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creamypudding · 5 years

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WIP Clack sneak peek

Hi,

I’ve decided to upload a sneak peek of my WIP Clack story. I’m currently on writing chapter 8 and I think the story might have 10 chapters, so I’m sort of nearing the end mark, but also still a fair way off completion because a lot of editing needs to be done. I’m currently re-reading everything that I’ve written so far to get my head around the timeline, which I had no clue about when I first started writing it, so now I’m making minor adjustments (read: major edits) to the previous chapters before moving on to chapter 8. It’s my form of procrastination because chapter 8 is a POV change, which is notoriously difficult on my soul. So, while there is no guarantee that this chapter 1 will look exactly like this when I get to posting the whole story, it should still be a very close approximation once I’m done with everything. I am happy to share this bit and hope to pique your interest in this AU. This story will explore mental health issues, like PTSD and body dysphoria. The main setting is in a hospital, so set expectations accordingly. Title: Silver Lining (working title) Chapter: 1 Fandom: FFVII - Modern AU Pairing: Cloud/Zack Rated: Teen Word Count: 10,232 Summary: Cloud is a delivery driver and one day gets a very specific job to complete, which sends him to the brink of discomfort, but leaves the door open for something very wonderful to potentially bloom.

CHAPTER 1 - Despite the winter sun being at its low-hanging apex, and this region never getting any snow, it was still cold. The frosty air gnawed and bit into the tip of Cloud’s nose, blasted against and stiffened his glove-covered fingers, and caused shivers to wrack his body. Winter wasn’t the best time of year to ride his motorcycle, but his passion for his vehicle outweighed the seasonal discomfort. He was as rugged up as he could be with his helmet and scarf underneath, multiple shirts, and a sweater under his riding jacket, and thermals under the leather pants to keep his lower limbs warm, yet Cloud looked forward to arriving at work, which he usually did around midday, where he would hop into the familiar white and blue delivery van with its air conditioner, funky smell, worn leather seating, and sticky patches all over the dashboard caused by spilled coffee.

He lived about half an hours ride from work and arrived at the two-story brick warehouse in a business district of the sprawling metropolis. He rode around the back of the large, empty lot, to the garage capable of housing five vans and parked his bike near the wall. He left his helmet hanging on the handlebars and headed through the lofty loading zone, past the only vehicle still reminding (his own) and to the door and into the heated office space beyond. With a relieved sigh he pulled his gloves off and rubbed them together to regain feeling and warmth.

Tifa gave the usual teasing greeting of, "Hello, Cloud. Sleep well?" which forced a grumbled unintelligible retort from him. He headed straight for the left side of the sparsely decorated rectangular room. A long, mid-chest high cupboard stood along the wall with five color-coded plastic double-letter trays atop of it. This was their duty roster system. The top tray houses his schedule for the day, and the bottom one held his payslips and things of that nature. A large whiteboard hung on the wall right above the cupboard with each employee’s details demarcated to line up with their specific letter-trays.

He grabbed his sheet of paper, listing addresses and delivery times, and stalked off to the van, grabbing the held out travel mug which Tifa had filled with hot coffee. “Thanks,” he muttered while she smiled at him with amusement. Cloud counted his blessings that Tifa was understanding of his late starts to the day and his sporadic-yet-far-too-common absences.

Cloud sank into his familiar seat, leaving the bright pink folder on his lap and cradled his mug. It warmed his icy hands and as he slowly sipped the liquid it gave him the energy to recuperate from the arduous task of having woken up this morning and gotten himself out of bed. He skimmed over his list of jobs for the day at a casual pace, set his GPS and then headed off to get his workday underway.

His day consisted of a sizeable amount of pick-ups and drop-offs. Small and large parcels and goods alike. Usually, he’d radio Gavin or Therone to see if he could get more jobs, but today he felt extra drained so just stuck to what was on his sheet. He drove to familiar businesses and places, and some new locations. One of these was somewhat out of the way. Cloud took a left turn onto the freeway and headed out of the metropolitan area. The scenery grew ever more rural and then downright quaint; cows and horses dotted fields, small bakeries and one-pump gas stations came and went.

The road, though no less busy, lacked maintenance and pot-holes great and small peppered it. The place he was after was on the main road and turned out to be a giant greenhouse. He pulled into the large expansive gravel forecourt, and to his surprise found the car park almost completely full. People came and went, carrying gardening equipment and flowers of all sorts of shapes and colors. He pulled into a parking space, and got out, heading for the large glass structure. For being so out-of-the-way of the major population centers, it sure was bustling.

As Cloud entered through a set of glazed double doors, and then another set of automated sliding doors to get into the building proper, he was instantly accosted by the perfuming fragrant smell of flowers, as well as a very comfortable warmth. Winter didn’t touch this botanist’s wet dream and it almost felt tropical. Cloud sneezed. Repeatedly.

He was reminded that flowers weren’t his friends, though he could still appreciate the botanical marvel he found himself in. Flowers and plants of all shapes, sizes, species, and colors grew absolutely everywhere. A lot were set in pots, but an equal number were also growing seemingly right from out of the soiled and mulched ground. It smelled like earth and damp. Not a wholly unpleasant smell. It's just the flowers that got Cloud sniffling like crazy.

He still sneezed when a friendly voice sounded next to him, “Here. My flowers have that effect on some people.”

Cloud turned and took the held out tissue with a, “Thanks,” and blew his nose. Once back in control of his body's reflexes he looked at the short-in-stature woman who had spoken to him; her brunette hair was tied in a ponytail, with wavy bangs falling wall past her shoulders. Her eyes, a vibrant green, sparkle and seemed enhanced by the rusty red of her mid-waist length cardigan, which sat over the top of a blue and white striped blouse. Her look of a homey farm-girl was completed by the soiled, three-quarter denim trousers and big brown boots. “Your flowers?' Cloud asked, "Are you the owner?”

The woman grinned brightly and gave a curt nod. She looked around, with a lot of pride. “This place is my life’s work. Growing and cultivating plants of all types has always been my dream. And of course, sharing the joy this life brings with it.” Green eyes returned to settle on Cloud once more.

Cloud thought her rather pretty. He wasn’t sure if it was her features or her passion for her work. Whichever the case, she seemed rather too cheerful. “For a profit though,” he said, not caring to disguise the sardonic tone.

“Well of course. Girl’s gotta eat, right?” she laughed. “Name’s Aerith Gainsborough. Welcome to my greenhouse. How can I help you?”

She stuck out her hand and Cloud took it. “Cloud Strife. I’m here to pick up a delivery,” he said with little expression to his face. Being around jovial people exhausted him. He could already feel his energy draining away and mentally scanned his brain to see if he had passed any coffee shops on the way here.

“Oh, wonderful! I’ve been expecting you. Come this way.” She turned on a dime, her ponytail swinging wildly and marched with a slight bounce to her step.

Cloud followed.

“It’s such awful news what happened to Zack,” she began, rather worriedly. “I absolutely hate not being able to go see him, but I’m flat out here. So many weddings and government ceremonies to plan for. My own delivery guys are all booked up for the next few months, and the hospital is too far away for me to get to on such short notice,” she muttered somewhat defeated.

Despite not knowing what she was talking about, he reveled in seeing some of that cheer strip away from the woman. He possessed an inherent distrust of cheerful people, for cheer was a disguise best reserved for shop-front clerks who wanted to flog you something. It wasn’t for real-life, flesh-and-blood people. Real people had their own shit lives and problems to deal with. That’s what he told himself at least. He had always found it paid off to be wary of the too happy and enthusiastic. He could relate to the woman more in her slightly soured state though. Yet not too much to engage in actual conversation with her.

They made their way into a large shipping container, housed off to the side. This was apparently the office area if the desk with a computer sitting on it, and the various cork boards and whiteboards propped up on portable stands, meant anything. The other thing that Cloud spotted was the very elaborate bouquet sitting on the desk.

“Besides, I’m sure he’ll have far too many visitors for me to be able to spend any quality time with him.” Aerith reached the desk with the bouquet sitting on top of it and came to pause before it. She stretched out an arm as if steadying herself against the table.

The quiet which followed unsettled Cloud somewhat. The bubbly energy seemed depleted.

“Uh, is everything alright?” he tried, merely as a courtesy.

Cloud heard the sniffle, and saw the motion which could only be a wipe at eyes. Aerith turned around, cheeks ruddy and eyes glassy. She gave a weepy smile. “No. It’s not, but I hope it will be very soon. I really wish I could go be with him. He needs someone to look after him.” “I thought you said he was in hospital. Isn’t that—”

“He needs some love. Some care. From people who genuinely care about him. I know the hospital staff do their best, but they’re just staff.” She sniffled some more, grabbed the bouquet and walked it over to Cloud. “If it’s alright with you, I’d like for you to make regular flower deliveries for me. I don’t know if he’s conscious or not, but I want his room to be full of color. I want him to not feel alone. So please bring this to him.” She handed the surprisingly heavy item over. “And I’d also like for you to be my regular delivery guy. I don’t want Zack to have to put up with not getting to know you.”

Cloud grunted and pulled a face. “Getting to know me?”

“Yes. You’ll be my proxy.”

“I'm just a delivery guy. Not an… escort, or… friend for hire,” he said with unease. Cloud definitely hadn’t signed up for this.

“I know that. I'm not asking you to do anything other than deliver my flowers to him. But when you meet him I'm sure you won't be able to avoid having conversations with him.” Aerith’s growing smile faltered, and sadness swept through, robbing her of any mirth which might have burgeoned. “Oh gosh, let him be alright,” she said to no one in particular. “Tifa said it would be alright for you to check in on him regularly and to give me updates when you come to pick up the flowers.”

“Did she now?” Cloud said with derision and barely kept the eye roll at bay.

Aerith nodded and started walking back out into the main building, and Cloud continued to follow.

The pungent smell of flowers accosted Cloud once more as they made their way back to the front of the greenhouse. A sinking feeling grew. “You know Tifa personally?”

“Oh yes. We’ve been friends for years. She’s told me lots about you.” Aerith threw a cheeky smile over her shoulder, back at Cloud.

Without a doubt, this had all been an elaborate set-up. He let a defeated sigh slip out and wondered if this Zack guy was even an actual patient. “More like she complains about me to you.”

“Oh no. Nothing like that.” Her laugh was like the tinkling of bells.

Cloud still knew that it was exactly like that. “Well, she’s never made mention of you,” he sulked.

His remark made Aerith spin around. Her smile radiated ever so brightly. “I’m pretty sure she has and you just never listen to her,” she giggled and gently pushed her palm against his shoulder.

Cloud couldn’t refute that. It seemed like a very reasonable assumption.

“Anyway, can you just wait here a moment. This bouquet is missing something.” Aerith dashed off, leaving Cloud’s nose to develop another irritating tickle.

The pungent flower smells aside, he also knew this whole situation reeked of something, but he didn’t know what. Well, perhaps he did know. Of course Tifa purposefully sent him on this delivery run. She was always trying to get him to be more social and make friends. Something which Cloud had no interest in doing. He thought it cruel to force friendship upon him with some guy who sounded bedridden. And to be fair, he felt it equally awful to force himself onto other people. Cloud hoped that if this Zack guy truly was sick that he would get well soon. That way Cloud wouldn’t have to visit for very long, saving them both the agony of playing at a fake friendship.

Aerith returned holding a few brilliantly vibrant yellow flowers. She stuck them into the bouquet, which mostly consisted of blues and purples.

“There. Some much needed complementary opposites.” She stepped back from her creation and admired it. “I hope he’ll love it.” Worry returned to her face. “I hope he’s okay. Please tell him I’ll visit as soon as I can if he’s awake.” Aerith looked like she was going to say more but clapped her mouth shut and shook her head. “No. I won’t bombard you with any more. Everything I need to tell him is in the card. Please see to it that he receives the flowers, and I look forward to seeing you next time.”

Cloud gave her a courteous nod. “Next time, then.” He knew that no amount of complaining to Tifa would get him off this roster duty. She probably had also talked to everyone else at work to make sure he couldn’t swap delivery duties, that’s how crafty she was.

_____________

The hospital Cloud drove to was a familiar destination. He parked around the loading bay, avoiding the large conglomerate of media stationed out the front of the main entrance. The hustle and bustle out the front of the hospital, though not completely foreign, was still a little strange. Cloud wondered for all of two seconds what famous or newsworthy person had ended up inside before he refocused on his job. He grabbed the bouquet and marched himself inside, making his way to the nurses station, as Aerith apparently hadn’t known the exact location of the recipient of her gift. He had done a fair few deliveries to the different wards in the past, which was why a fair few of the regular staff knew him by sight and gave him acknowledging nods as he passed.

“Oh, those are lovely. Who are they for, darl?” an elderly and a rather plump woman greeted Cloud warmly as he stood by the imposing desk.

“Evening, Barbara.” Cloud didn't have many friends to speak of, but most people he came into somewhat regulate contact with were friendly enough with him, and he reciprocated as much as possible. It's not like he hated people. It had more to do with him being too tired and exhausted most of the time to exert energy into keeping friends around. “They are for a—” he looked at the attached card for the last name. “Zack Fair.”

“Oh. He’s a right popular chap. I wish they would have sent him to a different hospital, to be honest with you. Maybe Golden Oak or Edgewater. That media pack out the front is driving everyone here crazy.”

“What? All those people out there are here for him?” A sinking feeling swept through Cloud. He didn’t deal well with being in the limelight, not even via loose association.

The head nurse gave a sullen nod. “Them out the front aren’t even half of it. Military folks have been in and out of the ICU all day. Day shift have had it up to here,” she gestured well above her head, “with all the kafuffle.”

Barbara’s words caused a rush of irritation to flurry inside of Cloud. He wrinkled his nose. “Military?”

She hummed in the back of her throat and shuffled through some papers at her station. “Mr. Fair is military personnel, or I guess that should be Corporal Fair? Is that how those titles are supposed to work?”

It took everything in Cloud’s power not to dump the flowers and leave. “Don’t they have a military hospital for this kind of stuff?” he grumbled through grit teeth, already knowing that the answer was ‘yes’.

“Apparently it wasn’t good enough for the injuries he’s sustained. He’ll be needing long term care and rehabilitation, and they aren’t cut out for that.”

“Ah—that bad, huh?” Some of the irritation quelled with a wash of sympathy.

Barbara gave a solemn nod. “Here, darl. There has been nothing else on the news all day.” She directed her gaze toward a television mounted on the wall to the right of the desk and turned the volume up a little.

Cloud hadn’t watched the news in what felt like months. It was always too depressing. “They let you watch TV?”

“Only the news channels, so we can be atop of any breaking disasters or crisis as they unfold.”

“Ah. Seems sensible enough.” Cloud turned his attention toward the news coverage. It was a lot of body cam footage from a battlefield. People running, gunfire, all in a vastly ambiguous and completely rubble-filled landscape. Cloud didn’t know which war this was, or where it was. He tried his hardest to not pay attention to things of that nature.

The footage went on. Shaking imagery, snaps of stillness, the bottom of the screen covered in scrolling text. Images of fallen soldiers bombarded the screen, but amongst all of it someone came charging in and pulled the fallen out and to safety. Cloud couldn’t make out what was happening exactly, but he got the idea that it was always the same guy darting in and out of cover, to collect the fallen.

Cloud keyed into the faint sound of the news reporter saying something about bravery and selfless acts of courage.

The footage eventually cut to the outside of a familiar building; Phoenix Dessert Downs; the hospital Cloud was currently in.

“Poor fool got himself riddled with more bullets and shrapnel than all of the other men and women he saved. The field hospital got most of it out, and he’s had more blood transfusions than I’ve ever seen anyone else get, but they can’t give him the long term care he needs. Oh, Cloud. Don’t look so glum.”

Cloud startled somewhat and felt his face return to a more neutral position. “I’ll most likely be coming here often, to deliver flowers to him.”

“He’s got a sweetheart, hmm?” Barbara smiled. “Here, take this pass. It will get you through to ICU and past all the military,” she said, sounding exhausted.

“Military personnel can be a right handful,” he observed and gratefully took the pass.

“It’s what day shift have been complaining about the most,” she sighed deeply.

“Bet they’re glad to hand it over to you and your crew, huh.”

“You know night shift handles pressure and unwanted riff-raff better,” she winked.

“That you do,” he gave a small smile.

Cloud took his leave of the nurses station, feeling exhausted from the exchange, and wandered the halls toward ICU. He observed that there were indeed a lot of military personnel mingling around the halls; mostly camped out at the vending machines, which made Cloud realize just how run down and in need of something caffeinated he felt.

He detoured to a coffee machine and drank the burnt, bitter and old tasting brew with a scowl as he forged ahead. He showed his pass to the appropriate authorities and was let through to the ward.

Evening had fallen, and though the interior was brightly lit, the ward was rather hushed. Nursing staff came and went, tending to all the critical patients. Machines beeped and whirred. Quiet murmurs ran through the place like an electric undercurrent.

Cloud went in the direction he saw the most amount of people, confident that it was the room he was after. He stopped across the way and looked in through the glass windows, which lined the wall facing the ward. He recognized the high ranking officials uniforms. A lot of Sergeants of varying degrees. It was kind of impressive, but it also irritated Cloud. This whole situation was irritating and he didn’t think he’d like to make these flower deliveries a staple thing of his working day if this was what he had to walk into every time..

He finished his coffee, tossed it in the trash, breathed deep, and went into the room to get his delivery sorted.

The buzzing murmur of conversation grew marginally louder as he opened the door and let himself in, but then it ceased in a flash, as all eyes turned onto him.

Cloud hadn’t felt this uncomfortable since his last family get together. He swallowed down the nerves. “Delivery for Zack Fair, from a Miss Gainsborough.”

“Ah, Aerith, the sweet thing. Just put them over there. Zack will be happy to see them if he eventually wakes up,” someone, who appeared to be a Sergeant Major, said to him.

The ‘if’ wasn't lost on Cloud. He gave a curt nod and weaved through the small crowd toward the bed at the center of the room. He could make out a seemingly sleeping figure in the bed. His head was bandaged up and gauze was plastered to his cheek. Wires and tubes were attached all over the man and ran in all manner of directions; some hooked up to monitoring equipment and all kinds of drips filled with clear fluids, but also bags of blood.

Cloud looked for somewhere to put the flowers. Here was a small tray table next to the bed, which was covered in bouquets and cards. More bouquets sat on a chair, and others lined the wall to the left of the bed. Clearly, this guy wouldn’t need any more flowers. He wondered if he could convince Aerith that the hospital room was colorful enough already, and could thus spare himself the trip out here and most of all back here.

He supposed he would have no such luck, and instead busied himself making room on the small tray table for Aerith’s flower arrangement (which, if Cloud had to admit, was one of the nicest in the room). He positioned the card so it would also be seen if this guy ever woke up. Cloud figured himself lucky to get out of conversing with him today. Was it cruel to hope he’d never have to make conversation with this guy?

Probably.

He looked back at the broken man lying in the bed. The bandaged head slumped toward Cloud’s direction and the man’s eyes seemed to be open a small crack.

Cloud looked back toward everyone else in the room, but no one was paying attention; too busy talking about tactical information; what to do about the remaining company and what honors to bestow upon the survivors, because Cloud was apparently not important enough to not talk about that kind of stuff in front of.

Cloud didn’t get what everyone was in here for if it wasn’t to help support a fallen comrade. So he decided that they probably just wanted to feel important and were here for some other self-serving purpose.

He turned back toward Zack and quietly murmured, “From Aerith. She’s worried about you, and is sorry that she can’t be here right now.”

Eyes slipped shut and it was barely visible, but Cloud thought he saw the ghost of a smile.

He turned and left, wondering if it would be a problem that he didn’t get the delivery signed off. He didn’t care enough about it to get one from any of the Sergeants in the room, especially not when he heard a faint, “Does General Strife have a kid?" pass through the gap in the door just as he shut it.

He got out of there as fast as possible, finished his other jobs through fatigue gnawing at him. Tifa asked how his day had been when he came back to delivery the van and invoices. He didn’t give her more than a grunting reply before heading back out, hopping on his bike and racing back home so he could collapse on his bed and sleep.

_____________

Aerith asked for a flower arrangement to be sent every second day, which at least gave Cloud rest in between to not stress about having to be in a wholly unpalatable environment. Despite only passing through and lingering in the place for 20 minutes at most, those were still 20 minutes he would rather never have to endure in the first place. But when he saw Aerith again to pick up the next delivery, her gratitude melted Cloud’s displeasure. His heart grew heavier with each passing day that he couldn’t tell her that the man she was so worried about still hadn’t woken up yet, both for her and himself.

He detested the hospital run. It stressed him out and stress legitimately was no good for him. As the first week of doing this job passed, Cloud could feel himself becoming unwell. He always got sick when he was highly stressed, and going to the hospital was a toxic cocktail of stress for him. It didn’t matter how well he organized himself; going in at 6 o’clock at night when there were fewer media and military sleazeballs lurking about. The late deliveries didn’t let him completely escape run-ins with the military. He took to wearing a baseball cap, pulled down over his face, but he could still feel the lingering eyes and hear the too-loud whispering rumors that he was who they all thought he was and everything that came with that territory.

Each day he heard something else; ‘Did you hear he couldn't even finish basic training?’; in the hallway; ‘Did you hear he got special treatment?’; the elevator; ‘Did you hear his parents pulled strings?’; the coffee station; ‘Did you hear he slept with a General?’; passing the door into the bedridden man’s room; ‘Did you hear he got spoon-fed the entrance exam questions?’.

Each day the well of his resentment grew exponentially deeper.

He tried to ignore, to not hear, to pretend he imagined it all. He went about his job, hurrying in and out of the hospital, sometimes seeking refuge at the hot coffee dispenser to refocus himself and get a caffeine hit to stop him from falling asleep behind the wheel, especially as these hospital visits completely drained him. Cloud hated having to be here. Hated the military. Himself. The bed-ridden source of his misery.

Why, out of all the hospitals in the world and in particular this city, did apparent poster boy have to land in this one? Not that Cloud supposed it mattered much since Tifa somehow knew Aerith and both ladies apparently loved pushing their own agendas onto himself.

He kept doing his assigned job though because Tifa (predictably) had put an embargo on anyone taking or swapping that particular job off Cloud. It did not help his mood or physical health. He could feel the onset of the cold and the day after having been stuck in an elevator with 3 military goons who had recognized him, as he had done basic training with two of them close to a decade ago, he crashed and couldn’t get out of his bed when his alarm went off at 11 in the morning. He couldn’t face another day of doing that job, even though today, most likely, he wouldn’t have to go to the hospital. The weeklong process of going through the hospital halls, seeing uniformed personnel, had completely sapped him of his already minimal pool of energy and it crescendoed today, so he slept the day and the next away.

Tifa rang several times, checking in on Cloud, which he appreciated.

"I'm sorry, am I pushing you too hard? I can reduce your workload to five runs a day."

"Do I still need to cover the hospital?"

Silence greeted him for a few beats, "Is it really stressful for you?"

Cloud felt like such a pathetic weakling. Suddenly a surge of needing to ‘suck it up’ raced through him. "No. I think being around all the sick people is just making me sick. I’ll be okay in another day… I think.”

“Take as long as you need. Felix is doing the hospital runs for now. If you think it would be better for your health not to—” “No, really. I’ll be fine. Just give me back my usual runs when I’m back.”

“Okay.” Cloud hated his strong sense of duty.

_____________

Cloud returned to work and did his best to ignore the people around him. He went even later to the hospital, just to be on the safe side and as much as possible hid behind the flower arrangements he carried, especially when it came to the guard who was stationed at the door. Cloud still felt worn out by the almost daily ordeal but, with a sardonic huff, decided to soldier on.

As the weeks passed, he learned more about his comatose burden through the media. Nothing about the operation he had been involved in though, as that was deemed highly sensitive. He wasn’t one to watch the news, but found himself watching it now, just to get some information, especially when he heard conversations with phrases like 'such a shame’, 'cut down in his prime, ‘it's all too bad’, as he passed by people in the hospital.

He learned about all the honors, achievements, and military pursuits of the spirited young man who now lay unmoving and in a critical condition in a sterile hospital bed with intubators, drips, catheters and various other devices attached to himself. Cloud could appreciate the sadness of it, the tragedy of what had befallen this man, especially since the reports said he had worked tirelessly at saving his comrades and single-handedly kept the squad’s Sergeant alive.

It dawned on him one day while standing there in the empty darkened room, surrounded by the staggering amount of flowers, that it almost felt like he was visiting a crypt. Yet there also sat awe in this place, because he bore witness to this barely-there military man, fighting and struggling for his life, even in this perfect stillness, which was punctured by the rasping breath through the oxygen mask and the soft sound of machinery in the background. The monument of decaying flowers, deflating balloons, knocked over 'get well's cards all spoke of one thing: the love of the people; those he had saved, those who knew him, the general public; they adored him and what he represented. Unwavering spirit, devotion, sacrifice, martyrdom. It was like the flowers were a farewell.

Cloud stared at that physically manifested concept every time he stood in the room, trying to find a place for one more flower arrangement. One more tribute to lay at the foot of the living memorial. It left a sour taste in Cloud’s mouth. He understood that this man had been deemed a 'go-getter’ by his superiors. A real 'people person’ by his peers. Someone who had always joked and make sure all his comrades and anyone under and even above himself had been okay, which was what had made him such a great Corporal—had made him. All those things were now relegated to the past, a memory, a dream. And all for what…. Cloud got stuck on that thought and with pure derision, muttered, “Look where all that love and affection has gotten you. You’re stuck here, all alone, in a room full of dead things. And the public and military can’t even wait for you to be properly dead before turning your room into a grave.” Admittedly Cloud was having a rather glum sort of a pensive day.

He kept delivering flowers, kept watching the news late at night when he couldn’t sleep, despite being utterly physically and mentally exhausted. And he listened on the radio while driving his van. It was never anything terribly meaningful or insightful. All events from the battlefield, reports on casualties, and anything pertaining to the mission which had landed the man Cloud visited on an almost daily basis in the hospital, was barely forthcoming. The operation was still deemed too sensitive and top secret. So all the media could report on was Zack Fair.

Cloud felt somewhat entrapped by the man he had been made to visit. Zack Fair turned into a morbid oddity and curiosity; a form of Stockholm Syndrome perhaps. A trainwreck Cloud was glued to witnessing. He wondered if Zack would ever wake up. He wondered what the man was actually really like. He doubted anyone would ever speak badly of the man or call him out on any asshole-ish behavior while he was in such an in-between life and death state of existence. He couldn’t buy that this guy was so amazing, wonderful, kind, fun. Sure, he sounded nice and like the exact type of person, Cloud avoided in his life. It sounded like a real shame for Corporal Fair to not recover from this. But maybe it also really wasn’t. Who knew? Cloud sure as hell didn’t, and wouldn’t know what the actual reality of the matter was unless the dead rose from his coma.

Cloud tried to not lose any more sleep over it and pushed his wonderings away, focusing on the job at hand, which in the end led him right back to the hospital, standing before his charge, staring down at him, thinking a myriad of conflicting thoughts. In the end, he always decided he didn’t care. He was getting paid. It was just the damn military personnel that got under his skin and made this the worst part of his day. He resented coming here. Hated that the comatose guy didn't just wake up, freeing Cloud of his obligations.

"You're one hell of a selfish son of a bitch," Cloud muttered another day, after having caught a half-heard conversation between the military personnel stationed outside of the door, bemoaning their station over having to watch and guard against media entry. "But keep giving them Hell out there," Cloud finished with a smile, liking the discomfort being inflicted on people who resented having to look after someone who apparently did crazy brave things, like sticking his neck out for other people. Cloud supposed the extra resentment outside might have something to do with a new spate of news that he had caught last night.

"You know you got a bunch of medals? I don't know if anyone's been in to inform you, but… congratulations," Cloud said with bitter amusement as he set the flowers down on the tray table. "You got a Medal of Honor, a Distinguished Service Cross, and a Silver Star Medal. You're one impressive guy, Corporal Fair." He bent down to look Zack in his more-akin-to-dead-than-alive face. His eyes trailed over the bandaged forehead, the patch over his left cheek, the mask covering his nose and mouth to help him breathe.

"Hope it was worth being like this, man." Cloud was greeted with the even breathing, the whirring of machines, and the faint beep of the heart rate monitor.

He stood back up and left the room.

_____________

There came a point, somewhere around the 1-month mark of Cloud having started on his hospital delivery route, that things seemed to change a little. He arrived at the comatose man’s room to find the oxygen mask off and a considerable amount of equipment gone. The mountain of flowers also looked smaller and a more sensible amount. Cloud tested the room with a faint, “Hello?” but received no reply. He went over to the bed, warily inspecting the other man, who looked gaunt and pale, but a lot better for not having all that equipment and tubing attached to himself.

There was no motion, other than an even fall of the chest, and generally speaking, the man looked like he had always done while lying in this bed. Cloud left the flowers and headed out, catching Barbara before leaving.

“How is Zack doing? He’s no longer on the oxygen mask.” “He is doing a lot better, yes. His independent breathing improved so he doesn't need the respirator.” She wasn’t willing to give much more information than that, so Cloud left to return the van and go home to sleep, which came a little easier to him that night.

It was also roughly around the 1-month mark that Cloud began enjoying his trips to the hospital a little, especially on rough days because an almost comatose person couldn't give him any flack for not arriving precisely, to the second, on time. They weren’t going to back-chat or give him the stink-eye. Other than the military being everywhere, Cloud relaxed considerably when coming here every second day. The walk through the hall was uncomfortable but he would grab an awful cup of coffee, hurry to his target’s location, not even be acknowledged by the security anymore as Cloud was as good as the bland decor around the hospital, and dumped the flowers wherever he found space. He then sat down in the uncomfortable guest chair and peacefully drank his burnt coffee.

That routine and place almost became like a sanctuary. Sure, he had to traverse Hell to get to it, but it was pleasant when he got there. He found it nice to not be in a mad rush, nice not having to do small talk. And then two weeks after the respirator had come out, the military finally, for the most part, departed. Things were getting even better for Cloud.

One day, he had been in a frantic rush the entire day due to massive traffic congestions absolutely everywhere he had to get to. Exhausted and starved he grabbed whatever looked least offensive at the hospital cafeteria and made his way to the ICU. Once he had deposited yet another exquisite bouquet, he slumped into the guest chair, which had been cleared of flowers a while ago, and relaxed with a deep sigh.

“God, what a day from hell,” he bemoaned and after a few beats of breathing and quiet, he sat up straight and opened his styrofoam food container.

“I’m sure you don’t mind me eating in here, right?” Cloud glanced at the only other occupant of the room. “I mean, I do bring you all these flowers, and I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who regularly visits. So, if you’re not going to thank me, the least you could afford me is to let me use you like a tray table, huh.”

Cloud looked at the way the body in the bed lay almost lifeless. A steady beating and shallow rise and fall of the chest were the only signs of life.

Taking the prolonged silence as permission, Cloud dug into his meal. Was it strange talking to an unconscious person? It didn’t feel any stranger than talking to himself late at night. It was about as enlightening, but he weirdly enough did enjoy the idea of another set of ears listening, without receiving dumb and pointless input.

“You’re not missing out on much with this food,” Cloud informed as he chewed. “Too dry and rubbery. But food’s food. And bad burnt coffee is still caffeine.” He took a sip, scrunched up his face and placed the cup carefully onto the bed before himself.

He ate the rest of his meal in silence, mulling over his schedule. When he was done he tidied up and got up. “Well, it was fun, Zack. It’s okay if I call you Zack, right? Or you prefer Sergeant Fair? All your new fancy medals aside, you also got a promotion, y’know?” Cloud looked and got no response. “Zack it is then. See ya later.” And with that he left, feeling far more energized after a meal and some liquid energy.

_____________

Cloud kept coming because Aerith kept ordering flower arrangements to be delivered. He lingered ever longer in that room, finding it oddly meditative. Zack's silent company reminded Cloud of his old family dog, and as Cloud sat in the chair, thinking about it, he almost reached over to pay the comatose man's head. He caught himself though and chuckled about it.

He wondered more and more about the man he was tasked with 'keeping company,' for he did keep him company more often than not. With the military gone, bar for a patrol here and there and the occasional door check, the hospital had a far more relaxed atmosphere, and Cloud found himself less drained and ready to crash by the time he got home. He figured if he was going to stay up anyway, he might as well do it whilst in someone's company.

Cloud sat and used this hospital room as his private dining hall, eating evening meals he had picked up from the cafeteria or from a fast food joint outside. He also sometimes checked his phone while he ate, reading articles, playing games. It was nice and quiet, just how he liked it. And while he did these things he also cast glances over to the sleeping man. The glances turned to gazes, where he studied the man's face and the way his chest rose and fell, shallow and at rest.

Sometimes he got stuck in his head, replaying all that he knew of the other man and all he had seen on the TV. It was a peaceful, quiet evening in early spring. He had a tray of hospital food in his lap, his phone in one hand and a spork in the other when the thoughts that bothered him the most fell out of his mouth in a hushed tone, “What kind of food do you like, Zack? Bet the answer isn't hospital food,” he muttered whilst putting another forkful of green mush into his mouth.

Predictably, there was no response.

“I know what school you went to. I know how hard you worked to get to where you were. I vaguely know about the mission you were on when this happened to you—that’s all the news talks about. Well, they also talk about how whatever you were involved with is still highly top secret so the public isn’t allowed to know the specific details of it. It's been nearly 2 months now since you landed here, and who knows how much time you spent in the field hospital before you were brought here. Smells like a cover-up, if you ask me. I hope you’re not gonna be like some scapegoat for them,” that thought riled Cloud up, but he tried to relax and changed the subject, “But anyway, all that stuff in the media doesn’t actually answer the real questions I have, like what’s your favorite color? Why did you think that mullet was a good look for you in high school? Yeah, the news channels love pulling out that photo of you in your yearbook.”

More silence greeted him and Cloud also fell silent again.

He kept his visitations up, he kept asking Zack random things, but got bored of not having anything answered and soon ran out of things he wondered about without repeating himself. So instead, he used Zack as a way to vent his frustrations with work, and some of the people he had to engage with.

“Did you know that Mr. Storgeno wanted all blue cocktail umbrellas? Well, I didn't either, until he opened up the box right in front of me and started complaining about it. Like I packed that box myself and purposefully put green and red umbrellas into the packet, just to spite him. Kinda wish I had,” he finished in a mutter.

He had many more stories to tell about how he—the messenger—got shot, in the proverbial sense. Venting like this made Cloud feel lighter every time he left the hospital at the end of his day.

That was Cloud’s life; struggle to wake in the mornings, struggle to stay awake in the day during work, dealing with pleasant and unpleasant people alike, and then dropping by the hospital on the days it was on his roster, to chill out before going home where he’d have a battle to shut off in order to get a good night’s sleep.

The days and weeks passed. The military continued their stance of keeping quiet to protect national interests, and so, public interest diminished. The media in front of the hospital dwindled, there were no more sensational headlines, and news of Zack Fair faded into the background and complete obscurity as the months Zack spent in hospital turned to 3.

Cloud still caught sight of the occasional military uniform, much to his chagrin. He managed to avoid them mostly, and came and went undetected as Zack’s security didn’t seem very dedicated to their job, especially as the public no longer had any interest in the man stuck in the ICU ward.

It was one unremarkable evening; Cloud had finished all his deliveries, bar one. Exhaustion clung to him, weighing him down. He went to the coffee station on his way to Zack’s room, pulling his hat over his face as he passed the goons, who stood near the coffee station, cups in hands.

“Did ya hear that they’re gonna continue paying him an on-active-duty wage? The guy’s barely alive from what I’ve seen,” grumbled a burly military man into his cup of coffee.

“And here we are, gettin’ paid less than the guy we are here to guard. Just makes ya wanna spit,” the smaller of the two men responded.

“I’ll tell ya what, Biggs, if I were in charge of the budget I’d find better things to spend it on. Why’s he even need all this special attention? Stick him in the public sector. My sister-in-law’s a nurse over at the fifth district. Says they have all the same equipment.” “The big wiggs gotta put on a show. Make it look like they actually give a shit about their employees. Makes for a hella PR stunt.”

“Ya don’t think the whole thing was a setup to begin with, do ya?”

"No clue. They tell us jack shit."

Cloud had enough. He slapped on a lid for his coffee rather violently and spilling nearly half his drink. Hissing, he grabbed for napkins to mop up the mess and dry himself off a little. He felt eyes on himself and lowered his head, as well as turning away slightly. He unfortunately still heard it though—

"Ya heard the rumors that General Strife’s son doing deliveries around here, haven’t ya?"

Cloud's nostrils flared.

"Deliveries…” a derisive laugh followed. "Is that the only thing that kid's good for? If that was my son I’d be disappointed. I heard everyone in that family has some foot in the army. To be doing deliveries," disappointed tutting followed.

"I know what ya mean."

The voices sounded louder as if directed at Cloud. He threw the soiled napkins in the bin and rushed off, coffee and bouquet in each hand, heading down the hall and away from the muttonheads.

He barged into Zack’s room, dumped the bouquet at the foot of the bed and started pacing.

“How dare those jerks talk about you like that. After all you did. This is what I hate. The backstabbing, two-faced bullshit. Being treated like a number and a burden!"

He was in full swing—pacing around the room and fuming. “I can see it in their smug, douchey faces, you know. The derision. The pity. I don't need anyone's pity. I never asked for anyone's pity. And they throw that same shit at you. At least you can't see or hear it. You're a national hero, but they try to brush you off like you don't exist. Like you're broken. That's what they all do, you know. If you don't cut it they cut you off, and let you go." Cloud stomped, his hands flew around wildly gesticulating as he kept ranting, "They love nothing more than to hammer home what an epic disappointment you are to the whole fucking family,” he slammed his fist into the wall with a low growl. The pain radiated up his arm. It helped to sober him up and cool him off a little. He breathed furiously and stared at the wall, which had become rather blurry through the tears welling up in his eyes.

He listened to the buzzing of machinery in the room. His ragged breathing and the steady beeping of Zack’s heart rate monitor cut through the slight ringing in his ears. Yet the beeping sounded a fraction faster than what it had been before.

“Sorry,” Cloud muttered and turned back to face the room. He stared at Zack's unchanging body for a while before he shuffled back toward the comatose man. Picking up the bouquet as he went, he sank down into the now-familiar chair and placed the flowers on the table where he should have put them to begin with. “I hate it, y’know. I hate what you do and the organization you work for. And if you were to wake up right now—well, I'd hate to think that I’d probably hate you too.” His heart felt heavy. Most of all he hated that it was the truth. As upset as he felt right now, he wasn’t saying this to be vindictive; nothing but honesty left his mouth.

He gave a hard stare at the man on the bed before him. His face was turned away, and Cloud thought it for the best as he spoke in a slow, semi-whisper, “A part of me hopes you won’t pull through.” He cast eyes to the floor. He felt awful admitting it. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be doing this. And most of all, I don’t wanna know you because… because if I got to actually know you through something other than the media, I'd probably end up really liking you. It's easy to hate you when they espouse you to be the poster child of the military. I don't want to like you. I don't want to hate you. Fuck, I don't know." Cloud clutched his head, flinging off his hat and rubbing at his hair furiously. "I don't mean that. I'd rather think the best of you, really. But…" he sighed, "you also don't seem like someone I would ever get along with. Everyone seems to love you—I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a room so full of flowers and get-well wishes on cards. You know, the cleaners have to clear out your room once a week to stop this place from becoming a jungle? That's how much people like you. I mean, I don't know if they are from personal friends and family, but… it doesn't even matter. It’s been three months and you still get so much love showered your way. You're like an amazing poster child. The media made it sound like you were a prodigy; super good at your job; such a bright future ahead of you. That's what I hear the shitheads outside say about you too—the ones who envy you. That's what it is, you know, jealousy and envy. And I know because…” he huffed. “But here you are, nearly dead. Bet no one envies that.. Bet they wouldn't have the guts to be the kind of guy you were—are. I don't even know whether you're dead or alive. All I know is that you're everything I hate in a person. You're everything I wish I could have been. Shit. I don't know. I'm just ranting, ignore me." Cloud sat up straight and replaced his hat.

With a heavy sigh, he continued, “It’s a pretty shit way to feel about someone, especially since I don't even know you. Look, I guess all I know is that from everything I've seen and heard, you sound… really irritating. I guess it’s not the fairest assessment to be making about a person.” Cloud, leaning back down to rest his forearms on his thighs, knit his fingers together and stared at his hands. “I probably sound like a real asshole. I guess I am. And to be honest, if you woke up and I found out you were somewhat of an asshole, that would make me like you more. It would give you a redeemable quality.” Cloud huffed out some sad amusement and looked up at the man he had just admonished. “Or maybe I want you to be an ass so I can feel better about myself.”

He righted himself from where he had slumped. “But all that being said… I actually kind of do hope you pull through. I’m not evil. Or maybe I am.” Cloud cast a glance toward the currently frosted-over privacy windows that looked into the ICU ward. “I want you to prove everyone out there wrong. It’s disgusting the derisive pity and platitudes they all spout. I'm sure you deserve better than that. I'm sure you don't need their shit.” Cloud sighed and picked up the coffee cup he had set down amongst the bouquets. He took a sip and grimaced. “And I'm also pretty sure I deserve better coffee than this.” He aimed and threw the cup toward the bin near the door. He hit his mark and collected himself so he could walk out of the room with an air of aloofness.

“Anyway, good chat, I guess. See you later.”

_____________

Deciding he didn't want to take on his colleagues workload, as he felt rather run down, he arrived very early in the afternoon at the hospital. Cloud wandered down the hospital hall, carrying another bouquet to its usual destination and felt rather anxious. The thought of how long it had actually been since his delivery recipient had landed in the ICU began bothering him. The fact that Zack was still in the same state as the first day Cloud had done his delivery grew disconcerting for him. Yes, the man didn’t need a machine anymore to help him breathe; yes, several more of the intensive care equipment had slowly been moved out of the room, but Zack was still there. Was he brain-dead? Was he improving? Cloud tried to not think about the other man too much, but lately it ate into his sleep and he could feel the onset of another unwell period settling in. He hated how he could practically feel himself slipping into the prodromal phase of his condition. He needed to get some good sleep tonight if he hoped to not crash and burn in the morning. So he stopped by the nurse's station to see if he could get some information.

“Evening Simon,” he said of the man dressed in dark scrubs and a hazel complexion.

“Hi, Cloud. That's another very lovely bouquet you got there.”

“Aerith is a master when it comes to this stuff. I don't think any of the ones I've brought in have been the same.”

“I think you're right. But what can I do for you? You don't make a habit of stopping by for a chat.”

“Ah, just wanted to know how Zack was doing. He's still in the ICU after all this time. That doesn't seem right. Will he be okay?”

Simon looked past Cloud to where Zack's room was. “Considering how on a knife's edge he was, he's doing remarkably well. He's been such a delight, it's almost a shame that we'll be moving him next week.”

Cloud stared, baffled by everything the other man has just said. “He's being moved?”

“Yeah. Getting his own private area, up on the fifth floor of the residential rehabilitation wing. It’s pretty nice up there.”

“Wouldn't he be better off staying down here?”

“No. He's out of imminent danger. Plus, he’s been asking to be moved for the last two weeks.”

“A-asking? But he's out cold.” A sinking feeling grew.

Simon looked confused. “He's been pretty vocal. For someone in his shape, he's been remarkably upbeat these past few weeks. You don’t know that he’s awake?”

If it were possible to feel sea-sick on land, Cloud experienced it at that moment. “No.” The nurse hummed. “Maybe you keep coming in when he's sleeping?”

Cloud really hoped that was what was going on, but his brain went to the worst-case scenario; mocking betrayal. “Yeah. Must be it.”

Cloud took his leave and headed to the room. The windows were frosted over for privacy. As he approached a man with raven hair, and a woman with ebony curls, and an olive complexion, exit the room. They didn't appear to be the regular military personnel; wearing casual clothes as the sting of winter had gone.

As the parties passed each other the woman stopped Cloud in his tracks. “Excuse me, are those for my son?”

Cloud looked toward Zack's room and back at the couple, both of which were a good five inches taller than himself. “A delivery for Zack Fair.”

The man and woman gave him big, good-natured smiles.

“So you must be Cloud,” she said.

Strangers knowing his name always unnerved him. “Ahhh, yeah—that's me,” he answered warily. Cloud had his hand taken and shaken in turn by both of them.

“We can't thank you enough for keeping our son company. We know that it means a lot to him.”

Indignation started to build, but he kept his cool. “There's nothing to thank me for.”

“Oh, come now. Don't be so modest,” the rather-fit-for-a-middle-aged man said, smiling broadly. He clapped Cloud on the shoulder.

“You have been such a great help to our Zack. Thank you,” the woman looked to want to pull Cloud into a hug, but the flowers he held seemed to dissuade her, to Cloud’s relief.

“If we can ever repay you for the kindness, please let us know,” the man said.

“Oh, n-no, that’s not… I’m just doing my job,” Cloud stammers lightly.

He received more warm smiles an ‘thank you’s before the woman urged, “Dear, we should be leaving, and let Cloud get on with his work.”

“Right, right. Thank you again for looking after our son.”

With that the couple hurried off, leaving Cloud staring at the now offending room before himself. He thought about not going in. He'd obviously been played. But he had a job to do, so he inhaled sharply and ventured forward.

On opening the door he was greeted by a wholly unfamiliar voice, “Hey, mom, pop did you—”

Cloud stood in the doorway, glaring daggers

The bright smile vanished even before the sheets were flung over the bedridden man's head and the lump under the blanket shuffled flat against the mattress. Faux snoring sounded moments later.

Cloud stood and his hard-as-steel glare broke at the ridiculousness of the scene playing out before him. It might have been amusing if Cloud wasn’t getting red hot with anger and embarrassment.

He closed the door behind himself and moved toward the bed, a frown playing on his lips. He went to the bed and dropped the flowers on the tray table, making the flimsy plastic rattle. “Another bouquet from Aerith,” was his business-as-usual greeting.

Cloud received no response other than the snoring quieting down a little. He glared and made a snap decision. “I’m not coming back here.” Humiliation burned. Cloud turned to flee the situation and feelings. He’d rather quit his job than make one more delivery to this place. He was going to tell Tifa as much.

“No, Cloud. I’m sorry. I’m an asshole, I know. But that’s why you should stay,” came the hasty and guilty admission in a low, rusty timbre.

Cloud stopped before he reached the door. Without turning back he agreed with the man, “You are an asshole.”

“But it’s my redeemable feature, right?” Zack laid out gently.

It took all of Cloud’s energy to keep his body from trembling with outrage and mortification. How long had this bastard been faking it? “Does Aerith know that you’re awake?” he got out through grit teeth, wanting to know how deep this farcical ruse went.

A few beats of silence. And then, “She visited last week,” came the muttered response.

The outrage erupted. An actual growl rumbled in the back of CLoud’s throat. Through grit teeth, he snapped, “And?”

“Aaaand—we talked and had a really nice time,” came the small, chastened voice.

Cloud huffed, sharply. His clenched fist trembled and his heart hammered. The flash of heat inside his body sprang to his cheeks. He thought he could die from embarrassment. She had known. He had seen her this late morning and she had said nothing to him. He didn’t know who he was madder at. “Good luck with your life,” he spat over his shoulder, without looking at the bane of his existence, and marched to the door.

“I’m so sorry,” came the plea. “Please don’t leave. Let me ex—”

Cloud slammed the door behind himself and hurried out, ignoring any looks or questions of concern he received. His whole body trembled with burning outrage by the time he got to the car. He couldn’t go back to work to drop the van off. He couldn’t face Tifa without snapping at her and unleashing all his anger at her, because she must have known as well.

Cloud went home and passed out in his bed.

#clack #zakkura #FFVII Modern AU #fanfic #sneakpeek #first chapter #hospital #military #cloud strife #zack fair #tifa lockhart #aerith gainsborough

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onlinemarketinghelp · 5 years

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Email Marketing Made Simple: How To Start & Run A Successful Email Marketing Campaign https://ift.tt/2XNUTGQ

Email marketing has one of the highest returns on investment in all of online marketing. For every dollar spent on email marketing, you can expect about a 3800% return.

And no, that wasn’t a typo.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Email marketing requires a combination of work and the right tools. Only you can put the work in.

For my tool, I’ll be using Constant Contact. They can build opt in forms, send email blasts, run email automations, and have super powerful list management tools.

All the better? You can try Constant Contact free for 60 days, no payment method required. You can use the trial to follow along in this guide and set up your own email marketing campaign.

Click here to try Constant Contact free for 60 days

Run your email marketing campaigns with Constant Contact

Benefits of Email Marketing

I’m a big believer in the power of email marketing. There are a few reasons for that.

1. Everyone Uses Email

Email is a fact of life. And whether your audience is old, young, or somewhere in the middle, it’s almost guaranteed that they use email to some extent.

An OptinMonster survey showed that 99% of people use email every single day. You can’t say that about any other communication channel.

Imagine it like this: You have a business where you can sell an item to 100 people. You have 100 potential buyers.

But what if you could change locations and have 10,000 potential buyers? The move might be a little inconvenient, but that’s a huge increase in the amount of potential income you can make.

You can make the exact same comparison with social media vs email. You could reach a fraction of your audience on social media (despite its hype, social media doesn’t encompass everyone; I’m a male in my mid-20s and despise social media). So you could reach some of your target demographic on social media.

Or you can reach 99% of people with email.

That’s a no brainer. No other communication channel is so prevalent (or so easy to market to).

2. You Control Your Traffic

As a guy who makes his living by getting visitors to a website, this is a big one for me. Email allows you to control your flow of traffic.

Social traffic can be hard to build (though Pinterest traffic may be an exception). Organic traffic leaves you 100% in the not-so-benevolent hands of Google. And with the ever-increasing trend of using featured snippets to steal clicks, I don’t think that trusting organic traffic is wise.

So what can you trust?

Your email list. They believed in your brand enough to sign up for your email list. If you did a good job on your lead magnet, these people already know and trust you. You’ve already established your value by giving them something. They don’t mind clicking a link you sent them as long as its relevant to their interests.

Which leads me to my next point…

3. Email Converts Well

Since your audience trusts you and since you’ve established value, you can expect pretty high conversions on email.

Joe Blow who started down the rabbit hole by searching about dolphins and somehow landed on your site? Nah.

But someone who you’ve demonstrated your value to? Someone who already knows your name, your brand, and trusts you?

I can tell you from the Niche Pursuits email campaigns that email converts well. It’s an audience of people who are familiar with you and know that you do good business. The conversions are awesome.

4. You Own The List No Matter What

This is by far my favorite thing about email marketing. Yes reaches everyone, yes you control it, and yes it converts.

But no matter what happens, you can always have your email list.

If the stock market goes down, if real estate goes bust, if you lose everything in a divorce, you still have your list.

You still have your audience.

An email list is the ultimate guarantee that you won’t have to suffer financial hardship again. You own it, you control it, and no one can take it away from you.

It’s the fruit of your labor. So let’s talk about how to use it.

How To Start An Email Marketing Campaign

Email marketing starts with building an awesome list. This means that you’re going to have to use some kind of opt in form to generate interest for your list.

It doesn’t mean that you have to create annoying popups with pretty much zero value.

You know the type:

That opt in provides zero value to me. Of course I love adventure! That doesn’t mean I’ll get an ounce of worth out of their email list.

You need to show your audience that you provide amazing content, that you’re trustworthy. We call this a “lead magnet”. It’s something to hook in your audience.

But how can we build a lead magnet without being spammy?

It’s easier than you think.

Best Practices For Opt In Boxes:

Use pop ups

Offer something of value

Make them relevant to what the reader is learning about

Make it actionable

A pop up within 10 seconds of a reader landing on a page is about right

Use content upgrades as your bread and butter

Use super lead magnets to build trust for high ticket items

Bad Practices For Opt In Boxes:

Putting them in the sidebar (you won’t convert anyone!)

Popping up too late

Offering “tips, tricks, and hacks” or other unclear value

Making a general opt in for your whole site

Converting Without Being Spammy

A good opt in box will help your audience achieve or get something. In internet marketing, we call this a “lead magnet”. Your readers like it, they want it, and they’re willing to give you an email address for it.

There are tons of strategies for developing lead magnets, but here are the two that work the best:

Offer your readers a bonus on an existing piece of content. In the olden days when Jesus walked the earth, these were often a PDF form of the post. There are better things to offer than a PDF. You want something actionable and easy for your readers to fall in love with. We’ll call this a “content upgrade”.

Offer your readers a super awesome, super amazing, super fantastic something that they would pay for. The good news is that they don’t have to pay for it; they can get it in their email address for free. These are best used if you have a funnel and sell higher-ticket items later on down the road. We’ll call this a “super lead magnet”.

Of the two of these, the content upgrade will be your staple. It’s the bread and butter of email marketing.

We’ll discuss how to build an awesome content upgrade and then talk about making a super lead magnet.

Quick Note: I’ll be using Constant Contact to build my email list. You can also use them to build your opt in boxes 🙂

Click here to get access to Constant Contact free for 60 days. No credit card required

Content Upgrades For The Win

A content upgrade is when you offer your readers something that’s “content plus”. If your page is about DIY craft ideas, then a content upgrade would be a video walkthrough for building home furniture (or whatever).

If you’re writing about how to catch big mouth bass, a content upgrade would be a free lure for bass.

The goal here is to take whatever your reader is learning about and upgrade it. Make it bigger, better, and more actionable. You want your content upgrades to be:

Related to what the viewer is reading now

Easy to consume (video, audio files, etc.)

Actionable

The first step to making an awesome content upgrade is to make it related to whatever your viewer is already reading. You don’t have to make these on a post per post basis, but I think that you should at least have a different opt in for every category.

Category level opt ins help you boost your conversion rate and will allow you to segment your audience. This is a big help later when you’re sending out emails or selling products. You already know what each segment is interested in, so you can craft emails or products just for them.

It’s a bit more work on your part, but the payoff can be enormous.

I found an amazing content upgrade on Healthline. I opened up an article about sweeteners that parents should watch out for. Here’s the opt in box I got:

This content upgrade is brilliant for a few reasons.

It is related to what I’m reading. I am curious about unhealthy sweeteners, Healthline gives me an option to take a mindful eating challenge

It’s easy! Look at the wording here. “Free”. “Our Nutrition team will show you how to create lasting, healthy eating habits“. Lasting, healthy habits for free? I’m all in.

It’s actionable. It’s a challenge: go on this journey with us for 21 days

I can’t see their opt in rate for this, but I’m guessing that it’s pretty significant.

That’s a great opt in. What are the characteristics of a bad opt in?

I did a little digging and found a bad opt in. It didn’t take me long.

This is a bad opt in for a few reasons. First, you can see that it doesn’t offer me much of value.

A Roadie insider? What is that? Why would I want to be one?

The next things they offer me are “exclusive deals and discounts”. I don’t think I’m interested. I’m reading an article about how to tune a guitar. Odds are good that I already have a guitar, so I don’t need deals or discounts.

Second, they don’t offer anything actionable. Since this is an article about guitar tuning, an awesome content upgrade would be a video guide. It would be easy to consume, helpful.

And third, this is unrelated to the content I’m consuming. Nothing here about being a better musician or tuning guitars better. I’ll pass, thanks.

The biggest problem with this opt in is that it doesn’t offer me much value. What does “deals and discounts” even mean? Is that a $10 off coupon once a blue moon? Or is it 50% off a $500 purchase? The difference between those two things is enormous. They need a better value proposition.

Here’s an opt in that is okay. It’s not great, but it doesn’t make me want to bleach my eyes:

The value proposition here is better: saving money on my next trip. That’s pretty appealing. I do love saving money.

But it doesn’t tell me how I’m saving money. Will I be spending less on airfare or will I be swapping a nice Airbnb for a hut in the wall?

It also doesn’t tell me how much I’ll be saving or what I’ll need to do to start saving. A better opt in might be “3 things to say to your airline to guarantee cheaper flights” or something like that.

It’s a fine opt in. But it’s pretty eh. With a clearer value proposition and more actionable content, this could be a killer.

So now let’s look at an amazing opt in:

Woah. Take a look at that copy.

I have no desire to be a profitable Youtube music star, but I opted in anyways. Let’s break this down:

It’s related to what I’m reading. I was checking out best apps to learn guitar. They know I want to play music, they know I have a technical inclination. I’d rather use my phone than go to an instructor. There are good odds that I’ve seen someone teaching guitar on Youtube and have thought that I’d like to be in their shoes. They know that I’m a “real world independent musician”.

It’s easy to consume (a free book, nice!) and has a super clear value for me. I could make between $4,077 and $22,573+ per month! Look at those specific numbers.

It’s very actionable. 5 steps to a profitable music career. What gets easier than that?

It has social proof. They show you that the book has 4.5/5 stars. Nice!

That’s an awesome content upgrade.

As mentioned before, you can build these types of content upgrades in Constant Contact. Try Constant Contact free for 60 days, no payment method required

Super Lead Magnets For High Ticket Items

Content upgrades are great at building your email list for pretty general purposes. You want direct traffic, you want affiliate sales, you have a small funnel.

But if you sell big ticket items?

You might need to build a little more trust with your audience. You need to show them that business with you is always a win for them.

The easiest way to build trust and give amazing value is to give something away for free. But this can’t just be anything for free; it has to be something so cool, so awesome that someone would pay money for it.

These “super” lead magnets should be something that most people would pay in the range of $20-$100 to have… and you’re giving it away for free.

The best super lead magnet I could find was on Authority Hacker. They have a course called The Authority Site System that teaches you how to build a 4+ figures per month authority website (check out my Authority Site System review).

Their opt in process looks like this:

First they have a popup that offers relevant, actionable, easy-to-consume content:

And the free training they mention?

It’s an hour and a half long webinar that tells you step by step how to build one of these sites.

No hype, no fluff. It’s an hour and a half of pure value. They give you their strategies for building sites, proof that the methods work, and tell you how to replicate it on your site.

This free training alone is better than some online courses.

And I don’t know their numbers, but I’m going to guess that The Authority Site System sells like hotcakes.

That’s the power of a super lead magnet: you establish trust with your leads. And once they trust you, they won’t have a problem buying from you.

Since these are more difficult to make than a content upgrade, I recommend a super lead magnet if you’re looking at selling your own products. Super lead magnets work well with high ticket items that require a lot of trust beforehand.

Now that you have a strategy for your lead generation, let’s look at what to do once you have the email list.

How To Run An Email Marketing Campaign

The best way to run your email marketing campaign is to start with the end goal.

What is your ideal outcome?

Do you have a funnel where you want someone to buy or do you want to build the relationship? Are you trying to wish a happy birthday to the members of your list or are you planning a 7 email series to create customers?

Or maybe you want all of these things for different audiences. Maybe high ticket clients get a happy birthday and others get a welcome message when they join the email list.

No problem. You can do all of that.

The post Email Marketing Made Simple: How To Start & Run A Successful Email Marketing Campaign appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

from Niche Pursuits

Email marketing has one of the highest returns on investment in all of online marketing. For every dollar spent on email marketing, you can expect about a 3800% return.

And no, that wasn’t a typo.

But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Email marketing requires a combination of work and the right tools. Only you can put the work in.

For my tool, I’ll be using Constant Contact. They can build opt in forms, send email blasts, run email automations, and have super powerful list management tools.

All the better? You can try Constant Contact free for 60 days, no payment method required. You can use the trial to follow along in this guide and set up your own email marketing campaign.

Click here to try Constant Contact free for 60 days

Run your email marketing campaigns with Constant Contact

Benefits of Email Marketing

I’m a big believer in the power of email marketing. There are a few reasons for that.

1. Everyone Uses Email

Email is a fact of life. And whether your audience is old, young, or somewhere in the middle, it’s almost guaranteed that they use email to some extent.

An OptinMonster survey showed that 99% of people use email every single day. You can’t say that about any other communication channel.

Imagine it like this: You have a business where you can sell an item to 100 people. You have 100 potential buyers.

But what if you could change locations and have 10,000 potential buyers? The move might be a little inconvenient, but that’s a huge increase in the amount of potential income you can make.

Or you can reach 99% of people with email.

That’s a no brainer. No other communication channel is so prevalent (or so easy to market to).

2. You Control Your Traffic

As a guy who makes his living by getting visitors to a website, this is a big one for me. Email allows you to control your flow of traffic.

So what can you trust?

Which leads me to my next point…

3. Email Converts Well

Since your audience trusts you and since you’ve established value, you can expect pretty high conversions on email.

Joe Blow who started down the rabbit hole by searching about dolphins and somehow landed on your site? Nah.

But someone who you’ve demonstrated your value to? Someone who already knows your name, your brand, and trusts you?

4. You Own The List No Matter What

This is by far my favorite thing about email marketing. Yes reaches everyone, yes you control it, and yes it converts.

But no matter what happens, you can always have your email list.

If the stock market goes down, if real estate goes bust, if you lose everything in a divorce, you still have your list.

You still have your audience.

An email list is the ultimate guarantee that you won’t have to suffer financial hardship again. You own it, you control it, and no one can take it away from you.

It’s the fruit of your labor. So let’s talk about how to use it.

How To Start An Email Marketing Campaign

Email marketing starts with building an awesome list. This means that you’re going to have to use some kind of opt in form to generate interest for your list.

It doesn’t mean that you have to create annoying popups with pretty much zero value.

You know the type:

That opt in provides zero value to me. Of course I love adventure! That doesn’t mean I’ll get an ounce of worth out of their email list.

You need to show your audience that you provide amazing content, that you’re trustworthy. We call this a “lead magnet”. It’s something to hook in your audience.

But how can we build a lead magnet without being spammy?

It’s easier than you think.

Best Practices For Opt In Boxes:

Use pop ups

Offer something of value

Make them relevant to what the reader is learning about

Make it actionable

A pop up within 10 seconds of a reader landing on a page is about right

Use content upgrades as your bread and butter

Use super lead magnets to build trust for high ticket items

Bad Practices For Opt In Boxes:

Putting them in the sidebar (you won’t convert anyone!)

Popping up too late

Offering “tips, tricks, and hacks” or other unclear value

Making a general opt in for your whole site

Converting Without Being Spammy

There are tons of strategies for developing lead magnets, but here are the two that work the best:

Of the two of these, the content upgrade will be your staple. It’s the bread and butter of email marketing.

We’ll discuss how to build an awesome content upgrade and then talk about making a super lead magnet.

Quick Note: I’ll be using Constant Contact to build my email list. You can also use them to build your opt in boxes 🙂

Click here to get access to Constant Contact free for 60 days. No credit card required

Content Upgrades For The Win

If you’re writing about how to catch big mouth bass, a content upgrade would be a free lure for bass.

The goal here is to take whatever your reader is learning about and upgrade it. Make it bigger, better, and more actionable. You want your content upgrades to be:

Related to what the viewer is reading now

Easy to consume (video, audio files, etc.)

Actionable

It’s a bit more work on your part, but the payoff can be enormous.

I found an amazing content upgrade on Healthline. I opened up an article about sweeteners that parents should watch out for. Here’s the opt in box I got:

This content upgrade is brilliant for a few reasons.

It is related to what I’m reading. I am curious about unhealthy sweeteners, Healthline gives me an option to take a mindful eating challenge

It’s easy! Look at the wording here. “Free”. “Our Nutrition team will show you how to create lasting, healthy eating habits“. Lasting, healthy habits for free? I’m all in.

It’s actionable. It’s a challenge: go on this journey with us for 21 days

I can’t see their opt in rate for this, but I’m guessing that it’s pretty significant.

That’s a great opt in. What are the characteristics of a bad opt in?

I did a little digging and found a bad opt in. It didn’t take me long.

This is a bad opt in for a few reasons. First, you can see that it doesn’t offer me much of value.

A Roadie insider? What is that? Why would I want to be one?

Second, they don’t offer anything actionable. Since this is an article about guitar tuning, an awesome content upgrade would be a video guide. It would be easy to consume, helpful.

And third, this is unrelated to the content I’m consuming. Nothing here about being a better musician or tuning guitars better. I’ll pass, thanks.

Here’s an opt in that is okay. It’s not great, but it doesn’t make me want to bleach my eyes:

The value proposition here is better: saving money on my next trip. That’s pretty appealing. I do love saving money.

But it doesn’t tell me how I’m saving money. Will I be spending less on airfare or will I be swapping a nice Airbnb for a hut in the wall?

It’s a fine opt in. But it’s pretty eh. With a clearer value proposition and more actionable content, this could be a killer.

So now let’s look at an amazing opt in:

Woah. Take a look at that copy.

I have no desire to be a profitable Youtube music star, but I opted in anyways. Let’s break this down:

It’s easy to consume (a free book, nice!) and has a super clear value for me. I could make between $4,077 and $22,573+ per month! Look at those specific numbers.

It’s very actionable. 5 steps to a profitable music career. What gets easier than that?

It has social proof. They show you that the book has 4.5/5 stars. Nice!

That’s an awesome content upgrade.

As mentioned before, you can build these types of content upgrades in Constant Contact. Try Constant Contact free for 60 days, no payment method required

Super Lead Magnets For High Ticket Items

Content upgrades are great at building your email list for pretty general purposes. You want direct traffic, you want affiliate sales, you have a small funnel.

But if you sell big ticket items?

You might need to build a little more trust with your audience. You need to show them that business with you is always a win for them.

These “super” lead magnets should be something that most people would pay in the range of $20-$100 to have… and you’re giving it away for free.

Their opt in process looks like this:

First they have a popup that offers relevant, actionable, easy-to-consume content:

And the free training they mention?

It’s an hour and a half long webinar that tells you step by step how to build one of these sites.

No hype, no fluff. It’s an hour and a half of pure value. They give you their strategies for building sites, proof that the methods work, and tell you how to replicate it on your site.

This free training alone is better than some online courses.

And I don’t know their numbers, but I’m going to guess that The Authority Site System sells like hotcakes.

That’s the power of a super lead magnet: you establish trust with your leads. And once they trust you, they won’t have a problem buying from you.

Now that you have a strategy for your lead generation, let’s look at what to do once you have the email list.

How To Run An Email Marketing Campaign

The best way to run your email marketing campaign is to start with the end goal.

What is your ideal outcome?

Or maybe you want all of these things for different audiences. Maybe high ticket clients get a happy birthday and others get a welcome message when they join the email list.

No problem. You can do all of that.

The post Email Marketing Made Simple: How To Start & Run A Successful Email Marketing Campaign appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

November 24, 2019 at 01:07AMhttps://https://ift.tt/2XNTq3i https://ift.tt/2qF30cy

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kasiopeiae · 7 years

Text

Another Man’s Treasure

A/N: This is a completed five-part mini-series because @alrightpetal and I have this thing about making Harry super vulnerable and flawed. So here you go.

// Another Man’s Treasure // Mind on a Mission // Take the Lead // Worth the Pain // Wings of Butterflies

#i hope to post part 2 tomorrow #and 3 on sunday #so #stick with me #let me know how you like it #so much more to come #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry fanfic #harry fanfiction #harry one shot #harry styles writing #harry writing #harry styles smut #harry smut #harry styles imagine #harry imagine

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quillreflections · 4 years

Text

Title: Electric Angel

Chapter: 1

Series: Vocaloid

Pairing: males/reader

Disclaimer: yes I know the title is similar to my other story

"You've been working yourself too hard, sir."

The man turns to his assistant, who's leaning against the doorway, arms crossed, eyes concerned. The engineer places his delicate tools down and smiles, although it's tinged with exhaustion.

"I'm just excited. It's," he motions to the machine lying prone on the operating table, "it's so close to being done. If I keep going, I can finish within the next few days."

He picks up his tools again. It's very reminiscent of open-heart surgery; his movements are precise and methodical, and it's clear whatever he's doing is important.

His assistant just sighs, used to his boss's near-obssession with their work. Knowing nothing can pull the other man away, he just steps into the lab to help.

☆☆☆

The radio alarm kicks in at the worst moment.

You'd forgotten to turn the volume down before bed; that new pop star's debut song came screeching out of the speakers and directly through your skull. Your eyes shoot open as you start scrambling to shut it off- finally, silence. What time had you even set the damn thing for, anyways-? You pick up your phone to check if you'd missed anything over the past few hours.

『You've been chosen!』

You narrow your eyes at the email notification; it's from an address you don't recognize, and you don't recall signing up for anything. Spam is spam- in the trash it goes.

As you delete the message, your eyes naturally wander to the glowing clock on the corner of your screen- damn, it's so late. A quick glance out the window reassures you- the sun has gone down, and you'll be late for your shift if you take too long.

You scramble to get ready, hunting down a clean uniform shirt and trying to scrape mud off a pair of shoes. As you hustle past the stove, you hesitate; do you eat before you leave, or do you buy something when you get there?

You yank the fridge open; as empty as it was when you took your nap. There's half-empty bottles of soda and a jug of milk, plus the leftovers you've been trying to make last- it's such a pain, because your wallet is almost as empty.

You'll get something when you arrive.

The glowing clock on your microwave catch your eye- damn, you need to hurry. You stumble back to your room to finish getting ready. It's been getting cold lately, so you reach for your phone to check the weather app- didn't you. . . delete that email?

『You've been chosen!』

It flashes on your screen again. Maybe you'd only thought you deleted it- you'd just woken up, after all. You swipe the notification to your trash, for real this time.

Gasoline for your car isn't cheap right now; instead of wasting it, you shrug on your only coat and zip it up as high as it'll go, wrapping a scarf around your neck and burying your face in it. Lacking gloves, you shove your hands deep into your pockets as the door slams shut behind you.

The night air instantly delves its way into your lungs, feeling tangy on your tongue and sharp against your throat, washing away the vestiges of your sleepy haze.

It's a brisk walk to your job; a corner convenience store several blocks away from your cheap rental home. The maze of streets and cracked sidewalks were dark until you made another turn, and then thr store's artificial glow pierces the winter night. The door chimes as it slides open, the sound tinny and faint; still, your coworker Rina looks up from her phone, smiling brightly at you.

"Hiya, [Name]!" She chirps.

"You're awfully chipper, Rina." You giggle at her as you step behind the counter. The small staff break room is off to the side. Rina chatters away as you peel off your winter gear- something about her pet frog?- and you check your phone as you slip it from your coat pocket.

『You've been chosen!』

A confused frown settles on your face. Your brows furrow. Rina notices, pausing in her "discussion," craning her neck to read over your shoulder. "Something wrong, [Name]?"

You hold your phone up more so she can properly read the screen. "I've deleted this email twice today? But it's still. . ." As your voice trails off, you go to swipe the message back into the trash, again. Rina stops you.

"Well, is it the exact same one, or do they just keep resending it? Maybe it's a glitch with their automated system?"

Huh, you hadn't thought of that. You squint to look at the tiny time stamp. ". . . it says it's from a few minutes ago, so I guess you're right." You finally open the email- a lot of automated ones have unsubscribe buttons buried somewhere near the bottom. You can't help but read the email as you search.

"Crypton Future Industries?"

Rina presses closer at that. "I think I've heard that somewhere before- what does it say?"

Dear [Name],

You have been selected to take part in the alpha testing of Crypton's latest state-of-the-art technology. Please respond to set up a meeting at your earliest convenience.

Thank you for your compliance.

Crypton Future Industries

You snort at the message- sounds like a total scam. Rina, however, lets out a squeal; she grabs your arm and shakes you lightly. "[Name], that's incredible!"

You pull away from her. "It's literally so sketchy, Rina. It sounds like I'll pull up and get murdered." Still, you can't help being a bit curious- what kind of technology, exactly?

Rina pulls her own phone back out, tapping rapidly, clicking onto some brightly-colored webpage. The teal coloring nearly blinds you when she holds the screen up to your face.

"I knew the name was familiar! Crypton does all sorts of things; they've got a fashion division, and they make instruments, and-"

"To the chase, Rina?"

"-okay so they're mostly known for their tech! You seen those latest smartwatches? That's them!" She grinned.

You hum thoughtfully as Rina continues rambling. What could you have done to even catch the attention of a company like that?

"-say yes, [Name]!"

You blink at her. "I dunno, it's kinda. . ."

"I'll go with you, if it makes you feel better." She tucks her phone away. "Always safer to travel in pairs, yeah? And I super wanna see what it's all about too."

You shrug, but turn to the schedule on the wall anyways, looking for your next day off.

☆☆☆

Crypton Future Industries is sterile.

You'd actually unknowingly passed the building countless times on your trips downtown; it was one of the more intimidating skyscrapers, seemingly walled with nothing but reflective windows that dazzled in the light of the sun.

Now, you and Rina sat alone in the stark, quiet lobby, waiting for whatever is next. Rina tapped away at her phone happily and hummed tunelessly. The receptionist kept warily glancing at you over the barriers of her desk. Too nervous to waste your phone battery, you just anxiously examine the minimalist waiting room.

The door next to the front desk abruptly slides open; you practically rocket to your feet, just ready to get this over with. Rina squeals a bit in her excitement as she stands up too, squeezing your wrist to reassure you.

A dark-haired man in a lab coat steps into the lobby. He's taller than you ny several inches, older by quite a few years. The traffic whizzing by outside the clear doors reflects in the lenses of his glasses, so you feel his eyes searching you instead of seeing them.

"Miss [Name], I presume?" he asks hesitantly. You nod slowly. At that, he smiles in relief, turning to examine Rina as well. "Ladies, my name is Tomomi Nakahara, and I am the leading scientist of the EAV* project you've been invited for today. Now if you'll please follow me. . ."

He whirled on his heel. You and Rina followed him through the door.

The halls beyond the door were vastly different from the waiting room; floor to ceiling was stark white, the fluorescent lights were harsh, and you could feel the vibrations of far-off machinery in your chest.

". . . I can way understand your hesitation now, [Name]." Rina's whispers are almost drowned out by the echo of Nakahara's shoes on the linoleum. You can only nod at her.

Nakahara leads you through the blinding maze with ease as if he'd lived here his entire life. Down hall after hall, elevator after elevator. Finally, on some floor unnervingly deep underground, he halts in front of another intimidating door at the end of a hallway- the only door on this level. By now, you and Rina are holding hands out of anxiety- moral support, in case he does try to murder you now.

Confident that you haven't fled in terror yet, Nakahara swipes his employee ID card through a wall-mounted scanner; after a series of whirrs and beeps, the door whooshes open, and your group steps inside.

The first thing you notice is the cold. The second thing, the large glass tubes lining the room. Each houses what looks to be a human body; they range in apparent age and gender, but they all have their eyes closed, suspended among thick wires and cords. Your grip on Rina's hand tightens; at your side, she's stiff as a board.

The scientist speaks for the first time since the lobby. "We here at Crypton Future Industries are, as our name implies, always thinking about what lies ahead." His hands are clasped behind his back, his pristine lab coat swishing behind him as he walks, unperturbed, down the aisle.

"We strive to develop technology that will keep society moving forward. For this reason, we have deemed the development of androids worth our time and resources." Nakahara pauses in front of a specific tube, absently tapping at the glass. The male machine inside doesn't respond. Something akin to excitement begins bubbling up in your chest, displacing the fear that used to be there. Nakahara continues his sales pitch.

"Androids would be very beneficial to our society, but throughout our internal testing processes, we've come to realize that all of our fine-tuning cannot properly mimic one thing- humanity itself. And that's where you come in." Nakahara looks back at you, his dark eyes appearing to see right through you. "We cannot release something that looks but does not act human; it would be rejected automatically, and our efforts would be for naught. So you, [Full Name], have been selected to host and teach one of our test units the facets of humanity."

Rina gasps, and that sound snaps you from your trance. You blink. "Wh- what, why me?! And what does something like this even entail- I can't take care of a robot!"

"We can discuss details once you've had a chance to interact with the droid. I understand it's spontaneous, and something very shocking; please refrain from making a snap decision. If you refuse, we will respect that and move on." The scientist watched you closely. Rina's nails dug into the back of your hand. You nodded.

Nakahara smiles at your confirmation, tapping away at the tube's keypad; eventually the entire device lights up and slides open. The suspended body- android- whirrs quietly for a moment, and then bright blue eyes shoot open and lock with yours. It takes your breath away.

"Miss [Name], meet your charge. Len Kagamine."

*EAV is pronounced "eve;" you can probably guess what it stands for lmao

#electric angel #vocaloid

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endenogatai · 5 years

Text

What Berlin’s top VCs want to invest in right now

Berlin rose as one of Europe’s leading startup hubs over the last decade, featuring unicorns N26, Delivery Hero, HelloFresh, and Auto1 Group. Berlin attracts developers from Eastern Europe and elsewhere into an international hub where English is the linga franca among startups and costs are noticeably lower than in London or Paris. Rocket Internet, while criticized for launching copycats of successful US startups has trained a deep bench of young software executives in rapidly scaling companies.

As we gear up for our Disrupt Berlin conference in December, I wanted to get a pulse on the types of startups that top VCs in Berlin’s ecosystem are looking to invest in right now, so I asked eleven of them to share examples of the trends they find most exciting:

Luis Hanemann, Partner at e.Ventures

David Rosskamp, Partner at June Fund

Dr. Fabian Heilemann, Partner at Earlybird

Simon Schmincke, Partner at Creandum

Jan Miczaika, Partner at HV Holtzbrinck Ventures

Pawel Chudzinski, Point Nine Capital

Ciaran O’Leary, Partner at Blueyard Capital

Jan Borgstädt, Partner at JOIN Capital

Christoph Schuh, Partner at Lakestar

Anton Waitz, Partner at Project A

Filip Dames, Partner at Cherry Ventures

The range of interests hints at the expanse of Berlin’s startup ecosystem right now, with VCs focused on everything from fintech, agtech, and B2B marketplaces to audio, travel, and transportation.

Here are their responses:

Luis Hanemann, Partner at e.Ventures

“We see multiple trends emerging, in the B2C segment we see Audio is booming and is right for disruption. It’s amazing to see the development in the space. Our beloved Berlin-based portfolio company Blinkist is addressing this topic and we have done a recent investment in Podimo, which is building the Netflix for Podcasts, launching soon in Germany.”

David Rosskamp, Partner at June Fund

“We spend a lot of time thinking around large macro themes and investing into them in a structured way. One central field of attention has been the agricultural world, in particular the flow of goods and information. We see a large need, and an equally large economic opportunity in digitizing these flows, in providing transparent access to agricultural supplies and in empowering millions of small-scale farmers. So June has invested in agricultural trading networks from Europe to Africa. It clearly matches our investment thesis: global, network-driven enterprises that the world needs. We have similar investments in healthcare or decentralized networks, to name a few.”

Dr. Fabian Heilemann, Partner at Earlybird

“At Earlybird we believe that the first wave of innovation within Logistics, being rather of a transformative nature, e.g. digital freight marketplaces and forwarder models, has reached its peak. We are now particular excited w.r.t the second wave of LogTech innovation, which we expect to have a truly disruptive impact on the industry. It is our conviction that the availability of structured data, but also the increasing maturity of for example distributed ledger technologies, entail the opportunity for digital service providers to expand their technology driven lead over incumbent players. Whereas competitive forces in Logistics today are mainly adhere to scale effects, we think that next generation of logistics companies will leverage technology to drive profitability.”

Simon Schmincke, Partner at Creandum

“We continue to see the consumerization of enterprise grade solutions—enabling self-onboarding in a toned-down SME-oriented solution. The FinTech scene here in Berlin is something we continue to be excited about, both for businesses and consumers. Also, anything real estate related immediately grabs our attention—co-living, financing, intelligent design, construction automation. The most important change, however, is that we see entrepreneurs aiming higher and building bigger companies, due, in large part, to the impressive role models the ecosystem has produced in recent years.”

Jan Miczaika, Partner at HV Holtzbrinck Ventures

“Over the past 20 years we’ve seen a significant shift in the focus of Berlin-based startups. Originally there was a strong focus on e-commerce and marketplaces. Today this is significantly broader. Berlin is a fintech hotspot, a global proving ground for mobility concepts, the HQ for digital B2C champions and has strong growth in B2B/SaaS. Berlin is also highly relevant for Blockchain, which fits extraordinarily well with the anarchical spirit of the city. As a broad, multi-stage investor we at HV are excited to cover all of the above, trying to find inspirational entrepreneurs with a strong vision for the future. I personally am most interested in companies with a strong data angle, across both B2C and B2B.”

Pawel Chudzinski, Partner at Point Nine Capital

“Marketplaces have transformed how consumers access products and services across many categories vs. in B2B this process feels like 10-15 years behind. We see more and more startups pursue marketplace opportunities across various b2b categories and we want to discover them as early as possible. We are industry agnostic, but the industries in which we have been spending most time recently were probably supply chain and logistics, and financial services (incl. crypto). We also expect a rise in sustainability focused startups and we started diving into this space as well – mainly from the SaaS and marketplace angle.”

Ciaran O’Leary, Partner at Blueyard Capital

“BlueYard is a thesis driven early stage firm that backs founders with transformative ideas that decentralize markets and empower humanity. Today BlueYard is focused on the reinvention of the internet for permission-less innovation through decentralized web protocols and services that can untangle the server-side monopolies (e.g. p2p protocols and networks), the ability to use nature / biology itself paired with breakthrough engineering and computation to solve humanity’s largest planetary challenges (e.g. synthetic biology, quantum computing), the re-thinking of the knowledge worker stack by liberating users and data from the current tools designed in the 1980s (e.g. alternatives to PowerPoint, Excel, etc) and the separation of state and money through algorithmically transparent and programmable money.”

Jan Borgstädt, Partner at JOIN Capital

“We are deeply entrenched in identifying technologies that lay the foundation of our industrial future – or what we call the Neue Industry. I look for companies whose founders have deep technical knowledge to build transformative tools that augment human capabilities in essential processes. Think about the construction industry, and how advanced modeling tools and software can revolutionize the backbone of the way our civilization is built. Or the automation of processes such as circuit mapping and production planning. These are among the trends that excite us right now.”

Christoph Schuh, Partner at Lakestar

Berlin is the tech ecosystem where we have done the most investments out of our existing portfolio of more than 50 companies. For example Travel & Mobility is the space where we are very much interested and active. We’ve invested into Berlin-based travel tech companies like GetYourGuide, HomeToGo and Omio and we’re still looking for new stars. At Lakestar, we also like B2B plays where industries are in transformation and tech can enable a new level of efficiency for the ecosystem. So we also invested into the Berlin based logistic player Sennder, the #1 digital freight forwarder in Europe. Actually, we also look into industry disruption in 3.0/4.0/RPA space and others.”

Anton Waitz, Partner at Project A

“At Project A, we think and work in industry deep dives. That means we pick 5-6 industries at the time on which we spend most of our energy and where we do the majority of our investments. It’s interesting to see how recently our deep dives have let us think about some of the most fundamental questions in life: How will we work in 10 years time (Deep Dive: Business Software/Process Automation)? How will we reside (Deep dive: Real Estate)? How will we move us (Mobility) and things (Logistics)? How will we produce (Industry 4.0)? And how will we stay healthy (Digital Health)? I guess it shows how deep digitization has reached the very basics of our life – and how exciting our job actually is!”

Filip Dames, Partner at Cherry Ventures

“We believe the next years will show successful companies in industries which have traditionally been very hard to tackle for startups. For example, we’re just at the very beginning of seeing the effects of technology innovation in healthcare or manufacturing, two spaces we actively investing in with Cherry. Data, leveraged through AI or intelligent user interfaces can have a huge impact on solving problems in these industries. In Berlin, we’re excited to see that the city is becoming more and more a home for deep tech companies, attracting technical talent from around the world.”

Join TechCrunch in Berlin on December 11-12 for Disrupt Berlin…

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topicprinter · 5 years

Link

Hey - Pat from StarterStory.com here with another interview.Today's interview is with Dennis Michels (u/u/plaatjes) of Good Look Gamer, a brand that makes board and card gamesSome stats:Product: Board and Card GamesRevenue/mo: $1,600Started: January 2018Location: BRIELLEFounders: 1Employees: 1Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?Hello, my name is Dennis Michels, I run Good Look Gamer, a webstore for modern board and card games. Our products vary greatly, as new games are released daily. We take a lot of pre-orders for upcoming games, sometimes months before they are released.My customers mainly consist of adults who enjoy the challenge of a board game, competing with friends and family or cooperating in reaching a shared goal for fun or glory :)Our turnaround currently is around $1600 per month, and we’re still growing.What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?The start of this adventure was during a bad time in my life. I had gotten ill and was housebound for months, with no hope of returning to my regular job as an audio/video technician. I was really afraid I would never get better and would lose my job and my income. During this period I was also getting back into my old hobbies of reading comic books and enjoying board/card games to keep me occupied and take my mind off things.Me and my wife had fantasized and discussed starting our own business a few times in the past. And since I was sitting at home, not feeling very productive, I figured; hey, let’s just do this. And so I started prototyping a website, brainstorming a name and sketching logos.My wife and I came up with Good Look Gamer, with the idea of selling board/card games and geeky fashion so you can Look Good while Gaming :) Well, the clothing part never really took off, so we stuck with just selling games. And to be honest, someone playing games automatically always looks good.To start off the business I did 2 things: I began taking pre-orders for upcoming games, and I started selling off parts my old collection of gaming materials through local listings and forums. And this turned out to be a great way to raise some starting capital and to get a feel for who my customers are and what they are looking for. I was taking orders from the first week of launching the business.Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.Well, I don’t really manufacture my own products. I did, however, design, prototype and create my own webshop, so let’s talk a bit about that.I have a degree in graphic design and years of experience in building websites as a freelance web designer. For building my website I narrowed down the CMS I wanted to use to two candidates: WordPress or Shopify and actually built prototype webshops in both systems. Eventually, I chose to use WordPress because of a few reasons: cost, expandability, flexibility, and familiarity.Startup costs were kept at a minimum, I bought a domain name and hosting. I got myself registered with the chamber of commerce and that was it.imageDescribe the process of launching the business.I did the web design myself, the logo was suggested by an acquaintance and is… adequate. Probably need to redo that one sometime :)I researched popular online platforms for selling games, and quickly learned that there actually are only two good places to sell games professionally: eBay and BoardGameGeek (BGG as it’s known everywhere in the gaming hobby) So, my strategy was as follows:List pre-orders for sale on my website and on BGGOrder the required number of presales from my distributorShip anything that was paid forAny leftovers got to put up on eBay and listed as in-stock on my websiteRepeatDoing sales this way is how I started building up capital and stock.I was in luck as one of the first games I listed for pre-order turned out to be in-demand and I got about 10 orders for that one, which felt like a great start to me.I soon realized something about this pre-order strategy. I had no idea what the dimensions of the gamebox were and I needed to arrange packaging material for shipping the orders to my clients. The info was nowhere to be found, so I started asking around in the forums and it turned out no one really knew for sure, although it was suggested the game probably would have the standard box size. Great!What is that standard size though was my next question. Someone actually got a measuring tape and measured some of his other games in his collection that also had the standard size. Armed with that knowledge I took a gamble and bought packaging material for that size. Turned out I gambled right… what a relief. Before I knew it I was shipping out my first orders.Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?I have tried so many things to attract and retain customers. I have advertised on Facebook, Google, and Instagram. I added a free shipping option. I added a loyalty rewards program. I regularly add freebies to orders. All of these with varying success.I tend to alternate my advertising efforts between various platforms and am currently looking to advertise on Reddit, see what that brings. My advertising budget is actually quite small, since I tend to invest all profits I make in new stock or upgrades to the store.The best marketing strategy for me so far has been being friendly and approachable for clients. Clients literally contact me everywhere: Instagram messages, BoardGameGeek forums, WhatsApp, SMS, Facebook messenger, etc. I make it a point to respond everywhere as fast as possible, the same day at least, but preferably within an hour or less. I always include a friendly thank you note in every order, which really gets me a lot of positive feedback from clients.Another marketing strategy for me that really works is just being everywhere my clients are. I sell board games on BGG, eBay and local listings. I sell collectible card game singles on specialized marketplaces such as cardmarket.com, eBay and local listings. And every time I make a sale via whatever platform, I include a thank you letter in the order with the details of my webshop in the footer.How are you doing today and what does the future look like?I got better after almost a year of being sick, which is great :) I went back to my job as an audio/video engineer, but actually started working a day less because I am doing good with my online business and I want it to grow. So I’m investing more time in it.I think about 80 to 90% of my sales are from outside my webshop. And I also got some local regulars currently who come by to pick up their orders and am planning some social events with them to hopefully start building a bit of a local community (and sell them my stuff :)I’m working on building 2 other websites that will act more as platforms for communities around some popular collectible games. I noticed that for some games there really isn’t an alternative to eBay for players to sell or trade their items. I’m hoping to create income from commissions on sales made by members.My long term goal is to be a full-time entrepreneur. :)Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?The biggest lesson I learned is Just Do It! Go chase that dream. Eventually, you will run into some problems, but don’t let that stop you.The biggest problem I ran into was accounting and taxes, it turns out I’m bad at it, very bad. After about 6 months my wife suggested I’d hire an accountant because..well… Anyway, I think I gave my accountant a severe case of migraines because my administration was a terrible mess. It really took some sessions with the accountant and some longs days together with my wife to get it all sorted.I learned that some of my peculiarities really are assets for this business. I don’t need much sleep, 5 to 6 hours per night is enough for me. All the extra time I get thanks to that is used for working; creating listings, improving the website, seeking out new products, I’m even packing orders past midnight.Another important lesson I learned for doing business is: be where your clients are. Research the platforms your clients are using, the forums they hang out in and just built your own presence on those platforms. Engage your clients, talk to them, be one of them. It really helps if you are one of the guys.What platform/tools do you use for your business?My webshop is powered by WordPress/WooCommerce. I have chosen this platform because of the low costs, high flexibility and familiarity.For invoicing and accounting I use Moneybird, which is highly automated and I love it. Any invoices/bills I receive in my email are automatically forwarded to a special Moneybird email address, which automatically adds it to my ledger. Thanks to a WordPress plugin all incoming orders will automatically create an invoice through Moneybird. It really saves me a lot of time and frustration.I’m currently looking into integrating eBay with Moneybird, so all my eBay sales also automatically get a Moneybird generated invoice. Also, I’d like to automatically synchronize my website stock to eBay. I think this would really save me a lot of work and time, so I’m also looking into how to do that.I don’t use any real productivity tools. I’ve tried plenty, but they all feel clunky, complicated and don’t really seem to save me any time.What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?I don’t listen to podcasts, because I think they are boring and I really can’t focus on work when someone is talking to me ;)I do read a lot of books, but mostly fiction. I love Terry Pratchett, Marten Toonder, Tolkien, Frank Herbert and Douglas Adams to name a few.I did start an online marketing course on Udemy a little while ago, which I’m finding quite enjoyable and inspiring. Highly recommended. I tend to watch 1 or 2 lessons per week and get inspired to take some actions to enhance my webshop or web presence. Some things I skip though, I don’t need someone explaining how to set up a Facebook page :PAdvice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?Go for it, follow your dreams, you got nothing to lose. Grab any chances and opportunities you get firmly with two hands!Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?Not at the moment. But eventually yeah. I would love to eventually get a creative artist for making unique assets like playing cards, custom meeples or tokens. Also, I’d love to someday start a Youtube channel for reviewing games, I’m not good on camera, so I’d be looking for a host.Where can we go to learn more?WebsiteInstagrameBayBoard Game GeekIf you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!Liked this text interview? Check out the full interview with photos, tools, books, and other data.For more interviews, check out r/starter_story - I post new stories there daily.Interested in sharing your own story? Send me a PM

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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carissanm4238 · 5 years

Text

Week 9 Readings

1. Kate Crawford - discuss the different types of bias she mentions Crawford pushes for the need for a “social-systems” approach to address what she terms a “major blind spot’ in thinking about Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous systems. In essence, she is pushing for a need to assess the impact of technologies on their social, cultural and political settings. Here are some of the biases she highlighted:

Predictive technology regurgitating biased output based on biased input

Overpolicing of marginalized communities

proprietary algorithms widely used by judges to help determine the risk of reoffending are almost twice as likely to mistakenly flag black defendants than white defendants

Potential discriminatory behviours on the part of employers

Google searches of first names commonly used by black people were 25% more likely to flag up advertisements for a criminal-records search than those of ‘white-identifying’ names

AI systems disproportionately affecting disadvantaged groups

Denial of loans of low-income individuals

Responsibility and culpability when it comes to automated decisions

Self-driving vehicles

On first thought such biases are hard to grapple with because if we are being honest, data and statistics do speak for themselves - no person or Artificial Intelligence body conjured up false data just to be racist or sexist or discriminatory. The data exists because it is in effect truth, and all AI does is to regurgitate the truth. But I thought a little harder and I realised; AIs are a product of the imperfect human system - a societal system that functions by disadvantaging some so others may rise. Humans have grown to discriminate against certain characteristics which is literally how stereotypes came to form - people reduce other people to labels and step on these “other people” so that they themselves may excel and go further in life. Society exists upon embedded notions of patriarchy, racism and whole battery of other discriminatory concepts, and in many ways we cannot see (e.g. language use, subconscious behaviour), we constantly perpetuate and feed these stereotypes. AIs don’t make the mistakes. DNNs are designed to learn and they do so magnificently - they can learn but they cannot think, which ties back to last week’s discussion on that AI becoming “human” and what it even means to be “human”.

She reconciles this slightly by describing how a social-systems approach would consider the social and political history of the data input.

“This might require consulting members of the community and weighing police data against this feedback, both positive and negative, about the neighbourhood policing. It could also mean factoring in findings by oversight committees and legal institutions. A social-systems analysis would also ask whether the risks and rewards of the system are being applied evenly — so in this case, whether the police are using similar techniques to identify which officers are likely to engage in misconduct, say, or violence.”

It’s nice and probably one of the best ways to tackle such an issue, but I guess in way, such a approach merely tries to ease a situation/societal system that is in itself flawed. Imperfect humans cannot create a perfect machine.

2. Gaydar - Evaluate the claims of Kosinski vs the critique by Blaise Aguera y Arcas and colleagues

Wang & Kosinski have a thorough and well-thought body of research that couples naturally and publicly existing data on homosexuals with scientific research (that homosexuality has a biological and hormonal basis). By studying existing facial recognition technologies, they report that AI can detect sexual orientation more accurately than humans.

Perhaps the biggest issue Arcas & colleagues took with wang & kosinski is that they attempted to attribute the differences between heterosexuals and homosexuals mere superficial physical characteristics, born from biological issues (side note!!! odd that they received backlash from the LGBT community because I would think LGBT supporters fight for the case that homosexuality is not a “choice” - which would imply that biological factors should come into play but I get this is far from the point which is... that technology shouldn't reduce communities of people to physical characteristics(!!?)). Arcas & colleagues spend the bulk of their article deconstructing and critiquing the methodology behind Wang & Kosinski’s work.They target individual points deduced by W & K, and showcase how each of these deductions are but mere stereotypes that can be debunked when considering factors such as lifestyle and selfie angles. they demonstrate that a handful of yes/no questions about certain variables can do nearly as good a job at guessing orientation as supposedly sophisticated facial recognition AI.

Logically speaking it should take more than a “15 min read” medium article to uproot a full-blown scientific study, and while I feel that Arcas & colleagues’ points do make sense (although much more research and statistics must be pumped into this to hold any more weight), I believe that Wang & Kosinski claims (especially with respect with what they set out to do) hold more water. Their main point was to showcase how existing technologies are powerful and can be used to disadvantage the LGBT community, and they did so.

What Arcas and colleagues put forth is in some ways inconsequential because it’s hard to dispute fact, and the fact is that the numbers spoke for themselves and displayed that the deep neural networks could indeed discern sexual orientation reasonably accurately. “When presented with a pair of participants, one gay and one straight, the algorithm could correctly distinguish between them 91% of the time for men and 83% of the time for women” Deep neural networks did indeed serve their purpose in discerning between gay and straight people. What aides and colleagues did was call the “hormonal” and “biological” basis of homosexuality into question, an issue tugs on the nature vs nurture debate which is .... perpetually ongoing.

“We are hopeful about the confluence of new, powerful AI technologies with social science, but not because we believe in reviving the 19th century research program of inferring people’s inner character from their outer appearance. Rather, we believe AI is an essential tool for understanding patterns in human culture and behavior. It can expose stereotypes inherent in everyday language. It can reveal uncomfortable truths .... Making social progress and holding ourselves to account is more difficult without such hard evidence, even when it only confirms our suspicions.”

On stereotypes - which I mentioned earlier forms the basis of today’s society - neither the AI, nor Wang/Kosinski could have been the ones responsible for creating or propagating any “discriminatory” stereotypes. When i was in secondary school i tried a pixie boy cut, not because I was “tomboyish” or anything. I just wanted to try it. After i cut my hair the facebook group created by the lesbian community of my school immediately added me on facebook and it was just really odd. This very simple story reflects societal structures and beliefs, all of which have been fed to machines. AIs treat such data as ones and zeros, when there is much more to data than that - ever piece of data has individuality and is born from personal experience and stories. Essentially the point that I am echoing is that AI can learn but it cannot think. If you feed the AI biased input, u get biased output - W& K’s AI could have very well been fed stereotypes which ultimately caused it to learn and go about the discernment process based on such stereotypes - which shouldn't call the technology itself into question. The AI is like a child and it started with a blank slate so whatever you feed it, it will learn and when u feed it sinful human data born from our stereotypical existence thats what it will regurgitate. It shouldn't come as a shock that the AI was so accurate. The AI is neither inaccurate, nor has it done any wrong. Human society created the problem that human rights/LGBT groups had been upset about. society perpetuated such “labels” & "stereotypes" and the AI merely learnt from our mistakes.

3. Critique the COMPAS paper in terms of the fairness issues raised in Barocas et al.

Perhaps reading the work of Barocas and colleagues does shed light on how authors of the COMPAS paper might have been to quick to villainize and demonise the creators of the COMPAS technology and cast them as racist and capitalistic (they may be profit driven, but perhaps they aren't villains). Based on Barocas and colleagues’ work, it’s clear to see that merely observing bias and disparities doesn’t necessarily mean that creators of the such AI and machine learning systems had intended for such inequalities to arise. Barocas et al. dissect the Machine learning process and showcase just how disparities come to form. They had actually put into coherent words the thoughts I had formulated in questions 1 and 2 and also revealed how the very nature of machine learning can further reinforce and introduce biases.

In the measurement stage, training data reflect the battery of demographic disparities characteristic of human society, the messiness of the real world a manifestation of the limitations of data-driven techniques. When we learn a model from such disparate data in the learning stage, our models will reflect disparities found in the input data, leading to unfair generalisations and high error rates. Even in the feedback stage, there is a tendency for biased feedback to occur due to cultural prejudices.

Despite these limitations, however, there is much potential for machine learning technologies to be both useful fair. Algorithms force us to be explicit about what we want to achieve with decision-making. Data- driven decision-making forces us to articulate our decision-making objectives and enables us to clearly understand the tradeoffs between desiderata, a process more transparent than human decision-making. Further, effective interventions do exist in many machine learning applications, especially in natural-language processing and computer vision.

In the case of the COMPAS paper, perhaps what would be important is to not write off machine learning technologies as inherently biased and unhelpful in society. The COMPAS paper did good in showcasing the degree to which machine learning technologies can be unfair and biased, and provided an important human-touch element to the story by giving us real-life people, faces, and how these very real lives had been negatively impacted by these limitations. This is important because in this day and age, technology is relentlessly fetishised and the very important human element is constantly missing from academic narratives. Perhaps the takeaway from this would be that it is important to highlight the harm that can result from biased machine learning, so as to motivate researchers and creators to practice more discretion and be more thorough in the process of creating such technologies.

Such technologies should not be written off, because machine learning has the potential to help us debate the fairness of different policies and decision-making procedures more effectively.

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reviewape-blog · 5 years

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Fear a fiction of the mind |

https://www.reviewape.com/?p=5006 Fear a fiction of the mind | - Product Name: Fear a fiction of the mind | Click here to get Fear a fiction of the mind | at discounted price while it’s still available… All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors. Fear a fiction of the mind | is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked. Description: Why Live In Fear When You Can Naturally Eliminate ANYTHING Holding You Back From Living the Life You’ve always Dreamed of? 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Do you know that Fear holds back your initiative, your talent, your ability to express yourself and, most of all, it holds back the fulfillment of your full potential as human beings? Your life may be totally controlled by fear, making lifetotally unenjoyable and everyday tasks a real struggle. Our lives are always controlled by fear more than we know. Fear controls the choices we make, our actions, our habits, and even our destinies. Fear- a fiction of the mind is written by a seasoned life coach who understands what it takes it takes to live in fear and the survival mode. The Most Effective Step by Step System to Reprogram Your Mindset and Reality to Naturally Conquer All Deep-Seethed Fear in order to Achieve ALL Your Goals and Dream It took me years to perfect this code, but once I was able to organize the steps needed to wrench apart limiting beliefs from the ethical beliefs that sustained me, I created a whole new system that the world has never seen before: a system that focused on the actual ideas that hold back people from health, wealth and success! This step by step system is stacked-full of all the powerful toolkits and information you NEED to get rid of all limiting self-beliefs and fears holding you back from becoming the person you’ve always known you could be. It has worked for a lot of people; I am very sure it will work for you. The effect of fear on our personal lives is more damaging than any terrorist can ever hope to achieve. Fear of life prevents most of us from living. But do you know you can declare these fears a fiction of the mind and move ahead to realize a life you are born to live? The book is written to empower people and show the paradox that fear is both automated and self-created. Fear runs our life, but we can be responsible in spite of being born in the world of a survival run by fear. Being frustrated alone cannot solve the problem, you can’t wish your challenges away because you are too afraid to take action, the book will teach you how to handle them. The same way it is detrimental to continue doing the same thing and expecting a different result, you need a mindset, and attitudinal change and book will help you do it. Various chapters exist in the book that will mirror down your situation and talk to you about the foundations of your problem so you can move forward in life. 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You let your parents, your peers and your past program your mind. You lost the freedom to your mind. That is why I ask whose mind it is? If it is yours, then why are you suffering? If it is yours, then why are you not joyful? If it is yours, why do you allow fear to steal the freedom of expression? I HAVE GOOD NEWS FOR YOU TODAY,THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT YOU CAN OVERCOME Go ahead and start that business you want to start. Go ahead and study what you really want to explore. Go ahead and become a musician, poet, artist, fashion designer or whatever else you want to do. Sure you might fail, but you might succeed too. Take the risk today and conquer your fear.The fear of suffering, hurts, guilt, regrets, worry, and anxiety can change to joy, happiness, bliss, peace, freedom, and ease. Don’t wait any longer to live the life that you want! Let this book take you through the journey of discovering fear as a fiction of the mind! In this book, you will: And for the GREAT NEWS! Because I truly want as many people that need this system to get their hands on it…I’m making it available at a huge discount to become the one complete CONTROL of your life finally! BUT… you need to act now – because this is a short-term limited offer and will be increased back to the regular price or possibly be pulled down and never to been again. So, I recommend you don’t sit on this and take action today! You have nothing to lose with 60 days return policy. Copyright © 2018 Paradox Principle | Contact Us CLICKBANK® is a registered trademark of Click Sales, Inc., a Delaware corporation located at 1444 S. Entertainment Ave., Suite 410 Boise, ID 83709, USA and used by permission. ClickBank’s role as retailer does not constitute an endorsement, approval or review of these products or any claim, statement or opinion used in promotion of these products. Subscribe to receive FREE 100 questions to discover your deep-rooted fears This is the bottom slider area. You can edit this text and also insert any element here. This is a good place if you want to put an opt-in form or a scarcity countdown. Conquer fear and take your life to the next level in no time Without wasting thousands of dollars on gurus, mentors and other positive-thinking preachers All the problems you’re facing… (financial, romantic, professional) Or the dreams you’ve been putting on hold… (starting a business, writing a book, traveling around the world) Or the goals you struggle to achieve… (a bigger house, a better car, starting a family) And the challenges that seem impossible to overcome… (if only you had the resources) Why do you think this happens to you? I’ll tell what it’s NOT: it’s not because there’s something wrong with you or because you don’t have the abilities or the opportunities to turn your life into everything you’ve ever wanted it to be. You’re awesome and deep inside (or maybe not that deep) you know it! There’s an invisible “ceiling” in your mind that stops you from doing what you know you should be doing to get what you want: and that ceiling is called fear. Fear is the reason you are not taking the decisions you know you should be taking. Fear, which usually sounds like: What if I’m not good enough? I don’t have the skills or the knowledge I’ll just end up broken-hearted again If only it was that easy… Your life might be entirely controlled by fear without you even realizing it. Our lives are always controlled by fear more than we know. Fear controls the choices we make, our actions, our habits and, ultimately, our destiny. Fear of how life may turn out prevents most of us from living.And the thing is, it’s not that easy to deal with either. You can’t just wish your fear away. No, it’s rooted deeply in your subconscious, put their by parents and friends, by society, by your partner, by your kids. In fact, it’s your brain’s way to survive — pointing out everything that’s dangerous and that can do you physical or emotional harm. What would life look like if you didn’t let fear steer the wheel? When you begin to face your fears, you will eliminate anything holding you back from living the life you’ve always dreamed of. You’ll find the courage to start that business you want to start or make that bold career move you’ve been considering You’ll find the energy and inspiration to write a book or a song, to paint or to study something new You’ll find a way to improve your relationships with others, become a people-magnet, attract new friends into your life and find The One (or get him/her to commit to you) You’ll raise your standards and never settle for anything that’s beneath you ever again You’ll take back control over what matters to you and at the same time, learn to let go and enjoy life as it is Uncover the truth about why you do what you do and become the best version of yourself No, I’m not trying to sell you on a costly coaching program. In fact, the solution is as simple as reading a book — but not just any book. Click here to get Fear a fiction of the mind | at discounted price while it’s still available… All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors. Fear a fiction of the mind | is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked. - ReviewApe - https://www.reviewape.com/?p=5006

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filipeteimuraz · 5 years

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How to Make a Wix Website in 6 Easy Steps

Every business needs a website. But for those of you who have never created a website before, this can seem a bit intimidating.

It doesn’t matter if you’re just launching a new startup company, if you’ve been in business for a decade, or fall somewhere in between. You need to have a website to increase your reach and establish a digital presence.

Ultimately, your website will serve as the center or hub of everything that you do.

It’s a place people can find basic information about your company, such as your location, phone number, and email address. All of your campaigns should be driving traffic to your website. If you’re going to sell products and services online, your website will facilitate those transactions.

But before we get ahead of ourselves and into all that, it’s time to get back to the basics: How do you build your own website?

There are tons of different website builders out there, but Wix is definitely a top option to consider. (It’s our top pick for best website builder for automating the tough decisions.)

I like Wix because it’s very easy to use. Someone who has never created a website before can get a site up and running in no time at all. Even if you have some experience building websites, you can use Wix as an alternative option to simplify what you’ve done in the past.

Plus, Wix gives you hundreds of templates, pages, and web hosting services for free. You’ll eventually want to upgrade to one of their premium plans, which are very affordable, but we’ll talk about that in greater detail later on.

Even though it’s easy to make a Wix website, you can still cut some of the trial and error out by using this step-by-step guide as a reference.

Let’s dive right in.

Step 1: Create an account

Like almost anything else you do online, the first thing you need to do is set up your account. It’s really simple, and should only take you a few seconds.

From the Wix homepage, just click on the “get started” CTA in the center of the screen.

If you’ve been doing research and find yourself on another one of the Wix pages, you can still get started without having to navigate back to the homepage. Just look for the CTA, which might be worded slightly differently depending on the content that you’re looking at. For example, from the “Explore” page you’ll want to click “Create Yours Today” to move forward.

It should be pretty self-explanatory, but if you’re struggling, you can always go back to the homepage, or just click here to create your account.

Unlike other platforms that ask for nearly everything but a blood sample to sign up, Wix asks for just two things.

email address

password

It’s optional, but they’ll ask you some follow up questions as well to help you create exactly what site you’re looking for. Answering these questions will help Wix’s ADI builder help you create a site you like faster.

Who are you creating a Wix site for?

yourself

a client

company you work for

someone else

What type of site Wix site are you building?

business

online store

music

designer

blog

portfolio

events

photography

restaurants and food

accommodation

beauty and wellness

What is your level of expertise building websites?

built sites professionally

created many websites

made a few websites

never done this before

Here’s an example of what this might look like for you, depending on the options that you’ve selected above.

From here you’ll have two options.

You can allow the Wix ADI to create a website for you. All you need to do is answer some questions, and it’ll make a site for you in just a few minutes, complete with custom text and images. It’s almost magical how good it is — you should definitely try it out.

Alternatively, you can use the Wix Editor to make a website on your own. For our learning purposes today, this is the route that I’ll go with.

Step 2: Choose a template

Wix offers hundreds of standard templates at no charge. You can search for a template based on category. For example, let’s say you want to create a Wix business website. Some popular categories include:

automotive & cars

advertising & marketing

consulting & coaching

finance & law

pets & animals

real estate

services & maintenance

technology & apps

All of the template options are located on the left side of the dashboard. Take some time to scroll through and find one that fits best for the type of website you want to build.

Check out the first template on this page. It’s a “Coming Soon” landing page. Even if your website isn’t built just yet, it’s important to least start off with this type of landing page. For startup companies, creating a website may be the first thing you do, even before you actually register your business name or create an LLC. Wix understands this, which is why they give you this option.

Alternatively, you can select a blank template and build your own from scratch. While this is definitely something you can consider, I recommend going with one of the pre-designed templates. This will make your life much easier in the long run, especially if you’ve never built a Wix website before. If you’re up for a challenge and want to be a bit more unique, go ahead and give the blank template a try.

When you hover your cursor over each template, it will tell you if it’s free or if you have to pay. Once you find a template that you like, just click “edit” to continue.

Step 3: Save your work

It’s not a huge deal, but unfortunately, Wix’s autosave feature doesn’t turn on until you manually save for the first time. So before we make any changes at all, let’s manually save the page.

The “save” button is located at the top right corner of the screen.

Be forewarned: If you leave the Wix Editor and make changes in Wix Code, which is more advanced and not recommended for beginners, there is no autosave function. There’s also no autosave function for contributors.

Step 4: Edit your site

After you select a template, you’ll be brought to the Wix Editor.

Basically, this is what your website will look like if you decide to publish it right now. It’s up to you to make the necessary changes to make the website your own.

Here’s a basic look at what you’ll see when you’re editing the content on your future site:

Anything can be changed just by clicking on it. Start with the basics, like replacing the template company with the name of your actual business.

For our purposes, let’s just say I am redesigning the Quick Sprout homepage with Wix.

In less than one minute, look at what I was able to accomplish.

I replaced the Axis Group with Quick Sprout on the center of the page, as well as the in the top left corner of the menu bar. I also swapped out the dash on a red background with the letter “Q” on a green background in the left corner of the menu bar.

The financial consulting texted was changed to “Grow your business, faster.” You can also see that I changed the red “get started” CTA to a green “contact us” CTA.

Look at the menu options at the top of the screen as well. The original template had a “news and updates” page. I clicked on that and changed it to “blog” because that makes more sense for the site that I’m building.

Again, I made all of these changes in less than a minute. All you have to do is click on what you want to change, and follow the instructions on the screen. It’s that simple.

You can replace images when any custom photos you’ve taken for your website. Or you can refer to our guide on the best places to get website images (paid and free).

It’s easy to drag and resize any of the content on each page, too. The Wix Editor allows complete customization based on your personal preferences.

Step 5: Optimize your site for mobile devices

The mobile version of your website should not look the same as the desktop version. Part of having a good website means that it needs to be easily accessible from smartphones and tablets.

If you don’t have a good mobile site, you could lose more than half your customers: more than 52% of all Internet traffic comes from mobile devices.

Fortunately, Wix makes it easy to optimize your web design for mobile users. Just click on the mobile icon at the top of the screen to switch between desktop view and mobile editing.

Wix does a great job of changing the content for you, so it’s automatically optimized. However, you may want to manually make some changes on your own. The changes you make here won’t impact the desktop version of your site.

Before your site goes live, make sure you go through the mobile version of each page to ensure that’s it’s properly optimized to your liking.

Step 6: Connect your domain

Before you can publish your site and have it go live, you’ll need to connect your domain name.

The easiest way to do this is from the dashboard. Just click “Connect Domain” to proceed.

By default, your website domain will be: yourusername.wixsite.com/mysite

You’ll have the option to change the “my site” portion of that domain for free. But, that’s definitely not how you want your site domain to look.

When was the last time you went to a legitimate and credible site that had all of that extra stuff, including the website builder in the domain name? It’s not a good look for your business.

Wix gives you the option to buy a domain name directly from their platform or connect a domain name that you already own. I recommend not buying your domain from Wix, but at a place that specializes in domain names, and putting a lot of thought into get the right domain. If you haven’t done this yet, refer to our recent guide on how to buy a domain name.

Wix lets you create a website for free, but you’ll eventually want to upgrade to a premium account. This is when (and why) you want to do that. Without paying for a premium account, you’ll be stuck with the “wixsite” in your domain name.

Packages start at $11 per month, but if you’re using this site for business purposes, you’ll want to pay more than that. Even Wix’s most expensive business plan is just $35 per month. It comes with features such as:

accept online payments

unlimited bandwidth

connect your custom domain

free domain for one year

50 GB of storage

$300 ad vouchers

So review all of the premium plans to find the one that’s best for you. Depending on what you select, it will only cost you between $132 and $420 per year. That’s pennies considering how much money you can make with a website.

Conclusion

It’s that simple. You’ve learned how to make a Wix website.

There’s not much to it — just six easy steps.

Once you go through everything outlined above, all you need to do is publish your Wix website, and it will be live on the Internet for everyone to see.

To recap, create a Wix website for the first time by following these simple instructions:

Create an account

Choose a template

Save your work

Edit your site

Optimize for mobile devices

Connect your domain

That’s it.

Once you complete the steps, you can publish your site and start generating leads, driving traffic, and selling products online. Your opportunities are endless.

What type of business or brand page are you going to build on a Wix website?

http://www.quicksprout.com/how-to-make-a-wix-website/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-to-make-wix-website-in-6-easy-steps.html

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beardedwinnerobject-blog · 6 years

Text

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I'm turning 16, and I intend to get a used passenger van for my first car (I'm in a band), and my parents are making me pay for my first 6 months of insurance (I believe you have to be 18 to have your own insurance so I guess they're making me pay the difference between whatever they usually pay and how much they'll pay after I'm on their policy. The van I'm looking at has 120,000 miles on it, if that matters, but only 70,000 on the rebuilt engine.""

How much insurance is it for a 16 year old boy in alberta?

just planning to buy a 1996 car any ideas?

High risk health insurance for cancer patients?

I know someone without health insurance who just received word of a lung cancer diagnosis. I know most insurance companies won't take him but does anyone know of one that will, or a website that can point me in the right direction?""

When does my insurance expire?

I have a Family HealthPlus insurance that I just renewed thus is valid until next year, I also just got a new job, and my employment insurance is in effect as of July 1. What happens next? is my HealthPlus automatically cancelled or can I use both of my insurances simultaneously? The reason why I am asking is that, I have a referral to extract my wisdom tooth from my old insurance, and would like to use it to do just that. My employer does not allow me to take sick/personal days off in the first 90 days of my employment, so I can't really do that between now and July 1, to schedule an extraction. Thanks a bunch!""

Can someone please explain health insurance to me?

I'm looking for individual health insurance and it is very confusing. Can someone explain what things like deductible, copay, and coinsurance mean? Also, what's the difference between a PPO, Network, Indemnity, and a HSA-qualified plan? Lastly, how do I know exactly what is covered before I apply? People have sent me things in the mail and I'm looking online and I was given a list of things covered, but then it says that this isn't everything and once I sent in my payment I will get a full list of my policy and coverages. That seems shady, and these are top companies like Aetna and Health America, so I don't think they would rip me off. Plus, how come these companies aren't offering a bundle plan, where I can get health insurance, vision, and dental all in one plan with one monthly payment?""

Can I get my motorcycle registered with no title?

I just brought a bike for really cheap and I can get it insured so I think it isnt stiolen but if so how can I get it registered in the state of texas with no title

Cheap insurance for Mustang GT?

I am 21 years old, and its hard to find an affordable insurance rate. Does anyone know of an insurer in Ontario that has very good insurance rates for a Mustang GT and young male drivers?""

Burnsville West Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 26335

How much is pilots insurance ?

First of all is there such a thing as pilots insurance, if so how much is average""

Where can I find Insurance for labor provider business?

California...where can I find Insurance for Labor provider business?

Why is my car insurance so expensive?

I am trying to figure out why my car insurance costs so much, and I am having problems getting a straight answer from any insurance company. In the last 5 years I have 0 speeding tickets, no dui's, and 1 not at fault accident. I am a 26 year old male with full coverage on an 07 Cobalt ls, so not even a sports car. The absolute cheapest insurance I could find is just shy of 350$ a month. Most companies wouldn't even cover me, and none of them would tell me why. So if anyone has any ideas of what could be causing this I would really appreciate it.""

I want to cancel my life insurance for a better one can i get my money back that i put in on it.?

are we allowed to get money back that we put towards life insurance.. if so how long do u have to have the policy to qualify for this. mines is only 7 months old. thanks.

Where can I get babysitting insurance in the UK?

I have scoured the internet but keep being told they won't give me babysitting insurance unless I am a registered childminder. Help please?

How can I get medical insurance if I have a history of pancreatitis?

I've never had medical insurance b/c I've never had a reason too. Never had any major sickness before now, never a broken bone and never sprained anything. My pancreas suddenly became inflamed. It wasn't caused by drinking, I hate the stuff! I believe it was caused by smoking. I've had a few episodes of pancreatitis and was hospitalized once in which it cost an arm and a leg. Should have went to the hospital this last time, but I was so scared of the extra costs. Your pancreas is a major organ. You can't live without it. Am I going to just have to grin and bare it and leave a debt to my family when I die?! I tried applying for the discount but I wasn't eligible b/c I don't have a job. I haven't had one in 4 years. What are you to do. No insurance company will accept me due to the medical problems. I'm scared of what I'll be charged, but even more scared of the pancreas killing me.""

How much does life insurance generally cost?

im looking for a life insurance policy, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000,000, that ISN'T a term policy. in other words, when i die, however far away that is, my beneficiary gets 5 million. how much would that cost me?""

""Of the different types of Life Insurance, Which is the best & why?""

Of the different types of Life Insurance, Which is the best & why?""

Do you liability car insurance or full coverage?

Do you have liability car insurance or full coverage insurance? Pros and cons?

Homeowners insurance in Valrico FL?

I am interested in buying a home in Valrico FL. Particularly Diamond Hill, a golf course community. Great price, but we are new at buying and have no idea what insurance might be on this place.Just to factor it in for our monthly cost. It is a 3/2/2 1800 sq ft @ $110k. no pool. I mean were talking just a rough estimate, close figure something. Again we have not the slightest clue as to what it could be. Any advice is really appreciated.""

Where to Find Really Cheap Health Care Insurance?

I know a lot of sites that offer health insurance, but need to know really cheap health care insurance.Thank you in advance.""

""Need Jaw Surgery, No insurance. Low Income, [Best] advice please.?""

I need Jaw Surgery, and have no insurance. I'm from low income. From online readings, I heard you can get it done at UCSF for free, but there is a waiting line?? not sure about that. If have to pay, I heard 5k-7k with insurance. I don't have insurance, and if I were to get it, I don't want to pay kaiser $150/month. What is your [best] advice?? Thanks a lot!""

Is cure auto insurance a scam?

is cure auto insurance a scam. they seems to good to be true

Looking for a good insurance company?

Im barley getting by as it is so i need an insurance company that can help pay for expensive monthly inhalers, and i need dental insurance. But like i said im barley making it as it is, is there anyone out there that is paying for there on plan and what are you paying? Im 19 my moms 55 and we both need coverage. Any suggestions would be really appreciated.""

Affordable Health Insurance?

I am a 19 year old college student. I have always been on soonercare but I stopped being covered when I turned 18. I take over 20 hours in college and live with my fiance so I am unemployed. I need health inaurance so I can go to the dentist and eye doctor but everything is way expensive. My fiance is covered by his work but they dont offer family coverage so even when we get married a year from now I will still need my own health insurance. Ive tried getting some quotes but I cant pay $200-$300 a month. Is there somewhere to get afordable coverage that I am over looking?

WHAT COMPANY PROVIDE THE MOST AFFORDABLE CAR INSURANCE?

IM PAYING ABOUT 350 EVERY 6 MONTH I WAS WONDERING IF THERE MIGHT BE MORE AFFORDABLE CAR INSURANCE OUT THERE.

Do we qualify for medicaid?

Medicare for me & my boyfriend.? My boyfriend and I have an apartment of our own. I'm 19(next week), and he's 20(in August). I'm working at an insurance company, and I make about $1500/monthly. He's currently unemployed (he's looking for a job). I pay rent, all the bills, car insurance, and all the other little things. So i'm broke at the end of the month. He has a cyst in his chest (we're assuming). He went for a check up about a year ago, and the doc said it was a cyst. It's been getting bigger and worse, so we want to get it fixed. Since he lives with me, and I make enough for the both of us, will he qualify for medicaid? I WILL NOT be able to afford all the medical bills! Will both of us qualify? How will this be done? They will ask for paycheck stubs and rent papers and everything...right? We are also both in college, we applied for a Pell Grant this semester. If that helps any. And where do I go to apply for medicaid? Can i do it on the phone or something and avoid the 5 hr wait? Please answer ALL of my questions! Thanks!""

125 motorbike insurance 19 year old?

hi, im 19 and have had a car driving licence for 2 years and clean. As my car insurance renewal is ?n a few months and because its a 2.3litre and all that talk of premiums of increasing, its my option to sell my car for a motorbike and a riding experience, so typically how much would insurance be for a 19 year old, With a new bike licence but been driving a car for 2 years (if that matters) 1000 pound 125cc motorbike stored in a garage, immobiliser, not for any sort of business and miles of maximum 2000 a year. im just asking because insurance webpages don't open on my computer today, but i roughly remember whats asked for insurance. thanks in advance""

What is the cheapest car insurance?

28 yr old. Just need a car that runs for two years. I want to insure it the bare minimum for the cheapest price. What car is the cheapest to insure? Lets say I bought a 95 civic dx, what company is the cheapest to get insurance from? anecdotal experience is fine. Thanks""

Life insurance question - term life and term life with return of premium?

Hello, my spouse and I are in the market for life insurance now. After some researching, we have pretty much decided to go with term or term return of premium insurance. I still have following to decide and if you could enlighten me on these I would appreciate it very much. Which company? I found the following list that's supposed to be the best life insurance companies at this website. http://www.lifeinsurancestar.com/lifeinsurance/company-ratings.php * New York Life: A++, stable outlook * Mass Mutual: A++, stable outlook * State Farm: A++, stable outlook * Geico: A++, stable outlook Does this mean I should probably check out these companies? We have State Farm for auto and home insurance. Would State Farm be a good way to go (convenient to have all three in one place)? I also thought Geico didn't offer life insurance. I was led to LifeQuotes page from Geico. Does this mean that this list is not reliable? How much? We are 40-45 years old, just We still have almost 30 years of mortgage, and 20 years of raising our son. I was using some calculator online (Kiplinger, Life Foundation?) to calculate how much coverage I need, and they both returned figures like 1+ million. How can this be? Is 1 million life insurance common these days? We have about 170,000 in remaining mortgage balance (actually I only included half of that in calculation), and I calculated monthly living expense to be 2,000-3,000 (depending on if our child is still with us)/month with my spouse's income to be 2,000/month, and also included college cost. Does this seem reasonable that this will add up to be million dollars in 30 years, with inflation? I was thinking of about 300,000-400,000 before using these calculators. Term or Term ROP? We have almost decided against Term ROP and to go with straight term, but are not final on this decision. What do you all think about ROP? With ROP, do we typically actually receive ALL of the premium, or are there any fees etc. subtracted from the refunded amount? Also, does ROP term insurance give you investment returns in addition to the amount of premium you paid? One of the reasons that we are leaning towards straight term is that with our current age, with 20-30 year policies, the likelihood well actually be using the death benefit would be moderately high then ROP wont be such a good deal, as well as hearing that if we just get term and invest the difference in the premium, wed be ahead of term ROP. How long? In this case, should we try to get a 20 year term (for while our son will be with us), or 30 year term, just to cover the full length of the mortgage, although I wouldnt need that much coverage towards the end of 30 years (our son will be with us for only 20 more years, our mortgage will be paid off except for last 10 years or so)? Or buy 25 year return of premium term policy and pay 5 more years of mortgage using the money we receive from return of premium? Or buy two term policies - a large amount of 20 year policy plus a smaller amount (to cover the remaining mortgage balance in the last 10 years of mortgage)? Thank you for your help!""

How to get Health Insurance when you are 17?

My parents are divorced and my sister and I have been living with our mom. However, we received health insurance through our father's place of work. Now he is applying for disability and has quit his job, so currently my sister and I have no health insurance. Because of this, my mom forbids me to take my car or motorcycle out because if my sister or I get hurt, there is no way for us to pay for it (we are suffering financially because my mom's hours at work got cut, and she is still recovering from breast cancer). Anyway, is there any way for me to obtain health insurance (or at least help my mom to) that would be affordable? We live in New York State""

Where is the cheapest van insurance available?

I'm 21 and looking for cheap van insurance....Any recommendations?

""Car accident, Driver has NO insurance.?""

A girl hit my car on Easter. She lied and told me she had insurance only for me to find out she doesn't. I am so pissed because I do not want to pay my 500 deductible on an accident she was faulted, cited and ticketed for. However, she's only 17 so id feel bad to sue.. It's not her parents fault. What do I do?!""

Does anyone know where a couple in their early 60's might find affordable insurance.?

We had really great insurance but, it went up from a little less than $600.00 to over $1000.00. We cannot afford that.""

What would my car insurance be?

I am 16, female, first time getting insurance. I am thinking about getting a convertible, would my insurance be more? If so about how much more? But black or blue, not red or yellow. One of my friends is my age/sex and hers is about $100/mo. Would mine be about the same, give or take a little? I am trying to come up w/ a budget and see what I can afford so any help will be greatly appreciated! Every free insurance quote site you must fill in your EXACT car type or be 18+, I have already tried that.""

Burnsville West Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 26335

Bike insurance on a r6 in the uk?

ok so at the minute im banned 23years of age my ban is up next year so will be 24 when im looking to get insured im not even going to atemp to drive a car i know it will be to dear but have rode bikes my hole life so a big bike head would love to be leagul on a r6/zx6r 600cc sports bike does anybody know what it would cost me for a year for insurance serious answers please no idiots thanks

Auto insurance pricing for newly licensed 16 year old male driver?

Turning 16 soon and will need a car. I'm looking into getting a 2006 Mazda 6 with 100,000 miles on it. I live in Ohio and will basically be using it for driving around town, possibly to a job in the future of course (if it's still running). As a newly licensed driver, would any of you know how much the insurance would possibly cost? I'm a B average student with a 3.0 GPA average as well, if that has any an effect on the cost.""

Insurance companies that run driving history?

I'm trying to get quote on new insurance and I know Esurance runs your driving history to give you your quote. What other insurance companies do this? I don't know mine or my fiance's whole driving history for the last 5 years and it would be a lot less of a headache if they ran the report.

Can I drive in the USA on UK car insurance?

We are taking our vehicle to the USA and travelling around for up to 12 months, can we use UK car insurance or do we have to insure the vehicle when we get to the States?""

""OHIO: I'm 17, and got cited for failure to stop at a 4-way stop...got in accident...price?""

I live in Akron, Ohio. But I got cited in Salem, Ohio. I got cited for failure to stop at a 4-way stop sign. and got in a wreck. my car is fine. I was going speed limit (25). Other car, minor problems. I have to go to court. This is my first wreck, and citation. I drive a nissain altima 2003, my parents own. -how many points will i get on my license? -how much will my ticket be? -is there anyway the charges will be dropped? -how much will insurance go up? Thank you sooo much! sorry the police just weren't very helpful. I have statefarm insurance!!""

Whats the cheapest auto insurance in texas?

i need to get a 1 month auto insurance for my 94 mustang whats the cheapest i can get it for and also about how much would i have to pay to put it under my name

How much would insurance cost for a silverado?

new one 2010 im 18

Fronting car insurance?

I made a separate thread about me being a second driver but owning the vehicle,i wont actually be using the vehicle as much as the main driver,Hence me being the second driver.The answers i got back were You're fronting and its fraud blablabla . Is it fronting if i am a second driver but own the vehicle?Surely if i dont use the vehicle as much as the main driver then reguardless of who owns it thats correct..?""

Temporary car insurance?

I am moving across oregon when i turn 18 and I currently have a car but I need to get tags and insurance to move it. Could I get temporary insurance which is good for a week? If yes, about how much would that be? Do I need insurance to get my car registered and get tags?""

How much would an impreza wrx sti insurance cost at the age of a 21 year old citizen?

Hi, I am 21 years old and I'm looking forward to buy a 04-05 wrx sti. I live in Minnesota Saint Paul all my life and never had any tickets or any bad driving record every since I droved. I have at least a year of driving history. How much would my insurance going be if this was the case? Could someone give me at least a estimate price? -thank you in advance.""

Can i drive a newly purchased car with a dealer's tag without insurance?

i just bought a car that isnt registered because the tag is being sent by mail. Can i get insurance without a tag and can i drive the car with a dealership tag?

Best health insurance plan for a low income individual?

Looking for the best health insurance plan for a 26 yo old single femail in tennessee. $30k/year job, minimal health problems, need medical, prescription, dental, and vision coverage. Paying $208/month currently and need better coverage. Please sends me in the right direction guys :)""

Only Teens please :) How much do you pay for auto insurance?

Teen payments 19 years old preference

Insurance for 17 year old?

i was just wondering the cost of insurance when i turn 17 next year. my parents are paying around 800 each car on there policy. so when i get added to there policy how much approximately will it cost me?

New driver and car insurance.?

I'm 15 and I turn 16 on dec 27 and I already have a car and I've seen a lot of car insurance companies commercials but I don't know which one is best. They say they offer great stuff but I don't know which one to go with. Please help me because I want to have my car protected I just don't know which car insurance company is the best one out there. Thanks for helping <{ *__*}>

What auto insurance does aarp offer?

the name of the insurance (auto) offered to aarp subscribers

""Can you explain car insurance system in the UK, how it works?""

It is illegal to drive without a valid car insurance. I am unable to get a single quote for car insurance, what am I doing wrong or where is the catch? I am a new driver, have a provisional driving licence for a month. The car I want to buy is a large Mercedes S class (5-litre engine) that cost ca. 15K (I have my reasons). Why they would not insure me if I only want the THIRD PARTY LIABILITY cover (the minimum required by law)? The insurance company does not risk paying for my luxury car as third party cover does not cover the car, is that correct? My circumstances that I put in online forms: I am 26, UK resident for 3 years. The car would be bought and registered (and probably insured) under my mum's name, she is an EU national, has EEC (non-UK) driving licence for 20 years and is resident in the UK for 3 months only. I would need to add myself as a second driver... No company would give me an insurance quotation, do you know why? When I change driving licence in forms from provisional to full UK the result is the same (also no quotes at all). But when I change the car to e.g. a small Focus or similar, no problem, cheap insurance available and dozens of quotations are appearing. Are new drivers not allowed to drive luxury cars? HELP!""

I need help finding affordable health insurance for my family?

My husband has a job currently that offers health insurance for us, BCBS of NC great insurance but his job doesn't pay enough for us to survive now that we have a new baby. He is switching to a driving job that pays a little more so we can survive and pay some more bills, so we have decided to try to buy our own health insurance with this new job. Things are very tight with money with me being a stay at home mom to a new baby boy and a toddler so I need very affordable health insurance for my husband and myself. My kids are covered by medicaid so I do not need to buy it for them. I do not qualify for medicaid so I have to buy insurance for myself and my husband. Any suggestions of where to look? Any help would be greatly appreciated.""

How to get health insurance?

I was laid off from work a little over two months ago. Unemployment pays me 405 a week. After taxes I bring home about $1400 for the month. I nearly get by now paying my rent and my car. How can I get health insurance at lo cost or no cost?

Auto insurance low monthly payments?

I am having a very difficult time getting auto insurance i can afford . am on disability, and cannot afford the outlandish prices these days. Does anyone know where i can buy cheaper auto insurance? where can i find it? the lowest i could find was $143,53 down and and $140.09 a month. Does anyone have websites i can surf? Is there any with no money down and only monthly payments? is there anyone who has had the same problem as I? can anyone help me please?""

Best value car/insurance for a new driver (teenager)?

Hey Ive just started taking driving lessons (im 17), and am hopefuly gonna buy my first car soon. I'll probaly just get a second hand one from the paper, but, is there that much difference in the insurance cost with the different cars (like, if i buy a Vauxhall Cora will it be more expensive in insurance than if I get a Ford Focus etc etc). Also, how much will I be looking to pay for for insuance? Im hoping its no higher than 500 a year, as I dont have a ton of money. Thanks""

Prior proof of insurance?

I just got progressive car insurance. They want me to send prior proof of insurance from my old company. Do I just send in my old insurance card?

HOW come insurance co?

how come insurance co discraminate against people who have mental disease? I have tried in the past to get private insurance but because i have been treated for depression in the past, I have been denied by several companies. Now only I qualify for the State insurance, and it is way over-priced and hardly covers anything. This isn't fair to those of us that are self-employed. How are we able to get affordable insurance, if we are discraminated against.""

What is the best dogs health insurance?

i have a few dogs, and need health insurance for them.""

How do i get health insurance...??

I want health insurance ASAP but i dont know who to contact or what would be the best company or plan....can anyone give me some advice???

Burnsville West Virginia Cheap car insurance quotes zip 26335

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cost-horse-insurance-vetting-little-stuck-gabriel-greene/"

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iyarpage · 6 years

Text

A Complete Setup of GitLab CI & Docker Using Vagrant & Ansible: HTTPS/Let’s Encrypt, Container Registry, Runners

Tired of Jenkins? Always keeping an eye on all those new kids on the block with their super cool and simple Continuous Integration Pipeline files? Here´s a guide on how to fire up a fully functional GitLab Continuous Integration/Delivery pipeline with Let´s Encrypt, Docker Container Registry and Runners in no time.

The problem with Jenkins

There are many reasons to stick with Jenkins. It´s a mature Continuous Integration Server and it has a big market share. Everybody uses Jenkins. So why should you bother about something different? Well, I´am quite a Jenkins fanboy. As a consultant I used it so often in many projects and it always felt like a good choice.

Always? Well, just until the concept of Pipeline as Code arose and the Jenkins Pipeline Plugin was proposed as the answer to that concept in Jenkins 2.x. Together with a smart colleague we setup a new Jenkins server and started to rewrite all our existing Jenkins Jobs in the Jenkins Pipeline way… And it wasn´t easy! We felt that this approach was missing many things we´d already done before and now needed to implement into our Jenkinsfiles, which took much more time than we intended in the first place. At that time we had a really good standing in the project and the customer was on our side. We somehow managed to put everything together – but it didn´t feel finished. And it was way too verbose! And I don´t really know how we convinced our customer to not just scream at us about that decision (I think that was all about all the other architectural decisions that were pretty good

At the same time I was heavily using Open Source projects and also started to contribute to some, including building my first own projects on GitHub. The “standard way” to do Continuous Integration there is to use TravisCI. And all you have to do to configure your pipeline is to create a simple file called .travis.yml (see an example here). Comparing these files to the big pipelines of our customer projects is of course inappropriate. But the thought that everything should work in a much easier way remained.

Thinking about all of this, I went to the codecentric coffee kitchen. Well, maybe you already know what happened then.

Many colleagues there saying

“Hey Jonas, you Jenkins fanboy. Check out all those cool new CI servers like Concourse, Circle CI or even GitLab CI! We don´t know why you´re still messing around with Jenkins…” .

With a fresh coffee in my hand, I opened Google and found what my stomach was telling me all the time: “Jenkins 2.0 tries to address this by promoting a Pipeline plugin (plus another plugin to visualize it), but it kind of misses the point.”

That also reminded me of other pain points. Ever tried to keep all those Jenkins Plugins updated? Why the heck do I need all those Plugins actually?!! And why is Jenkins so hard to set up in a fully automated way that my colleague Reinhard needed to give deep-dive talks on this (I really recommend them!)?!!

Now I was ready to switch my CI fanboy server! And as there are many good rumors about GitLab CI, I wanted to give it a try. And that should be no problem, right? It´s just one of thoose new and easy to setup tools!

A GitLab CI real life setup

Installing and configuring GitLab CI isn´t always as easy as one could think in the first place. Yeah I know, there are those tutorials that present you a docker-compose up and you´re already 80 % there. But in the end you´ll see that you just achieved maybe 10 %.

Why is that? Well, if we want to set up a modern CI Pipeline, we for sure want to use Docker somewhere. It simplifies the effort to test, build and run our applications and also prevents us from getting into trouble with unmatched build-requirements on our CI server itself: everything needed is just already there inside the matching Docker images. No matter what kind of software you´re building or what programming language you´re using!. The GitLab CI docs propose this strategy also:

One of the new trends in Continuous Integration/Deployment is to:

1. Create an application image 2. Run tests against the created image 3. Push the image to a remote registry 4. Deploy to a server from the pushed image

This means we need a working Docker installation on our Pipeline server as a prerequisite for the GitLab configuration. And as this post will show, there are more prerequsites. So it turns out to be a good idea to leave the simple path with docker-compose up and to shift to a much more comprehensible setup here. This also has another advantage: Every step described could be used inside your companies infrastructure and on your servers! It´s also a good idea to strive for a fully automated setup of our CI Pipeline – having all the steps available in automatically executable code, checked in to version control.

To achieve a fully comprehensible setup, we use some Infrastructure-as-Code tools. The Ansible Playbooks will contain every step necessary to provision a GitLab server. There’s also great documentation about what´s needed to set up everything from the ground up – even if you don´t want to use Ansible! And with the help of Vagrant we´ll define our infrastructure inside a Vagrantfile. Now we can easily fire up a server locally that is based on a certain OS. And switching to your company’s GitLab server is extremely easy: Just edit the Ansible inventory file and add [yourcompany-gitlab-server] including its IP.

Prerequisites

For the sake of comprehensibility, every Ansible Playbook and Vagrant file used in this post is available inside the example project on GitHub. To run this post´s setup, you need a running installation of Ansible and Vagrant together with a Virtualization provider like VirtualBox. On a Mac, this is just a few homebrew commands away:

brew install ansible brew cask install virtualbox brew cask install vagrant

To really achieve a comprehensible setup, we also need the vagrant-dns Plugin (we´ll talk about that in a second). Just install it with:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-dns

Now we´re ready to get our hands dirty and clone the github.com/jonashackt/gitlab-ci-stack. Now be sure to add your domain name into the Vagrantfile. As I own the domain jonashackt.io and later want GitLab to be available on gitlab.jonashackt.io, I added the following:

config.vm.hostname = "jonashackt" config.dns.tld = "io"

After a vagrant dns --install, we´re ready to fire up our server! Just go right into the gitlab-ci-stack directory and fire up our Vagrant Box with the common vagrant up:

Depending on your internet connection, this can take some time – especially if the command is executed for the first time. As soon as our Vagrant Box is running, we have everything set up to run our Ansible Playbooks on. Let´s do a connection check first:

ansible gitlab-ci-stack -i hostsfile -m ping

If this returns a SUCCESS, we can move on to really execute our Ansible playbooks.

One command to install & configure full GitLab CI

There are basically two options to install GitLab. The Omnibus way and from source. We´re using Omnibus here, because it makes life much easier.

Everything you need to install a fully functional GitLab instance is done by the Playbook prepare-gitlab.yml. Before we execute it, we´ll need to check two things. First make sure the domain name your GitLab instance should answer on is provided inside the prepare-gitlab.yml. In my case this is gitlab.jonashackt.io:

vars: gitlab_domain: "gitlab.jonashackt.io"

The second part depends on your preferences. If you use this setup together with the provided Vagrant Box, you´ll need to have API access to your DNS provider. This is because our Vagrant Box isn´t accessible from the Let´s Encrypt servers directly (we´ll also talk about the “why” in a second, I promise). For now just provide providername, providerusername and providertoken for your DNS provider´s API in the extra-vars. In some cases you also need to add your current IP (check a site like whatsmyip.org) to the DNS provider´s IP whitelist. Now we´re ready to execute our Playbook:

ansible-playbook -i hostsfile prepare-gitlab.yml --extra-vars "providername=yourProviderNameHere providerusername=yourUserNameHere providertoken=yourProviderTokenHere"

Only if you don´t use the Vagrant Box of our current setup and your server is publicly accessible, you can safely ignore these extra-vars. GitLab will handle everything for you. Just execute:

ansible-playbook -i hostsfile prepare-gitlab.yml

Ansible will now install and configure a fully functional GitLab CI for you. If you don´t want to know anything else, that´s perfectly fine! Just wait for the Playbook to complete, open up your browser and enter your domain name. This should look like this somehow:

But feel free to read on if you want to know about the how and the whys

Five steps from zero to GitLab CI platform

As already mentioned, Ansible provides us with a perfect (and up-to-date) documentation on how to install everything. So let´s have a look into the GitLab installation process. The main Playbook prepare-gitlab.yml is structured into five tasks:

- hosts: all become: true vars: gitlab_domain: "gitlab.jonashackt.io" gitlab_url: "https://" gitlab_registry_url: ":4567" tasks: - name: 1. Prepare Docker on Linux node include_tasks: prepare-docker-ubuntu.yml tags: install_docker - name: 2. Prepare Let´s Encrypt certificates for GitLab if we setup an internal server like Vagrant (you have to provide providername, providerusername & providertoken as extra-vars!) include_tasks: letsencrypt.yml when: providername is defined tags: letsencrypt - name: 3. Install GitLab on Linux node include_tasks: install-gitlab.yml tags: install_gitlab - name: 4. Configure GitLab Container Registry include_tasks: configure-gitlab-registry.yml tags: configure_registry - name: 5. Install & Register GitLab Runner for Docker include_tasks: gitlab-runner.yml tags: gitlab_runner

We need to (1.) install Docker on our machine and (2.) fetch proper Let´s Encrypt certificates for our not publicly accessible Vagrant Box. Then everything needed for the (3.) GitLab Omnibus installation is done in the next task, followed by a Playbook on how to (4.) configure the GitLab Container Registry. The fifth Playbook then finally (5.) register our GitLab Runners that will be able to interact with the server´s Docker engine.

Install & configure Docker

The first included task list prepare-docker-ubuntu.yml simply walks you through the standard guide on how to install Docker on Ubuntu. If you use a different distro, you can simply change modules etc. to match your Linux version.

There´s really nothing special here – except the way we install Docker Compose. The path proposed in the Docs unappealingly uses a hard-coded version inside the needed curl command. Therefore the docs need to add the following hint:

Use the latest Compose release number in the download command.

But there´s a much nicer way! Because the Python package manager PIP always provides us with the current Docker Compose package. So all we have to do is the following:

- name: Install pip apt: name: python3-pip state: latest - name: Install Docker Compose pip: name: docker-compose

Now we don´t need to mess with maintaining the Docker Compose version number and are able to use the smooth upgrade process of a package manager.

Don´t go without HTTPS and domain!

As mentioned before, we want to achieve a real life GitLab CI setup here. What we therefore don´t want is to access GitLab via an URL like http://localhost:30080, which would be the standard way with a Vagrant port forwarding and without HTTPS in place. A central point about the usage of GitLab CI with Docker incl. the GitLab Container Registry and the Docker Runners is to use a valid domain name and HTTPS configured properly. Trust me. You don´t want to start without that! There will be so many error messages waiting for you. From a simple failing Git push like:

$ git push fatal: unable to access 'https://gitlab.jonashackt.io/root/yourRepoNameHere/': SSL certificate problem: self signed certificate

to errors while trying to register GitLab Runners:

ERROR: Registering runner... failed runner=gyy8axxP status=couldn't execute POST against https://gitlab.jonashackt.io/api/v4/runners: Post https://gitlab.jonashackt.io/api/v4/runners: x509: certificate signed by unknown authority PANIC: Failed to register this runner. Perhaps you are having network problems

up to problems while trying to push into the GitLab Container Registry:

Error response from daemon: Get https://gitlab.jonashackt.io:4567/v2/: x509: certificate signed by unknown authority ERROR: Job failed: exit status 1

I think there are many more stumbling blocks on the way to a properly configured GitLab CI Platform. To avoid most of them, let´s configure proper HTTPS!

Using domain names for Vagrant Boxes

Let´s start the journey by configuring a domain name for our Vagrant Box. After that step, we should be able to access our Box with an address like http://gitlab.jonashackt.io. Luckily this is easily achievable with the help of vagrant-dns Plugin. Remember, I promised to tell you why you´d already installed the Plugin?! There we go

We already configured config.vm.hostname = "jonashackt" and config.dns.tld = "io" inside our Vagrantfile. Now we´re able to configure our top-level domain on our host machine io with the help of the vagrant-dns Plugin. Just execute the following:

vagrant dns --install

To check if anything went right and our top-level domain will be resolvable, we use our host´s appropriate tooling. On a Mac this is scutil --dns. Using this, we see if the resolver is part of your DNS configuration (there are more resolvers configured, you may need to scroll down):

... resolver #10 domain : io nameserver[0] : 127.0.0.1 port : 5300 flags : Request A records, Request AAAA records reach : 0x00030002 (Reachable,Local Address,Directly Reachable Address) ...

This looks pretty good! If you already fired up the Vagrant Box, you should vagrant halt it before. After the next startup of our Vagrant Box with a usual vagrant up we can try to reach our Box using our configured domain. Again on a Mac we can use:

dscacheutil -q host -a name gitlab.jonashackt.io

As we configured everything correctly, this should result in something like the following (containing the private IP 172.16.2.15 we configured inside the Vagrantfile):

$:gitlab-ci-stack jonashecht$ dscacheutil -q host -a name gitlab.jonashackt.io name: gitlab.jonashackt.io ip_address: 172.16.2.15

The last step is to get our nice domain name jonashackt.gitlab.io not only available on our host machine, but also inside our Vagrant Box. Sadly the great vagrant-dns Plugin doesn´t support propagating the host´s DNS resolver into the Vagrant Boxes itself.

But luckily we choose VirtualBox as a virtualization provider for Vagrant, which supports the propagation of the host´s DNS resolver to the guest machines

All we have to do is to use the host’s resolver as a DNS proxy in NAT mode, which is suggested in this serverfault answer:

# Forward DNS resolver from host (vagrant dns) to box virtualbox.customize ["modifyvm", :id, "--natdnshostresolver1", "on"]

After we restarted our Vagrant Box with this configuration in place, our domain name gitlab.jonashackt.io should be also resolvable inside our Ubuntu guest machine.

HTTPS & Let´s Encrypt for GitLab on publicly accessible servers

If you don´t want to use this post´s setup with Vagrant, have a publicly accessible server ready and a public DNS provider configured to resolve to this server, you don´t need to do much about HTTPS in GitLab:

From 10.7 we will automatically use Let’s Encrypt certificates if the external_url specifies https, the certificate files are absent, and the embedded nginx will be used to terminate ssl connections.

In this case the whole point of HTTPS with Let´s Encrypt is handled by the GitLab Omnibus installation for you. And this posts´ Ansible scripts will just build on top of that – just be sure to have your domain name configured in the main playbook prepare-gitlab.yml. We don´t have to worry about the process of obtaining Let´s Encrypt certificates and configuring them for GitLab. Everything is just done for you by Omnibus.

HTTPS & Let´s Encrypt for GitLab on non-publicly accessible servers

In most other scenarios the whole configuration process of GitLab CI will be much harder! If your GitLab host is not externally accessible by the Let´s Encrypt servers, you´ll need an alternative to the fully automated Omnibus Let´s Encrypt process. And this is true for our local setup with Vagrant as well as for GitLab servers, that should only be accessible for internal development teams.

In both cases the Let´s Encrypt servers won´t be able to validate, if the given domain name resolves to the same host from which the certification process was issued from. After all it´s just a non-public DNS configuration and the server isn´t visible for Let´s Encrypt. If you try to use the automated Omnibus process here, the GitLab installation wouldn´t really fail. But you´d be stuck with self-signed certificates which introduce many of the problems and errors already mentioned before. And to make matters worse, your Browser (and the ones of your colleagues´) will complain in that well known nasty way:

Because of this it would be really nice to use Let´s Encrypt all the same. Although Let´s Encrypt was designed to be used with public accessible websites, there are ways to create these certificates for non-public servers also. All you need is to own a regularly registered domain. That maybe sounds like a big issue, but isn´t really a problem! If you don´t mind about the actual top level domain the cheapest start would be somthing like yourDomainName.yxz or yourDomainName.online. Both are available starting from 1$/year. Just be sure to pick one from this provider list.

You´ll need API access! Besides your regularly registered domain you´ll need API access to your DNS provider. This isn´t always included in the standard price of your domain. Be sure to check the prerequisites for API access at your respective provider.

Owning a domain and having API access to the DNS provider, we have everything in place to fetch proper Let´s Encrypt certificates for our Vagrant Box (or private server). There are many discussions and blog posts about this topic, but the by far most elegant way to get the Let´s Encrypt certificates without having to spin up another (publicly accessible server) is to use dehydrated together with lexicon and Let´s Encrypt´s dns-01 challenge. This great answer on security.stackexchange.com nails it:

Since this challenge works by provisioning DNS TXT records, you don’t ever need to point an A record at a public IP address. So your intranet does not need to be reachable from the Internet, but your domain name does need to exist in the public DNS under your control.

Using dehydrated and lexicon together with Let´s Encrypt´s dns-challenge

Great work has been done by the dehydrated team to create an easier-to-use Let´s Encrypt client than the official certbot. And that´s also true for the lexicon team, because they standardise the way how to manipulate DNS records of multiple DNS providers´ via APIs. Thanks to the great post of Jason Kulatunga, who is the maintainer of lexicon, crafting an Ansible playbook to automatically use dehydrated and lexicon together with Let´s Encrypt´s dns-01 challenge is really straightforward! So let´s have a look at the example project´s playbook obtain-letsencrypt-certs-dehydrated-lexicon.yml:

- name: Update apt apt: update_cache: yes - name: Install openssl, curl, sed, grep, mktemp, git apt: name: - openssl - curl - sed - grep - mktemp - git state: latest # install this neat tool https://github.com/lukas2511/dehydrated - name: Install dehydrated git: repo: 'https://github.com/lukas2511/dehydrated.git' dest: /srv/dehydrated - name: Make dehydrated executable file: path: /srv/dehydrated/dehydrated mode: "+x" - name: Specify our internal domain shell: "echo '' > /srv/dehydrated/domains.txt" - name: Install build-essential, python-dev, libffi-dev, python3-pip apt: name: - build-essential - python-dev - libffi-dev - libssl-dev - python3-pip state: latest - name: Install requests[security] pip: name: "requests[security]" # install this neat tool https://github.com/AnalogJ/lexicon - name: Install dns-lexicon with correct provider (dns-lexicon[providernamehere]) pip: name: "dns-lexicon[]"

As we don´t use a publicly accessible server, we need to use dns-01 challenges instead of the Let´s Encrypt “standard” http-01. Therefore, dehydrated needs a hook file to work with dns-01. lexicon has such a file for us dehydrated.default.sh and we copy it simply inside our playbook:

- name: Configure lexicon with Dehydrated hook for dns-01 challenge get_url: url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AnalogJ/lexicon/master/examples/dehydrated.default.sh dest: /srv/dehydrated/dehydrated.default.sh mode: "+x"

At this point we need to use some private information about your DNS provider – because remember, the whole process could only be done, if you have access to a real domain. In order to grant lexicon access to your DNS provider´s API, we set some environment variables and execute dehydrated thereafter. As you maybe notice, lexicon´s environment variables are dynamic based on the provider´s name – which is kind of tricky to configure:

- name: Generate Certificates shell: "/srv/dehydrated/dehydrated --cron --hook /srv/dehydrated/dehydrated.default.sh --challenge dns-01 --accept-terms" environment: - PROVIDER: "" - "{'LEXICON__USERNAME':''}" - "{'LEXICON__TOKEN':''}" ignore_errors: true

You maybe need to whitelist the IP you’re approaching the DNS provider´s API from. You can use a tool like whatsmyip.org to get the IP. Add it to your DNS provider’s API access IP whitelist before you call the playbook

All environment variables values are depending on the --extra-vars which are configured as providername, providerusername and providertoken:

ansible-playbook -i hostsfile prepare-gitlab.yml --extra-vars "providername=yourProviderNameHere providerusername=yourUserNameHere providertoken=yourProviderTokenHere"

Configure the certificates in GitLab

Please don´t get confused with this part of the docs. That´s only needed if you want to install a custom certificate authority and not necessarily for properly created Let´s Encrypt certificates, since the Let´s Encrypt authority is already trusted.

According to the docs there are two ways to configure HTTPS in GitLab: the automatic Let´s Encrypt way, which we sadly can´t use in our scenario as our Vagrant Box isn´t publicly accessible. And the way to manually configure HTTPS, the one we need to choose here, because we acquired the Let´s Encrypt certificates for our selfs.

Therefore we set the external_url via the environment variable EXTERNAL_URL: "" at the GitLab Omnibus installation process to contain an https. In my case, this is https://gitlab.jonashackt.io. Thereafter the GitLab Omnibus installation will look for certificates placed in /etc/gitlab/ssl/ and named gitlab.jonashackt.io.key & gitlab.jonashackt.io.crt. Note that both file names must be derived from your domain´s name.

The playbook letsencrypt.yml takes care of this and will just copy the generated certificates with the correct name to the correct location. And as this step is done right before the actual GitLab installation, we also need to create the directory /etc/gitlab/ssl/ at first:

- name: Create GitLab cert import folder /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs for later GitLab Installation usage file: path: /etc/gitlab/ssl state: directory when: success - name: Copy certificate files to GitLab cert import folder /etc/gitlab/trusted-certs copy: src: "" dest: "" remote_src: yes with_items: - src: "/srv/dehydrated/certs//fullchain.pem" dest: "/etc/gitlab/ssl/.crt" - src: "/srv/dehydrated/certs//privkey.pem" dest: "/etc/gitlab/ssl/.key" when: success

Note that we´re copying the fullchain.pem instead of the cert.pem! This is essential to prevent our selfs from getting the described errors like x509: certificate signed by unknown authority or ERROR: Registering runner... failed later. Thanks to this great comment I understood that a green bar inside the security bar of Chrome or Firefox doesn´t mean that Docker or Ubuntu know about Let´s Encrypt´s CA at all levels.

If you ran the example project´s Ansible playbooks, you can use your GitLab CI instance without cryptic error messages because of self-signed certificates:

Install GitLab itself

Now we´ve reached the point where we wanted to be in the first place: we´ll install GitLab itself right now! The playbook install-gitlab.yml will walk through the standard GitLab installation guide for Ubuntu. Just in a fully automated way:

- name: Update apt and autoremove apt: update_cache: yes cache_valid_time: 3600 autoremove: yes - name: Install curl, openssh-server, ca-certificates & postfix apt: name: - curl - openssh-server - ca-certificates - postfix state: latest - name: Add the GitLab package repository shell: "curl https://packages.gitlab.com/install/repositories/gitlab/gitlab-ce/script.deb.sh | sudo bash" - name: Update apt and autoremove apt: update_cache: yes - name: Install GitLab with Omnibus-Installer apt: name: gitlab-ce state: latest environment: EXTERNAL_URL: "" ignore_errors: true register: gitlab_install_result - name: Gitlab Omnibus is based on Chef and will give many insights what it does in the background debug: msg: - "The installation process said the following: " - "" - name: Wait for GitLab to start up wait_for: port: 443 delay: 10 sleep: 5 - name: Let´s check if Gitlab is up and running uri: url: ""

This is one of the simplest playbooks in this setup here. After the required dependent packages, the GitLab package repository is added and GitLab Omnibus installation is started afterwards. The key point here is the environment variable EXTERNAL_URL which is set to "". The variable itself is configured inside the main playbook prepare-gitlab.yml. After the GitLab installation, we wait for the port 443 to become available and then check if GitLab answers on the configured URL.

GitLab Container Registry

Remember the introductory phrases? We liked to set up a modern CI Pipeline making heavy usage of Docker and its advantages. For this purpose the GitLab Container Registry comes just in time. With that tool we´ll be able to not only configure a Docker Registry for every GitLab project. We can also leverage the power of GitLab´s user authentication system for the Docker Registry. And last but not least, we will see a nice tab point inside our GitLab GUI where we can scroll through all the Docker images that reside in the project´s corresponding Docker Registry:

The docs about how to configure the GitLab Container Registry domain tells us that we could either use a completely separate domain for our Registry. Or we could just use the same domain as the main GitLab instance. Our Ansible playbook configure-gitlab-registry.yml demonstrates the second way:

- name: Activate Container Registry in /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb lineinfile: path: /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb line: " registry_external_url ''" - name: Reconfigure Gitlab to activate Container Registry shell: "gitlab-ctl reconfigure" register: reconfigure_result - name: Let´s see what Omnibus/Chef does debug: msg: - "The reconfiguration process gave the following: " - ""

The playbook inserts the needed registry_external_url configuration into the file /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb. With my domain, this contains https://gitlab.jonashackt.io:4567, where the port should be something different than 5000, according to the docs.

As I already mentioned in the paragraph Configure the certificates in GitLab, it is essential that we use the /srv/dehydrated/certs//fullchain.pem inside our GitLab certification configuration. By doing so, we prevent errors while using the GitLab Container Registry. And these errors are sneaky: they will not show up until you try to actually use the Container Registry inside a GitLab CI pipeline:

Error response from daemon: Get https://gitlab.jonashackt.io:5000/v2/: x509: certificate signed by unknown authority ERROR: Job failed: exit status 1

As our certificates are named accordingly with the correct domain name, the GitLab Container Registry also uses these certificates (including the fullchain.pem). The last step inside our configure-gitlab-registry.yml will show us the output of the GitLab Omnibus reconfiguration, which is executed with the command gitlab-ctl reconfigure (you maybe need to scroll a bit to see it

... - create new file /var/opt/gitlab/nginx/conf/gitlab-registry.conf - update content in file /var/opt/gitlab/nginx/conf/gitlab-registry.conf from none to 38ba8d --- /var/opt/gitlab/nginx/conf/gitlab-registry.conf 2018-05-23 07:06:18.857687999 +0000 +++ /var/opt/gitlab/nginx/conf/.chef-gitlab-registry20180523-13668-614sno.conf 2018-05-23 07:06:18.857687999 +0000 @@ -1 +1,59 @@ +# This file is managed by gitlab-ctl. Manual changes will be +# erased! To change the contents below, edit /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb +# and run `sudo gitlab-ctl reconfigure`. + +## Lines starting with two hashes (##) are comments with information. +## Lines starting with one hash (#) are configuration parameters that can be uncommented. +## +################################### +## configuration ## +################################### + + +server { + listen *:4567 ssl; + server_name gitlab.jonashackt.io; + server_tokens off; ## Don't show the nginx version number, a security best practice + + client_max_body_size 0; + chunked_transfer_encoding on; + + ## Strong SSL Security + ## https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Strong_SSL_Security_On_nginx.html & https://cipherli.st/ + ssl on; + ssl_certificate /etc/gitlab/ssl/gitlab.jonashackt.io.crt; + ssl_certificate_key /etc/gitlab/ssl/gitlab.jonashackt.io.key; ...

Here we see that GitLab Omnibus configured its internal Nginx with a new endpoint on port 4567 for our Container Registry and that our acquired Let´s Encrypt certificates are used. Of course you can configure this port inside the main playbook prepare-gitlab.yml.

Install GitLab Runners

Now we´ve already reached the 5th step of our main playbook: installing and registering the GitLab Runners to access the Docker Engine inside our GitLab CI pipeline. GitLab Runners are needed to really execute the steps inside a GitLab CI pipeline later. These steps are called Jobs inside GitLab.

The process could be split up into two sections: First we need to install the OS service gitlab-runner. In our playbook gitlab-runner.yml we used the official docs on how to do that on Linux as a blueprint:

- name: Add the GitLab Runner package repository shell: "curl -L https://packages.gitlab.com/install/repositories/runner/gitlab-runner/script.deb.sh | sudo bash" - name: Install GitLab Runner package apt: name: gitlab-runner state: latest

Nothing special here. The second part of the process is a bit more tricky. In order to register a GitLab Runner at the end, we´ll need to somehow automatically obtain the current registration token from our GitLab instance. And this token will change every time we start up GitLab together with our Vagrant Box or server. As we don´t want to stop with our automated GitLab installation process here, we need to get this token every time we want to register a new GitLab runner.

Sadly there´s no way to use the great GitLab REST API for that purpose right now. And this leaves us with the only thing we can do right now: we need to dive into GitLab´s Database directly:

- name: Extract Runner Registration Token directly from GitLab DB become: true become_user: gitlab-psql vars: ansible_ssh_pipelining: true query: "SELECT runners_registration_token FROM application_settings ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1" psql_exec: "/opt/gitlab/embedded/bin/psql" gitlab_db_name: "gitlabhq_production" shell: ' -h /var/opt/gitlab/postgresql/ -d -t -A -c ""' register: gitlab_runner_registration_token_result - name: Extracting the Token from the Gitlab SQL query response set_fact: gitlab_runner_registration_token: "" - name: And the Token is... debug: msg: ""

In order to use Docker, we need to choose one of the Executors that GitLab Runners are implementing to serve in different scenarios. We’ll just kept it simple here and use the shell Executor:

Shell is the simplest executor to configure. All required dependencies for your builds need to be installed manually on the machine on which the Runner is installed.

And as we already decided to use and install Docker (in a fully automated way), that´s all we need right now. No manual interaction needed.

If you gained more experience with GitLab CI, you can switch to another Executor for your GitLab Runners in the future. I would be keen to hear about your experiences with different Executors in the comments!

Now we´re ready to register our GitLab Runners. And as our Ansible playbook should be designed idempotently so that it could be executed once or many times without changing the result, we need to unregister potential registered Runners at first. This is naturally not relevant for the first playbook run:

- name: Unregister all previously used GitLab Runners shell: "sudo gitlab-runner unregister --all-runners" - name: Add gitlab-runner user to docker group shell: "sudo usermod -aG docker gitlab-runner" - name: Register Gitlab-Runners using shell executor shell: "gitlab-runner register --non-interactive --url '' --registration-token '' --description '' --executor shell" with_items: - { name: shell-runner-1 } - { name: shell-runner-2 } - { name: shell-runner-3 } - { name: shell-runner-4 } - { name: shell-runner-5 } - name: Retrieve all registered Gitlab Runners shell: "gitlab-runner list" register: runner_result - name: Show all registered Gitlab Runners debug: msg: - ""

As you can see, we´re using the command gitlab-runner register together with its non-interactive mode, so that the registration process can be run without user interaction inside our playbook. The extension with_items shows how many GitLab Runners we´re registering here. To achieve a setup where GitLab CI Jobs can be run in parallel, we´re registering a list of five GitLab Runners.

I have to mention it again: we need to use the /srv/dehydrated/certs//fullchain.pem inside our GitLab certification configuration (see the paragraph Configure the certificates in GitLab) also in order to be able to register our GitLab Runners properly. Otherwise errors like the following will occur:

And don´t try to work around these errors with the --tls-ca-file option. This would only fix the issue for the moment! If you try to use the GitLab Container Registry inside GitLab CI, you will run into problems.

Running an example GitLab CI pipeline

That´s all! If you executed the main playbook already, your GitLab instance should already be waiting for you. If not, that´s no problem. Just fire up Ansible now and grab yourself a coffee:

ansible-playbook -i hostsfile prepare-gitlab.yml --extra-vars "providername=yourProviderNameHere providerusername=yourUserNameHere providertoken=yourProviderTokenHere"

Your GitLab instance will be waiting for you to define a new root password:

In order to run an example GitLab CI pipeline, we need to import another example project on GitHub containing a GitLab CI pipeline definition file called .gitlab-ci.yml and an application to build. The example project is an extremely simple Spring Boot Microservice using the Java build tool Maven.

To import the project into our new GitLab instance, just add a new password for the root user first and login with that credentials. Then head over to Create a project and there click on Import Project / Repo by URL:

Now paste the example project’s Git URL https://github.com/jonashackt/restexamples.git into the Git repository URL field, change the Visibility Level to Internal and hit Create Project.

After the import you can head over to the project and its CI / CD / Pipelines section and fire up the pipeline by running it. No worries: only this time we have to do this manually since we didn´t push something new into our project. Each following push will automatically trigger your GitLab CI pipeline to run!

The pipeline should be already running right now:

The example project has a prepared .gitlab-ci.yml ready for us which resembles the 4 steps of the new trends in Continuous Integration/Deployment that the GitLab docs propose:

# One of the new trends in Continuous Integration/Deployment is to: # # 1. Create an application image # 2. Run tests against the created image # 3. Push image to a remote registry # 4. Deploy to a server from the pushed image stages: - build - test - push - deploy # see usage of Namespaces at https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/group/#namespaces variables: REGISTRY_GROUP_PROJECT: $CI_REGISTRY/root/restexamples # see how to login at https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/docker/using_docker_build.html#using-the-gitlab-container-registry before_script: - docker login -u $CI_REGISTRY_USER -p $CI_JOB_TOKEN $CI_REGISTRY build-image: stage: build script: - docker build . --tag $REGISTRY_GROUP_PROJECT/restexamples:latest test-image: stage: test script: - echo Insert fancy API test here! push-image: stage: push script: - docker push $REGISTRY_GROUP_PROJECT/restexamples:latest deploy-2-dev: stage: deploy script: - echo You should use Ansible here! environment: name: dev url: https://dev.jonashackt.io

In GitLab, every stage defines a building block inside the CI Pipeline. You can have multiple Jobs inside those stages. We don´t use them in this simple example here. But if you do, you also get to know the advantages of multiple registered GitLab Runners, because they are able to run in parallel then inside a given stage.

Caution: Mind the namespaces when working with GitLab Container Registry!!!

As you may have noticed, using the GitLab Container Registry has one hidden obstacle. You have to use a correct namespace to push into the GitLab Container Registry! I cannot advise the GitLab team more to please make this hint as prominent in their docs as possible – this just drove me nuts! You need to not only use the GitLab Registry URL itself to push into it. You must also use a user or a group name and the project name in the following order:

gitlab.jonashackt.io:4567/UserOrGroupName/ProjectName

As you can see, I´am using GitLab CI predefined variables alongside self-defined variables heavily here. This will make your life easier und help other people to be able to read your pipeline definitions!

Another cool GitLab CI feature are Environments. Although just being another view onto your pipelines, this view is really cool as one can easily see which deployments went to which infrastructural stage. All you have to do is to use the environment keyword inside your .gitlab-ci.yml files. The environment will then pop up automatically under the CI/CD / Environments tab:

GitLab CI is really great

As an old Jenkins-fanboy I have to admit it: GitLab CI is a really cool tool! After all this journey I wouldn´t say everything is totally easy to install and configure in the first place. But after going over all the small stumbling blocks, where many are naturally only introduced in private server environments, I strongly recommend to give it a try.

With GitLab CI you will be able to use the super neat YAML style pipeline definition files you are used to inside your own projects and also behind big corporate firewalls. And what´s really cool: you don´t need to mess around with a huge bunch of plugins! And you don´t need to integrate your process central Git server with the CI server using all those half-baked web hooks and plugins. No, they are just already integrated. Generally I really like the idea of using the best tools for the respective scenario. But GitLab CI makes it really hard to not love this fully integrated Continuous Integration Platform!

Der Beitrag A Complete Setup of GitLab CI & Docker Using Vagrant & Ansible: HTTPS/Let’s Encrypt, Container Registry, Runners erschien zuerst auf codecentric AG Blog.

A Complete Setup of GitLab CI & Docker Using Vagrant & Ansible: HTTPS/Let’s Encrypt, Container Registry, Runners published first on https://medium.com/@koresol

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choisaeyoungruinedme · 6 years

Text

MC’s Journal

Day 1 - It Begins

1172 words

Part One Part Two

Saeyoung/MC

MC downloads the app and finds herself in a situation she could have never expected!

January 1st, 2018

What a day! I walked for around 3 hours heading away from the park near my house. The house. Not mine anymore. Was it ever really?? Anyways, I didn’t know where I would end up, but I found an internet café! They have terrible coffee, but it’s keeping me warm and awake while I apply for jobs online.

Well, attempting to. It’s kind of hard to get through the application process when you’re 22 and never legally worked a day in your life. Who would even look twice at my application? Except maybe to laugh…

And yet, while I might not be full of confidence at the moment, what I am full of is caffeine and determination! So, I’m not giving up! Someone is bound to need me for something, there is a place for everyone, right?

Speaking of needing me! Whoever was here before me left their phone behind, so I’m keeping an eye on it until they return. They’re bound to come back before too long. It has been nearly 2 hours, and no one has come for it yet. Maybe it isn’t that they don’t know they lost it, but they don’t know where they lost it. They might have been trying to call this whole time, I’d better turn the phone on just in case.

My luck is turning around already! Check this out, I turned the phone on and there were no contacts, no pictures, no calls or anything. I asked the guy at the desk if anyone had reported losing a phone and he said that the person that had been there before me left it behind intentionally! He knew that a lot of people that get in a jam come there and sometimes stay for a few days, so he wanted to leave a phone just in case anyone needed it. Apparently, someone helped him out at once so now he wanted to pay it forward.

How awesome is that?! And get this, it is paid up for 3 months! Now I can put a contact number on my applications instead of just an e-mail address. Once I find a job, I am going to add three months and come back and leave the phone for the next person that might need it!

January 2nd

Remember when I said earlier that I wanted adventure in my life?

Found one!

I think.

Or possibly I made a choice that will end terribly…

I am choosing to remain optimistic however!

I was taking a break from putting in applications and decided to download what I thought was a dating simulation game…Oh, don’t you mock me older version of me…You never had time for games before and it looked like fun!

Well, turns out it was not a game at all! It was a messenger app for the members of some charity. I opened a chatroom when I was under the impression it was a game and it took me a minute to realize that it wasn’t automated responses, it was a person texting me! Someone who called themselves Unknown. They claimed they found a phone and that this was the only app on it and they were trying to find the owner. I suggested they just drop it at a police station, but they were insistent. They’re super religious or something and they felt obligated to personally find the owner.

I was looking for a sign, right? Maybe this was it? I thought maybe if I helped people any chance I got, I could at the least make some contacts and I figured it couldn’t hurt.

Unknown found the address in the phone’s notes and so I went there to let the owner know that they needed to contact this person to get their phone back. Though once I got there, no one answered the door. The person in the chatroom also found the code to get in, it had a keypad on the door and tried to get me to go in. I don’t know why I did it or what I was thinking, but I gave the numbers a shot and it freaking worked!

I saw that there was a notebook on the desk just inside, so I figured I would leave a quick note and get out but then the chatroom when crazy and suddenly there were all these people there! That’s when I learned that it was a private app used for a charity organization called the RFA.

They thought I might be a hacker at first and started questioning me, naturally. Apparently the one they call 707 is a hacker and said that I was in someone named Rika’s apartment. From what they said, it was her organization, she would contact people and try and convince them to come to the RFA charity parties and donate money to good causes. She had passed away recently and so they were shocked to find a stranger not only on their app but in Rika’s apartment.

This was strange group of people, for sure. They would switch between curious, to suspicious, to oblivious in the blink of an eye. They questioned me and then it was like they forgot I was there and started joking around with each other. The only people that seemed properly wary of me were Jaehee and Jumin. Yoosoung must be an intern or something, he seems super young, but he’s a cutie, and very friendly. Zen is an actor, and I would find him more attractive, but he seems very enamored of himself. Seven, the hacker, got in touch with the head of the group, V, who showed up as well. He seemed properly cautious of me as well and encouraged me not to give away where the apartment is to anyone.

I won’t go into tons of details because I’m sure I will remember this night for the rest of my life…but what happened at the end was crazy!. They offered me the chance to continue Rika’s work.

Were they crazy?! They don’t know anything about me and suddenly they want me to stay in her apartment and become a member of their group??

Something is beyond strange in all of this. Yet, I agreed.

I said yes.

I went from living in an internet café to having my own place AND a job within 24 hours, is this for real?!

I don’t know where things are going from here, but I am ready to see what happens!

I’m curious to know what the hacker found out about me. What is out there about me? He seems to think I’m safe, and cute, apparently. I’m not quite sure what to call him. His handle is 707, and they all call him Seven, but V called him Luciel.

Luciel.

Like the angel.

I’m gonna try and lay down and calm my brain down for the night.

I feel like I’m being watched but I suppose that will pass. This was truly a night to remember.

~Wondering if tomorrow I’ll wake up in the internet café

M.C.

#mysme seven #mysme 707 #mysme saeyoung #mysme luciel #mysme fanfic

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