#there are no PARAMETERS on this problem. there is no social CONTEXT provided.

[girderednerve]

i've come up with a cool new plan for fixing the digital divide, let's all go downtown & start smashing servers. bring a big old magnet. narrow the gap from the other side for a change!

[saasreviewtools]

Note: You are reading QuillBot Review - Your Ultimate Writing Assistant from SaaS Review Tools. QuillBot pledged to improve writing for everyone professionals, amateurs, and students alike making it simpler for everyone to generate excellent written content. You can learn everything there is to know about the top AI writing assistant from this thorough Quillbot Review. What is Quillbot? Using artificial intelligence, QuillBot is an advanced online writing assistance that helps users write better. It offers a variety of tools, such as a summarizing tool to condense long documents, a built-in thesaurus to propose synonyms, a grammar checker to discover and fix problems, and a paraphrase tool to restate material for clarity and conciseness. QuillBot Review QuillBot is a versatile writing tool that can be used for a variety of tasks, such as social media posts, professional content creation, and academic writing. Its goal is to improve writing efficiency and effectiveness by enabling users to communicate their thoughts more naturally and clearly. How does Quillbot work? Natural language processing (NLP) methods and sophisticated machine learning algorithms are used by QuillBot to interpret and reword text. A detailed explanation of its operation is provided below: Input: Through the QuillBot interface, users enter text to be rephrased, grammar checked, or summarized. Analyzing the input text to determine its context, organization, and meaning is done by QuillBot's AI algorithms. Work flow: In order to preserve the original meaning while enhancing clarity, conciseness, and fluency, QuillBot produces other phrasings for the supplied text. Thesaurus: If a user highlights a word, QuillBot provides synonym suggestions to expand vocabulary and variety. Grammar check: This feature checks the text for mistakes in grammar and offers ideas and edits to make it more accurate. Summary: By removing superfluous words and concepts, QuillBot reduces the length of the text. Output: After the user reviews and makes any necessary revisions, the program shows them the updated text. Customization: Users have the ability to change the parameters to create specific style preferences and regulate the amount of paraphrase (e.g., more creative or more conservative changes). QuillBot helps users write more accurately, efficiently, and with higher quality overall by combining these features. Who should use Quillbot? QuillBot is advantageous for a broad spectrum of people who write in various contexts: Students: It can assist students in refining and improving their writing when they are working on essays, research papers, and other assignments. Scholars and researchers can ensure clarity and conformity to academic norms by using QuillBot to summarize and paraphrase difficult academic materials. Content Creators: Experts in marketing, journalism, and content development may create original content, improve SEO, and expedite the writing process with QuillBot. Professionals in the business world: It helps with the drafting of emails, reports, and presentations, guaranteeing precise and polished communication in work settings. Social media managers: It helps with the creation of succinct and interesting social media postings, which improves brand communication and engagement. English language learners can benefit from this useful application, which offers grammar checking and vocabulary development to assist non-native speakers of the language write better in English. QuillBot is made to help people who want to write better, more efficiently, and more effectively in a variety of writing activities and fields. Pros and Cons of Quillbot Here are some advantages and disadvantages of QuillBot: Pros of Quillbot: Paraphrasing and Rewriting: QuillBot is a master at paraphrasing and rewriting material, which helps it produce new content or enhance style and clarity. Thesaurus and Vocabulary Enhancement: It provides users with an integrated thesaurus

that makes synonym suggestions, allowing them to expand their vocabulary and write more richly. Grammar and Writing Help: The grammar checker improves overall writing accuracy by assisting in the identification and correction of grammatical problems. QuillBot is useful for efficiently processing vast volumes of information since it can summarize lengthy texts by distilling the major ideas and important points into a more succinct form. User-Friendly Interface: Due to its user-friendly interface, people of all skill levels can utilize it with ease. Cons of Quillbot: Accuracy of paraphrase: Although paraphrase is usually successful, there are times when it yields outcomes that are not exactly in line with the original context or meaning. Limited Control Over Rewriting: Users may not always be able to adapt their paraphrase to meet specific writing requirements or preferences. They also have limited control over the degree and style of paraphrasing. Dependency on Internet Connection: QuillBot can't work without an internet connection, which could prove problematic for users who live in places with spotty internet service. Cost of Subscription: Some customers may find it prohibitive to pay a subscription fee in order to access the entire range of services and capabilities, since they may choose free or less expensive options. Privacy Concerns: Users utilizing QuillBot, like with many other online tools, may be concerned about data security and privacy, particularly when handling private or sensitive data. QuillBot is an effective tool for increasing writing productivity and quality overall, but users should consider the benefits and drawbacks according to their own requirements and tastes. Main Features Of Quillbot Quillbot has several features and customizable elements that help you speed up the writing process. Here are some highlights that Saas Review Tools has researched and analyzed: Quillbot Paraphraser Tool One of QuillBot's best features is its paraphrasing tool, which helps users improve and polish their writing. The paraphrasing tool utilizes sophisticated artificial intelligence to thoroughly examine input material, comprehending context and meaning to produce substitute sentences that maintain the original meaning. Quillbot Paraphraser Tool For those looking to increase readability, coherence, and clarity in their writing without compromising accuracy, this feature is priceless. QuillBot’s paraphraser provides an adaptable and user-friendly solution for anyone wishing to easily improve written communication, be it through the rewording of intricate sentences, the simplification of technical jargon, or the creative reorganization of material. Quillbot Grammar Checker Tool The powerful Grammar Checker tool from QuillBot is intended to improve the precision and readability of written material. The Grammar Checker painstakingly examines text for grammatical mistakes, punctuation problems, and stylistic inconsistencies thanks to its sophisticated artificial intelligence. Quillbot Grammar Checker Tool It assists users in polishing their writing to meet professional standards by offering real-time ideas and edits. QuillBot's Grammar Checker makes sure that every piece of writing is not only grammatically correct but also flows naturally and successfully conveys the intended message. It does this by fixing verb tenses, proposing appropriate punctuation, and even making suggestions for improving sentence structure. For professionals, students, and writers of all ability levels looking to improve their writing and produce polished, error-free content, this tool is invaluable. Quillbot Plagiarism Checker Tool The Plagiarism Checker tool from QuillBot is a useful resource for making sure that written material is original and authentic. This function checks text against a large database of sources using advanced algorithms to find any instances of plagiarism or incorrect citation. Quillbot Plagiarism Checker Tool

It offers thorough reports with references and any similarities discovered that flag potentially plagiarized content. For academics, researchers, and content producers who want to confirm the legitimacy of their work and prevent inadvertent plagiarism, this tool is indispensable. QuillBot's Plagiarism Checker enables users to submit or publish their work with confidence knowing that it satisfies academic and professional requirements for originality by encouraging ethical writing methods and honesty. Quillbot Citation Generator Tool The Citation Generator tool from QuillBot makes the often time-consuming process of producing precise and correctly structured citations easier. This tool, which is compatible with multiple citation formats, including APA, MLA, Chicago, and others, creates citations automatically based on user input. Quillbot Citation Generator Tool It guarantees that all sources—including books, journals, websites, and other media—are correctly and consistently cited. QuillBot's Citation Generator simplifies the citation process, saving time and lowering the possibility of mistakes. This allows authors, students, and researchers to concentrate more on their work and less on formatting details. Anybody working on research projects or academic writing where proper referencing is essential for maintaining scholarly standards and credibility will find this tool to be quite helpful. Quillbot Summarizer Tool The Summarizer Tool from QuillBot provides an effective way to summarize long texts into brief and easy-to-read summaries. The Summarizer examines the supplied text using sophisticated natural language processing algorithms to pinpoint crucial details, primary concepts, and vital points. Quillbot Summarizer Tool After that, it creates a condensed version that drastically cuts the original content's length while preserving its essential elements. Users that need to rapidly understand the main points of lengthy articles, research papers, or documents without reading the entire text will find this function useful. For personal, commercial, or academic use, QuillBot's Summarizer Tool boosts productivity with concise, effective summaries that make understanding and making decisions simpler. Quillbot Pricing Quillbot Pricing provides the cost that users need to pay to benefit from 2 service packages with different amenities: Quillbot Pricing Premium Package: $9.95 billed monthly, $39.95 billed every 6 months, $49.95 billed every 12 months. Key features: Unlimited words in Paraphraser Unlimited Custom and 9 predefined modes Full use of Synonym Slider Unlimited Freeze Words 6,000 words in Summarizer Plagiarism Checker (100 pages/month) Create unique summaries using custom instructions Faster processing speed Premium recommendations Compare Modes Tone insights Paraphraser History Conclusion: QuillBot Review In conclusion, QuillBot is among the greatest AI writing tools available. It distinguishes itself as a strong and adaptable writing companion that uses cutting-edge AI technology to improve a variety of writing-related features. QuillBot helps users with a range of writing activities for academic, professional, and personal use. These tasks include grammar checking, summarizing, and effective paraphrasing. Although it greatly enhances productivity, clarity, and accuracy, users should take into account things like subscription fees and sporadic reliance on internet connectivity. All things considered, QuillBot is a priceless tool for anyone trying to improve the quality of their writing, expedite the writing process, and make sure their text satisfies strict requirements for uniqueness and clarity.

[alysongills]

Mastering AI Superprompts: A Step-by-Step Guide to Profit

Are you ready to unlock the secret to making AI language models work for you? This guide will show you how to make AI "superprompts." These are the keys to boosting your productivity, creativity, and making more money. Forget about using the same old prompts for everything. Today, in the fast-changing AI world, making custom prompts is a big deal. It's a skill that can help you succeed in many areas, from writing to web design. And the best part? You can use this skill to make money with your AI superprompts. Quick Recommendation: Have you tried Genius.AI yet? It’s seriously a game-changer for automating online business stuff like content creation and customer engagement. It’s an AI Marketing and Social Media Manager that 100% lives up to its name. Key Takeaways - Discover the power of AI superprompts and how they can revolutionize your productivity and income - Learn to craft effective prompts that unlock the full potential of language models like ChatGPT - Explore proven strategies for monetizing your AI superprompts on platforms like Etsy and Gumroad - Understand the importance of context and framework in creating high-performing prompts - Uncover ethical considerations and best practices for responsible use of AI superprompts

What are AI Superprompts?

AI superprompts are special instructions that make the most of advanced language models, like ChatGPT. They help generate very specific and useful outputs. These prompts understand how words and ideas connect, leading to precise answers from AI. Learning how to make prompt engineering is key to using AI fully and turning it into a powerful tool. Understanding the Power of Prompts Prompts open the door to AI's true power. They guide the AI's answers, making sure they meet your needs. To make effective prompts, you need a strategic plan. It's important to be clear, concise, and provide relevant context for the AI. Crafting Effective Prompts for AI Language Models Using a specific format, like the CRISPE (Context, Request, Instructions, Specifications, Parameters, Examples) framework, helps get better answers from the AI. Trying out different ways to phrase your prompts and refining them based on the AI's responses is also key. This way, you can improve your skills and get great results. Learning how to make effective prompts is crucial for getting the most out of AI language models. By making your prompts clear and specific, you can turn AI into a powerful tool. It can then generate highly valuable and customized outputs, meeting your unique needs.

The Importance of Context and Framework

Creating effective AI prompts needs the right context and framework. Giving the AI model info about the topic, what you want, and any special rules helps make the content better and more relevant. Frameworks like CRISPE (Context, Request, Instructions, Specifications, Parameters, Examples) or PROSE (Purpose, Request, Objective, Scope, Examples) help with prompt engineering. They make sure your prompts are clear, full, and fit your needs. - The CRISPE framework tells the AI what it needs to know, what you want, and how to do it. It also includes the rules and examples you want the AI to follow. - The PROSE framework helps you define why you're using the prompt, what you want, and what you aim to achieve. It also covers the scope and gives examples. Using a clear framework makes your prompts more specific and in line with what you want. This leads to better and more useful answers from the AI, helping you meet your goals. The context and framework you give the AI are key to its success. With a good prompt, you can use AI language models to create great content, solve tough problems, and get meaningful results.

Mastering AI Superprompts: A Step-by-Step Guide to Profit

Step 1: Define Your Goals and Objectives The first step in mastering AI superprompts is to clearly define your goals and objectives. Think about what you want to achieve, like creating content for your business or automating tasks. Having a clear purpose helps you make prompts that fit your needs and get the right AI responses. Step 2: Research and Gather Relevant Information Before making your AI superprompts, you need to research and gather relevant information. Look into the latest in language models and the AI tools you'll use. Also, collect any data or background info that helps with your prompts. Doing this research well is key to making effective AI superprompts. Step 3: Structure Your Prompt for Clarity It's important to make your prompts clear so the AI understands what you want. Use frameworks like CRISPE or PROSE to help structure them. Include clear instructions, specific details, and examples. This makes it easier for the AI to get the task right, giving you better responses. Step 4: Iterate and Refine Your Prompts Getting good at AI superprompts takes time and practice. Look at the AI's first responses and see what can be better. Try different words, add more details, or give more examples. Keep making your prompts better based on what the AI does. This way, you'll get better at making AI superprompts that really help you profit from ai.

Best Practices for Using AI Superprompts

Using AI superprompts effectively requires some key tips. Focus on being specific and concise. Also, make sure to provide context and examples. Be Specific and Concise Creating great AI superprompts means giving clear instructions. Avoid vague prompts that could lead to confusing answers. Instead, be clear about what you need from the AI. Being specific and concise with your AI superprompts helps the AI give you what you want. This way, you get the best results. Provide Context and Examples Being specific and concise is just the start. You also need to give the AI context and examples. This helps the AI understand what you're asking and what you expect. Examples can show the AI the kind of output you want. This makes the AI's answers more accurate and helpful. Best Practices for AI SuperpromptsWhy They MatterBe Specific and ConciseMaximizes the effectiveness of the AI's response and gets the desired outcomeProvide Context and ExamplesHelps the AI language model understand the task, target audience, and desired output Follow these best practices to get the most out of AI superprompts. You'll achieve your goals more efficiently and precisely.

Monetizing Your AI Superprompts

Selling your AI superprompts on online marketplaces like Etsy and Gumroad is a great way to make money. These sites have many customers looking for top-notch prompts. They use these prompts for things like content creation and marketing and web development and data science. By selling your AI superprompts, you can earn extra money and monetize your expertise in prompt engineering. Selling on Marketplaces like Etsy and Gumroad Etsy and Gumroad are great places to sell ai superprompts. They have lots of users looking for unique digital items like your prompts. By selling on these sites, you can reach more people and make money without much work. To start, make sure your ai superprompts meet what your customers need. Use the right keywords, clear descriptions, and good pictures to help people find your prompts. Always listen to what customers say to make your prompts better.

As you become known for high-quality ai superprompts, you can offer more services. You could make custom prompts or provide full prompt engineering services. By using these platforms, you can turn your skill in writing prompts into a profitable business.

Use Cases for AI Superprompts

AI superprompts have opened up new possibilities across many industries. They help content creators, web developers, data scientists, sales pros, and customer service experts work better. These tools make workflows smoother and boost productivity. Content Creation and Marketing For those in content creation and marketing, AI superprompts change the game. They help make blog posts, social media content, email campaigns, and marketing materials easily. With language models, you can explore new creative ideas and make high-quality content quickly. Web Development and Data Science AI superprompts aren't just for content creation. They also change web development and data science. They automate making user interface parts, help with coding challenges, and make data analysis and model development faster. Adding superprompts to your work can bring new efficiency and innovation. Sales and Customer Service AI superprompts also boost sales and customer service. They help make personalized sales pitches, compelling proposals, and scripts for handling objections. Use them to make customer service better by drafting emails, troubleshooting guides, and live chat responses. AI tools and automations can improve the customer experience and help your business grow. Use CaseAI Superprompt ExampleImpactContent Creation"Write a 500-word blog post on the benefits of AI superprompts for content marketing, including relevant statistics and use cases."Streamlines the content creation process, enabling the generation of high-quality, data-driven content at scale.Web Development"Develop a responsive, mobile-friendly website layout using Bootstrap, incorporating a clean and modern design."Automates the creation of user interface components, accelerating web development workflows.Data Science"Analyze the customer churn dataset and build a predictive model to identify key factors influencing customer attrition."Enhances data analysis and model development, leading to more informed business decisions.Sales"Craft a personalized sales pitch for our new SaaS product, addressing common objections and highlighting the key benefits for the target customer."Generates tailored sales materials, improving the overall sales process and closing rates.Customer Service"Draft a detailed troubleshooting guide for our latest software update, covering common issues and step-by-step solutions."Streamlines customer support workflows, resulting in faster response times and higher customer satisfaction. Quick Recommendation: Have you tried Genius.AI yet? It’s seriously a game-changer for automating online business stuff like content creation and customer engagement. It’s an AI Marketing and Social Media Manager that 100% lives up to its name.

Ethical Considerations and Responsible Use

When you dive into AI superprompts, think about the ethical considerations and how to use them responsibly. Think about the effects of your prompts, especially on sensitive topics or personal info. Always be clear, respect privacy, and act with integrity to gain trust and prevent bad outcomes. Adding ethical rules to your prompt engineering helps use AI in a good way. Here are some tips for responsible AI use: - Transparency and Accountability: Be open about using AI superprompts and their effects, and own up to the results. - Respect for Privacy: Make sure to protect user data and personal info when using AI tools. - Fairness and Non-Discrimination: Don't let your AI apps be biased or discriminate, making sure everyone has equal access. - Ethical Content Creation: Think about the ethical sides of what your AI superprompts create, avoiding content that's harmful or wrong. By following these ethical guidelines, you can fully benefit from AI superprompts. This way, you keep your commitment to social responsibility and the well-being of your users and the wider community.

Tools and Resources for AI Superprompts

Learning to make effective AI superprompts needs the right tools and resources. You can find support in many places, from platforms and AI suites to online groups and case studies. These help you get better at writing prompts. Begin by checking out Anthropic's InstructGPT and OpenAI's Playground. They let you practice designing and improving prompts. Then, look into Awesome ChatGPT Prompts and PromptBase for lots of examples and tips. Use AI tools to make your work easier and more efficient. ChatGPT and Chatsonic can help you create, improve, and test your prompts. They also share new info on language processing and machine learning. Join groups of people who like prompt engineering to share ideas and learn together. These forums are full of knowledge and support. They help you keep getting better at making AI superprompts. Learning about the tools and resources for AI superprompts is key to using these language models well. Use this support to improve your writing skills, work more efficiently, and keep up with AI in content creation. Quick Recommendation: Have you tried Genius.AI yet? It’s seriously a game-changer for automating online business stuff like content creation and customer engagement. It’s an AI Marketing and Social Media Manager that 100% lives up to its name.

Conclusion

Mastering AI superprompts is a key skill that can open new ways to make money and boost your work in many areas. This detailed guide has given you the knowledge and strategies to make great prompts for advanced language models. If you're an entrepreneur, freelancer, or any professional wanting to use AI for content, marketing, web development, data science, or customer service, learning AI superprompts will help you stand out. It will open up many new possibilities for you. Start using this technology and try different ways to see your success grow. When you get good at making AI superprompts, the possibilities are endless. This will help you reach your full potential and create a future where AI and human skills work together to achieve your goals and grow your business. Keep exploring the world of AI superprompts, use the tools and resources talked about, and let your creativity and problem-solving skills show. By mastering AI superprompts, you can enter a new world of being more productive, making more money, and succeeding in what you do.

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FAQ

What are AI superprompts? AI superprompts are special instructions that make advanced language models work better. They help tools like ChatGPT give precise and useful answers. By understanding how words and ideas connect, these prompts get the AI to respond accurately and help with many tasks. How can I craft effective prompts for AI language models? To make good prompts for AI, be clear, brief, and give the right context. Use a format like CRISPE (Context, Request, Instructions, Specifications, Parameters, Examples) to help the AI give better answers. Why is context and framework important for effective prompt engineering? Giving the AI the right context and framework is key. It helps the model know what you want and how to answer. Tools like CRISPE or PROSE help you make prompts that get better results from the AI. How can I monetize my AI superprompts? Sell your AI superprompts on platforms like Etsy and Gumroad. These sites have customers looking for top-notch prompts for many uses. By selling your prompts, you can earn money and share your knowledge in prompt engineering. What are some ethical considerations when using AI superprompts? Think about the ethics of using AI superprompts. Check how they might affect sensitive topics or personal info. Always be open, respect privacy, and act with integrity to gain trust and avoid problems. This way, you use AI responsibly and ethically. What tools and resources are available to support my AI superprompt journey? There are many tools and resources to help you with AI superprompts. Check out platforms, AI suites, and communities for tips and examples. Tools like Anthropic's InstructGPT and OpenAI's Playground can improve your skills. Sites like Awesome ChatGPT Prompts and PromptBase offer more ideas and best practices. Read the full article

[edcater]

Raw Data to Actionable Insights: Navigating the Data Science Landscape

In the digital age, data has become the lifeblood of organizations, fueling decision-making processes and driving innovation. However, the abundance of raw data poses a challenge: how can businesses transform this information into actionable insights? Enter the realm of data science, a multidisciplinary field that combines statistical analysis, machine learning, and domain expertise to extract valuable knowledge from data. This article explores the journey from raw data to actionable insights, providing insights into key concepts and methodologies.

Understanding Raw Data

Raw data is the unprocessed and unorganized information collected from various sources, ranging from customer transactions to social media interactions. It often lacks structure and context, resembling a puzzle with missing pieces. Data scientists begin by understanding the nature of the raw data, including its format, quality, and potential biases. This initial step sets the stage for the subsequent stages of the data science process.

Data Cleaning and Preprocessing

Cleaning and preprocessing are crucial steps in preparing raw data for analysis. This involves identifying and handling missing values, removing outliers, and standardizing formats. Data cleaning ensures that the information is accurate and consistent, laying the foundation for reliable insights. Preprocessing may also involve feature engineering, where new variables are created to enhance the predictive power of the data.

Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA)

Exploratory Data Analysis is a fundamental phase that involves visually and statistically summarizing the main characteristics of the data. Through techniques such as data visualization and statistical summaries, data scientists gain insights into patterns, trends, and potential relationships within the data. EDA helps to uncover outliers, understand data distributions, and identify variables that may influence the analysis.

Feature Selection and Dimensionality Reduction

As datasets grow in complexity, feature selection and dimensionality reduction become essential. Feature selection involves choosing the most relevant variables for analysis, while dimensionality reduction techniques like Principal Component Analysis (PCA) help streamline data without losing significant information. These processes optimize model performance, reduce computational costs, and enhance interpretability.

Model Development and Machine Learning

Once the data is prepared, the focus shifts to model development. Machine learning algorithms, ranging from traditional regression models to advanced deep learning techniques, are employed to extract patterns and make predictions. The choice of the algorithm depends on the nature of the problem and the characteristics of the data. The model is trained on a subset of the data, validated, and then tested to ensure its effectiveness.

Evaluation and Iteration

The evaluation stage is critical for assessing the model's performance. Metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score help gauge the model's effectiveness in making predictions. Data scientists iterate through the model development and evaluation process, tweaking parameters and refining algorithms to achieve optimal results. This iterative approach is crucial for continuous improvement and adapting to changing data dynamics.

Interpreting Results and Extracting Insights

Interpreting the results of a data science model requires a combination of technical expertise and domain knowledge. It involves understanding the implications of the findings, identifying actionable insights, and communicating these insights to stakeholders. Visualization tools play a crucial role in conveying complex information in a digestible format, aiding decision-makers in understanding the significance of the results.

Implementing Actionable Insights

The ultimate goal of the data science journey is to turn insights into action. Organizations must bridge the gap between data science and decision-making by implementing changes based on the findings. This may involve adjusting business strategies, optimizing processes, or introducing new products and services. Successful implementation hinges on collaboration between data scientists, business leaders, and other stakeholders to ensure a seamless transition from analysis to action.

Navigating the data science landscape from raw data to actionable insights is a multi-faceted journey that requires a combination of technical expertise, creativity, and collaboration. Understanding the nuances of raw data, cleaning and preprocessing, conducting exploratory data analysis, developing and evaluating models, and extracting actionable insights are integral steps in this process. By embracing the iterative nature of data science and fostering a culture of continuous improvement, organizations can harness the power of data to drive innovation and achieve strategic goals. As the digital landscape evolves, the role of data science in transforming raw data into actionable insights will continue to be a cornerstone of success in the modern business environment.

[dougholtphotographyus]

Instagram Photographer Vs. Editorial Photographer: which one is best?

Are you confused between hiring Instagram Photographer and Editorial Photographer? We will solve your problem by providing the right knowledge on professional photographers in New York and their relevant skills. Doug Holt Photography offers both Instagram and Editorial photographers within visual communication and photography.

Know the difference between Instagram Photographer and Editorial Photographer.

Context and Purpose

Instagram photographers concentrate on producing beautiful pictures for social media sites, primarily Instagram. Their work frequently focuses on aesthetics that appeal to their audience and personal expression, fashion, lifestyle, and travel. Building an online brand presence and engaging followers are the objectives.

On the other hand, Editorial Photographers in New York work for newspapers, magazines, websites, and other media. Their work supports textual content and is motivated by editorial storylines. The pictures are meant to convey a certain message, arouse feelings, or provide features, articles, or news items in a visual context.

Style and Aesthetics

Instagram photographers frequently emphasise filters, trends, and visual consistency to build an appealing feed. Personal tastes and what appeals to their followers may impact their style.

The style of editorial photographers changes to fit the publication's subject matter and editorial tone. Hence, we focus on visual storytelling, giving messages that align with the purpose and theme of the publication.

Engagement and Audience

Instagram photographers engage with their fans by liking, commenting, and sharing their work. They frequently establish a personal brand and communicate directly with their audience.

Through publications, editorial photographers attempt to reach a wider audience. They do this by capturing readers' attention and improving their comprehension of the written content.

Creativity and Independence

Instagram photographers enjoy considerable creative flexibility because they choose their subjects and subjects' interests by audience preferences. They are free to explore different photography concepts and styles.

The parameters established by the newspaper are what editorial photographers operate within. How they understand and aesthetically amplify the editorial information demonstrates their inventiveness. They work with editors and authors to ensure the pictures go with the text.

Professional Opportunities

Instagram photographers may work with influencers, brands, or companies to promote products through affiliate marketing, sponsored posts, and sponsored posts. Through collaborations and endorsements, they make money off of their internet presence.

Magazines, newspapers, and internet publications are clients of editorial photographers. They help tell stories visually in news, profiles, features, and other contexts. Their job is crucial for giving written content visual significance.

Why choose our professional Photographer?

At Doug Holt Photography, we give you many reasons to choose our studio for your project.

Diverse Expertise

For your social media presence, our expert Instagram photographer excels in creating visually appealing content. Your brand will stand out online since they know trends, aesthetics, and engagement tactics. While this is happening, our talented editorial Photographer specialises in turning stories into powerful images that give your editorial pieces insight and depth.

Strategic Branding

Our Instagram photographer ensures that your company's online persona is visually appealing, captivating, and in accordance with the latest trends. They develop a compelling narrative that connects with your target market and increases brand recognition and adherence. At the same time, our editorial Photographer improves your narrative skills by adding vivid visuals to your written content.

Comprehensive Visual Solution

Selecting our Instagram and Editorial Photographers can provide a comprehensive visual solution. You manage your editorial needs and social media demands in one location, ensuring a unified and powerful visual presence across all communication platforms.

Professional Insight

Our photographers have a thorough understanding of their specialised fields. The Editorial Photographer specialises in visualising editorial narratives, whereas the Instagram Photographer is tuned into the nuances of online engagement. Their suggestions improve your use of visual content.

If you want engaging and stylish photography, call us today!

[cddrita]

Peakhour urban technologies

In particular, during the peak period, the subway platform is crowded, which poses a severe safety hazard. In some large cities, peak and low periods are evident owing to the uneven distribution of daily passenger flow. As the main tool to alleviate urban traffic congestion, the subway can transport passengers rapidly. In this context, the development of public transportation has been prioritized to alleviate urban traffic problems. In recent years, traffic congestion caused by the increasingly prominent contradiction between urban traffic demand and supply has become a social problem in countries worldwide. Finally, relevant parameters are discussed. The results show that the objective function is reduced by 17.5%, the congested section is reduced by 9.1% when the full-load rate is 90% of the train loading capacity, and the passenger flow shifts to both ends of the peak period. Based on an example, we obtain the specific fare and passenger flow distribution of each train after fare adjustment. A simulated annealing algorithm is introduced to solve the bilevel model. To achieve a more realistic model, the range of acceptable train numbers for each passenger is considered. The upper level of the model determines the discount factor to minimize the total number of passengers exceeding the full-load rate, and the lower level of the model determines the distribution of passengers on the line, in which the cost-minimizing behavior of each passenger is considered using the allocation method based on the probability of selection. A bilevel model is proposed herein to solve the congestion problem for an urban rail line. The effectiveness of the proposed model and algorithm are evaluated using a real-world data set.In urban rail transit, adjusting fares to satisfy passenger flow requirements is a new method to relieve urban congestion. A genetic algorithm is developed to solve the multi-station problem through a special binary coding method that indicates a train departure or cancellation at every possible time point. Using cumulative input–output diagrams, we present a local improvement algorithm to find optimal timetables for individual station cases. A by-product of the model is the passenger assignment with strict capacity constraints under oversaturated conditions. The latest arrival time of boarded passengers is introduced to analytically calculate effective passenger loading time periods and the resulting time-dependent waiting times under dynamic demand conditions. Based on time-dependent, origin-to-destination trip records from an automatic fare collection system, a nonlinear optimization model is developed to solve the problem on practically sized corridors, subject to the available train-unit fleet. A binary integer programming model incorporated with passenger loading and departure events is constructed to provide a theoretic description for the problem under consideration. When peak-hour demand temporally exceeds the maximum loading capacity of a train, passengers may not be able to board the next arrival train, and they may be forced to wait in queues for the following trains. This article focuses on optimizing a passenger train timetable in a heavily congested urban rail corridor.

[qqueenofhades]

First of all thanks so much for all your TOG history posts! I have a question specifically about the one where you explained the continuity errors with Nicky being a priest. I like your "second son of a nobleman" Nicky that you use in your fics a lot. But I also really like the idea of a lower-class Nicky; TOG already has wealthy merchant scion Joe and literal queen Andy--i love the idea that Nicky comes from humbler origins. Is there any way to make that make sense in a historical context?

I mean, pretty much anything is possible in history? If it can happen, it probably has happened at some point, and even the broad categories and generalizations that historians apply to things are never always right in all cases, even if they represent the major trends. I obviously don’t want to shoot down people’s headcanons or ideas, even and indeed especially from my soapbox of “cranky historian complains about things on the internet.” I have personally tweaked some aspects of Joe and Nicky’s backstories that I use in my fics, since I came up with DVLA before I knew anything about the comics or any bonus content that had been released about the characters. My feeling is that since a) it’s film-verse, not comics, and b) their backstories haven’t been shown on screen and may be subject to change in adaptation, I can, while engaging in transformative fanworks, create them to suit myself. I obviously keep the broad parameters of what canon establishes, but within that space, I do occasionally nip and tuck and move things around. For example in my new AU fic, I DID make Nicky a priest as in graphic-novel canon, but that’s long since changed by the time he arrives in Jerusalem. For the fics I write for them in canon-verse, I tend to use the backstory I established in DVLA, just because... well, I like it a lot, obviously, and that was what I wrote it for. This is just because I am the aforementioned cranky historian and I rearrange the toys when I am playing with them, but my interpretations don’t necessarily have to be everyone else’s.

On that note, since you did ask for some historical context/plausibility for this headcanon, it depends (again) on how much extra story you want to invent for Nicky and how many gaps you want to fill in. Which is totally fine either way! I talked in this ask about the People’s Crusade of 1096, the involvement of unarmed/unskilled commoners in the crusades more generally, and how that would have impacted on Nicky if he didn’t have any previous training in arms. Once again, as with him being a priest, him being a low-class peasant/freeman of humble status runs into some (not insurmountable, but still extant) problems with where he would have learned how to use a sword and weapons more generally. I also obviously approve of the idea of bringing some class diversity into our historical immortals, but the son of a very poor bondsman (the stereotypical peasant in a cottage or a serf working a lord’s land) is, alas, going to have gotten into trouble in his community if he is training with a sword. (Or at least definitely raised some eyebrows, as well as questions about where he got it and how he paid for it.) As I’ve mentioned, the sword is a knight’s weapon, so if Nicky has been using it at all, he has at least enough status to qualify for that.

Happily, however, there are plenty of ways to make him not be from a rich family. As late as the end of the 11th century, aka around the time of the First Crusade, knights could still be distinguished as “free” or “not free,” and since this was before the rise of chivalry as a major social force, knights and men-at-arms were often (and indeed could be throughout the medieval era) from humble families, minor gentry, or even the working class. Chivalry made knighthood into an especial aspiration for the nobility, but not every man on a battlefield was a nobleman -- far from it. Indeed, the nobleman would call up the families who owed allegiance to him, and they could call up the families who owed allegiance to them, and so on. The definition of “knight” in the pre-chivalry landscape is a little muddy; does it convey prestige or social status, or just that someone was trained in arms? Is there a difference between that and just “man at arms” or “armed man?” For instance, at the battle of Hastings in 1066, the English army under King Harold II was composed of fyrdmen, aka regular working stiffs who had been summoned from the land (and indeed, we know they were of humble status because they had to go back and help their families with the harvest after William the soon-to-be-Conqueror had still not arrived in September), and housecarls, the professional/lifelong soldiers who served in the army as a career and were paid for their service. But we don’t always have the luxury of clear terminology for the many, many kinds of armed men who existed in various social strata in the Middle Ages.

That means, therefore, that Nicky can very easily be a poor knight, a man-at-arms of humble status who has just his sword and his armor and is subject to the vassal-of-a-vassal-of-a-vassal-of-a-lord, or other armed man of unclear rank who definitely doesn’t have money or come from a rich family. Despite the unavoidably classist nature of many medieval history chronicles, the ranks of society weren’t only king, duke, earl, and nobleman. It was a patron-and-client society, and while the king was the ultimate patron, plenty of lords of middling rank or lower would have vassals who owed allegiance to them, and vassals who owed allegiance to those vassals in turn. The word feudal, which has been so misused and turned into an (incorrect) shorthand for constant petty territorial violence, basically just means this hierarchical society of mutual rights and obligations, where (unless you were the king) you both owed fealty to someone higher in rank than you and had people lower in rank who owed fealty to you. That would only end with the serf/bondsman, who wasn’t patron to anyone. But within that, there is plenty of wiggle room to make Nicky non-noble.

This would raise the question, however, of how he was going to pay for his journey to Jerusalem. Crusade financing was a perennial problem even for kings and lords with deep pockets, and the cost of a journey to the Middle East was far, far beyond most ordinary people’s ability to cover, which is why the commoners’ crusades kept ending in disaster. (That and obviously the fact that they weren’t trained in war.) When you are traveling for months and months and have to provide all your own food, shelter, arms and armor, transportation, upkeep, etc., you would either have to have a wealthy lord paying your maintenance, have substantial private financing of your own, have sold most of your property to go (which then implies that you had property to sell), made good with a religious house who had advanced you the cash, etc. We can really go down a rabbit hole here about Duke Hugh of Burgundy making a deal with Genoa in 1192 to provision King Philip and the French army on the Third Crusade. (This is helpful since it deals with Genoa, i.e. Nicky, even if not for the First Crusade.) This covered 650 French knights and their squires and came out to nine marks a knight, which is about £6, for an overall bill of 5,850 marks.

To give you an idea of how much this is in comparative terms: in 1380, a poll tax of twelve pence per person was considered so extortionate that it helped kick off the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt. And this was two hundred years later, when wages had risen and exchange rates had increased. One pound was worth 240 pence, so if twelve pence was an exaction for your average laborer, you can see that they’d get nowhere close even to one pound. A gift of £4 to William the Conqueror in 1066 was also considered a wildly high sum. And this was all on the extremely cheap end of crusading ventures. Frederick Barbarossa, who went on the Third Crusade at the same time as Philip and the French, had expenses coming close to 100,000 marks. Crusading, in other words, was wildly expensive (often ruinously so), and either Nicky would have a wealthy patron (meaning that he was somewhat closer to the top of the heap, even if below the first rank of noblemen) or money of his own or some way to finance his journey. Which again means that he has to have some kind of background that enables him to do it. The issue with the ordinary people who went on crusade (and they absolutely did, despite various attempts to forbid them as not militarily useful) is that, as noted, they weren’t trained in arms and they didn’t have money, and when you’re trying to travel from Europe to the Holy Land under 11th-century conditions, that becomes a big problem.

So yes. Basically: you can absolutely make Nicky a person of lower rank, down to a humble man-at-arms, who doesn’t have a rich family and doesn’t come from money. But if he’s going on crusade all the way to Jerusalem -- and if he’s successful at it, i.e. we’re assuming he didn’t get killed until Joe did it the first time -- then he has to have at least enough social status that he is the direct vassal of a wealthy lord or can make some financial arrangements on his own, has been able to train with a sword, knows what he’s doing with it, etc. You are obviously welcome to invent whatever details or backstory you want for him, but alas, crusading was often the provenance of knights, noblemen, and kings for brutally practical reasons, whether economic, social, military, or pragmatic. So the further you go down the social rankings, the more logistical details you’ll have to think up for him (at least if you want to be historically nitpicky, and it’s fantasy, so you frankly don’t even have to, but hey, what do you people come to me for if not historical nitpicking?) as to how he would have trained in arms, paid for his journey, been able to go on crusade in the first place, etc. So yes.

Thanks so much for this question! It was a lot of fun.

[eli-kittim]

A Critique of Contextual Theology: Are the Meanings of the Biblical Texts Changeless or Adaptable?

By Author Eli Kittim

——-

What is Contextual Theology?

Is all theology contextual? Do different contexts have the role of attributing theological meanings to Christian texts? Or is there a subtext that does not change? And, if so, what are some of the criteria that assign meaning to theology, particularly to Christian theology?

First of all, what is “contextual theology” anyway? It’s basically a way of doing theology that takes into account both past and present contexts, be they anthropological, biological, psychological, philosophical, or otherwise. That is to say, it reconsiders the cultural milieu or the Sitz im Leben (i.e. the “setting in life") in which a text has been produced, as well as its particular purpose and function at that time. Contextual theology, then, considers both the traditions of the past, which received the revelations, as well as those of the present, and reassesses them within the framework of today’s socioeconomic and political context. In other words, the term contextual theology is a reference to the way in which Christianity has adapted its teachings to fit the successive cultural periods.

Some Examples of Contextual

Theology

For example, the early church fathers were heavily influenced by Greek thought, so their interpretation of scripture was largely derived from Platonism (e.g. Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, etc.). That was their particular form of contextualizing theology. Every book of the Bible was composed and edited within a specific context, be it the Exodus, the Law given to Moses at Sinai, the Babylonian Exile, or the occasional letters of the New Testament that were prompted by some crisis. And we could go on and on. Aquinas’ philosophical conceptions were heavily influenced by the rediscovery of Aristotle’s works. Not too long ago, existentialism provided the impetus for a new type of theology, and so on and so forth.

It seems as if Christian theology has hitherto been articulated in the context of the life and times in which the texts were interpreted and read. Hence the shifting theological paradigms, down through the ages, appear to be byproducts of this cultural phenomenon. As time passes, people’s ideas about theology seem to change as well. Questions associated with the quest for the historical Jesus, the nature of the triune God, and the like, arose out of much debate and discussion that often included diametrically opposed contexts. As the church councils began in the early part of the 4th century, one contextual paradigm triumphed over another. Similarly, various paradigms and approaches to scripture began to shift during the reformation and counterreformation. At the end of the day, who is to say which was the true one?

A Brief Introduction to Contextual

Theologies

Contextual theology, therefore, is a response to the dynamics of a specific cultural context. People from a different cultural worldview, such as Latin or Asian or Arabic culture, have distinct economic and social issues. That’s why there are so many contextual theologies, employing various interdisciplinary approaches, to try to explore these different sociopolitical issues, such as African theology, Minjung theology, Liberation theology, and so on.

Let’s briefly define some of these theologies to get a taste of their doctrines. Minjung theology (lit. the people's theology) is based on the South-Korean Christian fight for social justice. This theology has developed a political-gospel hermeneutic to address the Korean reality. From this point of view, Jesus is seen more as an activist for social reform than as a spiritual teacher.

Another branch of Christian theology from the Indian subcontinent is called Dalit theology. It places heavy emphasis on Jesus’ mission statement, which some theologians call the Nazareth Manifesto (Lk 4.16-20), namely, the proclamation of “good news to the poor,” the release of prisoners, the “recovery of sight to the blind,” as well as letting “the oppressed go free.” From this perspective, Jesus is identified as a marginalized Dalit (i.e. a servant) whose mission is seen as liberating individuals not only from their sociopolitical and economic oppression but also from racial segregation and persecution. But does this theology really capture the core message of Jesus’ mission? Is Jesus really a political “liberator” who is solely interested in an economic and political system that guarantees equality of the rights of citizens? Or are the impoverished those who are not materially but rather spiritually poor? Although the physical dimension of these Biblical passages cannot be denied——after all, many were physically healed of all diseases, according to the narratives——nevertheless, given that the sermons of Jesus emphasize sin and the issues of the heart, one might reasonably argue that he’s referring to the prisoners of sin, and that the recovery of sight might be a metaphor for the truth that “will make you free” (Jn 8.32).

Similarly, many contextual theologies misinterpret the Beatitudes as political manifestos. Notice that Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” not the materially poor (Mt. 5.3). Moreover, he doesn’t say blessed are those who are physically hungry and thirst. Rather, he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (v. 6). So, we have the poor in spirit who will inherit “the kingdom of heaven” (v. 3), and those who hunger for spiritual righteousness who “will be filled” (v. 6). It beggars belief that any theologian can misinterpret this pericope from the Sermon on the Mount as nothing more than a social concern for the materially poor, while promising some sort of Marxist political and economic liberation for oppressed peoples.

This is precisely how Liberation theology interprets such passages. Liberation theology was developed in Latin America and was employed politically as a “preferential option for the poor.” It is true that the Bible is concerned about the welfare of the poor and needy. But it is not a political manifesto designed to liberate them through some new political system. To see Jesus as a prototype of Adam Smith or Karl Marx is to miss the point entirely. Although the Bible certainly addresses these issues and urges us to be equitable and compassionate, its primary message is soteriological, urging us to be born again: “be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Rom. 12.2); be “born from above” (Jn 3.3)! Clearly, this is a *spiritual* message that has few political implications. It’s also important to note that Jesus did not want the crowds to politicize his message (Jn 6.15 NRSV):

When Jesus realized that they were about

to come and take him by force to make him

king, he withdrew again to the mountain by

himself.

The Excesses of Feminist Theology

A subset of this view is Feminist theology, which is primarily concerned with the oppression of women. The aim of feminist theology is to liberate women from a hitherto patriarchal society by giving them equal rights among the religious authorities and clergy. This theology attempts to reinterpret patriarchal language and imagery about God, while reevaluating the status of women in sacred texts. Feminist reinterpretations of scripture will often reject the male gender of God and will omit using male pronouns to refer to this figure. Feminist theology will often call into question authoritarian, pontific, or disciplinarian images of God and replace them with “nurturing” and “maternal” attributes.

This theology has inevitably led to the excesses of various sects who even describe Jesus as a woman. For instance, the “Dongfang Shandian” (aka Eastern Lightning) is a Christian cult from central China which teaches that Christ has been reincarnated as a woman, and that the saints are engaged in an apocalyptic battle against China's Communist Party. However, these are gross exegetical errors which take liberties in manipulating the language of the original text to suit their theological needs.

Case in point. In his recent book “What Jesus Learned from Women,” author James F. McGrath took a simple verse (mentioned only once in the entire Bible; Rom. 16.7) and turned it into a novel where both Paul and even the great Jesus himself have come under Junia’s spell. The implication is that both Paul and Jesus may have gained valuable knowledge from a woman named Junia. It’s all based on a single, isolated verse which doesn’t even hold a single shred of historical, textual, or literary evidence to substantiate the claim. Not only does it contradict Paul’s explicit statement in Galatians 1.11-12—-in which he says that his gospel is not of human origin and that he “did not receive it from a human source”——but it also subordinates the status of the miracle-working Son of God to that of an unknown female follower, who supposedly taught him everything he knows. Unfortunately, this one-verse doctrine is equivalent to speculative fiction. It simply doesn’t meet scholarly and academic parameters.

Problems of Contextual Theology

The Contextualization process is employed in the study of Biblical translations as regards their cultural settings. Hermeneutically speaking, contextualization seeks to comprehend the origins of words that were used by the Hebrew and Greek texts, and Latin translations. However, it has also allowed secular and political groups to read their own message into the text by expanding the cultural contexts so as to accommodate such meanings. Given that modern liberal contexts are intrinsically alien and sometimes even contradictory to the authorial intent of the scriptures, the contextualization process of attributing cultural or political “meaning” to a text can have dire consequences.

The omission and replacement of the words of scripture with more “context appropriate” terminology with regard to race, gender, inclusive language, sexual orientation, and sociopolitical considerations, coupled with large-scale contextual *reinterpretations,* not only violates its integrity but it also represents a desecration of the text, which actually expresses a fundamental equality of all people whose identity is derived exclusively from Christ: “There is no longer Jew or Greek [race], there is no longer slave or free [power structure], there is no longer male and female [gender]; for all of you are one [equal] in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3.28 NRSV).

Even though the Biblical texts were created within a cultural context and not in a vacuum, nevertheless the verbal plenary inspiration——the notion that each word was meaningfully chosen by God——supersedes the cultural milieu by virtue of its inspired revelation, if indeed it is a revelation. In that case, the language from which the text is operating must be preserved without additions, subtractions, or alterations (cf. Deut. 4.2; Rev. 22.18-19). Therefore, It is incumbent on the Biblical scholars to maintain the integrity of the text. One thing is certain. The New Testament was not only significantly changed by the Westcott and Hort text, but it has also been evolving gradually with culturally sensitive translations regarding gender, sexual orientation, racism, inclusive language, and the like. Contextual theology has broadened the scope of the original text by adding a whole host of modern political and socioeconomic contexts (e.g. critical theory) that lead to many misinterpretations because they’re largely irrelevant to the core message of the New Testament and the teachings of Jesus!

——-

[internetandnetwork]

A Comprehensive and Easy-to-Digest Guide to Google Ads Budgeting

Budgeting is always a tedious task. Whether you are saving bucks to pay your rent for an overpriced apartment or paving your way to the internet realm, or both at the same time, it pushes the average person into a strenuous situation.

While there are some ways to lighten this insanity, there’s no way to avoid budgeting appropriately without crippling yourself in the future entirely. That’s particularly the case with Google Ads, where each click either represents your business growth or your hard-earned money turning into paper.

Moreover, unfortunately, there are scarce resources that take a comprehensive approach to Google Ads budgeting. So it means you will have to fathom it yourself.

This guide will discuss everything you need to know about proper PPC budgeting strategy from scratch. To make things a bit easier, we have divided this entire guide into three easily digestible parts:

Deciding your initial Google Ads budget

Allocating spend across different search campaign types

Budgeting for everything else Google Ads offers

So without wasting another moment, let’s dive into the details, shall we?

1. DECIDING YOUR INITIAL GOOGLE ADS BUDGET

Let’s say you have handed over your credit card details, funded your Google Ads account, and have also installed Google Ads Editor. But what next?

Now you have to ascertain your total expenditure in the first quarter. And by that, we don’t mean month, week, day, or even hour. We mean the first click on your ad.

While deciding your initial Google Ads budget, you should ask yourself these primary questions:

How do Google Ads fit in your existing marketing strategy?

What and where are your competitors spending their budget currently?

What is the cost-per-click of the keywords you are bidding on at the moment?

Which key performance indicators do you care about the most?

Once you find answers to all these questions, you will be all set to jump into the different types of campaigns, their optimization, and ultimately expansion. Keeping this in mind, let us dive into these questions now.

How Do Google Ads Align With Your Existing Marketing Strategy?

In case your business is the local community’s basic necessity or enjoys a thriving online presence (i.e., you’re a thought leader in your industry bringing loads of organic traffic to your website with good SEO and content writing), there’s a high probability that your leads will arrive at your door themselves willing to purchase. On the contrary, a business in the making that has its finger on its target audience’s pulse can accomplish something similar via a diehard social following. Moreover, this organic traffic is essentially “free of cost,” aside from the time and efforts of whoever leads these efforts, of course.

Also, think about the different marketing channels you use with the purpose of growing your business. These channels might include commercials, radio ads, billboards, and so on.

Write down all the marketing channels you employ and ask yourself: is the goal of my Google Ads account to reinforce my current efforts or supplant them?

What and Where Are Your Competitors Spending Their Budget Currently?

Go ahead and perform a Google search for your brand’s name right away. What appears at the top of the search results page?

Unless you are new to Google Adwords, your answer should be our optimized-to-the-gills branded advertisements. Nevertheless, if you happen to be a novice, a gambler would bet that the SERP is filled with your competitors.

Other than your branded keywords, there are several tools (such as Google Keyword Planner) you can use to get a sense of what and where your competitors are spending their advertising budget.

With this data at your disposal, you can quickly build strategies to dethrone your competitors’ ads from the top positions in the search results and discover (less expensive) keywords that no one else was intelligent enough to bid on before you turned up.

What Is the Cost-per-Click of the Keywords You Are Bidding on at the Moment?

Remember the tools we mentioned in the above section? Well, it’s time to put them to use once again.

One of the most elementary ways to decide your advertising budget is to weigh up the CPC of the keywords you are bidding on currently. Is this information enough on its own when it comes to determining a budget? Of course, not. But it does give a good starting point.

Visit Google Keyword Planner and in the left interface, fill in one of your landing pages. Modify the rest of the parameters, including location, industry, terms to avoid, etc., accordingly and browse through the lists of potential keywords together with their comparative popularity and advertiser competition.

Now try the same with the pages that relate to all the products or services your business offers. It will undoubtedly unveil some underrated search phrases that you can place your bids on next. Preferably, you want to search for as many high-traffic and low-competition keywords with commercial intent as possible. That’s how you’ll find your sweet spot.

We will take a deeper dive into this in some time. But it all comes down to this: keywords suggesting affinity or urgency tend to convert more compared to terms that don’t. Moreover, a branded search term communicates more intent than a competitor term. For example, the search phrase “cab from boston to brookline midnight” conveys way more urgency (and is hence more valuable) than “cab service,” although its search volume might be notably lesser. 

Which Key Performance Indicators Do You Care About the Most?

As they say, save the best for the last. This is the most crucial question you need to ask yourself. A key performance indicator can be defined as a measurable value that allows an individual or business to measure performance. As a matter of fact, not all businesses give the same level of importance to the same thing.

For some businesses, cost per acquisition is the lifeblood. You wouldn’t believe the number of initial calls that starts with a cost per acquisition plucked out of thin air. If you are confident that this is the key performance indicator for your business, fix a goal rooted in logic. However, if something more concrete suits your style better, you can ascertain, on average, how many conversions it takes to result in an actual customer (tracked via Google Ads) and figure out your real cost per acquisition. However, you can also leverage your current cost per acquisition from other channels, set it as a goal for paid search and accordingly increase or decrease as you get your hands on more data over time.

Additionally, businesses utilize several other key performance indicators as barometers for effective Google Ads campaigns. So, in the end, it’s up to you to figure out which one is best for your business.

Once you answer all four of these questions successfully, check out your discoveries. To decide your budget, you will want to consider the key performance indicators that you plan to judge your performance on, along with the number of leads or sales you are hoping to gather from Google Ads. Check out the other marketing channels you are employing and try to implement any related goals you have set as your starting point for Google Ads. At last, weigh up the CPC of keywords that you will probably bid on by analyzing the ones that your competitors have picked already (and also the ones they haven’t yet).

Key Takeaways:

Leverage data from your existing marketing efforts in order to inform the structure and budget of your Google Ads account.

Use keyword research and competitor analysis to decrease your learning curve and get the ball rolling.

Ascertain your budget by determining the key performance indicators that matter the most to you and working in reverse from the figures representing profitability.

2. ALLOCATING SPEND ACROSS DIFFERENT SEARCH CAMPAIGN TYPES

In general terms, all your Google Ads search campaigns will come under one of these five categories: research, top performers, high intent, competitor, and branded. While all these classifications are adaptable, some of them are outright liquid.

Logic says that you should feed most of your Google Ads budget to your top-performing search terms. But what about the remaining of them?

Top-of-the-Funnel Keywords

Often, a novice will build PPC campaigns targeting top-of-the-funnel keywords. For example, an enterprising yet acutely under-informed chartered public accountant will bid on the keyword “chartered public accountant.” And it sounds logical, right?

But unfortunately, in the majority of the industries, such keywords will mostly cost you a fortune. For some terms, the price can easily be more than $50 a click! However, that’s not necessarily the case with all industries and keywords. Now that we have made our point, you need to find out if your vertical is overflowing with soaring CPCs. However, the biggest problem with such keywords is not even the price; it’s the intent.

To provide you with a little context, let’s suppose you are a disorganized upstart in the business card industry which happens to be extremely competitive. When you look for keywords with the most average monthly searches, you find the search phrase “business cards” at the top position. But think about the users searching for this term – most of them will be wantrepreneurs who will never complete an order. So instead of spending those couple of dollars here, you will want to spend them on keywords that communicate intent better, such as “buy business cards” or a bit more costly but more commercial “order business cards.”

Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that top-of-the-funnel terms are necessarily expensive or worthless. Such keywords are undoubtedly an incredible way to generate brand awareness and incorporate more prospects into your remarketing list. So if you do choose to bid on these, make sure you do it smartly. Pick a less pricey keyword such as “free business cards,” add the prospects to your list and remarket to them.

Branded Keywords

For some confusing and unfathomable reason, using branded keywords is usually disputed. But that’s silly.

Although your site must be the first thing that appears in the organic search results when a user Googles your business, there’s also a massive piece of real estate above the organic listings that your competitors are free to claim, if, of course, you don’t do it first.

Think of this: your competitors are made to pay a premium if they want to bid on your brand, but the cost-per-click you will see for the same keywords will be much cheaper. That’s because your landing page ad copy and domain are going to be hyper-relevant to the terms, leading to maximized Quality Score and thus lower CPCs.

Long story short, though branded keywords should in no way be the only terms you bid on, allocating spend to secure SERP domination is necessary.

Competitor Keywords

Recall everything we discussed regarding branded keywords. Now the opposite stands true when it comes to bidding on competitor keywords. What we did with the top-of-the-funnel keywords is exactly what you will want to do here – make use of research and common sense to make sure you are not merely burning your Google Ads budget on terms that won’t ever convert.

One of the biggest blunders that advertisers often make here is that they bid on the wrong competitor keywords. When picking competitor keywords to bid on, as a rule of thumb, ensure that you select actual competitors that you’re truly contending against. Pick competitors who you believe you have a competitive edge over, whether it is – better features, prices, quality, or anything else.

High-Intent Keywords

If top-of-the-funnel keywords are an expensive wild goose chase, think of high-intent keywords as golden eggs dropped into your lap.

High-intent terms are available in two flavors – “buy now” and “product/service.” You will want to make sure that you’re using the largest chunk of your Google Ads budget to bid on keywords that come under one of these classifications (extra points if you are able to unveil keywords that exist somewhere in the middle).

In general terms, “buy now” keywords are the ones that suggest that a potential customer is prepared to make the final decision about your product/service. They have either completed their research or been referred by a close friend, and now it is time to purchase. Usually, these “buy now” terms consist of top-of-the-funnel keywords joined with terms such as buy, free shipping, discount, coupon, deal, and so on.

For more clarity on how research is different from the intent to buy, pick any random keywords, say “summer dresses.” Check out the keyword “summer dresses,” followed by the various “buy now” iterations.

Needless to say, the search volume for “summer dresses” will be dramatically higher compared to the other terms. But those other terms convey more intent to purchase.

On the other hand, the “product/service” terms comprise:

Branded searches

Particular products/services (Samsung TV, car maintenance)

Categories of products (winter outfits, travel accessories)

Top

Best

Cheapest

Comparison

Affordable, and so on

While this is a much wider category, not all types of product/service terms will turn into a top-converting keyword for you.

Having said that, the only way to ascertain what does not work for your business is to try out everything as consciously as possible. If something drains your account, stop it right away, but if it converts at a CPA (cost per acquisition) considerably below the account average, you have got your hands on the best converter.

Top Performers

After operating your Google Ads account for at least a month, you will get a good sense of the keywords that are and aren’t worth spending your budget on. The middling keywords for which your ads show up consistently but never appear to acquire clicks illustrate opportunity. Zero in on producing a decent ad copy for such terms. Introduce a few modifications to your landing page. And double, triple-check your ad extensions. In case, after a couple of weeks, you still don’t get any clicks (or even worse, you get clicks but no conversions), eliminate those keywords.

Transferring your top-performing terms into their own ad campaign(s) will help you gain increased control over how much portion of your overall budget is used up for keywords that have performed well earlier. Wondering what the advantage is? The single converting term will no longer be thrown in with ten other keywords that do nothing except draining your budget.

Caution: By removing a keyword from its original ad group, you lose. Since, in this scenario, the Google Ad account is rather new, it sounds more logical to transfer your underperforming terms into new campaigns.

Now, the main question is: how exactly are you going to divide your paid search budget among these campaigns?

Ideally, you should spend most of your budget on those terms with the best shot at converting. Here branded keywords are the exception. Even though branded terms illustrate intent (familiarity), they have alow ceiling and don’t inevitably reflect “brand new” customers. Therefore, when it comes to your branded keywords while dominating your competition is crucial, owing to the relatively lower search volume and maximized Quality Scores, your overall Google ads budget should be most deliberately focused on those high-intent “buy now” and “product/service” terms.

Also, keep in mind that these categories are liquid (as mentioned earlier). While high-intent keywords should ideally be your top performers, that might not be the case always. Each ad account, each niche is different. Whenever in doubt, check out your existing data carefully and then make changes accordingly.

Key Takeaways:

Concentrate most of your budget on high-intent terms, including branded keywords.

Top-of-the-funnel keywords can dig a hole in your pocket. Remember, there are much better and affordable ways to reach a broader audience.

Fine-tune your budget allocation every week to secure maximum return on investment (ROI).

3. BUDGETING FOR EVERYTHING ELSE GOOGLE ADS OFFERS

While the search is the heart and soul of most Google Ads accounts, the platform does provide the advertisers with some other alternatives as well, including the display and remarketing (often via display, though remarketing on search can be fruitful too).

Based on your respective vertical, these options can complement or even entirely replace traditional search advertising. In any case, these can dramatically affect how you spend your money on Google Ads. To clarify, let’s dive into the details.

Display

While the clicks here are cheaper compared to traditional search, with the substantial drop off in direct conversions, the real question is: Is the GDN worth it?

Short answer – yes, a million times, YES!

Remember everything we talked about “intent” previously in this post? When using the GDN (Google Display Network), users viewing your ads don’t really have much of it. The display is much more similar to conventional advertising (imagine billboards) than traditional search, but of course, with the added advantages of on-demand analytics and better ad targeting.

Apart from remarketing, the GDN has three primary functions – generating brand awareness, displaying your product, and supporting a long sales process. It also makes loads of targeting options available to you. Wondering what’s the catch here?

However, the lack of conversions that can be directly attributable to the Google Display Network can make it hard to justify, particularly for small businesses that have limited budgets. With that said, there are still a few ways you can get started with GDN without setting your hard-earned money on fire.

When trying to dip your toes in the GDN, it is recommended to start with in-market audiences or managed ad placements. Long story short, this enables you to display banner creative on particular sites or to users whose web browsing history suggests that their interests align with what you are offering.

Once you get successful in this, you can then employ some other strategies and expand your Display budget to build the ideal complementary network strategy.

Remarketing

Remarketing is indeed a vital element of Google Ads. All businesses regardless of their vertical, can benefit from using it.

One of the best and easiest ways to ascertain your initial remarketing budget is to evaluate the percentage of total conversions originating from returning website visitors and then allocate the same percentage of your budget to remarketing. Sounds too abstract? No worries, let us take a look at an example.

Suppose you own an online clothing store. Last week, you collected 1000 clicks and sold 100 summer dresses on Google Ads. As per findings, 10 of those dresses were bought by returning site visitors. Now allocating 10% of your search budget to remarketing provides you with the opportunity to drive those remaining 900 non-converting visitors back to your site.

However, some account managers are against remarketing simply because, at the core, it means paying money to drive the same people back to your website numerous times. But don’t you think that it is better than the given people never converting or, even worse, purchasing something from your competitor instead? In addition to this, returning visitors tend to convert more than the new ones.

Key Takeaways:

Remarketing (dynamic remarketing in particular) isn’t optional. Make the most out of your budget by persuading more site visitors to convert.

Allow the GDN to take care of your top-of-the-funnel work so as to save your search budget for more qualified leads.

WRAPPING IT UP

Finally, this comprehensive guide to Google Ads budgeting has reached its end.

By now, you have efficiently figured out your starting point and consciously allocated spend to different search campaigns, and started expanding your overall budget to include everything that Google Ads offers you.

Apart from the eventual optimization, which is essential if you wish to get the most out of your Google Ads budget, you can also extend your advertising efforts to other platforms. Even though opting for Bing Ads sounds like the most logical step to take next, you may find Facebook or LinkedIn Ads pretty beneficial for your business as well.

That was all you needed to know about proper Google Ads budgeting. So what are you waiting for now? Go ahead and get started with it!

Happy advertising!

Hariom Balhara is an inventive person who has been doing intensive research in particular topics and writing blogs and articles for Tireless IT Services. Tireless IT Services is a Digital Marketing, SEO, SMO, PPC and Web Development company that comes with massive experiences. We specialize in digital marketing, Web Designing and development, graphic design, and a lot more.

SOURCE : Google Ads Budget

[louisxvob343]

How to establish taxi reserving application

Practically each and every smartphone person provides a taxi scheduling application downloaded on their own gadget. The market for on-demand companies apps has actually been proliferating and now represents an incredible selection of options and designs.

We chose to compose this post to get rid of some gentle on what it's going to take to construct a clone of Among the most famous As well as in some ways controversial apps of recent occasions. Looking to contend with Uber’s world dominance is a daunting problem, but launching an identical company at the nationwide or regional levels looks really promising.

At Japanese Peak Now we have effectively implemented various identical tasks together with Gett, a world taxi provider, #1 for on-demand from customers corporate transportation driving 50 percent the Fortune five hundred.

To create a taxi scheduling application like Uber we must know how it really works and define its basic building blocks.

Common overview

On-need experience companies (also referred to as journey-hailing or ridesourcing products and services) like Uber are marketplaces where individuals (riders) and service companies (drivers) can link with one another.

Drivers for these providers are usually not necessarily certified professionals but are personal people who use their own autos and need to make some more money. This simplistic approach which captures a standard consumer desire is exactly what tends to make these expert services accessible Just about all over the place – something not achievable by regular taxi corporations.

A person who calls for transportation solutions simply just needs to create a request to the application. Once the ask for has been created, a notification with all the mandatory information, like The placement and level of vacation spot, is distributed to the closest driver. The driving force both accepts or rejects it.

In the case that a rejection is built, the request is allocated to the nearest driver etc. If the driver accepts the request, they travel to The client’s place to choose them up. Later on, the two the passenger and the driver get an option to level each other.

How it works underneath the hood

Launching applications of this sort of complexity entail equally consumer and server-aspect growth. They need a central server to handle interactions involving a number of people (in our circumstance passengers and drivers), to execute advanced computations (matching, cost calculation, ETA, Fee subtraction, and so forth), and organization logic and information storage capabilities. Uber maintains various geographically dispersed servers to enhance response occasions, remove failures and supply continual support availability.

Uber’s backend program is prepared making use of these types of systems as Node.js, Python, Go, Redis, MongoDB and MySQL. Moreover, it takes advantage of its possess facts center community even though also relying on third-party PaaS/IaaS vendors for example Amazon Web Solutions for many functions.

Trip-hailing products and services of this kind of magnitude as Uber are unable to do without having its individual massive computing infrastructure. Nonetheless, It will likely be sufficient to guidance your complete backend in the Preliminary levels within your undertaking working with cloud support suppliers like Amazon Website Services, Microsoft Azure, Google App Motor or Parse.

On-demand experience companies also depend seriously on diverse frameworks and APIs for navigation, on the internet payment and conversation. Uber employs Google Maps to point out the surrounding place, Core Place and Google Spot Expert services API to ascertain the user’s spot, MapKit and Google Maps Instructions API for route configuration, Braintree for payments, Twilio for SMS notifications, Apple Force Notifications Services and Firebase Cloud Messaging for drive notifications, and SendGrid for sending transactional e-mails.

The client-side of a taxi booking application like Uber consists of two interactive cellular applications – a single for demand from customers (travellers) and one particular for supply (drivers), Every with its possess list of features. There’s also will need for the online-based mostly admin dashboard which will provide the function of centralized backend-Workplace, to observe all the process and also to complete administrative steps. Shopper aspect cell apps may be developed as native applications making use of platform-unique programming languages (Java for Android or Goal-C/Swift/C++ for iOS) or cross-platform/hybrid apps applying HTML5,CSS & JavaScript. While in the context of taxi reserving application development, utilizing a local strategy is considered much more preferable.

Let’s now discover shopper-facet apps in better element, outline The essential attributes they ought to have and how to implement them.

Needs to have features for the two Driver and Passenger apps:

1. Registration and Authentication

Uber like applications must present social websites and electronic mail/password signup and login performance. Creating a profile, past increasing buyer retention, is required for companies that entail mobile payments. As yet another necessity for drivers, profiles must be verified and accredited via the support administration.

2. Profile modifying

Travellers and motorists should be capable of effortlessly edit their own profiles: identify, Image, cell phone number, email, etcetera. The motive force app must also include the driving force’s license and information about the vehicle (manufacturer and calendar year of creation, car or truck class, shade, license plate amount) and its Image. Both of those the driving force and also the passenger need to have the ability to view each other’s profile. With this data, they might understand one another within the pickup site. This will help minimize anxiety and offers a sense of security.

three. Matching

Matching permits a passenger to routinely connect with the closest out there driver. It’s a fancy algorithm which will take into account a number of components: places of your passenger and nearby drivers (Uber displays approximately eight motorists), motorists’ standing and their rating, vehicle versions, and so on. The driver has a couple of seconds to just accept the request (Uber offers fifteen seconds) just before it goes to the following driver.

Some taxi scheduling providers allow for travellers to choose the driver manually. At present Uber doesn’t make it possible for this selection.

You could also include an option to customise the matching algorithm. One example is, a driver could set a spot filter and be matched only with Those people riders who are interested in traveling in precisely the same route.

four. Navigation

At the center of a place-primarily based application like Uber is the technology of GPS tracking, all over which all the things else is built on. It makes it possible for to discover latest spots of passengers and motorists, draw paths between them, established pickup and drop-off destinations, track the motion of autos and in some cases compute the cost of the ride along with the ETA (estimated time of arrival). These details sets are sent to the server for even more processing and broadcasting to other customers in that exact place.

A lot of geolocation, https://androiddevelopers.co/united-states/california/sandiego orientation, and mapping APIs will also be used when constructing apps with navigation options.

5. Notifications

Now most experience-hailing apps use a few options to notify consumers about critical occasions: SMS, press notifications and e-mail. Thrust notifications is often implemented making use of absolutely free utilities furnished by platform suppliers: Apple Push Notification Provider for iOS and Firebase Cloud Messaging for Android, or third-occasion cross-platform utilities like OneSignal.

To put into practice SMS notifications Uber utilizes Twilio but there’re a number of other equivalent services companies: Plivo, Nexmo or Sinch.

For sending advertising and transactional e-mails Uber employs SendGrid.

six. Analyzing and exhibiting the expense of a trip

The two the driver as well as the passenger must know the estimated fare beforehand. As we talked about previously, calculating the actual fare with the trip will likely be performed within the server-facet. It could entail the subsequent parameters and elements: the distance between pickup and fall-off areas, cost of fuel, probable reductions, auto class, traffic and weather conditions, peak several hours and many others.

Uber makes use of the so-named ‘surge pricing’ approach and improves its regular fares when demand from customers for rides exceeds supply, which happens to be currently a really controversial aspect and Lots of people have already been complaining about it due to the fact its introduction. We don’t recommend implementing this feature, no less than originally, mainly because it could repel buyers.

seven. Creating payments

This really is how it works inside of Uber’s application:

Uber has partnered with Braintree to securely acknowledge payments throughout the app. All payments are cashless, so once the ride has done, payment is withdrawn mechanically with the payment gateway. There are plenty of other on-line payment providers like Stripe, Worldpay or Adyen. They provide sturdy APIs, that can certainly be built-in into cellular applications. All of these are optimized for World-wide-web, cellular and in-app purchases. They assist significant bank cards like Visa, MasterCard, American Categorical and digital wallets like Apple Shell out, Walmart Shell out, Android Pay back and plenty of Some others.

Uber makes income by charging drivers a twenty% Fee on all rides booked by means of it. Payments are transferred to the driver’s account every week.

Regular cash payments really should not be fully eradicated. Paying out in income continue to remains the dominant payment technique in a few international locations, in rural spots or for some classes with the inhabitants like senior citizens and teenagers.

8. Ranking and responses

Travellers and drivers ought to have the capacity to price each other after the journey is around. This feature aids keep a large standard of service. Drivers with small scores will at some point not be capable to use the support. If a passenger features a lower ranking, it might be more durable for him to get a journey. Travellers must also have the ability to offer suggestions on their own working experience through the vacation. This suggestions will probably be shown in the motive force’s profile for Other people to view.

Analyzing the ranking of equally the need (passengers) and the provision (motorists) can help you discover strengths and weaknesses in the assistance and make enhancements where by wanted.

nine. Reserving and payments historical past

Both motorists and passengers need to be able to check out comprehensive data about previous visits from their profiles: date, time, Value, driver/passenger name, automobile design, pickup and drop-off locations, score etcetera.

10. Reserving cancellation

Motorists and passengers should have the ability to terminate a experience. In the situation of the cancellation, a rate can be charged.

Ought to-have capabilities for the Passenger App:

Tracking close by motorists

Capacity to set the pickup site around the map without having typing an tackle

Capacity to see pertinent facts about the driver: name, Image, contact facts, rating, car kind, and ETA (approximated time of arrival)

Notification upon taxi arrival

Choosing automobile typeRiders needs to be ready to choose between different classes of motor vehicles (In the situation of Uber you'll find UberX, UberXL, UberSelect and Uber BLACK). Needless to say, the fares will differ depending on the form of motor vehicle

Sharing rides with other passengersA rider must manage to share a reserving with One more rider who’s heading in a similar path and break up the price

Most loved addresses for handy long term bookings

Should-have characteristics for the Driver Application:

Finding passenger on map

Power to see appropriate facts regarding the passenger: title, photo (optional), Get hold of data, rating, number of travellers;

Power to settle for or deny requests

Placing position (Go Online / Go offline)The “Log on” standing permits passengers to find out motorists about the map and have interaction them. The “Go offline” standing will temporarily cover the driving force from remaining tracked.

Admin panel

The admin panel will likely be an internet-based mostly interface that can help take care of your entire assistance: handle back-end settings, handle drivers, passengers, requests, transactions, look at passengers and motorists’ routines, figures, and produce reports.

Website-based buying portal

As an extra choice for passengers you could Establish an on-line Net portal that can duplicate the features of the Passenger cellular app and permit them to create requests ideal in the browser without the require for any mobile app.

MVP

You don’t have to fill the product with all the above mentioned-described Innovative features when releasing it to the market. We suggest getting started with a Least Practical Product (MVP) – the initial Edition with the item that will include things like both equally Passenger and Driver applications along with the Admin Panel Using the most basic and indispensable features simply to ‘check the waters’ of the marketplace.

How long will it take to acquire an MVP for an application like Uber

Below’s an approximate list of features for a taxi booking app MVP and our rough estimate of the amount advancement time it will acquire:

Functional technical specs and layout

Making a in-depth useful specification to the conclusion product and UI/UX style and design – one hundred twenty-150+ several hours

Superior-amount design and style: Database schema, third party integrations, know-how stack, etc. – fifty+ hrs

Acquiring an application for only one platform

Making an application for iOS and Android can take 2 times as while.

Registration (in-app or by means of social networking sites) – 32-40 hours

Consumer profile – 16-24 hours

Driver profile – sixteen-24 hrs

Putting an buy (customer) – 80-ninety six hrs

Booking (driver) – 48-fifty six hours

Pickup area and route – 32-forty hours

Booking heritage (shopper)- sixteen-24 hrs

Reserving background (driver)- sixteen-24 several hours

Payment (include a card, integrating payment API, computerized payment after the purchase is entire) – forty-forty eight hours

Backend development

Database schema – 24 hours

Organization logic – 240 hrs

Admin dashboard – a hundred and sixty several hours

Technique general performance report – a hundred and sixty hours

Top quality Assurance

QA commonly provides about 30% additional to the event time.

You should Notice, that this is really an approximate estimate based upon our preceding undertaking in taxi scheduling app development. The development time of similar task may possibly vary with regards to the UI/UX complexity, challenge specifics and enterprise logic complexity.

Increasing the performance

One example is, there’s no have to have to include rating and opinions functionalities, Price tag splitting or preferred addresses to the MVP or develop the world wide web-primarily based purchasing portal. These capabilities offer added worth, but you can save Preliminary fees and depart it for afterwards date. Working with only thrust notifications to establish a link in between motorists and travellers will likely be adequate. Here’s a list of other attributes which could be extra later:

scheduled rides

discount rates and free rides

power to choose drivers (presently Uber doesn’t provide this selection)

desired destination filter for motorists

paid waiting around time for drivers

dynamic pricing (surge pricing)

in-application chat

voice-pushed Guidance

in-app suggestion element

insurance coverage

multi-language aid

promo codes

gamification

In addition to the most simple and indispensable characteristics we’ve protected in this post, an MVP could also contain Unique advertising functions to aid get initial shoppers (each motorists and riders) and market your application in these techniques

signup bonuses

tipping motorists to stay on the web even if there’s no demand

free of charge rides for new travellers in the expense on the services

no commission For brand spanking new motorists for the first three months

The way to get going?

The products discovery section is the greatest initial step you might take to put a good foundation for the event of the app. It features a functional specification, UX/UI structure, and a visible prototype that provides you with a clear eyesight of the tip merchandise. On typical, this phase can take 4-6 months.

The item discovery phase will help you:

define a full scope of work and acquire a roadmap for the challenge set a realistic spending plan for the MVP and strategy your sources, examination the waters together with your audience applying a visual prototype, craft a convincing expenditure pitch, get to learn your workforce

[arcticdementor]

The last few weeks have been a profoundly radicalizing experience.

Before the COVID-19 crisis entered into its current phase, it was reasonable to argue that the post-2016 counter-disinformation effort was based on good intentions but had serious flaws and was entering a state of diminishing returns. The Internet and social media, in destabilizing traditional gatekeepers and spreading lies and half-truths, had created a dangerous vacuum that was being filled by malicious actors. You could disagree with the details of the diagnosis and prognosis, and disagree even more with the proposed treatments, but the underlying assumptions themselves at least could be said to have validity. But what a difference a few weeks makes.

The COVID-19 fiasco is revealing, in a very short period of time, that much of these assumptions are totally wrong. And continuing to act on them is not just misguided but harmful. Doing so compounds the costs of the failures that we have witnessed and hampers efforts that – however imperfect – provide alternatives to them. Why?

…

It is difficult to express how badly almost all legacy “expert systems” simultaneously underperformed during the initial phases of the crisis. Here is a tiny sample of this failure, a failure whose human consequences grow by the day as a cold, inhuman, and utterly ruthless killer relentlessly searches for new targets.

…

It is an exaggeration to say that fringe weirdos on social media often were more well-informed than people that exclusively evaluated mainstream sources, but not that much of an exaggeration as most would think. And that is not accidental. As Ben Thompson noted, the global COVID-19 response depended on an enormous amount of information developed and shared often in defiance of traditional media (which underrated and even mocked concern about the crisis) and even the Center for Disease Control (which attempted to suppress the critical Seattle Flu Study). The response still depends primarily on transnational networks and often must operate around rather than through official channels.

Taken together, all of this is astounding in both its scope and simultaneity. And it makes a mockery out of the cottage industry developed over the last few years to preserve our collective epistemic health.

…

But as we have seen, these institutions are perfectly capable of unraveling themselves without much help from Russian bots and trolls and Macedonian teenagers. And if the fish rots from the head, then the counter-disinformation effort becomes actively harmful. It seeks to gentrify information networks that could offer layers of redundancy in the face of failures from legacy institutions. It is reliant on blunt and context-indifferent collections of bureaucratic and mechanical tools to do so. It leaves us with a situation in which complicated computer programs on enormous systems and overworked and overburdened human moderators censor information if it runs afoul of generalized filters but malicious politicians and malfunctioning institutions can circulate misleading or outright false information unimpeded. And as large content platforms are being instrumentalized by these same political and institutional entities to combat “fraud and misinformation,” this basic contradiction will continue to be heightened.

The cardinal sin motivating all of this is worrying about whether we trust institutions without asking if these institutions normatively deserve trust, whether it is possible for trust to emerge in the absence of agreement about underlying causes of social problems, and most importantly how subjective trust in authorities can be achieved without objective action.

…

Don’t think carefully. Trust expertise. Sit down and go back to watching television. You’ll only make things worse if you do anything. Many of these op-eds – which now have aged horribly in very short periods of time – emphasized public cognitive deficits in evaluating risk. But a novel virus – in a climate of partial and often distorted information – is not so much a problem of risk as much as it is an issue of uncertainty. Uncertainty nonetheless requires bold action, even if action must occur in conditions where even post-hoc information may not fully reveal all of the relevant decision parameters. And more importantly, responsibility is not equal. The nature of the modern ‘risk society’ is such that the impact of individual actions are swamped by those of large institutions and risk is often systematically passed off to society’s losers.

…

Western society fetishizes the appearance of leadership even as actual leaders recede into a malfunctioning technocratic machine that prunes individual agency and leaves behind only a phantom limb sensation of what once was, Hobson and Bristow explain

…

But is there an alternative to this? What can we do? This post will not give a pat answer, but it will once again reference Thompson’s observation about how the Internet fulfilled much of its original promise and other more traditional information management systems underperformed.

…

What it means is that in the next crisis, reliance on legacy institutions alone to save us is a collective suicide pact. Tradeoffs are inevitable in any complex endeavor, and as Thompson has argued we need to tilt the balance further towards opening up control of information transmission and communication in spite of what we have painfully learned about the false promise that technology will save us from ourselves. This is not about salvation, it is about survival. Reframing the question offers much clarification about possible answers and takes us away from debates that have become stale and uninformative.

We need only look back, as Thompson does, to the origins of the Internet to see that beneath the hyperbole about digital life washing away everything else is a basic concern for survival and resilience under severe strain. And this is the best place to start before we do anything else. In the long run, we must repair or rebuild the legacy systems that failed. Starting over from scratch is simply not an option. “Year Zero” approaches are tremendously destructive and attempts at creating planned societies ex nihilo do not work. But in the short and near term we must create alternatives. These alternatives can over time help us make older systems better. And, quite frankly, building robust alternatives may provide legacy institutions with the incentive to either rise to their obligations or be rendered irrelevant.

Waiting for them to get better on their own or hoping they will change without being prodded is like waiting for the authorities to tell you the right time to stock up on quarantine supplies. Don’t bet your life on it.

[marketing-expert24]

What are the challenges e-commerce companies face?

1) An absence of online identity verification

By: www.developermosarrof.com

When a visitor goes to an e-commerce website and signs up, the portal is unaware of the customer, bar the information they entered. Whether the customer information is genuine or not remains questionable. Cash-On-Delivery (COD) purchases using an invalid or fake phone numbers or addresses can lead to huge revenue losses.

So how can this be solved?

By taking the proper steps to verify the customer’s information.

First of all, look out for signs of suspicious activity. This could take the form of particularly high value or large orders, Identify fake phone numbers and email addresses, check whether zip codes match with the state/city. Send a verification link when a customer signs up, via text message or email, to validate the customer is genuine. With COD purchases, an automated call could even dial out to the customer, asking them to validate the delivery address.

2) Delivering an omnichannel customer experience

In today's world, customers can reach out through any number of touch-points. They may visit your website, contact your agent, leave a message on your social media page, shop from your store or contact you through a live chat or a messaging platform.

According to ecomdash, “Any business that isn’t moving toward an omnichannel retailing strategy will likely be left behind by its online savvy competitors.”

So how can this be addressed?

Make sure to equip your team with the right technology.

Up to date, visual engagement tools enable your organization to serve customers across all touchpoints, channels, and journeys.

Identify the key channels.

Find out which channels are most important to your customers. Customer support staff should contact customers via their preferred channels, phone, email, live chat, video call, online help centers or in-app messaging. Integrate and optimize those channels, adding personalized messages and offering one-to-one interaction with live chat or video calling.

Maintain the context.

Direct the conversations based on a user’s previous response. Keep a track of customer conversations using parameters like user profile. This way, you can always respond contextually, irrespective of the channels they used.

Looking for ways to engage your customers and offer consistent support across digital channels? Request a demo to see how Acquire's platform can help you.

3) Competitor Analysis

“You can’t look at the competition and say you’re going to do it better. You have to look at the competition and say you’re going to do it differently.” – Steve Jobs

In a competitive environment, others will offer the same products and services as you. Unless you have a strategy to differentiates yourself, it is difficult to survive.

So how can this be mitigated against?

Conduct thorough research into competitors.

Place emphasis on developing a strategy enabling you to shine brighter than your competitors. Use social media platforms and blogs for promoting products. Invest in promotional offers to help create more web presence and therefore more customers.

“Businesses with customer loyalty programs, on average, are 88% more profitable than those who do not.”

Carry out research, find which products are more in demand. Remove outdated items. Customer services that go above and beyond provide a route to staying ahead of your competitors.

4) Stuck in at the old-school way of approach to selling

The reason many e-commerce companies find online selling so difficult is that they are, ironically, stuck in the past. Most of them lack the necessary insight into customer behavior and buying patterns, data which can help them thrive in the current e-commerce environment.

So how can this data be leveraged?

Offer products in prominent marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, etc.

These e-commerce sites already have an existing network of buyers so pitching and branding your product becomes relatively easy.

Segment visitors. -

Visitor segmentation allows e-commerce companies to identify and communicate with visitors based on their customer journey, past conversations, geographical location, browsing behavior, referral page, and much more.

In turn, e-commerce companies can anticipate customer needs, offering them a personalized service, such as  ( free delivery or promo codes ), creating a more efficient stream of conversions.

5) Shopping cart abandonment

Shopping cart abandonment is a huge issue. Even e-commerce giants are not immune to this problem.

For instance, when brick and mortar heavyweight Nordstrom started an e-commerce portal, they witnessed big losses from abandoned carts. The tedious and bug-filled checkout process was causing customers to flee in their droves.

Nordstrom had to come up with a new checkout design, turning it into a two-step process.

So how can this be addressed?

Consider redesigning your shopping cart, making sure there are no bugs or an unnecessarily long and frustrating form filling process.

live chat solutions reduce shopping cart abandonment instances. Combining this with features such as visitor segmentation, it is possible to proactively reach out to customers during key stages of their journey, providing the opportunity to engage with customers who would otherwise drop out without purchasing. Visual tools can help address customer queries during the checkout process.

6) Maintaining customer loyalty

Even with the best-designed website out there, without customer trust and loyalty, the business is bound to struggle.

Creating new customers and then maintaining them requires a massive effort. One of the reasons e-commerce companies in particular face a challenge in building customer trust and loyalty is the seller and buyer don’t know each other. Nor can they see each other. Thus, the customer is robbed of the senses they would normally rely on in face to face transactions. This can only be made up for through time and effort. Across multiple transactions, eventually, the company can build this trust and loyalty.

So how can this be harnessed?

“Customer service is what you and your organization provide. Customer loyalty is the result of the service.” – Shep Hyken

You must make sure the customer is satisfied with the whole process, from ordering online to shipping. Plenty of online retailers may be selling the same product, so you must identify competitive advantage and nurture your customer service accordingly.

Increase trust with visitors by:

Displaying your address, phone number, pictures of staff, customer testimonials, and credibility badges on your website.

Add a live chat option to the website.

Create blogs, they help build trust. Make customer service a priority over profit. Remember, it’s easier to maintain an existing customer than to find a new one.

Create loyalty programs. The points can’t be transferred to other companies, so the customer will have to purchase from you.

7) The headache of product return and refund

A survey by comScore and UPS, showed 63% of American consumers check the return policy before making a purchase and 48% would shop more with retailers offering hassle-free returns. e-consumers are clearly conscious of return and refund policies.

When a product is returned, whether due to a dissatisfied customer or damaged product, the business suffers a heavy loss in shipment and reputation. Logistic and shipping costs have always been problematic to e-commerce sellers delivering their product for free.

How can this be taken into account?

Return and refund are also part of great customer service, .

It would be a big mistake to forget that. The best thing you can do is build a strong returns policy. Consider the following when designing it:

Be transparent. Never hide your policy.

Use plain English, understandable to everyone. Not all your customers will be clued up with the terminology.

Try avoiding phrases like, “you must” ‘’and “you are required”, which may seem harsh and put off potential customers.

Outline what they can expect from you. Provide different options for payments and shipping.

Educate staff about your return policy, so they can assist customers effectively.

Be prepared to face the cost of your mistakes. If the product is shipped wrong, take extra effort to keep the customer happy.

8) The struggle of competing on price and shipping

Online merchants frequently compete on price. Plenty of sellers list the same products on their sites, but the prices may be different. They are vying to increase their market share by selling the product.

Price competition particularly affects small e-commerce businesses, as mid-sized and large competitors can often offer products for less. Combine this with free shipping, and smaller companies simply can’t afford to compete on price.

Online sellers like Amazon and Walmart generally have shipping amenities distributed across the country. Their warehouses allow orders to be shipped from the closest facility. Approximately 60% of orders come from the same area as the customer. As they are shipped from nearby warehouses, the cost of distribution decreases and the order arrives in a day or two.

Ultimately every online shopper expects free and fast shipping. And all that at a low price.

how can this be combatted?

To survive in a competitive market, e-commerce companies need to distribute their inventory to fulfillment warehouses, become extremely resourceful shippers, or find some unique products to minimize this problem. Ultimately every online shopper expects free and fast shipping at the lowest price.  

9) Competing against retailers and manufacturers

Many online stores bulk buy products wholesale from manufacturers or distributors, selling them with retail online. This is the basic business model for online stores.

Unfortunately, due in part to e-commerce's low barrier to entry, product manufacturers and retailers start selling directly to consumers.

The same company that sells your products may also be your competitor. For example, ABC Garments sells to not just your online marketplace, but also directly to consumers on its website. Even some of the manufacturers create distributors, making the scenario worse.

So how can this be solved?

Stopping manufacturers selling products directly to customers may not be possible, but there are a few tactics to minimize the problem.

Give priority to manufacturers less likely to sell directly to customers.

Offer the product at a lower price or with additional benefits to increase sales.

Restrict the manufacturer from selling the product directly to customers by setting this out in the contract. It will be not possible for every manufacturer, but you can work with smaller manufacturers.

10) A problem of data security

Security issues can lead to nightmare scenarios. Fraudsters post spam and attack the web host server, infecting the websites with viruses. They can potentially gain access to confidential data about your customer’s phone numbers, card details, etc.

So how can this situation be avoided?

Manage your own servers.

Do not use common FTP to transfer files, as they are “Overall the web is sloppy, but an online store can’t afford to be.” -Paul Graham, YC

If the consumer wants anything, they will first start searching on the internet when a consumer wants something, their first port of call is the internet. Although eCommerce E-commerce transactions have increased grown at a crazy pace at an incredible rate since its birth, the competition to place your product on the top and to make a steady sale has also increased and so has the competition to make the best use of it.

The last word:

Surviving in the E-commerce competition, which is no less than is war. Surviving it requires outstanding strategies. If you don't want to struggle, then give extra place efforts on you into every aspect of the business. You must be prepared for challenges and strive for growth at every stage of your business., and ultimately, this will provide you with the best possible chance it will have a better chance to bloom flourish.

If any developer copies files in an open Wi-Fi network, passwords and other confidential data can be stolen. By constantly updating the shopping cart, you can minimize the risk of stolen data. Most content management systems store their data in the database. Developers should take backups at regular intervals retrieving the data if stolen.

And remember…

The e-commerce industry is at war. Surviving it requires outstanding strategies to solve the common ecommerce problems. Place effort into every aspect of the business. Be prepared for challenges and strive for growth at every stage of your business. Ultimately, this will provide you with the best possible chance to flouris.

[bluewatsons]

Alan Calnan, The Nature of Reasonableness, The Nature of Reasonableness, Southwestern Law School Research Paper No. 2019/07. (June 4, 2019)

Abstract

Though the notion of reasonableness dominates Anglo- American law, its meaning has been clouded by traditional conceptual analysis. This Essay argues that greater clarity can be gained by taking a scientific approach to the subject, exposing the natural foundations beneath the concept’s varied interpretations.

Introduction

Reasonable legal minds agree that reasonableness is one of the foundational concepts of American law, infiltrating everything from administrative, corporate, and constitutional law to crimes, torts, and contracts.1 Yet the concept’s importance and prevalence haven’t necessarily bred clarity. In fact, a recent flurry of analytic interpretations has only clouded the term’s meaning.2 While some scholars say reasonableness is a prescriptive standard,3 others ]believe it describes existing community values,4 and still others see it as a combination of the two. 5 This split is deepened by disagreements over the concept’s normative basis. Indeed, the latest proposals ground reasonableness in a wide variety of ideals, including utilitarianism, economic efficiency, fairness, deontological respect, pragmatic rationalism, formalism, mutuality, and aretaic virtue.6

Since reasonableness effectively serves as law’s conscience, doubts about its essence are an obvious cause for concern. But the impasse also puts legal theory in a serious predicament. If reasonableness means different things to different people—or at least, different things in different legal contexts—then there’s little point to searching for a common unifying principle. Even if such a principle exists, traditional conceptual analysis has struggled to discover it. As jurisprudence maven Lawrence Solum recently observed, legal philosophy’s exhaustive polemic on reasonableness eventually just “runs out of gas.”7

Yet the problem with these approaches isn’t a lack of analytic rigor. Rather, it’s an absence of critical facts. What’s missing from the discussion of reasonableness, I argue, is a basic understanding of human nature. Because science informs that inquiry, this Essay explores the biological origins of reasonableness by probing three of its key connotations: sensibleness, fairness, and moderation. The first meaning evokes mankind’s integrated cognitive faculties, the second addresses humanity’s reflexive values, and the third entails the coordinative processes animating human decision-making. Together, these attributes suggest that reasonableness is not an abstract, static, or monolithic ideal; rather, it’s an organic, dynamic, and systemic phenomenon for satisfying our natural urge for homeostasis.

I. Integrative Faculties

It’s widely recognized that reasonable and sensible are effectively interchangeable ideas. But it’s not so clear how these terms became synonymous or what deeper insight can be drawn from their relationship. After all, words grounded in reason, on the one hand, and senses, on the other, seem facially antagonistic if not incompatible. Yet as it turns out, the meaning of sensible has changed over time, and its transition to reasonableness reveals more about that concept than any standard dictionary definition can offer.

What makes the etymology of sensible so significant is its uncanny resonance with human nature. Sensible originated in the Middle Ages with a physical connotation, suggesting something “perceptible to the senses.”8 Since sensory perceptions are typically clear and emphatic, sensible things were deemed “easily understood.”9 This interpretation subtly turned a biological feeling into a mental experience. That tendency was exacerbated by the growing belief in mind-body dualism, which placed reason in control of all human understanding.10 Thus, if a thought were comprehensible, and thus sensible under the latter view, it had to be both “logical” and “in accordance with reason.”11 So construed, sensible became something of a notional composite, integrating body with mind and feeling with rationality.

Though reasonableness isn’t conceived this way today, science has confirmed its integrative nature. The ostensibly one-dimensional term—reason-able—is really the functional integration of two human faculties: reason and feelings. As neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has observed, “Feelings and reason are involved in an inseparable, looping, reflective embrace”12 in which “mind and brain influence the body proper just as much as the body proper can influence the brain and the mind.”13 In fact, says Damasio, body and brain aren’t really separate life systems but rather “two aspects of the very same being”14—in effect, “an organismic single unit.”15

Like reason, feelings are a type of cognition.16 They process and evaluate information obtained internally from a person’s body and memory and externally from the surrounding environment. 17 Informed by homeostasis, which sets the parameters for an organism’s survival and flourishing, feelings provide “a moment-to- moment report on the state of life” inside the body.18 That report includes a normative judgment about its findings, signaling that the body’s condition is either good or bad.19 Conditions conducive to well-being produce a range of positive or pleasant feelings, while bodily states detrimental to survival evoke feelings that are negative or unpleasant.20 Over the course of evolution, these valenced feelings get etched into mankind’s long-term memory bank— DNA—where they emerge as heritable intuitions.21

This preserved affective experience begets, directs, and grounds our “sense” of reasonableness. When the body’s sensory apparatus is stimulated by new information, our feelings spontaneously appraise the situation and sound an immediate call to either accept or reject the precipitating cause. 22 This impulse often is accompanied by powerful emotions—like anger, fear, joy, or comfort—which heighten the initial reaction.23 These tumultuous feelings finally stir our reason, but not to act as the final arbiter or sole decider. Rather, reason intervenes to serve our intuitions by updating their old wisdom with new plans, strategies, and arguments suited to the prevailing circumstances.24 In short, feelings propose general rules of behavior, while reason searches for exceptions. If none can be found or fashioned, our rational faculty readily justifies, defends, and approves the proposal.25

Even when reason counsels a different course of action, feelings continue to influence its trajectory. Feelings monitor the quality of the mind’s response to a problem, making us feel good when the solution benefits our welfare and bad when it fails to advance our interests.26 This feedback renews the rational review of better alternatives, thus completing one cycle of integrated problem- solving and initiating a repeating succession of others.27 At each turn, reason is informed and tempered by feelings, and feelings are informed and tempered by reason.

Reasonableness emerges when the relationship between reason and feelings is relatively reciprocal. When it’s not, the effect is unmistakably un-reasonable. Psychopaths and sociopaths are rational, but they lack important social feelings like empathy, compassion, guilt, or shame.28 By contrast, infants are extremely emotional, but they have undeveloped powers of reason.29 Although adults with impulse control disorders are capable of rational thinking, they often are captive to their feelings and emotions. In each situation, the actor’s dis-integrated mentality prevents her from behaving as a reasonable person.

Ironically, our integrative faculties may explain why humans ever began creating such behavioral standards in the first place. According to Professor Damasio, “Feelings, as deputies of homeostasis, are the catalysts for the responses that began human cultures.”30 When people started experiencing the stress of group living, Damasio surmises, they would have invented a variety of responses to diminish their displeasure.31 These reactions initially may have “ranged from moral prescriptions and principles of justice to modes of social organization and governance.”32 Because such conventions proved effective, they were formalized in codes of conduct and eventually sanctified as law.33

We may not know precisely how reasonableness came to represent these homeostatic developments. Yet one thing is reasonably clear. We can’t hope to understand the meaning of that concept without investigating the integrated interplay of reason, feeling, and homeostasis.34

II. Reflexive Values

As it turns out, homeostasis and feelings are not just biological faculties for creating reasonableness. They also are normative agents that inform this mindset. We’ve seen how homeostasis gives valence to our feelings, which make positive and negative judgments about our homeostatic stability. But that process goes deeper still, imbuing us with core values that prime our every decision. While these values often seem too deep to fathom, their natural foundations actually lie well within the realm of reasonableness.

The central value of reasonableness is fairness.35 Though fairness is presented as a single concept, it combines two apparently inconsistent ideals. Fairness can be either a general sense of justice and equity36 or conformity with specific rules or duties.37 In reality, however, fairness is neither unary nor binary. It is a complementary and reflexive set of ideals naturally derived from mankind’s highest normative authority, the human brain.

The brain evolved in three stages to solve three different adaptive challenges.38 While the ancient selfish brain structures promoted the individual’s survival, later social structures facilitated cooperation and group living.39 The final global layer reconciled conflicts between its discordant predecessors and fashioned long-term strategies for human flourishing.40

As an assembled unit, the brain produces the two types of fairness that make up our sense of reasonableness. The selfish and social modules emit moral intuitions. Inherited at birth, these intuitions are self-evident to their hosts, who perceive them as special, serious, imperative, and universal.41 So when someone violates these rules, the infraction feels instinctively unfair.

This deep-seated feeling derives from values so important to human survival that they have been imprinted into our genome by natural selection. Though cultures prioritize these values differently, all people crave autonomy, care or security from harm, reciprocity, loyalty, hierarchical authority, sanctity, and integrity.42 Because we possess a visceral need for these basic goods, we feel subconsciously entitled to their fulfillment. When that entitlement is threatened or impaired, our indignity reflex automatically kicks in and we are filled with a sense of injustice and inequity. This feeling appears to account for theories of reasonableness grounded in deontology and virtue ethics.43

Our global neural network works differently. It deliberatively constructs conventional rules to solve current problems that evolution, genes, and intuitions can’t or don’t address. These rules depend on a logical accommodation of many factors, including the norms, practices, customs, and conditions prevailing at the moment. Though conventions are influential, they don’t feel nearly as binding. In fact, they typically must be enforced by external incentives like punishments or social sanctions, or justified by the power of affective persuasion.44 When such rules are breached, we think the transgression is unfair because it disrespects a rational rule of behavior grounded in a utilitarian or economic assessment of costs and benefits.45

The legal notion of reasonableness does a good job of capturing the dual strands of biological valence. Our moral intuitions are embedded in bright-line rules of law, including crimes and torts against battery, false imprisonment, theft or conversion of property, breach of confidentiality, and abuse or exploitation of the weak and vulnerable.46 Because these offenses directly betray our harm, autonomy, reciprocity, loyalty, and authority values, they are treated as presumptively unreasonable. When our values conflict or interrelate in complex ways, the law typically abandons a rule-based approach and replaces it with a general standard of reasonableness.47 This is particularly evident in the tort theory of negligence, where an endless array of lawful but ill-considered acts may result in someone’s harm. In these cases, findings of unreasonableness cannot be presumed, but must be rationally and affirmatively justified by considering all of the surrounding circumstances.48

Yet law’s rendition of reasonableness as fairness is not quite complete. Because the legal concept lacks a foundation in human nature, it misses reasonableness’s essential reflexivity. Rules and standards are never entirely separate; nor are they permanently set in stone. Rather, like the faculties of reasonableness inside the brain, these valenced mediums are constantly shaping and being shaped by each other.

Such circularity is most conspicuous at the level of doctrine, where rules and standards are locked in a perpetual feedback loop. In torts, for example, the presumptive rule of an intentional tort or strict liability theory is often countered by a privilege or defense grounded in the standard of reasonableness.49 In other situations, a reasonableness standard is used to clarify an ambiguous rule, as is true for cases of outrage and abnormally dangerous activities.50 This relationship is also reversible. Doctrinal standards—like negligence’s standard of reasonable care—frequently spawn rule- based exceptions; 51 and in some scenarios—like the no-duty principle for nonfeasance—the exceptions can effectively restore the standard.52

Because reasonableness’s reflexivity is ongoing, its patterns can even shape the course of law’s historical development. If one assumes a global perspective—in fact, the sort of meta-view taken by our faculty of reason—these ripple effects soon snap into focus. It’s clear that theoretical standards—like the original writ of trespass or “wrongs”—may splinter into more fine-grained behavioral rules—like our various intentional torts.53 It’s also apparent that a hodge-podge of specific social rules can scale up to form a general standard of reasonable care, as happened with the theory of negligence.54

It’s even evident that these normative movements can waffle to- and-fro. A good example is the law of products liability, which gradually morphed from a strict no-duty rule to a standard of reasonableness; then transitioned to a rule of strict liability, and ultimately morphed back into a standard of reasonableness.55 In each situation, reasonableness isn’t just the state of fairness within our rules and standards; it’s also the process for coordinating them.

III. Coordinate Processes

The idea of reasonableness as coordination is captured by yet a different connotation of the term. Being reasonable means being moderate or displaying moderation.56 Since the core idea of moderation is avoiding extremes or lessening their intensity,57 this version of reasonableness certainly assumes a coordinative mentality. But it also comes with a familiar qualification. Like other aspects of reasonableness, the mind’s coordination process isn’t purely rational. Instead, it’s a natural dynamic of a complex biological system.

All living systems contain disparate elements organized to achieve some purpose.58 Because these elements are innately competitive, they must coordinate their individual aims just to maintain system function.59 That process, though system-specific, is neither haphazard nor idiosyncratic. Rather, it’s the product of a universal medium called coordination dynamics.60 This uncanny natural power not only senses system instability, it initiates a continuous cycle of adjustments to restore equilibrium at all levels of existence.61

In fact, coordination dynamics accounts for the integrated brain mechanics mentioned earlier. Alerted by homeostasis, coordination dynamics sets out to reconcile the cacophony of thoughts and feelings aroused by a disruptive event. It also harmonizes the selfish, social, and global drives directing the mind’s response.62 As the process unfolds, coordination dynamics employs the trick of moderation to inhibit extreme, knee-jerk reactions. Though the mind simultaneously entertains opposed positions—a process called metastability—it constantly explores the vast array of middle-ground alternatives, ensuring that the final decision is measured, moderate, and ultimately, reasonable.63

But that’s not all. These dynamics don’t just operate in isolation. Because systems are overlapping and interactive, their dynamics have a circular causality, scaling up to higher levels and affecting the levels below.64 So it is with law. Human beings first addressed their survival problem by forming larger coordination systems called societies. When these social systems came into conflict, they formed coordinative cultural systems like religions, philosophies, traditions, and customs to hold their factions together. Yet even this wasn’t enough. As cultures and sub-cultures clashed, humanity adapted once again, this time by developing the still higher coordination system of law.65

Law served as a system of sociocultural homeostasis. As Professor Damasio explains, “the development of justice systems responded to the detection of imbalances caused by social behaviors that endangered individuals and the group.”66 Law’s purpose was to coordinate society’s volatile elements by reestablishing a healthy equilibrium between the law-abiding and the lawless.67

The longer law persisted, the more deeply coordination dynamics shaped the human psyche. Nurtured by global values of authority, sanctity, and integrity, this sociocultural norm became a pervasive natural instinct, inspiring an exalted and unifying legal “system” that reflected and reinforced its coordinative nature. In fact, within democratic cultures, coordination dynamics bred legal institutions structured for the very purpose of facilitating reasonable decision- making.

These features consistently promote metastability by juxtaposing polar positions, diversifying their analysis, assessing their intersections and interstices, and synthesizing medial solutions. The process begins with law’s superstructure, which strikes a delicate balance of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. It also permeates the infrastructure of each branch, dividing executive power among the president, the cabinet, and various implementing agencies; splitting legislative authority between the House and the Senate; and stratifying judicial authority through a multilateral court system.

Though such governance structures may seem to “leave the realm of biology,” Professor Damasio insists “that is simply not true.”68 “The protracted negotiating process required for governance efforts,” he continues, “is necessarily embedded in the biology of affect, knowledge, reasoning, and decision making.”69 Because “[h]umans are inevitably caught inside the machinery of affect and its accommodations with reason,” “[t]here is no exit from that condition.”70

These coordinative properties scale all the way down to law’s minutia. Legal concepts are framed as rules, standards, and principles or policies, and are packaged as competitive rights and duties. If these binaries can’t be reconciled, they’re functionally coordinated by law’s global mediator, the constitution. Such accommodations aren’t permanent, however. Under the common law system, each new decision must be continually coordinated with the old wisdom of past opinions. The same holds true in individual lawsuits, where law’s longstanding norms are constantly mediated by judges and juries informed by prevailing social values. Within the trial process itself, the law’s high-minded rationality gets further mediated by the raw emotion of the parties, the witnesses, and the factfinders.71 Even when a final decision is necessary, law typically doesn’t entrust the responsibility to a single person, but assigns it to a panel of coordinators willing to reconcile their differences in the common pursuit of justice.

Of course, there’s no guarantee that the resulting judgments will be sensible, fair, or moderate. Seemingly rational people sometimes do irrational things. But because law is an essentially coordinative enterprise, it’s reasonable by nature even though it’s not always reasonable in fact.

Conclusion

Conventional legal theory treats big questions as matters for deep philosophical discourse. That’s certainly been true in the jurisprudence of reasonableness, which has become little more than intellectual jousting. It’s now clear, however, that topics like reasonableness can’t be grasped by analysis alone. Because reasonableness has physiological origins, it’s susceptible to scientific investigation. In fact, science helps to illuminate three of the concept’s core connotations: sensibleness, fairness, and moderation. While the first meaning describes the cognitive integration of reason and feeling, the second evokes homeostatic values like justice and reciprocity, and the third reflects the dynamics of human coordination.

Admittedly, these findings don’t tell the whole story, as new discoveries in the natural sciences continue at a frenzied pace. But such insights do bring us closer to the truth. Even if that prospect doesn’t convert every science skeptic, it does make a naturalized approach to reasonableness reasonable in itself. As Professor Damasio counsels, “It is often feared that greater knowledge of biology reduces complex, minded, and willful cultural life to automated, pre-mental life,” but science actually “reinforces the humanist project” by “achiev[ing] something spectacularly  different: a deepening of the connection between cultures and the life process.”72

Footnotes

See Brandon L. Garratt, Constitutional Reasonableness, 102 MINN. L. REV. 61, 69-70 (2017) (recounting the concept’s significance and use within multiple legal fields); Frédéric G. Sourgens, Reason and Reasonableness: The Necessary Diversity of the Common law, 67 ME. L. REV. 73, 74-75 (2014) (same).

The latest entry appeared just two months ago in the Yale Law Journal Forum. See Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Fourth Amendment Reasonableness After Carpenter, 128 YALE L.J. FORUM 943 (2019).

See Alan D. Miller & Ronen Perry, The Reasonable Person, 87 N.Y.U. L. REV. 323, 326 (2012) (“We put forward and defend the argument that normative definitions [of reasonableness] are categorically preferable to positive definitions because the latter are logically unacceptable.”).

See Kevin P. Tobia, How People Judge What is Reasonable, 70 ALA. L. REV. 293, 299-300 (2018) (describing this view of reasonableness as a search for the statistically average characteristics of people within a community).

See id. at 296 (arguing that “[r]easonableness is best understood as a hybrid notion that is partly statistical and partly prescriptive”).

See Sourgens, supra note 1, at 80-105 (discussing utilitarian, pragmatic, and formalist paradigms of reasonableness); Benjamin C. Zipursky, Reasonableness In and Out of Negligence Law, 163 U. PA. L. REV. 2131 (2015) (proposing a theory of reasonableness as mutuality); Lawrence B. Solum, Legal Theory Lexicon: The Reasonable Person, LEGAL THEORY BLOG (Apr. 21, 2019), https://lsolum.typepad.com/legaltheory/2019/04/legal-theory-lexicon-the-reasonable-person.html (addressing efficiency, fairness, deontological, and virtue-based notions of reasonableness).

Id.

Sensible, ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY, https://www.etymonline.com/word/sensible (last visited June 1, 2019).

Id.

Mind-body dualism is the belief that mind and the body are composed of different substances and that the mind is a thinking thing that lacks the usual attributes of physical objects.” Scott Calef, Dualism and Mind, THE INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY, https://www.iep.utm.edu/dualism/ (last visited June 1, 2019). Such “substance” dualism was popularized in the seventeenth century by French philosopher Réne Descartes. See id.; see also EDWARD O. WILSON: CONSILIENCE: THE UNITY OF KNOWLEDGE 108 (1998) (discussing Cartesian dualism).

Sensible, supra note 8.

ANTONIO DAMASIO, THE STRANGE ORDER OF THINGS: LIFE, FEELINGS, AND THE MAKING OF CULTURES 171 (Vintage Books ed. 2019).

Id. at 117; see also id. at 12 (stating that feelings are a “cooperative partnership of body and brain”); id. at 139 (noting that feelings are “based on hybrid processes that are neither purely bodily nor purely neural”).

Id.

Id. at 26

See JONATHAN HAIDT, THE RIGHTEOUS MIND: WHY GOOD PEOPLE ARE DIVIDED BY POLITICS AND RELIGION 52-53, 102 (2012).

See DAMASIO, supra note 12, at 30-31, 146-47, 157.

Id. at 104.

See id. at 25, 102, 105-07.

See id.

See id. at 21-22; see also HAIDT, supra note 16, at 144.

See id. at 64-66.

See DAMASIO, supra note 12, at 99-100, 108-13.

See HAIDT, supra note 16, at 54.

See id.

See DAMASIO, supra note 12, at 15-16, 171.

See id. at 117.

See HAIDT, supra note 16, at 72-73.

See id. at 74-75.

DAMASIO, supra note 12, at 26 (emphasis omitted).

See id. at 13.

Id. at 13, 26-27.

See id. at 13, 21, 26, 28-29.

See id. at 5.

Reasonable, OXFORD LIVING DICTIONARIES, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/reasonableness (last visited June 3, 2019) (entry 1).

Fair, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (10th ed. 2014) (entry 1).

Fair, MERRIAM-WEBSTER, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fair (last visited June 3, 2019) (entry 1b(1)).

See PAUL D. MACLEAN, THE TRIUNE BRAIN IN EVOLUTION: ROLE IN PALEOCEREBRAL FUNCTIONS 13-18 (1990).

See GERALD A. CORY, JR., THE CONSILIENT BRAIN: THE BIONEUROLOGICAL BASIS OF ECONOMICS, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS 9-14 (2004).

See id. at 15-18.

See HAIDT, supra note 16, at 11-12 (discussing and affirming the earlier work of psychologist, Elliot Turiel).

See id. at 178-79, 200-01, 215.

See, e.g., Heidi Li Feldman, Prudence, Benevolence, and Negligence: Virtue Ethics and Tort Law, 74 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 1431 (2000) (virtue ethics); Gregory C. Keating, Reasonableness and Rationality in Negligence Theory, 48 STAN. L. REV. 311 (1996) (noting that a freedom-based approach to reasonableness  

See HAIDT, supra note 16, at 11; SHAUN NICHOLS, SENTIMENTAL RULES: ON THE NATURAL FOUNDATIONS OF MORAL JUDGMENT 5-7, 25 (2004).

See Stephen G. Gilles, On Determining Negligence: Hand Formula Balancing. The Reasonable Person Standard and the Jury, 54 VAND. L. REV. 813 (2001) (reviewing the cost-benefit or risk- utility approach to reasonableness).

Professor John Mikhail specifically has argued that the elements of a battery action find support in moral psychology. See John Mikhail, Any Animal Whatever? Harmful Battery and Its Elements as Building Blocks of Moral Cognition, 124 ETHICS 750 (2014).

See DAN B. DOBBS ET AL., HORNBOOK ON TORTS 193-95 (2015) (describing the evolution of reasonableness in the tort theory of negligence).

RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF TORTS: PHYSICAL & EMOTIONAL HARM §3 (2010) (“ A person acts negligently if the person does not exercise reasonable care under all the circumstances.”).

For example, battery’s rule against harmful or offensive contacts may be countered by a privilege of self-defense, which depends on the reasonableness of the defendant’s response. See DOBBS ET AL., supra note 47, at 132 (“A person is privileged to use reasonable force to defend himself against unprivileged acts that he reasonably believes will cause him bodily harm, offensive bodily contact, or confinement.”). Likewise, strict liability’s rules against certain animals and activities may be met in many jurisdictions with the reasonableness-based defense of comparative fault. See id. at 793-94.

Outrageous conduct is viewed as unreasonable behavior that seriously violates the norms of a civilized society and can be assessed only by reference to various circumstantial factors. See id. at 707-09. Similarly, an abnormally dangerous activity is determined by analyzing a number of factors that “look like a poorly disguised negligence regime, balancing such things as the value of the defendant’s activity to the community.” Id. at 786.

For example, some jurisdictions recognize a rule that exempts property owners from negligence for failing to trim foliage at the perimeter of their premises. See id. at 207.

See id. at 615-16 (stating that the “exceptions [to the no-duty principle] have the effect of creating a duty to act in most instances where a reasonable person would feel compelled to act”).

See ALAN CALNAN, A REVISIONIST HISTORY OF TORT LAW: FROM HOLMESIAN REALISM TO NEOCLASSICAL RATIONALISM 160-61, 191-200, 225-30 (2005) (discussing this historical progression).

See id. at 161-62, 201-09, 231-48, 274-76.

See Alan Calnan, Torts as Systems, 28 S. CAL. INTERDISC. L.J. 1, 51-53 (2019) (forthcoming).

Reasonable, OXFORD LIVING DICTIONARIES, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/reasonableness (last visited June 3, 2019) (entry 2).

Moderate, MERRIAM-WEBSTER, https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/moderate (last visited June 3, 2019) (as a noun, entry 1a; as a verb, entry 1).

DONELLA H. MEADOWS, THINKING IN SYSTEMS: A PRIMER 11 (Diana Wright ed., 2008).

See J.A. SCOTT KELSO & DA VID A. COMPLEMENTARY NATURE 9-12 (2006).

Coordination dynamics is “a set of context-dependent laws or rules that describe, explain, and predict how patterns of coordination form, adapt, persist, and change in natural systems.” Id. at 90.

Coordination dynamics helps to explain patterns within and between genes and proteins, different brain regions, various parts of the body, natural organisms and their environments, and among people, social structures, and institutions. See id. at 111.

See CORY, JR., supra note 39, at 20, 21 & n.9 (observing that “[t]he two master programs of self-preservation and affection” within the brain are “locked in inseparable unity” to form a motivational and behavioral spectrum that continuously blends both tendencies without ever reaching either extreme).

See KELSO & ENGSTRØM, supra note 59, at 10-11

See id. at 114-15.

DAMASIO, supra note 12, at 224.

ANTONIO DAMASIO, SELF COMES TO MIND: CONSTRUCTING THE CONSCIOUS BRAIN 310 (Vintage Books ed. 2012).

Id.

DAMASIO, supra note 12, at 224.

Id. (emphasis omitted).

Id. (emphasis omitted).

See Jessie Allen, A Theory of Adjudication: Law as Magic, 41 SUFFOLK U.L. REV. 773, 811 (2008) (noting that in the ritual of trial, “[n]orms and values ... become saturated with emotion, while the gross and basic emotions become ennobled through contact with social values”).

[alwaysbewoke]

Tendencies of people in Privileged positions

Defines parameters. judges what is appropriate; often patronizes. 

Is seen as. and feels, capable of making constructive changes. 

Assumes responsibility for keeping system on course. Acts unilaterally. 

Self-image of superiority, competence, in control, entitled, correct. 

Presumptuous, does not listen, interrupts; may raise voice. Includes bullying. threats of violence, and violence. 

Seeks to stand out as special. 

Assumes anything is possible, can do whatever one wants:assumes everyone else can too. Doesn't acknowledge constraint in current situations. 

Initiates, manages, plans, projects. 

Sees problems and situations in personal terms. 

Sees experiences and feelings as unique. feels disconnected, and often needs to verbalize feelings. 

Sees solutions to problems as promoting better feelings. 

Thinks own view of reality is only one, obvious to all, assumes everyone agrees with their view. Disagreements are result of lack of information, misunderstandings, and/or personalities. 

Views self as logical, rational. Sees others as too emotional. out of control. 

Believes certain kinds of work below their dignity. 

Does not believe or trust ability of others to provide leadership. 

Unaware of hypocrisy, contradictions. 

Fears losing control, public embarrassment. 

Regards own culture as civilized, regards other's as underdeveloped, disadvantaged. Turns to other's culture to enrich humanity while invalidating it by considering it exotic. 

Sees oppression as a problem in the past and wants others to "just get over it" 

Feels uncomfortable reading about these patterns. 

Tendencies of people in Oppressed positions

Feels inappropriate, awkward, does not trust own perception, looks to expert for definition. 

Is seen as, and feels, disruptive. 

Blames self for not having capacity to change situation. 

Self-image of inferiority, incompetent, being controlled, not entitled, low self-esteem. 

Finds it difficult to speak up, timid, tries to please. Holds back anger, resentment, and rage. 

Feels secure in background, feels vulnerable when singled out. 

Feels confined by circumstances, limits aspirations. Sees current situations in tenns of past constraints. 

Lacks initiative, responds, deals, copes, survives. 

Sees problems in social context, results of system, "them." 

Sees experiences and feelings as collectively understood and shared. No point in talking about them. 

Sees solutions to problems in actions that change conditions. 

Always aware of at least two views of reality, their own and that of the dominant group. 

Often thinks own feelings are inappropriate, a sign of inadequacy. 

Believes certain kinds of work beyond their ability. 

Does not believe has capacity for leading. 

Sees contradictions, irony, hypocrisy. 

Laughs at self and others. Sees humor as way to deal with hypocrisy. 

Feels own culture devalued. Uses cultural forms to influence situation. Humor, music, poetry, etc. to celebrate collective experience and community. Sees these forms as being stolen 

Reminded in countess ways daily of the pervasive presence of oppression. 

Feels validated reading about these patterns. 

[neuro-psychiatric-hospital]

Which Of These 7 Mental Illnesses Are They?

The list below will give you an understanding of the several types of mental diseases. These categories help comprehend someone who has a specific illness. Knowing more about these illnesses can give you a greater capacity for empathy for individuals who suffer from them and give you hope that a cure will be found. Some of the most typical mental diseases are the ones listed below. This is not a complete list. On this list, several diseases aren't even mentioned.

The symptoms of psychotic illnesses frequently include self-destructive behavior, wounds, and suicidal thoughts. They frequently entail several bodily symptoms and are typically feminine or lesbian. In severe circumstances, those with this illness may have various underlying medical issues that aggravate their psychotic symptoms. These symptoms can also be brought on by medical disorders such as infections, secondary syphilis, and electrolyte abnormalities.

The most prevalent kind of mental disease, depression, is prevalent and affects many people. Although there are many signs and symptoms of depression, a sad mood and a loss of interest in activities are telltale signs. On the other hand, excessive thoughts and activities are a part of obsessive-compulsive disorders. Although neither disease makes the other one appear, both can make it challenging for the person who has both to go about their daily lives. Thankfully, there are remedies for both of these conditions.

These diseases have substantial financial costs. Depression is thought to be the main factor in suicide and has the most significant frequency of all mental diseases. It also lowers workplace productivity and causes a high cost to the healthcare system and the larger population. The NICE guidelines and the QOF guidelines are consistent, and doctors should carefully consider the patient's wishes. The list is not complete because each person has unique pre-morbidities and symptoms.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, one in five Americans at some point in their life fit the criteria for a mental health illness. There are more than 200 diagnoses of this mental disorder since it affects around 19% of the population. The symptoms of depression, in particular, differ from person to person and impact millions of individuals worldwide. But if the disease is bad enough, the person could think of killing himself.

Depression and generalized anxiety disorder are two more prevalent mental health conditions. Significant symptoms can occur in patients with common diseases, and in half of those cases, both symptoms are present. In addition, some people may have a particular condition that affects the psyche, even though the bulk of these disorders are anxiety and depression. These prevalence percentages depend on various demographic parameters, geographic area, survey period, and length. For instance, these illnesses' increased incidence has been linked to marital status and race.

For social equality, gender incongruence must be removed from the mental diseases list. It is an initial stage in the depathologization process. Due to their gender identification, transgender persons have traditionally faced discrimination. The list is currently being updated to guarantee more inclusion and diversity in society. Additionally, this can increase access to services, which are crucial for the well-being of transgender people. The exclusion of transgender disorders from the list of mental diseases would increase access to mental health care and foster a more accepting attitude toward transgender persons.

It's crucial to provide reliable screening methods for prevalent mental diseases. The evidence suggests a variety of tools that have undergone thorough validation, but it is unclear which tools will be most helpful in specific contexts. To diagnose the illness, each doctor may employ a different technique. The focus of a guideline will be on determining the type and severity of these problems and what variables could affect whether or not a patient is referred for treatment. The guidelines will also assist practitioners in strengthening their evaluation procedures and streamlining the patient experience.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

i dunno if you're still looking for things to ramble about, but i'm VERY interested in the fic you mentioned about jesse writing a book under the morricone pseudonym and having angela act as an editor! that was a very long summary, but you know what i'm talking about. i'd love to hear more thoughts about it.

The fic is a piece told from Angela’s point of view, taking place in the quiet times between missions and briefs and ops, as she and Jesse attempt to hold on to a small piece of normality to keep their minds off everything and hopefully seek to regain something they lost—and missed—from a time when their lives seemed simpler.

I’ve always been interested in the idea of Jesse as a writer, maybe because I’m also one, but there’s always something about a fictional character who writes professionally. Even more, the idea of how Jesse navigates his double identity and how he filters the infamous Jesse McCree through Joel Morricone is just something so deeply interesting. How does McCree go about inventing a fictional McCree through the lens of this fictional identity he’s created for himself? Him writing an account of the rise, fall, and revival of the Deadlock Gang serves well to explore a lot of what I find interesting in a Morricone identity subplot. How does he approach his own part in that narrative? How does he modulate a Morricone identity through writing? How does he navigate problems of knowing more than what is on public record?

I am also very invested in the idea of Jesse and Angela as like siblings. They’ve got a lot in common. They are the same age. They’ve faced similar pressures as prodigous adolescents in a world of those twice their age. They both spent much of their later childhood during the Crisis. Jesse was very likely orphaned just like Angela was. They experienced an alienation from Overwatch in its last years. However, their methods, their organizational affiliations, their aims keep them at very distinct foils.

I think what’s particularly interesting about it is that I’ve set it specifically in a context of a Recalled Overwatch where both of them are uncertain about the wisdom of the Recall, but both feel compelled to answer it anyway. They feel obligated to so something about the changing tides in their world but are at a loss at how best to respond. So they find themselves united in uncertainty, bitterness, and cautious hope. It’s also specifically in a context where Jesse is becoming increasingly a source of stability and guidance in the Recalled Overwatch, reluctantly taking up the mantle of Gabriel before him—half a ghost of a man they all knew, but with no one else to shuffle the responsibility to.

The struggle is that the fic as it currently is structured is very lopsided. The premise of renewing this relationship and of navigating the writing of this book asks Jesse to face questions of who he is, what it means to have not just a second identity but also a series of masks he presents to even his closest friends, how a close examination of his roots and social context leads to an understanding of how it has shaped him, how clarity of one’s past may provide solace for the present and guidance for the future. It’s clear what’s at stake for Jesse and how engaging in this specific set of parameters challenges him. It’s not at all clear what’s at stake for Angela or what challenges her. Yes, Angela is seeking to regain a lost friendship that she once held very dear—but that isn’t enough. For this story to feel balanced, and for Angela to be properly serviced as a character and especially as the one from whose perspective this is told, there needs to be much more.

One of the most thought-provoking pieces of writing advice I’ve received lately was about the self in flux. As we converse with others, we take in what they say, internalize it, and subtly shift our perception of ourselves and how we react to how we perceive the world based on that. Just as we do this, characters must as well. Every dialogue turns on characters being changed by conversing. Jesse and Angela speak with each other. Jesse writing this book is essentially a dialogue with himself. Angela reading this manuscript is a dialogue with a very specific version of Jesse. I’ve figured out how these conversations potentially change Jesse. I haven’t yet figured out how they potentially change Angela.