#Science in Seconds for Kids Over 100 Experiments You Can Do in Ten Minutes or Less

[shes-an-oddbird]

Christmas at River’s End Mall

Summary -  A Christmas AU in which everyone navigates their seasonal jobs, relationships and Christmas spirit, or lack there of, through woven together tales inspired by holiday prompts.

So excited about this little challenge for myself. 25 Days of Christmas, 25 Holiday prompts and a dozen or more characters I love and miss. Each chapter should spot light a different character or relationship and the stories become more and more intertwined (think Valentine's Day). 

Chapter 1 - Decorating for Christmas

Prompt - Decorating for Christmas Relationship - Philindaisy Family Feels POV - Coulson

There was something magical about the River’s End Mall at Christmas time. The largest mall in the state and ideally suited for events all year round but an absolute must see come the holiday season. A massive tree, an indoor ice rink, sleighrides outside, lights, decorations and of course Santa himself.

All of this was made possible by the efforts of the mall’s event coordinator, Melinda May, who upon meeting, wouldn’t be pegged as the festive type. It would however be assumed that she was the type to be exceptionally good at her job. Whatever that job may be. She was an excellent event coordinator because she got things done. So, when it comes to Christmas, she hires the best.

A man who brings a winter wonderland to life within the walls of the mall.

A man who believes in putting the spirit back in the holidays, even in the most commercial of locations.

A man who loves a good suit, red or otherwise.

A man by the name of Phil Coulson.

And on occasion, Santa Clause.

“If you don’t lay off the cookies, you’re not going to need the pillow to stuff your suit this year.” Phil smiles as Melinda appears next to him. He’s got a mouth full of crumbs and can’t get his own quip out before she’s taken in the hundreds of decorations they’ve brought in. “You’re out doing yourself this year.”

He swallows down the last of the cookie and grabs a few more off the tray that was set out for the workers and volunteers. “We got so much publicity last year, national news remember, can’t disappoint now.”

“I see and when does the tree arrive?”

“It’s here, they’re trying to figure out how to get it through the door.”

Her eyes snap to his, “Coulson, we’ve driven trucks into the mall, exactly how big is this tree?”

“Could be worse, Rockefeller Center already had dibs on my first pick.”

May rolls her eyes at him but he knows it’s all for show. When May first came to him twenty-five years ago, inquiring about setting up a Santa Experience at the mall he knew she’d accept nothing less than the best and every year it got a little bigger and a little better. It had been great publicity for his business, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t trying to impress her just a little bit.

“When do my elves arrive?” His own crew of employees handled most of the setup, installing the ice rink, hanging decorations from the balcony, setting up the tree, but over time the mall had acquired a group of volunteers who came in to help hang ornaments and set up activity tables.

“Daisy and the other volunteers should be here shortly.” Phil nods and watches as May moves around the towers of boxes, inspecting the contents of each of them.

“We’ve got everything, enough ornaments to coat a forest, the undecorated ones for the activity tables arrived yesterday, we’re also on 100% low energy LED lights this year.” May nods along but clearly isn’t paying much attention.

“We’ve got an excellent wrapping paper source this year too, lots of variety, different colors.”

“Mmhmm.”

“Came up with a tag line for the print advertisements, Christmas at River’s End Mall, it’s a Magical Place.”

“Coulson.”

“I think the box you’re looking for is over here.” Finally with her attention back, he leads her over to a foldout table with a small box sitting at the edge. May peers inside to see it full of handmade ornaments and a small spark appears in her eyes. Shortly after they had started the Santa Experience at the mall May had partnered with the local orphanage to bring in the kids in to do crafts and receive gifts. It was that first year that they had met Daisy, an unlucky but optimistic little girl and accidently bonded with May. While most of the kids took their crafts home to decorate as best they could for Christmas, Daisy always gave hers to the grumpy coordinator. May would then hang the decorations on the large tree. He still remembers the look on Daisy’s face when she came back the second year and saw her messy glitter ornament front and center. Phil had watched the pair get closer every year from then on and to be honest he knows he’s gotten attached too.

“I know you’re not Santa you know.” She says, her tiny arms crossed and messy dark hair obscuring her face.

“Oh.” He doesn’t know if that means she doesn’t believe in Santa at all or just knows that he’s not the real thing.

She leans against the arm of his chair. “Yeah, but I won’t tell the other kids.”

“Well I appreciate that; do you still want to tell me what you want for Christmas?” He always played Santa with the kids from the orphanage. He handled it better than his other employees when all these kids ever asked for was a family.

“I don’t really want anything.” She’s admiring the tree they’re situated in front of, he can see the lights sparkling in her wide eyes.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, but can I hang out for a minute anyways?” She asks, still distracted.

He smiles. “Of course.”

Every year it was the same with Daisy. She wouldn’t ask for anything, just go through the line for show and sit with him and stare at the lights when it was her turn. He found himself looking forward to the few minutes they shared together but then one year she wasn’t there. He had gone to May immediately. His friend, he had thought had been in a bad mood since the start of the holiday season, but that day she seemed particularly distant. “No Daisy this year, was she adopted?” He asks. Several little kids look up at him with curious eyes.

After ensuring all the activity tables were covered, May gestures for him to follow her a few steps away. “They’ve placed her with a foster family.”

“Well that’s good, a step in the right direction.” May says nothing. “But you don’t sound convinced.” He jokes.

“Its happened a couple of times before, they always send her back.”

This shocks him. Daisy was such an easy kid. Didn’t ask for anything, helped with the younger children, “she seems like such a good kid.”

“She is, just not a good fit, that’s what Sister Anne said.”

“Maybe this time will be different.”

“Maybe.”

Coulson knows somethings up. He’s gotten pretty good a reading May over the years. “You don’t seem too thrilled about that possibility.”

“That little girl deserves some love and support in her life, if she’s with a family that will give her that then I’m ecstatic.”

Daisy was back the next year. Things hadn’t worked out well with her foster family and she had been sent back to the orphanage shortly after the new year. On the plus side May seemed merrier than she had the past year, even if it was just slightly.

When Daisy comes through the line this time she doesn’t sit on the arm of the chair and stare at the lights and she doesn’t mock him about his crush on May. Daisy was a very perceptive child. Instead she shifts uncomfortably and whispers, “I think I know what I want this year.”

“Really?” Phil perks up. Whatever this kid wants he’s prepared to make it happen for her. He’ll talk to May and they’ll make it happen. A pony, a car, whatever.

“Yeah, but I don’t think I’ll get it.”

“Oh no? Well I know you know I’m not really Santa, but I could still work a little magic.”

Daisy still doesn’t give it up but her eyes that normally stare at the sparkling lights are directed now at the activity table where May is helping some of the younger kids glue cotton balls to Santa hats.

“She’s teaching me to ice skate.”

“Yeah?” This surprises him if only just a little. He had found out not long after they first installed the indoor ice rink that she was an excellent skater but he’d yet to see her set foot on the ice.

“She’d be a good mom, I think.”

So that was it. “That is a pretty big request.”

“I didn’t say – “ She protests.

“I know, but also, I know.” Daisy gives him a small smile before it fell back to a frown. “Look,” he said softly, taking her hands, “I don’t know if I can make that happen but I do know that she cares a lot about you and so do I, it makes me really happy that you shared that with me.”

“Thank you Coul – um, Santa.”

“COULSON!” Phil is jarred from his thoughts in time to see Daisy spiriting up to him. She’s grown now into a young woman, with a passion for computer science and a close batch of misfit friends who she’s built a family out of. Its no longer just her and May and occasionally himself at the Christmas dinner table.

“Long time no see, how come you never visit anymore?” He pulls her in to a tight hug. Its been too long.

“I don’t know, maybe because I’m a busy working adult now.”

“All lies, you’re ten years old in my mind.” He steps back, “you’ve got time to help me decorate though?”

She beams back at him. “Always, but uh, where is the tree?”

Yeah he should probably check on that. He turns to May, who at some point during his reminiscing had answered her phone. “They just got it through the doors, Coulson I swear if this doesn’t fit – “

“I will personally go chop down a smaller one,” he promises. “You try to give her the best and she complains about it.”

“I’m not complaining I’m being rational; someone is going to have to take care of this tree.”

“I have been doing this for twenty-five years and never once had a tree die on me.”

“1999, 2007, 2013, last year – “

“Last years was sick, what did you want me to do put it out of the street, have you never seen a Charlie Brown Christmas.”

“Alright mom and dad," Daisy interrupts, "let’s just call this one a draw, its sounds like we’ve got a lot of work to do.” She looks eagerly at May and he knows she wants something. “And speaking of work, I brought my roommate, Jemma, you remember her, right?”

“She's the expert gift wrapper you mentioned?”

“Can she interview with you?”

“These aren’t really convenient hours, she knows that right?”

Daisy nods enthusiastically. “She does, absolutely does, her labs have her working weird hours, late nights and early mornings, so this should be perfect for her.”

May nods in agreement. “Sounds great, let’s go.” Daisy does a short victory jig and begins to lead the way. May starts to follow but stops suddenly. “Coulson - "

“Yes?”

“The Tree.”

“I’ll ready the ax, Melinda.” She smiles a genuine smile and his heart thuds like he’d a kid again. Maybe this would be the year. Maybe.

[slippinmickeys]

Release Valve (1/10)

This is the first fic I wrote when I came back to the fandom last year--it had been almost 20 years since I’d written my last X-Files fanfic. I plan to release it here, one chapter per day. 

This takes place directly after Fight the Future, and goes AU after that -- meaning S6 and on do not exist in this universe. I do have a sequel planned, but have not yet had the time to sit down and write it. 

It had been five months since Antarctica, and he could still feel the sharp cut of cold air in his nose, the crunch of snow under his cheek as Scully held him close, half his clothes gone, half himself protecting her. It was August in DC, the air hot and thick with car exhaust and pollen, the humidity at 100%, and there were still times he thought he might never be warm again. He leaned back in his chair at his seemingly permanent temporary desk in the BCU bullpen and picked up his phone, bored. Muscle memory dialed the number for him and she picked up before the second ring. “Mulder, I have a class starting in less than ten minutes,” she said, without so much as a hello. “You know this.” He sighed into the receiver. “I’m bored,” he said. “Yeah,” she replied, the touch of frustration gone from her voice, replaced with a casual empathy. “Me too.” “Want to get lunch later?” “I can’t,” she said, then added, “Skinner’s assistant called me this morning. I have a meeting with him at 1:30.” “Today?” He asked, incredulity creeping in. “Yes, Mulder. Today. Listen, I’ve got to go, I’ve got students coming in. I’ll call you after class.” She hung up without saying goodbye. He tipped his chair back as he hung up the receiver and looked up to a familiar hulk approaching his desk. “Agent Mulder,” Skinner said, giving him an assessing look. “Sir?” “I’d like you to come by my office at 1:30.” “Today?” Mulder said, once again. Boredom turned him peevish. “You have somewhere else to be?” “No, sir.” At that Skinner nodded and stalked off. So. Both he and Scully had been called in. This was either really good, or really bad.

When he came into the anteroom outside Skinner’s office, Scully was already there waiting and there was a maintenance worker in the process of removing Skinner’s name tag from the door. He and Scully shared a look of raised eyebrows and he plopped down next to her on the couch with a touch of petulance, the wind coming out of his sails. Maybe this wasn’t a good news meeting after all. At that moment a young agent came walking in, nodding at Kimberly.

“I’m supposed to see him at 1:30?” He said to her. He had a short, choppy haircut and thick preppy glasses. He pulled at his tie like he wasn’t used to wearing it as Kimberly directed him to a chair opposite Mulder and Scully. He plopped down and gave the armrests a little drum, clearly not a kid who was used to sitting still. Skinner popped his head out of his door then. “Agents?” He said expectantly. All three stood up and Skinner turned to the third man. “Stone?” “Yessir?” “Give us a minute.” “Yessir.” He plopped back down. Mulder and Scully exchanged another look and followed Skinner into his office. “I have some news,” he said once they were all settled. “The OPR recommendation finally came down.” “Don’t keep us hanging,” Mulder said, trying to keep the glibness out of his voice. “The X-Files are being reopened,” he said. “I’m sensing a ‘but,’” Scully said, leaning forward. “Less of a ‘but,’” Skinner went on, “more of an ‘and.’” “And?” Said Mulder. Skinner looked at them a moment without saying anything. Assessing or deciding, Mulder couldn’t quite figure out. “Your budget has increased,” He finally said. “You’ll have two more full-time agents assigned to the unit.” Scully’s face fell, and Mulder leaned back. “Not to sound ungrateful,” Mulder said, holding up a hand, “but our recent experience working with other agents on cases associated with the X-Files has not gone all that great.” He remembers the five o’clock shadow scrape of Krycek kissing his cheek. Shoving Spender into a wall. The latent smell of cigarette smoke and a basement full of ash. Skinner leaned back. “I’ve been promoted,” he said, looking at each of them in turn. “To Deputy Director. I’ve been given authority to shape and oversee the X-Files unit.” Skinner let that sink in a moment before going on, his tone indicating that this wasn’t a negotiation. “Agent Mulder will be the X-Files SAC. You’ll be giving the orders to the agents under you and will have hiring and firing approval.” Mulder shot a look at Scully. “What about Agent Scully, sir?” “Quantico has requested she stay on there to teach.” Mulder opened his mouth to protest, but Skinner raised a calming hand. “Technically, she would be an instructor in residence at Quantico, but assigned to the X-Files as official consult. Able to take leave from teaching whenever needed in the field or at the Hoover.” He gave Scully a pointed look. “The decision is obviously hers. Quantico wants her, but so do I.” “So do I,” said Mulder quietly. Scully tucked her chin to her chest, her eyes to the floor. Neither of them had been quite expecting this. Skinner leaned back and gave them a moment. “I thought you’d be pleased,” he finally said. Scully looked at Mulder. “I can’t speak for Agent Mulder,” she finally said. “You can,” Mulder said with confidence. Off his look, she continued. “But I’d like nothing more than to continue our work.” “Great,” said Skinner, “It’s done, then.” He rose. Mulder made to get up too, but Scully spoke. “Sir,” she said, “what about the X-Files? The actual files, sir. The ones destroyed in the fire?” Skinner resumed his seat. “Kimberly had begun digitizing them months ago,” he said, off of Mulder’s surprised look. “She was able to save most of them to a secure server. She said the only ones she hadn’t gotten to were those from the last year or two.” Scully looked at Mulder. “I should have those on my computer,” she said to Mulder, “you should too. After the most recent Executive Order, we’ve been required to keep digital copies of all reports since almost that long ago.” “My laptop was in my office when it burned,” Mulder said flatly. “If I’m not mistaken, yours was, too.” Scully gave a pinched look and Skinner once again stood. “About that,” he said, walking to his office door and gesturing outside. The young agent who’d been outside waiting walked in and Skinner pointed him to an empty chair around his conference table. “This is Agent Stone,” he said, “He works in Computer Sciences and Crimes – he’s been working to restore the destroyed computer units from your office.” Off a surprised look from the X-Files agents, Stone shrugged. “Standard procedure. Evidence conservation and protection.” “Were you able to save any of our work?” Mulder asked. Stone looked at him. “I was able to save all of it,” he said. “And I want in.” XxXxXxXxX “I don’t understand,” Scully said at last. Skinner nodded his head at the young agent. “He’s here for a job interview. He’d like to be one of your two new X-Files agents.” Stone sat up, animated. “I’ve obviously read all the files on your computers,” he said, “and when I was done with those, I read all the digitized files.” He looked at them both keenly. “I’ve read every single X-File. It’s fascinating work. I want to do it. I want in.” Scully raised an eyebrow. “You’ve read every file on a secure server?” “I, uh, may have hacked it,” he said, momentarily sheepish. He nodded toward Skinner. “I came to the Assistant Director with my concerns on just how secure it is. I can help you with that. I can help with a lot. I know I’m pretty green, but I’ve read your files back to front and I know I can help you.” Skinner looked to Mulder. “Your discretion,” he said. “Your unit.” Mulder appraised the young agent for a moment and turned to Skinner. “I’ll want a full background check. If there’s so much as a hint of Morley smoke anywhere in this kid’s past, he’s gone. He doesn’t come near the X-Files OR our computers. If he passes that,” he turned to look at Stone, “trial basis. As short or long as I see fit. This isn’t a tenured position.” Stone sat up straight, smiling. “Yes, right. Sweet. Awesome. Yes.” XxXxXxXxX These men. These men who would do anything for a hairsbreadth of power. She’d been kidnapped, micro chipped, infected with a malignancy. They’d taken her ova and her career and the love of her life more than once. She couldn’t watch the news without seeing their malevolent machinations in every third disaster. Don’t even get her started on Colony Collapse. If she could kill every one of them and film it, she’s convinced snuff would become her kink. But maybe… Maybe they had a chance now. To bring down the Syndicate. To bring down the Smoking Man. Cautious optimism was still a pretty generous name to put to it, but she finally felt if not a sense of hope, at least not the Sisyphean doom and gloom from months before. She looked over her glass of wine at Mulder. He’d shown up, energized, practically bouncing up and down at her door, bearing pizza and Chianti. “I’m surprised you didn’t put up more of a fight on Stone,” she said. Mulder shrugged. “Maybe it was the high of getting the X-Files back, but I also don’t want to look a gift Skinner in the mouth, if you know what I mean.” “I know what you mean.” The terms of getting back the X-Files was best case scenario. It was probably too good to be true. “He seems young,” she added. “He IS young,” Mulder said, “I went over his file this afternoon. Graduated at 20 from MIT and recruited straight out of graduation. He’s only been a full agent in the Bureau a little over two years.” “Any field experience?” “None.” “Oh boy.” Scully took another swig. “What he lacks in experience, he makes up for in enthusiasm,” Mulder said. “I’m hoping I can train him up my way.” “The suits are gonna just love that,” she deadpanned, and Mulder smiled. He leaned back on her couch and fished an errant piece of pineapple from his shirt collar. “How you can eat that on pizza, I’ll never understand,” Scully said, standing and bussing their plates back to the kitchen. Instead of taking the bait, Mulder blew out a sigh, his mind elsewhere. “I don’t even know where to start on finding someone for the other position,” he said. “If we’re not careful and don’t do it our way, we’re going to end up with another fucking Krycek.” Scully winced and made her way back to the couch, tucking her feet under her on the other end. She tried not to look at the space by her door where Melissa died. “I may be able to help with that,” she said. “Oh yeah?” Mulder leaned forward. “I have a student,” she started. “Not another baby agent, Scully,” Mulder said, “we don’t have the budget for a nanny.” “She’s new to the Bureau, yes,” Scully went on, “but was a beat cop and made detective extremely fast. Ten years with the LAPD before she went Fed. She’s smart, Mulder. She asks all the right questions.” She waited a beat. “She reminds me of you.” “Devastatingly handsome and hard to love?” Scully tucked her chin to her chest, not meeting his eyes. She made a decision then, hard and fast. “I’ve never found it hard to love you,” she said quietly. XxXxXxXxX There it was. They hadn’t talked at all about what happened in Mulder’s hallway before Antarctica. Mulder wasn’t even sure she remembered it and it had been too awkward to ask. “Scully,” he said. She still hadn’t looked up, so he reached out a finger and swept it gently down her leg. She looked toward him and rested her cheek on her knee. “You deserve to know,” she said, “after everything we’ve been through.” Her voice was husky. His pulse started to race. His finger was still on her leg and he fought the urge to skim it higher. “You know, if you’re officially stationed at Quantico, it’s not fraternization,” he said. He wasn’t sure if he came off glib or flirtatious. He wasn’t sure of anything. Scully reached for her wine and took a measured sip. “Are you coming on to me?” She said. Flirtatious. Jesus. His throat bobbed. “I’m coming over with wine more often, is what I’m doing,” he said, reaching for his own glass to cover for his nerves. “En vino veritas?” Scully said. “The veritas has always been our problem, Scully. Maybe the vino is the solution.” XxXxXxXxX “Mulder,” she said, rising up on her knees. She reached up and ran a hand lightly over his cheek. She’d never just come right out and said how she felt about him. Before the bee thing in his hallway, a surveillance chat about root beer and iced tea was as close as they’d come. Enough, she thought. She wanted to kiss him, but the timing didn’t seem right. This was too profound a moment for them. She knew if she kissed him, she’d be outside herself instantly and right now she didn’t want to miss a thing. He seemed to push into her hand slightly, leaning into her touch. His eyes never left hers. His cheek was sandpapery under her fingers and she remembered that fingertips have more nerve endings that most places on the body. Most. “Let’s get our unit put together,” she said softly. “I’m not going anywhere.” Almost six years of ghost hunting, she thought, and flashed on the industrial smell of hospital sheets, the acrid tang of gunpowder. Mulder loping off on his knight’s quest to find his sister, Scully the squire at his side. He was six feet of rumpled suits and taut muscles and she’d fallen in love with him years ago. Hopelessly, stupidly, embarrassingly in love with him. He cracked bad jokes on stakeouts and mumbled her name in his sleep – of course she wasn’t going anywhere. XxXxXxXxX She leaned forward and gave him a lingering kiss on his cheek. He tried not to let his disappointment show. “Yeah,” he said, his voice husky, too. “Yeah.” He leaned back, banking the fire on the moment. She grabbed the glass out of his hand, which he hadn’t realized was empty, and took the rest of their meal detritus into the kitchen. He rose. “Send me the file on your candidate, would you?” He said, making his way to her door. He took his time putting on his coat and lingered in the doorway. She came over slowly and stood in front of him, close. “Scully?” He said, his hand on the doorknob. He leaned forward so their foreheads were almost touching. He needed to say it before he lost his nerve. “I love you, too.” He practically ran outside then, his blood thrumming. It took everything he had not to crow triumphantly at the moon. XxXxXxXxX Jasmine Isaacs. 36 years old. African American. California native. Highly decorated detective with a great solve rate. Single, no children. The kid thing grabbed Mulder by the collar first thing. It was good to have no kids. Just another thing to use against you. He leaned back in his chair and blew out a sigh, his thoughts turning depressive. What a fucking way to think, he thought. That children -- most people’s high point--were just another tool in the arsenal of the Consortium. The basement office felt different. The smell of paint fumes still permeated the space. It was a different shade of grey than the last one, off by just a touch, which grabbed Mulder’s eye every time it strayed from the file in front of him. He’d gotten a new I Want To Believe poster from the same place on K Street where he’d gotten the first one, a throwback to a simpler time. They’d done a bit of work on the office in the refurbish – got rid of the wall leading to the annex and managed to squeeze three small desktops into the space. He thought Scully’s should be bigger than the other two and considered clearing off a different area to make it more senior looking. She had her own office at Quantico and it was probably twice the size of the entire basement. Good, he thought. She deserved that. He turned back to the candidate’s file in front of him. She looked promising. Had a high solve rate. Nothing in her background suggested an ulterior motive, nor highlighted a weakness the Consortium could exploit. So far, so good. If Scully wanted her, so did he. Stone seemed into the paranormal shit. Isaacs could be the level-headed counterpart. He wanted to get them both into a room and see what happened. Isaacs graduated from Quantico next week. Scully walked in then, the smell of the street still on her clothes. Hot dog vendors and fresh air, the amniotic petrichor of the Potomac. He could hear the elevator doors close as she sloughed off her coat. “How goes it?” She said as a greeting. He flipped the file closed and casually tossed it on his desk. “What a time to be alive,” he said.

[purplesurveys]

815

At what time of day do you normally feel the best? I love the evening the most. I get to have my coffee, it’s quieter around the house, and it also gets a little bit colder so it’s more fun to hang around by then. Do you normally have to hem pants? I’ve never had to do that before. If I need my pants fixed, I usually ask my lola to do it since she’s good at that kind of stuff. Name one reason why someone should not commit suicide. I can’t speak for other people, but I personally stay because I don’t want to leave Kimi behind and because I’ve seen countless mini-documentaries of parents who were left devastated by their kids taking their own lives. What would you do if you had no one to love and support you? That sounds so fucking bleak. I imagine bringing myself to therapy so I can learn how to deal with such a situation, and so that I at least have one person to talk to. If you didn't have love and support, would you feel life was worth living? No. But that’s why I imagine I’d be going to therapy, so my mind can be changed.

If you had no family nor friends nor money, would you feel life's worth living? These questions are so stressful to mull over and a tad bit triggering lmao, can I pass at this point? If you're unhappy, what would it take to make you fulfilled? Depends on what I need, which differs every time. Sometimes I’d wanna be alone, other times I’d want to be with other people, other times I’d need to drive and take longer routes than usual, or to binge YouTube videos, or a good nap...it’s always different. What was the last thing that upset your stomach? The meds I had to take for my UTI. Feeling poopy was one of its side effects, so even though it didn’t upset my stomach per se I did have to have several trips to the bathroom then. Do you have to go the pharmacy a lot? No, only when something’s wrong with me which doesn’t happen too often. Are you sunburned? I haven’t been sunburned since I was like 10. The tendency just suddenly stopped at some point. Do you wish someone loved you? I have a lot of people who already do, fortunately. Do you call yourself stupid often? Like every other hour lmao. What's a song you love? From Eden - Hozier. Do you miss anyone who was mean to you? Not to my knowledge. I’m glad they aren’t in my life today. Name someone you know who is a cancer survivor. One of my former Filipino teachers in high school. Are you friends with any cancer survivors? I don’t think that I am. Does God often answer your prayers? How was your day today (or yesterday, if it's morning)? It was average. Nothing out of the ordinary happened today but I did like the fact that my parents still left the living room aircon on for most of the day even though summer’s over and the weather’s already begun to be a little colder. Do you wish the sunrise and sunset lasted longer? Not really? I’m fine with the ones we’ve got lol. Would you want to relive your childhood again? Fuck no. It had some nostalgic bits, like the shows I used to watch or me playing outside, but it was far too traumatic for me to miss it as a whole. I’m happy being a grownup.

Were your college years the best years of your life? Not fully. My time in college only peaked by the second half, so it wasn’t all that great. Junior and senior year were very fun and eye-opening, though. Would you rather re-live high school or college? Ooh that’s quite a pickle...both periods had their highs. High school was a lot easier (academically), it was a time when I could fuck up and it was okay, and I found my first group of friends. College was a time of independence, a lot of growing up to do, and I also found my second group of friends. As miserable as I was during my freshman year, I ultimately have to go with college because I hated most of the people in my high school anyway and because I really loved the independence I gained in college, from being able to drive on my own and managing stuff on my own time to being free to choose my class schedule. And also, duh, I passed my dream school? I’d relive my years in UP in a heartbeat. What is the dumbest sports-team mascot you've heard of? Not really familiar with sports mascots to begin with. Are you a sports fan? Err, not really. I’m a pro wrestling fan, but it’s not 100% a sport. Where do you feel like you fit in the most? In my college and in my org. I’m sad that I only get four years with them – three when it comes to my org. Do you hate social classes? Yes. Do you think talent should have anything to do with social class? What? I have no clue what this question is insinuating but lmao of course not. I know some crazy talented people who wouldn’t be considered rich, and I know some bland-ass wealthy people who can’t do anything impressive at all. Name a country who's history you know nothing about. Australia. Name a religion you know nothing or very little about. Zoroastrianism. I only remember the founder. Don't you hate know-it-alls? I hate when they start getting conceited. What is your favorite store at the mall? I love visiting Fully Booked every chance I get. When was the last time you went to the mall? That would be when I had my eye checked last early March, because the clinic I visited was inside the mall. Aside from doing that, I also had late lunch at Marugame Udon which apparently would be the last time I’d have their food for a while, unbeknownst to me :( Do you have a bed or do you sleep on a mattress on the floor? I have a bed. When was the last time you went for a run? LOL never. Have you ever tried hard drugs? No. Which school subject did you hate the most? Back in high school I really hated the advanced math and science classes e.g. chemistry, physics, calculus, trig. In college, I found myself hating philosophy and economics the most. What was the last thing you wore from Aeropostale? I don’t think I ever wore anything from them. Which devotional do you read? I don’t read those. Do you appreciate classic literature? I appreciate and recognize their impact, but I don’t like reading them.

What is something you find strange? People who keep pushing for the All Lives Matter narrative. Cringe. Do you like your natural hair color? Sure. I’ve never actively complained about it, that’s for sure. Would you rather get a pixie cut or get dreadlocks? Pixie cut, because I’m pretty sure getting dreadlocks as a Filipino is a form of cultural appropriation? Would you rather dye your hair or get a perm? Dye it.

Do you keep Christmas lights up year-round? No, we don’t. Have you ever started a new trend? Just me? Lmao no. Do you have any artwork of yours from high school? I definitely don’t. Whenever a teacher would give our artworks back, I crumpled it up as soon as I got it and would throw it away. I just simply rejected all of my attempts to be creative lol. What did you win a scholarship for? I’ve never gotten one. But my university did start implementing free tuition for all undergrads starting in 2017 when I was a sophomore, so it’s kinda like the same thing. Did your college meet your expectations? Yes, and more. UP taught me far more than classroom lessons as it opened my eyes to the more important societal issues happening outside of school. It made me recognize our farmers who never earn the income they deserve; the factory workers stuck in poor working conditions; the jeepney drivers whose work is never respected; the millions of working class Filipinos who simply deserve better;  and the government that is more corrupt than I thought. My college on the other hand taught me to be fearless and to never hesitate to search for, report, and defend the truth, and to disseminate just that to the masses. Bottomline is that words can’t even begin to describe how grateful I am to have studied there and I will always be very much in love with my school. What was the best thing about college? The best thing about mine, at least, was the throng of life lessons and eye-opening realizations it gave me. Each of them has been more valuable than any lesson I learned in the classroom. UP taught me that there were a thousand other issues far more important than problems I face in my own privileged bubble, but that I can help facilitate change if I wanted to. How old were you ten years ago? 12. Easily the worst age I’ve been in. What's the best piece of advice you can give someone ten years younger? Stay. It’ll get better. Not instantly, but it does get better. Do you feel like you are old enough and experienced enough to give advice? I think anyone’s fit to give advice no matter how old they are. Even kids can be quite insightful. The differences just lie on the topics people give advice on. How old were you when you started to feel mature and experienced? 17, after I had a series of shitty stuff happen to me at one point in 2015. When I got past those, I could tell I wasn’t the same person that I was, like, two months back. Were your 20's hell? I’m only in my second year lmao, can you get back to me in eight years? What type of bug do you see the most often in your home? We don’t get a lot of bugs at home, fortunately. We have tons of ants though. Do you put off things until the last minute? If I’m not passionate about the task, yes. Do you have the air conditioning on right now? Nope, just the fan. Is your mom the same size as you? She’s slim but she’s still ever so slightly a bit larger. We can technically share clothes but some of them would still look loose on me.

Does camping appeal to you? I have moods where it does and moods where it doesn’t lol. What color is your sleeping bag? I don’t have one. How often do you pray? Do you surrender to Christ daily? When was the last time you went to church? Do you know any Christians who aren't judgmental? Only a handful, and it’s usually people in my age group. Most of the others suck, and I can say this because I’ve had coooooooountless personal experiences with rude, hypocritical, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic Christians and Catholics. Do you believe there are any good people in the world? Of course. What's one thing you are scared of? Flying cockroaches.

[whirlybirbs]

i yearn for MIT!peter

     P.P.  —-- BAD IDEA !

summary: during his second semester at MIT, peter gets an invite from his lab partner to a party at a frat. he brings ned, his harvard counter-part and best friend. one beer in, peter steps up, stopping a dicey situation you totally could have handled. cue the top gun love ballad. campus-crossed lovers, much?rating: hey! don’t under-age drink! T, for beer and mean frat boys.a/n: i needed to start writing more for MIT!peter – he’s 19 here, still a hopelessly good person. we love college spidey. 

“This is a bad idea.”

“Peter, it’s the college experience, dude!”

Ned is bouncing with excitement as they round the corner, cutting through the quad and heading straight for Frat Row. The over-glorified hub of drunks can be heard from three blocks over – the heavy baseline of a handful of parties echoes through the Friday night air. 

Peter fiddles with his collar, jamming his hands in his pockets as he groans. 

“I dunno, Ned.”

“Your lab partner invited us!”

“Yeah,” Peter supplies, “But he’s weird. Like, really weird.”

Ned raises his brows, pushing back his hat. “I thought he was cool –”

“No, yea, I mean, he is, but –”

Frat parties? Peter is having one of this crisis where he starts thinking about what Aunt May would say, and then what Mr. Stark would say – and then, y’know, how he had to watch those P.S.A.’s Captain America did on under-age drinking and Cap’s technically his teammate and it would be, like, super rude to just… ignore his century of wisdom, right? I mean, does Spider-man party? Because right now, his spider-sense is putting the brakes on. 

But, Ned is driving 100 mph down the Frat-Party-Highway. 

“Listen,” Ned supplies, raising his hands, “We go in, we dance, we ditch. Easy. And! Then we can successfully say we’ve gotten into an M.I.T. frat as freshmen.”

Peter taps his foot, blinking over his shoulder at TKE”s house. There’s a line forming already.

“Fine.”

Ned fist pumps. Peter raises a finger. 

“But, next weekend we’re going to the Natural Science Museum on your campus.”

Ned shrugs. “Harvard perks, baby.”

Ten minutes, two high-fives and one awkward “hey man!” later, the daring duo is in – and Peter has to admit that movies make frats out to be a little bit more glamorous. It’s, like, ninety degrees in here and he’s already sweating and dear god, he just watched someone vomit in the kitchen sink. 

His lab partner, though, a gap toothed kid named Joe who plays rugby, ushers him in and moves behind a counter being manned by a Senior in a TKE jersey. Suddenly, two cold PBR’s are handed Peter’s way and he freezes – oh, this is illegal. Spider-man is breaking the law. Oh god. Ohhhhhh god. 

“Here, dude!” Joe grins, slapping Peter on the shoulder, “A party favor!”

The laugh that is clawed out of Peter’s throat is so forced, Ned has to elbow him in the ribs to remind him to stop panicking. Joe gives Ned a quick knuckle touch before dipping back out the kitchen and past the vomiting kid who works the gym’s front check-in desk. 

And so, in the ratty kitchen of a frat house, Ned and Peter crack open their first beers. 

They both pull faces at the taste.

Ned leans, yelling over the bass of some Iggy Azalea song. “What now?”

Peter shrugs. “Upstairs, maybe?”

It’s a lot better upstairs – not as hot and not as loud and a lot less bodies. Peter can feel the sensory overload dying down. As he follows Ned through the halls of the brother’s rooms, though, he can feel the trademark prick of bad, bad bad bad. 

Hello, spidey-sense.

Annnnnnd that’s when he sees you for the first time.

It’s one of the world stopping moments where he knows – 

… He has no fucking clue what he knows.

That you’re beautiful? That you’re terrifying? That you’re sporting a Spider-man t-shirt? That in-front of you, a brother three times your size and six times your alcohol content looms?

In that moment, Peter knows what’s going to happen – you land a heavy shove on the man’s shoulders, face twisted in rage as your friend tries to pull you from the bubbling fight. 

And Peter just… steps in.

Ned has no idea what he’s doing.

Peter doesn’t either.

“Is there a problem?”

The first time you see ever Peter Parker, he looks out of place. He’s got a maroon button down on, sleeves rolled. His sneakers are too clean for a frat party. The Pabst in his hands is half-full and even still, his cheeks are rosy. He is – in every way – a good kid. It radiates off him in waves.

If it wasn’t for the circumstance, you’d be smitten.

Right now, you’re mad. Your ass was just grabbed down the hallway. Mad doesn’t even cover it. Furious might.

“Stay out of it, fresh-meat,” slurs Patrick, a senior TKE brother with a fucking complex, “This bitch is just playing hard to get –”

“Excuse me –?!”

“Yeah, okay,” suddenly, anger bites into Peter’s tone and his beer is handed off to Ned as he steps up to the plate, lodging a hand on the senior’s chest, “That’s no way to talk to a lady, okay?”

“What is this?” Patrick booms, “D&D? ‘Lady’? Go home, nerds.”

The shove that the senior lands on Peter’s chest sends him stumbling. 

And it ticks him off.

But, before Peter can do anything about it, though, you land a mean right hook on the idiot’s jaw. 

Your roommate, Jen, gasps – her and Ned have the same expression on their faces.

(You’re drunk, okay? And maybe defending the honor of a chivalrous, freshmen D&D nerd is how you want to spend your Friday night… especially one with dimples.)

The fight that ensues is a slaughter. Peter picks up where you left off, laying out the senior as he moves to retaliate – only after a well aimed sock to the eye. It hurts, but mostly just Spider-man’s pride; the growing crowd jeers at the fight. A bit like the Wild West, rules don’t apply here.

(You wonder how the hell some 5′8″ kid can hand Patrick his ass on a silver platter – it’s insane. The kid doesn’t even break a sweat, just cracks his knuckles and chirps a cocky: stay down.)

It’s all fun and games and saving-honor until the other brothers catch wind of what’s happening and force all four of you out the front door and kick you to the curb.

The first time you really get a good look at Peter Parker is on the sidewalk outside TKE under the streetlights of Cambridge. For the first time all night, Peter’s spidey-sense is silent. You both just kinda… stare. 

Ned coughs.

Jen is calling an Uber.

You finally wave bye, hoping his black-eye is worth it in the morning.

All a part of the college experience, Peter guesses.

Ned nudges Peter on the way back to his dorm. “Bad idea, huh?”

“Horrible.”

[robmanion]

chapter two

It was 4:45pm, and Paul finally understood why teachers we’re just as snappy as the kids. He only had three classes and a planning hour, but God damn did he want to punch something. he knew going in these kids weren’t the nicest, but they were 9th graders. 14-15 year olds. He expected cringey memes, not them making fun of him every three seconds. How he managed to keep his voice calm (and by extension his temper), he had no idea. 

“You’ll get used to it,” a voice spoke up, and Paul jumped and snapped his neck to the sound. A man, black, around 5′6, short hair, and a nice dress shirt and slacks stood in the tech lab’s doorway.

“Uh, yeah, thanks,” Paul said wearily. 

“Oh, I forgot- you don’t know anyone yet. i’m Mr. Monahan, but just call me Bill. I’m the 10th grade English teacher,”

“Paul Matthews, tech teacher, but..you knew that, didn’t you?” 

“Yeah, I guess so,” Bill gave a small laugh. “Welcome to the staff, Paul. You’re going to have a-” 

“Dad! I’ve been here for two hours longer than I should be! Can we go home?” A young girl’s voice came from behind Bill. She stepped out, and she looked nothing like Bill. Pale, dark brown hair, a bit lanky. Paul recognized her- was she in one of his classes?

“Alice, if you didn’t crash your car, you wouldn’t have to be here, would you?” 

“Deb’s expecting me!” 

“Alice,” Bill warned what Paul assumed was his daughter. 

“Right, right, sorry. I’ll be waiting in the car,” 

Paul raised an eyebrow, and Bill shook his head. “Sorry, teens, you know?”

“Can’t say I do,” Paul gave a nervous laugh. “it was nice meeting you,”

“You too. See you tomorrow, Paul,” he gave a quick wave, then Bill was gone in a flash. Paul laid his head on his desk for a moment, then grabbed his coat and bag, ready to head home and take a nap. But as he walked up the stairs and down the science hallway, the world decided to be cruel once more. An explosion sounded, and Paul jumped. He heard some curing things Paul’s not sure he’d say out loud, then an older man came stumbling out of the room. A bit of his hair was burned off, his black turtleneck was charred (it was easier to spot than Paul would have expected), and he was staring right at Paul. 

“You! Kid, hey, come here!” The man shouted. Paul looked in both directions, hoping that there was a kid still at school after 4:52pm. “yes, you, get over here, I need some help,” What choice did he have? He followed the man into the classroom. 

“Oh, Jesus, what happened?” Charcoal everywhere. Beacons half full of chemicals, and a small fire in the corner. A small fire. Oh shit. Paul raced over, taking off his suit jacket and throwing it across the fire. After a moment or two, he checked with caution. Gone. 

“Experiment gone wrong,” The man said while Paul had dealt with the fire. “i got bored,” 

“How- why- are you the teacher Emma helped his morning?”

“Must’ve been. Emma’s a sweet kid, you know,” 

“She’s not a kid, sir. She’s at least 24,” 

“Besides the point,” The teacher, if Paul remembered correctly was Mr. Hidgens, started to brush off the charcoal from the..science bar? Paul didn’t know what to call it. The table where science teachers did the labs. “Grab the hand-vac from the closet, would you....?”

“Paul Matthews,” 

“Paul, thank you. Get the hand-vac, please,” 

Paul looked around the large classroom (not that he was jealous or anything, it’s not like the tech lab had room for 8 computers but the school somehow crammed in 20 and a normal sized teacher’s desk inside) and found a closet in the far right corner of the room. He opened it, got the hand-vac from the top shelf, and started to clean up the charcoal remains on the counter-tops. Hidgens worked on getting rid of the excess chemicals, and the two were done in about ten minutes time. “So, you’ve worked here a while?” Paul asked, emptying the contents of the vac into a trashcan. 

“30 years,” Hidgens sighed. “It’s not easy, but it makes due until the day,” 

“The day, sir?” 

“Oh, nothing,” 

Paul was done with today, he wasn’t ready to face more fires and complaining kids. “Okay, then. I’m going to head out- do you..need a ride..or anything?” 

“Oh, no, I’ll be fine. Public transport works just as well,” 

“Alright...Goodbye,” Paul shuffled out of there ask quickly as possible. That man is a character. He exited the doors of HFH, and his muscles relaxed almost instantly. It was stressful as hell, but Paul was actually starting to like this job. he got his car keys out of his pant pocket, and he walked across the street to his car- Where was his car? he raced over to his empty space, and Lord behold, ‘no parking allowed after 4pm’. What kind of bullshit rule- how was he going to get home? It was too far to walk, and who knows when the ext bus would arrive.

“Paul?” A familiar voice called out his name, and he turned around and smiled. 

“Emma! Oh, am I glad to see you-”  Next to her, however, was Charlotte. “And you, Charlotte,” 

“Yeah, Sam’s busy, so I’m driving her home,” her mouth said. ‘He’s probably at some strip club, don’t say anything’, her eyes said. It creeped Paul out how much he could understand this woman after a day. 

“Oh..that’s nice of you,” Paul stated awkwardly. “Uh, I hate to ask, but do you have room for one more? They towed my car,” he nodded to the empty space behind him. 

“Of course! You don’t mind if the car’s a little older, do you?”

“Of course not,”

He minded more than he thought. He didn’t expect a sports car or anything, but he was surprised that Emma’s 2002 Camry even held up. The engine sputtered every three minutes or so, and thank God there were no red lights- he was afraid the car would just stop altogether. She must’ve had one hell of an auto-shop- she was supposed to have bought a new car in 2012 buy normal standards. 

“Sorry it’s a bit shaky,”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Lies. 

The car pulled into the apartment complex’s parking lot, and the engine shut off. “I’m going to drop Charlotte off, you can just wait here for a moment,”

“Sounds good,” 

Once he saw Emma and Charlotte enter the building, Paul opened the car door, and walked around the lot. he didn’t know how long they’d be, but God he needed some fresh air after being stuck in a stuffy basement all day. He was surprised that no one else was in the lot- it was surprisingly big for what looked to be a run-down apartment complex. There had to have been, what, at least 100 people living in the building? Who knows. Paul started to hum. He wasn’t big on singing, but he didn’t mid it when he was alone, safe from the prying eyes of society.

“Hey, sorry about that, I didn’t think it’d take that long,” Emma shouted, and Paul saw her jogging back to her car. Paul stopped leaning on it. 

“Oh, not to worry, I was fine on my own,” Paul tried at a joke.

“I sure hope so, I don’t need another damsel in distress on my hands,” Emma joked back. Both smiled. The both got back into the car, the engine started back up, and they were back on the road in no time. “Hey, so some co-workers and I go out for beers every Friday- you wanna come?” 

“Uh, it’s only Monday,”

“Yeah, but never too early to think about the weekend, you know?” 

“I guess so. Sure, why not?”

“Alright then! Bill’s driving this week, and he’s always the designated driver. Have you met Bill yet?”

“Yeah, I did,”

“Oh, cool! So, we just meet in the main office at the end of the day, and we go from there,”

“Sounds like a plan. Uh, turn here,” Paul jumped back into his directions duty (even though he typed his address into Emma’s phone). A couple minutes later, they got to Paul’s row-home, and Emma parked the car. “I’ll see you tomorrow,”

“See you tomorrow,” 

[craigrcannon]

Employee #1: Coinbase

A conversation with Olaf Carlson-Wee, Coinbase’s first employee.

Employee #1 is a series of interviews focused on sharing the often untold stories of early employees at tech companies.

Olaf Carlson-Wee was the first employee at Coinbase. He currently runs Polychain Capital, a hedge fund which invests in a portfolio of blockchain-based assets. He is also an angel investor and filmmaker, based in San Francisco.

Discussed: The Early Days of Bitcoin, Interviewing at Coinbase, Finding Employees on R/Bitcoin, Scaling Support at Coinbase, Spotting Fraud, Vetting Founders in a New Field, Launching Polychain Capital.

You can subscribe to The Macro newsletter to receive future conversations.

Craig : What are you currently working on?

Olaf : I actually launched a company yesterday.

Craig : [Laughter] Whoa, congrats.

Olaf : Yeah, thank you. I don’t feel like celebrating quite yet because it’s just the beginning but it’s called Polychain Capital, “chain” here referring to the blockchain. It’s a hedge fund that invests in a diversified portfolio of cryptocurrencies.

Craig : Man, that’s wild. Is it a big team at this point? Is it just you?

Olaf : Just me.

Craig : And how are you picking the currencies?

Olaf : So I’m looking at things like novel uses of cryptography in the protocol. Or is the protocol attempting something that a blockchain has never done before. I’m also looking at core developer team quality, the developer ecosystem, and asking questions like are there a lot of apps being built on this, with GitHub forks, GitHub stars, and then looking at the community ecosystem. What’s the size of the forum? How often do people post relative to other forums? Is it an active community? Stuff like that. So part is core analysis of protocol, and part is quantitative metrics surrounding the use of the protocol.

I’ve launched with five million under management so mostly right now I’m focused on operationally executing the portfolio perfectly. And then making sure that I’m tracking the space and developments at the protocol level. Keep in mind, my last day at Coinbase was eight weeks ago.

Craig : Wow. Did you raise the five in that eight weeks?

Olaf : Yeah, I’ve been on the phone a lot. I have this stupid headset that I wear all the time. [Laughter]

Craig : [Laughter] You’re one of those guys?

Olaf : Yeah. It’s really embarrassing.

Craig : We’ll let it slide. Ok, so let’s talk about Coinbase. How did you find out about them?

Olaf : So I wrote my undergraduate thesis about Bitcoin and the larger implications of open source finance in 2011. I was Coinbase’s 30th user and now we have four million. I literally cold emailed jobs@coinbase and said, “I love bitcoin. Here’s my thesis. I’ll do any job.”

Craig : So you cold emailed these guys a document that was like 60 pages long?

Olaf : Yeah, like 90 pages long. [Laughter] But, to be fair, I clipped the 30 page chapter that was specifically on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. But yeah, I did. I emailed an annoyingly long and annoyingly academic document.

Craig : And they responded?

Olaf : Fred [Ehrsam] replied in five minutes and said, “Hey, can you hop on Skype?” That’s when I started learning how things work in Silicon Valley. The pace of things.

We got on Skype and talked for 20 minutes. Then I got an email from him that said, “Okay, we wanna do an in-person interview. You’re going to come to the office tomorrow. I want you to have two finished presentations, 15 minutes each. The first should explain something complicated you know very well. The second should outline your vision for Coinbase.”

So I got to work. At the time I was on a road trip and actually was crashing on a friend’s couch in Oakland so the scheduling worked out well.

Craig : Did you study CS in school?

Olaf : I majored in sociology so I’m self-taught on computer science. Though I’m not a great coder. If I’m a building a website, I’m not very good at that. But I do know cryptography pretty well and, in particular, I know game theory well, which is really important in cryptocurrency.

Craig : Gotcha. So what were your presentations?

Olaf : Okay. So the first one was on the pharmacological induction of lucid dreams. It is complicated, but it’s a mechanism to induce lucidity in your dreams. You can control your dream by waking up in the middle of the night and taking an over-the-counter supplement called galantamine, which increases levels of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in the synapse. Fun fact is that I’ve been writing down my dreams for 11 years.

The second presentation was on Coinbase and my high level strategy for the company. Coinbase had a lot of problems at that time. When I was applying, there were really bad bugs. Actually, on the first day of my work trial, there was a top Hacker News post that said, “My balance is wrong. I lost all this money.” Everything was broken.

My strategy was to clean up PR problems but focus 100% on security. Bad customer experiences will eventually be forgotten but a security incident will not be forgotten. I basically was saying, “Listen, people want us to move faster than we can.” I mean, Brian [Armstrong] was literally building everything. I was saying to Brian, “We cannot hack something together that ends up leading to a security incident. Even though everything is on fire, let’s do this very carefully.” And I think that resonated with them.

But Coinbase, especially in its early days, had a lot of hard tradeoffs between moving really quickly like a traditional startup and operating as a financial institution. Even then we were storing tens of millions of dollars of people’s money. And of course there were security incidents. Fraud was a big problem. People trying to buy bitcoin with stolen identities. We wanted to give good customers high limits and we we wanted to give scammers low or no limits. There are a lot of hard tradeoffs. I basically took the perspective that we need to be a security juggernaut and any bad customer experiences will long-term be forgotten.

On the other hand, if you get hacked or you have a massive fraud incident and lose all your money, it’s catastrophic. The main thing is avoid the catastrophic events. And what’s funny is looking back, that’s really what Coinbase has done. A big way that Coinbase is the leader in the space is just that we didn’t get hacked, honestly. We did many things right. But that is honestly the number one thing.

Craig : Ok, so you do the presentations. Is this to both of them?

Olaf : This is just to Fred. Fred and I probably talked for 45 minutes–a long time. Then Fred gave me a really brutal mathematics problem and said, “Okay, why don’t you figure that out while I go talk to Brian?”

So I knew I had at least on some level passed the first part. I knew he’d walk me out without meeting Brian if it definitely wasn’t working out.

Do you want to know the problem?

Craig : Yeah, absolutely.

Olaf : Okay. So there are 100 lockers in a row. They’re all closed, okay? A kid goes by. He opens every single locker. A second kid goes by. Now he closes every other locker, every second locker. Third kid comes by, every third locker. If it’s open, he closes it. If it closed, he opens it. Then the fourth kid goes by. Every fourth locker, he changes the state. And now 100 kids go by. What is the state of the lockers after 100 kids go by?

Craig : Oh man, I’d definitely need some time for that.

Olaf : Yeah, so don’t try to figure it out because it may take a while. So I’m sitting there and thinking like, “Okay, focus Olaf. If Brian comes down and the first thing you have is the answer to this problem, this is gonna seal the deal.” At least in my head I thought that. In retrospect, that was getting ahead of things a bit much.

To be honest, I don’t know what happened but I had this crazy flash of insight and had the answer. And when Brian came back, we started talking through it and I just figured it out way faster than I reasonably should have.

Craig : Whoa. So what’s the answer?

Olaf : The answer is perfect squares are open. The reason being, they’re the only numbers that have an odd number of factors. So the number of factors determines whether a locker is open or closed because that’s the number of kids that interacted with it. And so the odd number of factors means it’s open and even number of factors means it’s closed. And the only numbers that have an odd number of factors are perfect squares like 16, 25, 36.

Craig : How long were you given to solve that?

Olaf : Oh, probably like three minutes.

Craig : Holy shit, okay.

Olaf : Yeah. It was probably three minutes. I don’t believe in divine intervention or anything. But that was a time in my life when I had an uncanny flash of insight that I would never pretend I could recreate. But anyway, then Brian grilled me for another hour.

Craig : [Laughter]

Olaf : Brian’s questions were really intense. “What do you wanna do with your life?” “What drives you as a person?” “What’s a belief you have that is extremely unpopular?” He wanted to really know me.

I think Fred had gone up to Brian and said, “Listen, Olaf’s at least sort of qualified for this. I talked to him. I think he could do the job. Now we need to figure out do we want to actually work with him.” And Brian went super deep on a lot of really intense questions about my life, what drove me, what mattered to me, why I wanted to do this, all that stuff. And we had a very intense conversation about what it meant to want to do things, what it meant to be a human trying to go about the world.

Craig : Did you feel prepared to answer those questions?

Olaf : I definitely had to think about each question but I tend to have a pretty crystallized ideology about the way I think about the world. It changes, but at any given moment, I know what it is. So yeah, I think it was pretty reasonable for me to say, “Here’s why I wanna do this.”

Craig : Okay, and then how does it wrap up?

Olaf : They say, “Okay, great. We’ll let you know.” And then they walk me out. I heard back, I wanna say, four days later. They said, “You should come in for work trial.” And that was a two week paid trial. I worked really hard because I knew this was the final test. At the end of those two weeks they said, “Okay. You have a formal job offer.”

Craig : What was the actual job?

Olaf : Customer support. Like I said, I came in and was willing to do anything. I did customer support by myself until we had 250,000 users.

It was a marathon. It was like 12-hour days of fast replying. And, to be clear, we did not have good support during that time. I’ll say that as the person who was doing it. You would get an email. It wouldn’t necessarily come right away. It wouldn’t necessarily perfectly answer your question. But we were replying. [Laughter]

Craig : [Laughter] Okay. So then did you become involved in hiring future people?

Olaf : Yes. So basically what happened was we were trying to hire more customer support people, because it was not scaling with just me. We did four work trials for our customer support people to join me in San Francisco. We rejected all of them. Meanwhile the problem is getting worse and worse and worse, right?

The delay in replies and the quality of replies is just going down in a bad way. I think at the peak, the average time to reply was five days. And this is a financial institution. It’s really inappropriate.

So I got really desperate and I posted a Bitcoin SAT on Reddit. What this was was a test, a Bitcoin aptitude test so to speak. And it had questions like, “What is the hash of the genesis block?” That was the first question. And the idea there was if you’re asking yourself, “What does that mean?” this isn’t the job for you. If you have no idea what that is then get out of here.

It was a bunch of Bitcoin-style brainteaser-y questions and I just posted it on Reddit’s /r/bitcoin and Bitcoin Talk and I said, “If you get a perfect score, you get an interview for remote customer support.”

And we got like 250 people to take this test. Skip ahead maybe four months. I have 43 people reporting to me in a distributed team.

Craig : Whoa.

Olaf : This team covers merchant integrations, API support, anti-fraud investigations, compliance investigations, and did customer support. We now have all of these teams at Coinbase. They mostly came from this one Bitcoin SAT. It was so successful that I posted it a second time at some point and got a new round of candidates.

It was a globally distributed team. The first person I hired was in New Caledonia. It’s weird how these things work. Skip ahead two years, he works at Coinbase in San Francisco and is the director of customer support. He’s an amazing guy. He started remote and I remember thinking when we had our first talk – he had a master’s in computer science from George Washington University – and I was like, “Why do you wanna do customer support?”

And he said, “I’m in New Caledonia. This is the best job I could hope for and I love Bitcoin.” And I was like, “Well, you’re hired.”

And that was when I realized that the remote structure was actually going to work really well. There were hard things about it, but I now feel very confident running remote teams. This was when we were using HipChat–before Slack. Then Slack came out and that helped a lot. And then we had Google Hangouts. Basically the tooling was good enough. Like Google Docs where we can all edit something. The tooling really was good enough, just at that moment. I think if were to try to do this distributed team two or three years before, it would’ve fallen on its face.

Craig : So you were managing support but then you eventually ran risk, right? How does that happen?

Olaf : Yup. So I was kind of managing what was really like the whole operational part of the company and it was really burning me out. This was a year and half of 12-hour days without any vacations. I took Sundays off. We scaled to probably 30 or 40 people in San Francisco before I hired a Director of Support and became the Head of Risk.

So as Head of Risk the main things I focused on were account security and fraud prevention. It wasn’t like infrastructure security around preventing hackers. It’s user-facing, like they enter their password on a phishing site.

Basically with security there are two angles: We can get your coins stolen or you can get your coins stolen.

Craig : [Laughter] Right.

Olaf : [Laughter] So yeah, I was responsible for the latter and anti-fraud, i.e. people buying bitcoin with stolen identities. While I was running support I had a huge part in handling all that stuff. And when fraud had gotten bad in early 2013, I designed the Risk Queue that would review people that we thought were stolen identities. At one point I would review every single buy on the website–one by one.

Craig : Whoa.

Olaf : These are things that absolutely don’t scale, but you can build it in one day and start working on it that day. So Brian built it and I would review every single buy. As a result I started to get an incredible eye for stolen identities. Like I had a sixth sense for whether an account was a stolen identity or not.

Craig : Can you explain that a little bit? What are you looking for?

Olaf : Ok, so there are a couple tiers of scammer. Let’s pretend you’re a unsophisticated scammer. You sign up. The email you use is Edward.Fitzgerald@whatever.com and the name you use is Laura Johnson. Then the bank account you use is Alexander Smith. Obviously something’s going on there. So big name mismatches are the easiest to spot.

Then there are patterns. So, for example, scammers would buy dumps–some guy will a hack a site, he’ll get a bunch of bank account numbers and then he’ll use them all. And those dumps will often share certain traits. For example, I’d suddenly see like 20 SunTrust bank accounts get added in 20 minutes and they all share certain formatting rules or the email domain is the same, or something like that. So again, it’s basically pattern recognition.

But then it gets way more complicated because for sophisticated scammers, their entire job hinges on me looking at something and saying, “that’s legit.”

And it can mean massive payouts for them. Our limits at that time were 50 bitcoin a day. So, if you could sneak past me, you could buy 50 bitcoin every day until the real account holder called their bank and said, “I’m seeing all these crazy charges.”

But yeah, I learned a lot very quickly. I learned a lot about traditional payment mechanisms. Before I knew a lot about bitcoin. Now I know a lot about credit cards. And ACH. And bank wires. And all that stuff.

Craig : Yeah, it sounds like you’ve dug in. I assume not everyone who works at Coinbase now has the same degree of knowledge. How do you scale understanding at a company that is based around something inherently technical?

Olaf : In the early days, everyone was a cryptocurrency fanatic. The first two engineering hires were these absolutely brilliant people who basically came to Coinbase because they wanted to work on cryptocurrency. And what’s interesting is a lot of our anti-fraud people are also super into Bitcoin. They’re not people who worked anti-fraud at Stripe. They’re Bitcoin people first.

So yeah, we’d sort of filter for smart people that were passionate about Bitcoin. It’s my opinion that if you’re smart you can learn a new skill and all the details. But passion and innate interest cannot really be learned. We tended to hire people who said, “I love this company. I don’t quite have the experience.” Versus people that said, “I have the experience, but I’m looking at four other places and maybe I’ll pick Coinbase.”

My belief is that the inexperienced, interested person will outperform the experienced, uninterested person over time.

That said, when we started scaling we did have to start trading between interest in Bitcoin and domain experience. The person who runs Compliance, for example, can’t just be winging it.

Craig : What was it that made you want to join Coinbase?

Olaf : Before I was gonna apply, I read all about the founders. There were a bunch of competitors at the time. The massive market share was MtGox, which ended in tragedy, as you may know. And then like there were bunch of other companies that were bigger. BitInstant, Tradehill, these are all defunct. Every single one of them is dead now. But at the time, Coinbase was like the new little company.

Craig : Okay, so the underlying question is how do you vet founders in a new field?

Olaf : Yeah. I have pretty strong feelings on that. I’d say meet them and make sure 100% that you like them, that you could work for them, and that you will run the whole marathon with them. Running a company and scaling a startup is so much stress, so much work. And they’re gonna be sitting next to you the whole time

If you don’t feel like they’re in it 110% and that you can work with them and be friends with them, it’s not gonna work. Especially in a very micro team. I mean, once a company is 40 people, that’s still like a startup but the founder matters for you personally a little less. It does for the company’s success but not for you personally. But if you’re joining like a sub-10-person startup you really need to make sure that the founder is gonna drive this all the way. This needs be a grand slam.

So much of it is about personality and drive. Even if you’re technically brilliant, there are these dark times. And dark like bad things are happening. There’s always gonna be bad events.

You have to ask, are they gonna focus in and just move forward, or are they gonna give up? And it doesn’t matter if they’re technically competent if they’re in the latter category. They could be the best person in the world at this but if at the end of the day they don’t have the drive and spirit to make this happen, it doesn’t matter. So to me the technical competency of course is vital. But if you met someone and said, “Wow, that guy is the number one expert in the world at this,” but you felt like he’s kind of flakey. Pass. Always pass.

With Brian and Fred, they’re two of the smartest, most focused and driven people I have ever met. And I knew that after the interview. I was like, “These guys are really not fucking around.” Seriously, it really made me wanna work there.

Craig : So to your point of the bad things always happening, what were the bad things that happened?

Olaf : Oh, man. I think in 2013 our user base increased 100x. And the price of bitcoin went up 100x. Our volumes went up I think even more than 100x. You know when people talk about like rapid aggressive scaling? That’s exactly what it was and a tiny number of us were scaling all of it. At the beginning of that year it was two people. At the end of that year, just eight.

Craig : Wow.

Olaf : Brian and Fred are very careful about hiring. They only hire people that they truly think are superstars. At Coinbase one thing that gets said a lot is, “On a candidate if you’re not a ‘hell yes’, you’re a ‘no’.” If you’re like, “I like them. I think they’re smart. I think they’re great.” That’s a “no.”

You really have to fight to keep that up. You have to feel like if this person does not get hired, we’re crazy. That’s how you have to feel for someone to get hired at Coinbase.

And that early team was really unique individuals. Like, it was the perfect puzzle pieces. But anyway, the scaling during that time was brutal. It was absolutely brutal. And we had bugs that were really bad.

Here’s the thing, it’s not like having bugs on Twitter where maybe something gets retweeted wrong. When you have a bug on Coinbase, balances are incorrect in what are essentially bank accounts. And transactions that are time sensitive aren’t getting sent out. The stakes are way higher yet you’re still just five people in a room making the whole thing.

One time the ACH file we use with banks got duplicated. That’s means that if you bought $100 of Bitcoin we duplicated the transaction so you’re buying $200 of Bitcoin. When something like that happened I would get a thousand emails in 20 minutes because these are bank accounts and people definitely notice that stuff.

The one thing that’s so lucky is we never had an incident where someone gained access to our infrastructure and pulled out Bitcoin from the hot wallet. That was just the blessing. I think even Brian would probably tell you that there were times in Coinbase’s history that were sort of coin flips. But we survived them. Other companies had incidents like that and had to shut down. We caught things fast enough.

Craig : That’s funny. It’s exactly the same thing Aston said about Dropbox. Basically, “Shit went wrong all the time but the one thing we never did was lose a ton of files.”

Olaf : Exactly. This is exactly Coinbase’s story. In those early days everything went wrong except the one thing that couldn’t go wrong.

Craig : [Laughter] Exactly. So at what point were you like, “Okay. I’m ready to do something else?”

Olaf : Yeah. So I basically saw what, for me, has been the biggest trend in the space I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been in this heads down for five years. People are doing this new behavior where they’re actually raising capital and issuing what is essentially network ownership of their network on the blockchain. So these are like bits of equity in peer-to-peer networks that are built on the blockchain.

A crude example here is imagine if an early user of Facebook gets a thousand shares of Facebook. Now, instead of just normal network effects, there’s also monetary incentive network effects built into this protocol. And these new types of protocols are built on new blockchains or as subtokens of existing blockchains. The opportunity for me was too big to pass up. The trend was too strong. Plus I needed a new adventure. So I left to start Polychain.

And it’s only been eight weeks but Polychain has seen a lot of interest because this trend is really strong. I think that over the next year, there’s gonna be amazing opportunities here. The alternative thing that I could’ve started is a venture fund that invests in companies built on the protocols.

But in this new model, there’s really no place for traditional VCs because the protocol tokens themselves are the issuance of ownership. Not shares on a piece of paper. And as the company wants to raise their Series A, their Series B, their Series C, all that is them holding say 5%, 10% of the protocol tokens and those going up in value as their network becomes more valuable. And then they can sell tokens and become diluted to get liquid cash. It works very well. It’s a lot of similar mechanics to venture capital fundraising, but they can do it all with this native protocol units and crowdfunding, and there’s just no place for paper shares or VCs.

So, instead of betting in companies built on protocol, I’m actually buying units of the protocol. I’m buying scarce blockchain tokens and creating a portfolio of those tokens. I’m basically buying ownership in all of these new 2.0 peer-to-peer protocols.

Craig : That’s wild.

Olaf : Yeah, that’s why Polychain is a hedge fund instead of a venture fund. Because I’m holding solely protocol tokens. To a normal person what I’m doing is extremely esoteric.

Craig : [Laughter] Uh, yes.

Olaf : It absolutely is. That said a lot of smart people in Silicon Valley think it’s on that edge where this is going to grow substantially over the next five years.

Craig : You’re definitely in the right place. Ok, random question. Aside from the Bitcoin readings you recommended, what books do you recommend?

Olaf : I have a couple that come to mind. So I love David Foster Wallace and Infinite Jest is probably my favorite book. His short stories are also amazing.

Another book that comes to mind is House of Leaves. The premise is crazy. So the actual book is a manuscript written by an old man. With annotations by a narrator who has found and reconstructed this book. With annotations by an omnipotent editor. Who is finding the annotations of the person who reconstructed this old man’s book.

Craig : Oh my god.

Olaf : And now this is where it gets even crazier. The old man’s book is a analysis of a movie that doesn’t exist.

Craig : [Laughter]

Olaf : And the narrator who’s annotating and reconstructing this old man’s book is being driven crazy because there’s so much detail and he can’t find this movie. And it like actually doesn’t appear to exist. And the old man, all his sources are fake articles and things. It gets really weird but it’s much more of a page turner than David Foster Wallace.

Anyway, I’d recommend both because they’re super long and once you get into them, they completely consume your brain. They’re my favorite kind of books.

Craig : Right on. Ok, let’s end there. Thanks for your time.

Olaf : Sure thing.

Olaf’s Suggested Reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy – Probably my other favorite book along with Infinite Jest. Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer by Dr. John Lilly Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse

Here are three posts that explain the Polychain thesis well: • App Coins and the dawn of the Decentralized Business Model • The Golden Age Of Open Protocols • Crypto Tokens and the Coming Age of Protocol Innovation

[fyp-psychology]

33 Unusual Tips to Being a Better Writer

via James Altucher

Back in college, Sanket and I would hang out in bars and try to talk to women but I was horrible at it.

Nobody would talk to me for more than thirty seconds and every woman would laugh at all his jokes for what seemed like hours.

Even decades later I think they are still laughing at his jokes. One time he turned to me, 

“the girls are getting bored when you talk. Your stories go on too long. From now on, you need to leave out every other sentence when you tell a story.”

We were both undergrads in Computer Science. I haven’t seen him since but that’s the most important writing (and communicating) advice I ever got.

33 other tips to be a better writer:

A) Write whatever you want. Then take out the first paragraph and last paragraph

Here’s the funny thing about this rule. It’s sort of like knowing the future. You still can’t change it. In other words, even if you know this rule and write the article, the article will still be better if you take out the first paragraph and the last paragraph.

B) Take a huge bowel movement every day

You won’t see that on any other list on how to be a better writer. If your body doesn’t flow then your brain won’t flow. Eat more fruit if you have to.

C) Bleed in the first line

We’re all human. A computer can win Jeopardy but still not write a novel. If you want people to relate to you, then you have to be human.

Penelope Trunk started a post a few weeks ago: 

“I smashed a lamp over my head. There was blood everywhere. And glass. And I took a picture.” 

That’s real bleeding. My wife recently put up a post where the first line was so painful she had to take it down. Too many people were crying.

D) Don’t ask for permission

In other words, never say “in my opinion” (or worse “IMHO”). We know it’s your opinion. You’re writing it.

E) Write a lot

I spent the entire 90s writing bad fiction. 5 bad novels. Dozens of bad stories. But I learned to handle massive rejection. And how to put two words together. In my head, I won the pulitzer prize. But in my hand, over 100 rejection letters.

F) Read a lot

You can’t write without first reading. A lot. When I was writing five bad novels in a row I would read all day long whenever I wasn’t writing (I had a job as a programmer, which I would do for about five minutes a day because my programs all worked and I just had to “maintain” them). I read everything I could get my hands on.

G) Read before you write

Before I write every day I spend 30-60 minutes reading high quality short stories poetry, or essays. Here are some authors to start:

Denis Johnson

Miranda July

David Foster Wallace

Ariel Leve

William Vollmann

Raymond Carver

All of the writers are in the top 1/1000 of 1% of writers. What you are reading  has to be at that level or else it won’t lift up your writing at all.

H) Coffee

I go through three cups at least before I even begin to write. No coffee, no creativity.

I) Break the laws of physics

There’s no time in text. Nothing has to go in order. Don’t make it nonsense. But don’t be beholden to the laws of physics. My post, Advice I Want to Tell My Daughters, is an example.

J) Be Honest

Tell people the stuff they all think but nobody ever says. Some people will be angry that you let out the secret. But most people will be grateful. If you aren’t being honest, you aren’t delivering value. Be the little boy in the Emperor Wears No Clothes. If you can’t do this, don’t write.

K) Don’t Hurt Anyone

This goes against the above rule, but I never like to hurt people. And I don’t respect people who get pageviews by breaking this rule.

Don’t be a bad guy.  Was Buddha a Bad Father? addresses this.

L) Don’t be afraid of what people think

For each single person you worry about, deduct 1% in quality from your writing.

Everyone has deductions. I have to deduct about 10% right off the top.

Maybe there’s 10 people I’m worried about. Some of them are evil people. Some of them are people I just don’t want to offend.

So my writing is only about 90% of what it could be. But I think most people write at about 20% of what it could be. Believe it or not, clients, customers, friends, family, will love you more if you are honest with them. We all have our boundaries. But try this: for the next ten things you write, tell people something that nobody knows about you.

M) Be opinionated

Most people I know have strong opinions about at least one or two things… write about those. Nobody cares about all the things you don’t have strong opinions on.

Barry Ritholz told me the other day he doesn’t start writing until he’s angry about something. That’s one approach. Barry and I have had some great writing fights because sometimes we’ve been angry at each other.

N) Have a shocking title

I blew it the other day. I wanted to title this piece: “How I torture women” but I settled for “I’m Guilty Of Torture.” I wimped out. But I have some other fun ones, like “Is It Bad I Wanted My First Kid To Be Aborted” (which the famous Howard Lindzon cautioned me against).

Don’t forget that you are competing against a trillion other pieces of content out there. So you need a title to draw people in. Else you lose.

O) Steal

I don’t quite mean it literally. But if you know a topic gets pageviews (and you aren’t hurting anyone) than steal it, no matter who’s written about it or how many times you’ve written about it before. “How I Screwed Yasser Arafat out of $2mm” was able to nicely piggyback off of how amazingly popular Yasser Arafat is.

P) Make people cry

If you’ve ever been in love, you know how to cry.

Bring readers to that moment when they were a child, and all of life was in front of them, except for that one bittersweet moment when everything began to change. If only that one moment could’ve lasted forever. Please let me go back in time right now to that moment. But now it’s gone.

Q) Relate to people

The past decade has totally sucked. For everyone. The country has been in post-traumatic stress syndrome since 9/11 and 2008 only made it worse. I’ve gone broke a few times during the decade, had a divorce, lost friendships, and have only survived (barely) by being persistent and knowing I had two kids to take care of, and loneliness to fight.

Nobody’s perfect. We’re all trying. Show people how you are trying and struggling. Nobody expects you to be a superhero.

R) Time heals all wounds

Everyone has experiences they don’t want to write about. But with enough time, its OK. My New Year’s Resolution of 1995 is pretty embarrassing. But whatever…it was 16 years ago.

The longer back you go, the less you have to worry about what people think.

S) Risk

Notice that almost all of these rules are about where the boundaries are. Most people play it too safe.

When you are really risking something and the reader senses that (and they WILL sense it), then you know you are in good territory. If you aren’t risking something, then I’m moving on. I know I’m on the right track if after I post something someone tweets, “OMFG.”

T) Be funny

You can be all of the above and be funny at the same time.

When I went to India I was brutalized by my first few yoga classes (actually every yoga class). And I was intimidated by everyone around me. They were like yoga superheroes and I felt like a fraud around them. So I cried, and hopefully people laughed.

It was also a case where I didn’t have to dig into my past but I had an experience that was happening to me right then. How do you be funny? First rule of funny: ugly people are funny. I’m naturally ugly so its easy. Make yourself as ugly as possible. Nobody wants to read that you are beautiful and doing great in life.

U) The last line needs to go BOOM!

Your article is meaningless unless the last line KILLS.

Read the book of short stories “Jesus’ Son” by Denis Johnson. It’s the only way to learn how to do a last line. The last line should take you all the way back to the first line and then “BOOM!”

V) Use a lot of periods

Forget commas and semicolons. A period makes people pause. Your sentences should be strong enough that you want people to pause and think about it. This will also make your sentences shorter. Short sentences are good.

W) Write every day

This is a must. Writing is spiritual practice. You are diving inside of yourself and cleaning out the toxins. If you don’t do it every day, you lose the ability. If you do it every day, then slowly you find out where all the toxins are. And the cleaning can begin.

X) Write with the same voice you talk in

You’ve spent your whole life learning how to communicate with that voice. Why change it when you communicate with text?

Y) Deliver value with every sentence

Even on a tweet or Facebook status update. Deliver poetry and value with every word. Else, be quiet.

Z) Take what everyone thinks and explore the opposite

Don’t disagree just to disagree. But explore. Turn the world upside down. Guess what? There are people living in China. Plenty of times you’ll find value where nobody else did.

AA) Have lots of ideas

I discuss this in “How to be the Luckiest Man Alive” in the Daily Practice section.

Your idea muscle atrophies within days if you don’t exercise it. Then what do you do? You need to exercise it every day until it hurts. Else no ideas.

BB) Sleep eight hours a day

Go to sleep before 9pm at least 4 days a week. And stretch while taking deep breaths before you write. We supposedly use only 5% of our brain. You need to use 6% at least to write better than everyone else. So make sure your brain is getting as much healthy oxygen as possible. Too many people waste valuable writing or resting time by chattering until all hours of the night.

CC) Don’t write if you’re upset at someone

Then the person you are upset at becomes your audience. You want to love and flirt with your audience so they can love you back.

DD) Use “said” instead of any other word

Don’t use “he suggested” or “he bellowed,” just “he said.” We’ll figure it out if he suggested something.

EE) Paint or draw.

Keep exercising other creative muscles.

FF) Let it sleep

Whatever you are working on, sleep on it. Then wake up, stretch, coffee, read, and look again.

Rewrite. Take out every other sentence.

GG) Then take out every other sentence again.

Or something like that.

Sanket didn’t want to go to grad school after we graduated. He had another plan. Lets go to Thailand, he said. And become monks in a Buddhist monastery for a year. We can date Thai women whenever we aren’t begging for food, he said. It will be great and we’ll get life experience.

It sounded good to me.

But then he got accepted to the University of Wisconsin and got a PhD. Now he lives in India and works for Oracle. And as for me…

I don’t know what the hell happened to me.

About the Author:

James Altucher is an American hedge fund manager, entrepreneur, bestselling author, venture capitalist and podcaster. He has founded or cofounded more than 20 companies, including Reset Inc. and StockPickr and says he failed at 17 of them.

via jamesaltucher.com

[ibilenews]

Anastasia Radzinskaya: How a 6-year-old Russian girl became Youtube's most popular child star

MOSCOW (BLOOMBERG) - In a video posted online in December, Anastasia Radzinskaya, a 6-year-old YouTube star who goes by Nastya, plays a tough-talking cop. At the start of the skit, the pixyish blond performer looks in the mirror and pulls on a police cap.

"I'm going to teach you a lesson, criminals," she says, rapping a toy baton in the palm of her hand.

For the next several minutes, she patrols a street, blowing a traffic whistle, brandishing her shiny police badge and sternly laying down the law. At one point, she pulls over a careless driver, played by her father and frequent co-star Yuri, who tries to connive his way out of trouble by slipping her a stack of bills.

"A bribe!" she yells. "Go to jail, now!"

Since December, when the video first appeared on her Like Nastya YouTube channel in Nastya's native Russian, the kid cop routine has generated more than 90 million views.

Another version of the video, re-edited for English-speaking viewers, has since tallied up another 7 million views. Two additional versions, dubbed in Indonesian and Korean, have generated more than 2 million views since February. Spanish and Arabic versions will be posted soon.

While Nastya is hardly the first youngster to earn laughs online by mock disciplining a naughty parent, she has achieved a level of global stardom that is rare for artists of any age.

Depending on the month, Like Nastya has been the third- or fourth-most-popular channel on YouTube in the world, according to SocialBlade.

Nastya's broader network of channels, which dub her performances into nine different languages, generates around 100 million views a day. Last year, thanks to Nastya's popularity and global reach, the Radzinskayas earned more than US$18 million (S$25.7 million) from YouTube.

Recently, they relocated to South Florida, where they continue to crank out videos for her young fans around the world.

"They're the first family to really understand the globalisation opportunity," said Mr Eyal Baumel, who advises Anastasia and her parents on their YouTube strategy in exchange for a cut of their advertising sales.

In the past, most YouTube creators didn't feel compelled to tailor their videos to different international markets because the video service is huge and can help them reach every country without having to pay for dubbing. Nastya's success may force other top YouTube acts to rethink that strategy.

"For some content, localisation can double or triple revenue," Mr Baumel said.

As with many top YouTube acts, Nastya's rise to fame and fortune can feel somewhat baffling.

Her parents, Yuri and Anna, don't speak English fluently, and the origin story they tell about their prodigy daughter has always been shrouded in a bit of mystery. During a recent video interview, conducted through a translator, her parents said they weren't dreaming of international fame and fortune when they posted their first video of Nastya on YouTube on Jan. 25, 2016, two days before her second birthday. They just wanted to prove she was not fatally ill.

At the time, doctors in Krasnodar, a city of more than 700,000 resident in southern Russia where Nastya was born, believed she had cerebral palsy and might never speak. But their diagnosis, her parents said, was wrong.

When they first witnessed their daughter making significant verbal progress, they were overjoyed and wanted to capture it on film. They sent the resulting video to her doctors, to their relatives, and posted it online.

"We didn't expect anyone else to watch it," said Mr Radzinskaya. For months, not many people did. But as it turned out, not only could their daughter speak but she had a strong presence on screen. She could ham it up like a seasoned pro.

Eventually, one clip featuring Nastya playing with a batch of colourful "slime" (a beloved genre among toddler fans on YouTube) resulted in tens of thousands of viewers.

"It was unreal," said Mrs Radzinskaya. "We couldn't understand what was going on."

As Nastya's audience grew, the Radzinskayas applied for YouTube's partner programme, in which video creators get a cut of the revenue generated from the ads that the video-sharing giant automatically loads onto their channels.

For the first few months, they failed to top the US$100 minimum revenue threshold that YouTube creators must surpass before they start getting paid. But then, in the middle of 2017, they got their first check. Things grew rapidly from there.

Mrs Radzinskaya, an event planner by training, began writing scripts and coordinating filming schedules for the videos, which featured her daughter playing with dolls, exploring playgrounds and opening up "surprise eggs" (another YouTube favourite) to reveal the toys hidden inside.

Mr Radzinskaya, who ran a construction company, quit his day job and essentially became a full-time sidekick performer on Like Nastya.

Thick armed and tattooed, Mr Radzinskaya could pass for a goon in a Russian mobster flick. Over time, he and Nastya have developed a strong comedic rapport, which the Radzinskayas cite as the primary reason for their astounding popularity.

While other YouTube child performers tend to adopt the site's popular blogging style, speaking directly to viewers as they unbox toys or shop in a mall, Like Nastya videos usually involve short, episodic plots.

The storylines are simple enough for a 3-year-old to follow. Heavy doses of sound effects, jump cuts and slapstick humour are like sugar for young audiences, said Prof Heather Kirkorian at University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies cognitive development and media.

"It's like The Three Stooges," she said. "That plays really well with preschoolers."

During a trip through Southeast Asia in 2017, the family realised just how far their videos had travelled.

Children recognised them from YouTube and stopped them in public. In Malaysia, Mr Radzinskaya recalled: "They came up to us and said, 'Why aren't you in our language? We like watching you.'"

The Radzinskayas searched online for help to manage their newfound fame and eventually teamed up with Mr Baumel.

Along with a team of fellow Russian expats, Mr Baumel runs Yoola, a YouTube multichannel network based in Los Angeles, which specialises in maximising the attention paid to YouTube creators.

Part of Mr Baumel's skillset is to take a rising YouTube channel from one country and to repackage its videos to appeal to viewers around the world. The key, he says, is dubbing the videos into multiple languages and editing them to match the viewing habits of particular countries.

Among Mr Baumel's clients is SlivkiShow, a Russian YouTube account with 16 million subscribers, that posts baroque science experiments. (Typical video headline: "EXPERIMENT! WHAT IF you smoke 300 CIGARETTES!") After signing the performers on with Yoola, Mr Baumel set them up with an English channel that added 1 million subscribers in three years, and a German channel that is nearing 2 million.

For Like Nastya, Mr Baumel applied the same formula, helping the family create channels in English and German and doubling their sales within four months.

The Radzinskayas now employ a staff of about 20 people, some of whom are responsible for finding people to translate and dub the videos into the various languages. The translators hail from all over the world, and many of them are native speakers so they can understand local cultures and slang. The translators send in the audio, and a team of technicians then sync it up with the action onscreen. After the main Russian channel, Nastya's four biggest offshoots are in English, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese.

Frequent posting also matters, and that's where it can get tricky working with a performer who is still in elementary school.

Nastya attends a private school five days a week. She also studies Mandarin and Spanish in her free time, according to her parents, and takes lessons in singing, acting and dancing.

Every weekend, her family films two videos. During the week, they shoot one more.

"She is very talented; she is very creative," Mr Radzinskay said. "Out of every situation, out of everything, she is able to make something unusual."

The parents say they won't make their daughter work any more than she wants to and that a large portions of her earnings are set aside in a separate bank account.

"It all depends on her, truly," Mr Radzinskaya said.

"If she'll wake up tomorrow and say she doesn't want to do it, we won't do it."

As every top YouTube performer knows, you can never rest for too long. There is always a tireless crop of up-and-comers, cranking out videos, hungry to supersede them.

In recent weeks, another child star has supplanted Nastya in some YouTube popularity rankings. Along the way, SocialBlade showed Nastya suddenly trailing behind Kids Diana Show. The channel stars a Ukrainian girl who is 6 years old.

[neuroma-neuroses]

Repeat this three times fast: translabyrinthine resection for an acoustic neuroma

Here’s the bit of this whole brain tumour adventure I was really dreading: actually getting the bloody thing out.

Reuben and I got married two weeks after I was told my tumour wasn’t malignant, an emotional feat in itself. The statistical improbability of a tumour I’d had for at least ten years becoming symptomatic during my wedding is mind-boggling. The neurosurgeons had given me hardcore steroids to reduce the swelling on my brain, but I delayed taking them before the wedding as they could have nasty side-effects. Gargantuan, messy, vain mistake. I spent my wedding night in the emergency room, vomiting up champagne and hors d'oeuvre due to brain swelling. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to change out of my wedding dress before this adventure.

After a flurry of CT scans and terse conversations with my neurosurgical team, they confirmed my swelling had gotten worse and were unsure about signing me off to travel for my honeymoon. An agreement was eventually reached, whereby I acknowledged the danger of travelling to a far-distant land cast back many decades in medical technology known as ‘New Zealand’. I spent much of my honeymoon guzzling anti-nausea medication, unable to sleep due to the steroids and dreaded the ending of the trip. I knew that as soon as I got back, the cogs would begin to turn and the surgery would be close at hand.

During our honeymoon, we went to Wanaka’s Puzzling World, which had its own tilted room. As a preface to the room, they had a huge sign saying IF YOU HAVE BALANCE ISSUES, DO NOT ATTEMPT THE TILTED ROOM. Well, I had a tumour on my balance nerve. What transpired was one of the weirdest sensations of my life. It felt like my head was on backwards. Reuben had the foresight to film it.

My mum called me the minute we landed, exalting that we were on Australian, tumour-eradicating soil once more. I steeled myself for the frantic phone call, telling me my surgery date.

Then...nothing.

The insurmountable wait before this huge surgery was harrowing from a mental health perspective, but not for the reason you’d expect. I was told my surgery was category one as the tumour had gotten so big it was pressing on my brainstem, but then faced a solid month with no contact from my medical team. I had cancelled all jobs, so I had nothing to distract me. The wait was excruciating.

I tried to keep myself busy, but by this point my tumour was interfering with my everyday life: I could barely walk, was constantly nauseated and dizzy so was mostly bed bound. As though my physical state wasn’t enough, my anxiety disorder decided life could get a bit spicier too. Anxiety is a physical manifestation of the fear that something bad is lurking off in the distance: sweaty palms, racing heart, shortness of breath, a dark shape moving in the water on the horizon. I knew something bad was around the corner, I just didn’t know when it would strike.

I called the hospital everyday; the admin people got sick of me pretty quickly. ‘No, we’ve not assigned your case yet. WE’LL contact YOU when it happens.’

I just sat at home all day, every day, too sick to move around much, willing that phone to ring with every cell in my body. I just wanted the surgery done and dusted, not as a looming spectral presence on the horizon. The pain of the wait seemed so much more intolerable than what I was about to go through.

Being creative seemed to take all my strength and happiness and I didn’t have any left. My picture book ideas were left half-finished, illustrations half-done. I cried to Reuben every day. I was unsure if the surgery was happening in months or a few short days. The cherry on top was the medication cocktail I had to take. The anti-inflammatory drug I was on, dexamethasone, increases cortisol in the body, so I was in perpetual fight or flight mode, one long, excruciating panic attack.

All of my medications for the acoustic neuroma, artfully placed. I call this piece ‘Having a Brain Tumour: My Pharmacist Now Knows Me By Sight’.

Finally, FINALLY, I got a call to meet the ENT team involved in the procedure.

The consultant was brusque and efficient in the way that people whose time is highly compensated seem to be. ‘Your chance of dying or stroke is 1 in 100,’ he told me point blank.

I had a big, gulpy cry in corridor outside his office, which he happened to walk in on. Reuben later told me that was good, ‘You convinced him you were taking it all seriously’. He was full of these inner workings of the mechanisms of the hospital, which were all highly political and cutthroat.

The cogs were finally in motion. Over next two weeks, I was at the hospital nearly everyday after a month of no contact: MRIs, CT scans, neuro meetings, MDT follow ups, clinic meetings, pre-admission clinic...it was never-ending. I sat in waiting rooms for over 30 hours. Finally, I got given a date: 17th of February.

That morning, I was oddly tranquil. I made a plant watering schedule for Reuben. I dressed in my favourite Gorman dress. My parents met me at the hospital at 6am, having gotten up at 4am to make it from their country house. My dad had died of a head-related cause ten years ago in the same hospital. I had to walk the same steps I had taken then through the hospital atrium, when the doctors had told us he could die at any time and I hadn’t wanted to be in the room for it.

In a waiting room, after barely a minute together with my family, I was saying goodbye to them. I had to change into a hospital gown. My rings were sticky-taped to my fingers. I was calm, joking with the nurse about how I didn’t drink or smoke. The bruque consultant appeared again and drew a big arrow on the right side of my neck, marking out the tumour.

It was only as I was wheeled into a small anteroom and the nurses began to congregate and talk to each other instead of me and I knew it was on. My breathing hitched up. The anesthesiologist misjudged his cannula. My blood was everywhere. He cast about wildly for a common topic to discuss as this all got mopped up.

‘Do you like dogs?’

I felt myself laugh-crying.

The hubbub around me ceased and I realised I was alone in the anteroom. If I were to be praying to a god to spare my life, this is when I’d do it, I thought. But I was too scared even for that.

The anesthesiologists returned and wheeled me into the surgical theatre, chatting about ice-bars. I tried to tell them about the amazing one in Queenstown. The next thing I remember is clasping each of my sisters’ hands as I lay in bed, then being very grumpy that someone had the audacity to take me from my comfy bed into a CT scan. I opened my eyes: everything was skewed 90 degrees anti-clockwise. I slept solidly for two days, finally awakening to be told it took 13 hours, had all gone okay but I’d lost my hearing.

I can barely remember the first fews days after surgery. I recall my mum being by my side always, I recall vomiting a lot (a cut balance nerve will do that to you). On the third day after the surgery, I was sitting up in bed and joking about the hospital food. I was discharged after five days.

Post op two days. So much blood and iodine!

I recuperated remarkably fast. I didn’t have any CSF leaks or major complications apart from them having to leave a portion of the tumour behind. I was particularly worried about the pain associated with the procedure and how wretched I would feel afterwards. Honestly, it was bearable and a lot less horrific than I expected. The wound on my stomach from the fat transfer used to patch the tumour resection has been the most painful surgical site!

My tummy post op week two. SO FLIPPING PAINFUL. 

The after effects of the surgery have been more or less what I expected: my dizziness is still persistent like before the operation, but I’ve noticed that I’m not falling over every two steps anymore. Hopefully the dizziness will improve; I’m certainly doing enough physiotherapy! I’m adjusting to the hearing loss slowly, which isn’t helped by the fact that I have raging tinnitus in my dead ear.

I’ve observed the surgical after effects with the detached curiosity of a kid with a science experiment. Oh, I can only taste bitter things on my right side now? Weird! Only the right side of my face is aching like it has been bruised? Strange! I can only cry from one eye now? Cool!

One week post op

Two weeks

Three weeks feat. cat

One month

Five weeks

Apart from intermittent aching which is usually dulled by the painkillers I’m still on, the operation site itself has been numb for five weeks now, which feels very odd. It also feels strangely tight, like they didn’t spare me enough skin when they were stitching me up. I had trouble lifting and lowering my head and mentioned so to one of the ENT surgeons, who cheerfully rejoined that that specific muscle had to be cut the restitched during the surgery. I’d found this to be the most annoying surgical after effect; it feels like I have a painful neck crick if I engage that muscle in the slightest. 

The brace that held my head in place for the 13 hours of the operation left painful indentations on my forehead which I’d read about in others’ accounts. In the first few days after the surgery, their pain annoyed me more than anything else. It looks like they may scar now.

One of the brace wounds. Annoying bugger.

I sustained a second degree facial paralysis during the surgery as the tumour was wrapped so tightly around my facial nerve they ended up leaving a bit in there to preserve it. The paralysis has nearly resolved itself! For a few weeks after the operation, my smile was very wonky. Now it’s only noticeable if I’m tired or putting lipstick.

Two weeks post op, wonky smile!

Five weeks post op, somewhat straight smile! Now, I need my dexamethasone chipmunk cheeks to deflate please.

The slow pace of recovery is also very boring to me. I thrive on stress, with a million plates in the air at all times, so having no purpose but to heal has been a very strange experience.Mostly I just feel like I’m recovering from a nasty flu; all wibbly and wonky and fatigued. I’m slowly picking up work again in my fifth week post op, but I’m being kind to myself and not adding too much pressure to get better right away.

[fardell24b]

Rise of Weirdness - Part 20

January 1, 1958

In Oxford, the Fog dissipates. However, the weirdness around St. Hilda's remains.

February 22, 1958:

Egyptian leader Hamal Abdel Nasser proclaims the United Arab Republic (UAR) in Cairo, demanding the withdrawal of Anglo-French Union troops,...

March 26, 1958 On the outskirts of Omaha, Nebraska, a second humming stone is discovered.

April 4, 1958:

Actress Lana Turner is killed by reputed mobster Johnny Stompanato in Los Angeles, California, triggering a debate on the issue of women's rights, sparking national controversy,....

April 27, 1958 There is a confrontation between an American and a Soviet submarine over a submerged artefact of suspected Atlantean origin.

May 3, 1958:

Marcel Roche, Venezuelan Association for the Advancement of Science, utilises inhumane radiation experiments against the Yanomami and Ye'Kwana Indians, in an effort to exploit the creation of Transformed into a military force in the Orinoco Basin, Venezuela, sparking international condemnation,.....

June 3rd, 1958 :

Beginning of the Dragon Hunt in Auvergne after the disparition of several children.

June 7, 1958:

Scientist Walter Tallman commits suicide in London after secretly being exposed as a "Transformed",...

June 9, 1958 :

Haitian Jacquerie; Haitian hougans unleash a zombie uprising in Port au-Prince, Haiti, threatening to overthrow the government in a coup d'etat,...

June 30th, 1958 :

The Dragon is finally located in the extinct volcan of the Puy de Dôme. The children are retrieved safe and unharmed.

July 6th, 1958 :

Establishment of the Initiative de Communication Inter-espèces after communications with the Dragon of the Puy fail miserably. While there is no doubt the Dragon of the Puy has at least human intelligence, it is physically incapable of communicating with the humans.

August 28, 1958:

Chinese forces launch a brutal military crackdown on Formosan nationalists in Taipei, shocking human rights observers,...

September 18th, 1958:

Winchester Tragedy. A young witch named Laura Neverton, after taunting by bullies, releases a massive burst of magical energy. The resulting explosion destroys half of Winchester High School (Winchester, Maryland), causing massive casualties (up to 100 dead). Laura herself survives, and flees the town in terror. The area around the school (up to four blocks away) is affected by the release of energy, creating strangeness that would be noted by nightfall.

It was early in the morning, but the Winchester Library of Magic was already busy, with more than a dozen people browsing the shelves. Theodore James was one of those customers. He had returned a copy of The Lord of the Rings – Words of Power Edition and was about to look for a copy of World Book Encyclopedia: Sumeria when she entered. Laura Neverton, the girl he had a crush on. She looked as she always did, with her long dark blonde hair obscuring the left side of her face and pale green eyes focused on the ground in front of her.

“Hi, Laura,” he said.

“Hi,” Laura said.

'Strange,' he thought. She usually said more than that. He would later regret not saying anything more, but he was too nervous.

Laura noticed Theodore saying 'Hi,' but she didn't respond as she usually would. She was preoccupied with what had happened the day before. They had been taunting her. Again. She just wanted to be left alone! She placed the book she was returning on the desk.

“Did you like it?” the Librarian asked.

Laura shrugged. “Yes,” she answered.

It must have sounded sad because the Librarian asked. “Are you OK?”

Laura wasn't sure how to answer. However, she was sure it wasn't the Librarians business. “Yes!” she lied. She was sure that if Theodore had asked, she would have told him everything, but he didn't.

The Librarian didn't press. “How can I help you?” she asked.

“Do we have Maskelyne's Analysis of the Sumerian Inscriptions?” Laura asked.

“I'll check,” the librarian said. She opened the filing cabinet. “Winchester Library: Do we have IMBIL Mask 1949-4012-A-O? Locate!”

The cabinet glowed and the index cards floated out and swirled around. Laura was sure the Librarian was showing off! Soon the index cards placed themselves back where they were.

“Sorry, we haven't got it.”

“Then how did you know the code?” Laura asked.

“I had read it some years ago, back in Philly.”

“Oh!” Laura said. “Nevermind.”

“Wait! I could get it for you. It would take until lunchtime via Spellspace.”

“I see,” Laura said. She was grateful for the fact that information could be shared over long distances by magic, but she wished that the bandwidth would be greater.

“So you want me to print off a copy?” the Librarian asked.

“Yes,” Laura answered.

However, events were going to conspire such that she wouldn't be able to be at the Library of Magic at lunch time...

Miriam Wells, Librarian of Magic, watched as Laura Neverton left the Library. She was sure there was something wrong there. But she couldn't help if she didn't want to share. Later, she would regret no pressing. As it was, she quickly dismissed the thought as a few more patrons came up to borrow books.

Winchester High School, a normal high school. Little did those attending know, that wasn't going to be true for much longer. Certainly, Laura didn't as she slunk towards the school from the Library of Magic, along various laneways and tree covered streets.

Nor did Theodore, as he walked to the school by a more direct route.

Nor did Helena Williams, one of those who would be later be called 'mean girls'. She met her friends, fellow cheerleaders Lucy Ballard and Erin O'Malley shortly before school. Together, they made up one of the most exclusive cliques in the school. To their face they were the 'Tops', but Helena knew that some of the other students called them 'The Posh Meanies'. She hated that nickname. “Hi, Luce,” she said to Lucy, in a commanding tone.

“Hi, Laya,” Lucy said. The two had been friends since before Kindergarten.

“I think I've found it,” Helena said.

“The Hidden Library for Winchester?” Erica asked. “Are you sure?”

Helena glared at Erica. She was sure. “I was in East Park shortly before sunset and I saw movement in some bushes. I went over and  saw some sort of distortion in the layout of the area. The Library is there alright. I even saw some kids emerge from the strange thicket with books.”

“Sounds right,” Lucy said.

“It could just be a secret hiding place,” Erica said with a shrug.

“What about the distortion?” Helena asked.

“Could be a coincidence,” Erica said.

“Nevertheless, this afternoon I will go back and see,” Helena said. Little did she know that her own actions would scupper her chances...

As Laura entered the school via a rear entryway she had a sudden sense of dread. It stopped her cold. She wondered if she should truant to avoid them. After a few more moments, she decided that it wouldn't be worth it to truant just because of a sense of dread. Little did she know that this moment would lead to the event later that morning that would be a defining moment in world history, and massive regret for the rest of her life. She calmed herself and plunged into the school...

Thomas Allen, history teacher, sighed as he arrived at his classroom ten minutes before the Homeroom bell. It was more difficult each year as the District wanted  more information on how each student was progressing in their studies. He took a sip from his coffee, hoping that the classes would be better than the previous day.

Theodore arrived at the school at the same time as this, and met his best friend, Benjamin Samuels. “Hi Theodore,” Benjamin said.

“Hi Benjamin.”

“What's wrong?” Benjamin asked.

“I ran into Laura on the way to school,” Theodore said, not mentioning the Library of Magic, as he was sure Benjamin didn't know about it.

“And you didn't say anything?”

“I said 'Hi, Laura,' but it's what she didn't say...”

“What didn't she say?”

“She didn't say my name,” Theodore said. “She usually says my name.”

“You're reading too much into that,” Benjamin said.

“She also seemed more... down.”

Benjamin was then silent. Theodore was shore he didn't know what to say to that. “It can't be too bad, right?”

“Still, something is wrong.”

“I still think you're reading too much into something.”

“Maybe.”

Laura paused as she approached the corridor with her locker. Bitter experience had taught her that location was the most likely place she would be ambushed. As she turned the corner, her heart was racing. Adrenaline was racing, she was ready to flee. (She didn't want to fight!) She saw... nothing. The coast was clear. She dashed over to the locker.

Laura had got her books from her locker. She closed it, and then heard a sound... Heart racing faster than earlier, she jumped 180 degrees dropping her books in the process. There were a few other students, but they weren't those she was afraid of. Two of them turned in her direction as they heard the books hit the floor. “Are you OK?” one of them asked.

“Yes!”

[athena29stone]

How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project Case Study

Mark Wise on episode 223 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

A district is assessing itself with a massive project for 800 eighth graders. No grades. Just learning and sharing. Despite worries that it wouldn’t work – it has been working for years and is just getting better. Learn about the Global Challenge Project with Mark Wise.

Jennifer Gonzalez is updating her Teachers Guide to Technology for 2018. With more tools and updated information. Sign up now.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project is an Example

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e223 Date: January 3, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with Mark Wise @wisemancometh about the Global Challenge Project. He’s an educator in New Jersey.

What is the Global Challenge Project? So Mark tell us, what is the Global Challenge Project?

Mark: The project is a week long experience with eighth graders who try and solve a real world global problem basically in four days, present their solution to an outside group of adults who then judge their performance. The winning teams get to Skype their solutions to real experts in the field the following day.

Vicki: Wow! So you just run this at your school? Or are your students collaborating with students in other schools?

Mark: It’s just within the school, but we have 800 eighth graders across two schools.

Vicki: Wow.

Mark: All 800 are taking part in this, during this one week in June that takes place after the math final and before the class trip to Hershey Park.

Vicki: Wow. So this is a full day thing. So it’s sort of cross-curricular?

Mark: This is cross-curricular. It takes place during Team Time. Our middle school, like many other middle schools, have teams made up of Language Arts, Social Studies, Science and Math. During that time, students are working on this project.

Vicki: So about how long is that time, at your school?

Mark: Give or take, about four hours a day.

Vicki: Wow! So you literally pretty much have half a day for four days for the students to come up with these challenges and present.

Give us an example of one of the winning projects.

How the “winning” works

Mark: Well, first of all, winning is with a small “w” and what we do is this:

Everyone gets their first choice of what they want to work on. We have lots of different options for kids, depending upon their area of interest or the kind of medium that they want to work in.

You know, we have kids who are really into social media, and they have an opportunity to work with clients to design their website or Twitter campaign or Facebook page or text outreach.

And we have kids that are kind of into the Makerspace movement, and if they want to design a water filtration system for Nepal, or design something to help Syrian refugees in any part of their journey whether they want to make them more comfortable or safer or to better acclimate to new surroundings, they can design something.

Or for those kids that are interested in hunger, or women’s issues, or child nutrition — they really have a myriad of options with which to pursue their own particular passion for helping people.

Once kids select that, we then randomly group the kids into teams of five. The teams are mixed across different teams, so they might be working with kids they’re very familiar with.

Again, we include every single kid, so we have children who are Resource Room kids, and Gifted and Talented kids, and kids who love school, and kids who hate school, and kids who “this is their passion,” and kids who never thought of social studies or any kind of global development as an interest. They’re all working together on a team.

So the adults only see the end product. They have no idea who these kids are, and they’re scoring them on several different rubrics, and ultimately deciding which group project or development plan or website or whatever it may be, that they would want to fund or hire and those teams go forward to actually Skype with the real world experts.

How Has the Project Evolved?

Vicki: So Mark, how long have you been doing this project, and how has it changed over time?

Mark: We’ve been doing it about nine years. It started with a pilot team in each school, and it’s grown to now it’s every team in the eighth grade is doing it. We started with only having one choice, and now we have, you know, eight sort of “big buckets” of choices, and within there, there are thousands of choices that kids can make. So it’s really expanded.

We also started with a few experts that were able to Skype, and now we have close to 250 students Skyping across ten time zones with sixty Skype sessions all in one given day.

Vicki: Wow. It sounds like so much to coordinate, Mark.

Mark: It’s a lot to coordinate. Yep.

Vicki: (laughs)

But it’s grown over time. You didn’t start at the level you’re at right now.

Mark: That’s correct. It’s grown over time.

How the District Uses This Project to Assess Itself

The other sort of interesting thing about this is that in and of itself, it would be a cool project but what we’re doing is using it really as an assessment of the district, not of the students.

In fact, the students aren’t graded for this. This was a big leap for our teachers. They thought that students wouldn’t be motivated to work if they weren’t being graded, especially the second-to-last week of their eighth grade experience.

So that was a big lift, but we found out that kids will work, and kids will be excited about their learning, especially if they feel that there’s an authentic audience in mind. They’re doing it not only for the judges that come in, but also for the opportunity to Skype and share their research with people in the field.

How Do The Teachers Feel About the Project?

Vicki: Now I’ve seen some schools that have done big projects at the end of the year, and sometimes the teachers say, “You know what? I’m too tired to do such a big project.”

How do your teachers feel about it?

Mark: There are probably folks that feel that way.

The nice thing about this project is that it’s totally student-run. In fact, there’s no teacher scaffolding whatsoever.

All the work is in the up front. We have a website that has all the tasks, all the rubrics, all the websites, tutorials — all that kind of stuff.

Students are totally self-directed. So once they hit the ground running, let’s say on Monday morning, teachers are sort of stepping out of the way. All they’re doing, since they’re not grading, is looking at how well the students are collaborating. Each year we get data on that.

The Data That is Collected And How It Is Used By the District

We also collect data on their problem-solving skills, their research skills, their communication skills — things that we’re interested in as a district to see how we’re doing and how we’re improving or not improving over time.

Then we use that data to then inform our other programs and our other types of assessments to see how we can improve those. So this acts almost like a physical for the district, more than anything else.

What Has the District Learned?

Vicki: So Mark, what’s the most shocking thing that you’ve learned through your data collection through this process?

Mark: Wow. Shocking, huh?

Well, I think it’s shocking to me — I was a believer, but I think more to other teachers — how hard kids will work without a grade, and how motivated they’ll be if they feel invested in the learning. That’s one.

Two is that we need to step back and not over-scaffold students. One of the questions you asked in the beginning was “How has this changed over time?” In the beginning, we used to do a pretty heavy lift in terms of mini-lessons and guided instruction to the students of how to do PowerPoints, how to present, all these little things in terms of how to make their presentation better and more palatable to the judges. And while we got good results, we realized that it was very heavily coached… and we weren’t getting REAL data.

So we stripped it back completely to the point now, where there’s almost no teacher involvement whatsoever unless there’s some kind of interpersonal flare-up. But other than that, the kids are totally on their own. The students really appreciate having the project and the content and the final product be 100% produced by them and within their locus of control.

How Can a School or District Take and Adapt This Project?

Vicki: So Mark, what is a way that a school could get started quickly, implementing their own Global Challenge Project?

Mark: Well… that’s a fair question. The one thing is that we could provide the website for folks because one of the nice things about the website is that all of the materials are here.

You know, part of it is that in creating this, and so many options, and the rubrics — it was somewhat of a heavy lift. But after nine years, I feel like it’s in a pretty good shape. Teachers or administrators could grab this on their own and start to “just add water.” You know, use it as they see fit.

The larger step is to get it to be something more than just a cool project — in that, is it something that the school or the district is interested in doing to get the results and to look critically at how they’re teaching and how they’re assessing to really make some changes district-wide.

If not, it’s a cool project, and it’s easily adoptable and adaptable.

But to me the real power is looking at the results to then drive some other changes in the district.

So for example, in the grade below we used to do a traditional research paper, and now we realized that to sort of help prepare them for this kind of project, we switched over to kids creating documentaries and making presentations about their documentaries.

That’s been a lot more powerful for students, and it’s also helped prepare them for this kind of performance assessment. Those kinds of things have been happening across the board, both below eighth grade and above eighth grade because they see what eighth graders are capable of, left to their own devices. They also see where the holes are, in terms of what our kids are capable of, or are able to perform. We want to make some changes so that they’re better.

So it’s really been more of a stake in the ground for the kind of assessment that we want to see, that has then had the ripple effect of impacting other assessments and teaching and learning K-12.

Vicki: This is a remarkable project, a great topic for Wonderful Classroom Wednesday, this Global Challenge Project. You’ll definitely want to check the Shownotes for this.

Let me just challenge you, “How are you assessing your district? How are you assessing your school?”

Take a look at this, the website, and discuss this fantastic case study for all of to discuss in staff meetings to determine how we are truly assessing our school. It’s not just about the test.

So, remarkable educators, I think we have a great project for us to think about.

  Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

Mark Wise serves as the K-12 Supervisor for Curriculum and Instruction for West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District in New Jersey. Previously, he taught high school history and government in New Jersey as well as in Washington D.C. Mark did his undergraduate work at UMASS Amherst in political science/history and received his Master’s in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Mark’s work led to his being recognized as the 2010 Visionary Supervisor/Director of the Year for New Jersey along with receiving CTAUN’s Best Practices Award in 2007 and 2010. Mark is committed to prepare students for success in the 21st century by designing and implementing curriculum that forges interdisciplinary connections, embeds global competencies, and requires students to utilize technology in a meaningful way in order to solve real-world problems and address authentic audiences.

Blog: http://markwise8.wixsite.com/globalchallenge

Twitter:@wisemancometh

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some links in this show are affiliate links. This means that if you choose to purchase that a small commission will be paid to me at no additional cost to you. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project Case Study appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/assess-district-global-challenge-project-case-study/

[aira26soonas]

How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project Case Study

Mark Wise on episode 223 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

A district is assessing itself with a massive project for 800 eighth graders. No grades. Just learning and sharing. Despite worries that it wouldn’t work – it has been working for years and is just getting better. Learn about the Global Challenge Project with Mark Wise.

Jennifer Gonzalez is updating her Teachers Guide to Technology for 2018. With more tools and updated information. Sign up now.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project is an Example

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e223 Date: January 3, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with Mark Wise @wisemancometh about the Global Challenge Project. He’s an educator in New Jersey.

What is the Global Challenge Project? So Mark tell us, what is the Global Challenge Project?

Mark: The project is a week long experience with eighth graders who try and solve a real world global problem basically in four days, present their solution to an outside group of adults who then judge their performance. The winning teams get to Skype their solutions to real experts in the field the following day.

Vicki: Wow! So you just run this at your school? Or are your students collaborating with students in other schools?

Mark: It’s just within the school, but we have 800 eighth graders across two schools.

Vicki: Wow.

Mark: All 800 are taking part in this, during this one week in June that takes place after the math final and before the class trip to Hershey Park.

Vicki: Wow. So this is a full day thing. So it’s sort of cross-curricular?

Mark: This is cross-curricular. It takes place during Team Time. Our middle school, like many other middle schools, have teams made up of Language Arts, Social Studies, Science and Math. During that time, students are working on this project.

Vicki: So about how long is that time, at your school?

Mark: Give or take, about four hours a day.

Vicki: Wow! So you literally pretty much have half a day for four days for the students to come up with these challenges and present.

Give us an example of one of the winning projects.

How the “winning” works

Mark: Well, first of all, winning is with a small “w” and what we do is this:

Everyone gets their first choice of what they want to work on. We have lots of different options for kids, depending upon their area of interest or the kind of medium that they want to work in.

You know, we have kids who are really into social media, and they have an opportunity to work with clients to design their website or Twitter campaign or Facebook page or text outreach.

And we have kids that are kind of into the Makerspace movement, and if they want to design a water filtration system for Nepal, or design something to help Syrian refugees in any part of their journey whether they want to make them more comfortable or safer or to better acclimate to new surroundings, they can design something.

Or for those kids that are interested in hunger, or women’s issues, or child nutrition — they really have a myriad of options with which to pursue their own particular passion for helping people.

Once kids select that, we then randomly group the kids into teams of five. The teams are mixed across different teams, so they might be working with kids they’re very familiar with.

Again, we include every single kid, so we have children who are Resource Room kids, and Gifted and Talented kids, and kids who love school, and kids who hate school, and kids who “this is their passion,” and kids who never thought of social studies or any kind of global development as an interest. They’re all working together on a team.

So the adults only see the end product. They have no idea who these kids are, and they’re scoring them on several different rubrics, and ultimately deciding which group project or development plan or website or whatever it may be, that they would want to fund or hire and those teams go forward to actually Skype with the real world experts.

How Has the Project Evolved?

Vicki: So Mark, how long have you been doing this project, and how has it changed over time?

Mark: We’ve been doing it about nine years. It started with a pilot team in each school, and it’s grown to now it’s every team in the eighth grade is doing it. We started with only having one choice, and now we have, you know, eight sort of “big buckets” of choices, and within there, there are thousands of choices that kids can make. So it’s really expanded.

We also started with a few experts that were able to Skype, and now we have close to 250 students Skyping across ten time zones with sixty Skype sessions all in one given day.

Vicki: Wow. It sounds like so much to coordinate, Mark.

Mark: It’s a lot to coordinate. Yep.

Vicki: (laughs)

But it’s grown over time. You didn’t start at the level you’re at right now.

Mark: That’s correct. It’s grown over time.

How the District Uses This Project to Assess Itself

The other sort of interesting thing about this is that in and of itself, it would be a cool project but what we’re doing is using it really as an assessment of the district, not of the students.

In fact, the students aren’t graded for this. This was a big leap for our teachers. They thought that students wouldn’t be motivated to work if they weren’t being graded, especially the second-to-last week of their eighth grade experience.

So that was a big lift, but we found out that kids will work, and kids will be excited about their learning, especially if they feel that there’s an authentic audience in mind. They’re doing it not only for the judges that come in, but also for the opportunity to Skype and share their research with people in the field.

How Do The Teachers Feel About the Project?

Vicki: Now I’ve seen some schools that have done big projects at the end of the year, and sometimes the teachers say, “You know what? I’m too tired to do such a big project.”

How do your teachers feel about it?

Mark: There are probably folks that feel that way.

The nice thing about this project is that it’s totally student-run. In fact, there’s no teacher scaffolding whatsoever.

All the work is in the up front. We have a website that has all the tasks, all the rubrics, all the websites, tutorials — all that kind of stuff.

Students are totally self-directed. So once they hit the ground running, let’s say on Monday morning, teachers are sort of stepping out of the way. All they’re doing, since they’re not grading, is looking at how well the students are collaborating. Each year we get data on that.

The Data That is Collected And How It Is Used By the District

We also collect data on their problem-solving skills, their research skills, their communication skills — things that we’re interested in as a district to see how we’re doing and how we’re improving or not improving over time.

Then we use that data to then inform our other programs and our other types of assessments to see how we can improve those. So this acts almost like a physical for the district, more than anything else.

What Has the District Learned?

Vicki: So Mark, what’s the most shocking thing that you’ve learned through your data collection through this process?

Mark: Wow. Shocking, huh?

Well, I think it’s shocking to me — I was a believer, but I think more to other teachers — how hard kids will work without a grade, and how motivated they’ll be if they feel invested in the learning. That’s one.

Two is that we need to step back and not over-scaffold students. One of the questions you asked in the beginning was “How has this changed over time?” In the beginning, we used to do a pretty heavy lift in terms of mini-lessons and guided instruction to the students of how to do PowerPoints, how to present, all these little things in terms of how to make their presentation better and more palatable to the judges. And while we got good results, we realized that it was very heavily coached… and we weren’t getting REAL data.

So we stripped it back completely to the point now, where there’s almost no teacher involvement whatsoever unless there’s some kind of interpersonal flare-up. But other than that, the kids are totally on their own. The students really appreciate having the project and the content and the final product be 100% produced by them and within their locus of control.

How Can a School or District Take and Adapt This Project?

Vicki: So Mark, what is a way that a school could get started quickly, implementing their own Global Challenge Project?

Mark: Well… that’s a fair question. The one thing is that we could provide the website for folks because one of the nice things about the website is that all of the materials are here.

You know, part of it is that in creating this, and so many options, and the rubrics — it was somewhat of a heavy lift. But after nine years, I feel like it’s in a pretty good shape. Teachers or administrators could grab this on their own and start to “just add water.” You know, use it as they see fit.

The larger step is to get it to be something more than just a cool project — in that, is it something that the school or the district is interested in doing to get the results and to look critically at how they’re teaching and how they’re assessing to really make some changes district-wide.

If not, it’s a cool project, and it’s easily adoptable and adaptable.

But to me the real power is looking at the results to then drive some other changes in the district.

So for example, in the grade below we used to do a traditional research paper, and now we realized that to sort of help prepare them for this kind of project, we switched over to kids creating documentaries and making presentations about their documentaries.

That’s been a lot more powerful for students, and it’s also helped prepare them for this kind of performance assessment. Those kinds of things have been happening across the board, both below eighth grade and above eighth grade because they see what eighth graders are capable of, left to their own devices. They also see where the holes are, in terms of what our kids are capable of, or are able to perform. We want to make some changes so that they’re better.

So it’s really been more of a stake in the ground for the kind of assessment that we want to see, that has then had the ripple effect of impacting other assessments and teaching and learning K-12.

Vicki: This is a remarkable project, a great topic for Wonderful Classroom Wednesday, this Global Challenge Project. You’ll definitely want to check the Shownotes for this.

Let me just challenge you, “How are you assessing your district? How are you assessing your school?”

Take a look at this, the website, and discuss this fantastic case study for all of to discuss in staff meetings to determine how we are truly assessing our school. It’s not just about the test.

So, remarkable educators, I think we have a great project for us to think about.

  Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

Mark Wise serves as the K-12 Supervisor for Curriculum and Instruction for West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District in New Jersey. Previously, he taught high school history and government in New Jersey as well as in Washington D.C. Mark did his undergraduate work at UMASS Amherst in political science/history and received his Master’s in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Mark’s work led to his being recognized as the 2010 Visionary Supervisor/Director of the Year for New Jersey along with receiving CTAUN’s Best Practices Award in 2007 and 2010. Mark is committed to prepare students for success in the 21st century by designing and implementing curriculum that forges interdisciplinary connections, embeds global competencies, and requires students to utilize technology in a meaningful way in order to solve real-world problems and address authentic audiences.

Blog: http://markwise8.wixsite.com/globalchallenge

Twitter:@wisemancometh

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some links in this show are affiliate links. This means that if you choose to purchase that a small commission will be paid to me at no additional cost to you. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project Case Study appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/assess-district-global-challenge-project-case-study/

[ralph31ortiz]

How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project Case Study

Mark Wise on episode 223 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter

A district is assessing itself with a massive project for 800 eighth graders. No grades. Just learning and sharing. Despite worries that it wouldn’t work – it has been working for years and is just getting better. Learn about the Global Challenge Project with Mark Wise.

Jennifer Gonzalez is updating her Teachers Guide to Technology for 2018. With more tools and updated information. Sign up now.

Listen Now

Listen to the show on iTunes or Stitcher

Stream by clicking here.

***

Enhanced Transcript

How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project is an Example

Link to show: www.coolcatteacher.com/e223 Date: January 3, 2018

Vicki: Today we’re talking with Mark Wise @wisemancometh about the Global Challenge Project. He’s an educator in New Jersey.

What is the Global Challenge Project? So Mark tell us, what is the Global Challenge Project?

Mark: The project is a week long experience with eighth graders who try and solve a real world global problem basically in four days, present their solution to an outside group of adults who then judge their performance. The winning teams get to Skype their solutions to real experts in the field the following day.

Vicki: Wow! So you just run this at your school? Or are your students collaborating with students in other schools?

Mark: It’s just within the school, but we have 800 eighth graders across two schools.

Vicki: Wow.

Mark: All 800 are taking part in this, during this one week in June that takes place after the math final and before the class trip to Hershey Park.

Vicki: Wow. So this is a full day thing. So it’s sort of cross-curricular?

Mark: This is cross-curricular. It takes place during Team Time. Our middle school, like many other middle schools, have teams made up of Language Arts, Social Studies, Science and Math. During that time, students are working on this project.

Vicki: So about how long is that time, at your school?

Mark: Give or take, about four hours a day.

Vicki: Wow! So you literally pretty much have half a day for four days for the students to come up with these challenges and present.

Give us an example of one of the winning projects.

How the “winning” works

Mark: Well, first of all, winning is with a small “w” and what we do is this:

Everyone gets their first choice of what they want to work on. We have lots of different options for kids, depending upon their area of interest or the kind of medium that they want to work in.

You know, we have kids who are really into social media, and they have an opportunity to work with clients to design their website or Twitter campaign or Facebook page or text outreach.

And we have kids that are kind of into the Makerspace movement, and if they want to design a water filtration system for Nepal, or design something to help Syrian refugees in any part of their journey whether they want to make them more comfortable or safer or to better acclimate to new surroundings, they can design something.

Or for those kids that are interested in hunger, or women’s issues, or child nutrition — they really have a myriad of options with which to pursue their own particular passion for helping people.

Once kids select that, we then randomly group the kids into teams of five. The teams are mixed across different teams, so they might be working with kids they’re very familiar with.

Again, we include every single kid, so we have children who are Resource Room kids, and Gifted and Talented kids, and kids who love school, and kids who hate school, and kids who “this is their passion,” and kids who never thought of social studies or any kind of global development as an interest. They’re all working together on a team.

So the adults only see the end product. They have no idea who these kids are, and they’re scoring them on several different rubrics, and ultimately deciding which group project or development plan or website or whatever it may be, that they would want to fund or hire and those teams go forward to actually Skype with the real world experts.

How Has the Project Evolved?

Vicki: So Mark, how long have you been doing this project, and how has it changed over time?

Mark: We’ve been doing it about nine years. It started with a pilot team in each school, and it’s grown to now it’s every team in the eighth grade is doing it. We started with only having one choice, and now we have, you know, eight sort of “big buckets” of choices, and within there, there are thousands of choices that kids can make. So it’s really expanded.

We also started with a few experts that were able to Skype, and now we have close to 250 students Skyping across ten time zones with sixty Skype sessions all in one given day.

Vicki: Wow. It sounds like so much to coordinate, Mark.

Mark: It’s a lot to coordinate. Yep.

Vicki: (laughs)

But it’s grown over time. You didn’t start at the level you’re at right now.

Mark: That’s correct. It’s grown over time.

How the District Uses This Project to Assess Itself

The other sort of interesting thing about this is that in and of itself, it would be a cool project but what we’re doing is using it really as an assessment of the district, not of the students.

In fact, the students aren’t graded for this. This was a big leap for our teachers. They thought that students wouldn’t be motivated to work if they weren’t being graded, especially the second-to-last week of their eighth grade experience.

So that was a big lift, but we found out that kids will work, and kids will be excited about their learning, especially if they feel that there’s an authentic audience in mind. They’re doing it not only for the judges that come in, but also for the opportunity to Skype and share their research with people in the field.

How Do The Teachers Feel About the Project?

Vicki: Now I’ve seen some schools that have done big projects at the end of the year, and sometimes the teachers say, “You know what? I’m too tired to do such a big project.”

How do your teachers feel about it?

Mark: There are probably folks that feel that way.

The nice thing about this project is that it’s totally student-run. In fact, there’s no teacher scaffolding whatsoever.

All the work is in the up front. We have a website that has all the tasks, all the rubrics, all the websites, tutorials — all that kind of stuff.

Students are totally self-directed. So once they hit the ground running, let’s say on Monday morning, teachers are sort of stepping out of the way. All they’re doing, since they’re not grading, is looking at how well the students are collaborating. Each year we get data on that.

The Data That is Collected And How It Is Used By the District

We also collect data on their problem-solving skills, their research skills, their communication skills — things that we’re interested in as a district to see how we’re doing and how we’re improving or not improving over time.

Then we use that data to then inform our other programs and our other types of assessments to see how we can improve those. So this acts almost like a physical for the district, more than anything else.

What Has the District Learned?

Vicki: So Mark, what’s the most shocking thing that you’ve learned through your data collection through this process?

Mark: Wow. Shocking, huh?

Well, I think it’s shocking to me — I was a believer, but I think more to other teachers — how hard kids will work without a grade, and how motivated they’ll be if they feel invested in the learning. That’s one.

Two is that we need to step back and not over-scaffold students. One of the questions you asked in the beginning was “How has this changed over time?” In the beginning, we used to do a pretty heavy lift in terms of mini-lessons and guided instruction to the students of how to do PowerPoints, how to present, all these little things in terms of how to make their presentation better and more palatable to the judges. And while we got good results, we realized that it was very heavily coached… and we weren’t getting REAL data.

So we stripped it back completely to the point now, where there’s almost no teacher involvement whatsoever unless there’s some kind of interpersonal flare-up. But other than that, the kids are totally on their own. The students really appreciate having the project and the content and the final product be 100% produced by them and within their locus of control.

How Can a School or District Take and Adapt This Project?

Vicki: So Mark, what is a way that a school could get started quickly, implementing their own Global Challenge Project?

Mark: Well… that’s a fair question. The one thing is that we could provide the website for folks because one of the nice things about the website is that all of the materials are here.

You know, part of it is that in creating this, and so many options, and the rubrics — it was somewhat of a heavy lift. But after nine years, I feel like it’s in a pretty good shape. Teachers or administrators could grab this on their own and start to “just add water.” You know, use it as they see fit.

The larger step is to get it to be something more than just a cool project — in that, is it something that the school or the district is interested in doing to get the results and to look critically at how they’re teaching and how they’re assessing to really make some changes district-wide.

If not, it’s a cool project, and it’s easily adoptable and adaptable.

But to me the real power is looking at the results to then drive some other changes in the district.

So for example, in the grade below we used to do a traditional research paper, and now we realized that to sort of help prepare them for this kind of project, we switched over to kids creating documentaries and making presentations about their documentaries.

That’s been a lot more powerful for students, and it’s also helped prepare them for this kind of performance assessment. Those kinds of things have been happening across the board, both below eighth grade and above eighth grade because they see what eighth graders are capable of, left to their own devices. They also see where the holes are, in terms of what our kids are capable of, or are able to perform. We want to make some changes so that they’re better.

So it’s really been more of a stake in the ground for the kind of assessment that we want to see, that has then had the ripple effect of impacting other assessments and teaching and learning K-12.

Vicki: This is a remarkable project, a great topic for Wonderful Classroom Wednesday, this Global Challenge Project. You’ll definitely want to check the Shownotes for this.

Let me just challenge you, “How are you assessing your district? How are you assessing your school?”

Take a look at this, the website, and discuss this fantastic case study for all of to discuss in staff meetings to determine how we are truly assessing our school. It’s not just about the test.

So, remarkable educators, I think we have a great project for us to think about.

  Transcribed by Kymberli Mulford

kymberlimulford@gmail.com

Bio as submitted

Mark Wise serves as the K-12 Supervisor for Curriculum and Instruction for West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional School District in New Jersey. Previously, he taught high school history and government in New Jersey as well as in Washington D.C. Mark did his undergraduate work at UMASS Amherst in political science/history and received his Master’s in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Mark’s work led to his being recognized as the 2010 Visionary Supervisor/Director of the Year for New Jersey along with receiving CTAUN’s Best Practices Award in 2007 and 2010. Mark is committed to prepare students for success in the 21st century by designing and implementing curriculum that forges interdisciplinary connections, embeds global competencies, and requires students to utilize technology in a meaningful way in order to solve real-world problems and address authentic audiences.

Blog: http://markwise8.wixsite.com/globalchallenge

Twitter:@wisemancometh

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some links in this show are affiliate links. This means that if you choose to purchase that a small commission will be paid to me at no additional cost to you. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post How to Assess Your District: The Global Challenge Project Case Study appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

from Cool Cat Teacher BlogCool Cat Teacher Blog http://www.coolcatteacher.com/assess-district-global-challenge-project-case-study/

[eminperu]

On the Value of Being Challenged: Defining my ideals through one million rhetorical questions (sorry)

“We’re afraid she’s not being challenged enough.” I think the first time this phrase was applied to me, an examiner pulled it out of a very standard toolbox for talking about kids like me, at a conference regarding my placement exam results for entrance into the gifted program. To be fair, it was also a sugar-coated explanation of why Mrs. Meyer couldn’t stand my arrogant first grade ass (in my defense, she refused to call on me in class anymore because I KNEW THE ANSWERS. Yeah, Mrs. Meyer, let’s not go to Applebee’s when we’re hungry BECAUSE THERE IS FOOD THERE). It’s also the justification I learned to rely on when I didn’t do stuff because I didn’t want to do stuff, like the time I tested out of Mrs. Whitsell’s math class because she played too much Enya and favored the boys, or got sent out into the hallway in fifth grade for working ahead in the book during the lesson (that was a terrible punishment, I finished my work in a cool ten and chatted with people passing by). Let me be clear, I know I’m not anything special—Berkeley made sure I knew that. But even though I’m no Cindy Crawford (guys, she studied chemical engineering at Northwestern with a reported IQ of 154, check your biases), being “smart” has been arguably the most central and defining characteristic I have. While I’m not sure I’ve always felt adequately academically “challenged” in all my pursuits, I’ve also never worried that I was not developing myself in some way. [Warning: I’m not going to try to be modest in this post. I’m trying to honestly reflect, so just deal with it.]

This week (and by this week I mean the week I started writing this post a month ago…eek), I’ve had two coworkers from my last school tell me about a few students who have said really nice things about how much they missed me. Both of the students are absolute rascals, the kind who really hated school until the year I had them in my class. I love those kids. I love knowing that I excel at forming relationships and reaching “behavior” kids. I remember when Jason finally got an 89% on one of my science tests last year and bought in. I remember how excited Deon would get to do a job for me (run a note that said “Mr. Fields please make Deon do something physical for the next eight minutes then send him back”) as a reward for sitting through a whole guided reading. I know I’m a good teacher. I use my creativity and my intelligence every second of every day, topped maybe only by empathy and ability to connect with people. For the last four years, I’ve also clung to the self-righteous smug cloud I get from saying I am a teacher in low-income schools. Teachers work hard, plus I get an element of altruism when I drop the zipcode of the schools I teach in. Apparently, “teacher” has burrowed its way into my identity in a pretty significant way. Is teaching my thing? Is helping people my thing?

I know work ethic isn’t my thing. I know that. I’ve never been one to happily do things for sake of doing them—generally speaking, I’m about the destination and the journey can go fuck itself (is it starting to become apparent what Mrs. Meyers was on about?). But I do like to do things that matter. And I do like for people to think I am smart and capable. Does that mean I need to be challenged to feel successful? Do I find intrinsic value in completing tasks that I deem worthy?

It seems fair to say I couldn’t really know if I valued being challenged until I felt I wasn’t anymore. Teaching used every single bit of my mental and emotional energy and drew on all of my skills (threw a lot of my weaknesses in my face as well, to be honest). Now, my VIP Kid lessons don’t even require me to view them before teaching them and, while I think bartending definitely draws on a a lot of my strengths, it also isn’t exactly a high cognitive workload. I find myself jumping to grasp those little moments—when my manager says I can do my job better than him, when my teaching boss jokes that my half-sarcastic corrections of him will either get me fired or promoted on my first day, when my 15-year-old tutee loses his shit over finding out that I went to Berkeley—this self-satisfaction at proving my intelligence to others seems a little new and a lot douchey.

Working from home rocks, but it also kind of sucks. I wake up, I teach online, then it’s 9 am and I have the rest of my day ahead of me. My fingers seem to automatically begin to take me to Netflix or Facebook after my grueling three hour workday. I enjoy watching Friends. I like laying out in the park. But why would I feel so much more accomplished if I had reorganized all my clothes? Or painted a picture? If I had completed a full day’s work (not just a few hours), I think I’d feel totally justified in not accomplishing anything “productive” afterwards. I didn’t anticipate that how I chose to spend this precious free time I dreamed about, talked about, moved 6,000 miles away for, would ever affect that drastically how I see myself. And let’s be clear that 6pm-on-a-Thursday-still-at-school-Emily would backhand me for even THINKING of complaining.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m pretty happy here. I have made a lot of friends and my time is 100% my own. With that, though, comes a lot of time to think. I want to make sure my time here is balanced and I leave feeling like I got something out of it. I got a couple in-person teaching jobs because, for fuck’s sake, I need to put on pants and leave the house before 7pm–also, they hand teaching jobs out like candy here if you look like you speak English. And I feel really satisfied after those lessons, although I’m teaching people with loads of money that want to use their English to make more money. However, I have to limit myself. I started working 10-11 hour days just because I could. I partially came here to write, and I did a whole lot more of that in Europe than I seem to be getting done here. I also applied for a really simple writing job and didn’t get it, which sucked. There could have been a million reasons why, but I had to submit a short writing sample so I’m guessing I’ve subconsciously swallowed this pass as a failure and am letting it sit heavy in my stomach (and confidence). I’ve started a book, but I also found that any grant applications I can submit won’t be due for quite a while (and would commence the following year). I’m scared I don’t have the self-motivation to pursue the things I love with the vigor they require. I could see myself easily falling into a pretty content life of teach, nap, cook, bartend, repeat. Is that enough? Before this year, I would have said yes. Here I am in this bratty millennial dilemma: wanting to be recognized for being exceptional; but lounging in the comfort of not putting myself out there for something I’m sure someone smarter/more diligent will get. Another factor at play: if I were able to live this lifestyle in San Francisco around all my best friends and the all-around greatest people in the world, I may feel differently. I’ve always thought that relationship-based—not not achievement-based success—appealed to me. As long as the people I love are happy and involved in my life, I’m happy. Of course, I say say that while also having always pretty much achieved things in a linear, predictable, and temporally-appropriate manner.

The flip side of this is that it’s kind of cool to be working just for money now. Before, I was teaching and the factor stopping me from blowing all my money was being too tired, not not having it. I saved a bit, and it really wasn’t a concern, priority, or consideration (especially not when deciding what line of work to go into, obviously). Now, I measure how many activities I should do based on what I made that day. “Nah, I don’t wanna buy those jeans, that’s three VIP KID classes!”

Basically, in summary, I take issue with the phrase “Find your passion and you’ll never work a day in your life.” My last job was fulfilling beyond measure, but it necessitated that I work my ASS OFF each and every day. I think I may have placed myself in a paradox—doing what I love makes it so I can’t enjoy my life, but if I don’t do it I won’t feel fulfilled.

This is dumb. I came here to bartend, be a barista, sherpa some alpacas, sleep in and workout. Fuck feeling fulfilled, right? Ugh, what’s that whole thing with the grass being green, again? Anyway, back to Neflix.

Goals: CARVE OUT MY WRITING TIME AND HOLD MYSELF TO IT. Make a plan for what will make me feel productive during my week at home. Keep eating healthy and working out (I have made time for that, and that feels good).

Updates: My friend Feras visited and I finally go to travel around Peru! Cusco was absolutely beautiful, a quaint history-rich town splayed up and down the Andes mountains. The architecture, the air, the size—it was a welcome break from Lima. I was also taking on A LOT of classes and shifts at the bar, so it was similarly a welcome break from working. Machu Picchu was absolutely incredible as was our dinner at Maido; I’ll post about those soon.

I’m headed back to Kansas for about three weeks to see my (whole!!) family and I’m so excited. I think the reset will be really nice. I’m going to hold myself accountable to reflecting on my experience so far and channeling that into a productive life plan for the next few months (even if that plan means staying largely unproductive).

[rickhorrow]

Top Sports Tech + 15 to Watch 9517

• If anyone out there still doesn’t think that sports is all about passion and joy, you weren’t paying attention this Labor Day weekend. We saw thrilling come-from-behind wins in college football (UCLA overcoming a 34 point deficit to stun Texas A&M; #25 Tennessee defeating home town Georgia Tech in double overtime after a second half two touchdown deficit) and tennis (Argentina’s ailing Juan Martin del Potro, down two sets and two match points to Austrian Dominic Thiem and rallying to win in five sets, buoyed by an international chorus of singing fans; Madison Keys digging deep in the 3rd set to put four American women in the U.S. Open quarterfinals for the first time since 2002). More importantly, we saw sports responding in a huge way to help victims of Hurricane Harvey, via tens of millions of dollars in team, league, and individual pledges. While sports alone can’t rebuild homes or eliminate the very real natural and political threats to our world, it remains a constant reminder of the power of the human spirit, and the collective might of teamwork and cooperation.

• The LPGA makes a return to the Hoosier State. The LPGA travels from Portland, Oregon, to the capital city of Indiana this week as a world-class field of 144 professionals from 26 different countries descends on Brickyard Crossing Golf Club for the inaugural Indy Women in Tech Championship presented by Guggenheim. This is the Tour’s first stop in Indiana since the ninth Solheim Cup in 2005, where the U.S. captured the first of three consecutive victories, the only time that has been accomplished in Solheim Cup history. The IWiT Championship will be the LPGA’s final domestic event until the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Fla., in November. It is also the last event before the Tour travels to France for the fifth and final major championship of the season, The Evian Championship. The 2017 LPGA schedule includes the addition of four new tournaments and an increase of $4.35 million in total official prize money. More to the point in Indianapolis, the IWiT Championship offers opportunity, in the form of a week’s worth of educational events, to the thousands of women attending who are looking for new or expanded careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.

• Power of Sports, presented by Group One Thousand One and hosted by Rick Horrow, is a new 30-minute television show making its national debut on September 4 on FOX Sports Southwest and other participating FOX Sports RSNs. Each month’s show will share inspiring stories of people, organizations, and communities connecting through sports to create opportunities for youth to join teams and find the motivator they need to go to school, stay in school, and prepare for life beyond the classroom. Group One Thousand One CEO Dan Towriss commented, “In the realm of sports there are so many inspiring and untold stories that need a place to be told. We hope that Power of Sports provides the platform to celebrate these amazing stories, both professional and amateur, with the simple goal of inspiring others to step forward. Earlier this year, our team made the decision to go all in with support for Fields & Futures, a local nonprofit in Oklahoma City. In collaboration with the local school system and community, they are working together to create amazing opportunities for kids to participate in sports and belong to something bigger than themselves. Power of Sports has been created to tell these stories and to remind us there are children all across the country who, if given a chance, want to get in the game. As we consider stories for Power of Sports, we are humbled by the sacrifice and investment we see happening everywhere we go.

• Despite Hurricane Harvey not reaching Dallas, the Cowboys-Texans game in Arlington was cancelled to allow the Texans to “return to their families in Houston.” The storm has been so devastating in Houston thus far that football became an afterthought for the Texans. Any one of the 40,000 people who initially purchased a game ticket is eligible for a refund, or they can choose to donate the funds to Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. The game was the fourth and final preseason scrimmage for the Texans, so the team felt that missing the last game would not adversely affect their season-long performance. The move drew much praise from media across the country, as many noted this was the “right decision.” The Texans are scheduled to open the regular season against the Jacksonville Jaguars; they made it clear that “not only do they want to play at NRG Stadium on September 10 if at all possible, but they believe it’s important for the city that they play at home.” At present, it’s looking good for the Texans and their fans to start their season at home.

• According to SwingbySwing.com, one industry that has taken a significant regional toll from Hurricane Harvey is golf. Harvey has devastated South Texas, causing a humanitarian disaster along with the storm surge while causing businesses to shut down due to flooding. Since golf courses are all outdoors and cannot really be protected from the elements, many regional courses have flooded completely, with water expected to sit for days after the rain stopped. “I just can’t even start imagining how much damage there will be,” said Steve Timms, President and CEO of the Houston Golf Association. “Obviously, it’ll be significant. One thing we do is that greens and tees are built up out of the 100-year floodplain to protect them. But this is not a 100-year event. It’s more like a 500-year event.” The flooding is so bad in some areas that tall trees look more like bushes since only their top leaves stick out above the water. At the Golf Club of Houston, home to the Shell Houston Open and the University of Houston golf teams, collegiate coaches used kayaks to rescue their teams’ expensive electronic training equipment from the course, which was under close to nine feet of flood water.

• Just over a year ago, Los Angeles pulled out all stops to lure an NFL team back to Southern California. Flash forward to today and America’s second-biggest city has two teams. But neither has had a warm welcoming from the Los Angeles fan base. According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the “Fight for L.A.” between the Rams and Chargers is not what many expected it to be, since the Chargers could not even attract enough fans to fill the 27,000-seat StubHub Center for preseason games. When the Chargers suited up for a preseason game against their crosstown foes at the Coliseum, they “ran onto the field to mostly boos in a mostly empty” stadium. Both teams have low expectations for the upcoming season, which means attendance across the board should be poor. It is “fairly clear that the Rams’ honeymoon is over – and the Chargers might never get one.” While wins will add fans, a huge subset of Los Angeles’ NFL fans still have hearts that belong to the Raiders, soon to relocate to a Las Vegas playground a mere four hours’ drive from L.A.

• With the regular season just around the corner, the BBC is preparing for the 2017-2018 NFL season across the pond. According to SportsBusiness Journal, BBC will show exclusive and extensive NFL coverage this season thanks to a new partnership between the British network and the NFL. “The NFL Show” will return this year, while exclusive coverage of the games featuring New Orleans Saints vs. Miami Dolphins at Wembley Stadium and the Dolphins vs. Cleveland Browns at Twickenham will be broadcast across England. “There will also be live coverage of Super Bowl LII on February 4.” “The NFL Show,” which will air on either Friday or Saturday nights on BBC One, will be complemented by “NFL This Week,” “rounding up all the action on Tuesdays on BCC Two.” Set to host the show is Mark Chapman, joined by New York Giants defensive back Jason Bell and two-time Super Bowl winner Osi Umenyiora. The expansion of BBC shoulder programming only continues to confirm one fact – the NFL is no longer just a novelty in the U.K. It’s a growing force.

• Sponsors of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics are gearing up for their time in the spotlight. According to Kyodo, the 2020 Olympics are a “golden opportunity” for sponsors to showcase new technologies. Electronics maker Panasonic Corp. is currently trialing new technologies in hopes they will all be ready to fully roll out for the Games in a few years. The company wants to spread “omotenashi,” the Japanese spirit of hospitality, with its new “Green Air Conditioner” that sprays a “very fine and dry mist” into the air that evaporates quickly and lowers the temperature in a semi-enclosed space surrounded by a stream of air called the “air curtain.” Other new technologies being tested by Panasonic include air conditioners at bus stops and rest areas and robots that are capable of clearing dishes from tables and delivering drinks to customers at airports or hotel lobbies. Other companies are focusing more on the fan experience by developing new ways to interact and view the contests, such as Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp’s developing “immersive 3D telepresence technology.” Technology plays an increasing role in the business of the Olympics on and off the field of play – and it’s only a matter of time before esports are introduced as an official Olympic sport.

• Cleveland Cavaliers Owner Dan Gilbert has pulled the plug on a planned $140 million renovation project for Quicken Loans Arena. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Gilbert made the decision following months of battling over financing for the project. The renovations were designed to keep the 22-year-old arena competitive with other modern facilities around the NBA, as opposed to building a new arena from scratch as other franchises have elected to do. The plan would have created more bars, restaurants, and public gathering spaces. Community groups “opposed spending tax money on the upgrades.” With rising construction costs being one of the main reasons cited by Cleveland City Council Clerk Pat Britt, the Council accepted referendum petitions “submitted by a coalition that opposes Cleveland’s use of tax dollars for the upgrades.” Gilbert hoped that these renovations would ultimately help the Cavs land the 2020 or 2021 NBA All-Star Game. For now, that goal seems about as promising as a half-court shot at the buzzer.

• One unique thing about amateur athletics in the United States is the structure of collegiate sports. In most countries outside of the U.S., budding athletes simply “go pro” as opposed to attending a college to play competitively. That trend might slowly change though. According to the New York Times, NCAA President Mark Emmert visited Tokyo to “consult with government officials, sports industry leaders and at least 20 university presidents” about the Asian country’s desire to form its own collegiate athletics association. For many Division I universities around the U.S., investing heavily in the success of their athletics programs has proven to have significant benefits – from millions of dollars in profit to boosting admissions applications. If a system similar to the NCAA were to be adopted, Japan would “become one of the few countries outside the United States to establish an NCAA-type governing body for college athletics.” Don’t look for the NCAA system to see widespread worldwide adoption anytime soon, however. Few other countries offer the diverse array of sports, especially for women, that we see in the U.S.

• The Oakland Raiders are still years away from permanently moving to Las Vegas, but their presence is starting to spread east into Nevada. According to the Las Vegas Sun, Legends Hospitality is helping pave the way for a successful transition into Southern Nevada for the franchise. The hospitality group recently posted an ad for a suite sales manager for the Las Vegas Raiders via the company’s website. The involvement of Legends “in the universe of the Raiders became known officially in a July 13 presentation to the Las Vegas Stadium Authority board by Icon Venue Group.” In that presentation, Legends was listed solely as a sales and marketing partner, without any other details being given at the time. Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones own a large stake in Legends; Jones was also a big supporter of Raiders Owner Mark Davis in his push to move the team the Las Vegas.

• Playing in Jacksonville presents a unique twist for NFLers deciding whether or not to protest the National Anthem.  According to the Florida Times-Union, Jaguars players are “reluctant to stage a protest by sitting or raising a fist” during the anthem because of the fan base’s heavy military presence. “In military towns, you have to find a way to take a stance in your own way, speak for what you believe in,” said Jaguars Safety Peyton Thompson. “But you definitely don’t want to offend anybody on either side.” In this situation, “either side” refers to those speaking out against social injustice on one end, while the other comprises military supporters. Jags players have largely remained out of the headlines for any defiant actions during the National Anthem as a direct result of this situation, while other players around the league seem to be following the opposite trend when it comes to protesting.

• MLB and the China Baseball Association have formally extended their partnership with the intent to spread baseball across “the world’s most populous country.” According to Xinhua, the two sides first agreed to a partnership back in 2001, calling this a “partnership that benefits Major League Baseball…and sports in China as well.” MLB is trying to win over just a fraction of the 1.3 billion Chinese citizens, which could equate to tens of millions of new fans. To put that number in perspective, the population of the United States is a mere 323 million. “I have said many times that baseball is perfectly suited for China,” commented MLB Vice President for Asia-Pacific James Small. “And there are 1.3 billion people in China who are baseball fans, they just don’t know it yet.” A key part of the new partnership is utilizing MLB’s training expertise to grow and build a strong Chinese national team.

• Kevin Durant is dipping his foot into the technology world with his recent investment in start-up Rubrik. According to USA Today, the reigning NBA Finals MVP invested an “undisclosed amount,” becoming the most recent NBA superstar to make a “fast break for tech investment, partnerships and start-up equity.” Durant represented the cloud-data management start-up at the VMworld technology conference in Las Vegas recently. With his investment, Durant was also named a board adviser for advice on strategic marketing initiatives. Fellow Golden State Warriors stars Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala have also made tech investments in the past year. The two teammates recently held The Players Technology Summit for NBA players, which was meant to “bring together top leaders in the technology, venture capital and sports communities to exchange ideas and share expertise…” Curry is a co-founder of the marketing startup Slyce, while Iguodala has invested in Thrive Global and The Players Tribune.

• San Diego’s unnamed NLL expansion franchise has been bought by Alibaba Executive Vice Chair Joe Tsai. According to Bloomberg News, Tsai reportedly paid $5 million for the club, which many take to be the “precursor” to other American sports investments. NLL CMO Ashley Dabb declined to comment on the terms of the purchase when asked about them. Tsai recently “expressed an interest” in buying a stake in the Brooklyn Nets. The NLL is a budding league, with teams looking to build lacrosse-specific stadiums and plant expansion teams across the country. The average attendance has surpassed 10,000, which is “up 12% from the previous year.” Sources close to Tsai and the deal noted that the new owner may want to build a new lacrosse arena in San Diego’s East Village neighborhood. Tsai “joins Rams Owner Stan Kroenke as an NLL owner and it is likely NBA owners will become NLL franchisees in the coming years.” With the Chargers leaving town, look for many other pro sports entities to target San Diego as a market filled with restless sports fans who have disposable income to spare.

  • Tech Top Five

• NFLcommunications.com - Snapchat is changing the way sideline reporters do their jobs. For NFL teams around the country, new social media specialists are bringing fans a new experience that previously has not been seen on the football field. Today, Snapchat is being used before games to allow fans to see exactly what’s happening with their favorite players at all moments before kickoff. Fans can see them warming up on the field, putting on their equipment, and mentally preparing for the contest at hand. Over the course of the season, thousands of hours of content is loaded onto Snapchat by social media specialists for all 32 teams. From the NFL: “Additionally, Snapchat Live Stories will be produced for every NFL game during the season, including the Super Bowl, enabling millions of fans to engage with uniquely packaged NFL-centric video and photo content through Snapchat. Additional Live Stories will be produced for major NFL events such as the NFL Scouting Combine and the NFL Draft. Live Stories capture the energy and excitement from NFL games and events by featuring a mix of fan-submitted Snaps* and inside access content. By telling the story of the event from the many perspectives of fans, the League and its teams, these Live Stories take viewers into the experience. “

• Gigster - Michael Jordan is starting to make his way into the technology industry. Jordan has become one of multiple investors to lead the second round of large investors for Gigster, a platform to help freelance software designers and engineers complete project-based work. Gigster, founded in 2013, accumulated roughly $12 million in their first round of funding. The second group, including Jordan, is expected to donate close to $20 million for Round 2. Gigster co-founder Roger Dickey had this to say about his company's growth: “Since the invention of computers, new technologies have made programming languages exponentially higher level. These shifts, combined with the ‘future of work’ accelerants such as freelancing and AI, have changed software engineering dramatically and will continue to do so.” Jordan’s involvement is more than just his money. His public influence gives the Gigster brand legitimacy and it continues to assist with tech projects all over the world. In the end, having the Jumpman name behind you can do nothing but help.

• NFL.com - According to the NFL, Thursday Night Football game streaming will move from Twitter to Amazon. The move signifies the changing landscape as growth of online properties such as Amazon become a more well-rounded entity. Through an Amazon Prime membership, customers can now enjoy even more benefits and features that go much further than just free two day shipping. Amazon Prime perks include Amazon video, which will be used as the main platform to stream games every Thursday night during the NFL season. Amazon Video has been able to acquire premier games over the course of the NFL season that will lead to millions of projected viewers on Thursday nights alone. Their streaming rights acquisition shows that Amazon continues to make strides towards becoming a bona fide media powerhouse. 

• Sports Techie- Amazon continues to show its flexibility in Germany and Austria. Discovery Communications has come to an agreement with Amazon to stream its Eurosport Network through Amazon. The managing director of Amazon Channels Europe, Alex Green, had this to say in a statement about what this partnership means: “We are delighted to offer our millions of Prime members in Germany and Austria access to live premium sports, including Bundesliga football on Eurosport Player via Amazon Channels. At 4.99 Euros per month, with no long-term commitment and cancellable anytime, Prime members can enjoy Bundesliga matches and other premium sports at exceptional value and in the most flexible and easy way across all of their favorite devices and screens.” What does this mean for the U.S.? Continued growth in the streaming capabilities of Amazon and similar sites. We have seen Amazon already gain the rights to stream Thursday night NFL games, and those rights are only going to grow. Other sports such as the NBA and MLB could be looking at agreements with Amazon streaming services in the near future. This all could lead to more convenience for consumers looking for alternatives to traditional cable set-ups. 

• Sports Techie - NBC Sports is using the name recognition of Notre Dame Football to give international football fans a chance to see the storied football program play games live. NBC Sports Gold is offering the “Notre Dame Football Season Pass,” which will offer all seven home games live. The Full-season package costs $49.99 while the per-game package is $9.99. Portia Archer, VP, Direct-to-Consumer Services of NBC Sports Group, said in a statement: “We’re happy to bring Notre Dame Football fans around the world access to their team through this new offering from NBC Sports Gold…In addition, with the per-game purchase option, international fans of Notre Dame’s opponents can also watch their team take on the Fighting Irish at Notre Dame Stadium.” While this package is not available in the U.S., countries that can enjoy this package include: Austria, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K. With NBC Sports taking college football into the international realm, it will only be a matter of time before we see these negotiations expand into the Conference Championships and beyond.

[zaccomstockhuman-blog]

The Accident

I wish I hadn’t told macy what to do. We were just kids, trying to get a good life for ourselves. On days when when we didn’t have much to talk about we sometimes talked about our future. I had got the idea in my head that it was the perfect job. It didn’t require ten years of college like becoming a doctor would.

“I’ll give people shots for the flu. It’s a good job.”

“Yeah I think it’s a good ide-”

“I don’t do cutting into people. I can do anything else, not people.”

“..Where do you think we could work?”

“You can be a nurse anywhere. It’s easy. “

After high school I started working as a nurse and my best friend became a paramedic.

I wish I hadn’t become a nurse, but the money was important. Everyone needs money.  

Scalding hot protected in a layer of cuneiform golden ooze. burned black, brown, and red skin, the honey-mask that was not really protecting. It stuck to the skin like glue, forcing agonizing pain until we could pry or cut or wash it off.

I think the devil lives there in the honey, you can see him if you look close enough. The devil lives there but it is lifted up on the shoulders of the father of the son of the cousin of the holy ghost, well I don’t know the basics of religion. You can really see him, I can see something in the stuff, something with a soul.

A troupe of Apologists came in yesterday. You could tell which side they were on.

Burning the thin glaze through, burning the chests of the innocent, sinful creatures. They used to move freely along the banks of rivers or roads, like rabbits.

It still tastes sweet so they don’t stop. Even when their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends say to them: “don’t let it in”, they take more in, everyone crying their fucking faces off.

~~~

A Golden light filled ball in the sky- it’s not the sun, it’s moving across the night sky at eight o clock. What could it be? Was it some sort of new weapon invented by the soviets? It was probably a dream, right? My wife woke up, tugged at my sleeve. She asked, “honey, what’s going on?”. I told her I didn’t know, but we needed to get to the basement fast. We were in the stairway next to a window when I saw the ball of light again, this time it was just about to hit the ground a block away. I thought I saw something in it. I imagined the souls of the dead collected in it. When it hit the ground they went out flying. Gravel, pavement, and dirt was shooting everywhere, then our neighbor’s house destroyed and splinters coming our way, hitting her face. She was dead. There were people watching on the street before, but now everyone was gone. Were they all dead as well? No, I saw survivors in the corner of my eye. A crowd of people walking the same direction. They were moving toward a stunning, beautiful light emanating from the impact crater. Immediately, I wanted to have a look for myself. The light was a perfect color, looking like heaven’s gates had opened up right there  in the ground. I didn’t notice the screams coming from people who had walked into the mess. That beautiful light drew me in. I didn’t notice the stuff seeping into my skin and coating half of my face and arms.

A hand grabbed my shoulder- I turned around and there was a woman who looked like she must be a paramedic. I noticed two ambulances were pulled up to the scene. How long had I been there? It would have taken atleast 20 minutes for them to get here from the hospital. The paramedic directed me into an ambulance and I sat down. The pain started. It got so bad that I collapsed and lay writhing on the floor of the ambulance.  There were about five or 6 paramedics running around the neighborhood, trying to stop people from touching that glowing stuff. No one listened to them until they started yelling or grabbing. Soon the Ambulances and a truck they borrowed from jeff were full. We sped away toward the hospital.

I spent 12 days in the hospital healing. I don’t remember much of the first four days. I was in and out of reality, passing out every time I woke up. In one weird coma dream I was back in my house, except this time I knew what was going to happen. I couldn’t move. I tried to jump in front of the piece of wood flying towards Helena. But I couldn’t. In the next dream the same thing was happening except I was licking up a bunch of that golden glowing stuff from my arms. It tasted like maple syrup infused with drugs. I woke up every once in awhile for around 2 seconds at a time, just long enough to stare at the ceiling or catch a glimpse of someone near me. The dreams kept coming, It felt like an eternity. On the third day i woke up for longer than normal, probably a full minute, long enough to talk to someone. There was a nurse there taking care of me who was very gracious and kind. Although my first impression of her was fine, the next time I woke up was different. On the fourth day of my stay at the hospital i woke up while I was being moved to make space for another person to share my room. I got a chance to have a conversation with the nurse and get a good look at her. She was a fast talker and didn’t seem to care very much about what I was saying. It got a little annoying, but being in the hospital, I was grateful to be alive and healing. I wondered why they had to move someone into my room.. It wasn’t a very big room, and the hospital would usually be half empty in a town like this. Before I could come to any conclusions or ask the nurse, I fell asleep. Over the next few days, I was awake much more often, now taking naps rather than taking “wakes”. My arms and face still hurt like hell, but the doctor told me that they were able to remove the substance from my body, so I shouldn’t have any problems with it. I tried to ask the doctor what had happened, but he didn’t reply. The nurse told me to focus on resting and healing, then set a tray of hospital food on my bedside stand. Right as she was leaving I realized who she was. I exclaimed: “hey, weren’t you a paramedic before? I remember you saved me that night , I was walking toward the light.” Her expression changed completely. She went from a fake cheery but really annoyed look to a very sincere somber expression. “ I’m not really a paramedic. “ she said. “I fill in for the paramedics now.. Most of the originals died… or are injured too badly to work.” . The room fell silent, she stood there, looking completely empty. I felt like asking another question would be pushing her too far, but this one was really urgent: “what was it that killed all those people?”.

~~~

Worki Torki the muthafucking greatest. She was an engineer and scientist known throughout the gladdasphere for her accomplishments in biological energy. Torki’s research and development could probably be considered the most influential scientific work of the past 100 years. However, Torki fell into disrepute last year when she mistakenly released a dangerous experiment she was working on for the Hukdistani government. Using the “souls” of human brains, she was able to create a completely autonomous AI, capable of accomplishing feats no species could do alone. The discovery had huge implications: the ability to use human consciousness to power machines would increase our technological ability tenfold. Her research was about halfway through, and after 5 years of work, she had been able to create a containment method for souls, involving a highly volatile palladium-infused 0.0001 degrees kelvin liquid. This liquid would later be the cause of one of the most deadly incidents in the history of the gladdasphere.

On may 5th, 2018, about 210,000 humans died after the soul AI, energy source, goo, whatever you want to call it, was accidentally released. A carbon compression chamber in the north side of Torki-sana research station was beginning to overheat at 2:00, PM. According to eyewitnesses, the foreman on that deck was enjoying a late lunch with his superior when the chamber popped, at 2:14 PM. Workers were unable to seal the gap or turn off the valve in time to save the machinery, and soon conditions were too hazardous for anyone to go inside the room. Meanwhile, the main soulcantene in the central compartment of the research station was beginning to fail. The loss of carbon supply to the central board was causing extra strain on the other compression chambers, and soon all of the carbon compression chambers had been overworked to the point of destruction. When the carbon supply was diminished too much, the entire facility broke down, and the ectoplasm inside was released in an explosion. It travelled in space along black matter currents for two days. Our military failed to deploy interception ships fast enough, and it struck earth. Initial casualties numbered in the thousands, but the real killer was the golden soul ooze. It began to be sold by criminals as a new drug - very potent and addictive. Users had a 90% chance of death, but the confusion and misinformation caused by the earth people made it so that far too many humans ingested the substance without knowing it’s effects. Ingestion would cause severe chest pain and internal bleeding, followed by an intense desire to take more, followed by an increased effect, until death.

Many sources have speculated about the causes of the accident. Some theorize that the government orchestrated it all to further their own anti-science agenda. Although this argument can be appealing, I have to be realistic. All of the evidence supporting it is far too weak and circumstantial to be considered. I agree with people who say that we should not have invaded the Hukdistan sector, but It is very unlikely that the accident was created to incite the Hukdistan war.

Worki Torki  survived the disaster and returned to the Hukdistan home planet. She was given asylum there, and protection from the Federation. She was captured on may 24th, 2019, a full year after the incident. Today she is being held in federal prison while a trial goes on to determine her fate.

Federation officials are working on creating a plan to help earth humans without alerting them to our presence.

One thing is for certain: we have learned a lot from the accident. Today, work with supernatural forces like the souls of the dead is forbidden in all federation provinces, and more detailed regulations have been placed on deep space scientific research stations.

~~~

“It was the devil” She said. “It took Macy, and it took brian, and it took so many damm people.” “ I saw him, I keep seeing him, It was the devil.”

“Lol ok” I replied.

I told her not to give me orange jell-O anymore.