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aconstantstateofbladerunner · 5 years

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Blade’s MHA Fanfiction Masterlist

Greetings friends! This is the post listing all my past, present, and future My Hero Academia fanfictions. Links are provided to what has been published so far. Titles, summaries, and chapter counts are not final and will be updated as they change. Please feel free to ask me about any and all the stories described here, not just the ones that have been published. Thanks for reading!

(This currently version 14 of the masterlist, updated 9/9/2020)

Link to my Ao3 if you want to browse there: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aconstantstateofbladerunner/works

The Butterfly Continuity

- Butterfly - (Complete) The first over-night trip off campus since the training camp was supposed to be a fun break from more intense work back home. But between a bleak introduction to chaos theory, a chilly reception from the locals, and the looming threat of a villain attack, Izuku has too much on his mind to properly enjoy the fresh air. But those worries are a light breeze compared to the hurricane that accompanies what he finds on the outskirts of town.

Or rather, what finds him.

Izuku is stalked by a powerful creature who only seems to be interested in him.

32 chapters. It’s done. Beware major character death.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17165612/chapters/40360787

- Moth - So how does Hisashi fit into this aftermath?

11 chapters. Outline complete. There will be angst.

- Exit Light [hiatus] - A young Toshinori is just starting to feel truly at ease with his master and his role as her apprentice. But uncomfortable truths come to light once a villain threatens the lives of their entire town with all-consuming darkness. “Consuming” in this case is literal.

A prequel story that is referenced in Butterfly, but neither are required to understand the other.

4/9 chapters. Major events outlined. Warning for heavy violence in ch. 2.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19233598/chapters/45733516

For Izuku (Bio Dad Might AU)

- For Kurou - For their own safety, Toshinori must remove himself from the lives of his long-time partner and newborn son. But they’re never far from his mind. For years, not a day goes by where he doesn’t write a letter or set aside a gift for their eventual reunion. It isn’t until he’s spent some time with his chosen successor, a young quirkless boy named Midoriya Izuku, that Toshinori’s consistent dedication to his family is interrupted.

Canon divergence fic. Streamlined to the important stuff because there are already an abundance of fics like this and I want to focus on my original stuff. Toshinko. Family angst with a happy ending.

3/30 chapters. Strap in.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/22882870/chapters/54692104

- For a Wider World - Izuku hasn’t decided yet if he wants to go public with his heritage. On the one hand, he want to make a name for himself, not just as the son of All Might. On the other, he hates to lie and lying about One for All is hard enough. Most of the people who know the truth will support whatever decision he makes. Sir Nighteye isn’t one of them.

10+ chapters. Basic outline complete. Internship arc.

- For an End to the Pain - UA is under investigation by the Hero Commission, the world knows about the son of All Might, and the fight with Overhaul has left Izuku severe wounds both physical and mental. As the weight of all these drastic life changes bare down on him, for the first time ever, he starts to question if he really wants to be a hero.

8-10 chapters. Basic outline complete. A whole new level of angst.

- Son Rise - Rumors have been circling of a secret All Might lovechild for a while now. A new rumor says that All Might will reveal the child as his successor at the next International Heroes’ Summit in Hawaii. The rest of the hero community has mixed feelings.

Or, “Izuku goes to another country with his dad and has a bad time.” Shameless excuse for me to gush about how cool Hawaii was while also hurting my boy. Some Toshinko on the side. Family angst with a happy ending.

11 chapters. Major events outlined.

Single Fic Dad Might

- Angel’s Egg - Orphaned babies showing up on the stoop of hero agencies is unfortunately not all that rare. And egg the size of a baby is entirely unheard of. Is the child within just the result of an unusual quirk, or something of far greater, supernatural origins?

Kinda out there au where Izuku hatches from an egg and is raised by All Might. That question is posed to me, because I’m not yet sure if I want to go down the mundane or supernatural path; I have potential endings for both.

4/20 chapters. Structure similar to Full Metal Jacket in that the story will shift gears completely in the second half. Heavy violence and potential character death

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21009755/chapters/49966448

- The Wails in the Walls - Toshinori was convinced his cottage was haunted from the day he moved in. He could easily blame the missing objects and little bites in his food on pests, but that wouldn’t explain the faint sound of crying some nights.

Izuku is a tiny child living in Toshi’s walls who survives by ‘borrowing’ little things. Gonna jump between angst and fluffy like a seesaw. Idea originally by @abyssal-glory who graciously gave me permission to use it.

5/21 chapters. Violence, reference to death, and bugs.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20392885/chapters/48368857

- Hanakotoba - Toshinori always wanted a family, but he wanted to be a hero even more. He figured the family thing would happen naturally, but as the years go by and it doesn’t, he finds himself sinking further and further into longing. And then he finds the end of his sorrows in his own garden.

Princess Kaguya au prompted by @agent-jaselin. This one is for sure supernatural.

18 chapters. Outline complete. One scene of attempted sexual assault.

- Son of the Sun - Of all the gods, the Sun is the most generous with its gifts

Fantasy au where Izuku is the only child of the legendary son god Toshinori, and gets swept up in the apocalyptic destruction caused by a few other gods’ petty disagreements.

Outline incomplete, no chapter estimate. This is the new roadtrip au.

Miscellaneous Multi-Chapter

- All but One - Toshinori is given the opportunity to undo over two decades of suffering by going back in time and ending All For One. And that’s just the beginning. He goes on to use his knowledge of the future to correct errors of the past, and makes his new reality infinitely better than the one he came from. Better in every way but one.

Used to be a oneshot, now multi-chapter. Open to making it an au but not sure yet. Based on a bittersweet post by @skygemspeaks

10/18 chapters. This was supposed to be short. Warning for some violence.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18796387/chapters/44597800

- The Necromancer - An unseen villain sets hoards of undead upon Japan. As a designated disaster-relief shelter and a small fortress in its own right, UA becomes host to both the heroes working to stop the onslaught, and several hundred terrified civilians. Supplies and space shrink with each passing day, and it seems like the end to the nightmare is nowhere in sight. Someone is bound to take matters into their own hands.

Zombie Apocalypse AU. Most of the kids stay within the walls to care for panicking civilians, while the heroes take the fight to the outside. At first.

10+ chapters. Some events planned.

- Habitus - Tragedy forces Izuku back into the custody of his father, who he hasn’t seen in years and has a new family of his own. They uproot him from UA, separate him from his friends, and, worst of all, expect him to be happy about it.

Formerly called Where the Heart is. Izuku’s step family from America claims custody of him after Inko passes away, and are less than sympathetic to his situation. He rebels in every way he can, meanwhile All Might and the other teachers comb for any legal loopholes to get him back.

Less than 10 chapters. Outlined.

Oneshots

- Spiked - There’s no such thing as a free meal.

Gore headcanon request that got out of hand. Please read the tags.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20062174

- The Road that went Forever - Izuku’s Papa picked him up from kindergarten that day. He hadn’t done that in a while.

Usually, I write Hisashi as a normal, emotionally distant father. This is not one of those stories. A very sad two-shot.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21754498/chapters/51902485

And that’s all for now! Again, please feel free to ask me about any of these ideas!

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha #bnha #mha fanfiction #bnha fanfiction #the fic masterlist #butterfly #exit light #all but one #the wails in the walls #spiked #aconstantstateoffanfiction #angel’s egg #the road that went forever #for kurou

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ultimateseoorg · 4 years

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Visit Cloud Computing: Digital Ocean vs Google Cloud vs AWS for the whole story

This post originally only focused on cost and user experience but after a real world case study and experiment I have some performance data and it is actually surprising.

Teaser here … in a head to head test between AWS and Digital Ocean one of these two out performed the other in

rate of requests handled

number of requests processed

time it took to process each request.

The same winner of those won 10 / 10 speed tests and the results were not close.

The results of these tests convinced a previously skeptical client’s IT team into switching cloud providers.

Scroll down to the section “VPS Performance” to see more about that specific use case scenario. Ultimate SEO has accounts on all but Azure and has powered its servers from AWS, Google Cloud and Digital Ocean at some point. We’ve consolidated to one provider and its the same one who performs best in these tests.

Want to see a spoiler (the answer)? Here is a summary sentence of our tests, or read on and learn why and how they win.

Testing Sites Used

Spoiler

Testing Sites Used

Server Load Testing: Loadimpact.com

Page Speed Testing: GTMetrix.com

Spoiler

Summary

The AWS server costs twice as much and delivers one tenth of the capacity and is the slowest page load in all 10 page speed tests.

The AWS server is unable to complete the full server load testing.

In every instance Digital Ocean out performed AWS.

Comparing Digital Ocean Droplets and AWS EC2 VPS

How Is This SEO?

This may seem off topic but its on topic, technical SEO is imperative … you’re not going to rank number one on Google using Shopify or Wix. It just isn’t going to happen.

Those platforms are not serious enough to deliver the configurability one needs to out perform a competitor.

It’s also apparently difficult to get solid advice on SEO Hosting from “experts” Best Blog Hosting for SEO is junk … reciting features doesn’t make a hosting plan the best…one quote notes that WordPress is already installed with InMotionHosting.com … so what!

Our web servers are preconfigured to install WordPress in every new account as well…it only saves maybe 5 minutes per user but for a web host that time adds up very quickly. So thats not a benefit for the client as much as it is for the host.

You aren’t a web host so it’s not that big of a deal. I’d like to hear about benchmarking tests they may have run to decide who is the best. And we do … but thats later.

I only mention these to point out typically articles covering which ibetter focus on the irrelevant because the author lacks a technical SEO understanding. Well, this isn’t one of those articles.

Features Aren’t Technical Specs

Unlimited bandwidth…sounds great but what are the limits? There are limits, the infrastructure that a site sits on has limitations. If someone uses a CAT5 cable instead of a CAT6 everything will be slower and you’ll find a speed limit there. Bottlenecks are designed into infrastructure by error and these can limit it. Unlimited bandwidth means nothing because there are limits … physical limits exist and can’t be avoided. So “unlimited” is a term being misused a lot in hosting today.

WordPress preinstalled saves someone 5 minutes but nothing else. These aren’t important to the Hosting performance and way too many top articles on SEO hosting confuse WordPress’s selling points with the web host’s infrastructure. That’s what this is all about after all, infrastructure and how it directly impacts a site’s Google ranking.

Google says that over half of all searches are now mobile. Mobile is extra sensitive to speed and technical SEO matters. Thats why its so important to set yourself up with the best infrastructure to build on.

Cloud Computing: Be Your Own Host

The industry standard in web hosting is cPanel. No way around it with cPanel your support opinions are bountiful where as dreamhost.com has its own proprietary server software … its no better in actuality its just far less supported by third parties. Ultimate SEO is hosted on a variety of cPanel servers that were easy to build and deploy, I made them from scratch and with templates but all in all there are 4 AWS servers, 2 Google Cloud Platform and 4 Digital Ocean currently powering hundreds of sites including this site. Cost varies wildly…

Its important to note that your web host is honestly likely run on one of these three services. Godaddy is … if you have their shared hosting your running on this environment. You’re sharing their share of the cloud environment.

Why not just skip ahead and be the master of your domain….sure it will cost more than $3 a month … but that $3 a month hosting plan is shit. You can have a decent VPS server for $5 a month with better performance.

We’re not going to mix apples with oranges though, this isnt about shared hosting plans and a VPS. The VPS will win. A good review between AWS and a traditional hosting provider is AWS vs Blue Host

Amazon Web Services

I don’t even know what I am spending, where and how it is being spent. AWS charges you for everything little thing and no matter what steps you might take it may seem like rising project costs are simply unavoidable.

Their platform to work within is NOT intuitive and it will require some play time to remember that you have to leave the virtual server’s configuration area to select an IP address to then assign it to the server. Then go back to the server and keep working. ( that will cost you money too…each ip address, not talking about bandwidth that’ll cost you too … I’m just saying the ip number ) and then return to that original area to associate it.

Don’t even think about swapping hard drives and knowing what is attached to what unless you are prepared to write down long strings of numbers and letters.

AWS does provide greater flexibility than the others on options beyond just a virtual server…but unless you plan to send 100,000 emails a day to people you won’t benefit from their email service … as an example.

Technical SEO wise I’d give AWS a D overall. Infrastructure and computing power is an obvious A+, but it’s how you interact with that that weighs the grade. More so AWS limits your resources with Throttling and Burstable CPUs … these sound good but the mean we’re only giving you part of the resource not all of it.

Poor navigation and the nickle and dime pricing is absurd. Want to monitor your usage so you can understand your bill? Monitoring costs more…its ridiculous.

They do offer reserved instances and I loaded up on those but still my costs never decreased. AWS is so hard to understand billing wise that IT Managed Service Providers will offer free excel templates to figure out your AWS monthly costs. Think I’m being over the top? Check out this calculator form sheet by AWS to forecast your expenses. It is never simple when you ask how much and are handed a spreadsheet to calculate the server costs.

Heres something crazy…why my April bill was $167 but AWS forecasts it will be $1020 in May I have no idea. I’m not adding servers…

Google Cloud Platform

Is easier to use and wrap your head around but it is considerably more expensive than either of the other options. For this simple reason…they receive an F. The additional costs come with less options and less features than AWS.

Billing is more transparent and you can understand why your bill is what it is at least. But Google also makes unilateral decisions for you like blocking smtp and ssh access. Sure its more secure but it makes email and server maintenance a nightmare. You can add those to nonstandard ports in the firewall but then you have to keep up with an oddity.

Documents like this Connecting to Instances make it seem like not a big deal, but these will not allow you to move a file from your computer to the server like SFTP would.

They are expensive, offer less and needlessly shot you in the foot with their restrictions. Thats why I stand by the F as an overall grade. Now infrastructure capabilities … A+ no doubt about it…but you’re paying a premium and placed into a box.

Digital Ocean

I received no compensation or thank you from anyone for writing this … Digital Ocean is my B+ graded cloud solution. It’s the cheapest, and they don’t seem to charge you a fee for tools that are required for the main product to function, unlike AWS and their static ip addresses.

They have the least ability and options outside of a virtual server. If you want a database server that’s in the works unless you can use Postgres. UPDATE Sept 2019: SQL Databases are now fully supported and available. That’s limiting, but it is also not important if you’re just running a few web servers that will already have MySQL installed on them anyhow (if a LAMP server template is utilized).

Digital Ocean is the no frills, no surprises, cloud computing option. The reason I have so many servers is because I am migrating everything off AWS and Google Cloud to Digital Ocean…it’ll be cheaper. A lot cheaper…we’ll discuss performance in this article.

That’s right… $20 vs $121, $177 and $120 from AWS, GCP and Azure. I didn’t really consider Microsoft Azure just because I have reservations moving into their sphere or control where every thing you need to do is addressed by yet another Microsoft product that usually has little imagination in it.

Test out a server in each environment and I think you’ll quickly take to the Digital Ocean option.

But in deciding the winner of this debate I figure a more scientific method could be used….so let’s divide the debate into areas that can be scored and assessed.

Amazon Web Services vs. Digital Ocean

Ease Of Use

As previously noted, the Digital Ocean’s dashboard is very streamlined compared to AWS. With AWS you have to configure your network, and several other parts such as the keys before you can make a server that’s accessible to the internet. Digital Ocean you can literally have a server running in less than a minute from a single screen.

Base Cost

Digital Ocean’s costs are inclusive of bandwidth, hard drive size, ip addresses and more. Everything you need to have a server is right there in one easy package. Their packages include:

RAM CPUS BAND SSDHD PRICE 1 GB 1 vCPU 1 TB 25 GB $5/mo $0.007/hr 2 GB 1 vCPU 2 TB 50 GB $10/mo $0.015/hr 3 GB 1 vCPU 3 TB 60 GB $15/mo $0.022/hr 2 GB 2 vCPUs 3 TB 60 GB $15/mo $0.022/hr 1 GB 3 vCPUs 3 TB 60 GB $15/mo $0.022/hr 4 GB 2 vCPUs 4 TB 80 GB $20/mo $0.030/hr 8 GB 4 vCPUs 5 TB 160 GB $40/mo $0.060/hr 16 GB 6 vCPUs 6 TB 320 GB $80/mo $0.119/hr 32 GB 8 vCPUs 7 TB 640 GB $160/mo $0.238/hr 48 GB 12 vCPUs 8 TB 960 GB $240/mo $0.357/hr 64 GB 16 vCPUs 9 TB 1,280 GB $320/mo $0.476/hr 96 GB 20 vCPUs 10 TB 1,920 GB $480/mo $0.714/hr 128 GB 24 vCPUs 11 TB 2,560 GB $640/mo $0.952/hr 192 GB 32 vCPUs 12 TB 3,840 GB $960/mo $1.429/hr

Amazon Web Services doesn’t allow an easy comparison. Everything is charged individually it would seem. They have a tool called Simple Monthly Calculator, its a spreadsheet basically … first off if you need a calculator it’s obviously not simple.

To compare something with the $5 option from Digital Ocean I used the calculator and a t2.micro which is 1cpu and 1g ram with a 25 GB SSD drive, with 2 ips and 1 TB of data transferred to the world costs about $21.49 but that’s also after a -11.00 discount … without the discount it was 32.49.

So at $5 to $32

Digital Ocean Wins

But wait there’s more and this is the why you’ll switch to Digital Ocean.

Options

Monitoring and alerts can be configured on both platforms .. both allow scaling up and adding additional storage as well as internal networking. AWS though has an expansive offering of options and wins out in this area.

AWS Wins

Billing Options

Digital Ocean allows for credit cards as well as paypal. AWS allows credit cards and bank accounts. The difference then is Paypal vs Checking Accounts and since this is a cloud computing, tech product … Im going to prefer Paypal to a tool that has been around for hundreds of years. So we’re going to hand it to Digital Ocean.

Digital Ocean Wins

Freelancer Friendly

Each can transfer servers to other accounts. I’ve only been successful in doing this with Digital Ocean and not AWS. The AWS process is more tedious and you can give a server away that you aren’t an admin of anymore but still are responsible for billing somehow. That sucks!

Digital Ocean Wins

Support

AWS only offers free billing support…although if you ask them a tech question they do tell you “as a courtesy” here is an article that might help…but tech support itself is out of your reach for free. Digital Ocean allows you to message them and I’d assume some tech level of support for their platform without charging.

Digital Ocean Wins

So all in all…

The winner is Digital Ocean over GCP and AWS.

but … now an added update to question these assertions…

VPS PERFORMANCE

Testing Digital Ocean to AWS head to head.

Two test servers with the same site exact site tested at the same time on the same tools. In these tests we’re trying to speed up a client’s slow page load speeds. We’re at 97% optimization of the site, we’ve unloaded some sliders but still 5 second homepage loads. We are determined to be at 3 seconds…and we think we have the answer in addressing the client’s hosting infrastructure.

But before we can make the switch, testing had to be done and we had to convince the IT team to look at more than just AWS. As technical SEO “experts” we have to get their buy in to ensure the projects success isn’t discounted because we get viewed as just marketing people.

Below is adapted from communication between Ultimate SEO and the client.

Two Part Question, then price considered.

How many users can the server handle?

EC2 Unlimited – Expensive but it’s just a checkbox away in availability.

Same test on each by loadimpact.com. Simulates 25 users for 3 minutes. Detailed results included after this summary.

Server: Test2 On Digital Ocean

The average response time of the system being tested was 36ms, and 10497 requests were made at an average request rate of 59 requests/second.

Server: Test3 On AWS

The average response time of the system being tested was 481ms, and 4401 requests were made at an average request rate of 25 requests/second.

Findings From Server Load Testing

The AWS Server takes more than 10 times longer to server half the pages requested, at half the rate given to the Digital Ocean server. So it failed before reaching full capacity of the test.

How fast can a typical page be delivered?

For this test we’ll use GTMetrix.com with 1 user 7 tests per server and then an average with the lowest score and highest noted.

Test Run

Test2

Test3

7.0s

7.4s

3.8s

6.2s

4.1s

5.7s

4.2s

4.9s

4.3s

4.7s

2.9s

5.6s

2.7s

5.3s

3.6s

5.1s

3.5s

4.5s

3.4s

4.4s

AVERAGE

3.95

5.38

Ultimate SEO ran the GTMetrix.com tests at the same time, that way it was similar network traffic and each one in its own browser tab. * These tests are not reliant upon our local machine and are just between GTMetrix and the target.

Conclusion

In this test the AWS server adds an average 1.43 seconds over 10 tests. In no test was AWS faster than Digital Ocean. The fastest test for Digital Ocean was 2.7s with AWS at 4.4s. Digital Ocean’s fastest is below our goal, AWS is 1.4 seconds above or 45% more than our goal. GTMetrix gives both servers an A for optimization, meaning neither can be optimized more … its infrastructure and content now. Each site has the same content.

AWS could do better but they appear to “throttle” performance much tighter. Even using C class servers instead of T class resulted in lack luster performance.

If there is anything wrong with my methodology let me know and you’re free to repeat these tests.

Want $50 Credit To Test Digital Ocean? Here is a link, it also gives me a credit full disclosure. Test Digital Ocean Out And Receive A $50 Credit × Dismiss alert

How Does Performance Change When We Test A Web Server that has a separate dedicated Database server

Server + Database Server Configuration VPS

Now that we’ve tested and found Digital Ocean to be the cheapest and fastest VPS lets try some optimizations and see if they provide real world benefits. The easiest to test is the offloading of the database to its own separate server. Since this creates a dedicated database server I choose to build the database on a very small machine. A $5 1 CPU 1 GB Ram server was created from a LAMP server and it was given an internal ip address and placed within the same firewall as the site server which also had an internal ip address. Internal addresses did appear to save connectivity time and avoid firewall involvement.

This shows the blue line … response time as steady and unaffected by the growing requests and users on the site.

The average response time of the system being tested was 33ms, and 8716 requests were made at an average request rate of 49 requests/second.

This wasn’t remarkably better than the original server but that server did show a couple brief spikes where this has none. It would likely only be of real value when large amounts of traffic are experienced.

GTMetrix shows individual page loads are unaffected by the SQL off loading. So the benefit is again only pronounced when many requests are made.

The post Cloud Computing: Digital Ocean vs Google Cloud vs AWS appeared first on Ultimate SEO | Backlinks, Audits & More.

#IFTTT #WordPress #SEO #Ultimate SEO #Ranking #Backlinks #Audit #Keywords

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jacewilliams1 · 4 years

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From the archives: Langewiesche on the weather revolution that mostly happened

Pilots are flying with more weather information today than ever before, and it has made flying both easier and safer. If you don’t believe that, read this fascinating article from 70 years ago. Legendary author Wolfgang Langewiesche explains why the weather information pilots had in 1949 was so limited, and what could be done to improve the situation. Many of his wish list items have become a reality. It will make you thankful for datalink weather, ForeFlight, and so much more.

The Pilot and the Weather Bureau

Some suggestions that might well revolutionize the weather bureau

Does the Weather Bureau give the pilot what he needs? On a recent long tour, I asked myself that many times; and, like so many pilots, I often found: Not quite. I shall tell my troubles here, and suggest what might be done about them. I shall find it easy to do this in a friendly spirit, and without heat. I like the Weather Bureau; I have many friends among its people. I think they are doing a good job, doing it faithfully, cheaply, without bureaucratic empire-building. They don’t tell anybody what he can’t do. They send out no press releases. They simply work away.

How accurate are their reports? How good are their forecasts? I disagree with pilots who say that the Weather Bureau doesn’t know the weather. If the Voice says that the one-nine-three-one observation at Xville showed ceiling 1200, visibility 2, I believe that at that time the weather was just that. (If meanwhile it has changed, and they are not telling me—that’s another story.)

As for the forecasts — I agree, they are not good enough: only perfection would be good enough. But they are based on a science of which some keystones are still missing. (Just for example: nobody knows for sure what causes rain!) And they deal with a tough continent. Air Facts author Bob Buck, of TWA, has flown all over the world in deliberate search for bad weather; he says the world’s worst weather is right here, between Kansas City and New York. So, perfect forecasting is too much to expect. Nor have I ever seen proof that some other agency could do better than the Weather Bureau does.

One thing, however, I miss in these forecasts. “How sure are they of all this?” It can’t be that forecasts are made with equal confidence; they must range from sure bets to tentative guesses. A pilot wants to know which it is. I think the Weather Bureau would do pilots a favor, and would also shut off much undeserved ridicule from the general public, if they used more often such words as: “almost certainly,” “probably,” “possibly,” “some risk of,” “difficult to predict exactly.”

This article originally appeared in the April 1949 edition of Air Facts

Here now I have already given the first example of my general proposition: I think the Weather Bureau knows the weather all right. My trouble is, I often can’t find out all they know. With all the teletypes rattling away; with all the weather maps forever a-drawing; with all the broadcasts, I still too often barge off into weather I don’t fully “see;” uncomfortably aware that I have somehow failed to get information which must have been lying right there. All my troubles come under that heading. If my experience is typical, therefore, what we need are effective ways of putting the weather dope across to the pilot.

Trouble: I can’t read a sequence report. They can jerk my license if they like; but I bet lots of commercial pilots can’t read those teletype symbols correctly; and private pilots are no longer even expected to. What makes it so hard are those space-saving tricks. Under some conditions, an item such as the ceiling is reported simply by being left out. This then shifts the relative position of all the other items in the report. I used to know these tricks; but they seem to change every few years. The changes are not advertised in any place I see. So, I don’t trust my reading of a sequence; I am afraid I might confuse an 800-foot ceiling with an 8-mile visibility. I ask for help every time; hence I get no practice, and so I have lost all the reading-facility I once had.

Remedy: It would help me if they would print the first few most important items of each report in a strict, unvarying sequence. For example, the ceiling would always appear in the same position. If it is unlimited, call it U. If it is missing, call it M. I think it would be even better to identify some of the most critical values with a prefix letter: the sky-symbols are unmistakable, but how about C8 for a ceiling of 800 feet, V3 for a visibility of three miles? Then any private pilot could learn in 5 minutes how to read these reports. It would save a lot of weather men a lot of time.

Trouble: I can’t find the sheet with the reports for my route; and on the sheet I can’t identify the stations I am interested in. This is of course especially true in sections with which I am not familiar (and where I therefore ought to check weather with extra care). At a small weather bureau or a communications station, the fellows have a little more time, and usually help you find and read the reports. But at a busy airport, it’s a problem. There are too many batches of teletype matter displayed along the shelves: too many people are too busy doing too much; and I seem to notice that sometimes the weather man himself, trying to find you what you want, gropes quite a bit.

Remedy: Perhaps the time has come to display the sequence reports so that the visiting pilot can normally help himself. He could do so if each sheet of reports were posted on a suitable frame, plainly labelled, “Xcity-Yville-Ztown” — the main points of the particular teletype circuit. Perhaps a wall map might appear next to the same frame, showing the stations represented. A string might lead from each station on the map to the corresponding line on the teletype sheet, fixed there by a thumb tack. A profile map might help you pick the hill stations from the valley stations and the pass stations. Coupled with a less cryptic way of writing the report itself, this would make it unnecessary for me to take up anyone’s time.

Trouble: I find it hard, at the busier weather bureaus, to get all the items of information I need. Information is going to waste unless I get 1) a full sequence on current weather; 2) the airway forecast; 3) terminal forecasts, probably several of them; 4) winds aloft; 5) where are the tops?; and 6) where, within the range of my airplane, is the good weather?

I fail to get this information because of the reasons already stated. I can’t find it for myself. If it is handed to me, I can’t read it reliably. And the weather man himself is so busy with so many duties, he cannot get together for me in one batch the stuff I need. I have to ask for each item separately, and each time have to catch him between other duties — he has to make an observation, or answer a phone, or tear sheets off the teletype and post them, or get his observation ready for teletyping, and so on. To extract from him all I need becomes a slow procedure: sometimes I seem to annoy him a little by wanting still another item. To be blunt about it: at several large-airport weather bureaus I have recently noticed a tendency to turn you away by some brief statement, such as, “That’ll be all right,” or that it was “all pretty good out that way.” Then a sort of curtain goes down, and the weather man volunteers no details. If you bring up such questions as might worry you, say, possible night ground fog, he discusses them more-or-less by memory. Well, I don’t know him. For that matter, he may be a clerk pinch-hitting for the real weather man. (You find that too, especially on the phone.) But I know Uncle Sam. I want a clear look at his official wording, clearly written out. For this somewhat off handed treatment, I can’t blame the weather man. He is busy. Most of his work has to be done on the dot of the scheduled minute, to keep the whole system working. There does not seem enough allowance made, in this schedule, for dealing with the pilot. Yet, telling the pilot is the pay-off of the whole deal. Whenever a pilot goes away hungry, all the manifold work of the Bureau has to that small extent gone to waste.

Langewiesche dreamed that some day pilots could have access to weather maps like this one.

Remedy: The time is past when you could have a chummy conference with the weather man; the time has come to develop a streamlined, effective way of getting the dope across without such a conference. Several solutions suggest themselves. For example, would it not be possible to type out the airway and terminal forecasts of the region in plain speech, and post them on large, conspicuous frames, suitably labelled?

Or we might borrow from the Navy. Suppose that you wrote on a printed form your destination, IFR, or CFR, time of departure, fuel range, time en route. (Suppose, even, you bought this form from the Weather Bureau for a quarter?) Suppose a girl clerk then filled in your route weather, your terminal forecasts and all the rest? (The difference from military procedure would be that you still need nobody’s “clearance” on VFR.) At any rate, someone high up in the Weather Bureau should ask himself this question: A pilot walks into a busy weather bureau and says: “I want to fly to X.” What-all does the Weather Bureau think he ought to know? And what is to be the standard procedure of letting him know?

Trouble: In flight, the information you get by radio is too old at times when you need it worst — in marginal weather, or on sudden weather changes. Approaching X, the other night, I was proceeding on information, about an hour old, that X was clear; when an almost solid overcast formed below me. I called Y, the last range station this side of X, to check again on X weather: “Clear” was the answer. (Modified, to be sure, by the time of the observation — some time ago.) I told them it didn’t seem to check, and asked them to get me a more recent report, if possible. The operator down there was most helpful. He presently came back with a message from Flight Advisory that X now had a broken overcast and a 1000-foot ceiling, and that in about ten more minutes the overcast would be solid. This was fine work; it was an example of what our weather system will do for you — if you know what to ask for, and have the transmitter and/or the brass to ask all the questions you want. But hardly had my friend of the Y range station told me all this, when he turned around and started his regular weather broadcast. And sure enough: “X, clear.”

For this I don’t blame him. He was doing his duties according to the book. The whole broadcast was clearly labelled (well, it was labelled, if you were cagy enough to listen for the time-item at the opening of the broadcast) as giving the something-something observations, naming a clock time of a little while ago. But the fact remains: the information was out of date and dangerous. It was night; the thousand-foot ceiling at the airport meant weather definitely below VFR in the surrounding terrain, what with hills and tall buildings standing on hills. I happened to have an ADF; I happened to arrive over X during a traffic lull, and was allowed to duck down sort of informally. A fellow in a small, slow, less well-equipped airplane would have had to file an instrument flight plan and to make a standard instrument approach for which perhaps he would not have been prepared. He would have had one of those experiences that make people quit flying.

Remedy: We must realize that the Weather Bureau has to operate heavily “by the book.” It is a vast set-up, intricate, working to close schedules and high accuracies. To let too many people in that system make too many improvised shortcuts would cause confusion and distrust. To broadcast the weather more quickly after the observations are taken is probably not possible. To broadcast more frequently, say each quarter-hour, would clutter up the radio facilities and the teletype circuits. (Remember — each observation has to go by teletype to all the other stations in the region, and then has to be read off over the air. Remember, the range stations’ voice feature is busy also with air traffic control.) In average weather, such frequent broadcasts would also be quite unnecessary. But still, in marginal or suddenly-changing weather, a pilot may need a report often, say every ten minutes. Fortunately, he needs such ten-minute reports only concerning places which he can reach in ten or twenty minutes. Pilots who are still an hour out from a troubled place can be more patient. Perhaps the Weather Bureau could set up a secondary, less formal, more purely local system of weather warnings; something that would be analogous, in the weather field, to Approach Control in the traffic field. These broadcasts might go on only in marginal or rapidly-changing weather. When Xcity has weather trouble, the local weather bureau or the Tower might request the nearest range station, and perhaps the stations right around it, to put out its latest weather every few minutes, without loading up the whole reporting and broadcasting system of the entire region. Perhaps such a broadcast should also suggest an alternate airport.

In thinking about this, think particularly of the private pilot who is suddenly caught in bad weather and — very important — hasn’t the transmitter power to ask for information. When scud suddenly forms around him or the weather otherwise does something unexpected, he may have to make a quick judgment — go on, turn back, land right where he is, run for Z? In the instance cited — had I been a private pilot in a 100-mph ship with a receiver only, I would have had to know: was this a condition local or wide-spread? Had the same thing developed behind me also? Where was it still broken? If it was a rapid, wide-spread deterioration (it was) there would have been no time to lose in getting down; but where?

Meanwhile: in broadcasting weather, if the man said, “. . . observation of 20 minutes ago,” instead of, “. . . one-nine-three-one observation” — would that be amateurish?

What would Langewiesche have said about datalink weather?

Trouble: The forecasts are not sufficiently available in flight. You can get them if you ask for them, but perhaps lots of small ships can’t ask. Could not the airway and terminal forecasts be broadcast once an hour? In my particular case, the sudden worsening had been accurately forecast. But at my last stop the weather man had given me the casual treatment. And, since the weather then was unlimited everywhere, I had not gone through with the tedious job of asking to see all the pertinent forecasts.

Perhaps at times when a station’s current weather is good, while the forecast is bad, this fact could be included in each weather station’s sequence report, perhaps by some brief phrase such as: “Forecast negative.” This would serve as a warning: it would be up to the pilot to get the details. “Forecast steady,” might mean, “It will hold.”

We must recognize that many private flights start without benefit of weather information. To get weather while still on the ground would involve a tedious and expensive long-distance call — and during that phone call the problem would again come up of how to pull out of the weather man all he knows. (I called the Kansas City airport weather bureau recently to check weather, only to be told by a girl that they were busy and were “not taking any calls” till 10 o’clock, which was half an hour away.) Some small fields don’t even have a phone available; or it is on a party-line and some lady is talking. Once in flight, many pilots have no transmitter with which to ask for dope. Therefore, Mr. Weatherman: whatever you know — current weather, forecasts, positions of fronts, or what-not — put it on the air.

Imagine always that your best girl is flying around out there right now, headed for your station. She has only 60 hours total time; and she is one of those real dumb blondes. She doesn’t follow well when you talk fast and throw in big words. She is 45 minutes out, and she has only 1½ hours’ gas left. She is listening to your nearest range station. Is there anything you would like to tell her?

Trouble: A weather map is often hard to find for a private pilot. Too often it is at a field where only airline captains can see it; and the airlines have their own weather bureaus with their own weather maps. Check the situation in almost any metropolitan area: where are the private airplanes flying from, and where is the weather map?

Remedy: Obviously this is mostly a question of money. But it may be that a different type of weather map would be easier to spread more widely, and at the same time more useful. About this, more later.

Trouble: The Flight Advisory man is too hidden. Many private pilots don’t even know he exists, and what he could do for them. This Flight Advisory can be found at every place that has an Air Traffic Control Center. (As a matter of fact, Flight Advisory is handled by Air Traffic Control, and on the table of organization may not even be part of the Weather Bureau. But we mean here by “Weather Bureau” the whole weather setup — the Bureau itself, the Airways Communications Stations and this Flight Advisory Service.) At any rate, there is just about the kind of weather service a pilot needs. The Flight Advisory man is, I believe, a pilot. If he isn’t, he has somehow learned to think like one. He knows his region; he has the whole weather situation in his part of the country thoroughly digested, as only an expert weather man could who is also an experienced pilot. Instead of giving you “the weather,” he can give more nearly the finished product you really want: what the weather will be like in, over, through or under. He can also render you a service which I find hard to get from an ordinary weather bureau even when they have time and patience to try and render it: he can tell you — well, don’t go by this route, you’ll get weathered-in. Go by that route; or — no point pushing like hell right now, have another cup of coffee, waste an hour and then you’ll have clear sailing: the strategy, in other words, of how to get there the easiest way.

Unfortunately, though, this man is hard to find. In Kansas City, for example, he operates in a downtown office building! In St. Louis, he is hidden in the Air Traffic Control Office, to which you go through the weather bureau, with no signs pointing the way. In Cleveland, he is hidden in the “bomber plant;” his phone is not listed, and I’m not sure that you are welcome when you walk in on him. I suspect he is hidden on purpose. If enough pilots knew about him and his special map, he would be swamped with callers, by radio, by phone, and in person.

Remedy: You remember the one about the country store-keeper who refused to stock a certain kind of cake. Every time he ordered some, he said, people always bought it all up right away. So he had decided to hell with it. Sometimes the official mind (harassed by budgets and civil-service classifications and inter-bureau warfare) runs along similar lines, and restricts a service that threatens to be too popular. I hope in this case it won’t. I hope they will put that man out front where we can get at him; and if that makes him too busy, hire another.

Trouble: I find the weather map not as useful to me as it is supposed to be; and I hanker after another type of map which is actually in existence — the map the Flight Advisory man works by.

The weather map as we have it now may be a better tool for the forecaster than for the pilot. Sometimes I wonder if all the work of drawing all those maps at all those stations all the time really pays off: how many pilots can take a competent look at that map? And of those, how many are really helped by that look?

A Front may mean anything or nothing. Those station models (I mean the weather symbols grouped around a station) are hard to read. Even if you decipher them, their real meaning, for your purpose, is hard to figure. As Leighton Collins has pointed out, discussing the same subject here two years ago, “weather” to a pilot means clouds. He doesn’t really need a forecasters weather map. You might also say he is not interested in the “weather.” All he wants to know is — where is the air transparent and where is it opaque. He needs a cloud-map.

And that’s exactly what the Flight Advisory man has before him — a cloud-map, drawn casual-like with chalk on a blackboard. This map explains — along with his being a pilot — his amazing usefulness. A photograph of such a map at St. Louis was published in the April, 1947, issue of Air Facts and is re-published herewith. When I brazenly walked in on St. Louis Flight Advisory the other day, I got a good demonstration of what such a map could do for us.

The weather that day was a puzzling mess of zero-zero, unlimited, low overcasts with lower scattered, high overcasts with rain — all of it alternating all over the Middle West. Toward the East, where I was bound, instrument weather prevailed and the trends were bad. It was the unpleasant case of flying not only into bad weather, but into weather of which you cannot see the structure, rhyme or reason.

Could pilots get access to a “cloud map?”

Actually now, the structure was simple and clear. The Polar Front lay right through St. Louis, Indianapolis, Cleveland, about as indicated on the “weather map” herewith. (This “weather map” makes no claim to any accuracy, other than to illustrate my point.) The weather was good-to-excellent right at the Front, and for 100 miles or so to the north and south of it. But the further you got away from the Front, the worse it got. This was, of course, contrary to all the writings, including mine; and therefore hard to discover: who would think of looking for the good weather right along the Front? A thorough study of the standard weather map, with expert help, would no doubt have disclosed that. But for such study there was no opportunity in the busy St. Louis bureau.

Cudgelling my brain for a cagy way to get to New York without sticking my neck out, I went into Flight Advisory. Well, I hardly needed to ask my question: one look at his cloud-map told you all. Here was this channel of cloudless weather, running from St. Louis to near Indianapolis and then up to Cleveland and beyond. All I had to do was follow that slight detour, and I would have to use no brains: no flight plans, no approaches, no clearances and traffic instructions, no fuss. The Flight Advisory man said to do it fast, because the channel would later be cut by over-running warm air from the South in the Pittsburgh-Akron area. And that was all.

A sketch, from memory, of that cloud map is attached. Here again there is no pretense at accuracy; it is merely to illustrate my point; not how different the actual flying weather was from what you would have guessed, giving an equally casual look at the standard weather map.

Now I don’t want to blow up a small occurrence into a big affair. But then again — put it in general terms: that day, I bet, 5 or 10 pilots set out along the Indianapolis-Pittsburgh airway for the East; and I bet most of them got dismally weathered-in, probably, as it turned out, for 2 days; or else they had to do some sharp instrument work. The Weather Bureau actually had the data about an easy, clear flight-channel; but they did not have it at a place where it was easy to get (many small ships are shy of Lambert Field traffic); nor did they put it (as far as standard weather services are concerned) in a form where an average pilot like myself could “get” it. But that cloud-map — any pilot, if he had a chance to see it, would have grasped the situation in three seconds, without any explanations. Your only questions were: Was it still true? And would it last?

I think a cloud-map is what we need. I don’t know what fine points and shadings the Flight Advisory man uses in making his map. He has, of course, lots of other weather information in addition, and his map may be too simple for use without such supporting data. To make it useful for the private itinerant pilot, it would have to be self-explanatory, so that it could be interpreted without help. It might have to have three shades: black for low clouds (say ceilings of less than 1000 feet); grey for ceilings of less than, say, a comfortable 2000; light grey for ceilings of 5000 feet or better; while blank spaces would mean blue sky or extremely high ceilings.

You can go on from there. Suppose we called those three shades “Able,” “Baker” and “Charlie.” Suppose that for a nickel you bought at any communications station an outline map of, say, the Middle West. This map might be divided into areas of, say, 50 by 50 miles, each area named by its main town or its most center range station. Suppose they broadcast the latest cloud map every hour, by reading off: Muncie, Charlie; Ft. Wayne, Baker; Toledo, Able. Could you make your own weather map in flight? Could a small airport make a weather map for itself when wanted? Would not such a map be comparatively simple to tele-print, by wire or radio?

This brings up another idea, cribbed from current practice of the Navy, and from past practice of the CAA. At a Navy clearance office you face a wall-map on which red, green and amber lights show which places are closed, open, or “instrument.” The CAA for a while used to classify weather the same way, and the first time in each weather report was the designation “closed,” “instrument” or “contact.” I liked that idea; I didn’t like the regulations that went with it, because they choked off too much flying. But we do need a one-word description of the flyability of weather.

To make it more useful, I think there should be five classes, rather than only three: say “closed,” “instrument,” “caution” (flyable with close attention, and don’t let it get any worse on you), “standard” (say at least a 2000-foot ceiling and at least four miles visibility), and “clear” — blue sky showing, visibility at least five miles. I admit that the names suggested here are open to obvious objections. I admit it would take much study to find the exact formula which would combine ceiling, visibility and perhaps precipitation into a true measure of “flyability.” The formula might vary slightly from region to region depending on terrain and on the reliability of the weather. It might allow for the fact that you will accept low visibility if due to smoke which would scare you if it were due to light fog. Main idea: give us a one-work statement of flyability of the weather; and perhaps a flyability-map.

Well, that’s off my chest. I am not proud of my troubles in getting weather dope—a good pilot should learn how to get the correct weather just as he learns not to pull the mixture control when he means to put on carburetor heat. But if we want flying to grow, we must try to clear away those secondary difficulties of flying: if they were gone, flying itself would seem much easier to many people.

I am certainly not proud of my “remedies.” It is easy to dream up something that would be nice to have. But to put such things into effect is almost as difficult as to put some dreamed-up improvement on an airplane. The thing as-it-is is about as good as the most expert minds, after years of effort and study, know how to make it. Our weather set-up, coupled with our airways system, is even now surely the world’s best. The forecasting elsewhere may be as good, but nowhere else is there as closely-spaced a reporting system (with an airport at almost every reporting station, and lighted airways connecting them). Nowhere else is the weather-dope quite as accessible to the little fellow who has perhaps only a dry-cell receiver. Nowhere else is the weather-information as happily coupled with navigational guidance as it is in our radio ranges with simultaneous voice-transmission—and the whole thing “gettable” with the cheapest, lightest radio equipment. This system, developed in 20 years of effort, is much more complex than appears on the surface; it functions like clockwork, and it is a sort of intricate clockwork of inter-meshing functions. It shares its communications system, in part, with Air Traffic Control. Then again, the information gathered serves not only us pilots, but also the forecasters, and thus the farmers and the nation as a whole. The weather observers are working (if I understand it right) part of each hour for Airways, part of each hour for the Weather Bureau. The schedules by which observations go on the teletype are closely timed, and the whole communications system is heavily loaded if not overloaded. In short, the technical angles, the legal angles, the personnel and financial angles are most complex; and to an expert eye some of the remedies suggested here may be obviously impractical.

Still, if we don’t let them know what we want, we sure won’t get it. That’s why this gripe list has been written. I feel like a heel, thinking of my pals for example in the Harrisburg, Pa. weather bureau and the one at Phoenix, Arizona, and all the trouble they just recently took to help me; also of NEwtown 9-7570, the La Guardia Flight Forecasters who are worth more to me in my Kollsman work than my left engine. There is so much knowledge and so much talent in the weather service; quite a few of the weather people have started flying privately, and that makes them even more valuable. Our problem is how to get at this knowledge more fully, and make more use of those talents. To that end, these suggestions are respectfully submitted.

The post From the archives: Langewiesche on the weather revolution that mostly happened appeared first on Air Facts Journal.

from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2019/11/from-the-archives-langewiesche-on-the-weather-revolution-that-mostly-happened/

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callmemoprah · 5 years

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Why University Sports athletes Shouldnt be Paid

Educational facilities can be paid by forms of brand names just like: Adidas, Nike, along with Under Armour. Schneider proceeds to claim that there has been this sort of massive alternation in what sort of earth is effective that these rules could be outdated as well as inadequate now. The actual base line is always that a player should only be paid by means of an organization. To ensure the following revenue season with as well as year out there, higher education sportsmen are hoped for to do at the very good level-which means that educational institutions mentors (who seem to employed to quit settled) help make large incomes, in particular when their teams are usually identify challengers (Edelman, This year). This debate has held up for over a hundred years and the advantages of this particular notion never carry mineral water ever again.

College some athletes usually are not professional

The scholarships involves education costs, textbooks, food, plus property. Robert and also Amy McCormick, not one but two regulation teachers during Ohio Express Higher education condition here which, “These people are usually laboring within incredibly rigorous and also challenging disorders, so one of these tend to be people with regard to the natural requirements in it while they’re also seeking to head to college as well as having to head to university.” This kind of opinion is a vital thought of its controversy as well as the disagreement associated with Mister. Purchase your entire ideas into communities and also compose primary details to build unique groups along with subcategories. Shelling out a college university student would likely have a large amount of the following pride plus a sense togetherness apart since they happen to be taken away from technically by way of the component with repayment. In case various clubs have been removed quite a few university student would’ve absolutely no sporting events and all their own efforts will be absolutely thrown away.

How to produce a powerful argument

The scholarship features educational costs, ebooks, food, in addition to houses. Then there are lots of different issues: Would certainly athletes earn otherwise with regards to the hobby people participate in? How can you measure the genuine valuation on an advanced athletics staff, in particular when it’s building the teachers additional well-known general along with attracting plenty of scholars? Exactly where would certainly your money even come from? As the general athletics industry grows over time so would the college sports surroundings. There exist a new brand concerning becoming an amateur as well as a specialist according to this specific kind of reaction by the NCAA. Over generations, Split My partner and i some athletes have already been tipping its basis into their sport activity many people previously worked so hard pertaining to every day, each and every time. Therefore, undergraduate sportsperson should not be settled.

This percentage should pertain to virtually all participants, even going to those on full sports activities help me write a thesis scholarships and grants. NCAA expresses that an individual is never entitled to sports activity if someone have got ever obtained cost or maybe stated that (Fifty-eight). Paying off the university athletes may perform a lot of very good, even if it had been just some lodging, getting on and also foodstuff allotments each month in exchange for their work specifically its abilities and abilities. Order your whole concepts in groupings in addition to create simple information in order to create distinct areas in addition to subcategories. could make annually. Accusations are actually produced upon individuals getting repayment. “Should College or university Student-Athletes Get paid?” U.Azines News Digital camera Weekly, Some Economy is shown, This year.

Any decimal summarize is another well-known file format, as well as it’s really the same as the subject matter one particular. Sporting events isn’t finer quality than lecturers. Inside of a acreage the place equitability plus value are usually highly valued, you have to question why apparently school sports athletes are most often having the shorter conclude of your cling. Even now, colleges and universities employ their particular sports achievement to market his or her education plus tempt possibilities job seekers. It is a advantage to discover the possiblity to perform for the collegiate place, not to say always be awarded an athletic scholarship. The experts , once additionally pronounc that the NCAA can be somewhat insecure meaning their “age-old” foibles will be worked out with the top echelon associated with gamers as soon as scams emerge from several battler having unbalanced positive aspects. The debate displayed by simply NCAA in which good agreement instituted at the beginning of the period, the particular sports athletes obtain scholarships and grants seeing that reimbursement will never be renegotiated causes it to become extremely hard with the scholars being paid.

This content in addition claims that a college can certainly current market its good results with activities for you to alumni as well as donors to ensure that the crooks to get money for first time methods in campus. In certain instances, professors might require you to such as a bibliography, specifically when crafting an outline as the academics mission. It may be pricey, thus a school scholarship is really a kind of fee for school athletes as well as their exclusive an opportunity to acquire informed. “Should College or university Some athletes Get paid to learn.” Different, 2011. As Hartnett (2014) information, as being a college or university sportsman is more than just a full-time occupation.

A issue outline demands one to create this quick time period and also phrase to spell out every area.

People shouldn’t shell out individuals should they aren’t prepared to get the job done.

Capitalized letters;

College sports entertainment aren’t the roles since they are merely certain things to do;

Start your homework.

Persuasive composition on the key reason why school runners really should be paid

College sporting events aren’t the jobs simply because they’re simply just specific actions;

A theme summarize requires you to definitely generate this short word or perhaps concept to spell it out every portion.

Even if this supplier most likely are not scholarly, the content mcdougal gifts can be legit because of his level of schooling. One example is, no person will pay some sort of journalist when he establishes job interviews in a university radio stations section. This system associated with school player can also be looked after an essential element regarding informative enter in such a way the fact that undergraduate sports athletes explore your student’s community. The actual colleges as well as sportsmen be more competitive as the years move down creating greater activities plus much more profits generation. This particular susceptibility can result in those to be http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/cuonline/OnlineCourses a little more prepared to change their particular procedures in the near future.

How to streamline this crafting process

The particular games are generally classified below institution sporting events the place individuals would be the individuals to participate in these types of functions. Nowadays, complete scholarships or grants tend to be granted towards the many talented sports athletes instead of the desperate undergraduate who cannot afford college degree; colleges and universities appeal as a result of specific sport packages which makes it more difficult to attain the grant (“Federal pupil aid” a par Half-dozen). Here’s a quick look at each side. When studying with the university, students not simply will get the chance to play the favored sporting more detail events at a much better level but will also make a college education.

College sportsmen are certainly not professional

This argument provides lasted for over a millennium along with the reasons for this particular idea usually do not maintain water any further. The larger the earnings a lot more likely a coach will continue which has a college since funds speaks. Being a university student-athlete is really a full-time career, bouncey between the weight room, the actual court/field, instruction, and film sessions. In the usa, scholars pay back around 10,500 per semester. Students admittedly be aware that even if people disobeyed the teachers many people still gotten being compensated a ton of money. Players perform difficult to bring sales revenue to the university still they aren’t paid value. That’s exactly why pupils shouldn’t get paid for actively playing athletics within their institution.

The actual creators of these studies in this exploration are typically not less than college degree college students. A new graduate pupil bakes an close supplemental 1 million additional within their life. The following distinguishes your contests on the skilled activities. If and when they elect to pay out its players, there will be very very little still left in order to aid the opposite courses. As an example, your “Flutie effect” is utilized to spell it out a blast at the in class programs following a massive activities win. A post posted online in ncaa.web claims that scholarship grants an average of have ended 100,500 a year (The Sport Break up, 2002-2010). These include significant concerns the particular school will facial area that could lead to the specific sport divisions associated with educational institutions turning out to be firms as an alternative to helping runners experience an education.

How to create a powerful argument

I feel that it will be incredibly difficult with the teachers to help impress self-control after learners that happen to be getting covered their services over the keep track of maybe in the sector. This variety of format requires anyone to compose a brief word to go into detail each individual major thought and also theme sentence. What will the NCAA are saying with this arrangement? The National School Athletic Connection, which in turn claims that the item “is a member-led corporation specializing in your well-being as well as life long good results of faculty athletes” (NCAA, 2018), simply proposes of which undergraduate players are students-not staff members, understanding that activities including the big-money-making bonanza that’s the NCAA contest never oblige the same “students” to miss classes for region public video game titles which pull in big advertisement sales for your schools. Most persons imagine that colleges and universities help to make out of cash with aid from sports entertainment.

Disadvantage to be able to modest universities

Most of us enjoy for your a person activity as soon as all the hours of exercising bond along with the play will be sleek. The institution assists the gamers as a section of staff through providing these grants therefore producing education cost-effective. The talk with paying out institution runners has elevated the headlines for many decades in addition to keeps growing a result of the increased gross income your fresh players generate for their educational institutions along with the global financial rate of growth evidenced in the industry generally. In addition, the kids purchase the privilege traveling all over the world. All of us have fun with to the a single game if every one of the hrs with training agree as well as our own play is usually sleek. Analysis: That source is a well-liked origin as a result of lack of information within the supplier along with the lack of knowledge from the article writer.

Source: http://mobimatic.io/2019/03/26/why-university-sports-athletes-shouldnt-be-paid/

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lovebooksgroup · 6 years

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Pond Scum & Road Runner by Michael Lilly

Crime

Hard-Boiled

Mystery

Police Procedurals

Fiction

|Pond Scum Synopsis |

My name is Jeremy Thorn, and I’m a serial killer.

Jeremy ‘Remy’ Thorn is a detective from a small town in Oregon. He does his job well and keeps to himself. A past of trauma and abuse, and a compulsive need for balance have shaped him into the person he is today: a decisive, effective killer.

His routine is simple but trustworthy.

Step one: Find two targets. The first, an abomination of a human being whose only contribution to the world is as fertilizer. The second, a detriment to society, perhaps a sidekick or accessory.

Step two: Kill the first. Frame the second.

Easy.

After his latest, and most personal kill, all seems to be going well. He makes it home by morning and continues with his plan as normal, with each perfectly timed maneuver all mapped out. But to his horror, he finds that the man he was trying to frame—a hotshot detective from a major nearby city—has been called in to work the case. And what’s worse … he’s privy to the truth.

|Road Runner Synopsis |

Remy and Todd are just getting comfortable when a series of death threats forces them to take refuge in a tiny town in New Mexico. Against his better judgment, an antsy Remy picks up detective work again and is thrust into a murder investigation. He quickly realizes these murders are no coincidence, and disturbing signs lead him to think they are connected to his unfinished business in Riverdell.

| Interview |

Michael Lilly has always had a love for literature—both the reading and writing of it. He has lived in Utah his whole life and loves cooking, travelling, video games, and spending time with friends and family, and currently lives in Salt Lake with some close friends.

Website Link – http://www.michaellilly.com

What book truly inspired your life and why?

There are many, but I think the most influential, as of late, was Stephen King’s On Writing. For those unfamiliar, it’s exactly what the title indicates: a book on writing by the immortal Stephen King. In it, he relates his own story and situations in such a way to make me feel like I could turn my hobby into a career.

How did you pick who you dedicated your book to?

Ah, this one’s easy. My parents have supported me all my life. I have memories, even as far back as eleven years old, in which my mom encouraged my writing and validated it as a career option for me.

Did you do a lot of research for your book?

In crime fiction, there will always be a necessary measure (Decay process of a corpse submerged in water; Test to detect the presence of blood in water and its effectiveness), but there was surprisingly little to do for Pond Scum. This is largely because the engaging parts of it were less about the crime/procedural process and more about the protagonist making his own journey as a human.

What was your favourite read of 2017?

Well, I was quite late to the party, but I finally got around to reading Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, and it was superb. Definitely lives up to the centuries of hype.

If you had to take three books on a desert island what would they be?

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

How to Survive on a Desert Island by Jim Pipe

Can you tell us a little about your publishing journey?

To preface this, I’d like to say that I was extremely lucky in how streamlined the process seemed to be. I finished writing the first draft of Pond Scum in March of 2017. By that point, I had been thinking of what steps I might need to take in order to be published. I was aware that self-publishing was an option, both for paperback and simply through eBook vendors like Kindle.

What many people don’t know is that, these days, an agent is practically a necessity; most publishers don’t accept submissions from authors. So the first step was to find an agent. To do so, the best strategy is usually to find someone who is willing to work with you and your genre, and send out a query letter (in which you make the case for your book; tell them a little bit about it, why it’s a good match for the agent and vice versa). Many authors do this upwards of 30 times and get rejected as many before they finally get an agent. I sent one query letter. During the wait, I was preparing to send out more, but the administrator of a page I follow on Facebook reached out to me and I sent him a query letter. He decided to take me on as a client the same day! I will add that I had a moment of sweet satisfaction, months later, when I received a rejection letter from the first agent I queried and was able to reply telling him that it was fine; I already had a publisher.

According to my agent, the wait time to find a publisher can be anywhere between a few weeks to six months, and I was fortunate enough to have one lined up at the two-month mark. After that, it was a matter of working with my awesome editor, Sarah, in order to get it best worked up for publication. Of course, there are others involved (the artist who did the cover, Claire Wood, for example, and Kelly, who does PR), but it was Sarah with whom I was working directly throughout the process.

Waiting to get published is both the longest and shortest wait in the world.

Can you share with us a photo that tells a story?

(Attached) This photo is the lineup in the Fiction/Literature section at Barnes and Noble. Where I stuck my finger is where my book(s) would be if they stocked them. So I suppose it’s less about a story that happened and more about a story that I’m hoping happens, haha.

What would you like your readers to know before starting your book?

Know that, while I channel much of myself into Remy, my relationship with my own parents is fantastic and I don’t have the traumatic past that Remy does. Much of the mental illness (his OCD habits, for example) comes from my own experience, though.

Do you have any questions that you would like to ask your readers?

Was there any aspect that you’d like to see more/less of? Much of my feedback was that it ended too quickly and neatly, something I agree with and felt I did a lot to remedy in book two, but beyond that, what parts of the book really impacted you (either positively or negatively)?

By Michael Lilly for Love Books Group

| Order Link |

|Publisher Info|

Twitter: @vulpine_press + @OckhamPub

If you enjoyed the blog please leave a like and a comment. We would love it if you could share it on Twitter & Facebook. It really helps us to grow. Thanks so very much.

You can also connect with us on social media:- Twitter Instagram Facebook

#Author #Author Interview #Book Blog #Book News #Book Review #Crime #Fiction

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samiam03x · 7 years

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Why Unscalable Marketing Activities are Best for B2B Companies

Most blog posts talk about going viral.

They talk about network effects and refer-a-friend tactics.

They talk about switching your orange button to a green one.

They talk about sending out automated, cold emails.

Well, guess what?

None of that works in B2B. Not at a high level. Not when you’re selling to smart, educated people. Not when there are tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) at stake.

All of those easy, ‘scalable’ tactics that blogs love to rave about fall flat.

The best way to close high-dollar B2B accounts is to do the opposite. You need one-to-one communication ASAP.

The problem is that the best methods are largely unscalable. At least on the surface. So they appear to require tons of your time and energy. Of which, you’re already running dangerously short.

Here’s why seemingly ‘unscalable’ activities work best. And what you can do to lessen the pain.

Why 1-to-1, unscalable B2B activities convert best

Sales is positioning.

B2B sales, especially.

It all comes back to the bottom line.

Are you an expert or a hack? A partner or a vendor?

Your ability (and almost as important, the perception of your ability) is on the line. It’s what separates cost-plus vs. value pricing. Thin margins from fat ones.

Experts and consultants? They don’t email customers garbage. Customers go to them.

That’s why your approach matters. A lot.

All those fancy growth hacks? They might work on the mass market paying $0.00 for your shiny photo sharing app.

But not as much when tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) are on the line. Not when MBA-toting, C-suite execs with decades of experience can sniff out your bullshit from a mile away.

B2B doesn’t buy on impulse. A rush of blood to the head won’t cut it.

Instead, they’re conducting at least a dozen searches before ever visiting a brand’s website. Most of the purchasing process actually takes place before they consider you personally.

They’re informed. And there are usually many of them required before signing on the dotted line.

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All of this means the average sale is going to take longer. It’s going to be complex. It’s going to require many conversations over many weeks with many different people.

You can scale some of it. You can automate parts of it. But when it matters most, when the chips fall, unscalable activities win.

Take a look at these example conversion benchmarks for the software industry from Capterra:

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Average website conversions hover around 7%. If you’re lucky.

After that, the qualified conversion rates jump to 36% and 27%. Why?

Why is the top of the funnel conversion rate so low, while the bottom of the funnel one is so high?

One answer is that people become more qualified as you go. And the other is that you’re handling the qualification or sales personally.

Lead scoring might help. A tiny bit. But otherwise, you’re sending emails, making phone calls… selling.

All of which is manual, time-intensive, and unscalable.

That’s the theory, anyway. Now, let’s evaluate it in practice.

What’s the average click-through rate for online ads?

Around 0.5% for display ads and about 3% for search ads according to WordStream.

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Those numbers are… not good.

Doesn’t matter how you frame it. We accept it and continue to spend money on it because it’s scalable. It allows us to go and do other things. We put up with mediocre response rates in the hopes that it’s all justified in the end.

Now let’s compare it to alternatives, so you have some context.

Funnelholic used to see the same average 2-3% results, too. Until they made a few changes.

And then? Open rates shot up to 60%. Reply rates leaped to 31%. And they netted 15 new meetings.

What was the difference?

They took unscalable steps first. They thoroughly researched each prospect and personalized each outreach attempt.

Different channel or medium. Same story.

One company used direct mail to get a foot in the door with $30 million+ companies, receiving a 25% response rate. Another study shows that first-time buyers are 60% more likely to visit a website URL after seeing it on a piece of direct mail.

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Let’s do another one.

Spoke with another founder recently. He literally walked into 13 multimillion-dollar companies cold one day. Now, has two proposals out. That’s ~15% response rate.

Again: Compare that with ~0.5% and ~3% for online ads. And that’s for just a measly click! The vast majority of which won’t go on to become a lead, qualified opportunity, or sales prospect.

So really, you’re looking at fractions of a percent.

The problem with these high-performing tactics?

None of them are scalable. At least, not on the surface.

Researching individual people within accounts isn’t. Hand-writing letters isn’t. Creating and sending personalized packages isn’t. And walking into offices definitely isn’t.

The trick is to make the unscalable scalable. Doesn’t make sense, I know. But it hopefully will in a few minutes.

You should be able to find a way to scale multiple “unscalable” activities with people, processes, and tools. Here’s how.

Start at ground zero with your target accounts

The lazy answer to this quandary is “account-based marketing.” Which is really just a euphemism for “not terrible marketing.”

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Instead of only qualifying and disqualifying toward the end, you do it upfront. You invest more time and energy whittling out the junk so that you can focus more attention and resources on fewer, better potential customers.

Don’t take my word for it.

This is the essence of Predictable Revenue. The same one that added $100 million to the top line of Salesforce. The same one that the fastest-growing SaaS sales teams use today.

It’s a mix of inbound + outbound. You use the best of both to expedite the process.

Inbound is great. But it takes for.ev.er. And results don’t always pan out like they should. Not like you were told. Not in the beginning. Not in competitive industries filled with low-volume, long-tail queries.

Example: “Content marketing.”

Ninety-freaking-two difficulty score. While the volume range puts it around mid-tail, best case scenario.

Now, try ranking on that term with a 500-word blog post. Try ranking for that term with “Best Content Marketing Tools” or some other inane post.

That might work in the local pool biz. Ain’t gonna cut it here.

That’s why it takes more. It requires more. The only way you’re going to sell five or six-figure deals is to pitch the hell out of a dedicated account.

The trick is to do the hard work upfront. Define your ideal Customer profile, and everything else becomes easy.

But we can’t do that for you. Unfortunately, you’re on your own.

LinkedIn does, however, give you a few ways to pre-qualify prospects at scale.

The first step is their LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can select firmographic criteria like job titles, company size, geography, and more to have them compile a prospecting list for you.

Then, you can save companies as new accounts to get access to all of the individuals inside.

Next, cue: stalking.

LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator will provide a never-ending stream of updates when filled with accounts. Every time your key people do something on the site, you’ll see it.

And you’ll be social selling in no time. The same strategy IBM has used to increase sales 400%.

This is the hard part, though. You need to get on their radar. Not by sending spammy InMail messages. But by reaching out and discussing. You build that whole relationship-thing.

You can also combine some inbound with your outbound here.

For example, you can run content promotion to these target accounts to passively build brand awareness.

Then, you can use LinkedIn’s new Matched Audiences feature. This is more or less their version of Facebook’s custom audiences.

You can target contacts that have been to your site before. Or you can upload a list of contacts that have opted in somewhere along the way.

This is where you add scale. You shouldn’t necessarily automate meetings with prospects. You really can’t, in fact.

But you can start to automate some peripheral activities, like these retargeting ads that run in the background.

And you can also start to streamline “unscalable,” individual prospecting techniques. Here’s how.

Now, make the unscalable, scalable

There’s one thing standing between you and more paying customers.

It’s not time. It’s not money. It’s not a tool.

And it’s not even a hack. It’s a process.

That’s it. Sexy, right?

A little over a year ago, my company sent these out in the mail (among other things).

Not the best. But not bad.

We sent each one with a handwritten note. Then we stuffed both inside an envelope and mailed it to an individual within an account company’s headquarters.

Now, you’re probably thinking that this sounds time-consuming. And that’s because it was. Very.

Initially, we did all the work. Even bought the envelopes at a Staples (remember those?) and brought them to an honest-to-goodness post office.

The initial results were promising. Solid responses started to roll in.

So here’s where things get fun. You create a process around this to hand off to someone else.

Fortunately, there’s this magical secret to dealing with menial, recurring tasks like this. They’re like little magical elves who just come sweep up after you so that issues go away.

They’re called: interns.

The trick is that you have to tell them exactly what you’re looking for. Most don’t. They just expect them to know. And results suck. “Interns are lazy” etc. etc.

Each step is its own little process. There should be details on how to stalk find key accounts on LinkedIn, how to build a prospecting list, and so on.

Pretty soon, you’ll have hundreds of names. For pennies on the dollar.

Re-visit those stats above. A 10%+ response rate with hundreds of names, with each potential client worth well over $10,000 over the next year?

I’ll take that over ‘going viral’ any day.

Change your perception on what can or can’t be scaled

People like their habits. They like their business-as-usual.

Take forms. Do we need them?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Here’s how it typically works. A person visits your site and opts in. Awesome! Except, they’re not super clear on what comes next.

Internally, that notification goes… somewhere? You get around to vetting the lead, eventually. And then reach out hours, days, or weeks later.

By then, the prospect has already moved on. It’s too late.

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Your chances of qualifying each new prospect fall by 400% past the five-minute mark.

So how can you scale the unscalable?

Live chat is one solution. It satisfies 92% of peeps. Companies like Influx have used it to bring in 27% of inbound leads and grow companies by 20% each month.

But not the way you’re thinking. You can’t afford to hire someone to sit there all day.

Thankfully, you can now use chatbots to do everything from qualifying new prospects to scheduling sales calls with hot prospects. And then helping you close more deals.

You can pre-program the sequence. And your chatbot will do all of the heavy-lifting for you.

TrainedUp, a video training service for church leaders, recently implemented this approach.

Think about your average form-based conversions for a minute. You’re lucky if 7-9% of visitors are opting in for your services.

TrainedUp is seeing 25% of visitors interacting with their chatbot. Then 15% of those go through with scheduling a demo. And 40% of those chatbot-driven demos are converting to paying customers.

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A lot of TrainedUp’s success is coming from using Drift’s Playbooks. This feature poses three simple questions to completely onboard new leads for you.

Directive Consulting does something similar. For example, the chatbot can qualify (or disqualify) prospects for you without a single person manning the station.

For example, you only want to work with decision makers. So ideally, you’re looking for “CEOs” and “VP/Directors” who can sign on the dotted line. Then, you can customize a different response for “Managers” to make sure nobody’s wasting each other’s time.

Let’s select “VP/Director” to keep the conversation going.

Next up, you can get some basic budget information. Once again, this helps better qualify and segment new leads. If someone’s budget is “Less than 5k,” for example, the chatbot politely informs them about project minimums.

It can even help you route leads to different reps or divisions. The services you deliver to a client in the $5-10k range might be vastly different from those in the $50k+. So this allows you to figure out who each visitor should be speaking with internally.

Because the next step is to solve the main problem we had earlier: planning the next step.

You now have all of this valuable data. You know if they’re a good fit or not. You know exactly which department, division, or rep to refer them to.

So why make them wait for a “follow-up” that’s not likely to happen anytime soon?

Instead, you can then immediately have them schedule a new sales call.

Drift has a built-in calendar feature that integrates with most calendars. So, the chatbot can even schedule conversations in real-time.

Otherwise, you can respond with a Calendly link (even customizing different links and availabilities for different types of leads).

So if someone successfully makes it through the first three questions, they receive a link to schedule a conversation immediately:

Replacing a traditional “Thank You” page with a Calendly link so that visitors could schedule appointments on their own helped Virtru increase conversions from around 30% to over 61% in a single month.

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Conclusion

‘Viral’ marketing might work for B2C. Network effects might help you get more users into a free photo sharing app.

But none of that realistically works for B2B.

The problem is that you often shoot yourself in the foot when you focus exclusively on scalable marketing activities. Those things only work at the bottom of the food chain.

Selling intangible, high-dollar services to execs is a different story entirely. The only way you get on their radar and earn their trust is by doing the hard stuff. The time-consuming stuff. The stuff that almost never scales immediately.

The trick is to scale the unscalable. You use processes, delegation, and technology to overcome the burden.

That way, you’re still seemingly delivering the same 1-on-1 personalized touch that people crave. However, you personally aren’t doing it. And that’s critical.

About the Author: Brad Smith is the founder of Codeless, a B2B content creation company. Frequent contributor to Kissmetrics, Unbounce, WordStream, AdEspresso, Search Engine Journal, Autopilot, and more.

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alissaselezneva · 7 years