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#i think i found the video but the user itself appears as deleted so i dont know what happened there :'[
turrondeluxe · 1 year
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im mourning the fact that a user on tiktok shared a lot of photos from the tmnt 2012 artbook and in my brain i just went "i'll save all the pictures later"
the video is gone and the only pic i could save was one half of the page from the baby concepts
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thegentlesourcerer · 3 months
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hi there! for this board of mine https://www.tumblr.com/talos-stims/736448930009808896/ i have just one gif that i haven't been able to find at all, i think i had the og post in my likes somewhere but op deactivated? since this board was in my drafts for a long while. any help looking for the source would be greatly appreciated, thank you!
Hello! I appreciate you seeking out my services. ✨
I checked all the links on the stimboard you linked to me, and I found more than one misplaced source, therefore I will be providing both links below.
The blogger who originally posted this gif did not credit the original creator of the video with a link that led to the video itself, but here is the original source in which it has appeared on tumblr, as far as I know.
As for the source video, its location has quite literally vexed me. The Reverse Image Search engine had no answers. I scoured, and I mean scoured, instagram for hours, looking through all the big nail polish / paint maker accounts, going so far as to scroll through all of them to 2016 and before (as the board I linked was posted in 2016), to no avail. I then did something ingenious that should've happened much sooner in my process with finding this one - I checked the link on the original post. 🤦 I do have reason to believe the account linked on the post deleted the original video, since there is a large gap of next to no content between 2016 and 2021.
I researched a bit more and it seems Gif 5 is also slightly misplaced, as the source linked within the source you provided had been deactivated. It was originally posted by @/l0vey-d0vey, and here is a link to those gifs as well. The source I linked is likely the best one possible to link it for others, as it still exists on tumblr and I have reason to believe these gifs were made using the deactivated user's own footage.
Lastly, I would like to say I have been a long-time lurker on your blog before I even made this one, and your stimboards are some of the best I have had the privilege to see. Thank you for your lovely contributions to the stim community and for always being very diligent with your sourcing. You make this community a better place in more ways than one and I for one appreciate you greatly.
Thank you for visiting!
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You have been visited by the Gentle Sourcerer. I hope your time with me was well spent.
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developmentbuild · 3 years
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hi please infodump about technology and old web stuff ty
OIGHFJFF hello!!! I'm... I don't know what to say I feel like I've got to sort of like. be given something to talk about but I guess I can start off by how I initially got interested in these things! this post will be very long and I've tried to format it the best I can BUT here it is:
so to start off things my mom always noted about me that I was naturally inclined towards computers. I kind of learned how to type from a very young age too because she had me by her old pc (it was a win 95 plus) and had word open and just told me to write things. it was fun and epic as fuck but FROM WHAT I'VE BEEN TOLD. I kind of just left it open one day and it was open for daaays so the computer just... overheated to death though. this sound (skip to 0:36) is super nostalgic to me. makes me go back to when we didn't even have internet and we got internet connectivity by like... 2009 AFAIK. yahoo messenger and windows live messenger were still a thing!!! before the former shut down and the latter was (don't remember this clearly) integrated with Skype technologies around the time Microsoft bought out Skype and then it was done for after a year or so of this happening.
but fast forward to about 2012-2013. you're me and you're 10 years old, and you find a LOT of content about old pcs. mainly how they looked and sounded like, as well as people absolutely going batshit on command prompt and deleting everything (these are called destruction videos). sort of everything led to another and I found a channel that exists up to this day that was focused around viruses! and even until now I'm still very interested in them. my primary interest in computers (and extending to phones as well) is how the insides work. it's super interesting to be picking apart the 'brain' of a machine you basically feed it commands to execute... and of course the process is literally done in the blink of an eye. nothing we would ever properly notice (unless for x y z reasons your machine is slowing down)
moving on from this talk I'd like to talk about a really famous and notorious virus, the loveletter worm! also commonly called ILOVEYOU, it was written in visual basic script (vbs) and caused a lot of destruction. its primary way of appealing and spreading quick is because of its nature, like it kind of takes advantage of the user emotionally (social engineering) like. oh you got a love letter! (except it's a worm!)
how do you not know that? windows automatically hides file extensions unless a user disables the option from file explorer (I can't. remember it entirely rn I'm not even on pc but this is a thing, in older windows versions it was in folder options), so an unsuspecting user wouldn't know this is a vbs file and instead would think it's a text file, as it appeared to be when you'd download it from Microsoft Outlook.
what loveletter would do -and made it one of the most destructive viruses with over a million computers infected and probably I think billions in damage- was when executed, it would overwrite all files with a copy of itself. so like... you would lose important data (didn't overwrite .exes afaik, just images and text files etc), which at the time was a Very Bad Thing. still is if you get a nasty ransomware. it was also very simple code wise if I remember correctly, which was a reason why there were so many variants of this.
overall I feel like old school viruses have more personality to them. like there was only one recent virus that did have attributes (mostly destructive ones but there were also annoying but harmless viruses) pertaining to old school viruses BUT as of late, especially with how bitcoin has become very lucrative and mainstream like an 'untapped' gold mine (bitcoin farmers die challenge), most viruses fall under the ransomware category, where all your files (not critical ones) are encrypted and under X amount of time you'll need to pay Y amount of btc to a specific wallet, unless you wanna lose your files. one in specific was so bad (I think it was wannacry? I cannot remember for the life of me) that Microsoft, a few years prior to ending Windows XP updates as it'd reached end of service, put out an update/security patch for said operating system. that's obviously like... big news, but also shows the magnitude of the problem.
um that's all I had to say personally!!! if you do want to check out videos not only about viruses and stuff but also computers in general I would suggest Enderman (has really cool experiments like installing windows on a RAM (that later cannot be booted from because... it gets wiped after a shutdown)), Flytech Videos (I suggest the Microsoft edge protocol series, as well as the fork bomb + regedit vid where they delete each major directory at the time and see the results) and all time favorite, and the channel that jump started my interest when I was in elementary school, danooct1 :)
thanks for asking and I hope this was cohesive!!
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theculturedmarxist · 3 years
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leviathan.naked_lesbian_makeout_blonde_sluts.mp3.mov.jpg.exe
On the one hand, yeah, definitely fuck Zuckernerd and Facebook, and the other tech empires.
On the other hand, it’s not like these are even the grossest examples of monopolies, with even larger and more insidious corporations given the green light to bloat even larger. The motive definitely isn’t to protect the consumer or to encourage competition.
I doubt it’s to make an example of Zuckerberg for accumulating such a hoard of wealth, either. Billionaires have become more stinking rich out of the pandemic, but Zuckerberg isn’t even the one that won the most.
Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos has enjoyed the biggest bump in personal fortune, according to the analysis from Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies, two left-leaning groups. Bezos' wealth has jumped by $90.1 billion, to $203.1 billion, from March 18 through October 13[...]
Other billionaires whose fortunes have risen during the pandemic include Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, whose wealth has jumped 20% to $118 billion since March, and Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, with an 85% gain to $101.2 billion, the analysis found.
Facebook isn’t the only tech conglomerate to have an anti-trust suit brought against them. Amazon, Apple, and Google have all been hit with suits, ostensibly about unfair trade practices or similar accusations. More curious is how deeply in bed with the US government these corporations are, like Amazon’s partnership with the US Military, or Google’s collaborations with the government. Maybe a clue is hidden in the essay by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen:
In an era when the power of the individual and the group grows daily, those governments that ride the technological wave will clearly be best positioned to assert their influence and bring others into their orbits. And those that do not will find themselves at odds with their citizens.
The election of Biden is definitely the effort of The Establishment to put the Trump genie back in the bottle. His election was an undesired outcome, an anomaly in a system that they want to run regularly, and to produce regular, predictable results. The wealthy are wedded to the political system, have regular mechanisms and controls to manipulate and interact with it, and Trump leap-frogged the whole dog and pony show. But he didn’t do it alone.
So was Facebook responsible for Donald Trump getting elected? I think the answer is yes, but not for the reasons anyone thinks. He didn’t get elected because of Russia or misinformation or Cambridge Analytica. He got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen from any advertiser. Period.
To be clear, I’m no fan of Trump. I donated the max to Hillary. After his election I wrote a post about Trump supporters that I’m told caused colleagues who had supported him to feel unsafe around me (I regret that post and deleted shortly after).
But Parscale and Trump just did unbelievable work. They weren’t running misinformation or hoaxes. They weren’t microtargeting or saying different things to different people. They just used the tools we had to show the right creative to each person. The use of custom audiences, video, ecommerce, and fresh creative remains the high water mark of digital ad campaigns in my opinion.
That brings me to the present moment, where we have maintained the same ad policies. It occurs to me that it very well may lead to the same result. As a committed liberal I find myself desperately wanting to pull any lever at my disposal to avoid the same result.
Google makes most of its money through advertising, and according to the NYT, “Google’s share of the search market in the United States is about 80 percent. “ Facebook is itself a monstrous social media entity, and owns two more of the largest SM platforms on the internet, Instagram and Snapchat, which:
Instagram: Active 1 Billion users
If your target demographic is under 35, Instagram is a gold mine: 63% of users are between the ages of 18 to 34, with virtually even split between male and female users. 
Snapchat: Active monthly users 360 million
The most active users are Snapchat are 13-year-olds, and they’re spending upwards of 30 minutes a day on the app.
Twitch is a subsidiary of Amazon, which apparently has 140 million users, who I would imagine also skew younger, and who watch on average an hour and a half of content on the website a day.
We do know, through Twitch Tracker, that the average number of concurrent viewers stood at 1.4 million over February 2020, with peak Twitch viewing figures just a shade shy of 4 million – a threshold exceeded during the coronavirus lockdown that followed.
This puts Twitch well ahead of many traditional media outlets. Indeed, by early 2018, Twitch was outstripping MNSBC and CNN in terms of peak concurrent viewership (885,000 and 783,000 respectively). Fox News and ESPN were logging 1.5 million at this point.
The bourgeoisie have many glaring blindspots, but they aren’t themselves blind, or altogether stupid. The Arab Spring showed them what connected populations could do, and social media platforms have been instrumental in coordinating and organizing resistance efforts in the US, as well as spreading uncomfortable and uncontrolled information that the government et al would rather not be known. I would be willing to bet that there were many government and corporate analysts looking at the numbers, reach, and growth of every video of a black man getting shot this past summer that lead to civil unrest.
None of this proves that the US government is angling to take over social media, but I think it’s notable that Twitter is already playing ball with censoring uncomfortable stories, and doesn’t appear to be getting hit with the same sort of lawsuits as its competitors, despite its own relative monopoly.
The bourgeoisie are increasingly running out of options. Unwilling or unable to actually win the votes of the electorate by making concessions and other broadly demanded and popular reforms, it must increasingly rely on propaganda campaigns and other manipulation in order to keep the charade of government and control functioning. I would posit that the very narrow defeat of Trump last month, in spite of four years of constant fear mongering and concerted efforts to demonize him on the part of the bourgeois media, the alliance between Republicans and Democrats, and the collusion of the governments various branches of intelligence services and secret police, was the last straw—if the internet is such a disruptive and unpredictable force, then it must either be controlled or destroyed.
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Goodbye 2019: A review of the lies that shaped the year
January
One Twitter user posted this thread, describing how there were “50-70 white men” wearing MAGA apparel who “surrounded us” and “sought to intimidate, mock and scare us” by “chanting ‘build the wall’ and “other trumpisms.” “The group was clearly looking for ANY opportunity to get violent,” they were “bumping into us and daring us to get physical.” Video was then clipped and shared on social media, the mainstream media spread the edited footage and within hours the story about “racist white MAGA hat wearing teens cornered an innocent Native elder while chanting build the wall” consumed the country.
Slate wrote an article comparing the student’s “cruelty” to Jim Crow mobs and neo-Nazis. BuzzFeed’s Anne Petersen tweeted how the students and Brett Kavanaugh are the epitome of “white patriarchy.” Kathy Griffin called for doxing the kids and Stormy Daniels in a now-deleted tweet fantasized about putting these children behind electrocuted walls. New York Times author Kurt Eichenwald wished that these kids should be doxed and denied work for the rest of their lives. Headlines included, “White students in MAGA hats taunt Native American elders,” “Covington Catholic High Student's White Privilege Didn't Win,” “White America, come get your children,” “White victimology, white privilege and the Covington Catholic rules of race,” “Boys Will Be Boys. Covington's Showed Yet Again Why Only White Boys Can Smirk Through That.”
The students and their families were doxed, harassed and threatened for weeks after. Covington Catholic High School was forced to close over security concerns. Then the original video was released that provided context: A group of Covington Catholic High School students went to the March for Life during a field trip to Washington, DC. While there, the students were confronted by the radical black supremacy group, Black Hebrew Israelites, where they were verbally harassed and racially abused, calling them crackers, fa*gots and told them to go find a school to shoot up. A black student was berated as a race-traitor and told his white classmates were going to harvest his organs. A Native activist later approached the kids and started continually banging a drum inches from their face. One student, Nick Sandmann, stood calmly in typical teenage bemusement. That’s it. That’s the story. Once it was realized not a single accusation made by the original poster or the media who spread it was true, everyone went silent, and despite many retractions, no apologies.
February
Empire actor Jussie Smollett was approached by two white men wearing Trump’s Make America Great Again caps and yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him before attacking him, dousing him with bleach and tying a noose around his neck, all while chanting, “This MAGA country!” Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Al Sharpton were among those calling it a modern-day lynching and evidence of the fear and hate black people live with. Harris and Booker even wrote an “anti-lynching bill.” Everybody gobbled this story up and quickly used it to push their idea that it said something more important about the state of race in the United States. Essentially they argued that Trump and his supporters are agitating for this kind of violence and, well, here it is.
Afterwards, Smollett proudly bragged how he had fought off his attackers to the loud cheers of a crowd, a true badass. He then appeared in an ABC interview where his eyes welled with tears as he recounted his traumatic experience and how defiant and inspirational he’s gotta be now. When asked why he thinks he was targeted, Smollett blamed Trump and his evil supporters.
But then some red flags started. 1. He held onto his sandwich during the attack and waited 45 minutes to call police. 2. When police arrived to take a report, Smollett asked that the officers turn off their body cameras. 3. He was still wearing the noose around his neck and wore it “like a tie” throughout their entire 40-minute interview. 4. He said he was on the phone with his manager when the attack happened but he refused to show his phone log to police. 5. He supposedly received a threatening letter a week prior to the “attack” which had child-like writing and drawings on it of his name and the word MAGA, and cliche magazine cutouts of letters pieced together to spell out “black fag.” In summary, we were supposed to believe white Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats were roaming around Chicago, carrying a noose, they saw Smollett, knew who he was, knew his show, his sexuality and singled him out for a lynching. 
As the police connected the dots, they found the whole thing was a giant hoax plotted by Smollett himself. When the “black fag” serial killer letter stunt failed to receive national attention, Smollett orchestrated the attack by paying two Nigerian brothers he worked with $3,500 to stage the attack on him while getting Subway. Chicago police spent days and worked overtime poring over security footage and devoting resources that could have been put toward real victims. On February 20, Smollett was charged with a class 4 felony for filing a false police report and was later indicted on 16 felony counts of false reporting. Smollett joined a long list of hate crime hoaxes since Trump took office. I can only assume because reality isn’t at all matching their delusion of the gloomy Nazi “MAGA country” they keep going on about, they’re forced to create these endless hate crime hoaxes to validate the delusion.  
March
After spending two years perpetuating allegations that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary and wet dreams of Trump being removed from office and even imprisoned, the entire left, every Democrat and the mainstream media were visibly shaken by Mueller’s investigation ending with zilch. When the news broke that there would be no indictments against Trump nor anyone associated with his campaign, and Attorney General William Barr had exonerated him, those who were so certain of victory and so locked into their conspiracy, were once again forced into utter meltdown mode. Mueller spent tens of millions of dollars, employed 19 prosecutors, more than three dozen FBI agents and an analyst and issued 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 280 demands for phone and email records and interviewed 500 witnesses throughout the course of the investigation. No evidence was found.
There was however a major abuse of the rule of law by Obama administration officials and Department of Justice and FBI employees, a shameful politicization of the Russia investigation by Democrats and an end of journalistic integrity by many members of the media who all did their best to delegitimize and undermine the election. The DOJ and FBI used unverified research to obtain a court order to surveil the Trump campaign, and thereby obtain access to past campaign communications. In applying for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) order, the DOJ and FBI did not disclose to the secret surveillance court that the debunked Christopher Steele dossier (Trump/pissing prostitutes) was funded by the DNC and Clinton, the whole basis for the probe. The FISA application also did not inform the court of Steele’s bias and his desperation to keep Trump out of the White House. It was all a setup.
Since Election Day 2016, the Trump-hating political and media establishment have been in a cute relationship to achieve their desired end of destroying Trump. Their shared hatred of the man is indisputable. But the idea of them colluding in this information operation to maximum political and legal effect is altogether more disturbing. Russiagate put Trump’s presidency under a cloud of suspicion for more than half of his days in office, delaying his agenda through forcing the administration to expend valuable time and resources defending itself from the constant hounding. The Five F’s seems to be the Democrat’s only tactic, all they can do is deceive, degrade, deny, disrupt and hope that it all will eventually wear Trump down enough to ultimately destroy him.
April
On Easter Day, churches across Sri Lanka were targeted by radical Islamist suicide bombers. The Muslim terrorists walked into several crowded churches and murdered masses of people. They also targeted international hotels popular with Western travelers. The bombings marked the country’s deadliest violence in a decade, leaving 290 dead and over 500 injured. After the quick condemnation of white supremacy and Islamophobia after the Christchurch shootings a few weeks prior, the media and Democrats avoided at all costs condemning Islamic terrorism and recognizing the victims as Christians. A host of politicians such as Obama, Hillary Clinton and Julian Castro all refused to condemn Islamic terrorism and none called the victims Christians, while others such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Portland mayor Ted Wheeler stayed silent altogether. Christians being killed at the hands of Islamists goes against the entire left-wing doctrine, despite it happening all over the world. 
It’s not the only time we’ve seen the media and politicians cover for Islamic extremism. Under Obama, officials were so afraid of the phrase “Islamic terrorism” that they redacted the very mention of Islam and even Islamic State from the Orlando gay nightclub massacre transcripts, despite 49 people being killed and 50 others injured by a Muslim terrorist who had pledged allegiance to ISIS. In the UK, police and child protection workers were so afraid of the phrase “Islamophobia” that they ignored and refused to investigate Muslim human trafficking and child rape rings, allowing 1,400 young British girls to be raped with knives, bottles and their tongues nailed to tables. In Sweden, the police and media were so scared of “anti-immigration sentiment,” they covered up dozens of sexual assaults against teenage girls. Not wanting to make their new waves of Muslim refugees look bad, German media and the government also covered up mass sexual abuse across the country where 1,200 women were sexually assaulted and raped in just one night. Who exactly are we protecting by refusing to tell the truth and call something what it is?
May
Alyssa Milano, an actress who has been a valiant fighter for progressive causes, demanded for American women to undertake a “sex strike.” The idea is that women should not risk pregnancy until they have an insurance policy. Uh, so like exactly what Christian conservatives already believe in. There’s something funny about Milano embracing the banner of Christian conservatives in order to own Christian conservatives. Just like when Janelle Monáe advocated for women to go on a sex strike, saying that “people need to start respecting the vagina.” Once again, that’s what conservatives have already been screaming, respecting your vagina, respecting yourself, respecting sex and the good and bad product of sex. 
In championing this “revolutionary” concept of women withholding sex in order to attain bodily autonomy, Milano and her blue-check buddies unwittingly preached the same message you often hear during Sunday sermons, especially in youth groups. The Christian perspective posits that the way for women to attain bodily autonomy is to have self-control over your body and choices, to not give away your body so carelessly and to be aware of the consequences of sexual activity outside of committed relationships. Most Christians embrace Milano’s message, not just because the only women who’d participate and use sex as a political bargaining chip in the first place are those who probably need to reevaluate their sex lives anyway, but it also places greater meaning on sex and the power and responsibility of it, which again is another Christian view.
Milano, like many others, also referred to abortion as “reproductive rights,” which is a pretty new term that replaces abortion and is also much catchier on picket signs when used alongside “human rights.” The problem is the term isn’t even close to being accurate. Abortion has nothing to do with reproductive rights. By the time abortion is even a possibility, post-fertilization has already created a tiny human and the mother has discovered that she is pregnant. In other words, reproduction is already complete. That “right” to reproduction was already exercised when you gave it up, literally and figuratively.  
June
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried her best to compare Trump to Hitler by comparing illegal migrant detention centers to actual concentration camps: “This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying,” she tweeted. Ocasio-Cortez continued this claim during an Instagram Live video, where she said, “The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border. That is what they are. The fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalized practice in the home of the free is extraordinarily disturbing.” 
Of course, the claim that conditions at U.S. border facilities are anything like Nazi concentration camps or Japanese American internment camps is absurd. Detainees are not subjected to forced labor, malnutrition or executions. They also chose to enter these facilities by willingly coming to the United States and either illegally crossing or turning themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol, while obviously concentration camp inmates were forced to be there. Let’s not forget the little detail that any of the migrants may opt for voluntary departure at any time. I don’t remember concentration camps ever having that policy. Concentration camps detained and persecuted their own citizens because of who they were, not temporarily detained people who chose to illegally break into a different country. I don’t think there were many Jewish people trying to sneak into Nazi Germany. Even the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum released a statement rejecting such ridiculous comparisons.
But it’s not just AOC driving this rhetoric. MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough showed photos of border officers escorting kids to showers and compared it to Nazi officers marching Jews into gas chambers. Former CIA chief Michael Hayden posted photos of the Auschwitz death camp, also comparing it to the temporary housing policy at the border. The New York Times published an article that called for U.S. Border Patrol agents to be doxed so they can be “publicly shamed" and “held accountable.” Almost the entire Democrat Party and mainstream media have made similar comparisons. Yet the CBP detention centers are not operating any differently today than they were during the Obama administration. The famous photos of caged kids are from Obama’s time in office. Even when the most anti-Trump news network CNN went to investigate, the kids had full bellies, they were watching soccer, playing video games on big flat-screen TVs, sleeping in comfy beds and participating in tai chi classes, rather than ya know, being caged, gassed and worked to death.
July
The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal held a hearing on complaints from Jessica Yaniv, a man formerly called Jonathan who now identifies as a woman, after multiple small business beauticians refused to wax Yaniv’s penis and testicles. The defendant in the case was a young mother who operates in her family home, but there were also 12 other female beauticians Yaniv filed human rights complaints against which put some of them out of business while others paid settlements to save further legal action. Up until July 17, Yaniv’s name was fiercely protected by the Canadian government, as well as technology platforms like Twitter, which banned numerous women and some men who’d tried to warn others about his predations. But once the ban was lifted, it was revealed Yaniv had used “connections” to a band to help solicit advice from both women and teenagers on how to approach young girls and talk to them about tampons and menstruation in female washrooms. You can read the whole thing here.
Yaniv also recently tweeted shock to be turned away from a gynecologist. “So a gynaecologist office that I got referred to literally told me today that ‘we don’t serve transgender patients. And me, being me, I’m shocked... and confused… and hurt. Are they allowed to do that, legally?" I’m sure Yaniv will be taking gynecologists to human rights courts next for refusing to inspect anuses. We have to be careful to not misgender Yaniv as several journalists have been banned from Twitter for this crime against Yaniv. Any concerns about women being forced to touch male genitalia or biological men being allowed into women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, rape crisis shelters and prisons, you’re done for. This whole story resembles a new trend forming, such as the Christian cake shop owner who was sued for not wanting to bake a cake for a same-sex marriage: An individual from a politically designated victim class seeks out a service, intentionally from a small business owner who they know they can exploit, and the moment the businessperson declines - voila! A movement is born with a slew of lawsuits, powerful interest groups and media backing. 
August
Dave Chappelle’s newest Netflix special was only uploaded for a few hours before the PC grievance mob went to work trying to sink it. Buzzfeed lectured Chappelle for his “truly vile” jokes and instructed him “to be more thoughtful.”  Salon spoke out against “the cruelty” and Slate compared him to that "uncle who doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, how much he’s disappointing you.” While “Uncle Dave” was once cool, they say, his jokes in 2019 make you “wince.” Vice went a step further and gave a total trigger warning to its audience, writing "you can definitely skip” it altogether. As of today, “Sticks & Stones” shows a 38 percent score from media critics on Rotten Tomatoes, while 39,881 of viewers have given it a 99 percent audience score, reflecting the massive disconnect between the media and the general public and proving the only ones who are “out of touch” are themselves. This same pattern can be seen with “woke” movies too. Media critics sing their praises and hail their progressive activist messaging and pandering, yet in reality, these movies completely bomb.
Hollywood wants to water down comedy as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but in doing so quickly turns into telling people what’s funny and what’s not and who can laugh and who can’t. Even the most devoted left-wing activist surely can see the problem. But a comedian like Dave Chappelle makes fun of everyone and doesn’t believe in a protected class during a stand up routine, as it should be. He also made fun of things that the right cares about, yet they still applauded the special as a celebration of comedy. But no, because Chappelle didn’t obey by their rules, because he didn’t stand on stage and call Trump a Cheeto (the pinnacle of left-wing comedy), he too must be one of those Nazis we keep hearing about. Chappelle isn’t running for public office. He’s a comic, and we’re not meant to seek the ultimate answers from him. It’s his job to talk about and then joke about current events, trends, what’s going on in the world, his only sin was talking about them a little too honestly. 
September
Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations through teary eyes and gritted teeth, claiming that the world is about to end and how unfair it is that she has to save it. Throughout the melodramatic speech warning of “mass extinction” and attacking capitalism, Thunberg repeatedly declared “how dare you!” and “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood!” Sadly, she’s right. How dare a child from one of the most healthiest, progressive, wealthiest, safest and most peaceful countries known to man be indoctrinated to believe adults have failed her and the weight of the world is on her shoulders to save mankind from apocalypse. It’s not her fault.
It’s the fault of the schools who pile on the panic-stricken talk of environmental disaster starting from kindergarten. It’s the fault of the ideologues who obsess over every weather event as if it were Armageddon, whether it’s hot or cold, rain, sun or snow, it’s all evidence of the end looming. And it’s the fault of the politicians, too cowardly and desperate for votes to tell people that utopian visions of a world run on windmills is a pipe dream. And why the hell isn’t China being lectured by the Swedish teenager? Their emissions from aviation and maritime trade alone are twice that of the United States, and more than the entire emissions of most nations in the world, but we’re the ones being told to ban straws, stop eating meat, roller skate to work and stop having kids? Really? Then again, it’s easier to go after countries which roll out the red carpet, gives her a platform and awards her with prizes in return for her criticisms. The real pollution culprits aren’t nearly as accommodating.
Climate activists could learn something from Thunberg’s honesty, though. She argues that “money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth” have to come to an end. Thunberg’s dream for the future means technocratic regimes will have to displace capitalistic societies. We can see this future in the radical environmentalist plans of AOC’s Green New Deal, one supported by leading Democratic Party candidates. It’s authoritarianism. There is no other way to describe a regulatory regime that dictates exactly what Americans can consume, sell, drive, eat and do in their personal lives. As Hawaii Democrat senator and climate change enthusiast encouraged fellow activists to think of climate change as a religion rather than a science, we can only hope that most Americans will continue to reject these regressive ideas. One reason we should is so that Greta Thunberg’s generation, including her army of schoolchildren, can continue not having to suffer needlessly.
October 
Media outlets responded to Trump’s announcement of the U.S. military’s successful mission against ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was not met with much praise and excitement that the world’s most wanted terrorist leader had been stopped, but with anger and snark. Many media outlets, the Washington Post for one example, worked hard to spin the killing of Baghdadi into, somehow, a negative story for Trump, beginning with a look at Baghdadi as not as a brutal terrorist and murderer, but as an “austere religious scholar.” 
The Washington Post followed it up with a chain of negative stories: “Three ways the Baghdadi raid undermines Trump’s chaotic policy,” “Despite the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, some analysts question U.S. ability to prevent ISIS resurgence,” “The U.S. kills an ISIS leader. But Trump is giving the group a new lease on life.” They even complained how long Trump talked for and how using words such as “dog” and “coward” weren’t as presidential as Obama. Oh, and a Washington Post and CNN journalist tweeted how wrong it was for Trump to call al-Baghdadi a coward because it takes guts to blow yourself up rather than allow yourself to be captured...
If only it ended there. The Washington Post joined other media outlets including the New York Times in debunking the “doctored” and “faked” photo Trump tweeted of himself giving a Medal of Honor to the dog that chased down al-Baghdadi. White House reporter Steve Herman also debunked the meme by breaking news on Twitter, "I've requested details on this photo! There was no such a canine event on today's schedule!" He later confirmed in a tweet after speaking to a White House official that the meme was indeed Photoshopped. Jim Acosta of CNN also made sure everyone was aware, "The dog is not at the White House." The Huffington Post wrote, “A photo tweeted by Donald Trump is getting dogged by accusations that the pic is the very definition of fake news. The photo didn’t really happen,” then proceeded to show side-by-side photos to prove it was photoshopped. Everywhere the meme was called “fake news.”
Once the media confirmed that the very clearly photoshopped dog was not at the White House after all, and the meme was just a meme, they moved onto asserting the meme was insulting and disrespectful to the original recipient of the Medal of Honor, James McCloughan, which the photo was taken from. Yet when the meme was shown to McCloughan, he laughed and said he wasn’t offended and he liked it. Now that another outrage had fizzled out, the only thing that was left for them to complain about was... Trump hates dogs because he used the term negatively to describe the ISIS leader. Yep. 
November
Nine American Mexican family members were slaughtered in broad daylight in an ambush by a drug cartel in Northern Mexico, less than a hundred miles from the Arizona border. The family were traveling to visit family when they were attacked by the cartel which left three women and six children dead, including a pair of infant twins. As Trump voiced outrage over the attacks, condemning the violence and offering the Mexican government help to come down harder on the cartels, not a single one of the seventeen Democrats in the race issued a statement on the attacks. 
That’s probably because they’ve already established it’s racist and bigoted to point out that some Mexicans can do bad things and there’s gonna be some bad eggs illegally crossing the southern border, despite leading Democrats including Clinton and Obama holding the same view just a few years ago. Let’s forget those behind most illegal border crossings are actually rapists or in just one city, over just a few weeks, seven illegal immigrants were convicted of rape. For the record, Trump never called all Mexicans rapists. He said there are rapists among those being sent over, along with drugs and MS-13 members, all true. He also said in the very next breath that there’s also good people crossing. Now, it’s also racist to call MS-13 gang members “animals” despite them being known for beheadings, dismemberments and cutting out hearts. And now we know we’re not even allowed to talk about the epidemic of terrorism and violence along the border, even when nine American women and children are massacred as it runs counter to the new, insane Democrat narrative mocking the need for stronger border security or the need for borders at all. 
This is the latest incident that has shined a spotlight on Mexico’s growing crime problem as drug cartels have launched an insurgency in the failing country.  A month earlier, hundreds of gunmen stormed the city of Culiacan after Mexican National Guards arrested one of the sons drug kingpin “El Chapo.” In a stunning display, the Mexican president told his National Guards to surrender to the cartel and release El Chapo’s son. The day after the family massacre, more murders and bus burnings were unleashed on the city of Juarez. The mayor of Juarez said the chaos was the cartel’s response to police arresting suspects involved in an ongoing drug turf war. We’ll have to wait and see if the new Mexican president’s policy of “hugs not bullets” will end the endless territory being controlled by different armed groups, similar to the Middle East and Africa. Maybe love and giving into cartel demands will bring law and order back.
December
Democrats finally did what they’ve been promising to do since Trump won the election, they impeached their mortal enemy. The obsession with impeachment has little to do with anything Trump did, and everything to do with who he is. Democrats never expected to lose the 2016 election, especially not to Donald Trump, which humiliated them even more. And ever since, they have been trying every trick in the book to prove what a horrible mistake voters have made. Democrats have floated the idea of impeachment over fake Russian collusion conspiracy theories, drivel about porn stars and even the president’s criticism of his critics. All of them bombed. With time running out before the 2020 presidential race gets into full swing, they seized on the only thing they had left: bogus “concerns” with a phone call to the newly elected Ukrainian president.
The evidence Democrats have rallied on makes for the weakest impeachment ever launched in American history, highlighting gross abuse of congressional power and serving as a national embarrassment. The impeachment inquiry was kicked off by an unknown person during a phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. An unredacted transcript of the phone call was quickly released to the public, putting the conversation between the two leaders in plain sight for all to see in an unprecedented move. There was nothing to hide. Democrats and media outlets took slices from the transcript and came up with a story about Trump pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s family in exchange for nearly $400 million in military aid. Yet when Trump mentioned “do us a favor,” in the very next sentence, he referred to Ukraine looking into the 2016 election meddling after Mueller did such a poor job, it had nothing to do with Biden. Zelensky himself said there was no pressure and he didn’t even know about the military aid being delayed. 
But House Democrats still held four weeks of impeachment hearings and not a single piece of incriminating evidence to impeach the president of any kind of crime was found, whether it be a “quid pro quo,” “bribery,” or “extortion. In fact, to the contrary, witnesses called by Democrats actually exonerated the president of any wrongdoing. Ousted former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich blatantly admitted that Trump committed no crime. “Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the president of the United States has been involved with at all?” “No,” Yovanovitch said. Former State Department Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker was asked, “In no way, shape or form did you receive any indication whatsoever, or anything that resembled a quid pro quo, is that correct?” “That’s correct,” Volker said.
Despite clearly having no case against the president, Democrats still voted to deliver their promise, it was now or never. Unlike other impeachment cases, it wasn’t at all bipartisan, the House’s impeachment inquiry passed without a single Republican vote. In fact two Democrats joined GOP lawmakers in voting against the resolution, ironically making opposition to impeachment the more bipartisan vote. One Democrat even switched parties after he was pressured by his Democrat colleagues to vote against his will. Now, Pelosi is refusing to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial. She knows Trump will be swiftly exonerated and claim another monumental victory, so let’s savor in the impeachment juices that nobody cares about for as long as we can. At least until the next “existential threat” or “constitutional crisis” they can whip up. 
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cindylouwho-2 · 4 years
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RECENT NEWS, RESOURCES & STUDIES, early February 2020
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Welcome to my latest summary of recent ecommerce news, resources & studies including search, analytics, content marketing, social media & Etsy! This covers articles I came across since the late January report, although some may be older than that. Report is a bit short because I was sick this last week; don’t worry, I used hand sanitizer before typing this up, so you are all safe 🤒
I am currently looking into setting up a new ecommerce business forum where we can discuss this sort of news, as well as any day-to-day issues we face. I need some good suggestions for a cheap or free forum space that has some editing tools, is fairly intuitive for inexperienced members, and is accessible. If you have any suggestions, please reply to this post, email me on my website, or send me a tweet. (I will put out a survey once we narrow this down to some good candidates, but if you have any other comments on what you want from such a forum, please include those too!)
As always, if you see any stories I might be interested in, please let me know!
TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 
Searchmetrics says Etsy did quite well [podcast & text] in the Google January Core Update, while both Amazon and Walmart lost a little bit. “Who won January? I’m going to say Etsy. Etsy has really done a tremendous job [with Google visibility] over the last two years. Sure, they’ve been on the winning side of the algorithm update, but consistently, being in that a position, from my experience, isn’t by chance.” Here’s more analysis listing the US winners and losers, including by subject category (sadly, not shopping sites). Marie Haynes says that the update likely targeted sites that aren’t properly disclosing affiliate links, as well as some pet health sites. 
Since a quarter of Americans have a disability, your website, your products & your marketing should be more accessible. Lots of good ideas in here! 
ETSY NEWS 
TOU alert: Etsy has banned the sale of spent bullet casings (often used as craft supplies). It’s not clear why. There is a thread from a seller whose listings were pulled here.
The 2020 wedding trends blog post is one of those pieces that is useful to sellers & buyers alike, and is also good for Etsy because it attracts outside articles and links. Some trend & keyword info of interest: ”there has been a 171% increase in searches on Etsy for bridesman items and a 72% increase in searches for best woman items”... “searches for ‘70s invitations increase 18% and searches for disco ball items increase 18%” ...”24% increase in searches for bridal jackets and a 4% increase in searches for women’s pantsuits” …”searches for reused, recycled, or reclaimed wedding items increasing 7%” in the last six months (compared to the same time the previous year).
Etsy released its annual diversity & inclusion report on January 29, getting some media coverage along the way, for example here, here and here.
Reverb hired David Mandelbrot as their new CEO; he most recently ran Indiegogo. (Etsy bought Reverb last year.)
The 4th quarter 2019 results will be out Feb. 26. I am currently planning on doing my usual summary thread in the forum. 
Decent overview of product photography for beginners, with some pointers on what Etsy wants you to do with photos. For example, “The recommended size for listing images is 2000px for the shortest side of the image, and a resolution of 72PPI.”
SEO: GOOGLE & OTHER SEARCH ENGINES 
So you know what Etsy tags are, but you get confused when people talk about tags for search engines? Read this beginners guide to SEO meta tags. (not needed for Etsy shops, but it is terminology used by some website builder sites, as well as coders of course.)
Data provider Jumpshot will be closing due to the controversies over the revelation that their parent company Avast (the anti-virus software) provided user activity to Jumpshot while perhaps not always fully disclosing this to the users. This will affect some SEO tools that relied on these click stats to generate estimates for traffic & search term use, Hitwise & Moz among them.  “In all likelihood, Avast took the action to protect its core business, as multiple articles, including from Consumer Reports, called out the company for its data collection practices, while some called for the uninstallation of the Avast software. This is probably as much PR damage control as it is driven by any principled position.”
Forbes appears to have been hit by some Google search issue, but it happened later than the Core Update, so no one is sure what is going on.They were previously penalized for selling links, but that was years ago.   
John Mueller listed all of the big Google search news from January in this almost 9 minute video. Click to see the detailed info under the video, because they helpfully summarized the important topics by timestamp, and linked to text resources as well. (Some of it is technical/coding relating; you have been warned!)
There may be another big Google ranking update happening right now (Feb. 9), as tracked by Search Engine Roundtable. Check that site over the next few days for any updates. 
CONTENT MARKETING & SOCIAL MEDIA (includes blogging & emails) 
The time you send your marketing emails matters, although it’s going to vary more than this article lets on. Keep track of your own stats. 
Debunking some myths about Instagram, including the importance of your follower count. “...your follower count isn’t the most important metric on Instagram. Your engagement rate is. Your engagement rate (which is found by calculating the number of engagements you receive divided by EITHER the number of people who saw it OR your total followers, depending on who you ask) is crucial.”
If you use the app Social Captain for Instagram, be aware that your Instagram password was publicly available in the source code. 
Facebook’s algorithm has a lot of different factors controlling who sees your posts, including actually having conversations with others, and including “quality, original videos.”
Facebook’s revenue was up 25% in the 4th quarter of 2019, to $21.1 billion, but they expect the privacy controversies to cut into growth this year.
Pinterest is testing an augmented reality tool called “Try On” that allows users to see what they will look like with specific lipstick colours. 
ONLINE ADVERTISING (SEARCH ENGINES, SOCIAL MEDIA, & OTHERS) 
Google Shopping Ads will soon be shown in Gmail accounts, YouTube and the Discover feed, starting March 4th. Note that “Retailers have been steadily shifty more of their search budgets from text to Shopping ads.”
A comparison of Google Ads vs. Facebook Ads, with plenty of tips. According to them, if you are seriously considering one, you should probably do both. “When we talk about Facebook, we’re also talking about Instagram, What’sApp, and Facebook Messenger. Google also includes YouTube, the second-most trafficked site in the world (behind Google itself).”
Google’s revenue was up 17% in the 4th quarter in 2019, almost all of it from advertising. YouTube makes more on ads than Amazon does. 
ECOMMERCE NEWS, IDEAS, TRENDS 
eBay released its 4th quarter results for 2019 on January 28, with revenue down 2% and gross merchandise value down 5%. Amazon’s sales were up 21% for the 4th quarter. 
BigCommerce now allows customers to check out in over 100 currencies, integrated with several different payment processors. 
Wondering what a good conversion rate would be for different ecommerce pages? Here’s a brief overview of the known stats, with some tips on improving.. (Note that any action can be counted as a conversion, including signing up for an email list, so this isn’t just about purchases.)
BUSINESS & CONSUMER STUDIES, STATS & REPORTS; SOCIOLOGY & PSYCHOLOGY, CUSTOMER SERVICE 
Are you marketing to Generation Z, or think you should be? Here are 52 facts (with the citations); some highlights: Gen Z has more members than millennials do, and “As of 2020, Gen Z makes up more than 40% of U.S. consumers.” and finally “When shopping online or in stores, 65% of Gen Z prefers to see as few items as possible out of stock” (that last one explains a feedback I received, I think LOL Kind of hard on Etsy when you might have a listing with multiple choices & you only have the one left.)
A study of Cyber Week email open & click rates shows that it might be better not to mention the holidays or discounts. 
This article warns consumers of the tricks ecommerce sites use to nudge people to buy more, including some clear examples of deception. “A study by Princeton University and the University of Chicago singled out online clothing seller Fashion Nova, which tells customers that items in their cart “are in high demand.” The problem? The message appears for any item that’s added to the cart. Fashion Nova’s cart also tells shoppers that their items are being “reserved” for 10 minutes. But nothing happens to the items after the 10 minutes are up.”
MISCELLANEOUS 
YouTube wants Clearview AI’s face recognition program to stop scraping its videos for content, and to delete anything it has already collected. (Twitter did the same last month.)
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tariqk · 4 years
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More Minecraft grumping
Cut to spare the dash.
Things I really don’t like about Minecraft, honestly:
The early survival game is inaccessible
Here’s the thing about early Minecraft survival: you’re plonked in the middle of the wilderness, with absolutely nothing, and literally the first thing you got to do is punch a tree and find a safe place to spend the night before you get beaten up by monsters.
That’s it. You could spend the night hiding in a hole, probably crafting and mining something in the middle of the night, while hostile mobs wander areas that aren’t lit up, waiting to, basically, kill you. And you’ll stay in this precarious situation for at least a few days, as you 1) make a place to sleep, 2) build shelter, 3) get supplies to venture out, and 4) don’t die, because if you die, you lose your stuff.
This is a game marketed to mass audiences. For children, even. And it can be so manifestly unpleasant I have no idea how it got popular so quickly.
I don’t actually have a problem with this, actually! I positively enjoyed some of that experience, and some of that tension makes for some fun gameplay and entertaining stories — like the one where I found a white horse, tamed it, named it, and then proceeded to take it to a foolhardy exploratory quest before it fell under a hail of arrows (RIP Binky 2019–2019).
And I don’t even have a problem with the learning curve, because I’ve learned and thrived in environments like Dwarf Fortress. I use emacs for gods’ sake. Low accessibility and high difficulty environments are my jam.
But getting here involved more than a dozen start-and-stop moments of gameplay where I literally quit the game, deleted the save, and went to bed in disgust. It’s stupid. It’s aggravating. I can’t believe that this was ready for mass market, what with the lack of telegraphing and the pretty damn high stakes from the start, that the only people who’d play this would be gamers who are familliar with the tropes, already know a little about Minecraft lore, and are invested to try and try again.
To be fair, they’ve made some things easier: they’ve included guidebooks with recipes to automatically load items you already know into the crafter, there’s an official guide online, and if need be, you have cheats. But consider:
If you need to cheat to get the game accessible, there is something wrong with the core game loop.
You can’t create a guidebook and then rely on players gaining “enough experience” to access them to make the game more accessible.
You can’t just bloody have a guide that a person needs to open a browser, or buy the book, to get by.
Survival is very much a non-starter if Minecraft is your first serious game, you get frightened or suffer from anxiety in trying to stay alive, and you have difficulty optimizing your moves to get the best result.
Redstone is a mess
Actually, I have no opinions on how redstone is implemented on a purely technical basis. It’s a system, it’s mostly Turing complete, that's… interesting. What pisses me off is how the Technical Minecraft community is… well, frankly, hard to get into, hard to gain proficiency in, and looks fairly clannish, insular and… honestly a drag to Minecraft’s further development, if Minecraft was to get developed further.
Like I’ve talked about this before, but the existence of the Technical Minecraft is entirely dependent on a class of software behavior that you could make an argument are actually bugs. Zero-tick pistons, anomalous sticky piston behavior with blocks, quasi-connectivity… these weren’t intended consequences for the developers of Minecraft, and they’ve said so before.
Say what you want, but honestly if the only reason why a developer reverted a bug-fix because a bunch of small, clannish, insular, and loud minority were making complaints, I’d honestly ask how much value those people should have in how you run your business.
But that isn’t all. I had taken to writing down notes because I wanted to figure out how certain redstone constructions worked, and even the simplest designs suffer from the following:
There appears to be no standard way of sharing schematics and designs for redstone creations.
Most of the instructions are in video, which is a terrible medium to instruct in, because you don’t have a way to skim through the resource, the presenter literally doesn’t have to say anything more than what they do on video (and thus can be as vague and contradictory as they want).
Most of the instructions are in the nature of, do everything this way, except this section, in which you need to do (flurry of movement as the presenter puts in a slightly different design that you better be able to catch). It’s “simple”. No, it’s fucking not.
Another thing that bothers me is that, fundamentally, most redstone designs are hand-crafted, which is mind-boggling. For one, if you are just starting redstone in Minecraft, you’re going to be sitting with the same toolkit that the most experienced users of redstone are. You’ll still be laying down redstone lines and putting in comparators. You’ll still be dealing with the janky and inconsistent behavior that experienced redstoners are. You’d still be debugging your creations with the same tools experienced redstoners are. And like, you’d be doing it with nary any institutional or technical support, because… reasons?
It’s like you progress from electrical engineering to low-level programming to high-level programming to virtual machines to virtualization… so that you can get back to electrical engineering again? Using skills that may or may not transfer well into other fields? Why?
And there are consequences for this as well, which I’ll get to in a bit, but also, I need to talk about how the community gets around this problem, which is basically…
Modded Minecraft replaces the problems vanilla has with other problems
Specifically? One of them is performance.
I don’t know if you’ve tried 1.12.x and then compared it with 1.15.x, but the differences are night and day. Like, I run a potato computer, mostly because we’re broke af and don’t have the scratch for a l33t gaming machine, but… well, yeah. What’s occasionally janky in 1.15 is literally unplayable in 1.12. What takes 5 minutes to load in vanilla takes up to thirty minutes in modded Minecraft.
And sure, this will sort itself out as modders eventually take advantage of the new architecture and optimizations within 1.15, but in some other ways, it won’t. Mostly because the nature of modded Minecraft is that it literally has to interface with the literal source files to generate or insert new code, and since mod-makers don’t have access to the code pipeline and the tools that they can use to optimize the game, well…
And we’ve only talked about the Java Edition, and not Bedrock, which I suspect will be even more tightly incorporated into the platforms that it runs, at the cost of having less open infrastructure, and as a result, more consequences to mod performance and stabilty.
But another thing that bothers me about modded Minecraft is how so many mods are just… Minecraft, but more. More power, more game mechanics, more technical additions, more mobs, more enchantments… but half the time the resulting game feels bloated and overly-complex.
This is funny because it literally sounds like I’m contradicting myself over the fact that early Minecraft survival had too little in terms of letting itself be accessible, so you’d think I’d welcome mods that worked out some of these gaps with things that made player lives easier.
But what I’m looking for is a realignment of how the game approaches players, not as a punitive, inaccessible system where difficulty is a mask for what is ultimately shallow gameplay, and what we get from modded Minecraft is more stuff. Sometimes, in some modpacks, just so many things that several mods do the same thing that the other mods do.
It’s kind of telling that every time I see a modpack that includes Draconic Evolution the first thing I think of is I better not get into Draconic early, because if I do the rest of the game will literally break, because I have no idea what the hell the mod creators are doing there, but when your damage scales allow you to three-shot the Ender Dragon final boss, that mod breaks the game. Doesn’t matter if you make a boss that’s three times tougher than, say, the Wither. Game’s fucking broken.
There are some good approaches: FTB Academy and other questbook mods do give players a chance to orient and align themselves with what to do, without forcing players to have to go through the anxiety and terror of not knowing what to do, and keeps them engaged far longer than they should be, but honestly… ultimately what you’re doing is more stuff, just through the lens of what the mod wants you to do.
Plus FTB Academy has Draconic and you can literally two-shot the Guardian of Gaia, which is supposed to be so tough that metal music starts playing and it can cause effects that are twice as worse as the Wither… well.
Is it just me or are there only dudes in this party?
If I have to count the number of people who weren’t cis men or boys in the time I’ve been lurking around Minecraft’s YouTube channels, I can quite literally say that the number would be less than half a dozen.
That’s very bad. When your visible community is 95% cis dudes and everyone else aren’t there, it tells me that:
The game alienates literally everyone who isn’t a cis dude
The player base are driving away anyone who isn’t a cis dude
Part of the reasons for #1 are, well, I’ve mentioned them above: it only really allows people who have the time and wherewithal to plug into an activity that offers no real benefit outside of the game itself, most of the fantasies it caters to is power fantasies of vanquishing more and more powerful opponents, and there’s barely any community support for newcomers.
So that’s no surprise that the kind of people who are popular Minecraft YouTubers are dudes who are either bad at explaining what they do, are inarticulate, or… well, to not put it too unkindly, dicks. I mean, Minecraft’s recent rise in popularity and relevance was, sadly, because PewDiePie was playing it. So that tells you everything.
And we haven’t even gotten into the fact that the playerbase looks pale as fuck, so you know that’s a thing. I’m seeing a few Indonesian-language Minecraft tutorials on YouTube, so that’s neat, but otherwise… it’s pretty white-dominated.
And this all assumes that the causes are all because of structural inequalities, not active fuckery against marginalized folks. I honestly don’t know how often that happens, though I wouldn’t honestly be surprised if it did. I mean, it’s not as if the game isn’t associated with nasty folk like PDP… and hell, even the original creator, who, to their credit, Microsoft and Mojang have sidelined, is a homophobic and racist dude.
But, yeah. I mean, $CHILD_1 and $CHILD_2 are still at it with Minecraft, and I’ll be around to help them through, hopefully to steer them away from the nasty stuff. But still, ugh. There are so many reasons to be grumpy about this game.
Mind you, at least it isn’t Roblox.
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spnfanficpond · 5 years
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July 2019 Pond LiveChat Recap
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We had a great time chatting with @crispychrissy today! Thank you so much, Chrissy, for joining us!
This month, to make up for not having a chat in June, we chatted for two hours about some issues related to posting your works on Tumblr. Chrissy talked to us about making our own gifs, we discussed giving credit to gifmakers, how to make a Keep Reading cut, and much more!! A rundown of the chat, as well as general Pond news, is below the cut!
[Editor’s Note: For ease of understanding, the tags you put at the bottom of a post with a # will be called #hash-tags, while the tags you use to notify another Tumblr user that you’ve posted something will be called @mention-tags.]
Q: What programs do you use to make gifs? Are they free, or do you have to buy them?
Chrissy: Well, there is a free one I used back when I started called GifCam. It's easy to set up (it's just an exe) and there's a little learning curve, but it's easier than what I do now. I currently use a screen capture program that came with my $1500 graphics card along with Sony Vegas. If anyone wants GifCam, I can send it to them.
Q: And are you watching via Netflix or some other way?
C: Yes, I use Netflix. I have the first 6 seasons on DVD along with 12 and 13, so for bloopers and deleted scenes I have to use the DVD's. For current episodes, I have YouTube TV, and use the screen capture option with that. Tumblr has a 3MB limit on file size, so it’s really hard. The amount of frames you can fit in a sub-3MB gif depend on so many factors. Colors in the scene, movement, FPS (frames per second), and length. A low FPS gif looks pretty choppy, while a high FPS gif is smooth as butter.
Q: So that's why some gifs seem to go on forever, and others are quick things.
C: Yes. I can make a really long gif of something that's really really tiny, but if you want it to fit into the pixels of a Tumblr post, it limits how long they can be.
Q: And I guess that's also why some gifs I find from Google and try to put into a post won't animate right. If they're too big, I guess Tumblr stops them?
C: Yes. Tumblr just freezes the image instead of animating it. When you save it, check the file size.
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C: So this is an example of the brightness and colors of a gif affecting the size. Since there's so much brightness and color, the more the gif has to render, meaning the bigger the size. This worked out to be only 35 frames, which is like... really small, but the gif itself came out to be 2.83 MB.
Q: Are websites that come up when I Google "gif maker" worth my time and effort?
C: Only if you don't mind a stupid watermark from the company.
Q: About giving credit to gifmakers....any thoughts?
C: Well, all my gifs have "cc" in the bottom right corner, that's how I give myself credit if they're used. Not everyone knows the "cc" gifs are mine, but I do. I offer my gif making services to anyone if they need a specific gif made for a story or otherwise, not limited to SPN. I've made porn gifs, ones from YouTube, and from other shows. If it exists, I can gif it. Tumblr's search feature is... well, it's not perfect, but it'll help give you a quick gif and give credit to the author. When someone uses a gif I've posted, it gives me a notification, which is awesome, but annoying if it gets reposted a crap ton. It also links the person back to the original post and who posted it.
Q: Some folks seem to think that if they grab a gif from Google, just saying they found it on Google is giving credit. I know this isn't the case. (I mistakenly thought that pasting the link to the image would allow folks to click through to where I found it, but discovered last night that's not the case.) If I found a gif on Google that was yours and used it, and provided a link to the page where Google found it, would that be enough, do you think?
C: Sometimes a reverse image search can be helpful, but it mostly doesn't work with gifs. That would be fine for me. Like I said, I have "cc" in the corner so that's me marking the gif as one of mine. I can't control where someone reposts them or uses them. There's a difference between reposting it to a site like Pinterest or using my gif on a LiveJournal post and saving it and reuploading it like it's yours and without giving me credit. One is malicious, the other isn't. I have a problem with the latter.
Q: I started looking at where Google finds gifs last night, and noticed that sites like gfycat have whole pages of gifs, and just citing that page might not be enough. (And trying to find where Google found them many times leads to a Tumblr blog that’s now gone.)
C: Google finds gifs all over the place. Someone can take my gif from Tumblr and reupload it to a bunch of different websites, all which would show up in a Google search. It's hard to find the original poster when it happens. Yeah, people delete their pages, but the gif stays. If you get to that point, just say, “Gif found on Google, unable to find original post"
Q: Speaking of finding gifs, how does the search function work on Tumblr? Is it just whatever the post was tagged with or the first 5 tags like regular searches or something else entirely?
After some discussion, we all decided that the gif search uses whatever #hash-tags are on a post where a gif is used, and then makes that gif searchable by that #hash-tag. So, if you make a post about chronic pain and use a gif of the Winchesters hugging, that gif will then show up in the gif search under #chronic pain. Also, popularity of the gif ensures it shows up at the top of the search. As people stop using a gif, it eventually falls out of the search results.
Q: Going back to file sizes...Do the dimensions of the source video (like watching Netflix/YouTube in full screen vs in a smaller window) impact the size of the gif, specifically with GifCam?
C: Now, that's a HUGE reason why I switched the way I make gifs. Netflix has a set streaming rate, which is only optimized at full screen. So the smaller you make the window to get it to fit into the size of the gif, the more degraded the image is. (Some confusion was expressed, so she continued to explain it further.) Netflix likes to run as big as possible. It wants as many pixels it can get to show you an image. If you minimize the window, it kind of freaks out and has to quickly scramble to make everything smaller so the video keeps playing. It does that by squishing everything down, making the image look weird. It might not be too noticeable when you look at it, but when you make gifs, they're gonna come out lookin all wonky.
Q: So, you have to make the Netflix window smaller in order to capture the images with the gif-making software? The gif-making software can't capture full screen?
C: GifCam will record the gif based on the window size. You gotta squish the window down to make it a reasonable size to fit on Tumblr. Other programs, which you might have to pay for, might be able to capture full screen and do the squishing for you. (Side note: during this discussion, Chrissy gave us some examples, and in showing them to us, revealed that a good gif size for Tumblr is around 410-430 wide, 230-250 high.)
After that, we moved on to other topics that had been brought up in the Pond survey a while back. 
How to make a Keep Reading cut and when you should use it.
Note: Although this worked for one person on the app, it doesn’t seem to work for all, and we’re not sure why. There are too many variables to determine the root cause for why it doesn’t always work. 
Q: "When should I give someone credit for being a beta (for example: I bounced ideas with someone for a minute or two but they didn’t technically beta read it; I can’t decide between X and Y (with no context), pick one)"
A: Always mention anyone who helped you. You don’t have to say they beta-read your story, but at least mention that they helped, even if they didn’t know it! Gratitude is always a good thing!! Writing takes a village, and being thankful for help is courteous, kind, caring, and helps you to make friends that will be the same right back to you.
How do I add my masterlist for my blog description?
Note: Chrissy pointed out that if you change your bio by hitting “edit appearance” instead of “edit theme” the link will break, so be careful where you add this! These things and more can be found in the Pond FAQ list!!
Q: The facts on search issues (re: links, tags, and anything else that keeps a fic from being “searchable”)
A: A lot of testing and research went into trying to figure this out, and we still probably don’t have it all figured out, but we learned some interesting things!
Most importantly, since we have a lot of smut writers, if you use the #hash-tag #NSFW on your post, your post will NOT show up in any searches!!
Adding an external link should not cause your post to be unsearchable, but that’s not guaranteed. According to Tumblr’s own help pages, “some links may cause posts to be hidden from recent search results.” Since spambots use external links in their posts, this will always be something that could possibly interfere with your post being searchable.
According to Tumblr: “Blogs that have been either self-flagged or flagged by us as “explicit” per our old policy (before December 17, 2018), will not show up in search. Users under 18 are still not allowed to click through to see the content of these blogs. If you think your blog has been erroneously marked as explicit, you can file an appeal by following these instructions.”
When you are searching for your post, make sure you are looking at Most Recent posts, not Most Popular! 
Some things to know about searching:
There are two ways to search a blog. If you use the search box at the top, then your results will have a URL like this:  https://spnfanficpond.tumblr.com/search/big-fish-chat
However, that is not the only way you can search your blog. If you look at a post, and click on one of the tags on that post, your results will have a URL like this: https://spnfanficpond.tumblr.com/tagged/big-fish-chat
The first search will look through all of the text in a post to find the words you’re searching for. The second search will only look for posts with that specific tag. If a blog doesn’t have a search box in its theme, you can type these searches in manually, and they will still work.
You can also do these searches manually through all of Tumblr. Keep this in mind when you’re doing your general Tumblr search and check the URL of your results, because... “search” & “tagged” look at #hash-tags differently!
(This is so confusing, we know.)
“Search” will look through 20 #hash-tags. “Tagged” will only look through 5 #hash-tags. So, put your most important #hash-tags in your first 5!!
Q: Can you talk about xkit?
A: xkit is awesome and we should all bow down to the xkit guy because he fixes things when Tumblr poops on the carpet. Seriously. It’s only for use on desktop, but it makes Tumblr so much easier to manage.
xkit is an extension for your browser. Look for New xkit, and download that. Once you have xkit loaded, click on the xkit icon near the top right of your screen. When the xkit window pops up, click on Get Extensions. We could suggest a list of the best extensions, but they’re all seriously awesome. Blacklist seems to be the most common, as it filters out posts you don’t want to see based on tags and text. Auto Tagger, Activity+, Outbox, One-Click Postage, and Quick Tags are all ridiculously useful for everyday blogging. The whole thing is super easy to learn and use, and you can’t break anything while you’re learning. Some extensions, like Blacklist, may slow your computer down when you’re surfing your dash because they essentially surf it ahead of you and manipulate it. If you start seeing problems, you can disable any extensions you decide you don’t want to use, anymore.
Seriously, it’s freaking awesome.
Great talk, guys! If you have ideas for topics, please let us know!!
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General Pond Updates and Reminders
What we’ve got cooking up next: 
We’re working on setting up the discord server. We’re still learning the ins and outs and all the options available. More options means more discussion among the admins and decisions to be made, so please be patient! We’re getting there!
Reminders:
Angel Fish Award nominations are accepted all month long! No need to wait to tell us how much you liked a fellow Fish’s work!  IF YOU HAVE SENT IN A NOMINATION, BUT HAVE NOT RECEIVED A PRIVATE MESSAGE CONFIRMING WE RECEIVED IT, WE DIDN’T GET IT. Be sure to use Submit instead of Ask!
Don’t forget to submit your stories to be posted to the blog! When your stories are on the blog, then they are easier to nominate for Angel Fish Awards!
SPNFanFicPond Season 14 Weekly Episode Challenge - Now that the season is over, we will be reposting each prompt list through the summer months! Remember, there’s no deadline for submissions!
Say hi to June’s New Members!
Check the Pond CALENDAR to see when Big Fish will be in the chat room and other Pond and SPN events are happening! Know of something that’s not on the calendar, send us an ask or submission with the deets info details!  The calendar offers a lot of features, such as showing you when things are in your own timezone! Since we’re an international group, that’s a definite plus!!
We don’t have a topic or speaker set up for August’s event, yet, so if there’s something you want to talk about, or someone you want to talk to, LET US KNOW!
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Highlighter and Bronzer: Constant Dualities in Makeup Culture
As written by a makeup user
Makeup is highly polarizing subject to the people who wear it, refuse to wear it, and resign to wear it, and speaking honestly? It can get hard to keep a singular, straight thought about it. Personally speaking at least.
A lot of the topics mentioned were usually written separately, and that’s fine. One person posting how makeup praises European features isn’t wrong! Just like another post saying how makeup fetishizes black features/trying to pass as “racially ambiguous” also isn’t wrong! These two separate camps, among the others I will touch on later, can both exist in the same realm. It’s just our job to see both sides and how either and both affect people.
I know this is far from being the first makeup-critical post nor its last, but throughout my years on this hell site, I have stumbled across numerous articles and thoughts. They are all wonderful and are written with more insight than I could ever, but this compilation is (mostly) for me.
Eurocentric Beauty Standards and Modern Black/Brownface
What do we see when we open Instagram or look up makeup artists on Youtube? Most probably the same cut and crease. The same extensive bronzer. The same cut cheekbones. The same C-shaped highlighted area. And you get the point! But what does it mean? Am I just ragging on the go-to, tried and true looks? Well yes. I hate seeing a lack of creativity, but I want to look deeper into what these artists are choosing to accentuate; what they are choosing to accentuate or hide; what they are choosing to do with their natural skin colour.
One tumblr user (that has since left this site) said, you can’t divorce beauty culture from white supremacy. And they were right. A lot of IG/YT tends still uphold whiteness as a kind of ideal! This perpetuation could be as innocent as contouring tutorials telling viewers to give themselves high cheekbones; a small, straight nose; deeper set eyes; “melon seed” jaws; etc., to an industry-wide problem like Snapchat/IG filters lightening skin tones and companies not providing a ful, broad range of foundations and concealers.
It really wasn’t until, like, what? 2017? where Fenty Beauty made a foundation line with a thorough and broad spectrum that covered almost every skin tone. And that is a travesty! What were you telling these women (and men)? “You should be going lighter than your actual skin shade”? But what’s more insidious than that is actually going out and making skin brightening products for women, especially in countries where colorism is more pronounced –like Central and South America and Asia (especially South and Southeast Asia).
The latter is not just an instance of not a lack of representation (and yes, I acknowledge that we ought to see more darker skinned actors and celebrities and so forth) but is something that can affect the livelihoods of people. Without a doubt, people treat you differently if you look a certain way. It becomes easier to navigate through society! Job prospects open up once you fit these standards, even if they are racist; one non-makeup example is how black women are expected to straighten their hair for jobs, have something like 1A to 2C hair, while other manageable hair styles that are more unique to women with 3A-4C hair (box braids, cornrows, etc.) are seen as inappropriate. But at the same time, non-black people go and appropriate these looks.
As tumblr user estoma6mp (now, luzonbleedingheart) mentioned in their (now deleted) post, what is overlining/plumping their lips and taking the styles of black women other than imitating blackness/modernized blackface? Look at Ariana Grande. The Jenners. These parties “tan” and “bronze” to achieve… I think a certain “racial ambiguity” as well as… just stealing the creative thoughts of African American (and also Latinx) women. It’s…. the coveting and commodification of “ethnic” features and styles for the sake of seeming fashionable and clout while also resting comfortably knowing that you can take off all the bronzer at the end of the day.
The Sexualization of Makeup and Children and the Infantilizing of Grown Women
The names of products and shades are undoubtedly important in creating an image and a connection in the minds of consumers. Like, what does “Killawatt” put in your mind, in my mind, other than something super bright and fluorescent like concert lights? But not all makeup will have simple names like “rose” or “peony” for lipsticks. Those don’t have enough edge. It doesn’t sell sex. But should makeup have to sell sex?
As marisatomay said in her post, makeup companies shouldn’t be naming their products after sexual terms. She goes to list names like “climax” and “super orgasm” and puns like “glow job” that may seem far fetched and almost like a strawman, but no. Those are actual names. Just look at the lip gloss selection from NARS’ site: Orgasm, Super Orgasm, First Time, Strip Tease, Triple X, are just a handful of names. There are so much more I’m not mentioning! I wouldn’t be so opposed to this naming convention if it weren’t for the fact that there are plenty of young girls who are looking to makeup as a form of expression.
Now, whether children and young teenagers should be using makeup is another point of debate. If a child wants to play with makeup and draw flowers on their face and add glitter, that’s fine! It’s all in good fun. But the moment you have girls as young as 7 or 8 becoming makeup artists, contouring, beating their faces, making themselves look like they are in their 20s, that’s where things get concerning. Like, we should let children be children and allow them creativity, but creativity with makeup is hard because the line between having fun and feeling like you need to conform to certain looks/have certain knowledge about making yourself look “beautiful” is getting more and more blurred. It’s already terrible to see elementary school children think that they need to look a certain way, wear makeup a certain way to be seen as pretty, but the makeup industry isn’t just exploiting these young girls’ insecurities. They also exploit the girls themselves. When we see brands posting closeup videos of young girls putting on lip gloss, lips parted, it evokes a certain image.
On the other hand, however, I’ve also seen makeup palettes that are very reminiscent of childhood. Saffron-Sugar wrote on her blog, that a lot of makeup also has an “unpleasantly infantilizing tone,” and I agree! Like, which makeup company hasn’t collaborated with Disney? Mermaid, unicorn, faerie, and even dessert themed products are omnipresent. This by itself isn’t that much of an issue –these are cute aesthetics, and I can get behind some of them—but it really patronizes a lot of adult women. These circumstances emphasize certain connotations with regards to (perhaps feigned) girliness.
While I said makeup can sexualize minors and expose them to unwarranted sexual tension, makeup can also sexualize that same young, innocent image in women. It’s the idea of recapturing girlhood and innocence and purity. It’s sickening because it kinda adds this “barely legal” culture –where men wait for girls to turn 18 as if legality is the only thing that differentiates a girl from a woman. And this is disgusting.
Empowerment and Societal Coercion and the Industry that Doesn’t Care
I’m glad to be living in a time and a world where I can speak my thoughts openly and find ways to be myself, but… I think it’s also this individualism that gives us all an overinflated sense of self. It’s difficult to openly criticize our behavior, our actions, as consumers and as people in a capitalistic society because so many of us do take these as personal attacks. As if we were exempt from reflecting on ourselves and have free reign to perpetuate harmful ideology and phenomena.
So…. It was, like, 2012? 2013? Where we got all these “eyeliner sharp enough to kill a man!!” and “blind them with your highlighter!” comments and posts. The idea, if I recall everything correctly, was that… a lot of girls, a lot of women, were emphasizing that they weren’t wearing makeup for anyone else other than themselves. And I think that is a wonder idea. It’s nice that you can make a hobby out of this, but I also know that there are plenty of others who are less than enthused about makeup.
I don’t hate on the women in the above scenario, totally don’t! But they can’t go around yelling how something (especially makeup) is a choice when to many others it isn’t. Plenty of women feel like they need to wear makeup in order to better navigate through society. As a personal anecdote, I know that I have been treated far better as a person the moment I “glowed up” and tried to coordinate outfits better/put on makeup in a more conventionally attractive manner/adhering to certain beauty standards. I know that in some service jobs such as waiting tables, the number of tips a waiter gets can be determined by her makeup. And let’s not even go into mental health professionals and their patients wearing makeup! It’s unrealistic the amount of time women has to spend on our appearances just to be treated like “normal.”
And the thing is, the makeup industry doesn’t care if you’re either woman! These million-dollar companies, founded on the institutional control of how women look and behave, are getting money from both camps. Advertisement will be sprinkled with buzzwords such as “empowering” and “girl boss” but those are empty words when all they want is to bank on these trends and women’s wants and/or insecurities.
 And here’s the part where I struggle to conclude all my thoughts. Like my previous post about art commissions and business, this is nothing more than a rehash of what people before me have said: I just wanted to compile everything in a more accessible post for myself, rather than scroll through my makeup tag on my main blog. But I guess I need to have some form of closure for anybody who has actually stuck around to get here (and thank you for doing so!).
All of the circumstances mentioned are… quite separate from each other all things considered, but they are all part of a larger, more foreboding culture that makes women feel like they need to look a certain way (even if they think they are being unique and creative). Indeed, makeup is a form of expression and creativity for a lot of women, but to just blindly act without any insight on what you are consuming, what you are doing, and why you are doing it, is honestly irresponsible. Like any other part of culture, a part of media (especially social), we need to see who is benefiting from our actions and who is getting hurt.
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How To See Who Viewed My Instagram Vedios And Profile
There’s something every instagrammer wants to know: who's searching at my pictures?  We live in a show-and-tell world, with i-see-i-do-i-publish-mindsets, comments, and “likes”.  No one desires to disappear at fault of a #uninteresting photograph. But, ever considering the appearance of instagram memories, which does can help you see who has seen the movies IG Apers and photographs you have got shared, the concept is beginning to spread that you can additionally understand who has visible the content material you have published for your wall. Instagram makes it clean to play pretend, but what occurs whilst a person else pretends to be you?
How To See Who Viewed Your Instagram Video 
This is the era of innovation. The field of technology is enhancing at such a great speed that know developing a particular tool is not very tough. Apart from that, you will find several hacks and trick to get to know something that the world think is impossible to find out. It is the case with the Instagram profiles. Many of us thought that it is not even near possible to find out that who has viewed your Instagram profile and how many times. However, the technology has still proved our thoughts wrong. Because recently an amazing new tool has been developed that will astound you at all cost. With this tool, you will be able to find out all the answers to the single question how to see who views your Instagram. This tool will bring innovation in the social networking world. Now the hidden spy’s will not remain hidden anymore and you will be able to track the activities of many people. So let us have a walkthrough of this amazing online tool that will let you find out the person viewing your Instagram profile. Now you might be wondering that how this amazing tool was developed and the masterminds behind its creation. In the present age, we have the amazing tool of technology to make can you see who views your instagram story everything possible. The online tool was developed because of the single reason of giving people a method to know how to see who views your Instagram and it has been already stated. So to provide the answer to this question we collaborated a team of professional that are specialists in software development and have the perfect knowledge of the Instagram. We joined some algorithmic laws and few codes that led us to the development of this amazing online tool that has made this possible to find the profile viewers. This tool will help you to beware of the unknown people and make your privacy strong or remove all your personal items from your profile to keep them away from the eyes of the evil. So the time has come to stop worrying about who is viewing your profile and find them out so you can stop them for the greater good. We hope that this online tool will turn the way a person use Instagram and disturbs the privacy of other people by viewing their profiles. In theory, social media sites like facebook make it so that third parties can’t access your “mystery statistics,” but without our understanding, hackers are taking advantage people: robbing private data (even the ones first rate-complex-and-thoroughly-concept-out passwords) and gaining full get right of entry to to our profiles. Inside the hypothetical and far off case of  mark zuckerberg and the directors of instagram figuring out that you could get entry to this records, it would be the app itself that, in one in every of its updates, brought the choice so that you can recognise who has seen your pics. If a person tells you they can do it, they’re no longer to be trusted.
Viewing And Publishing Instagram Stories
Take into account the case of turker bayram, a lamentably popular but elusive malware developer who has been capable of vicinity his malicious apps  inside the top charts on google play and the app shop.  Soon after he creates them and uploads them, there are huge numbers of downloads.  By the time a person figures out what’s occurring, and after hundreds how to see who views your instagram of hundreds (probably tens of millions) of customers are robbed of their personal information, google and apple subsequently delete the apps.  This has took place at least two times. Some months in the past, an impartial developer named david layer-reiss warned us on his blog approximately ig apers new malicious “software”.  The ios model became called “who cares with me –igapers”, and in android, “igapers — who cares with me”.  Those “apps” found with the aid of layer-reiss have already  been eliminated and, in november 2015, each apple and google withdrew ig apers original platform, igapers.  It isn't always the first time malware takes over a famous web page (i.E. Instagram, whatsapp, fb) so as to massively rob consumer profiles… and it gained’t be the last. These “apps” usually return to the top of the charts and every so often below the umbrella of the equal developer.  In the case of “igapers”, the sufferer innocently enters their credentials, unaware that the confidential data is despatched to the attacker’s server.  Rather than coming across “who has been searching at your instagram?”, the cyber-attacker seamlessly accesses the account as if it were their own and posts spam pics at the owner’s behalf. Foto 2_instagram from telegrams to instagrams, the greater technically state-of-the-art we end up the more critical it's miles to can you see who views your instagram believe the conversation supply, or in this example, the “app”.  “igapers” is just one of the many scams designed to take benefit of the great interest generated through social networks.  The most worrisome aspect about them is their recognition, continually huge and instant, that by the time google or apple are involved it’s too overdue for heaps of customers.  Combat those threats via staying alert, ignoring fake guarantees, and installing a hard antivirus on all of your gadgets. Instagram is the most popular photo and video sharing application which shall we one proportion your non-public or public snap shots. It’s feasible to  determine film watch count on the motion pictures that you have downloaded through the app doesn’t let you know who’s checking on your instagram account and privately following your pictures.
Summary Of Who Views My Instagram
In case you are a regular instagram user, then there’s a exquisite possibility which you have key enthusiasts too who opt for to check your instagram page along with your snap shots. Fortunately, there are approaches to understand who is checking your instagram profile. You could additionally recognise who perspectives your instagram. Instagram analytics services  are available how to see who viewed your instagram so you can observe these engagement metrics. Services like statigram, handiest measured and nitrogram does now not presently degree raw viewership statistics but offers you a photo of how many individuals have interacted along with your posts thru evaluations, likes and shared urls.
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I Tried Living Like a Social Media Influencer for a Week - Here’s What I Learned:
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In a world full of Instagram and Youtube, a new elitism was born: Social Media Influencers.
What are social media influencers? According to the Digital Marketing Institue, social media influencers are, “users who have established credibility in a specific industry, have access to a huge audience and can persuade others to act based on their recommendations.”
After the death of app Vine, the top users couldn’t fathom losing their daily 6 seconds of fame and get a real job, so instead, they turned to good ol’Youtube. Youtube, which was once a platform for content creators to post actual formatted-scripted-creative videos, then became a playground for inFlueNcErs to post shallow videos of themselves vlogging their day-to-day life of doing $1,000 shopping hauls and Taco Bell mukbangs.
Though these vloggers claim their content is actual ~hard~ work, from a viewers standpoint it just looks like an extreme form of the narcissism of privileged people showing off how much money they have and how much fun they can have without having to maintain a real job.
In addition to their hard work of filming themselves eating fast food, there’s also the extremely hard and tiring work of them posting pictures of themselves onto Instagram. While I personally do not understand how this is real work, other sources would argue that it is. A recent survey showed that 75% of generation z and millennials consider online content creation to be a real job, and 34% of those people want to start a YouTube channel themselves. 
Still, I can’t help but be irked when hearing about this lifestyle. But why? To figure out where this rooted irritation stems from, I decided to try to live like a social media influencer for a week. Vlogging. Instagramming. Eating like them and dressing like them. For a full week. Yeah. yeah. Here is what I learned:
1.) It Takes A lot of Confidence:
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Is it confidence or is it narcissism? Depends on the vlogger. Either way, you’ll need one of the two to get started in the influencer world.
Let’s start off with vlogging. Talking to a camera while walking in a public space with people staring at you…..not an easy feeling. Every time I started filming and a person would notice, I instantly felt self-conscience.
 Even when I was attempting to film alone, as soon as I would start talking to the camera as if it was an actual person, I couldn’t help but to laugh. Every. Time. 
Maybe I should give more credit to vloggers who talk to their camera in public and make it look so easy and natural because it’s not. 
Going along with the self embarrassment, posting consistently on Instagram added to the feeling. 
I normally post on my Instagram one or two times a month, but posting pictures of myself WEEKLY felt like I hit the beyond cringe status. 
Pressing the post button was dreadful, and I ended up deleting most pictures an hour after they were posted.
Posting my face onto my friend's timelines every single day and updating my Insta story every minute felt like a whole new level of narcissism. It’s so silly and weird to think influencers easily post these pictures and just ~expect~ people to like them and to care about what they’re up to that day
This goes along with the majority of influencers being narcissistic. In a 2016 study, researchers interviewed 239 influencers on their Instagram habits and found that they all ranked high on the Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale. 
The researchers also said, "narcissists can post and manipulate specific photos to make themselves and their lives appear to be a certain way. Instagram appeals to narcissists because many interactions on it are 'surfacy' or 'shallow.”
The vlogging side to being an influencer is one thing because at the very least you can try to make something fun out of it, but the Instagram part? Absolutely, absolutely, not the lifestyle for me.  
2.) It’s Only Fun if You're Making Money:
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If I knew it was guaranteed I could live this lifestyle and start making the same amount of money as the top influencers do, going through the cringe and embarrassment of it all would totally be worth it.
Influencers get paid through brand deals and sponsored ads. Companies will reach out to influencers and ask them to either post a picture of them using or wearing their product, or shout out their company in a video in exchange of receiving anywhere from $200-10,000+ per post.
Social media influencer Tana Mongeau announced on her Instagram story this past week that the clothing company Fashion Nova pays her up to six figures per photo that she posts onto her Instagram wearing their clothing and tagging them in it. SIX FIGURES to post a picture on Instagram. 
Mongeau has also explained in her past videos that clothing companies send her and other influencers exclusive catalogs of clothing articles selected just for them. These items are worth anywhere from $500-5,000. She picks the clothes that she likes, they send them to her for free, she then films a Youtube video of her showing off the clothes and pretending as if she actually shops there, then she can either keep the clothes or send them back. Either way, she still receives a thicccc paycheck for giving the company an online promo.
Influencer David Dobrik stated on his vlog channel that he was able to buy 10 new cars for his friends, plus a new Ferrari for himself, within one year due to giving the company SeatGeek shoutouts on his vlog. 11 new high-end cars in one year...just for talking about a company for literally 45 seconds.  
Without the paycheck and without knowing if I’ll ever get a paycheck, I just don’t see the point in being an influencer just for ~fun~ especially knowing other people are banking off of it.
It’s like people who casually drink. Alcohol doesn’t taste good. There are zero health benefits to it. So if you’re not drinking to get drunk, what’s the point?
Being an influencer is embarrassing. There are horrible mental health benefits to it. So if you’re not posting to get paid, what’s the point? Attention?? Fans?? Feeding into narcissism???? Probably, but I still want a paycheck at the end of the day. 
3.) It Takes A lot of Time: 
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Finding the perfect picture to post on Instagram takes. a. lot. of. time. After doing a full photo shoot in my Insta-baddie outfit outside of a 711 (which ties back to the needing self-confidence part and trying to continue on even when customers are staring), I then had to go through 103 pictures and even then I had to take more to find the ~one.~
But it doesn’t stop there!
Trying to edit and FaceTune the pictures like the influencers do was even more time consuming than taking the pictures and picking out the Dolls Kills mixed with Fashion Nova outfit itself.
If it took me that much time trying to decide which picture to post, I can’t even imagine how long it takes influencers, given they have more pressure put on them to post the right one. I only have a little over 4,000 followers to impress online, but real social media influencers have a solid 500,000-1,000,000+ that’s a lot of pressure! Not to mention if they’re posting the picture through a brand deal and the brand doesn’t like the picture, they can take the paycheck back...so their post has to be perfect.
Trying to come up with vlog content also took up a lot of time.
When I wasn’t laughing or cringing at myself, I was vacantly staring into the camera lens trying to come up with something to say, annnnnd I had nothing.
Then there were times where I did think of something to say, but either the sound quality was off or the sentence was worded funny so I would have to do retakes of me talking while also trying to make it sound natural.  
AND THEN, once you FINALLY got your footage, you have to edit it all. The current trend among vloggers is to do quick edits with lots of weird effects and added sounds which took me 8 whole hours to figure how to do, and even then, the outcome was still shitty! !!!
While I still do believe vlogging isn’t real work, I WILL give them credit for their editing skills, now that I consider hard work.
*side note: while I do credit editing film as hard work, it can also be noted that there are vloggers out there who pay someone else to edit their videos for them….SoOOoOo
*side side note: I was going to add the vlog here but after this experiment, I weirdly decided I want to actually try to make a vlog channel this summer since most of my friends already do and I learned a lot from this, so I’m holding onto that content until the birth of my channel.
4.) It Does Hurt Your Mental Health:
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While doing my research on what the influencer lifestyle was like, I tried to take note of what they typically eat in a day and what they wore.
From the different “What I Eat in a Day” videos I watched, it mostly seemed to consist of ice coffee (which I already drink on a daily basis so that was easy) and avocados and other super healthy foods.
The common outfit choices I noticed from the wardrobe hauls I watched mainly consisted of crop tops, street fashion, and anything that reveals a lot of skin. 
Going back to a previous statement I made, influencers have a lot of followers and a lot of eyes on them, so it’s easy to see that they do whatever they can to always look their best.
While I did enjoy their food choices and clothing choices the most out of this entire experience (because it tasted good and looked cute), I feel like it would eventually become mentally exhausting to always be sooooo aware and conscious of what you look like at all times.
I mentioned before that I used the FaceTune app like all the other influencer do when editing my pictures before posting them. While I could write a whole other 25-page-long-essay on the dangers of FaceTune itself, I’ll just summarize it by saying this: FaceTune is an absolute evil drug that can trigger body dysmorphia within the user and within people who see the final FaceTuned pictures.
The features on that app that allows for you to look as if you lost 50 lbs, makes you look taller, fixes your skin complexion, and even alters your jawline??? are so dangerous and triggering to people who already suffer from low-self esteem, dysmorphia, and eating disorders, and I strongly suggest not even downloading the app, ever.
I also caught myself checking my phone every second to see how many likes I was getting after posting something. When posting content on social media becomes your job, I can totally see how addicting numbers can become and why people obsess over them. 
In a recent interview with influencer Alexandra Mondalek done by The Guardian, Mondalek said, “I was putting too much weight into who was viewing my Instagram, I would worry about how a post was performing instead of making important calls. I felt a certain pressure to make a brand of myself, and there was so much anxiety in that.”
I also caught myself comparing my posts to similar posts that got more likes and wondering why mine weren’t getting as many, but then would remember that the majority of the influencer’s pictures have been FaceTuned, and they don’t actually look like that in real life so I shouldn’t be comparing myself to them. 
Mondalek also said in the same interview that, “I’d be lying if I said I could look at an explore page on Instagram and not compare myself to what I see on those pages. Someone is purchasing something you can’t purchase or making connections you haven’t yet made. It’s the rat-race lifestyle boiled down into the palm of your hand, and sometimes it feels inescapable.”
Final Thoughts:
After this experience, I will give influencers a bit more credit. This definitely isn't a lifestyle anyone could pull off so props to those who can.
However, I still do not fully see a purpose or meaning in their job. And I'm pretty sure they don’t either — they just like the perks of the lifestyle.
Mongeau has stated several times in her vlogs that she knows she’s talentless and that she just got lucky, and I respect her for owning up to that. 
I guess my core issue with influencers lies within the ones who cannot be honest with themselves and admit their job is meaningless.
These people really aren’t contributing much to society or working that hard, but are still making more money than teachers and some doctor — people who actually work — and it bothers me! Nobody needs that much money! 
But....I did read in a recent study that, “narcissists tend to follow other narcissists on Instagram,” and prior to doing this experiment, I was already following these influencers on my own free will. So, maybe, if we’re being honest here, my problem isn’t the influencers work ethic, but deep down inside I see myself in these people and am just jealous that they’re living a richer life than I am. 
Sources:
https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/en-us/blog/9-of-the-biggest-social-media-influencers-on-instagram
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3617062/children-turn-backs-on-traditional-careers-in-favour-of-internet-fame-study-finds/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/08/instagram-influencers-psychology-social-media-anxiety
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/05/29/five-ways-to-beat-social-media-algorithms-with-influencer-marketing/#20f2d13f6db7
https://www.businessinsider.com/narcissists-habits-instagram-2018-1
https://blog.logograb.com/visuals-videos-what-happened-vine/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563215303307
https://chatterblast.com/being-a-social-media-influencer-its-a-real-job/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563217306805
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mikeelgan · 5 years
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Why I don't trust OnePlus
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Every once in awhile I let slip in conversation that I think OnePlus is an unethical company. My interlocutors are often surprised by this, and I'm often surprised by their surprise.
I thought I'd create this post to list what I believe are the best examples of OnePlus’ unethical approach to just about everything.
Here's my case against OnePlus:
1. They lied about their founding.
The company was founded by former OPPO vice president, Pete Lau, and former OPPO marketing chief, Carl Pei. They claimed to have left OPPO to strike out on their own, and they made a big deal about this "origin story."
When Lau announced the founding of OnePlus, he said: "Today is my last day at OPPO."
In fact, they never left OPPO.
OnePlus is a "private company." But 100% of the stock in the company is owned by Oppo Electronics. (OPPO itself is a brand of the Chinese electronics giant BBK Electronics, which sells products mainly in Russia, but also in the United States. In America, BBK products are sold under the Memorex and Philco brands.)
The whole purpose of this arrangement appears to be to create the illusion of a startup, when in fact it's owned by a giant corporation. So, rather than being an innovative, scrappy startup owned by its rebel founders, OnePlus is actually owned by a giant electronics manufacturer and the "founders" are mere employees.
(I don't mind the giant corporation. I mind the lie.)
2. They engaged in sexist marketing.
OnePlus has often experimented with aggressive marketing tactics. One of the worst was their "Ladies First" contest, whereby OnePlus called on women to draw the OnePlus logo somewhere on their body or on a sheet of paper and post the picture on social media. The company said that the 50 "most well-liked" photos (ranked by mostly male forum members) would earn a free T-shirt and permission to buy a OnePlus One phone at full price.
3. They engaged in wasteful marketing.
OnePlus initiated a "Smash the Past" contest. The company called on the public to capture video of themselves smashing their existing smartphone for the chance to win one of 100 OnePlus phones for a $1 each.
OnePlus convinced more than 140,000 people destroy perfectly good phones, unleashing toxic chemicals into the environment and wrecking phones that could have been sold or put into the hands of someone who needed a phone.
4. They shipped phones with hidden backdoors.
A security researcher discovered apps installed on OxygenOS-powered OnePlus phones called EngineerMode and OnePlusLogKit that could give hackers access to WiFi, NFC and GPS logs and enable them to root a OnePlus phone without unlocking the bootloader.
5. They lied to customers about sales.
OnePlus consistently uses fake "success theater" tactics to create the impression of wild success. The original sin of the company is to require invitations and artificial scarcity to make OnePlus phones hard to get.
But they also did this by outright lying about sales, telling customers in India: "Thanks for making OnePlus 5 the highest-grossing phone ever."
After getting caught, they claimed that the character limitations of SMS forced them to say "ever" instead of "in the launch week."
6. They were caught spying on users.
OnePlus was caught harvesting data on users, including phone locks and unlocks, reboots, IMEI numbers, phone numbers, MAC addresses and other wireless network data, along with the phone’s serial number.
7. They’re careless with customers’ personal data.
The company admitted in January of 1018 that a hack attack compromised the credit card data of up to 40,000 customers.
8. They were caught cheating at benchmarks.
And more than once.
XDA detailed how the OnePlus 5 review units OnePlus sent to reviewers was altered to cheat on benchmark tests.
9. They deleted negative reviews on their website.
OnePlus apparently and routinely deletes negative reviews on their websites, creating the false impression that all customers are happy with their products.
10. They lied about bezel size.
OnePlus marketed their OnePlus 6T smartphone on Instagram using doctored images that showed the bezel size as being smaller than it really is.
11. They achieved the fastest face unlock by shipping an insecure system.
OnePlus got a reputation for having the fastest-unlocking phone on the market for face unlock. But they achieved this by shipping a system that can be unlocked with a printed photo of the user’s face.
Face unlock is supposed to enhance security, not decrease it.
It all adds up
For some of these lapses, other companies have been similarly accused. For example, Samsung has been accused of cheating on benchmarks. LG has been accused of lying about bezel size, etc. But. to the best of my knowledge, OnePlus is the only company accused of all these things.
When accused of all these transgressions, OnePlus always has a story or reason or justification for why they're not really lying, cheating or being assholes.
They're like Facebook in that regard -- aggressively moving fast and breaking things, then apologizing or justifying when caught.
I think that it makes sense to avoid companies that lie, cheat and abuse.
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brown9045luis · 3 years
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European Cup and UEFA Champions League records and statistics - Wikipedia
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orbemnews · 3 years
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On Sports and SPACs A sporting chance Professional athletes can sell almost anything, from soda to sneakers to car insurance. But lately they’ve used their star power to sell SPACs, the blank-check acquisition vehicles that have raised more than $90 billion this year. Amid frenzied competition for merger deals, about a fifth of SPACs launched since last year have brought athletes on board in hopes of standing out when pitching to start-ups they hope to take public, Matthew Goldstein and DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch report. Alex Rodriguez is one of the highest-profile athletes in the SPAC business, and he stands out because unlike many of his peers merely adding their names to someone else’s SPAC, he founded his own. Slam Corp, established by the former baseball slugger and the hedge fund manager Himanshu Gulati, has met with more than 70 potential targets since it raised $500 million in a February I.P.O. Mr. Rodriguez could sit on the board of whatever company it acquires. He and his business partner spoke with Lauren about their plans — below are exclusive excerpts from their conversation. On running a public company … Mr. Rodriguez formed the investment firm A-Rod Corp in 1996, but a listed company brings a new set of responsibilities. Is he ready? “I think you do it collectively, you do it with the team,” said Mr. Rodriguez, pointing to his frequent communication with Mr. Gulati. And when it comes to understanding the fiduciary duties involved, he said that his long career at the Yankees brought him experience at “the ultimate public company,” where the shareholders, so to speak, were the outspoken fans of the storied franchise. On the ups and downs of investing … Last year, Mr. Rodriguez’s $1.7 billion bid for the Mets lost out to Steve Cohen’s $2.4 billion offer. “The silver lining for me is the trust that people put on us, and that doesn’t go to waste just because you didn’t win,” Mr. Rodriguez said, referring to himself and the pop star Jennifer Lopez, who joined him on the bid. “I think that’s something that brings tremendous credibility.” On the S.E.C.’s warning about SPACs pitched by celebrities … The U.S. securities regulator recently told investors not to buy shares of a SPAC simply because boldface names are attached to it. Many SPACs bring celebrities on as directors or advisers, Mr. Gulati said, and “they’re just there to kind of help them raise capital.” At Slam Corp, he said, “Alex is the C.E.O. — what he’s done at A-Rod Corp should not be understated.” “I just want to stand up for the athlete community, because there’s so many smart young men and women. I would be lucky to have them as partners,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “We have a reach, and it’s not just domestic, it’s global,” he said, in reference to himself and Ms. Lopez. HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING WeWork is going public via a SPAC. The office sharing company agreed to a deal with the blank-check company BowX Acquisition that values WeWork at $9 billion. That’s less than a quarter of its valuation in 2019. The venture firm behind the SPAC counts Shaquille O’Neal as an adviser. It may take weeks to unblock the Suez Canal. Salvagers are struggling to free the container ship that has been wedged in the vital waterway since Tuesday, creating a huge, costly traffic jam that exposes the world economy’s reliance on just-in-time supply chains. Lawmakers get few direct answers when grilling tech C.E.O.s. At the five-hour hearing on disinformation, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey acknowledged that his platform bore some responsibility for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, while Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai disagreed on whether regulatory changes were needed. Lawmakers were unimpressed: “There’s a lot of smugness among you,” said one. Chinese consumers boycott several foreign brands. H&M, Nike, Adidas and others face retaliation from shoppers — egged on by the Communist Party — after they joined calls to avoid using cotton produced in the Xinjiang region, where Beijing has waged a repression campaign against ethnic minorities. Shares in Chinese apparel brands with ties to Xinjiang have rallied. Banks can resume buybacks and raise dividends this summer. After the Fed’s next round of stress tests ends in June, most institutions will be allowed to resume share repurchases and increase dividends that were frozen during the pandemic, assuming they have sufficient capital. A TV debut (on the public markets) Over its nearly 20-year history, Vizio has become one of the biggest names in flat-screen TVs. But as it began life as a publicly listed company yesterday, its founder and C.E.O., William Wang, was eager to convince investors that its biggest business is in streaming on its smart TVs. Lockdowns were good for Vizio. With people stuck at home and movie theaters closed, TVs have been in high demand: The company shipped 7.1 million units last year, up 20 percent from 2019. More important from Vizio’s perspective, it saw a 60 percent increase in accounts for SmartCast, its platform for connecting to streaming services like Apple+ and Netflix. “I think the biggest impact of the pandemic is forcing people to look at home entertainment again,” Mr. Wang told DealBook. Why streaming is important for the company. TVs are a low-margin commodity, particularly as prices continue to fall. But Vizio is betting that its popularity — it is the second-biggest TV brand in North America by market share — can help it tap into the boom in online video services. SmartCast made up 7 percent of the company’s revenue last year, reaching 12.2 million accounts. Becoming a smart-TV player has been challenging. In 2017, Vizio paid $2.2 million to settle charges that it collected and sold users’ data without their knowledge or consent. It doesn’t offer every streaming service — it’s missing HBO Max, for example — and faces competition from Roku, Apple TV and other smart TV makers. The time was right for an I.P.O. Vizio tried to go public in 2015, but called it off after agreeing to sell itself to a Chinese rival (only for that deal to fall apart). Now that it makes money from both TV sales and streaming, Mr. Wang said, Vizio is more attractive to public-market investors. That said, the I.P.O. priced at the low end of its expected range, and fell 9 percent in the first day of trading. The C.E.O. put a positive spin on it: “We’re probably the leader in the space in consumer electronics. I believe sooner or later people will appreciate that.” In the papers Some of the academic research that caught our eye this week, summarized in one sentence: Weekend reading: How can I help you? A few years ago, Susan McPherson, the founder of the P.R. firm McPherson Strategies, identified a growing problem. Technology was helping more people connect, yet the ties seemed superficial: Instead of seeking meaningful bonds, people appeared to be transacting, simply trading likes and follows. As a “serial connector” since before the internet, she decided to write “The Lost Art of Connecting: The Gather, Ask, Do Method for Building Meaningful Business Relationships,�� which was published by McGraw-Hill Education this week. Ms. McPherson spoke to DealBook about making connections during a pandemic that has physically estranged so many. The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. DealBook: Has your view of technology changed? Ms. McPherson: The past year helped us all understand how much we miss human connection when we don’t have it. Some days I‘ve showed up at a team meeting and a part of me just felt like crying. So I’ve learned to expose more of that vulnerability and how to be more empathetic and compassionate online, which freed up my team, too. Now, I think we can be better stewards of technology and make those deep connections if we’re intentional about it. Do you still see a problem with quantifying social networks? If we’re using the numbers to measure our value but we’re not having deep, meaningful relationships then we don’t get the real benefits. There is data in my book that shows deep ties help people live longer and be more professionally successful. Introverts will be happy to know that it isn’t about quantity — it’s about the quality of ties. And for businesses, connectedness fosters productivity. How do people truly connect if they’re still physically apart? Be direct. Be intentional. Don’t think of what you’ll get. Just offer help. Indirectness is time-consuming. We’re in a state of collective grief after this difficult year. There’s no time to waste. Reach out and ask, “How can I help?” Take time to listen and follow through on what you say you’ll do. Dependability and trustworthiness are critical to meaningful connection. Don’t assume that you don’t have anything to offer someone, whoever they are, at your company or beyond. THE SPEED READ Deals Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp bought Investor’s Business Daily for $275 million, a return to acquisitions after years of sales and streamlining. (NYT) Britain’s competition watchdog is worried about the “supply of GIFs” after Facebook’s acquisition of the animated-image site Giphy. (Reuters) Are the bond vigilantes back? (NYT) Politics and policy The S.E.C. has opened an inquiry into the SPAC craze, asking underwriters about their risk-management processes. (Reuters) Georgia Republicans passed sweeping voting restrictions, drawing the ire of President Biden. (NYT) The Supreme Court made it easier for consumers to sue companies, ruling that it doesn’t matter if a manufacturer has a substantial presence in the state where an injury happened. (NYT) Tech The crypto token linked to a Times column sold at auction for $560,000, with the proceeds going to charity. (NYT) A labor board said Tesla illegally fired a worker involved in union organizing and ordered Elon Musk to delete a threatening tweet. (NYT) Best of the rest “Using Shame, Lending Apps in India Squeeze Billions Out of the Desperate” (NYT) The actress Jessica Walter, who played Lucille Bluth, the martini-swilling matriarch of a dysfunctional business family on “Arrested Development,” died at 80 in Manhattan. (NYT) Will the popularity of five-star meal kits from fine-dining establishments persist after the pandemic? (Bloomberg Opinion) We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected]. Source link Orbem News #SPACs #sports
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How to recover Call of Duty Mobile account: Tips and Tricks
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How to recover Call of Duty Mobile account - Call of Duty Mobile, the chapter for mobile devices of the well-known series of video games by Activision, has attracted attention for its undoubted quality. You also enjoyed playing it a lot but recently you changed your smartphone and found yourself in an unpleasant situation. In fact, the game prompts you to login again and you don't remember the credentials you set up. So you are wondering how to recover Call of Duty Mobile account, so you can get back to playing from where you came from. As if this were not enough, the title offers different login methods and you do not remember well which one you chose, you are therefore worried and afraid that you will not be able to recover your game progress. Don't worry, nothing is lost! In this guide I will analyze the situation as a whole, explaining how you can try to solve the problem regardless of the login system used in CoD Mobile. I can assure you that, to me that you have not made certain mistakes, there is a good chance of catching up on game progress. That said, there is nothing left for me to do but wish you a good read and a big good luck for everything! Index Preliminary information Before going into the details of the procedure on how to recover Call of Duty Mobile account, I think it is important to analyze the situation thoroughly. Well, the game offers three possible login methods at first start: guest, account Call of Duty e Facebook. The first option is generally only useful if you are playing on a device of little importance, perhaps to play a few games with friends and then abandon the progress. However, there are not a few who have not understood this mechanism well, and then find themselves asking how to recover Call of Duty Mobile guest account. In this case it is good to investigate the matter and in fact it will be what I will do later in the guide. As for the profiles Call of Duty e Facebook everything is much simpler. In fact, by requesting a registration, the latter are able to save the data and allow the user to carry your progress from one device to another as many times as you want. Furthermore, this can also come in handy if the user decides to uninstall and reinstall the application. In fact, in this case i local data they could be lost and therefore it could be necessary to recover them using the appropriate account. In short, you understand what are the login methods I recommend, namely Call of Duty and Facebook accounts. For the rest, you can continue reading the guide for more information regarding Call of Duty Mobile profile recovery. How to recover Call of Duty Mobile account After explaining the general situation to you, say that it is time to take action. Below you can therefore find all the information on recovering the CoD Mobile account divided by login type. Facebook One way to make sure you don't lose the progress made on CoD Mobile is to associate it with your Facebook profile. In this way, even if you change several devices, simply log in with the account relating to the popular social network and you will find your game progress on any device. You have therefore probably already guessed what you need to do if you have connected CoD Mobile to Facebook in the past: once you open the application and arrive at the login screen, all you have to do is tap the button Log in with Facebook and if necessary press the key Accept / Allow. Indeed, on the devices Android, if you already have the Facebook app set up with your account, you don't even have to enter email address e password related to the social network profile, as access will be made instantly and automatically. In conclusion, connect the Facebook profile to CoD Mobile it is a good way to not lose your progress, since these are associated with your account linked to the social network and are "recovered" at the time of login. In any case, the access data to be used in this case are those relating to Facebook. If you don't remember them anymore, you can refer to my guide on how to recover a Facebook account. In short, usually you just need to connect to theappropriate login page, press the button Forgot password, to type email address The cellphone number and follow the instructions that appear on the screen, in order to reset the password and regain possession of the account. Account Call of Duty How do you say? You used a account Call of Duty on first access? In this case there is no problem: you can easily recover your data by logging in using the appropriate profile. So you just have to start CoD Mobile, press the button Call of Duty, present in the login screen, tap the button LOGIN OR CREATE and log in by entering email address e passwordby pressing the button LOGIN NOW to confirm everything. That way, they will come recovered all data related to the profile. In case you can't remember your Call of Duty account password, just click on the link FORGOT PASSWORD, type theemail address involved and tap the button SUBMIT. You will thus receive a e-mail message who will invite you to change the password related to the Call of Duty profile. You just have to follow the appropriate link and set a new password for your profile, so you can then log in to the game and find your progress. Guest If you are logged in like Guest, by pressing the appropriate button during login, and you then deleted the data relating to CoD Mobile, unfortunately there may be little to do. In fact, when you first started, the game probably warned you that you could have lost all progress in case of problems, as the profile in this case could be tied solely to your device and not to a dedicated account. To keep the data stored, you should therefore have link the Guest profile to a Call of Duty account, as the game itself explains by pressing the button Call of Duty present on the login screen. More precisely, we read: "After linking your guest or social account, you can link a Call of Duty account in the settings menu". I use the conditional because su Android usually when the button is pressed Guest you are also asked to log in with your own account Google connected to the mobile device, then you could try to see if the data has been saved by it. For the rest, if you really can't recover the data and you cared a lot about them, you could make the last attempt, or try to restore a possible device backup saved locally on your computer or on the device itself (clearly, the backup should be prior to the date you deleted CoD Mobile): for more information, read my guides on how to restore backups to Android and how to restore backups to iPhone . As a "last resort", you might as well try contact Activision support, the game developer. In any case, I warn you that you may still not be able to recover the data. However, surely the insiders can provide you with more information about it. To proceed, connect to Activision website, click on the box linked to Call of Duty Mobile, select the platform you usually play from (if Android The iOS), choose the cause which leads you to contact support, select the kind of problem and the official portal will advise you what to do. Unfortunately, there are actually few options for contacting Activision directly. In fact, often the answers simply refer to some FAQ pages inside the portal, while the only way to succeed in open a ticket is to select COD and Shop points as an argument and one of the related problems, for example I am unable to purchase COD points. However, you shouldn't use these directions unless you actually have such a problem. For the rest, to open the ticket you will be prompted to log in with yours account Activision. If you don't have one, you can follow y tutorial to create it. Read the full article
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clarencecaruso · 3 years
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