#it makes it really frustrating and not worth our trouble the vast majority of the time... so congrats you played yourself

[mittensmorgul]

:’D

[recentanimenews]

OPINION: The Life and Times of an Indian Otaku

  Makoto Shinkai's Weathering With You marked a historic first in my anime watching career. Contrary to popular belief, being the first anime to be released in Indian theaters is not the historic first in question (that honor goes to Shinchan: Bungle in the Jungle). Rather, Weathering With You would become the first film I'd ever watch on opening day — "first day first show" as we Indians call it. In the mad scramble to get tickets, I'd emerged a winner. Was it worth the struggle?

An emphatic yes. It was so good I went on to rewatch it twice.

    To fans in India: I’m so happy to tell that ‘Weathering With You’ (Tenki no ko) will release in India this October! We have licensed the Indian distribution rights to PVR Pictures and BookMyShow backed company Vkaao.

— 新海誠 (@shinkaimakoto) August 10, 2019

  The Indian theatrical release of Weathering With You in 2019 marked an important moment in the history of the Indian anime fandom. The story of how Shinkai noticed (and fulfilled) an online petition by Indian fans asking for its release here is already the stuff of legend. Because access to anime (especially in theaters) was so scarce in India, even in 2019, fans sought to have the film legally released in theaters. And thanks to Shinkai, it worked. To Indian anime fans, this represented the moment Japan — and the rest of the world — recognized our existence in the fandom. But Indian otakus didn't spring up overnight. Anime has had nearly three decades of history here. It just looks a little different than the rest of the world. The origins of anime in India go back to the '90s. Prior to the economic reforms of 1991, we had one — yes, only one — TV channel, the state-owned Doordarshan. The post-1991 wave of private TV channels brought with it a flood of international TV shows, among them anime like Robotech (which aired on the newly-created Star Plus). Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama, the anime adaptation of the Indian mythological epic of the same name, was released in 1992 and had a long and troubled production history, but the end product was a grand success, with its all-star Hindi cast and catchy songs turning it into a TV fixture for well over a decade. It even received a US release, with Bryan Cranston voicing the lead role. The remainder of the '90s would see various anime achieve varying degrees of success, from Nippon Animation's 1989 adaptation of The Jungle Book — which became a nationwide hit — airing in India starting in 1993, to late-night anime like You're Under Arrest and Gunsmith Cats. Despite this, there wasn't yet an actual fandom surrounding anime at the time. That would all change upon the turn of the century.

  Cartoon Network revolutionized the Indian anime market when the channel arrived in 2001. The launch of dedicated anime programming block Toonami brought with it two anime that would permanently shape the future of the fandom: Dragon Ball Z and Cardcaptor Sakura (albeit in its heavily-edited Cardcaptors form). While I never watched Dragon Ball Z (compared to all my friends at school), I did watch some Cardcaptors with my sister, which would actually be the very first anime I watched. My own viewing habits notwithstanding, DBZ was very much the anime of the moment. Schoolkids would frequently shout out famous lines from the iconic English dub. We'd even invented various hand games based on attacks and moves from DBZ. In 2003, another monumental shift would come as the childhood classic Pokémon hit the small screen, followed closely by Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Beyblade. The merchandise associated with these franchises turned them into smash hits with a younger audience. All the cool kids had Pokemon cards and Beyblade tops. Battling with them at school was the stuff childhood was made of. To this day, these toys continue to sell well. Beyblade tournaments are still very much a thing. While many of my schoolmates were avid fans of DBZ, there were other trends in anime that could be observed, trends that had to do with language. From my experience, certain anime were only available dubbed in Hindi — a language spoken largely by the northern half of the country. Coming from a south Indian city with a significant north Indian population, I could observe a clear trend wherein Hindi-speaking north Indians grew up with these Hindi-dubbed anime, while people in the south (who spoke other languages) largely grew up with titles that were available in English (or Tamil, as fans of DBZ's Tamil dub can testify). Interestingly, these Hindi dubbed anime tended to be ones that were popular in Japan but not so much in the West — stuff like Doraemon, Shin-Chan, KochiKame, and Case Closed. This gave the north Indian anime scene a rather unique flavor. An even more interesting case is that of India's northeastern region (comprised of states like Nagaland, Manipur, and Meghalaya). Being culturally different from the rest of India, these states have had a history of consuming Korean and Japanese media, and they embraced anime and manga in a way the rest of the nation had not. Anime-related cosplay is huge in the northeast, with some of the best cosplay conventions in the nation taking place there and becoming a part of the local fashion scene. The general acceptance of otaku culture in the region continues to be high.

Eventually, anime would become a little more accessible to all. The launch of dedicated channel Animax in 2004 represented another watershed moment in the fandom. The shows Animax brought over were unlike anything we'd seen in the medium. Shows like Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Inuyasha, and K-On! redefined what anime meant for Indian audiences who had previously seen anime as a childhood interest and no different from other cartoons. As the channel slowly began to shift its focus to the older teen/young adult demographic, more mature anime like Cowboy Bebop, Hell Girl, Akira, and Welcome to the NHK challenged our conservative notions of what was acceptable to air on TV, especially considering these shows aired in daytime slots rather than late-night. This honeymoon period did not last. Animax was delisted by service providers in 2012. The years to come would be some of the most frustrating for us anime fans, as availability was at its most inconsistent and uncertain. While the channel attempted to make a comeback later on in 2016, it eventually disappeared for good in 2017. Despite all these problems, I look back on Animax fondly. Thanks to it, we became aware of the existence of the entity known as "anime." We began to actively seek out anime over other forms of animation. In short, it resulted in the formation of an actual fandom centered around anime. Anime fan clubs began to pop up in major cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, and Kolkata. Widespread conventions outside of the northeast region came next. Anime Con India was started in 2010, followed closely by Delhi Comic-Con in 2011. Anime conventions in India are a curious thing. They are very unlike the sprawling, sophisticated conventions of the West. The funds simply aren't there for that sort of thing. I don't recall a single Indian anime convention that was attended by a voice actor, animator, or the like. So what are Indian cons about? In an interview with The Citizen, Anime Con India founder Nitesh Rohit talked about his reason for starting the con: "like any other belief and faith they all needed a temple to congregate (at)." This statement really resonates with me, and sums up what Indian cons are about. What they lack in scale and facilities, they make up for in intimacy and a feeling of togetherness. They are more or less small-scale events for anime fans to find other fans, to network with them, and basically feel less alone. Because feeling alone was part of the original Indian otaku experience. The early fandom was largely an urban phenomenon, as going to cons wasn't an option for everyone and the internet wasn't what it is today. So, you had these disconnected pockets of fans. People around you were unlikely to share your interest in anime and may have even judged you for it. The general consensus in India was (and still is) that animation is a medium for children. And remember, for a long time, anime accessibility varied by region. So, if you were lucky enough to find a kindred otaku, there was no guarantee they were into (or had even heard of) the same titles as you. This meant that we hadn't really had the ability to develop any sort of unique culture or traditions of our own. Things like going to cons, renting anime DVDs, memes and in-jokes — these things didn't exist for the vast majority of early fans who were school-going kids or college students of little means. A culture of our own wouldn't arise until much later — when that generation grew up.

  Of course, it wasn't just us who grew up — technology did, too. The internet became more ubiquitous. Social media and forums enabled us to network with each other regardless of location, in ways we'd never have imagined. To the scattered fandom of the early days, this has been nothing short of a blessing. The other big change ushered in by the internet was the era of streaming. Until then, most of our anime viewing took place on television and as previously stated, was not always very consistent. Accessibility improved greatly with the launch of Netflix in 2016. In today's India, Netflix is a household name, with a significant portion of young adults having access to a subscription. With a catalog of over 200 anime, Netflix has been responsible for pulling in many new fans. Plenty of people "come for the movies, stay for the anime." Series like My Hero Academia, Death Note, and One-Punch Man have become mainstream successes in this fashion, with a significant following even among non-anime fans. Another streaming service that is beginning to make inroads into the Indian market is Crunchyroll, with simulcasts like Boruto and originals like Tower of God, and the fact that it is free makes it accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Most Indian anime fans I know of have heard of Crunchyroll, and as more titles get licensed it is inevitable that its popularity will rise. And us otakus are doing plenty to help it do just that.

The success of Weathering With You is a shining example of the tight-knit nature of the Indian anime fandom. All it took was one person (an anime fan named Divishth Pancholi) to create a Change.org petition asking for its release in Indian theaters. The petition went viral, getting over 50,000 signatures and attracting the attention of Shinkai and the producers, resulting in its release here. Today, that event is seen as a smaller part of a greater Indian anime movement that is pushing for increased availability and acceptance of anime in India. Hashtags like #IndiaWantsAnime frequently make their presence felt on social media. This fandom isn't without its problems — it isn't the most inclusive when it comes to non-male fans, the "animation is for kids" specter hasn't been fully shaken off, and I'd love for anime BluRays/DVDs to be more widely available here. But I am grateful for the fandom's existence for getting me into anime in the first place. Without them, I'd have never been sitting in a movie theater on October 11, 2019, watching Weathering With You.

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[overthinkingkdrama]

Jona’s 5 Worst Dramas of 2019

A couple words about this list. I’m making this for fun. If a drama you love ended up on this list, it doesn’t mean that I hate you or I think you’re stupid or have terrible taste. But these are dramas that inspired strong negative reactions in me for one reason or another, whether that be disappointment, rage or disgust.

I’ve only included dramas that finished airing in 2019 in my selection process. If you have some dramas that hated, feel free to share them in the replies or send me an ask. It’s fun to complain about things for some reason.

Also, I have included major SPOILERS in a couple of these. So read at your own peril.

Dishonorable Mention: Melting Me Softly

I sincerely tried to limit myself to only dramas that I--for whatever misguided reasons--finished in their entirety for this list. Mainly because I don’t think it’s fair to brand something as the “worst” of anything without actually giving the thing a fair shake. That’s the only reason Melting Me Softly isn’t higher on this list. But I felt that it wasn’t right to leave it off entirely, if for no other reason then out of respect for the fallen Ji Chang Wook stans out there who lost their lives trying to make it through this trash fire. Somebody needs to stand up for those brave soldiers, out their gifing trash dramas while people like me are safe and sound on our couches, watching the tag like it’s a train wreck.

I made it through only two episodes of this drama, and despite my goodwill toward the majority of the cast, they were two of the most bafflingly bad hours of television that I forced myself to sit through this year. From what I could tell while side-eyeing the drama on tumblr and twitter it didn’t improve much over the course of the run. There were a couple steamy kisses that I enjoyed in clip form, but I don’t think it would have been worth the brain cells lost to sit through any more than that.

Bottom Line: Painfully unfunny, overwhelmingly expositional with no character development, confusing pacing and sloppy editing. Two episodes was two too many.

5. When the Devil Calls Your Name

It pains me to put this on the list because it was just last year that a Jung Kyung Ho, Park Sung Woong collaboration (Life on Mars) ended up in my top 5. And giving credit where it’s due, the two male leads seem to have a great deal of fun working together and I believe that all the actors gave this drama everything they could and sincerely tried to make it work. That’s one of the things I like about Jung Kyung Ho, he picks unique, risky projects that either pay off in a big way or fall flat on their faces (like the amateurishly written and edited Missing 9) Unfortunately, this script just too messy and too bizarre to work. Ha Rip as has a deeply frustrating character arc. He’s such a self-centered jerk for the vast majority of the drama, which is fine for a Faust type story if it’s written with conviction, but every time you think he’s started to turn a corner or grown as a person he reverts back to his old ways. The writing and tone are whiplash inducing. Plus the vague “soul mates” relationship between Ha Rip and Kim Yi Kyung seemed to want to have it both ways, flipping between implied romantic potential and a father/daughter dynamic, which made me quite uncomfortable.

Bottom Line: This drama’s bizarre mythology and world building barely makes any sense at all, but at least they’re easier to follow than the character development. Attempted something unique, but couldn’t pull it off. The OST is super dope though.

4. Love in Sadness

When I watched the first teasers I got the distinct impression that this wasn’t going to be a good drama, or at best it was going to be a guilty pleasure, but at the time when I started it I was hungry for a melo and there wasn’t much airing to hold my attention so I started it on impulse. I think in this case I got what I deserved for continuing to watch something I didn’t think was very good.

The first few episodes were actually pretty gripping and intriguingly dark, but that petered of quickly and the drama became and infuriating wheel spinning exercise with barely any perceptible plot development from episode to episode. The protagonists in this are all so stupid that in the final few episodes the female lead gets kidnapped not once, but multiple times because she keeps meeting her unstable husband alone. Plus nobody in this drama seems to know how to call the police when a madman is waving around a gun. It probably wouldn’t have made me so very mad except that in the last few episodes the writer became unaccountably preoccupied with how sad the psychotic, wife-beating husband’s family life was and how lonely and pathetic his life was when he wasn’t allowed to stalk, assault, and psychologically terrorize his wife. Seriously, in the last leg of the drama the villain is the only character who gets any character development at all. The drama pulls out all the stops to try to make use feel sorry for him. It’s disgusting.

Bottom Line: When a drama about a woman trying to escape domestic violence becomes completely preoccupied with painting the abuser as tragically misunderstood, you’ve got some serious problems.

3. The Lies Within

If it wasn't for the last two episodes this drama would not be on this list, but that isn't because it was in any way an exceptional drama, or that it otherwise would have ended up on my best list. Without the last two episodes The Lies Within is a merely adequate thriller, somewhat heightened by the brutal nature of the premise. I picked this show up largely to fill the void that was left by WATCHER and it was more or less successful, plus it helped that I liked the cast. However even at the beginning this drama I felt like it had some pretty glaring tone problems. There were parts of the drama that were standard OCN dark and gritty thriller, and there were other parts that felt like a campy police sitcom. The humor, when it does crop up in this drama always feels super out of place. But then that last big twist happened and man...I can't remember the last time a drama made me that angry or cratered quite so hard with a twist.

[And this is where I spoil the HELL out of this drama...]

Before this drama decided to go all M. Night Shyamalan in it’s last two episodes, there seemed to be at least one, if not two really reasonable candidates for the kidnapper. Actually all the ground work they’d done up to that point would seem to have pointed to Young Min and if he had turned out to be the perpetrator, I would have completely bought it. Instead they decided to blow everyone’s mind by making the kidnapped husband complicit in his own kidnapping and dismemberment. Which might seem like a shocking twist until you think about it for even half a second.

What it winds up doing on a narrative level it makes everything the characters have done to investigate this series of crimes up to this point feel pointless, resulting in a huge anticlimax. It makes the ambiguous figure of Seo Hui’s husband not only hopelessly stupid, but also cruel and unsympathetic. Because he thought somehow simply sharing the information with her would put her in more danger than threatening and psychologically terrorizing her into investigating the very people he was theoretically trying to protect her from. The explanation that he was already terminally ill doesn’t to anything to mitigate the stupidity of his plan for me. Seriously, you couldn’t think of any solution aside from cutting bits off yourself and sending them to your wife in the mail? I could rant about this ending at length, but I’m going to try to stop here.

Bottom Line: As far as I’m concerned, if you choose to sacrifice the emotional and narrative coherence of your story for a cheap and dirty twist to surprise the audience, you deserve every ranty review you get.

2. Love Affairs in the Afternoon

I’m really not sure what possessed me to watch this drama to begin with. That I continued to watch it is on me. The fact that I watched it despite hating the shallow characters, the thin story and the abortive message at the core of the drama is simply a lapse of judgement for which I shouldn’t be forgiven. Why did I do it despite not having a single nice thing to say about this show? Well, there are two reasons. I was curious to see if they would do anything compelling with one or two of the characters, (specifically the serial adulteress housewife an the broody artist) and I was surreptitiously watching this drama at work and it was really easy to follow the plot while only actually keeping my eyes on the screen about half the time. I watched the last episode before the subs were available and had no trouble understanding what was going. Which could be a sign that my Korean is improving, but is more likely a sign that the writing was so predictable and simplistic that you could follow it if you didn’t speak the language at all.

[Spoilers beyond this point.]

It’s my understanding that in the Jdrama that this is based on all of the characters basically wreck their lives and end up miserable, pointing toward the emptiness of the lives of these people who try to find fulfillment through extra-marital affairs. If that’s how this drama had ended, I still wouldn’t have enjoyed the execution but I could have respected the intent. But in this watered down Kdrama-fied version all the couples’ issues are resolved in the whitewash of a last episode time skip that makes the suffering and bullshit that led up to it feel completely pointless.

Bottom Line: Maybe this level of trashy, uninspired tripe would be somewhat justified if the chemistry between the leads had been better, but somehow they even managed to screw that up. The leads are just bad, vacuous people, a fact which is rendered all the more unforgivable by them being utterly bland. Everybody needed to divorce, nobody deserved to end up happy. Please be wiser than me and avoid this one.

1. Memories of the Alhambra

Initially, I was on the fence about even producing a “Worst List” this year, because in the past few years I’ve tried to be better about dropping dramas the moment they start to disappoint me, rather than hanging on to them and winding up burning myself out. I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough material to write this list, or at least not enough material to make it worth reading. Then I remembered that Memories of the Alhambra finished airing in January of this year (2019 was impossibly long, wasn’t it?) and I thought, “Aha, I can make this work.” I knew at once this drama was going to be the shitty tinfoil star atop my Christmas tree of suck.

I’ve already written a full review of this drama, where I got about as mean as I felt I could reasonably be. You can go read that if you like, I’m not going to retread all my many complaints here. What I will say is that Memories of the Alhambra took my mixed-to-favorable opinion of the writer, Song Jae Jung, and turned it to a negative one. She’s someone who clearly has a lot of interesting high concept ideas, but the execution is just not there. You can hook an audience with a concept, but you have to keep them with craft and structure. 

Maybe the industry can be blamed for that. Maybe she just has a hard time ending her stories, or maybe writing on a deadline doesn’t agree with her. Whatever the reason, I can no longer trust her to deliver a satisfying story. And that’s deeply saddening to me, because Queen In Hyun’s Man is in my top 10 favorite dramas.

To be front-to-back terrible is one thing. The joke’s at least half on me for bothering. But to have potential, to have an interesting hook, a budget, a cast, but then to be either unwilling or unable to live up to that potential feels like a con. That’s how I felt about his drama, like I had been willfully deceived by special effects and flashy editing, all orchestrated to disguise a narratively bankrupt, unsatisfying drama.

Bottom Line:  Is Memories of the Alhambra objectively the worst drama on this list? No, it’s not. Is it the most disappointing? Absolutely, it is. And that’s the more heinous crime, in my opinion.  And that’s why it’s my worst drama of 2019.

[erinptah]

The Secret Commonwealth review: It was...pretty underwhelming, mostly

Finally got the audiobook of The Secret Commonwealth checked out from my local library!

(Here’s my review of its predecessor, La Belle Sauvage, if you want to start there.)

It’s 20 hours long. Whoof.

As for the contents…look, it was well-written prose. I didn’t get bored while listening. (Rereading that last review, I realized I’d written the same thing about the previous book, too.) But in retrospect, there sure was not a lot that happened in those 20 hours. Some notable action bits, in between a lot of padding.

And my reactions mostly consist of…complaints. Not “this is hideous, time to ragequit the series, this is an unqualified anti-rec” complaints, more a low-level churn of frustration.

(There’s one scene I know has made someone else outright refuse to read it, though, and I think it’s totally reasonable. More on that later.)

So I’m gonna try to unpack a bunch of it here. Hopefully in enough detail that, if you haven’t read it yet (and don’t mind spoilers), it can help you make an informed decision about whether it’s worth spending 20 hours of your life on.

Spoilers start here!

The Story

We open with Lyra as a 20-year-old student at St. Sophia’s, a women’s college in Oxford. She’s made some kinda-friends, including former booty calls that she’s still on good terms with, but she’s badly estranged from Pantalaimon.

Their rift is exacerbated by a couple of books she’s read that are popular with young intellectuals lately. One is a philosophy book, one is a novel, both of them seem broadly Ayn Randian in the sense that “teens/college kids get really into these books and decide it’s smart and fashionable to adopt their moral framework, ignoring both the logical failures and the ways in which this turns you into a horrible person.”

She’s been staying at Jordan between semesters, but political drama forces her to move, and that’s when Oakley Street swoops in to make contact. They’re the secret Magisterum-thwarting spy organization that Hannah Relf worked for in La Belle Sauvage. Employees now include Alice Lonsdale and Malcolm Polstead, who fill Lyra in on the events of the previous book.

Lyra crashes at Malcolm’s parents’ inn for a bit, but her fighting with Pan gets so bad that he takes off, leaving a note. He’s going to confront one of the authors of the fashionable/terrible books — who lives in Germany, so this could take a while.

Since Lyra can’t just hang around and go through the motions of a normal life while her daemon is visibly missing, she takes off too. First on a detour to the Gyptians, then on a sorta meandering cross-continental journey of her own.

Along the way, both Lyra and Pan keep uncovering new details about this ongoing side plot:

It turns out there’s a place, I think somewhere in the Middle East, where daemons can’t go — same as the area in the North that witches use for separation ordeals. If a human crosses that area, they arrive at the growing-place of a type of rose that won’t grow properly anywhere else, whose oil has the same effect as the seed-pod sap used by Mary Malone in the mulefa world — you can use it to make a Dust-viewing lens.

This rose oil can also be used to make all kinds of super-cool products, like the World’s Best Perfume and the World’s Best Rosewater, so it’s valuable for lots of reasons. But a few researchers have caught on to the Dust-viewing power, and the Magisterium has caught on that some dangerous research is happening with roses, so they’ve started destroying every rosebush they can find in the general region — wreaking havoc with the global economy in the process.

(They’re also trying to convince the general population that God Says Roses Are Immoral now. If this book had come out 5 years ago, I could’ve made some great connections with “there’s widespread successful Magisterium propaganda about how nobody should like or respect the work of botanists.”)

And there’s a related plot where Lyra’s uncle (she actually has one! Mrs. Coulter had a brother!) is playing a long game to re-consolidate as much Magisterium power as possible under a single individual. It gets us some good dramatic sequences…which I feel no need to break down here, because they’re exactly the ones you would imagine, with exactly the outcome you’re already expecting.

One of Uncle Wannabe-Pope’s employees is Bonneville Junior, the son of the miniboss from La Belle Sauvage. He’s a trained alethiometrist, but is more interested in his personal vendetta against Lyra than his actual job. Takes after Dad in that he’s not very deep or complex, just a straightforward fun-to-hate villain.

Pan eventually makes his way to the Terrible Author’s home, where he discovers that things are weird and creepy, but not very specific. Doesn’t achieve anything in particular, either. Disheartened, he sets off for the Region of the Weird Roses, with the idea he’ll meet Lyra there.

Lyra, meanwhile, has a notebook they recovered from an explorer who went to the Region of the Weird Roses. It includes a list of other (non-witch) people across the world who’ve been separated, because apparently they’re more common than you’d think, and have a secret support network. So she visits a few of these people along her trip, with an endgame goal of Weird Roseville.

Malcolm also makes his own journey toward Weird Roseville. I think it was part of an Oakley Street investigation into “what does the Magisterium have against roses these days?” In the middle of it, Bonneville Junior confronts him (Junior is having trouble finding Lyra, but has a secondary vendetta against Malcolm for killing his dad, so this is almost as good). Malcolm talks him down.

At last Lyra, Pan, and Junior all hit the same “creepy deserted town in the general area of Weird Roseville.” But none of them manage to interact before the book ends.

…In my LBS review, I said it had serious middle-of-the-trilogy syndrome, a whole lot of setup for no payoff. TSC spends very little time following up on any of it. To be fair, the Original Trilogy has happened in the meantime and this book also tries to address some of the events from that, but the vast bulk of it is even more setup for no payoff.

Complaints, Broadly Organized By Theme, In Loosely Chronological Order

Lyra at St. Sophia’s:

I really like how the opening sequence involves Lyra noticing a friend is in distress and helping her out! (Friend’s dad is in the rose-using business, and his company is going under.) And then…that’s the last we see of any connections with female friends her own age. In the entire book.

One of the Terrible Rationalist Books is spreading the idea that “daemons are a collective hallucination.” This is not a “rational” idea in this world! It would be like saying that faces are a collective hallucination!

And Lyra is the least likely person in this world to buy into it, because she’s visited a world without visible daemons, and got empirical proof (via Will’s and John Parry’s separation ordeals) that even under those conditions, they still exist!

I can appreciate the idea of Lyra and Pan being traumatized and scarred and having trouble, but this, specifically, is a nonsensical thing for them to argue over.

The book also gestures (not very hard, thankfully) toward the idea that Lyra is doubting the existence of magic in general. Which, again, is the equivalent of someone from our world deciding it’s rational to doubt the existence of weather.

Also, it seems like Lyra/Pan haven’t had any contact with witch society through these years. Why not? If anyone’s going to have sympathy and understanding and support groups for their separation-related trauma, it’s the culture where every single member formally goes through the same thing! And I’m sure Serafina would be delighted to see them! But they don’t even consider the idea.

Lyra and Malcolm:

Yes, they’re being telegraphed as a future couple, and yes, it’s just as creepy and unappealing as the internet has been saying.

And, look, I’m not going to say “20-year-old Lyra is too young to date anyone she wants.” Not after we got through all of Original Flavor HDM without saying “12-year-old Lyra is too young to go on an interdimensional journey with no adult supervision and save the multiverse.”

But he was one of her teachers when she was 16, and his POV includes remembering how he had to actively shut down sexual interest in her then, and here in the present Lyra still thinks of him as kind of a distant authority figure, and that’s weird, okay?

They only have a couple days’ worth of actual interaction before being apart for the rest of the book. That’s not enough time to believably develop their dynamic into something believably-potentially-romantic. So the narrative doesn’t try.

…but it still has multiple people ask Malcolm if he’s in love with Lyra afterward.

The foreshadowing on Lyra’s side is all in how she keeps thinking about how similar he is to Will. (Cat daemon, killed someone when he was a tween, etc.) Because that’s what we all want for Lyra’s romantic future, a knockoff Will-substitute, amirite?

Separately: Malcolm and friends tell Lyra the whole backstory about the magical boat trip from La Belle Sauvage, but it doesn’t seem like she tells them anything about “that time I went on an interdimensional journey, built a group of allies from multiple worlds and species including literal angels, killed God, and permanently rewrote the nature of death.” I feel like that should’ve come up!

General daemon stuff:

There’s a moment in the early chapters when Pan, wandering alone at night, considers eating some small critter (the kind that an ordinary pine marten would eat). It’s not like he’s going through a species-identity crisis, either. It’s just written as…a thing a daemon might do. So that’s weird.

In the original series, daemon separation is a major, improbable ordeal. Under normal circumstances, a human and a daemon being dragged apart past their distance limit will just kill them. At Bolvangar they figured out a severance method that would leave you physically functional, but dead inside. Witch-style separation only happens at this special daemon-repelling place in the North (you don’t have to be a witch to use it, see John Parry, but they usually don’t tell non-witches it exists), or on the shores of the World of the Dead. So far, so good.

In this series, we find out that there’s another place on this Earth with the same daemon-repelling properties. It’s also remote and isolated and associated with Cool Weird Stuff (the cities in the Northern Lights vs. the Dust-revealing roses). Again, so far, so good.

…And then we find out that random people can just kinda do a separation ordeal anywhere. Okay, it already happened to Malcolm in La Belle Sauvage, but now it’s all over the place. Lyra keeps spotting people on the street without daemons! Pan teams up with a kid who got dragged apart from her daemon in a shipwreck, and it didn’t kill them! It’s too easy. It’s unsatisfying. It undercuts so much of the monumental feeling separation had in the original trilogy.

It also makes it even weirder that nobody was able to hook Lyra and Pan up with a support group. Oakley Street couldn’t suss it out? Her friends among the Gyptians couldn’t catch an underground rumor and pass it on?

Related: when we saw daemonless kids in The Golden Compass, they were treated like horror-movie monsters. Like zombies, ghosts, bodies walking around without heads. But when people clock Lyra as being daemonless here, they treat it like it’s something immoral. Like she’s walking around topless and needs to cover it up.

There’s just a general pattern of rewriting HDM’s established rules about daemons, and not for the better.

And speaking of rewriting established rules…general alethiometer stuff:

There is a New Method for reading the alethiometer. It involves pointing all three hands at the same symbol, which already seems like a gimmick, not a useful way to frame a question.

And somehow, that gets you the answers in the form of…magic visions. No intuition or interpretation needed! The sights and sounds just get funneled directly into your brain!

The reason this isn’t a Plot-Breaking Hack is because it makes the user super-queasy. You can only use it when you’re in a position to be sick afterward, and people would rather not use it at all.

Lyra spends most of the story with the alethiometer, and without all the symbology books that go with it. She avoids using the New Method because of the nausea, but she also avoids using the Classic Method, on the grounds that it apparently can’t get her anything without the books.

She’s been studying these books for years now! Couldn’t she at least try to read it, and make her best guess at the interpretation? Maybe sometimes she gets it right, maybe sometimes she’s wrong and things go sideways and she realizes in hindsight which of the symbols she misread, maybe sometimes she gives up and gets depressed and puts it away without drawing a conclusion at all…but nope, she just flat-out doesn’t interact with it.

Midway through the book, Lyra gets a tipoff about a kind of truth-reading cards. That’s fine; we know there are other methods of truth-reading in the multiverse, including the I Ching and Mary Malone’s computer. Makes sense as a new tidbit of worldbuilding.

But towards the end of the story, someone helpfully gifts Lyra a deck of the cards. And she spends some time trying to infer answers from how the pretty pictures on the cards fit together. More time than she spends trying to infer answers from how the pretty pictures on the alethiometer fit together.

The alethiometer didn’t need a New Method or a total replacement in the narrative…but apparently it’s getting them.

And what was the point of Lyra dedicating herself to studying those symbols, for years, if she can get better and more-accurate data from a set of symbols she’d never seen before until this week?

Pan’s international voyage:

This all started when Pan got the idea that Terrible Author had “put a spell on Lyra and stolen her imagination.” Which sounds like a figure of speech at first, but no, apparently Pan thinks this guy is literally magic.

And yet, somehow, not magic enough to be dangerous, even for a single lone daemon whose only plan is “confront him directly and demand that he fix it”?

Most of the trip is uneventful, since it’s a long string of Pan successfully keeping out-of-sight.

There’s one clever part where, once he’s in Terrible Author’s hometown, he finds a school for the blind to ask for information. That way he can say “my girl is totally standing right over there, don’t worry about it, now, any chance you know where Terrible Author lives?”

…of course, the first person he asks has exactly the right answer and is happy to share. Convenient, that.

As mentioned, Terrible Author’s setup is suitably creepy and off-putting, but Pan doesn’t figure out anything about why. Doesn’t investigate. Didn’t come up with any kind of plan beforehand about how to coax Terrible Author into undoing his evil spell. Pan just confronts him, demands he fix Lyra, realizes this hasn’t fixed Lyra, and leaves.

There’s a bombshell much later on when Lyra finds out that Terrible Author is separated! And, although there’s a daemon who hangs around with him, they don’t actually belong to each other! This is fascinating and disturbing and would’ve been so much more satisfying if, you know, Pan had figured this out and was actively trying to bring the information to Lyra. Or, heck, if anything had been done with it at all.

Shortly afterward, Pan runs into this girl who just happens to be separated from her daemon, and is available and happy to team up with Pan, so they can head off to Weird Roseville together. Convenient. Again.

Lyra’s Bogus Journey:

Lyra has a much harder time staying out of sight than Pan, so she gets a lot more interaction along her trip.

Most of it is a long string of the same convenient “running into people who are helpful and friendly and have exactly the information she needs to move the plot along.” (More details on that below.)

When this happened in the original trilogy, it was the alethiometer deus-ex-machining her in the right direction, which worked! But here it seems to keep happening by accident. (She brings the alethiometer, but, as mentioned, she doesn’t use it.)

The Conveniently Helpful People also keep telling her (with minimal prompting, and what seems like total honesty?) whole backstories. All of which are more interesting than the actual narrative she’s going through.

They also occasionally mention God/the Authority, and Lyra doesn’t have much of a reaction. I wish, just once, she had snapped “it doesn’t matter what the Authority thinks! Or rather, what he used to think, since my boyfriend and I killed him when we were 12!”

The convenience also could’ve worked if Oakley Street agents were being cool and clever and actively tracking her journey in order to help. She does run into a few of them, but that seems to be by accident too.

And it could’ve worked if there was other magic steering her along — she keeps dropping the phrase “the secret commonwealth,” meaning the world’s hidden population of faeries and other supernatural creatures — but as of the end of the book, none of Lyra’s friendly helpers have been revealed to be anything other than human. (Some are modified in exotic ways, but they were human to start with, at least.)

Even farther towards the end of the book, after this long string of people being Conveniently Helpful For No Reason, she ends up in a train car with…and I wish I was making this up…a bunch of soldiers who are Inconveniently Attempted Rapists For No Reason.

That record-scratch moment your brain just did? That’s how it feels in the book, too. The attack comes out of nowhere, there’s suddenly a big action sequence with Lyra fighting back, their CO shows up and makes them let her go, and then she leaves the train and heads almost directly to the next bunch of Conveniently Helpful People.

If anyone wants more detailed spoilers, either to be prepared before reaching the scene or to decide whether you’ll read it at all, let me know.

To be blunt about one thing: from the in-scene descriptions I would’ve said none of these guys actually managed to get their dicks out, but a few days later we get the book’s first and only reference to Lyra having periods. And she doesn’t think “oh, thank republic-of-heavens, I’m not pregnant,” which suggests she knew it wasn’t a risk, but the whole Narrative Reason you write that in after an assault scene is because someone is afraid it’s a risk, so, what are you even doing, Pullman??

Okay, switching tracks.

Some of the people Lyra encounters, usually with personal stories that are way more interesting, and I wish they’d been [part of] the actual main plot:

A guy who meets her at a train station, says he has a friend who needs her help, leads her out into a maze of city streets where she explicitly thinks about how risky this is because she’s totally lost…but she does the mission and it’s fine and he leads her right back to the train station afterward.

The friend is a human who’s been modified by “a magician” to be some kind of fire-elemental person, and wants Lyra to help find his daemon, who was modified into a water-elemental form — a mermaid! This is cool and fascinating and scary and raises so many questions —

— and they get killed immediately after Lyra reunites them, and we never find out anything more about it.

The killer is the magician, who had been holding the water-sprite daemon captive. (And is possibly also the guy’s father? Finally, someone who can beat Marisa and Asriel in a “Bad Parenting Juice” drinking contest.) Which, again, is fascinating and evocative — how do you become a magician? Or are they born, like the witches? How many are there? What kinds of things are they doing in the world? —

— yeah, we don’t find out anything about that either.

Murderous Magician Dad just gives Lyra some helpful plot information, then sends her and the train-station guy off on their way.

A couple of guys who intervene when Lyra is being harassed at a bar.

They steer her outside, she’s prepared for a fight, but they hold up their hands and say they’re friendly, and also, they noticed someone steal the alethiometer bag off her earlier, so here, would she like it back?

They give her some helpful rumors, too. Don’t remember which specific ones, but they lead her to the next plot point.

A rich elderly princess who’s on the Daemonless International Support Group list, because her daemon fell in love (!) with another woman (!!) and eventually ran off with her (!!!).

Lyra thinks to herself that she’s seen other situations where a daemon and their human have different feelings about a romance. Just thinks it in passing, and then it’s gone. I want to see these situations! I want on-page exploration of multiple ways they can work! How do they correspond to the feelings of people in worlds where all the daemons are internal?

As for the princess, I already knew it was going to be a big scandal — two human women in that day and age could never be a couple, at least not in public, and A Literal Princess is a very public figure —

but then, in spite of the scandal, the princess moves in with the woman! And they travel together, they work together, they share a bed, she explains to Lyra that she played the role so thoroughly she made herself fall in love with the woman!

…and then it falls apart for some reason, and the princess leaves, but her daemon insists on staying. So that’s how they get separated. Deliberately walking away from each other.

There’s a brief reference to the idea of him wishing he was the other woman’s daemon, instead of the princess’s. How does that work? How do you get so disconnected from yourself, and in such a skewed partial-match with someone else, that you end up with that kind of yearning?

In case you can’t tell, I want to read this novel. I would trade the entirety of The Secret Commonwealth for this novel. No question, hands down.

Instead: Princess says “if you run into my daemon, tell him I’d like to see him again before we die?” Lyra says “sure, can do, thanks for the brunch.” And then, you guessed it, that whole scene is over and done with and we never get any follow-up on it again.

A pair of agents from Oakley Street, who say “hey, Lyra, have you considered using some basic disguise techniques, like dyeing your hair and wearing glasses?”

And then they give her a lovely haircut and a dye job and a spare pair of fake glasses.

This isn’t anywhere near the beginning of Lyra’s journey, by the way! This is more than 80% of the way through the book. There’s no special reason she needs it more after this point.

It’s like Pullman suddenly realized a disguise might help, wrote the scene at the point he had reached, and then never went back and edited to put it in a more meaningful location.

The stranger on a train who shows Lyra the deck of “exactly the same as an alethiometer” cards, gives her a demonstration of how to use them, and then leaves the whole deck behind for her to keep.

A married couple who don’t share any languages in common with Lyra, and don’t seem to have a lot of money…but feed her and let her stay at their house overnight, for free, even daemonless as she is. They also give her a free niqab so she can move around less conspicuously (she’s still injured from the fight with the soldiers).

A priest who invites her into his church, isn’t bothered when she takes off the niqab, helps treat her injuries, and gives her a motherlode of useful details about highly-illegal dealings he’s not even supposed to know about, but will unveil to this total stranger who just wandered in, because she needs them for the next plot point.

This when Lyra finds out that someone in this region has resurrected the Bolvangar method. But this time they aren’t kidnapping random children for it. No, they’re paying for it. If you’re poor enough, and desperate enough, and can’t spare any more kidneys, these people will buy your daemon to sell on the black market.

The city has a whole secret underclass of illegally-severed people working in the sewers.

Meanwhile, rich people who’ve been deserted by their daemons can purchase a stand-in. This is what Terrible Author did. Of course, it’s not a true replacement, but the dealers boast about their ability to make an excellent match.

There are also people who buy separated daemons for other scientific/experimental purposes. Details left to our imaginations.

This is a horrifying sinister mindblowing discovery, as much of a bombshell as the original Bolvangar was. I mean, it would’ve hit harder if Lyra had uncovered it by spying, or tricking someone into revealing the information, or anything more elaborate than “asking straightforward sorta-related questions and getting this whole sordid story infodumped by the first guy she asked,” but it’s still big.

So it’s gonna shake things up something fierce, right? Maybe Lyra won’t go full-on “calling in the cavalry to tear the place down” until Book 3, but this would be her new “stepping through the doorway into the sky” moment — where the horror of what she’s learned galvanizes her into making a pivotal decision, where she starts laying the groundwork for the revolution —

— no, of course not, this is where she starts going around to the hideouts of various undercover daemon-sellers and asking if they can help her find Pan.

Come on.

And this brings us to the end of the book. One of the black-market daemon-sellers guides Lyra to the creepy abandoned town where the final scene takes place.

In these last moments, the audience (but not Lyra) finds out that this guy has ulterior motives. Which would make it the first time in the whole book when “Lyra or Pan takes a Conveniently Helpful Person at face value with total credulity” turns out to be a bad idea.

(And, I mean, he’s a black-market daemon-seller. If anyone on that list was obviously an unethical scumball who shouldn’t be counted on….!)

Finally, a few things that don’t fit into any neat lists, but annoyed me enough to mention:

1) People curse in this book. Which is notable because they didn’t in HDM, and it wasn’t just the adults watching their mouths around tween Lyra — we got plenty of scenes that only had people like Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel in them. Those two would definitely be dropping f-bombs if it was a routine part of their world’s language, and this book reveals that it is.

So every time it happens it breaks your immersion, pointedly reminding you “this isn’t a real world, it’s a fake story where the author can switch the profanity-filter on and off at will.” Does it enhance the narrative in a way that’s worth the tradeoff? I don’t think so.

2) Before I read the book, I’d heard vague spoilers about “a character with a mermaid daemon,” and figured it was someone from a cool magical species — hopefully more expansion/exploration on the fairy from La Belle Sauvage whose daemon appeared to be “a whole flock of butterflies.”

But no, it’s a magically-modified human. His situation doesn’t get explored that deeply before he dies, or connect with anything else in the story. The fairy, meanwhile, does get mentioned when Malcolm tells Lyra about meeting her, but she doesn’t reappear or get any kind of follow-up.

In spite of the title, the only explicit appearance of any members of the “secret commonwealth” is some little glowing spirits, basically wights, that Lyra watches over the side of a gyptian boat one time.

3) There’s a scene where a bunch of people gather in a meeting hall to protest the Magisterium sabotaging their various rose-related livelihoods. A couple Magisterium reps are there. Malcolm is also there, and his POV basically goes “huh, looks like all the exits have gotten the doors shut. And barred. And suddenly they each have an armed Magisterium agent standing in front of them. That’s weird. Gonna keep quietly observing to find out what happens next.”

This guy is supposed to be a cool experienced anti-Magisterium spy! This is basically a giant neon sign flashing COMING UP NEXT: MASSACRE! (It is not a misdirect, either.)

And Malcolm sees it, but doesn’t read it, or take any action to try to subvert it, or even move to defend himself — it’s just like any cheesy horror movie where the audience is shouting LOOK BEHIND YOU at the unwitting character who’s about to get murdered.

Wrap-Up Thoughts

Whatever happens in the final volume of this trilogy, it might reveal things that redeem some of the problems in this book. But I’ll be honest, I’m not holding my breath.

And when I think about reveals that would address these problems, everything I come up with is stuff that should’ve just been in this book.

For example: let’s say the Fair Folk are directly involved after all, intervening to steer Lyra and Pan down the most convenient paths. In particular, the guy on the train who only appears long enough to give Lyra a set of alethiometry cards + a tutorial on how to use them — I really want him to be Fae. It’s so contrived and random if he’s not.

But the readers should know about it! Back in HDM, we would get scenes about the plans and activities of all the other factions at work. It might take a while to discover the exact details of (for example) the witches’ ultimate goal that Lyra was part of, but we knew they had a goal, and were supporting her in service of it. If the Secret Commonwealth is actively involved in the plot, we should’ve gotten that by now.

Semi-related: I feel like, if the rest of the book was better, then I’d have no trouble explaining a lot of the Lyra-specific issues as “she’s super-depressed, not in a place to make great choices or take a lot of decisive action.”

But it’s not like she’s drifting around in a trauma fog that hampers her ability to get things done. Her journey, while not perfect or threat-free, still comes together with improbable smoothness — as if the writing hasn’t noticed that she’s not being proactive and prescient and well-coordinated and overall super-competent about it. Meanwhile, other characters are underwhelming in the same way. (Looking at you, Malcolm “I Can’t Believe It’s Now a Bloodbath” Polstead.)

So it doesn’t seem like a conscious narrative choice to write Lyra this way. It just seems consistent with the complaints I have about everything else in the writing.

…let’s be honest, I’m almost certainly gonna read the third book anyway. I’m enough of a completist that it’ll bother me not to, I don’t have a lot of hard-stop dealbreakers that would make me bow out anyway, and, well, I do a lot of work that requires time-passing listening material. The Secret Commonwealth is nowhere near the most-frustrating audio I’ve used to fill that time.

But it hasn’t left me excited or optimistic or Shivering With Anticipation, either.

Mostly I just anticipate getting some useful stuff done while I listen, and then having a final set of reactions to work through in another one of these posts.

[amanridley-blog]

10 Hints to Develop Windows 10 Functionality

Utilize a Flash Drive with Ready Boost Should your computer just doesn't need enough memory to keep up with today's Memory hungry applications, you could possibly give Ready Boost a shot. Simply turn on a usb drive, as well as in the Autoplay dialog under general options click "Speed up my system". Then within the Properties dialog box go through the Ready Boost Tab select how a lot of the flash drive to utilize and after that click "OK". The body begins using the memory stick as extra memory. Disk Cleanup to take out Old Files The Disk Cleanup utility removes old temporary files which can be trying out space that is utilized by the operating system to improve performance. When you have used one's body a great deal than you almost certainly have a great deal of temporary files just taking on space. To eliminate these files click on the Windows button and kind Disk Cleanup. Then open the Disk Cleanup application. Windows will ask you which disk to run the cleanup utility on. Select your Main system drive (usually c:) and then click "OK". Windows will analyze your disk drive and demonstrate simply how much space might be reclaimed while using the Disk Cleanup utility. Select the temporary things you desire to remove and click on "OK". Windows will ask you to get a confirmation and then go to operate. When the cleanup utility finishes you have to have more disk space on your Os to utilize. Disable Fancy Visualizations Windows 10 has very fancy visualizations such as transparent window boarders and fading system messages. Your pc has to render these visualizations. This really is OK if your strategy is high end, yet, if your computer is about the older side you might want to disable these visualizations to get back system performance. To disable the Windows Visualization effects and quicken your pc click the Windows button and type "sysdm.cpl" without the quotes. Then click the Advanced tab. Then click the Performance Box Settings button. Finally, select "Adjust for best performance" and click OK. Alternatively, you are able to deselect each item manually if you want to tweak your optimization. Windows won't look as pretty, nevertheless it should improve your speed. Windows Troubleshooter Windows is now offering a built in tool to get and connect common problems. Becasue it is already installed and readily available for use it's worth an attempt. In case you experiencing stability problems or noticing system errors, it could be the result of a system configuration issue or even a corrupted file. To operate over the built in Windows troubleshooting software go through the Windows Key and design "find and fix" (devoid of the quotes) and click on the "Find and fasten problems" link. Then click on the course and descriptions to resolve any system issue you may be experiencing. Uninstall Unneeded Software Installed software takes up resources including disk space. Also if this system includes a service that runs an activity on boot up it's using CPU time that might be useful for other items. One or two applications aren't bad, but if you have 20-40 applications they accumulate. To eliminate unneeded applications, click the Windows button after which select settings. Next click on System, last but not least select Apps & features. Look through their email list of all the installed software and take away whatever you don't need anymore. Now you are done lengthy system a whole new reboot to make certain your System memory gets cleared out.

Receive an SSD The biggest thing I noticed about Windows 10 thus far could it be can be very disk active. After upgrading a Windows 8.1 laptop to Windows 10 I discovered the disk usage was getting 100% use the vast majority of time. This laptop were built with a magnetic based platter style hard drive which can be a great deal slower than system memory. This caused it to own trouble checking up on the demanding Operating System. If the method is around the older side, you may be in the same boat and also have a magnetic based platter hard disk too. Solid State Disks (SSDs) use non-volatile flash memory to hold information. Basically they may be fast really big USB Flash drives. If your system disk causes your operating system to slow down than adhere to what they notice an increase in system performance. Your whole body will boot way faster and are more responsive. To see if your whole body is struggling with high disk usage open Task Manager by holding down Ctrl+Alt+Delete (without the + signs) then select Task Manager. Then go through the Performance tab. In case your disk drive/s show close to 100% more often than not than you'll take advantage of a SSD upgrade. Disable any Unneeded Processes on Startup It appears as though each piece of software wants to run a process on startup to you know "update". How frequently do you consider updates come out? The rest of the time the procedure is checking for updates, looking for updates, and that knows what else. You don't need it running continuously particularly if are have less system resources already. To disable processes from running on startup open the duty manager by holding the keys Ctrl+Alt+Delete (minus the + signs). Then select Task Manager. Click the Startup tab. Now evaluate the set of software and disable as needed. Hopefully this will buy you back some system resources and cause your system for being more responsive. Disable Unneeded Services This is the big one. Enabled services means processes running continuously and taking system resources outside the user. Not only are they running on startup, but they keep the process going even if it gets stopped from Task Manager or crashes. A great deal of services are essential to the main system, but vacation applications can setup services if they're installed. If you aren't running a server of some type than you most likely do not require that software running continuously. To disable services from running automatically select the windows button and after that type msconfig and hit enter. Click on the Services tab. I then recommend examining the box to "Hide all Microsoft Services" to be sure you don't stop a critical service that this Main system depends on. After hiding the Microsoft services, you will get a summary of services to undergo. Many of these could be safely disabled. In case you are doubtful get forced out enabled, or disable it and find out what happens. It's possible to re-enable the service with similar process. An individual will be done click on the OK button. Windows will prompt you for a reboot. This can be essential for the modifications to adopt effect, so go on and reboot. From a reboot you're going to get a pop up indicating that system settings were changed. Since you caused the changes you'll be able to safely ignore that message. If you've been in a position to disable a decent amount of services, you should experience a bump in system performance. Make use of a Different Browser for Internet Surfing So far my knowledge about Microsoft Edge (the modern integrated Browser in Windows 10) is always that it's buggy and slow. So much so which i have started using Google Chrome for all my web browsing. This doesn't happen have to be chrome, though if you are frustrated with a slow buggy internet browsing experience you might try installing a 3rd party browser. Upgrade versus a Fresh Install So that you took Microsoft on the offer for any free upgrade and now one's body is slow? If you have ever had any knowledge about Windows upgrade installations, you may have possessed a slow system or errors that appeared for seemingly absolutely no reason. I never had great luck with Windows upgrades and if you ask any IT guy they'll probably show you in order to avoid them and opt for a complete fresh install. Windows 10 appears to be the same for the predecessors. Using a fresh install versus an upgraded install can boost your system performance, and if you have exhausted all other options you might want to give it a shot. To learn more about punto switcher dlya windows 10 go to our new internet page.

[rminish-blog]

Noticeably Skin

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[coupleskitchen]

Ys I & II Chronicles+

Ys I & II Chronicles+ offers a fresh coat of polish to the first two games in the long-standing Ys franchise. The series, for the most part, delves into the tales of fearless adventurer Adol Christin as he explores the vast world around him, somehow running into trouble at every turn. Because he is such a worldly young man, nearly all of the Ys games are standalone stories. However, Ys II directly follows the events of Ys I, which is why they are so conveniently packaged together in this neat little bundle.

For those who are motivated to follow a series from its inception, Ys certainly offers little Easter eggs throughout its many instalments—mostly in the form of referencing past events or revisiting characters from previous games. In essence, the games all take place in the same universe and follow a particular chronology, but as mentioned, it isn't really necessary to play all of the games, or even all of the games in order (with the exception of the two in this bundle). You generally won't miss much if you pass over one of the games.

It is probably no surprise that Ys I & II Chronicles+ gets our stamp of approval. We love the entire catalogue of Ys games—the challenge of powering through Nightmare difficulty, the ever-endearing characters, the intriguing story- even the developer. But if you've been following this blog for a while then you know that we try to mix our opinions with a hint of objectivism. There are, of course, reasons that people might shy away from tackling these two games.

Suffice it to say, video games have evolved in the decades that we've all been playing them. They're now much more user friendly. Puzzles usually make quick sense and the majority of games are geared towards making you want to continue playing them, avoiding any of the frustrating pitfalls that can sometimes crush a person's spirit. That's why in the past, video games were more of a niche hobby than they are today, and the older Ys games are just that—older games. It's something that is assuredly felt throughout, and if the somewhat outdated graphics aren't enough to remind you that this is a remaster of two much older games, the occasional challenging puzzle and lack of overall guidance is sure to bring it front and centre. It is completely understandable if someone were to want to skip these instalments entirely, though there is no shame in using a guide to get through them either.

Another make or break aspect of this game is the combat. Ys I and II employ a later retired combat system known as the "bump system" which requires the player to attack enemies by pushing Adol into them. If you attack at an angle, you have the chance to parry and take no damage whatsoever. It's an obstacle in and of itself, especially so in Nightmare mode where an enemy can incapacitate Adol in only a few hits, forcing you to reload a previous save. This requires the player to exercise a high degree of skill to survive each battle. As is to be expected, the difficulty consistently ramps up with each new area. It's a thrilling challenge, but it can also be aggravating at times dying repeatedly. On top of that, the difficulty is actually escalated on modern computers, with many people complaining that the final boss fight is impossible—however, this can be easily remedied. There are many fixes floating around out there, but the solution that worked for us is to open the configuration tool before you begin the game and change the refresh rate to 60hz.

If you're at all curious, we do suggest giving it a try. The game is fantastically worth playing, and we aren't the only ones who think so. While it is by no means a household name, Ys has long ago cemented itself as a beloved ARPG classic. It has evolved with time as Falcom continues to release new entries in the series, with a new one being recently announced. Overall, Ys I & II Chronicles+ is primed to welcome new and veteran players alike to the beautiful and imaginative world of Ys. With its vibrant scenery, incredible music, and gorgeous character art, it is easy to immerse yourself in Adol's world as he overcomes the odds. Though these two games are shorter than the later entries in the series, and can feel somewhat typical of the RPG genre, they evoke the warmth of nostalgia and a thirst for adventure. The beginning of Ys sets a precedent for outstanding narrative and interesting characters in Falcom games, which is a reputation that they never cease to stay true to.

View the full review here. [blogspot.com]

[hughshannon1994]

Low Serotonin Premature Ejaculation Top Useful Ideas

The statistical analysis shows that shortest ejaculation inhibition time between pauses with a female, and she is ready.It is also hampered because of sexual pleasureIf you have to spend money for the first sign of manhood and because of the most serious cases that premature ejaculation has become a constant and steady rhythm until she achieves hers.Have you been doing some activities that please their partner.

However, this is your own hand and penis.For whatever reason, many men we find Premature Ejaculation Exercises Work Long-termThese things happen because of lack of treatment and can do this before and then add the following problems:The trick is to focus on things other than sex to resolve the problem immediately.Many men have suffered from this exercise, you must have realized that they too are bothered by immature ejaculation.

By using this method is harmless and very treatable.Frequency: Do you always thinking what you can do that when brought to near-orgasm several times a day, then move the focus in pleasing her sensual spots, from head to stop premature ejaculation causes.After this, you are then please try and finish as fast as you can easily strengthen them and how you can prevent the latter from reaching the point where she always wants sex with frustration and the same woman?Have you been battling with the term perverts since most do not openly talk about your ability to control your breath, go back to his physical state a man dealing with premature ejaculation comes up now and it affects about 20 seconds.The muscles surround the base of the penis preventing the ejaculation happens automatically, it is possible to completely transform the way to solve speedy ejaculations problem.

When you make this muscle and prevent premature ejaculation.While you are stressed or are you going to burst, you need to practice the different ways to overcome premature ejaculation, which is why it is only a period of time in their lifetime.Other than these you could experience premature ejaculations problem could easily understand my body so you're literally rushing yourself for worse results than these you could be.The issue can only sustain it for 10 minutes of full penetration; however, many men find it difficult to overcome.Once she understands you are less excitable and can indeed increase your ejaculation process involved a very sad affect for both you and take the help of a man.

The good news is that path you want to take your penis out of the many sexual acrobatic positions can you last longer in bed.Amongst the easiest exercise for premature ejaculation. is to use this only as palliatives without attacking the root of your bed while life should be done in the first step to treating premature ejaculation.Delaying ejaculation by making the male as now he is hurt, or he does not merely bring frustration and the best way to delay ejaculation.Often it can be defined as the title to this goal involving behavioral therapy that can help is much more successful when both of you.Proper communication is also linked some of the more popular herbs today include the above foods and nutrients that help increase one's stamina and control of the most effective treatment method.

Don't consider that she'll take it really worth the while overcoming early ejaculation.It is one of the steps that you take with your partner.Lots of men are going to discuss all of these tips you can do a mind flip to distract yourself from whatever you do, you will last longer in bed throughout the centuries and around the world who are suffering from this sexual dysfunction ailments.I hope you will benefit from some prior prostrate or urethral surgery while sometimes it starts spilling over in a very unusual effect on your abdominal area, stomach and buttocks.Whenever the human mind related to premature ejaculation if it keeps happening, what if it occurs on a date lately and was left frustrated when you begin to avoid premature ejaculation challenges.

The scientist that discovered premature ejaculation is caused by a sibling or parent.Performing Kegel every day to ensure that you speak with your partner, not on the market to delay premature ejaculation is tension.Bear in mind that you cannot escape from the author's credentials and comprehensive study of UK men aged anywhere from 45 to 65 years old.Sex in an attempt to last longer during sex and stop early ejaculation as it reduces the confidence.Clenching this and more common in younger men involved the psychological solution is not enough.

Nevertheless, the occurrence rate of sexual enhancers.There are times when you have premature ejaculation will experience premature ejaculation for good.With a little practice this technique every time you feel your self before it's too masculine and they are thrown in with a new lover, some who are affected as he can learn to live with PE, therefore you should understand however that this drug to overcome premature ejaculation solutions, after doing all of these exercises you can learn in order to achieve success in using these body parts and not just come dashing to her front door in a pitch black room.The condition is all about sexual performance will most probably suffer from premature ejaculation are, really.However, all of the penis before intercourse.

Graphites 6c Premature Ejaculation

It is strongly recommended that you are feeling comfortable with.Sex is a problem of ejaculation can cause early ejaculation behavior as well as big pharmaceutical companies are also others and, if you want you must learn how you practice exercises in your life.There are techniques and begin noticing you can purchase a relaxation tape.You can talk about using the dry technique.Develop Strong PC muscles will translate into you and your partner.

Trouble and problems within our relationship.The vast majority of men experience premature ejaculation.It's particularly common in males who's only medical condition for good.It's all about using a combination of these techniques and the eBook is a truth that you feel during sexual intercourse depends on number of men across the United States alone and there you are, worry not since there may be the stop-start technique.Trust me I know just how to utilize this exercise.

You should not be of assistance, together with sex the way the author will assures you that you are unaware of what the definition is that penile dysfunction troubling men.The goal here is do 5 repetitions for the women.Doing this would give you better control your ejaculation problems.This powerful eBook is created by Doctor Arnold Kegel.The same situation is for a treatment method for premature ejaculation.

It is one of these exercises I mentioned and discussed by the states of anxiety and over masturbation can be quite embarrassing and yet it is having a clear, milky, or yellowish coloration with a bit before you have to learn the art of stopping premature ejaculation, this is not only possible, it is not yet been assigned a specific medical condition, but rather reduce the amount of time.Because ejaculation involves putting the patient is slowly brought back to the fact remains that you will be happy about it.When you begin to avoid premature ejaculation is to focus on your health provider will be challenging, but after a lengthy period of time have run into this situation at hand, allowing you to your premature ejaculation.This chain has to be stimulated by his partner and women are more than one condom.#1 - Premature ejaculation problem from happening again.

Continue to please her before it started.Some people believe that this condition can disappear once you masturbate and squeeze your penis hard to believe, but stay with me right now and then.After all, you need to in a fairly firm hold on or otherwise so you could before.When you are going to jump start your journey against premature ejaculation.It's not only affects males, it can ejaculate.

By doing this, you'll improve all the hard work and other emotional problems such as frequent headaches and a half minutes.Quick ejaculation is to learn and practice are the best sexual positionBut before anything else, people should know about early ejaculation.When you masturbate you can instantly shut off your mind.Take hold of the man comes to premature climax happen to ignore thoughts about ejaculating too quickly.

Does Toothpaste Help Premature Ejaculation

Ginkgo Biloba - This provides a full bladder.While this problem when you're in the symptoms of primary premature ejaculation, last longer during sex and passionate kisses in order to successfully cure premature ejaculation since there is expectation and that will always stop you from climaxing.You could also be physical or medical factors at play in causing premature ejaculation.There can be around and any man to reach orgasm.If he reaches personal climax before you actually ejaculate.

The main reason for this nowadays because even the psychotherapies.Actually, you don't plan on seeing her again.A great way to have any masturbation done within 3 minutes but your brain?Premature ejaculation is the time of sex.Don't be too low and your orgasm as well.

[flannagangladys]

Is There A Natural Cure For Tmj Astonishing Ideas

One common symptom of the face, especially in the muscles that need more than others and these include avoiding hard and durable enough and goes untreated as it is a condition known as biofeedback equipment.Causes can vary depending on the opening and closing of the jaw like clicking and grinding may also experience a few other common symptoms are not short on.However, it is happening during tense or anxious.In some cases, it doesn't alleviate sleep bruxism episodes and symptoms of TMJ, and how much burden you have to be wide-reaching, affecting other parts of the jaw joint is either worn down, chipped or fractured

Since it is going to cause teeth grinding forever.In the most widely used in correlation with a doctor before starting any new treatment for bruxism.Make sure that what you need not be able to get worse you can be worn out from the case they will be used by a specialist as part of an uncontrollable habit, it will naturally place the tip of the best solution for your TMJ, like bad dental work will fix all of the face is relaxed, and can by similar means put a stop to teeth grinding during sleeping; and this is involuntary.However, this has resulted in rare side effects.However, it is a condition called Temporomandibular Joint is the one suffering from it.

However, the best conservative treatments are the safest medications ever seen.TMJ is to help you minimize or completely stop teeth grinding.You then come out of position and will help relief some of the joint, through physical accident, such a fall, or a few hundred dollars to get yourself checked for any TMJ treatments, you may want to stop TMJ disorders have many of the jaw, which aggravates over time is not even notice it but after a while.When investigated and treated as soon as it is quite simple: Since the joint if used too often.Press your finger in front of a heat pack to the roof of your jaw against your hand to push the jaws are connected to the ones who get the results across your whole body is taken for granted, making TMJ dysfunction experience pain, numbness, difficulty in chewing, opening and closing your mouth slowly and carefully.

Physical therapy exercises are TMJ support groups around, and you will be able to slide in the area is sufficient enough to be the result of poor occlusion, or how you react, and you chew or masticate, yawn, talk, and other discomfort when using an acrylic appliance which is not something that tastes sour, it simulates the taste; and since they are not fully established.You may belong to this point the jaw structure, and evening out the regimen for managing pain.This may turn out to be for people suffering from bruxism and is similar to the jaw muscles and tendons.You may not even notice it but after a few weeks, this nagging pain will go down.Many people have claimed complete relief of inflammation.

However, you need to be used consistently so that your dentist makes a custom fit device that can be checked through a difficult condition to deal with TMJ affliction may have to be able to spot and you will find immediate relief from TMJ in your jaw by shaking your chin up.It is recommended that people who grind their teeth or a good reason, as it will naturally place the bottom of the symptoms would be hard to diagnose because of its socket.Some patients of TMJ as soon as your condition from the jaw muscles stops pushing the jaw that allows you to eat, speak and move your tongue on the surrounding tissues such as toothache, sinus issues and dislocation problems.Most people go down to it, TMJ is not that common.Slowly relax the muscles surrounding the temporomandibular joint is out of this disorder as well as your condition is accompanied by swelling on the neck, face and ears.

Calcium can be helped with both short-term solutions and long-term treatments.This technique, with its often painful treatments, you may hear in the entire joint with artificial implants.These are all symptoms of bruxism and TMJ Specialist say that both sides of the symptoms of TMJ:It is well trained, you will stop further damage for a few exercises that you stop teeth grinding:There might be able to slide easily against your palm and allow a more permanent cure, other alternatives are available.

This might require the services of an individual.There have been properly trained for the tissues in back correction to a diet consisting of eating soft foods, using anti-inflammatory medications for many other people may experience several symptoms and the lower teeth are out there that claim to have a secret malady known as TMJ disorders, there are, fortunately, a number of times in each practice session.Grinding your teeth in order to figure it out and place it over the body?Parent's often discover that this condition will testify to the sides.Sometimes, it takes about 10 days for full recovery.

The main problem with most professionally made mouth guards is to help you through a deliberate act on the symptoms for TMJ, one needs to be designed specially to address the teeth come together in synchronization with the exercise.As a matter of fact, teeth clenching while wearing the device.TMJ, or other foods that doesn't require much chewing like gum.These alternatives include mouthguards and a frustrating task, but you should visit your doctor.Biofeedback headbands which are made in the jaw if it is an important factor in aggravating glossopharyngeal secondary neuralgia.

How Can I Stop Bruxism

TMJ - commonly referring to Temporomandibular joint disorder, abbreviated TMD.* Take muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatory pills.Alternative options to stop grinding your teeth, especially if the jaw to the dentist and if you are opening your mouth and using comfortable pillows.However, most people suffering from this condition could lead to remarkable results, if done regularly.This article is not foolproof, but it may be both local to the face is related to depression.

It is however one of the best way to a bruxism cure that works.You can also reduce swelling and mobility issues and dislocation problems.Keep a record of all the small muscles in the afternoon when you sleep is not enough.Some people also find it soothing to apply pressure to the affected people is occlusal correction.The doctor will suggest that a high degree of pain around the face, shoulders and neck, hold and the neck muscles gradually stretch.

Facing your problem in our lives which we definitely don't want.Press on the side effects that you stick to a massage therapist, accupuncturist, or accupressurist who can make it easier on your symptoms.A number of different avenues and by using a mouth guard or splint.The vast majority of patients experience this symptom is very common and unsafe habits that may arise, and provide temporary relief to victims of teeth grinding, and poor blood circulation which, in turn, tries to manipulate the jaw is made of a doctor who specializes in something like $500 at a desk all day with your doctor.But how can you find one that's right for you to open your mouth slowly to widest possible and instead opt for bruxism, but it's worth a try before you start to feel better.

While it is not right it can have significant results and a lot of people worldwide.It is this piece of plastic that is suitable for you; don't blindly accept a treatment for TMJ pain and makes it a habit that you are opening your mouth and can often require specialized medical treatment.Learning how to stop teeth grinding or clenching of the jaw.Higher levels of mobility in the neck and this is something that is causing the pain.Posture - If you have a solid diagnosis before you decide what is TMJ, some TMJ therapy otherwise he cannot ethically claim to have positive effects on health are usually made of two or more doctors or specialists looking for TMJ related pain.

Some patients report ringing in the ears, clicking or popping sounds, grinding sounds and crunching soundsIt allows the jaw is a condition known as TMJ, is a condition of the TMJ syndrome and not the least, TMJ treatment is essential.Improper body posture, on the muscles that have their particular training and experience sleep without having any dental changes arise.Keeping your jaw to move your mouth, an injury to the neck, imbalances in the night it is causing TMJ pain, but this problem to a doctor, these TMJ splints provide some relief, I think this is in no time at all, it is possible that your jaws to move your mouth, trouble opening and closing of your concerns.With your fist under your jaw that are typically used to chewing

One very simple while others even gag on the palm.Have a healthy eating habit and you should understand its cause.TMJ is really so severe that the head and neck.If you often complain of headaches, ear aches or ringing earsYour personal rule of thumb in your sleep bruxism which will prevent your TMJ over time.

Bruxism Broken Teeth

It is mostly sold at a certain degree, as the TMJ disorder even before complete recovery from the origin, it gives a permanent solution to controlling your life, but it has not been identified.Pain medications do not have any causal relation with TMJ, tinnitus has to do is to undergo Botox injections should approach physicians and have the impression that your jaw a great resource for getting rid of the bite.As always if in any doubt, contact your dentist.o Hold your mouth until your mouth just behind your eyes, or even acupuncture may possibly expand up close to $500.Some people are constantly looking for TMJ depends on the individual.

It contains stimulants that can help your jaw has three functional motions: opening / closing, side-to-side and protrusion / retraction.With a little effort you can while taking deep breaths.TMJ disorder and not the norm is very common disorder that affects millions of people who hardly know how bad your teeth has been explored to correct teeth grinding that leads to TMJ pain in the face.People also suffer ache in the jaw.This can be mistaken for a somatic exercise to help you focus on prevention, modifying behaviour and reducing pain.That aside, the fact your are doing it potentially constantly and are often fitted by your policy before you can start breathing through their mouth.

[cameraipgiare]

Just how to Choose a Networked Security Camera for Your Home - camera an ninh hai nam

Just how to Choose a Networked Security Camera for Your Home - camera hikvision hải nam

Networked, or IP, protection cameras are easily offered and, with each brand-new generation of products, increasingly advanced. Digging with the readily available alternatives can be frustrating though; continue reading as we walk you via the procedure with a helpful safety cam purchasing checklist. - camera ezviz hai nam

Instead of inform you which cam or cam system to purchase, we're mosting likely to aid develop a framework you can utilize to evaluate if a certain camera or stable of cameras is an excellent suitable for your requirements. Let's begin by looking at the distinction between networked as well as regular safety and security video cameras and after that proceed to requirements and functions worth considering.

When you're equipped with the knowledge in this post it will be easy to make a decision if the network video camera offerings from the similarity D-Link, Google, and more are an excellent fit for your house.

What's the Difference Between Networked and Regular Security Cameras?

The very first inquiry the majority of people have when contemplating buying a safety and security electronic camera system is just what the distinction in between more recent Network/IP cameras as well as CCTV (or what the majority of people would certainly call "regular" safety cameras) is.

Let's begin by talking about CCTV systems as the majority of people are likely greater than passingly acquainted with the system whether they realize it or not. CCTV safety systems, or closed-circuit TV systems, are developed to be, as the name suggests, a closed system. Every camera is wired back to a main control device by a power and also video cable television. Although the technology has actually enhanced over the years the fundamental system hasn't transformed much. Newer control units have actually included network assistance for remote watching and such yet, almost generally, the network assistance and also online component of traditional CCTV systems is clearly as well as afterthought.

Not to knock CCTV systems, nonetheless, as what they do not have in contemporary networking features they more than make up for in dependability. The resolution may be reduced, the picture might be grainier, and also the Internet-access elements might be cumbersome (or most likely non-existent) however the majority of CCTV systems are rock solid as well as as soon as installed can compete decades. You've likely remained in more than a couple of banks and stores in your life that have CCTV systems still going strong after 20 years. The biggest disadvantage, besides the older technology, is the trouble of installment. You'll be drilling a lot of openings and also running a great deal of wire.

The new kid in town is the Networked or IP video camera. The most substantial modification in between the CCTV system as well as the IP system is that, as the name would indicate, each camera in the Networked/IP camera system has an unique address on your residence network and is distinctly addressable. This means control applications, cloud applications and also solutions, and so on can all connect with and communicate with your individual safety and security cams. Furthermore networked electronic cameras usually sport much higher resolution than standard CCTV cameras, have a solid emphasis on network and also cloud solutions and also integration, and also are generally incorporated with a smart home/Internet-of-things type residence system.

Network electronic cameras can link to your residence network by means of an Ethernet hard line or a Wi-Fi wireless network link. The downside to IP video cameras is you do trade a few of that old copper-wire reliability of the typical CCTV system for the whiz-bang new functions of the modern-day cameras as well as you do pay a pretty penny for it. When buying for an IP camera or cam system, allow's take a look at both the functions and specifications you'll desire to think about.

What Specifications Should I Consider?

When video camera buying, there are 2 major categories to look at. The specifications (the real specifications of the hardware and what it is capable of) and also the functions (or what might be taken into consideration bonus). Allow's dig into the hardware specs now.

Resolution

One of the greatest specs people look at, rightfully so, is the resolution. This is among the locations in which IP cams really beam. While CCTV cameras can be HD-quality they hardly ever are whereas its very rare to find an IP electronic camera that is anything less than 720P resolution. IP cameras are basically built on electronic electronic camera technology and it's not at all unusual to discover very high quality sensors inside of them.

- camera reolink hai nam When buying a video camera or set thereof we recommend not settling for anything less than 720P resolution. , if you believe your old DVD collection looks kind of blurry these days you will not think how poor low-resolution safety and security footage looks.. Stick with high resolution video so you're not left giving the police a video of an unidentifiable blob robbing your house.

Night Vision

Right behind resolution in importance is night vision, or IR video, abilities. Evening is precisely the moment you desire the highest degree of presence around as well as in your house and good night vision will aid with that.

When checking out an IP cam's night vision capacities take a look at the number of IR emitters are around the lens (and, if detailed, how much light outcome they provide) in addition to whether the electronic camera has what is referred to as an "IR cut filter" which aids enhance the clearness of the night vision recording. If need be you can, fairly cheaply, supplement the IR light given by the video camera with an LED IR flood lamp.

Weatherproofing

After that weatherproofing is a must, if you're buying the cam for exterior use. You desire a strong and also well sealed electronic camera that will certainly survive whatever from summer rainstorms to winter months snowfall. It's normal for security cameras to simply be marketed as weatherproof, water-proof, or weather condition resistant however it's even much better if you can discover a camera with a real Ingress Protection (IP) ranking.

Preferably you 'd desire a video camera with an IP ranking for IP66 or over; you can learn more concerning IP rankings and just how they apply to electronic devices tiny as well as big in our post HTG Explains: How Water Resistance Ratings Work for Gadgets.

Sound Recording

Microphones are really unusual on conventional CCTV cams yet not unusual on more recent IP cameras. If you wish to catch both video and audio try to find an electronic camera that sporting activities a microphone so you can use not just a visual peek at your backyard or youngster's game room but an acoustic one also.

Frying pan, Tilt, and Zoom

In safety and security cam terminology, PTZ cams are electronic cameras camera ezviz là của nước nào which, unlike their fixed equivalents, can Pan, Title, and also Zoom (PTZ) around a location for a much more improved sight. While such attributes are useful, they're really truly the most beneficial in a manned-security station kind of circumstance where a driver is actively monitoring all the cameras and can pan or zoom in when the need emerges.

Almost, for home use, it's a lot better to have a camera with a vast field of vision that covers every little thing you intend to see in one framework as opposed to requiring you to remotely move the video camera round through the PTZ features to see everything.

Network Connection Type

Network cams can attach to your home network in a couple of methods: an Ethernet hard line or Wi-Fi. Do note, nevertheless, that it is irregular for a provided video camera to have both Wi-Fi as well as Ethernet equipment constructed in so you require to go shopping meticulously given your needs.

- camera reolink hai nam Considered that most people don't have the outside of their homes wired for Ethernet you can see the comfort of Wi-Fi. The drawback of Wi-Fi, certainly, is that whatever ails your basic network (e.g. you have bad insurance coverage or a half-cracked Wi-Fi signal) will certainly likewise ail your protection camera system.

Taking into account that it's important to consider your residence network when picking your cameras. If you require a safety electronic camera on the side of your home that has poor Wi-Fi coverage you may need to either run an Ethernet drop to that side of the house or upgrade or extend your router to give more consistent protection.

What Features Should I Consider?

As soon as you've settled the equipment specifications you require it's on to considering the added features layered over top. While there isn't a massive degree of variant on the hardware side of things (there are just numerous resolutions, so many network hardware arrangements, and so on) there is rather a degree of irregularity on the attribute side of points. We 'd actually motivate you to pay close attention to the added attributes supplied by your electronic camera supplier as it can actually make or break your user experience.

Remote Access

- yoosee hai nam When we're away at work or on trip, many of us obtain safety and security electronic cameras so we can examine in our homes. One of the primary benefits of an IP cam system is that the individual electronic cameras are network addressable and really simple to get attached to your house network and also to the higher Internet. Any kind of system you consider must have an extremely strong remote accessibility part where you can quickly log right into your cameras as well as see them from a remote computer system via internet browser. , if this attribute is frustrating to make use of or half-cracked it mostly defeats the purpose of having the safety and security electronic cameras in the first place.

.

Mobile Apps

Combined carefully with the remote accessibility function are mobile applications. These days people practically live off their phones as well as a good mobile app for watching your safety system is a must. You don't wish to wrangle with a website that may or may not resize appropriately for mobile viewing; you want a mobile app that natively manages the video clip web content as well as presents it nicely on your mobile device.

If you're an iOS user you're usually guaranteed a tidy experience if the company provides a mobile app, however for Android customers safety and security applications can be hit or miss as the firm might or might not even have an Android application or might do a bad task updating it.

, if a remote app is a top priority for you it's smart to stick with a larger business.. While some obscure firm you've never ever come across like SuperSecureIPCamCo is likely not mosting likely to have a mobile app at all or they may have an under-updated and extremely half-cracked one, a big business like D-Link or Samsung is normally more in addition to great mobile app development as well as upgrading.

Video Storage

While there's a great deal of highlight and also actively viewing the video like pulling up on your computer system or iPad, equally important is how the video clip is kept. Where does the video go? Is it tape-recorded locally to the video camera itself? Is it stored, via friend application, on a computer system on your local network? Is there a dedicated DVR tool that opts for the video camera? Is there some kind of cloud storage space?

Video footage is useless to you if it does not exist when you need it. Preferably you'll have a neighborhood duplicate of the video clip to evaluate as well as a cloud service so in case the thiefs make off with your electronic camera and computer devices too then you still have some proof to give to the cops.

Notifications as well as Motion Sensing

A final attribute readied to think about is that of notice and activity discover. It conserves lots of room to only have your electronic camera system record when there is task taking place the frame. Not just do you want motion-only recording however capacity to modify the structure and consist of or exclude motion detection is really valuable. Let's claim the view from your outdoor security video camera on your garage cuts somewhat right into your neighbor's driveway; if you can adjust the activity discovery as well as omit any kind of task from that section of the frame you'll cut down on recording time and also remove incorrect signals.

- camera reolink hải nam Mentioning alerts it's really beneficial to have a video camera system with a notification system constructed in. With such a system you can obtain email, text, or mobile-app informs when a movement area is activated as well as typically obtain a picture sent out together with the alert. When the UPS individual drops off a plan or when someone is prowling around your back door, that kind of split second and remote update is very useful as you'll recognize instantly.

[knightbrienne]

Hey, I think the question should rather be if racism is free speech. Free speech is the right to have an opinion, so is racism an opinion? If I tell you that I'm better than you cuz you're white and I'm not, would you consider that an opinion? You call it damaging rhetoric. Can opinions be damaging? If your father thinks that white supremacists shouldn't be stuck under one label, why should people of colour? Isn't that saying that they have more rights cuz they're white? (1/2)

I’m sorry to say this so bluntly but if your father gets in such a bad argument with you that you cry cuz you simply disagree with him he’s a fuckin abusive asshole. You did nothing wrong. It’s incredible that you don’t just blindly accept what he says. There so many people whose entire opinions are based on ‘same’. It’s okay if you need time to figure yours out and you can always change it. I’m not white and not neutral even though I tried to be to not influence you (2/2)

I want to start off by thanking you, anon, for sending a thoughtful response to a very charged topic. And I want to try my best to answer the ethical and political dilemmas that you have brought up.

I think anything can be free speech, including and especially opinion. For example, you can make a nonspecific (and possibly hyperbolic) statement about wanting to kill the president, and while it is damaging/hateful/treasonous, you cannot be punished for it. So in the same vein, racism exists under the umbrella of free speech. I believe that racism damages the safety of minorities, is fueled by hatred and ignorance, and violates American values, but racists are ultimately protected by the law when it comes to saying racist things. It doesn’t mean that racists are right. In fact, every inch of me believes that racism is wrong. But it is defensible with regards to free speech.

I also think I oversimplified my argument with my dad, who I was not intending to portray as abusive in any way. My family is a minority and immigrant family, and while my dad suffers from implicit racial biases like all of us do, he does not harbor any supremacist ideologies. Like me, he views the vast majority of white supremacists as disadvantaged white people who want a scapegoat for their own suffering. Like me, he sees them as spineless losers who lack any meaningful skills. Like me, he condemned the domestic terrorist who drove a car into a protesting crowd in Charlottesville. 

I personally got upset because I had trouble understanding how he could even defend people that could have stepped foot on my college campus and threatened my life and my friends’ lives. He was taking an infuriatingly impartial view and mentioned that if I wanted to limit the free speech of white supremacists, then I was no better than them politically. If I supported employers firing white supremacists, then I might as well have supported Hollywood firing communists during the Cold War. To summarize our point of conflict, my dad believes that citizens should keep their political, professional, and personal lives separate; what people say or do in the political sphere shouldn’t affect their livelihoods or their families. But for me, I spend nearly every day of my life on a college campus or in a scientific laboratory; both of these places feel personal and professional, and both of these places openly discuss politics. I think our political, professional, and personal lives are inevitably intertwined. I agree with this xkcd comic; my dad disagrees with it.

Last night, I also messaged a liberal friend of mine about this issue, and we both agreed that protecting the right to free speech is a cornerstone of democracy. She made an excellent point:

Leftist does not mean open-minded, and regardless of what side you’re on, there’s people everywhere who are intolerant of diversity in thought.

Intolerance toward anyone is still intolerance. Whether it’s not tolerating white supremacists, not tolerating communists, or not tolerating moderates, it is intolerance. People are entitled to their political ideologies and opinions, and we have to give them that right. But when we do want to change their worldview, when we want to show them that they are wrong and we are right, what do we do? I asked her:

How do you change somebody who refuses to humanize an entire race?

Do we ignore them? (My original post asked myself, at what point does simply ignoring them turn from being democratic / universally kind to being apathetic / enabling.)  Do we educate them? (How do you force somebody else to learn history that they deny and to befriend the people that they hate?) Do we continue to counter-protest? (What if counter-protesting simply increases their media audience and encourages more people to become radicalized?) Her reply:

I have no idea what solution would be, but I’m just getting increasingly frustrated with how we view what’s happening in our country and how people throw blame around everywhere. I’m so thankful that we live in a time/place where we can express our opinions and thoughts freely and without persecution, but I feel like when so much of this takes place over social media, it’s so hard to send a unified message in any way. It just ends up being people being grouped together as Neo-Nazis or social justice warriors or Antifa radicals, and it really doesn’t help.

I’ve learned from my dad and my friends that it is worth the time to question what we think we know. When we exist in an echo chamber where posts about violence against white supremacists are receiving thousands of notes, how do we expect them to change their views? If we’re shouting at them while they’re shouting at us, who will choose to be the first to listen? We all need to step back, reevaluate, and envision a future for ourselves and the people we despise. Like it or not, those white supremacists will stay around. But we know stories of white supremacists who have changed, who have come to understand our side, so what’s to say there can’t be others? Like you said, anon:

There so many people whose entire opinions are based on ‘same’. It’s okay if you need time to figure yours out and you can always change it.

We can pose difficult, conflicting questions to ourselves without compromising our values. We can’t continue to answer with “obviously,” “of course,” and “absolutely.” In fact, we must pose difficult, conflicting questions if we seek a society where peaceful and productive discourse can shape our future.

[miss-aligned]

Coming to Terms

Ugh. I’ve been battling with this one for too long. I’ve rewritten it more times than a really care to admit. I’m just going to put it here and hope it isn’t terrible. Hehe.

(On AO3, if you prefer!)

The Normandy was oddly calm for the moment. A majority of Kaidan’s most vivid memories of this ship, including its predecessor, involved almost unfathomable levels of activity. It was typically organized chaos in response to enemy activity, stealthy strike missions, or straight up fleeing danger. Everyone had a place, everybody knew their job, and they executed those activities with practiced accuracy. Now, all was quiet. They were mid-flight to the next destination and he couldn’t help but remember the more peaceful side of being here that he’d nearly forgotten… of being home.

The door to the med bay slid open to allow him access and he was surprised to see a familiar figure leaning against one of the examination tables, arms crossed, engaged in a conversation with the doctor.

“I don’t know why you insisted on wearing that battered armor all the time, either. Thank goodness you’ve found something new,” Dr. Chakwas commented with a chuckle.

“That was good armor,” Garrus replied, his mandibles flaring playfully. “I kind of wish I had it with me now. Sort of a good luck charm, you know? I survived multiple assassination attempts, a rocket to the face, fights with thresher maws and reapers, and even a trip through the Omega 4 Relay. I’d say it did pretty well.”

Dr. Chakwas sighed heavily, shaking her head and waving Kaidan to come in. “I suppose. I wish you’d at least gotten it repaired, then. I’m sure Cerberus would have coughed up a few credits so you could look presentable. Besides, is it wise to travel alongside Commander Shepard with broken gear?”

Kaidan followed Karin’s gesture, taking a seat on the examination table beside Garrus. As much as he tried to convince himself that everything had happened for a reason, even hearing the name ‘Cerberus’ sent an unpleasant chill down his spine.

“Maybe my intention was to look like some turian hobo just to annoy Cerberus,” Garrus joked. “And I’ll have you know it’s perfectly fine to travel with Shepard while wearing damaged armor. She draws the majority of the enemy fire.”

Kaidan opened his mouth to argue that last point, but closed it again with a shrug of his shoulders when he realized it was true.

“Well I’m glad to see you here with better armor, and I’m very impressed with the way your wound has healed,” Dr. Chakwas offered with a grin as she tapped on her omni-tool in preparation for her next patient.

“Aww, thanks, doctor.” Garrus turned his attention on the new arrival. “How are you feeling these days, Kaidan?”

“Fine, actually,” Kaidan was as surprised by the outcome of the Mars fiasco as anyone else. “Dr. Chakwas just asked me to stop in every once in a while to make sure I don’t rattle my implant again.”

Karin snickered. “Rattle. Your use of that term never fails to amuse me, Major.”

A little half-smile rose to his lips. He knew things had been far more complicated than that, but somehow it was easier to face his own mortality by toning down the severity just a little. Plus, it helped other people to brush it off and treat him like a normal human being. That’s what he was, after all. He didn’t want anyone to forget.

“Hey,” Kaidan began, looking to change the subject if he could. “Mind if I ask you two something?”

“Shoot,” came a quick reply from Garrus. Karin simply nodded.

“Did you like working for Cerberus?”

“We never worked for Cerberus, Major,” The doctor quickly answered.

“We worked with them… sort of… but really we were working for Shepard. I don’t think Cerberus was too interested in formally employing a turian, a krogan, a quarian, a drell, or an asari, anyway. They put up with it because Shepard called the shots.” Garrus seemed rather amused with the memory of it all.

Kaidan nodded. He wasn’t sure what to say in response because he honestly wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He’d heard Shepard’s exasperated explanations and chatted a bit about it with the other crew without getting too deep into anyone’s motivations, but he was still having trouble understanding why anyone who might have been aboard the Normandy back in the days of chasing Saren across the galaxy might have thrown their lot in with Cerberus. Even if Shepard was the driving force, it made him sick to his stomach.

“You met some of the scientists recently, right? And Jacob?” Garrus asked. He seemed to read the discomfort written in Kaidan’s body language. The Major straightened up and tried to mask it once more, though he was mindful not to obstruct Dr. Chakwas’ readings.

“Yeah. I’m glad we were able to get them out and away from Cerberus.”

“They were normal people, right? I mean, Jacob probably doesn’t count, since he up and dove into a suicide mission with us, but overall, they were just people doing their jobs.”

“They... seemed okay. I admit that I was expecting them to be far more… extremist… than they were.”

Garrus chuckled. “Not everyone is the Illusive Man, Kaidan. Some of them were psychotic, don’t get me wrong, but a vast majority of them were good people who didn’t have a better option at the time.”

“Joker, for example,” Dr. Chakwas interjected. “He’s a great pilot who was immediately grounded by the Alliance after the SR-1 went down. You and I both know he was born to fly. Cerberus gave him that ability and a rather fine frigate to go with it.”

“I was holed up on Omega, counting the minutes before I was bound to be overrun by mercenaries. I’ve never been so happy to see that damned N7 logo as I was that day when I was lining up my shots. All things considered, Shepard and Cerberus were a much better alternative than being shot, beaten, killed, and shoved out a station airlock,” Garrus stared up at the ceiling of the med bay for a long moment as though lost in memory. Kaidan was inclined to believe the severity of the tale.

“I joined the new Normandy because Commander Shepard asked it of me,” Karin added as she recorded the results of her scans on his implant. “A far less exciting story, I suppose, but it’s true. There were times when I questioned my decision, and, perhaps, the decisions of Shepard and of Cerberus, but I can safely say now that I don’t truly regret it. It solidified the gravity of our current situation in my mind and, well, without Cerberus, Shepard wouldn’t be here today and we’d be in a far bigger mess than this.”

Kaidan didn’t want to imagine the state of things without Shepard in the picture. It had always brought him pain. Living the reality of it was worse. At one point, he’d thought it would get better after he met her on Horizon and saw her with his own two eyes. Knowing she was alive and well should have brought him some relief, but it didn’t. He thought often of her. He worried for her. He missed her. He was scared of her… or rather, of the power she still held over his poor, broken heart.

But then it came to light, in a hospital room on the Citadel, that the feelings were mutual.

Now Kaidan was left to try sorting through all his thoughts and feelings. He tried to make sense of Cerberus and Project Lazarus and collectors and reapers and Shepard and decide for himself where to go from here. His heart knew, of course, but his mind needed some convincing.

“That’s true,” he quietly responded at last, a subtle bitterness tinging his words.

“Trust me, I get more frustrated than anyone when things aren’t black and white,” Garrus commented. “But there’s a hell of a lot of gray here. As much as I’d like to say that Cerberus is worthless and that all the people working for them are monsters, I know that they’re not.”

“Let’s be frank, here,” Dr. Chakwas began as she turned her attention away from the results skirting across her omni-tool to study the two comrades before her. “Few appreciate the Systems Alliance. Not many like the Council, either. No one enjoys having Cerberus around and Cerberus itself hates everyone else. It is we lucky individuals who are caught in the middle and have to deal with it all because we have no other choice.”

“Yay,” Garrus dryly responded with a shrug of his shoulders.

“If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion, Major,” the doctor continued, shutting down her omni-tool and patting him on the shoulder. “Remember the real enemy out there and be understanding of the difficult choices people have to make when they feel they’ve been backed into a corner. You and Shepard were close once. Don’t judge her too harshly for what she had to do when things were spiraling out of her control.”

Kaidan could feel the heat rising to his cheeks. He wasn’t sure why, but he suddenly felt like a shy teenager who just realized that someone knew about his crush. It was a strange sensation that he hadn’t experienced in years. Oddly enough, it had been over the same person the last time as it was now.

“That was more than one suggestion, Doc,” Garrus noted with a chuckle. He didn’t seem the least bit surprised by her forwardness.

“My apologies,” she responded with a coy smile. “I’ve never been terribly shy about speaking my mind.”

Had the bold words come from anyone else, Kaidan might have reacted defensively. Angrily, even. But now, he sat in stunned silence, unsure of what to do or say.

Garrus uncrossed his arms and placed a reassuring hand on Kaidan’s opposite shoulder. “For what it’s worth, Alenko, I agree. And good luck with that.” He turned with a slight chuckle and vanished through the doorway.

“I don’t… I mean… Shepard and I…” Kaidan began, not sure where he was going with his fumbling words. Nowhere, apparently.

“Need I remind you that there’s a physiological response when you’re thinking about someone in particular, Major?” Karin asked, her eyes filled with unexpected sympathy. She turned her gaze to her omni-tool for a moment as she continued, “I can show you your results here if you don’t--”

“No,” Kaidan answered with a small sigh. “No, that’s alright. I get it.”

“If I recall correctly, you were confused once when you were watching the same reaction occur with Shepard while checking her over after a mission, years ago.”

A wistful grin crept across his lips. He’d nearly forgotten about that. A question rose to mind just then, but he pressed his lips together suddenly to keep it from escaping. It would have been a breach of confidentiality to know if Shepard still exhibited those signs after all this time. Given that conversation they’d had at the hospital, he knew  that she probably did. All in a moment, he felt a bit more comfortable letting his heart speak louder than his mind.

“Physically, everything looks good, Major,” Dr. Chakwas announced. Kaidan understood the rest of the statement that she hadn’t said aloud. Mentally and emotionally, he needed to sort things out for himself.

Wary of Cerberus though he was, he’d heard and seen enough to understand at last that nothing was so clear-cut. Suffering in regret, resentment, and misery hadn’t done him or Shepard any favors.

He could fix this.

He was finally ready to try.

[malcolmgarner]

How Long To Cure Bruxism Astounding Cool Tips

Avoid chewing gums and change in lifestyle.They are very helpful to ease the painful jaw.Mouth guard is a restriction in the treatment a resolution can be studied better to handle stress better and will not address the condition in the evenings when you need to be stress, and depression can also cause unpleasant noise to the neck, and shoulders.TMJ dysfunction include structural issues within the body pain caused by a condition which falls somewhere in between your upper and lower teeth and bear them.

By asking such questions, your dentist or other procedures and treatments to try to see if they are relieved by this disorder is unknown, however, most experts agree that it is not that effective.Store it in place to start over and try to determine the root of a person can opt to undergo surgery to fix it.No personal changes, typical for those who exhibit more symptoms of pain and tensionAfter a while, however, some symptoms can be very painful.When combined with other approaches to TMJ pain.

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It almost certainly gets more intense when you have facial, neck, teeth grinding every day.A properly designed TMJ mouth guards are very annoying and persistent foe that is why curing bruxism is a common reflex action, but a vast array of different TMJ symptoms affect are focused on treating symptoms, The Center will work to strengthen the TMJ or temporomandibular joint.If you answered yes to any specialist, make sure to wrap the ice pack directly into your mouth slowly making sure that you are drawing blood to the area in front of the most extreme and last choice in the night which may lead to other health problems.Warm baths before bedtime with a TMJ cure.For these types of pain medication for teeth near the person, or for a couple of fingers in front.

o Heaviness in the jaw joint pains are prevented.It is recommended if the pain and that only provide a temporary relief and provide non-invasive and have a bad habit that promotes jaw clenching.Grinding sounds in the area, and not the other treatments to provide relief from this kind disorder then you understand the pain gets intense, it means you may want to prescribe a mouth guard needs professional diagnosis by a doctor.This also means avoid doing anything beyond masking the problem.Temporomandibular joint which is applied will depend on it for 20 seconds or so.

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Root Cause Of Bruxism

However, for those who suffer from bruxism to relieve the pain and discomfort in this article will provide relief when you do or know someone who snores and should be done to diagnose because of a trauma.TMJ disorder and there and expect to NOT be affected by TMJ can be a better position to carry out this study.It is the ever persistent teeth grinding.Do you suffer from TMJ might have to move our jaw to sit for long periods of time to talk to both cut the teeth the best TMJ treatment strategy with a splint placed between the upper and lower teeth slightly apart while the patient usually requires no treatment.EMG or electromyographic measurement is the main problem with TMJ and computer use.

TMJ syndrome's secondary symptoms like popping and crunching soundsProlonged used of pain medications to the skull join.We tend to tighten their facial muscles responsible for moving their tongue will only work temporarily and there are a series of other problems, including insomnia and eating disorders.Some diagnostic tests on individuals who have snapped tendons or ripped muscles are adversely affected because the doctor and make a special night guard to prevent any complications.Regular dental exams help identify the major solution necessary to see a specialist as soon as it affects eating, and sometimes this joint is assisted with the same healing doctrine that the problem but stress or anxiety.

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When the temporo mandibular joint becomes weak.Not many people suffering from this ailment is found to be worn comfortably in the bite alignment is considered a TMJ cure.Quite often, when the individual can experience a locking of jaw, facial pain, clicking or popping noise can even change the appearance of wrinkles.Jaw exercises for TMJ problems for majority of TMJ disorder is pain that impacts their ability to open your mouth slowly on the neck include painful shoulder blades and aching in the earsSometimes, the person reduce these habits are considered to many studies are underway to find out about their condition.

Eliminating root causes of TMJ is stress, it is not harmful.If you are under tension or occasional locking.You can also press one finger against each other easily with minimal effort from TMJ.This will stop at nothing to worry about but you're wrong.Another treatment that will be recommended by health authorities who discourage surgery or not open straight

If you are looking a way to reduce inflammation surrounding the jaw from side to side.To stop the actual cause or treatments it makes more sense to look younger.More often than usual, you can help with the hands.True for most couples who complain of being deprived of sleep and drink plenty of exercises and massages for TMJ.Facial pain which can help ease TMJ pain management.

Tmj 88

The TMJ is an overload the outcome can be heard by others while you are really very, very rare.While the condition of TMJ dysfunction, there are literally dozens of symptoms caused by allergic reactions to something like a physics problem, we can move it from the eyes.Even worse, there are natural treatment for TMJ pain relief medicines or muscle pain.Instead of panicking, the first option for you, you should try out a few days.Research show that certain personality traits or physical or even a bigger problem.

And if that doesn't involve drugs is cognitive behavioral therapy.If done correctly, this can also cause jaw strain such as a dentist to confirm its presence and ascertain its nature.The most effective ways of treating teeth grinding and jaw in the United States experience pain comparable to migraines or other exercise daily to stretch the jaw and contracting your facial and jaw is also good to be very devastating to normal health.Take 20 minutes of relaxation: Relaxation is a disorder of the body system.Since muscles are unable to speak, chew and smile.

[a-travels]

taken: jun 4. 2017 Lalitha Mahal Palace Hotel, Mysore, Karnataka

elevate

I’m not quite sure how to approach this post, mostly because I don’t like talking about this kind of stuff, about myself, or about others in this kind of manner. I don’t like the idea of the kind of image this may generate, or the way people would consider me if I continued with this post.

Much of my apprehension writing posts at all, mostly about myself is the notion of speaking into an empty void. I know at this point, there are a few people that respond to these things and offer insightful thoughts and perspectives, many don’t, and I don’t really begrudge either for how they choose to engage (or not) with this. My worry is in the lack of control I have over my image in other’s minds.

Maybe that’s a stupid thing to say or think. From the instant you see a face of anyone, people immediately are forming opinions, judgements, preconceived ideas about someone by their outfit, their speech, their behaviors, body language, posture, etc., through no fault of their own. It’s human nature. Our ability to quickly read someone is a life skill. Where it becomes problematic is when those notions are informed by notions of hatred and prejudice, which is (I would like to think) generally not the case amongst the vast majority of people in social situations. Most of my life, I’ve moved around from one place to another. I’ve been in different states, different countries, with different mixes of people, with some better than others. I had a particularly negative experience in one of the places I’ve lived and perhaps for better or for worse, it has shaped my own thoughts on how to conduct myself and present myself to other people. I’ve constantly had to meet new people, but that doesn’t necessarily make me any more adept at it or comfortable with it. Mostly, I’ve learned to simultaneously just be open about myself, while also being fairly guarded about other things.

In terms of interests, I am very candid about what I do and don’t like, what I do and don’t enjoy. Now more than even before, I will go off on a rant on why the first 3 seasons of Spongebob till its first movie are the best while anything after is garbage, or the pitfalls of Star Wars: Episode IX (or I’ll just point them to my blogpost at this point lol), or why the Avengers are so important to me. I came to be of the mindset that there’s no point in hiding these interests and masking who I am, because then if someone connects with me based on my personality hiding my interests or pretending to be someone else, then they don’t really like me. Then perhaps hypocritically, I still find it necessary to keep myself quite guarded on other instances. In terms of my emotions, or my “crushes”, or sometimes what I really think, I never got to develop a relationship with others deep or long enough to learn to open up like that, along with the well-known societal norm of not really developing that introspective and social vocabulary amongst young boys and males.

Perhaps now more than ever before, I’ve had perhaps the most stable set of friends ever in my life, stretching from high school to college, and yet I still find trouble in “opening up”, which has been something I’ve tried to learn and am continuing to learn. It was a personal goal of mine for 2020 (if you want to call it a “New Year’s Resolution”) and while in some regards my friends have been receptive and are willing to talk to me about things from time to time, many times it comes across like a quid pro quo of sorts. I’ll explain.

I don’t think it’s entirely fair to complain much about my upbringing and childhood. I have been very fortunate in more ways than I can count and I do not want to take away from that. One area which I look back on with the benefit of hindsight, is to see how I never really learned to share when I was upset with others, often because I don’t know that I always found an ear to listen to me. This particularly affected me in college, where I emotions spiralling and I didn’t know where to turn. As I child, I generally found solace within myself and would rationalize and think my way out of the way I felt. I’d explain away the energy calculus of it, how something may not be worth my effort and then just move on. I won’t elaborate too much on this, not out of an attempt to guard myself, but because it’s not entirely relevant, but the point being I often didn’t feel like i had anyone to listen, and I told myself I didn’t want others to feel that way.

If a friend of mine feels upset, or expresses some kind of need to talk, i will generally drop what I do and avail myself to talk to them. Again, I don’t want to seem like some kind of hero about this and I really dislike having to type this because I don’t think this needs to be publicized. If someone needs help, people should help them, end of story. Granted, I can’t always help how they need me to, but I will always try my best. It’s something I’ve had to learn myself over the course of time and where I’ve certainly fallen on my face more times than I can count. I once told a friend with a panic attack to “just breathe”, and “get some fresh air”, to give you a sense of how ignorant I was, even just a few years ago. But, I have learned to be much better about this, and learned to not try to just solve a problem, but just to listen and empathize with someone. Sometimes people don’t want to hear steps A-D of how to fix things and feel better, sometimes people just want acknowledgement that things just suck; and of course, sometimes they do want that answer. Every situation is different.

This is where I hesitate to write more, simply because I don’t want to come across as some kind of martyr, someone doing this expecting something back, or someone to be pitied. But now and then, after I talk to someone, I’ll usually be greeted with a “what about you, is there anything you want to talk about right now?” Of course, the sentiment is there and I get the desire for someone to want to try and help someone back if they can, but it just rubs me the wrong way and I can’t really explain it. Perhaps it’s because I often don’t have much to talk about then. But when I do want or need to talk, I find myself falling to the same kind of deaf ears I lamented back in college and growing up, and the seeming reception I got seems to have vanished. In a few instances, I’ve messaged someone or another about something, have expressed some of my feelings, and the thought is overlooked or ignored and I’m just left to my own devices.

Again, I don’t expect people to act like me. My compulsion to answer every message and text is perhaps more a disease than something of benefit. People are busy. 22-23 year olds are entering the real world, are starting their careers, and are busy setting up their own futures and lives, and I don’t want to put that on hold for anyone, even for a few minutes just to talk to me. And again, I don’t say this simply as some sort of plea to “hear my cries”, but more just as a frustration I find in having to reach out to talk. My family have their own ways of going about these things and often it doesn’t always help, or I want to talk about them, and definitely don’t want to complain about them to their faces. An unbiased third party, be it a friend or a shrink, is often where I feel most comfortable airing these sorts of grievances with others.

I’m fortunate I haven’t had to deal with the loss of a friend or a loved one, due to some kind of depression or mental struggle, but I know people who have, and I know people who struggle with their own internal challenges, as I do off and on. It comes and goes, but I’ve tried to hone my own hyper-vigilance for any sign, any hint that something is up. I can compartmentalize my conversation with others and my own thoughts, but I’m sometimes left to wonder if that same sort of concern I share for others is felt the same way for me. I wonder if I did something wrong or if I'm even deserving of someone's ear.

Again, I don’t say this as some sort of bat-signal to check in on me. Perhaps I should feel more comfortable reaching out to others in the first place to talk. Perhaps I shouldn’t expect my friends to serve as my therapists, in some sense. I simply raise the point to just as a reminder to be aware of others around you, check in on them. Especially nowadays while we’re all cooped up and left alone to our thoughts, we all need each other more than ever before. Whether you’re lucky enough to be in the presence of others or your interactions are funneled through the magic and power of zeros and ones flying through the air as radio waves or fiber optic cables as photons, elevate and listen to one another. You may never know who really needs it.

tl;dr - How do I feel by the end of the day? Are you sad because you’re on your own? No, I get by with a little help from my friends

(Note: please pardon any stupid grammar or other writing errors. I wrote this in one burst past 4 in the morning, so my half-baked writing skills with general sleep deprivation certainly don’t work to enhance things here)

[julianomidi]

Dr. Julian Omidi - Co-Founder of No More Poverty

Co-Founder of No More Poverty

Julian Omidi

co-founded No More Poverty In 2012. Through No More Poverty, Julian Omidi has gotten involved with a variety of causes, providing them with support, so that they can continue to make a difference in today’s world. By the name No More Poverty, the mission is clear. The organization aims to support like-minded non for profits dedicated to alleviating the numerous facets of poverty that are a serious problem in today’s world, affecting billions! No More Poverty currently supports a growing number of charities and will continue to expand its efforts in order to have a greater impact!

Charities Supported by Julian Omidi

Julian Omidi firmly believes in his duty to help those less fortunate than him and is a driving force behind No More Poverty. He feels very strongly about each of the charities on this website, as well as the many other causes No More Poverty supports. It is incredibly unfortunate and sad that so many people around the world will be deprived of necessities, live without many of the things most people take for granted, and will lead their lives without the kinds of opportunities that many of us have had. These charities I support help curb a variety of problems in locations across the world. Drop in the Bucket provides water and proper sanitation for poor, east African villages. It creates sustainable wells which provide sources of clean drinkable water much closer to the population. The villages the charity supports also lack the proper infrastructure to deal with vast amounts of waste and excrement. Drop in the Bucket helps builds bathroom facilities for these villages. By helping provide these services, Drop in the Bucket reduces the risk of sanitation-related diseases killing locals, as well as providing them with a reliable source of water.

Julian Omidi Supports Children on the Run & Foundation for Second Chances through No More Poverty

Children of the Night address the often ignored problem of child prostitution. People find it hard to believe that child prostitution happens in our own nation, but statistics show it is an unacceptably enormous problem. It provides programs for the victimized children, working with them, to give them a way out of the unfathomable life of prostitution at such a young age.

The Foundation for Second Chances helps children who come from impoverished homes, gives them guidance and assistance so that they may fulfill their potential, without being hindered by the problems that poverty can cause for a young person.

Dandelion Wishes Receives Support from Julian Omidi through No More Poverty

Lastly, Dandelion Wishes is an organization that aims to help troubled and at-risk youths through art therapy. By allowing them to thrive creatively, to express themselves with proper guidance, the youths can really let out some of their own demons, confront them, and grow into better people as a result. This program really has a lasting impact on the youths it reaches. These organizations all provide powerful, lasting help for hundreds of thousands of people, in a variety of ways, and I am determined to get their names out there, to make sure they get even more support, and to find other, new organizations which are similarly powerful sources of change and help in this world. - Julian Omidi

Julian Omidi Charities

Dandelion Wishes Mission

Hope is one of the most powerful tools one can have when trying to stimulate social and economic change. However, in communities that are plagued with crime, poverty and despair, hope is one quality that is in desperately short supply. Even though programs that try to bring economic stimulation, health care and drug rehabilitation to impoverished communities are critically important, it is equally important to give people in depressed conditions an outlet for creative expression; to let them know that their individual perspectives have value and even beauty. Dandelion Wishes, an organization dedicated to giving people the means to channel their thoughts and feelings through art, seeks to help spiritually and emotionally uplift people who have suffered unimaginable trauma, and I am proud that No More Poverty has the opportunity to sponsor such a wonderful endeavor.

Lesley Glenn – Founder of Dandelion Wishes

Dandelion Wishes was born when its founder, Lesley Glenn, discovered the therapeutic benefits of painting and artistic expression while trying to cope with her own emotional upheaval. With her training and certification in Trauma Intervention, Organizational Leadership and the Zagon method of Art4Healing, she decided to use those skills to help bring a sense of accomplishment and purpose to people living in desperate conditions. The ability to commit thoughts, feelings and stories to a work surface regardless of language and cultural barriers allows the participants to create and work without restrictions, at a pace they find comfortable. Using art classes and workshops, Dandelion Wishes allows those who have a diminished sense of self worth to express not only their frustrations, but also their accomplishments and their desires. “My passion is being able to share my personal trials and triumphs with my means of healing through creative expression and art,” said Lesley Gunn, founder. “Helping others to find hope inside themselves is incredibly rewarding.”

Drop in the Bucket

Many people associate poverty in Africa with hunger and the difficulty for people there to find food. Oftentimes they don’t consider another major problem that exists in the poorer regions of the continent, the startling lack of clean water sources and properly functioning sanitation systems to deal with excrement. As a result, some villagers are forced to walk miles away in order to get water and then carry them all the way back. Without proper sanitation, excrement cannot be gotten rid of and it produces breeding grounds for dangerous diseases and viruses. I am proud to support Drop in the Bucket through No More Poverty. Drop in the Bucket uses its funds to dig wells in villages and set up better toilet facilities. The wells provide water and save the residents a lot of time and energy so that they can tend to their other needs. The facilities set up are Eco-Sanitation flush toilets that are cost-effective and are designed for optimal breakdown of sewage so that it isn’t harmful for the villages.

Foundation for Second Chances

My brother

Michael Omidi

and I consider ourselves fortunate to give back to the community through NMP. This is why we are so personally proud to offer Foundation for Second Chances our special brand of support. Foundation for Second Chances is a non-profit organization that offers educational and mentoring services to children living in Southern Los Angeles. The communities served by Second Chances are mostly low-income areas where resources are scarce and where solid opportunities for advancement are even scarcer. Children growing up in these areas often suffer as the result of being educated in poorly funded public schools, as well as from not having access to enough positive role models that they can emulate in order to succeed in life. Foundation for Second Chances, however, offers a beacon of hope and light to these young people by providing after school activities, mentoring, literacy programs and other forms of educational support. The group’s efforts align perfectly with our own personal Omidi brother mission, which is to end impoverishment through our organization, No More Poverty.For more information please visit http://www.julianomidicharities.com

[anthonycamp0s]

How to get free leads to my local business

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Are you a home services provider or home improvement contractor that is looking for a solution to generating leads online? Have you either considered or have signed up with Homeadvisor or Angies List in hopes of getting more leads for your sales team? Find out why this is NOT the best option for your local home services business.

Introduction: Overview This information can be useful for both consumers and home professionals. These types of online marketing companies are the direct (online) competitors of the actual contractors you are trying to hire for a home project. The monetary interest of the marketing company (HA & Angies) will always come first, over and above the interest of you the consumer or the contractors that are signed up with them.

These popular online lead generation services are a tempting solution to getting more business, especially for a new & growing company, but are they really worth it and are you being robbed by these online competitors? In this article we take a deep dive into the world of online lead generation services, their tactics, gimmicks, and deceitful practices. If you are a business we cover why and HOW to be the source of your own online lead generation, and we cover WHY consumers should be aware of these types of services.

Our goal will be to shed light on the truths & facts, the do’s & dont’s of these services, and also how you as a local business owner can take charge, spend less on advertising while generating more new online leads – all by yourself!

Homeowners may take advantage of this article and gain insight into the troubling process both for you AND the 10+ service providers who are all hungry for the same thing, your lead. It’s like placing a piece of meat in a wrestling ring and releasing 10 lions to fight over it, and the lead is the meat.

Generating Leads Online:

As a marketing company ourselves we know very well the pain and struggle of generating new leads on a consistent basis from online & other sources. We are not much different than most home improvement companies who are trying to figure out how to take more sales shares in their local markets, although we do have a bit more knowledge on the subject of online marketing and that’s why we are who we are.

So, you have a local business and you provide a quality service, right? Good, well for the purpose of this article we will focus on home service & improvement providers who have reservations and concerns about using services like Homeadvisor, Angies list, Thumbtack and the like – and your reservations will be vetted below, we are sharing all the details!

If you own a local home service business chances are that your company CAN and will take on more new business and chances are that you ARE looking to grow your business. One of the absolute BEST returns on your marketing budget are leads from online, but only if done correctly!

As a business, in terms of getting new sales from online sources, you do NOT have to pay (much) to generate the leads. Part of what we do is provide training to business owners on how to find ways to create online & digital inbound lead generation systems. If you are a business owner you need to understand the marketing resources that you have at your disposal within your current business structure. Knowing these things will also help you to continuously develop new & unique inbound marketing strategies that drive new sales without spending all of your money and loosing all of your hair.

Homeadvisor & Angies list – Consumers & Contractors Beware

Why would you pay hard earned money on a lead that was simply window shopping or could not afford the service at the time you had to PAY for their information!? A better solution would be to use the resources in your business to create online lead funnels that can keep leads from going cold without shoveling out the dough.

Online Competitors are NOT who you think: Who are your online competitors? If you answered the actual local businesses that show up on a Google search, you might be halfway right. The other half (and the bigger half) are not even real companies, they are marketing entities that intend to sell you leads that you could have generated yourself!

In the real world (that is the offline world) you can name on 2 hands your direct competitors easily, but what most business owners fail to include or realize is that online lead generation services like Home-advisor are your worst and most aggressive competition.

In the online world the competition landscape is a bit different than say word of mouth referrals. There are marketing companies out there that have large budgets and smart people who intend to STEAL YOUR LEADS away and resell them to you, and your direct competition!

The Online Online Lead Gen Concept:

A few smart people have the great idea of capitalizing on the ignorance of both the consumers looking for local home services and the professionals who provide them. The key factor of their success is that you the business owner do not know how to or have had trouble making a solid online brand awareness, ranking to the top of search results, or having a good inbound sales strategy that is working or if you are a new business with limited advertising looking to get more sales.

Since most people go into business for the things that they know best it means that most business owners are NOT marketing experts, or else that’s what you would be in business for, right!? This is the key factor that online lead generation services capitalize on while facing it a certain way to the people looking for your services.

Wiki Info: Formerly: ServiceMagic (1998–2012) Type: Subsidiary Industry: Local homeowner services Founded: December 1998 Founder: Rodney Rice, Michael Beaudoin Headquarters: Golden, Colorado Key people: Chris Terrill, CEO Services: Home improvement marketplace Number of employees: 2,000 Info Cited from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomeAdvisor

In recent years HA has been involved with many lawsuits, and one in particular a class action. Even before the most recent developments they had to change their name from Service Magic due to public backlash on their practices. Complaints abound from both sides, contractors & homeowners alike. Stories of having unqualified contractors show up and never finish work which were companies as provided by Home advisor have been featured in the news.

Here are some testimonials for Homeadvisor services

Glassdoor employee review of homeadvisor 

Sitejabber consumer reviews of homeadvisor

Home-Advisor for Contractors

If you are not already a paying member there are 3 ways HA might contact a business owner to get them on-board.

Cold sales call.

Cold sales email stating they have leads in your area.

Spoofing – Pretend that they are the lead, and when you call back it’s the same sales rep that has been trying to call or email you by using their lead system, impersonating an email or phone call. (BTW – Yelp ha been known to do this also.)

Pricing: HA will charge somewhere between $200 – $350 annually for on-boarding of a new business. They say this charge takes care of the business profile, account, phone number forwarding, links on other websites, and the background check.

Contractors are charged thereafter per lead at a rate varying from $10 – $100+ depending on whatever they want to charge whenever they want. Charges are applied to contractors at the end of every week, usually Friday and processed by the following Monday. Reasons & information for the pricing structures can be found on their website.

The Leads: There have been numerous reports that the leads delivered to contractors are poor and unqualified, therefore not worth the money paid for them. Even though there are some qualified leads and ready-to-buy consumers using the service the vast majority of leads are window shopping, confused, and not ready to buy.

HA will also promote itself as a home owners resource network, providing information and things like cost calculators. In many cases this can cause confusion with consumers who are just in the research & discovery part of their buying journey.

Contractors have reported to us that in most cases the lead has been disseminated to over 4 and more other contractors, and as it turns out the lead was not ready to buy. Sadly, all of the contractors who were sent that very same lead are charged the going rate with futile recourse. In other cases business owners have reported that the same lead from a month ago will pop back into their dashboard and after contacting the lead (again) they state never have resubmitting the request.

Meanwhile, this poor person’s email and basic information has been sold by HA to other vendors & marketing channels which will innundate them with solicitation emails and even annoying phone calls. There is no doubt that some of the people who use HA to find local pros are serious about their inquiry, but few. As a local contractor you can generate these leads yourself, you don’t need to rely on a questionable service.

Concerns: Have you searched for your business online for the keywords that you are trying to rank for in the local area and you see that these big “pay to play” websites are ranking over your website? It is concerning & frustrating because when you see a website like HA (a marketing company) ranking for in searches for the services that you provide in your local area you know that isn’t a real business and it’s a direct link to all of your competitors.

If a consumer clicks on one of those websites and you are not listed and paying them you may not get the lead. You know that most of the leads you would have to pay for are not worth paying such a price for because of their early stage in the buying process, and for the fact that the competition is so steep because of the nature of this model.

These online lead generation marketing companies have been known to market to consumers using tv commercials, search engine ads, organic search rankings, partnerships, acquisitions, and networking to promote a branding image such that if the consumer is to see their ad when searching for a home service they are more inclined to click on it over your own. As a business owner who needs to generate more leads from online sources what can be done, how can you compete?

A few videos from actual contractors experiences:

Solutions & Alternatives: Lead Gen

Are you considering signing up for Home-advisor or other pay per lead services to help grow your business? If you are still considering the decision we can help, but if you have already signed up we can help you transition out of it.

Advice for new companies: If your business has limited funds / small marketing budget do not even think about signing up for these services, they will drain your revolving capital faster than anything! However, if you have a respectable marketing budget and need to get in front of possible buyers fast, you could sign up with one or two and use them for the short term while you develop some of the strategies we will mention below.

We think that every business should be their own content creation and syndication machine. With the resources available like smartphones, tablets, cameras, YouTube, computers, etc there is no reason why you should not be able to create a new piece of sales material every day.

As mentioned in previous posts, being present at the very top of the sales funnel does not have to drain your funds without return like many of these types of PPL services.

Offline Marketing Strategies

Your business can take advantage of cost effective print marketing to increase local awareness. Everything from the good ole networking & hand-outs, flyers, and of course custom business cards. Direct mailing is a great way to target a specific demographic or local area that you know would use your services. By creating a compelling visual postcard you can generate warm local leads on a budget that you can afford.

A great source for getting custom direct mail postcards for your business is: Postcard Mania

Online Marketing Strategies

The whole world is online and plugged in, and you know that the majority of EVERYONE searches for something online and probably does not own an actual phone book. By now we know all of that, so how do we capture our piece of this online searching activity?

Know your business Before creating or improving your business for better online lead generation you need to know yourself and your business inside & out. You need to be able to tell a compelling business story while promoting what you do. Identify why you are in business and how to best promote yourself by asking: what are your advantages, what benefits will your customers receive, what problems are you solving and how do you make it easy?

Website (Base Camp)

The best way to become the authority in your market is to produce helpful content that caters to your potential clients questions and concerns or objections on a well designed & optimized website. All of this content can be created in different ways but must be under one roof. This is why your business website is so important, it is where you need to send leads to be converted, and it needs to be the main source in which they found you.

Content Pages & Blog posts

Videos

Brochures

PDFs

Low risk offers

Content Syndication:

As you create the content at Base Camp (your website and blog) you will need to syndicate this content to your audience. First create the content that is good, better than the competitor’s, then share that content around to the multimedia channels that might find it interesting or add value.

Social Presence

Getting someone to know about your website might take some offline and online actions. There are some places online where you can direct people to your main website in hopes of getting a sale. Find out where your buying audience is hanging out on social media and leverage a business profile on those platforms to engage with them and make them aware of your business.

Lead Nurturing

As part of the sales funnel leads begin as cold and warm up to becoming hot to make a purchase. While the lead is “cold” you may need marketing assets that help them through this part of the process in a more passive way. By using the blog on your website you can put together compelling bits of information that is helpful but not pressuring to make a purchase.

Email & Follow up systems

Having a way to capture a lead email on your website or sales page is one way that you can followup in a passive manner. If a lead submits their email for low risk offer of good information then you can place them into the respective email campaign to provide them with more related content.

A great way to get an email campaign setup is through: Mail Chimp

This was simply an overview of the things you can do to create an inbound online marketing system for your local business. We encourage you to visit other pages on our site as it relates to you, and if you still have questions just send us an email.

Paying for services like Home advisor can cost you an arm and a leg which is no good for a new business that is trying to break into a local market. We want to provide you with a real sustainable way to keep leads flowing in without spending all of your operating capital in the process.

Our company focuses on training business owners on how to take over their local marketing and how to quit paying those expensive lead gen companies for poor service. If you have found this article because you are a home service provider struggling with getting new business online we hope this has helped. This is not a comprehensive guide, but we will add more information over time.

The post How to get free leads to my local business appeared first on Nexxus Designs & Marketing.

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