#inpersonal vs. personal

[pumpkinstrawbrew]

.. ...if my nightmare was a shade, it would have been ya. ....

…

warning : a heavy-ish / dark-ish topics down below. nothing too graphic mind you, but just to be safe.

...

(now, just imagine them having the same dream. the same nightmare, but with different pov. from different sides n’ perhaps *bc of it* with slightly different scenarios. 

i often think about what kind of nightmares bruce must have *recurring death of his parents aside*. i wonder, if he dreams about jon at times, but not fully in typical fashion. what if *sometimes* it’s less about a twisted form of a scarecrow attacking him or taunting him. but instead, he dreams of smth more viviscal. submerged. what if he sees jon using a gun? n’ not his usual ft dart-gun, but an actual pistol?

as we know, bruce hates guns. but whichever crane was about to use a gun on someone else or on himself is the sort of topic / idea, that i’ve pondered on for a bit. in retrospect, each variation is scary n’ depressing for bruce in its own way. but what would be more scary about the same scenario for jonathan? that he was stopped or more like caught? n’ was he caught in a more literal sense, before he could hurt people or was he caught in the middle of doing smth irreversible to himself? 

which is more humbling n' scary? which is less damaging? i suppose, that each of them have their own way of viewing it.

anyhow, i adore horror. i love all kinds of horrific things n' trippy scenes, but this time around, i was thinking about a nightmare that is less of a scary visual / unrealistic distortion, but instead smth that can actually happen. it’s like a dream, where you’re powerless to stop smth horrible from taking place n’ you're fully aware of it. you know, that you won't be able to do anythin' at all. a sort of nightmare, where you lose someone n’ in the terms of the dream, it’s final.

n’ while bruce can see such dreams with his parents in it, they’re already dead in a wake world. the dream in on itself is an old trauma, a twisted memory on replay. but the dream, where he cannot stop crane from doing smth awful is still a real possibility, that can happen. in a way, it’ll be harder to swallow vs smth that he already cannot change. as for jon, he's sort of always haunted by batman, awake or not. him dreaming of the bat stopping him is both humiliation n’ relief at once. somewhat of a comfort even?

if jon was stopped short before hurting someone, it’s less scary for him, clearly. just unsettling how easy it is for the bat to apprehend him, once he can size up his arms. as for the scenario, where crane was about to shoot himself, it’s almost like instead of waking up right before ‘the death’, it’s batman who puts it all on a pause, bc of course, it would be him. n' for funny side-note, i don't think that there is version of a dream, where the scarecrow uses the gun on bruce. it feels too inpersonal to be a nigthmare. esp bc i feel like at times the villains do this kind of thing, low-key knowing that their opponent would easily dodge it, so it's almost like a game. adult version of water-guns....

but like whichever scenario it is *crane doing thing to himself or someone else*, in the end they still do end up standing there, hand in hand. basically, holding hands with their personal sleep paralysis demon. even if said 'demon' is just another broken man.

also the possibility, that they see similar dreams due to the same level of exposure to ft is intriguing. misery loves company, after all.)

#batman animated series #batman #scarecrow #jonathan crane #bruce wayne #scarebat #brew draws

[konniesreality]

Hi Konnie! I am fairly new to the manifestation/law of attraction community, I've been using subliminals on and off again for about five years but that's pretty much it.

I'm sending you this ask in hopes for some advice. I am starting school on August 29th and as of right now, I am going to be doing school online. I really don't want to do school online, I really want to go back to in person school. I'm going to be a senior this school year and this is my last chance to go to actual high school. I've been doing school online ever since the pandemic first shut everything down and ever year I was told "maybe next year" when it came to going into in person school, yet it never happened.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful here. I know that I am lucky to be able to do school from home when many aren't but it's just not for me. I want to experience high school, even if it's just for one year. I want to see my old friends again, friends I haven't been able to see since before school shut down all the way in 2020. I don't want to spend my days sitting down at home while everyone I used to know is out having fun and socializing.

My mom has her reasons for not wanting me to go back. First of all, she's pretty conservative and doesn't like some of the stuff that is being taught in schools as of right now and she doesn't trust teachers/school staff in general. She also doesn't think school is a very safe place right now even though I live in a pretty good area. I also have type 1 diabetes and she feels like it can be better managed at home, even though there's not much of a difference between how I would have to take care of myself at home vs at school. She doesn't like the supposed commute of taking me to school, even though the school is like five minutes away from our house. I was a little troubled in middle school because I got mixed up with the wrong type of people and made some poor descions and got bullied.

Mostly I think the way she is thinking is based off her high school experience. From what she's told me, she ended up dropping out of high school in the 11th grade because she had no friends at school. I think she's afraid that I may have the same experience but I feel like she should be glad that I actually want to go to school. I know all her reasons for wanting me to stay home are valid and while I love my mom a lot, I feel like she is too controlling. It's like she wants me to stay with her for the rest of my life. She told me I could go to in person community college classes this year because I only have two classes to take for high school and then when it was time to sign up for classes, I ended up with having to take online college classes. She's against me getting a job but wants me to take over her job working for my grandfather so she can go get another job that pays better. She's always telling me that many kids don't ever move out of their parents' house and I feel like she's trying to install the idea into my head that I should never leave. I don't have any plans to leave my mom, I just want some freedom and independence. I am 17 years old and I still feel like she treats me like a child.

Sorry for ranting but I just think that having some context may help with giving advice.

I was wondering if it was possible for me to manifest going back to in person school. I found a subliminal on YouTube that is for going back to inperson school and I'm going to use it starting tonight. I just don't know if the subliminal alone is enough for me to be able to go, seeing that I have about a month and a half before school starts again and as of right now, my mom believes that I am going to stick with online school. Plus I should probably know a month before school starts if I'm going to in person school so I can prepare to have a good school year.

I know this is kind of last minute but I really want to go back, it's the main thing I've wanted for the past three years. Is there anything else I can do to ensure that I will go back to my in person high school or do you think adding the subliminal I told you about to my playlist is enough? I know it's not good to obsess over results but I just want to know this is all right so I can manifest going back. I'm hoping once I get some advice that I'll stop obsessing and relax.

I'm sorry this is so long but if you have any answers or advice for me then I'd love to here it! Have a great day!

-Rose 🌹

I think the subliminal in your playlist is enough. Remember all you need to do is assume and assumptions create reality you can go to sleep and wake up having everything that you want and remember it is OK to doubt because you will get your desires and it will happen so stop worrying about what you don’t have and start focusing on the fact that you do have them and then when you wake up you’ll have everything that you want 💗

[mrangeldevil]

ive been thinking about this way too long and im forcing everybody to hear me out

The 2010s Cinnamon Roll vs The 2020s Blorbo

both words have extremely similar meanings and intentions, but entirely different effects

the term ‘precious cinnamon roll’ was mainly used in the 2010s in fandom to describe someones favorite character (and is still used to this day but with much less frequency esp since its seen as a “cringy” word or a millenial word even though it was used in the 2010s which many gen z were definitely there to witness but i digress)

then the term ‘blorbo’ is also a word with the same meaning, a fandom word to describe someones favorite character, but this time it is the word for the 2020s and much like ‘precious cinnamon roll’ it will likely be looked down upon as an outdated internet slang in a few years (or maybe even by next year considering how fast the internet goes compared to before)

but while both terms mean the same thing, they come across completely differently. for one, ‘precious cinnamon roll’ is not only a lot longer but is a word that drips with sweetness, like something your grandma would call you, and is generally reserved for characters who are sweet in themselves. and while you can technically call any character your precious cinnamon roll, it is undeniably weird/funny when you call a character like Wolverine your precious cinnamon roll. its longer phrasing also leans in well to the kind of internet culture before, as in the 2020s things run a lot faster so a word that is easy and quick to say like “blorbo” makes sense. i also find it interesting that the term is generally also said as “my precious cinnamon roll” adding a personal quality compared to “the blorbo” which can sound more impersonal due to its phrasing.

now before i go onto blorbo i do want to mention that another thing both terms share is the idea of “!!!!!XD sO RaNdOm!!!!!” just different flavors of it. the 2010s used randomness in a way that involved using familiar things in unconventional ways but not too unconventional. cinnamon roll being a perfect example as using a random food to describe a fictional character is, very random. the 2020s meanwhile, use randomness in a way that makes everything feel like an elaborate inside joke that is completely incomprehensible. someone who isnt familiar to the internet can probably put together why people call things “precious cinnamon roll” pretty fast but how in the world would you understand “blorbo”? theres no way to tie the term to anything in real life, blorbo is a purely internet joke that simply cannot exist outside the internet because its basically an inside joke that we’re all in on

and that brings me to blorbo (also associated with scrunkly, scrimblo and the works): blorbo originated from this hellsite, being a term originally to parody fandom spaces. its a bit hard to describe but the best way to put it is, you make a post and it blows up and fandoms immediately keep naming a shit ton of characters you have no idea who the fuck they are so you just pick a random word out of your ass and you say “guys i do not care about Blorvo Blingblong please for the love of fuck stop saying it”

annnd thats how you end up with the term Blorbo. it is the definition of a stupidly elaborate inside joke that only chronically online people will ever get. and that perfectly describes the type of humor of the 2020s.

and the term itself has a very different connotation to ‘precious cinnamon roll’ while that terms connotation of sweetness is extremely obvious, blorbo is extremely vague and very much left to personal interpretation and its absolute randomness, while adding a funny factor that cinnamon roll could only wish to achieve, is undeniably very inpersonal as it was designed that way. it is designed to fit literally ANY character, its a throwaway name, you could use it anytime on anyone, Walter White can be a fucking blorbo if you wanted him to be.

now this isnt trying to actually pick a fight between these two terms, thatd be fucking stupid and if you did try to you need to get offline more. i just wanted to analyze these two words and how people use them.

im personally a fan of neither while loving both, cinnamon roll comes across as very ‘grandma’ and can have a fan-girl attribute to it that, as a masculine dude dont personally like but still find myself appreciating its use as it was the word i grew up seeing used in fandom and was pretty commonplace till 2019. i also appreciate how much more personal the word is, it conveys an overwhelming feeling of sweetness and personal investment and that is probably why some people still prefer the term. meanwhile blorbo is pretty gender neutral (albeit mostly used by girls it still has no gendered connotation) its a lot quicker to say, its an extremely funny word to say, and its the word that is the most popular now, but it loses a lot of the personal feeling that cinnamon roll had and is very reflective of the time period its from, its funny and quick for a moment till it becomes bland and meaningless in a year or so

idk how to end this off, this is just some linguist hobbyist’s rant about two stupid words but which ones do you prefer if you read all this way?

#internet linguistics #? thats the only way i think i could call this #internet culture #fandom #linguistics #hobbyist

[this-should-do]

tfw ur emailing ur new roommate and off the bat let em know ur trans so u avoid having to deal any unwanted reactions inperson, and then they immediately hit u with the "hope u dont mind me asking but whats ur sexuality, im very curious also im bi"

and its like ya that is kinda invasive even tho im not like suoer uptight about it but also maybe ur just really excited to kno ur roomate is also queer so u wanna talk about it, which is nice

but also becuz i use they as a pronoun people tend to assume nonbinary and if ur old roommate is anything to go by cis people get confused i guess at what ur sexuality could possibly be if ur not one of the two binary genders so then it wraps around to being weird and uncomfortable for me again

and now i dont know how to broach this cuz i know its just something thats prob gonna happen alot in my life but also i dont like immediately feeling like boundaries are being crossed even tho its just a simple question even tho im fairly open about my sexuality online

but i also know its all about boundaries again and anonymity of the internet vs not knowing who this person really is but im gonna have to cohabitate with them and they dont really seem malicious just really excited about everything

#AAAAAAAAAAAA #none of my past roommates hit me with it so fast #even my last one waited until we had talked a few days before she got into her invasive questions #which also werent born of malice but just uneducatedness and i was obvs the first trans person shed really had to deal with #but its all still uncomfy and it kinda sucks having to answer them #and i STILL dont know how to express how uncomfy it made me without immediately souring any positivity weve got #iwillspeakincessantly

[fandomstudieslance]

Fan Autoethnography

I wear fan merch. I consider fan merch as an important part of my fan identity especially when the merch is part of limited edition collections. I fell that having these limited edition collections allows me to tie my fandom to a specific period of time in both the fandom's history as well as my own.

I will often go back and rewatch episodes or entire shows to analyze the subtext or extrapolate meanings that I hadn't considered on a first watch. One of the shows that I recently have done this for is Bones. I watched this show when I was much younger and by going back and watching it now, I can appreciate the nuance and deeper context surrounding the characters and their storyline. In particular, I have picked up the autistic coding of the character of Dr. Brennan.

I am very involved in fan communities for many different fandoms. Some communities I am more involved than others. One community I am greatly involved in is the Random Enocunters community. This is also a community that I create fan works for. I am in charge of the fan wiki community as well as my own personal fan theories and fan interpretation of unexplained events.

I follow important media figures on social media mainly to keep in the loop with the projects they are going to be in. For Hollywood celebrities, I am less likely to care about their personal post, but for content creators I follow, I am more likely to engage with their personal posts.

I engage with many different types of fan content, from fan fiction to fan video essays. One of my favorite fan content types is the fan music video. These can come in the form of the fan edit or animatics. Fan edits are fun because they often include memerable clips from the media that serve as fun gaps in the song. Animatics have the added benefit of animating fandom events in a new and often more intense way.

I think that fandom does have an us vs them construction. In many of my fandoms, I am in the 'us' category. This often involves knowing the inside jokes and reference or understanding why a piece of merch is important to wear. These things can be understood at a surface level by mainstream society but the connection that they have to the fans is only understood by the people that hold it dear.

I don't think that there is a thin line between normal and excessive fan because there does exist the causal fan. I would say that I am a casual fan of dungeons and dragons. I have a positive relationship with the ttrpg and know some things about it but my knowledge and appreciation is not at the level of other fans but not as barebones as the mainstream audience. I think the line of "obsessive" fan falls where the person begins to integrate the fandom into their core personality.

My DND Character Larissa

Anonymity is both beneficial for fandom spaces and detrimental. It is well documented in social psychology that anonymity leads to people being more likely to say or do things that they would not other wise say or do. It allows people to be meaner because the fear of consequences is basically nonexistent. However, I do think that anonymity opens up fandom spaces to many different people who can use that separation from online and inperson identity to form connections and converse with people while being safe. I have a close friend I met online who values their privacy because they are younger and the anonymity of fandom space allows them to engage with other people while still valuing their privacy.

I think that I experience a blend of identity and psychological compensation with fandom. Anything that matters deeply to you is going to become part of your identity. Being a theorist is one of my core identity traits. This doesn't stop fandom from forming those psychological compensations. I would say that, especially when I watched regular streamers, I would form parasocial relationships with them. I knew that they did not feel the same way but the connection and the positive feelings from it were still there and played into my enjoyment of the content.

Language progression. When immersed in a fandom, there are definitely terms and inside jokes that bleed out into the real world, especially when you are around other people who understand the joke. One of the big language bleeds has been me and my siblings use of "theory" to refer to any instance where we are trying to predict the outcome or explanation of something. This comes directly from our shared fandom of Game Theory. Another that we both share is to dramatically say "What was the motivation?!?!?" when discussing confusing events, which comes from a creators reaction to a fan video.

#TheOfficeofDocMalone #255fandom

[waitingforminjae]

RC watches Altered Carbon: Fallen Angel(1x02)

I knew I shouldn’t go, ‘cause when the victors rewrite history it’s just another kind of war, waged after the battlefield killing is done, to murder the memory of the defeated.

#rc watches altered carbon #i just loved this #altered carbon #mine #the whole truth vs. propaganda #history vs. reality #inpersonal vs. personal #god #f: altered carbon

[felikatze]

today is just a literary analysis day huh. Anyways i spent two hours talking about symbolism in pokemon

#Feli speaks #the count of topics i can talk about for hours and will never be tired of has officially increased to 4 #1) villains in ni-no kuni 2) alm and celica parallels in fe-echoes #and all new: 3) poke-mon bw and team plasma as a stand in for religion and lastly 4) the hit fanfic people like us #subtopics for the last one include personal vs inpersonal justive reactive vs active behaviour in relationships #and how there are no good or bad people only good and bad actions #and also many many more reasons why you should read it immediatly

[thereviewlisttv]

Working at Home Versus Working In-person: My Experience

Working at Home Versus Working In-person: My Experience

Hello My Real Beauties, As human beings, we are equipped with the natural instinct to survive, find our way around obstacles, hunt for food, and subconsciously compare ourselves to one another. Sadly, we are forced to truly see whether we like it or not that the idea of what the best decision or choice looks like is not something that falls from the sky. This is why the last 2-years of no…

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#benefits of working from home #benefits of working with clients remotely vs. working with them face to face #global working #in person #in person therapy #in person work #inperson #Lifestyle #onlinepersonaltraining #pros and cons of working from home #pros and cons of working remote #remote working best practices #remote working tips #remote working tools #the boring company #virtual working #work from home #working from home #working remote #working remote 2021

[whenimgoodandready]

You know, if this were the old days, I’d be writing my reviews by hand on a sheet of paper and posting them on a board to the public about my thoughts and feelings for certain things. Glad we now have modern technology to make things more effeicent, but is it really better? Are the modern things more advanced or are they just eliminating traditional custums that made it original? The debate begins now!

*Bakerix-The episode opens with Nadja Chamack on the news w/ the mayor unveiling the newest form of transportation called the Startrain! A train that can go from Paris to the UK underwater! (Hmmmmm, isn’t there an episode with that name coming up soon?). Boy how well we’ve upped the ante with our industrialism! We’ll get back to that supertrain later, but first, our heroine! Marinette is sewing up a new sweater for her father for his 40th birthday today (oh boy😒we all know where this is goin’), but then she overhears her mother failing to convince her father-in-law to come over to the party on the phone (again) and it’s relived that he’s “traditional” and hasn’t spoken to Marinettes father in 20 years! Marinette never knew anything about him and when she asks more about him, but the parental figures keep saying what they say when they don’t want to answer a youngster. Ask the next parental figure! Womp! Womp! Womp! So Marinette decides to go find her grandfather herself.

Turns out, her mother was right and her partental grandfather, Rolland, is old fashioned 💥TO THE EXTREME!💥. His place looked like it hadn’t been updated since “The Lone Ranger” primered and had become a shut-in (more so than a certain fashion designer/supervillain father). After a few failed attempts, she finally gets in by inpersonating a “delivery intern” (idk why she doesn’t just say “Hey grandpa! It’s me, Marinette! The granddaughter you never knew and I didn’t bother to tell you cuz I know you’re a stubborn old turd who can’t adapt to modern times!”. Her excuse was that he’d say no faster, so she just resorts to trickery) and finds that he’s a grouchy old geezer who hates all things modern and has mice friends like Cinderella. He even has his own catchphrase, “That's not how it's done!”. Marinette continues her disguise and asks him about why he’s so estranged from his son to which he reply’s that he (Tom) used rice in his bread dough that he believes “it’s not how it’s done” and how he doesn’t bother to even try it to see if it’s better, so she challenges him to a bread baking contest, Tradtional vs. Innovative, to see which bread tastes better. During that she hums Habanera (a popular opera song from “Carmen”) and Rolland recognizes it as his and Toms song that only they sang when baking bread and is shocked to find out it’s his own granddaughter he never knew.

He gets upset by this betrayal and is akumatized as Bakerix...................can I say something here.............this is only my opinion and I don’t mean to be harsh but, this is the most stupidest supervilliain I’ve ever seen in the entire show! I’ve seen stupider, but this, this one takes the whole bakery! I mean, sure there was Mr.Pigeon, but at least he had something that was associated with his name, then there was Sandboy and although I was dissatisfied with his appearance, he still had powers befitting him, but Baxerix here, he was a Viking looking pastry man sculpture who’s goal was to destroy all things technologically advanced! WHERE DOES THAT FIT!? Huh? Honestly, where!? When I read comments that if Tom were ever akumatized, he’d be some sort of pastry esque villain, but since that was debunked from this season (“Weredad”), we got his father doing that instead and guess what, I’m very disappointed :P. His form did not suit him on what his theme was and yes I know it “sorta kinda” fits that his main problem was that he was mad at Tom for using a different style of baking bread that was also combined with his hatred of modern technology, but THAT’S NOT HOW IT’S DONE!😳 Holy Sh*t! I sound just like the old turd! Um, I’m gonna take a minute to compose myself after this review.

After his rampage of destroying all things technologically modern (and a good drinking game for this ep every time he says, “That's not how it's done!”) he goes after the Startrain and of course it’s gonna be okay cuz of Ladybugs “Miraculous Ladybug” power and cuz we need it for “Startrain” later in the season. If I thought his supervillain form and goal of using his new powers was stupid, then get a load of how the dynamic duo stop him, it’s-wait for it!....................Defeat by Sandwich! Womp! Womp! Womp! Seriously! Just like what happened to Mama Cass. Only hers was tragic while this was undigestic (that’s not a word, but idk, I’m just trying to make my point here).

God! How I missed writing these reviews! I was busy (and lazy) with my other review (svtfoe finale) and that took forever! But it’s all done now and I can move on to my other shows reviews! These ML eps are commin’ in fast and I hope I can catch up before the seasons all over. As for the ep, we’re foreshadowed on Startrain which I heard that Max’s mother will be akumatized in and I’m guessing from this relieve that she’s probably the conductor for it. We get more family tree history on Marinette and how we meet her paternal grandfather. He’s a family member we can all relate to cuz what child doesn’t have that one stubborn old relative that’s stuck in the past and is strictly traditional and refuses to learn the more modern ways of the current era they’re livin’ in? Totally relatable, but honestly, I’m leaning more towards her maternal grandparents since I hope to God that special, “The Chinese Legend”, where Marinette meets her grandmother from her mothers side, isn’t officially cancelled cuz they said they’ll air it if this show gets a 4th season and Hello people! We’re getting a 5th season and a movie! So yeah, I’m hopeful. I’m still not favorable on Bakerix (the villain) and even though I lashed out about his look being pathetic and his goals of destroying all things modern that didn’t quite fit with it as the critic that I am, it was sorta kinda alright. The detailing on him was crafty, but he’s still at the bottom of my list of least favorite villains on ML. I personally thought his power would be to change all modern day things as old fashioned stuff (ex.a sports car into a buggy and a smart phone as a house phone with the dial ring), but that still wouldn’t have fitted with his akuma name which confused some people on making them think his powers were turning Paris into a gingerbread town! A bit too complex there. The debate on traditional vs. modern was concluded thanks to Cat Noir who points out that both are equally good, but in their own unique ways. The traditional ways are what started the best there in its creation marking it in history and we wouldn’t have our innovative ways of perfecting them to make it more efficient if we didn’t start from scratch while the modern ways help us discover new possibilities to further increase our ever changing lifestyles on a more productive manner. Rolland learned this and even to the point where he had a change of heart seeing as there are some things more important than livin’ in the past. Family. So after 20 years, all it took was a clumsy little “delivery intern” to see that change is a part of life and that it’s best to move on and not stay stuck. Yea Marinette!

#miraculous ladybug #bakerix #miraculous ladybug bakerix

[dazzer9879]

week 4 blog

Branding on the web is significantly different to branding in a conventional retail because they need to do it across many social media platforms as well as search engines. They need to work much harder in order to create a name for themselves as well as branding themselves and making their products known. They also need to rely on social word of mouth because that is the only way they are going to be able to spread their product. Convention retailing is “is based on the relationship between a product's cost and its retail price. This method is used by businesses to get an idea of the cost of goods they have on-hand at the end of a particular reporting period. “(Walters,2019) In conventional retail setting they can send home postcards with clients as well as use advertising boards around the city in which they are located.

Males typically do not enjoy going out to shop and therefore they will do the shopping in the easiest way possible which would be sitting on a computer and searching for what they want and buying it online. If men do happen to shop inperson it will be as quick as possible and not for a hobby. “Being More Price Conscious and Less Time-Sensitive. When purchasing personal products, men should apply the same techniques they use when making business purchases: understanding how the product is used, who uses it, which features are necessary, and what is offered at different price points.” (Lewis, para 12) Males do tend to get frustrated and do not tend to shop around for bargins and would rather purchases the item for the sake of leaving the store as soon as possible, while females would be different .Another difference that I experienced when researching this topic was that “men will purchase an item when it is off immediate need while women tend to shop 2,3 weeks in advance” (Lewis, para 14) Women are more  inclined to do more research on an item that interest their taste more than men would and fish out better deals than men just for this  reason and would therefore would classify them as better shoppers than males. Women typically enjoy shopping trips with other women and therefore they are more likely going out to retail stores and shopping around. I found an interesting fact about how the female brain works when it comes to shopping “The way a woman shops when she is 18 years old is the same way she is going to shop when she is 43 years old. It is a lifelong mindset. This insight was unexpected, as most observers expected women’s shopping habits to change as they grew older.” (Lewis, para 7) This is very intriguing as it shows the mindset and maturity that females develop at a young age when it comes to shopping and their procedure behind it all.

Consumer reviews are important in both settings because other women will want advice on where to go on their next shopping trips and guys will talk about where they have shopped for products online and what has worked for them. If a customer review is any bit negative it is likely that a customer will not go ahead and buy the product due to that reason and vice versa if the review is excellent. According to invesp “90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business. And 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations” (Saleh, para 1). This shows that customer pay a lot of attention to other customers experiences with products. Customer reviews are more important when it comes to online shopping as it is the only piece of evidence that customers can fall back on as they cannot physically see the product and the quality of make.  According to Freddie “Men are slightly more likely to read reviews for electronics than women, which might largely be due to the fact that marketing for the category is heavily targeted towards men than women. This is also the case for automobile and insurance. Men are more likely than women to read reviews when buying cars (56%), renting cars (16%), and getting an insurance (26%).

In general, women are more likely to read online reviews than men with female shoppers leading men in seven out of the twelve categories surveyed.

Women read reviews when buying household appliances (59%), hotels (48%), restaurants (37%), vacation packages (31%), local services (36%), clothes (32%), and beauty products (36%). This is largely because in most households women are the main shopper responsible for the purchase decision.” (Freddie,2018).  This is something I found very interesting but plausible as males show more of an interest in electronics commonly and females tend to have more of an interest in household items so will gravitate to see reviews about those items.

References

Get The Insight – How Reading Online Reviews Differs By Age And Gender (2018, February 8). In ReviewMonitoring. Retrieved from https://reviewmonitoring.com/get-the-insight-into-how-shoppers-read-online-reviews-differ-by-age-and-gender/

Saleh, K. (n.d.). invesp. In The Importance Of Online Customer Reviews [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://www.invespcro.com/blog/the-importance-of-online-customer-reviews-infographic/

Men vs. Women: Differences in Shopping Habits & Buying Decisions (n.d.). In Moneycrashers. Retrieved from https://www.moneycrashers.com/men-vs-women-shopping-habits-buying-decisions/

Walters, S. (2019, August). Conventional retail inventory method. In azcentral. Retrieved from https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/conventional-retail-inventory-method-21829.html

[ryanssecurityengineering]

Week 4 Notes and Reflection

REFLECTION

Unfortunately I got addicted to playing the NSA cryptograms game during the lecture and was distracted for most of the time!! At least I feel more confident solving cryptograms. 

This lecture was an interesting one, where I learnt about hashing. I like how it is difficult to reverse, but what interests me is how if a hash function is not collision-resistant, it is considered bad.

I also got a better understanding of bits of security, especially due to the kahoot question.

However I thought Richard would talk more about RSA, but he didn’t, I will have to investigate how that works.

NOTES

Brute forcing an English alphabet substitution cipher takes 26! permutations which is 4 * 10^26. In terms of bits of work, this is 10^3 * 10^3  * 10^3 * 10^3 * 10^3 * 10^3 * 10^3 * 10^3

7 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 * 10 = 87 bits. + 4 = 89 bits.

Entropy - randomness of your data. Patterns in data decrease entropy. 

How many 5 letter English words (~13 bits) vs how many 5 sequences of English letters exist? (~25 bits)

13 bits of information conveyed in 5 letters, about 2.5 bits per letter.

Passwords - Cracking a password involves a dictionary attack - using substrings of common words, English words etc. cracking a 5 letter password is not 26^5 combinations, as English words have a structure. The number of words are limited.

Weakness - The biggest weakness is inside your organisation. 

Bank/Telegraph - Sending info to another bank over a telegraph wire - unsafe wire, can be eavesdropped, tapped etc. What to do? 

Replay attack - you can replay the command to pay someone money (e.g. can I pay money to A? Replay the message back saying YES. A replay attack (also known as playback attack) is a form of network attack in which a valid data transmission is maliciously or fraudulently repeated or delayed.). 

1. Challenge response - have the message be different each time, since the message is a response to a challenge. So we can’t replay a message from one bank to another. In computer security, challenge–response authentication is a family of protocols in which one party presents a question ("challenge") and another party must provide a valid answer ("response") to be authenticated. Simple examples of this are passwords and CAPTCHAs.

2. Do you need confidentiality on the message? Does it need to be encrypted? If the message is not encrypted the message can be tampered with. 

Tamper-evident communication - use hashing  - summarise one thing with another thing. Hash function must give same result for the same thing every time. Convenient to look at the hash of the data rather than the hash. However might have different people in a hash (collision). 

Birthday Attack - Collisions on birthdays even on small groups of people. Collision chance is 50/50 if your hash size is sqrt(52) for pack of cards. 

Everyone knows the hash function - Given hash function anyone can hash it. 

Send the message and the hash?? - Can’t do that, they might have tampered with the hash.

Hash Functions (copied from Richard’s slides - comprehensive!) 

deterministic

go from (perhaps) large and (perhaps) varying in size input to a fixed size output (usually much smaller)

can use as a fingerprint to detect when things change

example of card hash function which maps a student to a playing card.

all hash functions must have collisions (information theory - if input has more info than output)

we want to minimize collisions as much as possible

examples of problems with poor hash functions -

clustered collisions (similar inputs having similar or colliding hash functions)

eg people sitting next to each other in class likely to have same card suit

non uniform distribution

more undergrads than postgrads, more 6441 than 6841 students

birthday paradox (nor really a paradox) the number of items you have to look at before you find a collision is surprisingly small.  if there are n possible hash values then on average you only have to look at roughly squareroot(n) items before finding a collision.

maths = 1 - probability(first n items are collision free)

Desired resistance against attacks

If you can find collisions you can possibly defeat the hash. 

Want to set the hash output to be the largest it can possibly be i.e. even the sqaure root (half the number of bits) is still too much work for an attacker to do.

preimage attack: given h(M) find M. Generate a document with that hash.

2nd preimage resistant: given M find M' where h(M)=h(M'). You can find another message with the same hash.

collision resistant: find any two messages M M' where h(M) = h(M'). You can pick any two messages with the same hash.

Examples of Uses:

MAC - append a password in the message to be hashed.

Commitment

Proof of work - Need to do a lot of work to achieve something. E.g. bitcoin - you can only get a new block when you solve a puzzle, which takes a certain amount of bits of work.

Passwords

Fingerprints - check that the file matches the hash of the file. Quick summary we can compare.

SOCIAL ENGINEERING EXTENDED LECTURE

What is social engineering?

The art of learning and lying

Targets both the physical and digital security

Involves: human interaction, deception, phishing, ransomware and USB baiting.

Stages

Investigation

Hook (deceiving the victim)

Play (obtaining the info)

Exit

Many people now hired for their interpersonal and technical skills to try and break the system / penetration testing.

Social Engineering Vectors

Pretexting - Invented scenario to get something out of somewhere e.g. inpersonating someone

Baiting - E.g. infected USB on premises, hope someone plugs it

Quid Pro Quo - Getting something for something

Tailgating - Access to restricted to area

Phishing - Invented scenario to get info, digital. Scam email

An Example of Social Engineering

E.g. person tries to break into helicopter facility - surrounded by a razor wire fence. Someone calls the office trying to get into contact with a person. Calls multiple times. Eventually gets info and pretends to be the authorised person, and gets onto the premises. Guard doesn’t check badge.

Security Questions

Very difficult for humans to produce random and secure, even harder to have both

Why does it work? Pseudo privacy?

Pre generated questions vs self generated questions.

Easy to guess family members security questions

3 Types of attacks - public info, factual info, enumerative questions, 

Prevention and strategy - Always lie, scrub your social media, consider a security question as another password, don’t reuse security questions and answers.

University Social Engineering

Phishing attack - pose as Vice-chancellor, dean, fake login page.

Persuasion Techniques

Reciprocity - obligated to return a favour for something

Liking - Get someone to like you. Charisma social skills.

Social Proof - Look at the distraction?????

Authority - Blindly follow authority figures