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arlingtonpark · 4 years

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2020 Election Night Survival Guide

Hey, everyone!

It’s Halloween night, but the scariest night of the year is going to be in a few days on Election Day.

Since everyone’s wetting themselves over this, here’s a quick survival guide for Election Night.

Part I. The State of Play

In the United States, political authority is shared between three institutions: the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Elections for all three will be occurring on Election Night 2020.

The President is elected by the Electoral College. Each state is given seats in the College based on the size of their Congressional delegation.

Candidates for President put forth a slate of candidates to represent their state in the College, which voters choose by popular vote.

This system was chosen because a national popular vote was not possible at the time.

As of now, Joe Biden is almost certainly going to win the election. He is polling ahead in every state Barack Obama won in 2012 except Ohio and Iowa, and is liable to win Arizona and maybe even Georgia. This will give him a comfortable victory.

The Senate is composed of two Senators for every state. One third of the body elected every two years for a total term of 6 years for any one Senator.

The current crop of Senators was last elected in 2014, a very good year for Republicans.

It was not expected, though, that Democrats could undo those gains since they were made by Republicans wiping out Democrats in Louisiana and Arkansas, and other similar states.

Democrats used to have a strong presence in those states, but that presence was wiped out in the Obama years.

Republicans didn’t make those gains in swing states, but instead in state’s whose voters switched allegiances. It was hard to see Dems making a comeback.

A lot has changed though.

States like Arizona, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, and even Kansas are competitive now. This was unthinkable in 2014.

Dems have made gains of their own in these states among suburban voters. These people are generally white collar workers who are better educated than average. And they are repulsed by Trump’s basic indecency.

The Dems are now widely expected to win a majority of the Senate -- possibly even a comfortable majority.

The House is composed of 435 Representatives who’re elected every two years.

The dynamics are the same as the Senate: Dems are gaining in the suburbs, and Republicans are gaining among blue collar workers.

The Dems took over the House in 2018 and they’re expected to increase that majority by 10 seats or so.

Part II How to Handle Election Night

Assuming you want to watch the election returns come in live, here’s how to best do it.

Firstly, do not watch the TV news coverage before the actual vote counting starts.

It’s all drivel and you’ll annihilate your brain watching it.

It’ll mostly be padding to fill up time and make it seem like a lot is happening when not much is.

As well as pundits trying to divine the meaning of this election before it’s actually happened.

And lots of bemoaning of how we can’t all just get along. With no one even trying to think of solutions.

Don’t waste your time.

You should use the time before the polls close to get up to speed on what the candidates stand for, and how various scenarios might affect you.

To the extent you can stomach such speculation.

Vox is a great news source with a great series of articles on Biden’s platform.

Here.

President Trump...he has no platform.

Literally.

It’s just a copy-paste of the 2016 one.

Of course, a lot depends on the congressional elections, and I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty of that here.

There are elections for various governorships up, but you can ignore them, unless it’s your governor up for election.

The governor of any state that isn’t yours only matter if they’re likely to run for President in a few years.

There are also some high profile local elections going on.

To varying extents, Dems are hoping to expand their power in Arizona, Michigan, Texas, and North Carolina.

Republicans are hoping to do the same in Wisconsin.

Arizona, South Dakota, New Jersey, and Montana are holding referenda to legalize marijuana.

Oregon will be voting on legalizing mushrooms and decriminalizing all other drugs.

California has a number of referenda on the ballot regarding rent control, criminal justice, and labor laws.

Florida will be voting to raise the minimum wage to $15, potentially the ninth state to do so.

In any event, feel free to make a party of it.

Order a pizza, have snacks out, beer. Whatever you want. I’d urge you to invite friends over, but, you know...

You can turn the TV news on at 6pm if you like, but I recommend you leave it on in the background and not pay close attention until 8pm.

I also recommend choosing which network to watch based solely on which one has the most gimmicky, over the top presentation.

TV news has zero value to you aside from providing real time, unprocessed information.

Leave the game play analysis to the internet.

Have a laptop open if you have one. Otherwise have a computer handy.

I recommend having three tabs open.

One for the New York Times’ live election night interactive. You know those touch screen displays the networks have their election nerds using to show the state of the race as votes are counted?

The NYT’s interactive is that, but all to yourself.

I also recommend reading the accompanying article explaining how the interactive works. It’s pretty cool what programmers can do these days.

Lots of news sites will have online interactives, though. Choose whatever you like, but the NYT’s is generally the best.

The second tab is for Twitter. Twitter is the best place to be for real time analysis. I’ll have a twitter list available for you to use if you like.

The people on this list fall into one of three categories.

The first are the election nerds. These people are adeptly familiar with the United States’ political geography and can tell which side is winning before all the votes are counted.

The second are the pundits.

Smart ones, mind you.

Political scientists and commentators. I made sure to get a mix of liberal, conservative, and moderate voices. Obviously they provide the commentary on the nerds’ analysis.

The third and final are a couple of joke accounts for laughs. PixelatedBoat, originator of the milkshake duck meme and the Gorilla Channel hoax, is in there, as is President Nixon’s Twitter impersonator.

The final tab is for a good quality liveblog. I recommend 538′s, but again, most news sites will have liveblogs going, it’s just that 538 usually has the best one.

Lastly, as races get called, don’t be afraid to cheer or boo. Election day is pretty sterile, which is a shame because it used to be very rowdy and frenetic. By all means, be emotional.

You’re free to call it a night whenever you want, but there’s no point in carrying on past 1am, so I’d recommend stopping there.

There aren’t any exciting races on the west coast, and California is notoriously bad at vote counting, as they are at ALL things involving government, so the outcome of those races won’t be known for a while.

Part III The Known Unknowns

Now comes the stuff everyone is panicking over.

Is this the end of democracy?

Eh, probably not.

In theory, Trump could successfully steal the election, but only if it’s a close race.

It’s not a close race.

There is no way for Trump to steal the election. Not through excluding mail ballots, not through the courts. There just isn’t one.

The Supreme Court won’t help Trump unless they think they can get away with it, but the recent confirmation of Barrett to the Court has put them on notice, and that will restrict what they can do.

Trump could contest the results by asking Congress to certify his slate of electors as legitimate over the electors the voters chose, but that’s not an issue if Dems control the House.

That’s really it.

There’s no other way for Trump to win even if he loses the Electoral College.

Even recent buzz about late arriving mail votes not counting probably won’t amount to much.

Most of the people mailing their ballots in late are actually Republicans lol ^^.

Here are some issues to actually look out for:

Trump thugs policing polling places. Voter intimidation is illegal. If someone is intimidating you, report them.

Hoax ballot stuffing. Don’t be surprised if people fake fraudulent voting to juice Trump’s claims of a rigged election. Treat such allegations with caution.

Violent unrest is unlikely to happen even a little bit, but I won’t be surprised if there are at least some isolated incidents.

While there is some risk, I actually think the danger is overhyped.

The likeliest outcome of this election has always, always been that Biden cakewalks to Inauguration Day.

Even the talk about not knowing the winner on election night might have been all hype.

Florida, despite its reputation, is actually very good at counting ballots, and the winner of the state should be known on election night.

A lot can be extrapolated from this, and some news sites might call the race just off of that.

If who won Florida isn’t known on election night, then you can start panicking.

Trump will definitely fume about if he loses, but if the outcome is clearly in Biden’s favor, it’ll just be hot air.

It shouldn’t surprise you to know that if Trump loses, he will make no effort to shepherd a economic bailout bill into law in the time between the election and his formal exit from office.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Also Trump.

Trump himself has openly floated the idea of fleeing the country if he loses.

He’s over $200 million in debt and will have to sell most of his assets to pay it off. He also faces prosecution for various crimes he committed before and during his presidency.

If he does, he’ll probably try to brand himself a fallen hero in exile, and live off of his supporter’s Patreon donations or whatever.

Oh, yeah, and the rallies. Trump is planning to keep holding his rallies even after the election, even if he loses, even as the plague is ravaging and the economy is in the toilet.

Don’t be surprised if his supporters are completely blind to the utter failure of leadership in that.

Let’s see, what else to cover...

I guess that just about covers it.

Have fun, kids!

#politics #2020 Election

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laveritaswoman · 6 years

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What’s the Big Deal?

Just came across these new pics of two beautiful couples on the red carpet: Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively at the Deadpool 2 premiere and Jamie Dornan and Amelia Warner at the Old Vic Bicentenary Ball (a pic, coincidentally, that S happened to “Like”. Both couplings are made up of successful married actors who look pretty happy to be appearing in public with their spouse, many years and several children after they tied the knot.

These coupley pics made me nostalgic for all the magic S and C once had that made them so special to all of us. From the time they met at C’s screen test in 2013 until the IFH in 2016, we were treated to an off-the-charts chemistry from two people who acted and looked, from all appearances, like a couple in love off-screen as well as on. But then the fuckery began with the IFH, with C in particular implying then and on other occasions that they could not be together because it would be too hard to be with someone else in the business. Since the IFH, we’ve had occasional glimpses of the pre-IFH magic, but soon after we’re subjected to some form of fuckery, whether it be adjacent trolling, a bizarre engagement, UBA photoshops, or fake pap walks.

I look at these other happy couples in which both spouses are actors and I think of the negative relationship comments C has made. Comments where she blithely dismisses the very possibility of dating or marrying another actor because of the potential problems caused by the ups and downs of the profession. Problems in a marriage can occur no matter what vocation either spouse is engaged in. Despite what C says about the downside of dating an actor, couples like Blake/Ryan, Jamie/Amelia and many others have successfully navigated this path by demonstrating a commitment to treating each other as equals, supporting one another’s projects, and keeping their private lives private.

So when we see successful A-list actor pairings, who ignore all the outside noise and make their marriages work despite both being “in the profession,” it begs the question: if C-list actors S and C are in fact in a RL relationship with one another, what is the big deal and why are they going to such extremes to deny it and keep it hidden? The level of potential intrusion from fans in their private lives would be 1/16th of what A-lister actor couples would experience and most of those couples are doing just fine, so ... just ... why?

I think we shippers ask ourselves that every day, especially when we’re treated to a rather nasty dose of fuckery. So what are the potential reasons S and C could be together privately but living a lie publicly and how well has it worked for them? 1. Well, if this sham is a brainchild of S and C, it is failing and appears to have taken the glow from their faces and the ebullience/chemistry out of their interactions – one of the very things that originally made them stand out from other actors and brought many shippers, followers, and viewers on board OL. Under current conditions, IMO, if movie scouts were to see their wan appearances and lack of banter and interaction on the red carpet, I can’t imagine them giving S or C a second thought for movie roles. 2. If it’s a non-frat driving this narrative, then S and C, their managers, and TPTB need to reassess the whole “not together” approach and acknowledge that it’s created either a negative effect or no notable positive effect. In fact, a positive effect would be best accomplished by allowing S and C to drop their charade and their adjacents and return to how they acted with one another before the IFH -- that’s what helped draw people to the show. 3. If S and C are concealing a relationship because they want awards panels and casting agents to believe their great onscreen chemistry is just amazing acting, they may have succeeded in reinforcing that through their many RL relationship denials, but has it really helped them? C has received some noms and awards, but she hasn’t appeared in any roles outside of OL since the IFH and S has had one supporting role thus far, in an LG movie. 4. If it’s to protect other people in S/C’s private life from fan intrusion, I refer you once again to A-listers like Jamie/Amelia and Ryan/Blake, who have successful marriages and children whilst maintaining their privacy. I think S and C would get more privacy if they came out with the truth. Then people would stop obsessing with speculation and sleuthing. 5. Another theory is that the denial may be in place to hide what S and C or TPTB might perceive would be a loss of viewers if a same-sex orientation is the issue for one of them. Hello, this is 2018 -- most people are accepting of gay actors in straight parts and if S were gay IRL, the majority of fans/viewers would still embrace him as the manly OL Highlander that he has played so well on screen for many years. And if some fans/viewers are not OK with that, why would S and C even care if they lost these fans? S, and particularly C, have numerous friends in same-sex relationships and both post in support of gay rights, so wouldn’t it be hypocritical to beard or hide the fact that one of them was gay? 6. Maybe S and C are really just not together or were but now aren't. Then why are these expensive and draining games necessary? 7. Finally, in the unlikely event that T is in fact a real fiance, then C needs to do herself, T and everyone else a favor and own the man by actually saying the words “my fiance Tony” in an interview, or by posting a pic of her and T on SM and labeling it “me and my fiance Tony.” And also by actually treating him like he’s a fiance/SO in public, not just a PA that holds her purse and wanders about aimlessly behind her at events. C needs to actually look at T, walk with him, talk to him, smile at him and touch him, you know, things that normal couples do and kind of what she does (still) with her platonic co-star S.

SMH at all the time- and energy-wasting antics that have gone into this charade of S and C’s. Own your truth, S and C, whatever it is, and get back to focusing on OL -- you know, the actual TV show and not the Droughtlander sideshow. And speaking of Droughtlander: since we still have a few more months of drought left to go and more in coming years, hire more skilled promotional/PR staff and give fans and viewers something “real” to focus on instead of fake narratives.

#samcait #bettertogether #samcaitdenial #actingcouples

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hypeathon · 6 years

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RWBY Animators Spotlight # 5: Asha Bishi & Kim Newman

Previous Animators Spotlight Posts:

Joel Mann & Harley Dwortz

Ian Kedward & Millivette Gonzalez

Dillon Gu & Austin Hardwicke

Honorable Mentions

So far in previous Spotlight posts, quite a bit of time has been spent touching on certain animators that have been part of RWBY’s production since the first couple of volumes. And though I’ve referred to a handful of newer names in the web-series’s production, there are more who have become more involved that also deserve a mention. This post will be dedicated to two of those animators, one who joined the production in volume 3 and the other who joined in volume 4.

Asha Bishi

I said before that Volume 3′s production had arguably as big on an overhaul as volume 4. And while that’s true, let’s not dismiss what changes occurred in the latter. Whereas the third volume’s production underwent changes in terms of establishing and adjusting phases, teams, and positions, much of the changes during volume 4 were in terms of the animation process itself. Contrary to what some might think, Rooster Teeth had always used Autodesk Maya, albeit for just modeling characters at first. But volume 4 was when Maya replaced Poser Pro as the main tool for animation. As a result, various assets had to be rebuilt from scratch and new plug-ins and approaches to using the software were considered. This led to a challenge for the animation team, especially with the schedule cutting things close between RTX 2016 and the volume 4 premiere on October 22nd of the same year. But veteran animators and newcomers for volume 4 had tackled those challenges. Asha Bishi, a newcomer during volume 4, would be among them.

Like any animator who starts small when involved in the show, Asha’s first scene in volume 4 was one of team RNJR’s various trekking scenes in chapter 2, where they talk about Shion village and Jaune’s trips with his family. This scene, as faint as it is, is where her way of animating in the show can be identified. Asha usually makes character animations feel snappy yet lively through facial expressions or body language while still maintaining who the character is, as seen in the way Jaune’s eyes embarrassingly shift around in her scene.

Eventually, her snappy way of animating dialogue-oriented scenes would prove to compliment the fight scenes she would be assigned with. One of her first bits of action-oriented animation were Ren and Nora’s successfully-cathartic attempt at pinning down and killing off the Nuckelavee. What sticks out in her shots the most is the way Ren indifferently yanks his father’s dagger off of the Grimm’s flank as he walks towards and defiantly deals with the Nuckelavee’s sudden attempt to intimidate him. We would then start to see Asha’s skills at animating fight scenes develop further within the volume 5 character shorts, namely Weiss’s. Some have referred to Weiss’s way of fighting in her character short as more of dancing than fighting. Whether or not that’s ultimately meant as a compliment or a criticism, some of those moments are simply due to Asha applying her forte; snappy character acting. The way Weiss swiftly unleashes fire dust, lunges at the beowulves and decapitates a couple of them with twirls and a sense of grace but cockiness are all intentional.

Now I bring up the matter of how Asha does character acting in both dialogue and action scenes, but there is one character who probably brings the most in her style, and that’s Blake Belladonna. But how exactly does a character as serious and emotionally withdrawn as Blake bring the most in Asha’s animations?

The moment where Blake ditches her bow has been widely deemed as a positive note for Blake’s character within RWBY’s fandom. But believe it or not, it’s also been a great moment within the animation team, and it’s not hard to see why. With faunus characters, what could’ve been misinterpreted as certain characters having ears and tails as prop, can now be seen as genuinely-nuanced behavioral traits. Blake as a result has been able to communicate more openly with her ears and thus adds a range of emotion and secondary action animation. Believe it or not, much of how Blake and her mom, Kali’s ears move are generally reflective of how a real cat’s ears would shift depending on their mood.

Now, none of this is to say that Asha is the only animator who does this, but you’ll definitely see a difference in some scenes in volumes 4 and 5 where Blake barely moves her ears at all and scenes where she moves them a lot. When Blake’s ears are expressed lively, there’s a good chance Asha did it. Besides Blake and Kali, this also extends to other characters, faunus or not, like Sun and his tail (these are the actual shots she did), Sienna’s ears and Weiss’s ponytail. Of course, she still animates well-emoted scenes for other characters in-between, such as Yang and Weiss’s reunion.

There are two Japanese animators Asha Bishi can be compared to when it comes to the way she animates, Hirotoshi Takaya and Akira Hamaguchi. The former has utilized a swift way to express character movement in various anime projects since the 90s. Some of the works Takaya has animated for include the Magical girl anime Mysterious Thief Saint Tail (a TV series that fell into obscurity in anime compared to other shows of the same genre), the Shonen anime Kekkaishi, and the TV anime adaptation of the Japanese role-playing game, Tales of the Abyss. The latter animator I referred to, Akira Hamaguchi, often sprinkles a bit of frame modulation in his works, meaning he will go from animating on 1s to animating in 2s or 3s or vice-versa. Between that and his character animations having a sometimes swiftly and bouncy feel, Hamaguchi’s scenes have their own sense of liveliness to them.

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Here are the list of scenes confirmed/presumed to have been worked on by Asha Bishi:

Most of team RNJR walking scene - Vol 4, Ch 2

Most of opening scene with Blake on ship - Vol 4, Ch 3

Some of Blake and Sun’s dialogue on ship - Vol 4, Ch 3

Yang coming up to her room and eavesdropping on Taiyang, Oobleck and Port’s conversation - Vol 4, Ch 4

Blake seeing her parents again - Vol 4, Ch 5

Blake, Sun, and Ghira confronting with Corsec and Fennec until Ghira asks, “Know what?” - Vol 4, Ch 5

Team RNJR walking until Ruby says, “I don’t know! I lived in a small area. I’ve never been this far away from home!” - Vol 4, Ch 6

Team RNJR stopping in Oniyuri and unleashing their weapons as Ren senses Tyrian - Vol 4, Ch 6

Weiss and Jacque arguing until he smacks her - Vol 4, Ch 7

Jacque stripping Weiss of her heiress title - Vol 4, Ch 7

Blake and Ghira’s talk from when Ghira says, “And you pulled yourself out”, to the end of the scene - Vol 4, Ch 8

Team RNJR and Qrow’s conversation from when Qrow says, “Look, I had the same questions”, to him saying, “Like I said, the schools are an important part of stopping Salem.” - Vol 4, Ch 8

Yang and Taiyang taking a break from sparring from Taiyang petting Zwei to Yang sitting up from the ground - Vol 4, Ch 9

First few shots of Blake and Sun chasing Ilia - Vol 4, Ch 9

Nora falling from the tower to pummel the horse part of the Nuckelavee Grimm and Ren killing it off - Vol 4, Ch 12

Oscar meets Qrow - Vol 4, Ch 12

Weiss landing in front of Schnee emblem statue and striking a sweep of fire at the summoned Beowulves - Vol 5 Weiss Character short

Weiss maintaining focus after seeing more Beowulves summoned, then lunges and strikes down three Beowulves - Vol 5 Weiss Character Short

And here is Asha Bishi’s most recent demo reel:

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Kim Newman

A couple of times before, I briefly teased mentioning about a certain animator gaining a lot of attention. And that animator I referred to was Kim Newman. Kim has developed a positive reputation within the fandom during the middle of volume 5′s run for very specific reasons, but more on that later. For now, let’s dive into when she got her start on production of the series.

As stated before, every animator who has worked on RWBY, regardless of how good they’ve gotten in the eyes of the fandom, had to get their start on smaller scenes somewhere and Kim Newman was no exception. During her first few weeks working at Rooster Teeth during the production of volume 3, she provided bits-and-pieces of both the Team JNPR vs Team BRNZ fight and the Team SSSN vs Team NDGO fight, with her very first animations being Nora showing off her semblance for the first time, Sage and Dew clashing, Gwen’s knives dropping on Scarlet and Sun’s drop-kick on Octavia. Judging by these shots alone, one probably wouldn’t easily tell this was Kim, given how back then most animators who had been working on the show up to that point were getting their sea legs with constructing full-fledged fights. but small signs of her approach to animating scenes can be seen, such as how the camera distorts a bit when Gwen’s knives fall toward Scarlet.

By the latter-half of volume 3, another side of Kim Newman’s animations would be seen through facial expressions. The first noteworthy example is Team RWBY in their dorm room in chapter 8, where not only do we see how she’s just as capable at character acting, but that she manages to sell Yang’s expressions through the first actual tears in the show. Not just comedic tears done in compositing or characters wiping their eyes with their hands to fake the gesture, but rather real tears. And this would be far from the last scene of that sort she’s done. Two other scenes she’s done that were even more emotional involved Ruby... witnessing both Penny and Pyrrha’s deaths. Yeah, these kinds of things she’s insisted on volunteering for, going as far as adding tears for Ruby’s reaction in the former scene when they weren’t even in the storyboards or animatic. Though what’s really worth noting is how she captures the expressions and gestures in both scenes at making Ruby feel helpless while making other characters like Pyrrha feel briefly content in her final moments before being struck. Also, fun fact: Kim had a replica of Pyrrha’s crown on her desk when animating the scene... okay, well, maybe not necessarily a fun fact. But this is all to point out how dedicated she was to mo-capping and animating her favorite character

The scenes Kim Newman animated throughout volume 3 would prove to be an signs of things to come in volumes 4 & 5 as her skills would not only improve, but she will also develop traits in her style that can be best described in one word: ‘intense’. From here on, the way she animated how fast and hard characters attacked and weapons and fists were swung would be more refined. She would also more often angle and/or distort the camera in a manner that winds up adding a sense of dynamism that would be seen among certain animators in anime. I said in part 3 of the this Spotlight series how Dillon Gu used the camera to apply a sense of speed for the character. For comparison-sake, if Dillon used the camera to help show how fast the character was going, then Kim used the camera to apply the sense of distance, to display how far one character was from the other they faced depending on the setting. This is made most evident in shots like Blake being flung to the sky above the Water Dragon Grimm, Ruby dodging the reach of the Nuckelavee Grimm, Yang standing ground against the Ursa, and Weiss summoning her knight against the lancer.

Kim still just as much strengthened the use of the camera in her scenes as she has character acting, where strong emotions are applied both during and outside of fight scenes. Though not as gut-wrenching as the stuff she’s done in volume 3, she still couldn’t help but find herself still working on scenes where characters are emotionally crying such as with Ruby and Yang’s reunion and Yang and Raven’s verbal confrontation, the latter of which she mo-capped and animated alongside another animator, Melanie Stern. And in the case of fight scenes themselves, she makes sure to communicate to the viewer moments where a character is feeling shocked, alarmed, angry, focused or in Tyrian’s case, playful. One of the best examples of this is in chapter 10 of volume 5. When fans think of that chapter and Kim Newman in terms of fights, they think specifically of the fact Sun is using his “gun-chucks” mode for the first time in a while. And while that moment was great to watch in it’s own right, it’s her part in Blake and Ilia’s fight that arguably better captures use of intensity described earlier. Not only does it fit the setting of the inside of Blake’s being set on fire as a visual metaphor for the heat of battle, but it even effectively compliments the fueled, angered voice acting done by Cherami Leigh as Ilia, a character that served as the biggest departure of all the roles she’s voiced in anime and video games.

I mentioned earlier that Kim gained a reputation within the fandom for certain reasons during volume 5 and when I say that, I’m referring to her position. Since volume 3, Joel Mann and Dustin Matthews have most consistently been credited as the lead of the animation team. By chapter 10 of volume 5, Kim Newman was officially promoted to Assistant Lead Animator. Though she wasn’t the first to be credited for this position (that honor goes to Paula Decanini during volume 4 who is now the director of RWBY Chibi season 3), it’s this role where Kim managed to help lead the team of animators who were brought on board during volume 5. Animators like Erika Soosaar, Jason Dickol and John Yang (or “NWBY” as she aptly put it) have in response expressed enjoying their experience working with her.

So with all of this mentioning about her skills and position in the web-series, what Japanese animators could her style even be compared to. Some may by default compare her to Yutaka Nakamura or Norio Matsumoto since they have done some of the most popular fight scenes in very widely-known anime. But the comparison can be considered unfair as both animators have had 30 years of animation industry experience under their belts whereas Kim has only had a few. Plus the comparisons can be seen as too obvious and broad. One could argue that since she’s gone on record that her passion for animation was inspired by the Shonen boxing anime, Hajime no Ippo, then she could be compared to say, animator Yoshiyuki Ito, who did certain scenes in the series and has done character designs for various Studio Bones titles like the 2003 Fullmetal Alchemist series, Soul Eater, Star Driver, Space Dandy, Concrete Revolutio, and the spring 2018 anime, Dragon Pilot: Hisone & Masotan.

Though a more appropriate choice, the two animators that Kim Newman can be best compared to in my eyes are that of Aito Ohashi and Takahiro Shikama. With the former, Ohashi has been fairly new to the anime industry, having made a presence in the more recent Pokemon XY and Sun & Moon series and Gundam Build Fighters with angled cameras and swift animation to give a feel of how fast and how far characters are moving about in a given setting. So that’s the comparison to Ohashi. But what about Shikama? Having animated scenes for anime like Kurokami, Star Driver, Sacred Seven, & most recently, Darling in the Franxx, Shikama has a way of timing punches and kicks to either be thrown or hit hard and fast. Every hit and sword strike capture great force, combined with fierce facial expressions.

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Here are the list of scenes confirmed/presumed to have been worked on by Kim Newman:

Nora unveiling her semblance for the first time - Vol 3, Ch 2

Octavia of Team NDGO surfing and sliding across the sand - Vol 3, Ch 2

Sun drop-kicking Octavia (all of the models weren’t fleshed out yet. They just used blank, grey models or ‘proxy models’) - Vol 3, Ch 2

Gale of team NDGO dropping her knives around Scarlet - Vol 3, Ch 2

Animating part of Weiss in her and Yang’s fight against Flynt and Neon - Vol 3, Ch 5

The part where Yang launches toward and charges at Flynt’s attack (presumed) - Vol 3, Ch 5

Team RWBY in their dorm room after Yang’s match - Vol 3, Ch 8

Ruby trying to escape from Mercury - Vol 3, Ch 9

Kim Newman improvised from what the storyboards/animatic (asst. Editor, Stan Lewis’s animatics)

Ruby’s tears after seeing Penny was not originally in the storyboards

Qrow, Glynda & Cardin attacking the Atlessian Knights and Grimm - Vol 3, Ch 11

Cinder killing Pyrrha and Ruby unleashing her silver eyes - Vol 3, Ch 12

Jaune training in the forest - Vol 4, Ch 2

Blake climbing up Sun’s clones and then diving to clip the Water Dragon Grimm’s wing - Vol 4, Ch 3

Qrow vs Tyrian until Tyrian takes his weapon from him - Vol 4, Ch 7

Ren recovering from letting go of the Nuckelavee Grimm’s grip and wildly charging at it - Vol 4, Ch 12

Ruby, Jaune and Ren working together to pin down the Nuckelavee Grimm’s arms - Vol 4, Ch 12

Yang fighting the Ursa Grimm from when she charged and stopped its arm attack to before it knocks her across the forest - Vol 5 Yang character short

Weiss shooting at the Lancer Grimm - Vol 5, Ch 2

Weiss summoning the knight and having it run off the ship - Vol 5, Ch 2

Kim did most of the mo-cap for Weiss using dance moves in K-Pop as a reference

Yang, Weiss, and Ruby’s reunion - Vol 5, Ch 6

Blake and Ilia exchanging blows after the former sets the house on fire - Vol 5, Ch 10

Sun attacking Ilia - Vol 5, Ch 10

Yang and Raven’s argument - Vol 5, Ch 14

And here is Kim Newman’s most recent demo reel:

vimeo

#rwby #rwby5 #rwby6 #rwby analysis #crwby #animators spotlight #animators #spotlight #asha bishi #asha #bishi #kim newman #kim #newman

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giancarlonicoli · 3 years

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Lockdowns may have eroded people’s swagger, but research suggests there are ways to remedy the situation

Ian Robertson

Sat 5 Jun 2021 15.00 BST

Last modified on Sat 5 Jun 2021 21.21 BST

228

In July 2007, the Irish golfer Padraig Harrington won one of golf’s most coveted competitions, the British Open. The story of how he did this, one of the most remarkable finishes in golfing history, illustrates one of the ways confidence works.

The Claret Jug – the Open’s famous prize – was within Harrington’s grasp as he teed off at the penultimate hole of the tournament. He had a one-shot lead on his arch-rival, Sergio García. He was entirely in the zone – “I am literally the most confident person at that point in time,” he said later. Then, something strange happened – a twinge of doubt came out of nowhere at the top of his back swing and he sliced the ball into the murky waters of the notorious Barry Burn river.

But, still in the lead and his confidence intact, Harrington squared up at the 18th tee. Disaster. He lashed another ball into the Barry Burn. His confidence collapsed: “I’ve never experienced this reaction in my life… I wanted to give up… I had thrown it away.”

Harrington barely remembers the first 50 yards he trudged up the fairway of the final hole to take yet another penalty shot. But luckily, he had his caddy, Ronan Flood, by his side for that walk. Flood kept repeating to Harrington that he was the best chipper and putter (the two strokes he needed to stay in the tournament) in the world. “One shot at a time, you’re the best chip and putter in the world. One shot at a time, you’re the best chip and putter in the world.” Over and over, he repeated it.

As they approached the ball for Harrington to take what would be his penultimate shot, an attempt to salvage his tournament, Harrington’s confidence had shifted again. He positioned himself above the fateful ball: “I stood there, really excited about it, and I fired it in there, nice and low. I don’t think I’ve ever been more in the zone than in that chip shot in my life. It’s really easy to hit a great shot when you’re feeling good… it’s really difficult to hit a great shot when you’re feeling bad. I should have been feeling the lowest ebb at this point.”

His caddy’s constant, almost mechanical, repetition of his conviction that Harrington would do it had somehow reinflated the confidence bubble, and he went on to beat García and take the Claret Jug.

But that’s not the end of the story, according to one of Harrington’s close acquaintances, to whom I spoke in Dublin. After the first, delirious celebration on the green, the champion and his caddy parted for several hours of ceremony and press interviews. They were reunited at the end of the evening in the limousine, taking them back to their hotel. Padraig looked over at his caddy:

“You know, Ronan, I thought I’d blown the Open – and so did everyone else in the world – except Ronan Flood.”

Flood started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Harrington asked, puzzled.

Flood replied: “I thought you’d blown it too – I didn’t think you had a chance!”

Flood was just saying the words on the fairway to try to rein in Harrington’s mind, away from thoughts of great prizes and great failure, to a limited funnel of thoughts linked to a specific set of actions that he knew he could execute. The words we say to ourselves shape our attention, which controls our emotions, and the result is confidence – or lack of it. The caddy’s astute understanding of this process meant that he could get Harrington back on mental track, despite his own fears that Harrington had blown it.

Research backs up the lesson of this story, that the words you say to yourself shape your confidence and, hence, your performance, no matter how fake or cliched those words might feel.

Cycling on a stationary bike until you are too exhausted to continue is a standard test of endurance and fitness. In one study, young, fit men and women did this, and cycled for an average of 10 minutes before having to stop. Half of them were then taken aside by the researchers and taught to use confidence-enhancing self-talk phrases, such as “you’re doing well”, “… feeling good”, or “push through this” and then applied them during a second exhaustion test. Just as “just saying the words” worked for Padraig Harrington, simply repeating these confident phrases led to the self-talk group boosting their endurance by 18%, from around 10.5 to 13 minutes. They also felt less strain during the exercise than the other group, whose endurance time didn’t change at all.

Confidence is the colloquial term for self-efficacy – the belief that you can successfully do a particular thing. It is this link to action that differentiates confidence from self-esteem (how good you feel about yourself) or optimism (belief that things will turn out OK). When you anticipate success, your brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine, the chemical messenger that fuels reward and pleasure in the reward network deep in the centre of the brain, according to research at Michigan University in 2015. Researchers at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, showed in 2016 that feeling confident about your decisions activates reward networks in the brain, while lack of confidence leads to increases of activity in brain regions linked to negative emotions such as anxiety.

Confidence and anxiety are therefore competing rivals for your actions and attention. Anxiety inclines you to retreat in avoidance of failure, while confidence is a bridge to the future that impels you forward in anticipation of reward. Most of us are slightly overconfident – men more so than women – in relation to our true abilities. And that mood-lifting, anxiety-reducing state of mind inclines us to do stuff that increases the chances of outcomes or encounters that do indeed lead to opportunity and reward, and therefore acts as a virtuous positive feedback loop.

The belief that you can do something not only motivates you to do it – it lifts your mood and lowers your anxiety

So, confidence begets more confidence, and this is why the results of a 2020 mid-pandemic survey of 2,000 people in the UK aged 16-25 are particularly disturbing. The survey, by the Prince’s Trust, found that 41% of respondents felt that their future goals now seemed “impossible to achieve” and 38% that they now felt they would “never succeed in life”. This is a more extreme example of a more general finding, that 18-25-year-olds who live through an economic recession believe less strongly that they can get ahead through hard work.

Such a dramatic drop in the confidence of nearly half a generation could reverberate for decades in the social, economic and political fabric of Britain, and elsewhere. Confidence in a population predicts many things, including academic achievement. And the economic effects are likely to be strong, too: between 2000 and 2014, for example, across 13 EU countries, including the UK, Germany, France and Spain, the confidence of individual consumers and company executives strongly predicted the unemployment rate in each member state.

The belief that you can do something therefore not only motivates you to do that thing, it also lifts your mood and lowers your anxiety, which is one way confidence works – by helping you achieve small and big goals. It also helps to explain why mental health is such a major challenge during restrictive lockdowns.

We know that lifting confidence improves performance, because many studies have shown it experimentally. For example, in 2008, researchers at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, made students more or less confident about their physical strength by randomly telling some that they were stronger, and others that they were weaker, compared with others – irrespective of their true strength, measured using a handgrip dynamometer, a metal lever which you squeeze tight against a resisting spring. The results were striking: the high-confidence group held the grip for 30% longer than the low-confidence group. They also felt less pain and discomfort in their hands.

It is very important to avoid chronic indecision and too much deliberation

Researchers in Grenoble used the same method with people aged between 52 and 91, first asking them how old they felt. On average, they felt 8% more youthful than their real age. All the participants then did the handgrip test, which in itself is a good indicator of general vitality in older people. The average grip was around 26kg. The researchers then boosted the confidence of half the group, telling them that their score was better than 80% of people their age. They told the others nothing, and both groups then took the grip test a second time. The tired hands of those told nothing scored one kilo less than on their first attempt. The raised-confidence group score, however, was one kilo more. Strikingly, the feedback-induced confidence also made them feel younger: one 60-year-old said he felt like a 53-year-old and a 90-year-old felt 10 years younger, while the other group felt no different.

Nowhere is confidence more needed than when we face change, such as in the aftermath of pandemic. Many people are grappling with life-changing decisions, often forced upon them, about their careers, education, or where to live. There are two potential states of mind in which we can approach such decisions – deliberative, where we try to select a goal or course of action, weighing up the pros and cons of each; and implemental, where we have already selected our goal and are now working out what steps to take to achieve it.

The will-I, won’t-I, deliberative mindset widens our attention – for example, making it more likely that our eyes will detect a peripheral object on a background picture. It also opens our attention to a broad range of potential good and bad future possibilities and remembered past experiences. Because of this, not only does it open up creative possibilities for ourselves, it also lets in anxious, negative thoughts and memories which tend to diminish confidence. So it is very important to avoid chronic indecision and too much deliberation, and to keep it under tight control so that you can enjoy its benefits without becoming paralysed by it.

On the other hand, focusing on solving the problem of how to achieve an already chosen goal narrows our attention to specific actions and so reduces the chance of anxiety-arousing thoughts and memories entering our consciousness. Women in particular benefit from the confidence-enhancing effects of the implemental mindset, Cologne University researchers reported.

Though under-confidence depletes our potential, extreme overconfidence – a feature of male more than female behaviour – can have big downsides, too. For example, experienced professional financial traders made poorer choices than students because of their overconfidence in their hunches, a 2006 Nottingham University study showed, while overconfidence increases the chances of leaders taking military action and starting wars, because it makes them overly optimistic about their own military strength and their chances of success.

But in spite of its downsides, confidence is a precious mental resource that we all need as we re-enter a dramatically changed post-pandemic world. The words we say to ourselves will help harness our anxieties by focusing our attention on achievable goals, just as they did for Padraig Harrington.

Prof Ian Robertson is the author of How Confidence Works (Transworld, £20). To support the Guardian order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

The Science of Confidence, a Guardian Masterclass with Prof Ian Robertson, is on Tuesday 20 July. Book a ticket here

#health & wellbeing #science #mental health #mental health challenges #life and style

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mistystarshine · 7 years

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Make Me Live, Prologue

Story Summary: Sometimes, the past can come back to haunt you. That is especially true in the town of Morioh. Sixteen years after one terrible summer, two girls find themselves facing the consequences of actions that were not their own.

Chapter Summary: Whispers of things to come.

Notes: Behold, the prologue for the Yoriko fic. It’s on the short side since it is a prologue and won’t be uploaded until Ao3 until I’ve finished chapter one and can post them both at once. I’m not sure if I’m content with the story summary, so that may change before I make the official upload. Let me know what you think?

Wordcount: 1,703

Beta’d By: @sentochoryu

“It isn’t fair, is it?”

“No. It’s not.”

“Wouldn’t you like to do something about it?”

A somber mood permeated the back yard. Both women were reluctant to acknowledge it, the young especially. She walked with her hands stuffed in the pockets of her jacket and her eyes on the ground. Some of the blades of grass were dry and partially browned. She wondered how strong her hearing would have to be for her to be able to hear it crunching beneath her feet.

The pointless thought was interrupted by the sound of her older sister clearing her throat. “So! Are you excited to visit Morioh?” At a glance, Holly Kujo’s voice and face were cheerful. Closer inspection would reveal the strain of someone who was trying to force joy where it did not belong.

Shizuka didn’t have to look closely. With what was going on, what had happened to that woman in particular, there was no way her joy could be genuine.

“I haven’t been there in a long time,” she answered. It wasn’t a lie. It also wasn’t the question she had been asked. Holly was good enough at forcing a smile that she could fool most who didn’t understand the situation. Shizuka wasn’t so talented. Attempts to replace to morose look on her face with a smile or even neutrality resulted in a fakeness that bordered on painful. She wasn’t sure she could successfully lie right now. A visit to Morioh wasn’t a bad thing, but the reason behind the visit, the implications of it, were nothing short of terrible. And that was just from her point of view.

She stopped walking. Holly stilled beside her and offered a curious look. It was returned with one that was dripping with concern. “What about you? Will you be…?” Alright? She didn’t elaborate, but the unspoken words hung heavily between them. Suzie Q, Holly’s mother by birth and Shizuka’s by adoption, had died of old age three years ago. Jotaro and Jolyne had been lost in an incident in 2011. Now it was 2016 and, at ninety six years old, it looked like Joseph Joestar didn’t have long left. He still had just enough strength left in him to make the trip from New York to Japan, but… this was not a random visit.

Holly hesitated for a moment before laughing and waving her hand dismissively. “I’ll be fine!” Something in her expression faltered. She allowed her gaze to wander away from her younger sister and across the garden. “It’s not like I’ll be alone forever.”

She had been able to look Holly in the eyes to ask her question, but at that line, she was forced to avert her gaze. They said that there were five stages of grief. After the loss of her son and granddaughter, Holly had never moved past denial. She had said that it was too soon and they were too long - as if death discriminated.

Holly looked back at her as if the conversation’s awkward detour had never happened. “Anyway, you should go make sure you’re all packed! You leave in the morning, right?”

“Right.” Her voice was shaky and the smile she finally forced not quite convincing. Thankfully, she turned around soon enough that she didn’t have to look it long. ‘Right’. It sounds like ‘alright’. She focused in on the browning blades of grass once more. I hope Morioh will be alright.

It had been several years since their last visit to Morioh, but she remembered it being a peaceful town. Quiet. A part of her hoped that it would somehow help her father, like how she had been told that meeting Josuke and finding her had. Another part of her, the part that knew that all the small towns and family visits in the world couldn’t fix old age, took comfort in the knowledge that at least it couldn’t make things worse.

“What do you mean? It isn’t… that isn’t something you can change.”

“Maybe most people can’t. But for people like us? Anything can be changed.”

“How?”

“Not easily. I have one more question to ask you.”

Meanwhile, a pair of highschool students walked down the streets of a quiet town. One of them, a dark haired young man, was grinning enthusiastically as he chattered at his companion. “All I’m saying is that it might be fun to have a proper talk with the guy. I mean, he’s lived there since before we were born! How have neither of us actually met with him yet?”

The person he spoke to was a young woman. Her blank expression did not waver as he spoke, but she did shift the book bag slung over her shoulder somewhat. “Having lived in a pylon since before we were born is exactly why we shouldn’t talk to him.” Her voice was mostly neutral, but the boy she walked with knew her well enough to be able to pick up faint hints of warning and concern.

“Yorikooooo,” he whined.

“Takuma.” Her deadpan response initiated a brief staring contest, which he cut off with a huff.

“Fine, be that way.” They had stopped walking to have their silent battle of wills. Now, he began striding down the street once more, allowing his own bag to drop into his elbow as he braced the back of his head with his hands. A few moments after Yoriko hurried to catch up with him, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe you’d be more adventurous if you had eyebrows.”

That got a reaction. Yoriko let out a tiny, offended squeak and lifted her hand to her forehead. Her eyes glared daggers - or a weak approximation of daggers, for it took a great deal for her to truly glare, as she prepared to launch into her defensive lecture. It wasn’t that she didn’t have eyebrows, she was just blonde and her eyebrows were lighter, they were there, it was normal, they’d been over this - when Takuma cut her off with a laugh. “You know I’m kidding. You rock the light ‘brows look.”

He reached out to ruffle her hair, which she deftly dodged. She maintained the glare for a moment longer, but it quickly became half-hearted. Of course he was kidding. Aside from her mother, he was the only one who she trusted to be kidding in a genuine, mean-no-harm way when he said so. With a huff, she looked forward and carried on.

The next few minutes of their walk passed in silence. They passed several people on the way. Most were noticed by both of them, while others went completely unnoticed by half of the pair. Yoriko only let her gaze rest on them for a heartbeat, less when she could make herself ignore them completely. Even a heartbeat could be enough to earn her the label of ‘odd’.

She spoke up when after they crossed the street. “Visiting him would be a waste of time.”

Beside her, Takuma sighed. “I know, but maybe during summer break?” At the glance she shot him, he said, “I can find some free time! Or after graduation!”

Yoriko shook her head. “No.”

“Yeeees.”

“No.”

“You’ll come around eventually!” They came to the end of the block as he made his declaration. Before she could call him wrong, he asked, “do you have everything you need to study for the quiz?”

Now, one corner of her mouth twitched. “Of course.” Her words held a quiet pride, a complete contrast to the loudness that he presented his with. “And you?”

An overdramatic gasp. Takuma placed his hand over his heart and cried, “You need ask!? I am wounded.”

A small smile finally fought its way onto her face. She offered her friend a wave and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” as she crossed the street.

“See ya!” echoed over her shoulder.

With that, it was just her and the people she occasionally passed on the street. Just her and the residents of Morioh, content to ignore her.

For the most part.

A man wearing seventies clothes eyed her from across the block at one point, but he didn’t approach or look at her for much longer than she looked at him. He’d been there since before she could look at him and knew better than to expect anything.

She maintained her casual pace until she was about a block away from the house. That was when the (relative) normalcy was shattered by a glimpse out of the corner of her eye. There was a man wearing a suit. He had hands. He had feet. Other than that, she could provide no description, for there was nothing but shadow where his head should be. She knew what she would see if she turned around. She knew how the terrible black nothingness in the place of a face would make her skin crawl and her stomach lurch, how she would feel the glare boring into her despite the absence of eyes. Even that flash of dark out of the corner her eye was enough to make dread fall over her like freezing rain. She turned around anyway.

There was no one there. The sight made her take a stumbling step back. Ghosts could be quick when they wanted. She didn’t think anything good could come of that one wanting to be quick. Her eyes widened for a moment before she forced her cool expression back into place. While she didn’t run, she did increase her pace until she was able to duck into her house.

Most ghosts were nothing to be afraid of. There was a reason she had named her stand ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’. Yet there were times when she found herself ignoring her own advice. Most was not all. The knowledge that her stand was not all-knowing or constantly correct with its predictions didn’t always keep her from worrying when it manifested to show her something bad. It was times like those when Yoriko Kawajiri felt especially grateful to live where she did.

She would probably see much worse if she didn’t live somewhere as safe as Morioh.

“What would you do to bring back the ones you lost?”

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba #yoriko kawajiri #shizuka joestar #Make Me Live #JJBA fanfic #writing #it has begun!#please let me know what you think

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elizbethwolf · 4 years

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All About Scribble Color Scanning Pen – Buy for Cheap

What Is The Scribble Pen?

Publicly known as ““revolutionary pen that draws in any color!”” the Scribble color scanning and print pen in short words is a very advanced pen that is capable to scan “any color in the world” from any surface and then copy/replicate that color for pen writing. Color scanning is also meant for digital uses as you can extract color code from the pen. This revolutionary pen has been calling the attention of all media for the last year, Scribble pen solves a lot of situations for practical home and industry uses.

During this article we will discuss what main uses for the Scribble Color Scanning Pen, how it works, provide you instructions and videos on how to use it, where to buy it for cheap and more!

youtube

Scribble Story Starts at KickStarter

Back in early 2011, a group of dreamers submitted a project for funding in favor of the Scribble prototype project, it was an instant global hit as people went crazy to support the creators of this incredible idea. It was promising then and still very promising after almost 10 years of its submission for budget support.

Unfortunately, the Scribble color scanning and printing pen project had to be canceled as it called the attention of the KickStarter team right away. They were concerned that this project was just promising fake future results on technology that actually didn’t exist at the time. So the Kickstarter team reached out to the creators of the budget claim project to see if they could provide some sort of proof or a provisional functional prototype.

With this prototype request by KickStarter, they could at least proof that the project was not only based on dreams but a real and actual object might be already in the works. But the team was not ready to show anything close to their dreams and this caused the project to be canceled from funding raising. Over $300,000 were raised within the first few hours of the project being published, all these were returned to the actual bidders after the Scribble project got canceled.

Funding Was Born

Later they responded that the team of KickStarter didn’t have to panic. A video with explanatory samples on how they are going to develop de Scribble project was going to be released soon. But instead, the Scribble team opted to just walk out of that KickStarter system. Instead, they created their own crowdfunding system far from the “arbitrary” specifications that blocked the funding in the first place. It didn’t have much trust by themselves as expected, so the team had to fall again into another funding source called “Tilt”.

Bidders see the product up for bidding for 3rd time, something is not looking clear here and the support falls to 2/3 of what the raised in the first campaign. Still, over $200,000 was more than enough to get the project running but another problem surged at this time. The fund sourcing team also requested more information about the project, same situation as before. Ended up canceling the project, again! A working 100% prototype was not possible to have in hand at that time as the technology needed to create it didn’t exist yet, the reason why they needed the funds.

Who said beginnings were easy? Funny thing is that other fund-raisers using the same application, haven’t found this difficulty even with less productive and accurate working prototypes.

Weird Bad Vibes Against Scribble Pen Capabilities and Prototype Tests

Once the first useful prototype was successfully made, a video was recorded to prove that the pen actually works and does exactly as promised before against all odds and probabilities. But something really weird happened, during the film of the video, some frames overlapped the video as if it was edited. ( Picture above this paragraph shows the difference ) Causing a mass doubt thru the public thinking that the video could just be a fake. This hurt the trust the Scribble team had and it just got worse after Reddit took the topic as well. We all know Reddit, one of the biggest threat and conversational forum in the world, people love it to discuss topics on this site.

This evolved to a crowd of people investigating if the fact that a pen-like this was possible, or even a prototype was made that the story went on and on. Now people moved investigation among bloggers and article writers about the topic. Even an interview was found as a fake too, as the person “interviewed” didn’t actually exist. This is a known method for just fast online promotion but, didn’t work so well for the scribble team as it was looking really bad. As the investigation continued, these people discovered who was the “real person” behind all of these crowdfunding projects and it was not the company founders or owners. As no information was found locally or within any tech forum in the area where they supposedly lived. Only information about Scribble founders was only found on same Scribble website as if they didn’t exist at all.

The Research Goes On

The research kept on going looking out for companies registered within the United States for the last 2 years with anything similar to a pen within the company title, nothing was found. So if they were running this company under personal liability, any promised not accomplished could be sued against funding owner personal assets. All these looked really weird at that time. The only way to take this project out to the public was to fabricate a few Scribble pens as a prototype and send them to the main influencers in the media for them to try it out and speak for the product.

Gaining the Trust of The Influencers

Some of the top influencers signed in for a sample prototype so they could be the first in the world to try such a new technology. But continuous emails from Scribble team saying that there are delays and having difficulties to complete the prototypes so they couldn’t deliver until after a few months. These bloggers were publishing every step of the way and it was looking really bad for the eyes of the crowdfunding prospects at that time.

At this point, they were trying to sell the prototypes with the promise of getting them after a year of your order. By that time in 2016, the company was looking like a scam proposition and everybody turned away their support to the cause.

The story goes on and on but for the most part, we just wanted to give you a feel and look at how new and impressive technology has so many drawbacks in the beginning before it gets to the store for you to buy for a very cheap price.

The History Behind The Scribble Pen Technology

The Scribble team declared a 2 years intense design and technology path to get the pen to its final shape as we see it today. A lot of changes to the mechanism and the design of the pen were made as they needed it to be ready for home and commercial. At the same time, they also needed to make sure it will work free of defects. Knowing it is also going to be used for home applications, the size of the Scribble product had to be small. A small scanner and printer that could fit in your hand? A lot of innovations and new technology had to be invented to get this done with all the features it carries and the small size it has.

After the few first prototypes were made, the next challenge was to make it “bulletproof”. Remember the small piece of technology like this comes with a lot of internal, small and sensitive parts spooled very tight together. Even a small drop to the floor could be devastating if extra measures are not taken into count for the final production of the Scribble pen.

Thanks to the Scribble team, innovations never seen before were made possible for the color reproducing industry. Many of this new technology could improve the quality, size, speed, and cost of all of the future equipment with similar functionality.

How They Make It All Possible And SO SMALL

We figure you might still be curious about how they got all these functions together within a very little but resistant and functional tool. So here are some facts on the science behind the tech and how this device get it did and don’t expect us to say its just magic (LOL). Here are some specifications as established on their official website:

Scribble Stylus Pen

CompatibilityiOS 7+, Android 4.0+ConnectivityBluetooth, USBBattery Life15 hoursColor SensorRGB SensorTipSoft rubber tips includedDimension169 x 14.33mm (6.65 x 0.56 in.)

What Can The Scribble Pen Do?

The pen has so many technology parts in it, that once you start to describe it, you might be thinking, HOW THEY FIT ALL THESE IN A LITTLE PEN? But yes, the pen carries a small eye sensor to capture the color in an object near it. It is very small and easy to clean. The eye/sensor captures the color in an RGB format and converts the color into a popular color palette code for easy replication. Simply point the pen into the direction of anything you need the color replicated, and hit the button. A little stripe around the sensor will light up with the tone of the new color being copied, save the color to then write with it or just for later use and sync it to your cellphone or device, Isn’t that cool?

How to Re-fill Ink?

Offered in their website and almost any used website store over the internet, you can find the “Refillable Ink Cartridge”, in their own words: Scribble’s ink cartridge connects to a mixer and dispenser that exactly recreates the color you have scanned. Each cartridge comes with 30 miles of ink, and new cartridges cost less than $10!… I believe they have said it all. Looks really simple to use and to install.

Drawing Process

For your convenience, the scribble pen came with 3 drawing tips for different textures and feel. This allows you to express yourself with a different character, maybe thinner may be bolder. Gives you the will of choosing which size tip you need in case you are writing or drawing.

Do They Offer Guarantee?

The bad part is that the pen is actually NOT STILL AVAILABLE after so many years. We are not sure if this is a scam company or what. But we did a little research and found the competence that is already building and selling samples of these sort of pens and you could buy one right now with no waiting lines and no possibilities of being scammed.

Where to Buy a Similar Pen for Cheap?

The best choice is to look at Amazon and eBay for similar pens that are already available to the public. We ran a little search for eBay and found a very cheap $25 scribble-like pen available from China. (Screenshot Below). It looks very futuristic and is also sold with an extended guarantee so you won’t be scammed as advice earlier. Also, no need to pay almost $250 for a pen that doesn’t even exist yet as seen on Scribble website.

buy-cheap-scribble-like-pen

Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t carry any type of similar pens as we ran a search there too for possible prototypes or new products. Stick with eBay if you want to give this a test run.

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Source:

Futurism.com

eBay

Scribblepen.com

ChimiPrinting-019

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The post All About Scribble Color Scanning Pen – Buy for Cheap appeared first on Cheap 55 Printing.

Published First on https://cheap55printing.com/ All About Scribble Color Scanning Pen – Buy for Cheap posted first on https://cheap55printing.com/

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sheliabarley · 4 years

Text

All About Scribble Color Scanning Pen – Buy for Cheap

What Is The Scribble Pen?

During this article we will discuss what main uses for the Scribble Color Scanning Pen, how it works, provide you instructions and videos on how to use it, where to buy it for cheap and more!

youtube

Scribble Story Starts at KickStarter

Funding Was Born

Who said beginnings were easy? Funny thing is that other fund-raisers using the same application, haven’t found this difficulty even with less productive and accurate working prototypes.

Weird Bad Vibes Against Scribble Pen Capabilities and Prototype Tests

The Research Goes On

Gaining the Trust of The Influencers

The History Behind The Scribble Pen Technology

How They Make It All Possible And SO SMALL

Scribble Stylus Pen

Compatibility iOS 7+, Android 4.0+ Connectivity Bluetooth, USB Battery Life 15 hours Color Sensor RGB Sensor Tip Soft rubber tips included Dimension 169 x 14.33mm (6.65 x 0.56 in.)

What Can The Scribble Pen Do?

How to Re-fill Ink?

Drawing Process

Do They Offer Guarantee?

Where to Buy a Similar Pen for Cheap?

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Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t carry any type of similar pens as we ran a search there too for possible prototypes or new products. Stick with eBay if you want to give this a test run.

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The post All About Scribble Color Scanning Pen – Buy for Cheap appeared first on Cheap 55 Printing.

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theconservativebrief · 6 years

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It’s been less than a year since the post-Weinstein Time’s Up movement kicked off. But some of the men who left their jobs or stopped appearing in public after being accused of sexual misconduct are already beginning to make noises about a comeback.

Bill O’Reilly was forced to resign from Fox News last year after being accused of multiple incidents of sexual harassment — accusations he denies. Now he is reportedly in talks to host a new TV show. Garrison Keillor is touring. Charlie Rose is shopping a new show. Mario Lopez, accused of groping multiple women, is reportedly thinking about starting a new company.

All of this may seem overly optimistic on the part of the accused men — Rose, let’s recall, was accused of sexually harassing eight women (he apologized but also claimed that not all of the accusations against him were accurate), and his plan is reportedly to just go around interviewing other accused men.

But history suggests that it’s not overly optimistic at all. All these men have a walking, talking reminder in front of them that the post-public disgrace comeback can be done. That you can be the most reviled man in Hollywood one minute and sitting pretty in the A-list section of the Oscars as a major nominee the next. That reminder’s name is Mel Gibson.

Gibson became persona non grata in Hollywood in 2006, after first spewing a string of anti-Semitic comments while he was being arrested on DUI charges and then pleading no contest to hitting the mother of his child.

“I don’t think I want to see any more Mel Gibson movies,” Barbara Walters announced on The View after that anti-Semitism scandal in 2006. Hollywood superagent Ari Emanuel called for the entire entertainment industry to boycott Gibson.

But in 2017, Gibson appeared at the Oscars as a nominee for Best Director, grinning happily in the front section. He’s back in now.

Looking at how Mel Gibson has managed his comeback shows us how the men accused of sexual misconduct over the past year might plan to manage their own. Gibson is a case study in how a man who by his own admission did monstrous things can convince people that disappearing from the public eye for a few years makes up for those monstrous things, and how he can find his way back into polite society.

Please note that the following article contains excerpts from Gibson’s tapes, including graphic discussion of rape and domestic violence and the use of slurs.

By the early 2000s, Mel Gibson was a bona fide movie star/auteur at the top of his game.

He was hot, and he had industry clout: People magazine’s first Sexiest Man Alive in 1985; Forbes’s most powerful celebrity in 2004. He had prestige: 1995’s Braveheart, which he starred in and directed, won him two Oscars, for Best Picture and Best Director. And he could open a movie. Between 1989 and 2002, 10 of his movies brought in $100 million or more domestically. When he directed and produced The Passion of the Christ in 2004, he raked in $600 million on a budget of $30 million.

In our current post–movie star age, there’s no real equivalent to what Gibson was at the peak of his fame, but imagine that Chris Hemsworth decided to moonlight as a director and was successful at it, or that Christopher Nolan had a thriving side career as an action star, or that George Clooney was less polished and had more consistent box office clout. Mel Gibson was that big and that powerful.

Then in 2006, he was pulled over by a police officer for drunk driving and launched into an anti-Semitic tirade. “Fucking Jews … the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” he said. “Are you a Jew?” he asked his arresting officer, before addressing another (female) officer as “Sugar Tits.” The arresting officer recorded the entire encounter, and the tape was later leaked to the internet.

The DUI incident was damaging for Gibson, especially because it wasn’t the first time he’d flirted publicly with anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry. The Passion of the Christ had been deeply controversial in 2004 for its depiction of Jews as bloodthirsty hordes calling for the death of Christ. “At every single opportunity, Mr. Gibson’s film reinforces the notion that the Jewish authorities and the Jewish mob are the ones ultimately responsible for the Crucifixion,” the Anti-Defamation League concluded.

In the wake of the DUI incident, more stories of anti-Semitism surfaced. Winona Ryder recalled that Gibson once called her an “oven-dodger.”

Other types of troubling comments from the past reemerged too. There was the homophobia. In 1991, Gibson infamously mocked gay men in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais (“Do I look like a homosexual? Do I talk like them? Do I move like them?”), and when GLAAD recommended that he apologize, he responded, “I’ll apologize when hell freezes over. They can fuck off.”

Gibson has also repeatedly said that women were not equal to men, telling Playboy in 1995 that women should not become priests because “men and women are just different. They’re not equal.” When the interviewer asked for an example of the difference between men and women, Gibson elaborated, “I had a female business partner once. Didn’t work. … She was a cunt.”

An entire career’s worth of bigoted quotes — decades of them — were suddenly in the news, and the enormous machine that was Mel Gibson, movie star and successful director, began to falter.

Amy Pascal, then the head of Sony, disavowed him; so did former Universal president Sidney Sheinberg and Ari Emanuel. (Emanuel was head of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, where Gibson’s agent Ed Limato worked, but Emanuel wasn’t able to get Gibson off the agency’s roster until just before Limato’s death in 2010.) ABC scrapped a miniseries Gibson was developing on the Holocaust.

Gibson announced that he was going into rehab and publicly apologized twice. “I acted like a person completely out of control … and said things I do not believe to be true and which are despicable,” he said.

“His career is over,” an insider told People magazine anonymously. “He’s going to become toxic.”

The negative press didn’t hurt Gibson’s ability to score at the box office too badly — Apocalypto, which he directed and released in 2006, grossed more than $50 million domestically on a $40 million budget. But the movie got middling reviews, and it turned out to be the last Gibson film to see a theatrical release for five years.

Then in 2010, Gibson’s girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, with whom he had a child, accused him of hitting her so hard that he broke her teeth while she was carrying their infant daughter. Tapes leaked of their confrontation:

Oksana Grigorieva: You almost killed us, did you forget?

Mel Gibson: (making fake crying noises) The last three years have been a fucking gravy train for you.

O: (angry) You were hitting a woman with a child in her hands. You. What kind of a man is that? Hitting a woman when she’s holding a child in her hands? Breaking her teeth, twice, in the face, what kind of man is that?

M: (sarcastically) Mmm, ooh, you’re all angry now …

O: You’re going to get to, you know what?

M: You fucking deserved it.

O: You’re going to answer, one day, boy, you’re going to answer.

M: Huh?

O: There.

M: What, what? What are you threatening me?

O: Nothing, nothing. I’m not the one to threaten.

M: I’m threatening, I’ll put you in a fucking rose garden, you cunt. You understand that? ’Cause I’m capable of it. You understand that? Get a fucking restraining order. For what? What are you going to get a restraining order for? For me being drunk and disorderly? For hitting you? For what?

Elsewhere in the tapes, Gibson informs Grigorieva that “if you get raped by a pack of ni**ers it’ll be your fault,” and threatens to burn down the house with her in it, instructing her to “blow [him] first.”

Gibson later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge for hitting Grigorieva; he served probation, underwent court-ordered counseling, and paid $600 in fines.

But if the legal consequences Gibson faced for his treatment of Grigorieva were minimal, the consequences in Hollywood were slightly splashier. His agency dropped him the day the tapes were released. (Emanuel finally had his opening to enact the boycott of Gibson he’d called for in 2006.) Leonardo DiCaprio pulled out of a movie Gibson was set to direct. A planned Gibson cameo in The Hangover 2 was scrapped after protests from the cast and crew. Get the Gringo, which Gibson produced, co-wrote, and starred in, never made it to a theatrical release in the US, instead languishing in video on demand upon its release in 2012.

There seemed to be a general consensus in Hollywood: No one wanted to see Mel Gibson’s face or have anything to do with him.

And so for years, he was silent.

But in 2016, the Gibson-directed Hacksaw Ridge grossed $175 million worldwide and $67 million domestically. It racked up six Oscar nominations, including one for Best Director. In 2017, Gibson headlined the family comedy Daddy’s Home 2, which grossed $180 million worldwide.

Gibson, the New York Times concluded, “has found himself back in Tinseltown’s warm embrace.” He has successfully managed a comeback.

So how did he get here from there?

There are four major tentpoles to Gibson’s comeback. It’s impossible to say that this four-part strategy is intentional on Gibson’s part — his publicist did not respond to a request for comment from Vox — but here’s what it looks like from the outside in.

First, Gibson rarely discusses either the DUI incident or the Grigorieva tapes in the press. Most of the interviews he grants are with friendly outlets — or, as Gibson friend and entertainment journalist Allison Hope Weiner phrased it in 2011 when she released Gibson’s first interview in years, with outlets where the editors are not “inclined to use this story to pursue their own agendas.” When he has to give an interview at a less friendly venue, he tends to do so with an associate who can run interference if the conversation seems to be trending toward any of Gibson’s scandals.

When Gibson does talk about his scandals, he suggests that if you really think about it, he was the wronged party, because his private moments of weakness were made public.

“Who anticipates being recorded? Who anticipates that?” he asked Deadline in 2011. “Who could anticipate such a personal betrayal?”

“Imagine the worst moment you have even had being recorded and broadcast to the world and it wasn’t meant to be public,” he said in 2016. “You didn’t stand on a soapbox and do it, but that’s what happens, you know.”

Gibson does not apologize. He does not express good wishes for the people he’s hurt. He maintains that he is the one who was really hurt. But mostly, he doesn’t say anything at all.

And he mostly doesn’t have to say anything. That’s the second tentpole of his comeback: He leaves the talking to his friends and allies, of which he has many, both in Hollywood and in the press.

“The fact that [Gibson] won’t jump to his own defense is part of his problem, but also part of why I have grown to respect him,” wrote Weiner for Deadline in 2014. (After publication, Weiner disclosed that Gibson was an investor in the media company at which she hosts two shows, but she maintained that “the suggestion that Mr. Gibson, or any third party, exercises influence over me or my shows is false.” Weiner did not respond to a request for comment from Vox.)

In her 2014 article, Weiner goes on to explain that she had become close with Gibson after covering him for years, and believed that he was not a bigot. He was just an alcoholic “with a frightening temper, capable of saying whatever will most offend the target of his anger.”

She cites the money Gibson had anonymously donated to Jewish charities, specifically lauding his secrecy, which, she says, was “in keeping with one of the highest forms of Tzedakah in the Jewish faith, giving when the recipient doesn’t know your identity.” (How secret those donations could possibly be when they’re being reported on in Deadline is not something Weiner discusses in the piece.)

As for the domestic violence charge? “From my own investigation of the incident, I am persuaded Gibson did not beat [Grigorieva] or give her a black eye,” Weiner writes. “I base this on interviews with her lawyer and the deputy district attorney who handled the case.”

She allows that Gibson has admitted to “tapping” Grigorieva, but argues that he was only reacting to Grigorieva shaking their infant daughter. The section of the leaked tape in which Grigorieva accuses Gibson of hitting her and he responds, “You fucking deserved it,” Weiner does not discuss.

Instead, she says, it was Grigorieva who was extorting Gibson for money. And anyway, she adds, Gibson was going through a really hard time back then, so it doesn’t even count. “He was depressed and lonely, his career in shambles as he apologized to anyone who’d listen,” she writes. “Those recordings revealed a man in personal turmoil.”

This general narrative — Gibson didn’t do it, and if he did, it doesn’t count, and if you think about it, he’s the real victim, and he’s actually very sorry and I’ll tell you all about it but you’d never know otherwise because he’d never say so himself — is one that has been repeated again and again by Gibson’s allies. When Peter Biskind profiled Gibson for Vanity Fair in 2011, he spoke to dozens of sources who were willing to spout the same talking points that Weiner trotted out in 2014 — including one anonymous friend who argued that the infamous DUI incident was secretly Gibson’s attempt at suicide by cop.

“I don’t think this was about being anti-Semitic,” the friend says. “I think he was trying to rile that guy into pulling out a gun and shooting him. Before he left the restaurant that night, he went to every single table and said good-bye. Why would you say good-bye to every table unless you think you’re never going to see them again? I believe that what was going on that night was a farewell.”

Even the friends of Gibson’s who aren’t willing to discuss his controversies will still come to his defense. Jodi Foster gave Gibson his first starring role after his DUI in 2011’s The Beaver, and then fought for the movie to be released after the Grigorieva tapes went public.

“God, I love that man,” Foster said of Gibson on the film’s publicity tour. “The performance he gave in this movie, I will always be grateful for. He brought a lifetime of pain to the character that we’ve been talking about for years, that I knew was part of his psyche and who he is. It’s part of him that is beautiful and that I want people to know, too. I can’t ever regret that.”

And Robert Downey Jr. pleaded with Hollywood to forgive Gibson. “Unless you are without sin — and if you are, you are in the wrong [expletive] industry, you should forgive him and let him work,” Downey said in 2011.

But the testimony of Gibson’s allies could only do so much. The comeback strategy needed a third tentpole: time. Gibson kept his head down and worked quietly in small genre movies for a few years, so that when he made his big push back into the mainstream with Hacksaw Ridge in 2016, 10 years after his DUI and six years after the domestic violence accusations, he could argue that he’d been out of play for a decade and that it was enough time.

“I’ve done a lot of work on myself these last 10 years,” he told Deadline. “I’ve deliberately kept a low profile. I didn’t want to just do the celebrity rehab thing for two weeks, declare myself cured and then screw up again. I think the best way somebody can show they’re sorry is to fix themselves and that’s what I’ve been doing and I’m just happy to be here. He who tries, gets.”

Hacksaw Ridge also added a fourth tentpole to Gibson’s comeback strategy. He was able to successfully break back into the mainstream as a director, not an actor, which meant he could keep his face out of the public eye while people got used to the idea of him being back in Hollywood. It was only after Hacksaw Ridge’s success legitimized Mel Gibson the director again that Mel Gibson the actor was able to make his triumphant reappearance in polite society with Daddy’s Home 2.

There was pushback to Gibson’s rearrival. “Hold on, how is Mel Gibson still a thing?” protested the feminist entertainment blog the Mary Sue.

“Is Mel Gibson really such an invaluable cultural figure that we should forgive or tolerate or willfully ignore this pattern of behavior?” demanded GQ in an article on Gibson’s “unearned” comeback. “Is anyone?”

The Daily Beast called for shame on Hollywood for allowing Gibson his comeback.

“Mel Gibson is unworthy of a ‘comeback,’ but he’s getting one anyway,” concluded Jezebel.

But Gibson seems to have gotten his comeback, regardless of any number of outraged think pieces. He’s doing fine. The four strategies worked.

Together, these four strategies create a kind of blurriness around exactly what Gibson did, and a mist of nebulous remorse around his subsequent behavior: Something happened, but it really wasn’t that big a deal, and now he feels bad, and anyway, it was all a long time ago. It gives his comeback a sense of vagueness — and that’s exactly what the men tarred by #MeToo will most likely try to create as they plot their own comebacks.

After all, Gibson’s career appears to be in full flower. He has signed on to direct the World War II drama Destroyer. He stars with Sean Penn in The Professor and the Madman, set to be released this fall. Reportedly, he is being eyed to star opposite Mark Wahlberg in Warner Bros.’ The Six Billion Dollar Man. If your goal is to convince the world to forget that you have been credibly accused of doing terrible things, and to find a way to once again work in the uppermost echelons of Hollywood, then Gibson is an admirable role model.

So as those disgraced men begin to put the pieces in motion to plot the next steps of their careers, the question that remains is whether the collective we are capable of holding on to the specific details of the dozens and dozens of horrific cases of sexual misconduct that came out last fall — or whether we’ll shrug and say that sure, something bad happened. But it was a long time ago and it really wasn’t that big a deal.

Original Source -> Mel Gibson has set the blueprint for a #MeToo comeback. Expect other men to follow it.

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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flauntpage · 6 years

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Winning UGLY: Four Observations from Sixers 89, Celtics 80

That was… a pretty bad basketball game. Turns out the Celtics are total shit without Kyrie Irving, which I think we already knew.

It was summed up brilliantly by Brad Stevens, who did a compelling and rich interview with Kristen Ledlow at the end of the third quarter:

Ledlow: Here with Celtics coach Brad Stevens; you limited the turnovers in the third quarter, what else has to change offensively in the 4th?

Stevens: A lot. We stink. First three quarters, we’ve stunk.

Well said, coach.

You can slap a big, fat asterisk on that win and say, “well Boston didn’t have their best player,” but while it might be fair, that’s a bit disrespectful of a fine Joel Embiid performance, plus some really nice team defense.

Yeah, they almost blew another lead, but they didn’t. They won. Two straight games now that they’ve successfully closed out. That’s five wins in six to improve to 21-20 and go above .500 for the first time since December 12th.

That’s me, I’m the pragmatist. I’ll look for the positives in a nine-point road win, no matter who’s on the floor. It can be Kyrie Irving or Larry Bird or Brian Scalabrine. All you can do is go out and play the squad they put in front of you.

1) Jojo All Star

26 points, 16 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal, 2 blocks, and only 4 turnovers, which is a reasonable turnaround from the 7 he committed on MLK Day.

Let’s focus on the assists. This was the first time since mid-December that Joel has dished out more than five.

He made smart decisions on the perimeter last night, recognizing double teams and overplays earlier than he normally does and finding teammates in open space:

You don’t see many seven-footers who can fake a three-pointer and dish it to the 4-man for a drive to the paint, but that’s what happens when centers pursue Embiid to the perimeter like Daniel Theis does in that clip.

Another one, this time without the end product, but a play where Embiid has a high middle starting point:

Best part of that play, outside of the pass, is that T.J. McConnell is setting an off-ball screen to let Justin Anderson curl to the rim. He doesn’t get the basket, but that’s a great example of guys moving while Joel is in possession, instead of just standing around and staring at him. They have a bad habit of becoming static, especially when he’s working in the low post and they’re spread around the perimeter.

Here’s another:

McConnell back door for a turn around fade?

Sure, why not.

Embiid could have had 8-10 assists last night if all of his brilliant passes were finished off.

There was also this:

Embiid entered the game after the Cs had pulled within 11 and he then scored or assisted on Philly's next 14 points. 71-53 after 3.

— Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) January 19, 2018

All-Star.

2) Robert Covington

Five points on 1-5 shooting, 1-4 from downtown.

He’s shooting 33% in the month of January and just 30.4% from downtown, hitting 7 of 23 attempts.

The big groan last night was when he passed up a late attempt to move closer to the rim before the shot clock went. He’s seemed to lack the killer instinct and aggression that we saw earlier in the season.

Some of that is just him falling back down to Earth. There’s no way he was going to continue to shoot 50% from beyond, which is where he was nine games into the season. His defense continues to be excellent, but you see how limited his offensive game is when he’s not catching and shooting with success.

He’s still on pace to eclipse his career numbers this season, but you wouldn’t expect anything less now that he’s been paid. The expectations are simply higher.

Here’s how Cov has done in his last 10 games:

Yea, the season numbers still hold up, but they’re going to fall below 2016-2017 averages if he finishes January the way he started.

3) No Kyrie

The Celtics are averaging 102.7 points this season.

In three games without Kyrie Irving, they’ve put up 80, 85, and 95 points. And in the game where he took a shot to the face and only played 2 minutes, they finished with 90 points.

So you see what happens when you lose your All-Star point guard, a guy averaging 24.1 points, 5 assists, and 3.6 boards per game. It’s not much different from how the Sixers look without Embiid.

The Celtics were bad with the ball, turning it over 14 times about midway through the second quarter. They didn’t even get to the foul line until late in the third, finishing 13-17 on the evening. They shot 7-29 (24.1%) from three-point range and were out-rebounded, 33 to 28. Al Horford and Marcus Morris led the C’s with 14 points each.

At the end of the day, 22 Sixer turnovers hardly mattered, since Boston looked rudderless with Irving on the floor.

4) Season Splits

That’s it for the season series. The Sixers stole the finale to finish 1-3 against the Celtics this year.

This is how they did overall in those four games:

95.3 PPG

35.5 field goal %

27.3% from three

42.5 rebounds per game

20.5 assists

19 turnovers

22.8 fouls

Most of those numbers are bottom five or bottom ten compared to how they’ve played against other opponents. Against Toronto, for instance, they’ve put up 101.5 PPG while shooting 37.5%. It’s similar vs. Cleveland.

That’s not amazing, but it’s better than how they’ve done against Boston with Kyrie on the floor.

The difference between an 8 seed and 7 seed would be huge, assuming the Sixers make the playoffs. That starts with a sneaky-huge home game against Milwaukee on Saturday night, a team currently in the spot where Philly needs to be.

Winning UGLY: Four Observations from Sixers 89, Celtics 80 published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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conservative-eclectic · 6 years

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Bernie Wins No Matter What or Countdown to Armageddon ((wait, we’re here now?))

At our yearly house meetings, the central question is “What keeps you up at night?” and it’s difficult for those of us privileged enough to not have family tragedy, neighborhood blight or worse to report, to not be this side of self-obsessed in our honest answers. You only have to dig deep to come up with something a little more “usable” so to speak, but sometimes the question is very real, and the answer is “my past failures.” And we’re trained to ask for elaboration if it’s that vague. “Sorry, we definitely don’t have time for that, I’m quite sure. Suffice it to say that I could pick one and try to rotate monthly if I was organized about these thoughts, or I could choose a category for a night of the week.” I learned from Jordan Peterson that we’re not supposed to be obsessing about anything longer than, was it 15 or 18 months?, in the past... As promised (can you make a promise to the ether?) last week, this was written August 10th, and edited August 17, 2016 (Since I love parenthetical aside, all present (January 8th 2018) interjections are double parenthesized (()) AND italicized): History will see Donald Trump’s candidacy and potentially his presidency as the inevitable conclusion of myriad signs and signals and cultural zeitgeist. Connections will be made to the past 25 years if not more. It will either be regarded as the democratization of democracy if we persist to a Techno-igno-Idiocracy, (or at least until we are conquered, vanquished or destroy ourselves, and the writers of history will again be sane) or hopefully, a wake up call from the nightmare, the darkness before the dawn, the moment the United States of America as a nation saw itself in the mirror with a newfound realization, illuminating a long period of reform. I do think this is a turning point, but a strange one. I believe if Hillary Clinton is elected, we’ve eliminated, or at the very least seriously delayed the former, and the latter must happen, but is slow. If it’s Trump, however, then it goes either way, and fast. After all the Antichrist is supposed to only be in power for three and a half years.  

The poisonous discourse in our nation for the past quarter-century, or maybe just since the useless 1998 Clinton scandal, or since Reagan (particularly the end of the fairness doctrine, so therefore maybe just since Fox news), or since the Republicans’ bitter plan of vengeance toward the Democrats for Nixon (or possibly since 1964, the birth of the modern Conservative movement), has created not only Trump’s candidacy, but much more importantly, and much more disastrously, Trumps followers. Remember the Tea Party? That’s them, now full on, with a leper-messiah. But it’s not just political zeitgeist, it’s cultural as well. I contend that certain unfortunate political realities unduly influenced culture, but the parts of our culture that Trump represents, (greed, crudeness, lack of accountability, shallow superficiality, ignorance etc. etc.) both parties speak out against. Since the Republicans have nominated and now support Trump, I guess they were just kidding this whole time. And I purposely left off sexism, and racism by the way, speaking out and lip service are two different things. ((I’m not sure what that means))

Yet so many supporters are convinced of the opposite, that somehow this product of “me” is out to help his country, despite his history as a man, and his words as a politician, and his competence in interviews. This is somehow turned to virtue, because Trump believes in “winning?” It is inevitable, as Trump’s forerunner was the Charlie Sheen debacle. Yet the nation seemed to enjoy a joyous humiliation by Sheen’s winning. They decry the Charlie Sheen tirades and hissy-fits and glaring and offensive gaffs. But celebrate the same thing, when it accompanies a fake populist running for election of the leader of the free world. It is hard not to blame the demagogue for demagoguery, but, while the demagogue is the undeniably (merely) the source, the majority of the blame lies elsewhere. There’s the media, namely a fox news who has successfully brainwashed people I normally would prefer to hold in high esteem, like my mentor and my father, to prefer the increasingly abhorrent over time. My father always had a Catholic excuse before, now he does not. It is quite literally a crying shame. And ultimately it’s the people that make the demagogue, the despot, the antichrist - none of these folks exist without the weakness of the people to fall for them, then to follow them.

  It IS chicken and egg though, 21st Century tea-party/Fox politics are a disease, like alcoholism. Most of the time, you can sort of blame the disease’s victim for the start of it. We are usually educated enough to know that drinking too much is bad. Sometimes we are blissfully, or by fate, unaware of our family history and/or other factors that make us a target. (in Fox’s revolution, it’s about anger and dopamine, old age and whiteness, no one wants to admit these things make one predisposed) ((I learned a great phrase since then: willfull blindness)) Once it’s started, you have it, and you’re just a victim of a disease. We don’t go back to the point before the disease started and point it out to the victim to be perpetually shamed. Yet to end it, it takes a conscious choice and a constant, persistent and perpetual will. So, we can blame the little r republicans for supporting Trump now, but it’s useless. They fell a long time ago before that, for whatever reason, they were victimized. Trump is merely the logical conclusion to this journey. You have to hit bottom before you want to help yourself get out of the addiction.

Maybe there should be a nationwide Fox-news Intervention movement. Maybe a Trump presidency is the only thing that will bring that out.  I might find myself believing that, fiercely, and preferring it even, but there’s no way that will bring me to vote for that. My conscience won’t let me do that. Just like all the good republicans voting for Johnson, whether they live in a swing state or not. Just like the good liberals, not voting Jill Stein if they do live in a swing state.   

Now, let’s start with that. And as a thought experiment let’s pretend everyone is loyal to one of the two parties AND intelligent. What I mean by that is let’s pretend all liberals/Dems in swing states vote Hillary, and all conservatives/GOPs in swing states vote for Trump. So not, completely intelligent, but know how presidential elections work according to their aforementioned feirce party loyalty. Also, let’s pretend in addition, non swing states go where they’re supposed to/are predicted to go. Lastly, and the most outlandish, pretend it doesn’t matter who wins the whole election. The beauty of this election is third party magic numbers (5%, thereby securing funding for the next election) by a massive increase in third party voters in solidly blue, and solidly red states. Personally I think libertarians are a bunch of crackpots, but only good can happen from more voices in power. If the libertarian party rises, gets attention and recruits, we can successfully split the Republicans into two. You’d have the Republicans that believe in using their brain on one side and Trump Republican/Tea Party on the other - more or less - the Racist Populist Frightened Center and the Right. Michael Moore on Real Time with Bill Maher did point out, undeniably accurately, that Trump is the third party candidate here. If the Green Party had the organization that the Libertarians did, we could hope for similar. I don’t think they can do it, but for argument’s sake let’s say they can. Here we would have the Dead Center Party, likely to be the most dominant of the four in the immediate future, and the Democratic Socialist Green Left. By the way, the Green and the Democratic Socialists have needed to merge for YEARS. They ought to right now to get to the magic number.  

This, eventually saves our country, by allowing the narrative to change from what THEY tell us conservative and liberal mean. It realigns definitions, and brings reality to the fore. The reality that a great number of Americans are scared cowards that want to hide behind the military industrial complex, and that the majority of Americans leans socially Left compared to where it has been distortedly aligned for decades. The reason Trump has such numbers is the Republicans were off the rails on the right side compared to how many Americans feel. Or as a Johnson Republican once said to me, “Trump is really a democrat.” ((not that I buy that, or ever did, but so many of them feel that way, it’s the Twilight Zone)) If we realign, and foster a 4 party system, then we don’t have to feel like we have no choice, and most importantly we don’t have to nominate any cartoon characters for president, I think.

Maybe the RPFC will really be the Cartoon Party, and that’s just what they’ll do. They’ll run Charlie Sheen next, maybe Tom Brady after that, at some point they’ll nominate Kanye, just to “prove” they’re not racist. He’ll discover the real source of ideas in the party eventually and it’ll be too late to quit. Maybe this is what’s happening to Trump.

  Let’s do another thought experiment. Let’s pretend Trump is rational and intelligent. It is actually possible. He could, in fact, be exceedingly intelligent enough to use the American people’s right leaning bigotry to propel him to the top, to turn it all around and help improve their lives despite themselves. That’s what his followers want us to think isn’t it? He changes his mind on the wall of course, the minimum wage, he re-nominates Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court…..

((Jesus!))

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uniteordie-usa · 6 years

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The Internecine Deep State Conflict Moves to Stage Two

http://uniteordie-usa.com/the-internecine-deep-state-conflict-moves-to-stage-two/ http://www.oftwominds.com/photos2015/Deep-State5-15.gif The Internecine Deep State Conflict Moves to Stage Two It now seems evident that the Neoliberal Camp of the U.S. Deep State is highly vulnerable on an individual basis. I tend to notice things like a year-old blog entry suddenly getting thousands of page views. The essay that received a surge of recent interest: Is the Deep State at War–With I...

It now seems evident that the Neoliberal Camp of the U.S. Deep State is highly vulnerable on an individual basis.

I tend to notice things like a year-old blog entry suddenly getting thousands of page views. The essay that received a surge of recent interest: Is the Deep State at War–With Itself? (December 13, 2016).

I’m reprinting the essay below for those interested, as nothing has emerged to change the conclusions.

That in itself reveals that the internecine war within America’s Deep State is if anything heating up as those attempting to hang a “Russian collusion” narrative on their Deep State opponents have failed to produce any proof of this collusion despite a year of effort.

Then all of a sudden big political donor Harvey Weinstein gets taken down for behaviors that have been well-known within the circles of power for 20+ years. So what changed? Why did Mr. Weinstein’s protective wall suddenly fail after serving him so effectively for decades?

But Mr. Weinstein was only the first to fall. Now high-profile figures across the mainstream media are toppling like dominoes. Doesn’t it seem a bit peculiar that all these Protected Privileged are suddenly being exposed, disgraced and removed from positions of influence and power?

Maybe it’s just random coincidence, but I doubt it. It has the scent of an intentional covert campaign. It’s well known that the mainstream media and Hollywood has been in bed with the security agencies for decades, and so it seems non-random that suddenly all these big-shots have lost their Protected Privileged Status more or less at once.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it looks like those who played on the losing side’s team (or cheered from the sidelines) just had their privileges revoked.

Were we to speculate on the meaning of this first-sweep of the media: how about a campaign to strip the failed narrative of its media supporters? Now that everyone sees the lay of the land, the Second Stage will be to collect all the dirty laundry that’s been hidden away out of fear, and then methodically expose, disgrace and remove the next layer of media/entertainment supporters of the failed narrative.

Stage Three will be to collect and release the same sort of evidence against the political class. We can discern evidence for this campaign in the number of candidates who suddenly declare they won’t be running for re-election for personal reasons, or to “move on to other projects,” etc.

As this campaign moves up the wealth-power pyramid, we’ll see more big shots resigning or retiring. Those that resist will find all their dirty laundry is suddenly being made public.

Isn’t it interesting that PBS and the rest of the mainstream media went all out to support Hillary Clinton’s recent media campaign to revive the “Russian collusion” narrative via her new book, yet the campaign fell flat with the American public?

This is remarkable: a highly coordinated, massive media campaign failed to re-energize the “Russian collusion” narrative, and may have actually backfired by drawing renewed interest in Russian dealings with the Clinton Foundation during Hillary’s term as Secretary of State.

I hesitate to draw a military analogy, but it certainly feels like a replay of the Battle of Midway, in which an over-confident Japanese Imperial Navy was poised to declare victory until the cream of its fleet, four aircraft carriers, were sunk or disabled in the space of a few moments by U.S. Navy dive bombers.

The grand attack that was supposed to reverse these catastrophic losses–Hillary’s book and accompanying media blitz–fizzled, and that failure clearly eroded the defenses of those who supported this counter-attack by the demoralized but still powerful Neoliberal Camp of the Deep State.

It now seems evident that the Neoliberal Camp of the U.S. Deep State is highly vulnerable on an individual basis: all too many over-confident big-wigs appear to have counted a bit too much on their Protected Privileged Status being permanent.

Collectively, they appear to have forgotten, perhaps as a result of their titanic hubris, that only the paranoid survive.

Various cliques within the 3-Letter Agencies are frantically trying to protect their satraps and benefactors, but the tide has turned and all the threats and pay-offs that defended the Protected Privileged so effectively for decades are no longer working.

Now the Protected Privileged are running scared, as well they should, for the opposing camp within the 3-Letter Agencies has all the dirty laundry it needs to bring down the Neoliberal Camp, one disgraced big-shot at a time.

The way of the Tao is reversal.

Here’s last year’s essay on the Deep State conflict:

Is the Deep State at War–With Itself?

December 14, 2016

The recent pronouncement by the C.I.A. that Russian hackers intervened in the U.S. presidential election doesn’t pass the sniff test–on multiple levels. Let’s consider the story on the most basic levels.

1. If the report is so “secret,” why is it dominating the news flow?

2. Why was the “secret report” released now?

3. What actual forensic evidence is there of intervention? Were voting machines tampered with? Or is this “secret report” just another dose of fact-free “fake news” like The Washington Post’s list of 200 “Russian propaganda” websites?

4. The report claims the entire U.S. intelligence community is in agreement on the “proof of Russian intervention on behalf of Trump” story, but then there’s this:

“The C.I.A. presentation to senators about Russia’s intentions fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence agencies. A senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency’s assessment, in part because some questions remain unanswered.”

Given that the N.S.A. (National Security Agency) was so secret that its existence was denied for decades, do you really think the NSA is going to go public if it disagrees with the C.I.A.?

Given the structure of the Deep State and the intelligence community, “minor disagreements” could well mean complete, total disavowal of the C.I.A.’s report.

That this is the reality is suggested by the F.B.I.’s denunciation of the report’s evidence-free, sweeping conclusion:

FBI Disputes CIA’s “Fuzzy And Ambiguous” Claims That Russia Sought To Influence Presidential Election

5. The supposed interventions clearly fall under the purview of the NSA. So why is the C.I.A. going public in what is clearly a politicized report intended to influence the public via massive, sustained coverage in the mainstream media?

6. Notice the double standard: so when the U.S. attempts to influence public opinion in other nations, it’s OK, but when other nations pursue the same goal, it’s not OK?

7. What are we to make of the sustained campaign to elevate “Russian hackers and propaganda” from signal noise to the deciding factor in the U.S. election?

8. Russian hacking and attempts to influence American public opinion are not new. The intelligence agencies tasked with protecting American cyberspace have long identified state-sponsored hacking from Russia and China as major threats. So why, all of a sudden, are we being told the Russians successfully influenced a U.S. election?

What changed? What new capabilities did they develop?

9. And most importantly, what evidence is there that Russian efforts affected the election? Were digital fingerprints found on voting machine records? Were payments to American media employees uncovered?

Shouldn’t statements purported to be “fact” or the “truth” be substantiated beyond “trust us, an agency with a long history of failed intelligence, misinformation and illegal over-reach”?

10. Doesn’t it raise alarms that such a momentous accusation is totally devoid of evidence? If you’re going public with the conclusion, you have to go public with at least some of the evidence.

Here’s the media blitz and some skeptical response:

CIA: Russia intervened to help Trump win

Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House

Former UK Ambassador Blasts “CIA’s Blatant Lies”, Shows “A Little Simple Logic Destroys Their Claims”

Longtime readers know I have proposed a major divide in the Deep State–the elements of the federal government which don’t change regardless of who is in elected office. This includes the intelligence community, the Pentagon, the diplomatic and trade infrastructure, Research and Revelopment, and America’s own organs of media “framing” and “placement.”

Is the Deep State Fracturing into Disunity? (March 14, 2014)

More recently, I wondered if the more progressive elements of the Deep State recognized the dangers to U.S. security posed by the neocons and their candidate, Hillary Clinton, and had decided to undermine her candidacy:

Could the Deep State Be Sabotaging Hillary? (August 8, 2016)

In other words, it’s not the Russians who sabotaged Hillary–it’s America’s own Deep State that undermined her coronation. It wasn’t a matter of personalities; it was much more profound than that. It was about the risks posed by the neocon strategies and policies, and just as importantly, the politicization of the intelligence network.

And this is precisely what we discern in the C.I.A.’s unprecedented and quite frankly, absurd “secret report:” a blatantly politicized “report” that is not supported by any evidence, nor is it supported by the other 16 intelligence agencies. (Silence doesn’t mean approval in this sphere.)

We can now discern the warring camps of the Deep State more clearly. On the one side is the C.I.A., the mainstream media, and the civilians who have feasted on wealth and power from their participation in the neocon’s Global Project.

On the other side is the Defense Department’s own intelligence agencies (D.I.A. et al.), the N.S.A., the F.B.I. and at least a few well-placed civilians who recognize the neocon agenda as a clear and present danger to the security of the nation.

From this perspective, the C.I.A.’s rash, evidence-free “report” is a rear-guard political action against the winning faction of the Deep State. The Deep State elements that profited from the neocon agenda were confident that Hillary’s victory would guarantee another eight years of globalist intervention. Her loss means they are now on the defensive, and like a cornered, enraged beast, they are lashing out with whatever they have in hand.

This goes a long way in explaining the C.I.A’s release of a painfully threadbare and politicized “report.”

Read More: http://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec17/deep-state-wars12-17.html

#America's Deep State #Deep State #internecine war #Is the Deep State at War--With Itself?#neoliberal

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yourkawaiibeeyotch · 7 years

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ON BECOMING A CPA LAWYER

On becoming a CPA Lawyer During my mid-teenage years, I was in confused about what I wanted to be in life, for I have considered a variety of professions. Honestly, I am confident that I can be what I want myself to be. The process seemed easy--pass the entrance exams and finish the degree program in a good university. However, that was when I realized that I was indeed wrong. I never thought that for two years, I will be in constant turmoil of what I want to be. At first, I set my eyes on becoming a psychologist, then an accountant. But when I was so sure I wanted to be a psychologist, that was not the case anymore after two years. Reality influenced me to find a course I am confident to pass, yet will enable me to land in greener pastures. For a while, that was my mindset. However, I also want to enjoy my college life without regretting the course I've chosen. Constantly, every time I review for exams when I was in Grade 10, I found myself looking at every degree program I think is suitable to my taste. I was at loss. I am interested at any of them, but that won't work in the future. Impulsively, I chose to follow my mother's footsteps to become an accountant. It was reckless for me because it just signified that I haven't found my passion. Maybe, that was it for me. No more turning back. I enrolled under ABM Strand in Grade 11, in which I found my specialized subject, Applied Economics, an extremely interesting subject. The Philippine economy is an integral part of the country, for it is governed by public servants. As well all know, politics is the moving force of the government. I already love politics ever since I was a kid. At a young age, I know about Hello Garci (although it will be nine years later that I would hear the entire thing). During the 2007 elections, I've heard about Genuine Opposition, a political alliance of senator nominees against then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. My family was supportive of the entire thing, so I was influenced to loathe greedy and corrupt politicians. My mother worked at the city government, while my uncle works at Bureau of Fire Protection. They both know something on how the system called politics works. I saw how the election system worked, and how happy people were when most of the members of GE won a seat in the senate. But that was my early encounter with politics. After that, I saw 2010 and 2013 elections unravel in front of my eyes, but I already lost interest. Although my family from the mother side are regular voters in every election, I would just stop and stare at the TV for me to know who has emerged victorious from the races. In 2015, I was fortunate to be part of Order of the Knights of Rizal-Middle East and Africa Region (OKOR-MEAR) Academic, Skills, and Talent Competition, held in Manama, Bahrain. I represented my school as an essay writer in Filipino language. During my training, I was to be informed of current events. Fortunately, it has become a habit for me that during 2016 elections, I have been aware from the time the Yellow government have began besmirching then-Vice President Jejomar Binay's name (for during that time, he had the best chance of winning the presidential race until the Yellows successfully made their family very much hated), up until then-Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was flip-flopping between joining the bloody (can be a profanity or a figure of speech) race. I have watched his interview with Jessica Soho, of course. When the name Duterte became popular, my grandmother is initially supportive. Me as well, even though I am not qualified to vote. By that time, he was hesitant to join the race, but many people wanted him to be president. Meanwhile, Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. set his eyes on the vice presidential race, and soon I am now supportive of Duterte-Marcos tandem, even though Cayetano and Santiago were their running mates, respectively. I can still vividly remember May 9, 2016. During that afternoon, my grandmother, my mother, and my aunt voted in the election. I accompanied them, wearing a tshirt that showed that I support Duterte. My uncle had already voted beforehand. My granduncle's wife volunteered as a watcher to avoid electoral fraud for 500 pesos. I approached my grandmother and watched her as she shaded her ballot. Yes, I was allowed to do so, because I claimed that I had to assist her. Well, we contemplated on our choices between senators and councillors. It went well. The night wherein the news channels are just about politics began. I saw Duterte and Marcos leading, and I breathed a sigh of relief. However, after 8:00pm, the gap between Marcos and Robredo began to significantly dwindle. At 2:00am, I was worried about the results, because I would not want Robredo to win, since there will be a conflict of interest between Duterte and Robredo (which is what actually happened, even if the new administration has not even reached its first year). Before I went to bed, I told my sleeping grandmother about it. I prayed hard that my worst fears won't come true. Imagine my horror when I woke up at 8:00am with Robredo leading the vice presidential race! But anyway, my activity when it comes to politics dwindled when the classes began. I haven't yet realized how much I love politics in general. A blessing in disguise happened. During the end of February, I saw a live video of ThinkingPinoy (TP), also known as Rey Joseph "RJ" Nieto, on Facebook. I immediately followed him, and I've finally been immersed in the world of my fellow DDS. I followed Sass Rogando Sasot, and finally, Mocha Uson without reservation. Here is a story about my doubts about Mocha before: Last November, I was indirectly bashed for sharing Mocha Uson's post. He said Mocha only shares fake news, which is initially true. Thankfully, I had the last laugh when the so-called fake news became legitimate. I may be a Duterte supporter, but I will never support a black propaganda in order to spare the President from such. However, when I visited Mocha's page once more, I was glad that she shares a higher quality of news (even if it showed prejudice against the government, especially Duterte and the politicians he is allied with). Sadly, to convince the Yellow, DDS have to check the biased (anti-Duterte) news to convince them to come back to light and see for themselves how much the country has changed. I was reviewing for finals when the topic of #NagaLeaks become noisy. This incident led me to know more bloggers such as Bruce Rivera (and the rest of Hydra 8). Now, as I see more of news I've never seen before, it led to something I'd never appreciate before. My mother, noticing my keen interest in politics, pointed that fact out to me. Realization dawned on me that yes, this is the one I've been looking for! I began to think of becoming a lawyer for real. I want to see for myself how the justice system works, because as far as I could see, it seemed flawed and in need of further improvement. I doubted if taking up Accountancy was the right thing, and thank God it is. A few clicks resolved my mini panic. Now, I am definitely assured that my mind is at peace and that I am going to take up Law in the future. For me, I would really want to live up my life to the fullest and achieve all of my dreams. As I grow older, I realize the beauty and transience of life, and I hope that I can make the most out of it.

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egnblogs · 7 years

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Fake News, Information Bubbles and Skepticism

At the time of this writing much of the discourse surrounding social media is related to the emerging problem of fake news. Actually perhaps “emerging” is a little misleading, as what is currently deemed “fake news” is just the old problem of misinformation given a new label. The specific term seems to have come to prominence in the days after the 2016 election, with many blaming the results of the election on misinformation spread by social media.

What is new, however, is the sheer amount of misinformation out there and how the simultaneously developing problem of internet information silos assists in its propagation. Digital content creation tools have never been easier to access or more ubiquitous, and while that brings forth a host of benefits such as more diverse viewpoints, it also creates that much more misinformation, spread by those who are either uninformed or manipulative. This overabundance of misinformation is not helped by the dual threat of confirmation bias and information silos. Algorithms created to cater to internet users, by providing them with only information that will be relevant to them personally, end up creating information bubbles that admit few outside opinions or facts. This problem is further compounded by a natural confirmation bias, human tendency to seek out and engage only with information that reinforces already held beliefs and viewpoints. These two aspects combined lead to a situation where algorithms used by social media platforms reinforce an already human tendency to self-select information, and either misinformation or information presented through a biased lens is propagated throughout that existing bubble.

The solution to this multi-faceted problem must be as multi-faceted as the problem itself. New algorithms will have to be created which expose social media users to differing viewpoints and stories, but equally people must be taught to engage critically and skeptically with the stories and claims they encounter. People must be encouraged to seek out differing viewpoints, to get past inherent biases and self made echo chambers. At the moment, it would seem large sections of society simply do not possess the skills needed to critically engage with news stories found online. Consider a recent study done by the Stanford History Education Group, which found that most students in the public school system cannot distinguish fake news from genuine news stories.

The experiment run by the group asked students at several levels of education, from middle school to college, to evaluate the credibility and accuracy of various articles and ads presented to them as news sites, tweets, infographics and other websites. Most students were able to successfully distinguish ads from news articles, but most students also failed to distinguish traditional news reports from “sponsored content”, despite content being clearly labeled as such. They saw no reason to be suspicious of content that was being sponsored by groups with agendas, and even with the ability to use the internet and search for outside information on the source, did not pick up on potential conflicts of interest when examining websites funded by lobbying groups. More than 80% of middle-schoolers who took part in the experiment couldn’t discern what the difference was between sponsored content and non-sponsored content, which is rather disturbing when 88% of young adults regularly get their news from some form of social media.

(Let me do due diligence before moving on. It is not necessarily that sponsored content cannot is entirely fake or that it cannot make arguments worth hearing. If an argument is supported by solid reasoning and evidence than the origin of the claim should not matter. Yet when seeing sponsored content, one should be extra careful to read the article with a skeptical mind and seek out alternative viewpoints.)

It is clear that the skills needed to effectively engage with news and information in this current era (an eye for possible bias, a skeptical mind, a willingness to seek out other viewpoints, etc.) are deficient in many members of society, and it is not entirely their fault. The public school system must begin teaching the sorts of skills needed to effectively navigate today’s news world. Furthermore it falls to all of us in society to encourage critical thinking and diverse viewpoints, to keep each other honest and informed.

Let me say also that skepticism is not the same thing as refusing to engage with a person or source. A worrying trend is the refusal to engage with traditional news sources, a fundamental distrust people seem to have developed in institutions. Distrust in governmental bodies, distrust in academic institutions, distrust in news media, and distrust in the very scientific endeavor all seem to have increased in the past few years. There is an assumption that the educated elite of society, who have spent their lives studying and thinking about their own fields, are out-of-touch, power hungry, corrupt, or utterly mistaken. What has taken their place is a reliance on anonymous twitter users, viral images, reddit/tumblr armies, Youtube celebrities, caps lock posts and yes, fake news.

It is good to practice skepticism, but that skepticism should be applied equally to every claim you interact with, not just to those who represent “the establishment”. It is good that the internet enables more diverse viewpoints, but standards of evidence and logic need not degrade to accommodate them. Experts on fields of inquiry and politics should be heeded, not worshipped blindly of course, but given a benefit of the doubt until an individual has done the amount of homework necessary to call their views into question. Yes, no doubt modern news media deserves much of the criticism it receives, as focused as it is on tabloid stories, celebrity gossip, and the shallow bias coverage created by the 24-hour news cycle. However, remember that not all news media is the same, and to distinguish between individuals and institutions. Good institutions have self-correcting mechanisms like fact-checkers and ethics boards (many news companies have these, surprise surprise), the self-correcting mechanisms of science work the same way. If we are prepared to dispose of an institution, we should have something better to replace it with. At this moment, I venture to say we do not.

Isaac Asimov said that, “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”

We want the internet to be a place that celebrates intellectualism and the standards of evidence and argument that advance science and epistemology. We do not want it to be a place that promotes anti-intellectualism and sacrifices these traits in the name of equality. If this situation is to improve, companies like Facebook and Google will have to do their part in combating fake news, yes. Yet it will fall to all of us to keep ourselves and other intellectually honest, curious, and skeptical and for those of us who can to help others develop those all important traits and skills.

#critical reason #reason #science #skepticism #fake news #anti-intellectualism #sponsored content #evidence #information #algorithms #echo chambers #information silos #confirmation bias #isaac asimov

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elizbethwolf · 4 years

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All About Scribble Color Scanning Pen – Buy for Cheap

What Is The Scribble Pen?

During this article we will discuss what main uses for the Scribble Color Scanning Pen, how it works, provide you instructions and videos on how to use it, where to buy it for cheap and more!

youtube

Scribble Story Starts at KickStarter

Funding Was Born

Who said beginnings were easy? Funny thing is that other fund-raisers using the same application, haven’t found this difficulty even with less productive and accurate working prototypes.

Weird Bad Vibes Against Scribble Pen Capabilities and Prototype Tests

The Research Goes On

Gaining the Trust of The Influencers

The History Behind The Scribble Pen Technology

How They Make It All Possible And SO SMALL

Scribble Stylus Pen

CompatibilityiOS 7+, Android 4.0+ConnectivityBluetooth, USBBattery Life15 hoursColor SensorRGB SensorTipSoft rubber tips includedDimension169 x 14.33mm (6.65 x 0.56 in.)

What Can The Scribble Pen Do?

How to Re-fill Ink?

Drawing Process

Do They Offer Guarantee?

Where to Buy a Similar Pen for Cheap?

buy-cheap-scribble-like-pen

Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t carry any type of similar pens as we ran a search there too for possible prototypes or new products. Stick with eBay if you want to give this a test run.

youtube

Source:

Futurism.com

eBay

Scribblepen.com

ChimiPrinting-019

youtube

The post All About Scribble Color Scanning Pen – Buy for Cheap appeared first on Cheap 55 Printing.

Published First on https://cheap55printing.com/ All About Scribble Color Scanning Pen – Buy for Cheap posted first on https://cheap55printing.com/

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sheliabarley · 4 years

Text

All About Scribble Color Scanning Pen – Buy for Cheap

What Is The Scribble Pen?

During this article we will discuss what main uses for the Scribble Color Scanning Pen, how it works, provide you instructions and videos on how to use it, where to buy it for cheap and more!

youtube

Scribble Story Starts at KickStarter

Funding Was Born

Who said beginnings were easy? Funny thing is that other fund-raisers using the same application, haven’t found this difficulty even with less productive and accurate working prototypes.

Weird Bad Vibes Against Scribble Pen Capabilities and Prototype Tests

The Research Goes On

Gaining the Trust of The Influencers

The History Behind The Scribble Pen Technology

How They Make It All Possible And SO SMALL

Scribble Stylus Pen

Compatibility iOS 7+, Android 4.0+ Connectivity Bluetooth, USB Battery Life 15 hours Color Sensor RGB Sensor Tip Soft rubber tips included Dimension 169 x 14.33mm (6.65 x 0.56 in.)

What Can The Scribble Pen Do?

How to Re-fill Ink?

Drawing Process

Do They Offer Guarantee?

Where to Buy a Similar Pen for Cheap?

buy-cheap-scribble-like-pen

Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t carry any type of similar pens as we ran a search there too for possible prototypes or new products. Stick with eBay if you want to give this a test run.

youtube

Source:

Futurism.com

eBay

Scribblepen.com

ChimiPrinting-019

youtube

The post All About Scribble Color Scanning Pen – Buy for Cheap appeared first on Cheap 55 Printing.

Source: https://cheap55printing.com/ All About Scribble Color Scanning Pen – Buy for Cheap published first on https://cheap55printing.com/

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