So, I dug out The First Toy Bricks I Ever Owned.  I have never identified what brand they are.  They are very obviously not LEGO, nor are they LEGO-compatible.  And I’m curious.  I would like to know what they are, and maybe add to the set from eBay (if you’re going to find old toys, it’s the place to go.)

I’ve been scrolling through images, and my best guess is they *might* be Tyco Preschool?  It’s close, at any rate.  I might buy some of the not-outrageously expensive ones at some point to compare, but in the meantime, here’s some pictures.  Any toy experts following me know what these are?

(The red and blue bricks are from the mystery set.  The yellow are authentic LEGO for comparison.)

Non Magicians in Magnostadt : an analysis over the possibilities of an analogy.

I love Magi, it's probably my favorite piece of fiction of all times. But most importantly, I love analysing stuff. And for a while, I wondered what are the non Magicians of the Magnostadt kingdom supposed to represent ? And after thinking about it for a while, I think I finally got an answer so ... Strap in !!(Please do be aware that this text will talk in depth about discrimination, if this subject is triggering to you I'd advise you to stop here !)

For obvious reasons, the first thought I had was that the non Magicians were supposed to represent Jews. Magi is heavily based on both Judaism and Islamic ideas and having almost a whole population being put in a specific district can be easily linked to a real event event. But thinking about it, something felt heavily wrong. The people that were discriminated against clearly weren't supposed to be Jewish. No, everything pointed to the magicians being the ones that were Jewish instead. I'm not an expert when it comes to Jewish tradition and beliefs, but I did my research. Non Magicians are often called Goi by Mogamett. Goi is a Jewish term that is used to describe non Jewish people. And when you dug a little deeper, you can also see that Jewish people are supposed to be people closer to their god, like magicians would be since they are directly linked to the world's magic sources. I could also argue that Mogamett's does ressemble cliché representations of Jewish people, especially with the nose. Does that mean that the Jewish were represented as the oppressor and the other people as the oppressed ? I don't know. I wouldn't be able to decide if that's the case at all, especially since in other languages, Goi has been Translated to Kaffir, which is meant to describe the people who aren't Muslims. It's overall very confusing. But still, what I could see is that the people who were oppressed weren't meant to represent Jewish people. Obviously, I quickly took a look at the biggest oppressed groups there are in the world. So I thought about Sexism, Racism and LGBTphobia. Sexism didn't seem to be it at all. Women are shown to have high positions in Magnostadt's society. We see it with Myers who is a highly respected teacher or obviously Yamuraiha that is treated as one of the best Magicians ever. So it couldn't be it. Racism seemed ... Off. One of the points of Aladdin's fear of discrimination is that these people are all of the same when it comes to their appearance. It was the point of the new world that Ugo created, all creatures became the same race to avoid discrimination. And with all of that, we have Sphintus who's at the very least Arabic. As for homophobia I couldn't see a link at all. It's not like they weren't able to have children together, they did have kids. It's not that they were hated for something they love and that they could just hide it, they weren't able to do something and that's all. It couldn't be that either.   But then, it clicked. The main point of this discrimination was because people weren't abled to do something. They were disabled. It wasn't even a metaphor. They literally were disabled. And now, here comes the part with explanations and details to better understand this theory, coming with an introduction to the world disabled, because I do believe that it is interesting to have a clear difference with a disability and a handicap. A handicap means that you are facing a disadvantage due to a problem. For exemple, if you start a race with a 20 pounds chain on your  foot, you will be handicapped compared to others in the race. A disability means something you can't do. Therefore, depending on the context, someone that is handicapped can be or not be disabled. Let's say a part of a human population grows wings. If they keep evolving in our actual society they will be advantaged yes, but no one will be unable to do their normal tasks. However if the world starts to be built around these people with wings, creating places that only them can access by flying for exemple, everyone who doesn't have wings will be considered disabled. Because they're unable to do the same. Now with that exemple, replace wings with magic and you get exactly what Magnostadt's society is. It is exclusively built for people who are born magicians. Normal human beings cannot function in it properly. And what do you do when someone can't function properly ? You start discriminating them. Mogamett truly believed that the non magicians weren't as useful as other humans were, so he built a society for the to be put in a position of weakness. Some people can work on the surface, yes. But it's because they're rich or they have talent like artists or crafters. You can see disabled people working in an every day life, but most often people are surprised. As for the poor people ? Well they're put in their little spaces of life to rot. The people born in the 5th district pretty much never see the outside world and to be fair, disabled people don't either. They're meant to stay at home, because things aren't meant for us outside. From now on, I'm gonna talk about disability using my own experiences. It's probably gonna be a bit raw, but I think parallels will be easier to make. The thing that I thought the most about is the "you should be grateful" part. It's really interesting and is a very manipulative technique to make sure people are under your control. The people in the 5th district are given food and water and don't have to work. Most of them could probably work if they were given the opportunity to with the proper help to make the job accessible. But no, they're trapped in their place with no possibility to actually work for the society. They've been forced into this district because they were mistreated into poverty without the opportunity of getting out of it, and now that they're stuck in this situation, they're meant to be grateful. Because they're provided the food and sleep they need that they didn't have before when it's basic human rights. And the fact is, they've been in such an horrible situation before that they'd rather accept being treated like animals than being mistreated even more. And that's exactly what happens when handicapped people ask for financial help. We might get 1000$ a month if we're lucky, but it's still not enough. And people tell us that we're ungrateful because we want an actual liveable wage. We don't think that giving us absolutely nothing is a good either. We want to be treated as human beings. Yet we should still be oh so grateful because we're getting all of this without work. I could work if the world did a little effort. But it does. And it also comes back to the hymn beings statement. Because that's also a very interesting thing : they're not seen as human beings. Mogamett sees non magicians as animals. Different people as seen as different animals, for exemple Marga was a kitten to the man's eyes. But her being cute didn't mean he respected her. And it's not rare to see disabled people as less valuable. That was insanely obvious during the COVID-19 crisis. People kept talking about disabled people as a necessary sacrifice for other people's well being. Because to them, a human life is important. But a "lower" human life isn't as important as being able to get McDonald's. Non Magicians are more than likely to be killed if they are ill or can no longer provide enough magical ressources to the city. Since they were born into poverty and unable to get out of this place, they will most likely die at a rather young age or if they catch an illness. It's not their choice to die, the government literally kills them if they're not enough. There isn't much an equivalent in our modern society for the government killing people directly, however this method did remind me of some atrocious things that are currently done to disabled people in countries like Canada. When you're disabled, you have to pay for medication. A lot. And if you're poor, you're likely to go in dept very quickly. And for that, the government came with a solution : assisted suicide. You can either choose to die slowly and painfully, or the government can give you the medication to kill yourself. All of that because you can't pay your medication and therefore you're not useful enough to society anymore. Non Magicians in the 5th district aren't just seen as a source of magical income for the rest of society. They're seen as people you can utilise and milk of their energy until their death. And with all of these arguments, I believe that the whole Magnostadt arc's treatment of non Magicians was a direct reference of disabled people.

How do you think the gang (+ travis if that's ok) would act if they had a crush on someone they were already friends with?

Sal Fisher

bad. very bad. Sal wasn’t one to find himself having crushes left and right. he was a private guy, all things considered, and he preferred to keep it that way. he’d socialize, but the individuals outside his friend group didn’t know much about him, and that’s how he liked it. but he was friends with you. and he very much liked that.

or…he very much liked you. and he hated that. he hated the way his heart clenched in his chest every time you shot him a quick smile in the halls, how your eyes would match your smile in such a bright demeanor. he hated the way that you’d come over to his house and effortlessly converse with his dad, in the polite tone that was just as effortless when even he found it hard to talk to some adults comfortably. he hated it all, because it just made him like you even more.

was like the correct word to use? did he see you as a crush? maybe more than a crush? Sal really hated the term ‘crush.’ it was so fickle, and it just made him unsure of himself. for now, he wouldn’t put a label on it (for the sake of his own heart) and he’d do his best too ignore it. that was Sal’s default mode whenever he found himself harboring feelings for someone else—he’d ignore it. usually, that only ended in his feelings growing stronger. of course. “you can’t ignore your heart, Sal,” is what Larry would tell him. and deep down, Sal knew that he was right.

still…every time you smiled at him, he felt himself get sucked further in. the way you’d rub his arm gently to comfort him reminded him that his feelings weren’t invalid, and he liked you for a reason. although the thought didn’t fix all of his problems, it was enough to reassure him that how he felt wasn’t supernatural.

Larry Johnson

Larry was actually really level-headed when he needed to be. he didn’t freak out when he realized that he had felt an attraction to you. hell, he always found you kind of cute…but he supposed that liking someone was different from finding them attractive. his demeanor didn’t drastically change around you, but if you squinted, you could see small things that Larry would do around you.

for example, he started standing behind you as if he was some kind of watch dog. he’d scan the area for any suspicious figures, and tried his best to look intimidating to anyone who he deemed a threat. he also had a tendency to reach for you if he so much as thought you were in danger. the group was hanging out around the lake, and you got just a bit to close to the edge of the water for comfort, and Larry found himself reaching out to grab your arm and pull you away. none of it was enough to arouse suspicion—he was naturally a protective guy—but it was enough for Larry himself to flush when he finally realized what he was doing.

he’d play it casual, for the most part, watching out for anyone who flirted with you. that asshole, Phillip, stared at you too much and too long for Larry’s liking (the guy actually wasn’t much of an asshole, but Larry couldn’t help but grit his teeth when he saw the two of you talking comfortably). 

in fact, most of his ‘strategy’ consisted of him protecting you more than anything else. he cared about you, but he’d tend to put your needs above his own. not so much in an obsessive manner, but more-so that he’d just think, “is (Name) okay?” when the group went anywhere before anything else. maybe it was a tad overboard, but it’s what made him feel secure.

Ashley Campbell

Ashley was honestly pretty confident. she’s had her fair share of crushes and relationships, and out of everyone in the group, she’s the one who has dated around the most. so, she’s probably the most experience when it comes to romantic feelings.

liking her friend wasn’t really in her comfort-zone, though, because there’s so much that could hypothetically go wrong. if Ashley were to confess her feelings and you didn’t return them, it would be awkward. on the other hand, if you two were to date and then break up, it would be even more awkward. for a while, Ashley is conflicted on what to do. usually she’d go to one of her friends about this, but she realized that if her other friends knew about her feelings, they’d all act weird around you since they know something you don’t.

Ashley relieves her stress by painting—its always been a serene activity—as her nerves finally settle down. she contemplates on her options. ultimately, the best solution she can come up with is to just ride it out casually. she’s not going to force herself to accept these feelings, but she’s also not going to ignore them.

still, it’s only natural for her to feel a bit shy around you. anytime you touch her, she finds her face getting hot. hanging out with you just isn’t the same, but it’s not necessarily bad. she takes the time to notice small things that you do, like how your nose scrunches up a bit when you laugh, or how you resist a smile when Larry cracks a cheesy joke. the traits that she never noticed before are the ones she finds the most adorable.

Todd Morrison

needless to say, Todd is a logical guy. he sees the feelings coming way before they actually accumulate. he finds himself studying you closely, like small features that he never noticed about your appearance, or small ways that you move that he never noticed before. within the group he tends to only speak up whenever he feels it’s necessary, but he finds himself talking a bit more when he starts developing feelings for you. Todd isn’t exactly an expert on hiding his feelings, so his friends catch on in no time. 

naturally, they start pestering him about it. “when did you realize you liked him?” and questions that Todd refused to answer. if Todd did get irritated enough, they'd back off, but all in all they were still excited for their friend to actually have a crush on someone. it took more than just a smile to make his heart flutter, so there must've been something about you that Todd found himself attracted to like a magnet.

maybe it was your compassion? Todd always appreciated you letting him come over if his parents were getting too out of hand. or perhaps your wit? you were smart enough to hold your own in an argument, and you did so with confidence and intellect. or maybe it was the way you were able to get along with all of his friends? well that was a no-brainer, you got along with almost everyone.

Todd was more cautious about his feelings than the others in the way that he’d spend nights studying his own feelings. he’d ponder it over and come to the conclusion that he’d play it by ear, and do his best to act natural around you.

Travis Phelps

god, Travis was the absolute worst at this. he’d overthink every single aspect of the situation until he began acting bitter towards you. he’d start blowing you off to hang out because he could just not physically control his pounding heart around you. it pissed him off. this was so stupid, he had better things to do than dwell on some crush. but...regardless, the tight feeling he got in his chest when you so much as smiled at him was obvious. 

despite how naturally cold he was, you were always kind to him. you always made a point to sit him down and ask if he was doing alright. stubbornly, he’d proclaim that everything was fine, but you wouldn't pry too much and instead show your sympathy through actions. when he came to school with a suspicious bruise on his eye, you didn't draw attention or ask questions, you simply brought him outside and pressed a cold compress to it and offered him lunch. he yelled at you that he didn't need to be babied, but you simply offered him a knowing smile and continued doing your thing.

his feelings for you were so painfully obvious, but he’d deny until his final breath. the way he acted varied depending on his mood, but more often than not he’d just get flustered around you and resort to turning his face away from yours so he didn't feel embarrassed. sometimes, though, if he just want having a stellar day, all he could do is let you wrap your arms around him as he sighed into your chest. you were his safe haven, and on some level, you knew that, so it was your responsibility to make him feel like he could be okay.

17. Obeisant

Mild end-of-5.0 spoilers at the end

Gwen didn’t mind not standing out, being no more than an ordinary adventurer, or even an ordinary Scion. She wanted to be helpful, to be useful, and she didn’t need to be noticed or revered to do that. For the most part.

Sometimes merely being ‘an adventurer’ wasn’t enough, as some situations were considered too difficult to entrust to one without some sort of reputation or experience to back them up. Occasionally the bland title got her a few upturned noses and frowns from those who solved problems by throwing fistfuls of gil, and mercenaries, at them. 

She didn’t much mind that, honestly. She didn’t care for the company of those with that sort of mindset. And if people wanted some sort of proof that she could handle whatever task they wished to give her, jumping through a few hoops and running a few errands tended to be proof enough.

Gwen was perfectly comfortable just going about her business and being part of the crowd. She didn’t mind taking a job and surpassing expectations and leaving again. She just wanted to help.

Everything started to change around the time she first ran into Thancred. From there it seemed to spiral out of control, and she very quickly stumbled from little errands and odd jobs into directly aiding the Sultansworn. Through all of that she wound up helping the Sultana, which earned her an --apparently unprecedented-- invitation to a royal banquet with the Sultana and Ul’dah’s elite.

Gwen dazedly wondered if anyone in attendance had the slightest inkling that she hadn’t dreamed of anything going the way it had, and she’d only gotten involved at the start of the whole thing because Momodi had thought her trustworthy.

Probably not.

As if her head hadn’t been spinning from all of that, then she had the honor of being the Flame General’s emissary, which sent her all over Eorzea.

The busy, battle-filled jaunt around the world culminated in her being asked to join the Scions.

And then she killed Ifrit. Alone.

A few days later a recruitment officer from each of the Grand Companies was waiting outside her door. She hadn’t told anyone about the Primal, had barely mentioned it to the other Scions, but Tataru and the rumor mill had handled that for her. 

Then she slew Titan. Then she aided Haurchefant and Lord Francel and recovered the Tiny Bronco for Cid. Then she slew Garuda…

The list kept growing, and her name along with it.

After she defeated Gaius and saved Thancred in the Praetorium, people started calling her the Warrior of Light, and suddenly she was a hero.

Her anonymity very nearly shrank with every bell. Someone would recognize her and point her out to others who didn’t, some of them rushing up to express their gratitude or ask questions or shake her hand. Suddenly people who sought to speak with her were obeisant rather than simply polite or personable, like she’d been used to. Some went so far as to bow or curtsey when they spoke with her, even as Gwen strenuously tried to tell them it wasn’t necessary.

 She’d never even dreamed of what it would be like to be so venerated, and then it suddenly happened.

It was touching, really, to know that she’d helped so many and done so much good. It was emboldening and empowering to know so many had so much faith in her. People found hope, in one form or another, in the Warrior of Light and her deeds. People lived better lives when the world wasn’t so dire, and even the most dire of situations seemed a little less bleak with the knowledge that there was a living legend around to make it all right again.

And the sheer weight of those expectations, of the starstruck looks, the hopeful cheers, the requests for aide, was so unbelievably, indescribably heavy. 

So many people expected her to be… something. To be a legend, a hero, an expert, to be perfect somehow, everyone had a different thing.

People all across Eorzea recognized her, but she came to learn that precious few actually knew her name. To a great many people, at least outside of the Scions and a handful of friends, she wasn’t Gwen anymore. She was the Warrior of Light. 

Gwen would arrive somewhere and people would know who she was before she introduced herself. They would already have inflated expectations because they knew her reputation and had heard tale of her heroic accomplishments. Some people went so far as to think that enough stories and rumors were a passable substitute for an introduction or conversation, acting as though they’d known her for years when, in fact, they were meeting for the first time. 

And when Gwen arrived, people knew things were serious, that the situation was dire, and that they were in trouble. Because why else would the Warrior of Light show up, right? The Warrior of Light was a hero and a problem solver, and no one needed either if there was no heroic problem to solve. A hero like that, who fought Primals and liberated countries, didn’t do odd jobs or small tasks, surely.

But, despite all that, everything would be alright. Because the Warrior of Light, Liberator of Doma, slayer of Nidhogg, Savior of Ishgard was on their side. And that meant the problem was practically solved, didn’t it?

No one considered that Warrior of LIght was still Gwen. Guinevere Ashe. A person.

People make mistakes. They lose their patience, they get overwhelmed, they get tired and hurt. 

Sometimes people grow weary of seeing faces alternatively brighten and darken when they walk into a room. 

Sometimes they start to feel a certain sort of way about being the first, and only, solution to every problem, especially when they aren’t given much say in the matter. 

Sometimes their best isn’t enough. Sometimes they lose.

The families of the dead, of the ones Gwen couldn’t save, didn’t want to hear that. They didn’t want a person who could only do their best, they wanted the hero that could fix everything. A towering reputation and exaggerated tales didn’t give much comfort to the mourning or the dead.

But the majority of people didn’t even seem to consider that. They didn’t want to think about loss, about the holes left behind, they wanted to look forward, to the new futures that the Warrior of Light unraveled with each victory.

If Gwen were in their position, she probably wouldn’t have thought about that stuff either. It was a terribly grating and heavy thing to have riding one’s conscience.

It was so much easier to not disappoint people, to not let anyone down, when they didn’t expect anything of her. When they thought she was only an adventurer with a name not worth remembering, who had maybe had experience but maybe not.

All she could do was try her hardest, so...she did. What else could she do if refused to stand aside or sit idly by, after all.

And people continued to bow and cheer and sang her praises, and she acted like that lifted and bolstered her mood and didn’t, even slightly, sit too heavily on her thoughts.

Gwen tried, with varying degrees of success, to explain her mindset to her friends in the instances they noticed her discomfort. They, at least, remembered that she was a person, though that didn’t mean they didn’t hold her to a higher standard.

They understood, but only so much. The Scions had been rather abruptly thrust out of the shadows themselves, though it was the organization, rather than the individual members, that was receiving most of the attention. Her friends could understand and empathize with how crushing the weight of responsibilities and lives could be, and they could at least sympathize with the notion that an overabundance of attention and praise was both intrusive and bothersome. 

But at the same time there was a disconnect, a gap, that Gwen couldn’t quite cross with just words. Even Thancred and his knack for insight fell a bit short in that regard.

It wasn’t until they’d each witnessed firsthand the trials of such a title, be it when they were delayed and stopped by a dozen different people as they tried to cross a city with her, or seeing her cringe when someone would call out her title like her name, or watching people who didn’t know her crowd too close or speak too personally as if they weren’t strangers, that her friends really started to grasp and appreciate just how overwhelming it all could be.

It had been so odd, so liberating, to walk around Norvandt utterly anonymous, receiving only polite smiles and nods when she caught someone’s eye in the street or entered a shop. Being the Exarch’s friend meant she wasn’t utterly without clout, but that bit of information was something she had to --got to-- share on her own, because people didn’t already know or immediately assume. 

No one looked at her and immediately knew who she was. There were no rumors and stories she had to live up to when she was literally brand new to the world.

While definitely strange, partially because of the abruptness, it had been wholly wonderful. Gwen clung to it desperately, feigning ignorance as best she could when people rejoiced and wondered aloud at the gradual return of the night. The people she interacted with and helped along the way remembered her only for what she’d done for them, for being helpful and kind, not for being the amazing hero who did the impossible. 

And her friends had willingly played along, speaking in the vaguest terms and downplaying what they could on the occasions they, themselves, didn’t go unnoticed.

Even when Chai-Nunz had demanded, utterly flabbergasted, who she and the Scions were and how they could so easily call people from all across Norvandt to help with his giant Talos, they’d all said the same thing: Adventurers of no import.

Of course it didn’t last. Gwen knew it wouldn’t. 

But she deeply appreciated that the people of the Crystarium had allowed her the false anonymity even when who and what she was had become so painfully obvious. 

With that in mind, the resurgence of reverence and unnecessarily obeisant gestures wasn’t quite so stifling. 

In the beginning, anyway. Beyond that was something she’d only learn with time.

-----------------------------

Did I lose the plot? I think I lost the plot. BUT I THREW THE PROMPT WORD IN TWICE, SO CLOSE ENOUGH EH?

NGL didn’t even know what the heckin’ word meant when I first read it.

It got more rambly than I intended, but I still like how it came out :D

Sometimes the WoL just wants to be a regular person, mang.

Watching Doctor Who Season 37 (Series 11), Episode Four

Ok, I’m going to have to say it: Doctor Who has a checkered past in regards to spiders.

I mean, I understand the temptation to go with arachnid-like monsters. Spiders often creep people out, so giant, mutant spiders should have an even greater horror vibe to them. Unfortunately, it seems arachnids of all sorts never fare well when appearing in Doctor Who. 

Thus we have comically stiff spiders with goofy voices in Planet of the Spiders. We have genuinely threatening, but also drama-queen diva spiders in the meh  The Runaway Bride. And then you have  what could have been truly creepy spider-like creatures in Kill the Moon which were wasted by being featured in a dire episode like Kill the Moon.

So when I saw the title of this one, I had to resist the temptation to roll my eyes. And not just because we got another music pun/reference in an episode title (first Bowie and now the Sex Pistols...). I figured we could be in for some very first class cheese with this one.

All that said, I decided to give Arachnids in the UK a go with as open of a mind as possible.

As usual, spoilers from here onward....

Episode Thoughts

This episode went back to the season opener’s structure of having things happen that appear unrelated at first, but quickly fit together into a main plotline well before the episode ends. It’s a smart technique as it can help to cover any thinness to the plot. 

We start with Robertson, a guy who is suspiciously similar to another hotel-owning, multi-millionaire businessman with a crass, harsh personality who decided to run for president. Seriously, not since The Happiness Patrol have we been given such a painfully obvious reference to a real-life political figure on Doctor Who.

 And wait, is that Chris Noth? Why yes, yes it is. That’s something I seriously did not expect and it’s fun to see him in this. XD

Anyway, Citizen Robertson here rants about a possible threat to his political future and fires a random employee for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. This actually turns out to be not so random later on....

(Side note: They do name drop Trump later in the episode with Robertson mentioning that he can’t stand the guy. I guess that’s one way to deflect the obvious....XD)

Meanwhile, the Doctor actually manages to get her companions back to their correct time and place and soon appears to regret her efficiency. Fortunately for her, Yasmin is up for inviting everyone to tea which everyone immediately accepts.

After wonderfully awkward moments with Yasmin’s family and some poignant moments alone with Graham, we finally get to the spiders. Well sort of. We just get one spider to start out with, but there was plenty of foreshadowing before that to let us know that it won’t just be one spider.

Soon, the plot ties together when we realize that it was Yasmin’s mother who got fired and a neighbor of Yasmin’s family has a friend/co-worker/? who is a specialist in regards to spiders and who is worried that she hasn’t shown up for a few days. This eventually leads to a showdown in the lavish, recently finished hotel between humans and arachnids. 

Some more quick side notes....

The hotel they chose for the principal location is a good one. It has the right Overlook Hotel vibe to it which is perfect to accentuate the horror in this episode.

Ok, having Yasmin’s mom be the one who got fired by Robertson is a solid way to tie the plot together. Having an arachnid expert be friends with someone who lived in the same building as Yasmin’s family and having her show up just as the Doctor starts to investigate teeters dangerously toward deus ex machina territory.

But on a much funnier note, did anyone else notice someone (Ryan, I think?) making shadow puppets in the background while the Doctor and McIntyre were talking about Serious Spider Stuff in McIntyre’s lab? That’s the sort of offhand detail that I just love...

Now, back to the rest of the episode...

As can be expected with someone like Robertson, all of his employees are taken out by the spiders leaving the Doctor, her companions, Yasmin’s mom, Naija, and our new friend, Dr. McIntyre to find out that there’s is both abandoned coal mines underneath the hotel (which is niffty for the spiders to get around) and a toxic landfill that was very poorly managed.

Ok, at this point I need to stop to consider something that’s bothering me about the plot. 

I think we can all agree that Robertson is a terrible person and was horribly negligent in allowing the landfill to combine stuff willy nilly. But if we’re going to assign blame for the mutant spiders, shouldn’t some of it be placed on McIntyre and her lab? These scientist are manipulating spider DNA and apparently not being careful enough in making sure the specimens are dead before disposal. Even if Robertson didn’t have an unusually toxic landfill mutating these spiders further, those half-dead “super spiders” could have wrecked havoc on local ecosystems. Thus, I hardly think McIntyre should be acting like she’s on some sort of moral high ground compared to Robertson.

In the end, it’s decided that it’s more humane(?) to suffocate/starve all the baby spiders in Robertson’s panic room and drive the huge mother spider out of the hotel...to where, I don’t know. However, Robertson clearly wanted a chance to kill something and thus, shoots the giant spider before it can asphyxiate. 

This leads to another little issue I have. The Doctor and McIntyre were just going to watch that giant spider slowly suffocate and die. Robertson shot it once and put it out of its misery quickly. I guess I’m at a loss as to how Robertson’s solution in and of itself is crueler than a slow death. 

And the thing is, I think the writers missed an opportunity here. Having Robertson clearly show no remorse for what he did was chilling enough. But I think we could have added an even more sinister edge to his character if it was made clear that his decision to shoot the spider would be considered merciful and correct by many and that it wasn’t a black and white decision. 

That way, the horrifying aspect of his character would not have been what he did but instead the mindset and motives of why he did it. Few things are more evil that someone who hides their malevolence under the guise of good intentions. 

After that painfully abrupt ending, the Doctor prepares to leave and discovers, much to her surprise and delight, that Graham, Ryan and Yasmin aren’t ready to say goodbye to her and traveling through time and space. 

So did Arachnids in the UK avoid the usual trap of tacky spider themed episodes? Well.....

The thing is, there are several things this episode did right. The number one was a wonderful mix of humor and lowkey scares. We get moments like Ryan and Graham’s two man comedy act leading up to a terribly creepy shot of several giant spiders skittering toward them. The atmosphere of the hotel and some well placed jump scares are balanced by the hilarious sight of mutant spiders gravitating a energetic grime tune (actually listened to it again while writing this, and it really set the mood). 

The problem for me has to be the easy out the plot took. I get wanting to keep this an Earth-bound problem (and making an eco-statement). But the separating of the so-called “good guys” and “bad guys” wasn’t neatly done and the ending felt far too much like the writers couldn’t think of a good solution in the time they had left. 

Thus, this episode works far better as a showcase for humor, atmosphere and characterization than it does as a carefully plotted story.

Character Thoughts

So how about that characterization then?

Two things were well defined in this episode. 

The Doctor is going to continue to be socially awkward, high-energy goofball.

This Doctor is not one who wants to brood by themselves somewhere even for a few moments. She clearly is one of those Doctor who vastly prefers to travel with companions.

Continuing in the tradition of each Doctor often being a “reaction” to the previous one, Thirteen is certainly far less prickly and much more openly social than Twelve. She seems to thrive on the “family” environment a crowded TARDIS creates. The only Doctor I can compare that to is probably Five who also seemed very invested in traveling with a group although there is far, far more harmony on Thirteen’s TARDIS than there ever was on Five’s. 

Myself, I’m enjoying a return to the idea of the Doctor being warmer and more familial as I never thought being difficult and prickly were necessary solely to create a sense of “otherness” about the Doctor. Whittaker still manages this with Thirteen’s scattershot, quirky approach to experiencing new places, people and events.

A lot of the humor in this episode was pulled off nicely by Whittaker whether it’s the cringing moments of awkward around Yasmin’s family or her sudden thought that The Spider Mother in the Ballroom could be “the best novel Edith Wharton never wrote.” 

Meanwhile, Ryan and Graham also have some wonderful bits together as they (very reluctantly) keep having to go out on spider-related missions in the hotel. The two of them continue to be a fun team who are slowly trying to figure out this family “thing” they have been thrust into.

Funnily enough, while on the surface this could look like an episode that would focus more on Yasmin since we are spending time with her family....it really doesn’t. The most we get is some insight as to why she wants to travel with the Doctor: because she loves her family, but clearly doesn’t always get along with them that great. I think this is another opportunity the writers missed as we could have gotten a bit more insight into how her family played a role in the person she became. Instead, their presence seems to mainly service the plot (Naija) or try to add to the humor (the rest of her family). 

The Last Word

I’m afraid Doctor Who may never have a completely solid episode featuring spiders....even with this effort. This is episode is a fun ride most of the time with some great moments of humor and characterization, so it manages to not be truly cringe-y. However, it would have been nice if the writers had put more thought into how to end the main plotline and found more interesting ways to develop Yasmin’s family and by extension Yasmin herself.

Why Your Business Must Double Down On Data

During this time of uncertainty, it’s imperative that companies double down on data.

JoPanuwatD | BigStock

As our governments fight to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re seeing the global economy grind to a painful halt. While we strive to save lives by restricting non-essential services and observing stay-at-home orders, both B2C and B2B companies—large and small—are feeling the effects of the unfolding economic crisis. For example, your sales pipeline and forecast from the beginning of the year probably looks nothing like your current figures. You may have already initiated some cost reductions and pulled back on spending to prepare for what’s coming. Except you don’t know what’s going to happen—nobody does.

In this unprecedented period of uncertainty, it’s difficult to plan or make decisions with confidence. As a result, the natural tendency may be to hold the line, ride out the storm, and wait for things to return to normal. While this approach may feel like a safe strategy, it is based on a misguided status quo bias. In reality, what we define as “normal” may never return. If we do eventually return to something resembling “normal,” what happens if it doesn’t emerge for 18-24 months? Can you afford to wait? Probably not.

In these challenging times, change is inevitable—standing still isn’t an option. While many digital transformation efforts have waited patiently for proper attention, organizations must now embrace digital change like never before. Companies need to pivot and adapt quickly to the new business environment. As our intuitions desperately seek to guide us through these unfamiliar waters, our fear-fueled cognitive biases will inevitably trip us up. During these turbulent times, data may prove to be the very life preserver that keeps your organization afloat. Insight-driven decisions—not gut-driven ones—will lead to business survival. It’s time for every organization to strengthen, not weaken, its commitment to data by doubling down on its analytics efforts.

What do the analytics experts say

To better understand how companies can leverage data to adapt and optimize their businesses in this unique pandemic crisis, I reached out to three analytics entrepreneurs for their perspectives and insights:

For this article, I interviewed three analytics entrepreneurs who are on the frontlines of driving … [+] value with data.

Brent Dykes

Jason Krantz, CEO/Founder of Strategy Titan, a strategic analytics advisory, and a provider of economic, labor, and market insights.

Michael Helbling, President/Founder of AJL Analytics, an analytics consultancy focused on analytics strategy and value creation through data.

Jason Thompson, Co-Founder of 33 Sticks, an analytics boutique that uses consumer behavior to solve complex business challenges.

Each of these individuals runs their own analytics consultancy, is focused on driving value with data and works with a wide variety of companies that exhibit various levels of data maturity. From my discussions with these analytics experts, I’ve identified six key themes for how you should approach doubling down on data during these uncertain times:

1.   Stay calm, don’t panic

As organizations struggle with this economic crisis, it’s important to be calm and not panic. Thompson said, “When businesses start panicking, they make illogical decisions that in the aftermath they will greatly regret.” These mistakes may include becoming too paralyzed with fear and unable to act, abandoning promising analytics initiatives and letting valuable brainpower go that could have helped in the recovery phase. Krantz noted, “The smart leaders are staying calm and leveraging this opportunity to recalibrate various components of their businesses.”

2.   Turn challenges into opportunities

The pandemic shines a new light on your current business operations. A problem that was once invisible may now become painfully obvious during these demanding times. Helbling stated, “It’s a critical moment to establish a solid foundation for your business analytics so you have a clearer understanding of where your business is right now. With this foundation, you can then discover new opportunities for customer acquisition, lead generation and product sales.” Thompson noted, “Our sharpest customers are using this time as an opportunity to innovate at an even faster pace—it’s a chance for them to get even stronger.” In most cases, companies possess everything they need to seize new opportunities. Krantz pointed out that “the answers to many of your most pressing business, customer and market questions are likely already within your four walls—hidden within your data.”

3.   Listen to your customers

Listening closely to customers–both their words and behaviors–will be critical in a shifting … [+] business environment.

fizkes | Bigstock

If you assume customer needs are the same and haven’t changed with this crisis, you may miss the mark. It’s critical that your business is aligned with today’s customer needs—not yesterday’s. Thompson commented, “Customers have changed. Companies should be using all the data they have available to them to understand what their ‘new customer’ looks like, how they can connect with them and how they can make the buy-receive process as anxiety-free as possible.” Whether it’s leveraging behavioral, survey, or conversational data (from picking up the phone), your company needs a clear signal from its client base. Based on feedback from customer interactions, Krantz’s team developed an entirely new offering of financial benchmarking and economic insights to help businesses track the recovery of their industry. He noted, “This was not in our roadmap but came forth because we listened to our customers.”

4.   Lean on your best people

To identify and drive improvements to your business, you’ll want to review your current roster for key individuals who could tackle innovative, data-driven solutions. These individuals are typically not in your executive ranks but visionaries at the mid-management level. Krantz recommended staff who are “high enough to have clarity on the strategic vision of the company but are still close enough to the day-to-day activities of the business to be able to quickly identify game-changing opportunities.” Unfortunately, Thompson noticed many firms have been letting go the exact type of talent who could help them the most right now. He said, “I’ve been shocked to see friends and past colleagues, that I know have the experience and brainpower to help companies take their businesses digital, getting caught up in the first waves of layoffs. It makes zero sense to me.” Companies can’t afford to let short-sighted cost-cutting negate the pursuit of future growth opportunities.

5.   Focus on analytical agility

Analytical agility is especially critical during a moment of crisis like we’re currently … [+] experiencing.

Koonsiri Boonnak | Bigstock

In this current environment, you’ll want to prioritize smaller analytics projects that focus on opportunities with the greatest potential with the least amount of risk. Helbling emphasized, “Companies need to get very practical and specific with their data analysis to deliver quick insights. Agility is everything when navigating a global crisis like this pandemic. In addition, ensuring the quality of the data goes hand-in-hand with these quick analyses. For many companies, data quality issues must now be addressed and can’t be ignored any longer.” Krantz also added, “It is a great time to leverage outside expertise to get these types of initiatives off the ground and rapidly show value.”

6.   Test everything

If your organization hasn’t yet developed a test-and-learn approach yet, now may be the time. Helbling noted, “People talk about the ‘new normal’ but the truth is none of us really know what that is so rapid experimentation is urgently needed. Without data to quickly discern the opportunity and its potential size, how will you know to stick with a tactic or abandon it for something more promising?” Thompson found some companies were holding off on optimization testing on their websites due to abnormal traffic patterns. He said, “Companies need to better understand these new audiences. What works? What doesn’t? They need to innovate and move quickly right now or they’re going to miss out on connecting with these new customers. Using data to inform a robust optimization testing strategy is absolutely a winning move.” Krantz echoed the need for testing and highlighted how his team is testing new ideas every week. He stated, “Not everything you try will work, but all you need is for one test to work and it could change your business for the better.”

As we go through these trying times, we need data more than ever to influence and guide how we move forward. To be clear, by doubling down on data, you aren’t necessarily spending more on analytics. It may simply mean staying committed to being data-driven, using your existing resources more effectively and adapting your analytics approach to the new business environment. Yes, the human and economic cost of this pandemic crisis will be felt for many years to come. However, the adversity of this moment may evolve your business into its best version—leaner, faster, stronger, and smarter than what would have been possible before. May data help propel your organization, teams and employees through this rough patch in our shared human history.

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Tags: Analytics, Business, business intelligence, covid-19, Data, data-driven, digital transformation, Double, economic crisis, Optimization, pandemic, testing

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The price of Bitcoin surged more than 17% in the last 24 hours and now sits at $2744, not too far from its June all-time-high of about $3,000.

Here’s what’s happening: Bitcoin is being updated. The update has the chance of causing a serious rift that threatens some of the best things about Bitcoin, including how easy it is to use. It’s a complicated process, but things are looking good right now for that rift not actually happening. But we’re not out of the woods yet.

The story of how all this is unfolding is a complex one, and if you tried to read any of the explainers about what's happening —and there's a couple of great ones —you probably still didn't understand a thing. The terminology is obscure, the dates constantly shift, and there's a a lot of uncertainty about the entire process.

Here's a short overview of what's happening and what's likely to happen with Bitcoin in the near future, using terms you can understand.

Upgrading Bitcoin, democratically

Bitcoin needs an upgrade. The software, which was originally released in 2009, has mostly worked quite well, but lately it's become painfully obvious that some aspects of it can't cope with the increased demands of its growing community.

How do you upgrade a software that's decentralized? Bitcoin is maintained by developers (the most important of which are known as the Bitcoin Core team), but changes to it must be deployed in a democratic way.

This is where miners enter the picture. They are people and organizations who employ a tremendous number of powerful computers to power Bitcoin's network, for which they are rewarded with Bitcoin. They have a very big interest in making sure Bitcoin doesn't change in a way that reduces their income.

If the miners don't adopt an upgrade to Bitcoin, it won't happen. Worse, if the miners do not agree on an important decision, something called a hard fork can happen, meaning Bitcoin would be split into two separate cryptocurrencies, which is generally a bad thing.

Even the miners are not all-powerful. If they adopt a change that's not supported by the majority of actual users and exchanges, they could become stranded and ultimately unable to sell the bitcoins they created.

Making Bitcoin faster

Changing Bitcoin is not an easy feat, but we've reached a point when an upgrade is necessary. The largest issue is the block size in Bitcoin's blockchain, which has spurred a long and painful debate among Bitcoin developers.

Think of a blockchain as a big notebook. A block is one page in the notebook. Right now, you can only write a very low number of transactions on one page. But there’s a lot of folks who want to do a transaction, so there’s not enough room on the page. Miners take a look at the page and choose the transactions which pay the best fee; the rest have to wait. This is why Bitcoin transactions are currently slow and expensive.

An obvious solution is to increase the block size, and there's a proposal to do so called SegWit, but there's a number of reasons why it's not trivial to adopt. Suffice to say that some Bitcoin developers, proponents and miners hate the idea for a variety of technical and political reasons. Some think it should not be done at all, some think it should be done in a different way. And Bitcoin's core community is very, very conservative when it comes to change.

The bridge towards a new Bitcoin is built

To make this upgrade a little easier to adopt, developers have come up with a couple of ideas that make the switch more gradual. They are essentially ways to make the miners say "yes, I agree to the upgrade" before the upgrade is actually deployed. If a majority of miners say yes, then there's a bigger chance that the upgrade will go through.

Right now, the majority of miners are signaling they will adopt something called BIP 91, which is a very important step towards an actual update of the Bitcoin software. It means that in two or three days, miners will likely start using the first part of the upgrade. Then, in two weeks, they will adopt SegWit, which is what all this mess is about.

What's all this talk about August 1?

If you read about Bitcoin lately, you probably noticed August 1 as an important date. According to one proposal, this was the date when SegWit was to be adopted. But the miners decided to activate one of those mini upgrades earlier, so the actual upgrade will likely happen a few days earlier.

When, exactly? There's no straight answer. This is a complex upgrade with some things happening at a designated date and time, others happening when a certain block is mined and still others when a certain milestone is reached on the Bitcoin network. This means that often there's no strict date when something must happen, only estimates. Following all of this can be a chore; check this visual outline or this guide if you want to know more.

If everything goes according to plan, sometime in mid-November, Bitcoin will finally become a new version of Bitcoin, but the change should be painless. A new Bitcoin should arise, one that can process a lot more transactions per block than the current version. Even more importantly, a successful upgrade will pave the way for future upgrades of the software.

What exactly is the problem here?

Everything lined up above sounds as if things are working as intended. So why such a big hubbub over the whole upgrade?

Remember how Trump was losing at the polls but won come election time? A similar thing could happen to Bitcoin. There's a chance that some of the miners will change their mind at the very last second, with the whole upgrade falling through. Bitcoin is a very big machine and its cogs are numerous; there are even conspiracy theories that say some miners will reject the proposal at the last second precisely to cause a rift and create chaos.

And there could be an unforeseen technical glitch in the new code. When that happens in a piece of software maintained by a centralized authority, like Apple's iOS, a fix is fairly simple: Apple releases a fixed version, and users simply install it over the old one. With Bitcoin, things could get messy. It took years to talk the community into upgrading to SegWit; now imagine having to explain to that same community they need to switch to another upgrade in a matter of hours.

Glitches can and do happen. In 2010, a bug in Bitcoin code was discovered, enabling users to create an infinite number of bitcoins. But the Bitcoin community was orders of magnitude smaller and things were easier to fix back then, so the patch was successfully deployed in a matter of hours after it was discovered. No major bugs in Bitcoin have been discovered since, but then again, changes of this magnitude were not deployed often.

Not exactly smooth sailing yet

Bitcoin is not only new software; it's a new type of software. All this uncertainty can be ascribed, as many experts do, to growing pains, and it's likely that in the future Bitcoin will be a far more robust system. And right now, it looks as if the SegWit upgrade will go through.

But if you think investing into Bitcoin now is easy money, tread carefully. No one can tell you for sure how everything will pan out. This is why Bitcoin's price has been so volatile lately, and it will likely continue to be so, at least until the dust on the entire SegWit thing has settled.

Bearing freedom with a smile

This piece was just rejected from a publication where I've published before because they don't think their Christian readers would appreciate it. I don't mind the rejection - having your stuff thrown back in your face kind of goes with the territory, and I'm fine with that. But I'm puzzled by the reason - choosing to live your life according to a particular religion is a choice, is it not? At any rate, around here it is. It's in the Charter, the Bill of Rights, etc. Religion may help you not feel so much fear and anxiety in your life, since it removes a few choices from your day-to-day life. It's kind of like routines that way. But following a religion is not necessarily a life-long thing, or even a 100%-take-it-or-leave-it thing; some people cherry-pick, others move in and out of religion, for all sorts of reasons. That's still your decision to make, in freedom. But even if you live religiously, are you not still in control of your life? Aren't there still lots of areas in your life that aren't decided by it? Like what subjects you'll study in school, what job you take, or whom you'll agree to marry. Anyhow. The piece is below. You tell me what you think. 

 Bearing the cost of freedom – with a smile

 “Freedom comes with choice and choice comes with responsibility. Why do people willingly give up their freedom to a boss, a method or even a despot? (…) Sometimes, we willingly sacrifice our freedom because it creates an other, someone to blame. It gives us hard boundaries and eliminates potential choices. And mostly, it lets us off the hook, because someone else is driving the bus. Trying to drive from the back of the bus might feel less risky, but it rarely leads to much agency, influence or control as to where the bus actually goes. Careful what you do with the keys.” - the great Seth Godin recently on his website.

 Oh, how. Freedom is one of the scariest things in the world, because it puts you in charge of everything that matters. Making choices is exhausting. That’s why we value daily routines so much.

Freedom is also, paradoxically, one of the most sought after and highly valued things in the world, because everywhere freedom is denied you find human misery. OK, you can find human misery anywhere if you look hard enough. But in unfree societies misery in abundance results from a systematic negation of human dignity.

Freedom matters so much that countless humans are willing to fight and sometimes die to get it. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone willing to cross the sea in a dinghy to go live in a dictatorship.

It’s obvious why. To be the best version of ourselves we can be, we need freedom. But at the same time, freedom is like the Grand Canyon: Big, cavernous, and potentially very dangerous if you fail to treat it with the respect it deserves.

Humans are hardwired to demand freedom. But we are terribly ill-equipped to deal with its potential dangers. That’s why it’s so crucial to teach children how to handle it. They need to know what to do with it so that when they finally begin to spread their wings they don’t get snagged on the first obstacle.

Young kids bristle at the control their parents exert over their lives. They want – nay, need – to control something, anything. When they get very frustrated by their lack of agency, they throw a tantrum. The greater the frustration, the more epic the tantrum. Because once the kid is on the floor kicking and screaming like a space alien from the planet Utterkaos, Mom has to stop what she’s doing and pay attention. (No, running away and abandoning the seemingly possessed offspring to the benevolence of strangers is not a realistic option. Sorry.)

“OK, fine, I’ll get you the lollipop. Just please stop being so hysterical.”

Anything to make it stop.

The child has won. A trivial war, to be sure. But in the child’s mind getting their parent to relent and get them the stupid candy is a huge victory. (That’s why, as a practical aside, smart parenting experts recommend giving children some control over relatively insignificant aspects of their lives from an early age – not “do you want to take a bath?” but “do you want to take a bath with the red duckie, or the blue duckie?” – to get them used to making some decisions and especially avoid cringe-worthy displays of frustration. The duckie example comes from the awesome Super Nanny.)

A little freedom is great. But what would happen if you gave your toddler free reign? Right. They’d be dead in no time flat.

Teenagers don’t throw themselves on the floor. But they embarrass their parents with rebellious outbursts all the same. They think they’re ready to make their own decisions and feel their parents are square in the way of that independence. So they buck – sometimes hard.

Drugs, sex, mischief – sometimes mild, sometimes prison-worthy – ensues as inevitably as night follows day. Some teens get away with it, some get caught… by the law or by the consequences. At that stage in life, when you’re in a family situation that does not foster independence (or responsibility; despite long lectures on that very topic, many controlling parents refuse to grant their kids the space they need to learn true responsibility by making small mistakes), your entire life becomes consumed by the need to exert control… and not get caught.

You learn cunning. You learn to sneak around. You learn to lie, camouflage and hide. You learn the art of being devious behind a pleasant enough façade. You learn to live with yourself despite the profoundly uncomfortable knowledge that you are in fact a fraud. A clever fraud, sure. But nevertheless…

It’s only once you’ve had to face the consequences of your actions, often in the form of a bill, that you stop fighting so hard for your independence. Suddenly the truth hits you smack in the gob: Freedom is hard work.

The grown adult, after a few years of facing the cost of his independence, may start to want a wee bit less of it. Enter the overly controlling boss. Or the benevolent politician who promises a fool-proof safety net. There is much cajoling and seducing going on, with evocative images of carefree happiness, devoid of unpleasant accountability. Rest your heavy head on my broad shoulders, the politician says, and I will look after you. No longer will you have to sweat anxiously, sitting up in bed at night wondering if you made the right decisions. You don’t need to burden yourself with so many tough choices. I will protect your job so no one can fire you. I will protect your salary and benefits. I will stop meanies from taking advantage of you. I will envelop you in a soft cocoon inside which you’ll feel secure, relieved, and relaxed.

It’s seductive, alright. But also very dangerous. For man is not made to live constrained by the dictates of others. There is no way for humans to develop their full potential other than in freedom. We have to be challenged by situations where risks and potential losses can become painfully concrete in a heartbeat. The potential pain is very real. But on the flip side, those same situations offer us our only shot at real success and profound happiness.

No politician, however benevolent, no autocratic boss, can make us happy. For happiness lives inside all of us, and blossoms when we believe we’ve achieved that for which we were put on this planet, especially if we had to defy considerable odds to get there.

The person sitting at the back of the bus in Seth Godin’s example knows this. And he probably hates himself for having relinquished the steering wheel. But that ability to decide where he would drive to was so scary…

People who choose to live according to their own rules have to deal with fear every day. The fear that comes with knowing there are a whole bunch of holes in the safety net, an absence of someone else to blame for our mistakes and shortcomings. When you’re sitting at the back of the bus, you can grumble and blame the driver for not allowing you to live to your full potential. But when you’re in charge…

So how should we deal with that fear? How can we manage the intractable tension between having enough freedom to realize our potential but not so much freedom that we fear a misstep that will plunge us to our doom?

You could read philosophy. I highly recommend the Stoics. But I’m afraid nobody has found an easy solution yet. We’re stuck with more existential angst than we care for. That is one of those immutable laws of nature, at least where human beings are concerned.

What’s needed is a serious toughening of the metaphysical hide, through repeated exposure to the thing we both want and dread the most. Get used to the fear, the anxiety. Make it your friend. In the end, we have no choice but to reconcile ourselves with the intractable anxieties freedom brings if we want to reach our grave satisfied that we lived our life to the fullest, according to our own priorities, no matter what.

We must grin and bear it. Because while driving the bus of our destiny is scary, sitting passively at the back as it barrels down someone else’s road is worse.

Hands-on with Premiere and Photoshop Elements 2018

Released in time for Christmas, Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 & Premiere Elements 2018 arrive with a promise: being creative with your photos and videos has never been easier.

Moving to a new release of its popular programs, Adobe decided to change the way they’re named, so there is no version 16 of Photoshop or Premiere Elements. According to Adobe, “moving forward both apps will take on the upcoming year of their release in-lieu of a version number; hence, the transition from version 15 to Photoshop Elements 2018 and Premiere Elements 2018”.

The change makes sense and puts an end to a problem felt by Adobe users – and probably Adobe -, in recent years: it seemed they were always using a program from “last year”. In fact, Adobe launched version 10 in 2011, and kept issuing new versions each new year, until in 2016 they launched version 15. We’re now at the end of 2017 and launching version 16 seemed a little out of tune, so the solution was found: the programs take the name of the year immediately after launch, that’s 2018. Now, if Adobe does not update the programs in 2019, the next versions will be Photoshop and Premiere Elements 2020!

The Elements family has always been about giving users tools to easily organize photos and videos, editing, creating and sharing, through a user-friendly interface and modes for every level of user. That continues to be the core of both programs these days, with the recent release focusing on enhancing the experience even further for memory keepers, with hassle free organization, automated editing and some fun new Guided Edits that walk you through how to edit and create.

While you can buy Photoshop or Premiere Elements alone, I suspect many users will buy the bundle, especially as video became a pervasive technology in modern cameras, and everyone wants to create them. The price of $149.99 for the bundle may seem much but is probably the best deal if you look at the individual price for each app: $99.99. So, if you’re after a solution for editing photographs and video, and Adobe is the name you’ve as a reference, the bundle is the way to go.

Whichever way you go, the Organizer is the first element you’ll discover when opening the software. While this is no Lightroom catalog in terms of power – and some will say fortunately – the Organizer helps to keep things tidy, and for this version Adobe tried to get things working even better. The introduction of auto-curation, which automatically curates your photos based on quality, faces, subjects and more may well serve the public targeted with this version of the programs. If all works according to the promise, you no longer need to painfully look through a large batch of your photos to select the best ones.

Slideshows are growing in importance as a way to show photographs, and the slideshow module in offers a one click operation to create dynamic slideshows from curated photos and video clips, to which you can add your own personal touch by choosing a different theme and music, or adding captions.

Guided Edits are integral part of both programs, helping users to go through seemingly complex tasks in a easy way, thanks to the easy to follow step-by-step instructions. These edits are mostly welcome among amateurs, although the somehow canned solution they offer sometimes restricts users. The idea, though, is to help users to understand the mechanics, so they can, afterwards, move to the Expert mode and do everything on their own. Whenever you don’t remember a specific step, you can go back to the Guided Edits and browse each of them.

Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements now offer 67 Guided Edits, including eight brand new ones in this release.  Some pertain specifically to one program, others are shared between both programs.

Swap Backgrounds – Replace backgrounds in seconds by selecting the subject of a photo and placing it on a background that’s more interesting.

Create Double Exposures – Double exposures continue to grow in popularity, but are difficult and time consuming. No more with this new Guided Edit that brings one photo to life within another to create the surreal effect.

Add Artistic Overlay Effects – Embellish any photo with a shape overlay and one-click effects that make it a work of art. This Guided Edit is great for scrapbook pages and photo crafts.

Make Amazing Watercolors – With this Guided Edit, turn any photo into a beautiful, textured watercolor—and even finish it off with text.

Create fun bounce-back effects – Get step-by-step help making a segment of your video run forward and backward repetitively. Export your bounce-back effect as an animated GIF or short video clip that you can quickly share across social channels with your friends and family.

Freeze frames with motion titles – Another new Guided Edit that helps you create a freeze frame of your video and add an eye-catching motion title for pro-looking results.

Fix Action Cam Footage – Eliminate the wide angle fisheye effect of action cams with guidance on how to expertly trim, correct color, and fix lens distortions so it looks its best.

Create animated social posts – Create a short visual story to share on social media by embellishing a video clip with either static or animated text.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 2018 introduces two features, one of which may well solve some problems but opens strange possibilities: the option to “open  closed eyes like magic”. It’s obvious that the program does not reconstruct one eye that is closed, but simply gives you the option to copy the eyes from one photo and blend them in another where people may have blinked. No matter how strange that may sound, it can be a good solution to create a perfect shot if you’re faced with a “blinker” as the subject of your photography. Using eyes from different sources is also viable, introducing, then, what some people suggest is a “creepy feeling”. Imagine you start using eyes from different people…

Auto-selection, a mode Adobe says offers a simple way to make selections is a new feature for this version of the program. With the new Auto Selection, making precise photo selections has never been easier – simply click, drag and it’s done, says Adobe.

Automation is, in fact, at the core of Photoshop Elements. Adobe confirms this, stating that you can “enjoy more time to be creative with automated photo editing”. Despite the fact that the expert mode allows you to take control of the program, Photoshop Elements is essentially conceived for home use and that explains why it offers the tools to create everything from dynamic slideshows to photo collages you can share with friend and family, or through the social networks, for which the interface offers direct links.

It makes no sense, from where I see it, to compare Photoshop Elements with photo editors as Affinity Photo, which I use as my regular photo editor, as they serve different purposes. Photoshop Elements is probably the ideal family photo editor, while other programs are more geared towards photographers looking for a full-featured editor in the similar vein as Photoshop.

The other half of the bundle is Premiere Elements, the video editor from Adobe, which is, again, a simplified version of the professional Premiere with features appropriate for home users included. Not being a user of Premiere, it is difficult to compare versions or even write a review of Premiere Elements. Also, writing a review of a NLE based on a few hours playing with it makes no sense for me. I believe, from what I tried, that Premiere will be adequate for home users, especially if they are after automatic features as those announced as available in the program. Adobe says that “Smart Trim automatically finds and brings together the best scenes based on the style of your video” and that the software is also able to “auto-extract candid photos from your footage”.

It is important to understand that all these automatic features work when used within the limitations placed by the technology itself, so they won’t do miracles… and are not supposed to. A simple test trying to extract “candid moments” from a sequence of an archaeological artifact present in a video used for testing Premiere Elements 2018, reveals the limitations of the system. But feed the automatic feature with faces of people and footage the program understands, and results will differ. The same happens with “smart trim” used with the same video, the result begin the program can not trim anything from the sequence used. It’s not meant to…

For those looking for more “conventional” ways to edit video, the options are also there, along with solutions that may – or may not – interest some users. The truth is that from a hassle-free organization of files, via the Organizer, to the step-by-step help with creative techniques and effects, which is expanded by the online options, along with the tools to add style and polish with freeze frame motion titles, bounce-back effects, and dozens more titles, effects, transitions, and themes or the ability to add music that can be remixed to match the length of your movie, Premiere Elements creates the conditions for what Adobe says is a “no-fear video editing” experience.

If you’re looking for a Non-Linear Editor and a photo editor for home use, these might be tools to investigate, with the bonus of them being Adobe branded without the need for a subscription. In fact, I would go as far as saying that you can use them for professional work, especially if you mix them with some external tools that, especially in the case of Photoshop Elements, extend its potential. Remember, it is not so much the tools you use, but the knowledge you’ve of the features they offer, and how to maximize their potential.

This said, I did feel a bit of a let down when I first opened a  RAW file in Photoshop Elements 2018 and a pop-up window suggested me that I should use Lightroom to get the most of my images. I was so surprised I did not capture a screen, and the pop-up did not show again. I am not sure if this goes into the final edition, but it surely feels strange: it’s like having just bought a brand new car, and as soon as you turn on the radio in your new car, you’re told you should have bought something else…

The post Hands-on with Premiere and Photoshop Elements 2018 appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

First Found At: Hands-on with Premiere and Photoshop Elements 2018

A seasoned advertising consultant may add immense price, revenue, and web visitors to your company. SEO Consultants are also seeking to make a profit, but coupled with attempting to make a living. Your search engine optimization consultant helps your webmaster from the basics throughout the optimization procedure for your site. Successful search engine optimisation consultants in Hungary are well-known for their positive impact and some excellent results that they could demonstrate during recent years. English-speaking search engine optimisation consultants in Hungary are a small bit scarce.

Seo optimisation isn’t going away so make certain to understand the fundamentals and utilize it! Search engine optimization is always likely to be with us. Search engine optimisation is the success story supporting the bulk of the internet portals on web like Google.

If you’re an authority in this subject, this is a superior opportunity to create some additional money, plus it can always bring in additional cash with one-on-one teaching opportunities. For effective SEO, it’s always essential that you trust the experts. Make certain you hire experts in social media for marketing which aren’t likely to go nuts hoping to keep in front of the most recent algorithm changes. Our experts can offer advice anytime. It is indispensable to align yourself be a search engine optimisation expert that you’re able to trust and has an established history of succeeding. A search engine optimization expert with several years of experience will be in a position to check at any site and know precisely what has to be done for it to obtain more search engine traffic, whilst someone new at SEO will try out precisely the same things on every website, which will just have a limited effect, if any, Whalen adds.

You’re able to also call us at 717-609-1553 for extra details on our search engine optimisation services pricing. Obviously provided that their website isn’t too risque! Every site and company differs.

If you’re an organized and hardworking individual, use such opportunities to earn fantastic sums. With the popularity of our search engine optimization consultant rates page, it’s painfully obvious this is a demand in the business. It makes using social media with the intention of marketing.

(02) 4017 0230

In order to be successful in your house catering business, you must plan everything well before starting. You can begin a business to provide such services in your area and earn money. Every company is unique.Newcastle Starting a dry cleaning company can be an extremely profitable method to earn money. With the correct planning and implementation, you can learn and begin a thriving dry cleaning enterprise.

You may create a business or just a business that features testing services like cloud testing for businesses.If you’re a sensible entrepreneur, you can establish newcastle web design your own Australia organization to provide employee monitoring services. You can begin your own business to provide such small business services that these organizations are desperately in need. Thus the huge businesses get bigger and the more compact ones become left behind. If your organization does not have any online presence or less, then most probably you’re lagging behind your competition. Social media marketing businesses have all the tools which you need to go noticed online, simply don’t think you’re getting it free of charge. Many social media marketing businesses CLAIM they possess the abilities and expertise to get this done.

Our search engine 2300 marketing firm believes in maintaining a superb reputation for our goods and solutions. It would love to assist every business that comes our way, but it’s simply not possible today. SEO Firms are corporate entities seeking to earn a profit. It’s very important to firms include a number of services in their professional search engine optimisation packages so you are able to be certain you’re working with a full-service provider. Starting a social networking consultancy firm is just one of the very best ways to turn into rich extremely fast.

You are able to select services and products at multiple search engine optimization prices based upon your preferred project objectives and level. It is possible to also opt to provide residential cleaning services. Be sure to produce sure the search engine optimization company you pick is well-versed in various marketing services that could impact SEO results for your campaigns. Each of our search engine advertising services has been created to enable a client at a particular stage in their advertising program, from just beginning to mature Vimeo Channel Our Tweets

Source:http://counterbalancenv.com/consultants-are-generally-compensated-dependent-on-a-predetermined-number-of-hours-agreed-between/

Consultants Are Generally Compensated Dependent On A Predetermined Number Of Hours Agreed Between …

A seasoned advertising consultant may add immense price, revenue, and web visitors to your company. SEO Consultants are also seeking to make a profit, but coupled with attempting to make a living. Your search engine optimization consultant helps your webmaster from the basics throughout the optimization procedure for your site. Successful search engine optimisation consultants in Hungary are well-known for their positive impact and some excellent results that they could demonstrate during recent years. English-speaking search engine optimisation consultants in Hungary are a small bit scarce.

Seo optimisation isn’t going away so make certain to understand the fundamentals and utilize it! Search engine optimization is always likely to be with us. Search engine optimisation is the success story supporting the bulk of the internet portals on web like Google.

If you’re an authority in this subject, this is a superior opportunity to create some additional money, plus it can always bring in additional cash with one-on-one teaching opportunities. For effective SEO, it’s always essential that you trust the experts. Make certain you hire experts in social media for marketing which aren’t likely to go nuts hoping to keep in front of the most recent algorithm changes. Our experts can offer advice anytime. It is indispensable to align yourself be a search engine optimisation expert that you’re able to trust and has an established history of succeeding. A search engine optimization expert with several years of experience will be in a position to check at any site and know precisely what has to be done for it to obtain more search engine traffic, whilst someone new at SEO will try out precisely the same things on every website, which will just have a limited effect, if any, Whalen adds.

You’re able to also call us at 717-609-1553 for extra details on our search engine optimisation services pricing. Obviously provided that their website isn’t too risque! Every site and company differs.

If you’re an organized and hardworking individual, use such opportunities to earn fantastic sums. With the popularity of our search engine optimization consultant rates page, it’s painfully obvious this is a demand in the business. It makes using social media with the intention of marketing.

(02) 4017 0230

In order to be successful in your house catering business, you must plan everything well before starting. You can begin a business to provide such services in your area and earn money. Every company is unique.Newcastle Starting a dry cleaning company can be an extremely profitable method to earn money. With the correct planning and implementation, you can learn and begin a thriving dry cleaning enterprise.

You may create a business or just a business that features testing services like cloud testing for businesses.If you’re a sensible entrepreneur, you can establish newcastle web design your own Australia organization to provide employee monitoring services. You can begin your own business to provide such small business services that these organizations are desperately in need. Thus the huge businesses get bigger and the more compact ones become left behind. If your organization does not have any online presence or less, then most probably you’re lagging behind your competition. Social media marketing businesses have all the tools which you need to go noticed online, simply don’t think you’re getting it free of charge. Many social media marketing businesses CLAIM they possess the abilities and expertise to get this done.

Our search engine 2300 marketing firm believes in maintaining a superb reputation for our goods and solutions. It would love to assist every business that comes our way, but it’s simply not possible today. SEO Firms are corporate entities seeking to earn a profit. It’s very important to firms include a number of services in their professional search engine optimisation packages so you are able to be certain you’re working with a full-service provider. Starting a social networking consultancy firm is just one of the very best ways to turn into rich extremely fast.

You are able to select services and products at multiple search engine optimization prices based upon your preferred project objectives and level. It is possible to also opt to provide residential cleaning services. Be sure to produce sure the search engine optimization company you pick is well-versed in various marketing services that could impact SEO results for your campaigns. Each of our search engine advertising services has been created to enable a client at a particular stage in their advertising program, from just beginning to mature Vimeo Channel Our Tweets

from Zackary Anderson About Counter Balance NV http://counterbalancenv.com/consultants-are-generally-compensated-dependent-on-a-predetermined-number-of-hours-agreed-between/

Trump’s ‘disinfectant injections’ idea comes straight from internet conspiracy theories

US President Donald Trump yesterday sent the mainstream media and partisan social media into a Godzilla-sized tizzy after floating the idea of treating COVID-19 patients with UV lights and “disinfectants.”

The president claimed he’d gotten his information during a briefing with medical experts and said it would be “interesting” for doctors to “check that.” But it’s painfully obvious that he’s conflating actual science with online conspiracy theories.

Trump’s comments during the briefing provoked instant rebukes from the medical community at large and all but the most partisan right-wing pundits. Per the usual, the president’s defenders claimed those attacking his words were deliberately misinterpreting them.

You can judge for yourself, here’s the video:

And the transcript:

Question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it.

And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re gonna test that, too. Sounds interesting, right?

And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets on the lungs and it does a tremendous number, so it will be interesting to check that. So that you’re going to have to use medical doctors. But it sounds, it sounds interesting to me. So we’ll see.

But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s, that’s pretty powerful.

When a reporter later challenged the president’s assertion, calling it a “rumor,” Trump responded with his typical candor:

I’m the president and you are fake news. And you know what I’ll say to you? I’ll say it very nicely. You ready? It’s just a suggestion from a brilliant lab by a very, very smart, perhaps brilliant man. He’s talking about sun. He’s talking about heat. And you see the numbers. So that’s it. That’s all I have. I’m just here to present talent. I’m here to present ideas because we want ideas to get rid of this thing. And if he does good and if sunlight is good, that’s a great thing as far as I’m concerned

There’s a lot to unpack here, so we’re going to need to understand where Trump‘s coming from. Best we can tell, the brilliant man in a brilliant lab is a reference to a recent study out of New Zealand. It’s called “Rapid evidence summary on SARS-CoV-2 survivorship and disinfection, and a reusable PPE protocol using a double-hit process,” and it has nothing to do with treating COVID-19 in humans.

The study discusses two overlapping methods for disinfecting personal protective equipment and surfaces for sanitation purposes to help keep the coronavirus from spreading through contact with inanimate objects. It’s basically a fancy scientific guide on how to use UV lights and disinfectant to clean up medical gear and treatment areas.

This isn’t new information. We’ve known that UV lights and disinfectant kills viruses for a long time. They kill most living things, including humans at high enough doses — and we should point out that there’s no safely digestible amount of disinfectants for human consumption. So why on Earth did Trump feel the need to bring it up?

According to President Trump himself, he was trolling reporters:

Q: “Could you clarify your comments about injections of disinfectant?”

Trump: “I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you, just to see what would happen.”pic.twitter.com/ffNpAwzNdz

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 24, 2020

I don’t buy it. But, let’s pretend it’s true. This means the president is spreading dangerous online conspiracy theories just to own the liberal media. Because he’s almost certainly been briefed on these kinds of “cures” before.

The US Department of Justice just cracked down on a religious cult earlier this month for selling a bleach-based “sacrament” treatment for viruses called Master Mineral Solution (MMS)  – the exact kind of ingestible cure that Trump postulated.

The White House is certainly aware that you can’t treat COVID-19 with disinfectants. In fact, earlier this week the US Poison Control center reported a spike in calls for cleaner and disinfectant “accidents” since the pandemic began.

So where are Trump, his followers, and the occasional religious cult getting their information on MMS and/or other disinfectant-based cures? From QAnon, apparently. NBC reports:

Conspiracy theorists, including those that center around the QAnon conspiracy, have also advocated for drinking a diluted form of bleach called Medical Mineral Solution, or MMS.

QAnon adherents falsely believe Donald Trump is secretly running a military operation to rid the government of satanic, child-eating cannibals, and many QAnon followers believe those same people are responsible for the virus. Prominent QAnon accounts celebrated Trump’s apparent nod to bleach consumption or injection, with one prominent QAnon YouTuber and MMS reseller calling it “a good ‘lung cleaner’” on Thursday night.

Facebook’s been inundated with these fake “miracle cures” for COVID-19 for months now (before the pandemic, they were pushed as anti-autism elixirs) and all roads lead to a widespread troll campaign by the loosely held together group of ideological shit-posters known as QAnon (a group the president’s been tacitly supportive of for years).

A quick parse of 4chan, 8kun, and other yucky places on the internet shows there’s been a months-long campaign to push the conspiracy that big pharma and the Democrats are suppressing information on how effective disinfectants are at combating the coronavirus. Trump, accordingly, is thus rebelling against the New World Order and its leader (Bill Gates) by letting the truth slip about these secret cures.

So we have to ask ourselves, is the president of the United States using his daily pandemic briefings to troll the liberal media with dangerous QAnon conspiracies?

No.

The reality is probably much simpler: Trump didn’t understand what the medical experts were talking about when they explained the legitimate study on disinfecting PPE.  He obviously understands the right-wing conspiracy theory that it’s okay to drink bleach-based “miracle cures,” and so he riffed on that to look and sound smart and unintentionally conflated the two.

Either way, nobody should take any form of medical advice from the President of the United States under any circumstances.

Reminder: Lysol disinfectant and hygiene products should only be used as directed and in line with usage guidelines pic.twitter.com/yPVhvINxbU

— Lysol (@Lysol) April 24, 2020

  Read next: Run an online store? In the age of COVID-19, you can’t skimp on web accessibility

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For tips and tricks on working remotely, check out our Growth Quarters articles here or follow us on Twitter.

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Tags: conspiracy, disinfectant, Idea, injections, Internet, straight, theories, Trumps

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A seasoned advertising consultant may add immense price, revenue, and web visitors to your company. SEO Consultants are also seeking to make a profit, but coupled with attempting to make a living. Your search engine optimization consultant helps your webmaster from the basics throughout the optimization procedure for your site. Successful search engine optimisation consultants in Hungary are well-known for their positive impact and some excellent results that they could demonstrate during recent years. English-speaking search engine optimisation consultants in Hungary are a small bit scarce.

Seo optimisation isn’t going away so make certain to understand the fundamentals and utilize it! Search engine optimization is always likely to be with us. Search engine optimisation is the success story supporting the bulk of the internet portals on web like Google.

If you’re an authority in this subject, this is a superior opportunity to create some additional money, plus it can always bring in additional cash with one-on-one teaching opportunities. For effective SEO, it’s always essential that you trust the experts. Make certain you hire experts in social media for marketing which aren’t likely to go nuts hoping to keep in front of the most recent algorithm changes. Our experts can offer advice anytime. It is indispensable to align yourself be a search engine optimisation expert that you’re able to trust and has an established history of succeeding. A search engine optimization expert with several years of experience will be in a position to check at any site and know precisely what has to be done for it to obtain more search engine traffic, whilst someone new at SEO will try out precisely the same things on every website, which will just have a limited effect, if any, Whalen adds.

You’re able to also call us at 717-609-1553 for extra details on our search engine optimisation services pricing. Obviously provided that their website isn’t too risque! Every site and company differs.

If you’re an organized and hardworking individual, use such opportunities to earn fantastic sums. With the popularity of our search engine optimization consultant rates page, it’s painfully obvious this is a demand in the business. It makes using social media with the intention of marketing.

(02) 4017 0230

In order to be successful in your house catering business, you must plan everything well before starting. You can begin a business to provide such services in your area and earn money. Every company is unique.Newcastle Starting a dry cleaning company can be an extremely profitable method to earn money. With the correct planning and implementation, you can learn and begin a thriving dry cleaning enterprise.

You may create a business or just a business that features testing services like cloud testing for businesses.If you’re a sensible entrepreneur, you can establish newcastle web design your own Australia organization to provide employee monitoring services. You can begin your own business to provide such small business services that these organizations are desperately in need. Thus the huge businesses get bigger and the more compact ones become left behind. If your organization does not have any online presence or less, then most probably you’re lagging behind your competition. Social media marketing businesses have all the tools which you need to go noticed online, simply don’t think you’re getting it free of charge. Many social media marketing businesses CLAIM they possess the abilities and expertise to get this done.

Our search engine 2300 marketing firm believes in maintaining a superb reputation for our goods and solutions. It would love to assist every business that comes our way, but it’s simply not possible today. SEO Firms are corporate entities seeking to earn a profit. It’s very important to firms include a number of services in their professional search engine optimisation packages so you are able to be certain you’re working with a full-service provider. Starting a social networking consultancy firm is just one of the very best ways to turn into rich extremely fast.

You are able to select services and products at multiple search engine optimization prices based upon your preferred project objectives and level. It is possible to also opt to provide residential cleaning services. Be sure to produce sure the search engine optimization company you pick is well-versed in various marketing services that could impact SEO results for your campaigns. Each of our search engine advertising services has been created to enable a client at a particular stage in their advertising program, from just beginning to mature Vimeo Channel Our Tweets

Source:http://counterbalancenv.com/consultants-are-generally-compensated-dependent-on-a-predetermined-number-of-hours-agreed-between/

from Zackary Anderson About Counter Balance NV https://zackaryandersonaboutcounter.wordpress.com/2017/09/20/consultants-are-generally-compensated-dependent-on-a-predetermined-number-of-hours-agreed-between/