#BUT. your critical thinking skills Are determined by how you use context clues to make judgements about claims made in media

[shorthaltsjester]

i say this with all the kindness i can muster. the way some of y’all take with complete earnestness the statements made by characters who have been proven to be unsavoury/villainous/evil/(insert other suitable adjectives here) to be word-of-god factual is deeply concerning actually. like fiction is fiction and this is far from being an accusation about the morality of those who are curious about/compelled by the motivations of immoral characters. this is a deep concern i have for people who exist in a time where media of all kinds, fiction and nonfiction, is used to embed values in its audience. a concern i have for existing among people who don’t even question the truth/accuracy of statements made by the textual villains of stories before accepting them.

[thydungeongal]

What would you say are some good examples of knowledge checks in games being good gameplay?

I think for a lot of people knowledge checks seem like the obvious benefit of having a character with high Intelligence (or the system equivalent), that the character would be well-read and might have lots of knowledge about the game world that the player might not. As an alternative to the GM deciding arbitrarily whether the character knows a given specific fact.

Or alternatively, good ways of addressing the above issues without knowledge checks.

I also hear comments like "GMs don't gate your lore behind a roll" but the alternatives to that seem like either offering exposition outright, or having that lore be discoverable in game (in which case it might have even less chance of being found)

So, while I agree that Knowledge skills do provide, on the surface, a benefit for playing a high Intelligence character, the actual emergent gameplay resulting from Knowledge checks the way they are often handled does not generate interesting gameplay within the context of a game like D&D.

If it's a piece of lore that is not critical to overcoming a challenge but that could provide further context to a situation I personally find it preferable to show, not tell. Provide the players with all the clues they need to put together the bigger picture, but leave the actual sussing out to them. A knowledge check to hand out such lore is basically a binary dice roll to grant the players access to a lore dump.

As part of a challenge knowledge checks are also a bit irksome. To make a knowledge check an integral part of a challenge you basically have to gate access to some knowledge, either behind gameplay (exploring to find that knowledge) or a check. You could do both, and in many ways that can be rewarding, basically allowing characters with the requisite knowledge skill to skip the exploring to find that knowledge part of the gameplay. But at the same time, it can very much feel like robbing the group of gameplay because of a dice roll. A single dice roll used to resolve a question of "do your characters know a thing" will almost without fail be less interesting than a series of hurdles that characters overcome to answer the question of "how will your characters find out the thing."

As for good ways to handle knowledge and reward high character Intelligence in gameplay, I think there are ways to do it that can be tied to the process of finding a piece of knowledge: I am quite fond of @cavegirlpoems's application of it in The Stygian Library, where character Intelligence plays a part in the central point of the module, which is looking for a specific piece of information within the library. Character Intelligence does not act as a way to automatically solve the puzzle, but as one component of the greater library crawl that determines how long characters will have to spend in the fucked up library.

But yeah, knowledge-based gates are already kinda naff and having the key be a binary dice roll is effectively non-gameplay. I understand how knowledge skills made their way into D&D, as a way to make the process of figuring out what a character knows less arbitrary, but after almost thirty years of playing D&D and other games I kind of feel that especially in the context of fantasy adventure games knowledge skills are kind of a solution looking for a problem.

A few ways I have seen "knowledge" type skills handled in interesting ways in games:

A knowledge check basically lets the character bank a number of questions relevant to the check result that the GM has to answer truthfully when the player wants more knowledge about a situation relevant to the situation.

Fantasy Craft has Knowledge checks, but no single Knowledge skill. Instead, characters have Studies which translate to bonuses on Knowledge checks but can also grant bonuses to other checks given they relayed to the study. (This is one of my favorite ways of handling Knowledge within the context of d20 based fantasy adventure games.)

I can't actually think of a third example right now

[suvamgodecor]

Understanding Handwriting Patterns: A Deep Dive into Graphology

Handwriting is more than just a way to communicate. It can reveal insights into a person's personality, emotional state, and even their thought processes. This fascinating field of study is known as graphology, and it focuses on understanding handwriting patterns to decode the unique traits of individuals. Whether you're curious about your own handwriting or interested in what someone else's script says about them, learning to interpret handwriting patterns can offer intriguing perspectives.

What is Graphology?

Graphology is the analysis of handwriting with the aim of revealing information about a person’s character. Experts in this field focus on understanding handwriting patterns by examining various elements such as size, slant, pressure, spacing, and form. Each of these characteristics can provide valuable clues to someone’s personality and behavior. For instance, large handwriting can indicate confidence and extroversion, while small, compact writing might suggest introversion or attention to detail.

If you want to explore how your own writing reflects your personality, understanding handwriting patterns through professional analysis is an exciting way to get started.

Key Aspects of Handwriting Analysis

Size of Letters One of the key features in understanding handwriting patterns is the size of the letters. Large, bold handwriting often belongs to people who are outgoing and like to make their presence known, while smaller handwriting can indicate someone who is shy or meticulous.

Slant of the Writing The slant of your letters also provides essential information when understanding handwriting patterns. A rightward slant typically suggests openness and warmth, while a leftward slant could indicate caution or introversion. A neutral or upright slant points to balance and objectivity in thought and behavior.

Pressure Applied The amount of pressure applied while writing can reveal emotional intensity. Heavier pressure suggests strong emotions or a determined nature, whereas light pressure may indicate a more relaxed or easy-going disposition. By understanding handwriting patterns through pressure analysis, you can gain deeper insights into emotional tendencies.

Spacing Between Words and Letters Examining the spacing between letters and words is another important factor in understanding handwriting patterns. Wide spaces between words often imply a person enjoys their personal freedom and prefers to have some emotional distance from others. On the other hand, narrow spaces suggest that the writer feels more comfortable being surrounded by people and enjoys close connections.

Shape and Form of Letters The shape of letters also plays a vital role in graphology. Rounded letters are associated with creativity and an open mind, while angular letters may indicate that the writer is analytical or critical in their thinking. By understanding handwriting patterns, you can see how letter shapes reflect cognitive styles.

How Can Handwriting Analysis Benefit You?

By developing a deeper understanding of your own or others’ handwriting, you can gain more than just self-awareness. It can help in both personal and professional settings. Employers may use graphology to gauge the traits of job candidates, while individuals might use it as a tool for personal growth and reflection. Moreover, understanding handwriting patterns can also assist in therapeutic contexts by identifying underlying emotional issues or unexpressed feelings.

Whether you're curious about what your handwriting says about you or wish to explore how others’ writing reflects their personalities, understanding handwriting patterns through graphology can be a powerful skill.

Conclusion

Handwriting reveals a wealth of information that can offer unique insights into the psyche. By focusing on key elements like letter size, slant, pressure, spacing, and form, graphologists can unravel the mysteries behind the strokes and curves on the page. If you're eager to delve into this captivating subject, start by understanding handwriting patterns and exploring the fascinating world of graphology. You'll be amazed at how much you can learn from something as simple as a pen on paper.

[meichenxi]

Benefits of watching target language media without subtitles!

Or: why watching media without subtitles is not limited to advanced learners, and why you should incorporate it into your routine!

SO this is prompted by a personal anecdote: Yesterday I watched an episode of my favourite show (the untamed, go and watch it, heathens, it's gay and pretty and has beautiful sword fights and necromancers and revenge and insane character development and), and rather than keeping the subtitles on, I rather dubiously turned them off.

So no subs in Chinese or English.

And lo and behold - I could understand most things! Not everything, especially not specialised vocab or formal speech, but enough (with good knowledge of the plot already) to comfortably follow most conversations. Yeah, this was a surprise.

Watching media in your target language without subtitles is something that a lot of people think is restricted to advanced learners - learners at the stage where they can understand almost everything wihh subtitles in the target language (henceforth TL) itself, and is just used to train listening practice.

If you wait until you're at that stage to incorporate this into your language learning routine, though, you're missing out. And here's why.

Firstly, personal-situation specific: I usually learn best via reading, but my Chinese reading ability is much worse than my listening ability (immersion yay), and so turning on the Chinese subs just makes me annoyed and frustrated because I can't follow them quickly enough. I realise that for many people this may be the opposite way around, but for heritage speakers of languages that use an unfamiliar alphabet, or those (like me) who are not heritage speakers but because of various factors have had intense spoken immersion and little formal education (and thus some - SOME - of the same difficulties), subtitles can be a hindrance rather than a help. There are many posts targeting improving listening skills, but not so many looking at it the other way around, so it's important to remember such learners exist.

I found to my surprise that I picked up significantly more vocab with the subs off than with them on. Firstly, if you know the general plot and know enough to pick up the outline of the conversation, you contextualise any word automatically at the same time as using the context to provide clues for what the word could be - the example sentence defines the word, and the word comes automatically with an example sentence, which cements it in your memory far better than if you heard it in isolation. This fits nicely into the functionalist approach to language learning (which systems like Glossika try to utilise to varying degrees of success), where vocabulary and different variations and pronunciations of different words serve as individual instantiations of a particular token - in this case, it could be the vocabulary word itself, but that's not all the information you're getting. You're also getting instantiations of the actual SOUNDS of the language, as well as the grammar.

You're picking up information on the permittable pronunciation of certain phonemes and phonological patterns, to inform your brain how much variation is acceptable within native speech. So for example the finals <n> and <ng> in pinyin are notoriously difficult in Mandarin, with some native speakers doing away with it altogether. What the input tells you is how much like an /n/ the <ng> is allowed to sound whilst still being perceived as an <ng> by speakers - and thus what the range of permissable differences is, that you, as a non native speaker, can play with.

As I've already written about, one of my first hills to die on is the tone/intonation interplay. And listening to audio without subs is fantastic for teaching you how intonation works not only on an emotional level, but also how it helps people understand sentence structure - it teaches you which parts of an utterance to pay attention to. Even if you don't understand the word itself, you will gradually learn what is the focus point of the sentence and what is peripheral information. Why is this particularly effective without subtitles? Especially in languages that have differing sentence structure (like Chinese in longer sentences), you need to rely on the intonation to guide you towards finding the focal point of the sentence. With subtitles, you get lazy and you don't utilise your ear in the same way. And again, again, you're drumming these patterns into your head. Frequency = success!

Thirdly, by training your ear to listen for intonation, you are necessarily listening for grammar patterns that give you a clue about who is playing what role in the sentence. Our brains are fundamentally lazy (effecient)- they only pay attention to what is necessary to complete the task. Have you seen that video where you are asked to count how many times a basketball is passed? And then at the end they ask you if you noticed the bear? There is a lot of linguistic debate about what role exactly attention plays in the process of language learning, but for our purposes it suffices to say that both actively noticing a pattern and hearing it confirmed again and again when you are not specifically looking for it help us hugely when it comes to not only memorising, but also internalising, that grammatical pattern.

Going back to the attention thing, let's talk about another problem no subs solves: if you are reading subtitles in your native language (and even more so in your TL), you are much less likely to bring the full force of your listening abilities into play. Why? Well, because the answer is right there in front of you. Listening without subs forces you to use context, social cues like smiles or frowns, as well as supra segmental factors like tone of voice or volume, to determine what exactly is being said - in other words, the same social interaction and outside stimulus that many functional linguists believe is absolutely critical to the development of the language faculty in children. Of course, you're not actually interacted with the media, but being actively forced to pay attention to these things makes it a much more holistic process. Suddenly, your brain is fired up: it needs to pay attention to everything in order to understand. In other words, the vocabulary and grammar and intonation you're hearing has suddenly become relevant.

And what happens when it's relevant? We learn it - sometimes without even knowing that's what's happening.

For all of these reasons, then, whatever your level, I'd suggest listening and watching media in your target language without subtitles. The expectations you have at each level, from beginner to advanced, should not, however, be the same. Unless you find incredibly good targeted media, or the language is sufficiently similar to one you know, you're unlikely to understand even what's going on when you first start out.

That's ok. Your brain is processing things - it's learning how to recognise nouns, verbs, questions, declarative sentences, the way the language expresses surprise or fear or love. It's learning that some phonetic distinctions that you don't have in your native language are important in your TL. It's heading patterns of vocabulary and grammar and phonology again and again and again. Don't expect to understand everything - but try copying it, out loud, if you can. It will help you get an ear for word boundaries, which is crucial for parsing the boundless speech-stream that's suddenly presented to you.

If you're at an intermediate level, enjoy spotting common verbs and watching the action, even if you don't know 100% what's going on. Even more than the beginner level, you're getting used to the speed of the language and its rhythms, as well as challenging yourself to understand more.

If you're at an advanced level, this is perfect for you. You'll understand more than you suspect. And if you don't, who cares, it's meant to be difficult. I never would have thought that I could understand and comfortably enjoy most of an episode of my show. And there were certainly conversations where I was totally lost!! But that's ok. You don't need 95% comprehension to survive - 50%, while incredibly frustrating, is good enough - as long as it's the right 50%! All you need is one key word - especially if you're watching media you're familiar with, which I recommend - and then click! You've got it.

加油！

[dutifullylazysalad]

Literacy Libraryguided Reading 101

Literacy Libraryguided Reading 101 5th

Reading Literacy Worksheets

Literacy Libraryguided Reading 101 Lesson

What every teacher should know

Feb 6, 2018 - Explore Lauren McGlone's board 'Literacy - Library', followed by 361 people on Pinterest. See more ideas about classroom library, reading classroom, classroom organization.

Reading 101: A Guide to Teaching Reading and Writing

Literacy Centers 101: Pocket Chart Center Day 3 of my summer vacation and what am I doing??? Well, I did have a wonderful time today at Centre Island with my husband, kiddies and dear friends of ours.

Emergent Literacy Reading 63 IV. Emergent Literacy Writing 79 V. Mathematics 87 VI. Science 101 VII. Social Studies 107 VIII. Fine Arts 113 IX. Physical Development 117 X. Technology 122 Appendices 124.

The Certification Exam for Educators of Reading Instruction (CEERI) Teachers who complete the Reading 101 modules will learn about critical skills for proficient reading and best practices that support students’ acquisition of these skills.

In this book we have an English 101 class explaining what “literacy” means to them and the way this word has gained meaning as they have grown older and gone through many experiences. The personal stories that are shared within these pages reflect where reading and writing started for each student and the way that their literacy journey.

Reading 101 is a collaboration with the Center for Effective Reading Instruction and The International Dyslexia Association.

Learn the definitions of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness — and how these pre-reading listening skills relate to phonics.

Phonological awareness and phonemic awareness: what's the difference?

Phonological awareness refers to a global awareness of the sound structures of speech and the ability to manipulate those structures. Phonological awareness is an umbrella term that encompasses both basic levels of awareness of speech sounds, such as rhyming, alliteration, the number of words in a sentence, and the syllables within words, as well as more advanced levels of awareness such as onset-rime awareness and full phonemic awareness.

Phonemic awareness is the most advanced level of phonological awareness. It refers to a child’s awareness of the individual phonemes — the smallest units of sound — in spoken words, and the ability to manipulate those sounds.

Phonological awareness (PA) involves a continuum of skills that develop over time and that are crucial for reading and spelling success, because they are central to learning to decode and spell printed words. Phonological awareness is especially important at the earliest stages of reading development — in pre-school, kindergarten, and first grade for typical readers.

Explicit teaching of phonological awareness in these early years can eliminate future reading problems for many students. However, struggling decoders of any age can work on phonological awareness, especially if they evidence problems in blending or segmenting phonemes.

How about phonological awareness and phonics?

Phonological awareness refers to a global awareness of sounds in spoken words, as well as the ability to manipulate those sounds.

Phonics refers to knowledge of letter sounds and the ability to apply that knowledge in decoding unfamiliar printed words.

So, phonological awareness refers to oral language and phonics refers to print. Both of these skills are very important and tend to interact in reading development, but they are distinct skills; children can have weaknesses in one of them but not the other.

For example, a child who knows letter sounds but cannot blend the sounds to form the whole word has a phonological awareness (specifically, a phonemic awareness) problem. Conversely, a child who can orally blend sounds with ease but mixes up vowel letter sounds, reading pit for pet and set for sit, has a phonics problem.

Dr. Louisa Moats explains to a kindergarten teacher why it is critical to differentiate between the letters and sounds within a word when teaching children to read and write.

Reading 101 is a collaboration with the Center for Effective Reading Instruction and The International Dyslexia Association.

What are the key critical reading skills, and how do we use them to comprehend? And why does background knowledge matter?

This section presents my latest thinking on comprehension with The Comprehension Process Staircase as a visual aid.

(Illustration by Sandy Gingras, whose Website is here.)

Literacy Libraryguided Reading 101 5th

Here's an important essay on why background knowledge matters: 'There's No Such Thing as a Reading Test' in The American Prospect by E.D. Hirsch and Robert Pondiscio (June 13, 2010)

Here are two video training modules that explain key topics on this page:

Comprehension Process MODULE:

This 23-min SELF-PACED video explains The Comprehension Process Staircase and how to use the Quadrant Analysis Approach to images (reinforcing the comprehension process with visual analysis).

For more resources to support your work around comprehension, please check out the following:

TLC Website “Comprehension 101” page--lots of tools to download! And you can show students the Comprehension Process Staircase!

TLC Blog post on Quadrant Analysis--a detailed explanation of how to teach the Quadrant Analysis approach (which is also explained in the video)

Here's the FREE link to the Comprehension Process Module PowerPoint.

***

This 20-min SELF-PACED video explains the four key critical reading skills (paraphrasing, inference, vocabulary in context, and summarizing/inferring main idea) and how to teach them. NOTE: Watch The Comprehension Process MODULE before this one.

For more resources to support your work around key critical reading skills, please check out the following:

TLC Website “Comprehension 101” page--lots of tools to download!

TLC Website 'Analyzing Literature' page--ditto!

Here's the FREE link to the 4 Key Critical Reading Skills Module PowerPoint.

***

Here are the 4 key critical reading skills:

SKILLWHAT IT LOOKS LIKE AND WHAT IT ENTAILSTESTING CODE WORDS PARAPHRASING

(AKA Literal Comprehension)

“The man fell down.”-> “He collapsed.”

Paraphrasing means “translating literally” or “putting something in your own words.” This requires you to:

Unpack vocabulary (attack roots; use prior knowledge and context clues).

Unpack syntax and grammar (unpack clauses and phrases; pay attention to punctuation).

Draw inferences from idioms.

NEW: For a useful strategy, seeHow to Paraphrase-3rd grade Practice, How to Paraphrase-MS Practice, How to Paraphrase-HS Practice. For tips on how to create critical reading questions, see How to Create Critical Reading Questions: A Recipe.

See also Rewordify.com, a powerful, free, online software that intelligently simplifies difficult English, for faster comprehension (IN OTHER WORDS, it paraphrases for you).

Facts

In other words

According to the story/passage

What does this mean?

Plot-related

Paraphrase

INFERENCE

(AKA Extended Reasoning)

“The man fell down.”-> “He must have been sick.”

Inference entails drawing a conclusion, making a prediction/guess, or figuring something out. To do this, you need facts/information, and you need to ask questions about the given information. See the comprehension process described below for more explanation.

NEW:Paraphrasing and Inference Organizer AND Quotations to Paraphrasing and Inference in the Download Zone will help students practice these skills. Also check out Character Traits: Quote and Explain and Question-Inference-Evidence & Explanation ORGANIZER, Question-Inference-Evidence & Explanation ORGANIZER MODEL, and Question-Inference-Evidence & Explanation ORGANIZER MODEL LESSON PLAN

Here's a fun way to invite students to apply their inference skills: Read 'The Conversation Piece' by Ned Guymon (which originally appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1950) and figure out what is going on in this dialogue.

Infer

Suggest

Conclude

Because/why

Most likely

Probably

VOCABULARY IN CONTEXT“They’re not interested in being diverted from their direction with alternative routes.” The word “diverted” in this context means

A) amused B) less experienced C) taking the same route D) sent in a different direction

Vocabulary in context requires you to infer meaning of words using the context and your prior knowledge.

What does ____ mean in this context?

Based on the passage, what does ____ mean?

NOTE: At least one distractor will use an alternative meaning of the word in question. In this example, “A” is the distractor. FINDING MAIN IDEA/ARGUMENT

(AKA Summarizing)

The main idea of this passage is

The yearly festival in Pamplona, Spain, always includes the Running of the Bulls.

Running alongside the bulls as they are moved from the corral to the bullring in Pamplona, Spain, has become an exciting and dangerous sport.

The bravest runners carry newspapers with which they touch the bulls as they run through the streets.

The Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain, has been going on for about three hundred years.

Finding the main idea/argument, AKA summarizing, requires you to infer the key message(s) from the text. Your ability to do this is based on how well you are able to paraphrase, infer, and determine vocabulary meaning from context. Also, you have to understand the difference between ARGUMENT and EVIDENCE. See the comprehension process described below for details.

After reading the article/passage/story…

The central idea

The theme

This passage is mostly about

The author would probably agree

The best summary

How do we use these skills to comprehend? See below. Start at the bottom.

INFERENCE(S) -> EXPLANATION

­

Draw new inferences and generate more explanations. These join your prior knowledge/skills.

??? + PRIOR KNOWLEDGE/ SKILLS

­

Ask more questions… MORE “TEXT”

+

Paraphrase, etc. This “text” may confirm or challenge your prior knowledge/previous inferences.

FOR EXAMPLE: If the next sentence says, 'He had had a fever all day,' your prior inference is confirmed. If, however, the next sentence is 'He should've bought the shoes with velcro straps,' you would correct your incorrect prior assumption/inference.

INFERENCE(S)

-> EXPLANATION

­

Draw inferences in response to your questions, and support them with explanations. These infererences and explanations join your prior knowledge/skills. FOR EXAMPLE: Given no additional information about the man who collapsed (no mention of shoelaces or attackers) and knowing that healthy people are generally able to stand up without falling down, you might infer that he fell down BECAUSE HE WAS SICK. NOTE: You will continue to think this until new information challenges your thinking.

??? + PRIOR KNOWLEDGE/ SKILLS

­

Ask questions based on paraphrasing/translation and your prior knowledge/skills.

FOR EXAMPLE: Given the case of the falling man, you might ask, 'WHY did he collapse?' You might recall prior instances of seeing people tripping over shoelaces, fainting, or being knocked down.

­

YOU APPLY IT/

THEM TO

“TEXT.”

^ ^

PARAPHRASE: Put the “text” in your own words. NOTE: “Text” could be almost anything: words, pictures, or a situation (e.g., reading the defense on a basketball court).

Unpack vocabulary.

Unpack grammar/syntax.

INFER from idioms.

FOR EXAMPLE: Given the text 'The man fell down,' you could paraphrase this as 'He collapsed.' For a useful strategy, see How to Paraphrase-3rd grade Practice,How to Paraphrase-MS Practice, How to Paraphrase-HS Practice in the Download Zone.

YOU HAVE

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE/ SKILLS.

^ ^

Start here.

You approach the 'text' with your prior knowledge, which includes:

Previous experiences

Context

Texts read/academic content knowledge

Knowledge of conventions (genre, grammar, syntax)

NOTE: If your 'prior knowledge' is incorrect, it will affect your ability to process the 'text.'

FOR EXAMPLE: If you believe that 5 times 5 is 30, then when faced with a math word problem requiring the multiplication of 5 x 5, you will not solve the problem correctly.

Reading Literacy Worksheets

For more information on strategies for teaching the 4 key critical reading skills, see Reading Comprehension Strategies Overviewin the Download Zone. For a 'Sample LESSON PLAN to LABEL CRITICAL READING QUESTIONS,' see MS English Lessons & Units. Want to review the FOUR CRITICAL READING SKILLS (paraphrasing, inference, vocabulary in context, and summarizing/inferring main idea) and teach your students how to identify test questions that deal with these skills? Check out this Sample LESSON PLAN TO LABEL CRITICAL READING QUESTIONS and HANDOUTS for the lesson. Also, see READING Home Page for other helpful subsections.

Sometimes, to demonstrate comprehension, we want students to explain quotations. Check out the Explanatory Quote Response Organizer and Explanatory Quote Response Organizer MODEL.

For additional excellent resources on reading instruction (esp. nonfiction text support), even if your state doesn't use PARCC assessments, check out the PARCC Prep page.

Literacy Libraryguided Reading 101 Lesson

IN THE DOWNLOAD ZONE for Comprehension 101:

[noelclover]

Off The Cuff 07/05/2019

Read a gaming article, want to post about it: It’s about game journalists. So I guess...

Ranty.

As per usual I copy pasta paragraphs and argue against them by typing them out in an attempt to rid myself of the headaches. Moving past the Event Hubs bit:

> EventHubs is just the latest battleground for a much larger and divisive issue: Who gets to be a games journalist? Some players believe the industry’s reporters should be particularly competent (if not masterful) at practically every game they cover. They must be a gamer among gamers, one that lives, breathes, and devours gaming 24 hours a day.

🍀 Not quite true. Particularly competent implies that you have to be good at the game, which isn’t what most gamers expect out of games journalists when they review a game. What is expected is some level of competency that can be considered somewhat “average”. If you play “Prinny Can I Really Be The Hero Dude?” and die 999 times, unable to finish the game and then tell me it’s a really hard game because the fights are a pain in the ass and you couldn’t move your thumb anymore from the button mash, hey, I get you buddy. It’s fine. If you play a shooter but you can’t, say, move and shoot, or move the camera and shoot and then tell me it’s really hard while on the easiest setting, I’m gonna have to doubt you hard. If you pull a Dean Takahashi on me... Well, yeah. Most people don’t expect games journalists to be a “gamers among gamers”, or MLG 1080 no scope gods. But then again, I guess that’s why the term “some players” is used at the start. So if even, say, a miniscule 0.1% of gamers do think like that, they wouldn’t be lying.

> Esports reporter Sabriel Mastin regularly covers Blizzard Entertainment’s first-person shooter Overwatch for Overbuff’s blog. She was surprised by EventHubs’ requirement, in part because she believes there’s a fundamental difference between analyzing a game as a journalist and demonstrating technical skills as a player. “For example, I cover Overwatch from general news to the highest levels of the game with the Overwatch League,” she told the Daily Dot. “I understand it at a very high level, but I’m in the middle of the competitive ladder. […] That doesn’t mean I don’t understand high-level plays and strategies of what the pro players are doing.”

🍀 She’s absolutely right. There’s a difference however in being an analyst and a game reviewer. Look at sports for example. We don’t expect sports journalists to be able to compete with whatever football team is up there right now but we most certainly expect them to be able to tell us what’s going on if we ever get confused. Same with cars. I wouldn’t trust Top Gear to cover a car if they can’t drive and base everything off whatever the specs of the car are. There’s a fundamental difference in watching and doing.

Also middle of the competitive ladder is probably pretty damn good. Or at least a really good indicator that she knows her mechanics really well.

> This is exactly what happened to GamesBeat’s Dean Takahashi. 🍀  Ah, shit. Here we go again.

> In the games industry, Takahashi regularly breaks stories and approaches controversial news with a level head. If you’re a games journalist, he’s a role model for your own career. But if you’re just a regular gamer who doesn’t track the industry’s most important writers, you probably know Takahashi for his abysmal Cuphead gameplay. In a viral video, Takahashi struggles to clear Cuphead’s easiest part by far: its tutorial. One scene shows him unable to clear a tall pillar for over a full minute, despite the fact the game walks the player through how to pass the obstacle. Without context, the video implies Takahashi is a clueless writer who barely knows how to use a controller.

🍀 I don’t know about “most important writers” or being a role model. But then again, I’m a “regular gamer who doesn’t track the industry’s most important writers”. I’m a regular gamer who looks at the end product being marketed to the audience: the articles.

Even with context, he was absolutely horrible at it. So much so that I think there’s going to forever be some doubt about his abilities to actually assess games for consumption. I remember reading that it allegedly wasn’t the first time he did it either. I think it was an RPG or something, but he didn’t realize that there was a menu button and that he could increase his stats or something, making the game easier. Not sure how true that is, but Cuphead most certainly didn’t help his reputation.

> But an explanatory post written by Takahashi paints a different picture. While previewing the game during Germany’s Gamescom trade fair, he “was messing around at first” and “wasn’t focused and serious until I had warmed up,” which means he easily missed clues telling the player how to complete the tutorial. This makes a lot of sense if you’ve ever been to a gaming convention as a member of the press. With so many games to preview, interviews to conduct, and time-sensitive stories to write, it’s impossible to give a game the same undivided attention as you would at home.

🍀 You don’t mess around for a whole minute at a tutorial segment, being a complete idiot who can’t Jump And Dash. It takes a child maybe 30 seconds. Sure, we can miss things in games, but it was pretty spelled out. The camera even gave you all the clues you needed the moment you got into the pit.

You can’t tell me you need to give Cuphead’s tutorial your complete undivided attention. It’s fine that he messed up in the stage itself, I mean, platformers aren’t really everybody’s thing, although the way he played it looked like he was playing platformers for the first time, but a tutorial like that does not require your complete, undivided attention. It requires a bit of it, but not so much that you enter The Zone trying to bloody Jump And Dash.

> Nearly two years later, the controversy echoes a point Mastin made about the EventHubs job listing: In a world with Gamergate, “skill” is used to gatekeep marginalized players and determine who is (or isn’t) a real gamer.

🍀 Except it’s not used to  “ gatekeep marginalized players and determine who is or isn’t a “real gamer”. “Skill” is a mostly arbitary measure people have always had to determine if someone is competing in your bracket, or in the case of games journalists, determine if they know what the hell they’re actually talking about.

I’ve seen people criticize Monster Hunter for not being Devil May Cry. They really didn’t know what the game was about.

You can criticize a game for being clunky, the classic Resident Evil games were pretty darn clunky for example, you can say that their controls didn’t make any sense. You can criticize a game’s gameplay for not feeling rewarding, but to be able to tell, you’d have to be able to play the game, which means having some measure of skill to get through the game in the first place.

In a skill based activity, skill is to some degree linked to understanding. Games like Monster Hunter and Dark Souls work like that. The better understanding you have of your tools (iframes, armour, move set), the better your understanding of game mechanics, the thing you interact with to get through the game.

> “It can certainly feel that the conversation is coming from right-leaning people, especially after being around during [the Gamergate] era,” Mastin said. “The ‘discussion’ has the vestige of that time when we’d hear, ‘Game journalists need to be objective, taking out any emotion from the game.’ I don’t remember the discussion about being ‘good’ popping up before that time.”

🍀 And here it is, one of the myriad things I really, really dislike because it feels dishonest. Do you see it?

“right-leaning people”

I really dislike this because it’s often times done as a smear. What’s that? You don’t care about politics and found Anita Sarkeesian’s video questionable? You must be some skinhead Nazi son-of-a-bitch. What’s that? You think Dean Takahashi was iffy? You must be a right-wing trogdolyte.

I dislike this because it shuts down any conversation to be had and is a very underhanded dodge method. It also pushes people to extremes because they develop a sense of bitterness from being silenced.

But hey, who gives a shit. Criticism of game journalists apparently makes you “right-wing”, whatever the hell that even means.

Rant aside. I don’t know anyone saying that they need to “take any emotion from the game”, back then and now. I remember people saying that they shouldn’t be sleeping with the person who was reviewing their game, much like with every other field, to prevent as much bias as possible. Very different things.

I also remember people saying that you had to be “good”, but the definition of “good” was “decent at the game”.

> But a skilled gamer isn’t necessarily a skilled reporter. Journalism has its own requirements for basic competency: a strong voice, a powerful command of the written word, the people skills necessary to talk to sources, and the humility required to cooperate with an editor and revise a story. These are not necessarily things you can learn from playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimateor Overwatch. On some level, you have to sacrifice in-game time to focus on becoming a better reader, writer, and communicator. If that means you occasionally struggle with a difficult game like Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice or Enter the Gungeon, then so be it. That doesn’t make you any less of a games journalist.

🍀 The article is right in that being a skilled gamer doesn’t make you a skilled journalist. You do have to sacrifice some thing for another. Doesn’t explain Dean’s abysmal performance in the tutorial or when we see game journalists play FPS games and move their character, not the camera, to turn around and shoot something.

Look. You don’t have to be a god at a game to review it. It would be untrue to say that nobody ever said this, but it would also be untrue to say that that’s what people are asking for. It’s like if you were buying that overly hyped cheese tart. You really, really want the cheese tart reviewer to have taste buds. It’d be great if they can tell you if there’s some essence of cheese-flower in the tart or something, but that’s a bonus. You want them to be able to tell you how it generally tastes, the mouth feel, if it’s crumble, etc etc. If that’s the standard for most, if not everything, fields, then why should it be different for gaming?

> But in a world infested with Gamergaters, it’s hard to read a job posting like EventHubs’ in good faith. If you’re not a pro gamer, you’re an SJW charlatan.

🍀 Infested is a strange term to use for people who want ethics in game journalism and don’t want to be hit over the head with some forced SJW aesop or writing which takes the story or setting in a choke hold, like with Andromeda where apparently the Asari, a unisex species has what’s basically gendered pronouns because why the fuck not. (Seriously, it’s a small issue I know, but it would have been great to explore how a unisex species works, if they use different pronouns for the different stages in like, etc etc, and if they do, why? How the hell would they perceive gender anyway? Asari can breed with pretty much whoever they want, genitals be damned.)

Infested is a strange term to use for people who rolled their eyes to Far Cry 5 reviewers that said that the game wasn’t “political enough” (to summarize) because they wanted the game to bash the hell out of Trump and his supporters and gave the game a lower score.

(No, seriously. They expected a French company who wants to make money to alienate a portion of their player base to make some political statement that they most likely do not care about so that some folks who hate Trump can get a hard on for 5 seconds or something.)

I don’t think anyone who plays video games is really against “diversity” in video games. I say it in quotation marks because the definition of diversity is ridiculously loose. I mean, a while ago we got some guy criticizing The Witcher 3, a game based on a nearly mono-European-ethnicity country’s cultural history and mythology, a nation which doesn’t get much spotlight in anything aka Poland because it doesn’t have “people of colour”.

I don’t know about you lot, but I would honestly rather play a game that’s based off of Polish stories, Egyptian mythos than some shooter based in America, even if the character is somehow, super specifically, Malaysian Chinese and likes Nasi Lemak and Ramlee burgers more than he should.

And no. You’re not an SJW charlatan because you’re not a pro-gamer. It’s a false dichotomy to say that. If you’re an SJW charlatan, it’s because you’re an SJW charlatan. It’s almost as bloody stupid as saying that you’re a right-winger because you play games. Or you’re part of the Yang-Gang because you’re Asian because he’s Asian. (For the record, I’m Malaysian, again, but the Yang-Gang thing is pretty cool.)

Stop digging Gamergate back out from it’s grave. You’ve taken the piss on it’s corpse, spat at people who gave too much of a damn about games and repeatedly use it as a boogeyman to further your bullshit instead of, oh, I don’t know, using it as the lesson it should be:

Do your job and tell us if a game is decent, fun or bad, your political standpoint be damned.

Overall, I’m kind of disappointed yet at the same time I’m not. I really want game journalists to do their job and tell me how fun a game was. I mentioned the Diablo 3 PC Gamer Malaysia article a bunch of times, but recently I remembered the article they wrote for Evil Genius. It didn’t question the morality of the game, it didn’t go on about how there could be more inclusion or some shit like that.

It talked about the game and made me wish I could play it.

[designpluzbrandingagency]

Logo design: Everything you need to know

Need a new logo design? We tell you everything you must know before embarking on a brand identity project.

If your company needs a new logo design, you'll probably be exploring your options. Do you go for a completely different logo or tweak the logo design you already have? Either way, you might be questioning: what makes a great logo design? And how do you design a logo that captures the essence of a product, person or brand?

 We're here to answer all of your burning questions about logo design, just the links below to jump to the section you're interested in.

 If you need some ideas along the way, check out our post on logo design inspiration. And if you're looking to design amazing logos across a range of devices

 Why is logo design important?

Your logo is you or your business' first point of contact with the outside world. If people connect with your branding, the likelihood is they'll be more open to whatever it is offering them. Great logo design requires a complex mixture of design skills, creative theory and skilful application. 

A ny designer worth their salt can create a fit-for-purpose logo, but truly mastering all aspects of the craft takes time. Of course, logo design is just one small subset of branding, but the logo or brand mark remains the centrepiece of most branding schemes. And we all know that it's often the part of a new identity that is most picked apart by the public.

 If you want to see how it's done, why not head over to our pick of the best logo designs ever?

10 golden rules of logo design

 When you think of a person who’s impacted your life, it’s almost certain that you can picture what he or she looks like. And so it is with the brands from which we often buy. We can easily picture the logo just by thinking about our experiences with the product, company or service.

 Where there was once just a handful of companies operating within a particular market or niche, there might now be hundreds, maybe thousands, all competing for attention, all wanting us to look at them first. That creates increasing need for brands to visually differentiate themselves so they’re not confused with competitors.

 That differentiation is achieved through brand identity design – a range of elements that all work together to form a distinctive picture in our minds. Depending on the company, the identity can include uniforms, vehicle graphics, business cards, product packaging, photographic style, coffee mugs, billboard advertising, and a raft of other items, right down to the font choice on the website.

     When we look at something, we don’t read first. Before anything else we see shape, we see colour, and if that’s enough to hold our attention, then we’ll read

 It’s important to remember that when we look at something, we don’t read first. Before anything else we see shape, we see colour, and if that’s enough to hold our attention, then we’ll read. So in every instance, regardless of company, the small but essential element in the brand picture is the logo.

 Our job as designers is to distill the essence of a brand into the shape and colour that’s most likely to endure, because visual appearance plays a critical part in forming a connection in our brains between what we experience and who we experience it with (the brand). In many respects, a company’s logo is akin to our loved ones’ faces.

 When the right logo design is aligned with an excellent product, and when it’s in place for a significant amount of time, it can eventually become a priceless asset for any company. The Nike swoosh, McDonald’s golden arches, the Michelin man, Mercedes’ three-pointed star, the Woolmark symbol – these are just a few of the more high-profile examples. But besides their ubiquitous nature, how do you give a logo the best possible chance of reaching a similar status? There are universal traits within every successful logo project, and I’ve outlined some here to help improve the quality of the marks you create.

01. Lay the groundwork

 logo design: lay the groundworkLogos such as Mercedes and Woolmark have become priceless assets for their respective companies

 One of the most interesting parts of being a designer is that you get to learn new things with each new project. Every client is different, and even in the same profession, people do their jobs in many different ways.

 To make it easier for consensus to be reached on your design idea, you need to ask your client the right questions from the outset: Why are you here? What do you do, and how do you do it? What makes you different? Who are you here for? What do you value the most?

 Those questions might seem quite straightforward, but they can be challenging to answer, and they’ll lead to further questions about your clients’ businesses. What you discover in this phase of a project will help to determine the strongest possible design direction.

02. Treasure your sketchpad

 Logo design: Treasure your sketchpadSketches of Firefox mascots by Martijn Rijven, who was commissioned by Wolff Olins

 Using a sketchpad is a chance to rest our eyes from the glare of brightly lit pixels that tend to dominate our lives. But more importantly, recording different design ideas can be much quicker when there isn’t a digital device between our hands and our brains. So if you wake in the night with an idea you don’t want to lose, the pen and paper by your bed is the ideal way to remember. Sketching also makes it easier to put shapes exactly where you want them – there’ll always be time to digitise your marks later (see our sketching tips for further sketching advice).

 When you’re describing design ideas to clients, prior to digitising a mark, it can be helpful to share a sketch or two, making it easier for them to visualise the outcome without distraction from typefaces and colours. Don’t share too much, though – only the best ideas.

03. Work in black and white

 Logo design: Work in black and whiteThe inner detail of the Apple logo has changed over the years, but the silhouette remains

 Leaving colour until near the end helps you focus your attention on the basics of the idea rather than something that’s much easier to change. A poor idea can’t be rescued by an interesting palette, whereas a good idea will still be good regardless of colour. Picture a well-known symbol. Think of it now. It’s the form we remember before the palette. It’s the lines, the shapes, the idea, whether that’s the bite from an apple, three parallel stripes, four linked circles in a horizontal line, or something else.

04. Keep it appropriate

 logo design: V&APentagram founder Alan Fletcher created the V&A logo in 1989 (Image credit: V&A)

 A mark must be relevant for the ideas and activities it represents. An elegant typeface will suit a high-end restaurant more than it will a children’s nursery. A palette of fluorescent pink and yellow isn’t going to help your message engage with male pensioners.

 Crafting a mark that bears some resemblance to a swastika, regardless of industry, isn’t going to work. You know these things. They’re obvious. But it goes a little deeper. The more appropriate your rationale behind a particular design, the easier it becomes to sell the idea to a client. And that can often be the most challenging part of a project. Designers don’t just design. They sell, too.

05. Aim for easy recall

 logo designThe 1974 Deutsche bank logo by Anton Stankowski (Image credit: Deutsche Bank)

 Simplicity aids recognition, especially when so many brands are competing for our attention. You want to give onlookers the opportunity to recall a mark after just a quick glance, and that’s not possible with an overly detailed logo design. A trademark has to be focused in concept – have a single ‘story’ – and in most cases must be uncomplicated in form. This is because it needs to work at a variety of sizes and in a range of applications, from a website icon in a browser bar to signage on a building.

06. Strive for difference

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 Logo design: Strive for differenceThe 1999 Tate logo by Wolff Olins united the Tate’s four galleries across the UK

 When your clients’ competitors are all using a particular typographic style, or the same kind of palette, or a symbol placed on the left of the brand name, do something different. It gives you the perfect opportunity to set your clients apart rather than have them blend in.

 But so much similarity in the marketplace doesn’t necessarily mean your job has become easier, because it takes a brave client to buck the trend. By showing imagination in your portfolio, you’re on your way to attracting the kind of client you want.

07. Consider the broader identity

 Logo design: Consider the broader identityWolff Olins created a new typeface for Macmillan cancer support in 2006; part of a wider repositioning

 It’s rare when you see a logo in isolation, on its own without the context of a website or business card or drinks menu or app icon. That’s why a client presentation needs to encompass a variety of relevant touchpoints to show how a logo appears when seen by potential customers. It’s a little like when you’re stuck in a rut – it can help to step back, to look at the bigger picture, to see where you are, what you’re surrounded by.

 In design terms, the bigger picture is every potential item on which a client logo might appear. But always consider how the identity works when the logo isn’t shown, because while important, a symbol will only take an identity so far. One way to achieve cohesive visuals is to craft a bespoke typeface that’s not only used in the logo, but that’s also seen in marketing headlines.

08. Don’t be too literal

 Logo design: Don't be too literalThe logos for Penguin and Shell don't give any clues as to the types of company they represent

 A logo doesn’t have to show what the company does, in fact, it’s better if it doesn’t, because the more abstract the mark, the more enduring it can become. Historically you’d show your factory, or maybe a heraldic crest if it was a family-run business, but symbols don’t show what you do. Instead, they make it clear who you are. The meaning in the eyes of the public gets added afterwards, when associations can be formed between what the company does and the shape and colour of its mark.

09. Remember symbols aren’t essential

 logo design: Symbols are not essentialJohnson Banks’ 2004 wordmark for shelter – with its pitched roof ‘h’ – helped reposition the housing charity

 Often a bespoke wordmark will do the job, especially when the company name is unique, such as Google, Mobil, or Pirelli. But a version of the logo that works in small confines will always help. That might be as simple as lifting a letter from the name and using the same colour, or it might incorporate a symbol that can be used as a secondary design element (wordmark first, symbol second) instead of as a logo lockup where both pieces are shown alongside one another.

 Don’t be tempted to overdo the design flair just because the focus is on the letters. Legibility is key with any wordmark, and your presentations should demonstrate how your logo design work at all sizes, large and small.

10. Make people smile

 Logo design: Make people smileDesigned in 2000, turner Duckworth’s wordmark for Amazon adds wit with a hidden smile that goes from A-Z

 Injecting some wit into the work will not only make your job more fun, but it can help your client to become more successful, too. It won’t be appropriate for every profession, such as weapons manufacturers and tobacco firms, but whether you choose to work with those companies is another thing. The somewhat less contentious law and financial sectors are filled with companies identified by stuffy and sterile branding, putting some humour into the identity for such clients is one way to set them apart.

 There’s a balance, though. Take it too far and you risk alienating potential customers. But regardless of the company, people do business with people, so a human, emotional side to your work will always have a level of relevance.

[justanotherartsstudent]

As part of my orientation for first year uni, I attended a session on how to make the most of lectures. Some of these tips and tricks are pretty straight forward, and can carry on from high school depending on the type of student you are/were. However, some of these also encourage you to become a more critical thinker, and help to better understand the content you’re learning in your lectures!

FIRSTLY, it is important to know WHY we go to lectures.

Lectures give us the essential and practical information we need to know about each subject we’re learning - Typically, lectures give you all the information you need to know for that week, and then you use that information in your tutorials later on.

Lectures provide an expert’s perspective of the content - Lecturers are usually well equipped with the knowledge surrounding your subject and provide useful perspectives, ideas and points of view regarding what you’re learning. This helps you to understand stuff more thoroughly, even if you don’t feel that way at first.

Following on from the previous point, lecture help to understand difficult concepts - Having someone talk through the information can help sort it out in your head rather than just reading a slab of text. Many lecturers will also use examples and anecdotes to substantiate the content, which not only helps you to understand, but can also be useful in assignments.

Lectures also encourage discipline specific styles of thinking - Different subjects require you to think differently eg. languages as compared to philosophy or a science. Going to lectures can expose us to these different thinking styles, which we also may adopt to other subjects should it suit.

PREPARING FOR LECTURES

Before your lectures, it’s important and helpful to have a general idea of what you’ll be expected to learn.

Review your lecture outline - This would usually be in your subject outline if you have one. It should specify what you’ll be learning each week. Try to determine what the aims of the lecture will be.

Consider how the topic fits in - Think about what you’ll be learning and how it’s connected to your subject. This causes you to think critically about what you will be learning.

READINGS - Make sure you read all the required readings before your lectures and tutorials so you can apply them to what you’re learning in class.

Make up questions - So while you don’t exactly know what you will be learning yet, you have a kind of general idea. Make up some questions of what you want answered in that lecture. If you have questions that follow the lecture or are during the lecture, write them down so you can ask them in your tutorial.

DURING LECTURES

Now that you’ve prepared for your lecture, what do you do? Let me tell you that it is not to use the free uni wifi to do some online shopping!

Make a written record - Write down what you hear, see, feel. Obviously you want to mostly be taking notes of what your lecturer is actually saying, but adding reflective commentary helps to make your notes more memorable of the moment in which you actually learnt the content.

Listen for main ideas and clues to details - Your lecturer will be emphasising certain parts of their spiel so keep an ear out for them because they’re important!

Copy/create graphic aids - If your lecturer has included them in their slides then it clearly is meant to be helpful. Creating your own also helps you to better learn and understand.

Write down examples - Your lecturer may often refer to examples which help back up and explain what they are trying to say. These are important to help you understand and can also be useful in your essays and papers.

Write down any questions - Keep these for your tutorials so clarify anything you’re unsure about.

ACTIVELY LISTENING

Actually listening in a lecture can be hard when there’s one person at the front of the room monotonously saying words that somehow sound like gibberish. So how do we make sure that we’re taking in everything we need to be?

Posture - Make sure you’re sitting up straight and not slouching in your chair! This engages your muscles, making you more alert and encourages blood to pump more efficiently through your body. Also try to sit in the first third of the theatre, closest to the lecturer to help you engage with the lecturer and reduce your likeliness to get distracted.

Look up from your notes and engage with your lecturer - Lecturers like this because it means you’re actually interested, and it can also force you to actually learn something instead of passively looking at your laptop or pen and paper.

Anticipate - Try to be at least one step ahead of the lecture. Not literally, but try to think about what they could be talking about next. This means you’re processing what they’re saying and grasping a better understanding.

QUESTIONS! - I’ll say it a million times, questions concerning anything you’re confused about are so important because it means you know what you don’t know and you have some intention of figuring it out.

Alternate listening, thinking and writing - You’ll have to be doing al three in your lecture so it’s important to master the rotation of them all.

BALANCING LISTENING AND NOTE TAKING

Sometimes note taking can affect our ability to listen to what the lecturer is actually saying, or sometimes we get so invested in what the lecturer is saying we forget to write it down. So where’s the happy medium?

Listen for clues - These may be any notes or graphics they put up on the screen, repetition, pauses or emphasis, their tone of voice, or the amount of time they spend on a particular topic. These are good to keep an ear out for as they can help you what to write down.

Listen for sign posts - These include words such as “this illustrates…”, “we know this because…”, or “scholars debate…” Lecturers are providing examples, evidence and issues within the topic here, which are important for you to have a better understanding and influence you to really reflect on it later on.

NOTE TAKING

All this stuff about note taking, but why do we actually do it???

Helps us concentrate

Identifying what is most important

Helps embed the content into our memory

Improves analytical skills

Helps in later assignments for that subject

So how do we effectively take notes?

Obvious one, but don’t write everything down! - only what appears to be useful and the key points

Examples are really useful to have so take note of those

Questions (again lol), thoughts and reflective comments

New terminology, references and readings - create a glossary with any new terms you’re unsure of and take note of what your lecturer refers to and recommends that you read because these can extend you in your assessments and exams

Determine if the information is available elsewhere - if you have access to lecture slides then copious notes are not as necessary because the information will be readily available. If you won’t be able to get access to the lecture again make sure you have everything you need to know!

If the purpose of the lecture is to provide background or context, listen more than you write. This information is not vital to your subject, but having a thorough understanding in your head rather than on a piece of paper is very important.

If you are listening to your lecturers point of view on an issue, take note of their arguments and how they structure them. Having an understanding of this can be useful in the formulation of your own perspective on the issue.

Formatting notes seems to be such an important issue in the studyblr community, but really, everyone is individual and we all learn in different ways. These are just some tips that I heard in the session:

Leave lots of space - Negative space in your notes can help declutter your mind. Also if you need to write something else down on that page then you have more space!

Be creative with your notes - You don’t need to make them pretty, but make them yours so you can understand them.

It’s a good idea to write down the title of the lecture and the lecturer on your notes just for future reference.

You can make your notes diagrammatic - Not everything needs to be written down in words!

Use your own abbreviations

At the end of the day, you want your notes to be exam ready so you’re just reviewing them in your SWOTVAC period!!

AFTER THE LECTURE

When the lecture ends, that doesn’t mean you should forget about everything you have just learnt. Reviewing the content is important so our brains don’t give into Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve!!

Engage with the material again - Change the format of your notes, or imagine different applications of the information. This helps to have a better and stronger understanding.

Compare and contrast different ideas within the content.

Ask and answer any of your own questions, or even questions within a study group.

Make flash cards or mind maps or whatever helps you learn.

Discuss the material with your classmates

Try to apply the content to real life or real world issues.

Try to review within 24 hours of the lecture and then regular daily reviews for at least 15 minutes.

I hope that these tips are helpful in your studies, obviously not all of them are for everyone, but be open to try something new!! Good luck and much love, Emmanuelle xx

[entergamingxp]

Sakura Wars Interview – Revitalizing a Legendary Series and Localizing For The West

July 10, 2020 1:32 PM EST

DualShockers spoke with the Sakura Wars team at Sega, discussing the creation of this modern PS4 entry, the western localization process, and much more.

Sakura Wars. Sakura Taisen. These words bring forth many feelings for quite a number of people both in and outside Japan. The mix of Japanese Adventure games, Dating Sim, Steampunk, Theater, Mecha, Fantasy and much more has changed anyone who has met its path. Whether you’ve actually experienced the franchise yourself, or only gazed at it from afar, it’s one of the most iconic series Japanese pop-culture has to offer. It’s never too late to try out the series either, and the newest entry on PS4, Sakura Wars, demonstrates this perfectly.

Three months after the game’s launch in the west, DualShockers had the opportunity to speak with the Sakura Wars development team at Sega: Localization Producer Andrew Davis, Director of Sakura Wars Tetsuya Ootsubo, and Jacob Nahin, Senior Communications Manager.

Iyane Agossah: Sakura Wars on PS4 brings in a new cast of characters and takes place over ten years after the latest game. These are all big changes story-wise. Could you tell us more on the choices behind this decision?

Tetsuya Ootsubo, Director of Sakura Wars: A hallmark of the Sakura Wars series is that each new entry shows the passage of time since the previous ones, so one of our ironclad requirements was that any sequel would take place in the same timeline after the events of Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love.

Then, once we had settled on the idea of a soft reboot with (nearly) all-new main characters and cast, it made sense to let a bit of time elapse since So Long, My Love, so that players could seamlessly absorb the world without the need for any particular preconceptions or knowledge of the old games. At the same time, by keeping Sumire Kanzaki as a major character, we hoped to delight longtime fans and establish a firm connection to the older titles.

Iyane Agossah: What kind of struggles did you encounter when striving to make this entry fit for both newcomers and longtime fans? We would love to hear one specific anecdote in that regard, such as which new character was the hardest to create in order to please both sides.

Tetsuya Ootsubo: For this game, we enlisted a variety of artists to contribute to the character designs. The challenge was to maintain each creator’s individual quirks while still achieving a unified look for the game world. To that end, we asked animator Masashi Kudo to create the 3D character models based on the 2D concept designs.

Iyane Agossah: Sakura Wars on PS4, like past games, do not include extensive RPG elements such as money and shops, equipment and skill trees. Did you ever think about adding these kinds of RPG elements in the series?

Tetsuya Ootsubo: The key concept behind the Sakura Wars series is fostering communication between the characters and becoming stronger through the bonds that you forge as a result of that communication. Thus, our intent is for players to focus primarily on how they’re interacting with the other members of the troupe and enjoy the sense of being the captain of a team.

Iyane Agossah: Sakura Wars on PS4 ended up not receiving an English dub for its localization. Could you tell us more on the reasons behind this decision?

Andrew Davis, Localization Producer:  Andrew Davis, Localization Producer: For every title we bring out in the West, we have to assess beforehand what scope will be possible from a business standpoint. Obviously, if it’s a well-established series, we can be more confident that sales will justify a larger localization budget, but in the case of Sakura Wars, we were starting with the barest foothold in the West. Since we had to make sure every dollar counted, we considered our options carefully and determined that the best use of our resources would be to expand our text language options and forgo English voiceover for this game. Because of this, we were able to offer text alongside the English in Spanish, French, and German.

As a series grows its fanbase, the possibilities broaden as well. It took a while for the Yakuza series to really find its audience in the West, but with the success we’ve seen in the past few years, we were able to start producing English VO for recent games from that team, like Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise and Judgment. I would certainly love to see a similar arc for Sakura Wars!

Iyane Agossah:  The localization of Sakura Wars focuses on adapting Japanese terms such as honorifics instead of keeping them in the script. Could you tell us more on this decision?

Andrew Davis: That’s a good question! Neither approach is necessarily right or wrong. As a localization team, we always discuss this and other questions of style at the beginning of a project to establish what will fit best with each game. For some franchises like Persona or Yakuza, set among complex power structures in a modern-day Japan, it’s been useful to apply honorifics like -san, -senpai, -chan, or -sensei, as once players get over the hurdle of figuring out how they’re used, they can pick up contextual clues regarding who has authority over whom.

We did consider this for Sakura Wars as well, since of course it’s set in Tokyo. That said, given all the demons, steampunk, airships, and libromancy, we also knew this still have many elements of a period fantasy story. Additionally, the character relationships were pretty straightforward, so it didn’t seem like honorifics would add a lot of information that wasn’t already clear from the context. Ultimately, it seemed to fit the narrative best to localize into naturalistic English and sidestep some of the more explicitly Japanese details. So, for instance, I’m sure some players noticed that in the Japanese VO Sakura often calls Seijuro “Sei nii-san”, signifying that he’s an older male close friend from back when they were little kids. We opted to render this as simply “Seijuro”, the way a native English speaker would approach it.

Iyane Agossah: In Japan, this new entry is titled Shin Sakura Taisen. Could you explain why you decided to go for a simpler title in the West? Hypothetically speaking, if the first game gets localized later on, could it earn a subtitle, such as Sakura Wars: Origins ?

Andrew Davis: Heh, this was actually a very lengthy discussion! In Japan, of course, the original series (and its spinoffs) flew under the Sakura Taisen banner, and since this new game was meant to be a soft reboot to bring in both old and new fans, SEGA of Japan settled on Shin (New) Sakura Taisen to signify a fresh start.

We considered many options, such as “Shin Sakura Wars” (but “Shin” doesn’t signify much if you don’t know Japanese), “New Sakura Wars” (but it’s a bit unwieldy in English), “Sakura Wars: [various subtitles having to do with romance]” (but that doesn’t communicate that this is a new starting point accessible to all players, and as we played more of the final game we grew to understand that the romance aspects were only one part of the experience)…

Ultimately, since the Western footprint for the old series was so thin, we decided to present it with the simple, catchy title Sakura Wars, even as we acknowledge that this could foster confusion when talking about the older series. As for your other question, it’s still too early to say whether we’ll have a chance to revisit any of the older games and give them their first Western releases, but yes! I would imagine we would have to consider adding a subtitle for any official rerelease of the first game, if only to distinguish it from the PS4 game.

Iyane Agossah: Sakura Wars The Animation aired in Japan and is simulcasted in the West. Can we expect more adaptations related to Sakura Wars on PS4 to be localized? Such as the manga and novel adaptations.

Andrew Davis: I’d certainly love to see more Sakura Wars media make it to the West! However, SEGA of America generally only handles video game publishing, so an interested party would need to reach out to the appropriate licensor in Japan.

Iyane Agossah: As Sega previously mentioned the wish to bring more games to PC, could we expect Sakura Wars to get ported to PC via Steam or Epic Games Store? What about other consoles such as Xbox and Switch?

Tetsuya Ootsubo: We certainly want as many people as possible to be able to enjoy the Sakura Wars series. We’re actively researching where the most demand exists for the games and weighing what steps we can take to make other options a reality.

Iyane Agossah: In the past, the very first Sakura Wars game had a spinoff game released on Game Boy. The series also had a puzzle game spinoff series based on Columns. Would you be interested in developing similar spinoff games for this new entry?

Tetsuya Ootsubo: We’re focused right now on getting as many people as possible to play the new Sakura Wars game. However, we would love the chance to work on a spinoff title for people who want to explore the world more and engage with the characters they like.

Iyane Agossah: Seeing Sakura Wars on PS4 has several bonus costumes and soundtrack DLCs, could we expect more DLC in the future? And would it be in the form of additional costumes, or could we get new story content?

Jacob Nahin, Senior Communications Manager: We have a costume / planned release of loungewear planned for release sometime around the fourth of July.

Iyane Agossah: Sakura Wars as a series has a small presence in the West thanks to the old anime adaptations and the localization of Sakura Wars V on Wii. And now, Sakura Wars on PS4 is a new page of the history of the franchise in the West. Could you share with us your impressions regarding the recent reception of Sakura Wars on PS4, and the series as a whole, in the West?

Andrew Davis: We’re really thrilled by the public and critical reception! It’s great that we can finally make a significant push into the West and let more fans discover the unique, comforting atmosphere of Sakura Wars as a series. People have responded really well to the art style, the personalities of the cast, the musical score, and the quirky blue-skies setting.

In fact, we’ve been analyzing and digesting the critical reviews (as we do regularly for all our titles), and one sentiment that’s come up over and over, even in the otherwise negative reviews, is how utterly charming the whole game is. I collected quote after quote talking about how the game feels “cozy”, it has “tons of heart”, and “it’s hard not to fall in love with everyone you meet”. I think we all need a dose of comfort amidst the pain and chaos of 2020, and I’m planning to report to the dev team that Western players appreciate Sakura Wars being the home of good vibes.

Iyane Agossah: Seeing Sakura Wars on PS4 was localized only a few months after its Japanese release, can we expect possible future entries to be localized as swiftly?

Andrew Davis: While it can be a challenge sometimes to start on localization while the game is still in development and parts of the script are in flux, we also know it’s friendlier to fans (and often better for the game’s success!) when we’re able to bring out a game in the West as close as possible to the Japanese release date. Scheduling for any future titles will depend on the individual circumstances, especially given the disruptions hitting many sectors of the game industry worldwide, but we’d certainly like to get our localized editions out as quickly as we can!

Iyane Agossah: The majority of the games in the series are still Japan-exclusive. Could they be localized in some way, in order to make the series better known in the West?

Andrew Davis: The old games are beloved classics in Japan, and if possible, we’d love the chance to revisit them and allow Western fans a chance to discover what made them special. We don’t have any specific plans at the moment, but fingers crossed!

Iyane Agossah: Sakura Wars as a series has few but dedicated fans in the West, and is particularly popular in Asian countries such as South Korean and China. Both countries had their own mobile Sakura Wars games as well. However, certain themes depicted in the Sakura Wars series, such as the Taisho Era and the military themes, can be controversial in the West, South Korea and China. Do you have some comments to share in that regard?

Tetsuya Ootsubo: What makes the world of Sakura Wars so special is the blend of steampunk aesthetic with certain aspects of the real-life Taisho Era of Japan, a time when the traditional culture of Japan was starting to mix with cultural influences imported from the West. We would never condone anything that would harm someone in the enjoyment of this milieu, and during development, we took extra caution to consult with people of all the regions we planned to release the game in, in an effort to avoid ethical missteps.

Iyane Agossah: Sales-wise, did Sakura Wars on PS4 meet your expectations in Japan? In Asia? In the West?

Tetsuya Ootsubo: We first would like to extend our warmest thanks to everyone who has bought the game. We’re continuing to coordinate with teams in each of our sales regions to work on expanding the user base.

Iyane Agossah: Many fans who played Sakura Wars on PS4 mentioned they’d like the game to be fully voiced. Have you considered releasing an enhanced version of the game or DLC adding full voice acting?

Tetsuya Ootsubo: We’ve heard similar requests on our end as well. Currently we don’t have any specific plans for this kind of addition, but we are giving these ideas some consideration.

Iyane Agossah: While Sakura Wars on PS4 marks a new beginning with a new cast of characters, many fans would like to see the old cast again. Did you consider the option to bring back the old cast in some way? Like a non-canon spinoff, where the old and new cast would crossover?

Tetsuya Ootsubo: Indeed, the old characters still exist in the world of PS4 Sakura Wars, and not just Sumire Kanzaki. We understand that longtime fans have a great deal of attachment to the old cast, and we would very much like to bring them back for all the fans in some form or another.

Iyane Agossah: How would you feel about featuring Sakura Wars in console crossover titles, such as a console entry in the Super Robot Wars series?

Tetsuya Ootsubo: We do love to see Sakura Wars characters make appearances in crossover titles. Here in Japan, they have turned up in a number of collaborations already, and if we have the opportunity in the future, we would be thrilled to include them in additional tie-in/crossover games.

Iyane Agossah: Do you have a message you’d like to share with the Western fans of the Sakura Wars franchise?　

Tetsuya Ootsubo: Up until now, the Sakura Wars series hasn’t had much of an active presence in the West. And yet, despite that, there are still dedicated fans all across the globe, which is why we’re thrilled that we could deliver a localized version of the newest game to these fans. This game is a proper sequel set in the same chronology as the previous games, but even if it’s your first exposure to the series, we think you’ll have a really fun time, especially if you have any interest in Japanese anime culture, or even if you merely had your curiosity piqued by the unique, exciting period setting of Taisho-era Japan.

Sakura Wars is currently available on PS4. You can read our thoughts on the game through our review and our latest coverage. I would like to thank once again Tetsuya Ootsubo, Jacob Nahin, and Andrew Davis for answering our questions, along with Jordan and all the Sega PR team.

July 10, 2020 1:32 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/sakura-wars-interview-revitalizing-a-legendary-series-and-localizing-for-the-west/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sakura-wars-interview-revitalizing-a-legendary-series-and-localizing-for-the-west

[luluuu-blog]

P.Jaisini-smiles-GIG-NYC2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MANIFESTO GLEITZEIT 2015 BY STELLY RIESLING Featured below is another original art work of mine in homage to THE PIONEER OF INVISIBLE ART — PAUL JAISINI. Forget all the copycats that came after him — Master Paul Jaisini was the *FIRST* of a totally original concept and the *BEST*. My favorite thing about him is that he’s a voice, not an echo, which is quite rare. DISCLAIMER: This is for anyone who is a hater OR wishes to better understand me, what I’m all about, so you can decide whether I’m weird or normal enough for you — a kind of very loose manifesto, rushed and unrevised, full of raw uncut emotion that I don’t like to be evident in my writing as lately I prefer a more professional, formal style, so we can consider this a rough draft of the more polished writing to come when I have extra time. I might return to this text later and clean it up or break it into separate parts. Right now it’s a long-winded hot mess, so if you manage to make any sense of it, BIG PROPS TO YOU. lol …and if you manage to read it ALL, you have my solemn respect!!! in a day when reading has been reduced to just catchy headliners and short captions of images once in a while. The consequence of this one-liner internet culture is non-linear, tunnel thinking, which is baaaaaad. There lives among us a most enigmatic and charismatic creature named Paul Jaisini who led me into the wonderful world of art, not personally, but through descriptions of his artworks in essays written and published online by his friend, which painted the most fascinating images in my mind. Early on as a kiddo, I experimented with photography, simple point and shoot whatever looked attractive to me. Digital manipulation of my photographs with computer software followed… and somehow I learned useful drawing techniques along the way to combine existing elements with nonexistent ones, which allowed me to elevate the context for my ideas. Later, I started creating my own digital art from scratch for my friends and family as a favorite pastime. They would shower me with praise and repeatedly encouraged me to share my “different” vision with the rest of the world… it took a while and wasn’t easy to overcome the insecurity of not being good enough along with a gripping fear of being harshly criticized, but one day I woman-ed up and started publishing my work on the web, reminding myself that my livelihood didn’t depend on a positive reception. Paul Jaisini’s role in all this has been to not disgrace myself, even if what I do is just a hobby. And I would never do him and other genius artists the disservice of calling myself a professional because I know I’ll never be as good as any of the GIANTS of pre-modern history. Be the best or be nothing, no middle ground. People’s jealousy in the past, future and present over my obsessive love of Paul Jaisini, which they are well aware is purely plutonic, has caused them to despise the man and has made many relationships/friendships impossible for me. I refuse to have such people in my life because by harboring any negativity towards Paul, they unknowingly feel that way about me and express it to me. It’s their own problem for not realizing this. Paul’s new art movement, Gleitzeit, shaped me into the allegedly awesome girl I am today, giving my art more edge, more “sexy” because it refined my vision of the world and propelled me to attain the skills necessary to not dishonor my family name through tenacious pursuit of perfection. Since the beginning of my life, I attempted to depict what I saw in visual, musical and literal forms, but continuously failed without adequate training and determination. Paul Jaisini’s Gleitzeit was the answer to my prayers. Who I am today I owe mostly to him and his selfless ideals of the artverse that I’ve given unconditional loyalty to (he has this cool ability for hyper-vision to see whole universes, not itty bitty worlds, hence I call it an artverse instead of art world, with him in mind). So again, anyone who hates Paul Jaisini hates ME because, regardless of what he means to you, he is the most important person in my life for making me ME. The way a famous actor, dancer or singer inspires others to act, dance or sing, Paul inspired me to become a better artist, better writer, better everything. More people would understand if he was a household name because they’re wired to in society. But we’re inspiring each other all the time in our own little communities without being famous, so if someone has the ability to change even ONE person’s life immensely with creativity, it is a massive achievement. And passionate folks like myself are compelled to scream it from the cyber rooftops. So here I am. It’s whatever. Furthermore, I’d like to address here a few pressing matters in light of some recent drama brought on by both strangers and former friends. To start, I never judge the passions, interests or likes of others, which are often in my face all over the place, so likewise they have no right to judge any of mine. It is quite unfortunate and frustrating how very little understanding and education the majority of people have or want to have. Their logic is as primitive as a chipmunk when it comes to promotion of fine art on the web: “spamming, advertising, report!” It’s their own problem that they fail to understand what it’s about due to the distorted lens through which they see the world or inability to think for themselves; an inherent lack of perception or inquisitiveness. Well, guess what? Every single image, every animation, every video, every post dedicated to Mr. Paul Jaisini and “Gleitziet” (to elaborate: a revolutionary new art movement Paul founded with his partner in crime and personal friend, EYKG, who discovered him and believed in him more than anyone) has an important purpose. Every one of those things you run across is a piece of a puzzle, a move in a game, an inch down a rabbit hole; the deeper you go, the more interesting it gets; the more levels you pass, the more clues unfold, the greater the suspense and nearer the conclusion (yet further). You earn awesome rewards like enlightenment, spiritual revelations, truths, knowledge, wisdom and the most profound reward of all: the drive to improve yourself to the absolute maximum, so an unending, unshakable drive. People often make a wrong turn in this cyber game and go back a few levels or get stuck. Those that keep on pushing, however, will come to find the effort has been worth it. And what awaits you in the end of it all? The greatest challenge to beating the game: YOUR OWN MIND. You will be forced to let go of every belief you held before you had reached the last level, to completely alter your mindset and perception of the world, of life, of yourself. But by the time you’ve gotten to that point, it will be as easy as falling off a cliff! (It is a kind of suicide after all — death and rebirth of spirit.) Paul Jaisini does NOT, *I repeat* does NOT use mystery and obscurity to his advantage as a clever marketing ploy, no, he’s too next level for that with a consciousness so rich, he should wear a radioactive warning sign (he’ll melt your brain, best wear a tinfoil hat in his presence as I certainly would.) The statement he makes is loud and clear, hidden in plain site for those who take the time to connect the dots and have enough curiosity to fuel their journey into unknown territory (an open mind and flexible perception helps a lot). Actually, anyone with an IQ above 90 is sure to figure it out sooner or later. Hint: You don’t have to SEE an extraordinary thing with your eyes to know it exists, to understand it and realize its greatness — you can only feel it in your bone marrow, your spinal fluid, your heart and soul. The moment you do figure it out, as the skeleton key of the human soul, it will unlock the greatness and massive potential buried deep within, changing the doomed direction humanity is undoubtedly headed. I don’t speak in riddles, I speak in a clear direct way that intelligent humans will understand, so I’m counting on them. GIG is an international group of artists and writers that support Paul Jaisini’s Gleitzeit. We started off as an unofficial fan club of Jaisini in 1996, comprised of only 6 individuals spanning 3 countries, and eventually escalated in status to an official fan group across the entire globe. A decade later it had grown to hundreds of fans. Nearly another decade later, there are thousands. Let’s not leave out another delightful group of vicious haters that have been around for nearly as long as us since the late 90s and have also grown in impressive numbers. Now, for the record (and please write this one down because I’m sick of repeating myself), Paul Jaisini himself is not part of our group and has nothing to do with us. He loves and hates us equally for butchering his name and making him appear as a narcissistic nut-job in his own words. He casts hexes on us for the blinding flash we layer over the art that members contribute to GIG — “disgusting-police-lights, seizure-inducing-laser-lightshow, bourgeois-myspace-effects retarded-raver shit” in Paul’s words. Ahh, how we love his sweet-talking us. In a desperate attempt to please him, those among us who make the art and animations have spent countless hours and sleepless nights trying to solve a crazy-complex quantum-physics type of equation = how to not create tacky or tasteless content. He does fancy some of it now, we got better, that’s something! In the reason stated below, our mission just got out of hand at some point. What little is known about Paul Jaisini, even in all this time, is he’s a horrible perfectionist who slaughtered hundreds of innocent babies — I mean — artworks of remarkable beauty created by his own right hand (mostly paintings, some watercolors and drawings). He’s a fierce recluse who wants nothing to do with anyone or anything in life. But those few of us who know of an incredible talent he possesses (one could go as far as calling it a superpower), could not allow him to live his life without the recognition he FUCKING DESERVES more than any artist out there living today and, arguably, yesterday. We use whatever means necessary to reach more people, lots of flash and razzle-dazzle to lure them into our sinister trap of a higher awareness. Mwahaha! The visual boom you’ve witnessed in both cyber and real worlds, that is GIG’s doing — two damn decades of spreading an art virus — IVA. InVisibleArtitis… or a drug as in Intravenous Art. It’s whatever you want it to be, honey. Our Gleitzeit International Group (GIG) started off innocently enough and gradually spiraled out of control to fight the haters, annoying the hell out of them as much as humanly possible. They don’t like what we do? WE DO MORE AND MORE OF IT. But never without purpose, without a carefully executed plan in mind collectively. If we have to tolerate an endless tidal wave of everyone’s vomit — e.g., idiotic memes and comics; dumbed-down one-liner quotes; selfies; so-called “art photography” passed through one-click app filters; mindless scribbles or random splatters by regular folks who have the nerve to call themselves serious/pro artists; primitive images of pets, babies, landscapes, random objects, etc… then people sure as shit are gonna tolerate what we put out, our animated and non-animated visual art designed for our beloved master, Paul Jaisini, who has shown us the light, the right path to follow, taught us great things and done so much for us — and so in our appreciation of him, we stamp his name on everything, for the sacrifices he has made in the name of art, to save our art verse, he’s a goddamn hero. There’s a book being written in his dedication where little will be left to the imagination about him. If Paul Jaisini was as famous as Koons or Hirst, for example, people would know it’s not him posting stuff online with his name on it but fans creating fanart like myself among others. But noooooo, such a thing is unfathomable to most people – the promotion of another artist. Like, what’s in it for us? Uhh, nothing?? This is all NON-PROFIT bitches, the way art should be. It’s a passion FIRST, a commodity/commercial product/marketable item LAST and least. Its been that way for us since the early 90s to this day. Not a single member of GIG has sold an art work (neither has Paul Jaisini who’s a true professional) and we want to keep it that way. We do it for reasons far beyond ego. So advertising? Really? How the hell do you advertise or sell thin air, you know, invisible paintings, invisible anything? Ha ha, very funny indeed. The idea here is so simple, your neighbor’s dog can grasp it. Our motives: replace fast food for the mind with fine art, actual fine art. You know, creativity? Conscious thought? Talent? Skill? Knowledge? All that good stuff rolled into one to bring viewers more than a momentary ooohand aaahh reaction. Replace the recycled images ad nauseum; repetitious, worn-out ideas; disposable, gimmicky, money-driven fast art for simpletons. Stick with the highest of ideals and save the whole bloody planet. Fine art is often confused with craft-making. This often creates bad blood between classically trained artists who put out paintings that leave a lasting impression, that make strong conversation pieces, that are thought-provoking and deep… and trained craftspeople whose skills are adequate to create decorative pieces for homely environments — landscapes, still lifes, animals, pretty fairies, common things of fantasy, and other simplicity. Skills alone are not enough for high art, you need a vision, a purpose, the ability to tell a story with every stroke of your brush that will both fascinate and terrify the viewers, arousing powerful emotions, illuminating. I have yet to see a visible painting in my generation that does anything at all for me, other than evoke sheer outrage and disgust. What a terrible waste of space and valuable resources it all is. Paul Jaisini leads, we follow. He wishes to remain unknown – so do most of us. I’m next in line, slipping into recluse mode, no longer wanting to attach my face, my human image to my art stuff. I wish to be a nameless, faceless artist as well, invisible like P.J., and in his footsteps I too have destroyed thousands of my own artistic photography and digital art made with tedious, labor-intensive handwork. The whole point of this destruction is achieving the finest results possible by letting go of the imperfect, purging it on a regular basis, to make way for the perfect. I love what I do so it doesn’t matter, I know I’ll keep producing as much as I’m discarding, keeping the balance. Hoarding is an enemy of progress, especially the digital kind as there’s absolutely no limit to it. It’s like carrying a load of bricks on your back you’ll never use or need. The watering down of creativity that digital pack ratting has caused as observed over the years is most tragic. For the creative individual, relying on terabytes of stock photos or OSFAP as I call them (Once Size Fits All Photos) instead of making your own as you used to when you had no choice, being 100% original, is a splinter in the conscience. It’s not evil to use stock of, say, things you don’t have access to (outer space, deep sea, Antarctica, etc.), but many digital artists I know today can’t take their own shot of a pencil ‘cause they “ain’t got no time for that!” How did they have time before? Did time get so compressed in only a decade? Ohhhhh, and the edits, textures, filters, plug-ins and what-have-you available out there to everyone and their cats… are responsible for the tidal wave of rubbish that eclipses the magnificent light of the real talents. I can tell you with utmost sincerity there is no better feeling on earth than knowing your creation is ALL yours, every pixel and dot, from the first to the last. It’s not always possible to make it so, but definitely the most rewarding endeavor. I’m most proud of myself when I can accomplish that. Back to Paul Jaisini, from the start there have been a number of theories floating around on what his real story is. One of my own theories is that he stands for the unknowns of the world who can’t get representation, can’t get exhibited at a decent gallery because highly gifted/trained artists aren’t good enough – those kind of establishments prefer bananas, balloon dogs, feces, gigantic dicks/cunts, and all kinds of what-the-fucks… So again, you don’t get the Paul Jaisini thing? That’s your problem. Don’t hate others for getting it. People are good, very good, at making baseless assumptions and impulsively spewing it as truth. They criticize and judge as if they’re high authorities on the subject yet they clearly lack education in fine art or art history and possess little to no talent or skill to back up their bullshit. My little “credibility radar” never fails. When they say I know this or I know that, I reply don’t say “I know” or state things as fact as a general rule of thumb – instead say “I assume/believe” and state the reasons you feel thus to appear less immature, especially about a controversial topic like invisible art. I have zero respect or tolerance for egomaniacs who think they know it all and act accordingly like arrogant pricks. Who can stand those, right? Once again, a good example would be: I, Stelly Riesling, believe everything I’ve written in this little manifesto to be correct based on personal experience and observation from multiple angles, thorough research and sufficient data collected from verifiable sources (and don’t go copying-pasting my own words back at me, be original). Just because you or I say so doesn’t make it so. Just because you or me think or believe so doesn’t make it true or right. I only ask that my opinions are regarded respectfully and whoever opposes them does so in a mature, civilized manner. We should only be entitled to opinions that don’t bring out the worst in us. I don’t normally take such a position, but the time has come to stand up for what I believe in! It’s quite amusing and comical how haters think calling me names, attacking me or my interests or members of the project I’m part of for years is going to change something. It only makes more evident the importance of what I’m doing so I push on harder still. Words of advise to those who can identify with me, with my frustrations over people’s reluctance to change their miserable ways, with our declining art world… DON’T waste time on people who sweat the small stuff, whose actions are consistently inconsistent with their words. DO waste time on people who always keep their eye on the ball—the bigger picture of life. Paul Jaisini’s invisible paintings are more than hype, more than your lame assumptions. Here’s one I got that’s pure gold: a cult! It started out as A JOKE OF MINE that was used against me. I told a then-good friend that he should come join our little “art cult” in a clearly lighthearted manner, and later he takes this idea I put in his head first and accuses me of being in an (imaginary) cult—the jokes on me eh?. But wait, aren’t cults religious? Our group consists of people around the world of different faiths (or none at all) so how could that ever work? If religion was about making fine (non-pop) art mainstream and bringing awesome, fresh, futuristic concepts to the collective consciousness, the world would not be so fucked up today because talent, creativity, originality and individuality would be the main focus, not superficial poppycock; those things would be praised and encouraged and supported in society by all institutions, not demonized and stigmatized. Here is one thing I CAN state as solid fact: only one person close to Paul Jaisini knows the TRUE story, or at least some of it: EYKG. Everything else that has ever been said about him is myth, legend, gossip, speculation, the worst of which is said by jealous non-artists (wannabes, clones, posers, hang-ons, unoriginal ppl in general) and anti-artists (religious psychos, squares, losers and -duh- stupid ppl). Sadly, people are unable to see the bigger picture by letting their egos run their lives or repeating after others as parrots. Commercial art, consumerism, and ignorance of the masses truly makes me want to curl up in a ball, not eat or drink or move until I die, just die in my sleep while dreaming of a better world, a world where real fine artists rule it with real fine art as they used to and life is beautiful once again…. Well I hope that settled THAT for now, or perhaps inadvertently made matters worse. I hope I didn’t sound too pissed from all these issues that keep popping up like penises on ChatRoulette… just got to me already! Can you tell? I had to put my foot down, stomp ‘em all! To be continued, still lots more ignorance and pettiness to battle… Till then peace out my bambini. MWAH! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MANIFESTO GLEITZEIT 2015 PROLOGUE Paul Jaisini was like a messiah, as you wish, who saw/understood the impending end and complete degeneration of Fine art or Art become and investment nothing more than that. He predicted the bubble pops art when everybody would eventually become an artist, including dogs cats and horses, because they as kids followed the main rule: express yourself without skills or knowledge or any aesthetic concerns. J. Pollack started pouring paints onto canvases; Julian Schnabel, former cab driver from NY, suddenly decided he could do better than what he saw displayed in galleries, so he started gluing dishes on canvases; A.Warhol, an industrial artist who made commercial silk-screen for the factories he worked in, started to exhibit "Campbell’s soup" used for commercial adds… and later the thing that made him an "American Idol": by copying and pasting Hollywood celebrities (same type of posters he made before for movie theaters). When Paul Jaisini stood out against the Me culture in the US by burning all of his own 120 brilliant paintings (according to the then-new director of Fort Worth MoMa Museum, who offered hin an exhibition of his art in 1992, and later the Metropolitan Museum curator, Phillippe de Montebello, in 1994).Paul probably assumed all fellow true fine artists would join him or stand by him against corruption of the art world. And after 20 years of his stand-off…the time has finally come today. Many artists and humanitarians around the world took a place beside him. His invisible Paintings became a synonym for the future reincarnation of fine art and long lost harmony. The establishment is in panic! The "moneybags" (as Paul Jaisini named them) are in panic, because they invested BILLIONS of dollars in real crap made by craftsmen. Now they realize that the reputation of American legends of expressionism was nothing but a copy of Russian avant-garde" Kazimir Malevich, Vasiliy Kandinsky and tens of others from France and Germany.. US tycoon investors were spending billions on "Me more original, than you". "Artist Shit" is a 1061 artwork by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. The work consists of 90 tin cans, filled with feces. A tin can was sold for £124,000, 180,000 at Sothebys, 2007. EPILOGUE Before I resume promoting and admiring a very important art persona on today’s international art arena, I’d like to clear up some BIG questions; people ask continuously and subconsciously, directly & indirectly: "Why does the name Paul Jaisini, flood the Internet in such "obnoxious" quantities that it’s started suppressing some other activities that my friends might share with the rest of the Internet’s Ego Me only Me www society? I can’t just answer this… so I’ll try to explain why I’m writing this: Jaisini’s followers keep posting art and info about, He IMHO the only hope in quickly decomposing visual fine art. "Paul Jaisini realized many years ago, in 1994, when he declared (at that time to himself only) the start of a New era, a New vision, that he is trying to redirect from the rat race, started by an establishment in post-war New York, long before the Internet culture. Sub related information: Adolf Gottlieb, Mart Rothko, etc (after visiting Paris France in 1933): "We must forget analytical art, we must express ourselves, as a 5 year old child would, without a developed consciousness. Forget about results – do what you feel, EXPRESS yourself with your own unique style" With this statement Mark Rothko starts to teach his students, degeneration of fine art begins, and the generation of war of styles took a start signal of the material race, greatly rewarded by establishment "individual" – eccentric craftsmen – show business clowns. Sub related Information: In the summer of 1936, Adolf Gottlieb painted more than 800 paintings, which was 20X more than he created in his whole art career as a painter, starting from the time of Gottlieb becomes a founding member of "The Ten" group in NYC "Group of Ten" was a very peculiar, enigmatic group… Based on a religious point of view;(where a human figure was prohibited from being created) GLOSSARY IN 1997, Paul Jaisini’s best friend Ellen Y.K.Gottlieb started a cyber campaign by promoting on a very young Internet, back then, Paul Jaisini’s burned paintings as Invisible Paintings, visible only through poetic essays. She and a handful of people saw his originals and were devastated that nobody could ever see them again. "We, his fans, believe that someday Paul will recreate his 120 burned paintings if he has any decency and moral obligation to his fans, who have dedicated decades to make it happen, for their Phoenix to rise from the ashes and the whole world will witness that all these years we spent to get him back to re-paint the Visuals again were not in vain," – said E.Y.K.Gottlieb in 2014 during the 20th anniversary celebration of Invisible Paintings to GIGroup in NYCity. So now, hopefully, this clears up why I and others do what we do – our "cyber terrorism" of good art, dedicated to Paul Jaisini’s return, which is & and was our mission & our goal. We post good art to fight "troll art" which is worthless pics, after being passed through 1-click filters of free web apps. We are, in fact, against this www pops pollution, done with "bubble art" by the out of control masses with 5 billon pics a day: Pics of cats, memes, quotes,national geographic sunsets and waterfalls, not counting their own daily "selfies: and whatever self-indulging Me-ego-Me affairs, sponsored happily by photo gadget companies like Canon, Nikon, Sony…who churn out higher quality madness tools at lower cost. This way Government taking away attention from the real world crisis of lowest morality & economical devastation. The masses are too easily re-engineered/manipulated by the Establishment PopsStyle delivered to them by pop music and Hollywood "super" stars. In 1992 Paul Jaisini’s Gleitzeit theory predict such a massive, pops self-entertain madness, following technological explosion, but not in illusive scales. Uber Aless @2015 NYC USA NOTE Date’s numbers and events can be slightly inaccurate. #gleitzeit #paul-jaisini #invisible #painting #art #futurism #art-news,

Posted by E_Y_K_G on 2015-03-28 04:43:10

Tagged: , smile ,

The post P.Jaisini-smiles-GIG-NYC2015 appeared first on Good Info.

[the-big-short]

What a time this is...2 be alive for this shit

Hello creatures! What a fucking time to be alive! You might've heard this phrase before as entertainers,public figures,athletes and so on have put it into their respective art over the last couple years and boy are they right. If you don’t take a second to plug out or for a large amount of the population get plugged in a little just to see what the world has to offer you might be feeling a little unbalanced and that’s ok. (been there)

  The five second genius is a very common thing in today's world because anybody can look up anything at any given moment in time and all of a sudden they’re an expert on said topic. Not only that, people are so afraid to not know what you’re talking about that they feel they must spew out some random fact that isn't pertinent to the conversation.  Now we all live different lifestyles and hopefully have a unique perspective on the world. With that being said it doesn't make you an authority on a subject just because you can get an answer in a blink of an eye. I could look up a video on how to cut hair and that doesn’t all of a sudden make me an expert on cutting hair. People read a couple articles about climate change or watch a video and all of a sudden they’re geniuses. Don’t get me wrong I've been guilty of the same thing but, I continued to work on myself so that my intellectual capabilities and overall growth continued to rise and for the first couple of years it was a somewhat unconscious endeavor I can admit. I just thought everything was normal the way i was computing information. I knew nothing of consciousness (still don’t lol) I just felt so strongly that something was completely missing at the age of 19 and this comes from someone who was in college...who was on a basketball scholarship. People look at you and think, “he really has it going on”. Meanwhile, I’m like what about all of this stuff and people just kinda went... ehhh that’s the way it is or they didn’t know the things I knew or thought I knew at the time lol which was nothing except that we are not paying attention to anything that really maters.

 Now I understand a lot of things are necessary for a civilization to run and run effectively and it’s not easy nor pretty at times. Not everyone has the time especially if they aren’t willing to go out of there way to find these things on top of their 40hr week job.. I understand this. I also understand that this is newer for older generations..the technology, the finding out that a lot of things you believed in for the majority of your adult life is and was a complete ploy to expose the kindness in your heart. These things aren’t easy to come to grips with so I do understand and I’m sorry. But, a lot of people like me didn't have that luxury and I call it that because if you don’t think at all or don’t have any critical thinking skills especially when you’re young you tend to just go with the flow and going with the flow in some ways brings no “pain”(pain has many different forms) and definitely will not widen your eyes. These two things can and will still find you know matter what it just may come later which is what it is. I’m not pointing fingers here, this is not your generation this my generation that,stupid people /smart people this is all intended to help so I’m sorry if things rub you the wrong way...at the end of the day we all have difficulties and hardships. All I can do is try to imagine your pain in certain circumstances so that I can come in to the situation with some compassion and understanding. I’ve no idea what it was like growing up in the Vietnam War period. Knowing any day you could get drafted and be in a foreign land not by your choice. I can imagine the fear, the unknowing of what is going to happen next. I can try and understand as much as possible the fact that you lost people you just had lunch with the day before and how often that occurrence probably was. I can imagine the trauma you probably still carry with you to this day because you cant shake the things you've seen or done and then you came home to a country who tossed you aside and expected you to just get on with your life. I can imagine these things because I’ve been scarred too..I’ve also been to war but it was a different war. Knowing and understanding so much at a young age can be a terrifying thing and damaging at that...So damaging you forgot it was ok to laugh and smile... to enjoy your fucking life. See I might not have lost friends in a war but I knew at an early age the truths of war. The money in war, the manipulation, the propaganda, the mass indoctrination, the realizing that everyone around you has no fucking clue what you’re talking about or how you can compute things people are not understanding. This was before “fake news” was mainstream. This is being years ahead of people 40 years older than you and this is just one subject...we’re talking about people walking their whole life without a fucking clue about much of anything and even if they did understand some things they made absolutely zero attempt to change anything about themselves on even the smallest scale....Just be nicer lol..you don’t have to go save the world just be nicer because we’re all connected and whether or not you believe your actions to be inconsequential that’s bullshit because how you interact with people will determine for a lot of beings how they go on to interact with others. (Quantum physics/mechanics enters) Any who,I began to understand the quotes that say “hell can be with you every day..everywhere you go because I used to live there.”

 This isn’t a pity party, this is a we all can relate our struggles and difficulties if we just take the time to pay attention and listen...to really share our emotions and to not be afraid of the truth even if it scares us, even if we don’t like it. Even if it makes us so uncomfortable we can’t breathe. Things have gotten better and will continue to get better for myself and you if you are willing to put in the fucking work. We still live in possibly the safest time in recorded history but some things can’t be known for sure. Once you are aware that only the Akashic records hold the full truth will you understand we really know nothing on the macro scale of things and this is ok...this shouldn't frighten us. Learn to thrive in it....Go all out. 

Live today for tomorrow is never promised.

I hope this brings you some sort of insight into my mind but more importantly opens up a door way for you to explore new avenues inside your own. 

Have a blessed day creators. 

P.S.

I can’t fit every interconnected dot into everything i try and write about..i’ll miss things , the context might not always gel with you but i do the best i can without rambling to much. Thank you!

[saltprogramlar]

Ask a farmer when there’s no need for an accountant

Production image of Jingle (Bureau of Unspecified Services, SALT Galata), 2018

İpek Ulusoy of SALT Research and Programs interviewed Chris Evans on his artistic process through a range of media, including photography, sculpture, sound and books, as well as the involvement of collaboration in his practice and his new works at Bureau of Unspecified Services (B.U.S), programmed by Sohrab Mohebbi as part of SALT’s Conversations series.

İpek Ulusoy: Chris, you’ve recently developed two new works that are currently on view at SALT Galata. The first one is Home Economics, Istanbul I-III (2018), a series of photographs of hob paintings you made in several SALT users’ kitchens, and the second is a sound piece titled Jingle (Bureau of Unspecified Services, SALT Galata) (2018), where you’ve worked with a local farmer. What was the first curatorial prompt that you received and how do these two seemingly very different works respond to that?

Chris Evans: Sohrab and I spoke about the relationship that SALT intends to build with its users, and how it is a magnet for young people, particularly college students who study and socialize there. We also discussed the title of the exhibition, which led to a conversation on the utility in art, if an extreme counter to this is the notion of so-called “radical uselessness” and what forms other counters might take so that they wouldn’t rely on their resonance being manifestly polemical. I have spent some time at SALT Galata during my Who’s in town? talk in February 2018, observing the way users engage with the institution. Considering this and Sohrab’s prompt for B.U.S., I grew an interest in how this context might become a part of the means of production.

İU: So let’s start with Home Economics, Istanbul I-III. There is a painterly aspect to these photographs that makes us feel like we are witnessing the aftermath of something. We are tempted to learn more about what we might have missed, what we are not part of, in other words, the performative aspect of the work. I am curious to hear more about your process, choice of media, and also why the work is not perhaps a video documentation of a performance but a series of photographs.

CE: The work begins with my experience of staying at short-term rented flats in foreign cities making paintings on absent strangers’ cooking hobs with their herbs and spices, and later photographing them for no good reason. I had kept these photographs on my studio wall for a couple of years as I didn’t know what to do with them at the time. There was one of these pictures on the wall when Sohrab started telling me about the exhibition. I wondered how the site and context of SALT and the exhibition might shape it as a piece of work.

First, SALT asked some of its users for permission so that I could enter their homes and make paintings on their cooking hobs. What had begun as a solitary act a few years ago had now become a public operation with us arriving on masse to make the work. There was myself, a photographer, an assistant, a project manager, and, of course, the homeowners themselves. Busy kitchens.

Chris Evans, Home Economics, Istanbul I, 2018 Photograph: Mustafa Hazneci

İU: In the photographs, you intentionally avoid giving any clues as to where you shot these, whose kitchen and so on?

CE: My impulse was to hide the back drop. I didn’t think there would be anything to gain from seeing the whole set up – a circus of people, lights and camera – and if we were to hide the apparatus I wondered what we would be revealing about the homeowners. It could easily veer towards a quasi-sociological study. Instead, I was curious to see how this process would affect the work and in-explicitly become part of it.

İU: Perhaps we can briefly discuss the title of the series. The term “home economics” (or ev ekonomisi in Turkish) has a very personal resonance for me as I first heard it from my grandmother. For her, it was about using the leftovers and turning something which was not necessarily functional into something that is. So, it meant re-assigning value to things that might simply be sitting at home, giving function to others and making better use of the resources in the domestic setting.

CE: Home Economics is named after a class that was integrated into the school curriculum in the late 1800s in the US. The original intention was to teach methods to structure home maintenance so that household chores would take up less time opening up more free time for other activities. The class still existed when I was at school, but drained of much of the initial focus on managing relationships between people, families and communities.

The work is about how value might come into play in a stranger’s gestural paintings made with the homeowners’ selection of herbs and spices. How can we determine the value of this or is the work perhaps the product of not having to?

İU: Can you speak about spice-as-material a little bit more and the potential of your process finding another form of expression?

CE: I used herbs, spices and cleaning products that were around in these hob paintings. Only when we had set everything up, met the homeowners, arranged the camera and lighting that I had to determine what marks I would make. How might the situation of making the work (spiraling out wider, the situation of making it in Istanbul) find itself crystallised in the resulting images? There’s no way of directly addressing this but it is eventually encapsulated in what is made. It was an unnerving experience having to consider what I might be expressing with these gestural sweeps of spices. I was aware that it might have appeared comical: putting the finishing touches to a dish over and over again.

The series has led to a new body of work for a solo exhibition at CAN, Neuchatel, Switzerland. In these new pieces, I paint with herbs and spices directly into slicks of resin which, in my opinion, resemble cooking oil spills. The hobs then get displayed vertically on the walls. They’re simply a consequence of making the works for SALT; one thing led to another.

İU: At SALT Research, I’ve recently come across your Job Interviews (2017), a publication which you’ve edited and illustrated. You’ve previously worked on other artist books, such as Magnetic Promenade (and Other Sculpture Parks) (2006) and Radical Loyalty (2002-2005). In thinking about how works manifest themselves in different shapes and forms, we can perhaps take this moment to explore how making books is relevant in your practice?

CE: My most recent book, Job Interviews began with my own writing. I was creating fictitious plots around various real people who have been at the periphery of the artworks I have previously made. Here, I was interested in the ritualistic aspect of job interviews, how they are like a courtship, conditioned by protocols that require a quite particular display. Social relations become material, there’s a dance of conformity, and there’s also this attempted imagining and echoing of expectations.

Going back to your question, making books is particularly important to me as it is a way of pulling in a wider context around things that interest me. Back stories are usually encapsulated into the works themselves. Producing books then becomes an excuse to do the opposite, to spiral off on tangents, but in a medium that to me feels more fitting; written narrative and depictive illustration. It’s also an excuse to work with people whose work I very much admire. To my mind, Natasha Soobramanien’s story and Holly Pester’s poem in Job Interviews are fantastic works of writing.

İU: At one point during your Who’s in town? talk, skill and context came up as two interesting notions in relation to your illustrations in Job Interviews. You mentioned that you were a better illustrator when you were sixteen, skill loses its importance in time, and building narratives around works of art come to the foreground. Can you expand on this idea further?

CE: I had a steadier hand when I was sixteen! I actually didn’t mean much by it; I was just talking about my personal experience and how I found myself using the same medium I used when I was a teenager. Also, how the consequence of the drop in expertise might mean that the context around the work has to take up the slack. In addition to making airbrush paintings that accompany anthologies of writing, I also use them to make “artists impressions” of proposed work, singular paintings, and posters. For an upcoming exhibition, I recently proposed a sculpture to be installed outside one of the windows of the Minister of Culture’s home of residence in Neuchatel, which will be accompanied by an airbrush painting depicting the sculpture seen from outside his home, the minister’s viewpoint.

İU: Dealing with a range of critical questions around artistic practice, patronage, authorship and sources of inspiration in your work, you often engage constituents from outside and beyond the art world including directors of institutions, public organizations and individuals from different segments. Your new work Jingle (Bureau of Unspecified Services, SALT Galata) (2018), and a previous piece titled A Needle Walks into a Haystack (2014), where you persuaded jewelry makers Boodles, major supporters of the Liverpool Biennial, to respond to the Biennial’s press release, immediately come to mind. What are your motivations for collaborating with people and organizations coming from non-artistic practices? Also, do you have initial expectations going into these relationships and how do you navigate through them?

CE: In collaborating with people from non-artistic practices my motivation is not towards ideas of inclusivity, and, in each occasion, little is revealed about the process itself. Conversations and negotiations remain hidden, their content becoming encapsulated in the artefacts. I want to solicit the dream life of honchos and henchmen, and I select the people I work with in relation to their symbolic or public role. In the case of the jingle, the options were a local animal farmer or an accountant.

Often the works include an uneasy partnership between public and private bodies. In A Needle Walks Into a Haystack (2014), for example, we’ve worked with the luxury jewellery firm Boodles, which was one of the main sponsors of the Liverpool Biennial. I asked the company to design a piece of jewellery in response to the Biennial’s press release, interpreting the exhibition’s core ideas as a creative brief. Boodles made a platinum and yellow gold ring with sapphires and helidor and I made a relief tablet and vitrine to house it. The imagination of a luxury brand becomes mixed up with artistic vision, blurring the roles of everyone involved.

The jewellery that Boodles makes can be photographed from 100 metres away and still sparkles. You might see them adorning the necks of celebrities and members of royal families in the pages of magazines like Hello!, Look and Grazia. Despite the fact that they cost a fortune, they are popular and somehow seem accessible. I thought that, given this popularity, the jewellery might attract a wider audience to the Liverpool Biennial, which like many other biennials promotes itself and raises capital on the promise of providing access and reaching a wider demographics. I was also interested in the rhetoric used by the Biennial to intrigue and excite. I wanted to give the press release to Boodles so that they could interpret it in their own way; I was curious to see how they would navigate its language and the parallels between how the jewelry-makers and the biennial promote themselves.

İU: The jingle, a brief pre-recorded sound plays every time someone walks in or out of the exhibition space at SALT Galata. In a book on display practices I once read, the author described how the direction in which people start their visit a gallery varies in different countries. I cannot remember the specifics of it, but I think more people tended to move towards the right when they walk into a gallery. So, I wonder whether positioning the work towards the right side was a conscious decision.

CE: This makes me think of the way that supermarkets are structured and how it impacts people’s flow and shopping behavior. But no I didn’t think about it at the time. I didn’t even specify. In previous installations in Graz, Portugal, Amsterdam and Hong Kong, the work’s loudspeaker has been positioned on the left hand side but I will definitely think more about the impact of where it’s situated now that you mention this. I think what was more important for me was that the work consists of a relatively small speaker on a stand whose presence would feel like a doorman, and not a security guard.

İU: Yes, it’s present but not so intimidating. It’s placed at a reasonable height, which is not too high.

CE: At the height of vital organs. There’s a very simple logic that decides how I proceed with making each jingle. I either work on these with a farmer or an accountant . If the institution considers itself to be financially stable then I record the first, and if not it’s the latter.

I often think about how all of us carries a soundtrack in our heads that’s dependent on what we do in life. I chose farmers and accountants because there are distinct sounds that we’d associated with these vocations. I thought that in asking them to make non-verbal sounds there might be a residue of these, let’s call them vocational soundtracks. When I was recording the farmer Soner Gümüş, I thought there might be subtle instances where he might sound like one of the animals that he tends. This wasn’t the case but perhaps it speaks of our expectations and in a way that I think, and hope, the work defies this caricaturization.

İU: Can you further expand on your process and how much context the people whose voices you record knows?

CE: I work on the jingles with the artist Morten Norbye Halvorsen. Whenever we’ve made them it’s always been the institution that’s been in touch directly with the farmers or accountants. I did not provide so much information as it’s good to go into the recording sessions without preconceived expectations. Prior to the sessions, Morten puts together a sequence of percussive sounds of short duration – noises that we feel would encourage non-verbal sounds. I ask the farmer, or accountant, to mimic the percussion noises. We keep going with it until there’s a flow and the vocalisations feel unfamiliar. These recorded vocalisations are later assembled into the jingle by Morten and also include a musical sequence of bass guitar that I record. I have in mind those bassline interludes that are familiar to ‘changes of scenes’ in American sitcoms like Seinfeld. Whilst the bass is used as a transitional device so too are the jingles situated at the point of entry and departure of the exhibition.

İU: I noticed that many were very conscious about the work, particularly the first instance they hear it. Did you get a chance to observe how people respond to it when they first hear the sound?

CE: I wanted the short sound sequence to briefly proclaim and broadcast a visitor’s arrival to the exhibition and, for the person entering (or exiting) to become the focus of attention. It behaves like an audio ID, bracketing and, to some extent, conditioning the experience of Bureau of Unspecified Services (B.U.S.).

[assignmentsolutions4me]

CIS8009 | Management of Business Telecommunications | Management

Assignment 2 (Industry Research Paper 1)

Value- thetotal value of this assignment is 25%.

Specification

To complete this assignment, you’re required to find out two organizations- one large organization with over 5,000 employees and one small-to-medium organization with 50-1,000 employees.

The size of these organizations is vital to their present and future requirements would be different. When you’re choosing these organizations, consider their footprint, such as are they operating within one country only, and are they have a branch to another country or are planning to do so, or are they already operating on a global scale? You need to consider some other points like the type of business, for example, pharmaceutical versus distribution. You may find some information on their background that gives some clues. You could also look at their vision, mission, values, and statements.

Do not contact any organization to get information. There are security reasons why this information isn’t available publicly. You only need to use the technical aspects of this course to make your own assumptions and deductions from the information that is available publically. Then translate this into a managerial view.

Furthermore, it would be more advantageous to select two organizations that don’t have the similar product or same type operation. This will help you in the requirements of the other assignments in this course.

You now need to make further assumptions and write an industry research paper that will define the business communications and business systems depend on the network-oriented components of these two organizations.

You need to differentiate the use of the networks between these two organizations. Then, you’re required to familiarise yourself with these two organizations and develop an understanding how they would conduct their business, local or worldwide, small family business. Consider that different kind of businesses even in the same sector might have different needs. Regulate if the organization if the organization is owned by another and how that might have an influence on the use and design of communications in the organizations. Some of your assumptions can be used on what you may already know about an organization. When you do research, online, books, journal articles, use the information from your reading to create support and arguments using Harvard citing.

As you have built up a portrait of these organizations network usage and design, then you will then have joined the course material in your depiction while concentrating on the specifics of each organization. You do not need to contact anyone from these organizations.

Structure of the Industry Research Paper

The concentrate here is not so much that you write a journal article, but that you write a document that applies the below-mentioned structure, and address the problems outlined in this specification. You need to apply the course material to your description of the network-related components. You require showing your understanding of the material while defining each organizations network.

Organize your research paper in a below-described way:

a. Title (Paper’s Title) b. Your Name and Student Number c. Abstract (about 100 words) d. Introduction e. Body context (divide into several sub-sections if needed)

The word limit for the introduction, body, and conclusion of this paper is about 3,000 words. Use five or more resources for you Harvard in-text citing and reference list.

Marking Criteria for Research Paper 1

a. Structured development of research paper (30 Marks) b. Depth of research/ critical reflection (30 Marks) c. Understanding of key ideas and concepts (30 Marks) d. Evidence of support (10 Marks)

Assignment 3 (Research Paper 2)

Value:total value of this research paper is 35%.

Overview

This assignment continuous the story of the two organizations you have selected in the 1st assignment and uses the origin of the 2nd assignment (research paper 1).

In this 3rd assignment, now you require addressing how these two organizations can improve business operations by varying their communication systems and network components and by adopting new network technologies or/and developments to management thereof.

Research Paper Background

Continuing with your previous work, you’re now needed to decide what is required to help the two organizations a competitive advantage. You’ve obtained a good knowledge about these organizations with these previous assignments, where you used your assumptions to create a whole picture of the present communication systems and network components. This will have to be tailored to the sort of organization, their complete background.

Deliberate that you may have been appointed as a management consultant to advise the organization on the cost-effective and most appropriate recommendation talking the organization's specific requirements. You require regulating how each of these organizations can take on to develop the current communication systems and network components to build on top of the prevailing ones.

This needs you to find out a balance that gives a workable custom solution. Instead of taking the best of everything, financial costs and the effect of the changes to the organization will require being considered and justified. It would be suitable to phase certain changes to find out the most appropriate solution.

It is very significant to obtain knowledge of how the organization's services or products are delivered and how the different elements connect to provide these services. This is basic for choosing a solution.

For instance, bearing in mind the application layer firewalls need the entire domain of knowledge to be able to make a decision. The application layer gives information on the type of services this can be used on, and things and may be affected by its execution, for example, the likelihood of bottleneck in processing. This application layer also gives knowledge about the suitable structure of the network and the separations that require being in place to make it an operative solution.

While considering these technologies it is easy to arrive at a conclusion that the one type of solution is better than another. Though the technologies must be united within the current network, and therefore it is compulsory to regulate which new technologies are suitable for the organization.

Make clear how the organization and its partners use the existing services to determine the practical level of adaptation of technologies that are to be united into these current networks. This requires being attained with the minimum amount of rebuilding or conversion to offer the predicted aids. It also needs considering that in the industry time is money, and to get approval for these changes, costs need to be kept reasonable. It is also very significant to keep in mind that the costs contain new technologies along with the cost of converting and rebuilding the current network and training. When you reflect on your recommendations to management of your selected organizations, you required keeping in mind if all of this is really practicable to execute. Your recommendations must be something that the organization can adapt to develop their existing communication systems and network components. Your design will require ensuring that it doesn’t only bring the organization to a more up to date state, but places the organization in a position of further expansion and upgrade.

So, you required considering what information is required to make applicable decisions about information needs. This should be geared toward understanding the issues. Anything that is not directly related to the question the argument or aids the understanding of problems is hindering the objective of this paper. You are required to very concentrate and selective on the information you provide and how you present it. The word limit is aimed at ensuring that you do. Be concise, use in-text citing to back up your suggestions and view so that you are able to argue your suggestions for the new technologies. Organizations are very crucial to the potential gains that costly changes bring to them, and the better you can argue and back up through citing, the more convincing you will be.

Structure of Research Paper

The reading of the journal papers for your 1st assignment, the essay, has already provided you with understanding on how a paper is written. When you write your research paper, you’ll be addressing it to the particular situation of your organization. Though, imagine that you would want to publish it in a journal so that other organizations can also think about your guidelines.

Organize your research paper in a below-mentioned way:

a. Title (Paper’s Title) b. Your Name and Student Number c. Abstract (about 100 words) d. Introduction e. Body context (divide into several sub-sections if needed) f. Conclusion g. References

The word limit for the introduction, main body and conclusion of this paper is about 3,000 words. Use five or more resources for your citing and reference list in Harvard style. Ensure to provide the name of the organization along with URL, vision, values, and mission statement.

Marking Criteria

a. Structured development of research paper (30 Marks) b. Depth of research/ critical reflection (30 Marks) c. Understanding of key ideas and concepts (30 Marks) d. Evidence of support (10 Marks)

Challenges students may face

Students may face several problems while completing this assignment like insufficient time, lack of academic writing skills, making appropriate reference list etc. To help these students, we provide academic help and guidance which will help them to excel their career.

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Digital Marketer – Analytics & Data Mastery Class

Digital Marketer – Analytics & Data Mastery Class

We call it “The Analyst’s Toolkit”: According to Google, about 90% of websites have installed Google Analytics…

…yet only 30% of people actually LOG IN to look at their analytics dashboard. Pretty bad, right? Hold on—it gets worse. Of that 30% who log in, most people don’t know what they’re doing or what to look for. They just see a scrambled mass of numbers that don’t actually *say* anything. Sure, they know their average bounce rate is 54.99%… But what does that mean? How can they be sure it’s accurate? And most importantly… What are they supposed to DO about it? That’s where you come in. As a Certified Data Analyst, you’ll have a rare and valuable skillset. You’ll have the ability to collect & analyze data as tool to answer TOUGH business questions, such as: “Why has our average order value dropped, and what can we do to fix the problem ASAP?” “Which blog topics are bringing us the most engagement and leads?” “How can we find out what are people saying about us online (without reading through thousands of comments every day)?” “Where should we put our advertising budget to get the best results? And should we be spending more, less, or the same?” “Why did our last email promo perform so well, and how can we recreate that success in our next send?” So how do you do it? And how do you do it over & over again, using a consistent and repeatable process? To answer that question, there’s one thing you have to understand…

There Are 4 “Lenses” Through Which You Can Look At Your Data We call it “The Analyst’s Toolkit”:

Make Smart Business Decisions

Whenever there’s a change in your business, these are the 4 “lenses” you can use to help determine the cause:

Historical: How does this data compare to your baseline in the past?

External: Did something happen outside of your company that could have caused the change?

Internal: Have you made any strategic changes that could explain it?

Contextual: Are you putting this data in the proper context?

If it all seems complicated, it’s really not.

In fact, once you understand the process it makes analyzing data much simpler & easier!

You’ll never find yourself blindly clicking through your analytics dashboard again…

Because you’ll have a step-by-step process to answer ANY question that arises in your business.

Just how valuable is this skill? You be the judge…

FACT: Without Data Analysts, Business Owners Are Flying Blind Any business owner, CEO, or manager worth their salt (and their salary) should be smart enough to realize…

…that they have no friggin’ clue what’s going on in their business.

Sure, they have hunches… Intuitions… Guesses…

But without data to back up those intuitions, they’re flying blind.

It’s like they’re driving a car at night…

With the headlights turned off.

And as the data expert in your company, you’re the only person with the power to turn on the lights.

Do you realize how valuable that skill is to an employer?

As the resident data expert, you can do much more than earn a hefty salary.

You can be the HERO in your company!

You’ll be the one who recognizes a huge opportunity hidden in the numbers.

You’ll be the one who discovers a big problem and solves it before it has a chance to wreak havoc.

And whenever someone has a question… or a suggestion… or an idea…

Who do you think they’re going to come to for advice?

That’s right.

They’re going to come to YOU.

Because you’ll be the only one with the tools and the expertise to discover what’s really going on in your company and know how to use that information to make intelligent, data-driven decisions.

And you’re going to master those tools right here, in this certification class. You’ll learn things like:

The exact same strategies we use here at DigitalMarketer to collect data, analyze it, and make smart data-driven decisions about our business How to build a complete analytics dashboard that reveals the overall health of your company in one glance Why it’s essential to remove outliers to avoid misleading data so you don’t make bad decisions (along with the exact formulas to do it) How to calculate the lifetime value of a customer (this is ESSENTIAL if you want to know how much you can afford to spend to acquire new customers at a profit) An 8-step flowchart that shows you an easy, step-by-step process for turning raw numbers into meaningful actions How to set up full-funnel tracking so that you can immediately plug any leaky buckets in your systems and optimize the steps that will generate the biggest results Why you MUST contextualize your data to make sense of it, and how to use “The Analyst’s Toolkit” to find out what’s REALLY going on in your business How to measure customer satisfaction using metrics like refund rate, churn rate, and our custom-built membership retention report Why you should be tracking the banner click % for each blog post to measure how well it creates interest in your product or service How to keep a finger on the pulse of your audience using Reputation Score and a Qualitative Trend Report How to track visitor recency and use it to gauge the effectiveness of your company’s branding efforts The “Retargeting Naming System” that makes tracking your funnel performance super simple (this is the *key* to diagnosing the health of your entire sales funnel) How to identify the critical 3-5 data points for YOUR business (no matter the size), how to track them, and how to use this data to actually generate more leads and sales How you can use digital analytics to measure the impact of your company’s OFFline marketing (this will really impress your boss) How to accurately track your all-important monetary metrics including sales, average order value, and revenue per visitor How to identify which traffic sources are most valuable to your business (using our custom-made UTM Parameter Builder) Why you can’t rely on averages or aggregates, and how to drill down to meaningful specifics instead How to analyze the performance of each channel in your marketing so you can make intelligent decisions about how to scale your business What “Cohort Analysis” is, and how to use this advanced tool to learn more about the true value of your membership program How to measure your share of search to compare your company’s performance against your competitors No one can make strategic business-building decisions without the right data.

No you, not me, not your boss, not Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or even Steve Jobs in his prime…

Nobody.

Is it any wonder, then, why data analysts are SO CRITICAL to the success of every company in the world?

If you’re interested in becoming a “Analytics & Data Master,” then I have one question for you…

Are You A “Doer”…or Just a “Talker?”

(or…Why You Might Want To Get Certified)

Let’s face it: Marketing experts are a dime a dozen.

So how do you separate those who “walk the talk” from the ones who merely…

…talk?

That’s the problem!

And at DigitalMarketer, it was our problem, too. You see, we don’t just teach marketing best practices, we actually DO MARKETING for businesses that we ACTUALLY OWN.

We aren’t researchers. We aren’t journalists.

We’re business owners running companies (both online and offline) in B2B and B2C markets selling everything from cosmetics to camping equipment to industrial water filters and everything in-between.

In other words: WE ACTUALLY DO THIS STUFF…

…so we know how hard it is to find truly skilled people who know what they’re talking about.

And that’s why we created the “Analytics & Data Mastery” course and certification.

We built this certification to train our own team members, but in the spirit of “open sourcing” our business (which is what DigitalMarketer is all about) we’re now making this certification and training available to the world.

In short, we’re making it available to YOU…

Digital Marketer – Analytics & Data Mastery Class posted first on premiumwarezstore.blogspot.com

[sublimedeal]

Digital Marketer – Analytics & Data Mastery Class

Digital Marketer – Analytics & Data Mastery Class

We call it “The Analyst’s Toolkit”: According to Google, about 90% of websites have installed Google Analytics…

…yet only 30% of people actually LOG IN to look at their analytics dashboard. Pretty bad, right? Hold on—it gets worse. Of that 30% who log in, most people don’t know what they’re doing or what to look for. They just see a scrambled mass of numbers that don’t actually *say* anything. Sure, they know their average bounce rate is 54.99%… But what does that mean? How can they be sure it’s accurate? And most importantly… What are they supposed to DO about it? That’s where you come in. As a Certified Data Analyst, you’ll have a rare and valuable skillset. You’ll have the ability to collect & analyze data as tool to answer TOUGH business questions, such as: “Why has our average order value dropped, and what can we do to fix the problem ASAP?” “Which blog topics are bringing us the most engagement and leads?” “How can we find out what are people saying about us online (without reading through thousands of comments every day)?” “Where should we put our advertising budget to get the best results? And should we be spending more, less, or the same?” “Why did our last email promo perform so well, and how can we recreate that success in our next send?” So how do you do it? And how do you do it over & over again, using a consistent and repeatable process? To answer that question, there’s one thing you have to understand…

There Are 4 “Lenses” Through Which You Can Look At Your Data We call it “The Analyst’s Toolkit”:

Make Smart Business Decisions

Whenever there’s a change in your business, these are the 4 “lenses” you can use to help determine the cause:

Historical: How does this data compare to your baseline in the past?

External: Did something happen outside of your company that could have caused the change?

Internal: Have you made any strategic changes that could explain it?

Contextual: Are you putting this data in the proper context?

If it all seems complicated, it’s really not.

In fact, once you understand the process it makes analyzing data much simpler & easier!

You’ll never find yourself blindly clicking through your analytics dashboard again…

Because you’ll have a step-by-step process to answer ANY question that arises in your business.

Just how valuable is this skill? You be the judge…

FACT: Without Data Analysts, Business Owners Are Flying Blind Any business owner, CEO, or manager worth their salt (and their salary) should be smart enough to realize…

…that they have no friggin’ clue what’s going on in their business.

Sure, they have hunches… Intuitions… Guesses…

But without data to back up those intuitions, they’re flying blind.

It’s like they’re driving a car at night…

With the headlights turned off.

And as the data expert in your company, you’re the only person with the power to turn on the lights.

Do you realize how valuable that skill is to an employer?

As the resident data expert, you can do much more than earn a hefty salary.

You can be the HERO in your company!

You’ll be the one who recognizes a huge opportunity hidden in the numbers.

You’ll be the one who discovers a big problem and solves it before it has a chance to wreak havoc.

And whenever someone has a question… or a suggestion… or an idea…

Who do you think they’re going to come to for advice?

That’s right.

They’re going to come to YOU.

Because you’ll be the only one with the tools and the expertise to discover what’s really going on in your company and know how to use that information to make intelligent, data-driven decisions.

And you’re going to master those tools right here, in this certification class. You’ll learn things like:

The exact same strategies we use here at DigitalMarketer to collect data, analyze it, and make smart data-driven decisions about our business How to build a complete analytics dashboard that reveals the overall health of your company in one glance Why it’s essential to remove outliers to avoid misleading data so you don’t make bad decisions (along with the exact formulas to do it) How to calculate the lifetime value of a customer (this is ESSENTIAL if you want to know how much you can afford to spend to acquire new customers at a profit) An 8-step flowchart that shows you an easy, step-by-step process for turning raw numbers into meaningful actions How to set up full-funnel tracking so that you can immediately plug any leaky buckets in your systems and optimize the steps that will generate the biggest results Why you MUST contextualize your data to make sense of it, and how to use “The Analyst’s Toolkit” to find out what’s REALLY going on in your business How to measure customer satisfaction using metrics like refund rate, churn rate, and our custom-built membership retention report Why you should be tracking the banner click % for each blog post to measure how well it creates interest in your product or service How to keep a finger on the pulse of your audience using Reputation Score and a Qualitative Trend Report How to track visitor recency and use it to gauge the effectiveness of your company’s branding efforts The “Retargeting Naming System” that makes tracking your funnel performance super simple (this is the *key* to diagnosing the health of your entire sales funnel) How to identify the critical 3-5 data points for YOUR business (no matter the size), how to track them, and how to use this data to actually generate more leads and sales How you can use digital analytics to measure the impact of your company’s OFFline marketing (this will really impress your boss) How to accurately track your all-important monetary metrics including sales, average order value, and revenue per visitor How to identify which traffic sources are most valuable to your business (using our custom-made UTM Parameter Builder) Why you can’t rely on averages or aggregates, and how to drill down to meaningful specifics instead How to analyze the performance of each channel in your marketing so you can make intelligent decisions about how to scale your business What “Cohort Analysis” is, and how to use this advanced tool to learn more about the true value of your membership program How to measure your share of search to compare your company’s performance against your competitors No one can make strategic business-building decisions without the right data.

No you, not me, not your boss, not Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or even Steve Jobs in his prime…

Nobody.

Is it any wonder, then, why data analysts are SO CRITICAL to the success of every company in the world?

If you’re interested in becoming a “Analytics & Data Master,” then I have one question for you…

Are You A “Doer”…or Just a “Talker?”

(or…Why You Might Want To Get Certified)

Let’s face it: Marketing experts are a dime a dozen.

So how do you separate those who “walk the talk” from the ones who merely…

…talk?

That’s the problem!

And at DigitalMarketer, it was our problem, too. You see, we don’t just teach marketing best practices, we actually DO MARKETING for businesses that we ACTUALLY OWN.

We aren’t researchers. We aren’t journalists.

We’re business owners running companies (both online and offline) in B2B and B2C markets selling everything from cosmetics to camping equipment to industrial water filters and everything in-between.

In other words: WE ACTUALLY DO THIS STUFF…

…so we know how hard it is to find truly skilled people who know what they’re talking about.

And that’s why we created the “Analytics & Data Mastery” course and certification.

We built this certification to train our own team members, but in the spirit of “open sourcing” our business (which is what DigitalMarketer is all about) we’re now making this certification and training available to the world.

In short, we’re making it available to YOU…

Digital Marketer – Analytics & Data Mastery Class published first on http://ift.tt/2qxBbOD