#Basic Excel Course Online

[devopscourses1]

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[kontentedgee]

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[dannyriccsystem]

hiii can you do kimi antonelli asking help from a cute girl in his class or a driver’s younger sister to tutor him in math?

LISTEN UP NOW!

FORMULA ONE DRIVER X READER

Summary: Kimi asks his cute classmate for help with math!

Warnings: Silly, fluff, Y/N usage, user is in last year of high school

Featuring: Kimi Antonelli x Classmate!Reader

REQUESTS OPEN! Check here for more info!

Still getting to requests today, but feel free to send some in! Love y’all

Nobody necessarily expected Kimi Antonelli to still be in school. Rarely did you see a Formula One driver who was still learning about the basics, such as math and language, while also simultaneously passing world champions in their sport and making a living for themselves. After this information came out, there was obviously… Quite a few jokes.

Kimi had made a whole ordeal of asking George to tutor him in math, and while viewers (and George himself) passed it off as a joke, the truth was Kimi really was struggling in the subject. It didn’t have much substance to him, and lacked sense. Unlike racing, which came so naturally to the rookie.

His teachers were emailing him nonstop, scolding the racer on how unbalanced his school life and work life were. Despite being a kid who raced cars for a living, going at unimaginable speeds, he still walked away with his tail tucked between his legs after being harshly lectured by his elders. After being reprimanded for about the thirtieth time, Kimi was instructed to find himself a tutor.

Online class was easy. Everyone was given their own workload to finish at their own pace, with varying deadlines depending on level of learning. Y/N excelled in this department, finishing most of her work far before the others. She was a straight A student, sitting at the top of her class.

On rare occasions, their class would host little lessons over Zoom. It always reminded her of the quarantine days, but it was nice to see familiar faces nonetheless. Even if most of the time she was sat there quietly, watching everyone else get caught up with the work.

One evening, a surprise guest had popped up. Andrea Kimi Antonelli, whom had never had enough time to make an appearance. Everyone knew of him— Y/N would be stupid if she didn’t. Of course, the reaction to his involvement was rather distracting to the sake of the course, but it was entertaining nonetheless.

He seemed lost the entire time, barely able to answer basic questions about logarithm and pythagorean theorem— Things they had actually learned during the prior years. Being an F1 driver must really be time consuming. Once the call was over, she did what a typical, compassionate person would do…

Offered her assistance!

Y/N’S MESSAGES ☆

Every night, right after Kimi had finished up his responsibilities as an F1 driver, he’d stop by the hotel room his team had booked for Y/N, his new tutor. Every time, without fail, he’d find her sitting at the hotel desk, finishing up any new work the moment it came out. It was endearing how dedicated to school she was.

At first, their meetings were strictly professional. She’d teach him the basics, and then he’d be on his way. But by the fourth night of tutoring, the air had become more friendly. He brought in leftover food from the after party, which they shared while watching the newest episode of whatever reality TV show was airing on the hotel TV.

Y/N found herself craving his company by now. She counted down the minutes until she would see Kimi again, eager to spend as much time as possible with the aspiring racer. He was charming, funny, and… Despite his mishaps, intelligent nonetheless.

The week of her traveling came to an end, and the two parted ways at the airport before her flight back home to Italy.

your.username

liked by kimi.antonelli and others

your.username Tutored this dork, learned about F1, and watched my first race in person… Eventful week.

tagged kimi.antonelli

—

classmate.user1 - Not fair that Y/N and Kimi are out having fun while we’re stuck here!

♥︎ by author

classmate.user2 - Agreed 😐

> kimi.antonelli - Should have offered to tutor a friend in need!!

♥︎ by author

friend.user1 - Jealous!! But we missed you here in Italy 🇮🇹

♥︎ by author

friend.user2 - Did you get to meet any of the other drivers?

♥︎ by author

your.username - Lewis Hamilton himself…

> friend.user2 - I HATE YOU I’M JEALOUS

♥︎ by author

friend.user3 - Woah…

your.username - ??

kimi.antonelli - Miss you already! My grade already went up!

♥︎ by author

Y/N’S MESSAGES ☆

[milkoomi]

a guide on becoming an academic weapon. ᥫ᭡

being an academic weapon is one of the top goals for a lot of us. we strive for excellence and hope to achieve top marks in all our classes so that we can continue to reach whatever it is that may be our final goal like getting into a top university, graduating as valedictorian, or getting into the career of our dreams. this guide will be about all the habits of an academic weapon and what tools & methods you can incorporate into your study/school routine!

let’s begin …

୨ৎ — lecture preperation

pre-reading chapters/lecture powerpoints

skim through chapters, make note of important headings, highlight key terms! if you can, look through any powerpoints that will be used for lecture notes as well!

jot down quick notes like vocab terms, key pieces of information, and/or any questions on topics you want to understand further!

read chapter summaries & highlight important headings

set up your notes

if you like to use different note-taking methods, try setting up your pages beforehand! this will take up less time while in class and you’ll come in already prepared to take any notes!

i have a post on note-taking here on my blog that you can refer to for a few different note-taking methods!

begin homework assignments

my professor will publish homework assignments on sunday mornings for each week that we’re learning new material, so if your teacher does something similar or you’re taking an all-online course, start by working ahead on those homework assignments!

getting a head start can …

help with having a better understanding of the material by the time of your lecture

help you apply the knowledge you learned from the assignments into your lecture

help you come up with questions for better comprehension of the topics

help you manage your time better

reduce your work load later on

start creating flashcards

if you’re required to know key terms/vocab, start creating flashcards ahead of time! this will help you get familiar with the vocabulary that’s related to the material and will jumpstart that increase in understanding of what’s to come in your lecture or any required readings!

୨ৎ — smart studying

we’re always told to “work smarter, not harder” and i believe that doing so can help you achieve success more quickly and efficiently! while it’s great to dedicate a lot of time to your studies, it’s not always optimal. spending hours upon hours working with no breaks in between and forgetting to take care of yourself can lead to burn out, so it’s important to find ways to study that not only help you study more efficiently but also work with your learning type!

trial periods

there are a plethora of study methods out there that you can try out to see which ones work the best for you!

posts with study methods ( + how-to’s ) …

how to study effectively - @milkoomi

non-basic study techniques - @glowettee [ this post is PHENOMENAL! mindy includes so many unique study methods— some that she created herself! — that give an entirely new way to study & learn material! 100/10 recommend reading through this! ]

take some time each week to try out a new study method while still incorporating techniques you’re used to! pick one study method for the week & test it out at the start of your study time slot.

trying out new methods/techniques also help with keeping your study routine fresh and it creates a bigger study arsenal for yourself! having multiple ways of studying just means having a variety of ways to learn the material! every method has its benefits, some will help with memorization while others can help with better comprehension!

pick your big 3

amongst all the different study methods out there, you should pick your top 3 techniques that help you the most! they’ll be your ultimate go-to study methods!

factors to think about for your big 3 …

how much time does the method/technique take?

what is your success rate with the method/technique?

how easy was it for you to incorporate the method/technique into your study routine?

your big 3 study methods should help with maximizing your productivity time, help you achieve your desired grades, & be within your limits while studying, meaning it shouldn’t make you feel like you’re stretching yourself thin because, again, we need to study smarter, not harder!

my personal big 3:

Feynman Technique - teaching others

active recall - practice questions & flashcards

knowledge application - making real life connections

textbook tests

i feel like a lot of us view textbooks as these giant, daunting bricks we’re forced to lug around, but they’re required material for a reason! they’re more than just a giant book of “boring” chapters!

a lot of textbooks have mini assessments at the end of every chapter, so take some time to do them! they’re just practice tests and they’ll be extremely useful for active recall (plus, you don’t have to worry about creating your own practice questions!)

୨ৎ — change your mindset

being an academic weapon means having the mindset of an academic weapon. the way you think and feel about your schooling plays a huge role in this!

“i have to” to “i get to”

treating your academics and studies as if they’re chores will make you lose your motivation and passion for learning. getting to have an education is a privilege and i feel like a lot of us forget that. be thankful that you get to pursue an academic career and get the chance to further your education! instead of “i have to study” say, “i get to study”!

getting an education is a beautiful opportunity in life, so practice gratitude when it comes to learning!

self care

i will always advocate for self care because you can’t do your best when you aren’t at your best. being an academic weapon doesn’t mean throwing your entire life away or setting your health to the side to solely focus on your studies. going to the extremes for your academics shouldn’t be normalized.

you don’t need to pull all-nighters every other day to study, you don’t need to work/study for 14 hours, you don’t need to harshly motivate yourself to get back to studying— you need to treat yourself kindly and shoe yourself gentle care.

get enough sleep

shower, do skincare, brush your teeth

keep yourself hydrated & well-fed

get your body moving

make time for your hobbies & things that make you happy

remember to take breaks when your mind & body needs them

don’t sacrifice your well-being to get ahead on your road to success. you’ll only bring yourself farther behind if you neglect your health.

final notes —

becoming an academic weapon is 60% mindset, 40% work ethic. you have to motivate yourself to give your best work, but! you have to take care of your mind and body before you even think about giving your best work. be kind to yourself, affirm yourself that you can do this! you are more than capable of achieving academic success!

the work you put in as an academic weapon has to be work you’re proud of. be sure that you’re using your time wisely, that you free yourself from distractions while studying, that you give yourself enough time to get work done (and take breaks & do something for yourself!), and that you always give it your all when you’re completing assignments, writing notes, or studying.

i know that you’ll be able to truly be an academic weapon! you have what it takes! you just have to remind yourself of your own potential.

with lots of love, faustina 🌷

[maluceh]

Top Lily variants? I've seen so many "[random hp character #10] variants" online, with various degrees of accuracy, but I don't remember ever seeing one for lily. Your Jily ones were so accurate (the only pair I'm not super familiar with was peraltiago, and I know enough about them to know they fit), so I was curious if you had any just for her as a character. You basically wrote the Lily (& Jily) gospel so I trust your takes <3

*cracks knuckles*

I'm about to give you a full detailed dive into Lily's character and personality that you absolutely did not ask for. I’d have to say the ones I had already picked for Jily variants (since I always look for couples where they both have James/Lily’s personalities). I’ll try and make it to ten but there’s only so many characters that truly fit Lily for me. Mostly the characters that I see as Lily, are sarcastic, witty, overachievers, intelligent, charismatic, and snarky…

Amy Santiago (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

I know you said you haven’t seen it, but TRUST ME. Amy is a control freak know it all, she finds comfort in order and structure. Although she’s a bit more uptight than I imagine Lily to be. Her constant need for reassurance and approval from figures of authority is something I can definitely see in Lily. Her relationship with Holt is kinda what I imagine Lily to be like with Minerva/Alastor. Also, the fact that she is deeply loyal (as most characters in this list).

Over the course of the show she loses up a bit, and learns to have more fun and I think this could be applied to Lily in her Hogwarts years. Lily being a muggleborn is a very VERY important part of her character, as well as her morals and political standing with blood purity.

We can draw certain parallels between her and Hermione (overachievers, Head Girls, prefects), you don’t get those badges by simply passing by through school. So from this we can deduce that Lily was an excellent student that focused on exceeding at school, because there’s an extra need to prove herself among not just her teachers but her peers as well. To make them see that she’s just as much magic as they are.

So, like Amy, she's constantly trying to prove that she is smart and qualified (Amy in a field mostly male, Lily in a world mostly pureblood).

Annabeth Chase (Percy Jackson)

Annabeth too is a smart character that wants approval —in this case, from her mother—. She is more arrogant and snarky, a little sharper around the edges, which is so Lily!!

Her upbringing has made her become more guarded with her feelings and who she puts her trust in, also her reluctance to accept Luke’s betrayal. These are things that I see in Lily’s canon descriptions and appearances. From growing up with a sister that does not accept her and being betrayed by her best friend. In canon, after SWM (Snape’s Worst Memory), when Snape camps outside her common room waiting for her to ask her for her forgiveness she says that she has been making excuses on his behalf for a while. A lot of people call Lily a hypocrite for only ending her friendship with Snape after she was personally affected by his views, but personally I think that’s part of what makes her such an interesting character.

She’s at war with herself, not really there or here, having to be in the middle of two worlds that do not fully accept her (Annabeth with her father and Camp Half Blood/ Lily with the muggle and wizarding world). And after losing one of the people connecting her to a place of security (Thalia/Petunia), she refuses to see that the last person connecting her to that safe place is also going to leave her to join a side of the war opposite to hers (Luke/Snape).

Kate Sharma/Sheffield (Bridgerton TV/Books)

Kate is funny, closed off and witty. She rushes to judge people and decide for herself whether they are worthy of her time or not, sometimes without even bothering to actually know them. Sometimes (specifically in the books), she’s so ridiculous and funny, not really forcing herself to fit in societal norms, which is something I can definitely see in Lily.

Also, her on the show with Anthony in S3, is just how I imagine married Jily, just perfect.

Dana Scully (The X Files)

In Dana I see Lily’s fierce loyalty and sense of right and wrong. The hiding of her emotions, and also how determined she is, that even though she wants to believe she doesn’t, not even after seeing hundreds of crazy things happen in front of her, she still clings to her own truth.

Tiana (The Princess and the Frog)/Cinderella (1950)

Tiana and Cinderella remind me of Lily in the sense of a hardworking woman, also really headstrong and married to her own way of thinking. A shell hard to break, because of all the walls she’s put up in order to survive. Like Lily, Tiana doesn’t take kindly to outsiders and people who come off as standoffish (Naveen/James and Sirius), but eventually ends up getting to know them and treasuring them as life companions. And you might think me crazy for adding Cinderella, but her unwavering kindness and optimism in the face of hardship is undoubtedly Lily, she’s not all sunshine and rainbows tho —yes the 1950’s version—, she hates the situation that she’s in and wastes no time (alone with her friends) to complain about it, she bites back and only “behaves” out of survival, she’s nice and warm but also angry and headstrong.

Yoon Jin-myung (Hello, My Twenties)

Here is another hard worker female character that I can’t help but see a little bit of Lily in. Although Jin-myung is much MUCH more shy and introverted than Lily, still, she has a complicated relationship with her family and tries really hard to do a million things at the time, forgetting to care for herself and diving into routines of work/school that are almost self destructive.

Honourable mentions.

Chili (Bluey) Morticia Addams (The Addams Family Values)

Mostly how I imagine Lily as a mom/ her married life (along with Kate too). Morticia might seem like a stretch but aside from her dark interests and aesthetic, she's a loving mom and partner and she puts her family first, she’s also a bit of a freak, like Lily.

Sloane (Ferris Buller’s Day Off) Pam Beesley (The Office)

Only on the prankster side of Lily, more chill and easy going, losing up a bit to have fun with Sirius and James.

[matrixbearer2024]

I had an ask about this regarding my AU but I don't know what happened to it after I saw it in my inbox cuz it might be tumblr being funny but essentially it was just:

"Does West Coast Tech still exist? Why didn't Ford go to West Coast Tech?"

Short answer is, he simply didn't want to in this AU. West Coast Tech is among the Ivy Leagues in my AU and BMU still exists too, it still has the prominent reputation of being a back-up university.

In this AU ultimately Ford never really developed the mindset that he was "special" and had to make a point of it or prove that he was somebody. Because of their upbringing, there wasn't a "preference" others had towards either twin because Filbrick disliked them equally and their academic and extracurricular skills basically made them break even. There wasn't a stupid twin/smart twin between them and Caryn made damn sure about it.

Possibly the only thing that most people say about the two is that they're "smart but stupid" because of all the trouble they get wrapped up in doing whatever or being too curious for their own good.

The teachers or coaches didn't favor one twin over the other either and they were generally liked by their peers. Ford didn't end up with that sense of arrogance that you can typically see in canon where he believes he is above the rest and he has to be and Stan didn't develop that inferiority complex compared to his sibling.

In this AU, Ford had the option to go to West Coast Tech but even throughout senior high he already knew that a good university could really only get you so far. He was a sharp tool yes, but... he didn't think that edge would really push him far. He had an edge, but it wasn't much.

There's a lot of gifted people nowadays and even good credentials aren't going to guarantee a decent job or a stable career, that's if you can even get a job right away.

The science project and everything was still what gave him the opportunity and Stan even congratulated him for scoring that high but Ford wasn't really pleased? I'm not sure with the word but he wasn't exactly happy with the circumstance. They didn't fight over it considering all throughout highschool they kept talking about potential careers and whatnot.

It didn't help that Filbrick encouraged the idea of West Coast Tech because of how much money Ford could potentially make. Even so, Ford was stupidly skeptical after seeing the pamphlet and researching online. Realistically it seemed too good to be true, and he couldn't even sleep on it from how much he kept thinking.

Stan knew he would likely take longer to figure things out but he'd get there, and he was willing to let Ford just reach for the stars as he always did. They still have that dream of sailing around the world as adults but it's a lot more defined and realistic compared to how they planned it in canon. They're thinking, work hard, get rich, then retire early to sail and travel around the world. If their paths split early, they'll find a way back when they grow up. They always do.

It's something they constantly talk about because they both desperately want to move out after graduation just to get the hell away from Filbrick. It doesn't matter where they end up they just need to get away.

Even so, Ford mulled over the offer and decided to visit the university before making his decision. His gut feeling was both parts right and wrong, sure— what he thought was too good to be true was the actual reality of the school and it's pursuit of academic excellence, but he was right to be skeptical after he noticed the snobbish and arrogant nature most of the students have. It's a common thing for ivy leagues to have that mentality that they're the cream of the crop. The best there is. Not everybody is like this of course, but sometimes the loudest crowd doesn't always have to be the majority.

It does take a lot of work to get to their level and to stay at that level but Ford couldn't see himself in that school. He didn't want to allow himself into that crowd where he knew it would potentially make him worse off as a person. Also, he had the entirety of undergrad to get through, if he so much as wanted to transfer to an Ivy League to get his masters or doctorate he knew he could! So what was the rush?

University was a stepping stone and he had time, he knew he could do a lot but he didn't need to rush. So... Ford turned down the offer.

Sadly, it was pretty much as chaotic(bad) as you'd think.

Of course, that meant looking for another university instead and it was mostly Stan who did the research this time because Ford was too burnt out and sulky after everything. He knew he made the choice that would inherently grant him more happiness, but it doesn't always feel like that right away and it didn't help that the walls were paper thin. It's hard to fall asleep to your parents yelling and throwing things around in a fight because of a decision you made.

Both of them had generally pretty good track records academically and a long list of achievements to follow it so it wasn't hard for them to find universities either. That's how they ended up with Graviton University in Oregon, it's not an Ivy-league but it's not as bad as BMU either. It really is just a stepping stone in the middle, your performance practically shapes the path you walk on.

The Stan twins have a choice in this AU mostly because they could also afford it, take note- the family is financially comfortable in this AU because Filbrick is one hell of an unscrupulous businessman but very successful. They're not rich but they're comfortable, and that's a lot in the state of the economy nowadays.

Ford has choices in this AU and it's also a very big part to play in why he could turn down the offer at the time and not look back at it with regret. Stan also being on even ground beside his brother is why they don't ever fight about such topics either, he's not ever chasing after Ford— he's standing right next to him.

The subtle differences from canon can genuinely just make a world of difference in the bigger picture. But yeah, it's why I had them go to Graviton University instead. It's a middle-ground and it's also how I can essentially get them to stay in gravity falls instead of ending up elsewhere when I cranked the "weirdness" level pretty low. There's still bits and bobs of it around, but not to the degree of the canon show I would think.

I hope this generally clears up how I wrote or my thought process as to why I didn't have Ford reach for the stars despite having that option and why the Stan Twins are generally this tight knit in my AU.

[sturionic]

Your post "Activism is Not Cold-Calling" came across my dash. The point about building community to persuade makes a lot of sense to me.

You mentioned several trainings you've taken and taught as a volunteer labor organizer that discusses the specific nuts and bolts of it. I am wondering if there are resources you'd recommend for someone wanting to add tools to the toolbox. I'm not organizing labor; I'm a parent interested in improving equity in the local schools. But I think at least some of the strategies should transfer well, and I'd like to learn more.

Thanks.

Hi there! Your instinct is very, very correct: a lot of the organizing principles used in union drives transfer well to different forms of organizing. Things like structured organizing conversations and workplace mapping are incredibly useful skills.

Personally, I think the best comprehensive top-down view of effective organizing for a beginner is Jane McAlevey's works. Jane passed away this past summer. We really lost a true titan, an absolute force of nature; but she's left behind a wealth of invaluable materials - books, articles & other writings, interviews, speeches. The first few pages of No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age rewired my brain and made me think about organizing in a whole new way, and I've read that book practically to death, it's barely hanging on lol. You can find McAlevey's works here: https://janemcalevey.com/

Of course, McAlevey's oeuvre is very union-focused and goes deep. If you're just looking for some quicker concepts, Labor Notes has tons of study guides, handouts, and other bite-sized materials that explain organizing concepts. You can buy them on the site (support them if you can!), but they're mostly also pretty easy to find online, or modified versions other people have made. Labor Notes also runs regular online trainings which are excellent.

Lastly, I know you said you're not specifically doing union stuff, but on the off chance anyone reading this is interested in unionizing their workplace: check out Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee. You can contact EWOC directly and they will help you organize your workplace, and they also have their own excellent resources and run regular trainings. You can also get involved by becoming a trained organizer (like me!) and volunteering for them. (EWOC is, of course, American; if any other Canadians are reading this and interested in organizing, feel free to DM me and I can put you in touch with people.) EDIT: I'm seeing people in the notes of my post recommending IWW's materials, and they are so right! Look up "IWW Organizing Manual" and "IWW Organizing Basics." They are great & digestible reads, and IWW has many more resources on their site and archives. (If anyone else has resources to recommend, have at 'er!)

[cognitivejustice]

Free online courses on Nature -Based Infrastructure

"Two training courses on making a case for and valuing Nature-Based Infrastructure. This training is free of charge.

Participants will learn how to:

Identify nature-based infrastructure (NBI) and its opportunities for climate adaptation and sustainable development.

Make the case for NBI by explaining its potential economic, environmental, and social benefits.

Understand the risk profile and the climate resilience benefits of NBI compared to grey infrastructure.

Explain the basics of systems thinking, quantitative models, spatial analysis, climate data and financial modelling applied to NBI.

Appreciate the results of integrated cost-benefit analyses for NBI.

Use case studies of NBI projects from across the world as context for their work.

This course was developed by the NBI Global Resource Centre to help policy-makers, infrastructure planners, researchers and investors understand, assess, and value nature-based infrastructure. The course familiarizes participants with several tools and modelling approaches for NBI, including Excel-based models, system dynamics, spatial analysis and financial modelling. In addition, the training presents a variety of NBI case studies from across the world.

Why do this course?

This course will help you gain valuable skills and insights which will enable you to:

Gain knowledge and tools for informed infrastructure decision-making, with a focus on advancing nature-based solutions for climate adaptation at a systems level.

Understand and measure the benefits, risks, and trade-offs of nature-based infrastructure.

Understand the importance of systemic thinking for infrastructure planning, implementation, and financing strategies.

Communicate persuasively and effectively with stakeholders to advocate for nature-based infrastructure.

Collaborate with peers around the world and become part of the NBI Global Resource Centre alumni.

[crimsonhydrangeavn]

Hello :)

How would the cast react to a costumer being rude to the mc (personally I'm a doormat… so my reaction to rudeness is just laughing it off 💀)

Hello there! As a recovering doormat myself, I can totally understand not knowing how to confront people when they're being rude and just awful for no reason. Fortunately, the cast will happily fight your battles for you.

Garret wouldn't find it amusing in the slightest. If they saw someone being rude towards you, he would immediately interrupt the conversation. He'd put on his most charming smile and deescalte the situation with the customer and politely get them to leave. However once they left the bookstore, you'd never see that customer again. Garret would personally make sure of it.

Marcelo would immediately bristle at the sight of someone being rude towards you. He'd step in between you two and make sure you were behind him before intimidating the shit out of the customer and scaring them out of the store. Marcelo might be a sweet puppy dog most of the time, but he has no problem turning into a frightening attack dog if needed.

Camilla would immediately pull out her phone, hit record, and call out the customer for their rudeness. She'd make sure that their face was visible and if the threat of being posted online wasn't enough to detour them and get them to leave, she'd actually follow through with it. She'd post the video online and basically sick her all of her followers onto that person, completely ruining their reputation and forcing them off of the island. She would happily use her online army to protect you, especially if you weren't good at defending yourself.

Rita would step in the moment the customer started becoming rude. She'd pull the "owner" card and take care of it from there. That being said, she wouldn't bend to their wishes and would absolutely defend and back you up on whatever was going on. She'd also force the customer to apologize to you before actually addressing the root of the issue. Once the matter was settled, she'd check in on you and make you promise to let her know if that customer ever bothered you again.

Teagan would wait a little bit until you were on the verge of tears before stepping in and immediately taking things to the next level. They'd call the customer out for their rudeness and start picking apart their appearance and horrible personality. If there's one thing that Teagan excelled at, it was arguing with others. No matter what, Teagan would always make sure that they won. If it came down to blows, they would make sure the other hit them first before stepping in and completely unloading all of their anger into the customer. So much so that you would have to call the cops to stop the fight. Teagan would always get off with a slap on the wrist because technically they would always act in self defense. Of course, afterwards they'd insist that you took the rest of the day off and took care of their wounds. After all, if it wasn't for you they wouldn't have gotten in this fight in the first place...

[booksbluegurl]

Study Tip #1

How to remember stuff for a long period of time?

Firstly, you should know that our brain is very adept at forgetting things it doesn't consider necessary for its survival and it fails to understand that excelling our exams are veryyyy important for our survival.

So, what you need is revision of your subject matter over and over again, over a period of time.

How to achieve that though?

Flashcards are often used for achieving this technique but to be honest, for a very vast syllabus Flashcards get quite overwhelming. So I created REVISION SHEETS for myself. It's the same thing as flashcards but it encompasses a few other techniques that makes the vastness of the topics a little easy to control and comprehend.

I make them two ways: one is completely random, with information important to remember but from various different topics. And another is by making mindmaps.

And in both of these things, I add information in QnA format. Easy.

Step by Step guide to revision sheets:

Firstly, I'd advise you to read/understand a chapter/topic through a lecture, a youtube video or a textbook. Atleast have a basic understanding of the concepts.

Check the major headings or the major sub-topics.

Start plotting the mindmap roughly, by Sub-topics and how and where you'll put them for better understanding.

Now, when you're writing content, put it all in QnA format, especially HOW you want you remember the information.

There, done.

Just make sure to use that sheet to revision at good intervals of time.

You can, of course, make changes to this process. But this is what I've done for my revision work.

[Also, I am not sure if someone else might not have already thought of this idea. Though, I don't think such study tips have any copyright but I'm just putting out there that if it resembles something that others have used/talk about online, then it's because we both thought of the same thing. And you'll too probably to solve your study problems. So all the best, let's all work hard and find our happiness.]

-Tanishka

Pictures from pinterest. Credit to the owners.

[oceanlipgloss]

ONLINE FRIENDS

LEVIATHAN.

+ warnings: angst, strong language.

+ my mc is the heroine, so the pronouns are feminine.

It is said that existing in the same world as someone you cherish is better than nothing at all. He had read that many times. Many times. More than he can count. Despite the different timezones, the great distances, the knowledge that the two of you live in the same galaxy—separated by tangible barriers just—is enough. But even then it’s hard. It’s so, so hard.

They the two them are like online friends. Overwhelmingly close, fun together, yet never truly knowing each other that well.

What if the only thing that kept them apart was not metrics, but who he himself was?

Too shy, too awkward. So clumsy, so useless.

Fickle.

Was he fickle?

Yeah, the heart can be a fickle little fucker, but was his heart like that too?

He’s always been told that he’s loyal to his passions, that he loves his interests so passionately. That had always been true, always been his conviction, until she came along and it began to feel wrong.

Sometimes—no, on most days—he couldn’t quite focus solely on her. The real, living, breathing woman with a beating heart. He bundled himself up in fiction. He wrapped his heart up with the virtual stuff and let the phantom medicines treat his deep-rooted anomalies, or at least waited for them to.  

He liked those worlds. In them, he could be worth something. He could be number one, yank all the great ranks. He could conquer the good things and be a celebrated one: a holder of grand specimens of accomplishments, an owner of the rarest of premium trophies.

In the planet beyond the intangible bars—with their pixellised models and complex codes—though, he was...no one. And sometimes, even his soul in that binary place was mangled by those who are better, even if they had not spent as much time—if at all, really—brandishing their skills like knives. Simply because they were born with talent that glowed in a surreal magnitude of magnetic stars in their cells.

He liked certain challenges, of course, but there are times when it gets...too much.

To him, it seemed that almost everyone else excelled at something, no matter how apparently useless, and there is always that one candidate or contestant that crushes all others with the golden weight of their shiny gifts.

Yeah.

He didn’t like himself.

What was there to like?

He couldn’t even love right, like his love for everything special in his measly life was a wheel of hot pizza that he had to cut up into pieces time and again. And when he bit into it, he always scalded his tied tongue.

More often than not, he loathed the real world. In it, millions of normal creatures normally go about their normal lives, while he remains a lot like the oldest model of the oldest Macintosh computer models: freezing, lagging, malfunctioning.

Mismatched.

He never had the right words, never mind the perfectly right skills.

At least characters have pre-programmed reactions. They do predictable things. Real people are nothing like that. Characters don’t hurt him. They just don’t. They’re not meant to, you know? It is not part of their program until it is—so even if and when they do, he knows it is only because they were coded to.

Yet, he’s expected to unlock the door, go out and deal with actual people, handle the scummy things they do like it’s nothing, then at the end of the day go back to his room. Everyday.

He hated these disgusting times.

When you’re like that—lost and unprepared for the basics of your century—even those closest to you can feel most unreachable, like distant friends online.

+notes: yes, hello, bonjour, I am regretfully indeed still alive. And in celebration of this fleeting but grand surprise visit of mine, I have prepared a Michelin-star humble feast, so why don't you help yourselves to the first piece I've written in over 2 months and eat this mouldy writing that has been aging in my WIPs for so very long? I invite you to indulge in a main course of braised angst, seasoned with an ounce of identity crisis projection. In all seriousness, though, the fic may have been an old WIP, but I literally just scooped it out of the pan finished it. It's still fresh. Very fresh. *logs back out*

+ MASTERLIST

+ AO3 POST

©𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙖𝙣𝙡𝙞𝙥𝙜𝙡��𝙨𝙨

[dailydemonspotlight]

Mishaguji - Day 169

Race: Vile Arcana: Heirophant Alignment: Dark-Law March 6th, 2025

I can't believe this is how I'm starting one of these fucking uploads, but here goes... sex has been an incredibly important part of human existence in history. Let's all be mature here, people... and trust me, this is coming from someone on the asexual spectrum. Without having sex, babies wouldn't be made (at least for most people, I'm capable of mitosis), and our species would have come to a complete, sterile stop. As such, because intercourse is so important, it's not... uncommon to have deities that represent lust, arousal, and all that horny stuff, let alone deities of intercourse itself, in many mythologies. This was no different, of course, for the Suwa people of Ancient Japan. Also, once again, I have to thank @eirikrjs for his excellent writeup about Mishaguji- it's a fantastic source for information about this strange, phallic entity, and contains a girth of sources that were severely lacking. god dammit i almost made it through the intro without a sex joke

Mishaguji has several names, and many of them are used interchangeably from area to area from what I can tell. Interestingly, it appears to be female according to some sources, and she's described as the deity of Suwa Lake, worshipped by an ancient cult and taking the form of a white snake. The cult also worshipped 'Mother Earth,' rather than attaining heaven, and as they were a cult primarily located at the Suwa shrine, before they were overtaken by other forms of worship and cults of other beings. Several shrines to Mishaguji can be found throughout the Suwa region, such as the Ontō Mishaguji Sōsha, and many shrines were spread out throughout much of Japan as a whole, in fact, called Mishaguji-sha. At least, according to a map from a seemingly defunct mapping website of Japan, there were several Mishaguji shrines spread through a lot of Japan. Unfortunately, as is likely obvious at this point, the online sources for Mishaguji are incredibly scarce, so I can't back up everything with concrete evidence past what I've already linked above.

The cults of Mishaguji celebrated Mishaguji as a god of fertility, safe birth, and as a guardian of children, and the being could basically inhabit any object they gave up to be inhabited by it. I'm admittedly kinda confused here, but it seems that Mishaguji wasn't one single being but rather a collective of spirits that were each deities that inhabited these beings. Yeah, I just linked the homepage to the museum that says this, because again, sources are scarce. The objects that the Mishaguji would typically inhabit were often things like grinding slabs, stone mortars, or... uh... well...

Things like this, except sometimes far smaller. Yeah, I'm sure you get the picture. Mishaguji also have connections to fellow gods, are often conflated with Takeminakata, and were paired with another deity- Sosou- which were their male counterparts- and they were also seemingly at the center of a war with Takeminakata that they ultimately lost, leading to Takeminakata becoming the primary figure of worship, paralleling the real-world takeover of the Suwa cults by the Yamato imperial people. Lastly, they were often involved in a rather disgusting ritual involving young boys that I won't be getting into here because it personally makes me sick to even think about, but if you can stomach it, just read the blog post.

As for the design in SMT, while I've blocked off the dick head like a prick, it works fantastically- Mishaguji, as a goddess of fertility, was often associated with sex and baby-making due to that, and her appearance takes many cues from other sources revolving around her as well- namely, the white snake association, as well as the fact she's literally wrapped around a stone pillar that shares many similarities to the rocky... massage machines that were often used to embody them. This is, of course, only the tip; there's so much more to this being that I'm not reading off here, so I'd recommend you do your research if you can find anything more.

[mariacallous]

On paper, the first candidate looked perfect. Thomas was from rural Tennessee and had studied computer science at the University of Missouri. His résumé said he’d been a professional programmer for eight years, and he’d breezed through a preliminary coding test. All of this was excellent news for Thomas’ prospective boss, Simon Wijckmans, founder of the web security startup C.Side. The 27-year-old Belgian was based in London but was looking for ambitious, fully remote coders.

Thomas had an Anglo-Saxon surname, so Wijckmans was surprised when he clicked into his Google Meet and found himself speaking with a heavily accented young man of Asian origin. Thomas had set a generic image of an office as his background. His internet connection was laggy—odd for a professional coder—and his end of the call was noisy. To Wijckmans, Thomas sounded like he was sitting in a large, crowded space, maybe a dorm or a call center.

Wijckmans fired off his interview questions, and Thomas’ responses were solid enough. But Wijckmans noticed that Thomas seemed most interested in asking about his salary. He didn’t come across as curious about the actual work or about how the company operated or even about benefits like startup stock or health coverage. Odd, thought Wijckmans. The conversation came to a close, and he got ready for the next interview in his queue.

Once again, the applicant said they were based in the US, had an Anglo name, and appeared to be a young Asian man with a thick, non-American accent. He used a basic virtual background, was on a terrible internet connection, and had a single-minded focus on salary. This candidate, though, was wearing glasses. In the lenses, Wijckmans spotted the reflection of multiple screens, and he could make out a white chatbox with messages scrolling by. “He was clearly either chatting with somebody or on some AI tool,” Wijckmans remembers.

On high alert, Wijckmans grabbed screenshots and took notes. After the call ended, he went back over the job applications. He found that his company’s listings were being flooded with applicants just like these: an opening for a full-stack developer got more than 500 applications in a day, far more than usual. And when he looked more deeply into the applicants’ coding tests, he saw that many candidates appeared to have used a virtual private network, or VPN, which allows you to mask your computer’s true location.

Wijckmans didn’t know it yet, but he’d stumbled onto the edges of an audacious, global cybercrime operation. He’d unwittingly made contact with an army of seemingly unassuming IT workers, deployed to work remotely for American and European companies under false identities, all to bankroll the government of North Korea.

With a little help from some friends on the ground, of course.

christina chapman was living in a trailer in Brook Park, Minnesota, a hamlet north of Minneapolis, when she got a note from a recruiter that changed her life. A bubbly 44-year-old with curly red hair and glasses, she loved her dogs and her mom and posting social justice content on TikTok. In her spare time she listened to K-pop, enjoyed Renaissance fairs, and got into cosplay. Chapman was also, according to her sparse online résumé, learning to code online.

It was March 2020 when she clicked on the message in her LinkedIn account. A foreign company was looking for somebody to “be the US face” of the business. The company needed help finding remote employment for overseas workers. Chapman signed on. It’s unclear how fast her workload grew, but by October 2022 she could afford a move from chilly Minnesota to a low-slung, four-bedroom house in Litchfield Park, Arizona. It wasn’t fancy—a suburban corner lot with a few thin trees—but it was a big upgrade over the trailer.

Chapman then started documenting more of her life on TikTok and YouTube, mostly talking about her diet, fitness, or mental health. In one chatty video, shared in June 2023, she described grabbing breakfast on the go—an açaí bowl and a smoothie— because work was so busy. “My clients are going crazy!” she complained. In the background, the camera caught a glimpse of metal racks holding at least a dozen open laptops covered in sticky notes. A few months later, federal investigators raided Chapman’s home, seized the laptops, and eventually filed charges alleging that she had spent three years aiding the “illicit revenue generation efforts” of the government of North Korea.

For maybe a decade, North Korean intelligence services have been training young IT workers and sending them abroad in teams, often to China or Russia. From these bases, they scour the web for job listings all over, usually in software engineering, and usually with Western companies. They favor roles that are fully remote, with solid wages, good access to data and systems, and few responsibilities. Over time they began applying for these jobs using stolen or fake identities and relying on members of their criminal teams to provide fictional references; some have even started using AI to pass coding tests, video interviews, and background checks.

But if an applicant lands a job offer, the syndicate needs somebody on the ground in the country the applicant claims to live in. A fake employee, after all, can’t use the addresses or bank accounts linked to their stolen IDs, and they can’t dial in to a company’s networks from overseas without instantly triggering suspicion. That’s where someone like Christina Chapman comes in.

As the “facilitator” for hundreds of North Korea–linked jobs, Chapman signed fraudulent documents and handled some of the fake workers’ salaries. She would often receive their paychecks in one of her bank accounts, take a cut, and wire the rest overseas: Federal prosecutors say Chapman was promised as much as 30 percent of the money that passed through her hands.

Her most important job, though, was tending the “laptop farm.” After being hired, a fake worker will typically ask for their company computer to be sent to a different address than the one on record—usually with some tale about a last-minute move or needing to stay with a sick relative. The new address, of course, belongs to the facilitator, in this case Chapman. Sometimes the facilitator forwards the laptop to an address overseas, but more commonly that person holds onto it and installs software that allows it to be controlled remotely. Then the fake employee can connect to their machine from anywhere in the world while appearing to be in the US. (“You know how to install Anydesk?” one North Korean operative asked Chapman in 2022. “I do it practically EVERYDAY!” she replied.)

In messages with her handlers, Chapman discussed sending government forms like the I-9, which attests that a person is legally able to work in the US. (“I did my best to copy your signature,” she wrote. “Haha. Thank you,” came the response.) She also did basic tech troubleshooting and dialed into meetings on a worker’s behalf, sometimes on short notice, as in this conversation from November 2023:

Worker: We are going to have laptop setup meeting in 20 mins. Can you join Teams meeting and follow what IT guy say? Because it will require to restart laptop multiple times and I can not handle that. You can mute and just follow what they say ...

Chapman: Who do I say I am?

Worker: You don’t have to say, I will be joining there too.

Chapman: I just typed in the name Daniel. If they ask WHY you are using two devices, just say the microphone on your laptop doesn’t work right ... Most IT people are fine with that explanation.

Sometimes, she got jumpy. “I hope you guys can find other people to do your physical I9s,” she wrote to her bosses in 2023, according to court documents. “I will SEND them for you, but have someone else do the paperwork. I can go to FEDERAL PRISON for falsifying federal documents.” Michael Barnhart, an investigator at cybersecurity company DTEX and a leading expert on the North Korean IT worker threat, says Chapman’s involvement followed a standard pattern—from an innocuous initial contact on LinkedIn to escalating requests. “Little by little, the asks get bigger and bigger,” he says. “Then by the end of the day, you’re asking the facilitator to go to a government facility to pick up an actual government ID.”

By the time investigators raided Chapman’s home, she was housing several dozen laptops, each with a sticky note indicating the fake worker’s identity and employer. Some of the North Korean operatives worked multiple jobs; some had been toiling quietly for years. Prosecutors said at least 300 employers had been pulled into this single scheme, including “a top-five national television network and media company, a premier Silicon Valley technology company, an aerospace and defense manufacturer, an iconic American car manufacturer, a high-end retail store, and one of the most recognizable media and entertainment companies in the world.” Chapman, they alleged, had helped pass along at least $17 million. She pleaded guilty in February 2025 to charges relating to wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering and is awaiting sentencing.

Chapman’s case is just one of several North Korean fake-worker prosecutions making their way through US courts. A Ukrainian named Oleksandr Didenko has been accused of setting up a freelancing website to connect fake IT workers with stolen identities. Prosecutors say at least one worker was linked to Chapman’s laptop farm and that Didenko also has ties to operations in San Diego and Virginia. Didenko was arrested in Poland last year and was extradited to the United States. In Tennessee, 38-year-old Matthew Knoot is due to stand trial for his alleged role in a scheme that investigators say sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to accounts linked to North Korea via his laptop farm in Nashville. (Knoot has pleaded not guilty.) And in January 2025, Florida prosecutors filed charges against two American citizens, Erick Ntekereze Prince and Emanuel Ashtor, as well as a Mexican accomplice and two North Koreans. (None of the defendants’ lawyers in these cases responded to requests for comment.) The indictments claim that Prince and Ashtor had spent six years running a string of fake staffing companies that placed North Koreans in at least 64 businesses.

before the hermit kingdom had its laptop farms, it had a single confirmed internet connection, at least as far as the outside world could tell. As recently as 2010, that one link to the web was reserved for use by high-ranking officials. Then, in 2011, 27-year-old Kim Jong Un succeeded his father as the country’s dictator. Secretly educated in Switzerland and said to be an avid gamer, the younger Kim made IT a national priority. In 2012, he urged some schools to “pay special attention to intensifying their computer education” to create new possibilities for the government and military. Computer science is now on some high school curricula, while college students can take courses on information security, robotics, and engineering.

The most promising students are taught hacking techniques and foreign languages that can make them more effective operatives. Staff from government agencies including the Reconnaissance General Bureau— the nation’s clandestine intelligence service—recruit the highest-scoring graduates of top schools like Kim Chaek University of Technology (described by many as “the MIT of North Korea”) or the prestigious University of Sciences in Pyongsong. They are promised good wages and unfettered access to the internet—the real internet, not the intranet available to well-off North Koreans, which consists of a mere handful of heavily censored North Korean websites.

The earliest cyberattacks launched by Pyongyang were simple affairs: defacing websites with political messages or launching denial-of-service attacks to shut down US websites. They soon grew more audacious. In 2014, North Korean hackers famously stole and leaked confidential information from Sony’s film studio. Then they targeted financial institutions: Fraudulent trades pulled more than $81 million from the Bank of Bangladesh’s accounts at the New York Federal Reserve. After that, North Korean hackers moved into ransomware—the WannaCry attack in 2017 locked hundreds of thousands of Windows computers in 150 countries and demanded payments in bitcoin. While the amount of revenue the attack generated is up for debate—some say it earned just $140,000 in payouts—it wreaked much wider damage as companies worked to upgrade their systems and security, costing as much as $4 billion, according to one estimate.

Governments responded with more sanctions and stronger security measures, and the regime pivoted, dialing back on ransomware in favor of quieter schemes. It turns out these are also more lucrative: Today, the most valuable tool in North Korea’s cybercrime armory is cryptocurrency theft. In 2022, hackers stole more than $600 million worth of the cryptocurrency ether by attacking the blockchain game Axie Infinity; in February of this year, they robbed the Dubai-based crypto exchange Bybit of $1.5 billion worth of digital currency. The IT pretender scam, meanwhile, seems to have been growing slowly until the pandemic dramatically expanded the number of remote jobs, and Pyongyang saw the perfect opportunity.

In 2024, according to a recent report from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the number of people working in North Korea’s cyber divisions—which includes pretenders, crypto thieves, and military hackers—stood at 8,400, up from 6,800 two years earlier. Some of these workers are based in the country, but many are stationed overseas in China, Russia, Pakistan, or elsewhere. They are relatively well compensated, but their posting is hardly cushy.

Teams of 10 to 20 young men live and work out of a single apartment, sleeping four or five to a room and grinding up to 14 hours a day at weird hours to correspond with their remote job’s time zone. They have quotas of illicit earnings they are expected to meet. Their movements are tightly controlled, as are those of their relatives, who are effectively held hostage to prevent defections. “You don’t have any freedom,” says Hyun-Seung Lee, a North Korean defector who lives in Washington, DC, and says some of his old friends were part of such operations. “You’re not allowed to leave the apartment unless you need to purchase something, like grocery shopping, and that is arranged by the team leader. Two or three people must go together so there’s no opportunity for them to explore.”

The US government estimates that a typical team of pretenders can earn up to $3 million each year for Pyongyang. Experts say the money is pumped into everything from Kim Jong Un’s personal slush fund to the country’s nuclear weapons program. A few million dollars may seem small next to the flashy crypto heists— but with so many teams operating in obscurity, the fraud is effective precisely because it is so mundane.

in the summer of 2022, a major multinational company hired a remote engineer to work on website development. “He would dial in to meetings, he would participate in discussions,” an executive at the company told me on condition of anonymity. “His manager said he was considered the most productive member of the team.”

One day, his coworkers organized a surprise to celebrate his birthday. Colleagues gathered on a video call to congratulate him, only to be startled by his response—but it’s not my birthday. After nearly a year at the company, the worker had apparently forgotten the birth date listed in his records. It was enough to spark suspicion, and soon afterward the security team discovered that he was running remote access tools on his work computer, and he was let go. It was only later, when federal investigators discovered one of his pay stubs at Christina Chapman’s laptop farm in Arizona, that the company connected the dots and realized it had employed a foreign agent for nearly a year.

For many pretenders, the goal is simply to earn a good salary to send back to Pyongyang, not so much to steal money or data. “We’ve seen long-tail operations where they were going 10, 12, 18 months working in some of these organizations,” says Adam Meyers, a senior vice president for counter adversary operations at the security company CrowdStrike. Sometimes, though, North Korean operatives last just a few days— enough time to download huge amounts of company data or plant malicious software in a company’s systems before abruptly quitting. That code could alter financial data or manipulate security information. Or these seeds could lay dormant for months, even years.

“The potential risk from even one minute of access to systems is almost unlimited for an individual company,” says Declan Cummings, the head of engineering at software company Cinder. Experts say that attacks are ramping up not just in the US but also in Germany, France, Britain, Japan and other countries. They urge companies to do rigorous due diligence: speak directly to references, watch for candidates making sudden changes of address, use reputable online screening tools, and conduct a physical interview or in-person ID verification.

But none of these methods are foolproof, and AI tools are constantly weakening them. ChatGPT and the like give almost anyone the capacity to answer esoteric questions in real time with unearned confidence, and their fluency with coding threatens to make programming tests irrelevant. AI video filters and deepfakes can also add to the subterfuge.

At an onboarding call, for instance, many HR representatives now ask new employees to hold their ID up to the camera for closer inspection. “But the fraudsters have a neat trick there,” says Donal Greene, a biometrics expert at the online background check provider Certn. They take a green-colored card the exact shape and size of an identity card—a mini green screen—and, using deepfake technology, project the image of an ID onto it. “They can actually move it and show the reflection,” says Greene. “It’s very sophisticated.” North Korean agents have even been known to send look-alikes to pick up a physical ID card from an office or to take a drug test required by prospective employers.

Even security experts can be fooled. In July 2024, Knowbe4, a Florida-based company that offers security training, discovered that a new hire known as “Kyle” was actually a foreign agent. “He interviewed great,” says Brian Jack, KnowBe4’s chief information security officer. “He was on camera, his résumé was right, his background check cleared, his ID cleared verification. We didn’t have any reason to suspect this wasn’t a valid candidate.” But when his facilitator—the US-based individual giving him cover—tried to install malware on Kyle’s company computer, the security team caught on and shut him out.

Back in london, Simon Wijckmans couldn’t let go of the idea that somebody had tried to fool him. He’d just read about the Knowbe4 case, which deepened his suspicions. He conducted background checks and discovered that some of his candidates were definitely using stolen identities. And, he found, some of them were linked to known North Korean operations. So Wijckmans decided to wage a little counter exercise of his own, and he invited me to observe.

I dial in to Google Meet at 3 am Pacific time, tired and bleary. We deliberately picked this offensively early hour because it’s 6 am in Miami, where the candidate, “Harry,” claims to be.

Harry joins the call, looking pretty fresh-faced. He’s maybe in his late twenties, with short, straight, black hair. Everything about him seems deliberately nonspecific: He wears a plain black crewneck sweater and speaks into an off-brand headset. “I just woke up early today for this interview, no problem,” he says. “I know that working with UK hours is kind of a requirement, so I can get my working hours to yours, so no problem with it.”

So far, everything matches the hallmarks of a fake worker. Harry’s virtual background is one of the default options provided by Google Meet, and his connection is a touch slow. His English is good but heavily accented, even though he tells us he was born in New York and grew up in Brooklyn. Wijckmans starts with some typical interview questions, and Harry keeps glancing off to his right as he responds. He talks about various coding languages and name-drops the frameworks he’s familiar with. Wijckmans starts asking some deeper technical questions. Harry pauses. He looks confused. “Can I rejoin the meeting?” he asks. “I have a problem with my microphone.” Wijckman nods, and Harry disappears.

A couple of minutes pass, and I start to fret that we’ve scared him away, but then he pops back into the meeting. His connection isn’t much better, but his answers are clearer. Maybe he restarted his chatbot, or got a coworker to coach him. The call runs a few more minutes and we say goodbye.

Our next applicant calls himself “Nic.” On his résumé he’s got a link to a personal website, but this guy doesn’t look much like the profile photo on the site. This is his second interview with Wijckmans, and we are certain that he’s faking it: He’s one of the applicants who failed the background check after his first call, although he doesn’t know that.

Nic’s English is worse than Harry’s: When he’s asked what time it is, he tells us it’s “six and past” before correcting himself and saying “quarter to seven.” Where does he live? “I’m in Ohio for now,” he beams, like a kid who got something right in a pop quiz.

Several minutes in, though, his answers become nonsensical. Simon asks him a question about web security. “Political leaders ... government officials or the agencies responsible for border security,” Nic says. “They’re responsible for monitoring and also securing the borders, so we can employ the personnel to patrol the borders and also check the documents and enforce the immigration laws.”

I’m swapping messages with Wijckmans on the back channel we’ve set up when it dawns on us: Whatever AI bot Nic seems to be using must have misinterpreted a mention of “Border Gateway Protocol”—a system for sending traffic across the internet—with national borders, and started spewing verbiage about immigration enforcement. “What a waste of time,” Wijckmans messages me. We wrap up the conversation abruptly.

I try to put myself in the seat of a hiring manager or screener who’s under pressure. The fraudsters’ words may not have always made sense, but their test scores and résumés looked solid, and their technical-sounding guff might be enough to fool an uninformed recruiter. I suspect at least one of them could have made it to the next step in some unsuspecting company’s hiring process.

Wijckmans tells me he has a plan if he comes across another pretender. He has created a web page that looks like a standard coding assessment, which he’ll send to fake candidates. As soon as they hit the button to start the test, their browser will spawn dozens of pop-up pages that bounce around the screen, all of them featuring information on how to defect from North Korea. Then loud music plays—a rickroll, “The Star-Spangled Banner”—before the computer starts downloading random files and emits an ear-splitting beep. “Just a little payback,” he says.

Wijckman’s stunt is not going to stop the pretenders, of course. But maybe it will irritate them for a moment. Then they’ll get back to work, signing on from some hacking sweatshop in China or through a laptop farm in the US, and join the next team meeting—a quiet, camera-off chat with coworkers just like me or you.

[lonniemachin]

Ahmad reached out to me to help share his family's fundraiser. Ahmad is a 22 year old dentistry student currently residing in Gaza. He and his family are now living in tents in Rafah after the IOF destroyed his home. His brother Mohammad, currently living in Sweden, has raised kr16,833 SEK out of his kr250,000 goal to evacuate his family to Egypt! Please donate and share, and if you can't donate, please still share!

Ahmad's Twitter/X account: @ahmadposts1

From Mohammad's GFM:

My name is Mohammad Jamal Shamia, and I reside in Sweden. I am raising funds to help my family and my sisters and brother leave Gaza for Egypt or any other country to secure their safety, as there is no longer a safe place in Gaza.

Here is their story:

My family consists of eight people: my father, my mother, four daughters, and two sons.

My father, Jamal Shamia, is currently in Gaza, and his home was destroyed at the beginning of the war. We have lost security and peace. We have witnessed how a single rocket can destroy your entire life, both your past and your future. Our dreams have been shattered. Now the future is unknown and dark. There is no home, no basic life essentials, no job. We are now seeking to leave this country for a life abroad and to obtain security. We estimate our loss to be at least $50,000 to rebuild a home and start our lives anew.

My mother left Gaza before the war for surgery in Egypt and is now stranded on the Egyptian side without any means of support.

The daughters (Rasha, Maram, Rana, Reem):

- Rasha Jamal Shamia and her husband Khalil Abu Samaan have two children, Mira Abu Samaan and Omar Abu Samaan. They are now in Gaza and have left their home and all their belongings in Gaza City to move to Rafah, but they cannot return to their home due to the occupation forces' siege of the northern areas. They are now in tents and have lost their children's future in terms of education and the opportunity for a decent life.

- Rana Jamal Shamia and her husband Mohammed Salama have two children, Amir Salama and Taim Salama. They are also in Gaza and lost their home after the occupation forces bombed their house, and they suffered direct injuries. They also lost their children's future and are now internally displaced persons in Rafah City after their house was demolished. They still suffer from the damage they and their children witnessed.

- Reem Jamal Shamia is residing outside Gaza and has not seen her family for some time.

- Maram Jamal Shamia and her husband Mareed Al-Suwirki are now outside Gaza. They were evacuated along with their children and husband from Gaza. Maram's family has suffered greatly during their time in Gaza, and their home was destroyed. They lost many of their belongings. Her husband is a dentist and also lost his job.

Two of the sons (Mohammad, Ahmad):

-Ahmad Jamal Shamia resides in Gaza and is a third-year student in dental school. He lost his education due to the devastating war in Gaza. He was studying at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, and his home was destroyed in the war. He is currently suffering from moving from one temporary shelter to another. Ahmad was a diligent, ambitious, and creative student who ranked first in his class. He didn't limit himself to what he learned in university. He attended courses and workshops online with Egyptian doctors to learn more and excel in his field. He always sought excellence and worked hard for it, and he loved helping all students.

He now needs money to continue his education, which will cost him a lot of money since he will complete his studies in Egypt.

-I, Mohammad Jamal Shamia, currently residing in Sweden, am orchestrating a fundraising effort aimed at providing assistance to my immediate family and siblings. The funds collected will be allocated towards facilitating their departure from Gaza, with coordination managed through Hala Travel Agency, and remittance to Egypt via established channels. The required contribution stands at $5000 per adult, with a reduced amount of $2500 designated for children.

My family is living in extreme danger due to the brutal bombing of their city. There are daily explosions and attacks. The city is no longer safe for them. My family has been unable to work for five months due to the war, and they are living on minimal food and water while constantly suffering from fear and shock from the attacks around them. Many in the family have medical needs, and their lives are at risk every moment. Prices have risen in Gaza, and they struggle daily to meet their basic needs.

The family is requesting help to cross the border into Egypt so they can begin rebuilding their lives. Time is of the essence! Help us transport them across the border to Egypt so we know they are safe from the increasing and indiscriminate attacks.

There will be a high financial cost, as mentioned earlier, for one person it is $5,000 and $2,500 for children, to enter Egyptian territory. I hope we can work together to help my family leave Gaza. Their escape from the difficulties will only be possible through this fundraising campaign. They are counting on us! Thank you for your support. Thank you for coming together

"Mohammed Jamal shamia, currently residing in Sweden, is initiating fundraising efforts to assist his family, sister, father, and mother. The funds collected will be allocated to facilitate their departure from Gaza and to provide a promising life for them. The collected funds will be transferred through money transfer companies such as Western Union and MoneyGram. The required contribution is 250,000 Swedish Krona."

[apthepotat]

my opinion on the Mufasa movie

So yesterday (or the day before that) I watched Mufasa

And here are my thoughts:

As someone who’s loved Disney movies so much for as long as I remember,and til this day I rewatch every favorite movie of mine from Disney,AND lion king being one of my all time favorite movies

I personally kind of liked Mufasa

HOWEVER. no movie is perfect and usually I brush off the flaws of movies but this one ?-? Yeah I kinda wanna point it out

I’d rate it as 6-5/10

The pacing was too fast too fast for my liking,the songs were alright,nothing compares to the OG lion king and lion king 2 and all,nothing is the same as it was before But the songs were alright where I’d still hum it and it plays in my mind Personally I loved “Bye bye” and “tell me it’s you” ,they were my favorites

(“I always wanted a brother” was a bit eh for me, it grew on me a little,not a favorite but I loved the “I always wanted a brother I still remember my mother” part)

And like I said,the pacing was too fast - they don’t take a second - and the characters only few seconds meeting and act all happy as if a tragedy didn’t happen few seconds ago? it’s Disney but not even an hour or a day passed by

Basically everything is quickly- I don’t know what is happening and who is who? idk how to explain but like- all in all the pacing was fast and for the lions it’s kinda hard to distinguish who is who (also why are some of them pale)

And of course the main thing: it would have been SO much more enjoyable as a 2D Animation,people are recreating some songs and scenes in the movie as 2D Animation style and it’s so much more PRETTIER

I’m sick of live action (even if it’s a CGI animated movie point still stands)

they tried to improve and show more emotion than the live action lion king movie in 2019, doesn’t hit the same as 2D animation

The voice actors have done excellent and the work is done beautifully and people worked their sweat blood and tears on it but like… No wonder why sonic 3 succeeded tbh

If you’re a hardcore Disney fan ,especially lion king fan (since it’s one of my favorites growing up) ,you may like it and you may not,everyone have different opinions and preferences

Would I recommend you to go to the movie theatre to watch it?

.. ehhhhhhhhhh not really???????? I guess?

save your time and money if you really wanna watch it ,it’s online and I think on Disney + ,I just found a random website and watched it cuz I was bored and curious

remember this is all my opinion <3 also hi I disappeared for a bit and I might disappear a bit more because Ramadan is around the corner + exams + ofc college + I literally don’t know what to post on here so yeah

I go now ✨

[gayassbish]

Genshin Guys as Your New Bestie. Highschool AU

Genre: Platonic of course and very much so crack

Reader: Gender Neutral | References to “girly pop” in Childe and Kaeya’s Part

Characters: Diluc, Zhongli, Childe and Kaeya, Alhaitham, Bennet, Xinqiu and Chongyun, Xiao

Diluc-

The kid who raises his hand and asks a bunch of questions, but still manages to not come of nerdy, but intelligent. He doesn’t talk to anyone in class and some other kids in class thinks he’s arrogant cause of it. Like “he’s too smart for us vibes.” You, on the other hand, know better than to trust the rumors and actually get to know his ass. That is lie, I can’t imagine anyone walking up to his emo self unless you’re the most extroverted person on the planet. He also definitely plays chess online in his chromebook 24/7.

Butttt you do end up sitting next to him as your seating arrangements change every semester or so. You say hi like a normal person and he sorta just grunts?? Terrible first impression, but you realize he’s very kind. Always picking up your fallen pencils, sharing homework answers with out you asking, and you end up getting a long pretty well once you find your stuff in common.

P.S. He’d 100% drive you around everywhere

Zhongli-

A popular dude cause he’s handsome ig and the fucking valedictorian. Plus he manages to know everything without coming off like a know it all, so he is generally well received by everyone and helps basically everyone out. Has a 10000 IQ and a calculator for a brain too. Probably wears granny glasses.

So… you’re at your part time job and notice him coming in. You immediately hide cause you don’t know him like that (yet) and don’t want to be remembered as “oh they’re the person who works there.” One of your coworkers helps him out instead while you secretly spy and realize he’s not as smart as he looks?? He is very much so only book smart and has no street cred what so ever. He looks so lost as to why he can’t take whatever y’all sell now and pay latter. He honestly gives your coworker a hard time. (rip coworker </3) You eventually help out and he recognizes you!! You learn he has an excellent memory and actually knows your name. And viola now your the person who he can go to for financial means. Have fun!

P.S You drive him everywhere…

Childe & Kaeya-

They’re those loud kids in the back who don’t shut up. I want to say they’re pant saggers but I know I would get canceled. (They so are though.) Anywho, you end up being forced to sit next to them and they like start flirting of sum shit idk?

But you’re girly pop and you don’t take that crap. After you put them in their place and educate them on how they shouldn’t talk to anyone that way like some cat calling NPC, they start to really respect you?? Well to be fair you don’t know if they’re scared of you or are just putting on an act.

Y’all get closer as you stop a lot of fights that happen between them and do your best to quiet them down in class.

And they kinda just drag you to places. Once you lost a bet and were forced to go shopping with them. (If you didn’t show up, they threatened to upload a photo of you sleeping in class onto their social media.) At the mall… Childe started to pick fights with the security guard (he claims it’s the other way around but we both know it was him) and Kaeya DOES NOTHING?? He just records the whole thing while giggling like an idiot. Y’all get banned from the mall. They do nothing but apologize on the way to your house (they picked and dropped you off.) It didn’t work cause you didn’t talk to them for a month after that.

P.S. Kaeya actually has really good fashion taste and was the one the blackmail you because he wanted to Project MakeOver you??

Alhaitham-

He’s an obnoxious, self-centered asshole to everyone and you do your best to avoid him until you’re stuck together for a group project.

Even though you know to the rumors about him, you still introduce yourself like a person with manners would… BUT he cuts you off. Immediately orders that he will do the project by himself entirely. And while you would usually take that deal (cause who wouldn’t, let’s be honest) you CANNOT stand the disrespect from this MAN. You guys start arguing until the teacher has to break it up between y’all and fucking Alhaitham is just like “I’ve never been so embarrassed infront of a teacher,” as if he didn’t start the fight. smh

Anyways, it’s really rough between you guys and it’s now presentation day. After you guys present, Alhaitham turns out rather pleased with your part, and though he would NEVER admit it to you (or even himself) you actually did better on your part than he would’ve if he went solo. At the end of class, he apologizes for being so cold at first. He explains how he hasn’t had the best group partners and almost always does all the work. He asks if you’d be okay working together again.

P.S. If you said yes, y’all would turn into an unstoppable duo. And if you said no THEN GOOD. He needs a lesson.

Bennett-

You definitely decided to just look after him once you saw him drop his phone, bag, papers, and himself down the stairs multiple times. You’re basically his bodyguard atp. You literately carry around extra bandaids cause of him omg. You guys have a bunch of classes together so it’s easy for y’all to get a long. You help protect him from bullies (Bennett just attracts the worst kinds of people) and he starts to think you’re his lucky charm.

Basically starts to worship you?? Invites you to hang out in his friend group of misfits featuring Razor, Barbra, and Fischl. They play DnD during lunch too and drag you into it. Honestly it turns into a cult with you as their leader. At the end of the school year, the five of you pull a bunch of pranks on the kids who were messing with Bennet.

P.S. The cult had a name: Lord Y/N’s Pimps. Barbra came up with it because she thought calling someone a pimp was a form on endearment… the name ended up just sticking.

Xingqiu & Chongyun-

They’re those fucking kids who won’t shut up about Harry Potter or Star Wars or sum shit. Luckily for them, you can be just as geeky. You fit in pretty well with them.

Y’all met after you went off on them for spoiling the new Star Wars movie and eventually bonded over your love for those space ninjas. You get invited to watch movies and join the arcade with them 24/7. You join in on Xinqiu’s bullying of Chongyun and in turn actually out smart Xinqiu. So it balances out. They love you cause they probably get tired of each other after a lot of their own fights, but you’re always there to ground them <3

P.S BY FARRR the best people to go trick or treating with on halloween.

Xiao-

The kid who never got out of ‘emo skater boy phase’. A lot of people think he’s cool, but he doesn’t have many (tbh any) friends for two reasons. One, he’s hard to approach, and two, he’s socially awkward as fawkk.

You guys have been going to the same school for years, but never actually talked to each other until you saw him playing The Legend of Zelda on the switch. You ask to watch and he kinda just scoots over without saying anything. Weird, but you bring up how nostalgic it is to see people from back in the day to when everyone still wet their pants to how they’ve changed now. Xiao just kinda mumbles in response. He actually doesn’t want the conversation to end and sorta just awkwardly asks how you’re weekend was on a tuesday…

Once you learn he’s not as scary as he looks and is secretly a big giant marshmallow on the inside, you guys get a long pretty well. Then when he gets more comfortable with your presence, he’s so much more less awkward (a sign that he trusts you) and his real personality will start to blossom. You guys go to the park a lot and feed the ducks (WITH real duck food, may I add, and not the nasty expired bread). You guys play on the swings and exchange playlists/sound recommendations.

P.S. You wonder if he actually knows how to ride a skateboard because he’s one of those skater boys who actually just brings a skateboard with them everywhere while they never use it?? Like we get it. You have legs for a reason but then why bring the skateboard if you’re just gonna walk.

And you get closer to them all once they trauma dump on you </3

A/N: My first post wowowow | 11/01/2023