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aro-culture-is · 6 months
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Aro culture is buying pride merch with the agender flag because people always forget about us
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diaryofafelon · 4 years
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It's the year 2020 and I've been diagnosed as "delusional" by the lead psychiatrist at the second largest institution for pre-trial detainees in the United States of America. The world has shut down due to a bionic plague supposedly infecting millions and killing thousands of others. 
How we got here is no mystery to me, of course I am of the delusional mind, but this reality of lies for some reason perplexes the world and they live in fear for this false reality they created, failing to recognize their part in it. I am no innocent man, this being my fourth time to prison, but my reality is a bit different, because I acknowledge what I have lived, versus only the internet, and media tycoons draining the life of every existing being for profit and fear to enslave those they cannot through other forms, such as myself has been. 
Before I get too far ahead and  begin receiving hate mail for this not being a true diary of day to day entries, but rather a biography of sorts reflecting past, present, and personal history, lets go over some facts; you're welcome to cross check them with your most reliable source, that being the internet. 
The United States is the second leading nation for the world's incarcerated, our "biggest enemy"  happens to be our closest ally for numbers in this regard, that being Russia. That number being roughly 25% holding of the worlds incarcerated give or take depending on the year.  If you happen to be one of the lucky ones to get out society can "feel safe" knowing that your likelihood of re-incarceration will be in the 60 percentile range within 90 days of release, this term being known as recidivism; but have no fear, this number jumps past 80% within 12 months of release. 
The world can feel safe knowing the United States also leads in annual mass shootings and gun ownership; there being more than 300 million in the U.S. with more than 10 million of those being AR-15's. And while we address this "global pandemic" of plague, we still, or at least the media thus far has failed to recognize mental health, bullying, and its effects being suicide. Millions will march in the "Women's March for Equality" and "PRIDE"  to put an end to ignorance, not recognizing their own, or rather choosing not to, because their efforts have never been for equality, but control rather; the tearing down of men to create this new slavery that has become. We say we care about others, but while something is completely legal in one part of our nation, someone else is being profited off of  through enslavement of incarceration and their life ruined...we are the most divided country in the world by simple state of law, which would be the furthest thing from United, unless the walls were torn down. 
From 2001 to 2016 the suicide rate has increased 31%, with men being four times more likely to commit the act than women, numbers far surpassing 9/11 on an annual basis, with it being the second leading cause of death other than natural cause. And where do felons fall into this? We are 17 times more likely to commit the act than the general population, but while we fail to recognize, or at least some, that 1 in 12 Americans is a convicted felon, the rest can scream "IT'S MY BODY", or "Love is Love", giving themselves a pat on the back with their most creative work outlined in their new highlighters they bought at Wal-mart, flailing their tits for "equality", and strutting the streets in thongs, because that somehow makes them feel safe, while the rest of us kill ourselves. 
So who's the real minority? Who is really being oppressed? Just follow the law they'll say, that or don't get caught, but if you do, you better have money, or a connection...otherwise you're fucked. 
It's highly probable I offend you in this endeavor of sharing my reality if I haven't already. I've called plenty of women cunts in my lifetime, plenty of fags, fags, and may have used a few other damned words. Most of the time these words for you, me, or the other are said out of emotion. They mean nothing, while other times they are for blatant ignorance by those others who still choose it....and there is a clear difference, that you might see in the usage of these words which reflect necessity for others to become, enlightened...the briefest example being the woman on the flight telling me to kiss her ass, after she involves herself in my business, because my mask is below my nose....but she'll be damned if I tell her to "lick my dick bitch"....there really isn't a difference, but this is people's problems with their choice of words in victimization...that and being charged with a hate crime for calling someone a faggot, when my government has always known me to be gay. 
Whether it's enlightenment, or an awakening...it is the year 2020. A number reflecting perfect vision, perhaps revelation that this plague of disease may ensue, or the sharing of this reality, yet unknown.
Cheers to being delusional.
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eshopcode73-blog · 5 years
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Techniques to Know Whether You Purchased Good or Bad Marijuana
How do you know you purchased good marijuana?
Whether it’s “dro”, “fire”, “dank” or just plain good, it’s sometimes tricky to find high-quality cannabis. Cannabis flowers are dense, which can make it a little tricky to keep dried buds fresh tasting and smooth to inhale. With cannabis access increasing around the world, here is a handy guide to help you know that you bought good weed. Buy Marijuana Online Worldwide
To start, if you want to buy high-quality weed, it helps to know where to go. While there is no doubt that high-quality cannabis can come from a home garden, perfected by the love and care of master growers.
However, unless you happen to know a master grower, finding high-quality cannabis can be difficult. In legal adult-use and medical cannabis states, the best place to find quality cannabis is from reputable dispensaries and compassion centers.
Reading reviews on delivery services can help you figure out which local access points have the good stuff.
The products sold at dispensaries have a higher likelihood of being laboratory tested, which limits consumer exposure to molds and potential pathogens.
Apart from sourcing high-quality herb, there are a few tips to keep in mind when trying to discern high-quality from low-quality cannabis. Here are 15 tips for picking out good weed:
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1.      Understand the shelving system
At dispensaries, cannabis products are often divided into three different “shelf categories.” These categories are top, middle, and bottom. Bottom shelf products tend to be the lowest in price and quality. Older samples, less potent samples, or products like sugar leaf trim are often make up the lower shelf products.
Middle shelf products are fairly good in quality and average in price. These are some of the most popular products, as they likely provide the most value for your money.
Top shelf products are the highest in price, but the buds that make the cut are the cream of the crop. Generally speaking, if a flower is fetching top-shelf prices, it tends to be higher in potency, cured well, and of excellent quality.
2.      Follow your nose
While it may come as a surprise to some, your nose is one of the main tools you need to discern the quality of your cannabis. Wondering if you bought good weed? High-quality cannabis should smell, well, good.
Cannabis bud that is fresh and has been well-stored and well-cured should have a strong and pleasing aroma. A strong aroma is a sign that the cannabis has not yet been exposed to an abundance of oxygen, which degrades aroma molecules over time.
If a particular flower smells too musty, damp, foul, or has only a very faint scent, these are signs that the sample may be low-quality, exposed to mold, or not cured correctly.
Hoping to find the best bud for you? Find the one that smells the best.
3.      Opt for laboratory-tested cannabis products
One of the easiest ways to find high-quality cannabis is to opt for samples that have been laboratory tested. Samples that have been laboratory tested must show that they have low levels of molds and pathogenic fungus. They also must show that they are free of residual pesticides, fungicides, and chemical nutrients. All of these factors can diminish the quality of the bud.
Not only do these things affect the taste and smoking experience of cannabis flowers, but the presence of molds and chemical agents can potentially cause negative health consequences.
  4.      Pick samples with amply visible trichomes
Searching for high-quality marijuana online? Check for crystals. Cannabis that has been laboratory tested will tell you the levels of THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids in the sample.
However, an easy way to tell whether or not your bud is worthwhile is by the trichome coverage over the plant. Trichomes are the crystal-like resin glands that coat cannabis leaves and flowers. A tell-tale sign that you bought good weed over bad weed? Look for samples that have a thick and shiny trichome coating. The more trichomes, the more likely you are to have a potent cannabis experience.
5.      Check for moisture content
Cannabis flowers that are either too wet or too dry are problematic. A properly cured cannabis flower should be kept between 63 and 67 percent humidity.
At this percentage, buds should be able to be broken up easily, but should not crumble apart.
Flowers that are too wet taste poorly and increase the chances of developing molds and mildews.
Cannabis buds that are too dry are difficult to smoke and vaporize. Dry cannabis leads to coughing and lung irritation.
6.      Opt for dispensaries that use tongs or chopsticks
No one likes having their bud mishandled. Cannabis flowers are sticky and trichomes are delicate.
Every time your cannabis flower is touched, the residue can either stick to the herb or trichomes can break off.
Over time, this makes the cannabis less potent and impacts the overall quality of the product.
If you are picking up cannabis from a dispensary, collective, or compassion center, opt for locations that weigh out material with chopsticks, tongs, or use gloves when working with the product.
This reduces the number of hands on your cannabis flower.
7.      Avoid products that contain visible stems and seeds
Seeds are a good thing if you’re planning to grow, but you don’t typically want to find them in your bud.
Seeds add weight to your flower, meaning that you aren’t getting as much psychoactive goodness from your purchase.
Instead, you’re paying for weighty seeds. Cannabis flowers that have produced seeds are also more likely to be less psychoactive.
When the female cannabis flower puts energy into producing seeds, it allocates fewer resources to developing large psychoactive flowers. Likewise, cannabis samples that contain a lot of stems are also low-quality.
It is not recommended to smoke or inhale vapor from cannabis stems, though they can be used in teas. When purchased flower contains a fair number of stems, this means that less of the overall weight contains usable cannabis material.
8.      Check for color
Cannabis can come in a bouquet of colors. While nearly all cannabis flowers contain green coloration, they can also feature purples, blues, reds, and pinks. What your flower shouldn’t be, however, is brown.
The brown coloration of a cannabis flower is a sign that it has been oxidized and is now old. Cannabis buds that contain significant brown coloration will likely be harsh to smoke, low in potency, and may promote a sleepy cannabis experience.
9.      Avoid samples with excess leaf material
High-quality cannabis has always been given a nice haircut. Prior to being trimmed, the central bud features wispy sugar leaves.
These leaves are typically trimmed away because they feature fewer resin trichomes than the flower itself.
Cannabis samples that feature a large amount of leafy material will feature less overall THC, CBD, or other cannabinoids per weight purchased.
10.  Avoid pre-packaged bud with an excess shake
In some locations, like Washington State, cannabis can only be sold in prepackaged containers. When you have to purchase prepackaged flowers, you have less ability to see and smell the sample you’re purchasing.
While budtenders may be able to provide an in-house sample for you to look at and smell, most consumers are left to judge their cannabis by visual appeal.
To make sure you’re picking the high-quality cannabis versus low-quality cannabis, its best to avoid packages that contain a large amount of shake or feature buds that have already broken up inside the package.
Shake is the term for the loose cannabis particles that accumulate after a dried flower is handled and broken apart. Too much shake is also a sign that the cannabis is too dry, which lowers the quality.
11.  Cannabis should be sticky to the touch
If you touch or break apart a cannabis bud and it is not sticky, the herb is likely not fresh and is too dry.
Cannabis resin should be sticky, slightly clinging to your fingers when you handle the herb.
However, because of this stickiness, it’s important to handle the cannabis flower with clean hands or use a clean utensil like a grinder or scissors to break it apart. Otherwise, you can lose a decent chunk of the resinous trichomes because they stick to your hands.
12.  When inhaling, the flower should lack a chemical taste
The final ways to know that you bought good weed vs. bad weed involved the inhalation experience. When you inhale, buy medical cannabis online will not provide consumers with a harsh mineral or chemical taste.
If the flower tastes metallic or harsher than normal, it is a sign that some of the excess nutrients or pesticides have not been flushed from the plant.
Good weed will have a pleasant taste and smooth smoke, though a little coughing may still occur.
Bad weed will have a metallic, musty, chemical, or overly sweet taste. Molds and mildews are responsible for musty and overly sweet tastes.
Residual chemicals cause a metallic, mineralized, or harsh cleaner taste.
13.  Inhalation should not cause chest pain
Another sign of bad cannabis is that it causes chest pain upon inhalation.
While it is essential that those with severe chest pain seek medical attention, mild chest pain and discomfort may be a sign that your cannabis is contaminated with residual pesticides, molds, bacteria, or other unsavory items.
A high-quality cannabis strain will offer consumers a pleasant smoking or vaporizing experience, not one that is difficult or excessively harsh.
14.  No visible mold
As already mentioned above, cannabis flowers can get moldy. An easy way to spot bad cannabis right off the bat is to look for signs of visible molds and mildews.
Molds and mildews can come in a variety of colors. The most common being grey, white, black, and green.
Smoking or vaporizing moldy cannabis products can be harmful to health.
Not only will these flowers smell and taste poorly, but moldy weed puts consumers at risk of developing lung infections and more severe illnesses.
You know your cannabis is bad if you see visible mold spots between calyxes or on other parts of the flower. It’s best to avoid cannabis products that show signs of mold and mildew.
15.  Avoid purchasing from shady sources
Taking into consideration the cannabis plant’s tendency to mold and retain residual pesticides, it’s best to avoid shady “dealers” when seeking out the good weed.
Not only is this cannabis less likely to be laboratory tested for potency and contamination, but it increases the likelihood of running into cannabis that has been adulterated and coated with something else.
For example, a cannabis bud can be rolled in dish soap, salt, and other drugs to make it seem more trichome-dense or potent. While these tactics certainly are not common everywhere, it is important to avoid situations that seem sketchy, dangerous or make you uncomfortable.
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johnboothus · 3 years
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Wine 101: Cap vs. Cork
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This episode of “Wine 101” is sponsored by Talbott Vineyards. At Talbott Vineyards, we focus on crafting estate-grown Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in Monterey County’s Santa Lucia Highlands. Our celebrated Sleepy Hollow vineyard is located in one of the coldest grape-growing climates in California, ideal for these two varieties. Here, the brisk wind and fog rolling off Monterey Bay create a long growing season, producing fruit-forward wines with spectacular acidity. Building on a nearly 40-year legacy of meticulous craftsmanship, Talbott continues to produce highly acclaimed wines of distinction.
Click the link below to discover and purchase wine brands discussed on the “Wine 101” podcast series. Get 15% OFF of your purchase of $75 or more when you use the coupon code ‘wine15’ at checkout. https://www.thebarrelroom.com/discover.html?src=vinepair
In this episode of “Wine 101,” VinePair tastings director Keith Beavers discusses the difference between the two most popular wine closures: corks and screw caps. Beavers details the brief history of corks, which were originally popularized in the 17th century.
Though the screw cap was initially used for spirits and liqueurs, Australian winemakers began experimenting with screw caps in the ‘70s in an effort to avoid TCA, or cork taint. The screw caps have since taken off worldwide and are even used for sparkling and age-worthy wines.
Tune in to learn more about the debate between corks and screw caps.
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Keith Beavers: My name is Keith Beavers and is cold soup considered a meal, or is it an appetizer? Or is it just a snack?
What’s going on, wine lovers? Welcome to Episode 26 of VinePair’s “Wine 101” podcast. My name is Keith Beavers, and I am the tastings director of VinePair. It’s Season 2, and how are you doing?
Screw caps. Corks. Or should I say screw caps versus corks? No, no, no, no, no, these are two different things. We are going to talk about the two of them and we’re going to get rid of some myths. We’re going to get into it.
I’m having a little bit of an issue on how to begin this episode because with the amount of time I’ve been in the wine industry, I was a witness to not the introduction of the screw cap, but the implementation and the evolution of its technology and its acceptance in wine culture. I don’t know where you are in your wine journey, but you could say, “Keith, I remember that. That was tough. We’ve come a long way.” Or you could say, “What’s the problem? I drink wine with a screw cap all the time. What happened?”
Well, let me tell you the story of these two wine closures, because that’s really what they are, wine bottle closures. We’ll get a sense of where we’re at with the debate because if you don’t know, it was a debate. It’s still going on, but kinda not. Let’s get into it.
A cork for wine is a small piece of bark, basically, from a tree. That tree is part of the oak family — the same family that makes barrels, just a different species. The thing about this particular species of oak is that it has a very finicky environmental preference, if you will. It grows best in sandy soils free of any chalk. It prefers an annual rainfall between 15 and 30 inches, and it would really like temperatures never to fall below 23 degrees Fahrenheit. We would like to have our elevation between 300 and 1,000 feet above sea level, thank you very much.
With those nature demands, man, the oak tree for cork oak really can only thrive in the western Mediterranean. Even there, specifically in Portugal, parts of Spain, and maybe North Africa — but it’s really centered in Portugal, specifically in the Alentejo region, which we talked about in the Portugal episode. Here, they have almost 2 million acres of cork trees, which represents about 34 percent of the world’s cork trees. That’s a lot, and they also produce half of the world’s corks. Wow.
When these trees turn 25, they are ready to yield commercially useful cork for the industry. Every nine years in the summer — this is according to Portuguese law — a cork tree is stripped of its bark. A hectare is a little over three, almost three and a half acres. The average hectare of a cork forest can yield 500 pounds of cork. It’s all science, but this particular cork is special because it has a specific cell structure that brings the corking material to life.
What they do is they take this cork and they actually boil it for, I think, 90 minutes to make it flexible, but also to kill a bunch of molds and bacterias. The wood is then rested, sorted, and cut into the corks, and then those corks are polished on each end. At this point, they used to bleach the corks to sanitize them, but recently, they found that bleach or chlorine can actually increase the likelihood of TCA being formed in the cork, which we talked about in the Wine Faults episode.
Actually, today it’s more common to use hydrogen peroxide, which I think we all know is used for cuts and bruises. Then, they’re graded for aesthetic, basically, for the visual quality of the cork. The more natural markings on the cork, the lower the grade. The fewer the markings, the higher the grade. Here is where if the cork needs to be branded for a winery, it’s done. Then, the cork is coated with a silicon film to help make it easier to get out of the bottle. They’re then put into bags dosed with wine’s protector, S02 as an antibacterial agent, and they need to be stored in an odor-free environment with a temperature not going above 68 degrees F and for the humidity to not exceed 70 percent. Just like the shock of S02, these conditions are helping to prevent the formation of TCA. They really don’t want this stuff to form.
Corks range between 1 and 2.3 inches. The longer corks are meant for bottles that are going to age for a long time, which makes sense. They’re going to hold up for a longer period of time. For well over two centuries, this has been the primary closure for wine bottles. It’s been around much longer than that. There is evidence that the ancient Greeks and Egyptians both used not only amphora for closures onto the amphoras vessels, but they also used large cork covered with pitch to actually close those amphora vessels. Yet, it was in the 17th century where if you look at some of the art back then, you can see that wine was basically still stored and served in barrels.
However, also in the 17th century was the innovation of glass. As glass became more popular, glass decanters became popular as somewhere to put your wine in. Then, of course, there were stoppers for those decanters so it would not oxidize or flies wouldn’t get in. They were glass stoppers that were formed to fit specific decanters, and then they were threaded. Also, in this century it was realized how expensive glass was, so the use of cork became more common.
The thing is, during the Middle Ages, cork wasn’t really used that much because the Moors had control and conquered the land where cork trees were and they didn’t drink wine. This was a comeback. The cork came back in the 17th century to become one of the primary closures of wine bottles, but this was before the corkscrew was invented. What would happen is corks would be put halfway into bottles so you could get them out. Of course, then the corkscrew was invented, and everything changed.
So, cork is popular. It’s the No. 1 way to close your wine bottles. There is this running thought that the cork is porous. Therefore, the small amounts of oxygen and gas exchange that happens between the outside and inside of that bottle help a wine age. There is a debate there, and we’re going to get into it in a second, because as modern technology became more available, there was a heightened awareness to the extent to which how many wines were actually corked at any given time. It was a little bit alarming. Also, there is more communication in modern times, so there was more understanding of bottle variability, but the big deal was TCA, cork taint. That was the enemy.
As Jancis Robinson puts it in the “Oxford Wine Companion,” it’s because of cork that we actually do age wine today. It was the thing that allowed us to do that, even though it has issues. If it wasn’t for the cork in its natural state, we wouldn’t actually have wines that evolve. If you were worried about cork taint and you wanted to create a different closure for wine, you would have to check all the boxes that you liked for cork. The seal would have to be reliable. The substance would have to be inert in that if the wine came into contact with it, no crazy reactions would happen. The ergonomics would have to be sound. Easy to open, easy to close. Easy to insert and put back in. It would also be nice if it was relatively inexpensive to produce. And of course, the big deal, it can’t have the ability to form TCA.
In the late ’50s, there was a French company that had a screw cap called the Stelcap Vin. It was used primarily as a closure for spirits. Always forward-thinking, the Australians. In 1973, a company called Australian Consolidated Industries bought the rights to this specific closure. They were worried about cork taint, so they renamed it the Stelvin cap, and they began to experiment with this new technology.
A screw cap is basically two components. It’s an aluminum alloy, metal cap attached to a sleeve. The second component, which is a very important component, is the plastic wadding on the inside of the cap. This is called the liner. It usually contains a layer of tinfoil that acts as a barrier for gas exchange. This is the thing that doesn’t allow oxygen to get into the wine. Over the tinfoil is a layer of thermoplastic and this is the inert surface the wine can interact with.
As we learned in the Sulfites episode, aluminum and wine interaction can get a little stinky. In the early ‘70s, Australian Consolidated Industries experimented with this thing called the Stelvin cap. In 1976, they published the results of their study. What they showed was that the screw cap is actually ideal for sealing wine bottles if the wadding material is satisfactory. They had four reds and four whites with a screw cap, one with a cork for comparison. Each screw cap had a different wadding in it, so they were just trying to figure out how it would work. It came to the conclusion that when the wadding is right, the wine is sound. Of course, this was very exciting so Australia was going to focus on corks.
They started moving towards this as being the standard closure for their wines. There was a big push for it, but it didn’t work because TCA still wasn’t fully understood and there wasn’t much consumer acceptance because people liked the romance of a cork. There were people in the industry asking, “Wait, corks help wine age. Why would you put a screw cap?” It wasn’t really until 2000, when a group of winemakers in the Clare Valley of Australia, known for its Riesling, had enough.
Their wines are very susceptible to the lack of aromas that cork taint produces. They got together and produced a vintage, but with a screw cap. The problem was those bottles and those caps are not available in Australia yet, so they actually had to get everyone together and buy 250,000 bottles from a company in France. They made a big to-do about this. It made headlines, and everything gained momentum. I actually read that six years later, some of those wines were uncapped or unscrewed, if you will, and they’re aging just fine. This actually prompted the island a few thousand miles away, New Zealand, to create the New Zealand Screw Cap initiative in 2001.
By 2004, around 70 percent of the wines in New Zealand were under screw cap — up from only 1 percent three years before. Something’s working. By 2014, 95 percent, and 80 percent in Australia. An entire country is primarily under screw cap with their wines — and the wines are good, or sound, I should say. There’s no cork taint, and the screw cap isn’t just like screwed onto the bottle after it’s filled, the sleeve is held down tight on top of the bottle of the machine. Then, these pressurized rollers come and they mold the sleeve or the cap to the ridges on the outside or the top portion of the bottleneck where the little threading is.
The cap itself is still attached to the sleeve, but with those little perforated bridges. When you open it up and it cracks and the wad releases, you hear a little pop, and oxygen rushes into the bottle. Now, the thing is chemistry and the aging of wine is still somewhat of a mystery. I find this so awesome. I mean, it’s frustrating, but you cannot do a scientific experiment with a compromised subject. This means that the second you either penetrate a cork or open a bottle of wine or even put a syringe down into the cork, oxygen is affecting the wine. The only way to really know how wine ages is to age the wine. Isn’t that crazy?
There’s a debate about screw caps versus cork and how wines age. This is a discussion that’s going to be going on for quite some time, until somebody figures it out. According to the “Oxford Wine Companion,” science tends to lean towards the idea that wine is always in a reductive state because it needs the absence of oxygen to reduce — which basically means to evolve. Others believe the porous nature of the cork allows for tiny amounts of oxygen, which I mentioned before, to allow the minor oxidation of wine, and that ages the wine. Both of these things could be true.
Actually, if you take the thin tin foil layer out of a screw cap during production, that actually allows for gas exchange very similar to a cork. Now, what’s frustrating and beautiful about wine is we may not know for some years until we taste wines that have aged how they do compare them both. Either way, though, today the screw cap is the No. 1 alternative to the cork. It has a reliable seal. It has an inert substance. It’s easy to remove and insert. And it’s a pretty relatively low cost closure. Think of a cork as a dollar. A screw cap is 70 cents. The only big cost would be smaller wineries that don’t often have the ability to buy the components that add on to the bottling systems, and they have to pay. In the end, it’s less expensive. There are other corks out there, synthetic corks and plastic corks. There is something called agglomerated cork, which is a bunch of cork pieces and dust glued together that was invented in the United States. There are glass corks. Again, these are glass closures they actually have a little suction cup around them. They can be fragile and expensive.
Honestly, a screw cap is a way to go if you’re not doing cork. It was such a big deal. There is a pretty famous winemaker in the United States named Randall Grahm who has a winery called Bonny Doon. I don’t remember the year — maybe 1999 — but he actually had a funeral for the cork. He took his entire line of wines, got rid of the cork, and only uses, to this day, a screw cap. It was a big to-do. He did a funeral procession down 5th Avenue in Manhattan. It’s crazy.
I don’t know where everybody’s at with their mind and screw caps, but the thing to really know is that they both do the thing. Cork is a good closure. Screw caps are good closures. Scientifically and technologically, they’re great. The only thing is, cork has this thing called TCA that can form and just straight-up ruin a wine. The only way that a screw cap wine can be ruined is not with TCA, but if the bottling system is not sanitary. For example, if there’s anything on the lip of the glass bottle before the sleeve goes down, you’re compromising the wine, so it has to be very clean.
Today, there are screw caps that are used for sparkling wine. I’ve had them, and it’s awesome. It’s not necessarily for Champagne. I don’t know if it’s a pressure thing, but I’ve had Prosecco under the screw cap. It’s just cool. It doesn’t come down to which one is better than the other, like screw cap versus cork. Each one has its benefits. Some winemakers, like Randall Grahm, are just going all-in on the screw caps. Some winemakers use screw caps for their entry-level wines and reserve corks for their age-worthy wines. Some winemakers are aging wine under screw cap. Some winemakers are doing both.
These humans that make this stuff called wine every decade and every generation, something changes and they figure something else out. The screw cap is just one of them. I mean, the screw cap was meant for spirits and liqueur. Now, it’s the No. 1 closure for wine. It’s just part of the evolution of what we understand in wine. We’re just going to keep on evolving. We are going to keep on understanding, and it’s going to get better and better.
@VinePairKeith is my Insta. Rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcast from. It really helps get the word out there. And now for some totally awesome credits.
“Wine 101” was produced, recorded, and edited by yours truly, Keith Beavers, at the VinePair headquarters in New York City. I want to give a big ol’ shout-out to co-founders Adam Teeter and Josh Malin for creating VinePair. And I mean, a big shout-out to Danielle Grinberg, the art director of VinePair, for creating the most awesome logo for this podcast. Also, Darbi Cicci for the theme song. Listen to this. And I want to thank the entire VinePair staff for helping me learn something new every day. See you next week.
Ed. note: This episode has been edited for length and clarity.
The article Wine 101: Cap vs. Cork appeared first on VinePair.
Via https://vinepair.com/articles/wine-101-cap-vs-cork/
source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/wine-101-cap-vs-cork
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theantibridezilla · 6 years
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Subtle Fantasy Colors from Overtone!
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I normally don’t cover haircare products on TAB mainly because I’m natural and the natural hair blogging community is fairly well saturated. However, today’s feature is about color and actually goes well with the Pantone Color of the Year Ultra Violet, that I’ve been highlighting. Now when it comes to color, I’m no novice. I’ve been coloring my hair (or extensions) since about 2007/2008. I’ve done standard drug store/beauty supply box dyes, I’ve done Wella, BAQ henna rinses on my natural hair and my preferred ones which I’ve been doing since about 2013 are actually color rinses rather than dyes. I’ll dig deeper on that in a bit (yes, this will be a bit of a long post) but let’s just say although I’m not a licensed beautician or anything, I understand the mechanics of dying hair. And long before fantasy colors were trending, I was dabbling in that world with navy, teal, dark green, fuchsia, and purple thanks to process friendly rinse (NOT dye) brands like Manic Panic and Creative Image Adore.
In the past two to three years, fantasy hair colors (i.e. pastels, gray, rainbow hair, etc) have trended across Instagram and in the mainstream beauty space. If you’re unfamiliar with dying hair and especially what it means to “lift” hair, here’s the crash course. It’s very easy and literally a one step process (typically) to go darker than your natural hair shade because you’re only depositing color - just add the dye or rinse to your hair and you’re done. It takes more work and processing to go lighter. If you want a clearly visible lighter hair color (i.e. pastels or vibrant bold hues) on your current dark hair, you need to bleach first (developer + bleach powder) to at least a strawberry or honey blonde shade and then deposit color. And depending on how much lighter you’re trying to go from your natural hair shade, you may need to use some pretty strong developer which comes ranging from 10 to 40 with 40 being the most intense lifting power. If you just want something subtle, you can deposit a dye or rinse and depending on your starting color you may end up with something visible under low light or under sunlight (depending on the strength of the rinse/dye).  
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As a general rule, aside from when I used to apply BAQ henna to my hair and scalp when I was newly natural, I DO NOT color or do any kind of chemical processing to my natural hair. When I want to wear a new hair color, I turn to extensions and full lace wigs. And because I love to do an ombre from a natural-ish dark brown/brown-black shade into some form of fantasy color, it means that when rocking colorful wigs/extensions, I always have to first bleach using 20 developer to the ends and then deposit the color. I use a 20 developer because it lifts enough in one application for me to see visible results but I don’t have to be concerned about over processing. Why? Because if you’re buying extensions they’ve already been processed somehow unless you buy truly virgin hair - which tends not to be in typical African American textures. So, when I buy an Italian Yaki or Coarse Yaki unit in natural brown, there’s at least one texturizing process that’s already been applied. Bleaching it means at least a 2nd process and actual dye rather than a rinse would be a 3rd process. The more you process hair, the more you damage it and reduce the life of a unit. And if you’re doing a home color job, it’s best to be as gentle as possible to prevent over processing and damaging the hair (especially if it’s the hair growing out of your scalp).
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I say all this to say, Overtone offered to send me samples of their hair color and after doing a bit of researching and learning that it was a rinse and not a dye, I was hyped to check them out. They sent me their Extreme Purple deep treatment and the Extreme Purple daily conditioner as well. The deep treatment is the rinse which will deposit the initial color and the daily conditioner basically acts as a touch up to condition while maintaining the color of the hair. They also sent me a tester amount of their rose gold deep treatment but I currently don’t have any units light enough for the color to even appear and I didn’t feel like bleaching anything. So, I’ve tabled that experiment for the moment. I actually did this color project right before NYE for NYE and my baby shower. But if you follow my on Tales of a Mommy 2 Be, or either of my IG accounts, you know that I’ve been rocking my natural hair almost exclusively for the last 2 months. So, this weekend I washed and conditioned the unit I colored using Overtone’s conditioner - and am now rocking the new look as you see above.
Now, one thing I really loved about Overtone’s FAQs is that they were very honest about what results you could expect to achieve. For instance, they make it clear that if you apply their rinse over previously colored hair (especially a fantasy color), you may not end up with the shade you purchased from them (i.e. adding red rinse over previously colored blue hair can get you purple). And they specifically noted that because it’s a depositing rinse and not a dye, if you’re brunette or darker, unless you bleach your hair prior to applying their colors, you may be left with a more subtle color. The reason I bring this up is because one, it’s important to manage expectations especially for hair color newbies. And two, there are other brands out here lying to people saying they can lift brunette and dark hair to super light fantasy colors without the use of bleach - and this just isn’t chemically possible. Looking at you Lime Crime with your Dark Unicorn dye.
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Anywho, back to my experience. So, I have lots of wigs lying around and I opted to pull out an oldie but goodie to test the Overtone color. I chose an Italian Yaki wig I’ve had for about 3 years now and one where I originally bleached & dyed the ends using a teal shade from the Adore rinse line but that ended up depositing as this awesome forest green shade (see collage). I loved this color because I bought this wig for my trip to Seoul and Tokyo years ago and it was just an awesome unit! I even touched it up many times to keep that awesome green shade. But it was time for a change as the unit was now faded to bleach blonde ends, a sad looking greenish middle and the untouched natural brown roots. Now, because I was going to use a unit that had been previously colored, I already knew a few things:
Rich fantasy colors from Adore don’t fully rinse out no matter how hard you wash - even after washing the hair twice with Dawn dish soap (a beauty hack to strip color!).
Because they don’t fully rinse out, as vibrant as that purple hue from Overtone was, the likelihood that the end result would be that Extreme Purple was 50-50.
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So, knowing these things, I was really open to seeing what would come of this project and I wasn’t going to be angry if the color wasn’t awesome. I applied color from the ends up to a little bit higher than where the green had been placed to ensure that the green would be completely covered. However, to hedge my bets, I did put the wig in a plastic bag and then left it in my cap blow dryer on high for about 20 - 30 minutes to help the color penetrate better. (Note: the blow dryer trick can work on anyone. If you’re dying your real hair, you can just cover with a plastic cap or bag and the heat off your head will help to make the color penetrate better).
What I Love About Overtone:
The Deep Treatment is actually really thick like a slightly goopy paste, making it easy to apply. The color sticks to where it needs to be and it’s not messy like when I usually use my Adore rinses which are very runny. I recommend using a tinting/color brush versus your hands so that you can be more precise.
The smell is divine, it’s minty fresh. Now, I don’t mind Adore rinses either because it’s not funky. But Overtone knocked it out of the park with that scent. I was able to apply this while my husband was home without him complaining about the smell.
Although I’m not vegan, it is a vegan friendly product which is also sulfate free.
Rinsing out with Overtone was WAY easier than when I use Adore. Adore rinses (for as long lasting as they are) never fully rinse out. You’ll stand there for 30 minutes trying to wash that rinse out of the hair. And every time you wash your hair afterwards...yup you’ll see color in the water. Overtone clearly deposited color, but didn’t stain my sink (I used the stainless steel kitchen sink just to be safe because I’ve definitely accidentally dyed my bathtub a time or two!).
Even though I didn’t get that Extreme Purple hue, I did get an obvious color change, which lets me know that this product is a strong color depositing rinse. That makes it a very good alternative to traditional hair dyes.
After washing and using their Extreme Purple Daily Conditioner, very little color rinsed out and my navy hue still looked very vibrant.
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What Could Be Better:
Honestly, nothing. I like that they’re truthful on their website about potential results. I liked how easy this was to apply and that it wasn’t stinky. And most importantly I liked that even though I didn’t end up with a purple color, I still had a clear color change.
The Results:
As you can see in the opening post pic and in the one immediately above, it’s not really purple, except for at the very ends of my hair which were faded to a true blonde. However, the color I got, I LOVE because it’s everyday wearable. As much as I love bright fantasy shades, the reality is that I do have corporate clients I consult with - it’s not okay to go into meetings with bright pink or purple hair. I’ve been trying to do brown into navy ombre for a while but truth be told, Adore’s Royal Navy rinse would always deposit as teal on dyed blonde hair. For whatever reason, the previous Adore teal rinse mixed perfectly with Overtone’s Extreme Purple to create this beautiful subtle navy which is slightly visible, but isn’t shockingly bright. So, I give Overtone two thumbs up as they gave my beloved Italian Yaki unit new life!
For more info on Overtone or where to buy visit www.overtone.co or follow them on IG @overtonecolor
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componentplanet · 4 years
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Steam Shows CPU Core Counts Slowly, Finally, Creeping Upwards
When AMD launched Ryzen back in April 2017, the company made it a point to emphasize higher core counts than Intel was selling in the consumer market, with a Ryzen 7 1800X offering up to eight CPU cores, compared with four on the 7700K. From a gaming perspective, however, Ryzen wasn’t quite as strong against Intel as it was in other segments. At 1440p and 4K the difference was minimal, but Intel had a modest advantage at 1080p.
It’s now been several years since Ryzen launched, and AMD has been steadily improving its gaming performance at 1080p versus its larger rival with every passing product generation. Intel has responded at various points with new, higher core count CPUs of its own, though the company’s current mainstream consumer desktop socket tops out at 10 CPU cores, compared with AMD’s 16. AMD has improved its performance and core counts more rapidly, but Intel is still shipping far more CPU cores per chip than it did four years ago. Are gamers buying them?
Despite its flaws, the Steam Hardware Survey remains our best source of information for this kind of data. As always, keep in mind that the SHS is a survey of every machine on which Steam is installed, not every computer used to play games. If you download Steam to a low-end laptop to install a game like League of Legends or Darkest Dungeon, it counts for just as much as if you build a dedicated gaming rig and bring it online for the first time.
First, the cumulative data (not shown) shows AMD gaining market share. In May, AMD had 22.45 percent of the market. In September, it holds 25.75 percent of the total install base. The breakdown by CPU core count is shown below:
This covers every chip but 18-core CPUs, which have 0.01 percent market share. All CPU core counts above that, up to 56 (not 64) cores are listed at 0.00 percent, so we stopped at 16. We see evidence of growth in the 6, 8, 10, 12, and 16-core markets. While quad-cores are still the most popular configuration by far, 36.63 percent of the market now uses six cores or more. If you want to see games using more CPU cores in the future, moving the needle on median CPU core count is how we’ll get there.
We cannot distinguish between AMD and Intel when it comes to the lower core counts, but above eight cores, we can take a pretty good guess at which company is gaining market share in certain SKUs. AMD does not sell a 10-core or a 14-core CPU. Intel does not currently sell a 10th Generation 16-core CPU. While Intel has sold 16-core chips in the past, any recent growth in the segment is almost certainly being driven by AMD, now a sudden surge in demand for last-generation Intel Core X CPUs.
Intel’s 10-core CPUs include the Core i9-10900K, as well as multiple members of the Core X family. Most of the recent growth has likely come from the 10900K, and the CPUs collectively account for 0.16 percent of the market, 2x what they held in May.
AMD shares the 12-core space with a similar range of older Core X CPUs, but 12-core market share has increased from 0.37 percent in May to 0.61 percent in September. We can safely assume most, if not all, of that increase was driven by the Ryzen 9 3900X and Ryzen 9 3900XT. There are virtually no 14-core chips, but the 0.01 percent of them out there are all Intel CPUs. The number of 16-core chips has also edged upwards, from 0.1 percent in May to 0.14 percent in September. 6-core chips improved their market share by 1.15x, while 8-core chips grew faster, at 1.32x.
Fun Fact: The only three-core CPU ever released that I recall was AMD’s Toliman-core Phenom II. Toliman wasn’t a bad chip, but there would have to be an absolute ton of them out there in the ether to be holding 1 percent of the market all by themselves. But what else could be holding down the 3 CPU market?
We don’t know how large the difference is in CPU core count between the median gaming PC and the total Steam install base, but it seems safe to bet that most gamers are now playing on quad-cores at minimum. Unlucky dual-core mobile owners who last bought lightweight gaming systems in 2016 – 2017 are likely approaching an upgrade cycle.
With so many gamers already using six-core and eight-core systems, this may finally be the console generation where we start seeing games practically optimized for high core counts on upper-end Ryzen and Core systems. If quad-cores continue declining at the current rate and six cores keep growing, the two markets will switch places in the next few years. Between the growth in CPU core counts and the likelihood that we’ll start seeing games beginning to play with using AI for calculations this cycle, we could see a bit more innovation in the gaming market than we’ve seen in the past seven years or so. The improvements to the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 will help with this — outfitting both consoles with an eight-core Ryzen CPU will ensure developers have reason to target optimal performance on a modern high-end CPU as opposed to optimizing against last-generation’s Jaguar.
Now Read:
Intel Confirms 8-Core Tiger Lake CPUs Are on the Way
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Now Requires Its Own SSD
A New Look at the Golden Age of Arcade Games
from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/computing/315953-steam-shows-cpu-core-counts-slowly-finally-creeping-upwards from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2020/10/steam-shows-cpu-core-counts-slowly.html
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fbwzoo · 7 years
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Is it true that off-the-shelf cages for small animals are based on the minimum cage sizes for lab animals, as set by the FDA? All I know is that they're pretty much always too small for the critters they're marketed for!
I’m sorry I took so long to answer this! I was trying to see if I could find a straight answer, but had no luck. Tried to see if I could figure out the likelihood by comparing information, but I’ve been having trouble brain-wise with reading through the requirements, converting numbers from cm to inches, etc. so that didn’t get very far. I think I figured out how to word some thoughts on the matter though, so here we are! Nice long rambly post under the cut about cage sizes for pets versus lab animals. If anyone wants to chime in, please keep things civil. I’m posting this because it’s an interesting discussion & I wanted to do the subject some justice in terms of an answer, despite the fact I can’t say a definite yes or no to the original question.
I’ve never actually heard that before, to be honest. That doesn’t mean it may not be true though. If someone else is better at googling than me or knows for sure, I’d be really curious to know as well. And if it is true, I have some issues with using the same requirements for the two, which is what I was trying to figure out how to word. Because while I understand that people are likely to be upset by the idea of small cages for lab animals (and it’s a subject that people can be quick to get emotional about), there are some various considerations to keep in mind.
First, I agree that the cages are too small for the animals they’re marketed for, particularly because the goals for keeping an animal as a pet are very different from housing lab animals. Generally, the goal of keeping an animal as a pet is to give them a good life (usually the best life possible within the owner’s abilities) & enjoy the companionship of a healthy, happy animal. So people in the community for a particular animal come up with minimum space standards based on their experience & observations of the animals they keep. These requirements can vary a lot from different groups, especially when you get into groups from different countries & continents - for more than one animal I know of, minimum cage recommendations are larger in the UK & other European countries than they are in the US.
As far as the minimum cage sizes for lab animals, there’s a lot more consideration that goes into housing due to the need to ensure regulated air flow, lighting, temperature, humidity, etc., as well as easy monitoring & access to the animals. All of these things affect both the animals and research, so they all factor into the caging set ups. 
If you want to read more about it, this link discusses these factors & also has links to studies on space needs & other factors with housing animals (social housing, density, etc.) - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK54046/  This link also discusses a bit of what goes into determining housing minimums - https://www.aalas.org/about-aalas/position-papers/determining-laboratory-animal-housing-standards#.WaXbzDfQfIX 
Also worth mentioning that minimum space requirements for lab animals vary by country as well. A lot of it depends on the research done & what studies are used to back up the requirements. I’m actually rather curious about the research & would like to try reading some of the studies if I can get a chance, particularly given the second link mentions “In contrast to these European regulations, recent publications from groups in the United States suggest that less space might be beneficial for mice.”. 
I also have an issue with applying one to the other because animal care is much more regulated for lab animals - there are lots of rules & regulations for the monitoring of animal health & well being, as well as changing cages, providing enrichment, etc. There are also regulation groups (such as IACUC, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee) that must approve of housing & care procedures, as well as any exceptions to the rules for research purposes. They can veto or demand adjustments to programs or protocols if they feel there isn’t a scientific reason to adequately back up an exception, or that any procedures/care don’t comply with the Guide & other standards. There is no such regulation for keeping animals as pets - there’s hardly even any consequences, considering how much animal neglect & abuse is overlooked, particularly for small animals. 
An example - a cage used for a hamster in lab settings may be much smaller than the recommended size for the pet hamster community, but also be hooked up to a ventilated rack that ensures air changes multiple times an hour to keep contaminants in the air to a minimum, the cage gets changed weekly (maybe more) on a strict schedule, and the hamster gets extra daily enrichment from the animal care technician, logged on a sheet for USDA inspection. A similar sized cage being used by a regular pet owner that bought it from Petco may have no extra ventilation, still only be changed once a week, and the hamster received very little extra attention or enrichment because the owner doesn’t know better or care. While the cage size still isn’t ideal in either situation by the pet community’s standards, the first situation still has much better welfare standards than the second.
Basically, it’s a bit like comparing apples to oranges, so to speak, and it’s difficult to apply the same rules to both sides of the situation because there are such different considerations between the two. I would like to see larger minimums for lab animal cage sizes, but I know that’s unlikely to happen without a) research done to back it up and b) people that will push that research forward & use it to prompt a change in the regulations. And that will be extremely difficult, given the amount of money it would take to implement the changes (because yay capitalism~ [sarcasm]). I think that’s about it & I’m shutting up now!
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jeramymobley · 5 years
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Leveraging Brand Culture To Combat Recessions
Market volatility, tariffs, Brexit, upcoming elections in the US, and economic indicators point to the high likelihood of a recession impacting consumers and brands soon. Last week on Branding Strategy Insider, Corien Kershey offered six recession strategies for B2B brands. One of the strategies she recommends for downturns is to take advantage of the surplus of unemployed, experienced talent, bring in their fresh thinking and upgrade your team. This is excellent advice. When a recession forces brands to make tough decisions about their workforce, there could be an opportunity to use culture to achieve competitive advantage.
“Culture Is The Mark A Job Leaves On People” ~ Nathalie Gordon
Over at Campaign Live, Nathalie Gordon asks the question “What is workplace culture?” Her piece draws on informal social media research and gives any number of examples of the accessories to culture that are fun to read about: beer-filled fridges and creative collaboration spaces, but then she hits on the important points, saying, “Culture is the mark a job leaves on people. It’s what people say about where they work when they leave at night. And when they leave for other companies. It’s the way that where they work makes them feel. And the type of person it turns them into. It’s letting the people who work with you breathe. Explore. Develop. Live. And just generally caring about who they are and where they are going. It’s caring that they are happy but also that they are not… Culture is asking difficult questions and listening to the answers. Really listening. And sometimes being uncomfortable with what you hear.”
We haven’t had a recession in a time of heightened social media scrutiny. Back in 2008, outrage and offense were not the norm. The world was a different place. We can expect the next recession to put brands under a spotlight in the way they compensate executives, how their employees are impacted, and changes that happen through the supply chain.
Pay Cuts Instead Of Layoffs
I believe that how brands treat their employees will be the most important piece of this upcoming recession puzzle for brands to sort out. And this is because a vast majority of workers (at least in the US) are living paycheck to paycheck. Depending on which study you read, the number is usually more than 50% and closer to 75%.
Go back about 10 years and there are some interesting examples of brands that pursued a strategy of pay cuts versus layoffs. Casino mogul Steve Wynn announced salaries workers earning $150,000 or more would see a 15% drop in pay, those making less would see 10%, and hourly workers would be reduced from 40 to 32 hours. Commenting on his decision at the time, Wynn said, “We don’t want anybody on unemployment here, or without insurance.”
Mitchell Lee Marks, a professor at San Francisco State University says, “Initially, this sounds really good to people because we’re all chipping in. It’s almost like in World War II when housewives bought organ meat instead of steaks and chops to save meat for the boys. There’s a sense of camaraderie and loyalty. But what if you don’t win the war? Then why did we do that?”
The key to this lies in transparency. When the recession hits, step up your internal corporate communications and encourage employee engagement. Realize that a pay cut for top executives might mean a reduction in vacations whereas line workers might be living on a budget where every last cent is allocated. If you do have to enact pay cuts to save jobs, take a lesson from Acco Brands, who established an emergency loan program for employees when they had to drop pay by 47% for six weeks.
Most of all – start preparing now. Brainstorm events and triggers and get a rough idea for how your brand will respond. Because how you respond will matter to employees, customers, the market and certainly your brand’s future.
The Blake Project Can Help: Get actionable guidance from experts on Brand Differentiation and Growth strategy.
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education
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aemilythings-blog1 · 5 years
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Canyoning is exploding around the world as a popular way to get outdoors, stay fit, and get out of your comfort zone. And on top of that, it’s awesome fun and you feel like a kid again jumping and sliding in the water!
Whether you have just started canyoning or are looking to get into it, the question almost everyone is always interested in when starting is this...
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST TO START CANYONING?
It's the question people always ask me. No matter the sport or activity, if people are interested in trying it themselves, they want to know how much it will cost them, among other things of course!
I've made a list detailing all you need to be a self sufficient canyoner. Minus the experience and skills of course, so you should always seek to get proper instruction from experienced canyoners or take a course.
The following items will be listed by importance, based on you starting your canyoning journey with no gear at all. If you are progressing into canyoning from rock climbing, you will have some of the gear already (yay)!
Any non critical safety items, like shoes, bags or wetsuits, are fine to buy second hand. For all safety equipment, buying new is recommended.
With all items, keep an eye out for sales and discounts at outdoor/climbing gear stores. Joining canyoning clubs will often get you discounts year round. Sales can see some items reduced by significant percentages! So make use of them!
Read More:
Descending The General. Is This One of New Zealand’s Best Canyons?
What is Canyoning? Is Canyoning for You?
A quick note: Some of the links in this post might be affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and make a purchase, I’ll receive a small commission – at no extra cost for you, which helps me cover the costs for this blog, or at least, I can buy a slice of cake.
1- Canyoning Shoes
Your footwear is important as canyons are often wet and slippery environments. While there are specialist canyoning shoes you can buy, lightweight trainers work perfectly fine in many parts of the world. In Australia where I started canyoning, Dunlop Volleys are very popular for their superior grip on the wet rock.
I have tried expensive canyoning shoes and cheap shoes and now tend to stick with cheap $30 trainers as my expensive pairs last only slightly longer.
Approximate cost: $30 AUD +
Example: Mens/Womens Trainers / Specialist Canyoning Shoes
2 - Harness
A harness is your attachment point to the rope as you abseil or when you need to connect to an anchor or guideline to stay safe. You can buy a simple climbing harness or use a specialised canyoning harness with vinyl bottom protector. This vinyl sheet stops the abrasion on your wetsuit and harness as you slide and move on rocks, so will make the wetsuit and harness last longer. Either are fine to get.
Approximate cost: $80 AUD +
Example: Simple harness Mens / Womens/ canyoning harness
3 - Helmet
Wearing a helmet is important in canyoning as anything moving about the top of the canyon, like animals for example, can dislodge rocks and other debris. A helmet also protects you from general knocks that can happen. You can use any regular climbing helmet, but make sure it fits and you like wearing it. You will be more likely to always wear it if you like it after all!
Approximate cost: $60 AUD +
Example:Mens / Womens
4 - Abseil device with a locking screwgate carabiner
When you first start, you can use a climbing belay device if you already have one since many climbers tend to give canyoning a go. If you are starting with no gear at all, getting a figure eight abseil device is the best choice for the flexibility in the later stages of canyoning, and are also quite cheap as well. As you progress, or if you know you like canyoning, the Petzl Pirana is one of the best devices I’ve used and is highly recommended!
Approximate cost: $30 AUD +
Example:Figure 8 / Petzl Pirana descender
5 - Cowstail with 2 locking carabiners (safety)
A cowstail is important in canyoning as your means of connecting to anchors and guidelines to keep you safe, and is also known as your 'safety'. Using a climbing PAS (personal anchor safety) or sling is not recommended as you need the dynamic rope for a cowstail as the chance of slipping and shock loading your safety is higher in a wet canyoning environment.
You can buy a ready made cowstail from Petzl, or make your own (guide coming soon).
Approximate cost: $60 AUD +
Example:Petzl dual adjust connect / Large locking carabiner
6 - Canyoning pack
A regular hiking backpack will work fine to begin with, especially in dry canyons. But the more water a canyon contains, the more important it is to have a canyoning pack with adequate drainage. As you swim and exit the water, everything drains out quickly and the bags don’t weigh you down. My absolute favourite packs are made by Access Gear in New Zealand.
Approximate cost: $150 AUD +
Example:Mesh Expedition bag / Canyoning Bag (great for lots of rope work)
7 - Wetsuit
Canyons are always cold, even on very hot summer days. For any area in the world with water filled canyons, a wetsuit is very important to keep you warm, which in turn, helps you enjoy your day. For many places, a 3mm thick wetsuit will provide enough warmth and can be bulked up with thermals and spray jackets which add warmth. For places like New Zealand and Europe, thicker wetsuits (4mm+) are recommended as the water is very cold. Any type of wetsuit is fine to get (freediving, scuba, surfing) as long as it will keep you warm based on the area you will go canyoning.
To pick the best wetsuit, try on all the different ones you can find, and buy one based on fit. Ensure you can move reasonably well while wearing it, and that it has tight seals on the wrists, ankles and neck. You can also scout your local trading websites, groups and newspapers for people selling wetsuits as these are often quite cheap.
Approximate cost: $100 AUD +
Example:Canyoning specific wetsuits
8 - Drybag/waterproof keg
A minimum of 2 drybags, one inside the other and closed independently, are perfect to keep the water away from the things you want to keep dry. Using one is no guarantee of keeping your things dry, as they can eventually break and leak! Alternatively, I love my waterproof keg which is 100% watertight and very durable for when you throw your bag around.
Approximate cost: $40 AUD +
Example:Waterproof Keg / STS drybags
9 - Whistle
A whistle may seem like an odd piece of equipment to take canyoning if you have never done it before, but in water filled canyons it is one of the best ways of communicating over the noise of rushing water and when you cannot see each other. It is important to get a 'ball-less' whistle which also works when wet. Regular 'cheap' whistles can fail when water is inside them.
Approximate cost: $5 AUD +
Example:Fox 40 Whistle
10 - Carabiners
You can never have enough carabiners! They are useful for all sorts of rigging tasks and for building anchors. To start with, have at least 2 large locking carabiners spare on your harness.
Approximate cost: $15 AUD each x2 =$30
Example:Large locking carabiner
11 - First aid kit & Survival blanket
It’s important to stay safe in the event something were to happen, so always take a first aid kit and a survival blanket. The survival blanket is especially important as canyons are already cold places, and if you were stuck in there for longer than expected, will get really cold! Consider getting a survival bivvy bag, they retail for around $30 AUD and are far warmer than the blanket. The bivvy bag is a great addition to every outdoor adventure anyway, so is well worth investing in!
Approximate cost: $50 AUD +
Example:First aid kit / Bivvy bag
TOTAL COST TO START CANYONING: $635 AUD ($450 USD)
EXTRA GEAR YOU WILL NEED AS YOU PROGRESS IN CANYONING
While the above gear gets you started, you will require a few more items as you progress. These can be bought over time and will depend on your exact canyoning needs. Not everyone will need a rope as friends or partners canyoning together can share this cost.
Here is the complete list if you want to ensure you are well equipped and self sufficient:
12 - Static Rope
Your canyoning rope should be a static rope. Dynamic rope used for rock climbing is NOT SUITABLE. As well as the increased likelihood of damaging it from sharp edges or abrasion due to its increased stretch, it is also more prone to jam on anchors and in between rocks. Canyons are simply too different compared to the rock faces climbers scale.
A big question is always which rope to get? Basic static rope, either 9-10mm is suitable, and focus on one which has a thick sheath and low stretch versus other static ropes. If you want your ropes to last a little longer, canyoning specific ropes are the way to go, my favourite being the Tendon and Kordas brands. There's no need to stress obsessively over which particular rope to get, just make sure its a rated static rope, is 9-10mm in diameter, and is suitable for abseiling. Always buy well known branded ropes from reputable climbing or outdoor stores, and ask for assistance if in doubt.
Approximate cost: $250 AUD +
Example:Kordas Iris 9
13 - Ascenders
Ascenders are used to get back up the rope and for rescue hauling. This could be if a rope gets stuck, or if someone is stuck on the rope mid-abseil. Prussic loops can be used initially and should always be carried on your harness in both climbing and canyoning sports anyway, but mechanical ascenders like the Petzl Micro Traxion are invaluable in that rare emergency of if you wish to haul something. It should go without saying, hauling and rescue techniques require training.
Approximate cost: $90 AUD+
Example:Petzl Micro Traxion
14 - Knife
A good, lightweight knife is used to cut webbing for anchors. There should be at least one in your group, but it is recommended each person have their own. In severe emergencies, it may be needed for rescues (training required).
Approximate cost: $30 AUD
Example:Petzl Spatha
15 - Wetsuit socks
Cold feet can make the rest of the body feel cold. So for places like New Zealand and Europe, wetsuit socks are well worth investing in and will make a massive difference in your overall warmth!
Approximate cost: $30 AUD
Example: Wetsuit socks
16 - Slings
Slings are used for a variety of tasks and should be carried by everyone. At least one sling is recommended, however, a few extra should be in the group. Webbing material for anchors should also be carried on all trips and may substitute your slings for anchor material.
Approximate cost: $15 AUD +
Example: Black Diamond Nylon Sling
17 - Extra figure 8 descenders for single rope abseil
If using releasable abseils, a extra figure 8 descender is often used for this. You should always be supervised if learning single rope releasable abseil techniques. A munter mule can also be used which requires one of your carabiners. You should aim to learn both techniques to be able to go canyoning with anyone in the world and be familiar with the procedures.
Approximate cost: $10 AUD +
Example:Figure 8
TOTAL COST, INCLUDING THE FIRST LOT: $1,060 AUD ($755 USD)
DOES IT SEEM A BIT EXPENSIVE?
While running the canyoning and abseil events in my adventure group years ago, many people thought this amount of money required to go canyoning is quite substantial. I have always disagreed.
Here’s why.
Many people happily fork out $150 + per month on membership based fitness classes. While they offer a great service, I’ve always seen it as money that could be spent of gear that then opens up many new avenues for adventure and spending time in the outdoors.
And other activities such as boating or scuba diving are far more expensive in both startup and ongoing costs. Even just going canyoning with a commercially run group will usually set you back $150-250+. And that's just for one trip!
Think about this: after 6 months of Crossfit, you would have bought ALL the gear you need to continue canyoning independently for 3 years (approximately) before needing to replace some of the gear for safety. Items such as descenders and carabiners (and all gear made from alloy for that matter) lasts almost a lifetime, unless damaged. Helmets tend to last many years as well.
And as mentioned earlier, you will be able to share gear costs with items such as ropes, among friends and partners, reducing individual costs.
This makes canyoning quite affordable in comparison to many other activities or sports, and also allows you far more freedom to have a variety of adventures and see new places all around the world.
Canyoning can be done in many locations around the world and is FREE to do if you are self sufficient. A bit of gas money to get to the canyoning areas is the only extra ongoing cost and the occasional gear replacement when its worn.
Once you have the gear, get some instruction from some experienced people or mentors, or take a course, and then find some canyons to explore! Taking that first step can be hard, so never be afraid to ask questions no matter how silly they seem.
Got questions of your own? Comment below or contact me for more help!
Remember: Safety is your responsibility! No internet article or video can replace proper instruction and experience. Make sure you’re practised in proper techniques and safety requirements before you go canyoning!
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continuations · 7 years
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Government Just Gave Your ISP Even More Power: You Can Take it Back!
Yesterday the Republican-controlled Senate voted to allow ISPs to sell customer data including browsing history without prior customer consent. I tweeted that in response it is “Time to tunnel all home traffic through a proxy.” First let me explain for a less technical reader what that means. At the moment your ISP can see every web request you make. They can’t see inside encrypted requests and much of the web is encrypted these days (https versus http). But they can see whether you are going to Netflix or to Hulu. So being able to sell this information is valuable. Hulu might want to target their advertising at households that don’t already use Hulu. If you establish an encrypted tunnel to a proxy first, then all your connections goes through that proxy and your ISP no longer knows anything about which sites or services you are accessing.
Many people have objected to ISPs being able to do this with a privacy argument. As readers of this blog or my book “World After Capital” know, I think privacy is a red herring that is leading us down a path towards controlled computation. So on what grounds then am I objecting to this? Quite simple: this is a further abuse of monopoly power by broadband ISPs. I live on 22nd Street in the Chelsea section of Manhattan and I have zero choice in broadband providers. My only available option is Spectrum, formerly known as Time Warner Cable. That’s it. Verizon Fios is not available on my block. And even if it were, the two have stopped competing meaningfully with each other.
I already pay a lot of money for relatively poor bandwidth. As someone from Chattanooga pointed out they have a homegrown municipal ISP that provides them with 10GB.  I just ran Speedtest and got a measly 6.6 MBps downstream (and before you comment, yes, I have a fast router and switch setup and this is far below the speeds my wifi supports). So instead of allowing my monopoly provider to make even more money, I am looking for the opposite: better service at a lower price.
There are two routes toward that end goal. In the long run we can and will have more competition in the local access market. This will happen as wireless technology improves and as some competitive offerings enter the market. At USV we have funded Pilot Fiber and bought a stake in Tucows (both deals led by my partner Brad). This will likely take decades though to play itself out. In the meantime, we need regulation that limits how my local monopoly (or maybe duopoly) can use its market power to extract economics from customers and distort access to the internet. This is really the same reason I have been a longstanding proponent of net neutrality.
So coming back to the idea of tunneling all traffic through a proxy. If you choose a free proxy, please realize that it is free in all likelihood because they are selling your data! After all operating a proxy costs them money. If you set up your own proxy or use a paid service you will now have cost on top of your ISP bill. So why do I still recommend doing this? I see it as an act of protest against undue market power. It is a way of individually reclaiming some of the power that the government has just stripped from us and transferred to our monopoly providers. A tunnel removes the ISP’s ability to make more money on your data and it reestablishes net neutrality for you (as the ISP can no longer treat traffic from different sources with different priorities).
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pebble-xo · 7 years
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The Secret (4)
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prologue; part one; part two; part three; part four; part five; part six; part seven; part eight; part nine; part ten; part eleven; part twelve; part thirteen; epilogue.
“Can I please go to the concert Mummy?” Zoe asked sleepily, curling up in her bed surrounded by her favourite teddies. All evening she had been pestering you for an answer, promising to be a good girl and eat her vegetables if she was allowed to go. You could see it in the twinkle in her eyes how much she really wanted to go.
But something didn’t feel right for you.
You dimmed her nightlight and bent down to pressed your lips to her forehead, pulling the blankets up to her chin. “We will talk about it in the morning,” you told her, smoothing her hair back and offering her a warm smile before tiptoeing to the door. “Sweet dreams little one,” you murmured softly by the door, watching her reach for Mr Snuggles.
“Night night Mummy,” she replied, waving Mr Snuggles fluffy paw in your direction.
Slowly you closed the door and then rested your forehead against the cool wood. Having to constantly deal with Zoe’s pleading had been more draining than you would have thought. Even when you weren’t in the room, it was all she would talk about. You could hear her in her bedroom, talking to Mr Snuggles before she fell asleep.
“I really hope Mummy lets me go to the concert,” you heard her say through the door.
Your phone suddenly buzzed in your pocket so you decided to live Zoe and Mr Snuggles to their conversation and headed into the living room where the news was on mute. It was a text from Baekhyun, the very reason you were having an issue with Zoe going to the concert in the first place.
“Are you free for a chat?”
Curling up on the sofa, you sent back a simple ‘yes’ and stared blankly at the TV screen while they reported on the stock market.
You had wanted your move to Seoul to be a fresh start for you and Zoe but all it had done so far was dredge up the past. It felt as if you were balancing on thin ice that was unknowingly cracking beneath you.
Like lightning, your phone buzzed violently, almost vibrating off the sofa before you saved it and balanced it on your ear. “What’s up?” you answered quietly, feeling the day catch up with you and leave you tired.
“Nothing much, just taking a break from rehearsals and I missed your voice,” he replied, sending a jolt to your heart with his voice. How can he say something like that so casually? He left you practically swooning.
Giggling into your hair, you felt the blush burn your cheeks and still felt the need to hide your face. “We had lunch together earlier this afternoon,” you countered, licking your lips as you remembered your lunch ‘date’ in Baekhyun’s car.
“It was barely an hour,” he whined cutely, making your heart clench. He used to whine like that when you would choose studying over sex with him … and look how that turned out. “Besides all you did was listen to me moan about rehearsals. I wanted to hear about what kept you busy when I moved away,” he added.
Your daughter kept me busy, you thought to yourself, feeling the same pang of guilt you felt when you thought of Zoe whilst talking to Baekhyun.
“I didn’t mind listening to you moan,” you exclaimed, hoping to pull the attention away from you and what happened in the 5 years of no contact. “Clearly you needed to vent about all that stress. Are rehearsals going well so far?” you asked quietly.
You heard him sigh loudly down the phone. He sounded just as tired as you did. “So far so good,” he commented quietly. “At the end of the week, we’re having our first run-through in the stadium. It’s absolutely massive.” As tired as he was, he sounded genuinely excited about the concert, no matter how draining it was for him.
His mention of the stadium sparked your interest. “How many people will be at the concert?” you asked, hoping to sound nonchalant.
“I think the stadium’s capacity is 15000 and we’ve sold out. It’s insane, there’s going to be so many fans there,” he exclaimed enthusiastically, probably grinning from ear to ear at the thought of his fans filling up the stadium.
That was one thing definitely different about Baekhyun: he had such love for his fans and always spoke of them fondly like he knew them all on a personal level. But you couldn’t pretend to understand it. It was something that separated you and Baekhyun and left you in your own realities. He had thousands … millions looking up to him and counting on him whereas you just had Zoe – two very different sides of the same coin.
Knowing the likelihood that Zoe would be lost amongst the thousands of screaming fans, you started to warm to the idea of her going to the concert. Long after Baekhyun hung up to go back to rehearsals, you stayed up, weighing up the unlikely worst case scenario of Baekhyun spotting Zoe in the giant crowd and by some cosmic miracle knowing she was his daughter, versus the simple fact that your daughter would be so happy to go.
In the morning, you met Elle’s mother outside the school gates. As the head of the advertising agency Baekhyun’s company were using, she had managed to secure only three tickets: one for her, one for Elle and one for Zoe, which meant you wouldn’t be taking Zoe. You wouldn’t be there to draw Baekhyun’s attention to his daughter.
And that sealed the decision … Zoe was going to her first concert.
###
From the minute you told Zoe she could go, EXO had slowly taken over your lives. When you weren’t in the car with the CD blasting so Zoe could sing happily from the backseat, you were watching them on the TV so Zoe could learn the dances. And when Elle came over to play, you tended to just avoid your daughter’s bedroom completely.
However, as the weeks quickly counted down to the concert, you heard less and less from Baekhyun. He still managed to send you a couple of texts each day if he had the time between run-throughs but usually he was rehearsing or sleeping. You understood how exhausted he was but you missed talking to him on a daily basis. It felt like you only just got your best friend back.
But at the end of the day, he was EXO’s Baekhyun first and that’s why he could never know about Zoe, because he couldn’t put her first like she deserved.
###
“You want me to take the girls to the concert?” you cried down the phone, spitting your tea out all over the kitchen counter.
It was Thursday, two days before the concert, and you were just about to leave to take Zoe to school when Elle’s father had called out of the blue. Apparently Elle’s mother had been rushed to hospital to have her appendix removed in an emergency operation late last night and wouldn’t be able to take the girls this Saturday.
“I know it’s all of a sudden but I’m giving an important presentation that day and the concert is all Elle’s been able to talk about so we’d hate to let the girls down,” Elle’s father explained, while you mopped up the spilt tea.
You were convinced the universe was out to get you, constantly throwing curve balls that pulled you and Baekhyun closer and making it more likely for him to find out the truth. The concert was the one thing you had hoped to avoid and you especially didn’t want to take Zoe. At the same time, you didn’t want to be the reason her little heart was broken. This concert meant so much to her – the first major memory she was going to make with her best friend.
 Besides, how likely was it really that you’d cross paths with Baekhyun? He’d probably be too busy focused on his performance.
“If I say no, I doubt either of us will hear the end of it,” you joked lightly, running your hand through your hair. You couldn’t believe you were agreeing to this. “I’ll pick Elle and the tickets up Saturday morning,” you added, wishing Elle’s mother a successful surgery before hanging up.
Zoe ran through the kitchen, her hair already falling out of the ponytail. “Mummy, I brushed my teeth,” she declared proudly with a big smile on her face.
“Well done little one,” you told her, pulling the ponytail out to let her hair fall loose around her face. She looked prettier with her hair down – more like you. “Can you put your lunchbox in your school bag and then look out the window to see if you need a coat today?”
With a quick nod, she sprinted out of the room, shouting that it looked like it was going to rain.
Leaning back against the counter, you sighed loudly and gulped half of your tea down in one gulp, wishing it was something a lot stronger. You were definitely opening a bottle of wine this evening.
###
Saturday morning came along quickly and you didn’t have a spare second to think about Baekhyun and what would happen if he spotted you, too busy trying to contain two very excitable five year olds. You arrived a little early to the stadium, after taking the girls out for a late lunch, but there was so many fans outside already, selling merchandise and fan goods. After a lot of pleading and puppy dog eyes from Zoe and Elle, and then a lot of queueing, you bought lightsticks for all three of you, seeing as everyone was walking around with one.
Then Zoe spotted a stall selling fans with Kai’s face on and quickly you were being dragged into another queue. However, the smile on your daughter’s face when the fan was handed to her warmed your heart and made it completely worth it. You did the same for Elle too, getting her a fan with Suho’s face on.
“Mummy, you need a fan too,” Zoe exclaimed, with Elle chiming in agreeance.
“But Mummy doesn’t have a favourite member,” you replied, laughing a little as their face screwed up in concentration while they tried to think of a member for you.
Then Elle looked up at you with a beaming smile. “I think you should get a Baekhyun fan,” she declared brightly, and Zoe seemed to agree. Neither of them noticed your face drop, too busy trying to drag you to someone selling Baekhyun goods.
“Yes, he’s perfect for you Mummy. He could be your boyfriend,” Zoe continued, ignorant to how close to the truth she actually was.
Before they could pull you further, you noticed crowds starting to pour into the stadium. “Look girls, it’s time to go in. We need to go and find our seats,” you cheered loudly, completely distracting them and allowing them to pull you towards the gate you were supposed to enter through.
Inside the stadium, you found your seats and looked out at the stage in front of you. Your seats were in the raised seating that went right around the stadium, in the front row right in the middle looking out at the centre of the stage. You took a picture of the girls in front of the stage and sent it to Elle’s mum saying thank you. The seats were amazing and hopefully you were back far enough for Baekhyun not to spot you.
While you waited for the stadium to fill up with fans, you helped the girls work their lightsticks and synced them up to your phone so they would change colour along with everyone else’s. As you were syncing up your own, your phone started to ring. It was Baekhyun.
Quickly digging in your bag, you gave Zoe and Elle a bag of sweets to share and then pulled your hood of your coat up to hide the noise of the stadium from Baekhyun as you answered. “Hello stranger,” you said brightly, excited to hear his voice after so long.
“I’m sorry,” he immediately started, his soft voice giving you jitters in your stomach. “Things have been so crazy, especially now that the concert series has started.”
“It’s fine,” you replied casually. The Baekhyun you grew up with wouldn’t go a day without contacting you, even if you’d had an argument the day before, but this Baekhyun was different, busy being an idol in a world that couldn’t fit you.
“I just needed to hear your voice before I went on stage,” he admitted quietly, leaving you smiling into the collar of your coat like you were a teenager again.
“Have you got your fix yet?” you joked, speaking the words slowly.
He sighed loudly down the phone. “Never,” he breathed and you wondered if you had imagined him saying it at all.
“You should probably go. Isn’t your concert starting soon?” you murmured quietly, looking out at the stadium that was filled to the brim with fans waiting for EXO.
In the background, you heard someone call out that it was 10 minutes until show time. “I’ll text you after the concert,” he promised.
“Try not to trip and fall,” you told him with a laugh, wishing him good luck with the same phrase you used when he would perform in his school band. And with his laughter running through your head, he hung up, completely unaware that you’d be seeing him very soon.
###
The girls were absolutely loving the concert, bouncing around with their noise-safety headphones without a care in the world. Seeing how happy Zoe was, how excited she was to be at her first concert with her first best friend: it made you forget all the worry and stress leading up the concert and just enjoy the moment. Your daughter had a beaming smile glued to her face and it made you unbelievably happy to see.
It was amazing watching Baekhyun on the stage too. He was the same loud excitable puppy you knew him to be and it was obvious to see he was where he was supposed to be, doing what he loved. His singing was breath-takingly beautiful as always and it seemed like he’d taken a few dance lessons in the past five years too. You always knew he belonged on the stage performing but actually seeing him do it to thousands of fans all screaming his name – he really was incredible.
During the concert, all the members of EXO broke choreography and started running around the stage, greeting their fans with smiling faces while singing. Zoe instantly launched herself towards the railings, waving her fan around when Kai came near. He gave a little wave in your daughter’s direction and left her screaming louder than before … if that was possible.
Elle was the same when Suho walked past, waving her fan around to grab his attention. He spotted her waving and came as close to the railings as he could, waving to her and blowing a little kiss. Thankfully you had your phone on hand so you could take a picture of the adorable moment.
After quickly sending the picture to Elle’s mother, you looked up from your phone and your eyes met very familiar ones staring at you in wonder. “Baekhyun,” you breathed silently, quickly lifting your lightstick to cover your face.
His face scrunched in a quick scowl but it brightened up like a burning star and his smile was the only thing you could see. “Later,” his lips moved and then he went back to waving to fans, acting as if nothing had happened.
“Ah shit!”
[masterlist]
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carlostom420 · 4 years
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Trends in Ecommerce in 2020
As we enter
The second 50% 2020, Dan Barker examines the key trends which can be set to model ecommerce, and how retailers can answer them.  
The first
Half of 20 20 has been eventful for ecommerce.  Of course technical invention has progressed: Shopify launched a marketplace, Google relaunched organic product listings, Facebook introduced'shops', and also thousands of different alterations. But a lot of this first 50% 2020 was shaped by a disease called after 20-19.  
The effects
Of'SARS2' on ecommerce really are tough to overstate.  Tens and thousands of businesses sold on the web for the very first time.  Millions of transactions that could normally took place in stores changed on the web.  Ecommerce went from'high priority' for many retail businesses to'the priority'.  
Some Categories of retail jumped out of being 10 20 % on the web, to 100 percent online.  
Entire Countries' retail engines were retained ticking , by virtue of the ability to buy online.  
Some areas
Of ecommerce have fought -- particularly in some aspects of fashion, travel, events.  
For most Retailers, the ecommerce station has allowed them to flourish.  By DIY stores, to dwelling exercise businesses, directly to organizations like Tesco, have been more than 90 percent for ecommerce earnings in May 2020 versus the prior year.  
As we proceed Into the next half of the calendar year, it's likely more people will likely be shopping in stores yet again; a lot people will go back to working at the least aspect of this time in offices; many of us could be tightening our belts.  Nonetheless, it is unlikely that ecommerce will return again to the level that it was in prior to March 2020.  
This informative article Analyzes seven regions where retailers and ecommerce businesses may add focus, so as to flourish from the next half the year.  
Suggestion 1: Data & AI
That is a Bit of a cheat really, as (firstly) it's 2 elements, and (secondly) both data and AI have been hyped always for at least a couple of years.  There are some differences that this year.  
'Data' is
Something that's always talked about as having elevated importance.  Generally speaking there is normally a whole lot more data around ecommerce compared to conventional retail, and the theory is that it's a competitive edge.  The reason it's a little Additional importance now Is That a Lot of regular company patterns have changed
Your Customers are acting differently.  
Your Suppliers are behaving otherwise.  
Your Competitors are behaving differently.  
For
Example: You might have budgeted a particular PPC spend per month at the onset of the year, also had a sensible assumption of how many new customers & just how much revenue that would bring each month -- most probably on the basis of past year's amounts plus the issuer you would expect from your level of growth.  
But later Panic buying, physical retail getting shut for months, clients of varying financial equilibrium, and competitions either leaning into extra demand or driving efficiency where there's a shortage of demand, it's likely your PPC economy has changed enormously.  And that same factor applies across every marketing station.  
Whereas
Many retailers guide their actions and aims on the grounds of designs in years past each one the patterns have changed.  In some cases, change shifts to a degree it is difficult to even guide on the basis of what happened a couple weeks ago.  So focusing on data could be the perfect approach to succeed along with your trading plan, your marketing plan, your buying plan, your customer experience strategy.  
More
Customers than ever are buying online at the moment.  If your competition is using data to quantify their behaviour and answer this, and you're not, that gives them a terrific opportunity to acquire new customers at this strange moment & service them long into the future.  
Amazon in
The west, also JD.com, Alibaba, along with many others from the east, are built on principles of data driven merchandising, product recommendations, fitting clients with all the services and products they are most likely to purchase.  In the event that you can cause the capability to make use of data better for the short term at a similar manner, it protects you from others amassing your customers, and  may have a material impact in your own likelihood to be successful from the next half of the year.  
The 2nd Part of this is'AI'.  AI is one of the nebulous terms which was hyped for most decades.  Just a little like'the year of cellphone', which was hyped for about ten years before it immediately engulfed everything once everybody had stopped talking about it'the entire year of AI' is just one of these things that has been discussed about as on the cusp for the last few years.  
And, only Such as'the year of mobile','''the year of AI' (or perhaps'the entire year of Machine Learning') ostensibly came and engulfed us a couple of years ago without many really realizing:
Many Display ads that you see around the web are placed infront of you simply because of machine learned calculations.  
Google's Ads engine -- that the fuel behind the firm's revenue -- has transferred increasingly more toward AI tools (whether or not they serve as they are tagged is just another matter)
Twitter, Facebook, And all of the other major societal networks use machine learned systems to determine what you -- a reader -- will and won't see.  We question'freewill' generally, however there is no freewill on societal media marketing: what we view is guided by robots.  
Amazon have Managed to develop an advertising business from almost no to $4bn from the last quarter of 2019, fundamentally through the ability of machine-learned systems.  
In many Cases, machine learning is used to perform relatively simple tasks:
Showing a Customer the merchandise they truly are most likely to purchase, instead of random items from the 10,000+ SKU catalogue.  
Ranking Your group pages to maximise your likely gross margin yield.  
Categorizing Customer service requests to accelerate lifetime for the CS staff.  
Estimating Propensity to purchase, to inform your CRM campaigns.  
I.e.: The Nebulous, and sometimes meaningless, talk to'AI' has been replaced by (at least now) its results: algorithms & processes built into programs, to gently improve your results, built ontop of most of the major platforms, baked right into ecommerce platforms, or enabled by third party sellers who could plug in a types of straightforward customer-experience tweaks into your own systems.  
In case You're Able to jump beyond the hype, and implement a number of these tools in specific locations, we're now at a point where you're able to attain the work of classes of folks using simple'AI' tools.  
Factor 2: Digital abilities
Digital Skills have changed the world over the previous 50 decades.  A few of the planet's top richest people made all their money through digital technology (Jeff Bezos,'' Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg), and also the other six have a massive reliance on it from Warren Buffett and his investments to Bernard Arnault and his luxury empire.  
It reveals US Ecommerce for a percentage of overall retail sales.  As you can see, in a single eight-week period up to the end of might, ecommerce had increased by the same level because it had done over the entirety of their prior ten decades.  
Every day
There's really a fairly major story at the press extending this tendency:
Inditex, Zara's parent company, announced they are closing 16% of stores and focusing that cash and effort on ecommerce.  
DPD -- that the Logistics firm -- in the UK announced they are recruiting 6,000 more visitors to help with ecommerce shipping requirement later.  
The UK
Government has announced their plan to upgrade the country's'digital strategy', and it appears that fundamentally means'trying to grow people's digital skills).  
Efforts in The past to'grow digital skills' have regularly been'pushed', attempting to push a boulder uphill; in this scenario, that the boulder is rolling the other method, and we're hurrying to grab onto it.  Across many industries,'digital skills' is going to be in greater demand than there is supply, but in retail -- where requirement for'digital trade' has grown so fast -- this shortage is already observable, especially for experienced individuals who've been there and done that, and also understand whether spending a couple of million on a major job will genuinely reap rewards, or even only be a waste of resource and time.  
The occupation Economy is at a state of flux, together with some terrific people, in unlucky sections, looking around for new jobs.  And remote working was normalized.  Combine the two of those, and it means organizations will get talent to help them grow further, and if they are prepared to continue in partial remote mode, this gift might be 100 or even 1000 or even 10,000 miles out of their HQ, as opposed to within an hour commute.  
Factor 3: Personalisation
You will find Some businesses where personalization doesn't matter: In case you are simply selling a lean amount of SKUs, there's not much it is possible to effortlessly customize.  If you are selling largely via Amazon, or Google Shopping ads, then you don't need to be concerned much about personalization, as their calculations take action for you.  
However, should Your stock is only a couple hundred products or whatever above, matching your clients with these services and products they're most likely to buy is probably the easiest method of raising the chance that they'll buy from you in just about any given visit to your website.  
If a site
Sells 100,000 services and products, setting 10 products at random facing an individual provides you a very large probability of showing them items they are not interested in. Slimming down to the 10 products they are more likely to purchase based on the credit history, exactly what other users have bought in their context, lowers the chances of showing them'the wrong' product in order to avoid annoying themand give them an opportunity to purchase.  
And whereas At a single point, adequate customization tools were confined to larger retailers, now they truly are abundant, and easy to use, and simple to launching -- simple enough that ecommerce websites could have some thing better than their present system within a few months, perhaps within fourteen days.  
Suggestion 4: Competing with Amazon
On the Last couple of decades, if you were at a'plan day' to an ecommerce business, you'd very likely observe the language'Competing With Amazon' to a flipchart sooner or later. Usually that's from the point of view of this question:"In a world where Amazon is present, and also a person will find us all of our competitors immediately, what's the purpose inside our new?"  
Based To Alexa.com, which used to be separate but has been bought by Amazon themselves, the main website -- Amazon.com -- is the 14th most visited site on the web.  An normal user on a given day spends nine minutes and 21 seconds on the site. Amazon fairly gradually climbed their advertisements firm 41% to a $4.8 billion thing at Q4 of 20-19 -- a firm nearly as big as British Airways -- chiefly by drastically bumping up the sum of sponsored product views round their own assets.  
Many more Customers are purchasing online at the moment, and a lot have formed customs around Amazon.  Speaking very broadly speaking: Even the 'informed' an individual, the less they're very likely to compare a few sellers, and also a lot more likely they'll only go'Amazon automatically'.  You only have to look at how many Amazon deliveries arrive in your way vs every other company to have an idea how much Covid-19 has impacted the greatest online retailer at the country's degrees of demand.  
If Amazon Is the default option for the merchandise types, and also you don't make compelling reasons for customers to purchase from you, and it's likely you will have a harder and harder time, either through losing customers into themthrough paying them advertisements fees to clearly show your services and products to their customers.  
Potential Options for generating that competitive advantage comprise:
1.  BrandSome Customers may buy a pair of TOZO T10 ear buds because Amazon's algorithm pushes them the most challenging, but many will actively hunt out Bose, or Airpodssimply because they understand and trust the new.  
It's
Unlikely you will become Apple or Bose instantly, but it's not been simpler or more economical to convey your brand, and gain a competitive advantage. Building a new takes years, however shoving forward the best components of one's new on your internet site and your product attributes on the others' sites usually takes only a couple of hours.  
2.  MissionIf
Customers are adapting to the mission of one's company, there's a good chance they'll buy from you rather than simply taking the default option of Amazon.  
A pleasant Example of the is ArenaFlowers.com: They've removed single usage plastics from their deliveries (actually their paper is created from recycled blossom waste)that they plant a shrub for each and every arrangement, also donate 1 to 2 women's aid, and cover all staff a Real Living Wage.  Their job is to improve lives in communities across the Earth, and you also may send exquisite flowers, and align yourself with and support that assignment, by simply buying from their website.  
At a time
When customers are more sensitive to the way they spend their money, which causes they align to (you only have to check out the movement to discontinue particular brands advertising on Facebook to see signs of this), even if you get a positive mission, it is sensible to ensure customers understand it.  
3.  ContentWhile
Amazon do invest alot in articles, few see your website with any intention aside from a transactional purchase.  Being an authoritative content source inside your category can be an obvious way to create in customers before they reach the final transaction stage.  Together with Google pushing featured snippets more heavily, and lots of'newly ecommerce by default option' clients willing to take to fresh providers, H 2 is a good time to spend some time on pushing forward'articles' if you aren't able to.  
4.  Customer experience
I remember
Once talking with someone fairly high up in Amazon.  He asked"do you really know why people buy from Amazon?"  I can't recall my answer, but his top 3 factors were'Logistics','Customer Support','Choice and Selection'.  While price and selection are all various things, the initial two here are fundamentally about assuring smooth client experience.  Should Amazon believe'customer experience' is their number 1 and number 2 factor, and you also want to take on themit should be in your radar as one variable.  
5.  HabitMany People Buy from Amazon out of utter dependence.  We've trained ourselves to test first for any given product.  It's equally possible for additional ecommerce organizations to build in'habit' elements.  For example: ASOS grew to prominence depending on the strength of'brand new' styles.  Consumers would check back every day to check out new releases.  Boo-hoo followed with the identical strategy, and has a enormous crowd of routinely daily blog checkers.  
Regardless of 'newness', there are a variety of strategies to boost the custom of visiting your site regularly, or visiting it when a particular product jumps into your potential customer's mind; putting some focus on this is likely to take a time, however likely not heavy price.  
6.  Product exclusivity
Even if you Sell via Amazon, there's no need to set your whole catalogue on there.  Even when you simply hold back new launches for a few days from Amazon, and factor into your launching apps, to try and draw clients directly.  
7. Convenience & locality
For those who can Build in convenience, or even a tie to a reachable physical place, and then you have a bonus Amazon does not.  
At a time
When so many folks are spending more on the web, and where Amazon may be your dominant biz in many categories, thinking through some of those aforementioned may only take a few hours, and may reap reward that compounds over months and years.  
Factor 5: Reacting to changing customer behaviour
Like I've
Said during, among the larger changes today is that customer behavior has changed a great deal compared to'normal' times.  That distinguishes itself in several ways, however Some of the important ones can be divided into'short term' and'long term' modifications:
Short Term, There are lots of customer behaviour changes.  You need to learn those for your customers better than any article, and also working to execute in a means that takes them under consideration now, and to morrow and then week may also bring short term results.   Only a Couple of those more universal changes within ecommerce include:
Category shift
You will find Regular shifts in which categories are purchased at the moment.  From weights and home fitness equipment and fabric masks and plastic shields... into DIY products.  Staying on top of the, and forecasting it as best you can into the foreseeable future, can bring very good outcomes.  
In most
Sectors, some product categories possess'trended', along with many others fallen flat. Ecommerce includes a enormous advantage here vs stores, and this is really one of those places that can have a huge impact: From saving cash spent on product categories that will not sell in 2020, to leaning into trends that suddenly spike beyond reality, there are constant opportunities .  
Openness to New manufacturers
Where Clients are buying products they do not routinely purchase each month or week, and a few are switching into internet vs offline, there's an opportunity to open up them to your own brand -- something they truly are likely much more open minded to than at that time when they could simply drop in to B&Q to select one up of your competitors' services and products.  
Returns sensitivity
Many
Customers don't need to queue for the postoffice.  On larger white goods, it's not possible to reunite any (providers simply not needing ).  As a result, many clients are much more sensitive to returns service and policies at the moment
Long-term, Additionally, there are some big changes.  I would expect they'll contain:
Ecommerce Automatically
As already Mentioned, whereas earlier some one could have opted to drive 20 miles to go into John Lewis, for the foreseeable future many may elect for JohnLewis.com rather than  I.e., there is much greater interest in ecommerce solutions, and that expansion would be always to a extent among less savvy buyers.  
Price sensitivity
There Was Likely much higher economic uncertainty on the horizon.  Many brands are flooded with stock (particularly within fashion), and also suppliers themselves are copied with a lot more stock.  In theory that leads to a'perfect storm' of ignoring.  For instance: boo-hoo are currently upto 70 percent off + an extra 20 percent; John Lewis are on up to 70 percent clearance.  
All these are Predictable: As soon as stores shut, you might predict with 10 minutes thought this would happen.  Either retailers could lock upward stock till 2021 (costly out of the warehouse point of perspective ), or negotiate with providers to take back stock (hard to handle logistically) or might attempt to spur earnings together by blowing off at some time.  
These are Simple instances, but hopefully illustrate that there are predictable changes on the list of inconsistent right now, also there will remain to the remainder of 20 20.  Putting in enough opportunity to call themplan them around puts you in much better stead than drifting with this season's wave.  
Factor 6: Protecting from recession
There is
Plenty of talk of'choppy waters' on the horizon, and many companies also have sadly bumped into rocks .  Ecommerce businesses Aren't completely protected from this, but there are some components that offer a Bit greater durability naturally:
Ecommerce Businesses tend to focus more toward customer loyalty than entirely offline retailers -- building connections with customers, as opposed to only expecting those clients to arrive waiting for you.  The capacity to predict purchase, and respond if reality differs from your forecast, me an you are able to steer with substantially greater certainty.  
Having Relationships with clients also lets you react quicker: If suddenly all your VIPs are nolonger buying, you can create an assumption in what that means and fix; or also literally phone each one of them up.  
Ecommerce Can also run to much shorter time scales.  Whereas measuring the ramifications of a television campaign on a group of regional stores may take weeks/months to get any meaningful data and publication the following round of advertising spots, quantifying a PPC report's impact within an ecommerce site is fundamentally instant.  That can be taken for granted, but at an occasion where price sensitivity can be really a huge dilemma, being ontop of all your marketing and advertising channels' pay is important, and tracking for changes 'brand new customer conversion speed','cost per newly gained customer', and so on to help steer.  
On the Supply-side, ecommerce companies may also act with a bit more agility.  Stock is much simpler to handle in one central warehouse than a group of stores, also replenishment much quicker.  This simplifies moving into especially large marketing classes.  
A few of the
Activity you might look at to'protect from downturn' may be obvious -- such as buying in low priced things to take into account increased price sensitivity, or focusing on your own fixed cost arrangement to safeguard cash in the event of unpredicted need.  Some of it maybe less obvious: examining different models, as an instance, extending your principal business.  
As one
Obvious illustration of the -- H&M Group largely sell their own brands in-store.  A while ago they launched a'evaluation' brand socket, ostensibly an internet TK Maxx competitor.  Initially it was in Sweden, however within the Covid19 lock-down period they will have also launched it in Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands.  You can look at Afound.com.  
This may be Coincidence, or it may be H&M Group understanding that the channel is going to be flooded with stock that's been locked up in stores, and a simple means to produce value from this would be always to develop a fresh socket, by which they may use lots of their pre-existing processes and skills to answer customer requirement, and also perhaps clear some of their very own inventory.  
Factor 7: Know the implications for your overall customer experience approach
This really is A Wrapup of those other'factors', but is important to consider in a level, in addition to in granular containers.  A whole lot of the elements above are about'customer experience', and also to achieve improvements in overall client experience it's sometimes a lot easier to have a look at matters in terms of one's general customer experience plan.  
To distill Some of the major trends you could want to simply take in to account when considering your CX plan:
There is a Much higher proportion of retail demand online right now.  This will likely soften just a bit, but will continue in the future, unquestionably far above the percentage it had been prior to the coming of Covid-19.  
You will find Increased expectations around customer-experience, marginally fueled by Amazon as well as other larger retailers subsidizing experience through lower profits, or during volume.  
There is a Current raised sensitivity to ecommerce organizations' assignments, or worth, or perhaps the way that they perform business, even though price is actually a really essential factor, a few clients do genuinely desire to get from businesses whose values fit their world view.  
There is High need for those skills to get ecommerce directly.  That is twinned using a new approval of a far greater amount of remote working, and a continuing flow of people onto the career market with semi-transferrable skills from internet travel, hospitality, etc..  That hasn't been fully plotted on however, therefore there's a chance for those adding skills earlier to their own teams to benefit.  
Most of the Above could be seen as challenges, but can also be viewed as opportunities.  
20 20 has Been a disorientating year for most people, and also a difficult year thus far for many.  
The first
Half included a lot of hard-to-forecast shift.  The 2nd half is likely to become full of modification, but in theory it has greater predictability compared to first half, and this brings another chance for ecommerce.  
Ecommerce Is at a hugely blessed position: Safe just a little vs off line retail, in demand by consumers, more nimble, nevertheless largely able to use one of societal bookmarking and lock down, with a demand for gift which means somewhat better job security, and an OK flow of fresh entrants into industry from adjacent sectors that have been harder hit.  
There Was Still wonderful challenge for most businesses in ecommerce, plus some of greater Ecommerce companies will reap the maximum, but thinking through where you are At the context of your goals, and the opportunities available for your requirements among
The above seven factors, can hopefully bring a slightly less jarring, more Predictable, and much more positive next half the season.
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michellelewis7162 · 4 years
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Predictive Analysis
Predictive Analysis
 Exactly how can analytical knowledge from the purchases records assist maximize my profits? Exactly how can I take full advantage of the worth of my offerings to my dedicated consumers? Which item markets even more and also what is the stock? These are actually a number of the concerns that are actually normally encountered through retailers. Retailers additionally experience problems like expensive establishment sites, slim margins and also rare consumer devotion. A retail store also needs to take into consideration every classification while making smarter choices as well as manage their businesses better. Predictive Analytics Methodology
 Reporting without analysis merely offers response to yesterday's concerns. Analytical reporting request combines the advantages of static service stating along with the involved attributes of evaluation right into one document to get informative evaluation mentioned throughout the organisation. Analytical stating delivers a complete coverage service neighbored through a very highly effective analytical device coupled with a simple to use setting for today's service user Ann Arbor.
 Analytical devices as well as statistical approaches assist sellers recognize the trend of the data and also make service options. Let our team cover about analytical services beginning with predictive analytics.
 Predictive analytics supplies the marketing expert with one thing beyond standard company documents and also sales forecasts i.e., workable predictions for every special situation. These prophecies could possibly incorporate all networks, each online and off, foreseeing which customers will certainly buy, click on, respond, and also convert. Predictive analytical designs make use of styles discovered in historic transactional information to recognize risks and also possibilities. Versions grab partnerships among lots of elements to enable assessment of threat or ability connected with a particular set of decisions.
 Predictive analytics is actually an information exploration innovation that utilizes client data to develop an anticipating style specialized for service procedures. This analysis calls for cumulative info on customer's purchase, behaviour and also demographics. Predictive designs evaluate previous functionality of a client to boost market performance to assess just how probably customer behaves. This process picks up from your company's cumulative adventures through leveraging your existing logs of consumer purchases, behavior as well as demographics.
 Sellers can include predictive analytics into their everyday procedures to strengthen their service processes. This will enhance a retail store's choice making and also they would certainly gain the ability to guide, enhance, as well as automate selections, to comply with defined organisation goals. By using predictive analytics, they may improve their chance and also selection helping make processes Ann Arbor.
 Predictive analytics delivers a quantitative base for rapidly recognizing, objectively evaluating as well as with certainty going after brand new market options. It assists retail companies not just to expand and produce revenue swiftly and also predictably however likewise boost the operating efficiency as well as allow stores to help make more correct projections, take care of information and also improve purchases productivity.
 Just before getting going on the topic permit me bring to pass an inquiry. What is the primary tip of a retail service? After talking about with several retail supervisors, I was capable to make an assumption about what they carry out believe regarding regularly. It is, assured good gains. However all company happens along with an integral danger being actually related to it. So just how carries out a retail store make sure that he is spending his loan because assurance of great profits with minimum danger?
 Additionally, retail is certainly not nearly investing of items along with the idea of getting some scope upon the investment made. It consists of several other facets like comprehending customer obtaining practices, tastes, inclinations, free products, substitutable items, prices, promotions, accounting allowance etc. Today Indian retail market is actually improving as never prior to along with challenging competition coming from every player to make it through available. Possessing comprehended the scenario, just how does a retail store handle this difficult environment without shedding the idea of guaranteed excellent gains?
 With the exploration on electrical of stats as well as stylish maths in retail it is actually feasible to handle the normal circumstance described above. Predictive analytics which is the science worried about the prediction of future possibilities and also patterns along with an appropriate degree of reliability MI.
 If you feel like many marketers and businessmen, there possess likely be actually opportunities when you have longed for a clairvoyance to see how your customers would certainly react to your advertising campaigns. While there are zero recognized crystal spheres, there is one thing that can easily assist: predictive analytics.
 Predictive analytics was when a method only available to Fortune 500 providers geared up along with substantial records mining as well as advertising finances. Having said that, today entrepreneurs and also business equally are actually leveraging predictive analytics to optimize their marketing budgets MI.
 Predictive analytics is actually a loosely-defined set of data source marketing and also statistical methods made use of to make designs that can easily capitalize on patterns found in historical data. A firm's negotiable information is actually checked for underlying partnerships as well as trends that can at that point be actually made use of to anticipate client actions in the future. This form of study gives company owner with information we can utilize to make much better decisions regarding our advertising and marketing strategies MI.
 What all of this implies for businesses is this: you may make use of the transactional data you have been collecting coming from your on the web shop or traditional store front as well as incorporate it with externally-available records so as to anticipate future consumer or possibility actions. As your business owner or even advertising and marketing supervisor, you become encouraged to classify customers located on their different attributes and also actions.
 There are practically pair of forms of consumer data: qualities and actions. Characteristics associate to that your consumers are, like age, income, race, and also site are actually all qualities. At the same time, habits are actually activities that your customers' take relative to your items, companies, offerings and advertisings. For instance, a client's e-mail action rate, whether they take business surveys, just how often they look for the firm's product can all be cross-tabulated versus whether the customer carries out or does not create a purchase 48104.
 This kind of information offers you understandings into who your clients are. It also permits you to predict what they will certainly perform in reaction to specific advertising stimulations. For instance, suppose you have the capacity to meaningfully classify your consumers based upon their overall purchase volume within the past year as being greater or even lower than $300. Utilizing predictive analytics located upon your historic customer as well as sales purchase records, you can easily determine what various other data, such as grow older, nationality, revenue, or maybe the time of day, week, month, or even year, may be used to forecast which getting group a given client probably belongs to.
 There are actually thousands of possible variables that may be made use of to much better predict a customer or even prospective customer's behavior. Some of these variables will definitely end up being unnecessary (or, as we mention, "not predictive"), of potential actions. However, other variables will certainly exhibit a higher degree of relationship along with investment habits. You can easily make use of these highly-relevant variables to create an anticipating design as well as administer it to those customers who have certainly not but bought from you 48104.
 This way, you can easily concentrate on your best, very most successful consumers, targeting them with carefully-designed advertising and marketing and also special offerings. Along with predictive analytics, anonymous these consumers are actually as well as what they will reply to. This info can assist you better design ads, initiatives, web sites, or perhaps your organisation design Swansea.
 Who Benefits From Predictive Analytics
 Merely a decision-making device, predictive analytics is utilized in a wide array of fields. For instance, an insurance provider may make use of the tool to establish the possibility that they will possess to shell out for a potential insurance claim. The resolution of likelihoods is actually located on a present threat pool of comparable insurance policy holders and also previous events that have actually caused payouts.
 Marketing professionals utilize the tool to assess how individuals respond to the total economic climate. They use the outcome when they plan new campaigns. They likewise use this device to established adjustments in demographics to determine if their current mix of products are going to induce clients to make an acquisition.
 In add-on, stores can use it to accomplish one-upmanships. For instance, predictive analytics may assist firms that deliver numerous products to offer added products to specific consumers. It aids sellers maintain consumers. One study located that a 5% rise in customer recognition prices equates to 25% to 95% of increased earnings. Moreover, it can aid shops target consumers Swansea.
 Traders of safety and securities use predictive analytics to analyze a selection of metrics based upon past activities so that they can easily determine whether to purchase a safety and security. In addition, the device helps traders to anticipate potential cost motions based upon historic records.
 It is likewise a perfect device for credit rating racking up, which is made use of in the business of financial companies. In this particular situation, predictive analytics utilizes a customer's credit rating, funding use as well as consumer records to rank customers' chance of helping make future credit scores repayments on time. In addition, Financial companies use it in their compilation activities. They recognize that a ton of their information are thrown away on customers who will certainly probably not spend their costs. Predictive analytics can easily assist banks to develop necessary strategies for each consumer raising repayments while lowering selection costs. It likewise assists financial companies in recognizing risky fraudulence candidates Swansea.
 The tool of predictive analytics can likewise be utilized in telecommunications, traveling, medical care, child protection, pharmaceutical, preparing and also various other areas.
 For instance, in youngster protection, kid welfare firms have begun making use of the innovation to recognize risky situations.
 In medical care, predictive analytics is actually being actually utilized to determine who goes to danger of creating specific illness including diabetes, bronchial asthma, cardiovascular disease, as well as a lot more. It is actually likewise made use of to support decision-making when alleviating a patient SA1 8AS.
 The telecommunication sector is actually making use of the device to better know client actions, improve client knowledge, as well as be actually practical in managing client issues.
 Predictive analytics assists the travel field deliver clients suggestions that feature what airline company tickets to acquire as well as accommodations to manual, as well as sensing units in airplanes can easily prepare for upcoming complications that may then be actually repaired prior to they become disastrous.
 Drug providers are actually using predictive analytics to assist all of them in finding out brand-new medications and also to minimize damaging end results.
 It is evident that machine discovering may give a variety of aid to any form of business despite the field.
 Predictive analytics is utilized in many different methods to allow businesses to make enlightened selections at a small degree. The most significant variation from one mode of application to an additional is what is actually being predicted. Today it is predominantly made use of by providers to calculate connections amongst inner variables such as cost positioning or personnel capabilities. Along with predictive analytics it is actually achievable to transform records into predictive understandings that help to shape frontline selections SA1 8AS.
 It aids to discover as well as stop dangers as well as scams prior to they impact your associations. It makes it possible for institutions to nose out competitors with additional critical proactive choice using these analytics solutions.
 In the age of large records anticipating customer assumptions among significantly threatening competitions, organizations are actually relocating from typical analytics to analytics that deliver a glimpse into the future. Therefore predictive analytics is actually one of one of the most highly effective analytics that providers can utilize to acquire a conveniences and also win.
Numerous perks of predictive analytics consist of helpful as well as financially rewarding campaigns along with notifications and also supplies that are developed to be actually totally appropriate to target receivers. This form of analytics applies to a large variety of companies processes. Growth of forecast has the prospective to create significant return on expenditure. Nevertheless tasks needs to be actually identified as a mixture of individuals, procedures as well as technology SA1 8AS.
 The possibilities to give and administer predictive analytics to boost functional as well as strategic choice making are numerous. This is a type of analytics that is used for establishing celebrations or outcomes just before they occur. Predictive analytics and big data are actually exciting as well as in some cases virtually thrilling concepts to nerds and business folks.
 It is actually very practical in generating brand new service opportunities in conventional fields. This analytics is useless when marketing to a few of clients. It affects a lot additional fields that the three high danger sectors such as insurance policy, power and financial. It matches completely into those designs to predict probably end results, make better decisions and also receive additional successful outcomes.
 This analytics may enhance huge quantities of organized and also disorderly information into actionable knowledge that can allow one to forecast what occasions are actually very likely to happen upcoming and also behave correctly. Acquiring consumer records can easily be done by compiling client practices and tastes and also acquiring habits. It is the branch of data mining which is predominantly focused along with the prophecy of future probabilities and also trends. The main feature of this analytics is actually the forecaster a variable that could be assessed for a personal or even an entity that can easily forecast potential fads.
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showlexsite · 4 years
Text
Mail-order bride is undoubtedly a tag positioned on a woman that articles her intent to wed
Mail-order bride is undoubtedly a tag positioned on a woman that articles her intent to wed
An individual originating from an individual more– commonly far more economically built– nation. Historically, mail-order br This list checks out 10 simple facts concerning mail purchase brides you could feasibly most definitely maybe not recognize.
The Sugary food Getaway
A lot of people presume that Russian brides are now actually despairing females that desire hardly any a many more than to possess hitched to an immigrant (if at all possible united states) to have the heck away from Russia along with begin a brandname lifestyle that is brand new. In fact, this actually is really generally speaking wrong. Russia possesses a scarcity this is certainly male you will find about 8 dudes for virtually any 10 females in a life-style that may be really really marriage-oriented. Later, a few Russian females are actually persuaded to appear definately not Russia for a partner. To be one mail purchase bride provider points out: ” Russian Brides actually feel as at a club: where she’s going to efficiently claim, “yes” if she likes you, along with “many thanks, however no, thank you” if she does not. If you was in fact one of several those who would definitely approach her”
Risks Included
Being a real bride that is mail-order be quite harmful. There have to minimum 4 present circumstances of usa men slaughtering (in a couple of circumstances fairly exceptionally) their mail-order bride. But it really carries straight straight down go each means: there exists actually additionally a scenario associated with bride that is mail-order her United States spouse. Ahead of along with your self this is certainly very very own in mail purchase relationship business, it spends to genuinely consider the factors responsible for your fiancГ©e or even spouse by using this strategy to get their companion out totally. You can find privileged and also adapt to a person making their property nation for the good reasons pointed call at thing 10, yet perhaps you are one of several people which are regrettable discovers yourself lifeless. Listed below is demonstrably the summary of just one single example that is such
Anastasia Master, a girl originating from Kyrgyzstan, was actually found suffocated along with set to settle a tomb this is certainly trivial Washington symptom in December 2000. Within the chronilogical age of 18, Anastasia had actually acquired a contact originating from the 38-year-old seat male, Indle Master, originating from the mail purchase bride web site. He piloted to her country in addition to was indeed actually gotten hitched to right after. Set of years a short while later, after significant rivalry, Indle wished a bride that is additional. He previously been actually supposedly disinclined to search for a breakup so he bought a lessee in their Washington house to eliminate Anastasia. Considering almost 300 additional pounds that are few her other half affixed Anastasia down even though tenant suffocated her along with a necktie. Each was indeed actually produced accountable of massacre.
Separation Expenses
America Citizenship and also Migration Alternatives (USCIS) discloses that “… relationships arranged with mail purchase bride organizations would certainly may actually work with a separation that is reduced set alongside the nation basic, totally 80 per-cent of the marital relationships having really lasted over times which explains why files have been in truth available. ” The USCIS likewise mentions that “… mail-order bride along side email mail solutions bring about 4,000 to 6,000 relationships which are marital between United States Of America guys and likewise brides that are worldwide. ”
United States Outpost
The thought of mail-order brides finished up being actually initially situated on the united states outpost through the entire period associated with mid-1800s. Guy through the East was indeed actually going western in likelihood of saying house, agriculture, creating businesses, and also locating silver. Lots among these males discovered economic effectiveness in the transfer West, yet the something that wound up being really moving through to wound up being actually the business of a partner. Really amount of females stayed whenever you go through the western currently, such that it was indeed actually difficult for these guys to also settle and begin a family group people. Their simply selection was indeed actually to bring in ladies residing right back East; the guys composed numbers to religions as well as posted individual promotions in publications in addition to papers. In profits, girls would probably contact the inventors and also deliver all of them photos of on their own.
Just how to Adapt To
When you look at the severely pair that is minimum of forms of “worldwide marital relationship businesses” exist. Stomach muscles type this is certainly females that are first’ talk to details along with encourages men and women to correlate ahead of appointment. The next kind uses “team scenic tours” for males that may like to circumnavigate a country that is offshore well as meet to a single hundred girls at gatherings handled due to the company. If an united states male goals to work with the sort that is original they should offer emotional wellness details along with illegal record, along with, once they perform produce a suit, will tend to be had a need to adapt to the bride actually in front of she gets an usa visa.
Odd Instruction
Johns Hopkins educational company provides an exercise program phoned “Mail Order Brides: Recognizing the Philippines in Southeast Asian Situation” which is actually evidently an important consider Filipino affinity as well as sexual intercourse. Why someone would surely need to evaluate this topic is actually past me in person individually, but there is certainly planning to your cheapest a share of need available.
Aggressive Views
Considering the fact that 2003 Australian Federal Authorities’s fix to lessen the matter that was really considered migration that is‘unacceptable through then-Prime certified John Howard has actually acquired energy. Very First responses in to the plan have been actually combined. The Australian individuals even more welcomed their federal government’s amazing plans complying utilizing the news trend when it comes to Jana Klintoukh scenario; this example at first took straight down straight to everyone’s scenery when present occasions system, Today Tonight, broadcast movie of a younger Russian-born Australian, asserting she wound up being really brought in through a internet website plus in addition finished up being actually utilized as being a sex-related servant through her ‘other half’ russian mail purchase brides while being really for a their Sydney home.
Mail Purchase Husbands
The Philippines bans business of coordinating and even advertising marital relationships within the center Filipinas and dudes that will also be worldwide. The Philippine our lawmakers attained State Action 6955 or even the Anti-Mail-Order Bride Rule in 1990 due to tales that resulted in in to the news that is nearby in addition news regarding Filipinas being actually misused through their worldwide other halves. As a result of this, Filipinas commonly utilize “reverse magazines”– magazines in which males market on their– that is particular to in touch with global dudes for marital relationship in behalf adutch women for marriage concerning the Filipina ladies.
Immense Profits
There was clearly a really amount that is huge of to be remembered as produced in to the mail purchase bride business. In Taiwan, mail-order brides are actually sourced mainly originating from Landmass Asia in addition to Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam. The get that is popular older for Vietnam girls vary originating from twenty to 28 yrs old. Generally speaking, Taiwanese dudes spend USD $10,000 with this specific sorts of relationship; nonetheless, merely USD $five hundred to USD $1,000 bucks should be really gotten because of the bride’s loved ones along with the rest taken through marital relationship agents about the bridegroom as well as the bride. This is certainly really a damn higher earnings range.
Dishonest Advertising
On Nov 18, 2004, a authorities jury system in Baltimore, Maryland granted Ukrainian bride that is mail-order Fox $433,500 ($341,000 of the have already been actually compensatory damages) versus global marital relationship broker Encounters Oversebecause along side its very own Russian immigrant proprietor, Natasha Spivack (imagined over). Spivack prepared Nataliya’s relationship that is marital an united states of america man along with accurate documents of extremely mistreating ladies in adition to that particular, after being really matched along with Nataliya, mistreated her within their relationship. The court situated the partnership broker bad of frauds, unjust and also misleading profession methods, self-willed and also wanton carelessness, unwarranted allotment of Ms. Fox’s label along side similarity, as well as disparagement. The court discovered the mail purchase bride provider (Natasha Spivak) responsible for dropping brief to see Nataliya concerning an authorities legislation which allows for worldwide nationals to get definately not unpleasant relationships without concern of automatic extradition, as well as proactively deceiving her regarding her options that are legal. The jury system additionally discovered EI (Natasha Spivak) in control of overstating that it evaluated male customers when it performed certainly not; and also broadcasting Nataliya’s marital relationship to Mr. Fox as an EI “excellence” tale, without her consent, also after she took off to a native brutality home.
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Like the vast majority of Americans, I have been effectively disenfranchised in the last few presidential elections. In 2011, I moved to Washington, D.C., which is so heavily Democratic that any vote for president is totally meaningless — in 2016, Hillary Clinton won with 93 percent of the vote. But last year, I moved to famously swingy Pennsylvania, and suddenly I'm a full citizen again. (I'm already lording it over my friends from California and New York.)As I have written on many occasions, I think Bernie Sanders is the best candidate. But given the abominable Trump presidency, I have also said that I'll vote for whoever wins the Democratic nomination.However, that was before Mike Bloomberg became a serious presidential contender (currently in third place in national polls and rising fast). I have given it very serious thought, and while I would happily vote for Elizabeth Warren, grudgingly vote for Joe Biden or Amy Klobuchar, or secure an entire bottle of Southern Comfort to get sufficiently hammered to vote for Pete Buttigieg, I will not vote for Mike Bloomberg in November if he is nominated.To start with, it is not at all obvious that Bloomberg would even be a better president than Trump. As Alex Pareene writes at The New Republic, he is a right-wing authoritarian with nakedly racist views who constantly violated civil rights laws during his time as mayor of New York City. He locked up thousands of protesters during the 2004 Republican National Convention (where he gave a speech warmly endorsing George W. Bush, and thanked him for starting the war in Iraq), and a judge held the city in contempt for violating due process law. He created what amounted to a police state for New York Muslims, subjecting the entire community to dragnet surveillance and harassment, and filling mosques with spies and agent provocateurs. The city had to pay millions in settlements for violating Muslims' civil rights. (All this did precisely nothing to prevent terrorism, by the way.)As Nathan Robinson writes at Current Affairs, he drastically escalated the infamous "stop-and-frisk" program in New York, in which innocent black and brown youths were jacked up by cops literally millions of times. Ninety-nine percent of the stops found nothing, and many police used it as a handy pretext to vent their racist prejudice. At its peak in 2011, there were more stops of black men than there were black men in the entire city. And because it was mainly young men being targeted, some were stopped dozens of times. Innocent people were routinely beaten senseless.Bloomberg justified the policy with straightforwardly racist collective guilt. In a 2015 speech, he said "it's controversial, but first thing is, all of your — 95 percent of your murders, murderers and murder victims, fit one M.O. ... They are male minorities, 15 to 25."These statistics are hideously inaccurate. In reality, the relatively few whites stopped under stop-and-frisk were more likely to be carrying weapons, and as The Atlantic's Adam Serwer points out, after the program was halted, crime continued to fall unabated. The whole thing was completely useless — unless the point was to constantly remind black and brown New Yorkers that they were second-class citizens. Bloomberg also espouses the racist theory that the financial crisis was caused by government efforts to reduce prejudice in home lending — thus scapegoating minorities to deflect blame from the real culprit, Wall Street oligarchs like himself.Bloomberg's newfound commitment to progressive policies is so transparently fraudulent that his campaign apparently plagiarized huge chunks of his campaign platform. He is just trying to trick the Democratic electorate with a tidal wave of cash (with evident success).Now, Bloomberg does have a legitimate history of supporting gun control and climate policy. But it is exceedingly unlikely that he will be able to get past a Senate filibuster on gun control, especially given his sneering know-it-all approach. And given his politics and personal wealth, his climate policy would probably look a great deal like Emmanuel Macron's diesel tax in France — a carbon tax whose revenues would go towards cutting taxes on the rich. Macron's move sparked violent protests and was quickly abandoned.Does this sound like a guy who would do anything substantial to reverse Trump's worst policies? If we're lucky, he might reverse the Muslim ban and let a few people out of the CBP camps. If we're not, he'll implement a much quieter and more effective version of the same policies, and partisan Democrats will reverse-engineer justifications for these being somehow necessary (or just ignore them, as they did during the Obama years). Recall that Bloomberg once argued that every Social Security card should have fingerprints so unauthorized immigrants would be unable to get jobs.On the other hand, in some areas Bloomberg would likely be worse than Trump. As Mehdi Hasan writes at The Intercept, Bloomberg is a committed and pitiless warmonger — he supported the war in Iraq and repeated the Bush administration's lie that Saddam Hussein had plotted 9/11. (In January he said he had no regrets about doing so.) He opposed President Obama's Iran deal, and had few complaints about Trump's assassination of Iran's Qassem Soleimani. While Trump has escalated conflicts across the globe, he appears to have at least a mild hesitation about starting new full-scale wars of aggression. The chances of a shooting war with Iran probably increase if Bloomberg wins in 2020.Given his wretched politics, even Bloomberg's superior competence is a mark against him. Right now one tiny silver lining of the Trump administration is that the people trying to commit atrocities through the federal bureaucracy are so inept they keep fumbling the legal procedures and getting stopped in the courts. Bloomberg is sure to appoint competent authoritarian maniacs.And for all the people who complain that Bernie Sanders is not a real Democrat, Bloomberg was literally a Republican up until 2007, and worked to elect Republicans until very recently. In 2014, he or his political action committee donated to the senate campaigns of Susan Collins in Maine and Bob Dold in Illinois. In 2016, he donated $11.7 million to Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania — making it the most expensive Senate race in history up to that point, and likely securing victory for Toomey, who won by less than two points. Though he has also donated a lot to Democrats, Bloomberg is a guy who did more than almost anyone to help protect Mitch McConnell's Republican majority in the Senate, and hence to put two more conservatives on the Supreme Court.At bottom, Bloomberg is basically just like George W. Bush, with a dollop of maddening nanny-state condescension. Without question he would be one of the top five worst major-party presidential nominees in the last century of American history.This stance will no doubt infuriate the "vote blue no matter who" crowd who view Donald Trump as some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare. But even aside from how horrible a president Bloomberg would be, perhaps the most compelling reason not to vote for him is what his nomination would reveal about American democracy. It would mean that the oligarch class has so thoroughly corrupted the system that the voice of the people is drowned. His entire candidacy is a cartoonishly blatant instance of how money can corrupt democracy. Right now he is scooping up thousands of campaign operatives and field organizers by offering them as much as $6,000 a month — creating a desperate shortage for other campaigns. He's racking up endorsement after endorsement — of representatives, mayors, and one governor, so far — who have cashed checks from his vast empire of bribery. His nomination would mean the Democratic Party can be "bought over the counter like so many pounds of cheese."Partisan Democrats insist that everyone has an obligation to vote tactically — that is, to always pick the lesser of two evils in the voting booth. But as Daniel Davies argues, given that one's individual vote has virtually no chance of actually deciding the outcome, the truly tactical choice is to not bother to vote at all. The only compelling reason to vote is about civic duty and one's patriotic conscience. And as Davies writes, "it seems pretty clear that there is some point at which it becomes obvious that a morally and politically valid response is simply to declare that the fundamental basis of the implied contract has broken down, and that it's a reasonable choice to simply refuse to participate further." If the choice is Cthulhu versus Nyarlathotep, I for one see little point in voting for the candidate that might have one fewer grasping eldritch tentacle.Among Bernie Sanders supporters, I am far from the most die-hard. If I simply cannot countenance putting my name down for Bloomberg in November, there are millions more who would do the same — plus no small number of supporters of the other candidates, in all likelihood. Then there is the general fact that Bloomberg's extreme wealth and extensive record of racism and sexual harassment would negate most of the strongest attacks against Trump. Bloomberg would be highly likely to bleed enough support to third parties (or no one) to lose to Trump, just as Hillary Clinton did.Luckily, it will be easy to avoid this dreadful possibility. Simply vote against Michael Bloomberg in the Democratic primary.More stories from theweek.com The Democratic Party is weak. Mike Bloomberg could break it. What if Trump stopped tweeting? Trump adds former NYPD commissioner, financier convicted in fraud schemes to pardon spree
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