#Key Metrics Reporting

[dhallblogs]

Public Sector Banks to Match Private Sector on Key Metrics, Reports S&P Global.

Mumbai: According to a recent report by S&P Global, public sector banks (PSBs) in India are poised to close the gap with private sector banks on several key financial metrics. The government’s move to merge smaller public sector banks with poor performance indicators with larger state-owned lenders resulted in improved economies of scale. Simultaneously, the central bank’s focus on improving asset quality across the banking industry helped state-owned banks improve their performance in criteria such as problem loans, profitability, and return on assets, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.

ALSO READ MORE- https://apacnewsnetwork.com/2024/07/public-sector-banks-to-match-private-sector-on-key-metrics-reports-sp-global/

[crystlianajohn]

What are the steps of social media analytics?

Explore the essential steps of social media analytics to harness valuable insights and optimize your online presence.

www.quickmetrix.com

[branddiariesingurgaon]

Are you looking to gain valuable insights into your website's SEO performance using Google Analytics 4? In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through the process of setting up and analyzing SEO reports in Google Analytics 4 to measure the success of your search engine optimization efforts.

From understanding organic traffic sources to tracking keyword performance and monitoring user engagement, this guide will cover all the essential steps to help you harness the power of SEO data in Google Analytics 4. We will explore key metrics and dimensions, demonstrate how to create custom reports, and provide tips for optimizing your website based on the insights you uncover.

[arminreindl]

Gharial rescued from sea

Another instance of more recent croc news, a "giant" gharial was found in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Balsore, eastern India.

According to news articles, the animal, an adult Indian Gharial (Gavialis gangeticus), meassured around 13 feet or in metric close to 4 meters in length while weighing some 118 kilos.

The gharial apparently got caught in a fishing net and was found by fishermen, who promptly reported their catch to the Forest Department. The department then handed the animal over to Nandankanan Zoological Park, where the crocodilian still resides.

That's all the information given to us by the article, which you can read here, but there's two key notes I wanna touch upon.

The first is size. At 4 meters, this gharial was decently large for sure and as someone who has seen a (stuffed) female of slightly greater proportions I can attest that it must have been an impressive animal. However, I think its worth mentioning that Indian gharials are capable of growing even larger. The female I just mentioned is accompanied by a stuffed male nearly 5 and a half meters in length, with some reports claiming sizes even greater than that.

Me and the Vienna gharials

The second point is the mysterious presence of a gharial this far out at sea. This is simultaneously unusual yet also very much reasonable from the point of view of paleontology.

On the one hand, Indian gharials are critically endangered. Their range today is incrediply spotty and isolated and to my knowledge they aren't found anywhere near the coast these days.

However when you look at how the range was meant to be like, then you see that they definitely reached the river deltas and coastal regions. So our image of gharials as this inland freshwater species is more based in circumstance than reality.

This becomes especially apparent once you begin to consider the paleobiogeography of gharials. Based on our current knowledge, gharials most likely originated somewhere in Eurasia or Africa, spreading from there across much of the eastern hemisphere and beyond (full disclosure I am not considering thoracosaurs to be gavialoids, more on that can of worms later maybe). Anywho, phylogenetic analysis and the fossil record both suggest that gharials then crossed oceans and settled South America sometime prior to or during the Miocene, where they diversified and gave rise to the gryposuchines. Some species even remained saltwater species, such as Piscogavialis, which lived in the coastal waters of Peru.

Although gryposuchines were once thought to be a distinct subfamily of gharial, recent research suggests that they were but an evolutionary stepping stone, with some South American form once again crossing the Pacific and settling down in Asia where the much more basal "tomistomines" or false gharials (a misnomer) still resided. And while the gryposuchines of South America went extinct, those that returned to Asia survived and eventually gave rise to the Indian Gharial of today.

Left: A cladogram showing the relationship between Gryposuchinae and modern gharials Right: Piscogavialis swimming overhead some marine sloths of the genus Thalassocnus by @knuppitalism-with-ue

So ultimately, seeing a gharial in saltwater is much less bizarre than one would initially think, its just that habitat destruction and overhunting have largely pushed these gorgeous reptiles further inland and to the brink of extinction.

[summerlinenss]

out of curiosity, if Max doesn’t release its metrics, then what metrics are you actually using to make these statements about the show’s popularity? what does “it’s currently in the 99.7th percentile of the comedy genre, meaning it’s in higher demand than 99.7% of all comedy series in the u.s.” even mean? How are you measuring what’s “in demand” - by who? Where? It’s bold to claim that this show was wildly popular (despite the fact that I never hear about it outside of tumblr, tho that’s a personal anecdote) but cancelled just for being queer, so I would be really interested to know where you’re getting all these numbers from. Thanks!

hey anon! first of all i am so sorry for the delayed response. i started typing something up and then i got distracted with something else and totally forgot about this in my drafts.

sure, i have no problem citing sources. i probably should’ve linked some in my original post, that’s absolutely fair.

this ended up way longer than i planned so bear with me, but a quick overview of what i’ll be going over:

1) what are the stats/where did they come from?

2) how is the show so popular?

3) was it really cancelled for being queer?

(also just a disclaimer that this will contain spoilers for the show)

1) first, the numbers

you’re right that hbo doesn’t release metrics to the public. in fact, ceo casey bloys tried to justify the cancellation to the hollywood reporter by saying “the numbers weren’t there,” despite refusing to say what exactly those numbers were or where they came from.

however, there are websites dedicated to researching/analyzing the data of different media. one of those is parrot analytics, who focus on industry insights like audience demand, competitive analysis, and content valuations. they’re trusted as a reliable source by forbes, the new york times, reuters, the wall street journal, and more.

this is what we can learn from them about our flag means death from a basic google search (note that all of this data is relevant to the last 30 days as of january 26 2024):

audience demand for our flag means death is now 33.6x greater than the average tv series in the united states. as explained in the “about demand distribution” section, this means it’s one of only 0.2% of all u.s. shows to fall in the “exceptional” performance range compared to the “average” demand benchmark of 64.1%.

the change in demand for ofmd in the u.s. has increased by 7.5% compared to the average tv series.

ofmd now actually ranks at the 99.8th percentile in the comedy genre in the u.s. i’m not a math person, but in basic terms, this is like a scale of measuring and comparing performances to create an average score. essentially, ofmd is performing at the very top of all comedy series in the u.s.

ofmd has 100% home market travelability. as it says above, the market of origin is always 100%, so in fairness i included the graph of international markets for comparison. some of these aren't super high, however (as explained by parrot analytics themselves) one of the key issues with the international market is accessibility to content, which has been an ongoing struggle for international fans. many people (i guess fittingly) have resorted to pirating ofmd because they don’t have access to max or affiliate streaming services in their country.

there are more stats i could have and wanted to go more in-depth into but it would make this even longer than it already is, so i’ll just leave some links you can check out if you’re interested and move on:

• comparison of ofmd's success to shows like ted lasso, euphoria, and peacemaker

• ofmd's placement as #1 most in-demand breakout series in the u.s. for 8 weeks

• ofmd's impressive 94% critics score and 95% audience score on rotten tomatoes

• how ofmd evolved from sleeper hit to a flagship series at max

• a list of ofmd's past and present award nominations/wins

• praise and recognition from news/entertainment sites: the atlantic (2022); the new york times (2023); tv guide (2023); vulture (2023); forbes (2023); the los angeles times (2022); vanity fair (2023)

2) so why haven’t you (or others) really heard of the show outside of tumblr despite all this success? likely because max did a terrible job marketing it.

ofmd first aired on hbo max (pre-merger before it was “max”) in march 2022. the entire season aired over one month, every thursday at 12am pst. season 2 followed a similar release schedule in october 2023.

season 1’s marketing was almost non-existent, pretty much relying on taika waititi’s name being attached. there was one teaser and one full-length trailer, as well as a few clips on youtube of taika and rhys darby answering pirate-themed trivia, all painting the show as a “silly pirate workplace/buddy comedy.” but hbo max didn’t put any real effort in because they didn’t care. david zaslav and the other higher-ups had no faith in the show and expected it to fail.

most people weren’t aware it was actually a romance due to the poor marketing, and although there were many romantically charged scenes between them, many were still wary to believe it wasn’t queerbaiting until ed & stede confessed their feelings and kissed.

showrunner david jenkins has said in interviews that he had no idea how deeply queerbaiting had hurt audiences and impacted their ability to trust what’s on screen without feeling like they’re being ridiculed, despite the fact that he was calling it a love story the whole time. it wasn’t until people realized they weren’t being queerbaited and that it was a funny, sincere show with a compelling plot that word-of-mouth began to spread. by the time the season 1 finale aired, there was a decent-sized fandom that continued to grow as it received more praise.

it was a fight to even get the show renewed for season 2, and david jenkins and the cast have majorly credited that renewal to the unexpected and massive fan response to the show, which basically forced hbo’s hand.

max didn’t bother trying to properly promote the series until season 2, when they begrudgingly accepted that it was one of their most profitable and successful shows. ofmd had huge billboards in times square, downtown los angeles, and on the side of hbo headquarters. they started accurately marketing the show as not just a workplace comedy at sea, but a heartfelt romcom. max began selling long-demanded merch (which became best sellers) and spent money on an FYC campaign.

i will emphasize, whether they liked it or not, they knew ofmd was their new moneymaker (especially with the recent end of succession, which was obviously a cash cow for hbo).

photo credit: @/bookishtheo

3) now if it was that successful, was it really cancelled just for being queer?

i mean, i can’t say that definitively. no one can. there are several potential factors at play that we may never know, and there have been a lot of rumours and speculation (many of which i don’t feel comfortable discussing in case they aren’t true) since the cancellation.

but do i believe the fact that it’s a queer romcom was one of those factors, especially since max has a history of cancelling and scrapping its most diverse projects? absolutely.

first and foremost, i can’t stress enough that this isn’t just a show with a few characters thrown in for token representation. ofmd is built on a diverse, intersectional cast and narratives, including:

• lgbtq+ representation: 5 main couples are explicitly queer (including mlm, wlw, nblm, and nblw relationships). multiple characters are implied to be poly, and there’s a polycule forming in season 2 that was hinted to be developed more in season 3. beyond relationships, it’s confirmed that (similarly to the way wwdits depicts all vampires as being pansexual) all of the pirates are somewhere on the queer spectrum.

• bipoc representation: the majority of the main cast are people of colour. this includes david fane, joel fry, leslie jones, samson kayo, vico ortiz, anapela polataivao, madeleine sami, samba schutte, ruibo qian, and taika waititi, as well as many guest actors (like rachel house, simone kessell, and maaka pohatu) and extras.

• disability representation: multiple characters have physical disabilities, most notably amputated/prosthetic limbs and visual impairment. a lot (actually most) of the characters also deal with mental health issues, particularly coping with severe trauma and suicidal ideation/behaviour.

• the show has been praised for addressing difficult and serious themes like toxic masculinity, colonialism, and self-discovery, all while still managing to be a witty comedy and not come across as “preachy.”

• the diversity also extends off-screen, with a team of directors, writers, and additional crew comprised of numerous bipoc, women, queer people, and trans/non-binary people.

my point isn’t just the quantity of representation, but the quality. they take great care and respect into every marginalized group depicted on-screen. the actors would often be consulted about their characters’ costumes, hair, tattoos, and the kind of language they use. it’s not a world where discrimination magically doesn’t exist, they just have zero tolerance for it. if a character does something homophobic or racist, you can guarantee they’ll quickly (and often violently) be punished.

so okay, sure, it’s got great representation. what does that have to do max cancelling it?

because they’ve been interfering with production from the start.

i already mentioned the marketing issues so i won’t get into that. it was also revealed in interviews with david jenkins after season 2 that hbo cut their budget by 40%, which is why they had to do everything they could to save money. this included letting go of some of the original cast (and even still having episodes where some of them don’t appear at all) and moving the entire production to AoNZ. the budget cuts also meant two less episodes, so they had to rush to fit an entire season’s worth of plot into eight half-hour long episodes.

but one of the biggest frustrations is hbo’s (alleged) censorship of the show. samba schutte revealed that the entire plot of episode 2x06 was completely different in the original script. before it was rewritten as “calypso’s birthday,” the episode took place during lucius & pete’s wedding and focused on the crew getting sick of the sexual tension between ed & stede and trying to get them to hook up (this aligned with lucius & pete getting engaged and ed & stede deciding to take things slow in the previous episode).

vico ortiz and writer jes tom have also commented that many scenes between jim, oluwande, and archie establishing them as a polycule were cut, including one of the three of them emerging from a bedroom in their underwear. jes has mentioned other elements of season 2 that had to be cut out or rewritten, like the implication of other poly dynamics between the crew and more sexually explicit scenarios and jokes.

considering that ofmd is an extremely sex-positive show that isn’t afraid to be raunchy or taboo, it’s clear that either higher-ups at hbo forced them to cut these things out or they had no choice but to cut them out due to tight budget/time restraints.

in addition to this, a recent article citing an “anonymous insider” has alleged that hbo was uncomfortable with and was unsure how to market the “shock violence” in the show (the same network that aired game of thrones), which david jenkins outright called out as being bullshit. ofmd is rated TV-MA and the posters and trailers all show the audience that it contains violent content. there is literally nothing more graphic in ofmd than any other pirate show — it’s probably a lot tamer than most of them, actually.

violence on the show is most frequently used in a comedic context, in the sense that it’s not meant to be seen as scary or taken seriously. the few instances of serious graphic imagery on the show are meant to invoke a mood shift, like ed’s transformation into the kraken or ned low’s murder. it should also be noted that some of the most graphic deaths are reserved for bigots, like ed snapping the neck of a colonizer who was ridiculing stede’s love letter.

it’s also most often used in a sexual context — not sexual violence, but violence as a sexual metaphor. more specifically the act of stabbing as a metaphor for penetration, as seen with both ed & stede and anne & mary. bearing all this in mind, it seems like the real issue here isn’t executives struggling to market explicit violence to a mainstream audience, but rather explicit gay content.

as much as we joke and affectionately call it the “gay pirate show,” ofmd has always been nothing more than an opportunity for rainbow capitalism for hbo (e.g. the fact that they waited three months to announce season 2 just so they could do it on the first day of pride month). like other cancelled queer media, ofmd was a way for hbo executives to show how “inclusive” and “accepting” they are when it was convenient (aka profitable) for them, but they never actually respected the show or us as a community.

it’s impossible to be certain of what the exact reasoning for cancellation was, especially when they won’t give us a clear answer themselves. and maybe it had nothing to do with ofmd being a queer romcom at all. maybe that’s all a horrible coincidence. but for hbo/max to axe a critically acclaimed and beautifully inclusive show that’s successful by every metric, with an extremely devoted fanbase, especially after casey bloys just had the nerve to ask “gay twitter” to hype up the gilded age? it doesn’t exactly put them in the best light regardless.

in summary, i’ll leave you with this editorial, which details how the campaign to save ofmd isn’t just about one show, but a fight to save the future of all queer art.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Truthout:

In March 2022, the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed to begin negotiating a legally binding treaty between 175 countries that will determine how the world deals with such plastic pollution. The fifth and final negotiating session is now set to start in late November this year. Recognizing the scope and severity of the crisis, delegates for the 14 Pacific Island countries have been at the forefront of the international plastic treaty talks, advocating for strict limits on plastic production and the need to set tangible goals for waste management.

Other countries, including Rwanda, Peru and European Union nations, have also pushed for ambitious goals and plastic production caps. But the United States, alongside oil-producing countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia and China, has historically opposed these proposals. The oil and gas industry wants delegates to carve out a treaty that focuses on things like plastic tracking and recycling rather than decreasing production — even though, for decades, plastics companies knew that recycling was an overwhelming failure.

But in August, in what could be a major breakthrough for the future of the planet, President Joe Biden’s administration indicated it would support plastic production limits and increased controls on the toxic chemicals that are used in the plastic production process.

Environmental groups praised the announcement, while industry groups like the American Chemistry Council — which has spent nearly $10 million in lobbying efforts so far this year — lambasted the administration for “caving” to environmentalists’ wishes and “betray[ing] U.S. manufacturing.”

While the Biden administration’s announcement gained little attention in a crowded news cycle, this shift in approach carries urgent importance. Less than 10 percent of plastic waste is currently recycled globally; the rest winds up dumped or incinerated, harming communities and polluting the Earth. If the years of negotiations yield a treaty that focuses on recycling — not production caps — as a solution to the crisis, then the world will be digging itself into an even deeper plastic pollution hole. And it would take a huge amount of additional international coordination to climb back out.

Plastic, which is derived from fossil fuels, is toxic throughout every stage of its life cycle, from production to disposal. The extraction and refinement of fossil fuels for plastic production emits hundreds of millions of metric tons of greenhouse gases each year, heating up the atmosphere and fueling the climate crisis. Research from the Center for International Environmental Law emphasized that the global plastics treaty needs “to incorporate ambitious obligations that specifically target global plastic production” if we are going to keep global warming below the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold.

Plastics also contain a slew of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, which are released during production at facilities that, in the United States, are often placed in low-income communities and communities of color. In January, a report by Amnesty International found that the Houston Ship Channel — a major hub for fossil fuels in the United States — is a racial “sacrifice zone,” where an immense and disproportionate burden of pollution is placed on people of color by fossil fuel companies. The report noted that the scale of harmful pollution amounts to a human rights violation.

At the end of plastics’ life cycle, wealthy nations, including the United States and the United Kingdom, frequently export their waste to poorer nations in a phenomenon that has been dubbed “waste colonialism.” Often, these countries have fewer resources to manage and tame the vast amounts of trash than the rich countries that are sending it. The term was coined as far back as 1989, when several African nations expressed concerns at the United Nations Environmental Program Basel Convention that wealthy countries were using countries in Africa as dumping grounds for hazardous waste.

[reasonandempathy]

A brief summary of how Education fails Boys

I saw people sincerely questioning and minimizing the current struggles boys face in education.

So, I wanted to collect some relevant information, with sources. All of these are from the past couple of years, from 2021 onward.

Girls have more difficulty accessing education and are more likely than boys to be out of school at primary level. However, boys are at greater risk of repeating grades, failing to progress and complete their education, and not learning while in school. Globally, 128 million boys are out of school. That’s more than half of the global out-of-school youth population and more than the 122 million girls who are also out of school. The Leave no child behind: Global report on boys’ disengagement from education shows that boys are increasingly left behind in education. They are at greater risk of repeating grades, failing to progress and complete their education, and not learning while in school. While previously boys’ disengagement and dropout were concerns mainly in high-income countries, several low- and middle-income countries have seen a reversal in gender gaps, with boys now lagging behind girls in enrolment, completion and learning outcomes. Boys are more likely than girls to repeat primary grades in 130 countries, and more likely to not have an upper secondary education in 73 countries. At tertiary level, globally only 88 men are enrolled for every 100 women. 

In 1970, women only made up 42 percent of the college population. Today, the roles have essentially reversed. The U.S. Department of Education estimates men to make up 43 percent of enrolled individuals in college. And this crisis impacts minority populations even more: only 36 percent of Black and 40 percent of Hispanic bachelor degree recipients are male. 

This is not an issue of colleges neglecting to admit men at an equal rate. Rather, colleges are receiving fewer applications from men than women. In 2010, only 44 percent of college applications were from men and that number has been steadily declining since. The decrease in male applicants is a sign that men are discouraged from pursuing higher education at a disproportionately high rate. 

These statistics point to a larger, systemic problem. The American education system perpetuates a series of gender norms that cause significant harm to children; boys are impacted by these expectations in a way that tends to be overlooked. The stereotype that boys have a higher propensity to misbehave has led to the over-punishment of boys in the classroom.        

Boys are facing key challenges in school. Inside the effort to support their success

An APA task force is spotlighting the specific issues and recommending evidence-based ways to enact swift change At school, by almost every metric, boys of all ages are doing worse than girls. They are disciplined and diagnosed with learning disabilities at higher rates, their grades and test scores are lower, and they’re less likely to graduate from high school (Owens, J., Sociology of Education, Vol. 89, No. 3, 2016; Voyer, D., & Voyer, S. D., Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 140, No. 4, 2014; “The unreported gender gap in high school graduation rates,” Brookings, 2021). These disparities persist at the university level, where female enrollment now outpaces male enrollment by 16% (Undergraduate Enrollment, National Center for Education Statistics, 2022). “The gap between boys and girls is apparent from very early on,” said developmental psychologist Ioakim Boutakidis, PhD, a professor of child and adolescent studies at California State University, Fullerton. “The disparities not only exist across the board—from kindergarten all the way to college—but they are growing over time.” For boys of color, that gap is even larger. They face suspension and expulsion from school at almost five times the rate of their White male classmates and are even less likely to finish high school or college (“Exploring Boys’ (Mis)Behavior,” Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinities, 2022 [PDF, 261KB]). The implications of these disparities are huge. Doing poorly at school is strongly associated with major challenges later in life, including addiction, mental and physical health problems, and involvement with the criminal justice system—problems that also have ripple effects on society at large. In the United States, getting at least a college degree may be the one remaining, relatively stable ticket to a decent life, Boutakidis said.

In a recent New York Times essay, “It’s Become Increasingly Hard for Them to Feel Good About Themselves,” Thomas Edsall reviews a variety of research studies highlighting the plight of young men in the United States. As a front-line educator who has worked in boys’ schools for 30 years and served as the head of a boys’ school for the past 20 years, I’ve been an unhappy witness to this dilemma. Data supports the claim that boys are falling behind, and dramatically so. For example, there is a growing gender gap in high school graduation rates. According to the Brooking Institution, in 2018, about 88% of girls graduated on time, compared with 82% of boys. For college enrollment, the gender gap is even more striking, with men now trailing women in higher education at record levels. Last year, women made up 60% of college students while men accounted for only 40%, according to statistics from the National Student Clearinghouse. College enrollment in the United States has declined by 1.5 million students over the past five years, with men accounting for 71% of that drop.

[serenitywinter-twe-if]

Demo | Report something | Ko-Fi | Video trailer

[Demo last major update: 28/06/23 |Case 01, Part 01]

[Stonefrey Moodboard]

Solutions : see below.

As a private detective, you were hired for a "simple" missing person's case. 

You were supposed to investigate, find out and be done with it. 

All was fine until, on a sleepless and cliché full-moon night, you stumbled upon a creature you've never expected to find. A monster worth anyone's worst nightmare. A monster holding the key to unravel the case you're investigating.

Your life has taken an unexpected turn after this discovery, how will you manage to face the reality that the supernatural exist after that ? And what will you do when it's revealed that the case is more complex than what you first thought ?

You can choose as you play :

Gender (male, female and non-binary option)(trans-friendly option available) ; 

Pronounces (he, she, they, or  you can personalize  your pronouns);

Name, including aliases and nicknames ;

Background ; 

Appearances (including complexion, hair, eye colour, height,...);

Reactions ;

Fears ;

Timed choices. You can toggle on a setting to allow you to see the timed choices ahead if you need more time to read. Toggling this on will allow you extended time.

Font appearance : the text is available in both : sans-serif fonts (by default), serif, and Open Dyslexic.  

Font size : 80%, 100%, 130% and 150%, to make your reading experience as comfortable as can be.

You can toggle to read with the metric system (default) or use the imperial measurement system (feet). 

Contains sound effect & background music (you can enable and disable the sound from the Settings, by gliding it all the way to the left).

There is a dark mode (by default), a sepia mode and a light mode available ;

Content for mature audiences can be toggled on and off as well. That will not remove the horror features though. 

Trigger warnings are available at each chapter's screen. Or directly via the "Content Warning" link, from the menu; 

Some Romantic Options are gender-selectable, as you play ;

You can choose to romance, date, only be involved physically or not at all with the RO. There are seven way you can interact with the RO : friendly, enemy, neutral, shy love, true love, enemy to lover, or simply lover/physical. 

Poly route available between Yu and Mbaya.  Officially unlockable past case 03. Don't panick before that. 

Locked romance route—or no romance route—would be able to be selected past case 03.  To give you the chance to meet all RO.

Extra story build in game, available past Case 03 here as well.

There are achievements.

To say Elias is a gruff person is to say the least. But you know he has some good will in him behind the non-bothered no nonsense act. He did act to save you, without asking anything in exchange. Though, if you would describe him, you would say he is more like a sulking teddy bear. Yeah, you should probably not say that to him. Elias is probably the only one you're quite certain— not certain, certain, but quite certain — is a human. You have your doubt for the rest of the team. 

"If you think a day can't go shittier than it already is, be my guest."

Appearance : Human, or you can say super-human. 1.97m/6'46. Deep blue sea/cobalt blue eyes. Long white wavy hair (past shoulders). Tanned and weathered  ivory skin. Athletic build with broad shoulders.  3 o clock shadows. 

Has a 4 years old daughter.

[Moodboard]

How could you describe Anya ? Like the mist ? Always shrouded in mystery ? This is her. She is the incarnation of mystery.  She told you she was 31 years old, but you don't really believe the woman. You think she can bewitch the whole city with her smirk, if it's not already the case. But that smirk she puts on her face makes you not trust her that much. Unless it's a question of life and death. Then, probably, you'll consider her help.

"Why work hard when you can work smart ?"

Appearance : A witch, most assuredly. 1.63m/5'34. Hazel eyes. Sultry black hair,  mid-back length. Golden skin. Lithe built.  

[Moodboard]

Miloslav [M] / Mishka [F] / Marcy [NB]

Sheppard seems to be directly in competition with Elias for the title of "Grumpy human of the year".  Though, where Elias appears mostly unbothered in and for all, Sheppard just seems really on edge about everything.  And tense. But you guess it's because of their taxing and demanding work. Or maybe they were just born edgy. It's almost as if their hackles were constantly raised.  But they can be sweet. Somehow.

"Some people are looking for the meaning of life. I'm just looking for what "vacation" means and where I can find it."

Appearance : Not human... 1.78m/5'83. Forest green eyes. Curly auburn hair, cut short. Pale skin with freckles. Athletic build. 

[Moodboard]

Have you already seen in the eyes of someone some age old lost wisdom ? Flowing like crystal clear water from a time where you weren't even born. Something worth admiring. This is what you can see in their eyes.  Despite being a giant, they are a tranquil, very tranquil person. Now that you think about it, you've never seen them eat. Nor drink. This is suspicious. 

"If someone points you the moon, don't stare at the finger."

Appearance : Surely not human. 2.06m/6'76. Sky blue eyes. Long coiled hair, dyed sandy blond (braided with gold thread). Chocolate brown skin. Lithe build. Nose septum piercing. 

[Moodboard]

Yu is, like, the opposite of Mbaya, whilst being almost similar. In front of you stand something from a past long gone. But, instead of tranquility, Yu is a bubbly person. Almost too bubbly.  And you're almost sure that they own at least half the club and bar of  Stonefrey. If not more. Something about the way they move, silently, and almost feline-like, makes you doubt they are human. 

"I'm not saying I don't care. I'm just saying that, if the whole city was about to burn down, I'll still take the time to appreciate my glass of whiskey."

Appearance : Definitely not human. 1.65m/5'61. Black eyes. Dark brown hair (Yi-seo: Shoulder length hair/Yunsu : Ivy league crew cut). Olive skin. Muscular build. 

[Moodboard]

Well. If you could say a word about Owl, you would say that they are dramatic. And fanciful. And they have a flourish for snarking remarks, and seem to have an ego as big as their wardrobe probably is. But what you would say the most is that they are wearing their name well. Owl, for their knowledge. That you could use. If they were on your side, that is, and totally not a wild card. 

"Everyone is such a bore in this city. Well, so long as you owe me — I mean, pay me. And entertain me. Surely this can work, Love."

Appearance : You're not sure. 1.79m/5'9. Verdigris-colored eyes. Wavy platinium blond hair (F. : Chin-length plunging square cut/M. : Styled curtain hairstyle). Fair and flawless skin. 

[Moodboard]

You have met a nightmarish creature, will probably meet vampire, and werewolves — oh, you've met a witch as well. So now, here they are, an elf. Yes, an Elf. Like in Lord of the Things. In the city. With sunglasses. And their impassible way. Iolrath, child of Rivaran and Iltheruyn, they told you, as they were looking around at "mortals and their ways". Nice.

"Why must I say something ? Isn't silence acceptable in a discussion ?"

Appearance : It's very obviously an elf. 1.82m/6'0. Violet eyes. Long silver hair (reach mid-tight ). Shimmery skin. Elvish build of fairness.  Obvious pointed ears. 

[Moodboard]

What is most important is your mental health. This story can deal with heavy themes, and the list will be updated along with the content. If you feel unwell, I'll advise you to stop reading and take a rest. Taking care of you comes first. Reach out to professional if need be.

 You can find the content warning  here and the side bar, directly in game.  

This story currently contains :

Blood

Body horror 

Cannibalism (mention only)

Death and depiction of death (yours as well as others)

Drowning

Gore

Gun and use of gun

Recreational drug and/or alcohol use 

Partial nudity and/or nudity

Psychological horror and disturbing content (including mental illness)

Strong/vulgar Language

Violence and graphic depiction of violence

The story, all names, characters, locations and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

Only the first part of Case 01 (chapter 1) is available. There will be at least 8 cases, with no definite length. 

Demo | Report Something | Ko-Fi | Video trailer

[Stonefrey moodboard]

[Demo last major up-date : 28/06/23 |Case01, Part 01]

Case 01 |Part 01 : [1st Keywords] [2nd Keywords]

[earhartsease]

depressing news for US people with mental health issues (depressingly unsurprising) - first part pasted below:

The rapid growth of the new 988 mental health hotline has been greeted with positive media coverage. As many people expected, calls, texts, and chats to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, now renamed “988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline,” started climbing immediately with the launch of the 988 number in July of 2022. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the nonprofit that was given centralized control over the 988 system, Vibrant Emotional Health (VEH), have been releasing monthly updates on key metrics.

In April 2023, compared to April 2022, calls answered increased by 52%, chats by 90%, and texts by 1022%. The trend was heralded by federal Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to CNN: “Our nation’s transition to 988 moves us closer to better serving the crisis care needs of people across America. 988 is more than a number, it’s a message: we’re there for you.”

However, as previously reported by Mad in America, a percentage of people who contacted the former National Suicide Prevention Lifeline were subjected to geolocation tracing of their phone, computer, or mobile device. The Lifeline advertised itself as a place for confidential discussions about suicidal feelings but, according to its own policy, if a call-attendant believed a person might be at “imminent risk” of taking their own life in the next few hours, days, or week, the call-attendant was required to contact 911 or a Public Safety Answering Point to send out police and/or an ambulance to forcibly take the person to a psychiatric hospital.

Many Lifeline users described the experiences of betrayal, public exposure, police interactions, loss of freedoms, and forced psychiatric treatment as dangerous, harmful and traumatizing.

So, since the transition to 988, has anything changed? As contacts to 988 rise, how many people are getting forcibly subjected to these types of unexpected, unwanted interventions?

It appears detention numbers are climbing dramatically, too—even as VEH, SAMHSA, and many news outlets continue to obfuscate the facts publicly.

[amirhamza74]

What are the advantages of digital marketing? Digital marketing offers numerous advantages over traditional marketing methods. Some of the key benefits include: 1. Cost-Effectiveness: Digital marketing is often more affordable than traditional marketing channels like TV, radio, and print. Campaigns can be tailored to fit any budget, allowing small businesses to compete with larger companies. 2. Measurability: Digital marketing provides detailed analytics and reporting, enabling marketers to track the performance of their campaigns in real time. Metrics such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI) are easily measurable. 3. Targeted Reach: Digital marketing allows precise targeting based on demographics, interests, behavior, and location. Platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads enable marketers to reach specific audiences that are more likely to be interested in their products or services. 4. Flexibility and Agility: Digital marketing campaigns can be quickly adjusted based on performance data. Marketers can experiment with different strategies and tactics without significant delays or costs. 5. Global Reach: The Internet provides access to a global audience, enabling businesses to expand their market beyond local or regional boundaries. E-commerce platforms and international shipping options further support global expansion. 6. Enhanced Engagement: Digital marketing channels, such as social media, email, and content marketing, facilitate direct interaction with customers. Two-way communication allows for better customer relationships and improved customer satisfaction. 7. Personalization: Digital marketing tools allow for personalized marketing messages based on user behavior and preferences. Personalization can significantly improve the customer experience and increase conversion rates. 8. Higher Conversion Rates: Digital marketing strategies like search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and social media marketing can drive highly targeted traffic to websites. This targeted traffic is more likely to convert into leads or sales. 9. Better Customer Experience: Digital marketing enables businesses to provide a seamless and integrated customer experience across various online channels. Techniques such as remarketing and automated email responses can enhance the overall customer journey. hashtag#Overall, digital marketing offers a versatile, efficient, and effective way for businesses to reach and engage with their target audience, leading to increased brand awareness, customer loyalty, and revenue growth.

[samueldays]

Journalism delenda est, continued

If Fox News really were the right-wing hate-machine that Democrats love to imagine, Fox could spin off a channel with a name like Blacks Behaving Badly, which would be simply continuous coverage of murders and rapes committed by blacks.

Blacks Behaving Badly could easily get 24-hour material of constantly new crimes by giving merely an hour to each black murder or black rape, because blacks commit those crimes about hourly in America. (Compare the way left-wing press is still bleating about Emmett Till.) The information on BBB would all be true, of course, and the channel would be dedicated to covering some matters and not others, which is inevitable because every TV channel has to make some decisions about what to include of the millions of events that happen every day.

It would still be a wicked, shit-stirring, hate-inciting, no good, very bad, racebait channel with a chronic shortage of redeeming features, whose selective coverage would be obviously malicious.

I bring up this hypothetical construct as a point of comparison for the wicked bit of shit-stirring racebait and so forth that recently came out of Reuters in real life: a special report on how U.S. leaders have slaveholding ancestors. Chronic shortage of redeeming features.

Shoddy's line pretty much sums it up, but let's look at the special report a bit more.

In a special bit of adding insult to injury, it violates usability guidelines by hijacking scroll commands (mousewheel, arrow keys, etc) before we get to the main content. Here is the page as it looks when it first loads:

And here is the page as it looks after I hit the Page Down key:

These self-important theater kids made a fucking unskippable opening cutscene out of a fucking webpage. The Down arrow key does nothing here. The Page Down key pressed a second time merely advances the gradually revealing text by two lines, while changing the image's highlight. Page Down should skip me past the fucking image-video-hybrid-animation and move me down the page.

Then we get to the content. I shall excerpt and quote full paragraphs here.

More than 100 U.S. leaders – lawmakers, presidents, governors and justices – have slaveholding ancestors, a Reuters examination found. Few are willing to talk about their ties to America's “original sin”

Everyone Has Slaveholding Ancestors.

I can forgive the tweeter for being space-constrained and having to drop terms that can be inferred from context. The text in the full report (not headline), a page down, has no such excuse. Perhaps you say "it's obvious what they mean from context", but I assure you, it is not in fact obvious and the clarification further down is not the obvious one.

Many lawmakers need look no further than their own family histories to find a much more personal connection to slavery in America, a brutal system of oppression that resulted in the deadliest conflict in U.S. history.

Second deadliest, unless something very odd happened with WW2 since last time I checked. (Perhaps they're using a special metric like "deaths on American soil", I imagine.)

In researching the genealogies of America’s political elite, a Reuters examination found that a fifth of the nation’s congressmen, living presidents, Supreme Court justices and governors are direct descendants of ancestors who enslaved Black people.

And here's a clarification of "slaveholding ancestors", three fucking pages into the special report: ancestors who enslaved the Reverentially Capitalized Race. Doesn't count if they enslaved Persons of Pallor.

Except that paragraph is still wrong, descriptively and normatively. We'll see further down in the report that it's not counting the Africans who enslaved other Africans, such as Ayuba Suleiman Diallo. Or the extensive history of Islamic slavery, which via Andalusian intermarriage to the Spanish royal family and from there to the American colonies, results in a great many more descendants of people who enslaved persons-of-the-favored-race. Reuters put a great deal of work into studying a subject it frequently contradicts itself about the bounds of.

In addition, President Joe Biden and every living former U.S. president – except Donald Trump – are direct descendants of slaveholders: Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and – through his white mother’s side – Barack Obama. Trump’s ancestors came to America after slavery was abolished.

This is racebait, journalism delenda est, everyone who wrote this should be banned from public communication.

Two of the nine sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices – Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch – also have direct ancestors who enslaved people.

Everyone has direct ancestors who enslaved people.

I am going to keep harping on this for as long as Reuters keeps playing fast and loose with words. This special report online does not have the space constraints of a physical newspaper, nor does it have the time constraints of having to report on urgent news with a deadline tomorrow. It is written by supposedly professional wordsmiths with alleged editors and so-called fact-checkers. It has the leisure to get things right. It's welcome to use shorthand after getting things right (and preferably noting the shorthand), but Reuters has not gotten it right yet and will continue to contradict itself.

South Carolina, where the Civil War began, illustrates the familial ties between the American political elite and the nation’s history of slavery. Every member of the state’s nine-person delegation to the last Congress has an ancestral link. The state’s two Black members of Congress – Senator and Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott and Representative James Clyburn, a powerful Democrat – have forebears who were enslaved. Each of the seven white lawmakers who served in the 117th Congress is a direct descendant of a slaveholder, Reuters found. So too is the state’s Republican governor, Henry McMaster.

I assure you that everyone involved here has forebears who were enslaved and is the direct descendant of a slaveholder. If you're going to contrast the two, get the specifics right.

This is racebait, journalism delenda est, everyone who wrote this should be banned from public communication and have a finger cut off as a continual reminder of their sins.

There's a bunch of specific people and degree of relation listed. I'll skip past them to see where Reuters is fucking around again.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll for this report suggests that a politician’s links to slavery might sway some voters. In a national survey, almost a quarter of respondents – 23% – said knowing that a candidate’s ancestors enslaved people would make them less likely to vote for that candidate. That number rose to 31% among respondents who identified as Democrats, and 35% among Black respondents. What’s unclear is how significant the topic is compared to race relations more broadly or other hot-button issues such as abortion.

Bold mine, Reuters really cannot keep this straight, this does not match their previous special report statements, and it also doesn't match the wording that was actually used in the poll. The poll respondents weren't given this whole special report for implicit context when they were asked:

“Would knowing that a political candidate’s ancestors or family members owned slaves in America make you more or less likely to vote for them?”

Journalism

Delenda

Est.

[ukrfeminism]

A key crime measure routinely quoted by ministers excludes many crimes that affect women more often than men, the BBC can reveal.

The headline figure from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows "total" crime has halved since 2010 - but excludes sexual assault, even rape.

The ONS says it is more challenging to collect accurate data on these kinds of crimes.

But critics say the omission hides the extent of violence against women.

Hard to measure

Not all incidents are reported to the police, so the ONS surveys 30,000 randomly selected people in England and Wales each year to work out how many crimes actually take place.

The results of the latest survey will be published on Thursday.

It says it has to treat some crimes differently.

The ONS's Helen Ross said: "In face-to-face interviews, victims - most commonly women - can be unwilling to respond if their abuser is in the room or if their family is unaware of previous abuse."

And it is hard to say what counts as a single crime of, say, stalking or harassment.

Because of these factors, separate analyses are published on sexual assault, domestic abuse, stalking and harassment.

However, these crimes, all of which happen more often to women than to men, are left out of the headline measure: the number of crimes that take place.

It only includes violent crimes, theft, robbery and criminal damage.

But this is the figure that has been used by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, as well as in Conservative Party posts on X, formerly Twitter.

Violent crime statistics do not give a picture of trends in sexual assault because these crimes are classified as sexual offences and counted separately.

Scottish official statistics follow a similar approach for categorising crimes but often refer to their "violent crimes" as "non-sexual violent crimes".

The ONS has told the BBC it will add notes to charts in its reports on crime to highlight which offences are counted and which are left out.

Ms Ross also warned that any "broad assessments" on long-term crime trends based on a single metric "should be made with caution".

Sexual assaults are actually increasing, affecting just over 4% of women aged 16 to 59 in the year to March 2023, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2014.

The rise is mainly driven by an increase in unwanted sexual touching but rape, and attempted rape, are increasing too.

Stalking has also been on the rise since 2015, reported by just under 6% of women.

However, domestic abuse now affects 6.5% of women, as opposed to just over 11% in 2005.

Harriet Wistrich, of the Centre for Women's Justice, said relying on a definition of "crime" or "violence" that excludes what many women experience and worry about "gives a distorted picture of how much safer 'the general public' are".

"Women are 'the general public'. But their experience of violence is different from men's".

Labour's Dame Diana Johnson, who chairs the Home Affairs Select Committee, said not being clear whether data about falling crime includes or excludes "key forms of violence against women undermines efforts to combat it".

She added: "The government must make the scale of violence against women visible when they talk about crime in the UK."

The Home Office was asked about its use of the crime survey headline measure.

In response, it highlighted its plans to tackle domestic abuse and violence against women and girls, and efforts the government is making to speed cases through the courts.

Labour says it would get experts to agree on a single measure summarising violence against women and girls and then commit to halving those crimes.

Additional reporting by Megan Riddell, Sana Dionysiou and Rob England

[darkmaga-retard]

Justin Hart

Aug 29, 2024

Below I’ve listed the master cheat sheet of key stats, metrics, comparisons, country-specific financial issues, reports, anecdotes, and trends from financial advisors I trust to tell me what’s happening in the economy.

Whenever you hear somebody say: BUT THE STOCK MARKET IS JUST AWESOME! You can respond with any and all of these points.BLS just revised jobs for 2023 down SIGNIFICANTLY. nearl 818K jobs GONE. POOF. All revised DOWNWARD

SPECIAL PRICING HERE FOR ALL STATS.

This all traces back to COVID. When the pandemic hit, the government’s stimulus checks artificially inflated incomes by 20%, sparking a massive spending spree. Prices naturally rose across the board as industries responded to booming revenue. But then, the government stopped the stimulus checks, demand faltered, and inflation surged as supply chains struggled to catch up.

Now, we’re seeing the consequences. Retail warehouses are full of goods, demand for shipping has plummeted, and oil prices are dropping as shipping companies go under. Companies are laying off workers, and the idea of a “soft landing” is quickly fading away. This deflationary trend isn’t a relief—it’s a warning sign of a much larger economic issue.

Anecdotes first!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Eric Berger at The Guardian:

Political groups on the right and left are using fake news websites designed to look like reliable sources of information to fill the void left by the demise of local newspapers, raising fears of the impact that they might have during America’s bitterly fought 2024 election. Some media experts are concerned that the so-called pink slime websites, often funded domestically, could prove at least as harmful to political discourse and voters’ faith in media and democracy as foreign disinformation efforts in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. According to a recent report from NewsGuard, a company that aims to counter misinformation by studying and rating news websites, the websites are so prolific that: “The odds are now better than 50-50 that if you see a news website purporting to cover local news, it’s fake.” NewsGuard estimates that there are a staggering 1,265 such fake local news websites in the US – 4% more than the websites of 1,213 daily newspapers left operating in the country.

“Actors on both sides of the political spectrum” feel “that what they are doing isn’t bad because all media is really biased against their side or that that they know actors on the other side are using these tactics and so they feel they need to,” said Matt Skibinski, general manager of NewsGuard, which determined that such sites now outnumber legitimate local news organizations. “It’s definitely contributed to partisanship and the erosion of trust in media; it’s also a symptom of those things.” Pink slime websites, named after a meat byproduct, started at least as early as 2004 when Brian Timpone, a former television reporter who described himself as a “biased guy” and a Republican, started funding websites featuring names of cities, towns and regions like the Philly Leader and the South Alabama Times. Timpone’s company, Metric Media, now operates more than 1,000 such websites and his private equity company receives funding from conservative political action committees, according to NewsGuard.

[...]

The left has also created websites designed to look like legitimate news organizations but actually shaped by Democratic supporters. The liberal Courier Newsroom network operates websites in Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Michigan and Nevada, among other states, that like the conservative pink slime sites, have innocuous sounding names like the Copper Courier and Up North News. The Courier has runs stories like “Gov Ducey Is Now the Most Unpopular Governor in America,” referring to Doug Ducy, the former Republican Arizona governor. “In contrast, coverage of Democrats, including US President Joe Biden, Democratic Arizona Gov Katie Hobbs, and US Sen Mark Kelly of Arizona, is nearly always laudatory,” NewsGuard stated in a report about Courier coverage.

Democratic strategist Tara McGowan founded the Courier Newsroom and has received funding from liberal donors like Reid Hoffman and George Soros and groups associated with political action committees, according to NewsGuard. “There are pink slime operations on both the right and the left. To me, the key is disclosure and transparency about ownership,” said Franklin. While both the left and the right have invested in the pink slime websites, there are differences in the owners’ approaches, according to Skibinski. The right-wing networks have created more sites “that are probably getting less attention per site, and on the left, there is a smaller number of sites, but they are more strategic about getting attention to those sites on Facebook and elsewhere”, Skibinski said. “I don’t know that we can quantify whether one is more impactful than the other.”

[...] Republican lawmakers and leaders of the conservative news sites the Daily Wire and the Federalist have also filed a lawsuit and launched investigations accusing NewsGuard of helping the federal government censor right-leaning media. The defense department hired the company strictly to counter “disinformation efforts by Russian, Chinese and Iranian government-linked operations targeting Americans and our allies”, Gordon Crovitz, the former Wall Street Journal publisher who co-founded NewsGuard, told the Hill in response to a House oversight committee investigation. “We look forward to clarifying the misunderstanding by the committee about our work for the Defense Department.” To counter the flood of misinformation, social media companies must take a more active role in monitoring such content, according to Franklin and Skibinski.

A deluge of “pink slime” websites on both sides of the political spectrum, mostly on the right, that purport to look like real news sites are cropping up to shape political opinion.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The Revelator:

We need to talk about sand.

Most people don’t realize that these humble grains — that ubiquitous stuff of vacations, ant farms and hourglasses — are the second-most used natural resource in the world after water. According to a 2019 report from the United Nations Environment Programme, we use more than 55 billion tons of it per year — nearly 40 pounds per person per day.

And a lot of that sand comes from illegal activity, involving criminal gangs who mine, smuggle, and kill for the precious material.

Sand — legal or otherwise — gets used to enhance beaches, extract petroleum through hydraulic fracking, fill land under buildings, and make computer chips.

But the biggest amount by far — an estimated 85% of the sand mined globally — goes into making concrete. Concrete combines two key ingredients: cement, a binding agent made from calcium or other substances, and aggregate, which is either sand or a combination of sand and gravel. Quality concrete requires jagged and angular aggregate grains — a quality found in only a tiny fraction of the worlds’ sand, most of it on beaches and in rivers. This sand also is easy and cheap to mine, and it’s located close to much of the construction taking place around the world.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, world consumption of aggregate for all uses exceeds 40 billion metric tons (44 billion U.S. tons) a year — an estimate that’s likely on the conservative side and represents about twice the amount of sediment carried annually by all the world’s rivers. (Sediment from land rocks is the source of most coastal sand, which also comes from shells and marine organisms pulverized by waves, the digestive tracts of coral-eating fish, and the remains of tiny creatures called foraminifera.)

Not surprisingly, UNEP calls management of sand one of the greatest sustainability challenges of the 21st century.

The organization also warns about sand mining’s serious consequences for humans and the natural environment.

Removing beach sand leaves coastal structures more vulnerable to erosion even as climate change raises sea levels and makes storms more intense. Transporting sand generates carbon dioxide emissions. Sand mining has political and cultural consequences, including effects on the tourism industry, and creates noise and air pollution.

Coastal sand mining also destroys complex ecosystems. The microorganisms, crabs, and clams that live in beach sand are important food sources for birds. Sea turtles and several bird species nest on sandy beaches. Seagrass, an important food source and habitat for marine residents, needs sandy ocean floor to grow. Stretches of underwater sand provide habitat for sea stars, sea cucumbers, conchs, and other critters, and are feeding grounds for flounder, rays, fish, and sharks.

Removing sand also affects water quality in the ocean and depletes groundwater.