#Smart Web review

[brightpanel24]

Smart Web Solutions 2024 With Best Chat Bot’s Extra Convenient Facilities

[tremendoussuittimetravel]

Dockit Migrator: Effortless SharePoint Migration Solution

Introduction

Many users find Moving SharePoint data between platforms a major and complex operation. SharePoint Online (Office 365) and SharePoint version updates require complicated, time-intensive procedures. During the process, a large number of data items, custom workflows, and permissions need to be correctly transferred.

Dockit Migrator provides the ideal solution for many different use case scenarios. The features of this tool aim to simplify SharePoint migration and related processes while reducing time and workload. Vyapin also offers other similar solutions at an affordable price. Dockit Migrator manages all migration sizes from small to large enterprise operations without introducing unwanted complexities.

What is Dockit Migrator?

Dockit Migrator provides users a solution to transfer content between different SharePoint environments containing documents and lists with additional information between various SharePoint deployments. Dockit Migrator serves as a tool to transfer data between local File Shares, SharePoint deployments and SharePoint Online platform (Microsoft 365) and helps users to move between different SharePoint versions (like when users upgrade from SharePoint 2016 to SharePoint 2019).

Dockit Migrator provides an easy-to-use user interface that allows even migration staff without much technical background to move SharePoint content with ease. Through its intuitive interface, users can handle complex migration processes that will otherwise take longer times to complete, thanks to Dockit Migrator's advanced functions and features.

Why Choose Dockit Migrator?

Many organizations, such as those in Healthcare, Legal and Manufacturing, rely on SharePoint Migration tools like the Dockit Migrator for their SharePoint migration because of its numerous powerful features. The main features of Dockit Migrator include the following:

1. Dockit Migrator Moves All Content along With their Permission

Dockit Migrator serves as a complete file transfer solution that handles documents along with other associated elements. The software enables the complete movement of SharePoint sites alongside their lists and libraries together with metadata and permission elements. The functionality of the Dockit Migrator includes the correct transfer of all content along with custom workflows and user settings.

2. Before Migration Occurs: Perform an Ahead-of-Time Success Evaluation

The pre-migration assessment from Dockit Migrator runs its tests before any migration procedures begin. Dockit Migrator performs a pre-migration evaluation that uncovers potential issues that could affect the migration process later on. Using this tool enables you to prevent unexpected outcomes during the migration process by ensuring it completes without difficulties.

3. Incremental Migration to save time

Mass data transfers usually take up extensive amounts of time when performed in a single operation. Dockit Migrator allows incremental data migrations that transfer only changed or selected content  and updated metadata during successive phases of the migration process. The feature enables you to move only the essential data so you can cut down on lengthy migrations.

4. Easy to Use, Even for Non-Experts

Dockit Migrator simplifies the process of migrating complex SharePoint data assortments. Dockit Migrator delivers an interface that allows users without technical expertise to handle their migration process. The wizard takes you step-by-step through the process smoothly. Even without SharePoint expertise, you can easily execute the migration work. Vyapin Software's Dockit Migrator simplifies the process of migrating complex SharePoint data assortments, making it accessible for all users.

5. The Software Preserves Both Permission Structures and other Security configuration details Throughout Your Migration Process

The most challenging aspect of any SharePoint migration tool or its processes involves preserving  user permission structures together with other security configurations. With its secure permission and security settings migration technique, Dockit Migrator ensures smooth transition to your new SharePoint environment. Users can maintain content accessibility throughout the migration with no disruptions.

7. Supports Multiple SharePoint Versions

In addition to SharePoint 2007 and 2013, the product supports migration to versions 2016, 2019, and SharePoint Online. The product boasts excellent versatility to suit businesses that handle SharePoint data movement between various SharePoint platforms.

The user-friendly features of Dockit Migrator provide efficiency in your daily or routine SharePoint migration activities while remaining a non-disruptive process for your organization. Your SharePoint migration process becomes effortless with Dockit Migrator, which provides a robust solution that manages complete content movement along with security configurations and role permissions.

Your SharePoint migration benefits from Dockit Migrator's user-friendly design, which includes pre-migration analyses along with step-by-step document transfer options to streamline your process and minimize problems encountered in typical projects.

Conclusion

With Dockit Migrator, the process of moving SharePoint content remains straightforward and uncomplicated. This SharePoint Migration tool  from Vyapin provides extensive functionality, alongside a user-friendly UI and reliable customer support for your SharePoint Online migration projects. 

To conclude, Vyapin and its SharePoint Migration tool enable you to concentrate on business objectives because it manages complex  migration scenarios. Your migration process will also become more efficient using DocKIT migrator’s SharePoint migration planning features, which reduces the overall time and effort in the whole process.

[rigelmejo]

Some language learning apps:

Notifyword - free, closest I cpuld find to a free alternative to Glossika with the feature to upload your own sentences/decks/spreadsheets, and it makes audio using TTS and plays them. However I did not test it enough to see if it schedules new/reviews so you don't need to manage figuring all that out yourself. It has potential, I will check into the app again in a year.

Smart Book by KursX - free, used to be my favorite app to read novels as it could do parallel sentence translation, then something broke on my version and it crashed whenever I opened a novel. Now any chinese book I add epub or txt shows me a black screen, no text, making the app unusable. Its easier to read in the web browser now. Which makes me sad because this app was so good back when I got it. Then something broke and I haven't been able to fix it. I paid for premium for this app I liked it so much, I'm really sad I can't see text in books in it anymore. If anyone knows how to fix this problem please let me know? Maybe it's a txt file setting? But then why do the epubs also not load text? Anyway great app... if it works for you. Sadly its broken for me.

Live Transcribe - I don't use this enough. It transcribes what people say (or audio), then you can click to translate the text.

LingoTube - only free app I know where I can put in a youtube video link, and it will make dual subtitles/let me replay the video line by line (including repeating a loop on one line), click translate individual words. Excellent for intensive listening. I'm usually lazy so I just watch youtube and look up an occasional word in Google Translate or Pleco. But this tool is excellent for intensively looking a lot up in a video/relistening to particular lines.

Duoreader - basic collection of parallel texts. No options to upload files, but super nice for what it is. Totally free.

Chinese:

Hanly - a new free app for learning hanzi. Looks great, has great mnemonics and sound information and you can tell it was made with love/a goal in mind. It's still new though so only the first 1000 hanzi have full information filled out, making it more useful for beginners. As the app is worked on more, I'm hoping it will become more useful for intermediate learners.

Readibu - free, great for reading webnovels just get it if you want to read chinese webnovels. You can import almost ANY webpage into Readibu to read, just paste the url into the search. So if you have a particular novel in mind you may want to do that instead of searching the app's built in genres.

Pleco - free, great for everything just get it if you're learning chinese. Great dictionary, great (one time purchase) paid features like handwriting, additional dictionaries, graded readers. Great SRS flashcard system, great Reader tool (and free Clipboard Reader which is 80% of what I use the app for - especially Dictate Audio feature which Readibu can't do).

Bilibili.com app - look up a tutorial, it is fairly easy to make an account in the US (and I imagine other countries) using your email. The algorithm is quite good at suggesting things similar to what you search. So once I searched a couple danmei, I got way more recommended. Once I searched one manhua video, more popped up. Once I searched one dubbed cartoon, more popped up. You can easily spend as much time on this as you'd like.

Weibo - you can browse tags/search without an account. I could not make an account with a US phone and no wechat account. Nice for browsing tags/looking up particular topics.

Japanese:

Tae Kims Grammar Guide - has an app version that's formatted to read easier on phones.

Yomiwa - this is the dictionary app I use for japanese on android.

Satori Reader - amazing graded reader app for japanese with full audiobooks for each reader (which you can listen to individual sentences of on repeat if desired), individual grammar explanations for each part, human translations for each word and sentence. When I start reading more this is what I want to use. Too expensive right now unless I'm reading a bunch, as only the first chapter (or first few) of each graded reader is free. I would suggest checking out the free Tadoku Graded Readers first online, then coming to this app later.

[academicfever]

This is a good starting point but its not exhaustive by any means...

#Research 101: Part 1

##    How to find a good research topic?

It’s best to familiarize yourself with a discipline or topic as broadly as possible by looking beyond academia

Tips:

Be enthusiastic, but not unrealistic. For example, you might be tempted to throw yourself into finding out to what extent an entire economy has become circular, but it may already be challenging and tricky enough to find out which building materials are being recycled in the construction sector, and in what ways.

Be open-minded but beware of cul-de-sacs. You should always find out first whether enough is known about a topic already, or you might find yourself wasting a lot of time on it.

Be creative but stay close to the assignment. This starts with the topic itself; if one learning objective of the assignment is to carry out a survey, it isn’t helpful to choose a topic for which you need to find respondents on the other side of the world. One place where you can look for inspiration is current events. 

Although professors and lecturers tend to be extremely busy, they are often enthusiastic about motivated and smart students who are interested in their research field. You do need to approach them with focused questions, though, and not just general talk such as: ‘Do you know of a good topic for me?’ In many cases, a good starting point is the scholar themselves. Do a search on them in a search engine, take a look at their university web page, read recent publications,

In most university towns, you’ll come across organizations that hold regular lectures, debates, and thematic evenings, often in partnership with or organized by university lecturers and professors. If you’re interested in transdisciplinary research where academic knowledge and practical knowledge come together, this is certainly a useful place to start your search.

If you want to do interdisciplinary research, it is essential to understand and work with concepts and theories from different research fields, so that you are able to draw links between them (see Menken and Keestra (2016) on why theory is important for this). With an eye to your ‘interdisciplinary’ academic training, it is therefore a good idea to start your first steps in research with concepts and theories.

##How to do Lit Review:

Although texts in different academic disciplines can differ significantly in terms of structure, form, and length, almost all academic articles (research articles and literature reports) share a number of characteristics:

They are published in scholarly journals with expert editorial boards

These journals are peer-reviewed

These articles are written by authors who have no direct commercial or political interest in the topic on which they are writing

There are also non-academic research reports such as UN reports, data from statistics institutes, and government reports. Although these are not, strictly speaking, peer-reviewed, the reliability of these sources means that their contents can be assumed to be valid

You can usually include grey literature in your research bibliography, but if you’re not sure, you can ask your lecturer or supervisor whether the source you’ve found meets the requirements.

Google and Wikipedia are unreliable: the former due to its commercial interests, the latter because anyone, in principle, can adjust the information and few checks are made on the content.

disciplinary and interdisciplinary search machines with extensive search functions for specialized databases, such as the Web of Science, Pubmed, Science Direct, and Scopus

Search methods All of these search engines allow you to search for scholarly sources in different ways. You can search by topic, author, year of publication, and journal name. Some tips for searching for literature: 1. Use a combination of search terms that accurately describes your topic. 2. You should use mainly English search terms, given that English is the main language of communication in academia. 3. Try multiple search terms to unearth the sources you need. a. Ensure that you know a number of synonyms for your main topic b. Use the search engine’s thesaurus function (if available) to map out related concepts.

During your search, it is advisable to keep track of the keywords and search combinations you use. This will allow you to check for blind spots in your search strategy, and you can get feedback on improving the search combinations. Some search engines automatically keep a record of this.

Exploratory reading How do you make a selection from the enormous number of articles that are often available on a topic? Keep the following four questions in mind, and use them to guide your literature review: ■■ What is already known about my topic and in which discipline is the topic discussed? ■■ Which theories and concepts are used and discussed within the scope of my topic, and how are they defined? ■■ How is my topic researched and what different research methods are there? ■■ Which questions remain unanswered and what has yet to be researched?

$$ Speed reading:

Run through the titles, abstracts, and keywords of the articles at the top of your list and work out which ideas (concepts) keep coming back.

Next, use the abstract to figure out what these concepts mean, and also try to see whether they are connected and whether this differs for each study.

If you are unable to work out what the concepts mean, based on the context, don’t hesitate to use dictionaries or search engines.

Make a list of the concepts that occur most frequently in these texts and try to draw links between them.

A good way to do this is to use a concept map, which sets out the links between the concepts in a visual way.

All being well, by now you will have found a list of articles and used them to identify several concepts and theories. From these, try to select the theories and concepts that you want to explore further. Selecting at this stage will help you to frame and focus your research. The next step is to discover to what extent these articles deal with these concepts and theories in similar or different ways, and how combining these concepts and theories leads to different outcomes. In order to do this, you will need to read more thoroughly and make a detailed record of what you’ve learned.

next: part 2

part 3

part 4

last part

[ladyloveandjustice]

My Top 12 Favorite Anime of 2023 (and more)!

This was a great year for anime, so here's a long list of my top 12 (including some bonus great anime). If you get tired of clicking the review links, check out my anime overview collection for all of them here.  You can also check out my list of favorite manga here!

Some of these are ongoing, so consider those only a review of the first cour-- no official endorsement on the rest because it hasn't aired yet!

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury (Season 2)

When I listed G-Witch in last year's top anime list, I prayed the show wouldn't betray me. Fortunately, it didn't! Though the final half of the show was a bit rushed, it remained must-see, compelling sci-fi full of exciting twists and turns. And I adore the well developed romance between the robot-piloting protagonist and precious girl, Suletta, and her fierce fiancé, Miorine.  Whether you’re here for starcrossed queer lovers, robots wrecking each other, tense battles between opposing political factions, or morally-horrifying moms on a revenge spree, you’re in for a treat.

See my full review here.

Yuri is my Job!

Hime is roped into working at a cafe where the waitresses playact as students of the fictional all girl’s school from a beloved novel series. However, Hime finds her co-worker, Mitsuki, has an inexplicable grudge against her. Thus begins a tangled web of romance and wounded feelings among the girls in the cafe! Yuri is My Job seems like a fun comedy boasting a cast full of quirky lesbians, but then reveals itself to be a complicated and fascinating examination of performance- as it intersects with queerness, girlhood,  and the desire to be “likeable” and “cute". It's top-tier lesbian drama full of fraught relationships and it's absolutely worth a watch.

See my full review here.

The Apothecary Diaries (still ongoing, review is for the first cour)

Though it's still going, I have to sing the praises of this dazzling anime about a saavy apothecary who uses her medical expertise to solve the many murders and betrayals in the Emperor's palace. MaoMao is a fantastic lead, a poison-obsessed gremlin who's whip-smart, deadpan, and fun to follow. The Apothecary Diaries has intrigue, well-developed characters, and an impeccable atmosphere. It tells a great range of stories, from romantic triumph, to bittersweet tales of recovering from grief, to pure tragedies. I'm totally hooked.

See my full review here.

The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady

When Euphie is dumped by her fiance at a ball, the oddball princess Anis rescues her.  Euphie becomes Anis' assistant in her quest to develop magical tools. The girls also start to develop feelings for each other, while discovering a conspiracy among the nobility. I'm always desperately in need of cool lesbians having action-packed fantasy adventures, and Magirevo delivers. The characters grow in entertaining ways, we get to see them fight dragons in killer action scenes, and the romantic development is completely satisfying. It's a simple story at its core, but the lovable characters, joyous queerness and jubilant execution make it a great watch.

See my full review here.

Birdie Wing: Golf Girls' Story (Season 2)

In the second season of the anime about girls homoerotically golfing while dealing with the mafia and ludicrous family drama, Birdie Wing remains a bombastically absurd sports anime that is fun all the way through. Please come watch these girls get ridiculous sports  injuries, scream their super golf attacks, experience extremely extra plot twists--and be super gay with each other, of course. The finale didn't go quite as hard as I wanted (and the romance is more subtexual than I wanted), but you need to allow yourself to experience the madness of Birdie Wing.

See full review here.

Skip and Loafer

An endearingly dorky, earnest, and driven girl moves from her small town to Tokyo. While she struggles to adjust, she befriends a nice popular boy who's got some baggage. Skip and Loafer is a show that’s like a warm hug. It's sweet, entertaining and funny. It handles adolescent struggles with tender nuance. There's a emphasis on kindness, connection, and looking past stereotypes and misconceptions. It also includes a trans character who's treated with respect (and is a great character in general!) Let this show touch your heart.

See my full review here.

Undead Murder Farce

An immortal woman has had most of her body stolen by a mysterious man. Reduced to a head carried around by her maid, she teams up with a half-demon man to track the thief down while solving supernatural mysteries all across Victorian England.

This a fun, campy mystery series starring three asshole weirdo protagonists,  it’s bursting with supernatural creatures and literary references. We've got Sherlock Holmes, The Phantom of the Opera, Carmilla and more...along with a vampire murders and werewolf drama galore. UDM is a wonderful romp with stylish, slick direction... and it’s unexpectedly really gay.  I’m aching to see more of these scrappy misfits and their adventures.

See my full review here.

Migi & Dali

A story of twins who are pretending to be one kid in order to fool their foster parents and find out who killed their mother. It starts out as an utterly absurd comedy becomes a impressive and genuinely tense murder mystery that is incredibly moving at times, all while keeping up it’s signature brand of goofiness. There’s genuine commentary on abuse, the damage you can do to children by forcing perfection on them, the struggle of being a foster kid, grief and recovery and more. There's also some great character development. It's a weird one, but it's absolutely worth sticking with.

See full review here.

Pluto

Somebody is killing the most advanced robots in the  world and murdering humans alongside them. A robot detective is trying to track this killer down, but he might be compromised as well. Pluto is a tense, tense, tightly plotted robot murder mystery that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Through robots, it explores the idea of being a tool in a corrupt system, and tackles subjects like war, imperialism, and the nature of hatred. It's a masterful psychological thriller with stunning animation and a rich story.

See my full review here.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

This anime approaches the story of Scott Pilgrim and Ramona's seven evil exes from a brands new angle, and the results are great. We get a exploration of relationships and regrets, the messiness of communication and connection, the trials of becoming an adult, all with the signature goofy video game antics. Characters neglected in previous iterations finally get their due, new facets of the story are explored, queer relationships are delved into more, girls kiss...and it's all accompanied by phenomenal animation and a killer soundtrack.

See my full review here

Soaring Sky! Precure

Sora lives in a world called Skyland and wants to be a great hero. When rescuing the kidnapped baby princess, she falls through a portal to earth. There she meets her fellow magical warriors, and as Precure they protect the princess from the villains!

This vibrant, warm-hearted adventure got me back on the Precure train! This series boasts a lot exciting firsts for the franchise--the first official male cure, the first main cure that's eighteen years old- but above all, it has a lively team of characters with who have an entertaining dynamic and enjoyable individual journeys. It's often very funny, the baby has a surprisingly good character arc, and it's bursting with magical girl (and boy) goodness! It's also not afraid to give you an emotional gutpunch when you've been lured into a false sense of security by all the fun times. If you're new to Precure, this is a great jumping on point, and if you've watched it before, this is a series you won't want to miss.

I'm in Love with the Villainess

Rae is reincarnated as the heroine of her favorite dating sim. But she has no interest in romancing any of the boys- she’s head over heels for Claire Francois, the snooty villainess.

Villainess may not be as polished--storywise or animation-wise-- as these other entries. It's a messy series, it has plenty of problems...but it's also very fun, and it touched my queer little heart like no other. Queer people get to indulge in our imperfect faves too, and the silly shenanigans, blatant lesbian wish fulfillment, honest advocacy for queer people, and the joy and earnestness of the series works for me!

See my full review here.

Some Other Great Anime:

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (still ongoing, review is for the first cour)

Frieren is a long-lived elf who was once part of an adventuring party that saved the world from the Demon Lord. But now her friends are passing away and the world is moving on. She decides to retrace her old party's journey so she can understand what she's feeling.

Frieren is both an interesting examination of what happens after the hero saves the world, as well as a meditation on mortality, grief,  and the endless march of time. It takes you on a quiet, beautiful and sometimes touching journey though a pastoral fantasy world. There's some breath-taking animation and excellent atmosphere to enjoy.

See my review here.

Spy x Family (Season 3)

Spy x Family is pretty much staying the course from when we last checked in,  though this season gives a lot more attention to Yor, and I love the cruise ship arc and all the ridiculous fights she gets into a lot! That arc contains some of my favorite gags of the series too (like Loid’s  attempts to be a cool dad). Otherwise, Spyfam has settled into a series that intends to be around for the long haul, so don’t expect too much forward plot momentum. And Yuri (the man, not the genre) unfortunately still exists. Overall it was good season and remains a fun  adaptation. Yor, please step on me.

[boyfriendtodeathconfessional]

how does one find btd moots/friends, all my friends rn are kinda against freaks and im like undercover i just want friends who i can be myself around and like the same shit as me.

YKMET: Strade's store page has just released on Steam, so this is a perfect time to approach your favorite BTD/TPOF blogs through asks and ask if they've seen it. It would also be smart to make a post just like this ask and make the first 5 tags BTD/TPOF oriented. I suppose the first step would be to follow BTD/TPOF blogs, though.

However, since you're undercover, I would recommend making a new email and a new blog for these activities. You can have one blog assigned to your phone's web browser and the other logged into the app to make switching between them easier, or just have the passwords for both be the same so you can switch quickly with the fingerprint/facial sign in. If you're on computer and you have Google Chrome, you can attach multiple emails to your browser and give them their own accounts and assign the logins to your preferred email.

My next recommendation would be to simply post about BTD/TPOF. Write your headcanons, make a character and produce content of them, pick your favorite and make a fan page dedicated to them, document your playthroughs of the games and write prompts/your opinions and reviews/design a character based off your favorite ending. Use the tags "BTD. Boyfriend to Death. TPOF. The Price of Flesh. BTD2." + any of your favorite characters, like "Lawrence Oleander. Ren Hana. Strade.", etc.

This community is very content-hungry and will most likely follow you back if you're 18+ and post about the games or characters. You will also be more than welcomed if you reply to posts, send asks, or reblog posts and add fun tags or actual on-post replies.

I hope you're able to make some friends and mutuals, Anon.

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC REVIEW: A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke

4.75/5. Releases 2/5/2025.

The Vibes:

—dislike to FWB to lovers

—reproductive freedom

—he wants to prove society wrong; she's outside society

—the rake to stupid in love pipeline

The Basics:

Controversial duke Apollo has never gotten along with doctor (and secret women's health provider) Aurora—though this doesn't stop them from wanting each other. But when he offers to help Aurora care for her patients—a task that puts her life at risk—their attraction gives way to an emotional connection that could be the ruin of both...

The Review:

Adriana Herrera's Las Leonas series has been quite strong throughout, and she saved the best for last(?). There's been this steady build to Apollo, the (understandably) embittered, seductive heir to a dukedom and Aurora, a strident do-gooder who wants nothing and everything to do with him. And trust me when I say they don't take long to throw themselves at each other.

Which is a very, very good thing.

But Herrera gets exactly what makes my beloved "fuck first, feelings later" trope so good. Apollo and Aurora jump into bed together quickly, but then there's all the emotional melting that needs to happen—and that takes a bit longer, in a sizzling tension of words left unsaid. All in all? This is a pretty damn romantic book. He's smitten; she's resistant. (And she has her reasons, very valid.)

The emotional piece here is really a web of character development, and Herrera makes each beat heartfelt and believable. It's a feeeeeeelings book. But there's a good chunk of plot in here as well. A lot of what has Apollo going—a chip on his shoulder, as he's the son of a white, horrible duke and a Black woman who was essentially tossed aside by his father—was covered in A Caribbean Heiress in Paris, and I do recommend reading that book in particular first. (Though An Island Princess Starts a Scandal is extremely worth reading as well.) He wants to conquer English society because he hates it, wants to make them feel stupid and lesser. Again, totally valid.

But it's not as much of a centerpiece as I expected—which isn't a bad thing. Because the centerpiece, aside from the love story, is Aurora's dedication to her calling as a doctor and a women's healthcare provider. This novel deeply deals with reproductive freedom and the importance of a woman's right to a safe and legal abortion. And I won't lie—that aspect is pretty emotional, now more than ever.

One thing I loved as well was Apollo's progression. Initially, he's really just worried about Aurora's safety and the risk of her getting in legal trouble. In other words, he's a progressive man of his era, but he's still a man of his era—and he isn't vilified for that, but instead given the opportunity to grow and really come through for Aurora, providing himself.

This has all the things you want from an Adriana Herrera book—it's funny, it's scorching hot, it's smart. But it's also perhaps the most emotionally resonant book I've read by her, wherein I was just dying for these two to make it work. And that made it my favorite novel she's released so far.

The Sex:

But also, this was super hot.

There's honestly a lot of sex on the page here. Maybe 6ish full scenes, I think? And a lot of very, very well-written oral. You get no-strings sex, you get passionate hookups, you get in loooooooooooove sex. It's all deliciously written, it's all great, thank you for your service Adriana Herrera.

There was ONE thing she hinted at but didn't go into (haha) that I wish would've been expanded on a bit.... But hey, I can't complain too much.

Conclusion:

Right now, a lot of historical romances feel very safe. Very tame. They lack a punch. This not only packs a punch—it goes straight for your heart. Highly recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley and Canary Street Press for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[thetypedwriter]

All the Light We Cannot See Book Review

All the Light We Cannot See Book Review by Anthony Doerr

This probably wasn’t the lightest novel to choose to read on my honeymoon, but at least it was enjoyable. Lightest both in terms of girth and weight (my suitcase could barely fit anything else), but also in terms of subject matter. 

All the Light We Cannot See is a novel set during the rise and fall of WW2. It mainly follows two main characters, Werner, an incredibly smart German orphan who finds himself at one of Germany’s elite school where they train him in the Nazi ideology, and Marie-Laure, a blind French girl who finds her world thrust upside down with the German invasion of Paris (her home) and the subsequent events that follow. 

Heavy, right?

I don't usually love war books, not because they’re not interesting or important, but because they sit heavily on my heart. All the Light We Cannot See was not an exception. 

In addition to Werner and Marie-Laure, we see other characters and their motivations, Marie-Laure’s father, her uncle, Werner’s sister, a man on the hunt for a valuable jewel called the Sea of Flames.

All these characters intertwine with Werner and Marie-Laure, weaving an inextricable web where even the smallest choices create a large, rippling effect for others. 

All the Light We Cannot See also experiments deliberately with time. I tried to explain the plot to my now husband on our trip and found that it was difficult to relay.

The novel starts with a chapter centering around Marie-Laure hiding in her home in Saint-Malo as bombs and fire erupt around her. You then transition to Werner and his fellow German soldiers who are shooting off said bombs.

Then, in the very next chapter, Marie-Laure is five years old, Werner is a child in a rundown orphanage and the war is ten years off. 

Instead of taking the whole novel to reach back up to the climatic moment of the opening chapter, Doerr continues to alternate between these two timelines, effectively making a future present and a past present.

These two presents eventually meet two-thirds of the way through the novel. From there, the book becomes chronological until the end. 

I’ve never read a book with an intricate timeline that worked as well as this one did. While it was hard to elucidate upon, it was never confusing to read about.

Doerr did an excellent job of maintaining clarity while also crafting invisible threads that pulled tighter and tighter and tighter until it formed a knot towards the end. 

Other than the pacing and the characters, the book was beautifully written. Very introspective and thought-provoking without being pretentious or verbose.

It contained a multitude of historical details without making me feel like I was reading a textbook (an issue I have with a lot of historical fiction). 

I could get into the nitty-gritty of the plot, but you probably already have a decent idea of what it contains and how it ends. Chronicling the lives of Werner and Marie-Laure during this intense time of human history was a fascinating read, especially seeing the juxtaposition between them.

Doerr’s decision to include a main character who was blind was also an interesting choice that gave this book a fresh perspective that was much needed amongst the saturation of books similar in nature to All the Light We Cannot See. 

Including the characters, timeline, treading lightly of burdensome subject matter, and the prose itself, this novel was one that I ingested from the beginning and stayed riveted throughout the entirety of the story. 

Recommendation: As a whole, I enjoyed All the Light We Cannot See, but definitely believe that there is a time and place to read it. Some of the details are horrific to imagine, let alone realize that they occurred. Tread with caution, but also don’t miss out on a great book with a lot to offer and teach if you are up for it. 

Score: 7/10

[namjhyun]

DRAMA REVIEW | Lovely Runner (2024)

Lovely Runner it's undoubtedly one of the best dramas of 2024.

It has all the elements that make a drama a mega hit: comedy, romance, time travel, well written characters (both leads and supporting ones) and an engaging plot line that never bores you. Starring Kim Hye Yoon and Byeon Woo Seok, adapted from the web novel The Best of Tomorrow by screenwriter Lee Shi Eun and directed by Yoon Jong Ho and Kim Tae Yub, the Lovely Runner team achieved a perfect execution in front and behind the camera.

I think the true star of this drama it's the writing and on this I can't commend Lee Si Eun enough. I had already seen her potential in dramas like True Beauty but here she really manages to shine through a well crafted, smart and cohesive story with no loose ends. I'm incredibly impressed by her talent.

The writing was perfectly complemented by the directors's outstanding work in leading a film crew that was on every detail of each part of the story, in each timeline, never missing a beat. Always delivering their A+++ game. But there was also great work done from the directors part in helping the actors get the comedic timing exactly right, the more emotional scenes to deliver and the team work among cast and crew to be flawless.

Lovely Runner might be a big hit now, but it's actually a sleeper hit. The lack of promotion this drama had was embarrassing and if it wasn't for the devoted fans, studio executives would have never realized they had a gem in their hands. So, it's not only a great drama with a super fandom that really fought for this story, it's also becoming yet another prime example in the list of films and tv that achieved all of it by themselves because artists delivered nothing short of excellence.

On this point I can't ignore the incredible performances given by the entire cast. Kim Hye Yoon and Byeon Woo Seok are definitely the standouts, they stole the show, this is their story and the actors chemistry it's electrifying. But the way supportive actors would show up in a scene and push the story forward in a coherent way and even make it better, it's wild to me. The chemistry this cast had it's a rare feat for an ensamble cast and how they managed to transition seamlessly through different phases of their characters's lives and relationships when events, in each timeline, were changing because of the things our leads did they still remain truthful. So, not only the leads are well developed in this drama but also every single character that shows up, no matter how small the role is.

The best example of this it's actor Heo Hyeong-Gyu who has been working for sixteen years, playing very minor characters, finally having a breakthrough in the industry because of his role in this drama. And while his presence was prominent and important to the story, he barely had lines. So his entire performance is mainly based on micro-expressions or physical stunts.

I also fully expect the actors like Song Geon-Hee, Lee Seung-Hyub, Song Ji-Ho or Seo Hye-won to receive a lot of what korean entertainment industry calls "love calls" aka commercials, dramas and films, among other things.

Experiencing watching Lovely Runner alongside the fandom, waiting every week for a new episode, it's a big part of what made this drama so good. Healthy and good loving fun people, clowning, poking fun at our faves and crying at heartbreak. It's been a long time since I have been able to engage in this way with other fans and I am thankful for them, the cast and crew for all these amazing weeks of fun.

Rating: 10/10

[alexanderwales]

Book Review: Time to Orbit: Unknown

My habit of putting colons in my review titles bites me for the first but probably not last time.

Spoilers for the whole thing follow, and I think you should take that seriously, because this is largely a mystery. I'm going to assume that you read it.

Time to Orbit: Unknown is a scifi web serial by Derin Edala. The meme pitch is that this is a Very Normal Spaceship where Nothing Goes Wrong. The more conventional pitch is that our protagonist Aspen Greaves wakes up from chronostasis on a damaged colony ship with no crew in sight and has to figure things out from there.

I read TTOU basically straight through, binging rather than getting weekly installments, and some of this review will probably reflect that. Pacing is a difficult thing to start with, but it's way more difficult when you're trying to pace for two different audiences who are receiving the text in very different ways. As a binge reader, I thought the pacing was mostly fine, though did suffer a little from being formatted for serial chapters, particularly the implied cliffhanger ending to most chapters e.g. "I could only hope that everything would be fine ...". There's also a little bit of reiteration, where characters are going over what the open questions and issues are, which felt to me like it was in service of the weekly reader. As a binge reader, it was often just going over things I had read half an hour ago.

TTOU starts as a mystery. Why was Aspen woken up with no one to help them with chronostasis? Why is there no crew? Why have they been chosen to become captain in spite of their nearly complete lack of qualifications? Why are the crew dead? Where are the dead bodies?

As a mystery, the starts off really well, with a nice sequence of reveals and further questions. Aspen talks to the ship's AI, goes on some adventures around the ship, gets answers and more questions, and we gradually learn just how many weird problems this ship has.

Eventually though, the story starts running into a problem, which is that too many pressing problems get solved, and the ticking clock stops ticking. This isn't great for the pacing, and the sense of momentum temporarily leaves the story, especially because these big questions have been what's propelling it forward. As soon as it feels like we're not unraveling those, my interest started to wane. This was particularly true when characters would say "well, that's actually not a problem right now, guess we'll figure it out later".

Aspen doesn't stay alone for terribly long, and soon starts reviving other people from chronostasis, which is where we get the rest of our cast of characters from. I enjoyed these additions, though this is also the part where the serial gets very talky. There are, of course, some mysteries associated with the new crew, and I think here is where I need to talk about how TTOU handles mysteries.

To my mind, mysteries are at their best when there's a singular moment when everything snaps into focus. I like epiphanies, not necessarily from the characters, but from myself. The pieces have been presented to me, and in theory I could have solved it early on my own, but instead I get to solve it concurrently with the final piece being pushed into place. A good mystery author dangles the mystery in front of you, feeds you pieces, and then gets you to share the epiphany or at least feel smart when the protagonist rips off the villain's mask or whatever.

TTOU sometimes does this in exactly that way. There were a handful of times when I thought to myself "ah ha!" right at exactly the correct moment, which is just prior to the reveal after I had been led there by the nose.

There are other times when the reveal doesn't feel like things are snapping into place, it comes with caveats and bumps and occasionally, an admission that this was not actually a mystery at all. I might be projecting here, but writing a web serial is hard, and sometimes I would get a whiff of either course correction or bailing out. I'm tempted to go through everything I would label a "mystery" and then go through resolutions one by one, but I think that would require a partial reread of the story, would possibly not be illuminating, and might just be a matter of my own personal preferences and experience of reading. I'll give two examples though:

There's an enduring mystery of what killed off the crew of that gets locked at the front of the ship. This is one of the first mysteries in the book, and it doesn't get its resolution until very far in: they got pneumonia and don't have the medicine to treat it. While their deaths do feel like they're treated as a mystery, the reveal is not treated as much of a reveal, in spite of how longstanding the mystery was. It makes sense, but nags at me, like there was a mystery there that turned out to be a red herring. (This is probably a matter of signaling, though I'm not entirely sure.)

The captain went through and killed a bunch of sleeping colonists with an ax. His initial motivation for doing this is explained as just psychosis, and later, explained as him fighting the AI, which has been taking over the brains of colonists for use in compute. We get some additional context that his husband has been secretly put on the ship, and if the AI continued, it was going to kill him (or possibly, he was already dead). This ... still kind of doesn't work for me, as it sort of makes sense, but it doesn't feel like my understanding snapped into place. It's like someone told me the answer to the riddle and I said "eh, I guess" rather than "ah, right, that was it all along". Partly the captain is crazed, acting on emotion more than with a plan. It makes the resolution of his motivations hit a lot less hard. (I think this is at least partly an issue of how the resolution is delivered, or how it all unfolds. Maybe I would have wanted to get in the captain's head more. There are decent beats in that plot, but as a mystery it felt a little meh.)

The titular unknown time to orbit is caused by an engine problem, and this felt like a mystery, until quite late in the story someone said "oh yeah, I looked at the engine and I guess it just failed or something". It looked like a mystery, and felt like it was treated as a mystery, but it turned out to just be nothing, which made all the fuss made about it retroactively feel pointless. (Technically this is tied into future issues, but it's still essentially just an accident that no one actually intended, and felt really arbitrary and pointless to me, especially given it's one of the first mysteries we learn of.)

Overall, the various mysteries are hit and miss for me, and became more miss than hit toward the middle of the book (or what feels like the middle of the book, I'm not going to go through and get word counts).

The problems start with the revival of new crew members, particularly Captain Sands, who becomes captain due to his ranking within the AI systems. He immediately becomes a soft antagonist, and Aspen immediately takes a back seat in terms of agency. More people get revived, and they have their own stories, and then there's a hard pivot into a murder mystery, and ... this is where I sat and thought for a bit about whether I wanted to continue reading.

I think there was some good character work in the murder mystery arc, but it felt like there were too many characters, and I cared about too few of them, and our protagonist wasn't doing all that much proactive about anything. I didn't care about the victims, and the only reason I found the question of their murder compelling was the idea that this tied into some larger plot, that it would reveal some of the outstanding questions about the ship.

The resolution to what I'll call that middle chunk of the book seemed to me to be a soft reset, and I found it very welcome. The "new crew" were all dead, some old plots got somewhat messy wrapups, and we were very clearly off to new horizons. I don't have any idea if that's how it was written, but it came off as "alright, let's go back to what works".

And the good news for me was that there were more mysteries, this time as the crew reached the planet they'd been aimed at. From then on, I liked basically everything again. There's a big ask that happens in the middle, and conventional wisdom is that your scifi is Like Earth Unless Noted and that you should put your notes at the start ... but I was interested enough that I didn't mind it in this particular case.

The new planet is already settled, you see, and the how and why of that is fun to explore, as well as sort of making sense of a few earlier things that were pointed out. And the settlers have their own weird societies with their own mores and quirks, and there are culture clashes, and mysteries, and ...

For the most part, I found the sociology stuff more interesting than the mysteries. I wanted to know how these weird new people worked, how they organized their settlement, what their tax policy was like, how they made their houses and what they did in their leisure time. Thankfully, the book seemed as interested in this as I was, and while there are places that I think some readers might have found it to be "slow", I really did enjoy all the time and effort spent on describing these people and how they operated given their circumstances.

I don't know how well this all works in terms of resolutions. At least some of the outside threat is treated almost like a joke, and while there was some tension, it wasn't the sort of tension/release dynamic that I like in my stories, just tension followed by things going right in spite of that tension, with not much feeling of climax. I didn't particularly mind that though. And in the end the ship gets retrofitted, and Aspen becomes the new AI, and it all felt to me like it fit, even if there's quite a bit of fridge logic about why they couldn't just stay on the planet, and what a slow death as a generation ship might look like.

So all in all, I think I enjoyed the story, if less than I hoped I would. The beginning was a banger, made retroactively a little weaker by some of the resolutions to the mysteries. The middle was a slump, but after the soft reset, I was much more enamored with the story, and glad that I didn't actually put it down. I liked it better when it wasn't trying to be a mystery, when it was about the characters and the engineering, the vibes and an interesting future.

(It probably suffers a little bit from me comparing it to the last "woke up on a spaceship with dead people and no idea what's going on" book I read, Project Hail Mary, which was not written under the constraints of webfic.)

[timetravellingkitty]

you don’t talk about your fav books here? on the book nerd webbed site? Okay, top 5 books of all times, let’s go. Be generous and copious with the reviews

HELP WHAT'S WITH THE CALLOUT 😭😭 you're not even that wrong tho like I had this sideblog (that's inactive now rip) that was like "ooh books ooh dark academia look at meeee" but uh yeah. I haven't been reading much these days (don't ask I will cry) but I sometimes do talk about some or the other book I've read, I'm just a loser for not doing it enough but anyways. Favourite books

We Are Okay by Nina LaCour: like I mentioned, sad, raw, etc etc I finished reading this an hour before the new year (2023) so I just spent the rest of it just thinking about it?? I think it came to me at the perfect time cause this was 2 months after my grandmother died even tho I had a complicated relationship with her it really did help a lot

The Hunger Games: yes. This one. When I first read it I identified with Katniss so much cause she was what I saw myself as (no not smart and resourceful I'm still none of that but aloof, unlikable, brash, blunt and would do quite literally anything for their younger sibling). Honestly I think it helped shaped the reader I am today, it really got pre-teen me thinking more so yeah. I quite literally owe this series my life I have nothing but love for it

The Earthsea Cycle: THIS ONE IS FANTASTIC. So simple, so magical, so wonderful to read. Ged is a great protagonist, literally THE OG wizarding school series. Poetic resolution if you ask me

A Thousand Splendid Suns: idk maybe reading this at the tender age of 12 did something to me but who am I to complain this one's literally heartwrenching it's so engrossing IT'S ABOUT HOPE IN THE MIDST OF DESPAIR, IT'S ABOUT RESILIENCE AFSJKLS. Mariam and Laila's relationship is one for the ages literal narrative foils idc idc I think about them all the time

Rebecca: I have no explanation for this one. It just makes me go feral okay the tension, the layers, the ominous and gothic atmosphere I'm a little in love the writing is nothing short of captivating

Honorable mentions go to the Riordanverse (This one was also pretty formational), Blackout (yes I rated this 4 stars. No I do not care this one called me single in 6 languages don't ask it's just. Very nice no rhyme or reason here chief), Pachinko, Parable of the Sower, The Kite Runner and Last Night at the Telegraph Club

[actowizsolutions0]

How to Extract Real-Time Promotions Data & Restaurant Data Scraping

[allinonetechs]

allinonetechs

I am lanzoe working for allinonetechs as PR consultant. With more than 6 year’s experience in PR and Digital Industry, helping teams to achieve goals by streamlining the process

[friendofthew0rld]

Final Blog Post - Due (4/24)

How has surveillance in the United States changed since 9/11?

For one, the US Patriot Act allowed for broadened authority of law enforcement and intelligence companies to surveil Americans, primarily through TSA checkpoints. With the Patriot Act now enforced, authorities could seize data and personal belongings for random searches, collect data from individual devices, and wiretap. Americans also saw an increased number of screenings by Homeland Security. Police departments have limitless access to AI tools such as facial recognition, license plate readers, and policing algorithms. As AI has gotten more powerful, we also see a heavy influence of AI software that is constantly surveilling us through our smart technologies.

Why was Bobby Seale excluded from the Chicago 7?

The Chicago 8 were charged in connection with the protests that took place at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The federal anti-riot statute, which “makes it a felony to engage in interstate travel to 'organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot,” was utilized in the case of the Chicago 8 (Moskowitz, 2008). Due to this, the group of 7 white males and 1 black male crossed state lines and were charged with conspiracy and crossing state lines to incite a riot. Many of the males were anti-war and pacifists, while Bobby Seale was a co-founder of the Black Panther Party. Due to his involvement with the Black Panther Party, Bobby Seale was ordered by Judge Julius Hoffman to be tried independently from the other 7 white males and to be bound and gagged in the courtroom. Ultimately, the Judge declared a mistrial for Seale, severing his case and excluding him from the Chicago 8, turning it to the Chicago 7. 

Why is it important for us to be aware of our digital footprint?

Our digital footprints follow us–whether it’s a 3-second video we shared through private dm (direct message), or a 10-slide photo dump we deleted 7 years ago. The point is, everything we post online is now open to the public for anyone’s access. Our interactions, deleted social media accounts, etc., can be tracked and tied back to you. This data can be accessed by hackers, advertisers, or even agencies that you might or might not want to work with in the future. Mistakes from anyone's past activity can be used against them–for example, your profile can be screened by employers or colleges and utilized to minimize the candidate pool. Take influencers as an example. It’s a common phenomenon; a non-black influencer who gains large traction is exposed for saying the N-word or other racist slogans on a since-deleted Twitter account. Although they may assume that by deleting their problematic accounts, they are erasing them, there is always the possibility that such activity can resurface.    

What are the implications of the Patriot Act post 9/11?

As briefly touched upon in prompt #1, the Patriot Act was implemented after the attacks of 9/11, and it allowed for expanded US surveillance by authorities, aiming to make monitoring easier to mitigate possible threats to national security. “But in other ways, it was just a mopping-up operation that legalized already existing and ongoing, yet illegal forms of investigation” (Parenti). Some implications of this Act included (1) the controversy with Section 215, which deemed it legal for authorities to collect ‘any tangible things,' further allowing for the collection of mass metadata and giving authorities access to web-addresses and email subject lines, which “all contain revealing content” (2) its legalization of unreasonable searches concerns Americans, as they felt it went against civil liberties and the fourth amendment, and (3) the Act set the precedent for a future and legislation that prioritizes national security over anything, even civil liberties (Parenti).     

References 

Moskowitz, G. (2008, February 29). Film Review: Chicago 10. Mother Jones. https://www.motherjones.com/media/2008/02/film-review-chicago-10/

Parenti, C. Fear as Institution: 9/11 and Surveillance Triumphant.

[dropletr]

Doctor Who (1963), Season 2 Serial 5, The Web Planet Review

I'm afraid this is the first serial I'll have to give a negative review. While I don't hate it, it has a lot of problems. Number 1 is the stuff they have covering the camera. It just makes the episode really blurry. It's not impossible to make out what's going on. It's just not ideal.

Number 2 is the Optera. While I quite liked the Menoptera, their unique movement and speech patterns made them feel appropriately alien, and the Optera were not. Their speech patterns were honestly pretty grating and distracted me from the story several times.

There is a lot of good, though. The Doctor gets to show off a lot of his smarts this serial, and I quite enjoyed the use of his ring on Zombo the Zarbi to hypnotize and control it. I got quite sad when Zombo was freed and promptly forgotten about, but oh well. We also get to see more of the TARDIS. Namely, the Astral Map and the first aid kit. It helps the TARDIS feel more like a lived-in space.

I give The Web Planet a 6/10