#this was linked at the end of the Garbage Day newsletter i get and i thought it would be about dentistry

[sroloc--elbisivni]

Fascinating article on how the datasets that train AI and the cultural assumptions they make and enforce become visible in something like smiling.

[liriostigre]

hey! I wanted to ask what your favorite poetry books are? I have a few but I want to read new and interesting stuff, and I trust your taste :D

hiii ♡

tbh i only started reading poetry collections like,, last year. i'm subscribed to poetryfoundation's newsletter (poem of the day) so i usually just read random poems

anyway, i'm not sure my recs could be considered new (cause i'm gonna start with Mary Oliver ♡) but feel free to message me if you want to know the themes, style, feeling (vibes, if you will) or anything you want to know about these collections. for now, i'm linking my favorite poems in each collection, i hope this helps you choose! ♡

here you go:

Dream Work —Mary Oliver (“Wild Geese.” “Dogfish.”)

Red Bird —Mary Oliver (“Summer Morning.” “Love Sorrow.”)

Blue Horses —Mary Oliver (“To Be Human Is to Sing Your Own Song.” “Loneliness.” “Little Crazy Love Song.”)

The Wild Iris —Louise Glück (“Sunset.” “Retreating Light.”)

Haruko/Love Poems —June Jordan (“On a New Year’s Eve.” “Mendocino Memory.” “Toward a City That Sings.” *under the cut)

Extracting the Stone of Madness —Alejandra Pizarnik (“Primitive Eyes.” “Summer Goodbyes.” *under the cut)

Ariel —Sylvia Plath (“Tulips.” “The Rival.”)

Prelude to Bruise —Saeed Jones (“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat.” *under the cut)

Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth —Alice Walker (“Coming Back from Seeing Your People.” *under the cut)

I Must Be Living Twice —Eileen Myles (“Edward the Confessor.” *under the cut)

Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth —Warsan Shire (“Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre.”)

The Black Unicorn —Audre Lorde (“Hanging Fire.” “Sister Outsider.”)

Bright Dead Things —Ada Limón (“The Riveter.” “Glow.”)

Night Sky With Exit Wounds —Ocean Vuong (“Thanksgiving 2006.” “Logophobia.”)

Postcolonial Love Poem —Natalie Diaz (“Manhattan Is a Lenape Word.”)

Crush —Richard Siken (“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out.”)

Once —Alice Walker (“So We've Come at Last to Freud.”)

“Toward a City That Sings” by June Jordan

Into the topaz the crystalline signals of Manhattan the nightplane lowers my body scintillate with longing to lie positive beside the electric waters of your flesh and I will never tell you the meaning of this poem: Just say, ‘She wrote it and I recognize the reference.’ Please let it go at that. Although it is all the willingness you lend the world as when you picked it up the garbage scattering the cool formalities of Madison Avenue after midnight (where we walked for miles as though we knew the woods well enough to ignore the darkness) although it is all the willingness you lend the world that makes me want to clean up everything in sight (myself included)

for your possible discovery

“Primitive Eyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

Where fear neither speaks in stories or poems, nor gives shape to terrors or triumphs.

My name, my pronoun — a grey void.

I’m familiar with the full range of fear. I know what it’s like to start singing and to set off slowly through the narrow mountain pass that leads back to the stranger in me, to my own emigrant.

I write to ward off fear and the clawing wind that lodges in my throat.

And in the morning, when you are afraid of finding yourself dead (of there being no more images): the silence of compression, the silence of existence itself. This is how the years fly by. This is how we lost that beautiful animal happiness.

“Summer Goodbyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

The soft rumor of spreading weeds. The sound of things ruined by the wind. They come to me as if I were the heart of all that exists. I would like to be dead, and also to go inside another heart.

“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat” by Saeed Jones

I. Drugged, I dreamed you a plume of ash, great rush of wrecked air through the towns of my stupor. And when the ocean in your blood went toxic, I thought fire was what we needed: serrated light through the skin, grenade in the chest—pulled linchpin. I saw us breathing on the other side of after. But a blackout is not night; orange-bottled dreams are not sleep. II. I was a cross-legged boy in the third lifetime, empire of blocks in my lap while you walked through the door of your silence, hunting knife in one hand, flask in the other. I waited for you until I forgot to breathe, my want turning me colors only tongues of amaryllis could answer for. It owned me, that hunger, tendriled its way into my name for you. III. In a city made of rain each door, a silence; each lock, a mouth, I walked daily through the spit-slick streets, harbingers on my hands in henna: there will be no after Black-and-blue-garbed strangers, they called me Cassandra. (I had such a body then.) Umbrellas in hand, they listened while they unlistened. there will be no no. after

the world will end no.

you are the reason it no. ends

you no. IV. I didn’t exactly mean to survive myself. Half this life I’ve spent falling out of fourth-story windows. Pigeons for hair, wind for feet. Sometimes I sing “Stormy Weather” on the way down. Today, “Strange Fruit.” Each time, strangers find me drawing my own chalk outline on the sidewalk, cursing with a mouth full of iron, furious at my pulse. V. After ruin, after shards of glass like misplaced stars, after dredge, after the black bite of frost:        you are the after, you are the first hour in a life without clocks; the name of whatever falls from the clouds now is you (it is not rain), a song in a dead language, an unlit earth, a coast broken— how was I to know every word was your name?

“Coming Back from Seeing Your People” by Alice Walker

Coming back From seeing your people You were So wonderfully Full Of yourself.

But now You have supped With vampires They have fed Feasted On you.

They arise Bright-eyed Fit.

You alone have lost Not only Your sleep But also Your glow The luster of Affection Heart welcome Your people Sent home With you.

Beloved You must learn To walk alone To hold The precious Silence To bring home And keep the precious Little That is left Of yourself.

“Edward the Confessor” by Eileen Myles

I have a confession to make I wish there were some role in society I could fulfill I could be a confessor I have a confession to make I have this way when I step into the bakery on 2nd Ave. of wanting to be the only really nice person in the store so the harried sales woman with several toned hair will like me. I do this in all kinds of stores, coffee shops xerox shops, everywhere I go. And invariably I leave my keys, xeroxing, my coffee from the last place I am being so nice. I try so hard to make a great impression on these neutral strangers right down to the perfect warm smile I get entirely lost and stagger back out onto the street, bereft of something major. It’s really leaning too hard on the everyday. My mother was the kind of woman who dragging us into stores always seemed to charm the pants off the cashier. She was such a great person, so human though at home she was such a bitch, I mean really distant. I imitate her and I don’t do it well. She didn’t leave her wallet or us in a store. I’m just a pale imitation it is simply not my style to open the hearts of strangers to my true personhood. I hope you accept this tiny confession of what I am currently going through. And if you are experiencing something of a similar nature tell someone, not me, but tell someone. It’s the new human program to be in. It would be nice for at least these final moments if we could sigh with the relief of being in the same program with all the other humans whispering in school. I can’t quite locate the terror, but I am trying to be my mother or Edward the Confessor smiling down on you with up-praying hands. I am looking down at the tips of my boots as I step across the balcony of the church excited to be allowed to say these things. Outside my church is a relationship. On 11th street this guy and this woman are selling the woman so they can get more dope. All their things are there, rags and loaves of bread and make-up. And there was— this was incredible. Two men lying by the door of the church giving each other blow-jobs. They were sort of street guys, one black one white. I said hey you can’t do that here. They jumped up, one spit come out of his mouth. If you don’t get out of here I’ll call the cops. Don’t call the cops we’ll go, we’ll leave. That was a shock. That was more than I expected to see in a day. Something about seeing the guy spit come out of his mouth. He didn’t have to do that. I guess I scared him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was scared too.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Aviation bailout cost $666k/job

Since January of 2001 - 20+ years! - I've been digesting all the news I read that seems significant by writing summaries and analysis on a blog, first on Boing Boing and then on pluralistic.net, my solo project.

This is an incredibly useful exercise, one that converts the fragmented and chaotic news-cycle into a series of puzzle pieces that slowly click together, building up a coherent picture of what's happened, what's happening, and what might happen.

About a decade in, I started reviewing my older posts every morning, going back one year, five years and ten years. I still do it, only now, it's #1yrago, #5yrsago, #10yrsago, #15yrsago, and #20yrsago. I repost the most significant of these each day in my blog and newsletter.

Today's edition contains a link to this one-year-old post, "American Airlines blew billions, now it wants a bailout ," describing how AA accumulated $30b in debt, mostly through stock-buybacks, and as begging for billions more in public funds.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/18/diy-tp/#aa-crashes

This was - and is - outrageous. Over the period that AA was liquidating its cash-reserves through financial engineering schemes that made millionaires out of its stock-compensated C-suite, it was turning its service into flying garbage.

Prices went up, seats got smaller, routes got centralized around inconvenient, delay-plagued hubs. They lost bags. A year ago, Tim Wu catalogued these sins and more for the NY Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/opinion/airlines-bailout.html

Wu proposed that a bailout for airlines (not just AA, but the whole monopolized sector, which had all committed AA's sins to varying degrees) should come with strings attached - ending surprise fees, minimum seat standards, and an end to common ownership.

Common ownership? Yes. All the airlines' cap tables have high degrees of overlap - that is, they all belong to the same investors. Or rather, investor. Single. Warren Buffett is nipple-deep in each of the American aviation giants.

Maybe you see Buffett as a folksy grampa. He's not. Don't let the old car and modest home fool you. Buffett's a pure Rockefeller sociopath, minus the flash. He only buys into monopolies, then squeezes customers and suppliers, destroying their lives.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/10/folksy-monopolists/#folksy-monopolists

The airlines were no paragons before Buffett bought giant slices of all the major aviation companies in the US, but afterwards, they got *much* worse. They withdrew from routes they competed on, leaving one supplier for each, who could raise prices without fearing competition.

They merged with one another. They squeezed their pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and baggage handlers. They introduced absurd fees, charging you for the privilege of selecting your seat in advance so you could be sure you got to sit wiht your small children.

The seats themselves shrank. So did the meals - which now cost a pretty penny. Canceling or changing a ticket became a luxury that cost more than the ticket itself. But the airlines could cancel or reroute you, or strand you on a runway.

If you didn't like it, they'd bring in uniformed thugs to literally beat you bloody and drag you out of your seat.

https://consumerist.com/2017/10/18/two-chicago-aviation-officers-fired-for-role-in-dragging-united-passenger-from-flight/

Even if you thought that the US government should take measures to ensure that there were still airlines plying the American skies after the crisis ended, only Warren Buffett and other major airline shareholders wanted this system to continue.

Well, it's been a year to the day since Wu's op-ed, and the NYT's Andrew Ross Sorkin is back in the paper, assessing the bailout that Big Plane got and what the public got in return.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/business/dealbook/airline-bailouts.html

All told, the airlines got $50B in public funds and saved 75,000 jobs. That's $666k per job. Now, obviously, the airlines didn't spend three quarters of a million dollars per employee over the past year - that money has gone to their shareholders, not their employees.

The shareholders are happy about this. Shares in United have tripled during the crisis. For United execs - paid in stock - that's a massive payday. For Warren Buffett, who owns far more stock that United's C-suite, it's a vast, permanent fortune.

The past year has seen the transfer of most of $50b from the federal government to the wealthiest execs and investors in America. The airlines weren't punished for squandering their pre-pandemic warchests on buy-backs. They were rewarded for it.

The right likes to wring its hands about "moral hazard":

"If we ensure people who lose their jobs don't starve or end up homeless, why would they show up for work?"

This is just cruelty dressed up as rationality.

But moral hazard IS real, and applies exclusively to remorseless plutes. With the aviation bailout, the US government has signaled to airline execs and investors that if you spend the company dry while enriching yourself, Uncle Sucker will bail you out, no strings attached.

Other travel-related sectors - hotels, rental cars, restaurants, travel agencies - didn't get bailed out. The airlines, meanwhile, got so much money they literally can't figure out how to spend it all.

How else to account for United blowing $20m on a daffy electric helicopter startup that went public through a scammy SPAC (the reigning speculative garbage fire - until NFTs arrived on the scene).

The airline bailout did come with strings, but they were illusory. Capping exec pay is meaningless when bailout money can be used to inflate share prices and make overnight millionaires out of top management. The warrants given to the Treasury are infinitesimally cosmetic.

The airlines aren't too big to fail. No company is. The lesson here is that if Congress offers a blank check to a monopolist to save jobs, the monopolist will charge the federal government $666,666.66 per job, and pocket 90%+ of that.

[ibulletin12]

Hobbies

Art and Craft

by Ipshita Biswas

More on Art..

by Pallavi Porwal

Some of us picked up some exciting hobbies

Vivek Dev - Meditation

Himanshu Kumar - Cooking

Nimesh Kumar Gupta - Photography

Pratyush Anand - Weight Lifting

Prasanth Purushothaman - Lockdown Baking

It has been no different for me as it has been for the rest of you guys being at home during this COVID lockdown. Spending time with your family members for most of the day than the usual without entering into a fight could have been a tough choice for many in these turbulent times! I do know of the constrained situation of my friends who were living in the metros have had no other choice but to stay in their limited space in their apartments and were restricting themselves to step out, except for getting their essentials or for disposing of their garbage. In a way I can say, I was quite fortunate in that aspect as I was away in my countryside home, in Mala, a small town in Thrissur district in Kerala on the outskirts from the city amidst green surroundings having paddy fields and cows to bemused with along with our limited family members and the two neighboring state homeworkers. We had that liberty at least to move around a little bit more!

Out of nowhere, I had the lavish time in the world, to wake up a little later than usual and engage myself in the morning jog in the farmyard, found myself plucking cashew fruits from jack trees along with my wife and mom. All the members of the family had fun by spending our time together by playing monopoly, poker, and Scrabble without having any work pressure just the way it was in my childhood. Other times were spent trying to abridge with our knowledge by attending the free webinars that had popped up now and then, and meeting friends and extended family members on the ‘zoom’ portal and the regular IIMK online sessions to keep us busy. I had also tried my leg in Latin dance on an online dance session that came up- it was a disaster!

Ironically put, it can also be interesting to note how we, the EPGP participants, attending classes for our second term, happened to get a real-life experience of the dynamics of the macroeconomic during the pandemic, very well relatable to the economic classes we attend. It has helped us get a paradigm shift in our views on how the monetary and fiscal policies of governments work in an economy, and so on during these tough times of recession. Baking or cooking new recipes was no new wonder either, as it was one among the trending things in social media, doing many rounds. And it looks like the lockdown is not going to end until each one of us has baked at least one cake in this quarantine! And here I am, to share with you a piece of joy that I had in making one such recipe.  

-The No-Bake Blueberry Cheesecake!  Tadaaaa….!

Well, it’s never too late to try something new!! And here is my attempt at cooking this gorgeous Blueberry Cheesecake at home during this lockdown for the first time, which surprisingly turned out pretty well!! I had a great day baking this with my wife, who is an architect turned pastry chef in the making. And it’s a lot of fun learning how to make one!  

Here’s the recipe! - it’s super easy and delicious. Enjoy!

No-Bake Blueberry Cheesecake

For the Crust

Ingredients:

Digestive Biscuits (preferably Mcvities): 100gms Butter: Enough to bind the biscuit crumbs.

Preparation:

Crumble the digestive biscuits and mix with warm melted butter until the mixture resembles wet sand. Press into the bottom of an 8” or 9” pan. Refrigerate the crust while you prepare the rest of the Cheesecake. This will chill the butter and help firm up the crust.

For the Cheesecake

Ingredients:

Egg yolk: 5 Nos.

Sugar: 90g

Mascarpone Cheese: 180g

Gelatin: 15g

Whipping Cream: 350g

Blueberry Filling: 200g

Preparation:

Beat the egg yolks and sugar lightly. Place in a boiling water bath with constant stirring until the mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon. Add dissolved melted gelatin. Allow cooling.

Now add the mascarpone cheese and blend the mixture well. Add the blueberry filling to the mixture and mix.

Whip the cream to soft peak consistency and fold into the cheesecake mixture. Pour over the biscuit crumb layer and keep it in the freezer to set.

Once set, cover the top with blueberry filling and cool in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before slicing. Top with whipped cream and fresh blueberries(optional) and serve chilled!!

Serves 8, 6, or 4 depending upon your helpings! :D

Bon Appetit! ☺

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade…!

Adjusting to the new normal…

by Ipshita Biswas

The last few weeks made me realize how much I love staying indoors and not having to meet people every day. Well, I do miss the parties, frequent café visits, road trips. But, hadn’t we already made peace with sacrificing most of these luxuries when we decided to sign up for EPGP? 😊

Since November end, all of us are going through a roller-coaster ride, juggling between office, studies, and home. So, this lockdown is probably the only time since then that we got a breather.

The current situation unfolded so unexpectedly; it felt initially kind of surreal. Especially by mid-march when the situation started impacting us with the spreading awareness of using sanitizers and maintaining distance from people. But since then, within just two months (which might feel like

Two years to some people), most of us have passed the phases of denial, acceptance and finally of adjusting our lives around it.

As for me, hobbies have always been an essential part of my life, and I have always tried to stay in touch with them. But this lockdown helped me invest a bit more time in them than usual. Since the start of our course, I haven’t been able to spend any time reading books. But lockdown helped me finish one and start two others. I finished reading the book ‘CEO Factory’ and have begun reading ‘Good Economics for hard times’ by Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo | ‘Black Swan’ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

I am currently working on writing a review of the book ‘CEO Factory,’ which is going to take some more time. Probably, I can finish it by the time the next newsletter is published. Till then, I can only recommend it. It’s a fantastic book, especially for people pursuing an MBA or thinking of doing the same in the future. In just around 250 pages, the book would take you into an enlightening journey of the business strategies behind pricing products, profit maximization, product positioning, ways of reaching the customers, and much more.

On a typical day (in a COVID free world), CrossFit classes used to form a very significant part of my daily schedule. After the office, I used to have something to look forward to every day. But lockdown changed that, and I had to resort to home workouts. It was a little demotivating and dull in the beginning. I missed the energetic ambiance of the class, the small competitions we used to have to motivate each other, and of course, the weights ☹️ . But, along with every adjustment that we are doing right now in getting used to the new normal, getting used to online workout sessions is another part of it. All thanks to the CureFit masterclasses and the packs meant for enticing even the layabouts to work out every day 😊.

Then, I could finally find some time to create 3 short dance videos as opposed to my previous record of creating one dance video in every 3 months. Since the start of our course, my frequency of finishing an artwork had reached reach a record low. I had to keep myself happy with miniature paintings and quick sketches. I had almost given up on creating portraits or A3 sized paintings that needed nearly 6-7 hours. But lockdown enabled me to create a few portraits and some time-intensive paintings too. I was always too lazy to take pictures while creating artworks. But this time I gathered some patience and created a few art tutorials videos too.

Links to dance videos:

Dance Video - 1

Dance Video - 2

Dance Video - 3

I always had a terrible sleep cycle which received good support from my flexible office timings :p. I slept after the sun-rise :p . But, by some grace of God, for the last few weeks, I am sleeping and waking up like a normal person! I sleep by 12-1 AM and wake up by 6-7 AM. People who know me are having a hard time accepting this recent development :p

Similar to the above-mentioned unthinkable incident, another unusual activity that the lockdown prompted me to do are the household chores. Cooking is something I have always been terrible at and all the experimentations mostly resulted in some disasters, leaving me with the plight of having either a half-cooked food or a burnt one. But lockdown changed that too. Finally, I could prepare edible food, especially my favorite dishes.

[thorinss]

MAKING MONEY ONLINE

hey y’all. i decided suddenly to make this post because i know it could be super helpful to people out there who might be struggling for money, or even those who just want to earn some extra cash on the side. i’ve been doing this for about 6 months and while it’s not full time or even part time work, it’s extra money that you can use for food, hobbies, gas, etc.

a lot of these sites i am about to list pay very little (we’re talking pennies or dollars) but it accumulates over time if you’re willing to keep at it. in combination these are all good sites to just leave in an open browser or tab and just do the tasks passively as they come in or as you feel like it. half the time i’m playing the sims on one monitor and earning money on my other monitor.

anyways here we go! these are in no particular order; just in the order that i think of them. i will include my referral codes but don’t feel obligated to use them!

Prolific - this one is my favorite because i have had the most success with it. there are a lot of survey sites out there that will kick you out mid-survey after you’ve already invested so much time into them because you’re “not qualified” to answer the questions. prolific is the opposite. you sign up, fill out your profile, and the surveys that fit your demographic will come to you. most of them only take a few minutes to complete but the payout is better than most other survey sites out there. the surveys come from academic researchers who use your data anonymously for studies. some days you won’t get any studies, and some days you’ll get several. you can cash out to paypal once you reach $5. keep a prolific open in a tab and it will alert you when a new study is available!

Slicethepie (non-referral link) - i discovered this one recently and it’s one of my favorites. the pay is very little; i’m only making 4c per review right now but i’m told the pay goes up the more you review. all you do is sign up and get paid to write short reviews for clothing, get paid to watch movie clips or commercials, or get paid to listen to new music (whaaaaat). it’s one of the more fun ways to make money. it takes a couple minutes and you earn a  few pennies after each one. those quickly add up!

Usertesting - this one is really good if you manage to qualify for the tests, which can be hit or miss (mostly miss in my case). it requires a microphone and being okay with recording your screen and sending the info to a company. basically, people pay you to test our their websites and make comments about it. they’ll ask you to go to their website and look for something specific, and you have to voice your thoughts about the site out loud as you look for what it is they asked for. the pay is $10 per test which is amazing, but you have to take a pre-screener test to qualify for them. overall i’ve made maybe $40 total by working passively (not every day) in the last 6 months but hey - that’s a tank of gas.

more under the cut!

rev - if you’re a fast typer, a good listener, and have some time on your hands, this is a pretty good option. rev is a transcription service, so you listen to some audio and type out what the people are saying, and then get paid for it. some of the audio is garbage which is why they pay people to transcribe it, but if you have the time you can make a few bucks. just make sure you take it seriously because if you somehow appear to be “below average” at this, they will terminate your account. the amount of transcriptions that appear varied so you just have to keep an eye out.

GG2U (non-referral link) - this one is pretty dope. sign up for free trials, install and play video games, take surveys, watch videos, and earn points. 100 points = $1. within 5 minutes of signing up i had $7. just be certain to cancel any trials before the trial period ends so you don’t get charged. 

amazon turk - not gonna lie, i have not been able to achieve this one, but i have personally seen people make hundreds and thousands on this platform. if you don’t know already, mturk is where clients post microtasks for humans to do that robots cannot yet achieve. if you are willing to put in more work than me and figure it out, check our /r/mturk or do some googling before pursuing it.

Ibotta (non-referral link) - (get a $20 welcome bonus if you use my referral and scan your first receipt) this is an app that offers cash back for shopping at the stores listed on ibotta. you buy an item from the store listed on ibotta, can your receipt into the app, and boom you get cash back.

qmee - this one makes chump change but it’s worth it. you complete surveys for some change (50c or somewhere around that) and that’s it. there’s also a browser extension; i use this more than the surveys. the extension pops up on the side of your window whenever you search something on the internet - but only if it’s something that qmee is looking for. and occasionally it offers a few pennies if you click on the link. best part is you can cash out no matter how much you’ve made. i cashed out 32c the other day lmao.

inboxdollars (non-referral link) - i don’t know if it’s just me, but this website only works on firefox for me. my chrome hates it. but anyways, this site provides very passive income. i do not recommend the surveys; they’ll have you answer a bunch of questions and you think you’re going to finish it and get the $$$, but then it kicks you out because “you’re not qualified”. the ways to earn that i like are watching videos in the TV/videos tab and playing the games in the games tab. after you watch x amount of videos or play x amount of games, you get a scratch off ticket. i usually get about 15c from them, but it’s something. when i first started i worked my way about to $50. they send you a check in the mail.

redbubble (my shitty store) - y’all know about this one already i’m sure. if you’re creative and think you can make a design for shirts and accessories, go ahead and make an account! you might make zero money, you might make a few bucks every couple months, or you might make a couple hundred. it all depends so this one is really a gamble, but still worth looking at if you’re into that sort of thing! 

crowdtap - haven’t used this one in a while but i will be getting back into it. you take surveys and answer questions for brands and receive points in return. you need to accumulate 500 points before you can begin cashing out, which will take a while. after that, you can redeem the points for gift cards to amazon/sephora/walmart/etc, use the points for a subscription service, or use the points to donate money to a charity.

swagbucks (non-referral link) - this site is wild and just like mturk, i have yet to master it, but have seen others do so. it’s another typical survey site very similar to inboxdollars listed above. you can take surveys for swagbucks (points), watch videos, use their cash back feature, etc. 

vindale research (non referral link) - similar to prolific. it’s surveys from researchers that pay a few dollars for you to answer some questions. length of survey varies. each survey generally pays aroud $1. there is also a jobs tab that gives a list of jobs in your area.

submittable - this one is a recent discovery. my first article was rejected but i’d like to share this one anyways in case someone would like to pursue it! there’s a large list of writing and art contests mainly. a lot of them don’t seem to be offering pay but the ones that do offer a huge payout if you win the competition.

cambly - if you have any type of skill in teaching other languages, being a life coach, of just have any knowledge you think you can pass along, cambly might be for you. when you sign up there are two options, be tutored or become the tutor. if you want to tutor people, you need a webcam and microphone access. my connection never worked with cambly so i have not been able to personally try it, but i have seen people make a lot of money from teaching english to little kids.

ebates (non referral link) - another cash back option every time you buy something online. or you can link your credit/debit card and use it when you buy stuff in stores. so you get money for spending money. good stuff y’all.

lionbridge & appen - these two sites are basically the same thing just different companies. this is the ONLY two sites on my list that pay hourly. i believe it’s somewhere between $9 - $12? i could be wrong. but once you sign up, apply, and get approved, you could be doing a multitude of things, inducing: translation, transcription, social media evaluation, data collection, and more. 

TIPS:

minimum requirements are internet, a computer, and a phone. if you have an extra laptop or computer that still works, set it up and let videos on inboxdollars or swagbucks run in the background. this way you are making money without even thinking about it. you could even just open the videos in another window and mute them, which is what i’m doing right now. you still get the credit for watching them but you don’t actually have to listen to them.

this is not a get rich quick and easy deal. none of these jobs are simple and you won’t be pulling in hundreds per day. it’s hard, annoying work. so don’t expect to be rolling in the dough.

if you can, create a second email for all those times you get asked to sign up for something or subscribe to a newsletter. this way your actual personal inbox isn’t getting spammed with ridiculous things you don’t care about. just check the second email once in a while to make sure no one has sent you anything important. if you choose to get email notifications for new paid surveys on whichever site, i recommend letting those go to your personal inbox so that you may see them. or use the second email and check it daily. it’s up to you!

even though these sites don’t pay a lot, when you use them all together you can get a decent amount of cash. i’ve seen people work entirely from home, pulling $1000-$2000 per month just by using sites like this. but obviously that doesn’t mean it will be the case for everybody. i do this stuff on the side and am happy with just making a few dollars per day.

if it ever feels pointless because you only earned 30c or $1 just remember this - it’s more money than you had five minutes ago. it’s something. it might not pay the bills but eventually it might buy you a coffee or sit in your savings collecting interest. however you want to use it!

CASH OUT IMMEDIATELY. as soon as you are allowed to transfer your money to paypal or wherever, do it asap. there have been times where sites will shut down or glitch out and you are unable to get back all that money you earned.

be careful with some surveys. if they seem fishy or gimmicky or are constantly offering you to sign up for a bunch of bullshit, exit immediately. it will get you nowhere.

do not use VPNs. this usually results in getting banned.

OTHER RESOURCES:

i cannot possibly list every single way to make money online because there is so much! i listed my favorites but please check out these other websites that provide even more information and opportunities. they’re the reason i know so much and have been able to earn money on the side.

down the rabbit hole you go!

r/beermoney (wiki)

r/workonline

r/flipping

the work at home wife

i hope this helps someone out there. i have a job but i don’t get enough hours so i try to make a little extra on the side utilizing all these sites. and i have bad social anxiety so anything i can do to work from the comfort of my own home is my ideal situation. as i said, you won’t make a lot of money to begin with, or even later down the line, but as i’ve repeated - it’s something. it’s $5 more than you had earlier.

again, hope this helps and please let me know if it does! and if you have any questions i can try to help you!

[zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog]

OptinTurbo Review Discount And Huge Bonus

Welcome to OptinTurbo, we're so ecstatic you have actually decided to use us for all your e-mail checklist needs! We promise to make it very easy, effective, as well as inexpensive! To get started, please read our easy tool overview below.

How to Develop a Substantial Email Checklist: Just How We Added 56,000 Subscribers in thirty day (Part 1)

When Foundr initially began, we dealt with the same problem every other bootstrapping business owner with stars in their eyes does: We had no e-mail listing. We had no visibility, no online reputation, in fact we really did not also recognize where or just how to develop an email checklist.

How to Develop an Email Checklist

Leads: Get em' while they're warm!

books

Cheat sheet

Webinar

Product giveaway

Pop-ups

Web content upgrades

Affiliates

Podcast

Visitor publishing

Incentive: S4S

Yet luckily, things have actually reversed since then. Today we currently have a mailing list of greater than 200,000 individuals! Possibilities are, you read this blog post today because of the emails we send out every week.

The last time we wrote about our subscriber list, simply a plain couple of months earlier, we only had a newsletter of around 100,000 people. Nonetheless, ever since not only have we handled dual our list to 200,000 customers, however we were able to catch 56,000 of those in just one month!

This email list growth was a major component of a huge OptinTurbo product launch we undertook this previous winter season. In the lead-up to the launch of our Instagram Dominance 2.0 training course, we increased down on our objective to rapidly grow our email checklist. In this short article I'm mosting likely to expose to you the specific strategies we made use of and also exactly how we employed them in order to grow our subscriber list.

Fair warning, I splash every one of our tricks in this piece, so distort up, since there is a lot of details to take in here.

What's in an email checklist?

I'm not exaggerating when I claim that if you run an online company, your success will live or pass away by your mailing list.

Currently you may belittle this, as well as I wouldn't condemn you. Innovation has actually come leaps and bounds in the past 20 years. So much to ensure that it seems sort of outrageous that we're still making such a big deal out of something that really feels noticeably old-fashioned.

Back in the early days of email we were even more stressed about choosing the best username than we were about advertising and marketing. In fact I noticeably keep in mind being much more stressed over forwarding a chain email to five other individuals, since OptinTurbo would certainly in some way enhance the chances of my high school crush declaring their enthusiastic love for me, than I was about whatever newsletter located its means into my inbox.

Don't lie. You 'd forward this.

Today we're all about social media advertising and marketing, search engine optimization, and also whatever various other buzzword you can think of. However the fact is, there is nothing else channel that will certainly offer you a better return on investment than email. According to Adobe, for every single $1 invested in e-mail, the typical ROI is $40. That's practically double the return of Search Engine Optimization, the second-highest channel.

Despite the fact that the average advertising email will certainly wind up in the garbage or spam folder, it does not stop e-mail from being the number one channel utilized by marketing experts.

For several years, e-mail has consistently outmatched every other electronic network when OptinTurbo pertains to obtaining sales, leads, as well as consumers. Professionals like Neil Patel and Joe Pulizzi all agree that e-mail is, without a doubt, the most important source any kind of service has.

Unlike purchasing standard advertising and marketing, or relying upon Search Engine Optimization, you have complete control over your subscriber list. No matter just how sophisticated or targeted your social media advertising and marketing method might be, no other network will certainly provide you such straight accessibility to your consumer.

You do not have to stress over Google or Facebook suddenly changing their formulas, because when you have a person's email you have the capability to interact with them one on one. Even if every one of Foundr's search positions and social media presence vanished tomorrow, we would certainly still be able to promote our brand as well as our products to the countless individuals on our subscriber list.

OptinTurbo Testimonial & & Introduction

Vendor: Billy Darr

Product: OptinTurbo

Release Date: 2020-Jan-18

Launch Time: 11:00 EST

Front-End Price: $22

JV Page: https://www.socialleadfreak.com/optinturbo-review/

Specific niche: General

How Does OptinTurbo Work?

We've broken our guide down right into 3 components: Just how to Produce a New Project, How to View as well as Customize your Email Checklists, and also Special Attributes.

Exactly how to Develop a New Campaign:

Action 1: On the leading left-hand side of the screen, under the OptinTurbo logo, click "New Project."

Step 2: You will be guided to choose your project page style. This is the websites your audience will certainly see when they subscribe as well as join your email checklist. Select from our selection of distinct themes as well as pick the design of your choosing to begin customizing!

Step 3: Call your project. Whatever name you choose will certainly not be seen by your email list as well as is simply for your very own organizational purposes.

Step 4: Now proceed and also personalize your campaign template's text, typeface, as well as color. You may also transform the history shade, history picture, and also logo design picture of the design template by utilizing the navigating pane on the right-hand side of your display.

Step 5: Continue scrolling down the right-hand navigation pane for more personalized alternatives, such as customized messages for your project page site visitors, the capacity to put downloadable Links, and so on

Step 6: Once you are satisfied with the layout of your theme, don't fail to remember to click the purple "Save" button at the bottom of the navigation pane!

Step 7: Since your campaign web page has been conserved, you have the ability to watch its LINK in the "All Projects" tab. Congratulations, you've formally made your first campaign page as well as can start obtaining site visitors IMMEDIATELY by sharing the URL!

Just how to View and Personalize your Email Lists:

Step 1: Since you have actually produced a campaign, you'll probably want to watch specifically who's on your subscriber list. You can do so by clicking on "Leads" in the left-hand side bar.

Step 2: Here, in addition to seeing all your project participants, you also have the option to sort your listing by "Tag" or export your listing to a.csv spreadsheet by using the corresponding purple buttons in the leading right-hand edge.

Final thought

"It's A Large amount. Should I Invest Today?"

Not just are you obtaining access to OptinTurbo for the very best price ever before supplied, but also You're spending entirely without danger. OptinTurbo includes a 30-day Money Back Warranty Plan. When you select OptinTurbo, your complete satisfaction is guaranteed. If you are not entirely pleased with it for any kind of factor within the initial 30 days, you're qualified to a complete refund-- no doubt asked. You've obtained absolutely nothing to lose! What Are You Waiting for? Try It today and obtain The Complying with Reward Now!

[junker-town]

Is Jordan Clarkson the answer to the Jazz’s prayers?

Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Utah traded Dante Exum and second-round picks for Clarkson. Will he take the Jazz to the next level?

No.

A Long December

After a pleasing start to the season, the Minnesota Timberwolves are 0-for-December, and lost to the Warriors on Monday. Minnesota’s December schedule has been pretty tough overall, but the 11-game losing streak now includes losses to West cellar dwellers New Orleans and Golden State, so the Wolves really aren’t helping themselves. In fact, this dry spell has turned Minnesota into one of the cellar dwellers: the Wolves are three games out of the No. 8 seed and only four games out of the worst record in the conference.

Karl-Anthony Towns continues to put up absurd offensive numbers when he plays (he’s missed the last few games with a sore knee) and Minnesota’s offense has been about league average this month. But the defense is pure garbage, giving up 119 points per 100 possessions in December -- worse than even the no-defense, no-guilt Wizards. A decent defense and solid offense fueled Minnesota’s strong-ish start, but this feels more like reality. Towns is a straight-up bad defender at this point -- don’t feel pity for him, for he is part of the problem. You can likely build a decent defensive team around him, but Minnesota hasn’t figured out how.

Free Robert Covington.

Scores

Hawks 118, Cavaliers 121 Sixers 125, Pistons 109 Raptors 115, Pacers 120 (OT) Wizards 121, Knicks 115 Bulls 95, Magic 103 Jazz 104, Heat 107 Spurs 145, Grizzlies 115 Nuggets 113, Suns 111 Pelicans 102, Blazers 94 Rockets 113, Kings 104 Wolves 104, Warriors 113

Schedule

There are no games on Tuesday!

Links

It’s true: the Cavaliers traded Jordan Clarkson to the Jazz for Dante Exum and some seconds. Clarkson in the right context could be a nice fit for a team that really does need every little spark it can get in the spring, and the team won’t miss Exum. (Fans will!) So it’s a net win for Utah if Clarkson positively impacts a single playoff game, which he likely will if the Jazz get two rounds. The margins are pretty slim in the West, so these dinky little trades help. Utah has been pretty good lately, too, despite a loss to Miami on Monday. They will be around in April in a real way. We’ll see if G League signing Rayjon Tucker will end up being a bigger deal for Utah.

I put together a list of the 15 best basketball shots of the decade, from Ray Allen to Dame Lillard (twice!) to Dearica Hamby to Arike Ogunbowale (twice!) to Kris Jenkins and on. The snubs that I got the most feedback about: Mississippi State’s Morgan Williams ending UConn’s 111-game win streak with an overtime buzzer beater, Aaron Harrison’s shots to beat Michigan and Wisconsin in 2014, and Nick Young’s instant meme shot.

Ricky O’Donnell on the gems keeping the Raptors’ title defense alive.

The Undefeated’s dunks of the decade.

Enes Kanter says the Canadian government worked with him and the Celtics to make sure he could safely travel to Toronto for a Christmas Day showdown despite Turkey’s warrant for Kanter’s arrest and extradition.

On The Athletic, Sam Amick dives deep on the things good ol’ Uncle Dennis supposedly asked the Lakers during the Kawhi Leonard sweepstakes, unintentionally swirling the rumor pot about what the Clippers gave him.

Mike Sykes defines the decade in sneaker culture. If you’re at all interested in the shoe game, you have to subscribe to Sykes’ newsletter. It’s great, consistently.

Fear and loathing at Sports Illustrated.

Luke Walton compared Marvin Bagley to Giannis.

Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart want to talk about freezing their eggs.

Word to my friends Lucas and Robert, starting a new reader-supported site for Clippers fans.

We will have a brief Christmas Day newsletter.

Be excellent to each other.

[itspnicole]

Smashing Monthly Roundup: What’s New?

Smashing Monthly Roundup: What’s New?

Iris Lješnjanin

2019-12-20T14:00:00+00:002019-12-20T14:36:38+00:00

With the year slowly coming to an end, now is probably a great time to slow down and be mindful. Look back, reflect, breathe. It’s been a long year for all of us, so why not make yourself a good cuppa coffee or tea (whatever your preference is, there are other options, of course), and think about what your personal highlights were and set out some hopes and goals for the upcoming year to come.

We enjoyed counting down the days of 2019 with a good number of creative advent calendars that were brought to life by some quite talented folks. Some are publishing traditional articles while others have thought of a challenge for each day of the month of December. You can follow the lovely projects via their RSS feeds (if available) and Twitter accounts to make it easy for you to keep track of your favorites.

With the holidays coming up, why not get yourself cozy and catch up with a few talks? We have a whole lot of videos that you may like watching and listening to:

Sara Soueidan presented a talk on Applied Accessibility in SmashingConf NYC, and Marcy Sutton spoke about Garbage Components. In case you’d like to follow along more closely, you’ll find the talk slides and some helpful links on the SmashingConf website, as well as some lovely snapshots of the event.

If you’re already planning which events to attend next year, we have an oveview of upcoming conferences around the globe that you may want to check out, and if you’re eager not to miss out on one of our SmashingConfs, then super early-bird SmashingConf tickets are already available! Just sayin’! 😉

What’s New At Smashing?

In case you missed it, we launched the Smashing Podcast just a few weeks ago — a bi-weekly podcast that is moderated by our dear friend and colleague, Drew McLellan. There are already 5 podcasts to listen to, so join him as he chats to Jina Anne about design tokens, Heydon Pickering on inclusive components, and Jason Pamental on all things variable fonts. You can subscribe and tune into any podcast player of your choice!

Also, we officially released the “Inclusive Components” book, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive! Ari Stiles collected some of the book reviews we’ve received so far, with more coming in each day! Grab your own copy of Heydon’s book, and let us know what you think — we’d love to hear from you!

Trending Articles On Smashing Magazine

We publish a new article every day, and so if you’re not subscribed to our RSS feed or follow us on social media, you may miss out on some brilliant articles! Here are some that our readers seemed to enjoy and recommend further:

“Should Your Portfolio Site Be A PWA?” by Suzanne Scacca This question concerns many, so here’s why spending your time turning it into a PWA would be worth your while.

“Tips To Speed Up Your UI Design Workflow” by Tomáš Čakloš This article offers guidance on how to make your designs more consistent and user-friendly.

“Is There A Future Beyond Writing Great Code?” by Ronald Mendez Exploring some of the different directions developers can take and the complementary skills that can help them throughout their journey.

“Creating Online Environments That Work Well For Older Users” by Barry Rueger Here’s why it’s not enough to just say, “I can read it, so what’s the problem?” A significant part of the Internet-using population is aged 50 or older—including the people who invented it.

Best Picks From Our Newsletter

We’ll be honest: Every second week, we struggle with keeping the Smashing Newsletter issues at a moderate length — there are just so many talented folks out there working on brilliant projects! So, without wanting to make this monthly update too long either, we’re shining the spotlight on the following projects:

Note: A thank you to Cosima Mielke for writing and preparing these posts!

Web Almanac 2019

Take data processed from nearly 6 million websites and 85 people volunteering countless hours planning, researching, and writing — that’s what it took to create the 2019 edition of the Web Almanac, HTTP Archive’s annual state of the web report.

(Source)

The report consists of 20 chapters spanning aspects of page content, user experience, publishing, and distribution to shine a light on the current state of the ever-evolving network of technology that the open web is. A great resource to become more aware of current best practices.

How To Read A WebPage Test Waterfall Chart

Do you have difficulties reading WebPageTest waterfall charts? You’re not alone, it can be quite a challenge to remember the details and what they all mean. To freshen up your knowledge, Matt Hobbs collected all the many bits of information in a single blog post that we all can refer to.

(Source)

The post explains the basic layout of the waterfall chart, what each of the colored vertical lines means, and what metrics the horizontal blocks refer to. It also lists common patterns that you might stumble upon in a waterfall chart. One for the bookmarks.

Open-Source Illustrations Kit

100-day challenges are a wonderful opportunity to dive deep into a topic or craft and evolve and improve with each day. Back in 2016, Vijay Verma spent almost two hours a day for 100 days designing, illustrating, and experimenting to get himself to the next level of illustration.

(Source)

After living on a harddrive untouched since then, Vijay now decided to release the illustrations as a free open-source illustrations kit so you can use them for your landing pages, mobile apps, presentations, or whatever else comes to your mind. Available in AI, SVG, PNG, and EPS formats. Thank you, Vijay, for sharing!

30 Days Of Code Tidbits

Who doesn’t love a bite-sized tip? One that doesn’t take long to swallow but teaches you something new to instantly ease your life as a developer? Using the hashtag #codetidbits30 on Twitter, Samantha Ming posts a new coding tidbit every day in December.

(Source)

Three ways to remove array duplicates, a little trick to style elements that have no children or text at all, and a solution for displaying your data in your browser dev tools, these are only some of the tips in the series. Covering JavaScript, HTML, and CSS snippets, #codetidbits30 is a true treasure chest of front-end goodies. Be sure to follow along.

Scaling SVGs Made Simple

Scaling <svg> elements can be a daunting task, since they act very differently than normal images. Amelia Wattenberger came up with an ingenious comparison to help us make sense of SVGs and their special features: “The <svg> element is a telescope into another world.”

(Source)

Based on the idea of the telescope, Amelia explains how to use the viewBox property to zoom in or out with your “telescope”, and, thus, change the size of your <svg>. A small tip that works wonders.

Recreating Print Layouts With CSS

When it comes to creative layouts, magazines are an endless source of inspiration. And thanks to CSS Grid, there’s nothing to hold you back from bringing more sophisticated layouts to the web, too.

(Source)

Inspired by magazine layouts, their use of typography and their structures, Dan Davies took on the challenge to recreate some of the print work he liked on the web. The result is an awe-inspiring collection of nine layouts that use the potential of CSS Grid to its fullest. Beautifully art-directed and responsive, they are great examples of pushing the limits of what’s possible on the web layout-wise.

Web Performance Vs. User Engagement

It’s no secret that performance can have a positive impact on user engagement and, in effect, improve conversion. To find out how performance correlates to conversion for their product, the team at Vrbo implemented an automated process that shows the connection between business events and performance data.

(Source)

Carlos Moro from Vrbo now shares a case study in which he gives more insights into the approach, as well as handy tips for measuring site performance, user engagement, and putting the two into relation to one another. Interesting.

Time-Travel-Debugging For The Web

An early Firefox DevTools experiment that is worth keeping an eye on is Web Replay. Web Replay records your actions so you can track bugs down faster and understand your code better — a collaborative time-travel debugging instrument, so to say.

(Source)

The replaying process preserves all the same JS behavior, DOM structures, graphical updates, and most other behavior that occurred while recording. Want to give it a try? Replay is already available in Firefox Nightly for macOS (still disabled by default until it is more stable, but you can turn it on manually). Handy!

Commit-Message-Driven Development

Have you ever considered to write the commit message before you start writing the code? Sven Hofmann does it this way, and now he explains why you could give it a try, too.

(Source)

We all know those vague and messy commit messages like “bugfixes and minor improvements” that aren’t helpful in the long term — especially if you’re working with a team or on an open-source project. The commit-message-driven workflow that Sven suggests could help change that: first, you write the commit message, then the code, then you commit. Having the scope of the task nailed down in advance, gives each commit a precise goal that you can focus on and that makes it easier to review your commits later on. Clever!

Dealing With Ads In 2020

Ads are a two-sided sword: nobody really likes them but a lot of sites depend on them to generate revenue. Working for a news company that is dependent on ads, Christian Schaefer wanted to find ways to minimize their impact and make them less annoying. Now he summarized his approach in a comprehensive blog post.

(Source)

The post shares valuable insights into how Christian and his team developed a generic solution to transform and combine mobile and desktop ad code into one responsive ad loading code, how they improved performance by lazy loading the ads, what they did to prevent the ads from breaking the site’s layout, and some other things that add up to bringing the front end into a much better position when dealing with ads. Great tips for everyone who finds themselves wrangling ads.

If you don’t get our newsletter yet, then sign up here to receive useful techniques and goodies (including a free eBook on accessibility)!

From Smashing With Love

A month can be a long time to stay on top of things, so please do subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter and our podcast if you still haven’t. Each and every issue is written and edited with love and care. No third-party mailings or hidden advertising — promise!

You can also tune into our very own Smashing TV, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook as well as LinkedIn. Please do always feel free to reach out and share your projects with us! We love hearing from you!

On behalf of the entire team, we wish you all the best for 2020! Stay smashing! 😉

(cm, vf, ra, il)

[poetspade45-blog]

Fashion in the news: is “ethical consumer” an oxymoron?

Every week, FashionUnited selects the most interesting reads about the fashion industry published across US and international news outlets. Here’s what you may have missed:

Is there such a thing as “ethical consumerism”?

We hear it time and again: young consumers are increasingly taking social and environmental issues into account when shopping. In a recent survey conducted in Europe, 1 in 3 consumers said brands should be more transparent about what they are doing to fight climate change and global poverty. In another study by the Changing Markets Foundation, published last month, 51 percent of Americans said they would be put off from buying products from brands which do not provide workers a fair living wage. Even more surveyors (57 percent) said they’d be willing to pay more for clothes only to guarantee everyone across the supply earns a decent living.

However, were 51 percent of Americans actually boycotting brands on that basis, the fashion industry would certainly be moving a lot faster to change its ways. Clearly, they are not. Not only because talk is cheap (who would want to look bad by telling a researcher they don’t care about poverty and the environment?) but mainly because shopping ethically is easier said than done, as beautifully pointed out by Maya Singer on Vogue Magazine this week.

Those interested in “protesting with their wallets” encounter a plethora of obstacles and tricky decisions. “Do I buy one brand’s shoe made entirely from sea garbage, but in a sweatshop in Southeast Asia? Or do I buy from a brand with no environmental commitments, that produces in a unionized factory here in the USA? What if the brand that produces domestically is led by a CEO with #MeToo complaints? Another hypothetical: let’s say I’ve discovered the ethically perfect running shoe. It costs $800, there’s a six-month waiting list to get a pair, they come in one color, which is crap brown, and oh, by the way, I have to buy without trying them on”, writes Singer. At the end of the day, no matter how ethical shoppers would like to be, they are looking for products which serve a given purpose for a price they can afford. Ethics will always come after practicality in price. But Singer believes there is still hope. Click on the link above to read her article in full and find out why.

The environmental cost of free returns

When a piece of clothing bought online doesn’t fit or the color looks different than the one on screen, many consumers think it’s only fair for the shop to cover the return costs. After all, they can’t see the product in person before committing to the purchase. That is why free shipping and free returns are two excellent strategies to increase sales and consumer loyalty. However, a recent survey revealed 40 percent of all online purchases are returned, as many consumers buy several sizes of the same product just to see which one fits. Some even buy clothes with the specific aim to take a picture for Instagram and then return them!

This week, Fast Company highlighted that free returns have a high environmental impact, as they generate more transportation of goods back and forth, which means increased greenhouse emissions. Read the article in full here.

Would more women in fashion power positions mean more female customers?

A recent study pointed out that women are far less likely to be promoted in the fashion industry. Only 40 percent of womenswear fashion brands are designed by women and only 14 percent of the 50 major fashion brands are run by women. Forbes contributor Pamela Danziger asks: what would happen if womenswear companies would bring more women into leadership and decision-making positions? Several studies point out such a change would bring extremely positive results. Read it here.

Data analytics are reshaping the fashion industry

Vogue’s new business-focused platform, Vogue Business, has published an interesting piece about the use of data in fashion retail. How can it help brands to increase sales? What are its pros, cons and limitations? As a bonus, the publication lists 6 useful trend-tracking tools.

Want to stay up to date about the latest developments in the fashion industry? Sign up for FashionUnited’s newsletter!

Picture: Pixabay

Source: https://fashionunited.com/news/fashion/fashion-in-the-news-is-ethical-consumer-an-oxymoron/2019020826028

[asfeedin]

Call of Duty as a beginner

Stuck Inside With is a new series where, since we’re all stuck inside, we venture off the beaten path to explore other parts of the gaming world. This week we’re looking at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare through the eyes of a first-time player.

This assignment was supposed to be about how those of us here at ESPN Esports are trying out some new games during this time stuck inside. Some titles were tossed out there for me to try, but the truth of the matter is that pretty much every game released since I put down my GameBoy Advance in 2003 is new to me.

That said, in these strange times, I have recently found myself full-blown obsessed with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare — a love affair that dates all the way, way, way back to January 2020, when I attended the Call of Duty League’s Launch Weekend in Minneapolis. It was my first esports event since covering the industry became part of my job a few months prior, and I decided this was the game for me.

The following is an account about how I went from a complete newbie to ostensibly devoting my entire quarantined life to this game.

Waiting in the lobby

We all decide in our team Slack chat which teams we’ll be rooting for in this new CoD League, and given that I spent several formative months of my early 20s in England and am predisposed to liking teams with bird mascots (Orioles, Ravens, Hotspur), the natural fit for me was the London Royal Ravens. I decide to go all-in on a team I know nothing about.

I am someone who 1. Hates being bad at things, and 2. Prides herself on preparedness, so I research players and teams before my trip to Minneapolis. I read everything our reporters write about this game. I follow a bunch of Twitter accounts. I watch some YouTube clips.

I show up at The Armory not knowing what to expect. There’s a large turnout of fans. People have favorite players. People are already dressed in their favorite team’s merchandise. The matches start and I realize I did not do enough research after all.

The London Royal Ravens completed the first 3-0 sweep of the Call of Duty League season against the New York Subliners. Provided by Call of Duty League

I am about one hour in when I turn to our video producer and say, “I think I love esports.” I listen to him argue with our reporter about maps they like and don’t like (Note to self: Look up “Azhir Cave” later.) I try to look like I know what I’m doing. The Royal Ravens win their first match vs. the New York Subliners and I actually cheer out loud. (I told you I am a massive Royal Ravens fan.)

After 16 hours in a dark room listening to the sound of gunshots, I attend a news conference for the Dallas Empire. There is a lot of drama. I love it. I go back to my hotel room and read up on these guys’ backstories more.

The weekend wraps and I start to follow the drama on Twitter. There is so much smack talk in this league! I am obsessed with it. I fly to London to attend the Royal Ravens Home Series. I am enthralled all weekend. I buy merchandise(!) to show support for my beloved Ravens. I now have favorite players. I write a story about how the weekend was one of the wildest sporting events I’ve ever seen. I witness viral moments from the crowd. I realize I can, in fact, cover this professionally. What I can’t do yet is play it.

So I download the game to my PS4 as soon as I get home.

Where we dropping?

Definitely don’t ask me. I have no clue where we’re dropping. Turns out I’m absolute garbage at this game.

While the release of Warzone coincided real nicely with this period of social distancing for many of us, it was definitely not the method to figure out how to play this game. Sure, it doesn’t help that I break my finger on the first day of the stay-at-home order and will need to wear a splint on my left hand for four weeks, but I’m not sure I can really blame my injury for my inability to, say, run, shoot, slide, collect loot or generally fulfill the requirements to play this game.

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A typical game for me goes like this: I parachute into the lobby, I die instantly, I repeat until the game starts. The game starts, I die, I end up in the Gulag, I die again, I cross my fingers my squad members don’t waste their time reviving me; when they do, I die again. I can collect money only if it’s right in front of me and there are no opponents nearby. Rinse, repeat.

I discover that I quite like the Plunder mode of Warzone, which I play with my friend via speakerphone one night, when we drop to the prison and loot the entire side of the map without once encountering an opponent. We place in the top 10! I never even have to showcase that I can’t shoot. I feel a false sense of glory and think I might be getting the hang of this, so when I get requests from my friends and colleagues to play, I accept.

It is at this point that I discover the real importance of this game: communication.

So I buy a headset.

Competitive mode

I quickly realize how much I love playing with friends, especially when none of us can spend time together in person. I realize firsthand that gaming can really build a community. I look forward to getting a “CoD?” text. I laugh a lot.

Luckily, my squad from Team Esports humors me from the get-go (or some just don’t want to embarrass their boss) and I start figuring this thing out. Due to their extreme patience and my new ability to actually talk to them during gameplay, I learn how to maneuver and shoot, and eventually get some kills.

I humble myself when I attempt to drive an ATV, and the end result is one of them saying, “Can you just get out and let me drive?” I still can’t make it out of the Gulag. I plead with them not to revive me. They suggest I try Multiplayer, where I can respawn repeatedly and get more practice.

We start by filtering to just Team Deathmatches, and I get a sense for what this game is all about. I figure out that I need to seek cover more often. I listen for footsteps. I anticipate enemy movement. I rank up. People on my squad start screenshotting our leaderboards and posting them on Twitter (you know who you are). My gamer tag appears on Twitter with one kill listed next to it. I am someone who is so competitive it might kill me one day, so I won’t stand for this and vow to get better.

Keys to the game: Communication and memorizing the maps. Provided by Activision

We try out some new game modes. I realize I love Domination. There are enough of us playing one night to fill a full Search and Destroy team. I refuse to be the person who takes the bomb. It’s so much pressure! I get my first game with double-digit kills. I can tell I am not cut out for a 2v2 Gunfight, but find my ineptitude incredibly hilarious — a rare feat for someone with a tendency to quit things she isn’t good at. I start to learn the maps. I figure out how to play Hardpoint.

Now I’m down a Reddit and YouTube wormhole investigating how pros edit their loadouts and what perks I want for my weapons. I make people send me screenshots of their loadouts. (Did I mention I’m competitive?) I spend all of Double-XP Weekend leveling up my weapons and improving my rank. I buy a Royal Ravens uniform and skin for my guns.

At this point, the VALORANT beta release is upon us and I start stressing out about having to learn a new game.

So I switch to a PC.

Wait… Am I a gamer?

I slightly violate some social-distancing rules to go borrow a computer so I am able to partake in the VALORANT beta release. I recall that I have not touched a PC since 2007. Let me tell you, this whole W-A-D key thing is tough with a splint on your left hand. I try my best to not use that as an excuse.

I discover I’m not that bad at VALORANT. An actual esports expert writes in our team Slack chat that I have “legit sick aim,” a quote I cherish with my entire being; a quote that is now the title of my future memoir. I wonder if I’ll be better at CoD on a PC. I am like that meme of the guy walking with a woman (VALORANT) looking back at another woman (CoD) with desire.

Modern Warfare Season 3 releases and my rank drops back down to 56. I freak out. I miss Call of Duty. I get a call from a friend whose opening line is, “I looked up your KDA ratio and it’s not very good.” I pretend this doesn’t bother me. I devote the entire rest of my night to learning this game on a PC. (Did I mention I’m competitive?)

I get my first positive KDA! And then another! My friends are yelling in my ear with pride. Then I have a better game than one of them and he suddenly “doesn’t know how to take a screenshot” of our leaderboard. I realize I’m getting good at this, but I have no proof. I set a goal for at least one positive KDA per day.

I decide on my favorite maps (don’t slander Atlas Superstore in front of me, I don’t want to hear it). I develop extreme “takes” (I still hate Warzone). I start passing judgment in meetings (“Oh, you use a Riot Shield? That’s cute.”). I memorize maps and Hardpoints (I will correct you if you’re wrong about where in the rotation order the Blue Building is on Grazna Raid).

The Call of Duty League resumes play online. It feels good to watch the drama again. I spend the weekend watching it and texting with the squad about players’ stats. I realize how much this game has connected me to the outside world at a time when I really needed it. I wonder if quarantine has turned me into a gamer?

If nothing else, it’s made me realize I love Call of Duty and will keep playing it with my friends long after this pandemic ends and we’re no longer stuck inside.

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[thelmasirby32]

Subscription Fatigue

Subscription Management

I have active subscriptions with about a half-dozen different news & finance sites along with about a half dozen software tools, but sometimes using a VPN or web proxy across different web browsers makes logging in to all of them & clearing cookies for some paywall sites a real pain.

If you don't subscribe to any outlets then subscribing to an aggregator like Apple News+ can make a lot of sense, but it is very easy to end up with dozens of forgotten subscriptions.

Subscription fatigue is turning into subscription stress. Something alarming, guilt inducing about having 40+ reoccurring charges each month. Financial death by a thousand cuts.— Tom Goodwin (@tomfgoodwin) January 28, 2020

Winner-take-most Market Stratification

The news business is coming to resemble other tech-enabled businesses where a winner takes most. The New York Times stock, for instance, is trading at 15 year highs & they recently announced they are raising subscription prices:

The New York Times is raising the price of its digital subscription for the first time, from $15 every four weeks to $17 — from about $195 to $221 a year.

With a Trump re-election all but assured after the Russsia, Russia, Russia garbage, the party-line impeachment (less private equity plunderer Mitt Romney) & the ridiculous Iowa primary, many NYT readers will pledge their #NeverTrumpTwice dollars with the New York Times.

If you think politics looks ridiculous today, wait until you see some of the China-related ads in a half-year as the novel coronavirus spreads around the world.

Outside of a few core winners, the news business online has been so brutal that even Warren Buffett is now a seller. As the economics get uglier news sites get more extreme with ad placements, user data sales, and pushing subscriptions. Some of these aggressive monetization efforts make otherwise respectable news outlets look like part of a very downmarket subset of the web.

Users Fight Back

Users have thus adopted to blocking ads & are also starting to ramp up blocking paywall notifications.

Some of the most popular browser extensions are ad blockers & tracking blockers like Adblock Plus, Ghostery & Privacy Badger.

Apple has made tracking their users across sites harder with their Intelligent Tracking Prevention, causing iPhone ad rates to plummet: "The allure of a Safari user in an auction has plummeted," Rubicon Project CEO Michael Barrett told the publication. "There's no easy ability to ID a user."

The Opera web browser comes with an ad blocker baked in.

Mozilla is also pushing to protect user privacy in Firefox.

Google recently announced they will stop supporting third party cookies in Chrome in the next couple years. Those who invested into adopting AMP will have to invest into making yet more technical changes to manage paywalls on AMP pages.

Each additional layer of technological complexity is another cost center publishers have to fund, often through making the user experience of their sites worse, which in turn makes their own sites less differentiated & inferior to the copies they have left across the web (via AMP, via Facebook Instant Articles, syndication in Apple News or on various portal sites like MSN or Yahoo!).

A Web Browser For Every Season

Google Chrome is spyware, so I won't recommend installing that.

Not good enough for you? Not a direct enough corollary? How about this?Also out today: https://t.co/6dUWCCEyii Google has a backdoor to track individual Chrome users by installation ID.Even GG's denial admits pieces of the same complaints y'all had about Jumpshot last week! pic.twitter.com/Km2mQfOgbJ— Rand Fishkin (@randfish) February 4, 2020

Here Google's official guide on how to remove the spyware.

The easiest & most basic solution which works across many sites using metered paywalls is to have multiple web browsers installed on your computer. Have a couple browsers which are used exclusively for reading news articles when they won't show up in your main browser & set those web browsers to delete cookies on close. Or open the browsers in private mode and search for the URL of the page from Google to see if that allows access.

If you like Firefox there are other iterations from other players like Pale Moon, Comodo IceDragon or Waterfox using their core.

If you like Google Chrome then Chromium is the parallel version of it without the spyware baked in. The Chromium project is also the underlying source used to build about a dozen other web browsers including: Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, Cilqz, Blisk, Comodo Dragon, SRWare Iron, Yandex Browser & many others. Even Microsoft recently switched their Edge browser to being powered by the Chromium project. The browsers based on the Chromium store allow you to install extensions from the Chrome web store.

Some web browsers monetize users by setting affiliate links on the home screen and/or by selling the default search engine recommendation. You can change those once and they'll typically stick with whatever settings you use.

For some browsers I use for regular day to day web use I set them up to continue session on restart, and I have a session manager plugin like this one for Firefox or this one for Chromium-based browsers. For browsers which are used exclusively for reading paywall blocked articles I set them up to clear cookies on restart.

Bypassing Paywalls

There are a couple solid web browser plugins built specifically for bypassing paywalls.

Academic Journals

Unpaywall is an open database of around 25,000,000 free scholarly articles. They provide extensions for Firefox and Chromium based web browsers on their website.

News Articles

There is also one for news publications called bypass paywalls.

Mozilla Firefox: To install the Firefox version go here.

Chrome-like web browsers: To install the Chrome version of the extension in Opera or Chromium or Microsoft Edge you can download the extension here, enter developer mode inside the extensions area of your web browser & install extension. To turn developer mode on, open up the drop down menu for the browser, click on extensions to go to the extension management area, and then slide the "Developer mode" button to the right so it is blue.

Regional Blocking

If you travel internationally some websites like YouTube or Twitter or news sites will have portions of their content restricted to only showing in some geographic regions. This can be especially true for new sports content and some music.

These can be bypassed by using a VPN service like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Witopia or IPVanish. Some VPN providers also sell pre-configured routers. If you buy a pre-configured router you can use an ethernet switch or wifi to switch back and forth between the regular router and the VPN router.

You can also buy web proxies & enter them into the Foxy Proxy web browser extension (Firefox or Chromium-compatible) with different browsers set to default to different country locations, making it easier to see what the search results show in different countries & cities quickly.

If you use a variety of web proxies you can configure some of them to work automatically in an open source rank tracking tool like Serposcope.

The Future of Journalism

I think the future of news is going to be a lot more sites like Ben Thompson's Stratechery or Jessica Lessin's TheInformation & far fewer broad/horizontal news organizations. Things are moving toward the 1,000 true fans or perhaps 100 true fans model:

This represents a move away from the traditional donation model—in which users pay to benefit the creator—to a value model, in which users are willing to pay more for something that benefits themselves. What was traditionally dubbed “self-help” now exists under the umbrella of “wellness.” People are willing to pay more for exclusive, ROI-positive services that are constructive in their lives, whether it’s related to health, finances, education, or work. In the offline world, people are accustomed to hiring experts across verticals

A friend of mine named Terry Godier launched a conversion-oriented email newsletter named Conversion Gold which has done quite well right out of the gate, leading him to launch IndieMailer, a community for paid newsletter creators.

The model which seems to be working well for those sorts of news sites is...

stick to a tight topic range

publish regularly at a somewhat decent frequency like daily or weekly, though have a strong preference to quality & originality over quantity

have a single author or a small core team which does most the writing and expand editorial hiring slowly

offer original insights & much more depth of coverage than you would typically find in the mainstream news

Rely on Wordpress or a low-cost CMS & billing technology partner like Substack, Memberful, sell on a marketplace like Udemy, Podia or Teachable, or if they have a bit more technical chops they can install aMember on their own server. One of the biggest mistakes I made when I opened up a membership site about a decade back was hand rolling custom code for memberhsip management. At one point we shut down the membership site for a while in order to allow us to rip out all that custom code & replace it with aMember.

Accept user comments on pieces or integrate a user forum using something like Discord on a subdomain or a custom Slack channel. Highlight or feature the best comments. Update readers to new features via email.

Invest much more into obtaining unique data & sources to deliver new insights without spending aggressively to syndicate onto other platforms using graphical content layouts which would require significant design, maintenance & updating expenses

Heavily differentiate your perspective from other sources

maintain a low technological maintenance overhead

low cost monthly subscription with a solid discount for annual pre-payment

instead of using a metered paywall, set some content to require payment to read & periodically publish full-feature free content (perhaps weekly) to keep up awareness of the offering in the broader public to help offset churn.

Some also work across multiple formats with complimentary offerings. The Ringer has done well with podcasts & Stratechery also has the Exponent podcast.

There are a number of other successful online-only news subscription sites like TheAthletic & Bill Bishop's Sinocism newsletter about China, but I haven't subscribed to them yet. Many people support a wide range of projects on platforms like Patreon & sites like MasterClass with an all-you-can-eat subscription will also make paying for online content far more common..

Categories: 

publishing & media

from Digital Marketing News http://www.seobook.com/bypass-paywall

[wildlyhardphilosopher-blog]

how do you train a puppy | german shepherd puppy training

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how do you train a puppy | german shepherd puppy training

Cats in the Belfry (Feline Frolics Book 1) Get Your Dog to Stop Play Biting Events and News Tell us about your pet COPYRIGHT ✘ Get the items you need for housetraining and set up the household: KEEP IT CONSISTENT New Dog Owner’s Guide Come when called. Every time. •  Pre-Puppy Consultations You can then base a schedule around these times, your puppy will learn to expect a toilet break at these times and house training becomes easier for both of you. 45+ Years of Combined Professional Training Experience Reward your dog for getting it right. Give her a treat as soon as she goes potty in the designated spot. What Meningitis Does to Your Body LIFELONG COMMUNICATION WITH DOGS Morning and afternoon walks on the mountain road ensure that your dog is getting adequate exercise during his/her stay here.  Play sessions in our fenced yard further your dog’s experience and are coupled with informal training. As Linus’s dog trainer used to say: “Play makes pee!” It seems as though every 10 minutes or so your puppy will pee when playing. At Home & On the Go Behavior Assistance 414-431-6173 Dogs are attracted back to places by the smell of their own urine to use the same spot as a toilet again and again. 3.8 out of 5 stars Use Deterrents Best Primary Care Veterinarian – 2016 Counter Surfing Prior to the 1980s, Karen Pryor was a marine-mammal trainer who used Skinner’s operant principles to teach dolphins and develop marine-mammal shows. In 1984, she published her book, Don’t Shoot the Dog: The New Art of Teaching and Training, an explanation of operant-conditioning procedures written for the general public.[23] In the book Pryor explains why punishment as a way to get people to change often fails, and describes specific positive methods for changing the behaviour of husbands, children and pets.[33] Pryor’s dog training materials and seminars showed how operant procedures can be used to provide training based on positive reinforcement of good behavior.[23] Pryor and Gary Wilkes introduced clicker training to dog trainers with a series of seminars in 1992 and 1993. Wilkes used aversives as well as rewards, and the philosophical differences soon ended the partnership.[34] Remember, his bladder is small and his memory is short. Unless you remind him frequently, your pup will forget he needs a wee until it is too late and he can’t even make it to the door. Training Videos How do I potty train an old dog? Make Sure to Clean Up Accidents Thoroughly OUT! BE A MEMBER ThunderCap (1) Why Use a Dog Crate – and Is It Cruel to Crate a Dog? Betta Fish Tanks Newsletter Dominance-based training[edit] For example, if you don’t want your puppy on the furniture, say ‘No’ loudly and guide him off every time he climbs up. Then praise him every time he gets on the floor. Felicia Fun Activities for Kids and Dogs Chewy Treats Eheim Actions and reactions When you first bring home a puppy, it’s safe to assume that there will probably be a fair amount of undesirable behavior that occurs. For safety reasons, some of it cannot be ignored. But, sometimes you can let lesser transgressions slide so that you don’t become “that person” who does nothing but stop behavior all day long. Puppy Love Dog Training rocked it at the Best Trick contest at the Aggieland Humane Society Wiener Fest this weekend! Jennifer Blanton with her Border … [Read More…] BGDC MAP LOCATIONS $3.99 3. Give your dog at least six bathroom breaks daily, at least until you’ve finished housetraining.Aim to take out your dog first thing in the morning, before you leave for the day, twice during the day, once after dinner, and before going to bed. Once you know he’s got it, you can move him to four bathroom breaks a day, the standard for adult dogs. by Dr Mark39 Policies To many a puppy, the command “come here” means, “quick, run the other way!” Your puppy is always learning whether you are intending to teach something or not. We often unintentionally train our puppy NOT to come when called. In some cases, an adult dog may have already learned bad habits from a previous owner. This means that you will have to break those bad habits and retrain your pup. Let’s Work Together Litter Trays Do not allow a pup or dog to steal food or garbage. Always correct this behavior and do not let it become a bad habit. © Depositphotos.com / andresr Then set an alarm for 4 hours after their bed time when you must get up and take them to their bathroom spot. No excuses, you simply must do this. Confinement areas can be created with exercise pens that surround a bed or attach to a crate, and they can also be created by setting up gates that can turn a bathroom or hallway into a makeshift confinement area.  Sports & Specialty Literary Surveys Pyrenean Shepherd Avoid your dog getting heatstroke this summer FLEAS BITE. TICKS SUCK. Protect your pet with vet-recommended solutions > If your puppy just can’t seem to get the hang of potty training at this point and continuously has accidents in the house, you may consider taking him to a veterinarian to rule out any medical conditions. It’s possible that he has a physical issue that’s impeding his ability to “hold it,” in which case you would want to get him help for the condition as soon as possible. Bunny Basics Edina, MN 55439 Having a trained dog isn’t the same as having a balanced dog, but if your dog knows a few basic commands, it can be helpful when tackling problem behaviors — existing ones or those that may develop in the future. Figure out what reward—treat, squeaky toy, tug game—your puppy likes best. Be sure it’s irresistible and much more exciting than anything else in his puppy world. Reserve that for training exercises. Treat rewards are more about fun attention as the food, so it should be tiny, smelly, and no bigger than the tip of your little finger. Treeing Walker Coonhound If you need help at all with house training your puppy, please contact the centre you rehomed your pet from and we will do our best to help you.                           Use this chart as an age-based guide for how long your pup can “hold it” and stay in their crate. Beds Crates Doors & Gates Go Cover the floor with puppy pads to begin with. Dori Monson Contact us today to schedule an appointment. Cookies | Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Sitemap Schedule of Classes This was spur of the moment and without “tools”.  We just received the new charger, and will be using  it as soon as it is revved up. ONLY Share61 Visit WebMD on Facebook Grooming Programming First thing in the morning (immediately after he wakes up)

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fbq('track', 'ViewContent', content_ids: 'dogtraining.dknol', ); For advice on crating at night, please see the following link: https://www.labradortraininghq.com/labrador-training/how-to-crate-train-a-puppy/#How_To_Crate_Train_A_Puppy_At_Night Puppy Pulling Puppy Training My Sweet Puppy says the MidWest Life Stages crate offers maximum visibility and ventilation while also being lightweight and easy to store or transport. The Wirecutter gives this crate its Runner-Up award, while Canine Journal recommends it for training. Next Article: What does my puppy need? Published in April 2014, the Happy Puppy covers every aspect of life with a small puppy. Always praise your dog when he goes outside. I recommend saving the praise for right when you think the puppy or dog is finishing up because you don’t want to interrupt the puppy and then have them finish inside. Receiving Hours How to do it? Essential Oils and Your Dog’s Skin Amazon donates. Charity training a pitbull puppy | puppy training commands training a pitbull puppy | how to crate train my puppy training a pitbull puppy | how to train my puppy to walk on a leash Legal | Sitemap

[newstfionline]

How following a schedule improved my creativity

By Srinivas Rao, Fast Company, Aug. 9, 2018

If I asked you to identify a piece of work that you’re particularly proud of (and describe your process), how does that look? Did you have a lightbulb moment and finish everything in one go, or did you work diligently with some breaks, struggles, and frustrations in between?

Chances are, it probably resembled the latter. In my experience interviewing 700 experts for my podcast, the Unmistakable Creative, I discovered a clear pattern among every single person who does creative work for a living. From entrepreneurs and graffiti artists to peak performance psychologists, high performers create on a schedule.

In 2013, I interviewed author and blogger Julien Smith who told me about his habit of writing 1,000 words a day. He had one of the most popular blogs on the internet at the time and had also written a best-selling book. I decided to give his practice a try. For the next several months, I wrote one article a week for Search Engine Journal, one piece a week for a startup I was advising, multiple posts for my personal blog, and a weekly newsletter. This habit led to a self-published book that became a best-seller and eventually led to a book deal with a publisher.

Here are the lessons I learned when I started writing on a schedule, and how you can adopt them in your creative endeavors.

1. You can rely on consistent effort, but you can’t rely on inspiration. Professionals create on a schedule because they understand the profound power of consistency. They know that their cumulative output matters more than any individual piece of work. As Fast Company contributor Art Markman previously wrote, the more you practice your craft, the more you develop your expertise, and the easier it becomes to stoke your creative brain. “In order for jazz musicians to improvise, they need to know a lot of music theory related to the song structures they play. The best scientists are deeply immersed in their fields. Inventors spend years understanding the way the world works.”

I would love it if I woke up every day vibrating at a high frequency and inspired to write something brilliant. I’ve been writing every day for almost seven years now, and I can tell you those “flash of dazzling insight” mornings are few and far between. Here’s how it usually goes: I start writing, and midway through a writing session, I end up with an idea.

2. I was able to put less pressure on myself. I found the constraint of writing on a schedule liberating for two reasons--if what I produced one day was garbage, it didn’t matter, because I knew I would be back the next day. And if the essay or blog post I published one week didn’t strike a chord with my readers, I didn’t stress about it--because there was always next week.

It might sound counterintuitive, but I found that it took the pressure off. I can practice and experiment without worrying about someone judging my work. That freedom allowed me to produce a higher volume of work, and in turn, higher-quality work.

3. It was easier to find motivation. By writing every day, I saw visible and meaningful progress, and this motivated me to keep going. Sure, I might start with a blank page, but each day, I’d end up writing a paragraph, a passage, or a page that I could use. By the end of the week, I’d have a blog post, an essay, or a chapter.

You don’t have to measure progress the same way--you can count the number of days in a row you show up or the number of hours you spend. The key is finding a way to quantify your progress. When you practice your craft every day, you’ll see improvements.

4. I was able to break a big goal into small (and more manageable) chunks. Before I wrote every day, I resisted ambitious projects like writing books because it felt utterly overwhelming. Having some constraints can spark creativity, but it’s very difficult to produce a masterpiece in one sitting. Think about if a director tried to make a movie in one day, or if a writer attempted to write a novel without stopping. Without further editing and refining (and probably some pauses in between), it’s unlikely that they’ll win an Oscar or Pulitzer for that work.

I found that once I stopped thinking about writing a book in its entirety, and focused on writing 1,000 words a day, it didn’t seem as daunting. I ended up finishing a 45,000-word manuscript in six months.

Now that you understand the benefits of practicing your craft on a daily basis, how do you do it in a way that’s productive and sustainable? After some trial and error, I’ve discovered that there are three crucial factors:

1) You need to choose a specific time. When you put something on a calendar, it goes from being an item on a to-do list to a time-bound commitment. Look for blank spaces in your schedule. If you’re deliberate about setting aside time for something, you’re much more likely to do it.

2) Establish a routine in a particular place. When you show up at the same place day after day to do your creative work, your mind will link your environment and your behavior. For me, it’s drinking a cup of bulletproof coffee at 6 a.m., with a techno track on repeat. That triggers my brain to say “it’s time to read and write.” Choose a place that inspires you. It could be a room in your house or a spot at your kitchen table. Or you might get to work an hour before everybody else shows up. It doesn’t matter where you are, as long as it inspires you.

3) Have a clear outcome in mind. A lack of clarity is the biggest inhibitor of progress toward your goals. When you have a concrete objective (for example, writing 1,000 words or doing one hour of deep work), you’ll be far more efficient with your time and attention.

Creating on a schedule has enabled me to record two new podcast episodes every week for close to 10 years, write four books, and build a substantial body of work. When you do small things consistently, it all starts to add up. Try scheduling one hour out of your day to do uninterrupted, focused, deep work. You’ll be amazed by the momentum you build and the goals that you accomplish down the line.

[unixcommerce]

Becoming a Better Marketer by Embracing Your Passions Outside the Office

In the first post I ever wrote for the TopRank Marketing Blog, I reflected on the marketing lessons I’d picked up through my baseball blogging hobby. Helping build an online community at Twins Daily has instilled many important fundamentals that, I feel, make me better at my day job. I’m always fascinated by this interplay. We spend so much of our time each week alongside our coworkers, but are often unaware of the interests and side hustles that drive them outside of the office. Those very passions can be such integral parts of who we are and how we operate. More recently, this has been a topic of focus for our friends at LinkedIn*. In April, Jason Miller wrote a piece about following your dreams while staying committed to your career, and in June, Sean Callahan profiled a LinkedIn marketer who moonlights as a DJ. The subject of Sean’s piece was Ish Verduzco (aka DJ Ishh), who says that spinning the turntables on weekends has helped him learn how to get in tune with online audiences as a social media marketer. Incidentally, Jason and Sean themselves are great examples of this dynamic — Jason is a rock-and-roll photographer whose creativity and energy infuse the content he produces, while Sean is the author of several children’s books with a knack for conveying information clearly and understandably. These posts from LinkedIn inspired me to learn more about my own colleagues here at the TopRank Marketing office, and how their outside hobbies or passions help shape them professionally. So I asked around: What activities occupy your time when you’re not at the office, and how do they help make you a more clever, curious, and courageous marketer? Hopefully their answers will inspire other marketers to fully embrace their own passions, and think about ways in which their personal pursuits can fuel their professional success — or vice versa.

The After-Hours Passions that Elevate Our Team Members’ Marketing Skills

Improving Through Improv

Josh Nite, Senior Content Marketing Manager His jokes and puns are cherished staples during the workday, and Josh puts his sharp wit to good use after it ends by participating in improv shows and competitions. He believes that these comedy performances make him a better marketer for two primary reasons. “First, they force me to carefully consider words, how they have an effect on people, how powerful they can be. Second, they’re performed live in front of an audience, so I can see whether or not I’m making a connection. It really helps me have a mental image of the reader in mind when I’m writing content.”

Making a Habit of Being Helpful

Debbie Friez, Influencer Marketing Strategist Debbie is very active at her church, Spirit Garage, where she applies her professional skills to help out with marketing functions. “I serve on the marketing committee, so that has me looking for new ideas,” she says. “I subscribe to a few newsletters and I’m active in Social Media Shepherds, a group of church communicators.” In turn, Debbie’s community work through church and other endeavors — she picks up garbage at local parks on Earth Day, participates in a book club, and serves cotton candy during street festivals, for example — helps her develop rock-solid relationships with influencers and clients.

Finding Focus on the Fairway

Anne Leuman, Content Strategist As someone who regularly covers SEO-related topics on the TopRank Marketing Blog, Anne understands the importance of links (she recently wrote about examples of link-worthy content). And on the weekend, she likes to unwind by hitting the links. “My No. 1 hobby outside of work is golf,” Anne says. “Golf, believe it or not, requires a great amount of imagination. If you can see a shot, you can make the shot. Playing the sport allows me to hone my imagination skills, leading to more creativity and well-thought-out content strategy.” She also adds that the sport’s individualistic nature helps her focus on self-improvement. Bolstering your score on the golf course is all about looking inward and making the right personal tweaks, which is also true of content creation. “Similar to working on my golf game,” she starts. “I’ll take lessons, ask for advice, or spend hours writing each day to ensure I’m above par.”  

Managing to Make a Difference

Elizabeth Williams, Account Manager As a mother raising two young children of mixed race, Elizabeth feels strongly about doing her part to create a more accepting and fair environment for individuals of all ethnicities and backgrounds. “As a marketer sometimes it’s hard to see that direct impact on ‘making a the world a better place’ in your day-to-day. But, it’s something I crave. Having that reason behind what we do inspires us to keep going when we’re feeling frustrated or overloaded.” She continues: “My ‘making the world a better place’ is working toward MLK’s dream — for a world where people will not be judged by the color of their skin. In my family, we experience racism nearly every time we’re in public, whether it’s big or small.” And so she commits much of her energy outside of work to advocating for the cause of social justice. A marketer’s understanding of how to engage and influence proves helpful in this regard. “I love applying my knowledge of digital marketing to my activist communications,” she says.

Making Creativity is the Name of the Game

Patrick Pineda, Motion Designer If you watched any of the awesome 8-bit videos he whipped up for our Content Marketing Combos series, you might peg Patrick as an avid video game enthusiast. But his real passion is for tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons and World of Darkness. Earlier this year, he collaborated with Anne to create a blog post around content marketing lessons from the realm of D&D, such as the value of originality, the pitfalls of corralling an audience, and the importance of customization — something that is incredibly important and top-of-mind for marketers today. “The best Dungeon Master doesn’t just create a good story, but they also help players reach their goals,” Patrick noted.

The Rabid Researcher

Lane Ellis, Social & Content Marketing Manager Working remotely from northern Minnesota, Lane conducts plenty of helpful research for the team at TopRank Marketing, and his proclivities in this area are deeply ingrained. “Since 1994 I’ve been doing family history research, including several years as one of Duluth’s few professional genealogists, which has taught me many research-related lessons that I try to apply to my social media and marketing career,” he explains. As someone who was using the internet for research before many of us were using it at all, he’s very adept at quickly finding what he’s looking for.

Harnessing Healthy Results Like a Boss

Lee Odden, CEO Employees at TopRank Marketing are accustomed to the occasional week or two where Lee isn’t in the office, given the amount of traveling he does for speaking engagements around the world, but recently we’ve noticed that we’re seeing less of him — literally. The agency cofounder has been on a major health kick over the past several months, and the impact has been visibly evident in his physique. “I’ve found diet, cardio and other exercise have direct correlations to goal-setting, discipline, quality of effort, time management, and optimization of marketing performance,” Lee explains. In particular, he’s sees parallels in the ways success is measured for fitness and marketing. In neither case should vanity be the name of the game. “I found it interesting not to focus on weight loss, but clothing size, energy level, and quality of life improvements since those are the real goals,” he says. “I think there are lessons there as a marketer in measuring performance. Views, shares and impressions are like sugary candy metrics that give spikes of endorphins, but don’t really reflect the real goals of leads, deals, and revenue.”

What Drives You?

At TopRank Marketing, we’re lucky to have a team with diverse interests and hobbies. Working with these folks on a daily basis, it’s easy to see they are keeping their marketing skills sharp through after-hours activities, even if that’s not necessarily the inherent rationale. Meanwhile, staying busy and focused on other things outside of work helps us stay refreshed and rejuvenated once we arrive each morning. So, I ask you, too: What passions outside of work make you better at your job? Let us know in the comments section below. Disclosure: LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.

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Becoming a Better Marketer by Embracing Your Passions Outside the Office

In the first post I ever wrote for the TopRank Marketing Blog, I reflected on the marketing lessons I’d picked up through my baseball blogging hobby. Helping build an online community at Twins Daily has instilled many important fundamentals that, I feel, make me better at my day job.

I’m always fascinated by this interplay. We spend so much of our time each week alongside our coworkers, but are often unaware of the interests and side hustles that drive them outside of the office. Those very passions can be such integral parts of who we are and how we operate.

More recently, this has been a topic of focus for our friends at LinkedIn*. In April, Jason Miller wrote a piece about following your dreams while staying committed to your career, and in June, Sean Callahan profiled a LinkedIn marketer who moonlights as a DJ.

The subject of Sean’s piece was Ish Verduzco (aka DJ Ishh), who says that spinning the turntables on weekends has helped him learn how to get in tune with online audiences as a social media marketer. Incidentally, Jason and Sean themselves are great examples of this dynamic — Jason is a rock-and-roll photographer whose creativity and energy infuse the content he produces, while Sean is the author of several children’s books with a knack for conveying information clearly and understandably.

These posts from LinkedIn inspired me to learn more about my own colleagues here at the TopRank Marketing office, and how their outside hobbies or passions help shape them professionally. So I asked around:

What activities occupy your time when you’re not at the office, and how do they help make you a more clever, curious, and courageous marketer?

Hopefully their answers will inspire other marketers to fully embrace their own passions, and think about ways in which their personal pursuits can fuel their professional success — or vice versa.

The After-Hours Passions that Elevate Our Team Members’ Marketing Skills

Improving Through Improv

Josh Nite, Senior Content Marketing Manager

His jokes and puns are cherished staples during the workday, and Josh puts his sharp wit to good use after it ends by participating in improv shows and competitions. He believes that these comedy performances make him a better marketer for two primary reasons.

“First, they force me to carefully consider words, how they have an effect on people, how powerful they can be. Second, they’re performed live in front of an audience, so I can see whether or not I’m making a connection. It really helps me have a mental image of the reader in mind when I’m writing content.”

Making a Habit of Being Helpful

Debbie Friez, Influencer Marketing Strategist

Debbie is very active at her church, Spirit Garage, where she applies her professional skills to help out with marketing functions.

“I serve on the marketing committee, so that has me looking for new ideas,” she says. “I subscribe to a few newsletters and I’m active in Social Media Shepherds, a group of church communicators.”

In turn, Debbie’s community work through church and other endeavors — she picks up garbage at local parks on Earth Day, participates in a book club, and serves cotton candy during street festivals, for example — helps her develop rock-solid relationships with influencers and clients.

Finding Focus on the Fairway

Anne Leuman, Content Strategist

As someone who regularly covers SEO-related topics on the TopRank Marketing Blog, Anne understands the importance of links (she recently wrote about examples of link-worthy content). And on the weekend, she likes to unwind by hitting the links.

“My No. 1 hobby outside of work is golf,” Anne says. “Golf, believe it or not, requires a great amount of imagination. If you can see a shot, you can make the shot. Playing the sport allows me to hone my imagination skills, leading to more creativity and well-thought-out content strategy.”

She also adds that the sport’s individualistic nature helps her focus on self-improvement. Bolstering your score on the golf course is all about looking inward and making the right personal tweaks, which is also true of content creation.

“Similar to working on my golf game,” she starts. “I’ll take lessons, ask for advice, or spend hours writing each day to ensure I’m above par.”  

Managing to Make a Difference

Elizabeth Williams, Account Manager

As a mother raising two young children of mixed race, Elizabeth feels strongly about doing her part to create a more accepting and fair environment for individuals of all ethnicities and backgrounds.

“As a marketer sometimes it’s hard to see that direct impact on ‘making a the world a better place’ in your day-to-day. But, it’s something I crave. Having that reason behind what we do inspires us to keep going when we’re feeling frustrated or overloaded.”

She continues: “My ‘making the world a better place’ is working toward MLK’s dream — for a world where people will not be judged by the color of their skin. In my family, we experience racism nearly every time we’re in public, whether it’s big or small.”

And so she commits much of her energy outside of work to advocating for the cause of social justice. A marketer’s understanding of how to engage and influence proves helpful in this regard.

“I love applying my knowledge of digital marketing to my activist communications,” she says.

Making Creativity is the Name of the Game

Patrick Pineda, Motion Designer

If you watched any of the awesome 8-bit videos he whipped up for our Content Marketing Combos series, you might peg Patrick as an avid video game enthusiast. But his real passion is for tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons and World of Darkness.

Earlier this year, he collaborated with Anne to create a blog post around content marketing lessons from the realm of D&D, such as the value of originality, the pitfalls of corralling an audience, and the importance of customization — something that is incredibly important and top-of-mind for marketers today.

“The best Dungeon Master doesn’t just create a good story, but they also help players reach their goals,” Patrick noted.

The Rabid Researcher

Lane Ellis, Social & Content Marketing Manager

Working remotely from northern Minnesota, Lane conducts plenty of helpful research for the team at TopRank Marketing, and his proclivities in this area are deeply ingrained.

“Since 1994 I’ve been doing family history research, including several years as one of Duluth’s few professional genealogists, which has taught me many research-related lessons that I try to apply to my social media and marketing career,” he explains.

As someone who was using the internet for research before many of us were using it at all, he’s very adept at quickly finding what he’s looking for.

Harnessing Healthy Results Like a Boss

Lee Odden, CEO

Employees at TopRank Marketing are accustomed to the occasional week or two where Lee isn’t in the office, given the amount of traveling he does for speaking engagements around the world, but recently we’ve noticed that we’re seeing less of him — literally. The agency cofounder has been on a major health kick over the past several months, and the impact has been visibly evident in his physique.

“I’ve found diet, cardio and other exercise have direct correlations to goal-setting, discipline, quality of effort, time management, and optimization of marketing performance,” Lee explains.

In particular, he’s sees parallels in the ways success is measured for fitness and marketing. In neither case should vanity be the name of the game.

“I found it interesting not to focus on weight loss, but clothing size, energy level, and quality of life improvements since those are the real goals,” he says. “I think there are lessons there as a marketer in measuring performance. Views, shares and impressions are like sugary candy metrics that give spikes of endorphins, but don’t really reflect the real goals of leads, deals, and revenue.”

What Drives You?

At TopRank Marketing, we’re lucky to have a team with diverse interests and hobbies. Working with these folks on a daily basis, it’s easy to see they are keeping their marketing skills sharp through after-hours activities, even if that’s not necessarily the inherent rationale.

Meanwhile, staying busy and focused on other things outside of work helps us stay refreshed and rejuvenated once we arrive each morning. So, I ask you, too: What passions outside of work make you better at your job?

Let us know in the comments section below.

Disclosure: LinkedIn is a TopRank Marketing client.

The post Becoming a Better Marketer by Embracing Your Passions Outside the Office appeared first on Online Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

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