#2 proposals written. and one full paper based of of one of those proposals. and a presentation based off of the other one.

[apocalypticdemon]

you ever just want to cry because you have a shit ton of papers due and absolutely no findings to write about.

it's going great

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket Manga Review (ch 90-91)

Since I discussed the first few pages of ch-90 that contains kyo & tohru in my previous preview, this one will only be kyoko’s story.

Kyoko’s story brilliantly explores the effects of unhealthy domestic environment on children without the use of the zodiac curse as a metaphor for abuse. My first-reaction of kyoko’s story is the following:

I really enjoyed how kyoko’s descend into darkness was explored & how the psychologically-informed writing of her behavior was depicted.

I was troubled by how Katsuya was presented as the magical solution to all her problems. Kyoko was saved by romantic love in a more basic writing than machi. Both girls just needed a guy to listen to them vent abt their family issues once & tada~ they’re in love.

Kyoko’s story made me realize that Arisa is just a more modern & healthier kyoko.. The only difference is that Kureno didn’t save Arisa. She herself changed gradually due to kyoko & tohru’s influence.

1) Kyoko’s descend into Darkness:

Kyokyo told kyo that she was already “out of control delinquent before she got to middle school”, “ fell into the wrong crowd”, “ enjoyed beating innocent ppl”. subtly citing the influence of “delinquent peers” & the innate desire be noticed at home. I’m bad, notice me! love me, listen to me!

There are some elements in her story that faintly reminds me of yuki & strongly reminds me of kyo:

Kyoko’s parents gave her a treatment similar to “ yuki’s parents”: cold, neglect & devoid of love. Her dad, similar to kyo’s dad, felt ashamed & disgraced by her.

Kyoko similarly to kyo was angry, full of self-loath & self-destruction. However, kyo was never violent like she was. I believe kyo’d have turned like her if he didn’t have Kazuma to discipline him with love, care & attention. Hence, we saw kyo carry on a code of “ not beating girls, or ppl who aren’t hurting them, or don’t know martial arts”, like Arisa or the student council guy whop loves yuki.

Kyoko’s mom similarly of kyo’s mom talked abt the dad venting his anger on her after being pissed off with kyoko. So, a hint of domestic violence between husband & wife.

Kyoko described herself as “ made of shattered glass”. Tohru once said both kyo & yuki are very sensitive. yuki blocks the world behind the prince mask & kyo puts on the annoyed attitude to push ppl away from hurting him.

Society thinks that “delinquent/bad ppl” are always happy with what they’ve become. Satisfied with their destructive choices. When in most of the times... they’re as bewildered & confused as the community around them..

I really don’t blame the teachers for being defensive. Teachers aren’t supposed to be “life-coaches” or “saviors of students”. That’s sth the educators with their research gush abt & what society demands & what families wish for. The fixer-teacher!!!! Teachers are ppl teaching a subject, doing a specific job, underpaid & overworked most of the times, also, they come from various backgrounds, beliefs, & sometimes even if they meant good & wanted to “ save” a student, they aren’t equipped with the suitable psychological training. Yeah, there are ppl for that in schools, but so many students with lots of issues. Also, let’s be real, we love kyoko cuz she’s the “epic mother of tohru, we grew on her teachings thro out 3 seasons” but if you meet a loud, delinquent, gangster head, violent chair throwing student who rarely comes anyway, would you wanna deal with them?

2- Katsuya “ the magical savior”:

so, why did teacher katsuya helped a screaming delinquent? cuz he IS interested in kyoko. He said so. He approached her, talked & tried to help cuz he intended to “never let her go since he saw her honesty” ~ romantic? maybe to some.. I find it weird & creepy. him eyeing her & getting interested & approaching her & earning her trust. It is true that he has no intention of hurting her or forcing her & he DID save her in more ways than one. But why is this all wrapped in romance. He DID flirt with her intentionally many times from the moment he saw her until then.

If Im being honest, had he not be her teacher (trainee or not), & had she not be very veeeeery young! I’d be enjoying his flirting so much. He’s so smooth, playful & cool (not looking head over heels in love) which is normally such a fun dynamics. She was so head over heels, tho. Finally found someone who noticed her tiny efforts “ drawing eyebrows”, someone who listened & someone who didn’t forced her to do her “duties”. She tells him (her teacher) that she is ditching classes & he’s okay with that~ not lecturing, not urging. why? cuz He only wants HER. she comes to see him in the lunch break everyday. school? classes? that’s her choice~ not his business~ In a way, Katsuya is intentionally made not morally correct. Why? cuz a good moral adult wouldn’t be in love with a middle schooler & would care for her future as an independent person from him. He must be written with intentional desire to NOT care for morals or right or the likes. Yes, he later helps her to study & graduate but ONLY when that is HER choice & she made it ONLY to catch up with him. To cleanse herself & be “ like the other girls” . Kyoko deemed katsuya “ good person” &  herself “ bad person”. That’s why she was motivated to be good to catch up with him since she can NO LONGER see him everyday in lunch break. He fixed that. How? teach her in the weekends & provide better chances to flirt since he’s no longer a teacher & she’s his student. The issue is not teacher-student love... it is adult-kid love!! but hey~ they’re cute (they’re written to be, so they are) so it’s cool ( it isn’t at all..eww).. oh the dilemma that is Takaya-san’s love for weird big age gaps where one is an underage teenager...

Furuba’s has this big theme of “ love doesn’t heal or save”. yuki took tohru’s love & grew up by himself. Kyo’s love for tohru didn’t save tohru, she was scared to be in love & forget her mom. Tohru made the decision to be free from her past, herself.  Tohru’s love to kyo made his trauma 10 times more complicated & he acted based on his love for her & decided to leave her. It wasnt until he decided to face his trauma, past & bio dad by himself, that he accepted tohru’s love. Only two characters were totally saved by love:

Machi: has the excuse of being solely created to be yuki’s reward for acknowledging platonic love for tohru & everything abt her is rushed & made as a lighter copy of all yuki’s issues to quickly create shared grounds for them to connect. Machi needed to vent her issues to yuki once & all her issues were never brought back to the service again. She was happier, calmer & healed.

I expected more for kyoko. She IS a bigger character than half of the zodiacs! but she just needed katsuya to listen to her & she was in love & her issues solved.

I don’t deny that it IS true that sometimes all we need is someone to listen to us. Tohru herself said so & even yuki said it to kyo. But Even if someone listen to us & we love them, the issues that troubled us dont magically disappear until we face them or do sth abt them aided by those who love us. Kyo’s issues remained even with his love until he faced them, tohru’s too!

Katsuya:

had off-screen issues with expressing himself. He said that he loved kyoko cuz she was “honest abt her ugly feelings” while he pretended to “humor & please his dad”. He gave a wonderful speech to her parents abt the expectations of parents on their kids & the refusal of their “human weakness” again furuba’s main vision. Unfortunately, this was followed with confessing, marriage proposal & kissing her on the lips all while the whole issue is abt kids/ parents exceptions of middle schooler/ neglect & his own acknowledgement that she’s minor while he was “in love”.

Like the author wants to tie kyoko’s issues & katsuya’s issues so bad & present him as her ONLY chance for normal life. Kyoko was just repenting & understanding that her actions got consequences which is an epic moment! but romance triumphant & saved the day~ yay~! marriage!

The story would’ve been better romantically if it was given time for kyoko to “ grow up” just like katsuya himself said when they were at the beach. He said “ grow up, middle school is not the world”. He continued meeting her but never confessed & never crossed the line despite the flirting. But he KNEW what he was doing “ i never planned to let you go since I saw you”. He was cementing his place as the ONLY one in her world.

Had kyoko grew up, saw the real world, kept taps with katsuya, he helped her broaden her world, then they’ll marry without needing her dad to sign papers, then that would be a better love story than this.

Side Notes:

The writer didn’t shy away from confessing that pairing Katsuya & kyoko is problematic & stated it in canon (kyoko called katsuya “pedo”). She did the same with Arisa & kureno (Arisa thought the age gap is big & hana questioned if kureno is a married man). However, making the story acknowledge that as an issues doesn’t make it less uncomfortable, but at least, I respect when writers do what they plan to do regardless of fans. even if I dont agree with the writer. It’s way better than when writer becoming fans toy/ fans pleaser.

Still, couldn’t the author state that kyoko was held back few years in jmiddle school & failed & repeated school years? like make her i duno 17 or sth... this would at least lessen the big age gap... but no~~~ kyoko is what? 14? ... -_-’.

You bet this won’t change a bit in the upcoming anime spinoff abt kyoko. Just this year an anime abt an adult man & his high school love interest that he pursued stubbornly was highly popular & my real life friends were gushing abt “ him finally winning her/ being respectful & only kissing her lips once or sth/waiting for her to “catch up” with him”/ consent age differ in X & Y countries..I’m not dictating my beliefs on anybody or any country or saying my way of thinking is the just way. I’m saying, Personally, I think, there are better romantic stories than adults & kids couples.. The fact that this trope of (adults & kids romance) is still popular even today is sad~~

I dont mind HUGE age gaps as long as BOTH characters are adults. If any of them makes a crime, they’ll be held responsible by the law. & sometimes the younger adult is the one dominating the relationship. but “kids or teenagers” can’t. They’re easily groomed & manipulated, so it bothers me when a love story between an adult & a kid is portrayed as  “equal”. it isn’t.

I’m not judging whoever loves such trope in “ fiction”. it IS fiction, & as long as you don't pursue a real kid/teenager in real life, you can like whatever in fiction. moving on~

kyoko’s delinquent life is well-written & if done right, would send a powerful message of being able to start over. But the romantic love aspect will steal the spotlight by (a) directing uncomfortable hate/disgust towards the story & hence all the discussions will abt the “pedo” aspect. (which is fair). (b) Perceived as so lovable romance since katsuya is the prince who to saved the neglected princess which is a trope that has stood thro time garnering lots of support & attention always, so all the discussion would be abt their “cute romance”. (which is fair since the author weaved elements that endeared their romance, such as: cute nicknames “miss no-eyebrows”, him giving her space, home & respect, saving her from the streets & poverty & having the most endearing tohru”. So, yeah, the romance will be the center of attention regardless.

I like katsuya’s character type in fiction generally: the flirty, mischievous & a bit cool guy who is so aware he’s wrong most times & plays his cards smart to not get caught red-handed. He’s a cooler version of shigure. It’s just the blatant fact that he’s been planning to “get” a middle schooler from the first glance & that she is wayyyy young for this, that is bothering me so so much~~ T_T.

I wont expect the anime to change their age gap cuz it is the essence of their story that she’s a lost kid with no protection against the world & he’s the savior providing everything at once!~ Remember kyoko went on to be the savior of an entire clan tho tohru~ So in a way, katsuya saved the sohmas by saving kyoko....

“ i’m like a stray cat that he looked after instead of chasing away”. kyoko with katsuya is like kyo with kazuma! >_<!. When kyo met tohru, he wasn’t a stray cat, most of how he dealt with her was cuz he already knew her & was tormented by remembering kyoko’s death & feeling guilty towards tohru’s constant pain. That’s why when kyo started falling in love with tohru, he unconsciously stopped pushing her away little by little & just wanted to be with her until akito said “ i’ll hurt her” that’s when he totally gave up.

the way katsiya appeared in the right moment to save kyoko from her dad~ oh the drama. XD

Hospital Discharge & chase. like mom like daughter~ but thank God the kids got a more balanced love story.

Comparing kyoko/katsuya to Arisa/kureno in the broad writing of their romance without diving into details: (a) I hate the age gap in both but at least Arisa is older & nothing happened until she graduates & become an official adult. (b) Kyoko/katsuya are more fleshed out & if you forget the age gap,m their dynamic is so cute & endearing. (c) the love at first glance, never meeting afterwards yet still sickly in love to the extinct of screaming made Arisa/kureno shallower. (d) now that I saw teenage kyoko, Arisa is really just her clone! I hate that this steals from Arisa’s uniqueness. (e) both couples ate ramen in their first meeting/first unofficial date signalling their blooming love.

I’ve said this more than once, but I was the high-schooler that fancied adult independent men growing up, I never pursued anyone tho cuz I understood it was a crush even tho I’m pretty sure my “ *_*” face was clear to one or two, but I’m definitely lucky none of them tried to woo me or influence me. Now that I’m a grown woman, I think back & laugh at my self. I fancied them cuz they were independent & mature compared to the silly high school boys, which is what those men are supposed to be (adults) & what those boys are supposed to be (living their young age). lol. Still, I wish I found someone somehow to be my life’s partner since then, it would’ve made my life less lonely~ T_T.

[96thdayofrage]

WAR DAY 7️⃣1️⃣2️⃣1️⃣ 🍅 "In an exclusive interview with The Grayzone, Col. Douglas Macgregor, a former senior advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense, revealed that President Donald Trump shocked the US military only days after the election last November by signing a presidential order calling for the withdrawal of all remaining US troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

"As Macgregor explained to The Grayzone, the order to withdraw was met with intense pressure from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark M. Milley, which caused the president to capitulate. Trump agreed to withdraw only half of the 5,000 remaining troops in the country. Neither Trump’s order nor the pressure from the JCS Chairman was reported by the national media at the time.

"The president’s surrender represented the Pentagon’s latest victory in a year-long campaign to sabotage the US-Taliban peace agreement signed in February 2020. Military and DOD leaders thus extended the disastrous and unpopular 20-year US war in Afghanistan into the administration of President Joseph Biden."

🍅 A peace agreement the Pentagon was determined to subvert

"The subversion of the peace agreement with the Taliban initiated by the US military leadership in Washington and Afghanistan began almost as soon as Trump’s personal envoy Zalmay Khalilzad negotiated a tentative deal in November 2019. The campaign to undermine presidential authority was actively supported by then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

"In February 2020, under heavy pressure to amend the agreement, Trump ordered Khalilzad to deliver the Taliban an ultimatum: agree to a full ceasefire as a prelude to a broader peace deal, including peace negotiations with the Afghan government, or the deal was off. The Taliban refused the immediate ceasefire with Kabul, however, offering instead a 'reduction in violence' for seven days to establish a conducive atmosphere for implementing the peace agreement that had already been fleshed out in detail. It then gave the US its own ultimatum: if the US refused the offer, its negotiators would walk away from the table.

"To salvage the deal, Khalilzad agreed to the Taliban proposal for a one-week 'reduction of violence' by both sides. The adversaries reached further understandings on what such a 'reduction in violence' would mean: the Taliban agreed there would be no attacks on population centers and Afghan stationary military targets, but reserved the right to attack government convoys if they exploited the reduction to seize control of new areas.

"The US-Taliban peace agreement signed on February 29 called for a withdrawal of US troops from the country in two stages. First, the US agreed to reduce its troop levels to 8600 within 4.5 months and remove forces from five military bases ahead of a final withdrawal that would take place in May 2021. Second, the US and its allies pledged to 'refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Afghanistan or intervening in its domestic affairs.'

"The Taliban promised in turn that it would 'not allow any of its members, other individuals or groups, including al-Qaeda, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.'

"Those two commitments obliged US and Taliban forces not to attack each other. The agreement also specified that the Taliban would enter into 'intra-Afghan negotiations on March 10, 2020, after the two Afghan parties were to have exchanged prisoners.'

"They also required the Taliban to keep al-Qaeda personnel out of Afghanistan – a pledge the Taliban Military Commission appeared to implement last month when it issued an order to all commanders forbidding them from 'bringing foreign nationals into their ranks or giving them shelter.'

"But the pact did not provide for the immediate ceasefire between Taliban and Afghan government forces which the U.S. military and Pentagon demanded. Instead 'a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire' was to be negotiated between the two Afghan parties.

"With startling swiftness and determination, Pentagon officials and military leadership exploited the open-ended terms of the ceasefire to derail the implementation of the agreement.

"Secretary of Defense Esper claimed the peace deal allowed the US military to defend Afghan forces, blatantly contradicting the agreement’s text. He then pledged to come to the defense of the Afghan government if the Taliban began mounting attacks on its forces, setting the stage for American violations on the ground.

"Esper’s promise of continued US military support, made public in Congressional testimony days later, gave the Afghan government a clear incentive to refuse any concessions to the Taliban. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani promptly refused to go ahead with a promised prisoner exchange until formal negotiations with the Taliban had begun.

"The Taliban responded by initiating a series of attacks on government troops at checkpoints in contested areas. The US military command in Afghanistan responded with an airstrike against Taliban forces engaged in one of those operations in Helmand province. US officials said privately that the airstrike was 'a message to the Taliban' to continue what they described as the 'reduction in violence commitment they had agreed…'

"The combination of Esper’s assurance to the Afghan government and the US airstrike showed the hand of the Pentagon and military leadership. It was clear they had no intention of passively accepting a deal to withdraw the remaining US personnel from Afghanistan, and would do whatever they could to unravel it.

"Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of the Central Command, further highlighted the Pentagon’s opposition to the deal when he declared in congressional testimony that troop withdrawals would be determined by 'conditions on the ground.' In other words, it was up to the judgment of military commanders, rather than the terms of the agreement, to determine when U.S. troops would be withdrawn."

🍅 Shaping a false narrative on the agreement

"The military’s plan to sabotage the agreement hinged on creating the false impression that the Taliban had reneged on its commitments. This ruse was advanced mostly publicly by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Esper.

"In an interview with CBS News, Pompeo mentioned 'a detailed set of commitments that the Taliban have made about the levels of violence that can occur…' But that was a deliberate obfuscation. Though the Taliban had agreed to the seven-day 'reduction in violence,' it did not apply to the peace agreement signed on February 29, 2020.

"On March 2, Esper told reporters, 'This is a conditions-based agreement…. We’re watching the Taliban’s actions closely to assess whether they are upholding their commitments.' That same day, US commander in Afghanistan Gen. Scott Miller stated through a spokesman on Twitter, 'The United States has been very clear about our expectations — the violence must remain low.'

"Once again, the Pentagon and the US command were dictating conditions to the Taliban outside the actual written terms of the peace agreement.

"The Pentagon and military command’s ploy was advanced through a story leaked to the New York Times and published on March 8. Below the headline, 'A Secret Accord With the Taliban: When and How the U.S. Would Leave Afghanistan,' the story referred to two 'secret annexes' to deceptively suggest that the agreements reached with the Taliban were not fully reflected in the publicly available text.

"The Times’ ploy recalled the national hysteria the paper triggered last summer when it legitimized an Afghan intelligence fraud by publishing a series of lengthy articles claiming Russia had paid Taliban fighters bounties for dead American service members. Indeed, the 'secret annexes' story was simply the latest political deception deployed by the Pentagon to torpedo plans for a US withdrawal.

"Despite the article’s assertion that the two documents 'lay out the specific understandings between the United States and the Taliban,' the only specific reference in the story to any such understanding mentioned 'commitments from the Taliban not to attack American forces during a withdrawal.' However, that explicit commitment was missing from the actual terms of the published accord.

"As the Times acknowledged in its article, when Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley appeared before the House Armed Services Committee just three days before the agreement was signed, both were asked about any 'side deals with the Taliban.' Neither said they were aware of any unpublished agreements. Pompeo, who also denied the existence of any 'side deals' with the Taliban, referred to them as 'military implementation documents.'

"The evidence clearly indicated that the so-called 'secret annexes' were, in fact, internal US documents on US policy related to the agreement.

"In April 2020, the Taliban accused the United States of flagrantly violating the deal, citing 50 attacks by US and Afghan forces between March 9 and April 10, including 33 drone attacks and 8 night raids by Special Operations forces. By the summer, as the Taliban stepped up attacks on government checkpoints in areas bordering territory under their control, US forces in Afghanistan and the Defense Department informed the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) that the orders to Afghan government forces allowed them to preemptively strike Taliban positions.

"The war thus returned to the situation that prevailed before the agreement was signed and the peace deal was effectively shattered.

"Meanwhile, the US military continued to accuse the Taliban of failing to adhere to the agreement. In July, the US government-run Voice of America reported that McKenzie had 'told VOA the Taliban has not kept up their commitments agreed to in the U.S.-Taliban peace deal, leading to one of the "most violent" periods of the war in Afghanistan.'"

🍅 Reversing a presidential order for withdrawal

"Following Trump’s defeat in the November 2020 presidential election, and after fashioning the strategy to sabotage the Afghan peace agreement, Esper, McKenzie and Miller agreed on a memorandum from the 'chain of command' warning Trump against further withdrawal from Afghanistan until 'conditions' had been met. These terms included a 'reduction in violence' and 'progress at the negotiating table.'

"Trump reacted to the memo with outrage, swiftly firing Esper on November 9. He replaced him with Christopher Miller, the former head of the US counter-terrorism center who agreed with Trump on withdrawal from Afghanistan.

"That same day, Trump asked Col. Douglas Macgregor to serve as Miller’s 'senior adviser.' Macgregor was an outspoken advocate of withdrawal from Afghanistan and a harsh critic of other US wars in the Middle East, from Iraq to Syria. During a January 2020 interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Macgregor blasted Pentagon leadership for its failure to find a path out of Afghanistan.

"Once inside the Pentagon, Macgregor immediately took on the task of enabling a rapid and complete withdrawal from Afghanistan. Just how close Trump came to withdrawing all US troops before leaving office had not been reported until now. Macgregor recounted the episode to The Grayzone.

"According to Macgregor, he met Miller on November 10 and told him that a pullout from Afghanistan could only be accomplished by a formal presidential order. Later that day, Macgregor dictated the language of such an order to the White House by phone.

"The draft order stated that all uniformed military personnel would be withdrawn from Afghanistan no later than December 31, 2020. Macgregor told the staffer to get a National Security Presidential Memorandum from the White House files to ensure that it was published in the correct format.

"Macgregor’s White House contact informed him in the morning of November 11 that Trump had read the memorandum and immediately signed it. On November 12, however, he learned that Trump had met with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, national security adviser Robert O’Brien and Acting Secretary Miller. Trump was told that the orders he placed in the memorandum could not be executed, according to Macgregor’s White House contact.

"Milley argued that a withdrawal would harm the chances of negotiating a final peace settlement and that continued US presence in Afghanistan had 'bipartisan support,' Macgregor was informed. Later that night, Macgregor learned that Trump had agreed to withdraw only half the total, 2500 troops. Trump had once again given in to military pressure, as he did repeatedly on Syria.

"The maneuvering by the Pentagon to obstruct the Trump administration’s initiative to end an extremely unpopular war in Afghanistan was just one example in a long-established pattern of undermining presidential authority over matters of war and peace.

"When he was Vice-President, Joe Biden witnessed first-hand the pressures the Pentagon brass imposed on Barack Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan. With the peace agreement’s May 1 deadline for final US withdrawal just weeks away, Biden is certain to face another round of maximum pressure to keep US troops in the quagmire of Afghanistan, supposedly as ‘leverage” on the Taliban."

###

[Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist who has covered national security policy since 2005 and was the recipient of Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in 2012. His most recent book is The CIA Insider’s Guide to the Iran Crisis co-authored with John Kiriakou, just published in February.]

_____

🍅 Trump admin insider reveals how US military sabotaged peace agreement to prolong Afghanistan war. By Gareth Porter, The Grayzone, Mar. 16, 2021.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/16/trump-us-military-peace-agreement-war-afghanistan/

[br0ken-writes]

Day6 “We Got Married” (Jae)

@leyehearteu asks: Day6 in WGM with you.

Word count: 862 (Part 1)

Okay, so for starters I think he would be one of those people who would absolutely LOVE to be on the show because he’s a sucker for love and so he’d be really cheesy with you at first and then might actually fall in love with you. I feel like he may be one to actually propose a real marriage by the end of the show if it feels right??

In front of many cameras, Jae was handed a letter to which he opened and read aloud “Your bride has been kidnapped and you must come and save her, clues to follow” He read before looking into the camera in front of him and laughing a little “Is this serious?” He asks and the crew nods before he’s handed another note with the first clue. 

Jae ends up running around town for a little while trying to crack the code before he finally gets the last clue; a description of you. “Does this mean she’s in this café?” He asks the crew but they just give him a couple of shrugs that make him think he’s right. He enters the café and looks around trying to find someone that fit the description he was given and then, he spots you. Sitting all alone at the corner window booth looking like a princess. He approaches the booth and stands at the end for a moment before stuttering “Are you, my bride?” He asks which catches your attention “Oh, yes, hello I’m y/n” You stutter out yourself while standing and bowing slightly to him “I’m Jaehyung of Day6, it’s nice to meet you, I’m actually a huge fan of yours” He said as the two of you shook hands and bowed again. You were a rising actress and was best known for your leading role in the newest romance drama based off a webtoon. “Ah, that makes me embarrassed because I’m a big fan of yours as well, I love your music,” You tell him, gesturing for him to take a seat with you. The two of you give each other a shy smile while blushing.

The two of you are left there for a while to get to know each other before the two of you were given a mission card tasking to two of you to get married reading “Follow the arrows to get married”. The two of you looked at each other, confused for a moment before you remembered “Ah, around the corner of the shop I saw some arrows on the ground, that must be it” You told him and he nodded “Okay, lets go” He said simply, you two stood and you followed him out the door and around the corner of the shop where on the sidewalk were paper arrows taped to the ground. The two of you were led to a little flower garden that was behind the shop where as soon as you stepped inside, you were grabbed by the shoulders by a man in a monkey mask and pushed into a cage “Jaehyung!” You screamed when you were grabbed, full or terror. He turned around quickly and tried to get you back but you were already locked away “To save your bride, you must answer my riddles correctly” The man spoke as he stood guard and you tried to catch your breath.

“Okay, lay them on me,” Jae said, acting cool which made you giggle. “What has hands that cannot clap?” The man asks the first riddle “A clock” Jae answers after only a moment which impresses you “Which word in the dictionary is spelled incorrectly?” The man spits back quickly and this one takes Jae a moment to realize “Oh, incorrectly, duh” He says and laughs at the answer “This is the last question which is the hardest” The man warns Jae to which he nods “The bride will ask you this one” He says and hands you a card before stepping aside “What's one question that can change two lives forever?” You ask and Jae looks completely stumped on this one “Hm” He thinks, placing a hand under his chin “A question, right?” He asks and you nod your head after looking at the card again which you also noticed didn’t have the answer written on it anywhere. “Will you marry me?” He asks which throws you off your feet and hide you face with your hands as you blush. You notice the man hand Jae a ring box which makes you start to laugh and cry at the same time.

“Did you plan this?” You cry laugh, asking Jae as kneels down on one knee in front of where you’re still locked behind “Of course I did! I have to propose to you, don’t I?” Jae laughed and opened the ring box before looking into your eyes “Will you marry me?” He repeats himself and you nod “Get me out of this cage and I’ll marry you” You joke as you laugh and hold back any more tears you had, he took out a key from his back pocket making you laugh hard to where you bend over and clench your stomach as he unlocks the cages and lets you out. You stand in front of him and nod again “Yes” You say and he laughs before sliding the ring on your finger and you slid his ring on him. “Did you like my proposal?” He asks while wrapping an arm around your shoulders “Ah, it was stupid but I liked it” You laugh and you just smile at each other. 

Part 2

[andytfish]

FREELANCE GUiDANCE: A 10 Part Series- Part 5- GET PAID SON!

The biggest magic trick the Freelancer ever pulled was convincing his client to actually pay him a fair wage.

You want to make it in this business, kid, you gotta get paid.

You can turn to the Graphic Artists Guild Pricing Guide for some reference if you're just starting out. But unless you live in New York or LA (lower Alabama I'm not talking about) those prices are going to be spit-took when the client hears them.

So HOW do you get paid?  The easiest way is to negotiate with respectable clients.

First and foremost, make sure you agree up front (and in writing) that you WILL be paid.  Not only do I use a formal contract I also insist on ALL communication between me and clients to be via email-- why? Because then I have a paper trail-- I can re-read emails for project details and I have essentially a written correspondence regarding the agreement of trade.

Cause that's what it is-- the client is trading you something (preferably cash) for your services to provide. 

When you first hang your freelance shingle up you're going to get approached by a LOT of people offering you work either on SPEC or "for the exposure".  Here's a cold hard truth-- unless that company offering you exposure is Time Magazine it's not worth it-- and guess what?  Time Magazine actually pays you for work so the point is moot.

This brings up the basic formula of work:

1. Work on Spec - You'll get paid after publication based on the number of copies sold because your work appears in it. I HATE these deals. HATE 'em. If you're going to work on SPEC then work ONLY on something you OWN. In the comics world writers can whip out a 22 page story in a day or two, an artist will take a month or longer if they have a full time job. Yet SO many writers and publishers of small companies offer you spec for payment with ZERO equity in the product. BAD. Make sure if you're providing the artwork you are getting a share of the profits.

2. Work for hire-- You'll get paid up-front or upon completion but you will own nothing. You are solely providing a service, like a plumber installing a new bathroom for you-- they can't come over and use it any time they want just because they installed it. Same thing here, you do the work, you get paid and that's it.

3. Royalty Work-- You get paid up front or upon completion of the work and you will get a royalty based on the number of copies sold.

How do you negotiate?

I use a simple method when someone contacts me-- here's how I handle it and it works 85% of the time:

"Hi Andy-- we LOVE your work and we have (such and such) we think you'd be PERFECT for!  We were wondering if you'd have time and what such a project would cost?"

"Great! Thanks! What's the budget?"

That's as involved as it gets, now keep in mind there are a couple other factors--

A- I look over the project that they're talking about and make sure I understand exactly what it is they are looking to hire me for.

B- I calculate a rough budget and time frame in which I can deliver it so I have a number in my head.

Now if that client has a project that I REALLY dig, or if they happen to make me laugh in the proposal AND they show that they've actually LOOKED at my work that will go a long way towards keeping my price down.  Steve Altes, when he reached out to me about his graphic novel GEEKS AND GREEKS, not only referenced specific works I'd done but he made me laugh. His online presence was tremendous and he happened to mention a record album he had been looking at that day- and by sheer coincidence I had looked at the same exact one (a vintage one at that) -- I knew it was instant Karma and this was a guy I not only wanted to work with but I found a new friend.

Ok, so about 85% of the time the client will come back with a budget they had in mind.  On the 15% of the time they don't I have to give them a number.  I've been doing this a long time so I can come up with a number pretty quickly.

I use a simple equation:

WHAT DO I NEED to pay the bills this month?

HOW busy am I?

How LONG will this take?

Let's say you pay yourself an hourly wage of $100/hour and that is what you consider your IDEAL rate.  Ideal= you're in good shape bills wise so it's okay if you lose this job. 

Factor in the number of hours you expect this to take (a good rule of thumb is to double whatever number you come up with because you're likely to underestimate how much work this'll be).

ASK and UNDERSTAND what your royalties will or won't be. If it's none then you need to up the price a bit.  If it's being used for commercial purposes what kind of permissions are you granting?  Someone who hires you to design a T-Shirt for a Cub Scout fundraiser shouldn't have to pay the same amount as someone who is hiring you to design a T-shirt for their website that they will then sell in perpetuity with no royalties on those sales.

This is the point where you're going to hear about the magic of exposure.  Exposure means you should do this cheap because of the fame you will gain.

I just don't buy into that.  I DO free work that I donate to Charity Auctions like Art In The City or the Boys and Girls Club.  I do it because I believe in the cause and if it's lead to any exposure no one has mentioned it to me.

In fact you can get a lot of exposure just by building yourself a decent web-presence, but that's next week's lesson.

All right so let's assume they've given you all the details of the project and you want to do it, and it fits in your schedule and it seems to be a good mix for you. 

You figure how many hours-- let's say 10 to keep the math easy-- double it because you know how bad you are at figuring how much work something is going to be and you have that hourly rate-- in this case $100/hour which brings us to a grand total of $2000/USD for 20 hours of work granting them whatever useage rights you are comfortable with. NOTE: Specify the currency you'll be paid in. USD = US DOLLARS. It's a world economy now.

A good rule of thumb is if they aren't going to pay you royalties then add 30% to the quote.  So now we're at $2600.  I'd also be comfortable giving them a 180 days exclusive rights to the image, after that it reverts to you so that you can use the image on your own product.  If they want to keep the image as an exclusive to them in perpetuity (essentially forever) then add a few more bucks to the job.

I like the rule of 1/3s for payment- so 1/3 up front for me to start, 1/3 at the halfway point and 1/3 at completion with the agreement that they get the final useable image with the final payment.

Meaning of course, that every file you sent them for approval through the stages was at 72dpi and NO bigger than 500 pixels or so tall. This ensures they don't just take your prelims and run with it never paying off the balance owed.

Remember if you give them a price that's too high you can always lower your price, but you can't raise it. 

In that same vein, if you are in financial straights as this potential assignment comes in you can simply follow up your quote if you don't hear from them within a day or two and tell them it's negotiable if you were far off from the number they had in mind.

It's all about NEGOTIATION.

NOW WHAT ABOUT THE CLIENT WHO WON'T PAY ME?

It's going to happen, sooner or later. A client runs out of money before the balance is paid. Unless they file for Bankruptcy protection your best option is to file a civil case against them in your local court system.  In fifteen years I've never had to do this, but I've come close twice.  It's not hard to do especially if you have a contract and a paper trial of your conversations.  It's a simple filing fee and the clerks will usually walk you through it.  You'll have to see a constable or sheriff about notice getting served to the (likely now ex) client but that too will be explained to you when the time comes.

You should also use your instinct.  If a client comes to you with a project someone else had been working on in this day and age of the internet it's not hard to track down the previous creator and find out why the relationship ended.

If a client comes to you with a project that is scattered with fallen creators that should give you a pretty good insight into how smooth this project is going to be.  It certainly could be that this person is a great partner to work with and all those creatives were the guilty parties, but far more likely is that this is a difficult client who is never happy.

Add that to the equation when you're providing your quote (should you decide to work with them). 

I was approached by a client once who I was warned against by several friends who stated they were difficult and slow to pay.

When I quoted the job I did my usual hourly rate x hours x2 only I added ANOTHER X2 to the equation so essentially the quote was DOUBLE what I would have normally charged.

They balked at the price, I stuck to it-- they finally relented and we were off to the races.  They weren't the most difficult client I'd ever had but they were "tweakers"-- so there were a lot of revisions along the way.  They were also a committee which is another FLAG-- committees are slow to green light and that usually eats into the deadline.

If a project needs more than one person's approval I stipulate when the approvals need to be in hand in order for the project to come in on schedule.  This way I can point to this when we start running late.  I also insist on ONE CONTACT person from the group so I'm not getting multiple directions taking me all over the place.

By the time the project was over it had taken me twice as long to finish it as I'd projected-- good thing I doubled my quote.

When they came back for a new project I knew what I was getting myself into up front and used the same quote system.

BECAUSE SOMETIMES IT'S OK TO SAY NO.

No matter how much they like you, how much they love your work, how much they're willing to pay, how desperately they want to work with you.  Sometimes the right thing to do is to pass.

*OK so what about that HOURLY rate? $100 might seem like a lot or it might seem dirt cheap depending on where you live and how long you've been doing this Freelance thing.  Your best bet to discover the going rate in your area is to keep yourself familiar with the work being done in your industry.

Locally you can attend Chamber of Commerce and Business to Business events, but I find local means little money (at least here in Central Massachusetts-- I've found the same thing in Boston too).  So I keep my client base international via the web.

But network with other artists, find out what they're charging.  Look at ads via sites that advertise for freelancers and see what clients are paying.

A site like FREELANCED.COM can give you insight and fits of laughter too.  I'm always amazed at the number of people who will apply for a gig that pays something like $2 an hour. Amateurs no doubt, because a professional couldn't keep the lights on for that rate.

Meaning keep an open mind when perusing the offerings.  Like the reviews on Amazon, you have to weigh in the value of what the person is saying.

Which will take us to the next lesson:

Part Six: ESTABLISH AN ONLINE PRESENCE

Andy Fish is a freelance artist and writer who has been living the lifestyle longer than there has been an iPhone on this planet. The advice given has worked for him, it might work for you, he hopes it does. But like all advice, take it with your own situation in mind. If you want to contact him shoot him an email andy@andytfish.com

 Which will take us to the next lesson:

Part Six: ESTABLISH AN ONLINE PRESENCE

Andy Fish is a freelance artist and writer who has been living the lifestyle longer than there has been an iPhone on this planet.  The advice given has worked for him, it might work for you, he hopes it does.  But like all advice, take it with your own situation in mind.  If you want to contact him shoot him an email andy@andytfish.com

[tilde-he]

an attempt towards yet another notion of “a derivative for finite fields”

I meant to do this as a full write-up thing, with pretty pictures and such, but I decided that I’m just going to start saying what I’ve already got, and re-blog this post with additions to this later, so that I actually ever get any of it posted. So, let’s get this post started.

If you have any feedback on the way I have written this (ideally, how to improve my writing for things like this), I would appreciate it!

Part 1 : Preliminaries, the definition, and some basic parts of the results

Part 1, Section 1: Preliminaries

At least two notions of derivatives for functions over finite fields have already been proposed, the Hasse derivative, and the Negacyclic derivative (citation : “Introducing an Analysis in Finite Fields” by de Oliveira and deSouza )

Somewhat like the linked paper, I am partially motivated by the idea of a “unit circle” using finite fields. However, in this case, I am motivated by analogy with complex analysis.

Where q is a prime power (or just a prime) congruent to 3 (mod 4), there is no element x of Fq such that x2=-1 (see ...elsewhere... for a proof of this, or if you just want a citation, not a proof, here or here), and therefore, we can adjoin an element i to the field, such that i2=-1, to produce a field Fq[i] .

Now, for any finite field with characteristic not equal to 2, half of the non-zero elements are the square of some non-zero element, and half are not . The elements which are, are called “quadratic residues” (for example, in Fq where q is 3 mod 4, -1 is not a quadratic residue. However, in Fq[i], it is a quadratic residue, as i2=-1.). (the reason that exactly half of the (non-zero) elements are quadratic residues is because (-x)2=x2, so 2 non-zero elements get mapped to each (non-zero) quadratic residue, so, there are half as many quadratic residues as there are non-zero elements. This doesn’t work in the fields of characteristic 2, because in those fields, -x=x.)

[for the remainder of this post, and probably any other posts in sequence with this one, q will always be assumed to be congruent to 3, mod 4 (unless possibly if stated otherwise, in a later post)]

In this analogy with the complex numbers, we are treating the field Fq as being analogous to the real numbers, and treating the quadratic residues of Fq as being analogous to the positive numbers. This works nicely, as the non-zero non-quadratic residues are exactly the additive inverses (”negatives”) of the quadratic residues. However, the analogy doesn’t extend too far, as the “positive numbers” in this analogy, are not closed under addition (though they are under multiplication and division).

All of what I’ve said in this post so far is definitely things I’ve seen elsewhere, and are well known. In the following I don’t remember exactly which of the things I’ve read elsewhere.

Now, I want a notion of the unit circle in Fq[i] . So, this should be those points z such that |z|2=1 , yeah? So, what is |z|2?

Well, of course, when z=x+y*i for x and y “real numbers”, (by which, in this context, I actually mean elements of Fq, rather than the actual real numbers), then |z|2=|x+iy|2 is of course x2+y2.

So, for how many elements z of Fq[i] is |z|2=1 ?

for any c in Fq , |cz|2=|-cz|2=c2 * (x2 + y2) = c2 * |z|2. This scales |z|2 by a quadratic residue. So, for any element z of Fq[i], there are 2 elements c, -c of Fq that z can be scaled by, such that, if |z|2 is a quadratic residue of Fq (so, if it is “positive”), then |cz|2=1 , and otherwise, such that |cz|2=-1 .

Well, that’s kind of a weird idea, isn’t it. Something having a negative absolute value squared. Nevertheless, we continue.

Oh, one side note : you may be concerned about “how do we know that the ‘absolute value squared’ of one of these elements won’t be zero?”. If this were the case, it would be because x2+y2=0, and so x2=-y2, and that therefore 1=-y2/x2=(x/y)2 and that therefore -1 would be a quadratic residue of Fq , which we know never happens when q is congruent to 3 mod 4. Moving on.

So, each “line through the origin” (i.e. for each fixed nonzero z in Fq[i], the set {c*z : c in Fq}) contains either 2 points with “squared magnitude 1″ or 2 points with “squared magnitude” -1. Because there are q2-1 nonzero elements of Fq[i] , and each of these “lines” has q-1 non-zero points on it, 2 of which with “squared magnitude” 1, or “squared magnitude” -1, there are therefore 2*(q2-1)/(q-1)=2*(q+1) points in Fq[i] with “squared magnitude” either 1 or -1 .

As might or might not be expected, |z1*z2|2=|z1|2 * |z2|2 . (try proving this yourself if you are not convinced.)

Therefore, these 2*(q+1) points are closed under multiplication.

As the non-zero elements of a finite field form a cyclic group under multiplication, these 2*(q+1) elements also form a group under multiplication.

Exactly half of them have “squared magnitude” -1 , and the half that has “squared magnitude” 1, is a subgroup of it.

Therefore, what we are calling our “unit circle” is the q+1 elements of Fq[i] with “squared magnitude” 1. We will call this set S, and the larger set with 2*(q+1) elements , S+/- . We might occasionally call S “S+“ in order to emphasize that we mean the smaller set, but probably not all that often, because using the superscripts is slightly inconvenient.

Part 1, Section 2 : The motivation for the definitions, and the definitions

Now! Now we have the preliminaries out of the way, let’s get on to the actual idea!

The idea is inspired by Cauchy’s Differentiation Formula , in particular, applied when integrating around the unit circle.

Cauchy’s Differentiation Formula states that when f(z) is a complex differentiable function on some simply connected open region of the complex plane, and c is a point in that region, then a contour integral in the counterclockwise direction around c of f(z)/((z-c)(n+1)) , times n!/(2*pi*i), is equal to the n-th derivative of f evaluated at c.

 Or, to steal a picture from Wikipedia

(except they called the variable “a” instead of ���c”).

My idea was to, unlike in the complex analysis case where this result is a theorem that comes after defining what complex differentiation means, to instead use this formula as a basis for defining a type of derivative for functions over certain finite fields (specifically, those finite fields for which the notion of the unit circle described above, works).

So, to use something analogous to

to define the derivative of f at c, where the contour integral is the unit circle, except translated to be centered at c,.

That is,

when

. Which is,

(Not sure why tumblr scaled up this image more than the other ones. Oh well.)

now, because we are trying to do this in our finite field thing, we of course do not actually have an actual integral, so we just treat it as a sum. Similarly, instead of eiθ for different theta in order to produce the different points on the unit circle, we just make the sum be over the points in the unit circle directly, as we haven’t defined a notion of ez in our finite field.

So, remembering that S is the set we are treating as analogous to the unit circle, we get

And, because the number of elements in our “unit circle” is q+1, and this seems the most natural analogy to the value of 2*pi , and, in addition, q+1 is congruent to 1 mod p (where p is the characteristic of the field), it seems reasonable, in the analogy, to replace the 2*pi term in the denominator there, with 1.

Also, the i term inside the sum cancels with the 1/i as the coeffecient of the entire sum,

and the ((c+s)-c) is of course just s, and (f(c+s)/s2)*s is, of course, just (f(c+s)/s) , this all simplifies down to:

Which is nice and simple.

But, what does this operation actually act like? Is there any good reason that it should deserve the name “differentiation”?

You may want to try computing it out for some simple functions, like 3z , or z2 - 1 or the like, to check that it indeed does produce the values that one would expect for the derivative of such functions.

One can also plainly see that this operation is linear on the vector space over Fq[i] which is the set of functions from Fq[i] to Fq[i] ( so, deriv(a*f + b*g)=a*deriv(f)+b*deriv(g) ) , and also that it is translation invariant, which are both appropriate properties for differentiation.

Now, this operation can be applied to any of these functions from the field to itself, but there are many functions from the complex plane to the complex plane that are not differentiable. As such, I thought to look for a definition of “differentiable” which would be appropriate.

So, for this, I thought to base it on the Cauchy’s Integral Formula

and, by going through the same sort of analogy, we arrive at

as a proposed equation which should hold whenever the function is “differentiable”. I suggest taking this equation as the definition of a function f from Fq[i] to Fq[i] being “differentiable”.

Part 1, Section 3 : Some results

Note that, for the same linearity reasons as with the “differentiation” definition above, the “differentiable” functions form a linear subspace of the full space of functions (as they should).

I have also shown (but don’t include the proof here right now, because I’d like to get this post out tonight, and it is almost midnight) that if a function is “differentiable” in this sense, then the “derivative” of that function is also differentiable in this sense. So, any function which is once differentiable is infinitely differentiable, just like in the actual complex numbers! I think that’s pretty cool.

I have also shown that any polynomial of degree up to q is “differentiable” in this sense, and also that the “derivative” is what one would expect for polynomials for when the degree is at most q. (zq+1 is not “differentiable” in this sense, and zq+2 , if you go through with the definition of the “differentiation” despite it not being “differentiable” results in like, 1 + [the derivative you would expect] , iirc. I might be remembering with an off by one error. Anyway, it has to do with the binomial expansion of stuff having a power of s which is divisible by q+1 . I intend to explain why later. )

I suspect that the “differentiable” functions turn out to be exactly the polynomials of degree at most q, but I have not proven this to be the case. (yes, unfortunately this means that there are no sine and cosine functions here which have sine’(x)=cos(x), cos’(x)=-sine(x) . However, I think this can maybe be recovered in a slightly different context. More on this later when I figure it out maybe?)

I think I’ve shown that, if that is the case, then a “differentiable” function is uniquely determined by its value on the unit circle (or any translate of it), which matches with actual complex analysis quite nicely!

Generally, these definitions appears to give results that mirror complex analysis results quite nicely!

Part 1, Section 4 : etc.

Thank you very much for reading.

Please let me know if you would like clarification on any part of this post, or if you have any advice for how I could improve it, or how I could improve future math things I write.

Thank you!

[cay-kahve-blog]

Case for Integrating Computational Thinking and Science in a Low-Resource Setting Aakash Gautam Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Virginia aakashg@vt.edu Whitney Elaine Wall Bortz Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Virginia whitney8@vt.edu Deborah Tatar Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Virginia dtatar@cs.vt.edu ABSTRACT There is a growing need to use computers to formulate problems and their solutions across domains. It has thus become imperative that students across the globe be able to work with computing to express themselves. However, teaching computer science in a traditional way may not be possible in all settings. We studied a method to integrate computational thinking, the ability to express problems and their solutions to a computing device, into an existing science classroom with the goal of deepening learning in both science and computational thinking in a low-resource setting in Nepal. In this note, we present findings from the study. The proposed curricular method acknowledges local differences and presents a way to adapt to those differences through adaptable multiple layers of activities and representational variability. We hope that interested educators and development practitioners would try our method in classrooms. CCS CONCEPTS • Social and professional topics→Computational thinking; K-12 education; • Applied computing → Interactive learning environments; KEYWORDS ICTD; ICT4D; educational technology; computational thinking; CT; agent-based simulation, NetLogo ACM Reference Format: Aakash Gautam, Whitney Elaine Wall Bortz, and Deborah Tatar. 2017. Case for Integrating Computational Thinking and Science in a Low-Resource Setting. In Proceedings of ICTD ’17. ACM, New York, NY, USA, Article 4, 4 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3136560.3136601 1 INTRODUCTION Many prior works on ICTD have focused on access to infrastructural resources, including computers. As famously demonstrated by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project [13], from a learning perspective, infrastructure alone is not enough to produce meaningful learning. Additional key ingredients include both usable software Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. ICTD ’17, November 16–19, 2017, Lahore, Pakistan © 2017 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to Association for Computing Machinery. ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-5277-2/17/11. . . $15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3136560.3136601 and the match between the affordances of the software, the instructional purposes of the unit, and other supporting materials and student activities [4, 10]. These elements and the matches between them, that is, the way the underlying infrastructural resources can be used, constitute the prospects for attaining success [1, 6]. Some prior ICTD work has focused on enabling the use of the underlying infrastructure, for example, by providing educational games in mobile phones outside of schools [5], delivering content through mobile phones [2], blending online and in-person instruction [3], and exploring a technology-centered tutoring system [8]. This note takes the exploration of the use of technology in context to a deeper level. It presents a method of introducing computers with the joint goals of (1) deepening understanding of science and (2) promoting computational thinking. Computational thinking (CT) is the ability to “formulate problems and their solutions so that the solutions are represented in a form that can effectively be carried out by an information-processing agent" [15]. In a simplified form, CT is being able to think like a computer scientist. There is a growing consensus among educators about CT as a necessary skill permeating many domains [15]. Likewise, studies have posited the importance placed on computers and their perceived value by public in rural settings [9]. Despite these interests in computing, little is known about how to adapt materials and practices to create conditions of receptivity. Barriers include highlevel “wicked problems" [11] like gender bias [9], the benefit of connecting abstract computational ideas to actual life experiences [7], and the need to avoid implying that the only path to learning is through regular access to computer technology. An overly computer-centric perspective on learning may be discouraging to those who do not and cannot have regular access. Students’ varying backgrounds, interests and aspirations require teaching high-order thinking like CT with local adaptation in low-resource settings. The curricular approach we advocate utilizes multiple representations, both on and off the computer, combining the introduction of CT with recognizable components of education, in this case, Biology/Chemistry, that give students access to different facets of knowledge required to have deep understandings. In doing this, we also focus on the strengths of in-classroom, face-to-face instruction. We have designed an integrated curriculum in which the teacher moves students through experiences with multiple representations of a science phenomenon. As shown in Table 1, some of the representations are on paper, some are student created or modified, some represent science through animated, playable simulations, and some represent science through programming code. The instruction is governed by a driving question, in this case, “where does the carbon go" during photosynthesis and carbohydrate catabolism. Modeling and simulation are by themselves important aspects of ICTD ’17, November 16–19, 2017, Lahore, Pakistan Aakash Gautam, Whitney Elaine Wall Bortz, and Deborah Tatar Table 1: Layered activity used in the instructional module Kinds of Representations Pedagogical affordance(s) Objects and Processes Macroscopic digital representation Introduced students to a science phenomenon similar to the real-life world they had experienced. Dynamic objects and processes that were recognized as “reallife" such as cows, plants, sun, eating, dying, and growing. Microscopic overlay Introduced the idea that macroscopic objects and processes are influenced by microscopic, chemical objects and processes. Contextualized dynamic digital representations of molecules and molecular processes interacting with the macroscopic objects. Group poster creation Conveyed that science can be understood by different kinds of representations of objects and phenomena, highlighting different facets of knowledge. Static student drawings and their explanations of the observed phenomena, and explanatory mechanisms. Science fact sheet Helped students connect the knowledge in the other representations with more standard scientific representations, such as chemical formulas. Static written text, images, and chemical formulas to explain the phenomena like in a textbook. Codebased representations Introduced the idea that representations are made to serve particular purposes, that the student can create, change or modify representations and that science may be represented at different levels of granularity and accuracy. Text based code defining objects, properties and procedures that can be edited and uploaded to change the simulation. CT, but the introduction to CT is furthered by creating a context in which students can use programmatic representations to change and explore the phenomenon. The curriculum directs the students towards inquiry about the chemical basis of biological processes. 2 STUDY 2.1 School Setting We conducted our study in a school, established in 2013, 14 kms from Kathmandu, Nepal, that aims to provide interest-based education1. Despite a focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), the school adheres to the central government’s syllabus, with instruction primarily delivered in English. The school recruits and boards students from several rural areas of the country, most of them from families with limited financial resources. During the 2016-17 school year, 125 co-ed students ranging from 6-16 years 1http://news.mit.edu/2015/help-rebuild-bloom-nepal-school-destroyed-earthquakes-0612 old were enrolled. Sixteen (9 female, 7 male) were enrolled in the 7th grade and participated in this study. Although the setting is rural, from a Nepalese point of view, the school is fairly accessible through public transport and has Internet connectivity. The school had three functioning computers in a room with battery backup, access to which was restricted to students in 9th and 10th grade. 2.2 Curricular Approach We conducted a two-week long intervention, involving 35 instructional hours. A Nepali author of this note led the instruction, with support from the local science teacher. There were four computers in the class including one of the author’s laptop, which meant each computer was to be shared by four students. To mitigate inequality in engagement and learning experience when sharing a computer [10], students discussed their plans in groups prior to working on the computer. We also asked students to rotate their position while working on the computer. The science content in the module adhered to the national 7th science curriculum to teach photosynthesis and the natural carbon cycle. The left-most part of Figure 1 shows the level of instruction students had received. Our module tied that level of representation to the chemical processes involved in photosynthesis and carbohydrate catabolism in animals. This approach opens up the idea of conservation of matter which can lead to the introduction and balancing of related chemical equations. The representations utilized during the intervention, their affordances, and the objects and processes they illustrated are listed in Table 1. Students first worked on an introductory simulation that had simple representation of familiar, macroscopic real-world phenomenon. In this representation, plants grew, cows moved around, and the sun shined. The cows ate plants and died if there were no plants. By changing sliders and buttons, students could explore the relationship between the number of plants, the number of cows, and longevity. They moved into exploration of the microscopic phenomena by displaying hugely exaggerated representations of carbon forms and their transformation through different chemical processes (see the center image in Figure 1). Students worked in groups of four to create their own representations: posters they drew and described what they thought was going on in the simulation. They presented the poster to the class for discussion. Other, more standard scientific representations were presented via the “science fact sheet", a single-page document with verbal descriptions, chemical formulas and illustrative pictures that highlighted some of the science concepts. A last set of representations were introduced through exposure to the code that implemented the simulation. This enabled the important idea that the expression of objects could be modified by writing commands and blocks of code. Students studied snippets of the code to understand the model, and subsequently discussed and implemented an extension of the model by writing code. 2.3 System Description A central part of the curriculum involves working with an animated digital simulation of the natural carbon cycle, and interacting with the macroscopic and microscopic representations of the natural carbon cycle implemented using agent-based modeling in NetLogo Case for Integrating Computational Thinking and Science in a Low-Resource Setting ICTD ’17, November 16–19, 2017, Lahore, Pakistan Figure 1: Textbook representation of the phenomenon (left), the overlay of microscopic and macroscopic representations that we presented during our intervention (center), and one group’s drawing of the science phenomena (right) [14]. The simulation runs in any Internet browser and therefore does not require local software installation. In general, the system is a single page web application in which the simulation and modeling are executed on the client side once the first page loads. Therefore, the system is established through a simple local HTTP server and does not depend on Internet connectivity. However, for the study, we recorded log entries of student interaction with the computer so we served the web application through a remote server and this required Internet connectivity. 2.4 Data Collection and Analysis After engaging in an IRB-approved consent process at the beginning of the intervention, we conducted an attitudinal assessment to evaluate students’ self-confidence with, interest in, values for, and identification with computing. Use of the simulation was logged including keystrokes and interface-based changes. Student worksheets and posters were collected for analysis. We also conducted a post-performance assessment. Posters and free-text comments about attitudes were analyzed using a grounded theory approach [12] by researchers familiar with the project, including the authors. Themes emerging from the content and pictorial depiction were identified and discussed, and possible alternative conceptions were identified as well. Variation in student activity with the computers was analyzed through log data. Furthermore, post-performance assessment was evaluated against an established rubric to measure the students’ understanding of science and CT. A few emergent findings are reported here. 3 FINDINGS 3.1 Interest in Computing and Apprehension Students had played mobile games but were unfamiliar with the concepts of simulation and modeling. Previous use of computers was confined to two students who had typed in Microsoft Word and drawn in Microsoft Paint a few times. Most had seen others use computers but had never actively used one. Despite the limited exposure to computing, most students held it in esteem. A student ([S7]) wrote, “I think computing is very important for all of us because now days [nowadays] most of the people depends [depend] on computing for their work." While students were interested and excited, they were also initially apprehensive. Three groups hesitated to change slider values during the initial exploration out of fear of “making the system go bad". 3.2 Summary of Key Science Learning Observations • The students used mechanistic phrases like “throw out carbon dioxide" and “take in oxygen" but weren’t familiar with the random motion of molecules. The simulation encouraged students to inquire about movement of molecules and the right conditions necessary for reactions to occur. • Students knew that air contained carbon-dioxide and that its chemical formula was CO2. However, none of the students could use the formula to conclude that carbon-dioxide contains one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms. The microscopic representation of carbon-dioxide molecule that showed atoms in CO2 drove students to connect the subscripts with the atomic count. • Students described carbon-dioxide gas as containing CO2 (rather than being CO2) and therefore initially identified the carbon atoms in the simulation as carbon-dioxide and the depiction of the molecule with all three atoms as representing the gas. The question “what are the blacks and red dots?" led to a class-wide discussion on Day 3, clarifying the misconception. • They knew about photosynthesis but not about breakdown of glucose in animals. Three of the four groups studied the graph, which showed carbon amounts in atmosphere, plants, and cows to hypothesize the transformation of carbon forms in animals. • Fifteen of the sixteen students identified that water was missing from the simulation. This created the opportunity for this class of students to build into the simulation based on their own understanding of what was important about the science. 3.3 Summary of Key CT Observations • None of the students were familiar with simulation or modeling at the start of the intervention. As we progressed through the activities, students evaluated and critiqued in terms of things that were accurate, inaccurate, and missing from the model. • Students expressed their lived experiences through single-lined commands by modifying shapes of objects. The most common changes involved changing cows to people, plants to flags and tree, and the sun to hills and mountains. ICTD ’17, November 16–19, 2017, Lahore, Pakistan Aakash Gautam, Whitney Elaine Wall Bortz, and Deborah Tatar • Because the students thought that it was important to represent water, they undertook a project they thought was important: extending the code to implement clouds and rainfall. • Students were able to implement clouds and rainfall by identifying and discussing elements in the simulation that were similar to the extension they wanted to create. They abstracted common properties and methods from the existing code. • With the instructor’s support, the students divided the task into smaller tasks, and planned and discussed ways to complete those tasks. The planning and discussion occurred without a computer and pushed the idea that CT is not just about computers. • By the end of the task, students had created two new objects and three methods which highlighted their understanding science and understanding of CT concepts such as method call sequences, operators, and abstraction. 4 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 4.1 Deepening Science Learning Under the conditions in the study, students appeared to learn quite a lot of important science. The students were familiar with a single form of representation i.e. the textbook depiction of the process. Although the students had read about concepts such as atomic composition, molecular movement and necessary conditions for reactions to occur, the representations in the text book were static and separated each idea into an isolated unit. As shown in Figure 1, the representation of photosynthesis in the book showed a single molecule with arrows labeled oxygen and carbon-dioxide. It did not show the atomic structure of oxygen or carbon-dioxide. Our dynamic representation containing atomic structure of carbon-dioxide made it easier for students to connect different ideas. Furthermore, the multiple representations presented through layered activities pushed students to further explore the science phenomenon such as by using graphs alongside the simulation. 4.2 Deepening Computational Thinking Students moved from initial apprehension to considerable sophistication in the two-weeks of instruction. They certainly learned something about programming (because they were able to implement changes), but they were actively engaged in discussing elements of the models, and formulating and expressing solutions. In some sense, the low-resource setting, with only four computers for 16 students makes it abundantly clear that only some access is required. Most of the pedagogical challenge is provoking a computational way of thinking. 4.3 Integrating Science and CT This paper presents initial evidence of student learning drawn from a study in which we taught both Science and CT in a low-resource environment. The method that we used prioritized representations both on and off the computer that moved fluently between science and CT and back again. We believe that this method worked because students were continually able to draw on elements that they already understood to make sense of novel elements. In this case, the students were highly motivated and had quite a bit of textbook knowledge. It remains to be seen whether the method could be successful in environments with less motivated students. However, some optimism may be drawn from the fact that the underlying system is attentive to a range of conditions that prevail in low-resource schools. It does not require many computers or much investment in creating access. Even devices that simply give browser access could be used. Furthermore, these layered representations can provide different learning opportunities for students who bring different strengths and knowledge bases to the learning task. These students thought it was important to implement clouds and rainfall; others might consider it important to implement detritivores, showing more orientation towards the underlying chemistry or lions, showing more orientation towards ecology. A classroom teacher may not use our system the way we did during the intervention. They may not focus on the code-based model and instead focus on the static representation through the science fact sheet or focus solely on the visual simulation. However, evidence from our intervention in Nepal suggests that the richness in the learning environment, particularly through variability in the representations, supports students at different levels to explore and discover while providing flexibility for instructors to use the tool as they need for their class. REFERENCES [1] Paul Braund and Anke Schwittay. 2006. The missing piece: Human-driven design and research in ICT and development. In Information and Communication Technologies and Development, 2006. ICTD’06. International Conference on. IEEE, 2–10. [2] Cynthia Breazeal, Robin Morris, Stephanie Gottwald, Tinsley Galyean, and Maryanne Wolf. 2016. Mobile devices for early literacy intervention and research with global reach. In Proceedings of the Third (2016) ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale. ACM, 11–20. [3] Edward Cutrell, Jacki O’Neill, Srinath Bala, B Nitish, Andrew Cross, Nakull Gupta, Viraj Kumar, and William Thies. 2015. Blended learning in Indian colleges with massively empowered classroom. In Proceedings of the Second (2015) ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale. ACM, 47–56. [4] Paul DiMaggio, Eszter Hargittai, Coral Celeste, and Steven Shafer. 2004. From unequal access to differentiated use: A literature review and agenda for research on digital inequality. Social inequality (2004), 355–400. [5] Matthew Kam, Anuj Kumar, Shirley Jain, Akhil Mathur, and John Canny. 2009. Improving literacy in rural India: Cellphone games in an after-school program. In Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD), 2009 International Conference on. IEEE, 139–149. [6] Patrick J McEwan. 2015. Improving learning in primary schools of developing countries: A meta-analysis of randomized experiments. Review of Educational Research 85, 3 (2015), 353–394. [7] Na’ilah S Nasir, Ann S Rosebery, BethWarren, and Carol D Lee. 2006. Learning as a cultural process: Achieving equity through diversity. The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (2006), 489–504. [8] Benjamin D Nye. 2015. Intelligent tutoring systems by and for the developing world: a review of trends and approaches for educational technology in a global context. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education 25, 2 (2015), 177–203. [9] Joyojeet Pal, Meera Lakshmanan, and Kentaro Toyama. 2007. “My Child will be Respected": Parental perspectives on computers in rural India. In Information and Communication Technologies and Development, 2007. ICTD 2007. International Conference on. IEEE, 1–9. [10] Udai Singh Pawar, Joyojeet Pal, and Kentaro Toyama. 2006. Multiple mice for computers in education in developing countries. In Information and Communication Technologies and Development, 2006. ICTD’06. International Conference on. IEEE, 64–71. [11] Horst WJ Rittel and Melvin M Webber. 1973. Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy sciences 4, 2 (1973), 155–169. [12] Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin. 1994. Grounded theory methodology. Handbook of qualitative research 17 (1994), 273–85. [13] Mark Warschauer and Morgan Ames. 2010. Can One Laptop per Child save the world’s poor? Journal of international affairs (2010), 33–51. [14] Uri Wilensky and I Evanston. 1999. NetLogo: Center for connected learning and computer-based modeling. Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 4952 (1999). [15] Jeannette M Wing. 2006. Computational thinking. Commun. ACM 49, 3 (2006), 33–35.

[surrounded-by-superheroes]

The Soldier and the Assistant Ch. 2

Click HERE for chapter one!

Summary;  You run into a mysterious stranger on the street while running late for work and spill coffee all over yourself in the process. Later, you find out the man was none other than James Buchanan Barnes and your company is about to write a story about him. The thing is, he’ll only talk to you. As you get to know one another, you both start realizing this relationship is a little more than work. Will both of you let the romance bloom? Or kill it before it starts?

Author’s Note; I SO appreciate all of your feedback. It. makes. my. week. Plus, it makes this even more fun to write and make me want to write more. You all are awesome. Next week I won’t have internet, so no updates then. I’ll pick up the week after!! Much love, your author.

Tags; @ria132love and @farfromjustordinary

Warnings; Language.

Words; 3,041

Chapter Two

Meeting Place

*Reader’s POV*

I’ve been nervously bouncing my leg under the table for about fifteen minutes. Funnily enough, Bucky had asked to meet at my favorite coffee shop. The same coffee shop that I come to every day and nearly baptized him with in the street today. Adrian is still working and is waggling his eyebrows at me every chance he gets which really is not helping me to focus. Right now, Bucky is being a sweetheart and is getting me a coffee while I watch him like a stalker. He hasn’t said much and I really haven’t asked him any questions yet. You’d think I was writing a book based on the amount of notes I’ve taken though, I should’ve brought a pencil sharpener. Luckily, my purse is filled with pencils. The soldier is looking very normal in dark jeans, a navy Henley, black jacket, and grey tennis shoes, but he still wears a thick, black glove on his hand. Personally, I’m just happy he’s lost the baseball cap. Bucky returns and hands me my coffee, smiling amusedly when my hands wrap eagerly around it’s warmth.

“Thank you.” I tell him as he sits back in his seat, facing the door at all times. Previously, I’d chosen a table by the window because it had just begun to rain and I liked the way the water smeared across the windows, but he moved us. We’re now in the middle of the room on the wall and I notice he sits diagonally, so he can see the entire room. I’ve written all this down, including that he drinks his own coffee extremely sweet. My eyes shut involuntarily when the hot coffee slips past my lips down my throat, so I don’t notice when Bucky snatches the notebook until I open my eyes. “Oh shit, don’t…” I start, but quickly realize there’s no point in objecting. His eyes scan the paper while I nervously sip my coffee, alternating with the water he insisted I needed for proper hydration.

“This…uh, wow. You really don’t miss much, do you?” Bucky asks, but doesn’t hand it back to me. I shrug.

“It’s kind of my job to be observant.” I remind him as he places the notebook back on the table in front of me.

“And you enjoy your job?” He asks interestedly, taking a sip of his more cream than coffee. I nearly snort my own coffee out of my nose.

“No. God, I hate my job.” I inform him as I contain my chortle. “Hopefully one day I’ll be an actual reporter and be able to actually print my stories, but until then I’ll suffer as Jim’s assistant.” Bucky’s lips turn down slightly at the mention of Jim and I tap my pencil against my notebook in thought. “You don’t like Jim.” My tone is factual, but Bucky confirms it anyway.

“Yes, I dislike Jim. To put it lightly.” He relents and I lean forward a little, putting my coffee on the table for a rare moment.

“Why? What information could you possibly have read in such a short expanse of time?” I question, fascinated. Bucky lets out a bark of a laugh, then sighs and scans the coffee shop. I make a slight note that he does this every fifteen minutes.

“Well, it’s also kind of my job to read people.” He tells me with a little twinkle in his eye. My eyebrows go up as an unspoken challenge. His lips curve upwards and he gestures to a couple at a table across the floor. “Alright, look at those two. The guy has been checking you out nearly every five minutes, but he’s trying to seem interested in the girl across from him so he’s leaning forward. His feet, however, are faced towards you and he hasn’t touched his coffee or food because he’s too nervous he’s going to be caught. Now, the girl.” He gets ready to continue and I glance at him a moment, smiling softly at how relaxed he seems. It’s a stark difference from when we were in Jim’s office. My eyes go back to the girl as he keeps talking. “She’s leaning back in what seems like a relaxed pose, but she just wants to leave. Her feet and torso are pointed towards the door and she isn’t even making eye contact with the guy when he halfheartedly tries to make conversation.” I nod along to everything he’s saying, then frown slightly.

“So, they’re both miserable.” I ask, meeting his humorous eyes for a moment.

“Basically, yes.” He agrees. After taking a swig from my coffee, I stand and sigh.

“Okay. I’ll be right back.” I assure his confused face and walk right over to the couple’s table. Both people look up at me with relief shining in their eyes at an interruption. “Hi. I understand that you don’t know me, but I really think I can help both of you out.” I propose and their eyebrows furrow in unison. After pulling up a seat and sitting, I tell them the summary of what Bucky told me. The girl is my first target and after I finish with them both, they shake hands and she walks out with a smile. The guy lingers and actually asks for my number, but I just turn and point at an eternally amused Bucky and he backs off instantly. Once I put my chair back and shake the guy’s, David’s, hand, I walk back to Bucky and sit down again. His expression is a mix of amused, shocked, and…impressed.

“I can’t believe you just did that without getting anyone angry.” He tells me and I shrug, returning the blessed cup of coffee to my lips.

“It’s all about the approach, Bucky.” I tease a little. He shakes his head at me.

“Why did you point at me?” He questions and a little laugh tumbles from my lips.

“Oh, well. He wanted my number and I didn’t feel like giving it, so I told him you were my boyfriend.” I shrug, hoping he doesn’t mind. Shock washes over his face before it settles on simple interest.

“That’s one way to do it, I suppose.” He says with laughter on his tongue. My smile is sheepish, but now take a moment to read his own body language towards me. While he is leaning back to see the room, every time I talk his torso turns towards me just slightly. His feet are always pointed towards me and his coffee cup is still a quarter cup full because he only takes a sip when I’m talking, those blue eyes burning into me over the brim. I sigh and set my coffee down. “I need to actually ask you questions, here.” I breathe and flip the page of my notebook.

“Honestly, I really think you could already write a novel on me from what you have, but go ahead.” Bucky teases and I purse my lips to keep from beaming.

“Alright, you can choose whether to answer a question or not and unless you specifically tell me it’s off the record, I can print it. These questions will be searching, but that’s kind of the point.” I preface and he nods along to my words, then waves a hand at me to go ahead. “I’ll start with some fun ones.” He smiles slightly at that as I scroll through the notes on my phone, setting it beside my notebook once I’ve reached the questions I want. “So, you’ve known Steve Rogers the longest. Is there anything you can tell me about how your friendship started?” Bucky chuckles and his expression turns nostalgic before he begins telling the story. Today, I make sure to keep the questions light and amusing. It makes him more likely to want to meet me again and I enjoy seeing his rare smile. When it’s getting late and we prepare to go, I feel weird. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a nice time out with someone.

“Do you need a ride home?” Bucky asks as we walk out, a new cup of coffee in my hand.

“You don’t have to do that, Bucky.” I tell him, sweetened by his offer. “I’ll grab a cab.” He frowns a little at that.

“I honestly don’t mind.” He says and walks to his mode of transportation, then smirks at my expression.

“You fucking knew the second I saw that my answer would be yes.” I accuse and he laughs, waving me over with a hand. Mouth slightly open, I walk over to the black and shining silver Harley. Bucky takes my coffee and slips it into the little cup holder, then grabs a helmet off the back. He holds it out to me and I purse my lips. “I really don’t think…”

“Put it on or I get you a cab.” He tells me firmly, blue eyes burning. Sighing, I take the helmet and put it on. With a slight smirk, Bucky clips it for me and knocks on the top.

“Hey!” I object and get another chuckle out of him.

“Ready?” He asks and I nod, the helmet hilariously wobbling on my head. Bucky grins, tightens the strap, then straddles the motorcycle. Carefully, I get on behind him. I’m grinning like a fool and feel giddy in my very soul, but a very different feeling takes over when he leans back and grabs my hands. Gently, but firmly, he wraps my arms around his waist and presses my palms against his stomach.

“Oh my god.” I mumble when I feel how crazy fit this guy is. “Are you sure your whole body isn’t made of steel?” I ask and feel his stomach tighten as he holds in a laugh.

“Just my arm is vibranium. I do need an address, doll.” He tells me and I feel his entire body tense when the endearment slips out, but a light, nervous laugh just slips out of my lips and my face gets hot.

“Just down the street, handsome. I’ll tell you when to stop.” I inform him and feel him instantly relax at my words. My hands pat his stomach until he starts it up and we’re on our way. While motorcycles have always been at the top of my dream list, I might have to bump it down a peg because I can’t imagine a better way to travel than clinging onto this man. Every time we turn his muscles flex and ripple like a fucking fantasy. God, this man is turning out to be upwards of two hundred pounds of dreamboat and I have no clue what to do about it. Once we’re near enough to my apartment I tap his stomach with both hands. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no parking. Bucky circles around and I’m about to tell him to just stop and I’ll hop off, but instead he drives right onto the sidewalk and stops in front of the stairs. I’m laughing my ass off as he parks, but I have to pause to hold onto him as the bike tilts. I hop off and take off the helmet, sighing in relief at breathing fresh air. Bucky takes it from me and places it on his bike, small, cute smile on his face. “You’re going to get ticketed for this.” I warn him and another sharp laugh leaves his lips.

“Ah, that’ll be the day. I’d actually love to see the officer’s face when I came back.” Bucky jokes and I admit it does sound amusing. I walk up the steps and Bucky follows, handing me my coffee cup once we’ve reached the door. I hesitate slightly. This feels more like the end of a date than the end of an interview which is strange, uncalled for, and unexpected, but…I don’t want him to go.

“Would you like to come in for a moment?” The words slip out of my mouth as I open the door a crack, inviting him in with the action as well as my sentence. He seems conflicted, so I grab his arm and tug him inside, knowing if he wanted to resist it would be easy.

“A minute.” He tells me and follows me willingly up two flights of stairs to the third floor. When we reach my door, I pause again and face him. Those blue eyes scan me curiously, then turn worried. “Look, I can leave right now.” He starts, but I stop him with a hand on his shoulder.

“No, no, no. That’s not it.” My foot taps the floor nervously for a couple of moments while I decide on what to say. “Uh, look, I am a…messy person. This apartment is small and I’m messy. Be prepared.” I tell him and get another smile for my warning. Exhaling a deep breath, I open the door and wince. It seems like it got messier while I was away, but of course that’s silly. “Okay. Okay, okay. Fuck. Would you…would you shut your eyes for a minute?” I shut the door behind him and move in front of him, trying to hide my room from his sight. He’s looking at me like I’m crazy, but also like he loves it. Sighing but smiling, he shuts his eyes. Reaching up I peck his cheek, then quickly run across my tiny apartment picking clothes, coffee cups, and pizza boxes. The layout is simple, well, it has to be. Walk in, go left and find the bathroom, right and you’ll find a closet. Keep going and to the right is a pantry, then the kitchen equipped with a sink, oven and little microwave that was one of my first purchases when I got here. The last bit is a small television taking up a bit of counter space beside my microwave. To the left is a couch that folds out into a bed, two little tables on either side. The window on the other side of the apartment lets in a lot of natural light and is the only light in the apartment right now. Finally, a small table sits beside the bathroom wall with two white chairs sitting at it. I put all the clothes everywhere in the hamper in the bathroom, the trash in the trash, then finally return to Bucky who has a wide smile on his face. “Okay.” I tell him and his lovely eyes open. Moving to the side, I wave my hand in front of me. “Tada.” I reveal sarcastically.

“Wow, it’s so clean.” He makes fun and I roll my eyes.

“Don’t be an asshole about it. I haven’t had anyone up here in…god…I have no clue how long.” I realize pathetically, but shrug. He walks along the space carefully, looking around with just enough interest in his eyes to be polite, but not creepy. I take a seat with my coffee and he sits quietly in front of me at the table.

“This may be smaller than Steve and I’s first apartment, but, honestly it’s much cleaner than ours.” His comment draws a laugh out of me and he allows himself a smile.

“You know, you could bring him to our meetings if you like. Especially if it would make you more comfortable.” I tell him and his eyes brighten with interest.

“Am I not comfortable?” He asks. My lips press together as I ponder whether I should say what I’m absolutely going to say.

“Maybe. Just…I see you trying not to smile and laugh, so I figured you weren’t comfortable enough with me yet.” I deduce, watching as he fights a smile and looks at the floor.

“A good effort, but no. It’s the opposite.” I blink in surprise as he looks back up to meet my eyes. “I’m shockingly comfortable with you and it isn’t something that happens often.” Bucky explains.

“So…correct me if I’m wrong here, but you’re uncomfortable with being so comfortable?” I question with a serious face. Bucky cracks a smile and nods, sighing. “Well, I’m no therapist, but I like you and think you should just let yourself get comfortable. I wasted so much time today just talking with you, there’s still more than half of my list of questions to get through. You’re going to have to be around me for a little while longer.” Bucky runs his hands through his hair and I swallow a little watching him. He half-smiles and shrugs.

“Pity.” He drolls, but his face says it’s anything but. “I should get going. Steve’ll think I’ve been misbehaving if I get home too late.” Bucky tells me and stands. I stand as well, laughter tickling my throat.

“Misbehaving? What could you possibly get up to on a weeknight, Bucky?” I tease and a rumbling laugh barely leaves his lips.

“Trouble usually finds me, actually.” He replies as we walk to the door. I open it and lean against it to keep it open. Bucky stands across from me, but the small space doesn’t allow for much space between us. His breath still smells like sugar and caramel from his deathly sweet coffee and I nearly cuss when it washes over my face. Bucky seems to notice the change in my face because he freezes and looks down at my face. Shit. “What?” He asks and my mind scrambles for something to say.

“You have whipped cream on your lip.” I fib and shakily reach up, just barely brushing my thumb across the scruffy skin above his lips. Those soulful eyes stare into me the whole time and I can feel how hot my entire body is just from this one touch, just from his gaze. Quickly I rescind my hand and look down and the ground. “Alright, you’re perfect.” I murmur, then swallow audibly. Silence and heat fills the air before he leans over and brushes his lips across my cheek.

“I’ll call you soon for another meeting.” Bucky tells me softly, then walks out the door and is gone with a little click. A huge sigh escapes my lungs as I lock the door behind him, then lean my forehead on it.

“Oh fuuuuuuuuck.” I whisper. I’m crushing on Bucky Barnes.

[superbcollectorsheep]

How Cement Mixers Work

In addition to the mixing energy applied to the fresh concrete (i.e. shearing during mixing), the shear history after mixing is also important. This applies especially to binder rich concretes like the different types of high performance concrete (HPC). With this in mind, the shear rate is analyzed inside a drum of a concrete tank truck. The objective is to better understand the effect of transport of fresh concrete, from the ready mix plant to the building site. The analysis reveals the effect of different drum charge volume and drum rotational speed. Also, the effect of yield stress and plastic viscosity is investigated. The work shows that the shear rate decreases in an exponential manner with increasing drum charge volume. It is also shown that for a given drum speed, the shear rate decreases both with increasing plastic viscosity and yield stress.

Since civilizations first started to build, the human race has sought materials that bind stones into solid formed mass. After the discovery of Portland cement in 1824 (year of patent), concrete has become the most commonly used structural material in modern civilizations. The quality of the concrete structure is of course dependent on the quality of each constituent used in the concrete mix. However, this is not the only controlling factor. The quality also depends very much on the rheological properties of the fresh concrete during placement into the formwork [1]. That is, the concrete must be able to properly flow into all corners of the mold or formwork to fill it completely, with or without external consolidation depending on workability class. Tragic events may sometimes be traced back to concrete of unsuitable consistency resulting in, for example, coldjoint and honeycombing. Therefore, one of the primary criteria for a good concrete structure is that the fresh concrete exhibits satisfactory rheological properties during casting [1]. The use of simulation of flow to analyze such behavior is something that has been increasing in popularity for the last decade [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. In 2014, a RILEM state-of-the art report (TC 222-SCF) was made specifically on this subject [10]. Here, such method is used to analyze the shear rate inside a concrete truck mixer for a wide range of cases. Previously in [11], such simulation was reported for the case of yield stress 50 Pa and plastic viscosity 50 Pa ⋅s, in which the aim was to verify a special truck mixer simulator.

In addition to the energy applied during mixing (i.e. shearing during mixing) [12], [13], [14], the shear history after mixing is also important [15], [16], [17]. This applies especially for binder rich concretes like the (rich) high performance concrete (HPC). This is due to the influence that the binder exerts on the concrete as a whole in terms of thixotropic- and structural breakdown behavior (these two terms are well explained in [18]). The rheological state of the binder depends heavily on the shear rate and especially on its history [15], [16], [17]. That is, in a highly agitated system (high shear rate), the cement particles will disperse, making the overall fresh concrete more flowable. While in a slowly agitated system, the cement particles will coagulate and thus thicken the overall fresh concrete.

The rheological properties of the fresh concrete depends on the proportions of each constituent as well as on their quality. However, as is apparent from the above paragraph, conditions like the shear rate during transport can play a major role on final workability. That is, a concrete batch with seemingly target rheological behavior at the ready mix plant can become unsuitable at the building site due to thixotropic thickening, caused by insufficient agitation during transport (i.e. low shear rate). The decrease in the slump during transport in truck mixer can be up to 90 mm, which corresponds to a deviation of one and a half consistency class [11]. Such could lead to the refusal of acceptance, or in the case of acceptance, make successful casting in awkward sections or through congested reinforcement difficult, resulting for example in honeycombing [1], [11].

In this work, the shear rate is analyzed inside the drum of a concrete fuel tank truck. This is done to better understand the potential effect of transport, from the ready mix plant to the building site, in terms of the concrete final rheological state. From Section 1.2, a higher shear rate will imply increased dispersion of the cement particles and thus more flowable concrete during the casting phase. Likewise, a lower shear rate will imply insufficient agitation, increased thixotropic rebuild and thus stiffer concrete during casting.

Because the shear rate within the drum is highly non-uniform and time dependent, meaning , a two step integration is most necessary to generate quantifiable values for analysis and comparison, which is shown later. The final outcome is given by  and is simply referred to as “shear rate”. Here, this shear rate is analyzed as a function of drum rotational speed f = 0.03, 0.07, 0.11, 015, 019 and 0.23 rps (revolutions per second) and drum charge volume V = 2.6 m3, 5.4 m3 and 8.2 m3. In addition to this, the effect of yield stress τ0 = 0, 150 and 300 Pa and plastic viscosity μ = 25, 75 and 125 Pa ⋅s, is analyzed.

The simulation software used in this work is the OpenFOAM. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) and available at http://openfoam.org, without charge or annual fee of any kind. The benefits of using a GNU GPL licensed code rather than a closed commercial code, is that the user has always a full access to the source code, without any restriction, either to understand, correct, modify or enhance the software. Here, this is a highly desirable feature since a custom made solver is used for the current analysis. The software OpenFOAM is written in C++. As such, an object-oriented programming approach is used in the creation of data types (fields) that closely mimics those of mathematical field theory [19]. For the code parallelization and communication between processors, the domain decomposition method is used with the Message Passing Interface, or MPI [20]. In OpenFOAM, the collocated mesh system (in Cartesian coordinates) is applied in conjunction with the finite volume method (FVM).

The mesh in Fig. 1 is generated with a native OpenFOAM mesh utility called blockMesh. To investigate the mesh dependency of the numerical result, two different mesh densities (or mesh resolutions) are used, namely 58,888 and 372,568 cells, which are shown in the left and right illustrations of Fig. 1, respectively. For the former case, 88% of the cells are hexahedra, while it is 99% for the latter case. In either case, the remaining cells consist of prisms, tetrahedra and polyhedra. In the end of the mesh generation, its quality is checked with another native OpenFOAM utility, named checkMesh.

The internal dimensions shown to the left and right in Fig. 1 are identical and were directly measured at the local concrete premixing plant: the internals consists of two helix shaped blades, in which the blade thickness is roughly 8 mm, while the height is about 430 mm. The space between two adjacent blades is 620 mm on the average. As shown in Fig. 1, all these numbers vary as a function of the location within the drum. These number also change as a function of time, depending on drum usage. That is, the concrete wears and tears the internals of the drum with time.

Decrease of availability of fossil fuels and environment issues, push research towards the development of high efficiency power trains for vehicles that transport people, goods and mobile operating machines, like the concrete 5cbm mixer truck considered in this paper. Conventional concrete 3cbm mixer truck use diesel engine to move the truck and a hydraulic system which keep spinning the concrete drum. A hybrid powertrain based on battery-powered electrical drives can replace the conventional hydraulic system assuring an efficiency improvement. Furthermore, thanks to the reversibility of the electrical drives, it is possible to recover kinetic energy during the braking phases of the truck. Aim of this paper is to study and develop a hybrid powertrain for the concrete mixer drum. The study is based on a full energetic model of the vehicle developed for sizing the components and designing the control strategies. A model of the conventional hydraulic 8cbm mixer truck has also been proposed in order to evaluate the benefit introduced by the proposed hybrid system. Simulation models have been validated comparing experimental data collected on a conventional mixer truck in different operating conditions.

Most construction equipment is easy to understand. Cranes move things up and down. Dump trucks load up, move out and unload. Bulldozers push and graders grade. The one exception to this is the humble cement mixer, beloved by children, hated by in-a-hurry drivers, and misunderstood by most people outside the cab of the 30,000-pound (13,608-kilogram) behemoths.

While concrete has been around in one form or another since before the Romans built the Appian Way, the transit mixer is a child of the 20th century. But recent invention or not, the mixer is here to stay.

The misunderstanding begins with the name. What people refer to as a cement mixer is known in the construction industry as a concrete mixer and comes in a large number of types, sizes and configurations to handle the many tasks set before it each day. That need to fill so many roles means the machine is dynamic, changing shape and form as the needs of the people using concrete change as well.

In this article we'll examine some of the major types of mixers, from the traditional drum-shaped ready-mix transit mixer to the less-common but growing in popularity volumetric mixer, essentially a concrete plant on wheels. How cement mixers work and why they work the way they do is a fascinating combination of old and new technology. You'll never see a cement mixer the same way again.

But before we begin, let's clarify the difference between cement and concrete. In baking terms, the difference between concrete and cement is the difference between flour and a loaf of bread. Concrete is a generic term for a mix of aggregate -- usually stone or gravel, water and cement. Modern cement is a complex blend of finely ground minerals, and goes by the generic name of "portland." Concrete is made by combining the three ingredients in a mixer, whether that mixer is stationary or driving down the road, and the water is absorbed by the cement, which then binds the aggregate together, creating concrete.

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

August 29, 2021

My roundup of things I am up to. Topics include energy needs in space, edge detection, and marriage.

Energy Needs in Space

I am continuing to work on an environmental task force, as it pertains to space activities. Today’s topic is on energy needs.

One under-appreciated reality of space colonization is that the energy needs will be intense. An offworld settlement will have to produce food intensively, which is generally much more energy intensive. It could have extreme heating and/or cooling needs as well as ventilation. Air, water, and material recycling will have to be close to 100%.

According to the latest BP Statistical Review of World Energy, world electricity consumption was about 0.4 kW/capita in 2020, and in the United States, it was 1.5 kW/capita. These figures are electricity demand, not the primary energy behind electricity, and they exclude energy in other forms. Electricity is about a third of all energy demand. How would a space colony compare?

In Earth orbit, the electrical energy produced by the International Space Station is on average 102 kW, which works out to 17 kW per person for a full six person crew. Life on the ISS is fairly spartan, and there is no manufacturing going on, as the necessary goods are supplied from Earth.

Soilleux and Gunn model a large orbital habitat and find that the energy needs would be 26.4 kW/cap. They also cite some results of other studies, which include 3 kW/cap for a 10,000 person rotating Stanford Torus and 10 kW/cap for Kalpana One, which is a hypothetical orbital habitat (I could be wrong on these figures, as some aspects of how the paper was written confuse me). This also compares with 88 kW/cap for the Biosphere 2 experiment.

Soilleux and Gunn also look at some Antarctica bases and cite studies that show 6.8 kW/cap for McMurdo Station and 30 kW/cap for Halley VI, which is a UK station.

On the Moon, Koster models a 4-person lunar research base and finds that it would require 12 kW, or 3 kW/cap. Seems low to me, but that’s what’s there. This article looks at several studies and finds that results range from 10-60 kW/cap. This, this, and this study look at moon bases as well, but I’d have to dig into them deeper to find how many people are considered to get a common kW/cap figure.

On Mars, the figures cited here are 90 kW/cap for a 12 person base, 45 kW/cap for a 150 person base, and 20 kW/cap for “more advanced” habitats.

Estimates vary quite a bit, but it may be reasonable to suppose about 30 kW/cap for an offworld settlement. That is about 75x as much as Earth’s per capita electricity usage, and 20x that of the average American.

Solar power is abundant throughout the Inner Solar System, but the energy needs are such that I would suspect that a space habitat would outgrow what can feasibly be collected from solar fairly quickly. I’d have to look at issues of cost and space required more carefully.

It is interesting to note also that larger settlements tend to have lower per-capita electricity needs. Economies of scale are at work here. I will say a bit later on about where that energy might come from.

Edge Detection

I wrote up a short program illustrating edge detection in OpenCV. Edge detection is a fairly basic operation in computer vision. Given an image, the edges are locations where the colors change abruptly, generally indicating the border between different types of objects.

Of the various methods illustrated, Canny edge detection seems to be the most popular and gives the best results, but it is the most complicated and the one that I least understand.

All in all, I’m not too happy with this project. I used OpenCV’s off-the-shelf edge detection methods, which leaves me with a limited understanding of what I used. The program itself just applies the methods to an image, so I am also without a very good sense of what I can do with these algorithms.

Marriage

Tomorrow my wife and I will celebrate our third wedding anniversary.

I think the most remarkable difference between being married and being single, or being in a romantic relationship that isn’t marriage, is the extent to which I think about her well-being as well as my own. I was single of course at the time I decided to propose, and at the time I was thinking mostly about my own well-being only. What this means is that the criteria under which I would now judge the decision to get married are different from the criteria under which I made the decision.

I imagine that this is true for many major decisions in life, and it seems to be true for civilization writ large. When we think about major decisions that could change the course of civilization, such as whether and how to pursue space expansion or to apply transhumanist technologies, the criteria under which we might make those decisions now will almost certainly be very different from the criteria by which we retrospectively evaluate those decisions.

Fortunately, I think it is clear that proposing was the right thing to do, under any criteria I might reasonably use to evaluate the decision.

[s-c-i-guy]

Neutron-Star Collision Shakes Space-Time and Lights Up the Sky

A neutron star collision led to a rumble of gravitational waves and a worldwide race to spot the resulting kilonova. The dozens of studies coming out of the effort will “go down in the history of astronomy.”

On Aug. 17, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected something new. Some 130 million light-years away, two super-dense neutron stars, each as small as a city but heavier than the sun, had crashed into each other, producing a colossal convulsion called a kilonova and sending a telltale ripple through space-time to Earth.

When LIGO picked up the signal, the astronomer Edo Berger was in his office at Harvard University suffering through a committee meeting. Berger leads an effort to search for the afterglow of collisions detected by LIGO. But when his office phone rang, he ignored it. Shortly afterward, his cellphone rang. He glanced at the display to discover a flurry of missed text messages:

Edo, check your email!

Pick up your phone!

“I kicked everybo­dy out that very moment and jumped into action,” Berger said. “I had not expected this.”

LIGO’s pair of ultrasensitive detectors in Louisiana and Washington state made history two years ago by recording the gravitational waves coming from the collision of two black holes — a discovery that earned the experiment’s architects the Nobel Prize in Physics this month. Three more signals from black hole collisions followed the initial discovery.

Yet black holes don’t give off light, so making any observations of these faraway cataclysms beyond the gravitational waves themselves was unlikely. Colliding neutron stars, on the other hand, produce fireworks. Astronomers had never seen such a show before, but now LIGO was telling them where to look, which sent teams of researchers like Berger’s scurrying to capture the immediate aftermath of the collision across the full range of electromagnetic signals. In total, more than 70 telescopes swiveled toward the same location in the sky.

They struck the motherlode. In the days after Aug. 17, astronomers made successful observations of the colliding neutron stars with optical, radio, X-ray, gamma-ray, infrared and ultraviolet telescopes. The enormous collaborative effort, detailed today in dozens of papers appearing simultaneously in Physical Review Letters, Nature, Science, Astrophysical Journal Letters and other journals, has not only allowed astrophysicists to piece together a coherent account of the event, but also to answer longstanding questions in astrophysics.

“In one fell swoop, gravitational wave measurements” have opened “a window onto nuclear astrophysics, neutron star demographics and physics and precise astronomical distances,” said Scott Hughes, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. “I can’t describe in family-friendly words how exciting that is.”

Today, Berger said, “will go down in the history of astronomy.”

X Marks the Spot

When Berger got the calls, emails, and the automated official LIGO alert with the probable coordinates of what appeared to be a neutron-star merger, he knew that he and his team had to act quickly to see its aftermath using optical telescopes.

The timing was fortuitous. Virgo, a new gravitational-wave observatory similar to LIGO’s two detectors, had just come online in Europe. The three gravitational-wave detectors together were able to triangulate the signal. Had the neutron-star merger occurred a month or two earlier, before Virgo started taking data, the “error box,” or area in the sky that the signal could have come from, would have been so large that follow-up observers would have had little chance of finding anything.

The LIGO and Virgo scientists had another stroke of luck. Gravitational waves produced by merging neutron stars are fainter than those from black holes and harder to detect. According to Thomas Dent, an astrophysicist at the Albert Einstein Institute in Hannover, Germany, and a member of LIGO, the experiment can only sense neutron-star mergers that occur within 300 million light-years. This event was far closer — at a comfortable distance for both LIGO and the full range of electromagnetic telescopes to observe it.

But at the time, Berger and his colleagues didn’t know any of that. They had an agonizing wait until sunset in Chile, when they could use an instrument called the Dark Energy Camera mounted on the Victor M. Blanco telescope there. The camera is great when you don’t know precisely where you’re looking, astronomers said, because it can quickly scan a very large area of the sky. Berger also secured use of the Very Large Array (VLA) in central New Mexico, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile and the space-based Chandra X-ray Observatory. (Other teams that received the LIGO alert asked to use VLA and ALMA as well.)

A few hours later, data from the Dark Energy Camera started coming in. It took Berger’s team 45 minutes to spot a new bright light source. The light appeared to come from a galaxy called NGC 4993 in the constellation Hydra that had been pointed out in the LIGO alert, and at approximately the distance where LIGO had suggested they look.

“That got us really excited, and I still have the email from a colleague saying ‘Holy [smokes], look at that bright source near this galaxy!’” Berger said. “All of us were kind of shocked,” since “we didn’t think we would succeed right away.” The team had expected a long slog, maybe having to wade through multiple searches after LIGO detections for a couple of years until eventually spotting something. “But this just stood out,” he said, “like when an X marks the spot.”

Meanwhile, at least five other teams discovered the new bright light source independently, and hundreds of researchers made various follow-up observations. David Coulter, an astronomer at University of California, Santa Cruz, and colleagues used the Swope telescope in Chile to pinpoint the event’s exact location, while Las Cumbres Observatory astronomers did so with the help of a robotic network of 20 telescopes around the globe.

For Berger and the rest of the Dark Energy Camera follow-up team, it was time to call in the Hubble Space Telescope. Securing time on the veteran instrument usually takes weeks, if not months. But for extraordinary circumstances, there’s a way to jump ahead in line, by using “director’s discretionary time.” Matt Nicholl, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, submitted a proposal on behalf of the team to take ultraviolet measurements with Hubble — possibly the shortest proposal ever written. “It was two paragraphs long — that’s all we could do in the middle of the night,” Berger said. “It just said that we’ve found the first counterpart of a binary neutron star merger, and we need to get UV spectra. And it got approved.”

As the data trickled in from the various instruments, the collected data set was becoming more and more astounding. In total, the original LIGO/Virgo discovery and the various follow-up observations by scientists have yielded dozens of papers, each describing astrophysical processes that occurred during and after the merger.

Mystery Bursts

Neutron stars are compact neutron-packed cores left over when massive stars die in supernova explosions. A teaspoon of neutron star would weigh as much as one billion tons. Their internal structure is not completely understood. Neither is their occasional aggregation into close-knit binary pairs of stars that orbit each other. The astronomers Joe Taylor and Russell Hulse found the first such pair in 1974, a discovery that earned them the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics. They concluded that those two neutron stars were destined to crash into each other in about 300 million years. The two stars newly discovered by LIGO took far longer to do so.

The analysis by Berger and his team suggests that the newly discovered pair was born 11 billion years ago, when two massive stars went supernova a few million years apart. Between these two explosions, something brought the stars closer together, and they went on circling each other for most of the history of the universe. The findings are “in excellent agreement with the models of binary-neutron-star formation,” Berger said.

The merger also solved another mystery that has vexed astrophysicists for the past five decades.

On July 2, 1967, two United States satellites, Vela 3 and 4, spotted a flash of gamma radiation. Researchers first suspected a secret nuclear test conducted by the Soviet Union. They soon realized this flash was something else: the first example of what is now known as a gamma ray burst (GRB), an event lasting anywhere from milliseconds to hours that “emits some of the most intense and violent radiation of any astrophysical object,” Dent said. The origin of GRBs has been an enigma, although some people have suggested that so-called “short” gamma-ray bursts (lasting less than two seconds) could be the result of neutron-star mergers. There was no way to directly check until now.

In yet another nod of good fortune, it so happened that on Aug. 17, the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope and the International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (Integral) were pointing in the direction of the constellation Hydra. Just as LIGO and Virgo detected gravitational waves, the gamma-ray space telescopes picked up a weak GRB, and, like LIGO and Virgo, issued an alert.

A neutron star merger should trigger a very strong gamma-ray burst, with most of the energy released in a fairly narrow beam called a jet. The researchers believe that the GRB signal hitting Earth was weak only because the jet was pointing at an angle away from us. Proof arrived about two weeks later, when observatories detected the X-ray and radio emissions that accompany a GRB. “This provides smoking-gun proof that normal short gamma-ray bursts are produced by neutron-star mergers,” Berger said. “It’s really the first direct compelling connection between these two phenomena.”

Hughes said that the observations were the first in which “we have definitively associated any short gamma-ray burst with a progenitor.” The findings indicate that at least some GRBs come from colliding neutron stars, though it’s too soon to say whether they all do.

Striking Gold

Optical and infrared data captured after the neutron-star merger also help clarify the formation of the heaviest elements in the universe, like uranium, platinum and gold, in what’s called r-process nucleosynthesis. Scientists long believed that these rare, heavy elements, like most other elements, are made during high-energy events such as supernovas. A competing theory that has gained prominence in recent years argues that neutron-star mergers could forge the majority of these elements. According to that thinking, the crash of neutron stars ejects matter in what’s called a kilonova. “Once released from the neutron stars’ gravitational field,” the matter “would transmute into a cloud full of the heavy elements we see on rocky planets like Earth,” Dent explained.

Optical telescopes picked up the radioactive glow of these heavy elements — strong evidence, scientists say, that neutron-star collisions produce much of the universe’s supply of heavy elements like gold.

“With this merger,” Berger said, “we can see all the expected signatures of the formation of these elements, so we are solving this big open question in astrophysics of how these elements form. We had hints of this before, but here we have a really nearby object with exquisite data, and there is no ambiguity.” According to Daniel Holz, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, ���back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that this single collision produced an amount of gold greater than the weight of the Earth.”

The scientists also inferred a sequence of events that may have followed the neutron-star collision, providing insight into the stars’ internal structure. Experts knew that the collision outcome “depends very much on how large the stars are and how ‘soft’ or ‘springy’ — in other words, how much they resist being deformed by super-strong gravitational forces,” Dent said. If the stars are extra soft, they may immediately be swallowed up inside a newly formed black hole, but this would not leave any matter outside to produce a gamma-ray burst. “At the other end of the scale, he said, “the two neutron stars would merge and form an unstable, rapidly spinning super-massive neutron star, which could produce a gamma-ray burst after a holdup of tens or hundreds of seconds.”

The most plausible case may lie somewhere in the middle: The two neutron stars may have merged into a doughnut-shaped unstable neutron star that launched a jet of super-energetic hot matter before finally collapsing as a black hole, Dent said.

Future observations of neutron-star mergers will settle these questions. And as the signals roll in, experts say the mergers will also serve as a precision tool for cosmologists. Comparing the gravitational-wave signal with the redshift, or stretching, of the electromagnetic signals offers a new way of measuring the so-called Hubble constant, which gives the age and expansion rate of the universe. Already, with this one merger, researchers were able to make an initial measurement of the Hubble constant “in a remarkably fundamental way, without requiring the multitude of assumptions” that go into estimating the constant by other methods, said Matthew Bailes, a member of the LIGO collaboration and a professor at the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia. Holz described the neutron star merger as a “standard siren” (in a nod to the term “standard candles” used for supernovas) and said that initial calculations suggest the universe is expanding at a rate of 70 kilometers per second per megaparsec, which puts LIGO’s Hubble constant “smack in the middle of [previous] estimates.”

To improve the measurement, scientists will have to spot many more neutron-star mergers. Given that LIGO and Virgo are still being fine-tuned to increase their sensitivity, Berger is optimistic. “It is clear that the rate of occurrence is somewhat higher than expected,” he said. “By 2020 I expect at least one to two of these every month. It will be tremendously exciting.”

[crispytacostudents]

Artificial Intelligence: prons and cons.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCES: PROS AND CONS ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROGRAMMED CONSCIOUSNESS TO OUR PRESENT AND FUTURE SOCIETY.

English VII, Teacher Raquel E. Mayorga. C.

Ø Bustamante Padilla Ana Paula

Ø Facio Palomero Miriam Estefania

Ø Martínez Rodríguez Diana A.

Evidence 1

JAN-MAY 2018

We have seen it in a lot of movies, from 1970 Colossus: The Forbin Project to 2014 Ex Machina, AI was broadcasted by the media so almost all the population has heard about it at least once. But, what is exactly the Artificial Intelligence?

In computer science AI research is defined as the study of "intelligent agents", which they consider any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals. But while science fiction often portrays AI as robots with human-like characteristics, AI can encompass anything from Google’s search algorithms to IBM’s Watson to autonomous weapons.

The continuous development of Artificial Intelligences in the industry has given rise to lots of controversial opinions about the advantages or disadvantages of AI’s in our daily life based on different arguments, which will be next treated.

The term artificial intelligence was first coined by John McCarthy in 1956 when he held the first academic conference on the subject. But before that conference Alan Turing, who was a Britannic mathematician, published a paper entitled “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, which opened the doors to the field that would be called AI. Later he developed a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to that of a human. The theory that a human evaluator would judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine designed to generate human-like behaviors and cognitive processes was then proposed by Turing.

A large portion of Turing’s original paper deals with addressing counter arguments concerning how the test he proposes may not be valid. In the introduction to that section he states that he believes there will be computers with enough storage capacity to make them capable of passing the Turing test “in about fifty years”.

Since the Turing test was proposed about 60 years ago, many attempts to build software capable of passing it (or getting closer to) were done by highbrows. As the Turing test is such a fundamental and difficult problem, the research into it tends to be slow and incremental: always trying to build something better than the attempt before.

Besides, there is currently a mechanism to encourage further research - the Leobner Prize and the associated Turing Test Competition. The prize includes a $100,000 cash reward for a system capable of being indistinguishable from a human. To encourage participation, the yearly competition has a few different levels of reward. Each year a medal and $2000 is awarded to the best entry.

Here are some example exchanges in the 2005 contest between the judge and the winning program, Jaberwocky. In this example the judge types in random characters:

·         JUDGE: Hi George, cslkjslw weicmslw weos, right?

·         PROGRAM: Don't repeat your name, csthiang!

By this “conversation”, we can notice that while it is possible for software to mimic human responses for very small subsets of conversation with predefined branching points, general conversation is still far beyond what even the best systems have been able to produce.

A very important point is that the fact of giving self - consciousness to a robot or a machine means they will gradually develop experiences and opinions, ideas. It is this reasoning which made the AI Safety case appears.  AI Safety is, in a few words, the challenge of preventing a devastating arms race in lethal autonomous weapons.

Even though it sounds like a Sci-Fi movie synopsis, it is very logical. The main objective of developing AI to its full power is the same idea that made ancient civilizations to develop irrigation systems or daily enamelware: we are trying to lighten up our work. And since the conception we have about those gadgets is “they re machines, so they are senseless”. And by now it is a true reasoning, but not with the AI’s. Giving them consciousness means giving them feelings, and if we overexploit a sensitive being, whether it’s human or not, we are committing slavery. And that will be known by the thinking machines, programmed to behave as humans. As a consequence of that programming, they will want what we, as humans, would: freedom.

More specifically, experts think this could happen:

1.    The AI is programmed to do something devastating: Autonomous weapons are artificial intelligence systems that are programmed to kill. In the hands of the wrong person, these weapons could easily cause mass casualties. This risk is one that’s present even with narrow AI, but grows as levels of AI intelligence and autonomy increase.

2.    The AI is programmed to do something beneficial, but it develops a destructive method for achieving its goal: This can happen whenever we fail to fully align the AI’s goals with ours, which is strikingly difficult. If you ask an obedient intelligent car to take you to the airport as fast as possible, it might get you there chased by helicopters and covered in vomit, doing not what you wanted but literally what you asked for

Concern about the risks posed by AI were recently expressed by Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, who is the owner of Tesla, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, and many other big names in science and technology, joined by many leading AI researchers. Because AI has the potential to become more intelligent than any human, we have no way of predicting how it will behave. We can’t use past technological developments as much of a basis because we’ve never created anything that has the ability to outsmart human race. While some experts still guess that human-level AI is centuries away, it was in 2015 Puerto Rico Conference where most AI researches guessed that it would happen before 2060.

Now, going back to the “What could go wrong?” point, there is a very polemic subject that, because of recent studies, has come to light. What jobs are the most probable to be replaced by AI workers? This is a little list of jobs and their reasons of probable disappearance:

1.    Telemarketers. With a 99% likelihood of disappearance, this is largely in part because of the requirements to be successful: Unlike other sales roles, telemarketers don't require a high level of social, or emotional, intelligence to be successful.

2.    Bookkeeping clerks. With a 98% likelihood of disappearance, jobs in this role are expected to decline 8% by 2024. QuickBooks, FreshBooks, and Microsoft Office already offer software that does the bookkeeping for you that's much more affordable than a person's salary, so it's no surprise this job has such a high probability.

3.    Receptionists:  With a 96% likelihood of disappearance, they are here because automated phone and scheduling systems can replace a lot of the traditional receptionist role -- especially at modern technology companies that don't have office-wide phone systems or multinational corporations.

4.    Proofreaders: With an 84% likelihood of disappearance, now that proofreading software is everywhere. From Microsoft Word's simple spelling and grammar check to Grammarly and Hemingway App, there are a lot of technologies out there that make it easy to self-check your own writing.

5.    Advertising Salespeople: With a 54% likelihood of disappearance, as advertising shifts away from print and TV and towards web and social media landscapes, people simply don't need to be managing those sales for marketers who want to buy ad space. More social media platforms are making it easy for people to buy space through free application program interfaces (APIs) and self-serve ad marketplaces to remove the salesperson and make it faster and easier for users to make money -- and that's reflected in the projected 3% decline in the industry.

 There are some people that think other jobs that could disappear in a not so remote future are professions like teachers or cleaning assistants. But, results were given by researchers about the opposite subject of the list presented above, and some of the safest jobs by now (meaning not to be replaced by AI’s) are the following:

1.    Human Resources Manager. O.55% likelihood. The field is projected to grow 9% by 2024 as companies grow and need more robust structures for supporting and helping employees whose company's Human Resources department will likely always need a human at the helm to manage interpersonal conflict with the help of non-cognitive and reasoning skills.

2.    Marketing Managers. 1.4% likelihood. Marketing managers have to interpret data, monitor trends, oversee campaigns, and create content. They also have to nimbly adapt and respond to changes and feedback from the rest of the company and customers, an activity that cannot be done by AI’s yet.

3.    Chief Executives. 1.5% likelihood. It's nearly impossible to automate leadership. The work of informing broad strategy, representing companies' missions and objectives, and motivating huge teams of people working for them is done by Chief executives.

4.    Writers. 3.8% likelihood. Original written material needs to be ideated, created, and produced by writers. AI’s can do some of this with title suggestions, writing prompts, and automated social media messages, but blog posts, books, movies, and plays will likely be written by humans for the foreseeable future.

5.    Editors. 5.5% likelihood. While some of the load can be lifted from editors with the automated proofreading technology mentioned previously, editors have to review writers' submission for clarity, accuracy, comprehensiveness, and originality. While there is some software that can spot-check for clarity and scan for plagiarism, the editor role must be carried out by a human in order to read work as another human would.

In short, we have covered the main aspects - or at least the most polemic ones - about the development, use and allocation of Artificial Intelligence in our society. And we must conclude that this type of futuristic technology is really awesome, but as everything created artificially by the human race, it needs to be handled very carefully. Nobody is sure about what could happen, whether it is good or bad, but we know that we have to be cautious. AI’s can be used to our favor or against us; it is our duty to choose the way we are going to take that fake consciousness. Not only to worry for us, but for the upcoming generations.  

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://futureoflife.org/background/benefits-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/

https://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/csep590/06au/projects/history-ai.pdf

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/jobs-artificial-intelligence-will-replace  : History of Computing. CSEP 590A; University of Washington; December 2006. Chris Smith, Brian McGuire, Ting Huang, Gary Yang.

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Coronavirus Stimulus Checks: What To Expect https://ift.tt/33GoLYs

Congress is gearing up to send out stimulus checks to Americans across the country to combat the recession being created by the coronavirus pandemic. With stores, restaurants, and more being closed, and most other Americans forced to work from home, the country is gearing up for a recession or depression that is hasn't seen in almost a century.

With lessons learned from the Depression and Great Recession, one of the biggest ways to stimulate the economy and keep American's financially safe is to simply give them cash to spend - to pay rent, buy food, and take care of their families.

Let's look at the history of stimulus checks, and give you an idea of what to expect, how to prepare, and what you should seriously consider spending your stimulus check on given what we've learned from history.

Note: Currently, the stimulus checks are a proposal. We will update this page with all the information when it passes Congress (which should happen this week).

Quick Navigation

The 2020 Covid-19 Stimulus Checks

Other 2020 Stimulus Programs

Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA)

Student Loan Relief

History Of Stimulus Checks

How To Get A 2020 Stimulus Check

Best Ways To Use Your Check

Beware Of Scams

2020 Stimulus Check FAQs

The 2020 Covid-19 Stimulus Checks

Right now, the stimulus checks are just a proposal, but here's what they are proposing as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

The baseline of the proposal is adults would get $1,200 each and children $500 each. The benefit would start to phase out at a rate of $5 for every additional $100 in income.

The benefit phaseout starts at:

$75,000 in adjusted gross income for singles

$112,500 for heads of household

$150,000 for married couples filing jointly 

Completely phase out at $99,000 for singles and $198,000 for couples (with no children)

The current bill as written requires you to have filed a 2019 tax return, and it would send the benefit checks to the address listed on the tax return. See below for updating your information with the IRS.

Note: This may not be a one-time check. There are many proposals to make this a monthly check, but as of now, none of those have gained traction.

Other 2020 Stimulus Programs

Beyond the direct checks to individuals and families, there are a variety of other programs that are providing tax credits and loans to individuals and small businesses.

We will update this section as programs emerge.

Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA)

The biggest stimulus program right now is the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which expanded paid leave and sick leave for millions of Americans. It also has tax breaks to help small businesses provide these expanded benefits.

The biggest component of the FFCRA is the emergency paid leave. You can qualify for leave if you meet any of the following six requirements:

You are subject to a federal, state, or local quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19.

You are quarantined at the direction of a health authority or healthcare provider to prevent spread of COVID-19.

You are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 and is seeking a diagnosis.

You are caring for another person who is subject to #1 or #2 above.

You are caring for a child or another person due to closure of a school or other facility due to COVID-19.

You are experiencing similar conditions that have been specified by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Full-time employees can get up to 80 hours of paid leave, which would be covered by the US Government (so it's not a monetary burden to your employer).

The amount of the benefit is determined by which reasons you qualify for. If you qualify due to reasons #1, #2, or #3, you will receive the greater of: your rate of pay, Federal minimum wage, or your local minimum wage. The maximum benefit is $511 per day, or a total of $5,110. 

If you qualify due to reasons #4, #5, or $6, the amount is 2/3's the rate above, with a maximum benefit of $200 per day, or a total of $2,000.

These are other benefits as well, check out this guide for more.

Student Loan Relief

The Department of Education has issued a lot of special options for families with student loan debt during this crisis.

Some of the key highlights include a student loan interest freeze, the ability to defer payments for at least 60 days with no penalty, and more.

We have a full guide to it here: Coronavirus student loan relief programs.

History Of Stimulus Checks

Stimulus checks aren't a new idea. In fact, in the last 20 years, the United States has given out stimulus checks three times. They've been used as a tool to combat major recessions in the United States.

Here are some past examples:

2001: Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 provided $300 for single filer taxpayers and $600 for joint filers.

2008: Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 provided $300 to $600 per person, $1,200 for married couples, and $300 per child.

2009: Economic Recovery Payment of 2009 provided $250 for beneficiaries of select retirement programs, including Social Security, Veterans Affairs, and Railroad Retirement.

How To Get A 2020 Stimulus Check

The Department of Treasury will hopefully start sending out checks to qualified households as soon as possible. They typically use the IRS records to send out checks to families.

In past stimulus checks, you were have had to file a previous year's tax return. It appears that may be a part of the plan this year. Current proposals require a 2019 tax year return to have been filed. If you haven't filed your taxes yet, don't delay and get started now.

In 2008, it took two months to start distributing the stimulus checks after the law was signed. President Trump is pushing to have that start much sooner this year.

How Does The IRS or Treasury Know My Address?

Checks will start using information from tax returns. The IRS has an "Update My Information" tool that allows you to provide your updated address to make sure your check isn't delayed.

Here is the tool: IRS Update My Information Tool.

How Will The IRS Send My Money

Direct Deposit is the best way to get your stimulus check because it will be the fastest. The Treasury Department will use your tax return information to process a direct deposit (just like your tax return). 

If you need a paper check, it typically adds 2-3 weeks to the process for the Treasury Department to print and mail your check.

Best Ways To Use Your Check

One of the biggest questions I get is how to use your stimulus check to do the most good. This is a tough question because it varies so much from person to person, and family to family.

However, here's an order of operations to consider for the best ways to use your stimulus check.

First - Get A Bank Account

If you don't have your own checking account, you need one now. Yes, you can receive a paper check and use a check-cashing service, but that's a waste of your own money.

Check out this list of the best free checking accounts and set yourself up for success right now. If you've been denied a bank account in the past, here's a list of second-chance checking accounts that will let you open an account.

Essentials

Obviously, if you're struggling, you have to take care of yourself first. Food, housing, medical supplies, children's essentials. Take care of yourself and your family. That's the biggest reason these checks are being issued - so Americans can take care of themselves in this time of crisis.

Eliminate Debt

Chances are this crisis is going to last a substantial amount of time. One of the biggest things that hurts most household budgets is debt. If you have debt, like credit cards or student loans, it could make sense to apply the payment to your debts.

If you have student loans, there are other coronavirus relief programs for student loans, and it might not make sense to put it towards your student loan debt.

​Save For The Future​

Most of us have upcoming expenses we may not be able to avoid. This could be a tax bill (property taxes or other - and remember the IRS moved the tax deadlines this year), or something else.

Plus, we're going into a big period of uncertainty, and job losses are spiking. You need to protect yourself and your family, and cash is king.

If You Don't Need The Money, Donate It

If you are financially prepared, consider donating your stimulus check to an organization that can use the money. Since fundraisers are basically non-existent right now, and charities everywhere are seeing increased demand, anything you can do will help.

Beware Of Scams

With everything, if money is involved, there is a scammer out there trying to take it from you. We see this every year with tax refunds -  those robocalls pretending to be the IRS and getting you to pay them. We're undoubtedly going to see it with the stimulus checks as well.

If anyone calls you about the stimulus checks, it's 100% a scam. The government doesn't call people. They send letters and mail. That's how you'll be contacted. 

Second, the government doesn't need your personal details! They have all your information already. If you need to update your information - use the IRS website we provided above.

Finally, you never have to pay anyone anything to receive a check. This is your money, you don't need to pay for it.

2020 Stimulus Check FAQs

Okay, that was a lot of information. Here are some basic FAQs about everything.

How much will my stimulus check be?

The baseline of the proposal is adults would get $1,200 each and children $500 each. The benefit would start to phase out at a rate of $5 for every additional $100 in income.

How quickly will I receive my stimulus check?

Based on history, likely about 2 months after the government passes the law. However, they are working to make it much faster this time.

How does the government know where to send the check?

The government will send it to the address on your tax return. You must have filed a 2019 tax return in order to get a stimulus check.

What if I need to update my information?

The IRS has an "Update My Information" tool where you can submit your updated address and information so that you don't miss anything from the IRS, or miss your stimulus check.

Is this a one-time check or an ongoing check?

Currently, it's set to be a one-time check. However, there are multiple proposals to make it ongoing.

How do I know if I qualify for a stimulus check?

You must file a 2019 tax return, and meet the income requirements of the program. Currently, the checks completely phase out at $99,000 for singles and $198,000 for couples (with no children).

Can I use my check for student loan debt?

Yes, you can, but it might not be the best way to use your check right now given that student loan interest is frozen. You might consider paying off other debts if your essentials are taken care of.

The post Coronavirus Stimulus Checks: What To Expect appeared first on The College Investor.

from The College Investor

Congress is gearing up to send out stimulus checks to Americans across the country to combat the recession being created by the coronavirus pandemic. With stores, restaurants, and more being closed, and most other Americans forced to work from home, the country is gearing up for a recession or depression that is hasn't seen in almost a century.

With lessons learned from the Depression and Great Recession, one of the biggest ways to stimulate the economy and keep American's financially safe is to simply give them cash to spend - to pay rent, buy food, and take care of their families.

Let's look at the history of stimulus checks, and give you an idea of what to expect, how to prepare, and what you should seriously consider spending your stimulus check on given what we've learned from history.

Note: Currently, the stimulus checks are a proposal. We will update this page with all the information when it passes Congress (which should happen this week).

Quick Navigation

The 2020 Covid-19 Stimulus Checks

Other 2020 Stimulus Programs

Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA)

Student Loan Relief

History Of Stimulus Checks

How To Get A 2020 Stimulus Check

Best Ways To Use Your Check

Beware Of Scams

2020 Stimulus Check FAQs

The 2020 Covid-19 Stimulus Checks

Right now, the stimulus checks are just a proposal, but here's what they are proposing as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

The baseline of the proposal is adults would get $1,200 each and children $500 each. The benefit would start to phase out at a rate of $5 for every additional $100 in income.

The benefit phaseout starts at:

$75,000 in adjusted gross income for singles

$112,500 for heads of household

$150,000 for married couples filing jointly 

Completely phase out at $99,000 for singles and $198,000 for couples (with no children)

The current bill as written requires you to have filed a 2019 tax return, and it would send the benefit checks to the address listed on the tax return. See below for updating your information with the IRS.

Note: This may not be a one-time check. There are many proposals to make this a monthly check, but as of now, none of those have gained traction.

Other 2020 Stimulus Programs

Beyond the direct checks to individuals and families, there are a variety of other programs that are providing tax credits and loans to individuals and small businesses.

We will update this section as programs emerge.

Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA)

The biggest stimulus program right now is the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA), which expanded paid leave and sick leave for millions of Americans. It also has tax breaks to help small businesses provide these expanded benefits.

The biggest component of the FFCRA is the emergency paid leave. You can qualify for leave if you meet any of the following six requirements:

You are subject to a federal, state, or local quarantine or isolation order related to COVID-19.

You are quarantined at the direction of a health authority or healthcare provider to prevent spread of COVID-19.

You are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 and is seeking a diagnosis.

You are caring for another person who is subject to #1 or #2 above.

You are caring for a child or another person due to closure of a school or other facility due to COVID-19.

You are experiencing similar conditions that have been specified by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Full-time employees can get up to 80 hours of paid leave, which would be covered by the US Government (so it's not a monetary burden to your employer).

The amount of the benefit is determined by which reasons you qualify for. If you qualify due to reasons #1, #2, or #3, you will receive the greater of: your rate of pay, Federal minimum wage, or your local minimum wage. The maximum benefit is $511 per day, or a total of $5,110. 

If you qualify due to reasons #4, #5, or $6, the amount is 2/3's the rate above, with a maximum benefit of $200 per day, or a total of $2,000.

These are other benefits as well, check out this guide for more.

Student Loan Relief

The Department of Education has issued a lot of special options for families with student loan debt during this crisis.

Some of the key highlights include a student loan interest freeze, the ability to defer payments for at least 60 days with no penalty, and more.

We have a full guide to it here: Coronavirus student loan relief programs.

History Of Stimulus Checks

Stimulus checks aren't a new idea. In fact, in the last 20 years, the United States has given out stimulus checks three times. They've been used as a tool to combat major recessions in the United States.

Here are some past examples:

2001: Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 provided $300 for single filer taxpayers and $600 for joint filers.

2008: Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 provided $300 to $600 per person, $1,200 for married couples, and $300 per child.

2009: Economic Recovery Payment of 2009 provided $250 for beneficiaries of select retirement programs, including Social Security, Veterans Affairs, and Railroad Retirement.

How To Get A 2020 Stimulus Check

The Department of Treasury will hopefully start sending out checks to qualified households as soon as possible. They typically use the IRS records to send out checks to families.

In past stimulus checks, you were have had to file a previous year's tax return. It appears that may be a part of the plan this year. Current proposals require a 2019 tax year return to have been filed. If you haven't filed your taxes yet, don't delay and get started now.

In 2008, it took two months to start distributing the stimulus checks after the law was signed. President Trump is pushing to have that start much sooner this year.

How Does The IRS or Treasury Know My Address?

Checks will start using information from tax returns. The IRS has an "Update My Information" tool that allows you to provide your updated address to make sure your check isn't delayed.

Here is the tool: IRS Update My Information Tool.

How Will The IRS Send My Money

Direct Deposit is the best way to get your stimulus check because it will be the fastest. The Treasury Department will use your tax return information to process a direct deposit (just like your tax return). 

If you need a paper check, it typically adds 2-3 weeks to the process for the Treasury Department to print and mail your check.

Best Ways To Use Your Check

One of the biggest questions I get is how to use your stimulus check to do the most good. This is a tough question because it varies so much from person to person, and family to family.

However, here's an order of operations to consider for the best ways to use your stimulus check.

First - Get A Bank Account

If you don't have your own checking account, you need one now. Yes, you can receive a paper check and use a check-cashing service, but that's a waste of your own money.

Check out this list of the best free checking accounts and set yourself up for success right now. If you've been denied a bank account in the past, here's a list of second-chance checking accounts that will let you open an account.

Essentials

Obviously, if you're struggling, you have to take care of yourself first. Food, housing, medical supplies, children's essentials. Take care of yourself and your family. That's the biggest reason these checks are being issued - so Americans can take care of themselves in this time of crisis.

Eliminate Debt

Chances are this crisis is going to last a substantial amount of time. One of the biggest things that hurts most household budgets is debt. If you have debt, like credit cards or student loans, it could make sense to apply the payment to your debts.

If you have student loans, there are other coronavirus relief programs for student loans, and it might not make sense to put it towards your student loan debt.

​Save For The Future​

Most of us have upcoming expenses we may not be able to avoid. This could be a tax bill (property taxes or other - and remember the IRS moved the tax deadlines this year), or something else.

Plus, we're going into a big period of uncertainty, and job losses are spiking. You need to protect yourself and your family, and cash is king.

If You Don't Need The Money, Donate It

If you are financially prepared, consider donating your stimulus check to an organization that can use the money. Since fundraisers are basically non-existent right now, and charities everywhere are seeing increased demand, anything you can do will help.

Beware Of Scams

With everything, if money is involved, there is a scammer out there trying to take it from you. We see this every year with tax refunds -  those robocalls pretending to be the IRS and getting you to pay them. We're undoubtedly going to see it with the stimulus checks as well.

If anyone calls you about the stimulus checks, it's 100% a scam. The government doesn't call people. They send letters and mail. That's how you'll be contacted. 

Second, the government doesn't need your personal details! They have all your information already. If you need to update your information - use the IRS website we provided above.

Finally, you never have to pay anyone anything to receive a check. This is your money, you don't need to pay for it.

2020 Stimulus Check FAQs

Okay, that was a lot of information. Here are some basic FAQs about everything.

How much will my stimulus check be?

The baseline of the proposal is adults would get $1,200 each and children $500 each. The benefit would start to phase out at a rate of $5 for every additional $100 in income.

How quickly will I receive my stimulus check?

Based on history, likely about 2 months after the government passes the law. However, they are working to make it much faster this time.

How does the government know where to send the check?

The government will send it to the address on your tax return. You must have filed a 2019 tax return in order to get a stimulus check.

What if I need to update my information?

The IRS has an "Update My Information" tool where you can submit your updated address and information so that you don't miss anything from the IRS, or miss your stimulus check.

Is this a one-time check or an ongoing check?

Currently, it's set to be a one-time check. However, there are multiple proposals to make it ongoing.

How do I know if I qualify for a stimulus check?

You must file a 2019 tax return, and meet the income requirements of the program. Currently, the checks completely phase out at $99,000 for singles and $198,000 for couples (with no children).

Can I use my check for student loan debt?

Yes, you can, but it might not be the best way to use your check right now given that student loan interest is frozen. You might consider paying off other debts if your essentials are taken care of.

The post Coronavirus Stimulus Checks: What To Expect appeared first on The College Investor.

https://ift.tt/2SHdpOY March 23, 2020 at 11:11PM https://ift.tt/33DseqS

[roggling]

The Proposal [Kidge AU] Part 5

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

This is the last chapter guys! Hope You liked it!

The house was buzzing as people arrived to witness the wedding of Katie Holt and Keith Kogane. Katie was nervous. Of course, she is. Even if she’s pretending that the whole wedding is a sham with Keith, she can’t help but imagine how their wedding would have actually looked like if they proposed like a normal couple.

The Proposal. It was all because of that stupid proposal that she fell in love with him. That stupid proposal on the street where the two were constantly teasing the other. That stupid proposal that she wished Keith meant. But, now… now all she wanted to do was get through with the wedding so she can confess her feelings to Keith.

As Allura and her mom helped her dress, she could see Keith already dressed and heading for the barn. As the girls were fixing Katie’s dress, she shuffled towards the window to get a better look. The girls shuffled after Katie comically and Allura peeked over Katie’s shoulder to see what she was looking at.

Allura smiled once she realized who Katie was watching and turned her away, “You will get to see him in the barn. But for now, you are going to have to control yourself.” Colleen laughed at Allura’s reprimanding and Katie couldn’t help but blush. When Colleen placed the veil over her daughter’s head, Katie knew that it was time.

“We have to get down to the barn now.” Katie nodded and followed her mother down the stairs with Allura behind her holding the long tail of the dress. Allura was wearing a long pink dress with a slit all the way up to her upper left thigh with a v-neckline.

Katie breathed in deeply and tried to calm her nerves as she hugged her mother and Allura before they left to their seats. As Katie peeked to the audience, she worried as she saw Keith smiling at Grammy as she walked over to him to kiss him on the cheek.

"I still can't believe you're doing this." Katie turned around and saw her father standing before her with a disappointed look on his face, Katie sighed and began, "Dad I don't want to talk about it."

At that very moment, Pachelbel Canon in D starts playing and Katie hooks her left arm around her father's right. The two slowly walked down the aisle, Katie looking around, finding Hunk, Natalia, Matt, Shiro, Allura, Lance, and Uncle Coran.

They stopped right in the beginning of the walkway to give the audience time to look at her dress. It was a beautiful charmeuse, off shoulder dress showing off a small bit of cleavage (something Katie definitely didn't like). Her long honey brown hair was pulled into a side ladder braided bun.

Katie looked straight at Keith straight, admiring how handsome he looks in his suit and his beautiful purple eyes. Katie smiled at Keith but it wasn't for the audience, it was exclusively for him. It was a real smile. And Keith could tell.

He gave her a closed lip smile and once she finally arrived at the altar and gave her father a kiss on the cheek, he took her small hand in his huge calloused one and the two approached the priest.

Keith's mind has been running wild since the morning. He felt guilty for being so mean to Katie and for making her marry him against her will. He felt like one of those Disney villains. But he also wanted to go through with the wedding. Katie was the best girl he's ever met. She's a challenge to his quick wit, to his snarky responses, and to his empty threats. She's exactly what he needs in life to become the person he knows he could have been. She's exactly what he wants in life. But he doesn't want to live with someone who isn't happy to be with him, that's just cruel.

So when the priest began the ceremony, Keith lifted his finger to stop it. The priest paused his speech and turned to Keith, "Sir, do you have a question?" Katie's head turned to Keith quizzically as Keith shook his head, "No- I- uh. I have something to say."

The priest, confuzzled, asked, "Can't it wait till after?" Keith seemed hesitant but eventually shook his head, "No. No."

The priest motioned for Keith to go ahead and he turned around and faced the crowd, "Hi. Thank you all for coming out. I, uh... have an announcement to make. A confession, actually."

Katie turned to Keith with wide eyes, "What are you doing?"

Keith only ignored her and continued, "I am Korean. Yes. I'm Korean. With an expired visa who was about to be deported. And because I didn't want to leave this beautiful country, I forced Katie to marry me." The whole crowd gasped as Katie lowered her head and hissed, "Keith, stop it."

Keith continued, "See, Katherine has always had an amazing work ethic. She fought hard for what she deserved. For five years I watched her work harder and smarter than anyone else in the base, including myself. And I knew that if I threatened to destroy her dreams... she would do just about anything."

Keith looked down and choked up as he tried to compose himself, "So I blackmailed her to come up here and to lie to you. And I thought it would be easy to watch her do it." Keith paused, looking at all of Katie's family, "But it wasn't."

Matt inhaled deeply, extremely close to beat Keith to a pulp (at least the most he could) for hurting his baby sister. Keith winced at the disappointed looks of the Holt clan but continued, "You are all wonderful people that deserve so much more than a scumbag than I. Don't let this come between you. I'm the one at fault. I'm sorry for lying to you all."

Katie pulled on Keith's arm, "Keith..."

Keith moved his hand away and turned to Katie, who looked like she was about to burst out in tears.

Keith sighed, but he knew that he was doing was right. So the last words he said to Katie were, "This was a deal and you held up your end, but now the deal is off."

Keith climbed down the stairs and stomped his way out, not before turning to Mr. Gilbertson, "You're my ride to the airport. Meet me at the dock." Mr. Gilbertson turned around and watched Keith with a smug look

Keith walked out of the barn in a rush and avoided everyone's gazes, knowing he might just break if he did.

Katie's eyes were watering as she stood there in a daze. She was only knocked into reality when she heard the door shut closed.

Katie turned to her family, who were all murmuring to themselves and she slowly walked down the altar towards her family. Colleen approached her daughter and reprimanded her with a voice laced with hurt, "What were you thinking?!" Katie shook her head, but she couldn't bring herself to talk to her family.

Allura approached her cousin too, grabbing Katie's hand to gain her attention, "You lied to us?"

Katie nodded slowly and let go of her cousin's hand, "Listen, I've got to put my head on straight. I'll explain everything later."

With that, Katie left her family and friends in the barn and walked out slowly at first. Once she finally reached outside, she picked up her dress and kicked off her heels. She ran at a full sprint towards the house, hoping to catch Keith before he left her.

She burst open the door and stepped inside. She looked around the living room and took off her veil. She took a glance upstairs and climbed them the fastest she could, jogging to the bedroom she shared the last three days. But when she got there, she didn't see the man she slowly learned to love. She found his suit and a golden pocket watch.

Beside it, she found a copy of her prints with a letter attached.

You were right. Your work is amazing. I lied because I knew I would lose you as an assistant the moment I turned in your work. But you are an amazing weapons designer with extraordinary ideas. I'll be sure to send your work to Bergen and Malloy along with my recommendation for you to be promoted to Commander. Along with your resume. I wish you the best, Katherine. Have a good life. You deserve it.

Keith

Katie stared at Keith's horrible, rushed penmanship, her hands tracing over every written word as she imagined him struggling to write legibly and quickly, wrinkling his nose as he concentrated. But as much as she wished that he was back, she still couldn't believe he would do that to her. Leaving her at the altar with a barn full of family and friends so she could alone explain all the sh*t she had to go through.

She crumbled the paper a bit as her anger grew more and more as she kept thinking about her idiot boss. Suddenly, she heard a knock on her door and she turned around.

There stood Lance wearing a simple tux with a white button down and turquoise tie. He had a smile on his face, "Well, that was... eventful. People are gonna be talking about this forever."

Katie looked at Lance, but her mind wasn't on Lance. It was on her stupid boss. "Yeah. Yeah."

Lance put his hands in his pockets, "Are you OK?"

Katie nodded but then the nod formed into a shake of the head, "Yeah-um- no. I just feel... You know what the problem is? The problem is that this man... is a gigantic pain in my *ss. First, he left me on the altar after he dropped the bomb about us being a sham couple and that he was blackmailing me. Then he goes ahead and leaves this note. 'Cause he doesn't have the decency, the humanity to do it to my face. Five years. Five years I work with this... this... d*ckbag with a stick up his *ss. Never once has he had a nice thing to say, and then he goes ahead and writes this crap!"

Katie crumpled up the paper and threw it across the room, not noticing Lance trying to calm her down by speaking to her in a soft voice, "Katie."

Katie, however, still went on with her angry rambling, "But none of that matters because we had a deal!"

Lance tried again by repeating her name softly, "Katie. Katie."

Katie quickly realized she was yelling and calmed down a bit, "Sorry. I'm sorry. I just... He makes me a little crazy sometimes with his bipolar sh*t."

Lance laughed and walked closer, "Yeah. I can tell."

Katie nodded and raised her eyebrows as if saying 'You see?'.

Lance tilted his head and pressed his lips together, "So you're just going to let him go?"

Katie looked straight at his eyes and he gave her a tight-lipped smile, him already knowing the answer as she brushed past him and to the front yard.

He followed close behind and helped her make her way down quickly.

Once she made it outside, all eyes were on her but she didn't care. She continued walking and tried to avoid the incoming questions from her family.

Matt saw her first and asked, "Where are you going?"

Katie brushed right past him, simply answering, "I have to talk to him."

Her father, however, was having none of that and grabbed a hold of her arm, "Why would you do that?"

Katie shook her arms loose and continued walking to the boat, not noticing that Lance stopped before he could get in between her and her father as she continued fighting with him, "It has nothing to do with you."

Sam stood in front of Katie and stood his ground, "I'm not gonna let you do this."

Grammy looked at the two with incredulous eyes and urged for them to stop fighting, "Stop! Stop it!"

Katie glared holes in her father's head, "I'm not asking for your permission. I'm a grown adult. I'm twenty-five for God's sake!"

Unbeknownst to them, Grammy's screams for the two to stop had ceased and she was slowly crumbling to the floor as she gripped the skin above her heart.

Colleen gasped and rushed to hold onto the beloved grandmother, "Annie! Sam! Sam!" Katie and Sam both snapped their heads to the grandmother being gently lowered to the floor by Lance and Matt.

Katie rushed to her grandmother, her bare feet carrying her to Annie in a flash and she desperately grasped her grandmother's hand and held it to her heart as tears tore paths through her cheeks.

It appeared as if someone called the ambulance the second Annie fell because after a few minutes of everyone panicking, she could hear the loud engine of a plane.

Soon enough, Matt tore her away from her grandmother as the paramedics secured her on a small gurney and boarded her on a plane, the family quickly climbing in after.

As soon as the door closed, the plane began the process of flight and was moving across the water, flying above the water a few seconds later.

Annie had a small mask on her face to supply her with oxygen as they made their way to the hospital, her eyes closed peacefully and her hands woven together on top of her stomach.

Sam sat their intertwining his hands with his wife's, silently praying that his mother makes it out alive. Matt and Katie only stared at their pale grandmother, both looking distraught. Katie had tears stained on her cheeks and she thanked Allura for using waterproof eyeliner.

Annie then moved her face and removed the mask so she could speak. Katie called out for her father and mother and the whole family scooted closer to Annie as she grabbed Katie's hand.

"You two need to stop fighting. You'll never see eye to eye. But your family." Grammy looked up to her son, Sam, and struggled out, "Promise me you'll stand by Katie. Even if you don't agree with her."

Sam nodded and tried to look away from his mother, "I promise." His voice failed him as he held his mother's wrinkled hand.

Grammy looked at Katie, whose eyes were brimming with tears once more, "Katie. Promise me you'll work harder to be a part of this family."

Katie nodded and managed to choke out, "I will. I will, Grammy."

Annie, now pleased with the promises, laid flat and closed her eyes, "Well, then, the spirits can take me."

Katie exhaled sharply as one of the paramedics placed the mask on her again, "Oh, Grammy."

The whole plane sat in silence as Grammy laid stiff. But suddenly, her eyes opened wide and mischievously and she sat up with ease, "I guess they're not ready for me."

The family sat in confusion as Grammy turned around and called out to the pilot, "I'm feeling much better, sonny. No need to take us to the hospital. Take us to the airport, please."

Katie breathed out in relief and disbelief and she clutched her rapid beating heart.

Sam shook his head, "Mom, what the hell? Were you faking the heart attack?" Colleen merely laughed as Matt exclaimed, "Come on!"

Grammy looked between the two and shook her head, "It was the only way I could get you two to shut up and get us to the airport!"

Suddenly a familiar voice spoke from the pilot's seat, "Grammy, we're not authorized to take you to the airport."

Grammy glared at the Hispanic and warned, "Lance McClain, don't make me call your mother."

Katie opened her eyes wide as she remembered that Lance had a part-time job as a pilot.

Once the plane landed Katie ran from the plane and onto the hard concrete, completely ignoring the hard pebbles digging into her feet.

She stood frozen in place as she saw the only 'Sitka Skyways' plane gaining speed on the tarmac. Suddenly, she saw her brother picking up his phone and frantically calling a number, "Chuck! Hey. It's Matt Holt."

Katie looked at her brother with an incredulous eye, not believing that he was calling a friend as she was trying to get to Keith.

Matt ignored his sister's gaze and continued his conversation, "Hey, uh- I need a favor from you buddy. Keith is on that plane and my sister's got to talk to him. Can you stop it?" Katie was thanking the stars that her brother was so social.

Katie couldn't hear anything but she assumed it was angering her brother because he ended up shouting, "Chuuuuck! I need you to stop the plane. Please."

Katie looked at her brother with hopeful eyes but he only shook his head and thanked Chuck before hanging up. Katie turned around and watched as the plane took off with Keith in it.

She watched sadly as the love of her life left her life... forever.

Sam soon walked behind his daughter and whispered, "I'm sorry, Pigeon, I didn't know how you felt about him."

Katie nodded and offered a sad smile as her mother consoled her by hugging her and rubbing her back, "Oh honey. It's going to be OK."

Katie only shook her head as she let loose some soft sobs.

The next day early in the morning, Keith was packing his office away into boxes. No one helped him. Some his soon-former-employees stopped by his glass door and peeked through to watch as he packed his trophies of his old high school football days.

But once they saw him grab a box, they scattered away and hid from his gaze. "Nyma!" Keith called out from inside the office as he struggled to open the door, eventually opening it by grabbing it with his hand and lowering his entire body in order for him to turn the knob.

Once he finally stepped out of the office, he didn't fail to notice Katie's desk. Specifically, a picture of her on her college graduation. Her radiant smile brighter than ever as she held her diploma and her acceptance letter to work for NASA.

Keith cleared his throat and looked around for Nyma, spotting her as she talked with Rolo. "Nyma. Nyma. I need for you to send the boxes in my office to this address, please."

Keith shamelessly interrupted their conversation and offered Nyma a small slip of paper with Keith's family's old home's address.

Nyma took it and skimmed through it nodding and looking back up to the Commander. "Yeah. Sure. Uh- Commander?" Nyma's eyes were focusing on a figure behind Keith and she pointed at it as Keith asked, "What? What?"

Keith followed what Nyma's finger was pointing at and his gaze landed upon a short, panting, honey-haired, and hazel-eyed beauty heading straight for him.

"Katherine," Keith muttered as he looked around the room, finding all eyes on what's about to go down. His gaze landed on Katie again and he looked at her up and down, taking notice of her messy hair and the fact that she was out of breath, "Why are you panting?"

Katie tried to calm her breathing as she closed in on Keith, "'Cause I've been running."

"Really? From Alaska."

"No dumb butt. From the garage where I parked my car."

"Oh."

"We need to talk."

"Well, I don't have time to talk. I have to catch a 5:45 to Daejeon." Keith turned back to Nyma and handed her the box as he began giving orders, "I need the boxes to go out today-"

"Keith."

"I want to make sure everything is-"

"Keith! Stop talking!"

Keith twirled around to face a furious Katie and he sheepishly skimmed through the room, watching all the employees duck from his gaze.

Katie immediately went back to her normal tone of voice and continued, "Gotta say something. This will just take a sec."

Keith crossed his arms and looked to the floor, "Fine. What?"

Katie crumbled up the jacket she held in her hand and used one hand to emphasize her words as she spoke. "Four days ago... I loathed you. I used to dream about you getting lost in one of your missions or poisoned."

Keith nodded, "That's nice."

Katie continued, "I told you to stop talking. Then we had a little adventure in Alaska and things started to change. They changed when we kissed. And when you told me about your tattoo. Even when you were checking me out half-naked."

The crowd started chuckling and murmuring after they heard that and Keith blushed before adding, "You also checked me out."

Katie smirked and continued, "Hell yeah I did. But I didn't realize any of this until I was standing alone. In a barn. Husband-less."

Keith tried to look away from Katie as she took a step closer, "You can imagine my anger until I realized that the man I love is getting kicked out of the country."

Keith froze as his eyes met Katie's own full of love. Katie took another step closer, "So, Keith. Marry me..." Keith shifted in his spot to recover his shocked face, "...Because I'd like to date you."

Katie, although being a woman, seemed completely confident over proposing to a man. All the girls awed at Katie as she stood confidently in front of the Commander.

Keith, however, hesitantly shook his head and struggled to whisper, "Trust me. You don't really want to be with me."

Katie nodded and whispered back, "Yes, I do."

Keith shook his head again and whispered, "You deserve someone better-"

"I think I should have a say on who I deserve, Keith." Katie retorted angrily, offended that he would make such accusations on himself.

Keith shook his head, "This'll be much easier if we just forget everything that happened and I just left."

Katie nodded, "You're right. That would be easier."

Keith nodded along with her and shrugged as he tried to keep himself from crying at the thought of leaving Katie.

He took a step closer and took one last look into Katie's beautiful, unique set of hazel brown eyes. His eyes traveled down to her lips, but he respectfully looked back into her eyes as he whispered, "I'm scared."

Katie took that moment to really explore Keith's dark violet eyes. His mutation that makes him so... him. The deep color of violet transported her to space itself. The never-ending void of space.

Katie nodded and whispered back, "Me too."

At that moment, Katie threw her jacket to a chair. Her right hand grabbed Keith's tie and pulled him lower as her left lost itself in the forest of Keith's black hair.

The crowd gasped as their lips met in a slow passionate kiss. Keith's arms slid up to Katie's waist as he pulled her closer to him and to close the distance they had between.

The two relished in the other's love. All their love poured out into one kiss. Katie took control of the kiss, not that Keith minded, and her hands placed themselves along both sides of Keith's jaw as the kiss extended.

Once the two pulled apart, they slowly opened their eyes and Keith smirked once he saw how red Katie's face was and whispered, "Aren't you supposed to get down on your knee or something?"

Katie, who was still holding on to Keith's face, whispered back, "I'm gonna take that as a yes."

Keith nodded, "OK."

Katie looked back down to Keith's lips and licked her own as she pulled him back for another kiss, this one much more feverish. The crowd behind them chattering as they shared multiple kisses, not one forgetting to express a small declaration of love in its wake. Katie's hand slid down from Keith's jaw to his chest as she led the kisses to a much slower pace until they stopped completely and stared lovingly into the other's eyes.

In the background, Katie could hear Plaxum yell out, "Yeah! Show him who's boss Katie!"

The couple only laughed as they pulled into kiss again in front of the room, not even caring if they saw them anymore.

Behind the two, stood Lance (who was the one who flew Katie all the way to Texas). He was smiling as he watched the two happily making out in the office. Plaxum was also watching the two with a smile and sighed, "It's great to see those two finally got together."

Lance nodded and turned his head to look at the bluenette next to her, immediately blushing the second he saw her, "Y-yeah."

Plaxum also turned to look at the man she was talking to, her cheeks also turning pink once she saw his face. "Um... My name's Plaxum."

Lance smiled and extended his hand, "Lance." The two turned back to the couple making out in the middle of the room, then they both turned simultaneously and both said at the same time, "Do you want my number?"

Katie and Keith both pulled apart laughing once they heard that and pulled apart to look at Plaxum and Lance hand the other their number.

Keith turned and smiled as he watched Katie watch her two friends with amusement. Katie turned back to Keith and asked, "What?"

Keith shook his head and pulled Katie close again, "Mine."

Katie smiled as the two started yet another kiss and she silently thanked jack*ss Keith for being a jerkwad and forcing her to marry him. Because if not, she wouldn't have met the real Keith and she would have never fallen in love with him.

Bonus:

"So, let me see if I got this right. You two are engaged again." Mr. Gilbertson sat in front of both Keith and Katie in his office as they tried to once again apply for a fiance visa.

Both Keith and Katie nodded, Keith, holding Katie's hand.

Mr. Gilbertson rose a quizzical brow, "For real?"

Keith chuckled, "Yeah."

Mr. Gilbertson sighed, "You sure you want to go through with this because one wrong answer and I'm going to take you down!"

Both Katie and Keith glanced at each other in worry. Not worry about if they were going to answer the questions right. No. They were worried because Mr. Gilbertson is kinda crazy.

"O...kay."

Mr. Gilbertson narrowed his eyes and smiled, "Let's do it."

[bigyack-com]

DealBook: Exclusive Details on Michael Bloomberg’s Plan to Rein in Wall Street

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Bloomberg leans left and takes aim at Wall Street

Exclusive: We’re the first to report Mike Bloomberg’s proposals for changing how the financial industry is regulated, which he is planning to announce this morning. The plan features ideas that wouldn’t be out of place for Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.Among Mr. Bloomberg’s proposals:• A financial transactions tax of 0.1 percent• Toughening banking regulations like the Volcker Rule and forcing lenders to hold more in reserve against losses• Having the Justice Department create a dedicated team to fight corporate crime and “encouraging prosecutors to pursue individuals, not only corporations, for infractions”• Merging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac• Strengthening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and “expanding its jurisdiction to include auto lending and credit reporting”• Automatically enrolling borrowers of student loans into income-based repayment schemes and capping paymentsMany of the proposals are a reversal from Mr. Bloomberg’s previous stance on financial regulation. In 2011, he complained that Democrats were taking “punitive actions” against Wall Street that could harm the economy. And comments he made in 2015 linking the financial crisis to the end of banks’ so-called redlining practices have drawn fierce criticism in recent days.It’s a sign of how far left Democratic presidential hopefuls feel they need to go to succeed in this year’s primary — even with a multibillion-dollar war chest. Mr. Bloomberg’s financial transactions tax plan is remarkably similar to one that has the backing of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.Progressive critics are likely to argue that it doesn’t go far enough. Many Democrats have also proposed some sort of wealth tax, while Ms. Warren has called for a complete overhaul of the private equity industry and Mr. Sanders wants to break up the big banks.Bloomberg’s campaign insists he isn’t flip-flopping: On the Volcker Rule, for instance, a spokeswoman said: “When it was introduced, as now, Mike was skeptical of regulators’ ability to divine traders’ intent.” His new plan would focus “on the outcome of speculative trading — big gains and losses — rather than on traders’ intent.”We’ll have more soon on nytimes.com/dealbook. Breaking: This morning, Mr. Bloomberg qualified for the Democratic debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, the first time he will appear onstage with his rivals for the nomination. ____________________________Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in New York, and Michael J. de la Merced and Jason Karaian in London.____________________________

Apple cuts sales guidance over coronavirus

The iPhone maker was one of the first big companies to reveal how the coronavirus outbreak was affecting its business. The company said yesterday that “a slower return to normal conditions than we had anticipated” forced it to scrap its guidance for revenue this quarter.There is more to come. China’s central position in global supply chains — and as a huge market in itself — means that the outbreak could ripple through company’s financials for months.Good luck, analysts! The virus outbreak’s negative but uncertain effects are coming up often in earnings calls: “Coronavirus” has been cited in 170 investor presentations by S&P 500 companies in the past month, according to a search of transcripts in S&P Capital IQ. Apple’s forecast for future profits was already more vague than usual “due to the greater uncertainty,” Tim Cook, its C.E.O., said last month.Taking a different approach, Walmart said this morning that its forecast for the current financial year didn’t take into account any potential effects of the virus outbreak.

HSBC makes ‘ruthless’ cuts in U.S. and Europe

The London-based bank said this morning that it planned to cut about 35,000 jobs over the next three years as it retreats from the West to focus more on Asia.“We are intending to exit a lot of domestically focused customers in Europe and the U.S. on the global banking side,” Ewen Stevenson, the bank’s C.F.O., told Bloomberg Television. He said the lender would make “surgical and ruthless” cuts to underperforming businesses.The plan is to accelerate investment in its Asian and Middle Eastern businesses, which already generate nearly half of its revenue. That’s the strategy that Standard Chartered, another London-based, Asia-focused bank, has followed.The initiative may not be enough. Shares in HSBC dropped 3 percent this morning. Alan Higgins, the chief investment officer of Coutts & Company, told Bloomberg that the strategy was “on the conservative side.”

Jeff Bezos pledges $10 billion on climate change

The Amazon chief has announced his biggest charitable donation to date, a fund to study and fight climate change, Karen Weise of the NYT writes.Mr. Bezos is a latecomer to large-scale charitable giving, starting in 2018 with a $2 billion program to combat homelessness created with his then-wife, MacKenzie.Amazon has been under pressure to reduce its carbon footprint. It revealed in September that it emitted about 44.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, making it one of the world’s top 200 emitters. And employees have called on the company to stop providing services to oil and gas industries.“One hand cannot give what the other is taking away,” said Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a group of workers protesting the company’s environmental practices.

Europe’s venture capitalists are getting serious

Atomico said this morning that it had raised Europe’s largest-ever independent tech venture fund, worth $820 million. The London-based venture capital firm’s founder, Niklas Zennstrom, told Michael in an interview that it was a sign of how the European start-up industry is coming into its own.There are now 99 “unicorns” — VC-backed start-ups worth at least $1 billion — in Europe, compared with 22 five years ago. “Companies are taking on bigger challenges, and there’s more ambition and experience,” Mr. Zennstrom said.That enabled Atomico to raise more money for its fifth fund than the $750 million it had originally planned. Among the investors in this fund are founders and early employees of Atomico-backed companies like Spotify, the payments company Klarna and the game maker Supercell. Mr. Zennstrom himself is a Swedish billionaire who co-founded Skype.But Mr. Zennstrom sees hurdles ahead:• Valuation multiples for European start-ups aren’t as high as those for U.S. companies. (There are twice as many V.C.-backed unicorns in the U.S., according to PwC.) Even so, Mr. Zennstrom said that unlike their American rivals, European start-ups were more focused on creating businesses that can become profitable.• Although Europe has plenty of gifted coders, getting them to come to a particular start-up — often in a different country — is a challenge.

Mark Zuckerberg calls for global rules for online content

While on a trip to Europe, the Facebook founder suggested that new rules and standards were needed to promote public trust in tech platforms.“I believe good regulation may hurt Facebook’s business in the near term, but it will be better for everyone, including us, over the long term,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in an FT opinion piece. Facebook also published a white paper with “guidelines for future regulation.”E.U. officials rejected his proposals. “It’s not enough. It’s too slow, it’s too low in terms of responsibility and regulation,” said a European Commissioner. And in response to Mr. Zuckerberg’s opinion piece, George Soros wrote a letter to the FT calling on the C.E.O. to “stop obfuscating the facts by piously arguing for government regulation” and urging him to resign.

The speed read

Deals• Pier 1 Imports filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (NYT)• Univision is reportedly in talks to sell itself to an investor group for about $10 billion, including debt. (WSJ)• Alstom agreed to buy Bombardier’s train division for up to $6.7 billion to take on China’s CRRC. (Reuters)• Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold a third of its stake in Goldman Sachs and a fifth of its shares in Wells Fargo. (Reuters)Politics and policy• The millennial goal of retiring early would be bad news for the Fed if they could manage to do it. (NYT)• Some employees at Oracle are protesting plans by their C.E.O., Larry Ellison, to hold a fund-raiser for President Trump. (Business Insider)Tech• Germany is poised to let Huawei into its 5G wireless network, a blow to the Trump administration’s fight against the Chinese telecom giant. (NYT)• The SoftBank-backed hotel platform Oyo reported a fourfold increase in revenue and a sixfold rise in its annual loss. (Bloomberg)• Palantir revamped its compensation to give employees bonuses in restricted stock, to save cash ahead of a potential I.P.O. (Bloomberg)Best of the rest• BlackRock has become a symbol for anticapitalist fervor in France (NYT)• The N.B.A. commissioner, Adam Silver, said that the league’s rift with China could cost it up to $400 million in lost revenue. (CNBC)• Have global carbon emissions peaked? The short answer is probably not. (Bloomberg)Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to business@nytimes.com. Read the full article

[rikka-zine]

Interview with PhD candidate Brian White (part 2)

(Jump to Part 1)

RZ: You wrote that you plan to pursue some issues through a study of 20th and 21st century Japanese SF literature and film. To be honest, I was surprised how broad it is. Can you talk about the topic of your research?

BW: When I first proposed my dissertation topic to my committee, I said to them that I wanted to do kind of an historical overview of science fiction in Japan and that I would look at three historical moments. I wanted to look at the interwar period and detective fiction and horror fiction and those sorts of ancestors of science fiction before science fiction was really recognized. I had studied that period a lot during coursework, so I had those materials as a kind of base, and whenever you read histories of Japanese SF, it always starts with those predecessors. After that, I would look at the ‘60s and through the early emergence of sci-fi, and then I would take up the ‘90s or the early 2000s, when the economic bubble burst and science fiction in the form of anime or manga and pop culture started to really be exported actively by the government. They all looked at me with this horrified look on their faces... “What are you thinking? You can't do all of that! Listen, why don't you just focus on the ‘60s. That will be enough for at least one dissertation.” So I really had to try to narrow my focus.

I think I didn't have a very deep understanding of any particular period. It was sort of a dissertation that I was proposing to help me get a broad-level understanding of sci-fi even if not particularly detailed at any given moment.  But I felt like I personally wanted to have a perspective across history before I went into any one moment because I felt like every time I looked at [existing] writing about sci-fi, it drew on an assumed understanding of the macro-scale shape of sci-fi across history. There was this vast background knowledge that everyone seemed to have that I wanted to get. I didn't feel like that [knowledge] was really present in English language writing. I felt like English language writing in academia tends to focus on one text [at a time], and if you just go one by one, you're never going to get a broader understanding of it. And like I said, a lot of it was approaching things from the perspective of genre, of looking at sci-fi anime or manga as sci-fi first, rather than as anime or manga first and foremost.  Because they were seen as this thoroughly modern form of pop culture that was somehow indelibly linked to the ‘80s or ‘90s. I didn’t see it that way, because there were all these Japanese writers talking about texts as far back as the 19th century as being connected to this Cool Japan moment that everyone in America was suddenly now thinking about. 

Everyone was really taken with this notion of Cool Japan and really focusing on it to the exclusion of all else, and I wanted to try to link it up to a broader history. But of course as you said it became much too broad, and I think my committee was probably right that it would lose a lot of persuasiveness in trying to be so broad, that a lot of important details might drop out.  I still kind of have to do both in that I need to have a historical overview of science fiction in the back of my mind as I talk in more detail about a specific moment; I just also have to dive more deeply into that specific moment. Writing a dissertation is challenging!

RZ: Why do you focus on the ‘60’s?

BW: I think just after the Occupation era with the emergence of things like SF Magazine in 1960 there seemed to be a new kind of blossoming consciousness about sci-fi. Sci-fi suddenly took on this concrete shape that people could recognize and call “Sci-Fi.” Until then, there hadn't been a term to talk about SF, but starting around 1958 the genre really came into focus as a self-identified entity. 

By 1960, there was a resurgent magazine publication culture surrounding SF after the Dark Ages of the war and postwar - as you know, publishing was very restricted during wartime because of paper shortages. I think as folks like Isaac Asimov started getting translated into Japanese, you got that kind of consciousness of, “This is a movement that’s happening in the West, and maybe we can do it, too.” You start to get debates about questions like “What is SF?” It was the birth of science fiction and also at the same time of discourse about science fiction.

And there were these ideas about science and culture and prestige that I was interested in trying to compare with those early 20th century writers to see whether there was any similarity between their works and later science fiction in terms of their underlying philosophies.  I had it in the back of my mind that Tanizaki Jun’ichiro would be helpful in theorizing a history of science fiction as this kind of doppelganger to mainstream high literature, since science fiction has long had a fascination with prestige.  I came across that fascination in the earliest issues of SF Magazine when I first had a chance to see it in the months before I finalized my dissertation proposal. When somebody gets nominated for an official or literary award, it's big news in the sci-fi magazines because it is, at least in my interpretation, a kind of proof that sci-fi literature is highbrow literature. That it does have that kind of prestige and cultural value. 

I think I was interested in figures like Abe and things kind of on the margins – though he’s not really even on the margins, but instead something closer to a trickster figure.  Similarly, I have this thesis that sci-fi is very concerned with, very interested in technology and media. I think that’s exactly why Tanizaki and Abe were fascinated by new media like film and radio.  I think Tanizaki’s habit of thinking about the supernatural side of new media made him a very sci-fi-esque author. A lot of my interest has always been how technology appears within science fiction and how it interacts with humans on a very physical level. I think in that sense technology is rarely this objective, quantifiable, stable entity. Science fiction is more willing to treat it as strange. Computers can be haunted. Even looking at texts nowadays, there’s often that weird “something” that exists within what’s supposed to be a very rational, predictable kind of machine.  In that sense, I see a link between science fiction authors of today and the more literary [proto-]SF of the past. 

On the topic of Cool Japan, incidentally, I think it could be interesting to do research on tabletop roleplaying games (TRPG) as my second project. In America, usually, when scholars talk about games in Japan, they’re talking about video games, but there’s a robust community of Japanese tabletop gamers playing board games and roleplaying games.  These sorts of analog games tend to get missed by the Cool Japan focus on console video games. I am a little bit cautious, though, since it is a personal hobby of mine, as well. I don’t want to turn it into work.... into something tiresome.

One of the things I found interesting is the first issue of SF Magazine. Fukushima Masami, the editor-in-chief, wrote the preface. He was discussing the question of, "What is SF?" and the things he kept emphasizing was intelligence. He defined sci-fi as a literature of intelligence. There was the idea that sci-fi is written and read by intellectual people, and to that end SF Magazine would have educational columns like how the universe works and the latest scientific and technological discoveries, popular science and so on. That was very interesting to me. As a result, award-winning titles seemed to secure SF’s distinction as intellectual literature. For example, Tobi Hirotaka and Itoh Keikaku (Project Itoh). Those authors are very intellectual and ask big questions of their readers. I think the Nihon Fantasy Novel Award is similar, as well. 

RZ: I think it is true that a number of Japanese SF novels focus on speculative questions and philosophical issues like identity, what is humanity, what is god... By the way, have you read Stanislaw Lem?

BW: No, I’ve been focused on Japanese SF. I really hope to read more Western SF. Because they were in conversation with each other quite a bit in this period. But I feel like have my hands full just sticking to Japanese. Asimov and Dick and all of those I need to read more.

RZ: I see. Lem is quite popular in Japan and I wonder if it’s because of the taste [for philosophical issues].

BW: Oh, one thing that interests me in my research is that, at the time, Soviet SF was also very active [in Japanese publications]. It’s interesting to see a comparison of how much Soviet SF was brought to the United States in the Cold War era. I was surprised how much Soviet SF was appearing in SF Magazine and in Soviet SF special issues or Stanislaw Lem issues, all the different authors. Obviously, they also did features on US SF or UK SF. I even found an Italian SF special!  Japan was in a complicated position back then: an occupied territory of the USA but next door to the Soviet Union. The SF Sakka Club (SF Writer’s Club) traveled back and forth quite a bit, and Fukushima Masami and some other members visited the Soviet Union. Lem came over [to Japan] at some point. There was quite a bit of exchange. But there was never any talk of, say, a Chinese SF issue. Probably because there wasn’t that much production of SF in China at that time. 

RZ: No, there wasn’t ever a Chinese SF special issue in that era. However, I think the late Shibano Takumi (1926 - 2010) kept in touch with Chinese SF professionals from early on. (Note: I found that he attended an SF Convention at Sichuan, China in 1991.) He was an English translator and his specialty was American SF, but actually, he also seemed to communicate with Chinese SF professionals. As you might know, Mr. Shibano was one of the members of the International SF Symposium (which was held in Osaka, Japan in 1970. Arthur C. Clarke attended, among others.). US, UK and even the Soviet Union's authors were invited. Anyways, Chinese SF has become common in Japan only recently.

BW: Yes, you know in the '70s, “International SF” special issues always just mean the US, UK, and the Soviet Union. Just Anglophone and Russian, that's all. Almost no mention about South East Asian, African, even Australian SF. 

1969's “Rhapsody in Sunglasses”（「色眼鏡のラプソディ」）by Tsutsui Yasutaka is a sort of metafiction in which a fictionalized Tsutsui receives a huge manuscript from an American kid with a letter saying, “I wrote a future political satire, but magazines in America wouldn’t take it. Translate it into Japanese and publish it in Japan.” The fictionalized Tsutsui contacts a character who is obviously supposed to be Itoh Norio (translator) and asks him to translate it. He comes back a couple of weeks later with only the first three chapters and says, "This is disgusting! I cannot do anymore! It’s terrible!!" The manuscript is a cartoonishly racist, stereotypical depiction of Japan and China. Japan and China go to war with each other in what the author (the kid) calls the Second Sino-Japanese War - ignoring the fact that World War II was already the Second Sino-Japanese War. (laughs) I am not sure what sort of stance Tsutsui is taking, but I like to think he is gesturing toward a broader community that Japanese Sci-Fi authors could be creating, working with Asian countries rather this stupid American kid.  But I don’t know. That has been one of the only examples I have been able to find of China even appearing in that period. I imagine there must be more, but I’ve had trouble tracking it down. 

So the sorts of bodies that appear in sci-fi in that period are Japanese bodies. Mostly male. Heterosexual. Always scientists or authors. I think it’s revealing what kind of community SF authors imagine. I want to find counterexamples, people trying to do other things. But it seems like the way the community was set up, it would be hard to [publish those sorts of works]. Tsutsui reigned over his magazine Null, and Fukushima reigned over SF Magazine, and they mostly published their preferred kinds of styles. I’m trying to make an argument about something a bit more uncommon. But I remain hopeful [that I will find more].

RZ: I had read that 70% of the members of SFWA (SF Writer’s Association) are male, and I guess the rate of the broader Japanese SF community is much worse.

BW: Almost entirely [male]. For the first ten to twelve years of its publication, SF Magazine had no feature stories by female authors. Women occasionally appeared as translators, and then SF Magazine did a [flash fiction] promotion with Pilot Pens where there were a couple of women (or people writing under female names. I couldn’t immediately find any evidence whether they were male authors’ pen names or not.) In fanzines, it is a little bit better. 

RZ: Definitely. Especially looking at the readers’ letters columns, we can see many female names.

BW: I was very interested in the author Bien Fu (美苑ふう). She was a former aristocrat and seemed to derive her penname from the Battle of Dien Bien Phu at the end of the first French Indochina War, which I found absolutely fascinating. (laughs) I’m reading all the stuff I can find, most of which Tatsumi sensei has given to me. One of the things I was excited about was fanzines that included photos and reports of conventions that showed that there were some women attendees, too. Women were there amidst the sea of men!

The community was a boys club, with men bringing together stories by and for men. I think that’s related to the ideas of intellectualism Fukushima Masami was pushing, the idea that intellectualism was the province of learned men. Which is unfortunate, obviously. 

Kotani Mari sensei told me, "If you want to find female authors of sci-fi, you have to take up manga in Japan," which is another reason why I am really interested in notions of media mix. Other media open up new avenues for non-male, non-straight, non-Japanese authors to try to get work out. That’s one of the things I will focus on in the next couple of months - manga magazines that published SF. 

RZ: In addition to manga, I think many Japanese women write SF in the fields of children's literature, Young Adult, and light novels. I believe some of these are actually good SF. Just because they weren’t published by SF publishers, they’re invisible [to SF audiences]. That’s why these kinds of works don’t receive SF awards. 

BW: That makes sense. Those sorts of institutional structures reinforce rigid definitions of certain types of SF as “proper SF literature.” Because the literary environment was already so closed off as a male space, SF became an echo chamber for male authors, in which only the things they liked counted as high-brow SF. Forms of SF written by other types of authors were thus ignored. I think it is unfortunate on the one hand, but from a purely academic perspective, it is kind of interesting to see how media and discourse interact in that way. 

RZ: Ten minutes left. Besides Enjoe Toh or Tobi Hirotaka, do you have any Japanese authors you’re especially interested in?

BW: I would like to read more of Itoh Keikaku (Project Itoh)’s work. I have a couple of his books sitting at home, waiting to be read. And I think... Fujii Taiyou, Ohara Mariko, Ueda Sayuri. I read The Cage of Zeus, and I found it quite interesting. It is a little bit pedantic, but it has a strong plot.

RZ: Her other novel, Karyu no Miya is a bit different. I like it better. It won the Nihon SF Taisho Award.

BW: Oh really? I would like to read more of the recent stuff. And you know, one thing I feel is...maybe it’s the same in Japan, but at least in the US, I feel like sci-fi is really diffusing into almost every genre.

RZ: You mean like American War by Omar El Akkad or The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead? Indeed, many mainstream authors write science fiction these days.

BW: I am really interested in why that might be. Perhaps people feel like they’re living in a more SF-like world and SF just makes sense as the language used there? I play video games sometimes, and it seems like three out of every four videogames that come out these days have some kind of SF element.

RZ: Apocalyptic or Dystopian settings, right?

BW: Yeah, and we have films like Arrival. That one is so good.

RZ: Or Interstellar, The Martian...we have good SF movies in these days.

BW: I have to say, the one I was remember most from when I was in college was Inception. 

RZ: That's a good movie.

BW: I liked it, but I was also a little bit disappointed. Because I felt like Paprika had already done that story better. (laughs) And Paprika has colors! This is a story taking place in dreams. Inception, why is everything grey? Everything is brown and grey, come on! You can be more daring! Maybe it’s just the limitations of live action. But anyways when I saw it, I wanted to go home and see Paprika again.

RZ: Thank you very much!