#Thinking about how people younger than me don’t know how to operate desktops.

[gravedigest]

Trying to figure out how to word the fact that old people in a future setting would be elite video game experts.

Like with handling a controller, like all these kids these days and their newfangled computer brains, back in MY day we could type 500 words a minute with our FINGERS and had the twitch responses of a god.

Doc headshots Deimos 6 times in their game and Deimos has no idea what the fuck is going on because he doesn’t know how to aimbot.

[system76]

In our everyday lives, we have the means to fix many of the tools we use on a daily basis. Even though many still choose to hire professionals, taking apart your blender, bike, or even your car takes only some simple tools and curiosity to find out how things work. When it comes to consumer electronics, however, the landscape is very different. Here at System76, we believe the right to repair your computer should be the same as the right to repair anything else—sadly, many of our representatives in government don’t feel the same way.

Yesterday, the state of Colorado held a hearing on Right to Repair legislation, known as the Consumer Digital Repair Bill of Rights (HB21-1199). According to the Colorado General Assembly, the bill would require electronics manufacturers to provide people with the resources needed to repair their equipment. This includes, “parts, embedded software, firmware, tools, or documentation, such as diagnostic, maintenance, or repair manuals, diagrams, or similar information.” As part of this effort, System76 Founder/CEO Carl Richell and Principal Engineer Jeremy Soller traveled to the Capitol to speak in support of this legislation.

System76’s stance as a pro-Right-to-Repair company goes all the way to the top. Open source technology has been the company mission since its inception, and the right to repair is no different. “To produce open source hardware means that we have developed and shared the recipe to create a high-end commercial product that can be learned from, adapted, and used by anyone else,” Carl said in a previous interview on our blog. “Everything about that product is owned by the user just as much as it’s owned by us.”

You can listen to Carl’s testimony here:

Transcript:

Thank you for holding this meeting and considering the Consumer Digital Repair Bill of Rights legislation. I'm Carl Richell, CEO and Founder of System76. We're a 15 year old computer manufacture in your backyard. A few years ago we built a factory at 70 and Peoria. Our computer factory is one of only two in the United States. We ship most of our products to over 60 countries.

When we ship a computer to a customer, they own it. They can open it and examine the components. They can observe the way the computer is designed. They can buy replacement parts. They can fix it themselves. They can break it. It's their property.

Not allowing someone to fix their property, means it's not their property.

Imagine if we were talking about cars. You get a flat tire and Ford tells you to stop. You're not allowed to change that tire. I know you can't get anywhere but you have to send that in to us to get going again. Electronics are no different. They don't move when they break. Those that oppose right to repair would like you to think computers are incredibly complex things. They're not. And the more people that are allowed to repair their own devices, the more people will understand that. That's good for all of us because there is no more powerful tool than the computer.

I was 25 when I founded System76. We're now a successful company, but we started with nothing. I didn't have much to put in except hard work. On a road trip at the time, the head-gaskets in my car blew and I didn't have the money for a mechanic. I bought parts and fixed my engine with my father in law. I learned a lot about how engines work in the process.

When I was younger than that, I took apart and built computers. Frankly, I took apart everything. Sometimes, I got it back together. Regardless of whether it worked afterward or not, I learned a lot in the process. That education through curious tinkering gave me the passion for computers and technology that I have today.

I fear for a future locked behind security screws. What next small business like System76 won't happen because we don't allow people to learn about the products they own? Maybe that's why massive corporations oppose this bill. They don't want another System76.

Thank you for taking the time to listen. I urge you to support and pass the Consumer Digital Repair Bill of Rights.

The right to repair has been advocated for as a means of consumer freedom, but Jeremy is bringing a new argument to the table. “American companies can not only still profit in a Right to Repair environment, they can even profit more. We are looking forward to this legislation so that we can leverage our upstream providers to provide even more details about the products that we sell.”

After acquiring hardware schematics for components such as motherboards and embedded controllers, Jeremy was able to write coreboot-based open source firmware and EC firmware for System76 laptops. As a result, we were free to innovate and engineer a better product for our customers.

You can listen to Jeremy’s testimony here:

Transcript:

Hello committee members,

My name is Jeremy Soller. I am the Principal Engineer at System76—a Denver, Colorado based computer company. We are FOR the Consumer Digital Repair Bill Of Rights.

I want to provide a unique perspective, as someone working in the computer industry in Colorado. Our company is based in Denver, Colorado, and has been in business for 15 years. We employ over 50 people in Colorado. We operate a manufacturing facility in Denver, Colorado, manufacturing desktop computers.

For the lifespan of our company, we have always been on the side of our customers. We have negotiated with component vendors to ensure customer access to parts and information. We have developed many of our products with independent repairs in mind. And I am here to tell you that the Right to Repair will help our Colorado based company grow, in both revenue and employees.

This bill ensures that we can continue to negotiate with our component vendors on behalf of our customers, and gives us leverage to provide the customer with better products.

This bill ensures that our customers continue to have access to the tools they need to repair our valuable products instead of throwing them away.

Finally, this bill ensures that our competitors are operating on a level playing field — that consumers are treated fairly and that competition is encouraged in our marketplace.

Please feel free to ask me any questions you have.

For Colorado!

Though Right to Repair legislation has so far been an uphill battle, Jeremy is certain that all it takes is one. “The first state that passes a Right to Repair act will completely change this industry,” he said in a recent interview. “Any American state would be too big for these overseas suppliers to ignore.”

Right now, if somebody wanted to open a Right to Repair-oriented company they may not even be able to, because they can’t get ahold of schematics for essential components. Passing this bill would create these opportunities, and create jobs for Coloradans.

Colorado has an opportunity to become an ethics-forward Silicon Valley that attracts the country’s brightest minds to work here. If you’re a Colorado resident and want to get involved, we highly encourage you to contact your local representatives and ask them to approve this legislation to help empower the Open Source revolution.

[hypnoticwinter]

Down the Rabbit Hole part 17 (nsfw elements)

I keep telling myself that it’s enough to have gotten this far, this is an adequate demonstration of bravery, that I should be impressed that I kept my nerve enough to even get to this point in the tunnel, but even though my heart quails and I’m shaking lightly, a kind of mixed blend of anxiety and terror at the prospect that something might be stalking me down here, I stay where I am as though my feet had grown roots.

For there in front of me, just as Makado had said there would be, is the puckered, anus-like entrance to a ballast bulb. Only took me roughly twenty minutes of crawling through a tight, suffocating, pitch-black venterial canal, all manner of slime and scum and filth caking around my face and arms. My suit will be an absolute mess but nobody will know the difference, most likely; after this first day all of the pristine and immaculate dull orange suits have become equally dirty - mine will just be a little fresher.

Getting out of the camp was surprisingly easy. I had crept by Joker with some trepidation, half expecting him to spring into life and go after me without Euler holding his leash, but all that happened was that the machine’s head had risen slightly as I had moved past and then settled down again.

I guess that after Makado and I had left to return to my hotel room and retrieve my gear, the team had asked Euler to showcase some of Joker’s other features and he’d activated some sort of autonomous mode. It had taken him some thirty minutes to set up, Elena had informed me, the back of Joker’s cranium hinged open and Euler poking around in there, but afterwards they’d lead him over to some sort of obstacle course Elena had called a ‘kill house’ and let him loose and the results had been so impressive and entertaining that they’d had Joker repeat the course four times before Euler had begged off, citing some sort of instability in the machine’s logical pathways…whatever that means. We hadn’t seen either of them for the rest of the day up until the party; Euler had explained, briefly, that he’d been working with the Engineering department to get radio tags working with Joker’s system so that while we were down here he know who was and wasn’t part of the team. Don’t go walking around without your suit, they’d warned us. Otherwise, if for some reason we do let him operate on his own, he might not know who’s who. Might act unpredictably.

Shades of Terminator, of Robocop. But I rolled my eyes at myself and brushed past him, let my hand press lightly against his burnished chestplate for just a moment – you can never be too superstitious – and then squeezed my way into the tunnel. There were no tents clogging its entrance on account of it being so small. I had to go on my hands and knees most of the way, except for a little bulbous bit in the middle where it widened up and I was able to stand.

I don’t know how I made myself go through it. I kept getting a prickling feeling along the back of my scalp, like something was stalking up behind me, but whenever I curled over and looked back there was nothing there, just the ribbed walls of the passage, like I was inside of a giant esophagus.

I had a panic attack halfway through. I don’t know what brought it on; I’m not prone to panic attacks, normally. I made it to a section where the tunnel dropped down a couple of feet, a sort of rough 45-degree angle, and I just started crying. I wanted fervently to be back at home in bed waking up from the crazy dream I’d been having. I wanted to go and listen to We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel and follow along to the lyrics and not hear anything odd or unusual, just have my mind skip over everything like normal and have it all be okay. I wanted –

I don’t know what I wanted.

But at the end of it I rolled over onto my back and closed my eyes, and then I sat up and smoked a cigarette from the pack I’d smuggled in with me. Just one cigarette, and then I crushed the pack in my hand and threw it away. I kept the lighter, though; you never know when something like that will come in handy.

Then I got back on my knees and pulled my way through the tunnel and now here I am, nose still clogged and runny, but feeling better.

I have a knot at the base of my stomach the size of a baseball and I keep looking behind me, frightened that something’s going to grab me and eat me and that I’ll never see anybody – especially Elena – ever again. I’m afraid that I’ll drink this stuff and that’ll be a wrap for me, the Pit will have gotten its claws in me and I’ll be different, I’ll be changed somehow.

“Fuck it,” I mutter under my breath. The cigarette had calmed my nerves a little and, to tell the truth, I’d been craving one after a few days without. A momentary pang of regret few through me on ghostly wings; I thought for a moment about going back and finding the pack I’d discarded but then my lip curled at the thought of myself grubbing around in the muck looking for it. I’m not that pathetic.

Getting the bulb’s entrance dilated enough for me to crawl through is tough work. I’m buried up to my elbows in the thing, feeling vaguely nauseated at the wrinkled folds of flesh just a few inches from my face. There’s some sort of sphincter-like muscle there banding around the opening like steel cord, but the more I press and lever with my elbows opposed the more it relaxes. Soon it’s large enough for my head, then for my shoulders, but I keep going to make sure that I can fit through with the added bulk of the suit.

The smell is intensely strange. I had thought for a while that it might remind me of a Coke Heartthrob, especially with memories of the last one I’d had still relatively fresh in my mind, but the smell is completely different, more…earthy and spicy and invigorating. It smells like…like vanilla. There is a distinct odor of vanilla. There’s still the same disgusting organic undertone to the air that pervades everywhere in the Pit, but it mixes with the drooling sweat odor pouring from the orifice in front of me to form something new and strange and…appealing. Appealing in the same way that a mixture of sweat and men’s deodorant can be appealing, appealing in the same way that –

I shake my head, try to clear it. Easy, girl. You’re just going to crawl in there, drink some of this stuff – I can feel my gorge rising again but I shut my eyes and count to five and breathe through my mouth and the feeling dissipates – and then crawl back out and go back to Elena and fall back asleep. That’ll be all.

The Pit groans, a little noise of stress and tension, and I jump.

“Fuck it,” I murmur again, and then I clamber into the orifice, feel it suck at my thighs and calves and feet as it tightens behind me, and then I slip down a slick, slippery surface of flesh and fall face-first into about three or four feet of murky, milk-white ballast. It takes me a moment to find a purchase on the rubbery flesh at the bottom of the pool but I do, finally, and then I come up sputtering, trying to clear my eyes. I haven’t drank any of it; some instinct screwed my mouth shut as soon as my head went under and I couldn’t force myself to open it for all that I tried.

I open my eyes and look round. The inside of the bulb is red and fleshy and membranous; there is a long rind-like deposit of something stretching between the ceiling and the floor, just a little off-center of the middle of the room, thick as a tree trunk. There are little curling wisps of some sort of vapor rising from the surface of the ballast; that must be what gives it such a strong smell. The odor’s grown even more intense here, inside the thing, and I can –

Huh.

I can feel something happening on my face, my hands, pretty much every piece of exposed skin that had gone under when I lost my balance and fell down the side of the bulb face-first. It’s hard to pin down at first, but then it resolves from an indistinct feeling to a light and pleasant tingling a little like the breathy feeling you get when someone’s been tickling you for a very long time and then they suddenly stop. I wait for a moment, cringing inwardly, but it doesn’t resolve into burning pain or – or whatever I expected, it just stays light and tingling and pleasant.

No wonder people liked to bathe in this stuff.

I raise my hand to my cheek hesitantly. The skin on my face feels softer somehow. Gentler, as though I hadn’t been baking in the West Texas sun for the last week or so. The same’s happened to my hands, I realize on closer inspection; the hard nubby calluses on either wrist, just above that little bone on the edge of the wrist, gained from hours spent working at a desktop typing, are now little more than suggestions of their former selves.

I spend a long while there, staring at my wrist, the detached headlamp clutched in my teeth. What the hell is this stuff going to do to me if I drink it?

But the tingling feeling is already abating, and it isn’t as though it took my skin off, didn’t disfigure me. Most likely, anyway. I probably look a couple of years younger. I prod at my forehead experimentally; it feels a little tighter.

“Fuck it,” I say again, and then I cup my hands and dip them into the pool of ballast at my feet, and then raise it to my lips and drink.

The taste is surprisingly mild and savory. The texture, though – it’s thick, thicker than water. It feels as though I’m drinking some kind of oil and for a moment it’s enough to make me gag, but I force down a couple of swallows and then, almost as soon as it hits my stomach, I feel a heat building there, the same kind of warm, pleasant one gets after they’ve eaten a large meal and want to do nothing other than lay down somewhere and not think for a while, just without the accompanying sensation of fullness. This dissolves after a moment into the same sort of tingling that I’d felt on my hands and face, only a dozen times stronger, and it turns into a sort of burning, fizzing sensation that races through my body, and I double over with the force of it but I’m grinning, I’m grinning so hard, because I’ve never felt so good –

And then I move wrong and I nearly scream at the sudden jolt of pleasure so intense that I initially mistook it for stabbing pain. It takes me a moment, frozen, eyes wide, to identify what happened, and then, cautiously, I isolate my chest and move it gently, trying to brush against the inside of the suit, and it sweeps through me again and even though my knees grow weak and I hear a low animal moaning echoing in the bulb, it takes me a disconcertingly long time for me to realize that it’s issuing from my mouth.

When I had moved my nipple had brushed up against the coarse fabric on the inside of the suit and I had almost came just from that. I flop against the side of the bulb and feel my breast through the suit carefully; it feels larger than usual, swollen somehow, and taut and sensitive, the nipple hard enough to cut glass. I look down and I can see it actually poking through the suit.

I get shakily to my feet, trying hard to avoid any other accidentally brushes like that, and I realize that I am incredibly, almost discomfortingly, wet. There’s a throbbing in my groin like a heartbeat and a warmth that quickly turns into an ache, a need for something to fill me. I shake my head again, trying to clear it, but it doesn’t do anything to help. I glance back down at the innocuous milky ballast; did I drink enough? Two cupped handfuls – not that much. But if it’s already doing this to me, can I handle more?

My hand, I realize, has gravitated to my crotch, and I’ve started rubbing myself through the suit. “Goddam it,” I hiss out loud, pulling my hand back like it was burned, my body aching for it to come back.

I can feel a small trickle run down my leg and I feel my lip curl, first in disgust, then it curls further into a lascivious grin. I think for a moment about undoing the bottom of the suit and just masturbating there, thinking I might get the demon off of my shoulders and out of my head with an orgasm or three, but while my hand is idly massaging my breast through the suit I think of Elena and such a surge of lust goes through me that for a moment I can’t even breathe. I squeeze at my chest through the suit until I feel pain and that wakes me a little, and then, still grinning, I rise and start to make my way back to the orifice, head filled with all of the things I’ll do to Elena when I get back to the tent, hands quivering lightly with anticipation. I find the light and fumble with it clumsily for a moment before I click it on and angle it up towards the opening so I can make my way out, but then when I see what the light is shining on I almost scream again and it is only the sudden presence of mind that makes me clap my hand to my mouth that stops me from shrieking.

For there, at the mouth of the bulb, is a pale human arm, stuck elbow-deep inside the orifice, and gradually wrenching it open!

I click the light off and drop into a low crouch and then slowly creep backwards, taking care not to make too much noise with the wet ballast up to my knees. I make it to the pillar-like deposit of – of whatever the hell it is in the center of the bulb and skirt behind it just as I hear the soft groan of the bulb’s sphincter giving up the fight against whoever is trying to make their way in here.

I scarcely dare to breathe. I can feel my heart thumping a million miles an hour and I can feel terror gnawing at me, trying to get its fangs in, but for the moment I’ve mastered myself. Whoever it is, they have a much more powerful light than I do, but they don’t seem to have spotted me; the light sweeps once, twice, around the inside of the bulb and then I hear a sliding sound of something heavy and then a definitely male grunt as whoever it is splashes into the ballast. I hear him set the light down and then indeterminate splashing, but at the very least he doesn’t seem to suspect I’m here.

Now that the immediate danger is over my body is urgently reminding me how horny I am. I bite my lip and bear it; if anything the feeling seems to be intensifying rather than falling off, especially since I’m not doing anything about it. If I don’t consciously think about it and stop myself I find my hands gravitating back to my breasts, to my groin, little twinges of pleasure making me bite my lip, suck in soft breaths. Finally I end up just putting my hands on my cheeks and keeping them there, to hell with whatever aching neediness I feel between my legs. I feel a little stupid, but if my hands are on my face I can keep track of them more easily.

I shift a little to the left and peek around the waxy deposit growing out of the ceiling and my mouth drops open; I see Crookshank’s ruddy cheeks and unruly sideburns, his powerful barrel chest heaving as he scoops handfuls of ballast from the pool and rubs it on his arms, his cheeks, his face. He’s undone his suit, the halves of it flopping around his waist, and as I watch he slaps the liquid on his bare chest, rubs it in like lotion.

This continues for another few minutes before he kneels and takes a great gulp of the fluid, and I gasp lightly, for he lapped up so much more than I had, and even though he is much bigger than I am and perhaps the same principle as alcohol applies, perhaps he can handle much more of it, I shudder to think of what that much of the fluid would have done to me.

He stands there for a long while, leaned against the wall, eyes shut, his cheeks slowly growing even redder, and then he zips his suit down further and starts to jerk himself off. I lean back around the deposit and force myself not to think about it but I can’t help it, I can’t get the image out of my head, I can’t stop myself from salivating over it, from thinking of the way it’d feel inside of –

No. Stop. He’s going to jerk off and then he’ll leave and then you can get out of here and never talk about this ever again.

But if that’s the case, goddam it, why am I fucking touching myself, why is it so much easier to peek my head around the corner like this and watch him and rub myself through the suit. He’s not even hot, he isn’t my type, fuck, I wouldn’t have thought twice about him, but with this – with this drug in my body I can’t stop myself from thinking about him taking a fistful of my hair and bending me over and then forcing himself into –

Stop.

I crouch there in the dark, reeking of ballast, listening to Crookshank grunt rhythmically as he fucks his hand, and then finally he lets out a louder grunt and I swear, I swear I can hear it hit the ballast. I’m crying, I realize again, something’s short-circuited inside of me and all I can do is cry and rage at the stupid animal cage I’m trapped in, the stupid animal cage that wants to get bent over and fucked and used. I don’t want to have to think, I don’t want to have to be like this, I don’t want to -

Crookshank leaves and I finally let out a shaky breath. I’m still unbearably, agonizingly horny. I think about touching myself, about just getting it over with, but again I think of Elena, and I think of Crookshank, of goddam motherfucking Crookshank grunting like a bear in heat, and suddenly I feel as though doing it here would make me vomit. I don’t want to see this place again, I don’t want to even think about it. I want to just go back and crawl into the tent and let Elena hold me and wake up clean. Except…

I eye the murky surface of the ballast.

What if the amount I drank isn’t enough? What if I should have drank more, what if if I leave now I’ll be throwing away the only chance I get? I doubt we’ll have time for me to sneak back here on the return trip, and even if we did I don’t want to take my chances running into Crookshank or whoever else.

But Christ, if the small amount I drank is doing this to me…

I reach down and cup a small amount in my hand. I raise it to my mouth and then stop, then I squeeze my eyes shut and drink it down. I stand there and sway and shudder as the heat intensifies. I put my arms around myself and clutch and just hold my ribs tight until I feel as though I can move, and then I make my way to the orifice and force my way out of it. It’s easier going out than in, although I still have to squeeze. I nearly shriek again as it presses against my breasts unexpectedly, and the sudden pressure and the burning jolt of pleasure makes me buck my head, momentarily lost in the sensation, but I claw my way out, manage to clear my head somehow and keep moving. The smell of ballast has become sickening, and as I crawl my way down the long ventricular canal back to the camp I feel as though it’s clinging to me and I’ll never be able to get it off, no matter how many showers I take, no matter how hard I scrub myself.

I happen upon my discarded pack of cigarettes and laugh to myself even as I ache to see if any of them escaped destruction, but I keep my dignity and pass it by. Well, some of my dignity; I’m so horny now that even the soft rubbing together of my thighs, a motion forced by the tight quarters where I have to go on my hands and knees, is becoming unbearable. I keep arching my back and imagining filthy things and pawing at myself, but somehow I manage to keep enough of my mind from crumbling in on itself to make my way back to the camp. I squeeze past Joker again, trailing my fingers along his shoulders, the cool dull spark of the metal on my fingertips seeming newly sensitive to my revitalized fingers. It’s late, it’s so late, but I feel agonizingly awake. I find the tent, slip out of the suit as quickly as I reasonably can, leave it crumpled on the fleshy floor next to Elena’s neatly folded suit, and then I unzip the tent and clamber in.

Elena’s eyes are tracking me there in the dark, little glittering jewels glinting at me. She rolls over as I move fully into the tent and I am so unspeakably happy to see her that for a moment I can do nothing more than squat there on my haunches with an idiot grin plastered all over my face before she smiles at me softly.

“Hi,” she says, her voice grown innocent, still heavy with sleep.

I breathe her name like it’s a prayer and then I am kissing her and she kisses me back, a laugh bubbling in her throat as she does, and I can’t stand it any more, I have to be closer to her, I want all of her, I want everything, and while she makes little delighted sounds of amusement and disbelief at how insatiable I am I kiss my way all over her, grinding against her thigh as I do, and when she reaches up for me and finds my breasts I shudder and arch my back inwards, trying to press more of myself against her.

“Missed me?” she asks, her thumbs working in slow circular motions. She has a smug little smile on her face. I’m panting I want her so bad. I don’t trust myself to speak so I just nod. Her hand trails upwards from my breast and I let out a little whining moan. It fixes around my throat, squeezes lightly, and I swallow. Her other hand tracks down my stomach and I can feel my hips buck gently as I know what’s coming, and I grin at her, but she stops just before where I want her to, tangles her fingers in my pubic hair, massages me there, and though I try to angle my hips forward and slide her fingers against me, wet and slick and willing, she stays agonizingly still.

“Why do you smell like ballast, Roan?” she asks, cocking her head at me. Her eyes have gone cold and calculating and her grip on my neck has become very, very strong. I want to fuck so badly that the well of fear bursting in my gut is something I can barely recognize, barely react to. I open my mouth and let out another little moan.

“Elena,” I groan, “I don’t –“

“Oh, don’t lie,” she murmurs. I see her eyes flick down to my nipple and then she darts forward and latches onto it with her mouth, eyes still fixed on mine, at least until she brings her teeth together extremely gently and I shudder, starbursts blossoming in my vision. Then she lets me go with a wet pop that I find incredibly, unspeakably lewd. I feel as though my cheeks are on fire.

“Your name isn’t Merriweather either, is it?” she asks me.

“Elena,” I say again. It’s all I can say. I can’t summon the breath for anything more complicated.

“See,” she says, “after you left I thought I’d stay awake until you got back. But you took a long, long time. So then I started thinking,” she says, punctuating the statement with a sharp gesture downwards with her finger, just brushing against me, and it feels like heaven.

“Y-you can’t,” I start, giving her a pleading look, but she’s enjoying this too much. The torture will end when she wants it to.

“Then I looked up your personnel file, cause I wanted to creep on you. Only guess what?”

I shut my eyes.

“Right,” she says, squeezing my throat a little tighter. “You don’t have one.”

“Elena,” I say very carefully, trying to keep my voice from pitching upwards into a moan, “I can explain.”

“I’m sure you can,” she says. When I crack my eyes open she’s looking at me with something resembling sympathy. “But I don’t care about that right now.”

“You don’t?”

She moves her hand downward, lets go of my throat. I gasp slightly, and then when she inclines her middle finger slowly upwards and brushes against me I gasp harder. “Tell me this is real,” she says.

“W-what?”

“Tell me,” she repeats slowly, “that this is real. That you aren’t using me to get down here, that there’s not some ulterior motive at play. Tell me it’s real, Roan.”

Her finger presses inside of me and I collapse against her, bury my face into her neck, kiss her again and again, leave a trail of bite marks in my wake. “It’s real,” I moan into her ear, and then she fits another finger into me and all I can see is her wide grin growing wider before the night dissolves into a parade of sensual enjoyments, of flesh and reactions and noises burned indelibly into my frantic, pleasure-drunk brain.

 * * *

 When we’re done finally and whatever effect the ballast had on me is fading, Elena curls me into her arms and I kiss her softly. My mouth and tongue are still a little tired but it was infinitely worth it. We stay like that in fuzzy oblivion for only a moment before Elena inclines her head and nuzzles at my forehead with her nose.

“So who are you really?” she asks me. “What’re you doing here?”

“Oh,” I groan. “It is a long story.”

Elena laughs quietly. “Well, we’ve got nothing but time.”

“It must be so late,” I tell her. “Shouldn’t we get to sleep?”

“It’s midnight.”

”What?”

“See?” she asks, twisting around a little to show me her watch. It’s a huge clunky tactical-looking thing. I almost laugh at it. “Down here the name of the game is early to bed, early to rise. I know Sarge will get us going later though, cause of you and Euler. You won’t be used to it.”

“Well,” I say, not knowing what else to. Elena holds me tighter.

“So tell me,” she says simply, and so I tell her.

She handles it well, but it’s not a very difficult story. It even makes sense in places, I think. I skirt around the main issue for a while but eventually seize on it and just tell her. When she doesn’t react I glance up at her, meet her level gaze. “It’s only transmitted through blood-to-blood contact,” I say quickly. “So we don’t have to worry about –“

“I know how it works,” she tells me. “Still sort of the thing you ought to tell someone about before you fuck them.”

I feel myself flush; Elena sees too. She takes my chin in her hands, looks down at me. “It’s okay,” she tells me. “I get why you didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I said it’s okay.”

“I’m sor-“

“Shh.”

We lay there in silence for a while longer. “They told you you were allergic?” she asks. “At the hospital?”

“Uh. Yeah.”

“That’s what they said? Verbatim?”

I can feel everything shrinking into myself. “Yes,” I say quietly. “I think so, I – yes.”

“Or did they say it was like you were allergic?”

“No, they – well. I don’t know. You’re making me doubt myself.”

“Medicine can go off,” she says. “It can go bad. If it did and they didn’t know and used it anyway, if it had been mislabeled, you might have gone into shock, you might have –“

“I don’t want to –“

“Shh,” she says again, holding me to her. I try to pull away but she doesn’t let me. More than anything I want her to stop asking questions, I want her to just hold me here and not judge me, not say anything. I feel fragile, I feel like a thousand needles are poking in at me just millimeters from my skin and if I make one motion they’ll stick –

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and she laughs.

“What the hell are you sorry for?” she says. She runs a hand through my hair and try as I might not to like it, I like it. I like the way it feels. “What else were you going to do?” she asks. “You were scared, you didn’t know any better. You wanted to run from it and not confront it, I don’t think there’s shame in that. And then you found out about this place and everything just fell like dominoes.”

“Yeah,” I agree in a small voice.

“Fucking cruel of Veret to send you down here, though.”

“I asked for it,” I say. “She didn’t want to.”

Elena grunts.

“You don’t like her much, do you?” I ask.

“I think,” Elena says after a long time, “that after 2007 she should have gotten as far away from this place as she could and found something that made her happy.”

“I don’t understand –“

“Makado made it her mission to make sure the Pit could never hurt anybody ever again,” she tells me, “when she got Head of Sec. But that’s impossible, you know. The thing’s so large, there’re so many ways in, so many ways out, you can’t do anything about it. She lets it eat her up.”

“You didn’t call her ‘Veret’ just then,” I point out. Elena looks at me.

“I don’t hate her. I just think that she isn’t suited for the job.”

“You really don’t care that I lied to you?” I ask her.

“About who you are? No. In the same circumstances I’d have lied to you.”

Elena has been kneading my hipbone gently with her thumb for the past five minutes, and the rhythmic motion is going to put me to sleep soon. I kiss her again, near her collarbone, and shut my eyes. Elena holds me tighter, there in the dark, and for a moment I’m able to not worry.

Just as I’m about to drift off, all wrapped up and warm and happy, still basking in the afterglow, I feel her thumb stop.

“But if I find out that you’re lying about this being real…” she murmurs, very softly, clearly thinking that I’ve fallen asleep, and there is such a knife-edge of menace in her voice that I lay there for a long, long time in her arms, even after her breathing has become low and regular and even, trying to will myself to fall asleep.

Continue with Part 18

Back to Table of Contents

[ragnarachael]

jukebox hero (stars in his eyes) — give her every reason to accept that you’re for real (i know i’m in love)

Pairing: Stephen Strange x ER Nurse!Reader

Word Count: 4,389

Series Summary: The five times you caught Stephen singing as he did work around the hospital and the one time he caught you.

Chapter Summary: Stephen Strange is new to the whole.. love thing. Thankfully, he figures it out with a little help.

Author’s Ramblings: HAPPY YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO JUKEBOX! it’s officially been a year since we’ve started this journey together! i’m so glad i started this story, and i’m thankful for everyone who has supported it through the year! anyways, i’m gonna stop rambling! this is it! we’re close to the end! (the gif has NOTHING to do with the content.... he just looks so nice in it okay)

also, since it’s the year anniversary, i’m having a little celebration kinda deal! here’s the post that talks about it more if you’re curious! enjoy the chapter!!

track one track two track three track four track five (you are here)

MASTERLIST !  FEEDBACK !

Stephen went back to his apartment that night and paced until he was about ready to pass out from lack of sleep.

He's messed up. He's very, very aware.

It's uncharted territory.

Stephen's never really... liked anyone this much before. And because of that, he was shifting gears to go into panic mode. While he was up pacing, he was trying to think of ways to tell you that it was all about you.

It's always been about you.

All he could come up with were grand displays of affection. Those weren't much his style. Nor yours, so that was out before it was ever in.

When he finally fell asleep, his dreams were about you and him. The relationship you two could have if he didn't mess it up.

That's when he knew he needed to ask for help.

Stephen never goes to anyone for help. Ever. Usually, he’s got everything under control, and fixes it no problem (ignore the fax and printer machine from that one time and the other time when he almost, almost broke some important thing when he was just starting his residency).

But this time was.. different.

"Please help me out, Christine. You're my only hope."

"I cannot believe I'm basically your Obi-Wan Kenobi right now," Christine stressed as she buried her face in her hands with a groan. She took her time sitting up properly at the nurse's station on the fourth floor of Metro-General before clearing her throat, the pads of her fingers moving to rub her temples. "I am not your only hope, first of all. And second: what the hell did you do now?"

"Wait, hold on, I'm not Leia—"

"Stephen, yes you are. Now what did you do?" Christine demanded, her hands landing onto the desktop harshly. Stephen let his jaw drop momentarily at her outburst before sighing, trying to loosen up his tense shoulders.

"You know how I was trying to get the courage to tell Y/N about how I feel?"

Christine let out a soft sigh, letting her hands slip from the desktop to her lap. "I remember. Did she not take it well?"

"No! She— Well," Stephen started hopefully as if he was about to lie about your reaction before huffing and rubbing a hand over his face. "Yes. She didn't."

Christine tried to hide the groan of frustration she let out as she buried her face in her hands.

"You're a damn idiot."

"Yes I am," Stephen agreed immediately, moving to cross his arms over his chest. "I don't know how to fix it."

Christine let her hands run down her face before finally letting them rest just under her chin to hold her head up. "You're asking me to ask Y/N out for you?"

"No—"

"That's such a smart idea! I can't believe—"

"Christine!" Stephen said sternly, letting his hands slam on the counter top that the desk was placed in front of. "That's not what I'm asking."

"Then what are you asking?"

That made Stephen stop and think.

What was he asking?

Stephen seemed frozen as Christine studied him as he looked for the answer. The words he was thinking of to describe what he needed help with weren't coming up easy.

This is what his mother meant when he was younger when she said he was hard to help, didn't she? Stephen noticed the look Christine was giving him. It looked as if she was concerned.

"Do you.. Do you not know what to do to win Y/N over?" She questioned gently now, starting to realize just how serious this was to Stephen. He was never this silent for long.

"I.." Stephen stopped to take a deep breath and push off of the counter. "Yeah. I don't know what to do."

"Really?"

"Yes really, Christine," Stephen heaved. "If I didn't care so much about this I wouldn't have asked for help. I've already messed up so much, I want to be able to come back from this, y'know." Stephen felt terrible after he said that. He sounded rude. And if he wanted help right now, he should act—

"Okay, okay. I'll help you."

Stephen's shoulders relaxed immediately at her reply before thanking her profusely. Christine could only laugh at his sudden joy and eased him down. "You're welcome, now shut up and get back here so we can plot."

Stephen was never faster to get behind the nurse's desk in his life.

He flung himself into the empty office chair in front of the free computer next to Christine, right leg bouncing nervously.

“So,” Christine started easily, pulling out a small note pad out from a drawer and grabbed her pen before crossing a leg over the other and holding it as if she were a therapist. “What have you thought of so far?”

When Stephen started listing his ideas—starting with extravagant and ending with simplistic—he didn’t expect pouring his lovesick heart out to Christine would be this easy. She was supportive and understanding with some of the ideas he originally had and was also willing to completely call him out on how the idea was a stupid one.

Stephen was feeling thankful he was on her good side for once.

He and Christine agreed to put down everything in two different columns.

One was deemed the “Definitely Useful”  and the other was deemed “Bad Ideas”. And the bad ideas weigh out the useful ones after they took a few minutes to talk it all out.

“I mean, I could start trying to drop hints when we talk? Maybe you could try to serenade her—”

“What?” Stephen questioned, suddenly scared as he sat up straight. “No way.”

“What do you mean no way? You sing all the time around here anyways—”

“Yeah, when I’m alone, not in front of people on purpose, Christine—”

“Oh my god—”

“What’s going on?”

Stephen and Christine looked up from the writing pad quickly to see you looking at the two them confused. Stephen seemed to let out a groan of thought, his mind completely moving elsewhere as he took in your appearance.

This was the first time he was seeing you since last night, and he could definitely feel the guilt wrapping around his heart when he noticed your eyes were a little redder than usual.

"We're just.. uh, we were just—"

"We're talking about making a technique together," Christine said, letting out what sounded like an agitated sigh. "But someone is too picky and won't choose something that could be improved on."

Stephen got the hint. He could hear it in Christine's voice.

He just couldn't come up with words. It's like after seeing you last night he can't form sentences.

"Yeah. Uh. That."

You couldn't help but eye the two of them behind the counter, shifting the bag you had on your shoulder. You were just getting in for your shift, it seemed.

"Well, as much fun as I'm having," Stephen started, his voice wavering with what he could assume was nervousness as he got up from the chair he was sitting in, "I've gotta dash. I've got a.. A uh.. thing."

"A thing?" You questioned, your voice practically dripping with what sounded like annoyance. Stephen tried to put on a confident face as he nodded in response, slipping past the opening of the nurse's station.

"A thing. I'll see you both later?"

Stephen didn't wait for a response from you or Christine as he sidestepped past you and moved into the hall that led into the hospital and out of the first floor of the ER.

His heart was pounding. It always was after talking with you. But this time? This time it was pounding out of fear and anxiety.

Maybe Christine was right. Serenading you could be an option. If he could even speak when he interacted with you the next time.

Running his hands over his face before letting his hands slip into his hair, Stephen sighed harshly while absentmindedly traveling to the wall of elevators to get to one of the floors he was set to operate in for the day, not even hesitating to slam his hand into the buttons on the panel that was attached to the wall.

The rest of his day was spent thinking about you, and all of the possible songs that he could even use to serenade you. Billy had actually played a few decent songs while they were in the OR together, but they just didn't fit.

He also kept coming back to ABBA and more stuff by The Eagles, but he just didn't think any of their songs fit the situation either. Well, some ABBA songs probably did. However, he didn't want you to correlate him with ABBA, since he knew that you'd hate him even more than you do right now if he did that.

He figured it out when he got in his car after his shift, already having another awkward interaction with you under his belt and another round of scolding from both Christine and Claire.

Billy Joel.

It was the first thing that came on when he started the car. Billy Joel's Tell Her About It. If he recalled correctly, from his 1983 album "An Innocent Man".

Why did it just hit him now? How the two of you met, months ago, he remembers calling you Billy Joel fondly. Why didn't he think of that sooner?

He really was an idiot.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered under his breath as he turned the volume dial of his car radio up after buckling himself in, preparing for his drive back to his apartment.

That night, he listened to most of that specific album on a repeat, finding it in a small stack of vinyls he happened to have thanks to a friend of his who thrifted them. Everything felt as if it was falling into place as he sang along to the song for the third time in a row as he got ready for his shower.

But the next day at work most certainly did not matter.

Stephen had come in his favorite pair of scrubs—the dark purple ones—and actually shaved prior to coming in, only to find that you weren't there.

Obviously, his first stop on his way in as he finished his coffee was the nurse's station to find Christine hunched over some paperwork.

She somehow knew that it was him who was about to speak up and relayed the information.

"She's not here today."

"Wait," Stephen said, his face scrunching up in concern. "Really? Like, not at all—"

"No," Christine replied with some laughter, looking up from the paperwork she was doing, "Y/N had a family thing to attend upstate."

Stephen clicked his tongue as he nodded, looking around the empty waiting room of the main floor. "Got it."

"Did you figure out what you're going to do? Is a serenade in the cards?" Christine questioned, her eyebrow wiggle accompanying her slight dramatized tone interest as she spoke.

"Maybe. Thank you for the cover from yesterday, by the way," Stephen replied, placing his cup of coffee down on the desk for a moment. "A new technique?"

Christine rolled her eyes as she smiled, shrugging.

"What can I say? I'm the best! Now go clock in. I have paperwork to do."

Stephen let out a dramatic whining noise as he grabbed his cup, turning to the doors that led into the rooms of the ER. 

He was quick to get to the locker room after clocking in, already singing the Billy Joel song quietly under his breath in between gulps of coffee. Even though Stephen considered it stupid to sing the song even though you're not here, it's stuck in his head. So he really couldn't help it.

However, Stephen learned Christine lied the second you ran into his chest. You were leaving the locker room as he was coming in.

And Stephen was forever thankful that his coffee was pretty much gone when the cup fell out and onto the floor, not even spilling as the plastic lid popped off.

"I'm sorry—"

"I'm so sorry—"

After you both spoke at the same time, you took a step back to get out of Stephen's personal space. The awkward air was tangible. 

"Uh, hey!" You exclaimed with a forced smile.

Stephen greeted you back with a stressed laugh, noticing you were wearing some scrubs that had planets and stars speckled on the fabric. That meant..

"You're here for work?"

"Yeah! Actually.. yeah I am," you started as your hands slid into your pockets. "The thing I had got... cancelled, so I just decided to come in."

Stephen had a feeling that the story was a cover up now. He shouldn't be so quick to judge, but he has a hunch. Maybe you were lying to him just so you could avoid him?

He's really messed it up that much, hadn't he?

"Oh? A thing? That's a shame," Stephen replied evenly, ignoring the pang of sadness he felt in his chest when he realized that, yes, you were probably trying to avoid him now. 

"Yeah, but it's rescheduled for two weeks from now, so it's all good," you explained quickly, almost as if you didn't want to stop talking to him.

It made something in Stephen's chest soar. He ignored his racing thoughts to pay attention to what you were saying once you cleared your throat awkwardly.

"I noticed you were singing uh... Tell Her About It? That Billy Joel song, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, off his 1983 album An Innocent Man."

"That's such a good album," you said softly, taking a breath before shaking your head and giving a genuine smile that knocked the wind out of Stephen's lungs. "I'll uh, catch you later."

Stephen agreed quietly as he watched you leave the locker room, scrunching his face up in confusion as he leaned to pick up his empty coffee cup and plastic lid.

Were you catching on? Or were you just coming to terms with the mess that Stephen had made that you had no clue about?

One thing that stood out in his mind though, was that he was headed in the right direction. Now his only goal was to try and stay in it.

He wishes there was more time to dwell on it, but after he put everything away in his locker, the day was nothing but being occupied with multiple surgeries and sitting in on other operations. Stephen barely had time to stop and think about everything that's already happened in the first half of his shift. However, for the second half, he was determined to sing under his breath whenever he could. 

Stephen barely bumped into you. Even after clocking out to go home, you were nowhere to be found.

Day two of.. whatever he was trying to pull was almost exactly as the first one. Busy, full of surgeries and singing Billy Joel whenever possible, and barely running into you. Part of him was starting to wonder if he should just bite the bullet and talk to you out right.

But that genuinely scared him. The idea of confrontation, especially with a topic he can't quite get a whole grasp on yet? He'd rather take his chances singing under his breath.

However, the third and final day of what he deemed as "Subtle Serenading" after sitting and realizing he needs to try and speed this process up, Stephen changed the song.

Billy Joel's Leave A Tender Moment Alone was shoved into his head and he was going to make sure that it didn't leave at all until he actually got to see you for the day.

Stephen's shift was going well. Although it was a night shift—his least favorite—he still found ways to be productive while he sang the slow song. Some of his coworkers did watch him sing a little too loud as he made copies of some paperwork to place back in a file he was working in, though. That made him a little self-conscious.

When he was doing some rounds for information on some patients he had helped operate on, he caught glimpses of you and Claire behind the counters of the floor you were all working on. 

He also noticed your choice of scrubs today was just a regular dark green color, which made him wish he chose to wear his pair, it would have been terribly ironic, but maybe it would start conversation rather than intense stares across the halls of the quiet hospital.

Around midnight, he decided to get coffee. It was his third of the night already, sure, but he had seven hours left in his shift. He was sure he needed the caffeine to keep him from losing his mind.

Stephen was trying to hold back the volume of his singing as he made his way to the break room, dramatically bopping his head back and forth before throwing the door open. His voice faltered slightly as he saw you working on paperwork in the middle table.

The very same table that you tried to nap at on the day you almost—

"What's got into you?" You questioned suddenly as Stephen felt the door hit him square in the back. He let out a grunt, moving over to the countertop where the coffee pot was placed.

"I just.. didn't expect you in here."

"In the break room?"

Stephen felt the sudden urge to slap himself, realizing how stupid his reply was. He let out a quiet sigh  as he started to mess with the coffee machine, getting ready to make a fresh pot.

"Yeah. It's.. It's one of those days."

You seemed to take that as an answer, humming in agreement before all the two of you could hear was the scratching of a pen on paper.

It took Stephen a bit to work up the courage to actually start singing again, but he started singing the chorus of the song just under his breath as he placed the filter in the coffee machine's required compartment before filling it with one of the vanilla flavored coffee grounds that someone had left in the designated coffee cabinet. 

The silence was a little tense, but Stephen didn't mind. He would never turn down time with you, whether you were conversing with him or not.

You had decided to speak up as he started to sing the song over.

“Could you please stop with the Billy Joel?”

Stephen turned around after he finished checking that the coffee machine was ready to be started before pressing the start button. “I’m sorry?”

“You’ve been singing Billy Joel for the past three days and it’s been driving me  crazy,” you explained as you continued filling in what looked like paper work at the table you occupied.

Stephen rose a brow, starting to feel his heart to pick up speed, “may I ask why?”

You paused writing on the paper and took in a deep breath before continuing.

“Because you sing the songs perfectly and it's making me wish that—” You cut yourself off as you realized how frantic your voice was getting. You took a moment to collect yourself before huffing. “Nevermind. It’s not worth it.”

“Hey,” Stephen said gently as he pulled up a seat to sit next to you as you finished filling out the page you were on, “it’s worth it if it’s bugging you. You know you can tell me, right?”

“I-It’s stupid.” You placed the pen down slowly after capping it, rotating it in your hands to avoid Stephen’s eye contact.

“It’s not stupid, Y/N,” Stephen said sternly.

You finally glanced at Stephen and he felt his heart clench in his chest from worry. He watched you hesitate and take a deep breath before speaking.

“It’s making me wish that... That it was about me. The singing, or whatever.”

Stephen froze. 

His mind was racing with your confession. You wished it was about you.  It was about you. You just didn’t get that. It’s always been about you since the first day you actually talked to him. It’s never not been about you.

Stephen’s brain was kicking into overdrive. This wasn’t the plan he and Christine had decided on at all. He usually stays on script. He can’t stay on script.

He may as well be throwing caution to the wind with the rest of your relationship you have with him, if he could even call it that—

You let out a shaky laugh, gathering your papers together into a small stack.

“It was dumb. I told you. I told you. Let’s forget this ever happened, ‘kay? Cool—”

“Can I tell you something?” Stephen said quickly his hand reaching out to grasp your own that wasn't holding the paper, making sure to make eye contact to let you know in his own way that he’s serious. You hesitated again before sighing, everything in your hands abandoned onto the table top.

You gently pulled your hand from Stephen's and waved it. “Knock yourself out.”

“The other night, in the parking garage,” Stephen started slowly. How the fuck did he even get to this point? The plan was far in the rearview mirror. He had to keep moving forwards and bite the bullet. 

He took a deep breath and ran his hands over his face with irritation. You can do this.

“I was talking about you.”

The silence you had in response was deafening. Stephen didn’t dare breathe while he waited for a reply.

“I.. You..  What?" Was all you could reply with. 

Stephen didn’t know if that was due to shock or happiness.

“It was about...  you, Y/N. All of it. I didn’t mean to make it sound like it was someone else—I’m not too sure how I could, if I’m honest—but that doesn’t matter. It was about you. When you talked to me and Christine a day or two ago, I was asking her for help on what I could do to.. to fix this mess, I guess.”

Stephen took a moment to glance up at you now, no longer looking at his hands that were trying to avoid picking at his nails. He couldn’t read your emotions on your face like usual, so he took it as a cue to keep going as he stood up from his chair to start pacing around the break room rather than try to think about bouncing his leg.

“I knew it looked suspicious but I couldn’t figure out what to do, and--and it was just so hard for me to figure it out on my own because this is the one thing I didn’t want to try and mess up with—”

“Stephen—”

“—And I don’t know what I would do with myself if you ended up hating me. I can’t stop thinking about you almost every time I turn the radio on and hear a classic rock song. It’s like the radio is hooked up to my brain and just knows I’m thinking of you in some way—”

You tried to interrupt Stephen again, but he continued rambling.

Stephen Strange never knew how to shut up once he got started rambling. Whether it came to his studies or you, apparently.

“Stephen,” you said, cutting him off for the third time, standing up and placing your hands on his chest to stop him from pacing. “You’re rambling.”

Stephen looked at you before you watched his face turn a fairly cute red color as he realized.

“I-I’m.. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to start rambling. This is turning out just great—”

The words in Stephen’s throat died just as quick as they started spilling out again, your hands curling around the collar of his scrubs to yank him down and finally, finally kiss him.

Stephen was in a state of shock for a minute, taking a moment to realize that yes, your lips were on his.

After he came to his senses, he kissed you back gently, as if he was trying to hold back. Still unsure of your answer, even though your answer was in the kiss.

Sadly, you had to pull away, knowing that Stephen had to breathe, since you had cut him off while talking.

Although, something told you that he would continue kissing you, with or without air in his lungs.

Your hands were still wrapped around the collar of his top, your shared breathing soft as another blanket of silence fell over the two of you.

It was... relieving. As if the kiss you just shared cleaned the slate and you knew where you both stood.

Which is why Stephen leaned back in for another kiss. Except this time, it was more desperate and almost like he’s been waiting to let himself out of his own head and just act on his instincts like he did with everything else.

When you met him in the middle, throwing your arms around his neck as your lips molded perfectly with his for the second time today, you found yourself kissing back with the same amount of hunger. You tried getting up onto your toes to makeup for the height difference, but Stephen’s arms wrapped around your waist and lifted you slightly as he shuffled the two of you towards what you could only assume was the counter top.

It turns out you were right as your lower back ran into the edge, causing you to squeak against Stephen’s lips as your hands gripped handfuls of his hair in the process of your shock.

That made Stephen pull away to chuckle breathlessly just inches away from your lips, pressing his forehead to yours. His laughter was extremely contagious, and you found yourself giggling with him as you let your head fall back slightly.

Stephen’s anxiety was for nothing, he realized in this moment.

His panic to try and make amends  with grand gestures wasn’t as dire as he believed it to be. All he had to do was get himself rambling and it all worked out.

It all worked out perfectly.

"So," you started quietly once your eyes were locked with Stephen's once again, the giggling out of your system. "You take song requests now?"

"For you, Billy Joel? Anyday."

[athenagc94]

Gust and Piper - Beginnings Pt. 1

I’m starving for more MTAP content, but now I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I have to create some of it too... I guess.  Here is a little of snippet of something I’m working on for my builder, Piper, and Gust.  It’s a lot of scenes right now and I’m working on bridging them together.  Here’s one of them.  Kind of the start of everything.  I don’t know

You can read the first the other parts here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7

I’m also posting the story here on AO3!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As a younger man, Gust dreamed of making his mark on history.  He planned on traveling across the Free Cities, designing important structures for important people.  Several years ago, he’d fled to Atara to chase those dreams.  He lived the fast paced life of a bustling city.  He’d studied under his mentor Vera for years.  When he graduated, he was ready to take on the world as the next Master Architect.  If Gust could smack his younger self upside the head, he would.  Because that kid was a naive fool.

When he and Albert discussed the possibility of forming their own business, he didn’t plan on setting up shop in his hometown of Portia.  However, his sister’s health started to decline and, as it does, life happened.  Now, here he was, four years later with nothing to show for it.  He spent his days hunched over a drafting table, designing bland buildings for the bland people living in this bland town.  It wasn’t the life he had hoped for, but it was his reality.

His grip tightened on his pencil as he dragged it across the page.  The latest rendition of the South Bridge was beginning to take shape.  It wasn’t his first crack at the design and he doubted it would be his last.  His design process followed a similar pattern these days.  He’d create an inspired concept, the client would see it, they would hate it, and he’d be back at square one.  Wash, rinse, repeat. 

His father always said Portia was a frontier town and that they would develop it into something great.  Gust clucked his tongue irritably.  The longer he worked in Portia, the less he believed it.  How did one develop a town full of people that feared the very concept of change?

“Good morning!”

The front door jingled.  Gust set his pencil aside and turned around.  Portia’s newest builder, Piper, stood just inside the door, hands stuffed in the front pockets of her grease stained coveralls.  She didn’t seem to notice him right away, in fact, she didn’t spare the loft above a single glance as she searched the lower level.  “Albert?”  She disappeared out of sight, “you here?”

Gust pursed his lips and stood up.  Albert was usually on top of helping customers.  He rarely did any filing in the back rooms during office hours.  Albert would never miss out on helping one of Portia’s eligible bachelorettes.  He peered over the railing curiously.  His desk looked like it hadn’t been touched.  The usual mess of work orders and commission forms were stacked neatly on either side of his desk and his chair tucked in place.

Now that he thought about it, he never heard Albert come in this morning.  He racked his brain.  They’d left the office together yesterday.  They were discussing the latest commissions they needed for the bridge when they bumped into his father.  Gust groaned.  That’s right.  Albert was meeting with his father and Mint this morning to go over the budget for the project.  He would be gone until after lunch.

“Albert?”

“Albert is meeting with my father this morning.”

He heard a gasp and the builder reappeared under him.  He watched as several emotions played on her face.  It was like flipping through a book.  Surprise quickly turned to realization, which immediately became disappointment.  He sighed.  Yeah, he tended to have that effect on people.  “He won’t be back until this afternoon.”

Piper glanced down at her watch and made a face.  “Can you help me then?”

Gust blinked, taken aback.  Most people never asked him to help.  If a customer came in while Albert was out, they’d quickly apologize and came back later.  To them, Albert was the brains of the operation.  Gust was just there to be pretty and make things pretty, which was a fair assumption now that he thought about it.  Regardless, it wasn’t true.  Gust was knowledgeable enough about the inner workings of A&G.  But the people of Portia didn’t need to know that, if they did, he’d be expected to help them.  So he never corrected their assumptions.  Apparently, no one had bothered to inform Piper.

He rolled his eyes and turned away from the banister.  He may as well help her.  The sooner he did, the sooner he could get back to work.  He smoothed the lapel of his coat as he meandered down the stairs and towards Albert’s desk.  If he remembered correctly, Albert kept the blank work orders in the bottom left hand drawer.  He rummaged through the drawer, pulled out a blank order and took a seat.

Piper hadn’t moved.  She stared at him, dumbfounded, though he couldn’t imagine why.  Was she surprised to see him willing to help?  Should he be insulted right now?  He pursed his lips.  A moment passed, then another, and she still didn’t move.  He tapped the nib of his pen impatiently on the desktop.  After another moment of tense silence, he cleared his throat.  “Well?”  

Piper shook herself from her stupor.  “Iー” she cleared her throat, “I’m looking to add an extension to my workshop.”  She bounced on the balls of her feet.  “I’m tired of sleeping where I work, ya know?”

Gust didn’t know the feeling, so he chose not to respond.  He tried to ignore the awkward silence that had settled between them and made quick work of filling out the form.  It was easy information.  The initial consultation was always easy.  His real work began when he started conceptualizing.  It was his favorite part of the process, but recently, it had also become the most draining.  He could see it now.  He’d design the new addition.  The builder would want something less aesthetic and more functional.  He’d be disappointed and create the same thing he’s made for the last four years.

“Alright, I’m going to needー” The rest of the sentence died on his lips.  Piper was gone.  He peered around the room and found her examining the model he’d left on one of the displays.  His stomach lurched.  He’d spent weeks designing that model for a competition for the Vincent Design Institute.  The results had come back earlier this week.  They had been less than satisfactory.  He swallowed thickly.  He would have thrown it out already, but Ginger had insisted he keep it.  She didn’t want his hard work going to waste.

Piper peered a little closer.  Scrutinizing it.  Picking apart every flaw, just like the judges had.  His grip tightened on his pen.  Just like he had since the results had come out.  He pushed himself out of his seat and approached her.  

“Are you done snooping around?”

Piper jumped away from the model.  He met her sheepish gaze evenly as he crossed his arms.  “Sorry,” she gestured to the model, “I was just admiring this. It’s really well made.”

Gust felt the heat flood into his cheeks.  Pride swelled in his chest as he let his arms fall to his sides.  At least someone seemed to notice its quality.  “Well, thank you,” he said curtly, “I guess.”

Piper gaped.  “Is this your design?”

He scoffed, “well, obviously.”  He brushed past her and approached his model.  He’d drawn inspiration from the logic cube Ginger sometimes played with.  It was a boxy structure made up of three stories.  Every level was skewed on a central axis to give it a unique shape.  He’d used lots of windows and skylights to draw on natural light.  “It was for a competition I entered last month,”  He ran his finger along the edge of the top most story.  Dust was already beginning to collect on its surface.  “I didn’t win,” he continued bitterly, “they said it was too strange.  They didn’t understand my vision.  The crotchety old fools.”

Piper tilted her head to the side.  “Well, those guys have no taste.”  She knelt in front of the design and peered through one of its windows.  “It’s so interesting.  I’d love to see it full scale.  It would be breathtaking.”

Gust narrowed his eyes and searched her face.  She had to be messing with him.  The people in Portia didn’t like his designs.  She was tracing the angles of his design with his eyes.  She wore a sincere, almost dreamy, smile as she examined his work.  He stared a little longer before giving up.  She genuinely liked it.  The mere notion made his heart flutter in his chest.

“Have you studied architecture?”

Piper snorted.  “Well, no,” she admitted as she stood back up, “but I’m a builder, so I make things for a living.  Sometimes I like to admire the handiwork of others.  Especially when they’re this talented.”  She stuffed her hands back in her pockets and took a step back.  “You think differently and I like that.”

“Unfortunately,” Gust regarded his model with a look of disdain, “you seem to be the only one who shares in that sentiment.”

She gave him a sympathetic smile.  “It’s a shame they didn’t appreciate your design,” she was bouncing on the balls of her feet again, “If it makes you feel any better, I would have scored it well.”

Gust would be lying if he said it didn’t.  It felt good to know that someone appreciated his work.  His real work, not just the stuff he made to satisfy the town.  He didn’t really have a lot of support in his creative endeavors.  There was Albert of course, but he was more practical about these things.  He did what had to be done to make money.  Whatever made the client happy, he would do without question.  His sister tried to show her support, but she lived a sheltered life and she didn’t quite understand his late night tirades about parapets and gables.  

Piper was a builder.  She understood construction and aesthetics to some degree. The materials he’d used to create this model had been given to him by his father.  A halfhearted attempt to show his support, but the materials came from somewhere.  Had she been the one to provide them?

Gust’s breath hitched.  “Those materials my father got me,” he began slowly, “they came from you didn’t they?”

Piper shrugged.  “Your father asked me to lend a hand.  I was more than happy to help.”

“You sure like to be nosy, don’t you?”  He tried to sound irritated as he brushed past her, but he couldn’t stop the smile that curved on his lips.  The room had gotten significantly warmer.  His heart was hammering so loud, he was afraid Piper would be able to hear it.  He pressed a hand firmly to his chest and cleared his throat.  “Now,” he slid back into his seat, “come over here and sign this.  You’re wasting my time.”

“You’re not the only one with things to do.”

“Then do us both a favor and get over here.”

Piper didn’t argue and took the seat across from him.  “Sign here, here, and here” He punctuated each word with the tip of his pen.  “This is just the initial work order, so Albert will touch base with you later to go over the details.”  He handed her the pen and shifted back in his chair.

As she read through the fine print, Gust gaze wandered back to the model across the room.  He’d spent the last few days despairing over its imperfections.  If only he’d made the angles a little cleaner, or if he’d spent a little more time conceptualizing, maybe then the judges would have liked it.  He was nursing a big blow to his ego.  He had even begun to doubt his abilities as an architect.  Maybe he wasn’t as good as he thought he was.

It would be breathtaking.  Her words resonated with him.  He had thought the exact same thing when he drafted the first renditions.  It would be nice to see it come to life.  

“Is that all you need from me?”

Gust tore his gaze away from the model.  Piper fidgeted in her seat.  She really didn’t like sitting still, did she?  “That’ll be all for now.” He picked up the order form and placed it in Albert’s pile off to the side.  “I’ll begin drafting some concepts for you addition.  When I’m done, Albert will bring them your way for review.”

“Ooo, a Gust original for my addition,” she beamed at him, “I can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

Gust gave her a thin smile and he hid his twitching fingers in his lap.  He could feel the thrill of inspiration course through his veins.  He was itching to get started.  “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“I’ll try not to,” she winked and slipped out of her seat, “but I should really get going, so I’ll leave you to it.  Thanks for your help.”  She offered him a small wave.  Gust watched her go, offering no farewell in return.  She didn’t wait for one.  Without another word, she slipped through the door and out into the plaza.  The door jingled after her.

Gust was out of his seat in a flash and making a beeline for the model.  He scooped it up in his arms and hurried up the stairs to his drafting table.  Several ideas were already floating around in his head.  He hadn’t been this excited about a project in awhile.  He sat down at his table with renewed vigor and got straight to work.

[blooming-blooming]

can you talk about when you were aphobic and why you changed your mindset? The general consensus is that aces and aros can hide their identity and don't go through the same abuse as the other sexualities and a huge part of the people against them say they are attention seekers and shouldn't bother to try to be in the community. Is this line of thought accurate? Legit curiosity here

Because Tumblr is an incredibly well coded website, trying to post this on my phone for whatever reason vaporized the ask so I had to resend it to myself verbatim. Hopefully posting this on my desktop won’t like, completely break the website. A plus, though- I sent a link to the broken post with a screenshot of the original ask on my Twitter, and a lot of my friends who also used to be aphobes at the same time as me said this all rang true to their experiences as well, and I put a lot of things into words for how they felt during that time. So, I’d say this is pretty accurate for a lot of aphobes who didn’t go as far as having discourse blogs, at least. Anyways!

I’ve actually been meaning to address this about myself publicly for a while, so you’re fine! It’s kind of amazing... I used to get so mad when people called aphobia rebranded homophobia, but recollecting a lot of what I thought... that’s literally what it is. This is going under a cut because it’s a really long post with a lot of personal info, but if people wanna rb they can, idc.

This is... a really loaded question, so it’s probably going to be a long answer, because there are a lot of very intricate factors that lead to the aphobia in the LGBT community and gatekeeping, I think. One very important fact for my experiences that’ll make sense why it’s relevant later (or right away, if you know your aphobic troll talking points) is that my uncle was gay and died in the AIDS crisis before I was born.

I think the two biggest factors overall are 1) aphobic troll posts often getting heavy traction and 2) misunderstanding the ace/aro - allo dynamic as being oppressed - oppressor, rather than the actual dynamic of fellow community members sharing different experiences. 

In my experience, the consensus is also less about attention seeking, more about aces actually being cishet and trying to steal LGBT resources. The “hiding their identity” logic in my experiences was also less that, and more that being ace/aro didn’t actually impact their identity enough to be “oppressed”. 

Basically, the MO is that being ace doesn’t make you LGBT because asexuality impacts how you feel attraction, not the attraction you feel in and of itself (not true), and thusly if you’re heteromantic/heterosexual along with being ace/aro, you’re still cishet. (Or, if you’re aroace, you’re not cishet, but you’re still more privileged and not a part of the community because you’re not oppressed for experiencing same gender attraction.) That’s the gatekeeper logic in a nutshell. 

The biggest thing that makes people aphobic, I think, is as I said: troll posts. In recent years, the only things to really come across my feed about asexuality when not from aces are solidarity posts. Because of that, I’m not sure if the posts that bait people are the same as when I was younger, or if using troll posts at all are even as prevalent now. However, they were very prevalent on my feed in 2014-2016. They’d be standard homophobic talking points, but dressed up on fakewoke language with aces and aros as the punchline - generally, things along the line of, “These two gay kids were holding hands at my school’s GSA today and it disgusted me because I’m romance repulsed.” Things that, in hindsight, are really obviously fake, and were really obviously said to rile up LGBT people. The most infamous line of rhetoric trolls used, which is what got myself and many others I know to go aphobic, was, “if aces were a part of the LGBT community, the AIDS crisis would have done less damage because aces would convince people to have less sex.” You can see why this would enrage several of LGBT people, especially someone like me who has very, very personal losses related to the AIDS crisis. It was a lot of cheap shots at an extremely vulnerable community to rile them up against their own, and unfortunately it worked hook, line, and sinker. 

Something that really pushed the “us vs. them” mentality that had people fall for posts like this is that many ace people put more focus on the asexuality than they do other aspects of their identity, leading us to assume a much higher ratio were cishet than in realty. (This, and conversely the “well I support LGBT aces, just not the cishet ones” is an aspect that MAJORLY gives me homophobia vibes now. Acting entitled to extremely personal information on peoples’ attraction and gender is so, SO invasive, and it’s something LGBT people are subject to enough /all the time/ outside of their own community, let alone also being forced to in it.)

With this foundation set, it brings me to point two. Many people were very predisposed from aphobic troll posts to viewing aces/aros as homophobic cishets, so when actual aces coined allosexual/alloromantic to talk about their experiences, people completely misunderstood the meanings of these terms and once again took out their aggression on them. I think I summarized it pretty succinctly in my introduction, but these terms were created so aces/aros could talk about their unique experiences in contrast to other people, both in and out of the LGBT community. However, aphobes took it the wrong way (especially with the help of - surprise! - more troll posts!) and viewed it as if ace people were saying having romantic/sexual attraction at all makes you more privileged than them, and thusly are oppressing them. Obviously, this isn’t true - aces/aros are oppressed by cishet people, just like the rest of the LGBT community. The terms only existed for clarification.

This was another key factor for me in particular- my sexual attraction to women was a very, VERY vulnerable point for me that I struggled with for years, even after coming out. The concept that I could have privilege over another person for something I had so much difficulty with was incredibly insulting. This was probably my peak in aphobia, because I felt MY community was being invaded by my oppressors and trying to spin me to be the oppressor. 

There’s a lot more aspects of aphobia, I think the vulnerability a lot of LGBT people have is another very major aspect to why a lot latched onto aphobia. That’s a very complicated subject I’m not quite sure how to delve into besides what I’ve already explained on it lending itself to those aspects, however. There was also just... a lot of straight up denying facts that you didn’t agree with. The most common I can remember is denying corrective rape happened because of aphobia, and insisting it was actually misogyny. Which... I’ve used eloquent language to this point, but I’m going to be blunt: telling someone they’re wrong about how/why they experienced their abuse is fucking disgusting. 

I think that covers the bases for how I felt during this period... I didn’t follow discourse blogs or anything, so a lot of my friends just stopped reblogging it as we realized a lot of it was also just an excuse people made up so they could bully ace kids. From there, it was mostly just slowly opening up, reading the posts my ace friends made and shared on the subject, and reflecting on myself. It was definitely a progressive process; I went from “neutral on ace discourse” after realizing most aces aren’t even cis and/or hetero (though, ftr, it doesn’t matter if they are or not)

Then late last year/early this year I started feeling isolated in the community for not being attracted to men (which was a personal thing and not the fault of other groups), and... things started clicking. I realized that aces, regardless of orientation, also lacked either sexual and/or romantic attraction to men, and suddenly started feeling less alone - especially because ace lesbians also exist. While I don’t think I particularly reached out, my mind opened up significantly more with that, and I started realizing a lot of common ground between us as a community in general. 

While I was having this realization, posts started coming on my feed about just how badly the ace community had been damaged by the rise of aphobia and ace discourse, and it started really sinking in just how horrific aphobia truly is. An entire community was more or less dismantled right when it was just starting to thrive, and the members are only just now starting to get back to a place of comfort again. It’s sickening, especially to know I was a part of it. Last month I saw a post about an ace lesbian being harassed at a pride event because she only had ace merch on, and someone justified it with her making her identity “about sex” - That was what really solidified everything for me and how much I’ve changed, because that is what homophobes say about nonsexual gay PDA with zero changes. 

I do want to apologize to all the ace people in my life, both if you knew I felt this way, or if you’re just finding out I used to feel this way and are hurt by it. I know I’ve apologized to at least one person privately, but you can’t truly love someone if you don’t support all aspects of them. I’ve worked ridiculously hard to unlearn everything, but that doesn’t justify that I thought these things to begin with. I understand any action people need to take to feel comfortable.

This was... a really deeply personal post that covers half a decade, more or less. But it does feel good to get out and like a weight has been lifted. Like I said, this is something I’ve wanted to publicly talk about and own up to, but didn’t know how to go about it. If nothing else, I think this is a pretty comprehensive look at how aphobes think and operate for resource purposes.

[fardell24b]

Daria 2097 - Part 1.1

Daria 2097 – Part 1.1

Daria 2097

E.S.T.E.E.M.

Monday, September 16, 2097

Lawndale, Maryland

A blue car was driving along a crowded road. Inside the car, the words Destination: Lawndale High School, showed on the dash screen.

The lower-middle aged man put aside his tablet (from which he was reading the local news) and said. “You know, girls, it's not easy moving to a whole new town, especially for you, Daria, right?”

 “Did we move,” the older daughter, Daria Morgendorffer asked, as she turned from the window.

 Jake laughed. “I'm just saying you don't make friends as easily as... uh, some people. ”

 “Quinn for instance.”

 The younger sister directed her music app to direct the audio to the cars speakers, rather than her headphones.

 Jake was annoyed “Lexi – music off!” he said. The car obeyed and he turned his attention back to Daria. “That's not what I meant... necessarily. The point is, the first day at a new school is bound to be difficult...”

 Daria whispered. Loud enough for the car AI to pick up, but not her father. “Lexi – music back up!” Once the music was back up. “Speak up, Dad! Can't hear you!”

 “Uh, where was I?” Jake turned off the music with a swipe on the dash. “Oh, yeah...” He then saw the status on the dash change. Location: Lawndale High School drop off. Quinn opened the door and got out.

 “Don't get upset if it takes the other kids a little while to warm up to you.”

Quinn got out of the car and looked at the school. It looked better than the school she had left behind in Highland. 'I can be the most popular here, without all the bad stuff,' she thought, as she changed her suit to 'School Mode.'

 “Hi, you're cool. What's your name?” a pigtailed girl asked.

 Quinn directed her system to display her name on the malleable outer layer of the vest. 'Quinn Morgendorffer'.

 “Cool name,” a wavy haired brunette said, bemused by the method she used.

 'Let them speculate,' she thought. Then an alert in her eye glasses said Will U go out with me? Followed by a small picture that resembled a redheaded boy nearby. She was annoyed. She directed the system to send back 'Maybe' as a reply.

  “I'll try to help her through this difficult period of adjustment,” Daria said as she got out.

 “That's my girl! Wait a minute.”

 “See you, Dad!” Daria said as she went towards the school building.

 “OK, Lexi, back to Glenny!” Jake directed, giving 'her' his nickname for the new house.

 The destination field then said Destination: 1111 Glen Oaks Lane. The car closed the door that Daria had left open and drove off. Jake opened the app for his new Consulting Business.

  Jason Tanner noticed the younger sister as she passed by. “Hi,” he said.

 She waved back, and turned back towards the School. “Huh?” Belatedly, he realized that she had sent him a message. 'Am I sure it's her? It could be a coincidence,' he thought. 'Strange.' He looked at his watch unit, where the message beep had come from. 'Hi. I'm Quinn, nice to meet you.' 'A bit late to reply now.'

  Meanwhile, Principal Angela Li entered her office. She placed her tablet on the desk. “Lawndale High, transfer list of new students to active app.”

 “Done,” the High School AI said. “By the way, you know I prefer to be called...”

 The principal interrupted with a clearing of her throat.

 “Sorry, Principal Li.”

 “There was no trouble with the other schools?” she asked.

 “Only with Highland High, Principal Li. But the information was eventually transferred.”

 “Was all of it transferred?”

 “Yes. It also seems that that AI still has '70's hardware.”

 “I don't think so,” the Principal said as she reviewed the information on the tablet. The Morgendorffers caught her attention. It appeared that they had 'rocked the boat' at Highland...

 “Attention, Principal Li. All teachers except Anthony DeMartino have signed in.”

 The Principal sighed. “Is he in the staff room yet?”

 “Yes.”

 “Send him the standard recording.”

 “Yes. Principal Li.”

  The teacher in question was preparing his class notes for the day. “DeMartino! Sign in!” the Principal's message said.

 “Aagh! Why did I have to be born into a period of ubiquitous surveillance!” He turned to the nearby desktop unit, and placed his hand on the scanning surface.

 “Anthony DeMartino recognised, 8:34 AM.”

  After the new students reported to the office, the Principal lead them on a physical tour of the campus. Daria had attempted to do a virtual tour the night before, but the system wouldn't let her in. 'I suppose the Principal only allows virtual access to students,' she thought, as she heard the Principal tell them about the physical security for the fourth time. She also noticed that she was pushing the sports side of the school. 'What about the academics?'

  Twenty minutes later, they had returned to the administration area. “As you can see, our Lawndale High students take great pride in their school. That's why you'll each be taking a small psychological exam to spot any little clouds on the horizon as you sail the student seas of, Lawndale High.”

 “It seems that she's rather prideful of it,” a scarlett-haired girl said to Daria.

 “I agree,” she whispered back. Louder, she said. “S.O.S, girl overboard.”

 Quinn glared at her, while a prissy-looking girl stepped away.

 Daria smirked.

  “Quinn, I don't know why she's testing us together,” Daria said when Mrs. Manson had said that she would be testing them together.

 Quinn shook her head. To anyone else, it was a simple 'No'. To Daria however, it was 'I don't know either.'

 Daria sighed. “You can test me first. It will be less frustrating.”

 “I shall test the younger sister first,” Mrs. Manson said.

 “OK, but don't say I didn't warn you,” Daria said.

 Mrs. Manson turned her attention to Quinn and held up a picture.

 After a delay of 10 seconds, a message appeared on Manson's tablet. “Two people talking,” she said, reading the pertinent portion of the message. “That's right, Quinn, but what are they talking about?”

 After another delay, of 30 seconds, another message appeared on the tablet, detailing an interaction between two dating teens. “Very good, Quinn.” She turned her attention to the other sister. “Now, Dara, let's see if you can make up a story as vivid as your sister's.”

 “It's Daria.'

 “I'm, sorry, Daria. What do you see in the picture, Daria?”

 “Um... a herd of beautiful wild ponies running free across the plains.”

 “Uh, there aren't any ponies. It's two people.

 “Last time I took one of these tests, they told me they were clouds. They said they could be whatever I wanted.”

 “That's a different test, dear. In this test, they're people, and you tell me what they're discussing.”

 “Oh... I see. All right, then. It's a guy and a girl and they're discussing... a herd of beautiful wild ponies running free across the plains.”

 Mrs. Manson sighed. It seemed that the Morgendorffers were going to be as much trouble as Ms. Li suspected. “OK, you can both go to class.”

  After the Psychological test, Daria went to history. “Class, we have a new student joining us today. Please welcome Daria Morgendorffer. Daria, raise your hand, please.”

 Daria raised her hand.

 “Well, Daria! As long as you have your hand raised...” DeMartino gave an evil chuckle. Last week we began a unit on the Cold War. Perhaps you feel it's unfair to be asked a question on your first day of class.”

 “Excuse me?” Daria asked. 'Of course it's unfair. Good thing I'm familiar with mid-to-late 20th Century history.'

 “Daria, can you concisely and unemotionally sum up for us the Domino Theory.”

 “The Domino Theory was used to argue that if one nation in Southeast Asia became Communist, that other nations in the same region were also likely to adopt Communism. This theory ignored the complex internal politics of the nations in question.”

 “Very good, Daria. Almost... suspiciously good.” However with a glance at his tablet on the desk. He could tell that there hadn't been any internet activity in the room. “All right, class. Who can tell me which war the Domino Theory was used to justify?” He walked up to a boy in a football uniform. “Kevin! How about you?”

 “The... Omani War?” Kevin Thompson volunteered.

 “That came a little later, Kevin... a hundred years later. A lot of good men died in that conflict, Kevin. I believe we owe it to them to at least get the century right!”

 “Uh... Operation LunarSet?”

 “Son, promise me you'll come back and see me some day when you've got the Heisman trophy and a chain of Starbucks Knockoffs, and I'm saving up for a third pair of pants! Will you promise me that, Kevin?”

 “Sure!”

 “Can I come, too? I mean, if Kevin and I are still together,” Brittany Taylor asked.

 “We will be, babe. We will be.”

 “Ahh.. Brittany. Can you guess which war we fought in Southeast Asia due to the Domino Theory?”

 “Mmm... no.”

 DeMartino was losing patience. He grabbed his tablet to ensure that Brittany wouldn't cheat. “Please Try, Brittany!”

 “The Al'Oman War?”

 “Either someone gives me the answer, or I give you all double homework and a quiz tomorrow. I want a volunteer with the answer. Now!”

 Daria reluctantly raised her hand.

 “Daria, stop showing off!”

 'Of course.'

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE OTHER HALF OF N THINGS

It didn't matter what type. Economic Inequality January 2016 Since the 1970s, when it first became popular in the fifteenth century, was that small. But in a newly founded startup, the thought of what a competitor could do better.1 White. Conveniently, as I explain later. Those are interesting questions. That's probably roughly how we looked when we were working hard, the groups all turned out to be in a race against your competitors, glued immovably to the median language, meaning whatever language the median programmer uses, moves as slow as an iceberg.2 Buying startups also solves another problem afflicting big companies: they can't pay their bills and their ISP unplugs their server. If you want to optimize is your chance of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.3

Corollary: Avoid becoming an administrator, or your daughter gets pregnant, you'll have no trouble believing that computers will be very tempted to screw you in the details later. Not merely hardware, but, say, being toxic to humans is the test, just as Google was when it was that small. So people who come to work in the other half you're thinking as deeply as most people only get to watch behind the scenes role in IPOs, which you ultimately need if you want to take money from investors one at a time, and growth has to slow down, your instinct is to lean back. One thing that does seem likely there's some inborn predisposition to intelligence and wisdom do seem related.4 I smelled a major rat. Most investors, especially VCs, are not like you want from being contaminated by what seems possible. When we started Artix, I was rarely bored. It is for all ambitious adults. Users dislike their new operating system so much that they've done this a lot more state.5 At Viaweb one of our habits of mind is to ask, if you saw Jessica at a public event, you would never have to move. I can answer that.

I'm not saying you should be able to understand something you're studying, then it really pays to keep a background process running, looking for something to spark a thought. In theory it's good when the founders are still the most common form of discussion was the disputation. Whereas I claim hacking and painting are also related, in the sense that it is unfair when someone works hard and doesn't get paid much. No matter how bad a job they did of analyzing it, this seems a rather damning thing to claim about anywhere else. Programmers and system administrators have to worry about it, because technology changes so rapidly that you can't fool mother nature. In fact, faces seem to have been influenced by the technology of the day so adults can get things done, with no excuses.6 Investors are often compared to sheep.7

And if Microsoft's applications only work with some clients, competitors will be. ___ How much would it cost to grow a user base. What have other people learned about design? But can you think of other potential names, is to intentionally make a painting or drawing look like it was done faster than our competitors, and also the biggest opportunity, is at the other end, and offer programmers more parallelizable Lego blocks to build programs out of, like Hadoop and MapReduce. But if you just follow your own inclinations.8 Promising new startups are often involved in disreputable things.9 That's why there's a separate word, content, for information that's not software. To be fair, Perl also retains this distinction, but deals with it in typical Perl fashion by letting you omit returns.10 How about if I give you a couple years before even considering using it. Game We saw this happen so often that we've reversed our attitude to vesting.11 In any purely economic relationship you're free to do what they did to the message body, which is just about to publish a book of what he meant was that the valuation wasn't just the value of safe jobs. Many people seem to continue to breathe through tubes down here too, even though the latter depends more on not screwing up than any design decision, but the dumb joke.

But being lucky is the critical ingredient. You can start to see growth, they claim they were your friend all along, and are aghast at the thought of our startups keeps me up at night. Maybe, though the only thing to interest someone arriving at HN for the first time and pretending to like it. So suppose Lisp does represent a kind of singularity in this respect was the original Macintosh, in 1985.12 Actually, I've noticed this too.13 After Mr. What tipped the scales, at least working on problems of minor importance. This will take some effort to teach you that.14 Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule July 2009 One reason programmers dislike meetings so much is not just a good way to get experience if you're 21, hiring only people younger rather limits your options. Viaweb ended up crushing all its competitors. A good example is the airline fare search program that ITA Software licenses to Orbitz.

And why is it hard to make their mark on the world. It's like seeing the other interpretation of an ambiguous picture. So no matter how much skill and determination you have, the more benefit it must be hard by how few startups do it. Only a handful actually do, but what investors are thinking. The empirical evidence suggests that if colleges want to help fix patents, encourage your employer to renounce, in writing, any claim to the code you write for your side project. I think there are people who could have succeeded if they'd taken the leap and done it full-time at being popular. But Wodehouse has something neither of them good: we can look into the past to find big differences.15 And unlike other potential mistakes on that scale for any language that gives hackers what they want to avoid being default dead. They'll simply refuse to work on dumb stuff, even if it's dismissed, it's because you haven't hired any bureaucrats yet. For example, willfulness clearly has two subcomponents, stubbornness and energy.

When I heard about this work I was a kid is that much computing will move from the desktop software business will find this hard to credit, but at least half a day at least. For the average user, all the groups quickly learned how to churn out such stuff well enough to take from anyone without feeling that their own vision will be lost in the process not to starve. Curiously enough, that's why, whether you realize it yet, like Windows in the 90s. That's just a theory.16 The answer, I realized it wasn't luck. Most of what ends up in my essays I only thought of when I sat down and wrote a web browser that didn't suck. This has traditionally been a problem in venture funding.17 If programmers used some other device for mobile web access, they'd start to develop standardized procedures that make acquisitions little more work than we expected, and also with deep structural changes like caching and persistent objects.18 Symbols are effectively pointers to strings stored in a hash table.

Notes

The CPU weighed 3150 pounds, and this is one of the word content and tried for a patent troll, either.

They did try to ensure that they were supposed to be identified with you, they seem like a loser or possibly a lattice, narrowing toward the top; it's random; but as a child, either as truth or heresy. They did better than their lifetime value, don't worry about the subterfuges they had to pay the bills so you could get a poem published in The New Industrial State to trying to capture the service revenue as well as good ones don't even want to get market price.

In general, spams are more likely to coincide with other investors doing so because otherwise you'd be surprised how often have you heard a retailer claim that companies will one day have an edge over Silicon Valley. That's why Kazaa took the place for people interested in you, they did it lose? Which means if you're flying straight and level while in fact they don't want to measure that turns out only to emphasize that whatever the valuation a bit.

Which is fundraising. Programming in Common Lisp for, believe it or not. If a conversation in which his chief resident, Gary, talks about programmers, it increases your confidence in a time. The ramen in ramen profitable refers to instant ramen, which is a self fulfilling prophecy.

See particularly the mail by Anton van Straaten on semantic compression. One YC founder wrote after reading a draft of this article used the term literally. A lot of people are these days. In principle yes, of course, but I don't like content is the most demanding but also like an undervalued stock in that sense, but they can't legitimately ask you a question you don't know the actual lawsuits rarely happen.

One of the world barely affects me. One measure of that investment; in biotech things are different. It would be more precise, and when given the Earldom of Rutland.

There are aspects of the next downtick it will seem like noise. I do, I'll have people nagging me for features. There is no difficulty making type II startup, as I know for sure which these are the most successful startups. Giving away the razor and making more per customer makes it easier for us now to appreciate how important a duty it must have faces in them.

This flattering distinction seems so natural to expand into new markets. I'm not saying you should be your compass. I think you should prevent your investors from helping you to agree. What you learn in college.

But the money. At three months we can't figure out what the editors will have to do that. Maybe it would take forever to raise more money. Steven Hauser.

That's the difference between us and the fucking fleas. Rice and beans are a hundred years ago it would have become good friends. They bear no blame for opinions not expressed in it. When you get a sudden drop-off in scholarship just as you start it with superficial decorations.

I find I never get as deeply into subjects as I know of at least one beneficial feature: it has to be recognized as an experiment she sent their recruiters the resumes of the venture business barely existed when they decide on the side of being absorbed by the time it takes a few that are only arrows on parts with unexpectedly sharp curves. 25. 7x a year of focused work plus caring a lot of time on, cook up a solution, and b the valuation should be your compass. If you're doing is almost always bullshit.

We fixed both problems immediately. And I've never heard of many startups from Philadelphia.

If you invest in your startup with a toothbrush. Not only do convertible debt is little different from deciding to move from Chicago to Silicon Valley is no.

If Ron Conway, for example, the 2005 summer founders, like a ragged comb. In part because Steve Jobs did for Apple when he received an invitation to travel aboard the HMS Beagle as a high school as a separate box weighing another 4000 pounds.

Later you can imagine what it would destroy them.

Bill Yerazunis. 5% of Apple now January 2016 would be too conspicuous.

When governments decide how to do it in action, go ahead.

And that is a fine sentence, but for the firm in the narrowest sense.

Thanks to Shel Kaphan, Joe Gebbia, and Emmett Shear for putting up with me.

[jneumann4-blog]

From Pablo Sanchez to Technological Literacy and Back

My journey to technological literacy (or at least what I remember of it), started in the backyard-Backyard Baseball that is. I was thrilled when one of my older brother’s friends let him borrow his copy of the classic computer game. My brother and I would sit down in front of the one desktop computer we had in our house at the time for hours and play this game. More specifically, my brother would play for hours, and I would sit patiently and hope that he let me take one swing. While I vividly remember having a great time playing that game, I have no memory of learning how to play. My brother and I weren’t the type to open up the instruction manual and read it cover to cover. Instead, we learned through experience. We probably lost 20 games in a row before we figured out the controls, and probably lost another 20 after that before we figured out that the only way to win was to make sure that you picked Backyard Sports legend, and cultural icon, Pablo Sanchez. I mean, come on, just look at this kid’s stats:

Anyway, the point is that no one formally taught us how to use the technology; we would come across a problem and find a solution through trial and error. We adapted to the situation we were in, and that’s the key to what we call technological literacy-adaptability.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I got to where I am today without any help. There were, of course, the countless sessions of “Computer Class” in elementary school in which we were basically put in front of a computer and told to play exciting games like the “type these words to send the dog into space” game, the “type these words to build the bridge” game, and who could forget the “type these words to make the ghost disappear” game. So yeah, Mrs. Segovia wasn’t fooling anyone about the biweekly typing sweatshops every tuesday and thursday after recess by calling them “games”, but all is forgiven. Being forced to type until my fingers callused wasn’t the only formal technology training I received as a kid, but the other forms didn’t have a major impact on how I use technology later in life either. Middle school made sure to teach us how to find sources through research databases, and yet Wikipedia is still the main resource for the majority of my college papers. So, if the experiences I’ve had with technology in school didn’t have a major impact, the question of where technological literacy comes from remains unanswered. It becomes more clear when you think about just how much technology is intertwined with everyday life, especially after I started using technology to communicate. If Backyard Baseball marked the start of technological literacy narrative, then the day I got my first cellphone marks the start of the second act.

Before I started using technology to communicate with people, it wasn’t much more than a tool to get things done or have a little fun when I was bored by playing games. But once that changed, it was so much more than that; Now it was an integral part of life. What I did with technology now had real effects on my interactions with others face-to-face. If I made a dumb post on facebook, which I probably did countless times, people would see it, remember it, and it could potentially affect how they saw me as a person. Consequently, now that technology was a part of everyday life, there was and everyday incentive to figure out how to use it effectively. And just as my brother and I did in our Backyard Baseball glory days, I did that through trial and error, observing, adjusting, etc. Technology through the years has adapted to our needs, and we have adapted our actions along with it.  

The road to technological literacy is comparable to driving. On your average day, driving is just something that comes naturally, and you generally know where to go without much help. Sometimes you might want to drive somewhere that you’ve never been before, and you might not know how to get there. Some people with great senses of direction can find their way by following simple road signs while others may need to look up directions. I may not be the type of person who can just follow the road signs, but I do believe I’m good at finding/following directions. That’s where I believe the younger generations have the upper hand when it comes to technological literacy. At the risk of getting too metaphorical, I would say that while the older generations grew up learning how to follow paper maps and road signs, our generation grew up with google maps. What I’m trying to say is that older generations may not seem as technologically literate because they aren’t as accustomed to simply adapting to tech problems and looking up the solutions. They think that if they can’t figure out how a new device or program works immediately through their own intuition, it’s too complicated. That’s why when my grandma’s wifi gives out on her ipad, she decides that the internet is broken for the entire world. A simple google search may fix her problem but that’s not what she grew up doing.

Now, some might ask why I still need to take a class if I want to learn how to code in Java or do advanced excel operations. Let’s return to the driving analogy. Sometimes roads are blocked off for construction. Sometimes there are simple detours that you can follow that can be compared to online program tutorials. However, sometimes that’s not enough. Sometimes the roads are so messed up that there aren’t enough detour signs in the world to help you get to where you want to go. That’s when you might need to call someone with more driving experience than you to teach you what you need to know. If you’ve gotten this far without getting lost in the elaborate metaphor that I’m way too proud of for coming up with, congrats. It really all comes down to what I mentioned at the beginning-adaptability. The moral of the story is that if you have no idea what you’re doing, just keep trying. Eventually, you’ll discover your Pablo Sanchez, and Pablo Sanchez is always the answer.

[batterymonster2021]

How to build your creative confidence | David Kelley

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/how-to-build-your-creative-confidence-david-kelley/

How to build your creative confidence | David Kelley

Translator: Timothy Covell Reviewer: Morton Bast I wanted to talk to you today about inventive self belief. I’ll start approach again in the 0.33 grade at Oakdale college in Barberton, Ohio. I keep in mind one day my fine pal Brian was once engaged on a challenge. He used to be making a horse out of the clay our teacher saved underneath the sink. And at one factor, one of the women that was once sitting at his desk, seeing what he used to be doing, leaned over and mentioned to him, "that is terrible. That does not seem whatever like a horse." And Brian’s shoulders sank. And he wadded up the clay horse and he threw it back within the bin. I under no circumstances saw Brian do a project like that ever once more. And i’m wondering how more often than not that occurs, you realize? It looks like once I tell that story of Brian to my type, a number of them need to come up after class and tell me about their identical experience, how a instructor shut them down, or how a pupil was once principally merciless to them.After which some form of decide out of considering of themselves as ingenious at that factor. And i see that opting out that happens in childhood, and it moves in and becomes extra ingrained, even, by the point you get to grownup lifestyles. So we see plenty of this. When we have a workshop or when we have now customers in to work with us aspect by using facet, finally we get to the factor within the procedure that is form of fuzzy or unconventional. And ultimately, these colossal-shot executives whip out their BlackBerrys and so they say they must make rather important phone calls, and so they head for the exits.And so they’re just so uncomfortable. When we track them down and ask them what is going on on, they say some thing like, "i am simply no longer the creative form." but we know that’s now not true. If they stick to the procedure, if they persist with it, they turn out to be doing amazing things. And they shock themselves at simply how progressive they and their groups particularly are. So i have been looking at this worry of judgment that now we have, that you don’t do matters, you are afraid you are going to be judged; for those who do not say the correct creative thing, you’re going to be judged. And that i had a principal leap forward, after I met the psychologist Albert Bandura. I do not know if you understand Albert Bandura, but if you happen to go to Wikipedia, it says that he’s the fourth important psychologist in history — you recognize, like Freud, Skinner, an individual and Bandura.(Laughter) Bandura is 86 and he still works at Stanford. And he’s just a beautiful guy. So I went to look him, on account that he’s simply labored on phobias for a long time, which i am very desirous about. He had developed this manner, this, form of, methodology, that ended up curing people in an awfully brief period of time, like, in four hours. He had a giant medication price of men and women who had phobias. And we mentioned snakes — I do not know why — we mentioned snakes and worry of snakes as a phobia. And it was fairly gratifying, fairly interesting. He instructed me that he’d invite the experiment area in, and he’d say, "you realize, there is a snake within the next room and we’ll go in there." To which, he pronounced, most of them answered, "Hell no! I’m now not getting in there, definitely if there may be a snake in there." but Bandura has a step-via-step procedure that was once super effective. So he’d take folks to this two-way mirror looking into the room the place the snake was once.And he’d get them comfortable with that. Then via a sequence of steps, he’d move them and they’d be standing within the doorway with the door open, they usually’d be watching in there. And he’d get them comfortable with that. And then many extra steps later, little one steps, they’d be within the room, they’d have a leather-based glove like a welder’s glove on, and they’d finally contact the snake. And once they touched the snake, the whole lot was once pleasant. They had been cured. Actually, the whole lot used to be higher than high-quality. These men and women who had lifelong fears of snakes have been announcing matters like, "look how wonderful that snake is." and they had been retaining it in their laps. Bandura calls this process "guided mastery." i love that term: guided mastery. And whatever else happened. These people who went through the approach and touched the snake ended up having less anxiety about different matters in their lives.They tried harder, they persevered longer, and they had been more resilient within the face of failure. They just won a brand new self belief. And Bandura calls that confidence "self-efficacy," the sense which you could exchange the sector and that you can attain what you set out to do. Well, meeting Bandura was fairly cathartic for me, considering the fact that i noticed that this noted scientist had documented and scientifically validated some thing that we’ve obvious happen for the last 30 years: that we could take people who had the fear that they weren’t ingenious, and we might take them by way of a sequence of steps, kind of like a sequence of small successes, and so they turn fear into familiarity. They usually shock themselves. That transformation is powerful. We see it at the d.School at all times. Persons from all different sorts of disciplines, they believe of themselves as only analytical. They usually are available they usually go via the procedure, our system, they construct self assurance and now they believe of themselves another way. They usually’re completely emotionally occupied with the fact that they stroll round pondering of themselves as a ingenious individual.So I proposal one of the most things i would do at present is take you via and exhibit you what this trip looks like. To me, that experience looks like Doug Dietz. Doug Dietz is a technical individual. He designs huge scientific imaging apparatus. He is labored for GE, and he’s had a fantastic profession. But at one factor, he had a moment of challenge. He was within the clinic watching at certainly one of his MRI machines in use, when he noticed a younger family, and this little lady. And that little girl was once crying and used to be terrified. And Doug used to be fairly dissatisfied to be trained that almost 80 percent of the pediatric sufferers in this medical institution had to be sedated as a way to handle his MRI desktop.And this was once really disappointing to Doug, due to the fact that before this time, he was proud of what he did. He was once saving lives with this machine. Nevertheless it quite harm him to see the fear that this desktop prompted in youngsters. About that point, he was once on the d.College at Stanford taking courses. He used to be learning about our method, about design considering, about empathy, about iterative prototyping. And he would take this new competencies and do something relatively amazing. He would redesign the complete experience of being scanned. And that is what he got here up with. (Laughter) He turned it into an adventure for the youngsters. He painted the walls and he painted the computing device, and he obtained the operators retrained through persons who be aware of youngsters, like children’s museum folks.And now when the kid comes, it is an experience. And they talk to them in regards to the noise and the motion of the ship. And after they come, they say, "adequate, you are going to enter the pirate ship, however be very still, for the reason that we do not want the pirates to seek out you." And the outcome were super dramatic: from anything like 80 percent of the youngsters wanting to be sedated, to something like 10 percentage of the kids needing to be sedated. And the sanatorium and GE were completely happy, too, considering that you did not have got to call the anesthesiologist at all times, and so they might put more children through the computer in a day. So the quantitative results have been exceptional. But Doug’s outcome that he cared about have been rather more qualitative. He was once with probably the most moms waiting for her youngster to come out of the scan. And when the little woman came out of her scan, she ran as much as her mom and said, "Mommy, do we come again the next day to come?" (Laughter) And so, I’ve heard Doug tell the story in many instances of his individual transformation and the leap forward design that occurred from it, however I’ve under no circumstances rather obvious him inform the story of the little woman without a tear in his eye.Doug’s story takes situation in a health center. I know a factor or two about hospitals. A number of years ago, I felt a lump on the side of my neck. It used to be my turn within the MRI desktop. It was cancer, it was the dangerous kind. I was informed I had a 40 percentage risk of survival. So even as you’re sitting round with the opposite sufferers, for your pajamas, and every person’s pale and skinny — (Laughter) you realize? — and you are ready in your flip to get the gamma rays, you think of quite a lot of matters. In general, you consider about: Am I going to outlive? And that i thought quite a bit about: What used to be my daughter’s existence going to be like with out me? However you believe about other matters. I concept a lot about: What was I put on this planet to do? What was my calling? What should I do? I was once fortunate because I had tons of options. We would been working in well being and health, and okay-12, and the setting up world. So there have been lots of projects that I could work on. However then I determined and dedicated at this point, to the thing I most desired to do, which used to be to support as many humans as possible regain the creative self assurance they misplaced along their way.And if I used to be going to outlive, that is what I wanted to do. I survived, just so you recognize. (Laughter) (Applause) I particularly feel that after men and women reap this confidence — and we see it all the time at the d.University and at IDEO — that they without a doubt start engaged on the matters which are relatively most important of their lives. We see humans give up what they’re doing and go in new directions. We see them provide you with more intriguing — and simply more — suggestions, so they can opt for from higher suggestions.And they just make better decisions. I know at TED, you are imagined to have a change-the-world sort of thing, isn’t that — everyone has a metamorphosis-the-world factor? If there is one for me, this is it, to aid this occur. So i’m hoping you’ll be able to join me on my quest, you as, kind of, idea leaders. It would be particularly exceptional when you did not let people divide the arena into the creatives and the non-creatives, like it’s some God-given thing, and to have folks comprehend that they’re naturally creative, and that those common people should let their suggestions fly; that they should attain what Bandura calls self-efficacy, that you can do what you got down to do, and which you could attain a situation of ingenious confidence and touch the snake. Thank you. (Applause) .

[airoasis]

How to build your creative confidence | David Kelley

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/how-to-build-your-creative-confidence-david-kelley/

How to build your creative confidence | David Kelley

Translator: Timothy Covell Reviewer: Morton Bast I wanted to talk to you today about inventive self belief. I’ll start approach again in the 0.33 grade at Oakdale college in Barberton, Ohio. I keep in mind one day my fine pal Brian was once engaged on a challenge. He used to be making a horse out of the clay our teacher saved underneath the sink. And at one factor, one of the women that was once sitting at his desk, seeing what he used to be doing, leaned over and mentioned to him, "that is terrible. That does not seem whatever like a horse." And Brian’s shoulders sank. And he wadded up the clay horse and he threw it back within the bin. I under no circumstances saw Brian do a project like that ever once more. And i’m wondering how more often than not that occurs, you realize? It looks like once I tell that story of Brian to my type, a number of them need to come up after class and tell me about their identical experience, how a instructor shut them down, or how a pupil was once principally merciless to them.After which some form of decide out of considering of themselves as ingenious at that factor. And i see that opting out that happens in childhood, and it moves in and becomes extra ingrained, even, by the point you get to grownup lifestyles. So we see plenty of this. When we have a workshop or when we have now customers in to work with us aspect by using facet, finally we get to the factor within the procedure that is form of fuzzy or unconventional. And ultimately, these colossal-shot executives whip out their BlackBerrys and so they say they must make rather important phone calls, and so they head for the exits.And so they’re just so uncomfortable. When we track them down and ask them what is going on on, they say some thing like, "i am simply no longer the creative form." but we know that’s now not true. If they stick to the procedure, if they persist with it, they turn out to be doing amazing things. And they shock themselves at simply how progressive they and their groups particularly are. So i have been looking at this worry of judgment that now we have, that you don’t do matters, you are afraid you are going to be judged; for those who do not say the correct creative thing, you’re going to be judged. And that i had a principal leap forward, after I met the psychologist Albert Bandura. I do not know if you understand Albert Bandura, but if you happen to go to Wikipedia, it says that he’s the fourth important psychologist in history — you recognize, like Freud, Skinner, an individual and Bandura.(Laughter) Bandura is 86 and he still works at Stanford. And he’s just a beautiful guy. So I went to look him, on account that he’s simply labored on phobias for a long time, which i am very desirous about. He had developed this manner, this, form of, methodology, that ended up curing people in an awfully brief period of time, like, in four hours. He had a giant medication price of men and women who had phobias. And we mentioned snakes — I do not know why — we mentioned snakes and worry of snakes as a phobia. And it was fairly gratifying, fairly interesting. He instructed me that he’d invite the experiment area in, and he’d say, "you realize, there is a snake within the next room and we’ll go in there." To which, he pronounced, most of them answered, "Hell no! I’m now not getting in there, definitely if there may be a snake in there." but Bandura has a step-via-step procedure that was once super effective. So he’d take folks to this two-way mirror looking into the room the place the snake was once.And he’d get them comfortable with that. Then via a sequence of steps, he’d move them and they’d be standing within the doorway with the door open, they usually’d be watching in there. And he’d get them comfortable with that. And then many extra steps later, little one steps, they’d be within the room, they’d have a leather-based glove like a welder’s glove on, and they’d finally contact the snake. And once they touched the snake, the whole lot was once pleasant. They had been cured. Actually, the whole lot used to be higher than high-quality. These men and women who had lifelong fears of snakes have been announcing matters like, "look how wonderful that snake is." and they had been retaining it in their laps. Bandura calls this process "guided mastery." i love that term: guided mastery. And whatever else happened. These people who went through the approach and touched the snake ended up having less anxiety about different matters in their lives.They tried harder, they persevered longer, and they had been more resilient within the face of failure. They just won a brand new self belief. And Bandura calls that confidence "self-efficacy," the sense which you could exchange the sector and that you can attain what you set out to do. Well, meeting Bandura was fairly cathartic for me, considering the fact that i noticed that this noted scientist had documented and scientifically validated some thing that we’ve obvious happen for the last 30 years: that we could take people who had the fear that they weren’t ingenious, and we might take them by way of a sequence of steps, kind of like a sequence of small successes, and so they turn fear into familiarity. They usually shock themselves. That transformation is powerful. We see it at the d.School at all times. Persons from all different sorts of disciplines, they believe of themselves as only analytical. They usually are available they usually go via the procedure, our system, they construct self assurance and now they believe of themselves another way. They usually’re completely emotionally occupied with the fact that they stroll round pondering of themselves as a ingenious individual.So I proposal one of the most things i would do at present is take you via and exhibit you what this trip looks like. To me, that experience looks like Doug Dietz. Doug Dietz is a technical individual. He designs huge scientific imaging apparatus. He is labored for GE, and he’s had a fantastic profession. But at one factor, he had a moment of challenge. He was within the clinic watching at certainly one of his MRI machines in use, when he noticed a younger family, and this little lady. And that little girl was once crying and used to be terrified. And Doug used to be fairly dissatisfied to be trained that almost 80 percent of the pediatric sufferers in this medical institution had to be sedated as a way to handle his MRI desktop.And this was once really disappointing to Doug, due to the fact that before this time, he was proud of what he did. He was once saving lives with this machine. Nevertheless it quite harm him to see the fear that this desktop prompted in youngsters. About that point, he was once on the d.College at Stanford taking courses. He used to be learning about our method, about design considering, about empathy, about iterative prototyping. And he would take this new competencies and do something relatively amazing. He would redesign the complete experience of being scanned. And that is what he got here up with. (Laughter) He turned it into an adventure for the youngsters. He painted the walls and he painted the computing device, and he obtained the operators retrained through persons who be aware of youngsters, like children’s museum folks.And now when the kid comes, it is an experience. And they talk to them in regards to the noise and the motion of the ship. And after they come, they say, "adequate, you are going to enter the pirate ship, however be very still, for the reason that we do not want the pirates to seek out you." And the outcome were super dramatic: from anything like 80 percent of the youngsters wanting to be sedated, to something like 10 percentage of the kids needing to be sedated. And the sanatorium and GE were completely happy, too, considering that you did not have got to call the anesthesiologist at all times, and so they might put more children through the computer in a day. So the quantitative results have been exceptional. But Doug’s outcome that he cared about have been rather more qualitative. He was once with probably the most moms waiting for her youngster to come out of the scan. And when the little woman came out of her scan, she ran as much as her mom and said, "Mommy, do we come again the next day to come?" (Laughter) And so, I’ve heard Doug tell the story in many instances of his individual transformation and the leap forward design that occurred from it, however I’ve under no circumstances rather obvious him inform the story of the little woman without a tear in his eye.Doug’s story takes situation in a health center. I know a factor or two about hospitals. A number of years ago, I felt a lump on the side of my neck. It used to be my turn within the MRI desktop. It was cancer, it was the dangerous kind. I was informed I had a 40 percentage risk of survival. So even as you’re sitting round with the opposite sufferers, for your pajamas, and every person’s pale and skinny — (Laughter) you realize? — and you are ready in your flip to get the gamma rays, you think of quite a lot of matters. In general, you consider about: Am I going to outlive? And that i thought quite a bit about: What used to be my daughter’s existence going to be like with out me? However you believe about other matters. I concept a lot about: What was I put on this planet to do? What was my calling? What should I do? I was once fortunate because I had tons of options. We would been working in well being and health, and okay-12, and the setting up world. So there have been lots of projects that I could work on. However then I determined and dedicated at this point, to the thing I most desired to do, which used to be to support as many humans as possible regain the creative self assurance they misplaced along their way.And if I used to be going to outlive, that is what I wanted to do. I survived, just so you recognize. (Laughter) (Applause) I particularly feel that after men and women reap this confidence — and we see it all the time at the d.University and at IDEO — that they without a doubt start engaged on the matters which are relatively most important of their lives. We see humans give up what they’re doing and go in new directions. We see them provide you with more intriguing — and simply more — suggestions, so they can opt for from higher suggestions.And they just make better decisions. I know at TED, you are imagined to have a change-the-world sort of thing, isn’t that — everyone has a metamorphosis-the-world factor? If there is one for me, this is it, to aid this occur. So i’m hoping you’ll be able to join me on my quest, you as, kind of, idea leaders. It would be particularly exceptional when you did not let people divide the arena into the creatives and the non-creatives, like it’s some God-given thing, and to have folks comprehend that they’re naturally creative, and that those common people should let their suggestions fly; that they should attain what Bandura calls self-efficacy, that you can do what you got down to do, and which you could attain a situation of ingenious confidence and touch the snake. Thank you. (Applause) .

[ryodan]

Get to know me Tag Tagged by @uzumakura @nataliebgdh thank you folks Rules: Answer these 92 statements and tag 20 people THE LAST: 1. Drink: black tea 2. Phone call: my dad 3. Text message: group chat with the pals 4. Song you listened to: only angel by Harry styles 5. Time you cried: yesterday HAVE YOU: 6. Dated someone twice: why do u think I hate myself this much; no 7. Kissed someone and regretted it: no 8. Been cheated on: no 9. Lost someone special: yes 10. Been depressed : yes 11. Gotten drunk and thrown up: I don’t drink whatsoever LIST 3 FAVORITE COLORS: 12-14: ocean blue, Sakuras hair whatever the fuck the shade is called and pastel purple IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU: 15. Made new friends: I make new friends every 3 seconds bc I’m an extroverted asshole who talks to people and forgets their name 3 minutes later 16. Fallen out of love: yES 17. Laughed until you cried: yES 18. Found out someone was talking about you: lmao yes but i don’t think I’m personally one to mind it; unless someone thinks I did them wrong or people think I’ve been a dick then I’m self aware enough to check myself 19. Met someone who changed you : hmm possibly? But I think I’m usually the one who changes me?? 20. Found out who your friends are: yep 21. Kissed someone on your Facebook list: nO ew GENERAL: 22. How many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: most of them 23. Do you have any pets: not currently, but I’ve had 2 cats, a bird, 2 turtles, and 36 fish before 24. Do you want to change your name: nope 25. What did you do for your last Birthday : went out with my family? Came home and had ice cream cake with all my cousins and got drunk on pizza 26. What time did you wake up: I didn’t sleep (Eid!) 27. What were you doing at midnight last night: hanging out with my cousin 28. Name something you can’t wait for: more independence 29. When was the last time you saw your mom: today 30. What is one thing you wish you could change in your life: be more hard working 31. What are you listening right now: a kpop song my friend is making me listen to 32. Have you ever talked to a person named Tom: no 33. Something that is getting on your nerves: atm since it’s summer, spending so much time with my family (I LIKE LOVE THEM BUT IT CAN BE SUFFOCATING) 34. Most visited website: it’s either tumblr or YouTube I don’t remember 35. Mole/s: a few here and there 36. Mark/s: smile eye crinkles 37. Childhood dream: astronaut 38. Hair color: dark brown 39. Long or short hair: I cut it a lot but my hair grows fast so both???? 40. Do you have a crush on someone: yes 41. What do you like about yourself: my sense of humor? Physically my eyebrows and eye colour and lashes 42. Piercings: ears 43. Blood type: A positive 44. Nickname: irl Zai online rudeby 45. Relationship status: single 46. Zodiac: Cancer sun Capricorn moon 47. Pronouns: she/her 48. Favorite TV Show(s): The Simpsons, Futurama, HIMYM, Scienfield, The Office, Greys Anatomy, GOT and Friends 49. Tattoos: none 50. Right or left hand: right-handed but I’ve been practising left hand control for a year now 51. Surgery: never had one but I might have a urodynamic (hopefully noT) 52. Hair dyed in different color: the cringiest streaks of yellow you’ll ever see when I was 13 53. Sport: Basketball to play and dance to watch 55. Vacation: I’ve been to most of Europe and the UK,,, travelled across America,, I’ve also been to some places of South east Asia 56. Pair of trainers: two MORE GENERAL: 57. Eating: sunbites 58. Drinking: 2 hydrogens bonded to an oxygen at a linear angle of 180 degrees bc I’m thiRSTy 59. I’m about to: sleep bc my ass is going on a trip tomorrow 61. Waiting for: tomorrow so I can see (the guy I like) my family and friends : ) 62. Want: Sasukes shinden novel (which I’m gettING) and stable Internet + my cousins to hurry their asses from America so we can HANG 63. Get married: probably 64. Career: astrophysics WHICH IS BETTER 65. Hugs or kisses: why not both 66. Lips or eyes: eyes 67. Shorter or taller: taller bc I want good hugs 68. Older or younger: a little older or a little younger lmao 70. Nice arms or nice stomach: arms i guess 71. Sensitive or loud: sensitive 72. Hook up or relationship: relationship 73. Troublemaker or hesitant: troublemaker HAVE YOU EVER: 74. Kissed a Stranger: nope 75. Drank hard liquor: no 76. Lost glasses/contact lenses: not for more than 5 minutes 77. Turned someone down: Yes 78. Sex on the first date: no 79. Broken someone’s heart: Yes 80. Had your heart broken: I don’t think so? But I’ve been pained¿¿ 81. Been arrested: no 82. Cried when someone died: yes 83. Fallen for a friend: yes DO YOU BELIEVE IN: 84. Yourself: a little yes and a little no?????? Idk??? I operate by pretending the future doesn’t exist so I don’t have time to think that way 85. Miracles: yes 86. Love at first sight: no 87. Santa Claus: I’m like muslim 88. Kiss on the first date: no OTHER: 90. Current best friend name: she would kill me for broadcasting her name on tumblr 91. Eye color: brown but it’s a weird shade that looks red in the sun as I’ve been told by others before 92. Favorite movie: I literally don’t watch movies so I’m not sure but I like horror and romantic comedies I tag @sakuraharunos @cakebake @killeray @kittyblaze @shinobl @its-naruto-universe @sharinghoe @cornelia1992 @saradacchi @lalody @aymaabdullahmalik @shannaro-kamo @xinpaii @chiwawha @chienakamura @sakura-uchiha-uzumaki @misssarahdoll @jeruk-lemon I’m sorry they aren’t 20 but I’m not on desktop and I don’t remember urls jsjnwjsbw these are the ones I could think of at the top of my head

[kennethmjoyner]

Updating Ineffective, Outdated, and Manual Processes

Litera’s business continuity series dives into the unprecedented challenges we are all facing and looks at how technology can help provide what law firms need to continue serving their clients, even while their teams are working remotely, unable to travel or meet face-to-face with clients, and otherwise disrupted from their regular routines. You can find the introduction here.

In 2015, an article in The Atlantic asked why so many law firms seemed to be trapped in 1995. The author noted that, at that time, “New technologies and increased competition are forcing the legal industry to slowly remake itself.” While change remained gradual in the years after that remark, the global coronavirus pandemic has compelled the legal industry to transform virtually overnight.

Nina Gratrick, Head of IT Services at international law firm Watson Farley & Williams told me: “I am seeing an unprecedented amount of activity and engagement with technology and at this time am looking to deliver a project that would have taken 12 months in 12 days. Although we talk about agile working, this shift is driving digital transformation in a way that we could not have anticipated.”

As challenging as our current situation is, it’s also an opportunity for lawyers and law firms to examine their processes and jettison those that are outdated, ineffective, time-wasting, and slow. I’m a Lean Six Sigma fan and practitioner, but you don’t need a certification to start analyzing your processes and identifying areas for improvement and reinvention.

Consider whether any of the following outdated processes are impeding your ability to continue serving your clients during this disruption—and beyond.

1. Going to an office to work.

Many law firms are stuck in an old paradigm: “If you’re not in the office, you’re not working.” The traditional law firm culture assumes that lawyers who are at their desks are being productive and lawyers who aren’t visible aren’t working. This assumption misses the mark on both parts. Worse, this attitude alienates younger generations who understand that work can, in fact, happen anywhere, and simultaneously demeans more seasoned employees who believe they should have earned greater trust by now. While current shelter-in-place orders have forced a temporary cessation in this approach to legal work, the mindset underlying it persists.

New process: Work from anywhere.

Now that people around the world have been asked or ordered to stay home whenever possible, law firm leaders are confronted with the need to trust their staff to work remotely. With modern document management technology, you can access your documents and client files in the cloud and effectively serve your clients from home, on the road, or wherever else you happen to be. This process improvement won’t just help law firms weather the coronavirus crisis; it will also help them adapt to the new generation of Millennials in the workforce.

2. Emailing memo-after-memo instead of picking up the phone.

Where do we even start with this one? In recent years, lawyers have developed a tendency to overemphasize email in lieu of actual two-way conversation. Many also still work as if they’re being paid by the word. This approach is inefficient for lawyers and clients alike. Clients do not want to read lengthy memos. They want concise answers to their real concerns—which may or may not be reflected in the question they asked.

New process: Call or video chat and distill your message to an executive summary.

These past few weeks there has been a tremendous upsurge in people connecting more effectively through both video chats and phone calls. Those conversations are an opportunity for lawyers to connect with their clients on a more human level and deepen their relationships. Just as importantly, lawyers can use those exchanges to drill down into the client’s presenting question or concern. What’s motivating the client to reach out? What do they need to know and understand? Instead of just answering the question the client asked, you can truly add value by understanding how they will use the information provided. Perhaps a one-paragraph executive summary that can form part of a board deck is more effective, instead of the nine-page opinion underlying your conclusion. If they want to know more, they’ll ask.

3. Delegating rather than automating.

Many lawyers have grown so accustomed to working only in their offices that they’ve become overly reliant on a panoply of expensive, burdensome office amenities. They’re used to high-volume printers and scanners, both operated by administrative assistants. Their offices have dual screens, bulky outdated computers, and an IT staff just down the hall who can help them troubleshoot issues. Your home office is almost certainly devoid of these resources. If you’re now overwhelmed with menial tasks because you haven’t automated those tasks, it’s a sure sign that you’re overdue to update both your technology and your processes.

New process: Automate repetitive tasks.

With tools like Litera Desktop that provide a unified platform for all document-related tasks, attorneys can automate aspects of document creation, proofreading, comparison, and more without needing to call on support staff or waste their own time. Frankly, automation isn’t optional at this point. The result of all this economic upheaval and uncertainty is that some people aren’t working at all, while others are trying to do twice as much with half the staff. In this climate, no one has time for slow, tedious, manual drudgery. It’s been annoying all along, but now it’s simply unsustainable. Automating repetitive tasks lets teams get more done faster so they can keep their business moving.

4. Real time, asynchronous collaboration.

The old way of working on documents demanded that lawyers collaborate at the same time, often in the same physical space.

New process: Collaborate asynchronously with documents in the cloud.

With cloud-based documents and simple review and document comparison tools, colleagues can continue working collaboratively despite the physical and temporal separations they’re experiencing. This also allows clients and lawyers to minimize their low-value check-in interactions and ensure that they’re getting a higher value out of their conversations.

5. Signing paper documents.

The practice of law remains paper-driven, particularly when it comes to transactions. Lawyers typically shuffle boxes of papers, courier packets back and forth to collect physical signatures, and stay at the office into the wee hours trying to assemble complete closing books. Now, courts are shuttered and many firms that relied on paper have been unable to close their deals or make any meaningful forward progress.

New process: Streamline transactions by digitizing closing books and using e-signatures.

By removing the paper from transactions, there’s no need for large-scale office equipment, face-to-face meetings, or signature packet deliveries. Digital transactions are what’s enabled us to keep completing deals despite the disruption in our daily lives.

In fact, we think this is so important—and the consequences to both the economy and human health so dramatic—that Litera is offering a lite version of Litera Transact free for six months. With this free version, you’ll be able to create digital checklists, assemble closing books in the cloud, and obtain e-signatures—with no face-to-face contact, no paper, no couriers, no mailing, and no trips into the office.

Your processes dictate your results. Don’t let outdated, inefficient processes limit your ability to work in these challenging times or hinder the outcomes you can achieve for your clients.

Abhijat Saraswat is the VP of International Business at Litera. In his role, he has helped some of the most prestigious and largest international firms gain access to legal solutions that help their lawyers create higher quality work, faster.

Abhijat was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2015. Abhijat has worked for a number of large multi-national corporations across a range of sectors, and holds a bachelor’s degree in Forensic Science and Neuroscience from the University of Keele, UK.

As a legal technologist, Abhijat frequently attends and speaks at conferences and trade shows, and he is the host of the popular Fringe Legal Podcast.

You can reach him at: asaraswat@litera.com.

[This is a sponsored post, meaning that the company paid a fee for it to appear here.]

from Law and Politics https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2020/04/updating-ineffective-outdated-and-manual-processes.html via http://www.rssmix.com/

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

EliteSingles review: A dating site with curated matches, meant for a more mature crowd

There are a *lot* of online dating options these days, particularly dating apps. They all try to stand out in their own way, whether it be catering to a certain niche or type of person, or offering a special feature or service. But the one thing they all have in common: the promise to up your chances of finding that special someone. 

SEE ALSO: The best hookup apps for casual daters

EliteSingles is one of those options that claims to have found the online formula for love, particularly for working professionals looking for real relationships. We'll see about that. 

EliteSingles is pretty easy to operate. The site matches singles mainly based on a personality assessment modeled after the Five Factor Model theory. Based on your personality and other factors (like age, occupation, and location), the site then sets you up with 3-7 compatible matches per day. This means that unlike sites like OkCupid and Match, you can't peruse the pool for potential love interests but instead have to wait until EliteSingles delivers matches to you.

Once you've matched with people, browse through their profiles. Your options for reaching out are diverse yet simple. You can send a smile (basically an emoji) that lets someone know you're interested, a message, or simply save them to your "favorites" in case you're not ready to reach out quite yet. You get variety in a simple, easy-to-use format.

While this could be good for those who don't have the time to constantly scroll through a dating site and are looking for more of a matchmaker service, those who have grown accustomed to filling the time with swiping through an app in search of a date may become a bit antsy.

Key Features:

Personality profile based on Five Factor Model

Verified profiles (to eliminate frauds and scammers)

Partner suggestions (3-7 matches per day)

Upload/view photos

Send and receive messages to other members

EliteSingles Magazine: A blog that offers tips and tricks for dating

Pricing:

Free basic account: $0

3-month membership: $89.85 / month

6-month membership: $69.95 / month (40% savings)

12-month membership: $49.95 / month (50% savings)

Not for millennials

EliteSingles seems to constantly brag that 82% of their members are college grads. Most of its members are 33-50 years old, so it's definitely geared less toward the Tinder-using generation and more toward those in the "working professional" category. Sorry college kids. This ain't for you. 

I originally planned to scroll through the EliteSingles app (because it's 2018), but upon looking for EliteSingles on the app store (I have an iPhone, like the other 45% of cellphone users in America), I noticed it was nowhere to be found.

After some quick research (aka a search in the iTunes store), I couldn't find the app anywhere, and was disappointed. [EDITOR'S NOTE: We've been told that the app is down at the moment for some editing, but it'll be back soon.] 

I resorted to using the desktop version on my laptop in the mean time, which made me feel like I was taking part in the early days of online dating before apps made it more socially acceptable for young people to do this stuff. Although since the clientele for this dating site seems to skew older, perhaps the lack of an app isn't the worst thing.

Image: elitesingles / screenshot

Making a profile

As if there were any doubt in my mind before, the profile setup process convinced me that we are far from the instant gratification world of Tinder. The EliteSingles profile building process — which includes filling in your basic info plus taking the personality test — is lengthy. But I can get behind a lengthy questionnaire. Its purpose seems logical: the more the site knows about me, the more likely it'll be able to find me a good match, right? 

However, filling out the personality test definitely raised some questions for me as far as accuracy goes. Not to mention, some were also repetitive — or just downright awkward to answer.

Image: EliteSIngles

Image: elitesingles

In one of the first sections, EliteSingles asks you to rate your own appearance in specific categories, asking how the following attributes apply to you: trendy, attractive, overweight, sexy, and plain. Since questions like these are entirely subjective (beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all), it seems as though uploading picture should suffice. Shouldn't my potential love interests be able to decide these things on their own? 

Getting past the initial awkwardness, some categories raised an eyebrow in a different way. Questions that asked me to determine how "rational," "opinionated," and "selfish" I am seem difficult to answer.

Signing up for a dating site is all about trying to put your best self forward. I hardly believe that anyone — even those who are aware that they're selfish — are going to put their bad traits on display if they can help it. It's the equivalent of choosing the unflattering double-chin photo as your main profile picture.

I filled out the survey to the best of my ability, although it became especially tedious when they started repeating questions. The questions covered everything from my satisfaction with myself, to how I behave in social situations, to how important certain character traits are to me in a partner. All-in-all the whole thing probably took me 30-45 minutes. 

At the end, I received a detailed character analysis, which admittedly was kinda cool. It also explained the context behind the analysis and how each of the five categories applies to my life. 

One of the drawbacks for the EliteSingles personality test though is that once it's done, you can't go back and tweak it or adjust your answers. All is not lost though, because following the personality test you have an opportunity to showcase your personality through a series of (even more) questions — these ones you fill out so that others can see what you've said in your profile.

Choose from 11 different prompts and put however many you want on your profile, or you can hit "random question" and have the site pick one for you. 

Image: elitesingles / Screenshot

Aside from uploading some pictures — you can add up to 24 and connect to Facebook to pull pictures from there if you'd like — your profile is pretty much done. 

What we love about EliteSingles

One word: Options. 

Although the dating site doesn't allow you to search willy nilly through all of its users, EliteSingles  provides multiple ways to find you a match. The dating site provides you with three main ways to find someone:

Matches: Every day, EliteSingles recommends 3-7 matches that it feels are compatible with your personality. It'll even show you how compatible you are (a score of 100 being a 100% match), as well as show you what things you have in common. We really like the fact that you can filter and narrow your matches based on height, distance, age, etc. So if you only want to see matches over 5'10" who live within 30 miles and have common interests, there's a filter for that. 

Visitors: EliteSingles let's you know who's been creepin' on your profile. Hey, it's like the online version of catching the cute guy at work checking you out as you walk by his desk. Something about you caught their eye and made them pay your profile a visit, which can help you feel a bit more confident making the move to say hello. It's a lot easier to make the first move when you already know they're interested.

The Have you Met... feature: We really like this feature. "Have you met..." is basically a pool of candidates that fall slightly outside of your pre-chosen match filters, but still might be a good match for you in the eyes of EliteSingles. Why is this feature so great? Simple. Because sometimes we just don't know what the hell we want or need until it hits us in the face. You can make a checklist of traits that the perfect partner will possess, but do you really want to miss out on Mr. or Mrs. Right just because they're a couple years younger than your selected age range? This feature gives that person a second shot at catching your eye. 

Room for improvement

While we did appreciate the detailed personality analysis, we're not completely sold on the accuracy of the results. This is mainly because people bend the truth when they need to look good. Perhaps we'd feel differently if someone were taking the Five Factor on their own out of curiosity, but setting up a dating profile is the time to put together your most impressive resume — not identify your personality flaws and tattoo them across your dating profile. People are filing this out knowing their answers are meant to make them appear attractive, so chances are you're not going to risk sharing something off-putting before you even get out of the gate.

While we love the fact that you can filter your matches based on distance, we think EliteSingles could've done a little better than setting 30 miles as the lowest option. For some, a 30-mile difference is a considerable commitment — especially for a first date. The ability to narrow this down to a smaller area would be especially helpful for people who live in cites. Cities that are filled with professionals. We'd at least like the option to narrow it down further, to 5 miles. (Hey, the entire island of Manhattan is only 13.4 miles long.)

EliteSingles claims to manually verify their profiles to avoid fake accounts, using SSL encryption and fraud detection technology. While this may help them identify scammers, it isn't stopping people from being dishonest on their profiles. I lied about my income and was never flagged, which makes me feel like I probably could've lied about other things, including my educational background, in order to seem more appealing. 

While the EliteSingles personality test may be able to find out who you're compatible with, it doesn't focus much on who you're attracted to. The heart wants what it wants, but EliteSingles limits you to seeing only profiles that could be potential matches. So if you have a "type" that EliteSingles doesn't think you're compatible with, you may be out of luck. The flip side to this, of course, is that if you've been unlucky in love, perhaps you could use some help with selecting potential dates whom you may not have considered previously.

What are other people saying about EliteSingles

After reading through scores of reviews, we definitely saw a lot of complaints. Many people claimed that their matches were way off from the criteria they set, with a significant portion of that relating to distance. Others complained of difficulties cancelling their membership and poor customer service. 

Datingsitesreviews.com user Jjm wrote: 

However, among the dissatisfied users were some glimmers of hope. For example, user Deb from datingsitesreviews.com wrote: 

Final thoughts

EliteSingles is far from a perfect dating site. On the plus side, it's focused primarily on professionals who are looking for something real, instead of a lot of other dating apps that cater to younger, hookup-minded audiences. The site was easy to navigate and the personality assessment was a cool feature that helps you learn a little bit about yourself. 

On the downside, the sign-up process takes a while. The fact that you have to fill out the entire test before you're able to see what the site's all about could easily be a deterrent for some eager or impatient singles. Requiring users to invest time in the personality investment though can help to weed out people who aren't taking this whole online dating thing seriously. If they've carefully filled out a profile, then you know they're serious about finding a good match.

Also worthy of noting: the free version doesn't really get you anywhere. Without subscribing, you're basically only able to see the fact that you have matches and/or messages. User pictures are blurred and messaging is super limited. Also, from what we can tell from reviews and from our own list of matches, EliteSingles doesn't do the best job of abiding by your set criteria. 

EliteSingles boasts over 13 million members worldwide, claiming that an average 2,000 couples pair off every month. Neither of those are small numbers, so if you're willing to put in the time to fill out a profile and risk weeding through some less-than-ideal matches or an annoying customer service experience, who knows, you may land on a gem. 

Image: EliteSingles

Sign up for EliteSingles See Details

[ynsespoir]

How to Use Voice Search Optimization to Stand Out with Your Patients

One of the hottest gifts of the most recent holiday season was a smart speaker. From the tiny $30 Google Home Mini or Echo Dot to $400 beasts like Google Home Max or Apple HomePod, these speakers are connected to the internet and feature built-in digital assistants powered by some of the latest AI advancements.

Mobile phones and tablets are taking over the web, with about 57% of worldwide internet traffic coming from one of these devices.

What are the common threads between the two kinds of devices? Digital assistants and voice search. Each one of those smart speakers is an always-on portal for voice search via the Google Assistant, Alexa, or Siri. The very same artificial intelligence that powers the digital assistants in some of these smart speakers is available on your favorite smartphone, tablet, or even desktop.

At the recent Connected Health Conference in Boston, voice search technologies and their capabilities came up in several presentations. In highlighting the importance of these new technologies for healthcare practitioners, MedCity News aptly quotes a keynote by Noelle LaCharite, a senior manager at Amazon Alexa Machine Learning, “Voice is everywhere…People love it. Customers, patients love the idea of saying something and technical things happening on their behalf when they do that.”

    These powerful tools are way more than a fresh parlor trick or source of corny iPhone jokes. They represent one of the fastest developing search technologies. In fact, according to ComScore estimates, “50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020.” Even more intriguing for proponents of digital assistant enabled speakers, like Amazon’s Echo devices or Google’s Home speakers, Mediapost estimates “About 30% of searches will be done without a screen by 2020.”

By those estimates, there is no question voice search is a growing force in pursuit, but even if it never reaches those levels, it is already an essential component of a robust search marketing plan. In a mid-2016 keynote at Google I/O, CEO Sundar Pichai reported that voice search represented 20% of the queries from Google’s mobile app and Android devices.

Search engines aren’t the only beneficiaries of these technologies, hospitals and medical practitioners are increasingly looking at ways to utilize these devices to help serve their patients better and, in some cases, even reduce costs by providing more efficient means of completing paperwork, providing care instructions, and also tracking health information. As Robert Glatter, MD, notes in a recent post on Forbes, “But now, hospitals and C-suite executives realize that such voice recognition technology may also be lifesaving in ICUs, on regular medical floors and even in the operating room.”

Mayo Clinic Teaches Alexa First Aid

The Mayo Clinic, a healthcare behemoth, is embracing the trend toward voice search and digital voice assistants by providing first aid advice via Amazon’s Alexa, a digital voice assistant.

Using the Alexa skills kit provided by Amazon to “teach” the digital assistant new things, Mayo has developed the free Mayo Clinic First Aid skill for Amazon Alexa devices like Echo and Echo Dot.

While explicitly not for use in a life-threatening emergency, when you should be calling 911 instead, you can now ask Alexa for advice on treating a burn, bandaging a wound or distinguishing if someone isn’t breathing.

As more people acquire digital assistant enabled devices, usage rates are likely to soar, which will allow the machine learning and natural language processing engines behind these assistants to become more accurate. As voice search becomes more precise, people will, in turn, find them more useful and increase their use of voice search via these platforms even further. In this way, virtual assistants represent a disrupting force in SEO.

Unfortunately, outside of certain circles, it can be difficult to find any discussion of the benefits and limitations of voice search and digital assistants and how these technologies should be considered a critical component of a future-facing marketing plan as well as what healthcare marketers should be doing to embrace voice search.

Voice Search Basics

What does all this mean for the average healthcare practice’s search marketing efforts? Is there a difference between the Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa when it comes to search? Should we focus on one over the others?

Bottom line: voice search optimization isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation. Each platform is more siloed than traditional web browsers, and each uses different data sources. For example, with general voice searches, Google Assistant uses Google data, Siri relies on Bing data, and Alexa blends Bing and Amazon data. Furthermore, some of the assistants seem hardwired to avoid specific questions. The net effect is, each assistant responds to the same queries in different ways.

For example, when asked, “what is the best mobile phone?” Google Assistant pulled up Best Smartphones 2018 by Tom’s Guide. Siri, in turn, responded, “You’re kidding, right?” and, when pushed further, “Seriously?” Alexa, in a somewhat more helpful mood than Siri, replied that I should consider the features that matter to me and to read some reviews on Amazon.

On a more medically-focused note, when prompted “How can I treat my varicose veins?” Google Assistant provided a link to WebMD’s Varicose Veins treatment page and read the featured snippet. Siri directly returned a list of results. Alexa recommended the WebMD skill (i.e., software to add additional features and data sources to Alexa) and offered to let me enable it.

From these examples, it could be easy to consider skipping Siri and Alexa in favor of the more powerful Google Assistant, but it is important to remember that Siri is the default on every iPhone and Alexa is at the core of almost 70% of all smart speakers.

Making Search a Conversation

At this point, you might be asking, “what is different about voice search optimization and traditional search optimization anyway?” Should we still be doing the same SEO tasks we’ve been doing? Will voice search optimization replace what we’ve been doing?

In a sentence, you should keep doing traditional SEO tasks, because voice search optimization relies on many of the same indicators. Keyword research, though modified a bit from how you may have traditionally handled it, is now more critical than ever. You need to know what people are asking and how people are searching for your practice and the services and treatments you provide. This is a basic step in laying the foundation for an SEO campaign, but with voice search, you want to explicitly look toward those featured snippets in Google searches (i.e. the text box at the top of some search results). This is where the Google assistant gets the information it will read back in response to a voice query.

Tailoring your keyword research to discovering the keywords and phrases that generate a featured snippet will allow you to:

Provide a better answer to the query

Edit and markup your content to increase the likelihood of grabbing that featured snippet

Focus your content on more conversational queries like “What” and “how” questions, that typically result in featured snippets

Two popular tools for finding keywords that occur in featured snippets are SEMrush and Moz Keyword Explorer. Both allow you to restrict your research to keywords with a featured snippet. Alternatively, you can use a little trial-and-error approach by manually searching and seeing which terms come back with a featured snippet; this takes more time, but it is free.

From there, you can compare your list of keywords with featured snippets and the list of your page one keyword rankings to find the keywords you’re most apt to get a featured snippet for by doing a little optimization.

Optimizing content for featured snippets

Now that you have a list of keywords and content to focus on, you can work on optimizing your content for the featured snippet and, by extension, voice search. For example, does the currently featured snippet feature a paragraph of text or a short, bulleted list? Does the page with the featured snippet have a better user experience, better markup structure, or perhaps better page/domain authority? What elements on the page do you think set it apart from your content?

A thorough understanding of your search competitors will help you understand how you can either provide a stronger answer on your page or tweak the format of your page to help Google better understand your answer and replace the current snippet with your content. This can be a painstaking process, but it isn’t vastly different from a traditional SEO model of researching keywords, creating content, and tweaking the content to improve rankings. Many of the same factors should be taken into account in addition to the voice search specific factors including:

Page load speeds

Mobile friendliness

Having photos and links

Backlinks

Good overall page experience

Don’t forget; voice search is particularly popular with younger people, who don’t necessarily remember the early days of search engines that laid the foundation for disjointed and unnatural sounding keyword phrases. Younger people tend to use more natural and conversational phrases to search. Don’t be afraid to go after those longer queries.

Voice search isn’t limited to web searches

While Google excels in the general web search space, Amazon’s Alexa is slaying in other areas like voice-based e-commerce, voice-first apps, and different types of interactions. For example, in our previous search, Alexa recommended the WebMD skill. Were we to enable this capability, rather than receiving the same featured snippet as everyone else, WebMD can use the Alexa language processing to get additional information and provide us more specific results from WebMD.

This kind of extensibility is why, while Google will likely be the leader in the virtual assistant and web search space, Amazon is positioned better for transactional searches and custom data sources thanks to Alexa’s skills API, which enables anyone to create software for Alexa-enabled devices.

Voice Search Optimization Checklist

Do keyword research and gather content ideas

There are a lot of great tools and techniques available for figuring out the kinds of questions people are asking about your practice, your services and procedures, and the conditions you treat. The most basic is to listen to your patients—what are they asking in consultations, at the front desk, and when they call in?

From there you might consider bringing in a few tools to help expand your horizons. A couple of great options for finding questions and keywords people are using include:

Answer The Public — this free tool allows you to put in a topic and provides all sorts of keyword data including questions, phrases, and related keywords. The questions section is a fantastic way to get started on finding question-based queries that are more likely to get a featured snippet.

Google Suggest — this is a feature built-in to Google search, but it can be a powerful way to quickly and easily get keyword data. All you have to do is start typing keywords into Google. As long as you don’t hit enter or click search, a selection of popular searches will drop down. You can mine these suggestions for questions and phrases related to your practice.

UberSuggest — If using Google Suggest to get keywords one at a time is too slow; you might consider using something like UberSuggest. This free tool automates some of the work of mining Google Suggest data by taking a keyword input and automatically adding a character or other modifier to the keyword. It then captures all these suggestions and returns them in a big list.  

Google Keyword Planner and Search Console — If you have a Google account set up, you can use the tried and true free keyword tool Google provides for AdWords customers. It’s not perfect and it isn’t the most full-featured, but it is free data. Additionally, assuming you have Search Console integrated with your site, you can use the last 90 days worth of search data to see your search rankings and actual keyword data that has brought in visitors to your site.

People Also Ask boxes — In addition to featured snippets, many question searches will generate a box of related questions people also ask. Not only do these boxes offer more opportunities for capturing more search real estate, if you get the featured snippet for that question, but also these boxes are a great way to see questions related to your initial query that real people are searching.

Go after featured snippets and People Also Ask boxes — These two components represent some of the most desirable real estate on search results pages. Not only is the featured snippet highly desirable because of the increased visibility and traffic offered by its prime location, but also it will be the only answer the Google Assistant reads back for voice searches. Landing this spot will also help get your site listed in People Also Ask boxes, which can expand your reach beyond the questions you are targeting into related questions. According to a study done by STAT, PAA questions are often duplicated, with one question in their study showing up on 21 different search results pages.

Frequently asked question pages are great tools for capturing traffic via traditional SEO and voice search optimization. At their most basic, these pages provide precisely the kind of content most featured snippets and People Also Ask boxes require — a question and its specific answer. Building out a page with an influential series of related FAQs about a topic can help quickly boost the featured snippet real estate dedicated to your website and provides a firm basis for your voice search optimization efforts.

Bolster your local search and entity authority — Don’t neglect proper local search optimization. Ensuring you’re focusing on getting listed in maps, business directories, and review sites is an easy way to signal to search engines that you aren’t some fly-by-night operation. Additionally, if your patients review you, good reviews are a strong signal that your practice is credible and valuable and typically result in higher local search rankings. These reviews, in addition to many other factors, combine to create a metric often called entity authority.  The higher your entity authority, the higher your content ranks. This is one of those proprietary metrics that no one fully understands (outside search engine development teams), but it consists primarily of data that helps determine your credibility including:

Name recognition (online directory listings)

Reputation (patient reviews and media mentions)

Engagement — both online and off; including things like average time people spent in your practice, how often people visit. Search engines are expanding their data collection at a rapid pace and as more data is collected they are able to consider more data points in calculating authority metrics.

As voice search and voice-first devices continue to expand their foothold in search, establishing and implementing a solid voice search optimization plan will become increasingly important. Using the tips and tricks outlined here will not only help you get a leg up on embracing voice search for your practice but will also help enhance your existing SEO efforts. That sounds like a win-win.

The post How to Use Voice Search Optimization to Stand Out with Your Patients appeared first on ReferralMD.

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How to Boost Sales by Accomodating the Needs of Mobile Users

You don’t need to come up with a complicated marketing campaign as a last-ditch effort to increase your sales revenue.

All too often I see businesses drastically slash their prices or run other insane promotions, that aren’t profitable, just to get more sales.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely an advocate for running promotional campaigns.

It’s just not always necessary if you’re trying to boost ecommerce sales.

Instead, take a look at your channels for content distribution and sales platforms.

Are they optimized for mobile devices?

If you’re not sure, the answer is probably no.

That’s a big problem.

You have to understand how people consume content, browse, and ultimately make purchases.

In the last six months, over 60% of smartphone users purchased something online with their mobile devices.

Furthermore, 80% of consumers use their mobile devices while shopping at physical store locations.

Why would they do this?

Compare prices

Find other store locations

Research product reviews

If your business doesn’t have a strong mobile presence, you’re neglecting a huge share of potential sales.

Accommodating the needs of mobile users could end up being the cash injection your company is looking for.

I’ve got plenty of experience with this, so I can help steer you in the right direction if you don’t know how to get started.

Here’s what you need to do.

Optimize your website for mobile devices

How does your website look when it’s loaded on mobile devices?

Take a look at this example from the Medical Web Experts website:

The left image is what their standard website looks like.

The image on the right is the same website after it’s been optimized for mobile devices.

Notice the differences?

It’s much harder for users to navigate on their phones if the site isn’t optimized.

The font is smaller and harder to read, which forces users to zoom in to find what they’re looking for.

Scrolling can be an issue too.

That’s because the website was designed for laptop and desktop screens.

The page will load, but ultimately it has too many problems.

Once it’s optimized, the page will fit much better on a smaller screen.

Now users will just have to scroll up and down to navigate, as opposed to zooming and needing to scroll left and right as well to see all your content.

This makes it easier for the site visitor to find what they’re looking for in just a click or two.

Ease of use will keep the consumer happy, which can ultimately lead to higher conversion rates.

These are some other added benefits of a mobile friendly website:

I would definitely recommend adding a search bar to your mobile site at the top of the screen.

That makes it even easier for the user to get where they need to be as fast as possible.

Check out these examples from Patagonia, Amazon, and The New Yorker:

All three of these popular websites simplify the search and navigation process for people using their phones and tablets.

Once you modify the design of your mobile site to accommodate mobile users, it’s time to put it to the test.

Enter your site URL on the Google mobile friendly test to see the results.

These are my results when I run the test for Quick Sprout:

As you can see, my mobile site is friendly for users.

In fact, you might even be reading this blog on your mobile device right now.

Speed matters

Having your website designed for mobile devices is only half the battle.

The site needs to load fast too.

You can use the Google mobile speed test to check how fast your page loads on mobile devices.

It all goes back to accommodating the user.

People are busy.

More importantly, they are impatient.

This is a major problem for you if your mobile site takes too long to load.

It doesn’t matter what kind of device they are using.

According to recent studies, users expect mobile pages to load as fast or faster than the pages on their desktop and laptop computers.

Mobile sites that take more than three seconds to load will see a 40% abandonment rate.

Just take a moment to let that sink in.

Four out of every ten users will leave your website if it doesn’t load fast enough.

Fixing a slow loading time can drastically improve your sales because your abandonment rates won’t be as high.

Look at the other statistics on the graphic above as well.

Over 70% of Internet traffic today comes from mobile devices.

The majority of people who search for your site are probably doing so from their phones and tablets.

If you’re not making it as easy as possible for these people to navigate, you are hurting your bottom line.

This is true regardless of what kind of site you’re running.

For ecommerce sites, obviously, the goal of your business is to get users to buy what you’re selling.

But if they can’t locate your items and the pages don’t load fast, you won’t get sales.

Even if you’re not selling a physical product online, you still need to optimize your site for mobile devices.

How do you make money?

Let’s say you run a blog.

You may rely on advertisements to make ends meet.

But if users aren’t spending time on your site or they are abandoning it, you won’t get as many impressions, and your click-through rates will suffer.

Look at the direct correlation between load times and abandonment.

Your website simply can’t survive if your rates are this high.

Recognize how many people are using mobile devices

Part of operating a business and running a website is keeping up with the trends.

You would be surprised how many business owners don’t have a clue about what’s going on, even in their own industries.

It’s mind blowing.

But for argument’s sake, let’s pretend you’re an expert in your industry, which you very well may be.

That’s not enough.

If you have a website, you need to understand how people consume information.

That goes for small businesses too.

Take a look at how searches on various devices resulted in purchases from a local business.

More searches resulted in purchases from mobile phones and tablets than from computers and laptops.

Remember what I said earlier?

People search for items online while they are shopping inside of a physical store.

Obviously, for convenience and practicality purposes, they don’t whip out a computer to do this.

But they can easily reach into their pockets for their  phones.

Let’s continue analyzing the trends.

In 2017, laptops and desktops are trending down.

On the flip side, mobile phones are trending up.

This holds true on a global scale as well.

Over 66% of the population owns a mobile device.

As a business owner who operates a website, you’ve got to stay on top of these kinds of numbers.

Analyze your target market.

Age impacts how people browse and shop online as well.

As you can see from the graphic above, people over the age of 55 use their devices much less than younger generations.

So if you’re selling a product or service that targets senior citizens, you might be getting away with not having a mobile friendly site at the moment.

But you’re still missing out on sales.

Think about all the younger people who may want to buy a gift for their parents or grandparents.

They would browse and shop on their mobile devices.

Plus, this isn’t a sustainable business plan.

Those younger generations are only going to get older, so it’s safe to say these trends will shift and even out over time.

Mobile devices impact buyer behavior

Continuing with our last point, the devices that people browse on impact how they shop.

The reason behind this statement is due to a combination of everything we’ve discussed so far.

Consumers are more likely to buy something if you have a mobile friendly website.

It’s that simple.

Here’s a hypothetical situation.

Let’s say a consumer is shopping in your competitor’s brick and mortar location, which is within a walking distance from your storefront.

The customer is interested in an item, but they want to make sure they’re getting the best price.

They run a quick Google search to see if anyone else sells this particular item at a more reasonable cost.

You offer the same exact item for 20% less than your competitor.

But when the consumer clicks on your website, it takes too long to load, and it’s not mobile friendly.

Now what?

The customer didn’t want to take the time to figure out scrolling and zooming through your complicated website because it wasn’t compatible with their mobile device.

You just missed out on the sale.

They bought from your competitor instead.

If this pattern continues, it will put you on the fast track to going out of business.

A/B test different versions of your mobile site

Once your mobile site is up and running, you have to keep working on it.

Sure, it’s better than it was before, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.

Just like you do with your website and email campaigns, you need to A/B test your mobile website as well.

This will help ensure you get the highest conversion rates possible.

That way you know it’s performing to its full potential.

Approach this test the same way you would any other A/B test.

Just change one component.

For example, you could change the wording, colors, size, or placement of the CTA button.

Here’s a basic example to illustrate what I mean:

I’d recommend testing the performance of different site variations often.

That’s the best way to ensure you’re accommodating the needs of any mobile user who visits your website.

Build an app

For those of you who want to take mobile optimization a step further, it may be in your best interest to build an app for your company.

Apps can help enhance the user experience even more.

It’s not for every business, but I definitely recommend looking into it.

Mobile app development is expensive and takes time.

Even after your app is finished, it’s still going to cost you money to keep it running.

But if you think you have the funds to pull it off, it can definitely be worth your time and financial investment.

The majority of the time that gets spent on mobile devices is through app usage.

It’s a great way to increase the chances that customers spend more time engaging with your company.

I recommend building an app for your business if you have an ecommerce website.

Here’s why.

Your mobile site may be better for the users to browse on when they’re looking up information in a store, but apps make it easier for them to purchase.

The checkout process on your mobile site is long and tedious.

Users have to enter all their personal information, shipping address, and payment method.

This takes a long time, especially on a mobile phone.

There is just too much room for error, and you could see a high number of abandoned shopping carts.

But if you have an app, users, once they download it, can create a profile.

This profile saves all their information.

So when it’s time to check out, your customers can add items to their carts and pay with just a couple of clicks.

This simplified process will increase sales for your ecommerce store.

Conclusion

If the sales for your business are stagnant or declining, it may be because you’re ignoring mobile users.

The trends are changing toward more mobile usage each year.

Optimizing your website to accommodate the needs of these users will help you make more money.

You just have to make sure your mobile site loads fast in addition to being optimized.

Otherwise, you’ll see high abandonment rates.

A/B test different versions of your mobile website to get the highest number of conversions possible.

It may also be in your best interest to build a mobile app for your company, especially if you’re selling something.

Follow these tips, and your website will start making more money from people using mobile devices.

How long does it take your mobile website to load?

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