#even without the accessibility issue these descriptions are still necessary for information sharing

[gayvampyr]

wouldn’t it be cool if more posts had image descriptions

[morneboshoff]

When is it Time for a Website Refresh?

You’ve heard the old adage… You have 6 seconds to convince a website visitor that your website is the website they’ve been searching for – before they hit that back button.

So keeping your website up-to-date is no longer a matter of preference, it’s a matter of survival.

If it’s been a while since you’ve updated your website, it might be a good idea to consider updating the elements on your website like the content, the design, adding new content or completely overhauling your website as part of a major redesign.

Does your website need a refresh?

So What’s a Refresh?

A business changes as it grows. The same is true with your website. As you create your website, make sure it reflects the business it represents.

Your website’s design will become outdated over time, that’s just how it goes. What was popular 2 or 3 years ago, can feel painfully outdated now (remember keyword clouds?) So refreshing the design is necessary to remain competitive.

Does Your Website Need a Refresh?

If your website has been up for a while, it may be a challenge to know when it’s time to update it. But here are some signs it’s time.

The design of your site is not appealing anymore

Conversions are low

Nothing is interesting or exciting on your website

Ineffective communication with website visitors

Leads aren’t coming in like they did before

Bounce rates are high

Recognize any of these? If so it may be time to make some minor updates or revamp your entire website. It just depends on your situation.

Here are 7 ways you can refresh your website

1. The Basics

Let’s start with the basics. The look and feel of your website can be dramatically updated simply by choosing a more modern fonts set to revamp its overall look. Even small changes can significantly impact transforming an old site into something new and impressive. Google fonts is free, and offers many great options.

2. Consider a redesign – when you need more than the basics

Your website plays a big part in the identity of your business. The way your website looks will have a big impact on the way your visitors feel when they land on your website. What will their first impression be? Are they going to want to do business with you? You are not doing yourself any favors by still using outdated stock graphics and imagery.

Your brand’s identity is shaped by elements like layout, fonts, colors, etc. To keep your website looking crisp, determine which sections have aged gracefully and which areas need improvement.

Replace your outdated images & graphics with a mix professionally taken photos of your staff and business along with some carefully curated high end stock images.

Choose a simple, clean font will make your site look sleek and modern. For example, Google Fonts offers many free typefaces.

An updated color palette can also improve the experience of your visitors.

3. Improve Your Communication

We’ve talked about the 6 seconds you have to grab your visitors attention and keep them on your website so it’s not a surprise that there’s little time for you to get your message across.

Regardless of what you sell, the customer is primarily interested in how you will help them solve their problem. It’s always about them, whatever you say. So make sure visitors can find the content they are looking for without a lot of clicking around.

Speaking of communication it’s a good idea to sprinkle in a variety of compelling and relevant CTAs on your site. Believe it or not, your visitors aren’t mind readers so you need to tell them how they take the next step. CTAs provide various options for the visitor to take action, such as:

“Call Now”

“Book Your Appointment Today”

“Join Now by clicking here,”

“Get started Today”

“Connect with us Today”

“Get your free ______ today”

“Signup today and get ________ “

And don’t forget about social sharing buttons.

The most important thing is that your CTA’s should be well-designed and strategically placed in areas where clients can easily see them.

Pro tip: Make sure that your CTA’s contrast well with the rest of your design but don’t get blend into the rest of your content. CTA’s are most effective when they look like buttons.

4. Improve Your User Experience

You must design your website so that the customer can navigate through it quickly. Your site will attract more visitors if it is easy to navigate. Just a few changes to your menu and checking that every link works can make a massive difference in the over all user experience.

Your navigation consists of links connecting your website’s pages. Carefully examine all your website pages and make sure they are still relevant and organized.

Test your links. Make sure that they don’t lead to 404 Error (Page Not Found). This makes your website appear not maintained and sloppy. Take a look at all the links on your site, including internal and external, and ensure they’re taking your visitors where you want them to go.

5. Analyze Your Website Content – And See Where You Stand

It’s not only about looks when it comes to refreshing a website. Your site must be considered current. Ensuring that what you are saying is valid, helpful, and readable to your visitors. So how can you determine whether your content is new, high-quality, and up-to-date?

By conducting a content audit.

A content audit is intended to assess which links get indexed by search engines, which need to be refreshed and no longer exist. Here are some basic steps you need to follow:

Compile all your databases and sitemaps. The sitemap is a document that lists your site’s pages, videos, and other files along with their relationships. Data from your website is organized into your website’s internal database.

Your site’s URLs are indexed by web crawlers who collect content throughout the Internet. An algorithm can be applied to web crawler data to find relevant links in response to specific search terms and keywords. We recommend using Google Analytic, Google Webmaster Tools, and Screaming Frog for crawling website content.

Content auditing can go beyond essentials: You can use titles, descriptions, and word count as primary criteria for content auditing. All of your content entries should contain these elements.

Check organic search, conversions, publish date, time-on-site, page views, load speed, and mobile-responsiveness, too.

The number of conversions divided by unique visits is the conversion rate. By measuring this metric, you can determine if your website traffic is profitable.

Time-on-site is pretty self-explanatory: it’s the amount of time your visitors spend on each of your pages. Content audits can benefit from this metric since you get a clear idea of the performance of your online content.

A page-per-visit measurement indicates how much content is viewed per visit. In most cases, it is presented as an average, which is calculated by dividing the total number of visitors by the total number of page views.

The slower your page loads, the fewer pages search engines can crawl, affecting your search engine rankings.

Take a good thorough look at your content: Identity what content no longer reflects your current business and goals and delete it. Do you need to rewrite or update anything? Is there anything that needs some attention?

Note: It is essential to perform two separate content audits if your website has Desktop and Mobile versions as their codebases are different.

6. Competitor Analysis

You should also examine how your competitors’ sites can be improved while evaluating the same areas where yours could be better. Are they doing anything new on their website that is working? Is their website more responsive than yours? Have they made updates to their website recently?

Aside from seeing what your competitors’ websites look like, it would help if you also figured out which websites link to them. Is it possible to obtain links from these same websites, or can you get links from other high-ranking websites? This is authority backlinking 101 & makes a huge impact on your rankings.

7. Make Sure Applications Are Maintained

Now that you have updated your contact information, added some fresh content, and checked for broken links, make sure that all of your web apps are functioning properly. For your tech to keep pace with your business growth, it must adapt and grow along with it.

App management practices include testing and debugging software, enhancing technology and site functionality, updating and maintaining existing security protocols, maintaining new browser versions, creating and maintaining 3rd party integrations, and more. It is very important to maintain your website’s modules, code, plugins and integrations to avoid various issues.

Honorary Mention: A Mobile-Responsive Website

This one is obvious and goes without saying. But nobody is surprised when I say smartphones are the most popular way people access the web. And a lot of them never use anything other than their phone so to say mobile responsiveness is important would be an understatement.

Plus Google favors mobile web-optimized websites in its search rankings and penalizes those that aren’t.

In conclusion, keep it simple. Think marathon, not a race.

A website refresh can be as extensive as you want to make it… Just like any renovation. Although we’ve covered many small changes you can make to your website some will make a much bigger impact than others. But do not under-estimate the end result.

So what now? evaluate your needs and make a plan of attack – and then get started on it. There’s no time like right now.

DOWNLOAD YOUR DIGITAL STRATEGY PLANNING TEMPLATE

[bestbranddesign]

10 Guidelines for Good Web Design: How to Learn Web Designing

Know about Web Design Guides

Summary: A website's success or failure is determined by its usability and usefulness, not its graphic design. User-centric architecture has become a common method for efficient and profit-oriented web design because the viewer to the website is the only one who clicks the mouse and therefore decides everything. Overall, if consumers can't access a feature, it's as if it doesn't exist at all.

We won't go into interface execution specifics (like where the search box should go) because it has already been covered in a variety of articles; instead, we'll concentrate on the key concepts, heuristics, and approaches for successful web design — approaches that, when applied correctly, will lead to more nuanced design decisions and make the process of perceiving provided knowledge easier. we have mentioned about HTML, coding, new website, website WordPress menu, website portfolio, desktop, and more.

Please keep in mind that you may be involved in the following usability-related posts that we've previously published:

• Excellent Web Design Principles: Craftsmanship

• 30 Usability Issues to Be Aware Of

• 9 Common Usability Mistakes In Web Design

Principles Of Good Responsive Website Design And Effective Web Design Guidelines

To better apply the concepts, we must first comprehend how people communicate with websites, how they think, and what the fundamental characteristics of their actions are.

What are the thoughts of the user?

Essentially, consumers' web activities are close to those of shoppers in a shop. Visitors take a brief glance at each new page, scroll through some of the text, and then click on the first link that piques their attention or looks slightly like what they're looking for. In reality, they don't even look at a significant portion of the website.

Necessary of web or web design or ux design

The majority of users look for something fascinating (or useful) and clickable, and when they see any promising candidates, they click. If the current page does not meet the user's standards, the user hits the Back button and the search ends. • Users respect consistency and trustworthiness. Users are able to sacrifice content for advertisers and the site's architecture if a website presents them with high-quality content. This explains why poorly built websites with high-quality content attract a large amount of traffic over time. The architecture that supports the content is less important than the content itself. • Users search rather than read. When users examine a web page, they look for fixed points or anchors that will lead them through the material.

• Internet consumers are frustrated and seek quick satisfaction. Easy principle: If a website fails to satisfy customers' needs, the author has struggled to do his job correctly, and the business has lost revenue. Users are more likely to abandon a website to look for alternatives if the cognitive load is heavy and the navigation is difficult. [DWU / JN]

• Users do not make the right decisions. Users aren't searching for the fastest way to get the details they need. They still don't search webpages in a sequential way, going from one part of the site to the next. Users, on the other hand, are happy to settle for the first rational choice. There's a fair chance they'll click a connection that seems to lead to the target as soon as they find it. Optimizing is difficult and time-consuming. Satisficing is a more effective way of doing it. • Users are guided by their instincts. In most instances, consumers muddle along rather than reading the detail given by the designer. The primary cause for this, according to Steve Krug, is that consumers are unconcerned. “Once we discover something that fits, we don't stray from it. We don't care if we understand how things work as long as we can bring them to use. If you want your viewers to believe you're building billboards, then make amazing billboards.”

• Consumers like to be in control. Users want to be able to monitor their browser and believe that data will be viewed consistently on the web. They don't want new windows to show up randomly, because they want to be able to return to the place they were on before using the "Back" icon, so it's best not to open connections in new browser windows.

1. Website or Web design details: Don't Ask Users to Consider

The web page should be obvious and self-explanatory, according to Krug's first rule of usability. When you're building a website, the goal is to eliminate the question marks — the choices that people would make deliberately, weighing pros and cons and contemplating alternatives. The number of question marks increases as the navigation and site design become less understandable, making it more difficult for users to grasp how the system operates and how to navigate from point A to point B. Users will navigate their way to their destination with the aid of a simple layout, mild visual cues, and clearly identifiable connections.

Consider the following situation. “Beyond networks, beyond brands, beyond distribution,” says Beyondis.co.uk. What does this imply? These three statements will be the first items users see on the page after it is loaded, so users prefer to explore websites in the "F"-pattern.

Although the interface is straightforward and intuitive, the user must look for the answer to learn what the page is for. This is what an extra question mark feels like. The designer's responsibility is to keep the amount of question marks as minimal as possible. The graphic description is on the right side of the page. Simply replacing all blocks would improve usability.

ExpressionEngine follows the same structure as Beyondis, but without the extra question marks. Furthermore, the phrase takes on new meaning as users are given the option to check out the service and trial the free edition.

Reduced cognitive load makes it easier for tourists to understand the system's concept. If you've done so, you'll be able to explain why the system is beneficial and how people will learn from it. People would not use the web blog if it is difficult to access.

2. Don't Exhaust Your Consumers' Time

When you're working on a project and you're trying to give your visitors a program or a tool, try to keep your customer expectations as low as possible. The fewer steps people must take in order to test a program, the more likely a random tourist would do so. First-time users tend to gamble with the app rather than filling out lengthy online applications for an account they might never use again. Allow people to browse the web and learn about the offerings without being forced to share personal information. Asking users to submit an email address in order to test a feature is unfair.

According to Ryan Singer, a developer on the 37Signals team, users would be more likely to give an email address if they were asked after seeing the feature in action and understanding what they would get in exchange.

Stikkit is an excellent example of a user-friendly service that needs virtually no interaction from the visitor and is unobtrusive and relaxing. And that's how you want your visitors to feel as they visit your web blog.

Mite, it seems, demands more. The registration, on the other hand, can be completed in under 30 seconds, thanks to the form's horizontal orientation, which removes the need for the user to scroll the tab. Drop any obstacles as far as possible; don't need subscriptions or registrations first. The mere act of registering a user is enough to stifle user navigation and reduce incoming traffic.

3. Ensure the users' attention is focused.

Since web pages contain both static and interactive content, certain features of the user experience are more noticeable than others. Obviously, pictures attract more interest than words, just as bolded sentences attract more attention than plain text.

Online users can easily perceive edges, shapes, and gestures because the human eye is an extremely non-linear system. This is why video-based ads are particularly irritating and distracting, but they do an outstanding job at catching consumers' interest from a marketing standpoint.

Humanized makes excellent use of the concentration concept. The only thing that consumers can see clearly is the word "free," which is enticing and desirable while remaining calm and purely informational. Users are given ample information on how to learn more about the "easy" commodity through subtle hints. By using visual elements to draw users' attention to particular parts of the web, you can help the guests get from point A to point B without having to worry about how to do it. The less concerns tourists have, the greater their sense of direction and the more confidence they can build in the business portrayed by the web. In other words, the less thinking that would occur behind the scenes, the greater the user interface, which is the primary goal of usability.

4. Aim for Feature Exposition

Modern web designers are often chastised for directing users by visually pleasing 1-2-3-done-steps, large buttons with visual effects, and so on. However, from a concept perspective, these components aren't inherently a bad thing. These guides, on the other hand, are highly useful because they direct users through the site's content in a very simple and user-friendly manner.

Dibusoft blends an appealing aesthetic with a well-organized web. The site's key navigation tools are available at first sight, and there are nine of them. However, the color scheme can be too light. A basic concept of good user interface design is to make it transparent to the user what features are accessible. It makes no difference if this is done. What counts is that guests are happy with how they communicate with the framework and that the material is well-understood.

5. Make Effective Writing a Part Of Your Strategy

Since the Web differs from print, it's important to tailor the writing style to the tastes and browsing habits of your audience. Promotional copy can not be read. Large blocks of text without pictures, as well as keywords in bold or italics, would be skipped. Excessive phrasing would be overlooked.

Let's talk about business. Stop titles that are funny or creative, marketing-driven, company-specific, or technical names that are obscure. For eg, if you're explaining a web and want people to build an account, "sign up" is superior to "start now!" and "explore our services."

Eleven2 doesn't waste much time getting to the stage. There are no sweet phrases or exaggerated stories. Instead, there is a price, which is just what tourists are looking for. Use short and concise phrases (get to the point as quickly as possible), scannable layout (categorize the content, use several heading levels, use visual elements and bulleted lists to break up the flow of uniform text blocks), and plain and objective language (a promotion doesn't have to sound like an advertisement; give your users some r

6. Attempt Simplicity

The KIS theory (keep it simple) should be the primary objective of site design. Users seldom use a site for the sake of the design; in reality, in most cases, they are searching for details regardless of the design. Rather than trying to be complicated, aim for consistency.

From the visitors' perspective, the best web design is pure text, with no ads or other page blocks that precisely complement the question or content they were looking for. One of the reasons that a user-friendly print edition of web pages is important for a positive user experience is because of this.

Finch delivers site material in a straightforward and concise manner, giving users a variety of choices without overwhelming them with needless information.

7. You Shouldn't Be Scared Of White Space

In reality, it's difficult to overestimate the value of white space. It not only helps guests minimize their cognitive burden, but it also allows them to understand the information shown on the computer. When a new user appears at a design layout, the first thing he or she does is search the web and break the subject field into conveniently digestible chunks.

Reading, scanning, analyzing, and working with complex systems is more difficult. If you have the option of using a visible line or other whitespace to separate two template parts, the whitespace approach is typically preferred. Complexity is reduced by hierarchical constructs (Simon's Law): the more you can give people a sense of visual hierarchy, the simpler your content would be to understand.

White space is beneficial. White space is a significant design feature on Cameron.io. The end result is a scannable layout that gives the material the prominence it deserves.

8. Use "Visible Language" to Communicate Easily

Aaron Marcus notes three basic concepts inherent in the use of so-called "seen text" — the information people see on a computer — in his articles on efficient visual communication.

• Organize: provide the consumer a logical and coherent philosophical framework. Organizational principles such as consistency, screen structure, partnerships, and navigability are essential. All elements shall follow the same conventions and laws.

• Save money by having as few prompts and graphic elements as possible. Simplicity, consistency, distinctiveness, and concentration are the four major points to remember. Only the most essential components for contact are used in simplicity. Clarity: All elements should be built in such a way that their purpose is obvious. Distinctiveness: The necessary elements' critical properties should be distinguishable. The most significant elements can be readily identifiable.

• Communicate: tailor the presentation to the user's skills. In order to interact efficiently, the user interface must combine legibility, readability, typography, symbolism, different viewpoints, and colour or texture. Using a maximum of three typefaces with a maximum of three point sizes per line of text, with a maximum of 18 words or 50-80 characters per line.

9. The Conventions Are Our Allies

A dull web is not the product of conventional site element architecture. Conventions, in particular, are extremely beneficial because they minimize the learning curve and the need to find out how things function. For example, if all websites displayed RSS feeds differently, it will be a usability nightmare. That's similar to how we arrange data (folders) or shop in our everyday lives (placement of products). You can gain users' respect, loyalty, and durability by using conventions, and you can also prove your reputation. Understand what users want from a site's navigation, text layout, and search placement, among other aspects.

A common example from usability sessions is to translate the web into Japanese (assuming the site visitors don't speak the language, e.g. with Babelfish) and give the usability testers the challenge of finding something in the translated page. Users would be able to accomplish a non-specific goal if conventions are followed correctly, even if they don't comprehend a word of it.

According to Steve Krug, it's best to invent only when you're certain you have a better idea, and to depend on conventions when you don't.

Tags: web design, ux web design, web design gallery, web hosting, responsive web, ux design, web logo, adaptive web, images for web, research web design, web research, choose best web design, website design or web design, website design portfolio, web WordPress, work for web design, responsive HTML, web design experience, work for web design, know coding for web design, ux ui

10. Test Early and Often

This so-called TETO-principle should be extended to any web design project because usability testing will also expose serious problems and issues with a layout.

Testing should not be done too late, too low, or for the wrong reasons. In the latter example, it's important to note that most design choices are local, which means you can't tell if one layout is better than another without evaluating it from a very particular viewpoint (considering requirements, stakeholders, budget etc.).

There are a few things to keep in mind:

• According to Steve Krug, testing one user is better than testing zero, and testing one user early in the project is better than testing 50 users at the end. According to Boehm's first theorem, mistakes arise more often during specifications and design tasks, and the longer they go uncorrected, the more costly they get.

• Testing is a continual operation. That is, you plan something, test it, repair it, and test it once more. There may be concerns that were not identified during the first round when users were essentially blocked by other issues.

• Usability evaluations consistently yield valuable results.

• A developer is unsuitable to test his or her code, according to Weinberg's rules. This is also so for artists. After a few weeks of working on a platform, you can no longer look at it with new eyes. You know how it's made, but you know precisely how it works — you have the experience that impartial reviewers and site users don't.

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Additional Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_design

https://wordpress.org/showcase/tag/web-design/

https://www.wikihow.com/Learn-Web-Design

Location: https://goo.gl/maps/FnRzFUVMwwopXahE8

[storytellersys]

Operation Alarm Clock

Hornet here. Upon realizing that, in theory, we could access any location and time within Hallownest’s history—so long as we didn’t visibly fuck up the timeline so events that needed to happen—I immediately pushed for saving my mom. Long post, the rest is under the cut.

(One of my moms, anyway, Spidermom. Although saving Beemom might also be very possible with some well-placed illusion magic... and she might not be the only one. This needs more thought later but if I’m right, we might be making Ze’mer very, very happy.) 

Of course, we still had to get a portal working. Our current ones are bright pink and can only be maintained by someone currently within the headspace, and we’ve got a room above our “control room” (think a basement room with a big couch, a TV screen showing whatever the current fronter is looking at, and a tiny lightbulb with a chain up top to complete the aesthetic) that we’ve designated our “portal room” just to keep things out of the way.

(We’ll actually try to make up a floor plan/description of what our headspace is like at some point. But if I do that now, I’m never going to write this out.)

...hold that thought, kitten just got up onto a shelf I didn’t think she could get to. Really should have known better. I’m, collectively, about 1/5 of her mom. She learned from the best.

Okay, kitten has been somewhat dissuaded for now, where was I?

Right. Portals. By the time we got one properly working to Hallownest, Pyrrha had already showed up in the middle of the night and had somewhat adjusted to Life in the System. I think our first attempts were directed to Tamriel, and Ayrenn’ll give more details on her shenanigans there at some point.

Eventually, though? We got to Hallownest. Specifically, we wanted to portal to Monomon, some time before the Dreamers were sealed away, because I knew she had been instrumental in crafting the sealing spell, and if anyone could A) make it so that the Dreamers didn’t just instantly die when their seal was broken and B) slip it past a certain bastard bug of a king, it would be Monomon.

Contacting Monomon, however, had its own problems. Specifically, that we couldn’t let her know too much about the future (though we knew better than to think she wouldn’t figure some shit out on her own) and that we’d need something to offer her.

Figuring out what to offer Monomon was easy. Simply by virtue of being a system in this world, where metric fucktons of other worlds are seen as fictional, we could offer her information on absolutely anything this world has to offer. Also, preventing her own death is always a good incentive.

The other issue was how much she could know. I’m still our only bug (barring Holly, and they started visiting after this operation’s conclusion) so unless we really wanted to try disguising someone else, I was the one who had to reach out. I knew better than to think she wouldn’t figure out who I was sooner or later, and given some of the things she got up to in her Archives without anyone knowing until after she was gone, she could clearly lie well.

We settled on answering her questions if she asked them, but making it abundantly clear that absolutely no one could know any of this. And so, we opened our first portal to Hallownest, and I stepped into a side room of the Teacher’s Archives. Tubes upon tubes of acid adorned the room, all undoubtedly holding valuable information. In the middle, with her back to me, was Monomon herself. Very much alive, and very much not asleep.

I admit I may have given her a bit of a scare to start off. I will not apologize for that because it was funny as hell.

Our plan was to tell her what she needed to know (specifically: what we could do, what she needed to do, and what we could offer her in return) and offer more if she asked, after we (I) made it abundantly clear that this was not to be shared with anyone, and especially not PK. 

She figured out almost immediately who I was, because I apparently act a lot like Spidermom (shocker) and Monomon knew what Spidermom had asked for in return for being a Dreamer. Seeing me all grown up made it clear that I was a time traveler as well. Technically speaking.

I only got about twenty minutes there, compared to an hour here. Time in my version of Hallownest goes one hour for every three hours in this world (which was an unwelcome surprise when compared with the three hours in Ayrenn’s Tamriel for every one hour in this world) but I did manage to get her curious enough to hear me out. We did some more experimentation to make sure Hallownest’s end of things would work out, I unintentionally gained a fourth mom (thanks Monomom), and finally we hit upon our master plan.

We would bring Monomon over first of the Dreamers, because she already knew what was going on and certainly wasn’t averse to spending some time in our headspace while we figured other shit out. Specifically, we’d aim for right after Ghost whacked them several times with their nail, but before Ghost woke up.

You see, Monomom modified the spell so that it wouldn’t just kill the Dreamers upon the Seals breaking, it would just wake them up... possibly not immediately, so we were prepared to grab and yeet bugs into headspace if necessary. (Monomom was quite certain that Lurien would be the easiest yeet. She was eventually correct.)

(Monomom also shared some rather disturbing things involving PK that even I didn’t know, such as that she attempted to rescue some of the vessels stuck in the Abyss and may have actually been responsible for Ghost’s eventual escape, and that PK had been oddly insistent on making sure that the sealing spell did not allow for any possibility of the Dreamers’ survival, should it be broken. More reasons to hate my shitty, shitty dad. More reasons to appreciate R’s.)

After some incidents including but not limited to me nearly walking right into past PK, and quite a lot of testing to make sure it would work (or be as sure as we could,) it was finally time. We opened a portal to the exact moment Ghost broke the seal. Pyrrha used her semblance to yeet a maybe half-awake Monomon through the portal, I threw a letter Monomon had previously written at Quirrel as well as a headspace-made device we’ve rather imaginatively dubbed a notification stick, and we bounced.

(In retrospect, that was why Quirrel was still around in my memories. He knew Monomon was coming back, and he knew not to let anything on to my past self. His job was one of the most important: to press the button on the notification stick about a day after past Hornet left for Silksong adventures so we’d know when to drop the Dreamers back off.)

Monomon was in here for about a day, and fronted for a little over an hour. She had a great time, I’m pretty sure, though she’s yet to return or front again. I assume because she’s pretty busy, which is understandable and also a big fucking mood.

With Monomon a resounding success, next on the list was Spidermom, Herrah the Beast. She was a bit more difficult, given that I had to actually talk to my past self.

It worked out, well enough. Barring the fact that I had no memory of that conversation from the other side, but we can attribute that to system weirdness.

We grabbed Lurien shortly after, and then opened up one final portal. Previously, we’d been using our notification sticks merely as signals that we should head over to x world as soon as possible. What we homed in on, however, was the action of Quirrel heading outside Dirtmouth, and pressing the button.

After that, it was out of our hands. But I’m told Lurien gathered some things from his spire and moved into Dirtmouth, Spidermom is working on rebuilding Deepnest now that the Infection is gone, and Monomom is, unsurprisingly, experimenting away in Fog Canyon.

This mission was a resounding success. (And this is honestly the abridged version of it, but it proved that we could in fact fix some things in any of our worlds.)

Hornet out.

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 27: AMJ #3.1

Previous Part

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Master Post

*pinches bridge of nose* Oh my God this is so bad

I was hoping last issue was a fluke but no. This issue also demands we dissect the recap page.

Let me just spell out for you all some fundamental dos and don’ts of a recap page.

DO please recap  the events that happened in prior issues, or relevant context from any other issues.

DON’T introduce new information.                                                                    

Last issue was guilty of that. And now so is this issue, arguably moreso.

This recap provides us with the working title for the Mysterio biopic. That’s right, the very first time we learn the name of the movie  is on this recap page not in the actual story!

Want to hear another oh so slightly important DON’T to bear in mind?

DON’T contradict the story you are recapping!

The recap claims funding dried up when the footage of Beck abusing a crewmember leaked. That wasn’t the situation in issue #2. MJ speculated  that that might be part  of the reason. But the bigger reason was that Beck had sold the investors one one type of film and delivered another.

Let’s also consider this line from the recap.

…video of Cage acting more like, well, Mysterio…

So the recap (and by extension Williams, the editors and presumably MJ herself) acknowledge that Mysterio being abusive is standard practice for him. Good to know they are aware he’s a horrible dangerous person but are just ignoring that then.

The recap also confirms for us that MJ is definitely the only person who knows ‘McKnight’ is really Beck. So absolutely everyone on the crew are unwittingly putting themselves at risk, and MJ is just letting that happen. If they knew they might not want to work with him for one reason or another, but MJ and Beck are knowingly withholding that choice from them. It doesn’t matter that they are only getting this shot because of Beck’s charity, at least some of them would think twice if they were aware of the potential scandal they were working on.

The recap also contradicts last issue’s recap in regards to the staff of the movie. Last time it was staffed by ‘outsiders’ but now it’s ‘newcomers, rejects and outsiders’. Which is it? I’m not claiming this is irreconcilable or that big of a deal storywise but it’s another example of the incompetent craftsmanship on this title. Not to mention this recap again omits the fact that active villains are working on the film.

The recap also implies Mary Jane is ‘invested’ in the film. Let me get this out of the way now to save myself time later. Mary Jane wouldn’t be invested in this movie, at least not the way the story is depicting her as.

To a large extent this touches upon earlier instalments where I explained why MJ wouldn’t sympathise with Beck, why she wouldn’t regard him as a kindred spirit and why she wouldn’t value her career above the greater good. 

Having said all that I don’t feel it’s necessary to dedicate a whole instalment to why MJ wouldn’t  be invested in the movie. The idea that MJ would endanger herself and others for the sake of an artistic project  she believed in or was interested in is fucking ridiculous. 

The idea she’d be chummy with Mysterio is fucking ridiculous given their shared history and what she knows about him. But, just as a little reminder, here is Daredevil v2 #8, where MJ basically says Beck deserves no pity.

As we open up the story proper, Mallorie rescues a veteran actor (Sonny Diperna) cast as the Vulture. Specifically she rescues him from the Scorpion who trashes the set.

This scene has an admittedly funny meta-gag about Michael Keaton having played both Adrian Toomes in the MCU and Birdman in the eponymous movie.

Mallorie is also pretty cool here. Initially I was going to complain about how unlikely it is for there to be two  capable and resourceful civilians in this story (MJ and Mallorie). However, in thinking about it, MJ didn’t become  resourceful in the first place due to rare life circumstances. Therefore it’s perfectly reasonable that Mallorie be similarly resourceful in a crisis. Plus her job on set opens up the idea that she knows how to muddle through a crisis.

On the next two pages Vulture menaces the set and we are more formally introduced to his Savage Six. They consist of Vulture, Scorpion, Stegron, Tarantula (I don’t know which one), Rhino and King Cobra.

Whilst Williams characterization of Beck is generally great (albeit too sympathetic) the same can’t be said of Vulture. Making art or artistic vision a theme for this series (and Mysterio specifically) is perfectly invited by the premise of the story. However, it’s very ill fitting for a character like Vulture. Vulture is absolutely not  defined by that theme whatsoever. He’s an inventor. He’s a grumpy, bitter old man. He’s someone who’s got a chip on his shoulder, out to prove that he isn’t passed his prime.

With that said, what the Hell is up with this dwelling upon ‘art’ in these two pages?

Fleeing the chaos, Diperna mistakes the villains as part of the film; a fact Mallorie goes along with. As Kangaroo (who’s basically the muscle on set) gets defeated, MJ and Beck try to escape. MJ insists they get the staff to safety which Beck agrees with, deciding to act as a diversion. MJ is concerned for his life, but Beck assures her it’ll be fine. Just then he’s dragged away by Scorpion.

MJ seeks out Noah from last issue and drives his truck towards the Rhino. 

The art isn’t exactly clear on what she does next, but the end result is that she’s gathered up all the cast and crew into the truck. Meanwhile, Beck begins to engage the six by conjuring his trademark green smoke. 

Mallorie and Diperna make it to the truck, with MJ lowering the ramp to allow them access. She is visibly concerned for Beck as they move out of sight of one another. The cast and crew for their part are star struck by Diperna. Diperna explains that he came out of retirement to play the Vulture as it was something different from the roles he was usually typecasted as.  He elaborates that the movie has Hollywood on edge and that the elites do not want the film to succeed. He joined the cast to help them out a bit.

Elsewhere, Mysterio duels the Savage Six. He uses his illusions to trick them into believing they are in the desert. As they begin miles of marching, Vulture speculates McKnight is a double agent for A.I.M.  When the illusion ends they find themselves at a national park, prompting Vulture to swear vengeance.

Much later MJ laughs at Beck’s trick complimenting his cleverness. However, the event has prompted several cast and crew to leave and delayed shooting even more. Thankfully Beck’s found a safe new location to film at.

Sorry for that lengthy description. I just felt it was more efficient to get through that whole sequence and then break it down fully.

First of all, see all my prior comments about how bullshit it is for MJ to compliment, laugh at, be concerned for, or be sympathetic towards Beck. I also find Williams choice to frame him in a heroic, self-sacrificing light to be questionable. He is after all none of those things. Just the last issue the story called out the movie as a vanity project.

Additionally, this whole situation is exemplary of many of the points I made in parts 19-23. Here we have a major crisis with super villains on the rampage. Civilians and property are in jeopardy.

And Mary Jane’s abilities to help are limited. They are in fact incredibly reliant upon Mysterio covering her. Noticeably, he  is the one actually fighting the Savage Six. MJ’s abilities to help are limited to shepherding  and transporting people to safety. But she’s only able to do that with Mallorie’s help and the presence of a huge truck that was there purely by chance.

What If Beck wasn’t present, or worse, on the Six’s side? What if Mallorie hadn’t saved Diperna? What if there hadn’t been a truck? How would MJ have succeeded realistically? I’m not saying it’s impossible but her chances of survival were slim at best and would’ve been reliant upon finding other  resources to exploit to her advantage.

Furthermore, the Knagaroo was  injured in the fray. Maybe not seriously, but he was nevertheless injured and MJ was powerless to prevent that. He was lucky to have survived at all, now imagine if he was a normal security guard who had no experience fighting super powered type? How likely would he have been to live?

Now of course, the Six’s attack wasn’t exactly Mysterio’s fault. We could argue if Beck hadn’t endeavoured to make the film or omitted to include the Vulture the situation might’ve been avoided. However, this isn’t the first production in the Marvel universe to include ‘real’ super villains. Had the real Cage McKnight (or any director) made any movie featuring the Vulture at this time, it would’ve happened. In fact without MJ or Beck’s presence the cast and crew’s likely wouldn’t have fared as well.

Nevertheless, as far as MJ knows a similar situation could  have occurred (or could still unfold) with beck and/or his criminal crew. Last issue she already saw Beck start a panic in the streets by throwing a tantrum. She doesn’t know all the crew so well as to guarantee they wouldn’t do anything nefarious. And in such a situation, her abilities to help would be extremely limited and situational, just like they were here. In fact if Beck has just explained to her how he single handily dealt with six  super villains (who’re all stronger than him by the way) shouldn’t that spell out to MJ just how dangerous he is? That he could very easily ‘deal’ with her too if he wanted to and her chances of victory would be extremely slim?

Then we have the revelation that cast and crewmembers have left the project. The implication is that these crewmembers left because of the Six’s attack. Either they were hurt or more likely they were concerned about the risk. However, none  of them were aware that they were already taking a big health/career risk by working under Mysterio himself; whilst he was stealing someone’s identity no less. MJ’s complicity in this deception is removing the agency of the cast and crew for no justifiable reason.

More problematically we don’t know if any of the crew who left were the active villains spoken of in issue #1. If they were then MJ has just allowed them to walk away without facing justice! And realistically given how they are fugitives and the film was a unique opportunity they are very probably going to go back to crime! But Mary Jane is laughing!

Now in the interests of fairness I should point out Beck did put himself at some risk for MJ and the others. This is one of the important factors that has led Peter to giving criminals a chance at redemption in the past. We looked at several of these back in part 10. However, noticeably most of those people weren’t as  bad as Beck. They also hadn’t hurt Peter or his loved ones as personally the way Beck has from MJ’s point of view. There were also other extenuating factors going on that led to Peter giving them a shot. Often this entailed Peter knowing there was something or someone capable of reliably  keeping the reforming criminals in check. Whether that was his own super human abilities or an official body monitoring them, the point is MJ hasn’t got anything like that in this situation.

Beck might’ve shown a glimmer of promise, but MJ is fully aware how villains like Venom and Sandman have displayed moments of self-sacrifice too. They’ve continued to do bad things in spite of that, or gone back on any promise they once showed. That doesn’t mean that Beck definitely would, but it’s a humongous gamble to take with no insurance.

And let’s remember what Beck was willing to sacrifice himself for? His cast and crew? No. His art. Look back at the page introducing the Six. Beck accuses them of being ‘Enemies of Art’.

Yes, the most generous interpretation is that Beck genuinely cares. But it’s also more than possible his care fro his cast and crew extends merely to their contributions to his vanity project.

On the next page we discover Beck’s new, safe location is something of a shithole. 

Beck’s hired a new crew, but with everything that’s happened cuts will need to be made. MJ suggests they cut the romance scene with her character. Beck points out that it’s less screen time for MJ. MJ counters it doesn’t take away from the hero’s development and that it was always self-indulgent anyway. She follows up that they are making a biopic, not a fantasy film. Beck seems miffed at this point.

There is a fair bit to unpack here.

MJ is being self-sacrificing here, which is true to her character. She’s allowing her career opportunities to suffer in order for the project over all to succeed. This further hurts the argument that MJ is sticking around for the sake of her career.

But the context is confusing.

In ASM v5 #29 dialogue from the script was ripped straight from Webspinners #1-3.

This dialogue involved Beck talking to an old flame (Betsy Schneider), arguably the only woman he was ever in love with. She was noticeably not  a super heroine, yet in the movie she was. I didn’t bother to bring that up before because, this being a vanity project, it’s not unbelievable that Beck would misrepresent his life inaccurately. ‘Look at me I got a sexy super hero for a girlfriend! Aren’t I cool!’.

MJ wouldn’t necessarily know the truth of Beck’s lover so I didn’t bring it up before. Here though, Williams is implying that she has sussed out that Beck was making that aspect up. At which point MJ should further realise the movie is an exercise in self-indulgence. She even says so in this scene.

More confusingly, in issue #1 Beck heavily implied to MJ that he was making this movie (and wanted her in it) largely because he felt he let Betsy down. That being the case, wouldn’t cutting out the romance undermine the point  of the movie? Or at least undermine it from MJ’s POV? Honestly, that’s not that big of a deal though. Beck’s motivations for making the film have already been contradicted since issue #1 anyway; it’s already a goddam mess.

Furthermore, the scene specifically says romance ‘scene’, as int eh singular. Call me crazy but whenever there is a romance between a protagonist and a love interest in a film their romance isn’t confined to just the ONE scene. It’s usually a few scenes at least. In this case, MJ’s character exists in the story fundamentally to be  Beck’s lover. She’s been given much more than that due to MJ’s suggestions in issue #1. But that was still the primary role she existed for. This means MJ’s role in the movie goes against the entire reason Beck included her. So why would he agree to that? Why would MJ suggest it if her investment hinges upon sympathy for Beck? She has basically taken Beck’s original intention for her character and gone from improving upon it to basically substituting all of his original intent for something else entirely.

She even calls its inclusion unrealistic. That could be a display of her trademark confidence (MJ is fully aware she is attractive) and/or a dig at Beck. Either way she’s tempting fate there. She already saw him throw a tantrum last issue and now she’s altered arguably the most important role in the movie to him and thrown shade at him over it. Real clever.

Additionally she refers to Beck’s role as the hero. This further contradicts issue #1’s assertions that the film was portraying Beck as a villain. It’s also rich for MJ to claim the romance should be cut as the film is a biopic. By that logic Beck shouldn’t be framed heroically, empathetically and the film should apologise for his acts of evil.

There is also a meta-argument to be made about Williams’ intentions with this page. It’s possible she’s critiquing the superfluous nature of so many romance stories in Hollywood films, arguably super hero films in particular. I don’t really have any praise or problems with that if it is the intent. Just thought I’d point it out.

As for the new crewmember…we’ll get to them later.

Over on the next page ‘McKnight’ tells Mallorie to give MJ a producer’s credit. Beck explains that the new location is an abandoned zoo, hence why it’s a shithole. He proceeds to introduce the new members of the crew.

The only thing of note is Beck giving MJ a producer credit. This raised an eyebrow from me because it epitomizes so much of MJ’s role in the story thus far. 

MJ’s most famous profession is an an actress. In the majority of adaptations that’s her job. It was part of how she was introduced to us in ASM #43. It’s one of the things that thematically connects her to Spider-Man. It’s also through her renewed interest in acting that we got this story. 

In fact MJ gave a heartfelt monologue specifically about acting in ASM v5 #25 and it was this monologue that led to her job on the biopic.

And yet in this story Mary Jane has spent very little time acting. The story itself has ruminated very little about her role as an actress or depicted her acting at all. Mysterio has been acting far more than Mary Jane has.

MJ’s main role thus far in the story has been as Beck’s right hand, as his producer.

Isn’t that rather problematic? That wasn’t the story as advertised in Spencer’s ASm run, nor even in the initial build up to AMJ’s release. It also goes against the themes that have traditionally defined Mary Jane, especially within the context of her actually working  on a movie.

I have a tinfoil hat idea as to why this might be the case though. Here is an excerpt from an interview Williams gave prior to issue #1’s release:

It's set in Hollywood and it's a film production, and my work background is actually in film production. I lived in LA for a little while. So drawing upon the full arsenal of my Hollywood hot mess stories of what goes on on film sets, that has been an absolute delight. Because then I can also demonstrate how MJ is able to think on her feet and be like, okay, well let's not do the bad thing. Instead, let's be smart about it. Very cathartic, again. So cathartic.

-From Bleeding Cool

I’m not going to presume working in ‘film production’ means Williams was a producer per se. I’ve also been unable to find any evidence that she was a credited producer nor that she worked as an actress.

But it seems to me Williams in drawing upon her personal experiences is skewing MJ more towards the jobs she personally did. In other words Williams is writing MJ as closer to a producer than an actress. It comes across very much like Spencer/the editors handed her a certain premise and she then terra formed it into what she wanted to do, rather than what the direction he set up implied.

That is all total speculation on my part. I have no hard proof at all to corroborate that.

But if that is what’s going on, then I find it kinda shitty. It’s not exactly what the role asked of her as a writer and more poignantly it’s not what MJ’s history invites either. It’s not that MJ couldn’t be a decent producer it’s just that that isn’t where the thematic resonance for her character lies. At least, not within the context of making a movie.

Let’s leave it there for now and continue next time.

Previous Part

Next Part

Master Post

[thekeyissue]

Reflections from a NYCC Panel: Chronic Illness, Disability, and the Comics Industry

During “The Creative Community, Disability, and Chronic Illness” panel at New York Comic Con this year, two overhead lights flickered nonstop, directly over the seated panelists. For most this was an annoyance – but for the presenter living with epilepsy, it made for a dangerous and unsafe environment. He had to wear sunglasses to avoid a potential seizure and participate in the panel meant to address this exact kind of issue.

It was embarrassing for everyone, and a perfect encapsulation of the state of support that the comics industry provides professionals who live with chronic illness and/or are differently abled. Giving conversations like this space and time at large events like NYCC is absolutely to be applauded, but clearly we are far from properly hearing, implementing feedback, and accommodating this community.

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The panel itself took place in the early afternoon on Friday of NYCC weekend in one of the smaller designated panel/screening spaces. Six panelists and a moderator, all of whom live with conditions that complicate their work, spoke to each other and a room that was about a third full (I’d guess around 50/60 people watching – not a bad turn out).

I slipped into the back of the audience right before the panel kicked off, deciding to attend somewhat at the last minute. I have a family member who lives with a chronic illness (but does not work in comics) - it can be burdensome for her (or any differently-abled or chronically ill person) to explain her day-to-day challenges on top of facing them – so I took this as an opportunity to gain a fuller understanding of what her life and coping may be like, while also learning about comic-specific issues. I mention the context of my attendance only because I believe the majority of the audience at the panel also had a direct or adjacent relationship with disability or chronic illness as well (this assumption comes from audience reactions I observed – nodding at points being made, voiced agreement, questions asked). To some degree that’s a shame – like many things, increasing awareness can be a huge catalyst for change, especially when many of the accommodations that would help this community stem directly from individuals’ awareness.

From the panel’s first minute a steady stream of personal blind spots were revealed to me – a both satisfying (learning more is so helpful) and disheartening (feeling inconsiderate/like a failure at having missed them) process that continued throughout the session. Helpfully, the panelists were all amazing speakers, projecting positivity and a clear desire to educate and spread awareness, even while recounting emotionally-charged, disrespectful, and challenging situations they’d experienced.

The hour-long conversation they held was serious, funny, charming, poignant, sad, hopeful, informative, and too short – but more than anything, it illustrated each panelist’s tenacity and bravery. Recounting difficult personal anecdotes and sharing emotional vulnerability in front of one person can be challenging – this group did it in front of an audience in the service of their community, a demonstration of toughness and grit that should be celebrated. I was surprised to learn that participating in the panel brought with it a potential risk and necessary braveness in and of itself. Many creators who fit the criteria for the panel turned it down to avoid publically revealing their condition, fearing companies and editors might subsequently not “risk” working with them. While examples of those who had treated the panelists with understanding and accommodation were given, the prevalent fear of losing work & money due to their conditions clearly suggests that decent companies/editors are more exception than rule. The world is already ill-suited to fit the needs of those who are differently abled or living with a chronic illness simply because they are not the majority – it’s a sad reality that this disadvantage is topped off with an increased risk of losing or not being able to find employment. It’s easy to see why this community is so tough and brave – they have no other choice.

The challenge of the comic convention setting was another major topic of conversation during the panel. Attending conventions is necessary to make (or try to make) a living wage in this industry, but most comic cons do a poor job of accommodating the differently-abled and chronically ill.  Surprisingly, even those that do offer a range of accommodations typically fail to adequately communicate the resources they’re providing. More than once a panelist would mention an accommodation NYCC provided that other members of the panel were not aware of. What’s the point of these accommodations if the people who need them the most are not actively told they exist? And failing that, shouldn’t this information be easily found? As time quickly ran out, it felt like the entire room was disappointed – we had only scratched the surface of the topic (not a huge surprise given the complexity of the subject matter) and there was an incredible amount that still hadn’t been addressed – but I left with a bunch of simple, actionable, convention-specific advice that I’d like to summarize below in the spirit of others joining in to support this community:

- Dedicated, easily accessible entrances, bathrooms, and elevators should be provided at conventions for the differently-abled to reduce the body stress this setting creates. - Designated quiet spaces should be accessible and large enough to accommodate anyone who needs them. - Often accommodations are limited. Do your best to not unnecessarily take up an accommodation that someone might truly need to get through their day (if you do not need it in such a way). - Be wary of your surroundings and those behind you when walking. It’s difficult and painful for someone in a chair/with a walker/etc. to have to move to avoid you, and they may not be able to. Don’t stop suddenly in front of someone, be understanding of their level to the ground, and prioritize their difficulty moving through crowds if it eclipses your own. - Remember that a creator might find crowds and constant (or any) social interaction challenging. Some may need breaks/alone/quiet time to not be overwhelmed with anxiety. Some may literally not be able to recognize or remember faces/pair them with names. Some may lack the ability to pick up on social cues that seem obvious to you. - Accommodations should be clearly communicated to anyone who might need them. The information should be actively given and easily/clearly accessible. - No one owes you a disclosure of their condition – be patient, understanding, and assume everyone’s best intentions – and don’t ask for or demand explanations.

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I’d like to wish a huge, gracious and appreciative thank you to the participants from this year’s panel for all they so bravely shared and taught. I have not included their names (which can be easily found) because – and I am honestly not sure whether or not this is the right inclination – I’d hope their work is appreciated before the challenges they live with. It would distress me if sharing this experience and advice resulted in the panelists becoming more known for the condition they live with than their work – all of which is interesting and fantastic, and inherently deserves attention without further context. On the off chance one of the panelists reads this and would like to be identified, I’d happily edit their name(s) in.

Also - I’ve done my best to understand and properly use language around being differently-abled and living with chronic illness, but if I’ve messed up please let me know so I can correct and apologize.

                                                                *            *            *

Thanks for taking the time to read. Below please find the NYCC “The Creative Community, Disability, and Chronic Illness” panel’s official description:

Disabilities, both visible and invisible, can make working in the deadline-intensive, yet creatively rewarding fields of comics/gaming/geek culture especially challenging. Managing energy, coping with pain, depression or other mental health issues, and the added cost of being self employed (no employer benefits) are all candidly discussed in this panel which features professional creators who all have disabilities or chronic health concerns. They will not only share their challenges, but their strategies for success, while being open and honest about their work and their lives, and the way they are perceived by clients. Brandon Kazen-Maddox will provide ASL translation services.

[longgonegays]

LGG’s Long Gone Days Chapter 1 (pre-update) Review

A year in the making!

PREFACE

In April 2018, I played through Long Gone Days for the second time. I had more of a critical eye after my first run through, and I wanted to write down my impressions. However, I got incredibly busy and wasn’t able to publish my initial reactions. As of now, I have played through the story a third time, alternating endings all the way, and even though the game is getting a MAJOR update probably soon, I figured I might as well post my thoughts and suggestions here!

SPOILERS BELOW

THE GOOD STUFF

Let me start off by saying that the art is phenomenal. I’ve loved it ever since the first demo was released in 2016, and it’s honestly one of the best looking RPGs I’ve played in a long, long time. The characters are interesting and have lots of room for growth, the music is atmospheric and cool, the devs are responsive, the story is unique, and the community is new and exciting! There’s so many good things. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve shared this game with. One of my friends even backed the indiegogo along with me!

As with any up-and-coming Early Access title, there’s bound to be mistakes or mechanics that could be optimized better. I’ve found many things that have the potential to make a greater impact on the player if done a little differently. However, I am no video game developer, so if any of my suggestions on the technical side are impossible, just know it’s not my intention to make the team do 500 more hours of work. :P

LET’S GET INTO IT!

There are different categories of issue. They will be sorted chronologically and marked as CONSISTENCY, GAMEPLAY, LANGUAGE, STORY, or TYPO.

TYPO: A pretty crucial one! The directions tell you to press X to shoot the drones in the tutorial, but when pressed, X does nothing. Z is the correct key.

CONSISTENCY: There should be a period after the word "half". All other notes at this point end in complete sentences, so it feels strange to not end the same way.

CONSISTENCY: The lowercase b in "Power bar" should be "Power Bar" since it appears that way in the Consumables menu, and it is properly capitalized when another one is picked up later on.

STORY: It's a little strange that the Shooting Range Clerk can fix a broken elevator card. I would've never related the quest to him; I actually didn't solve it the first time because I didn't think talking to the clerk was worth it. Unless there's a briefly explained in-story reason for him knowing how to fix them, another NPC beside him or even a sign with something akin to "Repair" in the description would give the quest direction more of a hint. (Just as an aside, it would be neat to return to the Kitchen Clerk and discuss what you saw thanks to the fixed card!)

TYPO: The description should read "has run out of batteries" and not "has ran". It would read "ran" if it were simple past tense (The watch ran out of batteries), but not when it's the past participle (anything with has/have). 

LANGUAGE: You could say "The following series of exercises only take five minutes at the time...", meaning it would only take 5 minutes to do them on the field, but it may flow better with the way the phrase is most commonly used, "...only take five minutes at a time", or just shortening it to "...only take five minutes."

TYPO: Instead of "Why are we hiding for?" it should either be "What are we hiding for?" or "Why are we hiding?"

TYPO: The real hut code is 07734, but afterwards, it states in both the Quest List and the Notes that it is 007734, which is incorrect.

CONSISTENCY: The Quests for Kaliningrad are available in the menu a little early. You have access to them before you get to the stone bridge on the right and fight The Core soldiers for the first time. The player hasn’t even met Ivan at this point.

TYPO: This is the beginning of the quest. "Found" should be "Find" since we haven't actually found her sister yet.

TYPO: “Forget” should be "I almost forgot", since "I told you I'd bring cake" is past tense.

GAMEPLAY: The "find the items" prompt only appears AFTER you collect the first item for Gleb's mother. Before that, it's just "convince the mother to go to Gleb's house". It would make more sense for the description to switch immediately to "Find the items" after she tells you which items she needs. (Sidenote: If someone accidentally clicks through the dialogue too fast, they'll have no idea what they're looking for. It may help to list Flower Pot, Painting, and Toy to show what items are needed.)

CONSISTENCY: Any time you talk to a group of two people, it's the same dialogue. It sets up the expectation that I'd just get the same words over and over no matter which person I talked to or in which order. HOWEVER, in Pay It Forward, the dialogue differs depending on which woman you talk to in the Residential District. You MUST talk to the lady on the left. I couldn't figure out how to solve this quest the first time because I didn't know who to look for (I thought I had seen all NPC dialogue since I already talked to the lady on the right). This is a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things, but I felt like I had to mention it.

STORY: Pay It Forward ends with you giving Anton the Conduct Pass. Yuliya (Downhearted Lady's Sister)'s dialogue doesn't change after progress reaches 100%, and she'll keep telling you to talk to the Residential District woman. A change in dialogue could help emphasize the fact that the quest is COMPLETE and no further action is needed on the player's part, just like the Business-Savvy Woman's dialogue changes after completion of the same quest.

TYPO: Just past participle again! "An uprising has began" should be "An uprising has begun".

TYPO: In the battle before you meet up with Ivan and Adair, an 's' should be added to make "Aggressive Soldier". I posted this one on the Bug Report forums a while ago, so I’m guessing it’ll probably be fixed in the next update.

GAMEPLAY: Maybe give a warning that Adair's going to heal you after the battle? I used a ton of my food for the first playthrough because I anticipated more fighting. Perhaps include some dialogue of Adair saying something like "I'll heal you properly after we fight the soldiers inside of the house." It would save some people from using too many of their resources too early and wasting them.

TYPO: "Why are you standing here for?" should be "Why are you standing here?" or the correct phrase, "What are you standing here for?"

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS

GAMEPLAY: You mentioned planning to implement the option to switch control keys, which is great. I think the second most popular suggestion is to Toggle Shift (and add Right Shift) instead of having to hold it down every time you want to run. Both will save a lot of fingers!

STORY: Instead of “[Enemy] has fainted” you can put "[Enemy] is down". It is ambiguous yet straightforward if you really want to avoid the word "dead". The fact that the Gun Drones “faint” as well seems questionable. Using “down” or “has been downed” would eliminate the strange phrasing and make a little more sense.

GAMEPLAY: More information in the Kaliningrad Quest descriptions! In Pay It Forward, it would be good to specify within the description that the sister has red pants. In Searching for the Cure, noting the location of the pharmacy would help, even if it just mentions heading North. In Animal Rescue, tell the player to head East to find the Animal Advocate; add a sign for the Residential District! In The Lost Girl, include Lynn's hints about a sandy / dirt-filled location. The very first time I ran around starting these quests, it was incredibly confusing trying to navigate the map effectively and remember which direction things were. Especially when the descriptions are so vague; you have to remember a lot of tiny details only referenced in the Quest Start dialogue, and there's no guarantee the player will recall all of them if they're solving a bunch of quests at a time. Small hints can go a long way.

GAMEPLAY: All quests appear to be able to be completed as soon as you enter the area. However, it would make things INFINITELY easier if they were sorted in "Not Started", "In Progress", and "Completed" tabs. It's a bit of a hassle to scroll through and find which quests you're working on, especially since they aren't sorted chronologically or alphabetically. Additionally, "Locked" quests could be greyed out ones that cannot be completed anymore or ones that cannot be started at that point in the story. Some organization would be nice!

GAMEPLAY / STORY: After playing the game, my friend had this to say: "One thing I would like to see more game-mechanics-wise is the option of using stealthier methods of taking down enemies. For example, when you can sneak around the gun drone in Kaliningrad nighttime, have it so you can utilize your high vantage point (the rooftop) to snipe down enemies and avoid direct conflict."

I absolutely agree that Sniper Mode should be used more. It only makes sense. Why charge into battle with a long-range weapon? Even if Rourke has other methods of fighting, wouldn't he want to prevent close-quarters situations in the first place? That guy even has his back turned! Ambush opportunities are not used effectively.

LANGUAGE: A LOT of the dialogue could use more contractions. For example, at the beginning, Lynn saying "They are here!" would take longer rather than "They're here!", and she'd probably want to get the information across to Rourke faster. This isn't a necessary fix, as everything is readable without contractions, and some characters may just have a tendency to speak like that, but it would make the dialogue seem more realistic and flow more naturally for most of the cases.

CONCLUSION. . .

Long Gone Days is a wonderful game. I would recommend that everyone at least play the first 30 minutes, because it is definitely something else. I still get very emotional at certain points, like that scene with the Civilian Fighter where they first speak in Russian but then try to sound things out in English, finally telling Rourke "We are counting on you. Good luck." It gets me EVERY TIME. It's such a good and powerful moment, couldn't stop half smiling half tearing up when I read it the first time. The text speed and how it was presented was really effective.

I loved the Boss fight as well! The fact that the morale boosting events were saved for the very end of that chapter made it much more impactful than the consistent battle-to-battle challenges in the demo. During my first playthrough, I had to stop myself from letting the Lieutenant use his Attack because of how freakin' COOL the art and animation looked! Everyone’s cut-ins are great!

Unsolicited Advice-Giving Soldier is also hilarious, and I think sprinkling that kind of humor in is very important in a game like this. :P

Overall, I love this game. I really want it to grow. It’s a lot of fun to talk and theorize about, and Chapters 2 and 3 should have no shortage of conversation material. With a bit of polish, Chapter 1 could be an even more effective introduction to the dangers the Kaliningrad Squad will have to endure in the future!

Thank you for reading! I’m looking forward to the full release!

[petitvaleria-blog]

Using Business Intelligence Success

Type of Business Intelligence Success What's more, helpdesk support may be used. You'll gain increased visibility in your pipeline if you thoroughly analyze your present opportunities. It is essential that personnel who take part in the project have a vision and a concept of the advantages and drawbacks of implementing a BI system. If your organizations struggles to find the most suitable visibility into your finances, finding the perfect ERP or BI tool can earn a huge difference. Business intelligence can be put on the subsequent business purposes, so as to drive business value. Furthermore, BI also provides a goal management function. Therefore, no company exists without significant competitors so it really is worth it to go the additional mile. On top of that, the simple version is absolutely free. To learn Hadoop, there's no such pre-requisite. Thus, it's a fantastic choice for business owners they can consider if they discover that it's unfeasible to make business continuity plans instead of dismissing them. Business intelligence may be used by the enterprise to determine which products are usually delayed, and what kind of transportation is normally accountable for making the delay. To best utilize the capacity of cloud one first should figure out how relevant it is for your organization and the way that it will change the whole computing experience. Investing in digital marketing whenever there is a downturn in the business is a good way to maintaineven growmarket share at a minimal price tag. Companies may use the information from business intelligence software to find out what items within the industry should be changed since they're not selling well. Costs won't be simple to establish for the leading vendors because everything comes to the number and variety of users (volume). Process mining tools can offer deep insights into the end-to-end procedure and are usually very good at bridging the gaps between different systems and data silos. You shouldn't need to navigate away from the dashboard to check at historical data or some other resource to evaluate progress. Each core template was made to take care of a single sort of issue. Data visualization tools have come to be the standard of contemporary BI in late years. Say you're interested in developing a histogram of your data. For instance, some perspectives may suggest unique data is required to offer valuable analytics about a situation. When there are big aspirations for the usage of data in the enterprise or inside a consumer setting, we're still in the early innings. To attain BI success, companies want to recognize that problems typically begin at the source because of factors like disparate systems or a scarcity of information ownership. While they provide big picture information, they do not provide the business user with a detailed description of what is happening in terms of the process across business units, regions, or IT systems. Before implementation it's a superb concept to do data profiling. So it's a data transport service that's utilised to transport massive amounts of information into or out of AWS. You're able to extract data from the internet by just giving the link of the data source. As an increasing number of organizations in a growing number of businesses begin to rely on Oracle for their BI solutions, employment for Oracle BI professionals is predicted to grow 30 percent during the next six decades. Exactly like with the tools for BI, there are a large range of self-service tools offered for business intelligence. There are many advantages to using Business Intelligence for every organization. A former Microsoft executive explained that the business initially viewed Tableau as a partner and was careful to not cannibalize its small business. Concentrate on the business an objective. The security of the majority of SMBs today is extremely based on the exploitation of Big Data, though not directly. ERP is a lot of various terminologies that help the cell app development business to run the company smoothly. ERP software should function as the crucial part for managing all critical facets of a business. Benefits of Business Intelligence Explained With Use-Cases is crucial to boost your decision-making based on past benefits, whilst business analytics can help you move forward and understand what may be going to take place. Our research showed that, of all of the events that possess the ability to excite people and engage them within their work, the one most important is making progress even if this progress is a small win. At the conclusion of this write-up, you'll have a specific comprehension of the necessary business travel management response and awareness as to why this will occur again. By way of example, managers can be given a notification whenever the range of competent leads decreases by a specific threshold, so they can review any recent adjustments and make a decision as to what adjustments are essential. An easy, powerful insight empowers businesses to have a profound understanding of the topic accessible, and to comprehend what to do about it. As decisions and compromises are the main communication method to the remainder of the organization, sharing what's changing decisions taken is vital. Every business owner desire is to get a control of their operation with certainty and an amount of prediction about how to arrive at a good decision for the success of their company. It is imperative to deliver applicable information (and the right quantity of it) to the most suitable folks, on-time, and in a way they are easily able to understand. Now, individuals are more conscious about leaving behind a superior atmosphere for the next generation and for that reason, they are eager to contribute towards a greener lifestyle. Sometimes you just have to speak with people and determine where they're at and what they want.

[sisterofiris]

The Layperson’s Guide to Online Research

The Internet is full of badly researched and sometimes straight-up wrong information. Who would’ve guessed? From reinterpretations of ancient sources being taken at face value by history enthusiasts (like that infamous pre-patriarchal Persephone post) to well-intentioned but ahistorical writing spreading misinformation among modern polytheists (like the myth of Hestia abdicating in favour of Dionysos), it’s often hard to know what is trustworthy information and what is not. Unfortunately, this makes things difficult when you, a non-academic, want to research a topic.

My biggest recommendation will always be to turn to a local university library (often there are even lectures and conferences you can attend without being a student) or to subscribe to a digital library like JStor. On the other hand, I completely understand that for various reasons, not everyone can access these resources. This is why I’m here to help.

In this post, I will outline the steps you should take to check whether an online source is trustworthy and up-to-date. I will mainly focus on researching ancient history, but bear in mind that you can use the same (or similar) steps to research many different topics.

The vetting process below may seem like a lot to take in, but it all boils down to five questions:

where does this come from?

who is the author?

what are their sources?

when did they write this?

who else wrote about this?

Step One: Where does this come from?

The first thing you need to do is check the website where the information comes from. Trustworthy signs to look for are a .edu or .org web address, a university logo, or the description of the website as a professional resource. Very, very often, websites with flashy or sparkly designs are made by amateurs and are not trustworthy. Any web page that doesn’t tell you who wrote it or why is not trustworthy.

When you’re looking at books and articles uploaded online (such as Google Books), make sure they were published professionally by a publishing house or peer-reviewed journal. Mainstream news articles range from accurate (BBC) to completely unreliable (Daily Mail), but since even the best of them can be sensationalistic, I recommend digging further.

Another very important thing to look out for is ideology. Is the website devoted to a certain issue, like proving the Ancient Greeks were black, the Sumerians were contacted by aliens, or the Hittites worshipped a pre-patriarchal Mother Goddess? Congratulations, this information is biased. Some of it may be correct, but you should check steps two to five very carefully before believing it.

Generally, you should look for websites that are focused on your topic, not websites that use your topic to prove a point.

Here are two examples to illustrate the difference:

Not trustworthy: this page about Persephone as an archetype. The website focuses on the Enneagram, not on Greek mythology, and the web design is amateurish. Even though the page mentions mythology, its purpose is to establish Persephone’s personality type, not to discuss her role as a deity in Ancient Greece.

Trustworthy: this page about Ancient Egyptian women and religion. The website looks far more professional, and by clicking on the logo in the top left, you will get to the organisation’s page, The Stoa Consortium. On the right, there is an “About” section which explains that the website was set up by a Professor of Classics and is funded by various universities, as well as by the US Department of Education.

However, determining whether or not a website is any good is not always so easy. Theoi.com, for example, is an independent resource with no academic support, but it’s very well put together and reliable. Meanwhile, Academia.edu is a platform for scholars, but less reputable people can easily slip through and post their “translations” of haiku in Linear A. Experts can have informal blogs, and non-experts can write professional-looking news articles. It’s hard to know which ones of them to trust.

This is where Step Two comes in handy.

Step Two: Who is the author?

A trustworthy source will always identify its author. Some pages (like my own blog’s “About” section) will only tell you the person’s credentials, often for privacy reasons. This is a good start, but you should try to find out more - particularly whether this person actually is what they claim to be. (In my case, it’s fairly easy to tell, since I’ve posted pictures from university projects (x, x) and my identity can be deduced from various links and tidbits I’ve shared - but please be skeptical about what I say as well! Just because I’m an ancient civilisations student doesn’t mean I’m always right!)

Once you know who the author is, you need to check whether they are not only educated, but educated in the subject. This means a university degree (preferably a masters, and even more preferably a PhD) or other proof of expertise in the subject (like an experienced weaver sharing their perspective on ancient tapestries). Whatever the person’s qualifications, they need to be serious (i.e. not “one time in college I took a class on Greek mythology”) and directly related to the subject.

Here are some examples:

Not trustworthy: that pre-patriarchal Persephone post. Its author is a layperson who fell into the same trap I’m trying to prevent: they read a few web pages and decided they were the truth. Luckily, they seem to have somewhat learnt from their mistake.

Usually trustworthy, but not in this case: Gerda Lerner writing about the Hittites. While Gerda Lerner was very learned in women’s studies, she was not a Hittitologist - nor particularly familiar with ancient civilisations in general - and she did not have the nuanced understanding necessary to discuss women in the context of Hittite society.

Trustworthy and non-academic: Janet Stephens’ hairstyle reconstructions. Janet Stephens is not an archeologist, but she is a very experienced hairdresser. This makes her qualified to reconstruct and reproduce ancient hairstyles. (Note that this does NOT make her qualified to discuss, say, the religious implications of hair-binding in Ancient Greece. It makes her qualified to do what she does: style hair.)

Trustworthy and academic: Paul Schubert’s blog (in French) about Ancient Greece in the modern world. His “About” page has a link to his university page, which contains his biography and credentials. He writes about his expert subject, and stays well within its boundaries.

Step Three: What are their sources?

Next, you need to determine where they get their information from. For ancient history, the number one, most important source is ancient texts. Anything that cites ancient texts with their reference (Homer, Iliad, XΧII 389-390) is automatically more trustworthy than anything that doesn’t. If you want to research in-depth, I would recommend looking up these references to get an idea of what they say (Theoi.com and Perseus both have free text databases).

References to modern texts (especially books and articles) are good, but the author shouldn’t only cite these. This turns research into a game of broken telephone - so-and-so told me that so-and-so said that Plato wrote... What’s more, you need to make sure these sources are also trustworthy. Just because a page provide links doesn’t mean they’re relevant or well-researched - if so, then rickrolling would be the peak of academia.

Lastly, I shouldn’t need to say this, but information without sources is not information. That’s like me telling you I’m secretly the princess of Liechtenstein. It might be true, but you can’t know for sure without proof.

Again, some examples:

Not trustworthy: this quote by Plato and this one supposedly from a cuneiform tablet. Neither has a clear reference, nor context: the first is just attributed to Plato’s Symposium, and the second’s author varies from Naram-Sin to a Chaldean king to Cicero. (What’s more, both have strongly ahistorical content. Plato would never have written about “Greek mythology”, and the Mesopotamians had no concept of a “book”.)

Could be trustworthy, but you should check: Medievalpoc’s sources on Ancient Egyptian transatlantic voyages. Yes, a variety of links are provided, but are they any good? A few clicks will show that they lead to the Daily Mail, a paper written by two ideologically-motivated Mormons, and a bunch of articles about ancient people building boats (which nobody doubts, but which doesn’t prove they could sail across the Atlantic).

Trustworthy: Hittite Prayers to the Sun-God by Daniel Schwemer. This is a fully cited article with ancient sources.

Step Four: When did they write this?

The next important step is to find out when this information was written. This is because research is constantly evolving, and older interpretations may no longer be considered valid. This obviously includes views with underlying racism, sexism and homophobia, but it also applies to less obvious things, like the fact that the Sumerian word zag is now read za₃.

Unfortunately, for copyright reasons, most information available online for free is a bit outdated. You should still aim for more recent publications if you can, and definitely avoid anything that’s fifty years old or more. The only exception is for translations of ancient texts, which stay pretty much the same apart from a few spots where their translators’ biases come through - and the exception to the exception is texts in Mesopotamian languages, in which case you should really, really try to find a translation that’s younger than fifty years.

Academic podcasts, blogs and newsletters come in very handy here, because they offer insights on modern research while often being written in accessible language.

Yet more examples:

Not trustworthy: Martin Nilsson’s The Mycenaean Origin of Greek Mythology (1932). Though Martin Nilsson was a great scholar, modern research has evolved since this book was published (in 1932 in Germany - a context you can definitely sense while reading). What’s more, it was written before Mycenaean Greek was even deciphered.

Trustworthy: Eric Cline’s 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed (2015). Not only is the writing easily accessible to non-experts, this book is up-to-date and written by someone at the forefront of research in Late Bronze Age societies.

Step Five: Who else wrote about this?

This last step is basically fact-checking. Your author may have the best of credentials, they may have written their article on the most respectable of websites, but their theory could still be rejected by the majority of their peers. Look up the book or article’s title followed by “review”, which will hopefully generate other experts’ opinions on the matter - or just keep browsing different websites.

This step is not the most important and can often be skipped - you don’t need to fact-check every word you read. But if you want to research something in-depth, if a claim seems iffy, or if any of the above steps gave mixed results, you should always look for outside input. And no, you won’t always get definite answers on whether something is true. Such is our knowledge about history. But it will give you a more rounded understanding of the topic, and that’s always valuable.

A final note

If you’re not sure whether something is trustworthy, please don’t hesitate to ask! Historians and history students are your friends, and we want you to have accurate information. There’s a lot of us on Tumblr and elsewhere who are happy to help out with that. We can’t be there for everyone 24/7, but we’ll gladly point you in the direction you need!

[helms57helms-blog]

Should You Style A Site For Your Personal Enterprise?

Have you ever located yourself marveling more than a really fantastic website? From format to graphical design, there are many elements which turn an internet site from great to wonderful. This post will share with you some tips from specialists. Read on to learn all of the methods which you can use. Keep current with information and facts related to webdesign. World wide web discussion boards are a good location to pay a visit to with this info. A Google search need to expose an abundance of very good sites which will help. Avoid using a lot of visuals. When you will need graphics to produce a website seems nicely and functions appropriate, you don't need to have many of them, since they can clutter things. Visuals usually are not meant to be employed as mere accessories they're supposed to greater your blog information. Getting the correct quantity of images will increase your site's usability and minimize the mess. Work with a descriptive label. Numerous website proprietors neglect to mention their internet pages, or title them one thing generic, including "Pleasant Page." Search engines like google use label explanations within their ratings, so ensure you are as descriptive as you possibly can, without going overboard. Make sure it is usable for your personal viewers and the search engines. Regularly releasing a e-newsletter will help you to secure recurring guests. Having customers sign up for your e-zine allows you to deliver them significant upgrades about special attractions, which often could get those to always keep visiting your website. Keep track of the volume of guests who register, and place the indicator-up form in your site's sidebar. Continue to the ethical route and just send out publications to consumers who require them. Make compelling and interesting internet content material. Even though seem is very important, information is vital to come back guests. Visitors may very well give back aimed at your website when they obtain the content material useful plus it meets their requirements. Ensure that every one of the data files on your own website are modest in size. You require these tiny file dimensions irrespective of the total design of your web site. The sizes of the documents impact the loading time of your site. You need your blog to stress as speedy as is possible. You can still find people who will be using your website that do not have a high-pace relationship. You should try launching your website on different types of links to find out how quick it tons. It is vital that customers can navigate any website easily. Where your back links are determines if website visitors could get close to your website. The navigational structure needs to be neat, steady, as well as simple gain access to for the users to experience a far better expertise. Avoid using computer animated GIFs on the web site. They were preferred within the late 1990s, but modern technological innovation have substituted the purposes of cartoon GIFs which were really valuable. Computer animated GIFs are less top quality and big in submit size. Use static icons for page aspects and real video clips for complicated animation. You need to look at your website's functionality throughout a variety of diverse internet browsers. Each system, internet browser and program changes the way your web site screens, that may create a awful customer expertise. You can do just a little on-line research to find out which internet browsers are most in-demand right now. Check out how your internet site behaves on all the major internet browsers for Personal computers and mobile phones. Check your site periodically for damaged backlinks. You should do this well before uploading one thing for your web server. Site visitors who experience damaged links and faults is not going to continue to your blog for enough time to view your products or services. Give all of your current back links a verify just before posting in order to prevent this problem. One of the first issues for you to do is select and arrange your website address. As soon as you've looked at a domain name which you like, you must hold it to ensure it's nonetheless there when you're willing to use it. It is astonishing the amount of other folks could have put together very similar ideas. Fantastic minds do believe as well, all things considered! To help with making your web site much more entertaining integrate games to your site. Getting game titles on the site can make it a lot of fun to the website visitor. If your readers are not enjoying yourself on the web site, chances are they will depart and go try to find something different to perform. For developing your own website, consider utilizing Adobe Dreamweaver. Amateurs are even able to utilize this system successfully. It is actually packed with options that allow for template creation, special features and the opportunity to preview a web site as well as analyze it prior to it goes are living. Discover around it is possible to in regards to the many forms of web-page coding, since the web-page coding is vital to web design. If you find out about html code go ahead and make several internet pages which are form of full of the data that you might want to enhance some of the internet sites you intend on focusing on. Usually limit your articles in early stages inside your web page design and style. You don't require a lot of items that will overpower you and confound visitors once they show up on your own web site. You must recognize that constructing a internet site will take over you originally anticipate it will. Let's state that you think you can obtain a site done in three weeks. Nicely, when you layout it, stress your web pages, check, make your changes, and in the end complete, you could be checking out months. If you locate oneself having to produce several similar internet pages in a subsection of your web site, use some of those web pages being a format. Rather than generating new Html code program code for every single page, duplicate the primary area of program code, tweak it in which necessary, after which save it as being a fresh submit each and every time. You can re-use a solitary "expert" list of code to churn out a essentially limitless variety of webpages. The secrets and techniques are out, and you will now begin to build your internet site. Start Miami web design , and after that create a long list of important elements utilizing websites to be able to blend them into your own property. Be certain to never plagiarize or copy, use individuals tips being a springboard for your very own creativity.

[massive-mythopoetic-mashup]

An update and a dilemma regarding the great work:

So it’s been two months since I did any RWBY writing of note. This is mostly due to a great deal of difficulty in my personal life, but I’ve kept that out of this blog because I really want people to know what they’re getting when they follow this: allusions and references in RWBY. Also, with the way my life is, if I did talk about it here it would completely overwhelm everything else with nonstop sob stories. So I think that’s going to stay that way.

That said, my journey to understanding RWBY has been intensely personal and an emotional marathon, and that aspect of my life I do want to be able to share here at times- I just want to be able to contextualize it postively and keep it related to RWBY. So, there will be some mentions of my personal life, but it’s going to be very limited in scope, and I will continue to strive to present objective analysis of RWBY and clearly distinguish between what I believe are trustworthy facts and my own personal opinion. For those times when I get too excited and over gush, I apologize.

Getting back to the point: not writing about RWBY for so long has been distressing. First of all, it calls into doubt my ability to complete a full description of the G.U.N. theory. But secondly, I’m starting to think that it’s just bad for my mental health. I have a problem with polarity: I tend to take in massive amounts of information, but express only a tiny fraction of that. RWBY is not just not an exception to this but an extreme example of it; in doing research I have read and watched and listened to many, many things, and all of that is banging around in my head wanting to get out. Keeping it inside for so long causes it to fester and rot, like a dream deferred. I’ve been thinking of writing about RWBY as something I can get back to when things are better, but now I’m starting to think that writing about RWBY is more a step on the journey to make things better. So I’m going to be making an effort to get back into things, and produce a steady if possibly slow stream of writing. Keep in mind that ‘writing’ does not necessarily mean ‘posting’.

This raises an ongoing problem I have yet to resolve. I really, really need feedback on what I’m writing for motivation. But I’ve come to believe that the G.U.N. theory must be presented formally, in large interconnected chunks, in order to be both comprehensible and compelling. Ideally, I’ve wanted to have the entire absurdly massive theory written out before beginning to post it, because I’ve consistently underestimated the amount of time necessary to write about each piece I’ve tackled, and this has lead to several false starts on what I have expected to be a series of posts close together on related material as I got bogged down in the middle. I really, really don’t want this to keep happening, as I find it extremely discouraging to miss my own self-imposed deadlines, and I think spacing out posts irregularly causes readers to lose the thread connecting them. But it’s also clear that it’s completely unrealistic for me to expect to be able to maintain motivation to write so much material in a vacuum before sharing it with the fandom.

I’ve found one partial solution to a part of this problem: I’ve begun focusing on outlining the description of the theory as a whole rather than letting myself tackle sections completely independently. The individual pieces of writing I’ve produced so far, while acceptable on their own, have ended up disjointed and lacking a clear connection as a whole, and it makes understanding the G.U.N. theory very difficult and dependent on someone having the determination to dig up and then muddle through a large disorganized heap of posts that aren’t even collected together on a single internet service. However, I think that by first constructing a detailed roadmap for the entire theory description, and then constantly keeping that outline in mind, it should be possible to work on pieces covering individual subtopics within the theory while still being able to maintain a clear relation between them and the rest of the theory and developing a single through-line for the entire document that will make it pleasant to read and accessible to the general fandom.

This comes, finally, to my dilemma. This is premature, but I feel that emotionally I need to resolve it now in order to be able to work without distraction: the scheduling of posts. Setting a regular schedule or any kind of firm deadlines has proven to be inadvisable, so this essentially comes down to, “How big a chunk of this should I aim to have before posting it?” One thing that I lament is my hesitance to do informal research and discussion over Tumblr, as I think many people would enjoy it and find it enlightening, but I fear small fragments would just confuse and even possibly upset people out of context, and I have a great deal of anxiety over some rough incomplete description of some of the theory’s more impactful elements becoming widely propagated prematurely. These fears have kept this blog much quieter than it could be, and made me appear deceptively inactive at times. My thoughts on individually posting even thoroughly planned out and proofread pieces of the full description of the theory are similar, but I’m aware I have a tendency to be irrationally worried about these things. So, finally, I’d like to ask a question of those of you who have been following me for some time, and have been already exposed to major portions of the theory:

Do you feel that breaking up the theory into posts spaced out potentially multiple weeks apart, with each post focusing on a single major alluded to work, will negatively impact the theory’s presentation? Keep in mind that this means I would very likely have to separately address Dorothy Gale, Achilles, Cinderella, Darth Vader, and St. Catherine each in their own post, in that sequence, with the main wham coming in the Cinderella post. (The Jinni of the Lamp would likely be tucked into the Darth Vader post.) Would it muffle the impact of the theory for people to have to wait between these sections? Would readers encountering part of the theory be willing to follow links at the head of each post directing them back to the beginning of the series and then work their way back through the posts in the recommended reading order? This issue is very important to me, and it would mean a lot to me if those of you familiar with the G.U.N. theory could weigh in with your opinions based on your own experiences with it. Also, if you’ve actually read all of this, then thank you so much for your time and for having the patience to slog through my complaining.

[coincolumnist-dot-com]

Decentralized identity can bring the analog world into the digital one

It is a given that connected devices need reliable, distributed ledger, technology-based digital identity solutions. That is an essential requirement for the Internet of Things (IoT). In the machine economy, devices must be able to recognize and communicate with one another; robust identity management solutions are key to effectively securing data and processes. But what about the multitude of analog “things” all around us? Surely they can also benefit from the advent of digital identity. Imagine the following: You are just back from a grocery run or a walk in the park with your pooch when you suddenly realize the family heirloom ring that has been getting a little too loose around your finger is not there anymore. You retrace your steps, scan the ground and check the gutters and molehills, but you come back empty-handed. So many aspects of our daily lives have moved online, with precious things like passwords, pin codes and login certificates safely stowed away in appropriate security solutions. You can retrieve them at any time and manage them centrally. Why can’t you have the same for your family ring or other analog valuables?Unlike your email password, your ring currently only lives in the analog world. You could tag it with a tracking device that connects to your phone, such as Apple’s AirTag, but this raises privacy and security issues, perhaps many more than it actually solves — not to mention, it is a bulky and odd accessory for a piece of jewelry. More importantly, we own a non-trivial number of analog valuables, and slapping trackers on each one at $40 a pop is not practical. The time has come to talk about the digital identity of analog things and finally invite our prized offline possessions into our increasingly virtual world.Related: The data economy is a dystopian nightmare

What is decentralized digital identity?

Decentralized identity, or DID, refers to a digital identifier for something existing in the physical world. This digital identifier is placed on an immutable distributed ledger and includes a detailed description of attributes, capabilities and ownership. In practical terms, this means there is a reliable record that establishes you as the owner of your now-lost family ring. It describes the ring closely and makes it instantly identifiable. With your credentials, you can prove you are the owner; a miniature QR or barcode — or another kind of scannable identifier — attached or lasered onto the object is all it takes. Depending on the item, digital tags with additional capabilities are another viable option.Compared to a simple tag or another tracking device, digital identity has a few other key advantages. It is stored safely because of its distributed ledger technology (DLT) backing, and it can establish ownership without leading directly to the owner. If you do not wish to publish your personally identifiable information on the ledger — a wise decision at any rate — you can create your own verified digital identity and associate your analog belongings with it. In the example of your lost ring, you have proof that you own the ring and can also use pseudonymization to make it harder for unwanted third parties to trace your valuables back to you.Related: No more pushes and pushbacks: Digital ID solves the privacy dilemma

Conspicuous ownership of inconspicuous value

Analog things hold different kinds of value — monetary, emotional, practical — and can attract unwanted access and potential theft from bad actors at any moment, for any reason. Establishing a robust system of DLT-based digital identity for valuable physical objects has the added benefit of discouraging theft, as confirming a stolen object’s provenance on the ledger would automatically negate the option to resell it. To further discourage misappropriation attempts, you can create different verifiable credentials associated with your digital identity. You also choose with whom you share this sensitive information — if anyone at all. Thanks to selective disclosure, you can establish your ownership of analog objects reliably, without sharing any more information than necessary. For instance, a public record on the ledger can list you as the owner of a white porcelain vase with blue floral motifs that is 20.5 inches tall and weighs 14.8 pounds. In a different verifiable credential, you can specify the vase is a Qianlong — a collector’s item worth millions of dollars. This information does not need to be public, but you can share it with potential buyers if you decide to part ways with your prized collectible. DLT-powered digital identity affords you complete control over how much information you make public and how you compartmentalize so that it matches your individual ownership, identification and security needs.Related: Decentralized identity is the way to fighting data and privacy theft

Identification and authentication on a global scale

Cross-platform communication remains a challenge in the digital realm, even more so on the analog side of things. Verifying the identity and ownership of an item across state borders and language barriers can be a prolonged, slow and expensive process that involves multiple steps and certified professionals’ services. In the case of especially valuable objects or real estate, verification involves notaries, translators, independent assessors and even consulates and embassies. A system of unified digital identity can replace lengthy approval and authentication chains with a simple DLT solution that instantly confirms an analog item’s ownership and characteristics anywhere in the world.However, digital identity is not only useful for cross-border transactions. Today’s supply chains span the globe, and tracing materials and product components across continents is an arduous task that remains, against all odds, surprisingly analog. Shipment tracking is still often done by hand and on paper. The possibility for human error is high, and mistakes carry over and multiply across the shipment’s lifecycle. An immutable digital identity can speed up and automate many logistics processes. Special items that require particular handlings, such as temperature control or motion stabilization, can be paired with sensors that monitor their shipping conditions. In the end, items will arrive at their destination with an immutable record of their transportation quality and safety.Such solutions are not limited to the logistics industry. The world is on the cusp of the post-COVID-19 era and the return to international travel it promises. Many of us will take to the sky in search of new, exciting destinations, but our bags will occasionally not travel with us. According to pre-pandemic statistics, airlines around the world misplace about 25 million bags per year. Chances are it has happened to you as well, and you know first-hand what a pain it is to track down and reclaim your lost luggage. Pairing your bag with a DID would make it instantly findable — no more looking for one black hard-shell suitcase among thousands. Airlines could also tag your bag at check-in with a DLT-enabled sensor that would give an audio or visual warning to luggage handlers if they are about to put your suitcase on the wrong plane.

A digital afterlife for analog things

Analog things get lost or misplaced — it is in their nature. Whether we are talking about production, logistics or personal items, such incidents are often costly and distressing. In our increasingly digitized everyday lives, our analog possessions are in danger of remaining disconnected permanently. Instead of leaving them behind, we can pair them with a digital identity that affords them the electronic afterlife they deserve without intruding on their nature. DID does not require analog objects to become digitized, and it does not need expensive sensors or hi-tech tags to work correctly. Instead, it offers an affordable, reliable and versatile way to take offline items out of the digital blindspot. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.Dominik Schiener is a co-founder of the Iota Foundation, a nonprofit foundation based in Berlin. He oversees partnerships and the overall realization of the project’s vision. Iota is a distributed ledger technology for the Internet of Things and is a cryptocurrency. Additionally, he won the largest blockchain hackathon in Shanghai. For the past two years, he has been focused on enabling the machine economy through Iota.Source Read the full article

[psychicanchortimemachine]

Progressive Web Apps

Everything You Should Know About Progressive Web App

Progressive net Apps may be a net application that takes advantage of contemporary browser options and might be additional to your home screen, behaving rather like a native application. In this tutorial we're aiming to show you everything you wish to understand regarding PWAs, step by step, with sensible examples and a demo app. To not begin from scratch, we have a tendency to square measure aiming to use the selfie app we have a tendency to created recently, and build it progressive. What is a Progressive Web App

In its core a progressive net app is not any totally different from a traditional web site - it's made from HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and lives within the browser. What separates PWAs from regular websites may be a list of ten key ideas that require to be consummated. Here there, taken directly from the Google Developers web site. 1.

Safe

- Served via HTTPS to prevent snooping and ensure content hasn’t been tampered    with.2.

Progressive

- Work for every user, regardless of browser choice because they’re built with    progressive enhancement as a core tenet.3.

Responsive

- Fit any form factor: desktop, mobile, tablet, or whatever is next.4.

Connectivity-independent

- Enhanced with service workers to work offline or on low    quality networks.5.

App-like

- Feel like an app to the user with app-style interactions and navigation because    they’re built on the app shell model.6.

Fresh

- Always up-to-date thanks to the service worker update process.7.

Discoverable

- Are identifiable as “applications” thanks to W3C manifests and service worker registration scope allowing search engines to find them.8.

Re-engageable

- Make re-engagement easy through features like push notifications.9.

Installable

- Allow users to “keep” apps they find most useful on their home screen without the hassle of an app store.10.

Linkable

- Easily share via URL and not require complex installation. Following these guidelines will ensure that your app works well not only when viewed in the browser, but also when started separately via a home screen shortcut. You may find the wording Google has chosen rather confusing, but don't worry, we will explain the rules one by one later in the tutorial.

What a Progressive Web App is NOT

The concept of PWAs shouldn't be confused with:

·

Cordova

based hybrid apps·

React Native

·

NativeScript

·

Electron

and

NW.js

 All of the said technologies wrap markup language apps and package them into workable files, be it an .apk, .exe or the rest, that then have to be compelled to be downloaded from the various app store and put in on the user's device. PWAs do not need installation and are not obtainable (yet) in Google Play or the iTunes App store. To transfer a PWA you would like to easily visit it's web site so put it aside to the house screen as a cutoff. Developing and maintaining separate iOS and automaton versions is not any longer a problem, however browser support has to be taken into thought.

1. Safe

Most progressive internet apps work with native genus Apis and repair employees, technologies that manage sensitive information and wish to be handled with caution. That is why each PWA has got to be served through a HTTPS affiliation. If you do not have access to a server with a SSL certificate, the best method run comes in a very secure surroundings is via GitHub Pages or the same service. Any GitHub repository are often hosted directly over HTTPS, and each GitHub and GitHub Pages area unit free for public repos. For simple testing on a neighborhood server, you'll additionally attempt Ngrok. It’s a small tool that permits you to tunnel any presently running local host to a secure public uniform resource locator. Ngrok is free and obtainable for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

2. Progressive

Essentially, what this suggests is that PWAs ought to use internet technologies that square measure wide supported and work equally well on as several browsers as potential. As we tend to all recognize, within the world of internet development this is often about to not possible, however still there square measure things we will do to hide a bigger user base. For example, in our PhotoBooth app we tend to use the getUserMedia() API for accessing the hardware camera on a tool. Its support in several browsers is sort of inconsistent - hunting expedition does not support it in the slightest degree, the browsers that do support it would like prefixes and take issue in usage. To ensure additional individuals will really use our app, we tend to cowl all the prefixes:

navigator.getMedia = (  navigator.getUserMedia ||  navigator.webkitGetUserMedia ||  navigator.mozGetUserMedia ||  navigator.msGetUserMedia );

We also show an error if none of the prefixes work:

if (!navigator.getMedia) { displayErrorMessage("Your browser doesn't have support for the navigator.getUserMedia interface."); } else { // Use Camera API }

Fallbacks and polyfills should be provided where possible. The same principles go for the CSS and HTML code.

3. Responsive

The app ought to look nice on all devices, notwithstanding their screen size. Our app encompasses a fairly straightforward UI therefore we've used solely one or two of media queries to regulate font-size, paddings, margins, etc. Don't be afraid to use CSS libraries and frameworks like Bootstrap, as they create it very easy to make grids, and influence typography and general responsiveness.

4. Connectivity independent

This is a vital one. victimization service staff permits your app to figure even once there's no net affiliation on the market. Some apps may be cached solely partially: UI is cached and on the market offline, dynamic content still wants access to a server. Others, like our PhotoBooth demo, may be cached in their totality. All of the ASCII text file and resources are going to be saved regionally and also the app can work offline and on-line precisely the same means. Here is that the code that creates the magic happen:

This is an oversimplified usage of Service Workers, use with caution in commercial projects.

First we need to make a service worker JavaScript file, and define the logic behind it.

sw.js

// Install the service worker. this.addEventListener('install', function(event) { event.waitUntil( caches.open('v1').then(function(cache) { // The cache will fail if any of these resources can't be saved. return cache.addAll([ // Path is relative to the origin, not the app directory.  '/pwa-photobooth/', '/pwa-photobooth/index.html', '/pwa-photobooth/assets/css/styles.css', '/pwa-photobooth/assets/fonts/MaterialIcons-Regular.woff2', '/pwa-photobooth/assets/js/script.js', '/pwa-photobooth/assets/icons/ic-face.png', '/pwa-photobooth/assets/icons/ic-face-large.png', '/pwa-photobooth/manifest.json' ]) .then(function() { console.log('Success! App is available offline!'); }) }) ); }); // Define what happens when a resource is requested. // For our app we do a Cache-first approach. self.addEventListener('fetch', function(event) { event.respondWith( // Try the cache. caches.match(event.request) .then(function(response) { // Fallback to network if resource not stored in cache. return response || fetch(event.request); }) ); });

Then we need to link that service worker to our HTML.

index.html

<script> // Register Service Worker. if ('serviceWorker' in navigator) { // Path is relative to the origin, not project root. navigator.serviceWorker.register('/pwa-photobooth/sw.js') .then(function(reg) { console.log('Registration succeeded. Scope is ' + reg.scope); }) .catch(function(error) { console.error('Registration failed with ' + error); }); } </script>

Now all of the files in our project will be saved in the user's browser. Any JavaScript variables and object should also be saved in the localStorage or IndexDB where possible. Right now Service Workers are supported in Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Safari and Edge are also working towards adopting them, and we hope that in the future they will be available in every browser.

5. App-like

When building PWAs, it's counseled to follow a style idea referred to as app-shell design. It sounds terribly sophisticated however basically boils all the way down to this: the app is separated into 2 major components: the shell and also the content. The shell contains all the static UI components like a header, menus, drawers, etc. once we cache associate degree app, the shell should be saved on the device, as a result of we wish it to be on the market in the slightest degree times. That method once a user with no web association opens the app, they will not see associate degree empty screen or a running archosaur - they'll see the cached app interface associate degreed an applicable error message.

The content resides within the shell. It can also be cached but it isn't necessary to do so as content is usually dynamic, changes frequently and can be different on every single page load.

6. Fresh

Once cached, our PWA will always load from the local storage. However, if we change the service worker sw.js in any way, on the next page load the new version will be downloaded and installed.

this.addEventListener('install', function(event) { event.waitUntil( caches.open('v1.0.1').then(function(cache) { // ... }) ); });

Using service worker updates we can re-download resources, delete old cache, or completely change the service worker logic. You can learn more about the SW Update process from the Google Developers article.

7. Discoverable

By adding an online Manifest to our app we are able to give varied info regarding it and alter the manner it's displayed on people's devices. It permits apps to be saved to the house screen with a custom icon, to be started during a separate browser window, and a great deal of different cool stuff.

The Web Manifest takes the form of a simple JSON file:

manifest.json

{ "name": "Progressive Web App: PhotoBooth", "short_name": "PhotoBooth", "description": "Simple Progressive Web App for taking selfies.", "icons": [{ "src": "assets/icons/ic-face.png", "type": "image/png", "sizes": "72x72" }, { "src": "assets/icons/ic-face-large.png", "type": "image/png", "sizes": "144x144 256x256" }], "start_url": "index.html", "display": "standalone", "background_color": "#fff", "theme_color": "#fff", "orientation": "portrait" }

Most of the properties are self explanatory so we will cover only the more important ones. See the full Web manifest format and all the available fields.

· Shortname - This is the name our app will have when saved to the home screen.· Icons - Array of icons with different resolutions.· Display - Defines how the app will be opened. We've chosen standalone so when started our photo booth will appear in a full-screen window without any browser navigation or menus. It will also be seen as a separate app in multitasking.

To register the manifest we have to link it to our HTML:

<!-- Web Manifest --> <link rel="manifest" href="manifest.json">

Safari doesn't support the Web Manifest standard yet but we can define app-like behavior with this Apple-specific meta tag:

<!-- Meta tag for app-like behaviour in iOS --> <meta name=”apple-mobile-web-app-capable” content=”yes”>

8. Re-engageable

Push notifications are not restricted to native apps to any extent further. because of service employees and also the Push API, internet applications also can send messages to the humanoid notification bar. Not all apps can enjoy having this feature, however once used properly notifications will extremely facilitate interact users. This topic goes on the far side the scope of our tutorial, as Push Notifications area unit quite difficult and merit a full lesson on their own. If you continue to need to implement notifications to your internet app, here area unit a number of the simplest learning resources available: · Google Developers, Push Notifications: Timely, Relevant, and Precise -

here

.· Google Developers, Push Notifications on the Open Web -

here

.· MDN, Using the Push API -

here

.· Push.js, Library that provides a cleaner API for handling push notifications -

here

.

9. Installable

By default any web site may be manually saved to the house screen victimization the increase Home Screen button from the Chrome browser menu. However, it'd be rather tough to create users "install" our app this fashion, since the majority do not know this feature in the slightest degree. Thankfully, there's how for your app to prompt users to save lots of it with a straightforward installation pop-up. To stop developers from abusing these pop ups, there's not any thanks to programmatically show them. Instead, they'll seem on their own once Associate in Nursing app fulfills a series of requirements:

1. There is a valid Web Manifest.2. There is a valid Service Worker installed.3. The app is served over HTTPS.

We have all of the above covered, so when a user visits our app's website a couple of times, they will get this prompt:

The entire installation process of our app is in this simple prompt. The install happens instantly, and once saved the PhotoBooth will be available to launch from a home screen icon, behaving exactly like a native app.

11. Linkable

Anyone with an internet browser has access to PWA apps and that they is shared merely via their universal resource locator. No third party tools area unit needed for locating or putting in them.

If associate app runs in standalone mode, it is also suggested to feature in-app share buttons, since the browser address bar and menus are not visible.

Conclusion

Our PWA is now complete. We can test how well it follows the PWA rules with an official Google-made tool called

Lighthouse

. It recreates possible scenarios and tests the app thoroughly. Here is what it tells us about the PhotoBooth:

We passed!

If you want to find more PWAs to play with, go to

pwa.rocks

. They offer a nice collection of games and useful tools, showcasing the great power of Progressive Web Apps.

We will be happy to answer your questions on designing, developing, and deploying comprehensive enterprise web, mobile apps and customized software solutions that best fit your organization needs. As a reputed Software Solutions Developer we have expertise in providing dedicated remote and outsourced technical resources for software services at very nominal cost. Besides experts in full stacks We also build web solutions, mobile apps and work on system integration, performance enhancement, cloud migrations and big data analytics. Don’t hesitate to

get in touch with us!

[lakhwanabhishek]

Progressive Web Apps

Everything You Should Know About Progressive Web AppProgressive net Apps may be a net application that takes advantage of contemporary browser options and might be additional to your home screen, behaving rather like a native application. In this tutorial we're aiming to show you everything you wish to understand regarding PWAs, step by step, with sensible examples and a demo app. To not begin from scratch, we have a tendency to square measure aiming to use the selfie app we have a tendency to created recently, and build it progressive. What is a Progressive Web AppIn its core a progressive net app is not any totally different from a traditional web site - it's made from HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and lives within the browser. What separates PWAs from regular websites may be a list of ten key ideas that require to be consummated. Here there, taken directly from the Google Developers web site. 1. Safe - Served via HTTPS to prevent snooping and ensure content hasn’t been tampered    with.2. Progressive - Work for every user, regardless of browser choice because they’re built with    progressive enhancement as a core tenet.3. Responsive - Fit any form factor: desktop, mobile, tablet, or whatever is next.4. Connectivity-independent - Enhanced with service workers to work offline or on low    quality networks.5. App-like - Feel like an app to the user with app-style interactions and navigation because    they’re built on the app shell model.6. Fresh - Always up-to-date thanks to the service worker update process.7. Discoverable - Are identifiable as “applications” thanks to W3C manifests and service worker registration scope allowing search engines to find them.8. Re-engageable - Make re-engagement easy through features like push notifications.9. Installable - Allow users to “keep” apps they find most useful on their home screen without the hassle of an app store.10. Linkable - Easily share via URL and not require complex installation. Following these guidelines will ensure that your app works well not only when viewed in the browser, but also when started separately via a home screen shortcut. You may find the wording Google has chosen rather confusing, but don't worry, we will explain the rules one by one later in the tutorial.What a Progressive Web App is NOTThe concept of PWAs shouldn't be confused with:· Cordova based hybrid apps· React Native· NativeScript· Electron and NW.js  All of the said technologies wrap markup language apps and package them into workable files, be it an .apk, .exe or the rest, that then have to be compelled to be downloaded from the various app store and put in on the user's device. PWAs do not need installation and are not obtainable (yet) in Google Play or the iTunes App store. To transfer a PWA you would like to easily visit it's web site so put it aside to the house screen as a cutoff. Developing and maintaining separate iOS and automaton versions is not any longer a problem, however browser support has to be taken into thought.1. SafeMost progressive internet apps work with native genus Apis and repair employees, technologies that manage sensitive information and wish to be handled with caution. That is why each PWA has got to be served through a HTTPS affiliation. If you do not have access to a server with a SSL certificate, the best method run comes in a very secure surroundings is via GitHub Pages or the same service. Any GitHub repository are often hosted directly over HTTPS, and each GitHub and GitHub Pages area unit free for public repos. For simple testing on a neighborhood server, you'll additionally attempt Ngrok. It’s a small tool that permits you to tunnel any presently running local host to a secure public uniform resource locator. Ngrok is free and obtainable for Windows, Mac, and Linux.2. ProgressiveEssentially, what this suggests is that PWAs ought to use internet technologies that square measure wide supported and work equally well on as several browsers as potential. As we tend to all recognize, within the world of internet development this is often about to not possible, however still there square measure things we will do to hide a bigger user base. For example, in our PhotoBooth app we tend to use the getUserMedia() API for accessing the hardware camera on a tool. Its support in several browsers is sort of inconsistent - hunting expedition does not support it in the slightest degree, the browsers that do support it would like prefixes and take issue in usage. To ensure additional individuals will really use our app, we tend to cowl all the prefixes: navigator.getMedia = (  navigator.getUserMedia ||  navigator.webkitGetUserMedia ||  navigator.mozGetUserMedia ||  navigator.msGetUserMedia ); We also show an error if none of the prefixes work:if (!navigator.getMedia) { displayErrorMessage("Your browser doesn't have support for the navigator.getUserMedia interface."); } else { // Use Camera API }Fallbacks and polyfills should be provided where possible. The same principles go for the CSS and HTML code.3. ResponsiveThe app ought to look nice on all devices, notwithstanding their screen size. Our app encompasses a fairly straightforward UI therefore we've used solely one or two of media queries to regulate font-size, paddings, margins, etc. Don't be afraid to use CSS libraries and frameworks like Bootstrap, as they create it very easy to make grids, and influence typography and general responsiveness.4. Connectivity independentThis is a vital one. victimization service staff permits your app to figure even once there's no net affiliation on the market. Some apps may be cached solely partially: UI is cached and on the market offline, dynamic content still wants access to a server. Others, like our PhotoBooth demo, may be cached in their totality. All of the ASCII text file and resources are going to be saved regionally and also the app can work offline and on-line precisely the same means. Here is that the code that creates the magic happen:This is an oversimplified usage of Service Workers, use with caution in commercial projects.First we need to make a service worker JavaScript file, and define the logic behind it.sw.js// Install the service worker. this.addEventListener('install', function(event) { event.waitUntil( caches.open('v1').then(function(cache) { // The cache will fail if any of these resources can't be saved. return cache.addAll([ // Path is relative to the origin, not the app directory.  '/pwa-photobooth/', '/pwa-photobooth/index.html', '/pwa-photobooth/assets/css/styles.css', '/pwa-photobooth/assets/fonts/MaterialIcons-Regular.woff2', '/pwa-photobooth/assets/js/script.js', '/pwa-photobooth/assets/icons/ic-face.png', '/pwa-photobooth/assets/icons/ic-face-large.png', '/pwa-photobooth/manifest.json' ]) .then(function() { console.log('Success! App is available offline!'); }) }) ); }); // Define what happens when a resource is requested. // For our app we do a Cache-first approach. self.addEventListener('fetch', function(event) { event.respondWith( // Try the cache. caches.match(event.request) .then(function(response) { // Fallback to network if resource not stored in cache. return response || fetch(event.request); }) ); });Then we need to link that service worker to our HTML.index.html<script> // Register Service Worker. if ('serviceWorker' in navigator) { // Path is relative to the origin, not project root. navigator.serviceWorker.register('/pwa-photobooth/sw.js') .then(function(reg) { console.log('Registration succeeded. Scope is ' + reg.scope); }) .catch(function(error) { console.error('Registration failed with ' + error); }); } </script>Now all of the files in our project will be saved in the user's browser. Any JavaScript variables and object should also be saved in the localStorage or IndexDB where possible. Right now Service Workers are supported in Chrome, Firefox and Opera. Safari and Edge are also working towards adopting them, and we hope that in the future they will be available in every browser.5. App-likeWhen building PWAs, it's counseled to follow a style idea referred to as app-shell design. It sounds terribly sophisticated however basically boils all the way down to this: the app is separated into 2 major components: the shell and also the content. The shell contains all the static UI components like a header, menus, drawers, etc. once we cache associate degree app, the shell should be saved on the device, as a result of we wish it to be on the market in the slightest degree times. That method once a user with no web association opens the app, they will not see associate degree empty screen or a running archosaur - they'll see the cached app interface associate degreed an applicable error message.The content resides within the shell. It can also be cached but it isn't necessary to do so as content is usually dynamic, changes frequently and can be different on every single page load. 6. FreshOnce cached, our PWA will always load from the local storage. However, if we change the service worker sw.js in any way, on the next page load the new version will be downloaded and installed.this.addEventListener('install', function(event) { event.waitUntil( caches.open('v1.0.1').then(function(cache) { // ... }) ); });Using service worker updates we can re-download resources, delete old cache, or completely change the service worker logic. You can learn more about the SW Update process from the Google Developers article. 7. DiscoverableBy adding an online Manifest to our app we are able to give varied info regarding it and alter the manner it's displayed on people's devices. It permits apps to be saved to the house screen with a custom icon, to be started during a separate browser window, and a great deal of different cool stuff.The Web Manifest takes the form of a simple JSON file:manifest.json{ "name": "Progressive Web App: PhotoBooth", "short_name": "PhotoBooth", "description": "Simple Progressive Web App for taking selfies.", "icons": [{ "src": "assets/icons/ic-face.png", "type": "image/png", "sizes": "72x72" }, { "src": "assets/icons/ic-face-large.png", "type": "image/png", "sizes": "144x144 256x256" }], "start_url": "index.html", "display": "standalone", "background_color": "#fff", "theme_color": "#fff", "orientation": "portrait" }Most of the properties are self explanatory so we will cover only the more important ones. See the full Web manifest format and all the available fields.· Shortname - This is the name our app will have when saved to the home screen.· Icons - Array of icons with different resolutions.· Display - Defines how the app will be opened. We've chosen standalone so when started our photo booth will appear in a full-screen window without any browser navigation or menus. It will also be seen as a separate app in multitasking.To register the manifest we have to link it to our HTML:<!-- Web Manifest --> <link rel="manifest" href="manifest.json">Safari doesn't support the Web Manifest standard yet but we can define app-like behavior with this Apple-specific meta tag:<!-- Meta tag for app-like behaviour in iOS --> <meta name=”apple-mobile-web-app-capable” content=”yes”>8. Re-engageablePush notifications are not restricted to native apps to any extent further. because of service employees and also the Push API, internet applications also can send messages to the humanoid notification bar. Not all apps can enjoy having this feature, however once used properly notifications will extremely facilitate interact users. This topic goes on the far side the scope of our tutorial, as Push Notifications area unit quite difficult and merit a full lesson on their own. If you continue to need to implement notifications to your internet app, here area unit a number of the simplest learning resources available: · Google Developers, Push Notifications: Timely, Relevant, and Precise - here.· Google Developers, Push Notifications on the Open Web - here.· MDN, Using the Push API - here.· Push.js, Library that provides a cleaner API for handling push notifications - here.9. InstallableBy default any web site may be manually saved to the house screen victimization the increase Home Screen button from the Chrome browser menu. However, it'd be rather tough to create users "install" our app this fashion, since the majority do not know this feature in the slightest degree. Thankfully, there's how for your app to prompt users to save lots of it with a straightforward installation pop-up. To stop developers from abusing these pop ups, there's not any thanks to programmatically show them. Instead, they'll seem on their own once Associate in Nursing app fulfills a series of requirements:1. There is a valid Web Manifest.2. There is a valid Service Worker installed.3. The app is served over HTTPS.We have all of the above covered, so when a user visits our app's website a couple of times, they will get this prompt:The entire installation process of our app is in this simple prompt. The install happens instantly, and once saved the PhotoBooth will be available to launch from a home screen icon, behaving exactly like a native app.11. LinkableAnyone with an internet browser has access to PWA apps and that they is shared merely via their universal resource locator. No third party tools area unit needed for locating or putting in them.If associate app runs in standalone mode, it is also suggested to feature in-app share buttons, since the browser address bar and menus are not visible.ConclusionOur PWA is now complete. We can test how well it follows the PWA rules with an official Google-made tool called Lighthouse. It recreates possible scenarios and tests the app thoroughly. Here is what it tells us about the PhotoBooth:We passed!If you want to find more PWAs to play with, go to pwa.rocks. They offer a nice collection of games and useful tools, showcasing the great power of Progressive Web Apps. We will be happy to answer your questions on designing, developing, and deploying comprehensive enterprise web, mobile apps and customized software solutions that best fit your organization needs. As a reputed Software Solutions Developer we have expertise in providing dedicated remote and outsourced technical resources for software services at very nominal cost. Besides experts in full stacks We also build web solutions, mobile apps and work on system integration, performance enhancement, cloud migrations and big data analytics. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us

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best health insurance in tennessee

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare quotes from different companies :insurancefinder.xyz

best health insurance in tennessee

best health insurance in tennessee. This insurance covers you for medical expenses that you would like to pay. If you need to drive the car, or if you are unable to take your job due to a disability, then a basic car insurance policy would apply to you. That said, in cases of an accident, you could apply for coverage, and to that end, the car insurance will be necessary. It doesn’t matter if the car is insured where you are driving as long as the driver is legally or unintentionally. If you get into an accident, you’d be the one responsible, making a claim for the bodily injuries and lost wages that your car is responsible for. Your car insurance won’t cover this, so you’re the one to make the costs. If you are a driver of many cars, it’s natural to assume that you are more or less covered by car insurance. So what if a person has a serious accident and not only damages their car, but also. best health insurance in tennessee, TX, and all 50 states, our mission is clear on this very important health insurance issue issue to avoid even a minimal exposure.”  If you’re looking for the best and cheapest insurance rates in South Carolina, it pays to do some comparison shopping. Rates can vary significantly from one insurer to the next, so you can be sure your current policy is still the same at the best price. To make your search easier, NerdWallet researched rates from the nine largest insurers in the state and found the five cheapest options for several driver types. For South Carolina’s minimum required auto insurance, these are the cheapest companies and average rates for driver profiles, assuming clean driving and credit histories: For a driver in Charleston with blemished credit and a good driving record, these are the cheapest insurance companies and average rates for full coverage: For a South Carolinian whose driving record includes. best health insurance in tennessee for residents coverage for a one year period of coverage for a health insurance renewal or additional years without a disability . We will be reimbursed for your medical expenses regardless of whether or not there is a valid charge or a reason for denying the claim. Please contact us at info@tennessee-health-insurance.com if you want to review our current insurance options or if you are interested to submit an . All claims, regardless of fault, are submitted electronically, directly to your insurance agent, insurance company desk for approval. All claims for which you have personal liability, physical damage or lost wages , regardless of who is at fault will be investigated based on the law of the state where the incident occurred. The investigation requires written and certified documentation. A written description of the allegations is required by the insurer and your medical staff. Our team is trained and equipped with a national network of doctors, insurance carriers, hospital and health providers. (4)If you, as a driver.

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Compare Renters Insurance Rates Instantly. We ve Got The Top Car Insurance Companies. Get Rates Compare Now! In order to provide you with the best price, we will gather information from your quote to determine the average auto insurance rates for those drivers. We will then analyze the average auto auto insurance rates for each of our model years to see how different car insurance companies offer and/or use their rates throughout the state for auto insurance. The average annual cost of car insurance varies from city to city. This is why it is best to find out as much information about your personal factors as possible while browsing different auto insurance rates. We can help you put the minimum coverage levels you really need. There have been a variety of factors, such as your driving record, past driving incidents and your record, that have greatly reduced your insurance options. If anything went wrong with your insurance policies, the insurance carrier can blame you, but the insurance company can go right to the end. If anything has turned you into a high risk, you’re.

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Get health insurance in Tennessee? The first number, health insurance is a fairly new phenomenon in Tennessee. In fact, the state ranks ninth with its highest uninsured rate in the country. What is uninsured or underinsured health coverage? While the numbers are much lower than the rates are in the majority of states, they will not be the only one. Tennessee also requires insurance providers to cover primary care and preventive care. There are three primary types of health insurance coverage: You can easily find out which kind of coverage you will be required to buy and how to cancel your insurance when buying a new policy. The basic health insurance coverage available in Tennessee is limited health insurance plans. The coverage level is based on the coverage level you select in your individual plan. Tennessee currently has a single, high-deductible health insurance plan: the TennCare, a state-sponsored plan. Health insurance helps pay for medical care and hospitalization, inpatient care and in-home care. But you have choices if you want: You can choose.

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Decentralized identity can bring the analog world into the digital one

It is a given that connected devices need reliable, distributed ledger, technology-based digital identity solutions. That is an essential requirement for the Internet of Things (IoT). In the machine economy, devices must be able to recognize and communicate with one another; robust identity management solutions are key to effectively securing data and processes. But what about the multitude of analog “things” all around us? Surely they can also benefit from the advent of digital identity. Imagine the following: You are just back from a grocery run or a walk in the park with your pooch when you suddenly realize the family heirloom ring that has been getting a little too loose around your finger is not there anymore. You retrace your steps, scan the ground and check the gutters and molehills, but you come back empty-handed. So many aspects of our daily lives have moved online, with precious things like passwords, pin codes and login certificates safely stowed away in appropriate security solutions. You can retrieve them at any time and manage them centrally. Why can’t you have the same for your family ring or other analog valuables?Unlike your email password, your ring currently only lives in the analog world. You could tag it with a tracking device that connects to your phone, such as Apple’s AirTag, but this raises privacy and security issues, perhaps many more than it actually solves — not to mention, it is a bulky and odd accessory for a piece of jewelry. More importantly, we own a non-trivial number of analog valuables, and slapping trackers on each one at $40 a pop is not practical. The time has come to talk about the digital identity of analog things and finally invite our prized offline possessions into our increasingly virtual world.Related: The data economy is a dystopian nightmare

What is decentralized digital identity?

Decentralized identity, or DID, refers to a digital identifier for something existing in the physical world. This digital identifier is placed on an immutable distributed ledger and includes a detailed description of attributes, capabilities and ownership. In practical terms, this means there is a reliable record that establishes you as the owner of your now-lost family ring. It describes the ring closely and makes it instantly identifiable. With your credentials, you can prove you are the owner; a miniature QR or barcode — or another kind of scannable identifier — attached or lasered onto the object is all it takes. Depending on the item, digital tags with additional capabilities are another viable option.Compared to a simple tag or another tracking device, digital identity has a few other key advantages. It is stored safely because of its distributed ledger technology (DLT) backing, and it can establish ownership without leading directly to the owner. If you do not wish to publish your personally identifiable information on the ledger — a wise decision at any rate — you can create your own verified digital identity and associate your analog belongings with it. In the example of your lost ring, you have proof that you own the ring and can also use pseudonymization to make it harder for unwanted third parties to trace your valuables back to you.Related: No more pushes and pushbacks: Digital ID solves the privacy dilemma

Conspicuous ownership of inconspicuous value

Analog things hold different kinds of value — monetary, emotional, practical — and can attract unwanted access and potential theft from bad actors at any moment, for any reason. Establishing a robust system of DLT-based digital identity for valuable physical objects has the added benefit of discouraging theft, as confirming a stolen object’s provenance on the ledger would automatically negate the option to resell it. To further discourage misappropriation attempts, you can create different verifiable credentials associated with your digital identity. You also choose with whom you share this sensitive information — if anyone at all. Thanks to selective disclosure, you can establish your ownership of analog objects reliably, without sharing any more information than necessary. For instance, a public record on the ledger can list you as the owner of a white porcelain vase with blue floral motifs that is 20.5 inches tall and weighs 14.8 pounds. In a different verifiable credential, you can specify the vase is a Qianlong — a collector’s item worth millions of dollars. This information does not need to be public, but you can share it with potential buyers if you decide to part ways with your prized collectible. DLT-powered digital identity affords you complete control over how much information you make public and how you compartmentalize so that it matches your individual ownership, identification and security needs.Related: Decentralized identity is the way to fighting data and privacy theft

Identification and authentication on a global scale

Cross-platform communication remains a challenge in the digital realm, even more so on the analog side of things. Verifying the identity and ownership of an item across state borders and language barriers can be a prolonged, slow and expensive process that involves multiple steps and certified professionals’ services. In the case of especially valuable objects or real estate, verification involves notaries, translators, independent assessors and even consulates and embassies. A system of unified digital identity can replace lengthy approval and authentication chains with a simple DLT solution that instantly confirms an analog item’s ownership and characteristics anywhere in the world.However, digital identity is not only useful for cross-border transactions. Today’s supply chains span the globe, and tracing materials and product components across continents is an arduous task that remains, against all odds, surprisingly analog. Shipment tracking is still often done by hand and on paper. The possibility for human error is high, and mistakes carry over and multiply across the shipment’s lifecycle. An immutable digital identity can speed up and automate many logistics processes. Special items that require particular handlings, such as temperature control or motion stabilization, can be paired with sensors that monitor their shipping conditions. In the end, items will arrive at their destination with an immutable record of their transportation quality and safety.Such solutions are not limited to the logistics industry. The world is on the cusp of the post-COVID-19 era and the return to international travel it promises. Many of us will take to the sky in search of new, exciting destinations, but our bags will occasionally not travel with us. According to pre-pandemic statistics, airlines around the world misplace about 25 million bags per year. Chances are it has happened to you as well, and you know first-hand what a pain it is to track down and reclaim your lost luggage. Pairing your bag with a DID would make it instantly findable — no more looking for one black hard-shell suitcase among thousands. Airlines could also tag your bag at check-in with a DLT-enabled sensor that would give an audio or visual warning to luggage handlers if they are about to put your suitcase on the wrong plane.

A digital afterlife for analog things

Analog things get lost or misplaced — it is in their nature. Whether we are talking about production, logistics or personal items, such incidents are often costly and distressing. In our increasingly digitized everyday lives, our analog possessions are in danger of remaining disconnected permanently. Instead of leaving them behind, we can pair them with a digital identity that affords them the electronic afterlife they deserve without intruding on their nature. DID does not require analog objects to become digitized, and it does not need expensive sensors or hi-tech tags to work correctly. Instead, it offers an affordable, reliable and versatile way to take offline items out of the digital blindspot. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.Dominik Schiener is a co-founder of the Iota Foundation, a nonprofit foundation based in Berlin. He oversees partnerships and the overall realization of the project’s vision. Iota is a distributed ledger technology for the Internet of Things and is a cryptocurrency. Additionally, he won the largest blockchain hackathon in Shanghai. For the past two years, he has been focused on enabling the machine economy through Iota.Source Read the full article