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kingsofeverything · 5 years

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11/11/11

@chloehl10 @ham-palpert @reminiscingintherain @realitybetterthanfiction and @laynefaire tagged me in this. Thanks y’all! I’m sorry I’m such a slack ass and it’s been weeeeeeks since I drafted this half finished, soooooooooo....

I’m going to combine and put everything under a cut.

The first 11 are from @chloehl10

1. What’s your favourite fic you’ve ever written, and why?

Don’t Want Shelter because it’s the first fic I put emotional effort into. That universe, that Harry and Louis, all of it are very vivid and alive in my head. I love them.

2. Pick three words that you think describe your works overall.

Long ass sentences 👀

3. How long does it take you to write a fic?

Depends. Writing doesn’t usually take me long but editing does.

4. What’s the hardest thing about writing?

Realizing that I’m probably never going to write some of the ideas I have

5. Do you listen to music or anything while you write? What’s normal for you when you write?

I don’t usually, but sometimes. Idk that I have a normal. I really prefer to be alone and quiet.

6. How do you come up with titles for your fics?

Songs usually. Sometimes they just come to me though.

7. What’s one piece of advice you’d give to a new writer?

Get a beta. But not just a beta. Get someone who can talk fic/plot/story with you as well.

8. How important do you think tags are when you are publishing a fic?

Very in some ways, no at all in others. I tag mainly for readers so they know enough about the fic to decide whether or not to read. I don’t tag specific sex stuff usually though every now and then I’ll throw in ‘anal fingering’ just to mix it up. I don’t tag who tops/bottoms. I do tag with fic reccers in mind thanks to B’s @nottooldforthisship instructions!

9. Do you write for fests/exchanges? If so, do you enjoy them? If not, why not?!

I have and I do but not often. I like running them and I have done exchanges in the past but it’s not really my thing to write for them. Is that weird? I feel like it is but ehhh

10. Which work of yours are you most proud of and why?

An Unbalanced Force aka marold harold because.... idk

11. What’s next for you?

Currently working on a short pwp hiccup fic

These 11 are from @ham-palpert

1. Have you ever been burned by a WIP that never updated? If so, describe that traumatic experience.

I have not! But more in a ehhhh I’m not too bothered way. I’ve definitely read WIPs that weren’t completed but idk I guess I love on quickly lol

2. Speaking of WIPs, do you like writing (or reading) them? Why or why not?

I don’t write them. As in even my fics that have been posted as WIPs (DWS and HFL) we’re completely finished aside from some editing before I started posting. I change too much when I write. That padlock in TSHU? Thought of it at the end and went back to add it to the beginning.

I will sometimes read a WIP but not often. Mainly because I don’t remember anything between updates

3. Are you a dialogue person? An inner-monologue person? A heavily descriptive scene-setter?

I think I’m gonna pass? I literally have no idea. I don’t think I heavily describe scenes but I guess that depends on the scene? This is when I send for help and ask Nic

4. Is there a scene from a fic you’ve read that you wished you’d written/thought of first?

Not really

5. Would you rather read a 150k angsty fic, or a 10k fluffy one-shot?

10k one shot

6. Do you enjoy writing smut scenes? Does it make you feel super awkward? Do you need to have a cigarette afterwards?

Sometimes smut scenes are fun to write. Especially if there’s something different about it. Sometimes I have to be in the mood. Sometimes I feel like I need to shower after lolll

7. Do you click through the recently updated list on AO3 or read exclusively fic recs? Or a bit of both?

Neither. I don’t read nearly as much as I used to. I’m nowhere near caught up on Big Bang.

8. How many words, on average, do you write a week? Do you try to stick to writing goals?

Oh wow. Idk! I could actually figure it out since I track my words per day. When I’m steadily writing, I’d say 10k a week is average? Probably more tbh

9. Are you someone who comments on the fics you read (and liked)?

Yes

10. Of all the fics you’ve written, which one came to you the easiest?

marold harold I think

11. If you had to live in one of the AUs you created, which one would it be?

Marold harold and I’d be Kate McKinnon

these 11 are from @reminiscingintherain

1. Has your writing changed now from the way it was when you started? If so, how?

yeah definitely. more plot heavy and just better overall

2. Does anyone IRL know about your writing? If so, have they read it?

yes, but no one’s read any of it. i almost sent tshu to my therapist lol

3. Is there anything you’ve written that you wish you hadn’t?

4. Do you have a set location or setting that you have to write in? A favourite cafe? The only seat that’s comfortable?

no, i will write literally anywhere. on my phone or laptop. i like writing on my back porch when it’s not a million degrees outside

5. What are you working on? If you can (i.e., it’s not on anon!), share five lines!

5 lines from the hiccup fic:

When he opens his mouth to answer, Louis hiccups and flattens his hand against his chest, shaking his head. He points to his mouth, hiccups again, then again, snaps his mouth shut and pushes past Harry, who turns and follows him out of the club to the relative quiet of the street.

“You can stay, Harry.” Louis shoves his hands in the pockets of his faded jeans and turns to glance at Harry, who’s walking beside him. He hiccups and groans, kicking his foot out and stomping. “Fuck me, man. This sucks.”

6. Have you ever written something for a fic, but ended up removing a whole scene in its entirety and using it for something else?

i think so but tbh i can’t remember lol

7. Are you a linear writer? Or can you write scenes out of order and put them together at the end?

i’m a linear writer, but i will skip over parts of a scene like....... i’ll write a bunch of dialogue with nothing around it and fill in later

8. Betas/Britpickers… opinions?

always always always. i would literally not write if i couldn’t have a beta lol

9. How much do/can you write on average at any given time?

huh idk. i’m a fast writer, but i’d say like probably 1.5k a day is average for me?

10. How organised are you? Do you have lists and/or spreadsheets, or do you just wing it?

i’m the worst lol i tried to organize my google docs and that lasted like a week

11. What made you start writing?

i was bored and i thought hmmmm wonder if i could write a fic. turns out i could!

alrighty these 11 are from layne :D

1. What is your favorite trope to write? To read?

EXES/ENEMIES TO LOVERS

2. What other fandoms do you write in/have you written in?

not a one

3. What’s one fic idea you want to read, but would never write?

i honestly don’t know because i write what i want to read

4. When do you do most of your writing - morning, afternoon, night? Which time of day do you find most productive?

i think i’m most productive in the morning, but i write when i find the time

5. Writing routine? What do you drink? Do you have a go to snack?

i don’t have a routine. i usually drink water or coffee, but occasionally vodka, wine, or beer. i don’t snack while i write but now i want to

6. Have you ever been writing something and had to get up and walk away from it? What was it and why did you have to step away?

i had to walk away from tshu because it was stressing me out that i couldn’t invent time travel irl so i wrote heading for limbo for a few weeks and went back to it lol

7. What is your most favorite scene you’ve ever written?

oooooooooooooooooooooh oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh this is such a good question and i hate it lol i absolutely HATE picking favorites of anything but i’ll say that the scene from tshu when louis shows zayn his tattoo and everything right before and after that

8. Have you ever had an ending to a story, but couldn’t figure out how to start it? I don’t mean the typical -And they lived happily ever after - but a fully fleshed out ending with your usual writing pair, but you had no idea where to start? Did you ever write it?

nooooooope

9. What is the oddest thing you’ve ever drawn inspiration from?

idk i think being stuck in a hurricane with no power turning into don’t want shelter was pretty odd

10. You’ve accepted a prompt to write a fic using a Whitesnake song for the title. Which song do you choose, and what is your fic’s summary?

here i go again - 70s trucker au (i’m not summarizing because i’m actually planning to write this one, though the title with be different. probably.)

11. Your most recent fic is being made into a movie. What would you change your main characters’ names to and who would you fancast to play them?

ok so i’m cheating here by picking tshu instead of my most recent fic because my most recent fic is canon pwp lol and i’m sorry but i’m so lame with actors and stuff idk anyone who’d play them. and idk about names either! SORRY LAYNE

last but not least!

these 11 are from @realitybetterthanfiction

1. What made you realize you wanted to start writing fan fiction?

we were hanging at my parents’ house during a hurricane when they had power and we didn’t, and i was bored af and i think nic had just recently published her first fic and i was like....... huh i wonder if i can do that?

2. What fic changed you as a reader or a writer?

nic’s 5 times fic called fire and ice! i remember reading it and thinking WOOHOO PWP!!!! and then crying because she snuck all these FEELINGS in. so it made me think about writing in a different way, i guess. it can be fun and emo lol

3. What is your best writer’s block buster?

idk. haven’t really tried anything.

4. What’s the last non fan fiction book you’ve read?

uhhhhhhhhhhhhh a book about physics and space science (fic research lmaoooooooooooooooo)

5. If you had or have skills like our talented artists in the fandom, what’s one scene you would like to illustrate? (Can be your own work or another’s work)

THE JUGGLING SCENE FROM STRANDED IN A DREAM

6. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever gotten?

just keep writing! you can edit later!

7. What’s one genre you’re hesitant to write but really want to explore?

idk i don’t think i have one? maybe aliens?

8. Would you ever cowrite with someone else? And if you have, how to you divide the work?

nic and i are trying BUT IT’S HARD AND WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING

9. Do friends outside the fandom know you write? Are they supportive? (I hope they are!!!)

no but my husband does and is

10. What is your favorite fic Niall? (give me all the Niall!)

niall and his churros!!!!!

11. What is your favorite supernatural category (examples, vampires, ABO, werewolves, angels, aliens). And can you give a girl some recs?

vampires!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i don’t have any recs because my faves are old and everyone knows them: madalynn_bohemia’s vampire series

#11/11/11 #11 questions #i didn't make any questions or tag anyone

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davidmann95 · 5 years

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Best comics of 2018?

A handful of disqualifications up front: since they’re just beginning, I’m not counting Electric Warriors, Martian Manhunter, The Green Lantern (though Evil Star explaining his name in #2 might be my favorite moment in comics this year), Ironheart, DIE, Shazam!, Killmonger, The Batman Who Laughs, or Miles Morales: Spider-Man, all of which almost certainly would have ended up somewhere in here with some more time. Additionally, I switched to a new online pull list system in March, so I don’t have a list of what I got before then - if I’m forgetting about something great that came out early this year, there’s a good chance that would be why.

Honorary Mentions: While there were plenty of comics I was happy to keep up with, a number stood out as exemplary examples of straight-take relatively traditional capeshit: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV and companies’ Justice League, Steve Orlando’s Justice League of America (which would probably go among the best of the best if the art was a bit more consistent or the lineup more to my personal tastes), Brian Bendis and Nick Derington’s Batman work in the Walmart 100-Page Giants, Donny Cates’ Thanos and Doctor Strange work (the latter might not have quite made it, but that last issue with Irving and Zdarsky was gangbusters), Steve Orlando’s brief Wonder Woman run with Laura Braga, ACO, and Raul Allen, Tim Seeley’s Green Lanterns, Nnedi Okorafor and Leonardo Romero’s Shuri, Robert Vendetti and Bryan Hitch’s Hawkman, Saladin Ahmed, Javier Rodriguez, Rod Reis, Dario Brizuela, and Joe Quinones’s Exiles, Captain America by both the Mark Waid/Chris Samnee team and the current Ta-Nehisi Coates/Lenil Francis Yu lineup, Dan Slott and Valerio Schiti’s Tony Stark: Iron Man when it’s committed solely to being a superhero comic and not Dan Slott trying to be Contemporary, Brian Bendis, Patrick Gleason, Yanick Paquette, and Ryan Sook’s Action Comics, and Kelly Thompson and Stefano Caselli’s West Coast Avengers.

On the slightly different side of things, Steve Orlando and Giovanni Timpano showed how you do an intercompany crossover right with The Shadow/Batman, Max Bemis’s Moon Knight while not living up to all it could have been - and likely to age poorly - had moments of truly bizarre grace, Saga was Saga even if I’ve lost the plot, Ahmed and Christian Ward’s Black Bolt concluded as well as we all might have hoped, Warren Ellis and Jon Davis-Hunt’s The Wild Storm continued to build up steam in its own fascinating style, Doomsday Clock remains utterly captivating in spite of itself, and Tom Peyer and Jamal Igle’s The Wrong Earth is making the most of a deceptively tough premise. On the one-off end, Chip Zdarsky and Declan Shalvey’s Marvel Two-In-One Annual is an essentially perfect off-kilter Doom/Richards story, Action Comics #1000 had no chance of living up to all it needed to be but was largely a great set of Superman stories regardless, and while the remainder of the miniseries has thus far been fine, Tim Seeley and Carlos Villa’s first issue of Shatterstar was a strange, special delight.

My Favorite Comics of 2018

Rock Candy Mountain: Technically Jackson - the rail-rider who can beat Any One Man in a fistfight - reached the end of his journey for hobo heaven this year, and flat-out, every Kyle Starks comic is a perfect one. This is a book where the first issue has a dude beating ass with a beautiful savagery that leaves an awestruck onlooker declaring “He’s got punch diarrhea and their faces are the toilet bowl”, and by the end it built up to one of the most moving climaxes of the year. It’s a comic about fallen men finding redemption in friendship and in dreams, and also there’s a cage fighter who calls himself Hundred Cats because it would be really hard to fight a hundred cats.

Dark Knights: Metal: This is the final, perfected form of traditional Event Comic Bullshit. Everything good about Snyder, Capullo, Glapion, and Plascencia’s Batman post-Court Of Owls is retooled and reenergized to fit the scale of a Crisis event, everything that I would have considered to be a weakness regarding their partnership either burned away or placed in a context where it becomes a strength. This is the Morrison approach to the DCU rightfully ascendant and presented in a form even more fit for mass consumption, and manages to live up to being the first classic-style, large-scale DC event comic in almost a decade - Marvel may blow its own load every six months until it’s simply got nothing to offer anymore, but DC waited until they really and truly had something, and that something was bloodsoaked magic.

Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man (by Chip Zdarsky and assorted artists): I actually wavered a bit on whether this belonged in the best of the best as a whole; most of the issues this year were definitely very good (regarding Zdarsky’s run specifically, I haven’t checked out the Spider-Geddon tie-in stuff), but more on the honorary mention end of the scale. Ultimately however, the Amazing Fantasy arc and #310 are Spider-Man comics I’m going to be coming back to for years to come - the latter is going to end up in every ‘Best Spider-Man Stories Ever’ softcover from now until the end of time - and they tipped the scales.

Batman: Very much in the same boat as Spidey above; a lot of this year didn’t do it for me in the same way as this run has in the past, but The Best Man is the best thing anyone’s done with Joker since Morrison, the ‘wedding issue’ itself worked really well for me, Cold Days made a premise that’s often stymied creators work as well as people have always wanted it to, and the Dick team-up issue was a perfect little summation of a relationship, nevermind how much this year succeeded in getting me hyped up for things to come.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl: This is one of those comics where it’s so consistently good in such a specific, quiet way that people stop talking about it, but for real, this has never not in the top five or six things Marvel is publishing at any given time for as long as it’s been around. Erica Henderson leaving right before hitting the Kraven story that had been building literally since its first issue 3 years earlier could have been disastrous, but North and new artist Derek Charm manage to hit their own rhythm and continue delivering one of the funniest, cleverest, most sincere superbooks on the stands every month.

Mister Miracle: Yeah, it really was that good.

The Immortal Hulk: So is this, and if I have to name a single best comic of the year, this has probably gotta be it. Al Ewing’s been Marvel’s best creator for a long, long time, and putting him and Joe Bennett (who holy moley, I don’t think anyone would have guessed had this in him) on a tentpole character Ewing’s got genuine reverence for worked out even better than a fanboy like me might have expected. It’s sublime horror, it’s perfect Marvel comics continuity bullshit, and if the superhero is at heart a morality fable, this is very much a soul-searing apex of the genre as it speaks of how we can all go wrong.

Eternity Girl: …or maybe this is the best? It’s probably gotta be this, Hulk, or Miracle. Mister Miracle’s where the comparison really becomes clear, as they’re both books way out on the fringes of the DCU dealing with a character grappling with depression amidst the mundanity of their cyclical existence. However, as perfectly constructed and rawly human as Mister Miracle is, this hits a lot more of my own buttons and expresses its own brand of more surreal emotional authenticity, and rather than the expected and beautiful next step of a pair of already-acclaimed creators with an established partnership, this was a shock coming out party for Visaggio and Liew, who do things stylistically just as odd to see in a DC Comic as anything King and Gerads came up with. It seemed to sail under the radar for readers but also seems to be racking up awards, and I hope this’ll attain the reputation it deserves in years to come.

Ice Cream Man: Likely the respectable fourth place to the three above, while I can’t quite sing its praises in quite the same way when it’s playing so hard-to-get that I can’t quite put a pin in what it’s ultimately about, oh my GOD this is as good as gut-punch horror gets. Not simply grody shock-value stuff, but pit-of-your-stomach-everything-in-the-world-hates-you-and-you-were-wrong-to-ever-believe-in-love shit that’ll rattle your bones and fuck you up good. Not usually a horror guy myself, but this is an essentially perfect comic.

The Man Of Steel: Screw all y’all, this kicked ass and after how hard the Rebirth books blew it - Jon and the new status quo were both excellent, Tomasi had good bits here and there alongside some quality fill-in teams, but those books were still aaaaaaaaaaassssss - this is exactly the fresh start Superman’s needed for years. Granted the Fabok interstitials had some wonky pacing, but this was on-point and insightful for Superman as a character, exciting as hell, and has thus far led to nothing but more good comics as far as I’m concerned.

Milk Wars: Did the various tie-ins live up to the bookends? Nah, though the Shade/Wonder Woman story was pretty good. But those bookends? Friends, those books were AAA+ sup-per-he-ro-bull-SHIT, and while I was initially let down because it seemed as though it would have Superman in a major role and then didn’t, this is even more of an apotheosis of the Morrison approach to the genre than Metal. ACO is ACO, Eaglesham slaughtered it, and Orlando and Way should be as joined at the hip as cowriters as Abbnett and Lanning used to be. This is a gold standard for strange, edgy, colorful, wondrous, fucked-up superhero comics, and there should be a million more like it every day.

Justice League (by Christopher Priest and assorted artists, primarily Pete Woods): On the exact opposite end of the scale, while I don’t think I can say I enjoyed this book as much as the current Snyder-helmed gonzo cosmic adventures, I absolutely feel this was the better of the two. More importantly, this run is the successful version of what just about every other Justice League comic of the past 15 years has been trying and failing to be as the post-Authority, post-Ultimates, post-Civil War take on the concept. It’s as smart and atmospheric and bold as a book like Justice League ever CAN be, building its exploration of the conceptual stress points of the team around one and two-part adventures and clever character dynamics, illustrating an interesting new take on how to handle the main team book with the power players: taking their ability to handle physical threats as a relative given, a structural conceit acting as a delivery mechanism for the politics and people in play. It hardly breaks new ground in terms of redefining the superhero concept, but it’s as far as they’ve gone with the marquis characters without ending in disaster, and it’s an approach I’d love to see more often applied to this scale.

Superman: Walmart 100 Page Giant (by Tom King and Andy Kubert): Of all the places for King to do a regular Superman comic, huh? Still, we’d already seen what he’d done in that Batman two-parter and Action #1000, so I’m more than willing to take what we can get (even if most are going to have to wait for this to come out in trade). There have been four installments so far: the first is the sort of stage-setting that’s common to this type of long-form arc but with a distinctly different atmosphere than how this is typically done with the character, evoking a sort of Miller-tinged Golden Age flavor connecting Superman back down to Earth before throwing him into the stars. The third is a great Fuck Yeah Superman Doin’ Superman Shit throwdown that gives Kubert a chance to shine. The fourth and most recent is haunting, inspired, moving, and tight as a drum. And the second begins as the worst-case scenario of Tom King doing a Superman comic, and ends as likely my favorite Superman story of the last 5 years. If it continues in its current direction, Superman: Up In The Sky is almost certainly going to be a perennial people are going to rank among the best Superman stories of all time for decades to come, and everything I’d want out of this team tackling my favorite character.

Detective Comics (by James Tynion IV and assorted artists): I’m honestly surprised at myself for putting this here, but I just have to hand it to this run - which had to go quite a ways to win me over, between its opening gambit with Batwoman’s status quo and centering the whole thing around my least-favorite Robin (even if it won me over to him over time) - as basically being the platonic form of Dang Good Superhero Comics. Not boundary-pushing, not the sort of thing you’ll remember in 20 years, but just really fun, exciting, good-looking, slick, character-driven adventures building on themselves into the logical culmination of 21st century popular Batman stories. This is Batman 101, but in a good way, and I honestly think that on reflection it’s gonna hold together better as a Batman run than its immediate predecessor in Snyder/Capullo.

You Are Deadpool: This is the smartest, funniest, most inventive big two comic of the year and even if you’re so tired of Deadpool that your skull bones are threatening to suddenly contract and spear your brain in an attempt at saving your weary soul from the prospect of seeing any more of him, you should get this.

Superman (by Brian Bendis and Ivan Reis): I noted Action Comics among the honorable mentions, as while it’s a dang good comic that I enjoy a great deal - and Ryan Sook may well have established himself as my ideal modern Superman artist - it’s very much the best possible version of *exactly* what you’d expect from Brian Bendis doing Superman. This, on the other hand, feels like Bendis stretching himself to do something truly different in a way he hasn’t in years, and the results are stunning. I won’t pretend Rogol Zaar has amounted to much of anything as of yet, but Bendis has acclimated to the realm of Cosmic Superman Punch-Ups in a way no one could have reasonably seen coming; he’s managed to sidestep his usual issues by anchoring each issue in a crazy setpiece and a single perfect Superman character moment, and Reis is doing work here than can unquestionably stand alongside his Sinestro Corps War heyday. Whether it’s #1 having Superman fight an astro-goilla in the middle of a questioning on his responsibilities to humanity, #4 going full Shonen in the best possible way with probably my favorite fight scene of the year, or #6′s storybook mythmaking building to the best, cruelest needle in the balloon possible, or the consistent delightful fucking with Adam Strange, every issue here has something I didn’t know I badly wanted to see, and damn if that isn’t exactly what I want in my Superman stuff.

Assorted one-offs: Along with the major arcs and runs, we’ve got stuff like the Thanos Annual and DC Nuclear Winter Special, as good as anthologies of this kind get. T-shirt Superman got one last ride under Morrison in the Sideways Annual, fighting his way out from under the wreckage of a weird DiDio book to get exactly the sendoff he deserved. The Injustice 2 Annual, of all things, was a perfect piece of bittersweet character work. Invincible #144 satisfyingly closed out The Best Superhero Comic In The Universe by essentially also doing Invincible #145-500 or so, putting this often tumultuous title to bed with the dignity it had earned. And finally, Slott and Marcos Martin’s The Amazing Spider-Man #801 was a perfect minor mediation not even on the title character so much as the basic moral appeal of the genre as a whole.

#Comics #DC Comics #Marvel #Image #Opinion

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dipulb3 · 3 years

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2021 Wrangler 4xe is a mediocre hybrid, awesome Jeep

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/2021-wrangler-4xe-is-a-mediocre-hybrid-awesome-jeep-3/

2021 Wrangler 4xe is a mediocre hybrid, awesome Jeep

The new Jeep Wrangler 4xe plug-in hybrid is the brand’s biggest step yet into the realm of electrified driving, offering up to 21 miles of electric range per charge. No, a big battery hasn’t magically transformed the Jeep into a smarm-powered eco-car; the improvements aren’t even that great when you look at the numbers. But electrification also hasn’t cost the 4xe seemingly any of the off-road capability or performance that we’ve come to expect from the Wrangler and it’s Trail Rated badge. If anything, it’s better than ever.

Electric Blue tow hooks at the front and rear visually differentiate the 4xe from more conventional Wranglers, perhaps more so than the subtle charging port mounted high on the front driver’s side fender. The blue theme also extends to the Trail Rated badges and other graphics across the boxy body. To the casual observer, the 4xe doesn’t look very different, especially when bathed in a healthy coat of mud. But of course, there are bigger changes hidden beneath the surface.

2021 Jeep Wrangler 4xe speaks softly, carries a big battery

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The 4xe is powered by Jeep’s 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine, aided by a small starter/generator motor. It is similar in design and function to the eTorque mild-hybrid motor, though this one operates at 400 volts rather than 48.

Sandwiched between the gasoline engine and the standard eight-speed automatic transmission — replacing the torque converter — is the larger, main electric drive motor. A pair of clutches tie it to the gearbox and the gasoline powerplant, allowing the combustion engine to be completely decoupled from the wheels for full-electric driving. Downstream, you’ll find the same four-wheel-drive system, two-speed transfer case and locking differentials as the non-hybrid Wrangler, with a 2.72:1 final drive axle for the base 4xe Sahara or 4.0:1 for the more off-road capable 4xe Rubicon.

All together, you’re looking at 375 horsepower and a very generous 470 pound-feet of torque. The Hemi-powered Rubicon 392 has the same peak torque and more power, but the precise control and instant torque of the electric motor combined with the 4×4 system’s low-speed crawling hardware makes the 4xe the more capable Wrangler over extremely technical terrain, according to Jeep.

The 4xe’s 6-second 0-to-60-mph time is slower than the 392’s 4.5, but electrification has other advantages.

Antuan Goodwin/Roadshow

There are three E Selec modes that allow the driver to choose how to use the 17-kilowatt-hour battery’s juice. Electric mode uses battery power only for up to 21 miles of mostly silent driving at an EPA-estimated 49 mpge. The default Hybrid mode blends in gasoline power once the battery is depleted, while eSave prioritizes the combustion engine to preserve or generate charge for the battery, which is useful for saving a bit of low-speed EV range for the end of a highway stretch. The EPA reckons your economy will drop to around 20 mpg once the battery is depleted, which is surprisingly 2 mpg worse than the non-hybrid Wrangler with the same engine. Boosted by the initial electric range, I finished a day of testing at 24 mpg combined.

There’s also a Max Regen setting that can be applied to all three modes. It’s close to a one-pedal driving mode, giving a full 0.25 Gs of regenerative braking on lift, but still creeps forward at very low speeds. Jeep’s engineers have done a good job tuning the feel of this mode; the amount of regen or engine braking feels consistent regardless of the battery’s state and/or the chosen E Selec mode.

Most of my testing involved keeping the Max Regen mode on, and to give the 4xe the best shot at reaching its estimated range, the 4×4 system is best used in 2-High rear-drive setting. Like this, I was able to put 23.8 miles of mostly silent city driving behind me before the gas engine kicked on, which is slightly more than Jeep’s estimate. There’s still quite a bit of road, wind and, occasionally, drivetrain noise, and my example rolls on the standard road-friendly 20-inch wheels with all-season tires. Expect less range from the Rubicon’s 33-inch tall knobbies and shorter final-drive, and significantly less at highway speeds. Hybrid or not, the Wrangler still has the aerodynamic profile of a palette of bricks and overall efficiency tanks above 50-60 mph.

Plugging in adds up to 21 electric miles per 2.5 hour charge.

Antuan Goodwin/Roadshow

Plugging into a 240-volt Level 2 charging station — like the Jeep 4xe Charging Network trailhead chargers — juices the Wrangler’s battery pack in around 2.5 hours. At a regular 110-volt home wall outlet, that stretches to just over 12 hours from flat.

Of course, the most important thing about the 4xe is that it’s still a Wrangler; it still must deliver on the go-anywhere capability that name commands. To test this, I swapped into a more rugged Rubicon model with its 33-inch tires, dropped into 4-Low, locked the diffs and engaged full-electric mode to tackle an off-road course.

The journey started by fording water 30 inches deep without electrocuting anyone involved. The entire high-voltage electrical system is sealed and waterproof, plus the battery pack is actually tucked in the cabin, beneath the rear seats, where it is climate controlled and protected from bumps, punctures and scrapes.

The high-voltage powertrain and battery are waterproof and protected from the elements.

Jeep

With its impressive 77.2:1 crawl ratio and gobs of electric torque on tap, the Rubicon 4xe made easy work of some pretty severe climbs up solid, smooth rock faces. And while the 4xe’s PHEV hardware adds quite a bit of weight to the Wrangler’s package — about 770 pounds more than a comparably equipped Rubicon V6 — the battery’s position actually improves weight distribution, shifting quite close to a 50:50 split depending on trim, and lowering the center of mass slightly, for a more planted feel even at severe angles. Creeping along was made easier with the latest generation Selec-Speed Control smoothing out hill ascents and descents, but the throttle was remarkably sensitive and easy to modulate even without it.

Perhaps the most enjoyably odd part of the 4xe off-road experience was just how absolutely and strangely silent the powertrain was even when hauling itself out of the mud and up ridiculously steep climbs. As much as I love the sound of a powerful ICE, hearing the scrub of the tires over the terrain added an unexpected dimension to the crawling experience, and I particularly enjoyed being able to more easily hear my spotters’ commands and the nature surrounding the trail. Of course, that meant the occasional thunks or scrapes from the undercarriage when exploring the limits of the 4xe’s 10.8-inch ground clearance and 22.5-degree breakover angle were also much more pronounced.

Street-bound improvements are minimal, but at least the Wrangler makes no discernable sacrifices off-road.

Jeep

The 2021 Jeep Wrangler 4xe starts at $49,490 for the base Sahara, including a $1,495 destination charge. That’s about $8,825 more than a similarly spec’d Sahara V6, but up to $7,500 in plug-in tax rebates and any state specific-incentives should ease the sticker shock. The more rugged Rubicon and feature-laden High Altitude modes I tested start at $53,190 or $55,074, respectively.

The Jeep Wrangler 4xe is just an OK plug-in hybrid. Its range and fuel economy are pretty weak but, with frequent charging and shorter trips, there’s still plenty of potential to bend the rules of “your mileage may vary” to your benefit. However, the 4xe is truly the most capable, technically advanced and eco-friendly Wrangler ever and its ability to quietly and confidently tackle the great outdoors with a nod to environmental responsibility is currently unmatched. At least, until the electric trucks arrive.

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wirrrp · 6 years

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What kinda meds are you on? If this question is too personal, you can just delete it, I won't mind.

(readmored in case people aren’t into TMI, but also posted publicly in case any of this sounds Uncomfortably Familiar to anyone -- I’m a big proponent of meds, when properly used)

Currently, I’ve run out of my prescriptions, and I’ve been that way for a year. But, I felt remarkably better and healthier and more humanlike when I was on:

Fluoxetine. It’s the first thing they try you on for depression, and I‘m one of the like 60% it works out for. They started me at 20mg, and I needed the dose upped to 40, and that was pretty comfortable. There were two main effects when I was on it --

My emotional range expanded significantly. My emotions went from “specific cause and vague sense only” to “sometimes you are just happy for no reason and that is okay”. I also gained the reflex that makes you laugh without meaning to when something funny happens, which did not previously occur. Even a year off the meds, some of this is still sticking around -- I smile without meaning to, and cry when I’m sad now. I did not do these very much growing up, and they tended to be things I let myself do when I knew it was contextually appropriate to do so, rather than responses to impulses. There are also times when I’m just happy and catch myself having an expression about it. Weird but positive change, even if I sort of miss having a consistant poker face.

Energy level improved dramatically, and executive dysfunction became impressively manageable. I still had bad habits from a lifetime of depression, but I could just spontaneously decide to do things that needed to get done, and frequently did. I was tired less. I had more of whatever energy it costs to be around other people (yay introverts). When I felt bad, it was easier to pick myself up instead of sleeping it off.

Vitamins. I could probably skip them if my diet and lifestyle were less garbage, but that’s not happening, so specifically:

Vitamin D is great because I do not go outside as often as I should. It helps me manage the borderline narcolepsy, and stay conscious and energetic for more than 8 hour stretches, which makes keeping a normal schedule easier. Maintains energy level and positive mood. Considering my current borderline stress-narcolepsy, I should really get back on this one.

B supplements are also great for energy regulation, and typically come from eating fruits and vegetables, which I do not. I noticed that I tended to have a better day after drinking energy drinks that brag about their B-vitamin energy blend, so I tried some vitamins on their own, and lo and behold, it worked without the caffeine and sugar. It feels like they help with a different kind of energy than vitamin D does, since neither they nor D work on their own, but the two together work out for me. Your mileage may vary. I think these were the Introvert Energy and Spoon Supply, without actually making it easier to start tasks. It made finishing them easier though.

Iron supplements are important because I am chronically anemic due to another quirk of my body chemistry. I don’t eat enough meat and spinach either. Sometimes I get dizzy if I overwork myself, and need to take a second to lean against something or sit down. Physical exertion is hard and uncomfortable. Constant low blood pressure. When low in iron, I feel a little flimsy, and can’t maintain working on a task for long stretches without a break -- with the supplement, it’s easier to stand for long periods, to carry heavy things, to push my limits and work when tired. Good stuff. Blood’s important, people need that.

Lastly, birth control pills. Those not fond of TMI can skip the rest of the post, and I highly recommend penis-wielders particularly do so, but you do you.

Birth control may sound odd on this list, but it’s not actually about sex -- what they do do for me is artificially regulate my hormones. I’m not convinced that my body produces hormones on its own, or if it does, it does so very irregularly and at ineffectually low levels. It’s hard to describe the general feeling of health that having these things managed by an outside source gave me. I think I remember the doctor saying something about estrogen and progesterone when I got them, but it’s been ages.

I’ve been describing a lot of mental stuff, but imagine those descriptions in a physical way. Imagine your body just feeling good and healthy for no reason, instead of just sort of existing. Imagine “healthy” as a mood that your body can feel. Maybe normal people feel that way? I don’t know. Anyway, the main thing that had the doc assign this to me was irregular, heavy periods (”Once a month for 3-5 days? lol. How about 1-4 times every 8 months, for 1-6 weeks each. Also wear the biggest overnight pads you can find, 24/7, and double them up.”), combined with a few other physical symptoms of poor hormone regulation (mild facial hair and a low voice probably didn’t hurt).

Extra special bonus, these things usually come with a placebo week that’s designed to let your normal cycle happen...but the doc said I could skip that. For a while, I skipped having a period entirely and it was delightful and amazing. No more ruined clothes, no more surprises, no more “I guess I’m just physically invalid this week, and possibly for 1-2 more until it decides to go away, i guess I’ll work that into my schedule”. They were about as expensive per month as buying pads would’ve been, or less, and very very very worth it. This also rendered the iron supplements about 50% less necessary, but I kept taking those anyway with no ill effects, until I stopped doing meds entirely.

Being able to be a neutral human, who does not bleed, and feels healthy for no reason, and can initiate tasks, and can work on something for more than an hour at a time, and does not need to sleep every 6-8 hrs, is a very useful set of traits. Being happy and having my face just do things without my permission is just novel icing on the cake.

Everybody’s body works differently, but that is the chemical blend that worked for me.

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georgecmatthews · 4 years

Text

Companies turn to convertibles for much-needed cash

As a relatively small and often overlooked asset class, convertible securities rarely make headlines. However, the asset class has received a great deal of attention from financial publications in recent months. Convertibles have been making the news for two primary reasons – record-setting new issuance and strong absolute and relative performance.

COVID-19 spurred a wave of convertible issuance early this year

A convertible security is a corporate bond that has the ability to be converted into a fixed number of shares of the issuer’s common stock. New US convertible issuance has been strong this year, currently standing at about $81 billion according to Bank of America. That’s higher than all of 2019, which was in itself a very strong year with about $53 billion.1 This is highest level of issuance since before the financial crisis, when issuance totaled $95 million in 2007. 1 Additionally, with this surge in new issuance, the US convertibles market is now expanding versus shrinking, having recently crossed over the $300 billion threshold for total market value compared to around $200 billion just two years ago. 1

In the early days of the pandemic, new issuance was largely generated from “rescue names” – cash-strapped companies in sectors like retail, travel and restaurants that were looking for capital to help weather the downturn. That was different than the issuance that we saw over the past few years, which tended to be from companies (primarily within tech and health care) that were seeking growth capital. Some of the rescue names that have recently issued convertibles are household names like Carnival Cruise Lines, Southwest Airlines, Callaway Golf and American Eagle Outfitters.2 All saw huge revenue declines when COVID-19 hit, and the new issues were offered at very attractive terms, in my view.

Domestic convertibles: Historical new issuance Issuance year-to-date is at the highest level since before the financial crisis in 2008

Source: Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Historical data from 1998 through Aug. 31, 2020. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

The potential benefits of converts may keep them in the spotlight

Now, with a return to credit market stability and a strong equity rally since March, we have been seeing less rescue issuance. So what may be driving new convertible issues now?

Even amid the low interest rate environment, higher spreads can still make converts more compelling than other types of debt or equity issuance in terms of cost of capital, in our view.

Also, high stock prices are also an incentive for companies to issue converts. Companies are using converts for potential merger and acquisition funding, and are pushing out maturities by refinancing existing debt (including existing converts).

Companies have been seeking diversification of capital sources, with many issuers that previously relied on bank capital, investment grade, and high yield issuance now turning to converts.

Why have companies been looking at converts rather than the high yield market or equity? In my view, the asset class makes a lot of sense for high growth companies. For one thing, convertible coupons are generally lower than those attached to non-convertible debt. Also, the convert market allows unrated issuers to issue unsecured debt. Indeed, some companies don’t want to get rated given the time lag and the chance for an inaccurate rating. Converts can also be issued with a call spread,3 so initial premiums palatable to convert buyers can be moved higher, lessening the impact of earnings dilution to the issuer and making the financing more debt-like. And we have seen some companies look to converts earlier in their life cycles, since there is no collateral and usually no covenants. Upcoming accounting treatment changes may also benefit the asset class.4

Convert performance has been strong

Performance from the asset class has also captured investors’ attention this year, in our view. Convertibles have characteristics of both equities and fixed income, and this has helped the asset class weather the downturn and participate in the rally. The asset class, as represented by the ICE BofAML US Convertible Index, had a 24.88% return as of Aug. 31, according to Lipper, outperforming the S&P 500 Index return of 9.74% and several other equity and fixed income indexes. Performance is being driven partly by the unique make-up of the asset class, which is skewed to the technology, health care and consumer discretionary sectors. The asset class has also benefitted from a rebound in credit as the US Federal Reserve has provided support.

Looking ahead

Going forward, we expect the issuance calendar to remain healthy, but the pace will likely be a bit more modest than what we’ve seen this year so far given a probable pullback on the part of companies that were most impacted when the pandemic hit. Nevertheless, I believe technology, media and telecom are once again likely to be active sectors in terms of issuance as their share prices have moved higher during the year, significantly so in some cases. Health care may be a big source of issuance as well, including some COVID-19 beneficiaries in areas like drug development and telemedicine, for instance.

We expect the current environment to continue to be favorable for convertibles. For one thing, while convertible valuations have improved in recent weeks, they are still below where they were at the start of the year, according to data from Barclays as of Aug. 26, 2020. Additionally, if equities continue to climb, converts may be well-positioned given the asset class’s exposure to tech, health care and now consumer discretionary, sectors that have performed well thus far. If, however, equities pull back from their recent all-time highs, we expect converts may do what they are designed to do and post relative outperformance due to their fixed income attributes – high income stream relative to underlying stocks and bond floors.

Learn more about Invesco Convertible Securities Fund

1 Source: Bank of America, data as of Aug. 30, 2020

2 As of Aug. 31, 2020, the following were holdings in Invesco Convertible Securities fund: Southwest Airlines: 1.44% and Callaway Golf: 0.41%. Carnival Cruise Lines and American Eagle Outfitters were not held in the fund as of that date.

3 For an upfront cost, issuers may choose to overlay a “call spread” to effectively increase the conversion premium from the issuer’s perspective. This entails buying call options with a strike equal to the conversion price and selling further out-of-the-money call options.

4 The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued an accounting standards update in August that changes the tax treatment of convertibles to simplify reporting for issuers. We expect the effect to likely reduce reported interest expenses, which would be a positive for issuers. The rule also changes the way converts are treated for calculating earnings per share (eliminating the treasury stock method), which may increase share dilution. The rules will go into effect for the fiscal years after Dec. 15, 2021, with early adoption permitted for the fiscal years after Dec. 15, 2020. For more details, please read the full FASB update on their website.

Important information

Blog header image: Jayden Staines / Unsplash

The ICE BofAML US Convertible Index tracks the performance of US-dollar-denominated convertible securities that are not currently in bankruptcy and have total market values of more than $50 million at issuance.

The S&P 500® Index is an unmanaged index considered representative of the US stock market.

An investment cannot be made directly in an index.

Convertible securities may be affected by market interest rates, the risk of issuer default, the value of the underlying stock or the issuer’s right to buy back the convertible securities.

An issuer may be unable to meet interest and/or principal payments, thereby causing its instruments to decrease in value and lowering the issuer’s credit rating.

Derivatives may be more volatile and less liquid than traditional investments and are subject to market, interest rate, credit, leverage, counterparty and management risks. An investment in a derivative could lose more than the cash amount invested.

The risks of investing in securities of foreign issuers, including emerging markets, can include fluctuations in foreign currencies, political and economic instability, and foreign taxation issues.

Junk bonds involve a greater risk of default or price changes due to changes in the issuer’s credit quality. The values of junk bonds fluctuate more than those of high quality bonds and can decline significantly over short time periods.

Interest rate risk refers to the risk that bond prices generally fall as interest rates rise and vice versa.

Preferred securities may include provisions that permit the issuer to defer or omit distributions for a certain period of time, and reporting the distribution for tax purposes may be required, even though the income may not have been received. Further, preferred securities may lose substantial value due to the omission or deferment of dividend payments.

A decision as to whether, when and how to use options involves the exercise of skill and judgment and even a well conceived option transaction may be unsuccessful because of market behavior or unexpected events. The prices of options can be highly volatile and the use of options can lower total returns.

The Fund is subject to certain other risks. Please see the current prospectus for more information regarding the risks associated with an investment in the Fund.

The opinions referenced above are those of the author as of Sept. 22, 2020. These comments should not be construed as recommendations, but as an illustration of broader themes. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions; there can be no assurance that actual results will not differ materially from expectations.

Before investing, investors should carefully read the prospectus and/or summary prospectus and carefully consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. For this and more complete information about the fund(s), investors should ask their financial professionals for a prospectus/summary prospectus or visit invesco.com.

from Expert Investment Views: Invesco Blog https://www.blog.invesco.us.com/companies-turn-to-convertibles-for-much-needed-cash/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=companies-turn-to-convertibles-for-much-needed-cash

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asksythe · 7 years

Text

Original story concept: global temporal crisis

So, this story concept happened entirely by accident. A friend of mine (@erimies https://www.fanfiction.net/u/5374016/erimies , yes, for you Naruto fans out there, that Erimies of Clan of Samsara and I didn’t sign up for this) has been sharing her original story ideas with me. We do this a lot. Just bounce ideas around and do snapshot world building speed battles (it’s tote battles! You can’t tell me otherwise!!). So today we talked about an old idea she had left on the burner for awhile. Her idea involved temporal pocket shenanigans and magical world (of the fantastic science variety). I won’t go too deep into it because it’s her idea and maybe one day we will all get to read it in a book. But my ADD ass apparently forgot completely about the original fantasy setting and assumed that the temporal crisis happened in our current real world instead and … because as usual, I’m like a rabid dog being thrown a world building hook bone, I just went completely crazy and before I knew it (and before she could type ‘wait a minute. Wrong setting! Wrong genre!! Stop! Stop!), I had already written the basic premise for a completely different story also involving temporal shenanigans and global scoped world building (and yes, I flooded her tumblr message app with 99+ messages in under 15 minutes. It happens a lot, I’m proud to say!).

And well, what do you know? After some sheepish back and forth and mutual marveling of each other’s story ideas, I (or rather we because I made sure she was ok with this) decided to type it down and post it. Why? Because… well… because I’m the kind of writers that tote subscribe to the practice of sharing ideas and premises. I like to bounce ideas and concepts around with other people. I think it makes for much richer and more varied concepts and premises. And I would like to hear other people’s takes on concepts, see how different people view it differently. I don’t get possessive over creative ideas and concepts (well… mostly I guess). My boss told me that that’s bad habit for a published author, bad for business and all that but… eh… I guess I can’t change who I am. I just like to share you know? I think the more merrier (or bigger / more mutated /more fun, as ideas go).

So, without further ado, here it is:

I. Premise: our current world, as in, today, May 18th, 2017, Gregorian Calendar, the world is suddenly hit by an unexplainable phenomenon. For a split second, time stops moving for our planet. And when the next second arrives, it splits, branches, implodes in on itself. Our time zones fracture and warp and create bubbles within bubbles. One clock becomes a hundred thousand, each moving to its own rhythm. The next thing we know, our world is fractured into countless temporal zones. Time moves wildly in each of these zones/pockets. In some, it moves far slower than it should. In others, it moves far faster. It rewinds, warps. There are nations where the flow of time goes backward, and then forward, and then backward, winding around itself. The natural world does not escape the effect of the fractured temporal zones. Forests become deserts in a matter of days (the concept of days is fast approaching either an end or transformation too). Mountains rise from the sea. The ice caps enlarge and expand into the territory of northern Europe.

In the human world, the crisis is unprecedented. In the span of a second, global communication, trade, transportation, and the world wide web all immediately cease. Pandemonium erupts as people swiftly transition from confusion to disbelief, to panic.

What is this? A natural cosmic phenomenon? Terrorist action? Alien attack? Scientific experiments gone horribly wrong? Divine reckoning?

Nobody knows. Nobody even has so much as a hint. In their panic, people look for someone to blame. But time waits for none, least of all now when all of time has gone haywire. Our current world is one that is built on the foundation of global trade and communication and now that all of those have ceased, the world is on the precipice of a global collapse. In some nations, wars skid to a stop as both sides is rendered inoperable. In others, the sparks of revolts lit the skies in fire and ashes (looking at you, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, etc...). In some nations, people dread the onset of mass starvation as their agricultural demand far exceeds their output. In others, machines start failing as the national oil reserve dips lower and lower.

This is the story of our world in crisis and the approaching new world order as each nation on our Earth attempt to weather the fallout of the temporal crisis and muddle their way into this new world!

II. With this setting established, now let’s go into world building from there (hah! World building on top the basis of our real world!). Based on economic and scientific principles, four factors determine whether any one nation can survive the initial fallout and thrive afterward:

1. Agricultural bases and resources.

2. Oil; the lifeblood of modern industry

3. Central government stability

4. Temporal sciences and research.

Factors 1 and 3 determine whether a nation can survive. In order to survive, you need to be able to feed the population and avoid mass starvation and the panic that ensues from such. You also need to be able to maintain law and order. In the time of crisis, opportunistic factions may seek to overthrow the current government, leading to violence, bloodshed, and possible civil wars. For countries with divisive issues or with public unrest, this will be particularly hard.

On the other hand, factors 2 and 4 will determine whether a nation will thrive in the new world. Without oil, you will be pushed back to pre-industrialization economy, which means that a massive portion of the population will fall into poverty and any developmental prospects will die stillborn. Oil is especially vital to maintaining an economy now that the global economy has collapsed and each nation must seek to remain self-sufficient. Other sources of energy may lessen the pressure of oil (e.g. wind, thermal, solar, etc…). However, since the majority of our global industrial bases have yet to transition to clean/hybrid energy and such transition is now too costly in this crisis, oil remains the main source of fuel for the economy.

The last factor, temporal science is the only way humanity can hope to make sense of the crisis and this new natural phenomenon of their world. Current researches on temporal sciences and temporal energy harvest are still nascent and a hundred percent theoretical. However, the crisis has supplied ample opportunities for testing. Countries with existing researchs on temporal sciences will have a definite edge as they quickly learn the ins and outs of the temporal zones, exploit them (e.g. navigate and energy harvest), and perhaps find out the root reason for the crisis.

III. A brief look into several nations in crisis:

1. China:.... is in a bad place…

The current China already has issues with public unrest and maintaining stability and a united cultural identity (e.g. what with the suppression of ethnic and religious minority, the overly centralized government, the bulky bureaucratic machine, the non-existent democratic process, widespread corruption, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, the uneven development between provinces, with some provinces not that different from first world countries neighboring provinces that would not look out of place among war-torn third world nations. Their vast land puts even more pressure on efforts to maintain stability and order.) It’s quite likely that the centralized government will be swiftly beheaded once some factions start gaining a foothold and communication / security remain frozen.

Their oil reserve is not so good either. Compared to other nations, their reserve is not small. However, it is not sufficient for their massive economic machine. They are known as the factory of the world, and such title carries weight. In February 2017, China oil import already hit 37.8 million ton (aka 8.286 million barrels per day). Without this imported oil, total economic collapse is imminent.

Agriculture-wise, their situation is… uneven. Decades of non-existent pollution-control policy have led to massive tracts of Chinese territory being ravaged beyond hope of recovery in our life time, thus rendering their potential agricultural yield to zero. However, China is vast, and with good management and labour allocation, they can hope to avoid starvation and widespread panic.

Temporal science and research: currently to my knowledge, they have none. Due to purposefully shortened development time, the state of sciences in China is fairly unevent. Chinese government deliberately encourages progress in hot scientific disciplines (e.g. weapons, energy, heavy industry, IT, medicines) while ignoring other disciplines with less immediate practical uses.

2. Russia: a mystery within a mystery.

Heh… I don’t know much about Russia. But a world game with no mention of great Russia? Impossible. Russia simply is too large and too influential to be ignored (also they have way too many nuclear warheads). That said, we do know that they are fine in the oil department. Agriculture-wise, they are likely to be ok too. Russia is fairly self-sufficient. Temporal research science… well…probably yes… because cold war and stuff and possible exotic weapon development.

On the other hand, Russia has a very centralized government and extremely low democracy index score (coming in at 3.24 out of 10 on the global democracy index compiled by the UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit and designated an authoritarian government) with ongoing issues over freedom of press and oppression of minority. With this crisis, it’s likely that this authoritarian rule will be challenged by opportunistic factions. Only time will tell if the great Russia will be able to weather the immediate fall-out of the temporal crisis.

3. The United States of America:

…. Is united no more.

Tadadaadadadadada….

No really, you guys have deep and insidious divisive issues. From half-way across the world, I see people from different parties demonizing each other and good people being separated along religious, ethnic, and political party line. With this crisis and the current White House, you can’t convince me that folks are going to keep their sane cap on. America’s vast territory and distinct cultural identities across different states and regions will also be a minus for the united and stability factor. Besides which earlier this year your democracy index score just fell below 8, marking you as a flawed democracy. Also, way too many trigger-happy folks with guns and bullets in their hands. And that’s not mentioning racial friction. Good luck with the crisis, folks! Taleh hoo!!

That said though, US is good as far as oil and energy resources go. With their current reserves and expanding shale oil industry as well as a thriving alternative energy source industry, the US won’t see a collapse based on lack of fuel and energy anytime soon.

Agriculture-wise, they are good too as not only do they have a large agriculture industry, their land is still comparatively virgin next to the soils that have been cultivated and farmed for millennia in Europe and Asia.

Temporal sciences and researches: yes… very… but again, uneven due to vast territory. American territory itself is divided into countless temporal zones so likely we will see the start of many small nations and likely collapse of a great one. Having large tracts of land is a minus on control and unity issues, who knew eh?

4. Europe (sing me a song, beautiful Europa!!!)

Has much the same issue with America in terms of centralized government (Brussel this time) and different cultural / ethnic identities that stand in the way of unison. Racial tension is also on the rise due to Islamophobia and fear of terrorist attacks. In the initial fallout, confusion will reign as Brussel is separated from the rest of Europe. Without swift actions from the authority, the European Union faces the risk of implosion. But then again, Europe has pretty good democracy index score so maybe it won’t be so bad?

In terms of oil reserves, hmm, not bad. However, the issue lies with the uneven allocation of oil. Norway holds the largest oil reserves and in this new world setting that is rapidly heading towards a ‘every nation for itself’ scenario, will be loathed to let go of an edge. Without good diplomacy and concession, tension and conflict may arise. That’s not to mention the cut-off of communication and transportation as Europe is trapped in its own myriad pockets of temporal zones. However, many European countries are fairly far along in terms of conversion from oil-based industry to clean energy-based industry so really this factor should have less weight for Europe.

Temporal science: yes. Europe as a whole has larger grants and investment into scientific researches than America. Now is the time to reap that reward! Could this be the second coming of the European Golden Age? Only time will tell!!!

5. North Korea (because why not? Everybody likes to talk about that one poor country with the big gun and trigger happy fingers right?)

Good bye, NK, it’s been nice knowing you.

Total collapse, likely in a matter of months if not weeks. Despite its healthy stock of warheads and other tools of war, North Korea survives by foreign aids. Infamously known by economist as the world’s worst economy, North Korea receives millions of dollars of foreign aids every year. Despite its hefty investment into weapons, it does not actually produce enough food for its own population and has had several famines and mass starvations within the last 5 years.

Without foreign aid (due to cut communication and transportation), the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) will swiftly collapse when massive portions of its own population starve to death. There will be widespread panic and violence as a dieing government struggles to maintain control over a panicking/berserking civilian population. Unlike previously, this time, the elite ruling group likely will not be able to escape out of the nation due to cut-off global transportation. If desperation seizes the day and the warhead codes fall into unwise hand, we may see the start of the collapse of the Korean peninsula as weapons stockpiled for some hypothetical war against the West go up in their own backyard.

…Really, I feel sorry for the Korean people (both North and South). Once, Vietnam was known as North and South Vietnam too and 40 years ago we weren’t that much different.

IV. A new world order!

The goal: to survive.

The goal: to thrive.

To live is to struggle. As the world rocks and fractures under the weight of the global temporal crisis, each and every nation must keep in mind the goals. To survive the initial fall-out of the crisis and perchance to thrive in this new world order. To do that, they must feed their own population, maintain law and order, resuscitate their economy, re-establish international contact and cooperation, and relentlessly push for scientific progress into temporal sciences. Only then will they find out the secret behind the global temporal crisis that rocks their world!

So... that is my story concept. As said, I thought it up (well, from the basis of Erimies’s fantasy concept) in about 20 minutes. It’s just... you know... the start. Because of the massive scope of this story / setting, it’s impossible for me to accurately cover every country. With that said, which country/region do you come from? and how do you think your country/region will fare in this scenario?

Hmmm.. I also want to take into consideration the natural aspects of this setting. For example, natural changes caused by the temporal zones. Our seas are trapped into countless pockets. As a result, ocean currents are in disarray which will eventually lead to changes in global ecology (impacting the migrating patterns of fishes for example) and weather patterns (impacting global temperature and wind current). So on, so forth. But I will need significant research in order to venture into this part. But... just imagine, you know... our world.. transformed in a second because time has fractured. What a world it will be!!!

So, what do you think? Do you have ideas? Questions? Criticism? Come! I want to hear your thoughts and bounce ideas around!

#Ask Sythe #Global Temporal Crisis #Excerpt #Temporal science

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coffeecakey · 7 years

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hello! uhh i saw u @sabo last yr n i was digging through old photos and i saw ur table so hopefully this isnt too out of the blue? (if this question makes u uncomfortable pls just ignore) would you mind sharing how you make your prints and such? im tabling for the first time this september @ sabo and i dont realy know where to start.. ive never had to deal with printers and such before especially not like buttons/stickers/prints without (1/2)

“without investing in a better printer or button press or something? i feel like something is bound to go wrong considering its my first time doing something this big but any advice would b really much appreciated..! sorry about the sudden msg i hope u have a nice day !! :) 2/2”

HI absolutely not a bother at all!! And I’m sorry I’m only just responding to you!! But here is a comprehensive post in re: CONS because AA stuff is hard when you’re just figuring stuff out, and I’m still working on it myself. But I can definitely prevent you from making the same mistakes I did (like getting 11x14 prints for $9 each for my first con OTL)

First off, let’s talk prints.

Prints should always be the main event of your table, especially if it’s your first con. If you showcase your art style on a large scale, it is more likely to attract people to your table. You want to build your stock around the prints you choose to make.

Since saboten is the biggest anime con in AZ, you’re going to want at least a few (I would say at least 6!) 11x17 size designs for print. The less designs you have, the more of each print you should have. I like to have 12-15 print designs for each con, so i buy 8-12 of each depending on popularity. For really popular things, I like to have an upwards of 20. But since this is your first con, I would suggest you start with a smaller stock with about 10-15 of each one, 15 being for your most popular fandom!! A total stock of about 75 prints should be good, and I don’t think you would need more than that.

And while it’s a good idea to choose subjects that you like, it’s also important to choose popular fandoms and subjects. Voltron, Yuri on Ice, and Sailor Moon have been among my best selling subjects over the last year! I know people are also interested in Breath of the Wild, Overwatch, Final Fantasy, and MP100. Do your research in what’s up and coming in the next few months so you know what’ll have traction. It takes practice to understand, but also talk to friends, look on instagram to see what people are planning for cosplay, etc. For example, Voltron will have a lot of hype because of SDCC in July, so people will be excited for season 3, whenever it comes out in the next year. Cater to those people! The point is that you have to balance what you want to sell with what people want to buy. Also, it’s worth noting that generalized/group images sell VERY well because they appeal to more people.

Postcard sized prints are ALWAYS up to you, and feel free to make them individual characters or popular pairings–and how many you have is sort of just up to you. In my opinion, they don’t sell perfectly well. People are more interested in things they can either put on their wall or on their bags, so they aren’t as popular. Between 5-10 of each design should be acceptable. It’s also okay to make a smaller version of one or two of your anticipated larger best sellers (you can usually assume).

Now, where to order them from!

Catprint is absolutely the best place I have ordered prints from, and I prefer it to having them printed at Kinkos. They do absolutely any size, with different paper stocks, finishing options, and coating options. Holy customization, Batman! Plus, it’s cheap (especially if you manipulate a little. Not in a bad way, of course, but in a way that suits your needs). I like to order 11x17s on Matte Lightweight cardstock because they’re only $0.65 each and are sturdy and beautiful! For postcards, I arrange 5x7s/6x4s & 5x5s on an 11x17 file and cut them out with an industrial cutter when i print stickers and buttons at Kinkos, rather than ordering them (because for some reason they severely overcharge on postcard sizes). This is also a good idea if you want an irregular shaped print but want to save!

Also, make sure that you follow the file requirements that Catprint lists on their website–it’ll save you time and money!!

If you like, here is my referral linkfor catprint that will save you (and me!) 10$ when you order.

On to buttons and stickers!!

These are GREAT for first cons, especially because they are cheap for buyers and they can buy all their favorite characters or pairings!

For stickers, it is cheapest and easiest for me to buy unscored, matte label paper on amazon or ebay. And lots of it. I am still hacking through mine, even after using them for my stock, shipping labels, and freebies. I make all my stickers circles because I’m hard enough on my hands as it is and… uniquely shaped stickers sell exactly the same. So I own a 2.5" circle punch and make all my stickers 2.44" so there’s a white boarder. You can always fill them to be exact (and go over to about 2.6" for the design file), but i think they look finished this way, and if you miss the mark a bit, you won’t have any added whites on your design.

Buttons are certainly more complex, and it depends on whether or not you already have a machine. If you have one, don’t buy one unless your current one breaks. If you don’t have one, WAIT until you’re making good figures to buy an American made button maker. Chinese made machines are cheap, but pricey to fix and replace. American Button Machines are FANTASTIC (they’re what I use!) and use all metal fixings so that they’re basically guaranteed to last. But until you are making 2-5k per con, it’s not really worthwhile to buy a nice machine.

BUT! You CAN team up with other AA people local or otherwise (LIKE ME) who are willing to make buttons on their fancy industrial button makers and cutters (if you’re interested in this, I proof files, print them myself on no-bleed paper, and assemble the buttons myself. I also do proofs for $0.50 a button with no minimum and there’s flat shipping fees for under 100 buttons! I can set you up with my pricing for labor and materials if you like). This is very much so your cheapest option for buttons if you don’t already have a machine, as most companies charge more and have higher minimums per design.

My recommended size are 1.25" buttons. They’re not too small and they’re not too large! This is the only size I offer, but if you’re feeling specific I know places like PureButtons have great options and pricing.

You will certainly want to have lots of each sticker design. They sell very well, and people will even buy original designs of stickers if they’re cute enough! Buttons are a little more tricky, and it’s better to have less if you are ordering them, and better to have more options if you make them yourself. I don’t really sell more than 30 buttons at any con since it’s not my main focus. So choose wisely for button designs!

I know I went overboard with this answer, so please feel free to ask me more questions on ordering prints. This is mostly my process, but I hope I was able to help you at least a little bit!!! Let me know if you want help with displays, business cards, packaging, or con commissions. I’m happy to help !! ♥️

#Artist Alley #Artist Alley help #AA help #conventions #exhibitor hall #rune slayer

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robotlolita · 4 years

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BEWARE: All Bitcoin HYIPs and MLM Schemes are Scams!

itcoin is the earliest and also most preferred cryptocurrency on the planet. However, as bitcoin adoption is on the increase so is the number of bitcoin scams. However, most of these frauds have actually penetrated Africa in the past couple of years as well as are exploiting unknowing customers that intend to earn money online making use of bitcoin.

In this post, you will find out why all so-called bitcoin high return financial investment plans (HYIPs) and also NETWORK MARKETING schemes that entail bitcoin are outright rip-offs and also exactly how to identify these plans to ensure that you do not succumb them.

What Are Bitcoin HYIPs as well as Why Are They Scams? HYIPs (high yield financial investment plans) assure their "capitalists" extremely high returns on their spent bitcoin. The claimed returns (which are often "ensured") can vary from 1 percent daily approximately one hundred percent each month, or a lot more.

HYIP drivers usually assert that they spend their "capitalists" bitcoins in a sophisticated means to generate high returns. Obviously, that is a complete lie. Rather, they only pay out when new money trickles in through the enrollment of new "financiers", which is precisely why all HYIPs have well-paying reference programs that exist to draw new members to the system and also to keep existing members circulating it.

No Defense for ICO Investors

Simply put, all bitcoin HYIPs are simple and also straightforward Ponzi systems where existing financiers are paid with the money being available in from brand-new financiers till the system collapses and the operators disappear with the funds. Because of bitcoin's pseudo-anonymity, going away with taken funds is simpler than ever. Hence, the sudden development in this sort of rip-off.

Genuine cryptocurrency financial investment systems, such as Iconomi, have annual administration fees and also transparently reveal their users what they are buying and exactly how their funds are performing. Also, users can take out their invested funds any time.

HYIPs, on the other hand, are always very secretive concerning their "investment" activities and also it is tough to get your cash out as soon as you remain in the scheme. Why? Because they are merely frauds aimed at taking their capitalists' money once the pot has actually obtained huge sufficient for the operators to exit.

What are Bitcoin NETWORK MARKETING Schemes as well as why are they scams? Bitcoin NETWORK MARKETING (multi-level advertising and marketing) schemes take the popular aspect of internet marketing (additionally called direct selling) and utilize the popularity of bitcoin to produce a rip-off.

It is really simple to determine a bitcoin Multi Level Marketing fraud as they all have one point alike. They do not market a product or a service. Huge companies that use multi-level marketing such as Herbalife, for instance, have items that their direct sales individuals offer. When it involves bitcoin MLM systems there is no product as well as no solution, which is why they can be so easily determined as just an additional pyramid system.

bitcoin scamMembers of bitcoin Multi Level Marketing schemes just really gain by hiring new members, which is why you can locate so many people uploading referral web links in Facebook teams advertising their "financial investment strategy", bitcoin doublers, (phony) cloud mining websites or Multi Level Marketing scheme.

The funds paid to their individuals are a little share of the new money from other participants. Those who join have to pay a charge. After that, the organisation pumps the amount into paying recommendations. In the long run, when the operators have gained sufficient the system falls down and also they disappear with the money.

Supposed Bitcoin Scams in Africa MMM The lately reincarnated MMM is a supposed Ponzi scheme that has actually been around for years. Its owner, Sergei Mavrodi, who ran MMM given that the late 80s was condemned by Russian courts in 2007 of ripping off 10 000 capitalists out of over $4 million in complete as well as was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison. However, after his launch, Mavrodi relaunched MMM and targeted new markets, consisting of Africa, for his scheme.

MMM concerned South Africa in 2015 and has actually considering that spread to Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and also Zimbabwe. The organisation assures a 30 per cent roi however gives no indication of exactly how business really means to create these returns aside from "individuals aiding each other". This ought to call alarm bells as it clearly implies that MMM is a pyramid system. Well, that as well as the fact that the company's proprietor has actually currently been founded guilty for running a Ponzi plan with the very same name back in Russia. Several governments were quick adequate to caution their people about the plan, yet MMM is still up and running in countries like Kenya and Nigeria and exploiting unknowing bitcoin newbies who intend to spend their coins.

According to records by MoneyWeb, MMM South Africa collapsed in 2016 as well as its drivers have actually vanished with their targets' funds. MMM revealed on its South African Facebook page that the RB "was an experiment, and, sadly, it stopped working". Victims that were associated with the rip-off, shed all their spent bitcoin as their accounts online were iced up as is commonly the instance when scammers collapse their schemes.

Onecoin Onecoin is a claimed pyramid plan that is claiming to have its very own blockchain as well as cryptocurrency. Nevertheless, no evidence that its blockchain exists has actually ever been presented, whereas every other blockchain has a blockchain traveler where deals can be checked out. Furthermore, its "electronic money" is not detailed on CoinMarketCap as it is commonly thought not to exist at all.

bitcoin hyipsAt the minute, Onecoin is under examination by police departments in a number of nations around the world consisting of the UK, Germany, as well as India, where arrests were made. Even the central bank in Uganda has actually cautioned its citizens regarding OneCoin. Nevertheless, you will still discover OneCoin "capitalists" send marketing product with recommendation links to unknowing individuals online in the hope to earn money by continuing the scheme.

MMM and also OneCoin are 2 of the most noticeable alleged bitcoin rip-offs in Africa yet there are far more. Most of them assure high returns from bitcoin cloud mining however are in reality just another type of Ponzi system.

Exactly How To Prevent Becoming Victim to a Bitcoin Scam 1. Ensure that firm information and also names of the proprietors are provided and real! The majority of bitcoin scams will certainly not list the company address nor have a group area that clearly details who runs business as well as who the proprietors are. This is a clear warning, so it needs to be the first thing to look out for.

If the company is lawfully registered and there are owners detailed, go do a fast google search and see if these details are really real. Fraudsters will gladly offer incorrect information in the hope that their targets do not conduct thorough research.

2. If the plan "warranties" you returns, it's a fraud! If you find a site or a system that assures you returns, it is nearly specific to be a rip-off. There is constantly a risk when it concerns spending, so returns can never ever be guaranteed.

3. If the returns they specify that they will certainly create for you are really high, that's a red flag! Despite the often fast-increasing value of electronic money, if you stumble upon a system that informs you that it will double your bitcoin within a month or pay you 10 percent return each day, for example, you will have come across a rip-off with virtually one hundred percent assurance.

Just use sound judgment, exactly how would a company be able to pay you 10 percent or perhaps 1 percent returns per day other than by using the cash from one financier and also offering to the following as Ponzi systems do? Bitcoin mining will definitely not make you 1 percent per day. That is mathematically impossible as we understand just how much the blockchain can pay in rewards daily.

4. Read unbiased evaluations online and also connect to individuals to hear about their experiences! Another terrific way to inspect if an investment platform is reputable is to locate impartial evaluations and to reach out to customers who have actually invested there. Nevertheless, be wary of those that send you recommendation web links or have them in their evaluations as these point of views are not objective. People who send you reference web links when they give you their point of view are just seeking to profit reference earnings, which is exactly how individuals in Ponzi plans make money up until the plan breaks down.

5. Examine if the company is provided on badbitcoin.org! The gentlemen that run the internet site badbitcoin.org supply a very useful service to bitcoin newbies that are tempted by high-returns encouraging financial investment systems that remain in truth simply simple scams. The platform notes most recognized bitcoin scams as well as new sites are added a regular basis.

6. The Golden Rule is: "If something seems as well great to be real, it most likely is!" Probably the easiest way to establish whether something is a fraud or not is if it sounds too great to be real. If you are being assured high returns that you can make passively online by "simply" spending a couple of hundred dollars, you will probably have actually found a rip-off.

7. There are no legitimate bitcoin HYIPs or NETWORK MARKETING schemes. They are all scams! Ultimately, not succumbing to a bitcoin investment plan in the form of a high return investment plan or MLM/pyramid system is really very easy because every one that you encounter online is a fraud.

While there are many methods to earn bitcoin online, high return financial investment strategies and ONLINE MARKETING plans are not part of them and also need to be stayed clear of at all cost. If you invest in any of these systems, you will very likely shed cash sooner or later when their drivers collapse the system and also make an exit.

Regrettably, African bitcoin Facebook teams are frequently packed with individuals (typically with fake Facebook accounts) posting concerning "impressive" bitcoin investment opportunities that usually consist of a recommendation web link to a HYIP, NETWORK MARKETING or a phony cloud mining scheme. So, keep your wits about on your own when seeking financial investment opportunities online as well as bear in mind: "If it appears as well good to be real, it possibly is!"

Looking for buy hyip website? Join with us

#Buy hyip website #buy hyip #hyip template

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bentonpena · 4 years

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NASA is testing an alien-hunting, upside-down underwater rover in Antarctica. It's one of several plans to explore 2 ocean worlds for signs of life.

NASA is testing an alien-hunting, upside-down underwater rover in Antarctica. It's one of several plans to explore 2 ocean worlds for signs of life. http://bit.ly/2KTaCPI

NASA began testing an alien-hunting underwater rover in Antarctica this week.

The robot, called the Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration (BRUIE), rolls along the bottom of ice sheets in polar oceans, scanning for signs of life.

BRUIE is built for the hidden subsurface seas of distant ice worlds like Europa (a moon of Jupiter) and Enceladus (a moon of Saturn).

These ocean worlds are the most likely places for alien life in our solar system.

NASA is designing other spacecraft to search for life in these hidden oceans.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

NASA scientists are dropping an upside-down underwater rover into the icy oceans of Antarctica.

The robot, called the Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration (BRUIE), is a prototype of the rover that could search for life in frozen alien oceans.

It's part of NASA's plans to explore the secret oceans of two distant icy moons, Europa and Enceladus. NASA plans to launch the next spacecraft to Europa in 2025.

These moons and this underwater rover are our best shot at finding alien life in the solar system.

Here's everything you need to know about the underwater rover, the worlds it could explore, and how NASA plans to search for life there.

SEE ALSO: A handful of new telescopes are about to transform the hunt for alien life and our understanding of the universe itself

DON'T MISS: At least 3 companies plan to launch space hotels into orbit, offering inflatable rooms, 16 sunsets per day, and even space Quidditch

NASA began testing an alien-hunting underwater rover in Antarctica this week.

It's called the Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration (BRUIE). That's because, instead of relying on its weight to keep it on the ground, BRUIE relies on buoyancy to keep it afloat.

The rover rolls across the bottom of the sheet of ice covering the polar ocean.

"Instead of a rover that drives on the ground, we'll have a rover that drives on the ceiling," Dan Berisford, a mechanical engineer on the BRUIE team, said in a 2015 NASA video.

BRUIE has already been tested in Alaska and the Arctic.

BRUIE is a prototype, but its unique approach could allow future rovers to explore alien oceans beneath the ice of distant worlds.

"We've found that life often lives at interfaces, both the sea bottom and the ice-water interface at the top," lead engineer Andy Klesh said in a press release.

BRUIE's buoyancy keeps it anchored to the ice, resistant to most ocean currents that could sweep it away.

The rover can also power down safely and turn back on when it's time to take measurements. Klesh said that this energy-saving method would allow BRUIE to spend months exploring underwater.

"BRUIE will carry several science instruments to measure parameters related to life, such as dissolved oxygen, water salinity, pressure and temperature," Berisford said.

With two rotating high-definition cameras, the rover can look down to the ocean floor and up at the ice above.

The team plans to keep testing and developing BRUIE until it can survive months below the ice.

NASA scientists hope this technology will one day search for alien life on two faraway moons that hide vast oceans below thick sheets of ice.

"The ice shells covering these distant oceans serve as a window into the oceans below, and the chemistry of the ice could help feed life within those oceans," Kevin Hand, the lead scientist working on BRUIE, said in the release. "Here on Earth, the ice covering our polar oceans serves a similar role, and our team is particularly interested in what is happening where the water meets the ice."

The first ocean world, Europa, is an icy moon of Jupiter.

Scientists have long suspected that Europa conceals an ocean below its ice surface — possibly with twice the volume of Earth's oceans.

Scientists measured water vapor above Europa's surface for the first time on Monday — further evidence of the liquid water that lies below.

In June, scientists spotted sodium chloride (also known as table salt) in Europa's ice, indicating that the ocean below could be similar to those on Earth.

Chemical reactions between this salt and rocks on the ocean floor could create nitrogen compounds, which are crucial in the formation of life.

The second world, Enceladus, is an icy moon of Saturn.

Like Europa, Enceladus hides a subsurface ocean of liquid water that could be habitable to alien life.

Much smaller than Europa, Enceladus is about as wide as the state of Arizona.

In 2005 the Cassini spacecraft, which explored Saturn and its moons, "tasted" the jets of ice and gas that shoot out of Enceladus's south pole. The jets seem to come from deep within the ocean below.

Both moons seem to contain the basic chemical ingredients for life.

Based on Cassini's data, NASA recently confirmed that water on Enceladus contains organic compounds — the building blocks of amino acids that make up DNA and formed the foundations of life on Earth.

As for Europa, scientists think it first formed with the necessary chemical elements: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Asteroid impacts may have delivered even more life-giving elements.

But there's one major problem: The sunlight that fuels life on Earth is 25 times fainter on Europa.

Enceladus, even further from the sun, is about -330 degrees Fahrenheit on its surface.

Even the most durable species on Earth, which have adapted to the most extreme conditions, would probably not survive on these moons.

That's because life requires heat and energy. On Earth, we get those things from our proximity to the sun.

But both moons' oceans are likely much warmer than their surfaces, thanks to their oval-shaped orbits.

Because it's tidally locked, like our own moon, the same side of Europa is always facing Jupiter.

As Europa follows its oval-shaped orbit, its distance from Jupiter changes, so the difference between the gravitational pull on Europa's two sides regularly grows and shrinks. These changes are called tides.

Enceladus has the same relationship to Saturn.

These tides stretch and relax Europa and Enceladus, cracking their surface ice and building friction that heats the moons from the inside.

That's what keeps the subsurface oceans from freezing solid.

These tides could crack the moons' mantle and give rise to deep-sea hydrothermal vents.

On Earth, such vents produce intense heat that rips apart molecules and sparks chemical reactions. They form where seawater seeps into the planet's rocky crust, meets volcanically active rock, and blasts back toward the surface.

Scientists first discovered these vents in 1977.

Life on Earth crops up around these vents. These ecosystems don't need sunlight to survive.

On land, food chains rely on plants to convert sunlight to sugar. But in the deep-sea food chain, microbes convert hydrogen to sugar. Rather than photosynthesis (which is fueled by light), this process of "chemosynthesis" uses chemical reactions.

That's why NASA is developing robots to explore hidden alien oceans — like this submarine, called Orpheus.

A drone like Orpheus could dive to the ocean floor in search of hydrothermal vents and deep-sea life.

"It's the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother of the vehicle that may go to Europa," biologist Tim Shank, who leads the team that's sending this submarine to Earth's deep seas, previously told Business Insider.

First, scientists must learn how to recognize and observe forms of life that might thrive at deep-sea pressures.

"We only really know how to detect life similar to that on Earth," Berisford said. "So it's possible that very different microbes might be difficult to recognize."

That's why Orpheus is reaching for the unexplored depths of Earth's oceans. It could help to study life in these mysterious Earth environments that are most similar to Europa or Enceladus.

But NASA is still just testing those technologies. Before they take off, the agency plans to send a spacecraft to scout the surface of Europa.

The Europa Clipper spacecraft is slated to fly close to the icy moon 45 times. NASA plans to launch it in 2025.

The spacecraft is expected to fly through Europa's water vapor plumes to analyze what might be in the ocean.

Its radar tools will also measure the thickness of the ice and scan for subsurface water, as the spacecraft flies as close as 16 miles above Europa's surface.

That investigation could help scientists land a future spacecraft on Europa's surface and punch through the ice.

The future lander could search deep ice for signs of life in the ocean below, digging 4 inches below Europa's surface to extract samples for analysis in a mini, on-the-go laboratory.

Scientists estimate the ice around both moons is up to 16 miles thick, though in some parts of Europa it could be as thin as half a mile.

After Europa, Enceladus is about an extra 400 million miles away, but NASA scientists have proposed a mission to search for life there.

The mission, called Enceladus Life Finder (ELF), would fly past Enceladus 10 times to sample the material shooting out of its jets. Those jets are essentially a sample of what's in the moon's hidden ocean.

ELF would try to determine the temperature, pH, oxygen levels, and how energy is moving in the subsurface ocean.

NASA has twice chosen to fund other projects instead.

Hilary Brueck contributed reporting to this post.

Tech via SAI http://bit.ly/2ZZpEbV November 23, 2019 at 10:03AM

#IFTTT #Feedly

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charllieeldridge · 4 years

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12 Best Places To Visit in January 2020

The Christmas holiday season is a whirlwind of visiting, shopping and partying. Once the rum and egg nog haze has lifted and you’ve come out of your turkey coma, it’s time to start thinking about somewhere to travel (detox?!) after the busy festive season. If you’re looking for the best places to visit in January, this list has you covered.

December is meant for getting together with friends and family, but after that, it’s time to find the best places to go in January so you can recoup and (if you’re from the northern hemisphere), take a break from the freezing cold weather.

There are numerous places to visit in January, but in this post I’ll list the top 12 for 2020 based on price and things to do. Plus, I’ll list a mix of beach destinations and winter holidays.

Time to book your trip for January!

1. Argentina

Why is this one of the best places to visit in January?

Weather is great

Costs are low in Argentina right now thanks to a recent currency drop

It’s hiking and fly fishing season

Having spent 3 months in Argentina in 2017, it’s safe to say that we know a few things about this incredible (and large) South American destination. Whether you’re into culture and history, nature and landscapes, lakes and fishing, or cities and wine, Argentina has something for you.

Since Argentina is such a vast country, with a wide variety of landscapes and regions, it can be visited year round. But, it’s one of the best places to travel in January if you’re looking to do some hiking and fly fishing.

The northwestern region (around Salta) might be a bit wet during this time, but the rest of the country is dry and warm.

Argentina is known for being one of the top fly fishing destinations in the world. If you’re an angler, you’ll be happy to know that fly fishing season in the Lake District of Patagonia is best in January & February due to the warm weather, and ability to fish all waters during this time.

There are some stunning lakeside and riverside lodges you can stay in. Don’t miss Correntoso Lake and River Hotel and Rio Hermoso Boutique Hotel.

For trekkers, January is a good time to lace up your boots and hit the mountains of Patagonia. El Chalten in the south is dry and has temperatures around 20°C (68°F), perfect for checking out the peaks of Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre, exploring waterfalls, drinking beer on patios and much more.

Don’t miss nearby El Calafate and its popular Perito Moreno Glacier, which calves massive chunks of ice every few minutes! Although January is high season at Perito Moreno Glacier, you can avoid the crowds by visiting before 9:30am or after 5:00pm – take the later shuttle bus, or rent a car to explore at your own pace.

El Chalten is a great place to hike in Argentina

While you’ll miss the grape harvesting in Mendoza (it happens in February), January is still a great time to visit because the vineyards are green and the grapes are everywhere. Be prepared for hot temperatures (30°C / 80°F+), fantastic wines, great hiking around Parque Provincial Aconcagua (2 hours from Mendoza), picturesque parks and plazas, and some awesome restaurants. There are many things to do in Mendoza to keep you busy.

If all of these places to visit in Argentina aren’t enough to spark your interest, maybe the cost will.

When we travelled to Argentina in 2017, this was the rate: $1 USD = 18 Argentine Pesos

In September 2018, the rate was $1 USD = 41 Argentine Pesos.

In September 2019, the rate is $1 USD = 56.50 Argentine Pesos.

In November 2019, the rate is $1 USD = 59.68 Argentine Pesos.

This drop in currency means that travelling to Argentina would cost you a third of what it cost us in 2017! Rooms that were priced at $150 a night, now cost $50. Fantastic dinners of rib eye steaks and Malbec wine which cost us $50 for two people, now go for just $17.

Argentina isn’t known for being one of the cheapest countries to visit, but with the current instability of the peso, you can definitely save some money by visiting now and help out the local economy along the way.

Looking for accommodation in Argentina? Check out Booking.com and Airbnb for the best room rates (don’t forget your Airbnb coupon code). We personally use these two booking engines for all of our stays and highly recommend them.

2. Sri Lanka

Why is this one of the best places to visit in January?

Great weather

Affordability

Numerous Historical Sites

This teardrop-shaped island located off the southeast coast of India is often overlooked by travellers. If you’re searching for the best places to visit in January that offer national parks, wildlife spotting, pristine beaches, fantastic cuisine, ancient sites and friendly locals, then make sure you add Sri Lanka to your holiday list. As a bonus, this country is very affordable.

Since the average temperature in January is around 30°C (86°F), you’ll want to hit up the coast! Don’t miss the stunning Unawatuna beach, with its calm water and numerous accommodation options. Just 15 minutes away, the nearby fortified town of Galle is an amazing spot to sit and watch sunset from the UNESCO listed fort walls.

Sri Lanka may be small, but it has a lot to offer travellers

If you’re into surfing, check out the breaks at Hikkadua on the south coast of Sri Lanka. Even if you’re not a surfer, this chilled out beach town offers bars, restaurants and some safe swimming spots as well.

If you’re in search of the best places to travel in January that offer historical sites, you’ll be happy to know that Sri Lanka has those in spades.

Check out Anuradhapura (where Buddhism was first introduced to the country), Sigiriya (rock fortress towering 200m above the trees below), Cave Temples of Dambulla (built in the 1st century BC, and filled with over 100 Buddha statues) and the city of Kandy (an important Buddhist city, home to Buddha’s tooth).

For a pretty mountain village, don’t miss Ella and the surrounding tea plantations and hiking opportunities, including Little Adam’s Peak.

For such a small country, Sri Lanka really does have a lot to offer travellers. And, with an average travel cost of around $30-$50 per day, per person, you really can’t go wrong.

Looking for accommodation in Sri Lanka? Check out Booking.com and Airbnb for the best room rates (don’t forget your Airbnb coupon code). These are the two platforms that we always use for booking rooms and highly recommend them.

Looking for flights to these top places to travel in January? Check out websites like JustFly to compare flights from numerous airlines. I found a return flight from New York to Colombo, Sri Lanka for just $627. If you have any questions or issues with booking, JustFly has a great support team that you can actually call to ask for help.

3. Mexico (one of the best places to visit in January for North Americans)

Why is this one of the best places to visit in January?

Great Weather

Whale Watching Season

Proximity to North America

Costs

There are endless amazing places to visit in Mexico, and there’s really no bad time to travel here. Since this is such a large country, the climate varies depending on where you are, and which time of year you plan to visit.

Guanajuato is one of the prettiest cities in Mexico

Hurricane season runs from June to November and the cities at elevation can be cold during the winter months (November – February). But, for the most part, Mexico is a great place to visit in January if you’re looking for warm beach weather (good news if you’re from the northern hemisphere!).

Having spent over 6 months travelling through Mexico, on numerous different occasions, we rate Mexico as one of our favourite countries. This is a place where you can dine on one of the world’s best cuisines, visit a Wonder Of The World, swim in pristine water and explore Spanish colonial towns…all while not breaking the bank.

Venture away from the typical, 1-week all-inclusive holiday and explore the real Mexico. Trust me, the food and the experiences you have will be far more memorable.

If it’s cities and towns you’re after in January, places like Mexico City and San Cristobal de las Casas will be quite chilly. But, you can enjoy all of the things to do in Oaxaca City, including a visit to the impressive Monte Alban ruins, or check out the colourful towns of San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato, both of which have comfortable temperatures at around 21°C (70°F).

For people from Canada, the United States and Europe, what really makes Mexico one of the top places to visit in January is the beaches!

Don’t miss Puerto Escondido or Huatulco in the State of Oaxaca. In the Riviera Nayarit, check out San Pancho, Sayulita, Bucerias and all of the beaches and other awesome things to do in Puerto Vallarta.

The sunsets in Puerto Vallarta are spectacular

Further north, explore the Baja peninsula including Cabo San Lucas and La Paz (January is the best time for whale watching.)

If you’re planning on spending time in the Yucatan, check out the powdery sands of Isla Holbox, Isla Mujeres, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen and Cancun. At around 28°C (82°F), it’s definitely beach weather in the Yucatan!

On top of the fantastic beaches and pretty towns, the food in Mexico is one of the best. In fact, it’s listed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage. Try the various regional dishes, the street food and of course, the drinks. Going on a food tour is one of the best things to do in Mexico.

On the budget end, expect to spend around $40 / day. For Midrange, $60+.

Looking for accommodation in Mexico? Check out Booking.com and Airbnb for the best room rates (don’t forget your Airbnb coupon code). These are the two platforms that we always use for booking rooms and highly recommend them.

4. Chicago, Illinois

Why is this one of the best places to visit in January?

Numerous Festivals

New Year’s Eve Party

Winter Wonderland

Lower Costs

Since the USA is so large and diverse, I had to break it down and list just a city, rather than a whole country. And, when it comes to American cities, Chicago is a top choice!

There are so many fun things to do in Chicago to keep you busy for a week, or more. Since the city experiences cold winters (lows of -6 ° celcius), you’ll need to bundle up to visit, but it’s still a great place to visit in January.

During the high season (June – September), you can expect clear skies and warm temperatures…but with that comes many tourists and high room costs. When it comes to accommodation in Chicago, even if you book on Airbnb, it’s a pretty expensive city (don’t forget to claim a free $55 Air bnb coupon).

Luckily, if you visit in January, you can expect huge discounts on hotels. Occupancy is low in the winter months, meaning that hotels offer big drops in room rates – even the luxury accommodation is on special. Expect discounts of around 50% off.

Chicago is enjoyed year-round, but expect discounts and awesome events in January

Not only will you spend less on your room, but you’ll be able to avoid the crowds at the popular sights (museums, observation decks and art galleries – all of which are inside!), and enjoy one of the many festivals and events happening in January.

If you can make it to Chicago for New Year’s Eve, you’ll be able to experience an epic firework show, parties at numerous hotel bars and restaurants, and the Chicago Resolution Gala at the Navy Pier. There’s a free firework show over the lakefront and riverside, which will be choreographed and synchronized to music. Click here to learn more about New Year’s Eve in Chicago.

With numerous places to eat in Chicago, you’ll never go hungry. The city is known for its culinary delights, diverse cuisines, and Michelin starred restaurants. Brunch is a favourite of Chicagoans, and you must try the deep-dish pizza, hot dogs, popcorn and other Chicago snacks.

For those who like a cocktail or two, you can still enjoy some of the best bars in Chicago along the riverwalk. It might be cold outside, but see-through domes are erected to cover the tables and heaters are placed inside. Magical!

For foodies, you’ll be happy to know that January is Restaurant Week in Chicago. That’s right, you might have to brave the cold weather, but in return, you get to experience the city’s biggest restaurant event of the year. Click here to learn more about the festival.

For sports fans, check out a Chicago Blackhawks hockey game, or a meet-and-greet and autograph signing with some of the Cubs players at the Cubs Convention (only in January).

Bundle up and enjoy Chicago in January.

You must try the deep dish pizza in Chicago!

Looking for accommodation in Chicago? Check out Booking.com and Airbnb for the best room rates (don’t forget your Airbnb coupon code). These are the two platforms that we always use for booking rooms and highly recommend them.

5. Greece

Why is this one of the best places to visit in January?

Have the ancient sites to yourself

Mingle with Greeks, rather than tourists

Affordability

Greece is a destination that you could return to again and again. It’s most known for its ancient sites, such as the Acropolis in Athens, and its stunning archipelagos, but there’s much more to see and do in this European nation.

If you’re looking to laze on the best beaches in Greece, with cocktail in hand, January isn’t the time to do so. But, if you’re interested in having the awe-inspiring historical sites to yourself, enjoying the local vibe in Athens, wandering around popular islands without the hordes, and doing some skiing, then January is a great month to visit.

We’ve always visited Greece in the shoulder/off-season and while it’s a bit chilly, we love exploring without the crowds.

The summer months in Greece can be unbearable due to the amount of tourists – both foreign and local – cramming together on the beach and trying to find space at the popular sites. Why not visit in January and have the place to yourself?!

Greece in the winter can be beautiful

Athens is a very comfortable temperature (around 10 °C / 50°F) during January, and the city doesn’t see much rain this month either. Walking around Athens is a great way to experience the city, and during January you won’t overheat and you’ll be able to have genuine encounters with the locals you meet along the way.

The Acropolis with the impressive Parthenon is the top site in all of Greece. If you put it on your list of places to visit in January, you’ll be able to enjoy the site in a relaxed atmosphere.

For those who simply must visit an island when travelling to Greece, a good bet in January is Santorini or Crete — both still have things going on in the winter months. However, on Santorini you won’t want to stay in the popular Oia town, but rather, choose to stay in the capital of Fira. The island isn’t dead during January, but many restaurants and bars outside of Fira shut down for the winter months.

In January you can enjoy all of the usual top things to do in Santorini, except for swimming and tanning. You will have pleasant, sunny days (15 °C / 59°F) and can enjoy sightseeing without the masses of tourists.

Hike the caldera path which runs between Fira and Oia, enjoy sampling various wines, hike around the volcano, see the ancient Akrotiri village which is now in ruins, hike the path behind Perissa to see Thera (the ancient capital), or simply enjoy a peaceful dinner with a view!

On the island of Crete, you’ll want to stay in either Heraklion, Chania, or Rethymnon, as there is a large local population here. Even though it’s chilly (16 °C), local life still moves along. Enjoy wine tastings, beachside picnics, cafe culture, and the ruins of Knossos. Try ski mountaineering, winter hiking or simply wandering around the towns.

Hotel prices in January are significantly reduced in Greece and you can enjoy having a more authentic experience.

Bundle up and enjoy Santorini in the winter – without the crowds

6. Barbados

Why is this one of the best places to visit in January?

Warm weather

Stunning beaches

Festivals & Events

If it’s crystal clear, turquoise water and blindingly white sand beaches you crave, Barbados is a top choice when thinking about the best places to travel in January.

Spend your days lazing on the incredibly calm Carlisle Bay (one of the best beaches in the Caribbean), which is close to Bridgetown. Browne’s Beach here offers pristine swimming options, a couple of beach bars (check out Cuz’s fish cutters) and lounge chairs with umbrellas for rent.

Harbour Lights is a popular nightclub / bar, which is also located on Carlisle Bay. If you’re in Barbados for New Year’s Eve, this is a fun spot to party, complete with Carnival dancers, calypso music, rum drinks and fireworks on the beach.

Other must-visit beaches are Rockley / Accra Beach (don’t miss the boardwalk), Dover Beach, Mullin’s Bay and Paynes Bay. The best beaches in Barbados for swimming are located on the south and western side of the island, the east is much wilder and is great for (pro) surfing.

There are numerous things to do in Barbados to keep you busy. After you’re done lazing on stunning beaches, head to Oistin’s Fish Fry on Friday nights, go for a Hash (hike) one of the many trails, join a rum tour, or simply chill out at a funky beach bar with Banks Beer in hand.

In January, you can enjoy Open Homes, Jazz Festivals, Barbados Sailing Week and the Barbados Independent Film Festival.

Bajans are friendly, the food – both international and local – is amazing, sunsets are stunning and the beaches are out of this world. Barbados is definitely a top pick for the best places to visit in January.

If you’re from Canada or the USA, you can find many direct flights to Barbados. From Toronto, non-stop return flights with West Jet are just $500 and from New York, Jet Blue operates non-stop flights at around $400 return.

Barbados is in the hurricane belt, with the season running from June – November, and while you’re not guaranteed to see zero rain during the month of January, devastating storms are very unlikely.

For accommodation in Barbados, check out Booking.com and Airbnb for the best deals.

7. Whistler, B.C. Canada

Why is this one of the best places to visit in January?

Skiing and Snowboarding

Quieter Ski Hill

Events at the Village

You’ve probably heard of Whistler, it’s where the 2010 Winter Olympics were held. If you’re into skiing or snowboarding, you’ll want to hit up Whistler and Blackcomb in January. Why? Because for a week after the holidays, it’s one of the quietest times of year at the hill.

The mountains of Whistler and Blackcomb are located right next to each other and offer 200+ trails, with runs for all levels, plus one of the largest networks of chair lifts anywhere in the world. The village is an amazing place to chill out and enjoy some fine dining, with twinkling lights in the evening.

In January, there are numerous events up at the hill as well. Check out the free fire & ice show, king of the rail, Pride and Ski Festival, and lots of racing events. Book a lodge, get a lift ticket and enjoy Whistler and Blackcomb. Click here for more about Whistler Blackcomb.

Bonus: take a 1.5 hour drive over to Vancouver and check out the events on offer. Free ice skating and polar bear swims, or light shows and hockey games…there’s something for everyone in Vancouver in January. Click here for more.

8. Tanzania

Why is this one of the best places to visit in January?

Safaris

Beach Weather

Scuba Diving Season

This country in Eastern Africa is one of the best places to travel in January if you’re looking for a mix of adventure and relaxation, with a lower price tag.

Tanzania experiences a “long” dry season and a “long” wet season. January is considered the “short” dry season.

Empty beach in Zanzibar

You’ve probably heard of the Great Migration which is when millions of wildebeest cross Tanzania and Kenya each year in search of greener pastures and drinking water. In January, you’ll spot the wildebeest in the southern Serengeti during calving season. Expect to see lots of baby wildebeest, numerous animals grazing on the greenery, and predators lurking in the bushes…

Safaris aren’t cheap, but if you go in the short dry season (January), which isn’t as popular as the long dry season, you’ll be able to save some money on tours and lodging.

Zanzibar is a premier scuba diving destination. This island off the coast of Tanzania offers large marine life (sharks, whale sharks, turtles, dolphins, rays), excellent coral, shipwrecks and macro sightings as well. But, it’s not just about the scuba diving. Zanzibar island offers stunning white sand beaches and the historic Stone Town – with Arabic architecture, delicious cuisine and narrow alleyways for exploring.

Beautiful architecture in Stone Town

For a bit of city life, head to the capital of Dar es Salaam. This bustling city offers wonderful Indian food restaurants, huge fish markets, craft markets, museums, churches and more. Hotel rooms here are affordable, with many around $30 / night, while on Airbnb you can find apartments and guesthouse villas for around $40 / night.

Tanzania offers a great mix of city, culture, beach and wildlife. And, if you book in January, you can save yourself some cash on big ticket items.

9. Harbin, China

Why is this one of the best places to travel in January?

Ice Sculpture Festival

Every year from December to February, the northern Chinese city of Harbin has the most incredible ice sculpture festival. When we were teaching English in China, one of our friends was from Harbin and she said we must travel north to her home city and experience it. Sadly, we didn’t have a chance, but after researching and seeing photos online, I wish we had.

These aren’t just regular ice sculptures.

In Harbin, you’ll find 600,000 square meters filled with ice carvings of castles, buildings and people, some of which are as tall as 46 meters! The lighting adds to the beauty of the intricate carvings, which are best visited in the evening.

The only downside to of visiting Harbin in January is the temperature, expect -24 ° celcius. However, that’s why the sculpture festival is perfect for this city, they don’t melt! Bundle up and enjoy this winter wonderland.

10. Miami, Florida

Why is this one of the best places to visit in January?

Great Weather

Festivals

Golf Season

Gorgeous beaches, amazing international cuisine, a latin flare and hot nightclubs – there are numerous reasons to visit Miami.

June to November is hurricane season in the Atlantic, and Miami has seen its share of hurricanes pass through. During those months, it’ll be hot and sunny – but also quite humid, with the possibility of destructive storms.

Miami is one of the best places to travel in January due to the warm weather (more comfortable than the summer months), the festivals on offer, and the fact that it’s a great season for golfing. It’s also considered the high season, as many Americans flock to this southern city to escape the cold up north.

The good news is that it’s not as humid in January making walking around Miami much more enjoyable. The sun will be shining, people will be sitting out on patios, and it’s a great time of year to be active.

It’s no secret that the south of Florida is known for being a haven for golfers, and January is considered one of the best months to hit the greens. With that comes higher price tags for a round of golf, but if you’re on a budget don’t worry, there are a few courses that won’t break the bank.

The Country Club of Miami offers 18 holes for just $45 – $48 if you’re playing on a weekend. Greynolds Golf Course offers 9 holes for just $25 including a cart. There are lots of options in the surrounding municipalities of Miami. Just hop in an Uber and head to one of the cheaper courses. Click here for more details.

Check out the Jam Cruise, a popular music festival aboard a cruise ship! Cruise from Miami to Belize, to Mexico and back to Miami, all while listening to an incredible line up of musicians. For some land based festivals, check out the South Beach Jazz Festival, Art Deco Weekend and the International Chocolate Festival. Plus, if you’re into basketball, don’t miss a Miami Heat game.

There’s always something going on in Miami.

11. Grenada

Why is this one of the best places to travel in January?

Billfish Tournament

Sailing Regattas

Great Weather

Scuba Diving

The little island of Grenada is one of the southernmost islands in the Caribbean. For such a small place, there are many things to do in Grenada to keep you busy. The reason this is one of the best places to travel in January is due to two events (and great weather!).

Don’t miss the Budget Marine Spice Isle Billfish Tournament and the Grenada Sailing Week.

Don’t miss Grenada! The scuba diving is awesome as well

Last year marked the 51th anniversary of the 4 day Billfish Tourney, and it was another successful event. Hook into dorado, tuna, blue marlin, white marlin, sailfish and more.

For the Sailing Week, the 4-day race starts at Port Louis Marina with 2 days of racing in Grand Anse and up to Secret Harbour. One day of relaxing, followed by 2 more days of racing on the east coast of Grenada, leaving from Secret Harbour.

Of course, for both events, there will be lots of parties and rum…lots of rum.

If you’re not partaking in the events, you can still watch from the shoreline as the sailboats cruise around the coast. Aside from sailing and fishing, January is a great time to visit Grenada due to the dry, warm weather.

Spend your days chasing waterfalls, lazing on one of the many pristine beaches, hiking through National Parks, and dining on freshly caught fish at sunset with a rum punch in hand. Or, head out on a scuba dive or snorkel trip with Dive Grenada, or a sailing trip with Savvy.

Hiking on one of our favourite trails in Grenada

It’s high season here, so don’t expect discounted room rates or tours. For accommodation, check out Mount Cinnamon Grenada or click here to see a list of other rooms available on the island.

12. Costa Rica

Why is this one of the best places to visit in January?

Yoga Retreats

Detox

Great Weather

Wildlife Spotting

Costa Rica is one of the best places to chill out, detox, or be active after a crazy, over-indulgent holiday season. This Central American country is known for being a great place to practice yoga, do some meditation and go surfing.

The Pacific coast and central valley of Costa Rica are dry in January, while the Caribbean coast is still wet during this month. It’s best to keep your travels to the west and central part of the country in January.

It’s the high season, which means that prices won’t be low, but you’re basically guaranteed great weather. Book early to get better prices, and try to book your trip for after the first week of January.

Sunsets in Costa Rica are pretty epic

Click here for numerous retreats which combine juice detoxes and plant-based detoxes with yoga and meditation. Get your body feeling alive and healthy again.

For those of you who want to be more active in Costa Rica, try surfing along the north pacific between Guanacaste – Nicoya. Tamarindo and Playa Grande are great spots for all levels of surfers.

If it’s wildlife you seek, January is whale watching season in Costa Rica, while sloths, toucans, turtles and dolphins can be spotted pretty much year round.

There are numerous things to see and do in Costa Rica, and due to the amazing weather and wildlife sightings, January is one of the best times to visit.

Update November 2019:

The Best Places To Visit in January For Safari

Dariece and I are safari lovers. It’s true that once the safari bug has got you, you’ll be hooked for life. January is the perfect time to join a Safari in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda so if you fancy heading to Africa this spring, January could be the perfect time to do it. The animals in the parks are generally congregating around watering holes, there’s plenty of action in the grasslands and you’re pretty much guaranteed to see what you’re looking to see in January.

Now You Know The Best Places to Visit in January!

There are many other destinations that I could have listed as the best places to travel in January, but I feel that this list covered a variety of activities and special events. Whether you’re wanting to leave the cold weather behind, or are looking for a winter wonderland, there’s somewhere amazing to visit in January.

Which January destinations would you add to this list? Tell me in the comments!

Like This Article? Pin it!

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darcyfarber · 5 years

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The 6 Things Real Estate Agents Forget to Mention

Maybe you’re looking at a buying a home and not entirely sure what the true cost of home ownership will be. And as a prospective home buyer, chances are good you’ve heard at least one of these sales pitches.

You can start building equity.

Owning is cheaper than renting.

You can fire your landlord.

While these may or not be true, the one true fact remains: buying a home will be the largest financial decision in your lifetime.

Depending on market dynamics, a mortgage can be cheaper than rent. But, when you take into account extra expenses, that advantage disappears fast. That cute property in an up-and-coming neighborhood may also be the recipient of sharply increasing property taxes. If it’s an older home, maintenance could tack on thousands per year in added costs. Think about this – when your hot-water heater goes out, you can’t call the maintenance man because now you ARE the maintenance man.

Therefore, before you sign the dotted line on your mortgage papers, here is a list of things you must-know before making the largest financial decision in your lifetime.

What is the ACTUAL Cost of Home Ownership?

So, you’ve been looking at houses lately online. On one site, you found a mortgage calculator that calculates your average monthly payment. For some properties, the amount is about the same compared to what you already pay in rent. For others, it can be cheaper.

These tools trick countless buyers each year. Shortly after getting the keys to their new home, many encounter costs beyond what they encountered renting. Don’t be caught unaware – here are just a few expenses that will be new to you as an owner.

1. Closing Costs

Think you’re ready to buy now that you got a down payment lined up? Hold on – you’ve got closing costs to account for as well. These pay for title searches, title insurance, and other miscellaneous costs. On average, this expense is between 2.5%-5% of the property’s value. For a $300,000 home, expect to shell out an additional $7,500 to $15,000.

2. Home Inspection

Technically, this step is optional, but it really isn’t. A house that seems solid on the surface can have serious issues lurking within. If the roof is about to fail, paying $500-$1,000 for a home inspection now could save $5,000-$10,000 later.

3. Property Taxes

As a homeowner, you won’t just be paying the bank – the government will have its hand out, too. Let’s say you’re looking at a $300,000 house in Las Vegas. The city assesses an average tax rate of $1.15 per $100 of assessed property value. According to the math, you’d have to pay $3,450 in taxes this year. Unless the economy tanks, this amount will rise each year as the value of your house increases.

4. Homeowner’s Insurance

If a tornado totals your home, you aren’t the only one who loses. The bank does as well, as you’ll likely walk away from your mortgage, leaving them with bad debt. As a result, homeowner’s insurance is practically mandatory – brokers won’t lend to customers who refuse it. Each year, you can expect to pay between $600 to $2,000 in premiums, depending on where you live.

5. HOA and Condo Fees

If you buy a condo or a house in a specific neighbourhood, you may have to pay HOA/condo fees. Here’s why – in these living arrangements, residents use common facilities. These include gyms, common areas, splash pads, playgrounds, and so on. By paying these fees, you’ll be contributing your share of repair and maintenance costs. Expect to pay an average of $200 per month to maintain amenities.

6. Maintenance and Repairs

Of all household expenses, this one is the most insidious. You can go years without a major repair, and then a string of multi-thousand dollar incidents happen. While newer homes have low repair/replacement costs, you should still spend a minimum of $300 annually on preventative maintenance. On average, Americans spend $2,000 per year maintaining their homes.

As you can see, owning your own home is just a bit more involved than renting.

Only One Unexpected Expense Away From Financial Disaster

As climate change worsens, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes will occur more often, and with greater severity. When it comes to wind, your homeowner’s insurance has you covered. However, most policies do NOT cover flooding.

According to historical records you found at City Hall, your house is outside the 200-year flood zone. However, 200-year floods now happen with disturbing regularity. Knowing this, it’s plausible a 500-year flood could inundate your home, leaving you with a gargantuan repair bill.

What if you live on a hill? Unless you’re among the 22% who don’t live paycheck-to-paycheck, a damaged roof/dead furnace could leave you in dire straits.

Those who don’t plan for the worst are left reeling when the worst happens. In the following sections, we’ll ensure you’re prepared for whatever comes.

Start with a Plan: AKA The Budget

In life, many of us make it up as we go along. According to a 2017 survey conducted by U.S. Bank, 41% use a budget to manage their finances. However, this means a full 59% of us have no plan when it comes to managing our money.

We splurge on that $2,000 tropical holiday, even though it’ll only leave us with $1,000 in checking. Then, we come home to an ice-cold house. Cost to replace the furnace? $3,000. Dang.

With a little fiscal discipline, though, these crises can become minor annoyances. In 2019, the average household took in $60,000. If your mortgage payments are less than a third of your income, you can save up a maintenance fund.

Jump Starting Your Budget

Let’s start by drawing up the foundations of your budget. List all sources of reliable income – these include your paycheck, government grants, alimony, passive revenue, and so forth. If you are self-employed, use your average monthly income over the past year.

Roll Out Your Expenses

Now define your expenses. Add up fixed costs, like your mortgage, property taxes, utilities, child care, and others. Then estimate variable expenses, like groceries. You can do this task by averaging out the cost over 4-8 weeks. Finally, track discretionary spending. Go over several months worth of bank/credit card statements and highlight expenses that were wants rather than needs.

Take your expenses and subtract them from your income. This result will give you an accurate picture of where you stand currently. No matter the outcome, you can likely find efficiencies in your expenses that can help build a maintenance fund.

Start by looking at energy use. According to the World Health Organization, 65 degrees Fahrenheit is the optimal indoor temperature for healthy adults. By turning down your thermostat from 75 degrees in winter, you can save 10% on your heating bill.

At the grocery store, start shopping off-brand. By swapping out all name brands for their generic counterparts, you can save anywhere from 30 to 50% per meal.

Speaking of which, cook more at home. According to Forbes, the average price of a home-cooked meal is up to 75% less than the restaurant’s equivalent.

These are just a few examples. Soon, you’ll expand your surplus at the end of the month, which you can channel into a household contingency fund.

Creating a Safety Net for Future Home Repairs

Saving up a rainy day fund can protect you against financial disaster. However, it still doesn’t prevent the four-figure repair bills when they come due. While these events are inevitable, the sticker shock associated with them isn’t.

A home warranty can even out the annual maintenance when it comes to the cost of owning a home. What are they? Home warranties are service contracts that cover the systems and appliances in your house. Like homeowner’s insurance, you pay a monthly premium. Whenever something goes wrong, you call your firm. After confirming they cover your issue, they dispatch a technician to your address to fix it. Apart from a small deductible, you pay nothing out-of-pocket.

Instead of paying $300 to fix the stove in February, $1,000 for the air con in July, and $3,000 for a new furnace in December, you only pay monthly premiums, plus deductibles. The average home warranty costs about $800/year, or $66.50/month – think you can find room in your budget for that?

Also, there are so many different home warranty companies to choose from and it can be overwhelming to find which one is the best for you. They all tell you they’re the best, but are they the best for you?

I am a huge fan of ReviewHomeWarranty.com to get a list of the best home warranty companies right now. Look over and compare the top-rated home warranty companies and then make the choice on which is best for you.

Make Your Home a Blessing – Not a Curse

Owning a home can be one of the biggest blessings or one of the greatest curses of life. Before you hire a real estate agent and make the largest financial purchase in your lifetime, know your numbers.

It’s up to you to determine how much you can really afford based on what we explained in this post. Remember, there are more costs than what the real estate agent and mortgage calculator will tell you. Create your plan, stick to your plan, and let your new home be a blessing.

The 6 Things Real Estate Agents Forget to Mention published first on https://mysingaporepools.weebly.com/

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kennethherrerablog · 5 years

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The 6 Things Real Estate Agents Forget to Mention

You can start building equity.

Owning is cheaper than renting.

You can fire your landlord.

While these may or not be true, the one true fact remains: buying a home will be the largest financial decision in your lifetime.

Therefore, before you sign the dotted line on your mortgage papers, here is a list of things you must-know before making the largest financial decision in your lifetime.

What is the ACTUAL Cost of Home Ownership?

1. Closing Costs

2. Home Inspection

3. Property Taxes

4. Homeowner’s Insurance

5. HOA and Condo Fees

6. Maintenance and Repairs

As you can see, owning your own home is just a bit more involved than renting.

Only One Unexpected Expense Away From Financial Disaster

What if you live on a hill? Unless you’re among the 22% who don’t live paycheck-to-paycheck, a damaged roof/dead furnace could leave you in dire straits.

Those who don’t plan for the worst are left reeling when the worst happens. In the following sections, we’ll ensure you’re prepared for whatever comes.

Start with a Plan: AKA The Budget

We splurge on that $2,000 tropical holiday, even though it’ll only leave us with $1,000 in checking. Then, we come home to an ice-cold house. Cost to replace the furnace? $3,000. Dang.

Jump Starting Your Budget

Roll Out Your Expenses

At the grocery store, start shopping off-brand. By swapping out all name brands for their generic counterparts, you can save anywhere from 30 to 50% per meal.

Speaking of which, cook more at home. According to Forbes, the average price of a home-cooked meal is up to 75% less than the restaurant’s equivalent.

These are just a few examples. Soon, you’ll expand your surplus at the end of the month, which you can channel into a household contingency fund.

Creating a Safety Net for Future Home Repairs

Make Your Home a Blessing – Not a Curse

The 6 Things Real Estate Agents Forget to Mention published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

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thetruthseekerway · 5 years

Text

The Stewardship of Water in Islam

New Post has been published on http://www.truth-seeker.info/featured/the-stewardship-of-water-in-islam/

The Stewardship of Water in Islam

By Sadullah Khan

“Allah surely loves not those who transgress the bounds of what is right. Do not cause any disruption on earth after it has been so well ordered.” [Al-A`raf 7:55-56]

Awakening a Higher Consciousness

Among the primary purposes of the Qur’an is to awaken in us the higher consciousness of our manifold relations with Allah and the universe. The Qur’anic paradigm regards; not only nature, but all universe as the creation of Allah (rabbul ‘aalimeen / Creator of all existing things). The relationship of everything as the creation of the Creator leads to awareness that …

we are part of a larger single unit/system (‘aalam)

all existence is facilitated by the Creator (concept of rububiyyah)

iii. our interaction with everything is bound by our interconnectedness to the Divine (makhluqaat)… that all our actions need to take into consideration both huquq-Allah (duty owed to Creator) and huquq al-‘Ibad (duty owed to creation) as well as to imbue ourselves with characteristics of the Divine implying that we synthesizes the values of rahmah/compassion, ‘adl/justice, ihsan/benevolence, ‘aql/reason, hikmah/wisdom; as part of character and behavior.

Human Stewardship

As people of faith, we gather from the Qur’an and Prophetic tradition that …

We are of the earth, living on the earth.

“He brought you into being out of the earth and made you thrive thereon.” [Hud 11: 61]

As the human community is part of nature so too do other creations form communities at their respective levels [Al-An`am 6:38]. The Prophet also reminded us … “all creation are part of God’s dependents; and God loves most those who are best to his universal dependents”

There is a degree of orderliness in creation of Creator.

“He has made everything to the measure of excellence” [An-Naml 27:88]

Humanity should behave in such a way that would maintain the balance that exists within the environment. Rather, we should retrieve the balance that has existed before we have caused, collectively, many ecological disasters:

“And the earth We have spread out; set thereon mountains firm and immovable; and produced therein all kinds of things in due balance.” [Al-Hijr 15:19]

The human being, in the Islamic world-view [Al-Baqarah 2:30] is considered a khalifah / vicegerent the world is green and delightful and Allah has put you in charge of the world and is observing carefully how you deal with it [Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

This should lead us to realize that there is an organic connection between creation and function, between proper knowledge and right behavior, between awareness and responsibility.

In the capacity as a vicegerent/khalifah, the human being is perceived as the trustee of the earth; is not supposed to cause corruption in any form on earth (i.e. the environment). It is a amaanah/trust, requiring awareness of accountability. Vicegerency as a test is found in the following verse:

“It is He Who has made you (His) vicegerents, inheritors of the earth: He has raised you in ranks, some above others: that He may try you in the gifts He has given you: for your Lord is quick in punishment: yet He is indeed Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.” [Al-An`am 6:165]

That we are accountable each for whatever is under our care.

The earth is made available for human use, without abuse or misuse. Subjected/ of service to humanity is whatever is in the celestial spheres and the earth; surely, in all these, there are signs for those who reflect [Al-Jathiyah 45:13]. We deduce from the above-mentioned Qur’anic principles that “although the various components of the natural environment serve humanity as one of their functions, this does not imply that human use is the sole reason for their creation”

Liquid of Life

In this week there was a deliberate global focus on water since 8 years ago, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) designated 22 March (of each year) as the World Day for Water

Our Earth seems to be unique among the other known celestial bodies. It has water, which covers three-fourths of its surface and constitutes 60-70 % of the living world. Life will cease on earth in the absence of water. At a micro level, the human body consisting of more than 70% of water. Water is involved in all bodily functions: digestion, assimilation, elimination, respiration, maintaining temperature (homeostasis) and the strength of all bodily structures. Water regenerates and is redistributed through evaporation, making it seem endlessly renewable.

Survival at Risk

Only 1% of the world’s water is usable to us. About 97% is salty sea water, and 2% is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps. Thus that 1% of the world’s water supply is a precious commodity necessary for our survival. The UN World Water Development Report indicates:

Currently, over one billion people lack a reliable supply of water

2.4 billion people – or just under half the world’s population – have no adequate water supply for daily needs.

Human pollution is one of the main factors seriously undermining the quality and availability of freshwater, says the report. About 2 million tons of waste are dumped every day into rivers, lakes and streams. One gallon of wastewater pollutes about eight gallons of freshwater.

As a result, more than 2.2 million people die each year from diseases owing to contaminated drinking water and poor sanitation.

Every day around 6,000 people, mainly children under the age of five, die from water-related diseases.

The World Resources Institute predicts that by 2025, at least 3.5 billion people, or nearly 60 percent of the world’s population, will face water scarcity.

Much of the world gets by on 2.5 gallons of water per day. The average American uses 400 gallons per day, 30% of which is for outdoor uses and half for watering lawns- 7 billion gallons per day. (EPA)

Water in Islam

The Deen of Islam ascribes the most revered qualities to water as a life-giving, sustaining, and purifying resource. It is the origin of all life on earth, the substance from which God created humankind

“And He it is who out of this [very] water has created man, and has endowed him with [the consciousness of] descent and marriage-tie: for thy Sustainer is ever infinite in His power.” [Al-Furqan 25:54]

The Qur’an emphasizes the centrality of water to life and living itself:

“We made from water every living thing” [Al-Anbiya’ 21:30].

The water of rain, rivers, and fountains run through the pages of the Qur’an to symbolize Allah’s benevolence:

“It is Allah who sends forth the winds as a glad tiding of His coming grace; and causes pure water to descend from the skies [Al-Furqan 25:48].

The oft-repeated words of the Prophet “cleanliness is half of faith,” reveal not only the central importance of purity and cleanliness but also the essential role water plays in Islam. Even the word Shari`ah itself is closely related to water. It is included in early Arab dictionaries and originally meant “the place from which one descends to water.” Before the advent of Islam in Arabia, the shari`ah was, in fact, a series of rules about water use: the shir`at al-maa’ were the permits that gave right to drinking water.

The Qur’anic metaphors in which water is used to symbolize Paradise, righteousness, and Allah’s mercy are quite frequent. From the numerous Qur’anic references to cooling

“… rivers, fresh rain, and fountains of pure, flavored drinking water in Paradise” [Muhammad 47:15]

“Faces that Day will be shining well-pleased with [the fruit of] their striving in a garden sublime, wherein there will be no nonsensical talk; Countless springs will flow therein” [Al-Haqqah 69:21-25]

We can deduce that water is an essential component of the landscape of the gardens of Paradise. It flows beneath and through them, bringing coolness, sustenance and beauty.

Our Collective Task

“Surely, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the succession of night and day: and in the ships that speed on the sea with what is useful to humans: and in the waters which Allah causes to pour from the sky, giving life thereby to the earth after it had been lifeless, and facilitating all manner of living creatures to sustain themselves and multiply thereon: and in the change of the winds, and the clouds that run their appointed courses: [in all this] there are messages indeed for people who use their reason.” [Al-Baqarah 2:164]

We are commanded in the Qur’an not to cause disruption /corruption/ mischief/chaos on earth after it has been so well ordered/organized [Al-A`raf 7:56 and Al-Mulk 67: 3-4]. Wise ones have said that we abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. Native Indian Chief Seattle of the Duwamish Tribe said: “Whatever befalls the Earth – befalls the sons of the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life – he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” There is an age-old native Indian saying: “Reflect on the fact that the land belongs to a vast family of which many are dead, few are living, and countless numbers are still unborn.”

The Prophet …

advised the Muslim armies that even when in enemy territory, not to pollute the water performed ablution washing each part no more than three times] and said: “Whoever increases more than three he does excess and wrong.” This in keeping with the Qur’anic injunction, so necessary for water preservation

“…eat and drink but do not waste: verily, Allah does not love the wasteful!” [Al-A`raf 7:31]

———-

Sadullah Khan completed the memorization of the Qur’an and furthered his studies in Law in South Africa, Journalism in England and Islamic Studies in Egypt. As a motivational speaker, he addresses issues of spirituality, empowerment. He is the author of the book “Dimensions of the Qur’an” and translator of “Message For The Seekers Of Guidance”. He has served in several roles in Universities and Islamic Centers in Southern California and is currently involved with Impower Development International based in South Africa.

#drinking #Environment #Faith #Featured #hygiene #Islam #sanitation #science #The Stewardship of Water in Islam #Water

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thrashermaxey · 5 years

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Ramblings: Steen Returns; Hagelin Traded; Hronek; Buchnevich; More – February 22

As expected, Nazem Kadri was not at game-day skate for the Leafs and did not play on Thursday night after suffering a concussion on Tuesday. Concussions are very fickle and it’s doubtful we get any sort of timeline on this. Owners will just have to be patient.

Kadri being out of the lineup led to William Nylander centering the third line with Andreas Johnsson and Connor Brown. Johnsson also took Kadri’s spot on the top PP unit. Johnsson, by the way, had 10 shots on goal in Toronto's 3-2 loss to Washington on Tuesday night. In his previous 10 games, he had 7 shots. Let's call this one an anomaly.

A little bit to my surprise, Devante Smith-Pelly made it through waivers and the Caps look like they’ll be able to hang on to him. As I mentioned yesterday, teams love guys with rings and he has one plus a cheap contract. Not to mention San Jose claiming Michael Haley and Nashville actually giving up a draft pick for Cody McLeod, neither player being as good as Smith-Pelly. Though I guess if hockey was predictable, it’d be boring.

With Alex Steen back in the Blues lineup, Robby Fabbri is again on the outside looking in, though he’s still in the lineup skating on the fourth trio. I still have a lot of faith in his talent, but the 2018-19 season is a lost cause for him.

Staying with the Blues, Jaden Schwartz replaced Brayden Schenn on the top line and Robert Thomas took Schwartz’s spot on the second line. This interesting because Schenn’s name has popped up in trade rumours this year, though not as much now that the team is winning. Maybe they’re still looking to move him? The official reasoning from the coach was an upper-body injury but taking what any coach (outside of Tortorella) says at face value at this (or nearly any) time of year isn’t advisable.

The Washington Capitals traded a third-round pick in 2019 and a conditional sixth in 2020 to Los Angeles for Carl Hagelin. Don’t even bother with him.

Brett Howden was in a non-contact jersey at the Rangers’ game-day skate as he continues his recovery from a knee injury. There is still no firm timeline for a return, but this is certainly a step in the right direction. He could have a much bigger role on this team in 4-5 days than he did a month ago.

Jayce Hawryluk was lined up on the second line for Florida on Thursday night with Mike Hoffman moving to the third line. It’s a move we’ve seen a few times this year and with the Panthers believing they’re in the playoff race, this isn’t a matter of simply giving a young guy a bigger role to see what they have, they think he can produce right now. Whether that’s misguided or not, we’ll see.

With the trade deadline quickly approaching, both in the NHL and in fantasy leagues, there’s one notion I want to discuss and that’s the idea of “overpaying.”

At the risk of sounding like a freshman college essay, the general definition of overpaying in the context of (fantasy) sports is paying above market value for an asset. In general, this idea of overpayment is more applicable in auction drafts, like paying $30 for a $20 player or whatever.

The problem with defining overpayment in terms of market value is the market isn’t always correct. It can often be incorrect. Incorrect market pricing is part of how bettors make money, for one thing. It’s also how we find values in fantasy leagues by taking advantage of ADP. Some people are afraid to take a player a few round ahead of their ADP despite the ADP not necessarily being reflective of their current, or potential, fantasy value.

It might sound simplistic but it’s where comparative evaluation is important. If you think Player A and Player B are going to be similar in production for the next six weeks, but Player B costs a top-75 player and a 2nd round pick while Player A available for just for a top-75 player, Player A is the obvious choice. The issue comes with the comparative analysis and being honest with yourself. Being able to de-couple a player being “your guy” from a player being undervalued is critical. If you lie to yourself about which category a player falls, you’re doomed.

With the looming deadline, I thought it’d be worth finding a couple undervalued players to grab right now.

Filip Hronek

I have never been a fan of Jeff Blashill. His lineup decisions constantly baffle me (the blue line and power play especially), his treatment of talents like Andreas Athanasiou infuriate me, and the way he handles young guys has typically been underwhelming. However, of late, Jonathan Ericsson has been a healthy scratch and that has led to Hronek getting his way into the lineup. Not only into the lineup, but to the top PP unit, and a top PP unit that actually features their top players (Mantha, Larkin, Athansiou, Vanek) rather than the talent being spread across two units. This is wonderful news for Hronek’s fantasy value.

Hronek’s underlying numbers are very good. He leads the Red Wings blue line in both relative shot attempts for and relative shot share. That means Detroit controls more shots with Hronek on the ice than any other defenceman. In limited ice time together, Hronek has dragged Trevor Daley’s numbers to respectability (it’s still a tiny sample, it’s just a sign in the right direction). In a much bigger sample, he’s done the same with the now-scratched Jonathan Ericsson, which is another data point indicating that Hronek is a good defenceman.

One problem is that even if he maintains PP1 status, he might not crack the 20-minute mark per game with any regularity. That’s fine, though. Guys like him can still have fantasy value (just think of Will Butcher and Mikhail Sergachev from last year), though he’d be more valuable in points-only leagues.

Acquiring Hronek is a big gamble because Blashill’s moods change with the wind and he might be back in the press box a week from now. It’s a gamble worth taking given his current usage, though, in 12-team leagues or larger.

Pavel Buchnevich

It seems very likely that Mats Zuccarello and Kevin Hayes are both gone at the deadline. With Brett Howden on the mend, it seems he’s a likely candidate to take over for Hayes as the second line centre. Who replaces Zuccarello on the top line, though, is more uncertain.

Buchnevich has often found himself in the dog house, be it under the current coaching regime or Alain Vigneault. However, he’s been consistently lining up on the second line with Hayes of late and has responded with four points in his last four games.

Anyone who reads my Ramblings with regularity knows I think that Buchnevich hasn’t been given a fair shake and his consistency issues are overblown. My thoughts on this issue can be summarized as such:

would you believe me if I told you that the duo of Kreider and Zibanejad have been worse defensively over the last 2 1/2 seasons when they *don't* have Buch on their line than when they do? https://t.co/SjyTb3zZhP

— Michael Clifford (@SlimCliffy) January 29, 2019

It seems very plausible that if Zucc is traded, Buch takes his spot on the top line. It could go to someone like Jesper Fast I suppose but this team needs to see what it has in its young players post-deadline. It makes all the sense in the world for Buchnevich to join the top line and he can probably be had for a bag of peanuts. The time to acquire him would be right now and not after the deadline. If next Tuesday comes and then we find out Buchnevich is skating with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad, it’ll be too late. Though, to be fair, if Kreider is traded as well, I’m not sure Buchnevich will amount to much. That adds to the gamble here.

In anticipation of the trade deadline, Ottawa sat all three of Matt Duchene, Mark Stone, and Ryan Dzingel. I know it’s the prudent move for the organization but I’d hate to have bought a ticket in hopes of seeing Ottawa’s top players. They should give more notice than 30 minutes prior to puck drop.

In a predictable result, New Jersey shutout Ottawa 4-0. Cory Schneider registered his first shutout since November of 2017 and has now won three consecutive games. It’s far too early to say he’s back to the old Cory Schneider, but if he is, his performance over the next six weeks could swing a lot of fantasy leagues.

The reason you hold players out is so they don’t get injured, like Rangers defenceman Adam McQuaid. He left in the first period and did not return. It wasn’t clear what the injury was, though the team would say he was held out afterwards for precautionary reasons.

Victor Hedman returned to the Tampa Bay lineup Thursday night after missing their last game. It’s a sigh of relief for himself, the team, and the fans.

Justin Williams had two goals and one assist in Carolina’s 4-3 win over Florida. Nino Niederreiter had a goal and an assist, giving him 15 points in 15 games in a Hurricanes uniform. He also now has as many goals (9) with Carolina as he did with Minnesota this season in 46 games. With each passing day, that trade is looking like more and more of a home run. Once Jordan Staal returns, this team should be feared in the East.

Brendan Gallagher marked his first career hat trick in Montreal’s 5-1 win over Philadelphia. That makes 26 goals for him on the season, five away from his career-best 31 last year. He’s such a good across-the-board fantasy contributor, averaging over 1.5 hits/3.5 shots per game with a good plus/minus.

With two first-period assists in Thursday night’s game against Pittsburgh, Brent Burns tied his career-high with 55 helpers. The single-season high by any defenceman post-2005 lockout is Erik Karlsson with 66 in 2015-16. That mark is well within reach with a quarter of the season left. Burns would add a goal late in the game for the three-point night.

Aleksander Barkov continued his torrid pace on Thursday night with a goal and an assist in Florida’s 3-2 win over Carolina. That gives him nine points in three games and has 15 points in 11 games since the All-Star Break. It appears the Panthers are making another late push, but it’s a wonder if it’s too little, too late yet again.

More updates in the morning.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-steen-returns-hagelin-traded-hronek-buchnevich-more-february-22/

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jessette20 · 5 years

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How to build your social media marketing strategy for 2019

Do you have your social media marketing strategy squared away for 2019?

If not, we don’t blame you.

Because 2018 was a whirlwind year for social marketing to say the least.

Facebook was shrouded in controversy due to its algorithm changes and privacy concerns. Instagram finally came into its own by rolling out a whole slew of business features while also passing the one-billion user mark.

All the while brands got bolder, launching conscious and seemingly controversial campaigns as customers want to see brands get real.

And that doesn’t even scratch the surface.

Last years happenings combined with this year’s emerging trends have left marketers with a sense of analysis paralysis. Where do you go from here?

Perhaps what matters most is that you have a strategy at all. To keep your brand from sitting on the sidelines, we’ve broken down the steps to developing a social media marketing plan to carry you through 2019 with a sense of purpose.

1. Set goals that address your biggest challenges

First things first: you need to figure out what you want out of social media at large.

Maybe it’s more social-savvy customers. Perhaps it’s a larger share of voice in your industry.

Either way, remember that social media planning is a marathon, not a sprint.

Brands should strive to set goals that are actually attainable. For example, shooting for a million new Instagram followers in 2019 isn’t going to happen. By tackling smaller, realistic goals, you can scale your social efforts in a way that’s both reasonable and affordable.

And on a related note, your goals will influence everything from your budget to which social networks you’ll tackle.

Sample Social Media Goals for 2019

Below are some actionable goals that brands of all shapes and sizes can divide and conquer.

Increase brand awareness. To create authentic and lasting brand awareness, avoid solely publishing promotional messages. Instead, focus on content emphasizes your personality and puts your followers ahead of the hard sell.

Public service announcement:

1. Pop-Tarts are not ravioli 2. Pop-Tarts are not sandwiches 3. There will never be a Tide Pod flavored Pop-Tart

Have a nice day

— Pop-Tarts (@PopTartsUS) March 6, 2018

Achieve a higher quality of sales. Digging through your social channels is nearly impossible without monitoring or listening to specific keywords, phrases or hashtags. Through more efficient social media targeting, you reach your core audience much faster.

Drive in-person sales. Many brick-and-mortar businesses are on the hunt for a social media marketing strategy that drives in-store sales. Is your brand promoting enough on social to entice folks to come see you? Are you about alerting customers to what’s going on in your stores, including promotions and action shots of your store?

View this post on Instagram

That Superdawg sure jumps off the menu 🤩🌭 #theone #theonly #chicagostyle #chicagosdawg #chicagosbest #chicagoeats #superyummy #eatme #chicagofood

A post shared by Superdawg Drive-in (@superdawgdrivein) on Jan 24, 2019 at 4:56pm PST

Improve ROI. Positive social media ROI doesn’t happen by accident. Taking the time to audit your social channels can help keep the cost of labor, ads and creatives down. The end-result is squeezing way more out of your social spending.

Create a loyal fanbase. Does your brand promote user-generated content? Do your followers react positively without any sort of initiation? Your customers can be your best cheerleaders and sources of fresh content, but only if you’re encouraging them to post on your behalf.

View this post on Instagram

We've been making Docs since the 1960s, both our icons and our collectors editions. How old is your first pair?

A post shared by Dr. Martens (@drmartensofficial) on Jan 22, 2019 at 9:03am PST

Better pulse on the industry. What are your competitors doing that seems to be working? What strategies are they using to drive engagement or sales? Such analysis can help you better understand how to position your own brand both on social media and off.

Any combination of these explicit goals is fair game and can help you better understand which networks to tackle, too. When in doubt, keep your social media marketing strategy simple rather than muddling it with too many objectives that’ll ultimately distract you.

2. Research your audience

Making assumptions is a dangerous game for marketers.

And thanks to the sheer wealth of demographic data and social media analytics tools out there, you really don’t have to anymore.

So much of what you need to know about your audience to influence your social media marketing strategy is already out in the open.

Take today’s social media demographics for example. Here’s a quick snapshot of data points from 2018 that are worth noting for today’s social networks:

This demographic data isn’t fluff, either. These numbers speak directly to which networks your brand should approach and what types of content to publish. Here are some takeaways:

Facebook and YouTube are both prime places for ads, perhaps due in part to their high-earning user bases

The majority of Instagram’s users are under the age of 30, signaling the strength of bold, eye-popping content that oozes with personality

Women vastly outnumber men on Pinterest, which is noted to boast the highest average order value for social shoppers

LinkedIn’s user base is well-educated, making it a hub for in-depth, industry-specific content that might be more complicated than what you see on Facebook or Twitter

See how that works?

And although the demographics data above gives you insight into each channel, what about your own customers? Further analysis needs to be done before you can truly know your customer demographics on social media.

That’s why many brands use a social media dashboard which can provide an overview of who’s following you and how they interact with you on each channel. Most brands today are using at least some sort of dashboard.

However, does your dashboard tie in your specific goals? Brands should be where their target audience is hanging out: that’s a no-brainer. A robust dashboard like the one Sprout offers can help you double-check that you’re spending time targeting the proper channels.

Whether you’re an agency providing insights for your clients or an enterprise company discovering your own demographics, an all-in-one dashboard solution is critical.

3. Establish your most important metrics

No matter what you’re selling, your social media marketing strategy should be data-driven.

That means focusing on the social media metrics that matter.

Because while “likes” and shares are nice to have, they amount to little more than vanity metrics if they aren’t resulting in meaningful engagement or sales. What good are your millions of followers if you can’t do anything with ’em?

View this post on Instagram

Let’s set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram. Beating the current world record held by Kylie Jenner (18 million)! We got this 🙌 #LikeTheEgg #EggSoldiers #EggGang

A post shared by EGG GANG 🌍 (@world_record_egg) on Jan 4, 2019 at 9:05am PST

Engagement metrics are essential to building meaningful, lasting relationships with your followers. Large audiences and likable content is great, but here are some additional metrics to keep an eye on in 2019:

Reach. Post reach is the number of unique users who saw your post. How far is your content spreading across social? Is it actually reaching user’s feeds? In the face of ever-changing organic algorithms, tracking reach is arguably more important than ever.

Clicks. This is the number of clicks on your content, company name or logo. Link clicks are critical toward understanding how users move through your marketing funnel. Tracking clicks per campaign is essential to understand what drives curiosity or encourages people to buy.

Engagement. The total number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions. For engagement, it’s about seeing who interacted and if it was a good ratio out of your total reach. This sheds light on how well your audience perceives you and their willingness to interact.

Hashtag performance. What were your most used hashtags on your own side? Which hashtags were most associated with your brand? Or what hashtags created the most engagement?

Organic and paid likes: More than just standard Likes, these likes are defined from paid or organic content. For channels like Facebook, organic engagement is much harder to gain traction, which is why many brands turn to Facebook Ads. However, earning organic likes on Instagram isn’t quite as difficult.

Sentiment. This is the measurement of how users reacted to your content, brand or hashtag. Did customers find your recent campaign offensive? What type of sentiment are people associating with your campaign hashtag? It’s always better to dig deeper and find what people are saying.

An effective social media marketing strategy is rooted in numbers. That said, those numbers need to be put into a context that circles back around to your original goals.

4. Dig into what your competitors are doing

Before you start creating content, you should have a good idea of what your competitors are up to.

Doing so involves might just require some surface-level analysis. Some brands might also look into third-party competitor analysis tools to dig deeper into their competitors’ numbers.

Looking at your competition’s presence will directly inform your own social media marketing strategy. The goal here isn’t to copycat or steal your competitors’ ideas. Instead, it’s to determine what’s working for them and how you can adapt your own campaigns accordingly.

Same industry, different strategies

For example, let’s take a glance at how two brands in the same space can take two totally different approaches to their social media marketing strategy.

In this case, we’ll dip in the world of ice cream.

Halo Top Cream prioritizes their own eye-popping visuals and clever captions to show off their treats. Their posts score tons of engagement on a consistent basis.

View this post on Instagram

Is this how you do a smokey eye? Tag your go-to makeup tutorial friend and you might win more than just a flawless smokey eye.

A post shared by Halo Top Creamery (@halotopcreamery) on Jan 14, 2019 at 8:12am PST

On the flip side, Ben & Jerry’s takes a totally different approach to social.

In addition to their own in-house promotional photos, the brand pushes a lot of user-generated content. Perhaps most notable is the fact that Ben & Jerry’s does not shy away from activism and politically-charged posts. Some might argue that politics and ice cream don’t mix, but the brand has generated plenty of buzz by putting their values front-and-center.

View this post on Instagram

This Saturday, we march again. Join us for the 2019 #WomensWave in cities all over the country! Click the link in our bio to find a march near you. For 40 years we have stood against all forms of discrimination and bigotry including racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. Our company and its employees remain deeply committed to these values. That’s why we support those marching in Washington, DC and in communities around the country, and encourage all those who believe in the rights of women to join us.

A post shared by Ben & Jerry's (@benandjerrys) on Jan 17, 2019 at 12:42pm PST

The takeaway here is that brands have so much room to set themselves apart from their competitors in terms of content and voice.

Of course, you need to know who your competitors are before you start stressing over content creation.

How to spot your social competitors

The simplest way to find competitors is through a simple Google search. Look up your most valuable keywords, phrases and industry terms to see who shows up.

For example, if you sold various soaps, “handmade natural soaps” would be a great keyword to investigate. Excluding major retailers like Amazon and Bath & Body Works, take a look at who’s popping up in your space both organically and via ads.

Then, you’ll want to take a look at who’s active on social media. In this particular case, Wild Soap is a smaller operation with an active, thriving social presence. This means they’re a great candidate to track.

View this post on Instagram

Happy to announce one of our newest retailers, The Crunchy Bean! . . #wildsoap #awildsoapbar #AWSB #naturalsoap #organicsoap #plantbased #botanical #bodycare . Repost @thecrunchybean ・・・ New brand @awildsoapbar now in stock!! Organic, affordable, and oh so amazing!!

A post shared by A Wild Soap Bar, LLC (@awildsoapbar) on Jan 7, 2019 at 4:34am PST

After gathering a handful of industry competitors, it’s smart to use a social media competitive analysis tool like Sprout Social to track Facebook and Instagram content. This can clue you in on what tags they’re using and likewise what content they’re posting. Once you analyze an array of competitors, you’ll have a better idea of what your own audience wants.

5. Create and curate engaging social content

Your social media marketing strategy is obviously centered around content.

At this point, you should have a pretty good idea of what to publish based on your goal and brand identity. Similarly, you probably feel confident in which networks to cover.

Still overwhelmed by the specifics of what you should be posting?

Hey, we get it.

From picking the right creatives and captions to finding the balance between promotion and personality, there’s a lot to mull over. The pressure is certainly on brands in an era where 46% of users say they’ll unfollow a brand that’s overly promotional. Additionally, 41% of users say they’d unfollow a brand that shared too much irrelevant content.

To help narrow down the specifics of what you should be publishing, let’s start with 2019’s social trends and best practices. Consider any combination of the following as you put together the content piece of your social media marketing plan.

Video Content or Bust

The need for brands to produce video is greater than ever.

Across all networks, social video content is among the most viewed and shared hands-down. Facebook and Instagram, in particular, are pushing video hard right now which is notable given how their respective algorithms will continue to evolve in 2019.

Live? Long-form? Short looping video? There’s no shortage of options for brands to play the role of producer these days regardless of your budget.

Resolve to start your year with Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts this Friday, January 4th. pic.twitter.com/lgp28jpVB4

— Krispy Kreme (@krispykreme) January 1, 2019

User-generated content

Again, we can’t stress enough the importance of curating user-generated content from branded hashtags. Customers today absolutely love authentic content that doesn’t always have that sort of professional, polished touch. If nothing else, curating UGC means less work on your plate and less pressure to constantly be thinking of new ideas.

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#RepostDecember @theorlandogirl – – – – – – The Wa-Pho Fries @vietnomzfl are pho-nomenal. Waffle Cut Fries topped w/ pickled daikon, carrots + fresh herbs drizzled in house-made nom sauces.🍟💯 #vietnomz #waphofries #waterford #orlando

A post shared by Orlando Food Photos (@dafoodie) on Dec 22, 2018 at 5:07am PST

Build Content Themes

One of the toughest challenges to visual content is creating it on a day-to-day basis. A Venngage infographic showed 36.7% of marketers said their top struggle with creating visual content was doing so consistently.

This shows how important highly-visual content is to marketers and the people they want to reach. That’s why building content themes is a great approach to sectioning out your content. Instagram is one your premier channels to work off visual themes.

For example, Anthropologie does an amazing job at keeping their Instagram feed consistent, colorful and eye-popping.

Check out how Profetic uses collage-style content to tie their feed together for something totally different.

If consistency is a problem with your social media marketing strategy, think about how a theme can help.

6. Make timeliness a top priority

Timeliness is a two-way street.

Not only do customers expect speedier responses from brands in 2019, but also meaningful conversations on a regular basis.

Let’s start with the first point. Social media channels are built as networks. You know, a place to converse and share content.

Your brand can’t forget these core elements of “networking.” It takes effort to ensure conversations or engagement opportunities aren’t left unattended.

Through social media, you gain respect as a brand by just being present and talking to your audience. That’s why social customer care is so important to brands wanting to increase audience awareness. It’s all about engagement.

For example, Seamless does a wonderful job of not only responding but showing customer care is a high priority.

Through the right social media monitoring tools, you can find instances across all your channels to interact, respond and gauge customer service inquiries.

Designating teams to specific tasks can help your staff run like a well-oiled social media team, whether you’re a group of one or 100.

Post at the Best Times to Engage

When is your brand available to engage and interact with customers?

You might see some recommending times to post late in the evening, for example. But if your brand isn’t there to communicate, what’s the point of posting at the “preferred” time?

Instead, try to ensure your social media or community managers are available and ready to answer any product questions or concerns when you tweet or post. It’s smart to learn the best times to post on social media, but it’s just as critical to engage after posting.

According to our Index, a brand’s average response time is around 10 hours. But did you know that most users believe brands should respond to social media messages within four hours?

With all the updated algorithms, organic content has a tough time reaching the majority of your audience. The last thing you want to do is ignore those who engage and lose out on sending more down your marketing funnel.

7. Assess what’s working, what isn’t and how you can improve

By now you should have a big picture understanding of your social marketing strategy for 2019.

However, it’s important that you’re able to adapt your strategy as you progress through the year.

Without continuously analyzing your efforts, you’ll never know how one campaign did over another. Having a bird’s eye view of your social media activity helps put things into perspective. This means looking at your top-performing content and fine-tuning your campaigns accordingly.

There’s no denying that a lot of social media is a matter of trial-and-error. Monitoring the metrics behind your campaigns in real-time allows you to make small tweaks to your social media marketing strategy rather than sweeping, time-consuming changes. This dynamic approach to marketing makes perfect sense in a day and age where social media is constantly evolving.

And with that, we wrap up your social media marketing plan checklist for 2019!

Is your social media marketing strategy up to snuff?

Hopefully this breakdown served as some much-needed inspiration and guidance for reaching your social goals for this year.

We also wanted to give our readers a few resources to use moving forward. Check out our social media campaign plan template and editable reporting template to help put your ideas into action ASAP.

Good luck and happy 2019!

This post How to build your social media marketing strategy for 2019 originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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