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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus quis urna a nulla vulputate eleifend sit amet sed quam. Nulla eu lectus tellus. Donec placerat dictum commodo. Sed varius, nisi sit amet facilisis ultricies, felis libero tincidunt mi, nec viverra est leo ut justo. Aenean sodales diam sed turpis ultrices, vitae convallis metus lacinia. Quisque eu semper justo. Sed nibh orci, egestas ut faucibus quis, posuere sed nisl. Maecenas non ex faucibus, ornare ante id, porta libero.

Ut id luctus tellus. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Proin ut hendrerit felis, sed vulputate mauris. Morbi vestibulum at lorem nec accumsan. Etiam sit amet dictum diam, at eleifend dui. In sed libero eros. Nam varius elit magna, blandit pulvinar odio consequat ac. Proin mattis quis erat gravida semper.

Proin malesuada condimentum turpis sed sodales. Integer sollicitudin efficitur sem sed ultricies. Nulla quis eros sit amet leo imperdiet pellentesque nec at elit. Aliquam sit amet est id metus ultrices iaculis. Donec molestie felis sed nisi sagittis efficitur. Duis at luctus libero. Aenean lacinia fermentum nunc, sit amet placerat lorem interdum sit amet. Nullam tempor tortor nec nibh lobortis, sit amet egestas magna elementum. Pellentesque vel enim eu nulla placerat semper et ac dolor. Vestibulum sodales laoreet ante eu mattis. Etiam ex dolor, volutpat quis aliquet quis, ultricies lobortis justo. Sed placerat, nibh vitae varius dapibus, sem ante gravida nulla, quis tincidunt leo erat id odio. Integer eget dapibus felis, non fermentum nisl. Nulla ex nunc, cursus vel posuere vitae, pulvinar eu erat. Proin mattis diam ac felis volutpat sollicitudin.

Maecenas nec tellus turpis. Nulla commodo ullamcorper interdum. Donec sodales odio erat, faucibus venenatis diam tristique eget. Sed vestibulum velit quis leo sodales posuere. Nam et varius erat, vulputate rhoncus nunc. Etiam dignissim sollicitudin mattis. In non turpis tristique enim iaculis pellentesque. Vestibulum aliquam odio vel erat viverra, vitae ultricies tellus elementum. Praesent aliquam erat ac ex commodo commodo. Nulla laoreet turpis at mi placerat posuere.

Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Donec sed scelerisque metus. Morbi eget feugiat ante. Vivamus pretium erat non quam aliquet, in egestas elit accumsan. Nullam nec ante at ligula tincidunt malesuada. Aenean ultricies ut felis at sollicitudin. Suspendisse mollis tortor non ligula sagittis cursus. Nullam ut diam arcu. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Proin ipsum felis, euismod eget nisl at, rutrum vestibulum quam.

Etiam lacinia, lectus placerat congue feugiat, augue nulla hendrerit leo, tincidunt molestie leo eros id erat. Sed ut sollicitudin velit. Fusce ac risus malesuada, pretium orci blandit, sagittis ante. Cras dapibus nulla metus, et vulputate nunc malesuada quis. Cras felis enim, cursus vitae leo id, vestibulum rutrum est. Sed et molestie ante. Donec condimentum lacinia mollis. Phasellus scelerisque suscipit lacus, quis pharetra leo commodo vel. Vestibulum ut imperdiet leo, quis ultricies purus. Fusce bibendum posuere nunc sit amet cursus. Morbi eu dictum ex. Proin aliquam maximus arcu non malesuada. Aliquam suscipit nisl in iaculis gravida. Donec vel vehicula magna.

Proin mollis, augue quis egestas convallis, lectus eros commodo risus, eu interdum leo velit nec sem. Sed rhoncus lacus quis sapien pulvinar rutrum. Nulla convallis placerat arcu non pulvinar. Suspendisse vitae mauris erat. Vestibulum mollis elit magna, ut iaculis tellus aliquam nec. Mauris auctor dignissim augue, a dapibus felis maximus in. Maecenas sed mi tortor. Donec feugiat, nulla vitae commodo consectetur, eros ante aliquam massa, sodales malesuada augue turpis vel magna. Pellentesque non scelerisque ante. Sed at mauris at est laoreet maximus. Nam eget magna lobortis lorem finibus mollis. Fusce ut congue justo. Suspendisse pulvinar quis ipsum ut varius. Vivamus congue mauris at purus rhoncus semper. Mauris pulvinar iaculis nunc, eget hendrerit lorem gravida vel.

Vivamus sed condimentum nulla. Morbi lacinia in nisl at porttitor. Suspendisse dui diam, viverra et blandit ut, tempor nec metus. Morbi tincidunt convallis volutpat. Nullam fermentum porttitor mi et aliquam. Morbi lacinia ut tellus nec imperdiet. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Maecenas at magna arcu.

Morbi nec tellus metus. Integer elementum est orci, sed aliquet orci ultrices et. Donec accumsan nunc sodales neque dictum luctus. Ut lorem diam, tempor ut eros eu, pretium ultricies magna. Integer at lorem nec magna condimentum egestas et quis diam. Pellentesque eu velit elementum, porttitor diam in, sollicitudin arcu. Maecenas bibendum id sem non pretium. Nulla sed dui vel massa cursus suscipit. Aenean nunc erat, consequat sed ornare vitae, vestibulum eget tellus. Donec semper fermentum lorem, nec auctor elit posuere eget.

Nam interdum facilisis vehicula. Integer id ligula aliquet, ornare ligula id, efficitur libero. Vivamus non pretium ante, eget gravida augue. Donec tincidunt, leo a varius luctus, ex nibh ornare lectus, et placerat sem eros et elit. Sed rhoncus neque eu lectus tincidunt viverra. Proin posuere purus non lorem imperdiet tristique. Maecenas at est finibus, molestie nibh vel, suscipit eros. In in aliquam lorem, eget tristique ligula. Fusce tempor nisl nunc, sed facilisis elit laoreet vitae. Suspendisse vitae varius felis, ac convallis urna. Donec tristique consectetur mauris, nec sodales odio cursus et. Morbi sagittis quis lacus eu fermentum. Fusce et aliquet elit. Proin pulvinar ex ut tellus vestibulum eleifend.

Donec est arcu, imperdiet faucibus venenatis nec, placerat nec mi. Nullam sit amet lobortis leo, a euismod lacus. Nunc condimentum, sapien at consectetur ornare, metus libero malesuada lectus, id egestas nisi enim vitae justo. Etiam vel ante mauris. Sed velit felis, volutpat in arcu quis, maximus volutpat sem. Nulla mollis scelerisque nibh. Aenean rutrum laoreet scelerisque.

Suspendisse leo nunc, maximus non tristique eu, gravida vel dolor. Mauris sed orci in dui porttitor lobortis vitae eu nisl. Fusce quis pretium urna, sit amet lacinia lectus. Sed posuere augue et mi tristique gravida. Maecenas fringilla, lectus eu ultricies consectetur, quam lectus eleifend dolor, vitae consectetur justo sem et diam. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Sed aliquet, arcu vitae elementum tempor, odio leo facilisis mauris, ut hendrerit nulla lorem dapibus augue.

Nam in purus at lacus scelerisque ultrices. Mauris nulla metus, bibendum quis lobortis vitae, interdum id tellus. Quisque consectetur, tellus vel lobortis tincidunt, lorem nisl mattis nisi, et suscipit neque neque a sem. Sed porttitor euismod gravida. Ut non ultricies neque. Proin et nibh vel sapien eleifend porttitor nec at dui. Sed a arcu felis. Aenean aliquet purus id magna pharetra faucibus. Praesent a magna commodo velit efficitur faucibus. Sed id libero tellus. Quisque rhoncus commodo mauris quis pharetra. Duis at libero mattis, ullamcorper diam ac, viverra nulla.

Praesent et rutrum odio. Etiam nec diam eros. Sed rhoncus nisl ante, a placerat massa lobortis vel. Curabitur tincidunt et arcu sit amet tristique. Nulla sit amet diam at quam viverra tempus id iaculis quam. Mauris at nisi posuere ex semper laoreet. Etiam vitae velit cursus, vulputate neque vitae, hendrerit elit. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. In non arcu rhoncus ex faucibus sodales vitae non tellus.

Donec efficitur faucibus semper. Etiam venenatis consectetur hendrerit. Sed auctor malesuada vestibulum. Aliquam maximus dictum diam ac vulputate. Aliquam lacus ligula, semper quis purus sed, molestie auctor magna. Phasellus vestibulum in tortor nec ultrices. In bibendum libero quis augue tincidunt, in eleifend libero porta. Aenean bibendum eget enim ac fermentum. In condimentum ac sapien a consectetur. Vestibulum lorem ante, lacinia placerat sodales nec, luctus vel orci. Sed nec erat id diam porta eleifend. Morbi tempor sem in elit imperdiet auctor. Praesent vitae placerat nulla. Sed enim nibh, sagittis a bibendum et, aliquam vel orci. Fusce dapibus leo orci, vel iaculis turpis rhoncus nec.

Nunc cursus, dui molestie sodales varius, quam magna egestas libero, sed fringilla ligula sapien vitae libero. Vestibulum venenatis sem metus, nec ullamcorper ipsum tristique ut. Aliquam egestas sed sapien at mattis. Duis sit amet sem iaculis, aliquet eros vitae, semper magna. Duis sapien velit, aliquam in mauris a, scelerisque volutpat dolor. Maecenas porta nisi imperdiet egestas auctor. Suspendisse in mi convallis, mattis nulla at, porttitor justo. Nulla facilisi. Praesent pulvinar lacus non ullamcorper ullamcorper. Maecenas pellentesque pulvinar magna, sit amet tincidunt nulla convallis sed. Vivamus ultrices diam ac tortor molestie volutpat. Suspendisse potenti. Cras finibus quam feugiat, porttitor tortor non, tristique nulla. Phasellus molestie, dui ut placerat tincidunt, neque leo iaculis est, ut tristique nisl risus nec velit. Sed ac aliquam eros. Sed leo orci, interdum id fermentum sed, iaculis ut tellus.

Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aenean eget ipsum arcu. Suspendisse pulvinar elit sed ante imperdiet, in porttitor felis posuere. Sed molestie id metus eget dignissim. Integer ultrices risus enim, sit amet tempor est tempor eu. Quisque velit odio, cursus a augue sed, consectetur vulputate nunc. Proin bibendum accumsan justo at faucibus. Integer commodo neque eu mauris dignissim ornare. Ut et eros quis neque euismod iaculis vel in sapien. In mauris lorem, bibendum ac nisl non, sodales hendrerit enim. Suspendisse cursus, orci nec iaculis interdum, neque lacus venenatis mi, nec sollicitudin neque arcu eget erat. Vestibulum quam neque, aliquam quis fringilla quis, consequat ac sapien.

In iaculis dignissim magna, sit amet finibus sapien vehicula at. Ut sit amet suscipit eros. Nullam aliquam quam in enim lacinia placerat in in lorem. Donec ut pulvinar velit. Nam imperdiet turpis ex, eu molestie nisi auctor non. Praesent porttitor efficitur mattis. Praesent in pretium odio. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Vivamus bibendum, nisl non auctor lacinia, turpis leo mollis nunc, nec commodo nisi leo a ante. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Maecenas eu purus sit amet sapien volutpat tristique. Etiam tempus eleifend tellus, eu varius elit lobortis nec. Pellentesque placerat ante nec ante laoreet, ut sodales erat tincidunt.

In venenatis et elit eget mollis. Praesent eleifend metus maximus pellentesque dignissim. Nunc sed erat tempus, pretium felis a, congue est. Nulla facilisi. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Sed pretium sagittis orci. Fusce mollis nisl accumsan augue consequat, nec interdum dolor lacinia. Praesent ac lobortis lectus. Ut feugiat dolor dui, at imperdiet ligula dapibus sed. Integer a elit commodo, vulputate nisi ac, ornare quam. Donec tortor urna, molestie vel mi sed, scelerisque sollicitudin eros. Fusce consequat arcu vel elit accumsan, et pretium neque dictum.

Suspendisse sem purus, auctor ut feugiat et, rhoncus at enim. Duis non libero feugiat, condimentum felis dictum, lobortis neque. Nulla pharetra ex in purus sagittis lacinia. Donec sapien sem, suscipit a scelerisque dignissim, ornare vitae orci. Vestibulum feugiat imperdiet bibendum. Quisque at pellentesque lorem, quis dapibus dui. Nullam in sem id odio convallis egestas. In pharetra lacus justo, vel malesuada massa ultricies eget. Curabitur porttitor varius tincidunt. Proin augue felis, fringilla a posuere et, lacinia non diam. Suspendisse potenti. Phasellus in rhoncus erat, vel tempus urna. Praesent odio metus, interdum ac magna non, tincidunt aliquam est.

Aliquam elementum, ex ut ornare convallis, neque justo hendrerit mauris, quis blandit eros risus sed ligula. Proin convallis scelerisque massa eu ornare. Phasellus congue elit eget tortor fermentum eleifend. Maecenas a metus pellentesque enim laoreet rutrum. Vestibulum facilisis enim sit amet sem convallis, eu gravida tortor congue. Sed neque metus, pretium ut interdum vel, ultrices ut lorem. Integer malesuada quam elit, vitae malesuada nisi vulputate ut. Suspendisse ut cursus mi. Morbi feugiat tortor dolor. Vivamus consectetur eget erat vel sodales. Nulla facilisi. Sed accumsan orci nec lacus blandit, et placerat dui sodales. In commodo augue nec tincidunt venenatis. Vestibulum sem ante, vulputate vel justo ut, sagittis venenatis libero.

Pellentesque ac urna dui. Nunc et ligula sit amet purus rutrum elementum at nec lectus. Vestibulum non nulla nec sem fringilla consequat posuere ut mi. Integer efficitur sapien metus, ac tincidunt magna ultrices at. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In at hendrerit lorem. Pellentesque arcu sem, vehicula ullamcorper sem quis, venenatis egestas diam. Integer neque lacus, hendrerit lobortis leo quis, suscipit ultricies nisi. Duis id tortor felis. Vivamus ultricies vel arcu a pulvinar. Morbi eu erat id sapien scelerisque posuere vitae ut ipsum. Sed varius eget diam nec mollis. Duis gravida ut velit eu elementum. Pellentesque dapibus eu eros rhoncus luctus. In purus ante, aliquam eu tempus et, malesuada pharetra urna. Quisque interdum, nibh id porta gravida, eros augue hendrerit augue, at porta diam ipsum non nunc.

Cras ac consequat lectus. Nullam consectetur eu diam vitae facilisis. Nam sit amet turpis in elit consequat aliquet. Fusce arcu neque, lacinia ac imperdiet a, ultricies id justo. Morbi quis dolor et neque ultrices tristique. Sed id dui ac dui porta gravida. In vel lobortis ligula, quis commodo sem. Aliquam erat volutpat. Suspendisse tempor, felis sed eleifend commodo, tortor nulla varius ipsum, id dapibus lectus mi tincidunt est. Mauris at condimentum risus, nec facilisis nisl. Nulla pellentesque elementum risus quis egestas. Phasellus porttitor erat eu purus facilisis facilisis. Cras non ornare ante. Nullam faucibus mi eu fringilla pretium.

Morbi egestas, mi sit amet tristique sollicitudin, neque eros consequat diam, id gravida dolor tortor ac tellus. Donec luctus arcu ac quam fermentum, quis efficitur arcu bibendum. Curabitur sed convallis nunc. Integer id sem ac sapien laoreet rutrum. Integer sit amet luctus ligula, non lobortis velit. Nunc tempor consequat fringilla. Phasellus felis enim, finibus vel tellus porttitor, vestibulum hendrerit neque.

Maecenas eu libero non justo molestie vulputate et ac lectus. Etiam feugiat consectetur nulla, ut dignissim metus auctor id. Sed sed ornare dui. In id diam malesuada neque maximus feugiat eu a metus. Sed nibh lectus, dapibus eu nisl eget, porttitor hendrerit sem. Ut sed ornare felis, a tristique nunc. Nullam suscipit, urna sed pellentesque vehicula, velit dui rutrum orci, in maximus diam ligula vitae urna. Praesent placerat semper mauris, sed tempus ante feugiat eu. Cras mollis dapibus ipsum eget iaculis. Donec non aliquam velit. In quam tortor, iaculis vitae malesuada vitae, tempor nec sapien. Nam bibendum vulputate hendrerit. Donec laoreet nunc a hendrerit sollicitudin. Curabitur eget nunc eu libero pulvinar faucibus.

Aliquam maximus iaculis faucibus. Sed vel nisl orci. Ut cursus arcu sit amet gravida interdum. Praesent sollicitudin sem nulla, id egestas metus euismod id. Ut placerat tellus ut nibh suscipit convallis. Quisque iaculis magna sit amet sapien tincidunt lacinia. Suspendisse efficitur scelerisque varius. Nunc semper condimentum malesuada. Quisque ultricies justo sit amet sodales tempus. In posuere nunc quam, non rhoncus nisl fermentum ut.

Vestibulum faucibus non libero quis viverra. Morbi ut aliquet nunc. Donec id neque non elit tincidunt ultrices. Maecenas dolor turpis, ultricies vitae consectetur et, finibus vitae turpis. Aenean vitae porta elit, et commodo orci. Vivamus hendrerit odio sit amet lorem dictum tempor. Nulla mauris lacus, condimentum nec rhoncus at, tempor vel augue. Donec tempus mollis sagittis. Sed et pharetra orci. Morbi in varius eros. Nulla magna massa, aliquam vitae pretium et, eleifend nec sem.

Maecenas quam libero, mattis vitae porttitor nec, tristique eget purus. Nullam vel sollicitudin sem. Cras ornare ante massa, vel aliquam ex vulputate sit amet. Pellentesque pellentesque nunc in tortor luctus laoreet. Donec placerat semper nisi, dignissim bibendum diam fermentum eu. Nam accumsan erat nisl, vel imperdiet mauris blandit a. Donec non eros consectetur, aliquet justo dapibus, hendrerit eros.

Sed ante massa, blandit eu nunc id, elementum rutrum massa. Aenean ac turpis hendrerit, consectetur lectus nec, vehicula dui. Fusce posuere lorem erat, ac dapibus magna hendrerit vel. Praesent non nisl id augue pulvinar porta. Phasellus a accumsan nisi. Praesent rhoncus pellentesque felis in scelerisque. Cras efficitur vel est nec sodales. Phasellus commodo egestas neque. Cras sed sapien ut arcu auctor sagittis vel non eros.

Nulla vitae ultricies felis, nec feugiat orci. Ut sed diam et nibh aliquam tincidunt a nec orci. Integer viverra metus metus, sed porta libero sagittis sed. Maecenas eget dolor lorem. Integer eget enim porta, accumsan tellus non, lacinia nisl. Mauris lectus purus, scelerisque ut metus in, venenatis tristique tortor. Donec ultrices metus in erat interdum, ac rutrum lacus tristique. Mauris ac diam purus. Etiam porta mi et erat finibus condimentum. Etiam fermentum felis ultricies luctus lacinia. Nulla facilisi. Morbi vitae justo varius, condimentum mauris vel, finibus nulla. Praesent aliquam tincidunt dui, et finibus dolor molestie eu. Fusce et placerat tortor, et rutrum sapien. Pellentesque malesuada lacinia lorem, quis consequat erat varius nec.

Proin et leo et lectus fringilla molestie. In tempor eleifend metus, non molestie libero sodales ac. Nam sodales volutpat quam, ut accumsan metus consectetur et. Morbi ac consequat odio. Cras egestas lorem risus. Nulla tincidunt nunc sed mi semper, ac vulputate lectus elementum. Aenean eget tincidunt lorem. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Nullam suscipit lobortis est, nec ultricies turpis fermentum in. Cras tincidunt, purus ac sodales ultrices, enim lacus pretium magna, feugiat mattis magna lorem eu odio. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Mauris risus quam, consectetur ullamcorper diam quis, cursus feugiat quam.

Aliquam interdum ut tortor at placerat. Aenean elementum, justo ut maximus egestas, nulla mi suscipit quam, nec malesuada velit sem efficitur nisl. Vestibulum aliquet risus diam, eget laoreet mauris convallis at. Vestibulum ut lacus aliquam, feugiat augue sit amet, porta quam. Suspendisse est libero, laoreet a finibus non, tincidunt ut libero. Vivamus sed ipsum scelerisque, eleifend lorem at, sollicitudin magna. Vivamus ut justo lectus. Nam non lorem at turpis sodales consectetur vitae nec neque. Morbi eget pharetra neque. Vestibulum sit amet cursus purus.

Aliquam maximus laoreet risus, nec cursus nibh molestie eget. Curabitur euismod nibh id congue malesuada. Quisque semper tellus at blandit varius. Ut luctus imperdiet tortor. Nunc semper tortor lectus, vitae gravida nibh posuere ut. Nulla in enim felis. Praesent a bibendum orci. Nulla facilisi. Curabitur id ornare nulla. In eget tincidunt purus, eget aliquet enim.

Vivamus ac hendrerit nisl, ac ultricies augue. Fusce sit amet est eu orci dictum lacinia vel ac turpis. Morbi non scelerisque ligula. Quisque mattis urna lorem, ac tincidunt nibh vehicula quis. Pellentesque euismod ut nisi non tempus. Sed tristique semper molestie. Mauris eleifend nulla non urna interdum sagittis. Donec ullamcorper semper odio. Pellentesque convallis lacus sit amet tortor bibendum auctor. Aliquam quis leo tortor. Nulla luctus diam sit amet ex egestas finibus. Phasellus eget molestie mi. Curabitur sit amet lobortis nibh. Nullam sodales consequat est, et condimentum tellus euismod nec. Quisque erat augue, consectetur quis fermentum id, accumsan non justo. Quisque feugiat dolor risus, a vulputate augue vehicula non.

Aliquam iaculis lobortis odio. Nam porttitor mattis tempor. Nullam blandit, lectus id suscipit gravida, risus sem blandit orci, tempor tempus libero neque ut tortor. Phasellus pulvinar velit ut facilisis aliquet. Nullam ultricies fringilla ex non feugiat. Duis hendrerit odio non mauris sodales viverra. Ut ipsum justo, convallis sodales mi eu, feugiat suscipit metus. Nunc vitae eleifend libero, dignissim tempus diam.

Maecenas id augue ac nunc pretium sodales a ac nibh. Quisque tristique mi eu urna sodales, sit amet imperdiet nibh mattis. Aliquam imperdiet nec risus eget porta. Vestibulum fermentum vel lorem sed mollis. Curabitur aliquam quam eu pulvinar tempus. Donec ornare, mi a rutrum bibendum, elit quam ornare turpis, a euismod lectus turpis ut tortor. Proin felis nunc, sollicitudin ac gravida non, gravida ac libero. Cras efficitur ligula quis diam pulvinar, a feugiat dolor porta. Cras imperdiet ipsum a sapien ullamcorper, ac ornare lectus cursus. Morbi fermentum magna dignissim orci euismod consequat. Nunc ac nulla turpis. Praesent nec consequat nisi. Ut vitae lorem dui. Integer faucibus varius turpis, et vulputate urna pharetra ac. Quisque ornare massa sed nulla auctor luctus.

Praesent eu nulla sit amet mauris aliquet malesuada. Aliquam massa lacus, pulvinar id mollis vitae, dignissim nec orci. Ut eu est scelerisque, porta purus in, eleifend tellus. Maecenas tempus suscipit diam, vel accumsan nisi dignissim ut. Nunc posuere posuere purus, sed bibendum tellus maximus at. Quisque et tortor a nisi facilisis hendrerit. Suspendisse tincidunt varius libero. In eu sodales eros. Ut euismod, nisl quis vulputate eleifend, magna est malesuada ante, vitae sagittis est urna sed augue. In dictum blandit ante eget maximus. In ornare quis sem et congue. Nam quis nulla ante. Proin suscipit posuere dui, eu tempor massa tincidunt sed. Quisque varius quam ac nunc imperdiet euismod non at leo. Nunc elementum venenatis ipsum eu aliquet.

Nunc vel ante nunc. Cras ac faucibus turpis, vel placerat sapien. Nam sit amet neque quis ex porttitor mattis ut placerat ligula. Vivamus neque ex, semper in urna nec, convallis elementum quam. Duis id lectus velit. Etiam nec imperdiet ipsum. Ut mollis nisl sit amet lobortis luctus. Nullam eu risus cursus, malesuada odio ac, iaculis sem. Cras felis ligula, tincidunt ac sapien sit amet, interdum vulputate mi. Cras blandit erat tellus, at dignissim sem laoreet sit amet. Proin molestie tortor magna, ac pellentesque est rhoncus id. Morbi ipsum dolor, sollicitudin in ante in, dignissim dictum lorem. Duis vel elit sed sapien egestas malesuada non eget magna.

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Aenean sit amet mi id odio tempor pellentesque. Curabitur gravida mi et purus vestibulum viverra. Nunc sed est eget tellus posuere blandit. Cras faucibus lacus a turpis volutpat maximus. Phasellus elementum eu sapien in pellentesque. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Morbi vitae porttitor justo. Mauris in tortor vitae dolor tempus sollicitudin. Mauris id sapien suscipit, ullamcorper tellus sed, auctor eros. Praesent eget nibh pulvinar, lacinia turpis non, cursus tortor. Nullam diam turpis, elementum at sodales vitae, interdum a sapien. Sed nec ipsum egestas ligula tempor accumsan. Fusce pellentesque sit amet ipsum eget ullamcorper.

Cras eleifend, lorem eu hendrerit dignissim, sapien ex elementum felis, nec auctor nibh purus efficitur quam. Donec tempus libero convallis odio consectetur, id lacinia urna rutrum. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Phasellus sagittis nisi vehicula erat tincidunt, nec finibus quam dignissim. Curabitur nibh ante, pulvinar ut mauris nec, pellentesque sodales diam. Aliquam sit amet nulla magna. Duis id purus nisl. Sed vitae justo commodo, pharetra velit a, mattis lectus. Aenean sit amet elementum magna, ac tristique elit. Pellentesque fermentum, nulla vel sodales mattis, massa libero suscipit enim, porttitor dapibus justo turpis eu nulla. Sed finibus elit nec vestibulum egestas. Vestibulum consequat nibh turpis, id ultrices tortor tempus quis. Donec at massa elementum, molestie ex vel, dignissim velit. Nulla sed fringilla orci, id lobortis odio. Sed tincidunt est non libero interdum egestas.

Quisque at commodo urna. Sed mollis nunc nec tellus volutpat, sed facilisis purus venenatis. Duis ut mauris a erat consequat scelerisque. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Nullam metus dui, efficitur aliquam viverra eget, lacinia quis erat. Maecenas ut leo ex. Ut et tincidunt enim, dapibus vehicula sem. In quis molestie elit, in lobortis turpis. Ut vulputate, urna at maximus molestie, tortor ipsum fringilla diam, at elementum ipsum purus quis ligula. Etiam venenatis ultricies eros, ut ornare arcu tincidunt sit amet. Pellentesque sodales vestibulum nunc, quis finibus odio condimentum ut. Aenean volutpat non mauris id placerat.

Suspendisse nec eleifend nulla. Nullam neque quam, tincidunt et felis quis, sodales pulvinar risus. Quisque ornare rutrum est, sit amet suscipit nibh aliquet vel. Nullam convallis viverra convallis. Vivamus malesuada purus dolor, et pretium magna iaculis et. Suspendisse efficitur est ligula, eu vestibulum orci lobortis vel. Integer eget turpis malesuada, commodo justo viverra, dapibus tortor. Aliquam bibendum ipsum arcu, nec imperdiet neque viverra et. Mauris quis lobortis sem, finibus lobortis dui. Vivamus nisi purus, dignissim non turpis ut, lobortis ornare nisl. Phasellus id sem nulla. Curabitur gravida lacinia turpis, vitae vehicula dui. Morbi vulputate in lectus sit amet auctor. Sed vel leo est. Donec ullamcorper est eu ligula dignissim feugiat. Donec tempus est eget turpis lacinia mollis.

Nunc viverra finibus vestibulum. Integer nec condimentum mi, quis iaculis odio. Donec scelerisque ac ante vitae porttitor. Proin ut tellus nisl. Mauris fringilla egestas tortor nec rutrum. Vivamus sodales suscipit vehicula. Etiam aliquet varius fermentum. Aliquam varius diam vel rhoncus dictum. Vestibulum nec ligula vel ligula ornare luctus. Suspendisse non metus in ante tincidunt viverra. Vivamus quam mauris, viverra a nisl sed, placerat porttitor metus. Suspendisse potenti. Nam ullamcorper urna a purus egestas aliquam porttitor a felis. Maecenas arcu arcu, convallis ac libero vitae, fermentum mattis eros. Cras eleifend leo vel.

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Why The Saturn Return Of Your 20s Is The Most Life-Changing Time In Astrology

  In astrology, there’s a little phenomenon called the Saturn Return.

It happens between the ages of 28 and 31, and if you haven’t heard of it, you might’ve experienced it. And if you haven’t experienced it, it’s comin’.

Saturn is known as the taskmaster planet in astrology, the teacher of life’s toughest lessons, the planetary disciplinarian.

It takes 29.5 years to return to the place in the heavens that is was in at the time of your birth, and when it does, you’ll feel a powerful life shift happening. This is why it’s called the Saturn Return.

Giphy

Like a cosmic life coach or personal trainer, Saturn will teach you to walk directly through your fears and your pain, and you’ll come out the other side completely transformed.

The more courageously and thoroughly you deal with the issues that come up during your first Saturn Return will also affect the level of difficulty you experience of the next one, which happens around age 58.

It breaks you down and teaches you to do all your own heavy lifting, so you can build those spiritual muscles and get into shape like the warrior you are.

Wherever Saturn is in your chart will highlight your most difficult and important lessons, and you might feel as though for those years, learning those lessons will be the object of your obsession.

Giphy

You may go through a total career change, the end of an important relationship or move to a different place and have to start all over again.

You might go back to school and learn a completely new trade, or you might suffer the loss of a great amount of money or end up settling a huge amount of debt.

During the last night of my Saturn Return, I finally left someone who was emotionally and physically abusive, literally kicking him out of my apartment and changing the locks on the door.

When I woke up the next morning, I had an email saying that my student loans, which I had been paying for nine years on an automatic plan, were finally paid off.

It felt like a direct message from Saturn.

Giphy

It’s worth noting that I went to a professional astrologer to find out which sign Saturn was in for me. You can also figure out your own Saturn Sign and Return through AstroStyle.

In my chart, Saturn was in Scorpio, the sign of sex, death and other people’s money (so, debt). Therefore, those were the themes of my Saturn Return.

During the Saturn Return, which lasts two and a half to three years, you’ll have to face your problems and actively deal with them.

Any mask you’ve worn will begin to work against you, and you’ll be forced to get honest with yourself and the people around you about who you really are.

Your mistakes begin to crystallize, and the chickens come home to roost.

Rather than repeating those mistakes, you have a chance to learn from them and to be transformed.

Many astrologers advise allowing yourself to just go with Saturn’s flow because if you decide to ignore the lessons it’s trying to teach you, it won’t end well.

Plus, it’s really nice after it’s over to see how well your work paid off. Life will repay you in kind for all the sacrifices you made and all the work you did.

It’s liberating, I promise.

Source: Why The Saturn Return Of Your 20s Is The Most Life-Changing Time In Astrology

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How to Build Beautiful 3-D Fractals Out of the Simplest Equations

Ordinary equations can be transformed into complex 3-D figures that offer new questions to explore.Olena Shmahalo/Quanta Magazine; original figure by Laurent Bartholdi and Laura DeMarco

If you came across an animal in the wild and wanted to learn more about it, there are a few things you might do: You might watch what it eats, poke it to see how it reacts, and even dissect it if you got the chance.

Mathematicians are not so different from naturalists. Rather than studying organisms, they study equations and shapes using their own techniques. They twist and stretch mathematical objects, translate them into new mathematical languages, and apply them to new problems. As they find new ways to look at familiar things, the possibilities for insight multiply.

That’s the promise of a new idea from two mathematicians: Laura DeMarco, a professor at Northwestern University, and Kathryn Lindsey, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago. They begin with a plain old polynomial equation, the kind grudgingly familiar to any high school math student: f(x) = x2 – 1. Instead of graphing it or finding its roots, they take the unprecedented step of transforming it into a 3-D object.

With polynomials, “everything is defined in the two-dimensional plane,” Lindsey said. “There isn’t a natural place a third dimension would come into it until you start thinking about these shapes Laura and I are building.”

The 3-D shapes that they build look strange, with broad plains, subtle bends and a zigzag seam that hints at how the objects were formed. DeMarco and Lindsey introduce the shapes in a forthcoming paper in the Arnold Mathematical Journal, a new publication from the Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Stony Brook University. The paper presents what little is known about the objects, such as how they’re constructed and the measurements of their curvature. DeMarco and Lindsey also explain what they believe is a promising new method of inquiry: Using the shapes built from polynomial equations, they hope to come to understand more about the underlying equations—which is what mathematicians really care about.

Breaking Out of Two Dimensions

In mathematics, several motivating factors can spur new research. One is the quest to solve an open problem, such as the Riemann hypothesis. Another is the desire to build mathematical tools that can be used to do something else. A third—the one behind DeMarco and Lindsey’s work—is the equivalent of finding an unidentified species in the wild: One just wants to understand what it is. “These are fascinating and beautiful things that arise very naturally in our subject and should be understood!” DeMarco said by email, referring to the shapes.

Laura DeMarco, a professor at Northwestern University.Courtesy of Laura DeMarco

“It’s sort of been in the air for a couple of decades, but they’re the first people to try to do something with it,” said Curtis McMullen, a mathematician at Harvard University who won the Fields Medal, math’s highest honor, in 1988. McMullen and DeMarco started talking about these shapes in the early 2000s, while she was doing graduate work with him at Harvard. DeMarco then went off to do pioneering work applying techniques from dynamical systems to questions in number theory, for which she will receive the Satter Prize—awarded to a leading female researcher—from the American Mathematical Society on January 5.

Meanwhile, in 2010 William Thurston, the late Cornell University mathematician and Fields Medal winner, heard about the shapes from McMullen. Thurston suspected that it might be possible to take flat shapes computed from polynomials and bend them to create 3-D objects. To explore this idea, he and Lindsey, who was then a graduate student at Cornell, constructed the 3-D objects from construction paper, tape and a precision cutting device that Thurston had on hand from an earlier project. The result wouldn’t have been out of place at an elementary school arts and crafts fair, and Lindsey admits she was kind of mystified by the whole thing.

“I never understood why we were doing this, what the point was and what was going on in his mind that made him think this was really important,” said Lindsey. “Then unfortunately when he died, I couldn’t ask him anymore. There was this brilliant guy who suggested something and said he thought it was an important, neat thing, so it’s natural to wonder ‘What is it? What’s going on here?’”

In 2014 DeMarco and Lindsey decided to see if they could unwind the mathematical significance of the shapes.

A Fractal Link to Entropy

To get a 3-D shape from an ordinary polynomial takes a little doing. The first step is to run the polynomial dynamically—that is, to iterate it by feeding each output back into the polynomial as the next input. One of two things will happen: either the values will grow infinitely in size, or they’ll settle into a stable, bounded pattern. To keep track of which starting values lead to which of those two outcomes, mathematicians construct the Julia set of a polynomial. The Julia set is the boundary between starting values that go off to infinity and values that remain bounded below a given value. This boundary line—which differs for every polynomial—can be plotted on the complex plane, where it assumes all manner of highly intricate, swirling, symmetric fractal designs.

Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Quanta Magazine

If you shade the region bounded by the Julia set, you get the filled Julia set. If you use scissors and cut out the filled Julia set, you get the first piece of the surface of the eventual 3-D shape. To get the second, DeMarco and Lindsey wrote an algorithm. That algorithm analyzes features of the original polynomial, like its degree (the highest number that appears as an exponent) and its coefficients, and outputs another fractal shape that DeMarco and Lindsey call the “planar cap.”

“The Julia set is the base, like the southern hemisphere, and the cap is like the top half,” DeMarco said. “If you glue them together you get a shape that’s polyhedral.”

The algorithm was Thurston’s idea. When he suggested it to Lindsey in 2010, she wrote a rough version of the program. She and DeMarco improved on the algorithm in their work together and “proved it does what we think it does,” Lindsey said. That is, for every filled Julia set, the algorithm generates the correct complementary piece.

The filled Julia set and the planar cap are the raw material for constructing a 3-D shape, but by themselves they don’t give a sense of what the completed shape will look like. This creates a challenge. When presented with the six faces of a cube laid flat, one could intuitively know how to fold them to make the correct 3-D shape. But, with a less familiar two-dimensional surface, you’d be hard-pressed to anticipate the shape of the resulting 3-D object.

“There’s no general mathematical theory that tells you what the shape will be if you start with different types of polygons,” Lindsey said.

Mathematicians have precise ways of defining what makes a shape a shape. One is to know its curvature. Any 3-D object without holes has a total curvature of exactly 4π; it’s a fixed value in the same way any circular object has exactly 360 degrees of angle. The shape—or geometry—of a 3-D object is completely determined by the way that fixed amount of curvature is distributed, combined with information about distances between points. In a sphere, the curvature is distributed evenly over the entire surface; in a cube, it’s concentrated in equal amounts at the eight evenly spaced vertices.

A unique attribute of Julia sets allows DeMarco and Lindsey to know the curvature of the shapes they’re building. All Julia sets have what’s known as a “measure of maximal entropy,” or MME. The MME is a complicated concept, but there is an intuitive (if slightly incomplete) way to think about it. First, picture a two-dimensional filled Julia set on the plane. Then picture a point on the same plane but very far outside the Julia set’s boundary (infinitely far, in fact). From that distant location the point is going to take a random walk across two-dimensional space, meandering until it strikes the Julia set. Wherever it first strikes the Julia set is where it comes to rest.

The MME is a way of quantifying the fact that the meandering point is more likely to strike certain parts of the Julia set than others. For example, the meandering point is more likely to strike a spike in the Julia set that juts out into the plane than it is to intersect with a crevice tucked into a region of the set. The more likely the meandering point is to hit a point on the Julia set, the higher the MME is at that point.

In their paper, DeMarco and Lindsey demonstrated that the 3-D objects they build from Julia sets have a curvature distribution that’s exactly proportional to the MME. That is, if there’s a 25 percent chance the meandering point will hit a particular place on the Julia set first, then 25 percent of the curvature should also be concentrated at that point when the Julia set is joined with the planar cap and folded into a 3-D shape.

“If it was really easy for the meandering point to hit some area on our Julia set we’d want to have a lot of curvature at the corresponding point on the 3-D object,” Lindsey said. “And if it was harder to hit some area on our Julia set, we’d want the corresponding area in the 3-D object to be kind of flat.”

This is useful information, but it doesn’t get you as far as you’d think. If given a two-dimensional polygon, and told exactly how its curvature should be distributed, there’s still no mathematical way to identify exactly where you need to fold the polygon to end up with the right 3-D shape. Because of this, there’s no way to completely anticipate what that 3-D shape will look like.

“We know how sharp and pointy the shape has to be, in an abstract, theoretical sense, and we know how far apart the crinkly regions are, again in an abstract, theoretical sense, but we have no idea how to visualize it in three dimensions,” DeMarco explained in an email.

She and Lindsey have evidence of the existence of a 3-D shape, and evidence of some of that shape’s properties, but no ability yet to see the shape. They are in a position similar to that of astronomers who detect an unexplained stellar wobble that hints at the existence of an exoplanet: The astronomers know there has to be something else out there and they can estimate its mass. Yet the object itself remains just out of view.

A Folding Strategy

Thus far, DeMarco and Lindsey have established basic details of the 3-D shape: They know that one 3-D object exists for every polynomial (by way of its Julia set), and they know the object has a curvature exactly given by the measure of maximal entropy. Everything else has yet to be figured out.

In particular, they’d like to develop a mathematical understanding of the “bending laminations,” or lines along which a flat surface can be folded to create a 3-D object. The question occurred early on to Thurston, too, who wrote to McMullen in 2010, “I wonder how hard it is to compute or characterize the pair of bending laminations, for the inside and the outside, and what they might tell us about the geometry of the Julia set.”

Kathryn Lindsey, a mathematician at the University of Chicago.Courtesy of Kathryn Lindsey

In this, DeMarco and Lindsey’s work is heavily influenced by the mid 20th-century mathematician Aleksandr Aleksandrov. Aleksandrov established that there is only one unique way of folding a given polygon to get a 3-D object. He lamented that it seemed impossible to mathematically calculate the correct folding lines. Today, the best strategy is often to make a best guess about where to fold the polygon—and then to get out scissors and tape to see if the estimate is right.

“Kathryn and I spent hours cutting out examples and gluing them ourselves,” DeMarco said.

DeMarco and Lindsey are currently trying to describe the folding lines on their particular class of 3-D objects, and they think they have a promising strategy. “Our working conjecture is that the folding lines, the bending laminations, can be completely described in terms of certain dynamical properties,” DeMarco said. Put another way, they hope that by iterating the underlying polynomial in the right way, they’ll be able to identify the set of points along which the folding line occurs.

From there, possibilities for exploration are numerous. If you know the folding lines associated to the polynomial f(x) = x2– 1, you might then ask what happens to the folding lines if you change the coefficients and consider f(x) = x2 – 1.1. Do the folding lines of the two polynomials differ a little, a lot or not at all?

“Certain polynomials might have similar bending laminations, and that would tell us all these polynomials have something in common, even if on the surface they don’t look like they have anything in common,” Lindsey said.

It’s a bit early to think about all of this, however. DeMarco and Lindsey have found a systematic way to think about polynomials in 3-D terms, but whether that perspective will answer important questions about those polynomials is unclear.

“I would even characterize it as being sort of playful at this stage,” McMullen said, adding, “In a way that’s how some of the best mathematical research proceeds—you don’t know what something is going to be good for, but it seems to be a feature of the mathematical landscape.”

Source: How to Build Beautiful 3-D Fractals Out of the Simplest Equations

The post How to Build Beautiful 3-D Fractals Out of the Simplest Equations appeared on Spotty Potato.

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The Price Of Love Is Pain: What I Understand About The World After 2016

If I were to choose one word to describe the year of 2016, it would be crazy. Pretty much everyone I know has faced some major challenge, and most world news updates were far from happy.

Yet, as it often happens, the toughest times bring about the most valuable lessons and the most sincere gratitude.

Here are four most important things I have learned this year:

Everyone is dealing with something

Living in the era of polished social media channels, it is easy to fall under the illusion of perfection. Everyone, from top celebrities to next door neighbors, seems to have carefree lives, clear of troubles and sorrows.

For years, I have been chasing the ideal pictures in my head, often feeling I was coming short of the world’s standards. Then, in 2016, hidden stories started coming in from all ends.

One of the most inspiring wives and mothers I know confessed she’s been having a long-term disagreement with her own mother. Wealthy acquaintances living the life of traveling and socializing turned out to be fighting their daughter’s heroin addiction. Parents-in-law of one of my most upbeat friends have been diagnosed with cancer.

People rarely reveal their invisible battles, but everyone has one to fight.

When we compare ourselves to others and feel mesmerized by the shiny cover of their lives, we really don’t know what we wish for. We are all struggling in some way or another.

Just embrace your battle, let it go and know that you are not alone.

Death doesn’t have to be terrifying

For our family, the year of 2016 started in quite a tragic way. On the New Year’s Day, my husband’s grandfather had a major stroke, which left him half-paralyzed and half-unconscious, unable to walk, eat or talk.

There is hardly an experience more heartbreaking than seeing a person you love suffer every day. Normally smiley and optimistic, our dear grandpa now was constantly carrying a deep wrinkle of pain between his eyebrows.

After seven months, he passed away. The night when he took his last breath that wrinkle smoothed out, and an expression of quiet peace came to his face. It even seemed he was slightly smiling.

We are used to thinking of death as the scariest experience of all, but it doesn’t always have to be one. Sometimes it comes as a relief, as liberation from pain.

To us the survivors, the loss of the loved ones is agonizing, yet to the ones that have departed the experience might be totally different.

The truth is we don’t know what hides behind the curtain. Maybe, it’s all not as bad as we think.

Pain is the price of love

Witnessing my grandma-in-law lose the love of her life and her husband of almost 57 years has taught me another thing. Whenever we dare to love truly and deeply, we put ourselves at a risk of being hurt.

Throughout my life I have witnessed many dysfunctional marriages. To such couples, the loss of their partner might be sad, but not devastating, because their connection vanished long time ago.

It is those who have the most admirable relationships that suffer the most when they have to part. The people who did not love deeply managed to escape the possible pain, but they also seem to have missed out on something significant: the joy of having a soulmate.

Whenever we open our heart, we become vulnerable, but whenever we close it, we shut down a very important part of ourselves. If we love someone dearly, we will likely get hurt at some point, and that’s OK. Feeling pain is just a part of being able to feel at all.

As humans, we always have a freedom of choice. We can play it safe or take chances. Safety might feel more comfortable, but it is through taking that risk that we can fulfill our true purpose.

The most important answers lie within yourself

For years, I’ve been plagued with doubt and indecisiveness. I’ve been asking hundreds of questions and searching for answers in the world around me. I would read smart books, listen to experienced people, subscribe to promising newsletters and enroll in innovative courses.

Every day some new information would enter my brain, bring a hope for happiness and then mix with the already existing knowledge and cause nothing but confusion.

It would also leave me with the anxiety of not being able to grasp everything in this world and fear of not being able to stay on top of things.

A few months ago I realized that I am so full of expert opinions and life-changing tips that I don’t even understand what I myself want, feel and prefer.

I would trust anyone in this world, but myself, and that left me with one feeling: being lost.

So I quietly unsubscribed from all the promising newsletters, turned down the voices of advisors and put the information flow on hold. And there, in the silence of my mind, the longed-for answers started appearing.

Oftentimes, we are led to believe that the true knowledge is the privilege of the outer world.

We are bombarded by headlines promising us 10 ultimate tips for happy living, seven steps to building a successful career and five things we need to do today to discover our calling.

Every day we hear so many voices that sometimes we stop noticing the most important one: the voice of our inner self.

The truth is, deeply inside, we all know what’s right and what’s wrong, what brings us happiness and who we truly area. The most important answers are already there, in our heart.

We just need to shut down all the noise and listen.

Source: The Price Of Love Is Pain: What I Understand About The World After 2016

The post The Price Of Love Is Pain: What I Understand About The World After 2016 appeared on Spotty Potato.

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Here’s What Happens to Tech in 2017 (Unless 2016 Was All a Dream)

WIRED

What does 2017 hold for the world of tech and media? With so much changing at the end of 2016, it’s hard to be sure. Very hard. But we have a few guesses.

Here you’ll find WIRED’s predictions for the coming year, and they come with one big wild card: Donald Trump. When the new administration takes office at the end of January, it will alter the course of so many things in this country of ours—not to mention the rest of the world—and alter them in ways we can’t necessarily predict. Tech is no exception.

A Thousand Tech IPOs Will Bloom

2016 was a dismal year for IPOs—the slowest IPO market we’ve had since the recession. But that’s likely to change in 2017.

Snap (formerly Snapchat) will be the first big name going public after the new year. The company has already filed paperwork for an IPO that could value it between $25 and $35 billion. That would be the third most valuable market tech company debut of all time, behind Facebook and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. If it does reach those heights, others are likely to follow, including streaming music company Spotify, cloud storage vendor Dropbox, and meal-kit maker Blue Apron.

We might even see debuts from the ride-sharing company Uber and the super-secretive big data outfit Palantir. The environment must be right, but at the moment, things are looking good. Of the 20 tech and communications companies that went public in the second half of the year, each climbed more than 25 percent from their debuts.

What does a Trump presidency mean for IPOs? Trump has said he plans to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent—good news for companies that may have calculated their valuations on the higher rate. Either way, tech companies likely won’t view a Trump presidency as a deterrent. In fact, they may be spurred to go public sooner rather than later—before Trump rolls out policies they haven’t foreseen. —Davey Alba

The Internet of Things Will Die

Last September, some malware took control of millions of internet-connected devices, including security cameras and DVRs, and launched an attack that took down the website of security journalist Brian Krebs. It was one of the largest ever attacks of this type. The next month, the same piece of malware rendered large swaths of the internet inaccessible to many people.

The incidents capped off two years of bad news for the “Internet of Things,” including bricked devices, irritating outages, bankrupt startups, an international emissions testing scandal, and a viral story about a Brit who spent 11 hours trying make tea with a needlessly high-tech kettle. A Twitter account called Internet of Shit started documenting this market’s silliest gadgets, funniest error messages, and most depressing possibilities. It now has over 100,000 followers.

The Internet of Things was a made-up term to begin with. And now this bit of marketing nonsense carries a sheen of ineptitude, danger, and other shit. The upshot: the term will die in 2017, kinda like Big Data before it.

The Internet of Things—or whatever you want to call it—has the potential to save precious resources, spot and fight pollution, and help people lead healthier, safer lives. But adding internet remote control to every single product on the market won’t necessarily help us get there. What we need are thoughtful, affordable, durable devices that actually, y’know, make our lives better. A new name, and a renewed sense of purpose, could be just what the Internet of Things needs. —Klint Finley

Real Internet TV Will Wait in the Wings

What we all want is television that lets us watch any show at any time from any device, all at a reasonable price. But that’s not quite a reality. And in 2017, it will remain not quite a reality.

Yes, YouTube is putting together a live TV package set to launch in early in the year. Hulu is doing the same. Amazon is poised to enter the fray. And the services will join existing options like AT&T’s DirecTV Now, which offers 60 channels for $35 a month or up to 120 channels for $70, plus premium channels HBO and Cinemax for an extra $5 a month.

Sure, the FCC has proposed new rules that would require cable and satellite TV companies to distribute their content through free apps—without the dreaded cable box. And that could push us towards even closer to the nirvana of Internet TV. But there are so many caveats hanging over this market.

Trump’s FCC will likely kill those proposed rules, siding with the cable incumbents who want to keep you tethered to your cable box. And his FCC is unlikely to curb “zero-rating,” which AT&T is already using to favor its own content on DirecTV Now over the content from rivals. This dynamic may only become more problematic if AT&T is allowed to acquire Time Warner, and the Trump administration will surely allow it. Meanwhile, those live internet TV services have so many holes in them—holes typically involving live sports. Without live sports, you’re still tied to cable.

This year, we may see Comcast introduce its own live internet TV service—but this will come with many of the same caveats as DirecTV Now. Internet TV run by the cable companies isn’t internet TV. —Davey Alba

‘Uber For X’ Will Be X-ed Out

In 2015, the on-demand ride companies Sidecar, Shuddle and Karhoo shuttered. Food delivery apps Spoonrocket and Kitchensurfing sunset their services. Washio, which promised push-button laundry, closed down too. Instacart is cutting courier wages, and Postmates doesn’t expect to profit until 2018.

Sure, Uber is still going strong. And Airbnb is too. But “Uber for X”? It will die in 2017.

Consider the numbers. From nearly $9 billion invested in on-demand companies in the third quarter of 2015—the peak for the on-demand economy—there was a sharp pullback in VC funding shortly thereafter, according to industry research firm CB Insights. And the bigwigs in on-demand—Uber, Chinese ridesharing service Didi, and Airbnb—were getting the lion’s share of the investments. In 2016, excluding those companies, funding to on-demand startups fell by almost 50 percent.

The field was too crowded with too many competitors. This type of business has razor-thin margins, and running these operations is enormously complicated. They juggle not just consumers but contract workers, all while competing with players with already enormous scale, like Uber and Amazon. In hindsight, Uber for X never stood a chance. —Davey Alba

Trump’s America Will Bring Blogging Back

On December 11, 2016, government strategist Eric Garland had some thoughts about how Russia influenced the US election. So he unloaded those thoughts on Twitter—where else?—and called them a THREAD.

<THREAD> I’m now hearing this meme that says Obama, Clinton, et al. are doing nothing, just gave up.

Guys. It’s time for some game theory.

— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) December 11, 2016

  Garland, in language at times lyrical and soaring, laid out what he called a game theory analysis of the long con Russia pulled on America with the surprising endgame of electing Donald Trump president. It’s a conspiracy theory. But for many, the most controversial thing about this conspiracy theory is that Garland unloaded it on Twitter, requiring his readers to wait and read—and wait and read. (The Stranger helpfully compiled them into a single-page story you can read here if so inclined.)

When 2016 kicked off, this would have been called a tweet storm. The hip nomenclature as the year ends is “thread”—as Garland showed—but the idea is the same whether the tweets are numbered or merely threaded. And they are happening more and more in the days since November 9. That’s because liberals on the internet have a lot of thoughts. Not all of them are as nuanced and out-there as Garlands, but on topics ranging from race to the white middle class to Hillary Clinton’s campaign failures, to media bias, to Trump’s foreign policy, people are THREADING.

In response, a joke has emerged: uh, guys, remember blogging? It was sort of this same exact thing where you get to speak what’s on your mind, but you did it all in one go, without frantic typo-ed tweets unrolling piecemeal over the course of an hour and keeping we poor Twitter followers sitting at our desks waiting for the thrilling conclusion?

Like all the best jokes, it’s brilliant because it’s true. We’re entering a period of tumult and unrest in America and along with it will come lots of thoughts and takes and threads and storms. The upcoming culture clash will make the George W. Bush years look quaint, and those marked the heyday of the blogging era. In 2017, mediums like Medium and Tumblr, which easily let people publish whatever they want, will flourish. In Trump’s America, the blog will make a comeback. If only it could bring Google Reader with it. —Emily Dreyfuss

Online Headlines Will Get True Again

As we grapple with the complex causality of disinformation and fake news proliferating through the media landscape, one problem is obvious: people only read headlines. Researchers at Columbia University found that almost 60 percent of stories shared on social media have never been clicked. This is partly the result of the sheer glut of available “content.” People simply can’t read all the journalism out there. And with news delivery services like Twitter and Facebook, which show only a headline and a short description, scrolling story after story in front of frantic, dry eyes, people feel an impossible pressure to read everything. The solution: read every headline and move one.

Others, like “Saved You a Click” creator, Jake Beckman, blame this phenomenon on clickbait culture, which in the late aughts tricked readers into clicking on stories that didn’t actually deliver on the promise in the headline. Readers rebelled against the deceit and stopped clicking altogether. They judged the story by the headline alone and moved along. Aha! Can’t trick readers! But in fact, the logical evolution of clickbait culture was fake news, which understood that readers were not going to bother to read past the first few bricks of the journalistic pyramid, but would rather assess the very top and move on.

In the wake of the 2016 election, which was so influenced by the fabrications peddled in these headlines, journalists, politicians, and technologists are struggling to figure out how to fight fake fire with real water. One very simple thing they can do is write descriptive headlines that are clear and hard to misunderstand. That will be antithetical to the brilliance of clickbait, which leaves readers wondering more. But that model was a failure. It hasn’t saved digital journalism from the financial implosion of advertising dollars in the Facebook-as-News era, nor has it on the aggregate encouraged deeper reading. Responsible news outlets trying to figure out how to convey facts will streamline their stories, pack the opening paragraphs with objective reporting, and, ultimately, they will need to abandon clever headlines in favor of clear ones—if they’re serious about being understood. —Emily Dreyfuss

Tech Will Get In Bed With Trump

The tech industry didn’t always see eye-to-eye with the Obama administration on surveillance and encryption, but that didn’t stop the industry from developing a remarkably close relationship with the White House during the Obama years. White House staffers like former press secretary Jay Carney and former senior advisor David Plouffe landed high-profile jobs at tech companies like Amazon and Uber, while former Google employees, such as corporate attorney turned patent office director Michelle Lee, found jobs in the federal government. According to information analyzed by The Intercept, Google’s lobbyists met with the White House employees 427 times in between January 2009 and October 2015.

But the election of Donald Trump has called the future of tech’s relationship to government into question. Trump’s campaign promoted a relentlessly regressive social agenda that stoked racial tensions, especially on the topic of immigration. The tech industry, meanwhile, has lobbied aggressively for immigration reform, and tries to project a progressive image when it comes to topics like gay marriage (which Trump’s running mate Mike Pence has a long history of opposing). Few in the tech industry publicly supported Trump, while many—including Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt—openly backed Hillary Clinton.

But don’t expect any of that to stop Silicon Valley from cozying up to Trump. Google is already hiring more conservative lobbyists, Reuters reports. It has long employed former Republican congresswoman Susan Molinari. And, of course, several tech leaders—including Schmidt, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg—agreed to meet with Trump in December.

Not everyone in the Valley is trying to suck up to the president-elect. Investor Chris Sacca criticized those who met with Trump, telling Recode they were “being used to legitimize a fascist.” But Trump’s advisory team already includes Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, Oracle co-CEO Safra Catz, and of course PayPal founder and Facebook board member Peter Thiel, one of the few Valley figures who openly backed Trump before the election.

A few companies have pledged not to help Trump with one of his most frightening campaign promises: building a registry of Muslims. But Silicon Valley’s main interest, ultimately, is business. That’s something they have in common with Trump. The tech industry might not enjoy the level of access it had to the Obama administration. But if you’re looking for someone to stand up to Trump, it’s time to look elsewhere. —Klint Finley

Source: Here’s What Happens to Tech in 2017 (Unless 2016 Was All a Dream)

The post Here’s What Happens to Tech in 2017 (Unless 2016 Was All a Dream) appeared on Spotty Potato.

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6 Mental Roadblocks That Are Keeping Millennials From Being Successful

  Let’s face it: Being a millennial woman can be confusing and overwhelming. A lot of expectations are placed on us — from society, our families and even ourselves.

We’re expected to settle down, get married, buy a house and pop out a kid… but we also need to have a high-paying job, look like a supermodel and navigate the world as if we somehow automatically know what to do without even fully knowing ourselves.

That’s a lot of pressure, and it’s really scary.

With so much fear and anxiety in our generation, especially for women, we tend to let it run our lives. The key to living a happy and healthy life is to learn how to release the fears that hold you back.

Here are the six biggest mindset blocks that millennial women face and how to move past them.

1. You think you need to be perfect in order to deserve love.

This is a big one.

We’ve learned from a young age that the best way to receive the love and praise we crave is to shape ourselves into who we’ve been told is acceptable.

We think we need to be amazing at everything — all the time. We fear allowing weaknesses to show, so we avoid challenges that might result in failure or showing our true selves.

It’s time for us to recognize that perfection is impossible. Our deservedness of love is constant. You are enough.

2. You think you need to be realistic all the time.

Somewhere along the line, we seemed to have lost our ability to think big.

We’ve learned to settle for comfortable and safe. We need to pick realistic schools, realistic careers, realistic significant others and realistic lives.

Should you live with your head in the clouds all the time? No. If you believe you are capable of a great life (not just “good enough” one) are you going to take risks and reap the rewards of those risks? Absolutely.

3. You don’t know what you really want or who you really are.

Have you ever taken the time to get to know yourself on a deep level? Have you ever asked yourself what you truly value?

When you dissect your values and choices based on the life you’re leading right now, you’ll likely find that many of them are not your own.

Make a list of all the things you think you “should” do in life. Then write who or where that belief came from. Is this something you truly want, or are you just trying to live up to someone else’s values?

Now make a list of all the things that inspire you, the things that make you happy. Those are your true values.

4. You feel stuck in your bad habits.

These bad habits are a direct result of living out of alignment with your deepest values.

Maybe you don’t want to go out on weekends and drink too much anymore? Somehow, you just can’t seem to break out of the cycle.

Well, remember that anxiety that comes up when we know there’s something more out there for us, but we’re too fearful to go after it? These “bad habits” have continued because they distract us from those feelings. We get to forget for a bit that we aren’t feeling fulfilled.

When you determine what your values really are and start acting in accordance to them, the bad habits tend to fall away because you’ve filled that void with something truly meaningful.

5. You’re afraid to ask for help.

Yeesh, everything seems to be coming back to that whole perfection thing. How can we ask for help if we think we need to be perfect at everything?

Giphy

Asking for help feels like admitting we have faults. Like I said, perfection is impossible. You can save yourself years of frustration and loss of confidence by simply getting the help you need to move forward.

6. You don’t know how to love yourself.

For a culture that’s become somewhat self-absorbed, some of us haven’t made the self-love connection.

We constantly compare ourselves to others, beat ourselves down for not being perfect (again, see #1) and hide our true selves from the world as if that person isn’t good enough.

The is true, though: “We can’t love anyone or anything else fully until we can love ourselves.”

We are a capable and wildly powerful generation of women. It’s time we live within that power and live up to the potential waiting inside. As soon as these mindset blocks are cleared away, you can awaken to the happy, healthy and fulfilled life that you deserve.

Source: 6 Mental Roadblocks That Are Keeping Millennials From Being Successful

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Suspicious looking Christmas tree found during raid of suspected cannabis farm

Unusual looking Christmas tree (Picture: Twitter/Glos_Police)

Top marks for ingenuity but this cunning disguise failed to fool police raiding a suspected cannabis farm in Cheltenham.

Officers found the marijuana plant decorated like a Christmas tree during a raid of a suspected small cannabis farm shortly before Christmas.

Some real effort had gone in to its decoration too with tinsel, lights, bows and an angel to top it off.

Gloucestershire police have since arrested a man and woman on suspicion of cannabis cultivation and also seized drugs and equipment.

The pair have since been bailed until February pending further enquiries but not before police informed the public of their unusual find.

It’s not the only unusual use of cannabis plants, last year a crop was found growin in flower pots put out by the council to brighten up Newport city centre.

Source: Suspicious looking Christmas tree found during raid of suspected cannabis farm

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How To Handle The Holidays As An Introvert When You Want To Avoid Everyone

  Once winter comes around, we are suddenly mobbed by a series of holidays in all their glory of sales, lights and too many people everywhere.

And odds are, if you are an introvert, you’d probably rather spend those holiday nights alone in the company of Netflix and wine.

So if the very thought of spending every day during the holidays seeing annoying family members or going to crazy parties makes you anxious, remember these five things if you decide to spend the holidays by yourself:

1. Do not — I mean, for real — do not accept any dinner invitations.

The first step in making it alone this holiday season is by not agreeing to any dinner, movie, picnic or any kind of gathering with any person other than yourself.

I say this because that ruins the whole point of you being alone, and it sucks if you cancel it later, when your host has already made the arrangements.

Giphy

2. Get your ass off the couch.

I know, I know, you want to spend the holidays alone because you are too tired of adulting at your 9-to-5 job.

But you can still park it on your couch on every other weekend. This time, use the days off to really get in the holiday spirit.

Seriously, do everything from decorating your studio apartment to buying gifts (for yourself) at a crowded mall where you can hardly breathe, and you need water but you don’t want to lose your spot in line, and you can feel your lips getting chapped like Rose’s when she was on that door in the middle of the damn ocean when the Titanic sank, and you know in your heart there was space for Jack, too, but screw that because it’s the holiday sale, and you really want a new 50-inch TV.

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3. Treat yourself.

Now, don’t go around draining your savings account for the hell of it.

I mean treat yourself, as in be good to yourself because, sometimes, we get so caught up in life, we just don’t take care of ourselves.

We live according to what is more convenient and not because that’s what we really want. But not anymore. At least, not this holiday season.

If you want to eat a chocolate cake from the bakery nearby and not that Oreo lying next to your bed lamp, then go out and get yourself a chocolate cake.

If you want to go to Ireland after watching a certain romantic tearjerker called “P.S. I Love You,” then make the trek.

And if you want to just relax and read something, which you probably haven’t done in a million years, then by all means do you.

Giphy

4. Call your loved ones.

This is the least you can do if you’re actively ditching your family and friends this holiday. (And even if it’s not your choice, it’s still a good thing to do.)

By calling them, you are not only doing them a favor, but you’re also doing yourself a huge favor because we all need love.

So call your loved ones, tell them you’re thinking about them, even if you are not together, and thank them for all the good things they have done for you.

Wish them well, and most importantly, let them know you’re doing OK because they’re probably worried about you. That’s what they do.

Giphy

5. Know that you are only alone, not lonely.

Now, if you’re really going to spend the holidays alone, know it’s OK to be alone, even on the most festive days, even if it sucks or even if it makes you sad.

Bear it in your mind that you are alone now (hopefully) because of your own choice and not because you are lonely.

However, if you can’t help but feel a little lonely this holiday season, don’t worry; we all feel lonely sometimes, too.

But that’s why we have wine.

Giphy

Source: How To Handle The Holidays As An Introvert When You Want To Avoid Everyone

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Bin man gets revenge after car parks in rubbish collection area

And you think you’ve had a bad day

Somebody urgently needs to check that this bin man is ok.

He was so consumed with rage when he spotted a car parked in the wrong place that he decided to pull off the ultimate passive aggressive stunt.

It involved moving 40 bins around the car so that it was completely blocked in by the sea of rubbish.

Forty. Forty bins.

We get that it must have been annoying, but there must be some underlying issues going on here.

There’s a car in there somewhere

Hopefully the driver wasn’t in a hurry

The incident happened in China’s Anhui province, where an onlooker decided to film the whole thing rather than attempt to calm the man down.

Sped up footage shows the bin man walking a fair distance as he moves the bins around to ensure the car is completely blocked in.

Which, again, isn’t exactly normal behaviour.

Reports suggest the vehicle was parked in the rubbish collection area, and the man had tried to get in touch with the driver.

But rather than leave a note, take an early lunch or patiently wait, he did the next best thing.

It’s unclear what happened when the driver returned, but we’re assuming the situation was dealt with sensibly and maturely.

Ahem.

Source: Bin man gets revenge after car parks in rubbish collection area

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6 Scientifically Proven Ways To Increase Productivity In 2017

The new year is upon us, which means it’s time to start considering our resolutions for the year to come.

If you’re like most people, your success rate for achieving New Year’s resolutions is probably pretty low.

Although you start out with the good intention to improve upon yourself at the beginning of the year, it can be hard to maintain enough motivation throughout the year to keep pushing toward your goals.

It might seem like you’re stuck in a vicious cycle of failure to accomplish your goals year after year, but you don’t have to be. Making several simple changes in your daily life and routine could help you increase your productivity and find more time and motivation to work toward completing your goals throughout the course of the next year.

Here are six scientifically proven ways you can boost your productivity to increase your odds of accomplishing your New Year’s resolutions this year.

1. Let the light shine in

Psychology Today reports that a study by researchers at the Interdepartmental Neuroscience program at Northwestern University in Chicago determined that workers who complete tasks in natural light are more productive than those who complete their tasks in areas without exposure to any natural light.

The study followed a group of night shift workers as well as a group of day shift workers to identify how the presence/absence of light affects circadian rhythms.

Researchers concluded that a lack of natural lighting affected circadian rhythms to a point that caused lower quality of living and lower productivity levels for those who worked without natural light in the study.

Whether your goal is to workout more often, get more studying/work done at home, or simply to clean up around your house once a week, look for opportunities to add a little more like to  your work space.

Could you open up a few windows while you do your chores? Maybe you could take the free weights near a window at the gym and start lifting in the daylight?

2. Evaluate your internet speed

According to the Washington Post, cities with high average internet speeds were proven to be more productive than those with low internet speeds.

According to the report, cities that offer 1G or higher in internet speeds report higher per-capita GDP than those that lack high internet speeds.

If you think about how you respond to slow load times while you’re trying to focus on completing research on a lengthy report, you probably understand why internet speed would have such a significant impact on productivity levels.

If you’ve noticed that slow internet at your home has caused you to take a few too many study breaks after breaking your concentration, it might be time to evaluate your internet speed.

The first step is to run a speed test tool on your device to find out how much speed you’re actually getting from your current provider. Even if you know the speed number your provider told you they would give you, it’s possible that you’re being throttled and are actually receiving slower speeds than you pay for.

The next step is to find out how much speed you need to support all of the internet activity in your home. You can use an internet speed estimate tool to help you get an idea of how much speed you should sign up for to keep your internet running smoothly without running into issues due to overuse.

3. Find a friend when you need to take a break

Psych.org has reported that Sociometric researchers identified that employees who spent their lunch hours with larger groups were 36 percent more productive during the week.

The same study revealed that the same employees who engaged with larger groups during lunch were 30 percent less likely to become stressed when the company went through a round of layoffs later in the year.

In other words, the study showed that employees who spent their breaks socializing with a group of others were more productive and less stressed in their daily work lives.

When it comes time to take a break from studying, cleaning, or working on a project at the office, consider finding a group of friends or coworkers to grab a coffee or take a walk with.

Not only will this help you get the human interaction you need to clear your mind, decompress and be more productive throughout the day, but it might also give you the opportunity to get a fresh perspective or two on something your working on.

4. Work in 90 minute intervals

Whether you’re lifting at the gym, doing chores around the house or working on a big project, research shows that humans are meant to spend no more than 90 minutes on a given task without taking a break.

This is because the circadian rhythm limits our ability to focus on a given task to a time period of roughly 90-120 minutes. This cycle brings us through higher and lower levels of alertness throughout the day which means our bodies find natural times where it is necessary to either rest and engage in activity.

Before starting on a new project, set a timer  for 90 minutes on your phone or use a time tracking app. Commit to working for the full 90 minutes then take about a 10 to 30-minute break when your timer goes off.

If you plan to take breaks with friends or coworkers, sync up your timers and plan to take your breaks at the same time throughout the day. That will make it easier to socialize during your breaks and also help you remember when it’s time to remove yourself from your work for a minute or two.

5. Take your workout outdoors

Research shows that individuals are more productive after spending time outdoors.

Being surrounded by things like trees and rocks that are a part of a natural environment stimulate and inspire creativity and productivity while man made structures are unable to do so.

Why not kill two birds with one stone by taking a hike or a bike ride to get a little exercise during your lunch hour while also boosting your productivity for the rest of the day’s task?

Plan to complete two or three of your weekly workouts outdoors and during a break in your work, studying, or chores each week. Even if it means something as simple as taking a quick jog in the park or completing your yoga in a good spot outdoors, spending more time outside can help you boost your ability to focus throughout the rest of the day.

Accomplishing your goals for the new year will be difficult, but a boost in productivity will certainly make the process a bit easier as you work to find time and energy for the activities that will bring you closer to achieving them.

Hopefully these tips will help you as you work to build an improved version of yourself in 2017!

Source: 6 Scientifically Proven Ways To Increase Productivity In 2017

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10 Essential Life Lessons You Need To Know To Make It Through Your 20s

Turning a year older is one of the most anticipated, yet nerve wracking experience that anyone encounters. People are either excited for the upcoming life events they’ll embark on once they turn a certain age or afraid of what the future might bring.

But for young adults who are departing from the adolescent age, turning a year older IS a frightening thing. Why? Because people usually expect the soon-to-be-20s to be more mature and responsible by now *freaks out.*

  So, for anyone out there who is about to leave their “teenage years” and enter the world of 20-year-olds (or as we call it, “adulthood”) such as I will, here are some of the few things I’ve learned that helps me get through the process of “growing up” (and maybe even help me get through my future 20s life):

It’s OK to be anxious about yourself.

It’s only natural for people to feel as though they are “not enough” or are conscious of themselves. It’s all part of maturing: becoming aware of what you need to improve on and discovering ways on what you can do to transform yourself into a better version of you.

Just because you see yourself as inadequate, doesn’t mean that you are.

Think of all the fulfilling activities you do, the achievements you’ve accomplished and the positive attributes that you have. See these as important parts of yourself that make up your individuality and strengths.

And just because people don’t see you as sufficient for them, doesn’t mean that you are always lacking.

Sure, people have their own set of standards of what they like about a person, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will never be enough for anyone.

If people do not appreciate you for who you are and are supportive of your journey toward self-development, LEAVE. Therefore…

Stop interacting/surrounding yourself with people who only see your imperfections, faults and deficiencies.

Believe me, pushing yourself to please others will only lead to your downfall.

Be open to those who are sincere and optimistic toward you.

If you’re someone like me who has been through A LOT (and by a lot, I mean previous life experiences that have been damaging you mentally and emotionally up to the present), or maybe just anyone in particular who is going through rough times, do not close yourself out from the world.

If they offer you advice, a listening ear, a night out (or in) where you can eat and drink your worries away, accept their friendly gestures. Never underestimate the power of kindness. It REEEEEAAAALLLYYY does a lot to make you feel better.

Reciprocate what others give to you.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, do not be just a receiver, be a giver as well.

Show the people who are always there for you how much you appreciate them and how grateful you are for what they do.

Be there for them. Don’t let them down. Do what you can to make them feel special. And of course, be genuine with your words and actions toward them.

It’s OK to be confused about your life.

May it be about your plans or goals, it’s all right if you are unsure about these things. At a young age (and maybe even when you’re older), you never have it all figured out yet. BUT, do keep in mind that you should have a blueprint or draft of what you want and do not want for your life. Eventually, you’ll find your way.

Trust yourself a bit more.

Stop your self-doubting and start thinking of what you are capable of. Just because you feel that you are way behind others, haven’t reached your goals yet or are constantly failing, doesn’t mean that you’re worthless and weak. Be confident with yourself! YOU. WILL. GET. THERE.

Enjoy what you have now.

Don’t dwell on what you’re missing out right now, appreciate life the way it is. Besides, it won’t be long until you get what you want. It will get better.

Love yourself.

That’s that.

Source: 10 Essential Life Lessons You Need To Know To Make It Through Your 20s

The post 10 Essential Life Lessons You Need To Know To Make It Through Your 20s appeared on Spotty Potato.

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This is what a savage, bloodthirsty tortoise fight looks like

FIIIIIIIGHT! (Picture: Safari Live)

Slow and steady, tortoises have a reputation for being good athletes.

But did you ever wonder how they would fare as wrestlers?

Now, you can witness it as two of them have been filmed going at it in an absolutely fearsome show of aggression.

(Well, kind of.)

You can see the bloodlust is there, but the logistics make things a little difficult as they headbutt and chase one another at 2mph.

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Watching it, you’re almost willing one of them to manage to flip the other on their back, but things end unconclusively, with a two-tortoise conga line instead.

The footage was taken a Djuma Private Game Reserve in South Africa.

Males are known to be territorial over their land, and will fight dirty to protect what is theirs.

They are also know to cause stress to females.

Source: This is what a savage, bloodthirsty tortoise fight looks like

The post This is what a savage, bloodthirsty tortoise fight looks like appeared on Spotty Potato.

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When you wait all night to catch a glimpse of the ‘Holiday Train’, this is inevitable

It’s a glorious beast (Picture: YouTube)

This is the Holiday Train.

Forget the Coca-Cola truck – this marvelous locomotive has to be the most festive vehicle imaginable.

With its massively over the top, bright decorations, it looks like a child’s design come to life.

It’s also a majestic sight at night, so it’s no surprise that people stayed up late to catch a glimpse of it going past.

But, because this is 2016 and we can’t have nice things, this happened:

Life is unfair

We love that they kept filming, though

It’s just so crushingly inevitable.

Huge respect though to all the determined trainspotters that turned up, and kept filming the moment even as it was ruined by a normal, boring passenger train.

The clip was posted on Reddit, where one person wrote: ‘Well that passenger train got a hell of a view.’

It is believed to have been shot in Canada, but the spectacular train is also running through the US.

  Source: When you wait all night to catch a glimpse of the ‘Holiday Train’, this is inevitable

The post When you wait all night to catch a glimpse of the ‘Holiday Train’, this is inevitable appeared on Spotty Potato.

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Joe Mixon’s Lawyers Release Surveillance Video of Running Back Punching Female Student

Lawyers for Joe Mixon released surveillance footage on Friday showing the University of Oklahoma running back punching a female student during an incident in 2014.

In the video, the now 20-year-old Mixon can be seen punching fellow student Amelia Molitor, now 22, in the face and walking away.

In a statement, Mixon’s attorney, Blake Johnson, wrote, “Mr. Mixon asked us to once again say he is sorry for the way he reacted that night. He has apologized publicly to Ms. Molitor, her friends, his family, teammates and the University. He hopes that his voluntary release of these recordings will help put this matter to rest.”

“Mr. Mixon is focused on completing his semester and his team’s preparations for the upcoming bowl game in New Orleans,” the letter continued.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the city of Norman in Oklahoma should release the video to the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, which sued for access.

Johnson wrote in the statement that Mixon was not part of the association’s lawsuit and was not ordered by the court to disclose the video. However, Johnson wrote, “he does not see any reason for the release of the recording at issue in that lawsuit to be delayed any longer.”

“Further delay appears only to be generating unfounded speculation about what is shown in that video,” Johnson wrote. “We also see no reason to withhold the second recording we received from Ms. Molitor’s attorneys and so have included it as well.”

Molitor suffered fractured bones in her face, while Mixon was suspended from the football team for a season and charged with a misdemeanor.

Under a plea deal, he was placed on probation for a year, and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service, as well undergo cognitive behavior counseling.

Molitor currently has a pending civil case against Mixon.

Mixon was the leading rusher for the University of Oklahoma this season.

Source: Joe Mixon’s Lawyers Release Surveillance Video of Running Back Punching Female Student

The post Joe Mixon’s Lawyers Release Surveillance Video of Running Back Punching Female Student appeared on Spotty Potato.

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2 Chainz Just Sold the World’s Most Expensive Ugly Christmas Sweater — for $90,000

  2 Chainz just helped one person take home the world’s most expensive ugly Christmas sweater — for a hefty price.

The rapper teamed up with his personal jeweler Avianne to drop what they are calling the “World’s Most Expensivest Ugly Christmas Sweater” at the not-so-affordable price of $90,000. The black sweater with a gold Santa Claus was designed by 2 Chainz and features 50 carats of diamonds and 250 grams of gold.

“This is extremely rare and only 1 sweater was made,” according to 2 Chainz’s merch website. “Proceeds of this sweater will go to charity.”

2 Chainz promoted his five-figure sweater in a tweet, in which he wrote, “$90,000 cash. 50 carats of diamonds and 250 grams of gold on the worlds most expensivest ugly Christmas sweater. http://2chainzshop.com.”

The item appears to have enticed one buyer as it is currently listed as “sold out.”

Do you think 2 Chainz went too far? Sound off below!

Source: 2 Chainz Just Sold the World’s Most Expensive Ugly Christmas Sweater

The post 2 Chainz Just Sold the World’s Most Expensive Ugly Christmas Sweater — for $90,000 appeared on Spotty Potato.

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‘Tis the Season to Get Your Car Licked by a Moose in Canada

If you’re traveling in Canada’s Alberta Parks and a moose happens to come up to your car and start licking it, don’t panic. Don’t make it weird. They hate that.

At least two moose in the Chester Lake and Burstall Pass parking lots in Kananaskis County have been approaching cars and bathing them in sweet, sweet moose spit.  Rangers have been forced to issue a warning about the massive ungulates, telling people the best thing to do if a moose starts licking your SUV is just to stay in the car and honk your horn or activate your car alarm to try and drive them away.

Do not, under any circumstances, get out of your car and try to engage with the moose. They also hate that, and more importantly, they’re very large animals and interacting with them can be harmful to … you.

“All animals have a natural need for salt because it is an important component in their blood,” Dr. Doug Whiteside at the Calgary Zoo told Global News. And when they can’t find it anywhere else, they’ll find it where we’ve conveniently spread it for them: The road, and by the transitive property of salt, our cars.

“There is no end date for the warning,” Global News adds, ominously.

Source: ‘Tis the Season to Get Your Car Licked by a Moose in Canada

The post ‘Tis the Season to Get Your Car Licked by a Moose in Canada appeared first on Spotty Potato.

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Squirrel with Bone Necklace Turns Heads in Massachusetts

You’ve gotta love a squirrel who takes fashion risks.

A curious-looking critter caught the eye of a homeowner in Hanover, Massachusetts, this week when it was spotted wearing a portion of a bone as a “necklace” of sorts.

“It would frequent their yard and eat on their porch,” according to a statement from Brian O’Connor with the Animal Rescue League of Boston. “They called us for assistance and we were able to set a humane trap and catch it pretty quickly.”

The “necklace” was a round bone, a chew toy that likely belonged to a very disappointed pup. “We took [the squirrel] to a veterinarian in Dedham who was able to remove the round bone from the squirrels neck by cutting it,” O’Connor said.

Thankfully, the fashion faux pas ended well and the squirrel has been returned to its neighborhood. To help the Animal Rescue League continue to help animals like this one, donate here.

Source: Squirrel with Bone Necklace Turns Heads in Massachusetts

The post Squirrel with Bone Necklace Turns Heads in Massachusetts appeared first on Spotty Potato.