#way to expose our limited Google Forms skills

[zhaozaipalooza]

Regarding the post about the voting and the addition of picking at most 7 options, you can actually choose for your poll in Google Forms to have an upper limit (unless you aren't all that concerned about people potentially voting for more)

Ah, thanks Anon!

We’re a trusting bunch here at the Palooza, and we’re sure if we really wanted to we could figure out if someone voted for more than the requisite seven prompts. But we know for next time, should there be any need to make another poll!

Thanks for letting us know!

#thank you! #zhaozai palooza 2021 #way to expose our limited Google Forms skills #reminder to get those votes in pawinners #asks and replies

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[bladekindeyewear]

Andrew has a post over here (or rather, “a message Hussie sent to the Perfectly Generic Podcast”) detailing his thoughts on the Epilogues, how he thought people would feel about them, and why he made them the way he did.  Interesting read-- here are my thoughts as I was reading:

Wakraya -Today at 4:34 PM

Pst pst :3 We just got a statement from Hussie on the Epilogues if you ever feel ready to check that out

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:00 PM

ooh

yeah if there's a link?

Wakraya -Today at 5:01 PM

https://www.reddit.com/r/homestuck/comments/cuywff/the_homestuck_epilogues_bridges_and_offramps_new/

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:02 PM

yeah I was like "there's a HARDCOVER version?!??" trying to google what you described

Wakraya -Today at 5:02 PM

Oh yeah it just got announced recently, and this is what Hussie said about it, sent to the PGP people just a bit ago

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:03 PM

collapsing the bubble, yeah... he understood all this pretty well

readin further

"it's heavily implied to be a piece of bridge-media"  --definitely, so why... there couldn't possibly be a follow-up, could there? ...

"Our continued attention is the very property which incites new problems," -- yeah, I definitely understood that as a theme of the Epilogues... but it also felt like a slap in the face to everyone invested in those characters for that exact reason, and torturing us like that should give way to SOME kind of more settling payoff to offset it, right? right andrew?.....

"But "implied" is all it was. There was no immediate announcement for followup content, and I'm not announcing anything here yet either. More time was always going to be necessary to figure out what to do next, including what form it takes, the timing, and all those questions." --okay yeah that's... SANE.  That's MORE sane than the follow-up to Homestuck it seemed to be implying, the creation half to the destruction half.  Because as much as it seemed to be implying that with those ending sections, I really couldn't imagine a continuation to such a ridiculously saturated story as FEASIBLE; you couldn't possibly loop in anyone who wasn't into the first body of work in the first place.  But... then why leave so many of the characters in such dire straits, unsatisfied, their happiness jeopardized even after the lesson was imparted about how our looking in damaged things?

"For now I think it was alright to just let things simmer for a while, and give people an extended period of time to meditate on the meaning of the epilogues and why they involved the choices they did. But regardless of anyone's conclusions about it, I can at least confirm that it WAS designed to feel like a bridge piece since its conception."  ...I'm not, uh.  ENTIRELY.  sure. that Andrew understands.  how paralyzingly invested we are in some of these characters.  :neutral_face:

"Is it this way because an epilogue SHOULD be this way? No. It is this way because I thought that was the most suitable role for an epilogue to play in the context of the weird piece of media Homestuck has always been."  Fair... but that was the impression the end of Homestuck gave us in the first place, right?  Art and message over our feelings.  That's been the strength AND curse of Andrew's work.  His relentless artistic integrity.  He's going to give the message he wants to give even if it kills us.  :c

this mulling over how he played with "Intermission" is fun, spelling it all out and how eagerly he wanted to play with and subvert those tropes...

Wakraya -Today at 5:14 PM

Oh, keep going

You're going to like the end I feel

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:15 PM

yeah all this is gonna go up on my blog if you let me

Wakraya -Today at 5:15 PM

Absolutely! :p

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:16 PM

"So now the label "epilogue" has been toyed with in a similar way, and also in a manner which exposes an apparent flaw with the label. Or actually, just by using the label "epilogue" at all, it seems the story is admitting to an apparent flaw." --So how were those who DID interpret the ending of Homestuck as not addressing stuff that needed to be addressed supposed to interpret it, though?  Those who needed a more explicit explanation of why Andrew was seeming to "toss aside" so much of what they cared about as stuff that "didn't matter"?

He knew those people existed... hence the outcry!

you can't deliver a message to those people with a mocking thrust, you've gotta be, hm... more delicate about it? IF, that is, you feel an obligation to those people in the first place

and I was never sure whether Andrew DOES....?

hmmmmmn

"It's already an unhinged implementation of the label before you even read it, which means it's probably time to get nervous about whether it satisfies your expectations about what the content existing under such a label should provide."  Yes, you knew people were gonna get super nervous even before they cracked open the cover... and then you DELIVERED, rather intentionally, on some of their worst fears.....?

"My feeling is, there's almost no choice but to turn the conventional ideas associated with epilogues completely inside-out, because of the inherent contradictions involved with crossing the post-canon threshold and revealing that which was not meant to be known."  Yes, and I understood Andrew was trying for that.  But... um....... what about satisfaction?  You gonna give us ANY comfort after that's been dealt with, that lesson imparted?  Why throw all our feelings by the wayside after you've communicated that overall lesson?

"By deploying it as mock-fanfiction, and including other authors, I'm making an overt gesture that is beginning to diminish my relevance as the sole authority on the direction this story takes, what should be regarded as canon, and even introducing some ambiguity into your understanding of what canon means as the torch is being passed into a realm governed by fan desires." --Yes, I've read that really good tumblr post I won't bother linking  (EDIT: because I can’t find it, or where I commented on it, it was probably in discord; could someone link that to me? the one that talked about how this epilogue posed as Fanfiction and took on those trappings but could never BE that, and how it was their opinion ((though not mine FYI)) that Andrew didnt understand that?) that expresses how the author's intervention into this "territory" ruins the effect that this sort of work is supposed to have, and how it can't be judged as similar, but given the stuff that Andrew was TRYING to get across -- the sort of, "freeing fanwork from the vestiges of canon" stuff and the other lessons he's alluding to in this very Reddit post -- he didn't have much choice in terms of presentation framework.  Could it have been presented more elegantly, less fanon-hijacky?  Sure, he ain't perfect... Could it have more explicitly endorsed other interpretations of so-called canon as more valid than this, or AS valid?  Absolutely, but he's never been one to spell things out for us so plainly... Ah, but could it have ended in a way to give those of us so nervous about the work more SATISFACTION, less grief?  THAT is an entirely DIFFERENT matter that I hope he answers as this post goes forward.... readin readin'.......

"If the epilogues really prove to be the bridge media they were designed to feel like, then I expect this trend to continue. The fanfiction format is effectively a call to action, for another generation of creators to imagine different outcomes, to submit their own work within the universe, to extend what happens beyond the epilogues, or to pave over them with their own ideas."  True, but... gosh darn, Andrew, you coulda been more explicit with that.  Especially with the potential pave-over-ability of it all.  Expressing that a lot more explicitly would have gone to help smooth over a bunch of that one tumblr post I mentioned's concerns. :T

"It's also an opportunity for people to discuss any of the difficult content critically, and for fandom in general to continue developing the tools for processing the negative emotions art can generate."  Yeah, I... have to admit, I'm not as good at dealing with negative content in media as I should be.  And that's definitely part of what is making the fanbase feel stabbed in the heart, yeah, but..... again, it feels kind of as if Andrew does NOT understand how irrationally attached so much of the fanbase is to these characters and how irrationally overinvested in their happiness, and all of this feels kind of callous.  :frowning:

Wakraya -Today at 5:27 PM

He's very aware of how powerfully a lot of people feel about it, with all he's gone through with the Fandom. He really is just like this isn't he?

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:27 PM

"fandom is something which can develop better skills as well. Skills like critical discussion, dealing constructively with negative feelings resulting from the media they consume, interacting with each other in more meaningful ways, and trying to understand different points of view outside of the factions within fandom that can become very hardened over time."  Hmn!  That's...... true, yeah, but wow did you take a HAMMER to it instead of a scalpel

yeah

Andrew's always just

well it's like I said isn't it?

He's got that artistic vision, and even though he knows he's in an interaction with the fandom and shapes things to it by the design of the story, he is N O T compromising that artistic vision

even if it feels like a punch to the gut to us

immersion therapy :frowning:

not sure I can say whether that's right or wrong!  only that it hurt XD

Wakraya -Today at 5:29 PM

X3

It hurts, but he does understand.

Perhaps precisely because he understands, he pushes us to our limits

He doesn't matter if he loses part of his audience in the process- He wants to showcase a message.

Painful as it may be, that's kind of admirable in a stubborn way.

And when he delivers happiness, he does it in spades

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:30 PM

yeah, he never cared about losing support because he said what he felt was necessary

Wakraya -Today at 5:30 PM

And if it is something actually like

Problematic

He does backpedal and fix things up

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:31 PM

"But I don't see why it can't be an objective to try to improve fandom, just as creators can improve their work."  --and he was DEFINITELY, DEFINITELY trying to improve the way members of the fandom treated a WHOLE BUNCH of different affectations of the Homestuck fanfiction in the community.  that was something kind of admirable and insane throughout the epilogues... on the deeper scale, how he used the Roxy arc in Candy to at the end put the reader to task with "HEY!!! How do you know this wasn't how Roxy would canonically act in this situation? You don't know the inside of her head! ALL SORTS of stuff is valid!  You can't use those reasons to point at certain fanfiction and call it BAD."  And I do love that.  With a more insane surface example, the dog dick stuff. Jesus.  XD

"So now I'm looking to all of you on the matter of where to go next." --oh SHIT.  :X

Well, there's a problem.  XD

fuck, you can't just ASK us what we want XDDD

"Wherever the most conscientious and invested members of fandom want to drive this universe, as well as the standards by which we engage with media in general, that will be the direction I follow."  mother FUCK

well, now the pressure's on.  god help us all XD

time to post this

#Homestuck #Epilogue #Homestuck Epilogue #upd8 #Andrew Hussie #spoiler #spoilers #Homestuck Spoilers #Epilogue Spoilers

[scripttorture]

Hi, I see that you're the script blog to go to about child soldiers? I have a question! What do you think it would take to get an older child soldier to leave their group? My mc was taken at 10 and as a teenager progressed from the basic cleaning and errands to scouting and then more actively fighting. Their best friend of the group whom they love and whom protected them defects and later tries to get him to leave the group with them. My mc is heavily indoctrinated into this 1/

group with all the “brain washing” present but this is the person who means the most of everything to him (and also the one who betrayed him by leaving).. what would they use to convince him to leave the group? Could they even get him leave? I havent finished researching or building my plot but I hit this snag and I want to do these characters justice and I wanted your opinion 2/2

So let me start by saying that even if they’re ‘only’ scouting and cleaning the character still very much counts as a child soldier. The technical definition doesn’t mean the victim is actively fighting, but that they’re recruited into an armed group and doing work for them.

 I’m mentioning that because if you’ve been assuming accounts of child soldiers at younger ages (10) aren’t applicable, if you’ve been assuming those children were all actively fighting- That’s probably not the case and those sources probably will be useful to you.

 I’m basing this response primarily on the LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army, don’t google it if you’re triggered by child abuse of any kind). That’s the modern group I know the most about. While I know a bit more about historical uses of child soldiers my overall impression is that historical accounts have less of the kind of information you’re after.

 I’ll start with the reasons people, and especially children, stay in these groups. After that we can move on to ways you can move your character out of them.

 The most helpful place to start is with ‘ICURE’, these are a set of techniques which are used to manipulate people. As with anything they are not 100% effective, but over long periods of time this set of behaviours (and environmental factors) can change a person’s beliefs and behaviour.

 It stands for Isolate, Control information, create Uncertainty, use Repetition and Emotive arguments.

 The first point should be pretty obvious. The character needs to be isolated from their previous social circle and support network. When people don’t receive any information from outside of the group the group eventually becomes their most trustworthy source. When they don’t have social contact outside the group they become reliant on the group for support.

 Controlling information means that anything the character learns is first filtered through the larger group. It’s a form of censorship which means the character is only exposed to information that supports the group/ideas the group wants the character to have.

 This is combined with creating uncertainty about beliefs the group wants the character to reject. Often this means only providing information that discredits their previous belief system. It can also mean extended discussions about ‘why x is wrong’.

 Repetition is, what it says on the tin. It’s repeating this pattern of only giving the character information the group wants them to have, positive messages about the ideals the group wants to instil and negative messages about previous belief systems. Consistent repetition over a long period of time has an effect on our beliefs. Sometimes it even effects them when we know the information is wrong.

 Emotive arguments means- well keeping any discussion away from logic. Something like- going from ‘well I’m not sure this idea about our belief system lines up with our holy text’ to the manipulative character asking why the target hates them/God/the entire church.

 My impression is that while armed group like the one you’re writing all use some ICURE techniques they do not always use all of the techniques consistently.

 The other main thing these groups rely on for keeping members is- the way mainstream society responds to former child soldiers.

 Children who have been kidnapped are sometimes coerced into taking part in the torture and murder of adult prisoners from their home town. Those that refuse are killed.

 The reason groups do this is to ‘make sure’ these kidnapped children ‘can’t’ go home.

 They’re told that they’re tainted. That their family will never take them back. That their village will drive them away, reject them, kill them.

 They’re told that their only hope of a good life from now on is to stick with the armed group.

 And the horrible thing is- they’re half right.

 Child soldiers often are rejected by mainstream society.

 Some of that rejection is overt. Villagers don’t want that kid living here. Their family doesn’t recognise them and doesn’t want them back. No one wants to marry the teenage mother who escaped from the soldiers and a few people suggest killing her baby. Villagers isolate and shun returnees.

 Some of it is a little more subtle. Because these children have missed out on both schooling and apprenticeship schemes they don’t really have any skills. They often struggle to find work. Most of the jobs they can get in mainstream society are incredibly low paying and can trap them in poverty and debt.

 Ex-child soldiers are sometimes targetted by criminal gangs for recruitment. Many of them think that this is their best/only chance to escape poverty and to have some sort of supportive social circle outside the armed groups. Unfortunately that’s pretty close to the truth in a lot of cases.

 This is why a lot of countries have programs dedicated to teaching former child soldiers new skills. It’s also why a lot of places focus so much on re-integrating former child soldiers into the community.

 Rejection by the community and the prospect of lifelong poverty ‘proves’ the point the armed group tried to teach them: that they’re tainted and the only chance they have of a ‘good’ life is as a fighter for the armed group.

 So- where does that leave your character?

 The good news is people do leave. Even older children who’ve been with the group for a long time.

 You can realistically have the fictional armed group only using some of the ICURE techniques and applying them inconsistently. All of these groups isolate their victims and all of them repeat the message that victims will be rejected by mainstream society is they return.

 But not all of them have good/consistent control over the information victims can access. Many of them don’t seem to bother trying to create uncertainty and many of them seem to skip emotive arguments in favour of violence and torture. Which often increases opposition in victims.

 My instinct is that the main hurdle to get over is the idea of rejection by society coupled with the fact that most of the character’s social circle/contact is in the armed group.

 Humans are social animals. We need support, contact and positive reinforcement to thrive. No matter how toxic a group is people will tend to cling to it if they think their only other option is being alone for the rest of their lives.

 Because this character has a good friend outside the armed group he already has a start on that.

 Seeing someone else thrive outside the group will go a long way to countering the idea leaving means loneliness. Having a point of contact outside saying ‘no it’s OK. I’ve made friends. I’ve got a job. I’m safe and I’m doing well.’ that undermines a lot of the messages that keep child soldiers in armed groups.

 Regular communication in which those points are repeated would help encourage the child soldier to leave.

 I think you could also use the violence of the armed group to help drive this character back into society.

 I talk quite a bit about the way torture tends to produce entrenched resistance. These kinds of armed groups often use corporal punishment against their members. If this character is beaten or if he sees someone close to him beaten, while he’s in the process of questioning whether he can leave; that could be a deciding factor. It could be used to drive him to act.

 Much of this essentially comes down to a combination of undermining ICURE and showing the character life outside the armed group is better.

 Consistent communication with someone outside the group undermines the character’s isolation, gives him another source of information and- creates it’s own uncertainties about the messages the group tries to teach.

 Remember that nothing is 100% effective in these scenarios and that goes both ways.

 There isn’t a sure fire way to get people out of these groups. But there isn’t a sure fire way to keep them there either.

 ‘Brainwashing’ in the sense of coercing/torturing someone into changing their strongly held beliefs, with the ‘new’ belief set being completely unshakable, does not exist.

 It is realistic to have a child soldier not wanting to leave the armed group that kidnapped them. But this isn’t an unreasoned position. These children know that their chances of a decent life (not wealthy, or extravagant, just the ability to get by in an ordinary way) are limited in mainstream society. They know that the armed group can provide a certain amount of security (food and shelter) and occasionally rewards.

 My impression of reintegration efforts is that often focus on giving children a better offer.

 You’ve built up a your characters in a way that means you can do that.

 Realistically it would take quite a bit of time and planning to get this character to leave. If he wanted to.

 Building their relationship so that the decision to leave feels authentic is going to be hard work. Especially if the child soldier character still sees this as a betrayal. Showing that they still have points in common is a good way to start doing that.

 Consider whether there’s any form of support the child soldier could only get from this friend outside the group. Support for mental health problems for instance.

 That’s as much as I can really tell you about how this process works. There’s a guide here that talks about reintegrating girls into the community. You might find it helpful.

 I get the impression part of this is about working out how you in particular should handle this though. There isn’t one right answer to that. Much of it will depend on how you write, what these characters are like and how the overall plot pans out.

 I tend to write in a very character-driven way and I tend to write pretty instinctually. Which means the way I’d approach this sort of scenario would be by creating multiple opportunities for the characters to interact and then sitting back to see what they do.

 If the results don’t come out the way I’d like them to then I think about how I can change the environment around the characters to encourage the effect I want. Most of the time- it feels like I’m following the characters rather then directing them.

 But that’s not how everyone writes and there’s nothing wrong with taking another approach if it works better for you.

 Think about the child soldier, what his personality is like and what he values.

 If he values loyalty very strongly then it’s probably going to take him a long time to get over his friend’s ‘betrayal’. If he strongly values security (for himself and the people he cares about) then hearing his friend tell him that life is good outside the group would have a bigger effect sooner.

 Is he the kind of person who stubbornly sticks to his point even when it’s demonstrably wrong or causing him pain?

 Ryuji Sakamoto (a character from Persona 5) has a lot of flaws, but I feel like one of his underrated virtues is his ability to easily change his mind when presented with more evidence. There are several points in the story where he goes from being actively against other characters to extremely sympathetic when he learns more about their situation.

 A character with that kind of internal flexibility would probably find it easier to leave an armed group. Whereas a character who feels as though they’re invested and struggles to accept anything that contradicts that view would struggle more.

 I sometimes feel as though the prompt sheets designed to help us flesh out characters can hinder this kind of planning and decision making. They ask us to list defining traits and ideals without stress testing them.

 If I take one of my own characters as an example- It would be perfectly accurate to describe her as a patriot and loyal to her country. That’s how she thinks of herself. But her ideas about what the country should be and what the essential, positive qualities of the country are do not line up with the mainstream. Neither does her idea of who is part of the country.

 And these values rank lower for her then the value she places on her family and close friends.

 She is both loyal and treacherous depending on who you ask. And these things are not contradictory.

 So consider what really defines this character’s internal landscape. Think about how he ranks those values and whether those ranks change as conditions change.

 If you build his escape from the traits you’ve already used to define him it will feel much more authentic to readers. Build it up so that, rather then contradicting his values, you’re putting different values in conflict and making the character choose between them.

 Don’t be afraid to have him stumble and doubt himself. Leaving these kinds of groups is difficult and dangerous. Don’t shy away from that.

 Be prepared to give this a lot of narrative space and to have to edit it several times.

 Seek out writing groups and beta readers. I usually advise that for difficult scenes but here I think it would help to make sure that you’re building this up consistently in a way readers find easy to follow.

 I hope that helps. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

#Anonymous #tw child soldiers #tw child abuse #tw child abduction #tw torture #ICURE #child soldiers #cults #much of this is relevant to cults as well #writing victims #rehabilitating child soldiers

[opportunitywow]

World Bank Group Winter Internship Program 2022 for young Professionals (Paid Internship)

Application Deadline: October 31st 2021

The World Bank Internship Program (BIP) offers highly motivated individuals an opportunity to be exposed to the mission and work of the World Bank. The internship allows individuals to bring new perspectives, innovative ideas and research experience into the Bank’s work, while improving skills in a diverse environment. In addition, it is a great way to enhance CVs with practical work experience. Internships are available in both development operations and other business units (such as Human Resources, Communications, Accounting, etc.) however, availability during a given internship term is based on business need.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for an Internship, candidates must have an undergraduate degree and be enrolled in a full-time graduate study program (pursuing a master’s degree or PhD with plans to return to school full-time). There is no age limit.

Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of languages such as: French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, and Chinese is desirable. Other skills such as computing skills are advantageous.

We value diversity in our workplace, and encourage all qualified individuals, particularly women, with diverse professional and academic backgrounds to apply. Our aim is to attract and recruit the best talent in the world.

Additional Information

The WB Internship Program typically seeks candidates for: Operations (Front Line) in the following fields: economics, finance, human development (public health, education, nutrition, population), social sciences (anthropology, sociology), agriculture, environment, engineering, urban planning, natural resources management, private sector development, and other related fields; or Corporate support (Accounting, Communications, Human Resources Management, Information Technology, Treasury, and other corporate services).

The WB pays an hourly salary to all Interns and, where applicable, provides an allowance toward travel expenses up to USD 3,000 at the discretion of the manager. These travel expenses can only include transport expenses (airfare) to or from the duty station city. Interns are responsible for their own accommodations. Driven by business needs, most Intern positions are based in Washington, DC with a few others in the WB country offices. Usually, internship opportunities are for a minimum of four weeks.

The WB Internship is offered twice a year: • Summer Internship (May–September): The application period is December 1–January 31 each year. • Winter Internship (November–March): The application period is October 1-31 each year. All applications must be submitted online and during the respective application period. (We do not accept applications by email.)

J1 visa holders need to obtain a G4 visa abroad prior to starting employment or unpaid internship at the WB.

Application Process

Application Form: Take time to prepare your application and enter your personal information accurately. You will be asked to upload the following documents:

– Curriculum Vitae (CV) – Statement of Interest – Proof of Enrollment in a graduate degree

Application Checklist: the following application checklist is meant to facilitate your application experience.

• Ensure that you use either Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, or Internet Explorer 10 or higher as your browser version. • Please make sure that you are connected with a reasonable bandwidth of internet connection without any network/firewall restriction. • You will be asked to register for an account and provide an email address. Ensure that you have correctly spelled out your email address, since this will be our main channel of communication with you regarding your candidacy. • You must complete your application in a single session and you will only be able to submit it if you have uploaded all the required documents and answered all the questions (all questions marked with an asterisk-*- are required). • Please complete the application within 90 minutes to avoid a system timeout. • Remember to enter your complete phone number (country code + city code + number). • Please do not enter any special characters (â-<>&#â, etc.) in any of the application fields. Try not to copy and paste any characters/text from Microsoft Word. • Please upload the following documents (mandatory) before submitting your application:

– Curriculum Vitae (CV) – Statement of Interest – Proof of Enrollment in a graduate degree

Note: Each file should not exceed 5 MB and should be in one of the following formats: .doc, .docx, or .pdf

• Please make sure that the filenames of the documents that you are attaching do not contain any special characters, such as â-<>&#â, etc. PDF files are the best files to upload. • Once you submit your application, you will not be able to make any further changes/updates. • Upon submission of your application you will receive an email confirmation providing you with your application number.

Selection

All applications are stored in a database which is consulted by hiring Managers based on business needs. Please note that candidates will not hear from us unless they are shortlisted by a hiring Manager that is looking to hire an intern. Managers have access to the Internship database from February – July (Summer Internship) and from November – January (Winter Internship). We do not have a pre-identified number of positions for interns per season. For each season, hiring is solely based on business needs.

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the World Bank Group Winter Internship Program 2022

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#OpportunityWow

[continuations]

World After Capital: Getting Past Capital (Attention)

NOTE: Today’s excerpt from World After Capital is about attention. It argues why attention is scarce in the sense of scarcity introduced earlier in the book. This section sets up the demands on attention and then talks about scarcity of attention for the individual (next time will look at scarcity of attention for society as a whole).

Attention

There is a limited amount of human attention in the world. We have 24 hours in the day and we need to spend some of that time eating and sleeping. For many people in the world much of their waking time is occupied by the job loop (both the earning and the spending parts). That leaves relatively little time for attention that we can freely allocate. This hard limit also exists in the aggregate, since—as I have argued earlier—we are headed for peak population.

At the same time that our attention is limited, we are using the Internet to dramatically increase the amount of available content. The increase in content is well documented to be exponential, which means that most of the content that has ever been produced by humanity has been produced in the last few years [47]. For example, YouTube alone is adding 100 hours of new video content every minute [48].

As a result, it is easy today to be completely overwhelmed by content. Our limited attention can readily be absorbed by ever refreshing content. Humans are maladapted to the information environment we now live in. Our brain evolved in a world where when you saw a cat, there was an actual cat. Now we live in a world of infinite cat pictures. This is analogous to our maladaptation to sugar for an environment that is now sugar rich (largely artificially so). Checking email, Twitter, Instagram, watching yet another YouTube clip or Snapchat story, or episode of one's favorite show on a streaming service—these all provide quick “information hits” that trigger parts of our brain that evolved to be stimulated by novelty. As of 2017, the average person spends roughly two hours on social media every day [49].

The limited availability of attention has become the key new source of economic rents. Companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter are valued in no small part based on the amount of attention they have been able to aggregate, some of which they then resell in the form of advertising. As a result they invest heavily in algorithms designed to present ever more captivating content to their end users in order to monopolize their attention. Sites like Buzzfeed and Huffington Post that are nominally news sites do the same.

Now even if you think this is problematic, does it mean attention is scarce in the precise meaning of scarcity that I defined earlier? That would require for us to not have enough attention to meet humanity's basic needs. Is that really the case?

Individual Attention Scarcity

Let's first consider attention at the individual level. All over the world people have constructed their identities around work and around firmly held core beliefs, whether religious or worldly. Both of these are undermined by digital technologies. We saw earlier how digital technology is putting pressure on labor. It is also putting pressure though on firmly held beliefs. Content is no longer easily contained in geographic boundaries and people are being exposed, many for the first time, to opinions and behaviors that diverge from their core beliefs.

In combination, this pressure is leading to a large scale crisis of individual identity and rising aggression both online and offline. This crisis takes many different forms, including increased teenage depression, growing adult suicide rates—particularly among middle-aged white males, and drug overdose deaths. In the US, these have increased almost 60 percent, 20 percent and 40 percent, respectively, between 2006 and 2015 [need more up-to-date statistics]:

This is not dissimilar from the beginning of the Industrial Age, when people had to leave the countryside and move to big cities. They were forced to give up identities that had been constructed around land and a historical set of professions. They were confronted with people from other regions who held different beliefs.

Just as with the transition into the Industrial Age it is therefore not surprising that there is a rise in populist leaders with simplistic messages, such as Donald Trump in the United States and Viktor Orban in Hungary. A recent study found that throughout Europe, populist parties are receiving more than double their average share of the vote in national and parliamentary elections compared with the 1960s [50]. People whose identity is shaken want to be reassured. They want to hear that things will be OK and that the way of getting there is simple. “Make America Great Again” is an example of that. So is ISIS. In both cases the message is retrograde. Instead of a new identity that has to be built, requiring time and effort, these backward movements promise an easy return to a glorious identity of the past.

Our attention to our most basic need, the existential need to make sense of the world as an individual by finding a purpose that makes our life meaningful, is scarce. Instead we let our attention be occupied by our job or by yet another video or worse by propaganda. This individual scarcity of attention is not confined to any one demographic. Definitely people who have to work multiple jobs just to make rent and feed their families are impacted. But so are many people in high paying jobs who are often working more hours today than they ever have.

I do a fair bit of counseling for young people who want to work for a technology startup or who want to enter venture capital. Most of them are looking for tactical advice, such as how to apply to a specific position. After discussing that for some time, I usually switch gears and ask them a much more open question. “What do you want from your next position?” That often elicits answers such as learning a new skill, or applying a skill that they have recently learned. Sometimes people answer with a desire to contribute to some cause. I then get to the point by asking directly “What is your purpose?” Shockingly few people have an answer to that.

Purpose is an individual need for which the Industrial Age had little use. Somebody with a strong sense of purpose does not fit readily into the job loop either as a worker or as a consumer. Instead work and consumption have become the de facto purpose for most people. Both the cultural and religious narratives adjusted from the Agrarian Age to the Industrial age to support this re-definition of purpose.

With digital technology we can now exit the job loop and redirect attention to finding other sources of purpose. Instead though we are using digital technology to aggregate attention primarily for resale (advertising) and for entertainment. We do not identify this as a fundamental problem of the largest platforms, focusing instead on areas such as privacy and moderation of speech. That's because we continue to see the world through the lens of capital scarcity instead of attention scarcity.

#world after capital #attention

[mobilegamedevelopmentus]

6 Steps Of Mobile Game Development: How to Develop a Game

When we talk about game then there is different platform where We are starting a new category mobile game development. There are more tools and resources available for indie game development like Unity, Godot engine, unreal engine 4, Defold with different programing languages like Java, Js, Python, .Net etc.

1. Pick a (Small) Idea New game developers are often inspired by the games they wish to play. And if you’re curious about something like Civilization or Stardew Valley, you would possibly want to dive into an identical project right from the beginning. Unfortunately, you’re not ready for something complex. Game development may be a difficult skill that grows with practice. It’s like learning the piano — you've got to start out with easy, simple songs and gradually expand into tougher pieces.

2. Pick an Engine or Framework

The next step is to work out what engine, framework, or library you would like to use.

• Game engines (like Unity or Unreal) typically accompany graphical interfaces and therefore the most built-in functionality.

• Frameworks and libraries are usually in written form existing programming languages. Therefore, obviously these are easy to use fast in code. It’s make development fast as possible. They supply all of the functions you would like to make your game and obtain something that shows abreast of the screen, but they require tons more setup.

Non-Programmers

Programmers

2D vs. 3D

Image take from Pixels

3. Create the Prototype Now it’s time to truly start developing. Your goal is to make a minimum viable product (MVP).

  4. Find Assets The next step is to feature art and sound to your game. you'll certainly try making your own if you’re curious about that. except for most of the people , it’s best to seek out free assets online. Sites like itch.io and OpenGameArt have many great resources. Most games you create will have prototype or temporary assets in their early versions, so it’s good to find out the way to find placeholder images and sounds online. But if we discard non-professionalism, then the gaze exposes a harsh truth. Steps to creating a computer game are complex and multi-component. Here you'll find:

• a lot of introductory planning and conceptual and practical work, exciting but very long and siphon the lifeblood out of game designers; • work on design and art that at an equivalent time inspires and shatter the nerves of artists who accept and implement endless edits; • programming and testing, almost like the fine jewelry work of a glass blower, when mistakes are often corrected only while the glass remains hot; • creating sounds and music that ought to give the sport its own unique and inimitable voice and make sound designers think hard about the way to avoid being almost like others; • as well as a bunch of people who connect departments, coordinate, communicate with the customer then on.

Mobile Game development is often compared with game design. We have already managed to tell everyone interested about the incorrectness of this comparison, so let’s briefly recall the essence.

Top Game developers are involved within the implementation of ideas written by game designers on paper. They enter the project after the artists have already created the required art, and that they are busy writing the code to form the merchandise interactive and embed the created art into it. The developers are liable for ensuring that the most character and therefore the game world are inseparable, and generally they are doing everything to form the concept work.

1. Game budget. In this budgeting environment a limited and short budget doesn’t mean lower quality. this is often just a marker that permits you to roughly estimate the amount of features, the extent of graphics and therefore the overall “packaging” of the sport .

2. Game type. to not be confused with the genre. Here, supported the budget, we define the sort of game from several main ones: mini 2D game, casual 2D/3D game, mid-core 3D game or hardcore 3D game and video game.

3. Gaming platform. it's necessary to work out that platform you're getting to make the game: mobile devices, PC, console, or even you would like to make a browser game.

4. Game genre. Here the selection is huge: simulation, strategy, sports, adventure, RPG, puzzle, board, and more. the selection of the genre should depend upon the size of the longer-term game. for instance, if you've got alittle budget, then you ought to not hope for genres like RPGs or simulations since they require the elaboration and implementation of an enormous amount of detail.

5. The audience. This point also has its nuances. If you're making an off-the-cuff game, then you aim for the most important possible reach of various players. If the sport is more narrowly specialized in terms of genre, it's necessary to obviously understand who are going to be its main consumer.

 Conclusion

At the final stag its nice to say that there is large scope of game at google play store and apple store as well. A high-level game doesn’t meter but quality of game does. Therefore, We at Mass Game Studio is option for mobile game development with our expert programmer, game developers.

#linkedin #bitcons #gaming companies #game developers #kpo

[apramadhan]

Reflective Summary

Reflective Summary

 Teaching students through zoom is the first experience for me and yet the most unique experience I have ever had when it comes to teaching. Everyone in the world experiencing a difficult time during the pandemic but there is no excuse to stop learning. Everyone trying to adapt with the situation and continue their activity, including the educational institution by continuing the learning process through online platform.

During this Internship I had a chance to teach students from my country, Indonesia. As an Indonesian I experience and understood with the way English being taught in schools. The students didn’t get many chance to practice their language, therefore during the internship I encourage and give as much as possible chances to the student to practice their language.

The lesson material I used is by using grade 9 pupil’s book from Sri Lanka. Although, Sri Lanka and Indonesia have a different curriculum but the lessons are more or less similar. Besides teaching English I try to expose them with a new culture as in grade 9 pupils book most of it talking about Sri Lanka and it turns out increase the student’s motivation to learn for example when they learning English through Sri Lankan food, dress attire, cultures context. Although in my perspective the lesson is suitable for the students, later on during the teaching process I found out that the material is a bit higher from their level in terms of vocabulary but instead of changing the material I continue the lesson as it is their chance to learn new vocabulary. So then I use extra application such as Kahoot to play games with the vocabulary and the students showing the excitement during the learning process.

During the Internship I tried to create a student centered learning environment as much as possible as when they learn in school they have a limited time to practice their language. Some of the reasons are because teachers focus on teaching theories such as grammar and students feel hesitate to practice the language due to fear of an error. Therefore, in my class and activity I tried to engage with the students as much as possible and told them regarding their fear of an error that the more they create a mistake the more they have a chance to improve the language and there will be no judgment from anyone for the mistake.

By the end of the internship I asked the students to fill a Google form survey to tell how they feel about the class, teaching method and the material. All of them wrote that they are happy, they feel the lessons are useful for them in increasing their English skills, and appreciate the exclusive chance to practice their language in the learning process. And even some of the parents texted personally asked when I will go home because they want me to do a private class for the student. The only problem is with the time. Since Sri Lanka and Indonesia have a different time zone, the students didn’t mind if the class held until late night but the problem is they need a break for performing prayer. Therefore, I gave a 15 minutes break for them to perform their prayer. Other than that there is no additional comment from the students and the parents.

The internship has gave me a lot of experience and lessons. Being a teacher is not as easy as it seems, teacher have to adapt with the student’s need, patience, and dedication. Sometime I have to think like a student again when I am teaching, at which point will I get bored when I am learning, choosing suitable method that will increase the student’s learning motivation, and give all our attention to the students. I am grateful that I have the chance to practice the teaching especially during this period of time, when teaching became more complicated because everything have to do with online method and more technical issues arise. Yet, learning process must go on.

[goingthroughalot]

Shattered Ceilings For A Happy Ending!

In 2016, just like most students who were accepted for Occupational Therapy, I found myself on Google searching “What is the job role of an OT?”. I always knew that Occupational Therapists had a key role in Paediatrics and individuals who had obtained a cerebrovascular accident but that might have been the extent. Google rendered me a basic definition that “An Occupational Therapists job role is to help people of all ages overcome the effects of disability caused by illness, ageing or accident so that they can carry out everyday tasks or occupations. An occupational therapist will consider all of the patient's needs - physical, psychological, social and environmental.” ("What is Occupational Therapy? OT Explained - RCOT", 2020). I keep this definition bookmarked as a reminder of how my experience in these four years have shaped my own answer of what our role is as Occupational Therapists and just when I thought I knew exactly where and how we fit into the Health Care Team, the Community Theory and Fieldwork module exposed to a whole new world through experience in a Primary Health Care setting, where we don’t fit into a job role or description because the box created for us is too small or the glass ceiling is simply too low.

In a study titled Exploring the occupational therapist’s role in primary health care: Listening to voices of stakeholders, Naidoo, Van Wyk & Joubert (2016) found the following to be considered as the role of Occupational Therapy in Primary Health Care : Screening of children with disabilities and developmental delays, empowering teachers to identify children with learning disabilities, educating teachers with strategies to assist such learners, as well as “assist families with the psychological acceptance of the child having a disability and that such parents may benefit from having a safe space to share their feelings, a place to ask questions and where mothers/caregivers can be educated on how to provide stimulation to promote general development”(Naidoo et. al., 2016). The above is in accordance with the roles we have fulfilled in the community at a Primary Healthcare Level, this included screening patients at the clinic and conducting health promotion speeches on physical, mental, early childhood development and active aging. I found health promotion particularly difficult due to the language barrier, but I was able to identify, screen and refer clients who required assistance in improving or maintaining their mental and physical wellbeing. Further, screening and health promotion allowed us to play an active role in promoting maternal and child health especially at the clinic where we had contact with many high-risk babies and teenage mothers. We also provided Occupational Therapy Intervention at the Primary Schools in the community and this is where the flaws of our education and health system were astoundingly apparent. Children were screened and numerous developmental delays and learning disabilities were noted such as children in Grade 1 who were unable to identify colours and children in Grade 2 who were unable to identify letters of the alphabet. However, in Primary Healthcare our role was not limited to remediating these factors but to also educate and empower teachers on a suitable way forward so that these children are not pushed through the system which could possibly predispose to their mental and emotional well-being being at risk. We further extended our services to the high school where we provided intervention through 4-minute videos which centred around topics aimed to enhance coping skills and promote academic and life skills. The need for intervention for this particular age group was further supported by Naidoo et. al (2016) who found that “A need for introducing adolescence programmes which would promote healthy lifestyles and facilitate their coping better with stress and anxiety was expressed by this group”. Therefore at a PHC level, the role of Occupational Therapy is not limited to individual and group therapy but rather has the ability to reach many more people who are in desperate need of access to healthcare, this is enabled through a population based approach as opposed to the approaches typically centred around the medical model which does tend to overpower our practice methods even at a Primary Healthcare Level.

When I think of Primary Health Care and Occupational Therapy, I envision a road with boulders and come what may, it is our role to reach the end of the road. The road with boulders represents the lives of majority of our country, the boulders represent their marginalisation, disability, deficits or the conditions that they live in be it the blade of poverty or the heart of inequality. Enabling them to reach the end of the road, be it around, through or over the boulders is the reason why the role of Occupational Therapy in Primary Health care is inclusive of every single thing that our client/ population requires from advocacy to awareness to assistive devices to axing wood for equipment if the need be, for the end of the road represents holistic health and well-being and at it’s core, my role as an Occupational Therapist is to enable just that.

Media is defined as the main means of mass communication (Stevenson & Waite, 2011). Health promotion and prevention is an imperative component of OT in primary health care as this supports the population-based approach. Therefore, the use of media allows for a larger population to be reached and in the community that I worked in, media enabled us to overcome the barriers posed by language, time and accessibility. Health Promotion and Prevention was conducted by means of a prepared and pre-recorded speech which was played on a speaker at various areas in the clinic which allowed for the speech to reach large groups of individuals who were waiting in line to be screened or to be further assisted. This allowed for individuals who identified their need for OT services to contact a “person in green” and therefore the use of the media source is suitable for the community setting. The use of posters and pamphlets is an alternate means in which media can be used for health promotion and prevention in the community, in the age of social media we often associate a pamphlet with something that is quickly reduced to trash, however we neglect the immediate initial attention given to a pamphlet upon receipt therefore this is an optimal means for health prevention as this can educate and empower a large population especially on topics such as diabetes prevention, HIV prevention and maintaining your mental health which as topics that are prevalent within the community. The clinic in the community has a waiting period of 30 minutes to 2 hours which patients spend idle and therefore we recognised this as an opportunity to use posters as a means of health promotion and prevention wherein we addressed topics that ranged from Management of Arthritis to Early Childhood Development. Due to the low socio-economic status of the community as a whole, it is with extreme caution that social media can be used for health prevention and promotion due to the costs associated with data consumption, however the high school in the community screened learners and approved for health promotion and prevention for adolescents to be conducted via the provision of short videos which allowed for a large number of learners to access this information via a WhatsApp group formed by the academic mentor. This enhanced interaction and engagement with the video provided as the video was short and learners can watch the video at their will.

Marketing strategies are often the largest costs that the world’s biggest companies incur and as Beth Comstock said, “You can’t sell anything if you can’t tell anything”. Therefore, I believe that as Occupational Therapist we sell a priceless commodity through health promotion and prevention, health, and our use of media is our means to tell the masses.

As a millennial, we often say Go Big or Go Home which is fostered by my generations need for immediate gratification, but as an Occupational Therapy Student working at a primary health care level where our intervention can positively impact the lives of many and possibly stir a revolution in the social context of the community, I believe that we must Go Big by not defining our role and place in Primary Health Care but rather by doing everything within our scope to meet the needs of our community.

This may be a permanent wrap on my blog as I hopefully shift from “Going through a lot” to “Got through a lot” in a few weeks. I often thought that blogs were just another item on my to do list but through writing my last one, I have realised the value of reflection for my personal growth and secretly, I have enjoyed this platform as means to share my spiralling thoughts, occasional politically incorrect views and most of all, my experience through the gloriousness of what I consider as an extension of my personality, Occupational Therapy.

To happy endings and happier beginnings

Zubeida Hassim

References

· What is Occupational Therapy? OT Explained - RCOT. (2020). Retrieved 13 November 2020, from https://www.rcot.co.uk/about-occupational-therapy/what-is-occupational-therapy#:~:text=An%20occupational%20therapists%20job%20role,%2C%20psychological%2C%20social%20and%20environmental.

· Naidoo, D., Van Wyk, J., & Joubert, R. W. E. (2016). Exploring the occupational therapist’s role in primary health care: Listening to voices of stakeholders. African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine, 8(1). doi:10.4102/phcfm.v8i1.1139

· Sue Dahl-Popolizio, Sue Doyle & Sabby Wade (2018) The role of primary health care in achieving global healthcare goals: Highlighting the potential contribution of occupational therapy, World Federation of Occupational Therapists Bulletin, 74:1, 8-16, DOI: 10.1080/14473828.2018.1433770

· Naidoo, Deshini, Van Wyk, Jacqueline, & Waggie, Firdouza. (2017). Occupational therapy graduates' reflections on their ability to cope with primary healthcare and rural practice during community service. South African Journal of Occupational Therapy, 47(3), 39-45. https://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2310-3833/2017/v47n3a7

· Stevenson, A., & Waite, M. (2011). Concise Oxford English dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[pixelproductions]

How to Run a Successful E-Commerce Business

There are 2 kinds of eCommerce Businesses, successful and not, learn how to run a successful E-Commerce business to avoid failure.

Ecommerce is on the rise, with the number of digital buyers worldwide set to top 2 billion by next year. Whether you’re a one person operation just setting up shop, or a well established business, there’s always room for growth in this sector.

With current global trends, ecommerce is set to thrive in the coming years as consumer confidence in ecommerce platforms increases alongside easier access. Given that ecommerce sales are set to account for more than 15% of total global retail sales in 2020, and will continue to rise, now’s a perfect time to focus on growing your ecommerce business.

Regardless of where your business is in its growth, there are certain best practices you should consider for ensuring its success. If you’re just setting out the tips below are a good blueprint for the initial phase, and if you’ve been in business for a while, they’re a good reflection point.

Over the past decade, businesses have been forced to adapt to major changes due to market trends. They are no longer restricted to brick-and-mortar stores and to focusing on a local customer base; thanks to technology, there is now the opportunity to promote goods and services on a global scale. Many businesses have even made the decision to go 100% online by opening an e-commerce store and offering worldwide shipping. Entrepreneurs who make this transition can have much more success due to being exposed to a wider marketplace; however, if you are new to the world of e-commerce, it can be difficult to know where to get started.

This post will lay out 10 steps on how to set up and run a successful e-commerce business:

1. Develop your brand

You may not be sure whether your business has a brand or not, but you must pay close attention to your branding when the time comes to start up an e-commerce store. Customers make assumptions about your business based on your brand identity, so it isn’t a factor that should be taken lightly. According to a study in 2017, Americans choose to shop with businesses that are in correlation with their own life purposes and genuinely have the customer’s interests at heart, all of which customers will determine before deciding to make a purchase.

E-commerce websites are regularly stumbled upon by visitors and they automatically have their first impression of your online store based on the brand identity. Remember, your competitors are no longer just in your town or city – they’re all over the world.

With this in mind, your e-commerce branding needs to stand out from the crowd and have a unique selling proposition that can’t be overlooked.

Top 10 Branding Tools and Strategies to Boost Your Business

2. Know Your Target Audience

Perhaps you’re selling active lifestyle products to young active people, or you’re looking to target an older audience, knowing who your customers are, how they think and where to find them online is crucial to the success of your ecommerce business.

Start by considering these questions together with your team. Even if you’ve thought through them before, it’s a crucial exercise to periodically revisit them as customer trends change.

Who would buy our product?

When you developed your product, or decided to market a specific product, you likely had a certain client in mind. Try to visualize that client- what they look like, what their habits and hobbies are, what their daily routines are, etc.

In this way you will be better able to ‘walk in their shoes,’ giving you insights that you can use when marketing your product.

What’s stopping them from buying my product?

Perhaps your customers come from an older generation with a healthy skepticism to new products. Alternatively, they may be in a younger age group who values novelty and ‘being the first’ to buy a new product.

Both of these groups have different barriers to buying your product which you’ll need to address- the first needs to be convinced of the reliability of the product, while the other the novelty.

Where do my clients spend their time online?

There’s certainly generational differences when it comes to online activity. It’s difficult to imagine, for example, a recently retired school teacher actively using some of the social media sites currently popular with teenagers.

These are just some of the questions you should be grappling with from the get go.

That’s why it’s important, once you have an understanding of who your clients are, to try to research where and how they spend their time online. That way you’ll be able to best gain access to them.

3. Streamline Processes

Ecommerce is all about convenience. Quick access to a wide range of products is one of the main reasons your customers choose to shop online rather than head to a store. It’s your task to try to make the online shopping process as streamlined as possible.

Approach the streamlining process from the point of view of the customer:

When I head to the website is it easy for me to navigate to the products I want, or am I greeted with a labyrinth of pop-ups and unclear links?

How simple is it for me to check out?

Is there anything slowing me down in my total shopping experience?

These are a few of the questions you should consider. Ideally, your ecommerce website will present as few steps as possible between finding the right product and paying for it. The longer this process, the more likely customers will give up on their purchase.

This means you need to find the right balance between upselling and secondary marketing opportunities, and convenience.

4. Make the check-out process simple

While your customers may have a keen interest in the products and services you have to offer, it’s important to make the check-out process as streamlined as possible. Being transferred from page to page and being forced to enter lots of personal information can trigger the user to ditch their basket and browse competitor sites in the hope of a much more efficient check-out process.

There are many factors to take into consideration that will help make the check-out process more straightforward:

Abolish the requirement for a login to a personal account

Limit the number of click-through pages before payment

Reduce forms and auto-fill where necessary

Allow several payment methods

5. Go mobile

Most people are connected to the online world on a 24-hour basis thanks to smartphones, meaning they can shop whenever and wherever they please. In fact, 96% of Americans are cellphone owners and are more inclined to browse the web with their smartphones than on their PCs. With that said, almost all websites should be mobile-friendly to keep up with this demand. There are several reasons why e-commerce stores are becoming mobile-friendly:

Google has a preference for mobile-friendly websites:

It gives the impression of your business being contemporary and up to date

Your website will have the ability to function on any device

You will reach a wider customer base of those who perform mobile-friendly website searches

6. Develop Your Team

Your ecommerce business is unique in many ways, but just like any other business in one crucial way – it’s success is largely dependent on the quality of your team. Spending time developing your team is essential for your long term growth.

Creating a Better Work Environment for Your Employees

If you’re just starting out, now’s the time to put in place a clear management philosophy and professional development structure.

What are the skills that your team members will need?

How will you develop them?

How will you give feedback on performance?

7. Lean consulting

Due to the competitive nature of the online business world, making sure that in-house practices are in check will ensure that errors are reduced and optimum quality is in place when it comes to product production. Owning an e-commerce site means that you must be prepared for an influx of orders around the clock, so you need to be able to deliver an effective and efficient manufacturing strategy to keep up with the high pressure of the online business world. It would be a good idea to invest in lean consulting to help streamline your company’s operations and help solve issues as and when they arise.

8. Don’t forget SEO

As the e-commerce industry is still set to grow in the coming years, it’s important to be aware of how to set yourself apart from the competition. E-commerce businesses are set to overcrowd an already crammed market, making it much more difficult to secure a customer base.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most popular marketing trends to push your e-commerce website to the top of search engine results. Google’s algorithm chooses how websites are ranked based on the features and strategies used. There are several techniques that are important to research to help you boost your website’s SEO, including the likes of:

The use of relevant keywords

Quality of copy

Link building

Structure of the website

Site speed

If you’re untrained in SEO, it may be best to hire a skilled SEO expert to give you guidance on how to put these techniques into practice and, ultimately, give your e-commerce store the competitive edge that is essential for online success.

9. Drive traffic to your website

Alongside SEO, customers must be able to find their way to your e-commerce website without having to make too much of an effort. However, this doesn’t happen automatically, and you may need to give your customers a nudge to help find your e-commerce store.

First and foremost, push notifications are a useful tool to reach out to potential customers by steering them in the direction of your e-commerce website with offers and discounts. These pop-ups typically appear at the top or bottom of a web browser or in the notifications pull-down on a smartphone when your app has been installed; they act as a direct form of communication between the business and customer in the same format as an SMS message. Another technique to gain wider customer attention is to collaborate with more established websites to help bring higher levels of traffic to your e-commerce store. Start-up businesses, in particular, would find this extremely useful; however, it is not always easy to secure this opportunity. Creating a partnership just for the sake of it usually isn’t enough to make a deal. You may need to prove how your business fits in with the other business’s aesthetic and why your store link deserves a spot in their content.

10. Get the Right Tools

E-commerce Tools

There are an ever-growing range of choices when it comes to tools for your ecommerce business management. These tools mainly fall into several broad categories: website management tools, analytics tools, marketing tools and research tools.

Of course, not all tools are created equally, or would make sense for your specific needs. You may not, for example, need a tool in all of the above mentioned categories. Do your research before making any commitments in order to make the right choice.

Ask your team what their views are of your business’ needs. Gaining firsthand input from your team can help you make the most informed choice as to the type of tool you need. Once you’ve collected this input, it’s a matter of researching which tools are the most well regarded in each category.

Collaboration Tools

An ecommerce business is a team effort and thrives on collaboration. The ability of your team to communicate, share ideas and access information goes a long way to determining your long term success. That’s why it’s important to equip your team with the right tools for their collaboration.

The best collaboration tools will provide your team with a range of features for working together remotely. The right choice here could increase your team’s efficiency and productivity, two crucial elements to the success of your business.

Final Words

If you’re an already established business, it’s never too late to review your strategies in order to make sure you’re on track for running a successful E-commerce business.

Seek out feedback from your team members to see how they feel on the team, whether they’re engaged, and what their development needs are. This will be time well spent once you see the benefits of an efficient and engaged team.

Ecommerce continues to be a growth industry, so there’s never been a better time to focus on your Ec-ommerce business’ long term success. Try out the tips above, and please share any other tips you have below!

#running a successful ecommerce business made easy #how to run a successful E-commerce business #ecommerce

[irasnotes-blog]

Break the Stigma: Mental Health and Technology

The world has long been fighting a battle against mental health. Bills are being enacted and different technological advancements are being researched and developed in order to aid the field of psychology, neuroscience, and the like.  In the Philippines, 17 to 20 percent of Filipinos suffer from a psychiatric disorder, according to the National Statistics Office (2016). In the late quarter of 2017, the Senate passed a law, dubbed as the Mental Health Act of 2017. This is a sign of the growing awareness of the people to delve into the matters of the mind and doing what is possible to solve the problems that come with it.

Understanding Mental Health and Illness

The World Health Organization defines mental health as “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” However, some believe that this definition shies away from the conceptualization of mental health, portraying it as an absence of mental illness which can lead to misconceptions and potential misunderstandings in defining the actual state if a healthy mind.

Thus, scientists have proposed a newer, more inclusive definition: Mental health is a dynamic state of internal equilibrium which enables individuals to use their abilities in harmony with universal values of society. Basic cognitive and social skills; ability to recognize, express and modulate one's own emotions, as well as empathize with others; flexibility and ability to cope with adverse life events and function in social roles; and harmonious relationship between body and mind represent important components of mental health which contribute, to varying degrees, to the state of internal equilibrium.

Mental illnesses or disorders, are defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders (DSM-IV) as a “mental disorder is a psychological syndrome or pattern which is associated with distress (e.g. via a painful symptom), disability (impairment in one or more important areas of functioning), increased risk of death, or causes a significant loss of autonomy; however it excludes normal responses such as grief from loss of a loved one, and also excludes deviant behavior for political, religious, or societal reasons not arising from a dysfunction in the individual.”

Using Technology in Psychiatric Treatment

Technology has opened up a new avenue for the public, doctors, researchers, and scientists in mental health support and data collection. With mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and smart watches provide new ways to access, monitor, and further understand the meaning of mental welfare. Nowadays, people often associate poor mental health with the excessive use of gadgets and other forms of technology. It may be true, but fortunately, researchers have found ways to incorporate mental wellness apps into our mobile phones available on-the-go.

The use of such technologies as a supplement to mainstream therapies for mental disorders is an emerging mental health treatment field which could improve the accessibility, effectiveness and affordability of mental health care. As technology evolved, psychiatrists began to employ virtual reality as a means for the mentally ill to cope will their conditions. And with proper support, digital interventions are as effective as face-to-face treatments (Andersson et al., 2014; Cuijpers, Donker, van Straten, Li, & Andersson, 2010).

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

We often associate AI as a non-sentient being conversing with us as virtual assistants, like Siri or Alexa, helping us with the mundane tasks of everyday life. But in reality, AI goes beyond that constraint. Now, artificial intelligence is being used to revolutionize mental healthcare.

AI applications like Tess by X2_AI, IBM’s Watson, and Google Deepmind AI are called psychological AI. They interact with the users with the aim of providing psychotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. According to IBM Research: “Cognitive computers will analyze a patient’s speech or written words to look for tell-tale indicators found in language, including meaning, syntax and intonation. Combining the results of these measurements with those from wearables devices and imaging systems (MRIs and EEGs) can paint a more complete picture of the individual for health professionals to better identify, understand and treat the underlying disease, be it Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s disease, PTSD or even neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and ADHD.”

Through artificial intelligence, mental assessments and treatment can ber very possible at the comfort of our own homes.

Virtual Reality (VR)

Virtual Reality is an effective way to immerse patients in an artificial state that allows them to simulate the experience without physically going through it again for them to be able to cope and adjust – the best way being through virtual reality.

Psious, a Spanish-American behavioral health technology company whose main product is the PsiousToolsuite, a virtual reality platform aimed at bringing value to mental health treatment. This application allows the user to enter into a therapy session at the comfort of your present location, like the office break room, for instance. Psious was developed primarily as a means of exposure therapy. The gizmo can simulate a free-fall experience for someone who is afraid if heights without having to actually go through the process of parachuting across the sky.

In the study “Virtual reality therapy for agoraphobic outpatients in Lima, Peru” (Suyo, M.I., et al., 2015), the proponents tested eight patients of both sexes with clinical diagnosis of agoraphobia. Subjects were exposed to virtual reality environments generated by Psious Virtual Reality application for agoraphobia treatment and skin conductance (measured in microsiemmens) and scale of subjective units of anxiety (SUDS) were recorded while the patient was exposed to virtual environment that provoke anxiety; they was measured by 5 sessions. They drew to the conclusion that all eight patients had clinical improvement, six patients improved more than 50%, with statistically significant results

A study spearheaded by Dr. Albert Rizzo (2006) entitled “BRAVEMIND: Advancing the Virtual Iraq/Afghanistan PTSD Exposure Therapy for MST” (Rizzo, A., 2006), focuses on helping patients with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Bravemind simulates a war zone, like Iraq, to activate "extinction learning" which can deactivate a deep-seated "flight or fight response," relieving fear and anxiety. Along with PTSD, Bravemind can also treat traumas of sexual abuse.

Mobile Apps

Mobile mental health apps are on the rise because they give us an affordable and accessible solution, not to mention, anonymity. Developers have created different mobile applications that cater to different needs like insomnia, panic attacks, anxiety, and the like. There are also applications for meditation and breathing exercises to help the user calm down in times of stress. There are established digital treatments for depression, anxiety disorders, and even insomnia (Andersson & Titov, 2014). They are self-help programs designed either to be used on their own or with some form of support. These treatments vary in their content, clinical range, format, functionality and mode of delivery. For inspiration, positivity and mood tracking apps also exist, along with apps that allow the user to vent about their feelings to get them off their chest.

One notable app is called Mindstrong. It monitors smartphone behavior with permission from the user. According to Dr. Thomas Insel (2017), one of the researchers behind this app, if a user starts typing more rapidly than normal, their syntax changes, or they indulge in impulsive shopping sprees that might be an indicator that they're manic. If they don't respond to texts from family and friends, they might be depressed. Together, this data collection could create what is referred to as a "digital phenotype," which could be described as a personalized mental health map.

Conclusion

Various studies have shown the importance and benefits in using technology to overcome, or at least alleviate, mental illnesses. The world is a long way from completely figuring out and solving these problems, but with the help of the constant evolution of technology, it might be very possible in the not too distant future.

Mental health is a serious matter that should be given utmost attention and concern. It might be seen as impossible to eradicate this problem, but as St. Francis of Assisi said, “Start by doing what’s necessary, then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”

REFERENCES

Andersson, G., Titov, N. (2014). Advantages and limitations of Internet-based interventions for common mental disorders. World Psychiatry, pp. 4-11

Andersson, G., Cujipers P., Carlbring P., Riper H., Hedman, E. (2014). Guided internet-based vs. face-to-face cognitive behavior therapy for psychiatric and somatic disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis. World Psychiatry, pp. 288-295

Farr, C. (2017, May 10). Former Alphabet exec is working on an idea to detect mental disorders by how you type on your phone. Retrieved January 20, 2018, from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/10/thomas-insel-ex-alphabet-mindstrong-track-mental-health-smartphone-use.html

Nimh.nih.gov. (2017). NIMH » Technology and the Future of Mental Health Treatment. [online] Available at: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/technology-and-the-future-of-mental-health-treatment/index.shtml [Accessed 20 Jan. 2018].

Research.ibm.com. (2018). With AI, our words will be a window into our mental health- IBM Research. [online] Available at: http://research.ibm.com/5-in-5/mental-health/ [Accessed 20 Jan. 2018].

Rizzo, A. (2016). BRAVEMIND: Advancing the Virtual Iraq/Afghanistan PTSD Exposure Therapy for MST.

Stein, Dan J; Phillips, K.A; Bolton, D; Fulford, K.W.M; Sadler, J.Z; Kendler, K.S (November 2010). "What is a Mental/Psychiatric Disorder? From DSM-IV to DSM-V". Psychological Medicine. London: Cambridge University Press. 40 (11): 1759–1765. doi:10.1017/S0033291709992261. ISSN 0033-2917. OCLC 01588231. PMC 3101504 Freely accessible. PMID 20624327.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Mental health: a report of the Surgeon General. Rockville: U.S. Public Health Service; 1999.

Vásquez Suyo, M.I. et al. (2015). Virtual reality therapy for agoraphobic outpatients in Lima, Peru. European Psychiatry , Volume 33 , S397 - S398

World Health Organization. Promoting mental health: concepts, emerging evidence, practice (Summary Report) Geneva: World Health Organization; 2004.

#computer science #studyblr #stemblr

[opportunitywow]

World Bank Group Summer Internship Program 2021 for young Professionals (Paid Internship)

Application Deadline: January 31st 2021

The World Bank Internship Program (BIP) offers highly motivated individuals an opportunity to be exposed to the mission and work of the World Bank. The internship allows individuals to bring new perspectives, innovative ideas and research experience into the Bank’s work, while improving skills in a diverse environment. In addition, it is a great way to enhance CVs with practical work experience. Internships are available in both development operations and other business units (such as Human Resources, Communications, Accounting, etc.) however, availability during a given internship term is based on business need.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for an Internship, candidates must have an undergraduate degree and be enrolled in a full-time graduate study program (pursuing a master’s degree or PhD with plans to return to school full-time). There is no age limit.

Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of languages such as: French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Portuguese, and Chinese is desirable. Other skills such as computing skills are advantageous.

We value diversity in our workplace, and encourage all qualified individuals, particularly women, with diverse professional and academic backgrounds to apply. Our aim is to attract and recruit the best talent in the world.

Additional Information

The WB Internship Program typically seeks candidates for: Operations (Front Line) in the following fields: economics, finance, human development (public health, education, nutrition, population), social sciences (anthropology, sociology), agriculture, environment, engineering, urban planning, natural resources management, private sector development, and other related fields; or Corporate support (Accounting, Communications, Human Resources Management, Information Technology, Treasury, and other corporate services).

Benefits

– The WB pays an hourly salary to all Interns and, where applicable, provides an allowance toward travel expenses up to USD 3,000 at the discretion of the manager. These travel expenses can only include transport expenses (airfare) to or from the duty station city. Interns are responsible for their own accommodations.

All applications must be submitted online and during the respective application period. (We do not accept applications by email.)

J1 visa holders need to obtain a G4 visa abroad prior to starting employment or unpaid internship at the WB.

Application Process

Application Form: Take time to prepare your application and enter your personal information accurately. You will be asked to upload the following documents:

– Curriculum Vitae (CV) – Statement of Interest – Proof of Enrollment in a graduate degree

Application Checklist: the following application checklist is meant to facilitate your application experience.

• Ensure that you use either Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, or Internet Explorer 10 or higher as your browser version. • Please make sure that you are connected with a reasonable bandwidth of internet connection without any network/firewall restriction. • You will be asked to register for an account and provide an email address. Ensure that you have correctly spelled out your email address, since this will be our main channel of communication with you regarding your candidacy. • You must complete your application in a single session and you will only be able to submit it if you have uploaded all the required documents and answered all the questions (all questions marked with an asterisk-*- are required). • Please complete the application within 90 minutes to avoid a system timeout. • Remember to enter your complete phone number (country code + city code + number). • Please do not enter any special characters (â-<>&#â, etc.) in any of the application fields. Try not to copy and paste any characters/text from Microsoft Word. • Please upload the following documents (mandatory) before submitting your application:

– Curriculum Vitae (CV) – Statement of Interest – Proof of Enrollment in a graduate degree

Note: Each file should not exceed 5 MB and should be in one of the following formats: .doc, .docx, or .pdf

• Please make sure that the filenames of the documents that you are attaching do not contain any special characters, such as â-<>&#â, etc. PDF files are the best files to upload. • Once you submit your application, you will not be able to make any further changes/updates. • Upon submission of your application you will receive an email confirmation providing you with your application number.

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the World Bank Group Summer Internship Program 2021

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#IFTTT #WordPress

[lorenasworkbook]

Lecture 1: A drawing Lesson & The Smart City

Why did I talk for so long about sketching in my previous post? I wanted to eventually get here:

This was one of the first slides presented to us. I was happy that the first lecture was dedicated to drawing. We’ve watched Kentridge’s video showing the way he creates his animated films. These are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. It somehow reminds me of the flip book animations as it can be seen in the following gif I found on Google Images: 

I did not know about him before.

While he was talking about the limitation imposed by the canvas my mind wondered to Picasso’s quote “Everything you can imagine is real”. I might’ve thought about it due to the horse ink sketch on the wall, or maybe as he was talking about limitations. 

You might have to connect the links as I haven’t explained it very well but to be fair, I am not even sure why my mind made that connection anyway. Maybe because even though the canvas is limiting in some ways, it actually is open for our imagination and even though it is a limitation it is also a challenge!

I quickly searched more of his artworks and found some that I like even more, but this time they made me think about Francis Bacon’s work, one of my favourite artists, yes, the painter, not the philosopher.

Bacon also examined Picassso’s work in his career. I had the chance to visit Picasso museum in Barcelona about this time last year and I really enjoyed it.  Bacons’ canvases communicate powerful emotions, his subjects were always portrayed as violently distorted, almost slabs of raw meat, that are isolated souls imprisoned and tormented by existential dilemmas.

I felt that William’s Kentridge’s paintings have a similar feeling - people are presented as uncertain, divided and chaotic, living in a world with much the same characteristics. It’s quite contemporary considering the way the world is going lately. 

Through his paintings I also found one drawing with a man and a rock. Does it ring a bell? The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus. Sisyphus is condemned by the gods for eternity to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again once he got it to the top, as a metaphor for the individual's persistent struggle against the essential absurdity of life – my presumption of the existentialism theme was confirmed. Sisif was not giving up. However, again I made an assumption, this time that is connected to Sisif while it might not be,  I did not go as far in searching to see if there is any meaning he discussed about related to the rock and maybe it is just learning to live with the burdens in your life, while the rock is a physical interpretation.

As initially I just searched other artworks, now I wanted to know more about his approach on philosophical themes. I discovered that in one of his lessons he focuses on indeterminacy, represented by emergence of the occupiers of Plato's cave and their problems with "the light" and the "reality" of what they had seen previously only as shadows. Kentridge is concerned with the way we are wired to impose structure (and meaning) to fluid experience.

Much of this he gathers in the 6th (final) lecture: 

"This is the artist's project: needing the fragments, even delighting in them, in the process of wresting meaning from them. The meaning is always a construction, a projection, not an edifice--something to be made, not simply found. There is always a radical incoherence and a radical instability. All certainties can only be held together by a text, a threat, an army, a fatwa, a sermon--that holds the fragments in an iron grip" 

The Smart City Introduction 

As cities get smarter, they are becoming more liveable and more responsive—and today we are seeing only a preview of what technology could eventually do in the urban environment.

Top down and bottom up approaches:

Top down or technology centric approaches are associated with pre-defined offerings. Cities adopting this approach become smart by integrating data gathered from different kinds of censors (smart meters and CCTV cameras amongst others) into a single virtual platform in order to manage city operations more efficiently, often working with technology companies to take advantage of already developed products or software

The bottom up approach emphasises the use of new technologies (for example, social media, websites, mobile applications or censoring technologies) and new data (becoming available mainly through open data platforms or censors) as a means to enable citizens to devise solutions, acquire new skills through online learning and improve their interaction with public authorities. Such initiatives include open data platforms that allow the development of new mobile applications or online crowdfunding platforms to fund innovative projects.10 By making citizens more engaged in civic life through online platforms, it is also argued that bottom up initiatives can encourage a “more direct form of local democracy” as David Willets, the Minister of State for Universities and Science recently stated

  My instinct was to read more definitions to familiarise myself better with the subject, however I just started thinking about all the tech noir, cyberpunk movies and series I saw with futuristic cities and also games I played with a similar theme.

Tech noir presents technology as a destructive and dystopian force that threatens every aspect of our reality.

“They often expose the temporal nature of concepts of identity and society: rather than being fixed aspects of a permanent and indestructible ‘nature,’ these concepts, like nature itself, are shown as mere parts of a larger simulacrum that is subject to change, exploitation, and even annihilation. Yet, even as tech-noir films present the mirror that reveals us to be as expendable and replaceable as any consumer product, they simultaneously affirm conventional beliefs and values - as do all popular genres.“

James Cameron coined the term in The Terminator (1984), using it as the name of a nightclub, but also to invoke associations with both the film noir genre and with futuristic sci-fi.

 At home I later created a list with all the things that crossed my mind and from which I did get some inspiration.

Movies:

Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, Ghost in the Shell Animated, Ghost in the Shell Movie, The Matrix, 12 Monkeys, Ex Machina, Children of Men, Minority Report, Upgrade, Strange Days, The Terminator, Gattaca, Alphaville, Minority Report, Back to the future 1,2,3

TV Series:

Person of Interest, Almost Human, Mr. Robot, Westworld, Altered Carbon, Alter Carbon Resleeved, Love, Death & Robots, Rick and Morty, The Rain, Travelers, Black Mirror, Humans, Kiss me first, Orphan Black, Greyzone, (Dark, FlashForward, Counterpart)

Games:

Deus Ex, Watch Dogs, Mirror’s Edge & and I absolutely cannot wait for CYBERPUNK 2077 <3 to be launched this year, hopefully and also Death Stranding PC version as I do not own a PS4.

(I was considering adding images for them too but I realised it will be a never ending post if I were to do it)

 After the brief was presented, it was the time to create the groups!

We needed to put ourselves in only one category and I am a very undecided person! I had to choose through exclusion. All of us have all of these traits more or less, but which one is the most recognisable? I knew I am not a word smith, even though I have a sales job, so this choice was the first one out. While I really enjoy making things, I identified the most with the People Watchers.

I am observing people everywhere I am. Since I came to London watching people it’s one of my favourite activities. I find myself staring at people in the underground and try to remind myself it’s not polite, but oh, the diversity is fascinating! I am endlessly curious about what they do and why they do it, trying to work out what makes them tick, what do they do for living, what music they like? etc.

After we created our groups, we needed to decide on the rules to run the group by and we wrote them down:

How will we communicate in a way that values each others’ contribution?

How will we listen to each other?

How will we own/share ownership of the work?

When will we meet in person?

How will we communicate otherwise?

How will we distribute work?

The synergy between members was great from the first meet, we created our principles and we were excited to start working on the project. We decided to go home and for the next time we meet to research and write down areas important for us and that we want to focus on further. I did not have an idea yet, I just knew I want people to have a great experience, especially in these times of uncertainty and make thinks easier for people in London.

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/small-cause-big-effect/

Small Cause, Big Effect

Small Cause, Big Effect

By Hare in the Moon Astrology

Sunday March 1 2020

“When the world is in turmoil, it’s time to go fugitive, to slow down and receive rather than impose, to feel rather than think. That way, we’ll be ready when it’s time to break out of our limiting belief systems -because breaking out of our limited understandings is what it will take” Carolyn North

A heads up and an important reminder to frame each week’s forecast as part of a much bigger picture. 2020 is bringing about sudden and complete change. A moment in our collective time that is permanently closing the door on a familiar past. This shift is taking us all on to a new time-line so radically different that we will be struggling to grasp what’s happened to our world and to develop the skills to live in our new reality. As the waves from the epochal Saturn/Pluto Conjunction hit downstream ,through the ravages of climate change and the panic over an unknown virus, we are getting a real-time test of how fragile the world is- its delicate systems, its economy, its communities -just as our health systems have been systematically stripped to the bone and our support systems dismantled.

This week’s astrology is a perfect example of the phrase:” Everything is over -formed”, meaning that there is never just one simple cause and effect but multiple influences leading to an event or outcome.

The karmic South Node of Fate is conjunct centaur Pholus in Capricorn and both are activating Chiron in Aries. Pholus’ strapline is :“Small cause, big effect” like the genie escaping from the bottle. Chiron sets off a crisis to expose the wound for healing. The lesson is learnt through direct experience.

Venus is very active aligning first in Aries with Eris, the Galactic Centre, Haumea and Saturn before entering Taurus on March 6th to conjunct Uranus and align with the Nodes of Fate. If you unpack this, it means: highly emotional issues connected to global disruption (Eris), epochal events (Haumea) and Karma (Saturn) leading to shocks and collective unpredictability (Uranus) all involving downloads of new information (GC).

The seismic storm window opens on Thursday March 5th ahead of the Super Full Moon next Tuesday March 9th. At the same time, Mercury kicks up a Trickster storm as he slows to turn direct at the Super Moon. 24 hours earlier, the Sun makes his annual conjunction with shapeshifter Neptune right on the Super Moon degree of 19 Pisces.

With Neptune-symbol of pandemics- being triggered by a Super Full Moon and aligned with Saturn/Pluto/Jupiter/Mars-expect an increase in the Covid 19 virus numbers worldwide along with fear mongering, disinformation and widespread rumours.

The virus is more likely to impact our systems than you personally so make preparations now while Mercury is retrograde. When Saturn enters Aquarius in 3 weeks, restricted air travel looks likely along with an acceleration of virus spread at the Equinox and into early April at the first Jupiter/Pluto conjunction.

Stay on your Witness perch, keep your perspective and remember that fear is as contagious as the virus itself. Make your sanctuary- which you’ve been creating for the last 18 months during the Cancer/Capricorn eclipses- your base camp.

Read your free March 1-8 2020 Week ahead + Sign Forecasts at: www.hareinthemoonastrology.co.uk

New! my March 5D Report:” The Bridge Across Tomorrow” is your essential Guide to Lord of Time and Karma Saturn returning to futurist Aquarius for the first time in 29 years sounding the first crystal clear note of the incoming 2020 – 2043 Aquarian frequency and delivering progressive new tools and technologies. Sign up at: www.hareinthemoonastrology.co.uk

“The Ripple Effect is exponential in your work, and I am so grateful for the insight to embrace the next steps. Your 5D Reports are inspiration and solace throughout the month – thank you for your work, Lorna.” Sally Miller Tucson Arizona

*******

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Commentary from The First Contact Ground Crew 5dSpiritual Healing Team:

Feel Blocked, Drained, Fatigued, Restless, Nausea, Achy, Ready to Give Up? We Can Help! We are preparing everyone for a Full Planetary Ascension, and provide you with the tools and techniques to assist you Home Into The Light. The First Contact Ground Crew Team, Will Help to Get You Ready For Ascension which is Underway. New Spiritual Sessions have now been created for an Entire Family, including the Crystal Children; Group Family Healing & Therapy. We have just began these and they are incredible. Highly recommend for any families struggling together in these times of intense changes. Email: [email protected] for more information or to schedule an emergency spiritual session. We can Assist You into Awakening into 5d Reality, where your experience is one of Constant Joy, Wholeness of Being, Whole Health, Balanced, Happy and Abundant. Lets DO THIS! Schedule Your Session Below by following the Link! Visit: ��http://www.lovehaswon.org/awaken-to-5d/

Introducing our New LoveHasWon Twin Flame Spiritual Intuitive Ascension Session. Visit the link below:

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