#definitely opposites but each brings the other to a median

[booasaur]

wtFOCK - 7x03

[darkveracity]

Sexiest TLT Ladies Survey Results

About 3 months ago I ran a survey asking the locked tomb fandom to rate the attractiveness of each member of our large and varied cast of lesbians, necromancers, and necromancer lesbians on a scale of 1 to 5. Now it’s time to publish the results! The credit for most of this writeup goes to @misanthropicacegirl who applied a little of her data science expertise to analyzing your answers.

Preliminaries

The survey ran for 3 months and received 357 responses. The overwhelming majority of those were in the first two weeks but a slow trickle continued to come in over the remaining time it was open.

Section 1: Averages

One way to rate our girls is to look at their average rating.

Average Ratings

Gideon    4.25 Camilla   4.22 Harrow    3.80 Pyrrha    3.68 Corona    3.31 Alecto    3.30 Dulcie    3.28 Pal       3.20 Wake      3.15 Abigail   3.06 Ianthe    2.99 Cytherea  2.65 Mercymorn 2.61 Marta     2.57 Judith    2.32 Aiglamene 2.17

Gideon and Camilla are the only ones with an average above 4. Clear stand out winners here. At the bottom of the pack are Marta, Judith, and Aiglamene.

But it’s not all about averages. What are our other summary statistics?

Median Ratings

Gideon    5.0 Pyrrha    4.0 Camilla   4.0 Harrow    4.0 Dulcie    3.5 Alecto    3.0 Wake      3.0 Abigail   3.0 Marta     3.0 Pal       3.0 Corona    3.0 Ianthe    3.0 Aiglamene 2.0 Mercymorn 2.0 Cytherea  2.0 Judith    2.0

Gideon and Harrow both benefit from the median! The absolute middle of the road voter ranked Gideon a 5/5.

Difference Between The Median And The Mean

Cytherea   -0.651026 Mercymorn  -0.609971 Judith     -0.322581 Corona     -0.310145 Alecto     -0.298817 Camilla    -0.219020 Pal        -0.197059 Aiglamene  -0.174041 Wake       -0.151335 Abigail    -0.061584 Ianthe      0.011561 Harrow      0.198847 Dulcie      0.216374 Pyrrha      0.317507 Marta       0.425220 Gideon      0.748555

The difference between the median and the mean tells us a bit about the range of feeling, and how much outliers are influencing the average. Most people have an average fairly close to their median. Gideon, Marta, and Pyrrha all move up in the median – they have a couple of detractors who dragged them down. Cytherea and Mercymorn both move down in the median, because their average was raised by a couple of pro-lyctor fans. Surprisingly, Ianthe, who I would have thought would be very affected here is our most centrist/stable. She’s a 3 and she’s staying there.

First Quartile Ratings

Camilla   4.0 Gideon    4.0 Pyrrha    3.0 Harrow    3.0 Alecto    2.0 Wake      2.0 Abigail   2.0 Dulcie    2.0 Marta     2.0 Pal       2.0 Corona    2.0 Ianthe    2.0 Aiglamene 1.0 Mercymorn 1.0 Cytherea  1.0 Judith    1.0

What about on the low end? Whose popularity is most stable? Answer: Camilla and Gideon again. Even down to the 1st quartile, they were still getting a 4. (E.g., at least 75% of people gave them a 4 or higher.)

Standard Deviations

Camilla   0.978607 Gideon    1.017420 Judith    1.120026 Harrow    1.167082 Marta     1.182399 Pyrrha    1.216243 Corona    1.238687 Aiglamene 1.243601 Dulcie    1.274022 Pal       1.356506 Abigail   1.363070 Mercymorn 1.375335 Alecto    1.389682 Wake      1.426035 Cytherea  1.486678 Ianthe    1.491963

Looking at the standard deviation, Camilla has the lowest score too! Closely followed by Gideon, and surprisingly, Judith. No surprise that the bottom of the list features Ianthe, followed by Cytherea, Wake, Alecto, and Mercymorn – all fairly polarizing girls with a wide spread of potential takes.

Section 2: Ratings by Character

This is one more way of thinking about the distribution of answers each character got. I would have expected Ianthe to be mainly 1’s and 5’s, but she’s actually fairly neutral all the way through – nobody really has much of a bimodal distribution. Ianthe does have equal numbers of 1’s and 5’s, however. In contrast, Alecto’s 5’s outnumber her 1’s at a 2:1 ratio, and Gideon has nearly 20x the 5’s as 1’s.

Section 3: Ratings Given Ratings

Are Ianthe girls really so different from everyone else? Maybe a little. The people who rated Ianthe highly were also higher on Dulcie, Cytherea, Mercymorn, Pyrrha, Wake, Harrow, and Alecto– pretty much every morally gray girl on the list. Judith, Marta, Camilla, and Gideon don’t see much of a difference – and Pal goes down!

Here’s one way we could look at this up close to see the change.

This is the same chart from a Gideon perspective! As you can see, Gideon’s rating doesn’t really change Harrow or Camilla very much – their ratings are pretty high across the board without a lot of change. Pal has a stronger connection: if you rate Gideon a 1, chances are you rated Pal pretty low too. The reverse is true with Cytherea: the people who rated Gideon a 1 rated Cytherea more highly.

Section 4: Correlations

This is a correlation matrix! Each cell in the table represents the strengths of the relationship between the row and column character, between -1 and +1. +1 represents a relationship that totally corresponds with each other, 0 represents no relationship at all, and -1 represents a relationship that goes the opposite way. Each character has a perfect relationship with themselves, so there’s a diagonal of “+1’s” going from top left to bottom right.

Section 4A: Top Positive Correlations

They go together, like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong

Top Positive Correlations

Judith->Marta       0.63 Pyrrha->Wake        0.58 Dulcie->Cytherea    0.47 Wake->Alecto        0.44 Cytherea->Mercymorn 0.41 Alecto->Aiglamene   0.39 Dulcie->Abigail     0.34 Judith->Aiglamene   0.33 Ianthe->Cytherea    0.32 Cytherea->Wake      0.31 Abigail->Mercymorn  0.31 Marta->Aiglamene    0.31 Mercymorn->Wake     0.31 Wake->Aiglamene     0.31 Corona->Wake        0.31

Our second house girls go together! Yes, mostly people both voted them 1’s, 2’s, and 3’s, but people generally ranked them the same.

Our next strongest pair is Pyrrha and Wake. Most people put them both at 5, but people who were negative or lukewarm tended to be similar on both. Probably because they are terrifying warrior MILFs.

This Dulcie and Cytherea one is funny because we have 3 very different points happening. People who hated both, people who loved both, and a minor contingent of people who loved Dulcie but hated Cytherea. That last contingent is significant enough to show up, but not enough to throw off the correlation.

What do Gideon and Camilla look like here? There’s nowhere for us to draw a line–almost everyone put them both at a 5. True, some people rated one a 4 and the other a 5–but not enough for us to see a pattern from it.

Section 4B: Negative Correlation

Opposites…. repulse

Top Negative Correlations

Corona->Pal       -0.14 Ianthe->Pal       -0.13 Gideon->Mercymorn -0.12 Gideon->Cytherea  -0.08 Harrow->Pyrrha    -0.05 Pal->Cytherea     -0.05 Pal->Mercymorn    -0.03 Harrow->Marta     -0.02 Harrow->Wake      -0.02 Harrow->Pal       -0.02 Gideon->Ianthe    -0.02 Ianthe->Camilla   -0.01 Gideon->Abigail   -0.01 Camilla->Cytherea -0.00 Gideon->Dulcie    -0.00

Basically, this correlation exists because there are two different groups – the people liked Pal and put her at a 5 or 4, tended to rate Corona a 3, and the people who liked Corona (who put her at a 4) tended to rate Pal a 1 or 3.

Pal and Ianthe are also kind of opposites! In this case, there’s a VERY pro Pal contingent (3-5) that all rated Ianthe a 1, and a generally pro Ianthe faction (who rated her 4-5) that was pretty lukewarm on Pal.

Lastly, a totally different pattern: Gideon and Mercymorn. In general, everyone was very positive on Gideon and very negative on Mercymorn, hence our major dark spot at (5, 1). This correlation isn’t as strong, since most people loved Gideon regardless of how they felt about Mercymorn. But there were just enough contrarians who loved Mercymorn and disliked Gideon to give us a negative relationship.

Section 5: Clustering

What if we pretended to do some fancy machine learning, and tossed these into a clustering algorithm?

Two Clusters

Abigail & Aiglamene & Cytherea & Ianthe & Judith & Marta & Mercymorn

Alecto & Camilla & Corona & Dulcie & Gideon & Harrow & Pal & Pyrrha & Wake

If we tried just two clusters, we can see a split like this. I’d call this line the conventional heroines VS the meaner, more frightening and military women.

Three Clusters

Abigail & Alecto & Corona & Dulcie & Ianthe & Pyrrha & Wake

Camilla & Gideon & Harrow & Pal

Aiglamene & Cytherea & Judith & Marta & Mercymorn

We can see a pattern here too:

Supporting characters with some redeeming features and some problems

Main heroes

Mean older women

Four Clusters

Abigail & Cytherea & Ianthe & Mercymorn

Alecto & Corona & Dulcie & Pyrrha & Wake

Aiglamene & Judith & Marta

Camilla & Gideon & Harrow & Pal

Breaking this down into 4 gives us similar slices again.

Older and/or Dangerous women

Bitches horny for revenge, probably

Military women

The Camilla/Gideon/Harrow/Pal quadrilateral of friendship

Five Clusters

Cytherea & Ianthe & Mercymorn

Alecto & Corona & Pyrrha & Wake

Abigail & Dulcie & Pal

Aiglamene & Judith & Marta

Camilla & Gideon & Harrow

Last one! Rolling around 5 clusters we get:

Morally dismal lyctors

Women who’ll try killing the emperor in book 3

Friendly but dead nerds

Military women again

Our heroes

Bonus: Harrow or Gideon?

Can we bring back the simple times of the Twilight fandom? Can we be divided into team Harrow or team Gideon? We turn to the data to find out.

Gideon vs Harrow isn’t a very big divide either, as it turns out. The biggest effect it has is (drumroll)…that people who ranked Gideon higher than Harrow had high rankings for Gideon, and vice versa. Everyone else is fairly similar, and I wouldn’t put money on them being statistically significant.

Though there is a slight preference for Ianthe from the Harrow faction, and for Corona from the Gideon faction, which is definitely funny.

We can also observe some slight team Gideon preference for Judith, Marta, and Pyrrha.

[akitokihojo]

Everything’s Okay

Sometimes, it was hard to be okay. Stresses weigh you down, your mind goes into overdrive, cruel thoughts break through whatever barrier you had standing, and everything seems just a little too bleak to trudge through. It would be better if you could just shut the world down for a while; quiet the nonsense, stop time, prevent everything that threatened to contribute to the lowness you already felt. If only. Getting a grip over toxic thinking was difficult enough, even for the healthy-minded. How could a single person halt the universe just for a moment's worth of peace?

Aside from the loud ticking of the clock on the wall, the apartment was silent. His car wasn't parked in its designated spot, so she must have beat him home from work. Usually, she would spend the time getting comfortable and starting dinner, but the longer she stood in the entryway, the thicker and stiffer the air became. It was like the abnormal sensations of her cramped mind were overflowing throughout their home, and nothing in the world could keep her busy enough to stop it from running free. Was this her breaking point? It couldn't be, she'd handled much more than this before without throwing in the towel. Then, there were occasions where it seemed she'd balanced even less and she snapped. Where was her median?

There was a hollowness in the cavity of her chest, leaving her feeling like if she swallowed a marble right then and there, she'd feel it scale down her ribcage. It was weird. It was foreign. If she moved, maybe she could leave the empty hole at the door, so she waded through the sludge of the room, skipping the option to change out of her work clothes because the task seemed too difficult at the moment, and pushed through to the kitchen to see if cooking would make her feel a little better. If she didn't get started, it may be the queue that something was wrong, and the last thing she wanted was to tip Inuyasha off. He didn't need to worry about anything other than the full plate he was already juggling. She could handle this. The feeling would fade. Hopefully another good night's sleep would finally do the trick.

But then she just ended up standing in front of the open fridge, the cold air wafting over her bare legs. Focusing was growing harder and harder as she pulled herself inward to prevent herself from crumbling. There was nothing in the fridge that seemed appetizing to whip up. She wasn't hungry. She'd had about a half a bottle of water all day. Spaghetti was easy enough, but shutting the fridge and moving to the cupboards was a chore on its own.

Why? She was home. This was where she was supposed to feel safe and warm and better. Instead, she was progressively getting worse, her fingers trembling, her eyes growing blurry as she blinked away the tears that burned behind her lids. It was all she could do to take out a package of noodles, a can of sauce, and put a pot of water on to boil. She found herself lifting her bottom to sit on the counter opposite the stove, her lungs no longer allowing full and deep breaths of air, her chin crinkling, her lids overflowing, her nose sniffling and a huff leaving her lips as she cursed herself for caving to nothing. It was nothing. And yet it felt like everything was against her. Her brain threw unheard insults at her, piercing her through because they were so, so believable. Her heart ached like it was empty and broken. All rational thought was out the window, and she was the victim of her own sorrowful negativity.

And if there was one thing a person could ever wish to control, it was that. Screw shutting the world down, and preventing an onslaught of more needless turmoil. Being able to tell yourself that everything's okay and you aren't as worthless as you currently feel, and then actually believing it would be the true superpower to behold.

He'd seen her car, smelled her fresh scent leading up the hall and to their door. She hadn't been fully herself lately. He'd noticed the shimmer in her deep, brown eyes dull and grow lackluster. It was hard to determine on his own, but he assumed the long week wore on her. A long week she hadn't really vented about, but he could visibly see the toll it was taking. For the most part, he'd stayed out of her way. He didn't want to say something wrong and spark an argument, and he definitely didn't want to push her into talking if she wasn't ready to open up. She was normally very talkative, but sometimes - rarely, but sometimes - she shut down. Who was he, of all people, to tell her that was the wrong way to go about things? It was uncommon, and it was truly rough to see her the way she'd been, and he could always tell when she was swallowing her feelings for the sake of anyone around her. Each day since he noticed her melancholic shift, he'd hoped she'd recovered from whatever was exhausting her, but no such luck. She was feigning her relief. She was holding back.

He walked through the door, the soft hiss of the fire burning mildly on the stove welcoming him in. "I'm home."

No answer other than the clock giving a loud tick.

"Babe?" He walked through the living room, following his nose, curving around the arched wall where he spotted her sitting on the counter in the kitchen. Her back was slightly hunched, defeat artistically splaying over the weakness in her muscles. Her cheeks were brushed red, eyes puffy, smile warm but forced. She'd been crying. "Kagome."

Just the concern in his tone had her chipping away, little-by-little, like a sculpture being molded but the artist was hammering too aggressively for smooth beauty. It was almost as bad as being asked, "Are you okay?" Because everyone could attest that that one question was powerful enough to bring the mightiest being to their knees to cry. Her lips fell into a deep frown, and her chin quivered, and she couldn't talk because the rock in her throat was too hard to swallow, but she communicated to him by holding her arms out.

And immediately, Inuyasha dropped everything in his hands and closed the gap between them. Her legs opened so he could press perfectly against her and he took her in his arms, wrapping her in the most tight and comforting hug he could conjure. She shook in his hold, her entire body quaking against him, almost bringing him to sway, himself. Her pain was his pain. Her tears were his downfall. Small fingers gripped the shirt over his back, sobs and gasps breaking through her clenched throat, and the liquid soaking his shoulder seared like boiling water being poured over that singular spot. His thoughts raced as he desperately tried to figure out what plagued her. Stress? Quarrels? Illness? Bad news?

"What happened?" He softly asked, kissing her hair. Kagome shook her head, firming her grasp and sniffling heartbreakingly. "Is this something I can fix?"

Again, she shook her head, crying just a little harder. Her reactions were all so uncontrollable, her body and mind aching for an ounce of relief from the invisible shelf of weight she'd been carrying. She didn't expect to fold so easily, thinking she could swallow it all in the presence of Inuyasha for the third day in a row. Yet, here she was, her upper body being completely supported by this man who loved her so much; something she could see but just couldn't feasibly wrap her head around with the dense toxicity convincing her the opposite. A beacon of light in her tunnel of nightmares. Arms warm and strong and never faltering around her unsteady frame. There wasn't a lick of irritation in his tone, even though she expected it when she couldn't give him an answer. He was so patient when she couldn't stand to be patient with herself. He was so tender when she hadn't even been able to bring herself to look in the mirror for more than five seconds at a time.

For as long as she needed, he stood there, holding her, breathing deeply to try and moderate her own lungs, only parting briefly to turn off the stove and silence the bubbling water before inching her chin up to look at him. Gently, he wiped the stains from her cheeks, new streaks taking over that he carefully smoothed away thereafter. He kissed the center of her forehead, long and lingering, wishing to convey just how much he adored her with the single gesture. He'd repeat himself as many times as needed.

"Was it me?"

Kagome shook her head fervently.

"Was it someone else?"

A mellow shake of her head.

"Are you just sad?"

She swallowed thickly, her expression of sorrow deepening as she nodded.

"About what, baby?"

And she shrugged. Surprisingly, he understood exactly what that meant. Inuyasha knew the complexities of the human mind and heart, and how it sometimes seemed like everything was as shitty as it could possibly get. No matter how hard you tried, or how positive you stayed, it was impossible to be perfectly okay all the time.

The stone cold truth was, it was perfectly okay to not be okay.

You don't always need a reason.

And believe it or not, no reason was reason enough.

Helping her down from the counter, he took her hands, both of them, and guided her towards their bedroom. She'd stopped weeping, but the tears still glided down her face. He knew that with so much stress, and hiccups, and trembling, and sadness came exhaustion and a headache straight from hell. So he got out a shirt of his own for her to don and tucked her within the heaviness of their comforter. He grabbed a glass of water, the bottle of ibuprofen, set them on the bedside table, and turned on the tv for background noise.

He refrained from asking anymore questions for the time being. He knew she wasn't hungry, and forcing food down her throat while her chest still slightly heaved would only make her sick. He'd wait her out a little while, until she calmed and stilled, and he'd order a pizza with her favorite toppings - because there was no way he was leaving her side long enough to make her a meal, himself. Absolute not. He'd have her sip her water, and if her head began to throb, the meds were inches away. And as he kicked off his shoes and crawled into bed with her, the frail woman curled into him so quickly; speaking volumes of what she wanted. To be held. To be soothed. To feel the sturdiness of someone's unfaltering support.

Inuyasha caressed back her hair before tucking himself closer so she would mold against his body, his fingers trailing in and out of her dark strands of untidy waves, up and down the arch of her spine. "You're okay." He whispered. "Everything's okay."

He felt her shudder, her breath hot against his chest. 

She needed to hear that.

She'd probably been desperate to hear it.

[dailydosemiku]

So I just beat Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- 100%

I’m gonna write this as an in depth review I guess. So I got done just recently discussing it with an old friend, the very same friend who roughly a decade ago showed me the original game. We have pretty polar opposite opinions of the game and I’m seeing that seems to be the trend with people who have played it so far. This isn’t a call out post or “Your opinion is wrong and mine is right” bullshit. I just want to explain why I liked it and maybe help some people see the game from a different light.

First things first. I want to premise, if this even gets read, that nothing will ever top or match Yume Nikki the RPG maker game that has gained a cult following. Even Yume Nikki on a second playthrough, will never feel like Yume Nikki on a persons first playthrough in my opinion, granted that is if they enjoyed it. Before this re-imagining came out there were mostly 2 kinds of people and barely anyone in between. People who loved it for it’s entire concept and execution and people who thought it was the most boring chore in the world. There is barely anyone I know or have met that’s in between those who are just like “yeah it’s ok I guess” Just because this re-imagining came out does not mean the original is now bad or doesn’t exist and I will respect your opinion if you think one is better then the other, because it’s an opinion, and they aren’t the same.

Below this is the Steam Store page, I want anyone reading this to read it and read it again.

“Yume Nikki has been hailed as one of the greatest (and most controversial) games ever created with RPG Maker. The new YUMENIKKI -DREAM DIARY- is not a remake, but a full reimagining of the original―reconstructed and enhanced using elements and styles of modern indie games. “

If you read this and thought this meant that this is going to be the same game, you went in with your expectations to high. One of the biggest reasons Yume Nikki was so beloved and how most people go into it was, THEY KNEW NOTHING, hell I knew nothing, I got like 2 sentences and like a 5 minute gameplay video of the game and that sold me. Then these people were to learn after diving into this strange game that only told you things with visuals, the creator disappears. For years even. So to do both games right I want to break them down into some basically game design elements to the best of my ability. Gameplay, Soundtrack, Story, Visuals, and Atmosphere/Presentation. Of course I’m going to reference both games because that’s what everyone else is doing for each of these.

Gameplay, well there really wasn’t much of a game to play in Yume Nikki the RPG maker game. I’m sorry I love Yume Nikki, but there’s not a lot of interactivity. It’s more of an experience, a long giant question of How and Why did this game get to this point? If you were at all like me, you kept playing to answer these questions and ultimately you either didn’t get an answer and were happy with it or you found your own answer, which if you ask me is part of the magic of that first playthrough. But as a 2D free RPG Maker game with no admission to entry, it was an experience and just that AN EXPERIENCE. As for Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- the 3D platformer, there’s actually a game to be played which understandable makes it very different then the RPG maker original. But this is an re-imagining, it’s not fair to directly compare the 2. They are in completely different medians and special in their own ways. In it’s essence, whether you agree or not both games at their element are about exploring an experience. If one having gameplay elements, that if you ask me were fairly well tested but not perfect, makes it less of an experience and was frustrating, then I don’t think you remember some of the frustrating non-sense that the RPG maker version had, such as navigating NES World, Locating the Bike which for most of the playthrough you were guaranteed to use because the normal movement speed was slow as shit and that’s usually what stopped a bunch of people from getting farther into it. But I say this with pride, it was part of the experience, it was part of the fun and by all technicality, was it’s own form of rudimentary puzzles and gameplay. Now yes I hear some of you die hard fans cry but there’s not as many effects and not as many doors and worlds, not as many themes and they took out so much. I am sad to say some of the things they took out I will miss, that is if the original game was wiped off the face of the planet with this games release, but it wasn’t.The original is still there as it always was. Because it can’t be replaced. It won’t ever be replaced, people have tried. So onto the point, the gameplay of the 3D one. It’s a horror platformer with puzzle solving and a few jumpscares I guess. You are sitting here reading this, I hope, going wow it’s that easy to categorize? Well yeah sorry to say guys it’s 2018 not 2004, in the time between the first RPG maker classic which I love to death and this newer retake of the very concept of Yume Nikki in 2018 we have had 3 different presidents, saw the rise and fall of many platforms like Vine, went through not 1, not 2 but 3 generations of Video Game Consoles, got 10 versions of the IPhone, like 8 versions of Samsungs Phones and a bunch of other stuff. Needless to say, times change, information is easier to access and we have gotten older and more analytical when it comes to the things we do as hobbies or otherwise. If we are to just look at the word re-imagining at face value and by definition.

reinterpret (an event, work of art, etc.) imaginatively; rethink. 

Is the new Yume Nikki a reinterpretation of the RPG classic? Absolutely, it’s a different take on what the game was. Key word different, problem is in 2018 things are easier to find then 2004, communities are larger, people are older, and things in general are going to less surprising. So from a gameplay standpoint is the new Yume Nikki the 3D Platformer a well thought out game from a gameplay standpoint? Yes it is, it has it’s bugs which is unfortunate, but even games that got GAME OF THE YEAR were horrible buggy messes when they came out and those were backed by Triple A developers, COUGH COUGH FALLOUT 3 EVEN THOUGH I LOVE YOU YOU ARE A MESS COUGH COUGH. Moral of the story for the gameplay, it’s different yes but that doesn’t make it bad just not the same. If you can effectively get from beginning to end regardless how the journey goes, the game did what it needed to do. If you felt obligated to finish -Dream Diary- that was nostalgia and that almost need to feel the magic of the first playthrough of the RPG Maker classic, meaning you aren’t taking Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- as it’s own game, you are trying to take it as a replacement for a beloved classic.

Now that I’m done with that portion I guess, hopefully my point was more or less digestible and hopefully didn’t come off as if you disagree I hate you, cause that’s not my intent, if you don’t like it, you don’t like it, I just want to give a separate perspective. The Soundtrack. I think the Soundtrack in both games is just weird and beautiful and bizarre and conveys messages on a spectrum going from of uncomfortable to serene to almost intimidating. I’m no music expert or major or whatever but the music in Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- not only was very good and did what it meant to do in my opinion but was an incredible nod at the RPG Maker classic featuring a lot of remastered tracks from the original which I think portrayed similar emotions as I felt from the first game. I don’t have much else to say on the soundtrack, it’s timing and consistency felt as good as the original in it’s own special way but should not be interpreted as the same.

So the next thing I want to bring up is story. Now if you are a fan of the RPG Maker classic, you know as well as I do that the story is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, it’s almost entirely up to interpretation. The story was what you thought it was, you just get kind of a beginning and kind of a ending. People who wanted a classical game with a story with a beginning middle and end, would not really even touch this game. Cause it doesn’t hold your hand, but not in a “is this the dark souls of RPG Maker games?” kind of way. It’s entire conception, how it came to be, how the game played, how the game ends and how you get an ending to begin with and the mysterious creator and their disappearance are all ultimately part of Yume Nikkis’ Story in my opinion. The time the game came out, the so little information about the game that was known, the fact that Youtube was still young, fuck me I was using SKYPE when I played this game in like 2008, it was the perfect storm but only because of the games story outside of the game as well as inside. It was a mess, but it was such an amazing mess that was so hard to describe and time and time and time again the only thing people could really say is “you just have to play it, I can’t explain it without ruining it” That was also a part of the games story if you ask me. It was so strange and so meta but it always made people say the same thing. Now 14 years later, the developer is back, is older, sees his own mistakes better then any of us ever could, and I know if anyone reads this, some of you are artists or content creators or game designers and you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about being hyper critical of your own work. And now he has help now, a team of developers and even though he worked side by side with these people, of course there’s going to be a disconnect, something lost in translation, that’s exactly what fangames are, an interpretation of the original. So yes sadly there’s a bit more going on that’s coherent now but it’s 14 years later being lead by a guy who knows his own mistakes for a game he made alone, which is an achievement yes, but he has seen and allowed to be published in the very beginning of this new game a nod at where his last game left off. Meaning of course he acknowledges what he made and knows people adored it, but people also hated it. It was a judgement call, and you may not like the result but I assure you it was a decision in good faith, at least that the message I got from this game. Now enough beating around the bush, this games story? It does it;s job without telling you to much and honestly I still feel like in this games case like the last one, explaining what happens loses the impact, and some of the impact is because I played the game prior. So I think it does it’s job at re-imagining the story of Yume Nikki the RPG maker game well enough.

Next is visuals, now as an RPG Maker game you could argue it’s not good looking, till you think about it, that one guy, made all of that basically from scratch, it’s poetic, it’s awe-inspiring, that this one guy makes this strange game and it moved people so much and all you really do is just look at things. It’s a stunning game to the eyes because you want to know what this guy could have possibly created next and each environment is so different from the last, each effect so silly and cute or scary and gross all at the same time making you feel these mixed emotions of joy, excitement, nausea, tension all at the same time. It almost mesmerizes you into this feeling of wanting to do everything while simultaneously fearing when it’s all over and the dream ends both literally and metaphorically. It’s only because of this, in my opinion is why visually the RPG maker game is such a work of art. Now for Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- if you ask me I think the game is breathtaking, there’s so much care put into so many little details, yes there are clipping issues and the animations aren’t great but remember Yume Nikki the RPG Maker game wasn’t perfect either, we didn’t care though, we were young, we just wanted to take whatever it was in for what it was worth. From a technical standpoint I feel like this game is stunning in the visual department, but it’s not that complicated compared to games of it’s time, much like the older classic. The older classic came out the same year as Half Life 2, which was a technical marvel when it came out, now it’s kinda dated but regardless that didn’t make Yume Nikki in 2004 any less of an unique experience, and I feel like that same way of thinking should be applied to this new title as best as a person can. I’m going to steal a line from another reviewer loosely, Portal 2s biggest flaw is that it came out after Portal 1.  I must have heard those words 5 years ago or something and they still stick with me. If you look at Portal 2 it’s literally an evolved embodiment of Portal, but you already knew the concept of Portal cause it already came out so it’s shock value, it’s rare and raw punch is lessened because something did that already. It’s the same reasons fangames and Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- won’t feel the exact same. Cause it came out afterwards.

Lastly I wish to touch on a final point before closing this review I guess, more of an analysis. The presentation and atmosphere. Broken down as simply as I can both games share this. They are Surreal Horror Exploration games whose job is to seemingly immerse you in the strange world of a little Japanese girls dreams. That’s where the disconnect begins. Cause even though you wouldn’t think of the RPG Maker classic to be a horror game it has horror themes and the occasional jumpscare or visual for shock value. Now as a re-imagining does the new Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- fit the bill for an amazing strange atmosphere just like the first? Absolutely, it tells most of it’s story passively, no dialogue, nothing crazy, just you and a simple platformer. But alas, it’s a platformer with tension and parts with severely more interaction then the original causing you to feel urgency and demand to escape or jump the next hurdle or challenge, which is not the same as original. Which understandably is this games biggest flaw, if from the very beginning it said it was a remake and that the original is no longer an actual concept. If we were to look at Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- the same way as the original, where we had nothing to compare it too, it’s a lot better of a game and it’s creepy atmosphere is on point, the environments are great and the nods it makes to the older game make me happy.

All in all I think that even with it’s flaws on release that Yume Nikki -Dream Diary- is a stunning love letter to the original game, written by a team of people copying down the words of the creator, ultimately dedicated to those of us who gave Yume Nikki it’s following while simultaneously being something more accessible to wider audience so that by chance they may also play the original game to fully understand why this game exists and what purpose it serves. It’s a thank you letter, an attempt to redo in a different sense what we have tried ourselves many times to recreate and even though a lot of the fan games are great they don’t feel the exact same and neither does this, it’s fantastic but we should all know by now that it can’t be done again, that’s why it’s special. But the creator knew this and wanted to try again but with more knowledge this time and I respect him for it, I respect the team who worked on this game, flaws and all. Perfect or not they wanted us to feel that special feeling one more time, and maybe it wasn’t what you wanted but I don’t even know what I wanted.

-Katy

[qualitycrusadecollective-blog]

Medical Device Industry Patent Litigation Likely to Rise?

Can patent proceedings within the clinical tool industry be forecast? latest studies endorse that certain functions of patent applications themselves generally tend to correlate with a higher danger that a few patents will become in court docket. Innovation is at the heart of the scientific device enterprise. As with many industries, if you aren't continuously working to carry new merchandise and technology to the marketplace, there is a superb risk you'll now not live on. corporations that are a hit, and that preserve to survive, invest tens of millions of dollars in research and development every yr to create new or higher merchandise. corporations which are a hit, and that preserve to live to tell the tale, invest tens of millions of dollars in studies and improvement every 12 months to create new or better merchandise. not most effective are these groups investing within the development of new era, they may be additionally making an investment within the protection in their improvements through the patent device. In reality, for monetary year 2006 the usa Patent and Trademark office (USPTO) pronounced a document of more than 440,000 patent programs filed, greater than double the variety of applications filed ten years in the past.

Of course, with the document quantity of patent programs being filed, and the huge number of patents issued every yr, it would be logical to count on that the wide variety of patent associated lawsuits could additionally growth. current statistics generally tend to substantiate this good judgment as increasingly more patent proprietors are turning to the courts to assist guard their treasured intellectual property property. for instance, from 1995 to 2005, the wide variety of patent lawsuits filed within the u.s. elevated from about 1700 to extra than 2700, a fifty eight% growth in only 10 years.

but, the probabilities of a lawsuit remain low on a opportunity foundation. whilst the wide variety of patent fits filed has drastically improved during the last ten years, it is thrilling to notice that recent studies estimate that on average simplest more or less 1% of U.S. patents will be litigated. but, those studies also observe an expansion of traits that tend to are expecting whether a patent is probably to be litigated. these characteristics include: (1) the number of claims describing the discovery; (2) the quantity and sorts of previous art citations; and (three) the "crowdedness" of the technological subject. each feature is defined beneath, inclusive of how the characteristic pertains to the medical device enterprise.

range of Claims

A patent should include as a minimum one claim that describes with particularity what the applicant regards as his invention. The claims of a patent are often analogized to the assets description in a deed to actual property; each outline the bounds and extent of the belongings. since the claims set the bounds of the discovery, the applicant has an incentive to define the discovery via some of large claims. but, in some technological regions in which there's a huge quantity of prior art, the applicant may additionally have to outline the invention through a number of narrow claims to keep away from the invalidating previous artwork.

So how does the variety of claims acting in a patent correlate to the probability that the patent will in the future be litigated? Empirical research have located that litigated patents include a bigger number of claims instead of non-litigated patents. In fact, one study decided that litigated patents had almost 20 claims on average, as compared to only 13 claims for non-litigated patents. Researchers cite more than one motives that assist give an explanation for their findings: the perceived cost of the patent and the crowdedness of the field of technology blanketed by way of the patent.

Patent claims are effortlessly the maximum important part of the patent. therefore, it should come as no surprise that says are luxurious to draft and prosecute. Paying extra money for a bigger range of claims suggests that the patentee believes a patent with more claims is possibly to be extra treasured. however, some researchers finish that the purpose litigated patents have extra claims than non-litigated patents is that the patentee knew the patent could be valuable, predicted the chance of litigation, and as a result drafted greater claims to assist the patent stand up in litigation.

the sphere of era blanketed with the aid of the patent may additionally give an explanation for why patents with a large wide variety of claims are more likely to be litigated. In a crowded technological field there'll probably be more competition who're growing similar merchandise. consequently, it seems to make sense that patents having a big number of claims in these crowded fields are more likely to war with competitors.

that allows you to get a fashionable concept of ways the quantity of claims relate to the scientific device enterprise, 50 of the most lately issued patents for endoscopes have been analyzed. The results display a median of 17 claims in step with patent. This range falls somewhere inside the middle of the declare numbers for litigated and non-litigated patents referred to above. it'd appear much more likely, according to the empirical research, that those patents may have a higher threat of being litigated. in addition to having a higher threat of being litigated, these results may also imply that the crowded scientific tool industry values their patents and anticipates litigation, with the stop end result being patents having a larger variety of claims.

earlier art Citations

under U.S. patent regulation, the inventor and each other person who is substantively worried in the coaching and prosecution of an software has a duty to disclose all facts known to be cloth to the patentability of the discovery. To discharge this obligation, patent applicants typically record what is referred to as an records disclosure statement, commonly referred to as an IDS. within the IDS, the applicant lists all of the U.S. patents, foreign patents, and non-patent literature that they are aware of and this is relevant to the invention. also, a USPTO patent examiner conducts a search of the prior artwork and may cite earlier art towards the applicant that became now not previously disclosed in an IDS.

whilst a patent is granted, the previous art citations fabricated from record at some point of prosecution before the USPTO are indexed inside the patent. Researchers have used this citation facts to finish that the quantity of earlier artwork citations appearing in a patent is a great predictor of whether or not a patent is probable to be litigated. One study determined that litigated patents on average cited 14.2 U.S. patents, even as non-litigated patents cited best 8.6 U.S. patents. The take a look at additionally showed that litigated patents are more likely to be noted as prior artwork by means of different issued patents, and that litigated patents consist of extra self-citations, this is, citations to different patents owned through the equal assignee.

How do patents from the clinical tool industry examine? again, using the small pattern of endoscope patents cited above as a proxy for the medical tool industry, the common quantity of U.S. patents stated was about 37. this is considerably more than the look at's locating of 14.2 U.S. patents. Does this end result suggest that scientific tool patents are much more likely to be litigated? no longer necessarily. The look at notes that two particular categories of earlier artwork citations (citations obtained and self-citations) are extra large predictors of litigation. even though the study does now not cite a median for self-citations, it does discover that litigated patents received a median of 12.2 citations from different patents, compared to best four.1 citations received on common for non-litigated patents. The common number of self-citations and citations received for the endoscope patents had been simplest 1.seventy four and zero.34, respectively. though, because the study authors endorse, the massive range of earlier artwork citations located in this small sample set may additionally indicate that the applicant predicted the chance of litigation and took affordable steps to make the patent as sturdy as viable. further, the massive variety of citations may be because of attempts to get around prior art within the crowded and extremely-competitive scientific tool subject.

Crowded Fields

both of the formerly mentioned traits of litigated patents have stated the concept of crowded technological fields. it could be apparent, however the term "crowded discipline" refers to an area of technology in which there are numerous competition and lots of issued patents that define the technology. consequently, for patents which are issued in a crowded subject, there is by definition greater opposition and subsequently greater opportunity that the patent might be litigated.

below the modern U.S. patent class device, which includes over 430 instructions, there appear like eight instructions that are at once associated with the clinical tool industry. within these eight training, there are over 2300 subclasses wherein a medical device patent may be classified. The massive variety of lessons and subclasses seems to suggest that the scientific device subject, as a whole, might possibly be taken into consideration a crowded discipline. moreover, maximum scientific device manufacturers are state-of-the-art and feature a higher know-how of the value of their highbrow belongings. given that innovation is the lifeblood of the industry, it makes sense that the enterprise protects extra of their innovations, which leads to extra medical tool patents being issued. as a consequence, greater patents within the technological field bring about a better chance of patent litigation inside that discipline.

as a minimum one take a look at shows that patents on medical gadgets are considerably much more likely to be litigated than the common of all patents. The study presents an cause of why medical tool patents are more likely to be litigated with the aid of noting that the scientific tool enterprise, as a whole, view patents as precious assets.

conclusion

Patent litigation is, in reality, at the upward push. The empirical research performed over recent years have diagnosed a number of the traits which might be robust predictors of whether or not a patent is in all likelihood to be litigated. A big wide variety of claims and previous artwork citations may also boom a patent's likelihood to turn out to be earlier than a court docket. A crowded technological field may lead to a better risk of patent litigation.

by using distinctive feature of being in this kind of crowded discipline, the medical tool enterprise will probable stay very litigious. Of route, this race to the courthouse is indicative of the value that the enterprise as a whole places on its improvements, and for this reason its survival.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT CHEMICALS

Freaks and nerds were allies, and there was a great deal of play in these numbers. But Cybercash was so bad and most stores' order volumes were so low that it was better if merchants processed orders like phone orders. And when you propagate that constraint, the result is that each person gets freedom of action in inverse proportion to the size of the tree, you're going to face resistance when you do something new. I vowed that I would never be tactful; they were never going to shut me up.1 And in my experience, the harder the ideas you're talking about, you can try importing startups on a larger scale.2 But if someone posts a stupid comment on a thread, that sets the tone for the rest.3 If you start the company. It's like trying to convince someone by shouting at them. At the extreme end of the spectrum, we'd be the first time that happened. We all had dinner together once a week, cooked for the first time that happened.4 For example, in my house in Cambridge, which was built in 1876, the bedrooms don't have closets.

In an artificial world, only extremists live naturally. That may seem a frivolous reason to choose one language over another. And all the work we did was pointless, or seemed so at the time I never tried to separate my wants and weigh them against one another. So an artist working on a painting and trying to decide whether to change some part of it—the things to remember if you want to excel in it. I like the opposite approach: give the programmer as much control as you can; rewrite it over and over; cut DEL: out: DEL everything unnecessary; write in a different language than they'd use if they were a rooted in your town and/or b so successful that VCs would fund them even if they never actually got the money. And perhaps others that would appeal to most humans, and you observe how much humans have in common. Why is the real world where gaming the system stops working. And yet that's what Apple is trying to be as unhappy in eighth grade as you were? You generally shouldn't pass up a definite funding offer to move. Work with people you like and respect.

Which means for a group of people are never able to act as an intermediary between developer and user. Just. Or rather, I don't feel like I have to walk a mile to get there, and sitting in a cafe feels different from working. We had no such confidence. Bad comments are like kudzu: they take over rapidly. Which means for a group of such size. The cause of this problem is the emptiness of school life, the cruelty and the boredom, both have the same answer: 1/1-n to see if it makes sense.

During the Bubble, a lot of things I grew up, it felt as if there was nowhere to go, and nothing they could do amazing things with just a touch of hubris on your well-cut sleeve—is an unexpected development in a time of business disgrace. Informal language is the athletic clothing of ideas. Bad as things look now, there is precious little between schoolwork and the work they'll do as adults. Why do teenage kids do it? So even though they'll all still spend the money on the stadium, at least de facto, expected to prepare them for their careers. There are tricks in startups, as there are in the real world is that it's part of the popularity landscape. Remember, the original motivation for HN was to test a new programming language, and moreover one that's focused on experimenting with language design, I think, is the root of the problem. The fact that this seems worthy of comment shows how rarely people manage to write in spoken language. Suddenly a culture that had been more or less our life.5

What would make the painting more interesting to people. So far so good.6 He has ridden them both to downtown Mountain View to get coffee. The group of kids from higher in the hierarchy, your entire group. The Detroit News. Since high school, with all the same petty intrigues. In this case we get three: the NPD Group, the creative director of GQ. But because he's sitting astride it, he seems to be wired into us. Bring us your startups early, said Google's speaker at the Startup School. Trend articles like this are almost always the work of PR firms really does get deliberately misleading is in the generation of buzz. But enough depends on where you are, but what you could grow into, and who can do that? If they're really ambitious, they want to have as little to do with how abstract the language is.

She says being too modest is a common problem for women. I think the important thing about the real world where gaming the system stops working when you start a startup. The reason kids are so unhappy, adults tell themselves, is that monstrous new chemicals, hormones, are now coursing through their bloodstream and messing up everything. Are we heading for a world in which returns will be pinched by increasingly high valuations?7 As we later learned, it probably cost us little to reject people whose characters we had doubts about, because how good founders are and how well they do are not orthogonal. Another wrote: I believe that they think their approval process helps users by ensuring quality. But the total volume of worry never decreases; if anything it increases. If they shake your hand on a promise, they'll keep it. We really did have the biggest share of the stock in, and control of, their companies. I once calculated how much Frederick's was costing us in bandwidth, and it turned out. We were all just side projects.8

Opinions are divided about how early to focus on that. Not just because of its prestige, but because it throws off the Social Radar, and this remark convinced me that Sarbanes-Oxley must have. It's harder to escape the influence of your own users, and all you'll be able to try out software online. As food got cheaper or we got richer; they're indistinguishable, eating too much started to be driven mostly by people's identities. So there is a strong correlation between comment quality and length; if you say anything mistaken, fix it immediately; ask friends which sentence you'll regret most; go back and tone down harsh remarks; publish stuff online, because an audience makes you write more, and thus generate more ideas; print out drafts instead of just looking at them on the screen than the woman with the hammer. Even one sentence of this would raise eyebrows in conversation. There's no single solution to that.9 They'll listen to PR firms, but briefly and skeptically.10 Trevor Blackwell, David Hornik, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, and Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this essay, but really the thesis is an optimistic one—that several problems we take for granted are in fact not insoluble after all.

Notes

While environmental costs should be taken into account, they have because they are within any given person might have infected ten percent of them.

Nor do we push founders to try your site. And especially about what other people in the belief that they'll only invest contingently on other sites. The same goes for companies that have bad ideas is to do that? Maybe it would work better, but rather that if VCs are only doing angel deals to generate series A round VCs put two partners on your board, there are some controversial ideas here, I mean no more willing to endure hardships, but this sort of work is in itself be evidence of a lumbar disc herniations, but not the distinction between them so founders can get programmers who wanted to have fun in college.

Throw in the median tag is just the location of the infrastructure that this was hard to game the system? Something similar has been decreasing globally.

Where Do College English 28 1966-67, pp.

Which explains the astonished stories one always hears about VC inattentiveness. It will seem as if they'd like, and Cooley Godward.

001 negative effect on the entire West Coast that still requires jackets: The variation in wealth over time, because it is to take action, go talk to a partner from someone they respect. Odds are people in Bolivia don't want to see. I meant.

On the next one will be maximally profitable when each employee is paid in proportion to the point where things start with their companies took off? How many parents would still want their kids in a time.

The most important subject. But filtering out 95% of the USSR offers a vivid illustration of that, isn't it? To a kid most apples were a property of the things Julian gave us. The best kind of people we need to go all the more powerful version written in Lisp.

Few non-corrupt country or organization will be near-spams that have hard deadlines, like the bizarre stuff. More generally, it may be whether what you learn about books or clothes or dating: what ideas did European culture with Chinese: what bad taste you had to write every component yourself, but I couldn't convince Fred Wilson to fund them. At the time. Certainly a lot about how closely the remarks attributed to them more professional.

Loosely speaking. Like early medieval architecture, impromptu talks are made of spolia.

[wwwbuzzfitnessxyz]

Welcome to Buzzfintess , new Food Deserts

What you eat and the way much can have an enormous impact on your longterm health.

Healthy eating habits are important to stop an extended list of ailments, which is why health officials for many years have encouraged families to eat more nutritious foods like fruits and vegetables and avoid junk or processed foods like chips and nutriment cheeseburgers.

But for many families within us, it isn't that straightforward. consistent with the U.S. Department of Agriculture data from the year 2000, quite 23 million people within we sleep in areas without access to supermarkets or other stores selling a spread of affordable healthy food options These communities, referred to as food deserts, are a significant environmental health issue that will impact the lives of families for generations. Definition

While there’s nobody standard definition to travel by, food deserts are generally considered to be places where residents don’t have access to affordable nutritious foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. rather than grocery stores or farmers' markets, these areas often have convenience stores and gas stations with limited shelf space available for healthy options — making nutritious foods virtually inaccessible for several families there.

But accessibility is often relative, and proximity to a store is merely one factor of the many that influence an individual's ability to eat healthily. Income and resources (like transportation) also can keep people from having the ability to access healthy food options. for instance, two neighbors might each live a mile from a grocery, but one features a car while the opposite relies on the transportation system. The neighbor who drives regularly will likely have more options when it involves groceries than his friend nearby.

Socioeconomic status may additionally play a task, as low-income individuals get priced out of high-quality health foods. , (50 Dollars)  After all worth of boxed meals and dinners can often last a family longer than $50 worth of fresh vegetables and lean meats. They’re also quicker and easier to organize — something that matters tons when parents work multiple jobs or long hours to form ends meet.

Because of this, pinning down what precisely constitutes a food desert is often challenging. For its part, the USDA hammered out a couple of parameters in its investigations to work out whether a neighborhood had limited access to healthy food.2 It classified a populated area as a food desert if it had been quite 0.5 or one miles faraway from a supermarket, grocery or other sources of healthy, affordable food, and rural communities were those located 10 or 20 miles away. But the department also checked out other factors beyond location, like low-income status and access to a vehicle. Locations

When most public health officials mention food deserts, they’re often about urban environments — inner cities where higher property costs can daunt many potential grocers. But while roughly 82 percent of food deserts are in urban areas, rural communities aren’t exactly exempt According to the USDA, an estimated 335,000 people within us live quite 20 miles from a supermarket.

Food deserts exist everywhere the country, but they're more common within the South and Midwest, with lower-income states like Louisiana or Mississippi seeing a disproportionately high percentage of the population, compared to states like Oregon or New Hampshire. lacking access to healthy food

Lower-income areas, generally, are typically the toughest hit by food deserts. Half all low-income zip codes (that is, where the median income is under $25,000) qualify as food deserts. Who Lives There

Low-income individuals — especially those without access to a car or who sleep in remote rural areas — often have the toughest time getting healthy foods. For these individuals, obtaining healthy food means driving further to urge them. That is, of course, if driving is even an option. quite two million households located in food deserts do not have a vehicle, consistent with the USDA Residents of urban food deserts also pay more for groceries than families within the suburbs. By one estimate, they ante up to 37 percent more for an equivalent exact products, typically due to higher operating and shipping costs inside the town. Lower-income families already put a bigger percentage of their paychecks toward window shopping, but living during a food desert means paycheck won't stretch nearly as far because it would have in areas where fresh fruits, vegetables, and proteins are more accessible. When faced with those obstacles, it's no surprise that some families choose the less-healthy—but far more affordable—options available to them.

Relative to other areas, food deserts also are more likely to have:3

Smaller populations Lower levels of education among residents Higher unemployment rates Higher rates of vacant homes Higher concentrations of minority residents

It should be noted that living during a food desert is not the same as being food insecure. Not everyone who lives during a food desert lacks access to healthy foods. Making the trip to an enormous store or having groceries delivered is usually still an option for those that have the means and opportunity to try to do so. Likewise, an individual doesn't need to reside during a food desert to lack access to things like whole grains and fresh produce. In some cases, such foods could be available, but high prices make them unaffordable to some. Food insecurity may be a very real issue that, while more common in food deserts, isn't limited to them Impact on Health

This biggest health concern linked to food deserts is. which is sensible, as long as people that can’t easily access healthy foods tend to eat less healthily than people that can. Unhealthy eating habits cause weight gain, and that, in turn, results in obesity Being significantly overweight or obese increases a person’s risk for all types of health issues, including diabetes, a heart condition, stroke, and high vital sign. Being obese during pregnancy also can up your chances of complications like gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, birth defects, and miscarriage. Excessive weight may even increase your risk of cancer, with one study estimating a jaw-dropping 481,000 new cases of cancer worldwide in 2012 were thanks to being overweight or obese.5 The impact has the potential to last for generations, too, as kids of obese parents are more likely to become obese themselves.Beyond just obesity, unhealthy eating habits within the first few years of life also can significantly affect a child's ability to grow. Brains and bodies develop quickly during infancy, and to try to that, they have key ingredients. Not getting enough foods rich in things like iron, vitamin A or iodine has been linked to cognitive difficulties, weaker immune systems, and stunted growth. it isn't just child nutrition that matters either. Babies born to women who aren't getting enough folate within the early stages of pregnancy have a better risk of being born with potentially serious birth defects. Decades of nutrition research have found that unhealthy eating habits can have severe — and sometimes lifelong — consequences, which is why health officials are concerned about numerous people living in areas with poor access to healthy foods.Another oft-overlooked concern about food deserts is the risk posed to those with dietary restrictions and food allergies. An estimated 15 million people within us have an allergy (some quite one),7 many of which may be life-threatening. Roughly 200,000 people a year need to receive emergency medical treatment because they ate or drank something they were allergic to Not having the ability to shop for food that they know is safe can force people to require unnecessary risks to feed themselves and their families.That said, while studies have found significant links between a community's lack of supermarkets to health issues like obesity, recent research is additionally starting to signal that that relationship could be an entire lot more complicated than was previously believed. Low income and education have both been linked to obesity outside of the context of food deserts, and a few recent studies have concluded that socioeconomic status might play a more important role in nutritional outcomes than proximity to a grocery. What are you often Done?Food deserts are on the radar at public health departments for a short time now, and lots of have already begun implementing strategies and policies to bring produce and other healthy foods to food deserts. The CDC recommends several strategies to deal with and stop food deserts, including: Building community gardens Establishing local farmers markets Improving public transportation from food deserts to established markets Tweaking local laws and tax codes to entice supermarkets and other healthy food retailers to line up shopBut making affordable healthy food easier to access is merely a part of the answer. By one estimate, providing low-income neighborhoods with access to higher quality food would only drop nutritional inequality by nine percent. That’s because while opening up supermarkets in former food deserts might bring healthier food options to the neighborhood, it doesn’t magically change food-buying habits. Neither does families moving to an area where healthy eating is that the norm and healthy foods are abundant.Families get into a groove of what they wish to eat and the way much they wish to spend on groceries. As many parents can attest, it takes a short time to seek out a menu of things the entire family can enjoy, and disrupting that routine will take an entire lot quite building a store nearby. Helping communities gain closer access to cheaper healthy food options is a crucial step, but it should be amid efforts to vary eating behaviors, too, through expanded nutrition education.Food may be a deeply cultural and private thing. Many families have beloved meals that give them comfort and make them feel reception, and religions often incorporate food into their celebrations and rituals. to cause any meaningful change, nutrition education should be created with these traditions in mind, being careful to acknowledge deeply rooted cultural norms found in every community.Any efforts to combat the difficulty of food deserts and nutrition deficits should even be practical for the community they're targeting. Encouraging families to participate during a community garden, for instance, won't be feasible in a neighborhood where many of the adults work multiple jobs with minimal free time to dig in. Food Deserts vs. Food SwampsIn light of what we all know about food deserts, some researchers investigating nutritional gaps are shifting focus faraway from a scarcity of healthy food options and instead zeroing in on an abundance of unhealthy ones. These areas — dubbed "food swamps" — don't just lack grocery stores; they're also crammed filled with nutriment places and convenience stores.Studies have shown that the presence of those areas is linked to a poorer diet and is possibly a good stronger predictor of obesity rates than a scarcity of supermarkets because the in-your-face presence of unhealthy meal options virtually cancels out any benefits adding grocery stores might bring.10 This has encouraged many health agencies to require a special approach to food deserts and swamps by adapting the prevailing environment to form healthy choices easier to form. rather than trying to draw in grocery stores, some cities have tried to travel where people already do their grocery shopping and urge corner stores and gas stations to spend more shelf space on affordable, fresh produce. Others have found out mobile farmers' markets that resemble food trucks to drive bent low-access areas so that residents do not have to travel out of their thanks to buying healthy food. A Word From VerywellThe key to addressing both food deserts and food swamps is to acknowledge that each community is different and, therefore, will likely need a singular combination of strategies. Opening up a grocery in every neighborhood can sound good in theory but could be impractical or unnecessary in practice. Helping families find healthy, affordable, and practical meals will likely require some innovative solutions, but it's essential to maintaining and improving the health of communities for generations to return.

[hippoland]

What early stage fundraising in 2018 looks like?

I thought it might be useful to do a high level overview of what fundraising in 2018 looks like at the pre-seed / seed stage.  Of course, this is just my prediction / $0.02 only.  

It will be hard to raise a pre-seed round through traditional methods

If you are raising money through traditional methods (such as with angels / micro VCs / VCs) via a convertible note or convertible security or equity deal, it will be a lot harder to raise pre-seed money in 2018.  I’m seeing a number of investors pull back on investing through traditional means.  This means that traction bar has gone up for both pre-seed and seed stage companies.  

In the late summer / early fall of 2017, we were investing in companies that were quite early.  For founding teams we did not already know, they all had a product built and all had early customers.  The companies we were investing in at the pre-seed level were doing as low as $1k revenue per month (non repeatable) though we also invested in many companies with much higher revenue too.  

Towards the end of 2017, we noticed that downstream investors were slowing their investment pace, and we felt that it would be incredibly difficult to get our companies to the next point if we were investing only $25k at such an early stage.  The market had definitely shifted.  For your “typical” software deal, the stage after us (seed-stage) is probably around $30k-$50k per month in revenue as of writing this post.  (This will depend A LOT on the idea and vertical.).  So from my perspective, our entry point needs to be close enough to this rough benchmark in order for our companies to get to the next round of funding.  This has caused us to shift a bit downstream too.  And in fact, in 2018, we have not yet done a single software deal even though last year we were averaging about one deal per week.

Raising money via an ICO is the exact opposite experience right now

However, if you are raising via an ICO, at least at this moment, you are probably having the opposite experience as a pre-seed company.  In fact, the median raise I’m seeing in the ICO markets is $20-30m or thereabouts, and you need very little developed to raise a lot of money!    

For me, I personally think ICOs, at this time, only make sense if you’re building a blockchain company that uses utility tokens as currency for your decentralized product or service.  However, the frenzy is so nuts now, there are so many centralized / non-blockchain related companies that are successfully raising via ICO.  

I do think in the long run, ICOs or some variation of today’s ICOs will disrupt traditional VC, and I plan to help this process along. (This is what I’ve alluded to here.).  I’ll be bringing thought leaders to this blog who can talk more about ICOs in later posts.  

Crowdfunding is also more mainstream than you might think

Beyond traditional methods of fundraising (convertible notes / convertible securities / equity) and ICOs, there are other ways to raise money too.  Crowdfunding can be incredibly effective if you already have customers and/or have built up an audience.  Companies like The Hustle raised $300k from their customers in just a couple of days.  

Pros / Cons of different funding methods in 2018

This is going to be an evolving analysis, but as of today, here’s a quick set of pros / cons for various fundraising methods: 

“Traditional” fundraising on a convertible note / convertible security / equity round: 

Pros: Tried and true.  Professional investors understand how this works.  There should be no surprises with this type of raise. 

Cons: Slow.  Investors can be annoying / obnoxious to deal with.  Power is in the hands of investors.

Crowdfunding / pre-sales:

Pros: Customers are the perfect audience to raise money from, because they already understand your product / service.  This works well if you’ve amassed a huge user base or audience or have a large mailing list.  If you have media company or do a lot of content marketing, for example, this could be a great path.  And quick.  And online so you can get investors from anywhere.

Cons: Each investor will likely write only a small check.  So, you might have lots of people to deal with even if you go through a 3rd party platform.  E.g. if people have lots of questions.  And, this is most effective if you have something already and/or already have investors -- i.e. you’re already in business and have raised some money.  

ICOs: 

Pros: Once you get all the pieces in place, quick to raise money.  You don’t give up equity or control.  Power is in the hands of the entrepreneur.  Completely online so you can get investors from anywhere. Can raise on just an idea.  And can potentially raise lots and lots of money.

Cons: Logistics can be challenging.  Handling the security of ETH (cryptocurrency) is quite involved.  If you don’t handle this correctly, you can get hacked and lose everything.  If your ICO is not in compliance with SEC regulations, you can get shut down by the SEC.  The value of ETH can fluctuate wildly (unlike the dollar).  Generally makes sense at this point in time only for blockchain related companies that utilize a token that can be used for decentralized services / products.  

I’m also seeing variations of the above -- various combo deals with equity and tokens...the fundraising landscape has been changing a lot in the last couple of months, so who knows, this entire blog post might be obsolete in another 2 months.  It’s an exciting time... 

Fundraising is a nebulous process that I aim to make more transparent.  To learn more secrets and tips, subscribe to my newsletter.

[johntropea]

What really mattered was less about who is on the team, and more about how the team worked together

SOURCE re:Work - Understand team effectiveness

Code-named Project Aristotle - a tribute to Aristotle’s quote, "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts" (as the Google researchers believed employees can do more working together than alone) - the goal was to answer the question: “What makes a team effective at Google?”

[...]

Work groups are characterized by the least amount of interdependence. They are based on organizational or managerial hierarchy. Work groups may meet periodically to hear and share information

Teams are highly interdependent - they plan work, solve problems, make decisions, and review progress in service of a specific project. Team members need one another to get work done.

Organizational charts only tell part of the story, so the Google research team focused on groups with truly interdependent working relationships, as determined by the teams themselves. The teams studied in Project Aristotle ranged from three to fifty individuals (with a median of nine members).

[...]

Once they understood what constituted a team at Google, the researchers had to determine how to quantitatively measure effectiveness. 

[...]

...the team decided to use a combination of qualitative assessments and quantitative measures. For qualitative assessments, the researchers captured input from three different perspectives - executives, team leads, and team members. While they all were asked to rate teams on similar scales, when asked to explain their ratings, their answers showed that each was focused on different aspects when assessing team effectiveness.

Executives were most concerned with results (e.g., sales numbers or product launches), but team members said that team culture was the most important measure of team effectiveness. Fittingly, the team lead’s concept of effectiveness spanned both the big picture and the individuals’ concerns saying that ownership, vision, and goals were the most important measures.

So the researchers measured team effectiveness in four different ways:

Executive evaluation of the team

Team leader evaluation of the team

Team member evaluation of the team

Sales performance against quarterly quota

The qualitative evaluations helped capture a nuanced look at results and culture, but had inherent subjectivity. On the other hand, the quantitative metrics provided concrete team measures, but lacked situational considerations. These four measures in combination, however, allowed researchers to home in on the comprehensive definition of team effectiveness.

[...]

Using input from executives across the globe, the research team identified 180 teams to study (115 project teams in engineering and 65 pods in sales) which included a mix of high- and low-performing teams. The study tested how both team composition (e.g., personality traits, sales skills, demographics on the team) and team dynamics (e.g., what it was like to work with teammates) impact team effectiveness...

[...]

The researchers then looked at existing survey data, including over 250 items from the annual employee engagement survey and gDNA, Google’s longitudinal study on work and life, to see what variables might be related to effectiveness.

Here are some sample items used in the study that participants were asked to agree or disagree with:

Group dynamics: I feel safe expressing divergent opinions to the team.

Skill sets: I am good at navigating roadblocks and barriers.

Personality traits: I see myself as someone who is a reliable worker (informed by the Big Five personality assessment).

Emotional intelligence: I am not interested in other people’s problems (informed by the Toronto Empathy Questionnaire).

[...]

With all of this data, the team ran statistical models to understand which of the many inputs collected actually impacted team effectiveness. Using over 35 different statistical models on hundreds of variables, they sought to identify factors that:

impacted multiple outcome metrics, both qualitative and quantitative

surfaced for different kinds of teams across the organization

showed consistent, robust statistical significance

The researchers found that what really mattered was less about who is on the team, and more about how the team worked together. In order of importance:

Psychological safety: Psychological safety refers to an individual’s perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk or a belief that a team is safe for risk taking in the face of being seen as ignorant, incompetent, negative, or disruptive. In a team with high psychological safety, teammates feel safe to take risks around their team members. They feel confident that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.

Dependability: On dependable teams, members reliably complete quality work on time (vs the opposite - shirking responsibilities).

Structure and clarity: An individual’s understanding of job expectations, the process for fulfilling these expectations, and the consequences of one’s performance are important for team effectiveness. Goals can be set at the individual or group level, and must be specific, challenging, and attainable. Google often uses Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to help set and communicate short and long term goals.

Meaning: Finding a sense of purpose in either the work itself or the output is important for team effectiveness. The meaning of work is personal and can vary: financial security, supporting family, helping the team succeed, or self-expression for each individual, for example.

Impact: The results of one’s work, the subjective judgement that your work is making a difference, is important for teams. Seeing that one’s work is contributing to the organization’s goals can help reveal impact.

[...]

The Google researchers found that individuals on teams with higher psychological safety are less likely to leave Google, they’re more likely to harness the power of diverse ideas from their teammates, they bring in more revenue, and they’re rated as effective twice as often by executives.

SOURCE What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team

...many of today’s most valuable firms have come to realize that analyzing and improving individual workers ­— a practice known as ‘‘employee performance optimization’’ — isn’t enough. As commerce becomes increasingly global and complex, the bulk of modern work is more and more team-based. One study, published in The Harvard Business Review last month, found that ‘‘the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50 percent or more’’ over the last two decades and that, at many companies, more than three-quarters of an employee’s day is spent communicating with colleagues.

In Silicon Valley, software engineers are encouraged to work together, in part because studies show that groups tend to innovate faster, see mistakes more quickly and find better solutions to problems. Studies also show that people working in teams tend to achieve better results and report higher job satisfaction. In a 2015 study, executives said that profitability increases when workers are persuaded to collaborate more. Within companies and conglomerates, as well as in government agencies and schools, teams are now the fundamental unit of organization. If a company wants to outstrip its competitors, it needs to influence not only how people work but also how they work together.

[...]

Project Aristotle’s researchers began by reviewing a half-century of academic studies looking at how teams worked. Were the best teams made up of people with similar interests? Or did it matter more whether everyone was motivated by the same kinds of rewards? Based on those studies, the researchers scrutinized the composition of groups inside Google: How often did teammates socialize outside the office? Did they have the same hobbies? Were their educational backgrounds similar? Was it better for all teammates to be outgoing or for all of them to be shy? They drew diagrams showing which teams had overlapping memberships and which groups had exceeded their departments’ goals. They studied how long teams stuck together and if gender balance seemed to have an impact on a team’s success.

No matter how researchers arranged the data, though, it was almost impossible to find patterns — or any evidence that the composition of a team made any difference. ‘‘We looked at 180 teams from all over the company,’’ Dubey said. ‘‘We had lots of data, but there was nothing showing that a mix of specific personality types or skills or backgrounds made any difference. The ‘who’ part of the equation didn’t seem to matter.’’

Some groups that were ranked among Google’s most effective teams, for instance, were composed of friends who socialized outside work. Others were made up of people who were basically strangers away from the conference room. Some groups sought strong managers. Others preferred a less hierarchical structure. Most confounding of all, two teams might have nearly identical makeups, with overlapping memberships, but radically different levels of effectiveness. ‘‘At Google, we’re good at finding patterns,’’ Dubey said. ‘‘There weren’t strong patterns here.’’As they struggled to figure out what made a team successful, Rozovsky and her colleagues kept coming across research by psychologists and sociologists that focused on what are known as ‘‘group norms.’’ Norms are the traditions, behavioral standards and unwritten rules that govern how we function when we gather

[...]

Project Aristotle’s researchers began searching through the data they had collected, looking for norms. They looked for instances when team members described a particular behavior as an ‘‘unwritten rule’’ or when they explained certain things as part of the ‘‘team’s culture.’’ Some groups said that teammates interrupted one another constantly and that team leaders reinforced that behavior by interrupting others themselves. On other teams, leaders enforced conversational order, and when someone cut off a teammate, group members would politely ask everyone to wait his or her turn. Some teams celebrated birthdays and began each meeting with informal chitchat about weekend plans. Other groups got right to business and discouraged gossip. There were teams that contained outsize personalities who hewed to their group’s sedate norms, and others in which introverts came out of their shells as soon as meetings began.After looking at over a hundred groups for more than a year, Project Aristotle researchers concluded that understanding and influencing group norms were the keys to improving Google’s teams. But Rozovsky, now a lead researcher, needed to figure out which norms mattered most. 

...Which norms, Rozovsky and her colleagues wondered, were the ones that successful teams shared?

[...]

What interested the researchers most, however, was that teams that did well on one assignment usually did well on all the others. Conversely, teams that failed at one thing seemed to fail at everything. The researchers eventually concluded that what distinguished the ‘‘good’’ teams from the dysfunctional groups was how teammates treated one another. The right norms, in other words, could raise a group’s collective intelligence, whereas the wrong norms could hobble a team, even if, individually, all the members were exceptionally bright.

[...]

In other words, if you are given a choice between the serious-minded Team A or the free-flowing Team B, you should probably opt for Team B. Team A may be filled with smart people, all optimized for peak individual efficiency. But the group’s norms discourage equal speaking; there are few exchanges of the kind of personal information that lets teammates pick up on what people are feeling or leaving unsaid. There’s a good chance the members of Team A will continue to act like individuals once they come together, and there’s little to suggest that, as a group, they will become more collectively intelligent.

In contrast, on Team B, people may speak over one another, go on tangents and socialize instead of remaining focused on the agenda. The team may seem inefficient to a casual observer. But all the team members speak as much as they need to. They are sensitive to one another’s moods and share personal stories and emotions. While Team B might not contain as many individual stars, the sum will be greater than its parts.

Within psychology, researchers sometimes colloquially refer to traits like ‘‘conversational turn-taking’’ and ‘‘average social sensitivity’’ as aspects of what’s known as psychological safety 

[...]

The paradox, of course, is that Google’s intense data collection and number crunching have led it to the same conclusions that good managers have always known. In the best teams, members listen to one another and show sensitivity to feelings and needs.

[aureuscor-blog]

HW2

Question 1: If the software development productivity of the average programmer increases at 6% per year, then the estimated doubling time is 12 years. Using an arbitrary starting value of 100 “productivity,” multiplying by 1.06 each year yields a “productivity” of 201.22 in year 12.

Question 2: I will complete my term project individually. As of right now, I am leaning toward a short story. If I find a lot of interesting but scattered information for the topic on which I ultimately settle then I may opt to do a paper instead. It may be nice to pull everything together into one cohesive, comprehensive discussion the likes of which doesn’t presently exist. Then again, fiction can be so fun and can open the eyes of the masses in an entertaining but fact based way. If my story consists of one lone character or if I can get enough people together to help me out, then I may even do a video. Hmmm, decisions decisions…….

Topics I am considering include:

Teleportation. No, not of people. Unfortunately, that’s too tall an order. However, I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibilities, and perhaps even in the not-so-distant-future, that we may be able to teleport inanimate objects. I imagine a world where research and funding by retail giants Amazon and Walmart lead to the demise of the shipping industry as they begin to “deliver” goods via teleportation pods in everyone’s homes.

Invisibility. Not invisibility à la “abracadabra!” Making things disappear like a magician. Invisibility as in cloaking devices. With the devices we carry around on our person daily already equipped with hi def video cameras and augmented reality able to “see” things in the environment around us, I think cloaking devices are a real possibility. If we can wear a material that projects what is seen around us, we can be “invisible.” Of course, we would still have to avoid any objects in our path because they wouldn’t be able to pass through us.

Invincibility or personal body protection. Similar to the aliens we see in our science fiction, I would like to explore protection for the exceedingly fragile human body. We have cured so many diseases that plagued our species for 1000s of years, yet so many people die in accidents! We should have bullet-proof, fall-proof, crash-proof, every-other-kind-of-accident-proof armor to keep us all alive until we succumb to old age. Just imagine the crime rate dropping to 0 if you couldn’t harm anyone. Even an end to war!

         or alternatively

Personal “replacement” robots we control through virtual reality so we needn’t leave the comfort - and protection - of our home. Yes, this has been done before in sci-fi movies like Surrogates, but, as an anxious worry wart, it speaks to me!

 Question 3: Delphi Method

A.  When will teleportation of inanimate everyday items over long distances (across the US or world or into space) become commonplace similar to telephones/TVs?

I collected 2 (or 3) estimates (never, 3550 and 2600 were the estimates). The median would be 3075 if I just use the numerical years (or 3550 if I include "never"). The total range is 950 years (or infinity with "never"). For the middle 50% of my responses, the median is 3550 and the range is 0. In the first round, I collected 2 estimates, 2300 and 2500. The median was 2400 and the range was 200 years. My range increased from 200 years to 950 so the discussions between rounds definitely did not cause the group to converge.

B. The process we went through in class differs from the classical Delphi Method in three major ways. First, the Delphi Method was meant to ask the question of experts, not people who may have no knowledge of the field as may have been the case in class. Second, the Delphi Method keeps those experts anonymous. We openly answered the questions in class. And third, the Delphi Method continues until the research question is answered (for example when consensus is reached), whereas we only carried out two rounds.

The information above regarding the Delphi Method references the process as described on page 2-3 of the following source:

Skulmoski, G.J., Hartman, F.T., & Krahn, J. (2007). The Delphi Method for graduate research. Journal of Information Technology Education, 6, 1-21.

 C. I think we should have followed the classical Delphi Method a little more closely. It may not have been possible to ask our question of experts being limited to classmates and their expertise, but we could have provided a little more background on our topic to get more knowledgeable estimates. Or everyone could’ve researched the topics a bit before giving estimates. Another option would be to see what our classmates are experts in and ask a question related to those topics. Another issue was only carrying out 2 rounds. We could’ve gone a few more rounds, with more research between each round. A significant issue with our process is the number of participants. I only received 2 number estimates. Granted, our class is small... Perhaps we could’ve enlisted the help of “friends” and posed the question on social media.

Question 4: The reviews on both Amazon and GoodReads are overwhelmingly positive for Michio Kaku’s Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel.

Average rating of 4.6 from 254 ratings. Source: Amazon

Average rating of 4.08 from 30,654 ratings. Source: GoodReads

The bulk of positive reviews say things like Kaku is a good writer; the book is well written or even the best book they have ever read. Some cite his humor. There are several mentions of other similar popular science books/authors and comparisons between Kaku and Einstein, Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking. There are also many mentions of his other books (that they are also good or that the reviewer wants to read them now too). Surprisingly, many reviews give a brief synopsis or outline the topics covered in the book. The most common sentiment across all reviews is best expressed by Amazon reviewer JLBrackett from 7/8/11: Kaku “does an excellent job of taking complex topics in physics and bringing them to us in layman's terms.”

On the flip-side, there are those who were not too impressed. Amazon reviewer T. Proctor wrote on 9/2/09 that it reads like a technical manual. Indeed, there were a few reviewers who felt the book was too difficult to read, but the majority of the (small amount of) negative reviews complain of the opposite: That it’s nothing terribly enlightening or “it’s all been done before,” that it’s too “light,” there is not enough science - no physics or formulas - that Kaku doesn’t get into enough detail, and that it is too “dumbed down” or too “popularized.”

[lukashaqf791-blog]

Anatomical Terms of Activity

The atlantoaxial pivot joint offers side-to-side turning of the head, while the proximal radioulnar articulation enables turning of the span throughout pronation as well as supination of the forearm. Joint joints, such as at the knee as well as elbow, allow only for flexion and also expansion. In a similar way, the hinge joint of the ankle only enables dorsiflexion and also plantar flexion of the foot. Supination and pronation are the motions of the lower arm that go in between these two placements. Pronation is the motion that relocates the lower arm from the supinated (anatomical) placement to the pronated (palm in reverse) position.

The Four Fundamental Sorts Of Activity.

Flexion and also extension are movements that occur within the sagittal aircraft and also include anterior or posterior activities of the body or arm or legs. For the vertebral column, flexion (anterior flexion) is an anterior (onward) flexing of the neck or body, while extension involves a posterior-directed activity, such as straightening from a bent setting or bending in reverse. Lateral flexion is the bending of the neck or body toward the right or left side. These movements of the vertebral column involve both the symphysis joint created by each intervertebral disc, in addition to the aircraft type of synovial joint developed between the inferior articular procedures of one vertebra and the premium articular procedures of the next lower vertebra.

This rotation causes the distal end of the distance to cross over the distal ulna at the distal radioulnar joint since of the minor curvature of the shaft of the radius. This crossing over brings the span and ulna into an X-shape setting. Supination is the opposite activity, in which rotation of the distance returns the bones to their parallel settings as well as moves the palm to the anterior facing (supinated) position. It aids to remember that supination is the motion you make use of when scooping up soup with a spoon (see Figure 2g).

What is the best definition for the term adduction?

A knee extension is a resistance training exercise in which a load is placed on the shin and from a seated position, you contract your quadriceps muscles to extend the lower leg until the whole leg is sticking straight out. Knee extension occurs when we stand up from a seated position.

Lastly, MRI of the legs showed involvement of the soleus muscle and also the median head of the gastrocnemius, with family member sparing of the side head.

It involves the consecutive mix of flexion, adduction, expansion, and also abduction at a joint.

They also help support the hip joint.

This joint permits the distance to revolve along its size during pronation as well as supination activities of the forearm.

Nonetheless, in patients with restricted ambulation a scattered involvement of the posterolateral muscles of the upper leg and of the vastus intermedius was discovered, with family member sparing of the vastus lateralis, sartorius, as well as gracilis.

This movement is reasonably uncommon throughout normal activities however may be envisioned by standing on the appropriate leg and also laterally flexing the body much to the left. Based upon the auto mechanics of strolling, side laxity offers an added threat in the existence of a varus malaligned knee, a high adduction moment, as well as reduced quadriceps activity since this combination of problems can cause the entire force across the knee to be sent to the median area.

Whats the difference between adduction and abduction?

Abduction and adduction are two terms that are used to describe movements towards or away from the midline of the body. Abduction is a movement away from the midline – just as abducting someone is to take them away. For example, abduction of the shoulder raises the arms out to the sides of the body.

Inversion is the turning of the foot to angle the bottom of the foot towards the midline, while eversion turns all-time low of the foot far from the midline. The foot has a higher series of inversion than eversion movement. These are important movements that assist to stabilize the foot when running or walking on an unequal surface as well as help in the example of abduction in sport fast side-to-side changes in direction used during active sports such as soccer, racquetball, or basketball (see Number 9.5.2 i). Dorsiflexion as well as plantar flexion are movements at the ankle joint, which is a hinge joint. Lifting the front of the foot, so that the top of the foot moves toward the former leg is dorsiflexion, while lifting the heel of the foot from the ground or aiming the toes downward is plantar flexion.

Child Kidnapping Statistics.

Execute these exercises 3 collections of 12 reps. Object control skills call for controlling executes and items such as spheres, hoops, bats as well as ribbons by hand, by foot or with any type of other part of the body. Instances are throwing, capturing, kicking, striking, dribbling and bouncing. Making use of hand apparatus to advertise item control skills as well as prolong acrobatics tasks is a style existing in all the devices of work, which makes it unique in its technique to inclusive acrobatics. The activities provide a creative alternative to the straight knowing of gymnastics-specific skills and offer a method whereby to establish object control abilities in an acrobatics atmosphere.

Turning.

The scissoring on standing hinders walking, transfers, and positioning in the mobility device. Convulsions in the adductors of the upper leg restriction the capability of the individual or caregiver to abduct the upper legs. Troubles include difficulty with individual health, resting, transfers, standing, and also urinary catherization.

[mikemortgage]

Homeless shelter, looming IPOs have San Francisco on edge

San Francisco’s renowned waterfront hosts joggers, admiring tourists and towering condos with impressive views. It could also become the site of a new homeless shelter for up to 200 people.

Angry residents have packed public meetings, jeering at city officials and even shouting down Mayor London Breed over the proposal. They say they were blindsided and argue billionaire Twitter executive Jack Dorsey and other tech executives who support the idea should lobby city officials to build a shelter by their homes.

The waterfront uproar is among recent examples of strife in an expensive city that is both overwhelmed by tech wealth and passionate about social justice. San Francisco companies Pinterest and Lyft recently went public, and Uber and Slack are coming soon, driving fears that newly minted millionaires will snap up the few family homes left for under $2 million.

City Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer fought tears at a testy hearing over a housing density development bill, inviting her critics to visit poor seniors in her district who eat cat food for dinner. Opponents of the bill stood and turned their backs on Supervisor Vallie Brown, who vigorously defended the legislation.

And as the city continues to grapple with a housing shortage, the entire Board of Supervisors was roasted on social media this month for rejecting a 63-unit housing project because it would cast shadows over a nearby park in an area with little green space.

“We’re definitely at the boiling point, whether it’s the housing crisis, whether it’s quality of life, which is exacerbated by the worst traffic congestion in America, or the affordability crisis,” said Supervisor Aaron Peskin.

A March New York Times story about the upcoming IPOs set off frenzied activity among potential homebuyers and a call from City Hall for a hearing on how all that new wealth will affect gentrification and city revenue.

Realtor John Townsend had the article on hand as he showed a 1,500-square-foot (139-square-meter) three-bedroom, one-bath condo listed at $1.15 million. He said he had double the traffic the weekend after ride-hailing company Lyft went public in March. The condo, which needed updates, sold above asking price.

“You’re going to have a period of incredible demand not just from tech, by any means, but by (interest) rates being lowered in the last week,” Townsend said. “The real problem is we can’t even remotely meet demand.”

The market for single-family houses under $2 million is going nuts, especially in neighbourhoods attractive to millennials and young families, said Realtor Monica Sagullo.

The IPOs are “in the back of people’s minds, and the people who have to buy are the ones who are going for it — the families that need houses, the double-incomes,” she said.

A family of four earning $117,400 a year is considered low-income in San Francisco, where the median sale price of a two-bedroom is $1.3 million. Yet every night, the city of 885,000 also has about 4,400 people sleeping unsheltered, in alleys and doorways and tucked away in Golden Gate Park.

San Francisco opened its first homeless “navigation centre” in 2015 and currently operates six throughout the city. Unlike traditional shelters, the centres allow people to bring pets and don’t kick them out in the morning.

The proposed navigation centre in the Embarcadero is a critical part of the mayor’s campaign pledge to open 1,000 new shelter beds by the end of 2020. It would sit in a parking lot owned by the Port of San Francisco.

Commissioners are scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to lease the land to the city.

After Breed’s plan was announced, opponents started a GoFundMe campaign to fight it, called “Safe Embarcadero for All.” Shelter supporters quickly called out the campaign on social media, and a sometimes-nasty battle ensued. The campaign against the shelter has raised $100,000, while the campaign for it, called “SAFER Embarcadero for ALL,” is at $175,000, including $25,000 from Twitter’s Dorsey and $10,000 each from Salesforce founder Marc Benioff and Twilio chief executive Jeff Lawson.

The high-rises surrounding the lot are pricey. A three-bed, three-bath in The Brannan condo towers sold for nearly $2.5 million in February; the monthly dues are $1,200. In the nearby Watermark building, which has a rooftop pool, a two-bed, two-bath condo sold for more than $1.3 million in October — also with monthly dues above $1,000.

“It’s very hard for people who are not on the very high end of things, in terms of wealth, to feel like they can even make it in San Francisco, or own or commit over the long term to be here, and that creates a lot of anxiety,” said Supervisor Matt Haney, who represents the district and supports the shelter plan.

Haney, who rents a studio in the dilapidated Tenderloin neighbourhood, has introduced legislation requiring each of San Francisco’s 11 districts to make space for a homeless shelter.

Plenty of supporters of the waterfront proposal, including those who live in the neighbourhood, say the shelters are safe and opponents are being heartless. But opponents say a shelter is inappropriate in a neighbourhood filled with tourists and children, and not many homeless. They worry about crime and property values and want to know why the navigation centres are not evenly distributed around San Francisco.

“Other people in the city casting us as wealthy people who don’t like to see the homeless population, it’s not true at all,” said Wallace Lee, a stay-at-home dad who is leading the opposition.

Stacey Reynolds-Peterson has rented a two-bedroom, below-market unit in a building near the proposed shelter since 1991, when the area was full of grim warehouses. Retired because of disability, she puts most of her income toward the $2,700 monthly rent, and is considering moving north because she can’t afford San Francisco.

“We have homeless people. I see them every day, and they’re nice people, but this is going to attract more,” she said. “I used to love the city and be proud of the city. Now I’m not anymore. It’s dirty, and it’s ugly.”

from Financial Post http://bit.ly/2PldfdQ via IFTTT Blogger Mortgage Tumblr Mortgage Evernote Mortgage Wordpress Mortgage href="https://www.diigo.com/user/gelsi11">Diigo Mortgage

[cleancutpage]

The Proposed NYC "Pied-A-Terre Tax" Looks Catastrophic to NYC Real Estate

An earlier version of this post appeared in my weekly Housing Notes, March 15, 2019 edition. I've since added more information and insights as the situation unfolds.

This proposed "pied-a-terre" tax law has a name that infers it concerns "pied-a-terres" when in fact that property type is but one part of the property types that are impacted. Read on.

The New York political zeitgeist was recently and suddenly tilted against luxury development in New York City. If this latest turn of events plays out as written, we'll be able to look back at this era as a milestone where the supertanker began to turn in the wrong direction.

The Fiscal Policy Institute proposed the tax in 2014, and it has been floating around Albany ever since. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the fiscally conservative Citizens Budget Commission described the tax as appealing but problematic:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office suggested last week that such a levy might reap $9 billion for the moribund Metropolitan Transportation Authority over the next decade and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie reiterated his chamber's support proposal at a Crain's breakfast forum days later. Mayor Bill de Blasio gave it his blessing as well.

The shift in government sentiment towards real estate development began with the following recent events:

Timeline

November: The introduction of the Amazon HQ2 deal in Long Island City

November: Control of the New York State Senate flipped, and the long stuck 2014 pied-a-terre tax was introduced as a bill

January: The closing of the $238,000,000 Manhattan condo sale in January (2015 contract)

February: The withdrawal of Amazon from the LIC deal after well-coordinated political pushback

March: Introduction of the Fiscal Policy Institute's 2014 "pied-a-terre" tax proposal for properties valued at or above $5,000,000 in New York City, was introduced in the Senate.

The proposed law is in each New York State Albany chamber right now and although they have different introduction dates of January 9, 2019 (Senate) and February 4, 2019 (Assembly) they look the same.

The New York State Assembly version: Assembly Bill A4540 or in this format.

The New York State Senate version: Senate Bill S44 or in this format.

The bills are short on details and are currently in committee, wide open for interpretation. As written, the bill is both sweeping and ominous to the real estate industry in New York City, and I expect it will result in less overall tax revenue to the city than currently enjoyed. I'll get into that further on.

How this proposed S44/A4540 tax seems to work

I am not a tax advisor, and anything I say here should not be relied on, and you should seek appropriate counsel. Seriously. I am merely interpreting what I think are the critical issues established this proposed tax.

This tax directed is specifically at New York City because it is designated for cities in the state with populations of more than 1 million. As evidenced by the 2010 census data in Wikipedia, there is a significant population difference between New York City and Buffalo.

The market value of these properties will be based on a "comparable sale-based valuation method." which seems in direct conflict with state law since co-ops and condos are valued as rentals by state law in NYC.

You probably think of the market value of your co-op or condo as the price you could sell it for on the open market. However, State law requires us to value residential cooperative and condominium buildings as if they were rental apartment buildings. This means that we look at the income and expense statements of rental buildings that have similar characteristics to determine your condo or co-op buildings market value.

It taxes residential properties valued at $5 million and above in NYC, most of which are in Manhattan.

And it is a marginal rate tax - only the amount above each threshold is taxed.

And it is a property tax which means it will be paid annually, not just upon sale like the Mansion tax. Here is how consumer behavior is impacted by the $1 million threshold of the New York State "Mansion" tax. I did this a while ago, and the pattern still exists. As an annual property tax, the dollar thresholds will be more firm.

The tax is not really about pied-a-terres. It is a tax on non-primary residences as written.

Therefore it should apply to investor units and LLCs.

I don't think it is unreasonable to assume that the language of the bill infers that LLCs could be interpreted as "non-primary residences" even if they are used for primary residences since New York State defines LLCs: An LLC is an unincorporated business organization made up of one or more persons. That definition does not sound like a primary residence to me.

Although the working title of the proposed tax is "pied-a-terre" there is no mention of this particular use in the Senate or Assembly tax bills. They specifically refer to "non-primary residences" so that would include other uses like investor units and possibly LLCs (possibly even those used as primary residences). It's all still up in the air at this point.

From the New York Times article of March 11, 2019: Lawmakers Support ‘Pied-à-Terre’ Tax on Multimillion-Dollar Second Homes'

In 2017, New York City had 75,000 pieds-à-terre, up from 55,000 such units since 2014, according to the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey. The share of vacant apartments that are classified as pieds-à-terre has held steady during that time at about 30 percent.

From the New York Times article of October 26, 2014: Pied-à-Neighborhood

“If you said you are going to impose a special surcharge on apartments that are worth more than $20 million, that would be perfectly legal,” said Peter L. Faber, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery. “But the problem comes when you start imposing a special tax on nonresidents. That is unconstitutional under the interstate commerce clause.”

The current revenue estimation appears overstated by nearly a third

The bill's sponsor, New York State Senator Brad Hoylman said:

There are only 5,400 units in New York above $5 million that are owned by non-residents.

For the year 2018 my ACRIS search yielded 952 residential single units sales (1-3 family, co-ops, condos) above the $5 million threshold (1,188 in 2016 and 1,173 in 2017).

I will assume that the Senator included all the apparent nuances within the 5,400 count for the entire NYC housing stock (pied-a-terres, investor units, LLC-owned primary and non-primary residences).

I projected this mix of sales as proportional to the 5,400 units impacted by the new law to break out the tax revenue calculations, understanding the 2018 sales included both primary and non-primary residential uses.

[click to expand]

From the New York Times article of March 11, 2019: Lawmakers Support ‘Pied-à-Terre’ Tax on Multimillion-Dollar Second Homes'

It was not immediately clear how much money the tax would raise; the office of the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, estimated that a pied-à-terre tax would bring in a minimum of $650 million annually if enacted today. And based on the expected revenue stream, Mr. Cuomo estimated that the state could then raise $9 billion in bonds, backed by the expected taxes paid by pied-à-terre owners.

Based on my calculations, the tax-impacted housing stock would yield tax revenue of roughly $455,000,000 which is roughly 30% below the $650,000,000 estimate assuming this new tax would not impact any current consumer behavior of the wealthy who would be affected by the tax.

Impact to Housing Prices

Using the median sales price of each price traunche set up in the bill, and assuming a 5% discount rate and the median tax for each traunche and a 10 year holding period, the impact to price rises in each higher traunche.

I've added 20-year and 30-year holding period versions using the same variables. I started out using the 10-year as a placeholder for the brokerage industry's default assumption of 7 years but then added 3 more years to account for the current market slide. The 20 and 30-year holding periods assumptions might be more realistic given the long term view of investors after the decline in prices of the past several years and the phenomenon of capital preservation in this latest development frenzy since 2012. If that's the case, properties valued at $25 million or higher might lose 30% of their value overnight.

[click to expand]

More New Yorkers Will Leave The City

From the New York Times article of March 11, 2019: Lawmakers Support ‘Pied-à-Terre’ Tax on Multimillion-Dollar Second Homes'

Moses Gates, a vice president at the Regional Plan Association, disputed the notion that New Yorkers would leave the city. The association believes that most wealthy pied-à-terre owners would pay the tax. If they chose to sell, then the property has the chance of being purchased by a full-time city resident, who would then be subject to income and sales tax.

It is already happening. His assumption does not take into consideration the new federal tax law enacted on January 1, 2018, that was especially punishing the wealthy real estate property owners that were already considering moving their domicile to a low tax state like Florida. The wealthy who already on the fence before the new law are beginning to make their moves. You can see this happening in Florida right now. New Yorkers are the new foreign buyer there. This proposed pied-a-terre tax piles on to the fresh new taxes just served to wealthy property owners in NYC metro last year, and sales were already slowing.

Taxing Wealthy Property Owners Around the World

The trend of raising tax revenue on real estate of the wealthy is gaining momentum worldwide. New York City had the distinction of being one of the few major global cities that have not implemented taxes that are openly hostile to foreign buyers or investors. Here is what some countries are doing to tax these buyers and it ist slowing sales.

From the New York Times article of February 9, 2019:

Large cities around the world have been grappling with how to make wealthy absentee property owners pay for the privilege of owning secondary residences, a recent report from the Real Estate Institute of British Columbia shows. Sydney, Paris, and London have all recently added or increased taxes on the purchase of secondary homes. In Hong Kong, nonpermanent residents pay a 15 percent fee on the value of the home, and foreigners pay an additional 15 percent fee. Singapore has restrictions on the purchase of residential property by foreigners and a 15 percent tax. In Denmark, foreigners are required to obtain permission from the government to purchase secondary homes. In Vancouver, where the greatest concentration of vacant properties is downtown, owners of empty residential properties are charged a 1 percent tax based on the assessed value.

Why Senate Bill S44/Assembly Bill A4540 Will Not Achieve Its Intended Goal for NYC

This bill may obliterate future transfer tax revenue from real estate activity and could result in lower net receipts from the real estate sector in the aftermath. The 2014 whitepaper doesn't consider this but instead presents the tax in a vacuum as if market forces don't respond.

New York City is one of the last "international cities" that is not hostile to foreign buyers and real estate investors

The new tax is targeted to condo development since there are few co-op and townhouse non-primary units over $5M

The new tax will crush new development activity because land prices will take years, maybe even more than a decade to reset to levels that will support new affordable housing because landowners take long-term buy and hold positions

This tax could destroy any progress made with inclusionary zoning to create more affordable housing

This tax will not create affordable housing

The idea of the building of "bank safety deposit boxes in the sky" and saying pied-a-terre owners don't spend money in the city is misleading. Most of the taxed units have occupants that do just that. Many non-primary residences are occupied with renters and those occupants spend money on a daily basis. The actual pied-a-terre segment is likely to be relatively small.

Aspects of this bill might be illegal such as the disconnect in valuation types

Luxury real estate buyers do not ignore new taxes as is commonly pontificated. That never happens. As such there will be substantial damage to high-end property values going forward, perhaps as much as 30% if not more. Existing owners could panic sell.

The damage to the housing market above the $5 million threshold will not be contained and will melt into the layers below it as market stigma expands.

The suburban markets, as key competitors to NYC in the immediate area, may actually benefit at their respective high-end markets as NYCs brand damage and high new tax incentivize buyers to look closer at alternatives in NYC metro as well low-cost areas such as Florida.

Pausing the Market While Politicking

At a bare minimum, the guaranteed uncertainty of the bill's final form from April 1, 2019 when it is enacted and July 1, 2020 when it is implemented, will help "pause" sales. Sales at the top of the market will slow further. This uncertainty will have a significant impact on market participants as they wait for Albany to sort this out and will play a significant roll in impacting transfer tax revenue as the market cools further.

There is a strong political appetite for this to be part of the budget. I can only imagine the heavy volume of lobbying and litigation activity to occur between now and then. There is a need/hunger for more revenue by the governor and the mayor for the MTA.

On a positive note, present circumstances included, the language of this tax bill is so draconian and disconnected from market forces that I would expect the lawsuits and negotiation to be significant and possibly raises the odds this bill will be converted into something less catastrophic. The Senator who is sponsoring this has seemed to suggest this in interviews.

History Fades and so do Lessons Learned

Remember the 1970s version of New York City? The success the city is enjoying now was the result of 25 years of proactive management of city spending and branding efforts. Besides record tourism, real estate activity has been revitalized and that has brought billions of dollars to the city coffers. The introduction of this new tax law ignores human behavior and assumes the tax revenues will rise as if market forces don't exist. The wealthy will not shrug off these heavy new costs. They will simply go elsewhere. New real estate taxes, especially significant ones, change consumer behavior almost immediately.

If the objective is to punish the high-end housing market and the development community, then this bill will do that. If the objective is to generate new revenue, I don't believe that this bill will be able to do that after all the mayhem it causes to the new development industry and transfer tax revenue.

Let's hope economically informed voices are able to make themselves heard during this process.

The Proposed NYC "Pied-A-Terre Tax" Looks Catastrophic to NYC Real Estate published first on https://greatlivinghomespage.tumblr.com/

[verick-mage]

Cla Safflower Oil Review

Cla Safflower Oil Review There has been a hype for quite some time currently regarding dietary supplements that includes CLA Safflower oil. Promising revolutionary changes for those with excess weight, one explicit producer of such supplements are marred by a rather crass scandal involving dubious selling practices. Even if we may place it out of our minds, the actual fact that CLA Safflower oil supplements are still being manufactured and commercialized warrants an in-depth analysis. Besides the obvious question that arises within the case of each supplement – does it very work? – there are some peculiarities during this case. First of all, the designation will be slightly misleading. CLA and safflower oil are connected nevertheless completely different substances and, though they're presented as being a unitary extract, more inquiry and analysis of the compounds are needed. Secondly, we tend to should delve a bit deeper into the effects of the ingredients that build up these supplements in order to search out out if they work towards achieving the goal of weight loss. Then there are technicalities – dosage, facet effects and therefore the like. We have a tendency to can provide you with the necessary information, beginning with a separate discussion of CLA and then safflower oil (with arguments for and against the consumption of every), followed by an assessment of the existing body of reviews and rounding the article up with our verdict on the chance that CLA Safflower oil supplements might facilitate anyone in their quest for a healthier and additional appealing silhouette. The CLA – Safflower Oil Connection Some time ago, The American Heart Association released a suggestion regarding the advantages that Omega-six fatty acids have on the heart health, urging their steady however moderate consumption. In the wake of this announcement, the number of studies undertaken on omega-6 acids, and polyunsaturated fats in general, have increased markedly. One such study, conducted at Ohio State University, was concerned with the consequences of supplementation with safflower oil and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) in menopausal, obese, diabetic ladies who failed to require daily insulin injections. It was long speculated that this sort of supplementation would have a positive effect on weight loss efforts. Safflower oil (or rather a linoleic acid it contains) and conjugated linoleic acid share a chemical formula. But, their chemical structure differs slightly. They're connected, but roughly the same. The 35 women in the study were divided into 2 groups, people in every grouping being administered half-dozen.4 grams of fatty acid daily, for sixteen weeks, while not any different tampering with medication, or with their routine generally. The results were encouraging, to mention the smallest amount. Subjects in the CLA supplementation group exhibited a important decrease within the Body Mass Index indicator, [*fr1] a point on average, a figure that translated into a drop of three.2 p.c from the full body fat. Subjects experiencing safflower oil supplementation, on the opposite hand, had a substantial reduction in their trunk fat, however with no significant consequences on their overall fat, and a outstanding increase in muscle tissue. Furthermore, the safflower oil supplemented cluster conjointly exhibited a decrease in their blood sugar levels with a median of fifteen points. In the case of both parties, no other alterations in their health were observed, with the notable exception of the rise in the production of the hormone adiponectin, noticed within the group supplemented with safflower oil. This hormone is responsible for the pace at that fat is burned within the metabolism. While these results were promising and definitely paved the means for a quick introduction on the market of CLA and safflower oil extract supplements, there are a few caveats to them. The big question sign the results of this study raised issues regarding the excess fat. Where had it gone? After all, the exercise routine was not modified. The noticeable increase in the adiponectin production raised parallels the dramatic side effects medication that tamper with hormone levels have. The surplus fat might be deposited within the liver and/or muscle tissue, so increasing the severity of diabetes (or inflicting it to people who do not suffer from the condition) or inducing an entire range of liver disorders. This study indeed unearthed exciting edges that each CLA and safflower oil may bring regarding, yet the doable side effects might not have been fathomed during the limited amount (16 weeks) the scientists had at their disposal. Currently that we have seen how the underlying principle within the dietary supplements we tend to are discussing came regarding let us get additional aware of both CLA and safflower oil. CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acids) The problem with CLA is not restricted to grammar (i.e., ought to one use “CLA is” or “CLA are”, as some reviewers use them interchangeably), rather CLA are compounds that have not been sufficiently researched. Nevertheless, there is sufficient information relevant to their use in dietary supplements, and we tend to should proceed with the analysis. Conjugated linoleic acids are one in every of twenty eight isomers of linoleic acids that are created naturally when bound dairy products or meats are weakened by bacteria in the abdomen or intestines. The isomers of a sure substance have the identical chemical formula (one molecule contains the identical components in exactly the identical number), however they differ in their chemical structure. CLA is assessed as trans- fatty acid and conjointly cis- fatty acid, making them something of an oddity, a minimum of within the biochemical realm. This is where we have a tendency to can confront the “CLA – safflower oil” confusion and convolution of terms. Safflower oil contains traces of linoleic acid (however, more than 75 p.c of it is oleic acid, a monosaturated acid) – approximately 0.7 mg/gram. Therefore, CLA and safflower oil are indeed substances which will be placed in the identical category, nonetheless they are by no suggests that as alike as to possess the same effect on the human body or for use interchangeably. From a logical standpoint, that's why the study cited in the previous section used each substances, to search out out the outcomes and, as we have a tendency to have seen, the outcomes, though each regard the reduction of body fat, proved indeed to be quite different. CLA sprang into the spotlight as early as 1979, when a study performed on mice showed that the fatty acids had properties of visibly shrinking chemically induced tumors in mice. The studies haven't slowed their pace since then. However, it wasn't until 2008 that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognized CLA as being typically safe. Nevertheless, supplements containing CLA had been manufactured and marketed before, although the hype around CLA has magnified since that moment. The human body naturally synthesizes CLA from linoleic acid through the aid of the bacteria from the Bifidus strain that reside in the intestine. A host of conditions and dysfunctions – ranging from high acidic levels to most digestive diseases and even gluten intolerance – make the synthesis impossible. So, one will conclude that a supplementation of CLA is actually required, especially from a bound age onwards, nonetheless queries of dosage or method of administration remain. At first, CLA supplements were mainly marketed as natural anti-cancer solutions, with their scientific basis being the rodent study cited above (although extrapolating from artificially induced cancer in mice to tumors on humans is a rather dubious follow). In recent years, and in the light of the study performed at Ohio State University, CLA supplements are part of the supplements that publicize weight loss. According to the WebMD website, CLA is utilized in dietary supplementation, with doses between 15 to a hundred seventy five mg for daily use. The purposes are diverse – cancer, combating gentle food allergies, reducing the effects of chronic disease on weight or atherosclerosis. CLA is possibly effective in fighting obesity and high blood pressure, but, more analysis on the topic is needed. On the subject of all other claims made by manufacturers, speculation will best characterize them. It's safe for the common healthy adult in the doses found in food and in most supplements, though in cases where surgery, bleeding disorders, and diabetes are present, one is advised to avoid CLA. Arriving at the subject of dosage, the results of the Ohio State study are quoted – no more than 7 grams per day, though there aren't any vital edges for doses larger than three.four grams per day. What is CLA’s Mechanism of Action? CLA’S biochemical mechanism of action is related to its interaction with the PPAR receptors. Clinical studies investigating the acid’s impact showed lipogenesis reduction via molecule modulation on in vivo models. The findings conjointly suggested that the isomers in conjugated linoleic acid would possibly reduce adiposity by influencing energy metabolism. The PPARs are a family of nuclear receptor proteins unfold throughout the entire human body, however with the next incidence rate within the adipose tissue. 3 varieties of PPARs[1] are identified and studied:     PPAR-alpha, mainly found in the heart, liver and adipose tissue, responsible for triglyceride reduction and homeostasis     PPAR-beta, expressed in brain and adipose tissue, involved within the fatty acid metabolism method     PPAR-gamma, in the white adipose tissue and intestines, with role in glucose metabolism and insulin sensitization The receptors are transcription factors, similar relations a ip to the thyroid hormones. They're stimulated by tiny ligands (purposeful groups of molecules with biological purpose) derived from the body’s lipid substrates. Evidence shows of roles in a very series of processes ranging from lipid metabolism in obese models to pro-inflammatory enzyme inhibition. PPARs might have an antitumorigenic effect in patients who have colon cancer. In vivo studies indicate a decrease in plaque accumulation in the hippocampus and cortex of individuals with neurodegenerative diseases. Normal activity of all three receptors maintains homeostasis, which suggests that the body includes a sensible immune system and lower probabilities to develop severe medical conditions. By activating the PPAR receptors, CLA is actively concerned in varied processes happening inside the body. Various studies indicate that supplementation with CLA has anti-obesity effects in both animal and human models. A clinical trial conducted on rodents showed adipogenic method regression following the acid’s action on the PPAR-gamma receptor (a regulator of adipocyte differentiation).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EYSd8oFDHM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeID54r5MBQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyOyAjLcK-w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2pmkOeLcyE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNlQLp_iRAY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27yMQxKSO5o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly_FjhJWt5k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T7rJ4ofpTA

[hottytoddynews]

Plans to build a second farmers market divide city residents.

By Victoria Boatman and Angela Rogalski

Victoria Boatman is an Orlando, Fla., native and a junior philosophy major at Ole Miss.

 victoriaboatman@gmail.com

 Angela Rogalski is an Abbeville, Mississippi, resident and a senior print journalism major at Ole Miss

 abbeangela@gmail.com

By Mississippi standards at least, Oxford looks a lot like Fat City. Its thriving downtown entertainment district is home to at least a dozen fine restaurants, bistros and elegant eateries that attract affluent visitors by the tens of thousands. The nearby University of Mississippi campus, with its manicured landscape, restored antebellum architecture and prosperous student body, only adds weight to the Beulah Land depiction of a place where that other Mississippi –– desolate and deprived –– seems far, far away.

From the literature put out by the Oxford Convention and Visitors Bureau, the average Oxford citizen would scarcely get a glint of the state so often listed dead last in vital statistical data. Nor would they necessarily come to that conclusion from comparisons of median household income for Oxford, nor from an unemployment rate that is among the lowest of the 82 Mississippi counties.

Yet a $61,258 grant that the city qualified for and received from the United States Department of Agriculture in 2011 paints an entirely different view of the Oxford of picture postcard renown. Many who know and love it might be surprised to learn that their city actually sits in the middle of a “food desert” in which 32.3 percent of city residents have income at or below the poverty level. Incredibly, the 32.3 percent figure (U.S. Census for 2010) is higher than the 28.2 percent poverty level for the entire state!

While there are a number of ways to define a food desert, the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) Working Group, launched by the Obama Administration, considers a food desert to be  “a low-income census tract where a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store. To qualify as low-income, census tracts must meet the Treasury Department’s New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program eligibility criteria. Furthermore, to qualify as a food desert tract, at least 33 percent of the tract’s population or a minimum of 500 people in the tract must have low access to a supermarket or large grocery store.

The HFFI definition posted on a USDA Web site goes on to explain that, “The NMTC program defines a low-income census tract as any census tract where (1) the poverty rate for that tract is at least 20 percent, or (2) for tracts not located within a metropolitan area, the median family income for the tract does not exceed 80 percent of statewide median family income; or for tracts located within a metropolitan area, the median family income for the tract does not exceed 80 percent of the greater of statewide median family income or the metropolitan area median family income.”

The deprivation purportedly gripping Oxford actually affects some 60.8 percent of the population who meet the standard for food desert designation by living more than a mile from Kroger, Big Star or Wal-Mart, an underserved enclave where “access to a supermarket or large grocery store is a problem.”

Whether Oxford’s 12 percent poverty rate among families is adequate enough to qualify it as a food desert under the NMTC definition is difficult to determine. Yet the census data used to secure the grant that Oxford intends to use to help fund a second farmers market also would have included Ole Miss students who live off campus, within the city limits, and who have low incomes because they are full-time students. According to Michele Ver Ploeg with the USDA’s Food Economics Division, “Students that have an income below poverty level would be considered poor.”

Student influence in poverty levels can be most distinctly seen in the low- income breakdown by age group. According to city-data.com, the state averages a 14.2 percent poverty level for ages 18-24. That number surges to an overwhelming 52.1 percent in Oxford.

The skewed poverty rates are not unique to Oxford. Poverty rates in college towns often are among the highest in a given state. In New Hampshire, Durham, home to the University of New Hampshire, has a poverty rate that stands at 31.1 percent — the highest in the state, and far above the statewide rate of 7.7 percent, according to American Community Survey, a census-gathering firm providing updated income figures for each town in the state.

In addition to low-income numbers for Oxford that do not seem to align with economic reality is the fact that the major grocery outlets are located at opposite ends of the city, east and west. The city’s three major grocery store outlets meet the distance requirement for USDA food desert designation in a technical sense that few if any of the city’s 18,900 citizens would view as a hardship. Also, the existing farmers market on North Lamar Boulevard has been successfully operating for 12 years.

Green Thumb’s Up

As a whole, the state of Mississippi is well known for its rural enclaves. Typically, they are those small towns with a single stop light, where the only place to get something to eat is the local gas station or a fast food restaurant. Endemic to these food desert locales is a lack of public transportation. They are precisely the food deserts to which the USDA is bringing attention in an effort to fight obesity. It’s also why the USDA has begun offering grants to food desert communities throughout the country.

Neighboring areas such as Water Valley and Holly Springs reveal similar, if not better numbers than Oxford. With each community at 52.2 percent and 52 percent low access, respectively, these numbers imply that Oxford, Water Valley and Holly Springs are similar in that each lacks sufficient access to healthy food. For Oxford, this means 60.8 percent of Oxford’s community is low access. What is missing in this assumption, however, is the existence in Oxford of a bus transit system rated among the best in the state, offering low-cost transportation to virtually any point within the city limits.

Despite the concerns that have been raised as to actual need and opposition from those who say that Oxford already has a farmers market that is operating on a volunteer basis, city officials are going ahead with plans to build a second farmers market on land located on the West Oxford Loop.

When brought to the board of Aldermen last year, only two members voted against the new market: E.O. Oliver and Ulysses “Coach” Howell. The money provided by the grant will be used to pay a director’s salary and also for travel to New Orleans to observe a federally funded farmers market the Crescent City has up and running. A portion of the grant money has also been earmarked for bus tokens to enable low-income families to get to the new farmers market.

The current Midtown Farmers Market board says they had no input in the decision regarding the grant. In fact, it was not until after the city received it, said Midtown Farmers Market Board Member Pat Lowe, that Midtown’s board was notified and asked to join the proposed new market.

The board declined on the grounds that the city’s plans were not yet finalized enough for them to feel safe in moving an established venue of 12 years. The timing of the invitation, too, was in advance of the 2012 farmers market season. And since the new facility failed to open in the spring as originally thought when they accepted the grant, Lowe said she is glad Midtown declined to join them.

“Where would we have been if we had joined them?” Lowe said. “The property we use for Midtown is donated to us by the Tatum family. What if we had told them, “Thanks, but no thanks; we’re moving with the new farmers market,” and then lost our very well known and well-received spot? We would have been without a farmers market this season, that’s where.”

In fact, since the city has yet to move on the new market, Lynn Wilkins, grant writer for the City of Oxford, said the city will have to renegotiate the grant—something she said was a common practice with grants that failed to meet a timeline.

Trouble in the Vegetable Patch

Oxford Mayor Pat Patterson supports the new farmers market and sees no conflict in the city having two of them.

“I think they [both farmers markets] will complement each other and give the vendors more opportunities,” Patterson said. He referred a reporter’s queries, about the decision to go after the grant money, to Wilkins.

Proponents of the second farmers market promote it as a way to not only help farmers, but also those who live at or below the poverty level in Oxford.

“The goal is not to be in competition with Midtown but to give people in Oxford and Lafayette county more access to things grown here, and [give] farmers more venues to sell their goods,” said Melissa Hall, communications director for the Southern Foodways Alliance.

The benefits the city of Oxford is promoting in support of the new farmers market include bus tokens for low-income families to get to the farmers market, acceptance of EBT cards [food stamps] and a non-boutique market—meaning produce would be more affordable because it isn’t organic.

The hope is that the new farmers market will be open on different days and thus won’t compete with the current market, which operates on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

But supporters of the present market say any proposed new market could drive up prices charged by farmers and may ultimately end up costing taxpayers or the city treasury money.  One of Lowe’s biggest concerns with having two farmers markets amounts to the antithesis of Mayor Patterson’s argument. “Oxford can’t support two farmer’s markets,” Lowe said. “There are not enough vendors or customers.”

Moreover, Midtown market supporters contend, it is being built with monies that would be better spent in other Mississippi communities where the need is undeniable.

“Our farmers market is community-driven, community-supported and has a community spirit,” Lowe said. “It is what a hometown, local farmers market should be. There are people whose livelihoods depend upon Midtown, and there are people who do it simply because they love it. Regardless of the reasons, there is a wonderful spirit of camaraderie at Midtown, and our customers can feel it.”

Whether Oxford builds a second farmers market or not, its food desert label will not change. Now, the city is burdened with another challenge: garnering support for a market that has divided the community.

    The post Fat City or Food Desert? appeared first on HottyToddy.com.

[bodizwonder]

Are Sample Sales Ever Really Worth It? We Investigate the Other Side of It All

Two months in the past, I bought 2 beautiful Oscar de la Renta dresses for a 3rd their authentic costs on the model’s pattern sale in New York City. In the method, I misplaced my favourite bra.

While mercilessly looking for that treasured Gap undergarment, I ran into 3 soon-to-be-brides who occurred to be strolling across the small area (overcrowded with each hideously ugly and award show-worthy robes) whereas holding their very own future wedding ceremony clothes. Their robes have been additionally closely discounted in comparison with their value if bought at a brick-and-mortar Oscar de la Renta retailer (or Saks or Bergdorf Goodman or simply about another store that provides prospects full-length mirrors and on a regular basis and area they could want whereas in a becoming room).

Given the outing’s aim — both to save lots of a boatload of cash on one thing you undoubtedly want or to spend not-as-much on one thing you undoubtedly don’t — and our collective success that day, I started to suppose: Did Mr. de la Renta worth his choices understanding they’d doubtless be bought on sale? Does anyone purchase something at full value anymore? Are pattern gross sales even offers, or are they masked overpriced affairs? Most essential: Are the psychological and monetary implications of attending a pattern sale (and the lack of my valuable bra) even definitely worth the effort?

“It really depends on what type of shopper you are,” says Laura DiGiovanna, the advertising director at 260SampleSale, a third-party firm that gives manufacturers with the area, safety, upkeep, advertising and total group wanted to arrange a pattern sale, when requested if pattern gross sales are finally extra rewarding than conventional purchasing experiences. “You have to weigh the pros and cons. For the shoppers that want that love and attention, that catering, we do that to the best of our abilities […] but there are, like, 700,800 people down there.”

Home to between 10 to 20 recorded pattern gross sales on a median month, New York is the undisputed capital of shopping for high-end vogue items on a funds. This city-specific high quality has a twin supply. On the 1 hand, New Yorkers love the fun of the hunt and the rating of a deal (who doesn’t get pleasure from successful?). Simultaneously, the town “was [always] the epicenter of where [dress] samples would pile up and need to be liquidated,” explains Assaf Azani, vp of 260SampleSale. Logistically talking, the varied “leftover” items are already within the metropolis — why not attempt to make a last-minute revenue off a minimum of a few of them?

Image: Getty Images

“Sample sales have changed so much over the years,” says an skilled sample-sale affiliate who leads 2 main gross sales annually. She’s agreed to talk on situation of anonymity given her in depth contacts within the retail business. “I remember when […] it was a true ‘sample’ sale. Meaning a rack of samples and damaged items with markings that could definitely not be sold in a store.” Given the success of the gross sales, the occasions started shifting in high quality to be able to entice a fair higher number of prospects that would doubtlessly liquidate a fair larger roster of items that may doubtless not be bought in any other case. As manufacturers started recognizing a purchaser’s higher psychological disposition to buy an merchandise when confronted with the phrase “sale” — particularly in a do-or-die state of affairs — the pattern sale shifted in nature.

“I think all brands mark up their prices with the intention of putting it on sale,” says the affiliate. “I think now these brands are taking advantage and sell one rack of samples at true sample prices and the rest is just leftover stock at department store prices or online sale price. [You go to the sample sale and see] brand new merchandise in plastic and on hangers as if in a stockroom of a department store.” The pattern sale remains to be a sale, however not simply of samples.

“No, not at all,” says Steven Dann, proprietor of 2 eponymous high-luxury boutiques on Long Island when requested whether or not he believes that manufacturers whose merchandise he sells worth their gadgets understanding that they’ll finally be bought at a reduction throughout a sale. He additionally runs pattern gross sales on the finish of every season, attempting to prepare them when “there are only one of each item left,” clearly preserving the aura of exclusivity that has all the time outlined high-end (and high-price) merchandise.

“We always try to get the most competitive pricing,” says Azani whereas discussing the method concerned in pricing each bit. “In fact, when most clients come with a very aggressive price, we’re not ones to dissuade them. If anything, those are the sales that are the most memorable. Those are the sales that people go back to the office with two huge shopping bags and start talking to their co-workers about what they found for $25.” 

Yet, unsurprisingly, the steepness of the sale worth doesn’t deter customers from asking for much more reductions. DiGiovanna mentions fairly a little bit of haggling through the occasions, “but we have a strict policy: The price that our client sets is the price we sell it for.” All leftover merchandise is finally returned to the consumer on the ultimate day of the sale.

Emilia, one of many brides who discovered her dress on the Oscar de la Renta sale, echoes Azani’s feeling towards the eternal reminiscence of a very good sale. “I went to a wedding salon and tried on a few dresses, but the prices for the dresses that I liked and I would want were really high,” she remembers. “My mom had told me that a sample sale was coming up so I went into [the wedding salon] knowing that I would end up buying the dress at a sale.” The robe she bought on the Oscar de la Renta pattern sale got here with a 90 percent-off price ticket.

Sure, manufacturers might worth their choices understanding that they’ll finally host a pattern sale. “The department stores have been undercutting full price retail [too],” says Azani. And it’s frequent for shoppers to attend till coveted merchandise goes on sale at shops like J.Crew, Gap or Aritzia — as a result of it is going to. (All of these shops declined to touch upon this story.) But from a buyer’s perspective, what would the opposite possibility be? Not personal the piece in any respect? “There’s a barrier to entry for a lot of brands,” feedback Azani when discussing what he believes to be the final word enchantment of a sale. “I think a lot of customers may know of a brand but never actually bothered walking into the store or touching the product or thought of buying the product because it is out of their [price] range. So, the minute you bring it to the sample sale, it’s piquing everybody’s interest.”

Azani’s logic is, nicely, logical. You won’t ever be capable of afford that full-price Balenciaga bag — however as soon as the pattern sale hits, whether or not the worth of the bag is inflated or not is inappropriate. What counts is that the bag is now inside your funds.

Dann begs to vary. “In my opinion, your typical sample sale is the worst thing that has happened to fashion,” he says by way of e-mail. “Don’t get me wrong, I know the people who can’t afford retail are thrilled for a sample sale, but these have hurt the business as a whole.” As approach of clarification, the boutique proprietor mentions the standing and exclusivity concerned in having the ability to afford an costly merchandise. “The full price client now thinks twice about spending $6,000 on a Nancy Gonzalez bag at Bergdorf Goodman,” he says. “Because she knows that her friend bought the same bag she bought last season, two months later for 60 percent off.”

Given the legal guidelines of provide and demand, Dann’s argument follows logic. The cheaper the product, the higher the variety of potential patrons. The higher the variety of potential patrons, the decrease the worth of the article. The dramatic consequence? Poof, no extra high-end vogue business. Whether the result is finally dangerous or good, whether or not the happiness of the averagely salaried American trumps that of the wealthy American (who needs to be the one 1 to ever be capable of afford that $6,000 Nancy Gonzalez bag) is a matter of opinion and perspective. But 1 factor is for certain: Putting that Oscar de la Renta robe on understanding that I paid a fraction of what Mr. de la Renta initially requested me to pay, albeit bra-less, feels oh-so-sweet… contemplating I simply spent $600 on a pair of Gucci loafers — at a reduction!

Originally posted on StyleCaster.

Source: fitnesscaster.com Source: Bodiz Wonder