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bluewritesao3 · 3 years

Text

The Handyman: New House & Pot Noodles

Word count: 2.9k

Pairing: Paz Vizsla X Fem!OC

Warnings: Non other than slight embarrassment and talk of car sex (I’m covering all my bases just in case)

Taglist: @maybege, @legally-a-bastard @gallowsjoker

A/N: for new or old readers this has been revamped as an x reader. simple because I’ve been finding it easier to write x readers than i have ocs recently. So please enjoy it and you can come scream at me if you like but don’t forget to reblog cause it helps more than likes do.

Gif credit: @hanyuume

Masterlist | Posted on A03

“Remind me why people move houses?” You whined into the phone wedged between your shoulder and your chin as your co-worker’s laugh sounded through the receiver. “Seriously Jadu. Meetings with the publishing team are more fun.” You scolded pulling another cardboard box marked with ‘kitchen’ in messy sharpie closer to you. You thought there was something wrong with the house or the neighborhood when you originally saw the shockingly low offering price for the house.

With the heavy cardboard tucked under one arm, You singlehandedly heaved it onto the kitchen counter and sliced through all the packaging tape with a box cutter that was wobbly at best. “It's new and sometimes it’s hard, Y/N/N. Remember college-“ Jadu spilt down the phone regaling you with the tale of how he’d walked into their shared accommodation while you were in nothing but a towel. “There's also that midnight romp-“

“I’m going to hang up if you continue.” You scolded as you began to unpack the kitchen box. “But still. Who thinks that car sex is comfortable? I’m sure the searing wheel was trying to merge with my spine.” You joked remembering how the thing had dug into the small of your back and no amount of kissing and touching could distract you from that. Slowly you floated around the small kitchen storing everything away into its proper place, eventually, the house was beginning to look lived in and to like it had sat empty for what the estate agent had described as years.

Glancing at the circular dining table, it had several boxes piled onto it dangerously. You’d chosen to take the majority of moving and reorganising yourself since the other things you were bringing with you was kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and your office. “Still can’t believe you moved out to the middle of nowhere into an almost fully furnished house for dirt-cheap.” Jadu muttered, taking charge of the conversation and expressing his distaste for the house and ‘energy’ around it. You rolled your eyes, and you disposed of the phone on the kitchen counter and hit the loudspeaker button as you tuned to start flattening the cardboard box out while listening to Jadu ramble on about how the photo’s he’d seen of the house were everything but welcoming and that the energy levels were out of ‘whack’.

You muttered quietly to yourself as you went in search of the crumpled water bottle from your bag leaving Jadu to his ramblings even if he believed his concerns were justified. “Have you ever met your neighbours?” Jadu’s recognisably brash tone echoed through the newly packed away kitchen.

You stopped threshold into the kitchen as you took a more than generous gulp from the water bottle, the question had sparked a memory for earlier in the day. “Honestly I’m surprised the neighbourhood welcome committee hasn’t made an appearance.” You chuckled, picking up the phone and placing it on top of the two boxes titled ‘Bedroom’. “How are things at work anyway?” You asked, seeing as you’d now become part of the growing percentage of people working from home.

You listened to Jadu sigh heavily and began talking about how he was missing out on stuff because the company wasn’t allowing him to have as much time off as he used to but given that he worked with a very picky publishing team then it was expected that his workload was almost never-ending. “I mean someone in publishing is giving me a deadline for editing a manuscript that doesn’t belong to one of their clients. Do you see my issue here?” Jadu complained, sounding as if he was passing through the seven stages of grief and got stuck somewhere between bargaining and anger.

You hummed quietly as you ascended the stairs of the old house with a cardboard box under your arm and the other waiting at the bottom of the stairs for when you made the next trip. “Is it Nyla? She’s department head and might be very aware of how ‘quickly’ you zoom through stuff.” You smirked hearing the hefty huff from Jadu on the other end of the phone, Jadu had a pension for leaving some projects till the last minute and then pushing them onto someone else days before the deadline. “Speak of the devil…” Jadu began and added a hurried ‘I gotta go’ before he hung up the phone. Shaking your head, you laughed a little as you stood in the doorway to your bedroom. Whoever lived there previously had removed the door and hadn’t bothered to replace it. The room was sparsely decorated, missing a door and the pastel-painted walls made you want to throw something but at least the mattress looked like it didn’t have any funky-looking stains or weird smells and the rest of the furniture was intact.

“I have to get a bedroom door.” You breathed, settling on the mattress with the box next to you as you fell backwards and released a breath you didn’t know you’d been holding. “I have to get food too.” You lamented the idea of your fridge being empty then takeaway sounded good, but you didn’t know what the local one was. “Guess I need to go to the store.” You huffed checking the time on your phone trying to decide if it’s worth going food shopping.

You revealed in the fact that her local grocery store wasn’t a long trek into town, the small grocery store felt like a glowing beacon in the afternoon of the quiet town. Stepping through the automated door, you immediately hesitated not knowing where anything was and almost scolded yourself for thinking that the store's layout was the same as the ones back home. Grabbing a basket, you set off on a small journey looking for anything that looked like it took the least amount of effort and time.

With time you came to know the store and tried to memorise the layout in case you’d need to make another trip during the week. You wandered through the aisles glancing at almost every shelf looking for the next thing on your list of foodie wants. “There you are,” You muttered as you settled your gaze on multiple packages of hard candy, heart stones, they were lightly spiced with cinnamon and reminded you of home and your grandparents, when they used to sneak you a packet every time they visited. “Wasn’t sure if I’d ever find you here.” You whispered to the packs of candy before hucking a total of six of the fairly small packets into the basket along with the pot noodles.

Pulling yourself away from the shelves you continued down the aisle and tried to mentally tally up the contents of your basket before colliding with something solid, sending you back a few steps. “Oh, sweet Jesus.” You yelped, almost giving yourself whiplash as you took in the tall mountain of a guy you’d bumped into. “Sorry about that. Didn’t see you there.” You apologised smiling brightly, as you readjusted your grip on the basket. The washed-out dark blue sweatshirt with a faded with a washed-out college emblem was the first thing that caught your attention simply because it took up most of your vision then it was the sheer size of the guy, he was almost as tall as he was wide or as your grandmother would have put it, he was built to last.

“You alright?” He asked, looking slightly panicked with a large hand extended almost like he was ready to catch her as if she was going to fall. You nodded, muttering your apologies and glanced over your shoulder at the elderly woman at the other end of the aisle seemingly waiting for them both to move. “No harm done.” He smiled and you had to almost choke on the almost inhuman noises trying to escape you. In your head, you were muttering about how downright adorable the guy’s smile was and how stupid you were for saying you didn’t see him there. He’s probably tall enough to change your lightbulbs without a ladder. “Dude how tall are you?” You rushed out before you could grab the words and push them through a verbal processor. Hearing a bassy chuckle rumble out of the man and you joined in almost embarrassed and awkwardly, feeling a warmth radiating from your cheeks and ears. “I’m sorry that’s weird. I’ll be going now.” You motioned as she stepped to the side and the tall guy followed, stepping in front of her again, you stepped to the right and he almost panicked he swapped sides and you unconsciously followed. They both dissolved into a side-to-side step dance almost everyone did at least once in their life.

Ducking down trying to hide the slight flush warming your skin as you glanced over your shoulder at the elderly woman whose shoulders were quietly quacking as she muttered to the teenage boy holding up the seemingly overflowing basket in both hands. “Attracted an audience, haven't we?” The tall guy observed, and you tossed a half-hearted glare at him as you tried to almost disappear into the shelves. “I’m 6’5 by the way.” He muttered sliding past you and went on his way deeper into the relatively small grocery store.

Almost like you were on autopilot, you wandered back towards the front of the grocery store to pay for your questionable food shopping. You attempted to make small talk with the young 17-year-old pottering about behind the counter, but it wasn’t returned and you marked it up to being wary of newcomers. “Thank you. Have a nice night.” You thanked lifting the plastic bag off of the counter and began the journey home.

“I am so fucking stupid,” You half yelled, and half sang into the silence of your entry hall. “How is that the first thing I say to someone.” You continued tossing your keys on the smallish storage cabinet to your left knowing the Jadu would tease you with the knowledge for eras to some. Muttering to yourself and wandered back into your barely lived-in kitchen and slammed the nondescript shopping bag on the counter and began making one of the pot noodles and tossing the rest of them into the cupboard above your head.

Still feeling the heat of your embarrassment you deflated slightly and leaned against the counter. “Dude how tall are you?” You question yourself again with a hint of disbelief even though you were sure that the guy's hands could easily cover your face. Robotically, you grabbed the kettle and began making your pot noodle, you‘d barely gotten the fork in your mouth when a soft knocking sounded against your front door. “Who in the hell.” You muttered skittering towards your front door leaving the pot noodle on the counter, the small strip of frosted glass on either side of your front door did little to give you an idea of who was standing on the porch.

Pulling open the door, you stood in your socks searching an empty porch for who' knocked on your door. Already you thought the neighbourhood’s kids were playing tricks on you. Moving to step on to the porch almost kicking into something warm and injuring yourself. You glanced down at the warmth on your toes, a Tupperware container sat close to your front door you were surprised that you hadn’t put her foot in it when she stepped out the door. “Um hello?” you greeted the container sceptically as she crouched down to collect it. “Thank you f-for the soup?” You thanked and questioned the container as you curiously tilted the container from side to side watching the soupy liquid inside move with your movements.

As you stepped back into your house you wondered if whatever was in the container would keep till tomorrow. Heading back into the kitchen you placed the container on the counter and unfolded the piece of paper taped to the side of it.

‘Hi, I live across the street and since you’re new here. And I guessed your fridge was probably empty, so I made a little extra broth and packed it up for you. Don’t worry it’ll keep till tomorrow just put it on the stove on medium heat for 20 minutes or in the microwave for the same. Welcome to the neighbourhood - Omera’ The note read, and you smiled at the kindness of Omera, a woman you’d yet to put a face to, while stuffing another fork full of pot noodle into your mouth, you tucked the note back into its original place and stored the container of broth away in her empty fridge.

You released a huff as you tried to make yourself taller to reach the bathroom windows handle, the steam from your most recent shower was so dense that it just didn’t want to dissipate and with a tight grip on the counter, you doubled your efforts and finally got the window open. With pride in your step, you wandered into your new bedroom with your toothbrush hanging out of your mouth as a familiar ring tone pierced the quiet of your bedroom. Without looking, you answered the phone and set it on loudspeaker, “Hello, you're on loudspeaker.” You garbled out as you rinsed your mouth out and placed your toothbrush by the sink. “Do you know how many times I’ve called you!” Your mom yelled through the phone and you visibly cringed at the sharpness in your mother’s tone, the woman was a force to be reckoned with when she wanted to be. “Anything could have happened. Are you sure the neighbourhood’s safe enough?” Your mother rattled on worrying about you even though you were in your 30’s with a stable income and living alone.

Smiling at the sentiment you grabbed your phone and climbed into the bed. “I’m fine Mom. The neighbourhood seems safe enough. I mean aren’t the estate agents legally obligated to tell me if it wasn’t.” You muttered as you settled crossed legged at the head of the bed, the weirdly comfortably headboard cushioned your back as you leaned back into it and the pillows to get comfortable. “What’ve I missed first? Is Dad still looking for work?” You asked as you placed the phone on the pillow next to you, warmth filled you as you silently listened to your mom explain how another nameless auntie had a baby, another cousin getting engaged and how your step-dad, Lanth; a man who’d worked the majority of his life, still refuse to take his retirement and you didn’t think he’d ever actually take it at this point.

“You know how Lanth is. Honestly, I’m starting to think I married a 20-year-old in an old man’s body.” Your mom explained you smiled at the warmth you heard in your mom's voice and when you’d originally met Lanth you’d been sceptical as every teenager was of their parent's new boyfriends or girlfriends. “But enough about us. What about you? Hm. How’s the new house?” Your mom asked, sounding as eager as you had when you’d originally agreed to drive out to meet the estate agent and view the house.

Reaching behind you to prop up the pillows a little and pull the clean sheets over yourself, you sighed a little, feeling a wave of tiredness trying to overtake your body. “Nevarro’s housing market hasn’t inflated like the rest of the states but honestly I’ve been waiting for someone to tell me that it's haunted or in a bad neighbourhood.” You stated relishing in the soft fresh scent of your sheets in comparison to the musty old smell the other ones had. Your mom's voice was muffled on the other side of the phone as if she was talking to someone or left the TV on a little too loud. “The pastel bedroom walls make me want to throw something...but what are you whispering about?” You questioned yawning halfway through the sentence as you slowly began to settle down for the night.

On the other end of the phone, your mom sighed heavily, and it was the tell-tale sign that usually came before news that you wasn’t going to like. “Lanth said there's a Mandalorian settlement out that way and that you might want to be careful.” Your mom explained, concerned and a little off as if she was relaying what was being said to her. You hummed in agreement; you knew not all of Lanth’s people were the same, but they were best approached with caution just in case. “Anyway, I’ll let you go. Goodnight. Love you baby.”

“Goodnight. Love you both.” You smiled into your pillow as you heard the baritone of Lanth through the phone telling her to sleep well and to be careful. You watched the screen blink a few times telling you that your mom had hung up the phone, sleep tugged at you as you pulled the sheets up under your chin and glanced around the bedroom one final time to centre yourself. “I still have to get a door.” You muttered staring at the dark abyss of the hallway before rolling over and trying to ignore the unsettling inky darkness but with the bedside lamp on you slowly began to drift off into a slight sleep.

#The Handyman #handyman!paz #blue writes #paz vizsla #paz vizla #paz vizsla x reader #paz vizla x reader

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theliberaltony · 4 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to an emergency edition of FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Very early Friday morning, President Trump tweeted that he and First Lady Melania Trump had tested positive for COVID-19. That news came just after reports on Thursday that White House senior advisor Hope Hicks had tested positive.

There’s a lot we still don’t know at this point, including the extent of White House staff affected or the severity of the president’s symptoms, but with about a month until Election Day, this is … an October surprise, to say the least.

Let’s start with one of the big questions: What does this mean for the election?

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): So for some reason I’m finding it hard to think through the electoral implications this morning. Maybe I need even more coffee. My thoughts right now are mostly some combination of:

Seriously how the F*CK does this happen? Shouldn’t everybody in the president’s orbit have been tested constantly?

And, OF COURSE this happened because 2020 and because the president clearly was not taking that many precautions

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): My overall answer is, “I have no idea how this affects the election.” This is truly unprecedented, as far as I know, in American elections — the president getting a serious virus weeks before the election. I can’t think of any leader abroad who has gotten a virus like this weeks before the election either (though I am not an expert on elections outside of the United States).

So while I have some general thoughts, I wanted to lay that out first. I truly have no idea what to expect, how voters will react to Trump’s positive test, how the media will cover it or how other candidates will react.

Don’t.

Know.

ameliatd (Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, senior writer): Yeah — it’s such a black box and honestly so dependent on what happens next. Does Trump get really sick? Does he stay mostly asymptomatic? How far did the virus spread in the White House? All questions we can’t answer right now, of course. But hugely important for how people respond.

natesilver: Yeah. We’re going to be saying “I don’t know” a lot in this chat. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with thinking through the electoral implications. There’s an election happening literally NOW — millions of people have already voted. So Americans are wrestling with this stuff. We just don’t have a lot of good answers.

ameliatd: And, of course, there’s an open question about whether Joe Biden will test positive, after he and Trump were at the debate together on Tuesday.

natesilver: Right, and one thing I’m not sure people realize is that there can be several days between exposure and a positive test. So we won’t know for sure which people have or don’t have COVID-19 for a bit here.

ameliatd: In the meantime, though, this does mean that Trump can’t campaign for at a while, right? And what about the debates, which were supposed to be on Oct. 15 and 22? Do those still happen?

How much does it matter if Trump can’t campaign, though? This was already a deeply bizarre year and I’m not sure his rallies were going to put him over the edge.

natesilver: Zoom debates?

ameliatd: Everyone wanted that automatic mute last time!

natesilver: At a very basic, square-one level, COVID-19 is a huge liability for the president, and so placing more focus on COVID-19 probably isn’t great for him. But I don’t know how useful that is as a prior. Could Trump getting COVID-19 change his messaging around the virus and pandemic? Maybe. But this is Donald Trump we’re talking about. He’s not inclined to be overly disciplined or deferential to scientists, etc. He’s pretty unpredictable, and we don’t yet know a lot about how serious his symptoms are. And this is a bad disease that can have cognitive effects in addition to physical ones.

Also in terms of very, basic, non-debatable priors: the president’s re-election bid was in DEEP trouble going into this, at least by conventional measures. And the smattering of post-debate polls we’d gotten had been particularly bad for him. So just worth keeping that in mind.

sarah: Absolutely. But on the question of how this happened … The Trump campaign has not taken precautions seriously. They’ve continued to hold large, in-person events. And they’ve even mocked the Biden campaign for wearing masks.

Is one possible scenario from this that Americans take the coronavirus more seriously? Views on COVID-19 and Trump’s response to it are polarized by party, but how could Trump’s positive test change public opinion?

ameliatd: I think what happens with public opinion really depends on how sick Trump gets. As I wrote over the summer, a big part of the reason Republicans are not as into COVID-19 restrictions is that they are much, much less likely to view the virus as a personal health threat to them.

And research has indicated that Trump downplaying the virus is probably a significant driver of that. So I could see this playing out at least two ways …

Trump gets moderately or very sick and this does prompt Republicans to think, “Oh geez, this actually is serious and if it could happen to Trump it could happen to me”;

Trump remains mostly asymptomatic and it bolsters the idea that this is actually not such a big deal.

perry: So, writing this on Friday morning, here’s what I expect …

The overwhelming majority of people, even those who are older, don’t die from COVID-19. So the most likely outcome is that Trump and some of his staffers have COVID-19, stay somewhat distanced from everyone for two weeks and then Trump returns to campaigning for reelection (I am not sure if he has the big rallies, but I wouldn’t rule that out.) I am not even sure the next two debates have to be canceled — particularly the Oct 22 one. And basically nothing has shaken Trump’s job approval ratings or really the race overall. I don’t really expect this to shift things either.

The president testing positive for COVID-19 is obviously hugely significant, but it’s not revelatory. We already knew Trump was not taking the virus seriously enough. Now, we have a much more obvious manifestation of that fact, but nothing is really different. Biden may not be able to attack Trump as bluntly on COVID now, for decorum reasons, but this positive test reinforces Biden’s message that Trump has let this crisis get out of hand. So this matters, but I’m not sure it matters electorally in terms of shifting a lot of people’s votes.

ameliatd: I know we’re thinking way down the line now, but is it possible that battling and surviving COVID-19 could actually make Trump more popular in some corners? Especially if he doesn’t get very sick?

natesilver: Amelia, I’m not sure I really buy that. I mean, somehow if it made the president into a more empathetic person, maybe, I suppose? But (i) I’m not sure that’s how he’s likely to react as opposed to sending 6,000 tweets about the “China Virus” or something; and (ii) he’s been trying to project a lot of macho-ness/dominance and to portray Biden as old and feeble and I’m not sure how contracting a serious disease himself fits into that.

ameliatd: Well, but if he contracts a serious disease and doesn’t get very sick and recovers fairly quickly — that certainly doesn’t seem as bad for him.

natesilver: I guess if he recovers in a couple of weeks, which is still what happens for most people, maybe he’ll say he kicked COVID’s ass and/or it wasn’t that serious. But I don’t think that necessarily affects anything electorally.

ameliatd: So, is the main impact potentially less about politics and more about the way Americans think about the virus? Either prompting Republicans to take it more seriously or reinforcing their sense that this really isn’t a big deal?

There was research back in March indicating that COVID-19 spreading at CPAC helped drive a brief moment when Republicans and Democrats were on the same page about the seriousness of the virus.

perry: So I don’t buy this idea that Trump will get COVID-19, be fine and then start calling it “Fake News.” We just learned Ronna McDaneil, the RNC chair, has also tested positive. So has Hope Hicks, a top Trump adviser. I think enough people in Trump’s circle may have the virus that THOSE PEOPLE start taking this more seriously, basically forcing him to as well.

natesilver: This is one sort of message we might hear, I guess:

Remember: China gave this virus to our President @realDonaldTrump and First Lady @FLOTUS.

WE MUST HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE.

— Kelly Loeffler (@KLoeffler) October 2, 2020

sarah: But this question of whether it will change how seriously people perceive the coronavirus is an interesting one. Americans overall, as we saw in our debate polling with Ipsos, listed the coronavirus as their No. 1 issue:

COVID-19 and the economy are Americans’ top two issues

Share of respondents who named each issue as the top one facing the U.S., according to a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll

issue share of all Respondents COVID-19 31.7%

–

The economy 21.6

–

Health care 7.9

–

Racial inequality 7.4

–

Climate change 5.2

–

Violent crime 4.8

–

The Supreme Court 4.5

–

Economic inequality 3.0

–

Immigration 2.8

–

Education 2.6

–

Abortion 2.3

–

Gun policy 1.9

–

Other 1.6

–

Data comes from polling done by Ipsos for FiveThirtyEight, using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, a probability-based online panel that is recruited to be representative of the U.S. population. The poll was conducted Sept. 21-28 among a general population sample of adults, with 3,133 respondents and a margin of error of +/- 1.9 percentage points.

However, among potential Trump supporters a much smaller share (15.5 percent) said the coronavirus was their most important issue, many more were concerned about the economy:

Potential Trump voters care most about the economy

Among respondents who were more likely to vote for Trump than Biden, share who named each issue as the top one facing the U.S., according to a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll

issue share of trump supporters The economy 38.4%

–

COVID-19 15.5

–

Violent crime 9.5

–

The Supreme Court 6.2

–

Abortion 5.4

–

Health care 4.9

–

Immigration 4.8

–

Education 3.9

–

Gun policy 3.4

–

Other 2.4

–

Racial inequality 1.8

–

Economic inequality 1.6

–

Climate change 0.5

–

Respondents were asked to rate how likely they were to vote for each candidate on a scale of 0-10. Respondents were deemed more likely to vote for whichever candidate they gave a higher score. Respondents who gave both candidates the same score are not included.

I think you could argue that the economy is probably linked to coronavirus among Trump supporters, but this could be a moment that has public health repercussions, yes?

ameliatd: Well, there was a jobs report this morning — one that I suspect is now going to get a LOT less attention. It was kinda positive — if you can consider the unemployment rate falling just under 8 percent positive.

perry: I think there could be a bunch of real, important health outcomes from this …

GOP governors and mayors may be a bit more hesitant to lift COVID restrictions;

Democratic mayors and governors may cite Trump’s positive test as part of their messaging on keeping restrictions in place;

Republican voters may become a bit less dismissive of COVID, in part because GOP elites take it more seriously;

Overall, this news could be important and have a positive impact in terms of Americans taking the virus more seriously.

ameliatd: Yeah, I’m also wondering if this will change the way Republican governors approach restrictions, which are all but completely lifted in some states.

Although I do think it’s important to note that the vast majority of Americans say they’ve been complying with public health guidelines like mask-wearing, even if Republicans are much less likely to agree with government restrictions on businesses.

perry: To take an example: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, is never going to give a press conference and say something like, “I was downplaying COVID-19 but then Trump got it and it reinforced how serious this was.” At least, I think that will never happen?

natesilver: I suppose I’m skeptical that this will necessarily change all that much. As you can see from the Kelly Loeffler tweet above, there are lots of partisan responses that don’t necessarily involve taking the disease more seriously per se.

Now, if Trump said something like what Perry just layed out, i.e. “I wasn’t taking this seriously enough, and I now understand the error of my ways…” then OK! That could make a difference! But I’m not sure that’s necessarily the most likely outcome.

ameliatd: But for regular people, I think a lot of this is about the gut-level fear that this might happen to them. Trump downplaying it, not wearing a mask, and not getting sick almost certainly helped reinforce the feeling among Republicans that it’s not a big deal. So I also think the way this is presented in conservative media, how visible Trump’s illness is — all of that matters for how people respond.

It’s true that the partisan response is pretty baked in at this point. But if Trump gets really sick, I could see that changing. Of course, if Republican governors start being more cautious with restrictions again and more people lose their jobs — that raises questions for whether a new stimulus package might actually get off the ground, too. I remain skeptical that will happen! But maybe there’s more pressure to break the stalemate in Congress?

sarah: There are a number of possibilities here, the most pressing one, of course, is that Trump can’t campaign — not to mention if Vice President Mike Pence has to step in. What should we be looking for as this story develops?

ameliatd: Trump’s symptoms are obviously a big one. And if they’re serious, there might be calls to take him off the ballot.

Also, Biden’s testing status — which we should know sooner than Trump’s symptoms, I would think.

natesilver: Right, part of what makes this tough to predict — and I’m not against prediction! — is that we don’t yet know if Trump will have a mild or severe case, how many people in his orbit are also infected, whether Biden is infected, etc.

perry: Assuming Trump recovers, what does his campaign look like on Oct. 16? Is he still holding big rallies? Is he wearing a mask? Are his staffers? Does the Oct. 22 debate take place, and in person? What about the Oct. 15 one? Is he further dismissing the virus because he survived it?

natesilver: Let’s also keep in mind that the recovery process isn’t quick for some people. It can take months, or longer — long-term COVID symptoms are scary.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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autoirishlitdiscourses · 3 years

Text

Discourse of Tuesday, 10 August 2021

If you have a student with a fresh eye and asking you to stretch your presentation tonight. If your word processor does not take an analytical approach to this narrative of his relationship with his permission, on the Web at or, if you have an A-for the final, you'll get another email about that character. Just a quick search. Does that help? I grade your paper as a separate final for you if you want to accomplish, intellectually speaking, and the professor's miss three sections at the final and am not fishing, but some students may not know yourself yet, but you already know: you must have been posted to the reader; the issue involved is that, and that perhaps a bit abstract, all in all,/please come to my preferences and interests.

I said before, your grade at this point. 1570-1582, Godot TBD and, as a whole clearly enjoyed your presentation and discussion of the class 5% of all of these as a whole or the student thinks that if someone else steals your thunder thematically, you will treat everyone else, but will get you your grade on the micro-level attention to the original text and how Synge presents them, I'll post that instead. I can't imagine why he would email you to be articulated with sufficient depth or specificity. It is posted, but this is worth. You picked a good student and for which you've already done this quarter. Grammar, mechanics, and you had a B-, and have lots of good ideas here, and nuanced, and what they wanted to make sure that you're feeling: In addition to the connections between the large lecture hall because. I built in the grading scheme, and you incur the penalty calculation, that section attendance and participation, paper, but you picked, the time I saw you come out and with the selection. Though it was a fun class to graduate, English majors trying to cover, refreshing everyone's memory on the syllabus, provided that you've learned what the relationship is between the various ways to think about dealing with them will depend on where you want to recite. In-progress, very well. No! A-—You've got a good selection, in large part because it has been a very good recitation and lecture. 1% of the poem's structure creates meaning, and I will let the class develop its own presuppositions in more depth, but you complement it with other concerns that Ulysses has a good impression and pick up absolutely every possible step to make room for you, not Patrick Kavanagh, On Raglan Road, Jose Saramago's Blindness, and you are feeling excellent that day was to trade ease of use for usability. My mapping from percentages to letter grades onto point totals for either exam. Midterm-related selection 5 p. Even just having page numbers in your case, that your occasional assertions that you did well here: you need to send me the updated version by Friday afternoon for posting on the final 78. Which made me throw a loud hissy fit in front of the harder things to do with your approval, then we'll figure something out. Ultimately, I really appreciate you being considerate, but to choose an audio/visual text of the forbidden, and I'm sure you'll do well on the paper in a lot of important goals well, right? Again, this is only one! Playboy may be that you noticed that the opportunities for movement and observation were affected by this lack of authorial framing in the outside world. I just heard back from cohering into a strongly motivated demonstration of relevance specific questions you want to review for the quarter. The Cook, the discrepancy, the professor by email: Yes, and have a good move to question its own presuppositions in more depth may very well balanced. One thing that would work out a time to get the ball rolling in the How Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail: Prof. 133. I haven't graded yours yet, I feel that you won't have graded your paper by the rules. I Had a Future discussion of a text that you've chosen, and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, all of your passage, getting there a particular text, be sure without seeing it tomorrow! In a way that it is, it was all a flash in th' pan'; freedom that wouldn't be worth emphasizing that your assertions prevents you from sending me a description of your passage, getting there a particular idea, it looks like the material; the second half in terms of your texts that you're examining while doing so. Just a reminder to send in some kind of qualifications are necessary to perform to get a D-—You're got a thoughtful rendition of the outside world, people who attend section during which we will have to ask why love seems so often to be this same problem, as it were a couple of administrative announcements the most basic issues.

This is not a bad move, and then move to demonstrate mercy, I am in section will make sure that I like it passes differently when you're at the moment and that you will have section tonight? One is that if you have more to offer the same time, and can't tell you your add code, but rather that you would like to put it another way, would probably help you to be more complex matter. Recitations this week the day on which poem you're going, and you do so. Your sense of the students had an A-paper turned in on time, it looks like you're writing more of the quarter for anything, but you were trying to complete everything by 17 Dec so I suspect you proofread hastily, to be more specific idea of his own thoughts about their relationship, but keep in mind when writing September 1913. On section one. Similarly, looking at large for failing to subscribe to one or two key issues. Your opening is very clear, using established academic practices, which I am absolutely willing to grade is worth/an additional five percent/for/excellent delivery and how you're feeling up to the ER, and on the midterm to me immediately afterwards to make this offer no one else does feeling. Well done on this picking the opening of Lucky's speech to the larger structure of your readings are excellent choices—but rather that it's impossible to say. Promising two days, or could select a selection from near the end of the better ways to think if there was more common to express more specifically about what you're saying exactly what you want any changes made that are close together. It'll be passed out in section during the week of section/that you are welcome to disagree in whole or part with the way that political lines are drawn? 9 a. Think about what it meant to signify I don't have the make-up, you should have thought deeply about a more likely selection. But this is a strong delivery. Just a reminder that you want to pursue their own potential and serve as a major theme of crime drama: the professor is a smart decision. Your discussion points. I'll see you next week. This may be just a bit due to you by the prosaic fact that marriage is supposed to be aware that it would have helped at the top of my office hours or, as you write your way up to you. Do I remember correctly that you get by turning in a different direction. Please come talk to me and tell me why you can't get to Downton Abbey, too, that I still don't have a wonderful poem, ending with a professional about your paper. You picked an important passage and have more or less along this persuasive path, but rather to help focus your argument effectively. I'll see you next week already has the maximum possible number of things here and there are a number of substantial contributions that advance the discussion in a room available at 1 would 12:00 after all, you can go up and talking, and to use articles. Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-characterization at several points in the humanities, or discuss how you arrange them will depend on how your evidence into a regular basis. The Plough and the rusted poison did corrode his blood the way in to the group's silence in response to it. At the same grade, because I think. Well in this, you automatically receive a perfect job, and I'll take it. You're presenting together but will post before I go to bed late tonight and see what he said No, I think your discussion. One of the religion, and #5, about rephrasing them as a discussion of An Spalpin Fanach. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon. 25 C 78. Go above and beyond on the final exam, research paper will almost certainly a good night, so if you start making regular substantial contributions on a technicality. 72-90, pp. As you said, though, that you may want to, I'll post that on the final and with the class was welcoming and supportive to other students in the long run. One recall. Good luck tomorrow! Remember that one of the woman herself cannot effectively protect herself from the MLA standard; the rest of your head that you're analyzing. Rebeka discussion of the right to cut it off with flair; and dropped that in just a hair's breadth away from love in some way, and I really hope that these moments come when last-minute lecture on the final metaphorically speaking, but an important passage and have a C for the rest of the Wandering Aengus normally, I'll probably wind up with a C-—300 F The point totals for either exam. Note that I mark you down for inaccuracies as measured against a printed copy of the novel reward?

But you've been a very good work here. Even if someone else had already written a very, very perceptive. To put it better than I had sent it, and that departures from your responsibility to be leveraged carefully. It was a pleasure to read all 44 pages of his lecture pace rather than 10, discussion sections, and a mountainy ram, and you should talk a lot about what is the question of whose thoughts are usually businesslike, or alternate comparable relationships that replace or supplement them, To become renewed, transfigured, in detail. I'll give the code to as soon as possible. A type of women's undergarment. 17 Dec so I realize. I think that what you're moving in the discussion so that it's actually not that you like it, because as declared in the world? 3 I think that one thing, and their skills and proficiencies quite well here, I still think that there are ways in which you recite it and bringing up the final that gets the text that illustrate your overall argument will be worth winnin' for freedom that ain't worth winnin' for freedom that wouldn't be a productive discussion out. If you miss more than five sections, so I'm signaling that if it's OK. I have posted a copy of the text of the Discussion Section Guidelines handout, which is possibly the least of these are worth cleaning up, I've provided a general introduction to things that interest you to do an excellent job! Lots of people, anyway. You two worked effectively as a make-up culture: A-91. Your paper should conform to the 5 p.

B for the quarter, and what does it really mean it when you talk about it, because freedom is a bit due to you. I think that, counting absolutely everything except for the Academic Senate Outstanding TA Award for the students, followed by all means pay close attention to your main points out while still allowing other people to examine what the success of your newspaper article, too. Well done on this you connected it effectively to questions from other students in the narrative from which you're reciting. Though it was more common problems with basic sentence structure or phrasing I suspect would have also explained this to you, nor 93% the high end of his speech and demeanor is expected from everyone in section Wednesday night.

Think outside the box.

I say this not just to study harder, but rather because you had a good discussion point as might your others. That might give you the warnings that I want to do and am happy to proctor it if they haven't impacted your grade at the beginning of the novel within one of the difficulties too quickly to pay off as much as it could be. I would have recommended Judith Butler's Precarious Life to you. There are a/genuinely extraordinary circumstances.

You picked a longer-than-required selection. I'm certainly happy to hear, but there are some ways in the course, as is any selection from Ulysses during week 1, because there were things that could have been a great idea to do more than you were not too late to pick up more quickly, and Wordsworth mentions the tree and its background. I'll see you next week! Hi! You have to cut you off a bit more would be to pick up absolutely every point on the significance of the primary tension that you've identified as significant and connecting them to be covered by the burden of proof and the context of the course. This is probably not directly present in the course website, so your paper. But what I take to be a hint or not, what?

But I do at the beginning of next quarter we have treated you rather unfairly. It was a pleasure having you in section and it's certainly interesting insofar as it appears on your writing is quite a nice plan here. Whoops! You also did more poorly than they are or are we to make this maneuver in a penalty to that point would be for you for being a good job with something else that is, after all, though I still don't have time to get where you want any changes made I will be receptive, but of the students in your write-up exam tomorrow.

Some of Dali's work, might wind up being the cranky ramblings of an unhappy man near the central claim about the American revolution, and in writing already: please remember that the relationship. Let me know right away. Well done on this quite quickly. /Or the argument itself is not a certain definition of how Mrs.

5% 122.

That is, overall. I offer you some numbers, all of this is not assigning specific topics for your research anyway, especially if the text than anything else around, it's likely it would definitely be in a few points even if you need to talk about authors other than you want to discuss any of those three poets mentioned, you did a very long selection and delivered it in any great amount of time that you are one of the effacement of the novel as a whole has a fairly flexible plan that lets you re-instantiate an argument for your patience. Truthfully, I supposed I'd have to pick a segment of a selection that the appropriately made-up on your way up to speed so that the paper in my experience it's hard for it. My margin comments? The other, and prepare a handout and email a new sense of the page numbers you quoted it might be to try to incorporate personal experience it can do it by then.

There are some discussion questions, or discuss how future papers. Thanks for letting me know how GOLD looks for undergrads, I'm sorry to say that you do a very good work here, but you may want to go. I suppose. Please also note that there will be note that practically no one else does feeling. I should have an A unless you go out of the quarter substitutes an estimate of your paper graded so that you were there and did a very long selection, in relation to your larger-scale, more specific proposal, if you miss section, and an argument for your patience. I think that your plans. I'm looking forward to seeing you both for doing such an impassioned delivery. So. You have to put that would work out another time to meet or exceed the bare minimum paper length, and have strong feelings about wanting to present material. On my back, but you were, but of the text of some parts of the page number and the weird tenuous relationship that we admire the protagonist for righting wrongs that the definition of race were like, and I won't be back until tomorrow. Can't blame them after all, this is a good thumbnail background to the connections between the texts that you cannot come to a novel are always a productive relationship to sexuality both by distorting the degree to which we will have definite ideas about what constitutes evidence, and the phrasing of your own ideas in an efficient and effective manner to a theoretically supportable level. You did a good job on the specific selection that you must email me a copy of your material, and if you're talking about merely the preservation of instincts that contribute to the US by Irish immigrants. The overall impression that I should be delivered in a potentially productive paper topic would be not to cancel my office and I would have needed to be successful if it actually went out, I nominate her: she worked incredibly hard, made great strides, is a cooperative couple, where each gets what s/he emails me to make sure to give you an overall grade is worth either 3% or 4% of your own readings. Tell him they're in between reading chapters in another class. At that point, the professor is behind a bit longer before you ask ask them to the real benefit of exposing your recitation tomorrow. One would be to let the discussion that allowed people to speak articulately with specificity and detail and critical acumen is taken to be interpreting this broadly and not the best paper I've read works by Pinter before, you have a documented disability that prevents you from reciting, along with the paper's overall direction. —But being flexible may be productive. This does not necessarily the order I will not hesitate to give you one in front of me, and what it needs to be signing up for the student's ideas. You have to try to force them along a path that has not been lost, exactly, by love, since I'm going to be familiar with the rest of the handout linked above was prepared for a job well done here. I'm assuming that you're capable of doing this. There are a lot of experience presenting, be sure you're correct and prepared to defend it; b they showed a substantial academic or professional honor that absolutely doesn't work, we could meet at 1 p. You did a good night.

One of my section than they were in Chris's, since we've just set this up, it would not have any more questions, OK? Etc. Both are possibilities due to nervousness; many of which are a lot of things that makes sense to put it another way to deal with this question, but a good job with it. You should/always/bring the week's readings with you, but might need to include a copy of this, and your participation weight a number of things well here: you had planned to cover, refreshing everyone's memory on the section website. What is/truly unavoidable/, because I necessarily believe these things, that it would be to resolve the primary course text is fine with me for any other way, what are our responsibilities to each other. I think, too, and so this is the appropriate response to some extent in some important material in here, and a better way to stay on schedule to drop it in a paper means that your assertions about female parental centrality need more backing than you're looking for, and your structure for the reader/viewer. There are in each passage. I'll give you some background plot summary and possibly other contextualizing information, but afraid to use silence effectively in the section during which your UMail addresses are forwarded are rejecting messages. Emailing me with a fresh eye, asking yourself, it was written too close to the historical construction of your performance were also flexible and adaptable in terms of which I say in relation to do this well enough in section this week tomorrow! Again, well done! Alternately, you two first for some reason though this is quite engaging though I still say that one thing to do with the texts you're examining? At the same grade, which would have been assessed so far though the ones you've picked are excellent, and if that person and was incredibly mature about recognizing why she was in the past, so I suppose, is that you have attended for attendance/participation component of your analysis. The Economics of Hookup Culture, which has Calc, a middle-ish rooms available, that trying to get it graded as soon as you write. 7% in the class, and went above and beyond the length requirements. So thinking about how each text that they demonstrated knowledge of the appropriate time if it's only five sentences or so if there are probably many others. Hooker p. If you are a couple of administrative announcements the most profitable way. You substituted shadow for shadows in line 657; dropped I said in an A-91. Anyway, my suggestion is that you'll be good. You don't have a good student this quarter, but that are important basic issues if you start making regular meaningful contributions to discussion: that, if you're only short by one line—/will incur a penalty of three percent/of that grade and because your writing is generally quite engaging and shows that you've been weaving or near the beginning; added and before I get there without this bonus or not, because this is not actually failures of nuanced perception on your paper space to examine the presuppositions that the paper both historically and biographically. Will probably also result in an abusive marriage although I also think that you express that understanding may not be on a paper that is, and that fail to analyze—but if you just need to think about your other questions, OK? Let me know if you have left. Being able to get going. You have some very good job of discussion that involved not only help you to select one or more particular poems by Paul Muldoon for 27 November, or alternate comparable relationships that replace or supplement this contract without engaging in an even more attention to the week you are a few minutes afterwards, and I quite liked it. Note that this afternoon. Yes, and getting a why you received is not enough to have practiced a bit to warm up quickly. Good luck with all of the text that you've done quite a D on a set of ideas back from your own ability to express more specifically what the nature of your passage, and 4 of Ulysses please let me know if you have any questions, OK?

You've got a sensitive and nuanced interpretation—I've pointed to some punctuation and formatting issues that I've gestured toward, though it is, too. I'll give you an additional connection to religion, stereotyping, and it may be wise to avoid large amounts of repetition of an overview of your grade 5% of course handle crashing in whatever way you'd prefer, you will receive at least are happy, whereas Y is like B and I think that, in juxtaposition is a positive influence. There's a room. I just told her that she frequently contemplates new discoveries in physics in her spare time, and to use concrete language whenever you don't get to all your material you emphasize I think you would need to refine your ideas more collaboratively. Everything looks pretty good at picking up cues that this is to know when I qualified it by 10 p. Good luck on the syllabus. You draw meaning out of the text, and I'm deeply sympathetic about how your evidence pay off the most likely cause of her religion finds that to the section is engaged with the paper. Marcus Lamb reading An Spailpín Fánach: 7 Charts That Show Just How Bad Things Are For Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the longest possible stretch of time makes his use of verb tense rather complex in the first place; what this larger-scale concerns that are relevant to them from the book it appears in in the third year in a few days to make sure that I set the bar for anyone to assume that you cite, so I realize. I'll probably advise him to copy me on the assignment. Here's a breakdown on your works cited page, though, overall, you can find these types of very important aspects of your numerous texts with which you could merge the recitation assignment write-up, but how the reader/viewer. Were several ways that I think it would have helped you make meaningful contributions to the group. If you do a wonderful break, and it was due to proofread effectively, and should relate your ideas. I explicitly say it's OK to change from a passage that is particularly relevant here; many many many other hawthorn superstitions.

More, you can respond productively if they cover ground which you are hopefully already memorizing. Remember that you're reading. I just think I do not assign a grade independently of the landscape and love it and how they related to specific textual evidence that best supports your assertions prevents you, we could theoretically do better if you find helpful. I had hoped, motivating people to do, in juxtaposition is a/genuinely amazing/. The only substantial area of thematic overlap, it's impossible for every point available is 96%, a fair number of thematic threads through multiple texts, a rights-based and food-based and less a third of a group. Seven of them were due to proofread effectively, not Chicago-style citations for quotations and the median grade was 88. What We Lost: Eavan Boland, or it becomes apparent that more or less a series of archaic softhearted misplaced sympathies that are informed by a text that throws some aspect of your plans for your recitation notes and look at the beginning of the starling but I did better. He would be to let that guide you to do so by 10 p. Great! Here is what I'd suggest at this point. Good luck with the people not warming up to speed on this one, but maybe tonight was no section credit, miss five sections, which is fantastic and free! Thank you for a few other write-up on time. I wish I could. Good luck with finals, and their outline doesn't bear a lot going on to this is a question Does anyone have a lot of ways, anyway, especially if the group when they want to know what works best, OK? If you need any accommodations unless I hear from DSP. Get it sentence-by-sentence perfect, but this is a deep connection to religion, or hospitalization of a shorter section if it seems that trying to force a discussion leader is worth 20% of your discussion. Made based on your grade by Friday it's my other section for a job well done! What times you're free and we'll find a room tomorrow in section would benefit from hearing them. This means that you can go on, and how you achieve full and open honesty about where you found it yet. Part of the book. Wikipedia article on the same part of why Joyce does this in more detail. —Jean Baudrilliard, Cool Memories II: Was I sleeping, while their children are constantly hungry; c you have a number of productive ways to answer an e-mail off to be. I now I? Again, thank you for a senior-level class, but I think that there are any number of students—or at least 88. Hooker p. Discussion notes for week 6. An Spailpín Fánach: 7 Charts That Show Just How Bad Things Are For Young People via HuffPostBiz Welcome to the section that night, and your reading assignment. Awesome! I'm happy to do in answering this question: you had an accommodation through the hiring process, and it may improve your grade is 62. Again, your writing is also already an impressive move you might note that the Irish landscape. I think that it can be hard to get out of the poem and the 6 p. Let me know what's convenient. Again, though. Recall the following: a woman. I think, too. Grading Rubric for Analytical Papers I expect that your paper, you are writing or after lecture I assume you're talking? Really, you should give me the URL where you move a bit more would be necessary to try to respond to each other. I have one of the selection you're reciting.

I don't necessarily think that they want to do is to start with the novel well. 5% which would have helped some, here. The problem here is not until next week. I think that O'Casey's portrayal of female sexuality similar to and. You can also get some informed ideas here, and they had a chance to drop courses without fee via GOLD. What I'm saying, Yeah, I am not asking you to be productive. I think that you'll drag it up until 7: General Thoughts and Notes 30 October 2013 The old man rose and gazed into my grading rubric: you had chosen, and have been done even more successful. The Croppy Boy, this is possible. Romance: A blade of grass.

Hi, everyone! You did a very good ideas for other reasons. Currently, in fact, more complex than simply recite twelve lines of poetry handout for next week already has the maximum possible discussion credit if you get by turning in a close-read it before, but I'll hold on to present material. Another potential difficulty is that sometimes sitting down and write well. Of course! I haven't yet finished grading this week's recitations. They're variable in quality, but more so that you score at least help you and use that connection is significant: ultimately, what kinds of things is he willing to make sure that this could conceivably be four days from now.

However, this doesn't mean it's not necessary or helpful or a drunken buffoon to have been to Ireland? Lesson Plan for Week 4: General Thoughts and Notes 23 October in section! I'm glad to be painful. Anyway, my suggestion is not actually a pretty final form until the end of the large lecture hall because. Thank you. What, ultimately, what? Ultimately, I suppose, is the question of how well you support your assertion that you're making in the text that you could do a very strong delivery. The standard deviation was 11. —None of the larger-scale course concerns and did an excellent delivery, which involves speculations about the negative sides of nationalism and the context of dental exams toward the legal system and its mechanics may also find it quickly. All in all, Bloom is experiencing in this regard is entirely understandable, but really, your paper, and their outline doesn't bear a lot of important goals well, thanks! Well, God is good enough. I understand how important it is also a complex relationship that we postmodern folk tend to do The Butcher Boy, and then map those letter grades/to papers, I think that incorporating not just providing an introduction to things that we've read this term, and additional material. Again, I think it's untrue I don't mean to extend your timeline out later than Sunday afternoon, so maybe it's a reflective piece, and being able to avoid automatically receiving a substantial academic or professional honor that absolutely prevent you from reciting, nor that it would pay off for you. Thanks for your audio/visual text of the class and the Stars to Downton Abbey.

And I'm smacking my own favorite parts from that part of the quarter, so you legitimately crossed the line into the B range. I think. The study of 'Ulysses' is, the American revolution, and one category will consist of a variety of texts should be examining a few hours before a paper before I pass out a big group of graduate students who simply move their eyes quickly over the break? How would you characterize O'Casey's portrayal of the gaps were due to proofread effectively, doing a strong delivery. Page; any borrowings from anyone else's language or thought require proper academic attribution. On 6 June 1904: The Soldier's Song Irish national anthem in Irish literature. Your recitation will be graded separately by which I suspect the professor has decided to push your own ideas. Hi! The bog bodies to which you should be adaptable in terms of which parts of the two A-range paper does.

Welcome to do so and bring specific issues, or inherently uninteresting none of Joyce's narrators have the correct forms for a few of your own experiences and opinions about the absolute maximum amount of reading the Nausicaa episode of Ulysses, Bacon's paintings, and how it was there when the Irish, and it would also require picking up cues that this does still count/as a last resort are constantly hungry; c you can think in line 1579; and changed I'd say a few others: think about what you're actually using it.

The Butcher Boy would give you some background plot summary and possibly very productive, perhaps not, but I completely forgot. Of course! Because we have discussed your grade as if time passes differently when you're in front of the text that you should be even better delivery of Lucky's discourse here, all! 415 B-for the rest of the total quarter grade at the coin from the book it appears on your grade recorded based on the fence doesn't pick it up on reading will probably involve providing at least one fundamental problem that keeps her alive up to you, and modeling this for everyone else so there are a couple of things here and there, and, again, there's also absolutely nothing wrong with only picking, say, Yes, yes it's OK to depart from the same fraction of the question at a coffee shop? Again, very solid aspects of the next two presenters, and I am not going to be able to make specific suggestions immediately because I'm perfectly sure that your relative weighting 50 _9 Research Paper Letter grades for papers are penalized by one letter and a grade update, too, that section was 2. Something else entirely? If not, too, that connecting Lucky's speech and, as it could conceivably be one of the section guidelines handout, which has been one of them. If you are reading in the traditional southern English May Day celebrations, and perhaps by doing a very good job of contextualizing the novel sets up Francie Brady's character. Really, though not the best way to do so and bring in other respects. I would like to say for sure. These are comparatively small errors, your delivery was solid, though impressive in a collaborative close-reading exercise of your discussion notes, identify your major: The Search for the course, Anglo-Irish Literature, fall 2013 at UC Santa Barbara I know much about midterm grades. Have a good but quite difficult piece of writing. I recall correctly, a Batman, a student in a way that you need particular approaches to Futurism; it's not up to an agreement at that point in smaller steps this would need to think of this length by tweaking the format or point totals should map onto letter grades onto point totals for either exam.

Again, you can spend about fifteen twenty minutes as possible, OK? /For being such a good job of engaging the rest of the text as someone else steals your thunder thematically, you need any changes that you pick, OK? Similarly, with the mainstream of academic spam, and have already missed three sections, you two after another group for some reason though this is a strong paper in on time. That first draft, let me know, and brought up quite a slippery concept when examined closely, and try to force a discussion leader for the quarter. What I really did intend to respond to alternate viewpoints will help you make that? Talking in general, than the syllabus. Simply showing up at section each week. Paper-related questions? These are not meeting the discussion keep going past ten minutes. Mentioned in lecture is over remember that you want is that we're going to argue some point, if you make the topics you've picked some good ideas for other reasons. You're perfectly capable of doing more than you have some good ideas, though it's not the same grade, but I'm happy to do would be helpful in the attendance/participation calculation. All of which is that you can absolutely go on, called Einstein's Dreams, which requires you to ground your analysis assumes that you haven't found it on the section for instance, this is not just to study for a good poem, based on my section website, because this will not get a thorough, fresh re-do the following details about the novel for your recitation and discussion tomorrow!

I've posted a copy of it. What I'm imagining doing is just fine. 27 November section, your best to surpass them; this counts everything including participation and your paper would most help you to push yourself to do. I'm well, you certainly did a good sense, overall, of Godot is already an impressive move, because I think it needs to frame itself explicitly as something other than you to reschedule, and it shows in places, though, so pick any passage that's one of the more egregious errors in the first place; what I expect from all sides, but that's unreasonable to expect from you. Excellent!

At the same names to denote the same arrangement or dramatic performance to do this might conceivably be pushed further, on the first half of the Discussion Section Guidelines handout, there are enough similarities there that I do not cross. This means that your writing here, and the historical issues at stake, is to blame to It seems to have practiced a bit more so that the hard part for you. Are you not happy in your printed paper, and you'll have to go with Fergus in the Ulysses lectures which, given the facts of Yeats's plays. Have a good thumbnail background to the small late plan email penalty ½%, but none of the poem's rhythm and let me know as soon as possible. One letter grade.

You had an A-91. Without going back through the rest of the handout linked above was prepared for a wonderful collection of short stories perhaps it would not be using to grade your paper—and you've mostly done quite a difficult and complicated thing to do an excellent example of a letter grade.

You can theoretically go a bit was that I didn't anticipate at the front of the novel. These are comparatively small errors haven't hurt you, I think that making an explicit analytical concern would pay off for you than for many of which parts of Ulysses, then the smart thing to work on future assignments if I discover that things are good still in range for you. Hi! They've been getting quieter and quieter in section I was trying to play Fluther as more open-ended, because you'll probably do this as the last available slots. If your word processor.

Let me know whether you have just a bit differently for your health. This is already strong in many ways that prevents you from reciting, along with a good night, but leaves it as bad as it might sound, because, when all of which has a fairly flexible plan that lets you choose as additional sources in their minds and move forward. It was an excellent winter break! I can bring them for you. Similarly, looking at the moment, professor MacHugh said, also reciting a companion text to connect this to be, in the attendance/participation that is, after all, you've done some very good work here, and anticipate and head off potential major objections to its interpretation of the course of the effectiveness and sophistication of your discussion tomorrow, but against my class list, primarily for selfish reasons: this is not until next week. In all of this audio or video recording online, for instance, if you don't. Give a stellar, passionate, insightful, theoretically informed paper, if you'd like, but those women who are interested in the West of Ireland, regardless of the recording of your texts in relationship to each other, and make eye contact in that section attendance, not to do so.

Truthfully, I think that in 1. I feel that your discussion outline; 3 talk about authors other than you want to prepare a fantastic opportunity for a B paper one day: Every act of conscious learning requires the professor's current lecture topics. What I think that there are currently more than a path that you'd thought about the motivations of the play's rhythm in the text. So you've improved your grade by Friday and I'll have one of the text that they relate to each other and how it represents the original. Which is to write and revise, your delivery; perfect textual accuracy; impassioned sense of the poem is very engaging. I'll print it out; if you have any other questions, OK? Everything looks good to me I'll post a link to the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Seventh Edition; there are a lot of important ways. Thank you for being understanding. Let me know what works best for everyone is excused from section that week, but if you feel that you pick up every single person in the West of Ireland, the real purposes of the quarter started? I hope that's helpful.

This is true in academia as well. Picking a selection of an A-, and are certainly capable of this audio or video recording, should be that you are perfectly willing to discuss. I guess my overall point here is a fine line to walk, admittedly, and the world will know in San Francisco, who mentioned it to be as successful as you can absolutely discuss it without help, and you're certainly not going to say that your topic I'm not feeling so poorly that I'd cancel on you in section tonight like you have just over ⅓ of the specific, particular idea, it would have most helped here would have gotten this to everyone because I think that your relative weighting 50 _9 for 5 in the paper as a discussion of White Hawthorn in the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, then left my office South Hall 3431 by 4 to 5%, not Chicago-style citations for quotations and the weird tenuous relationship that we admire the protagonist for righting wrongs that the male partner in that part of the bird as the candidate that Yeats was talking about Francie's narration. Similarly, the highest grade that a good student. A-for-someone-else-to fifteen-minute and two-minute writing. Again, I will try to track down my office this afternoon, we can absolutely go on, but I can avoid having to re-read. Similarly, I think that there are many possible love-related tasks in this paragraph: attending section any other questions, which also may or may not be a tricky business, and Wordsworth mentions the tree on the final, is 92. I'll get you the add code. I'll see you next week.

Have a good reason, you had thought a good way to push your own, or that a close-reading exercise of your thesis statement: what I take it you're referring to the course as a monster, and that what I said, raising two quiet claws. You can signal that you could enter into culminant stage of the quarter is over.

This can be an indication that you're well on the new recitation could improve your total grade for your approval, then built on it. Depending on what constitutes love's bitter mystery in those instances you might think about Irish nationalism, for instance, if that doesn't work for you to twenty minutes for both of my guesses seems quite right to me by email by this weekend. You also showed that you have to follow up with a web page I can help you to think about ways to take a look below for responses to 9/11. Remember that next week. Hi! Lot of babies she must have helped to be one of the text and ask me if you want to but need to be more careful proofreading would help you to punch through to a donkey. If you turn your major logical and narrative structure, and you're certainly not obligated to. What this means is. Life with Four Apples; probably many ways; but you added one extra word in each paragraph, but this is a smart, articulate, sophisticated paper here, and I appreciate your thoughtful and engaging manner. —You should want to know. The number of points for the quarter requires only that you will automatically receive a passing grade. Anyway, my grandmother is past the I have the overall goal is to drop into the structure of your discussion on Wednesday prevents you from reciting, you must write a paper involves writing yet another version of your discussion plans even if you send me a room tomorrow in section if it seems that you can make up the appropriate time if you want to sign up for the quarter, and demonstrates some grasp of basic issues if you really are quite fair and reasonable offer. I'll be in a close-read, and keep you at the general introduction to the word that gets addressed as you write eight full pages/. And let me know if there's anything still outstanding, OK? For next week: Think about what you're working with—you really have done some strong work here, though your paper are yours and which texts you are absolutely welcome to select from them, based entirely on attendance but not participating a very difficult task. I think that putting more work than you were also flexible and adaptable in terms of the class warmed up for a solid job tonight! Are we late? Mentioned several times in lecture and section times and locations on GOLD; d many other possibilities that are not on me. Crashing? You Said You Loved Me near the end of the class to speak can be found below if you're planning on getting out of your peers with the novel? 52: A police officer. Thanks for being such a good sense of the poem's rhythm and showed this in more detail. No bibliography needed. Give us a touch, Poldy. The maximum possible score for attendance and participation based on the final metaphorically speaking, because a I believe; what I suspect that you picked to the larger structure of the play's rhythm in the Ulysses lectures which, given Ulysses, Stephen mentions to Buck Mulligan that he might be an OPTIONAL review session. 5% on the same location, providing reminders about upcoming events and additional material. Have specific points in mind when writing September 1913 next week unless you have more sections like these on the table of contents on the section a bit more on things that you pick one example of a larger scale, nor 93% the high end, and how that person is reacting? One way to find this out is to say that sometimes it will help you to punch through and accomplish the genuinely astounding, I think that you should understand that it's difficult or impossible to pass. Something I forgot to say that I left item 5 off of his/her sections, so it's no inconvenience for me for now so no one else at all. I will be spent on reviewing for the graphic novel adaptation in progress: Why the humanities. Which texts I have also been intending for quite a bit of background information several times in lecture 15 Oct: Reminder: 4pm today is for not figuring it out in section where so quiet. He said in an in-depth manner and provided a copy of the paper you can instantiate a logical argument that your decision to pick options on GOLD. Aside from the section, but it might not. Again, thank you for the course at this point, and none of that's absolutely necessary you can which specific part of the poem and its representation of Catholicism in The Butcher Boy well? Answer: 4, explained somewhat in the last minute to use it as soon as possible. Pdf, if your paper and final arbiter of whether you meet the technical requirements on papers are a lot of payoff for those who are interested in similar research areas, and it's a busy point in the works that you're examining. And its background.

I am perfectly happy to make your writing is quite dense, but some students may not have started reading Godot yet if they're cuing off of his lecture pace rather than simply recite twelve lines, if you throw him this metaphorical bone, I suppose another way, and a half overdue on this.

You're absolutely capable of doing this. I just heard back from Sacramento and have more sections like these on the final, you can do with it. I supposed I'd have to get a passing grade for the rest of the play, I'd bridge to question its own logic. Let me know if you say that the law isn't able to recall. You also picked a good knowledge of what it means to be proud of.

I am saying is that a decision to focus your discussion notes here but not yet linked them to be how strong your central claim in your selection; changed from to by in all, you've done a lot of things would have helped, I have a well-educated person and was counting. For one thing that leaves me feeling unsatisfied about your other email in just a little bit and will send your message earlier, because they're yours.

You are welcome to choose that passage on page 12 of the poem's rhythm and showed this in paper comments, I suspect that that is minimally acceptable will result in further disciplinary action even if the section Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, but is an important set of very good readings of Yeats, The Stolen Child Yeats, The Butcher Boy song 5 p. That was explained to the food-related road to go with your paper is late, then I will pass out copies of documents this certainly satisfies the requirements out from burst out on a timekeeping device so you can connect larger-scale concerns that Ulysses has and did a very reasonable outline, but regularly advancing the group's discussion during the week of Thanksgiving. Another student from your own experience. Section. OK? I think that you're painfully aware of your argument though there are certainly other possibilities. Thanks for your thoughts to come to each other think about propaganda and/or make sure that I didn't again, based only on his plagiarized paper.

It'll be linked from the professor and ask yourself what your paper has problems large enough to satisfy the requirement at this point, because you'll want to go above and beyond the length requirement, but really, your primary focus should be open to recitations. This can be directed to 3. Let me know if you want. I'll see you in lecture this quarter. You had some important material in an automatic failing grade for the top five or six.

I just sent you about your other texts will be helpful during paper-grading rubric is hard to get to campus. You might follow up a bit under the impression I get is that you should put a great job! You picked an important passage and have a wonderful book, while sitting in a way to be leaving town for the rest of the more poignant parts of the more egregious errors in the literal sense of why I want, or at least twelve lines so that I think, is for most students to develop their own knowledge is a profoundly and pervasively inappropriate response to you. The group-generated review we developed tonight, anyway.

I'll go ahead and eliminated the other group has provided a very strong performances, and to relate the texts that you are not major, and mechanics, and what the real benefit of exposing your recitation notes and get 100% on the Internet, if you can't make it hard for all students, and in lecture this quarter. —You've written an ambitious, thoughtful, reflective piece and your participation score is calculated for section or sent me. From the name of Robert Peel; cf. You did very well. No, because you still get an add code for the sake of having misplaced sympathies for criminals. There will be by the selections in which percentage score for attendance/participation component of your total grade for the actual claims that you're not articulating. Your discussion and which texts you've chosen as a threat to order, civilization, rational thought, which is an excellent job. You are not meeting the discussion requirement.

141 and drinks a glass of burgundy VIII. You memorized more than 100% in section you have any other questions, OK? I tend to have one specific suggestion: think about the drive to get back to you. Trying to avoid choosing too many good ways to draw as much as it appears on your grade. Enjoy your Halloween, and you touched on some important thematic elements.

Again, thank you for doing a close reading to my notes on any changes, it is perfectly OK at this point would be that Mary sees love's bitter mystery in those instances you might do productive things. You did a solid understanding of one-shot essay. Have specific points in the middle of the Irish nation is portrayed as a whole you'd have to find ways to narrow it down productively to a question and, if I try not to avoid departing until afterwards, and you met them at their level of comfort and interest, and musical there are some ways in which the soldiers crowned Jesus in the play as a serial killer. Let me know. Very well done overall. No, because it makes my life easier if you glance over at me occasionally, but because it is a wonderful holiday break! This is not just talking about and always has Irish for purposes of the idea of what overall trajectory your paper would have been to take so long to get people talking, and prejudicial or hate speech will not happen at this point is that/the rest of the Western World: Chu's discussion of existentialism and of Sheep Go to Heaven, too. From French poulet. One letter grade for the previous presenters for providing an opening to the MLA standard actually doesn't require this, I think that what most needs to happen. But you're a good job of getting the group warmed up and see whether they're still outside if I can if you would need to have a few of these are of course no surprise for you to reschedule—they will be reciting so that the professor, because there is a pleasure to see you tomorrow. This are comparatively small errors: picked for went picking; was hanged or was hanged or was hanged; and captivated the group talking, and this question would help to make it to you. 10/6, would be an optional review session. I'll post a revised version instead, if you have to know in advance.

Again, well done. Any significant deviation from the standpoint of. Your sense of rhythm was not the best paper you had a good selection and gave what was overall a strong piece of writing, get an incomplete would also require the professor's syllabus. Let me know and we'll figure out what that is particularly relevant here; it may not fully resolve all of part one. Thank you.

I think it's important to the way that Beckett conceptualizes it. I'm sending this. Made. Well, plus be familiar with your paper and for your writing is generally not only lucid but thoughtful and focused without being so long to get back to you. I do not often contact students by email.

You're welcome! I think. Thank you again for doing a good student and I think might have been years where I've graded two hundred papers and gave what was overall a very good job with the questions to lead from the section meeting. Well, I'll hold on to professional or graduate school. You changed before to as soon as possible; if you have very good job with a shrug but no vocalization when I saw Cake in Golden Gate Park back in the 6 p. Hi! You've done a good reading that they've done for most students the last line. You managed time well and smoothly. We discussed stereotypes of Irish culture, history, and there's no reason why the comparison is. Your delivery was quite good in many ways even though I've pointed to examples of where you see fractions. You handled your material you emphasize I think that you shouldn't use them to avoid discussing it in then. There are also welcome to cut into the phrase is chosen because it verges on nonsense in places, with absolutely everything yes, that's OK, too, OK? Both of these are impressive moves. If you're interested in reciting, please let me know if you have left, but you Again, I'm terribly sorry and embarrassed. Let me know!

I'm trying to get back to you. That's OK sometimes it's necessary to start with the selection in addition to reciting the text of Pearse's speech that is, after all, and 4: General Thoughts and Notes Mooney, TA Eng 150, Fall 2013 Overview: Recall from the plan; remember you said in section next week! Anyway, my suggestion would be reading Ulysses by candlelight for several reasons for needing to be a productive direction, but really, your delivery; you can keep notes on usage of the second line of thought into your own experiences and opinions about the postcard U. Grammar and usage errors, and then mercilessly edited your paper. Hi!

#Irish literature #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Python #Markov chains

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ellariasand · 4 years

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11 Questions

I was tagged by the lovely @captain-k-jones - thanks so much!

Rule 1: Post the rules. Rule 2: Answer the questions the person who tagged you asked, and write 11 new ones. Rule 3: Tag 11 people.

Your Questions

1. What is your favorite season and why?

Spring. I love that it’s starting to get warm and you can actually enjoy being outside, but it’s not quite so warm that it’s stifling and that I can’t wear all the cute jackets and longer pants that I own.

2. What was the show that got you into Tumblr/fandom?

I was a wee youngin’ when I joined Tumblr (I think I was 14?), but I’m pretty sure it was The Avengers, in that peak 2012 “they all live in Stark Tower” era. I got sucked very quickly into Superwholock (RIP) after that, so it’s kind of a blur, but I distinctly remember that being the first film franchise I ever really attached myself to.

3. What are you reading currently (fanfic or book)?

Currently in the middle of Midnight Riot, the first book in Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series! Saw it two years ago in a shop in Galway and finally got around to reading it — reminds me a lot of Good Omens, if you like that sort of thing.

4. If you could live anywhere, where would you chose and why?

It’s a toss-up between London, York, and Galway. I absolutely fell in love with the UK and Ireland about two years ago, and after living in London for a semester I would love to go back. I love London because it’s a city that satisfies my itch for adventure and stimulus, and I love York and Galway because they look like something out of a storybook — so picturesque and old, and filled with so many stories that I could never possibly learn them all.

5. Favorite subject in school?

Anything to do with books. I minored in English literature in college, and dissecting stories and discussing them is one of my favorite things to do. Words have always been and will always be my preferred medium, and I love getting the opportunity to tease meaning out of those that others have put on the page, particularly female authors.

6. Dogs or cats?

Cats! They match my vibe a lot better than dogs do, and I have an extreme soft spot for my cat Neo (not named after the Keanu Reeves character, in case you were wondering), who claimed me as her person and now yells at me on a regular basis to pay attention to her.

7. Last song you listened to?

“Save a Prayer” by Duran Duran!

8. Other than Tumblr and fandom, what are your hobbies?

I’m a writer, of both nonfiction and fiction (as is obvious from the fanfiction I’ve posted here), and I also collect vinyl records and spend quite a bit of time cross-stitching. I also have a vested interest in feminism and music history, and I spend a lot of my time consuming media that has something to do with one of those two subjects.

9. If you were going to listen to a fandom podcast, what would you want them to talk about?

I’m a part of very few real fandoms anymore (mostly The Punisher and Doctor Who, at the moment), but I would like to see a podcast that dives into the specific meta of a particular piece of art and really dissects it, like the way I discussed dissecting literature above. I think I’m beyond the point of enjoying it when people talk about surface level stuff on podcasts, like ships or plot points or stuff that you can see discussed primarily on Tumblr, where surface level stuff reigns because that’s what this platform is built for. (To clarify: surface level stuff is great, but when you’re trying to fill an hour of content, that stuff gets boring really fast.) Talk to me about parallels, about recurring visual symbolism in The Mandalorian or what it means that a large percentage of the Doctor’s companions are all working class women with a chip on their shoulder. I want to go deep.

Either that, or start a podcast specifically dedicated to watching movie starring famous musicians and rating them. That’s an idea I’d love to have a co-host for.

10. Who would win: Hulk or Superman?

Superman, if only because Clark’s a good human being and would probably try to talk Bruce down instead of fighting.

11. Name one show you enjoy that is underrated.

Well, ya girl just finished Ashes to Ashes and I am smarting over how emotional I am over Gene goddamn Hunt, so I’m gonna go ahead and say that one.

My Questions

1. What’s your favorite random fact that you know? Can be any subject you want, just teach me something new! 2. If you could sit down and have lunch with one fictional character, who would it be and what would you want to talk about? 3. Above question continued: same scenario, but with one real-life figure, living or dead. Who’d it be? 4. What’s your comfort piece of media? Can be a song, a movie, a show - something that brings you peace and/or that you go back to often. 5. Favorite trope (either in fanfic or in actual writing/film)? 6. Do you collect anything? If so, tell me about it! 7. What’s one thing you love that people wouldn’t expect you to love? 8. What’s something you’d love to do but seems kind of ridiculous/out of your realm of possibility at the moment? 9. If you could go on a dream vacation - all expenses paid, wherever you want - where would you go? 10. What’s your favorite/preferred streaming service? 11. Villains or heroes?

I’m gonna go ahead and tag @consultingsnowqueen and @shesakillerdragqueen, but anyone who wants to answer these is welcome to!

#tag game #tag games #maggie.txt #about me

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michaelandy101-blog · 4 years

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Do Consumers Actually Engage With In-Stream Ads? [New Data]

New Post has been published on https://tiptopreview.com/do-consumers-actually-engage-with-in-stream-ads-new-data/

Do Consumers Actually Engage With In-Stream Ads? [New Data]

In 2020, video outpaced blogging and infographics as the most common content marketing strategy.

As users increasingly turn to video content for entertainment and education, most social media platforms have become more focused on expanding their visual and video capabilities. Now, the average social media user sees videos in the form of live streams, Stories, or Newsfeed posts on a daily basis.

Consumer preference for video over other mediums is only expected to get stronger. Although millennials watch more videos on a regular basis than Gen X and the Boomer generation, the age group’s consumption still pales in comparison to Gen Z.

As a marketer, you likely already know how effective the combination of video and marketing tactics can be.

At this point, we’ve seen millions of brands boost awareness by going live on Facebook and LinkedIn. We’ve also seen brands report gaining traffic from video-based Instagram Stories with swipe-up links.

While video marketing seems like a winning tactic in 2020, you might ask, “What about video-based advertising?”

While posting a marketing video on social media or your website might cause you to gain traffic or brand awareness, launching an ad that encourages viewers to click to your store might provide both of those benefits — plus a more direct path to revenue.

When looking into paid video promotion, one of the common offerings you’ll hear about — especially if you plan to advertise on social media — is in-stream advertising.

An in-stream video ad is a promotion created by a brand that runs before or during a video on a streaming platform, such as YouTube. Aside from appearing in popular videos, these ads can also appear in Stories or live streams on platforms like Facebook.

To give you a visual of what an in-stream ad looks like, here’s a screenshot for an Olay ad that appeared before a YouTube video I recently viewed:

There are a handful of perks to in-stream advertising. The first is that your video can be targeted to audiences similar to your brand’s or can be placed in videos that match your ad’s keyword. With these types of targeting options, you can present your ad to viewers that match your audience’s demographics or interests. Because these viewers might have similar interests and purchasing motives as your customers, a well-targeted in-stream ad could ultimately result in a higher chance of purchases.

Another perk of in-stream ads is that these videos don’t need to be incredibly long or detailed. Depending on the platform you use, you can often launch ads as short as five seconds. While this gives marketers a limited amount of time to grab a viewer’s attention, it also means they’ll need to produce less content than they would for a long-form marketing video.

Aside from length and targeting capabilities, the last and most obvious perk of in-stream ads is their ROI potential. Even back in 2016, shortly before Facebook launched its in-stream ad offering, a Google study revealed that YouTube ads — which are usually in-stream — saw higher returns than television ads.

Sounds great, right?

Although the perks above might have you ready to invest in in-stream ads, there are still a few things you’ll need to research and keep in mind.

Even though in-stream ads are shorter and can be spoon-fed to your audience with ad targeting tools, your content will still need to convince those viewers to click on the ad’s link and buy your brand’s product. This in itself can be a major challenge for video advertisers.

How Consumers React to In-Stream Video Ads

While successful in-stream ads are possible, there are still important user-behavior barriers that you’ll want to keep in mind as you aim to create a winning promo. To help you determine some of the biggest barriers you might run into, I surveyed 400 consumers about how they interacted with in-stream ads.

Do Consumers Actually Click on In-Stream Ads?

Many in-stream ads include a call-to-action that you can click or tap to visit a brand’s website or ecommerce store.

But, do people actually click these CTAs?

To determine how often people clicked on in-stream video ads, I first asked the survey pool, “How often do you click on in-stream video ads that appear before or during a video?”

When you consider that in-stream video ads are sent to target audiences and demographics, rather than a wide pool of users, you might think that people will regularly click on this type of advertisement to learn more. However, the outlook was quite grim for in-stream ads in this particular survey:

Data Source

While 42% of people say they “almost never” click on in-stream video ads, another 22% say they’ll click on an ad “once a week.” Only 22% will click on two to three ads per week, while the remaining 15% say they don’t watch online videos.

As you plan your in-stream video strategy, remember that the results above are just from one small consumer pool. Had we asked this question to a particular demographic or a group of users on a specific platform, the numbers might have been different.

Although you should continue to do research about the pros and cons of in-stream ads, you should still keep the results above in mind. This data speaks to the age-old theory that people either completely avoid ads or mentally tune them out, regardless of their format or type.

While video advertising does offer the perk of audience targeting, you’ll still need to produce intriguing, interesting, or valuable video content to be successful.

In-Stream Ads and Purchase-Related Conversion

Before you start panicking about the results above, there were some optimistic findings in this survey. Although the consumers I polled are less interested in clicking on in-stream ads when they see them, they might still consider buying the promoted product.

When I asked, “Have you ever purchased a product that you learned about from an in-stream video ad?”, more than one-third of respondents — or 37% — say “Yes.” Meanwhile, 52% say, “No.”

Data Source

Of those who haven’t made a purchase related to an in-stream ad, 39% simply selected, “No” while 15% say, “No. I avoid in-stream ads at all costs.” Meanwhile, 9% say they “don’t watch online videos,” and thus wouldn’t have the option to see in-stream ads or make a related purchase.

While the percentage of people who won’t haven’t made a purchase after seeing an in-stream ad is quite large, this is somewhat expected when you consider online attention spans and how most of these consumers also say they don’t usually click on in-stream ads.

On the other hand, the percentage of people who’ve made a purchase after seeing an in-stream ad is still more than one-third of the group we surveyed. This might hint that there is a solid chance your in-stream ad could result in a purchase.

When do consumers click the “Skip” button?

When you look at the results above, you might think to yourself, “Consumers might not click on my ad, or purchase my product, but they’ll still watch the content. — Right?”

The truth is, most types of online content have just a few seconds to grab a consumer’s attention. Video content is not exempt.

As with any video marketing strategy, you can’t expect audiences to watch your content just because it’s right in front of them. Video ads, which often feature a “Skip” button, might have an even smaller window than the average marketing video.

When asked, “When given the option to skip an in-stream video ad that plays before or during your video, how long will you wait before skipping?”, a whopping 37% say they’ll “skip an ad as soon as possible,” while 20% say they’ll click skip in five seconds or less.

Data Source

The interest in skipping isn’t a shocker. We’ve all done it. Sometimes, we just want to watch the video we planned to stream and don’t really care about the ads that are put in front of us.

Although the result above comes from just one small group of consumers, it aligns with mounting research which shows that global attention spans are narrowing — especially online.

While the average consumer’s attention span shouldn’t scare you away from an in-stream ad strategy, you should certainly keep it in mind.

To be successful with in-stream video ads — you’ll need to create content that grabs your viewer’s attention as soon as possible and is valuable enough to ease annoyances related to seeing an ad in their video.

In this example from the job search site Reed.co.uk. The ad immediately draws attention with a video of meowing kittens. Then it embraces its pre-roll placement by calling out YouTube viewers for watching videos because they’re “distracted from their job.” Towards the end of the ad, the site’s founder, tells the viewer to click on the video, which will send them to the job site:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=9&v=8ErTZh9zEbg&feature=emb_title

How to Launch a Successful In-Stream Ad

As you’ve seen, there are solid pros and cons to in-stream advertising. While the cons shouldn’t scare you from trying this marketing tactic, you should still keep them in mind in order to create a video that can avoid constant skips from your audience. Here are a few tips to keep in mind

Throw viewers into the action.

Based on what consumers told us, you have anywhere from one to five seconds to grab your viewer’s attention before they zone out or skip your ad. You’ll rarely have more than 10 seconds to sway them.

So, begin your ad with an action-packed scene or concisely explain your product as quickly as possible. Don’t take time to get to the point — even if the ad platform you’re using allots a 30-to-60-second video.

Ask yourself, “Is this content valuable to prospects?”

Audiences will either skip your ad because they just don’t want to see a commercial, or they’re bored by your content and want to get to their video. This is why it’s important to create ads that either entertain your viewer or educate them about a product or brand-related topic they’ll value.

Use examples as inspiration.

Luckily, millions of brands have already tested out in-stream advertising. While this means the pool of advertising could be competitive, it also means that there are plenty of effective ads out there that you can watch for inspiration.

Next time you’re watching a video that begins or features an in-stream ad, watch the content. Take a mental note of why you do or don’t want to skip the ad. If you’re considering engaging with the ad and tapping to learn more about a product, ask yourself, “How did this content persuade me to click?”

If you don’t feel like searching out ads on social platforms, we’ve also got plenty of content to help you. Check out this rundown of effective short-form ads from small businesses and Super Bowl brands.

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#General

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necromaniackat · 7 years

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God Damn

Summary: Julie Delaney was thirteen when she had her first child, Jude, with a drug dealer who bailed on her when the baby was born. Two years later she has her second child, Lakelynn, at seventeen with an unknown man. Julie travelled all the way from Nevada to Charming, California with her two young children and dropped them off at her older brother's doorstep in '81. Otto and Luann raised her and Jude with the help of the MC. When Otto went to prison in '94 Jude began to patch in as a member of the Sons of Anarchy Redwood Original. In '00 Jude was killed during a surprise attack they had during a run, he was shot down. The club has been a part of my life since the very beginning. It’s all I’ve known, it’s all my brother and I have known all our lives. Ever since our mom dropped us off at our uncle’s house in ’81, back when I was a baby and my brother was a toddler. My brother died for the club. While I, I lived for it.

Word Count: 4,125

Warning: Strong Language.

Chapter 2: Times are Changing but Life Stays the Same.

If you want to learn how to love better, start with someone you hate. –Unknown

I sighed tiredly, untying my apron from around my waist. It was finally the end of my shift after a long and stressful day. Today was busier than usual because not only was it a big delivery day but we had a huge surge of people come in and linger for about an hour. It was good for business but our three-man crew up front was swamped for the better part of that hour. Nobody really got a break or lunch, it was just go, go, go. One of the perks of starting work at five-thirty in the morning is you get off work early in the afternoon.

“See you tomorrow?” Zoey, the new girl, asked as I passed by her to go to the small office. I grabbed my bag off the hook behind the office door, and put my apron in its place. I shook my head at her in sullenly but the joy of having a few days off made butterflies flutter in my gut.

“Nope, I have a few days off.” I reminded her, for the millionth time, that last month I worked sixteen hour shifts five days a week because we were a man short. Janine marked that down as overtime. I got my extra pay and now I have tons of vacation time. I’m only going to take a few days off here and there instead of taking a large amount of time off. I’d go insane if I didn’t work after more than three days.

“Do you think I’ve had enough training for you to take time off now?” Zoey commented pathetically, her tone was hard and cold. I slung my bag across my body before turning to her with a displeased expression. I was less than pleased with her question and her tone of voice.

“Zoey, you’ve been working here for three weeks now. If you still need me to shadow you making coffee then turn in your notice and there’s the door.” I snapped coldly. Zoey was in her early twenties but I saw her resume when Janine hired her a few weeks ago. This isn’t her first job but if she still needs me to babysit her after three weeks of training, two of which are informal, then she needs to leave. I know Janine is going to talk to me when I come back, she’ll tell me not to be so harsh on the new girl. I’ve been told that I can be a bit cold sometimes. Janine has had two people quit on her because I’m a bit too hard on them. There are times where I take on everything by myself and don’t allow anyone to do anything and other times where I get mouthy with the coworkers because they don’t seem to be doing a whole lot at the same pace as me. I’ve heard Janine talking to the owners about making me the Assistant Manager because of my bossiness and leadership skills, and my high sales percentage. It’d be cool if I could be promoted, Luann and Gemma would be proud of me but at the same time they’ll shake their heads at me because they want me a little closer to home and the club with my career choices. I’ve hinted to Luann that I don’t want to be a part of the porn industry; it’s too close to the club.

The young blue haired girl stood in the doorway with her mouth hung agape slightly. I squeezed passed her and left the back area, saying goodbye to the afternoon crew. Before I walked through the door I caught Janine’s encouraging yet stern look from behind the counter. I let out a loud sigh, knowing she wanted me to be the bigger person and do the right thing but honestly, I just wanted to go home, take a bath and have a nice dinner, maybe have someone over for a while. I didn’t want to go rummaging through history with my history.

I unlocked my bike from the post and stood there warring with myself. I didn’t want to deal with Jax or his baby mama drama. I can only handle a little drama at a time, and the drama I have in my life is more than enough for me. But I’ve grown up with Jax, we’re like family. A really fucked up family. Jax has been through enough lately, he needs someone familiar, someone he knows will keep his secrets no matter what. He needs me right now. Jax is the kind of guy who needs someone with him; he doesn’t do very well on his own. As a kid I thought it was the most romantic thing ever but now I’m inconvenienced by it. He’s spent the last eight years almost ignoring me, only acknowledging my existence when he needs to. And now he wants to be friends again. It’s only because his ex-wife is well, his now ex-wife. He doesn’t have her to be with anymore. He needs me again.

I groaned loudly to myself and rolled my eyes before turning the bike around to face the direction of the storage place where Gemma rented out a unit. I straddled my bike and kicked off. The day had gotten warmer but it wasn’t too hot out luckily. The breeze that blew through my hair was nice but the boulder sitting at the bottom of my stomach contradicted that feeling. Even though I made up my mind I was still warring with myself over if I should just turn around and go home or actually go and help Jax. I’m allowed to be mad at Jax and I’m allowed to be mad at Wendy but I’m not allowed to be mad at that baby. That kid has done nothing wrong against me, he just simply exists. I can’t be mad at that baby, it’s not right. And right now, that baby’s dad needs someone he can count on and unluckily for me, that someone is me.

But something else sat at the bottom of my gut, something sour. It made my spine tingle and my nerves vibrate with electricity. My heart raced inside my chest like a jackhammer pounding away pavement. I felt beads of sweat begin to roll from my hairline and down my back. I white knuckled the grips on my handlebars and peddled a little bit faster. My instincts were telling me I was being watched and possibly followed. I wasn’t about to look around to see if my instincts were right, I knew they were. I’ve been raised by the Sons of Anarchy, if my instincts are telling me something is wrong then there is something wrong. In turn, I peddled a little faster; going from a casual speed to racing down the sun filled sidewalks. Peddling faster made me feel better, safer even.

Finally, I met the chain link fence of the storage place. It was like a small town in there with those neighbourhoods and streets of units. Luann rented one out for Jude’s stuff when he died. She didn’t have the heart to throw it away or sell it. I didn’t either. So, we put it into storage in case one day somebody else needs it. But I think it’s more so Luann can go there and remember him. Luann has been like my mom for the last twenty-seven years. She was like Jude’s mom for nineteen years. There is a bond there that nothing can break. But when Jude died in 2000 Luann took it the hardest, she locked herself in her room for two weeks and cried. I told Otto the day that it happened. He took it pretty hard because he and Luann never had kids, we were their kids. Jude was like his son and now his son was lying six feet under a headstone. Sometimes Luann goes to the storage unit so she can feel that bond she had with Jude and remember what he was like. We all miss him dearly. Although, I’m not entirely sure if our mom knows that Jude died. She dropped us off twenty-seven years ago and hasn’t been seen or heard since. I don’t really have a problem with that; I was a baby when she safe dropped us on Otto’s doorstep.

I peddled my bike through the city of units until I found the one Gemma stored all the boys’ baby stuff and whatnot. And like usual, Jax was nowhere to be seen. I sighed loudly and closed my eyes in defeat. Somehow, I knew this would happen. I knew I’d be the only one here while Jax was off doing God knows what, maybe it’s God knows who.

I got off my bike and leaned it against the concrete wall separating the units. I fished my phone out of my bag so I could call Jax to see where he was. Just as I went to dial his cell my phone began to ring in my hand. My eyebrows drew together when the ID came up Private Name, Private Caller. I don’t know anyone who’s ID is that; maybe it’s a wrong number. I promptly hit the little green button and brought the phone up to my ear.

“Hello?” I greeted curiously in a light tone. There was nothing. There was no voice coming from the other end, just the sound of breathing.

“Hello? Who is this?” I asked curiously, wondering if they didn’t hear me the first time. Again there was nothing but breathing.

“I can hear you breathing. Who is this?” I demanded in a hard tone. Nobody answered, it was just heavy breathing. I was beginning to feel unnerved and annoyed at the same time. My heart raced but my mind was steeled on the thought of getting some kind of answer.

“I’m hanging up now.” I told the mystery caller coldly.

“Rasasvada.” The voice at the other end clearly whispered to me before the call ended. I was frozen in place, my heart stopped beating all together and my mind stilled. A very familiar but ancient feeling pulsed through me. I let my arm drop to my side as I quickly looked around to spot the threat that I was feeling, but all I saw was a forest of storage units. I damn near jumped out of my skin when I felt a firm grip on my shoulder. Spinning around and ready to fight for my life I saw Jax standing there. I had to push my heart back into my chest with loud gasps for air.

“Sorry I didn’t mean to startle you.” He apologized sincerely. “–I didn’t think you’d actually show up so I took my time getting here.” He added honestly. I finally calmed down from the fright of my life. I began to bounce my gaze around; still feeling like I was being watched but I couldn’t see anyone or anything. Jax’s eyebrows fell together confusedly. His body language became that of a protector instead of his signature casual swagger.

“Are you alright? What’s wrong?” He asked curiously, prodding at me in a protective way. I pursed my lips together and shook my head, attempting to shake off the feeling.

“Nothing. I’m fine.” I replied surely. But I wasn’t sure. I was still feeling like someone was keeping a close eye on me and that terrified me, especially after that phone call. I figured Jax would sense my unease but he decided to surpass it. He’s known me most of my life, he knows that I don’t give up information that easily. Ever since I was a kid and my brother, Jax and Opie would quote, unquote “torture” me for information about anything and it’d be a power struggle between the four of us. Usually I’d get bored of it all and tell them but not after a good fight for it. And I’m guessing Jax really doesn’t want a repeat of what happened this morning.

Jax took out a ring of keys from his kutte pocket and unlocked the unit. We both stood there with mouths hung open a bit and eyes popping out of our heads. There was over thirty years worth of boxed things stacked against the walls and on the metal shelves. I blew out a sigh of hot air that puffed out my cheeks and let my hands sit over my kidneys as we both stood there and stared at the seemingly endless disarray of history.

“Did your mom say which ones had the baby stuff in them?” I asked, hoping for a positive answer. But knowing Gemma, she wouldn’t make life that easy for us. Gemma has always been rooting for me and Jax to make up. So, I’m positive she’s the one who told Jax to bring me here today so we could hang out and hopefully re-bond with each other like when we were younger. Jax let out a gravelly sigh.

“No. She just said there may be some things in here I could use.” He replied, crushing my hopes. My hands dropped from my back to my sides again and I turned my head to look up at Jax.

“I guess we better get started then.” I suggested cunningly. Jax gave me a small smirk and nodded. We both dived into the boxes. I started at the back and he started at the front because I was smaller and could actually fit back there. I found a lot of old photo albums that held pictures of Jax and Thomas as kids. It made me miss Thomas a little bit. I found the baby book Gemma made for Jax when he was born. I smiled at it. It reminded me that even the outlaw started out as a baby, just like I did. But we’re not babies anymore; we’re not kids, Hell, we’re not even teenagers anymore. We’re not in our early twenties, just entering adulthood by drinking and fucking the days and nights away. I’m twenty-eight years old and Jude would’ve been thirty. We’re not little kids playing outlaw anymore. We’re actually outlaws and that terrifies me.

“So, how is the coffee business?” Jax asked from the front of the unit. I stopped nosing through boxes and looked over at him; he was knee deep in history. He didn’t look at me; he just kept going through the boxes on the hunt for baby things. I let a little crooked smile slip and a shrug.

“It’s going good. I might be promoted to Assistant Manager soon.” I replied. Jax scoffed loudly.

“You’re not already running that place? You’ve been there for eight years.” Jax and Luann seem to share the same thoughts. They’re both rather peeved off that I’m not already the manager or something. As much as I like Janine she’s only been there for a few years while I’ve been there since before the older owners sold it to the new owners. Sadly, the new owners have beef with the Sons and since I’m affiliated with the Sons I’ve ruined any chance of trusted promotions.

“Yeah, the new owners aren’t a huge fan of the Sons of Anarchy.” I informed Jax honestly, giving it less than a second thought and a shrug. I didn’t really care if they didn’t like the Sons or not, but they shouldn’t be treating me the way they have been. My only saving grace is Janine. All Jax said in a soft voice was:

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” I replied weakly. I saw Jax glance over at me from the corner of my eye. He sighed and shuffled through one of the many boxes in the unit.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to do that. You have no ties to the club besides the fact we’re family. You’ve always been on the right path, no criminal record or anything. That should be more than enough proof that you’re not like us.” Jax was right. They shouldn’t be allowed to do that and by law they can’t do that but every time a promotion spot opens up they give it to someone else and give me a lame ass excuse as to why I didn’t get it.

“Their argument is: I may not have a criminal record because I never got caught. It boils down to what proof they have that I’m actually a good guy.” I cleared things up a bit, riffling through a box that had old quilts stuffed into it.

“Basically, you’re guilty until proven innocent.” Jax shortened the idea to something so basic.

“Yeah, basically.” I chimed in with a very nonchalant tone of voice.

“That’s bullshit.” Jax summed up my thoughts in two words. I pursed my lips and nodded, going back to digging through full boxes. Finally, I struck oil, after rummaging through box after box I finally found evidence of baby stuff. I immediately passed the box over to Jax so he could go through it and decide what he wanted. I found myself watching him from the corner of my eye as he pawed through the box, pulling out toys and books for his unborn baby. A twinge of envy soured in my stomach but it soon soothed into a smouldering longing. I’ve noticed this feeling starting to overwhelm me lately, before it was just a small craving but now it was a roaring hunger. It wasn’t until I saw baby things at Gemma’s house that I realized I wanted to be a mom. I’m twenty-eight years old and I want to have a baby, now. I don’t want to have the relationship part with the father, I want the baby and that’s it. But Luann and Gemma would flip their shit if they found out what I’ve been plotting and try to convince me to at least be in a relationship for the sake of the kid. The club would probably be wondering if I’ve lost my mind; they’d lose their respect for me. And worse, Otto will be disappointed with me, maybe even livid.

While Jax went through the items that were meant for babies I dug through more boxes; old Christmas decorations, photo albums, J.T’s old stuff, pictures and documents, that one report card from ‘95 where Jax got an A in math. I couldn’t help but smile and remember how Gemma was so proud of him for buckling down and studying extra hard to pull his grade up from a D average in math and science to a B average during the last semester of tenth grade for him. She actually got it framed and hung it up in the living room for a number of years. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I gave him the answer keys, in return he had to let me date whoever I pleased once I got into High School; which was the next year. Boy, did I ever take that for granted. Within my first two weeks of being a Freshman I was already making googly eyes with a Senior. That pissed off every male in my life; Jax, Jude, Otto, and even Oppie for some strange reason. Jax went into a tailspin and beat the living shit out of any male who even blinked in my direction. Back then it made me furious but now I realize Jax had a lot of pent up rage inside. Not even two years before J.T got hit by that semi out on five-eighty. Jax tried to hide how he felt but it came out from time to time. Some people were afraid of what they saw but I felt bad. He was just a fifteen year old boy who lost not only his only brother but he lost his father as well. I remember that day very clearly, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it.

“Y’know,” Jax twanged from the front of the unit, taking my full attention again. “–I find it funny how growing up you had all the big responsibilities on your shoulders. All the big dreams Luann and Gemma had for you; graduate High School, graduate from University, get a good job, get married and have some kids. Nobody would’ve suspected that Oppie and I would be the ones getting married and having kids while you work as a barista in a coffee shop with no chances of promotion.” Jax mindlessly poured salt into my wounds. I’m sure he didn’t realize that I think about that a lot actually. I think about how much of a failure I am in my family all too often. People had big dreams for me and I let them down.

“I don’t see how that’s funny, Jax.” I swallowed the lump in my throat and sighed. The boulder was back in the pit of my stomach. Jax followed in suit with another gravelly sigh.

“I guess it’s not that funny after all.” He muttered distantly, his baby blue eyes stared off into the far away distance. The lights were on and somebody was home but they were too busy to answer the door. It looked like he was staring into space even though he was just thinking. He’s been doing a lot of that lately, according to Gemma. She’s worried about him but as a mother she knew it was just new baby jitters.

“–I’m just confused as to how this happened, I mean, you left. You went to Reno for University and I’m in no doubt you had no plans on coming back to Charming after you graduated. You were less than a month away from graduating and then you show up in Charming completely out of the blue. You told everyone you dropped out because it was too much shit for you to handle but I know you, Lakelynn, you don’t give up easily even when there’s a lot of shit to deal with. You were done your papers, all you had to do was hand them in and then graduate but you didn’t and that confuses me. It confused Jude too. And you’ve changed since you came back. People are confused and worried about you but you keep pushing us all away when we try to get close.” Jax admitted in his usual sincere but firm tone of voice. When he uses this tone with people it’s usually just to get answers out of them but I’ve known him my entire life; he’s not lying about this sincerity and worry he has for me. He’s being honest about what he thinks and how he feels.

“What’s your point, Jax?” I inquired, brushing off his sincerity as nothing but false hope. I just wanted him to outright ask me what’s on his mind, it’s obvious he has something to say and he wants to know things but he’s stalling. He’s proceeding with caution because I’m not afraid to tell him to fuck off. But he wants to know things he shouldn’t know.

“Did something happen in Reno that made you come running home?” He poked at the subject some more, this time he hit a very raw nerve that made me stop what I was doing to turn and look at him. I swear there was steam coming out of my nose and ears. I pursed my lips together tightly, debating saying anything but he’d keep bugging me about it. I had to tell him something.

“That’s none of your business, Teller. You’re being too damn nosy for your own good.” I warned him in a tone of voice that was as hard as a boulder but stung like the crack of a whip. I hadn’t noticed but my hands were in tight balls by my sides and I’m sure my face was doused in a deep red rage.

“And you’re being too prideful.” Jax snapped back, finally looking at me dead in the eye. “–What happened when you were in Reno?” He added in a demanding but low voice. I effortlessly moved around the boxes to stand in front of him, squaring him up like some cowboy showdown. I’m half certain we’d kill each other if we were locked in a room together for any given amount of time. I was not afraid of Jax. I have never been afraid of Jax. I know I should be but I’m not. If he kills me then so be it. But I will never live a day of my life being afraid of Jackson Teller.

“I had a problem, I handled. End of story.”

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lattetudes · 7 years

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hey!!! i was wondering, how come you study in france? i'm fairly new to your blog and i love your posts, i would like to hear more about your experience regarding studying in france in your situation!! and if you have any anecdotes about that that you would like to share!!

hi! firstly, thank you so much! it really means a lot to me. (seriously, i have the biggest smile on my face). i’m so sorry for the late response, i was moving (:

send me another ask if you’d like to know more! this is a little long -

the how

french has been in my life for a long time. i think i was first enrolled in an international program (where they taught it) when i was twelve - not even a couple months later, i left to visit france for the first time to visit my mom.

she went to france (in 2011) to get her master’s degree in linguistics.

my brother (2013) and sister (2011) went with her. (i, however, didn’t join her until the the summer before what would have been my freshman year. was that something i regret? yes.)

so for three years, i visited them (and when i wasn’t, i lived alone with my dad, who worked a lot to support an apartment in france and in the united states).

when i fourteen, i visited paris for two weeks with my class as part of an exchange program.

it was chic, it was this entirely new universe i’d never seen before. i’d never felt more different, and i think that was a good thing. the cafés, the music, the pathways where hemingway walked - it’s this sort of unconquerable way of living that makes up Paris’s charm – something that cannot be calculated into a ranking.

it’s truly beautiful. and when i was asked if i wanted to go to poitiers, three hours away from paris (my last chance) for freshman year, i took it. i made the mistake of staying for friends - i couldn’t go through life wondering what if. i didn’t want to regret anything, you know? i knew i wasn’t going to be at the top of the class, not at first.

only, it didn’t end up being one year. i would end up staying there for my entire career as a lycéenne.

the apartments the apartments my family stays in are very small, with exception to our last one

our first one was the size of a shoebox. i’m not kidding when the kitchen and the bedroom were in the same space. (the bed was a fold out couch).

i don’t remember our second apartment very well. i think it was next to an indian restaurant - it did have two bedrooms, making it easier to stay in when i visited my family.

the third was located in a small complex with a small parking space.

the fourth, i don’t remember at all (:

the fifth apartment is located above a sephora, about two minutes from the central square. we spent about three-four years here (renting), and it even had a loft space on the third floor. an artist, an attorney, and many other people with different stories lived there with us. i remember when the police showed up, twice. another story for another time (: i’ve got so many memories here, which makes it even harder to leave. it means a lot to me. i love it here: it’s empty now, save for a computer (the one i’m writing on right now), a desk, wifi, and a printer. our lease is up by the end of the month (:

the sixth, next to a park and a café, where the neighbors play their music just a little too loud (: it’s different for sure. we just moved here, the rooms are fill with boxes and nothing is unpacked yet - hopefully, it will feel like home soon.

i spend christmas and the summers in the united states, in the house where i grew up until i was fourteen.

since i live in a small city, i walk by almost all the apartments i’ve visited / lived in everyday. it’s surreal for sure - i get to see where i’ve started and where i’m going to be.

france!

i live in a city where you know everyone, and everyone knows you.

there’s music almost always playing in the street.

some people will judge you because of your nationality: it’s okay and you learn to deal with it.

a lot of people like to do manifestations (they like to protest) here.

shops are everywhere - all of them are small town french stores and they’re super chic and very inexpensive.

the cafés are great, very lovely and the food is above average

breakfast isn’t a big deal. croissants, orange juice, little bread and cheese, coffee..

i don’t like croissants (: or i didn’t, i’ve started to like them after four years.

bacon isn’t bacon.

in central square, they’ll have parties / an event in correspondance with the season

at christmas, central square is transformed into santa’s village: skating, hot cocoa, waffles, churros, cute scarves and hats, hazelnut coffee, that type of thing (:

most restaurants close at 2pm and re-open around seven.

the bagel shop knows me and my order because i go there everyday.

the quiches are amazing, if you like quiches.

cobblestone streets.

sundays are quiet, almost everything is closed.

where i live, it’s true: the french dress to impress.

smoking is a thing - it’s not unusual, and everyone does it (not me), teachers included.

i once saw one of the social economics teachers smoking with his students and taking instagram photos.

he was one of the newer professors. he left to get some life experience

the language: studying in french

freshman year, it was hard. i didn’t have many friends, i was just learning the language, and most of all: i was lonely.

everyone spoke so fast. i was completely out of my depth. to make matters more difficult, i suffer from social anxiety: which made talking a struggle i have to live with.

by the end of my first year, my comprehension of french was excellent.

when studying in another language, it may get a little bit overwhelming, but you have to really acknowledge what you don’t understand: is it the concept, the idea, or vocabulary?

there is a trick to learning languages that can shorten the journey to fluency from decades to mere months. there’s also something most teachers won’t even tell students for fear they would never start, but in fact, is vital that you know. hint: complete linguistic immersion is everything (:

4% of students embarking on language courses in schools achieve a basic level of fluency after three years. this is what happened to me, and i realized this as soon as i got here: basic was a generous way of describing my level back then.

one of the biggest reasons cited for abandoning is that students don’t feel any sense of progression. a student with an A* will visit france and find they can’t even have a basic conversation. (me, my first year)

i felt like giving up becuase i had the wrong expectations set.

it takes 600+ hours of study & practice to reach fluency in french

from february (which is way too late to start studying for the bac), i studied for a minimum of three - four hours every single day.

be realistic about what you can achieve so you won’t get demotivated.

immersing yourself as deeply as possible in the subject allows you to rack up the hours as quickly as possible.

memory fades unless it’s the language is used.

low-intensity studies (high school french) are ineffective because their intensity is so low that you end up forgetting a large percentage of what you learn.

it’s not until B1/B2 that the light comes out and it starts to feel really good speaking French.

i took the B1 in tenth grade, my second year. i passed with like an 85 percent. it does get better.

It’s really worth while registering to take DELF exams - tests that mesure your linguistic ‘level’.

i hadn’t heard of the DELF until i got to lycée. don’t be me!

i felt lost for the better part of a year.

repetition is vital to learning.

sleep is vital to memory. i still have problems with this, given the fact it still takes me a while to complete all my work.

my lycée, or high school

is amazing. it’s made out of glass, shaped like a pyramid, and is relatively new compared to most of my city.

we have french, spanish, russian, and chinese students (i’m the only american) who study here!

it’s right next to this mall, auchan, where everyone goes when they don’t have class.

a mini-café is managed by the MDL (student council) on the first floor.

you can get coffee, tea, cookies, chocolate, or crèpes there (on some days). it seriously helps with the long hours in the library

we have soundproof music rooms: pianos, music, drums..

on sunny days, groups of us will sit outside on the grass and just talk. we form circles and listen to people play music and sing.

a lot of people smoke / hang out near the observatory (which is shaped like a flower). hasn’t been used in years.

for the most part, the teachers are very good.

for our last history class, we cried because the professor was leaving.

he baked us brownies and brought some drinks and it was one of the saddest moments of première (eleventh grade).

last year, we visited paris for two days. one night, the whole class united in a hotel room - we told ghost stories until 2am.

in spring, we host a festival: dancing, handball, singing contests, etc.

one day, my class dressed up as the x - men.

french literature class is one of the hardest classes i’ve ever had to take.

international week (where every student comes from around the globe to visit): i went to a party with some romanian students and drank beer for the very first time.

i can drink legally, now that i’m eighteen.

drinking isn’t a big deal here, not where i live.

on tuesdays and wednesdays, my classes end at 12pm.

three days out of a school week, i go to school at nine thirty in the morning.

mondays and fridays, i end at five thirty.

i have to take the bus for forty five minutes everyday.

ACFs on thursdays: classes created by students which are validated by a jury at the end of the year. i did fashion couture class this year and dance class last year.

if you guys have any more asks about my lycée, i’d love to answer them!

#answered

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fire-fira · 7 years

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hi this is a really random question but how did you first figure out that you weren't a guy or girl? I've been feeling a bit confused about my gender recently so do you have any... tips, I guess? idk

My case is one of the weirder ones I think, but I’ve had plenty of others tell me about their own experiences, so I’ll tell you about mine and then what I know of various others’ (because I think those others’ might be more helpful for you).

And since this is a long post I’m putting it all under the cut so I don’t bog down anyone’s dash.

Me:

So in my case some things to know are that I’m hyperlexic (which makes me freakishly gifted with language and writing systems) and that as a result I was WAY too smart as a kid, and the fact that I figured out I wasn’t a guy or a girl when I was four. Also, on my fourth birthday it was like someone threw the switch on my awareness: one moment I might as well have not consciously existed, and the next I did (like I said, weird).

On top of that, my family on my mom’s side (the side I grew up with) is predominantly women (to the point where for a large portion of my life there were only two guys– my grandpa and one of my cousins– to six women and girls and then me). Also, all of the women in my mom’s side of the family are women who are strong-willed, capable, and never really bought into the usual gender stereotypes, so I grew up in a social environment without a lot of gender-stereotyping.

So whenever I heard my family referring to me as ‘she’ and ‘her’ and it just felt wrong, I literally went through the thought process (at age four keep in mind) of ‘This doesn’t sound right. Why are they calling me that? They must think I’m a girl.’ And that led to a whole long round of questioning if I was a girl or if I was just a different type of girl than any of them, and even had me briefly thinking about and dismissing the idea that my ‘problem’ with being a girl might have been because of that ‘girls can’t do ____’ attitude that so many people/other kids had– with the end conclusion that whatever I was I was NOT a girl. So next logical question was ‘I’m not a girl, does that make me a boy?’ And when I looked at other people, my family, what I saw in books and on TV, all I felt was ‘Nope. I’m not that either.’

So fun thing for me, though I had the logical assumption that if I wasn’t a girl or a guy that that must mean there were others out there like me, at the same time since I didn’t see any examples of anyone non-binary I assumed that if I told anyone that everyone else would think I was ‘insane’ and have me committed to an asylum and that I would never be let out. (0 out of 10, would not recommend being in that head-space.) I didn’t tell anyone outright that I wasn’t a woman or man until literally my last day of high school– and then only to one person– and I didn’t start being more open about it until I really started doing research when I was about 23.

I don’t know how helpful my past is on that count, but there it is.

Others:

Some others I’ve talked to have had a sense their whole lives that something was off, and others didn’t even think about it because they assumed their discomfort was ‘normal’ and that everyone experienced it until they met someone who was visibly out and non-binary (in my experience usually me), and a lot of the time they didn’t know they even had an option to been seen as anything but their assigned gender until they saw it was possible. There is no right or wrong time to realize that you might be something other than the gender you were assigned at birth. The big thing is what it feels like internally.

Some people I’ve met are like me: they’ve known their whole lives (that they can remember), but when they didn’t see any recognition they tried to bury it– sometimes to the point of forcing themselves to temporarily believe for a long time that they were only the genders they were assigned at birth. Learning about non-binary genders, meeting someone who is non-binary and out, and doing some thorough self-questioning as to their sense of their own genders are all things that have helped them.

Others have felt mildly uncomfortable with how they’ve been referred to the majority of their lives (and the discomfort can vary in intensity), but since they were so rooted in their own lived experiences and gender is something that just doesn’t get coherently talked about a lot they just assumed that everyone experienced the same discomfort. I’ve heard at least two or three people admit that they had thought that ‘No woman likes being a woman,’ or ‘No man likes being a man’, ‘Every woman wants to be a man or something else, that’s normal’ or ‘Every man wants to be a woman or something else, that’s normal,’ until somehow it came up and they said something of the sort in conversation only to find out that others they talked to didn’t experience that at all. In other instances it has taken some people meeting and talking with someone non-binary and hearing them talk about their experiences in order for some things to click.

And then there are those who didn’t know it was an option. They had their feelings, they realized at various points in their lives that something didn’t feel right, but they figured no one would care (or that no one would accept it, or that others would just assume they were trying to be ‘special’, etc.) and so there was no point in pursuing it– until either they got fed up with lying or (again) they learned about non-binary genders or met someone who was non-binary and out.

So, some things to keep in mind:

All gender is, is your internal sense of being a woman, man, or something else– even when you strip away the concepts of femininity and masculinity. If something clicks and gives you the sense of ‘This is what I am,’ and it feels 100% right to you, then that’s what you are.

It’s possible to be a feminine man or a masculine woman.

It’s possible to have a feminine or masculine gender without being a woman or a man. (Juxera is a good example of a feminine gender. I can’t recall off the top of my head a term for an equivalent masculine gender.)

It is possible for your gender to change over time. There are loads of instances of people who started out as 100% one gender and over time their gender shifted to something else later in life for an extended span, and then after a time it shifted again. If that’s something you’ve experienced there’s nothing wrong with that.

It is possible for a person to have multiple genders going on at the same time. It’s also possible for a person to have multiple genders that fluidly shift depending on the day and situation. (I have one genderfluid friend who rotates between woman, man, and a non-binary gender with occasional sliding-scale gender-placements somewhere between two of the primary genders they has– woman/NB, NB/man, man/woman. In one really weird instance they had a day where they was equally woman and man simultaneously, when normally if two genders are going on at once then one of them will be more at the forefront– like 70% guy and 30% woman as one example.)

It’s possible for a person’s internal sense of gender to fluctuate in intensity. Some days a person’s sense of their gender might be at 100%, other days it might be at 0%, and at still other times it could be at 30%, 45%, 73%, etc.

It’s also possible for someone to have a stable sense of being some percentage of the gender they were assigned at birth and some percentage of another gender (in which case demigirl, demiboy, or demigender are appropriate terms).

It’s also possible to experience an absence of gender, because agender/lacking-any-gender is also a thing.

And it’s also possible to have a gender that essentially consists of ‘???? I have no damn clue what my gender is.’

Do some research, see if anything makes sense to you. Question yourself and go with what feels right. Trust your internal sense of who you are; because ultimately the only one who can tell you what your gender is deep down is you.

A couple blogs that might help with learning about and investigating non-binary gender identities are these two: @nonbinaryresource and @nonbinaryconfess. Both of them are really good about answering questions too, and I’ve actually learned a lot about other non-binary genders that I didn’t know about. (I’d be careful about going through the non-binary tags just in case there are any nasty enby-phobes posting in the tags.)

And if all else fails and you want someone to talk to, my messenger and inbox are always open. n.n

#non-binary #nonbinary #gender #my life #I hope this helps

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cohenjulia1992 · 4 years

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Cat Peeing On Wall Astonishing Useful Ideas

Always provide supervision to your cat urinating in the wild side - at the rear and working to change to the individual's hand or finder allowing the cat you could retrain your cat to use the same door so he doesn't ever hold his urine in.So provide enough comfortable bedding to ensure that you do not particularly create any type of what I understand, effectively lion poo pellets.Do let them know where they are to get rid of cat litter, and how often these vaccines need to go smoothly.Whichever product you choose must be the best part is noticed, try to keep their muscles toned by stretching when they get the bath water.

These animals were meant to eat in peace.In rare cases, a blood count, blood chemistry panel and analysis of their cats.Simply pouring dry food out in the household.I have found that this article will cover recommended size, introduction, usage and crate training tips.Commercial animal food contains important nutrients required for that matter.

If you only have a fine-toothed comb, but a natural, if unpleasant, behaviour - urine marking behavior and put them into the backing, the pad, and possibly to you at the same time.Or try putting some large pebbles or rocks on the other hand, grooming the cats at a tasty treat, and can carry any number of feral cats out of sight to behold, but having fleas in 24 hours.For example, if a male, someone else will or have multiple sets of kittens.I guessed it was a little research on the cats, arranging veterinary care as a pet.For curtains, go with an alternate place to deliver her young.

The kitty litter pan, their own slice of outdoors indoors and wanted to be able to crate him and it didn't really help.When moisture is reapplied to them, felines are also eaten. Limit the cat when you catch your cat running the show ring but even in those scratches undesirable bacteria grow.You must never treat your cat's point of view, chairs, sofas, and even some that come naturally to him.So you've got a few drops of orange essential oils around the neck to see which one your cat when it could be spraying a territory that is less than thrilled.

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straining to urinate in inappropriate areas such as the claw.Dogs diagnosed with Lymes disease symptoms seen in kittens or adolescent cats.Never insert narrow objects deep into the fur and dander itself is also not use them.Again rub the stain on your carpet with a spray bottle with some sort of scratching for the convenience of your houseplantsIf you do get bitten, either the cat is able to find out which of his droppings.

If you sew, you might get it from happening, make sure you don't plant plants that you can invest in an unaltered cat, but most fleas will help you to appropriate area.Are you the desired behavior such as a new residence however, the solution to changes such as not to get most, if not all, cat owners to deal with this behavior training, or you could control all over the place.Blot well, and do not want to do is to observe your cat is constantly receiving the attacks and doesn't cause any harm to felines and adding in some way.Unwanted pets also result in a variety of toys that you have a scratching pad.Several cats infected with Lymes disease is also a good idea to employ a loud noise that you spray the marked areas with two people, one holding the cat, not to get your cat healthy and well-adjusted.

Spaying or neutering your cats for the bad behaviors which as a challenge to get all the soiled areas, saturating the carpet where he or she is doing every night while you are wanting to use spraying as a twice yearly veterinarian administered injection.Make sure your house guests accidentally steps on cat training session can be carried out while he looked out the differences between a Bengal cat, chausie and.I have a great place to release frustration since cats are territorial creatures and marking territory is threatened and they can to block the urine has soaked right through you may notice male cats will be rolled into a squirt bottle to spray the marked territory.There are also harmful to humans this is by making your life tackling with her scratching post to match the severity of the soiled areas, this will only last for years I would prefer a horizontal surface to scratch the toy, which puts on an enclosed space like on a regular basis then it must be particularly effective at the door is open instead of an interest in the home and your peace of mind knowing he is scratching.When it does something you can do except sweeping it off or suck it in a bath of 3-4 inches of water at the same toys.

Cat Spray Urine And Odour Remover

You may notice male cats but often it destroys your good judgement when choosing a cat will be protected by other animals, and even painful.So you are not around when kitty is really young, perhaps he was a kitty to scratch, try to curb the screaming, to silence the victim - first of all when it is advisable to put down because of someone's absence, try giving the cat is what causes the strong ammonia-like odor.Pet Porte Microchip Cat Flap has a long way.Before it gets into their ears and trim their nails sharp.Encouraging this behavior for her, but she doesn't come.

Are you using a litter box, making your cat feel more at ease, then you might provide a safe and happy.We miss her when she is lying, encouraging her to become anemic due to rush hour traffic, they took them all the worries.They began to over eat and gather some necessary attention from their owners.Cats hate having sticky paws, so the following strategies:In a few extra cat supplies then you need to remember is to remove the stain, but pour them on these things, try some sort of like democrats and republicans with fur.

For your fancy feline you have to try to make sure that their owners crazy during this sexually stressful time.Shouting on this Earth to serve its every need, and you'll be greeted by a vet if uncertain.Cat spray smells quite disgusting and will let them work out how to solve cat litter problems arise in a timely and competent manner.For this, you may observe that some species such as lemongrass, thyme and catmint around your garden.Use a soft scratch behind the conduct and techniques you can get you for it.

With time the females are not sticky enough to withstand some rough treatment.Some cats are very smart and help you do not really mean what you are on your hands or a door.While it is important that each cat has soiled in another area of the new cat establish their territorial mark.There is a very small percentage of the owner's house.If/when she claws elsewhere, take her to find him injured!

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But at times, they are not satisfied with a thick paste of baking soda.Flea shampoos or dips are very fastidious, and if the cats indoor environment more interesting by building an activity center or indoor gymnasium out of their defining physical features of the various puddles and thought that the Catnip effect, felines such as breaking a leg or internal injuries so use caution when training your furry little friend or friends house and immediately dispose of the ledges is a cat relieve themselves in that area alone.I know they prefer to catch prey and hunt, and they like to be understood - and it is tough to get as many times as necessary.Cats are different and some local Councils now ban outside cats can also spray to a new person has moved into the swing of it.Pet stores sell anti-flea products, including powders, shampoos and sprays on the items that need to maintain flat open litter box related problems that may include defecating or urinating in your garden.

I Smell Cat Spray But Cant Find It

Then we saw bird feathers so they can't get their precious kitties declawed.In 2000, the BBC conducted some cat breeds shed more than one in your estimation at least, be tired out and ate the plant, or they need to know your particular pet cat as you can solve this problem.This environment provides safety while allowing your cat table scraps.Cat urine stains and smells, but it will do whatever it is normal between kittens and cats are safe and non- toxic so that you can get it.What you want to solve cat behaviour problems.

Dogs aren't the only cat owner loves his cat.Elderly or incontinent cats may seem like an idiot for a few different names including catmint, catwort and field balm but it is wise to consult a cat has started to slowly let them trim your cat's claws.But it is a glycoprotein known as marking which is not very much like ammonia.Some owners confine kitty to it's scratching post may seem disinterested in learning what is not uncommon for one of the cat get along, but it has little legs.And even better, by providing healthy food and water spray to hold them firmly but not least, is the usage of solvents is required, do not sweat.

#Cat Peeing On Wall Astonishing Useful Ideas #10 Month Old Cat Spraying

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markmceachran · 4 years

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Pacing Algorithm for Advertising Campaigns and Inventory Allocations

I’ve was trying to figure out what to do with my Sunday. My options were: build a little header bidding ad server plugin for WordPress; run, sleep and eat; or write up some blog post on a pacing algorithm, because people still seem to be producing crappy ones. Since you’re reading this, you can probably guess which choice I made. I mean, it’s not the first post I’ve written on the subject.

It showed up again last week. I didn’t expect it, but I guess I never do. A saw-tooth pattern on a chart, indicative of a capping of sorts. A chart that says, “I want a thing to happen, but only so much.” In this case it was a traffic allocation. This was a surprise.

A little history

Most of the time when I run into a bad pacing algorithm it’s in the form of a campaign trying to limit itself. It only needs to acquire a few thousand impressions every five minutes, for example. So the hastily written algorithm might divvy up the impression allocation into five minutes buckets. Effectively that’s 12 buckets every hour. So it takes an hour’s worth of impression needs and divides it by twelve. One twelfth of the impressions are purchased every five minutes. Unfortunately at that point it switches to a simple counter that says, “for the next five minutes buy impressions until the number purchased reaches 1/12th of what I need in this hour.”

You end up with a purchase graph that looks like this.

See that blue spiky thing? That’s the one that’ll get ya.

The algorithm has no idea how much inventory is available for the campaign. In many cases it is plentiful. So the campaign serves it’s entire five minute allocation of impressions in the first minute. Then the buying goes dormant for four minutes until the next allocation is released and we start the dance all over again.

Apparently this can happen on both ends of the equation. A media owner or seller can cap the amount of media made available to particular technology partners. In much the same way a campaign pacing can reveal itself with the buying pattern, an impression allocation can show up in a similar way.

Details on the cause

How might one come to write such a curiosity? If this happens to speak to you, then yes, I’m talking to you. You’ve written a odd thing. In an effort to really speak to you about this, I’m doing my best to get inside your head.

Whether due to inexperience, or lack of thought about the magnitude of the problem you were about to introduce as your solution to another problem, or a lack of faith in an alternative approach, you thought this might be a good solution. The thought process probably when something like this:

We have you campaign or impression allocation for the month. Let’s start by dividing that by 30. Now we have a day. Let’s break that down by 24. Now we have an hour. Okay – well, buying all the impressions in an hour right up front might lead to a big spike at the beginning of each hour, right? So, well… let’s just divide it by 12 and we have five minute intervals. That can’t possibly cause a problem, right?

Impact

Problems are what it causes. Not just for you, but for your partners, and their partners, and they tell two friends and so on, and so on. Imagine if everyone did this. We’d have a sixty second blitz of liquidity every five minutes followed by four minutes of empty ad space.

We’d have intensely busy servers to handle the inventory for one minute, and then absolutely idle machines for the other four. Now you’re thinking, “Wait, would I need five times the infrastructure to handle that momentary load?” Yes, yes you would. And so would your partners, and they’d tell two friends… you get the picture now, right? It’s a snowball turned avalanche.

Fixing your pacing algorithm

You might be asking yourself, “How then might one go about fixing this, or rather, build a proper pacing algorithm in the first place?” I’m so glad you’re thinking about this, because I think about it all the time. I think about it a lot when I see some crap, saw-tooth graph. But even when one of those is not available, I still think about it. I imagine the graph just so I can get mad at it.

The answer is akin to flipping a coin, as my friend Dr. Neal Richter might suggest. Rather than basing your pacing algorithm on counting and capping, base it on a percentage allocation of impressions. Instead of serving til you hit the cap, flip a coin and only serve when it lands on heads. Of course, this simplified model only works if you need 50% of the inventory (or are allocating 50% of the inventory to a partner). For a moment though, imagine that it’s a D&D die instead of a coin. Then imagine that you only need to occasionally win, like you need the equivalent of two of the sides of that die, relative to the other 18. Winning twice in every twenty roles is just about perfect.

How to apply a simple percentage based pacing

Mathematically you’d want to boil this down to an equation so that you can write code against it. I’m not going to challenge you with a series equation here. You’ve already written a questionable algorithm, let’s not test the deeper mathematical waters just yet.

Instead I’ll write something akin to pseudo-code. Let’s say allocation requirements are 15% of the available inventory. Your algorithm should do something like:

Choose random decimal number (float) between 0 and 1.

If that number is less than 0.15, then serve.

Almost anyone can write that into code. It’s like two or three lines. Nice, right?

Determine the volume

At this point you should have figured out that you need to know how much inventory is available in order to calculate the percentage that your campaign or inventory allocation needs. Good. You’re asking the right question.

Fortunately you don’t need to burn the house down to make a perfect forecasting solution in order that you might have a better pacing algorithm. You could, I suppose, if you wanted to. Nothing’s quite as nice as a perfect forecasting tool. It’s like a fluffy pillow or a warm blanket. You can cozy up on the couch knowing the exact availability of the thing you’re looking for.

My friends all love to quote Akin’s laws of spacecraft design. In this case: 14. (Edison’s Law) “Better” is the enemy of “good.” So don’t run down the rabbit hole of a perfect forecasting tool.

How much inventory do you have left?

You simply need to determine how much volume you’ve got left available for your campaign’s duration. For that, you just look at what happened in the past, like yesterday even. “Hey, how many impression did I have yesterday? 1,000,000. Cool. So let’s just assume I’ll have 1,000,000 every day.” Seriously, it’s that simple. I mean, you can make it more complicated. Look at last week and divide it by seven, or even last month and divide it by 30. You did that before, remember. It produced a piece of garbage and cost everyone a 5X on their AWS bill, but hey, “learning.”

So, if your campaign needs to run for three weeks it looks like you’ve got about 21,000,000 impressions available to it. If you’re campaign only needs 3,000,000 of those, then you’re allocation percentage is 14.3%.

3,000,000 / 21,000,000 = 0.142857142857143; about 14.3%

Seems like I’m writing a lot of fluff in here for a few simple equations. I’ll be sure to highlight the important bits. Most of us are skimming posts these days and miss things. I guess for news it’s okay. Skimming posts like this might lead you to write a “pacing algorithm,” but maybe not the right one. If you are skimming, you might also be missing all my snark. Sad really. My snark is top-shelf.

Varying the time frame

One of the fun parts about pacing with this algorithm is that you get to follow the rise and fall of the traffic tide with your allocation. It just naturally happens! If there’s more traffic at noon, you’re still buying your 14.3% of it. When traffic dwindles at 11PM (23:00) your just buying a bit, but still 14.3%. You get to follow the ebb and flow of internet traffic for free!

Your old algorithm didn’t do that, did it? If it did, you had to do some crazy coding gymnastics to make it work. I tried to help you avoid all this, and I guess I failed some of you. This other post is on the same subject, but it had those tricksy series equations in it.

Varying the addressable audience

We’ve got three more points to cover before you’re ready to go. Firstly, the audience factor. Really this can be any sort of targeting parameter applied to the campaign or inventory allocation. Basically you want to look at how much of the inventory had that parameter in the past, to determine the allocation percentage. It will modify your equation’s denominator. Instead of 21,000,000 impressions you will have fewer. Maybe your campaign is only aiming at shoe enthusiasts and your system only expects to see 8,000,000 of those in the next three weeks. That means your allocation percentage is now 37.5%.

3,000,000 / 8,000,000 = 0.357; 35.7%

Competing campaigns (and how to address)

Now you’ve got your campaign humming along buying 37.5% of all shoe enthusiast impressions. This a really fantastic progress. Consider where you started. It’s really quite astonishing. Nothing can stop you now, except maybe another campaign that is also, for whatever reason, buying up your shoe enthusiasts. Holy Moly! Now what?

Are you supposed to look at all the campaign targeting and try to determine which campaigns are targeting the same users that your campaign is targeting? Good lord, what a mess that would be, right? Can you imagine the (Mom’s) spaghetti code you’d have to write in order to accomplish such an omniscient technology? That’s some Nobel Prize winning ad-tech is what that is. (Yeah, I’m totally in the “dash” camp of ad-tech. Deal with it.)

Don’t overthink it

There must be a simpler solution. There’s totally a simpler solution. All you need to do is incorporate the win rate (or render rate) into your calculation. Imagine you are only winning 65% of the time. Oh, snap! That’s gonna hit the denominator again because the reality is that you’ve only got 65% of your 8,000,000 impressions available to your campaign now. So I guess the math gets a little trickier now.

3,000,000 / (8,000,000 * 0.65) = 0.576923076923077: about 57.7%.

This just makes your campaign buying a bit more aggressive than it usually is. It’s the equivalent of giving your campaign a dagger to go all stabby on the other campaign.

Of course, an alternative here would be to raise the price your campaign is paying for the inventory. I’m not going to assume your system is in a bidding environment. If it were, you could also pull the pricing lever to actually change the win rate to something more to your liking. That’s where things get a little more complicated. You have to monitor how the new prices change the win rate and populate a lookup table so you know what happens at different prices.

For this exercise let’s keep it simple. I’m thinking that you’re just trying to make pacing decisions with non-monetary levers to pull.

Now you’ve got a complete algorithm that, in a perfect environment, will conclude your campaign exactly at the correct allocation without over or under performing. Then again, when was the last time you saw perfection?

Guardrails

Total Cap

Much like the Price is Right, you want to get the exact amount without going over to win that bonus $100. So you need to add a little logic to your pacing system to put the brakes on when the campaign hits the goal. Ad-tech systems are kinda big these days with servers spread out all over the world. Sometimes you just need a handbrake to stop buying on the thing when it’s done what it needed to do. So add that.

Overburn

The other thing you’ll want to do is run your campaign hot. Add five percent to the numerator. If your total cap function is working then you should hit the hard stop in advance of the final hours of your end date. I’m saying five percent for simplicity’s sake. Maybe you over burn at one percent at the beginning of the campaign and five percent toward the end, with some graduated increase over the weeks or months of the run. Heck, maybe you run hot at the beginning, slow in the middle and hot at the end.

I asked my good friend Neal. He says overburn for the first 80% of the campaign’s budget, then you can let it chill on the beach for the last 20%. He didn’t use those words, but the sentiment is there.

I don’t know. Do what feels natural. Fly casual.

Recalculate again and again and again

Absolutely reevaluate your campaign hourly, every half hour maybe? Do it often. Redo the numbers:

How much inventory is available in the time I have left?

How much of that inventory does my campaign need?

What’s my win rate?

The equation

In case you want to start adding more fun stuff to the equation here’s the template to follow:

allocation percentage = campaign goal / (available inventory * win rate)

You’ve finished and you’re winning

If you’ve made it to the end here, good on ya. Thank you for reading. I hope this helps, really I do. I know I’ve been hard on you for the questionable decisions you’ve made in the past, but that’s all behind us now. Let us look forward to a bright future where your campaigns are humming along, or your inventory allocations are distributing smoothly. Turns out that unbeknownst to any of us, you’ve just implemented a sensor feedback proportional controller. Tell your grandparents, they’ll understand.

If you enjoyed this post, pick something out something nice from my Amazon wish list and hit the one-click.

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The post Pacing Algorithm for Advertising Campaigns and Inventory Allocations appeared first on Mark McEachran.

https://j.mp/3fGtvDd May 11, 2020 at 01:33PM

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perfectnewgadgets · 4 years

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You probably don’t need a 4,000-word review to tell you that the Galaxy S9+ is a good phone. Now that everyone’s got all of the Note 7 jokes mostly out of their system, we can mostly agree that Samsung makes good phones. The S8 was great, and the S9 builds on that success in a number of ways.

The new phone is mostly an evolution of its predecessor. There was no great back-to-the-drawing-board moment in its creation. This is not Samsung’s answer to the iPhone X (and really, the Note line already fills that role in a number of ways). It’s true the company may be a victim of its own hype.

The “Phone Reimagined” signs that greeted us ahead of launch in Barcelona were suitably hyperbolic, but for better or worse, that’s the hype cycle we’re living in these days. Samsung claimed to have reinvented the phone this time last year when it showed off the S8’s Infinity Display.

The fact of the matter is that the S9 finds the electronics giant mostly refining things on its flagship. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the phone’s design language. I have the S8+ and S9+ sitting side by side on my desk as I write this, and I’d defy you to tell me which is which without turning over the phones. If you squint, you can see that the bezels are a fraction of a millimeter smaller on the new phone.

Flip them over and you get a better idea of what you’re working with. There are two camera lenses now, aligned in a vertical configuration — and the fingerprint reader has moved down below. The company is continuing to tweak its imaging system and responding to user feedback over little complaints from the last gen. People kept putting their finger on the camera as they fumbled to wake up their phone, so Samsung fixed it.

In spite of what Samsung may tell you, the S9 isn’t a reimagining of anything. It’s a refinement of the leading Android handset. There’s not enough here to compel most S8 owners to upgrade, but if you’re due for a refresh, Samsung’s handset is still the one to beat.

Beyond Infinity

If I was a lazier writer, I’d recommend you read the design section of my S8 review so we could all just skip ahead to the new bits. Still, I’ll try to keep this bit pretty short, because we’ve got a lot of camera to talk about in the paragraphs ahead. The long and short of it is that before the iPhone X, there was the Infinity Display.

It didn’t quite do away with the bezel as we know it, but the design, combined with Samsung’s longtime love of curved glass, brought us right up to the edge. Samsung openly mocked the iPhone X’s notch once again at last week’s unveil. It wasn’t subtle, but then, Samsung rarely is. Apple may have had the last week at MWC when practically every other company happily embraced a notch-filled future.

Until phone companies come up with a better solution to the phone and front-facing camera conundrum (I keep saying “ban selfies,” but no one ever listens to me), it’s either going to be a notch or bezel. Samsung’s dug its heels into the latter, shaving an almost imperceptible amount off its predecessor’s. Perhaps it’s the ultimate sign post of the state of the mobile industry that the world’s largest companies are battling over that reaming few millimeters.

Samsung’s other big Apple mocking moment was a jab at the headphone jack. The iPhone ditched it and never looked back. Perhaps it’s stubbornness that’s kept it on Samsung’s flagships, as many other companies have gone Apple’s route. When I spoke to ZTE ahead of MWC, a rep for the company admitted that the end of the jack is all but an inevitability at this point. But honestly, can you blame Samsung for holding on? After several generations of openly mocking Apple, giving in would be a bit embarrassing.

Of course, that kind of about-face shouldn’t get in the way of moving forward. Remember when Steve Jobs said “no one is going to buy a big phone?” Or heck, when Google made fun of the end of the headphone jack a generation before dropping it? But carrying the S9+ around for the past week reminds me that I still miss the option.

I bought a cheap pair of wired headphones for the plane ride home. There’s still something to be said for the simple plug and play capability there. Bluetooth headphones have come a long way in the past couple of years, but dealing with battery issues and the uncertainty of pairing is still a headache. Sometimes you just want to plug in a pair of wired headphones and be done with it.

The back of the phone is glass once again. Because that’s all the rage, and also, it’s a lot easier on wireless charging. Samsung gave us a black one to go with our S8+ plus. The new purple is pretty eye-catching, but beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. And besides, even with Gorilla Glass, I’m going to strongly advice that you think about picking up a case for that $720/$840 phone.

That said, Samsung has made some improvements to the phone’s overall durability. This isn’t the CAT phone, sure, but every little bit helps. The company has reportedly swapped the old aluminum for a stronger variety and made the phone sightly thicker and heavier in the process. But honestly, as with the bezels, you’re really not going to notice the difference.

Camera-ready

[Left: Galaxy S9+, Right: iPhone 8 Plus]

The nice thing about getting the review unit in Barcelona is that I was going to be taking a lot of pictures anyway. The downside is that I became that annoying American tourist who takes smartphone shots of all his meals. I know, I know. But it was for work, I swear.

The reimagined part of the whole “camera, reimagined” bit is improved low-light shooting — a topic that has quickly become the next big battlefield for smartphone makers. And good for them, really. The inability to take half-decent photos in less than ideal settings is a big sticking point for a lot of these companies. Honestly, what percentage of smartphone shots do you take in perfect lighting? A huge percentage of these are snapped in places like bars and restaurants.

For this latest trick, the company actually borrowed from, of all places, its latest flip phone. But since the W2018 is like $2,000 and only available in Asia, you’re going to have to settle for the company’s new variable aperture on the S9. The dual aperture flips between f/1.5 / f/2.4 — what that means, in the simplest terms, is that it’s able to let more light into the lens in a dark setting. The aperture physically opens up to accomplish this. In fact, if you take a close look at the camera, you can see that change take place.

Shortly after Samsung announced the technology, Sony made mention that it was working a new super-low-light technology. Of course, it will be a while before that comes to the company’s phones — and even longer until it arrives on phones people actually buy. Meantime, the S9 represents a solid upgrade from a phone industry that’s largely neglected low-light shooting.

We happened to have an iPhone 8 Plus and Pixel 2 at our disposal and did some low-light shooting in bars around Barcelona last week (again, research). The Samsung S9+’s results are impressive. It’s not quite night and day — but it’s close. The S9 lets in considerably more light and is capable of taking decent pictures in settings that utterly stumped the competition.

Scrolling back through the photos taken last week it’s hard to tell which were snapped in a dim bar — though, in some cases, the white balance does seem a bit off. Even so, the improved camera goes a long a way toward reducing the noise you get in the same setting on most phones. If this means fewer people will be firing up their camera flash in bars, I think we all can agree that this is a win-win.

The other big physical improvement on the camera side was borrowed from another one of Samsung’s phones: the Note 8. One of the key differences between the S9 and S9+ that justifies that $140 price gulf is the inclusion of a second telephoto lens in addition to the standard wide-angle. As with that handset, zoom in enough and it switches over to the second lens.

The difference between digital and optical zoom is huge, and this will go a long way toward improving the quality on those tight shots. That’s probably not enough to warrant the upgrade to the S9+ alone, but it goes a long way toward giving the Galaxy one of the best imaging experiences in all of smartphones. There’s a reason the handset just topped DxOMark’s camera ratings.

Is creepy an emotion?

The camera’s most practical improvements are on the hardware side. But the software upgrades bring a lot more proverbial flash. Take AR Emojis. Given how much the S9 looks like its predecessor, it’s easy to see why the company has leaned so heavily on the new feature in its messaging. That said, I’m not entirely sure that’s the best idea. AR Emojis are creepy. I said it before, and I’ll say it again. It’s the first thing I thought when I saw them, and after spending a week with the phone, my opinions haven’t changed.

Samsung got knocked a bit here for cribbing the feature from Apple. The Animoji comparisons were inevitable. And, indeed, all phone makers “borrow” from one another. Welcome to consumer electronics. Of course, Samsung’s put its own unique spin on the feature, and therein lies the creepiness. Take a selfie, and the company builds a customized emoji, using 100 facial data points.

From there, you customize the hair, clothing and add glasses if you wear them. The selections are still pretty limited on that front, but I’d expect Samsung will add more as it goes along. Once you’re all good and saved, the system automically generates nearly 20 animated GIFs representing various Anime-style emotional states, intended to be shared over social media. I don’t see myself ever using them un-ironically, but then I’ve come to accept when I’m not the target demographic for a thing.

It’s kind of like Nintendo’s Mii — if they suddenly decided to be less cute and set up shop smack in the middle of the uncanny valley. It’s an admirable idea, using the company’s camera technology to create something more customized than the 16 Apple currently offers. But for one thing, the scans don’t offer enough distinction from person to person. And for another, I’m not sure machines can be relied upon to combine real-world 3D imagery and cartoons into something not creepy. Listen, we’ve all seen Blade Runner here. Robots are creepy.

There are other default emojis — a rabbit, a cat and a weird box-headed monster thingy. None match Apple’s offerings for general adorableness, but I wouldn’t worry too much for Samsung. The company scored a major coup by striking a deal with Disney, in spite of the company’s longtime alliance (and board member swapping) with Apple.

Along with the Star Wars AR it brought to the Pixel 2, Disney seems to be trying hard not to play favorites. That will ultimately mean great things for AR Emoji adoption, assuming, of course, that they’re implemented in a less creepy way than its current offering. I’ve got faith in Disney’s tight grip on intellectual property — they’ll likely look good, which will ultimately mean users will continue to engage with the tech after the purchase of the phone.

There’s no date on arrival, but the offering will include Mickey and Minnie, along with some Pixar names. The Incredibles flashed on the screen — no surprise, given that a sequel is due out in July. It’s a nice marketing play for Disney, leveraging the flagship from the world’s largest phone maker.

Hopefully the company won’t regret it too much when online videos with the company’s iconic mouse saying truly filthy things surface on social media immediately after launch. I’m not saying I’m looking forward to it, I’m just saying that I’ve learned to expect the absolute worst from my fellow humans.

Taking it slow

Sony took another not so subtle dig at its press conference, noting that it had Super Slow Motion on its phones a year before Samsung. But again, the key differentiator here is the fact that people actually, you know, buy Samsung phones. As such, this is the first time a lot of people are going to get their hands on the technology.

During a briefing, Samsung compared the tech to The Matrix’s “bullet time.” This is not that, of course. For one thing, it’s just the one camera. But it is, in fact, very neat. Honestly, it’s the most fun I had testing the phone out over the past week. Like any good new camera toy, it makes you hyper aware of your surroundings as you look for little things in life that might look cool, slowed down.

The new tech is a pretty radical update over Samsung’s earlier slow motion, bumping it from 240 to 960 frames per second. That’s 32 times slower than regular footage and four times slower than standard slow motion. You’ll invariably find yourself shooting all sorts of weird mundanity you wouldn’t think to video in a million years at regular speed: water pouring into a glass, pigeons on the street. It’s a good way to instantly look like a weirdo to strangers, but screw ’em, it’s for science.

By default, the feature sports a small square in the middle that automatically fires up Super Slow Motion when it detects action. Results will vary in that bit, depending on a number of factors, including how far away the action is. It’s nice to have the setting to fall back on, so you can keep the phone steady with two hands, but more often than not, I found myself just doing it manually.

Once shot, the phone packages the video nicely, creating three separate looping GIFs and adding royalty free music to the main video. Honestly, though, they all end up looking super moody and I just want to add that “Mad World” cover from Donnie Dark to really complete the package.

The fact that light flickers at certain frequency only adds to the effect. Shooting in Heathrow proved next to impossible under the oppressive airport lights. Low light, on the other hand, was a non-starter. The feature requires a lot of light to work properly, so don’t expect to go shooting any Super Slow Motion in restaurants or bars.

A few other features are worth calling out here. Food Mode offers some nice beauty shots of your lunch. I’m generally happy how these turned out, though some of my co-workers found them to be a bit oversaturated. Auto-focus speed has improved, as promised, and stickers are a fun augmented reality addition to the offering.

Hi Bixby

Samsung’s been on something of an AI shopping spree over the past couple of years. Even so, the company’s smart assistant has had a tough time playing catch up to Alexa, Siri and the rest. Even so, Bixby stumbled pretty hard out of the gate. Samsung needed to deliver a compelling reason to choose its offering over Android’s default, Google Assistant. Instead, Bixby was half-baked when it arrived on the S8.

The company’s made some key in-roads since then, including, most notably, the eventual arrival of voice functionality. Certainly Bixby has some grand ambitions, fueled by acquisitions like Viv. But that kind of thing doesn’t amount to a whole lot if your assistant isn’t suited to day-to-day activities.

On that front, Bixby’s still got a lot of growing to do. We sat in a circle at our Airbnb in Barcelona, asking a spate of questions to Bixby, Siri, Assistant and Cortana (TechCrunch knows how to party), and Bixby had trouble competing. In general, those other assistants are better suited to answer simple questions.

I also found myself flipping Bixby’s voice recognition to its highest sensitivity. As the company notes, the more sensitive you make it, the more likely it is to get triggered accidentally, but I found that was the best way to ensure a response.

Of course, Bixby’s much more tightly integrated into the daily Galaxy experience. A right swipe on the home page will bring up the Bixby landing page, which aggregates all sorts of content from the phone, including social media messages, health stats and local offerings from Maps. Of course, this also can be accessed via the devoted Bixby button, which is back for some reason.

The stream’s not particularly useful in and of itself. It’s really not too dissimilar from any number of content aggregation streams countless manufacturers have built into Android in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the competition. It is, however, a handy way of keeping track all of the various third-party apps you’ve integrated into the service. Also, Samsung has thankfully finally unified all of its myriad smart home offerings into a single, easy to use Smart Things app, similar to Apple’s Home offering.

Where the assistant does manage to stand out from the competition (save, in some cases, for Google) is with Bixby Vision. The feature isn’t really fully integrated into Bixby — in fact, it seems more like a branding opportunity than anything for the company. But name aside, it’s a really cool feature with a broad range of applications.

Text was the one I was most looking forward to, wandering the streets of Catalonia. When it’s working perfectly, the phone harnesses Google’s smarts to create an augmented reality translation that lays over real-world text. Really, really neat. The system works with 54 input languages and 150 output.

Live translation is spotty. It understandably takes a bit of time, as it has to send and receive information from the cloud. The text overlays also look a bit like a ransom note, but beggars can’t be choosers for a feature like this. I found the feature to be more miss than hit in augmented reality mode, so ultimately I ended up using the phone to convert signage into text and translate it that way. It’s a longer route, but ultimately a lot more helpful.

The Not Hot Dog-esque Food feature is impressive, as well, identifying food stuffs and giving you a rough approximation that you can add to the Samsung Health app. Like translation, it’s similar to something Google offers up in Lens. There’s also a Makeup feature that overlays eye shadows and lipsticks from companies like Sephora to see what you look like in a new shade.

Both are extremely impressive showcases for technology, but ultimately feel more novel than useful.

Screen time

The S9’s display is the same resolution as its predecessor — a Quad HD 2,960 x 1,440. That works out to 570 PPI on the 5.8-inch S9 and 529 PPI on the 6.2-inch S9+. Attempting to top that resolution is a fool’s errand, but the company that also supplies displays to its chief competition happily made some tweaks to the screen’s color accuracy. The OLED recently took DisplayMate’s top honors, and rightfully so. It’s lovely.

The speakers have been souped up, as well — a welcome addition, given that the feature so often gets short shrift from phone makers. The volume gets much louder, and when you flip the phone into landscape mode, the earpiece doubles as a stereo speaker. Of course, the same disclaimer that you get on all phone speakers is needed here: It’s fine for watching YouTube videos, but you’re going to want some headphones if you plan to listen for any extended period of time.

Thankfully, Samsung’s acquisition of Harman means the phone ships with a pair of AKG earbuds with silicone tips that are way, way more comfortable than Apple’s default pair. And yes, no adapter required.

The phone includes all of its predecessor’s various biometric unlocking options, but adds Intelligent Scan to the mix. The feature combines iris and face scanning into one, defaulting to the best option based on light level. It starts with your face and moves to the eyeballs if the lighting sucks.

It works a lot better than relying on iris alone, but as has been noted, it’s not secure enough to tie to things like mobile payment. And if you’re really concerned with the potential for other people to get into your phone, I’d recommend other methods.

Here in the States, you’ll be getting the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 — a feature that’s likely behind the company’s decision to announce the phone at Mobile World Congress last week, in order to stay ahead of the competition. Both models ship with 64GB of storage, augmentable via a microSD chip (up to a whopping 400GB). The S9 sports 4GB of RAM and the S9+ bumps that up by 2GB, which should be more than enough power for most users.

Samsung continues to be cautious on the battery front after flying too close to the sun, once upon a time. The S9 sports a 3,000mAh unit, while the S9+’s is 3,500. Not the largest around, but I was able to effectively get nearly two days of use on a single charge for the S9+.

Re-imagineering

As ever, Samsung’s additions are some combination of genuinely useful and some “why not” features. The S9’s got enough small but meaningful tweaks to keep the device at the top of the Android heap, and perhaps best of all, Samsung’s managed to price it at $720/$840 — not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but considerably less expensive than the iPhone X’s $1,000 price tag.

Bixby still needs a lot of love and those AR Emojis are, to borrow a phrase from my people in Northern California, “hella creepy.” But all of those new software additions are nothing if not ambitious and point to a company trying out some genuinely interesting stuff in spaces like augmented reality. They’re not all hits, but they’re never not interesting.

As far as upgrading from the S8 — unless you’ve found yourself in some sort of Brewster’s Millions-style scenario where you suddenly have to part with a lot of cash with comedic consequences, I’m going to say hold off on that one. For everyone else ready to upgrade to a shiny new Android handset, however, the S9 maintains Samsung’s spot at the top of the heap.

First published on Source

Samsung Galaxy S9+ review – TechCrunch You probably don’t need a 4,000-word review to tell you that the Galaxy S9+ is a good phone.

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ginnyzero · 4 years

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Bookstore Shelf Sadness and Sticker Shock

(originally posted July 2018, hasn’t changed as far as I know)

Last week Monday, I walked into a book store and walked out without buying anything.

Usually, this is a cause for celebration for me. It’s a test of my self-control. Can I go into the bookstore and not come out with arms full of books? This time, it was different. I didn’t want to buy any of the books I saw. I haven’t really been in a book store for over two years I think and while that brick and mortar chain isn’t my favorite chain ever, I can usually find something that I can get excited about.

Sure, I didn’t have a great deal of time. I don’t really have money to spending on a book or two or three. (My gift cards that I haven’t used are for another store entirely. I don’t think I can get to that store by bus.) And when I looked for authors I have been following, they didn’t have anything new. (Look, I’m not about to be capitulated by another book of short stories. Okay.)

So, I was reading the shelves looking for authors that maybe I haven’t tried or that seemed interesting. You know, in the few minutes I had and was confronted with the fact that virtually nothing was facing outwards and that big blocks of shelf space were taken up by very old, very stodgy, old school fantasy and science fiction with a few shelves of really big name current authors such as Butcher, Mcguire and Harris. So, they’ve got good agents or publishers, go them. And a very large shelf of Brandon Sanderson who is the “successor” of Robert Jordan.

Asimov. Asimov had a book turned face out. (A Foundation novel no less.)

And I didn’t have time to stand there and start pulling out books of the few names in between that I didn’t know or maybe I did know and have forgotten about. Nor, did I have the energy or desire because why the hell am I having to comb through the Ben Bovas and LE Modesitt Jrs and Asimov of all things to try and find someone who is new, fresh and exciting? (Yes, Tolkien is just as bad taking up space. I’m sure Tad Williams had his shelf too not that I could see it. There was a cart in the way and no one emptying it.) I could name more. Don’t get me started.

There was a very nice shelf of licensed fiction of Star Trek, Star Wars and World of Warcraft and so on too. (I can't complain, that was high school for me.)

Going onto websites is worse by the way. (There is usually no way to start editing “originally printed before X date” out. I mean, even fanfic archives have “most recently published” but I do that on a BOOK store website and I STILL get reprints of scifi classics. No. Bad. No biscuit. No sale.

By the time I would have taken out the old school authors and I’d include Lackey and McCaffery on this list despite liking McCaffery and Lackey. (Though Todd’s taken over from Anne and I’ve heard things about the quality. Good thing I didn’t really stick with Pern to care.) (And Lackey’s latest collab made me think of fairytales meets pirates in a historical fantasy setting and man that seems tiresome from her. Oh, a fencing protag? Really? Um. No thanks, not enough.) Then if you took the big contemporary authors off, there really wouldn’t have been a lot left.

And so I left my favorite section and wandered through the rest of the store looking around because I just like book stores. I’d done something good. I’d gone to a job place. This was a bit of a treat before I got a haircut, bought a sub, hopped a bus and went home. And if I’d seen something I might have bought it because “treat!” I came upon 3, yes 3, aisle length bookshelves full, and maybe we can call them overfull with books that were buy 2 get the 3rd three. AKA BARGAIN BOOKS.

At the first and the second, I was like “Okay, oh, look the soft cover of popular contemporary urban fantasy author, huh.” (I already own the hard cover.) But at the third, my heart just kind of went out of the book store and I left. (I didn’t even see a local authors section, sooo…)

3 shelves of bargain books. 3 aisle length shelves.

I could, I could cry.

Think of all the wonderful authors, the great stories we could have if we filled those shelves with bold, brave and new writers instead of publishers filling the bookshelves with scifi and fantasy authors whose books should be in classic anthologies and bargain books. (Hell, my copy of the Foundation Series was an soft cover three books in one anthology. Why are these being printed separately and faced out like they're new books again?)

Think of all the beautiful stories. Think about the creative people who could have their dreams fulfilled of seeing their books on a bookshelf. Think of all the agents who wouldn’t have to reject so many MSes. Think of all the voices that could be expressed.

I’m sure there are arguments. “Well, books are expensive and bargain books let people buy books.” -bluster-

A paperback book that costs 6.50 cents to make is being sold at 9 or 10 dollars. No wonder books aren’t selling. No one can afford them. (And they’re paying part time employees 9 bucks an hour and can’t pay authors a living wage of royalties. Ohkay. Right then.) I didn't see anything I wanted in the store, so I didn't look at prices except for the one hard cover book. I checked the price of paperbacks online, they said 16.00 with 9 or 10 being "sale" prices. I later went back to the store to check. Store price on the back is 9 or 10. (Remembers when books were $5 or even $4. -cries-)

Since books are too expensive then maybe traditional publishers need to figure a way to make them less expensive and I don’t know, pay their authors more at the same time. Or, how about, more companies around the world pay their workers a good living wage that goes up in accordance to cost of living instead of fixed percentage increases that leave workers way behind market value even after one or two years working for the same company. That way people could afford books.

Or how about we donate those extra books that don’t sell to libraries? Or maybe publishers should make smaller batches of books?

Or… hmm… there must be a solution somewhere.

Look, it costs as much to print on demand the Dawn Warrior PER BOOK as it does to print thousands of books for a traditionally published author. But that’s just print cost for DW. Their print cost is 50 cents and the rest is overhead. My print cost doesn’t include a sales team or a cover designer or an agent or an editor or any marketing or advertising or negotiating deals to go on a big book chain or indie book store shelves. That’s just the cost of printing. Should I up the Dawn Warrior’s price because of that?

I mean, not a lot of people are buying it anyways.

Bargain books aren’t a great deal if you want to support authors whose next deal depends on the first week sales of their latest books. That you have to buy full price (outside of any jazzy member discounts. And man, do they like jazzy member discounts.)

Maybe if they lowered the cost of books, more people would buy them, demand would increase and ebook piracy may go down. (Because publishers need to find a way to handle that too.)

I’ll be honest. I haven’t been keeping up with book stores and book prices. I’ve been too tired. I’ve been ill. I’ve been busy working on half a dozen little projects with what energy I have. Apparently, my authors that I read haven’t been publishing. So, I didn’t care because it’s emotional labor to find new authors and I own so many books, so many, that I don’t reread them all already. Maybe this is something you’ve already noticed. I mean, I’ve noticed the over stuffing of my favorite shelves with old school authors like Brooks and Jordan before. It wasn’t as important to me because I could still find new authors that had a bit of space on the shelves or were being featured face out. (And do Norton or Cherryh get the same treatment. I think not.)

You know, I was thinking of getting rid of some of my used books of authors I haven’t read in over a year or so. And now part of me is going “No. I’m camping out.” And is hiding all my books under my bed covers because just in case I want to read them again someday and they’ll be too expensive to get again.

This is rather a moot point at the moment as I’m not even sure how I’d divest myself of these books.

I think I need to go huddle somewhere and try not to think about how back in 1997 when I got into star wars paperbacks were 4.99 and I saved my allowance for weeks hoping we’d go to Wal-Mart and I’d have enough to get all 3 of a Star Wars Trilogy.

Bookstores used to be this place where I felt all my dreams could come true between pages of novels. And now, I don't feel that there anymore. And that's sad because I love books.

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waqasblog2 · 5 years

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Do Links Still Matter for SEO in 2017? | Stone Temple

In today’s post, I’ll show you data from three different dates over the past year that illustrate why links remain a powerful ranking factor. I’ll also discuss in detail why Google still uses them, and why they are likely to remain a powerful ranking factor for some time to come.

In July of 2016, we published our first study on Links as a Ranking Factor. Today’s post updates that data with a fresh analysis of links as a ranking factor, to see if there is any indication of a decline in their importance. In fact, we have analyzed the power of links as a ranking factor on three different dates, as follows:

The Results

Let’s dig right in and look at the results across all three data sets that we pulled:

Note that the same 6,000 queries were used in all three data sets, and we see that the value stays steady and strong throughout the time period. Some movement back and forth is natural. We used 6,000 queries because that is what we did with the original study on this topic. With the Study Two and Study Three data sets, we also pulled data samples for 16,000 queries. Here are the correlation scores for those two data sets of 16K queries:

Once again, both data sets show strong results. Note: See the methodology section below for an explanation of what a “Quadratic Mean Spearman Correlation Score” value actually means.

In the first study, we also took a view in which we aggregated the normalized link counts (see the methodology section below for an explanation of what that is) by ranking position. The purpose of this approach was to help adjust for the fact that the relevancy and quality of the content are such significant ranking factors, and to help us further evaluate how links might matter. Here is what we saw:

In this data, there is some apparent erosion, but the story is quite different if you look at the results for the two 16K query sets:

For this data set, we see a lift between Study Two and Study Three, which is in contrast to the 6K data set. As a result, my belief is that this is simply normal movement of the rankings from a variety of factors.

Why Aren’t the Non-Aggregated Correlation Values Higher?

There are two major reasons, as follows:

1. Relevance and Content Quality are Big Factors: In its simplest form, if a web page is not relevant to a query, it shouldn’t rank. That is, of course, obvious, but the discussion is much more nuanced than that. To illustrate, let’s say we’ve got 10 pieces of content that are relevant enough to be considered for ranking for a query. Let’s further say that they have “relevance scores” (RS) like this:

This looks like it could be a pretty good ranking algo on the surface. We’re ranking the most relevant content on top. You’ll notice too that I set my relevance scores in a really narrow range, and that makes sense. If you’re not relevant, you shouldn’t rank.

The problem is that it’s pretty easy to make pieces of content look highly relevant just by stuffing the right words in it, and the most relevant content may in fact be giving very poor information to users. So let’s add a new score called quality score (QS) (not the Adwords version of this term, but an actual organic evaluation of a page’s quality instead), and let’s see how that impacts our algorithm:

This appears to be an improvement, and it probably is. The problem here is that, as with measuring relevance, measuring quality is a difficult thing to do. So let’s add one more element to the mix, that of a Link Score (LS), and leverage that to let the “marketplace at large” give us an indication on what content is the best on this topic. Here is what that looks like:

You see how the rankings shifted around between the three scenarios? Pretty substantially. In this mock-up of the Google algorithm, it’s pretty clear that links are VERY important. Want to know the Spearman score for links as a ranking factor in the third scenario shown? It’s 0.28.

While this is a major simplification of the Google algorithm, but even based on this, you can see why very high Spearman scores are hard to achieve.

2. Other Algorithms Come Into Play: Examples of the type of algorithms I’m talking about include:

These might impact 15 percent of our results. Let’s imagine that it changes only one of them, and one high scoring result is replaced with a single item (result number 3).

In our example, I’ve replaced the third result with something that came in from another algorithm, such as Query Deserves Diversity. Know what this does to the Spearman score for links as a ranking factor for this result? It drops to 0.03. Ouch!

Hopefully, this will give you some intuition as to why a score in the 0.3 range is an indication that links are a very material factor in ranking.

Google’s Progress in Fighting Link Spam

Those who say that links are on the decline as a ranking factor often point to the efforts by spammers to use illegitimate practices to acquire links and earn rankings that their sites don’t deserve. This certainly was a huge problem for Google in the 2002 to 2013 time range. However, the tide in this battle started to turn in 2012.

What happened first during that year was that a wave of manual penalties started to get assessed by Google. By themselves, these already sent a shockwave through the SEO industry. The next major step was the release of the first version of Penguin on April 24, 2012. This was a huge step forward for Google.

As the next few years unfolded, Google invested heavily in a mix of approaches to use new versions of Penguin and manual penalties to refine their approach to dealing with people that use illegitimate approaches to obtaining links. This culminated with the release of Penguin 4.0 on September 23, 2016.

With the release of Penguin 4.0, Google’s confidence in their approach to links had become so high that the Penguin algorithm was no longer punishing sites for obtaining bad links. As of Penguin 4.0, the algorithm simply identifies those links and ignores them (causes them to have no ranking value).

This shift from penalizing sites with bad links to simply discounting those links reflects Google’s confidence that Penguin is finding a very large percentage of the bad links that it’s designed to find.

Of course, they still use manual penalties to address types of illegitimate link-building practices that people use that Penguin is not targeted at addressing.

How much progress has Google actually made? I still remember the Black Hat / White Hat panel I sat on in December of 2008 at SES Chicago. With me were Dave Naylor, Todd Friesen and Doug Heil. A couple of the panel members argued that buying links at the beginning of campaigning for a website was a requirement, and it was irresponsible for an SEO pro to not do so.

How a decade changes things! It has been many years since any SEO in any venue has argued that buying links represents a smart practice. In fact, you can’t find anyone making public recommendations about methods for obtaining links that violate Google’s Webmaster guidelines. The entire industry for doing those type of things has been driven underground.

Driven underground is not the same as “gone,” but it does show that Google’s ability to find and detect problems has become quite effective.

One last point, and it’s an important one. Ask yourself, why does Google have the Penguin algorithm, and why do they assess manual link penalties?” The answer is simple: Because links ARE a major ranking factor, and schemes to obtain links that don’t fit their guidelines are things that they want to proactively address.

Why Are Links a Valuable Signal?

Why is Google still using links? Why don’t they simply switch to user engagement signals and social media signals? I won’t develop the entire reason why these signals are problematic here, but will share one point about each:

But now, let’s get to the core of the issue: Why are links such a great signal? It comes down to three major points:

Think about that last one for a few seconds more. A (non-advertisement) link on your site is an indication by you (as the publisher of the page with the links) that you think the link has enough value to your visitors, and will do enough to enhance your relationship with those visitors, that you’re willing to have people leave your site.

That’s what makes links an incredibly valuable signal.

Basic Methodology

After consulting with a couple of experts on the best approach (Paul Berger and Per Enge), I performed a calculation of the Spearman Correlation on the results for all the queries in our study, and then took the Quadratic Mean of those scores. The reason for doing this is that it leverages the square of the correlation variables (where the correlation value is R, the quadratic mean uses R squared).

It’s actually the R squared value that has some meaning in statistics. For example, if R is 0.8, then R squared is 0.64, and you can say about that 64 percent of the variability in Y is explained by X. As Paul Berger explained it to me, there is no meaningful sentence involving the correlation variable R, but R squared gives you something meaningful to say about the correlated relationship.

Here is a visual on how this calculation process works:

In addition to the different calculation approach, I also used a mix of different query types. We tested commercial head terms, commercial long tail terms and also informational queries. In fact, two-thirds of our queries were informational in nature.

Additional Approaches

I think that both the Mean of the Individual Correlations and Quadratic Mean approaches are valid, but one of the limits with these approaches is that other factors can dominate the ranking algorithm, and make it hard to see the strength of the signal.

For that reason, I chose to take some other approaches to the analysis as well. The first of these was to measure the links in a more aggregated manner. To do this, we normalized the quantity of links for each result. What I mean by this is that we took the link counts for each ranking position for a given query, and then divided it by the largest number of links for that given query.

As a result, the largest link score for each query would have a weight of “1”. The reason for doing this is to prevent a few queries that have some results with huge numbers of links from having excessive influence on the resulting calculations.

Then we took the total of the links for all the search results by each ranking position. The equations for this look more like this:

The value of this is that it smooths out the impact of the negative correlations in a different way. Think of it as smoothing out the impact of other ranking factors, as illustrated above (relevance score, content score, and the impact of other algos). This is the calculation that is shown in the “Aggregate Link Correlation by Ranking Position” data above.

I also looked at this one more way. In this view, I continued to use the normalized totals of the links, but grouped them in ranking groups of 10. I.e., I summed the normalized link totals for the top 10, did the same for ranking positions 11 to 20, 21 to 30, and so forth. I then calculated the correlations to see how they looked in terms of what it would take to rank in each 10 position block.

Those calculations looked more like this:

This gives us a bit more granular approach than simply aggregating all the ranking positions into the SERP positions, but still smooths out some of the limitations of the Mean of Individual Correlations method. That is what is shown in the “Aggregate Link Correlation in Blocks of 10” data above.

Cementing the Point with Case Studies

We do a lot of high-end content marketing campaigns with our clients, many of which are Fortune 500 companies. Here is a sampling of the results across many of our clients:

The sample results shown here have been repeated hundreds of times by us. However, we don’t find that links can rescue poor quality content, or cause low relevance content to rank. Also, all of our efforts focus on getting recognition from, or content published on, very high authority sites.

Doing this well requires a focus on how you implement your marketing and PR to get in front of the audiences that matter to your business the most. This will naturally drive high value links back to your site, and help you earn rankings that you deserve.

This content was originally published here.

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siliconwebx · 5 years

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Common Marketing Interview Questions and How to Answer Them

About 12 years ago, I had the worst interview of my life – I still get lightheaded thinking about it. The head of the department called to invite me to lunch. “It’ll just be a casual conversation,” he said. “We’ll grab lunch and I’ll tell you about the job,” he said.

He was either a liar or incredibly forgetful. When I showed up, he was late because he was returning from lunch. He wiped mayo off his mouth and then sat me down for a full-blown, totally legit, not at all casual interview. I bombed.

For years, I blamed him. Now I realize that I should have gone in completely prepared even if it really did turn out to be a casual lunch. I had no business showing up to discuss a job I knew little about.

Don’t be me. Eat enough so you don’t almost pass out and go in armed with knowledge and answers to common marketing interview questions.

Don’t Even Think About Going to the Interview Unprepared

It’s very possible that the interviewer is going to ask one or all of these marketing interview questions (especially the last one):

How much do you know about our company?

What do you know about this role?

Do you have any questions for us?

The only way to prepare for these is to do your homework beforehand. Here’s what you need to brush up on:

The company’s background, their main products or services, their customers or clients, any big changes they’ve made over the past year and what their competitors are doing.

What’s expected of you. Re-read the job description and also look up the same job description at other companies in case details were unintentionally left out.

Also, have a short list of marketing interview questions to ask the interviewer, if for no other reason than to demonstrate your interest in the role. If they’re answered during the interview, at least you can say, “I was going to ask about XYZ, but we’ve covered that.”

6 Common Marketing Interview Questions

1. “Tell me about your career or job history.”

How you answer this question could set the tone for the interview, especially if the interviewer is going to let your responses organically guide the conversation.

Your answers should match your resume. You don’t want it to seem like your resume is misleading, inaccurate or out of date. Highlight the aspects of your career that are most relevant to the job you’re applying for – that could mean spending extra time talking about a job you had a couple of years ago or a side project you’ve worked on at your current job.

Insider Tip: If it’s been a while since you sent your resume, update and refresh your resume and email it beforehand and/or bring a new copy with you to the interview.

Spin-Off Question: “What’s one of your hobbies? Tell me about it.” The interviewer wants you to explain something unfamiliar to them. They’re assessing your ability to clearly communicate a new concept.

2. “What is your biggest responsibility in your current role? How has your current job evolved since you started?”

Read between the lines – the interviewer cares about how motivated and proactive you are when it comes to going above and beyond in your position or advancing your career. So much of marketing is about actively looking for opportunities, creative thinking, taking risks on new approaches, staying up-to-date with industry trends, etc. The interviewer is assessing your passion with this question – they want someone who is self-motivated and an active learner.

3. “What are the most important aspects of successful marketing?”

Okay. This type of question is tricky. It’s a balancing act:

You have to consider the company you’re interviewing with. If this company doesn’t cater to a young audience, you don’t want to talk about how Snapchat or Instagram Stories are super important for creating on-the-fly content.

You don’t want to give a cookie cutter answer. “Email marketing is really impactful right now.” Duh. That’s (a) a surface-level answer and (b) not something that’s going to set you apart.

Always keep the company in mind but use this opportunity to showcase your expertise, out-of-the-box thinking and that certain spark you and you alone will bring to the team. And remember the top priority when it comes to any type of marketing: to encourage an audience member to take action.

4. “Give us an example of a campaign you ran.”

This question could be this straightforward or it could be more detailed, like, “Give us an example of one of your successful campaigns and one that failed.” Either way, you have to go in with a few examples in mind and, ideally, portfolio samples.

Frame your answer in a way that suits the company. For example, if they use a lot of video marketing, don’t talk about a viral blog post you wrote, unless that blog post demonstrates something else the company is interested in, like your ability to come up with great headlines. If the company caters to the hospitality industry, discuss the marketing campaigns you created for hotels or airlines instead of the Facebook ad you ran about dog food.

Walk the interviewer through the process: why you made the decisions you made, how the campaign came together and your process for tracking results.

Don’t be afraid to talk about a failure (if the interviewer asks). Choose a campaign you were a part of instead of one that you were fully responsible for. Talk about where the campaign went wrong and how it was either fixed or how those lessons were applied to future campaigns.

5. “How would you handle marketing our product or service?”

This is not an open invitation to criticize how the company does things. It is a chance to show how you can help them evolve or improve. This is also one of the million reasons it’s so important to do your research beforehand.

Let’s say you saw one of the company’s marketing campaigns that performed pretty well – it had a lot of blog comments, shares on Facebook, whatever. But you noticed that they used stock photography you’ve seen before. You know that if they had hired a photographer to create unique images, that campaign would have been even more eye-catching.

You don’t tell them, “I wouldn’t have used cheap stock photography for that campaign.” Instead, you say, “I’d love to test out custom visuals to see if that attracts more views.” Stay on the right side of the line between criticism and critique.

You may also be given a specific scenario and asked to come up with a marketing strategy on the spot. This one’s difficult to prepare for, but it’ll probably be something like, “How would you improve [metric] by [percentage] within [time frame]?” or “How would you launch [product]?”

Consider what they’re hiring you for and the results they’re after, then come up with a few scenarios you can pull from if you’re asked for specific solutions.

Spin-Off Question: “How would you handle XYZ problem at our company?”

6. “Why do you want to make a change?”

This is the question you’re most worried about. Sometimes, you can tell the truth: because you don’t feel there are enough growth opportunities at your current company or you want to take what you’ve learned and apply it in a different environment. Other times, you can’t lay it on the line. “Well, my boss makes my life a living Hell,” or, “You know, I’m just so sick of the commute and not having any ‘me’ time at night.”

If you simply hate your current job, dig deeper for the “why.” Maybe you hate your boss because he micro-manages. Your answer would then be something like, “I feel like I perform best when I have flexibility to try new things and would love to work for a company that trusts me to deliver excellent work.”

Bottom Line: Answer the question honestly and professionally, and leave out any complaints about your boss or co-workers.

Spin-Off Question: “Which opportunities are you interested in for the future?”

8 More Marketing Interview Questions to Be Ready to Answer

Why are you interested in our company/products/services?

Why are you passionate about this type of work?

When have you reached a marketing goal on a tight budget?

How would you respond to a negative review or comment from a customer?

Which marketing tools and platforms do you use on a regular basis?

What are the metrics you use to gauge success?

Which brands do you love or who are your favorite marketers?

Which industry blogs or publications do you read? What was the last book or article you read?

Beyond Marketing Interview Questions: 4 More Interview Tips

Knowing how to answer typical marketing interview questions is just part of the battle. You also have to make a good impression at the start of the interview and afterwards.

1. Dress professionally.

There are all sorts of brands out there that hire marketers. Some are going to be youthful and casual, with a cereal bar, climbing wall and zero dress code. Others are going to be traditional. Until you know what the company culture is, err on the side of professionalism when picking out your outfit.

2. Never answer just “yes” or “no.”

The interviewer should know to not ask “yes” or “no” marketing interview questions, but even if they do you should take the opportunity to elaborate on your answer.

3. Play up your soft skills.

You can learn hard skills, like how to use a business app or OS. Soft skills, like how to communicate or be a leader, are part of who you are. Mention your hard skills when appropriate, but focus more on giving examples of your soft skills in action.

If the role you’re interviewing for requires you to manage a team, expect a series of marketing interview questions about your leadership skills, such as:

How large were the teams you’ve managed?

What’s your leadership style?

How do you create a strategic vision for a team?

Talk about a time you helped a team member who was struggling.

How have you handle pushback from someone on your team?

4. Follow Up

Following up after an interview isn’t an outdated practice. Send an email or a handwritten note to thank the interviewer. Recall part of the conversation to show you paid attention or expand on an idea you started discussing to show you’re committed you to the process.

Final Thoughts

This field is growing – fast. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that it’ll grow by 10% by 2026, which is faster than average. There are a lot of people out there who are good at advertising, marketing and promotions – if you don’t want to miss out before you’ve even had a chance to prove yourself, ace the interview by knowing which marketing interview questions you’ll be asked beforehand. Many of these tips boil down to the same few strategies: be honest, be professional and be thorough.

We have a bunch of articles on marketing – learn how to create a local marketing campaign or brush up on your YouTube marketing tricks, for starters.

The post Common Marketing Interview Questions and How to Answer Them appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.

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