#presumably it's some kind of searching algorithm

[severevoiddragon]

I wonder how the Haiku Bot happens to find posts with Haikus in?

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN PHASE

This helps to distinguish between words that occasionally do occur in legitimate email and words that almost never do. I expect it to continue. If someone broke into ours, it could be written by small companies. Their inexperience caused them to waste lots of time. When I was a kid playing basketball? Most parents don't mind this; it's part of the core language, that would seem to be missing. It's not true that those who teach can't do. Most things that are missing will take some effort on the part of the core of a language you should learn as an intellectual exercise, even though you won't actually use it: Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you seem a fool to your models, who are ready to rule the world if they can make money. If you're at the leading edge of some rapidly changing field, there will be more like being able to talk some specific ones into using what you're making. Before you can adjust, you're thrown sideways as the car screeches into the first: if something is hard to measure in large organizations, and the best of them are far from stupid. Why did desktop computers take over? Hacker News.

Empathy is probably the right model, because it could be any other way. It was not so easy 25 years ago. In fact, one strategy I recommend to people who sent in proofs of Fermat's last theorem and so on. But rebelling presumes inferiority as much as, say, Google, and Facebook all began this way. What you must not do is seem nervous and apologetic. I've written elsewhere, by using Lisp, which is that the business guys choose people they think are good programmers it says here on his resume that he's a Microsoft Certified Developer but who aren't. Languages are for programmers, and knew that they could always interrupt anything with a report of a genuine bug. So the odds are against you. So here's the brief recipe for getting startup ideas. I expect that, as with the stupendous speed of the underlying hardware, parallelism will be something that is going to happen in the future. After developing their new search algorithm, the first spreadsheet.

I still feel a buzz of energy, as if there were a giant transformer nearby. It doesn't mean that it's a good idea to Mark Zuckerberg as because he used computers so much. If you could measure actual performance, you wouldn't need them. Writers and painters don't suffer from math envy. Not in the Enron way, of course, is that you will yourself misunderstand your work. All the deals he gets to invest in come to him through referrals. When we look back on medieval peasants and wonder how they stood it. Whatever Microsoft's. In a startup you have to take inspiration into account.

Hacker News needs to avoid: bad stories and bad comments. It's not super hard to get emails out of your inbox? But I've talked to a lot of things I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 1970s. I ask this not so much bad in itself. Programmers have to worry about bugs, especially since you probably introduced them in the course of adding some feature they were asking for. SUVs, for example, even though it wasn't an online store, and they bounced back. In Ohio, which Kerry ultimately lost 49-51, exit polls predicted a dead heat. To understand what rejection means, you have the discipline to keep your money safe, do you make a point of not cultivating it.

Our policy of fixing bugs on the fly. Prose has readers, but software has users. The Spitfire was optimism embodied. Computers are in this phase now. I think it's cleaner if you openly charge subscription fees, instead of assuming you can rely on your intuitions as you ordinarily would, and b look at the disadvantages of insider projects: the selection of the wrong kind of people who are good at writing software tend to be all too familiar. You just have to resign themselves to having a large random component in their reputations. It would hurt YC's brand at least among the innumerate if we invested in huge numbers of risky startups that flamed out. All humans find faces engaging—practically by definition: face recognition is in our DNA. It becomes a heuristic for making the right decisions about language design.

[digitalmarketingph]

Digital Marketing in 2024

How's the current online landscape?

Been on hiatus because I took up part-time work as a social media planner and marketing consultant for a local brand. Also did a side hustle not related to digital marketing (well, maybe a bit for sales) which I will shamelessly plug now lol: https://www.facebook.com/pandalick https://www.instagram.com/pandalick.ph/ http://bit.ly/pandalick

Anyway, what seems to be the landscape on digital now so far? As of writing (January 19, 2024), here are some I've noticed and researched too which hopefully may help you in your digital efforts.

Google Lays Off 100 Employees Freshly announced, what a way to start the year, right? I hope those employees can find new work soon.

It is said that the reason was "to trim costs and bureaucracy as it embraces artificial intelligence." The New York Times article also states that "YouTube has struggled to fully recover from an advertising slowdown in the past year and has contended with strong competition from TikTok, the short-video service popular with younger users."

Although YouTube came up with Shorts to match TikTok (even Facebook and Instagram with Reels), the younger generation has cemented themselves in TikTok. Of course, the developer itself continued and continues to optimize itself to avoid being a "one-hit wonder" among mobile apps (like the sad case of Bondee.)

But as an online marketer, how does this kind of news affect you? If you rely heavily on YouTube for marketing, it's best to explore TikTok since this kind of effect already shows that there is great potential in marketing on that platform. If future bugs occur on YouTube, at least you have already explored and planted yourself in TikTok. But of course, you need to analyze and strategize first if your industry fits such a platform. Otherwise, your efforts will just be a waste.

Google Helpful Content Update A major search engine algorithm rollout that started Sept 14, 2023 (took 14 days to roll out so ended Sept 28), the HCU is described by Google as "generates a signal used by our automated ranking systems to better ensure people see original, helpful content created for people in search results." Google also ensures that "If you're producing helpful content, then you don't need to do anything; in fact, this system may be good for your site, as it is designed to reward helpful content."

It is what it is so like this blog, Digital Marketing Course PH, which doesn't primarily aim for SEO rankings but rather, to provide helpful content, I won't be affected by such a rollout. My domain may seem SEO-keyword-driven (I even got a request to not renew payment so some other SEO/agency could take it I presume lol) and it partially is but it's just something direct, straight to the point as to what this whole blog/site is about. It's also a cheap price compared to other provided selection so I chose it. LOL!

For SEOs/website owners, I would suggest focusing on quality and in-depth content moving forward thanks to this rollout, rather than producing quantity (daily or weekly). I know agencies tend to use quantity as their service/package, but maybe it's time to rethink your SEO service packages to clients. SEO is an investment and you are the experts rather than the client so best to explain this to them. SEO is like planting, it would need time and nourishment for it to grow and bear fruit. SEO is different from SEM (instant results but paid) after all.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) The topic is expansive but since this blog niche is digital marketing, let's best focus on that. Google earlier announced that it laid off workers to embrace AI and the recent CES 2024 showcased a lot of AI-embracing tech. For Google's CES 2024 announcements, the "Google apps and services come to more cars" part is eye-opening for a marketer like me. How?

It means that the improvement and continued use of Google Maps should be an opportunity for businesses to improve their presence and information on Google Maps. (Personally, I'm a heavy Google Maps user myself when I plan trips and drive.) You should be on it and should be showcasing relevant information and prioritizing customer reviews on the app.

Will it impact your SEO? Yes and No. Check the hyperlink for in-depth explanation regarding this answer.

Facebook Marketplace

Personally using this buy and sell feature by Meta, the Facebook Marketplace has seen a significant increase in users but also scammers so be wary. If you think your product/service is appropriate in this kind of sub-platform, act fast. Avoid being lazy / scammer-like though, invest time in putting complete information and images in this free-to-use Facebook sub-platform. I'll update this post once I come up with more informative content concerning this. Cheers!

[michel-tanguy]

New Post has been published on Michel Tanguy

New Post has been published on http://micheltanguy.com/korean-brides-get-a-lady-out-of-south-and-north-korea/

Korean Brides Get a Lady Out of South And North Korea

Content material

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[mettleborn]

While she may remain unaware of it, Sam has made the error looks like entirely like it was Jane’s own, deliberately so, and while he’s not proud of it, Sam still feels like he had little real choice.

During their time together Sam, for the very first time, has come to find another person that he is completely comfortable to be himself around. They share the same humour, enjoy the same music, love so many of the same things, though perhaps, of course, that was why they were paired in the first place, by some kind of cold computer algorithm presumably. Regardless of the process, together they have fallen into domesticity and found, despite the fact it is starkly different to their former lives, it has suited them both well. Throughout their missions they have found safety in each other and trust. In their home they have shared laughter, triumphs, failures and tears. Sam may not know Jane’s true name, but he knows who she is; who she wants to be, what she dreams of and what she dreads, where she finds joy and where she hides from sadness. He knows where to shine a light when things get dark for her, just as she knows where to search when he recoils into himself. Isn’t that something worth fighting for?

“I don’t know where…” Sam finally confirms with frustration, rubbing the frown line at his brow. “Look, I fucked up…the mission in Mexico, it was my fault the target died, I guess Hi Hi noticed.”

Glancing up at Jane it’s clear to Sam that she expects him to be much clearer about what has been going on and so he relents. “If you succeeded today, if we succeeded today, you were gone Jane…new house, new life…” He swallows hard, attempting to collect his thoughts, Sam’s mind is a din of noise; frantic attempts to determine what he should and shouldn’t say. Will Hi Hi consider this a betrayal of his confidence?

“Hi Hi contacted me, said you were going to be promoted, confirmed I would be getting ‘a new Jane.’ ” Sam illustrates the phrase with blunt quotation marks. Releasing a tense breath, he softly approaches Jane, his gaze finally able to meet her own.

“Thing is…I don’t want a new Jane...I want you.”

The words were practically memorized at this point. Dress rehearsals of whatever make believe facade they had been creating since the day they met. It’s funny how it’s fights like these where they feel most like a couple, tripping and word vomiting over a warped sense of communication. Day in and day out, they walk out the door with rings on their fingers, vows on their tongues so repeated that there were moments where El could believe it. That she could spend a life with a person so aligned and acute to her. Chosen and matured over blazing fire, pearls made from sand. As if for a moment, someone like her, someone like them could actually be capable of love.

Though it’s moments like these where she wonders if she regrets joining the program at all. She had no idea that she was going to fall in love with him. Joke’s on her then.

“I’m beginning to realize how fucking sick in the head we all are thinking this was going to work out. That we could pretend that we don’t care. That we pretend it’s just a game!? We listen to this invisible masochist who sends us on constant suicide missions and then what, come home and cook breakfast and kiss good night just to do it again tomorrow?” They had been focusing so much on themselves that they were completely blind by the root of the problem. The person who put them here in the first place.

“It’s the fact that you don’t even give me a fucking chance!” Though she felt like she did know him. The name didn’t matter, she knew his favorite songs and how he takes his coffee in the morning or that he likes to do a quick perimeter of wherever they are before bed to be safe. These little details that accumulated over time, by experience and living under a single roof. That he’s a pretty reckless driver but the fact she feels more safe with him behind the wheel than anyone else. The crease in his brow when he’s frustrated but somehow different to the one when he’s in deep thought. She has come to find the difference.

“If you think any of that would change the way that I feel than maybe we don’t know each other then. You don’t think I have my shit too? That whatever it is you don’t want to tell me about—if I told you I did those things. The exact same things. Word for word. That you would see me any differently? Like any of that shit matters after everything.” Perhaps he’s right and she is stubborn and naive, but she’s convinced that whoever he was before they met, doesn’t change he is to her. Unless he was some sick pedophile or did unthinkable atrocities to women, anything else was kind of on the table. So, maybe they are sick in the head.

She turns around, beginning to walk down the kitchen until he finally confessed what’s been on his mind. She almost forgot that they were fighting about the mission at all. “What?” El turns around, hands on her hips. “What do you mean? Reassign me to where? Why would they do that? How do you know?” She had been feeling sort of out the know lately with Hi Hi. Not that she cared though, thinking John just somehow took on this position of receiving missions. It didn’t matter coming from who. She’d rather listen to him than the puppeteer behind the screen. “I don’t understand? Did something happen?“ Did she fuck up again?

But why would they tell John about her reassignment and not her?

[jjheejz]

What is Fate?

[Part 5/5] WOH concert and after

WOH Concert (3-4 May 2021)

- The fact that they even have a grand scale wedding ceremony drama concert

- GJ did not attend ZZH's first solo concert, but both of them have their own concert together for the first time

- Chinese have a traditional tradition of calculating auspicious dates (metaphysics). It can be calculated commonly for when to move in to a new house, bury a deceased, open a business, hold a wedding etc. 3 - 4 May were auspicious dates for Wedding and marriage registration.

- The concert was held at a stadium in Su Zhou, but the entire city was blatantly supporting everything and anything about WenZhou like it's New Year's Eve. Eg. Building, helicopter banners, bus advertising, drone show, lantern display, subway endorsement, city's official account using WOH quotes applying to safety regulations, curated photo booths, life sized figurine of WenZhou (YouKu kept it as prideful display at their office entrance after the concert), crowds of fan support and cheers etc.

Drone show snippet:

- Both of them were given the center of attention for the entire 2 days of WOH concert. It was WenZhou/JunZhe concert in disguise as WOH concert.

= This gave them both the opportunity to show what they feel for each other openly (whether as WenZhou themselves or as JunZhe)

- To have a stage to be what they are* and have fun, while being accepted and greatly supported by a sea of Mountain people (山人), no matter how one sees it, it's an extremely touching form of support for them

*Disclaimer: obviously they weren't 100% themselves, mindful of the fact that this stage was monitored by important media bodies (not exactly sure what kind, but somewhat government-ish regulators I presume), but their gaze and body language is just as natural as what they are.

= The fact that the country in general is not open to this kind of relationship, yet they were in a place where most of the people were supportive.

- Yes, there were some important bodies (or eyes) during the 2 days concert. Which was why all the actors and actresses were warned. For whatever reason they chose to continue in their own way, it's daring consensus of support. And for whatever reason the regulators didn't do anything (there weren't any big news at all from them), is also a miracle.

- They had the opportunity to sing a duet on stage, live. For the audience, GJ's singing skills started from November 2020, ZZH likes GJ's singing, and 5 months later, they have a duet on stage.

- Official acknowledgement of cpfans

= First in history where the recognition was officially verbally mentioned in-person. You can say this fate belong to the fans.

- ZZH had the opportunity to vow a promise to GJ witnessed by X million of people in the stadium and those watching livestream, that he will always be there for GJ. He did not only vow as a companion to GJ, in ZZH terms, he actually vowed "I will love you forever" [ZZH on 'love' saga]

- The in-ear mic had the voices of the backstage crew's coordination. ZZH took it off early, but GJ was still wearing them during the exchange. That itself is a stressor as the backstage coordinator must have warned extremely sternly and loudly and GJ was shakingly nervous. When ZZH was giving this vow (which in the concert BTS release, we see him say "Don't I have a segment to speak to WKX?" Note, it's WKX, not GJ), the backstage crew was cursing and swearing when ZZH went with "I have things to say to Jun Jun." (as WenZhou, they have a disguise/a shield, with direct GJ, it's just...danger danger red light) Try imagine being the backstage crew and going all mad and crazy over what ZZH said that moment.

= ZZH's daring courage to say things like these was probably built up from his sportsmanship, hot-blooded passion from his past. It's beyond my peasant mortal's comprehension.

- Supporting Cast shenanigans and warnings for them, link here

After

- After the concert was over, solo fans expect the main leads to break up even as co-workers or say, being even in the same frame. This expectation is extremely strong in the industry for years. The same goes for JunZhe despite this time many are cpfans but they do know this prevalent expectation. So imagine crying over the vow and the next moment, just hours after the concert, JunZhe is happily sticking to each other singing in the same frame as if they did nothing big a few hours ago. They sang a phrase together with this lyrics: 30% arranged by fate/god, 70% arranged by hard work. A love for perseverance will lead to success/winning.

= Debunking expectations, breaking many years of industry's common consensus successfully. They invented after after-sales CP service.

- Stage, endorsements, film scripts, major public events, variety shows, top brands etc. Poured in, and although it's all solo events, we see traces of the other half.

- Aside from that, we now see social media exchanges (almost always for the other half), brand endorsement captions (almost always about the other half), official brands partnering with each other because of them (despite being legit competitors) etc.

- The word 'support' or at least 'love seeing them together', is the general reason CPfans are fans of them. But to both GJ and ZZH, it really goes beyond the word itself. Acknowledging is just the beginning. ZZH does take LLD to heart and GJ is very interactive with LLDs in his own quirky way.

*From the [Star X Moon Saga], to the developed feelings because of this drama and actually accepting their feelings, to the fact that the pitiful budgeted amount for WOH was not well received at all before it was broadcasted but boomed records in the end, to the open shipping support by the production crew/casts/general media/fans/brands/cities, to the climbing successes and mountainous opportunities opened for GJ and ZZH overnight, everything was unprecedented and unexpected, but they all dramatically happened to the two of them in a span of one year.

Bonus

A fan went to a temple to check out JunZhe's fate. You can only check for one person and she checked for GJ. She passed her result to a Master and he immediately tell her to give up because that person is taken and turned away. The fan quickly corrected and say she's actually checking for someone else, the master turned back and checked her read again and said, everything is aligned to their favour, it's blessed by the Gods. (If I can find the full article again, will add on more but that's the gist, surfing in China made me love Google's search engine algorithm so much more).

A few other fans who 抽签 (Chinese praying tradition - simply put: draw a stick of varying luck). They all got the bestest of luck for JunZhe. (Reading the readings, I'm just...in awe...I...)

= Borrowing the meaning of another famous novel title, to me, this is a true "Heaven's official blessing" pair.

-------End of series-------

🌻To returning readers: Updated info are in purple for your easy references!

🌸Part 1 - Before filming here

🌸Part 2 - During filming here

🌸Part 3 - After filming, before broadcast here

🌸Part 4 - Broadcast/Promotion period here

🌻Upcoming: JunZhe Saga series

🌻[Ongoing updates] Will add if I remember or found new ones - last updated 220721

🌻For long posts like this, I tend to look back for grammar and phrasing mistakes (sometimes info updates), so when you reblog for future references, do keep in mind that there may be updates in the original post! :)

[ashintheairlikesnow]

hi ash! i know you said before that you're not autistic you just did a lot of research to depict chris realistically- do you have any advice for finding resources on writing disabled characters that isn't like... horribly abelist? im writing someone with an intellectual disability from head trauma and who is nonverbal, and i want to get it right but everything online seems very autism-speaks-y. im autistic and semiverbal but i dont have an id and i want to be realistic and respectful.

I cannot speak with any expertise or sense of speaking from enough experience to be taken as an expert here, and defer as always to those with lived experience with intellectual disability!

But I will give a few more general tips for what to do when looking to write a character with a neurological makeup that doesn’t match your own, as far as what has worked for me with Chris:

1. The story should never be ABOUT their lived experience if you do not also have it. Chris’s story is not about autism, or being autistic. I would never presume to try and write a story like that because, whatever my intentions, I don’t have that knowledge that comes from living it. I would at BEST be taking the experiences of others, their voices. At worst, I would be someone standing with a megaphone shouting over those who deserve to be heard.

Making the disability what the plot revolves around is... generally just not going to be a good idea, in any sense. It’s moments like this where I feel like it’s best to defer to the writers who have lived it, instead. 

This is not to say “never write someone different than yourself”, because... I don’t think that’s at all good advice. I think that way lies stunted writers who never push themselves. But it does mean “do not center the story on this thing if you have not experienced it and don’t have that knowledge and understanding”.

2. At the same time, don’t try to be coy or dance around or hide the disability behind purple prose or refuse to acknowledge its reality. Trying to make a disability sound cute, or talk around it instead of speaking it out loud, can be minimizing or shaming in ways that I think it’s easy to miss, if you don’t live with that disability yourself! To me, this touches on one of my hugest pet peeves - characters who are written as having a particular neurodivergence in media, or shown on tv, but they never expressly admit to it or name it. 

I know I hesitated with Chris, more because I didn’t feel comfortable giving him a diagnosis until I understood autism better myself, and I do regret how long it took me to embrace that reality about him. I just thought it better to err on the side of researching before I embraced. But I do feel some guilt about waiting so long when I had readers who were identifying so heavily with him, and I kind of knew, but just didn’t feel comfortable owning it yet.

3. On a related note - disabilities in a story that become melodramatic tragedy or turn the disabled character into a ‘redemption story’ for an abled character. This is so, so prevalent in common media and pop culture and once you recognize it for what it is, it’s so hard to not see it in so many places. Think of how many movies, novels, etc contain a disabled character who exists to teach abled people some virtuous lesson about living life to the fullest or ‘what it really means to be human’ blah blah blah blah blah. Don’t do that. Please. (I mean, I kind of feel like you definitely won’t, but I’m just speaking very generally here). If you find the story going in a direction in which abled people learn something from the disabled person, please think very carefully and critically as to why the story is heading in that direction.

Language alone can also be a problem here - think about the difference between openly describing a character moving around their life with a wheelchair vs. calling them “wheelchair-bound” or “reliant on a cane”, when the cane or wheelchair may actually represent freedom to that person - an aid they need, yes, but one that allows them to live with far more agency than they might have had otherwise. 

To describe them, especially from their own POV, as “wheelchair-bound”, may ring false to disabled people who understand that the wheelchair isn’t a cage, but a tool that allows that individual person to feel less caged by being able to more freely leave home.  

(This varies person to person, just providing an example)

4. Educate. Research. And don’t just do so by asking people with disabilities to tell you their stories. I often express gratitude to the autistic readers, those with ADHD, etc who spoke up about Chris, talked about their own experiences, identified with him, found him very resonating for aspects of their own lives. 

These stories, this information, this sharing of their lives was given freely to me, and I’m fucking amazed and grateful for how welcomed Chris was, and how willing readers were to share about themselves when talking about him.

Their willingness to speak about these things is something I treasure. But I absolutely would never believe that a single person owed me the story of their life to make sure I got Chris right. That was my responsibility, you know? I try to keep in mind the concept of ‘emotional labor’. Asking a disabled person to be your resource is asking them to give, and give, and give of themself. They may want to give you that kind of labor, they may not. But I definitely wouldn’t ask it of anyone without understanding it was something they were happy or felt comfortable giving.

Research, on the other hand, is essential. You mentioned things being “autism speaks-y” when trying to research on your own, and oh god, do I feel you. It sucks that autism speaks is the first thing to pop up when trying to research the lives of autistic people - and in my research, I was lucky to already know AS sucks and write them off and anyone who heavily referenced them as not helpful. I can see how someone might not know that, though, and stumble on them and believe they were a helpful resource for writing autism when they... well. Nope. 

Try to think about the express disability you are writing for this person, and why, and then go research! I looked up “books on autism recommended by autistic people”, and found some invaluable books, yes, but also papers published online, websites, etc! Each of them vetted and looked over and recommended by autistic people, so I knew I was getting information that came from people with those experiences and that understanding. A good example - I picked up a book on the history of diagnosis and treatment of autism in the United States, mentioned it here, and @redwingedwhump recommended a book called Neurotribes... which turned out to be immensely more helpful, spot-on, and provided some really excellent foundational information I wouldn’t have found in the first book at all.

There’s a lot of information out there on Traumatic Brain Injuries and their lasting effects on individuals who receive them, so I would start there. What you’re describing sounds like a TBI with lasting effects! So I would start your research there, and also look up being nonverbal separately, as well as combining the two. Make sure you’re not just looking at the top links - often paid ads or problematic organizations that are able to pay more for better exposure - but also scanning for blogs, nonprofits, lived-experiences stories, too.

I found a lot of information on the second or even third page of results i would never have seen if I only stuck to the first. Remember the algorithm on search engines is usually showing you what other people are clicking on, not necessarily the best source.

5. This is one you the asker already know, but I want to include it for general reasons: do not ‘dumb down’ the thought processes of a nonverbal or semi-verbal person. I see this in fiction surprisingly often, and I think it’s this sense we have as abled people (’we’ just meaning I’m including myself) that being verbal is required to have a highly complex thought process, and it’s... it’s just fucking not. Speech and though are related but not completely wound around each other, and the ability to verbalize is not the same as the ability to think. 

Like I said, I know you know this, asker, but it’s something I see in fiction/media and it drives me up the wall. So I wanted to include it.

6. For the love of God, do not use medical terminology unless you actually know what you’re doing/talking about. Many disabled people or those with serious medical conditions become what amounts to experts on their own diagnoses, because they have to. They have to be experts to receive the care they should be able to rely on. If you constantly fuck up terminology - trust me - it will be noticed, and it will take people out of the story or hurt their ability to suspend disbelief while reading.

There are ways to do medical scenes/conversations with doctors that avoid falling into this problem! I would just be very very careful to heavily research before using any complex terminology.

7. This disabled person does not exist to evoke pity. They are a human - nuanced and multi-layered - living their life, and their story should always, always reflect that. I don’t really have anything else to add to that.

I would love to hear further advice from anyone with anything else to add.

[famouslastwordsinmexico]

Suggested for You

     You think to yourself, I shouldn’t have looked that up online.

     You’re now staring at a bunch of banner ads that frame your email inbox. Each one is attempting to entice you to purchase succulents from flower shops near and far, small and conglomerated. The bright, animated images boast to you about how their store’s succulents will set you on the path to self-care while reconnecting you with nature. You know these ads are suggested to you and tailored specifically for you based on your search history, but, really, you just wanted to know how to spell “succulent”.

     To be fair, you probably shouldn’t be looking up non-work related curiosities while actually at work, but it’s been a slow morning. And yet, right as you excuse yourself for the trivial indiscretion, you’re called into your manager’s office. You lock your computer and worriedly head over to where they wait for you. Upon entering the room you see that there is someone else here for this impromptu meeting. Or, rather, someone has video-called in, their face on your manager’s monitor, which has been turned to meet yours.

    “A representative from HR will be joining us remotely,” your manager informs you. They then sit on the front edge of their desk, not behind it, in a manner you suspect all managers unironically believe comes off as cool and relaxed.

    “Huh. Is something wrong?” You cautiously take your seat, looking between them and the digital HR rep.

    “Oh, no, not at all. It’s just a small request.” They fold their hands in front of them. “That presentation you’re working on for Friday; I wanted to ask if you would give it over to Robert.”

    “Robert? Why? I thought it was supposed to be my project.” You worked hard on that presentation, and even harder on that project. It was something that was going to get you noticed by the higher-ups, a first step towards bigger things.

    “It is. Or, it was. It…” They stop themselves, physically appear to reset, and adopt a concerned face. “We’re simply worried it might be putting too much stress on you.” They lean in. “How are you feeling? Is everything alright with you?”

    “Uh… I’m doing fine?” You’re progressively less certain about what’s happening.

    “You sure? You can be honest with us.” They lean back. “We’ve heard you’ve been depressed.”

    The shock of this gives you mental whiplash.

    “‘Depressed’?” you echo. “Why would you think that?”

    “Well,” they begin, affecting the concerned yet distant tone in which only senior managers are capable of speaking, “it’s come to our attention that you’ve been sharing some pretty troubling sentiments.”

    “I only really talk about work-related stuff with people, honestly.”

    “No, I’m referring to the stuff you share online.”

    Dumbfounded, you blink.

    “You see,” your manager explains, “we recently employed a service that keeps us up to date with our employees.” They seem mildly pleased with themself over their technological ability. They speak to you but look at the HR rep on screen. “Of course, it’s only because we care for the well-being of everyone here in the office. And their software told us that you’ve been feeling quite down lately. They even highlighted some examples; is it not true that you recently posted about how nothing really matters?”

    You don’t recall using those words for anything. As you confusedly shrug, they pull out their phone and hand you it, showing the post in question.

    “Wait, what?” you ask. “Those are song lyrics. To a very popular song! I shared them for a ‘Throwback Thursday’.”

    “Hmm, no,” they say, taking their phone back. “I’m still seeing a cry for help. Like, what about this one: ‘All I want is to sleep and pizza and do nothing and sleep’? That sounds pretty depressed.”

    “That was one of those online things where people let auto-complete write a post for them.”

    “Sure, then how do you explain this post, where you describe how you wish the food truck across the street would ‘run you over’ if you ‘tipped extra’ for your burrito before you got back in from lunch?”

    “That’s a really old post I made when I was at my old job. The one I left for this job! I made that joke to vent. Other people liked it.” Specifically two people: a friend, and the food truck’s company (which you presume auto-likes any mention of their brand).

    Your manager sighs as they shake their head.

    “Come on, now, you don’t have to hide. You can be honest.” They lean in again. “This is sophisticated software; it wouldn’t lie. Its algorithm combed through your life and crunched the numbers. You are depressed. And, if you’re feeling depressed, we want to make sure the company isn’t placing any undue stress on you. Wouldn’t want you turning around and saying we’re unfair, or that we torment you with public speaking, huh?” No one laughs at their non-joke. The HR rep briefly writes something on their notepad. “Right. Well, when we ask you to hand the presentation off to Robert, it’s not just because we want it to turn out well, it’s because we want you to be well, too.”

    “You’re punishing me because of memes?” you ask, unsure of how much incredulity you can show without further risking your job.

    “Oh, no, of course not,” they reply, “we would never!” At this point your manager doesn’t even try to hide that they’re assuring the HR rep more than they’re talking to you. “This company does not punish depression. In fact,” they add, turning back to you, “why don’t you take the rest of the day off? We’ll mark it down as a sick day, a day for ‘personal care’, even.” They nod to themself, satisfied. “I’ll mark it down in your time sheet right now.”

    They pull out their phone and begin typing, finished with this meeting. You want to tell them not to do that, since you only have a limited number of sick days, but feel there’d be no use arguing. You stand up, at a loss for words. As you slowly turn to leave you find the HR rep is pointing towards the printer in the room. It prints off something you deduce they sent remotely. It appears to be a pamphlet. The person in the monitor motions for you to pick it up, their face set in the textbook definition of a polite smile. The pamphlet is titled Dealing with Depression.

    Your smartwatch pings as you grab the pamphlet and the screen displays an ad for succulents. You turn the watch off.

    You don’t feel like going home right away. You instead head to a nearby cafe and order the kind of sugary latte you know isn’t worth the high price and higher calorie count, but you could use the comfort. There are no real baristas here, only machines that charge you extra to print a picture of yourself onto the latte foam. You pay the extra amount. You then sign on to the free wifi, checking off the terms and conditions you didn’t read, and take a picture of your cup to share online. Not five minutes of browsing later you get a call from your mom. You plug in your headset and answer.

    “Are you alright?” she asks.

    “Yeah, how do you mean?” You wonder why everyone’s asking you that today.

    “Because you’re not at work!” You realize now that the picture you just posted is location-tagged. “And I know what kind of drinks you like when you’re feeling sad; I’m your mother, after all.” You should’ve never accepted her friend request.

    “No, it’s not that, it’s just… I’m alright. Working from home today, but I figured I’d grab a coffee. That’s all, I promise.”

    You don’t think she believes you but her silence tells you she won’t push if you don’t want to tell her the truth. You instead get a notification on your phone that your mom has sent you a “poke”, a feature that only moms still remember exists. She breaks the silence first.

    “Well, okay then,” she offers, “if you say so. Anyways, there was something else I wanted to ask you about.” Her tone gets conspiratorial for her next question. “Are you and Jamie dating?”

    “What?!” You nearly choke on your latte. “No! Why do you think that?”

    “Your aunts told me,” she answers plainly. “And, apparently, some of their friends told them first. They’re still not used to, you know, those kinds of relationships.” As progressive as your mom can be, her age and upbringing still show from time to time.

    “I don’t even know my aunts’ friends, why would they think I’m dating Jamie?”

    “They saw your picture online.”

    You rub your eye, annoyed.

    “What picture, mom?”

    “Well,” she starts, and if phones still had cords you could imagine your mom twirling hers now, wrapping her finger as she shares the gossip, “you see, one of your aunts’ friends was online and saw you as a suggested friend.” You never understood what algorithms determined those suggestions. “She was curious, so she went in and browsed your page. There it was, a photo of the two of you, looking pretty close and cozy.”

    You check your account on your phone. There’s no way someone randomly looking you up online could’ve seen that photo. Although, how many times did the site tell you they were updating their privacy policy and you opted to skip the details of what that meant?

    “Mom, didn’t you see that picture yourself before? That was just Jamie and me playing around. You know we’re just friends.”

    “Yes, I thought it was nothing. But, those friends of your aunts talk a lot, and they do seem very convinced. I looked at the picture again and it got me thinking.” Her tone gets conspiratorial again. “Are you dating Jamie? I’d have nothing against it. Your father, though…” You block the headset mic to hide your exasperated sigh, and then interrupt before she can finish the thought.

    “We’re not close, mom, not like that. My aunts and their friends are making up stories.” You wonder how scrutinized any future pictures you post will be. Maybe you should restrict how much of your profile your mom can access. You’ll have to figure out the new privacy settings first.

    “Yes, fine, you’re right. I’m simply saying they sounded convinced, is all.” You can almost picture her busying herself with some chores at home to prove that she’s over it. And yet she adds, “I will say, though, that if you were with Jamie, I’d be very supportive. Jamie’s lovely, and would be lucky to have you.”

    You hide another exasperated sigh and change the topic. When she’s had her fill of catching up, your mom says goodbye and you hang up.

    You sit in the cafe, your mouth contorted in contemplation save for when you sip from your cup. You thought you were good at keeping your personal and online lives separate, but thanks to dubious algorithms and out-of-touch inquirers, your agency at work has been diminished and your sexuality is being questioned by people who’d be less than understanding. Even if you restrict who gets access to your information, what little slips through the cracks is still interpreted without context. Is that what the internet is now? For people to be data-mined so other people can make assumptions? Who wanted it that way?

    Your phone sets off with another notification, informing you that a local indoor plant store has followed you online. They specialize in succulents.

    You almost laugh out loud at the insanity of it. Of course; this hunt for data is mostly the hunt for ad revenue. While it’s a marvel how fervently someone on the other side of the screen wants to believe they understand you, advertisers are the ones who set the system up. And even they can’t seem to get it right!

    The fever of frustration breaks, giving way to a fever of defiance. Why leave room to be misinterpreted? You decide to live your online life unabashedly and unafraid to share all. Will someone be tracking your moves? You don’t care, but if they are you hope they can keep up.

    You grab your phone and browse with fury and determination. You share news articles and let your political leanings lay bare as you never had before. You hit “publish” on every dumb joke and inane thought you had previously hid shamefully as drafts. You post all of the pictures in your phone, and when you’re done with those you take a couple more. You follow musicians, actors, and influencers alike, so that no one would have to guess what your tastes are. You join in as many forum conversations as you can, and only stop when a person you’re arguing with, who has an anime-girl profile picture, threatens to dox you. You log off.

    When you finally get home you’re bleary eyed from unblinking browsing and shaky from the excess of caffeine. You want nothing more than to decompress. As you turn on your TV to search for something to stream and zone out to, you call out to your virtual assistant device and say, “Play something soothing.”

    Though your command was vague, as the speakers turn on they start playing exactly what you only now realize you had in mind. You love this band, even if you hadn’t thought of them in a while. Your phone goes off with a notification that this band has a concert coming up soon. As if on instinct triggered by serendipity, you click the notification to buy tickets.

    While browsing various streaming services on your TV you come across several documentaries that you’ve heard confirm a lot of opinions you’ve had on the state of things. While you’d love to be proven correct, you’re more in the mood for something light. You wonder if they have this one funny movie that’s a reboot of a movie that’s based on a book. Before you can remember the title you see it listed. You hit play.

    Ultimately, modern movie watching entails being on your phone, so you scroll through whatever new content was uploaded on your commute home. While you idly browse, you find another tailored ad, this time for a t-shirt boldly claiming that people born the same month as you are kind yet shouldn’t be messed with, each line in a different garish font.

    “Ha,” you laugh to yourself, “what a stupid ad.” Even after all the data you gave them, advertisers are no better than your manager or your aunts, thinking they know you and what’s best for you.

    Suddenly the page you’re on refreshes. What loads first is the ad, this time for a different shirt that’s admittedly more your style. The tagline reads, “Your life, your look.” Unsettled by the coincidence and feeling like you’ve found yourself in a conversation with your phone you didn’t know you were having, you try to click on a different link. More content loads just at that moment, though, shifting the layout of the page and leading you to click on the ad instead. Surprised, you fumble with your phone to close what’s popped up, but as your panicked fingers slip your phone decides you mean to go through with the order. You adjust your hold on your phone but somehow manage to set off a biometric scan that confirms the purchase.

    As if queued by your consumerist momentum, an ad interrupts the movie you’re watching (since when did this streaming service have ads?). The volume seems to increase on its own as the TV blares at you.

    “You don’t necessarily feel you age, so why look your age? Our skin cream can miraculously take 5 years off your face, letting your inner youth shine through.” The ad shows a model before and after using the cream. It makes a specific point of telling you the model’s age, which is your age.

    You search frantically for the remote to turn the volume down. No matter what angle you point the remote at it, the TV refuses to recognize your button pushing. You get up and simply turn off the TV manually. This gives your virtual assistant device space to chime in with a separate ad.

    “Tired of the long commute to your workplace? Find more free time while moving into one of the fastest growing neighbourhoods that’s perfect for you.” The voice emanating from your speakers describes listings in a building that you recognize is half a block away from your office. You run to unplug the device.

    One by one more “smart” appliances in your home, devices that you now question their need for internet connectivity, begin to play or display ads that were made to appeal to you exactly.

    “Our energy efficient windows fit your green lifestyle!” your thermostat boasts, citing a climate change article you just read.

    “Let us deliver the groceries you need for the recipes you love!” your fridge demands, listing off your actual favourite recipes.

    “Bzzt!” vibrates your electric toothbrush, calling you to look at its charger’s digital screen and see an ad for a dental clinic, featuring a close up of a mouth you’re weirdly certain is actually yours.

    As your apartment comes alive with the sounds of aggressive advertising, you’re terrified. You step out onto the balcony. You think to yourself, and only to yourself, that you need to get away.

    A delivery drone floats up from under your balcony and stops right at your eye level. It’s been outfitted with a display monitor. It plays a video.

    “Looking for a vacation?” it asks. “Why not fly out to Pasadena, California? You can visit the Cactus & Succulent Society of America’s annual show and sale!”

[yukusaki]

Hi I've been trying to learn the Japanese language for quite a while, I've been using Memrise and NHK Japan but i am having trouble with their grammar and I'm not sure if I ever made progress. Now, I don't know what's my next step to improve. Do you have any recommendations? I hope u had a good day :>

And to no one's surprise. I wrote an actual novel on the topic.

I'll give you some resources but I recommend trying out different kinds to see what works for you. Learning about your own learning style may also help--for example, I'm a very hands-on learner so I can read about grammar rules all day but until I actually try to put together my own sentences using those rules and get some feedback on what's right and what's not, I Will Not be able to use those rules effectively. Also I have no motivation so I don't study on my own unless I'm working towards a goal (such as the JLPT or answering an ask)

I started with the Pimsleur program, recorded audio lessons that were at my library to check out. You'll learn phrases mostly, but it does not go into detail about grammar and you will learn nothing about writing. If you're mostly concerned about grammar you can definitely skip this one. You can try programs and apps like Duolingo, Rosetta Stone. etc. Duolingo is a bit better about grammar rules and stuff but depending how in-demand the course is, it might not explain anything (try the PC version if it doesn't). I personally think apps like this are good for basic grammar and stuff but once you get more advanced you need More.

Textbooks are actually not a bad way to self-study. I used Genki in my first 2 years of Japanese at university and it's supposed to be one of the best. There's also so so many resources online now. Follow some blogs and get bite-sized tips during your leisure time.

Now, for how I like, Actually learned a lot of my Japanese before I started learning it in organized classes. Listen to music, look through the lyrics, pick out some words you hear a lot and look them up. Watch drama/anime/movies/etc and do the same. Or just put on the subs and don't really pay attention to the audio. I generally have a pretty good ear for pronunciation and intonation already but I attribute how often I get comments on my pronunciation to how much time I spent in my weeb days just hearing naturally-spoken Japanese even if I wasn't totally paying attention. I always recommend exposing yourself to as much content as possible, even in the early stages of learning.

I've got some general study tips on my blog (search studytips) that should help. If nothing else, remember to not burn yourself out. Learning vocab for 5 minutes a day is better than studying 2 hours one day ond taking a 2-month break.

One thing I might not have mentioned in those tips that I feel like more people need to be aware of: a lot of programs are like "learn naturally by immersion like you learned your native language! Just hear phrases and you will Understand the grammar eventually!" okay but like your brain goes through a critical period for language learning when you're like 2. You are (presumably) no longer 2. Your brain is not the same as it was when you were 2. You should not expect to learn the same way as you did then. I read somewhere that being able to learn rules is the one advantage the adult brain has over a child's brain when it comes to second language learninp. So what this means in practice is: when you come across some grammar thing you don't get, don't let people tell you "oh you'll get it in time, you'll just Know." Look that shit up! What's the difference between は wa and が ga? There a literal list of rules you can memorize! (I don't have a link, it was a handout from one of my classes, sorry!) Familiarizing yourself with English grammar even helps to learn how to apply those rules to a new language. Learn the difference between a subject and an object and all that good stuff. You have different resources now as a not-2-year-old so use them!!

Finally, some resources I personally use:

Kanji draw (app): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.lusil.android.kanjidraw.jlpt5 (not sure if there's an IOS version sorry)--like flashcards for kanji but makes you actually write it, and with correct stroke order which I promise makes them easier to remember (and this was the only app I found that actually checks you for accurate writing). It has some algorithm for how often you see each character that is fantastic for memorization--more often when you first learn a character and after you get it wrong, less often once you know it well, introduces new characters gradually but keeps the old ones in rotation for a while so you never get thrown into a set of 20 completely new kanji.

find you a good dictionary app--I can't find the one I use on the app store but I can search in kana/kanji or romaji or English, any conjugation of a verb or adjective, and find what I'm looking for. Also has a kanji lookup tool with radicals.

Google translate--yeah, for real. I use this one when I want to scan a large section of text for something specific. Or when I'm writing a long sentence that I want to doublecheck. Also has a kanji lookup tool you can handwrite in, and of course don't forget the camera translation tool.

honyakustar (website)--a website with a lot of sentences in both Japanese and English. I use it All The Time to figure out how a word is actually used in practice--what particles it uses, if it's formal or informal, if it's stative or dynamic, collocations, etc.

Hellotalk (app)--it's super well known, just google it. A social app for chatting with native speakers of your target language.

Common Japanese Collocations by Kakuko Shoji (book)--collocations are words that "go" together naturally. We say "take" a bath, Japanese says "enter" a bath (お風呂に入る). This book is a good reference for looking up these collocations.

The Basics of Japanese Grammar: Verbs (book)--I downloaded this on my nook in high school for like 2 dollars and 50 cents give or take and it pleased my rule-oriented brain greatly. just has like all the verb conjugations with short explanations and example sentences and stuff.

Thanks for your question! Feel free to ask me anything!💕

[lanezvlx082]

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[theda-rison]

Sisterhood of Researching Some Fucking Pants

So, I fell down a rabbithole of sorts last night.

See, I saw these pants in a BLACKPINK music video-- I’m not even sure how I ended up watching the video or having it recommended to me in the fucking first place. The Youtube algorithm is a fucking mystery. Like, I’ll be watching tons of videos of East Asian street food, and suddenly it recommends me a video of how to make a map with a software I’ve never heard of before. I don’t understand it. It’s bewildering.

ANYWAY,

The music video was 뚜두뚜두 (DDU-DU DDU-DU), and the pants were these:

Now, if you’re thinking, “That picture is a piece of shit, I can’t even see what’s on them,” you’d be thinking a correct thought. I presume the person took a picture of their computer screen with their phone like a newb. But I will come back to the person who posted it to reddit in a second.

First here’s a better picture:

Okay, cool, so we can actually kind of see them now. 

I… Iwant these pants. They look huge and comfy and so cool. So I search the pants. I keep searching for the pants. I type “BLACKPICK DDU-DU DDU-DU clothes,” nothing. “BLACKPICK DDU-DU DDU-DU pants,” nothing. “Lisa DDU-DU DDU-DU pants,” and… ehhhhh. I found two people looking for them. Only two. The person who posted the first picture of horrendous quality, and this one:

Why did you also pick the worst picture, Octave? I am going to scream.

So like, Octave and the redditor who posted the other bad picture weren’t of any help. But I’m about to help them out (...years later) because I’ve figured out most of the pants. And you’ll see why I say “most” as you read.

Okay, so, I still want the pants so what do I do next? I do the thing I always do and start googling aspects of the pants like mad. Part of this was extremely easy becauseeeee…

That is a Def Leppard album cover.

Specifically Hysteria.

And then I realized something as I - lying in bed between 9-11pm looking for these fucking pants - watching this video over and over in slow-mo with my face *way* too close to the screen as I tried to read the words on the pants (not for the Def Leppard side, that I realized instantly), they aren’t PANTS: they’re SHORTS.

See how the edge with the screen printed stripes (which I originally thought were piping) is coming away from the lower portion of the pants? Those are shorts.

Def Leppard shorts.

Def. Leppard. Shorts.

So those are the exact shorts, right? We’re done. Everyone go home. Order ‘em off Amazon. They’ll get here on Prime Day.

NO. Because while her right leg (from her perspective) was the black and white version of the Hysteria album cover, her left leg of her pants is NOT the color version, as we see in the shorts I found.

But before I tell you about the left side, let me tell you the lower leg portion of the pants, because that was also easy to figure out because I actually listen to the band:

That is Pink Floyd.

Fucking iconic.

And they’re from the same site as the Def Leppard shorts. (They also come as shorts like the Def Leppard ones, with the white bands at the bottom.)

BUT, Lisa’s pants move like pants as she dances:

This post is the shit you do when you can see the Time Knife.

You can see by the puckering under the Def Leppard cover art, that the pants were probably sewn together above the white bands. And, since the Pink Floyd art is only in the top part of the sweatpants and can *only* be over the thighs on the shorts, I’m pretty confident in my estimation that these “pants” are actually three different pairs of shorts (or two shorts and a pair of sweatpants) that someone in the costume department bought, cut apart, and sewed them together to make some cool pants. 

They also ruined my life for a few hours by doing this, because I am nothing if not tenacious and I need those pants (or similar) in my life.

Okay, so we know where the upper right leg comes from, and the lower left and right legs. But:

I apologize for cropping you so much, Lisa.

What the fuck is that?

I stared at Lisa’s left leg as she danced in slow-mo (again, I’m sorry, I just want these fucking pants) for I don’t know how many minutes. I could see the words on either side of this pink dog looking thing said “sin land,” and “sin land,” “sin land band,” and “sin land album cover” didn’t get me anywhere. Finally I realize that the word over the dog’s head (which I thought could have been the band name) said “welcome.”

You can kind of make it out here, it’s easier to see when the video is moving.

So, I type “welcome to sin land” into google and and it asks me if I mean “welcome to Finland” so I go to the image results and see this:

That’s definitely the dog, but that’s not a pair of shorts.

That’s a comic by the artist David Sandlin.

His art gives me strong “the Ratfinks, Suicide Tanks And Cannibal Girls scene from Beavis and Butthead Do America” vibes but like, weirder? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5pR5ktDwts

He also seems to not like Trump, so good on him.

But the thing is, I *can’t* for the life of me find a pair of shorts with that dog character on them. I looked through 14 pages of shorts on the site I found the Def Leppard and Pink Floyd ones on, and while I learned of a few bands I never heard before, I didn’t see the dog shorts. 

I also searched “David Sandlin shorts,” and “David Sandlin clothes” and got garbage, so I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I don’t think he has any merch with his art or characters on it. That’s actually a shame because I am now a fan of his art and would like to show others that by wearing it on my body. 

As non-corporeal as it sometimes is.

Give. Me. The. Merch.

I’m sorry, Lisa. I’m almost done with the post, I promise.

So my guess is that maybe the company that makes the shorts (NOT the site I found selling the Def Leppard shorts since I found the Def Leppard shorts ones on other sites as well) did the thing we always see Urban Outfitters do: they either stole art from David Sandlin or stole art from someone who stole it from David Sandlin. I do find it weird that the design on the shorts seems to be the pink dog with “Welcome to Sinland” - which is the name of the comic he’s from, but I guess maybe someone saw the comic cover and went “okay” and turned it into art for the shorts. And it might be that that person is from another country, in which case copyright might not even apply to the situation, and that could also be why I can’t find it, since all my google results are in English.

Anyway, that’s all conjecture. I have no idea, all l know is: I can’t find the pink dog dude on any clothes. Specifically, I can’t find him on any black shorts with white bands.

Octave did ask this question 3 years ago, so maybe the art was stolen back then or before then and that’s why the shorts don’t seem to exist anywhere now.

David Sandlin does have a Shop link on his website and it has shirts but the link redirects back to the Home page. And also… I’m going to send him an email about it because I do want a shirt now because his art is cool, lol.

Anyway, I tried, Octave (and no-name redditor who got no responses to their question), I really did. You needed me and I failed you.

At least… you/we/I (if you see this) can buy shorts from the website the Def Leppard shorts are from (https://roxxbkk.com/product/defleppard-405/ specifically) and make them ourselves. They’re not super expensive.

Currently looking for a sweatpants pattern to make them, lol.

I’m thinking maybe… Dio and Behemoth for the top part and maybe Rob Zombie and Pink Floyd for the lower ones. Or maybe Dio/Dimmu Borgir and Rob Zombie/Behemoth? I haven’t figured out yet. I can see why the creator went with Def Leppard, the Hysteria album is visually interesting even in black and white but… I don’t listen to them. And I don’t know if Pink Floyd really makes sense with Dimmu or Behemoth lol.

I will post a pic of the pants if I do make them, though.

[ckcker]

I Walk in Madness

Nobody has or can have all the information, but they have the requisite amount of information and agony in combination to believe they accurately see the entire thing.  I don’t and can never have all the information, but still I must have an opinion that seems binding or confident.  The information I selected and pressed into an opinion is now my special soul, and defines me.  It must be released and time-stamped to show that at one point, I made this all-encompassing definition, which is a summary of my self and the window of all my beliefs hereafter.  Elevate yourself to say, “I no longer wonder.”  

I have made myself publicly available; all that the community asks of you is that you participate.  To not participate is to disrespect those who put all of their time, effort and mental filaments into the ideal of community.  Such a reclusive impulse should be modified swiftly but in the most holistic way if possible, it is not helpful for others.  It is not helpful for you.  It is, at heart, cowardly, as it turns away in fear from the difficulties involved in building a resilient, healthy and just community.  It courts isolation as a comfort, when in fact voluntary isolation is the fortification of unhealthy habits and delusional or paranoid thought processes which precariously redirect the lost person away from the tough but rewarding civic duties necessary to building a fact-driven social network.  If I am lonely at night, the solution is to participate.  Though I walk in madness, I end up at the voting booth.  A discussion takes place in which everyone pretends to know how recycling works; one inches towards integration.  Recipes are shared, and an evening passes with an attempt to perfect avocado gazpacho.  

I love traditional open-toed sandals.  Making the body more vulnerable to the elements of the outside world shows a general dissipating apprehension.  Though current events inevitably fade in relevance and thus sustained public attention, their emotional immediacy and rousing thrust are exceptionally good at forcing the under-opinionated to participate and commune with others. Opinions always coalesce under the pressure of current events, and since current events are established and projected much more widely and much more often in this era, it follows that one should have more opinions, and participate more.  Of all the methods I’ve tried, the most effective and least artificial toner I’ve used is two tablespoons of rose water mixed with 1 cup of filtered water.  The rose water I use is a brand from Lebanon and you can probably find it in a local middle eastern grocery store.  Having a very public life no longer makes me uneasy!

I published the post and I was feeling satisfied, though very likely no other person would see it.  My only patron appeared to be a woman in her early 40s with hard bangs and a diamond choker smiling in her icon’s bubble, with arm around a presumed husband and the suggestive text “Be Kind” pegged in lower left corner in hot pink with white outline.  Miscellaneous background details in the icon, particularly a hanging silver streamer, communicated that at the time of the photo this woman had been at a New Years party.  Her silent interpretation of my persistently scarce content was eager musing territory for me when her icon focused my attention in the midst of a wild scroll, or when her face and militarized endorsement of kindness intruded with the elegance of a twirling maple samara upon my mind during a bout of fear-walking.  She made no effort to contact me, had no posts of her own or even personalized layout style, and yet she hypothetically watched me.  Of course it was pointless on her end — my posts were designed solely for the tactical misdirection of algorithmic spectres, conceived and published only in order to convince those supra-wiggly archivists of instinct that I was overwhelmingly a different person.  I did not want even the smallest gleak of truth to land online.  This “lost mind” plan even extended to my video watching and digital window shopping maneuvers, though in the case of the former it was impossible to totally restrain myself from a true curiosity and craving to pursue certain videos.  This lack of impulse control expanded even more robustly when porn entered an afternoon; it was insurmountable to search and watch against the specific desires and images I knew would satisfy me the most.  Yet I tried in rapid toe dips, once spending eleven minutes on a video of a nude bodybuilder shot-putting a collection of corns and lettuces into a wall, and with no o-face to conjure.  

“I walk in madness” was both my unorthodox phrase of meditation and most important sentence of self-parody.  When walking around at night in a certain state, I would now and then repeat to myself, “I walk in madness.”   After this I would laugh and say, “that’s dramatic.”  Self-parody swooped in to dehydrate the potential mirages, delusions.  But no other summary was as accurate — literally I walked in madness.  From the habits of my mind, a complex system had emerged and, quite simply, enveloped my unhinged ass.  I had strobe-nurtured my preferences for “the best way to think” over the last several years, so that now I was only sufficiently energized when mentally combining (1), an act of making fun of myself for feeling out of sorts, with (2), an earnest attempt at my own healing.  This perverse combo made me feel very aware but rarely good.  And when these thought commands then marinated in the head to a fully abusive gush, there was one more thing to consider.  What was the source of that powerful sensation that took me over when I went walking alone and without a plan at night?  What was it in the body that prodded me along that highly nummy snack trail of mini-catharses?  What was the source of those tiny pecks of transcendence that scattered down the back of the neck when nearing the production of an abyss?  That is, I did not only walk in madness because I had to, but also because it had become fun.  It raveled me on a line leading to some other connection, a connection which was not to The World.  It promised recognition of and commune with everything that did not matter or had not ever been confirmed to exist.

These areas were very important to pay attention to — I had ignored them for the majority of my, to be acutely real, goofiest years, it was important to know everything that was possible.  This was my routine.  I walked with glamour in circular patterns around less populated city neighborhoods at night, always listening to music that accentuated a spike in insane flavoring.  I only chose music that had the strength to combine halo and blurred hole, it was always music that floored my sensation to its final speed.  I knew I was so lucky to have built-in machinery that let me expand all of my reserves through music.  It was my only advantage.  It made me proud to turn inward.  If my skill was extreme sensitivity, it could only flourish in its most insular and native format.  

But I desperately needed new songs to fill me up, and over-listened as a resting state.  I over-listened, and a night out, i.e. the sustained advancement of nightlife over several hours, was an exhausting condition for me.  In a bar, I was penetrated by the old song I had heard over two thousand times before, but which now had been remixed in a contemporary style wherein synth stabs commanded by creatine hands had replaced what was once very clean, antiquated AOR guitar strumming.  The popular song I had highly ignored for the length of my life, and which hearing did not provoke outrage (or even flashback to wedding dance floor) but instead perpetual indifference in me, had been updated using the most cutting edge technology to produce aural depths not possible with the recording equipment available when the song was originally produced, and which now plunged the emotions much further down and much harder.  The original voice was now placed in a melancholy minefield of hysterically deep bass and plummeting, omnidirectional dynamics and, when the remix passed through the tequila that I was allowing to patrol my body, it replicated itself with viral menace to produce in me the extraterrestrial threat of a single tear.  

In this instance of a night out, Rob had invited me to this bar and party that I had never been to before.  Where I had expected to see more of his friends or even the endless hallway of acquaintances he seemed to be able to mobilize at random, instead I only saw Gail, revealing the conditions were such that Gail and I were the only people Rob had invited to the event.  There I stood under the song, almost leaking with melody-induced sentimentality or globular nostalgia mucus.  I looked across at Gail who was leaning on a wall, who did not seem to be able to observe me after our initial greeting when I arrived at the bar.  She appeared to not take in much information when moved from location to location, and when looking in her eyes I did not ever get the sensation that enormous perspectival changes were part of her social rhythm.  A common conclusion from a young person would be that she was fried, but whether as a condition of drugs/alcohol/trauma or some combo, there had not been any stories shared on which to focus a rock hard drama-horny eye.  Though I yearned to know what details flanked the long road leading to her hellscape, I realized it was unjust since I wasn’t prepared to present the full set of demonic coordinates that had led to mine.  How can one appeal with another story of lost sleep?  “Awake all night” is not the story anyway, yes we know, please make your complaining entertaining.  I was in the heart of the club, I understood it was not the moment to emerge brumal vapors in the form of uninteresting plot points excerpted from my very personal checklist of booboos.  “Oops,” the convicted serial killer said when the public did not like the realistic paintings he made of his victims while in jail.  Gurn: it was possible for the public to see horrifying paintings made by a serial killer.  

Several screens around the bar played the same music video, which the dance floor area magnified via projection on the wall, so that, in the most emotional part of the bar, emotion was keyed up considerably by the illusion of entering the world suggested by the song.  Rob and the bartender were near cheek-to-cheek, taking turns cocking their heads to the side so the voice of the other could enter the ear successfully over the newest Chicago house-derived, 80s-synthpop-infused rap song scorching the lair.  Gail stayed against the wall, looking around but appearing totally comfortable, a woman in her 60s drinking a High Life surrounded by a different generation, I was moved.  Being young is incredibly dangerous.  The bartender poured Rob and himself shots and they downed them together.  

Snippets of Gail’s circumstances had reached me, I knew she had been living with her son in Texas but now was essentially homeless, that Rob and Q.C. had met her at a goth club where she was hanging out with a much younger woman named Lillian.  Lillian would often be run into at the goth club or other clubs and bars, flirting with Rob and Q.C., and though she was definitely younger than Gail, she wore enough makeup to sufficiently alter minds and, with the support of moody bar lighting that left certain preferred corners in medium darkness, had an age that was unrecognizable.  “My instinct tells me she’s at least 35,” Rob had suggested after explaining to me the situation and after a long silence in which I didn’t respond or engage at all with what he had just said.  The pause had felt uncomfortable and also unnatural after such bulbous gossip so he apparently felt it important to break the silence with this one more detail of her estimated age.  I knew it would make both of us more comfortable if I said something in response to the story of Gail and Lillian but I didn’t, in the end, have anything to say, and so Rob told me he thought Lillian was at least 35, and I responded, “oh.”  Lillian and Gail were good friends and Lillian would often bring Gail along to the goth club; Gail did not dress on theme.  Eventually Rob learned she lived in her car and he invited her to stay with him for an unspecified amount of time.  Inevitably this increased my estimation of Rob’s worldview.  When he would decide once again it was time to throw trash from the neighborhood off the 2nd floor apartment balcony — for instance a decommissioned flatscreen or legless American Girl doll — Gail, watching through the open door from the beige velvet couch, would laugh once.  

Rob concluded his interaction with the bartender, turned to me and explained the bartender was hot and straight, and when the bartender worked the weekly gay night they held at the bar, he would appropriately enhance his image in honor of the conventional gay male eye — pouring himself into a tight black tank top that demonstrated his tactful chest hair and relevant bicep gains was the respectful thing to do.  “I’m going to dance now,” Rob said as a commanding female voice shook the establishment with its first notes.  

I wandered over with him but stuck to the doorway that connected the bar area to the dance floor, watching as he threw himself, alone, into the writhing environs, quite clogged with personal freedoms.  The mass of dancers sang the chorus of the song all together, the subject matter concerned a protagonist that felt jealous and sad to see their long pined after crush dancing with another girl.  In fact the protagonist likely never had a chance with the person who was their crush but had built up a dream narrative in which their idealistic love with this person was nearing possibility.  In the midst of such crushing circumstances, the protagonist, now left alone and heartbroken at some event they likely attended simply to engage further with their crush, has decided to dance through their loneliness despite it all, even if it will only enliven them for a moment, and for the length of the song.  Rob danced “with” almost anyone he turned his body towards.  Some people engaged, dancing back, and others stealthily maneuvered away.  At some point it was discernible that he no longer had on shoes or socks.  A girl very much liked that, drawing her friend’s attention to the fact, then touching Rob on the arm, saying something inaudible.  All three laughed.  I stood and watched, occasionally pinged by passing bodies gunning for the most emotional part of the bar.  I watched the video on the projection screen.  The female vocalist danced specifically, had short pink bowl cut hair, conveyed well-lit and accessible agony.  Several bar dancers unmistakably entered a sub-orgasmic flehmen response.  My left shoulder reflexively darted front and back — a significant space-grabber had brushed me by on their way to the dance floor.  It was eventually revealed to be Gail.  I watched her scream “YAHHHHHHHHHH!!!” as she launched herself into the crowd.  

[robhorninginternalexile]

producing the audience

This investigation of Facebook’s algorithms for matching ads to audiences, by Ian Bogost and Alexis Madrigal, is helpful for clearing up some general points about how advertising works generally. 

It sounds obvious enough that advertising is about creating demand for products; it doesn’t simply inform people about what products are available so that they can indulge the intrinsic desire for something they already felt. In other words, people don’t come to ads with certain desires and needs; the ads capture their attention and create the needs in them. It seeks to make them into the sort of person who habitually wants certain things. Often this is overlooked from a kind of positivist viewpoint that presumes subjects know their desires and aren’t structured by society.

For this sort of manipulation to work, targets need to believe that they are autonomous and unlikely to be manipulated in that way — this lowers their conscious guard to the technique. So another major ideological thrust of advertising is to convince targets that their ad-induced desires are actually “real” and “natural,” that the needs are inherent in them, expressing their true personalities, their god-given souls. So the main thing being advertised, across all forms of advertising regardless of the specific product, is this heroic consumerist subject who is fully self-aware about what they want and is not subject to being easily influenced by external forces. From within that sort of subjectivity, of course, one is more easily influenced by external forces and less likely to scrutinize or actively participate in those processes that are shaping them.

This is cross-cut with a contradictory message in advertising that involves "social proof”: other people you admire are doing X, so you should too, then you will belong with them, you will be recognized or recognizable socially, you will have a legible place. Ads try to balance the appeals to social proof with the appeals to individualism, which masks the nature of the “society” ads promise to help you belong to. Advertising must blanket its targets’ attentional field because it is trying to make its simulacrum appear as a plausible representation of society, and make the mode of subjectivity ads inculcate seem universal.

Hence Facebook’s efficacy for advertisers. Facebook’s aspiration to re-create the world within its servers achieves much of what advertising must do as a prerequisite. It makes a phony, freely manipulatable, and quantifiable world appear as a reasonable representation of the social world. In Facebook, audiences for ads can be created instantaneously and synthetically, without reference to the desire or intention of those so grouped to actually be lumped together. Facebook makes ersatz demographics based on the demands of particular advertisers, and when the targets are exposed to the ads that result from being stereotyped in that way, they are led to believe that the ersatz demographic is a view of society to which empowered individuals like themselves belong. This works as long as Facebook is understood as a benign and neutral representation of a user’s social world that the user supposedly controls by friending certain people and so on (that is where the “empowered individual” part of the ideology is reinforced). 

Bogost and Madrigal draw on a similar theory of advertising to explain why Facebook’s methods are so impactful:

In the old days, advertisers bought guaranteed placements in print publications, on outdoor displays, or in media broadcasts. They would select these placements, in part, based on the audiences those media might reach: a glossy magazine for women interested in fashion, or a billboard that thousands of downtown commuters pass daily. At the dawn of the internet, advertisers did the same thing on websites: If a business wanted to get in front of a particular audience, it could buy space adjacent to the content that brought in that audience. Eventually, it could also buy space atop search results, bidding for placement based on terms typed into Google.

This treats “content” as a proxy for a pre-existing audience, but that verges toward assuming a “subject that already knows what it wants” that ads are trying to “cater” to. But I think it is more accurate to say that the ads and content worked together to produce certain kinds of publics, with certain values, and certain induced desires. The content, in other words, produced demand (produced subjects) just like the ads would, only with slightly less overt appeals. And the content worked together with the ads, each to provide an alibi to the other: the ads seemed more obvious next to the content, the content seemed less coercive next to the ads.

Bogost and Madrigal see Facebook as a departure from this, rather than an apotheosis.

Facebook upended that. A“Facebook ad” is less an ad and more a machine for producing ads. Instead of paying to put particular media in front of a specific audience, an advertiser now pays Facebook to deliver a selected outcome from a certain stripe of people. For example, a clothing manufacturer might pay Facebook for webpage visits from women in their 30s who live in Los Angeles, or for likes by parents with college degrees whose online behavior is similar to that of users who had previously made purchases. How those ads get to which matching users is up to Facebook. Given some starting information, its system learns how to tune the delivery of the ad, in relation to all the other advertisers out there. In short, Facebook chooses which ads will be shown to whom at what price.

This utterly changes what it means to create and deploy advertising.

It’s more a perfection of the previous techniques, thanks to a better environment for capturing targets’ attention and remolding the mediascape around them based on the desired characteristics around which an advertiser would like to produce ideas of “community,” “society,” or “solidarity.” 

A Facebook ad produces particular audiences organized around particular exploitable ideas of “together,” and it requires a constant reiterative barrage to sustain the plausibility of those pseudo-communities (aka “brand communities”).

As Bogost and Madrigal stress, what is especially novel about Facebook is the automation of this process of delivering ads to people to sustain these imputed affiliations — to create feedback loops that intensify the connection between the user’s experience of autonomy (I click on what I want) and the contrived demographics they are slotted into for advertising’s purposes and aims: “When those ads successfully push users to take action, those actions generate ever more data, which in turn get funneled right back into Facebook … to help target even more ads.”  The key here is that ads within Facebook are directly instrumental, but not with respect to the content of the ad. (The ads aren’t mainly having the direct measurable effect of getting people to buy X or Y.) The ads become more prevalent (favored by Facebook’s algorithmic systems) to the extent that people pay attention to them in quantifiable ways on Facebook. The system is tuned to reinforce the validity of “paying attention to advertising” in general — it’s focused on the part of all ads that are about the “usefulness of advertising,” the part that conditions subjectivity in general and doesn’t promote some specific thing. 

Bogost and Madrigal make this point with respect to the machine learning used to target Facebook users, and the opacity of the logic by which it proceeds. 

Do the predictions make a good model of a person’s actual inner desires? Do the ads “work?” It doesn’t matter. Facebook’s ad software doesn’t try to get someone to buy a product or vote for a candidate. It merely tries to produce the results that advertisers declare they want, by serving ads to users similar to the ones who furnished those results on earlier, similar ads. Each action a user takes or doesn’t take—clicking, liking, sharing, commenting, donating, hovering, buying, filling out a form—slightly changes the complex network of predictions that form Facebook’s picture of a person, which is to say, a consumer. 

Basically, it doesn’t matter why someone is targeted, just that the targeting happens over and over again — that produces the ad-receptive subjectivity, and not the effectiveness or persuasiveness of a particular message.

One implication of this is that an ad’s content doesn’t matter as much as its frequency: the ads aren’t meant to be persuasive, they are meant to be emblematic and recognizable beyond the imputations of content, beyond the need for interpretation or even interpretability. This is why Trump’s Facebook ads are just basically interchangeable pictures of him (”Each ad used one of four versions of ad copy, matched to one of six pictures of Trump, composed and cropped in three different ways to fit different ad slots across Facebook and Instagram,“ Bogost and Madrigal note). They are just about brand recognition and creating a sense that ubiquity itself produces social reality. There is no pretense that he has anything important to say other than his own ubiquity, a quantity that becomes a quality.  

Trump is a nullity who desires attention for its own sake, so his "politics” perfectly suit a mechanism meant to valorize attention for its own sake, a self-reinforcing loop that puts attention at the center of subjectivity and human agency. He is governing not for television but as a television.   

[raquel08]

The Complete Guide to Search Intent for SEO

Search intent is often one of the most overlooked ranking factors but arguably one of the most important. Have you ever had a page that seemingly has super useful content and is optimised for keywords, yet you still aren’t ranking?

The most likely culprit is search intent.

Our complete guide will teach you what search intent is, what the different types are, why it matters for SEO and most importantly, how to optimise for it.

What is Search Intent?

Search intent, also sometimes known as user intent, refers to the meaning behind a search query; what is it the user is actually looking for by searching for that specific term?

It is essentially the goal of the user and could fall into a range of categories including informational, navigational, commercial or transactional. We will look at these in more detail a little later.

Search intent can often be inferred from the types of words used within search queries, for example if a search contains the word ‘how’, it is likely they are looking for information, or if the query contains the word ‘buy’, it is likely they are looking to make a purchase. By aligning your content to the users intent you can help to improve your rankings, and provide a relevant solution to the users query.

What are the Different Types of Search Intent?

Briefly mentioned above, there are 4 main types of search intent. These are informational, navigational, transactional and commercial. Learn more about each of the different types below.

Informational Queries: In informational searches the user is simply looking for information on a certain topic. Often formulated in a question style e.g. ‘how do I get more traffic online?’, ‘What is the best way to get traffic online?’, these are usually relatively easy to spot however, there are some exceptions. Informational queries may also be presented in a non-question format e.g. ‘search intent guide’.

Navigational Queries: Navigational queries are those of people who already know where they want to go. It may just be a case of it’s easier to search for a specific website then it is to type in the URL. They may also be looking for a specific section of the website such as the blog. An example of a navigational search would be ‘SEO Works’ or ‘SEO Works blog’. It is hard to capitalise on these if the search is not directed at your website as the user already has a clear idea of where they want to end up.

Commercial Queries: Commercial, or commercial investigation, searches help the user to make a decision on the best solution to their query. Linked to informational, this style of search often compares products or services to provide users with more detailed information that will eventually allow them to decide on the best solution for them. Searches may also take the form of reviews or lists. Some examples of searches with a commercial intent include ‘best SEO companies’, ‘SEO Works review’ or ‘SEO vs PPC’.

Transactional Queries: Transactional searches occur when the user is nearing the end of the buying cycle and is looking to make a purchase. This type of search will often contain language cues such as the terms ‘buy’, ‘buy online’ or ‘cheap…’. Anything related to price, buying or where to buy will generally be a transactional search. E.g. ‘online SEO services’.

Why is Search Intent Important for SEO?

With search engine algorithms improving by the day, keyword mentions are simply not enough anymore. Search engines are now able to determine the searchers intent much better than they used to. They then display content most relevant to that intent. Aligning your pages to this is therefore essential in order to gain high rankings. In doing this, your impressions will increase which in turn will help to boost traffic to your site.

In addition to this, by accurately communicating the intent of your page to users via the page title and meta description, you can also help to increase click through rate. Well-optimised meta will help to convince users that they will find the solution to their query on your page and will therefore encourage them to click through.

In relation to this, by attracting the right type of users to your site, they are more likely to convert. This is because if your page matches their search intent, you are presumably able to provide a solution for them. This is true of all types of searches, even informational. If they navigate to your site and see you as a useful source of information, users will be more likely to use you in the future for products or services as they will trust you.

The Importance of Search Intent Summary

Higher impressions

Boosts traffic

Increased click through rate

Higher chance of conversion

Improved trust

How to Optimise for Search Intent?

So now you know why optimising for search intent is important, you may be wondering how do you actually do it?

SERP Analysis

The first step is analysis. This is key; if you don’t determine the type of search intent before starting, it’s more likely that your page won’t match up. In order to determine the user’s goal, look at the search engine results pages. The search query itself may hold some clues. Look at the language used; are they trying to buy something, or are they asking a question? Once you have looked at this, review the top results. How is their page formatted? What kind of information is included?

Further clues to the search intent may also be inferred from certain SERP features. For example, if ‘people also ask’  boxes appear the search is more likely to be informational, if a product carousel is present, the search is likely transactional. This is not a foolproof method however, so make sure to carry out detailed analysis of all the top search results.

You should also note, that search intent is not necessarily black and white…just to make it that little bit harder. Search intent can be mixed, e.g. ‘Things to know before hiring an SEO agency’. This search is predominantly informational but, it also has a transactional element to it as the user is looking to buy services.

Aligning your Content to the Intent

You should have learned a number of things from your SERP analysis, including what type of content is ranking highly e.g. blogs, landing pages etc., it’s style e.g. video, infographic, text etc. how it is formatted e.g. a guide, a review etc. and what angle it takes. Once you have determined these things, you should have a solid plan for how you can adjust your page to match the search intent of the user.

If ‘how to’ guides are ranking highly, write your own and try to offer more useful information than that of the top search result. You should also adjust your meta to better communicate the content of the page to users. As previously mentioned, this can help to improve your site’s click through rate and attract traffic that is more likely to convert.

Review Regularly

It is important to note that search intent is not static. It can fluctuate and change over time so if you notice any rapid keyword drops, your first port of call should be to check the search intent of the target query, and repeat the above steps if necessary.

Search intent – in summary

Understanding and analysing search intent will influence your content creation, and ultimately help you answer the questions your target market are looking for, resulting in a better chance of search visibility.

Still not sure or too busy to ensure your search intent is on-point? Then it is best to connect with the SEO experts of an SEO company in Clearwater, FL.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#8yrsago The Filter Bubble: how personalization changes society

MoveOn co-founder Eli Pariser's new book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You is a thoughtful, often alarming look at the dark side of Internet personalization. Pariser is concerned that invisible "smart" customization of your Internet experience can make you parochial, exploiting your cognitive blind-spots to make you overestimate the importance or prevalence of certain ideas, products and philosophies and underestimate others. In Pariser's view, invisible, unaccountable, commercially driven customization turns into a media-bias-of-one, an information system that distorts your perception of reality. Pariser doesn't believe that this is malicious or intentional, but he worries that companies with good motives ("let's hide stuff you always ignore; let's show you search results similar to the kinds you've preferred in the past") and bad ("let's spy on your purchasing patterns to figure out how to trick you into buying stuff that you don't want") are inadvertently, invisibly and powerfully changing the discourse.

Pariser marshalls some good examples and arguments in favor of this proposition. Students whose teachers believe they are stupid end up acting stupid -- what happens when the filters decide we're dumb, or smart, or athletic, or right wing, or left wing? He cites China and reiterates the good arguments we've heard from the likes of Rebecca McKinnon: that the Chinese politburo gets more political control over the way it shapes which messages and arguments you see (through paid astroturfers) than by mere censorship of the Internet. Pariser cites research from cognitive scientists and behavioral economists on how framing and presentation can radically alter our perception of events. Finally, he convincingly describes how a world of messages that you have to consciously tune out is different from one in which the tuning out is done automatically -- for example, if you attend a town hall meeting in which time is taken up with discussion of issues that you don't care about, you still end up learning what your neighbors care about. This creates a shared frame of reference that strengthens your community.

Pariser also points out -- correctly, in my view -- that filtering algorithms are editorial in nature. When Google's programmers tweak and modify their ranking algorithm to produce a result that "feels" better (or that users click on more), they're making an editorial decision about what sort of response they want their search results to evince. Putting more-clicked things higher up is an editorial decision: "I want to provide you with the sort of information whose utility is immediately obvious." And while this is, intuitively, a useful way to present stuff, there's plenty of rewarding material whose utility can't be immediately divined or described (I thought of Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide, which describes an experiment in which subjects who were asked to explain why they liked certain pictures made worse choices than ones who weren't asked to explain their preferences). When we speak of Google's results as being driven by "relevance," we act as though there was a platonic, measurable, independent idea of "relevance" that was separate from judgment, bias, and editorializing. Some relevance can't be divined a priori -- how relevant is an open window to Fleming's Petri dish?

There were places where I argued with Pariser's analysis, however. On the one hand, Pariser's speculation about the future seems overly speculative: "What if augmented reality as presently practiced by artists and futurists becomes commonplace?" On the other hand, Pariser's futures are too static: He presumes a world in which filtering tools become increasingly sophisticated, but anti-filtering tools (ad-blockers, filter-comparison tools, etc) remain at present-day levels. The first wave of personalization in the Web was all about changing how your browser displayed the information it received; the trend to modular, fluid site-design built around XML, CSS, DHTML, AJAX, etc, makes it even more possible to block, rearrange, and manage the way information is presented to you. That is, even as site designers are becoming increasingly sophisticated in the way they present their offerings to you, you are getting more and more power to break that presentation, to recombine it and filter it yourself. Filters that you create and maintain are probably subject to some of the dangers that Pariser fears, but they're also a powerful check against the alarming manipulation he's most anxious about. Pariser gives short shrift to this, dismissing the fact that the net makes it theoretically easier than ever to see what the unfiltered (or differently filtered) world looks like with hand-waving: the filters will make it so we don't even want to go outside of them.

I don't believe that anti-filters or personal filters will automatically act as a check against manipulative customization, but I believe that they have this potential. The Filter Bubble is mostly a story about potential -- the potential of filtering technology to grow unchecked. And against that, I think it's worth discussing (and caring about, and working for) the potential of a technological response to that chilling future.

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You

https://boingboing.net/2011/05/23/the-filter-bubble-ho.html

[thecardsimagine]

Late replies

Sorry it took me so long to get back to y’all who eventually reached out. I appreciate the thought. I have been feeling for a while that the fandom is somewhat dying ever since the first three routes ended and it was very crushing that there were no replies at all, kind of confirming my suspicion about the dying out. I hoped by prompting replies it might get more exciting for us all again, but apparently I was wrong. Aside from the few things I still want to write from my own stuff and the handful request I have I must admit it might not be long before I run out of stuff to do with this blog. All this is very depressing for me so I didn’t have the strength to get back to you quicker, sorry.

Thanks for your ask, I am very happy to hear you are sharing and enjoying my work. No need to feel bad, especially if you rarely go to tumblr (which - kudos to you - is a good thing, stay off as much as possible from this hellsite lol). Still, I hope you can enjoy it as much as possible in the future too!

Wasn’t there a thing though where you had to go to your options to turn off tumblr from just showing you the posts it’s algorithm thought were the most important to you? I don’t have that post that was going around with that anymore but maybe someone has it and can link it down in the comments, but if that is still a thing it might be what is keeping you two from seeing my posts. I only post seriously once a day so it might also be worth it to activate notifications for my blog if you don’t want to miss it under the masses of other posts every day.

Still I am glad that you two like my works and for horror, personally, I have no ideas for it, but I would be willing to try if any idea ever came up. It’s something not usually requested and while I do my fair share of yandere and eerie things, I guess real horror hasn’t crossed my mind yet.

Honestly, I wasn’t even going at engagement with my work which is a whole different topic, I was more asking because I wanted to see if I can prompt more interactions and see if this all still means something to other people or just me. Some people are scared to say their opinion, so I thought I would prompt it and help them take a step forward. What I wanted was lure people out of the thinking they shouldn’t interact, share their opinions, etc. I don’t need people patting my back and compliement me to continue writing but there could have been suggestions or needs in the fandom that yet needed to be spoken about. Sometimes you are driving one lane and it becomes boring to all the passengers in the seats, so someone can come over and suggest another route to you and you all find out you enjoy driving that one too.

I think it took me two years writing on my magi-blog before I realized I could do things on my own. That I could have fun with my ideas and don’t need to do every shitty thing I am asked for (which in the past has been a lot). I was at the same point as you where I was just doing it for others and it ruined me more than it helped me. I then changed fandom, wrote my first own OC story. Two years ago I wrote my first 100k+ story which up to this day is not completely corrected and posted. And it will never get many notes if I do. Was I happy to finish it? Oh, I cried for days because I felt like loosing something important to me and sometimes growth hurts, but I look back now and think to myself how amazing I am to have done that.

Writing for yourself is beautiful and painfully hard but worth it. Yes, keeping a blog up, gain followers, gain notes, promote yourself, etc - it is all part of doing request blogs but we always need to remind ourselves that at the end of the day we are doing it for us. I am doing it because I love writing, I do it for my mental health, I do it for me. And even if you look at the notes every now and then, you still need to put your foot on the ground and say you loved writing this one scenario, or that headcanon - even if it only gained 5 notes. Those 5 people presumably liked it too and that is great right? Five complete strangers liked it! But it’s even greater you liked it. If you don’t like writing something what is the point of creating it?

Otherwise, I don’t know you but it might always come down to small things. Is your blog freshly created? - Tumblr might not show you in searches or tags. How much do you tag? Do you just tag character’s first name and the franchise itself - no wonder, your post probably gets swallowed by all the other people tagging the same, you need to stand out more. Do you engage with others? Did you make yourself known? Did you let people shout you out? Shared your work with anyone directly? There are a lot of things you need to work on if you want to gain notes and followers and keep up a blog. And only when you got to a certain point you can even expect people to engage with you a little bit. So you engage back and maybe, if you’re lucky, there will be someone who cares about you as a writer, not just your writing so they will engage with you, not your writing. There is nothing pretty in the loneliness art brings but it takes forever to get to some point you are satisfied and then you will only feel the thirst for more and it never stops.

At the end of the day, I just want to ask you if you had fun writing what you wrote. Question yourself if you’d still like it if you had never posted and if the answer is no, then you did something wrong on your way there. The notes never matter, and you need to see it through a reversed uno card: If people don’t engage with you so you can make them happy, why do you need to bother so much with making them happy and not yourself? It’s a question about self-worth and while I am still working on it with my therapist myself, ask yourself why you let other people determine your self-worth by the way they comment or interact with your writing. Even for me it’s disappointing that no one engages, and I am also sad I might have to close this blog in some time. But will I stop writing? No. Go, change fandom, interact with other’s, write a new story and never post it, create a new character/world/idea. But don’t stop what you love just because you let other people ruin it for you. That is what I think about your situation. Literally, if you have nothing to do it for, do it out of spite if you must, but: Just. Do. It.