipped the rest the slides that i was doing. They would leave for an 1 ½ lunch, and come back to edit the free slides.

That was not the worst part.

The worst part… WAS THAT THEY ADDED GRAMMAR MISTAKES!!!

WHYYYYYYYY!????!?!?!?!?!

As the weeks went on,

Next up is practice phase.

… i think i submitted the first half accidentally

To recap, i want to know if there are overlapping  trials and tribulations in developing the Te-Fi part between INTJs and ISTJs.

Aight, here’s the second half.

The plagiarism got so bad, that several websites including webMd banned access from my college wifi.

Only the people who did not depend on first page google survived to tell the tale.

Wikipedia was surprisingly tolerant.

I mean, my classmates left the colour, font, font size, italics, underlines, and that little boxed up number at the side that refers you to the references INSIDE THEIR POWER POINT SLIDES. More than 1 person did that. Actually, more than half the class did that.

I don’t know if this is an Fi thing, or human thing, but i was judging them sooooo damn hard.

And i was still being blamed for having original slides

Needless to say, my relationship with my class deteriorated into mutual hatred. I went back into my INTJ ‘everyone is stupid, people suck’ zone.

I stand by my decision to create a ‘no-friend’ zone.

I went into a YOLO phase, where i steamrolled over everyone and anyone without a care. The only ones where i tried being nice to were those people that actually tried working hard. Or just asked nicely. My decency baseline was honestly, just hard work.

As the weeks wore on, the module became harder, and more people started getting desperate… for cheaper ways to cheat past the teachers grading system like they were blind or something.

My developing Te started crapping up more. Cause i sucked at explaining things, it translated to badly written slides as well. The only redeeming point was that the classmates that hated me would pressure the neutral ones i was nicer towards to explain my slides to them. That was how i got plenty of practice with my Te.

The biggest issue was that my Te still sucked at translating my Ni. And my Ni was all over the place. I kept trying to guess what the teacher wanted to see in the slides.

In the end, half my class lived or died by my Te’s competency and my Ni’s accuracy for the next 4 months until they finally realised that i could not be depended upon.

Hey, not my fault.

My Ni screwed me over less than it screwed others over because i could defend my points (most of the time) and through the teacher’s questions figure out what was the understanding that the teacher wanted. Leading questions are leading. Sometimes i would have an epiphany midway through the presentation, and rewrite my script as i was presenting my slides.

Those people that copied and read off my slides got fucked over so damn hard. Even when i changed nothing, they could not understand where my Ni was going on the slides and got screwed over anyway.

Because i had the tendency to screw over the ‘alpha bitches’ in this manner by accident, within the year i became notorious and universally hated by my entire cohort. People that i never met knew i was an asshole. I was still blissfully unaware until i actually made some friends.

Cue the next set of modules in the second half of the year, where the class rearranged.

One day an INFP and an INTP had a discourse.

I joined in.

We tried to kill each other with theories.

We became friends.

Don’t ask me how that happened. It just did.

That also explains how i have so many enemies in class. If that was how i made friends, i can only imagine how i made enemies.

I still don’t know how i made enemies.

But i did, and it was entertaining to skin them alive when they try to snipe me with questions from the left field. More than one time the teachers had to stop me from explaining how wrong their assumptions were and how the correct line of thinking would have went, followed by the multiple scenarios should they pursue the different lines of thought i picked out in the one question they thought was a good idea to throw at me for fun.

Man, Te really only gets better when you don’t restrain it. I honestly think that letting loose is the only way to learn when you have Te.

Cue months of practise later, i finally (about damn time) can explain things in the way people can understand without blowing my top with frustration, and settle with perfecting how to word things nicely.

Still on the way to that.

Looking back, i don’t see much of Fi in my own development, but i am interested in seeing how Te-Fi manifests and develops in ISTJs.

----

.....I didn’t entirely follow this anecdote and I’m not sure what you are looking for from it but based on the last sentence I can point you to some Te-Fi resources.

A good overall ISTJ development guide is here: https://mbti-notes.tumblr.com/post/120439387597/mbti-development-istj. The level 4 description covers the beginning of tert Fi development.

The MBTI Resources ISTJ page has some items I’d recommend reading with a grain of salt (the tert Fi description was an okay description of tert Fi but fell into a lot of the pitfalls of misunderstanding Si), but it might be useful.

Speaking personally my Te and Si seemed pretty okay by college, so much of my development in college was Fi: understanding that people who had different perspectives, particularly moral/ethical ones, could simultaneously be ‘correct’, as well as developing an identity that went beyond Si and Te. I went to college being basically the smart, dutiful one, and I had my interests but I didn’t really have an ‘identity’ so to speak. That was the bulk of my college and early 20s experience: figuring out who I was when I wasn’t defined by external standards.

#mbti #extroverted thinking #submission

[skstreamtube-blog]

Most Noticeable Skstream Film

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Netflix has no lack of stand-up comedy specials, and at times it's overwhelming to try to choose one to watch. The expression TV may just stick around for awhile yet. We're very content with the way the movie was. After all, regardless of what the procedure of consumption, stories are simply stories.

Several contemporary reviews weren't only highly critical of the movie, but expressed outrage and revulsion. When it's movies you're searching for, have a look at our curated collection of the Best Movies on Netflix Right Now. You have to enter payment information to set up the account, but should you cancel before the conclusion of the free trial you won't be charged. Together with that news, additionally, it announced a new website named Stargate Command, which will grow to be the de facto online house for fans of the franchise. Another way to stop getting this page later on is to utilize Privacy Pass. If you're able to compress your HTML, you might have a more compact size website.  skstream film

Most Noticeable Skstream Film

Most important, it provides the service something which will bring in comic book fans and represents the kind of content Netflix would like to receive its hands on. The organization has kept the particulars of the service near the vest, beyond saying it will likely cost less than Netflix and will launch sooner or later in late 2019. As companies including Netflix and Amazon continue to cultivate their user base, Disney is hoping to obtain a way to set up a toehold in the streaming revolution upending Hollywood. The market is saturated with movie streaming websites, all which are sharing enormous catalogs of every type of film possible. Also add the ability to Blacklist Streams which you don't desire to see later on. The choice to stick only to anthologies resulted from the very simple actuality that if you take a great, hard look in any way the best scary TV shows throughout history, it's the anthologies that always have an inclination to dominate the entire list! There's also a dilemma of casting.

If you become on the incorrect side of the family there'll be trouble. You have to cancel prior to the end of the trial to prevent charges. That's the part that becomes really difficult since you don't have a good deal of time and everyone has quite substantial standards. We've limited free time, and there are a lot of movies it's difficult to know which ones to watch.

Within seconds you may take pleasure in the very best streaming experience ever! Forty-seven stand-up comics from all over the world trot out their finest bits within this collection of half-hour specials, which provides a superb chance to sample new and diverse comedic voices. The odds are, you've heard a great deal of hate concerning the prequel movies. Sometimes, you merely should slow down. But you have to be watching it anyway! In the 1990s, it was simple. Not one of this is TV in the conventional sense.

#skstream film

[instantemail-blog]

Tips And Information To Make Email Marketing Work For Your Business

Not every company knows how to effectively use marketing, especially online. With today's technology, email marketing can be a smart way to boost your business. The following article will provide you with some very useful ideas on email marketing and how to put it to work for your business today.

Make all emails as personal as you possible. As in many businesses, people like a personal touch. They will do business with a person they feel friendly toward. As an example, if you happen to know the reason they signed up for your emails, then be sure to include something about that in your email.

Always have one clear message in each email. It is important that your audience does not grow bored or bogged down by an excessive amount of facts within a single message. Think of what your message is, and say it clearly and simply. Your consumers will like it when they are not bombarded with unnecessary information.

Before you send out emails, make sure to proofread them. It is imperative that your emails be error free. Prior to message distribution, test email layouts so you know for sure that all the text and elements show up in your preferred way. Additionally, test all hyperlinks in your email and double-check that they point to the right place.

Consistency is important. Use your logo and a standard color scheme in each email you send. Use a clear and legible font style. By doing this, you begin to create brand recognition, and customers will look forward to your next message. Familiarity is vital to the success of any business, and that also greatly applies to email marketing.

Don't send out emails without getting the permission of the person you're sending it to. Businesses that are taken seriously do not send out mass mailings via email. Some people may be so put off by it that they may actually end up not wanting to work with you anymore.

It is a very good idea to require people that are interested in receiving emails from you to double opt-in. This may appear like an unnecessary extra feature, but this can, in fact, ensure that only those who sign up who are genuinely interested and this eliminates trouble for your company.

It is important that you get adequate permission from the people you are going to send emails to. By doing so, your gain customer trust, and protect your reputation. You may even be blacklisted, which really hurts your company's credibility.

Clearly posting an unsubscribe link is recommended. Don't fail to include one or bury it so that it is not readily apparent. The goal is to give your customers the freedom to choose what they receive, not to force them into something they may not want.

Ensure that you're utilizing a strategy that is very persistent. While you must be persistent, it needs to be used with the proper consumers or it won't help your business. Reaching out to an audience that is not appreciative of your efforts will be a waste of everyone's valuable time.

Change up your formatting once in a while, to imbue a more intimate feel. If you send out regular emails in HTML, consider doing them in just plain text format every now and then. If the message is well-written, it can help you to connect with the customer, which will increase their desire to support your company and its products or services.

You should make sure you are adding correct email addresses to your list. A result of not having valid addresses is that valuable time is wasted by having to track down correct addresses and resend emails. It simply wastes precious time!Some people use temporary email address to sign-up on websites. When you build the list to start sending emails, ensure that you thoroughly check and remove them as they are of no use.

When customers sign up for your emails, ask them for their name. When you have this information, you can personalize email messages for personal attention. When a customer is identified by name, they feel less anonymous and emails are welcome.

Don't forget that you're building a brand and reputation through your email marketing campaign. Cutting corners, using deceptive practices and targeting uninterested customers are all unacceptable. The reputation you create for yourself is vitally important, so keep this in mind when developing your emails.

Come up with a sales list that is highly targeted. The best way for you to do this is to build the list around your most reliable customers and their close contacts. If your mailing list seems like it's a great way to get exclusive information about whatever you offer, the list will become more targeted and that makes the emails seem like they're more important.

Always proofread your newsletters before emailing them to clients. While obvious, it is an easy way to prevent simple mistakes. You may think it's only an email. Think again! Your email marketing strategy is an important part of your marketing campaign and must be done correctly and attractively.

If you have already branded your business, incorporate your branding into your new email marketing campaign. Keep the same color scheme every time, and don't forget to incorporate your company's logo in each message. If you have built up a strong reputation, then your emails will be seen in a good light.

You should always get permission from your customers before you add them to your email list. If you do, your emails will be viewed as unwelcome solicitations, meaning they won't be read and will instead be instantly sent to the delete pile. Sending email that is unwanted will work against you. Starting by doing things properly can make your efforts appreciated by your readers.

You can get your audience's attention by sending out a coupon. The coupon should be provided by having the customer click on a link in the email. At the end of your email, tell them what it is they will save by using your coupons.

Marketing your products successfully becomes easier with an effective email marketing plan. Creating an email list of your loyal customers is a great way to interact with them, give them special offers and build an even better relationship with them. Incorporate the tips provided in this article into your email marketing strategy, and watch as your business succeeds.

Many business owners commonly deal with the concern of how to get more consumers without spending a fortune. Email marketing is a great way to accomplish this, and you can get started immediately. Take the time to read on if you are not too familiar with this strategy. The following article will provide you with a great introduction!

If you plan to use emails as a marketing tool, you must first gain permission from each customer you would like to include in your campaign. You will lose customers and possible even your website host if you engage in spam.

Use A/B testing to test out different combinations in your subject line. Send half of your messages with one subject, and half with the other. This way, you can see which kinds of wording are successful at garnering a response and which kinds of wording fail to do so.

The greater number of options that you provide to your customers, the greater effectiveness that you'll experience with your email marketing attempts. Let your subscribers decide on the the number of messages they receive, how often they get them and what information they want to disclose. The greater amount of control that your customers have over this, the more comfort they will experience.

Don't send emails that require images to present information. Most email clients today, especially web-based ones, will not properly display these images. This could possibly make for ugly messages or ones that are unreadable if they rely too much on images. You should always use text for your important information and use alt tags to describe your images.

Try using some sort of call to action within your emails. Tell your audience what you expect from them. When you include links, be sure to make them easily seen and even include instructions that cover how the links should be used. You can even repeat these sections in both ends of your message, the top and the bottom.

Use email previewers to your advantage when using preheaders. This is simply the opening line of your email, highlighted. Many email clients show this text underneath the subject of the email, allowing the reader to get an idea of what the content is.

It may sound obvious, but it is very important to ensure that you store correct email addresses. It would be a waste of time to have to find the correct email address and resend your emails. Doing so is a time waster!

Ensure you do not add an email address to your email address list unless you have authorization from the person to whom it belongs. Don't pad your subscriber list as you will only end up with a less valuable list that will frustrate your potential clients and the email owner. Additionally, ISPs and web hosts won't hesitate to cancel spammers' accounts.

Keep in mind that the purpose of an email marketing scheme is to build your business's reputation and generate more business. Be sure you don't cut corners, target inappropriate customers, or any other misleading techniques. Never forget that every action you take effects your company's reputation.

Email subscription forms should include information as to what your customers can expect from you. Tell people how many and what kinds of messages they're signing up to receive. This prevents someone who expected infrequent emails about cats, for example, from becoming surprised when they get one email a week about dogs.

In order for your subscribers to feel special, try to personalize the emails you send them any way you possibly can. If your emails feel mass produced, customers will often delete the messages and stop reading future offerings. Including their first name in emails is simple, but you can get even more personal. Look back to see when, why, even where that customer signed up for your newsletter. Use all of this information to focus your message to your readers' needs.

Email marketers should always proofread all submissions. This should go without saying, but many people get into the habit of writing an email without thinking. An email is a causal mode of communication, right? Think again! You need to have a refined and effective email marketing strategy and campaign.

Give your subscribers a birthday message. Make sure you put an field so your customers can share their birthday if they choose to! This simple step can go a long way to make your customers feel special, especially if you include a special discount, coupon, or other offer along with your greeting.

Set up a confirmation process for those who opt-in to your emails. This will make it easy for someone to double check their desire for mail from your business. Although it asks more of your customer up front, it is one way to help prevent complaints against your business for spamming.

As you build your email contact list, do so naturally. Avoid buying or renting lists. Use business cards to build your email lists, and use sign up forms for followers. This will let you email interested parties and help your business grow.

Your subject lines should be less than 60 characters. Long subject lines often get shortened, or simply cut off in the middle, by certain email services and programs. Some email clients won't be able to display anything that's too long. Regardless of this, your customers will not need that many characters to decide whether or not to read or delete your message.

Do not limit your emails to a sales pitch. Your messages should include useful information about your business and the industry you represent, in a professional manner. If you only include sales pitches, your customers will be unsatisfied, which could lead to them unsubscribing from your list. While your messages might be beneficial to you as a selling medium, your subscribers need benefits of their own in order to keep giving you their attention.

Clearly, all businesses can take advantage of email marketing in order to attract greater numbers of customers, for a much lower cost than other types of campaigns. For that low cost, you don't have any reasons not to make use of a good email marketing plan. Apply these tips to your marketing strategy to start seeing results!

[bowsetter]

The Daily: Belgium Blacklists More Crypto Platforms, UAE Prepares ICO Regulations

In this edition of The Daily, Belgium’s financial regulator has expanded its list of fraudulent platforms offering cryptocurrency investments, while UAE has announced it’s working on new ICO regulations. We also look at the plans for a common digital currency in the Eurasian Economic Union and Abkhazia’s intentions to regulate its growing crypto mining industry.

Also read: Bitcoin Posts Record Volume, Ledger Plans Major Update

Belgian Financial Watchdog Issues New Scam Warning

Belgium’s Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) has updated its list of companies suspected of operating fraudulent cryptocurrency investment schemes. The regulator has recently added 14 new websites offering crypto asset trading and other services, bringing the total of reported online scams to 113.

In a new message to investors, the financial watchdog noted that despite its earlier warnings, it continues to receive new complaints from consumers who have invested in digital assets through the blacklisted businesses. “Hence, the FSMA repeats its warning against the fraudsters behind those platforms who are using cryptocurrencies to swindle consumers,” the agency said.

The regulator emphasized that most of these platforms are based on the same principles. They usually claim to offer secure, easy and lucrative investment opportunities and expertise in the management of these investments. Clients are often told their funds are guaranteed and can be withdrawn at any time. In reality, however, they inevitably find themselves unable to recover the money.

UAE to Register and License Crypto Companies

The United Arab Emirates’ Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) is gearing up to introduce regulations for initial coin offerings (ICOs) in the first half of 2019. The decision to establish a dedicated regulatory framework for digital token sales is aimed at providing startups in UAE with the option to raise capital through crowdfunding, local news outlet The National reported.

According to the publication, the SCA has already recognized tokens issued in coin offerings as securities and will work with the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and Dubai Financial Market to develop trading platforms for ICOs next year. The watchdog’s chief executive, Obaid Al Zaabi, detailed:

We have signed agreements with law firms to come up with a sandbox and rule books for ICOs. The legal requirements will be completed by the end of the first half of 2019.

Al Zaabi added that after the introduction of the new regulations, UAE authorities will work with local exchanges on the implementation of relevant technologies and the development of the necessary infrastructure. He also stressed that the country will remain open to foreign investments in the industry, providing registration and licensing to crypto companies from around the world.

EAEU Plans to Issue Digital Coin by 2021

The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is likely to introduce a common digital currency within the next two or three years, according to comments made by Russia’s deputy finance minister Alexei Moiseev. The coin will be similar to the European Currency Unit (ECU), which was used in the European Economic Community and later in the European Union between 1979 and 1998.

Moiseev added that not only EAEU members – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia – but also the union’s partners have shown interest in adopting a common digital currency in their trade and economic relations. He also said that a group of experts is already working to develop the idea.

“Inevitably, we have to move in that direction because of the mounting difficulties with accounting. The number of organizations placed under sanctions is also growing. We must respond by creating reliable international payment systems that are not tied to the U.S. dollar,” the Russian official stated, as quoted by Tass.

Abkhazia Mulls Mining Regulations

The Republic of Abkhazia, a partially recognized entity in northwestern Georgia, is planning to adopt regulations for its growing cryptocurrency mining industry. Its president Raul Khajimba recently scheduled a meeting with members of the territory’s government to discuss the drafting of a law dedicated to placing the mining sector under supervision.

The announcement comes after the head of the state-run energy company Chernomorenergo, Aslan Basaria, complained that mining farms set up in abandoned Soviet factories put additional stress on the country’s electrical grid which is already loaded to full capacity. “If temperatures fall, there is a risk that electricity will not reach regular customers,” Basaria warned, quoted by regional media.

According to Eurasianet, Abkhazia is emerging as a crypto mining destination much like neighboring Georgia, the country it broke away from in the early 1990s. Both share a large hydropower complex located on the de facto border, which satisfies most of Abkhazia’s electricity needs. In recent years, Georgia has become a regional leader in crypto mining as it offers miners some of the lowest operating costs in the world.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

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