#Vendor management application

[mpriyadharshini]

Happy New Year 2023

[simplifyworkforce]

Top 50 Leadership Interview Questions to Ask Candidates (simplifyvms.com)

Discover the top 50 leadership interview questions to assess candidates' skills, decision-making, and management style. Perfect for finding the right leader for your team.

[chloedecker0]

Maximizing Retail Profits: Harnessing B2B Price Optimization Software

In the ever-evolving world of retail and e-commerce, businesses are constantly seeking ways to gain a competitive edge. Among the many strategies employed, B2B Price Optimization and Management Software stands out as a game-changer. Price optimisation and management (PO&M) software solutions enable businesses to oversee and optimize the prices of their goods and services. These services also provide a growing range of sales intelligence advice, such as best-next-action suggestions and customer churn warnings. In the industry, vendors either focus on back-office price management and product management roles, or they focus on providing real-time sales intelligence to sales representatives and B2B digital commerce websites, or both. Quadrant Knowledge Solutions, a leading global advisory and consulting firm, has recognized the significance of this technology in their report, “B2B Price Optimization and Management Applications, 2023”. Quadrant Knowledge Solutions focuses on helping clients in achieving business transformation goals with Strategic Business, and Growth Advisory Services. 

Download the sample report of Market Share: B2B Price Optimization and Management Software

Understanding the Retail and E-commerce Landscape 

The retail and e-commerce industry is a highly dynamic and competitive space. Companies within this domain face the continuous challenge of pricing their products right to maximize profitability while staying attractive to their customers. In this context, pricing becomes a critical element of their strategy. Let's delve into some of these challenges: 

Rapidly Changing Market Dynamics: Retail and e-commerce markets are highly volatile, with ever-shifting consumer preferences and market trends. Adapting to these changes in real-time is essential to stay competitive. Without the right tools, businesses risk making pricing decisions that are out of sync with market realities. 

Intense Competition: In retail and e-commerce, competition is fierce. With numerous players offering similar products or services, pricing becomes a key differentiator. Setting prices too high can drive customers away, while pricing too low can erode profit margins. 

Complex Supply Chain and Cost Structures: The retail and e-commerce sector often deals with complex supply chain operations and cost structures. Understanding the true costs associated with a product or service is essential for setting optimal prices. Traditional methods of cost calculation can be time-consuming and error-prone. 

Customer Behaviour and Expectations: Today's consumers are more informed and price-sensitive than ever before. Their buying behaviour can change rapidly in response to various factors, including promotions, discounts, and market trends. Retailers must be agile in responding to these changes. 

Competitor Pricing Strategies: Keeping a constant eye on competitor pricing is crucial. Businesses need to respond promptly to pricing moves made by competitors to remain competitive. Manual tracking and analysis of competitor pricing are arduous and inefficient processes. 

Download the sample report of Market Forecast: B2B Price Optimization and Management Software

B2B Price Optimization and Management Software: A Necessity 

B2B Price Optimization and Management Software is the solution to these challenges. This technology leverages advanced algorithms, data analytics, and real-time market insights to help businesses make data-driven pricing decisions. It empowers retail and e-commerce companies to optimize their prices efficiently while taking into account factors like demand fluctuations, competitor pricing, and customer behaviour.

Talk To Analyst: https://quadrant-solutions.com/talk-to-analyst

[ourjobagency]

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, the cloud has emerged as a transformative technology that empowers businesses with flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Migrating to the cloud is no longer an option but a necessity to stay competitive. 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The paradox of choice screens

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

It's official: the DOJ has won its case, and Google is a convicted monopolist. Over the next six months, we're gonna move into the "remedy" phase, where we figure out what the court is going to order Google to do to address its illegal monopoly power:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

That's just the beginning, of course. Even if the court orders some big, muscular remedies, we can expect Google to appeal (they've already said they would) and that could drag out the case for years. But that can be a feature, not a bug: a years-long appeal will see Google on its very best behavior, with massive, attendant culture changes inside the company. A Google that's fighting for its life in the appeals court isn't going to be the kind of company that promotes a guy whose strategy for increasing revenue is to make Google Search deliberately worse, so that you will have to do more searches (and see more ads) to get the info you're seeking:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

It's hard to overstate how much good stuff can emerge from a company that's mired itself in antitrust hell with extended appeals. In 1982, IBM wriggled off the antitrust hook after a 12-year fight that completely transformed the company's approach to business. After more than a decade of being micromanaged by lawyers who wanted to be sure that the company didn't screw up its appeal and anger antitrust enforcers, IBM's executives were totally transformed. When the company made its first PC, it decided to use commodity components (meaning anyone could build a similar PC by buying the same parts), and to buy its OS from an outside vendor called Micros-Soft (meaning competing PCs could use the same OS), and it turned a blind eye to the company that cloned the PC ROM, enabling companies like Dell, Compaq and Gateway to enter the market with "PC clones" that cost less and did more than the official IBM PC:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/08/ibm-pc-compatible-how-adversarial-interoperability-saved-pcs-monopolization

The big question, of course, is whether the court will order Google to break up, say, by selling off Android, its ad-tech stack, and Chrome. That's a question I'll address on another day. For today, I want to think about how to de-monopolize browsers, the key portal to the internet. The world has two extremely dominant browsers, Safari and Chrome, and each of them are owned by an operating system vendor that pre-installs their own browser on their devices and pre-selects them as the default.

Defaults matter. That's a huge part of Judge Mehta's finding in the Google case, where the court saw evidence from Google's own internal research suggesting that people rarely change defaults, meaning that whatever the gadget does out of the box it will likely do forever. This puts a lie to Google's longstanding defense of its monopoly power: "choice is just a click away." Sure, it's just a click away – a click, you're pretty sure no one is ever going to make.

This means that any remedy to Google's browser dominance is going to involve a lot of wrangling about defaults. That's not a new wrangle, either. For many years, regulators and tech companies have tinkered with "choice screens" that were nominally designed to encourage users to try out different browsers and brake the inertia of the big two browsers that came bundled with OSes.

These choice screens have a mixed record. Google's 2019 Android setup choice screen for the European Mobile Application Distribution Agreement somehow managed to result in the vast majority of users sticking with Chrome. Microsoft had a similar experience in 2010 with BrowserChoice.eu, its response to the EU's 2000s-era antitrust action:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BrowserChoice.eu

Does this mean that choice screens don't work? Maybe. The idea of choice screens comes to us from the "choice architecture" world of "nudging," a technocratic pseudoscience that grew to prominence by offering the promise that regulators could make big changes without having to do any real regulating:

https://verfassungsblog.de/nudging-after-the-replication-crisis/

Nudge research is mired in the "replication crisis" (where foundational research findings turn out to be nonreplicable, due to bad research methodology, sloppy analysis, etc) and nudge researchers keep getting caught committing academic fraud:

https://www.ft.com/content/846cc7a5-12ee-4a44-830e-11ad00f224f9

When the first nudgers were caught committing fraud, more than a decade ago, they were assumed to be outliers in an otherwise honest and exciting field:

https://www.npr.org/2016/10/01/496093672/power-poses-co-author-i-do-not-believe-the-effects-are-real

Today, it's hard to find much to salvage from the field. To the extent the field is taken seriously today, it's often due to its critics repeating the claims of its boosters, a process Lee Vinsel calls "criti-hype":

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

For example, the term "dark patterns" lumps together really sneaky tactics with blunt acts of fraud. When you click an "opt out of cookies" button and get a screen that says "Success!" but which has a tiny little "confirm" button on it that you have to click to actually opt out, that's not a "dark pattern," it's just a scam:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/27/beware-of-the-leopard/#relentless

By ascribing widespread negative effects to subtle psychological manipulation ("dark patterns") rather than obvious and blatant fraud, we inadvertently elevate "nudging" to a real science, rather than a cult led by scammy fake scientists.

All this raises some empirical questions about choice screens: do they work (in the sense of getting people to break away from defaults), and if so, what's the best way to make them work?

This is an area with a pretty good literature, as it turns out, thanks in part due to some natural experiments, like when Russia forced Google to offer choice screens for Android in 2017, but didn't let Google design that screen. The Russian policy produced a significant switch away from Google's own apps to Russian versions, primarily made by Yandex:

https://cepr.org/publications/dp17779

In 2023, Mozilla Research published a detailed study in which 12,000 people from Germany, Spain and Poland set up simulated mobile and desktop devices with different kinds of choice screens, a project spurred on by the EU's Digital Markets Act, which is going to mandate choice screens starting this year:

https://research.mozilla.org/browser-competition/choicescreen/

I'm spending this week reviewing choice screen literature, and I've just read the Mozilla paper, which I found very interesting, albeit limited. The biggest limitation is that the researchers are getting users to simulate setting up a new device and then asking them how satisfied they are with the experience. That's certainly a question worth researching, but a far more important question is "How do users feel about the setup choices they made later, after living with them on the devices they use every day?" Unfortunately, that's a much more expensive and difficult question to answer, and beyond the scope of this paper.

With that limitation in mind, I'm going to break down the paper's findings here and draw some conclusions about what we should be looking for in any kind of choice screen remedy that comes out of the DOJ antitrust victory over Google.

The first thing note is that people report liking choice screens. When users get to choose their browsers, they expect to be happy with that choice; by contrast, users are skeptical that they'll like the default browser the vendor chose for them. Users don't consider choice screens to be burdensome, and adding a choice screen doesn't appreciably increase setup time.

There are some nuances to this. Users like choice screens during device setup but they don't like choice screens that pop up the first time they use a browser. That makes total sense: "choosing a browser" is colorably part of the "setting up your gadget" task. By contrast, the first time you open a browser on a new device, it's probably to get something else done (e.g. look up how to install a piece of software you used on your old device) and being interrupted with a choice screen at that moment is an unwelcome interruption. This is the psychology behind those obnoxious cookie-consent pop-ups that website bombard you with when you first visit them: you've clicked to that website because you need something it has, and being stuck with a privacy opt-out screen at that moment is predictably frustrating (which is why companies do it, and also why the DMA is going to punish companies that do).

The researchers experimented with different kinds of choice screens, varying the number of browsers on offer and the amount of information given on each. Again, users report that they prefer more choices and more information, and indeed, more choice and more info is correlated with choosing indie, non-default browsers, but this effect size is small (<10%), and no matter what kind of choice screen users get, most of them come away from the experience without absorbing any knowledge about indie browsers.

The order in which browsers are presented has a much larger effect than how many browsers or how much detail is present. People say they want lots of choices, but they usually choose one of the first four options. That said, users who get choice screens say it changes which browser they'd choose as a default.

Some of these contradictions appear to stem from users' fuzziness on what "default browser" means. For an OS vendor, "default browser" is the browser that pops up when you click a link in an email or social media. For most users, "default browser" means "the browser pinned to my home screen."

Where does all this leave us? I think it cashes out to this: choice screens will probably make a appreciable, but not massive, difference in browser dominance. They're cheap to implement, have no major downsides, and are easy to monitor. Choice screens might be needed to address Chrome's dominance even if the court orders Google to break off Chrome and stand it up as a separate business (we don't want any browser monopolies, even if they're not owned by a search monopolist!). So yeah, we should probably make a lot of noise to the effect that the court should order a choice screen, as part of a remedy.

That choice screen should be presented during device setup, with the choices presented in random order – with this caveat: Chrome should never appear in the top four choices.

All of that would help address the browser duopoly, even if it doesn't solve it. I would love to see more market-share for Firefox, which is the browser I've used every day for more than a decade, on my laptop and my phone. Of course, Mozilla has a role to play here. The company says it's going to refocus on browser quality, at the expense of the various side-hustles it's tried, which have ranged from uninteresting to catastrophically flawed:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91167564/mozilla-wants-you-to-love-firefox-again

For example, there was the tool to automatically remove your information from scummy data brokers, that they outsourced to a scummy data-broker:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/22/24109116/mozilla-ends-onerep-data-removal-partnership

And there's the "Privacy Preserving Attribution" tracking system that helps advertisers target you with surveillance advertising (in a way that's less invasive than existing techniques). Mozilla rolled this into Firefox on an opt out basis, and made opting out absurdly complicated, suggesting that it knew that it was imposing something on its users that they wouldn't freely choose:

https://blog.privacyguides.org/2024/07/14/mozilla-disappoints-us-yet-again-2/

They've been committing these kinds of unforced errors for more than a decade, seeking some kind of balance between monopolistic web companies and its users' desire to have a browser that protects them from invasive and unfair practices:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/14/firefox-closed-source-drm-video-browser-cory-doctorow

These compromises represent the fallacy that Mozilla's future depends on keeping bullying entertainment companies and Big Tech happy, so it can go on serving its users. At the same time, these compromises have alienated Mozilla's core users, the technical people who were its fiercest evangelists. Those core users are the authority on technical questions for the normies in their life, and they know exactly how cursed it is for Moz to be making these awful compromises.

Moz has hemorrhaged users over the past decade, meaning they have even less leverage over the corporations demanding that they make more compromises. This sets up a doom loop: make a bad compromise, lose users, become more vulnerable to demands for even worse compromises. "This capitulation puts us in a great position to make a stand in some hypothetical future where we don't instantly capitulate again" is a pretty unconvincing proposition.

After the past decade's heartbreaks, seeing Moz under new leadership makes me cautiously hopeful. Like I say, I am dependent on Firefox and want an independent, principled browser vendor that sees their role as producing a "user agent" that is faithful to its users' interests above all else:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

Of course, Moz depends on Google's payment for default search placement for 90% of its revenue. If Google can't pay for this in the future, the org is going to have to find another source of revenue. Perhaps that will be the EU, or foundations, or users. In any of these cases, the org will find it much easier to raise funds if it is standing up for its users – not compromising on their interests.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/12/defaults-matter/#make-up-your-mind-already

Image: ICMA Photos (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/icma/3635981474/

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[roscgcld]

NANAMI KENTO || one last time

note: suffer c:

afab y/n x nanami

trigger warning - mentions of death, blood, angst

"..I am...so tired..."

Nanami had never asked for much in life.

When he first got his offer to join the Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College, he thought it was quite the bragging right. It was by no means a small task - not only was he scouted, but he had seemingly bypassed all the other applicants (he did come to find out after that not many applied; the job wasn't for the faint-hearted).

The moment he arrived on campus he found himself fitting in perfectly. Yet, there has always been a nagging feeling that he didn't belong.

He wasn't from a prestigious family like Gojo Satoru.

He wasn't the all-powerful and charming Geto Suguru.

He wasn't here for 'a purpose bigger than himself' like Haibara Yu.

He did not have a valuable skill like Ierir Shoko.

It almost felt like he was a fraud - sure, he was good at his craft, and the pay was an added bonus, but he had never found his 'purpose'. If anything, the pride and 'sense of duty' that the others harp on about were far from reality. All he found at the end of a tiring day was the ever-growing list of names of his fallen friends and colleagues. A list that just doubled the longer he stayed a jujutsu sorcerer.

The day he threw in the towel was very sudden - he had been partnered up with a sweet girl from the Kyoto school; only to watch her brains be sprayed onto the wall of the temple where the Curse they were hunting called home. He had just handed in his last report, packed the small amount of things he had in his dorm, and left quietly in the night. He got on the first train out of Tokyo, put down the money for the first apartment he had viewed, and started his entire life from scratch.

Looking back now it was cowardly of him - to up and leave without any warning. But he thought that by putting some distance between himself and the college, he could run away from it all. That he can run from the pain and horrors that plagued him every time he closed his eyes.

Yet maybe it was just what he needed. Not long after arriving in Osaka, his new place of residence, he met you. You were a freshly graduated college student working in her family restaurant trying to save up to move out. He was a frequent customer because of your father's famous drip coffee, and it was between steaming cups of espresso and plates of baked goods that you two fell into a steady romance.

It took him a while, but Nanami somehow managed to awkwardly invite you to a nice walk by the park nearby, but the rest ended up being a blur of happiness and love.

During your time together, Nanami found himself finding the joys in life again; the smell of morning coffee and sleepy murmurs of greetings, the sight of you cooking breakfast in your pyjamas, the local vendors at the weekend market as you raved about some cute dinner idea you saw online. These mundane things had long lost meaning to Nanami, yet doing them with you seemed to breathe new life into them. And soon, his once dull and lonely life came to life in bright colours.

He finally felt normal. He wasn't some undercover sorcerer fighting an enemy bigger than himself. He was an everyday, tax-paying, law-abiding citizen with a family home, and a tiring, but normal, 9-5. He does not have to count the bodies that are left behind after a mission, the detailed reports to higher-ups who may never read them, or look into the eyes of the family of his friends to announce that their beloved child had died at the hands of an invisible enemy.

He was normal, another character in the background, and he has never been more content.

Yet, the thing about Curses and the jujutsu world is that once it's sunk its claws into you, it will never let you go.

While he was content with life, there has always been that little voice in the back of his head; the tiny whisper that seems to grow loud whenever he is being yelled at by his red-faced manager about his 'stupid mistakes' when his books don't balance perfectly, or when he has to help his drunken coworkers home after another long night of drinking with customers. That he was more than just this. That he was better than working his ass off in a tiny cubical; he is a First-Grade Sorcerer, for Heaven's sake.

He hit another realisation 2 years later - he had pulled a two-nighter at the office, and the numbers just didn't seem to balance on his customer sheet. He had finally left in the morning after finding out that one value that was typed in wrongly in cell 150 in Excel (he definitely tore the teary-eyed intern a new one for such a simple mistake), and had gotten bread from your family bakery as a treat for himself.

The baker there has been 'having issues with her shoulder' over the last few weeks - a Curse had decided to latch onto her stressed soul and was feeding off of her. Nanami would usually have a staring contest with the curse whenever he was at the checkout counter, who would stare back smugly at the sorcerer. Almost like it was saying, "You can't help her now".

Nanami wasn't sure what had possessed him, but he had decided to help that day. Maybe it was the stupid need to be a saviour, but he had a feeling it was because he missed the feeling of curse energy coursing through him.

He has always been an open man with you - you knew of his life before you, and while you found it noble, you were also worried about what he has done to his mental health. You had never had to word it before, as Nanami has reassured you that he was not keen on returning; but that day when he returned to your home and told you that he had gotten a phone call from Gojo Satoru about a new 'student', it was the first time you two had ever fought.

You were worried - you knew how much, despite how hard he tries to be strong, that he is just a young man who has only seen horrors his entire life. That being a sorcerer, while noble, brings nothing but pain and heartbreak. Yet you can tell that despite it all, no matter how content Nanami and you were, Nanami was meant to for great things. He was special, and it would be selfish for you to hold him back from the legacy that he can leave behind.

Nanami and you made a promise - that no matter what, he will return to you. That his safety comes first, and that a date night will be scheduled once he returns. It was all you asked for, and it was a promise that Nanami intended to keep.

"I knew I should have said I love you more.."

Everything hurts. That was all Nanami could think of as he walked down the silent halls of the station, trying to ignore the tingling numbness that was starting to take over his entire body as he tried to find that annoying Curse. He knew he should have killed Mahito when he first saw his annoying grin. "I hope I paid the bills before this..Y/N would forget if I didn't..."

He wished he hadn't pushed the wedding day back - Itadori Yuji had just been enrolled, and the Gojo had tasked him to be a hands-on tutor to the young man. You were so understanding as well; you argued that since you two just wanted a simple ceremony, moving it 2 months back wouldn't be an issue. You two had the rest of your lives together - you two don't need a ceremony to prove your love.

"I wished I could see you in your wedding dress."

He was tired, yet he knew he couldn't give up just yet. He pushed himself further as he tore through the wall of Curses that greeted him at the bottom of the stairs. The entire time he was thinking about the promise you two made - that once you two wed, you would finally take that move out to Kuantan. You two can buy a land by the ocean, and raise your family together in your little home, and finally do the small things you want.

Yet, he found himself hesitating - he didn't want to be a burden to you for the rest of your life. He wants you to be happy, to always shine brightly in all your beauty; for you to continue bringing colour to this dull world. He has been selfish when he chose to return to the world of jujutsu; he cannot further burden you with his life choices.

"Nanamin.."

Yuji, Nanami thought as he tried to turn to face the young man that he had now started to see as his own; only to be met with Yuji's horrified face staring right back. It was then he registered the cold fingers pressed against his back; and then, everything seemed so clear.

He can see your bright smile, how your eyes crinkle up at the sides as you stare at him as if he hung the stars and sun in the sky. He can just about see the background of your shared apartment - the light blue couch that you two bought as your housewarming gift, the potted plants that he had been caring for sitting by the balcony, where drying laundry fluttered in the wind. The quiet record playing in the background somewhere - a new one you two had just picked up last weekend to listen to as you two made fresh pasta together for date night.

He can't taint your happiness with the burden of all of his regrets.

Nanami was at peace - he knew that no matter what, Gojo would uphold his end of the deal. You were protected by the College and will be cared for as his next of kin. All his finances had you as his benefactor, and his lawyer has everything settled for a smooth handover.

The times you shared will never be enough for Nanami; he so desperately wishes that he can be there when you find your first white hair, or when he gets to hold your first child in the bright hospital room.

But he was at peace that he was the best man he could be for you, and prayed that you would forgive him one last time.

"Itadori...You can take it from here.."

© roscgcld — all rights reserved to me, rose, the author and creator of these works. do not repost/translate/claim my work as yours on any platform.

[anticapitalistclown]

hello! I've been reading your recent scenarios and I'm wondering if I could ask you a Ma Taesoo smut with fem reader, thank you and I wish you well

here you have, and I wish you well too! <3

Ma Taesoo x fem!reader

warnings: nsfw, smut, p in v, size difference

Working as Ma Taesoo's assistant was the best opportunity life offered you, since you started working for him you just not only had a great income, but you also had a great bond with your boss. Sometimes you couldn't even believe how you went from getting rejected on all your job applications, having a hard time to bring some income home to now driving a Hyundai Tucson to work, gesture of your boss the ex-delinquent that everyone was reluctant and scared to work for and who you gave an opportunity.

You've just arrived to the land on the mountain that Taesoo is about to buy, your boss is already there talking with the vendor, they seemed to discuss about the price so you rushed over there "do your magic" Taesoo pat your shoulder and you winked back at him. After walking around the lands while negotiating with the vendor, you returned to your boss with the signed contract "all yours and I even haggled a bit under the estimated price" Taesoo smiled at you "good job there" he patted your head "maybe I might buy you another car as a reward" he leaned against his car "another big one like mine, you look good driving big cars" you blushed at the compliment and noded "it's all thanks to you, boss" you both gave each other an accomplice smile and drove to Taesoo's house in the woods, there he has all the paperwork regarding the lands management.

You sat on his office, he calmly offered you a blanket to warm yourself and left you working alone, the little office was comfortable and the fact that it just started raining helped you focus a bit, the blanket, smelled of Taesoo, his cologne was there, you could only think about using a blanket that Taesoo also used. You snuggled on the blanket smelling at it as if it was the best smell, your cheeks burned and you closed your thighs, then you jolted by Taesoo's sudden irruption "y/n, it's raining lots so you're gonna stay here tonight, you already have a room prepare-" Taesoo focused on your snuggling self "are you feeling cold?" you denied "I'm fine, just the blanket is really comfortable" you stared at each other in silent "fine, I'll prepare dinner" Taesoo broke the silence and left. Your heart was racing fast, you already stayed nights as his place, it was usual due to him living in the mountains, you and his boys stayed actually a lot over but this time you couldn't take off your head your boss, lewd scenarios flooded your mind, your breathing was heavier, you placed the finished paperwork and rushed over to see him.

Taesoo was in the kitchen his breath also heavy, he said really bold of him about you staying tonight when he doesn't even know if he could be capable of controlling himself, not after all the perverted thoughts he had lately of you, he felt bad, you trust him as a boss as someone to rely on. He noticed you, you were at the door, your skirt more lifted that usual from sitting all day, your breath was also heavy, your face all red and your lips pouty, he walked towards you "Taesoo, I'm cold" you said to him, you were so nervous that you could feel your blood rushing around your head "don't worry angel, I got you" Taesoo caught your indirect and rushed towards you his hands grabbed your waist, your arms around his shoulders in a matter of seconds you already where making out. Taesoo's kisses were rough and desperate, he didn't show any signs of letting go of you, he lifted you, your legs around his waist his hands grabbing your ass, it was too much "Taesoo" you broke the kiss "I want you" Taesoo smiled at you and walked towards his bedroom kissing your neck "I'm gonna make you mine dear".

His bedroom was warm, a fireplace was the source of warm and light in his room, Taesoo dropped you on his big and comfortable bed and suddenly, you where under him and your shirt and bra got removed in one go, his hands already removing your skirt, you joined him and started to unbutton his shirt, he teared it revealing his naked torso your naked body being hugged by him his lips kissing from your neck to your chest then your legs, his fingers teasing your pussy, little moans already escaping from your lips, he slipped two of his fingers inside, his eyes focused on all your body "you're so beautiful" you let out a moan and he rushed the movement of his fingers "they're long!" you moaned, his fingers were deep and felt so good against your walls "yes they are, do they make you feel good?" you nodded Taesoo gave a kiss in your lips then traveled down and he gave a peck to your clit, making you shiver, your reaction gave him joy, his mouth was savoring you "Ta-Taesoo! ah!" you could hear the lewd sound that his fingers and mouth made against your pussy the pleasure made your legs tremble and then he bullied more that gummy spot that instantly made you cum at the touch "good girl, you will give me more, right?" Taesoo brushed your cheek you shyly nodded "so smart and competent, I'll make sure to give you the best fuck as reward" Taesoo undressed completely, his dick, big, slapped his stomach and you swallowed, his hand grasped it and you bit your lips, you got closer to him, his hand directing yours to his dick you slowly moved your hand up and down, his breathing was heavy, Taesoo found your hand so tiny around his dick "you're so big" it slipped from your lips making Taesoo chuckle "you look good with big things".

He easily placed you on his lap, your back resting on his chest, his left hand grabbing your throat and his right teasing your clit, from his position he could see all your body, his eyes fixed on your cunt, your pussy stretched by his cock "cum for me baby, let me feel it" you groaned loudly, your head fell on his shoulder your legs fighting to not close your hips desperately moving up, your walls tightening around his dick "that's it princess, you've got it" Taesoo increased the speed of his fingers circling your clit making your moans more louder making you cum so hard.

Taesoo moved you back to lay in bed, slowly kissing you, slowly caressing your body, slowly making time to appreciate you. Once you were back to you senses, Taesoo aligned his cock again to your entrance, slowly entering, making you feel every inch again, your walls adjusted him well so he started moving slowly, watching all your reactions before you opened your mouth "Taesoo! go harder!" Taesoo placed your ankles over his shoulder "as the princess wants" he left all his worries of hurting you and started to pound you like a beast, his strokes hitting deep made your eyes go back, erratic moans and breathing, Taesoo was so proud "good, my princess, you're taking it like a champ" he grabbed your waist and pounded rougher " I-I can feel you" you opened your mouth wide and left a silent moan "mhm good" Taesoo praised you, not minding much but letting you speak "I can feel you here" you pointed at the bulge he made on your stomach "boss is so deep" Taesoo fixed his gaze on your stomach the little bulge appearing every time he pounded in, it made for Taesoo one of his now favorite views a motivation to keep hitting you deep an so along with the praises coming from him, the way he hit so so deep, his size, everything, was so much enough to drive you to your orgasm again, your walls squeezed him hard, trapping him, your nails clawing at his back and along your moans made him cum right after you.

He cuddled you in his arms, a blanket covering you both while you were recovering your breaths, your gaze on the fireplace, his hands caressing your hair "I don't want this to be an only one time thing" you spoke to him worried, afraid that the heat of before had ruined your relationship, Taesoo kissed you forehead "as if I would let you go away, princess you're not going to get away from me so easily, not when you're so perfect for me" you accommodate on his chest, happy to spend the night with him.

[cyberpunkonline]

The Internet: From Nuclear-Resistant to Vendor-Dependent Dumbassery

Back in the day, when the Internet was just a glint in DARPA's eye, it was designed with one crucial concept in mind: survival. Picture this—it's the Cold War, the threat of nuclear Armageddon looms large, and the military bigwigs are sweating bullets about communication breakdowns. They needed a network that could withstand a nuke dropping on a major hub and still keep the flow of information alive. Enter the ARPANET, the badass granddaddy of the modern Internet, built to have no single point of failure. If one part got nuked, the rest would carry on like nothing happened. Resilient as hell.

Fast forward to today, and what do we have? A digital house of cards. The once mighty and decentralized Internet has become a fragile mess where a single vendor bug can knock out entire swathes of the web. How did we go from a network that could shrug off nuclear bombs to one that craps its pants over a software glitch? Let's dive into this clusterfuck.

The Glory Days of Decentralization

The original ARPANET was all about redundancy and resilience. The network was designed so that if any one part failed—be it from a technical issue or a catastrophic event—data could still find another route. It was a web of interconnected nodes, a spider's web that kept spinning even if you tore a chunk out. It was pure genius.

This approach made perfect sense. The whole point was to ensure that critical military communications could continue even in the aftermath of a disaster. The Internet Protocol (IP), the backbone of how data travels on the Internet, was conceived to route around damage and keep on trucking. No single point of failure meant no single point of catastrophic breakdown. Brilliant, right?

The Rise of Centralized Stupidity

Then came the tech giants. Companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft built empires that depended on centralization. Cloud computing took off, and suddenly, everyone and their grandma was storing their data on a handful of massive servers owned by these big players. It was convenient, it was efficient, but it was also the beginning of the end for the Internet’s robust decentralization.

Today, we've got massive data centers dotted around the globe, each housing thousands of servers. These centers are like Fort Knox for data, but unlike Fort Knox, they’re not immune to problems. A single screw-up—a bug in a software update, a misconfiguration, or even a physical hardware failure—can take down huge chunks of the web. Remember that time when AWS went down and half the Internet went dark? Yeah, that was fun. Or more recently, Cloudstrike do something retarded and every single Windows machine running their shitware gets bricked. Fantastic.

The Single Vendor Blues

It gets worse. The consolidation of Internet services means that many critical applications and websites rely on the same vendors for infrastructure. If one of these vendors messes up, it's not just their services that go down—it's everyone who depends on them too. It’s like having a whole city’s power grid depending on one dodgy generator. One hiccup, and the lights go out for everyone.

Consider the infamous BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) hijacks and leaks. BGP is how routers figure out the best path for data to travel across the Internet. It's crucial, and it's also vulnerable. A single misconfiguration or malicious attack can reroute traffic, causing widespread outages and security breaches. And because so much of the Internet is funneled through a few major ISPs (Internet Service Providers), the impact can be catastrophic.

Why This Is So Fucking Stupid

So, why is it that we’ve allowed the Internet to become this fragile? It boils down to a mix of convenience, cost-cutting, and plain old shortsightedness. Centralized services are easier to manage and cheaper to run. But this efficiency comes at the cost of resilience. We’ve traded the robustness of a decentralized network for the convenience of cloud services and single-vendor solutions.

The result? A network that can be crippled by a single point of failure. This isn’t just stupid—it’s dangerous. It leaves us vulnerable to attacks, outages, and other disruptions that could have far-reaching consequences. It’s a stark reminder that in our quest for efficiency, we’ve neglected one of the core principles that the Internet was founded on: resilience.

The Way Forward

What’s the solution? We need to get back to basics. Decentralization should be a priority. More diversity in service providers, more redundancy in infrastructure, and more focus on designing systems that can withstand failures. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be cheap, but if we want an Internet that can survive the challenges of the future, it’s absolutely necessary.

So next time you hear about a massive outage caused by a single vendor’s screw-up, remember: it didn’t have to be this way. We built an Internet that could survive a nuclear war, and then we broke it because it was cheaper and easier. It’s time to fix that before the next big failure hits.

There you have it, folks. From invincible to idiotic, the Internet’s journey has been a wild ride. Let’s hope we can steer it back on course before it’s too late. - Raz.

[miyuhpapayuh]

Can I be transparent for a sec? Mmkay.

I lost my job back in January over some racist ass mean girl shit and I haven't been able to find a job since then. It's almost may. By the grace of god, am I still held together but man if a bitch don't cry.

Bills never stop. Life don't stop. The fact that some over aged bully brought problems to her SECOND job and got an innocent black woman fired is crazy to me, I feel like they even blackballed me ya know? Nobody wants my ass.

Soon as I send the application off, it's coming back with a fat red NO on it. And I ain't never not do my job, so to pats that off as the THIRD and final excuse as to why you fired me is crazy.

Almost two years and still had that key in my possession til I brought it back to her ass, after she fired me. There's bitches that didn't even have codes to get in the building! I had that AND a key! Mind y'all, this was my second boss. First one got fired cause she truthfully ain't do her job, but me, always on time and ready to do my job.

We got paid $12 and hour! Who tf ain't finna do this silly shit? All I do and ring bitches up. So you saying I never rung a bitch up? Never opened/closed the store? Never cleaned my area? Never did a return? Never help a vendor? Never turn the fountain on/off? Never turned the lights on/off? Tv, either? Never put anything back? Never took something down for someone? Never carried something out for customers, which i eventually stopped on my own cause I ain't finna be no liability. This is not Lowe's. Never answered the phone? Nothing?! I just came to work and disappeared to narnia, apparently, and have y'all my ass to kiss? Yeah, okay. And how do y'all think that'll stand with no paper trail to back it up.

If I NEVER did anything, why was I still here and never written up a single time? You were my boss for five months and never wrote me up? Didn't confiscate my key? CONTINUED to let me open the store up? Tried to make me your errand girl? Picked a bitch who don't even clock ten hours a week your part time assistant manager but kept running to ME when shit would get weird and if redirect your ass to your OTHER assistant manager, because EYE do not get paid to be a secretary. Remember who you gave that job to, especially after being warned that she wouldn't be able to do the job.

Y'all, what the fuck is a part time assistant manager? Any other assistant manager we ever had clocked the full 40, cause it's a REQUIREMENT. Duh. Now part time and full time employees? Sure, but nothing else. Can't be a part time manager of a fucking establishment, that's so ass backwards.

So who would be asked to open the store a LOT if the other assistant was on vacation or whatever? Me.

If a bitch didn't ever do her job? Why call on me? Rely on me to fix problems with certain customers because you knew I'd handle it. Hell, I was helping this girl sell spaces in the store! If I never did my job? Why constantly ask me how many hours I wanted? Tell me about the other girls and how they're not doing what you want and yadda ya.

When girls started quitting, I took those long eight hour shifts to the chin to help you out. And you thanked me! Y'all she was on the phone talking to my assistant manager and they got me right before I left work to thank me for staying so late and being the only one to step up and be a team player and they appreciate me (mind yal I don't care about team player bs it just felt nice to hear that I was appreciated) and all that, just to turn around a MONTH later and say I never did my job?

I got fired over the phone because she knew how it woulda went down in person, but she also thought I wasn't smart enough to fight. First mistake.

This feels like a book lmao I'm knowing y'all prolly don't care but I just have to write this out somewhere, I just have felt so sad and angry.

Anyway. Painted tree is a boutique where people sale their wares, handmade jewelry, food, clothing items, candles, paintings, etc. you could either buy a kiosk or a booth and you were responsible for that and that alone!

So of course, there's vendors that sell shit outta their house cause they know nobody is paying attention, one of them any things this new manager was being brought in to fix cause it was starting to look like a hot mess, I'm not gonna lie to y'all, but I just worked there so whatever.

Of course me being me, I would also make a point to say something every now and again because you can't have us giving a spiel to the customers about the store, while not making sure that your current vendors are following those rules we're giving the new ones! Like???

Old manager was even telling her assistants to sale the spaces sight unseen and why make me privy to this cause you know ima tell y'all how illegal that is!

So the same part time assistant manager is involved in what ended up getting me fired. We started around the same time as cashiers and she's been trying her hardest to get this promotion at her other job, the full time job, but she's up against some sixty year old lady who's been in the company forever, so she's got seniority. Y'all already know how this ends up going. Shorty ain't get the promotion, right around the same time she gets promoted where we work.

On top of that, her husband should choke on something. I won't get into that but there was a point where she'd cry to us about him leaving her and even pimp herself to customers! I'm talking about"if y'all have any single daddies, older brothers, friends, tell 'em I'm ready to mingle!"

Inappropriate.

During the same time, Christmas Eve of 2022, to be exact, we get a text from our manager that the power was out and whoever was scheduled wouldn't have to worry about coming in. So I'm like sweet, see y'all Monday, merry new year whatever.

Of course this bitch gon text back and ask about the possibility of the lights coming back on and I'm like oh my god really. So managers like I'll let y'all know if I hear anything and get y'all to come in. Of course.

So what we ain't know was that this girl was camped out in the job parking lot, waiting to see if the lights came on.

Sure enough they did, cause why not?!?!? And she calls manager and tells HER that SHES gonna drop her kid off, change her clothes and come back to work! Told HER manager what the plan for the day was and you know it actually went down?!?? Cause she was a known snitch at head office, they don't like this girl! Our manager told us that they don't like her.

Anyway, so of course we have to come to work for like three hours and it's a waste because there was like 10 customers at most! My co worker and I are giving her shit because why were you in the parking lot waiting for the lights to come on?! You had nothing better to do cause your husband still hasn't come home?! DO NOT MAKE THAT MY FUCKING PROBLEM WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK?!

She's telling the customers that we're making her feel bad and I'm just saying "good, I hope you do feel bad" got our asses at work for nothing, yeah feel bad! I could still be in the bed! Last minute Christmas shopping my ass! I'm mad!

So why does she end saying she wants to leave early?

Not the same person who said we should thanking her for getting us more hours? Not the one who was trying to gain sympathy from the customers? NOT THE ONE WHO CAMPED OUT IN THE PARKING LOT?!!!!

When I say my head swivelllllllled, it almost came off. All my coworker did was stare at her but eyeeee had words for her ass.

No way you just said sumn bout leaving early??? You literally waited for the lights to come back on so you could get us to come to work! We're here and only been here for like 2 hours, maybe her 3, and you wanna leave early?! You ain't going nowhere. If anything ima hitch a ride with coworker and we gon leave you here to lock up. That was funny of you to think you were leaving early.

Shoulda seen her face, like dare you!

I said if our manager goes for it and you leave early, I got words for her too. I bet she ain't get work early.

My manager and I even agreed that she was being ridiculous to even ask that question, being the one who made us come to work!

Yeah she ain't like me ever since that, but she also ain't buck her shit after that either.

So when we get our new manager, she feels like she got someone on her side because let me make note that the old manager was the best friend of the assistant manager that she works alongside now. So the playing field is leveled now.

So my sister and I have a kiosk to share, my art and her baking. We get both of the week and I make it look all pretty with our candy jars and cookies and paintings and jewelry that my mom made and what have you.

I come in a day before my week is up and my stuff isn't there. In fact, that now part time assistant is standing in front of a table, taking down a coffee display.

Do we do this on Saturdays? Absolutely. Do we use the other side to display our coffee so these booths of the week can still be presented? Also, yes.

So why is mine the one you MAKE SURE you take down? Right.

So I clock in and tell my assistant manager that I needed to go to my booth. I go to my booth and our stuff is out back crazy! I call my sister while I'm putting everything back. I mean candy dishes on the edge of the shelves, my paintings on the floor, cookies put behind things. Like she just dropped it off and kept it moving.

So were upset and I call my manager and let her know what's happening and she's telling me head back up front cause conveniently both assistant managers were leaving early so I needed to watch the front so I'm like okay just call her and tell her that I don't appreciate her just throwing my stuff around and she assures that she will.

So that ended up being translated like something to brush off cause when I had to call her back cause I couldn't find one of my stand to my paintings, which I ended up finding in the office on a shelf?! Which also ended up not being a big deal to my manager which I noted was not cool, she just kinda passed off a message like we she didn't know where your things went.

She coulda left my shit where it was sitting and let me know to move it when I got in. Could moved it into the office and let me put it back myself. I got agreement on this from my manager. So I'm just like okay whatever just tell her not to touch my stuff anymore if that how she's gonna do me. That was the end of it for me, cause just let me get my money pls.

So the next day we work together again, and like any other day we do not speak to each other cause she's wishy washy and I don't get paid to speak to you nor do you get paid to speak to me. So I speak to my other coworker cause she's not an asshole to me and I go about my day.

Why does the next day roll around and my manager asks me what do we need to do to solve the tension? I'm like what tension? I'm good. When she wants to start treating me like a human, then maybe she'll get so here with me but EYE am not the problem here?? I didn't do anything to her??

She's like, well she told me that you came in and didn't speak to her but you spoke to everyone else.

I'm sorry, I'm we in high school? Didn't I tell y'all that we are not friends? I know I've told y'all that so what's this about?

I told her that I'm not rolling out a red carpet for this girl and making her feel comfortable cause she's definitely not doing that for me! Like be real! Be serious! If I told you every damn time she ain't speak to me, you woulda been tired of me long time ago! I don't come to work for that! Tell her come talk to me and I get a comment about my attitude and I shrug it off like okay haha cause I'm not confrontational all the time, it didn't cost for that ya know? So the comment was unnecessary.

So a couple days go by and I end up texting my manager to chat when I got to work later that day just letting her know that I needed to get everything off my chest about this while situation cause it was starting to bother me how the whole thing was being handled.

In that conversation, I pretty much reiterated that I just would like to continue doing my job and not worrying about catering to anyone's feelings, cause we do not get paid for that. This girl had been treating me like an outcast for a whirl and it feels racist sometimes and she's quick to defend her cause duh and I tell her that I don't need anyone to tell me what they think about it so pretty much like girl save it, I still think it's racist and she tells me to send part time assistant manager a message to say like here's where we stand and we don't gotta get along but we gotta get back to work and let it be.

So I'm like ok cool, I type it up in my notes and send it to my homegirl like girl read this and lmk what you think cause she privy to everything that's been going on!

She like that's cool but I don't think sending her that will make a difference, cause I agree with you that she should do her job just mediate or something instead of getting you do it! Remember, YOU didn't do anything to her!

So my sister came right around that time cause she was picking me up, also putting labels on her products cause again we own a kiosk, and so I tell her about it and she immediately is like do not send her anything cause they can use it against you.

So part time assistant manager ends up coming in and when I say she beelines straight for the office, she almost hurt herself getting in there.

So my assistant manager ends up telling me that if I wanted to go home early o could cause we were really slow so I was like yeah I'll see y'all tomorrow, byeee

So a couple hours later, I get a text from my manager asking me if she could call me. I already knew what it was but I'm like there's no reason why she would do that.

So she calls me and someone from corporate was on the other line! wtf? So she goes into this spiel about cutting hours and then abruptly says that here's where we part ways.

So I'm like why am I getting fired? She dances around the question and goes on to say something about an attitude, and so I ask her if it's about the situation between we and ptam (got tired of writing that out) and if it is about that situation, is she also getting fired? Cause never did I speak to that girl about any of this, it was my manager and I talking. And she doesn't answer any of what I asks, she just keeps going back to its best that we do it like this and I'm like why? She then goes on on to say she knows I wasn't happy and I'm like how?? Why would I come to work to take your shift, both assistant managers and my own in this mf if I hated my job? Girl shut up! Like not making any sense?

So the lady from corporate takes over and starts talking like an inspirational speaker about how she met me and I can go anywhere and be the best I can be and there's better opportunities and I end up zoning out cause I'm just like how tf am I gonna pay my bills now? I don't have a job lined up. I cannot believe I just got died and she didn't even give me a reason— she thought I hung up and I'm like nah I'm here but I don't wanna hear anything else or continue this conversation, you want your key back? Cool. Do I even have a shift still, tomorrow morning? No, of course not. K, you'll get it back, bye.

Immediately I send a long email to corporate and tell 'em everything that's gone on, even told em how my manager has her boyfriend/fiancé drive an hour back down the road to another location for some damn labels because ours hadn't shipped out yet. This man is NOT employed there so there's no reason why he should be being employed to do her job for her!

I also terminated the contract for my stand cause now I'm no longer there to watch my stuff and if bitch gets away with throwing shit around once, she gon do it again. Told her rip that shit up.

Now my sister was mad at me but not for long cause she knew i was upset but I was NOT talking outta anger, I mean what I said but she wanted to see if she could figure out what's going on cause I'm not the only owner of the kiosk which is fair, so we head up to the job and the assistant manager that I worked closely with was there, looking like a deer caught in headlights. This is her norm but it pissed me off more than usual.

She tried breaking bad on me, telling my sister that I called this person and that person and told em all types of shit, now me being me again, I'm asking wtf I said cause when we first started asking her questions, she wasn't aware of this and that and wasn't even allowed in the email anymore lmao and for an assistant manager, that's a bold face lie to tell cause how the emails get answered? It's just you here, dummy! YOU KNOW WHATA GOIN ON BITCH!

So when I asked her what I said in the email she just said she wasn't allowed in, she gon smirk at me and say "you know what you said"... nah! Since YOU know what's in the emails, you tell ME what I said. After that she sobered tf up and that smirk went bye bye. She even backed away from the counter cause I was getting so agitated, and she's scared of me. We've also had it out before so she knows her limits and me not being her coworker anymore, she knew better than to test me.

So I end up separating from my sister cause the conversation was going nowhere, only for us to find each other again and assistant manager told her that I never did my job. Crazy as hell.

When I say I sent a total of three emails and called corporate and only one person responded to my email— the chief of staff, mind y'all! I'm thinking she finna come with it, right? Wrong. Everybody full of hot ass.

She telling me that there were concerns— none of which were brought me but ok— about my work ethic and there's claims from SIX of my coworkers that support me being away and not ready for work but clocked in, also multiple screenshots that support the idea of me not being fond of my job.

I asked that bitch to send me this concrete ass evidence so EYE can see what EYE said and y'all know I ain't get shit back. Not even crickets. Not even a tumbleweed, bitch.

One thing about me, ima ask to see the evidence. Y'all not finna act like y'all got something on me and not share it with the class?!? Come on, where's the fun in that?!

Couldn't take the time to fabricate some text messages or print out a write up and forge my signature! Nothing!

So when it came time for me to get my unemployment, of course they tried making that difficult too! But ima fight for myself. I've come to far in that, not to.

Got them ppl sending me questionnaires and in ever text box they provided, I went into lengthy detail about this whole situation, I was so tired of telling mfs that I wasn't aware of why I was even fired, it made me literally ill.

It was like I was talking in circles and nobody was listening to me, which is something that makes me physically violent. So something needed to be done asap, cause if I gotta sit my black ass at home, I'm getting my duckets in the meantime!

So I got fired of the 16th of January, right? On the 17th of February, I log into DES and guess who was approved for their well deserved mf money cause them bitches ain't have no evidence to support me never doing my mf job?! Yeah! YEAH!!!! I cackled all morning long bitch, it was so funny and hilarious and delightful!!!

But I've been looking for a job for the last three months and it's about to be May. By the grace of god and my mama do I still have money in the bank, but the unemployment is on its last leg and it don't know what to do. I just feel like a failure a lot of the time, it really sucks to keep getting rejection letters in my email but ima keep trying. Just don't know how much try I have left in me.

So yeah, if y'all made it to the end of my long ass diary entry, I appreciate y'all and hope y'all take care of y'all selves at these jobs cause they give not one fuck about ya, k? K, stay lovely and spicy 😘😘😘😘

[sulatni-flerida11]

htbahb au dump !! because the brainrot is too strong

general context things

currently, the characters are in their college years. even though the plan is to have the main storyline happen when they already have jobs, their college years established dynamics between them. some dynamics luckily haven't changed over the years, but others may take longer to rebuild.

cleo owns an apartment close to uni, and they share it with grian & etho.

joel & scar live as interns on campus.

lizzie, jimmy, bdubs, and pearl are also interns, with lizzie & pearl as roommates in a different building and jimmy & bdubs living across joel & scar

au prolly takes place in a semi-rural area; it started as a town with a small population and lots of farmland, but it's slowly evolving to follow other highly urbanized cities.

the town hasn't gone fully urban since it takes pride in utilizing its land with locally manufactured agricultural resources and artisan goods.

courses/classes they're taking prolly

cleo - horticulture (with sculpting at the side)

joel - agribusiness management & entrepreneurship (he's not super into it yet)

scar - economics

etho - agricultural chemistry (secretly also likes music)

grian - literature (also enjoys photography)

lizzie - music (likes to experiment with different art mediums tho)

bdubs - architecture

jimmy - horticulture

pearl - economics

and other dynamics between the group !!

lizzie sometimes pulls bdubs & cleo to her experiments. every summer break, they take an art related class together. so far, they've done painting and dancing. (bdubs has already enrolled them in a modeling class for the upcoming break, but the other two don't know yet.)

joel, pearl, and scar would discuss their business and/or economics related classes to grian, and grian just smiles and nods in respect (of them and their friendship) even if he doesn't understand most things they're saying. ("wait, what is a griffin good?" "griffen, grian, with an e.")

the real reason why joel, pearl, & scar talk about their classes to grian is because they like messing with him. (he's not as good with hiding his confused look as he thinks.)

jimmy once accidentally found an opening to one of the private properties of a big business in town - a flower field. whenever he and cleo have floriculture assignments that involve getting flowers, they pick their flowers from there. sometimes, they'd discuss the flowers there, ways to care for them, flower meanings, etc. sometimes, joel and etho join them. as loud as they are, they've only had one instance where they almost got caught. (they never brought joel and etho with them since then.)

pearl & scar buy newspapers daily by the campus gate to chat about the current events, especially ones relating to their degree. they quickly befriended the newspaper vendor as he also had a lot of food for thought regarding the things going on. their discussions help them a lot, aiding them in their essays and analysis about economic policies and applications.

etho would sometimes ask lizzie about music theory. what was supposed to be a few messages would end up in hours of them talking about music. eventually, lizzie found out about etho's music hobby, and she's the only one that knows.

grian owns a polaroid camera, and he sometimes takes candid pictures of the gang. his subjects are usually cleo & etho, mostly because they're his roommates and he spends the most time with them, but there's also a handful of pictures with scar & pearl.

joel and lizzie started dating after scar, bdubs, & pearl convinced him to go to an open mic event in the dorms during their first year; lizzie happened to be one of the performers.

if you've made it this far, any thoughts on what music genres/artists each life series member listens to? totally not for oneshot purposes in this au,,,

[simplifyworkforce]

Maximizing Workforce Efficiency: How VMS Platforms Empower Direct Sourcing 

One of the most significant developments in this space is the rise of Vendor Management Systems (VMS), which enable organizations to streamline the management of their contingent workforce. Paired with the growing trend of Direct Sourcing, VMS platforms are revolutionizing how businesses acquire and manage talent. 

Understanding Vendor Management Systems (VMS) 

A VMS platform is a software solution designed to manage all aspects of an organization’s contingent workforce, from vendor relationships to temporary staff hiring, performance tracking, and payment. It allows companies to centralize and automate processes that were traditionally handled manually or through various disparate systems. The benefits of a VMS platform include better visibility, improved cost control, enhanced compliance, and faster onboarding for contract workers. 

The core function of a VMS is to manage third-party staffing vendors, but its utility has expanded as workforce management becomes more sophisticated. A modern VMS platform now also supports Direct Source strategies, enabling companies to build their own talent pools and reduce dependence on external staffing agencies. 

Direct Sourcing: A Growing Trend 

Direct Sourcing refers to the practice of directly hiring contingent workers from a company’s existing network or talent pool, rather than through external staffing vendors. This approach allows businesses to tap into a pre-vetted group of freelancers, contractors, and temporary workers without incurring the additional costs and markups associated with staffing agencies. 

The benefits of Direct Sourcing are clear: 

Cost Savings: By cutting out the middleman, companies can save on recruitment fees and vendor markups. 

Faster Hiring: Companies with established talent pools can quickly access qualified candidates, reducing the time-to-hire. 

Better Quality Control: Organizations have more control over the recruitment process and can ensure that they are hiring workers who align with their specific needs and culture. 

How a VMS Platform Enhances Direct Sourcing 

While Direct Sourcing provides significant advantages, it requires a strategic and organized approach to managing talent. This is where VMS platforms come in. By integrating Direct Sourcing capabilities into their VMS, companies can optimize the recruitment and management of contingent workers. Here’s how: 

Building and Managing Talent Pools: VMS platforms allow companies to create and maintain internal talent pools, consisting of previous contractors, freelancers, and referrals. These workers are often already familiar with the company’s processes and culture, making them ideal candidates for future projects.

Seamless Integration with Workforce Management: A modern VMS platform integrates with HR, procurement, and finance systems, creating a seamless experience for hiring and managing contingent workers.

Automated Workflows: A key advantage of a VMS platform is the automation of recruitment workflows.

Compliance and Risk Management: Hiring contingent workers, particularly across multiple jurisdictions, introduces a range of legal and compliance risks.

Data-Driven Decision Making: VMS platforms provide real-time analytics and reporting, giving companies valuable insights into their contingent workforce.

The Future of VMS and Direct Sourcing 

As the contingent workforce continues to grow, the combination of Vendor Management System platforms and Direct Sourcing will become even more integral to workforce management strategies. Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will further enhance VMS capabilities, enabling predictive workforce planning, talent matching, and real-time decision-making. 

Conclusion 

The integration of VMS platforms and Direct Sourcing is transforming how businesses manage their contingent workforce. By centralizing and automating key processes, VMS platforms empower organizations to take control of their talent acquisition strategies, reducing costs, improving efficiency, and ensuring compliance. As Direct Sourcing continues to gain popularity, businesses that effectively leverage their VMS will be well-positioned to stay competitive and responsive to changing market demands. The future of workforce management is one where agility and efficiency go hand in hand, and VMS platforms are at the heart of this transformation. 

[REVEALED]: 7 Questions You Must Ask In 2024 Before Investing in a VMS  

Top 6 Reasons Why You Should Absolutely Invest in a VMS  

What is the Importance of Credentialing in Healthcare? 

[blubberquark]

Computer Literacy

Computer literacy is the most important social problem of today. At least, it’s the most important problem relative to the amount of time we spend talking about it. That makes it the most underrated social problem, and probably the one where we can achieve the most long-term improvements per unit of effort spent, but for some reason we don’t.

As computers have become more and more important, most jobs are now impossible to do without some sort of IT system in there, and that has resulted in people who used to be competent, confident and creative in their jobs throwing their hands in the air, saying “it’s a software problem, what can you do“ as automation increasingly dictates their workflows and makes them unable to even do things they used to be able to accomplish manually.

Somehow, the modern world is full of computers, and they are more important than ever, but as software has become more complicated and more difficult to use, people have become worse at using computers.

Over the last twenty years, we didn’t really get better at computer use. Instead we got used to not being able to understand what’s going on. We are also used to not being in control. Programs update themselves. Web apps change their UI. Web sites change their URL structure and invalidate all your bookmarks. Phones become obsolete in a way that makes it impossible to even run the versions of apps that used to work.

When I talk about complexity, I don’t mean the “internal” complexity of software, as in code complexity, build dependencies, software architecture, and all the tooling to manage this somehow. I mean user-visible complexity: Software is no longer an .exe file on your hard drive, but a self-updating app with a small icon that needs an online account and starts itself when your computer starts. Data is no longer a file on a floppy disk, but a collection of rows in an SQL database somewhere in %APPDATA%, or worse, a collection of rows in an SQL database in the cloud behind a REST API that is actually not REST but just RPC over HTTP.

Computer literacy is a moving target. That makes it difficult to teach. I suspect that the software industry wants it that way.

In their quest to “simplify“ software, vendors turn every application into a black box or a walled garden, denying users ways to re-use knowledge gained from other apps. Can you share the document you are editing with your friends by sharing the URL in your browser? If it was a file, you could save it and share the file with a friend. Online, all bets are off. Maybe the URL thing works, maybe the application has its own internal sharing system that requires your friends to make accounts, so you can “connect“ with them, and only then can you select them from a drop-down menu to share your document with, or maybe the application automatically scrapes your friends from facebook.

When I was in 7th grade, I had “basic computer lessons“, sponsored by Microsoft. We learned how many bits there were in a byte, how to send e-mail with hotmail.com, and what to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for. What we did not learn was how to uninstall software, how to burn a CD, or how to send e-mail attachments. The “child-proofing” software installed on the school computers prevented us from accessing the file system.

Important tasks such as

connecting to a wireless network

printing on a shared network printer

getting your PowerPoint to display on an external screen or projector

verifying that an e-mail is indeed coming from your friend or your bank

were left out.

(Aside: Why don’t banks sign their mail with PGP?)

In the mean time, what has gotten worse was not education. It was software itself. Software has gotten more and more hostile to computer literacy. Some software is actively hostile to deep understanding now, and increasingly it’s also becoming hostile to shallow understanding and muscle memory. Good luck with your new iPad air, we have moved all the buttons around, and have hidden basic functionality behind gestures. Tapping this does nothing, maybe try swiping it, pinching it, shaking it, with three fingers, swipe from the edge of the screen, whoops you switched apps now. It’s no longer possible for an end user to understand software. It’s no longer possible for third parties to even write “the missing handbook” of Slack or Google Docs or Spotify or Dropbox or indeed the iPad. It will be obsolete before it hits the shelves.

Related: http://contemporary-home-computing.org/turing-complete-user/

[ourjobagency]

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, the cloud has emerged as a transformative technology that empowers businesses with flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Migrating to the cloud is no longer an option but a necessity to stay competitive. 

[prototypelq]

Some additional MHW impressions:

- The character animations are great. The terrain is pretty much never flat, and while this is no Death Stranding, this game is also not a pure walking simulator, and the way the characters stumble and flail around, plus the sliding animations are all very fluid. This is not a big thing, but it adds a lot to the immersion and believability of the World. Even just traversing this world is a challenge for your hunter.

- I hate the item management. The item wheel specifically makes me want to rip my hair out. That atrocious thing in a game, where preparation and bringing the right tools with you is a key part of the gameplay, makes no sense to me. I'm okay with having...a lot of item options to bring to the hunt and counter different states, however the horrible interface makes me want to bring as little to a hunt as a potion and an antidote at most.

Update: apparently the item wheel is customisable, which is a blessing, but I also wish I learned this from somewhere in-game, rather than the internet.

- The food system is...so obscure. 30+ hours into the game and I knew literally nothing about it, and it is an extremely useful one! I was struggling to get Rations, which are a very useful item, but there is no way to craft them or buy them from vendors. Turns out, you can cook them in the canteen. This habit of leaving out information is especially jarring, when opposed when the oppressively hand-holding tutorials and extremely detailed text tutorials.

- I love the subtle way the cutscenes teach you game mechanics. It may even bee too subtle, because I did not realise the things characters did in the cutscenes are applicable to the actual gameplay. Like all the slinger uses in cutscenes are genuine hunting tips. The Handler specifically shows you that the fire ammo can clear out toxic gas in the Rotten Vale even, but I still didn't really get it. Guess I underestimated the elemental system in the game, and I should pay more attention to it.

- The monster capturing practise of the hunters disturb me greatly. It was always jarring that you need to beat a monster to half-death for capture, but I excused this as being a game mechanic. But...but you get More monster parts from a capture quest on completion. This makes me think you bring in a barely alive animal for a dissection, rather than capture.

[trailerparktombombadil]

July 7

It's overcast/rainy and isn't supposed to go above 74 today. Pure bliss.

(taking applications from any and all interested UK-Scotland-Ireland single folk who want to move me to your castle - don't lie I know you have one - so I can garden there romantically)

Yesterday I did some things I should have done a while ago. I chopped the mystery gourd. Alas. It was stealing a lot of sun and resources from the surrounding plants. Gourds are so pretty and I adore their foliage but I literally never pick the right place for them to grow.

Who knows what will become of my poor green bell pepper but at least he's no longer choking.

My cherry mocha dwarf crepe myrtle has hardly grown since I planted it almost 2 months ago. I went back to the farm and art market yesterday and asked the vendor what I could be doing wrong. Well, just sticking it in the ground where a rotting tree stump was without doing anything else wasn't a great idea 😖 As instructed I pulled more grass, put down wet cardboard, and covered with mulch, and did the same for the two partial sun natives I stuck in the ground outside the circle garden. I've got a bunch of white gravel-rock I can use for borders.

I cleared out some volunteer Marigolds that were crowding my Thai dragon peppers. Had to cut my okra back a bit because it's bumping shoulders with the peppers on its left and right.

I might suck at the plotting thing. 🙃

Guess what guess what guess what. My father accidentally weed wacked the clematis pitcheri and I was devasted. However, in reality he managed to do what I could not, and that was trim the transplant down to the brown stem. I DID trim the vine of most of its length which included the flowers, but I was too afraid to take it down the way it is advised that you do.

Yesterday I checked on it and this:

There is hope. 🥹

[miasfoxxden]

I use Arch, BTW

I made the switch from Ubuntu 23.04 to Arch Linux. I embraced the meme. After over a decade since my last failed attempt at daily driving Arch, I'm gonna put this as bluntly as I can possibly make it:

Arch is a solid Linux distribution, but some assembly is required.

But why?

Hear me out here Debian and Fedora family enjoyers. I have long had the Debian family as my go-to distros and also swallowed the RHEL pill and switched my server over to Rocky Linux from Ubuntu LTS. on another machine. More on that in a later post when I'm more acclimated with that. But for my personal primary laptop, a Dell Latitude 5580, after being continually frustrated with Canonical's decision to move commonly used applications, particularly the web browsers, exclusively to Snap packages and the additional overhead and just weird issues that came with those being containerized instead of just running on the bare metal was ultimately my reason for switching. Now I understand the reason for this move from deb repo to Snap, but the way Snap implements these kinds of things just leaves a sour taste in my mouth, especially compared to its alternative from the Fedora family, Flatpak. So for what I needed and wanted, something up to date and with good support and documentation that I didn't have to deal with 1 particular vendors bullshit, I really only had 2 options: Arch and Gentoo (Fedora is currently dealing with some H264 licensing issues and quite honestly I didn't want to bother with that for 2 machines).

Arch and Gentoo are very much the same but different. And ultimately Arch won over the 4chan /g/ shitpost that has become Gentoo Linux. So why Arch?  Quite honestly, time. Arch has massive repositories of both Arch team maintained  and community software, the majority of what I need already packaged in binary form. Gentoo is much the same way, minus the precompiled binary aspect as the Portage package manager downloads source code packages and compiles things on the fly specifically for your hardware. While yes this can make things perform better than precompiled binaries, the reality is the difference is negligible at best and placebo at worst depending on your compiler settings. I can take a weekend to install everything and do the fine tuning but if half or more of that time is just waiting for packages to compile, no thanks. That plus the massive resource that is the Arch User Repository (AUR), Arch was a no-brainer, and Vanilla arch was probably the best way to go. It's a Lego set vs 3D printer files and a list of hardware to order from McMaster-Carr to screw it together, metaphorically speaking.

So what's the Arch experience like then?

As I said in the intro, some assembly is required. To start, the installer image you typically download is incredibly barebones. All you get is a simple bash shell as the root user in the live USB/CD environment. From there we need to do 2 things, 1) get the thing online, the nmcli command came in help here as this is on a laptop and I primarily use it wirelessly, and 2) run the archinstall script. At the time I downloaded my Arch installer, archinstall was broken on the base image but you can update it with a quick pacman -S archinstall once you have it online. Arch install does pretty much all the heavy lifting for you, all the primary options you can choose: Desktop environment/window manager, boot loader, audio system, language options, the whole works. I chose Gnome, GRUB bootloader, Pipewire audio system, and EN-US for just about everything. Even then, it's a minimal installation once you do have.

Post-install experience is straightforward, albeit just repetitive. Right off the archinstall script what you get is relatively barebones, a lot more barebones than I was used to with Ubuntu and Debian Linux. I seemingly constantly was missing one thing for another, checking the wiki, checking the AUR, asking friends who had been using arch for even longer than I ever have how to address dumb issues. Going back to the Lego set analogy, archinstall is just the first bag of a larger set. It is the foundation for which you can make it your own further. Everything after that point is the second and onward parts bags, all of the additional media codecs, supporting applications, visual tweaks like a boot animation instead of text mode verbose boot, and things that most distributions such as Ubuntu or Fedora have off the rip, you have to add on yourself. This isn't entirely a bad thing though, as at the end if you're left with what you need and at most very little of what you don't. Keep going through the motions, one application at a time, pulling from the standard pacman repos, AUR, and Flatpak, and eventually you'll have a full fledged desktop with all your usual odds and ends.

And at the end of all of that,  what you're left with is any other Linux distro. I admit previously I wrote Arch off as super unstable and only for the diehard masochists after my last attempt at running Arch when I was a teenager went sideways, but daily driving it on my personal Dell Latitude for the last few months has legitimately been far better than any recent experiences I've had with Ubuntu now. I get it. I get why people use this, why people daily drive this on their work or gaming machines, why people swear off other distros in favor of Arch as their go to Linux distribution. It is only what you want it to be. That said, I will not be switching to Arch any time soon on mission critical systems or devices that will have a high run time with very specific purposes in mind, things like servers or my Raspberry Pi's will get some flavor of RHEL or Debian stable still, and since Arch is one of the most bleeding edge distros, I know my chance of breakage is non zero. But so far the seas have been smooth sailing, and I hope to daily this for many more months to come.