#there's also many instances of the show where promise is used but it's altered slightly | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alitheamateur · 5 years

Text

The Grind-Chapter 28

The eve of fight night fell, and Colton was exhibiting extremely peculiar behavior. Not a bad type of peculiar necessarily, but the man just wasn’t his usual self. When I woke up to head for a swim at Temple, the bed was empty on his side and he hadn’t left a note, or word with my parents as to where he disappeared off to. In fact, according to mom, he must’ve left the house before 6 a.m. when she and dad left for their walk. It was a routine they had with the dog back home, and they had been continuing the morning exercise while on their visit to the city.

When I got to my locker at the gym, there was a single Peony taped to the handle, and a square yellow note tied to it’s stem. The easily identified chicken scratch belonged to the missing man in question, so I tore it open jaggedly to gather some answers.

Livvy,

Enjoy your swim, & don’t you dare think of doing anything in the weight room. I told Cal to watch you. You have a noon appointment with that girl who does your hair, & a 10 a.m. massage too. I have some stuff to take care of today but be at home and dressed by 6 tonight. Wear that white dress I like. The one from that party at the Pilot a couple months ago. And don’t eat. I’ll check in later. I LOVE YOU

Colton had been a lot of things the last year, but romantic was a new side. He rendered me speechless from heartbreak, pleasure, and laughter on a fair amount of occasions, but this was unfamiliar lands. Never did I believe such a cynical, wild, tormented soul like his could conjure up the cleverness or the desire to throw together whatever plan he had in the works. But I’d obey the orders, and call mom to steam the crisp white, ankle-length, summer gown he referred to from the office gala event he suffered through as my plus-one, and it’s also the first instance he suckered me into bathroom sex in the family stall. The thin, flesh-hugging stretch of the drapery curved into me, and the low-cut of the back allowed him a subtle peep-show during the owners speech, which had him nearly feverish for a taste of me before the main course was served. I was chatting with Ryan who was seated at our dinner table, when Colton told me I looked a bit peaked and needed a few minutes of good ol’ fresh air. Thoroughly confused, I followed his lead as he took my hand guiding me through the bar area into the public pavilion of the venue. The details are a bit foggy, but I can’t forget the memory of his thirsty tongue licking a bead of summertime sweat from the valley between my breasts.

I concluded on returning to my natural blonde look at the salon, and sang the praises of the on-staff masseuse at SJS Salon on my way out the door. The unwind of my slow laps in the therapy pool, and the exceptional massage had me exuding peaceful relaxation. After the continual sessions’ day & night at the gym, in the cage, in the weight room, at the Pilot, some self-love and spa time was the perfect prescription for a Zen Liv. And I wanted all my tensions free and clear before I met up with Colton for this mysterious evening ahead, so I could fully enjoy the company of my perfectly imperfect companion. Wherever the pathway of our evening led, I knew I’d retire home once it was said and done feeling cherished, and probably horny.

I was puckering to smooth out a plentiful layer of rose-shaded smudge proof lipstick at my lighted vanity when I saw my mother peep around the unlatched door. I looked away from my own reflection to see hers smiling back at me from over my shoulder, as she brushed my hair back curious to discover my earring choice. This overly-feminine, lady-like and sophisticated side of her only child was a glimpse of the daughter she wanted 10 years ago when I was wearing sweats to school every day, and only wore heels for prom or homecoming dances. Mom stayed dressed to the nines every day of the week whether it be a run to the post-office or even a check of the mailbox, so seeing the vision of herself even more so in me now with sleek hair, and a posh taste in stilettos was probably the proudest she had been in a decade.

“Honey, you look excellent! Your little nose healed up just perfectly too, I see.”

Of course, mother. That’s what most important, ay’?

“Yep. It feels fine now. Thanks, mom.” I pursed my mouth, tucking both lips in a stark line and misted a lavish amount of Colton’s favorite perfume onto the exposure of my neck.

“Do you have any ideas what Colton has planned for you? You’re dressed awfully formal.” My mother asked turning her head to survey the final touches of accessory to my ensemble.

“He told me what to wear, and when to be ready to go, so that’s about the most I’m aware of. He’s been pretty shady today. And we both know he’s developed a keen talent for lying lately, seeing as how he managed to get you and daddy here.”

The last text I received from him at 2 o’clock that afternoon was a strange selfie of he and Andrew at the forefront of an impressive Styrofoam cup pyramid they’d apparently built on the display counter at The Grind. Those two had become quite the odd pairing lately, but I was happy Colton jived so well with at least one of my friends. I assumed he just went by the shop for his usual black coffee to-go, and Drew simply asked his assistance on a new merchandise display, which turned into the two of them goofing.

Mom checked her waterproof, step counting watch for the time as she followed be into the bedroom I shared with Colton. “It’s 5 minutes to 6 right now, Livvy. Have you talked to him?”

My heels clacked when transitioning from the carpet, to the tile down the hall. I clicked the unlock button of my cell to place a call to the very man sitting on an arm of the couch in an open stance, with those hefty forearms pushing in his knees. He stood upon hearing the soft tick of my heels step over the rug under the coffee table, and I was able to get a much desired, exploratory look at the very, very surprising dapper two-piece suit he sported. It was an oxford blue, atop a slightly wrinkled button-down shirt that he left casually, and very appealingly gaping open just enough to taunt me with his pecks. He was explicitly, lethal and delicious in the foreign dress of any sort of formal attire. Maybe more so even than those perfectly snug gray sweats I pulled off him on many an ‘afternoon delight’ occasion. That is, assuming I have to have him clothed at all.

“Well hello there, Mr. Ritter. Someone is looking exceptionally handsome tonight, I see. I must say you wear this look well, babe.” I admired, pulling on the lapels of his jacket to situate the wrinkle of his shirt. I tenderly grazed a manicured nail over the freshly shaved goosebumps of his neck, and smiled romantically looking up to him under extended lashes.

“You two enjoy yourselves! Tony and I are going to grab some dinner, and we’ll lock up when we get back. I’m sure it’ll be a late night for you guys,” mom spoke up, still standing behind me undetected. Colton tilted around me to smile appreciatively at her before she turned in pursuit of the spare room where dad was napping.

“Will you ever walk into a room ‘n not instantly have me wantin’ to rip off whatever you wearin’, baby? You look…you look fuckin’ perfect, Liv. I mean that.” He fiddled with the every-day, dainty, gold letter pendant I wore as he spoke, then touched his pointer finger to the heart-shaped opening at the center of my satiny lips.

I wondered reasonably if we’d ever even make it passed the 4 walls of our bedroom seeing the adamant, alluding examinations we were trading in the silence of our family room.

“As long as you promise to replace whatever it is you just have to rip off, then be my guest by all means.” I popped one shoe-covered foot into the air, and boosted up on the other desperate to touch myself to his mouth.

“Get. The hell. Out. That. Door. Now. With ya’ teasin’ little ass.” Colton palmed the front of my dress to clutch over the warmness of my womanly center.

We altered his plan a bit, and decided my car would be the most practical option for transportation considering the height of my designer heels. Once we exited the driveway, I couldn’t help but blast him with pestering questions, and chatting.

“Just sit tight, ‘ight. We ain’t far. You can hold out a few minutes, Livvy. A surprise here ‘n there ain’t gonna kill ya’.”

I unhappily sat tight as advised and waited a drawn out 10-minute car ride that steered us to a parking meter on the street near The Grinds’ entrance on the sidewalk. The white light of the ‘open’ sign that would’ve typically been plugged in the window was powered off, along with the appearance of any other lights, or evidence of business behind the door.

“Colt? What are w-“

“No more questions, okay? Hold on.”

I watched him shove my keys from the ignition inside the pocket lining of his coat, to jog around and assist me from the passenger seat onto the concrete walkway. I smelled something fishy, but I couldn’t place a sure finger on it just yet. With one arm clinging around my average size waist and the other holding my hand, we waited for the street sign to change then scurried along the crosswalk. Colton confirmed the time on his watch just as he gestured me to enter the strange darkness of the generally busy coffee shop.

I couldn’t move much passed the entry mat laying in front of the doorway due to the pitch darkness of the room, so I waited intriguingly for my next instructions. Colton moved in behind me and stepped straight for the location of the light switch he was apparently familiar with. Rather than the hardwired overhead lights of the café igniting with the flipping on of electricity, twinkling, warm garden decorations on green strands taking their place. The dusky glow hanging over our heads bared a table for two waiting empty in the middle of the open floor, and some sort of urbane, bubbly beverage sweating inside a tin bucket of ice. Calm, lazy melodious music struck up, and I finally escaped my confusion to scan for Colton.

“These a’ for you, baby. The best, for the best.”

He offered me a familiar a pink, fluffy bouquet which had become his apparent staple over the last year, and I could smell the odorous fog from gift laying in my arms. Taking a closer look over his face, I noticed he’d groomed up exceptionally precise, and his beard had been combed and trimmed. Colton Ritter may have even been wearing hair product, Ladies and Gentlemen. His matured facial lines, and the barely detectable softening sag around his eyes added a story-telling detail to his aging mug, but I admired every frown line, and ghosting scar.

I rested my arms over his shoulders, dangling the hefty bouquet in my hand behind his back to settle in for a lengthy embrace when a begging, muffled reverberation of hunger grumbled from my empty stomach.

“Well, you did tell me not to eat, silly!” I patted over my angry insides to stifle its interruption.

“I got just the thing to fix ya’ right up. Here. Let’s get you in a seat and I’ll be back.” He took my hand, and I took the seat he offered up, placing the flowers in a waiting vase at the center of his table spread.

Colton lit four small tea-light candles with a zippo frim his pants pocket, and kissed the crown of my freshly washed hair.

“I like the blonde, by the way,” he winked dragging his feet backwards to disappear into the back kitchen.

A few clanging plates and some ruffling feet could be heard as I sat legs crossed, and chin rested on my elbows. Mother Liz always cut my arms with a slap when I would prop my elbows up onto the tables, chastising my etiquette or lack thereof. I repeatedly listed off a careful list of the ‘important dates’ to mark the many milestones of our relationship to assure I hadn’t forgotten some crucial event on this day. There had to be some reason Colton had gone to such odd, starry-eyed measures, and my nosey, sharp-witted journalistic side was beating me to death to get to the real story hidden under wraps.

STOP IT! Let the man have this. Don’t ruin it because you’re a meddlesome pest who can’t just enjoy a surprise.

Just then, a smell so aromatic and reeking of garlic wafted like a puffy cloud of deliciousness into my nose. I inhaled deeply through my nostrils to trace the yummy culprit, and found the man exiting a revolving door that hid the kitchen. He had two enormous, blotchy, grease-stained pizza boxes marked from my very favorite deep-dish joint stacked in one arm, and a covered Dutch oven dish cradled in the left arm. Colt’s tongue peeped like the head of a snake from the corner of his mouth, walking strategically careful so not to drop the hot contents of his clutches.

“So, since you trained so hard, and it nearly killed ya’ cuttin’ out all those carbs, I figured you’d maybe want some’n downright filthy ‘n covered in cheese to hit the spot. Drew tried to tell me I should get some fancy takeout from that place you two are always goin’ to, but I knew this would suit ya’.”

He opened one of the boxes to reveal a cheese deep-dish smothered in sliced, tender black olives.

“You want me to eat the whole thing?” I chuckled with a large goading laugh, and quarter-sized eyes.

“One fa’ you,” he answered sitting himself to open the other cardboard box in his place setting. “’and one fa’ me.” Colton rubbed his hands together anxiously, like a giddy boy about to dive into an ankle-deep mud puddle.

“But you may wanna save a lil’ room for this too, baby.”

I watched as he pulled the sturdy lid from top the black dish, and fluffy, warm steam rolled from the inside. Peeping over the edge in anticipation, I discovered a dark chocolate, gooey treat, topped with whole praline pecans and stringy caramel drizzles.

“Colt, you made that? All by yourself?!” I smiled adoringly when the look of utter pride beamed from his coy face.

It was a turtle dessert my mom taught me to make, and my absolute favorite. Colton had stayed been at my old apartment one night, back before the fight, and said he needed a ‘sugar fix’. The city was covered in powdery snow and muck, with temperatures reaching their lowest degree all winter. Neither of us could stand the thought of leaving the warm solace of my couch, so I whipped up that same dessert for him. We demolished the entire contents straight from the dish, sharing a spoon for vanilla bean ice cream on the side.

“Liz wrote the ingredients down for me, but I remembered pretty well how you made it that night. Don’t be gettin’ all wound up before ya’ even taste it now,” he tittered taking his first bite of pizza.

We ate majority of each cheesy pie, (him asking for a slice of mine) then hysterically cackled for a good half hour after he sampled (and gagged on) a swig of my favorite merlot from a local winery. When our favorite Bob Dylan tune struck up on his iPod, I asked him to dance, and he obliged hugging me tightly with one arm, and gnawing on the last piece of pizza he clutched to in the other. The raw, real-life imperfections of the moment that would’ve had most females curling a lip in disgust, and trouncing far, far away from a man with such qualities as Colton Ritter, only had me needing his presence in my life more so.

“How’d you pull this off Ritter? I must say, I didn’t know you had it in ya’, babe.” I muffled with a full mouth of his well-made chocolate cake as I dabbed the corners of my mouth.

“Just called in a favor to my pal Andrew, no biggie. The bastard only made me pay him 200 bucks to make up for his ‘lost profit.’” Colton used his most sardonic air quotes to underline Andrew’s no doubt tantrum for his role.

“You been workin’ so damn hard, Livvy. And I just wanted to do somethin’ to make you feel special. Help ya’ relax and take the edge off of a lil’ about tomorrow night. ‘N judging by those sexy, heavy little wine eyes you been givin’ me, I’d say I did a fine job.”

The excellence of the entire evening, hand-in-hand with now a present buzz of red wine after so many months, made the air around me feel as if it touched my skin like expensive cashmere. My insides felt as if they were humming with muggy decadence, and no unkind thought weighed on my mind.

“Oh God, stop it!” I covered my face, ashamed of his insinuating light-weight insult.

“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on, Liv. I ain’t just sayin’ shit right now. I mean that. You’re perfect now, jus’ like this. And ya’ perfect on the couch with your face painted in one of those goopy masks you put on before you check your work email at night.” He leaned over the round table, mazing through the empty boxes, and melting candle wax staining the tablecloth to encase my fingers. Any fool could see there was nothing but earnest passion in his eyes, and a blatantly truthful, sureness in his voice.

“I love you. And don’t sell yourself so short! You are the perfect one. Even with all those demons, and whatever else is hiding in that head of yours.” I wanted to caress and pet his always warm cheek, but the distance between us caused me to settle for a tight squeeze of his hand, and a kiss to his scarred fingers.

“A perfect man wouldn’ta let somebody like you get away, baby.”

“Stop with that! We’re here now. Together. And we’re happy. Plus, there are more important things going on right now we should be worryin’ about.”

I knew I could back out of my fight right now, even the night before, and Colton would support my decision without hesitation, and anyone else who didn’t, would suffer at the hand of his consequence. The reality of what I knew I’d be doing only a few short hours from now, was a frightening one. But, one that I had agreed to for myself at the hands of no ones’ force. I wanted to make Colton proud of me for something more than just having my nose shoved in front of a computer screen 10+ hours a day. I had to prove to him, the world, my parents, and mainly myself that I was capable of greatness. That I had the potential to step out in faith, and achieve something like this with some courage like the old Liv.

“We’ve done everything in the gym we possibly coulda, baby. You’ve done everything. You need t’ believe in yourself like you were always tellin’ me. I’ll be there standin’ in that corner for you, I promise. And if ever you wanna cut it, just say the world ‘n we’ll walk outta there first round. You can do this, 2-1. Clear eyes, remember?”

“Thank you, Colton. For being the man that you are, and sticking with me through this even though we both know you hated the idea. And for all this God, it’s incredible, really. I’ve desperately needed some alone time with my guy.” I scooted to the front ledge of my chair, resting on the table to wink suggestively at the tantalizing specimen opposite my gazes.

“Calm ya’self, you dirty girl. I know wha’s goin’ on up in the head o’ yours. I got one more place I need to take you. Then, I can assure you…. I can really fuckin’ assure you, that I’m gonna get real good and close to every piece of your creamy skin under that dress.”

tags: @torialeysha @eap1935 @littleluna98 @mollybegger-blog

#Tom Hardy #tomhardy #tom hardy fanfiction #tomhardyfanfic #tomhardyfanfiction #elizabeth olsen #tommy conlon #thegrind

23 notes · View notes

dipulb3 · 4 years

Text

2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime first drive: High performance, low consumption

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/2021-toyota-rav4-prime-first-drive-high-performance-low-consumption/

2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime first drive: High performance, low consumption

Don’t believe that gasoline-electric vehicles are anything but boring and slow? Well, it’s time to change your tune, because the RAV4 Prime is the second-quickest Toyota after the Supra sports car. With 302 horsepower on tap, this plug-in hybrid SUV can zip from a standstill to 60 mph in as little as 5.7 seconds, a time that is legitimately swift. And thanks to ample low-end electric torque, it feels even fleeter.

Delivering that strong performance is a 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine, an Atkinson-cycle unit borrowed from the RAV4 Hybrid but retuned for Prime time. Without going too far into the technical weeds, it’s augmented by a trio of electric motor-generators, two in the front transaxle assembly, and a third at the rear. The latter provides on-demand all-wheel drive by turning the aft tires. Serving as an electron reservoir is an 18.1-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack, mounted under the main-cabin floor in a way that does not detract from passenger space. It’s cooled using air-conditioning refrigerant and is backed by a 10-year/150,000-mile warranty. Drivers are further shielded from repair bills by a separate, 8-year/100,000-mile guarantee that covers other hybrid components.

That generously sized battery helps provide a preliminary EPA efficiency rating of 94 miles per gallon equivalent (MPGe) and an electric-only range estimated at 42 miles. Driving it carefully and with the climate control off a good portion of the time, I managed to coax 45 miles out of the RAV4 Prime while running solely on electrons. Honestly, I expected a little more considering I was driving quite conservatively and the conditions were perfect, with temps in the upper 70s. Still, Toyota has delivered on its range promise.

As for efficiency, running this vehicle about 50% on electricity and then 50% on gasoline once the battery pack was depleted, I averaged an indicated 45.3 mpg, though that figure is potentially misleading because real-world economy depends greatly on the ratio between those two operating modes. If, for instance, you drive 50 miles and 42 of them are all electric, the average fuel economy is going to be much higher than if you take a 600-mile road trip burning fossil fuel the whole way.

The times, they are a-chargin’

Hook the RAV4 Prime up to an ordinary 120-volt household outlet, and it takes around 12 hours to fully replenish the battery pack. Plug it in to a 240-volt line with 16 amps of juice, and that time drops to around 4.5 hours. Still, if that’s not speedy enough, XSE models with the premium package (a $3,765 upcharge, which also requires the $815 weather package and the $1,620 audio package) can recharge in as little as 2.5 hours if you have access to a 6.6-kilowatt, 240-volt outlet.

As public charging stations become more and more prevalent, it will be easier and easier to live with an electric vehicle.

Craig Cole/Roadshow

After depleting the battery during testing, I found a nearby ChargePoint public station. Hooked to a Level 2 outlet running at 6.6 kW, the vehicle gained 13 miles of EV range after about 45 minutes of charging, right in line with Toyota’s 2.5-hour claim.

Despite basically inventing the modern hybrid, this is Toyota’s first plug-in SUV. There is no shortage of similar crossover SUV models available today, but they’re mostly at the upper end of the market. There aren’t too many direct competitors to the RAV4 Prime. Subaru’s Crosstrek is one, but it only offers 17 miles of electric range. The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV is another, with an advertised 22 miles of juice. It’s conceivable you might cross-shop this Toyota with plug-in versions of the Kia Niro or even the Chrysler Pacifica, but none of these are a perfect fit, either. Really, this RAV4’s number-one rival is the new Ford Escape PHEV, which offers slightly less electric range at 37 miles and has around 93 less horsepower, but at least it’s a touch more efficient at 100 MPGe.

Forceful yet mild-mannered

Driving the RAV4 Prime purely on electricity is a great experience. It’s punchy, smooth and nearly silent. As with other EVs, there’s tons of low-end torque, which makes this Toyota leap off the line when you nail the accelerator. Its enthusiasm does wane at higher speeds, but its performance is still solid, able to hit 60 mph in around 9.2 seconds. However, this vehicle’s performance shines most when driven as a hybrid. Throw that internal-combustion engine into the mix and this RAV4’s sprinting abilities improve by leaps and bounds, with its 0-to-60-mph time dropping by nearly 40%.

Potent and efficient, what more could you ask for?

Craig Cole/Roadshow

When navigating corners, the Prime feels like it has a touch more body roll than the RAV4 TRD I reviewed recently. This is likely because of its softer ride, which is partly due to loads of extra weight. At about 4,300 pounds in XSE trim, this vehicle is around 500 pounds heavier than the bulkiest RAV4 Hybrid, thanks to its much larger battery pack. To accommodate that additional mass, the vehicle’s chassis has been retuned. The steering is light to the touch, though it’s not as crisp as in other RAV4s. The Prime is, however, extremely quiet inside thanks to laminated front side glass and additional sound deadening, alterations that make for a serene driving experience. Braking feel is also praiseworthy. This plug-in SUV’s pedal has nice weight to it and is easy to modulate, with no discernible weirdness when transitioning from regenerative to friction braking.

A comfortable and versatile interior

Inside the RAV4 Prime, there’s not much to get excited about, and that’s a good thing. Just like the non-plug-in model, this Toyota’s cabin is one of the better offerings in this segment, being attractively designed and made of quality materials. My XSE tester is further gussied up with red stitching on the door panels, dashboard and elsewhere, plus the seats are covered in SofTex imitation leather, which not only feels nice but makes a convincing argument that cow hides aren’t necessary.

As in more run-of-the-mill RAV4s, the Prime’s rear seat is generously portioned and quite comfortable, with good support, plus plenty of space for knees and noggins. A pair of 2.1-amp USB-A ports serve riders relegated to the back, though the vehicle is fitted with a total of five such outlets, plus XSE models feature Qi wireless charging, so nobody’s phone has to go without juice.

This Toyota’s infotainment system is pretty middling, but the large screen is clear, bright and easy to reach.

Craig Cole/Roadshow

When it’s time to make an Ikea run for a load of marginal quality, affordably priced, flat-packed furniture, the RAV4 Prime makes an excellent schlepper. It offers 33.5 cubic feet of hauling space behind the second-row seat, a figure that grows to a claimed 63.2 when the backrests are dropped. These figures are slightly behind what the standard RAV4 and its hybrid counterpart offer. They both max out at 69.8 cubes. All in, the Prime still offers a few more cubic feet of space than the Escape plug-in.

While there’s plenty to like about the Prime’s interior, a few things could be improved. The chicklet-like climate control buttons are simply too small to easily manipulate while driving, and some of the switches on the steering wheel feel incredibly cheap.

Technology bonanza

On that note, I’m not going to further bludgeon a deceased equine, but as I’ve mentioned many times before, I tend to find Toyota’s multimedia offerings to be unattractive and illogical, and that’s unfortunately still true in the RAV4 Prime XSE. But it’s not all bad news.

This infotainment system is at least speedy, and the tablet-style 9-inch screen it’s splashed across is huge and easy to reach, as it’s mounted high on the dashboard. Lower-end SE models feature an 8-incher. With all that display real estate, Apple CarPlay (which, along with Android Auto and Amazon Alexa compatibility comes standard) is super easy to use, showing up nice and big.

The RAV4 Prime offers plenty of features and amenities.

Craig Cole/Roadshow

If you still need more screens in your life, don’t fret, because all Prime models feature a reconfigurable 7-inch display nestled in the gauge cluster. It’s clear and easy enough to cycle through the various menus for things like fuel economy and the trip odometer. If that’s not enough, XSE models can even be fitted with a 10-inch color head-up display, which projects relevant driving data onto the windshield. This item is bundled with the $3,765 premium package, which also gets you the aforementioned 6.6-kW charger, ventilated front seats and an awesome digital rearview mirror. The latter features yet another screen behind the glass where a video feed from the reversing camera is displayed to provide a much broader field of view behind the vehicle.

That package also includes a 360-degree camera system, which can be handy for certain parking situations — in theory at least. For some reason, this feature, and even the RAV4’s standard reversing camera, are appallingly bad, super gritty and hard to see on the infotainment screen. This is particularly strange because the digital rearview mirror, which is available on XSE models, looks great, providing a clear, crisp image.

When it comes to advanced driver aids, Toyota Safety Sense 2.0 is standard equipment on the RAV4 Prime, bringing things like automatic emergency braking and road-sign recognition to the table. Lane-keeping assist is included, too, and works quite well, even if it feels a bit soft-handed. It doesn’t lock you into the middle of the lane quite as strongly as competing systems do, resulting in more wandering. You also get adaptive cruise control, though it’s rather middling. On the highway, it’s great, seamlessly adjusting vehicle speed to match surrounding vehicles, but in stop-and-go traffic it can be pretty jerky.

Like other members of the RAV4 family, the Prime model is quite handsome.

Craig Cole/Roadshow

Dollars and (common) sense

The 2021 Toyota RAV4 Prime is slated to start arriving at dealerships in all 50 states later this month. Keeping things simple, it will be offered in two trims: SE and XSE. My top-shelf tester arrived fitted with all three available options packages, things that inflate its price tag to right around $49,000 including $1,120 in delivery fees. That’s a steep price to pay for what is a mainstream compact crossover SUV, however, that figure does not include any potential discounts. The RAV4 Prime may be eligible for up to $7,500 in federal tax credits, plus other discounts offered by individual states. Of course, you can save a big chunk of change by getting an SE model. They kick off right around $39,195. That’s still a bit pricier than Ford’s entry-level Escape plug-in hybrid, which begins at roughly 35 grand, but the RAV4 does have more power and a nicer interior, plus Toyota enjoys a better reputation for long-term quality and resale value.

Punchy and efficient, the Prime is easily my pick of today’s RAV4 litter. The addition of a plug-in hybrid powertrain has made a good SUV even better. If you can manage the upcharge, this is the RAV4 to get.

0 notes

theliberaltony · 4 years

Link

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Whether he’s dancing the Cupid Shuffle or wearing a button pledging to “Make Americans Think Harder,” tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang has run anything but a normal presidential campaign. That seems fitting for a political novice whose background in law and technology has given his campaign an unusual top issue: a signature proposal for a universal basic income — Yang calls it the “Freedom Dividend” — to mitigate the effects of automation and job loss on the economy. At one debate, Yang even announced that his campaign would give 10 families $1,000 per month for the next year as a case study for his UBI proposal.

And although Yang’s support continues to hover in the single digits — about 3 percent nationally, on average — he is one of seven candidates who made the December debate, and he is also the only candidate of color to make the cut. So here’s a look at what we know about Yang’s small, but loyal support — the “Yang Gang” — and what it can tell us about his presidential bid.

Yang’s base is young

Yang’s strength comes primarily from voters under the age of 45, especially those between the ages of 18-to-29. Take Morning Consult’s large-sample weekly tracking poll where they interviewed more than 13,000 likely Democratic primary voters nationwide from Dec. 9 to Dec. 15. In that survey, Yang received 9 percent support among 18-to-29 year olds, which put him fourth behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (44 percent), former Vice President Joe Biden (18 percent) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (12 percent). So even though Yang had far less overall support in the poll than Sanders (4 percent versus 22 percent), Yang actually had the largest share of supporters under the age of 45 (74 percent compared with Sanders’s 69 percent).

Yang’s support mostly comes from younger voters

Share of overall support for Democratic presidential candidates from primary voters younger than 45 vs. those 45 or older, according to Morning Consult’s weekly tracking survey

Share of support by age group Candidate Overall support 18 to 44 years old 45 years or older Andrew Yang 4% 74% 26% Bernie Sanders 22 69 31 Cory Booker 3 41 59 Tulsi Gabbard 2 40 60 Elizabeth Warren 15 40 60 Tom Steyer 3 32 68 Joe Biden 31 29 71 Pete Buttigieg 8 27 73 Michael Bloomberg 7 24 76 Amy Klobuchar 2 20 80

Data for Morning Consult weekly tracking poll conducted Dec. 9-15, with sample size of 13,384 respondents. Only candidates polling at 2 percent or higher were included. Calculations were made with data rounded to the tenths place.

Source: Morning Consult

Additionally, Yang enjoys less overall support among the older half of the 18-to-44 range, with the backing of about 5 percent of 30-to-44 year olds, putting him fifth behind Sanders, Biden, Warren, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

As for why Yang has an outsized appeal among younger voters given his overall standing, he has without question run an internet-savvy campaign, leaning into the meme culture popular among his supporters online. He’s also appeared on well-known podcasts, answered questions from users on Reddit and Quora and promised to give one Twitter user $1,000 per month just for retweeting him, which attracted over 100,000 retweets. But Yang also hasn’t shied away from discussing the dark underbelly of technology. That’s an issue that resonates with many young people, who have grown up in an era where tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google have dominated the marketplace and are helping alter the future of work. Yang thinks a UBI is necessary to counteract this sort of economic disruption, especially as things continue to change in the coming years.

Yang, who has been called a “doomer” because of his outlook, believes President Trump won in 2016 because people were worried about losing their jobs in a fast-changing world. And as young people are most familiar with the ins and outs of new technology, it’s understandable why a candidate who is heavily engaged with technology’s benefits and pitfalls may be so attractive to younger voters.

Yang’s base is also very male

In addition to Yang’s support trending young, it is also very male. For instance, in that Morning Consult survey, Yang earned 11 percent among 18-to-29 year-old men versus just 6 percent among women in that same age group. And according to The Economist’s polling with YouGov, his support among men in this age group is about 10 percent, while his support among women is in the low-to-mid single digits. Interestingly, differences between men and women largely disappear among older age groups.

There’s also evidence of Yang’s appeal to younger male voters aside from the polls, however. For example, an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics in November found that women were less likely than men to contribute to his campaign — only 29 percent of Yang’s itemized contributions have come from female donors so far.1 (Only Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has raised less among women donors — 24 percent.) Another sign is Yang’s share price in betting markets, whose participants are predominantly young men. As of publication, PredictIt prices Yang’s shares around 8 cents for winning the Democratic nomination — analogous to a slightly less than 10 percent chance — despite polling at around 3 percent nationally.

Yang also draws meaningful support from Asian Americans

Asian Americans are also a very important part of Yang’s base. While Asian Americans will make up only around 5 percent of the primary electorate, Morning Consult found Yang at 19 percent among them, behind only Biden (24 percent) and Sanders (22 percent). And Yang’s support among Asian Americans has consistently outdistanced his overall numbers. Back in September, for instance, Yang polled at 8 percent in a survey from AAPI Victory Fund/Change Research of just Asian American and Pacific Islander primary voters even though he was polling at about 2 percent nationally.

Part of this may be because so few Asian Americans have run for president. There were Asian American Hawaiians like Republican Sen. Hiram Fong, who got a handful of votes at the 1964 and 1968 GOP conventions, and Democratic Rep. Patsy Mink, who won a small number of votes in the 1972 primary, but their bids were a long time ago. Granted, former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is Indian American, ran for the Republican presidential nomination last cycle, but he struggled to attract more than 1 percent in the polls and suspended his campaign in November 2015, well before any votes were cast. So in the 2020 primary, Yang, along with Sen. Kamala Harris (who is part Indian American but has since dropped out), have perhaps given Asian American voters at long last someone from their constituency to back, which can help explain why so many have rallied to Yang’s side.

Yang is also an outsider candidate

As a fellow outsider candidate, Yang’s appeal also shares some traits with Gabbard’s in that Yang also broke through in part via nontraditional venues, including outlets that are considered part of the Intellectual Dark Web, a politically amorphous network that generally criticizes concepts such as political correctness and identity politics. Like Gabbard, Yang also hasn’t shied away from going on conservative talk shows, doing interviews with Fox News personality Tucker Carlson and conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, whereas some Democrats have refused to appear on Fox News. Yang’s donor count also exploded after appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience, one of the most popular podcasts in the country, which also helped Gabbard’s campaign.

Still, for being an outsider candidate, Yang doesn’t get as much support from Trump supporters or conservatives as Gabbard does. In last week’s poll from The Economist/YouGov, for instance, 25 percent of Trump voters who said they plan to vote in the 2020 Democratic primary said they intended to support Gabbard, versus just 2 percent who said they would support Yang. Similarly, in that Morning Consult poll, Gabbard received 5 percent among very conservative and conservative primary voters (and very little support among more liberal voters), whereas Yang’s support was more ideologically balanced, ranging anywhere from 2 to 4 percent across all five ideological groups.2

Nor does Yang get as much disproportionately liberal support as another outsider in the race: Sanders. That’s despite notable overlap between Sanders’s supporters and Yang’s supporters, according to Morning Consult’s second choice voter data. That Morning Consult survey found that 8 percent of Sanders’s supporters picked Yang as their second choice, while a whopping 33 percent of Yang’s backers said Sanders was their backup option. Yet in that same poll Sanders got the most support from very liberal and liberal voters (29 percent and 22 percent, respectively) and less from moderate and conservative voters as a whole, so his support was more weighted toward more liberal voters than Yang’s.

However, one thing that all three candidates have in common is that all three attract higher levels of support from self-identified independents than Democrats. This isn’t exactly a surprise for Sanders, considering he did better among independents than Democrats in the 2016 primary. But in that Morning Consult poll, the trend is obvious: Sanders earned 28 percent support among independents, compared with 21 percent among Democrats, while Yang earned 6 percent support from independents, compared with 3 percent among Democrats. Gabbard also picked up 4 percent among independents and only 1 percent among Democrats. This generally holds up across other polls, too, in which all three candidates get higher percentages among independents than Democrats, though obviously there be will more self-identified Democrats voting in the primary than independents.

With only seven candidates making the cut for December’s debate, it’s fair to say that Yang’s outsider candidacy has broken through in the Democratic primary — in large part thanks to enthusiasm for him among younger voters and Asian Americans.

The question now is whether he can expand his appeal beyond 3 or 4 percent nationally. Raising nearly $10 million in the third quarter certainly helps his case — that’s real money he can use to build an on-the-ground campaign structure in early states like Iowa and New Hampshire. And with an army of small donors, Yang may have a reliable source of money to broaden his reach. Still, the crowded group of four candidates at the top of the polls will make it tough for him to actually win the nomination.

Nonetheless, Yang’s continued presence in the primary — when other candidates with more traditional resumes have already dropped out — speaks volumes to his appeal. Perhaps Thursday night will be an opportunity for him to gain real momentum. After all, despite speaking the fewest words in the last debate, Yang’s net favorability improved the most of any candidate on stage in our polling with Ipsos. Maybe don’t write Yang off just yet, even if a lot would have to go right for him to break into the top four.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Geoffrey Skelley

0 notes

samuelro89 · 4 years

Text

Proven Weight Loss

Being sound is the most significant thing to improve and secure the brain and body. There are a lot of approaches to remain solid, for example, clinical tests, work out, stress decreased, sufficient rest and eating appropriately. A solid eating routine incorporates keeping away from nourishments poor sustenance, eating certain nourishments and taking enhancements. Wellbeing supplements decrease inefficiencies in the assortments of individuals who need supplements and can't discover them in nature. The measure of cash spent by Americans on wellbeing supplements every year is around one and a half to two billion dollars, so supplements are a wise venture for their wellbeing.

Health

· Wellbeing can be portrayed as a physical, mental, and social success, and as an advantage for continuing with a full life.

· • It implies not only to the nonattendance of infirmity, yet the ability to recover and skirt again from disease and various issues.

· Factors for good wellbeing incorporate hereditary qualities, the earth, connections, and training.

· An invigorating eating regimen, work out, screening for illnesses, and adapting methodologies would all be able to upgrade an individual's wellbeing.

Nourishments developed from the beginning copious in supplements, minerals, and fiber. Picking an assortment of hues can help boost the admission of supplements.

The American Heart Association suggests expending at least 8 servings of foods grown from the ground day by day. This compares to about 4.5 cups each day for the ordinary person who eats up around 2,000 calories.

Juices named "100 percent" are viewed as a major aspect of this nutrition type, however eating entire organic products or vegetables is better, as it will give more fiber.

Research shows that a decent admission of foods grown from the ground can ensure against coronary illness, type 2 diabetes, and malignancy.

Exercise the CBD

The aerobic practice is any physical movement that utilizes enormous muscle gatherings and makes the body utilize more oxygen than it would while resting. The objective of the high-impact practice is to increment cardiovascular endurance. Examples of high-impact practice incorporate running, cycling, swimming, energetic strolling, jumping rope, paddling, climbing, moving, playing tennis, constant preparing, and long separation running.

Summary

Male pattern baldness, or alopecia, is an exceptionally uncommon symptom of all statin drugs. Generally endorsed in the treatment of elevated cholesterol, statins work by obstructing the activity of a catalyst the liver uses to make cholesterol. About 1% of individuals assuming statins report male pattern baldness. This figure hasn't changed since 1987 when statins were presented. We don't know exactly why statins may cause male example hair sparseness. In any case, we do realize that cholesterol is a significant structure obstruct steroid hormones, which assume a job in hair development. More reports of it, given a large number of statin takers. All things considered, you're losing your hair for an increasingly basic explanation — another prescription, a thyroid condition or different ailment, or age-related changes in hormone levels. It merits counseling your doctor, who can check for these basic conditions. In the event that no other reason can be found for your male pattern baldness, you could get some information about halting the statin for a couple of months. Or on the other hand, you could substitute another kind of cholesterol-bringing down medication (bile corrosive tars, nicotinic corrosive, fabric corrosive subordinates, or cholesterol assimilation inhibitors) or simply work more enthusiastically on that way of life changes that we know ca bring down cholesterol: a low-fat eating routine, weight reduction, and exercise.

Promising nourishments you can consume before bed to boost your rest personality.

Almonds

Turkey

Chamomile tea

Kiwi

Fatty fish

Walnuts

Passion bloom tea

White rice Pain relief

Get going

Exercise is much of the time related to a diminishing in joint inflammation joint torment. 1-5 Exercise may lessen torment since it fortifies muscles that help joints, triggers the body to produces endorphins that soothe torment, both, or something different.

Notice Attention to Get Exercise When You Have Arthritis

What sort of activity you do relies upon your present wellness level and different elements, for example, where you live and whether you approach an exercise center. Strolling, pool exercise and yoga are viewed as delicate on joints and useful for tenderfoots. The pain is less readable

· Get moving

· Eat more fiber

· Warm-up aching joints

· Or cool down joints

· Cultivate relationships

Variables that can expand your danger of terrible cholesterol include:

Less than stellar eating routine. Eating soaked fat, found in creature items, and Trans fats, found in some monetarily heated treats and saltines and microwave popcorn, can raise your cholesterol level. Sustenance that is high in cholesterol, for instance, red meat and full-fat dairy things, will moreover manufacture your cholesterol.

Some of those things put you at risk

Ø Poor diet

Ø Obesity

Ø Lack of exercise

Ø Smoking

Ø Age

Ø Diabetes

Hair loss

Hair loss is not a hassle ever again. It will get difficult regarding our body to manage with sudden changes and even takes time to modify to them. Appropriate diet regime and a wholesome life-style are always successful. Fast brown dog.

Health weight

With regards to weight loss, there's zero lack of fad diet programs promising fast results. Yet such diets curb your current nutritional intake, can end up being unhealthy, and tend in order to fail in the long term. The essential to achieving and sustaining a healthy weight basically about short-term dietary alterations. It's about a life-style which includes healthy eating, normal exercise, and balancing the particular calories you consume using the calories your system makes use of. Staying in control regarding unwanted weight contributes to great health now and since a person age.

Growth sleep

Developing HGH is not typically the only benefit you're lacking out on if a person don't sleep enough. Throughout sleep, your body fills your stores of muscle mass glycogen--a form of carbs and glucose that is certainly your main resource of carbohydrate energy in the course of a workout. If these kinds of levels are low, you're not able to work out and about as intensely. Failing to be able to replenish this energy resource fully before you’re following work out will result in more quickly exhaustion and lackluster overall performance. The flow of blood to your muscle tissue also increases while if you're sleeping, increasing oxygen ranges and helping to breakdown lactic acid. In add-on to everything, the entire body releases prolactin, and potent hormone that helps your own joints recover. In brief, if you need the best benefits, you should considchoer rest to be an important part of your work out plan.

PAi

Cholesterol

Bad cholesterol is a chemical mixture the body requires since a foundation for mobile membranes and then for hormones just like estrogen and testosterone. Typically the liver produces about a majority of the body's hypercholesteria and the rest originates from dietary sources like meats, poultry, eggs, fish, in addition to dairy products. Foods made from plants contain simply no cholesterol. Cholesterol content throughout the bloodstream is managed by the liver. After having a meal, cholesterol in typically the diet is absorbed coming from the small intestine in addition to metabolized and trapped in typically the liver. As the human body requires cholesterol, it might be secreted by typically the liver. When an excessive amount of hypercholesteria is present in typically the body, it may build upward in deposits called oral plaque buildup along the inside surfaces of arteries, causing those to narrow.

Pain relief

Soreness killers are medicines that will reduce or relieve severe headaches, sore muscles, arthritis, or even other aches and aches and pains. There are many diverse pain medicines, and every single one has advantages and even risks. Some types involving pain respond better to be able to certain medicines than other people. Each person could also have got a slightly different reply to a problem reliever.

Over-the-counter (OTC) medicines are usually good for many forms of pain. There are usually two main sorts of OVER THE COUNTER pain medicines: acetaminophen (Tylenol) and no steroidal anti-inflammatory medicines (NSAIDs).

0 notes

todaybharatnews · 5 years

Link

via Today Bharat Google finally decided that we were worthy enough to experience the goodness of its smart display products on these shores. And we will say we are honored to have the goodness of Googlersquo;s ecosystem now making our homes smarter. It is also good to see some competition in a space where Amazon has had a free run for a while now, with its Echo line-up of Alexa enabled smart speakers and smart displays. And to that effect, the Google Nest Hub priced at Rs 9,999 just hits the sweet spot for many users who may had been eyeing an Amazon Echo Show 5 (also around the same price point) for a while now, but yet needed some convincing. The proverbial cherry on the cake has to be the fact that Google already knows so much more about you, which makes the responses to your queries and the information stream coming your way, a lot more tuned for your needs. What really is a smart display? Well, it is like a smart speaker, except that it also has a display. That display real estate comes in handy as a bedside alarm clock, for viewing videos, for using this as a photo frame or even for a visual guide to recipes while you cook. You interact with it the same way as you would with a smart speaker, which is call out to it with your query and expect a response. More in anticipation than plain hope, mercifully. In this case, you could also get a visual response, which just adds a lot of value to the entire proposition. The perfect angles That neatly leads me to what the Google Nest Hub is all about. What you get is a 7-inch touchscreen and you will notice it sits at a slight upward angle. Reclining, in a way, on the integrated kickstand at the back, which also hosts crucial internals such as the speaker. Google will let you choose between chalk and charcoal colour options, depending on what you feel looks better in your home. There is a 2-microphone array which is listening out for your voice commands, and from what I experienced, this works seamlessly well irrespective of where you are standing in the room. In fact, the Google Nest Hub homes in on your voice signature and you can continue a conversation with it even though there may be ambient noise or other people talking amongst themselves in your vicinity. True to the Google Assistant style, it will also show text corresponding to what you say, which means you can correct immediately if you notice that the Assistant has gone wrong with a pronunciation. nbsp; The power port is at the very back of the kickstand-esque design, but weirdly enough, the straight-line design of this adapter means you really cannot push this up properly against a wallmdash;there will always be that gap. An angled implementation of the adapter might have worked. Little details that pinch my obsession with straight lines and what not, but most people wonrsquo;t even bother. nbsp; The display of unbridled smartness The display itself is a well-balanced piece of canvas. It does colours rather well, and the sharpness is adequate too. White colours look pure (and yes, there is a lot of white colour in all of Googlersquo;s interface layouts) and the other colours remain well distinguished. The resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels may not seem much on paper, but remember, this isnrsquo;t a 4K media consumption device. For its purpose, the Google Nest Hubrsquo;s display does a very good job. Yes, at some angles you might notice a few reflections, but thatrsquo;s a small tradeoff. Google has given this screen some genuine smarts. There is an Ambient EQ sensor in the Google Nest Hub, which not only does auto brightness (thatrsquo;s a basic requirement, isnrsquo;t it?) but also alters the colours on the screen according to the tone and temperature of the ambient lighting in the room at the time. Lots of evening sun streaming into the room? No problem sir, the display tone leans slightly towards the warmer side. A cool white LED bulb illuminating the room for dinner? No stress, the display switches to a cooler temperature. Google says this display sensor detects as many as 16 million colour and light combinations to make the display blend in with the surroundings. Yes, we have seen this sort of brilliance in an Apple iPad Pro for instance, but to get this sort of fine attention to detail in a smart display is something I must give full credit to Google for. And when you finally turn off the lights for a good nightrsquo;s sleep, the display goes very close to dark and switches to a large digital clockmdash;easy for a peek as you momentarily wake up in the middle of the night. Goodie, no camera But did you notice what is missing above the display? Yes, there is no camera! While the promise of video calls on smart displays is all fine and good, to be honest, the experience has always been clunky at best. And this should also help reassure those who are worried about privacymdash;a fear that comes naturally when a device with a front facing camera makes a space for itself in your bedroom or living room. I didnrsquo;t miss it one bit, safe to say. There is a toggle to turn off the microphone too, if that is what you prefer before embarking on an important discussion with someone in the room. The Ok, Google routine Setting this up is a breeze with the Google Home app (free for Android and iOS). Sign in with your Google account, and everything sets up on the Nest Hub without needing your intervention. That means all your Google services are signed in seamlessly. You can get the usual suspects up and running on this in no time at allmdash;weather updates, news, routines, calendar, alarms and voice-based web searches. Houston, we have found the baby photos I have a feeling that you will really use this as a digital photo frame. And with good reason too. It is incredibly simple to get your favorite photos on to the Google Nest Hub, provided you are using the Google Photos app on your Android phone or iPhone to regularly backup on the cloud storage. The Hub can be set up to show photos from specific albums that you may have made or even Live albums that Google Photos regularly updates after deploying the smartness of facial recognition on every new photo that you click and upload. It is good to know that my wife and I already have some 5000 photos of our baby girl, which have been configured to loop with some photos from recent trips to London, New York and San Francisco. In fact, the Google Nest Hub is smart enough to show two vertical photos side by side, stitched together seamlessly. There is no unnecessary cropping or changes to aspect ratio, and that is priceless. It is quite a sight to see the little one scamper up to the bedside table, look at her own photos from a few months ago while grinning and then gently swipe her fingers on the screen to scroll through the photos. Yes, that can be done too. But what the Google Nest Hub doesnrsquo;t show are videos and ldquo;Liverdquo; photos, from the same albums. And herein also lies the Google Nest Hubrsquo;s biggest advantagemdash;Google Photos. It just isnrsquo;t the same with Amazonrsquo;s Echo Show and the Echo Show 5, since they donrsquo;t have access to Google Photos, despite of the newfound friendship between Google and Amazon. And that is where your memories remain locked out of the Amazon smart display ecosystem. Swipe left, swipe right Speaking of swipe gestures, swiping inwards from the right side of the display slides out information cards including Google News, YouTube recommendations and in our case, Spotify as well. While I couldnrsquo;t find a way to customize the order of these cards for instance, these remain quite helpful. Again, the simpler and quicker access to YouTube is an advantage over the Amazon Echo Show smart display familymdash;Google lets Echo users access YouTube but only via the web browser, which means the voice commands donrsquo;t work. Not in the groove, yet While the Google Nest Hub is clearly impressive with most things that one may do with a smart display, the one aspect where it is quite limited is the audio prowess. There is a single speaker sitting behind the display just does a purely acceptable job of playing music. And that is, when you really donrsquo;t have any expectations of really high-quality audio. The sound is flat and there really isnrsquo;t much excitement when you are listening to music. Pity that then, because I had Spotify set up as the default music source for requests to play any particular track or album. Nevertheless, the sound is perfectly fine for your conversations with Assistant and also for the casual video viewing on the display. Smartness for your home It perhaps doesnrsquo;t need to be said but we shall say it anywaymdash;the Google Nest Hub can also be the controller in chief for your smart home devices. We expect this support ecosystem to grow over time, but at the moment, smart lights from Yeelight and also smart home accessories from the likes of Oakter and Syska are supported by the Nest Hub. The on-device dashboard for your smart devices as well as the intuitive controls are totally worth the headache of putting together a smart home ecosystem. Ok Google, letrsquo;s get you home The thing about the Google Nest Hub is that it takes the smart display concept and just adds more common sense in almost every aspect. The slick design, the really smart display management, no front facing camera, a slick interface and the smart home controls are just brought together in such a neat package, that it really becomes hard to find a rough edge. Believe me, there isnrsquo;t any that would make you pause and wonder. You can have this as a companion on your bedside, your kitchen counter, the dining table or the living room, that is how versatile the Google Nest Hub is. And thatrsquo;s how it should be. Music though remains a crushing disappointment, purely because we had hoped for more. And that is a subjective calculation. Yet, it doesnrsquo;t really break the deal, simply because the Google Nest Hub is pretty brilliant with most things it does. nbsp; nbsp;

#IFTTT #Today Bharat

0 notes

ciathyzareposts · 5 years

Text

An Unlikely Savior

Activision Blizzard is the largest game publisher in the Western world today, generating a staggering $7.5 billion in revenue every year. Along with the only slightly smaller behemoth Electronic Arts and a few Japanese competitors, Activision for all intents and purposes is the face of gaming as a mainstream, mass-media phenomenon. Even as the gaming intelligentsia looks askance at Activision for their unshakeable fixation on sequels and tried-and-true formulas, the general public just can’t seem to get enough Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush Saga. Likewise, Bobby Kotick, who has sat in the CEO’s chair at Activision for over a quarter of a century now, is as hated by gamers of a certain progressive sensibility as he is loved by the investment community.

But Activision’s story could have — perhaps by all rights should have — gone very differently. When Kotick became CEO, the company was a shambling wreck that hadn’t been consistently profitable in almost a decade. Mismanagement combined with bad luck had driven it to the ragged edge of oblivion. What to a large degree saved Activision and made the world safe for World of Warcraft was, of all things, a defunct maker of text adventures which longtime readers of this ongoing history have gotten to know quite well. The fact that Infocom, the red-headed stepchild a previous Activision CEO had never wanted, is directly responsible for Activision’s continuing existence today is one of the strangest aspects of both companies’ stories.

The reinvention of Activision engineered by Bobby Kotick in the early 1990s was actually the company’s third in less than a decade.

Activision 1.0 was founded in 1979 by four former Atari programmers known as the “Fantastic Four,” along with a former music-industry executive named Jim Levy. Their founding tenets were that Atari VCS owners deserved better games than the console’s parent was currently giving them, and that Atari VCS game programmers deserved more recognition and more money than were currently forthcoming from the same source. They parlayed that philosophy into one of the most remarkable success stories of the first great videogame boom; their game Pitfall! alone sold more than 4 million copies in 1982. It would, alas, be a long, long time before Activision would enjoy success like that again.

Following the Great Videogame Crash of 1983, Levy tried to remake Activision into a publisher of home-computer games with a certain high-concept, artsy air. But, while the ambitions of releases like Little Computer People, Alter Ego, and Portal still make them interesting case studies today, Activision 2.0 generated few outright hits. Six months after Levy had acquired Infocom, the preeminent maker of artsy computer games, in mid-1986, he was forced out by his board.

Levy’s replacement was a corporate lawyer named Bruce Davis. He nixed the artsy fare, doubled down on licensed titles, and tried to establish Activision 3.0 as a maker of mass-market general-purpose computer software as well as games. Eighteen months into his tenure, he changed the company’s name to Mediagenic to reflect this new identity. But the new products were, like the new name, mostly bland in a soulless corporate way that, in the opinion of many, reflected Davis’s own personality all too accurately. By decade’s end, Mediagenic was regarded as an important player within their industry at least as much for their distributional clout, a legacy of their early days of Atari VCS success, as for the games and software they published under their own imprint. A good chunk of the industry used Mediagenic’s network to distribute their wares as members of the company’s affiliated-labels program.

Then the loss of a major lawsuit, combined with a slow accretion of questionable decisions from Davis, led to a complete implosion in 1990. The piggy bank provided by Activision 1.0’s success had finally run dry, and most observers assumed that was that for Mediagenic — or Activision, or whatever they preferred to call themselves today.

But over the course of 1991, a fast-talking wiz kid named Bobby Kotick seized control of the mortally wounded mastodon and put it through the ringer of bankruptcy. What emerged by the end of that year was so transformed as to raise the philosophical question of whether it ought to be considered the same entity at all. The new company employed just 10 percent as many people as the old (25 rather than 250) and was headquartered in a different region entirely (Los Angeles rather than Silicon Valley). It even had a new name — or, rather, an old one. Perhaps the smartest move Kotick ever made was to reclaim the company’s old appellation of “Activision,” still redolent for many of the nostalgia-rich first golden age of videogames, in lieu of the universally mocked corporatese of “Mediagenic.” Activision 4.0, the name reversion seemed to say, wouldn’t be afraid of their heritage in the way that versions 2.0 and 3.0 had been. Nor would they be shy about labeling themselves a maker of games, full stop; Mediagenic’s lines of “personal-productivity” software and the like were among the first things Kotick trashed.

Kotick was still considerably short of his thirtieth birthday when he took on the role of Activision’s supreme leader, but he felt like he’d been waiting for this opportunity forever. He’d spent much of the previous decade sniffing around at the margins of the industry, looking for a way to become a mover and shaker of note. (In 1987, for instance, at the tender age of 24, he’d made a serious attempt to scrape together a pool of investors to buy the computer company Commodore.) Now, at last, he had his chance to be a difference maker.

It was indeed a grand chance, but it was also an extremely tenuous one. He had been able to save Activision — save it for the time being, that is — only by mortgaging some 95 percent of it to its numerous creditors. These creditors-cum-investors were empowered to pull the plug at any time; Kotick himself maintained his position as CEO only by their grace. He needed product to stop the bleeding and add some black to the sea of red ink that was Activision’s books, thereby to show the creditors that their forbearance toward this tottering company with a snot-nosed greenhorn at the head hadn’t been a mistake. But where was said product to come from? Activision was starved for cash even as the typical game-development budget in the industry around them was increasing almost exponentially year over year. And it wasn’t as if third-party developers were lining up to work with them; they’d stiffed half the industry in the process of going through bankruptcy.

To get the product spigot flowing again, Kotick found a partner to join him in the executive suite. Peter Doctorow had spent the last six years or so with Accolade (a company ironically founded by two ex-Activision developers in 1984, in a fashion amusingly similar to the way that restless Atari programmers had begotton Activision). In the role of product-development guru, Doctorow had done much to create and maintain Accolade’s reputation as a maker of attractive and accessible games with natural commercial appeal. Activision, on the other hand, hadn’t enjoyed a comparable reputation since the heyday of the Atari VCS. Jumping ship from the successful Accolade to an Activision on life support would have struck most as a fool’s leap, but Kotick could be very persuasive. He managed to tempt Doctorow away with the title of president and the promise of an opportunity to build something entirely new from the ground up.

Of course, building materials for the new thing could and should still be scrounged from the ruins of Mediagenic whenever possible. After arriving at Activision, Doctorow thus made his first priority an inventory of what he already had to work with in the form of technology and intellectual property. On the whole, it wasn’t a pretty picture. Activision had never been particularly good at spawning the surefire franchises that gaming executives love. There were no Leisure Suit Larrys or Lord Britishes lurking in their archives — much less any Super Marios. Pitfall!, the most famous and successful title of all from the Atari VCS halcyon days, might be a candidate for revival, but its simple platforming charms were at odds with where computer gaming was and where it seemed to be going in the early 1990s; the talk in the industry was all about multimedia, live-action video, interactive movies, and story, story, story. Pitfall! would have been a more natural fit on the consoles, but Kotick and Doctorow weren’t sure they had the resources to compete as of yet in those hyper-competitive, expensive-to-enter walled gardens. Their first beachhead, they decided, ought to be on computers.

In that context, there were all those old Infocom games… was there some commercial potential there? Certainly Zork still had more name recognition than any property in the Activision stable other than Pitfall!.

Ironically, the question of a potential Infocom revival would have been moot if Bruce Davis had gotten his way. He had never wanted Infocom, having advised his predecessor Jim Levy strongly against acquiring them when he was still a mere paid consultant. When Infocom delivered a long string of poor-selling games over the course of 1987 and 1988, he felt vindicated, and justified in ordering their offices closed permanently in the spring of 1989.

Even after that seemingly final insult, Davis continued to make clear his lack of respect for Infocom. During the mad scramble for cash preceding the ultimate collapse of Mediagenic, he called several people in the industry, including Ken Williams at Sierra and Bob Bates at the newly founded Legend Entertainment, to see if they would be interested in buying the whole Infocom legacy outright — including games, copyrights, trademarks, source code, and the whole stack of development tools. He dropped his asking price as low as $25,000 without finding a taker; the multimedia-obsessed Williams had never had much interest in text adventures, and Bates was trying to get Legend off the ground and simply didn’t have the money to spare.

When a Mediagenic producer named Kelly Zmak learned what Davis was doing, he told him he was crazy. Zmak said that he believed there was still far more than $25,000 worth of value in the Infocom properties, in the form of nostalgia if nothing else. He believed there would be a market for a compilation of Infocom games, which were now available only as pricey out-of-print collectibles. Davis was skeptical — the appeal of Infocom’s games had always been lost on him — but told Zmak that, if he could put such a thing together for no more than $10,000, they might as well give it a try. Any port in a storm, as they say.

As it happened, Mediagenic’s downfall was complete before Zmak could get his proposed compilation into stores. But he was one of the few who got to keep his job with the resurrected company, and he made it clear to his new managers that he still believed there was real money to be made from the Infocom legacy. Kotick and Doctorow agreed to let him finish up his interrupted project.

And so one of the first products from the new Activision 4.0 became a collection of old games from the eras of Activision 3.0, 2.0, and even 1.0. It was known as The Lost Treasures of Infocom, and first entered shops very early in 1992.

Activision’s stewardship of the legacy that had been bequeathed to them was about as respectful as one could hope for under the circumstances. The compilation included 20 of the 35 canonical Infocom games. The selection felt a little random; while most of the really big, iconic titles — like all of the Zork games, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the Enchanter trilogy, and Planetfall — were included, the 100,000-plus-selling Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Wishbringer were oddly absent. The feelies that had been such an important part of the Infocom experience were reduced to badly photocopied facsimiles lumped together in a thick, cheaply printed black-and-white manual — if, that is, they made the package at all. The compilers’ choices of which feelies ought to be included were as hit-and-miss as their selection of games, and in at least one case — that of Moonmist — the loss of an essential feelie rendered a game unwinnable without recourse to outside resources. Hardcore Infocom fans had good reason to bemoan this ugly mockery of the original games’ lovingly crafted packaging. “Where is the soul?” asked one of them in print, speaking for them all.

But any real or perceived lack of soul didn’t stop people from buying the thing. In fact, people bought it in greater numbers than even Kelly Zmak had dared to predict. At least 100,000 copies of The Lost Treasures of Infocom were sold — numbers better than any individual Infocom game had managed since 1986 — at a typical street price of about $60. With a response like that, Activision wasted no time in releasing most of the remaining games as The Lost Treasures of Infocom II, to sales that were almost as good. Along with Legend Entertainment’s final few illustrated text adventures, Lost Treasures I and II mark the last gasps of interactive fiction as a force in mainstream commercial American computer gaming.

The Lost Treasures of Infocom — the only shovelware compilation ever to spark a full-on artistic movement.

Yet these two early examples of the soon-to-be-ubiquitous practice of the shovelware compilation constitute a form of beginning as well as ending. By collecting the vast majority of the Infocom legacy in one place, they cemented the idea of an established Infocom canon of Great Works, providing all those who would seek to make or play text adventures in the future with an easily accessible shared heritage from which to draw. For the Renaissance of amateur interactive fiction that would take firm hold by the mid-1990s, the Lost Treasures would become a sort of equivalent to what The Complete Works of William Shakespeare means to English literature. Had such heretofore obscure but groundbreaking Infocom releases as, say, Nord and Bert Couldn’t Make Head or Tail of It and Plundered Hearts not been collected in this manner, it’s doubtful whether they ever could have become as influential as they would eventually prove. Certainly a considerable percentage of the figures who would go on to make the Interactive Fiction Renaissance a reality completed their Infocom collection or even discovered the company’s rich legacy for the first time thanks to the Lost Treasures compilations.

Brian Eno once famously said that, while only about 30,000 people bought the Velvet Underground’s debut album, every one of them who did went out and started a band. A similar bit of hyperbole might be applied to the 100,000-and-change who bought Lost Treasures. These compilations did much to change perceptions of Infocom, from a mere interesting relic of an earlier era of gaming into something timeless and, well, canonical — a rich literary tradition that deserved to be maintained and further developed. It’s fair to ask whether the entire vibrant ecosystem of interactive fiction that remains with us today, in the form of such entities as the annual IF Comp and the Inform programming language, would ever have come to exist absent the Lost Treasures. Their importance to everything that would follow in interactive fiction is so pronounced that anecdotes involving them will doubtless continue to surface again and again as we observe the birth of a new community built around the love of text and parsers in future articles on this site.

For Activision, on the other hand, the Lost Treasures compilations made a much more immediate and practical difference. What with their development costs of close to zero and their no-frills packaging that hadn’t cost all that much more to put together, every copy sold was as close to pure profit as a game could possibly get. They made an immediate difference to Activision’s financial picture, giving them some desperately needed breathing room to think about next steps.

Observing the success of the compilations, Peter Doctorow was inclined to return to the Infocom well again. In fact, he had for some time now been eyeing Leather Goddesses of Phobos, Infocom’s last genuine hit, with interest. In the time since it had sold 130,000 copies in 1986, similarly risque adventure games had become a profitable niche market: Sierra’s Leisure Larry series, Legend’s Spellcasting series, and Accolade’s Les Manley series had all done more or less well. There ought to be a space, Doctorow reasoned, for a sequel to the game which had started the trend by demonstrating that, in games as just about everywhere else, Sex Sells. Hewing to this timeless maxim, he had made a point of holding the first Leather Goddesses out of the Lost Treasures compilations in favor of giving it its own re-release as a standalone $10 budget title — the only one of the old Infocom games to be accorded this honor.

Doctorow had a tool which he very much wanted to use in the service of a new adventure game. Whilst casting through the odds and ends of technology left over from the Mediagenic days, he had come upon something known as the Multimedia Applications Development Environment, the work of a small internal team of developers headed by one William Volk. MADE had been designed to facilitate immersive multimedia environments under MS-DOS that were much like the Apple Macintosh’s widely lauded HyperCard environment. In fact, Mediagenic had used it just before the wheels had come off to publish a colorized MS-DOS port of The Manhole, Rand and Robyn Miller’s unique HyperCard-based “fantasy exploration for children of all ages.” Volk and most of his people were among the survivors from the old times still around at the new Activision, and the combination of the MADE engine with Leather Goddesses struck Doctorow as a commercially potent one. He thus signed Steve Meretzky, designer of the original game, to write a sequel to this second most popular game he had ever worked on. (The most popular of all, of course, had been Hitchhiker’s, which was off limits thanks to the complications of licensing.)

But from the beginning, the project was beset by cognitive dissonance, alongside extreme pressure, born of Activision’s precarious finances, to just get the game done as quickly as possible. Activision’s management had decided that adventure games in the multimedia age ought to be capable of appealing to a far wider, less stereotypically eggheaded audience than the games of yore, and therefore issued firm instructions to Meretzky and the rest of the development team to include only the simplest of puzzles. Yet this prioritization of simplicity above all else rather belied the new game’s status as a sequel to an Infocom game which, in addition to its lurid content, had featured arguably the best set of interlocking puzzles Meretzky had ever come up with. The first Leather Goddesses had been a veritable master class in classic adventure-game design. The second would be… something else.

Which isn’t to say that the sequel didn’t incorporate some original ideas of its own; they were just orthogonal to those that had made the original so great. Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2: Gas Pump Girls Meet the Pulsating Inconvenience from Planet X really wanted to a be a CD-based title, but a critical mass of CD-ROM-equipped computers just wasn’t quite there yet at the time it was made. So, when it shipped in May of 1992 it filled 17 (!) floppy disks, using the space mostly for, as Activision’s advertisements proudly trumpeted in somewhat mangled diction, “more than an hour of amazing digital sound track!” Because a fair number of MS-DOS computer owners still didn’t have sound cards at this point, and because a fair proportion of those that did had older models of same that weren’t up to the task of delivering digitized audio as opposed to synthesized sounds and music, Activision also included a “LifeSize Sound Enhancer” in every box — a little gadget with a basic digital-to-analog circuit and a speaker inside it, which could be plugged into the printer port to make the game talk. This addition pushed the price up into the $60 range, making the game a tough sell for the bare few hours of content it offered — particularly if you already had a decent sound card and thus didn’t even need the hardware gadget you were being forced to pay for. Indeed, thanks to those 17 floppy disks, Leather Goddesses 2 would come perilously close to taking most gamers longer to install than it would to actually play.

That said, brevity was among the least of the game’s sins: Leather Goddesses 2 truly was a comprehensive creative disaster. The fact that this entire game was built from an overly literal interpretation of a tossed-off joke at the end of its predecessor says it all really. Meretzky’s designs had been getting lazier for years by the time this one arrived, but this game, his first to rely solely on a point-and-click interface, marked a new low for him. Not only were the brilliant puzzles that used to do at least as much as his humor to make his games special entirely absent, but so was all of the subversive edge to his writing. To be fair, Activision’s determination to make the game as accessible as possible — read, trivially easy — may have largely accounted for the former lack. Meretzky chafed at watching much of the puzzle design — if this game’s rudimentary interactivity can even be described using those words — get put together without him in Activision’s offices, a continent away from his Boston home. The careless writing, however, is harder to makes excuses for.

In the tradition of the first Leather Goddesses, the sequel lets you choose to play as a man or a woman — or, this time, as an alien of indeterminate sex.

Still, this game is obviously designed for the proverbial male gaze. The real question is, why were all these attempts to be sexy in games so painfully, despressingly unsexy? Has anyone ever gotten really turned on by a picture like this one?

Earlier Meretzky games had known they were stupid, and that smart sense of self-awareness blinking through between the stupid had been their saving grace when they wandered into questionable, even borderline offensive territory. This one, on the other hand, was as introspective as one of the bimbos who lived within it. Was this really the same designer who just seven years before had so unabashedly aimed for Meaning in the most literary sense with A Mind Forever Voyaging? During his time at Infocom, Meretzky had been the Man of 1000 Ideas, who could rattle off densely packed pages full of games he wanted to make when given the least bit of encouragement. And yet by this point in 1992, he had made basically the same game four times in a row, with diminishing returns every time out. Just how far did he think he could ride scantily clad babes and broad innuendo? The shtick was wearing thin.

The women in many games of this ilk appear to be assembled from spare parts that don’t quite fit together properly.

Here, though, that would seem to literally be the case. These two girls have the exact same breasts.

In his perceptive review of Leather Goddesses 2 for Computer Gaming World magazine, Chris Lombardi pointed out how far Meretzky had fallen, how cheap and exploitative the game felt — and not even cheap and exploitative in a good way, for those who really were looking for titillation above all else.

The treatment of sex in LGOP2 seems so gratuitous, and adolescent, and (to use a friend’s favorite adjective for pop music) insipid. The game’s “explicit” visual content is all very tame (no more explicit than a beer commercial, really) and, for the most part, involves rather medicore images of women in tight shirts, garters, or leather, most with impossibly protruding nipples. It’s the stuff of a Wally Cleaver daydream, which is appropriate to the game’s context, I suppose.

It appears quite innocuous at first, yet as I played along I began to sense an underlying attitude running through it all that can best be seen in the use of a whorehouse in the game. When one approaches this whorehouse, one is served a menu of a dozen or so names to choose from. Choosing a name takes players to a harlot’s room and affords them a “look at the goods.” Though loosely integrated into the storyline, it is all too apparent that it is merely an excuse for a slideshow of more rather average drawings of women.

You have to wonder what Activision was thinking. Do they imagine adults are turned on or, at minimum, entertained by this stuff? If they do, then I think they’ve misunderstood their market. And that must be the case, for the only other possibility is to suggest that their real target market is actually, and more insidiously, a younger, larger slice of the computer-game demographic pie.

On the whole, Lombardi was kinder to the game than I would have been, but his review nevertheless raised the ire of Peter Doctorow, who wrote in to the magazine with an ad hominem response: “It seems clear to me that you must be among those who long for the good old days, when films were black and white, comic books were a dime, and you could get an American-made gas guzzler with a distinct personality, meticulously designed taillights, and a grill reminiscent of a gargantuan grin. Sadly, the merry band that was Infocom can no longer be supported with text adventures.”

It seldom profits a creator to attempt to rebut a reviewer’s opinion, as Doctorow ought to have been experienced enough to know. His graceless accusation of Ludditism, which didn’t even address the real concerns Lombardi stated in his review, is perhaps actually a response to a vocal minority of the Infocom hardcore who were guaranteed to give Activision grief for any attempt to drag a beloved legacy into the multimedia age. Even more so, though, it was a sign of the extreme financial duress under which Activision still labored. Computer Gaming World was widely accepted as the American journal of record for the hobby in question, and their opinions could make or break a game’s commercial prospects. The lukewarm review doubtless contributed to Leather Goddesses of Phobos 2‘s failure to sell anywhere near as many copies as the Lost Treasures compilations — and at a time when Activision couldn’t afford to be releasing flops.

So, for more reasons than one, Leather Goddesses 2 would go down in history as an embarrassing blot on the CV of everyone involved. Sex, it seemed, didn’t always sell after all — not when it was done this poorly.

One might have thought that the failure of Leather Goddesses 2 would convince Activision not to attempt any further Infocom revivals. Yet once the smoke cleared even the defensive Doctorow could recognize that its execution had been, to say the least, lacking. And there still remained the counterexample of the Lost Treasures compilations, which were continuing to sell briskly. Activision thus decided to try again — this time with a far more concerted, better-funded effort that would exploit the most famous Infocom brand of all. Zork itself was about to make a splashy return to center stage.

(Sources: Computer Gaming World of April 1992, July 1992, and October 1992; Questbusters of February 1992 and August 1992; Compute! of November 1987; Amazing Computing of April 1992; Commodore Magazine of July 1989; .info of April 1992. Online sources include Roger J. Long’s review of the first Lost Treasures compilation. Some of this article is drawn from the full Get Lamp interview archives which Jason Scott so kindly shared with me. Finally, my huge thanks to William Volk and Bob Bates for sharing their memories and impressions with me in personal interviews.)

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/an-unlikely-savior/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

0 notes

kathleenseiber · 5 years

Text

A zap can make 70-year-olds remember stuff like they’re 20

Electrostimulation can improve the working memory of people in their 70s so that their performance on memory tasks is indistinguishable from that of 20-year-olds, according to new research.

Working memory is the part of the mind where consciousness lives, the part that is active whenever we make decisions, reason, recall our grocery lists, and (hopefully) remember where we left our keys.

Working memory starts to decline in our late 20s and early 30s, as certain areas of the brain gradually become disconnected and uncoordinated, explains Rob Reinhart, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University. By the time we reach our 60s and 70s, these neural circuits have deteriorated enough that many of us experience noticeable cognitive difficulties, even in the absence of dementias like Alzheimer’s disease.

But researchers have discovered something incredible: by using electrical currents to noninvasively stimulate brain areas that have lost their rhythm, we can drastically improve working memory performance.

During the study, asked a group of people in their 20s and a group in their 60s and 70s to perform a series of memory tasks that required them to view an image, and then, after a brief pause, to identify whether a second image was slightly different from the original.

During memory tasks, brain activity associated with working memory lights up in the brain of a 20-year-old (left), but remains dormant in the brain of a person in their 70s (middle). After electrostimulation (right), the 70-year-old’s brain activity mimics the 20-year-old’s. (Credit: Reinhart lab/Boston U.)

At baseline, the young adults were much more accurate at this, significantly outperforming the older group. However, when the older adults received 25 minutes of mild stimulation delivered through scalp electrodes and personalized to their individual brain circuits, the difference between the two groups vanished.

Even more encouraging? That memory boost lasted at least to the end of the 50-minute time window after stimulation—the point at which the experiment ended.

How does it work?

To understand why this technique is so effective, we need to take a look at the two mechanisms that allow working memory to function properly: coupling and synchronization.

Coupling occurs when different types of brain rhythms coordinate with one another, and it helps us process and store working memories. Slow, low-frequency rhythms—theta rhythms—dance in the front of your brain, acting like the conductors of an orchestra. They reach back to faster, high-frequency rhythms called gamma rhythms, which the region of the brain that processes the world around us generates.

Just as a musical orchestra contains flutes, oboes, violins—so too, the gamma rhythms that reside within your brain each contribute something unique to the electricity-based orchestra that creates your memories. One gamma rhythm might process the color of an object you’re holding in your mind, for instance, while another captures its shape, another its orientation, and another its sound.

But when the conductors fumble with their batons—when the theta rhythms lose the ability to connect with those gamma rhythms to monitor them, maintain them, and instruct them—the melodies within the brain begin to disintegrate and our memories lose their sharpness.

Meanwhile, synchronization—when theta rhythms from different areas of the brain synchronize with one another—allows separate brain areas to communicate with one another.

This process serves as the glue for a memory, combining individual sensory details to create one coherent recollection. As we age, our theta rhythms become less synchronized and the fabric of our memories starts to fray.

The new study suggests that by using electrical stimulation, we can reestablish these pathways that tend to go awry as we age, improving our ability to recall our experiences by restoring the flow of information within the brain. And it’s not just older adults that stand to benefit from this technique: it shows promise for younger people as well.

The continuum of memory

In Reinhart’s study, 14 of the young-adult participants performed poorly on the memory tasks despite their age—so he called them back to stimulate their brains too.

“We showed that the poor performers who were much younger, in their 20s, could also benefit from the same exact kind of stimulation,” Reinhart says. “We could boost their working memory even though they weren’t in their 60s or 70s.”

Coupling and synchronization, he adds, exist on a continuum: “It’s not like there are people who don’t couple versus people who couple.”

On one end of the spectrum, someone with an incredible memory may be excellent at both synchronizing and coupling, whereas somebody with Alzheimer’s disease would probably struggle significantly with both. Others lie between these two extremes—for instance, you might be a weak coupler but a strong synchronizer, or vice versa.

And when we use this stimulation to alter neural symphonies, we aren’t just making a minor tweak, Reinhart emphasizes. “It’s behaviorally relevant. Now, [people are] performing tasks differently, they’re remembering things better, they’re perceiving better, they’re learning faster. It is really extraordinary.”

‘Super excited’

Looking ahead, he foresees a variety of future applications for his work.

“It’s opening up a whole new avenue of potential research and treatment options,” he says, “and we’re super excited about it.”

Reinhart would like to investigate electrostimulation’s effects on individual brain cells by applying it to animal models, and he’s curious about how repeated doses of stimulation might further enhance brain circuits in humans. Most of all, though, he hopes his discovery will one day lead to a treatment for the millions of people around the world living with cognitive impairments—particularly those with Alzheimer’s disease.

“It’s wild,” he adds, a smile in his voice. “It’s wild to think that we can target the electricity of a brain circuit the same way we would target a neurotransmitter chemical in the brain.”

The study appears in Nature Neuroscience. The National Institutes of Health supported the work.

Source: Kerry Benson for Boston University

The post A zap can make 70-year-olds remember stuff like they’re 20 appeared first on Futurity.

A zap can make 70-year-olds remember stuff like they’re 20 published first on https://triviaqaweb.weebly.com/

0 notes

digital-strategy · 7 years

Link

http://ift.tt/2sLEyES

SEO is by far the most talked about, searched for and read about topic for web entrepreneurs. And so it should be, considering how vital it is to get SEO right for your business!

What’s puzzling, however, is that there are so many myths and misconceptions about SEO floating about. I mean, we all want to get SEO right, so why do these myths live on, acquiring the status of urban legend?

Some of them are hilarious, but some can really hurt you. They can keep you from improving your search traffic and website rankings, and hinder your best content marketing efforts.

Personally, I would hate to spend weeks perfecting one aspect of SEO only to realize a month later that it’s not even considered important by Google (and I’m sure you would, too!)

So I thought I’d write this post to debunk some of the most common SEO myths I’ve come across, and explain why you need to stop believing them today.

1. SEO is a scam

The myth: Fast-talking SEO consultants charge astronomical fees to provide services without any explanations that do almost nothing and may even penalize your website.

The reality: Sigh. SEO is not a scam. Check out Moz’s organic search improvement over SEO efforts of three years.

Image Source

Sadly this myth probably came into existence because there are many dodgy SEO companies out there that make a profit spamming sites with your links, leading to a quick increase in rankings that rapidly drops when the sites linking to your site are deemed to be spammers by Google.

However just because there are unethical SEO companies that promise you top rankings in Google then leave you high and dry, that doesn’t mean SEO isn’t legit or ‘real’.

For decent companies making sincere efforts to increase website traffic for their clients and improve user experience, SEO is a continuous effort that helps them beat competitors and gain from high SERPs.

This myth is probably rooted in the false idea that SEO involves quick and easy wins with little effort.

It doesn’t. It’s a continual investment, but it’s worth it. Just stop making silly SEO mistakes and keep the quality work up.

2. Reacting quickly to algorithm updates makes you more successful

The myth: Every time Google updates its organic search ranking algorithm, you need to make changes to your site as soon as possible to stay ahead!

The reality: Every search engine out there is continuously working to improve its search algorithms – Google alters its search algorithm approximately 500 times a year. The only updates you need to worry about are the major algorithm updates.

When these happen, the smart thing to do is wait and see if your site has been impacted. More often than not, if you are doing SEO right, your site won’t have been impacted negatively anyway, and you could even see a boost!

There’s no such thing as the perfect search algorithm, so updates will always be around. Try to wait to react, read credible sources about what the update involves, and give yourself a couple of days or even weeks to make adjustments if necessary.

If it’s an update that the search engine will stick to, you will soon hear about best practices for adjustments from the company itself anyway.

I visit this site on a semi-regular basis to stay abreast of the latest web news, and you could also follow the Twitter accounts of SEO gurus. However, the main thing to remember is that in the instance of an update, no one wins a prize for panicking or revamping their site the fastest.

Make a note of where you are when the update occurs and compare your metrics after a few weeks.

3. If you optimize for Google, you’re covered for all sites

The myth: You don’t need to worry about optimizing your content for other search engines if you’ve optimized it for Google.

The reality: Google search may comprise more than 60% of the search market, but Bing’s share is improving steadily. Bing is a great example of a website that works slightly different from Google and deserves your attention.

Bing doesn’t value backlinks as much as Google: instead, it compiles rankings based on user engagement, social signals, click-through rates, page authority and keyword domains. Google doesn’t use metrics such as Facebook shares or Twitter Followers directly in search rankings. So you can clearly see that if you only optimize for Google, you’re not covered for Bing.

If you are targeting exposure to 100% of web traffic, you should optimize for at least the top 3 search engines.

Image Source

4. HTTPS isn’t important unless you’re selling stuff

The myth: You only need to bother with HTTPS encryptions if you’re in eCommerce, otherwise the original HTTP protocol works fine.

The reality: Wrong! At the start of 2017, the average worldwide volume of encrypted internet traffic finally surpassed the average volume of unencrypted traffic, according to Mozilla (the company behind the Firefox web browser).

That means when you visit a website, you’re more likely than not to see a little green lock right next to the web address that indicates it came to you via HTTPS, the web’s secure protocol, rather than plain old HTTP.

Google has said loud and clear that it will give preference to websites with the HTTPS prefix over others.

That’s because the encryption within HTTPS provides benefits like confidentiality, integrity and identity.

Ultimately, using HTTPS is better than leaving the web unencrypted and it’s been a priority for big sites like Facebook, Google, Wikipedia and The New York Times to switch to HTTPS.

We’ve passed the tipping point when it comes to encrypted vs unencrypted data, and organizations like Let’s Encrypt are now helping millions of companies add HTTPS to their sites for free.

5. H1 tags increase search rankings

The myth: Using H1 tags is a must-do when it comes to good SEO practice.

The reality: This is not at all true, technically. Whereas H1 tags do help to make content more organized for the reader and also make it easier for web developers to design your website, they don’t contribute to SEO directly.

Former Google software engineer Matt Cutts says in this video that it doesn’t matter whether you use H1 or H2. What matters is that your page contains relevant and useful information that will address the needs of your users.

A few years ago, H1 tags used to be one of the most critical SEO factors; today, however, they’re just a part of basic best practice and not a source of SEO differentiation.

6. Link-building is black hat and attracts Google penalties

The myth: Google hates black hat link-building!

The reality: This is hilarious, really. Google rewards your website for backlinks – the only proviso is that these backlinks have got to be from relevant and credible sources.

If you plant your website’s links on article farms, unrelated websites, spammy websites or websites with malware and other suspicious scripts, then yes, you can expect to be penalized for back-linking.

But in that instance, it’s actually spamming, not back-linking.

When you’re building quality links, you don’t need to worry about this SEO myth. Many people think that leaving comments on blogs is a black hat SEO technique, but that’s only the case if the comments only link to your website without adding value.

The key is to ask yourself if you’re adding value every time you leave a comment on a blog or link to a website in an article – if you are, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.

7. Content is king

The myth: All you need to do is create high-quality, useful content to rank well in search results without much help from SEO.

The reality: Look, I’m not going to bag out the ‘content is king’ mantra here for fear of upsetting too many digital marketers. But while publishing timely, relevant and well-researched content is great, it’s not going to get you to the top of Google alone.

Content is like one of many directors sitting on a board, waiting to make a joint decision. The other directors are equally powerful: some of them include quality backlinks, user experience and responsive design.

If your whole website isn’t optimized, crawlers could struggle to even find your content, which means it won’t show up in results at all.

Focus on content, for sure, but don’t be myopic about it, as you’ve got to take care of the user experience on the whole.

8. Hosting location is important

The myth: If your website isn’t located in the country you are targeting, you may as well forget about success.

The reality: While it is better to host your website in the company you are targeting, it’s not essential. Google is smart enough to showcase the right country version of your website to the right audience. And this study shows us that Google prioritizes quality information over local content.

That means ‘au’ links are shown to Australians and ‘nz’ links are shown to New Zealanders.

If you don’t already use a country code top-level domain (ccTLD), I suggest using Google Webmaster Tools’ geographic target setting. In the Webmaster Tools sidebar, simply go to Search Traffic > International Targeting, and specify the target country for the website.

For international websites, just select ‘unlisted’ from the tab below.

9. Having an XML sitemap will boost your search rankings

The myth: Installing an XML sitemap can help improve your search engine rankings.

The reality: A sitemap doesn’t affect the rankings of your web pages, although it does make them more crawlable.

Sitemaps give more information about your site to Google and therefore make sure it indexes quickly.

However, there’s never been any Google announcement or study-based outcome to suggest that XML sitemap submission improves your website’s SEO.

Use one to make sure all of your URLs are indexed for easy crawling as this can improve the visibility of your website in the long run.

I suggest trying a plugin like Google XML Sitemaps generator, which works great with WordPress websites.

10. With personalized Google searches, there’s no such thing as ranking first anymore

The myth: Since everyone’s search results are personalized, everyone sees different results and there’s no way to be ranked #1 anymore.

The reality: My request to all readers – please, don’t be mislead by such rumors. Here’s a trick to try at home.

Do five Google searches related to your industry’s niche, first using your personal computer (where, in all likelihood, you’re seeing personalized Google search results), and then by adding &pws=0 at the end of the URL of the SERP.

That depersonalizes Google.

Now notice the difference.

Chances are, there isn’t one. Because websites that are good enough to make it to Google’s top 10 are good enough to feature on any personalized searches, too!

The differences between personalized results and non-personalized results are relatively minor. The advent of personalization does mean that rank tracking may provide somewhat less authoritative data than before.

But in no way is it the end of SEO or does it necessitate a completely new look at SEO practices.

11. Keywords in comments and title tags provide SEO juice

The myth: The strategic placement of keywords in HTML comment tags and the title attributes of IMG and A HREF tags will help you win at SEO.

The reality: Rankings really don’t work this way.

First and foremost, comment tags specifically mean that the content is out of Google’s view for calculating ratings.

Secondly, title attributes are not supposed to help you with SEO.

This Moz article will help you understand the specifics of why precisely title attribute tags are not linked to SEO.

In summary

There are at least half a dozen more SEO myths I could add to this list, but these are some of the main ones I see causing confusion amongst digital marketers, programmers, webmasters, designers, small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Hopefully I’ve debunked a few myths for you or at least motivated you to apply a bit of critical thinking to the next one you hear.

There is no easy science to SEO, and because the digital landscape is constantly changing, it’s hardly surprising that there’s a lot of misinformation out there. But moving forward, stop giving time or energy to SEO strategies or techniques that have no substance behind them or probably came about because of a bunch of snake-oil SEO salesmen.

Which SEO myth ticks you off the most? Let me know in the comments below.

Guest Author: Kuldeep Bisht, Inbound Marketing Consultant for SEMark, has over eight years of digital marketing experience. Throughout his career, he has helped many enterprise clients and local small businesses improve their marketing results by using strategic thinking and proven methodologies. You can follow his journey at KuldeepBisht.com and you may connect with him on Linkedin, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

The post 11 SEO Myths You Need To Stop Believing Today appeared first on Jeffbullas's Blog.

via Jeffbullas's Blog

#IFTTT #Feedly

0 notes