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basgevers · 9 months

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How I Use Instagram

Instagram has seen a lot of changes over the last few years and is certainly nothing like the app I signed up for back in 2011. Back in those days it was a fun app that let you share your images, more often than not completely destroyed by other app such as Hipstamatic (is that still a thing?) and be part of a vibrant, fun community where photography was the central focus.

It's a far cry from today, a massive advertising platform full of ads, suggested posts about things you're probably not interested in, and which leaves you scratching your head, and a slow drift towards video as Instagram desperately tries to keep up with TikTok.

Instagram will never be TikTok and TikTok will never be Instagram. They're completely different apps, for completely different purposes. One is great at photography and a content distribution platform, the other is great at video and platform-native, creator led content. The constant changes in the mythical 'algorithm' have users lurching from one growth strategy to the next, hoping to stay ahead of this month's curve until it all changes again and engagement drops to near-zero and the cycle starts again.

For the likes of me, with a small (but select!) set of followers, I've long given up on trying to grow beyond my current level. A lot of that has to do with the quality of my content, clearly, but also about fighting a battle against The Algorithm that I can never win. Small accounts don’t stand a chance, and unless you start posting nothing but Reels you will never get anywhere near the engagement that you had a few years ago. Or last month, even, when The Algorithm changed again.

Side note: one of the reasons that Insta is really pushing forward with video-based content, is that the usage data is showing them that content creators are posting more Reels. But the reason for this is that these content creators have figured out that posting Reels (as well as stories and DM's) is the only way to get any kind of traction (or "Reach") on Insta these days, so more videos are being posted not because people want to, it's because they have to, to get anywhere.

This false narrative is then seen as confirmation by Insta that Reels are popular, which they are, but for the wrong reasons!

I find all these changes very frustrating, but Instagram continues to be the number one app on my phone. It's like an addiction on the one hand, but also a sort of car crash voyeurism on the other – it gives me a kick to see how the powers that be at Insta (or Meta, really) have crashed into the barriers again, floundering around, trying to turn Insta into TikTok with one useless feature after another.

If only they stuck to what Insta is good at – photography – and leave the rest to TikTok (which is really good at video).

As long as TikTok doesn't allow for static images (which it never will, because, unlike Insta, it knows its audience), then Insta really doesn't have a problem – just turn it into the world's best, and at this point, only, photo sharing app.

Which is sort-of-how it started in the first place, right?

So, with all that said, I've adapted how I think about Insta, and how I use it. For me, Insta is still a place where I post occasionally, but the volume of my posts is no longer important – my reach is laughably low, my growth a gentle slope that barely registers. I keep it going just to register my presence, to tell future generations that I existed.

No, the main reason I still spend waaaaay too much time on the platform, scrolling until the RSI in my left shoulder and forearm are too much to take and my grip is too weak to hold the phone, is to find brilliant photography. Despite what most people think, photography (and great photography) is still very much alive on Insta - you just need to know where to find it!

So here are the seven ways that I spend my time on Insta.

1. Forget the Home feed, use the Explore feed sparingly

I don't really use the Home feed that much. A few months ago, Insta introduced the 'Following' and 'Favourites' tab that grouped the people I follow, as well as those whose work I really like into two separate sections and which means I no longer see the posts suggested to me by Insta (all crap, by the way).

As for the Explore feed, yeah … So, sometimes you find diamonds in the rough, but mainly it's just a lot of seemingly random things. Currently on my Explore feed this is Labradors, lots of them because I once spent a few seconds too long looking at a cute puppy. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love Labradors, but it doesn’t mean I want my feed to be full of them. Insta seems to have two settings for the Explore feed: completely off, or complete overdrive. To wit: I love urban landscapes, street photography and new topographics. In fact, most if not all of the people I follow fall into one of these three categories. But I reckon only about 5% of the images I see are related to this. The rest, aside from Labradors, seems to involve German runners, guitarists (I play guitar, so, okay …), godawful memes full of cultural references I don’t get, then lot of ladies of various ages and persuasions, often with not much on and covered from head-to-toe in irrepressibly awful tattoos, and videos of things and people once seen, cannot be unseen. In short, Explore is a rabbit hole down which you can go, but which you often end up regretting.

So, I use the Following tab to see content you really like from people I follow and which you would otherwise miss in the wheel-of-fortune that is the 'Home' feed. I use the Favourites tab for a few select accounts whose work I definitely don’t want to miss.

Speaking of which …

2. Use the 'Suggested' users list – it's actually really good!

… most of the time. So, given that I've set up my Following and Favourites tabs, the next way I find photographers I want to follow is to go to their profile, then click on the '+' icon on the far right of the profile. This gives you a list of suggestions of photographers similar to the profile you're now looking at. Most of time, I'd say 90%, it produces a lot of really good suggestions, and this is how I find most of the people I follow. And, again, this is a real rabbit hole because the people you find will also have a set of suggested users, and so on, and on! If you start doing this, make sure you have nothing planned for the next hour or so because I can guarantee that you'll be at this for a while!

3. Trim your followers and those you follow

I do this about once every six months or so. The reason is that I want to keep my Following tab manageable. I used to follow about 2,500 people at one point, way too many and most of the people I was following had not posted for months or had changed direction altogether into something I don’t like or were follow-for-follow followers. From my own followers, I remove obvious spam accounts, or anyone who follows me but has a private account as well as anyone with less than 50 images (unless they're really, really good).

I don't think any of this has any effect on anything I see on the Home or Explore feeds, but in case it does, by following only those whose work interests and inspires me I keep focus on my own work

4. Find relevant hashtags and follow those

I find another effective way to find the content I like is to use hashtags and the follow those to find more relevant content.

For example, some of the hashtags I follow include things like #banalmag, #documentingsmalltowns, #burbsonfilm, as well as more specific photography relates hashtags like #fuji23mf14, #xpro3 and things like #portra160. By going into the Insta menu, admittedly through a somewhat convoluted path (Profile – Following – Hashtags), I can quickly find images I like. You will get some rubbish, because, well, hashtags are abused quite a bit, but on the whole, I have found some great images and photographers this way.

5. Find magazines and collectives

Like hashtags, Magazines and other Collectives are a powerful way of finding images that you might not find easily otherwise, and which may not be your thing, but which may well lead you to other photographers you might not have found. In a way, this is a sort of better Explore feed, without all the tattoos. There's quite a few to find in Insta – search for words like 'magazine' and 'collective' and you'll find a few.

Examples include observecollective, thestreetcollective, thecuriouscameraclub and balkan.collective. I add these to my Favourites, rather than Followers.

6. Use 'Collections' to store the images you find

I like a lot of images on Instagram, but once you've liked an image it disappears again into the void. It's hard to find them again. There is an option to find those buried deep in the settings, but that's very faffy.

There is a better way.

Instagram lets you save images you like into your private collections. I have set up several collections, e.g., Yellow, Portra160 in which I save images that contain the colour yellow, or which are made with Portra160 film, respectively. I also keep 'Discovery' collections per month in which I store images I have found in that month.

7. Use Instagram as a marketing funnel to your best content!

Ok, so writing that sentence above made me sick in my mouth. It's the sort of marketing bullshit that I truly hate, but if you wipe all the buzzwords off it, you'll find a real gem an idea. I saw a video on YouTube the other day where someone also talked about this. He uses Instagram to post an image but then drives people to his website where they can see more content (including text, video etc.). Admittedly he does this to monetize his content (something I'd never do) but the point is valid all the same: on your own website, you control the content, not Instagram.

Instagram lets you put links in your profile, and this is what I use to get people to visit my site (the one you’re on now …). My plan for the site is to make this a gallery of my own favourite work and use Instagram to get people there.

It's a tough road, particularly if your reach is very low, but what I've learned over the past few months is that likes, follows and reach are not important.

What is important is to do what you love, namely photography, and I hope the seven points above help you find and be inspired by what you find on Instagram!

#instagram #photography

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mariacallous · 2 years

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Rybar, a pro-Kremlin military analysis channel on Telegram, has been cited by the world's top news agencies, and it's easy to understand why: the channel seems to have access to a wide network of informants whose claims are difficult to ignore, if impossible to verify. But despite its influence, Rybar's administrators have remained anonymous throughout the war. In a new investigation, however, journalists from the independent Russian news outlet The Bell uncovered key information about the channel's creators, its funding, and its contributors. In English, Meduza summarizes their findings.

The independent Russian news outlet The Bell has released a new investigation into the people behind the pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Rybar, which covers the war in Ukraine. Since the start of the war, the channel has gained almost 1.1 million subscribers. As The Bell notes in the article, Rybar publishes detailed battlefield updates and maps, as well as the coordinates of Ukrainian positions and Ukrainian strategic objects. According to the channel’s administrators, they run the channel “to facilitate the work of the allied forces.”

Rybar has been cited by CNN, Bloomberg, and even the Institute for the Study of War, among other organizations. At the same time, according to The Bell, Rybar is the only one of Russia’s most popular military Telegram channels whose owners have managed to remain anonymous.

After The Bell’s investigation was published, Rybar itself published the following message:

Everything secret eventually comes to light. We’ve been found out. We suggest acquainting yourself with this fascinating fantasy story. We’ve like to use the occasion to ask the non-profit organization “Russia – Land of Opportunity” to open a window of opportunity for us and pay us what our services are worth — and to ask [Russian Defense Ministry spokesman] Igor Yevgenyevich Konashenkov to finally pay for the mobilization ads.

Ties to Prigozhin

In March 2020, Rybar’s creators themselves announced that there were two of them: one “military interpreter [and] OSINT specialist” and one “political strategist, a member of the old aristocracy.” The figures claimed to have “specific experience and knowledge, thanks to which we can allow ourselves to mock the level of military-analytical expertise in Russia and the post-Soviet space.” They worked, they said, “in the field of information warfare and counterpropaganda in the name of the interests of the Russian state.”

According to The Bell, Rybar’s self-proclaimed “political strategist [and] member of the old aristocracy” is a man named Denis Shchukin. The Bell's correspondent came across his account in a chat group called Rybarnaya No. 1, which was created at the same time as the original Rybar channel to provide a platform for the channel’s most active subscribers to communicate with its administrators.

Denis Shchukin is registered on Telegram under the username @real_pike. In the chat group with Rybar subscribers, he referred to himself as one of Rybar’s administrators. He also told users that he’s German, and described his profession as “rather like a manager, but also a political scientist.” In fact, according to the Bell, Shchukin is a 44-year-old programmer from Moscow.

The Bell contacted Shchukin through Telegram. In response to questions about Rybar’s work and creators, he said the following:

At this stage, it makes no sense. I’m not going to deanonymize our employees and give away something that could be used against us; after all, that’s what you need (as your outlet is a liberal one). So sorry, but no. Thanks for talking.

In the Rybarnaya No. 1 group, The Bell’s correspondent discovered one other former chat administrator with the nickname RD and the username @rea1_pike, which is almost identical to Shchukin’s. In the chat, RD called himself the owner of Rybar and communicated with subscribers in Arabic. He also said he was from Vladivostok, graduated from the Russian Defense Ministry’s Military University, and served long tours in Syria and Iraq.

According to The Bell, the similarity between Denis Shchukin and RD’s usernames suggests that both accounts belong to the same person; on the other hand, the accounts sometimes communicate with one another in the chat. In addition, their purported biographies don’t align, and their posts in the group differ in style. The Bell’s correspondent tried to contact RD, but did not receive a response.

The Bell also concluded that Rybar’s list of contributors may include Abbas Juma, a “war correspondent” for the Federal News Agency (RIA FAN), a pro-Kremlin news outlet with links to oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin and his troll farm the Internet Research Agency. Juma speaks both Arabic and English as well as Russian.

Journalists from The Bell also found two Rybar moderators in the Rybarnaya No. 1 chat group. One of them uses the ID @Poumpoum and is addressed in the chat as both “Louie” and “Louis.” According to the Bell’s correspondent, the user likely lives in France and runs the Telegram channel ZZ.OZ.ZOZZ (4,500 followers), which publishes French translations of Rybar’s posts and assists Rybar by monitoring French-language resources. Louie did not respond to The Bell’s questions.

The other moderator, named Olga, has the username @owlgasova and appears to live in St. Petersburg. According to The Bell’s investigation, in addition to her administrative work for Rybar, Olga tracks military developments related to Turkey. In response to questions from The Bell’s correspondent, she said, “You have me confused with somebody else. I have no connection to Rybar, and I am extremely wary of your outlet’s activities. I ask you not to bother me again.”

Piquing the feds' interest

In 2019, about a year after Rybar was launched, it caught the attention of oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin, an employee of Prigohzin’s Patriot Media Group told The Bell. Prigozhin started providing funding to the channel, and from June 2020 until August 2021, Rybar wrote a column on the Federal News Agency website, as well as providing commentary for the Federal News Agency’s podcast International FAN. According to the source, editors at the Federal News Agency knew the contributor from Rybar as Denis, and were told he had worked as a military interpreter in Arab countries.

The source told The Bell that in addition to collaborating to develop the Rybar channel, Shchukin and Prigozhin worked together to “perform certain tasks” that were in the interests of the oligarch’s own businesses, though the source was unable to specify what these tasks consisted of. Ultimately, however, Shchukin was unable to hold up his end of the bargain, the source said, and Prigozhin revoked Rybar’s funding.

According to The Bell’s investigation, Rybar also earns money from advertising by publishing posts from “approved clients.” A source who runs a different anonymous Telegram channel and who is in touch with Rybar’s creators journalists that Shchukin has accrued a large enough pool of advertisers to fund the channel’s work.

The source told The Bell that the cost of a single advertisement in Rybar starts at 200,000 rubles ($3,300), and that the channel has long-term contracts with Russia Today, the Federal News Agency, and multiple other Z-channels (i.e. pro-Kremlin channels) with links to the Putin-created nonprofit “Russia – Land of Opportunity” and the Russian president’s First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergey Kiriyenko.

The sources who run their own Telegram channels estimated the cost of Rybar’s operations at between 1.8 million and 3 million rubles ($30,000–$50,000). They also speculated that roughly a quarter of the channel’s monthly expenses may go towards paying informants in Russia and Ukraine. According to one of the sources, Rybar employees may receive salaries significantly lower than the market rate — for example, 30,000 rubles ($495) per month.

One source told The Bell that after the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, “FSB representatives” became interested in Rybar's work, and the channel has since begun periodically publishing information from the agency. According to the source, Prigozhin may have assisted the channel’s creators in negotiations with the federal agents. The Bell was unable to confirm these claims.

In October, after its contributors criticized the Russian Defense Ministry, Rybar appeared on a list of Telegram channels and journalists who authorities allegedly planned to investigate for possible illegal “disinformation” or “discreditation” of the Russian army. According to the Telegram outlet Mash, Russian Army General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov personally requested that Russia’s federal censor investigate Rybar.

At the same time, The Bell noted, Rybar published its first three promotional posts about training for mobilized soldiers at Defense Ministry training grounds just three days before the reports that it would be investigated.

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englishchinesetranslations · 4 years

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Even though the cryptocurrency industry is not new to ups and downs, 2019 has turned out to be the year with the most surprising reveals. The long-lasting bear market of 2018 moved market analysts to call it the year of regulatory reckoning, leaving many jurisdictions uncertain about how to treat cryptocurrencies.

However, 2019 also turned out to be the year of the comeback, as big tech giants like Facebook moved from banning crypto to embracing it.

Escalating global events such as the trade war between the United States and China have shifted investors’ point of view on the utility of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but there is still a lot to be done even as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission continues to turn down every other Bitcoin ETF proposal.

As the year comes to a close, here is a look at the companies, individuals and various crypto projects that managed to come out on top in 2019, as well as those that failed to mark the year as a positive in their books.

The winners

Bitcoin’s double growth

This year, Bitcoin and the entire blockchain and cryptocurrency industry celebrated its tenth anniversary as proof of the resilience of Satoshi Nakamoto’s creation. However, at the beginning of 2019, the cryptocurrency industry was just recovering from the so-called crypto winter of 2018.

Fortunately, Bitcoin kicked off the year with a bullish trend that resulted in an approximate price increase of 11% higher by the end of the first quarter. Anthony Pompliano, the co-founder of Morgan Creek Digital asset management firm, shared his view with Cointelegraph:

“Bitcoin’s price is up significantly in 2019 [as there are] more buyers than sellers on a net basis this year.”

As the trading volume and market capitalization increased throughout the second quarter of the year, Bitcoin led the market with a 165% gain as its price surged from $4,103 to $10,888. Furthermore, Bitcoin’s market dominance increased from 54.6% to 65%.

Among the reasons that have promoted Bitcoin’s continued growth despite a struggling market is the view that the digital currency can act as a hedge in the wake of increasing global uncertainty. This year, the U.S.–China trade war saw most investors look to Bitcoin and gold as hedges. Pompliano also told Cointelegraph that there were other contributing factors:

“The biggest moments probably revolve around the announcement of Libra and the subsequent reactions, both positive and negative, from various folks across the traditional and cryptocurrency markets.”

However, it was not all sunshine for Bitcoin in 2019. Over the third quarter of the year, a bearish outlook emerged as Bitcoin’s price decreased significantly as 100 billion in market capitalization was lost. Fortunately, even as the market struggled to gain ground against the bears, Bitcoin not only closed the quarter with the least amount of loss but also increased its market dominance by 5.4%. Ultimately, of all cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin’s performance has been the best so far.

Compared to assets from other markets, Bitcoin’s performance throughout the year is still far from tenuous. For instance, even though gold is regarded as a reliable store of value, its price has only increased by 17% since January. Even the S&P 500 Index, although with an excellent performance of +21%, is still dwarfed by Bitcoin’s growth throughout the year. Beyond price, Bobby Lee, CEO of the Ballet crypto wallet, told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin has benefited from several major technological developments:

“2019 was a great year for Bitcoin bulls because of the advances in the open-source ecosystem. Lightning Network is increasing Bitcoin’s transaction capacity, wallets with built-in, user-friendly features (Wasabi, Samourai) are improving privacy.”

Gods Unchained’s rise to popularity

According to reports, Gods Unchained, a blockchain-based virtual card game built on Ethereum, emerged as one of the highest-grossing and most popular blockchain games in 2019. This came about after the platform completely sold out its Genesis Card Pack to the tune of about $6.2 million. This came about after Blizzard, the creators of Hearthstone (a digital trading card game) banned Hearthstone player Chung Ng Wai (also known as Blitzchung) for expressing support for the Hong Kong protests. The Hearthstone game developer also stripped Blitzchung of his winnings.

In addition to the backlash received from the gaming community, Blizzard’s actions were criticized in a tweet by Gods Unchained that claimed Blizzard “care[s] about money more than freedom.” Gods Unchained also promised to compensate Blitzchung for his lost winnings while offering him an invitation to their $500,000 tournament.

Related: Blizzard Bans Hearthstone Player, Blockchain Comes to Rescue

The tweet by Gods Unchained was retweeted over 10,000 times, and Google searches for the game have since surged. Unlike Hearthstone, Gods Unchained is decentralized and uses blockchain to ensure that players truly own in-game items and have the freedom to trade them at will.

In a move to give online game players long-term incentives, James Ferguson, CEO of Gods Unchained said that the game is “leveling up the outdated practices of the gaming industry.”

Coinbase’s continued expansion

In the past, Coinbase maintained a reputation for employing a rather selective strategy for adding coins to its exchange. As one of the big league exchanges in the crypto space, Coinbase is also known for having significantly fewer large-scale hacks. In a year that saw other major exchanges like Binance fall victim to large scale security breaches, leading to the loss of thousands of Bitcoin, Coinbase stands out as a reliable and safe platform.

However, the company was heavily scrutinized by Twitter users this year over its acquisition of Neutrino, a startup that collects cryptocurrency transactional data using the blockchain. For most Twitter users, this move seems to facilitate the exchange’s spying on its customers.

However, Coinbase’s move to acquire Neutrino is, according to a Coinbase blog post, part of its goal to support all assets while complying with applicable laws. In addition to acquiring Neutrino, Coinbase has doubled the number of listed cryptocurrencies on its exchange since 2018. Coinbase’s aggressive listing approach has seen the addition of coins such as Dash, Cosmos and Waves, to mention just a few.

The company has almost constantly been making news throughout the year, from making acquisitions to denying them, as well as securing multiple patents along the way. Meanwhile, Coinbases’s Visa debit card solution has also seen exponential growth this year, now available for use in even more countries.

In May 2019, the company also expanded its reach to more than 100 countries while making its USDC stable coin — previously only available in the U.S. — available in 85 of those supported countries. In comparison, Coinbase was only available in about 32 countries last year. Its aggressive expansion appears to be in direct competition to other global players like Binance.

Binance ventures further

Ask any market analyst and they will admit that initial exchange offerings have grown into a big business in 2019. Reports have revealed a high demand for IEOs right from Q1 2019 to Q3, not to mention the fact that they collectively raised over $1.5 billion in the first half of 2019 alone. Unlike initial coin offerings, the biggest determining factor for a successful IEO is the availability of liquidity, and what better way to access liquidity than launching an IEO on a popular exchange.

That is why Binance and its native cryptocurrency BNB have had one of the best years yet. As one of the biggest marketplaces for digital assets, Binance enjoys a significant share of the trading volume. The exchange’s performance has been so exceptional that the Binance Coin has gained value by 150% over the year. When taking everything into account and considering year-on-year growth, Binance Coin has even slightly outperformed Bitcoin.

Also, Binance expanded its reach with the launch of a fully independent U.S. arm of its trading platform. Despite heavy regulatory pressure that keeps the Binance exchange in the U.S. from operating in states such as New York, the company’s partnership with BAM, a registered money service in the U.S., has so far given the exchange some leeway.

The losers

Facebook’s uncertain Libra launch in 2020

Facebook’s announcement of its Libra cryptocurrency has been one of the major events of 2019. However, on the unveiling of Libra as a stablecoin backed by a select number of national currencies, U.S. lawmakers reacted with skepticism, summoning Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to multiple hearings.

Related: What Is Libra? Breaking Down Facebook’s New Digital Currency

At its core, Libra is a stablecoin backed by real money and lets users buy, sell and send money at nearly zero fees across borders. According to the project’s white paper, Libra’s overall mission is “to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers millions of people.”

Libra’s white paper further claims that it will use “a new decentralized blockchain, a low volatility cryptocurrency, and a smart contract platform” to empower about 1.7 billion unbanked people. This will be achieved through the use of Facebook’s WhatsApp, Messenger and Calibra, which is a digital wallet designed for Libra users.

Despite Libra’s ambitious plan to empower the unbanked, the Libra project has not only come under heavy scrutiny from lawmakers but also faced internal problems of its own. While sharing his thoughts with Cointelegraph, Ballet wallet’s Lee expressed optimism about Libra, saying that although “legislators and regulators in the United States and Europe understand that non-government currencies are a threat to their power, government opposition will diminish over time.” Lee further explained:

“Governments will change their stance because they will come to understand that they can’t control or stop Bitcoin, and they will prefer to have their citizens use centralized corporate coins that can easily be regulated, monitored, and pegged to fiat currency.”

Despite Libra’s ambitious plan to empower the unbaked, the Libra project has not only come under heavy scrutiny from lawmakers but also faced internal problems of its own.

The U.S. Congress has asked Facebook to pause further development of the Libra projects, and cynics now believe that the project will not get out of the starting blocks without the government’s approval. Multiple European countries have also spoken out against the proposed cryptocurrency, while China announced that it will soon launch its own stablecoin, a national central bank digital currency, likely as a retaliatory measure. Furthermore, in the wake of increased scrutiny from government regulators, some of Libra’s high profile backers like Visa, eBay, MasterCard and PayPal have abandoned the project.

A rocky year for Circle

In October 2018, Circle, a cryptocurrency firm based in Boston and backed by Goldman Sachs teamed up with Coinbase to launch the Centre consortium. Counting on its reputation as one of the most well-funded crypto startups, the two companies aimed to help accelerate adoption of cryptocurrencies. Through the Centre consortium, Coinbase and Circle would increase liquidity to the crypto industry through the issue of a stable coin called the USD Coin.

In July this year, Coinbase and Circle broadened participation into their consortium in a move that will allow other financial entities interested in the project to issue the USD Coin. In the announcement, the Centre network mentioned that “a natural next step is to imagine a new global digital currency” that would include a basket of tokens backed by a variety of stablecoins. Simply put, Centre’s plan is to go with a Facebook-like approach to create a global currency.

However, Circle has had a rocky experience throughout 2019. Even though the USD Coin has received a positive reception, with Centre claiming that the stablecoin has been used to clear on-chain transfers worth over $11 billion, Circle closed its mobile app, reduced its fundraising goal by 40%, and laid off 10% of its staff between May and June this year. Just recently, the company let go of 10 more of its employees, citing efforts to streamline its services.

The latest news of layoffs from Circle comes after the recent transition of the company’s co-founder Sean Neville from his position as CEO to a seat at the company’s board of directors. However, a representative of Circle has denied any connections between the recent layoffs and Sean’s transition, telling Cointelegraph that:

“None of this is related to Sean transitioning out of the co-CEO role. Sean will continue to serve on Circle’s board.”

Craig Wright’s court battles

When Australian-born technologist Craig Wright claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto back in 2015, most people in the crypto community were skeptical and thought nothing of it.

Most people expected that the Satoshi Nakamoto impersonator would have scurried back into obscurity by now. However, Wright and his claims have continued to headline the news throughout 2019. Wright claims that he invented Bitcoin a decade ago and mined over 1 million BTC along with his late business partner Dave Kleiman. After Kleiman’s death in 2013, Wright claims that he put the mined Bitcoin in the “Tulip Trust.”

However, the Australian entrepreneur and computer scientist was sued by Kleiman’s estate in 2018 for allegedly stealing up to 1 million Bitcoin. In the past, it is said that Wright and Kleiman worked together on mining and developing Bitcoin. According to Kleiman’s family, Wright stole between 550,000 to 1 million Bitcoin — worth about $10 billion.

The ongoing case led to Magistrate Judge Bruce’s ruling that ordered Wright to turn over half of his Bitcoin holdings and intellectual property from before 2014 to Kleiman’s estate, presuming he is indeed Nakamoto. On Oct. 31, the trials re-emerged after Wright pulled out of the settlement agreement to forfeit half his Bitcoin and intellectual property.

In addition to his court battles, Wright was scrutinized by the crypto community after presenting what was considered forged documents as evidence of him being Nakamoto in another case of Wright against Peter McCormack. Wright’s case against McCormack is based on the fact that McCormack’s repeated statement that Wright is not Satoshi is harmful to Wright’s reputation. Most recently, Wright presented another document that allegedly proves how he came up with the Satoshi Nakamoto pseudonym.

Bitcoin ETF’s continual rejection by the SEC

Even though U.S. regulators have always left a window for the possibility of approving Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the future, up until now, every single attempt to license a Bitcoin ETF has been met with failure. In October this year, an ETF proposal filed by Bitwise Asset Management in conjunction with NYSE Arca was rejected by the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to meet legal requirements that prevent illicit market manipulation.

In fact, all Bitcoin ETF proposals presented to the SEC have been rejected on concerns about fraudulent activities and market manipulation. One of the main criteria for approving an ETF is establishing the underlying market of a new commodity-based ETF.

Related: The SEC Does Not Want Crypto ETFs — What Will It Take to Get Approval?

If the underlying market is resistant to manipulation, regulators can give the ETF the go-ahead. Given the complexities of the Bitcoin market, it seems approval from the SEC is unlikely. Despite the earlier rejection of Bitwise’s application, the SEC later announced that it would review Bitwise’s proposal once again.

While speaking to Cointelegraph on the realistic timeline of the first Bitcoin ETF approval, Charles Lu, the CEO of the Findora fintech toolkit provider said, “For a Bitcoin ETF proposal to gain SEC approval, the sponsor will need to prove that real price discovery is happening as opposed to market manipulations.” In Lu’s opinion, this will not happen anywhere soon, since the SEC would require “surveillance sharing agreements” with the big exchanges.

2019 and 2020

Overall, the crypto industry has shown some significant growth over the past year. Although volatile, Bitcoin is showing significant signs of growth. More institutional investors are looking into the industry to find more ways to invest as well. Even though there is a downtrend in market cap and trading volumes, prominent traders believe that a turn of fate might just be around the corner, especially for Bitcoin holders.

Out of all the winners and losers of 2019, perhaps Facebook Libra is one that stands to be most impactful in 2020. For most onlookers, it will be interesting to see whether Facebook’s Libra project will turn a new leaf and launch successfully in 2020. If it does, there is a high likelihood that big changes will take place throughout the entire industry.

#new year special #cryptocurrency

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houseofswords · 5 years

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Sera Conner

Theme song / Moodboard Divinity: Nashira (determination, strength, protection)

BASIC INFORMATION

Full name: Sera Jane Conner Gender: Female Age: 27 Birthday: 2nd of July

Myers-Briggs: INFJ Zodiac: Cancer Tarot card: Strength

Nationality: American Birthplace: Holyhead, Clallam County, Washington

Sexuality: Relationship status: Too cool for school

Occupation: Jeweller, definitely not tax registered

APPEARANCE

Height: 5’10” Weight: 160lbs

Hair: Long, dark, untamed curls Eye colour: Black

Physical characteristics: Slender and strong, she has an hourglass figure with long legs, but broad shoulders. Her face is angular with a strong brow and jaw, and narrow eyes like her father. Other traits: Full lips, often with a dark colour, and she likes to keep her nails painted black. She has a piercing above her left eyebrow. Tattoos: None.

Clothes: Her typical outfit is a leather jacket over a plunge neck shirt with distressed jeans or motorbike-style leggings, but she loves to dress up as long as it’s mostly in black.

TRAITS

Personality: Sera is confident, bold and mouthy, and doesn’t pull her punches when it comes to words, preferring instead to cut straight to the point. But she’s not brash or blunt, just straightforward, and she’s gentler than the impression she gives. She’s understanding and willing to listen, and can empathise with the feelings of others even if she can’t understand why they don’t just take the easiest solution to the problem. She can be somewhat quirky due to her stolen childhood, and doesn’t always grasp the complexities of social norms or rules.

Motives: She has come to accept that she can’t change the role she’s been assigned, but she can live her own life within those constraints and she’s determined to live it to the fullest. She’s taken up the mantle passed on to her from her father, Mike, and is determined to protect those who can’t protect themselves from the shadow of Holyhead.

Values: Freedom is a fleeting, precious thing that she values greatly. She’s aware of how easily the little life she’s made for herself can be taken away, and though she envies people for the ability to choose how they want to live out their lives, she’ll fight to protect their right to it.

Fears: There are few things that frighten Sera, but she’s terrified of the King in Black and lives in fear every day that her rebellion will end in punishment, being ‘unplugged’, or even her destruction. Despite her constant bickering and barbed jabs at him, she’s afraid of Straker and what he can do, too.

Weaknesses: Sera has come to be good at blending in, but there are still many things about people that she doesn’t understand and spends most of her time feeling like an outsider. Until the story she had no real friends, and still doesn’t quite know when to dial back on her blunt attitude. Despite her fiery spirit, she allows herself to be held back by her knowledge and fear of entities more powerful than she is.

Quirks: Sera will often sit on things that are not socially acceptable to sit on, or perch on chairs like a bird instead of sitting. She also likes to eat everything with chopsticks, regardless of whether it’s appropriate, because she thinks they’re more fun than forks and spoons.

STRENGTHS AND SKILLS

Skills: Sera is good at making things—having every tool at her literal fingertips certainly helps. She has learned to fabricate everything she needs herself, from furniture to tools, and uses her skills to make jewellery from found materials like concrete, scrap metal and stones, to sell for rent money at the local market. She’s cunning and resourceful, able to weasel her way out of trouble with ease. When she can’t, well, she’s also very good at fighting. She grew up with the raw, brute strength of a machine, and knows how to use it.

Hobbies: When she’s not tinkering away, Sera likes to play video games, watch TV and eat junk food. She spends most of her free time when she’s not at the market in the safety of her apartment; the less people see her and know her, the better.

Powers: Like all of the changed ones, the ‘angels’, Sera is incredibly strong and able to change her physical form at will. She’s perfectly capable of picking up and throwing cars and trucks, punching through walls, and breaking bones with a flick of her wrist. She also exists at a level more than just the physical, able to spread her consciousness beyond where her body is and pass through dimensions and voids; just because you can’t see her, doesn’t mean she’s not there. Her power comes with one weakness: she can’t refuse a direct order from her creator, and there’s always the risk that it will tire of her disobedience and simply deactivate her.

OTHER FACTS

Favourite music: Heavy metal, power metal, doom metal Favourite films: Dog soldiers, The Lost Boys, An American Werewolf in London, monster flicks in general Favourite food: Fruit Loops, Reeses Pieces, Pop Tarts, burritos Favourite animal: Cats Favourite colour: Black, also rather partial to red and pink Likes: Junk food, sitting in weird places, Hollywood monsters, the smell of the sea, singing along to music, hanging out with her little bro, new things she hasn’t seen before Dislikes: people who ask her too many questions, conspiracy theorists, vegetables, people who are mean to Ash, autotune, sugar free soda, Straker, the FEDS

Misc. info: Sera is legally dead, and therefore legally can’t earn income. She pays for everything in cash since she doesn’t have a bank account or card, and comes up with increasingly creative ways to foil the local police (who don’t actually care that she’s not paying taxes.)

ALTERNATE VERSES

In progress

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incarnateirony · 6 years

Text

So I kind of just need a place to let it all out.

If you don’t want to hear me ranting about my truest encounter with the embodiment of male privilege, the stereotype of millennials, and even bad stereotypes about queerfolk - that I’ve ever encountered in a single being - please keep scrolling and /ignore. But it’s better to rant about it here in this contained area than have it wank up in an SM area that is adjacent to a growing business profile. If someone finds it, okay, I have nothing to hide, but still, better to keep clear air over there rather than kick up in main venues.

But holy shit.

Like.

Beware: Much cussing afoot. Minding through this journey this guy is trying to demolish weeks of my work and tried to use my credit card and busting up people’s hubs and turning friends on each other and all kinds of stuff. This is my personal blog and at this point, I’m furious.

Okay so I’m going to start with CultFans. Some of you saw some of the work done. Let me tell you a little bit about how CF started. (and before making any judgments about CF because of this dude as described below, read the whole thing and understand how it’s changed now.)

There was a little podcast called Order of the Outpost. The Outpost is a small CW summer show with a tiny fandom, but I watch it because... well, it’s honestly an indie studio getting its first real shot and struggling through a lack of budget to swing with the big dogs and fuck yes I am trash for that kind of content. But anyway, OotO was started by a girl named Kira, who formerly ran The Lit Round Table for the Librarians fandom, and producer Dean Devlin showed up on it at one point. She got to go to set with the others. It was cool! Dean also signed on to support Outpost next to Arrowstorm, so heyyyyy it was just sort of a neat idea, maybe he’ll show back up one day and if not, we can nerd meta talk.

Several people pile in. One is this dude who happened to make semi-friends with a young actress getting a role in the show, who referred a few people to the stream. The problem is, when people got there, the streams went a few hours, it wasn’t structured - but I mean, that’s understandable. It’s a young fan stream in a young fandom, there’s not gonna be a lot of structure. And we don’t want to take over her podcast with a RuEL oF lAW but we see that the last guest got visibly exhausted. In fact, it was bad enough Shea and I left the call because it had run for 2 1/2 hours and that was just ridiculous. But it left Kira and... dude with the one semifriend actress (Tim/TJ). So the call went into eternity.

I felt bad for Josh (the set guy that was there) and thought - okay, I mean, I have the experience to help this keep rolling, but things have to change. You don’t want to change up her podcast but... if you want guests to stay engaged something has to change. So I propose making like, a second feature. This proposal was originally a second piece of content/second show on the same channel, but Dude With The SemiFriendish Actress ran off and, while I was checking my funds to consider investing in a website, registered a separate social media account, already started spamming tags out and alerting people about a change... okay, weird and unnecessary but whatever, roll with it.

He says he likes the idea of a more professional environment so that’s why he ran off and made the separate channel. I ask if he can invest in it at all. He says no. Okay, well, we need better than what we have, if we want any agents to take us seriously, so I drop the hard cash for website, domain, etc etc up front. I let him know it’s gonna be a hard road if he wants to do that kind of thing, he says he gets it and will listen.Totally open to feedback since I know what I’m doing and I’m totally an owner because I’m investing. Cool. So we do our first independent podcast which ends up being like... an hour and a half of him interrupting everything and talking at the guest. Flashbacks to the call with Josh, which dude COMPLETELY blamed Kira for. Even though he was one of two participants.

I pull him aside, say that’s not okay, that’s still way too long. We’re gonna start scripting it. Nobody’s here to see you talk, dude, or hear your opinion. If you want an opinion stream, go to OotO, you’re supposed to be supporting guests. That’s why they show up - publicity for a small studio. Says he gets it... give him a script. I start working on videos. He visits OotO one more time and drops a GIANT PR BOMB I DARE NOT REPEAT BUT IT COULD HAVE COST SOMEBODY THEIR JOB. (for the record, it’s something it turns out he completely hyperbolically inflated to make himself look good and turned up completely false but this isn’t shit you play around with son, these are careers.) We lock down the OotO stream and scrub it. He does a thousand frowny faces and apologizes and says he gets it. Okay! He’s new to this... will give another chance.

Now, let me insert, I love Sonalii Castillo to death. She’s talented in every way imaginable and a sweetheart. But she is not a big name. She deserves to be a big name, but she isn’t there yet. Her star meter floats at about the same level as TAW, if that gives you any idea, only she’s not a complete shitlord like TAW - she just hasn’t gotten a lucky break yet. But due to huffing crack from talking to her, dude sets up a patreon. We’re so new we have like 6 subscribers but he makes tiers like “$200/month TJ will add you to PS4 and play games with you.” Who the fuck are you dude??? Who is going to do that??? What the fuck? I tell him to take that shit down.

And... another. Dude, who all are you emailing? Wait, why do we have a new email? Wait, you registered an email on top of my domain? That we don’t have access to? Wait - what? Make a fucking spreadsheet, what the fuck is going on.

“Make a spreadsheet” - he comes back with this eye bleeding hot mess:

Just... pages of that. (Contacts blacked out for obvious reasons) O-...okay... he’s... he’s trying, I guess? Need contact to the email to see what you’ve said so we can follow up. Wait, you have THREE emails? Okay - he - he let us in one. Good enough for fucking now I guess, despite bitching him out to not do things in private.

Find him sending two page bricks about his aspergers and hopes and dreams to agents when they ask for more details. Uh- that’s... that’s not what they meant dude? “I didn’t realize-” dude there’s aspergers and then there’s just being completely- like- ridiculous. Dude, I have aspergers. And boy did he pitch that as an excuse every chance he got. Either you’re cut out for this kind of work or you’re not.

So I’m going behind, scrubbing on audio and video PR bombs, busted agent rep, vats of what turns out to be HUNDREDS of emails, writing scripts, making videos and even running the live broadcast because nobody else can handle it - oh, and paid for the site, because, you know, it was me saying we needed a better environment to begin with that kicked this off, but I never meant to completely break away but WHATEVER it is what it is. I made a point to keep attending OotO while, unsurprisingly, he dropped them cold.

He convinces a comic shop owner to give him swag for a light sponsorship deal for advertisement-vs-giveaway - cool, that’s cool. Inventory it. But he wants to keep this super rare rogue poster! Did he give it to you as a gift or as a sponsorship? ...For a giveaway. Okay, then you don’t keep that, that’s fraud. [pouty face]

Keep in mind this dude is 25.

He keeps turning up going “look at the stuff I got from the comic shop for giveaways!” and we’re like, dude, stop spending money, we don’t have money, you’re on welfare, knock it off until we get some sort of income. DONT TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH MY MONEY okay but if that’s your money that’s on you, I’m not taking that as an investment I’m going to have to pay back when we keep saying to stop buying shit. INVENTORY it so we can BUNDLE it and make GIVEAWAYS. Took like a month of me telling him this for him to inventory a grand total of like 12 items.

So I got him to close his utterly failed patreon and opened one of my own, that stayed in MY management, and he starts bitching for the login. Dude, you didn’t give me yours? You literally won’t give me anything that has a card on it so why am I going to give it to you? We’re not the ones blowing random money left and right? If there’s an expense to pay back, minding of course I’m the one that’s invested triple digits in this and he’s... spastically bought random swag at a comic book store and registered a redundant email on top of my domain that clogs up my ability to use *MY* free email in my package, while paying a few cents a day on it - I’ll fucking paypal you the money dude. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow Shea lives in the same house and can handle it. You don’t need my login creds.

I mean by now, there’s already huge red flags. Add in calling us each and rambling at us three hours a day about jack schitt all nothing while we say we’re trying to do work and mostly just talking about himself, kinda like he does on live air. Serious major narcissism shows, increasing creepiness with female guests, his weird obsession with anything money based, impulse spending, oh and he takes this “I’m the creator” attitude. ???? I... bought everything? And... Shea and I make... literally all of the resulting product? ???? You... ran off early and registered an SM account???? What did you create? Oh, it was “his idea”... right... okay. Yeah, no it wasn’t. Cue arguments and shitfits about it starting up.

But hey, I’m going to stay on point because we have a good thing going.

Again, HUNDREDS of emails. Try to navigate that hellhole of a spreadsheet and eventually just go “Fuck it, I’ll reformat, and make him fill in the other parts,”

Tada, a spreadsheet you can actually like, find shit. Suddenly the other team members could understand what the fuck was going on. I put in a date of contact, and email of contact field (now it’s all uniform now that we’ve cleaned up, but there were FOUR emails bouncing in there that he was doubletapping people from, once I made him type it out). Made him go find his own bullshit and put in dates/emails while haranguing him into giving us access to all but one email, and he pitched a fit saying his personal payment details were on it (because he chose to register the gsuite ON TOP OF MY DOMAIN just because he had limited delegated access to my godaddy I guess. IDK how Gsuite gets signed up for but I’ll just guess randos can’t do it without SOME kind of access)

Well, keep in mind, I’d been spending bare minimum 6, often 18 hours a week resorting emails, ELI5ing basic business or even basic human engagement, on top of my scripting and video work and everything else, because I bought into the “nobody ever gives me a chance” whining. And I’m all about giving people chances to do things they have fire to do. Literally all we’re asking for is to like, spellcheck his work (he was posting things through the blog like “Exlcusive”), not be a PR bomb, and sort out his shit (spreadsheets, emails) so I didn’t always have to clean up over him. Not exactly exorbitant work standards. Also stay relatively on script because, well, nobody wants to attend a stream for 2 1/2 hours, 2 hours of which is him talking at everyone instead of pulling information from the guests or engaging on behalf of an audience. But he’s trying, I tell myself! Against my better judgment. And, well, at least he contributes to paying imdbpro?

Well, I thought he did. Until I found out he was on a free trial and that expired. Sooo guess who had to register for the next trial? [this guy thumbs] Guess who started demanding access despite not allowing access before because of payment creds?

Because I’ve worked in stuff before, I run this by an old art director that’s worked on some pretty big shit. She doesn’t know anyone on the stream from Adam but HONES in on TJ. Her “protect the model” instinct kicked in immediately with how he was engaging female guests. “Mouth breathing basement dwelling perv” was the vibe she got off of him, without any prompting, and she immediately skeeved out. “He’s a problem, he’s a huge problem.” And I legit hadn’t said SHIT to her. She apparently saw the look on my face and was like “What?” so, storytime kicked in. But I did still make excuses for him. He’s an aspie, sometimes we’re weird about how we communicate, our tones are off, it may just be a quirk outside of his control - etc etc. But all this other shit has built up despite my thousand excuses I’ve run for him (and some I’ve completely brushed over in this novel) She also noted he choked on the McNally interview - that we were all nervous but he was squeaky. I said that was my fault, I rode his ass too hard about staying on script, poor baby was trying, that was a my bad.

And there’s parts I haven’t even touched on, TBH.

But let’s review where we’re at

Original OotO stream

I still attend, he drops Kira cold

He’s bitching in private quarters that he can’t stand her

I still try to refer guests we get to her

He starts dragging her when off air to blockade her getting guests

I now lose my shit on him

More frowny faces

after PR bombs

after unsorted emails

after the eyebleeding spreadsheet

After wrecking connections to a few agencies

After many long talks

after him running off script for weeks

After an art director spots him as a problem immediately

After I do all scripting, videos, and broadcasting

After Shea does all the graphics

After we made all of the triple digit investment

Dude randomly thinks he owns it because he bolted off to register an SM first

Seriously

But wait, there’s MORE!

Dude starts pitching bitches that I put out deadlines. Because he’s done things like try to bait guests on live air to make commitments to him and all kinds of shit, and I’m hard scripting it now to PREVENT that. But if the artists are gonna get the script in a time they can yay/nay we need to get it to them BEFORE THE FINAL HOUR. So he misses deadlines and then expects everyone to hand him their questions and work so he can be on the whole stream after he fucked off for a week and failed to even SUBMIT A QUESTION TO BE SCRIPTED? Um, NO? Guess who loses his shit about “his baby.” Oh boy, the entire team has a comeapart on him at this point.

He comes forward with telling the story of how the australian version of welfare (I forget what it’s called? Centerpoint? Some shit like that?) is up his ass to get a job but they’re getting “off his ass” because he’s “trying to make a business” and he’s happy about that, so he “might get a part time job, if he has to" but he wants to finally move out, get a two bedroom apartment. Dude, I point out, if there’s ANY money in this at ALL it is a LONG way away so get the fucking job.

He apologizes, says he gets it... whatever. But boy, an older, not-classically-attractive and not-big-name male guest? He suddenly doesn’t give a shit. Like, no questions, outright says he doesn’t care if he’s on it. But - but Jennifer is the week after!! He absolutely has to be there!!! Uh, why? Do you know anything about what a producer even DOES? Well, no. But he’s bouncing on Charan so he should be in the front THERE. Okay, so what are you going to ask her. Oh, he has no idea. But there’s going to be a GIRL on the stream to talk at, so hey!

But here we are right after I say it was my fault he was choking on McNally’s interview and he runs 15 minutes off script on the next one AND tries to talk over me for a SOLID MINUTE during our scripted wrap. I manage to end the broadcast, I drop mention of OotO to the guest and he goes OFF about it being an unbearable stream; like yes I will be honest literally everybody jokes about her laugh but saying “just letting you know it’s unstructured-” isn’t an invite to go off calling her stream a hot mess and yes, once you go off about her laugh everybody’s gonna laugh a bit and chuckle it off and roll long enough to not go off on you in front of an actor but everybody else knew to shut it down with “but Kira’s sweet” and end it. And nothing about her having any kind of laugh is worth HARDBALL BLOCKADING her getting guests. It’s fair to warn them that it isn’t structured like an interview, because, you know - well, let’s not blindside them, but that still WORKS for some personalities. That DOESNT mean you go off calling it a hot mess and all kinds of other shit. And people lightly rolling with it long enough to not make you look like a TREMENDOUS THUNDERCUNT and make a scene in front of an actor they KNOW you will blow up on us in front of does not WARRANT that behavior, catch a clue when everybody’s cutting it off with “But she’s a sweet girl” dude. Or the fact that SOME OF US STILL GO TO HER STREAM. You’re the one that hard dropped her.

But after the last time he dragged Kira I went off on him. I even deadass told him the feedback from the art director finally. I try to sort his vat of emails to cool off, and wake up in the morning to an ENTIRE INBOX full of him shittily forwarding things from his private email we said he shouldn’t even HAVE, full of attitude about me doubletapping a few clients, after HE put the wrong contact date/email in the sheet BY HIS OWN HAND. Like, I’m supposed to psychically know what’s in his fucking private email he won’t cough up when he put the wrong data down.

So here I am, cup of coffee still untouched, put my butt down in the chair, see an inbox FULL of him being a wumbo sized shitlord and he starts calling me on Hangouts, like he must have seen my indicator turn green. Again, keep in mind him being notorious for three hour phonecalls about nothing, and/or arguing. So I decline. He calls again. I decline. He calls again. I answer. “What.”

Long silence.

“I’m not creepy.”

“Come again?”

Long silence. “I listened to the stream. I don’t sound creepy.”

“Dude, a creepy sounding dude isn’t going to think you sound creepy. And it’s not just the art director. I’ve gotten that from a few other viewers.”

Long silence. He starts trying to argue and I cut him off. Like, no dude. After all of this shit, after ALL of this, after we have literally built and invested in ALL of this when you don’t have a single goddamn skill sufficient for the job and we spend full work weeks trying to mentor you while trying to do other shit, you had the audacity to talk over me during our wrap THEN DRAG KIRA.

“Well I didn’t realize I was doing it.”

“Okay?”

“What do you mean okay?”

“I mean, okay? What do you want me to say to that? If you have something going on in your head that somehow makes you unable to process you’re trying to talk over someone for a solid minute, during a point that has literally been part of a routine for a month and a half, what do you want me to say?”

Long awkward pause. “So how do we fix it?”

“I don’t know, dude. I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried scripting, teaching you metronome, I’ve tried moving your position around in the stream to see if you sync somewhere better, I’ve tried having you watch other interviews, I’ve tried giving you templates. I’ve tried being gentle, being firm, I’ve tried outright bitching you out. And if you don’t even realize you’re doing these things, I don’t know how to make you fix them. I’m a production coordinator, not a psychologist.”

“But... how do we fix it?”

“I... just said I don’t know.”

“Yeah but I mean, how do we fix it.”

“I mean you can keep asking me that over and over but I just told you, I’ve done everything I can even think of at this point to make this work and to give you chances that I am in no way obligated to give you. And you know, through all of this, I haven’t even gotten a single thank you from you? For even giving you a chance to be part of this?”

Awkward silence. “But it’s m-”

“Don’t start that it’s mine shit. There is no universe in which this is yours. And if you want to play that, I can walk with the site, the domain you registered your emails on, my videos, broadcasting software, Shea’s design and my general understanding on how any of this works, like I could have done a month ago from your bullshit, and you can try to do it with a google hangouts and a wix site and see how that works.”

Awkward silence. “Well how do -”

“I swear to god if you ask me how to fix it one more time I’m hanging up. [Brief silence] Okay, so how about you tell me how to fix it, instead?”

He’s quiet a minute. “I don’t know.”

“Okay well if I’ve reached the limit of my ability to think on how to fix it, and you don’t know how to fix it, I’m going to need you to try harder.”

He loops this cycle several times. In hindsight, I’m aware now, he was trying to make me be the wicked witch that kicked him out. But I wasn’t. He came up on his own, “Maybe I should take a step back.”

“Is that what you think will fix it?”

“Yeah. I mean. Maybe. But... if I step back... what do I get out of it?”

“...Come again?”

“I mean, if I step back, what kind of money do I get.”

...????

??????

“Okay, look dude, what money? There IS no money. There’s like 5 bucks in a patreon when I paid out well over 100 bucks in startup costs. These problems, all of these problems, these explosions in the team all have one source. It’s that simple. If you think you stepping back fixes it, I’m not going to stop you, but there IS no money.”

“But what about if you start MAKING money?”

“...what?”

“Like in a few years, this gets big. I mean, I created it and all - I get money, right?”

“What did you create?”

Crickets. Finally, “It was my idea.”

“No, dude, it was everyone’s idea. And even if it was your idea, which it wasn’t, an idea is just an idea. I have an idea that I’d love to genetically splice a lizard back into being a T-Rex but if I have no idea how to fucking do it and someone else does all the work for that, they’re the creator of the goddamn new T-Rex, so you can put that down right now.”

Awkward silence. Says he has to think. Hangs up.

Okay well, I have an interview to prerecord, so we just get to rolling.

He comes back in the NEXT MORNING bitching about money again. And not even just about money.

So here’s the deal. Yet again, like many a morning recently, I approach with an untouched cup of coffee, sit down... and there is a WALL OF BRICKS in our team chat. Why? Because Shea fucking triggered on him like two hours ago and they haven’t stopped. Shea, a woman with more than 10 years management experience, who was supposed to handle any money we DID get coming in, was out working her 55 hour a week shitty retail job (for the record, due to being physically broken beyond function I am on disability, but I worked until I couldn’t do it anymore, literally, and at least it’s SOME income), when he came in saying, I shit you not, that he needed “that money” because he never wants to have to work retail, sales, or food and he shouldn’t have to get a part time job at Samsung.

What the fuck? Who the fuck are you dude? Needless to say, Shea went postal in righteous anger. And we ALL had righteous anger of our own. Our work, our history in regular work force, our input in this, and asking him what he thinks any of us should get paid for our work or how much he thinks this is going to pull for him to move into a two bedroom apartment. Does only he get paid if we somehow start pulling a few thousand dollars? And is he going to give anything back to Arrowstorm? To Sonalii? How much does he think this digital business is going to be paying in the first year? 10K? 20? or does only him getting a few thousand dollars count? Arrowstorm is indie, don’t just ride their shit to fame as your goal dude, that’s not how this fucking works. Even Stacy, sweetest pea in the pod that hates confrontation, bricked him about the need to respect Arrowstorm and how hard this all is. And what do you even do to justify making all the money? He fills out the imdb spreadsheet, he says. That original hot mess that I had to reformat. And sends emails, that I have to clean up after him. That takes TIME. I bundled it up and did the math like I did and said he was running an average of 1-2 hours a week of work. But he’s super busy. That’s his excuse. We just dont KNOW what his life is like.

Meanwhile we get wind he’s going back to Kira, after ALL THE SHIT DRAGGING HE DID OF HER, and abandoning her stream which I was STILL going to every week. Why? Because everybody’s sick of his shit here, so he’ll go there for convenience, I guess, since he burned everybody up here. And when we confront him about how shitty and gross that is, he tries to justify it but gets reamed. Tries to blame it on how busy he’s been too. Super busy. A wall of busy. And it’s a fantastic busy wall.

Dude goes dead silent on everybody. Kay, well, we have final prep for a live feature with THE ARROWSTORM PRODUCER the next day so we get back to our shit, because we’re sick of him derailing everything. Wake up in the morning to him trying to ultimatum US about the emails we said he shouldn’t have and leaving. So, you know. That was a thing. And we get a notice that he tried to set the FB to delete. Now it becomes a mad dash to password change EVERYTHING. And change all of the recovery options. Luckily my godaddy account was already delegated and restricted access but I go to doublecheck and THIS motherfucker has a domain registration package IN MY CHECKOUT CART. What. The FUCK. Luckily he can’t see or use my payment details but I screenshot that shit. I still have to be live with the producer in a few hours and put on a good face. Like the last interview, it went great without him (barring a tech difficulty that slammed us because of my shitty tech). She said she had a great time. Said she was gonna text the leads in the show (which IS a CW show) to get in contact with us. We smile and wave and thank her and off she goes.

I look back in hangouts and he’s bitching about the emails, I tell him just delete the shit dude, I can register them again, I’m not an idiot and already backed everything up to a zip folder and if there’s downtime it’s the weekend and agents won’t be answering anyway while I put it back up, I don’t give a shit but HEY, while we’re at it, I’m super curious about why I spotted this in my checkout cart and why you pitched a bitch about your access levels suddenly. You know, right before I password locked you out. So are you going from passive fraud of accidentally keeping things from the comic store to active fraud using my card to buy shit? Luckily I’m smarter than you, son.

Oh, the excuses flowed. It was an accident. He didn’t realize, he was just checking how much it would cost (like they don’t show that before you select), IDK, they never found the bodies was probably next.

So I dig in google history to make sure other weird shit wasn’t going on and make sure he was locked out of everything and find that this dumb motherfucker set the group email to be his microsoft account so both microsoft AND google were tracking him and this fuckface was playing more than 60+ hours of random games and bullshit a *week.* And I don’t mean like “might have left it running when he left the house” games, I mean rotating titles every 30-45 minutes was common. You could literally see when he’d try to initiate his three hour google calls, then hang up and go play Marvel, then pick a fight and when people got pissed, turned around and played asphalt, then came back to complain about money, and then when people bitched at him went on grindr or looked up a mix of ageplay and/or pedo porn. Like it’s RIGHT THERE in the tracking history and it’s hard to miss because *he’s the only fucker in australia in the team* and you can track the logins. Mine are all like searching for the acting reels i need or whatever to build their video features then his is like Hungry Sharks > Asphalt 8 > FIFA > Grindr > Some PotC game and so on. The occasional single googling of an article. And you can track this shit going on every day for WEEKS. So I bold ass call that out.

Like, you’re too busy to put in more work or to talk to Kira until it’s convenient to you but you can do [list of 20 apps] for 9 hours a day? On TOP of calling each of us for hours? What the FUCK?

He starts typing to argue back and I’m like, no motherfucker, don’t start. You are literally in here, hoping to work on the actual product being created by people with the work skills making this happen, claiming it’s your creation just because you ran off half cocked and made an SM account you tagged us into and it would look weird to break off AGAIN from OotO, so we ran with it but have literally put in every penny and working hour and bit of product to this and you expect us to wire you any and all cash out of it because what? You LITERALLY have said you just don’t want to work, you LITERALLY have done NOTHING but eat up our time while we give you endless chances, and you’re on here doing [list of 20 more apps] and googling a site once a day as your labor into this expecting cash to just pour into your pockets? Are you on crack?

Typing again,

No dude, we’re not here to pave your way.

Delete... typing again.

No, dude, you’re looking to make a quick buck on everybody else’s work and that’s not gonna fly.

Delete... typing again.

Dude, don’t even, it’s RIGHT THERE in the google history.

...[Tim has left this group]

Okay. Whatever. Ding dong the bitch is dead, we have more work to do. I onboard a few friends to help out with my video/transcripting load - not that TIm ever did any of that anyway - and get to work. I just leave it out of public. Keep rolling. In 2 days we get more work done than I usually did in 2 weeks because, guess what, I’m not cleaning up a manchild’s messes and getting called hours on end and having to argue about basic common sense. And I mean tangible work. Like, now we’re literally a month ahead on prep for our content that we were always running to the last minute on, off of a few DAYS of work. The rest is all time to grow and settle in now.

Turn around... find out his ass is subtweeting us. And not just subtweeting, he’s claiming it was discrimination because he was gay.

I shit you not.

He’s out there saying that Grindr was used to “throw his sexuality in his face” despite being on a list of like 20394203942039420394203942039420394 apps he was fucking around with all fucking day while pitching this attitude. *And* claiming someone was “creepy” for “checking out his browsing history.” not that I checked out *our group account history* because he was *trying to spend money on my card and tried to delete our facebook*, but hey. Spin it how you want, I guess?

My friend, who joined the hangout, and by proxy it loaded the chat history, called him on his shit. Who, by the way, is queer. Like no, motherfucker, this is just your own lazy spoiled entitled ass making its own bed, if it was a straight chat site you’d be getting bitched out for doing Fuck All just the same, what the fuck. I don’t care if it was eHarmony listed in there amidst all the games. Deal with your shit. He blocks her. Blocks everyone. Starts messaging people that are liking said friend’s comments on the thread going “I see you noticed the thread-” and trying his bullshit schpiel on them. Sorry dude. These are people I’ve built rapport with for years and know my work ethic, better luck next fucking time.

And the proof is in the pudding. I’ve gone from being entirely MIA and unreachable for weeks at a time drowning in this shit to being a month ahead on work, with said-friend only having to put in like 3-4 hours of useful additions (rather than basically working against us 16~ hours a week) and boom, we’re way ahead of the curve now! I’m talking to people again! Shit called. Mischief managed.

But if you ever want the image of a thousand stereotypes in one ball

a 25 year old white dude that is creepy as fuck with female guests to the point almost everybody picks up on it, lives with his mother, has never worked a job in his life, thinks breathing in his vicinity or playing games with him is reason to throw money at him, thinks he owns anything he looks in the direction of and thinks he should get all the money; and, on the other hand, falls into the (GENERALLY FAKE) stereotype that calls of discrimination against LGBT folk are just excuses (WHICH IS SHIT THAT MAKES IT HARDER WHEN ACTUAL DISCRIMINATION HITS). *AND* having the audacity to go public about it *AFTER* we tried to quietly let him walk. The literal embodiment of the worst of every fucking stereotype rolled into one, from lazy young generation to men taking credit over the work women do and feeling superior to even attitudes that make honest hard-working LGBT folk have a hell of a time in the world when real discrimination hits.

AND HE WONDERS WHY HE’S UNEMPLOYABLE.

HOLY. SHIT.

...[flips tables]

For the record, here is said friend calling his shit. Some of you may know her, too.

So there, my rant of the day.

Men. Are fucking. Exhausting. Oh. My god.

But now, we’re ahead. We’re pulling ahead. We’re going to be stable and strong and we’re now poised to even increase our number of guests on the week, especially if those emails from the leads come in. We can take the punches, and everybody’s comfortable on interviews without him being weird on them now, and things are going places.

But christ on a coconut. This is literally *WHY* it’s so hard to get given a chance in the world. Because people like this are given a chance and they just... KSJFKSJDFksjfskdjf

I hate people.

#wank for ts

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matchafrican446 · 3 years

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Orthodox Jewish Dating Sites

Orthodox Jewish Dating Websites

Free Jewish Dating Sites

Brooke, 30, an Orthodox woman divorced for six years, wants a meaningful relationship that will lead to marriage, but that is proving to be a challenge. She has tried matchmakers, popular in her circle, but most of them don’t give thought to the matches, ignoring her personal qualities and tastes. She’s tried Jewish dating sites too. But, she finds them “free for all and creepy.” Many of the men want to date casually, or just hook up. Some even create fake profiles.

Mazaltov.org is where marriage minded Jewish singles come to find true love. Our unique approach to creating a Jewish dating site has resulted in many success stories. We blend cutting-edge technology with our unique human touch, to create an online community like no other Jewish dating site. 3 reasons to choose Jewish dating sites. Here are 3 reasons to choose Mingle2 Jewish dating site: 😉 Secure verification: All members are personally confirmed by our staff to prove they are real. We provide you with real potential partners that are here for the same reasons as you. 😉 Quick to register: Registering an account and creating a.

In 2018, being Orthodox no longer offers the security of ongoing community support, and for single millennials, finding a partner is a solitary pursuit. While Jewish communities still value marriage and family above all, the burden of coupling falls on the singles.Yossi, 32, and Shira Teichman, 31, a married Orthodox couple from Los Angeles have drawn on their life experiences to create a technological solution to this dilemma. Together with life coach Shiffy,Lichtenstein, they are the co-creators of forJe a dating app for Jewish singles, like Brooke, who are seeking long-term relationships.

Chaim Orzel, 27, who grew up in a “very Orthodox home” and now describes himself as “Conservadox”, is ready to give the new app a try. He bemoans the shallowness of dating sites that promote pretty profiles and impressive job titles over internal gifts. “The problem is that it’s making marriage a transactional experience. What happens if a guy loses his job, or he has a stroke, heaven forbid? Free unpaid dating sites. External things won’t keep a marriage together.”

The Teichmans share this view. “We both have PHDs in dating,” says Shira wearily, in a telephone interview with this reporter. Before meeting one another in 2014, she says: “We had gone to all the matchmakers and the singles events. We were meeting a multitude of people, but nothing was working.” Yossi recalls that most dating coaches just gave advice on appearances.

The disappointment led Shira, who has an MA in education, to study with experts such as Leonard Carr, a psychologist who runs growth courses on relationships and “personal mastery” (https://www.leonardcarr.com/index.html), hoping to better understand herself. “I wanted to understand what drives me, what holds me back. Once I started understanding myself, I realized my dating was changing already. I was in a more powerful position to find the right partner.”

Shira decided to share this new sense of power and began running dating workshops called “Breakthrough Dating.” “Being able to develop a connection is a very tangible skill,” she explains. While Shira says many millennials will go on a date, not feel “a spark”, and then end the budding relationship, she believes they need to learn a process she calls “the anatomy of building a relationship.”

Positive feedback followed the early events. Out of 40 individuals at one of her first events, four ended up getting married. So, when Yossi entered the picture, the workshops became a shared passion. After each event, the couple would distribute surveys, later reviewed by psychologist Rabbi David Pelcovitz, chair of education and psychology at Yeshiva University.

Statistics in hand, a year and a half ago, the couple began serious work on forJe. Yossi worked with a team of other programmers to code what he calls “the first dating app to use Artificial Intelligence.” To screen out fraudsters, the app requires users to scan their drivers’ license. That information is then compared to the information provided from Facebook or Google when the user makes a profile. Once the app is satisfied that the individual is not a scammer, personal information is deleted and never shared, Yossi says.

The need for such a high level of user safety is the result of an increase in catfishing, or the act of luring someone into a relationship based on a false online persona. Since 2005, numerous websites like romancescams.org and Facebook forums have been created to help victims of these crimes. In the last six months of 2014 alone, the FBI reported that 82 million dollars of money was stolen through such scams, as reported by the podcast Criminal.

Ben Rabizadeh, the CEO of JWed, a Jewish dating site in which over 50% of users are Orthodox, said that his site faces threats from these international scammers. Fraudsters create fake profiles, get into an online relationship, and then ask for money. “We screen out a large majority of fraudulent profiles during initial signup; but occasionally something slips through and in those cases, we promptly respond to complaints and remove users who are not eligible to join JWed.”

ForJe’s decision to increase security is also a response to locals who lie about their marital status on Jewish dating sites. Rabizadeh says he is shocked to hear of religious married men saying they are single to pursue single women. “This has never come up except for the rare circumstance where a couple is separated and not yet legally divorced.”

But women interviewed for this article say it does happen. Brooke describes her worst experience – a man who created four different profiles and even changed the cadence of his voice when speaking on the phone as the various personas. “He also had a wife and girlfriend,” she added. “There are men who are married or in relationships and lie about their status,” says Jackie, 32, who acknowledges that she finds dating sites helpful, despite the perils.

ForJe is taking these reports seriously. And the next step in creating a profile is also aimed at screening out fraudsters. Users must answer a lengthy series of multiple choice questions. The type of questions reflects the Teichmans’ interest in self-knowledge and include probing queries such as “If you won a large sum of money, how would you use it?” and “How do you determine if you’ve had a good week?” The list takes a while to get through, but the time required has an objective, according to Yossi. “We want to weed out people that are just looking for hook-ups,” he says emphatically.

As users answer more questions and interact with the app, it is programmed to get to know their unique selves – at least as well as a machine can ‘know’ a human. Every day, users are presented with up to three matches. The low number of potentials is also there to encourage committed dating. There is no opportunity for rapidly judging the attractiveness of scores of photographs, a practice associated with other apps.“

Most dating apps today are not really dating apps. They are social media platforms and have all the features Facebook does. They just want people to be addicted and stay in. We aren’t interested in that. We are interested in you finding compatible matches.”But will singles trust a machine to set them up? Girls dating app.

Orthodox Jewish Dating Websites

Jackie, who describes herself as Jewishly “traditional”, says she would give the concept a try. “Seems like anything would be better than the matchmakers at Saw You at Sinai,” she says, naming a popular Orthodox site which uses remote matchmakers to set users up. “Machines aren’t focused on what they get out of it, so that would probably be more accurate matching,” agrees Brooke, referring to matchmakers in general.

The app is potentially great news, according to Rabbi Mark Wildes, an Orthodox rabbi who founded and directs the Manhattan Jewish Experience, an organization where millennial men and women in their 20s and 30s can explore Jewish life and meet new people. “Any kind of technology that allows people to be more honest will be helpful to more serious-minded daters.” he says. However, he cautions that young people overuse technology for dating – breaking up over text and not giving shy people a chance. “People are not as fast as computers,” he says.

Another challenge he has observed is that millennials have lost their faith in marriage. When it comes to the challenges faced by Orthodox singles, Rabbi Wildes thinks the answer may lie in grassroots matchmaking. “It should be a mandate for every young couple in the first 24 months of their marriage to fix people up. We need to increase the pool of matchmakers. Feeling a little gratitude that you found that special someone? Pay it back.”

But while Jewish singles wait for their married friends to set them up, they are finding ways to empower themselves. Signing up for an artificially intelligent matchmaker is one way to do that.

Another form of empowerment is taking a chance on love, says Orzel. He believes the Orthodox single crisis can be solved by a collective change in attitude. “In Hebrew ahava means love, the root word, hav in Hebrew is to give. So, to love someone, you must give to that person. Without giving, there is no love. In our dating life today, there is no concept of unconditional love.”

Free Jewish Dating Sites

Free iranian dating site. Suzanne Selengut writes feature stories about global Jewish issues and the arts. She is based in New York City.

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missanthropicrn · 7 years

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Akio, Predation, Trust, Victimization, and the Black Rose Saga

This came up in the Discord, and I wanted to take the opportunity to expand on it and develop the idea. I was trying to articulate how, especially on repeat viewings, Akio's scenes in the BRS manage to create a mounting unease despite appearing less openly predatory than similar moments in the Akio Arc and beyond. I pulled random screen caps from these scenes into one place, and looking at them this way, it's a lot plainer why.

**** I guess I should note, that this is spoiler heavy and discusses in detail Akio’s...well..predation of Utena. So if that, and the disgusting shit it pertains to, is a trigger for you, stay away. I mean for this to be a serious exploration of something that is absolutely horrifying, and my primary argument is that it was deliberately set up by the creators of the series to be that way. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but I’m in no way endorsing Akio’s behavior, trying to shift blame, or do anything to distract from the damage it does and how sickening it is that it happens. Kind of the opposite. Not only is it sick, the show made a concerted effort to make it even worse. This became a huge wall of text. Sorry. If I thought the uncomfortable wasn’t worth exploring, I doubt I’d still be running an Utena website after 15 years.

When we first meet Akio, there are four people in the room, it’s brightly lit, and Akio impresses on Utena that he’s 1. *just* the deputy Chairman, 2. an airhead that likes the stars, and 3. oblivious to the dueling game. He’s sitting back, Utena’s sitting back, and the whole thing appears offensively innocent, though seconds before he was making out with the woman he’s more or less ignoring right now.

In episode 15, they’re alone, but the room is brightly lit. Utena sits back. Akio leans forward. This is not a suspicious pose in itself, and is generally accepted as one a person would use to seem relaxed. However by this point, we already suspect absolutely everything Akio does, because we know what he’s like outside of this innocent little scene. Also...

A shot splitting off Akio’s space in the room focuses instead on the picture (that faces away) of him with his sister, as though to establish she’s there. The conversation focuses on Anthy, as well.

But what we see on Akio’s side isn’t Anthy. Not just a vase full of roses, but wrapped roses also, as if they’ve been delivered to him. This is the first time Akio and Utena are alone, and something else is on his mind. We see wrapped roses like this again, after all, in episode 33. His seduction starts here.

In episode 17, we don’t see the picture again--Anthy is gone. The room is now dark. Utena leans forward, becoming more comfortable in his presence. Akio is looking up, though Utena is not, and while he does so, he’s talking about Utena herself, comparing her to Ganymede, and warning that her innocence can be hurtful to others. This is the first time he talks about Utena in an abstract, *who* she is rather than that she just is, and what he says is both flattering and clearly not appropriate in the capacity of a Chairman. The pretense of his status separating them has been pulled down, and for those of us listening from the outside, his addressing of her innocence at all is foreboding. It’s made worse by an assumption I’m having that Utena is unfamiliar with Ganymede, who is a beautiful youth abducted by Zeus for his pleasure. A story that’s taken as an endorsement of the predation of young boys by adult men. Utena not being a boy is fucking irrelevant.

Though visually there’s no progression in episode 18, in this scene, Utena tells him about the Prince she dreams of, suggesting she’s now comfortable enough to look past his age, gender, role of authority, or any other of the number of reasons you wouldn’t say such a thing to him. She then doubles down and asks him if it means she’s not an adult. Akio tells her that stars lose their brilliance as they age, and this is not a veiled answer: “You’re a child, and I like that about you.” Utena registers on some level a wrongness about this comment, and she immediately diverts the conversation and brings up Kanae and him. His answer leaves her unsettled, and without a conclusion that would help establish her role when she’s with him, nevermind make it safe one.

Episode 19′s scene is all about the mounting tension between Akio and Anthy on Utena’s account, and her total obliviousness to it. At this point, that the siblings are locking horns over the issue establishes his progress as much as any scene we could have been shown with him and Utena. His body language has become very casual, especially with the arm slung over the back of the couch. This isn’t an unusual thing to do for a guy, but consider that we repeatedly see him pose this way when we’re shown his sexual relationship with Anthy--more than once, by this point. It accompanies the “Come here, Anthy.” line in this arc, as well as being how he’s posed in episode 32, when Nanami finds them. The dialogue in this scene is also rich:

Akio: But, Tenjou-san... The inside of a person's heart is like something veiled in silk. Ahh... It seems like you could see through, but in fact you can't. The prince people hold inside their heart...is surely something that others wouldn't understand. But, I envy young people who are in love. Akio: I hope you, too, will find your own prince soon, Anthy. Anthy: Yes, Onii-sama.

We’re supposed to think he’s talking to Utena, but Akio and Anthy have their eyes cut off from the frame in succession, because the real conversation is literally going over Utena’s head. What Utena takes home as a deep thought about the complexities of the human heart, that he is sharing with her because he thinks she’s ready for such insights, Anthy is hearing as a reminder that Utena doesn’t know sweet fuck all about her, him, or what’s important to either of them. It is, after all, perfectly fine for him to sexually abuse this child, but not for her to give a shit or care about Utena in any serious way.

In episode 20, we’re alone, the room is dark, and we’ve abandoned the couch for a different kind of intimacy: idle comfort. Utena is stretching, going about the business of what’s important to her because being in Akio’s presence no longer constitutes a visit, but simply hanging out. It’s the difference between friends you sit at the table and talk with and friends you make help cook first and then sit in the living room watching cat videos with. (What?) Akio has positioned himself similarly, on his back lying down so he can comfortably watch the stars. Utena is no longer a visit to him, either.

This growing comfort allows him to say things to her, about her, that she would have found uncomfortable back in episode 18. He says her lack of self-consciousness is a special trait she carries from birth, that separates her from others, who are mostly without any personal trait of value themselves. This is an invasive, flattering thing for an adult to say to a teenager. It’s also implying an expectation about how she will act, assuring that her behavior continue to suit him.

Us poor viewers get even more from the scene. He says this while she’s stretching, so that when we see her do a great deal of the same in episode 33, we are called back to this scene, and her apparent lack of self-consciousness. We see then a comfortable, familiar behavior being retreated to in her nervousness, her special trait diminished under the press of his attention.

In episode 21, the last of these scenes in the Black Rose Saga, Akio is not even initially present. However, he very much is there, and this scene is something of a mirror of the first time Akio and Utena are alone. In episode 15, Anthy’s presence is created partway through by her being in the photograph, and here Akio’s presence is only established well into the scene. (The elevator dings right at the beginning, so he’s in the room the entire time.) In episode 15, the topic of conversation was about Anthy to begin with, and in this scene, Utena is repeating things Akio has said, so that in both cases, the sibling is present from the get go. Utena now has established, separate relationships with the two.

Utena focuses on what he’s taught her about the stars here, which feels almost like revisionism at this point, as if to make sure we know he actually bothers to. What we’ve been shown up to this point isn’t their astronomy and mythology lessons, but rather the progressive establishing of intimacy between Akio and Utena. A deliberate and focused effort to build her trust, by appearing to physically keep a proper distance, while verbally doing anything but. Framed as discussions about the various goings on Utena experiences in the school, Akio tells her hopeful things, cynical things, and most often, things about herself. He flatters her, but also reinforces her childishness. He makes invasive observations about who she is, and then implies an expectation that she not be self-conscious around him. And now we see he lets her use his prized projector when he’s not around, which is not a thing most adults would let a child do.

The unease these scenes create is deliberate. The show goes to great pains to introduce Akio as a sexual creature; we first see him in the context of the story making out with Kanae, and by the end of that episode, we know he’s sleeping with Anthy as well. Several episodes in the arc, in fact, end on this note. We’re reminded over and over that Akio is not only sexually active, but is so by way of an extremely taboo relationship that doesn’t appear to bother him in the least. Taken apart from that (if one could ever really do so) these scenes aren’t nearly as suggestive as they feel; Akio never leers at Utena, and in fact doesn’t even touch or go near her until much later, in episode 25. He says flattering things but they dance a fine line between flattery with a sexual end, and just encouraging things an adult (unwisely, perhaps) might say to a child to drive their self-esteem.

Utena is elsewhere in the show often oblivious to the subtext of events going on around her, so it’s not surprising she never seems suspicious of Akio. What we take to be extremely concerning, she has no reason to. What we see as the unambiguous predation of a child by an adult, she has no reason to think of in that way. She has no previous history to make her suspect (the way Touga would) and he does nothing that would be obvious to her to shift her reading of his actions away from Anthy’s friendly brother to sexual predator.

As naturally suspicious viewers that have watched an arc of Touga draped weirdly on beds, we probably would have been concerned anyway. Maybe we’d bring very real, very rational points of view to it, and be worried on her behalf because he’s an adult man in a position of power over a young girl. Instead, the show makes a concerted effort to make us suspicious from the moment Akio appears, sacrificing what could have been a slow, dramatic reveal (his relationship with Anthy) for what we get instead: unambiguous awareness that what he’s doing is predatory. That his end goal, from the moment Utena is in a room alone with him, is sexual in nature. Their first meeting, and the culmination of that effort, are marked by the wrapped roses that have been delivered to him. The show makes sure we know, every moment, what is happening here.

By the shift in tone he takes in his own arc, Utena has been made comfortable and familiar enough with him that her impulse isn’t to run. Her violent reactions to Touga’s invasions of her space in the first arc are nowhere to be seen. Akio’s slipped just far enough past her boundaries to mute the alarms that should be going off. He can sit close enough to her for body contact, and her embarrassment at the intimacy appears totally apart from any fear of it. She can retreat into discussing Kanae when he declares a trip to the hospital is a date, but in the aftermath of their kiss (that Akio watches, lest we forget), her reaction is guilt and interest. She’s been groomed past directing that concern at the proper target, and instead blames herself. A sad but common side effect of this kind of predation.

But you know what? I expect nothing less from SKU. This is a series that builds up all of this creeping tension and disgust, and cashes it in on an episode framing the act entirely from Akio’s point of view. It isn’t enough to spend several hours watching with horror his stalking of this prey, we’re forced also to watch what it does to her, her discomfort and awkward rambling, and how he sees it: as beautiful. The sequence in question in episode 33 is long, meticulously animated, and makes Utena look more feminine than she looks at any point prior. There’s a massive disconnect between how sexual she’s drawn, and how she behaves. And we know why.

This isn’t an easy topic to discuss. Revolutionary Girl Utena isn’t an easy show to watch. And this isn’t an easy thing to ignore, and shouldn’t be. The show cares not for what experiences we’ve had going on. Whether we recognize Utena’s position immediately, or have to extrapolate from the information given. Whether we know or not how she feels, we’re forced to watch it with all the cards already on the table. We’re forced to watch Akio, knowing it’s his goal, before watching from his perspective the culmination of his efforts.

The experience is an assault of its own. The meticulous cultivating of Utena’s willingness and our dread occur simultaneously, so that when we’re finally put in that hotel room, only her face in frame, we’re as trapped in the moment as she is. Even if we look away, we’ve already seen everything leading up to it, a turning of talent and skill to horrifying ends. Our heroine’s trust is gained and abused. Her youth and her innocence is preyed on. And by the vantage point we’re given, and the force with which we’re made accomplices, we’re preyed on as well. The small comfort experiencing it alongside her would have given our peace of mind is denied to us. We’re forced in horror into Akio’s point of view instead, knowing acutely how much it pleases him. Because of course we are. Haven’t we been watching all along, knowing what he was doing? Peeking through squinted eyes at each step closer, expecting, dreading, but anticipating the same thing he has?

It’s not hard to imagine that Akio, aware of his audience, would be pleased to an excess with what’s done to us. And I wonder...perhaps that is the point of the care and cruelty with which his seduction is portrayed by be-Papas. It’s not just righteous anger on Utena’s behalf that we feel, but righteous anger on our own as well. He is an absolute abuser, and every character he meets is a target of that. Perhaps it only makes sense that us, viewers from a great distance divided by reality, manage still to be his victims also.

#SKU #RGU #Shoujo Kakumei Utena #Revolutionary Girl Utena #Utena #Utena Tenjou #Akio #Akio Ohtori #utena spoilers #Analysis #Meta #Discussion

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seobitcoin25-blog · 4 years

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In Bitcoin We Trust?

By now you have probably heard of Bitcoin, but can you define it?

Most often it is described as a non-government digital currency. Bitcoin is also sometimes called a cybercurrency or, in a nod to its encrypted origins, a cryptocurrency. Those descriptions are accurate enough, but they miss the point. It's like describing the U.S. dollar as a green piece of paper with pictures on it.

I have my own ways of describing Bitcoin. I think of it as store credit without the store. A prepaid phone without the phone. Precious metal without the metal. Legal tender for no debts, public or private, unless the party to whom it is tendered wishes to accept it. An instrument backed by the full faith and credit only of its anonymous creators, in whom I therefore place no faith, and to whom I give no credit except for ingenuity.

I wouldn't touch a bitcoin with a 10-foot USB cable. But a fair number of people already have, and quite a few more soon may.

This is partly because entrepreneurs Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, best known for their role in the origins of Facebook, are now seeking to use their technological savvy, and money, to bring Bitcoin into the mainstream.

The Winklevosses hope to start an exchange-traded fund for bitcoins. An ETF would make Bitcoin more widely available to investors who lack the technological know-how to purchase the digital currency directly. As of April, the Winklevosses are said to have held around 1 percent of all existent bitcoins.

Created in 2009 by an anonymous cryptographer, Bitcoin operates on the premise that anything, even intangible bits of code, can have value so long as enough people decide to treat it as valuable. Bitcoins exist only as digital representations and are not pegged to any traditional currency.

According to the Bitcoin website, "Bitcoin is designed around the idea of a new form of money that uses cryptography to control its creation and transactions, rather than relying on central authorities." (1) New bitcoins are "mined" by users who solve computer algorithms to discover virtual coins. Bitcoins' purported creators have said that the ultimate supply of bitcoins will be capped at 21 million.

While Bitcoin promotes itself as "a very secure and inexpensive way to handle payments," (2) in reality few businesses have made the move to accept bitcoins. Of those that have, a sizable number operate in the black market. Know more here seobitcoin.com/

Bitcoins are traded anonymously over the Internet, without any participation on the part of established financial institutions. As of 2012, sales of drugs and other black-market goods accounted for an estimated 20 percent of exchanges from bitcoins to U.S. dollars on the main Bitcoin exchange, called Mt. Gox. The Drug Enforcement Agency recently conducted its first-ever Bitcoin seizure, after reportedly tying a transaction on the anonymous Bitcoin-only marketplace Silk Road to the sale of prescription and illegal drugs.

Some Bitcoin users have also suggested that the currency can serve as a means to avoid taxes. That may be true, but only in the sense that bitcoins aid illegal tax evasion, not in the sense that they actually serve any role in genuine tax planning. Under federal tax law, no cash needs to change hands in order for a taxable transaction to occur. Barter and other non-cash exchanges are still fully taxable. There is no reason that transactions involving bitcoins would be treated differently.

Outside of the criminal element, Bitcoin's main devotees are speculators, who have no intention of using bitcoins to buy anything. These investors are convinced that the limited supply of bitcoins will force their value to follow a continual upward trajectory.

Bitcoin has indeed seen some significant spikes in value. But it has also experienced major losses, including an 80 percent decline over 24 hours in April. At the start of this month, bitcoins were down to around $90, from a high of $266 before the April crash. They were trading near $97 earlier this week, according to mtgox.com.

The Winklevosses would make Bitcoin investing easier by allowing smaller-scale investors to profit, or lose, as the case may be, without the hassle of actually buying and storing the electronic coins. Despite claims of security, Bitcoin storage has proved problematic. In 2011, an attack on the Mt. Gox exchange forced it to temporarily shut down and caused the price of bitcoins to briefly fall to nearly zero. Since Bitcoin transactions are all anonymous, there is little chance of tracking down the culprits if you suddenly find your electronic wallet empty. If the Winklevosses get regulatory approval, their ETF would help shield investors from the threat of individual theft. The ETF, however, would do nothing to address the problem of volatility caused by large-scale thefts elsewhere in the Bitcoin market.

While Bitcoin comes wrapped in a high-tech veneer, this newest of currencies has a surprising amount in common with one of the oldest currencies: gold. Bitcoin's own vocabulary, particularly the term "mining," highlights this connection, and intentionally so. The mining process is designed to be difficult as a control on supply, mimicking the extraction of more conventional resources from the ground. Far from providing a sense of security, however, this rhetoric ought to serve as a word of caution.

Gold is an investment of last resort. It has little intrinsic value. It does not generate interest. But because its supply is finite, it is seen as being more stable than forms of money that can be printed at will.

The problem with gold is that it doesn't do anything. Since gold coins have fallen out of use, most of the world's gold now sits in the vaults of central banks and other financial institutions. As a result, gold has little connection to the real economy. That can seem like a good thing when the real economy feels like a scary place to be. But as soon as other attractive investment options appear, gold loses its shine. That is what we have seen with the recent declines in gold prices.

In their push to bring Bitcoin to the mainstream, its promoters have accepted, and, in some cases sought out, increased regulation. Last month Mt. Gox registered itself as a money services business with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. It has also increased customer verification measures. The changes came in response to a March directive from Financial Crimes Enforcement Network clarifying the application of its rules to virtual currencies. The Winklevosses' proposed ETF would bring a new level of accountability.

0 notes

n3rdlif343va · 7 years

Note

here's a treat for you, my fellow hamster: seungchuchu + 😈! Choice of costumes: Ladybug and Chat Noir ;)

Requests for these are closed, but I am going to fulfill all of the prompts that were sent! (Along with the last couple of kiss prompts so I can finally empty my inbox lol!) This is a little less Halloween, but they are still in costume! I love these two dorks!

ALSO @magical-mistral created the cutest art for this ask, which you can find here (seriously it is BEAUTIFUL)

Seung-gil went in to the cartoon marathon declaring that he couldn’t believe his boyfriend was obsessed with a kids’ show. By episode three of Miraculous Ladybug, he was hooked and had already decided his favorite part of the love square was Ladynoir. Something about superheroes as partners, falling in love with each other made him feel warm and fuzzy, even if Phichit preferred the MariChat corner of the square.

After their marathon, with the exception of exchanging squeals over the Twitter accounts of the creators, they hadn’t had much time to concentrate on their shared obsession. The skating season had begun and their lives had gone back to being restricted by the demands of training and preparing for competition. Togetherness had decreased, and both of them could feel the strains of separation.

So when Phichit had proposed the idea of meeting at a comic con, taking place on a weekend that neither of them were competing, Seung-gil immediately purchased their tickets and booked their hotel suite. The cost was on the wrong side of outrageous, but the thought of being with Phichit for three uninterrupted days had him making decisions that would make Victor Nikiforov proud. Chuckling at his own level of extra, he answered the Skype call to hear the excited screeching of his boyfriend.

“I can’t believe you did all of that so fast!!” Phichit was practically bouncing on the other end of the call and Seung-gil could feel himself aching to hug Phichit. It was harder now to be alone, and Seung-gil had offhandedly made a comment about switching his home rink to his coach. The thought hadn’t been immediately dismissed, and Seung-gil figured he would press the issue again after the season.

Smiling at the screen, he realized that Phichit had continued to talk while Seung-gil had been floating in his own mind. Nodding in agreement with whatever was making Phichit so excited, he laughed when Phichit squealed. All of Phichit’s little noises made Seung-gil’s heart squeeze, again accepting that life was simply better with Phichit’s existence.

“Alright, so then I will order the costumes, I know your size and I know that Vera will not let me down! I have to get back to practice, I love you!” Phichit blew a kiss and disconnected the call before Seung-gil’s brain could register what had happened.

Closing the Skype app, Seung-gil paused, momentarily worried about what exactly he had missed. Shrugging he decided it really didn’t matter as any costume would be worth it as long as he was with Phichit.

“PHICHIT!” Seung-gil stared at his reflection in the mirror, running his hands over the impossible tight leather of his black costume. How Phichit had gotten Vera Wang to design a superhero costume in all black leather was beyond him, but he stood in the hotel bathroom as living proof that his boyfriend had succeeded. His hair was the wrong color and he hadn’t put on the mask yet, but he was as authentically Chat Noir as anyone could ever dream of being. Hearing his boyfriend giggle from the other side of the door, it struck Seung-gil that Phichit’s costume might be equally as tight and quite possibly red. Slipping his mask over his eyes, he smiled to himself as Seung-gil stepped from the bathroom.

“Ohhhhh, my black cat! You look so handsome!” Jumping from the bed, Phichit hurled himself across the room to fling his arms over Seung-gil’s shoulders. Caught off guard Seung-gil toppled backwards, landing with a giggling Phichit in his lap. A giggling Phichit dressed as a perfect replica of Ladybug.

Wrapping an arm around Phichit’s waist, Seung-gil felt his face flush as Phichit pecked kisses to his cheeks. “I thought you preferred MariChat… my… lady?” Seung-gil couldn’t say the last word without giggling, as he tried to sound like Chat Noir while calling his boyfriend a lady.

“We have to work on that if we are going to win the costume contest! Although, falling over and ending up in you lap seems pretty in character.” Laughing, Phichit nuzzled his head on Seung-gil’s shoulder. “Are you ready to go?”

If Seung-gil was honest, he would have skipped the entire con and stayed in the room with Phichit, soaking up the time that always felt too short. Instead he found himself nodding, accepting Phichit’s hand as his boyfriend stood and yanked Seung-gil to his feet. When Phichit spun in a circle and yelled, “Tikki, Spots On!” Seung-gil couldn’t resist pulling Phichit in for a proper kiss.

“You know,” Phichit said, pulling back and smiling as he talked still lingering near Seung-gil’s lips, “Ladybug and Chat Noir only kiss once in the show, and Chat Noir doesn’t even know it happened.”

“We’re going alternate universe then,” Seung-gil responded, pressing them back together as Phichit giggled into their kiss.

Together, they would pose for more pictures than they could count, destroy the competition at the costume contest, and nearly break Phichit’s Instagram with their selfies. Despite his normal disdain for public attention, Seung-gil had to admit it had been one of the best days of his life.

And that night… that night was definitely the best night of his life.

#fyeahyoi #seungchuchu #miraculous ladybug #yoi #seung gil x phichit #crossover #Mistral indulges me #go look at the art #seriously it makes me so happy #it is my lock screen #yes I am extra #magical nerds #magical mistral art #crusaders of fluff!#ao3 collection is crusaders of fluff under nerdlife4eva

59 notes · View notes

bestseopackage56-blog · 5 years

Text

Inside Bitcoin We Trust?

Throughout Bitcoin We Trust?

bitcoin revolution software Now you have probably noticed of Bitcoin, although can you define it? Generally it is described as a nongovernment digital foreign money. Bitcoin is additionally sometimes referred to as a cybercurrency or perhaps, in a nod to their encrypted origins, a cryptocurrency. Those descriptions are precise enough, but they skip the purpose. It's like describing the particular U. S. buck being a green piece connected with paper with photos upon it. bitcoin revolution I have the own methods of describing Bitcoin. I think of the usb ports while store credit minus the shop. A prepaid mobile phone without having the phone. Precious material minus the metal. Legal soft for simply no debts, general public or exclusive, unless typically the party to whom it is usually tendered wishes to receive it. An instrument backed through the complete faith and credit rating merely of its private creators, in whom I actually as a result place no faith, and also to whom I give not any credit except regarding ingenuity. My partner and i wouldn't touch a bitcoin with some sort of 10-foot USB cable. However a fair number associated with people have already got, and quite a few more before long may. This is partly simply because entrepreneurs Cameron as well as Tyler Winklevoss, best acknowledged for their position in the origins of Facebook, are now seeking for you to use their technological informed, and cash, to provide Bitcoin into the mainstream. The Winklevosses hope to get started an exchange-traded account with regard to bitcoins. An ETF tends to make Bitcoin more widely available to people who also lack the manufacturing skills to purchase the a digital currency directly. As of The spring, the Winklevosses tend to be said to have held all-around just one percent of almost all existent bitcoins. Created throughout 2009 by an unknown cryptographer, Bitcoin works upon the premise that something, even intangible bits connected with code, can have worth so long as sufficient people decide to take care of it as valuable. Bitcoins exist only as electronic digital representations and they are not pegged to any regular currency exchange. According to the Bitcoin web page, "Bitcoin is intended around the perception of some sort of new form of dollars that uses cryptography in order to control the creation and also transactions, rather then relying in central authorities. inch (1) New bitcoins usually are "mined" by users who all remedy computer algorithms to find out electronic coins. Bitcoins' proposed creators have said that typically the unmistakable supply of bitcoins will be limited to twenty-one million. While Bitcoin stimulates itself as "a really secure and inexpensive strategy to handle payments, " (2) in reality few firms have made the move for you to accept bitcoins. Of individuals that have, a sizable variety operate in typically the black marketplace. Bitcoins are traded anonymously over often the Internet, without any engaging from established financial corporations. As of this, gross sales of drugs and other black-market goods accounted intended for an believed 20 % of exchanges by bitcoins to U. H. bucks on the main Bitcoin exchange, called Mt. Gox. The Drug Enforcement Organization not long ago conducted its first-ever Bitcoin seizure, after apparently tying a transaction on the unknown Bitcoin-only marketplace Silk Highway to the sale of prescribed as well as illegal drugs. Many Bitcoin users have also advised that the currency may serve as a method to steer clear of taxes. That may always be real, but only throughout the sense that will bitcoins aid illegal income tax evasion, not in the feeling they will actually serve virtually any role in genuine taxation arranging. Under federal taxation law, no cash needs to alter hands inside order for a taxable transaction to occur. Barter as well as other noncash exchanges tend to be still thoroughly taxable. At this time there is no reason which transactions involving bitcoins will be treated differently. Outside involving the offender element, Bitcoin's main enthusiasts are speculators, who have no objective of using bitcoins for you to buy anything. These shareholders are convinced that the limited supply of bitcoins can force their own value to help follow a continual up trajectory. Bitcoin has certainly seen some significant improves in value. But that in addition has experienced major cutbacks, which include an 80 % decline around 24 hours in April. In the beginning connected with this month, bitcoins have been down to around $90, originating from a high of $266 before the February collision. They were trading close to $97 earlier this full week, as per mtgox. com. The actual Winklevosses would make Bitcoin investing easier by allowing smaller-scale traders to benefit, or reduce, as the particular case may be, minus the hassle of actually buying and storing the electronic digital gold coins. Despite claims regarding protection, Bitcoin storage provides shown problematic. In 2011, an assault on often the Mt. Gox swap obligated it to in the short term shut down and caused the price of bitcoins to briefly tumble to nearly zero. Since Bitcoin transactions are just about all private, there is tiny chance of discovering the culprits if you instantly find your electronic finances empty. If the Winklevosses find regulatory approval, all their ETF would help face shield traders from the menace of personal theft. Typically the ETF, however , would carry out nothing to address the condition of volatility caused through large-scale thefts elsewhere with the Bitcoin market. While Bitcoin occurs wrapped inside a high-tech veneer, that newest of currencies possesses a surprising amount in common with one of the particular oldest foreign currencies: gold. Bitcoin's own vocabulary, particularly the particular term "mining, " highlights this connection, along with blatantly so. The mining practice is designed to possibly be difficult like a control with supply, mimicking the extraction of much more conventional assets from the ground. Faraway from providing a sense connected with safety measures, however, this rhetoric want serve as the word of extreme caution. Precious metal is an investment of last resort. It possesses little intrinsic value. That does not generate interest. But because its deliver is finite, it will be known as being more stable in comparison with forms of cash that can be imprinted at will. The challenge with precious metal is that will it doesn't do anything at all. Because gold coins get fallen away from use, most of the world's rare metal now sits in the actual vaults of central banking institutions and other loan companies. Seeing that a result, gold offers little connection to the real economy. That may seem to be like a good point when the real economic system feels like a intimidating place to be. Yet as shortly as different attractive investment options look, gold manages to lose its glow. That is what we should have seen with the new is reduced in gold prices. Into their push to bring Bitcoin towards the mainstream, the promoters include accepted, and, in some cases looked for, increased regulation. Last 30 days Mt. Gox registered themselves being a money services company using the Treasury Department's Economical Violations Enforcement Network. The idea has furthermore increased customer verification procedures. The adjustments came in response to the March directive from Economical Crimes Enforcement Network clarifying the application associated with its rules to help virtual currencies. The Winklevosses' consist of ETF would bring the new level of liability. In the end, however, I count on that will Bitcoin will fade into the shadows of the african american market. All those who want a controlled, secure currency that that they can work with for reliable business transactions will decide on from one of the actual many various currencies already paid by a state government equipped with ample sources, a real-world economy and far more transparency and safety measures than the Bitcoin universe will offer.

0 notes

learnleadgeneration-blog · 5 years

Text

Within Bitcoin We Trust?

Throughout Bitcoin We Trust?

bitcoinrevolutionapp By now you have probably heard of Bitcoin, nevertheless can easily you define it? Usually it is described seeing that a nongovernment digital currency. Bitcoin is usually sometimes referred to as a cybercurrency or even, inside a nod to it has the encrypted origins, a cryptocurrency. Those descriptions are precise enough, but they neglect the. It's like conveying typically the U. S. dollar as a green piece regarding paper with images in it. bitcoinrevolutionapp I have my own methods for describing Bitcoin. I think than it while store credit with no retailer. A prepaid phone not having the phone. Precious material with no metal. Legal put forward for no debts, open or non-public, unless the particular party to whom it is definitely tendered wishes to just accept it. An instrument backed by simply the complete faith and credit merely of its nameless builders, in whom I actually thus place no faith, and also to whom I present simply no credit except intended for ingenuity. My spouse and i wouldn't feel a bitcoin with the 10-foot USB cable tv. Yet a fair number connected with people have already got, and rather a few more rapidly may. This is to some extent mainly because entrepreneurs Cameron and also Tyler Winklevoss, best identified for their purpose in the origins of Zynga, are now seeking in order to use all their technological savvy, and dollars, to deliver Bitcoin into the well-known. The Winklevosses hope for you to get started an exchange-traded pay for regarding bitcoins. An ETF could make Bitcoin more commonly available to investors who all lack the scientific abilities to purchase the digital camera currency directly. As associated with 04, the Winklevosses are usually told have held close to one particular percent of all existent bitcoins. Created with 2009 by a good anonymous cryptographer, Bitcoin performs upon the premise that anything, even intangible bits associated with program code, can have benefit so long as enough people decide to cure it since valuable. Bitcoins exist merely as a digital representations and they are not pegged to any regular money. According to the Bitcoin site, "Bitcoin is created around the perception of a new form of money in which uses cryptography for you to control it has the creation and transactions, rather then relying upon central authorities. " (1) New bitcoins are usually "mined" by users who also answer computer algorithms to discover virtual coins. Bitcoins' supposed creators have said that the particular supreme supply of bitcoins will be limited to twenty-one million. While Bitcoin encourages itself as "a extremely secure and inexpensive method to handle payments, " (2) in reality few corporations have made the move to accept bitcoins. Of those that have, a sizable variety operate in the particular black market place. Bitcoins usually are traded anonymously over the actual Internet, without any engaging by established financial corporations. As of this, revenue of drugs and other black-market goods accounted with regard to an approximated 20 percent of exchanges from bitcoins to U. Nasiums. us dollars on the main Bitcoin exchange, called Mt. Gox. The Drug Enforcement Agency just lately conducted its first-ever Bitcoin seizure, after supposedly tying a transaction on the unknown Bitcoin-only souk Silk Path to the particular sale of pharmaceutical drugs along with illegal drugs. A number of Bitcoin users have also proposed that the currency can easily serve as an effective way to keep away from taxes. That may always be correct, but only throughout the sense this bitcoins aid illegal duty evasion, not in the feeling that they actually serve almost any function in genuine tax arranging. Under federal duty legislation, no cash needs to modify hands inside order for a taxable transaction to occur. Barter along with noncash exchanges are usually still fully taxable. Right now there is no reason that transactions involving bitcoins can be treated differently. Outside associated with the offender element, Bitcoin's main devotees are speculators, who have no intent of using bitcoins to help buy anything. These traders are convinced that the actual limited availabilit of bitcoins will probably force their particular value to follow a continual upward trajectory. Bitcoin has in fact seen some significant spikes in value. But that has also experienced major failures, such as an 80 % decline more than 24 hours in April. At the beginning regarding this month, bitcoins had been down to around $90, from the high of $266 before the The spring accident. They were trading around $97 earlier this full week, in accordance with mtgox. com. The particular Winklevosses would make Bitcoin investing easier by allowing smaller-scale shareholders to profit, or get rid of, as typically the case may be, devoid of the hassle of actually buying as well as storing the electronic money. Despite claims associated with safety measures, Bitcoin storage offers demonstrated problematic. In year 2011, an strike on often the Mt. Gox alternate forced it to for the short term closed down and caused the expense of bitcoins to briefly slide to nearly zero. Given that Bitcoin transactions are most nameless, there is tiny chance of investigating the culprits if you all of the sudden find your electronic wallet empty. If the Winklevosses obtain regulatory approval, their ETF would help ow people from the menace of individual theft. Typically the ETF, still would do nothing to address the problem of volatility caused by large-scale thefts elsewhere within the Bitcoin market. Although Bitcoin arrives wrapped throughout a high-tech veneer, that newest of currencies offers a surprising amount in keeping with one of typically the oldest values: gold. Bitcoin's own terminology, particularly the particular term "mining, very well features this connection, and purposely so. The exploration practice is designed to be difficult for a control upon supply, mimicking the extraction of far more conventional information from the ground. Faraway from providing a sense regarding protection, however, this rhetoric inside the serve as the word of extreme caution. Gold is an investment involving last resort. It provides little built-in value. It does not generate attention. But because its deliver is finite, it is definitely known as being more sturdy than forms of cash that can be imprinted at will. The challenge with rare metal is which it doesn't do everything. Due to the fact gold coins get fallen from use, many of the world's yellow metal now sits in the vaults of central banking companies and other financial institutions. Seeing that a result, gold provides little connection to the particular real economy. Which could seem like a good factor when the genuine economic climate feels like a frightening place to be. Although as quickly as additional attractive investment options show up, gold manages to lose its shine. That is whatever you have seen with the recent is reduced in gold costs. Of their push to bring Bitcoin to the mainstream, it is promoters have got accepted, along with, in some cases sought after, increased regulation. Last four week period Mt. Gox registered by itself being a money services organization while using Treasury Department's Financial Criminal activity Enforcement Network. The idea has additionally increased buyer verification procedures. The alterations came in response to help a new March directive via Economical Crimes Enforcement Network clarifying the application connected with its rules to be able to virtual currencies. The Winklevosses' offered ETF would provide a new level of liability. In the end, however, I assume in which Bitcoin will fade back in the shadows associated with the african american market. People who want a controlled, secure currency that they will can use for legitimate business purchases will opt for from one of often the many stock markets already paid by a country wide administration equipped with ample sources, a real-world economy and much more transparency and security than the Bitcoin planet can offer.

0 notes

yogaburnchallenge8-blog · 5 years

Text

In Bitcoin We Trust?

bitcoin revolution software Now you have probably listened to of Bitcoin, although can easily you define it? Generally it is described because a non-government digital currency. Bitcoin is additionally sometimes called a cybercurrency or maybe, inside a nod to its encrypted origins, a cryptocurrency. Those descriptions are appropriate enough, but they skip the idea. It's like conveying the actual U. S. dollar being a green piece connected with paper with photos in it. bitcoin revolution software I have our own methods of describing Bitcoin. I think of computer because store credit minus the retailer. A prepaid mobile phone not having the phone. Precious sheet metal without the metal. Legal put forward for not any debts, community or exclusive, unless the particular party to whom it is definitely tendered wishes to receive this. An instrument backed through the full faith and credit simply of its anonymous builders, in whom My spouse and i consequently place no faith, and to whom I offer not any credit except intended for ingenuity. I wouldn't touch a bitcoin with a 10-foot USB cable. Yet a fair number of people actually have, and rather a few more shortly may. This is to a certain extent due to the fact entrepreneurs Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, best well-known for their function with the origins of Fb, are now seeking for you to use their very own technological informed, and cash, to get Bitcoin into the mainstream. The Winklevosses hope for you to commence an exchange-traded account intended for bitcoins. An ETF tends to make Bitcoin more commonly available to buyers who have lack the engineering ingenuity to purchase the digital currency directly. As of February, the Winklevosses are usually asked have held about just one percent of all of existent bitcoins. Created in 2009 by a nameless cryptographer, Bitcoin works in the premise that something, even intangible bits of computer code, can have price so long as plenty of people decide to deal with it since valuable. Bitcoins exist merely as electronic digital representations and so are not pegged to any traditional foreign currency. According to the Bitcoin site, "Bitcoin is intended around the perception of some sort of new form of income that uses cryptography for you to control its creation and transactions, as an alternative to relying with central authorities. very well (1) New bitcoins tend to be "mined" by users who all fix computer algorithms to get virtual coins. Bitcoins' purported creators have said that the actual best supply of bitcoins will be capped at 21 years of age million. While Bitcoin stimulates itself as "a incredibly secure and inexpensive way to handle payments, " (2) in reality few corporations made the move in order to accept bitcoins. Of people that have, a big quantity operate in typically the black market. Bitcoins tend to be traded anonymously over the particular Internet, without any engaging on the part of established financial organizations. As of this, sales of drugs and other black-market goods accounted with regard to an predicted 20 % of exchanges via bitcoins to U. H. cash on the main Bitcoin exchange, called Mt. Gox. The Drug Enforcement Firm just lately conducted its first-ever Bitcoin seizure, after apparently cinching a transaction about the nameless Bitcoin-only software industry Silk Highway to the sale of prescribed along with illegal drugs. Many Bitcoin users have also recommended that the currency may serve as an easy way to avoid taxes. That may become genuine, but only with the sense that bitcoins aid illegal duty forestalling, not in the good sense they will actually serve almost any function in genuine tax preparing. Under federal taxation legislation, no cash needs to modify hands throughout order for a taxable transaction to occur. Dicker and also other noncash exchanges tend to be still completely taxable. Presently there is no reason this transactions involving bitcoins could be treated differently. Outside connected with the felony element, Bitcoin's main enthusiasts are investors, who have simply no purpose of using bitcoins to help buy anything. These buyers are convinced that the actual limited flow of bitcoins will probably force all their value in order to follow a continual up trajectory. Bitcoin has really seen some significant improves in value. But the idea has additionally experienced major deficits, which include an 80 per cent decline through 24 time in April. In the beginning regarding this month, bitcoins were down to around $90, from the high of $266 before the 04 drive. They were trading in close proximity to $97 earlier this week, as per mtgox. com. Often the Winklevosses would make Bitcoin investing much easier by enabling smaller-scale buyers to income, or shed, as the particular case may be, without the hassle of actually purchasing in addition to storing the digital coins. Despite claims associated with protection, Bitcoin storage provides proven problematic. In in 2011, an attack on the particular Mt. Gox alternate pushed it to briefly close up down and caused the price of bitcoins to briefly tumble to nearly zero. Since Bitcoin transactions are all unknown, there is minor chance of investigating the particular culprits if you all of a sudden find your electronic wallet empty. If the Winklevosses find regulatory approval, all their ETF would help safeguard people from the danger of person theft. The particular ETF, nevertheless , would do nothing to address the situation of volatility caused simply by large-scale thefts elsewhere within the Bitcoin market. When Bitcoin comes wrapped in a high-tech veneer, this kind of newest of various currencies possesses a surprising amount in keeping with one of the actual oldest currencies: gold. Bitcoin's own language, particularly typically the term "mining, micron illustrates this connection, along with deliberately so. The exploration procedure is designed to be difficult for a control upon supply, mimicking the extraction of considerably more conventional sources from the ground. Definately not providing a sense connected with safety measures, however, this rhetoric have to have to serve as a word of extreme care. Gold is an investment involving last resort. It offers little built-in value. It does not generate interest. But because its deliver is finite, it will be seen as being more firm as compared to forms of income that can be printed at will. The issue with precious metal is in which it doesn't do anything at all. Considering that gold coins have fallen out of use, almost all of the world's gold now sits in the particular vaults of central banks and other banking institutions. While a result, gold possesses minor connection to often the real economy. That can appear like a good thing when the actual economy feels like a terrifying place to be. Although as shortly as various other attractive purchase options appear, gold manages to lose its stand out. That is anything you possess seen with the new declines in gold selling prices. In their push to bring Bitcoin towards the mainstream, the promoters get accepted, along with, in some cases sought after, increased regulation. Last 30 days Mt. Gox registered itself like a money services company with all the Treasury Department's Monetary Offences Enforcement Network. It has likewise increased purchaser verification actions. The adjustments came in response for you to a new March directive via Monetary Crimes Enforcement System making clear the application of its rules to help electronic currencies. The Winklevosses' recommended ETF would bring the new level of responsibility. In the end, however, I be expecting that will Bitcoin will lose colour back in the shadows connected with the dark-colored market. All those who want a governed, secure currency that many people can make use of for legit business dealings will choose from one of the actual many values already financed by a national administration equipped with ample information, a real-world economy and far more transparency and safety than the Bitcoin world will offer.

0 notes

michaelina520imvu-blog · 5 years

Text

What is the highest discount imvu does on credits check out right now

IMVU Credits

Men and women presently prefers to reside in virtual globe rather then genuine planet and you have arrived here which means you are at present active user of planet popular on the net 3D virtual metaverse named IMVU and want to generate quantity of credits but just before reaching to that let's initially get started with short introduction about IMVU. A quantity of resellers purchase in credits from IMVU content material creators, specifics and restrictions differ in between each and every reseller. In order to preserve fraud to a minimum most resellers that purchase in IMVU credits will limit purchase to creators that have been on IMVU for a minimum period or have a few merchandise in their catalogues. Once again, terms may possibly vary. See items marked "sell" for particulars.

IMVU credits generator purchasing is an essential element of the thrilling game IMVU. The index is packed with fascinating articles with objects what can be obtained to make the game customized according to the player and will be enjoyed with lot several luxuries. This not only tends to make the game eye-catching but also added benefits with producing higher levels of sport with competing with further persons all over the globe. So that competitors is additional thrilling and thrilling with the look that individual should money.

For Compact Small business Saturday, creators of all recognition and success levels had been encouraged to put collectively person public chat rooms (or group up with others) to highlight some of their things and attract new customers. This event is something the IMVU group requires extremely seriously, and it is the second year this event has been held.

5) The moderators. Not only do they fabricate lies about your record to make an excuse to throw away the tiny spenders and new comers as they tried to me and just use Google you can see I am absolutely not the only 1, but they let folks to use it as a hackers paradise despite the fact that they will ban a person stating they are allegedly employing stolen software or not authenticated apps. I don't hate hackers. God knows I keep some Anons at the ready on Facebook for information however I never like troll hacking. It is where you go in, talk s@#$ to a particular person to get them to speak s@#$ back and then use that as an excuse to hack that person when they are defending them selves. Accurate bully tactics. In the real world most folks shun this behavior but IMVU rewards it. Tends to make sense contemplating IMVU has a reputation them selves for slipping in Trojans to those searching for a fantastic deal in their offerings.

Credit is the virtual currency playing an essential part in the quicker progression and receiving great dresses. If you do not want to end up acquiring into an problem and want to progress more quickly, then using IMVU hack can support here. It is hugely reliable, and most of the gamers prefer it to get unlimited credit. Do you want it also? Effectively, there is no need to have of worrying about a single issue.

If 13 sounds a tiny young to be engaging in this kind of virtual globe, you happen to be not alone. Widespread Sense Media, a non-profit media rating web site for parents, gives IMVU an iffy for ages 15-18â€ rating. (Iffyâ€ implies somewhat edgy for the age.â€) For me, what is most disturbing about the web page is the robust sexual undercurrent of the complete factor. The buxom female avatars in scanty clothing give me the willies, particularly when I assume that my 14-year-old babysitter could be behind one of them.

The premium membership I IMVU enables members to enjoy unlimited delivery of credits to the gamers but calls for a lot of private information of the players. The private facts of the player contains name, the address of the residence, bank account, other information and so on. Bank account and other info are required for the economic transactions and this is fearsome for the parents of the players. As most of the gamers are youngsters or teens their financial transactions are handled by their parents.

If you are not able to earn sufficient amount, then there is one particular alternative. You can try out the in-app purchases alternative. Having said that, it is not going to assist you out in any manner. It will make you devote thousands of dollars. Due to this reason, you can choose the IMVU credits hack and receive enough amount with ease. Such solutions will make you progress quicker, and the under given are some effortless to adhere to tips which will come in handy also.

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The globe of IMVU lets its users build a hopeful zone of their personal in the astonishing world of on the net gaming, where every little thing is feasible and 1 can exhibit their capabilities of creativity and imaginative side perfectly. The principal concept of emerging this whole game was to let the little ones and teens discover far more with their good friends in a thrilling environment although constructing hugely sophisticated buildings, and protecting their own customized planet from the invaders. With the use of IMVU hack, the user will have a plentiful quantity of IMVU credits in their pockets, as a result they will be able to create the space very easily and can also practical experience extremely bountiful and lavish buildings, and fulfilling the basic intention of the game. With no the constant availability of the free credits, one can not have this ultimate feeling of enjoyment.

The Quickest & Easiest Way To IMVU CREDITS

The planet of IMVU is a huge globe that will try to simulate true life. As an alternative if obtaining revenue, in IMVU you have credits. Why it is critical to receive credits? As in true life if you have credits in IMVU you can turn into a popular individual. When it comes to the world of virtual planet game titles, it is crucial to definitely have the possibility to fulfil our requirements and desires that individuals cannot fulfil in true day-to-day life. Getting totally free straightforward credits, it is the most beneficial house to fulfil our inner requirements. It is vital to have free credits in IMVU given that it assists you balance your day-to-day life. If you can not be who you want to be in real life, at least be popular in IMVU.

When come to use such the absolutely free iMVU credits in the course of the play of the fantasy games which is additional convenient use and fairly accessibility. Here every thing has good out the hack tool. This tool can fairly effortless and very simple to accesses and it supports world wide web connection over the Pc and another mobile device. Then it performs well on your device in every single case. It made with the user-friendly interface so you can really feel cost-free to install and start off finely using this hack.

It is easier and almost as satisfying as getting no cost dollars in true life. What will maintain you safe at the end of the day is the actual daily limit of cost-free credits you can create. It would be excellent if you utilize this device 1 to week or max two occasions. Considering the fact that the on line version is much more applied it is fair to be extra engaged with it by releasing new updates. With these credits, you can love pretty much every little thing in the games. With our hack, you will be capable to obtain infinite amount of Credits immediately.

IMVU customers are 13 years old and up and the majority of users are 18+ with the sweet spot at 22 years and female. Peak concurrency is 150K users in a 24 hour period. IMVU has reached 50 million registered users, ten+ million one of a kind visitors per month and a $40+ million annualized income run rate. IMVU has the world's largest virtual goods catalog of a lot more than six million items, pretty much all of which are developed by its own members who contribute over 7,000 new items to our catalog just about every day.

A passionate admirer of this enthralling gaming cosmos of IMVU can conveniently recognize the desperate requirement of producing moves in the game. A accurate follower of this game would just like to move on and play, producing highest scores, earning lots and lots of revenue and steadily moving from 1 level to a different. Any one who will be indulged in the on-line gaming have to be aware of the hurdles and will surely e hating it or the obstacles coming in involving of the results in the game for moving ahead with the greater levels and greater scores. The miraculous powers of the IMVU hack overcome these obstacles and transform the complete scene. With the assistance of the Hacking tools a single can freely delight in the game and is cost-free from any sort of delays, hurdles and the credits of IMVU will be available in ample quantity to the user fast imvu credits generator as per the needs.

Most individual clothes and furnishings items expense under 1,000 credits, with 5,000 credits getting available to buy outright for $five. Much more high-priced items may possibly include bundles of various products for one's closet or space, or especially impressive things, comprehensive with animation and the like. Although cheaper things may possibly not outcome in a massive profit for the creator each time the item is sold, accomplishment in IMVU is a marathon, not a sprint.

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