#We ignore every other detail or greater meaning for the potential relationship of the characters... and it's disappointing

[2ofswords]

001 pathologic

Even if it says “Pathologic” I’ll mostly be talking about Pathologic 2 and specify if it’s not the case. It’s just where most of my experience lies since I’m not done with Pathologic Classic HD yet. ^^

Also I’m putting this one under a cut because… man. That got long! Like way too long, I thought I could do this one very quick and now two hours have passed and I’m still writing it! Dear god, these are a lot of questions!

 Favorite character: ... It’s Dankovsky. We all know it. I mean I went into the game being like “I’m pretty sure the tragic asshole character is gonna be my favorite...” Credit where credit is due, I persevered until the day 11 conversation. But we all would have known that Marble Nest would have gotten me anyways so.. Yeah. I especially love his dynamic relationship with Artemy in Patho 2 and he is just a fun and complex character, that I really love to think about and who has made some terrible decisions while still staying sympathetic for me. Also the mix of science and dreams is just something that I find interesting and also can kind of relate too. Love that stuff! 

 Least Favorite character: In Patho 2 it’s Oyun. The way he talks about the Kin makes me really uncomfortable. The animalistic portrayal is for me one of the biggest flaws in the game and he is the worst offender. And yeah since he is one of the Kin, I’m probably not the one who should judge... But I don’t know... from what I’ve heard that seems to be considered a problem by the fanbase in general... Outside of that I also think he’s just structurally very badly included in the game? He appears very late and is hostile in a way that doesn’t really make you engage with him. And I was way to stressed and didn’t get enough opportunities to actually talk with him to really make a connection (though one reason was, that I didn’t give him my house in the first run. Didn’t want to, so I had the pleasure to walk to Shekhen every time to meet him.) Even without the very questionable undertones his constant ranting about strength and leadership didn’t really appeal to me in a game, where leadership just far has only proven to fail everyone in a time of crisis. The way he is revealed as the murderer is kind of weak, since you either figured it out long ago or the game just randomly tells you... He just is very unappealing to me. Vlad the Elder also fucking sucks. But at least he as well as the game are so open about it, that it’s easier to ignore while the game seemed to make me want to like Oyun, while I really couldn’t so this one makes me a little more salty.

 5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): 1. Artemy/Daniil: What a shocker! Narrative foils who have an actual rivals to friends ark in the game and a shitton of sexual tension within it! What’s not to love? 2. Lara/Rubin: I just think they deserve each other. Both of them are very hard working and prone to giving up themselves for the greater good but they are also harsh to others. I think they would apreciate each other but also reign the other person in and care about them. 3. Daniil/Rubin: I just want Rubin to be happy, okay? This one is more a Patho 1 thing, but they really appreciate each others work and I really like how they interact in the Bachelor route. They care about each other and they share a lot of struggles and actually a more similar view on the town and the world than Daniil does with Artemy. Also again we have two very hard working people here, who would have a lot of bonding over weird science projects. (Even if these one are worse at reigning each other in and fights would be pretty horrible to the point of needing a mediator because non of these two are talking to each other and maybe only stoop down to writing very passive aggressive letters...) 4. Notkin/Khan: Also more of a Patho2 thing, since they act way more brutal in P1 and also do not really reconcile. But in P2 they seem to care and immediately bury the hatchet when shit hits the fan. The whole house of the death quests shows them more as bickering friends. And I have a soft spot for bickering friends romances, okay? Also this one is obviously only two teenage boys having a crush, no shitheads allowed here! 5. Yulia/Eva: I cannot really chose between my favorite w/w pairing, there are so many good ones! Right now it’s Yulieva again. They are tragic, they are soft, they are so atmospheric and fun to write! Also I just love Eva and think she should get as many girlfriends as she wants.

 Character I find most attractive: Uhhh... I don’t know I find their models beautiful but there are not a lot of them I find specifically attractive. I guess it’s between Daniil, Artemy, Lara and Yulia for me. Daniil get’s the most ridiculous style points ever but... too old for me specifically. I think Artemy is really attractive but I think his outfit is also really unflattering ... Lara is so much my type and so is Yulia! (Though why didn’t you keep the short hair, queen, it would have made this choice so easy!) I think I’ll have to go with Lara, because I first saw her and just went “I love you” immediately? 

 Character I would marry:  If I assume that the other person would be as happy with our arrangement no matter who I chose: Victor. He is the perfect husband by definition and I want to learn more about time magic. Though this marriage would remain very much platonic and also very much sexless... he is way older than I am and that is disregarding that time is weird for the Kains. Also we have to consider Nina’s continuing existence... okay I don’t mind that one at all.

 Character I would be best friends with:  My first instinct is to say “man all of these people would despise me”, which is such a Pathologic mood. I think I would be best friends with Eva. I think we would get along well and we’d have much to talk about. Also, her house is cool and we could go stargazing!

 A random thought:  I love Dora! She is the worst and most iconic child caretaker of all time and I want to talk about her! The whole baby thing and the way it’s delivered to Artemy is already great but then she just silently takes the baby and gives the reward when you’re there the second time? The time she takes Grace away is genuinely such a good dialogue and a tough decision so that’s great but then, she manages to actually get Grace adopted by a dead person, if Peter is dead! And then she may think it’s Andrey WHO IS DEAD TOO! Seriously, who hired her! I know the entire town is falling apart but man! Dora sure as hell doesn’t help the case. But she tries her best! I think. I hope.

 An unpopular opinion: Oh I have a lot of unpopular opinions, but I think most of them should get their own post, where I can explain in details and a bit more serious what I’m actually talking about. But here’s a small one: Okay ummm… please my fellow burakhovsky shippers, please don’t get mad but… uuuumm…

…

I like the first Bachelor conversation in Patho2 better than the one in Patho1. … Okay, look. I love the “left hand right hand” line as much as everyone else. Wouldn’t have missed it and loved it in Pathologic Classic! And I also think it’s a shame that Daniil’s homosexuality got dialed down. Totally agree with that. But! I really love them starting out on the wrong foot. Their whole dynamic of having to establish their relationship makes their journey and the scenes where they actually reconcile again so much more powerful to me and I love how dynamic it is. And having the two of them completely clash underlines for me how much they have to try and develop to be more comfortable and confine in each other. It’s a great starting point! Also the scene is hilarious in it’s own right. The whole buildup to it where Artemy is in such a desperate position to find out his own kind-of-brother wants to murder him… starting this whole thing with “you owe me” and the whole “Vorakh” thing. It’s really great how in retrospect it’s just a really fucking bad start and a trainwreck of the Bachelor trying to sound competent but from Artemy’s perspective it’s just utterly horrible because the whole town wants to kill him, his father is dead and this stranger is talking some bullshit! Yeah, nobody would have any patience and so the situation escalates immediately! It’s great storytelling and absurd and… I really do love this scene and it’s dynamic and I think it's a great first interaction! (Even if it is sad if people think that they now get the Bachelor. Which… dynamic storyarc… complex character. But I think most people will get that eventually, if they just engage with the whole storyline.) It also makes it a bit more genuine when they actually do act friendly, because you can see, how they act, if they’re not trying. In P1 the Bachelor’s dialogue can feel manipulative rather than friendly and while that has it’s own positives, I just prefer the more dynamic approach of their relationship. To be honest, I think both conversations fit in their own games nicely. I just prefer the overall approach to their relationship arc and I also think it’s just less clumsily written and a bit more memorable apart from the very first line. And while I love it in Patho 1 I couldn’t really see it and it’s sudden intensity in the writing-style of the second game, so I also do not really miss it specifically in their interaction. It’s great were it is but it wouldn’t enhance the situation here.

 My canon OTP:  Victor and Nina. This man just loves his powerful evil and passionate wife and I respect that. I think the way they are described and how Victor would fit in makes this combination so interesting to me. He is quiet and capable and you can really imagine the whirlwind Nina still appreciating him and... it’s so cute, okay? They are in love!

 Non-canon OTP:  (Oh my god, there are so many pairings where my brain goes “what do you mean, they aren’t canon???)  I think Lara/Eva is a really cute pairing that sure as hell isn’t alluded to in the Canon at all. Lara deserves Eva’s positivity and her view on the potential of the soul could be really cute. And Eva deserve her practical care and consideration. Also they are both talking about how they do not know what to do with their live and since they both arrive at this rather depressing conclusion very differently, they might be able to help each other!  Also they could play matchmaking with the local doctors together and I find that hilarious.

 Most badass character: Aglaya. There isn’t really a competition. (Okay Clara is also really badass and one has to mention Aspity for just dying when she feels like she should make a point and for being alive whenever she has something really important to say... that’s also pretty badass and she also is in general.) Aglaya is so powerful and intimidating and armed with metaknowledge. She even knows about her plot armor (and how long that will last...) Do not cross this lady, you will definitely regret it! (Okay the true answer is obviously Teensy. But shhhh…)

 Pairing I am not a fan of:  I’m not really a fan of Aglaya/Artemy especially in Patho2. I just cannot get over her immediately opening the gallows and then breaking Grief down. Artemy in Patho2 doesn’t really feel like a person who would appreciate either and he gets like really upset about Grief without it getting really resolved. (And Aglaya is very unapologetic about it, which might be a part of the truth since we don’t know what happened but still doesn’t help the case.) Also they talk very businesslike and like Aglaya is just making plans which Artemy in mind which doesn’t feel like a good baseline even if she appreciates his insight. It’s still only one person making the decision in the end... But I also totally get the appeal and they are both stubborn, have an interesting way of seeing connections and their worldviews are very interesting together especially, if we think about P1, so I also get shipping them! I’m just not the biggest fan myself.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Uhhh... Hm... There is not really a character I find completely broken and I’ve complained about Oyun enough... So I have to go with Aglaya and only for the reason that I find the ending where they leave town pretty forced. (I’m sorry, I don’t hate her! All of the characters are so amazing, she only has some writing choices specifically that I didn’t like! But I still think she’s cool!) I actually kind of like that it exists and I think the way it plays out is very heart-wrenching and honestly amazingly made but the whole way to get to the decision feels a bit awkward to me just because both of their duties get weirdly lampshaded without making the meta entirely obvious. Either just shattering the fourth wall here or making the situation way more desperate for both of them would have done the trick, I guess.  I in general would have loves, if her meta would have been used a bit more explicitly. It felt a bit gimmicky to make her cool at times and while Artemy might not be the route for that... there ideology talk in Patho1 sure as hell managed that. Their dialogue is still good but I had very high hopes while I approached it. I do know that there is more behind the meta and I wish we could have seen a bit more of that then her offhandedly mentioning it. She never really engaged with her struggle and never allowed Artemy to really engage with it, what also made the whole town fleeing scene a bit jarring, especially if you didn’t play the first game. 

Favourite friendship: I mean the whole apple basket gang friendship, obviously! Is there really another friendship that competes in the game? I love their dynamic and I also love how torn apart the friendship is and how they are only beginning to reconcile even at the end of the game. Not all is good yet but they stay hopeful and I think that is a very strong message.

#crimsondaisy #ask

[badbookreviewclub]

Empress Theresa, Chapter 1

(This is a direct transcription of my tweets, so I apologize if it gets choppy at times) DISCLAIMER: Please read the preface before you continue on!  PAGE 1   This is a terrible start to the book. There's nothing here to gain the interest of the reader nor is there anything that could potentially give you a clue to who Theresa is. You get who her parents are, but nothing about her parents (e.g. If they're important people) "I was the Princess in the Sullivan clan of Framingham, Massachusetts because besides being cute I was a whiz in school and had a good disposition." This sentence makes me die inside every time I re-read it. What does it even mean to have a 'good disposition'? This is the first time I've ever read someone describing themselves as having a 'good disposition'. "All the relatives expected great things from me." And then not even a paragraph later it says; "Nobody could have dreamed of what I would do a few years later, and nobody would have believed it if they'd been told." This is a conflicting message here, Theresa. Did they expect great things from you or did nobody expect you to do anything big? "Prime Minister Blair said I'd still be remembered in a million years." Okay, so we know that you're doing something big now, but you just introduced a character who we don't know. At all. What's the context behind all of this? What kind of person is Prime Minister Blair? "Did you catch that?" Yes, I fucking caught that. You literally just said it. "Churchill, Hitler, and Lincoln..." I don't like the way that these are ordered. It's alphabetical, but going in historical context would sound nicer in my opinion. "Lincoln, Hitler, Churchill..." That's not even counting that she just compared herself to being greater than Hitler. There are so many other people who are better that could have been brought up here and not someone who committed mass genocide and traumatized humanity. Directly after that, Charles Martel is brought up in a long paragraph that sounds like someone who just watched a documentary and is eager to share everything they just learned with their friends who could not give less of a shit. It's pointless to have it there and adds nothing. "...but Prime Minister Blair said I'd be remembered for a million years." You said that not even a paragraph ago. I didn't forget, I promise. I may have the attention span of a peanut, but my short-term memory isn't completely dead. Though my last few brain cells may be dead after I finish all 465 pages of this monster. "I was the last person you'd expect to earn this accolade." Contradicting to what you said earlier of all your relatives expecting big things of you. Not to mention, I don't know who you or anyone else is yet Theresa. I can't fucking say if you would be the last person expected "When this story began I was a little girl who didn't have much of a clue about anything." Why not start the story here? It's far better than that big ramble you just had. This is far more interesting than "I'm Theresa, the younger daughter of blah blah blah." "My job as a kid was to figure out what the heck was going on and what to do about it. It's not easy when you're young and everything is brand new." No shit honey. Except the thing is, life is so much easier when you're younger. you don't have to worry about taxes. Or your employer forgetting to mail you your W-2. Or if your employer does mail you your W-2 but your mail-lady delivers it to the wrong house so some random person has your W-2 and social security number now. You don't have to worry about that as a kid. Life as a kid is easy. ide note: The text in this book is fucking huge. Like it was written so children could easily read it. PAGE 2 The way the first paragraph on this page starts out is jarring and throws the reader out of any flow that may have been there before (There wasn't one there before, but I digress). It then is quickly followed by her father making a comment to her about being the captain of her ship, without actually being a quote from him. It would have been more interesting if it was a direct quote from her father rather than just a passive memory with how she phrases it. What is says is, "He said I had to be the captain of my ship, but sometimes the seas would be rough." Which is poor phrasing in my opinion. There are far better ways to phrase this that give some more character and depth to the relationship between Theresa and her father. A better way to phrase it would be; "He said 'You have to be the captain of your own ship. Sometimes the seas will be rough, but you need to keep pushing through it until you find smooth seas again.'" However, it's not phrased like this or anything remotely close to this. It's then followed very quickly by saying "I had to learn all I could about the world." How does this relate to what your father told you in any way shape or form? I am so confused and feel like what your father told you was completely disregarded or misinterpreted. "I wondered why should I be worrying about it in the fourth grade? I'd soon find out." My Grammarly is kicking in and telling me that 'worrying' is used wrong here. This is a direct quote from the book, and I have to agree. Once again, this relates nothing to what was just said. I want to scratch this entire page out so far, but I've refrained from doing so. Then we come to the first paragraph I have completely scribbled out. I hate it so much. It is a shit paragraph in every way humanly possible. It relates nothing to the first sentence and could completely be ignored and taken out of the book without changing anything. “Everybody has pressures. There are two kinds. One is threats to your life and health. I had more than my share of that with a thousand assassins wanting to get me. The other kind is bearing responsibility for other people's lives and welfare. That's really tough if you care...  ...about them. I set new world records in that department. People were sure I'd crack under the pressure, but I didn't. It will take smarter heads than mine to figure out why not." There is so much I want to say about this paragraph that I can't express in words, just guttural, angry screams. I scribbled it out for a reason and that reason still stands true. It is complete and utter shit. Side note: "It will take smarter heads than mine to figure out why not." Thank you for the reassurance that you're a dumb shit, Theresa. I needed it. "I'll be telling my own story which is a good thing because nobody knows it as well as me." We are already all well aware this is an 'autobiography' at this point, Theresa. There's no need for you to tell us that. The fucking point of an autobiography is to tell your own story. More scribbled out sentences about her saying that there's stuff she can't know because she wasn't there. Then she comments on a conversation between Prime Minister Blair (who we still know nothing about) and President Stinson (a new character who we also know nothing about) and how they were talking to each other on the phone. Theresa then assumes that P.M. Blair and President Stinson were talking about how they would stop her if she got out of control. How pig-headed can she get? Not everything is about you. The entire world doesn't revolve around you, bitch. Except, oh wait, in this book, it does! Another scribbled out section I scribbled out so horribly I can barely read it. I will do my best to write it down here so you can suffer with me. "But remember you'll learn things in the same sequence I did. Somebody else telling my story could only say what I did... ... in the world. They couldn't get in my head like you will. You'll see what a horrible, worldwide mess I had to deal with." Ah. I remember why I scribbled it out so badly now. Because it's garbage. Even more so than the first paragraph that I tried to destroy. She's just repeating the fact that this is a fucking autobiography. I've read good autobiographies, where you actually get into the author's mind. So far, this shit isn't it. "My story began quietly with no hint of what was coming." All of that before was pointless. And I will tell you now, most of the details that come after are pointless. This book refuses to be clear and concise, which is a good thing a good majority of the time. The book started terribly and wrote the whole tone for the first few pages, and so far, I'm more upset than when I started. Sidenote #2: After this I'll try to do Chapters in these tweet chains, mentioning (for the most part) the stuff that stands out the most to me. Unless I run into a page that is truly the worst thing ever. The Rest of Chapter 1  Starting on page 3 Starting off strong, I scribbled out the entire first paragraph because it's all terrible. It's Theresa describing her older sister who has absolutely no importance to the story whatsoever and then stroking her own ego by boasting about how... ...she's a whiz in school and her sister isn't. "She's thinking of going to one of the many trade schools in Boston after high school Mom and Dad said I should go to college." These two really don't share any correlation to each other besides being education after highschool. Not to mention, I think Norman, the author, is strongly trying to suggest that trade school isn't nearly as good as university or college when that couldn't be less true. Trade school is just as valid as a university or a college. You gain new skills and can enter a career far... ...quicker than you could at a 4-year university and then some if you're going for a Masters or P.H.d. in your chosen field. Also, I really hate Twitter's character limit. It's fucking stupid and makes these reviews hard as hell to write out. Theresa drags things out more, shares a story that seems currently irrelevant about her mother seeing a fox that came and sat in front of her six months before she was born. (Keep this in mind. Six months before Theresa was born). Theresa even says that this strange... ...event seemed unimportant and that her parents forgot about it for 18 years. Fuck, if something like that happened to me, I'd forget about it too. I certainly wouldn't remember it 18 years later. I can barely remember what I had for breakfast last week. And then more than halfway down the page, Norman finally starts the fucking story. Theresa's doing some summer reading for school when she sees a fox walking along the edge of the woods. The fox ducks into the woods before walking back out, which is completely... ... irrelevant and yet for some reason, Norman felt it was important to include despite the fact it adds nothing and just feels like lazy writing and editing. Speaking of editing, I am dead convinced that Norman didn't have an editor for this book or even look over a chapter... ...after he wrote it. "In an instant, faster than you could blink an eye, a softball sized white light emerged from the fox and went straight into my stomach." Besides being poorly written, keep in mind the fact that she just said it was in the blink of an eye. Theresa goes inside and has a pointless as fuck conversation with her older sister about seeing the fox. Rather than like any rational person who might glance outside to look because apparently seeing "Foxes in the daylight never happens" as Norman puts it, she just says that... ... the fox won't hurt her before going back to the living room never to be mentioned again for another 12 pages or so. Theresa assumes that because she hasn't eaten yet she's hallucinating or having a vivid daydream, so she goes to eat and we get an unnecessary description of... ..what she makes. We also get this gem of a line; "At age ten I was already conscious of my weight and tried to stay skinny." There is so much wrong with this that I can't even put it into words. So. So. So much. Specifically the 'at age ten' part too. More weird phrasing and poor writing later and Theresa determines that yes, it must have been that she hadn't eaten anything because after eating she feels less worried about it. Then there's a HUGE fucking heat spike according to Norman. Enough so that the firemen have to get involved to see what the fuck is up. Theresa somehow has this meta-knowledge that this has to do with the white light that jumped into her stomach. Long story short, someone called the firemen because the heat spiked up so massively and they thought it might be a fire without going outside or looking around to see if it actually was a fire. We get an absurdly long and very dull section about how the firemen started poking around trying to figure out if it was underground or not, which is completely unnecessary and adds nothing to the story in my opinion. I have scribbled it all out because it's all shit. Then we get another fucking gem that Norman uses a total of one time and never brings up ever again. It gave me an idea that would have made this book far more interesting than it ended up being, but it's never mentioned again. Its sole purpose for existing was to give Norman... ... an excuse as to why Theresa didn't talk to anyone. "My Cousin Mary was diagnosed a schizophrenic and the whole Sullivan clan was biting their nails waiting for the gene to show up in some other family member. It wasn't going to be me! I resolved to never tell anybody... ... Not even my parents would know. They'd think I was ill like Cousin Mary. I didn't need it." This alone caused me so much anger I put down the book and didn't pick it up again for a good couple of hours. I honestly don't feel like I need to explain why this is so terrible. But as for the idea it gave me, the book could be far better if it turned out that Theresa was schizophrenic. That this was all a hallucination. It would explain a lot of her actions later on in the book, especially when she experiences extreme paranoia. Well, Norman doesn't call it paranoia. It's just Theresa being 'super smart and know just what's up'. We learn shortly after that there are government officials who turned up to watch 'someone' (spoilers: It's Theresa). Somehow everyone knows they're officials despite... ... never approaching them and instead trusting the word of a neighbor who said the police approached them, were shown badges by these officials, and then the police left them alone afterward. Theresa somehow knows that these people are here to watch her and for some reason... ... she calls the operator to see if they're spying on her or have her phones tapped. I guess this is just supposed to be common knowledge that if you call the operator and ask them for a number and if there's a delay they then you're being spied on? After all, it's not like the operator is human and they take time to look up numbers and whatnot. But this time around there's not a delay so Theresa concludes that they aren't listening to her. Not sure how this makes sense, but okay. Theresa and her mom decide to go shopping and Theresa spends the entire time thinking that men are following her everywhere. Despite the fact that it's a public space and they're different men. The first instance is at the parking garage, where someone parked close to them... ... and then followed them to the surface. Then they go to a very popular and big brand book store, Barnes and Noble, and Theresa sees a different man who she thinks is watching her as well. She goes to the second floor by herself because I guess her mom is okay with that. When I was ten, my mom wouldn't let me wander over to the next aisle to look at stuff no matter how much I insisted. So you know, not judging her mother's parenting skills, but I'm lowkey judging her mother's parenting skills. After that they go to McDonalds and another man gets in line behind them and leaves around the same time they do. Theresa thinks that this man is also following her. And then, a man who was on the corner started walking in their direction. For some reason, Theresa thinks all... ... these people are spying on her. Which is total bullshit in all honesty and is incredibly paranoid behavior. However, Norman doesn't write it that way and instead writes it as Theresa just knowing what the fuck is up. When she gets home, Theresa calls the operator again and this time, instead of taking half a minute to get the number, the operator takes a minute. Please tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty certain that doesn't mean that someone has tapped your phone. Aside from that, I've also started to realize just how much Norman really likes to be as precise as he can be with his numbers and it's super fucking annoying to read and I wish that I didn't have to read it. But I am. Blah, Blah, Blah, more boring stuff and then Theresa goes to a movie story with her mom. She gets 2001: A Space Odyssey and apparently that's super, super fucking important because that's how the officials know that Theresa has an alien inside of her. I don't see the... ... correlation but you know what, maybe it's just me who's a dumb shit and Norman was right all along. Besides that, the movie is also super important because Theresa names that white ball of light that flew into her that she dismissed because she thought she was hungry. However, that's just something Norman seems to have conveniently forgotten right now and Theresa has just accepted the fact that it really did happen. "Mom did most of the grocery shopping on Saturday and I usually went with her because Catherine wandered off with her friends." Someone, please tell me how the first part really relates to the second part because I can't make sense of how your sister not going... ... to hang out with her friends would keep you from going with your mom to go grocery shopping. Especially when there's a seven-year difference between you two. One of the gov't officials approaches Theresa when she's alone in the cereal aisle (once again, judging her mother's skills as a parent), and tells her to call her when she's alone. That seems vaguely pedophilic to me, but that might just be me. Either way, Theresa somehow knows that this woman is working for the officials who are watching her. We get another paragraph of a line; "The woman knew that I knew about my watchers. I had often stared at them. So this woman also knew I had to think she was one of them and I... ... had to be curious enough to talk to her." This is so convoluted and overthought. I hate it in every way shape and form. It's so damn repetitive and gets repeated several times throughout the next few paragraphs. But I digress. Theresa goes home and goes to her room and pulls out her cellphone and calls the woman. We found out her name is Jan and we get the most boring conversation in the history of conversations. Yet for some reason, Norman has the audacity to say that... ... it is the most important interview since Moses came down from the mountains. I don't read the Bible, but as far as I'm aware, Moses was never interviewed after he came down with the 10 commandments. Correct me if I'm wrong. Theresa describes the white ball of light in so much detail that you realize, there's no fucking way she could have been able to see all of it if it was "faster the blink of an eye." So I guess Norman conveniently overlooked that part.1 Theresa says she named the white ball of light HAL from the movie. I don't see why, but she did. More boring as fuck conversation giving us the information we already know. We know that the woman's name is Jan now. Jan tells Theresa that they're always watching and listening... ... to her. After reading this I am under the belief that Jan should never ever be allowed to handle any cases dealing with children ever again because she uses so many fear tactics that would absolutely terrify a child. Jan also tells Theresa that she can't talk to anybody or tell anyone about HAL. I don't know about you all, but when I was younger, and someone told me not to tell anybody about something that involved me, I really wanted to tell someone about that thing. More boring as shit exposition that's poorly written and then we jump forward a few days. This is where my suspicions about Norman loving being super precise with numbers were confirmed. He also goes into way too much detail about gardening and weed pulling. Anyways, this is where we learn that Theresa has an aimbot basically. She woke up with a small orange dot in the center of her vision and automatically assumed it had something to with HAL. But she learns it's an aimbot because she can throw rocks and hit a watering can no... ...matter how far away she is from it. She then says it has no use, but I think Norman means that it has no practical use. It has plenty of uses, just not many can be applied to everyday life. Pretty quickly after Theresa finds out she has an aimbot she wants to play baseball with a neighbor boy so she goes to his house and talks to his mom asking to play with him. Except Norman doesn't write 'his mom', no, Norman writes 'The mother.' The Mother. The one true mother of all mothers. The queen of mothers. The mother that all mothers descended from. She is THE Mother. Aside from calling her 'The Mother' over and over again, Theresa tosses the baseball back and forth and doesn't miss no matter what. She comments constantly on how bad Tommy (the neighbor kid) is at this. Eventually Tommy's dad (referred to as 'The dad')... The Dad. The one true dad. The one Dad to rule them all. The Dad that all Dad's descend from. He is the ultimate Dad. He is THE Dad. ... comes out and takes over for Tommy, playing baseball with Theresa. I don't know why, but this came off the wrong way when I was reading it and just didn't seem right. Norman becomes even more repetitive in his writing, "This was August and it was very hot. "Let's call it quits, Theresa" the father said. "It's getting hot."" More shit I scribbled out because it's fucking horrible. Basically so you don't have to live through the same hell I did, I'll summarize even more. Theresa gets super strength because of HAL. She knows this because she broke a steak sauce bottle white trying to open it... ... because she was eating a steak for lunch. Because ten-year-olds can cook steaks for lunch. When I was ten I could barely fucking cook macaroni and cheese for myself. This is all boring as shit but the super-strength makes Theresa want to go and talk to her priest. Father Richard, who is also referred to as Father Donoughty later on (which make me think of the name Father Dick Doughnut ngl). Anyways, Theresa doesn't think her mother could just ask Father Richard about what she didn't want to talk to her about, thinking that priests... ... are bound to secrecy. I don't think they are but I'm not religious so how the fuck would I know. Anyways, Theresa shows she has super strength and blatantly states that the priest probably thought she was possessed by a demon but after going out to talk to Jan he believes... ... otherwise. And with that conversation between Father Dick Doughnut, we get the worst dialogue of all time. So you can suffer with me this time, I'm typing it all out. "These men don't know everything. Only I do. What did Theresa say?" (Jan) "I'm not at liberty to say." (Father Dick) "It's not the usual stuff?" "It isn't." "It's critical you can tell no one. Theresa will be the first to suffer. People will come after her. They'll kidnap her, kill her, or worse." "Who are you?" "I work for the American government" "How many of you are there?" "Hundreds" "That's a lot of people." "Do you understand how important this is?" “I'm beginning to." First of all, boring as fuck. Second, what is worse than being killed? You're fucking dead. I don't think much can actually top that. Third, I don't know if he's asking how many are watching Theresa or how many are working for the gov't. Either way, stupid question. After that absolutely immersive conversation, Father Dick Doughnut says he needs to call the cardinal to have them come watch Theresa. This seems really extreme in my opinion. As far as I was aware, a cardinal has far more to take care of than one little girl... ...at one church in a town that I don't think is that big. Even a bishop probably wouldn't spend their time focusing on that and they're two steps down from a cardinal. But no, Theresa is just too fucking important. Why not just have the Pope get involved now? Or is that... ...too much for you to handle Norman? Ugh. This entire chapter just fucking sucks and it's only the first chapter. Blah, Blah, Blah, Theresa's story about an alien being inside of her is confirmed because Jan said so and she works for the 'government'. Then we get a huge fucking jump over her fifth-grade year where Theresa gets to jump from fifth grade to seventh grade because her hair started to grow in thick thanks to HAL. Apparently, this is a sign of her 'emotional maturity'. I don't see the correlation. At all. At the very end of the chapter Theresa makes the claim that there are "four hundred" people watching her and that's how many people it takes to watch someone 24/7 without being caught. That seems like bullshit to me. In fact, that seems like the fastest way to get caught. It takes maybe 4 to 8 people at most in my opinion to watch someone day and night. But no. Theresa is just too fucking important for only 4-8 people. She needs 400. I forgot to mention earlier, but only the high ranking officials know about why Theresa is being watched. As far as I'm aware, there are only about 20 high ranking officials who know why Theresa is being watched. That leaves 380 people who have no fucking clue just what the hell is going on or why they're watching an 11-year-old girl. That's absolutely absurd. Something I forgot to mention earlier is that Jan claims something came from space 7 years ago and they lost track of it. She assumes that thing is HAL. Keep that in mind 7 years ago. But the fox that Theresa's mother saw was almost 11 years ago. And the fox is what gave... ... Theresa that ball of light. Norman loves to be precise with numbers, but he can't even keep his own fucking storyline straight. This book is hell. But I will keep reading because I apparently love to torture myself.

#empress theresa #empress theresa review #bad book #bad book reviews #chapter 1

[moonlitgleek]

I would love to hear your thoughts about Fire and Blood when you finish it! (Or not even when you finish it, just whenever, cuz you're amazing!) 💕

I have the best friends in the world! Love and hugs, lady.

I am halfway through and I intend to go back and reread each chapter once I finish since I keep blowing through pages because I want to know all the things, which is not very good for proper processing. But a few of the things that jumped at me so far:

(spoilers for Fire and Blood volume 1 under the cut)

1. Gyldayn seems more rambly and prone to ponder sexual scandals than Yandel. He spent waaaay too much time talking about that, and while sexuality is at the heart of some conflicts, the way he went on about the story of Coryanne Wylde and the sordid details of how she was “examined” really undermines his position as a historian and makes me overly iffy on him. Also, there are private conversations between Jaehaerys and Alysanne that I’d really like to know his source on.

2. Speaking of authors, what the actual fuck George? You’d think that in a book that goes so into detail about unconfirmed scandals he’d have the room to expand on someone like, idk, Argella Durrandon? He had the chance to make her story a bit better but he not only did he uphold her forceful loss of voice being the last we hear of her, he compounded the matter by also having Marla Sunderland’s tongue removed before she was packed off to the Silent Sisters. Literal stripping of women’s voices for defiance, by their own men no less, when it’s so unnecessary and so singular in its gendered use in the plot infuriates me. There is a lot of overlap between gender and silencing of voice in this (Argella, Marla, Ceryse Hightower, Rhaena Targaryen). UGH.

3. On the topic of women, Torrhen Stark’s daughter not only does not have a name, she is completely unmentioned in Jonos Arryn’s rebellion, nor by her nephew (?) Alaric with either Alysanne or Jaehaerys. Looks a bit peculiar since Alaric obviously brooded on the consequences of Targaryen decision for his family in the case of Jaehaerys and those he sent to the Wall, so is there any particular reason Torrhen’s daughter goes completely unmentioned even when the topic of marriage was raised and southern matches brought up, George?

4. Aegon, Visenya and Rhaenys are outright referred to as the three heads of the dragon. It’s no longer symbolic or understood but an explicit connection. That’s way too obvious for me to buy that Rhaegar’s Aegon and Rhaenys don’t point straight to a recreation of the Conquest Trio.

5. The war of escalating atrocities between Dorne and the Targaryens is terrible but I feel like there is a conscious effort to make the Targaryens seem better somewhat? The mention of them trying to negotiate at this point before actually utilizing dragonflame is weird because it is not consistent with anything in the Conquest. I don’t know what to do with that part.

6. The First Dornish War makes Daeron I’s folly in the conquest more obvious. Dornish terrain is as much an element to conquer as Dornish people and it costs a lot to manage it. Keeping conquered Dornish ground is bloody hard even with dragons. Daeron even leaves a Tyrell in charge just like Aegon.

7. Is it just me or does the Targaryen succession look weird in early days? Jaehaerys is referred to as the rightful heir by all rights then a few pages later it’s nope, Aerea is then suddenly we’re talking about Rhaena’s claim even though every reference to Targaryen succession before that points to a male-preference primogeniture. Alysanne takes issue with Jaehaerys treating Aemon as his heir over Daenerys even though Jaehaerys’ accession is tarnished based on that principle. There is a distinct vibe of seeing the son of Rhaenys the Queen Who Never Was as the expected heir of Aemon rather than Rhaenys herself (though this could partly because Princess Rhaenys and Lord Corlys wanted to put forward a potential male heir to offset Baelon being seen as the natural successor - since when was Baelon seen as the natural successor though? That apparently wasn’t only Jaehaerys’ sentiment so was that a popular view while Aemon lived or a reaction to Baelon avenging Aemon? Was Aemon aware and that’s why he made a comment to Rhaenys about liking a grandson, or was that regular era preference of male heirs?). Main takeaway though is that Jaehaerys passing over Rhaenys had nothing with extant competing claims but was about regarding Baelon as a natural successor for his gender, age and prowess. Jaehaerys pretty much didn’t even consider Rhaenys. Headdesk. You’re killing me, man.

8. I feel like the characters of Rhaena Targaryen and Alyssa Velaryon are being walked back. The point where apparently Septon Barth comments that Alyssa undoubtedly wanted to do the right thing but didn’t know what that was flies in the face of her previously established actions. I don’t like how she was taken down from an active and conscious political player, to a confused and almost secondary player next to Rogar (much preferred him when he was Robar, both the name and the person) till their final tiff, to  a womb and another casualty of childbirth with the emphasis being on her children. Rhaena may have called out the latter but the whole thing feels like a punishment for Alyssa for first opposing Jaehaerys and Alysanne then opposing Rogar. As for Rhaena, she swings between political sacrifice for the greater good to treating Jaehaerys and Alysanne with contempt for it. Resentment is perfectly normal and understandable but Rhaena surpasses that. She is purposely cast in an unfavorable light and her sexuality is strongly used to frame it.

9. There is a bit of exoneration after the fact to Jaehaerys sentencing most of Maegor’s Kingsguard to the Wall on contradicting arguments. I get his point about oathbreaking but punishing those who deserted Maegor because they didn’t uphold their vows to protect hum while also punishing those who didn’t desert him for defending and enabling a murderous usurper is extremely contradictory. That the two knights who deserted Maegor then deserted the Night’s Watch and a caused a conflict that claimed the life of Walton Stark neatly brushes this quandary off because it demonstrates that Jaehaerys was right.

10. I love how Septon Barth and Alysanne often work as a team in pushing Jaehaerys towards one policy or another. On more than one occasion, one of them makes the argument and the other comes with the definitive final strike. I love the women’s court and Alysanne’s Laws though I think there is a certain vagueness in the way Jaehaerys codified inheritance in the Widow’s Law. I’m still midway through Viserys I’s tenure though so I don’t know if this will be raised in any sort of legal argument for the Dance but it’s a non-issue so far.

11. I hate how Daella Targaryen was written. I hate how we keep adding names to the “death by childbirth” list. I hate how the child brides keep getting ignored. This is too conspicuous in the case of Daella and her daughter Aemma Arryn. Queen Alysanne held herself and especially Jaehaerys to blame for Daella’s death because she felt that, at 16-17, they wed her too early and that contributed to her death in childbed. But it’s treated like a non-issue that Aemma married Viserys at 11 and was bedded at 13.

12. I’m indescribably charmed by how Baelon the Brave got his epithet by booping a dragon on the nose. Also, the relationship between Aemon and Baelon, and Baelon and Alyssa. Too bad we can’t have nice things.

13. I already lost my shit over this in DMs with you but still, Aerea Targaryen! Aerea Targaryen! Oh my god. I was equally horrified and fascinated. A speculated trip to Valyria that resulted in the princess’ body being inhabited by “worms with faces” or “snakes with hands” made of fire and heat that cooked her body from the inside. This surpasses Valyria being a thin place or geophysically unstable. This means there is a Lovecraftian horror capable of using human bodies (and non-human bodies, Balerion was wounded as well but dragons are fire made flesh so that probably protected him) as vessels to… spread? Take over? Turn people into dragonic/fire abominations? Also, also, is that take over possible for anyone or is whatever is dormant in Targaryen DNA that tends to emerge with the use of magic in the form of babies with dragon-like qualities (though it appeared in non-magical cases) makes them more susceptible?

COMPARE TO THE OTHERS. A Lovecraftian horror made of ice and another made of fire. Blood magic probably behind the creation (calling?) of both. We still don’t know how the Others came to be and there has been legitimate rebuttals to the show’s version of their creations BUT I think what could be taken from the show is the suggestion that this is blood magic gone wrong.Both take over human bodies though differently (is this linked to living bodies being warm and dead ones growing cold? Is that why the fire-based monstrosity manifests in living creatures while the Others trades in dead bodies? The things beneath Aerea’s skin burst out either when they felt the cold of the ice bath the maesters put her in or when she suffered cardiac arrest and died. Either way it’s connected to cold)  The cosmic balance between ice and fire has deeper roots….. now I’m really curious as to the nature of the magic of the Wall that keeps ice and fire firmly separated.

14. We are slowly building a succession history for the Starks: Torrhen Stark -> son (?) Brandon -> son Walton -> brother Alaric -> grandson Edric -> Ellard of undetermined relation. That’s how as far as I got in the book but that’s too far from the Benjen Stark that starts the Stark family tree in TWOIAF. Cregan Stark was already Lord of Winterfell by 129 so that’s a period of 28 years between that and the Great Council that also fits the aforementioned Benjen and his son Rickon, Cregan’s father and grandfather.

15. I’m so not a fan of the art in this book. It ranges from blatantly inaccurate (Aemond and Luke during the Dance, SIGH), to exaggerated (Elinor Costayne is weird in that art with Maegor. Also, did she wait to react till she climbed the entire Iron Throne? And Jaehaerys was cool and measured in his response to Maegor’s supporters after landing in the Red Keep. WHY does he look like he is yelling in the art?) to weird (Which of the Black Brides is dressed like a septa and why? Why does Jaehaerys look like all of 8 at his coronation when he was actually 14?). Perhaps that’s a bit nitpicky but I’m not impressed tbh.

16. GRRM overdid it with Jaehaerys’ reign imo. There is writing conflict because peace and prosperity is dull to write, and there is cramming every possible conflict under the sun in the story. Was there anything missing? I count family drama, political intrigues, succession questions, plague, policy changes, financial crisis, winter, and mini-rebellions. He reigned for a long time so I get it but at one point it was one conflict after another that I’m having trouble reconciling what I read with previous descriptions of Jaehaerys’ reign.

17. There is a lot to talk about with Jaehaerys and Alysanne but I want to get the timeline straight and give it some more thought. But I will say that as delighted as I am with all the women in Alysanne’s story and with Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s relationship reflected in policy, it’s monumentally disappointing to read about his relationship with his daughters. There was an underlining gentleness in how he treated his mother Alyssa and Rhaena that was sorely missing with some of his daughters. I came out of this part feeling really off and unsettled. And sad. So very sad. WTF, Jaehaerys. Just WTF.

That’s my preliminary thoughts on the first half of the book. It’s mostly feelings with a side of unsubstantiated and unresearched spiraling. Politics, worldbuilding and themes tend to appear on later reads.

(Edit: part two is here)

#joannalannister #ask box #fire and blood #fire and blood spoilers #fire and blood volume 1 #asoiaf #asoiaf speculation #asoiaf criticism #jaehaerys i targaryen #alysanne targaryen #aerea targaryen #rhaena targayen #alyssa velaryon

[kbrown78]

My Thoughts: Torn by Rowena Miller

Before going into this book, it sounded like there were a lot of things in it that I would like. It seemed similar to the Swords and Fire series and I was looking for similar books until the last book came out. There was also the appeal of having a protagonist that is a really good tailor. I've actually been looking for stories with characters that are good at sewing or weaving, and this is the first one that I was able to get (outside of East by Edith Pattou, which is really good). Starting out this book had a lot of potential: the protagonist was a good tailor and business savvy but naive and the conflicts between nobility and working class are building. Unfortunately the book quickly fell apart. The characters suffered no development and became increasingly annoying, the conflicts between the classes was kind of problematically written, and the climax felt more like an anti climax. I finished this book feeling pretty disappointed.

Characters: So Sophie, the protagonist, is a 26 year old woman that is unmarried and enjoys running her dress shop. I would say it's good to have an older, more mature protagonist that isn't in their mid thirties, but as the story progresses Sophie makes worse decisions and shows that she really isn't that mature. I do give a thumbs up for her insisting on staying single because she wants to keep her independence and knows that her job provides plenty of money for her, but this part of her becomes insulting when she falls head over heals for a noble but turns down every working class man that is interested in her. She's a good business woman because she cares about her work and adds her own charms to her work which appeals to the nobility and brings in more money and customers. I almost thought that the author was going to make Sophie and unlikeable protagonist: she considers everyone but nobles beneath her, only cares about her own work, but she's very good at what she does and cares very much for her shop. I actually hoped for this, and I usually don't like unlikeable protagonist, but nothing that I hoped for happened. She tries to portray herself as this sweet, innocent girl that doesn't like conflict (which is understandable) but she ignores any problem that she faces hoping that will make it go away and she constantly lies to and subtly insults almost everyone she knows. The cherry on top was when her shop gets shut down because it's under investigation. The one thing that she has made very clear is that she loved her shop and it's reputation was important to her. But instead of trying to something about it, she just walks away like it isn't her problem. Her passive and passive aggressive attitude made her so insufferable, to the point where she was one of my least favorite characters of this year. There was also her brother Kristos, who was selfish, stupid, and manipulative. He keeps pressuring Sophie to participate in his rebellion, but when that doesn't work he essentially uses her and manipulates her into compromising her morals and getting other people hurt just so he can achieve his goal. During this whole time he keeps glorifying the main villain Pyord, who is clearly a slimy character that has created a cult of loyal followers, and Kristos comes off looking rather stupid for not seeing that Pyord is only out for himself. He is passionate and has good ideas but he gets easily carried away, isn't as smart as he thinks he is, and really doesn't respect anyone least of all his sister, so again another very unlikeable character. There's Theodor, Sophie's love interest, who I did like. He's a in line for the throne but his passion lies in botany. He's very sweet and I prefer love interest who are nice guys, but he was a little bland, maybe because he didn't face any development or conflicts. Then there was Lady Snowmount, or Viola, who I liked but I think was underutilized. She's well liked among the nobility, has a flair for planning social gatherings, but is also shrewd and a progressive. But she only served two purposes: introducing Sophie to Theodor and bring Sophie into the nobility's social circle. She had the makings of a great character but she wasn't in the story much. There are plenty of other side characters I could discuss but I'm only going to briefly bring up two: Alice and Penny, who both work in Sophie's shop. Penny was very simply written, she's a romantic who, much like Kristos, gets carried away. She had a bit of negative character development, starting out being a cheerful character but ending up being quite a brat who is rather mean when Sophie gets her out of jail because of her connections to the nobility. On the other hand is Alice, who is much quieter than Sophie but is hardworking and very loyal. She does display some internalized prejudice, which means that she has room for development, but is still a decent character. I think Alice and Viola were my favorite characters because they were only ones I actually liked. Everyone else was at best flat, at worst completely unlikeable with no real redeeming qualities.

Relationships: I think another aspect of this book that was disappointing compared to the Swords and Fire series was that there was way too much of focus on the romance and there wasn't any healthy family dynamic. I was okay with Sophie and Theodor's relationship, particularly in the beginning because of how sweet it was. Then that sub plot began to overwhelm the narrative and put an emphasis on how forbidden there romance was. Also Sophie constantly lied to Theodor and withheld information from him, which wasn't only stupid on her behalf but also added an unhealthy feel to the romance. Sophie and Kristos are siblings but really don't act like it. They both look down on each others interests and make it very clear to each other. Sophie does make enchanted caps to keep Kristos safe, which is good, but how does Kristos thank her. He fools around with her workers even after she's told him not to, tells Pyord about her sewing circle which is very special and private to her, pretends to be held hostage so that she is forced to sew a curse (which she is against doing) which results in several people getting hurt, then tells her it's all for the greater good. I didn't think Sophie was a great sister, but Kristos was a terrible brother who was willing to risk his sister being arrested or even killed just to achieve his own goals. Sophie is something of a mentor to Penny and Alice, and her only friends are the group of charm casters, but she doesn't treat any of them well. Again she lies to Penny and Alice, even after Alice gets hurt, only gives her young Pellian friend a job when it's convenient for her and them lets her prejudicial attitude dictate what this friend is allowed to do. Viola is immediately willing to take Sophie in as a friend, but again when she's attacked at her house Sophie says nothing, and it's clear that the character isn't much more than a plot device. All in all I would say that Sophie makes a bad sibling, a bad love interest and a bad friend. So not someone you would want to be attached to, in my opinion.

World Building: I believe this world is inspired by the French Revolution, and it does feel like that. With the nobility having all the positions of power and the working class beginning to revolt. Then we get glimpses of other countries, like how Kvyest is closely tied to it's church, and that Pellian is very backwater but is known for creating charms and curses. Unfortunately, that's about it that I get of the world building. Part of the reason for this is that Sophie is so ignorant about the world around her that she would be able to tell you anything other than the latest fashion trend of the nobility. She doesn't grow in her knowledge though, isn't curious about learning new things that are very relevant to the conflict currently happening, so we get at best impressions not just of what other countries are like, but also what her home city is like. I personally love detailed worlds and the fact that this is an adult fantasy with minimal world building is definitely disappointing.  

Writing: This is going to hard separating the material for this section from the material for the dislike section, because I do think the theme of the book was solid and there were some valid points, but the author went about it the wrong way. First there's a very obvious caste system, even though no one talks about it. The only obvious distinction is between the nobility and the working class. Again the nobility hold all the seats of power while the working class have to struggle to ensure they have a job everyday. It's shown that groups can just take another culture's history and identity and use it for their own gain, which can be wrong. Riots are messy because it's a weighted game of who said what and usually the people that need the change the most are the ones that are most affected by the riots. A few leaders speaking for the best of everyone, without actually discussing it with various people and groups. This are all valid issues that are good for conflict and discussion. The problem is that the author clearly favors the nobility, to the point where she portrays them all as sweet and innocent, with no issues or wrong doings, while the working class are always portrayed as a mindless mob that is eager for violence. This is rather problematic. The world is not black and white, and while there are some good nobles like Theodor and Viola, I refuse to believe that all the nobility is pure. Then, to add insult to injury, portraying the working class as mostly brute males that trigger happy and only interested in really furthering their own goals is unrealistic. Would those people exist? Yes. Would they be a source of conflict? Absolutely. Would all working class people be just like that? No, so don't portray them as that. I was initially interest in the problems of men speaking up for the women and telling them what's good for the women, and the women standing up for themselves, but that isn't brought up at all except when Sophie is rejecting another marriage proposal. Also, there being not just classism but racism that needs to be dealt with, though that's never addressed. This book has several good sources of conflict for debate that could span a whole series, but reduces it down to nobles are good and any one else isn't. Not only was that a problematic narrative to read about, but it was also so irritating.

Dislikes: So I've made it clear that there are several characters I hated, mostly Sophie, and that the narrative had good source material but took a rather snobby tone with it, but there were a few other issues I had with the book. One was the racism. I've already stated that Sophie and Alice insists that Sophies one friend stay in the back while working so that they maintain the appearance of a wealthy business. This girl is Pellian, and they are described as having tan skin. Sophie is Pellian but dresses and acts very Galatine, while her one friend doesn't. So there's that and the fact that Pellia is always described as back water makes it clear that those in Galathia think less of that country. The real kicker though, as when Nia, a foreign diplomat, is killed. Now Nia was a competent character and she had distinctly dark skin. When I read that she had been killed I rolled my eyes and thought that the one character that was killed off was the one with the darkest skin tone. I don't think the author intentionally but in those racist elements, but they are there and it's a problem. The other problem I had that I haven't previously talked about was the ending. It was super rushed and just a blur where I didn't really get what happened. Everyone seemed fine then suddenly we are told the king was killed but that's it. A new king is crowned, Theodor becomes the crown prince, and Kristos somehow redeemed himself. First, I don't think Kristos really redeemed himself because it was so quick and he didn't really do anything. Also there was a lot of build up to this ball, and then almost nothing comes of it and Sophie is just hiding for the majority of it and is told what all transpired. There is so much telling and not showing in this book in general, but here it's particularly frustrating.

Final Thoughts: This book started out with so much potential for growth, but never delivered on any of it. The conflict is quite shallow actually and all the morals and world building is portrayed as very black and white, which I don't like seeing in a narrative. Sophie was an annoying and frustrating character that undergoes no character growth even though she sorely needed it. There were really no good, wholesome relationships in this book, of any kind. Basically this book was just a disappointment and I have no idea if I'm going continue with this series.    

#my thoughts #book review #torn #rowena miller

[honestlysoconfused-blog1]

Playing a Game

I wrote a thing! Probably all wrong but eh, I had fun writing it.

Key Points

Sherlock series four was created from fandom theories

The fandom is currently playing a ‘Game’ on itself

Evidence in Summary

The number of fan predicted moments that are portrayed in the series

The larger ‘ARG’ elements that have currently been explored (TLS site, Dale Pike) have been ‘exposed’ as being part of the fandom

Foreword

Firstly, my apologies for any mistakes and I honestly encourage anyone to point out flaws or counter arguments or indeed assumptions I have made that could invalidate this argument, because I think healthy scepticism is required when looking at anything currently surrounding Sherlock. I’m also placing this in a essay like format so it should be easier to pick apart or add your own sections/thoughts.

Background - Derren Brown and Prediction Techniques

Derren Brown has always fascinated me and so I have watched a fair amount of his stuff. Certainly not all of it, but enough to start recognising some patterns. The first, of which he seems very fond of, is making things that should be random appear planned. The beauty of doing this is to create a sense of being able to predict the future, or future actions of people. This can be seen in pretty much every show he’s ever done, and I’m not going to pretend I know  how he does it, but an example is when, throughout a show, he encouraged a man to take more chances and eventually to bet his savings on the roll of a die. The roll of the die should have been random but obviously ended with it landing oh-so-amazingly on the correct number and the man winning lots of money.

More details here although as it is an old episode, the link to the Channel 4 video no longer works but the comments give you a brief overview: http://derrenbrown.co.uk/derren-discusses-secret-luck/

The second of Brown’s favourites is making things that appear planned random. This I believe is the more key element and is beautifully summarised by a trick he played on a group of people (including David Tennant!) whereupon they were put into a room containing various different coloured playground objects (balls, space hoppers if I remember correctly, sticks, and so on). They were told that a counter (displayed on a large screen for the people to see) had to reach 100 within a set time limit and then they would each win some money. Cue the people running around the room, bashing sticks, grabbing certain coloured items and generally doing stupid and silly things trying to work out the pattern to make the counter go up.

Briefly outlined here (Series Two, episode title - Supersitition): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick_or_Treat_(TV_series)

The trick?

It was completely random. There was an adjudicator in a completely separate room watching a tank with two fish in, clicking a button whenever one of the fish swam over a line drawn on the tank. This is what made the counter increase. Derren also revealed that there was a briefcase containing a much larger prize of £150 000. If one of the players had decided to step away from the game, wander back a little and look up, they would have seen the a giant sign saying ‘Congratulations, you’ve just won all this money’ or words to that effect (I can’t quite remember whether it was instructions to get to the money, but the point remains the same).

What does this have to do with Sherlock?

The parallel I would like to draw is that the players (the fandom), are staring at the room (series four) full of objects (hints, clues and ‘fuckery’) trying to create an explanation and draw a pattern that will get us to 100 (the explanation, the rug pull, the truth and/or ‘The Lost Special’).

I believe it could also be an explanation as to why so much doesn’t make sense regarding series four and its aftermath.

The Game - Setting the Stage

Here I have to make some assumptions.

The first of these is that there is actually a reason behind series four being, well, bad.

I don’t think anyone can seriously defend the continuity errors, the villainous character repetition[1], the gaping plot holes, the ludicrousness that is a cameraman being left in shot and the show ignoring its own canon[2]. If this is prime-time, heavily promoted television and if there is not a greater plan then all of my argument is invalid, although I would then be questioning the state and sanity of the BBC at large.

However, for now (and frankly because it is more fun) let us believe there is a plan.

The second assumption is that series four as we saw it had not been filmed before the trailers had been released.

On this assumption I would very, very much like people to chip in to either disprove or provide evidence for as - confession time - before series four I was what you would probably call an enthusiastic casual. I certainly knew very little or nothing about the conspiracies[3] and codes[4] and predictions surrounding them[5] but I could read the surface level ones[6] and regularly picked up on the amount of romantic subtext between the characters of Sherlock and John. After series four and being very confused as to why my one time favourite show had turned, to quote, into a parody of itself[7], I sought answers and that led me, naturally, to the online world.

Of note here, I was surprised at the various levels of defence of the show there was on certain platforms (Reddit[8]) whilst anger and disappointment on others (Tumblr and to an extent Twitter[9]). This, unsurprisingly, seemed to run parallel to how much the show was, and is, analysed and the level of dedication the average user has to the show. In other words, ‘casual’ viewers picked up on plot holes but dedicated fans were more likely to be emotive (and therefore later engage in the game).

It is also here where I would like the define the term ‘stage’.

The crowd are who you want to direct, encourage and discourage but what platform this is done on is actually very important. Ethically and morally the I believe platform would have to be ‘open’ and partially anonymous. This is to provide players with an escape route should they need it so a closed platform, such as Facebook, where posts are hidden behind a login wall and are more likely to be linked with personal data, would not be suitable. It also provides the benefit of a larger audience, encouraging others to join in and engage. As Sherlock already had a stable fanbase on Tumblr, this I believe was largely left alone. However, again, as I was not ‘around’ for it, please do counteract this if there were Tumblr specific Sherlock promotions designed to encourage engagement.

The platform to be developed was Twitter, which was actively and officially encouraged first with the live tweeting event[10], then grew unofficially through the Tumblr platform by fans with #Norbury[11] and finally the ‘contact’ accounts of @contactSH and @contactJHW[12]. At present it has been stated that the contact accounts are “not real”[13].   

This, in essence, is what I believe the final stage to look like; Tumblr the hardier and staple platform with Twitter as the advertising and set dressing element.  

The Game - Gathering a Crowd

The crowd, to a large extent, already existed but I suspect has quietly been grown amongst ‘casual’ viewers like myself.

Much of this is hesitant guesswork but certain articles on the actor’s private lives and the rumours around Sherlock’s possible cancellation[14] which has previously never been in question strike me as a deliberate ploy to garner more attention from populist media (The Mirror, The Sun etc.).

However, as there are ‘real human lives’ at stake with this particularly on the first point regarding people’s private lives, I do not encourage further rumours or any assumptions made on my opinion. Simply take it as that - an opinion. As to the implication of my opinion - are the rumours true? - again on the first point I would actively encourage not to think about the content but rather the means, motive and opportunity of said rumours. The means by which they were reported, the motive of doing so - which I have already stated I believe to be a plot to get more people actively engaged - and the opportunities that arise.

Reaching an un-engaged audience through manipulative mediums (which populist media are, give them the hint of a scandal and they lap it up) to pull in more potential players also nicely mirrors the pointed warnings in Sherlock series three - “I don't have to prove it, I just have to print it”.

The Game - Selecting the Players and Providing Motivation

The guide the audience one must next pick key players that - knowingly or not - guide the wider mass. It is here that my assumption of series four not being filmed until after the trailer had been released comes into focus.

In order to make your audience trust the players and follow their lead, one must make them credible. The easiest way to do that regarding a television show is to validate their theories - people are more likely trust someone who has been right about a plot theory or arc before. Here I will decline to mention any specific accounts or names, and I endeavour to remember the real human lives element. However there is a startling correlation with series four following predictions made on Tumblr. [I may here ask said accounts for permission to name them, but for now out of respect I would like to leave them out but encourage others to look at who predicted what.]

At this point there is one key element missing - the motivation to play. It has to be carefully implanted and made big enough to distract and focus everyone’s attention: this is, I believe, ‘The Lost Special’[15] and possibly the affirmation of a canonical, romantic relationship between John Watson and Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock[16a]. On a wider scale though, the prize could simply be ‘the thing that makes the series make sense[16b].

With key players selected, validated and motivated the next step is to start directing them towards playing the game itself.

The Game - The Room of Random Objects

Continuing on the first assumption, creating a series based off fan predictions has the dual benefit of not only validating the players but providing the perfect room of random objects.

Each clue, visual or textual error becomes an object on which the players can focus, discuss and generally ‘play with’ and the potential randomness of where the mind of the crowd will turn becomes much easier to predict. The mind of the fandom has essentially been mirrored.

It also accounts for the clues that didn’t amount to anything, namely the 8th of March, which taken in this context actually provides further proof of this theory. The reveal - nothing happened - is that there is no real game.

The problem here is that using the Derren Brown room metaphor the stated prize is cheap and the potential larger reward comes from stepping away from the game. If we believe that they are using this gameplan rather than another, a reward will be given at the end but it will not be as great or satisfying as if the players were to step back. In contrast to this point, the motivation of the gamemaster must be taken in account.

In the Derren Brown series he is the gamemaster and his motivation is to make a television show, get some people looking silly on camera, and provide an important message about confirmation bias.

Is this the same message being put forward? Or is there another message?

What is the motivation of the gamemasters, if I am correct, in this case? And does the second, larger prize exist?

I do not know.

But on the off chance I am right, here I am, making the point.

In Conclusion

Series four of Sherlock was a huge disappointment and the possibility of redeeming it is very tempting. It’s dragged me here, to Tumblr actually posting this, a place I never thought I would find myself.

However, knowing that the writers are clever, and that at least one is a friend of Derren Brown (and who of course appeared in the show itself), I can’t help but think we are, or where, being played and played against ourselves. Such a thing is fun initially, yes, but at some point the game must end.

If it doesn’t, or it doesn’t exist, and if they truly, unequivocally and totally defend series four as it currently stands then I shall remember series one to three of Sherlock as being fantastic.

References, evidence bits and expansions on points

[1] Toby Jones’ character Smith is described as the most “dangerous and despicable” man Sherlock has ever come across, very nearly the exact words used to describe Magnussen. Moriarty is also described as the most dangerous man Sherlock had ever faced.

[2] In His Last Vow (series three) the character of Sherlock Holmes is shot in the chest, prompting the character of Molly Hooper to remark “It’s not like how it is in the movies. There’s no great spurt of blood and you go flying backwards.” However, in The Six Thatchers (series four) the character of Mary Watson is also shot in the chest; shown jumping in front of the bullet (flying backwards) as blood spurts from the wound. In His Last Vow, the character of John Watson is shown burning the AGRA memory stick which contains the details of Mary Watson’s life before she met him. In The Six Thatchers the character of Sherlock Holmes explicitly states “she destroyed it” referring to the memory stick and Mary Watson. There are many more examples.

[3, 4 and 5] TJLC, Tie Hell, The Elephant in the Room as examples.

[6] The mirrors between characters, of note John Watson’s girlfriend in A Scandal in Belgravia and Molly Hooper’s boyfriend ‘Tom’.

[7] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/jan/16/sherlock-how-the-tv-phenomenon-became-an-annoying-parody-of-itself and http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/sherlock-season-4-episode-one-benedict-cumberbatch-martin-freeman-tv-series-mary-watson-amanda-a7509261.html  

[8] Despite pointing out plotholes, the general impression is of enjoyment with a comment thread about enjoying the episode having 2000+ points and plothole threads ranging from the hundreds to low 1000+ Whether or not this a true reflection of being annoyed by said plotholes or amused with the comment delivery could be debated: https://www.reddit.com/r/Sherlock/comments/5o6t49/the_final_problem_postepisode_discussion_thread/

[9] As Tumblr and Twitter are a more fluid platform this is harder to prove, but I saw the Tumblr reaction firsthand trying to find explanations/theories, and nearly all of the posts were pointing out plot holes or attempting to find a redemption with the ‘Secret Fourth Episode’ theory. This article notes a ‘mixed’ reaction on Twitter: http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-01-17/31-tweets-that-perfectly-sum-up-the-mixed-reaction-to-sherlock

[10] http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/efwwhn/live/c36g9r

[11] I’m reluctant to link the Buzzfeed article as it was written by a user named Christopher Melas which may or may not be a reference to the BBC John Watson’s blog post The Geek Interpreter. Whether this article is then a reliable narration of events can be questioned: https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrismelas/twitter-is-destroying-bbc-sherlock-right-now-2ssvd?utm_term=.cxzeqXBgXX#.pqywAKR9KK

[12] https://twitter.com/contactsh?lang=en and https://twitter.com/contactJHW

[13] https://twitter.com/joelidster/status/821029727439900672

[14] http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/sherlock-end-because-benedict-cumberbatch-9635585 and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2017/01/17/sherlocks-cold-shoulder-could-cumberbatch-freemans-frosty-relationship/ and https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/2629818/sherlocks-benedict-cumberbatch-and-martin-freeman-cast-doubt-over-further-series-due-to-frosty-friendship/

[15] http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-01-23/steven-moffat-responds-to-fan-theory-about-a-secret-fourth-sherlock-episode

[16a and 16b] I don’t believe in demanding plots from writers and if this is truly not the story the writers want to tell, so be it. (On the one-in-a-billion chance anyone of note reads this: why not, though? Really, genuinely curious, why not?) But I will damn well demand that the plot makes sense and this series had plot holes and nonsense in abundance.

#sherlock arg #sherlock meta #my meta #first post oh god

[marcelarellano]

SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS OR HOW TO RESOLVE PROBLEMS- EXISTING PROBLEMS   SITUATION AND DESIRED SITUATION

  “There is no greater pleasure to learn to solve problems ”

Samuel Johnson

  HOW TO SOLVE PROBLEMS INTRODUCTION

To solve problems it is necessary to have a spirit of curiosity, inspiration, innovation, creativity, inference, induction, deduction, capacity, imagination and organization. It is these attitudes that must be taken by a human being, in order to get to decipher a goal from certain data, that is, to get an answer to a question posed, as a result of a discrepancy. It is not, then, the solution of problems in a normal and daily thought, but in a thought that has been called divergent. This divergence is precisely, not in the use of both hands or both arms, but in the use of the mind, in order to overcome the old self, achieving mental training, as well as the body and soul. Mastering the mind, shaping the character, making the environment and forming the destiny constitute elements of the new era, which lead to understanding, in order to have the intellectual pleasure, the greatest pleasure, to overcome problems, enunciating them, analyzing them, overcoming them and solving them. Everyone has problems, but few have the interpretative divergence of the resolution of difficulties, conflicts, problems and disasters. Now, every problem is an unknown problem, but every problem has a solution, however acute, serious or difficult it may be. Men and women unable to be mayoral, that is why “if you understand that some are capable of putting them as mayoral,” says Sacred Scripture.

INGREDIENTS OF DIVERGING THOUGHT

a) Curiosity: It is the desire to know and find out something, investigate it, snoop it, for being in doubtful, ignored or hidden and wanting to get skills and abilities in what is executed. Some people confuse positive and negative curiosity, which is an attitude that leads us to inquire what should not matter to us. It is advisable not to confuse the person who has a spirit of curiosity, research, investigation (scientist, technician, historian, philosopher) with the curious (practitioner, nurse, healer, shaman, guru). The first treats a thing with particular care, diligence or dedication and the second exercises a therapy or practices speculation. The resolution of problems requires the spirit of curiosity, investigation, investigation and snooping to properly treat the puzzle and solve it, however difficult it is to understand or interpret it. Where there is a spirit of curiosity there will be no insurmountable problems. In idealistic pragmatism it works very well, to go to the bottom in the search for universal laws, by examining the practical aspects of all scientific, moral or religious doctrine that contains those laws.

b) Inspiration: It consists in giving birth in the mind or mind, ideas, designs, affections, through a stimulus that occurs spontaneously to find things without any effort. It does not require the use of any vigor, nor physical force to break down difficulties and get what you want. Generally they are called inspired people who know how to make poetry, because their product appears spontaneously and in an original way; but it is said to be inspired or enlightened of those great men who have transformed humanity. Also the artists and writers who make their compositions with suggestions of their own harvest and nature. In solving problems, inspired people find alternative paths and paths, by looking beyond normal limits and finding them without difficulty. Inspiration is similar to intuition. In the inspiration, perception and detailed vision are made, that things are glimpsed with clairvoyance, with foreboding and almost con adivination. It is like an additional sixth sense through which solutions are manifested that leave us amazed. The admiration for inspiration is so much that we fake hearing about inspired, enlightened and great stories and stories have been made with the subject. Lighting has a lot to do with inspiration and Eduardo Shure made in his book “The Great Initiates” the narrative about Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Jesus, Zoroaster, Buddha and the Essenes, the explanation of both concepts and how they exercised it. These people transformed humanity, changing the norms of mental interpretation and advancing the culture well of the world population.

c) Innovation: To innovate is to be in constant work, to find out how to do more and more things or to do them better. It has to do with bringing new ideas, launching new products on the one hand; and on the other, always do things in a better way; in a more efficient, effective and impactful way. It consists in the problem of always being questioning in relation to the activities where one is developing, to do them better and on the other hand within the business field where one is, looking for new concepts, developing new ideas, to stay as a point of reference in the market. (Manuel Sucre: Human Resources Magazine No.11).

The human being wants to see differences between one market and another; increase the transparency of information; to see the potential of possible combinations to see what is not and that the observer can fill. The best ideas innovate and emerge above the existing as a cascade of changes. In many parts the month of innovation is decreed, but new and valid ideas with these decrees do not arise, because it is the innovative people who produce them and bring the discussion to the table. Now the speed of innovative changes is exponential and in a globalized world, competition is too. Today’s future is and will always be the same, the only thing faster and closer. In all the crises Latin America has experienced, in terms of its companies, those that survived were those that used innovation. This means, neither more nor less, that companies that do not separate innovative response to their customers will simply disappear. Innovation can be retained in a leader who can create spaces in anyone’s risk, but it can also consist of a ladder, so that space flows and others go up, which generates innovation. Of course, this constitutes risks and the risks may mean loss of money or at least some expense; but it is convenient to spend on innovation, because it is subsistence itself. With that expense it should be taken into account that the main objective is the market. Minimizing risk is a matter for each company, but if innovation does not work immediately, innovators cannot be punished, because everything in life is continuous learning; We must take innovation as a way of life, both individual and organizational and the decision to be innovative. We must make it present, through a realization strategy, as an execution process and not as a simple action program.

d) Creativity: It is present when the mind becomes aware of the relationship between ideas, thus generating a third (Spearman, cited in Sternberg, 1993). Creativity is in the capacity and attitude to generate ideas and communicate them (Torres cited in Mitjans, 1995 both cited by Recio). Through creativity they can solve problems because who solves them, look where other people do not see. It has been conceived as a characteristic of personality; as a process; As a product and as an environment. In the first case (personality), the creative person always goes beyond what has been learned, beyond the information stored and beyond the logic of the facts, even if they have served as the beginning. Transforming, asking questions about solutions and not looking for a single solution but several alternatives, is characteristic of creativity. In Latin America we say “when you go, I come”, but if it comes with the solution there is creativity. The creative person is open and of good imagination, plays with the ideas and knows how to communicate them, adapts to any circumstance and especially esoriginal. From the point of view of creativity as a process, reality is known, decomposed and reconstructed in new terms. According to Wallas (cited in Solso 1,998, both cited in Recio), creativity involves the provision of information, preparation, processing or incubation, information output or lighting and process evaluation. Creativity as a product is a highly valued factor in industrial and commercial aspects (companies) since through this valuation essential qualities of production can be determined, which are a) that production incorporates something new and b) that production be Useful. It also allows to know the elegance of the product, its simplicity and the ease of use. In creativity as an environment the atmosphere in which it is created must be considered, especially if there is discipline, responsibility and freedom; if you work as a football team, or in any other sports team, where each player puts his part with complete freedom and conviction.

The creative person must look for and pursue high-flying ideas, such as eagles and not stave low ideas, such as snakes and consequently outdated. Then, recognize ideas with potential values, so that they are widely accepted and sell those ideas to other people. Acting with freedom, confidence and having a place for creativity, means being in the playground and freely and without bothering analytical results, because there is no restriction, you have confidence in yourself and others and you are always in the place suitable for transferring ideas as creative products.

e) Inference: It is a mental process that consists in obtaining from the already known knowledge, other implicit knowledge in these. It is a relationship or link between two situations or two events. Inference is thought to be basic for learning induction, deduction and analogy, for understanding language and communication and for performing abstract thinking. Inference is the most useful element in solving problems and is usually related to word pairs, that is, given a couple of them, conclusions are drawn from each other. Sternberg established categories of word pairs: part-all, predicative, coordination, equality, similarity, contrast, all-part, denial, word relationship, subordination, termination and supraordination. Constant practice helps inference learning, but it must also be continuous because it is an abstract activity. When we say love, words are connected simply because they rhyme; sleep – slept, the grammatical connection; yes – no logical or mathematical denials; six eighths – seventy-five percent, equality by mathematical or logical equivalence; stable – plot, all – part, relationship in which B is part of A; minute – hour, part – everything, relationship in which A sparks B; Holy Virgin Mary, each term is part of an expression, the three words are part of a single unit; fish – shark, superordination, relationship where A is a category that includes B; carrot – beet, coordination, the two terms refer to the same issue and are of the same category; when the relation is of a verb the category is called predicative: the term A describes something about the term B, cook-pots, ice-cold, cow-moored, where cook uses pots, ice is a cold source, cow produces mooing; the contrast is between antonyms or words that are opposite in meaning, green-mature, high-low, fat-thin; and similarity between synonyms relations or between words that mean the same thing, furious – rabid, fearful – dark, lucid – clear. It may happen that the inference is not true or logical but represents a fallacy that is to say a false relationship or not congruent with reality. It is called fallacy inference: if they call us for lunch and it takes us half an hour waiting for the soup to cool down because we think they can throw the hot soup on us and burn us; The relationship is neither true nor logical, it is fallacious, because we assume something that should not occur normally. If we take an exam at a university and they do not accept us then we look for work because they will not accept us at any other university; fallacious thought, fallacious inference, because the fact that they do not accept me from one university does not mean that they do not accept me in another.

f) Induction: In inductive reasoning the thought process goes from the parts to the whole, or from the particular to the general; hypotheses of the environment characteristics are raised and then evidence is sought that supports or invalidates them. Sternberg (Triadic Knowledge Theory), points out that inductive reasoning consists of seven (7) components: coding, inference, functionalization, application, comparison, justification and response. When the mental execution process is inductively reasoned, it acquires a variety of forms, but the most frequent are ANALOGIES, COMPLEMENTATION OF SERIES AND CLASSIFICATIONS.

These types of problems contain underlying elements that can form the basis of knowledge (some authors); it means that in the induction the reasoning is not based on assumptions of pure logic, but adds assumptions of reality, about the way of being of the concrete, temporal reality. The foundation of induction is the regularity of the course of nature, whether it be simple hypotheses or a certain truth. It is a foundation of facts as well as facts, the very existence of the universe. The starting point refers to facts of experience, to sensitive, real objects. Coding allows us to interpret and organize the stimuli and make mental representations of them; it depends on the knowledge acquired and the experience; It is coded according to the purposes to be achieved. The inference was explained in the previous recital. Functionalization is the recognition of a second-order relationship, based on two first-order relationships and the ability to infer and relate is required. The application allows you to use a previously inferred relationship to complete the meaning of a new relationship. The comparison consists of analyzing the previous occasions with the new case or fact, in order to draw conclusions and therefore the medium and long term memory is required, to bring the antecedent or fact with which we will compare the new structure. The justification is the process by means of which, before several valid alternatives, the most appropriate one is chosen and the reasons for the choice are established. Answer is the solution to the problem as a result of a procedure. We must remember that the answers must be evaluated to verify, through a process called feedback, which consists of evaluating possible failures through external surveys and correcting them on the fly, as well as looking internally for errors in order to save them and be able to present the product, satisfaction of some person or groups of people, as would the community.

g) Deduction: Method by which one proceeds logically from the universal to the particular, that is to say, consequences are derived from a principle, proposition or assumption by derivation or inference. The particular truths are achieved from the general hypotheses and this method is strictly conformed by the syllogism, which is, in its capital forms, a conclusion from the universal to the particular and in all its forms, a conclusion from of the universal. The reasoning of the deductive receives its validity from the logical principles of identity, contradiction, excluded third party, and constitutes an axiom whose truth is undoubted and immediate. And it is not necessary to bring anything about the real structure of objects since not only logical principles and logical relationships intervene, so it is a complex discursive process. When two judgments are given, another is required based on the first two, the major, minor and conclusion premises. Every man is mortal. Socrates is man. Socrates is mortal (major premise, minor and conclusion). The syllogism can be presented in various ways depending on the quantity and quality of the premises; there is irregular syllogism, compounds, complexes, paralogisms or sophisms. The latter consists of an incorrect reasoning that is not valid and is given the name of fallacy, many times in these cases a thing that is not under discussion is answered or something is proven that is not appropriate to prove. The study of syllogism, the principles that govern the forms and modes of the same and in general the study of the deductive method is a matter of modern logic to understand the signs, language and metalanguage; and arrive at the concept of deductive logic as well as reasoning, symbolization, laws and logical truths. The beginning of deductive reasoning cannot be an immediate trial of experience, since if there were, it would be a statement about facts that entails a prior induction and the deduction is drawn from universal judgments.

h) Capacity: Genesis 47.6. In this biblical passage one of the great interpretations of the capacity is established, it relates the understanding and the understanding to establish it. “If you understand” because otherwise you understand what is being spoken to you. This passage is related to that of Proverbs 22,28, which is as follows: “Have you contemplated a skilled man in his work? In front of Reyes is where he will be; he will not bet in front of ordinary men. ” Skill at work has always been considered an excellence. “A message to Garcia” contains the explanation of the work capacity of employees and workers and has a lot to do with the star workers who are the ones who do the work, although 90% of the ring do something or do it very badly. In Latin America it is said that there are no insoluble problems but incapable men and women; The skill and ability to develop work, carve wood, make mosaic, build, make roads, buildings, schools, water works (drinking and irrigation) and the hundreds of jobs that give crafts, are closely related to the training that People who want to learn exercise. In Venezuela there is a national educational training institute, which at least in theory is to teach arts and crafts (INCE). Jean Paúl Sarte, referring to the farmers who cut the wheat, said of them “that cults are cutting the wheat” that is, what perfection of trade they perform in this agricultural work; “Understood in the matter” we also say to refer to someone who does things well. The capable people have a privileged place in humanity, so much that they are looking for them with the lantern of Diogenes, in order to place them as mayoral (foremen, leaders, leaders, caporals, directors, drivers, principals, bosses, managers, superiors, etc. .). On many occasions the inability to do things not only from lack of understanding, but from the lack for the good performance of an art or industry business; if there is a lack of understanding, one cannot appoint mayoral, but when there is a lack of disposition and the person is named mayoral, it is possible that sabotages, accidents, accidents, damages and matters arising from negligence, recklessness or ignorance of the rules may occur. that lack of disposition that can be simulated or intentional.

i) Imagination: Imagination is to the soul what the word is to the spirit. It consists in seeing reality but abstractly, so it is a state of mind that solves preferences, desires or needs. If the imagined is realistic the solution is equally realistic. It differs from the fantasy in that it is not traceable, realizable, but fabulous. The representation of experiences is carried out through the imagination, and the lived events, the ones that are being lived and the potential future events that are to happen (Trilogy) are implicit; hence, Einstein has said that imagination is greater than knowledge. Representation is essential to the imagination (scenarios, characters, objects, feelings, motivations and emotions). The understanding of life is exercised through the crucial role of the imagination through its fantastic role of the brain. The mental task is imagination and the arts are expressed through it, that is why wood and bronze speak, are elevated, the Quixote, King Lear, Poor People, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Doña Bárbara are written; films are made, such as “What the Wind Wore” and so on; It was the imagination, which made WaltDisney’s inanimate objects come alive.

j) Organization: It is the art of problem solving in advance. Allow available resources to the extent possible, coordinating the interdependence of each of them. Access to the different slopes of thought and action (360º), conserve and expand the life of the integral elements; recognizing the adaptive limitations and with exact knowledge of the temporality, for which reason, creativity is organization and especially INNOVATION.

The organization has taken shape in recent centuries and has reached the structuralization of it, through the integral management of quality and excellence (GICE). The approach through which the method of breaking down language, culture and society (Environment) has been taken into account. Its main foundation is interrelation, through which practices, phenomena and activities are experienced. Sensory perception and ideas (creativity) also greatly influence the organization. The organization is based fundamentally on the experience that is the basis and sum of all knowledge. Influence discipline, concentration, patience, tenacity and knowing how to relate unforeseen events, such as adaptability to changes and management control.

EXISTING SITUATION. DESIRED SITUATION

The existence of a present situation that we do not like, makes us think of a desired state, going through the permanent learning of immortal souls, that is, those who do new things and understand. Moving from an existing situation to a desired situation is typical of these interesting times, in order to be successful, both personally and in organizations. However, problem solving is not a panacea that cures all diseases.

FUNDAMENTAL RULES OF TROUBLESHOOTING

a) DO NOT FOLLOW DRIVING BEHAVIORS.

Generally, when a problem arises, we will immediately begin to solve it, without thinking much about what it is, what data exist and which are missing and why, what the restrictions are and even ignore what it is that we are asked or requested in response. When this happens we are faced with an impulsive behavior equal to that of the child, who takes a candy and wants to immediately punish the person who has taken it, without thinking about the action, but on the objectivity and resolution of Problems require subjectivity to internalize the possible solution or solutions if there are alternatives. Do not think in only one direction. This limits achieving the goals of real, true solutions, because we go one way and every time we don’t miss we go back to the path that leads us to the same mistake. We get the same stones, the same thorns and stumble upon the same obstacles. In other words, we repeat the steps we did previously and fall again. For this reason, in recent times, divergent thinking that consists in using the mind in depth to reach the goals is being taught.

b) PLAN STRATEGIES. If you work in an unsystematic way, that is, without a pre-established order, you try to solve the problem as quickly as possible, without reaching the goal because we are acting by trial and error, we try to find out if we succeed, but we err and We rehearse to return to error. Planning is always good, because of that war warned does not die soldier, if he dies it is careless.

c) DO NOT PLACE MORE RESTRICTIONS TO THE PROBLEM.

If this happens, it is very serious, because instead of the natural restrictions of the problem we multiply them by two (2) or by one fifty (1.50), with which we are enlarged the unknowns, the enigmas and the questions, getting tangled up in the skein structured by the problem itself, plus our own participation. For example, if we find three sides in the given situation, we place another side, it will be four and not three, so that the solution moves away and leaves us.

d) DEFINE THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM.

This is essential. If it is a personal or collective problem, to what matter it belongs, what dimensions it has, what its cardinal points are, what data it has, what is missing, what is the question, what follows with the answer. If we notice that the problem has some difficulty and by not defining its nature, we reduce the possibility of solution.

e) SOLVE IT BY PRIOR EXPERIENCE.

We cannot ignore the value of the past compared to similar situations. Let us remember that there are nations (Commonwealth) where problems are solved by resorting to the precedent, to the custom and they solve as it was solved in the past.

BEHAVIORS PRODUCED BY THE PERFORMANCE

When we abandon the solution of problems we can feel any of the following behaviors: Humiliation: It is the act of humiliating another or humiliating oneself, that is to say that it can be voluntary or imposed. The volunteer is used in religion and is not necessarily necessary, because being penitential, it has the effects of catharsis that eliminates karmas, and constitutes a kind of calisthenics or warming in order to dominate the flesh, attacked by the world and the devil. Instead, the imposed is the act by which we feel offended in self-esteem, despised, lowered, and in these cases we feel that we are nobody, without any value, which triggers pain, sadness and suffering. There is a relationship of dominant and dominated, of incubation and succubus, of master and slave, however in this situation we cannot discuss, hence the feelings of  indignation because we are subjected. When we cannot make a problem or solve it and we feel surrendered, we must fight and restart for different reasons so as not to fall into the same hole and make the same mistakes. We have to fill ourselves with courage and prudence so as not to do inappropriate things, begin the search logically, calmly, asserting our knowledge, skills and abilities, and knowing that we are not useless, that we can solve all kinds of problems, and that by defining the statement of it, this is, the nature of the raised, we are able to reach the goal and forget the humiliation that surrender raised. Persist, insist, persevere, stubborn, do not give the arm to twist, remain in your thirteen, which means being stubborn, stubborn, stubborn, stubborn until you reach the happy ending, as in fairy tales. Remember that constancy overcomes what bliss does not reach. 

Despair: It is the total loss of hope. It produces anger (anger) spite or anger. It is an annoying and intolerable situation that takes away our sleep, we take pain inside and we feel like insects of all kinds. Franz Kapka’s beetle is a product of this feeling. We have a weight on us that does not allow us to scream or breathe, we feel drowned, insecure, confused and fearful. Why couldn’t we with the problem? Why do we have to give up? There is despair, time does not go, does not run, does not pass, a minute is very long, an hour is a day and a day is a week. The best we can do is calm down and think clearly about the options we have to solve the problem. We will be back getting roads, paths, corridors, passageways, because somehow, after the storm comes the calm. Surrender produces hopelessness in some cases, which, when disturbed, brings despair. Let us carefully apply the problem-solving technique and hope will come back, since this is the last one that is lost, it was lost because of the desperate attitude but we find paths again and the problem will be solvable. Unbelief: In this situation there is the suspension or indeterminate of the mood between two judgments, or two decisions that we must make and cost in believing or not believing, but the unbeliever always goes through the second of these slopes and does not believe. There is skepticism, perplexity, suspicion, conjecture, objections and discussions, the opinions of others are questioned, there is a difficulty in disgust in believing something and there is no regret with natural things and therefore in the absence could solve the problem, it is believed blindly that we cannot solve it and we surrender. It is what they are seeing with their eyes and underestimate the overcoming, insisting, perseverance; the disbelief caused us to lose the courage to move on, or restart again and again and we simply lost the battle and the war. We leave that to the infinite.

Unbelief is a curse, since the will and intelligence offender are doomed to suffer and the logical consequence is the expression: “we are lost.” That is wrecked. It is there that we have to react and trust in ourselves, in the creator, in our family and in our neighbor in order to draw strength from our own nature and understand that we can, that we are capable of being mayors and that we can solve that And another problem. Let’s use the heart to be soft of feelings, full of confidence and certainty, eliminating doubt and distrust for credulity and not being hard-hearted, because this attitude can bring us greater inconveniences than if we do not solve, they will bring us to the bottom from the well.

DISPOSITION: Discouragement is mother and father of all vices, when present there is no courage, attraction, or disposition. It is an insidious disease against which there are no vaccines or prescriptions, since it is a poison of the strongest and paralyzes the will of an entire people. Against all diseases, there are benefits and ways to fight them, but it is very difficult to combat discouragement. In addition, it brings a great and problematic danger, because it is contagious and full of pessimism to everyone who contracts it. Darkness is widespread and therefore light is scarce and if there is, it is dim and elusive. That is why we say that the mind is clouded and we remain dark. Discouragement overcomes all fiction, comedies, dreams, fantasies, and brings people and peoples to annihilation. When there is euphoria, critical spirit and carnage, the solution of problems disappears completely and the solutions are not seen in the short or medium term, but far, far away, or we simply believe that there is no solution. At this moment we become imprisoned in our own dungeon and self-esteem decreases and the stagnation takes over our body and our mind by one of the most pernicious elements of humanity: discouragement. We have to return to the origins in an urgent way, search and search for the magic formula that will help us to get out of the stagnation, impotence, weakness and weakness. Let’s do it with patience and imagination and touch the rock which Moses did and we will get the living water that is wisdom, love and understanding.

METHODOLOGIES IN TROUBLESHOOTING

a) Discernment: the facts are collected, combined with each other and then compared with each other to determine what happened, what happens and how the matter can be resolved. Many professionals use this method to solve problems in different disciplines. The police use it daily; It is not reserved for anyone in particular, but can be used by anyone who has some knowledge and can collect, combine and compare information.

b) Dissolution strategy: dissolve, annihilate or destroy the facts or part of them so that the problem disappears or decreases in quantification and importance. It happens a lot in the restoration of real estate, furniture, retouching of relics, all the expert’s judgment.

c) Oblivion: eliminate the existence of the problem from the mind, either because it definitely has no solution, or because we are completely unable to solve it. For example the death of a close relative; The problem with this technique is that people are afraid to forget and with fear we do not get anywhere, in this case the concern persists and the mind will not rest. But we have to learn to forget not to be ruminating the past, bringing it again and again to our mind and our heart.

d) Postponement: leave for another day the discussion of a certain problem, especially in group discussions, where those who intervene do not agree on a certain route for the solution and it is convenient to postpone the discussion on the matter. Almost always the solution in this case arises naturally.

e) The Consultation: it is used in all parts of the world and by all people, around the opinion of a specialist in any of the areas of human knowledge. The consultation is effective and valid both in the resolution of conflicts and in the resolution of problems.

f) Search for strategy: divide into as many sub-problems as possible, in order to solve small difficulties one by one until all is resolved, thereby solving the major problem.

g) Training: it is the physical and mental preparation for solving problems that require special conditions or knowledge. The Fire Department is trained daily for this purpose, because it requires scientific and technical knowledge (for example chiropractic) to extraordinary physical abilities (climbing a building by stairs and then by rope), all in the midst of flames or floods, it is say working under pressure.

h) Acceptance: it is the main method of problem solving, because if we do not accept that the problem exists, we have not done anything, nor can we proceed further. It occurs in those cases of drug use, or alcoholism, if the problem is not accepted, when we try to solve it it is already too late.

i) Prayer: this is a powerful method of problem solving. It was shown in the death of John Paul II that the world turned to prayer, including other religions that were not Catholic, and prostrated at the feet of the dead pontiff, sang and prayed to God, both for them, and for the Pope and all over the world in order to solve the problems that overwhelm humanity.

j) Selection: observation and selection are methods that govern science, Latin America, history, philosophy, art, religion and in general almost all human activities. When there is no selection, all kinds of ingredients are mixed and the result is vario-pinto; and if there is no observation we can be reached by poisonous snakes, which today do not live only in the mountains, but in the cities themselves and walk on two feet. There are many more methodologies in solving problems and each person according to their knowledge can have their own method, because universal thinking and inductions or deductions, inferences and abilities depend on individual reasoning. This situation is due to history, since the inventions have been many and placed one behind the other, they make the list of the facts of the hand of man, translated into artifacts, devices or technemas. We must understand that each discipline has its formulas, equations, premises, assertions, arguments, and in general its own laws for its unraveling, therefore, solving a problem of a particular discipline requires knowledge of that part of knowledge, because we cannot be geometricians being lawyers or vice versa. It is possible that within these norms we will find more expert people than others who are called newbies, but in all science, technique, history or philosophy there are statements, data, goals and solutions. They are in themselves the problems that reflected in the announcement, lead us to their analysis and later to their solution.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

When we talk about the statement, it is necessary to take into account that it is there that the nature of the problem must be perfectly defined, determining precisely the structuring of the problem, since this lack leads us to a preliminary examination to define the nature and properly look for the structuring. Once the question is achieved, we will go on wheels towards liberation paths, which reach the solution. Structured a problem we must present it by means of tables, graphs, drawings, diagrams or other forms of representation, in order to take the data we have on paper and extract the convenient inferences that give us light towards the final goal.

REPRESENTATIONS

Representations have always existed and among the primitive graphic expressions of humanity, cave paintings, made of stone walls, especially in caves and petroglyphs stand out. Rock paintings are not known in Venezuela, but petroglyphs abound. They would be called prehistoric representations. Then the man invented the writing which divided the life of humanity into two periods: 1) Prehistory in which man could not write and 2) The history in which man learned to write. It seems that writing was invented about three thousand years before Christ in Mesopotamia and then also invented in Egypt. It was called cuneiform writing because of the shape of wedges. They were signs that no longer represented cave paintings, or petroglyphs or tribes, a cup = food, a ceiling = celestial vault, a hand number five, a foot = walk, a human-headed falcon suggested the idea of ​​soul. They were the ideograms that were also representations. Then, due to the complication of drawing a picture for each concept, they were made to present sounds (ma, me, mi, mo, mu) or simple sounds such as letters. They became known as phonograms. Already in Egyptian writing it is estimated that there could be about 30 alphabetic phonograms, which expressed simple sounds. Combining ideograms could result in what we know today as charades, which are words that form with the sounds of others. Sun, dice, bed, lion can form a soldier, chameleon with the figures of a sun and a dice; of a bed and a lion. When it comes to explaining an idea to another person, the best way to do it is to represent it graphically, that is, draw it. The primitive peoples became aware of this and began to make maps and itineraries of the occupied territories, on fabrics, mud, stone or paper. The routes to follow were explained by drawing and the first planes of cities and the first maps appeared.

Because of this, we have learned about the Nubian mines; from cities of Mesopotamia and even Antarctica. Architecture also influenced the expression in the construction of temples, pyramids and complex works, in which thousands of people should intervene for centuries. The continuity of the works can be done by the existence of a plane that allowed it. They made plans on a scale model to show the project to the rulers who had commissioned the work. The Incas made clay and stone models before building houses and terraces (platforms) The Aztecs used the drawing to express themselves and the stone of the sun or Aztec calendar is a representation of maximum value, which is held in Mexico, nowadays as a treasure, inherited from that indigenous class; The multiplicity of drawings that make up the unit is great and spectacular, while it is didactic and is part of the national and international historical heritage. At the time of the Renaissance, the drawing was elevated to the instrument category to know, the perspective was discovered and the paintings and in general the works of art of the Renaissance have a solidity, which the works of the previous centuries did not have. Leonardo da Vinci is a high-flying Renaissance master, so much that he made the greatest immortal work of the Painting: La Gioconda. Then the drawing was one of the instruments of the modern Industrial Revolution, whereby objects were projected and mass produced, something that had not happened with artisans, whose production was one by one and scarce. The graphic representation in our days can be seen in figures that represent telephones, gentlemen, ladies, restaurant, gas pump, taxis, and all the figures of road and city traffic, are nothing more than explanatory signs reduced to a representation through the drawing. There are physical and mental maps. Both can be represented by drawings. The first is a graphical representation of the surface of part of the land and have been made using topographic maps or planialimetric maps.

To study the earth’s surface, two fundamental tools are available, which are topographic maps and aerial photographs, which constitute the most objective representations of the landscape. The increasing use of the hamotivated land is the essential need for plans and topographic charts at various scales, in many activities, such as military use, planning, control, land planning, livestock and agricultural uses, agrarian charter that is used today and must come from topographic chart. The maps allow the representation of the terrain, the distances (geometric, real, vertical, horizontal); relief expression; the level curve system; and the exact measurement of any terrain or part of it. And mind maps allow drawing some challenge, for example in terms of training and learning, individual or business, branching out types such as: knowledge, skills, values, as well as neurological levels and their origin with their strategies, modeling, perspectives and language, and also handle the context of training in terms of lags, advantages, learning and investments, reducing them to strategies. These maps can be drawn overlaid, attached, for a global view. The new learning, that is to say, the new education is based a lot on the mental maps, for the teaching of divergent and non-divergent thinking, for the ease in the sample and the rapid perception on the part of the student. The drawing has also diversified and we find mechanical, architectural, geometric, advertising, abstract drawing, which is expressed through lines, bars, circular sectors, and in general through figures. The graphic language of the drawing has been taken by the exact and inaccurate sciences to graphically express ideas and we find it in accounting, sociology, statistics, computer science, industries, companies in general and many other professions and is used in conferences, lectures, TV shows, and others.

In the resolution of problems the linear representation is used, in two dimensions, tables of numerical values, tables of conceptual or semantic values, logical tables, concrete representations, flowcharts, strategies, means-ends, space-state analysis, symbolic representations and mathematical models, among others. It has been proven that the understanding of a problem statement constitutes the indispensable requirement to solve it. It is precisely what implies making a set of structuring that becomes the mental or internal representation of that problem. If we get people to write the reasoning they make, think out loud, make diagrams, drawings, physical or mental maps, write semantic or mathematical relationships, and others, in order to understand the problem statement, we will be making significant progress in the resolution of it. In addition, we will be seeing the individual’s mental training for the application of divergent thinking. All external representations such as maps, drawings, diagrams, and others, constitute aids for internal mental representation and facilitates the metacomponential skills of solving difficulties, discrepancies, conflicts and problems. Suppose a person leaves their house, walks to the corner, turns on the same sidewalk to the other corner, then goes up to the next, turns right until next time and then descends to the middle of the block, we ask where it’s found? If we make a drawing and make the block, we place the person going down the corner, then crossing to the corner, then up and then to the right and then down, we will realize by the drawing that is in his house or very close to her because the drawing helped in understanding the problem, until it was solved. This is the representation that is discussed in the solution of problems and if we dedicate, even a little time, to learning maps, drawings, diagrams, tables and symbols and equations, we will be about to solve our (personal) problems and help in the resolution of the problems of others (outsiders). The existing situation must be analyzed in depth to determine and see where the difficulty comes from, analyze the four cardinal points, the participants in their origins, the doubts presented and the number, weight and measure of that situation. Only there we can visualize the desired situation with all its splendor to notice the difference. Then we will apply the exploration of factors, conditions and limitations, that give us a passport towards the general achievement as a purpose, that will generate us alternatives and that will allow us to choose one of those alternatives, so that analyzed, rested and settled we respond to the attention, to memory and understanding as the solution to the discrepancy raised and present it to the interested parties as the final goal.

METACOGNITION

Attention, memory and understanding are grouped into a broad concept that encompasses its conscious control and is called metacognition. It has to do with the closure of mental activities and their opening, thus creating a third element other than what exists, through which all mental processes are known and regulated. Then it is necessary to establish similarities and differences between attention, memory and understanding. Attention is one of the fundamental processes for understanding and learning. If we have not understood something, it is impossible to register it as information. When we select the stimuli and pay attention to them, we ignore everyone else. Therefore attending becomes a true action. But we must know what we must attend to, what are the mental operations that we must perform to attend, such as avoiding internal and external distractions, which can take us away from the act of paying attention. In case of distraction we have to realize immediately and correct. With the repetition of the stimulus we remove the distraction, according to the motivation, we also avoid it. The more growth the more attention. In learning situations, the focus on attention is essential for the purpose of overcoming. Therefore, attentional variables should be used, such as: illustrations, graphics to transmit the information and that the participants have an active intervention, ask questions and compare the new contents with those previously acquired. As for memory is the ability to register, retain and retrieve information. When receiving information you have to save it in some part, to be able to use it later, if necessary. By coding, that is, the selection of important, relevant facts, eliminating those that are not, we record the activities that will allow us to store in an orderly manner what we want to retain or store in order to recover or evoke either medium or long term. The information in memory goes through various levels of processing, such as the start of it that has been called sensory; the brief storage with limited amounts of information called short-term memory; and the long-loop memory which is unlimited in quantity and time. The latter can store facts of our personal life, the experiences we have had and also store general knowledge of all kinds: History, mathematics, geography, languages, religion, etc. World, devil and flesh, for example. Skills in solving problems, beliefs and concepts in general. Finally, understanding is a high caliber process, since only two percent of the population naturally understands; specialists have made efforts to raise that percentage. It implies understanding from a word, a sentence, the interrelation of sentences and the understanding of a complete text without confusing words, sentences, paragraphs or connecting them to each other. It would be like going one way to a certain place, going another way, reaching a different place, which is not in need, nor is it worth anything. Or missing the central idea of ​​the text, leaving the sections or characters without motivation. (Collins and Smith, cited by Lisette Poggioli).

RESOURCES

The first of the resources we have is time. It consists of the duration of things subject to moving and is measured in astronomy by the apparent movement of the sun. It is also the part of the duration during which we execute the action of the verbs; we get up, we bathe, we brush, we have breakfast, we go out, we work, we have lunch, we bathe, we brush, we have breakfast, we go out, we work, we have lunch, we have dinner, we watch television, we listen to radio, we pray, we go to bed. Each action corresponds to a verb and has a duration that is part of the whole. It is necessary to measure time and apply said measurement to effectiveness, under penalty of delay or non-compliance. The clock has been the great ally of man to measure time. Each of the activities requires a certain time and if we have ordered the realization of things we will not have to say that time did not reach us, remember that destiny is built today, not tomorrow. Let us dedicate, even if it is a small time to form it and do not wait for later for what you do not leave for tomorrow what you should do today. It is common to hear that the time lost until the saints mourn him. If we must study and we do not, then it is very difficult for us to get used to it again; If we have to do a job today and we don’t do it, it is possible that tomorrow the circumstances change and we cannot do it. Then we find Human Resources. We do not live alone, but society. That is why human resources are of great importance. Hence the trades, occupations, professions, training and in general teaching and learning. Today there is a profession called this: human resources, which help in the development of companies and in general of any organization, because they relate people to the numerary, and teaching with the activity. Human resources feed back the organizations and discover errors of both procedure and background, in order to correct them on the fly without stopping production. Well, the distribution of the human resources that we have is one of the fundamental rules in problem solving, since those resources are trained and known in divergent thinking and can be applied without major cost to the organization or company.

Then come the Economic Resources. A Spanish adage says: Have and hold and you will live well. It is what is called economize, which means not to spend or rather to nominate the economic resources that we have, because whoever spends what they have to ask stays. Money is the quintessential expression of economic resources and has many enemies, inflation is one of them, therefore we must know how to invest in order not to decapitalize; the foreign hand is another enemy of money and we must take care of people who know where we have the money; Services are a source of effective waste of money and so on, but we must be careful not to fall into greed because it is a capital to take care of. Then the Intellectual Resources, that is, the knowledge that we have of a certain sensory organization, in the short or long term. The storage of information is an intellectual resource, as well as the rapid use of it. Otherwise, that is, after the fire goes out, we no longer need information. Learning is an intellectual resource that we must always have, since companies that do not seek constant learning are prone to failure and disappearance. As for the logistic resources it has to do with the provisioning, that is to say with the provision of vituallas that is the same as the food of all the people that have to do with the problem posed. It is logical and of first necessity to satisfy the feeding of the personnel involved, because according to the popular saying, love with hard starvation. Almost all the governments of the earth tend from a political point of view to offer enough food for the people, even if they do not comply with such political offers. But if we follow the rules of well-being, which are drinking water, food, education, that children do not work and that children do not die. The food is in second place, after drinking water, since dehydration is a serious problem that comes from the lack of fluid intake. If we drink non-potable water, the remedy is worse than the disease. In Venezuela, there is a law called the Workers’ Food Law that obliges employers with more than twenty workers to grant them at least one balanced meal per day, on business days. It is precisely in compliance with the logistical resources that this legal obligation has appeared, that speaking in white silver exceeds the salaries or almost reaches them.

Next the communication resources. Who has no communication is lost in the desert, with a scorching sun and without where to eat or sleep, that is to say disconnected and without any information. The information is basic today, so there is Internet, television, press, radio, since the time of the carrier pigeons, has passed to the tail of history. The present technemas serve communication, as the heart to the body. And finally goods as resources. Vehicles, land, houses, animals, savings, inventories, stocks, which must be managed with criteria of scarcity, so that they reach because if we handle them with criteria of abundance, they will be as a widow’s inheritance, for a few days. During that tour we will have distributed the available resources, such as time, human resources, economic, intellectual and logistic, it may happen that the solution, although reasonable, presents some doubts. In this case, it is urgent to monitor the solution through internal evaluations, external evaluations and exercise the feedback ourselves, determining the steps of the resolution to ratify the solution or make the appropriate amendments to the reasonableness of the solution.

SURVEYS

To make statistical analysis, it is necessary to have the raw material that is the data, which can come from a population, or quantitative or from a sample or qualitative. Whatever their nature, it is necessary to collect them and organize them logically, in order to analyze them later. The sources must be highly reliable and good instruments should be used in the collection. Consequently, the design of the instruments (spreadsheets-diagrams-questions) must respond to the purpose of the problem to be solved. There are primary sources that are the data obtained by publications edited by the original compiler, such as the reports provided by the Central Bank of Venezuela and the censuses carried out by the Nation through the corresponding Census Bureau, and the secondary sources are the data obtained from publications, which do not belong to the original compilers, as would be the reports that appear in magazines, newspapers and others. If the person who has collected the data discloses them, they are primary sources: if the person who published them is not the collector, the source is secondary. Of course, more importance is given to data from original sources than to the latter. Now, how is information collected? We can make direct observations; interviews; questionnaires by sample or total population. If we use the senses during the search of antecedents in the solution of a problem and we do it as a systematic use, we will be in front of the direct observation, because we are perceiving the external reality orienting ourselves towards the collection of data that we find interesting in the course of the investigation. We must do it scientifically in order to avoid errors derived from subjectivity or confusion and orient that investigation towards precise objectives of study, in a systematic way and previous mechanical controls that do not allow deviation. In the interview, one acts socially, since it is the dialogue that the researcher uses that allows him to obtain the data he seeks for his study. In the interview, the same social sectors provide information on all types of past, present and future activities.

The interview allows us to penetrate the very thinking of the components of society in terms of opinions, expectations, behaviors, desires, administrators, administrators, governments, and in the end of any of the human being’s knowledge. Which would be subject to limitations because of the credibility of the people, that is, because of what people believe and manifest, since if a person has a deformed image of something, but it is his image, he expresses it and so it goes to the researcher, to the pollster. Then we must collect the data, both in the observation and in the interview, with care, to obtain an approximation to the truth of the situation with the data obtained. Through the questionnaire method, a set of questions is asked carefully, about the facts and qualities that interest a population or part of it responding, without the direct intervention of the researcher. The respondent can answer without direct intervention of any person and can be applied to various layers of the population by specialization, according to the interest of the survey and research. The questionnaire may consist of scales, that is, that one question is worth more than another, also according to interest. Keep in mind that, if we use several people to fill out the questionnaire, it is essential the veracity of the information regarding the person who fills it, which must be the interviewee and never the interviewer to get out of the way and try to comply with the work, because in this case the information would be wrong and lead us along imperfect paths. The data obtained must be classified by reviewing them first; then group them and finally classify them manually, mechanically or in any other way. In the review, inconsistent responses, illegible responses and incomplete responses are detected. Upon completion of the review, the data is grouped in a form designed to obtain the volume of statistical data and then classified, much better on a computer. The presentation of statistical data must have a table that in turn is made up of titles, headings, matrix column, body and notes.

Statistical graphs may consist of line graph; bar graphic; circular graph. Using these graphs in solving problems is one of the successful steps of divergent thinking and is part of the structural training needed by education and the new classroom, through the teaching of knowledge, knowledge, coexistence and understanding. Upon reaching this point we will have recognized information gaps, we will have distinguished between data and inferences, extracted inferences from the data and information, establishing relationships between the given data, cleared the unknowns and given the answer. We will have discovered what happened, who acted, when the discrepancy occurred, where the difficulty was, and how the final goal was reached. We were attentive to be able to tell our listeners that we parted attentively, with the resolution of the conflict, of the problem.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS. FOREIGN PROBLEMS

It is necessary to distinguish between solving personal problems and problems. In the first we have to act with discipline, concentration, patience, tenacity and know how to react to unforeseen events, such as adaptability and change management. In the seconds we must keep the promises, listen carefully, always be compassionate and tell the truth. All these needs and activities do not teach that there are currently novel situations, that there are no recipes given to them, that we are in search of new ways of observing and addressing the facts, that we must keep an open mind, agile and that change Attitude must be the order of the day. Only in this way will we be able to obtain the operators that transform us into a current state in a desired one through skills, abilities, tools, knowledge or meta-knowledge. The obstacles that form the circumstantial existence of the problem to which we call restrictions will be overcome, which on the other hand influence the initial state, presenting the existing situation and forming the discrepancy or interrogation. It is good to point out that this route should not be done through impulsive behaviors, on the contrary with a calm and calm analysis, with calm and peace, that we should not do it through experimentation, trial and error, that the score is not good counselor, that we should not place more restrictions on the problem, that it is necessary to define the nature of the problem and that we should not follow a single course of current thinking, but use the divergent thinking that we point to at the beginning in any of its modalities. Knowing these problem-solving strategies, we will not give up, but will move on to the final supervised solution.

BODY CENTERS

Another issue that we must point out is that our body is adapted to solve problems if we use, alternatively, the centers that comprise it. In effect we have the motor center, the intellectual center and the motive center. Special technique consists in using the motor center for running, walking, swimming, walking, lifting weights, doing sports and in general outdoor activities to rest the motivational and intellectual centers. If we use the intellectual center a lot without rest, we can unleash a thrombosis and if we use the center motif relentlessly, forcing the heart, we can unleash a heart attack. And with this we will be placing more restrictions on the problem, which is a norm prohibited in the problem solving technique. On the other hand, when we make some physical or mental effort, the call is made, in some philosophies “THE SLEEPED PRINCESS” and in others the Kundalini, which is a circulation of energy that ascends from the gonads to the lapineal and then is poured about the pituitary that is the main spiritual center. That creative energy can be used both for the destructive effects, as well as for the benefit of the individual and his improvement. It is in meditation where this spiritual and biological reaction can best be felt, provided that we have prepared ourselves physically and mentally, already with physical exercises of breathing, body movement, practicing sports or specialized relaxation techniques and conditioning the mind to feel these effects. This preparation comes first to show us the breath that is a power itself. That breath is found in glandular forces that are related to the sources by which the soul dwells within the body. First there are the gonads, which are the male and female sex glands, which secrete hormones, which are only important for vitality, but for the spiritual, mental and emotional health of the individual. Then come the Leydig cells which is the center in which the soul is expressive, creative and inspiring. Through the center of Leydig, individual changes occur at puberty. The adrenal glands that are located on the kidneys that produce adrenaline, are closely related to vigor, perseverance and the desire to move forward, including courage. These glands are related to the solar plexus, which is the great center of the Sun of the body. The thymus that is located above the heart is the seat of the personality that the I uses, the seat of love for oneself and others. It represents the principle of the evolution of man. These four classes of lower glands of the physical body, represent human nature and we must strive to care and maintain to overcome, if we look inward and communicate with ourselves. The three superior spiritual centers are the parathyroid and thyroid that is next to it; the gland behind the brain and the pituitary located in the front center of the brain. The parathyroid glands are responsible for language, and in general speech. They also have a great influence on the ability to choose between this and that. (Power of will). The pineal gland that reveals the forces or desires of the brain, is the very seat of soul memories. It can relate to the biblical passage of Revelation 2.17 about the white stone “And I will give it a white stone and in stone it will be a written name, which no one knows but the one who receives it.” The seat of the mind is considered to be stabbing. And finally there is the pituitary, which is the main spiritual center, because it is extremely sensitive to the vibrations of every genre. It is the healing center of the body. Through the pituitary, love is expressed and is called “the third eye.” We can strive to open the seven spiritual centers or leave them closed and limit ourselves to the material.

CLASSIFICATION OF PROBLEMS

The problems can be classified first, structured and unstructured. The former have the necessary and sufficient information to resolve them and the latter bring incomplete information and therefore present a certain degree of ambiguity. We can also classify them as personal and non-personal. The first are worries, daily and serious difficulties. And the second can be familiar and collective. The latter are classified in turn in community and disasters. Community problems are what concern a particular community, such as garbage and drinking water, or education, or child labor or dropping out of school, but that allow a certain degree of elasticity in representation and that can go being resolved, one by one, with public or private resources and although they present a certain degree of complexity, a careful agreement, between the parties involved through mediation, persuasion or conciliation, can conclude in a party of understanding or relief to arrive To the final goal. Mediation, persuasion and conciliation are forms of conflict resolution. The first is to stand between two or more people who quarrel or contend, trying to reconcile or unite them in friendship. In other words, they are alternating the work or the word, or that they are disputing or debating among themselves. It’s like getting into the center, in the middle. The phrase “seeking to reconcile them” means that mediation may or may not succeed; the quarrel, the contest, the dispute or the debate are extinguished and a new situation arises that we can call friendly settlement. It is an agreement that comes from the parties and generally the mediator writes and enforces it, without any other intervention. With this system, time is gained and future problems are avoided, giving discussion an argument and following the new conclusions. Current legislation is bringing this system as a means of resolving conflicts, with the advantage of saving time and avoiding unnecessary judgments, which can reach a happy end to this system. If there is no success in mediation, then it must go to another phase with the intervention of the competent authorities that will resolve the lawsuit, the dispute, etc. Of course, to be a mediator, patience and knowledge of the situation discussed are required to let each of the parties know what their rights are and where they arrive, without ambiguities of any kind and placing the truth as the north of their sayings. If a person knows that he has to deliver an animal (bull) because he has the claimant’s iron, but demands the value of pastures and molasses, it is easy to determine with an expert what is the value of pastures and molasses according to the custom to reach an agreement; because if the claimant places the quintuple of its value as pasture and molasses, not to deliver the animal, because there can be no mediation and the conflict will continue. In matters of family type mediation is always good, so as not to bring to the public issues that only interest the family; also in religious matters and ultimately where there are conflicts between people who have not lost goodwill.

Persuasion consists in inducing, moving or forcing someone with reasons to believe to do something, that is how the statements, the arguments, the reasons given to a certain person to create or do something to which they are obliged arise. , because his situation is so weak that he cannot draw arguments against him and let him know the state he is in; generally, who has no reason, to present this table yields and is persuaded to execute what was denied by the force of a non-existent, false or erroneous argument. And the conciliation is to compose and adjust the spirits of those who were opposed to each other. It is carried out through acts of conciliation in which he appears before a third party (judge, arbitrator, influential person) in order to determine if they can agree and terminate with the discrepancy. In judicial matters it can take various forms: a) the lawsuit is waived; b) it is agreed in the lawsuit; c) the same is traced. All duties must be recorded in a form that must be signed by the interested parties and be approved by the judge, thereby ending a discussion, debate or dispute between the parties. In the divorces lit, homicides and crimes against humanity, mediation, persuasion and conciliation shine due to their absence, by virtue of the controversial situations, and consequently the resolution corresponds to third parties.

DISASTERS

Disasters are those problems that we must write in capital letters due to the sinister nature of their presentation and sudden encounter, due to the size of their weight, size and the large number of people affected by any of their manifestations and in the case of Venezuela, are represented by the method of heavy rains. There are two laws related to disasters in the country. The first is called the National Civil Protection Organization and Disaster Administration Law, which is dated November 13, 2001 and was published in an extraordinary official gazette number 5557. This law states that primary care in case of disasters must be exercised The police and the firemen. The police because having them in each town, are the first who have knowledge of the matter to communicate it to the authorities and the firemen because they are specialized bodies of attention in serious cases of alteration of nature. This law also states that in the event of a disaster or rather, the symptoms of a disaster, the authorities (President-Governor and Mayor) must decree a “state of alert” in order to set in motion all the activities of the public bodies in case of disaster effectiveness and at this last moment, decree the “state of emergency”. This emergency, according to the provisions of article 4 number 4 of the aforementioned law, consists of “The Official Declaration”, issued by the first civil authority of the Municipality, State or Nation, after hearing the opinion of the Coordinating Committee of Civil Protection and Management of Respective Disasters, which allows the “activation of technical, human, financial or material resources, in order to address or confront the harmful effects caused by a natural or technological phenomenon that has generated a disaster.” This is what has been done lately in the month of February in 2005, when six States of the country were first affected and then also in another State with worse consequences than the previous ones, such as the state of Mérida. In this state the topography of the land and the construction very close to the riverbeds has generated, with the heavy rain, the major disaster. The other law is the Decree with force of Law of the Bodies of Firemen, Bomberas and Administration of Emergencies of Civil Character. This decree is dated November 28, 2001 and was published in the official gazette No. 5561. Among the faculties of the fire brigades are to safeguard the life and property of citizenship; act on risk management; restore public order in case of emergency; prevention, protection, combat and fire fighting; rescue of patients, victims, affected and injured, in cases of emergencies and disasters; criminal investigation organs; monitor compliance with standards, techniques and safety; observe hazardous materials; moderate, major or serious emergencies; prehospital care; educate and prepare citizens to face emergent situations; provide support for catastrophes, calamities or imminent dangers; collaborate with the search and rescue and in general fulfill its objective in legal form.

STUDY AND TRAINING

We believe that we must be involved in the study and training of disaster management since the loss of human lives and material resources, added to the almost non-existent preparation of the population, and to put it directly in terms of self-protection, that is, to defend the own life and its belongings, oblige us to it. Although the first teaching of Vargas, alerted the country and in this second opportunity of heavy rains, the people of Vargas like that they used the methodology of problem solving by applying divergent thinking of inference, deduction and induction so as not to perish, but not in the Mérida State where there had been no equal issue for a long time. The implication in the study of problem solving, especially in relation to natural or technological disasters, matters a lot because training in the solution of difficulties lightens the reaction time, as for the solution, and we could call chronometric analysis, by the measurement of time between the presentation of the problem and its resolution, since people passively involved in a problem implore speed in the solution. It is what seals factors related to the mental processes of the individuals who solve problems.

MENTAL PROCESSES

There are managerial processes, for the use of information that have been called Mental Processes in the resolution of problems and are used in planning, supervision and evaluation, the first process corresponding to the definition of the problem. In this one, a course of action is chosen to reach the goal, aspirations are reduced or the purpose is abandoned; Next comes the selection of strategies to reach the goal, the elements that help and are also sorted for coding are chosen. It is necessary to distinguish if the problems are no structured, because the choice of strategies in both cases are different. Then the mental representation of the problem must be done to graph it on the paper and establish forms and ways that make us see the discrepancies accurately. Learning to distribute resources is another important step to solve problems; If these are not well managed, the usual thing happens, that the goal is not resolved or is halfway. Often we observe unfinished buildings, they wanted to have three floors, but none were concluded. We ask what happened here? The answer is always the same: resources are over. It was not exactly that the resources were finished, but that there was bad planification and dismal distribution of the resources, because the situation would have changed if the first floor was definitively concluded and if the resources had been reached, the second floor and then the third, whereby one or two floors were serving. Other times we are told that the owner died or that there were family problems between the owners (divorce) which constitutes elements to analyze and determine the conditions of the new interested in continuing to solve the problem (construction). Finally, there is the supervisory management process, which begins with the person being aware of the need for it; know when one activity must be paralyzed to start another, avoid impulsivity, not point guilty, but correct corrections and be receptive to assess external feedback (street surveys). Detail so that the definition, the selection of strategies, the mental and graphic representations, the distribution of resources and the supervision of solutions are tools, abilities and skills that allow us to get where we want whenever we are willing to use divergent thinking and Not a simple everyday knowledge. As for the feedback, the interviewers must be reliable both in word and in knowledge, tell the truth and not be negligent since if the data collection plans are filled with lies and fallacies the result is disastrous, loss of resources, deception , wrong ways and total chaos. If the imput is good, the output is good and we can trust it. In the area of ​​mathematics, processes underlying execution are generated, but where not only underlying mental processes of execution must be generated, but also in direction, execution and supervision is in the area of ​​natural and technical disasters, due to the large number of victims They are affected. In these basic processes, time is a function of the knowledge that is available to solve the problem, hence the daily, constant and continuous training that civil defense members and fire departments must have.

EXPERTS AND NEWS Another aspect is the factors that depend on the subjects actively involved in solving problems. Knowledge, experience, dexterity, skills, efforts, patience, sex and age are decisive in solving problems and especially when it comes to natural or technological disasters. It is what is usually called experts and newbies, the former have more information than the latter and therefore their exposure can be more valuable, provided they have also adapted to the change management that modern life presents. The environmental factors, which are the external factors, no longer directly depend on the subjects involved but on the resources, the weather, environmental conditions, climate, and even the number of participants. In all these factors, the resolution of problems can be broken down into sub-goals, that is, into sub-problems that allow working more comfortably on the solution, solving one by one small problems until reaching the end. We can also climb the slope, which implies moving forward little by little and in each case evaluating the next step until reaching the objective. And when the final part of the problem is clear and not the initial state, it is important to work in the opposite direction and start working, starting from the metaconverting it into data, moving from the goal to the beginning.

THE EXPERTISE

There are various types of expertise. Legal medical expertise is one of them; The appraisal is another and in the end the valuation can be carried out through any examination. Now, who does it? It is carried out by people who are called expert experts, because they have special knowledge of a science or art. In legal matters, judicial magistrates are often faced with problems whose solution depends on special knowledge outside their legal preparation and in such cases they occur to technicians in the field to whom they ask for an opinion on the point or points to be clarified. This collaboration incorporated into the files is what is called a judicial expert, and an expert is the one who performs it. Legal medical expertise was incorporated into all laws of all countries, and thus medical science is put at the service of justice.

The duty of an expert to perform expert opinion, that is, the truth, for which one should find it and then want to say it. It happens that sometimes, political interests are imposed on the truth, as in the cases of genocide or war crimes. In these cases, the legal medical reports do not correspond to the truth, but as between heaven and earth there is nothing hidden, at the same time the truth comes out and the crime committed by the falsification of the statements of the experts can be followed. Even Tutankhamen, who was killed more than three thousand years ago, is now known to have been hit in the head, for presenting trauma from a traumatic blow. In any case, the legal medical report must consist of an introduction, presentation, discussion and conclusions. It must go where legal medical examinations are carried out and generally there are two who perform the expertise, although the Organic Procedural Criminal Code does not indicate it, but speaks in the plural of the experts. Which means that they must at least be two. The expert opinion must clearly and precisely contain the reason for which it is practiced, the description of the person or thing that is the object thereof, in the state or manner in which it is found, the detailed performance of the examinations performed, The results obtained and the conclusions made regarding the expert opinion carried out in accordance with the principles or rules of their science or art. The opinion shall be submitted by signed, signed and sealed, without prejudice to the oral report at the hearing. The appraisal is another formality that is often required to establish a result as experience of the experts. It consists of a systematic, orderly and logical method to collect, analyze and process information so that an intelligent opinion can be given about the value of a specific plot. Basically an opinion but that should be supported by the logical analysis of real information. It is currently the best known method to reach conclusions about value. The appraisal process has successfully withstood the test of time. When the properties are subject to taxes, it is necessary to resort to the appraisal to avoid arbitrariness and also the simulation by the debtor. That is, with the appraisal, both parties are entitled. To proceed with the assessment, the nature of the problem is defined; a preliminary survey is conducted; the information is collected; the information is processed

It is currently the best known method to reach conclusions about value. The appraisal process has successfully withstood the test of time. When the properties are subject to taxes, it is necessary to resort to the appraisal to avoid arbitrariness and also the simulation by the debtor. That is, with the appraisal, both parties are entitled. To proceed with the assessment, the nature of the problem is defined; a preliminary survey is conducted; the information is collected; information is processed in value indicators; The indicators are correlated and finally the value conclusion is drawn.

In Venezuela, the tax value of the affected property must be taken into account, the value established in the transfer acts carried out at least six months before the expropriation decree and the average prices at which similar properties have been sold in the last twelve months. One of the most important expertise and where the conclusion of the experts greatly influences, is the graphotechnical expertise. It consists in determining if a signature belongs to a certain person or is not. The document is presented to the judge and if the counterparty denies the signature or declares not knowing it, what is called the comparison can be carried out, which is nothing other than a graphotechnical expertise, to determine whether or not the signature is of the person He denies it. The denied signature is compared with another signature of an inducible document and if the support points and the exits and entrances in general coincide during the study of more than twelve points, the signature belongs to the one who denies it; if not matched, the signature is false or falsified. Another incident that is taking shape in the expertise, is the DNA, especially in paternity trials, when it is denied, in a certain person. Through the procedure of obtaining the DNA of both the person and the other, it is concluded whether paternity is true or not and, consequently, the new reality of a certain action can be established. So far this expertise is carried out in specialized laboratories, but it may happen that in the future, in any laboratory it is carried out. Regarding the expertise as evidence, there is much discussion, since the judge is not obliged to follow the expert’s opinion, if his conviction opposes it. What if it is a truth, is the complementary expertise of the ruling that the judges order and that expertise is mandatory in terms of compliance.

VERBAL REASONING

The forms or methodologies for solving problems necessarily enter into what has been called components of knowledge acquisition. Among these components we find verbal reasoning as the ability to use language to differentiate ourselves as a human species from other living creatures. Verbal reasoning is based on the deductive method, in which, it proceeds from the universal to the particular. We have also said that this method is strictly conformed by syllogism, which consists of a conclusion based on the premises as general concepts. It includes verbal reasoning, the study of assertions, analysis, construction and evaluation of convincing and logical arguments. They are all aimed at demonstrating the validity of a reasoning. In this sense, the argument is an implicit structure in the discourse, in order to support the deduction, and of course the argument must be made up of something that is the statement, and these are statements about classes, elements or situations, general structures and whose veracity depends on the relationships between classes or elements that make them up. (Margarita de Sánchez, 1992). It is precise, then, to study the concept of assertion and we can say that it is an affirmation, in which a relationship is established between two concepts or classes, which function as subject and predicate. The assertions have to do with logical validity and empirical truth. They contain essential elements, called quantifiers, are made up of the following words: “all”, “some”, “none” and “not all”. All men are mortal. Some men are professional. No man is eternal. Not all men are professionals. The statements can be universal, positive or negative, and negative positive particular. All and none are universal affirmations and some and not all are particular affirmations. A universal assertion can be true or false. All men are mortal (true universal assertion); All men are eternal (universal false assertion). No man is professional (false assertion); All men are professionals (false assertion). A characteristic of verbal reasoning, constituted primarily by assertions, is that they can be diagrammed by visible representations to demonstrate their properties or some of them. If we make a large square that represents all animals we can make three circles within the square that represent birds, mammals and insects. The representation is good, because it is visible and true. The uncovered space of the square is for the rest of the animals that we have not named. The chain of thoughts to logically express ideas constitutes the study of arguments. The arguments generally express the beliefs and actions of people and everything they influence. When someone takes a certain position, he argues in his favor everything he believes and turns out in his favor. But another person comes and argues to the contrary how much he believes and is in his favor, with which we have two adverse positions that are attractive both.

The arguments can also be represented and can be classified convincing and logical. In the logical argument the statement contains a set of assertions, among which one of them, the conclusion, is derived from the rest, which constitute the premises. These logical arguments may be valid and invalid. If an argument is omitted a premise, or the conclusion omitted, they are called incomplete arguments. Convincing arguments are used more frequently in everyday language. Example: Water is life, don’t waste it. It is a convincing argument, because it tries to show that without water there is no life, which is true; that should not be wasted, because it does not return, spilled water cannot be collected, it is also true and that if we waste it when we require it we will not have it. There are compelling arguments. For example: War is not necessary. War is necessary. This argument allows us to speak for and against many arguments. The study of verbal reasoning is used today for teaching teaching, universities as an essential tool for understanding, understanding and mental openness towards problem solving. We believe that one must begin with elementary or basic schools and also study high schools, which would result in a better expression of Education, as well as better prepared citizens for abstract thinking. This technique of verbal reasoning enters into vocabulary learning, so that the lived experience can be explained and applied.

ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE. THE DISCERNMENT

The medium influences the acquisition of knowledge and also the ability to apply variables. These processes have to do with selective coding, combination and comparison. By coding we separate the relevant information from the irrelevant. The selective combination allows relevant signals to be integrated and the selective comparison allows the information acquired to be related to what is stored as a product of knowledge and experiences. That is, separation or selection and relationship of information with an earlier one, are the processes that make up the acquisition of knowledge, which in turn, are mental processes that are normally called discernment.

It may also consist of essay strategies, elaboration strategies and organizational strategies. These strategies work using short-term memory and long-term memory. Coding, storing and retrieving information are three components of discernment as a method of acquiring knowledge and how to solve problems. The relevant information implies discarding the data that is not important, so as not to follow all kinds of clues since that relevance can be presented as a keyword, so it is necessary to make a careful reading of the statement in order to clearly determine the objective of the resolution. The encoded information can be combined in various ways to obtain the solution of a problem, following step by step, in order to monitor the solution obtained sometimes and through the combination several resolution options are obtained, so it is important to choose the best of the options and for this, we must make a decision among several, applying the selection until we are sure of the goal in a conscious way. Once the coding and the selective combination have been made, we move on to the selective comparison that consists in relating the information recently acquired, with the information acquired in the past. Discernment is used by every person who has use of reason. It is not reserved to any particular person. Nor does it constitute the only one, nor the best way to solve problems, because there can be many forms of resolution as people can exist.

KNOWLEDGE THEORY

The theory of knowledge covers topics such as sensitivity and the rational; truth as a central theme; the attitudes of the spirit regarding the truth; vulgar knowledge and scientific knowledge; philosophical knowledge; The science; the idea of ​​the method (procedures); method conditions; method structure; analysis and synthesis; method and conception of the world; the math; mathematical reasoning; demonstration; natural Science; observation and experiment; induction; hypothesis and theory; determinism, indeterminism, indetermination; sciences of the spirit; the values; spirit and culture; comprehension; psychology; culture sciences. We will review these sections roughly in order to extract the possibilities of training in problem solving, especially in terms of acquiring knowledge that without the theory of knowledge itself, would be feasible, as it is the acquisition of all knowledge a simple part of the whole, which is the central theory. There are many more titles, but we consider that the essential ones for the purposes of this work are those named. Sensitive knowledge is that which gives us the senses and immediate awareness of ourselves. They are the perceived things that we apprehend by seeing them, touching them, hearing sounds, and others. The sight and the touch are the senses that provide us with knowledge in the first place and the facts of the conscience, such as a pain, a pleasure, a memory or a resolution of the will. External senses and intimate senses, is called sensitive intuition, which is the capture of real objects. Rational knowledge is the relation of ideal objects, for example, to think of a number. If I write the number, that is the representation of the number that is not on paper, or anywhere, but in consciousness, because it is an ideal object. It is the ideal intuition, generally the reason captures the ideal, but it is also assigned the task of finding out what reality is like and in this case the rationalism arises, by contrast, the empiricism that attributes to experience, the preponderant or unique role in knowledge.

As for the truth, we must say that it is the central theme of the theory of knowledge, it consists in the conformity between object and mind, the conformity of lack of knowledge with the corresponding objective situation. There must be a relationship between the trial and the situation to which the trial refers. If I say “the white horse” I mean a certain horse and affirm its whiteness. In reality there is something that corresponds to the horse and white concepts; In my intimacy there is the ability to think about these concepts and relate them. If the relationship agrees with the objective expression, the knowledge is true, the truth comes as a conceptual relationship and its external situation. The truth does not admit degrees, it is always absolute. When knowledge does not correspond to the objective situation to which it refers, it is false or wrong. All the judgments that are issued have at least one claim of truth, what happens is that we always know whether or not that claim is justified. What allows us to discern truth is the evidence. In the evidence we exclude any doubt. The attitudes of the spirit regarding the truth begin when we do not have any kind of knowledge, that is, we are in ignorance, which is the absence of knowledge. If we do not know anything in a calm way, that is, we are in the not knowing; but if we do not know after having made efforts to learn and have put everything on our part to do so, we will be faced with Socratic ignorance “I only know that I do not know anything.” We can call it wise Socratic ignorance. The error is the second of the attitudes of the spirit with respect to the truth, and they consist of taking the false for true, and in the usual use they are usually used, error and falsified in the same sense.The doubt is the oscillation-hesitation that is not resolved neither by the affirmative, nor by the negative is the point of balance between two irreconcilable points of view. Opinion is the state of consciousness in which a true assertion is thought, but with the proviso that it may not be. Opinion can be considered as a judgment The probability is represented by a broken number whose numerator is the number of favorable cases and the denominator is the number of possible cases. s very high equals certainty and when the probability is minimal equals the impossibility.

Certainty is another attitude that consists in recognizing with evidence, the truth of a knowledge, excludes the reserve, the doubt and is sure to possess the truth. In certainty there are no degrees, or it exists or does not exist. As for vulgar knowledge, we can say that an absolute separation of this knowledge is not possible, with scientific knowledge, since it has many steps and most of them border on the scientist, even in its simplest forms. On the other hand, vulgar knowledge has been moving, to what is now called common neglected truths. It differs from scientific knowledge, in that it is architectural, while vulgar knowledge is like sedimentation, like a confusing mass. The scientific knowledge gives a formation of lines, well defined, has unplan and ultimately is methodical knowledge and is presented with security guarantees, while the other is not. Philosophical knowledge devotes much of its effort to elucidate scientific assumptions. In this knowledge we enter into philosophical anthropology, values, metaphysics, etc., which help the picture of it. Science is also unideal but theoretical, technical, ontological, phenomenological, objective and systematic. The idea of ​​the method consists in the procedures that facilitate short and long-term sensory apprehension, to keep in the realm of consciousness. The method allows knowing its firmness, its coherence, its validity, is like saying its organized principle and its guarantee. That is why we say “let’s do it methodically” or do it accordingly. There are methods of research, systematization, demonstration, exposure. In general, the set of procedures for obtaining a fin is called a method; In the case that we are talking about knowledge, that purpose is knowledge. For a method to be lawful and effective, we must be clearly aware of the validity of each of the operations that comprise it and the connections we establish between them. The structure of the method is composed of the link and the address, since everything must have a link and pursue an end, purpose or direction. Analysis and synthesis are the most general methods. The capture of the objects takes the form of a large-scale analysis, since attention has been projected on them, reinforcing the profiles of the objects, highlighting them and individualizing them. Experience is who reports that primary analysis to perform a synthetic operation. That is to say analysis and synthesis. Both are universal modes of knowledge, but more than methods of investigation, systematization and exposure procedures. The analysis consists, then, in the intellectual operation of separately considering the parts of a whole, since the parts assume everything and all assume the parts. The synthesis is an overall inspiration of the object submitted before the analysis, with clarities close by analytical reduction. As for the conception of the world, it can be naive and primary or conscious and critical. Generally the conception of the world made by a certain person can be imposed as a method in certain circumstances, since they come to facilitate the understanding of the facts of cultures. It has always been like this. Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Ciceron, Da Vinci, Galileo, Descarte, Bacon, Sartre, Dilthey, Rickert, Comte, Spencer, Stuart Mill, and all who have done new things and understood. As for mathematics, its entities are not material, but it has a rigidity and context equal or superior in fixedness, to that of all things. We cannot alter a square, but we can break a piece of lead, or iron that is stronger. It constitutes one of the great domains of knowledge. When we talk about problem solving, ninety percent of people think of mathematical problems, made in school, the word problems was associated with arithmetic, geometric and then algebra, trigonometry, etc.

Mathematical reasoning is constituted in the first place, by axioms. They are simple fundamental propositions, which structure geometry, arithmetic and, in general, mathematics. The axioms have been defined as indisputable truths, evident and need no foundation. There is no uniformity to classify them and for some they are analytical judgments, for other synthetic judgments a priori and they have also been called results of the experience. The postulates are a second ingredient of mathematical reasoning. They are judgments that are not obvious, but they are accepted because of them emanate consistent consequences. The analysis, function and set are part of the mathematical architectural structure. For the demonstration it is deduced syllogistically from other recognized judgments, such as certain and necessary and ultimately it is deduced from actions and definitions, the demonstration resolves on the truth of a hypothesis affirming it. The demonstration is made when the corresponding denial is challenged. The natural sciences are circumscribed by nature, which is the set of objects and beings as they are not the product of human action. We must distinguish the natural reality from the spiritual reality. Man belongs to nature and spirituality, the natural sciences investigate objects and beings as long as the hand of man does not produce them. For this, they are worth investigating sensitive objects, through observation. For this reason we call the real sciences, empirical or experience sciences, of observation. Observation is complemented by experimentation. The data is captured, which suggests interest in man, examines its aspects, records them, and performs the examination, the result of which is descriptive and ends with the statement of the perceived. The advertiser must be absent from prejudices and learn without error, that is, as accurately as possible, whatever the observation shows. The senses are the organs of capture, more intimate sense for the spiritual and psychic part. As for experimentation, it may happen that there is material impossibility, but modern life has increased the possibility of experimentation with new techniques and new resources. The unwavering moral limit. Only immoral experiments were done during Nazism, people aging to experiment. Experimentation is an auxiliary method of observation and experimentation, leads to induction, which is the procedure to establish natural laws, and is based on the investigation of the reasons that justify its application, and can not do without considering the provision and effective behavior of objects. Induction can be performed by concordance, by differences, by concomitant variations and by residues. The hypotheses are advances on the experience, which it must judge and is formulated by analogy. If something has happened in an order made at the end, in similar cases something similar must happen. The hypothesis is confirmed or contested.

The theory is an intellectual construction that encompasses several laws, trying to realize reality. The theory can be conceived as a description or as an explanation. It has been said of determinism that it is a conception according to which, each element depends on others in a fatal, necessary way. In the indeterminacy there is an inability to accurately establish an offense. Indeterminism argues that the facts themselves lack a strict determination. The so-called sciences of the spirit, study the human-human nature of reality, man as the founder of culture and culture itself. They study the psychic-spiritual relationship and the environment or environment that it creates, such as language, technique, society, law, science, art, and others. Values ​​are not, but worth. Ortega y Gasset has done a deep analysis on the values. Culture is an environment that man creates and converts in his specific habitat, is formed by myths, technique, science, philosophy, art, law, sociology, political economy, among others. The doctrine of understanding has been developed for some authors, through values, which determine human behavior and culture, as well as the understanding of that behavior and culture as meaningful activities. Psychology teaches that the soul is not enclosed in itself, but open and incorporated into structures of meaning as the objective spirit. It has been classified among general and special psychological psychology, for example the study of characters. The sciences of the spirit comprise a theoretical and a historical branch. Theory gives rise to a normative and a practice, and to each branch of scientific and cultural knowledge, a special philosophy corresponds.

ORDER IN PROCESS EXECUTION

Nor can there be orders established in the use of the processes. There will be people who need to use them one by one, until they become experts in the resolution of difficulties and there will be other people who, due to their high abilities, can use only one way in the mental processes and will get the answer. That is why we said that sometimes, the resolution factors depend on the subject and we expose the theory of newbies and experts. The latter will use a mental arithmetic for timing time in the solution much faster; a newbie does not have enough storage in long-term memory, in order to quickly establish the selective comparison process and must then acquire knowledge in short-term memory, to arrive at such a comparison process. Logically, a newbie can become an expert by improving discernment, by constant practice, that makes him aware of a cognitive activity. This last activity will take you to the search for strategies and the training of them. In the same way you can apply the technique of error analysis, which consists of the search, recognition and correlation of the same, which would be the same technique of supervision, through internal or external evaluations (surveys) and applying feedback, until the possibility of the best option in the solution emerges and exposes it to the interested parties, already corrected or fed back. Reading a material does not bring the improvement of discernment, but the constant use of mental processes that are reversed in the acquisition of knowledge, resources and strategies in the face of every situation that life presents, until achieving a comprehensibility in people and that they become experts and each action that they elaborate can be called experience, that submitted to the analysis by any person or group of people, obtains the approval.

DECISION MAKING

Decision making consists of a mental process that facilitates the resolution of problems. Like any process, it depends a lot on the subject who makes the decision, either because he is directly involved in the resolution of the problem, or because he is a mentor in that matter and can be considered an expert. Consequently, decision-making involves certain difficulties that make the simple or simple solution doubtful and requires an in-depth analysis of the mental processes involved in the execution.

Therefore, strategies are sought that facilitate decision-making, improving the process until we become experts, leaving the classification of newbies, which we have already seen. The factors involved in decision making can be multiple and there is the greatest difficulty for the successful execution of the mental process. We know from experience, that everything has number, weight, measure, color, height, width, flavor, color, smell, distance, solidity, prestige, knowledge, strength, evil, goodness, smallness, greatness, flexibility, location, cost, demand , levels, closeness, remoteness and so on depending on the issue in question. But especially the number that has as many classifications as clouds exist. Arabic, Roman, atomic, cardinal, digit, integer, fractional, mixed, perfect, even, cousin, round, abstract and deficient are just a few denominations with which we find the number: weight, gross and net, heavy, light, rooster and feather; molecular; atomic; Dead, real and simple are denominations of weight. And the measure has to do with the length, volume and area of ​​the bodies. Well, in reality everything has a number, weight and measure, which is a biblical expression in the Book of Wisdom (Catholic Bible) 11,20. The sacred scriptures also refer to the counting of the number of stars; to the number of the children of Israel; large number of descendants; the number of the seals: 144,000; the number of the beast, which is number of man (666). It is also said to give weight to the wind, the false weight is abomination; righteous weight and balance belong to Jehovah; carried in weight by the soldiers and shed all weight. And as for the measure, we have already said it, it is said in the Bible that it is a reference length, volume and area. As for the other words, the most extraordinary in problem solving is location. In general, we must place ourselves mentally by declaring ourselves capable or incapable of solving a problem. In the first case we have the appropriate knowledge, the necessary experience, the acquired wisdom and the appropriate skills and abilities in order to apply them to the problem posed. In the second, humbly declare that we cannot solve it, because we are not able to do so. And physical location, is to determine the place where we are, to establish its coordinates by the Mercator (GTM) transverse system, the cardinal points, at least in twelve meanings such as north, south, east, west, northwest, southwest, northeast, southeast, north-west, south-west, south-southeast, and north-west, that is to say, precisely establish the wind rose, and use letters, maps, knowing the boundaries of each site and locating them with the knowledge that there are two nortes: the north true, that it occurs in the month of December and the other north, which occurs in the month of July, which is the magnetic north. That is why talking about location is talking about geography, detopography, distance, common sense and geometry. But if we apply to every number, weight, measure and location, we can solve as many problems as we request, and we can also talk about magnitudes, shapes, figures, dimensions, functions, movements and forces.

PRINCIPLES IN DECISION MAKING

Locating the particularities of each thing, will help us identify the problems, even if they have not given us the data, consequently we must apply the thinking in all its expression, until we achieve the particularities of each similar or similar thing, which allows us to eliminate by the way of the selection, what does not help to take what serves. In the decision-making processes there is a principle we should follow, and it consists in maximizing profit and minimizing loss. Make the most of a decision-making process with the lowest possible cost, that is, spend it very little to invest, to obtain the greatest profit. We must also identify the variables of each idea, object or person. Its characters, and the positive and negative advantages that each element put into discussion has. The variables are located as accurately as possible, we can make a global comparison of the two or more situations, placing each variable a score that we have determined, as an example of one to two and we place the chosen score on each variable and then add. The winning option will be the one with the highest score. This strategy is called Global Printing. Another strategy is to determine how many positive variables have a certain option and how many negative variables, compare them with the positive and negative variables of the other option. The greatest amount of positive variables wins. Another strategy called adding weights, orders each variable to place a higher score, for example, between one and thirty. Weigh each variable to qualify. Thus a perfect variable must have thirty points, but an imperfect variable will have less than ten. A totally negative variable will have 01. At the end of every qualification it is added, added and the option with the highest amount added will win.

Another strategy is satisfaction. It is done by the housewives every day in the market, they buy lettuce, for example and they do not empty all the lettuce in the soil to choose the best one, but they look for and what they think is good, they buy it through satisfaction. Also with the other purchases they make, satisfaction is enough and the purchase is made. No expertise is needed to make the decision. Sometimes we happen to have two almost perfect or good options to make a decision. Well, in that case the experts recommend doing both, if possible, to eliminate the doubt.

WHO MAKES THE DECISIONS?

Now, who makes the decisions? Necessarily the interested party, just have an updated interest to take it. But as there are experts in certain subject matters, these experts can recommend decision making. The recommendation of the expert is not mandatory, because the expertise does not oblige the interested party, who runs the consequences of decision making. All these strategies in decision-making lead us to a rational way of solving problems and improving the mental processes that are used, provided that all the factors involved in both mental processes, participating subjects and the environment are established. Only in this way will we be able to use the most appropriate strategy, knowing the input level and the output level, to choose the courses of action, which eventually reach serautomatisms, because we will exercise those strategies in an unconscious way, because of the long learning and training we will have reached. We are consciously able to take a very small amount of information from what the world offers us. And today with six, eight or ten radio stations, thirty, forty or fifty television channels and ten or twelve newspapers, which can potentially enter our homes, the information service is stunning and comprehensive. They give information about Venezuela, Mexico, Peru, Russia, USA, Brazil, Patagonia, Greenland, etc. But we warn and respond to a greater amount of information without realizing it. That is, unconsciously. Our conscious part is very limited, because we have said that it is necessary to keep in the field of short, medium and long term memory and this is what we do every day and that is why our unconscious part responds to more of information. The unconscious is smarter than the conscious. The traditional view points out that learning is divided into four stages. First when we don’t know anything and we don’t know that we don’t know anything; Then comes the stage in which we notice that we are incompetent, that is, we don’t know anything, but we want to learn, at least we accept that we don’t know anything and we want to overcome it; Then comes the conscious competition when we learn and know that we have learned, we examine ourselves and pass the test, that is, we are competent and we know that we are; and finally our unconscious keeps knowledge and puts it into practice unconsciously. It is what we do every day, we brush our teeth, we shave, we bathe, we dress, we greet, we look for the bus, or the subway and we go to work. These are unconscious habits that we do without hesitation, without going from the tumbo to the tambo, without trial or error, but we do them with certainty and firmness; Our teeth are clean and our beard shaved. At first it was not so. They had to tell us and remind us to brush our teeth and face. We do all these things so conscientiously, that they are performed harmoniously, while we sing or talk to someone, or listen to radio or watch television. It was so much the practice of these actions that we do them unconsciously and without any effort. And that is learning. But out of habits and entering the field of science, technology, history and philosophy, it is necessary to deepen the information and the storage system, in order to save, organize and bring it into the precise moment, knowing that it must be a theoretical-practical, ontological, phenomenological, objective and systematic knowledge, until arriving, for example, to know what light is from an unconscious point of view and define it at any time as a cross-disciplinary movement of an electromagnetic field, whose energy becomes enfotones. Let’s not let fear intimidate us to make a decision; neither is uncertainty, because in the long run it will be chance who makes the decision. We do not refuse to atomize decisions using strategies, because we must demonstrate capacity to be mayoral as the scriptures say. Solving problems and making sound decisions is the greatest pleasure that life can allow us.

SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS OR HOW TO RESOLVE PROBLEMS- EXISTING PROBLEMS   SITUATION AND DESIRED SITUATION SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS OR HOW TO RESOLVE PROBLEMS- EXISTING PROBLEMS   SITUATION AND DESIRED SITUATION "There is no greater pleasure to learn to solve problems ”

[bharatiyamedia-blog]

Prashant Kanojia vs Yogi Adityanath: What is the Pulitzer-kind of journalism we're defending in identify of press freedom right here?

http://tinyurl.com/y273f7cr In February 2006, Alok Tomar, editor of a Hindi journal referred to as Shabdarth, was arrested by the particular cell of Delhi Police for republishing a cartoon of Prophet Mohammad which had appeared earlier in a Danish newspaper. In the dark, he was carted away by sleuths in a way which was no completely different from the one adopted by the Uttar Pradesh Police in arresting Prashant Kanojia, a TV journalist, from Delhi. Journalist Prashant Kanojia was launched on bail. 101Reporters Although Tomar proclaimed his secular credentials whereas reproducing the contentious cartoon, his pleas have been ignored. The police slapped him with prison fees of disturbing social order and selling communal discord. His jailing was as uneventful as his launch on bail. There was no murmur of help for Tomar or whiff of a protest towards the police motion. Tomar did exceed his transient as an editor in republishing the cartoon which had created controversy worldwide and damage a neighborhood’s non secular sentiments. Tomar’s act was justifiably judged as intentionally provocative although it hardly merited his arrest. Evidently, the arrest was necessitated not by the requirement of regulation however the lurking concern of violence {that a} neighborhood had the potential to unleash. Tomar was by no means accorded the excessive honour of being a warrior for press freedom and thank god for that. However that raises the query, why then have all the liberty of press of warriors now lined up behind Kanojia to defend his proper for unbiased journalism as if he has produced some Pulitzer-kind of labor? It is going to be flawed to create an ethical equivalence between Tomar’s case and Kanojia’s. Such a comparability is dangerous syllogism. But, to defend Kanojia within the identify of press freedom for his “proper” to unfold mischievous and scandalous details about a girl besotted with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is nothing however a gross travesty of fact. For journalists to defend the independence of journalism, the least it wants is the prevalence of journalism. The place is journalism on this case? Take as an example the style during which the girl within the video was egged on to say one thing “scandalous” about Yogi Adityanath. At first look, it was obvious that the girl wanted medical consideration greater than the media’s consideration. Since her pronouncements had the potential for spreading like wildfire, Kanojia and different journalists present in it a horny recipe for immediate fame. Their indiscretion was not confined to purveying flawed info wilfully. They infringed on the non secular sentiments related to the highly effective Nath Sampradaya of Hindus. Alongside his function because the chief minister, Yogi Adityanath heads the temporal seat of Gorakhdham Peeth. It’s an article of religion among the many devotees of the Nath Sampradaya to treat the pinnacle monk as a celibate. Celibacy just isn’t exercised as a selection. Somewhat, it’s integral to the non secular persona of the pinnacle of the peeth, Yogi Adityanath on this case. For thousands and thousands of followers of the Nath Sampradaya, the purveying of unfounded rumours and the mocking of Yogi’s celibacy is as severe a sacrilege as republishing that controversial work of the Danish cartoonist. As in that case, the administration certainly used drive disproportionately, there isn’t any dispute about that. Likewise, there’s additionally little doubt that journalists, led by the Editors Guild of India, want severe introspection on who they stand with and what they rise up for. Can we go off a chunk of unsubstantiated, scurrilous and salacious gossip as journalism and elevate it to the extent of a precept price defending? On this context, it’s instructive to learn the assertion put out by the Editors Guild condemning the arrest of Kanojia and two others (the editor and proprietor of the information channel that aired the so-called story). “The Editors Guild of India condemns the arrest of Noida-based journalist Prashant Kanojia and the editor and head of a NOIDA-based tv channel, Nation Dwell – Ishita Singh and Anuj Shukla- by the Uttar Pradesh authorities…The police motion is high-handed, arbitrary and quantities to an authoritarian misuse of legal guidelines. The Guild sees it as an effort to intimidate the press, and stifle freedom of expression. The FIR relies on the journalist sharing on Twitter the video of a girl claiming a “relationship” with the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh. The tv channel had broadcast a video on the identical subject. Regardless of the accuracy of the girl’s claims, to register a case of prison defamation towards the journalists for sharing it on the social media and airing it on a tv channel is a brazen misuse of regulation….” Massive elements of the assertion are context-setting issues of truth, together with the bit in regards to the police excesses. So, I’ve highlighted solely the phrases that kind the crux of the Guild’s argument and are important to this dialogue. Two issues are clear from the highlighted textual content. One, the Guild has stepped in due to the makes an attempt to “intimidate the press” and “stifle freedom of expression”. Two, the Guild is defending the liberty of expression of not citizen Kanojia however journalist Kanojia, which is its remit as described in its ‘about us’ part: “The Editors Guild was based in 1978 with the dual goals of defending press freedom and for elevating the requirements of editorial management of newspapers and magazines.” That being the case, shouldn’t the Guild have stopped to assume what constitutes journalism, the liberty of which it has taken upon itself to safeguard? Does a scurrilous tweet develop into journalism as a result of a journalist has put it out? Are we to imagine that something a journalist does is journalism and therefore deserving of being placed on the pedestal of press freedom? What if a journalist is caught extorting cash — don’t stretch your creativeness, plenty of that’s already occurring — will he/she nonetheless benefit from the protecting cowl of freedom? Will the Guild rise up for them? After all, not. Then how has it put out this assertion of unqualified help to Kanojia? The place it has certified its assertion, it has made a hash of it. By saying “regardless of the accuracy of the girl’s claims” the Guild has proven a surprising lack of adherence to its said goal of elevating the requirements of journalism. A information channel places out a video that has the potential to character assassinate a monk, additionally a holder of a constitutional put up, and that’s of no consequence to the Editors Guild? This might properly have been a case of careless framing by the Guild, used as it’s to placing out homilies about press freedom with robotic regularity. However it’s this sort of blind, unquestioning help to every kind of journalistic enterprise, “no matter its accuracy” that has precipitated the plummeting of the credibility of the Indian media. If the Guild had commented on the frivolous nature of the report even in passing, the 290-word assertion would have had extra credibility to it. The Editors Guild and all of the editors who communicate for unbiased journalism should care a bit about who and what’s representing that freedom. If, after what he has one, Prashant Kanojia is to be the face of India’s press freedom, there’s a major problem with the best way the media has internalised that freedom. Your information to the newest cricket World Cup tales, evaluation, reviews, opinions, reside updates and scores on https://www.firstpost.com/firstcricket/series/icc-cricket-world-cup-2019.html. Observe us on Twitter and Instagram or like our Facebook web page for updates all through the continuing occasion in England and Wales. !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s) {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function() {n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)} ; if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0'; n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,'script', 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '259288058299626'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.9&appId=1117108234997285"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); window.fbAsyncInit = function () { FB.init({appId: '1117108234997285', version: 2.4, xfbml: true}); // *** here is my code *** if (typeof facebookInit == 'function') { facebookInit(); } }; (function () { var e = document.createElement('script'); e.src = document.location.protocol + '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js'; e.async = true; document.getElementById('fb-root').appendChild(e); }()); function facebookInit() { console.log('Found FB: Loading comments.'); FB.XFBML.parse(); } Source link

[sparda3g]

Kingdom Chapter 550 Review

It’s nothing like a night time of relaxation after the massacre of the day. It was given that Kingdom would go into resting session after an amazing triumphant stand against all odds from Hi Shin Unit. Of course, that would only mean that the plans for the next day or so would bring in something worse than what they already gone through. It was a downtime chapter that you came to expect when the night hour hits, though it ends with worrisome news.

One of the greater strengths of the series is Hara doesn’t let you being deceived on how “immortal” these characters are. From Shin and Kyou Kai to Lieutenants and soldiers, all of them are still human more or less and if the battle tires them out, they will be out of commission. The battle clearly took the wind out of them, spiritually included. It’s sad how some got to rest after an intense battle, but there are plenty of them that slowly die out. The view shot with everyone looking after the bodies was depressing; their words made it worse.

Hara has been utilizing these rookies really well so far and make them for all their worth. Kanto and others’ reactions are genuinely sad because it’s natural for them to break down into tears and hug like they are so glad none of them has died yet at the same time, sad that they lost so many friends. It is sad that the list of named rookies keeps decreasing more and more. This wouldn’t happen with the veterans as it would come out unnatural to act like inexperience guys. The more you grow, the more your emotion is self-constrained.

That said it doesn’t mean they would ignore the hardships like it’s your everyday routine. Ten has to organize the list of survivors and deaths to strategize for the next day. It just keeps on piling up. It’s funny that someone actually calls Bihei out for playing dead in the battle, which it was true. Sadly, Kou is not only tired but caught a bad fever, which reminds the audience that the price is severe. Some are trying to regain stamina, but no doubt they are exhausted. It doesn’t help that the top two Commanders are in the similar position.

The conversation between Kyou Kai and Shin is pretty relaxing and somewhat charming. I always find their relationship to be a great mix of friends, sibling-like, and master and student bond. This was a really nice treat to see them interact again after a while. It’s not without Shin literally crawl his way to meet Kyou Kai in her tent because that’s how banged up he really is. Imagine him crawl his way to fight against Gyou’un. That would be an amazing battle to see.

It’s rather rare for Shin to be sincere about the action he sent her to take. At least he learned about her great achievements to withstand the field by exploiting a crazy plan to split apart literally, so that’s good to know. Even so, Shin actually felt sorry for sending her there and got her in a tiring state. He was really worried about her taking the task. How touching. Plus, he does want to talk for a bit since they are done for the day. He does admit that Gyou’un is a serious challenger, so at least his head is in check.

It’s funny how Kyou Kai always has action that could be mistaken for romance or anything that could take it in a wrong way. For example, she asks for Shin for his hand and she grasps it like they are lovers and maybe ready to mate. That got Shin confused and embarrassed, I think he jumped the gun to think they are about to do “it.” Of course, Kyou Kai breaks the unintentional atmosphere when she finally speaks of the technique to pass down the good luck charm by holding hands. It almost sounds like a friendzone moment if you ask me. Whatever it was, it wasn’t what Shin or fans in general had in mind. Maybe next time.

It does jump back to reality once Kyou Kai reminds him that things are about to get a lot worse and they’re already in a rough shape. It has gotten to the point that they have to go out there and use every tiny ounce of strength to fight; enough to see the death door. That is pretty extreme, but it has to be done. It does cloud my mind with fear on potential long-term character’s death and it would only grow worse from the Zhao’s side of discussion.

Despite how I want Gyou’un get his ass kicked by Shin I do like him as a true opposing threat. He may have act overly confident at first match, but he doesn’t dwell on it and accept his opponents to be worthy foes. It’s great to have someone like him that isn’t Riboku that has wise vision of where the country stands. He is not your typical muscle bound guy that is strong and that’s it. He is wise enough to know the potential threat the Qin’s current men can oppose not just today but so does the future.

It’s amazing that Gyou’un, the man who is deemed as a serious threat, compliments more or less to the current standing of Qin and the military. He practically hyped and acknowledged men like Shin, Kyou Kai, Ousen, and so on to be the growing breed of the future Six Great Generals. He was just missing Heki and that was the only flaw I have. The only troubling part I have is he more or less insinuates that they have to kill them off before they “mature,” which sounds to me that this arc will kill someone off. It could be a red herring or overthinking on my end, but it does sound like that’s what it is setting up. It’s obvious now that Gyou’un and others won’t underestimate their opponents’ capability and that’s already alarming.

To make matters worse, Hara intentionally wrote this chapter to be a problematic view of Hi Shin Unit tiring out and it also implied that Qin is also in a tight spot to preserve resources. What accumulates is Riboku, ready to drop the news on Qin’s death clock. The growing fear of breaking news never felt so frightening since the USA Election 2016; yes, I said it. Anyway, the buildup is to learn the time length of how long Gyou’s resources will last.

I shouldn’t remind this, but Gyou remains to be crucial for Zhao for the resources they need to keep on going. The new detail however said that Qin actually only have ten days left before it’s all gone, which is safe to say that we got ourselves a time limit. We can keep on track on the days as well as grow fear from it. It reminds me of the Coalition War Arc with the time limit before Mountain Tribe comes to the rescue, only this time, they must win before that day arrives. The worst news is Riboku has announced that Gyou has enough resources to last them for 20 days, double the amount of Qin’s day. Oh dear…

It would be astonishing if Kanki is the one to send that “news” so they can fall for a trap. I don’t think that would be the case, because that would be too easy for Riboku to fall for something like that. That said I do believe this would transitions to Kanki and his men in the next chapter or at least very soon. It’s about time for him to take action and perhaps cause a stir that would shorten the length for Zhao. We have to wait and see.

It was an interesting cool down chapter. Despite the depressing beginning that was conveyed really good it has a nice moment with Kyou Kai and Shin settling down as a swell companion. Gyou’un continues to be impressive with his wise outlook of future threats, which could be a warning for characters. Lastly, the news from Riboku creates an unsettling tension for the next couple of battles. Damn those time limits. This is why I remove them in video games…

#kingdom #chapter 550 #review

[fletacorona28-blog]

Leading UK Educational institution Subject Tables As well as Rankings 2017 College Resource.

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[bloodroyalsrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, ALEX!

You have been accepted for the role of AMELIA SLUGHORN. Mysterious and changable, from the outset we intended for Amelia to be one of our most flexible skeletons. The fact that she was existentially constructed on a talent for adaptability left a lot of room for interpretation as to her true nature; the challenge, then, was how someone translate that into a solid and believable character who would fit within the frame of the game. Your interpretation knocked it out of the park. We adore your Amelia with all her selfish and effervescent edges and can definitely see why she’s probably left a trail of broken hearts along her travels. Bravo! Please look at the CHECKLIST for next steps. Welcome to Blood Royals!

♕ I: OUT OF CHARACTER ♕

NAME / ALIAS: alex

♕ II: CHARACTER INFORMATION ♕

FULL NAME: Amelia Slughorn

FACECLAIM: Ana de Armas

DATE OF BIRTH: December 15th, 1952;

Sagittarius Ravenclaw: Ravenclaw Sagittarians are the philosophers of the magical world. They love pure theory, pure mathematics, and anything that appeals to their yearning for far horizons, whether those horizons be physical (in which case they will do a lot of traveling) or mental. They excel at astrology and research, and have the rare gift of both being able to investigate a subject deeply and then being able to explain it to other people in plain language. This makes for excellent teaching potential. They are cheerful, athletic, brisk, and humourous, and also decidedly eccentric. Sometimes they get on people’s nerves, because they don’t have as many interpersonal skills as they seem to think they have, but it’s hard to stay mad at a Ravenclaw Sagittarian for very long. They’re just too goofy. HOGWARTS HOUSE & YEAR: Ravenclaw, Class of 1969 GENDER & PRONOUNS: Female, she/her/hers SEXUALITY / SHIPS / ANTI-SHIPS: Bisexual, I ship Amelia/Chemistry and my anti ships would be Amelia/No Chemistry. OCCUPATION: Technically unemployed, Amelia is something of a renaissance witch (read below); but her constant role is as public relations representative for the Ministry abroad.

ALLIANCE: Neutral POLITICAL VIEWS:

Amelia remains neutral in many deeply political issues within the wizarding world. She has publicly expressed support for magical beings regardless of blood purity, and concerns for the protection of muggleborns who may be bullied or persecuted in the muggle world. Amelia advocates for their safety, but she does not necessarily show strong support to mend ties with muggles anytime soon. She also does not believe they should hold political power, except perhaps those that demonstrate incredible abilities and a willingness to place the interests of the wizarding community over muggles. While she is not fervently supportive of blood purity, she wants to retain their higher status - it only makes sense for families with centuries old magic in their veins to be in powerful positions, but she does not believe it should come at the expense of destroying muggles, muggle borns or shaming those who wish to mix with them.

Privately, Amelia disapproves of muggle/wizard relationships - both because of her mother’s history with muggles, and her sister’s romantic misadventures with a muggleborn. She believes muggles will never truly understand, or accept, a magical creature and vice versa. History and precedence does not make for healthy, supportive or even pragmatic relationships and can only lead to more chaos in her perspective.

Depending on the company, however, point of view can change; but she is leaning more towards supporting the Death Eater cause, as long as it is without Lord Voldemort and his cruel practices.

KNOWN FACTS:

The Slughorn family is known and wealthy due to both their effortless ability to create and nurture relationships, along with their ancient family “business” as patrons of wizards with spectacular talents in the artist, potion master, duelists, quidditch players and those dabbing in the arts of divination and alchemy. You could say they have eyes and ears where they feel they need to be; but they do also adore supporting those of value to their interests. Their money is ancient and the return on investment often worth whatever risks they may face.  

The Slughorns have a history of remaining neutral in polarizing topics; specially when it comes to muggles and muggleborns. Infamously, they once or twice they have sponsored muggleborns of extreme talent, provoking some tension amongst the pureblood society. But this is often dismissed by them, as they are talented at twisting their reasons (talent, potential, for the greater good) and the occasions are so few and between, they are often forgotten by their next investment.

Amelia’s talent for socializing was not natural. During her first years at Hogwarts, she was something of an eccentric child who felt left out due to being sorted into Ravenclaw house. Yet with the tutelage of her older sister, she slowly came into herself - by the time she graduated Hogwarts, she was already known for her charisma and spontaneous adventures. Not all of them true, but who she makes no effort in silencing (some) stories.

This same, older and beloved sister was recently betrothed and left at the altar; she was engaged to a non-name American wizard who proposed to her after a long term relationship. Rumors have it her sister went into exile due to the public shame, and many often whisper of how her cries could be heard for days. Rumors also say the man was not a pureblood, but a muggleborn who was paid off by their father to disappear. Worst rumors say he was killed before the wedding to prevent tainting their blood line. Regardless, there was heartbreak, yet Amelia was nowhere to be found at the wedding reception. Some say this means she either knew or did something; but she also hasn’t bothered to clarify this.

Amelia tends to dab in different affairs depending on her mood; she submits photographs, editorials and open-eds to The Daily Prophet, on others she edits a recently published potion or antidotes, and she has a recently published books on culinary delicacies across the wizarding world with a focus on South America and the Caribbean. Lately, she picked up the drawing of portraits, and she amuses herself and guests by drawing caricatures of them.

BOGGART: Herself without a face; Amelia fears looking in the mirror and not recognizing her own reflection. She’s slowly yet surely losing grasps of her values, her principles and her true goals in life - she fears the moment she has to sit down and truly take a hard look at pure, raw reality. AMORTENTIA: tropical summer storm ; ocean breeze at dawn ; old worn out leather ; elderflower wine

PERSONALITY TRAITS: At least four detailed personality traits Adventurous & Eccentric - A bohemian heart beats within her chest. Amelia craves the thrill of change and the adrenaline of hopping from one place to another without the need to commit anywhere. She goes where she wants and does as she pleases. An aesthete by nature, she seeks the beauty of the land, their people, their food and their culture. Amelia is mesmerized by beauty itself and she is capable of finding it in humans and art alike. This adds to her eccentricity; she cares little for the mundane and shows no care for whatever she finds dull or boring, sometimes to extremes.

Observant & Adaptable - Fascinated as she is by humans, she is quite observant of quirks and little changes others might overlook. At times, she finds delight by just staying in the back and observing the interactions of the crowd; noticing the glances, glares, and gestures of every person. She uses this knowledge when she chooses to interact, too; she knows what name to drop, what topic to touch on, or what question to ask. Her ability to read the environment and the people in it provoke many to seek her company and counsel. She can switch from a charming socialite to an eloquent aristocrat to a dedicated academic based on the scene and the mood.

Deceitful & Detached - Clearly, her knack for changing to fit the winds means she lacks candor and sincerity. Very rarely will she say what she actually means; and even rarer are the times she will speak her mind without twisting or switching words around. Sometimes this is harmless; a friend who needs a shoulder to cry on, a white lie meant to prevent more pain, etc. Sometimes it is said with a purpose - to influence, to manipulate, or simply to lie about the many personal and borrowed secrets she holds dear. The life she leads prevents her from truly growing roots, be it with a place or with a person; and she prefers it that way. While she has loved ones she certainly cares for, Amelia prefers not to feel anything too intensely; it leads to chaos, and however crazy her life is, it is never, in her eyes, chaotic.

Vivacious & Self-Indulgent - Amelia has a certain unique love affair with life. She aims to live on her terms and she looks always for the splendid, the delicate, the amazing aspects that this world has to offer.  Why should she not thrive in beauty and wonders when they are ripped for the taking? She looks for the good life and feels no shame in it; yet her hunger for these experiences, short-lived as they may be, have led to extremes. Conniving and manipulative actions done in the name of loyalty, of self preservation, of doing anything to continue to live the life she wants - she is not proud of them, guilt plagues her mind at times; but like her uncle taught her, she prefers to ignore them rather than to dwell in what cannot be changed anymore.

SPECIAL SKILLS: Amelia is fluent in English, French and Spanish but she can defend herself in German and Portuguese. She is practicing legilimency, she wants to become an expert eventually. She also tends to pick up hobbies depending on where she goes.

BIOGRAPHY:

Amelia is the youngest daughter  to Antonina de la Rosa and Eldwin Slughorn, born in Spain to her cuban mother who was visiting her family at the time. Her mother is the heir of an ancient and long line of infamous and iAmelia is the youngest daughter to Antonina de la Rosa and Eldwin Slughorn, born in Spain to her Cuban mother who was visiting her family at the time. Her mother is the heir of an ancient and long line of infamous and influential brujas in Cuba who sought refuge in Northern America and Europe when rumors of their magical abilities (things of the devil to the devout catholic population) began to bring deadly threats to their family. Antonina attended Hogwarts then, and through interactions with her favorite teacher, the famous and well-connected, Horace Slughorn, she met his nephew - a talented quidditch player a few years older than her. They married both out of love (infatuation, at least) and convenience; Antonina sought to build a name for her family in Europe, and Eldwin always did like a pretty face and sharp mind.

Spoiled and adored during her childhood, she was expected to attend and learn many lessons to become a proper pureblood lady along with her elder siblings. They were allowed to be loud and rambunctious sure enough; they were free to indulge in their likings as they pleased, as long as they excelled at it. Amelia those grew without many barriers in her life; supported by her parents, protected by her siblings and instructed by her relatives, in their family no one fell behind and loyalty runs deep.

Her parents settled in Spain’s countryside to raise their children, and while her siblings attended Beauxbatons, Amelia begged to go to Hogwarts where her favorite uncle taught. She dreamed of his stories and travels, and soon she became Horace’s protégé despite being sorted, to his disappointment and her fear, in a different house. The first few years saw a curious and wild child who didn’t quite fit in, as she was only friends with fellow pureblood children, she was sometimes bullied for her eccentricities. Eventually, due in great part to the aid of her older sister, Amelia learned to navigate the halls of Hogwarts as a proud Ravenclaw and use some finesse in her behavior; she was capable of being equally approachable and sly, humorous and cruel, depending on the occasion and the witch or wizard she faced.

After endless lessons, Amelia has become quite the expert in socializing and networking with very specific witches and warlocks; those that spark her curiosity, or that tick a box she needed. Her adult life is filled of tales from foreign places, and none can track her down unless she wishes to be found. While she tried to settle for a moment in Argentina, where she worked as the apprentice to a potion master, this only lasted for a few months before she felt the itch to move some place else. She is always on the look for the next steps, the next place to go, the next person to meet. The opportunities are endless, and the young witch is simply dying to explore and exploit them all.

CONNECTIONS:

Isle Ollivander; Amelia always had a certain appreciation for Isle’s tendency towards silence and solitude; her presence was a welcome breath from her usual scene. The fact that Isle is willing to step past her bashfulness is very exciting to Amelia; while the same age, she’s protective of the witch and she looks forward to guide her into these new endeavors.

Hero Borgin; The young witch’s thirst for adventure is amusing, and Amelia has never been one to prevent others from reaching for the stars. In a way it bothers her, to see someone’s wishes shut down by their own family; but she can somewhat understand the reasoning behind keeping such a bright mind hidden in the safety of their home. The world out there is becoming uglier with the day and her interests in archeology could lead to dangerous routes. Besides, once one has tasted freedom, it is hard to go back to a cage.

Roman Shafig; Not one for commitment, their mutual understanding is much cherished by the young witch. She admires his character and ambitions and is always disposed to help whenever, wherever, or with whoever is needed. Roman is one of the few wizards she still keeps in contact with after their romantic liaisons; he is a friend to her, and often writes him owls filled with tales of her affairs and sometimes less than noble yet equally entertaining deeds. He is just what she needs whenever he happens to be around, and that is just fine with them.

♕ III: FREESTYLE ♕

My friend, I would do graphics if I could, but I can share her mock blog right here.

Wand; 10 ½’, Maple, Phoenix Feather with Chimera Scale Fragment,

Core: Phoenix Feather - Very versatile. Learns most varied magic, hard to be chosen. Its main strength lies in Defense Against the Dark Arts, although its adaptability can wrench it to hexes and jinxes if need be. As with the dragon heartstring core, the phoenix core is common amongst Light Wizards, but its users are not necessarily Light Wizards.

Today, [Chimera Scale Fragments] are only found as parts of heirloom cores, and even then, all such cores are a more common core (often dragon heartstring) with a tiny fragment of scale embedded. Chimera wands are most common in Greece and the Balkans, although as they were circulated through the Mediterranean and former Roman Empire they are found throughout Europe. These wands are prized for their raw power, although they are difficult to control.

Maple Wood: “I have often found that those chosen by maple wands are by nature travellers and explorers; they are not stay-at-home wands, and prefer ambition in their witch or wizard, otherwise their magic grows heavy and lacklustre. Fresh challenges and regular changes of scene cause this wand to literally shine, burnishing itself as it grows, with its partner, in ability and status. This is a beautiful and desirable wood, and wand quality maple has been among the most costly for centuries. Possession of a maple wand has long been a mark of status, because of its reputation as the wand of high achievers.”

#accepted #amelia slughorn

[lucyariablog]

The Murky World of Influencer Marketing: How Non-Disclosure Can Hurt Your Brand

Ever since marketers cottoned on to the potential for social media to drive influential word-of-mouth brand recommendations, they’ve tried to either foster or fake these discussions.

“I heartily endorse this event or product,” says a monotone Krusty the Clown in a snippet of video used to advertise everything from cough syrup to atomic particle accelerators. Krusty’s cut-and-paste approach to celebrity endorsement might be a long-running gag on The Simpsons, but the rise of influencer marketing in social media may mean the joke is getting just a little too close to reality.

Last year, Scott Disick of Keeping Up with the Kardashians fame (don’t worry, I didn’t know either) accidentally revealed to his Instagram audience just how little effort he puts in to his well-paid endorsements by cutting and pasting a little more than he intended:

“Here you go, at 4pm est, write the below: ‘Keeping up with the summer workout routine with my morning @booteauk protein shake!”

Leaving aside the carelessness with which Disick carries out his sponsored activities – I mean, he had one job to do – don’t let it escape your notice that the brand also scripted the post for him. I like to imagine those 12 unremarkable words were the result of a lengthy copywriting process of agency drafts and stakeholder approvals where no one – even Disick himself – noticed that he’s supposedly preparing his morning protein shake at 4 in the afternoon. And, while Disick may have unwittingly disclosed the brand relationship, the intended text contains no such disclosure. The whole exercise is about as authentic and convincing as the president’s hair.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Social Media Mistakes: What Brands Should Do to Avoid Epic Fails

Whom do you trust?

It’s not surprising that influencer marketing is a popular way for marketers to get their message out. When it comes to trusted sources of information, a word-of-mouth recommendation always ranks highly.

Always a fun time on the @AGT set! Another amazing episode of #JudgeCuts is on tonight at 8/7c! #DontMissIt

A post shared by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum) on Aug 1, 2017 at 11:07am PDT

Even if Dunkin Donuts is a sponsor of America’s Got Talent, should #ad disclosures extend to related social media updates like this? (We think it should.)

We’re also more likely to trust those we admire — the famous, the noteworthy, or the highly successful people who represent qualities and values we might aspire to. It’s why every new book comes with recommendations on the jacket from authors we’ve read, why sports fans dress like sports players, and why rock fans dress like rock stars.

These influencers don’t always have to be mega-stars either, but the right influencer with a big enough audience within the right niche can have a massive impact.

Influencers don’t have to be mega-stars. The right influencer in the right niche can have big impact. @Kimota Click To Tweet

According to the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual global survey of trust and credibility, 55% of respondents say, “Individuals are more believable than institutions, and a company’s social media page is more believable than advertising.”

55% of respondents say a #socialmedia page is more believable than ads via @EdelmanPR survey. Click To Tweet

Huzzah! If consumers are skeptical toward brands talking about themselves, let’s fire up the social media machine and find ways to get more trusted and relatable individuals talking about us instead! Let’s take the reasons they don’t trust our own marketing – too scripted and rehearsed, too self-serving and out of touch, too fake – and carry them over into the word-of-mouth space until we sap these trusted individuals of any credibility as well!

OK, I’m sure that last bit isn’t what marketers intend when designing their influencer strategies, but that will be the result if they continue the way they’re going.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: The Democratization of Distrust Is Our Biggest Opportunity

When is a social media post an ad?

Some social media influencers, particularly on Instagram, command highly active audiences numbering in the millions. No wonder some brands are prepared to fork out tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single product-friendly social media endorsement. And some are eager to make these paid endorsements appear as naturally occurring word-of-mouth recommendations … anything but a far less trusted advertisement.

shopping

A post shared by Scott Disick (@letthelordbewithyou) on Jul 28, 2017 at 1:28pm PDT

(Oh, and by the way, this includes giving influencers free stuff or any other contra arrangements loophole-seeking marketers might dream up.)

Having had a few conversations over the years with marketers who use similar tactics, I know their defense is usually that the audience isn’t stupid – that it’s easy to detect paid influencer campaigns – so it’s all cool, really, and stop trying to overthink it.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Ads Are Killing the Web: Are You Part of the Problem?

Are influencers’ audiences ignorant?

When George Clooney visits another stunningly luxurious location and makes a big scene about opting for the pod coffee, we know it’s a paid fiction because we’re in the ad break waiting for the return of our regularly scheduled program. We don’t even need to believe Clooney drinks pod coffee at home for the associations of luxury and charm to infuse our perceptions of the brand. It’s a statement, not necessarily a literal truth. It’s certainly not word of mouth.

So far, so marketing 101.

However, when Margot Robbie posted photos to Instagram of herself in stylish Wellingtons at the Glastonbury Festival (tagging the brand name), her posts lacked the context of a commercial break. While Robbie originally included the hashtag #ad in the post, some eagle-eyed fans spotted that it was deleted soon after and replaced with #glasto. Understandably, her followers were confused; was the original hashtag a mistake or was this really a paid post trying not to be?

Eagle-eyed fans spotted @MargotRobbie’s tweet #ad was replaced by #glasto. Was it a paid post, asks @Kimota. Click To Tweet

Image source

Was it an ad or wasn’t it? People really wanted to know, as this would change how they viewed the content: word of mouth or paid promotion? And the fact that a clear disclosure matters to them proves they do consider one more valuable and trustworthy than the other, which is exactly why some marketers would rather smudge over the whole disclosure thing.

Of course the audience cares about disclosure. If I began name-dropping various social media and content marketing tools into my columns and tweets you’d want to know if I genuinely used the products or if I was just paid to pretend I did. Right? Sorta crucial information when assessing the validity of a recommendation.

Yet, a recent study found that a staggering 93% of sponsored content posted by A-list influencers on Instagram did not adequately disclose the paid brand relationship.

Over 90% of top celebrity #socialmedia endorsements violate @FTC regulations via @mediakix. Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 9 Strategies for Using Customer Testimonials in Your Content

Can marketing influencers get in legal trouble?

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission has begun cracking down on inadequately disclosed influencer marketing on social media – particularly Instagram. Earlier this year, the FTC sent warning letters to more than 90 influencers and marketers.

The @FTC reprimanded 90 #socialmedia influencers for inadequate disclosure, says @Kimota. Click To Tweet

There really is no excuse for ignorance either. Did anyone really think there wouldn’t be rules about this stuff? The FTC series of endorsement guides includes an extremely helpful section on social media. Naturally, if you live outside of the United States you should check whether there are any local guidelines or restrictions. But if you follow the FTC guide, you’re unlikely to go too wrong.

If you follow the @FTC guide for #socialmedia, you’re unlikely to go too wrong. @Kimota #influencermarketing Click To Tweet

It’s worth noting that the FTC doesn’t mandate any specific wording or a single method of disclosure as long as the disclosure is clear. And that means:

NOT simply thanking or name-checking the brand

NOT using vague tags like #partner or #sp (would the average person know what they mean anyway?)

… and definitely NOT a self-serving assumption that the audience is “smart enough to work it out for themselves”

It’s up to you whether you tag posts with #sponsored or #promotion or something equally unambiguous; however, in most cases, three characters are probably all you need: #ad.

Three characters are all you need to clearly disclose paid sponsorships: #ad. @Kimota Click To Tweet

But don’t think you can hide the disclosure in a forest of other hashtags and still be compliant. The same goes when the disclosure is hidden behind a link or “more” button, as can happen on Instagram or Facebook. Everyone who sees the post – even a truncated version – should see the disclosure, not just those who click.

This is where some content marketers could come unstuck. Your native advertising or sponsored article might carry a clear disclosure but if the related social media doesn’t you could still be in breach. Anyway, the FTC also has a detailed guide to native advertising that spells out a number of scenarios and how disclosures should be handled.

Sadly, I suspect some of those marketers who most need to understand and abide by these rules are the ones most likely to ignore them. Clearly disclosing influencer posts as paid sponsorships or ads sort of undermines why they’re doing this in the first place.

But instead of tapping into the greater trust created by word of mouth, their approach is actually eroding trust in social media even further.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

An 8-Step Process to Use Influencers to Elevate Your Brand

Why Native Advertising Won’t Survive, Regardless of FTC Involvement

A version of this article originally appeared in the November issue of CCO magazine. Subscribe for your free print copy today.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post The Murky World of Influencer Marketing: How Non-Disclosure Can Hurt Your Brand appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/12/influencer-marketing-non-disclosure/

[gabrielcollignon]

The Murky World of Influencer Marketing: How Non-Disclosure Can Hurt Your Brand

The Murky World of Influencer Marketing: How Non-Disclosure Can Hurt Your Brand

Ever since marketers cottoned on to the potential for social media to drive influential word-of-mouth brand recommendations, they’ve tried to either foster or fake these discussions.

“I heartily endorse this event or product,” says a monotone Krusty the Clown in a snippet of video used to advertise everything from cough syrup to atomic particle accelerators. Krusty’s cut-and-paste approach to celebrity endorsement might be a long-running gag on The Simpsons, but the rise of influencer marketing in social media may mean the joke is getting just a little too close to reality.

Last year, Scott Disick of Keeping Up with the Kardashians fame (don’t worry, I didn’t know either) accidentally revealed to his Instagram audience just how little effort he puts in to his well-paid endorsements by cutting and pasting a little more than he intended:

“Here you go, at 4pm est, write the below: ‘Keeping up with the summer workout routine with my morning @booteauk protein shake!”

Leaving aside the carelessness with which Disick carries out his sponsored activities – I mean, he had one job to do – don’t let it escape your notice that the brand also scripted the post for him. I like to imagine those 12 unremarkable words were the result of a lengthy copywriting process of agency drafts and stakeholder approvals where no one – even Disick himself – noticed that he’s supposedly preparing his morning protein shake at 4 in the afternoon. And, while Disick may have unwittingly disclosed the brand relationship, the intended text contains no such disclosure. The whole exercise is about as authentic and convincing as the president’s hair.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Social Media Mistakes: What Brands Should Do to Avoid Epic Fails

Whom do you trust?

It’s not surprising that influencer marketing is a popular way for marketers to get their message out. When it comes to trusted sources of information, a word-of-mouth recommendation always ranks highly.

Always a fun time on the @AGT set! Another amazing episode of #JudgeCuts is on tonight at 8/7c! #DontMissIt

A post shared by Heidi Klum (@heidiklum) on Aug 1, 2017 at 11:07am PDT

Even if Dunkin Donuts is a sponsor of America’s Got Talent, should #ad disclosures extend to related social media updates like this? (We think it should.)

We’re also more likely to trust those we admire — the famous, the noteworthy, or the highly successful people who represent qualities and values we might aspire to. It’s why every new book comes with recommendations on the jacket from authors we’ve read, why sports fans dress like sports players, and why rock fans dress like rock stars.

These influencers don’t always have to be mega-stars either, but the right influencer with a big enough audience within the right niche can have a massive impact.

Influencers don’t have to be mega-stars. The right influencer in the right niche can have big impact. @Kimota Click To Tweet

According to the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, an annual global survey of trust and credibility, 55% of respondents say, “Individuals are more believable than institutions, and a company’s social media page is more believable than advertising.”

55% of respondents say a #socialmedia page is more believable than ads via @EdelmanPR survey. Click To Tweet

Huzzah! If consumers are skeptical toward brands talking about themselves, let’s fire up the social media machine and find ways to get more trusted and relatable individuals talking about us instead! Let’s take the reasons they don’t trust our own marketing – too scripted and rehearsed, too self-serving and out of touch, too fake – and carry them over into the word-of-mouth space until we sap these trusted individuals of any credibility as well!

OK, I’m sure that last bit isn’t what marketers intend when designing their influencer strategies, but that will be the result if they continue the way they’re going.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: The Democratization of Distrust Is Our Biggest Opportunity

When is a social media post an ad?

Some social media influencers, particularly on Instagram, command highly active audiences numbering in the millions. No wonder some brands are prepared to fork out tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single product-friendly social media endorsement. And some are eager to make these paid endorsements appear as naturally occurring word-of-mouth recommendations … anything but a far less trusted advertisement.

shopping

A post shared by Scott Disick (@letthelordbewithyou) on Jul 28, 2017 at 1:28pm PDT

(Oh, and by the way, this includes giving influencers free stuff or any other contra arrangements loophole-seeking marketers might dream up.)

Having had a few conversations over the years with marketers who use similar tactics, I know their defense is usually that the audience isn’t stupid – that it’s easy to detect paid influencer campaigns – so it’s all cool, really, and stop trying to overthink it.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Ads Are Killing the Web: Are You Part of the Problem?

Are influencers’ audiences ignorant?

When George Clooney visits another stunningly luxurious location and makes a big scene about opting for the pod coffee, we know it’s a paid fiction because we’re in the ad break waiting for the return of our regularly scheduled program. We don’t even need to believe Clooney drinks pod coffee at home for the associations of luxury and charm to infuse our perceptions of the brand. It’s a statement, not necessarily a literal truth. It’s certainly not word of mouth.

So far, so marketing 101.

However, when Margot Robbie posted photos to Instagram of herself in stylish Wellingtons at the Glastonbury Festival (tagging the brand name), her posts lacked the context of a commercial break. While Robbie originally included the hashtag #ad in the post, some eagle-eyed fans spotted that it was deleted soon after and replaced with #glasto. Understandably, her followers were confused; was the original hashtag a mistake or was this really a paid post trying not to be?

Eagle-eyed fans spotted @MargotRobbie’s tweet #ad was replaced by #glasto. Was it a paid post, asks @Kimota. Click To Tweet

Image source

Was it an ad or wasn’t it? People really wanted to know, as this would change how they viewed the content: word of mouth or paid promotion? And the fact that a clear disclosure matters to them proves they do consider one more valuable and trustworthy than the other, which is exactly why some marketers would rather smudge over the whole disclosure thing.

Of course the audience cares about disclosure. If I began name-dropping various social media and content marketing tools into my columns and tweets you’d want to know if I genuinely used the products or if I was just paid to pretend I did. Right? Sorta crucial information when assessing the validity of a recommendation.

Yet, a recent study found that a staggering 93% of sponsored content posted by A-list influencers on Instagram did not adequately disclose the paid brand relationship.

Over 90% of top celebrity #socialmedia endorsements violate @FTC regulations via @mediakix. Click To Tweet

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: 9 Strategies for Using Customer Testimonials in Your Content

Can marketing influencers get in legal trouble?

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission has begun cracking down on inadequately disclosed influencer marketing on social media – particularly Instagram. Earlier this year, the FTC sent warning letters to more than 90 influencers and marketers.

The @FTC reprimanded 90 #socialmedia influencers for inadequate disclosure, says @Kimota. Click To Tweet

There really is no excuse for ignorance either. Did anyone really think there wouldn’t be rules about this stuff? The FTC series of endorsement guides includes an extremely helpful section on social media. Naturally, if you live outside of the United States you should check whether there are any local guidelines or restrictions. But if you follow the FTC guide, you’re unlikely to go too wrong.

If you follow the @FTC guide for #socialmedia, you’re unlikely to go too wrong. @Kimota #influencermarketing Click To Tweet

It’s worth noting that the FTC doesn’t mandate any specific wording or a single method of disclosure as long as the disclosure is clear. And that means:

NOT simply thanking or name-checking the brand

NOT using vague tags like #partner or #sp (would the average person know what they mean anyway?)

… and definitely NOT a self-serving assumption that the audience is “smart enough to work it out for themselves”

It’s up to you whether you tag posts with #sponsored or #promotion or something equally unambiguous; however, in most cases, three characters are probably all you need: #ad.

Three characters are all you need to clearly disclose paid sponsorships: #ad. @Kimota Click To Tweet

But don’t think you can hide the disclosure in a forest of other hashtags and still be compliant. The same goes when the disclosure is hidden behind a link or “more” button, as can happen on Instagram or Facebook. Everyone who sees the post – even a truncated version – should see the disclosure, not just those who click.

This is where some content marketers could come unstuck. Your native advertising or sponsored article might carry a clear disclosure but if the related social media doesn’t you could still be in breach. Anyway, the FTC also has a detailed guide to native advertising that spells out a number of scenarios and how disclosures should be handled.

Sadly, I suspect some of those marketers who most need to understand and abide by these rules are the ones most likely to ignore them. Clearly disclosing influencer posts as paid sponsorships or ads sort of undermines why they’re doing this in the first place.

But instead of tapping into the greater trust created by word of mouth, their approach is actually eroding trust in social media even further.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:

An 8-Step Process to Use Influencers to Elevate Your Brand

Why Native Advertising Won’t Survive, Regardless of FTC Involvement

A version of this article originally appeared in the November issue of CCO magazine. Subscribe for your free print copy today.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post The Murky World of Influencer Marketing: How Non-Disclosure Can Hurt Your Brand appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

#Business

[literaturelover11-blog]

The Value of Paying Attention to Detail

Living every day life might seem trivial in the moment, but in the long run, one realizes that just existing on Earth as a living being is important. Socially, humans are wired to desire more, which pushes them to extremes of work, derailing them from what is truly valuable. Our Town by Thornton Wilder is an Expressionist play that explores the everyday lives, love, and death of the characters in a small town called Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire. The characters’ families are known to be close in both relationships and physical proximity, but are also in a constant hurry to complete the normative processes of daily life, despite their struggle to act against the social norms. By the end, the audience sees that the play communicates the importance of slowing down and paying attention to every aspect of life, love and community, against the backdrop of the inevitable movement of time. With the fleeting time that the characters in Our Town operate in throughout the play, the communication of what is considered valuable in life is to pay close attention when it comes to personal relationships and community.

The characters’ failure to recognize what is important is communicated in the value of the transience of life, shown through the rush of not only the characters, but through the rapid movement of time in the play. The Stage Manager, who acts as a narrator throughout the play, has the power to manipulate time in and between acts. The Acts Daily Life, Love and Marriage, and Death, are a look into the lives of the townspeople of Grover’s Corners, but are rushed through by the Stage Manager to remind the audience that the play is just that, a play. This element is called metatheatre. Wilder writes this in as an Expressionist construct to unsettle the audience, forcing them to think about what the play is actually trying to say. The Stage Manager stops scenes in the middle when he feels the audience has seen enough, and seems to skip significant amounts of time to show its inevitably fleeting nature. “Three years have gone by. Yes the sun’s come up over a thousand times.” (49). The play, even from the beginning of this act, feels rushed, which might be brushed over by the audience if it were not for the nonexistent fourth wall. Another example of the rushing time in Our Town is in Act III when Emily returns to her twelfth birthday as a spirit. She expresses her discomfort to the Stage Manager as Mrs. Webb and her younger self rapidly move through their morning routine. “I can’t. I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another” (95). Then, once again, the Stage Manager returns time to its present state with Emily and the rest of the dead. Because Wilder does not allow the audience to simply sit back and enjoy the show, they are forced to think about what the rushing and discomfort is really telling them. By the end of the play, the characters who have died are now patiently waiting to be taken away, but are quickly distanced from the living.

Along with not recognizing time’s fleeting nature, the living often do not realize their importance to others in a tight knit community such as Grover’s Corners, which is taken for granted by the characters, communicated in the end of the play through demise. Simon Stimson, who is characterized as the town’s outcast, is lightly stepped around by the other townspeople, as they do not want to confront his abnormal drinking problem. Mrs. Gibbs along with the other characters could have had a greater influence on Simon Stimson’s life by paying attention to his problems and helping, but instead they disregard him. “We all know about Mr. Stimson, and we all know about the troubles he’s been through, and Dr. Ferguson knows too, and if Dr. Ferguson keeps him on there in his job the only thing the rest of us can do is just not to notice it” (1.41). Mrs. Gibbs talks about trying not to notice Mr, Stimson’s problems as if this is the only possible thing the community can do. Instead of getting help, the characters ignore their influence over others in the community. The value of the potential of this tight-knit community, however, is not fully communicated until Act III where it is revealed that Simon Stimson commits suicide: “....He’d seen a peck of trouble. (behind his hand) Took his own life, y’know?” (3.84). The townspeople could have helped Mr. Stimson, but fail to realize their full potential as a community, and therefore, they take for granted their influence on each other’s lives. Stimson (deceased) even recognizes this in Act III while explaining the condition of the living to Emily. “That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those… of those about you” (96). He sees the living as ignorant because they could have helped, but instead, they ‘trampled’ on his feelings. The influence the townspeople could have had, might have been a lifesaver, which Wilder wants to communicate painfully through death. Stimson’s suicide is crucial to the translation of this important aspect of the play because it says a lot about paying attention to others in the world. Wilder wanted the audience to realize the value of relationships within a community, and conveyed this through a failed opportunity to help a neighbor out of hardship.

Mortality is also explored when goals and dreams in Our Town are forgotten and revisited at the end of the play to communicate their value in life. Mrs. Gibbs dreamt of traveling to Paris with $350 that she sold a piece of furniture for, but her husband was content with going to the Civil War grounds, therefore staying within the confines of the normal vacation the family takes. “No, he said, it might make him discontented with Grover’s Corners to go traipsin’ about Europe; better let well enough alone, he says” (25). While Mrs. Gibbs speaks of her husband like this, she shows the audience her resentment. Because normality is so important to the people of Grover’s Corners, Mrs. Gibbs disregards her interests to suit those of her husband’s to be a supportive wife, which was seen as normative at that time. In Act III, as Emily tells Mrs. Gibbs about what they did with her legacy, Mrs. Gibbs does not even remember it because she can not dwell on her wrongdoings of when she was alive. This resonates with the audience as they feel regret for Mrs. Gibbs. Wilder does this to communicate the idea that while one is alive, they should fulfill their hopes and dreams, instead of living according to social norms.

The matter-of-fact tone of characters in the play show that dwelling on obsolete happenings is a waste of valuable time, and instead should be spent achieving the goals that were forgotten. Wilder makes it known in his stage directions that both the characters and the Stage Manager should have a matter-of-fact tone during dialogue about death. The Stage Manager describes characters in the opening of Act I by stating the date of their death indifferently. “Doc Gibbs died in 1930. The new hospital’s named after him” (16). The way the Stage Manager moves from one point (that should be depressing to talk about) to the next without a pause for respect, or hesitation is off-putting to the audience. These stage directions give an unsettling connotation to the lines that gives the audience the impression that things human beings cannot change are trivial and should not be dwelled upon. For example, in Act III, there is a lot of dialogue about the mundane, specifically how they do not recognize the importance of moving on. As George comes back to Emily’s grave site to weep after the funeral, the dead, in their matter of fact tone, say he should not be there. “Tain’t no time for one of them to be here” (97). This implies that George should not be mourning a death (something he can not change), but instead should be, for instance, taking care of his farm, which has been a goal of his since childhood. The matter-of-fact tone of the characters is another expressionist element that unsettles the audience, making them think about what simple dialogue means.

Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is an Expressionistic play focused on the important things in life and the importance of life itself. Wilder wanted to unsettle the audience with his minimalist elements of scenery so they can focus more deeply on what his characters are communicating is important. The Stage Manager’s persistent rushing through the acts shows  As mortal beings with a limited time on earth, humans should pay attention to details in their personal relationships as well as in their communities and appreciate their lives for what they are. The characters in Our Town demonstrate the play’s meaning through failed opportunities to appreciate others and realize their full potential due to their constant rush to complete the standards of their daily lives. The three acts themselves show the importance of life. The first act, Daily Life tells the audience to slow down and pay attention to details instead of rushing. Act II, Love and Marriage is about appreciating close relationships, and Act III, Death, is about the fleeting time that mortal beings have to live.

#plays tumblrwriter literature drama books fiction

[son12235]

Nói chung là đang đọc đống này =))

Book Summaries: Popular Books Summarized in 3 Sentences or Less - by JAMES CLEAR

10% Happier

by Dan Harris

The Book in Three Sentences: Practicing meditation and mindfulness will make you at least 10 percent happier. Being mindful doesn’t change the problems in your life, but mindfulness does help you respond to your problems rather than react to them. Mindfulness helps you realize that striving for success is fine as long as you accept that the outcome is outside your control.

The 10X Rule

by Grant Cardone

The Book in Three Sentences: The 10X Rule says that 1) you should set targets for yourself that are 10X greater than what you believe you can achieve and 2) you should take actions that are 10X greater than what you believe are necessary to achieve your goals. The biggest mistake most people make in life is not setting goals high enough. Taking massive action is the only way to fulfill your true potential.

A Short Guide to a Happy Life

by Anna Quindlen

The Book in Three Sentences: The only thing you have that nobody else has is control of your life. The hardest thing of all is to learn to love the journey, not the destination. Get a real life rather than frantically chasing the next level of success.

A Technique for Producing Ideas

by James Webb Young 

The Book in Three Sentences: An idea occurs when you develop a new combination of old elements. The capacity to bring old elements into new combinations depends largely on your ability to see relationships. All ideas follow a five-step process of 1) gathering material, 2) intensely working over the material in your mind, 3) stepping away from the problem, 4) allowing the idea to come back to you naturally, and 5) testing your idea in the real world and adjusting it based on feedback.

Adapt

by Tim Harford

The Book in Three Sentences: Seek out new ideas and try new things. When trying something new, do it on a scale where failure is survivable. Seek out feedback and learn from your mistakes as you go along.

Anything You Want

by Derek Sivers

The Book in Three Sentences: Too many people spend their life pursuing things that don’t actually make them happy. When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you create all the laws. Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers.

Are You Fully Charged?

by Tom Rath

The Book in Three Sentences: There are three keys to being fully charged each day: doing work that provides meaning to your life, having positive social interactions with others, and taking care of yourself so you have the energy you need to do the first two things. Trying to maximize your own happiness can actually make you feel self-absorbed and lonely, but giving more can drive meaning and happiness in your life. People who spend money on experiences are happier than those who spend on material things.

The Art of Possibility

by Rosamund Zander and Benjamin Zander

The Book in Three Sentences: Everything in life is an invention. If you choose to look at your life in a new way, then suddenly your problems fade away. One of the best ways to do this is to focus on the possibilities surrounding you in any situation rather than slipping into the default mode of measuring and comparing your life to others.

The Art of Profitability

by Adrian Slywotzky

The Book in Three Sentences: There are many ways to make profit and it is unlikely that your business does all of them. People will pay different prices for the same thing in different situations (think: Coke in the grocery store vs. Coke in a nice restaurant). Good profit models are easy to brainstorm and hard to execute.

The Art of War

by Sun Tzu

The Book in Three Sentences: Know when to fight and when not to fight: avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak. Know how to deceive the enemy: appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak. Know your strengths and weaknesses: if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Bird by Bird

by Anne Lamott

The Book in Three Sentences: To become a better writer, you have to write more. Writing reveals the story because you have to write to figure out what you’re writing about. Don’t judge your initial work too harshly because every writer has terrible first drafts.

Born Standing Up

by Steve Martin

The Book in Three Sentences: Steve Martin was one of the most successful comedians of his generation. In his words, his career involved “10 years spent learning, 4 years spent refining, and 4 years spent in wild success.” This fantastic book provided beautiful insights not only into the details of his comedy act, but also into his early life and career development.

The Compound Effect

by Darren Hardy

The Book in Three Sentences: The compound effect is the strategy of reaping huge rewards from small, seemingly insignificant actions. You cannot improve something until you measure it. Always take 100 percent responsibility for everything that happens to you.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman

by John Perkins

The Book in Three Sentences: The United States is engaging in a modern form of slavery by using the World Bank and other international organizations to offer huge loans to developing nations for construction projects and oil production. On the surface this appears to be generous, but the money is only awarded to a country if it agrees to hire US construction firms, which ensures a select few people get rich. Furthermore, the loans are intentionally too big for any developing nation to repay and this debt burden virtually guarantees the developing nation will support the political interests of the United States.

Fooled by Randomness

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Book in Three Sentences: Randomness, chance, and luck influence our lives and our work more than we realize. Because of hindsight bias and survivorship bias, in particular, we tend to forget the many who fail, remember the few who succeed, and then create reasons and patterns for their success even though it was largely random. Mild success can be explainable by skills and hard work, but wild success is usually attributable to variance and luck.

Free Will

by Sam Harris

The Book in Three Sentences: We do not have the freedom and free will that we think we do. Yes, you can make conscious choices, but everything that makes up those conscious choices (your thoughts, your wants, your desires) is determined by prior causes outside your control. Just because you can do what you want does not mean you have free will because you are not choosing what you want in the first place.

The Goal

by Eliyahu Goldratt

The Book in Three Sentences: Doing work and making money are not the same thing. Simplify your problem to the point where you understand the true goal of your organization. With your goal in mind, identify the constraints within your system (i.e. bottlenecks) and focus on improving the output of that constraint without worrying about the productivity of all related processes.

Guns, Germs, and Steel

by Jared Diamond

The Book in Three Sentences: Some environments provide more starting materials and more favorable conditions for utilizing inventions and building societies than other environments. This is particularly notable in the rise of European peoples, which occurred because of environmental differences and not because of biological differences in the people themselves. There are four primary reasons Europeans rose to power and conquered the natives of North and South America, and not the other way around: 1) the continental differences in the plants and animals available for domestication, which led to more food and larger populations in Europe and Asia, 2) the rate of diffusion of agriculture, technology and innovation due to the geographic orientation of Europe and Asia (east-west) compared to the Americas (north-south), 3) the ease of intercontinental diffusion between Europe, Asia, and Africa, and 4) the differences in continental size, which led to differences in total population size and technology diffusion.

Ignore Everybody

by Hugh MacLeod

The Book in Three Sentences: Nobody knows the best way to deliver your unique idea, no matter how smart they seem. Every artist has to find a way to make a living and share their work, preferably in a way that doesn’t ruin both. Finding your own voice and sharing that voice with the world is the most important thing.

Incognito

by David Eagleman

The Book in Three Sentences: Conscious thought has a surprisingly small impact on your life and most of your behaviors are driven by the unconscious mind. There are competing beliefs within your unconscious mind that are all battling for the single output of your conscious behavior. The complex interactions between your genetics and your environment determine the trajectory of your life.

Intimations of Paradise

by Christopher Burkett

The Book in Three Sentences: A book of 73 photos by master landscape photographer Christopher Burkett.

Just Mercy

by Bryan Stevenson

The Book in Three Sentences: The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. Simply punishing the broken only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.

The Lessons of History

by Will and Ariel Durant

The Book in Three Sentences: Over the course of history, human behavior has changed, but not human nature. No matter who is in power, the rewards gradually accrue to the most clever and talented individuals. Ideas are the strongest things of all in history because they can be passed down and change the behavior of future generations—even a gun was originally an idea.

Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son

by John Graham

The Book in Three Sentences: This book is a series of letters written by a successful entrepreneur, John Graham, to his son offering various pieces of advice throughout the boy’s college years and early career. For example, 1) It isn’t so much knowing a whole lot, as knowing a little and how to use it that counts. 2) Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible. 3) A good wife doubles a man’s expenses and doubles his happiness, and that’s a pretty good investment if a fellow’s got the money to invest. And many other insights.

Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It

by Kamal Ravikant

The Book in Three Sentences: Everyone has a truth that they need to live and share. For the author, that truth was committing to the daily practice of repeating the phrase “I love myself.” When you love yourself, life loves you back.

Manual for Living

by Epictetus

The Book in Three Sentences: Some things are in your power and some are not—do not confuse the two and do not desire the things that are not in your power. It is our opinion of things that determines how we feel about a particular event, not the event itself. Think carefully about how you spend your life because people often spend their lives chasing things that are neither as desirable nor as important as they seem.

Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews

by Calvin Tomkins

The Book in Three Sentences: This book is a collection of transcriptions from a series of interviews between writer Calvin Tomkins and artist Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp believed strongly in doing work that was free from tradition and starting with as much of a blank slate as possible. He was also quite playful, worked slowly, and saw laziness as a good thing.

Mastermind Dinners

by Jayson Gaignard

The Book in Three Sentences: Hosting dinners with like-minded people is one of the most powerful way to build fantastic relationships in business and in life. You should think carefully about who you invite to these meals and look for uncommon commonalities that make it more likely the guests will resonate with one another. Be the gatekeeper of your network and assume responsibility for the people you surround yourself with in life.

Mastery

by George Leonard

The Book in Three Sentences: The most successful path to mastering anything is to practice for the sake of the practice itself, not for the result. All significant learning is composed of brief spurts of progress followed by long periods of work where if feels as if you are stuck on a plateau. There are no experts–only learners.

Not Fade Away

by Laurence Shames and Peter Barton

The Book in Three Sentences: It is more important to live fully than to live in a straight line. The surest gauge of the impact a life makes is how many other lives it touches. Nothing in life looks the same once you truly understand that you are not exempt from death.

The Nurture Assumption

by Judith Rich Harris

The Book in Three Sentences: The two classic drivers of human development are nature (genes) and nurture (environment). Many people mistakenly believe nurture only refers to how parents raise their children. Although children do learn things from their parents, they learn far more from their peers. The world that children share with their peer group is what shapes their behavior, modifies the characteristics they were born with, and determines the sort of people they will be when they grow up.

On the Move: A Life

by Oliver Sacks

The Book in Three Sentences: Oliver Sacks was a brilliant physician and a fantastic writer. He lived a full life that included dealing with criticism over being gay, attending medical school at Oxford University, experimenting with heavy drug use, traveling the United States and Canada by motorcycle, suffering life-threatening injuries, squatting a California state record of 600 pounds, and being honored by the Queen of England for his many books and storied career as a physician. Sacks is a symbol of the importance of writing, the power of exploration and inquisitiveness, and the need for empathy.

The Power of Fifty Bits

by Bob Nease

The Book in Three Sentences: The human brain is wired for inattention and inertia. As a result, many people already have good intentions, but don’t follow through due to forgetfulness, procrastination, or a general lack of awareness. We can bridge the gap between our intentions and our behavior by using strategies to lock in our future behavior like active choice, pre-commitment, good design, reframing, and simplicity.

The Practicing Mind

by Thomas M. Sterner

The Book in Three Sentences: All of life is practice in one form or another. Actively practicing something is very different from passively learning. You will never reach a level of performance that feels complete, so learn to love the art of practicing your skill.

The Reason I Jump

by Naoki Higashida

The Book in Three Sentences: This book is an autobiography written by a 13-year-old boy from Japan about what it is like to live with autism. The way autistic people view the world is very different than the way we may perceive them to view the world. This disconnect between how we view and treat people with autism and how they actually view the world makes living with autism even more difficult.

Resplendent Light

by Christopher Burkett

The Book in Three Sentences: A book of 68 photos by master landscape photographer Christopher Burkett.

The Richest Man in Babylon

by George S. Clason

The Book in Three Sentences: Save at least 10 percent of everything you earn and do not confuse your necessary expenses with your desires. Work hard to improve your skills and ensure a future income because wealth is the result of a reliable income stream. You cannot arrive at the fullest measure of success until you crush the spirit of procrastination within you.

Rules for a Knight

by Ethan Hawke

The Book in Three Sentences: This book contains a number of “rules for a knight,” which are lessons on how to live better. For example, 1) never announce that you are a knight, simply behave as one and 2) the only intelligent response to the ongoing gift of life is gratitude, and 3) how a knight lives is what is important, not on which particular afternoon he was born or on which specific morning he might die. Along with many other insights.

Sapiens

by Yuval Noah Harari

The Book in Three Sentences: Human history has been shaped by three major revolutions: the Cognitive Revolution (70,000 years ago), the Agricultural Revolution (10,000 years ago), and the Scientific Revolution (500 years ago). These revolutions have empowered humans to do something no other form of life has done, which is to create and connect around ideas that do not physically exist (think religion, capitalism, and politics). These shared “myths” have enabled humans to take over the globe and have put humankind on the verge of overcoming the forces of natural selection.

Strangers to Ourselves

by Timothy Wilson

The Book in Three Sentences: We do not realize how much the non-conscious mind impacts our behavior and personality. In many cases, the non-conscious mind influences our behavior more than our conscious thoughts do and the two minds will often conflict with one another, which can make it difficult to keep our desires and our actions in alignment. The first step to bringing our non-conscious inclinations into alignment with our conscious desires is to act more like the person we want to be.

Stumbling on Happiness

by Dan Gilbert

The Book in Three Sentences: What makes humans different from every other animal is that we think about the future. However, our brains fall victim to a wide range of biases that cause our predictions of the future (and our memories of the past) to be inaccurate. Because of these mental errors it is remarkably difficult to predict what will make us feel happy.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

by Mark Manson

The Book in Three Sentences: Finding something important and meaningful in your life is the most productive use of your time and energy. This is true because every life has problems associated with it and finding meaning in your life will help you sustain the effort needed to overcome the particular problems you face. Thus, we can say that the key to living a good life is not giving a fuck about more things, but rather, giving a fuck only about the things that align with your personal values.

Superhuman by Habit

by Tynan

The Book in Three Sentences: You can do just about anything if you break down the task into habits. You are more likely to stick with good habits over the long run if you start with tiny habits that are incredibly easy in the beginning. When you miss a habit once, getting back on track and sticking with the next occurrence of that habit should become the top priority in your life.

The Tell-Tale Brain

by V.S. Ramachandran

The Book in Three Sentences: Humans are unique among the animal kingdom because of their brain. The human brain evolved through two methods: biological evolution, which takes a long time and cultural evolution, which is incredibly fast by comparison. These evolutionary processes have resulted in the development of mirror neurons, which contribute to our remarkable levels of creativity, ambition, communication.

This is Water

by David Foster Wallace

The Book in Three Sentences: Learning “how to think” really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It can be easy to spend our entire lives accepting our natural default ways of thinking rather than choosing to look differently at life. The only thing that is capital-T True is that you get to decide how you’re going to try to see life and how you construct meaning from experience.

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

by Marshall Goldsmith

The Book in Three Sentences: Behavioral problems, not technical skills, are what separate the great from the near great. Incredible results can come from practicing basic behaviors like saying thank you, listening well, thinking before you speak, and apologizing for your mistakes. The first step to change is wanting to change.