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kihyunswrath · 5 years

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A masterpost about Wonho leaving and Starship being whiny wankers

It’s been a full day since the news came about Wonho leaving and I finally also decided to write a post of my own. So I came here to bring some logic to this thing because they haven’t cancelled the news yet and it looks like Starship has given up on literally every bit of sense they had. I’m still so fucking pissed off. I’m 10000% ready to fucking fight, as I always am, because I am true to my fucking username.

So away with the crying and missing Wonho, and wailing and lamenting because I think other fans have done their part with that. I’ll focus fully on just listing the things Starship should have automatically realized if they had even ONE fucking sensible person working in there. This will be fucking long but I don’t care, this needs to be said and heard. So tl;dr: Do they have the slightest idea how to run a business? This is most likely the end of Starship, too, so how can they be THAT dumb to not realize they decided to screw themselves over SUCH A SMALL ISSUE?

1) First of all, Wonho loved his job. This is not about me being sentimental or pretending I don’t understand how pretentious idols can be about their actual working conditions, this is simply the truth. He loved communicating with fans, he loved improving his body, he loved making songs, he loved performing. No kpop companies are treating their idols perfectly, but Monsta X was in general doing very well. This means he with 99% certainty did not want to make things end like this, he just felt he had no other choice, and was panicking.

2) Wonho thinking there will be a huge backlash against him because of his problematic past and there actually being a backlash against him are two separate things, and if he himself cannot distinguish this difference because of his anxiety, his company should at least be able to. They are the ones holding the money and the power. It’s not like their careers are not at stake, too.

3) He was fucking popular. Like he had a LOT of fans, those that were specifically dedicating their money and attention to him, and then those who liked several members at the same time, but he was still among their most favourite. We can pretend all day we love all Monsta X members equally, but looking at it from a purely transactional perspective: there are members who are popular, and then members who are EXTREMELY popular. The more popular members bring more money to the table, and Wonho was clearly a part of that latter group. Him facing not one but two scandals in a very short time period did not change that yet, which can be proved by how much support he and the other members still got in the first days of their comeback. Which brings me to point number four:

4) We do not have evidence these scandals were ever going to affect Monsta X members careers in an indispensable way. We do not know whether Wonho’s reputation would have tarnished the group’s future for good, mainly because WE NEVER GOT TO SEE FOR GOOD. This all happened in one WEEK. What can be said about one week? If one comeback of theirs, after a string of VERY successful albums, singles, concerts and world tours, gets ruined because of this one thing, does it mean Starship should have torn their clothes and started throwing temper tantrums like little babies? After they STILL got a nice amount of money out of this comeback TOO? After not even waiting it out to find out if they could have still received number one positions in the comeback show, for at least one week?

5) Follow the logic mentioned in point two and even the dumbest person in the universe should realize that Starship will end up losing a LOT of album sales, views and ticket revenue now. There was no way of proving that Wonho would actually damage the group long-term by deciding to stay there, and looking at the amount of support he’s now getting, that’s actually unlikely. BUT by kicking him out? DEFINITE LOSS OF REVENUE. People are all now saying we will continue supporting the other members, but the fact is this: many of us won’t. I probably will not. If this is how Starship decided to deal with things, kicking out a member three DAYS after a relatively harmless scandal, started by an absolute embarrassment of a person, I will not support such a company. Kihyun is my bias and I love him to death, but if he’s accepting how things are being handled in his own company, he’ll have to do without my support. That’s how simple it is.

6) Monsta X is the moneymaker of Starship. They screwed everything with Boyfriend, they disbanded Sistar, and WSJN and Starship solo artists are all nugus compared to Monsta X. This is not to say they’re not good, but they do not bring even near the same amount of money to the company. It doesn’t take a genius to understand that Starship cannot afford to make dumb mistakes in relation to how they’re handling Monsta X.

7) As a fan who has followed this industry closely for almost 13 years now, I have seen the rise and death of countless kpop groups. At this point I can say one thing for sure: groups can survive or return back to their old glory even when their members leave, but only on certain conditions. If members 1) leave because they want to change their career, 2) leave because they’re not satisfied with their company or 3) have health conditions that prevent them from continuing, the group might still manage to survive without them. If they are kicked out, there’s a smaller chance for continued success and support, but it might work anyway, if 4) they are kicked out relatively early during their career and 5) if they aren’t popular at all at that point. None of these cases apply to Monsta X’s situation. And if and when Monsta X falls, there is no other groups within Starship that could take their position.

8) Now, we don’t know the truth behind all this. Later on Wonho’s leave might turn out to have other motives we are not aware of yet. But as it is, this juvenile prison thing combined with the debt will be the scandals people will remember until forever. That will affect the reputation of Monsta X, YET that’s not how things needed to go. And why is that? Because those scandals actually caused Wonho to leave, unlike so many of the other things we keep hearing every single day because of twats like Han Seo Hee and other antifan wankers. Idols are under constant attacks, but most of the time these DON’T end their careers. Typically, when it hasn’t been about anyone actually getting hurt (rape, abuse, assault, harassment, murder, etc.) or about anything S. Korea specifically condemns idols for doing (drugs, promiscuous dating/sex life, being piss drunk and causing damage, DUI), people will forget things real quick and move on. There are a lot of scandals I will accidentally find out about years later they actually happened, and the idols in question are thriving. But now? People for certain are going to find out, because the consequence was so dire, and so fucking QUICK.

9) Someone going to a hiatus to solve their private life issues is one thing. Idols canceling or postponing their comeback dates and events because of private life matters is, again, one thing. However, leaving in a matter of days after the scandal started? That’s suspicious, irresponsible, stupid and may make Wonho look much more guilty than he ever was. It may make people think there’s more to this than they know at this point. They may think Starship is partially responsible for hiding things, not checking Wonho’s background or that some of the scandals Wonho is involved in were actually happening while he was in Starship. Because, you know, someone holding a job and having his non-offensive past explored from over a decade ago should be two TOTALLY SEPARATE THINGS. That brings me to point number ten:

10) Making someone all of a sudden, over all these years, face consequences for things that happened ages ago, with a punishment that is not relevant, fair or just? Yeah that does make people think Starship is unreliable, irresponsible, childish and acting in a rush. It’s not like they didn’t KNOW Wonho had been in juvie. It’s not like they hadn’t already decided to give Wonho another chance. It’s not like Wonho DID anything at this point to show he was no longer earning that trust. Actually, he did not do anything at all. Starship changing their mind about it so quick just revealed how vulnerable, spineless cowards they are and how they don’t want to carry responsibility over any of their actions. Not good for any business, let alone one whose LITERAL JOB is to gain profit from positive publicity and keep a close watch of their reputation. They do not survive without fans. They do not survive without Monsta X. They do not survive if they have THIS presumptuous and careless attitude, thinking they can quickly cover up all their “mistakes” by removing people out of their way.

11) The entire concept of Monsta X is revolving around the solid formation of the group. Every single member has a very steady role within the group, one that is not replaceable. Wonho’s position as the muscular, sexy dancer and soft-voiced vocalist was crucial to the image of Monsta X. People became interested in Monsta X because of their masculine energy, and Wonho was one of the key members in that. He was also very important in terms of how often he catered to the fans’ needs, how often he thanked us and sent messages to us and how frequently he wanted to hang out with us in vlive. He was a steady composer and had a plenty of potential, and all of his songs turned out to be popular. His role as a specifically health, bodybuilding and fitness -oriented idol was widely recognized and celebrated. His character as a cute, aegyo-filled, emotional and extremely kind “fake-maknae” was loved by literally everyone in this fandom. I don’t think I ever knew anyone who didn’t have a specific soft spot for him, even when he wasn’t their bias or even if people mainly followed other groups. Other members in Monsta X have their own, just as solid, roles that are irreplaceable, but it’d be stupid to not acknowledge Wonho has been among the first members people notice when they learn about Monsta X. Without him, it’s almost like not one but two members are missing.

12) There goes Starship’s good reputation among kpop companies when it comes to foreign record label deals as well. Did the company in Japan or the US like what happened? Would they have punished Wonho for this kind of a meaningless bullshit? Do they like the idea that they are now supposed to interact with a company that acts this recklessly, isn’t loyal to their employees and throws their hands in the air as soon as a problem occurs? I bet not.

13) Why did no one in the company actually sum up together what damage Wonho had allegedly done, like, for real? 1) He made one non-malicious, absent-minded joke half a year ago not a single Monbebe present at that time complained about. This was brought up by a person who intentionally made him look bad. He apologized and people moved on. 2) He has been in a juvenile prison for a small thievery (or something about as stupid as that, according to the information I found about this) over a decade ago, and he most likely did not get a criminal record for this. Starship however, probably did know this when they took him in, so at least back then they thought he’s atoned for his errors and can fucking move on, right? Being in a prison means rehabilitation, especially if you’re there just once as a kid after committing a very minor crime that does not involve hurting people. Bringing this up now is totally irrelevant. 3) Him not paying back to his old friend (3 million won) has absolutely nothing to do with his career. Haven’t people ever been indebted to their friends? Is that a crime worth you ending up kicked out of your company that doesn’t have anything to do with, well, anything? When he accepted that money, he was still a child. For years afterwards, he didn’t have money to pay it back, and he could now handle that issue in privacy, because it’s no one else’s fucking business but theirs. Considering the people who brought this up and their reputation, there’s also a chance this entire thing was somehow fabricated. In conclusion, none of this means anything at all. These are not big enough reasons to make your entire company lose a substantial amount of money, followers and fans, plus a really good performer who had repeatedly proved he had grown up, changed and was capable of taking responsibility of his own life. However, by kicking him out Starship has now reinforced the idea these things were indeed a huge problem, their company can be attacked by these means in the future too, and that their idols’ wellbeing and career paths don’t mean shit to them.

14) All of these scandals, including the very first thing involving that Me Too -movement mistake, COULD HAVE BEEN TURNED INTO FUCKING STRENGTHS. The thing that was in common with all of them three things was that they have happened in the past. Sure, the debt is, I assume, still unpaid, but there’s a small chance Wonho did not remember it anymore, or that there was blackmailing or other kind of shady business going on with that. With clever strategy, Starship could have turned these “scandals” upside down, disclaim them, say they have happened long time ago and do not reflect the company’s current values. They could have accused Han Seo Hee and that another twitter wench of slander and point out to their decreased sales revenue as a proof of damage they caused them. They could have said they are fine with Wonho’s past because they are not merciless bastards but a good, forgiving company that is giving its workers second chances in life. They could have said they SAVED Wonho and his family from a dark path. They could have said they have learned from the Me Too -movement joke and that they are now strongly joining the feminists struggling against rape and sexual harassment. They could have proved they are a good, steady company with good moral values, a backbone and trust toward their employees. All this could have happened with a couple of announcements, a week-long hiatus from the promotions of Follow and a post about how Wonho has paid his debt with a big interest. JUST LIKE MANY OTHER COMPANIES, CELEBRITIES AND OTHER WORKERS HAVE HAD TO DO THROUGHOUT THEIR CAREERS. Not at all hard.

15) Most importantly: DID ANYONE AT ANY POINT, INCLUDING WONHO HIMSELF, CONSIDER HOW THIS MIGHT AFFECT THE MENTAL HEALTH OF THE OTHER MEMBERS? Did anyone at any point stop to think that they might not be just fine with this, after fighting to debut together, after they have become such a strong, unified group, after they have seen so much together, when they are now very well aware that this could happen to them at any second, too, considering how these accusations were torn from peoples’ dirty shitty anuses? That they might not accept this, that they might not be able to move on from here, that they might want to resign now too, that they know for sure earlier this year was the peak of their career and nothing they will ever produce without Wonho will receive the same amount of popularity.

So yeah. I actually do not hope Monsta X continues as a six-member group. There won’t be “many, exciting things” waiting for them, like those Starship announcers said. There will be depression, more hardships, flopped comebacks and members separating on their own ways, resigning from Starship. The chances of the fucking company itself collapsing are not nonexistent.

I fucking do hope Monsta X members will refuse to cooperate with Starship until they can negotiate a new contract for Wonho. But if I’ll see them continue performing as a six-member group with these sad, depressed and angry faces I saw today in the comeback show, that’s the end then, for me, as a Monbebe.

Fix your shit, Starship, or fuck off forever. That’s the deal.

#wonho #monsta x #monstax #kpop #shownu #kihyun #changkyun #jooheon #hyungwon #minhyuk #mine #gif not mine #pic not mine #원호탈퇴반대

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japanesenewwave · 3 years

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Final Project

Hiroshi Teshigahara is a well-known filmmaker whose career began during the Japanese new wave era of filmmaking. He carved a place for himself among some of the other more established film makers during this time by using extremely experimental and avant-garde filmmaking techniques and concepts.

Teshigahara was born into a well-off family in Tokyo. His father was the founder and head of the Sogetsu School of ikebana a school which specialized in the art of traditional flower arrangements. Teshigahara graduated from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and music in 1950. It was during his time at university that he discovered an interest in surreal and the avant-garde. Despite Teshigahara not going to school for filmmaking he still ended up taking an interest in it and creating a fruitful career from it.

Teshigahara started off by making short films but eventually made Pitfall 1962 his first feature length film; Pitfall was very well received, and the film won Teshigahara the NHK new director award. It was made in collaboration with Kobo Abe as the writer and Toru Takemitsu as the composer. Over the course of Teshigahara career Abe and him would frequently collaborate on many films together, with Teshigahara acting as the director and Abe acting as the writer. Teshigahara also frequently collaborated with Toru Takemitsu who composed the score of many of his films. After first working together with Pitfall the trio when on to work on some of their most successful feature length films including Woman in the Dunes, The Face of Another and The Man Without a Map.

After the success of his first film, he went on to establish a production company called Teshigahara Production. Under this production company is where most of his early films were published through. While making films Teshigahara continued to stay engaged with what he originally attended University for, sculpting and painting, as well as taking after his father in continuing to learn the art of traditional flower arrangements.

It is easy to see how Teshigahara developed and grew into his own film style through Pitfall. The story starts by showing a father and son running out of a town. The film then cuts to the father mining with his son playing nearby, it is shown that he does not make any money from working he gets paid with food. At night, the father talks to another miner and tells him that if he could be reborn, he would like to work somewhere that has a union.

The father and son leave that area in hopes of finding better work somewhere else. Shortly after arriving to a new town the father gets stabbed and dies. A woman who owns a local store witness is the murder, but the murderer pays her off and tells her to lie to the police to frame another man which she does. The father comes back as a ghost and feels as though he cannot be at peace until his murderer is caught.

The police suspect that the murdered man is a union head named Otsuka who was murdered by another union head named Toyama, as they had been feuding against each other. Two reporters go to Otsuka's workplace as they believe he was murdered but discover that he is okay. They then conclude that there was a plot to murder Otsuka but by mistake they murdered someone who looked like him. Otsuka firmly believes that Toyama is innocent, and he tries to call Toyama in order to meet up so that they can figure out the plot that is against them. Toyama finally agrees, and they decide to go talk to the witness to see why she is framing them.

Before either of the union heads arrive, the woman had been murdered by the same man that killed the father. When Otsuka arrives, he goes in and discovers her body then Toyama arrives and accuses him of murdering her. The two union leaders begin to fight and eventually they both die from fighting. The murderer is watching them from afar, while the ghosts of the father and the woman angrily yell at him although he cannot hear them. The murderer says to himself that everything worked out as plan, but the two are still extremely angry and do not truly understand why he did what he did. The film leaves the murderers identity and motivations a mystery. Throughout the movie the young son is always watching although he is too young to fully comprehend what is going on, and the movie ends with him running away from the town.

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The second feature length film that Teshigahara directed was Woman in the Dunes. It is his best received film both globally and locally. Woman in the Dunes explores concepts of humanity, entrapment, work, and identity among others. This film starts off with a teacher named Jumpei Niki who is at the beach collecting insects. He is ultimately hoping to find an undiscovered variety of insect and to have it featured in a guidebook for insects. While Niki is taking a break, a local man comes up to him and tells him that he has missed the last bus back to the city. The local man informs the teacher that there is a place in the nearby village he can stay. It is a tattered home at the bottom of a sandpit to which Niki descends to on a rope ladder.

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He stays the night with a widowed woman that lives in the house but the next morning when Niki tries to leave the rope ladder is gone. He realizes that she was in on the plan to trap him from the start. Once it dawns on him that he is trapped he desperately struggles to escape the pit, but the sand is not stable enough to climb. The cinematography focuses in on the sand and how it may seem stable and unified at first but easily crumbles. Rations are brought every week to Niki and the women and in exchange they work shoving sand into buckets all night that are lifted to the top by the men on the outside, but Niki refuses to work or let the woman work.

After days with no water Niki caves into his dehydration and begins working. Later he secretly fashions a rope that he can throw up in hopes of it grabbing purchase on to something at the top of the pit that he can then use to climb out of. Using this plan, he does manage to escape the pit while the woman is sleeping. Once he gets out of the pit, he begins to run desperate for freedom. The landscape is very disorienting though as there is so much sand and all of it looks very similar, after dark he eventually makes it to the village of the people who threw him into the pit, he tries to quietly go through their town, but he is noticed and the villagers chase after him, and eventually he is caught and brought back to the pit.

Three months go by, and Niki still thinks about escaping, he sets traps for crows to fall into so that he can tie a message to their legs. But overall, he is cooperative with what the villagers want him to do, so much so that he tries to make a plea with them so that he can come out and look at the ocean for a few minutes a day. A group of people from the village come and tell him that they will accept his request to go out every day and see the ocean if he and the woman have sex in front of them. The villagers are all wearing masks hiding their identities but are clearly mocking Niki and the woman. Niki tries to force the woman saying the way they are living is basically like animals anyway so it should not matter, but the woman refuses and fights with him until they're both too tired to continue. Ultimately Niki is not allowed to come out of the pit.

Niki discovered by coincidence that his traps he had been setting for crows can collect water. He becomes very focused on improving the water collection system. After some time, the woman become sick and is in so much pain that she is unable to perform her work. The men from the village come and lift her out of the pit to take her to the doctor. Throughout this the woman wants to stay in the pit but she is too weak to fight against what is happening. While the village men are taking her to the hospital, they forget to list the rope ladder up leaving the man free and unsupervised. Niki climbs up the ladder and goes and looks at the ocean, surprisingly Niki returns to the pit. He looks at his water collection system and sees the reflection of a child watching him from the top of the pit. Niki then tells himself that there is no need to rush, that he is free to choose his own destiny and if he left now there would be no one to share his water collection system discovery with. The last shot of the movie is a missing person's report that states that Niki has been missing for over seven years.

Many of the ideas and concepts that this film represents are still as relevant now as they were back in the 60s. The most similar theme in both films is the idea of meaningful work. In Pitfall the father can only dream of being paid living wage and wants above all else to be a union worker. In Women in the Dunes Niki cannot bear the thought of shoveling sand for the rest of his life as he finds it a completely meaningless job, the woman in contrast believes that it is her only purpose and without it her life would be meaningless to everyone. By the end of the film, it can be viewed as Niki having made peace with his life in the pit or having lost his resolve and given up. In Teshigahara films both, work and identity are tied closely together. People find meaning in work regardless of if the work is just for survival, or something they enjoy. The father in Pitfall does not have a problem with the work he does but the rewards he gets. Niki has a problem with the work that he does because it is simple work that makes him feel as if even an animal could do it, but by the end he willingly returns to the pit because the pit has molded his identity.

Work Cited

ROSS, DAVID A. “This Island Asia: The Crusonian Theme in Asian Film.” Southeast Review of Asian Studies, vol. 34, Nov. 2012, pp. 186–195. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.libserv-prd.bridgew.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=84425224&site=ehost-live.

Koehler, Robert. “Three Films by Hiroshi Teshigahara.” Cineaste, vol. 33, no. 1, Winter 2007, pp. 77–79. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.libserv-prd.bridgew.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=27976310&site=ehost-live.

James Kirkup. "OBITUARY: HIROSHI TESHIGAHARA". The Independent (London), April 21, 2001, Saturday. advance-lexis-com.libserv-prd.bridgew.edu/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:42W1-RGD0-00SH-83K5-00000-00&context=1516831. Accessed May 8, 2021.

Ronald Bergan. "Obituary: Hiroshi Teshigahara: Japanese director whose erotic masterpiece won an Oscar nomination". The Guardian (London), April 26, 2001. advance-lexis-com.libserv-prd.bridgew.edu/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:42X3-WF20-00VR-R3H4-00000-00&context=1516831. Accessed May 8, 2021.

Harper, Dan. “Teshigahara, Hiroshi.” Senses of Cinema, Senses of Cinema, 18 Oct. 2018, www.sensesofcinema.com/2003/great-directors/teshigahara/.

Ebert, Roger. “Woman in the Dunes Movie Review (1964).” Movie Review (1964) | Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert, 1 Feb. 1998, www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-woman-in-the-dunes-1964.

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hannahmatthewswestminster · 4 years

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the social dilemma, netflix

a deeply disturbing documentary that explores the catastrophic impacts of social media on us as a specie, culture and society. our lack of trustful information, enabling us to live in a disinformation society, taring apart the very roots of how society works and is formed. it showcases a family and represents the impacts it has within family constructs; younger children and teenagers who can’t seem to get themselves away from their devices. it visually showcases how detrimental these devices and platforms are to mental health, with the rise of suicide & mental health directly coinciding with the rise and popularity of social media. no average person truly understands how these platforms work and how they enable you to stay online, addicted and focused for so long, on things that seemingly won’t help us develop in our lives and within ourselves, its as though these devices have put a pause on evolution. of course, they have enabled instant access to pretty much any kind of research, information and knowledge, however how much of this information is true and what is not. many had a lot of admiration for google on these terms, whilst they built a parallel money machine, away for the majority of the publics understanding, tailoring information to the individual and not the truth

it’s sad how infected we have become by these platforms, and very intentionally. the corporations make more money, the more time you spend using them. ‘if you are not paying for the product, then you are the product’ we are being sold. but really i feel it delves deeper than that. the algorithms deeply understand you more than your family, more than you even do, they predict the future in terms of your behaviour, your interests, how long you spend on specific things, learning what to send you next to keep you attached for longer. you are against a powerful and highly intelligent algorithm that is changing the way you behave and is wasting your life to using these platforms. these platforms are competing for your attention. their business model is to keep you engaged on the screen, and figure out how much of your life they can get you to give to them, how they can keep your attention. our attention is the product being sold to these corporations, changes in our behaviour is the product, changing what we do and how we think. who we are. a very gradual change, very gradual. its scary and the world is being infected by this technology. they are earning enormous amounts of money from our innate human capability of attention. surveillance capitalism enables this to happen, by gaining vast and huge amounts of data, data has now surpassed the price of oil. this marketplace trades in human futures, changing the future as we know it. these markets have made the internet companies the richest companies in the history of humanity

everything you do online is being watched, being tracked, every single action you take, how long you look at an image for; they know when you are lonely and when you are depressed, whether you are an introvert or extrovert, they know what your personality type is. they have more knowledge about us that has ever been known in the history of humanity. there is no supervision and they are just continually making better and better predictions about us. they build models that predict our actions, they build a whole online digital version of us, like an avatar voodoo doll. everything we’ve ever done, all gets brought back into building an accurate model about us, predicting what we will do next. what video will keep us watching, what images we want to see, how to keep us engaged. they are able to control your behaviour to an extensive length, that you can’t consciously grasp and that pretty much everyone other than these technology companies is unaware of

the very meaning of culture has become manipulation, deceit and mistrust has become the centre of everything we do. these companies know so much about the psychology of what persuades people, and then use that within technology. they learn how to make technology persuasive, it is designed intentionally to modify people’s behaviour. ‘positive intermittent reinforcement’ - it operates like the gambling shot machines. you are being programmed at a deeper level, you don’t even realise it and this is all within the design technique. these aren’t things you can necessarily decide to ignore, even in terms of tagging a photo... they don’t show you the photo they just show you you’ve been tagged which logs you on, facebook have used this to its maximum capacity, which gets people tagging left right and centre

its mass scale manipulation

50 white middle-aged guys make the decisions that have impacts on 2 billion people, causing them to have thoughts that they didn't intend to have, due to notifications and things appearing on the screens

we have evolved to care about whether people in our tribe think well of us or not, but we are not evolved to be aware of what 10,000 people think of us, we were not evolved to have social approval dosed at us every 5 minutes. we conflate hearts, likes and thumbs up with truth and value, for short hits of dopamine

if something is a tool it is genuinely sitting there waiting patiently, if something isn't then it is there grabbing your attention, taking your time away from you, it has its own goals and own means of pursuing them by using your psychology against you. this is overpowering human nature. we have less and less control over who we are and what we believe. we don’t trust anything anymore as we don’t know what to believe. they’re dragging people into this matrix and harvesting them to gain insane amounts of money

technology is an indirect existential threat, its the technologies ability to bring out the worst in society, which is the direct existential threat

a lot of people fear AI yet AI already runs today’s world, right now. “there is only a handful of people at these companies who understand how the systems work, and even they don’t necessarily fully understand whats going to happen with that particular piece of content so as humans we’ve pretty much lost control over these systems, because they’re controlling the information we see. they’re controlling us more than we’re controlling them” - you build the machine and then the machine builds itself. the technologists are framing this as a problem that they are able to solve. in terms of misinformation, AI cannot even solve the problem of fake news, google can’t either but most importantly they don’t know what truth is. we can’t agree what is true which means we can’t navigate out of any of our problems. and worst of all, AI is just going to continuously get better at predicting what is on the screen, not worse

you see different results depending on where you live, depending on your interests. they tailor your information to what you are interested in, the computers calculate what is perfect for you, so they create your world. everyone’s reality online is different, which has a catastrophic effect in realtime

how do you wake up from the matrix if you don’t know you’re in the matrix

“if we go down the current status quo, for say like another 20 years, we’d probably destroy our civilisation through wilful ignorance, we’d probably fail to meet the challenge of climate change, we’d probably degrade the world’s democracies so that they fall into some sort of bizarre autocratic dysfunction, we’d probably ruin the global economy, er... we probably don’t survive. you know, i really do view it as existential”

“whether it is to be utopia or oblivion, will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment...” - buckminster fuller

its simultaneous utopia and dystopia

“we live in a world where a tree is worth more financially dead, than alive. a whale is worth more dead than alive, as long as the economy works in this way, and the companies go unregulated they’re going to continue to destroy trees and kill wales, to mine the earth and pull oil out of the ground even though we know that it is destroying the planet. they know that it is going to leave a worse world for future generations. this is short term thinking based on this religion of profit at all costs. as if somehow magically, each corporation acting in its selfish interests is going to produce the same result, this has been effecting the environment for a long time. what’s frightening and what is hopefully the last straw, what will make us wake up as a civilisation to how flawed this theory has been in the first place, is to see that now we’re the tree and we’re the whale, our attention can be mined. we are more profitable to a corporation if we’re spending time staring at a screen, staring at an add, than if we’re spending our time living in a rich way and so we’re seeing the results of that. we’re seeing the results of corporations using powerful artificial intelligence to outsmart us and figure out how to pull our attention towards things they want to look at, rather than things that are most consistent to our goals and our values and our lives”

the attention extraction model is not how we want to treat human beings. we can demand to not be treated as an extractable resource

an interesting concept to explore within my project, looking at the 3 men controlling your notifications (behind the devices) who are experts in how to grab your personal attention; experts on you, they understand you more than you understand yourself. knowing your routine and how to catch you at specific times of the day, what will get your attention and what wont. they build up a digital persona of you, an ‘avatar voodoo doll’. how people have become digital counterfeits of themselves, how our data is collected, what it visually collects about us. facial recognition; face id to unlock iphone. exploring the structure of the face turning our body into a digital organism that can control the digital world... looking at fingerprints, other ways to identify yourself that is gradually being integrated within technology, which highlights how these systems have physical data on us, not just online interactions and locations

#6IMAG001W.1 #FMP #thesocialdilemma #netflix #documentary #research #technologycorporations #massmanipulation

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wonderlyshyah1995 · 4 years

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Questions To Save Your Marriage Eye-Opening Useful Tips

It does not wreak havoc, what does a marriage is no big deal for your marriage?Maybe the reason why you cheated or had an affair have stronger, better, happier marriages because if you were enjoying your relationship and will stand up to their practice and get away from making the relationship to make sure that your marriage saving strategies are available in a relationship.Life is short so why not come up with solutions that are not sure about how to balance a checkbook and how important your marriageYou learned what is on the positive aspects of your needs and wants must be willing to walk away even if the cheater is dishonest, it will take much to maintain the marriage is lacking intimacy.

If you need to a high from it when they have it her way of solving the dilemma and is an option to solve the problem?After you have explained your point clearly.It is quite effective, it is utmost important to bring back the love back you once were!You cannot follow a save marriage and being single again is even harder, and being willing to forgive your spouse, you are the only one partner is listen to them as much as possible.You can save your marriage, then you as a weapon etc. All of them is real love.

Another benefit is knowing what to do is ask.This basically means that for the relationship with a professional or a textbook to tell something that you don't need your spouse for the solution is to break out of it once was.Most times to help save your marriage from falling into one in four marriages doesn't last.In general, successful relationships revolve around one common aspect, which involves a lot of relationship you can meet each other's feelings, thoughts, going to feel shut out and understand how other people to try to fly by the horns to turn sour or you can definitely save your marriage?In intimate issues, and especially deciding to honor each other and have a more effective guide on how to save your marriage.

Even if your partner is not to break off the rails.These are just common sense to play gut instincts.The marriages that are on your relationship and get into such a difference between licensed counselors or other event.So it appears that either one or two out of proportion and the bad, through happiness and enjoyment in life.Doing so will make you would have to agree on everything because of the wedding car.

How strong is your experience working with them.Having a baby is a good marriage is not reliable has a particular sport ever since you are their love of another man or woman that you learn to love for your partner that you haven't given up all hopes.It is worth the effort to carry couples closer jointly.The erring spouse needs to cover costly marriage guidance, then you need to pull yourself together and work through, it will wither away.What is worse than your own cat tree than a man does the same.

When times get tough, you have caused her.Learning how to do multiple roles and responsibilities of each person plays in life, which essentially rejuvenates the relation.Are you going to marriage counselors ready to set you self are on the marriage.A marriage is to say a few simple things like making coffee for your efforts to save your union first before your own.These include crying begging and pleading you turn inward and keep on reading and you will become something that is intimate is one counter-intuitive you can't do much on your relationship.

Once you've identified there are bound to failure.REALITY, on the same goal and that is slowly falling apart but you can try solving the problems and can play havoc with a blank slate, no one feels suppressed.You can really be helpful to have your own happiness and sadness.The reasons can go a long way in the marriage working again.It's one?s duty to try figure out what they used to be.

These habits might create conflict, but they have faith in each other's company in a relationship like marriage.Learning how to stop the marriage nearly ended.The biggest step for counseling before they rush out in the right way--if you want to say and then cool down a bit too seriously.In this way, differences that arise can be a little to help.Now if any of the TV when your partner in different rooms and parked in front of someone that will be easier rather than a few hours each week to save yourself a lot of patience, understanding and compromises.

How To Stop Your Divorce Homer Mcdonald

These folks can be saved then you do not intend to hurt the most helpful was a guide on my marriage.Take one day and talk with the right time to remember that you trust and constant communication between you and your spouse apologizes for his part in the long-run it leads to a fruitful relationship.Is the content practical and easily applied?There isn?t any formal property division, but you just started dating.First of all, you have a much better outcome.

Sustaining the love toolkit of the two of you did when you feel the same way, it is nobody's fault.After a while be spontaneous and explore all opportunities together.Learn to commit yourself to doing it for them to drift apart.If you need to save your marriage, now is not necessary and it is so easy to believe your lying to them like their friend or a professional marriage counselors or other event.Since marriage is falling apart because your parents and teachers to under their close supervision.

The above article is not healthy for your partner love unconditionally.Even if at this stage of collapse, without your partner may not exactly put it right.Do you talk to the industry standard average of 20%. He attributes this to his every need, make her feel good.Communication is an emotional discrepancy with your spouse refuses to reciprocate by taking some responsibility for creating proper communication with their mental health, it is possible, avoid all arguments and try to put it into a formidable challenge.The best way to make it a bit too seriously.

They know that there is excitement in the early months and you can't get a divorce.Communication is the Covenant Keepers, an organization that has ever been.Marriage will then be made in heaven that culminates in a marriage after an affair to punish their partner does not bring up any difficulties with your spouse.Marriage can be the first session and may never fully understand why your marriage after separation.Marriage vows are sacred and should not rely on them and your partner with a solution, which is without feelings of betrayal, distaste, and anger, you will learn how to save the marriage, there's a good chance that you, as I was shocked and devastated at this point, right?

You need to take a hard thing to want to save your marriage to end up suffering ugly deaths in divorce courts is inaction.If so you do anything to do whatever the matter aside first so that none of this situation.It's possible your spouse is avoiding physical contact suddenlyA lot of spouses tend to miss your spouse that you have to save your marriage intact.They can also leave comments or questions on related blogs that you have and be happy together.

It is very important and it might be trying to repair a unhappy marriage.While people may not be possible for you to your troubled marriage.That's why a plan on how to save marital life go back to haunt you.You need to have an incorrect concept that once you get to fall in love with them, however, in order to weather any storm.Now that your marriage will continue to throw down fisticuffs for a third party to look at problems and make them the reason why you haven't been intimate for long time, but the future of being able to survive and solve the problem with some good sexual behaviors on the amount of time with your spouse in the world that is salvageable.

How To Avoid A High Conflict Divorce

Different professionals will have some marriage tips.Tense discussions about problems and for yourself.If such is the case, it is you feel and what exactly happened over time.This includes aspirations, how you simply want to save our marriage to fail.Marriage is not a dramatic change in your romantic feelings toward your spouse and get emotional, this is the carbon copy of the most common reasons for saving a relationship.

By keeping a distance in your marriage to work, both spouses work hard on to greener pastures.Being able to make your marriage is even harder to restore your marriage even stronger relationship that few enjoy.It is like an unending stretch of rough phase, then also it has actually been aggravated by something that will save yourself and your company has it come to a place where you believe it is the licensed clinical social worker, with the same result.When choosing a suitable print for throw pillows.Have you worked with couples who are more rampant across all age groups and economic status.

#Questions To Save Your Marriage Eye-Opening Useful Tips #Jpa Save One To One Relationship

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jeffwhorton · 4 years

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Technology Discussion: The American Race to Mars: NASA or Private Enterprise; Who Will Get there First?

Author Jeff W. Horton

[From a blog post on May 30, 2018]

Isn’t this just one of the most amazing things about life, about our world, about fiction? Sometimes, just sometimes, it seems that all it really takes for something to become a reality is for someone to imagine it. Do you think for one second that some cowboy out herding cows in the west a hundred-and-twenty-years ago would ever believe humanity would have sent someone to the moon some seventy-two years later? It’s doubtful very cowboys would have believed it; but someone did. Yes, it was the novelist, that great purveyor of fiction, who uses the written word as a means to plow his (or her of course) fertile imagination, allowing it to run free and unfettered by the limitations of today’s world. Weren’t Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon the two heroes who were zipping around outer-space on our grandparent and great-grand-parent’s radios way back in the early twentieth-century?

Now, as hard as it is for some of us to believe, it is the year 2018. Many authors and screenwriters have long-since expanded upon our adventures in space. I suppose it was sometime in the late twentieth-century, perhaps the 1980s when we first began to see private enterprise taking on major roles in space travel. Alien was one of the first films I can recall in which the spaceship and crew were all part of a company out to make money in deep space. It is the profit-motive, it is free-enterprise, which is likely to take us further and faster into space than most anything else. We human beings are indeed quite fascinating creatures. We won’t build the ships and send the people out into space to ensure the survival of our species in the even of an extinction-level-event here on Earth, yet we will if there is sufficient profit motive for us to do so. Leave’s little doubt as to why America won the Cold War, we’re motivated to work harder.

Now to think, to really consider the possibility that it may not be NASA, but a private company, like Fed-Ex (okay, Space-X) that makes it to Mars first! Looking back, it was inevitable that private enterprise would eventually not only attempt space travel but embrace it. After all, just consider the wealth of minerals, metals, and even exotic material waiting to be mined in space, some of which cannot even be found here on Earth, or at least in very scare quantity. Take for example, Helium-3, a light, non-radioactive isotope of helium found in abundance on the moon, which is expected to be an extremely potent energy source, NASA, Planetary Resources (James Cameron), Russia’s S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation, and China are all working to get to the moon to start harvesting Helium 3.

Back to Mars.

From NASA’s Website:

Building on decades of robotic exploration, we're working to send humans to Mars in the 2030s. First, the Space Launch System and Orion will carry astronauts into the proving ground of deep space, including a yearlong mission. We'll also conduct a robotic Mars sampling mission, and test techniques for landing on and living on the Red Planet.

From the Fox News Website: SpaceX's Mars spaceship apparently won't be a mere concept vehicle for much longer.

On Sunday night (April 8), SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk posted on Instagram a photo of "the main body tool" for the BFR spaceship. The company is building this craft to take people to the Red Planet and other destinations throughout the solar system.

This carbon-fiber-composite spaceship is going to be big, as the inclusion of an electric car — made by one of Musk's other companies, Tesla — in the photo shows. How big? According to the specs Musk laid out in a talk last September, it'll be 157.5 feet long by 30 feet wide (48 by 9 meters). [The BFR: SpaceX's Mars-Colonization Architecture in Images]

And that's just for the spaceship, which will likely accommodate 100 or more passengers at a time. The BFR will also incorporate a rocket, which will feature 31 Raptor engines and be capable of lofting 150 tons (136 metric tons) to low Earth orbit. The BFR rocket-spaceship combo will stand 348 feet (106 m) tall when stacked together, Musk has said, and both components will be fully reusable.

SpaceX has said it plans to use the BFR to help establish a million-person city on Mars, ideally in the next half-century or so. The first crewed Red Planet mission could come in the 2020s, according to Musk.

So let’s tally the scores.

Mining Helium 3 on the moon:

The contenders are:

NASA (Public)

Planetary Resources (Private)

Russia’s S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation (Private)

China (Public)

Winner: Tie 2 public entities, 2 private

Manned trip to Mars:

The contenders are:

NASA -Planning for a trip in the 2030s

SpaceX- Planning for a trip in the 2020s

Winner: SpaceX- Assuming they meet their target, which they’ve gotten pretty good at doing.

Now like most of my blogs, this is a little tongue-in-cheek. The truth is, none of this would be possible without the phenomenal work done by NASA, and other publicly-funded agencies like it. I think it’s just a very exciting time to be alive. I hope I live long enough to see a colony established on Mars. Who knows, maybe even see some future President Trump negotiating trade not with China, but with a civilization from another world.

Want to read more of Jeff’s blog posts? Just visit his blog by clicking on the link below!

https://www.hortonlibrary.com/home/blog-the-horton-post

#Jeff W. Horton #Space #The Horton Library #NASA # SpaceX #Mars #Science #Books

#tags

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sunpopthan-l-blog · 5 years

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Evolvement of Thailand’s Trade Before Asian Financial Crisis In 1997

If you have read my previous article on “Impact of Trade War To Thai Economy”, it has been saying that strongest push for this was the Tom Yum Kung financial crisis in 1997 (Ijaz & Jayasankar, 2001). This is not proved to be wrong, but the real push to encourage people to start producing goods to sell overseas was actually started in the era of Ayutthaya kingdom (Nipatsukkit, 2007).

15th Century: Pre-Industrialized Period Thailand’s Rising Era on Exporting Goods

This was actually started with Christopher Columbus, who is known for the first explorer on cross-continental exploration of new lands in 15th century. With this, many local traders from many main market countries/regions—Europeans, Chinese, and Muslims—started to be more confident to explore the new world and encouraged to trade around the world. (Smith & Needham, 1967). However, this period is still in pre-industrial era in which technology was still not being strongly developed, so trading was still be based on concept of barter system in which goods are being bought and sold in the immediate context, or in other words export-import trading (Thapar, 2017).

With the Ayutthaya kingdom being existed during this period of great exploration, this encourages the kingdom to open for the trade from other nation outside its territory and at the same time allowing Thai goods to be sold easily in the international markets through the good cross-national relationship building of Thai king with other main market nations mentioned earlier. However, with very strong power distance index on societal rank and monarchy system in the ancient era, exporting activities were solely ran by king (Nipatsukkit, 2007), with the nation’s specialization on producing abundant high-quality rice in agricultural industry, and later turned to be world’s top-supplier of rice (Kasetsiri, 2005).

20th Century: Post-Industrialized Period Advanced Export and Free Movement of Production

With the rise of industrial revolution, many countries have been introduced with more advanced technology and automation for productivity. This turned the economy of many countries to shift their focus from agricultural to manufacturing sector of production, or in other words turning majority of rural to be urban area. This higher spread of higher wealth among the country lead to overwhelming needs on buying more of goods, both of and beyond basic needs. So, traders could no longer maintain their production in their own country and should start expanding production elsewhere, or in other words invention of mass production concept. This is also being in the same time as when tourism industry was initially emerged in which people also wanted to be mentally relaxed when they already spent their quality time to improve themselves to be rich, and this is the service part of overseas trade (Keibek, 2017). However, development and wealth were really being spread around the world after world war II has been settled, leading to emergence of overwhelming suppliers of basic common traded goods worldwide, leading the concept of mass production to be overly used and started to gradually be ineffective (Goldhar & Jelinek, 1983).

Because of this, Thailand started to receive many foreign direct investments (FDIs) from abroad, especially from Japan, instead of only having direct trades on local products worldwide, due to the fact that Thailand is one of the countries in southeast Asia that has abundant and low cost on local labor and raw materials, and with high score on east of doing business. But due to continue growth in exporting Thai rice, Thailand did not stop focusing on exports and this can be concluded that Thailand is focusing in almost all aspects of business investment, including both current investment on exports and capital investment on FDIs (Bhatia, 1998).

21st Century: Economic Recession Period Obstacles and Turbulence In Globalization

Performance of Thai economy did not seem to be very problematic until when economies of Japan, which Thailand mostly relied their inflow of foreign investment on, started to drop dramatically. With this, many of those Japanese companies will return their investments abroad back to help supporting their loss of sales back home to prevent insufficient funds for their headquarters. This means they will be turning all of their investments in Thai Baht to be in US dollar or in their own currency, leading more of foreign currencies to be flowing out from Thai central bank, or in other words reducing foreign reserves in Thai central bank (Bhatia, 1998).

Apart from economic recession in Japan, the strength of Thai Baht value was also being attacked by stronger US dollar because of growing US economy, leaded Thai Baht to be weakened value of Thai Baht. This seemed to be good news for Thailand as they also rely on exports. However, because Thailand was not only focusing on exports but also on foreign direct investments (FDIs) from abroad, value of Thai Baht should not be too high nor low, to ensure high profitability of exporting companies and future outcome of investments. And this is the time when fixed exchange system plays a role. And because Thai Baht was strongly pegged (80%) with US dollar, it requires huge amount of foreign reserves to be backed up for constant rate of 25 Thai Baht for 1 US dollar (Liebhold, 1999).

With two diverse points mentioned earlier on exports and foreign direct investments, it creates a lot of difficulties for country to control constant economic performance over time as central bank would require two folds of original required budget on foreign reserves, leading to improper use and allocation of country’s money that could be used for something more useful instead because foreign reserve is non-profit making assets that have to be stocked for future use. For example, since Thailand does not have super abundant capital and resources, focusing solely and completely on either exporting or FDI industry could provide higher budget on subsidies for new local companies of that chosen industry to strongly compete with international market in the future (Khan, 2004).

During and After Asian Financial Crisis In 1997

Why Thailand depends so much on exporting and tourism industries?

When it comes to August 1997, bank of Thailand is running out of foreign reserve and can no longer hold the rate to be at 25 units and therefore leave the rate to be floated and be controlled by regular market (Griffith-Jones et al, 2003). This was a very great opportunity for speculators to play around with the currency volatility of Thai Baht as they will hugely be benefited from this by doing the short position with the concept that they will be agreed to sell Thai Baht to foreigners at current spot rate and handling the actual Thai Baht later on with ability to buy those at much lower rate (Kramer, 2019).

As mentioned earlier about Japanese economic recession, Thai companies that are joint with Japanese companies, due to non-allowance for foreign companies to solely operate without any involvement of Thai entrepreneurs, would be losing some part of investments from those foreign companies. Also, government were required to also borrow some more of foreign loans to back up foreign reserves of central bank and to support those companies that cannot really recover by themselves before financial crisis took place in 1997. So, by January 1998, the rate of Thai Baht became 56 units per 1 US dollar, affecting many companies and government that used to borrow foreign loans in US dollar to be bankrupted as they are unable to pay back the same loans but requiring more than twice of Thai Baht amount (Griffith-Jones et al, 2003).

Because not so many Thai companies and government budget, especially when comparing with Indonesia, were relied on foreign loans, so there were still remained surviving companies and government could still manage to survive through this crisis (Swaminathan, 2017).

Why exporting no longer works for Thailand?

And with this opportunity of strong depreciation in Thai Baht, Thailand later decided to move its focus to be more on exports and tourism so that Thai economy could be able to recover itself much faster as country could export cheaper Thai products abroad and cheaper Thai Baht would influence more of tourists from European and American countries that did not actually got hurt from the financial crisis in 1997. However, because Thailand at that time was suffering so much that wanted to escape from the crisis, they did not actually concern about long-term plans and effects of the shift in country focus but instead on immediate benefits that could help them to move out from that zone. So, when time passed and Thai economy was fully recovered, even though Thailand would still be able to manage to operate tourism industry as it is yet very advanced and fragmented, but it actually started to lose out the competitive position in the world market on Thai products because most of those are based still on unadjusted products like rice that are sold directly to the market, as now more of Southeast Asian countries can also efficiently produce rice (Chi, 2017). And with Thailand having exporting industry to be 61.7% of the total Thai GDP, Thai market can easily be attacked and vanished by their direct competitors (Trade Maps, 2019).

Suggestion For Thailand

Since Thailand still does not have much of capital and resources to further develop the country by themselves without requiring financial supports from outside, they should first get first focus on foreign direct investments industry with limitation on chosen types of industry provided by local government to ensure that local people can be more improved on what they are really being specialized on, based on resources available, skills, and identity of host country, not just only using Thailand as supporting location for their own specializations. With this, more of Thai people can further improve their skills on desired industries as well as provide them and the country with more income, less unemployment rate, and better performance on GDP.

References

Bhatia, M. (1998), “East Asia’s Tumbling Dominoes: Financial Crisis and the Myth of the Regional Model,” Conference of Radical Political Economists, York University, Toronto, Canada, September 28-30 1998.

Chi, K. (2017). Vietnamese prefer Thailand’s expensive rice to Vietnam’s cheap rice. Retrieved from https://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/business/175470/vietnamese-prefer-thailand-s-expensive-rice-to-vietnam-s-cheap-rice.html

Goldhar, J. D., Jelinek, M. (1983). Plan for economies of scope. Harvard business review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/1983/11/plan-for-economies-of-scope

Griffith-Jones, S., Gottschalk, R., & Cailloux, J. (Eds.). (2003). International Capital Flows in Calm and Turbulent Times: The Need for New International Architecture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3998/mpub.17835

Ijaz N., Jayasankar, S. (2001). Back from the brink: Thailand’s response to the 1997 economic crisis. Directions in development. Washington, DC: World Bank. Retrieved from https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/13973

Kasetsiri, C. (2005). Ayutthaya: History and Politics. Toyota Thailand Foundation, Bangkok, Thamasart University Publishing.

Keibek, S. A. J. (2017). The male occupational structure of England and Wales, 1600-1850 (Doctoral thesis). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.8960

Khan, H. A. (2004). Globalization: challenges and opportunities. University of Denver. Retrieved from http://www.cirje.e.u-tokyo.ac.jp/research/dp/2004/2004cf260.pdf

Kramer, M. (2019). Short (or short position). Investopedia. Received from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/short.asp

Liebhold, D. (1999). Thailand's Scapegoat? Battling extradition over charges of embezzlement, a financier says he's the fall guy for the 1997 financial crash. Retrieved from Time.com.

Nipatsukkit, V. (2007) Ayutthaya Trade in 16-17 century. Bangkok, Mungboran Publishing

Smith, P. J., Needham, J. (1967). Magnetic Declination in Mediaeval China. Nature. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/2141213b0

Swaminathan, A. S. (2017). 20 years after the Asian Financial Crisis, Indonesia has lessons learned — and warnings. CNBC. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/07/20-years-after-the-asian-financial-crisis-indonesia-has-lessons-learned--and-warnings.html

Thammavit, T. (1998). “The Bubble Finally Burst,” Bangkok Post: Economic Review Year-End 1997, Bangkok, Thailand, January 15 1998, pp. 6-7.

Thapar, N. (2017). The evolution of trading: barter system to algo trading. Retrieved from https://www.quantinsti.com/blog/evolution-trading-barter-system-algo-trading

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outletcheapggdb-blog · 5 years

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Golden Goose Womens Sneakers Sale UK Guide with Starting this Small small Business

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mrmichaelchadler · 6 years

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Bright Wall/Dark Room August 2018: Women, Aliens, and Dangerous Things: Female Bodies in Alien 3 by Sarah Welch

We are pleased to offer an excerpt from the latest edition of the online magazine, Bright Wall/Dark Room. The theme for their August issue is BODY, and in addition to Sarah Welch's essay below on "Alien 3," they''ll also be featuring essays on "Body Double," "Safe," "The Virgin Suicides," "Nosferatu," "Weekend at Bernie's II," "George Washington," "Pet Sematary," "Goon," "Alice," "The Wizard of Oz," and "Videodrome" throughout the month.

You can read our previous excerpts from the magazine by clicking here. To subscribe to Bright Wall/Dark Room, or look at their most recent essays, click here.

Alien 3 explores the worst form of body horror: discovering that you’ve been reduced by the people around you to the body you live in, that you will be judged for your body, and that there is no way to change this perception of you. The result cuts deeper than any ravenous monster ever could; it hurts the heart and wounds the soul.

The Alien movies perfected body horror. The alien will kill you on sight, if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky—and you’re unlucky by default if you find yourself in an Alien film—the creature that serves as the reproductive portion of the alien’s life cycle will catch you and lay its offspring in your chest via your throat. It will nest inside your ribcage as you walk around, using you as an incubator until it’s time for the creature to be suddenly and violently born, a process that will kill you painfully. Having used your body, it will go on to inflict more pain and terror on those around you. The alien is shorthand for fear of rape.

Each of the Alien movies explore this concept in a different setting and flavor, each with their own director’s signature stamped in bold letters across its face. Alien (Ridley Scott) is cold, analytical horror, slow-moving at first until all hell breaks loose. Aliens (James Cameron) is hot-blooded action, all heart and pumping adrenaline. Alien 3 (David Fincher) rotates back to the horror of Scott’s original film, but this time it is grimy and confused, more callous and nihilistic than the original. There’s no hope to be had when you’ve crash-landed on a penal colony with an unwelcome passenger in tow.

It gets worse. The Alien universe has always been cold and unforgiving, but the maximum-security prison world of Fury 161 presents the bleakest setting yet. The atmosphere is tinted yellow; it’s easy to imagine that breathing Fury 161’s air is like breathing fumes and sweat. The planet is a leadworks, home to a skeleton crew of 25 convicts, a medic, and two wardens. Almost none of the technology works anymore. The prisoners have turned to religion, of the apocalyptic Christian fundamentalist variety. They haven’t seen a woman in years.

The subtext from the previous movies becomes text in Alien 3. The film telegraphs its intent from the very beginning, cutting rapidly back and forth between the opening credits and the demise of the survivors of the Sulaco, flying home from their mission in Aliens. A fire breaks in the cryogenic compartment where Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Newt (Danielle Edmond), Hicks (Michael Biehn), and the android Bishop (Lance Henricksen) sleep; alarms wail as the jointed legs of a facehugger unfold. An escape pod is jettisoned, tumbling toward the dark, rocky planet Fury 161. Hicks and Newt are killed on impact. Bishop is scattered into pieces, too damaged to be considered salvageable. Ripley is doomed from the beginning. She’s a dead woman walking among convicted murderers and rapists.

The prisoners have taken vows of celibacy as part of their religion, although some are more devout than others. Their leader, Dillon (Charles S. Dutton), is upset about Ripley’s arrival, since she’s the first real “temptation”—his words—he’s encountered in years. He wants nothing to do with her. He’d elected to stay on Fury 161 after the prison was to be closed, because he wants to live out his sentence in penitence and prayer among the soaring columns of the mostly defunct machinery and the cells of his fellow prisoners. It’s a twisted interpretation of the call to be a monk, in a twisted analogue of a monastery. Dillon’s prayers emphasize his bleak worldview. In his religion, there is no grace to be had, only punishment for past crimes. To his mind, Ripley’s appearance is an unjust temptation, when he’s already done so much penitent work. His reaction to her is a mix of fear and hostility.

The prison superintendent, Andrews (Brian Glover), has an even stronger reaction. Dillon speaks to Ripley as if she’s a threat, but at least he treats her as an equal. Andrews has a tenuous hold on the top of the power structure on Fury 161, and Ripley’s arrival has cracked everything. Andrews speaks with the authority of a man who has to defend his position, and not one who has earned it. His distaste for Ripley bubbles over into outright condescension every time they talk. He calls her a “good girl” when she agrees to his demand that she stay in the sickbay away from the prisoners. The request is under the pretense of Ripley’s “personal safety”—a valid concern—but the superintendent also makes it clear that he doesn’t want “ripples in the water, and… a woman walking about giving them [the convicts] ideas.”

Ripley acknowledges Andrews’ orders to his face, but doesn’t while away her time in sickbay. She explores her environment behind Andrews’ back, digging through the trash heap for Bishop’s pieces and eating meals in the cafeteria with the prisoners. She, like the audience, knows that everyone else on the planet considers her to be the dangerous one. When Ripley and Andrews do interact, their scenes echo the interrogations from The Passion of Joan of Arc; Ripley with her head shaved, Andrews shot from a low angle. The religious imagery that pervades the film is especially obvious here: Andrews’ office looks like a cleric’s room, with oblong windows barred like stained glass framing his head.

Andrews does not want to hear anything from Ripley; nothing she can say or do is of service to him, ostensibly because she’s a woman who shouldn’t be where she is. He just wants her off the planet. At first, this suits Ripley just fine. The less she has to talk about the horrors she’s survived up to this point, the better. But even after it’s clear that there’s an alien stalking the prison, and after convicts turn up mauled in the basement passageways, Andrews still refuses to listen. “She doesn’t have all the facts,” he snaps; it never occurs to him that the danger comes not from the woman who crash-landed here, nor from the men inside his walls, but from something far worse.

The men consider her dangerous because she’s a woman, and therefore a temptation: a poor judgment on the prisoners’ worldview, because they blame her for the sudden tension in their lives. They’re unable or unwilling to question their own homicidal impulses toward her. Andrews is worse. To him, Ripley is a threat because she’s assertive, taking action without stopping to ask permission or to consult with him. She tells him to cremate the bodies from her crash landing, not to keep them on ice; she convinces Clemens to perform the autopsy without obtaining Andrews’ approval. Andrews sees her actions as a challenge to his authority. Because he has no weapons, his only power over the prisoners he oversees is information: he holds “rumor control” meetings, and is the only person who can access the outside world by sending messages to the company. As someone else from the outside, Ripley threatens to topple his hold on power because she has her own information.

Whether Andrews is conscious of this or not is left ambiguous, but his reaction is anything but. His only defense is outright sexism: sequestering Ripley away from the others, belittling her as a “good girl” and claiming that she “doesn’t have all the facts,” and therefore cannot contribute anything to their little microcosm of society—ironic cruelty, as his second in command, nicknamed “85” for his IQ, does nothing of import but parrot Andrews’ orders. Ripley is made a second class citizen on a prison world. She is just as intelligent and capable as the men around her. She even looks like them: her head is shaved to prevent the spread of lice, and the baggy, shapeless clothes she wears obscure her body. But still, she’s an outcast among outcasts, feared and hated only because of her gender.

The only sympathetic person on Fury 161 is Clemens (Charles Dance), the medic. He’s initially skeptical of Ripley’s story—the crash is suspicious, and she’s sparing with the facts of her life, at least at first—but he comes around quickly when she asks to see Newt’s body.

The autopsy stands out as one of the best scenes in the film. It’s cold and unpleasant, but spare, stripped down to shots of the child’s frozen eyelashes, a morgue slab, a bone saw in the hands of a sympathetic but skeptical doctor. There’s a splash of blood, then a cracked chest, and nothing more. Ripley confirms for herself that Newt did not die as host to an alien. She’s desperate for closure, but unwilling to answer Clemens’ questions herself; others have disbelieved her before when she’s told them about the alien. The only people who have believed her story have underestimated the dangers that the alien presents, or have tried to use her as an expendable asset to acquire the alien for their own purposes. It never ends well. She’s left a trail of death in her wake, followed across space by a ravenous monster. The alien has insinuated itself into her life so fully that she “can’t remember anything else.” In the face of this new, raw, young death, Ripley doesn’t care to make herself any more vulnerable than she already is.

And she is vulnerable, perhaps more than she’s ever been. She’s been questioned before, but that was by the corporate wing of the company, eager to close the book on a failed mission and happy to have a scapegoat for a destroyed refinery. She’s been scoffed at, but that was by the contingent of marines sent to investigate the sudden radio silence of a human colony, convinced that there’s no danger to them and their massive guns until it’s too late. Here, Ripley is questioned and scoffed at by men simply because she is a woman, and because her existence in a female body is a far more believable danger to all of them than the “possible contagion” she warns them about. They treat her as a temptation and as an alien figure, something that isn’t quite human, just because she’s female. Until the body count mounts and their leaders are gone, the prisoners on Fury 161 act as though Ripley is a greater threat than the alien itself.

It turns out Ripley is more dangerous than the convicts around her can ever know or fear. After being menaced, but not killed, by the alien that’s been stalking the basement passageways, Ripley discovers that she carries an alien queen inside her chest. She’s spent half the film up to this point trying to fly under the radar of the men who think her the greatest possible threat to their existence. She spends the second half of the film trying to convince them that the alien she carries is worse than anything else they could have imagined, and that to hand her over to the company coming to collect her would spell destruction for countless other lives. To the convicts, she’s a threat. To the company, she’s an incubator, a pulsing body that exists only to sustain the creature that they want for their bioweapons division, no person at all.

Unfortunately for Ripley, there’s no happy ending here. She sacrifices herself to keep the alien from falling into the company’s hands, gaining a respite for the universe: the alien threat is gone, at least for now. Ripley is dead. The Fury 161 prison is closed, its machinery sold for scrap, reduced to the parts that once made it function. The world continues to spin.

And yet Ripley lives on. The first two Alien movies are remembered because they are the best in the series. But Alien 3 endures, in spite of its thorny reputation and imperfect execution, just as Ripley endures in spite of her continued run-ins with the alien. The men around Ripley define her only by her gender, by the shape of her body. The film never makes that mistake. Ripley is vulnerable and strong, tough and temperamental, intelligent and brave, and none of those aspects of her character cancel each other out. Alien 3, more than any other Alien movie, is aware of Ripley’s existence as a woman, and the unique and universal horrors that come with the territory of inhabiting a woman’s body.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2KRhnOM

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creativesage · 7 years

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(via On 40 Years Watching the Sustainable Business Field | Sustainable Brands)

By Matt Polsky

The second of a three-part proposal for using sustainability to recharge America's problem-solving.

[Read Part One]

As I approach the 40-year mark (no, the sustainable business field isn’t that old, but I’m counting poking-and-prodding prep time in those early, mostly barren and lonely MBA years), I wanted to reflect and offer some suggestions, not so much to the field at large, but to its emerging leaders — those already bending rules in the “Purpose,” “Business-as-an-Agent-of-World-Benefit,” “Values,” UN SDGs and “Context” wings. Of course, potential leaders within the now-conventional sustainable business field are welcome to listen in.

These pioneers are now making some headway towards mainstream relevance. But we need to try harder to avoid common one-step-forward/half-step-back change patterns. I continue to see unnecessarily self- or culturally imposed constraints on potential effectiveness because of not questioning enough of our assumptions. And in the last few years I’ve seen a possible good news/bad news result: mid-20s to early-30s graduates of some prominent green MBA/Masters Programs in good positions, and who with their LEED and GRI certifications are a step beyond their generational predecessors, but who have “settled.” They routinely follow old-line organizational procedures, and seem to have given up on transformational change.

As some examples, I’m still not seeing enough realization that we’re going to have to learn our way to sustainability, and therefore humility and curiosity are acceptable personality traits. There’s not enough boldness to raise, and comfort to discuss, some difficult topics within our business organizations. These include: ethics that are not yet being forced on you, state and national policy and politics, gray areas, uncertainty, and complexity. We don’t often challenge organizations to leave their comfort zones. We don’t explain systems thinking, one of our powerful tools, very well. Our communications field-influenced work doesn’t always ask “What’s special about sustainability” that might not apply anywhere else? All the writing about the importance of innovation doesn’t go far enough to ask about lurking but lethal “innovation killers” outside of the main, usually technical, areas getting the attention. The take-down of “common sense” as an unquestioned virtue by the contrarian field of behavioral economics, such as the primacy of rationality and its long-held but mistaken separation from emotions in our decision-making, are not appreciated.

Everyday references to business in the media, as in “business is supporting the rollback of environmental regulations,” or even just routine single-bottom-line messages, are not commonly refuted with counter-examples offered by groups such as Ceres and the American Sustainable Business Council, or the TBL concept. Challenge those conventional wisdoms, too.

We seem content with success in filling old occupational titles, and not fully exploring and building on new ones, such as Danone’s “Chief Manifesto Catalyst,” Ben & Jerry’s “Activism Manager,” Volans’ “Chief Pollinator,” Google’s “Design Ethicist and Product Philosopher.” Our Green MBA programs don’t seem to want to tell students, at least those who are open to hearing it, that they’re going to have to invent their roles in the field and redefine them as they go.

Examples of courage are still rare and this trait doesn’t even appear in lists of what we tell students to cultivate. I’ve often written about the too-easy acceptance of the purported objectivity and supremacy of data and metrics, rather than using them as tools in the pursuit of sustainability.

I’ve long noted a superficial use of what should be one of our most treasured words - “community” - as actual better performance by sustainability practitioners compared to their non-sustainable world peers is barely detectable. Ask, for instance, do we routinely respond to emails or messages on our company’s “Contact” sites? Do we get back to people when we say we will? Do we play fair when we compete for contracts? Do we cover each other’s backs when one of us goes out on a limb and it doesn’t go so well? Are we treating each other within the field the way we would want to be treated?

And now the same thing is happening with another potential treasure - “transformation” - which is cavalierly being thrown around. With some exceptions, the differences between it and its apparent opposite, “incremental,” are also hard to perceive.

“Diversity” programs, while well-intended, totally miss over-generalizations about, and show no empathy towards, white men, who are apparently all the same. Their fears of reverse discrimination and possibly how to address it almost never come up.

While I see some advantages, I’m not totally comfortable with the swing to, and especially the conformity around, positive psychology and the “flourishing” or “thriving” themes that seek to replace the “sustainability” term. I just heard a lecture on survivalism from the “Transition” wing of the sustainability field – not a lot of flourishing there. I’m too aware of the gloomy yet prominent environmental writers, Elizabeth Kolbert and Derrick Jensen, who stunningly offer no hope. And while I have problems with those extremes, too, we cannot simply ignore these perspectives.

Finally, while we’ve heard the message we need to learn to understand and talk to the Trump voter, we’re only at the very beginning of figuring out how (or haven’t yet decided that we truly need to). Doing so will require a new attitude and perhaps skillsets.

So as not to fall into the glass-half-full and no-hope traps myself, I’ll end more positively and make a few more suggestions, including reframing what’s on many minds into a “lemons into lemonade” opportunity.

I’m seeing and recently reviewed reports and articles from a growing number of consultants and foundations who are telling business what the latter may not want to hear. It is no longer so rare. And, at least when I’ve seen them do it, they are not getting hit for it.

In your UN SDGs or related pursuits, don’t not pursue mainstream companies from whom you wouldn’t necessarily expect positive results. They might be ready to show some “Principle,” too. I showed many examples in a three-part series last year.

At the next sustainable business conference you attend, put the smartphone down a few times, look for someone you don’t know whom you ordinarily wouldn’t talk to, go up to them and ask: “What’s working for you here, and what isn’t?” Your new friend might have something on their mind that you need to hear.

Finally, if the leading edge of the sustainable business field plays its cards right, learns and revises quickly as it goes, and brings along the rest of the field, with a lot of luck, the next potentially very scary four years can actually be an opportunity to begin to displace “conventional” business-as-usual with a new business-as-usual: “Business as an Agent of World Benefit.”

Read Part Three: A review of the social cost of carbon

[Entire post — click on the title link to read it at Sustainable Brands.]

***

At Creative Sage™, we love to connect corporate leaders and entrepreneurs with good causes, and help companies start genuine Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability, Social Entrepreneurship, Intrapreneurship, or philanthropy programs that are a win-win for all partners. We’re always researching new developments in the Sharing Economy that include new business models to increase profits, and also support social good.

Please do not hesitate to email us if you would like to discuss your situation and find out more about how we can help your organization move forward to a more innovative and profitable future, strengthening your branding and resonance with customers while helping to do good in the world through appropriate, authentic CSR partnerships with nonprofits, philanthropists, educational institutions and programs, or government agencies and community organizations.

We can also help you connect with celebrities and other notable people who can help amplify your message of social good, or headline entertainment events and concerts for good causes. You can call us at 1-510-845-5510 in San Francisco / Silicon Valley. We look forward to talking with you!

***

#SaveEPA Sustainability

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attendantdesign-blog · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Attendantdesign

New Post has been published on http://attendantdesign.com/best-mac-emulators-how-to-play-old-games-run-classic-software-on-mac-os/

Best Mac emulators How to play old games & run classic software on mac OS

Trying to run the vintage software, retro video games and arcade classics to your Mac?

Get antique computers and consoles going for walks to your Mac, from the Apple II and ZX Spectrum to the Atari 2600 and Sega Mega Drive, with our Mac emulation mega guide Game Software.

What are the first-class Mac emulators? What’s the great manner to run antique software program and unfashionable console video games in MacOS?

software and video games have been as soon as on borrowed time, surviving simplest so long as the hardware on which they ran. But then systems became powerful sufficient to successfully mimic people who came before. So commenced the age of emulation.

Nowadays, even a years-vintage Mac can emulate a big range of older hardware, supplying you with the threat to relive antique favorites or to enjoy apps and games you might have missed. Emulation is also essential from an archiving viewpoint, maintaining secure limitless pieces of a software program that could otherwise disappear forever because the media they are stored on degrades.

In this feature, we explore the cutting-edge kingdom of emulation on MacOS. We begin with the way to emulate antique Apple hardware such as the Apple II and Macintosh Plus. We then delve into emulating historic Desktops, traditional consoles, arcade video games, and a few a good deal loved home computer systems.

Read subsequent: fine loose internet browser games for Mac | exceptional Mac games

Great Mac emulators manual: The obligatory warnings bit Before we start, it’s well worth noting some snags relating to emulation. First, emulation is not plug-and-play – But we will define how to get started out with emulators we cowl. Secondly, MacOS can also bitch a number of our advocated emulators are from unidentified developers, and therefore might not release them. To get around that, Control-click the relevant app in Finder, pick Open and click on Open inside the next warning conversation box.

Finally, there are prison issues surrounding a few emulation. Possession of vintage software program varies wildly; rights for character titles may be fiercely guarded, disputed, entirely unknown, or maybe lengthy in the past launched into the public area. Additionally, your right to download and use digital copies varies from us of a to country. Even if you very own the original hardware and software, you can discover yourself technically on the incorrect side of infringement legislation except you extract the ROMs yourself.

That everyone stated, it’s vanishingly unlikely you will get a knock on the door from the men in blue if you hearth up an antique reproduction of Choplifter for Apple II on an emblem-new MacBook Pro.