#2015 is completely arbitrary

[evilhorse936]

Any show made after 2015 can't succeed... all they know is, bad set design, poor plot progression, zero heartthrob and lie

[darkmaga-returns]

Janet Yellen will finally step down from her role as Treasury Secretary in January, leaving a massive mess for her replacement, Scott Bessent. The budget deficit surpassed $36 trillion under the Biden-Harris Administration, with Yellen touting that the US had an endless supply of funds to spend and imaginary success of Bidenomics.

As head of the Federal Reserve under Obama, Yellen was an outspoken advocate for QE. She worked closely with Bernanke and Greenspan, but is actually considered the main architect of the Fed’s now dead quantitative easing program that began in December of 2008. “Potentially anything – including negative interest rates – would be on the table. But we would have to study carefully how they would work here in the U.S. context,” Yellen argued back in 2015. This academic and longtime Fed insider spent her career pandering to the White House.

Perhaps part of her legacy as America’s CFO under Biden-Harris would be her insistence that inflation was “transitory.” Yellen called the US debt downgrade “arbitrary” when Fitch Ratings downgraded US long-term debt late from AAA to AA+.

She never spoke as an authority on economics, but rather, she spoke as if she were a puppet of the WEF implanted in government to spread economic-related propaganda. Yellen is akin to the Karine Jean-Pierre of America’s financial system insofar as her job is to openly lie to the public and convince them that their reality is not as it seems.

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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is proof that the establishment is completely clueless when it comes to the lives of the average citizen. “People are better off than they were pre-pandemic,” Yellen touted on national news last week. Perhaps she meant to say “politicians” rather than people, and no, one cannot point at rising US indexes and claim that is sufficient evidence that the overall economy is sound.

Despite millions of Americans struggling financially amid inflation in the post-pandemic landscape, Yellen had the audacity to claim that most Americans are happy with their financial situation despite every bit of data indicating otherwise. “So, they seem to perceive the economy as a whole as doing less well than they are personally. But most Americans feel good about their own economic situation.”

Yellen insisted that inflation was under control. Completely out of touch, Yellen even denied the prevalence of food inflation. “I think largely it reflects cost increases, including labor cost increases that grocery firms have experienced, although there may be some increases in margins,” Yellen, who has a net worth of $20 million, stated before advocating centralized agriculture.

Yet, she promoted every major spending package Biden signed off on. Yellen was the first to admit the true reason behind the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest spending package in US history, was to propel the climate change agenda. “The Inflation Reduction Act is, at its core, about turning the climate crisis into an economic opportunity,” Yellen admitted.

[mariacallous]

The Federal Communications Commission has voted—once again—to assert its power to oversee and regulate the activities of the broadband industry in the United States. In a 3-2 vote, the agency reinstated net neutrality rules that had been abandoned during the height of the Trump administration’s deregulatory blitz.

“Broadband is now an essential service,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said Thursday in prepared remarks. “Essential services—the ones we count on in every aspect of modern life—have some basic oversight.”

The rules approved by the agency on Thursday will reclassify broadband services in the United States once more as “common carriers” under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, subjecting broadband to the same public-utilities-style scrutiny as telephone networks and cable TV.

That distinction means that the agency can prevent internet service providers from blocking or throttling legal content, or letting online services pay ISPs to prioritize their content with faster delivery speeds. But it’s difficult, particularly in an election year, to say whether net neutrality is here to stay or whether the FCC’s vote is just another inflection point in a regulatory forever-war.

“Net neutrality rules protect internet openness by prohibiting broadband providers from playing favorites with internet traffic,” Rosenworcel says. “We need broadband to reach 100 percent of us—and we need it fast, open, and fair.”

This reclassification was first attempted by the Obama administration following a lawsuit by Verizon in 2011; the ruling pointed to reclassification as a necessary hurdle in efforts to bring broadband under scope of the FCC’s oversight. The outcome of that case prompted the introduction of the Open Internet Order of 2015, which not only reclassified the industry in line with the court’s suggestion but imposed a slate of new rules with “net neutrality” serving as the FCC’s guiding philosophy.

Two years later, those rules were overturned by the Trump-appointed FCC chair at the time, Ajit Pai, a former Verizon lawyer. Back in the private sector now, Pai derided the FCC’s efforts this week as a “complete waste of time;” something, he said, “nobody actually cares about.”

The rules put forth under Rosenworcel are somewhat different than those previously introduced. Past FCC orders pursing net neutrality have been repeatedly challenged in court, giving the agency today a fair idea of which policies will be defensible in the onslaught of lawsuits definitely to come.

Though banning the creation of “pay-to-play internet fast lanes” remains a priority, the reasons for reclassifying broadband are not limited to warding off the industry’s well-documented predatory practices. The new order also gives the FCC the ability to more closely examine industry behavior; how, for instance, companies respond (or fail to) in the event of widespread network outages.

“Net neutrality” was not originally devised as a set of rules but rather as a principle by which regulators seek to strike a balance between the profit-motivated interests of megalithic broadband companies and the rights and welfare of consumers. It is often summed up simply as the practice of ensuring that “all internet, regardless of its source, must be treated the same.”

While the Trump FCC asserted that it had no authority to regulate ISPs, it paradoxically claimed—in a failed effort—the power to crack down on states working to create regulation for themselves. Still, in 2018 California successfully banned broadband companies from engaging in a host of anti-consumer activities, from digital redlining and data discrimination to zero-rating schemes, which enable ISPs to funnel consumers toward particular websites or services by exempting them from arbitrary data caps.

Net neutrality advocates typically credit laws like California’s with preventing “virtually lawless” service providers from going haywire over the past half-decade. Industry associations offer a counter-history: Net neutrality protections must have been pointless all along, since the sky didn’t fall once they disappeared.

State-level protections, however, haven’t prevented cable and satellite TV companies from pushing a menu of anti-consumer policies nationally. The industry has threatened to hike monthly subscription prices if ever prevented from charging early-termination fees to customers locked into yearlong contracts. It has opposed rules proposed by the Federal Trade Commission designed to “make it at least as easy to cancel a subscription as it was to start it.”

Rosenworcel and other net neutrality proponents point to the growing reliance on broadband as successive generations of Americans increasingly eschew forms of communication that traditionally fell under the FCC’s blanket. Broadband is undeniably a telecommunications service today—even more so now than when the FCC first sought to adopt net neutrality as its guiding principle.

“Today's action brings back moderate rules that have already passed court muster and are essential building blocks for a consumer-friendly and citizen-friendly internet,” says Michael Copps, a former FCC commissioner. “Our communications technologies are evolving so swiftly, affecting so many important aspects of our individual lives, that they must be available to all of us on a nondiscriminatory basis.”

Consumer reliance on digital platforms and tools for communication is only increasing: Teenagers today notoriously loathe—some say fear!—talking on the phone, while the landscape of communications dynamics shifted violently for US workers in the post-pandemic era. Nevertheless, Americans today have little agency on their own to combat predatory-pricing schemes and lopsided usage restrictions. Consumer advocates note that Americans cannot simply vote with their wallets while locked into receiving services from a de facto monopoly.

While having evolved far past its original conceit, net neutrality is at heart a policy of "non-discrimination," as Tim Wu explained in the 2002 white paper coining the phrase.

“The point of the neutrality principle is not to interfere with the administration of the internet-protocol side of a broadband carrier’s network,” wrote Wu, then an associate professor at the University of Virginia Law School. “It is, rather, to prevent discrimination in that administration.”

[hotforharrison]

I've been exclusively posting new Harrison content and nothing about me personally for quite some time now, but I just kind of wanted to... talk to the void, I guess. It's been rough lately.

The end of December leading up to the shit show that was my birthday on New Year's Eve, and now into 2024, has not shown me any kindness.

Seeing my husband happily in love with his girlfriend while our marriage spirals around the drain into divorce has been really difficult, one of the hardest things I've gone through in my life.

He says that he wants to work things out and have both of us, which is what I want as well, but his actions speak differently most of the time.

She lives nearby and gets surprise cookies and hugs when she's feeling sad. On multiple occasions, I've gotten left alone in my room in tears.

They talk on the phone more in a single day than he and I did in the entire two weeks I was visiting my family out of state for my high school reunion.

I want so much to be in love and happy again, which I haven't been in quite some time. I'm not sure that it's going to happen with him as much as I want it to. I usually feel like we're on a sinking boat, and I'm trying to use a cup to throw out water to try desperately to keep it afloat, even though it's ultimately futile.

As per the marriage counselor's suggestion, we're being more intentional about our time together, like we're dating again.

Although I'm unable to leave the house right now for anything that isn't absolutely essential (I'll get to that in a minute), we've been having movie nights every Wednesday with phones put away and paying attention to the movie and each other.

We haven't done anything "special" together as a couple in what's honestly been years, and we're going to go to either Kemah Boardwalk or Galveston hopefully the week of April 15, depending on whether it's safe for me to walk that much at that point.

I'm not holding my breath that it's going to ultimately help us reconnect enough to improve things, but I'm hoping it's a step in the right direction of getting there.

We've been polyamorous since 2015, but I haven't dated or been looking for someone to date since 2016, or even just hook up with for that matter. My husband has had a number of girlfriends and partners over the years, which I'm completely fine with.

It's been a sort of mono-poly relationship for the past almost 8 years, but entirely by my own choosing. He didn't influence that at all and actually encouraged me to date again if it's what I wanted to do.

And I am going to go down that rabbit hole hopefully later this year, which is very nerve-wracking.

I know it's absolutely not a requirement for dating, and shallow people who would only date someone who is under a certain weight aren't great partners, but I want to lose a lot of weight before I start looking again. It will help me feel better about myself, and self-confidence is an attractive quality.

Right now, I honestly don't even want to be undressed in front of my husband who I started dating in 2007, so him seeing me undressed is nothing new. I view myself as "fat and disgusting," even though I've known women who weigh as much or more than I do right now who were very attractive and had no trouble dating.

My husband said I carry the weight very well and don't need to be down to some arbitrary number that I come up with to date again, which I wanted to be under 200. He asked how much I weighed when we started dating. I weighed around 260 then, and I understood his point.

I started actively trying to lose weight on September 22 of last year, because there's no reason to wait until some specific date like a New Year's resolution. September 22 was as good a day as any.

I was about 12 lbs shy of my highest weight ever, which was 352.8 lbs, at 340.6. As of January 16, I'd lost over 30 lbs since the end of September and weighed in at 307.1. I'm 5'9, so a tall girly, and my tentative goal is 175. It's subject to change based on my desired goal clothing size, which is a 10. (I don't want to stop shopping at Torrid, and they go down to a 10 at the lowest.)

Anyway, I broke my right leg and severely sprained my left ankle when I fell in a parking lot the day before Thanksgiving in 2022, which halted my weight loss efforts in 2022 and led to me regaining most of the weight I'd lost then.

The amount of damage I did to myself from just falling in a parking lot was pretty impressive. Ironically, I did not break the glass bottles of hard cider I was carrying, only myself.

The broken leg healed perfectly over the course of a few months or so, but because I still had to use the other leg as my main weight bearing side, it didn't get to properly heal like it should have. My sprained ankle's ligaments were very loose. The ankle kept collapsing over the course of 2023, through a round of physical therapy, and I just kept spraining my ankle over and over again whenever I tried to do more demanding things like working out. Being more active is very important to weight loss and health, so it was really frustrating.

Eventually, after trying to work out one too many times and foolishly not allowing the injury enough time to "heal," (and I use the term "heal" loosely because it never actually did and just became increasingly damaged) I ended up in putting myself into an immobilizing boot full time because of the collapsing extending itself into normal walking.

The first round of physical therapy made no difference, and I did a consultation with a different physical therapy place to see what they said. After going over my situation and having an assessment of my ankle with the physical therapist, I asked if he were in my shoes what he would choose to do. He said that if it were him, he'd do the surgery and follow it up with physical therapy to regain strength and balance.

So I had the surgery to fix it once and for all on January 19. (I was hoping to have the surgery ASAP, but couldn't do it in December like I originally hoped. My insurance was changing in January.)

The injury was apparently worse than the doctor initially thought it was, and I haven't been able to put any weight at all on it since then. I had been very much hoping to be able to put some weight on it again at my 3 week follow up, but no dice. I've been stuck exclusively on a knee scooter cart and crutches for over 5 weeks now. It's been such a struggle, in so many ways.

I've left the house literally 3 times since I got home after the surgery. Two follow up appointments with the foot and ankle doctor, and an interesting session of marriage counseling while I was drugged out of my mind on prescription painkillers. I honestly don't remember much of it, or that week in general. I was very happy to transition to ibuprofen and acetaminophen after the first week post-op.

I haven't been able to weigh myself since my last weigh in before the surgery on January 16, which is taking a very, very heavy toll on me and my mental health.

I've been having recurring nightmares about getting back on the scale and weighing more than I ever have in my life -- like 70+ lbs more than I did when I last weighed myself in January. I know rationally that I've actually lost weight and am very likely under 300 lbs now, but there's still this deep, nauseating fear that I'm wrong and weigh more than I ever did.

My husband assures me that he can tell that I've lost weight, but it doesn't feel real to me with my skewed perception -- like my brain tells me that the clothes that fit differently were obviously messed up while they were being washed and just ended up stretched out somehow.

I took measurements of my body when I started losing weight in September, and as of a week or so ago, I've lost 7" in my bust and hips and 5" in my waist. My brain tries to convince me that I just measured myself wrong in September, like I could somehow measure myself wrong with over 7" of difference with the exact same tape measure.

It makes no logical sense.

I have another follow up appointment with the foot and ankle doctor on Monday morning and get to find out if I can put weight on my left leg again after some x-rays to check my healing progress. (That makes me nervous because I still have some prominent bruises on one of my thighs that I had on January 20. They've gone from purple to brown, but they're still very obvious. It's supposed to take 2 weeks for bruises to go away. Not 5+.)

I really don't know that I can handle having to wait even longer to weigh myself again and start the process of getting back to walking and eventually working out.

I want so desperately to be able to make progress toward my goals instead of just miserably stagnating here.

I want to lose the weight. I want to be healthier. I want to feel better about myself. I want to have the chance to finally figure out things with my husband, even if the conclusion we ultimately come to isn't what I'm hoping for. I want to find a nice guy to date. I just want to move forward, actually live my life.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk, I guess?

[bugsnax]

fun facts about my neopets!

mostly like, how i got them! bc idk why but i keep all this information tucked in my brain all the time

weetjetokje was My Very First Ever Xweetok rescued from an 18 year old account that i thought was lost to time until i submitted a ticket and was able to get it back! as soon as i got her, i vowed that she'd never leave my side again and painted her starry! i believe i rescued her from the pound shortly after creating my account, since she's around a week older than the account itself.

bliaz was a gift from someone i can only imagine was a former unconverted trader who just wanted their former UC plushie cybunny to go to a good home. they randomly messaged me after seeing my board post looking for one and just offered to adopt her out to me 😭 she was born in 2001!! she is my oldest neopet

on the subject of gifts, the following other pets were random gifts:

Northdawn - the thing that sold me on keeping her was the fact that she's a royalboy grarrl, but her gender is female. i LOVE royal pets with funky genders, this is a thing with me (Jittomiru is also a female royalboy pet!!)

i gained a reputation for being a Xweetok Fanatic on the neoboards, and thus quite a few people just Gave Me their painted xweeetoks bc they knew i'd give them a good home. this includes:

-Soahpe

-Snomad

who were both given to me/traded to me by the same person! she wanted Snomad to go to a good home so she struck me a good trade deal, but she just gave Soahpe to me! :3

Mortanio has a similar origin story in which another person on the boards who LOVES xweetoks had him, but wasn't feeling inspired by his character. so they agreed to trade him to me on the premise that i keep him as a permie since i was looking for a halloween xweetok at the time!

Lilovia also was obtained like this!! she was technically my third robot xweetok i owned, and her previous owner agreed to do a robot xweetok nameswap with me bc i told them i'd keep Lilovia as a permie!

star_saver was a pound rescue who i saw was stuck in there since 2015 on lost and pound. it made my heart hurt bc his name was so sweet, so i exchanged one of my pets so that someone would rescue him from the pound, paint him relic, then trade him to me. (this is a weird arbitrary rule neopets has regarding trading pets for customs. don't worry about it)

i got InfernalCreature and Muimie from the same pet auction house last fall! this is a recurring bit where i will walk into a random pet auction house (or pah for short) and leave with one or two permies i didn't intend on getting.....i don't know why but these are the ones i usually end up latching onto the strongest too????!

i spent like a week THROWING all the fodder i found at FireEmblem's former owner before something struck their fancy and they agreed to trade him. i then rejoiced for like a month afterwards. he was the reason i got into neocash trading! bc i kNEW he needed to have a kickass custom to match his name.

prince_curse was another pound rescue who i had painted darigan then traded to me. i actually did trade him once in a pah, but i immediately regretted it and traded him BACK when i saw him listed in another pah :'3

Yhgo was obtained through a giveaway from a little group called "Second Chance Robotics" on the boards! they zap pets robot and then adopt them out to people! they were celebrating a milestone in their group, so they were giving away a robot draik to celebrate. robot draiks are notoriously tricky to obtain, as you can ONLY get them via the secret lab ray. i ended up applying and i wasn't chosen. BUT! the people in the group loved my application so much, they agreed to send me a completely DIFFERENT robot draik! and that's how i got Yhgo! :D

i think i might have rescued TroubledAngel from the pound bc i really wanted a stealthy gelert and that name just SCREAMED edgy guy to me. i used my premium perk to paint him stealthy bc this was back when stealthy paintbrushes were REALLY expensive

[idsfantasy]

Wait I thought FNAF 3 took place in 2015

FNAF 3 takes place 30 years after the closing of Freddy's, and Freddy's finally fully closed in FNAF 1, which as far as we can tell is 1993. If we are going off of from the Missing Children Incident, that would be 2015, however Henry's Insanity Ending tape in FFPS is labeled HRY223, so unless the number is completely arbitrary I think at least one of those games is 2023

[vlogbrothershistory]

January 02 in Vlogbrothers History

2007: Brotherhood 2.0: January 1st

2007: Brotherhood 2.0: January 2nd

2009: Brotherhood 2.0.0.9

2012: Changes to Vlogbrothers

2015: Why is The Alphabet In Alphabetical Order? Eight Completely Arbitrary Things

2018: BRING IT IN 2018

[sweatybouquetarcade]

Ethereum Blockchain

Introduction 

What is Ethereum blockchain

Ethereum is a decentralized open source blockchain that allows the programmers to create smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in 2015 by Vitali  Buter in and a group of developers Ethereum opened many avenues for the blockchain technology beyond mere financial transactions. Ether allows several operations in the network including the use of the native currency on the platform.

Indeed, Ethereum creates and develops an open-source blockchain platform for developers to design and deploy decentralized applications or dApps as well as smart contracts. Since it was built in the year 2015, Ethereum is no longer a simple financial transaction focused technology employed by many users and organizations.

Key  Features:

Smart Contracts: 

 Self-executing agreements whose terms are directly expressed in codes that can then be executed for an automated execution of a contract without trust concerns. 

Ethereum Executable Models (EVM): 

               Ethereum Executable Models (EVM) is the runtime environment of smart contracts, which can ensure the same transaction behavior at every node in a network. This shows that even if there are multiple nodes, the smart contracts would behave exactly the same without any failure. 

Decentralized Applications (DApps): 

Applications that operate completely on the blockchain infrastructure would have access to the Ethereum infrastructure. 

Ether (ETH): 

The built-in coin of the platform to conduct transactions and run computations. It would also serve as a reward for validators on the network. 

Consensus Mechanism; 

The change is now from PoW to PoS, which is expected to bring energy efficiency and will help with scalability. 

ERC Standards: 

Token and NFT interoperability standards within the ecosystem, such as ERC - 20 and ERC - 721 with rules defined by protocols. 

Decentralized finance 

 includes financial services being built on Ethereum, away from traditional banking systems. 

Smart Contracts: The Building Blocks of Ethereum

Smart contracts are the heart of Ethereum  functionality Self executing agreements coded directly into the lines of code. These contracts execute automatically on the fulfillment of predefined conditions effectively removing intermediaries from the equation, along with considerably minimizing the chance of disputes. For instance a smart contract may release funds to a seller once a buyer confirms to receipt of goods  there by making transactions efficient and increasing trust between the parties. 

Ethereum smart contracts run on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to achieve the goal of identical execution on all nodes that constitute their network. This consistency in execution facilitates the development of complicated dApps that interact through various smart contracts, thus creating a variety of decentralized services.

The Ethereum Virtual Machine, or EVM, The Ethereum Virtual Machine, or EVM, is a decentralized computing environment where smart contracts run ot the Ethereum blockchain. Smart contracts execute uniformly and securely across network nodes providing a base for decentralized applications or dApps

Generally, all the following come into play with an EVM:

Execution:

 Precise Execution of Contracts: Execution of smart contracts is through nodes across the Ethereum network. So, smart contracts are executed with the same uniformity irrespective of the nodes initiating its process. This makes the network fairly decentralized and hence more robust and trustworthy.

Turing Completeness: 

  The instruction set is Turing-complete such that it is capable of performing a variety and multitude of computations; hence, complex and pretty much arbitrary smart contracts come into existence.

Isolation and Security:

 The environment in which contracts are run is isolated such that contracts are run in a box or sandbox away from the host environment. Thus, a malicious contract does not affect the base system or other contracts, which forces the integrity assurance of the network.

Decentralized Applications (DApps):

Based on decentralized applications (dApps), they perform the functions of traditional software applications but use smart contracts for execution on the blockchain without the backing or dependence on centralized servers, thereby securing a high level of safety, transparency, and freedom from censorship for users.

 The effect of the holding of the application structure and data by a site such as Ethereum allows developers to rely on the logic of the application as well as the data to be actively dispersed across a repeatedly sound and operation from a network of nodes.

Ether (ETH): 

While Ethereum-based Ether (ETH) serves several critical functions within the Ethereum ecosystem  the primary function of the cryptocurrency is to serve as payment for the transaction fees and computational services on the network. Gas fees are incurred when users either initiate a transaction or engage on contracts. They are paid in ETH, which accepts the network participants as compensation for computational resources consumed during these processes, which can be difficult to assess.

Indeed, while it does provide its services to facilitate transaction fees, Ether helps secure the PoS consensus mechanism on Ethereum. Validators wishing to set up their system require staking of a minimum of 32 ETH as collateral. These validators propose and validate new blocks on the blockchain that earn rewards in return for their service via freshly minted ETH and transaction fees to incentivize them to keep the Ethereum network secure. 

Consensus Mechanism: 

The Ethereum transition from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS) at the close of September 2022 was an upgrade called "the Merge". As a result, the energy consumption of the network became approximately 99.95% reduced, thus solving the problem of high energy use in PoW with great improvement in the scale of operations at the network for allowing higher volumes of transactions to be handled in a more efficient manner. On the same note, PoS has added value in securities making it cost-prohibitive for malicious actors to attempt undermining the network-they should take control of the majority stake of the staked ether. Overall, this transition has made Ethereum quite a greener and scalable platform for decentralized applications.

ERC Standards: 

The Ethereum Request for Comments (ERC) standards refer to the technical specifications which determine the rules and guidelines for creating tokens on the Ethereum blockchain as well as interfacing with them. The standards exist to ensure interoperability and compatibility among the different tokens and dApps within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Types of ERC

ERC-10

ERC-20: 

ERC-721

ERC-1155: 

Decentralized finance 

DeFi is a blockchain-enabled financial system one which operates wholly distanced from all intermediaries. That is, DeFi operates on its own without banks or any other traditional financial institution. Emphasizing on the built in platforms such as Ethereum and other smart contract users are able to participate in different financial activities through the decentralized application or dApps. Some of these include lending, borrowing, trading, and earning interests with their cryptocurrencies. Key features of DeFi encompass decentralized exchanges (DEXs)  liquidity pools yield farming and stablecoins. DeFi democratizes, as it eliminates central control, furthering the idea of transparency accessibility, and inclusion in finance while also cutting costs and risks of censorship.

Conclusion

Ethereum has revolutionized the blockchain technology, prevailing over mere financial transactions with smart contracts as well as decentralised applications-and-more, providing all sorts of services standing under the banner of decentralised finance (DeFi). Ethereum is an open-source and decentralised blockchain by which developers could develop applications that are secure, transparent and resistant to censorship with a whole new definition for the industries that include finance, gaming, and social media.

[nursingwriter]

SYNTHESIS Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), glucose intolerance recognized during pregnancy, affects approximately 7% of all pregnancies in the United States. GDM, diagnosed by an abnormal oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) done during the second trimester. Women diagnosed with GDM are at a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and hypertension. With this prevalence, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) has recommended screening women with GDM 6-12 weeks after delivery, which roughly coincides with the timing of their first postpartum visit. For almost 90% of women diagnosed with GDM, glucose intolerance will resolve immediately after delivery, but their risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus is 35% to 60%. There is also a likelihood of the woman adversely affecting their future offspring when they become pregnant again with undiagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus or they experience recurrent GDM. There is a need to analyze the factors contributing to and hinder women's screening during their postpartum visit. The literature review will be structured using identified variables to focus on the barriers, attitude, knowledge and awareness, and postpartum screening visits. These themes will establish the importance of screening for GDM during the postpartum visit and its impact on compliance with healthcare. Synthesis of Literature Postpartum Screening Visits A majority of new mothers will not miss out on their first postpartum visit, which would be the opportune time for them to undergo GDM screening. As posited by Bandyopadhyay, Small, and Davey (2015), many women are aware of the risks and perceived inevitability of developing type 2 diabetes. Hence, they would be willing to present themselves for GDM screening during their 6-week postpartum visit. However, as Cho et al. (2015) noted, 51% of women who had been diagnosed with GDM failed to return to complete their postpartum glucose testing. Therefore, there is a need to determine the reasons for these high noncompliance numbers and determine ways of increasing compliance (Korpi-Hyövälti et al., 2012). Carson et al. (2015) established one of the reasons for noncompliance was directing the women to undergo testing at an outside laboratory instead of the same hospital where they are undergoing their postpartum visit. Having the women going to an outside laboratory becomes hectic, and most women will not present to the laboratory due to the time-consuming nature of the process. Considering the recommended screening time for GDM by the ADA is an arbitrary endpoint. Women diagnosed with GDM can be screened immediately after delivery and before their discharge as a way of increasing compliance with postpartum testing (Carter et al., 2018). Early testing increases the rates of tested women since the patients are relaxed and still in the hospital. With the initial postpartum OGTT results, patients can be informed of their abnormal results early, which would encourage them to come for their follow-up test during their first postpartum visit (Sunny et al., 2020). Knowledge and Awareness The underlying reason for the low numbers of women who return for GDM screening is the lack of knowledge and awareness. When the women are first diagnosed with GDM during their pregnancy, the physician will inform them of the need for a follow-up test after delivery (Carter et al., 2018). However, the way the information is shared might not be conducive, which limits patient knowledge and awareness of their condition. The knowledge and awareness are not only limited to patients but healthcare staff as well. As noted by Carson et al. (2015), many women will see a doctor within six months of them delivering, and even with a recent history of GDM, they will still not receive postpartum testing. Cho et al. (2015) support this finding, indicating women are less likely to receive postpartum testing when they visit private clinics and community clinics than those who visit hospital-based clinics. The researchers established the physicians seeing the women for their postpartum visit might not have access to the patient's antenatal records. Rosenbloom and Blanchard (2018) established the need to increase providers' and patients' training to increase screening for diabetes among GDM patients. The researchers noted a general failure of compliance with diabetes screening recommendations made by physicians. The provider training level contributes to resident physicians being more likely to follow guidelines and orders for the postpartum screening test. Shah, Lipscombe, Feig, and Lowe (2011) have shown the patient's lack of knowledge to be a contributing factor. The failure to educate patients on the risk factors does play a massive role in reducing postpartum screening. Sunny et al. (2020) and Tang et al. (2015) indicate the importance of educating women as they have demonstrated women who have excellent knowledge about the risk of GDM were more likely to request and take up screening. Barriers to Testing Barriers faced by the women include the lack of time for the test, physicians not making the test request, being overwhelmed by the baby, and fear of a positive result. The recommended test is a 2-hour GTT postpartum screening test. The women have indicated they feel the test is too long, which was a huge deterrent for the women (Carson et al., 2015). Having a young baby and leaving the baby or going to the clinic with the baby and staying there for those extended periods was not favorable for most women (Sunny et al., 2020). The women have to choose between their health and caring for their young baby. In most cases, the women will opt to postpone the test, which results in them never taking the test as they continue to lack the time. Physicians have been a barrier too, numerous women have visited clinics multiple times, having been diagnosed with GDM, and they still did not get the test (Rosenbloom & Blanchard, 2018). Bandyopadhyay et al. (2015) found the physician's lack of information or the failure to hand over patient records to be the underlying cause of this issue. Korpi-Hyövälti et al. (2012) added communication needs to be improved between primary care physicians and obstetrics and gynecology care providers, ensuring patient information is appropriately shared and follow-up done. New mothers feel overwhelmed by the baby, especially if they do not receive any support from family members. In most cases, the women did not have someone to leave the baby with, and the healthcare facility did not have baby care services (Cho et al., 2015). Mothers had to stay with the baby for the test's duration, which prevented many mothers from doing the test (Shah et al., 2011). The lack of assistance for the mothers in caring for the baby when they go for the test is a hindrance that echoed by Bandyopadhyay et al. (2015). Without any assistance or someone to leave the baby with, mothers get overwhelmed, preferring the comfort of their homes, instead, of spending extended hours in the hospital with a young baby. Sunny et al. (2020) and Man (2016) noted the fear of a positive result, where women would genuinely express, they feared being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Some mothers failed to undergo the testing as they were reluctant to find out if they had diabetes. The stigma associated with the diagnosis of diabetes was enough to discourage the mothers from undergoing the test. Attitude Compounded with the fear of receiving a positive result is the attitude some women have towards the disease. According to Bandyopadhyay et al. (2015), women who are in their twenties are highly likely to ignore recommendations for further screening as they would like to enjoy their life without any restrictions. The young women felt restricted during their pregnancy, and they did not want to continue with this restriction after delivery, contributing to them not wanting to know or worrying about type 2 diabetes mellitus (Carter et al., 2018). However, Man (2016) discovered that women with a more significant number of health visits are most likely to undergo postpartum screening. Their frequent interaction with healthcare professionals, which also increases their awareness of the disease and the need for testing, could be the reason. There was a change in attitude amongst women with frequent health visits. With this information, Carter et al. (2018) pushed for early screening of the women. Screening after delivery and before leaving the hospital raises the patient's awareness of the condition and increases their likelihood of returning for their postpartum screening. Even with the women who would be willing to undergo the testing, some did not like the glucose syrup (Shah et al., 2011). After taking the OGTT during their pregnancy, some women would do anything to avoid retaking it. They stated the drink was too sweet and cannot drink water to reduce its sweetness. Tang et al. (2015) noted the best way to change the women's attitude is to link the diagnosis of GDM with the risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus and leverage the women's focus on their children to encourage them to change their behavior. Synthesis Table Postpartum Screening Visits Knowledge and Awareness Barriers to Testing Attitude Bandyopadhyay et al. (2015) X X X Carson et al. (2015) X X X Carter et al. (2018) X X X Cho et al. (2015) X X X Korpi-Hyövälti et al. (2012) X X Man (2016) X X Rosenbloom and Blanchard (2018) X X Shah et al. (2011) X X Sunny et al. (2020) X X X X Tang et al. (2015) X X References Bandyopadhyay, M., Small, R., & Davey, M.-A. (2015). Attendance for postpartum glucose tolerance testing following gestational diabetes among South Asian women in Australia: A qualitative study. J Womens Health Issues Care, 4(1), 1-8. Carson, M. P., Morgan, B., Gussman, D., Brown, M., Rothenberg, K., & Wisner, T. A. (2015). SUGAR: spotting undiagnosed glucose abnormal results—a new protocol to increase postpartum testing among women with gestational diabetes mellitus. American journal of perinatology, 32(03), 299-306. https://www.paperdue.com/customer/paper/benefits-screening-women-for-diabetes-after-delivery-2175783#:~:text=Logout-,BenefitsScreeningwomenforDiabetesafterDelivery,-Length6pages Carter, E. B., Martin, S., Temming, L., Colditz, G., Macones, G. A., & Tuuli, M. G. (2018). Early versus 6–12 week postpartum glucose tolerance testing for women with gestational diabetes. Journal of Perinatology, 38(2), 118-121. Cho, G. J., An, J.-J., Choi, S.-J., Oh, S.-y., Kwon, H.-S., Hong, S.-C., & Kwon, J.-Y. (2015). Postpartum glucose testing rates following gestational diabetes mellitus and factors affecting testing non-compliance from four tertiary centers in Korea. Journal of Korean medical science, 30(12), 1841-1846. Korpi-Hyövälti, E., Laaksonen, D. E., Schwab, U., Heinonen, S., & Niskanen, L. (2012). How can we increase postpartum glucose screening in women at high risk for gestational diabetes mellitus? International journal of endocrinology, 2012. Man, B. (2016). Diabetes Screening in US Women with a History of Gestational Diabetes. Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics Michelle A. Kominiarek …. Rosenbloom, J. I., & Blanchard, M. H. (2018). Compliance with postpartum diabetes screening recommendations for patients with gestational diabetes. Journal of women's health, 27(4), 498-502. Shah, B., Lipscombe, L., Feig, D., & Lowe, J. (2011). Missed opportunities for type 2 diabetes testing following gestational diabetes: a population?based cohort study. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 118(12), 1484-1490. Sunny, S. H., Malhotra, R., Ang, S. B., Lim, C. D., Tan, Y. A., Soh, Y. B., . . . Lock, S. S. (2020). Facilitators and Barriers to Post-partum Diabetes Screening Among Mothers With a History of Gestational Diabetes Mellitus–A Qualitative Study From Singapore. Frontiers in Endocrinology, 11. Tang, J. W., Foster, K. E., Pumarino, J., Ackermann, R. T., Peaceman, A. M., & Cameron, K. A. (2015). Perspectives on prevention of type 2 diabetes after gestational diabetes: a qualitative study of Hispanic, African-American and White women. Maternal and child health journal, 19(7), 1526-1534. Read the full article

[brid-jagtap]

Blog#9

Semiotics:

Semiotics is the study of the signs, symbol and their use or interpretation. Video games heavily rely on semiotics, to convey narratives, emotions and gameplay mechanics. There are three main types of signs, which I’ll discuss with examples in this blog.

In video games, signs can be of different types, visual, auditory, or even interactive. They help players to understand gameplay mechanics, get information, navigate through the game world, and complete objectives.

The three types of signs:

Symbolic Signs:

Arbitrary signs have a conventional or culturally specific relation between signifier and signified, meaning they rely on cultural or contextual understanding.

Examples of these Symbolic  signs in games:

Currency symbols- In Legend of Zelda, the rupee is the symbolic of game currency. Some games can have multiple currency symbols for different currencies, for example, Helldivers 2 has about 5-6 different types of symbolic currencies. The player would understand their value and importance based on the context provided in the game, rather than their appearance and the literal meanings.

Quest markers- Some games use exclamation marks “!”, like The Witcher 3, or World of Warcraft. While some games might use question marks “?” as quest markers. Its meaning is not inherent but has become known by players.

Iconic Signs:

Signs that resemble what they represent, these signs have a direct correlation to their real-world objects or concepts. These signs do not require extra contextual knowledge of that game.

Map symbols- Games like Assassin’s Creed, and Far Cry, have landmarks like towers bridges or icons resembling certain animals, these signs represent their meaning without the games' contextual help. They have a direct correlation with real-world signs.

Health packs- Health packs in games, for example, the Mafia series, Half-Life have red/ green crosses on the packs which is an iconic sign as it is similar to real-world medical kits.

Indexical Signs:

The signs that indicate or point to something else through an indirect or direct connection.

Examples:

Footprints and tracks: In games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, footprints in snow or mud can serve as indexical signs, indicating the direction of the objective or NPC has taken.

Environment cues: Sometimes games focus the player's attention on a particular section with and quick time event or environmental cue, some games like Heavy Rains or some horror games use music and sound cues to focus the player's attention or warn about upcoming danger. These are types of indexical signs.

Semiotics in video games are very crucial. They enhance the player's experience through signs, they guide the player through the story and gameplay without explicit instructions. Semiotics bridges the gap between developers and gamers, ensuring an intuitive and engaging gameplay experience. As a game designer, we communicate complex ideas through signs without interrupting the gameplay experience of the players. This subtlety allows players to immerse themselves fully in the world, unconsciously unveiling the secrets of the game.

Reference:

Arrowhead Game Studios (2024). Helldivers 2.

CD Projekt RED (2015). The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Nintendo. The official home for The Legend of Zelda

Ubisoft. (2004-). Far Cry

Ubisoft Montreal. (2007-) The Assassin's Creed.

Valve Corporation (1998). Half-Life.

[everygame]

Subterfuge (iOS)

Developed/Published by: Ron Carmel and Noel Llopis Released: 15/10/2015 Completed: 25/11/2024 Completion: Finished a free-for-all game, and came fourth.

As I’ve mentioned previously, it’s been hard to find time for gaming over the last few months–I play about one substory in Yakuza 4 every three days, currently–which is why I’ve attempted to fill in the blanks with a side-quest in early Star Wars games, but I haven’t even been able to rush through those either (I mean, original research???)

So of course it makes sense to play a game that takes a week in real time.

Released in 2015, Subterfuge is a “slow real-time strategy” where a group of players in an underwater setting are attempting to mine an arbitrary amount of “Neptunium” before the others do. You do this by accumulating outposts and turning them into mines; you do that by growing your army of “drillers” via factories, powered by generators, and sending submarines full of drillers or specialist characters out to either capture or conquer other outposts. Of course, every player is doing that, and if you’re trapped in an endless war against every other player no one will ever win, so you can also rely on diplomacy–via the in-game chat function–to make informal alliances, allowing you to pick and choose which fronts to battle on. But of course, as the game ticks on, there are incentives to turn on the players with the most mining capability, attack those who are weakest, or even just get into a scrap because you’ve got the capacity.

The most obvious comparison is Risk. If you’ve ever played Risk, you know a couple of things–one, the game has astonishingly simple rules, and two, it is either the most tedious or aggravating game you will ever play depending on which point of the game you are playing. (Risk is a game, honestly, that I intend to never play again; more than that, it’s got me to the point where there are people that I’ll never play any board game with again!)

This makes Suberfuge an extremely Risk-y proposition [I see what you did there-Ed.]. Not only does it include a simple ruleset (there really isn’t much more to it than counting up drillers, sending submarines out, and diplomacy) with a similarly brutal design that requires aggression and even treachery from players, it does it in a way that draws the experience out agonizingly slowly. Imagine Risk where you declare you’re going to move a piece from A to B, and then slowly push it across the table… for eight hours. And while that’s going on, the rest of the players are slowly moving pieces around too.

But this doesn’t make Subterfuge feel like a slow board game. Instead it creates a unique reality.

Playing Risk, there’s an easy abstraction. You move your pieces, you throw dice, you win or lose. It is immediate, and brutal, and can put any player over the edge. But these are tokens on a board.

In Subterfuge, you don’t feel like a player. The slow play is transformative. Tokens move instantly, real submarines take time to get places. You feel like an actual general; it is entirely possible that at this minute generals are looking at tablets that show the location of their submarines across the world, and that with a tap or a drag they could redirect any of them and start WWIII.

This gives Subterfuge a cold, disturbing texture, akin to drone bomings in a Call of Duty: your play feels indistinguishable from the real, no matter your physical context.

When playing Subterfuge, every movement is filled with terrible significance. In Risk, the roll of the die allows for luck; in Subterfuge, every battle is a clear war of attrition. If you attack, you know you are sending tens of men to their deaths in a war for resources, and when you make that decision, you have to sit for four, eight, twelve hours or more as those men creep towards their doom.

And then suddenly you see your opponent reinforce their outpost, and you know every man is lost, and there is nothing you can do about it.

My mind was drawn to WWI, but I think of the generals of the present day too, who have and will always send men gleefully to their deaths. Because there’s still an abstraction, there’s always an abstraction; it’s what allows you to send those men to their death in the first place, and that’s what makes this game strangely disgusting and terrifying. 

You don’t feel bad because those men are dead.

You feel bad because you didn’t win.

And now you know that is what it really feels like.

Will I ever play it again? No.

Final Thought: Now, I’m not saying Subterfuge is a bad game. In fact, quite the opposite. I think it’s a powerful experience, just one that’s almost impossible to recommend. For one, if you play it with a group of friends, I imagine it could cause Risk-style rammies if not even worse; if you play it with randoms, as I did, there’s no guarantee of a decent game or one without toxic players (the moderation tools are, sadly, close-to-nonexistent.) 

Anyway, here’s Thomas Dolby with “One of Our Submarines” to play us out. Take it away, Thomas!

Every Game I’ve Finished 14>24 is OUT NOW! You can pick it up in paperback, kindle, or epub/pdf. You can also support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up digital copies of exp., a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[songstuckinmahead]

My personally curated playlists:

Information about my main four playlists and links for you to enjoy ;)

VH1 Classic:

Named after the channel this playlist contains "absolutely none of today's hottest new music". Starting as just 70s rock and 80s soundtracks, now curates the top hits of the 20s century from the 50s with Singing In The Rain to the 90s with Ice Ice Baby.

With pop only starts to be conceived, a diverse mix of rock, disco and more makes this playlist the perfect counter to pop.

Except for the Beatles. They're banned.

5 important songs:

I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) - Whitney Houston

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

Vogue - Madonna

Hound Dog - Elvis Presley

I'm gonna be (500 miles) - The Proclaimers

M1LL3NNIUM:

If you like those bot-controled engagement bait 00s nostalgia pages on Instagram, twitter or tiktok then this is the playlist for you.

Well, partly, i originally made this playlist to be the pop counter with emo rock music but atfer moving songs from the other playlists, (including the entire 90s boyband genre,) we have a more complete era to listen to.

Despite it's name, there are songs in the playlist from 1987(Step By Step) to 2023 (Speak Now TV Vault Tracks)

5 important songs:

I Want It That Way - Backstreet Boys

I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas

Welcome To The Black Parade - My Chemical Romance

All Star - Smash Mouth

Toxic - Britney Spears

10s:

The 10s being the decade i grew up with makes this playlist the biggest on this list as i heard the song as they came out and not just a retrospective chart listen.

The transition from the previous playlist to this is arbitrary, based on what vibes with me and probably no logic behind it.

The playlists picture is the top 4 artists by amount of songs in it as well as how i personally would divide the decade to sub-eras: Pink Friday - Nicki Minaj (2009-2012), 1989 - Taylor Swift (2013-2015), Get Weird - Little Mix (2015-2017) Thank U, Next - Ariana Grande (2017-2019)

5 important songs:

Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen

What Makes You Beautiful - One Direction

We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together - Taylor Swift

Feel This Moment - Pitbull and Christina Aguilera

I Love It - Icona Pop and Charli xcx

20s:

With a new decade comes a new generation with their own preferences such as TikTok, nostalgia, K-pop and a bigger LGBTQ+ identity. Those affect pop music today by making songs shorter, sample older songs, multilingual, and openly sexual (the latter could've also happened because I became an adult).

How i see the transition between these playlists is not as random: summer of 2019 had Señorita, summer of 2020 had WAP, the time between was covid lockdown.

Several songs from 2018-19 have their remixes in this playlist as well as modern (2016 onwards) Eurovision songs.

With only half of the decade passed this playlist still has more potential behind it.

5 important songs:

WAP - Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion

Say So remix - Doja Cat and Nicki Minaj

Driver's License - Olivia Rodrigo

Physical - Dua Lipa

Rain On Me - Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande

[la-principessa-nuova]

I am getting very confused about my own egg-cracking timeline.

Trans Ramblings

In 2015 I first started to question when (to keep it short) something I was reading lead to me basically thinking, “Why do people feel that they relate to characters of their own gender more? I don’t. In fact I feel like I relate more to female characters. I wonder if they’re just inherently more relatable. That or I’m trans, lol. Ha ha… ha? Wait… Could I be?”

Then I had a brief phase (a couple weeks to a month maybe) of deep introspection and exploring the concept of identifying internally as a woman. Then somehow over time it faded into the background and somehow I just let it sit unresolved.

Then I’m kind of blurry on the next 8 years. I know that from time to time when I was alone with my thoughts, I would think about it, and I always landed on, “Well I’m definitely not cis, but I’m fine being a guy, so it’s probably best to not rock the boat and just tell myself I’m probably nonbinary and keep using he/him and presenting the same.”

But I also know that every time I played a video game and picked/created a girl character (as I always had), after that realization, I was aware what I was doing. I kept saying it was for cis reasons if someone asked, but I was fully aware this was my escape to be who I wanted to be, and knew that I was engaging with sides of the game that were about experiencing femininity through the character (e.g. focusing on the character’s outfits heavily since I couldn’t dress fem IRL). I stressed over what to name each character, making sure the name felt right on me.

But I think it was a slow realization from initially feeling inside that it might be for trans reasons, but suppressing that thought, to the last few years practically giggling with glee every time my in-game outfit looked cute and felt like me.

And then in the last few years, I know I still kept landing on probably being nonbinary every time I went over it again, but shifting more and more fem each time, but I remember having all but accepted it. And I thought that for the past year or so it was just a few well intentioned but misleading videos I saw that had temporarily convinced me I couldn’t be a trans woman.

But then last night I was looking at my old notes (basically diary entries) and found stuff where I was very intentionally applying masculine words to myself in a completely private, personal context. I even had one where I was personifying the different moods I get into, and they were all masculine names. I remember knowing at the time that they were basically arbitrary and barely fit, but I can’t even get myself into a headspace now to understand how I would have picked those names, and I feel offended by myself to have these masculine names applied to me. The only thing is that I don’t remember if maybe I intentionally misgendered myself with that one because I was worried if someone (literally who though?) looked through my phone and saw fem names, but then I could have just used descriptive words and not names, so IDK.

But it’s like there was this weird veil where 1% of the time, I was fully aware I was probably trans for the past 8 years, and by the time I fully accepted it in December it had grown to like 2%, but the other 98-99% of the time, I didn’t just pretend not be trans, I completely forgot and went about saying I was male.

Then I finally finished processing the thought, and it went from a rare thing I think about sometimes to all-encompassing. Part of it for sure is that I’ve recognized the dysphoria for what it is. Now when I see myself in the mirror and feel bad, I realize it’s my gender presentation, not my weight that makes me feel that way. When I look in the mirror and it feels like the person in the mirror isn’t me, I realize it’s because the person in the mirror looks male, not because I must be dehydrated or something. When I become aware of my genitals being in the way, I realize it’s because they’re the wrong ones. When I am called a man or he/him and it feels wrong, I realize it’s because I should be called she/her, not because I’m just not comfortable with adult words being applied to me yet.

All of these things are constant reminders that I’m trans, and things that made me feel uncomfortable in a way I couldn’t place and I moved on from are now things I have a name for and can identify, so of course now I see the connection and have them on my mind.

But I’m still confused how I thought of it so little and made so little process in processing these thoughts in 8 years. And it leaves me confused on when exactly egg cracked. Was it in 2015 when I said, “Wait… am I trans?” And decided the answer was probably yes but I wasn’t going to do anything about it? Or was it in 2023 when I became confident in my answer and realized how much dysphoria I was actually experiencing?

[glassbirdfeather]

Learning to mod Elden Ring has really made me appreciate how good other games I've touched have it.

I will still argue that (the ~2015 version of) Advance Map for Pokemon games is clunky and a real pain to use--and if you want to make a Pokemon game you should use Pokemon Reborn as your base instead.

And yet, having the perspective of glancing at Star Rod for Paper Mario 64 and gone, "I'm not good enough to learn this yet," then a few years later playing with the ~8+ individual tools needed just to VIEW Elden Ring's files...

Man, I'm trying to make an enemy do one specific, non-vanilla thing, and I could have made a custom dungeon complete with fully custom enemies and art assets in Paper Mario by now.

I have barely changed the enemy's AI and I still don't know if what I want to do is even possible with the tools currently available. I've hit 100 dead ends and half of my troubleshooting time has been due to me recompiling files wrong.

I have one simple goal: warp an enemy to an arbitrary location a set distance from the player. God help me.

Also, I HATE HATE HATE that the place for souls modding is a fucking discord channel, what was wrong with forums?? Please bring back forums!!!

[seemabhatnagar]

Maternity leave can’t be treated as break in service

Shafaqat & 5 others v. Jammu & Kashmir Bank & 2 others

WP (C) 3100/2023

Before High Court of Jammu & Kashmir & Ladakh at Srinagar

Writ Petition was allowed on 13.12.2023 by Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sanjeev Kumar & Bank was directed to treat the period of maternity leave availed by the petitioners during probation, as actual regular service in the Banking Associate Service cadre.

It was held that the petitioners having more than seven years actual service to their credit, are, therefore, entitled to participate in the promotion process for JMGS Scale-I Officers Cadre under Seniority cum Selectivity Channel.

Issue

Whether the period of maternity leave availed by the petitioners during probation, could be excluded from reckoning seven years actual service for the purposes of eligibility to seek consideration for promotion to Assistant Manager Cadre under “Seniority-cum-Normal/Screening Channel.

Background

The petitioners (6) have been working as Banking Associates in the Jammu and Kashmir Bank at Srinagar for more than seven years. Petitioners are aggrieved by the decision of the Bank treating their maternity leave period as “Break in Service”, as a consequence, they have been declared ineligible to participate in the process of promotion to the level of Assistant Manager Cadre under “Seniority-cum-Normal/Screening Channel”.

Submission of the petitioners

The petitioners were appointed as Banking Associates in the year 2013 on contractual basis for a period of two years. On completion of their contractual term, the Petitioners 1 to 4 were regularized with effect from 17th December 2015, while as Petitioners 5 and 6 were regularized with effect from 1 st January 2016 and 5 th January 2016 respectively.

During the probation period they applied for maternity leave it was sanctioned by the competent authority Jammu and Kashmir Bank Limited Officer Service Rules, 2000.

However, the petitioners were informed that the grant of maternity leave would result in extension of the period of probation.

Upon successful completion of probation services were confirmed.

The Bank initiated the process of promotion from Banking Associates to the Assistant Manager Cadre, invited the eligible Banking Associates to submit their willingness.

The petitioners having seven years’ service to their credit, submitted their willingness through People System for consideration under “Seniority-cum-Normal /Screening Channel”, but the same was not accepted by the Bank and instead the petitioners were shown eligible only under “Fast Track cum Merit Channel”.

As the petitioners were denied promotion under “Seniority-cum-Normal/Screening Channel”, they approached the GM -HR where they were verbally informed that the period of maternity availed by them, was been considered as ‘Break in Service’ and, therefore, they do not possess the requisite seven years of service to be considered in the Seniority -cum Normal/Screening Channel.

Submission of the petitioners

The decision of the Bank is illegal, arbitrary, discriminatory and violates Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. It is argued that the decision of the respondent Bank in treating the period of maternity leave duly sanctioned by the competent authority as ‘Break in Service’, subjects the petitioners to hostile discrimination on the basis of sex.

The J&K Bank Officers Service Manual, 2000 does not provide for such break in service.

Submission of the Respondent

The period spent by the petitioners on maternity leave cannot be construed to be regular service in Banking Associates Service cadre and, therefore, is required to be excluded from computing seven years regular service required for consideration under the “Seniority-cum-Normal/ Screening Channel” during probation.

Observation of the court

The decision of the Bank is totally arbitrary, discriminatory and violates Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

The decision of the respondent Bank is not even backed by the OSM 2000 read with the Rules of Promotion, as these were applicable at the relevant point of time.

Needless to say, that any employee including an employee of the J&K Bank while availing leave of any kind duly sanctioned by the competent authority, shall always be deemed to be in service.

Availing of leave of whatever kind including maternity leave by the women employees, does not result either in break of service or reduction of total service rendered by such employee by a quantum of leave availed.

If this argument of the learned counsel for the Bank is accepted, it would mean that the period of leave of whatever kind availed by an employee after the period of probation, shall also be deductible while reckoning seven years of service.

Admittedly, the Bank is not deducting such period from computation of seven years of service of an employee for the purpose of allowing him/her to participate in the promotion process under Seniority cum Selectivity Channel.

Viewed from any angle, the decision of the Bank to deduct the period of leave availed by an employee during probation while reckoning seven years of service required of a Banking Associate to participate in the promotion process under Seniority cum Selectivity Channel, is totally illegal, arbitrary and violative of Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

The Policy for Promotion of Workmen approved by the Board of Directors on 13.07.2022, also does not lay down any such condition. It is thus wrong to contend that the Bank is entitled in law to deduct the period of leave availed by a Banking Associate during his/her probation.

Order

I find merit in this petition and same is accordingly allowed and the Bank is directed to treat the period of maternity leave availed by the petitioners during probation, as actual regular service in the Banking Associate Service cadre.

 The petitioners having more than seven years actual service to their credit, are, therefore, entitled to participate in the promotion process for JMGS Scale-I Officers Cadre under Seniority cum Selectivity Channel.

Seema Bhatnagar

[open-hearth-rpg]

#HorrorRPGs2016 A New Series

With Superhero RPGs taken up to 2019, I’ve decide to move on to another genre: horror. It’s the one I began these histories lists with– and probably the one which most shows my evolution over time: short snippets to longer analysis, more & then less lumping together of elements, and even splitting off Cthulhu Horror into its own list. 

Given the sheer numbers, I’ve settled on focusing exclusively on core book rpgs. It leaves out some great and interesting sourcebooks for established lines (World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu) but shows us the kinds of games being developed. Perhaps in the future I’ll go back and do a list just focused on those materials. 

I’ve focused on printed materials first– i.e. if it had a print run, I included it. Then for electronic versions I look to see if it came from a company or was just personally web-published. I include the former but not the latter, with an arbitrary cut-off for length at about a couple dozen pages. I know that I may overlook some great stuff, but given the vast number of releases, I had to take an approach which would make it manageable.  

Another note– I’m beginning with 2016 because I apparently skipped it before, hopping from 2015 to 2017, the second time I’ve done that. Also I decided, despite how spectacular they are, to leave off the deluxe editions translations of existing games like L'Appel de Cthulhu 7e edition: Prestige. 

#HorrorRPGs2016 4Saken

This is built on the 4C System engine, originally created for supers. As I described it on an earlier list, “One of the first old-school superhero clones and another early crowdfunded product. The 4C System offers a basic engine for play, but encourages other publishers to build on it. Basically, 4C rebuilds the FASERIP mechanics from Marvel Super Heroes. This core engine can then be used to play out many different games.” 

It’s interesting to see FASERIP repurposed away from supers– a unique move. I’m curious about how the scaling of effects works here. Characters have Background, Skills, Traits, Contacts, Gifts, and Instincts. This last element combines with the new rules for Fear, with characters having different reactions to panic. 

While the PCs are called Survivors, this isn’t just a survival horror game. Instead it’s a generic one, intended to be highly adaptable. You can do monster-hunting, slasher films, mysteries, etc– though characters aren’t complete innocents (ala Fear Itself) but more competent. It’s a solid, easy to manage horror game and includes two sample adventures.