Hc inverse au! Fem Reader in Victorian era England and ynm characters are in our time.

You are a character in an anime and ynm are in real life

Williams

( he seems like the type to be into really dense, historical mangas)

He first read a manga featuring you when one of his students left their copy on their desk and he had to overview some students while they were using the presentation room.

He mostly just sat in the first row while the group of teens were recording hamlet for the theater class.

He didn't really took the story seriously so he started reading a lady who was trying to seduce a noble for a few pages, he was about to leave the manga given that he supposed it was a hentai but when you poisoned them with the wine cup he found it interesting

The main character had a set of very strong ideals that weren't so common in the historical context, be it strip nobles and royals from benefits, be a suffragette, or something similar .He ate the manga in five minutes

When he returns home (and leaves the item in lost objects, ofc) he checks online to buy the first volume to see if the background and sort are interesting along with every other volume and official light novel and Novella . He usually isn't home from very early to very late at night so it would be Louis most likely the one who receives the box with the books

"Brother, did you buy a box full of comics" Louis asks from the kitchen after he feels his older brother returning home

" oh? They already arrived? I thought they would be here next week" well Louis always was worries about how his brother didn't have any hobbies aside from teaching at the University so he was happy that he found something else to do with his life

He would ask for a sick day on a Monday or Friday so he could plan everything that was needed at his class that day and spend the weekend lazing around and reading the various volumes and the light novels. That day Louis and albert almost cried of happiness, that was the first time he took a sick day in all of his teaching years to take a break

The type of fan who creates theories that everything is symbolism, how they are ambidextrous to show that even if they intend good sometimes their methods are too extreme or how their hat was placed or the color of their clothes show their political affiliation. Nothing can be just a coincidence with him, everything means something

Is a big pain in the ass about historical inaccuracies, be it dress, manners or social hierarchy being off

" But listen this is the late Victorian era, where is their crinoline??/ They are supposed to be a Victorian dandy and the writer wants me to believe they would wear that? In that society?" williams turned on the lights to his younger brother room while walking in circles as if he was trying to calm down

" Williams it's 3 am. Please I want to sleep"

" Oh and don't let me get started when they crossdressed/dressed as lady northinburg, that tight lacing scene made me so angry" he was dragging his words, Louis guessed he was sleep drunk " how much I hate that, karolina or bernadette would kill those producers if they saw it" Louis simply opted to sleep while his brother was ranting about how the hairstyles were al wrong

When speaking of merchandising he appreciates his mature and elegant reputation so he would buy small things like cute stationery and notebooks and a few pens. Most of them either are about the main character, you, or have the anime title or something similar

A few students think that the professor brings some childish pens in case some student forgets one and he doesn't have to give them his mechanical pencil. He actually uses those pens when he is grading the exams. His notebook annotations look a lot cleaner and are more colorfully bc of the markers and pens

When and if your manga gets and anime he would be 100 percent bitching about how they skipped, if you are a minor character, scenes where you are introduced or you character gets development.

" Oh my goodness, they skipped to this ark? And 'the mask'? In that ark we get the development of many characters, yn, edward, Amélie, Alex. We are absolutely robed of their backgrounds and aspirations and how they are all connected"

" Brother be honest with yourself, you only wanted more animated yn, you follow their voice actor on twitter"

" That is not my point!"

Albert

he was watching it when he came late

Albert usually keeps company to his youngest brother until around 5-6 pm, then he leaves for work and returns around 12 am and eats dinner alone mostly.

When he returns from his job the house is more often than not totally dark so he makes his way to the kitchen and microwaves the leftovers and eats silently.

But one day it seems like Louis or williams forgot to turn off the TV before going to bed, he was about to turn it off but decided that watching something with the tv muted wouldn't wake his brothers up and kept watching.

He didn't pay much attention to it at the start but it became routine, he comes home, heats the food, sits down and watches that show so he grew quite fond of it

How much attention he pays to it depends on the type of plot it has, if it is light-hearted humor he would most likely not pay much attention but laugh when a joke came, one the other hand, if it's a more serious he would find it hard to take his eyes away from the screen

Second least likely to buy merchandising, if he buys it's mostly to wear home, a one size too big shirt for a pj (mostly for the comedy anime) or, if they aren't childish and look professional maybe a pocket watch like the one x character uses ( in the more serious one)

Won't buy the mangas if there are any because he is happy watching the animated version and already has to read a lot at work, but if he is gifted the volumes he will read them sparingly, maybe he will finish one volume every week and a half, unlike williams.

Louis

He spends most of his time home because of his illness and doesn't like to stress too much given that it makes the symptoms worse, he enjoys light hearted comedies or cooking in the victorian era or those typical time travelers who now have to live in different situations than those they are used to

He most likely found it after doing all the housework and being bored so he opted to browse the TV or netflix and fell on one specific serie

If it is a comedy he will listen to it while cleaning or cooking, he feels like he does everything faster and the housework is more enjoyable that way.

If it's a cooking related program he will watch as entertainment after doing everything and to get ideas what to cook, he is always surprised with the recipes that your character comes up with, be them savory ( things he will absolutely do the next day for lunch or dinner) or sweet ( things he will make more sparingly given he can't have too much sugar). I think of mangas and series like the duchess' 50 te recipes or shokugeki no soma

If it the third option he was interested on the alternatives to modern things, like how to make a more natural soap with animal fat and wood ash, or how to use certain plants to help a headache or stomach bug.

With merchandising he doesn't buy much, some kitchenware and some bowls mugs and maybe a tea set that isn't much of an eyesore. Overall he isn't all that crazy over that kind of things if there is a cooking book he will definitely buy it

He, like albert, doesn't care much about historical accuracy and if the events that happen are cohesive, he is there to have fun

Fred

He watched it because he heard his classmates talk about it and wanted to join them but was too scared to bother them if he didn't know anything. Baby has the social abilities of an anxious lobster

He comes home from college and looks the anime up in his phone and, like every broke college student, he watches it from an illegal streaming service.

He gets hooked up and stays all night watching it until his clock snaps him out of his trance and makes him drag his feet to his 7:30 am class

Fred tries and fails to talk to the group so, after the lesson, he drags himself to his room to be miserable alone. It's not until he reaches a certain chapter or episode where you say something that make him think, " if you wish to be loved you must face first your fear to be known" he keeps thinking about it, he didn't truly ever talk to the group, he cowarded before even trying.

The next week at that same lecture he approaches the group and tries to make some small talk

" Oh hey uhm i heard the past class that you liked (maga name)" he was this close to running to his desk and act as if nothing happened

" Yeah! You like it too?" The boy seemed to notice fred was nervous

" Yes! I really like it, what is you favorite character? Mine is yn" he certainly didn't have any favorite one before but after this he thinks your character is pretty good " they are really inspiring"

In terms of merch he is broke so there is none, If he had any money to spare he would buy notebooks and even those chibi statues or funko pops

A long, itemized, soul-searching list of complaints

...related to theatre in Finland, and my personal relationship to it.

This has been brewing in my mind for a while, and I have to write this out somewhere or I think I’ll start wailing in frustration. I’m putting it on Tumblr, because I feel like now is simply not the right time to start airing my complaints about the Finnish theatre scene in spaces that people from said scene actually visit. But I still have to try to get this out of my mind.

So.

Seeing how theatres have been closed for over four months now, I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on my own relationship to Finnish musical theatre. For the past decade, it’s been the thing I’ve been the most interested in – which is why it feels so saddening to me to see where the whole scene seems to be going.

You see, for a country with only 5,5 million inhabitants, and only 18 people per square kilometer, Finland has a ridiculously robust network of state-subsidized theatres. There are dozens of them, most big and mid-sized towns have one. So far, so good, right? But then, when you look into this a little bit deeper, and figure out how musicals fit into the equation...

Well, here’s how it looks like:

1) Musicals are widely regarded as the cash cows of Finnish theatre. Put on Fiddler on the Roof and you’re guaranteed to get butts in seats. The most popular theatrical productions in this country are almost always musicals.

2) In so-called intellectual circles, musicals are widely regarded as worthless drivel that should not benefit from any public funding.

3) During the past... dunno, five years or so, a handful of our biggest theatres have been getting into this ridiculous ours-is-bigger-than-yours type of competition with their musical productions. They buy the rights to some mediocre new musical that ran on Broadway for a year and a half, promote it as a huge Broadway success story that is finally being brought to Finland, and come up with some way to make it bigger or otherwise more special than any Finnish musical production before – be it the biggest ensemble, the flashiest special effects, the most famous composer visiting the premiere, the most accordions added to the original orchestration (added accordion has seriously been used as a selling point over here)... And the productions themselves tend to be these replica-ish-but-not-quite, professionally made but artistically bland and devoid-of-any-deeper-meaning spectacles.

4) The ticket prices for these big musical productions have shot through the roof. I’m talking about increases up to 80% in ten years – increases that simply cannot be explained away with the overall rate of inflation. I’m talking tickets to Finnish state-subsidized musicals costing the same as tickets to Finnish commercial musicals (well, granted, we only have one theatre that’s making big scale commercial productions – but it’s not a good look that their prices match the state-funded prices), tickets to Swedish commercial musicals costing less than tickets to Finnish state-funded ones.

5) Did I mention a big percentage of the funding for Finnish arts comes from our state-owned betting agency? In practice, that means a big chunk of the arts funding comes from the pockets of poor people addicted to gambling. Seriously. 50% of the profit the agency makes comes from the most active 5% of gamblers, and almost 25% of the profit comes from people that have a gambling addiction. There is also some evidence suggesting the agency has deliberately been placing the majority of their slot machines in poor neighbourhoods. There is talk about dismantling this whole thing, but it’s a really difficult issue, since no one really has a realistic idea for an alternative way of funding the arts.

...and the more I think about this nasty circle of things I’ve written about above, the worse it makes me feel.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m 100% for state-funded arts, and I 100% believe musical theatre is a form of art on par with any other. But the way the funding works right now, the way the biggest theatres keep increasing the prices and, thus, pricing everyone who’s not well-off out... It really makes me furious. My family has always been well-to-do, but I could not have had the experiences I’ve had earlier in my life if I was born ten years later. I would not have the money to see all the musicals I got to see as a teenager if I was a teenager now. (And then they wonder why young people don’t seem to be interested in theatre.)

Of course, I know that no one needs theatre to survive. It’s a good thing to have, but it’s not at a matter of life and death, far from it. And that’s another big thing I’ve been thinking about. This spring and summer, four months and counting without theatre, has shown me that personally, I truly do not need theatre to survive. If it’s not available, I’ll just do something else.

So now that certain theatre people have been giving these statements about the importance of the arts and making the audience trust going to the theatre again despite corona (which is... it’s such utter nonsense, it’s not in your hands if we get a second wave or not – if anything, reopening theatres makes it more likely we will – and if we do, nothing you do or say can make us “trust” going to the theatre since it will not be safe to do so and that’s that)... I just can’t help thinking, are you actually as essential to our society as you like to pretend you are? Are you actually offering a public, accessible service? (On top of all this, add the fun fact that only 50% of Finnish arts organizations that are required by law to have an equality plan actually have it, and you get a picture of how important being equal and accessible actually is for the arts in this country.)

And once you see this stuff, really see it, it’s really hard to unsee it and to go back advocating for Finnish musical theatre.

It’s like the big theatres are hearing the criticism that musicals should not be subsidized at all, and to debunk it, they do exactly what the critics have been saying they shouldn’t do. I do love a big musical production every now and then – but I super do not love getting one every single year in all the big theatres, if that means that prices will continue to rise, and that more and more people who don’t have a lot of money to spare can’t see musicals at all. I do love a Broadway musical every now and then – but I super do not love that in 99% of the cases, the people in charge don’t even consider the world of musicals that exists outside of Broadway. (I also hate the nonsense argument of pitting original Finnish musicals and Broadway musicals against each other, but that’s a rant for another day.)

And in the end, I feel like the Finnish theatre scene in general is out of touch with reality. We have things like climate change and inequality and whatnot going on in here, and for the most part, it seems like they do not even notice – or if they do, it’s an opportunity for them to look good, not to do good. Common enough in corporate world, sure, but for a field that prides itself for being so humane and essential to human survival... yeah.

Of course, I’ve been personally let down by certain aspects and people of the Finnish theatre world, which partially caused my burnout, which in turn has had some severe repercussions I keep battling with to this day. I’ll be the first to admit that this experience will probably always colour my views on Finnish theatre as a whole, and if everything had taken a different turn some years ago, I likely would not feel this bitter now.

But as it is, I’m going to live my life with the memory of that disappointment and the shadow of that burnout, and I don’t think they take away the validity of my criticism.

It just feels a bit rough. I’ve been trying to speak for Finnish musical theatre for a decade, I’ve cared about it deeply, and it’s given me plenty of happy memories too – so, to examine the whole system, and to end up with this deeply cynical outlook of it all... it’s a bit sad. I know losing interest in things you used to like can be related to depression and things like that – but what if this is not that, what if this is how I’d be feeling in any case?

It’s just a bit sad, I guess.

It’s not that there are no directors or actors whose work I’m interested in anymore, there certainly are, and there are exciting things coming up. It’s just... with everything I’ve mentioned above, and especially when you remember the ongoing pandemic, it doesn’t feel so important right now.

I actually feel a bit queasy thinking of going to theatre in the fall since it doesn’t feel 100% safe. I really need to think that through before I decide to go or not to go. I mean – I know the corona situation in Finland is looking very good right now, and maybe this is just the future we’ll be living in from now on, but at the same time, the chance of being the person who got sick because she went to see West Side Story or whatever... Yeah. Doesn’t sound too good, does it.

So yeah, just wanted to write all this out somewhere. I know the arts have been hit really hard because of corona, so I can’t really go around criticising them in public right now, even if they 100% deserve it – now is simply not the right time. But all this is making me feel so conflicted and confused, seeing how much of my own life has been and still is entwined with these things, and not knowing what to make of it all, not knowing how to reframe the place Finnish musical theatre has in my in my life and in my heart.

Thank you for reading. If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them.

Galaxy Z Flip 3 hands-on: A straightforward upgrade for a nice price cut

Of all the devices Samsung launched at its Unpacked event today, I find the Z Flip 3 the most interesting. It’s a smartphone that folds in on itself to become half its size and features a new external display that’s four times larger than the one on its predecessor. Though it lacks the S Pen support offered on the Z Fold 3, the Flip 3’s bendable screen still delivers a 120Hz refresh rate that makes scrolling and animation rendering smoother. It’s also water resistant and can process contactless payments when it’s shut, making it more useful in its smaller mode. Just as important, it now costs $1,000, down from $1,300, making it not affordable, exactly, but on par with other flagship smartphones. At a brief hands-on event in New York, I was able to check out the Flip 3’s upgrades and am cautiously hopeful that this is the first foldable I’m ready to buy.

The Flip 3’s non-sequential name might be slightly baffling (the last two models were the Z Flip and Z Flip 5G), but for the most part, all of its upgrades feel self-explanatory. The most obvious is the larger external screen — or, as Samsung calls it, the Cover Display. Instead of the 1.1-inch sliver from the original Flip, the new Cover Display measures 1.9 inches diagonally, giving users four times the screen real estate. This means you can see more of your notifications or widgets at once (up to four lines, according to Samsung). You can also swipe through up to six widgets on this screen, and the options available include things like Samsung Pay, Weather, Alarms, volume control, media playback and step count.

As before, you can tap and swipe to interact with this screen, and I scrolled vertically on the Flip 3’s Cover Display to toggle through clock, volume control and Samsung Pay widgets. It was nice being able to drag the slider on this screen to make the phone louder, but I could also use physical keys on the side. Other widgets are probably more useful, and Samsung will need to encourage developers to create them for their apps. There weren’t any notifications on my demo unit, though, so I didn’t get to see how that would look. Side-swiping on this panel also didn’t do anything, though this likely depends on what the widgets themselves are designed to support.

The other benefit of a larger Cover Display is when you’re using it to frame a selfie with the Flip 3 closed. Of all the nostalgic value that using a flip phone brings, snapping a selfie with a tiny outside screen and camera is the one thing that immediately brings me back to the 2000s. (I was one of many who used a pink Motorola Razr V3 circa 2003-4.)

Mat Smith / Engadget

Of course, I’m not suggesting you rely on the Flip 3’s relatively cramped Cover Display and 10-megapixel selfie camera as your primary means of shooting portraits. But in a pinch, the new larger window is more useful than its predecessor’s in gauging what you’re snapping. I used it to capture a couple of selfies at my demo session using the volume buttons on the phone’s edge as triggers. Though I couldn’t see all of the scene in the viewfinder, it was enough to get my colleague and I centered in the frame.

Open up the Flip 3, set it up in a half-folded mode, and you’ll see the Camera app expand to take up the whole 6.7-inch screen. Samsung calls this view Flex Mode, and compatible apps automatically rearrange themselves so that their layouts align with the top and bottom halves of the display. In the Gallery app, for example, the bottom section becomes sort of a navigation pad where you can swipe sideways to scroll through your pictures in a carousel. In the Camera app, the viewfinder takes up the top half while controls sit on the bottom.

I didn’t have time at our briefing to try out every app, but so far I’ve noticed that Camera and Gallery supports Flex Mode while Photos, Maps and Chrome do not. The ones that do also switch between Flex Mode and full-screen very quickly, which is a promising sign of the Flip 3’s processor’s performance. The device will have the same chipset as the Fold 3, which in the US is the Snapdragon 888, and it’ll come with 8GB of RAM along with 128GB or 256GB of storage.

Samsung said it’s working with developers to optimize more apps for Flex Mode and that it has already enabled at least 50 percent of the most popular options. Thankfully, it’s not like you can’t use your favorite app if it’s not optimized for Flex Mode; it just won’t be laid out as nicely.

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

In addition to the larger cover display, the Flip 3’s upgrades over its predecessors include support for adaptive 120Hz refresh rate on its internal screen. This made quickly scrolling through the list of articles on Engadget’s homepage look smooth, and will likely make the system feel faster overall. Though the 22:9 aspect ratio is taller than most phones today, I didn’t find it too jarring. Meanwhile, images looked colorful and crisp on the Full HD+ display.

One more improvement that Samsung made on the Flip 3 is its water resistance rating of IPX8. There weren’t any setups at the demo event for me to test this out, so we’ll have to take Samsung at its word for now.

Like the Z Fold 3, the new Flip features some overall durability improvements. Samsung used a new “Armor Aluminum” in its metal frame and hinge that makes the phone 10 percent stronger, while the company said the Gorilla Glass covering the device is 50 percent more durable than previous models. The main screen also uses a new protective film that’s said to be stronger and more scratch resistant. These durability claims aren’t something I can vouch for yet as I didn’t try dropping or scratching our demo units, but I can say that the Flip 3’s hinge moved smoothly and stayed open at various angles. I was also able to close the phone with one hand, albeit without the same satisfying thunk that Razrs made.

Despite all its durability upgrades, the Flip 3 is about just as light and thin as the Flip 5G, though the new phone is slightly smaller. Samsung is offering the Flip 3 in seven colors this time around, and while I still love the purple version, the green option is also gorgeous. Oh, and don’t forget the Thom Browne edition that will also be available in a Team USA color scheme in a nod to the Olympics.

Cherlynn Low / Engadget

Everything else about the Flip 3 is pretty much the same as before. You’ll still get a 3,300mAh battery, a 12-megapixel rear camera and a 10-megapixel one for selfies, which produced nice enough samples during my hands-on. But battery life and image quality are among the many things we’ll need proper review units to test out in the real world.

Though I’m excited that Samsung has managed to drop the Z Flip 3’s price down to $1,000 while adding water resistance, improving the overall build and Cover Display, I’d like to see how the software updates add to its experience as a daily driver. But from my brief preview, the Z Flip 3 might be the first foldable device I’m ready to invest in and could finally make the category ready for the mainstream.

Follow all of the news from Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event right here!

from Mike Granich https://www.engadget.com/galaxy-z-flip-3-hands-on-specs-price-available-now-140057384.html?src=rss

What’s up everyone! Welcome to Beyond The Panel. Coming at you today with talk about The Flash “Pay the Piper”! Right now is where the real fight begins! It wasn’t so bad that Team Flash was having a game played around them all of this time, but there was only so long that this could go on before they had to get it together. Now that they know what they are up against, the story shifts towards preparing for the big battle to come.

With it now known that Team Flash has been played for all these weeks, the atmosphere quickly changed in Star Labs. This was something to get used to very fast. Mainly because if you know me, you know that I’m not really a fan of when the show devolves into a soap opera. That tends to happen during times like this, and unfortunately it did. I was not impressed that after everything those like Barry and Cisco have been through, they still don’t know how to take a hit without quickly turning to a tantrum. It’s old and forced to an extent. The saving Grace was that as usual there was characters like Ralph and Cecile around who know how to pull at your heart strings. They were the only ones I wanted to hear at a point, and loved them all the more since someone had to be the one to look around the room and say that the fussing helps no one. Even in his own way Nash stood out because he has his own way of saying things, and while it might not be smooth, he gets straight to the point without the bs.

One of the big things for me was the return of the Pied Piper. Honestly, it was good to see Hartley Rathaway again. Initially I was a bit broke that they decided that Post-Crisis Pied Piper had to be flipped back to a villain. Though at the same time it was hard to deny that Harley is also one of those villains who entertains you because his compass points south.This guy really knew how to get under someone’s skin and hit them where it hurts. That’s not to say that other bad guys don’t come with that same energy, but with Hartley there’s more charisma to it. Now what shook things up was how they planned on getting his help. The intensive was a shocker, and I’m glad that they were bold enough to show a side to Hartley that they probably wouldn’t have in earlier seasons.

That said, it was obvious that Godspeed was going to be the real danger here. Since the minute all those copies started popping up earlier in the season, there was no way that this wasn’t going to inevitably lead to something. Now was probably the last time that you would have expected this development to hit, but also better now than too late. Especially when at some point having all of these confrontations with speedsters will probably help Team Flash indirectly find their solution to creating a new Speed Force. Though till then, this encounter was exciting for how Godspeed forced Barry and the others to think outside of the box to stand a chance against him. more importantly, how they used Hartley’s powers was creative. Nothing too special, but also you would never have expected their powers to be so compatible before.

Going back to the mirror world, this was a great time for the next step to be finding the others who are trapped there too. It was also a good time to begin raising the stakes for Iris, Kamilla and Singh. Things would have gotten very dull if there was no reason for them to feel the urgency in escaping. We’ve seen what a decade in this world has done to Eva, and we’ve already seen what happened when Iris poked around more than she should have. This pushed her to begin experiencing the same strain that Eva has endured all of this time. This episode was spent well putting Iris through that same struggle and testing that she could have the same determination to continue finding a way out. With that said, I appreciated the opportunity they didn’t fail to give Kamilla as someone who has brains. I know I wondered what she was up to, and I was not disappointed to see what that was.

Continuing with last week’s return of Caitlin and Killer Frost, I liked where they were going with her side of things. The recovery of course would be easier said than done when this is just another obstacle for Killer Frost to overcome when faced with the idea of meeting their mom. Some might say that this is filler stuff, and to some extent it just may be, but it’s not handled in any way that should make this subplot overlooked. Personally I welcome any scene which Killer Frost and Ralph share because there’s a sense of innocence shared between the two that you aren’t going to get anywhere else. Certainly not at a time like this.

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Overall, I think a show like The Flash benefits from the showrunners being bold. Unlikely team-ups, twists on rivalries, chances to explore other places in the DC Universe. All things which grab your attention more than the CW drama which this show tends to indulge in too often.

The Flash “Pay the Piper” Review What's up everyone! Welcome to Beyond The Panel. Coming at you today with talk about The Flash "Pay the Piper"!

Travel writer BILL BRYSON reveals the marvels of your mouth

When you swallow, food doesn’t just drop into your stomach by means of gravity, but is pushed down by muscular contractions. That’s why you can eat and drink while upside down if you choose to. Bill Bryson is pictured above

In the spring of 1843, the great engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel took a rare break from his labours to amuse his children with a magic trick. 

Things didn’t go quite to plan, however. 

Midway through the entertainment, he accidentally swallowed a gold half-sovereign coin he had secreted under his tongue.

Over the next few days, Brunel, his friends, colleagues, family and doctors attempted every obvious remedy, from slapping him hard on the back to holding him aloft by the ankles and shaking him vigorously, but nothing worked. 

Seeking an engineered solution, Brunel designed a contraption from which he could hang upside down and be swung in wide arcs in the hope motion and gravity together would make the coin fall out. That didn’t work either.

At length, the eminent physician Sir Benjamin Brodie decided to attempt a tracheotomy, a risky and disagreeable procedure. 

Without the benefit of anaesthetic – its first use in Britain was still three years off – Brodie made an incision in Brunel’s throat and tried to extract the coin by reaching into his airway with long forceps, but the patient coughed so violently that the attempt had to be abandoned.

Take the tonsils – the two fleshy hummocks that stand sentinel on either side of the throat at the back. We are all familiar with them, but how many of us know quite what they do? In fact, nobody knows quite what they do

Finally, on May 16, more than six weeks after his ordeal began, Brunel had himself strapped into his swinging contraption once again and set in motion. Almost immediately, the coin fell out and rolled across the floor.

Very shortly afterwards, the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay burst into the Athenaeum Club in Pall Mall and shouted ‘It’s out!’ and everyone knew at once what he meant. 

Brunel lived the rest of his life without complications from the incident and, as far as is known, never put a coin in his mouth again.

I mention all this to make the point, if it needed making, that the mouth is a place of peril. We choke to death more easily than any other mammal. 

In the spring of 1843, the great engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel took a rare break from his labours to amuse his children with a magic trick. Things didn’t go quite to plan, however

Indeed, it can reasonably be said that we are built to choke, which is clearly an odd attribute to go through life with – with or without a coin in your trachea.

Look inside your mouth and a good deal of what you find is familiar – tongue, teeth, gums, dark hole at the back presided over by that curious little flap known as the uvula. 

But behind the scenes, as it were, is lots and lots of very important apparatus that most of us have never heard of: palatoglossus, geniohyoid, vallecula, levator palatini. 

As with every other part of your head, the mouth is a realm of complexity and mystery.

Take the tonsils – the two fleshy hummocks that stand sentinel on either side of the throat at the back. We are all familiar with them, but how many of us know quite what they do? 

In fact, nobody knows quite what they do. Adenoids are similar but lurk out of sight within the nasal cavity. Both are part of the immune system, but not a particularly impressive part, it must be said. 

Adenoids often shrink away to virtually nothing in adolescence, and both they and tonsils can be removed without making any discernible difference to your overall wellbeing. 

50 muscles must work together to swallow

The anatomist’s word for swallowing is deglutition, and it is something we do quite a lot – about 2,000 times a day, or once every 30 seconds, on average. Swallowing is a trickier business than you might think. 

When you swallow, food doesn’t just drop into your stomach by means of gravity, but is pushed down by muscular contractions. That’s why you can eat and drink while upside down if you choose to.

Altogether, 50 muscles can be called into play just to get a piece of food from your lips to your stomach, and they must snap to attention in exactly the right order to ensure that whatever you dispatch doesn’t go down the wrong way and end up lodged in an airway, like Brunel’s coin.

According to official sources, about 5,000 people in the US and some 200 in Britain choke to death on food each year – which is odd because those figures, adjusted for population, indicate that Americans are five times more likely to asphyxiate while eating than Britons

The complexity of swallowing is largely because our larynx – commonly called the voice box – is low in the throat compared with other primates. 

To accommodate our upright posture when we became bipedal, our necks became longer and straighter and moved to a more central position beneath the skull rather than towards the rear, as in other apes. 

Uniquely among mammals, we send our air and food down the same tunnel. Only a small structure called the epiglottis, a kind of trapdoor for the throat, stands between us and catastrophe. 

The epiglottis opens when we breathe and closes when we swallow, sending food in one direction and air in another, but occasionally it errs and the results are sometimes dire.

It is pretty amazing when you reflect upon it that you can sit at a dinner party enjoying yourself extravagantly – eating, talking, slurping wine – and that your nasopharyngeal guardians will send everything to the right place, in two directions, without you having to give it a moment’s consideration. That’s quite an accomplishment.

But there is even more to it than that. While you are chattering away about work or school catchment zones or the price of kale, your brain is closely monitoring not just the taste and freshness of what you are eating, but also its bulk and texture. 

So it will allow you to swallow a large ‘wet’ bolus (like an oyster or lump of ice cream) but insists on more meticulous chewing for small, dry, sharp items like nuts and seeds that might not pass so smoothly.

The anatomist’s word for swallowing is deglutition, and it is something we do quite a lot – about 2,000 times a day, or once every 30 seconds, on average. Swallowing is a trickier business than you might think. Bill Bryson is pictured above

Meanwhile, you – far from assisting this critical process – just keep pouring more red wine down your throat, destabilising all your internal systems and seriously compromising your brain’s functional capabilities. 

To say that your body is your long-suffering servant is to put it mildly. When you consider the precision required, and the number of times in a lifetime the systems are challenged, it is extraordinary that we don’t choke more often. 

According to official sources, about 5,000 people in the US and some 200 in Britain choke to death on food each year – which is odd because those figures, adjusted for population, indicate that Americans are five times more likely to asphyxiate while eating than Britons.

Even allowing for the gusto with which my fellow Americans chow down, that seems unlikely. It is more probable that a lot of choking deaths are misattributed as heart attacks in the UK. 

Suspecting as much, a Florida coroner Robert Haugen many years ago looked into the deaths of people who had supposedly died of heart attacks in restaurants and, without much difficulty, found nine who had in fact choked.

But even using the most cautious estimates, choking is the fourth most common cause of accidental death in America today.

Heimlich manoeuvred the truth as well as stuck food

Henry Heimlich was something of a showman. He promoted the procedure, and himself, relentlessly

The well-known solution to a choking crisis is the Heimlich manoeuvre, named after Dr Henry Judah Heimlich (1920-2016), a surgeon from New York who invented it in the 1970s.

The Heimlich manoeuvre consists of embracing a choking victim from behind and giving him or her a series of sharp hugs just above the navel, to force out the blockage, like a cork from a bottle. (For the record, the burst of air is known as a bechic blast.)

Henry Heimlich was something of a showman. He promoted the procedure, and himself, relentlessly. 

He appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, sold posters and T-shirts, and talked to groups large and small across the US.

He boasted that his method had saved the lives of Ronald Reagan, Cher, New York mayor Ed Koch and several hundred thousand others. He was not always terribly popular with those close to him, however. 

A former colleague called Heimlich ‘a liar and a thief’, and one of his own sons accused him of practising a ��wide-ranging, 50-year history of fraud’. 

Heimlich seriously undermined his reputation by championing a treatment called malariatherapy, in which people were purposely infected with low doses of malaria in the belief that it would cure them of cancer, Lyme disease and AIDS, among much else.

His claims for the treatment were not supported by any actual science. Partly because he had become an embarrassment, in 2006 the American Red Cross stopped using the term ‘Heimlich manoeuvre’ and started calling it ‘abdominal thrusts’.

Heimlich died in 2016 aged 96. Shortly before his death, he saved the life of a woman at his nursing home with his own manoeuvre – the only time in his life that he had an opportunity to use it. Or possibly not. 

It emerged afterwards that he had claimed to have saved someone else’s life on another occasion. Heimlich, it seems, manoeuvred the truth as well as trapped lumps of food.

The greatest choking authority of all time was almost certainly a dour American doctor with the luxuriant name of Chevalier Quixote Jackson, who lived from 1865 to 1958. Jackson has been called ‘the father of American broncho-esophagoscopy’.

His obsession was with foreign objects that had been swallowed or inhaled. Over a career that lasted almost 75 years, Jackson specialised in designing instruments and refining methods for retrieving such objects – and built up an extraordinary collection of 2,374 imprudently ingested items.

Today, the Chevalier Jackson Foreign Body Collection is housed in a cabinet in the basement of the Mutter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. 

Among the objects Jackson retrieved from the gullets of the living or dead were a wristwatch, a crucifix with rosary beads, miniature binoculars, a small padlock, a toy trumpet, a full-sized meat skewer, a radiator key, several spoons, a poker chip, and a medallion that said (perhaps just a touch ironically) ‘Carry Me For Good Luck’. 

Our painkiller more potent than morphine 

It will not have escaped your attention that the mouth is a moist and glistening vault. 

That’s because 12 salivary glands are distributed around it. A typical adult secretes about two-and-a-half pints (or a little less than 1.5 litres) of saliva a day. 

According to one calculation, we secrete some 30,000 litres in a lifetime (as much as in 200 deep baths). Saliva is almost entirely water. 

Only 0.5 per cent of it is anything else, but that tiny portion is full of useful enzymes – proteins that speed up chemical reactions. 

Among these are amylase and ptyalin, which begin to break down sugars in carbohydrates while they are still in our mouths. 

To say that your body is your long-suffering servant is to put it mildly. When you consider the precision required, and the number of times in a lifetime the systems are challenged, it is extraordinary that we don’t choke more often [File photo]

Chew a starchy food like bread or potato for a bit longer than normal and you will soon notice a sweetness. 

Unfortunately for us, bacteria in our mouths like that sweetness too; they devour the liberated sugars and excrete acids, which drill through our teeth and give us cavities.

Other enzymes, notably lysozyme – discovered by Alexander Fleming before he stumbled on penicillin – attack invading pathogens, but not the ones that cause tooth decay, alas. 

We are in the rather strange position that we not only fail to kill the bacteria that give us a lot of trouble, but actively nurture them.

Recently it was discovered that saliva also contains a powerful painkiller called opiorphin. 

It is six times more potent than morphine, though we have it only in very small doses, which is why you are not perennially high or indeed notably pain-free when you bite your cheek or burn your tongue. 

Because it is so dilute, no one is sure why it is there at all. It is so unassertive that its existence wasn’t even noticed until 2006.

We produce little saliva while we sleep, which is why microbes can proliferate then and give you a foul mouth to wake to. It is also why brushing your teeth at bedtime is a good idea – it reduces the number of bacteria you go to sleep with.

If you’ve ever wondered why no one wants to kiss you first thing in the morning, it is possibly because your exhalations may contain up to 150 different chemical compounds, not all of them as fresh and minty as we might hope.

About 1,000 species of bacteria have been found in human mouths, although – and this is the good news – at any one time you are unlikely to have more than 200. The mouth is not only a welcoming home for germs but an excellent way station for those that want to move elsewhere [File photo]

Among the common chemicals that help to create morning mouth are methyl mercaptan (which smells very like old cabbage), hydrogen sulphide (like rotten eggs), dimethyl sulphide (slimy seaweed), dimethylamine and trimethylamine (rank fish), and cadaverine (yes, decaying bodies).

In the 1920s, Professor Joseph Appleton, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine, was the first to study bacterial colonies within the mouth and discovered that, microbially speaking, your tongue, teeth and gums are like separate continents, each with its own colonies of micro-organisms.

There are even differences in the bacterial colonies that inhabit the exposed parts of a tooth and those beneath the gum line. About 1,000 species of bacteria have been found in human mouths, although – and this is the good news – at any one time you are unlikely to have more than 200.

The mouth is not only a welcoming home for germs but an excellent way station for those that want to move elsewhere.

Paul Dawson, a professor of food science at Clemson University in South Carolina, has made something of a career of studying the ways people spread bacteria from themselves to other surfaces, such as when they share a water bottle or engage in ‘double dipping’ with crisps and salsa.

In a study called Bacterial Transfer Associated With Blowing Out Candles On A Birthday Cake, Dawson’s team found that candle-blowing across a cake increased the coverage of bacteria on it by up to 1,400 per cent, which sounds pretty horrifying but is in fact probably not much worse than the kinds of exposures we encounter in daily life anyway. 

The marvel of our ‘ready made fossils’ 

The most familiar components of the mouth are of course the teeth and the tongue. Our teeth are formidable creations and nicely versatile, too. 

They come in three varieties: blades (which are pointy), cusps (which are spade-like) and basins, or fossae (which fall somewhere between the other two).

The outside of your tooth is the enamel. It is the hardest substance in the human body but forms just a thin layer and can’t be replaced if it is damaged. That’s why you have to go to the dentist for cavities.

Under the enamel is a much thicker layer of another mineralised tissue, called dentine, which can renew itself. At the centre of it all is the fleshy pulp containing nerves and blood supply.

As well as those in the mouth, the body has taste receptors in the gut and throat, but they don’t connect to the brain in the same way as the taste receptors on your tongue, and for good reason. You don’t want to taste what your stomach is tasting [File photo]

Because they are so hard, teeth have been called ‘ready-made fossils’. When all the rest of you has turned to dust or dissolved away, the last physical trace of your existence on Earth may be a fossilised molar. 

We can bite pretty hard. Bite force is measured in units called newtons (in honour of Isaac), and if you are a typical adult male you can muster about 400 newtons of force, which is quite a lot, though nothing like as much as an orangutan, which can bite with five times as much vigour. 

Still, when you consider how well you can demolish, say, an ice cube (try doing that with your fist) and how little space the five muscles of the jaw occupy, you can appreciate that human chomping is pretty capable.

The tongue is a muscle, but quite unlike any other. For one thing it is exquisitely sensitive – think how adroitly you pick out something in your food that shouldn’t be there, like a tiny piece of eggshell or grain of sand – and intimately involved in vital activities like speech articulation and tasting food. 

When you eat, the tongue darts about like a nervous host at a cocktail party, checking the taste and shape of every morsel in preparation for dispatching it onwards to the gullet.

As everyone knows, the tongue is coated with taste buds. These are clumps of taste receptor cells found in the bumps on your tongue which are called papillae. 

They come in three different shapes – circumvallate (or rounded), fungiform (mushroom-shaped) and foliate (leaf-shaped). They are among the most regenerative of all cells and are replaced every ten days.

For years, even textbooks spoke of a tongue map, with the elemental tastes occupying a well-defined zone: sweet on the tip of the tongue, sour at the sides, bitter at the back.

In fact, that is a myth, traced to a textbook of 1942 by one Edwin G. Boring, a Harvard psychologist who misinterpreted a paper written by a German researcher 40 years before that.

Altogether, we have about 10,000 taste buds, mostly distributed around the tongue, except in the very middle where there are none. 

Additional taste buds are found in the roof of the mouth and lower down the throat, which is said to be why some medicines taste bitter as they go down. 

As well as those in the mouth, the body has taste receptors in the gut and throat, but they don’t connect to the brain in the same way as the taste receptors on your tongue, and for good reason. You don’t want to taste what your stomach is tasting.

Taste receptors have also been found in the heart, lungs and even the testicles. No one knows quite what they are doing there. 

It is generally supposed that they evolved for two deeply practical purposes: to help us find energy-rich foods (like sweet, ripe fruits) and to avoid dangerous ones. But they don’t always fulfil either role terribly well.

Because they are so hard, teeth have been called ‘ready-made fossils’. When all the rest of you has turned to dust or dissolved away, the last physical trace of your existence on Earth may be a fossilised molar [File photo]

Captain James Cook, the great British explorer, had a salutary demonstration of that in 1774, on his second epic voyage through the Pacific. One of his crew caught a meaty fish, which no one aboard recognised. 

It was cooked and presented to the captain and two of his officers, but as they had already dined they merely sampled it and had the remainder put aside for the following day.

This was a very lucky thing, for in the middle of the night all three found themselves ‘seized with an extraordinary weakness and numbness all over our limbs’.

Cook was for some hours paralysed and unable to lift anything – even a pencil. The men were lucky to survive, for what they had sampled was puffer fish. These contain a poison called tetrodotoxin, which is 1,000 times more powerful than cyanide.

We have about 10,000 taste receptors, but our mouths have a greater number of receptors for pain and other sensations. Because these receptors exist side by side on the tongue, we sometimes mix them up. 

When you describe a chilli as hot, you are being more literal than you might suppose. Your brain interprets it as actually being burned. 

As Joshua Tewksbury, of the University of Colorado, has put it: ‘Chillis innervate the same neurons that you activate when you touch a 335F ring on your cooker. Essentially, our brain is telling us that we have got our tongue on the stove.’ 

In the same way, menthol is perceived as being cool even in the heated smoke of a cigarette.

As far as taste goes, our tongue can only identify the familiar basics of sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (a Japanese word meaning ‘savoury’ or ‘meaty’). 

Sing your way out of stuttering misery

Stuttering is one of the cruellest and least understood of everyday maladies. It affects one per cent of adults and four per cent of children.

For reasons unknown, 80 per cent of sufferers are male. It is more common among left-handers than right-handers, especially those who have been made to write right-handed.

Victims of stuttering have included a great many distinguished figures, among them Aristotle, Virgil, Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll, Winston Churchill (when young), Henry James, John Updike, Marilyn Monroe and King George VI, who was sympathetically portrayed by Colin Firth in the 2010 movie The King’s Speech.

No one knows what provokes stuttering or why different sufferers stumble over different letters or words in different positions in a sentence.

For many, the stammering miraculously ceases when they sing their words, speak in a foreign language or talk to themselves.

The majority of speakers recover from the condition by their teenage years (which is why the proportion of child sufferers is so much higher than adult ones). Females seem to recover more easily than men.

Some authorities believe we also have taste receptors specifically allocated for metal, water, fat and another Japanese concept called kokumi, meaning ‘full-bodied’, but the only ones that are universally accepted are the five basics.

The tongue and its taste buds give us just the basic textures and attributes of foods – whether they are soft or smooth, sweet or bitter, and so on – but the full sensuousness of it all is dependent on our other senses. 

It is nearly always wrong to talk about how food tastes, though of course we all do. What we appreciate when we eat is flavour, which is taste plus smell.

Smell is said to account for at least 70 per cent of flavour and maybe even as much as 90 per cent. 

We appreciate this intuitively: if someone hands you a pot of yogurt and says ‘Is this strawberry?’ your response will be to sniff it, not taste it. That is because strawberry is actually a smell, perceived nasally, not a taste in the mouth.

When you eat, most of the aroma reaches you not through your nostrils but by the back staircase of your nasal passage, what is known as the retronasal route – as opposed to the orthonasal route up your nose. 

An easy way to experience the limitations of your taste buds is to close your eyes, pinch shut your nostrils and eat a flavoured jelly bean collected blindly from a bowl. 

You will instantly apprehend its sweetness, but you almost certainly won’t be able to identify its flavour. But open your eyes and nostrils and its fruity specificity becomes immediately and redolently apparent.

Even sound materially influences how delicious we find food. People who are played a range of crunching sounds through headphones while sampling crisps from various bowls will always rate the noisier crisps as fresher and tastier even though all the crisps are the same.

Many tests demonstrate how easily we are fooled with respect to flavour. In a blind taste test at the University of Bordeaux, students in the Faculty of Oenology were given two glasses of wine, one red and one white. 

The wines were actually identical except that one had been made a rich red colour with an odourless and flavourless additive. The students without exception listed entirely different qualities for the two wines.

That wasn’t because they were inexperienced or naive. It was because their sight led them to have completely different expectations, and this powerfully influenced what they sensed when they took a sip from either glass. Odours and flavours are created entirely inside our heads. 

Think of something delicious – a moist, gooey, warm chocolate brownie fresh from the oven, say. Take a bite and savour the velvety smoothness, the rich, heady waft of chocolate that fills your head. 

Now consider the fact that none of those flavours or aromas actually exists. All that is going in your mouth is texture and chemicals. It is your brain that reads these scentless, flavourless molecules and enlivens them for your pleasure.

Your brownie is sheet music. It is your brain that makes it a symphony. As with so much else, you experience the world that your brain allows you to experience.

Speaking…the great wonder of the world  

There is one other remarkable thing we do with our mouths and throats, and that is make meaningful noises. 

The ability to create and share complex sounds is one of the great wonders of human existence, and the characteristic more than any other that sets us apart from all other creatures that ever lived.

Speech and its development ‘are perhaps more extensively debated than any other topic in human evolution’, in the words of Harvard paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman. 

No one knows even approximately when speech began on Earth and whether it is an accomplishment confined to homo sapiens or whether it was mastered by archaic humans like Neanderthals and homo erectus.

What is certain is that the capacity for speech requires a delicate and co-ordinated balance of tiny muscles, ligaments, bones, and cartilage of exactly the right length, tautness and positioning in order to expel microbursts of modulated air in just the right measures. 

This is an abridged extract from The Body: A Guide For Occupants, by Bill Bryson, published by Doubleday on October 3 at £25. Offer price £18.75 (20 per cent discount) until September 30

The tongue, teeth and lips must also be nimble enough to take these throaty breezes and turn them into nuanced phonemes. And all of this must be achieved without compromising our ability to swallow or breathe.

It isn’t just a big brain that allows us to speak, but an exquisite arrangement of anatomy. One reason chimpanzees can’t talk is that they appear to lack the ability to make subtle shapes with tongue and lips to form complex sounds.

It may be that all this happened fortuitously in the course of an evolutionary redesign of our upper bodies to accommodate our new posture when we became bipedal. 

Or it may be that some of these features appeared through the slow, incremental wisdom of evolution. But the bottom line is that we ended up with brains big enough to handle complex thoughts and vocal tracts uniquely able to articulate them.

The larynx is essentially a box about an inch to an inch-and-a- half on each side. Within and around it are nine cartilages, six muscles and a suite of ligaments, including two known as the vocal cords but more properly known as the vocal folds. 

When air is forced through them, the vocal folds snap and flutter (like flags in a stiff breeze, it has been said), producing a variety of sounds, which are refined by tongue, teeth and lips working together into the wondrous, resonant, informative exhalations known as speech. 

The three phases of the process are respiration, phonation and articulation. Respiration is simply the pushing of air past the vocal ligaments; phonation is the process of turning that air into sound; and articulation is the refinement of sound into speech.

If you wish to appreciate what a marvel speech is, try singing a song – Frere Jacques serves very well – and notice how effortlessly melodic the human voice is. Your throat is a musical instrument as well as a sluice and wind tunnel. 

We should also take a moment to consider the strange little fleshy appendage that stands guard where all becomes darkness. I refer to the mysterious uvula. (The name comes from the Latin for ‘little grape’, even though it is not especially like a grape at all.)

For a long time, nobody knew what it was for. We are still not completely sure, but it seems to be a mudflap for the mouth. It directs food down the throat and away from the nasal passage. It also helps with the production of saliva and may also play a part in speech. People who have had their uvula removed lose some control over guttural sounds.

The rattling of the uvula in sleep appears to be a significant component of snoring, and is often the reason uvulas are taken out. 

The uvula, in short, is a curious thing. Considering its position at the very centre of our largest orifice, at the point of no return, it seems oddly inconsequential. There is perhaps a kind of strange double comfort in knowing that you will almost certainly never lose your uvula, but that it wouldn’t matter too much anyway if you did.

©Bill Bryson, 2019

Abridged extract from The Body: A Guide For Occupants, by Bill Bryson, published by Doubleday on October 3 at £25. Offer price £18.75 (20 per cent discount) until September 30. To pre-order, call 01603 648155 or go to mailshop.co.uk. 

See Bill Bryson live on stage in a new theatre show. For information and tickets, go to lateralevents.com.

The post Travel writer BILL BRYSON reveals the marvels of your mouth appeared first on Tripstations.

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How to start a small business in 2019...  Any kind, any type, any form...

Think… think… think…

If you are thinking about starting a business in 2019 you’re not alone. There were more than 200,000 companies formed in Delaware alone in 2017. Now the math side of my brain is wondering why roughly 21% of the state’s population would want to create a new company? And what kind of company’s are they creating? How much business can a state that is only 2,489 square miles hold? There are a lot of reasons as to why there are a lot of companies formed in states like Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming, but that is another topic for another day. It is important though to think about the state you want to form your company in and why you want to form it their. But alas… let’s talk digital marketing.

Digital marketing has expanded over the past two decades to be what it is today and will keep evolving into tomorrow and we all have Yahoo! to thank for this. Back in 1998 two guys just wanted to sell a little known company for $1 million so they could finance their education. The bright minds in Silicon Valley at the time were turning them down and even Yahoo! (remember them?) laughed in their face all because their search engine would send search engine users to other sites outside of their network. To stupid too believe? No way this ever happened? What a Yahoo (lol… I’m remembering the scene from Frequency). Any who I will actually believe you if your a skeptic, so let Yahoo! Finance tell you about, well… Yahoo!’s finance (or lack of).

Looking at the marketing side of starting a digital marketing company let’s delve into a few areas that we believe you should be focusing on in order to succeed in the digital environment. We are by no means the end all be all and this blog doesn’t cover every step, just a few of the many that you’ll need to start a (digital marketing) company and be successful in doing so.

STEP ONE: Form a business plan (and try sticking to it) A lot of business owners want to sit at the table discussing an idea with a loved one or a friend about how they are going to revolutionize an industry and make a lot of money doing so. The expectation of waking up the next day and starting to make money is an amazing dream and a great desire; problem is though is that it’s not very realistic. So if we can’t wish money what should we do to make this voice happy? Well keep it busy of course with the formulation of a business plan. It’s an easy six step process that focuses on: 1) Executive Summary – Highlights and summarizes everything in the business plan and should only be a page or two. 2) Opportunity – What problems are you solving for your customers and what are some solutions you can offer? 3) Market Analysis – Target the market you want to enter, segment that market and then market to that market. 4) Execution – What’s your marketing plan? How are sales involved? Need logistics? What barriers will you need to hurdle? 5) Management – What is the management structure of your company going to be once you are up and running? 6) Financial Plan – How are you paying for the software, salaries and the infrastructure needed for daily operations?

As you can see, there are not a lot of steps involved with a basic business plan. When you are creating a first draft of a business plan you should outline the most important parts of your plan and summarize them. This is not only a great way to keep focus on why you are forming your digital marketing company, but to also help think of ways to differentiate yourself from your competition. Remember that marketing should be creative. You’ll want to stand out, not follow the crowd with every step (differentiate) and most importantly open up as many channelsas you can to tie back into your website.

STEP TWO: Know yourself In the college of business at school they talked about doing a SWOT analysis. In my MBA we would perform a SWOT analysis. In my doctorate we delved into SWOT analysis. After years of studying business and marketing, my one true belief is every marketing and most business students know what a SWOT analysis is and that it is both useful and practical as a stand alone tool. So what is a SWOT analysis? It is a way to play four square and analyze you or your company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (S.W.O.T). Some are internal (Strengths, Weaknesses) and some are external (Opportunities, Threats) while some can be positive (Strengths, Opportunities) and some can be negative (Weaknesses, Threats). This analysis is completely subjective of the user.

If you cannot find a weakness in yourself than there are a lot and your not realistic. It’s not that you cannot do it, you or your company just might not be the best at it.

Why is this important? It gives you a birds eye view of your business plan and areas to strengthen and work on. It can also help you differentiate yourself or your business from the competition. Remember, digital marketing consists mainly of SEO (technical and non-technical; on-page and off-page), SEM, PPC and Social Media (Advertising and Optimization). You can choose to be a digital marketing handyman (jack of all trades master of none) or a real savant in a sub-field of digital marketing. So what does a SWOT analysis for a digital marketing company look like? Here is an honest assessment of Mark Marketing SB.

Now since this is about just starting a digital marketing company in 2019 and not all the fundamentals or software used within a company, lets just skim a few areas. Mainly focusing on opportunity and weaknessI can see areas to improve and opportunities to exploit (that sounds so bad). First off weaknesses… I know that part of my off page SEO is getting quality backlinks. Not backlinks for numbers, but quality backlinks that are on pages with a lot of page authority. It’s not that I can’t do it, it’s just tough to do it properly. Another area that I can do, but I’ve seen better is graphic design. I enjoy doing graphic design in Adobe Illustrator, I’ve just seen better and I know that it will take me a lot of time comparative to others who could do it in half the time or even better. I am able to mask this weakness though with programs like Canva. Finally, direct sales… nope, no way, no how. I’d rather spend money on people to make phone calls and sell the ice to an Eskimo, it’s just not my thing.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” -Warren Buffett

The opportunity section is where the money is made in business. If you are a newly formed digital marketing company who doesn’t have bottomless pockets to throw at pay per click advertising and a friend at Google who can put your website on the first page the moment you hit the publish button, than you’ll want to Target, Segment and Market. Your first step should be deciding if you want to be a local SEO or a national SEO and then move onto step two… targeting. I cannot emphasize enough the power of targeting and segmenting from a money, time and knowledge aspect. It’s easier to manage your new company when you have a good overall view of current and potential customers instead of a broad view of what you think could be happening and the people you could be helping. Try to focus on a few ears of corn and not the whole field.

STEP THREE: File Properly When you’ve finally got your ideas laid out and figured out where you would like to start your niche than it’s time to figure out how you want to legally set up your operations. Some people enjoy the ability of freelancing their abilities as 1099 employees while others like to work for others as a W2 employee. There are benefits and drawbacks to both, the most obvious and discussed is the tax situation between the two. Just remember that Uncle Sam is going to want his cut no matter what you decide to do, or as George Harrison said, ” Let me tell you how it will be… There’s one for you, nineteen for me… ‘Cause I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman” (The Beatles – Taxman, 1966).

So what should you do as a business owner? If you’re not looking to be a lifetime freelancer, than incorporating your business is probably the way to go. Which brings us back to Delaware. If a company were to do business in just one state, than they have to register in that state UNLESS they register in another state and file as a foreign company in your “home state”. And this my friends is why we have subject matter experts, attorneys and the Google. There are roughly five options and so many possibilities that the combinations and permutations of setting up a proper business is almost endless.

I would advise doing more research on what type of business you should form before forming. If this is your first time researching the different variations of ways to legally form a business than here is a quick overview of your options.

LLC – The most popular as you (the individual) are sheltered from legal liabilities (the company), but accrue pass through taxes to your own personal income.

C-Corp – Popular for large businesses that have a board of directors and are typically “double taxed”. Not very popular when initially forming.

S-Corp – Another popular option for upstarts that are starting small and want to share legal and financial liabilities with their company. It’s another way to have the tax liabilities “pass through” the company to the owner.

Partnership – If you and a friend or friends want to start this company together and trust each others judgement than this is for you. 50/50… 25/25/25/25… 90/10… You and “someone else”. If you all have ideas and want some control this is what will be necessary to run your business. Taxes, profits, responsibilities and liabilities should be discussed with a lawyer before formation as you are all in this together.

Sole Proprietorship – It’s just you on your own island. This is best if you want your company to be unincorporated and you like paying personal income taxes on profits earned through the company.

So what is best for you? That’s ultimately a decision that you will have to make. There is so much that actually goes into forming and running a business that you’ll need to do extensive research before starting but after dreaming. It’s easy to fall in love with your ideas, but remember that this should be for the long hall. The ultimate goal of any business is to make a profit and hopefully hire employees to make money for you. So if that is what you are looking to do than starting a digital marketing company (or any business in that matter) should be fun. So lets recap.

Form a Business Plan SWOT it out Incorporate (or not)

But most importantly… Target, Segment, Market. Then… Buy a domaine name Get it hosted Purchase an e-mail domain name subscription (@hotmail.com and such is lame) Design your website SEO SEO SEO SEO SEO SEO SEO SEO SEO SEO SEO Social Media accounts Google My Business Google Analytics Google Ads Facebook Business Manager Stay up to date on digital marketing Network Software and then… and then… and then…

But ultimately. Have fun

11 Tips for Small Business Owners That You Probably Haven’t Heard Before

Starting your own portable restroom business is a big, exciting challenge. It’s a time to gather up all the good advice you can get, and then go your own way. Of course, the wise new entrepreneur does keep all of the truly good advice swirling around his or her decision-making process along the way in building the business. There are countless solid tips for new business owners. Maybe you can’t use them all. Knowing which ones to apply can be a whole decision challenge in itself. Seasoned entrepreneurs will say that there’s no perfect business strategy. The most successful people in the portable restroom industry or in any other kind of business will, however, likely agree that the finest pearls of business wisdom are often those that bring you to think about things in some new way that you hadn’t already considered. Here’s a list of that kind of tips—the kind that you may not have heard or thought about yet.

Fresh Tips for starting a small business. Nothing saves new business owners from the unavoidable trial-and-error learning process. But, that mode doesn’t have to characterize your method. Making as many correct decisions as possible early on gives your new company its best chance of long-term success. Here are some sound business tips that can benefit any portable restroom business owner ready to pull out all the stops on operational management quality.

1. Deal With Excuses Head-On. As a new business owner, you naturally have doubts about the likelihood of success of big moves you want to make, and it can be easiest just to avoid making them. Excuses for inaction seem like rock-solid obstacles, and slow you down or stop you from reaching larger goals for your business. Confront the reasons you worry that you can’t move forward on an investment or other risk you want to take to grow your portable restroom business, and work to find a solution, instead of letting yourself flounder in indecision that holds you back.

2. Pay Attention to All Forms of Feedback. Hear everything. Take in all of the comments, advice, encouragement, criticism, warnings, etc. Listen to family, friends, your local SBA free consulting resource, industry experts, not fortune cookies, your own thoughts. Soak it all in. Anything that is relevant to your business goals is worth absorbing. As you learn, start to work out the idea in your head. Write things down. Keep notes from all the resources you come across to develop a detailed plan. Notice how people react when you talk about your next idea for improving sales, service or bolder growth ideas. Ask yourself what the overall feedback has been, more positive or more negative. That may provide a useful sense of how customers may receive the concept too. Especially, drink in advice from experts and successful portable toilet business owners. They’ve been where you are and know the ropes. Learn from their mistakes.

3. Make Yourself Your Own Solution. Instead of thinking in terms of what new product or service you should sell, think in terms of what problem you can solve for current and prospective customers. It’s much faster and easier to attract customers when your company is eliminating a problem for them. Your new offering should fill a need throughout your market, or in a particular niche. Zero in on something specific that your customers have expressed that they wish was available. Conduct a little casual one-question survey to ask them what else they need that is related to the kind of service you provide. Or, ask them what changes or enhancements could make your service stand out for them. Knowing your target customers’ needs and wishes can lead you to a profitable plan to deliver solutions.

4. Keep Things Simple. Yeah, admittedly this isn’t really a new one. But, it fits in a new way in this context of new business tips like this. When you’re ready to run with a new idea for your business, just watch out for the tendency to let your plan start swelling to become more complicated than it needs to be to execute it. You can ultimately find yourself spending more time than it’s worth to deliver such a new service routinely. Narrow down the scope of your new idea, and create a simple way to test it with a few customers. Ask them if they’re willing to give it a try, so that minor glitches are more forgivable. But, make sure there are none of those. Then, just roll out a simple, good quality new product or service that delivers as promised. Chop off all superfluous features that generate too little return on investment.

5. Count the costs. When you start developing a new product or service idea, add all of the major and minor costs of money and time involved in launching the new offering and in providing it to customers on a regular basis. Just make sure you’ve included in your calculation: wholesale costs, shipping, delivery to you, warehousing and utilities, transportation to and from your customer for both delivery and pick-up, maintenance supplies, marketing costs, accounting time, and so on. Once you come up with the most fully-inclusive cost total you can, tack on another 50% for unexpected and underestimated costs, because they’re everywhere. Always over-prepare, to help ensure that it doesn’t turn out that you were actually under-prepared for the bills when they start coming in. Create a budget for your new revenue channel development project. Determine whether or not you can bootstrap it or will need to acquire capital from a small business loan or other source. Make yourself informed on all of your needs and options before you put any money into the project.

6. Don’t Explode Onto the Scene. New business owners are full of energy and enthusiasm and are eager to make their mark on their market. But, running a successful small business requires following a process. That involves managing growth in a way that ensures you can deliver on service promises and do not end up compromising quality in order to absorb too-rapidly increasing volume. Build your portable restroom business carefully, in reasonable stages that do not cost you current customers in pursuit of prospective ones. Expect it to take a while for your business to bring you a sufficient steady income. Keep your day job, if necessary, and work your new business during your off hours to get you through the startup phase. When your cash flow reaches a level that allows you more breathing room, then you can more securely transition into working your portable toilet business as its full-time manager.

7. Don’t Be Shy in Talking About Your Business. A common problem for new business owners is fear of selling, and inexperience with it. You’ll have to get over any worry about what people will think of your products and services. The way that money is made in business is by convincing people to buy them from you. It’s up to you to build support in your community for your company. So, make yourself get on out of your comfort zone. It’s scary, yes. But, conquering a fear by acting in spite of it, and discovering that you survived and picked up a new skill on the way is always satisfying. And, it’s always profitable to overpower your fear of selling for your own business. You’ll naturally become more comfortable every time you do it. Anyway, what’s some discomfort for the sake of your business? In a newer business, constant networking and marketing are fundamental. So, make yourself communicate.

8. Educate Yourself on the Legal Requirements Governing Your Business. Laws are not fun. However, rules are necessary and understanding them is one of the unexciting parts of owning your own business. On the un-fun scale, it’s right up there with tax preparation, which is, of course, also full of laws. Failing to follow all government regulations in the portable toilet industry can lead to big financial penalties and other serious consequences for you and your business. Promptly register your new business with your state. Get the help you need to setup for meeting your business tax liabilities. When you begin to hire contractors and employees, get the help you need to ensure that you follow laws for employers. Laws governing businesses vary from state, and by business type and income structure. Use your local SBA counseling resource, or talk to an accountant for small businesses, to get everything setup and ensure that you meet all of your legal obligations.

9. Plan For Going Broke. You’ll probably fail to stay afloat financially at some point in your early years of entrepreneurship. There’s not a more delicate way to put it, since the reality is that more than 50% of new businesses do fail in under five years from their startup date. So, what will you do if you find yourself with no money coming in? The portable restroom business is a very good place to be as entrepreneurial risks go, generally speaking. Still, it’s smart to have a “just in case” plan. If times get tight during the early years of your business operations, be prepared to get a job for a while, or move back in with mom and dad. Be ready to cut out familiar comforts and entertainments temporarily, as necessary. Preparing yourself for the worst case scenario will empower you to bypass feeling shocked and more quickly work through solutions to regain your footing and move forward with your business plan.

10. Add Some Practicality to Your Passion. Your passion is already a given, since you’ve proven you have the entrepreneurial drive to actually start a business, vs. just dreaming about it forever. Your passion will keep driving you to make sales and improve service processes, as necessary to keep growing your business. So, nobody needs to worry about you in that regard. Just balance your decision-making between passion and practicality. Passion can drive you to action, but practical reasoning will steer you in the direction of sustainable success. Do your market research for your industry, and your competitive market research (learning about your competitors product and service offerings, pricing, systems, market positions, etc.). Also, talk to target prospects, to get their sense of your ideas for product or service enhancements or diversification. Reach out to professional peers; that means other business owners in the industry, to ask for advice. Talk to lawyers, SBA counselors, banks, financial advisors, and/or anybody with knowledge applicable to your business interests. Just infuse your passionate business instincts with practical knowledge for a winning approach to your personal and business growth.

11. Enjoy Your Life. Yes, working hard is a virtue. There’s no place for slackers in the entrepreneurial sector. That’s a given. So, nobody would suggest that you prioritize a good time over keeping your nose to the proverbial grindstone. No way. But, there’s another proverb to do with loving your work so you never have to work again. If you focus on what you enjoy about being in your business, and recognize the rest for what it is—part and parcel of the endeavor to live the life you’ve imagined—then you’ll meet with that brand of success that only the self-sufficient fully achieve. Don’t be a loner. Seek help from family, and friends, and the various third parties mentioned in tips above, to help you find and implement solutions and nurture changes you undertake to advance your business. Indulge yourself in finding a mentor, another person in the industry, or an industry or entrepreneurs’ peer group. Look to some of your local clubs and organizations for that kind of valuable support and sources of knowledge. Beyond that, enjoy your chosen life’s work; it’s a gift.

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from Septic Tank Pumping Pros https://septictankpumpingpros.wordpress.com/2018/12/10/11-tips-for-small-business-owners-that-you-probably-havent-heard-before/

MM093 - Morning Mindset Update

During this episode we’re going to be taking some time to discuss the Morning Mindset show, upcoming book and study guide, Paul’s vacation, coffee cups and more. Please be extra sure to tune in and listen to this episode. 

Episode Transcription

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset, and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel. 

*Professor Paul*

Hello, welcome back to Morning Mindset, and it looks as if my, well if my calendar is correct, then today is a Friday episode. Should be the end of the week, and what I wanted to do today was just take a little bit of time to discuss what's currently going on with the Morning Mindset show, and the book & study guide, and coffee cups and all kinds of stuff.

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Alright, first and foremost, thank you very much for being a part of the show, we've only been well, I guess it was back in February, was it February or January that we started this? It was January, I think it was January, that we started the the brand new Morning Mindset show and we've been doing it Monday through Friday with a few exceptions, holidays and so on and so forth.

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So, where are we at right now? Well as I mentioned, some of you folks expressed interest in a Morning Mindset book/devotional study guide, so I wrote it, and if you have been if you listen to the other show that I do, you know that we've discussed it a little bit. I've given you guys updates on the social media and so forth.

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But here's where we are with the Morning Mindset 30 Day Study Guide; it's done. It's written. Okay, for my part, I wrote it. Now the hard part. It is formatted, it is going to be submitted to the publisher. Matter fact by the time you hear these words, uh, dripping ever so gently into your ears, it should have already been submitted to the publisher so that we can get our proof copies.

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Yes, this is how it works in the book writing world. You do it, edit it, you format it, you do everything the way you think it should be, and then you get a hard proof copy, at least in my world when I do books. You get a hard proof copy and then you go back through the process, one, more time. You take a yellow highlighter and a pen or pencil or whatever and you go back through it. Now, it's not me that does that, it would be my proofreader, who will do that.

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Go back through and figure out if there are any changes that need to be made, and if there are, you submit the final changes and once the final changes are submitted, ladies and gentlemen, that's it. In the publishing World, they published the book and it does not change. That's the way it is. So our hope and desire I say this, oh heck I like you guys.

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I'm going to tell you Our Hope and desire is to have the Morning Mindset 30 Day Study Guide ready to go ready for purchase by July 1st of this year, yes 2018. So that is going on right now. My producer, Zachary has been working behind the scenes, he said “Do you think people would like an official Morning Mindset coffee mug?”, and I said “Sure, I think they will”. So he's been working on a coffee mug design that we will be doing through a third-party manufacturer and have them shipped directly to you guys.

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If that's something you're interested in, that is something that Zachary has been working on, and we should have available very, very soon. Alright show notes. Morning Mindset, right now according to the show notes that I'm looking at. This is number 93.

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Now if you came in somewhere in the 50’s or 60’s or 70’s or even 80’s, and you haven't had a chance or an opportunity, to catch up and listen to previous episodes, well, I have some good news for you. It's good news for you and I. I am going on vacation. Well, it's going to be a working vacation. I will be out of the studio. I will be on the road traveling across the United States.

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The West, the Midwest, uh, the North-south, I don't know what. We’ll be all over, we're probably gonna I'd say, 1-2-3 at least 10 different states I’ll be traveling to during the next two weeks. So what I'm going to let you guys do is I'm going to give you the opportunity, the golden opportunity to catch up.

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Yes, and I know a lot of you folks this summer will be traveling. I know you're going to be in cars, or an airport even that's a great thing about on-demand audio, is while you have a Wi-Fi connection. You can go ahead and download a whole bunch of episodes, save them on your phone, and then when you're sitting waiting to get on an airplane, or you're on the airplane, or wherever you happen to be and you have nothing but time on your hands, you hit play listen to the show.

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Bingo you just did something positive and productive with your time, other than standing there staring out the window or playing Candy Crush, or Angry Birds. They still have Angry Birds? My son told me the other day, he said “Dad they're working on releasing a new Angry Birds game.” I thought “Hmm, that's interesting.”

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I'll admit to you that the the only game, that I have ever downloaded and put on my phone, was actually Angry Birds. *Laughs* So here's the good news for you guys. You now have an opportunity to catch up, because I am going on vacation. Now pay close attention, set your notifications, as soon as I am back from my summer vacation we will be back with more Morning Mindsets and so on and so forth.

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In addition to that, this is also going to give me a little bit of time, to work on the book, to polish the proof copy and get the final copy ready so that it can be ready for all of you folks by July 1st. Like I said, that is our goal.

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I thank you very much for being a part of the Morning Mindset audience. Thank you very much for listening, I truly appreciate it. Share this show with someone else that you think, well could get something out of it, could benefit from it. I'm your host Paul Markel and I will talk to you again, real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.

Download this Episode!

Honor View 10 review: a OnePlus 5T challenger emerges

The flagship space is saturated with contenders on all sides and typically they come at a high price. Companies like OnePlus have been trying to shake things up by making their flagships at least somewhat affordable, and users have been clamoring for more offerings that tick more boxes than most mid-range devices, while still maintaining their mid-range price point. Honor has been trying to find that balance, from its Honor 7X — an impressive offering for under $200 — to its latest flagship offering, the Honor View 10 (aka V10).

The Honor View 10 rivals that of the OnePlus 5T in its spec sheet and design, while bringing some Eastern flair to the software —  and all for less than $500. This is the Honor View 10 review.

Design

Called the V10 in other markets, the View 10 looks quite nice. Our unit has a dark blue metallic tint which shines brightly on the front around the screen and has a more softly reflective matte finish on the back. The corners and sides are rather rounded and the phone is just thick enough to allow room for the headphone jack on the bottom.

Other colors are available but this dark blue is great: understated on first glance and then striking. The spartan backing, with just the Honor logo in the middle and dual camera setup in the corner, where both lenses individually pop out, is especially nice. Yes, that might mean the lens is in danger of scrapes and scratches, but it certainly gives the Honor View 10 a distinct look.

Despite having a 5.99-inch screen, the phone’s handling is helped by its taller 18:9 aspect ratio. The result is a phone with a low screen-to-body ratio and a great looking front broken up by only a couple of features. Up top are the usual sensors and so on, but beneath the screen is a capacitive home button with an embedded fingerprint reader. That capacitive button can have multiple functions via gesture controls.

The capacitive fingerprint reader lets you navigate via gesture controls

A navigation setting allows for taps and swipes to trigger what would otherwise be the soft keys — back, home, and recent apps. This frees up the screen for more work and play. After getting used to the trigger for Google Assistant — swipe up from anywhere underneath the screen — this One Button mode became second nature. Even if it adds to the overall footprint of the phone, the single capacitive key is very useful.

Display

Editor's Pick

OnePlus 5T review: it’s all about that screen

  Buy now from OnePlus With the OnePlus 3T, we got virtually the same body as the OnePlus 3, but packed with a new processor, more RAM, and a bigger battery. This year though, there isn't a …

18:9 aspect ratios are hardly unique anymore, but it is nice to see Univisium coming to more phones than just high-end flagships. Much like the OnePlus 5T, this screen is kept at Full HD+ resolution. It’s an IPS panel which does get bright enough for outdoor viewing, though I do wish it got just a little bit brighter. Colors are also where they should be, with Honor’s tuning providing saturation on par with other high-performing IPS panels, though it does not reach the same levels of OLED vividness.

Text and media all look fine on this screen, but I had to go into the settings and shrink down the rendering sizes. Elements provided by EMUI seem created for a 1080p screen, but not necessarily one this big. This is more of a software peeve than a knock against the screen. It was easily fixed — bringing down the setting by one notch made everything look proper and not bloated.

If there is one thing missing here, it is an always-on display. Plenty of manufacturers have been including this to make seeing one’s notifications easier and I wish the View 10 had it too. It’s got an LCD panel, meaning it would consume more battery than on an OLED screen, but the feature still would have been useful.

Performance

Honor spared little expense making sure this phone has top-notch performance. Though it’s only just starting to happen in the West, it’s pretty normal in Asian markets to have over 4 GB of RAM and a high amount of storage. The View 10 comes with 128 GB of storage and 6 GB of RAM. No matter how you cut it, that is great to have on a phone at this price.

Honor spared little expense making sure this phone has top-notch performance: the View 10 comes with 128 GB of storage, 6 GB of RAM and the Kirin 970

See also

What is the Kirin 970’s NPU? – Gary explains

Neural Networks(NN) and Machine Learning (ML) were two of the year's biggest buzzwords in mobile processoring. Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 970, the image processing unit (IPU) inside the Google Pixel 2, and Apple’s A11 Bionic, all feature dedicated hardware solutions …

Honor takes the specs sheet a step further by putting in the latest Huawei HiSilicon processor, the Kirin 970. Yes, the one with the Neural Processing Unit (NPU). The true benefits of neural processing are yet to be proven — this is the first time consumers are seeing this kind of chipset, after all, and its applications are still rather limited — but this is a feature which should be better utilized over time.

For now, the NPU works in the camera for automatically finding the right scene mode and for optimizing memory handling based on your usage habits, but there is little else differentiating this phone’s performance from other flagship devices. To that end, the Kirin 970 still does its core job well in providing reliable, smooth, and fast performance.

Hardware

The View 10’s feature set reflects its design and also sticks to the basics. A microSD card slot can increase the already high amount of built-in storage, and all the connections you’d expect are available. It even has NFC for contactless payment platforms. There is no IP certification on this phone, however, so users will have to be a bit more careful to keep everything dust-free and dry.

Though calls were just fine on the T-Mobile network, using this European version of the phone kept me on HSPA+ and Wi-Fi most of the time. That means my battery experience wasn’t quite indicative of what users might get on mostly LTE connectivity.

The 3,750 mAh battery got me through a day start to finish without any problems

Nonetheless, the phone’s 3,750 mAh battery got me through a day start to finish without any problems. Screen-on time, in particular, got up to six hours while I was mainly on Wi-Fi playing mobile games and watching YouTube. With fast charging solutions, it doesn’t take long for the phone to get back to 50 percent, either. You will be relying on a USB Type-C charger, however, as wireless charging is not included in this metal-clad device.

Speaking of YouTube, I have to give a nod to the onboard speaker. It is easy to scoff at a bottom-facing mono speaker unit, but I was surprised to hear some decently loud and rich audio. Being able to put a pair of headphones in easily, thanks to the headphone jack, was also appreciated.

Camera

On an affordable flagship phone, cameras tend to be the make-or-break feature on an otherwise great package. The camera of the View 10 puts its best foot forward with a dual lens system much like the one found on the OnePlus 5T. The phone’s rear features a 16 MP f/1.8 aperture shooter, with a monochrome 20 MP f/1.8 secondary sensor for adding detail to color photos or taking crisp B&W shots. Together with the potential power of the NPU, this combined camera package can yield some sharp and enjoyable photos, except when using the 13 MP front-facing camera.

I hesitate to say the front-facing camera is all that bad, because it is really just down to Honor’s tuning of the software. The View 10 clearly takes a lot of cues from its original Chinese market, where most front-facing cameras focus on beauty modes and tend to be very soft. The camera tends to overexpose for a brighter photo and still yields an overly soft selfie even when all the modes are off.

The beautification mode is also available with background bokeh effects — turn them on and things get even softer than before, and my freckles simply disappear. If you want to keep your facial features intact but maintain a soft background, the Wide Aperture mode allows for similar effects but the results can be spotty. This beauty mode might be great for someone who appreciates the airbrushed look, but that person is not me. The best I can say is that the front-facing camera is certainly capable of good photos, but what that actually means to each individual user could differ.

Portrait mode and wide aperture modes are available for the rear cameras as well, and when used with some extra care, the photos coming out of the phone can be pretty great. Sharpness is where it should be — essentially the opposite of the front-facing camera — and colors are mostly accurate. The camera tends to overexpose when tapping darker areas, but a bit of work on the compensation slider will make the photo look more accurately exposed. As I said, with a little bit of extra attention to detail, the View 10’s cameras do their job pretty well.

There are plenty of other modes included in this camera package, like HDR, which is a mode rather than a toggle (a personal pet peeve). There are also pro modes and more artsy modes if you want to get fancy. I also like that the video mode has the ability to use the Wide Aperture setting while recording. It can lead to some interesting — albeit very artificial — depth of field footage. However, the camera is already pretty wide at f/1.8, so bokeh is not hard to come by.

Unfortunately, you will need very steady hands because there is no OIS on the View 10. This is a problem immediately apparent in video recordings, but it also hinders the phone’s low light performance. A prompt for the user to “hold hands still” while sharpening the image reflects a long shutter due to the lack of lighting. During that time basically any movement will make the photo blurry. OIS would have been a great addition to an otherwise quite capable dual lens setup, but affordability often creates that kind of give-and-take situation.

You will need very steady hands because there is no OIS on the View 10 camera

Software

The software experience differs from many established UIs in the West. Honor is a company from the East, after all, and it brings with it some of the common tropes found in Chinese spins on Android. It lacks an app drawer by default, but you can change the “Home Style” in the settings or just get a new launcher altogether.

Unlike some phones released in Asia that we’ve imported for review, this Honor View 10 is made for Europe, so all the textual elements fit properly in the interface.

Dive deeper into the settings menu and you’ll find a ton of different ways to customize the experience too. We already mentioned the navigation dock earlier, where the one capacitive key can be used for anything that the soft keys would otherwise do. Aside from that are some app-centric abilities, like putting access to some apps behind a lock or making more than one instance of, for example, a social media application.

Speaking of social media, a nice feature in the gallery app allows for one-click sharing of photos straight to Snapchat. This is more useful for people who are on that network, but it can be handy and it eliminates having to use the often shoddy built-in Snapchat camera.

Finally there is Face Unlock, which is basically what it sounds like — after recognizing the user’s face, the phone will unlock and go straight into the home screen quickly. It works about as good as similar features found on other phones, but Honor added a couple other functions into the mix. One ability shows sensitive information in notifications on the lock screen only when recognition is achieved. The phone can also wake when raised, which makes for a fast unlocking experience when coupled with Face Unlock.

Overall, there are some good features added to this version of Android and launching with Android 8.0 Oreo is a big plus, too. EMUI has its fans but it also has some detractors, so if you’ve had contact with any other Huawei or Honor phones recently, you’ll already know how you feel about it.

Specs

 Honor View 10 Display5.99-inch IPS 1080 x 2160 resolution 403 ppi 18:9 aspect ratio ~78% screen-to-body ProcessorHiSilicon Kirin 970 GPUMali-G72 MP12 RAM4/6 GB Storage64/128 GB microSD card expansion up to 256 GB CamerasRear cameras Main sensor: 16 MP RGB, f/1.8 aperture Secondary sensor: 20 MP monochrome, f/1.8 aperture Front camera: 13 MP, f/2.0 aperture AudioBottom-facing speaker SensorsFingerprint Hall Accelerometer G-sensor Electronic compass Gyroscope Proximity Ambient light Battery3,750 mAh MaterialMetal unibody IP ratingNone NetworksGSM, HSPA, LTE ConnectivityWi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot Bluetooth 4.2 with aptX HD GPS NFC Infrared PortsUSB Type-C 3.5 mm audio jack SIMDual Nano-SIM SoftwareAndroid 8.0 Oreo EMUI ColorsNavy Blue, Midnight Black, Beach Gold, Aurora Blue, Charm Red Dimensions and weight157 x 75 x 7 mm 172 g

Gallery

Pricing and final thoughts

The Honor View 10 price tells a good story. Any phone with features like this that comes in under $500 is going to pique our interest. Though there are even cheaper phones available and certainly higher-powered phones (at higher prices too), this phone’s market segment includes pretty much just the OnePlus 5T.

We will do a comparison between the two soon, but the bottom line is this: Honor has done a great job delivering a high-end experience at a mid-range price, and with potential improvements to the Kirin 970’s NPU still to come, the View 10 could maintain relevance longer than even some big ticket flagships. The Honor View 10 is done very well, and at this price point the whole package puts up a very convincing argument for anyone in the market for a OnePlus 5T.

Honor View 10 review: a OnePlus 5T challenger emerges published first on https://swentexpage.tumblr.com/

Honor View 10 review: a OnePlus 5T challenger emerges The flagship space is saturated with contenders on all sides and typically they come at a high price. Companies like OnePlus have been trying to shake things up by making their flagships at least somewhat affordable, and users have been clamoring for more offerings that tick more boxes than most mid-range devices, while still maintaining their mid-range price point. Honor has been trying to find that balance, from its Honor 7X — an impressive offering for under $200 — to its latest flagship offering, the Honor View 10 (aka V10). The Honor View 10 rivals that of the OnePlus 5T in its spec sheet and design, while bringing some Eastern flair to the software — and all for less than $500. This is the Honor View 10 review. Design Called the V10 in other markets, the View 10 looks quite nice. Our unit has a dark blue metallic tint which shines brightly on the front around the screen and has a more softly reflective matte finish on the back. The corners and sides are rather rounded and the phone is just thick enough to allow room for the headphone jack on the bottom. Other colors are available but this dark blue is great: understated on first glance and then striking. The spartan backing, with just the Honor logo in the middle and dual camera setup in the corner, where both lenses individually pop out, is especially nice. Yes, that might mean the lens is in danger of scrapes and scratches, but it certainly gives the Honor View 10 a distinct look. Despite having a 5.99-inch screen, the phone’s handling is helped by its taller 18:9 aspect ratio. The result is a phone with a low screen-to-body ratio and a great looking front broken up by only a couple of features. Up top are the usual sensors and so on, but beneath the screen is a capacitive home button with an embedded fingerprint reader. That capacitive button can have multiple functions via gesture controls. The capacitive fingerprint reader lets you navigate via gesture controls A navigation setting allows for taps and swipes to trigger what would otherwise be the soft keys — back, home, and recent apps. This frees up the screen for more work and play. After getting used to the trigger for Google Assistant — swipe up from anywhere underneath the screen — this One Button mode became second nature. Even if it adds to the overall footprint of the phone, the single capacitive key is very useful. Display Editor's Pick OnePlus 5T review: it’s all about that screen Buy now from OnePlus With the OnePlus 3T, we got virtually the same body as the OnePlus 3, but packed with a new processor, more RAM, and a bigger battery. This year though, there isn't a … 18:9 aspect ratios are hardly unique anymore, but it is nice to see Univisium coming to more phones than just high-end flagships. Much like the OnePlus 5T, this screen is kept at Full HD+ resolution. It’s an IPS panel which does get bright enough for outdoor viewing, though I do wish it got just a little bit brighter. Colors are also where they should be, with Honor’s tuning providing saturation on par with other high-performing IPS panels, though it does not reach the same levels of OLED vividness. Text and media all look fine on this screen, but I had to go into the settings and shrink down the rendering sizes. Elements provided by EMUI seem created for a 1080p screen, but not necessarily one this big. This is more of a software peeve than a knock against the screen. It was easily fixed — bringing down the setting by one notch made everything look proper and not bloated. If there is one thing missing here, it is an always-on display. Plenty of manufacturers have been including this to make seeing one’s notifications easier and I wish the View 10 had it too. It’s got an LCD panel, meaning it would consume more battery than on an OLED screen, but the feature still would have been useful. Performance Honor spared little expense making sure this phone has top-notch performance. Though it’s only just starting to happen in the West, it’s pretty normal in Asian markets to have over 4 GB of RAM and a high amount of storage. The View 10 comes with 128 GB of storage and 6 GB of RAM. No matter how you cut it, that is great to have on a phone at this price. Honor spared little expense making sure this phone has top-notch performance: the View 10 comes with 128 GB of storage, 6 GB of RAM and the Kirin 970 See also What is the Kirin 970’s NPU? – Gary explains Neural Networks(NN) and Machine Learning (ML) were two of the year's biggest buzzwords in mobile processoring. Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 970, the image processing unit (IPU) inside the Google Pixel 2, and Apple’s A11 Bionic, all feature dedicated hardware solutions … Honor takes the specs sheet a step further by putting in the latest Huawei HiSilicon processor, the Kirin 970. Yes, the one with the Neural Processing Unit (NPU). The true benefits of neural processing are yet to be proven — this is the first time consumers are seeing this kind of chipset, after all, and its applications are still rather limited — but this is a feature which should be better utilized over time. For now, the NPU works in the camera for automatically finding the right scene mode and for optimizing memory handling based on your usage habits, but there is little else differentiating this phone’s performance from other flagship devices. To that end, the Kirin 970 still does its core job well in providing reliable, smooth, and fast performance. Hardware The View 10’s feature set reflects its design and also sticks to the basics. A microSD card slot can increase the already high amount of built-in storage, and all the connections you’d expect are available. It even has NFC for contactless payment platforms. There is no IP certification on this phone, however, so users will have to be a bit more careful to keep everything dust-free and dry. Though calls were just fine on the T-Mobile network, using this European version of the phone kept me on HSPA+ and Wi-Fi most of the time. That means my battery experience wasn’t quite indicative of what users might get on mostly LTE connectivity. The 3,750 mAh battery got me through a day start to finish without any problems Nonetheless, the phone’s 3,750 mAh battery got me through a day start to finish without any problems. Screen-on time, in particular, got up to six hours while I was mainly on Wi-Fi playing mobile games and watching YouTube. With fast charging solutions, it doesn’t take long for the phone to get back to 50 percent, either. You will be relying on a USB Type-C charger, however, as wireless charging is not included in this metal-clad device. Speaking of YouTube, I have to give a nod to the onboard speaker. It is easy to scoff at a bottom-facing mono speaker unit, but I was surprised to hear some decently loud and rich audio. Being able to put a pair of headphones in easily, thanks to the headphone jack, was also appreciated. Camera On an affordable flagship phone, cameras tend to be the make-or-break feature on an otherwise great package. The camera of the View 10 puts its best foot forward with a dual lens system much like the one found on the OnePlus 5T. The phone’s rear features a 16 MP f/1.8 aperture shooter, with a monochrome 20 MP f/1.8 secondary sensor for adding detail to color photos or taking crisp B&W shots. Together with the potential power of the NPU, this combined camera package can yield some sharp and enjoyable photos, except when using the 13 MP front-facing camera. I hesitate to say the front-facing camera is all that bad, because it is really just down to Honor’s tuning of the software. The View 10 clearly takes a lot of cues from its original Chinese market, where most front-facing cameras focus on beauty modes and tend to be very soft. The camera tends to overexpose for a brighter photo and still yields an overly soft selfie even when all the modes are off. The beautification mode is also available with background bokeh effects — turn them on and things get even softer than before, and my freckles simply disappear. If you want to keep your facial features intact but maintain a soft background, the Wide Aperture mode allows for similar effects but the results can be spotty. This beauty mode might be great for someone who appreciates the airbrushed look, but that person is not me. The best I can say is that the front-facing camera is certainly capable of good photos, but what that actually means to each individual user could differ. Normal Wide Aperture Beauty Mode Portrait mode and wide aperture modes are available for the rear cameras as well, and when used with some extra care, the photos coming out of the phone can be pretty great. Sharpness is where it should be — essentially the opposite of the front-facing camera — and colors are mostly accurate. The camera tends to overexpose when tapping darker areas, but a bit of work on the compensation slider will make the photo look more accurately exposed. As I said, with a little bit of extra attention to detail, the View 10’s cameras do their job pretty well. There are plenty of other modes included in this camera package, like HDR, which is a mode rather than a toggle (a personal pet peeve). There are also pro modes and more artsy modes if you want to get fancy. I also like that the video mode has the ability to use the Wide Aperture setting while recording. It can lead to some interesting — albeit very artificial — depth of field footage. However, the camera is already pretty wide at f/1.8, so bokeh is not hard to come by. Unfortunately, you will need very steady hands because there is no OIS on the View 10. This is a problem immediately apparent in video recordings, but it also hinders the phone’s low light performance. A prompt for the user to “hold hands still” while sharpening the image reflects a long shutter due to the lack of lighting. During that time basically any movement will make the photo blurry. OIS would have been a great addition to an otherwise quite capable dual lens setup, but affordability often creates that kind of give-and-take situation. You will need very steady hands because there is no OIS on the View 10 camera Software The software experience differs from many established UIs in the West. Honor is a company from the East, after all, and it brings with it some of the common tropes found in Chinese spins on Android. It lacks an app drawer by default, but you can change the “Home Style” in the settings or just get a new launcher altogether. Unlike some phones released in Asia that we’ve imported for review, this Honor View 10 is made for Europe, so all the textual elements fit properly in the interface. Dive deeper into the settings menu and you’ll find a ton of different ways to customize the experience too. We already mentioned the navigation dock earlier, where the one capacitive key can be used for anything that the soft keys would otherwise do. Aside from that are some app-centric abilities, like putting access to some apps behind a lock or making more than one instance of, for example, a social media application. Speaking of social media, a nice feature in the gallery app allows for one-click sharing of photos straight to Snapchat. This is more useful for people who are on that network, but it can be handy and it eliminates having to use the often shoddy built-in Snapchat camera. Finally there is Face Unlock, which is basically what it sounds like — after recognizing the user’s face, the phone will unlock and go straight into the home screen quickly. It works about as good as similar features found on other phones, but Honor added a couple other functions into the mix. One ability shows sensitive information in notifications on the lock screen only when recognition is achieved. The phone can also wake when raised, which makes for a fast unlocking experience when coupled with Face Unlock. Overall, there are some good features added to this version of Android and launching with Android 8.0 Oreo is a big plus, too. EMUI has its fans but it also has some detractors, so if you’ve had contact with any other Huawei or Honor phones recently, you’ll already know how you feel about it. Specs Honor View 10 Display 5.99-inch IPS 1080 x 2160 resolution 403 ppi 18:9 aspect ratio ~78% screen-to-body Processor HiSilicon Kirin 970 GPU Mali-G72 MP12 RAM 4/6 GB Storage 64/128 GB microSD card expansion up to 256 GB Cameras Rear cameras Main sensor: 16 MP RGB, f/1.8 aperture Secondary sensor: 20 MP monochrome, f/1.8 aperture Front camera: 13 MP, f/2.0 aperture Audio Bottom-facing speaker Sensors Fingerprint Hall Accelerometer G-sensor Electronic compass Gyroscope Proximity Ambient light Battery 3,750 mAh Material Metal unibody IP rating None Networks GSM, HSPA, LTE Connectivity Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot Bluetooth 4.2 with aptX HD GPS NFC Infrared Ports USB Type-C 3.5 mm audio jack SIM Dual Nano-SIM Software Android 8.0 Oreo EMUI Colors Navy Blue, Midnight Black, Beach Gold, Aurora Blue, Charm Red Dimensions and weight 157 x 75 x 7 mm 172 g Gallery Pricing and final thoughts The Honor View 10 price tells a good story. Any phone with features like this that comes in under $500 is going to pique our interest. Though there are even cheaper phones available and certainly higher-powered phones (at higher prices too), this phone’s market segment includes pretty much just the OnePlus 5T. We will do a comparison between the two soon, but the bottom line is this: Honor has done a great job delivering a high-end experience at a mid-range price, and with potential improvements to the Kirin 970’s NPU still to come, the View 10 could maintain relevance longer than even some big ticket flagships. The Honor View 10 is done very well, and at this price point the whole package puts up a very convincing argument for anyone in the market for a OnePlus 5T. , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2rU5hQW

Ranking the 10 best pure shooters in the NBA

There is one bit of ecletic wisdom that has truly stuck with me over the years. Perhaps it is from the Bible. Perhaps it is advice that was given to me by my fifth-grade teacher. Or perhaps I once saw it tattooed on Nick Young’s left arm. In any case however, it is an adage that has helped guide me through times of uncertainty, self-doubt, and offensive stagnancy alike, and it is this: [clears throat for dramatic emphasis] … shooters shoot. Yes, this is the foundational principle upon which I choose to live my life, and here are the NBA players who best embody it in its purest and most unadulterated form.

*Stats courtesy of NBA.com and Basketball Reference*

10. Jodie Meeks, SG, Washington Wizards

The veteran sharpshooter missed 125 games over the past two seasons due to injury, but let’s not forget what he’s capable of when healthy. Whether he’s hedgehogging around screens or springing free for spot-up opportunities, Meeks changes the geometry of the court as defenses contort to cover him. His reputation has been well-earned. A 2013-14 season where he netted 2.1 treys a night for the LA Lakers on 40.1 percent shooting offered a window into his upside, and it’s only a matter of time before he recovers his pre-injury form now that he is playing with a world-class creator like John Wall in Washington. Blessed is the Meeks, for he shall inherit the earth.

9. Joe Ingles, SF, Utah Jazz

It’s never too early for some Jingles Bells. At least the Jazz certainly don’t think so; they have reaped the benefits this season of Ingles’ team-leading 2.4 threes a game at a 43.7 percent success rate to go along with his supremely underrated passing and ball-handling skills. Sure, the name isn’t sexy. But the southpaw stroke certainly is.

The Australian is putting together quite the follow-up to a 2016-17 campaign where he clocked in fourth in the league in three-point percentage and had All-Star Weekend knocking at his door. Now all that’s left for Ingles to do is to start letting his opponents know just how disrespectful his game really is … oh wait, he’s already got that covered too.

8. Kevin Durant, SF/PF, Golden State Warriors

To many, Durant’s reputation is either that of a scorer, a Twitter troll, or a snake. But his talent as a straight shooting specimen can often be overlooked.

Perhaps it’s the “modest” 38.1 career three-point percentage, but nobody (other than perhaps a certain superstar teammate who we will get into later) strikes as much fear into the intestines of the opposition as Durant does as soon as he crosses halfcourt. And though it’s early, this is shaping up to be the four-time scoring champion’s best season dialing long distance yet (pouring in 2.9 triples a night with 46.7 percent accuracy, both career bests). If aliens invade our planet and they allow us one specific shot from one specific player to salvage our species, give me a Kevin Durant pull-up three from the wing and I’ll see you at the “We Saved The World” parade.

7. Troy Daniels, SG, Phoenix Suns

Daniels may have the least name recognition of anybody on this list, but he still shoots flames out of his fingertips no less. The VCU product catapulted onto the scene with the Charlotte Hornets in 2015-16, posting a league-leading 48.4 percent shooting from deep. For his career, Daniels actually has a higher career conversion rate on three-pointers (40.8) than he does on two-pointers (38.1). He is raising his usual raucous from long-range in Phoenix this season, hitting 3.7 treys per 36 minutes at a 42.6 percent clip. Rumor has it that if you say his name three times fast while staring into a bathroom mirror, Daniels will appear with a bloody basketball and splash a three right in your grill.

6. Luke Babbitt, SF/PF, Atlanta Hawks

Babbitt is the textbook definition of a three-point specialist. He has never averaged more than eight points a contest in a single season, he doesn’t really impact the game as a rebounder or a playmaker, and he often plays defense like he has two left feet. But Babbitt’s left hand is golden, and that’s all that matters. 2017-18 is on track to be the journeyman forward’s fourth-straight season connecting on at least 40 percent of his attempts from distance (topping out at a batty 51.3 percent for the New Orleans Pelicans in 2014-15). That has helped Babbitt produce a higher career three-point percentage than the likes of Ray Allen, Mark Price, and Peja Stojakovic on the all-time list. It’s clear that he has made the most of his lone discernible NBA skill.

5. CJ McCollum, SG, Portland Trail Blazers

The CJ technically stands for Christian James, but it might as well stand for Cash Jumpers. Coming into the league shooting a respectable 37.5 percent on treys as a rookie, McCollum has upped that figure in every single career season since. His 42.1 percent in 2016-17 was ninth-best in the Association, and he has skyrocketed to 52.2 percent through 11 games this year (tops among players with at least 50 three-point attempts). For a guy who regularly flirts with 200 made threes a season and who is just as sugary from the midrange (45.2 percent from 16-24 feet last season), the ex-Most Improved Player McCollum sees dollar signs every time he steps onto the hardwood.

4. JJ Redick, SG, Philadelphia 76ers

I am HERE for Redick’s transition from reviled Duke alum to beloved elder statesman. And to be honest, perhaps the single biggest impetus behind that transition over the last dozen or so years has been the consistency and the accuracy with which he has avalanched in threes during his NBA career. Aging like a fine pinot grigio, the 33-year-old Redick has nailed 44.5 percent of his three-balls over the last four seasons combined. He’s hardly missed a beat whether it’s a Chris Paul-Blake Griffin pick-and-roll that he’s scurrying around on the weak side of or a Ben Simmons-Joel Embiid one. Death, taxes, and JJ Redick making it rain from the perimeter. Case in point.

3. Klay Thompson, SG, Golden State Warriors

Klay Thompson is all of our spirit animals for he is everything that is good and right in the sport of basketball. Mind you, it’s not just his off-court escapades: traveling to China and finding ways to more effectively absorb the energies of the universe, suddenly spacing out in interviews as he attempts to discover the upper limits of human consciousness, or otherwise. But it’s also that he has turned the three-point line into his own personal sniper’s nest. Wielding the catch-and-shoot J as his primary weapon of mass reckoning (scoring 11.5 of his 22.3 points per game last year via that avenue for reference), Thompson has submitted seasons of 211, 223, 239, 276, and 268 made threes the last five years running. And here’s the kicker: this season may very well end up being his magnum opus. The three-time All-Star is finding the bottom of the net on 51.4 percent of his overall shot attempts and 47.1 percent of his attempts from deep, hauling his career triple percentage up to a pristine (wait for it) 42.0 percent. At this rate, we may just have to start petitioning for the addition of an eighth day of the week: Klay Day.

2. Kyle Korver, SG, Cleveland Cavaliers

Korver, who is 36 years old and now in Year 15 of his NBA journey, is hardly a legacy pick. Though he is sure to leave behind an immaculate legacy as one of only 20 players in league history to post a career true shooting percentage north of 60 percent (with 11 of those being frontcourt players to boot), King Kyle has maintained his sizzling pace well into his twilight seasons. He has led the NBA in three-point percentage in three of the last four years, and his 47.9 percent on triples through 48 regular season games in Cleveland is easily the best number he has put up for any one of his teams. Yes, scientists love Korver for hardly any player better proves the theory of gravity. Well except for…

1. Stephen Curry, PG, Golden State Warriors

Surprise. Who else could it be but the man who turned the sport that Dr. Naismith founded with a peach basket and a stitched-up leather ball in the late 19th century into a nightly display of all-out aerial combat? Yes, Curry has not only achieved the unfathomable, he has normalized it. 400 threes in a season? Piece of cake. 50/40/90 for an entire year with over 11 three-point attempts a night? No problemo. Old NBA record was 12 treys in a single game? Pfffshhhhh, please. At just 29 years old, Chef Curry could retire tomorrow and go down as the greatest shooter in basketball history by leaps and bounds, and nobody knows what he’s gonna be cooking up next. Just sit back and behold the beauty, folks. Cats like this don’t come around too often.

from Larry Brown Sports http://ift.tt/2iRUDT4

How to Conquer Instagram Advertising Without Breaking the Bank

Is your brand eager to get into Instagram advertising? If you’re apart of the more than 1 million advertisers already using Instagram, are you spending too much on campaigns? Or do you have the most efficient targeting possible? Just about every marketer on social will have something to say.

Whether it’s been “a success,” “it’s expensive” or “haven’t tried it just yet,” there’s still a lot of advertisers looking to learn more. According to a Q1 2017 report from 4C Insights, the total spend in social media advertising is up almost 62% year-over-year.

Instagram advertising is still new to some brands working with social ads, but we wanted to help provide some strategic tactics for your business. In this guide, we’ll go over the state of Instagram advertising and how to avoid breaking the bank in ad spend:

How Much Does Instagram Advertising Cost?

Instagram advertising costs depend on the mobile device you’re targeting, demographics, day of the week and whether or not it’s during a major televised event. It all comes down to your target audience, which is why it’s so important to learn your Instagram demographics.

As you can see, women tend to be more active on Instagram than men. This results in higher CPC for targeting women-specific audiences. However, age demographics paint quite a different picture.

The majority of Instagram users are under the age of 50, but CPC isn’t as drastically different compared to gender. According to data from AdEspresso, the average cost per click (CPC) for Instagram ads in Q3 ranged between $0.70 and $0.80 for all age ranges.

Obviously these CPC projections fluctuate depending on your campaign. For example, Instagram ad costs will likely rise during major events or holidays such as Black Friday, Christmas, Labor Day and Cyber Monday.

How to Create Instagram Ads

Now that we understand the various drivers of your CPC for Instagram ads, you can focus on creating optimized campaigns to get the most out of your budget.

There’s so much that goes into every single ad, but we’re here to break it down. Let’s take a look at the seven steps on how to create Instagram ads while sticking to your budget:

1. Choose Your Instagram Marketing Objective

You’ll create and manage your Instagram Ads in Facebook’s ad platform. The first thing the Facebook Ads Manager will make you do is choose a marketing objective. This helps you measure your engagement metrics to your ad objective. Here’s the 10 different marketing objectives, broken down into three ad groups: Awareness, Consideration and Conversion:

Brand Awareness: Ideal for reaching users who would engage with your ad and to bring general awareness around your brand.

Reach: This is for brands trying to get ads in front of the most people possible.

Traffic: If your goal is to get users to visit a site, landing page or app, a traffic goal is perfect.

Engagement: If you want users to like, comment or share your ad, it’s best to set your objective to engagement.

App Installs: This goal is for brands directing users to the app store to download or purchase apps.

Video Views: In-stream ads play in users’ feeds to show production, product launches, and behind-the-scenes footage to visually entice users into watching.

Lead Generation: Trying to simply find people interested or somewhat curious about your brand? Set a lead gen goal.

Messages: This encourages users to interact with your brand to answer product questions, provide support or complete purchases.

Conversions: If you’re looking for direct sales actions on your ads, such as adding payment info or making a purchase, conversions is the ideal goal.

Product Catalog Sales: The format is for brands showing products from your product catalog (must set one up to use this format), which then targets your audience.

Store Visits: This is perfect for those promoting multiple business locations to drive more in-store visits.

Pick Objectives Wisely

Because this is an article on Instagram advertising, you have to pick your marketing objectives wisely or else you’ll end up with a rejected ad. For example, Facebook Ads Manager will deny Instagram ads that have traffic targeting “messenger.”

When choosing your marketing objective, you might have additional components to select. So when you pick Engagement as your objective, you then have to select post engagement, page likes or event responses. Because Instagram doesn’t have events or Pages, your ad will be denied.

Pro Tip: Remember, setting up ads is always a trial and error process. However, it’s best if you select your goal to something Instagram can track.

2. Name Your Instagram Ad Campaign

It might seem like a silly (and obvious) recommendation, but it’s actually smart to stick to a naming convention for your ad sets and campaign names. While the name of your ad isn’t going to save you money on your CPC or get you more views, it does save time.

And if you’re in this industry, it’s critical to always look for ways to organize your audiences and save time for future alterations with your audience campaigns. Saved audiences also help you keep track of what works and what needs help.

It can take hours to build out new audiences, but instead, work on previous ad sets and provide each with its own unique name. You can try naming conventions that include:

Country

Network

Language

Campaign type

So for example, US_IG_ENG_RM means you’re targeting users in the US, who use Instagram, speak primarily English and fall under your remarketing campaign. Like we mentioned before, social ads are a trial and error process, so save everything you do to keep your work for later.

3. Select Your Placements

Before you get started with selecting an audience, it’s smart to scroll ahead in the ads manager tool and choose your placements. This is important because you want to limit any errors on your ads through the process.

Selecting your placement lets you actually decide if this is going to Facebook or Instagram. Here you’ll almost always want to select “Edit Placements” over “Automatic Placements.” Why? Automatic placements tends to want to post your ad everywhere.

In fact, Shelby Cunningham, a Media Buyer at Sprout Social explained other important benefits to selecting placements.

“A good reason to always edit placements is so you can better keep track of performance by platform,” Cunningham said. “If you select everything, its harder to optimize. If you have Facebook and Instagram ads in separate campaigns/ad sets, you can optimize for that specific platform. Whereas if its all in one, you can’t get that granular.”

Instead, you want to choose the specific ad type (which we’ll get to further down) and the network. After clicking “Edit Placements,” choose Instagram and whether you’re promoting an Instagram Story or Feed ad. Remember, you can only select mobile devices for Instagram ads.

Here you can get a little deeper into your ad placement by picking iOS, Android or both mobile devices. You also have the option to only promote to users who are connected to Wi-Fi. This is ideal if you’re running a lengthier video campaign that might take a lot of data to load.

Lastly, you can select broad categories to exclude your ads. Facebook prevents ads from showing up in these specific categories to prevent showing your brand during an awkward time or inappropriate placement.

4. Set Your Audience

Your audience is the backbone of your ads. This process is extremely important to narrow down and hone in on your core users. By taking the time to carefully select your audience, you save money by hitting your core audience faster.

Don’t waste money by targeting as many people as possible just because you can. Thoroughly set your audience to get the most targeted users possible. Select from these audience categories to fine tune your reach:

Locations: Choose or leave out audiences based on extremely specific locations down to postal codes and addresses or by broad areas such as global regions or countries.

Age: Select your specific age range (spanning from 13+ to 65+).

Gender: Choose between all genders, men or women for your ads.

Languages: Only needed if you’re targeting audiences speaking a specific language that is uncommon in that area.

Detailed Targeting: Broken into three subcategories: Demographics let you include or exclude people based on life styles, employment and education. Interests filter users based on Pages liked, activities attended and related topics. Behaviors targets purchasing, activities and travel intentions.

Connections: Select users who already connected to your app, event or Page.

After selecting your audience targeting, the ads manager displays your “Audience Definition” to the right. This will give you insights into whether or not your audience is too specific or broad, the audience details, potential reach and estimated daily reach.

The breakdown is extremely broad in its own, which is why you want to again, test on a trial and error basis. Depending on your experience, this dash could mean little or be very helpful.

5. Define Your Instagram Ad Budget & Schedule

When it comes to Instagram advertising, your budget is completely customizable to your own needs. And that’s important to remember when selecting your bid amount and overall schedule.

First you select between the two types of ad budgets:

Daily budget: Facebook will spend up to this designated amount delivering your ads every day between your selected campaign dates. Consider this format as a way for Facebook to get the most ads results with your allotted budget.

Lifetime budget: This is the total amount you’re willing to spend during the ad campaign set dates. Think of this format as a total set budget for your campaign.

Once you’ve chosen your budget type and spend, you’ll need to select the campaign schedule. As you can see above, there’s two options for your schedule:

Run my ad set continuously starting today

Set a start and end date

This all depends on the timeframe and objective of your campaign. If you launch an evergreen brand awareness campaign, we recommend to choose run my ad continuously starting today.

“This way your ads will continue to run until you choose to pause your efforts,” Cunningham added. “If your campaign has a specific end date, perhaps for a conversions campaign for a sale or an engagement campaign around the holidays, you should schedule it out from the beginning by setting a start and end date.”

Advanced Budget & Schedule Options

Facebook provides some additional advanced options to help you improve your ad optimization. For Instagram ads, you can optimize the delivery style in case you wanted to display an ad multiple times or just once a day.

Remember, you want to ensure you complete your placements and choose Instagram before you can edit these options of Post Engagement, Impressions or Daily Unique Reach. Understand that whatever you choose here, you’ll be charged for when that engagement metric occurs.

That means if you select Impressions, you’ll be charged for the amount of impressions. However, for Post Engagement, you can select to be charged for impressions or post engagements (likes, comments, etc.).

Additionally, you have options for ad scheduling to run continuously or on your schedule. This depends on your earlier selections. Facebook also allows Standard or Accelerated delivery types.

The standard option is recommended as it follows your schedule and pace for publishing. However, accelerated will publish frequently and whenever Facebook can push your ad (this is a very costly option). Cunningham told us that standard delivery means you’ll spend evenly throughout the day and it will spread out your budget.

“Accelerated delivery isn’t necessarily more costly, you’ll just spend through your budget faster,” she said. “Some brands might choose accelerated over standard if they’re advertising a flash sale or if it’s more important spending budget than actual performance.”

Manual & Automatic Bidding Options

Choosing between these two options depends on your experience with Instagram advertising. For new users, it’s likely a better option to select automatic bidding to keep costs low, but still reach your target audience. On the other hand, manual bidding can work with your tight budget more effectively, but there’s a chance your ads won’t reach as many people.

Again, for newer users, it’s a good idea to follow Facebook’s suggested bid for manual bid amounts. This will give you an idea of what you’ll likely pay for the ad to reach the marketing goal you chose earlier.

Just remember the difference between the two bidding types:

Automatic: This is ideal if you don’t know how much your campaign will cost or how fast you’ll go through the budget. Facebook keeps a balance between low cost ads and getting results.

Manual: It’s better to use this bidding type for specific results or metrics you have detailed. Additionally, this helps you know what Facebook recommends to ultimately let you work with your expected budget. Know that you don’t have to always pick the high end of the recommendation to see the best results.

6. Choose an Instagram Ad Format

The budget and schedule are set, your audience is narrowed down and now it’s time to choose your Instagram advertising format. If you’re pinching pennies on your ads, it’s smart to carefully select your ad format to get the most out of it.

These formats can produce different results for each business, so be sure you know what would likely work best for you. Let’s go ahead and break down the six types of Instagram ads available:

Carousel (multiple side-scrolling images or videos)

Single Image

Single Video

Slideshow (multiple transitioning images with music)

Instagram Stories Single Image

Instagram Stories Single Video

To provide more insights on each format, we’ll dive into each ad and provide the pros and cons for your budget:

Carousel Ads

Instagram Carousel Ads allow users to horizontally scroll through multiple images or videos on their mobile device. This ad is valuable for brands wanting to showcase more than one piece of visual content.

For example, West Elm uses multiple images to display its various bedding styles. Carousel ads allow users to see more content, ultimately drawing in more engagement per post. In fact, Digiday estimated carousel ads draw 10 times more engagement than single image ads.

Pro: Shows multiple images or videos to keep users engaged longer.

Con: Run the risk of spending extra on additional visuals that might be skipped by users.

Single Image Ads

While single image ads might not drive as much as engagement as the carousel format, it’s still a reliable source for brands. Facebook allows brands to create up to six ads with the same single image with no extra cost.

This means brands can test copy, the call to action and scheduling times with a single image. If you’re working on a smaller campaign, this is a great way to test and save money on a limited content run. If you run a single image ad, make sure the visual you choose will resonate with your audience.

Pro: Great for testing copy and CTAs over visuals.

Con: Doesn’t drive as much engagement as other formats.

Single Video Ads

Single video ads are a great way to drive engagement while blending in with organic content. Your Instagram video should always make sense without sound and be eye-catching enough to get users to follow through with the content.

Microsoft does an amazing job at telling a story with a quick 10-second single Instagram video ad that owns vibrant colors and flashy product shots. This format is perfect for brands wanting to get the most out of their campaign story.

Pro: Likely to drive more engagement than a single image and tell your brand story.

Con: Can be a costly resource to create, since highly-visual videos tend to drive the most engagement.

Slideshow Ads

Instagram slideshow ads are a way for brands to provide a “slideshow” of images with the option of adding music in the background. Simply put, this is images put into a video structure with sound.

Slideshows tend to be one of the lesser used ad formats because video continues to grow in popularity. Additionally, setting up a slideshow can be a bit cumbersome, but Facebook does a wonderful job explaining how to start a slideshow here.

Pro: Great for users with slow internet connection speeds (loads faster than videos) and shows several pieces of content in one video.

Con: This is probably the least-used ad format and takes more time to create than a carousel ad.

Instagram Stories Single Image

Instagram Stories has more than 250 million daily users, which actually rivals its main competitor, Snapchat. The rapid growth in popularity has advertisers jumping to use this format with Facebook’s ad creation process.

Much like single feed images, Stories single images are the same concept. It’s one image that plays for up to 15 seconds between user’s other Instagram Stories.

Pro: Great for attracting a younger demographic on Stories and is only growing in popularity as the social media “space to be.”

Con: Easy for users to quickly skip pass and can limit your audience targeting.

Instagram Stories Single Video

Again, Instagram Stories single video ads are made in the same vein as regular videos. However, you only have up to 15 seconds to convey your message.

One of the harder things about ads here is moving from such a quick video to a landing page. While you can create CTA buttons on Instagram Story videos and images, this format tends to work better for reach than engagement.

Pro: Great for telling your story in quick and digestible format.

Con: Post engagement is still a little difficult with only 15 seconds to react.

How to Stick to Your Instagram Ad Budget

Alright–that was a bit of a process. But don’t worry because creating Instagram ads gets easier with experience and testing. However, if you’re here to be a little wiser with budgeting, we’ve got you covered.

Don’t let your Instagram ad cost rule your campaign. There are ways you can be smarter with budgeting. Here’s a few ways to keep spend low:

Automate Your Bidding

Like we mentioned earlier, bidding can be a tricky process that tends to get expensive in a hurry. To be on the safe side, begin your Instagram ad campaign with automatic bidding. This will help you stick to your budget and get better results than  you would by just guessing.

If this is your first time bidding, you’re more likely to underbid or overbid your initial campaigns. When you spend too little or too much, the results aren’t easy to digest and work off for the future. Stick with automated bidding until you get enough tangible data to manually select your bidding.

Use Sprout Social to Improve Comment Moderation

Ad comments are one of best resources to understand the full customer relationship between brands and users. And with Sprout Social, we help you visualize the impact of these comments with our powerful Instagram management tools.

With Sprout, it’s easy to connect your Facebook Ads Account to monitor incoming comments from ads. Additionally, we provide contact details, message history and other info all from the same feed. This makes it easier to know who’s commenting on what content, if they have done so before and with a space to reply directly to users.

Want more info on how Sprout Social can help your Instagram engagement efforts? Click here for a free demo!

Use Carousel as a Starter Format

Like we mentioned before, Carousel ads are a great way to showcase multiple visuals with a relatively low budget. If your ad caught a user’s attention, give them more to get them to engage and take action.

You can use multiple videos or images for this format. Additionally, Facebook Ads Manager makes it easy to see how it will look on mobile devices through its ad preview.

Have any tips you’d like to share with Instagram advertising? We’re always listening in the comments! Or feel free to hit us up on Twitter!

This post How to Conquer Instagram Advertising Without Breaking the Bank originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from SM Tips By Minnie https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-advertising/

PART TWO - SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT - SELF EVALUATION

CONTEXTUAL UNDERSTANDING - 

1a) How have you demonstrated an understanding of the critical perspectives of analysis within art and design activity?

Demonstrating the understanding of analysis within art and design has been a learning curve for me during the most recent stage of my course. Having always held an interest in the philosophical side of art, I have been able to apply that skill to areas such as my research and when gaining inspiration from other artists. An example of this would have been during my ‘Installation Project’. This is because I wanted my installation to connect with my personal experience and mental health, therefore I knew I needed to research installation and artists that used space in a way that conveyed the same message and emotion I wanted to create. The artist I discovered was Doris Salcedo and through her use of installation and sculpture she evoked feelings and interpretations of mental health. The critical perspective I saw in Salcedo’s work was her ability to create a space and create a representation of a social or mental issue. Furthermore, this led to me gaining a deeper understanding and perspective to the work in art and design. This is because I was able to analyze perspectives such as, why do issues such as mental health have an impact on creating art like Salcedo’s, plus what impact on society does this art have?

TWO DIMENSIONAL WORK -

2a) How have you shown the ability to analyze and research a 2D problem within A&D.

I have shown the ability to analyze and research a problem in two dimensional processes in art and design quite consistently over the past weeks. An example of this would be during my ‘Fashion Photography’ project I found that the photographs I had taken of my models did not look like great photos. The clothing variety was not as varied as I would have liked it to been. Furthermore, I only had three male models in grey, urban clothing.

2b) How have you used an integrated (whole/everything (research, development, evidence, evaluation)) to 2D problem solving in A&D.

The reason I knew that my photography was not how I wanted it to be, is because I gained a particular influence, and style from my research and I hoped to imitate that in my work. The research I had gathered was from a variety of photographs that inspired me and two photographers in particular, Ryan Howard and Dima Kiselev. Kiselev had inspired me to use a very urban environment for my photography (which is why I chose the abandoned factory) as he shoots his models in gritty locations that contrast with the bold colours they wear. The mistake I made was through development and analyzing my photos during post production. I found it difficult to ensure my subjects stood out. This is because the clothing my models wore matched the environment they were in therefore there was not much variety and uniqueness in the image. I responded to this problem by scrapping my photography and creating a ‘Fashion Film’. I brought all the positive photographic elements from my images and combined them with the medium of moving image. After editing a video that showed off my models and the clothing they were wearing, I tackled the issue of contrast between the subject and environment by animating bold, coloured lines and patterns over my image using software I had only used briefly before. Not only had I attempted a new idea no-one else had tried before but I had created a piece of art that incorporated all of the positive elements from my original work but ironed out the issues and resolved them.

2c) How have you evidenced the use of evaluating your work to support solutions to problems in 2D in A&D.

During my evaluation phase, I wrote that I would have included female models within my work to create more variety and also included a broader selection of clothing. I realized these two elements would have ensured my work appealed to more audiences than just men or young adults.

THREE DIMENSIONAL WORK -

3a) How have you demonstrated the ability to analyze and research a 3D problem within A&D

During my ‘Installation Project’ I demonstrated the ability to analyze and research a three dimensional problem due to the nature of my work. One example of this would be the constant mindset I was in about creating a 3D space for my installation. On a daily basis I was interpreting space in new ways either on paper or in my head, challenging myself to create new ideas and too explore the possibilities for my installation based on mental health.

3b) How have you used an integrated (whole/everything (research, development, evidence, evaluation)) to 3D problem solving in A&D.

There has been multiple times that I have used an integrated approach to three dimensional problem solving over the past weeks. For instance, I used the project brief to help outline my initial ideas of creating a installation space that interacted with the audience, my theme word I had been given was discombobulated (to confuse), therefore I used the brief to help me create ideas for an installation that confused the audience and evoked emotion. Subsequently, after researching artists that had created similar work to what I was planning, I decided upon using ‘light art’ to project colours which represented emotion. I gained this idea from the artist James Turrell and I was most inspired by his light art exhibition featured at the Guggenheim. I was then able to apply this knowledge I had discovered, to create my ideas in the form of a three dimensional model on a computer using an aided design program.

3c) How have you evidenced the use of evaluating your work to support solutions to problems in 3D in A&D.

During my evaluation, I evidenced the use of evaluating my work to support to solutions to three dimensional problems in an open and honest way. I wrote that a large proportion of my work was conceptual and rarely found its way from my mind onto paper as evidence. Furthermore, I explained that I could respond to a three dimensional brief but I needed to improve my evidencing and thought processes I was having. In addition, I understood that even though I created a model via the computer, a physical three dimensional model would have benefited me greatly. This is because it would have showed more accurate elements of my proposed installation such as the colours I would be projecting for the light art.   

TIME BASED WORK -

4a) How have you demonstrated the ability to analyze and research a time based problem within A&D

During my project ‘Viral Film and Advertising’ there were many times I demonstrated the ability to analyze and research a time based problem within art and design. One example of this would be the development I made during my ‘Outdoor Gear and Clothing’ commercial. During the creation process for this piece of work I overcame many difficulties and struggles. In particular when it came to the editing process for my film.    

4b) How have you used an integrated (whole/everything (research, development, evidence, evaluation)) to time based problem solving in A&D.

Having completed my research I knew that I wanted my film to look clean and professional, as though it could really be advertising The North Face brand. One time based issue I had was my moving image did not compare well to the product promotion videos I had researched. After comparing and developing my skills in the editing software I realized that my music did not fit and that the scenes of my video needed to be shorter. I rectified this problem, so once my clips were shorter and cut to the beat of the fresh, new, music track, the audiences attention would be grabbed further. This is due to the video being more fast paced, having more happening within it and overall being more exciting than the dull, longer clips with unsuitable music like before.

4c) How have you evidenced the use of evaluating your work to support solutions to problems in time based work in A&D.

I feel that the ongoing evaluation I was applying to my work allowed me to see issues such as the shortening my film needed, allowing me to create a final product that looked professional and sleek. However, during my final evaluation I noted elements I could have improved were seeking better equipment and experimenting with more unique shots to add a new perspective to advertising and promotional film making.

Maths: I have demonstrated the use of maths in multiple areas over the last weeks in mostly practical situations. One example of this would be during my ‘Viral Film and Advertising’ project. Due to me wanting to create a cinematic looking advertisement, I set my DSLR frame rate to record at the ‘Hollywood standard’ 23.976 frames per second. However, to ensure a correct looking video that did not jump I had to set my shutter speed to double that of my frames per second, which calculated to around 1/48s of a second, the closest I could achieve to that was 1/50s of a second which still gave me a perfect looking video.

English: I have demonstrated the use of English skills for the entirety of my projects during this term. Mostly in areas such as evaluations I have ensured that my evaluations have been precise and highlighted all areas of my work through analyze. Thus allowing me to reflect on my work and ensure I do not make simple mistakes again in the future. 

Employability: I have evidenced employability throughout all three projects I have done this term. Most notably in my ‘Viral Film and Advertising’ project and my ‘Fashion Photography and Illustration’ project. I have demonstrated professional approaches to my work, such as designing clear storyboards that incorporated professional terminology such as camera angles and positioning. Another example would be my use of industry standard software throughout the projects. I have demonstrated highly professional use of the Adobe Creative Cloud software using application such as Premiere Pro and After Effects to create media that could be used on a commercial level.

Essay and Delivery Plan

LO6: Make judgements and present arguments through engagement with fundamental historical, cultural and ethical concepts and theories associated with your subject.

Engage in research into the background of the Alice books – why they were written, whether they have morals or license to be creative. What sets them apart from other children’s stories – they allow a more creative outlook on literature rather than books that are made with morals and lessons intact. Research the illustrations of John Tenniel and his tongue and cheek nature – why did they suit this book? What else did he illustrate for? What was the medium?

Research the background of all the Alice movies – incorporate the knowledge of Walt Disney pretty much leaving his animations to the Nine Old Men while he ran Disneyworld and focused on his empire. Write about the low success of Pinocchio and Fantasia, Walt’s “babies”, and how this affected the animation department and the outlook on Alice. Write about his major success as a major feature length movie animation studio, his rivals the Fleischer brothers and his early successes.

Sources: Walt Disney documentary, movies themselves, Animation History books, Alice book.

Carry on writing about Disney and how the animation studio has changed and morphed into something almost wholly 3D/CGI based, and how Tim Burton’s adaptation is both live action and CGI. Explain the benefits and compare/contrast with the original 1951 2D adaptation. Explain how animation is now such that a combination of live action/CGI is possible and both believable (NASA thought Gravity was real), but without the CGI it would be almost impossible – relate to Beauty and Beast live action CGI notes.

Explore cultural backgrounds of fairytales themselves - maybe the PowerfulJRE would help this? How could Alice’s story be used as a lesson or a moral - does it even have one? 

Create appropriate relations to theories - Christopher Vogler, Jamie Campbell, Christopher Booker, Vladimir Propp? (maybe). 

Points to Mention

 The plot; what type of narrative structure are they? How can they be compared and contrasted? What makes that particular type of structure good for that style of movie, if at all? Can it be compared to 3 or 5 act structure?

Does it follow a Hero’s Journey or Propp’s Morphology of the Folk Tale? If only one, suggest/discuss why the other adaptations do not, or whether they follow different types of narrative structure.

Visual storytelling; is it told or shown? (Hitchcock’s idea of “pure” cinema or things explained through dialogue.)

Aesthetics; what type of animation is it? Does this style suit the plot and overall theme of the movie? Refer to mise en scene and semiotics.

Fables and fairytales usually have morals or hidden messages. Do any of these adaptations contain any, and if so, what are they and how can they be compared? Are they the same?

Audience; who is it aimed at? How can you tell? Are they aimed at different audiences? What is the audience supposed to feel – what is the tone and genre? Are they any genre conventions?

History; write about the history surrounding each of these movies – political and historical. Explain how they came about, what it was like during the time they were being animated/created.

Introduction

Before Ozwald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse, there was Alice in Cartoonland – or “Alice Comedies”, 50 silent shorts featuring a live-action girl in a cartoon world.

This was the beginning of the Disney companies long withstanding relationship with Alice. Based on the characters from Lewis Carroll’s classic stories, Alice became the groundwork in which Disney’s reputation grew to what it is today.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” (Carroll and Pullman, 2015, pg. 182)

Written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, after a boat ride down Folly Bridge in Oxford with companions Reverend Robinson Duckworth and the three daughters of Henry Liddell: Lorina Charlotte, Alice Pleasance, and Edith Mary.

Illustrated using etching (a style of printmaking) by Sir John Tenniel, one of the leading illustrators of the time who used his satirical and often radical cartoons as chief cartoon artist for Punch, a weekly magazine containing humour and satire.

Compared to other literature of the time (the Brothers Grimm), Alice was a revelation to Victorian society; a story without moral, rules or to inform children that if they behaved in a certain way then they would be punished.

“It’s sometimes said that Lewis Carroll’s Alice books were the origin of all children’s literature” “In Alice, for the first time, we find a realistic child taking part in a story whose intention was entirely fun.” (Carroll and Pullman, 2015, pg. VI)

Follows a ‘Voyage and Return’ story structure by Christopher Booker. The background of Voyage and Return stories is the protagonist voyaging from the real world into a fantasy world where “everything seems disconcertingly abnormal” (Booker, 2005, pg. 87)

In any story there must first be an inciting incident that “occurs toward, or at, the end of that first act, and the protagonist ‘falls down the rabbithole’.” (Yorke, 2014, pg. 30). Insert a figure with the customised structure done in Photoshop. In Alice’s case, her voyage and return was “just a dream” (Booker, 2005, pg. 106) and she learnt no moral or meaning from it, other than it was “what a wonderful dream it had been” (Carroll and Pullman, 2015, pg. 189).

Alice in Wonderland, 1951

“Sorry, you’re much too big. Simply impassible.” “You mean impossible?” “No, impassible. Nothing’s impossible.” (Alice in Wonderland, 1951)

Based on both Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Overall, the film stays closely related to the source material, with a majority of the dialogue being taken directly from the book itself.

During the times after the release of Walt’s beloved Fantasia and Pinoccio, which did not achieve the appreciation that he had hoped for, Walt’s creativity “was focused on his ideas for Disneyland and he left the animation department largely in the hands of his trusted ‘nine old men’” (Cavalier, 2011, pg. 154). Disney’s version of Alice was met with no better reviews than his vision, Fantasia, and The New York Times declared:

Meant to be animated as a piece of visual storytelling – where the images and movie itself tells the story, rather than the dialogue driving it.

Alice featured a much more striking and vibrant colour palette than that of its predecessors; movies such as Snow White and Bambi were created with muted colours in mind with fears that use of bright colour would distract from the emotion and make the feature length animation movies difficult to watch for 70 minutes of viewing time.

Created using ‘cel’ animation (coined because of the fact that each animation was drawn and painted on sheets of celluloid before being photographed), which is “achieved when ‘key drawings’ are produced indicating the ‘extreme’ first and last movement which are then ‘in-betweened’ to create the process of the move” (Wells, 2011, pg. 36).

The plot of the movie was carved out by first creating a soundtrack that documented the conflict and substantial meetings of characters, and then the animation was fleshed out to fit these songs and the voiceovers added afterward, this is called “proto-narrative”.

Fans of the Lewis Carroll classic disapproved of the “Disneyfication” (the removal of unpleasant plot elements and the act of making a story “safe” for younger audiences and their parents) of the movie, and Disney fans were “uncomfortable with the story’s surrealist episodes and the spiky and somewhat grotesque nature of the supporting characters.” (Cavalier, 2011, pg. 154)

Alice in Wonderland, 2010

“I’m not crazy. My reality is just different than yours.” (Alice in Wonderland, 2010)

More than 50 years after the release of the original Alice movie by Disney, it was recreated using a hybrid combination of live-action and CGI with Tim Burton as the figurehead director. 

(It is reminiscent of Burton’s macabre stop-motion animation films, such as The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride.)

It could almost be seen as a sequel to the 1951 version, as it occurs later in Alice’s life after she has already visited Wonderland – now dubbed “Underland” – and does not follow the original text plot, but draws characters and scenarios from it instead.

The colour palette used for Underland is very dark and muted (see figure), with special exceptions to that of the Mad Hatter (who wears crazy colour combinations that clash and draw your attention) and the Queen of Hearts (donned in a blood coloured crimson).

Alice as Animation

It would not be possible to fully recreate the story of Alice without the use of some type of animation essentially CGI. Fairy tales and fables contain whimsical elements and cause for special effects that cannot be recreated in any other way even with modern technology at the level it’s at – NASA complimented the accuracy of the portrayal of space from the film Gravity (“What I really liked was the feel of space, the look of space, what the earth looked like up on the big screen. It brought back a lot of memories very accurately.” (NASA, 2014) which could not have been achieved without the amount of special effects and CGI used to recreate space itself.

Similarly, the upcoming 2017 live-action adaptation of Beauty and Beast heavily relies on the ability to use CGI for the Beast’s appearance. “You’re only going to see Dan Stevens’ eyes essentially, the rest of him is going to be a CGI creation… He had to have his face covered in basically UV paint, a special new technology… and then he was plopped in front of 30 little cameras and then had to perform the facial part of the Beast” (Clark Collis, PEOPLE, 2017).

Features anthropomorphism (attributing human characteristics to things entirely unhuman such as animals and objects) in the form of the Cheshire Cat, Caterpillar, etc., something that “remains the constant locus of a great deal of animation.” (Wells, 1998, pg. 5)

Conclusion

Since its publication in 1865, Alice has resonated with people worldwide for its timeless story and fun adventures with “mad” characters. It continues to inspire pop culture to this day, and is used for inspiration in movies, books, television shows and games worldwide.

Honor View 10 review: a OnePlus 5T challenger emerges The flagship space is saturated with contenders on all sides and typically they come at a high price. Companies like OnePlus have been trying to shake things up by making their flagships at least somewhat affordable, and users have been clamoring for more offerings that tick more boxes than most mid-range devices, while still maintaining their mid-range price point. Honor has been trying to find that balance, from its Honor 7X — an impressive offering for under $200 — to its latest flagship offering, the Honor View 10 (aka V10). The Honor View 10 rivals that of the OnePlus 5T in its spec sheet and design, while bringing some Eastern flair to the software — and all for less than $500. This is the Honor View 10 review. Design Called the V10 in other markets, the View 10 looks quite nice. Our unit has a dark blue metallic tint which shines brightly on the front around the screen and has a more softly reflective matte finish on the back. The corners and sides are rather rounded and the phone is just thick enough to allow room for the headphone jack on the bottom. Other colors are available but this dark blue is great: understated on first glance and then striking. The spartan backing, with just the Honor logo in the middle and dual camera setup in the corner, where both lenses individually pop out, is especially nice. Yes, that might mean the lens is in danger of scrapes and scratches, but it certainly gives the Honor View 10 a distinct look. Despite having a 5.99-inch screen, the phone’s handling is helped by its taller 18:9 aspect ratio. The result is a phone with a low screen-to-body ratio and a great looking front broken up by only a couple of features. Up top are the usual sensors and so on, but beneath the screen is a capacitive home button with an embedded fingerprint reader. That capacitive button can have multiple functions via gesture controls. The capacitive fingerprint reader lets you navigate via gesture controls A navigation setting allows for taps and swipes to trigger what would otherwise be the soft keys — back, home, and recent apps. This frees up the screen for more work and play. After getting used to the trigger for Google Assistant — swipe up from anywhere underneath the screen — this One Button mode became second nature. Even if it adds to the overall footprint of the phone, the single capacitive key is very useful. Display Editor's Pick OnePlus 5T review: it’s all about that screen Buy now from OnePlus With the OnePlus 3T, we got virtually the same body as the OnePlus 3, but packed with a new processor, more RAM, and a bigger battery. This year though, there isn't a … 18:9 aspect ratios are hardly unique anymore, but it is nice to see Univisium coming to more phones than just high-end flagships. Much like the OnePlus 5T, this screen is kept at Full HD+ resolution. It’s an IPS panel which does get bright enough for outdoor viewing, though I do wish it got just a little bit brighter. Colors are also where they should be, with Honor’s tuning providing saturation on par with other high-performing IPS panels, though it does not reach the same levels of OLED vividness. Text and media all look fine on this screen, but I had to go into the settings and shrink down the rendering sizes. Elements provided by EMUI seem created for a 1080p screen, but not necessarily one this big. This is more of a software peeve than a knock against the screen. It was easily fixed — bringing down the setting by one notch made everything look proper and not bloated. If there is one thing missing here, it is an always-on display. Plenty of manufacturers have been including this to make seeing one’s notifications easier and I wish the View 10 had it too. It’s got an LCD panel, meaning it would consume more battery than on an OLED screen, but the feature still would have been useful. Performance Honor spared little expense making sure this phone has top-notch performance. Though it’s only just starting to happen in the West, it’s pretty normal in Asian markets to have over 4 GB of RAM and a high amount of storage. The View 10 comes with 128 GB of storage and 6 GB of RAM. No matter how you cut it, that is great to have on a phone at this price. Honor spared little expense making sure this phone has top-notch performance: the View 10 comes with 128 GB of storage, 6 GB of RAM and the Kirin 970 See also What is the Kirin 970’s NPU? – Gary explains Neural Networks(NN) and Machine Learning (ML) were two of the year's biggest buzzwords in mobile processoring. Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 970, the image processing unit (IPU) inside the Google Pixel 2, and Apple’s A11 Bionic, all feature dedicated hardware solutions … Honor takes the specs sheet a step further by putting in the latest Huawei HiSilicon processor, the Kirin 970. Yes, the one with the Neural Processing Unit (NPU). The true benefits of neural processing are yet to be proven — this is the first time consumers are seeing this kind of chipset, after all, and its applications are still rather limited — but this is a feature which should be better utilized over time. For now, the NPU works in the camera for automatically finding the right scene mode and for optimizing memory handling based on your usage habits, but there is little else differentiating this phone’s performance from other flagship devices. To that end, the Kirin 970 still does its core job well in providing reliable, smooth, and fast performance. Hardware The View 10’s feature set reflects its design and also sticks to the basics. A microSD card slot can increase the already high amount of built-in storage, and all the connections you’d expect are available. It even has NFC for contactless payment platforms. There is no IP certification on this phone, however, so users will have to be a bit more careful to keep everything dust-free and dry. Though calls were just fine on the T-Mobile network, using this European version of the phone kept me on HSPA+ and Wi-Fi most of the time. That means my battery experience wasn’t quite indicative of what users might get on mostly LTE connectivity. The 3,750 mAh battery got me through a day start to finish without any problems Nonetheless, the phone’s 3,750 mAh battery got me through a day start to finish without any problems. Screen-on time, in particular, got up to six hours while I was mainly on Wi-Fi playing mobile games and watching YouTube. With fast charging solutions, it doesn’t take long for the phone to get back to 50 percent, either. You will be relying on a USB Type-C charger, however, as wireless charging is not included in this metal-clad device. Speaking of YouTube, I have to give a nod to the onboard speaker. It is easy to scoff at a bottom-facing mono speaker unit, but I was surprised to hear some decently loud and rich audio. Being able to put a pair of headphones in easily, thanks to the headphone jack, was also appreciated. Camera On an affordable flagship phone, cameras tend to be the make-or-break feature on an otherwise great package. The camera of the View 10 puts its best foot forward with a dual lens system much like the one found on the OnePlus 5T. The phone’s rear features a 16 MP f/1.8 aperture shooter, with a monochrome 20 MP f/1.8 secondary sensor for adding detail to color photos or taking crisp B&W shots. Together with the potential power of the NPU, this combined camera package can yield some sharp and enjoyable photos, except when using the 13 MP front-facing camera. I hesitate to say the front-facing camera is all that bad, because it is really just down to Honor’s tuning of the software. The View 10 clearly takes a lot of cues from its original Chinese market, where most front-facing cameras focus on beauty modes and tend to be very soft. The camera tends to overexpose for a brighter photo and still yields an overly soft selfie even when all the modes are off. The beautification mode is also available with background bokeh effects — turn them on and things get even softer than before, and my freckles simply disappear. If you want to keep your facial features intact but maintain a soft background, the Wide Aperture mode allows for similar effects but the results can be spotty. This beauty mode might be great for someone who appreciates the airbrushed look, but that person is not me. The best I can say is that the front-facing camera is certainly capable of good photos, but what that actually means to each individual user could differ. Normal Wide Aperture Beauty Mode Portrait mode and wide aperture modes are available for the rear cameras as well, and when used with some extra care, the photos coming out of the phone can be pretty great. Sharpness is where it should be — essentially the opposite of the front-facing camera — and colors are mostly accurate. The camera tends to overexpose when tapping darker areas, but a bit of work on the compensation slider will make the photo look more accurately exposed. As I said, with a little bit of extra attention to detail, the View 10’s cameras do their job pretty well. There are plenty of other modes included in this camera package, like HDR, which is a mode rather than a toggle (a personal pet peeve). There are also pro modes and more artsy modes if you want to get fancy. I also like that the video mode has the ability to use the Wide Aperture setting while recording. It can lead to some interesting — albeit very artificial — depth of field footage. However, the camera is already pretty wide at f/1.8, so bokeh is not hard to come by. Unfortunately, you will need very steady hands because there is no OIS on the View 10. This is a problem immediately apparent in video recordings, but it also hinders the phone’s low light performance. A prompt for the user to “hold hands still” while sharpening the image reflects a long shutter due to the lack of lighting. During that time basically any movement will make the photo blurry. OIS would have been a great addition to an otherwise quite capable dual lens setup, but affordability often creates that kind of give-and-take situation. You will need very steady hands because there is no OIS on the View 10 camera Software The software experience differs from many established UIs in the West. Honor is a company from the East, after all, and it brings with it some of the common tropes found in Chinese spins on Android. It lacks an app drawer by default, but you can change the “Home Style” in the settings or just get a new launcher altogether. Unlike some phones released in Asia that we’ve imported for review, this Honor View 10 is made for Europe, so all the textual elements fit properly in the interface. Dive deeper into the settings menu and you’ll find a ton of different ways to customize the experience too. We already mentioned the navigation dock earlier, where the one capacitive key can be used for anything that the soft keys would otherwise do. Aside from that are some app-centric abilities, like putting access to some apps behind a lock or making more than one instance of, for example, a social media application. Speaking of social media, a nice feature in the gallery app allows for one-click sharing of photos straight to Snapchat. This is more useful for people who are on that network, but it can be handy and it eliminates having to use the often shoddy built-in Snapchat camera. Finally there is Face Unlock, which is basically what it sounds like — after recognizing the user’s face, the phone will unlock and go straight into the home screen quickly. It works about as good as similar features found on other phones, but Honor added a couple other functions into the mix. One ability shows sensitive information in notifications on the lock screen only when recognition is achieved. The phone can also wake when raised, which makes for a fast unlocking experience when coupled with Face Unlock. Overall, there are some good features added to this version of Android and launching with Android 8.0 Oreo is a big plus, too. EMUI has its fans but it also has some detractors, so if you’ve had contact with any other Huawei or Honor phones recently, you’ll already know how you feel about it. Specs Honor View 10 Display 5.99-inch IPS 1080 x 2160 resolution 403 ppi 18:9 aspect ratio ~78% screen-to-body Processor HiSilicon Kirin 970 GPU Mali-G72 MP12 RAM 4/6 GB Storage 64/128 GB microSD card expansion up to 256 GB Cameras Rear cameras Main sensor: 16 MP RGB, f/1.8 aperture Secondary sensor: 20 MP monochrome, f/1.8 aperture Front camera: 13 MP, f/2.0 aperture Audio Bottom-facing speaker Sensors Fingerprint Hall Accelerometer G-sensor Electronic compass Gyroscope Proximity Ambient light Battery 3,750 mAh Material Metal unibody IP rating None Networks GSM, HSPA, LTE Connectivity Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot Bluetooth 4.2 with aptX HD GPS NFC Infrared Ports USB Type-C 3.5 mm audio jack SIM Dual Nano-SIM Software Android 8.0 Oreo EMUI Colors Navy Blue, Midnight Black, Beach Gold, Aurora Blue, Charm Red Dimensions and weight 157 x 75 x 7 mm 172 g Gallery Pricing and final thoughts The Honor View 10 price tells a good story. Any phone with features like this that comes in under $500 is going to pique our interest. Though there are even cheaper phones available and certainly higher-powered phones (at higher prices too), this phone’s market segment includes pretty much just the OnePlus 5T. We will do a comparison between the two soon, but the bottom line is this: Honor has done a great job delivering a high-end experience at a mid-range price, and with potential improvements to the Kirin 970’s NPU still to come, the View 10 could maintain relevance longer than even some big ticket flagships. The Honor View 10 is done very well, and at this price point the whole package puts up a very convincing argument for anyone in the market for a OnePlus 5T. , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2rU5hQW