#its how i ended up with over 150k posts on that blog
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1D Monthly Fic Roundup
Hi, and welcome to the 1D Monthly Fic Roundup for May 2021! Below the cut you’ll find 17 One Direction fics that were all published this month in the order they were submitted to the blog. We hope you’ll check out these new fics! If you would like to submit your own fic, please check this post on how to submit or visit our blog @1dmonthlyficroundup.
New York Kiss by wordsnnotes / @quelsentiment
[Louis/Zayn, Mature, 47k, tumblr post]
“Also, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m quite the narcissistic type, and I didn’t want that cute guy to have a bad opinion of me for the rest of his life.” “Who, me?” Zayn bats his lashes jokingly, ignoring the fact that his heart skipped a beat at Louis’ words. “Yeah, you. So, shall we go?” Louis drops what remains of his cigarette on the floor and steps on it to light it off. Meanwhile, Zayn makes a reckless decision. “Alright. Lead the way, De Niro.”
Or: A strangers to lovers AU where Louis is an actor, Zayn is a writer (among other things), and they meet each other literally by accident in NYC, just as the world is about to turn upside down.
I Love The Very Blood Of You by lovelarry10 / @chloehl10
[Harry/Louis, Explicit, 129k, tumblr post]
“I don’t just like him …” Harry muttered, fiddling with the string at the waistband of his jogging bottoms that had definitely seen better days. “I love him, Zayn. I’m in love with Louis. With a vampire.”
He looked up just in time to see a small smile on Anne’s face, and she reached out with a hopeful look. Harry couldn’t resist, and put his large hand in hers, letting her comfort him for a moment.
“I could tell there was love between you,” she confessed softly, a light blush on her cheeks. “When I met you, I knew you were smitten with each other. I won’t pretend it doesn’t make me nervous, but … I can’t tell you who you can and can’t love, sweetheart.”
A vampire. A human. A broken arrangement. A love long since forbidden. Hunted by hate. Destined.
One More Taste of Your Lips by MsHydeStylinson @mizzhydes and @canadianlarrie
[Harry/Louis, Explicit, 80k, tumblr post]
It had been eight years since the hiatus began, and Louis had spent that time writing and recording music, touring and making it safely through the pandemic. When the opportunity arose to go back on tour with One Direction, Louis knew he'd be a fool not to take it. Sure, life on the road would be different after all this time apart, but he was looking forward to experiencing that comradery again.
What he hadn't realised was that living the better part of nine months in each other's pockets was bound to dredge up issues from his past. And when one of the pockets belonged to Harry, who he'd had a rather unconventional friendship with that drifted apart during their last tour, life on the road again would upend both their lives in irrevocable ways.
***
Harry wasn’t that sixteen year old boy anymore. Nor was he the young man in his late teens who was on the cusp of conquering the entire world.
But some traits seemed to remain the same; his vibrant green eyes, the dimples set deeply in his cheeks whenever he laughed earnestly, or his curls that were the same shade of cocoa that Louis remembered fondly.
And yet, Louis had absolutely no idea who this man that stood a mere twenty paces away was today.
take my hand, wreck my plans by amomentoflove / @daggerandrose
[Harry/Louis, Teen & Up, 38k, tumblr post]
Louis meets the man in the center of the room, feeling every eye on him.
“Mr. H,” he whispers.
The man smiles brightly and laughs as if he can’t believe his eyes. “It’s you,” he says breathlessly. “I didn’t think I would see you again.”
“Nor I you, especially under these circumstances.”
“Even so,” Mr H says, his eyes bouncing from Louis’ eyes to his lips. “Will you do me a great honor and join me in leading the first … um…”
“Dance?”
Mr. H laughs and nods. “Yes, that’s the one.”
Louis bites his lips and doesn’t hesitate before whispering, “Yes.”
Mr. H beams and reaches for Louis’ hand. Sparks fly at the touch and a zing of excitement shoots through Louis’ body. His face heats up as he’s afraid his scent would give away his feelings towards the other man.
Winter Light by wordsnnotes / @quelsentiment
[Liam/Zayn (Liam & Louis, Harry/Louis), Teen & Up, 58k, tumblr post]
“Do you think this place is dead?” he suddenly asked, his eyes focused on one of the two oaks, whose bark was grey and trunk cracked.
“What do you mean?” Zayn inquired, joining him by the tree.
“Well, it’s winter now, so obviously everything looks dead anyway,” Liam said. “But do you think come spring, this place might look like the way it looked before?”
Zayn took his time to think about Liam’s question. “I think all things are salvageable,” he eventually answered. “Including this garden. You just have to try hard enough.”
After his mother’s death, Liam is sent to live at his estranged uncle’s manor in the North of England, where new friends, mysterious places and family secrets await him. A Secret Garden inspired Soulmate AU
Cake and Kiss by @loulovehome
[Harry/Louis, General, 2k, tumblr post]
The one where omega Harry didn't like cake and wants to throw up when his alpha kisses him.
Love After the End of the World by writing_practice / @mercurial-madhouse
[Harry/Louis, Explicit, 150k, tumblr post]
“Wait. Just so I’m clear in me fucking noggin,” Niall says. “An international worldwide takeover is well under way and the only thing standing between having hot showers and a second end of the world is us five fuckers?”
-----
Society shattered when all electricity suddenly cut off across the globe, plunging the world into darkness. Now, Prometheus Industries is the sole remaining supply of power, a saving grace to those who survived Lights Out. As fugitives in no-man’s land struggling to break into Prometheus HQ, death lurks around every corner for Louis and Zayn. Things get complicated when a routine recon falls apart and Louis collides with Harry and his mates Niall and Liam, survivors with their own agenda.
When staying alive is already a constant battle, the deadliest weakness is to be in love. For Harry and Louis, finding each other sits on top of the endless list of What Else Could Go Wrong.
Hometown by @allwaswell16
[Louis/Harry, Not Rated, 2k, tumblr post]
On the day Harry gets his driver’s licence, he drives through the suburbs, heartbroken that he can’t drive home to Louis.
Baby Blues by @kingsofeverything
[Louis/Harry, Explicit, 12K, tumblr post]
8 mpreg Harry snippets originally posted on Tumblr. Mostly smut ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But If This Ends by nonsensedarling / @absoloutenonsense
[Harry/Louis, Explicit, 107k, tumblr post]
Harry’s life as a vampire is routine. He spends his years moving around from place to place, learning as much as he can, and falling in love whenever the universe sees fit. When he tries to move his casual relationship with Louis to something more, it all gets turned on its head. As they navigate confusing thoughts and complex emotions, Harry finds himself torn between the love he feels for Louis and everything he thought he knew.
Featuring pet names, love letters, secrets, meaningful friendships, and two insecure boys desperately in love.
Pretty in Pink by lovelarry / @chloehl10
[Louis/Harry, Explicit, 18k, tumblr post]
“Love? Can I come in?”
Harry sniffed and shook his head before he realised Louis couldn’t see him. “No. Go home, Lou. Please.”
“I’m not leaving,” the Omega insisted, his voice full of concern. “And I’m not judging either. Just… talk to me, Haz.”
Harry briefly considered changing or at least ripping everything off and greeting Louis in his boxers before he realised that might actually be worse, that Louis had seen him dressed up and there was no need to hide anymore. He meekly shuffled over to the door and pulled it open before he backed away, refusing to meet Louis’ eyes.
To the Omega’s credit, he walked straight over to Harry and wrapped his arms around him from behind, resting his cheek between Harry’s shoulder blades.
“This top feels nice. Soft. I see why you like it,” Louis said quietly from behind him.
*****
Alpha Harry loves to secretly dress up and be pretty. He loves his feminine side, even if it’s not typical of an Alpha. But when Omega Louis finds out, it might just the start of something even more beautiful for them both...
Plant New Seeds In The Melody by @vintageumbroshirt / 28sunflowers
[Louis/Harry, Explicit, 58k, tumblr post]
After losing his husband in a tragic car accident, the last thing Louis needs is to keep running into popstar Harry Styles, who David was quite fond of.
Obviously, that’s exactly what keeps happening.
But as their unlikely friendship blossoms, Louis realizes that, maybe, having Harry in his life was the only good thing that came out of his adverse circumstances. Harry could be just the right person to help Louis find trust and intimacy in someone new.
We are the same, you run in my veins by @vintageumbroshirt / 28sunflowers
[Louis/Harry, General, 4k, tumblr post]
When the time for Louis to become the Alpha leader of his pack comes, he can’t rise to the occasion for not being yet bonded. A series of trips to neighbouring packs in search of his soulmate is fruitless until he meets one of the other packs’ Alpha heir.
Harry.
The world seems to stop turning for a second and then it shifts, clicking into its axis. All the distress and wrongness he felt until that very moment suddenly disappears. Louis is finally whole.
But two Alpha leaders from different tribes soulbonding is something unheard of before.
evergreen, evermore by docklands / @hershelsue
[Louis/Harry, General, 2k, tumblr post]
The year is 1979. Their entire lives, Harry and Louis have lived in Chichester, home to the best watermelons in the world. An unruffled life in the country has always served their long term friendship well. It all shifts when Harry has to move away to a bigger city due to his mother’s job, albeit his love for his hometown and for Louis. It’s even harsher when the moving truck leaves on his birthday, of all days. When all seems lost, Louis ends up having to pull some strings to ease the pain in Harry’s heart.
When The High's Too High, and the Low's Too Low by DaysLikeMasquerades
[Louis/Harry, Mature, 22k+ (wip)]
Two perspectives of growing up neurodivergent
Some days Harry wondered if he would ever find a friend who could look past all the things he couldn't change. Someone who didn't care that he could spend hours talking about his latest fascination without calling him obsessed. Who didn't laugh when he couldn't stop his hands from expressing his emotions. Who didn't care that he was 13, but he'd start crying if he went into too many stores, because they were too bright, too loud, too smelly, and it was all just too overwhelming. Some days he thought someone like that just didn't exist.
Most nights Louis wondered if there would ever come a time when he didn't hate himself. When he would learn to control his emotions and the mood swings that seemed to take over everything and leave no room for himself. He wondered how he could live with himself when he only seemed to hurt the people he loved. His teachers thought he was a wonderful boy, but he knew the truth. Most nights he cried himself into exhaustion wondering how it was possible to feel so broken at only 15. He wanted to be happy, but he didn't know how and that scared him more than anything. Most nights he just hoped he could figure it out before it was too late.
Make You Never Wanna Leave (so Don’t) by @beelou / cherrylarry
[Louis/Harry, Explicit, 3k, tumblr post]
“You look hot in plaid.”
“What?”
“I said you look like a dad.”
“No, you didn't.”
“Yes, I certainly did, Harold. You have no proof.”
--
Or, the one where Harry wears plaid.
a little tenderness by @disgruntledkittenface
[Harry/Niall, Not rated, 10k, tumblr post]
“Listen, my alpha and I broke up and it turns out that all of our friends were really his friends and I need someone to help me through–”
“No,” Harry practically shouts, the word bursting out of him unbidden. He cringes when he sees the shock on Niall’s face, his pale skin flushing lightly. “I’m sorry, but my answer has to be no. I don’t help omegas through heats. I’m really sorry, Liam knows that, so I don’t know why he would give you the idea–”
“It’s not heat, Harry,” Niall interrupts. “It’s depri.”
“Oh. Fuck.”
Touch deprivation makes a lot of sense now that Harry thinks about it. Niall seems generally unwell; he appears to be weak, his skin is pallid and his lips look chapped, and his breathing is ragged. He’s wearing a cozy-looking sweatshirt, but even over FaceTime, he kind of seems cold, hunched over with his arms wrapped around his body. Harry’s never been around an omega in depri as bad off as Niall looks; most of the time, there’s an alpha friend or family member who can help out with scenting and physical contact.
Oh.
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Misha’s cult follower’s entire argument is celebrities should be “using their platform” [for politics] and in this way, Misha is better because he is “doing more” than Jared. I just…
Anyway, time once again to look at some cold, hard, facts which I wouldn’t be doing if Misha’s stans would just leave Jared the fuck alone. Seriously, you can consider Misha to be God himself and I don’t give a single fuck, but trash Jared using lies on his social media and you get my attention.
Putting this under a cut for those blessed amongst you that appear to be able to exist in a bubble of nirvana to just scroll on by.
Firstly, and most importantly, it’s not about “using your platform”, it’s about ‘understanding your audience’ and using your platform effectively.
To this end, let’s look at Twitter platform only as an example, because I’m lazy and have other things to do and it’s where I’ve seen most of the noise.
Misha:
Misha had not ever posted using BlackLivesMatter hashtag prior to George Floyd’s death (on 25th May).
On 27th May, Misha retweeted a Huff Post news article and got 13.1k likes, 2.2k retweets and 317 comments. It did not use the BLM hashtag. He added a comment “How many more black men must die in America before we do something?” (But didn’t offer any suggestions on what he was doing or what anyone else should do). Slacktivism at its finest. His next immediate tweet was about Gish.
His next post about BLM was 28th May, which co-incidentally (or not depending on if you’ve been watching Collins closely), was the top trending day for the BLM hashtag. This was the tweet:
Again, nothing of substance, other than using the hashtag, which was still trending, though the tweet did generate 31.4k likes, 8k retweets and 650 comments.
His next post was on 29th May, photo op with the kids about having hard conversations with them – you mean you weren’t teaching them about this stuff before Mish? Anyway, that post still didn’t have anything of substance but once again used the trending hashtag.
On May 30th, he tweeted about the Live event featuring POC activists. This event replaced a previously arranged Gish event which even Misha knows he’d have been trashed for if it had went ahead as planned. All 3: Misha, Jensen and Danneel posted exactly the same pre-organised message for the live event, instead of individualising it. I personally thought that was very tacky (sorry). This tweet got 5.1k likes, 723 retweets and 120 comments. It was not tagged BlackLivesMatter which was already falling in the trending topics. He retweeted a further 10+ tweets about the riots on that day.
On May 30th, Gish had their 1-day event, one item on the list was raising money for NAACP legal defence and education fund.
On 31st May, he tweeted about Gish raising $151k for NAACP legal defence and education fund as part of the Gish 1-day event. He posted another few tweets about the live event the previous day and the riots.
On 1st June, he retweeted Obama’s thoughts. Another 5 tweets about the riots
Anyway, I got bored as his entire twitter feed is US political, despite most of his fans being outside US. Fast forward about a 100 or so like-minded posts (honestly, the depths I swim in to pull these together…) to… 26th June where Misha posted about the second live conversation, this tweet got 2.7k likes, 311 retweets and 56 comments.
Jared:
Jared’s last post before his BLM post was 14th May. Unlike Misha, his social media is primarily for his professional working life (as is the case with most celebrities who want to continue a career in acting, as opposed to Misha who appears to have accepted his career in television is all but over and is setting himself up to go back into politics).
Jared had not ever posted using BlackLivesMatter hashtag prior to George Floyd’s death.
29th May was Jared’s first post. He provided a link to a document containing further links on how to be a better ally. He stated clearly what his position was. This tweet was liked by 43k people, 1.7k retweets and 269 comments. On the same day, he retweeted a Randy Orton tweet making it clear that he stood with BLM (as opposed to ALM).
1st June he retweeted Obama’s post with a comment. This retweet got 23.7k likes, 3.2k retweets and 421 comments
19th June, he retweeted Obama’s post about June Nineteenth
21st June, he cross posted his Instagram post about Father’s Day using the hashtag Black Lives Matter. He got 19.6k likes, 2.7k retweets and 638 comments.
Jensen:
Jensen’s last post before his BLM post was 19th May and was about FBBC. Again, unlike Misha, his social media is primarily for his professional working life and separate business interests.
Jensen had not ever posted using BlackLivesMatter hashtag prior to George Floyd’s death.
Jensen posted on 30th May using the exact same wording as Misha and Danneel regarding the live event. This tweet got 10.3k likes, 1.2k retweets and 298 comments. He did not use the BLM hashtag
On 1st June, he retweeted Jane Elliot video that got 18k likes, 3.5k retweets and 375 comments. Also on 1st June, he tweeted a link to Ways to Help and used the BlackLivesMatter hashtag. This got 18k likes, 4.5k retweets and 574 comments.
On June 26th, he linked to Misha’s post about the second live session and got 19.9k likes, 1.9k retweets and 321 comments.
So, what is any of this telling us?
The data is telling us that Jared’s few tweets reached and resonated with far more people on his platform than either of Jensen’s or Misha’s did. The data is also telling me that Misha’s constant tweeting is diluting the message and switching people off, his last tweet on it was 2.7k likes, pretty much his die hard fanbase and are not achieving anything positive. In fact, his platform are doing more harm than good at this point with how they’ve gone after allys. Jared’s few tweets struck the right note for his particular audience. Any more and they’d be switching off in droves (not really an effective use of platform).
In addition, though it looks like Misha is being more proactive with arranging the live events, I’d personally question the success given less than 0.0033% of Jensen and Misha’s combined platforms tuned in to watch the last event live. And those that did watch live, appeared to be more interested in getting ship content than in the actual message - so much so that Jensen had to make a video on IG telling them to look and listen.
Gish does get credit for raising $150k in charity in 24 hours, but I wouldn’t put them on a higher pedestal for it, Doing charity doesn’t give a free pass to be an asshole (particularly one that misuses Pride).
Just stop with the lies and the trashing of a decent man in order to feel better about the guy you like. Particularly when there are real assholes that pretend masturbating to 11 year old girls ffs. It’s senseless, go ahead and like Misha, but accept there’s a lot in fandom that don’t and some are going to blog about it in their own private spaces. Feel free to do the same with Jared but be more respectful and keep it away from his space. That’s all anyone is asking for.
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Thanks to the lovely @interestedbystanderwrites for taking the time to answer these! Get to know more about lovely Cass, go give her a follow and then show her some love!
These questions are from this list. You should check it out, there’s 50 questions all together and they’d be great to ask your favorite fic writer!
1) How old were you when you first starting writing fan-fiction?
Ha! I was a teenager and it was Backstreet Boys – and smut didn’t exist the same way it does now but that’s another opinion for another day. What I wrote then was cutesy and romantic, probably because that was what I was daydreaming about, I guess. Just a reminder that my blog is NSFW if you’re under 18.
2) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.
I think I can get more depth from an OC but you also risk the Mary-Sue and you may pigeonhole your OC in race, sexuality etc. That can really open a can of worms with the reader, which is wholly understandable. Reader inserts are great in the way you can make it 100% person to the reader. They should imagine themselves (if that’s their choice) and not feel that the writer has alienated them in any way somehow but it is still difficult to please everybody.
3) What is your favorite genre to write for?
I like fluff – I like things that make you smile at the end, give the reader a little cuddle to maybe brighten their day.
4) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?
One that never made my masterlist – a Spider-Man super angst titled “How Long Do You Want to be Loved?”. I thought it as okay, pretty good even – but I guess people just want Bucky or Sebastian smut haha I hear you all!
5) When is your preferred time to write?
Morning when the little guy is napping ☺ Evening is hard because it’s when I play adulting catch up… or try not to fall asleep on the couch.
6) Where do you take your inspiration from?
I have a very overactive imagination, always have. And for most of my fics, I guess it’s pretty obviously the beautiful aesthetics of Sebastian Stan and to a lesser extent, Bucky Barnes.
7) In your Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series, what’s your favorite scene that you wrote?
Chapters 27 and 28 of TOFWYA – more so 28 as you get a pretty interesting insight into Sasha’s and Sebastian’s ways of coping when they’re out of sync. Long story short, they’re a mess.
8) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?
Luckily – none! The joys of a smolblog maybe?
9) Who is your favorite character to write for? Why?
I love writing for Buckster – he’s a complex devil and has a lot of layers to work with and a body to die for. Thumbs up for the material, Sebastian.
10) Who is your least favourite character to write for? Why?
As per mentioned before – Peter Parker. That fic scarred me.
11) How did you come up with the title for the Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series?
It’s actually a song lyric as are the first few chapter titles: Belinda Carlisle – Valentine
I made a rule about you, I made a plan // For getting my feet back on the ground // Bury my face in clouds, for hours on end // But time only flies when you're around
12) How did you come up with the idea for the Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series?
I was just writing some stuff, pissfarting around and all of a sudden I’d written something similar to what Chapter 22 ended up being and that’s how it all began. 150k words of nonsense really.
13) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?
Many – but there is a long Bucky multichap fic that deserves more of my attention. As his story has evolves via MCU, the story has changed a little.
14) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?
I write one shots to TOFWYA, I don’t think I could write the sequel to it though. I’ve considered a full fic for Take Me to the Water but I doubt I will for an AU. Any sequels will be little one shots so at this stage, there is nothing planned.
15) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?
I ended Next Year very kitsch – I regret the last sentence as it currently is: You gave him a small smile, overwhelmed by his words. “I love you too, Bucky Barnes.” Blurgh.
16) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?
How much time do you have for me to talk about @whostheblondegirlwriting? Truly. My fandom soul mate. We are separated by far too many kilometres and time zones, but between her job and me mummying, we’re chatting at all hours of the day. She is a true gem and I adore her.
17) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?
Luckily, it’s not available on A03 or Tumblr, but it’s still online elsewhere because I thought about it a few weeks ago – it was a Lords of Dogtown fic… and it was not good. Saying that, anything before that I would cringe at anything I’d written anyway ha!
18) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?
Definitely music or the sound of the baby monitor that I find quite soothing.
19) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?
Argh. “How Long Do You Want to be Loved” messed me up. Too many parental feels.
20) Which part of your Time Only Flies When You’re Around Series was the hardest to write?
The proposal. I went over it a thousand times. I thought, should it be romantic, should it be grand, should it be this or that? How it happened, just a couple in love, in the city they love, being themselves just seemed to fit when it finally came together.
21) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?
I occasionally outline – but mostly I just write, write, write and then start toying with it afterwards. I’m constantly chopping and changing, but I’m not pedantic about planning. It isn’t that kind of fic. Other multichaps I put a bit more planning and emphasis on.
22) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fan-fiction?
You’re only as good as your last fic and its reblogs. If you’re going to get hung up on likes/reblogs/comments, you’ll never publish something again. But it can be bloody disheartening at times.
23) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?
Time Only Flies When You’re Around? Haha busted my ass on that beast for over a year. It has the hits but likes and comments are encouraging when received. When. I always considered publishing it on Tumblr, but I don’t know. It’s freely available on A03.
24) In contrast to 23 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?
Smut talks – I think Heatstroke is a little silly. But it gets hits.
25) Are any of your characters based on real people?
Nope – any characters, inc OC’s are all fictional. I don’t know if I could handle people in my real life if they were like my OC’s!
26) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?
Any body that takes the time to leave a ‘yes!’, ‘omg’ to paragraphs of reiterating your story back to you – it’s amazing! Taking the time to leave a writer a comment makes our day.
27) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?
It still makes me laugh when I read it, not quite verbatim but it was along the lines of ‘I loved this fic but it’s gone a total 180. I’ll see how you continue but you know, I’m probably out of here’. While I know you can’t please anyone, it’s a strange comment. I’m old enough to appreciate constructive criticism. This was neither here nor there, but still hilarious!
28) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?
Back to my love, @whostheblondegirlwriting, we’re constantly taunting the other or beta’ing each others stuff when we have time to help the other (let alone write our own stuff!).
29) Do people know you write fan-fiction?
In real life? No. On this hellsite? I have made some amazing writing friends!
30) What’s you favorite minor character you’ve written?
Ollie in TOFWYA – she’s a completely stereotypical New Yorker, brash, in your face and on the other hand, Sasha’s best friend in the world and they’d do anything for each other. If you knew Ollie in real life, you’d absolutely hate her.
31) What spurs you on during the writing process?
People simply enjoying your work and letting you know is the most amazing aphrodisiac. I’ll never stop writing – whether it’s for myself or for other people to enjoy. Don’t ever be scared to let a writer know if you’ve enjoyed their work or if you haven’t, a writer should be able to accept your constructive criticism and will probably appreciate your feedback if you take the time to provide it respectfully! If you’re going to go on anon and talk shit, just don’t bother. It’s boring, childish and completely unoriginal. Shows true testament to your personality offline.
32) What’s your favorite trope to write?
Friends to Lovers. THEY WERE FRIENDS AND NOW THEY ARE… LOVERS!
33) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?
Not a clue – but will assume it’s Backstreet Boys-related!
34) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?
Smut will get you the hits but fluff is forever.
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New Post has been published on https://coinprojects.net/u-s-congress-submits-18-crypto-bills-in-2021-visa-buys-150k-cryptopunk-microstrategy-snaps-up-more-btc-hodlers-digest-aug-22-28/
U.S. Congress submits 18 crypto bills in 2021, Visa buys $150K CryptoPunk, MicroStrategy snaps up more BTC: Hodler’s Digest, Aug. 22-28
Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.
Top Stories This Week
Congress has put forward 18 bills on digital assets in 2021 so far
The U.S. Congress has been ramping up its efforts to provide a regulatory framework for crypto in 2021 and has put forward 18 bills concerning digital assets and blockchain tech so far this year.
According to an Aug. 22 analysis from former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation regulator Jason Brett, the current 117th Congress differs from its predecessor in that it has been focusing on regulation concerning decentralized assets as opposed to private stablecoins.
It was also reported this week that the contentious $1 trillion infrastructure bill will see a vote in the House of Representatives by Sept. 27 — without any amendments to the controversial crypto tax provisions.
Visa invests $150,000 in NFT CryptoPunk asset
This week Visa, Visa spent $150,000 on a tokenized JPEG of a pixel art punk, better known as a CryptoPunk NFT. The firm announced the news in an Aug. 23 blog post, with Cuy Sheffield, the head of crypto at Visa, teasing that the firm may be looking at a prolonged stay in the sector.
“To help our clients and partners participate, we need a first-hand understanding of the infrastructure requirements for a global brand to purchase, store and leverage an NFT,” he said.
Visa purchased CryptoPunk 7610 — a female figure with a mohawk, green clown makeup eyes and lipstick. Obtaining an “understanding of the infrastructure requirements” in purchasing an NFT mustn’t have taken long, as all you need to do is buy it and store it in your wallet. It’s not rocket science.
Budweiser also joined in the action by purchasing a fan art NFT for 8 Ether (ETH), worth roughly $25,000. The NFT depicted a Budweiser-branded rocket that would take five minutes to whip up on Adobe Illustrator. The beer producer also spent 30 ETH, or $94,000, on the domain name Beer.eth through Ethereum Name Service on OpenSea.
PayPal launches crypto services for UK customers
Global payments provider PayPal announced the rollout of its crypto services for customers in the United Kingdom this week.
PayPal first launched its crypto services less than a year ago, and this is the first time it has expanded crypto support beyond U.S. shores.
The firm will initially allow customers to buy, sell and hold crypto assets including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether, Litecoin (LTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). However, crypto transactions for PayPal business accounts aren’t supported yet.
MicroStrategy splashes $177M on Bitcoin, now holds almost 109,000 BTC
MicroStrategy, led by Bitcoin apostle Michael Saylor, has snapped up another $177 million worth of digital gold. The latest purchase takes the firm’s tally up to 108,992 BTC, which cost a mere $2,918 billion overall.
The average purchasing price for its BTC sits at approximately $26,769 per coin. With the price of BTC sitting at $47,584 at the time of writing, MicroStrategy’s holdings are valued at $5.1 billion.
It is a foregone conclusion that Saylor is “all in” on BTC at this stage. However, it is yet to be seen if he will respond to crypto skeptic Peter Schiff’s call out for a debate. Schiff faced off against Anthony Scaramucci this week over whether gold or BTC is a better store of value. After he won, he stated in jest:
“I just gotta say one thing: Michael Saylor, stop ducking me, I know you’re out there.”
Binance denies allegations of market manipulation
Major crypto exchange Binance came out swinging this week as it pushed back against allegations of market manipulation and trading against its users.
The firm is currently facing regulatory scrutiny and, in an Aug. 23 Twitter thread, Binance seemingly laid the blame of assertions of market manipulation on publications spreading FUD, along with people impersonating Binance employees.
The firm stated that, while it works on its compliance targets with regulators, it expects “fewer FUD-peddlers and individuals with malicious intent,” and went on to warn:
“Binance reserves the right to take legal action to protect its interests and welcomes responsible whistle-blowing that protects the trust of our community.”
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $48,373, Ether at $3,233 and XRP at $1.14. The total market cap is at $2.08 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Tezos (XTZ) at 46.33%, Avalanche (AVAX) at 33.86% and Celo (CELO) at 31.97%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are Audius (AUDIO) at -21.08%, XinFin Network (XDC) at -13.99% and SushiSwap (SUSHI) at -12.76%.
For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.
Most Memorable Quotations
“As long as the statute says that software developers, miners, stakers must do the impossible, there is no lawyer who would advise them to risk operating in violation of laws whose penalties for non-compliance would easily bankrupt them.”
Lawrence Zlatkin, Coinbase global vice president of tax
“In the last year, we’ve seen a significant shift in how the global financial ecosystem is thinking about new business models fueled by digital assets, and how this is playing a meaningful role in financial infrastructure.”
Linda Pawczuk, principal at Deloitte Consulting
“We will want to wait for all the regulatory things. Of course, crypto is an area which is extremely interesting, and is the biggest buzzword and is doing exceptionally well. But we would want to understand more on the regulation side.”
Manu Jain, managing director of Xiaomi India
“A trading platform that offers derivatives on digital assets to U.S. persons without registering, or in violation of CFTC trading rules, is subject to the CFTC’s enforcement authority.”
Dawn Stump, commissioner at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission
“When you have a good crypto wallet like Novi will be, you also have to think about how to help consumers support NFTs.”
David Marcus, head of Facebook Financial and co-creator of Diem
“Be wary of investment opportunities with low risk and high returns. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
Delia Rickard, deputy chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission
“Binance has never traded against our users nor manipulated the market, and we never will.”
Binance
“With our CryptoPunk purchase, we’re jumping in feet first. This is just the beginning of our work in this space.”
Cuy Sheffield, head of crypto at Visa
“I think this cryptocurrency revolution and Bitcoin specifically, because of its scarcity, is going to transcend gold. It’s more portable, it’s impregnable in terms of the transaction over the blockchain […] and it’s being adopted quite rapidly.”
Anthony Scaramucci, Skybridge founder
Prediction of the Week
Bitcoin bullish cross on weekly chart paints $225K BTC price target if history repeats
Bitcoin regained the $50,000 price level this week, although the asset subsequently fell several thousand dollars as part of a price correction, fluctuating between $45,000 and $50,000 for most of the week.
During the month of August, the moving average convergence/divergence (MACD) indicator on Bitcoin’s weekly price chart formed and continued through a cross of the indicator’s two lines, and jumped to green on its histogram (the bar part at the bottom of the indicator).
What does it mean? Well, nothing is certain, but according to reporting from Cointelegraph’s William Suberg, the last time Bitcoin’s MACD indicator acted similarly (last fall), the asset’s price grew by more than five times in value in the following half dozen months. BTC could potentially rise above $200,000 if things play out comparably, according to Suberg.
FUD of the Week
Google bans 8 ‘deceptive’ crypto apps from Play Store
Google, the Silicon Valley-based tech overlords, took down eight fraudulent crypto apps from its Google Play Store this week.
Fraudulent crypto-themed mobile apps have been popping up more frequently over the past 12 months, and they usually operate under the false pretext of offering cloud mining services.
According to a recent report from Trend Micro, the apps were charging around $15 a month for their fake services and extra for “increased mining capabilities” — all while duping users into watching paid ads.
The reportedly fake crypto apps included mining services such as BitFunds, Bitcoin Miner, Daily Bitcoin Rewards, Crypto Holic and MineBit Pro, to name a few.
Poll shows Brits concerned over the prospect of a digital pound
According to a survey conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies on behalf of Politico, 30% of British adults hold concerns over a Bank of England-issued central bank digital currency, or CBDC.
For some reason, the notion of having a programmable government-backed CBDC that can track all of their spending habits doesn’t sound appealing to them. If they think that’s bad, just wait until they hear about the insatiable appetite for personal data that Apple, Google or Facebook has.
There were 2,500 British adults surveyed in the study during early August, with 24% believing that it could be beneficial, while 46% were undecided.
Coinbase users angry with customer support after funds disappear from accounts
Top U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase was facing backlash this week for terrible customer service in relation to users reporting hacks and being drained of funds.
According to an Aug. 24 investigation from CNBC, thousands of disgruntled customers across the U.S. have lodged complaints against the company, and are unhappy with the lack of response from Coinbase when dealing with hacks and stolen funds.
“Interviews with Coinbase customers around the country and a review of thousands of complaints reveal a pattern of account takeovers, where users see money suddenly vanish from their account, followed by poor customer service from Coinbase that made those users feel left hanging and angry,” CNBC stated.
Best Cointelegraph Features
Blockchain is as revolutionary as electricity: Big Ideas with Jason Potts
“This is completing the revolution that was started with the internet.”
London’s impact: Ethereum 2.0’s staking contract becomes largest ETH holder
The aftereffects of the London upgrade begin to emerge as the Eth2 staking contract becomes the single largest Ether holder.
The new episode of crypto regulation: The Empire Strikes Back
A decentralized exchange reckoning is coming — and it’s bigger than the infrastructure bill — thus, the DeFi community must be ready.
Source link By Cointelegraph By Editorial Staff
#Altcoin #Binance #Bitcoin #BlockChain #BlockchainNews #BNB #Crypto #CryptoExchange #ETH #Etherium #RippleNetwork #XRP
#Altcoin#Binance#Bitcoin#BlockChain#BlockchainNews#BNB#crypto#CryptoExchange#ETH#Etherium#RippleNetwork#XRP#Blockchain#CryptoPress
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Do you sense a pattern?
So yeah. Been a year of pandemic. If you happen to find this blog you will notice I unlocked a very personal post I made around Christmas. It is actually the first time I read it since I wrote it.
To be honest, I am coming apart at the seams. It has been a rough 3 months. I ended up having a miscarriage right on through the holidays. I sat on our family's sofas and excused myself carefully making sure not to bleed out in my ugly Christmas sweater and leggings or cast a further dark cloud over the holidays. We really didn’t tell anyone. I only recently told my mom via text after she made some comments about a lack of grandbabies.
We sold our house and moved in with my parents just in time to witness the housing market just go flipping nuts. I just want to cry most days. Fuck. I was doing so good, I kept things going for so long. I doubled down on getting the house taken care of after the miscarriage hoping that we could just focus on one thing at a time. So we finished up renovations and sold the house. Now that we sold our house we can’t actually buy one because the market is going crazy. We can’t get to houses before we are outbid or they go under contract. We have offered over asking even and are willing to buy as is with 150k down and still are out bid because we wont pay 20k over asking when the house is already 20k over its real value.
I get if you sell high you are going to buy high, but this is unreasonable. Even building new is under freeze because of the demand. I fear buying at the height of a housing bubble bursting. So we are living with my parents and I am trying to adjust to being my parent’s child again. It is hard, my mom is just so unhappy all the time. It doesn’t matter what I do or how I try to help she is just miserable. I don’t know how to help her, I just always feel like I am making it worse.
I just need a break. I know I only come here to whine but what else am I supposed to do? If I unburden myself on anyone else I have to feel guilty or weird for making them feel bad or sad. I just have to admit at least to myself how much I am actually struggling. It is fucking rough man. It is so fucking rough, and I know I am blessed but it doesn't make it any easier. It makes me feel worse honestly. I just feel this horrible countdown roaring in my ears must buy house, must figure out biological inadequacies. Fuck I just wish I could catch my breath, this should be the time but instead I am spiraling into despair and self loathing.
It all made sense logically at the time, but every time I come back to the same answer: we played it too safe. With the house, my fertility, all of it. Its a crushing weight that I am shouldering while I plaster a smile on my face and tell the world I got this. It doesn’t feel like I got this. I don’t even have my own personal space anymore. I just have obligations and guilt. I am always having to decide who to disappoint. I feel like I have lost touch with myself completely.
I know it all sounds like doom and gloom but I try to change what I can control and set boundaries I can sustain. I really try to not let it swallow me whole. Tonight I just have to feel sorry for myself because tomorrow I have to kick ass again. The only way out is through. At least I had a good cry, that should help right? Like venting the pressure cooker around my soul a little.
On a happier note Erik and I were both vaccinated. So maybe we will be able to travel at some point. Maybe the sacrifice and toil will pay off yet. Fingers crossed. Sorry I suck.
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The answer is...
It’s time for my yearly assignment.
This milestone is inspired by a politician. Oh FUCK no - not the one who is infesting the Oval Office. He only inspires disgust.
No it was a campaign line uttered by the previous low-bar occupant in the WH - Ronnie Raygun himself. In a debate with the well meaning but inept incumbent Jimmy Carter, RR turned to the audience and asked: “Are you better off today than you were four years ago.” America said a loud and resounding “no” a few months later in the November electoral massacre. Reagan revolution, trickle down bullshit, Iran Contra…..yes, we were MUCH better off with the actor.
But I digress:
For my personal use, I’ve modified this to: “Am I better off today than I was a year ago.”
And the answer is…..complicated.
2017 had amazing highs and resounding lows. We’ll start with the good stuff:
This is the year I went to Paris for the first - but certainly not the last time. And I was able to share it with my children. It was magical. Even a simple Uber drive across the city through this one of a kind city became the stuff of my dreams many weeks later. Yeah, I’m way late to the party on Paris, but most Oregon kids travel west in their youth. How many of my 2.7 readers spent 6 weeks in the outer islands of French Polynesia?
That was the highest of the highs. A life long dream. And a new direction to be pursued. I’m going to live there - I know a lot of people just say that - but I mean it. The clock is ticking. 4.25 years.
Must learn french. Or find a french maid. Or both. Am taking applications.
Other travel highs - spending a week in a flat in London for a book show, and returning to my favorite museum on earth - IWM. I’ll be back there soon! Spent time in So Cal with long lost relatives. Was in Portland a few times with my Mom helping her to get established in her new digs. Found an amazing hotel in - of all places - St. Louis that merits a return trip or 6.
Another high was a low - in terms of my weight. I lost a ton of it. On my March birthday I weighed just about the same as when I graduated from college. It took a huge amount of work - thank you Nutrisystems. I knew I could do it. And I know I can do it again. Sigh. More about that below.
Other health issues pluses - I found great relief from my chronic asthma with a drug called Nucala. I was able to get off that killer drug Prednisone for the first time in years. (Although that too had side effects - see below.) And with an even better drug just released this month I’m finally on my way to a life of normal breathing. Found a way to get relief from the four broken bones that I walk around with. Lesson learned was that I need to spend time and effort to research on my own. Modern medicine works for those who work at it.
Career wise this year was an all time high. My self publishing company continues to grow by leaps and bounds. We’re moving into new offices at the beginning of the year. My boss - with whom I have a true love/hate/despise relationship - has mostly gotten out of my way.
I hosted our brand’s first conference for indie authors in November. Was a huge success and I did a pretty good job with my ‘stand up routine’ as the opening keynote speaker. All told I spoke at 12 book shows around the US and Europe in 2017, including BEA and London Book Fair.
I have a weekly email that goes out to 150K of our author community that allows me a chance to converse and interact. And late in the year we hired a PR firm that’s going to get some of my posts hopefully into Forbe, Inc. and other reputable outlets.
Financially - I’m finally out of the burden of alimony. Still paying off her crazy credit card debt but almost there. By end of next year I’ll be basically whole from the divorce. Can’t get those lost years back but…. How much do flats cost in Paris?
On the family front: At year’s end both my kids are doing well. S is entering her last year at Temple and thriving. C has been through a rough year in his transition, living with X and the hillbilly drunk ex cop. But as related a few days ago he’s moved in with me and so things are ending on a high note.
My Mom’s doing well in her transition from southern Oregon to Portland. My brother remains an asshat so status quo.
Let’s see what else is good: The Eagles don’t suck. Oregon is on its way back even after its brand new coach deserted the squad for FSU.
I met some new and interesting people late in the year. Lots of first dates with people who chose not to send me recent/real photos of themselves. Sigh. Others were more truthful. More to come of that I hope.
And finally - I learned the joys of Suis Vide cooking. I’ll never just grill again.
And one more huge positive must be noted. Addition by subtraction. I parted ways with D in the middle of the year. I just found an old draft of a post that I started back last summer but never completed and posted. It’s a few entries down for context.
We had a mostly very fun 19 month run. We had lots of unique common interests. But that alone couldn’t hide the other major differences we had over a range of issues. Now looking back five months, it was the most significant event of the year - and a change for the better. Sanity has prevailed.
OK, now to the lows:
If D was addition by subtraction….it can go the other way too. There was subtraction by addition in my career life. I forced out the guy who had inherited my job as Chief Marketing Officer - he was doing a miserable job. So in the middle of this year I had to take over his duties. The result has been about 25% more hours spent either at the office or working from home.
My quality of life suffered terribly through the summer and fall. Most of these 2.7 readers know that biking around Bucks County and the Delaware Canal has been a yearly passion of mine. I’d take 20-25 trips out a summer at minimum.
My biking trips in 2017: 0
I either didn’t have the time or energy. It probably didn’t help that D bought me a brand new bike for my birthday and looking at it was a buzzkill. I think I’m going to sell it off and start fresh.
Another reason for my lack of bike rides was all the progress I made on my asthma. Yes, it’s good that I don’t have to depend on the drug to allow me to breathe. But it also masked something else all these years - an incredibly painful arthritis condition that I wasn’t aware of. It made the simple act of going up/down stairs a torture. I’m getting a bit of relief now but that’s going to be my focus on 2018.
And that weight I lost early in 2017? Yeah, most of it’s back. I’ll get back into the routine that gave me success early last year and I’ll be back down in a couple of months. Cross fingers and hold the croissants.
My son C scuffled the entire year. Yes, he’s with me now and on the upswing. But wondering just what in the fuck was going on in his head for the first 9 months of it was a real mental anchor. As to his future? It’s a priority for me to help him - not lead, direct, dictate of course. I can give him options. He has to pull himself along; my days of pushing are over.
Let’s see, what else sucked about 2017. My decrepit cat is still alive.
Oh yeah, Trump. He is every bit the man I thought he would be. FUCKING. TOLD. YOU. SO. DEPLORABLES! I spent the first three months of this year in a dark cloud - the posts on this blog reflect it. My creativity was sapped. I couldn’t write/think/say anything without that idiot on my mind. And the damage he is causing this country by the hour is almost more than I can bear to think about. I’m not over it - I’m just looking ahead to 2018 when we can torch the GOP and scrub the stain out of the Oval Office.
Ah, but let’s end on a positive and high note here.
Am I better off today than I was a year ago? An unnqualified yes.
Arrows are up in all the most important ways. Family, if C continues his trajectory. Health, if I keep working at it. Career, if I can find a new marketing guy I trust. And personal life because the four poster iron bed is tightened up and ready. : )
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Our Degenerate Society
In 2011, I ran a series of 8 posts called Our Degenerate Society. Since it’s been a good five or six years, I’ve decided to revisit these posts, with 2017 edits. The first of these is below.
‘Part one: Political Philosophy, Marx and the System
The first in a series of de-romanticized looks at our lives.
Our society, all of western civilization, is degenerate. It is in decline in many ways, and in part because it has stayed the same.
The United States was formed with lots of beautiful quotes. United We Stand, E Pluribus Unum, from many, one. However, the US also values diversity, believing that by honoring our differences we can strengthen the whole. That's good stuff for thirteen colonies. When you are talking about a nation of over three hundred million people in fifty states spanning a continent, these notions, while quaint, are impracticable. The majority has lost its unity because it has valued diversity until its only commonality is diversity. We've lost our homogeneity.
And the majority were never ruling anything anyway. The rich minority still controls everything, as it always has. I'm not going to get into some conspiracy theory involving aliens and freemasons. There is a hierarchy in society. If you think about it, you'll recognize it for yourself.
We are not free; we have but “established new classes, new conditions of oppression , new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.” 1
However, where Marx saw two 'camps' I see three: the ruling rich, the sheep-like middle, and the lower class. What we see today is a new feudal system, one ruled by the invisible rich, where governments are to the world's rulers as the individual states and prefectures are to national governments. The middle classes are those who net worth is measured in millions, even hundreds of millions, whereas the the invisible rich are measured by the total of their personal net worth and the amount that they can influence, numbering in the billions.
Marx felt that the “executive is but a committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie.” 1 This was perhaps once true, but in the modern state of affairs the bourgeoisie are a sleeping mob, concerned only with competitive displays of wealth and social eminence. Fat, happy and content, they are easily manipulated. The lower classes are discontent but lack the knowledge to defend themselves from the machinations of the invisible rich while the bourgeoisie have the interest but lack to drive and motivation.
This is the new feudalism. The invisible rich, the ruling class, exists outside of the status quo. They are so rich themselves and influence so much more, that they have been insulated to nearly every adversity, every means of curtailment to their own desires that the other classes might have to fear. They can influence governments and institutions to receive favorable treatment. They are above the system.
Then comes the middle class, those people who think they are rich because they have a few hundred million to play with. Oh, how the rich must laugh when they hear of the desire to increase taxes on those making more than $250K!! Especially knowing, as they do, that there will never be a tax that they will ever feel bite. (They don't even fear this epistle; even if you read it, even if you believe it, you won't act on it. They know this because it's all been said before...)
And then there are the rest of us, those making less than $250K. That's about $88K in 1980 dollars, by the way. This includes the college educated, the Best Buy workers, bartenders, criminals, etc. Working our asses off for the lie of mobility, the chance to move up, to do better than the Ol' Man did. The middle and lower classes are inside the system, inside the lie that you can improve your status. Go to college, get married, buy a house, have kids. These things are all lies. None of it means what you think it does. It is not what it implies, as we will see.
One of the major problems is capitalism. Capitalism needs someone to exploit. Without new markets to exploit, capitalism would collapse into an economic impasse, which we have all recently seen in the housing market implosion. When new markets are found, exploitation begins again and sows the seeds for the next crisis. 1 Who wants to volunteer to be exploited? Anyone?
We exploit the Chinese and Latin Americas, paying them pennies per hour to make shoes, for example, then mark the shoes up and charge our own people a sick amount for the labor of some poor Chinaman. Inevitably, there is a revolution in one place or a NAFTA, and some new market is needed to exploit.
What happens when we run out of markets?
Capitalism relies on inequality. We pay as little as possible for the product and sell it for as much as the market will bear, all the while telling them what a deal it is and perhaps you can put the purchase on your credit card or maybe finance it – I don't care as long as I get mine.
Prices always climb. A house costs $3M, because it is where it is. In Buttcrack, Idaho, the same house costs you $150K. You're not buying a house; you're buying an address and the house comes with it.
“No sooner is the exploitation of the laborer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, and he receives his wages...than he is set upon by other portions of the bourgeoisie: the landlord, the shopkeeper etc.”
Prices are only tangentially related to value.
Marx observed that unions would be formed against the bourgeoisie, and believed that this would lead to the next political revolution. What we have seen is the failure of this revolution to gain any ground.
The observant might note that I have quoted Marx quite a bit. I am not a Marxist in the sense of agreeing with his solution to the problem of capital extremism running around like a dog off his leash, but I do agree with his criticism of capitalism. There are many criticisms of it. Read some of them here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism.
We'll explore next the lie of the institutions of our society.
Notes:
1 Karl Marx, Classes in Capitalism and Pre-Capitalism’
2017 Edit: I would add little to this post. Conditions are largely the same, except that we’ve had a few rounds of the little people striking back and putting their man in office, only to realize later that they’ve been duped again. Truthfully, while we don’t have a large farming population anymore, most of the electorate is too busy (working to make a living), too disinterested (distracted by social media and Kim K’s ass) or too unsophisticated to recognize that they are being manipulated. So, we still need the Electoral College.
©2017 Deadbox Prime. All opinions expressed on this blog are property of the author and may not be used or reproduced without permission. Limited permission is granted, retroactively, for reblogging or link posting for personal, not-for-profit use. Permission does not apply to material found at any page listed as a reference, nor should it be in any way misconstrued to give permission to use the work of another without citing it as such. Receive post notifications on Twitter, and between post commentary on Facebook. Comments welcome.
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Writing is like
breathing for bloggers. If you want to grow your blog, one way to do it is to
increase your publishing frequency.
But what may break you is that you write great content and then find out that Google penalizes you, why that?
Because there was plagiarism in your articles. And all your hard work is gone because one article was a little bit similar to another’s. Annoying, right?
What is even more annoying is that you start hiring people because you want to grow your blog even more and start focusing on more important strategies.
In the end, you find that your blog is penalized and instead of growing your traffic, your traffic will drop dramatically in a day without any notice… and you lost the money you paid for the writer.
What if you could know if there are any similarities between your post and others on the internet with a quick check before publishing your post, so you don’t get penalized and all your hard work is gone without you notice.
That is what you are going to discover in this post.
But first, let’s discuss plagiarism, later we will discuss online plagiarism checker.
What is plagiarism
To put it in simple
words, plagiarism is stealing someone’s idea or work without referencing him.
So if you are writing an essay for your teacher and you are going to write about an idea that is already covered by someone’s else, you need to reference him at the end of the article.
If you don’t, then you have already done plagiarism.
When thinking about it, then most of the content you write isn’t your ideas. But copying the same content, even if you change the wording a little bit is considered stealing and plagiarism.
And what is worse is that you copy parts of different articles and think that by that way you have a unique article, and actually you don’t.
And this won’t do
you any good, so don’t try to do it if you are serious about blogging.
Types of Plagiarism
There are different
types of plagiarism, but here are the few that are common.
Direct Plagiarism: This is plagiarism in its best shape. You are just copying a post or an article word by word and call it yours. If this is your strategy. Stop blogging right now because you are wasting your time and money
Mosaic Plagiarism: This happens when you copy phrases from a source, but don’t put it in quotation marks
Self Plagiarism: It occurs when you publish your work multiple times. This could be a problem if you don’t optimize your other posts right so Google doesn’t penalize you.
Accidental Plagiarism: It occurs when you accidentally write a phrase or a sentence and someone has already written it the same way. This happens for the best of us, and this is what we are going to try to solve in this post.
How Google takes action against plagiarism
Google hates plagiarism. The least thing they want is to show their searchers content that is similar to each other, which provides terrible user experience, and this will decrease the earnings of Google.
This is a simple
reason why Google hates plagiarism. In the end, it is going to affect their
business.
So what they do?
Once they notice that any of your articles has parts of it copied from other
sources, they penalize your blog and make it unworthy of their trust, so your
hard-earned rankings for the other posts are affected as well.
And it happens in a
moment.
After that, you need to start diagnosing the problem to find why that happened, solve it, and then start trying to get them to rank you back. That would take months if they do get you back.
Sometimes, they won’t even take you out of it, so you are penalized for life.
Hard, right?
The solution could
be simpler. Just do a quick check for plagiarism before you publish the post
and you are good to go.
So which tool to use
to help you check for plagiarism before publishing your post without taking
much work from you?
The last thing you
want is a tool that is going to waste your time and not help you find if your
post is plagiarized or not.
Best Tools to Check For Plagiarism
To help you solve
this problem and not worry about plagiarism once and for all, this post was
created to share with you the top tools that check for plagiarism without much
work from you.
So you don’t need to worry if any of your articles accidentally contain similar phrases to others, or if any of your writers are copying content from other blogs without you knowing.
Of course, you won’t know all the content on other blogs writing about the same articles, and you don’t need to check them all every time your writer send you a new article.
That is harder than writing the content yourself, right?
So without further ado, here are the top online plagiarism checkers…
1. Grammarly
Grammarly is one of the first highly-sophisticated free online plagiarism checkers for students and editing tools that use its AI to understand what you are writing and offer you advice on how to improve your writing. It is not just a grammar and spelling editor.
And they can’t call
their tools one of the best if they can’t check for plagiarism. And that is why
they have their plagiarism checker.
Their checker catch
plagiarism from the ProQuest databases and over 16 billion web pages… yes,
you read that right.
So it is not only
created for academic purposes, but also for writers who don’t care about a
degree from their teacher and just want unique content that pleases Google.
And of course, you
won’t need to worry about your writing going public before you publish it, so
don’t worry about that.
And here is the thing, you could use their plagiarism tool for free, by going to this link.
And if you have the pro version, which I recommend you to do, then they will check it for you automatically, while you are editing your post, so you don’t need to do a separate check.
If you are wondering how I write good content without much errors in English and English is my second language, then I am sure you already know my secret
Another tool we recommend is ProWritingAid.
2. Copyscape
Copyscape is one of
the first popular plagiarism checkers created. It is created to solve 2
problems as a blog owner.
Find if your content is original or not. You don’t want to get laughed on by a writer who pays your hard-earned money to just copy content from other sources. Their tools help you solve this problem
Know if someone steals your content: it is easy for someone to steal your content and there is nothing to do about it if you don’t know that they exist. Their Copysentry program scans the web daily for copies of your content and emails you when someone copies your content, how cool is that?
There is a free version that lets you check your post after its published. Just enter the URL of the post, and leave them to do the rest.
If you want to copy and paste your content and benefit from their other tool that checks your content, copy sentry, then you need to get the premium version.
One cool feature is
that you could also check your entire site for plagiarism, how cool is that?
The price of the premium version is 3 cent per search (for up to 200 words.) Every extra 100 words will cost you 1 cent.
Not a bad investment for your site.
But if you are planning on benefiting from the editing capabilities in Grammarly, then spend your money there and don’t bother with extra tools, unless you are hit by Google and want to check your whole site for plagiarism.
You can do so here, without taking much time copying and pasting each of your articles, especially, when you have a long list of words.
3. Plag Scan
Plag Scan is another
tool that helps you find the “authenticity” of the word written as
they say. They check your content for any similarities with other content
on the web.
There are many
different plans that were created for education and big business purposes that
we won’t bother with.
Their private
plan is what may be of interest to you.
This tool is not for free, but you could get a free trial to check the tool. Their payment is a pre-paid system, where you pay depending on the number of words you want to edit.
They don’t care how many documents you scan, they only care about the number of words.
The smallest plan
where you can check 6500 words for 5.99$. 25k words for 12.99. 62.5k words for
24.99$. 150k words for 49.99$.
As you can see, the more you pay for, the cheaper it comes. In the beginning, you were paying 1$/1000 words.
In the biggest package, you are paying 0.33$/1000 words. So keep this in mind, if you plan to use this tool.
4. ProWritingAid
Pro Writing aid is another tool that is created to help writers make their content look like a professional writer has written them without being a professional yourself.
It helps you with editing style and grammar mistakes and helps you find the right words to use.
Again, like Grammarly,
they need a plagiarism tool to make their tool more complete and they did just
that. But there is no free version like Grammarly.
You need to either
have the premium version or purchase plagiarism check packages.
You get 50
plagiarism checks a year in any of their premium versions, where you pay for a
year or more in advance. There is also a lifetime option.
You could buy
plagiarism check packages depending on the number of checks you want to do. For
10 checks, you pay 10$. For 100, you pay 40$. For 500, you pay 120$. For 1000,
you pay 200$.
Again, as you see,
the more you pay for, the less money you are paying per check. So go higher,
when you can.
5. Quetext
Quetext is a tool
created specifically to help you check if your content is plagiarized or not.
There is a free and pro version.
With the pro
version, you get access to their deep search technology which compares your
content to billions of sources as they say. 20 million books, 35 billion pages,
and 1 million journals.
You can also upload
up to 5 files to check at the same time. In the free version, you can’t upload
a file.
And the word limit
is increased to 25k words instead of the 500 words in the free version.
And there is no
search or reports limit as with other tools in the pro version. In the free,
you only have 3 search limits.
The cost for the pro
version is 9.99$ a month.
6. DupliChecker
Dupli Checker is a
completely free tool that you could use to check your content directly without
signing up.
Once you go to the
site, you’ll see a box to enter the text you want to check, or the ability to
upload a file, and then you could check for plagiarism. You could also do a
grammar check.
The only problem is
that you have a 1000 words limit per search. Just cut your posts in parts and
you are good to go.
There are many tools
you could benefit from if you do SEO. It is a great free tool to have in your
arsenal if your budget is limited.
7. Plagium
Plagium is another
tool that helps you check the originality of your check. You could do a quick
search for 1000 words. If you do check regularly, you will need to pay to use
the tool.
There is also their
deep search which you could use for an extra layer of digging deep to find if
there is any problem with your content.
The quick search
costs 0.04$/page. The deep search costs 0.08$/page. If you do a file search, it
costs 0.005$/page.
You can also buy
credits in advance and have valid for a period of a year. And the more you pay,
the more bonus you get, so think about it.
There are also
monthly plans if you want to use it regularly. The bonus is higher here
8. Plagiarism Check
Plagiarism check has
been available for 7 years now, and they are used by over 77k users to check
their content.
You can do a 1-page
check for free.
If you want to do
more, then you need to purchase one of their paid packages. There are packages
for organizations, which isn’t created for bloggers, and then there is the for
individuals package.
The light package let you check 20 pages for $5.99.
The standard package costs $9.99 to check 50 pages.
The premium package costs $25.49 to check 150 pages.
Choose the one that
suits you.
9. WhiteSmoke
Whitesmoke is
another one of the popular editing tools, that is used by many pro bloggers.
Their new layout has attracted a lot of people to it, and I am considering
testing it for some time to compare it with Grammarly again.
And as any editing
tool, it can’t be complete without a plagiarism checker, so there is one that
you get to use with other tools. There are no free trials.
And you need to
either pay yearly or for 3-years if you want to save so much.
And you get access
to the plagiarism checker in their different packages, so see the one that
suits your need from here, and then use it to edit
your post, and check for plagiarism as well.
10. SmallSEOTools
Small SEO tools is a
set of free tools that you could use to help you with your SEO. There are
different tools to use beside the plagiarism checker like the Word counter,
grammar check, reverse image search and what is my IP.
You can check
plagiarism by pasting a web page, if you have your post published, or by
uploading a doc file, or by pasting it directly in the box that appears to you.
You have a limit of
1000 words per search. Just cut your posts in part, if you need to search for
more than that.
Great tools to use,
if you are limited with your budget.
11. Plagiarisma
Plagiarisma is
another tool that helps you check for plagiarism. You could even do a grammar
check from their site.
You can do a quick
search from their site, or signup for free.
It has been
available since 2010, and it may be a little bit outdated.
But you could try it
if you are looking for a good free option.
12. DustBall
Dustball is a
project created by Brian Klug. it is created to do a plagiarism check. There
are different plages with different languages for people who want to visit the
site in a language other than English like Spanish or Arabic.
In 2017, the ability
to create a plagiarism report was available to do it for free, so it is a plus
if you care about these things or you need it to give it to your teacher and so
on.
There is a premium
version that they claim is 3x more accurate. It just costs 8$ for 50 checks,
and 25cents for every check after that. It is another good tool to check out.
13. Copyleaks
Copy leaks is
another tool that helps you detect plagiarism and paraphrased content using
their AI technology. It can be used by business and educational institutes like
universities and schools.
They also created the tool for publishers to help them publish original content. They can conduct a deep comparison with over 60 trillion pages on the web including private archives and password-protected sites.
If you want that
level of deepness in the search, then check out this tool.
14. Plagramme
Plagramme is another
freemium tool that offers a generous free plan for people to check their work
against plagiarism.
The free version can
check documents with unlimited words. It gives you a detailed word reports that
you could download and view anywhere you want. You can also download it on
windows, mac, Linux, and Ubuntu. And you could do your search in 18 languages,
so don’t worry, if you don’t write in English.
Their free tool is
good for most bloggers. The pro is even better, and their pricing is a pay as
you go model.
A great tool to
check out.
15. Scribbr
Scribbr is another
great plagiarism checker with a good UI.
They have a database
of 60 billion web pages and 30 million publications to make sure there isn’t
plagiarism in any of your content.
Their tool is
comparable to many of the top tools in the market including Grammarly and
Quetext.
The only thing is
that there isn’t a free version that you could try out. But their prices aren’t
that bad.
For a small document
up to 7.5k words, you pay 18.95$.
For a normal
document up to 50k words, you pay 28.95$
For a large document
bigger than 50k words, you pay 39.95$.
Almost all languages
are supported here. And the tool takes around 10 mins to check your content.
If you really want
to go deep in your search, this is one of the best tools to check out, since
they are already partnering with the famous Turnitin software.
Conclusion
Plagiarism may make
all that you do completely useless and destroy everything that you have built
over the years.
To fight it, and
make sure your content is free of plagiarism, this post contains 15 tools that
are free and paid to help you solve this problem once and for all.
I usually use
Grammarly because I already use it to edit my content and make sure there are
no problems in grammar or styles.
Which tool did you
choose to use and why? Tell us in the comments below. I would love to hear your
thoughts.
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source http://wtf.telenor.com.np/2020/01/13/top-15-online-plagiarism-checker-tools-for-bloggers-in-2020/
http://m.globalone.com.np/2020/01/top-15-online-plagiarism-checker-tools.html
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Seven Figure Income Bloggers
Over the past year, I’ve made a determination to make this blog my full-time income.
I’m hoping to make it a very large income at that. In fact, my goal is to get this website, Prosperopedia.com, to a level where it’s netting over a million dollars per year. You’ll often hear folks refer to the $1M+ threshold as a seven-figure income, a term that comes from the fact that there are 7 digits in the number $1,000,000. The trick to making a seven-figure income is to make sure that the first of those digits is greater than zero. As most people who have tried, including the majority of those who have succeeded can tell you, it’s not easy.
Is it even possible to make that much income through blogging? The answer is a definite yes. It’s been done by lots of people. I’m going to introduce you to several of them. I’ll also detail how they managed to get from starting on the idea to write their thoughts and opinions and publish them on a website to collecting seven figures’ worth of checks over a 12-month period. I’ve followed several bloggers in their
What is my plan for getting to a seven-figure income with just a simple website, a bunch of pictures and words put together in a way that provides significant value?
I’m going to write, and write, and write…and publish, and publish, and publish…until I’ve written enough useful articles, how-tos, opinions, news updates, etc. that I can prove to Google that there are good reasons to send a decent portion of its users to my domain, and I’m going to figure out how to best monetize those interactions by displaying relevant ads, product offers, and affiliate relationships. For me, the process is pretty straight forward, although certainly time consuming. I have to brain dump the stuff I already know, and I have to learn new things that I can also write about.
In addition to writing articles, which I’m much better at than the social media stuff, I’m going to build an audience of hundreds of thousands of somewhat like-minded (positive, somewhat religious, improvement-focused) people on social media accounts built to promote the Prosperopedia brand through Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and whatever else comes along that seems like it makes sense to use.
How do Bloggers Make Money?
You’ve probably heard that Super Bowl ads cost a lot of money. 30-second ads for Super Bowl LIV in 2020 are going for more than $5 million.
That’s a cool $5 million to show your product, service, or whatever message you want to get out to the world.
Why does it cost so much?
Because the number of people who watch the Super Bowl exceeds 100 million. Having access to those 100 million people for even 30 seconds is worth the ad spend for companies that have the budget and want to reach that audience.
The same kind of numbers are at play when it comes to directing online traffic. In fact, Google’s ad revenue for 2018 surpassed $116 billion. Bing (a distant second in search engine market share) has ad revenues close to $8 billion last year.
If Google and Bing can net over $120 billion in ad revenue in a year, revenue collected from advertisers who pay for both impressions (when ads are shown on the search engines’ partners’ websites) and ad clicks, there’s quite a bit of opportunity for hundreds of bloggers to net $1M or more in a year on the traffic they attract from organic traffic that comes to them from search engines.
Some of the bloggers I’ve followed, especially ones who make some portion of their blogging income teaching other bloggers how to make similar amounts of income (which kind of feels like an MLM, but it’s a bit different since there are no downlines and you don’t have to make your friends hate you to be a blogger), are kind enough to publish their blogging income numbers online. Some bloggers give highly detailed reports about exactly where there income comes from and what expense they incur to create that income. Others simply point out that they make over $1M in a year on their blogs.
I’ll share with you the details about a few bloggers of the seven-figure income bloggers I’m aware of, including detailing where the value comes from, as far as I can tell, that allows them to make seven figures.
Some of the information I will review about these bloggers is from a report available from a tool called SEMRush, which is used to determine, among other things, the value of the search traffic estimated to be going to a domain. SEMRush’s traffic value estimate is a data-driven guess at how much the website would have to pay in Google AdWords to attract an amount of traffic that’s equivalent to what the site is getting from organic search traffic.
Depending upon how good you are at monetizing your traffic as well as the type of traffic you’re getting to your website, from what I’ve seen of bloggers who actually share information about how much they are making, it’s pretty common that bloggers have a monthly income that’s at least half of the traffic value estimated by SEMRush for their US-based search traffic. That’s not a hard rule, but it’s a benchmark I’ve seen often as I’ve researched bloggers’ domains through SEMRush.
Steve Chou – MyWifeQuitHerJob.com
Steve Chou is a former engineer whose story involves finding a way for his wife to quit her job and stay at home with their first child in 2007. Less than ten years later, in 2016, Steve and his wife crossed the seven figure blogger threshold when his site, which was named after the experience of transitioning his wife from employee to co-business-owner, surpassed $1M in income.
Chou published a blog post several years ago, which he updates from time to time with more recent numbers, in which he says he made $1.4 million in income from his blog in 2017. I’d guess he’s hit or exceeded $2M by the end of 2019.
In his income report post, Chou gives some context that is inspiring. He explains that during the first two years of operating his blog, he was essentially writing content to a small audience. Most wannabe bloggers give up before even one year of seeing results. What very often happens with Google is that they don’t really start to trust your website enough to send the amount of traffic that will really drive commissions and ad revenue until about two years after you’ve started writing consistently.
SEMRush estimates (as of January 2020) that Chou’s US-based organic search traffic is worth $245,200 per month.
James Dahle – WhiteCoatInvestor.com
I don’t know this blogger personally, but one of my friends who knows him has commented to me a few times over the past several years updates about his progress. Hearing how well he is doing has made me feel like I should have been much more consistent about publishing content on my own blogs several years ago. Instead I’ve only recently become serious about making that (passive income from a niche blog) my livelihood.
Dahle doesn’t provide an income report or even a number for his blog income, but he did write a post in 2018 explaining what it’s like to be a seven-figure earner. Previous to reading that post, the last I’d heard from my friend, who I’ve been helping with his own blog, is that he was making the same amount blogging as he made at his job as an emergency physician.
SEMRush reports (January 2020) that Dahle’s US-based search traffic is worth $364k per month. If he’s monetizing his traffic at an average pace for bloggers, he’s probably bringing in about $150k per month.
Jill Nystul – OneGoodThingByJillee.com
I have worked with some of Jill’s relatives on a project for which we inquired about advertising on her website. The price tag was high. She obviously gets a lot of traffic, enough that even a single promotional blog post costs in the thousands of dollars range.
Jill’s story is an amazing and inspiring one. She started blogging as a therapeutic response to depression. She was told to write something good every single day.
So she did.
And it has paid off, in more ways than one. From everything I can see, including having her very own Amazon influencer shopping page and monetizing her social media accounts well, I’d guess that she’s making at least $250k per month, or $3M per year. Nice work, Jill!
The current SEMRush report for OneGoodThingByJillee.com puts her at US-based traffic estimate at $589k per month.
Richard Robbins – Prosperopedia.com
My own story is still in the making, but my intent is to come back here in the next six months and update this post with new information about having reached the tens of thousands of dollars per month in blogging income. I’m guessing it will take me a few more years to become part of the seven figure club, but success tends to beget success. Unless someone turns off the internet or I become distracted by something else that it feels like life, my wife, or my kids are calling me, I hope to break the seven-figure mark by at least 2025.
Stay tuned…
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TensorFlow Developer Summit 2019
TensorFlow kicked off their 3rd annual summit with a lot of new developments and releases. We have new updates on almost every aspect of TensorFlow. If you are new to TensorFlow, it is an open source collection of libraries and tools from Google for machine learning task. Much like Create ML and Core ML on iOS as discussed in a prior blog post, you can create and deploy models to the server, device, and even the browser. Unlike Create ML, TensorFlow is a lower level tool that requires knowledge of processing data and building neural networks to get working. Outside of Google, companies like Airbnb, PayPal, and Twitter are all using TensorFlow in their production environments.
TensorFlow 2.0
TensorFlow boasts many improvements and increased speeds. They simplified the APIs by removing deprecated code.
Speed improvements we are seeing
Speed Increase Operation Type Device 1.8x training Tesla V100 GPU 1.6x training Google TPU v2 3.3x inference Intel Skylake CPU
Keras
Tensorflow is also making a shift with their high-level API by moving to Keras instead of their built-in high-level API. As mentioned in my prior blog post, Keras is a fantastic choice for a front end as you can swap out to platforms like PlaidML to train on AMD cards or use TensorFlow when training on an NVIDIA card. Although scalability is one issue, Keras suffers. In TensorFlow 2.0, Keras has been optimized for TensorFlow to provide more power and scalability to ‘> 1 exaflops’. One important thing to note to get this power you do need to pull in Keras from tf.keras instead of the standalone Keras package.
TensorBoard Imporvements
Some other features worth mention TensorBoard is now viewable directly in Jupyter Notebooks or Colab. As well their built-in data sets continue to grow.
Immediate Feedback
With TensorFlow 2.0 all code runs in eager execution, meaning every python command get executed immediately. This change improves debugging and makes it easy to convert models into graphs for easy deployment. The team also has improved error handling, now giving you the line and file of the error so your larger projects won’t get stuck in debugging. Currently when you get an error, while you get the function in question, the actual line and filename is not provided.
Timeline to stable
As of now TensorFlow 2.0 is available in an Alpha release. They are expecting the RC to ship in spring, with the full release set for Q2 of 2019. Thanks to Google’s hard work there are converter scripts available. Google has said to be using these internally on their projects and adding to the scripts as problems come up. The converter scripts make use of the new 1.x compatibility module. This module holds some of the deprecated functions so that large applications can continue to function. The team at TensorFlow notes the converter does not update the styling to be idiomatic with 2.0 but keeps the code running in the new version.
TensorFlow Extended
For those new to TFX, this is TensorFlow’s end-to-end solution that covers you from the start of your data pipeline, all the way to serving your models and logging results. TFX is what makes TensorFlow stand out from other machine learning libraries, like PlaidML or Caffe.
Up till now, TFX was just a collection of libraries you would need to stitch together to make into a full solution. However, with the TensorFlow 2.0, the team has open sourced their large “horizontal” layers to make a complete solution available.
These new layers include:
Shared configuration framework and Job orchestration
Shared utilities for garbage collection, data access controls
Pipeline storage
While all of this is exciting probably the most exciting is the Pipeline storage called Metadata store. Metadata store allows your cluster to have context between runs. Over time that allows you to have great insight on runs and experiments. You can also carry-over-state and re-use previously computed outputs to save time when retraining or making small changes.
Edge TPU
The new Edge TPU brings fast inferencing to any device. Coral has is making several products including a full dev board that I like to call the Rasberry Pie of ML. As well they have made a USB accelerator so you can easily speed up your existing boards with this new processor.
Also in the works is a small PCI-E Accelerator and System-on-Module pluggable board.
TensorFlow Light
TensorFlow Light is a stripped down runtime so that you can have on device machine learning for Android, iOS, Raspberry Pis, and now the new Edge TPU.
The only thing to note with the new version of TF Light is improved inference speeds.
Device Speed Improvement CPU 124ms Baseline CPU /w Quantization 64ms 1.9x GPU 16ms 7.7x (OpenGL and Metal) Edge TPU 2ms 62x
TensorFlow.js
The JavaScript version of TensorFlow has officially hit 1.0. This new launch includes off the shelf models for image, text, and audio.
You can now use TensorFlow.js to deploy your models to the browser, Node.js, Electron Desktop Apps, and even Mobile Native apps.
They are boasting a 9x inference speed up from last year.
Swift for TensorFlow
One of the TensorFlow projects I’m most excited about has now hit v0.2. With this release, they say Swift for TensorFlow is now ready for users to experiment with and try out, although there are still some bugs so you might want to hold off on any production releases until we get a bit further in.
fast.ai is writing a new course on Swift for TensorFlow that should be out soon to help bring you up to speed quickly on how you can be writing your ML code using Swift.
Community
TensorFlow has done a great job building its community and has a lot to update on all the things they have going on.
Getting involved
With TensorFlow ever going it can be hard to know where to jump into and contribute. They have formed new special interest groups for the community so you can take part in the area of TensorFlow you care about the most. These include:
Networking
TensorBoard
Rust
Add-ons
IO
Testing
Build
Learning
To help get more people into machine learning and TensorFlow there are now two new courses to take:
deeplearning.ai (via Coursera) Introduction to TensorFlow for AI, ML, and DL
Udacity Intro to TensorFlow for Deep Learning
Hackathon
With TensorFlow v2.0, the team paired up with devpost to create a hackathon with $150k in prizes. Check out their page for all the details and how to submit for a chance to win.
TensorFlow World
TensorFlow is partnering with O’Reilly Media to create a week-long conference that is community focused where people all over the TensorFlow ecosystem can come together, show off, and learn from each other. This year the conference is scheduled to take place Oct 28-31 in Santa Clara, CA. A call for papers is currently open until April 23, with a focus on real-world experiences and innovative ideas. Find more info at tensorflow.world or on twitter @TensorFlowWorld
There is still so much to talk about with all these new products and version. I highly recommend checking out TensorFlows YouTube channel for all of their session talks, as well as the new design TensorFlow site for all the goodies to be found in TensforFlow v2.0. You can get started with it today by running the following command.
pip install tensorflow==2.0.0-alpha0
TensorFlow Developer Summit 2019 published first on https://johnellrod.weebly.com/
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Your Merc Questions ANSWERED!
Happy Tuesday! As I was lying in bed at 3am responding to DMs on Instagram, I had 2 thoughts. 1. GO BACK TO BED. And 2. You should do a Q&A post to bring everyone up to speed.
Here are your most common questions about the Merc, if you’ve got more, leave them below and I’ll add them to this post!
Is the Merc a house, or a store, or what?
Yes to all of the above. Because of the Commercial Mixed Use zoning (you can dive deeper into that here!) we can live in it, but we have to have something commercial. For now, the front office is our commercial space. (You can see our floor plans here) I’m still trying to define exactly how I want to use it. I’m LOVING the idea of hosting pop up shops for local and out of town small businesses. (St. George doesn’t exactly have an abundance of cool places.) I’m also using it for design consults, shop work, and just general business stuff. The rest of the space is our house, but because we have so much space inside and out I’m excited to see how things play out. Who even knows what this is going to end up being!
Are you worried that people will think your house is a store and walk inside?
I mean, I’m sure it will happen but we’re going to do our best to prevent it. (Think private residence and by appointment signs.) Also the Merc is on a fairly busy road and we’ve got a 2 year old, so in an effort to lock him in, we’ll be just as efficient at locking people out. Which means that people won’t be able to just walk in.
What’s going on with the easement and your neighbors?!
The easement was such a source of stress before we bought the Merc, almost to the point where we didn’t get it. (You can dive deeper into that situation and our weird property lines here) The more we’re over there (especially with the baby) the more it feels like right now its not the big of a deal. Coincidentally our neighbors have just listed their property and offered to sell us the back portion and dissolve the easement for $175k (for reference we bought the Merc for $300k) We were very grateful that they offered it to us, but for that amount of money, its more of a priority to finish Phase 2 so we’re not worrying about it. Hopefully we’ll have the opportunity again in the future to purchase the land.
When are you guys moving in?
Our goal is to be in by Christmas. (IS THAT INSANE?! SOMEONE TELL ME ITS TOTALLY ACHIEVABLE!!) I feel like its doable, but then again I’ve never done this before. All I know is that we’ve been doing some of the finish work (like wrapping the interior of the transoms above the front doors, and the big storefront windows) and it’s legit taken us a week to do all 11 windows.
What are you guys doing yourself vs hiring out?
We’re getting everything ready to paint right now (our paint should be here today!!) and we’re doing that ourselves. We’re also debating on laying all of the floor tile ourselves. Court doesnt want to and so we had it bid out and it came back at about $8000 so we’ll see what we end up doing with that. I’m doing the Merc logo in the entryway tile. We’re also doing all of the finish work ourselves, minus hanging the doors and putting in closet shelving.
Is it what you expected a renovation like this to be?
There have definitely been some hard moments, which you know are bound to come, but the Merc renovation has been a dream project. Even with all of the stresses, it has opened my eyes to a whole new world and makes me want to save alllllllll of the old buildings everywhere. That being said, we’ve learned a ton like getting all your environmental testing done before you buy a building.
When will you start work on the big side of the Merc?
GREAT QUESTION!! Our bid for Phase 2 (you can see the plans for it here) came back at about about $150k so we’re really hoping that we can save a good amount of our Phase 1 budget so that we’ll be able to start pretty quickly. I don’t know if we’ll do it in one fail swoop like we have with Phase 1 or if it will be more gradual.
Is this your forever home?
I hope so! I mean, I’d love to reno other buildings but always have the Merc. I’ve learned to never say never, but man I love this place and hope that I get to enjoy it forever!!
Will the cost of the structure and reno be less than what you could sell it for?
Man we hope so! All of our appraisals came back good so we’re not getting in upside down but until its done we won’t have an accurate appraisal. We have zero plans to sell but its always nice to know you’re not losing money!
Are there other unique properties like this in your town?
Not that I know of. There are a handful of buildings as old as the Merc that are still standing, but all of them are being used as businesses. If anyone in So. UT knows of cool spaces I’d love to feature them, please message me and let me know!!
How do you feel about living on such public road and not having a neighborhood where things are more closed off?
We are 100% ok with it! The road is definitely not a main road but there are only a handful of businesses on it, most of the buildings are houses. The only real downside to it is that all of the other houses have front yards, and we’re just right against the sidewalk. But we are loving it!!
Light switches and outlets- Black or White?
We’re planning on white, because all of the walls are going to be white. For phase 2 where we have to run exposed conduit for all of the outlets and switches we’ll probably do black.
Do you guys have a living room or just a theater room?
Phase 1 just has a theater room, the living room is in Phase 2 of the reno. You can see the plans for it here! I will say, Court isn’t wild about the family congregating in the theater room so hopefully we can get Pahse 2 moving pretty quickly!
And the question that I got the most.
Are you going to do an open house?
YES! I can’t wait for you guys to come and tour it!!
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The post Your Merc Questions ANSWERED! appeared first on Vintage Revivals.
via Mandi at Your Merc Questions ANSWERED!
via Jeff Donaldson’s Blog Your Merc Questions ANSWERED!
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NEWS: Uisge Source creates a ripple effect … One drop at a time
Uisge Source (pronounced 'oosh-guh') - the world’s first range of spring waters created exclusively to enhance the whisky drinking experience – has been going from strength to strength in 2016 with sales to over 15 countries, including recent orders to Russia for over 150k bottles.
The 1st consignment of 45,000 bottles left for Moscow towards the end of last year and the company is on track to sell over 500,000 units in 2017.
As well as new sales to Russia, Uisge Source has recently shipped over 50,000 bottles to countries including Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, France and Poland and is available in 85 premium gift stores in Sweden.
Uisge Source was created by Graeme Lindsay in 2013 following 7 years in the whisky industry as Marketing Director for single malt whiskies including Glenmorangie, Dalmore, Isle of Jura and Ardbeg.
“The Drop that Makes the Dram” was inspired by the suggestion from whisky experts that the best water to add to whisky is the water that made it and the subsequent discovery that each single malt region uses a different type of water which opens up different aromas and flavours when added to glasses of the same whisky.
The waters are sourced from private springs close to some of the popular Distilleries in the single malt whisky regions and match the chemistry of the waters used by the distilleries:
a hard, high mineral water from St Colman’s Well in the Highland Whisky Region
a soft, low mineral water from the Cairngorms Well in the Speyside region
and a spring water high in natural acidity and moderate minerality from the Ardilistry Spring on Islay.
Joshua St John at the Whiskey Wash blog was pleasantly surprised when he conducted his own experiments by adding the same measure of each Uisge Source water into different glasses of the same whisky.
“While still sitting in front of my notes and glasses during each tasting, I was quite simply astounded. I was absolutely laughing out loud out at the sheer joy of being proven so wrong. Each region’s water’s impact on whisky was indeed dramatic and individual. Now, I stand before you amused and more than a little humbled. The experience of combining regionally-sourced water with complimentary whiskies was far more illuminating than I had anticipated”.
Camper English from Alcademics also conducted the same comparative aroma and taste experiments, “I was surprised at how these waters with subtle differences brought out pronounced differences in the whisky. Awesome”.
Uisge Source was a winner of the 2014 Scottish Edge competition for Scottish Entrepreneurs, securing funds to accelerate growth of the business which has recently moved to its own larger production premises, allowing the business to increase its botting capacity and take on additional production staff.
Graeme explains this recent success:
“The increasing demand for Uisge Source is being driven by aficionados who are more discerning about the provenance and quality of their spirit mixer. Retailers and whisky companies also want to ensure they are offering the best quality accompaniments”
Olaf Meier from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, who feature Uisge Source waters in their bars and at Member tastings commented, " The water really enhances the flavours of the whiskies you're buying".
Susan Galloway, Bar and Dining Room Manager at the exclusive Caledonian Club in London commented: “Uisge Source spring waters have generated a lot of interest. We pride ourselves on our range of single malts and including Uisge Source helps to ensure our whiskies are presented and enjoyed at their best.”
The Canny Mans Whisky Bar in Edinburgh stocks over 300 whiskies and have been serving Uisge Source spring waters with their Single Malts for the last 2 years. Owner Mark Kerr commented:
“We feature Uisge Source spring waters as part of our whisky tastings and single malt serve. There is no doubt that they add sophistication to our whisky experience and reinforce the importance of provenance and appreciating good single malt Scotch”
Visit: www.uisgesource.com for more details.
The post NEWS: Uisge Source creates a ripple effect … One drop at a time appeared first on GreatDrams.
from GreatDrams http://ift.tt/2jfTC6h
Greg
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