#Internet Marketing Analyst

[nitearmorweek]

As everyone gets to work preparing for NiteArmor Week, the mods wanted to encourage people to bring their own lived experiences into their creations. You are welcome to write and draw mandalorians in a way that reflects your own life and culture; Bo-Katan and the Armorer do not have to physically resemble their live action counterparts.

What does this mean? Do you want to share your Mexican heritage and weave it into the story of your NiteArmor fic? Hell yeah! Do you see the Armorer has having dreadlocks? Include them! Do you have an insulin pump and think Bo-Katan has one under her flightsuit too? We want to heart about it!

For those who may need a little help or are looking for new resources, we have gathered a small list of guides. Some of the below sources came from @lavenderursa's collection of inclusive writing tips. The mods recommend reading through the original post they worked hard to put together! The hope of this new post is to build out their post to include a few more elements specific to Star Wars.

Writing Resources Collectives and authors who have published tips and guides on writing stories that center diverse experiences:

Writing With Color

The History of Black Hair [Words to Describe Hair]

A Guide to Natural Black Hair

How To Write About Trans People

A Primer on Writing Trans Characters

The Do’s and Don’ts of Writing Transgender Characters

Important Tips on Making/Writing Asian OCs

Dear Non-Asian Writer

How to Avoid Asian Stereotypes, Appropriation, and White Washing

​Tips for Inclusivity with Reader Inserts

A Guide to Writing Disabled Characters

A general cane guide for writers and artists (from a cane user, writer, and artist!)

Creating authentic deaf and hard of hearing characters

Art Tips Helpful information on how to draw different body types, skin tones, and hair:

Basic Skin Tone Coloring [part 2]

Kupa's Guide to Skintones

A Guide to Drawing South Asian Skin Tones [part 2]

Protocols When Drawing Native American Hair

A guide to designing wheelchair using characters! [part 2]

Whitewashing in Art and How Colors Work

​How to Draw Disabled People

Drawing East Asian Faces

Plus Size Body Types

POC Blush tones

Afro, 4C hair

Image References Websites that offer images that can be licensed for use and/or inspiration. The below three are highly recommended resources, but some do have a cost:

createHERstock - Your destination for authentic stock images featuring melanated women

Nappy co - Beautiful photos of Black and Brown people, for free

Eye for Ebony - Beautiful lifestyle stock photos featuring people of color

Affect The Verb - This is a disability-led effort to provide free & inclusive stock images from our own perspective, with photos and illustrations celebrating disabled Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC).

Pixerf - Asia's fastest-growing Asian stock photo market place

Disability: In - Disability Inclusive Stock Photography

Disability is Beautiful - The best free stock images provided by the disability community.

Cosplayers Artists and content creators that have posted amazing Star Wars cosplay! Their hard work and attention to detail in costuming is a wonderful source of inspiration and reference. If you are inspired by any of their photos, please make sure to credit them and send your love. Here are just three examples of cosplayers within the fandom:

Jahara Jayde | twitter | ko-fi

arseniccupcakes | twitter | patreon

cutiepiesensei | twitter | instagram

Further Reading Additional articles, studies, and analyses that discuss racism and ableism within the Star Wars fandom specifically:

Racism In Star Wars: A List of Resources

Star Wars Franchise: Stitch's Media Mix Analyst

Star Wars: A Tale of Racism

Disability In Star Wars

Blind Warriors, Supercrips, and Techno-Marvels: Challenging Depictions of Disability in Star Wars

What's the Problem, Papi?: Internet Daddy-ism and Coddling, Fetishization, and what "Latino-looking" actually means.

Sinophobia in SW Animation

Thank you for making it to the end of this post! Please do not consider this a definitive list or a replacement for anti-racist work in the real world. Keep reading, stay curious, and seek out new perspectives from voices you may not have been listening for.

Do you have any additional recommendations, sources, or guides to share? Feel free to drop them in the comments of this post ❤️

[beardedmrbean]

MEXICO CITY — In a small town in Mexico’s western state of Michoacán, members of a criminal group forced residents to pay for high-cost internet service — or face death.

After these threats, residents made monthly extortion payments while simultaneously reporting the situation to authorities.

After months of investigations, officials raided three properties, finding evidence such as antennas, internet repeater equipment and connections, which were handed over to the prosecutor's office.

While it may sound surprising for Mexico's drug cartels to be involved in internet service, those who follow the criminal groups' activities aren't at all surprised.

"Drug cartels have diversified their operations since their inception," security analyst David Saucedo said. "Many of them started as criminal organizations whose main activity wasn’t drug trafficking."

Some gangs were involved in, for example, fuel theft, others were involved in vehicle theft and others specialized in robbing public transportation, Saucedo said.

“Criminal groups that joined drug trafficking already had these other activities beforehand.”

Besides the billions of dollars cartels make from the drug trafficking industry, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says the most powerful drug cartels, Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation (CJNG), are involved in many illegal ventures that result in profits.

“The Sinaloa Cartel is most closely identified with drug trafficking but is also engaged in extortion, the theft of petroleum and ores, weapons trafficking, migrant smuggling, and prostitution,” the 2024 National Drug Threat Assessment states.

CJNG directs the theft of fuel from pipelines, extorts agave and avocado farmers, migrants and prison officials, and taxes migrant smugglers, the report said.

"The portfolio is extensive. However, while drug trafficking is the most profitable activity, it has a longer recovery time for the investment compared to other ... criminal activities, which yield almost immediate profit," Saucedo said.

From cartels calling older Americans to offer timeshares in Mexico, leading to the loss of nearly $40 million, to cartel-backed smugglers reaping growing profits in the trafficking of migrants across the U.S-Mexico border, their criminal range is extensive.

Here are some ways where the cartels have extended their reach:

Fuel theft

Fuel theft, known as huachicoleo in Mexico, is a highly profitable activity for organized crime groups. In the first nine months of 2022, Mexico's state-owned oil company, Pemex, lost $730 million from illegal pipeline taps.

Cartels in Mexico have developed a sophisticated approach to fuel theft, which involves corruption, precision and violence.

This includes tactics such as bribing Pemex employees and local officials for information, drilling precise illegal taps into pipelines, and using modified tanker trucks to transport stolen fuel for distribution in black market networks.

Several cartels are involved in this criminal activity. For instance, the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, led by Jose Antonio Yepez, also known as El Marro, established its dominance through fuel theft before entering into drug trafficking.

Additionally, CJNG and the Gulf Cartel are also linked to fuel theft, which supports their criminal activities.

Avocados

Mexico's multibillion-dollar avocado industry, which continues to break records for exports every year, has also been one of the main targets for drug cartels.

Avocados are known as “green gold” in Mexico, and the country has become the world’s largest producer of the popular fruit.

But as growers’ fortunes have risen, they have faced increasing threats from drug cartels seeking a share of the profits.

In Michoacán, the only state authorized to export the fruit to the U.S., CJNG and local gangs demand payments from farmers, often referred to as "protection fees."

These fees can range from $135 to $500 per hectare monthly, depending on the size of the farm and the level of perceived threat.

The extortion process begins with cartels identifying and targeting profitable farms. Armed cartel members then approach the farmers, issuing threats of violence or property damage if the farmers refuse to comply.

In February 2022, the U.S. suspended avocado imports from Mexico after a U.S. official received a death threat while working in Uruapan.

The imports resumed a week later following new safety measures applied by Mexico’s government in the region.

Two years later, locals say the situation hasn’t changed much, and avocado growers continue to deal with criminal organizations in the area.

Tortillas

The average Mexican consumes about 70 kilograms of tortillas annually, according to the Mexican Agriculture Ministry. It is a staple in Mexican cuisine, which is why cartels have decided to profit from it.

Extortion from cartels affects nearly 20,000 tortillerías, directly impacting the prices paid by Mexicans.

According to the National Tortilla Council, in an interview with The Washington Post, out of more than 130,000 tortillerías in the country, between 14 to 15% percent suffer from extortion.

Homero López García, the organization's president, told El Sol de México that establishments must pay between $135 and $190 weekly to multiple criminal groups to continue operating.

"Well, look, nothing surprises me anymore," Saucedo, the security analyst, said about cartels extorting tortillerías. "Perhaps it's a somewhat insensitive and cynical posture from me, but the truth is that I remain open to all possibilities in this regard."

Chicken

In a video posted on social media two days before Christmas 2023, an armed group was seen arriving at a poultry shop in Toluca, Mexico, kidnapping four workers and putting them into a white van.

The Mexico state prosecutor's office said the victims were retailers who were forced to buy chicken in some establishments. Likewise, they had to pay a fee of $2.50 per kilo in exchange for not getting killed by the Familia Michoacana cartel.

Authorities said as a result of their efforts to combat extortion, the criminal groups La Familia Michoacana and CJNG lost over $43 million from threatening poultry and egg vendors in municipalities of the Toluca Valley and the southern part of the state.

The state prosecutor's office said in 2023 alone, they received 4,010 complaints for this crime, of which they determined that only one in four was made in person, with the rest being indirect through phone calls, social media, and emails.

Three months later, the four workers kidnapped in December were found alive, and four perpetrators were detained, but those behind the abductions remain on the loose and the extortion of poultry vendors continues, officials said.

'Piso' fee

"They were asking me for $600 monthly for cobro de piso; we reported it, and we had to close for a month," Guillermo, a businessman in downtown Mexico City, told local media, recalling the extortion from the cartel.

The cobro de piso, which is the fee cartels charge business owners in exchange for "protection," has been the main problem for merchants in Mexico City.

"The first group of affected businesses are restaurants, followed by convenience stores in second place, and then jewelry stores in third place," said Jose de Jesus Rodriguez, president of Mexico City’s Chamber of Commerce.

In the past few years, extortions have been on the rise. Depending on the areas, some establishments would receive calls, emails, or in-person visits from armed men asking for the cartel's fee.

"They have tried several times, it's through calls," restaurant owner Israel Zavala told Mexican media. "The trust in the authorities isn't very high; complaints have been filed, but they don't proceed."

Analyst Saucedo said the problem with the metrics is that we have never had access to their accounting books.

“We will never have the total amount of the taxable fee because many do not report it to the authorities.”

In Mexico City, there are many criminal organizations involved in activities such as drug dealing, but also charging extortion fees to small business owners like tortilla shops, street vendors, and taxi drivers.

"Since Mexico City is a densely populated area, and we have a very large informal economy, many people are unfortunately susceptible to paying protection money. Consequently, it is a profitable activity for the local mafias," Saucedo said.

 "Besides paying an official tax to come to work, you have to pay another one to them," Angel Campos, a vendor at a street market in Mexico City, said.

[zvaigzdelasas]

The Supreme Court of Panama began deliberations on Friday that will decide the fate of First Quantum Minerals’ (TSX: FM) giant Cobre Panama copper mine, the only mining operation in the Central American country.

The top court is expected to rule on several constitutional challenges to the contract signed in October between the Canadian miner and the Panamanian government, which would allow the operation to keep going for the next 20 years.

The outcome of these deliberations is being keenly watched by the global copper market, investors and Panamanians, as the whole country has been paralyzed by widespread anti-mining protests over the past weeks.[...]

The land and sea protests have blocked the delivery of crucial supplies to the mine, which forced First Quantum to halt operations again this week[...]

Protestors claim the mining contract was fast-tracked with little public input or transparency. “It was published digitally, but its download was not allowed (…) We are talking about a country where 40% of the population lacks internet,” award-winning Panamanian journalist Mary Triny Sea, wrote on Friday. Campaigners have also made corruption allegations against lawmakers and the company, which has denied any wrongdoing. [...]

Opponents say Cobre Panama is located within a key biodiversity area of global significance. “A road built for the mine goes through the heart of the Panama Atlantic Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, which connects wildlife habitats in seven countries of Central America to southern Mexico,” Amy Upgren, director of international programs at the American Bird Conservancy said in a statement. “Ecological corridors are critical for animals to be able to move to find food, habitat, and mates,” she noted.[...]

the mine accounts for about 5% of its GDP and makes up 75% of Panama’s export of goods[...]

Analysts at BMO Capital Markets believe that First Quantum is in a financial position that allows it to weather the storm in the short term.[...]

Challenges, she added, would arise if Cobre Panama remained halted for 80 days in 2024, as this would draw First Quantum’s cash down to zero at the bank’s current commodity and cash outflow assumptions. A closure for the first half of the year, beyond the May 2024 Presidential election, would result in a $267 million cash shortfall[...]

President Laurentino Cortizo would be in a tricky spot if the court rules the contract with First Quantum unconstitutional, as his government passed a bill on Nov. 2 banning all new mining concessions and extensions. That would prevent the two parties from negotiating a new deal.

24 Nov 23

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Susan Rinkunas at Jezebel:

The Supreme Court on Thursday did what legal analysts had predicted, and ruled that a group of anti-abortion doctors don’t have legal standing to challenge the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, the first drug used in a medication abortion. The vote in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA was unanimous, but don’t get excited: The justices didn’t rule on the merits of the underlying case, they just said these particular plaintiffs can’t sue. And there are other plaintiffs suing over mifepristone, and conservatives want the federal government to enforce a 19th-century anti-vice law to restrict the use of the drug. So today’s decision does not mean abortion rights are safe. Plus, medication abortion still can’t be prescribed in states with abortion bans.

“The plaintiffs want FDA to make mifepristone more difficult for other doctors to prescribe and for pregnant women to obtain,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the opinion. “Under Article III of the Constitution, a plaintiff ’s desire to make a drug less available for others does not establish standing to sue.” The case is one of two involving abortion during this term: The other concerns whether hospitals have to provide abortions in emergency situations. We’re still waiting on that ruling.

Medication abortion is an existential threat to the anti-abortion movement because people can get the pills in the mail without having to face protestors or travel out of state, and because telemedicine allows clinics to see more patients. It’s typically a two-drug regimen used for early-term abortions: Mifepristone stops the pregnancy from progressing, and then misoprostol induces contractions. People in states where abortion is legal can often get the pills via telemedicine, and activist groups also ship the pills to people in states with bans.

In November 2022, five months after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a newly formed group of anti-abortion doctors called the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine filed a federal lawsuit against the FDA in Amarillo, Texas. That location was not by accident: They were almost guaranteed to get Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee and vocal abortion opponent. Kacsmaryk is the judge who ruled in April 2023 that the FDA should yank the pill from the market. (An appeals court later narrowed that ruling to say the FDA should impose outdated restrictions, making mifepristone much harder to get; the Biden administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which brings us to today.) The doctors are represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, the far-right Christian legal advocacy group that wrote the Mississippi law the Supreme Court used to overturn Roe v. Wade.

SCOTUS ruled unanimously in FDA v. Alliance For Hippocratic Medicine that the anti-abortion group did not have valid standing to sue the FDA’s mifepristone policy. The ruling was issued by SCOTUS Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

This ruling is just a temporary reprieve, as anti-abortion forces continue to seek ways to get mifepristone reduced or outright banned. Also, if Donald Trump wins, the Comstock Act could be brought back to life, meaning that most abortions would be banned nationwide.

See Also:

Daily Kos: Abortion pills are safe from the Supreme Court—for now

[tomorrowusa]

While Elon Musk is having fascist orgasms on Twitter X, Tesla dropped $71 billion in value.

A significant portion of Tesla's customer base consisted of upscale liberals. Musk decided that it would be fun to use his platform to attack them and their views. You don't have to be a savvy genius to understand that this would not be good for business.

Shares in Tesla plunged as much as 11% after the market opened Thursday, wiping $73 billion off the company’s market value hours after it warned of slowing growth in electric car sales and an existential threat from Chinese rivals. In an earnings presentation Wednesday, the world’s most valuable automaker said its sales growth this year “may be notably lower” than last as it continued developing the “next-generation” vehicle, likely a lower-priced model. While it reported a sizeable 38% increase in deliveries last year compared with 2022, Tesla had previously targeted a 50% annual growth rate averaged over several years. Tesla’s (TSLA) financial results for the last quarter also disappointed, with adjusted earnings per share down 40% from a year earlier, and revenue, which rose 3% to top $25 billion, coming in below market forecasts. It was the second straight quarter the company fell short of earnings forecast by analysts, following a string of better-than-expected results stretching back to the start of 2021.

Musk diverted attention from his core business so he could become a professional rightwing internet troll. Among other things, he jumped on Ron DeSantis's anti-woke bandwagon and was host for Meatball Ron's campaign launch last year – which turned into a fiasco.

[mariacallous]

Generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot are rapidly evolving, fueling concerns that the technology could open the door to multiple privacy and security issues, particularly in the workplace.

In May, privacy campaigners dubbed Microsoft’s new Recall tool a potential “privacy nightmare” due to its ability to take screenshots of your laptop every few seconds. The feature has caught the attention of UK regulator the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is asking Microsoft to reveal more about the safety of the product launching soon in its Copilot+ PCs.

Concerns are also mounting over OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which has demonstrated screenshotting abilities in its soon-to-launch macOS app that privacy experts say could result in the capture of sensitive data.

The US House of Representatives has banned the use of Microsoft’s Copilot among staff members after it was deemed by the Office of Cybersecurity to be a risk to users due to “the threat of leaking House data to non-House approved cloud services.”

Meanwhile, market analyst Gartner has cautioned that “using Copilot for Microsoft 365 exposes the risks of sensitive data and content exposure internally and externally.” And last month, Google was forced to make adjustments to its new search feature, AI Overviews, after screenshots of bizarre and misleading answers to queries went viral.

Overexposed

For those using generative AI at work, one of the biggest challenges is the risk of inadvertently exposing sensitive data. Most generative AI systems are “essentially big sponges,” says Camden Woollven, group head of AI at risk management firm GRC International Group. “They soak up huge amounts of information from the internet to train their language models.”

AI companies are “hungry for data to train their models,” and are “seemingly making it behaviorally attractive” to do so, says Steve Elcock, CEO and founder at software firm Elementsuite. This vast amount of data collection means there’s the potential for sensitive information to be put “into somebody else’s ecosystem,” says Jeff Watkins, chief product and technology officer at digital consultancy xDesign. “It could also later be extracted through clever prompting.”

At the same time, there’s the threat of AI systems themselves being targeted by hackers. “Theoretically, if an attacker managed to gain access to the large language model (LLM) that powers a company's AI tools, they could siphon off sensitive data, plant false or misleading outputs, or use the AI to spread malware,” says Woollven.

Consumer-grade AI tools can create obvious risks. However, an increasing number of potential issues are arising with “proprietary” AI offerings broadly deemed safe for work such as Microsoft Copilot, says Phil Robinson, principal consultant at security consultancy Prism Infosec.

“This could theoretically be used to look at sensitive data if access privileges have not been locked down. We could see employees asking to see pay scales, M&A activity, or documents containing credentials, which could then be leaked or sold.”

Another concern centers around AI tools that could be used to monitor staff, potentially infringing their privacy. Microsoft’s Recall feature states that “your snapshots are yours; they stay locally on your PC” and “you are always in control with privacy you can trust.”

Yet “it doesn’t seem very long before this technology could be used for monitoring employees,” says Elcock.

Self-Censorship

Generative AI does pose several potential risks, but there are steps businesses and individual employees can take to improve privacy and security. First, do not put confidential information into a prompt for a publicly available tool such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, says Lisa Avvocato, vice president of marketing and community at data firm Sama.

When crafting a prompt, be generic to avoid sharing too much. “Ask, ‘Write a proposal template for budget expenditure,’ not ‘Here is my budget, write a proposal for expenditure on a sensitive project,’” she says. “Use AI as your first draft, then layer in the sensitive information you need to include.”

If you use it for research, avoid issues such as those seen with Google’s AI Overviews by validating what it provides, says Avvocato. “Ask it to provide references and links to its sources. If you ask AI to write code, you still need to review it, rather than assuming it’s good to go.”

Microsoft has itself stated that Copilot needs to be configured correctly and the “least privilege”—the concept that users should only have access to the information they need—should be applied. This is “a crucial point,” says Prism Infosec’s Robinson. “Organizations must lay the groundwork for these systems and not just trust the technology and assume everything will be OK.”

It’s also worth noting that ChatGPT uses the data you share to train its models, unless you turn it off in the settings or use the enterprise version.

List of Assurances

The firms integrating generative AI into their products say they’re doing everything they can to protect security and privacy. Microsoft is keen to outline security and privacy considerations in its Recall product and the ability to control the feature in Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots.

Google says generative AI in Workspace “does not change our foundational privacy protections for giving users choice and control over their data,” and stipulates that information is not used for advertising.

OpenAI reiterates how it maintains security and privacy in its products, while enterprise versions are available with extra controls. “We want our AI models to learn about the world, not private individuals—and we take steps to protect people’s data and privacy,” an OpenAI spokesperson tells WIRED.

OpenAI says it offers ways to control how data is used, including self-service tools to access, export, and delete personal information, as well as the ability to opt out of use of content to improve its models. ChatGPT Team, ChatGPT Enterprise, and its API are not trained on data or conversations, and its models don’t learn from usage by default, according to the company.

Either way, it looks like your AI coworker is here to stay. As these systems become more sophisticated and omnipresent in the workplace, the risks are only going to intensify, says Woollven. “We're already seeing the emergence of multimodal AI such as GPT-4o that can analyze and generate images, audio, and video. So now it's not just text-based data that companies need to worry about safeguarding.”

With this in mind, people—and businesses—need to get in the mindset of treating AI like any other third-party service, says Woollven. “Don't share anything you wouldn't want publicly broadcasted.”

[mitchipedia]

America still employs a ton of news reporters

Wait, does America really still employ a ton of news reporters? Searching for bright spots in the twilight of the newspaper industry. wapo.st

Surprisingly, given the dire state of the journalism industry, America employs about as many news reporters as it did three decades ago.

That’s not a win—America has nearly 20% more jobs and people than it had 30 years ago.

But it doesn’t point to an industry in collapse either.

The catch is that many of these reporters work outside of journalism organizations, often in PR and marketing.

Having read the article, it describes my winding career path well. I’ve been a daily newspaper reporter, covering local government, crime, community and features. I’ve been a business-to-business tech journalist, which some might argue is not actually journalism. I’ve been a content marketer. And now I’m an analyst. During all that time, I’ve been using the same skills. Even the transition from print to the Internet was gradual and involves many of the same skills.

[atthedugouts]

Weekly Tag Wednesday

thank you @energievie @transsexual-dandelions and @sgtmickeyslaughter for tagging me

name: Sarah

age: 34

your time zone: PST

what do you do for work? Financial analyst. I work for a major corporation that has multiple contracts and I tell the program managers if they are over or under budget. I'm 99% sure I'll get promoted this year and will basically be my manger's right hand man so to speak and will make way to much money that makes me want to faint. I spend most of my working hours BSing on the internet but my manager doesn't need to know that.

do you have any pets? Yes, I have a dachshund terrier mix named Jasper. He's a pain but I love him.

what first drew you to this fandom? So I heard of Shameless when it first came out. I was interested because I love William H Macy and Emmy Rossum and I'm a huge ER fan so I knew about John Wells. But I kept reading that the show was a comedy and I didn't feel comfortable watching a comedy about poverty and addiction. Then when I was on tumblr like 10 years ago I kept seeing stuff about this show but I had no idea what it was. I kept seeing the club kiss everywhere! Then suddenly I realized it was Shameless and the marketing was wrong, this was not a comedy. Then I went through a depression and went off tumblr till about a couple months ago. I wondered if tumblr still likes this show like it did about 10 years ago and I found you all and after all these years I finally feel like my old self. I don't know why this stupid show inspired me to me more involved in fandom but I'm happy to be here.

are you a morning person or a night owl? Morning. I woke up at like 5:40 today.

what are your hobbies? Disneyland count? I promise I'm not a scary Disney adult. I go to the movies and love to write.

how tall are you? 5' 2

if you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? I love where I live. I'm a California girl.

favorite color? Blue

favorite book? The Neverending Story and The last Unicorn are the books I read over and over.

favorite movie? A Little Princess (1995)

favorite fic? Sorry, I don't have one.

favorite musical artist: Pink

what is your average screen time so far this week? Scared to look.

what’s the first app you open in the morning? Instagram or news

how long have you been on tumblr? Not sure. I was on it in college but then deleted and just created a new account

finally (and i know this one is hard) tell me a fun fact about yourself: I have a titanium bone (the anvil) in my right ear. I'm hard of hearing since birth.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

The thing about the lamentable downward trend in streaming music sales is -- when I tried to look up where they were going, all the articles I read pretty much said "on smartphones." Even the Atlantic, which I read on and off, quoted an article from Quartz titled "American Smartphone Owners Are Listening to Less and Less Music"

It's not clear to me why this would be happening. I have a few guesses:

"The rise of video on YouTube and other similar sites, like TikTok, drove people away from music, and they're mostly staying there." (A guess about the whole "American culture is heading towards a video monoculture" thing that I feel like I see a lot of people talking about, but not many actual articles.)

("Video works fine on phones, but listening to music, or even talking to someone on the phone, doesn't.")

"I don't know, Americans are increasingly deprived of pleasure."

The point is, it seems like a small class of things that are easily shareable over the internet. People have been sharing photos for years, now they're sharing video, soon maybe they'll be sharing audio. If I'm right about this, music will be the next thing to suffer.

The real problem with this model is that we're not enough years in the future to see that it's true, yet. Maybe, in 10 years, we'll be listening to a lot less music than we do now, because, like, most music is shit, whereas most photographs and videos are worth seeing, or at least worth spending 10 seconds clicking on. But all the data I can see is on the last 12-18 months or so, and there's no real evidence yet of a shift in this direction.

The initial "decline of music" articles (Billboard, investment analysts, etc.) cited something called "Smartphone Music Survey 2018." This appears to be a US survey of US adults (18+), done by Nielsen for the National Association of Music Merchants.

I found a copy of the survey results here on Github. Here are the relevant charts:

So, in the past two years or so, about 15% of the time people in the USA used to spend on the radio, streaming, or CDs is now going to Spotify instead. Note that by "Spotify" in these charts I mean all sources of music combined -- i.e. including iTunes.

I don't know how old the people in these surveys are, but now I'm wondering if it's possible that this is just a shift to Spotify among millennials and Gen Z. My impression is that for people under 40, all that is left of the traditional radio/CD listening market are the very youngest Gen Z and the oldest millennials (people 30-40). Because they don't spend a lot of time on Spotify in those age groups -- the 18-24 male cohort has way more time for Flipnote Studio HD than for, like, streaming.

I feel like I'm getting off topic here, but. . .

Is there really any . . . "class" . . . of people who just . . . watch a lot of video . . . ?

On TV I mean, not on YouTube or wherever.

I don't think I know any such people, and I suspect that most people I know don't know any such people, either. Maybe there is an imaginary internet person who uses YouTube for everything, including news, and for whom videos are a more natural form of expression than text. But I don't know any such people, and I suspect the idea of such a person is mostly a result of not knowing any such people.

If you took out my text posts and my voice posts on Facebook, would you get a more or less complete picture of the "me" from my two YouTube videos? Would you guess the guy in one of those videos and not the other? Would you be able to tell them apart if I edited the relevant audio and video out of them? Could you imitate me to my face? (I think you would.)

I wonder how much of "video as a content format" is just video in the most literal sense of the term, where you see something on a screen, as opposed to a more conversational mode where you get an image of something but it's just in your head.

For instance, here is a description of a "talking head" video:

A "talking head" video is characterized by a shot of the camera focusing on the host's head and face. The speaker looks directly at the audience in a way that typically does not convey that the viewer can see the speaker's face.

I'm pretty sure that I have never in my life experienced the "speaker looking directly at me" variant of the talking head video. (Although I imagine there are a lot of people who do it on Youtube, maybe?) When I read this description, I get an image of someone sitting in front of a blank wall, talking. That's very far from the experience of watching a video.

"On Youtube, people sit in front of a blank wall and type words in the chat" -- what, no, that's not a thing.

I don't know. I think these days I have the impression that talking heads aren't nearly as . . . lively as they are in my head. When I think of Youtube, the image that comes up in my mind is a fixed video of a person on a white background, talking, perhaps gesturing in a way that makes it clear what they're talking about. There is a very distinct impression of "that's not really a video, that's just a picture of a thing, a fixed image, not a moving one." Whereas if I think of a scene from a TV show, it's animated, it's fluid, it's "moving," it has the texture of actual reality.

It seems to me like a lot of what I see on Youtube has this fixed, still-picture-of-a-person-on-a-blank-white-background quality. That's what I'm used to. It's different from videos -- like, on Facebook videos, for instance.

A lot of videos have the quality of a movie, or even a stage play. If you stand in the doorway of your dorm room, you can almost see this Youtuber on a white wall, and even hear his voice, and see his hands. But that's just . . . a picture, a flat image. A moving picture, but still a picture nonetheless. Whereas a TV show has the texture of actual reality, the quality of something that could happen to you, not just things you can see, but things you can feel, smell, taste

[azcryptoreviews]

"Bitcoin's Potential Soars: Could It Reach $3 Million Per Coin?"

By George Georgiev | Nov 1, 2023

When it comes to Bitcoin (BTC) price predictions, one analyst is making waves with an eye-popping forecast. Luke Broyles, a respected crypto analyst and Bitcoin advocate, is suggesting that Bitcoin's value could skyrocket to an astounding $3 million per coin. While this may sound outrageous, Broyles presents a compelling case for this bullish outlook.

Broyles points out that despite Bitcoin's impressive market capitalization of $500 billion as of 2023, it still represents a fraction of the world's largest asset classes. To support his prediction, he emphasizes that Bitcoin's adoption rate is currently between 0.05% and 0.5%. If this adoption rate were to increase to 10%, it could drive a 100-fold increase in Bitcoin's value. Even if just 4% of the global population demanded 1 million satoshis, it could lead to Bitcoin's price soaring to astronomical heights.

Drawing parallels with the early days of the internet, Broyles argues that Bitcoin is a triple point asset, serving as a store of value, medium of exchange, and unit of account. He highlights the inherent value of groundbreaking technology, even with low initial adoption rates, as demonstrated by the internet's growth in the late '90s and early 2000s.

As of 2023, Bitcoin has shown resilience by recouping at least 50% of its all-time high from November 2021, currently trading at $34,501. However, much of the recent price action has been driven by news related to a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF), which is now fading in significance.

Achieving Bitcoin's price of $3 million per coin would require a confluence of factors, including regulatory changes, growing demand for risk assets in response to higher inflation, monetary policies enacted by central banks like the Federal Reserve, geopolitical tensions, and more. Broyles isn't the only analyst to make bold predictions about Bitcoin's future, but it's often events like chaos and social unrest that attract the most attention to this digital asset.

In conclusion, while a $3 million price target for Bitcoin may seem audacious, Luke Broyles makes a compelling argument based on Bitcoin's potential for growth and its current low adoption rates. However, realizing this milestone would depend on various influential factors coming into play. As the crypto world continues to evolve, it's clear that Bitcoin's journey is far from over.

Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, Luke Broyles, and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of A-ZCRYPTOREVIEWS or its editorial team. Cryptocurrency investments are highly speculative and volatile, and readers should exercise caution and conduct their own research before making any investment decisions. It's essential to understand that cryptocurrency markets are subject to significant risks, including regulatory changes, market fluctuations, and unforeseen events that can impact the value of digital assets. A-ZCRYPTOREVIEWS provides news and information for educational purposes only and does not offer financial or investment advice. Readers are encouraged to consult with financial professionals and experts before making any investment decisions.

[nickgerlich]

Doing A 360.

A couple of years ago, we went to one of those traveling Van Gogh immersive experiences. It was a little pricey, but it was fun. I thoroughly enjoyed being surrounded by floor-to-ceiling video. It allowed me to enjoy Van Gogh’s works in a way that books and reproductions in art galleries could ever begin to accomplish.

But what if we could harness some of this presentation style and use it to sell things? A year ago, TIME Magazine said that such augmented reality (AR) is the future of online shopping. And this year, Target is doubling down on it, at least when it comes to toy shopping.

As a side note, Toys ‘R Us, take note. Target is doing something you cannot do in an airport or on a cruise ship, or even inside a Macy’s boutique shop. Their new 360-degree immersive online shopping experience is top-shelf, and stands head and shoulders above everything that Toys ‘R Us and all the other toy retailers can offer.

I took it for a test drive, and all I can say is this: If I were a kid, I’d be busy writing my Wish List right about now. Oh, and sharing the link with Mom and Dad. It’s that cool.

Target is also trying to make bank this holiday season with a slew of toys at $25 or less, in response to inflation concerns and a tight economy. Make it cool, make it cheap, and wait for the shopping carts—virtual and IRL—to fill up. All this comes at a time when analysts are predicting record online discounts this shopping season.

And the rationale for an online sales pitch is compelling, because only three-percent of children 18 and under do not have internet access, either via a computer (93%) or smartphone (4%). Mom and Dad don’t have to take them shopping these days, because they can do it all at home, and hopefully without a POS (Parent Over Shoulder) to monitor.

The timing is also just as expected, because Target announced not long ago it would be launching its Christmas campaign the first week of October. They did not disappoint.

Immersive shopping allows for maximum interactivity in a virtual space. “Hot spots” on the screen are clickable, which spawn a pop-up to the side with full product details. Users can easily spend significant amounts of time on the site, which, of course, is the whole idea. In the land where engagement is king, Target is poised to become royalty.

Target’s offerings once again feature collaborations with long-time toy seller FAO Schwarz. These items are available only at Target. Other exclusives include the Disney100 Retro Reimagined Collection. I’m betting these will all be hot items this season. Anything to make your site a destination is shrewd.

And including entertainment in the online arena is just smart marketing, especially at a time when all the big retailers have websites. For kids and anyone else stuck in Short Attention Span Theatre, this is golden. Heck, I bet there might even be parents who are toy collectors perusing the site.

Because there’s a kid locked up inside everyone of us adult folks. Shopping at Target online this year may not be quite as much fun as the Van Gogh event, but it’s a nice alternative to otherwise mundane online shopping. I’m ready to take the plunge.

Dr “Full Immersion” Gerlich

Audio Blog

[amarantine-amirite]

Impostor Syndrome

The following is an interview that came from the last issue of Divergent magazine before the failure of MyntBank.

It's a well-known fact that autistic people struggle with job interviews. During interviews, an autistic person must mimic a neurotypical person all the time. Hiring managers watch for signs of dishonesty, which sometimes look like symptoms of autism.

Many argue that job interviews inherently select against autistic people in favor of neurotypicals. Some people go as far as to say that any autistic person that gets a job after completing a successful job interview was almost always hired by accident. Those who disagree with this theory argue you don't need to mimic a neurotypical that much when you already have the job. You just need to mimic part of the time. If you do a good enough job, you don't have to mimic a neurotypical at all. Coworkers will put up with your weird behavior just because you're good at your job.

Today, we're talking to Judith (not her real name), a 24 year old college graduate on the spectrum who had accidentally been hired by MyntBank on two separate occasions.

Divergent: Can you describe the interview process for MyntBank?

Judith: I got my job at MyntBank through a new grad rotation program. Two minutes before the scheduled interview time, the person who contacted me with the interview information told me her colleague will do it instead of her, but he is up to speed. Right out of the gate, he says that we have to do it one way due to an unstable internet connection. He talked nonstop for precisely one hour.

He referenced news stories that people wouldn't talk about after a few weeks that were at least 3 months old. He targeted his speech not to me, but to a large audience. I asked if it was a recording and then I signed off.

I must've done something right because I got the rotation job. They didn't even ask for my transcript.

Divergent: What was the internship like?

Judith: My rotation began with Business Intelligence for Equity Research, next I worked in ML Engineering for Business Banking, and finally, Data and Analytics for Derivatives. I learned something very important: capital markets executives view ML engineers as smart, data scientists as lazy, and business intelligence as complainers.

Now, you would think that capital markets executives have respect for data scientists because we're the ones uncovering fancy new ways for the Bank to make money. Well, you would also be wrong. They don't really understand us. We exist outside the hierarchy of analyst, associate, and managing director, but at the same time are paid at the same echelon as the people high on the food chain.

Data science is not a job that has a lot of fires. If anything, you start the fires that the ML engineers and risk managers have to put out. Everybody thinks that scientists do nothing because they don't have to hustle.

The C-Suite people brag about working 60, 70, or even 80 hours a week. They think that those who aren't working 75 hour weeks are lazy. They are diametrically opposed to working smarter instead of harder. Good luck getting them to understand that the mandate for a data scientist is to follow the evidence where it leads and think about stuff. The work of a data scientist suffers if they have to hustle.

Divergent: How did you go from your internship to a full time position with Mynt?

Judith: During my data analytics rotation, I got a term project requiring me to look for signals representing unusual market behavior. The Bank prohibited anybody from using pip install on their machines because a disgruntled employee in the back office used pip install to load libraries that they use to build a virus that crippled the KYC system. Getting rid of pip install meant that nobody could use Python for their work anymore. Given that Python is the coding lingua franca of the finance world, this decision would spell disaster for the organization.

Because the Bank got rid of pip install, I had to write my own imbalance sampling algorithm to finish the work on my project. I implemented it in such a way that it had a linear run time. I deployed the imbalance sampling algorithm for the first time right before a long weekend. It took 72 hours to train the model I was working on, which meant my computer was running all weekend. Upper management interpreted that as me burning the midnight oil over a holiday weekend.

I got invited to a lunch interview with the head of the data analytics department. They considered me for a role with the signal integration working group. Lunch included some salad and mashed potatoes with peas mixed in, supposedly to "test the emotional maturity of candidates." Even though I got very upset about the peas touching the potatoes, I still got a full time job with that group.

Divergent: Was it easier to manage your autism during your internship or during the full-time job?

Judith: A month into my new job, they came up with a new rule requiring masks on zoom calls. The rationale they gave us was that employees feel there is less discrimination between nice looking versus bad looking people. Wearing a mask puts video call participants all on the same level.

There's a problem with that. Masking on zoom calls robs employees ability to read lips. I have a disability that impairs my ability to process spoken language. We don't have captions on our zoom calls because captioning introduces its own privacy concerns as the video conferencing system we used at the time records dialogue to generate the captions.

I am far from the only person who has this issue. That working group had seven people, three of them are deaf, and the other four (myself included, by the way) had neurological disabilities where they need to see the mouth for communication.

I keep the "I'm having dental work done" in my pocket for skipping meetings . It's perfect. Nobody questions it and everybody can relate to it. I used that excuse for the first time, but I didn't get the reaction I expected. "Stop eating so much crap".

I couldn't understand what anyone was wearing because everyone was masked and there were no subtitles, so I accidentally agreed to this signal processing project where I had to decompose time series of alternative indicators for a given market (in this case, the derivatives market) into constituent signals, overlay the results against that of a synthetic best or worst case scenario, and develop a modeling strategy to predict whether the current picture would evolve into a good or bad scenario.

It was interesting, but it raised a lot of questions that require a lot of labor to get the data to answer them and you don't always know whether or not you've gone down a rabbit hole. Usually, you can surmise when you're going to go down a rabbit hole before it actually happens, but you can't do that here because you don't know what you don't know. It was also a really sensitive project. If you end up down a rabbit hole and out of sight of the main idea, it has the potential to be catastrophic.

Divergent: How do they find out they hired you by mistake not once, but twice?

Judith: I had to present my results on a surprise call. I couldn't for the life of me explain my analysis methods to the banking regulator. If you struggle to explain your analysis method to the regulator, you're cooked. Their first inclination is to look for signs of dishonesty.

Regulators don't like modeling strategies that involve lots of steps. They don't like stuff that's poorly explained. They really hated my explanation of my modeling strategy because it sounded suspiciously like market manipulation.

The bank got fined $14 billion that they had to pay by close of business the following day. They didn't pay up. It takes their billing department in Cameroon 18 months to pay for stuff and that includes fines.

After they finally got that fine paid, they decided that the whole debacle was my fault. They called me into this meeting with a bunch of executives. They had the CEO at one under the table and me at the other, and all of them glared at me. It was pretty horrifying.

They said they tried to fire me but it didn't go through. The head of human resources looked into it a little bit further and it turned out that I have been hired by accident for both the internship and the full-time role. the head of the internship program spoke up and said I accepted the offer of employment before the computer glitch that sent out the letter was rectified. The head of the data analytics department admitted to hiring me because, as he put it, "I could only remember her name because she caught food in her boobs."

Divergent: Have you been able to find a job since then?

Judith: Not really, no. I've been working with an employment counselor, applying to whatever jobs I can find, and I'm struggling to get a callback. I don't know if it's because the people at Mynt have blackballed me or if the market dried up. I hope I get something soon.

[denimbex1986]

'The very online showdown between Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” all started with a date: July 21.

It’s not uncommon for studios to counterprogram films in different genres on a big weekend, but the stark differences between an intense, serious-minded picture about the man who oversaw the development of the atomic bomb and a lighthearted, candy-colored anthropomorphizing of a childhood doll quickly became the stuff of viral fodder.

There’s even some disagreement over whether it’s “Barbieheimer” or “Barbenheimer” or “Boppenheimer” or yet another tortured portmanteau — a phenomenon on which the AP Stylebook has yet to offer guidance, but for the purposes of this article will be “Barbenheimer.”

It didn’t hurt that both Nolan and Gerwig have very passionate and very online fandoms eager to join in. Never mind that many of those fans overlap — the memes, allegiances, and T-shirts were just too fun.

Both movies often trend on social media when the other releases a new asset — a trailer, a picture, an interview. On one level, it’s a marketing department’s dream. Awareness could not be higher, the conversation couldn’t be louder, and neither film even has official reviews out yet.

“‘Barbenheimer’ is a marketing gift borne out of social media and I think it’s benefiting both films,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for analytics firm Comscore. “You’re certainly aware of both movies in a more profound and compelling way than I think might have otherwise happened had they been released on different weekends.”

AMC Theaters reported that 20,000 of its AMC Stubs members had purchased tickets for a double feature. If you’re counting, that’s 294 minutes of moviewatching. Even Margot Robbie — Barbie herself — and Tom Cruise, the star of another summer blockbuster, have started plotting the ideal “Barbenheimer” day.

“It’s a perfect double bill,” said Robbie at her movie’s London premiere Wednesday. “I think actually start your day with ‘Barbie,’ then go straight into ‘Oppenheimer’ and then a ‘Barbie’ chaser.”

Cruise — whose “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” opened a little over a week before the “Barbenheimer” showdown — said at his premiere he’d plan to see both on their opening day, likely starting with “Oppenheimer,” which seems to be the internet’s preferred viewing order as well.

“Barbie” actor Issa Rae thinks there’s a reason for that.

“I think that there’s a very specific order that if you see them in. If you see ‘Oppenheimer’ last then you might be a bit of a psychopath,” she diagnosed at the London premiere.

The showdown has made armchair marketing experts out of everyone, quick to scrutinize every move by Warner Bros. and Universal — as though it’s possible to compare two extraordinarily different campaigns.

One has infinite opportunities for very pink, sparkly photo opportunities, whimsical brand partnerships for seemingly everything from underwear to pool floats, large-scale fan events with autograph signings and pop stars like Billie Eilish posting about the soundtrack. In other words, the “Barbie” campaign can go nuclear.

“Oppenheimer” has the bomb, the alluring mystery and the big screen hook, but it’s not the kind of movie that lends itself to, say, a frozen yogurt collaboration.

Is the competition real, though, or just a meme? Some in Hollywood wondered if Warner Bros. plopped “Barbie” on the weekend as a slight to Nolan, who had opened many films for the studio in that corridor including “Inception” and “Dunkirk.” He left Warner Bros. amid its controversial decision to send a year’s worth of movies to streaming and made “Oppenheimer” with Universal instead. But a pointed box office war doesn’t exactly make sense for a studio that has talked recently about wanting to lure Nolan back.

There is an unspoken code of conduct: Never badmouth another studio’s film, publicly at least. This is partly decorum, especially when it comes to “box office showdowns” which all will say are a creation of the press and sideline spectators. But it’s also rooted in some truth: The conventional thinking is that having eyes on one movie is good for other movies — you see their posters and trailers and on some level everyone benefits.

And social media has allowed movie stars to get in on the game, too. Following reports that Cruise was irked the latest “Mission: Impossible” was going to lose its IMAX screens to “Oppenheimer” after only a week, Cruise posted photos of himself and director Christopher McQuarrie standing in front of posters for “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” holding tickets for each.

“This summer is full of amazing movies to see in theaters. These are just a few that we can’t wait to see on the big screen,” Cruise’s Instagram caption read.

The official accounts for “Indiana Jones,” “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” responded with supportive notes. Gerwig and Robbie even followed with a similar photo series a few days later, which the official “Oppenheimer” Instagram account reposted in its stories. Charged with playing Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy told the AP at his movie’s London premiere that “of course” he’d be seeing “Barbie.” The sporting cross-promotion between four studios — Universal, Warner Bros., Disney and Paramount — is something the film business has not quite seen before.

“Not only is Tom Cruise the biggest box office star in the world, but he’s also an incredible ambassador for the movie theater, for the movie theater experience and boosting other movies,” Dergarabedian said. “And that collegial atmosphere within the framework of what is seen as the very competitive box office derby is kind of a nice thing.”

Still, everyone likes a No. 1 debut, and both “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” reportedly carry $100 million production price tags (not including the millions spent on marketing). As far as box office tracking goes, “Barbie” has it in the bag with forecasts showing that it could open above $90 million in North America. “Oppenheimer” meanwhile is tracking in the $40 million range. Then there’s the wild card of “Mission: Impossible 7’s” second weekend, which could snag second place.

Still even with a second- or third-place start, “Oppenheimer” could be destined for a long, steady, profitable run into awards season. Adult audiences for R-rated movies are not often the ones who pack theaters the first weekend.

Back in 2008, in the midst of the recession, Warner Bros. and Universal faced off on the same July weekend with another Nolan film that went up against a lighthearted confection: “The Dark Knight” and “Mamma Mia!” — both of which went on to be enormously profitable (though Nolan did win the first weekend).

The bigger worry is that what’s been heralded as Hollywood’s post-pandemic comeback summer has had more ups and downs than anyone might have hoped. That’s putting quite a bit of pressure on “Barbenheimer” to overperform and boost the lagging summer box office, which pales in comparison to the bigger issues facing the industry as actors join the writers on strike.

But with just over a week to go, it’s still a source of amusement. Even “Barbie” co-star Will Ferrell threw the gauntlet in his winking way at the London premiere.

“I think the world maybe wants to see ‘Barbie’ a little bit more right now,” Ferrell said. “Just saying!”'

[computerstudypoint]

Top 10 IT Skill In-Demand for 2023

There are so many types of skills are there but acquiring the best one to get a job is tough. So here are the top 10 IT skills are there which is most demanding in 2023.

So let’s see…

Machine Learning

Cloud Computing

Data Analyst

Cyber Security

DevOps

Software Development

Blockchain and Crytocurrency

IOT(Internet of Things)

UX/UI Design

Network Architect

Machine Learning

Machine learning (ML) is a rapidly growing field that involves teaching machines to learn from data and improve their performance over time. It has numerous applications across a wide range of industries, including healthcare, finance, marketing, and more. If you’re a student interested in pursuing a career in machine learning, go for it it’s a Best carrier option. And we all know that the machine learning which means AI is the future of new world

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a fastest growing field that involves the delivery of computing services, such as servers, storage, databases, software, and analytics, over the internet. It has numerous applications across a wide range of industries, including healthcare, finance, e-commerce, and more. If you’re a student interested in pursuing a career in cloud computing in 2023, it’s so good to peruse.

Data Analyst

Data analysts are in high demand across various industries, including finance, healthcare, marketing, and more. They are responsible for collecting, processing, and performing statistical analysis on large datasets to extract insights and make informed business decisions. This is a best option for carrier who has the interest in data management like things.

Cyber Security

Cybersecurity is an increasingly critical field that involves protecting computer systems, networks, and data from unauthorized access, theft, or damage. As the world becomes more digitally connected, cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated, and businesses and organizations are facing greater risks from cyber attacks. Having a skill like this will helps you to create your journey securely in the future of machine world.

DevOps

DevOps is a term used to describe a set of practices that combines software development and IT operations to increase an organization’s ability to deliver high-quality software products and services at a faster pace. DevOps aims to break down silos between development and operations teams and foster a culture of collaboration, automation, and continuous improvement.

Software Development

Software development is the process of designing, creating, testing, and maintaining software applications. It is a constantly evolving field that involves a wide range of programming languages, frameworks, and tools. If you’re a student interested in pursuing a career in software development, it’s a best carrier option for this who has interested in to make some software.

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency

Blockchain and cryptocurrency are rapidly growing fields that have gained widespread attention in recent years. Blockchain is a decentralized ledger technology that allows secure and transparent transactions without the need for intermediaries like banks or governments, while cryptocurrency is a digital asset that uses cryptography to secure transactions and control the creation of new units. This is the new technology where mostly companies are looking of this skill.

IOT(Internet Of Things)

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the network of physical devices, vehicles, home appliances, and other items embedded with sensors, software, and connectivity that enable them to exchange data and interact with each other. IoT is a rapidly growing field that has the potential to revolutionize the way we live and work.

UX/UI Design

User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) Design are two related but distinct fields that involve designing digital products and services that are both aesthetically pleasing and easy to use. UX design focuses on the overall user experience, including factors like user research, information architecture, and interaction design, while UI design focuses on the visual and interactive elements of a product, including layout, typography, and color.

Network Architect

A network architect is a professional responsible for designing and implementing an organization’s network infrastructure. Network architects typically work with a team of network engineers and administrators to design, deploy, and maintain the network infrastructure, ensuring that it is secure, reliable, and scalable.

Conclusion:

I hope this will help you choose the best carrier or skill option for you. If you liked it we have website so please visit and checkout our interesting articles you would like it ;)

Here is my website: computerstudypoint.com

[ifmfincoachinfo]

The Future of Mutual Funds - All that you need to know

India is rapidly seeing an escalating digital revolution. Whether it is internet penetration, data uptake or even the latest technology trends, India is applauded worldwide. All this started back in 2015 when the government of India initiated the Digital India Programme.

Later in 2016, demonetization was a big step in the digital era. All these events resulted in the growth of opportunities in the field of the mutual fund industry. Investors have also started to adopt mutual funds as their means of investment. 

Mutual Fund Industry - How it got evolve?

Initially, many investors believed that investing in mutual funds was not suitable for them. However, a series of events changed the opinion of the people.

The announcement of demonetization by Narendra Modi, Donald Trump's win, an increase in oil prices and an asset base of 17 lakh were seen in 2016; all these events led to awareness in the mutual fund field in our country.

Also, the CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) was 18% which was a huge step in the evolvement of the mutual fund industry. 

SIP- A  facility offered by mutual funds to the investors 

SIP is a big factor leading to rapid growth in the industry. Today, more than one crore of customers have active SIP, i.e. Systematic Investment Plans.

If mutual funds industry growth is to be considered, the Indian market is already booming. The most significant indication is the number of foreign-based management companies progressing into the Indian market.

If the latest data is to be considered, the MF industry's total AUM had risen 20 per cent to Rs 37.6 trillion in 2021-22. The industry added 31.6 million net new folios, taking the count to 129.5 million.

The systematic investment plan expanded to Rs 12,328 crore in FY22, with new SIP registrations at 26.6 million. Apparently, mutual funds in India are more likely to penetrate urban, semi-urban and rural areas. For this, some financial planners make the process easy by financial planning. 

Opportunities in the mutual fund industry 

Be it any industry, improvement is one rule that leads to positive change. In the mutual fund industry field, large-scale changes have been taking place, leading to evolution and innovation.

For example, new opportunities have evolved in asset management, which requires investments in different assets, including securities, stocks, bonds, and real estate, managed by a manager.

It also requires proper management firms, including front, middle and back office functions. The significant roles within the investment team include economists, research analysts, fund managers, dealers and traders.

Economists - Economists ensure the latest trends, future and its influence on international and domestic markets. The roles and responsibilities include preparing reports and market presentations on macroeconomic developments and sectoral shifts. As an Economist, you must prepare the team for the risks in the market. At the same time, macro and policy analysis, forecasting, modelling macro variables, and providing investment insights are the management team's responsibilities. 

Analysts - This is another excellent opportunity in the field of the mutual fund industry. The analysts track your investment recommendations by observing the prices of assets from the day of purchase to how they perform over time. You can also opt for the profile of equity research analysts who carry out telephone calls with all the dealers and intermediates. These calls usually comprise suggestions for the customers while speaking with the organization's administration, retail deals, constraints and so on. Plus, visiting the organizations and carrying out meetings, gathering data, surveying monetary explanations, and evaluating the income and benefits of the organization. 

Fund Managers - Another opportunity you can use in the mutual fund field is fund managers. As a fund manager, you must choose the best stocks, bonds, and financial market instruments and give the result to the investors by fulfilling the fund's objective. Later, fund managers search for the financials of publicly and privately traded companies. This is quite an interesting profile as it involves researching, collecting information, reading financial briefings and knowledge about global economic events. 

If you are somebody who loves conducting research or has financial modelling skills, reporting skills, and mathematical proficiency, you can opt for fund managers as your career. Based on your research, a list of companies falls under the investment objective. Fund managers also prepare a portfolio and accompany sales and marketing professionals to various events for promotions. Other than this, all the decisions related to portfolio composition are made by fund managers. 

Dealers/Traders- Dealers place the orders according to the instructions. Then there are sales and client relation teams that market the organization and promote their products and services. You also have the chance to be a part of the infrastructure team that keeps the entire organization moving. From IT to HR, the infrastructure team is vital for the motion of any company. 

Takeaway

We all know that algorithms are one factor that is gaining popularity in earnings and economic news. This directly opens the door to short-term trading.

On top of that, several asset managers are using machine learning methods to process the data. This is the future of asset management. If talking about the critical roles at investment firms in future, there will be a need of 

Investment decision maker

Investment Researcher

Private wealth manager

The technology firm will need 

 Data Scientist 

 Application Engineer 

 Investment Banker

 Investment Officer

 Investment researcher

 Private Wealth Manager

The innovation team will need 

Investment thinking and process innovator

Knowledge Engineer

Innovation Facilitator 

A few factors may challenge growth, but change is guaranteed. 

[mariacallous]

Is the Cuban government on the verge of collapse? Has the moment that Washington has waited for, hoped for, and worked toward for 65 years finally arrived? Some U.S. officials seem to think so. But so eager are they to see the dream of regime change finally come true that they underestimate the Cuban regime’s resilience, skewing U.S. policy to the detriment of the Cuban people that they purport to support.

At a recent conference in Madrid, Brian Nichols—the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs—gave a glimpse into how the Biden administration views Cuba’s current crisis. “Cuba is at a key moment,” he said, referring to recent protests over shortages of food and electricity in Santiago, the symbolic birthplace of Cuban revolutions. “And the solution is democracy.”

In a similar vein, U.S. President Joe Biden previously called Cuba a “failed state” following an unprecedented spate of nationwide protests that began on July 11, 2021. In normal usage, a failed state is one that has lost the capacity to govern its national territory. Haiti is a failed state; Cuba is certainly not. Nevertheless, the possibility that the protests marked the onset of a “people’s power” revolution caused Biden to freeze plans for relaxing some of former President Donald Trump’s draconian economic sanctions.

“After July 11, we hit the pause button,” said Juan Gonzalez, Biden’s National Security Council advisor for Latin America, in an interview with NBC.

Cuba was not a failed state in 2021, nor is it now—but its economy is failing under the combined weight of U.S. sanctions, misguided government policies, and the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” was designed to starve the economy of foreign exchange currency by curtailing travel, limiting remittances, impeding energy supplies, and coercing other countries into canceling medical services contracts with Cuba.

Just as these sanctions were taking effect, COVID-19 closed the tourist industry, the centerpiece of the Cuban economy, resulting in a loss of as much as $3 billion annually. When Trump blocked the wire service transfers of remittances and the pandemic prevented Cuban Americans from hand-carrying cash to help their families, annual remittances fell from more than $3 billion to just $1.9 billion in 2021. All in all, foreign exchange earnings dropped by some 40 percent.

With the economy under this severe stress, the government decided to undertake a long awaited currency and exchange rate reform that was poorly implemented, touching off runaway inflation that has eroded the real purchasing power of the Cuban peso by as much as 90 percent in certain informal markets.

As a result, Cubans are suffering critical shortages of basic necessities—food, fuel, and medicine. Electrical blackouts lasting half a day are common. Life has become so hard that more than 5 percent of the population has emigrated over the past two years, exacerbating the migration problem on the U.S. southern border.

On top of the economic crisis, Cuba’s leaders face unprecedented political challenges. Fidel Castro, whose prestige and charisma held the regime together through past hardships, is gone. His brother Raúl and the rest of the “historic generation” that brought about the revolution have stepped back from the helm, and their successors lack the credibility of the founders. The internet, and especially social media, have awakened Cuban civil society, confronting leaders with demands from below that they have no experience managing. Rising inequality, produced by the very market reforms that the government introduced to stimulate the economy, is exacerbating popular frustration.

The depth of people’s desperation and discontent is why some U.S. officials think the denouement of the Cuba regime may finally be at hand. U.S. analysts made that same mistake in the early 1990s, when the Cuban economy suffered a similar meltdown after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1993, a CIA National Intelligence Estimate predicted “a better than even chance” of regime collapse “within the next few years.”

In fact, official Washington has been predicting the Cuban regime’s imminent demise ever since 1959, when the Eisenhower administration expected to overthrow Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government before leaving office. When U.S. Ambassador to Cuba Philip Bonsal proposed offering Castro an olive branch to counter the rising influence of the Soviet Union, Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs Thomas Mann replied, “Our best bet is to wait for a successor regime.” Subsequent U.S. administrations thought the Cuban regime would be toppled by exile paramilitary attacks, a comprehensive economic embargo, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and, finally, Castro’s death.

These predictions have been consistently wrong because they focused on the Cuban government’s vulnerabilities, neglecting its sources of resilience. First, despite widespread and deep popular discontent, there is no organized opposition able to mobilize and channel that discontent into a movement for political change. The one major attempt, in November 2021, to organize a nationwide “Civic March for Change” demanding political reform was a total failure. Today, most leading dissident activists are either in jail or in exile. The protests on July 11, 2021, and the recent ones in Santiago de Cuba were spontaneous outbursts of frustration over the hardships of everyday life, not the result of an organized opposition movement with staying power.

Second, although the Cuban political elite is clearly divided over economic policy, there is no evidence of any split over the fundamental structure of the political system. That is a critical difference from Eastern Europe in 1989. Ironically, U.S. hostility has strengthened elite unity, since Cuba’s leaders know that if they don’t hang together, they will surely hang separately.

Finally, there is no sign of disloyalty within the armed forces. On the contrary, the military enjoys exceptionally strong influence within the upper echelons of the Communist Party, and it manages key sectors of the economy. Its interests are well protected by the status quo.

With a cohesive elite, a loyal military, and no effective organized opposition, there is no plausible path to sudden regime transition in Cuba in the foreseeable future. Change will only come through evolution, not cataclysmic collapse. And regimes under siege are rarely disposed to embark on significant reforms. Former U.S. President Barack Obama recognized the futility of pursuing regime collapse, and he instead sought to engage with Cuba to shape its evolutionary change in a positive direction. But a normalization agreement reached a decade ago was quickly rolled back by the Trump administration.

Biden and his foreign-policy team are holding on to a Cuba policy inherited from Trump, built on the premise that there is no point engaging with a dead man walking. But the real zombie is U.S. policy, an “outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests,” as Obama put it.

Even though the current U.S. approach has no prospect of producing regime change, it is impoverishing the Cuban people who Biden claims to support, deepening the humanitarian crisis on the island and accelerating uncontrolled migration—none of which serves the interests of the United States, let alone the Cuban people.