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The Dangers of a Summer Heatwave:

How you can help those experiencing homelessness

Excessive heat causes more weather-related deaths in the United States than hurricanes, flooding and tornadoes combined. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), heat-related deaths in this country increased by 56% from 2018 to 2021. NBC news reported that people experiencing homelessness account for nearly half of those deaths.

You can help reduce the risk of death by providing simple support to our most vulnerable community members and learning to recognize the warning signs that someone may be in danger. Heat exhaustion occurs with extended exposure to high temperatures and is made worse by high humidity.Signs and symptoms of heat exhaustion may develop suddenly or over time, especially with prolonged periods of exercise. Possible heat exhaustion signs and symptoms include:

  • Cool, moist skin with goose bumps when in the heat
  • Heavy sweating
  • Faintness or dizziness
  • Fatigue
  • Weak, rapid pulse
  • Low blood pressure upon standing
  • Muscle cramps
  • Nausea
  • Headache

If you notice someone experiencing these symptoms, you can help by providing them with water and helping them to find shade. When heat exhaustion is left untreated, it can become deadly as it progresses to heat stroke.  Anyone experiencing symptoms of heatstroke requires immediate medical attention.

During a heatwave, you can help people experiencing homelessness, to prevent episodes of heat exhaustion or stroke. Here are tips that experts from around the globe recommend:

  • Provide water or electrolyte drinks.
  • Provide an umbrella for shade.
  • Donate hats, sunglasses, and lip balm.
  • Provide Sunscreen. Preventing sunburn helps to prevent dehydration.
  • Donate to St. Paul’s Center or other local organizations that work with people experiencing homelessness. These organizations can mobilize quickly and get help to our most vulnerable community members.
  • Know the location of your local library. They are open and act as cooling stations for those in need.

One final note: The Associated Press notes during a heatwave, if you see someone laying in the sun, do not assume they are sleeping. This is the time to put assumptions and biases aside and check to see if the person needs assistance.

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Tag Archives: Creditors

The Evolution of Fiat Money, Endless War, and the End of Citizenship, by ICE-9

This is a well-researched, thought-provoking, provocative, and all around excellent article. From ICE-9 at theburningplatform.com:

One topic missing from historians’ analysis of the West’s transition from a physical gold and silver based money system to a fiat money system is the defining events that facilitated and enabled this transition.  One can find no detailed and critical political / historical assessment of this transition, and it would be not for lack of effort.  The transition is always presented as if it is prima facie the refined and evolved state of things that warrants no investigation other than superficial praise followed with dogmatic platitudes.  But has this transition away from the “barbarous relic” money system actually made mankind more refined and evolved, or has it instead plunged mankind into an even more heightened and efficient state of barbarism?

One encounters additional blank pages when searching for any attempt at correlating the evolution and spread of fiat money to the prevalence and severity of war.  A collective learned silence descends when attempting to identify why it is, as money evolves, that war become more ideological, destructive, widespread, and prolonged.  We are all familiar with the endless adulations describing the global spread of “democracy”, but why is it so many are unwilling converts and it became imperative to spread “democracy” via war and regime change?  And closer to home, as our own nation “evolves” from a Constitutional Republic into pure “democracy”, how is it we as “citizens” feel more and more disenfranchised rather than empowered despite even greater doses of “democracy” at home?

This essay attempts to identify the defining events that facilitated and enabled the West’s transition to a fiat based money system, examines cause and effect between the evolution of money and the prevalence and severity of war, and binds together money evolution with the history of warfare by demonstrating cause and effect between money’s evolution, the rise and necessity of endless war, and the inevitable transition from “citizens” to subjects.

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Why Water Curing Is The Best Way To Fix Your Pipes

Rusty burst pipe squirting water at high pressure

Water curing is the most reliable way to fix your pipes. It’s a process that involves pumping water into the plumbing system and leaving it there for a few days. It helps flush out any debris and mineral deposits that might be clogging up your pipes while also ensuring that they don’t freeze up again. Here are five reasons why you should choose water curing over other methods.

1. Lower Costs

Water curing is the best way to fix your pipes for several reasons, but one of the most important is that it is less expensive than other methods. First, you will not have to pay for someone to come and do the work for you. You can easily buy mobile hot water curing system for your pipes’ use.

Second, no chemicals or products are involved, so you will not have to worry about buying anything extra. Finally, water curing is much more effective than other methods so that you will save money in the long run. Water curing uses a machine that pumps water through your pipes at high pressure.

It cleans out any debris or buildup that is inside your pipes, and it also forces any leaks to seal themselves. This process is much less expensive than having someone come and do the work for you and is also much more effective.

2. Increased Durability

One of the best things about water curing is that it increases the durability of your pipes. It means that you won’t have to replace them as often and that they’ll be less likely to break in the first place. There are several reasons for this. First, when pipes are water cured, they’re treated with a UV light that reportedly kills up to 99.9% of bacteria on the surface.

It helps to prevent corrosion, which can weaken pipes over time. Second, water curing creates a tough outer layer on the pipes that helps resist wear and tear. It means that your pipes will be better able to withstand the elements and won’t be as likely to break down over time.

Finally, water curing helps seal the pipe’s pores, preventing dirt and debris from building up inside. It not only extends the pipe’s life but also helps keep your water supply clean and free of contaminants. So, if you’re looking for a way to extend the life of your pipes, water curing is a great option.

3. Decreasing Corrosion

Have you ever had a plumbing problem that seemed to come out of nowhere? One of the most common causes of sudden pipe problems is corrosion. Over time, the water flowing through your pipes can cause it to deteriorate, leading to leaks and other issues. The best way to prevent corrosion is to perform a water cure.

In water curing, a solution of water and sodium carbonate is used to coat the inside of the pipe. This solution forms a barrier between the metal and the water, which helps to prevent corrosion. In addition, water curing can help seal small cracks and leaks in the pipe, preventing further damage

4. Stronger Resistance to Earthquakes

Water curing is often perceived as the weakest option, but it has several advantages, especially in areas prone to earthquakes. Water curing works by filling the damaged pipe with water and then applying pressure to the outside of the pipe. This pressure forces the water into cracks or gaps, expanding them and effectively sealing the leak.

The essential advantage of this method is that it creates a flexible seal that is less likely to break during an earthquake. In contrast, traditional techniques such as welding or soldering create a rigid connection that is more likely to snap under the strain of an earthquake. Water-cure’s extra strength can make the difference in protecting your home from earthquake damage.

5. Reduction of In-Ground Settling

Water curing helps to reduce in-ground settling. And when you have a lot of rain, or when the snow melts and saturates the ground, it can settle. It’s because the ground can no longer support the weight of what is sitting on it, so it sinks. It can cause problems for your foundation and your pipes. Water curing helps reduce this problem because it strengthens the ground around your pipes so that it can better support the weight.

Your pipes are less likely to be damaged by in-ground settling. Water curing also helps to improve drainage around your foundation and pipes. Poor drainage can lead to several problems, including foundation damage, pipe damage, and flooding. Thus, water curing helps to improve drainage by creating a network of tiny channels around your foundation and pipes that allow water to drain away quickly and easily.

Water curing is a process that has many advantages. It can help extend your pipes’ life, decrease corrosion, resist earthquakes, and reduce in-ground settling. Water curing is definitely the way to go if you’re looking for a way to protect your home.

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Strange India All Strange Things About India and world

What do building pyramids, going to the moon, paddling a two-person canoe or dancing a waltz have in common? All these actions are the result of a common goal between multiple partners and leads to a mutual sense of obligation, known as “joint commitment.” This ability to cooperate is universal in humans and to certain species of animals, like the great apes.

However, humans seem to have a unique predisposition and strong desire for social interaction that may be one of the components of the emergence of language, according to the authors of the study. How do our social interactions differ from other species? And why? To answer these questions, an international team analysed the interactions of 31 children between the ages of 2 and 4 in four preschools in the United States (10 hours per child). “There have been only a few quantitative analyses of the spontaneous social interactions of 2 and 4 year olds while interacting with peers, although it is a critical age for the development of children’s socio-cognitive abilities. And the ones that exist are either not based on extensive video recordings following individual children for several days or simply do not allow an easy comparison with great apes’ social interactions,” adds Federico Rossano, first author of the study and Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Diego. They then compared their results with similar interactions in adults and great apes

Multiplication of social partners

The researchers analysed the environmental factors (number of partners, types of activities, etc.) surrounding the children. They found that children have more frequent (an average of 13 distinct social interactions per hour) and shorter (an average of 28 seconds) social interactions with their peers than great apes in comparable studies. Adrian Bangerter, co-author of the study and professor at the University of Neuchâtel explains why: “By being exposed to many partners, children learn quickly about the need to coordinate with each other’s behaviour.” The numbers support this quick learning: 4-year-olds already participate in cooperative social interactions more often than 2-year-olds and fight less than 2-year-olds. “Learning how to coordinate with others and how to communicate towards engaging in joint activities goes hand-in-hand with learning how to minimise conflict” adds Rossano.

Social interactions are usually marked by an entry and an exit phase (when one starts a conversation with eye contact and a “hello” and then signalling that it is ending by repeating “okay, fine” or with a “goodbye”). These signals are also present in 90% of social engagements in bonobos and 69% in chimpanzees. It appears that young children use these signals only 66-69% of the time, less frequently than bonobos and adults. “On one hand this might be due to the appreciation that they will interact again with the same children throughout the day, like two passengers sitting next to each other on a plane starting and stopping quick conversations throughout a flight without using greetings each time they resume talking. On the other hand, it might reflect the fact that not every social interaction is based on joint commitment to each other, i.e. at times young children might be bulldozing their way in and assume other children will just adapt to them rather than coordinating,” Rossano explains. More empirical research will be needed to confirm these behaviours, however this study is a first step in the understanding of the role of joint commitment for human social interaction and how it impacted the evolution of language.

Cooperation in Swiss children

A similar study is currently conducted within the framework of The NCCR Evolving Language, a Swiss research centre that aims at unravelling the biological foundations of language, its evolutionary past and the challenges imposed by new technologies. A team including the co-authors of the University of Neuchâtel is working with the after-school care facilities of Neuchâtel and aims to understand the development of joint action in children by observing how their use of so-called back-channel words (uh-huh, okay) changes over time when they play a LEGO® cooperative game. Adrian Bangerter explains why those terms are important to analyse: “We use “small” words like okay, uh-huh, yeah, or right all the time to synchronise our behaviour with our partners. Yet so little is known about how young children acquire the use of them.”

Social interactions facilitated language evolution

The paper was published in the context of a special issue ( that focuses on the “Interaction Engine” Hypothesis. This hypothesis postulates that social abilities and motivations in humans were determining factors in the evolution of human language, whose origins remain unknown. In a series of 14 papers edited by Raphaela Heesen of Durham University and Marlen Fröhlich of the University of Tübingen, researchers investigate the social-cognitive capacities that paved the way for the emergence of language by proposing a multidisciplinary and comparative approach. The NCCR Evolving Language is part of this special issue with seven of its researchers co-authoring 4 papers.

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Materials provided by NCCR Evolving Language (National Centre of Competence in Research). Original written by Emilie Wyss. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Lately I’ve been feeling like my arms were totally out of proportion. At first I thought they looked ok but a few people mentioned that they were a bit short and I might have a bit of t-rex syndrome going on. So I asked my friends on plurk this morning and a lot of them chimed in with loads of good advice, I suggest everyone read this plurk because I’m sure you’ll find lots of good info about body proportions in it.

Amongst all the awesome the advice and the pictures of me changing my arms and hands around, there are a few important things that stood out and I wanted to reference:

  1. This body proportions image that Corvus Szpiegel shared. It shows correct proportions for adult males, females and also children. It’s definitely very helpful.
  2. Penny Patton’s “Vitruvian Shapes” and tutorials on avatar proportions that were shared by Mona Eberhardt. That one is also very informative.
  3. I am wearing the SLink mesh hands in the picture below and I noticed when I changed my hand size, it adjusted the size of the slink hands as well. This was great because I always felt the mesh hands were a bit small looking but the medium size would not fit me. This way I can still wear my small size but adjust the sizing using the hand size sliders.
  4. Even after changing those proportions, it wasn’t a HUGE difference. There is a slight difference in my arm length and it does look a lot better, however my arms are still not the ideal proportion because of my torso and legs.

I was speaking to my friend RubyStarlight Writer about this and she mentioned how it is very difficult to create a properly proportioned avatar because the sl avatar mesh is limited. So her advice to me was, “instead of trying to struggle with proportions, just look at your arms and if your avatar is able to reach over and wipe her butt without a struggle, then you’re fine. If she can’t, then well, maybe you wanna make them longer.”
She always has a way with words! But I guess she’s right and even though they are not perfect, for now they are good enough. I guess messing with my shape will go on forever but I have learned a lot from today’s plurk and also from my What’s your Digits posts.

Messing with my arms

The first picture in this post I actually also changed my legs for as I felt they were looking way too long so I changed them from 56 to 35 and they still look that long in that image. But I kind of liked the long sexy legged look. The pose is the latest release from Diesel Works and it’s part of the Bombastic series. I fell in love with it instantly and I’ll probably do more shots with it.

So what do you think of my current arm length now? I can’t make it any longer, but I guess I can make my torso smaller and legs smaller but I don’t think I really want to do that. Where are your arms at and how do your avatar’s proportions compare to the body proportions image?

I guess the best part of Second Life is that it is our Second Life and we can make our avatars look any way we want. In the end, all that matters is if we are satisfied and happy with it. For now, I think I am pretty happy with my avatar so she’ll stay as is…till I get bored again.

1st image:
*Skin: Glam Affair – Cleo – America by Aida Ewing
Hair: booN TUN247 hair chocolate by boo Nakamura
*Mesh Hands: Slink Mesh Hands (av) Casual S by Siddean Munro
*Shoes: [Gos Boutique] Marilyn Sandals – Classic Collection – S by Gospel Voom
*Pose: Diesel Works Bombastic Pose by Rogan Diesel

2nd image:
*Skin: Glam Affair – Cleo – America – 05 C by Aida Ewing (it’s been released)
Eyes: Mayfly – Deep Sky Mesh Eye (Deep Ice, w4) by Arkesh Baral
*Hair: “”D!va”” Hair “Sayaka2″ (Type A)(Brown diamond) by Marisa Kira
*Dress: Zaara : [Mesh] Chaitra chiffon dress (S) *ivory* by Zaara Kohime
*Mesh Feet & Hands: SLink by Siddean Munro
Sandals: Slink Ilena Sandals Large White by Siddean Munro

Strawberry has been a Second Life Resident since 2007 and a Linden Lab employee since 2019.

25 thoughts on “Proportions

  • June 22, 2013 at 10:55 pm

    This is a classic case of the press screwing you! I’m contacting my lawyer.

    My version of things was far more graphic and vulgar than that. Berry had to go and clean it up.

    Also, I would just like to say that the reason I’ve used the “butt wiping” tool of measurement is because when I first became friends with the lovely Alicia Chenaux, she made me pee myself laughing when she saw a girl with teeny arms and said, “Oh my God…. how does she wipe?” It’s that lovely sentiment that has guided me with my arm proportions ever since.

    Just wanted to make sure Alicia got her butt wiping credit.

  • June 22, 2013 at 11:13 pm

    I was an anthropology major at one point in college, as my dad liked to say when i was deciding on a major i started on “a” and worked my way thru the alphabet of degrees. But i do know a persons arm length will fall naturally to mid- thigh, it seems so long but your arm span, the length from middle finger to middle finger when your arms are opened wide at a 90 degree angle should equal your height. Weird to think you would have an (average 5-7) arm span for an american woman, but its true. Measure it, its pretty cool. So anyway, of the many defects of my avatar, arm length isn’t one of them, I always check to mid thigh.

  • June 22, 2013 at 11:17 pm

    I’m curious how long your torso is… cause my arms are 65 and they hang past my hips….

  • June 22, 2013 at 11:40 pm

    LMAO!! The butt wiping thing is hilarious! It is actually a pretty good way to think of arm proportion. I have been feeling like my proportions are a bit wonky too lately. Needless to say, my avatar can wipe her own booty. I think I have giraffe syndrome in my legs though. Last time I edited my shape I thought I was shorter than I used to be, but now I look at myself and think I’m too tall again!

    Arms and hands are difficult to judge. My arms are currently 86, hands are 20, legs 84. My height is 63. The funny thing is, if you sit and stare at your own avatar too long…anything and everything starts seeming disproportionate but to anyone else it probably does not look that way. I can’t mess with my shape much or I begin adjusting too many parts. lol.

  • June 22, 2013 at 11:43 pm

    I loved this post Berry, I changed my arm length to 90 and my hands to 30. I did not realize the Slink hands would change like that, it is fantastic! Thank you for this. I don’t think people will notice the difference, but I do see it.

  • June 23, 2013 at 3:24 am

    I’ve been fiddling around with my shape recently myself! As India said, look at it too long and you start questioning -everything-…I think it’s worked out for the better, though. xD

    Another fun thing for SL: adjusting your shape so that poses may work a little better. My avatar’s M-L in SS usually (too big for medium but not big enough for large, morelike), and I didn’t like how it looked in profile. The stomach didn’t look good when she bent (and didn’t really seem to correspond with the shape from the front). So I screwed with my bodyfat sliders and came up with something that I liked a bit better. (Still doesn’t work well with SS, but hey! I like it.)

    I’ve been going through so many other little tweaks as well that I’ve started saving shapes with numbers so I know which is the latest one!

  • June 23, 2013 at 3:30 am

    Its a little hard to see if the arm length is quite right since we can’t see precisely where your crotch is (I’ve seen one suggestion that says that the inside base of your thumb should line up with the bottom of your crotch), but it does look pretty good to me.

    I usually end up with 80-85 in arm length, but I don’t go very tall since try to keep all my shapes to 8 or 8 1/4 heads tall; I find that it is very hard to reach 7 1/2, so going with proportions that are humanly possible if not perfectly average seems fine to me.

    For example, one of my shapes is 42 tall (1.88 m), with torso 50, leg length 55 and hip length 52. That shape needs arms at about 80 and hands at 35 to have the hands in the right place. Oh, and head size 60, which of course matters for the measure of how many heads tall you end up.

    You can make someone quite a bit taller still work out alright in terms of the number of heads tall, but you have to be prepared to make your head larger and that means you also need to make your shoulders wider (and your body thicker) for all the other measures to work out.

  • June 23, 2013 at 4:19 am

    this is amazing info, i always thought my hands were to small with the fitting mesh hand but never knew i can just resize the hand size and it will grow all, also made my arm longer because im at a full 100% lenght almost . will have to reread this better to much info lol

  • June 23, 2013 at 4:39 am

    Thanks for sharing the information about the Slink Mesh hands, I didn’t know they’d be adjusted as well when I change my hand size! I think, the T-Rex syndrom isn’t caused by too short arms but too small hands and most female avatars have a 20 hand size (because of the prim nails etc.). I have just changed my hands from 20 to 30 and I think it looks way better now. Thanks again and btw, great post and even better pics!

  • June 23, 2013 at 9:52 am

    I’ve always had shorter arms. Longer just didn’t look right to me. And I did have someone tell me my arms were too short years ago, but I don’t care

  • June 23, 2013 at 11:08 am

    great informations here, arm lenght was a topic for me too, i tried to check it in rl, and then to adapt in sl. the different sizes of slink hands are to fit to the body without gaps (Body Fat, Torso Muscle, Leg Muscle, Knee Angle).

    u can find the few settings here, to fit the hands or feet perfectly to yr body

  • June 23, 2013 at 11:34 am

    I struggle with arm length also, but I seem to have somewhat extreme digits: torso 40, hip length 55, arms 100. In my case, I think the longer hips makeup for the shorter torso. When I look at my shape it seems more like your right-side photo. Regardless, you do not have t-rex syndrome. hehe

  • June 23, 2013 at 2:49 pm

    now, if I could just get my “man part” correctly fitted….

  • June 23, 2013 at 3:44 pm

    When I started reading Penny’s articles on scale and proportion I started re-working my shape. I ended up making a tool to help with getting things in proportion:

    Of course one can just get the Da Vinci image, slap it on a prim and scale it to the right size for their avatar. It helps to make the prim phantom so you can walk into it. That reduces the parallax you have to deal with.

  • June 23, 2013 at 4:01 pm

    Here’s the thing about the so called body proportions. Real people maybe be 7.5 heads tall on average, but that’s where the proportions in common end. In reality some people have super long torsos and short legs while others have super long legs and short torsos. Some people have arms that seemingly end at the crotch while others swing even lower.

    You doubt it? ride a bus for a month and you will see so many variables in body proportions that you will wonder how they ever came up with that average.

    You want to see a celebrity example? Ever watch Kelly and Micheal? used to be Regis and Kelly. Well a viewer wrote in and said, with Michael so much taller than you, and you so tiny, how on earth is it that when you are both sitting at the desk you appear taller? the viewer wondered if this was some adjustment in their chairs. No, as Kelly demonstrated, she has very short legs and a super long torso, while Micheal has extremely long legs and a super short torso. thus when they stand he towers over her, but when the sit she appears to be the taller of the two.

    so please everyone…lets not adhere to a “standard”. A standard is why back in the day so many women thought they should be as skinny as twiggy and why twiggy size models still walk the runway. Starving themselves and in my opinion so thin as to be gross. Not that all thin people are gross..but if your ribs are sticking out and you look like death warmed over should you really be the standard for all women?

    My nephew has very small hands. So small that its noticeable. Yet he, IS a REAL proportioned person.

    Variables, variety, non-standard…these things lead to ACCEPTANCE. Something so few of us ever manage to achieve since we are all DIFFERENT.

    Please don’t box me into 7.5 heads. SL or RL I simple won’t fit.

  • June 23, 2013 at 4:57 pm

    While it is very true that averages are just that, averages, I think that it doesn’t hurt to use them as a starting point if you aim for a somewhat realistic look in SL (which you don’t necessarily have to, of course). Its like writing rules; you can break them for effect, but you should know the rule to start with.

    If you don’t have that base line of an average, realistic shape as a guide, it is really, really easy to get a very warped sense of how realistic or not something looks in SL. I know that if I switch into a “typical” SL shape and then switch back to one of my shapes after a while, I tend to feel they look incredibly short and sturdy. But then I wear them for a while, and they look just right again. So if you’re aiming for a touch of realism, it helps to calibrate your perception now and then.

  • June 24, 2013 at 12:32 am

    @ Anjali Insoo i have seen the link before but because im around here
    Body Fat: 5
    Torso Muscle: 31

    i cant use a bigger mesh hand it will not fit properly and im very tall with atiny hand so the possibility to enlarge your normal handsize was the best option to kill the extremely small hands

  • June 24, 2013 at 1:06 pm

    Hi, Strawberry!

    This topic has fascinated me since my earliest days in SL. I remember talking with the brilliant woman who made my shape (still using it – just modified now) about avatar size, shape, and appearance. She actually made my shape a little smaller for me so I could be more petite – which I am in RL. I had very little experience in SL at the time, and so was still in absolute AWE of the amazing range of avatars. I have remained so, and have marveled at the creativity in avatar design and creation.
    The range of what we can do astounds me still, and I have a deep appreciation of pretty much every avatar I have seen. What fine avenue of expression is the avatar! I’ve got a few in my Inventory, and do bring them out now and again – for fun and frolic (and more tweaking!).
    People are so different – even as we are the same in some ways. It has always fascinated me that avatars are so often, well, larger than life. I have come to understand that this is – at least in part – because of the grid itself and the proportions of it from the beginning. Now, we can change so much more of that and present the world (and ourselves in it) in an ever-increasing number of ways including avatar size, shape, proportion, hue, and, well…you name it!
    One friend is a satellite, another is often a tree. And in our little enclave of close friends we have faeries, wolves, vampires, ghosts, kitties, and girls-next-door as well as an assortment of extraterrestrials and humanoids of varying shapes and sizes. We love them all.
    Still, I think this is an important conversation and one that I am enjoying exploring. A few of our family members and a couple of friends are reading – and some may post at your flickr page; I think Aeon and I will. It seems interesting to note that the readout on height in the viewer Appearance Panel is different from almost every avatar height measuring device we have ever seen – including this one you so kindly point us to. The variation among these tools may be part of the reason this topic can be controversial or misunderstood. However, as died-in-the-wool Second Lifers, Aeon and I love the journey of discovery and we thank you for your continued look into this area of the SL experience. The avatar is central, and exploring the many, many options we have for personal expression through our avatars is critically important in our view.
    Many thanks! (Sorry for the long post…I do get carried away sometimes…)

  • Pingback: What’s your Digits? – Take 3: Proportions Challenge (Size DOES Matter!) | pics by peep

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LIVE: United qualify for Champions League quarter-finals – Hangout

Right, here we go again. Another live stream with your favourite panel at Stretty News TV.

Joining me tonight are the following: Ian, Jonathan and Serge.

Send as many questions as you like in the comments section below, on Twitter or via the YouTube stream itself.

Going live at 22:35. Yes, later than usual due to traffic in Manchester.

Credit to Ian who predicted the 3-0 scoreline during our preview. I thought my 2-2 prediction was a realistic punt. Surprise, surprise.

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Wedding Flower Inspiration 2017

Wedding flower trends will come and go, but at Studley Flower Gardens, we believe in 3 rules that time will never change:

1. Your wedding flowers should be a reflection of your personal style.
2. Your wedding flowers serve to enhance the atmosphere you have dreamed of on your special day.
3. As your wedding florist, we recognize and respect that we have one chance to get these things right and leave a positive, lasting impression with you on one of the most important days of your life.

So while we stay on top of the in the latest styles in wedding flower trends, our focus is always on YOU and YOUR style.

Wedding Flower Inspiration for Your 2017 Wedding

Each year, the fashion and design world looks to Pantone, the name known as the authority on color, for predictions that will influence everything from apparel to ad campaigns. The Pantone Spring Fashion Color Report for 2017 names the top 10 spring colors as a mix of vitality, relaxation and the great outdoors.

Pantone 2017 colors swatch

This mix will be evident as you begin to research wedding fashion, décor and flower trends for this year. You will find muted or pastel hues with pops of color such as berry or fuchsia for contrast as a popular theme, as is “bringing in the outdoors” where large potted plants and over-sized foliage set the stage for a nature inspired setting.

We are so pleased to see some old fashioned favorites, not commonly used in wedding flowers in recent years, are making a comeback! Traditional garden favorites like dahlias, peonies, ranunculus, are paired with romantic blooms of roses, orchids and hydrangea to create romantic and abundant bouquets or arrangements with a French flair!

French connection 2017 wedding flower trends

Shades of soft blues, grays and greens are being mixed to create natural and serene styles that are soothing and very organic, with unexpected elements like sea holly and thistle.

Force of Nature 2016 Wedding Flower Trends

Mixed, rich red, coppery orange and bright fuchsia flowers are softened with muted purples and earthy, celadon green tones in a modern style to achieve a bohemian look that is simple and sophisticated.

Modern Wonders 2017 Wedding Flower Trends

Tropical flowers in tangerine, lemon yellow and reds are paired with natural accessories and bamboo, moss or grasses to satisfy the wild styles.

Into The Jungle 2017 Wedding Flower Trends

Mixed metals will also be a prominent design feature for weddings this year and with flowers, we see them featured in everything from ribbon, glitter and crystal accents, vintage brooch inserts to floral containers.

Studley’s Weddings Are Happily Ever After

We have been designing wedding flowers for generations and over the years we have learned a lot about what makes for, not only a beautiful wedding, but also a happy wedding client!

Our years of experience have taught us much about the approach to wedding events, and we know that getting to know you is an important part of our work. Our designers consider each wedding, no matter the size, as a custom wedding.

 Get Started

To get started on planning your wedding flower selections, visit Studley’s Wedding Services page for our Wedding Checklist and other helpful resources, including our wedding budget calculator, DIY option, as well as plant and decor rental information. And be sure to visit our Mail Order Greenhouse for living wedding favors!

faux living wall rental

Your Floral Decor Consultation

We recommend that you schedule a consultation with a designer 3-6 months prior to your wedding date.

We’ll start by sending you a questionnaire to collect some basic information in preparation for your consultation. This allows us to dedicate our time together to better understanding your vision and expectations.

Your initial 1-hour consultation with a designer is FREE. Book NOW!

Following the consultation we will send you a cost estimate of the flowers chosen and we’ll work with you to fine tune to your preferences or budget.

Your chosen wedding colors, selected attire, and even your venue will play a role in your wedding flower design decisions. Try to make these decisions prior to your design consultation with us. We encourage you to bring swatches, and photos of these choices and other flower ideas you like. For ideas and inspiration, we like the Pantone Wedding Guide from

We are familiar with most local venues and knowledge of your ceremony and reception locations allows us to propose floral décor options that are suitable to your space.

studley flower garden wedding services guide cover

My Pro Tip:

pink and blue wedding bouquetCongratulations on becoming engaged! With so many choices and decisions to make, planning a wedding can be stressful. Rely on the professionals you hire to guide you and help you. Regardless of budget or how expensive your taste, your vendors should be able to help you find solutions that are suitable to your taste, within your budget.

When you look back on your wedding day, your memories will consist of the moments you cherished together with your partner and your loved ones, and the details of planning and decisions will have long fallen away. Try to savor and enjoy every moment!

See you at Studley’s!

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Stun Design & Interactive

Gettin’ Our Blog On

Facebook logo on Mario Brothers' style flag.

A Winning Game Strategy for Social Media.

What makes some social media accounts more successful than others? It may come down to how well they are playing the social media game. What’s the social media game, you may ask? Well, it’s simple. Facebook is designed on a system that functions like a video game. In fact, the majority of social network sites function in a similar manner just not as complex or with as many opportunities to level up your social networking power.

Mario Brothers' style graphic with Facebook flag.

Powering up starts with learning basic social media practices. Here’s an example of how this works. When you sign up for a business page on Facebook you must acquire 20 likes before you get a username. A username grants your page the power of being tagged. Tagging helps others connect and find your business as well as helping to optimize your reach and potential to discover new followers.

Ok, so why does it matter to Facebook or any other social media site how well you are playing their networking game? Because if they see you investing in their business they in return will invest in yours. It’s a basic B2B exchange of services with the aim of developing a long-term business partnership.

Let’s take your social media gamer skills from good to great. Here are 4 pro-gamer tips to help you develop and improve your B2B game strategy!

  1. Show Up to Play — Check in daily, at least once a day login into each of your social media accounts. See what’s happening. Has anyone tagged you, liked your page, left comments, shared your posts, are there posts or articles in your business feed you want to share?

  2. Play as a Team — Being a team player means engaging with others on Facebook. Like comments, reply back, respond to messages. Leave your own comments, likes and share posts & articles from pages that reflect your business relationships and business’s values.

  3. Likes Are Your Greatest Power — The activity you are putting into your account means a lot to how well you are playing the game. One really simple way to show you are invested in your social media sites is to invite people to like your page. Check posts, those who have liked it may have not yet liked your page they may still be considered a follower. Send out invites every day and you’ll see your social media game moving to the next level!

  4. Listen to the Gamemaster — Social Media sites are going to let you know how well you are doing. And if they see room for improvement, they are going to give you tips on how to get to increase your powers to get to the next level. Listening and acting on their tips will be a guarantee for success!

category: social media


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Advice To Improve Your Business Leadership Skills

TIP! If you want to boost leadership skills, begin with your honesty. A leader should always lead group members in a positive direction.

Do you want to excel in your career? It is crucial then that you become a good leader. Even the best leaders can get better, and the following paragraphs are full of tips, techniques, ideas and information that you can use to improve yourself. Keep reading to find out more.

TIP! Good leaders inspire creativity in their team. Using creative thinking and taking risks allows you many opportunities.

Make sure you are able to communicate the vision you have for your team. You should communicate your team’s goals into your everyday life. Make sure every employee realizes how important they are in helping the company reach its goals. It helps build relationships and provides direction.

TIP! One thing you have to have when you’re a leader is some tenacity. When everything goes wrong, the whole team will be looking to you for cues on how to react.

Be honest when dealing with employees, customers and clients – this is extremely important. An effective leader needs to be trustworthy. When you work on your leadership skills, try to set a standard of trustworthiness and honesty. It is only when people are positive that they can trust you that they will look up to you as a real leader.

Look for talent in others. It should be easy to choose who can benefit you and in what way. This is also good when you want to hire someone.

TIP! Those who report to you are likely to judge you based on your decisions. Who do you trust to delegate responsibilities to others? What type of person do you hire to fill important job roles? All those decisions cause others to see you in a certain light.

When you’re working on leading effectively, you have to keep your morals in mind. Make decisions that you can live with as a human being. If you think that a decision will upset you, avoid going down that path. Although there will be people with a different set of morals out there, you have to be sure you’re doing the right thing.

TIP! Keep your eye on everything as a whole at all times. Be solid about the goals you set for yourself.

After reading this article, you have a much better understanding on how to go about improving your own leadership abilities. Use these tools when improving your leadership skills, and pass the information on to others who need help. Do what you can to improve the work of your team and your company.


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Keeping Up The Conversations On Blogs

Keeping Up The Conversations On Blogs

commentsMany thoughts have run through my head–which have not been nice. But honestly! 4.00 am in the morning is not the time for people in a nearby room, when staying in a hotel, to be having in depth conversations. Yes, they woke me up and the conversation lasted 2 hours…@*#!

Good new! Read all my latest post feeds, answered a few emails, twittered and it is still early so apologies but this post has been on my mind for days so it is an opportune time to write it! Michele Martin has asked the question on how can we “Facilitate Conversations BETWEEN Commenters on Our Blogs?” which was inspired by Skelliewag. On most blog the author posts and then commenters respond to the author but what we really want is the author and commenters all interacting with one another.

Now Skelliewag (diagram on the left) suggests that true conversations, which is what we want to achieve, is when we all, author and commenters interact. I would have loved to expand this diagram, but am on my Mac, and can not work out an application to use (HELP!!!). It really needs extra diagram below that shows not only interaction between commenters and author on a post but between posts on commenters blogs and the authors blog! Remember that blogging is all about having conversations not talking to yourself!

For example — Michele originally posted the topic as a discussion thread in Better Blog community then converted it into a post on her blog…we all then interacted and posted our thoughts on her blog and in the forum..then readers like Atul Sabnis and myself responded in more depth on our blogs. Now this is true conversation in action and ideally this is the type of interaction we want to encourage, where applicable.

Now if you are interested in looking at ways to increase interaction conversations on your blog I strongly recommend you check out all the links I have provided above. Here are my additional tips:

  • Obviously you need to write posts that make people want to continue talking about the topic –not easy and unrealistic to expect with every post. However if you write a good post, that makes people think, or that challenges their views it will happen.
  • Show interest in actually having conversations by making time to comment on other people’s blogs.
  • Need to be very effective at managing your comments on other people’s blogs. I use co-mment, which tracks my comments, and it notifies me automatically by sending the comment to my Google Reader account. This way when a person comments on a post that I have commented on I can choose to immediately respond back if I want. Co-mment means I can effectively manage my conversations, and they can be near instantaneous. Read this post on how to use co-mment like I do!
  • Respond to comments on your own blog! This is incredibly important — if people take the time to comment on your posts you need to be acknowledging them by: commenting back on their comments; visiting their blogs and commenting on their posts; when possible, sending them an email to thank them (time for me can be an issue so I try but it is not always practical); and if appropriate turn the comments into a post. Now I have to currently subtract marks from myself for commenting back on my own posts cross.jpg apologies to all my readers. I do comment back — and I do value comments. This week I have been really busy and thought I had responded when I hadn’t! The trouble is I am having the conversations in Twitter, Second Life, Forums and on other peoples blogs so often are commenting back and so it is easy to think you have…. mmm I will need to work harder for my tick! Tips, for what works for you, most welcome!
  • Encourage people to subscribe to your blog obviously conversations are not going to happen if people aren’t reading your blog….I do try to make my readers aware of how to subscribe to my blog but it is not easy. If you are reading this blog and not using a Feed Reader — you really need to because it will save you time! Here is my information on how to set up Google Reader so that you can manage reading blogs.
  • Keep writing! It takes time to build up readers....doesn’t happen overnight. But conversations are not going to happen if you don’t write post.

And if you’re enjoying this blog, please consider subscribing for free.

16 thoughts on “Keeping Up The Conversations On Blogs

  1. Sue, a great post, so much info!
    First of all, hope the conversation that kept you awake was a good one, extra juicy!

    Also thanks for the Google Reader resource, as you know I need to work on this.

    The diagram of how to create conversations via a blog is interesting too, reminds me of the Connected Learning Community project last year or year before where the aim was to connect and converse via our blogs. Hard to crack but getting there I think via blogs like yours!

    Following MLearn 07 via twitter as I write – great initiative Sue!

  2. Thanks for that reinforcement of my feeling about blogs. Being new to blogging, I wasn’t too sure of the ‘etiquette’ ie was it permissible to ask questions and interact with other people’s comments. But as Marguerite said, it is time consuming. What do you feel are the benefits of this time investment-if its a part of an education course, I can see the benefits but as a voluntary thing…..?

  3. Another tip… ask questions… like:

    “What tips do you have for increasing the conversations on blogs?”

    It’s nice when we are asked. It’s nice to know the author isn’t treating their blog as a one-way publishing medium coming from a position of assumed authority, and is able to humble themselves and admit they don’t have all the answers and we are all in this together. (Something I’m still learning!)

  4. Your security word for this comment was “whoa”…very appropriate.

    The issue with blogs and group communication is that blog comment sections aren’t really structured well for those types of communications.

    Using your use of co-mment as a great example…blogs weren’t meant for continuous group conversation out of the box. If they were, you wouldn’t need to use co-mment to aid you.

    Secondly, while I may be interested in what the writer has written (redundant, I know) on their blog, I may not be interested in what other readers are commenting or even want to take the time to read their comments. Perhaps it’s just me, but if there are upwards of 10 or more comments already written to a post, I think twice before taking the time to write something…unless I really, really, want to make a specific and assumably unique point. Otherwise I assume that anything general that I may say, has already been covered by the previous comments.

    To me, the comment areas of blogs aren’t for long term or expansive conversation. They aren’t forums, and they lack the structure for these types of conversations.

    …and when I consider jumping from blog to blog to blog trying to keep up with one topic of conversations…well…my head hurts as I consider the above issues to become exponentially obvious…and painful.

    Just my two cents. Add 97 more and you could get yourself a handburger!

  5. Now I am determined to get my tick back so decided that whenever possible I need to respond on the same day!

    Was no problem dropping past your blog. If Cammie Bean had not set me straight on how to use co-mment I would not have known. So when I saw your comment I decided to drop past your blog to help out.

    Definitely having a lively blog takes work but it is worth it and fortunately I have lots of great topics I can talk about.

    Sorry to say they talked loudly enough to wake me but not enough to hear what they were actually saying.

    Glad you liked my tips and look forward to hearing good news on the Google Reader front! Hopefully the mlearn2007 twitter account will get exciting when it gets started…. and agreed the diagram is very similar to many in the past.

    Thanks for pointing out the aspect of blogging etiquette. Often you are in a place where you forget that you assume too much of your readers. I am still myself working out etiquette. Ideally I should respond to a couple of comments at a time the trouble was in this case they all came through at the same time and I was out touring Melbourne so had no access to comment back.

    Well for me I am so used to engaging in commenting that I don’t see it as time consuming I just see it as part of if I want to make connections then I need to make the effort. Co-mment comes into my Google Reader so it is really quick to click on the link and add more information to the comment.

    Benefits are the connections you make with people. Others know that I value conversations and willingly help–this means they willingly help me.. I have lots of people I network with around the World that help me out as a result and I return the favour.

    I expect you to write a post on why co-mment is so good. I hope you find it useful like I did — and thank Cammy–she rocks!

    Good question..and I should have included that when we write posts we need to use questions that invoke people to want to respond. And good point as to why we ask questions. I definitely don’t wish to be seen as an expert –rather a human that is happy to help out but does not always have all the information.

    Joel and Graham — apologies I am being told I have to go to dinner — we are meeting people… I will post my comment back when I get back — even if it is really late. Please forgive me –running really late!

  6. As promised Joel and Graham I am back! Sorry about that but am in Melbourne at a conference.

    You are correct! Blog comments sections aren’t well structured to manage conversations. Some people do try to make them work more like forums but I personally find that it puts me off. And it is incredibly hard to have group conversations — it does happen but is normally the exception not the rule.

    I am also like you — if there is excessive comments it can be overwhelming to read. And in terms of following the conversations I am more likely to if I am trying to clarify who said what is there is a debate going on.

    Thanks for the link I will check it out thoroughly when I get back to Perth. Was nice meeting you yesterday.

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Sullivan Wood Floors

Serving the NYC Area for Over 50 Years.

TELEPHONE: 212-353-3490

Total customer satisfaction is our goal

Sullivan Wood Floors is one of the leading hardwood flooring companies in the New York City metropolitan area. Throughout our 50 year history, Sullivan has earned a reputation for excellent service and quality workmanship at competitive prices. Every job is owner supervised. Our expert technicians provide superior craftsmanship and skill to your hardwood flooring project. We are proud members of The National Wood Flooring Association, and New York Building Managers Association, Inc.

I had Sullivan Floors Install a factory finished strip oak floor in my apartment on 78th Street. I have to say that it was a wonderful experience from start to finish and everything was as promised. The work men were polite and knowlegable. If you need a flooring company this one fits should meet your needs. I highly recomend them. Note: They advised me that its better to install floors in the spring and fall because of the temp and humidity.

We just had Sullivan Flooring Service sand, seal and apply 3 coats of water based polyurethene to the wood floors in our apartment. The floors look fantastic and the experience was great. Everyone I dealt with at Sullivan (customer service, guy who quoted the job, guys who came and did the job) were professional, personable and knowledgeable. They promptly provided the insurance paperwork needed to get approval from our co-op board and were helpful in rescheduling the job when approval didn’t come through as soon as I expected it to. Would happily use them again and recommend them to anyone.

A few more comments about Sullivan Floors. I just had them do some work for me on my house in Westchester. This is the 4th time I have used them in the past 7 years in different properties I have owned. I find there work just keeps getting better. They are not for the “Pennie Savers” but are a rare breed of high end value type. I recommend them highly and believe you will get good value and a great job with a company that calls you back when theres a problem or calls you about a potential problem

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About Summit Surveying

surveying services for development projects since 1999

Summit Surveying, Inc. provides professional land surveying services effectively and efficiently in East Texas and throughout the State of Texas. Our clients are accustomed to the timely response and quality of service provided by Summit. Our clients include corporations, developers, engineers, architects and contractors based in Texas and other parts of the United States. Summit Surveying, Inc. (Summit), began business operations on February 1, 1999, but the experience which benefits the clients of Summit extends back many years. Employees of Summit have provided surveying services for development projects since 1981 while employed by a local civil engineering firm. In addition to clients associated with private development, Summit provides surveying services for design of public transportation (TxDOT) and city municipal projects. We have worked with the City of Tyler and numerous other municipalities on several street, utility, drainage and right of way projects.

Management Team

Mr. Clark has been a Registered Professional Land Surveyor (RPLS) since 1986. He began his surveying career in 1980, where his early experience was primarily in surveying related to the oil and gas industry and later became involved in surveying services associated with civil engineers and architects.

Mr. Clark’s workload is associated with commercial development projects, particularly where surveying services involving topography surveys, earthwork quantities, land title surveys, land descriptions and record or final plats are needed. As with all employees of Summit Surveying, Inc., his primary goal is customer satisfaction in regard to product quality and delivery schedule.

Mr. Nixon is a Registered Professional Land Surveyor (RPLS) in the State of Texas. Over the years, he has developed superior supervisory skills in regard to the field crew personnel, technical expertise in field operations and office production, and an effective working relationship with clients associated with large commercial and retail development.

A significant aspect of Mr. Nixon’s experience is his involvement with transportation projects for TxDOT. Mr. Nixon is the designated Project Manager on TxDOT projects. He has developed a good working relationship with TxDOT employees and with contracted design engineers associated with the surveying services provided by Summit Surveying, Inc., on transportation projects. He is very knowledgeable about client requirements and expectations. This has been a key factor in a relationship with TxDOT, which started in 1986.

Mr. Urban is a Senior Survey Technician and CAD manager. He attended Stephen F. Austin University, Austin Community College, and The University of Texas in Austin and is certified in both GPS Real Time Kinematic and GPS Static Post Processing. He has over 18 years’ experience rising through the ranks of rodman, party chief, technician, land researcher, and GPS.

His duties include managing, planning, and maintaining quality control over construction layout services including large and small commercial construction projects. Other projects he oversees include roadway construction as well as our work with the Tyler District / North Region of TxDOT and NETRMA (North East Texas Regional Mobility Authority).

Mr. Urban is responsible for managing TxDOT right-of-way, GPS control monument data sheets, photogrammetric control establishment projects, and record research.

© Summit Surveying  |   Website by GroupM7 Design™


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3.12 Abacus

Twelve year old me was probably one of the only people aboard the Sunspot who could have a meltdown on wilderness land and leave it almost as if I’d never touched it. I did do damage. I was there. I could not prevent myself from having some impact. But it was less damage than your average Monster, who are allowed to walk in the Wilderness without comment. Anyone can go walking in the Wilderness, it’s just rude and frowned upon and you usually get a reminder that you shouldn’t do it, if you’re not a Monster.

If you do a significant amount of damage in the Wilderness, however, you might get sanctioned until you can show that you won’t do it again. And the nanites will automatically do their best to repair your damages. The idea is that we do not put undo pressure upon the life in the Wilderness to adapt to our presence. And also, to keep humanity from simply overwhelming it with our numbers. Because there is a certain point where we could do damage faster than the nanites might repair it. Especially if flora and fauna start dying from our presence.

But a twelve year old me, walking through the seaside woods near a city park, hands on my head and elbows drawn in, shunting every urge to thrash and lash out instead through the drive of the Sunspot, was not going to be much of a concern. Also, the Crew was afraid of me.

The records will show that they had no need to fear me, but I know they did. I should have gotten a reminder, a personal notice, but I didn’t.

Well, also, the big meltdown I’d had in Agaricales two years earlier had endangered the ship. I don’t think I can ever take that back in the minds of the people who witnessed it, no matter how often I prove myself afterward.

I was aware I was making a transgression, but that was part of what I needed, I think. To sense that I was doing something, however minimal, that wasn’t beneficial to the wellbeing of the Sunspot. Only it was beneficial, because I was taking care of myself instead of actually lashing out. Part of conscious emotional regulation is that you kind of have to trick yourself. You sort of step aside from your raging self and make decisions for the better while allowing some slack for emotional satisfaction, without letting that part of you that’s hurting notice enough to care. It felt like following my intuition and whims, but making quick little decisions to hold back, or to guide my energy in the right direction, and then forgetting why I did that.

I started causing what I knew were visible flares and warps of energy in the exhaust of the ship, only no one was looking. Flash, flare, floosh, woosh! Nothing to significantly alter the efficiency of the thrust, but definitely spectacular and weird.

OK, someone would see it, in a little over two hundred years. But I wasn’t thinking of them. If you’re them, and you were wondering, this is what those flares were about. I was venting my frustrations.

Well, it was a full blown panic attack, and it wasn’t going away, though.

I felt like I needed to figure out why I was having it and fix the problem, but I couldn’t get myself to think about it. Every time I tried to return to the first thought I’d had when it started, I felt driven away from my memory of it with a resounding “No!” from my whole being.

And then, I was panicking about that.

And I kept walking. The walking was helping.

I kept my eyes clamped shut and navigated with my Phage-senses, which just felt natural since I was also messing with the plasma trail of the Sunspot at the same time.

I was becoming aware that I needed help, and I knew that my mom would be the best bet for that, but for some reason thinking of it made things worse.

Kind of like how the Collective just kept thinking of me but being unable to explain why, my own psyche settled on one person as being the most comforting in the moment, the best fit. Abacus.

I resisted contacting it for several iterations of my panic cycle.

But even though it was probably very busy, I was in need. And I felt like, for whatever reason, that if it could be there for me I might just stop panicking.

In retrospect, it was pretty clear what was happening to me and why I felt I needed Abacus. Let’s just say for now that Abacus was the closest person to me I knew who was also one of the biggest dissenters on the Sunspot. It was nearly family to me already, but crucially not actually family. And if there was anything that the Crew seemed to take for granted as The Way To Do Things, Abacus seemed to be against it. It did pick its battles, but it had started to find critical words for just about everything Crew related. And though I wasn’t really feeling enmity toward the Crew myself at the time, I can look back now and see how that attitude related to what I was struggling with.

So, eventually, I pinged it with the simplest message, “Abacus?”

After a couple of steps I got a reply, “Yes?”

“Help?” I sent back.

Two more steps and then it was already a Network projection right beside me, walking through the woods, a little whiff of nanites floating where the vision indicated its head was.

It could see what was happening just by looking at me, and seemed to know what to do. It just matched my pace and quietly made its presence as clearly known to me as possible without saying anything or touching me or making any other movements. Just walking.

It even walked right through a bush, so I started choosing my path so that it didn’t have to do that to keep up. And after a bit I did start to feel some relief. I was able to open my eyes and drop my arms, but I kept sputtering the plasma trail of the Sunspot.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I said. “I’m panicking and can’t stop.”

Two more steps, then it said, “Mmm.” And two more steps and it asked, “Can you tell me what was happening when it started?”

My panic flared and I shook my head. I realized I was actually terrified of something.

Two more steps, “Are you having any namable worries? Even if they don’t seem like what you’re actually worried about?”

Again, I shook my head. I knew my thoughts weren’t empty and silent, but I literally couldn’t remember what they were seconds after having them. And I certainly couldn’t speak them. It felt worse to name it.

Again a couple more steps, which was nice, before it asked, “May I check the ship’s records of where you were and review the transcripts? I won’t tell anyone what happened and maybe I can reassure you or something like that.”

I clenched my teeth and grimaced for four steps, then squeezed my eyes shut and nodded. Its suggestion didn’t feel good or safe, but it was better than me trying to explain it, and I needed to do something.

It didn’t go anywhere and just kept walking by my side casually, appearing to look out through the trees over at the bay we were next to, and swishing its tail back and forth lazily as it strolled with me. It even clasped its hands behind its back as it did this, and frowned amiably as it concentrated on the ship’s records it was reviewing, the only indication that it was doing so. Wow, did it seem to know just how to put me at ease. Like, genuinely, truly at ease.

“Ah, ok,” it said softly after a while. Thirty four steps. It probably hadn’t counted them, but I had. It had definitely thought about what it saw for a while, though. “That makes sense, and your reaction is understandable, considering what you’ve been through, and I could explain it if you like. But what I think you need to hear is that I think I can shoulder this one for you. In fact, the fact that you’ve just had this reaction here might even help with that, but only if you want. How does that sound?”

I’d actually tensed up a bit more while it had been talking. Certain phrases it had used seemed to stress me out. But when it was done talking I had enough faculty to start doing my grounding exercises.

I looked up at it to see its friendly draconic, closed mouthed smile, and the glint in its amphibian eyes. Just above its head, but below its lure, I had a view through the trees to a patch of sky where a bird was flying. I counted five things I could see in that glimpse and named them in my head. I could hear the bird crying, my feet crunching in the duff of the woods, the lightest sound of the gentle precipitation settling on the leaves, and the crowd in the park, now so far away, still echoing faintly through the tree trunks, people laughing and calling to each other. I could feel my clothes draping my body and wrinkling and shifting as I walked, and I could feel the moisture of the air as it hit my face while I moved through it, and I could feel my heart slowing. I took a deep breath and smelled over a million things all bundled into the soft, comforting rot of the woods, and I could have counted every detail, but then I lifted my palm to my nose and sniffed my own skin to have something distinctly different to count. Then I licked my finger, to taste the sweat and oil of my skin.

Then I took a deep breath and let out a long sigh and said, “OK, I think.”

“Is that good enough?” the old studentless Tutor asked.

“I don’t think so,” I replied, shaking my head as I watched where I stepped. I had stopped sputtering the plasma, though. But I wanted to talk.

“I’ve made time, want to talk?”

“Yeah. But, I think I want to talk about things I’m not worried about right now,” I said.

“That makes sense. That’s a good idea. What kind of things?”

“Well. What are you doing today?”

“Oh. Um. The kinds of things you’ve been worried about, from the looks of it,” Abacus said.

“Oh, hey. Actually. You know how you’ve said you find that counting things and the properties of things makes you feel better?”

“How many nanites am I controlling right now?”

I looked up at it. I was now the same height as Phage, but Abacus was still taller than either of us, and it was standing on its hind feet so I had to look up.. “Three thousand and seventy-nine,” I said.

“Did that work?” It asked.

I stuck my tongue out at it.

“You picked that up from Aphlebia,” it pointed out.

“I did!” I replied.

“You had a PTSD attack,” it said gently. “You were triggered, you know. That’s all that was.”

I frowned, “but I don’t remember being hurt by… by…”

“Don’t bother saying it,” Abacus said. “I know what you’re talking about.”

I nodded.

“Trauma is weird sometimes. It’s squidgy and eats things. It latches onto new stuff and makes it hurt you. Because when you experience a lot of it, it trains your brain to be hypersensitive to other things, especially when you’ve been triggered. So you can develop new triggers over time, even as you’re working on healing from it.” Abacus grimaced at me, and said, “It’s OK, though. It’s expected. And if you just keep doing what you’ve been doing, what we’ve been teaching you, but with the new triggers, you’ll be fine. It just really sucks that you have to.”

“Oh,” I said. “I hate that.”

“I know,” Abacus said. “I hate it, too. But, I think that in this case, this trigger is directly related to your experiences, because you’ve actually talked about it a bit when I was interviewing you for my book. I could explain that for you now, but I think you’ll figure it out when you’ve had time to feel safe enough to think about it. Is it OK for me to say things like that?”

I thought about it for five steps and then nodded, “yeah. I think so.” What it was saying was useful to me. It felt good to hear it, like it was confirming something. And later I did figure it out, like it said. It had to do with that thing where I was taking on responsibilities that I saw around me, especially during that time when Phage wasn’t on the Sunspot. I’d really pushed myself too far too many times and had too many close calls with not enough real reassurances afterward. But at the time we were having this conversation, I just felt myself feeling more stable and really curious about a few things. I was OK that it had sort of ambushed me with that. It had been gentle about it, and I think it needed to do that to help. But I needed to talk about something serious with my conspiratorial friend.

“I did something really weird before I got triggered,” I said. “Did you go back far enough to see that?”

“No,” Abacus shook its head.

“Did you know that nanites can emit different colored light?” I asked.

“Really?” it frowned. Then it looked slightly upward as it was checking something on the Network and then said, “No, they can’t. Not yet. Like, they can be configured to do a lot of amazing things, but that’s not something they’ve been designed to do yet. Like, I don’t know if it’s physically hard to do? It shouldn’t be. Or if no one has thought of doing it. But between using Network projections for most people, and the fact that the nanites themselves can be used for a variety of sensors that cut through the dark, maybe there hasn’t been much call for it.”

“Well, I used them for making light,” I said, eyes wide. “But that’s not really the weird thing.”

“I was using them to talk like a cuttlecrab, with flashing colors, and using my hands to gesture like their tentacles, and I didn’t even realize I was doing it!”

“You were mimicking the cuttlecrabs?”

“Yeah! Like, automatically!”

“And they understood what you were saying?”

“Some of it? Yeah. But not all of it. I think I garbled it a bit. But it had stopped using words out loud, much, and I was still understanding it just fine!”

“That’s amazing!”

“I know,” I said, and let us walk on for a while before asking another question. “Do you ever miss working on your book?”

It nodded a few times and said, “Yeah. Yeah I definitely do. In fact, I uh… I was reviewing it the other day and I realized just how badly I’d messed up a lot of the numbers. I’m working on an addendum to clear that all up. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, you know how you have your PTSD triggers about, well, things, and they’re kinda changing for you?”

“So do I, and apparently the numbers of things is one of them. I think you could tell me some numbers and it wouldn’t bother me at all. But when I try to look them up or try to recall them, my mind just sort of slides out from under me. Especially lengths of time and numbers of people.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know how Akailea corrected me way back when you were going to do your spacewalk and I was trying to tell you my age? That sort of thing. It really rattled me back then, so much so that I didn’t really look into it until just recently. But then I also noticed I didn’t really like contemplating the number of people living on the Sunspot, and when I went looking for it with the Auditor and then verifying some things with the Council records, I found that other Crew members also don’t like working with those numbers. It’s really weird!”

“What’s wrong with the numbers?”

“Well, my age is just kinda scary, really. I’ve been alive way longer than a human seems to be made to be alive. I mean, for my definition of alive, I guess. But the population numbers actually don’t add up! The Auditor is even missing something!”

It glanced at me and scrunched up its lips and didn’t talk for a bit after that.

“What?” I asked.

“Mmm,” Abacus grumbled, then asked, “Can Phage do your numbers thing?”

“Maybe?” I said. “It’s never talked about it. I kinda don’t think so. Like, it seems to talk about the same things but in a more, not numbery sort of way. Like, it can see what I see, but it maybe doesn’t get numbers.”

“Well shit,” Abacus said. “I need numbers. Can you look at the Sunspot and tell me how many Crew there are right now?”

“Oh, yeah! No problem!” I bragged. Then looked and said, “Not counting Aphlebia and Thomas, there are fifty-three billion, seven million, six hundred thirty-three thousand, and seventy four Crew right now.”

Abacus nodded, “Same number the Auditor gave me. Same exact number, yeah.” It made a sort of cringy, self-conscious grin. The kind where it’s more like you’re snarling at yourself, like you’re discouraging yourself from making the next step in something, and then it asked, hesitantly, “Can you tell me how many people have lived on the Sunspot ever?”

That was trickier, but I got it. “Not counting Tutors, I assume?” I asked, because I could see right where it was going when I saw that number.

“Yeah, no. No Tutors.”

“Nine hundred seventy-eight billion, eighty seven million, six hundred three thousand, two hundred and seventy-seven,” I reported. “That’s including the Senior Crew.”

“Welp,” it gulped. “Thank you.”

“What’s happening?” I asked.

“I don’t actually know,” it said. “But I’m gonna find out.”

“I want to help,” I found myself saying, kicking myself for taking on another project.

Abacus stopped walking, turned to me, but looked right down at the ground and sighed really big. “No,” it said, “You really shouldn’t. I mean you’ve already helped a lot just by giving me those numbers. But that’s all I wanted, and I’m good at doing these investigation things so I’m OK. But if you try to help, it’s just going to make your triggers worse. It’s too related to your trauma.”

“But Abacus,” I said. “You and Akailea said I have to face my fears in a safe way, and reassure myself that I’m safe in order to start to get better over them, right? And this is safe, isn’t it?”

“Not necessarily,” it waggled its finger. “Being triggered is a way of being hurt itself. And also, your emotional dysregulation and systemic overload even without your PTSD is a sensitivity that can get you hurt by taking on too much. Right?”

“Solving the puzzle will make me feel better, Abacus,” I made my eyes really big and set my mouth as small and seriously as I could. Then I emphasized my last word, “Endorphins.”

“I am categorically and emphatically and genuinely and very seriously recommending against this,” it said, in low and guilelessly honest tones. It was pleading.

“Who have you asked about where the Crew are going, Abacus?” I asked. “Because that’s so many people missing!”

“I am revoking my consent for your help in this. I am not going to cooperate with you to get the answer to these numbers,” it said sternly. It looked genuinely pained, too. Like it was struggling to decide what words to use to dissuade me. It didn’t want to insult me. It didn’t want to encourage me. And it didn’t want to prod my stubbornness about my curiosity any more than it had.

“Then I guess I won’t tell you the answer when I find it,” I said. “But, I will if you ask.”

Abacus sighed again.

“You know who probably has the answer? Or can probably just get it out of thin air like I can do numbers?” I asked.

Abacus tightened its lips and said nothing.

“Benejede!” I said.

It slapped its thighs in resignation, and shook its head.

“I’m feeling smug, like Phage,” I declared. “It’s a good feeling!”

“I should not have talked to you about this,” Abacus said.

“But I feel better, now,” I retorted. “Thank you!”

I started walking back toward the park where my family was. And I did feel a lot better. Now that I had a mission that I had chosen, instead of one that had been sort of shoved in my direction, I felt like I had control. Which in turn helped me to feel more safe. I felt like I could face the Collective and tell them honestly that someone was indeed working on an answer for them.

Abacus kept walking with me. Eventually, it said, “I feel like I’m condoning your actions when I say this, but I’d be irresponsible not to. I want that to be clear. I want you to know that I’m continuing to request that you drop this project and let me and others handle it, OK? But you should have support, and I’ll support you.”

I looked up at it again and twisted my mouth to the side while I tried to figure out how I felt about that. My immediate impulse was to tell it that I didn’t need its help. And, I thought I really didn’t. It had just told me the thing I really needed to know to control my PTSD.

Actually, Abacus and Akailea had told me before, but I hadn’t really internalized what they were saying at the time. But this time it just sort of clicked. Probably because of everything else I was doing at the time. And, also because playing with the plasma jet of the Sunspot reminded me of how I’d been manipulating my body during my metamorphosis, and even how I’d done so way back during my tenth year birthday party while flying. If I treated my body like another system I was in charge of, I could head the PTSD off at the pass, soothe it consciously before it even started. I had this advantage that no one else had. I could step outside of myself and then soothe my body from a relatively dispassionate place. I was still affected by emotions in that state, but it wasn’t the same. I’d even practiced on myself already in the past, and on Thomas and ‘afeje’a, I remembered then. And all I needed to do was remember that I could do it.

“Thank you,” I said, realizing that that needed to be stated first. Then I looked forward toward the park, which was still far away through the trees. I’d walked quite far! And I told it, “I’m really not like other children. I can do things they can’t.”

“Mmm,” Abacus acknowledged. “But you’re still only twelve years old. There’s a lot of experience you don’t have that, if you did, could help you avoid getting hurt.”

I genuinely considered that. It was right, I knew. But, that just brought me back to the realization I’d had that had set me on this path, after Abacus had started telling me what it was struggling with, which I explained without breaking stride or even looking at it, “And, you realize that people keep telling me things they don’t tell other people, right?”

“But the avoiding getting hurt part is important,” it replied. I know now that it had almost added something about hurting other people, but had decided it was better not to mention that, and I’m glad it didn’t.

I felt the dreadful tension still lingering in my body begin to rise again, so I stopped, looked up at Abacus and said, “Watch.”

Then I took a measured breath and detached myself partially from my body, putting the locus of my consciousness outside of it but not letting go of control over my muscles. And there, I looked at my whole biological system and searched for the stresses in it. And I treated it like I did the Sunspot when Phage had been gone and I was in charge of keeping it from falling apart. I soothed the wrinkles. I applied counter waves to the vibrations that were threatening to push me toward meltdown. And then, I tweaked my own neurotransmitters the same way I’d been doing for my  hormones as I’d been maturing. And as I did this, I felt my fear and distress being massaged away as if by a pair of great big, gentle hands.

And as I returned to my body, I could feel it naturally standing more straight and with no trace of any sort of tremble or waver. My heart had slowed down and beat with less urgency, and breathing was easier and more rewarding.

And my thinking itself had changed. Nothing felt urgent anymore, and there was a clarity to the whole situation that hadn’t been there before. I saw nuances that I don’t think anybody was seeing. And if I’d been a normal Dragon child, I would have seen the truth of Abacus’ arguments and relented right then. But I’m not.

“Abacus?” I asked, trusting that it had seen the deep change in my stature and voice.

“Yes?” it sounded spooked.

“I have a weird way you can help me, but it’s going to feel wrong. We can make it right afterward, though,” I warned it.

“What do you have in mind?” it asked.

“When you write your addendum, say that you set me up to investigate this and say that sending me to Benejede first was your idea,” I explained. “Benejede won’t be fooled. But I’m going to talk to someone else later, and they might fall for it.”

“How is that going to help?”

“Emotional leverage,” I said, feeling really smart about this realization.  I may have sounded smug.

It stood there scowling down at me for sixteen heartbeats before it said, “OK.”

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Romantic Psychoanalysis

The Burden of the Mystery

By Joel Faflak

Subjects: Romanticism, Psychoanalysis, Literary Theory, English Literature
Paperback : 9780791472705, 333 pages, January 2009
Hardcover : 9780791472699, 333 pages, November 2007

Alternative formats available from:

Table of contents

1. The Psychology of the Romantic Subject
2. Analysis Terminable in Wordsworth
3. Analysis Terminable in Coleridge
4. De Quincey Terminable and Interminable
5. Keats and the Burden of Interminability

How the Romantics invented psychoanalysis in advance of Freud.

In this provocative work, Joel Faflak argues that Romanticism, particularly British Romantic poetry, invents psychoanalysis in advance of Freud. The Romantic period has long been treated as a time of incipient psychological exploration anticipating more sophisticated discoveries in the science of the mind. Romantic Psychoanalysis challenges this assumption by treating psychoanalysis in the Romantic period as a discovery unto itself, a way of taking Freud back to his future. Reading Romantic literature against eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophy, Faflak contends that Romantic poetry and prose—including works by Coleridge, De Quincey, Keats, and Wordsworth—remind a later psychoanalysis of its fundamental matrix in phantasy and thus of its profoundly literary nature.

Joel Faflak is Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Western Ontario. He is the editor of several books, including Nervous Reactions: Victorian Recollections of Romanticism (coedited with Julia M. Wright), also published by SUNY Press, and Sanity, Madness, Transformation: The Psyche in Romanticism.

"…Faflak's book is one that must be reckoned with. The range is impressive … Few critics write about literature and theory with equal authority. Few theorists read literature and find the nuances that Faflak continually does. That he is able to breathe new life into a method—psychoanalysis—that has had its day in Romantic criticism is alone a signal accomplishment." — The Wordsworth Circle

"…a book that ought to attract substantial interest, not simply amongst Romanticists interested in psychoanalysis, but also amongst those interested in the literary basis of psychoanalysis." — The Year's Work in English Studies

"…unquestionably a worthy and innovative contribution to a growing body of criticism." — Byron Journ

"…a splendid, thought-provoking book…" — CHOIC

"Other Romanticists have produced psychoanalytic readings of British Romantic texts, and it's almost a truism to say that Romanticism 'anticipates' the insights of psychoanalysis, but no critic has made such a thorough, persuasive case for seeing the poetry as anticipating the psychoanalytic scene itself. Faflak's bold and original argument about Romanticism's 'invention' of psychoanalysis will command much interest." — Karen Swann, Williams College


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By CNN Philippines Staff DSWD aims to finish distributing the second tranche of the Social Amelioration Program to 12 million families by July 31. Duterte appoints CA justice Padilla to Supreme Court

Jun 15, 2020 CNN - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos View the latest news and breaking news today for U.S., world, weather, entertainment, politics and health at Philippine Newspapers : Filipino News Online Philippine Daily Inquirer. It is one of the most widely circulated newspapers in the Philippines. List of Philippine Fake News websites - Rotten Websites Wiki Apr 21, 2020

Jun 15, 2020 · Maria Ressa, Executive Editor and CEO of Philippine news website Rappler, arrives for the promulgation of her cyber-libel case at Manila Regional Trial Court in Manila City Hall, Manila

Philippine Newspapers Official news website of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippine's leading newspaper.

Jul 22, 2020

DOH Hotlines: 02 894-COVID 02 894-26843 For PLDT, SMART, SUN, and TnT Subscribers: 1555 Republic of the Philippines Republika ng Pilipinas (Filipino) Flag Coat of arms Motto: " Maka-Diyos, Maka-Tao, Makakalikasan at Makabansa " "For God, People, Nature and Country" Anthem: Lupang Hinirang Great Seal Dakilang Sagisag ng Pilipinas (Filipino) Great Seal of the Philippines Show globe Show map of ASEAN Location of the Philippines (green) – in Asia (light green & dark grey) – in The Philippines has 72,269 virus cases, including 1,843 deaths, as of Wednesday. Airlines Suffer a Shaky Start as Philippines Eases Lockdown. For more articles like this, please visit us at Jul 12, 2020 · Steven Gan, the co-founder and editor in chief of Malaysia’s most important political news site, says there is a good chance he will be going to jail on Monday. Wikipedia creates list of fake news sites for the Philippines - Extradot Jul 22, 2020 · Philippines morning news roundup is the most comprehensive hand-curated selection of Philippines English language news headlines published. Each weekday we scour hundreds of local and international news sites and websites to find the most recent Philippines English language news today. Jul 22, 2020 · FILE PHOTO: Maria Ressa, Executive Editor and CEO of Philippine news website Rappler, speaks to the media after being found guilty of cyber libel, in Manila, Philippines, June 15, 2020.


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Capgemini: showcasing blockchain in the supply chain space

By Sean Galea-Pace
Jorg Junghanns, Vice President Europe, Digital Supply Chain of Capgemini, discusses the importance of establishing a strategic blockchain approach while...

Jorg Junghanns, Vice President Europe, Digital Supply Chain of Capgemini, discusses the importance of establishing a strategic blockchain approach while ensuring customer-centricity in the supply chain space.

With technological innovation accelerating on a rapid scale, an increasing number of companies are beginning to introduce blockchain into their operations in a bid to counteract cyberattacks.

Blockchain is a relatively new technology. Having only existed for just over a decade, it has become a popular component of how companies keep their data encrypted and secure. At its core, blockchain is a chain of blocks, however, instead of a physical chain, there’s digital information (the block) stored in a public database (the chain). Jorg Junghanns, Vice President Europe, Digital Supply Chain of Capgemini, believes it’s important to first establish a clear blockchain strategy instead of implementing it with no direction. “There are several key questions to ask when setting up a blockchain approach,” affirms Junghanns. “What do you want to use it for? Is it the right thing? In what ways are you using blockchain? From there, you can critically assess if blockchain is the right choice.” Having spent 17 years at Accenture, Junghanns has the experience and pedigree to lead Capgemeni’s blockchain strategy. “Both companies operate a similar business model so it wasn’t a major difference,” he states. “At Accenture, I gained lots of experience in management consulting and it really laid the groundwork for me to succeed in my current role with Capgemini.”

As a research and advisory company that prides itself on delivering the best service to customers, Capgemini is recognised as a leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation. With a customer-centric mindset, Capgemini is continuously seeking how to better serve its customers through innovation amidst the ever-changing technological world. As a result, Junghanns points to the distinct advantages to leveraging blockchain. “It helps to fix problems such as transparency, trust, IT and process security. However, the blockchain solution only works if there’s a number of partners using it. It’s also important to form the right partnerships to make them part of your solution because convincing others to engage with you on in blockchain is one of the biggest challenges to overcome.” Capgemini offers a diverse range of services that caters to a variety of different sectors such as aerospace & defence, distribution, travel & transportation, automotive and telecoms. Junghanns affirms blockchain is still in its early concept stage as companies begin to search for the best ways to utilise it. “The key challenge is to convince others to engage with you on the blockchain journey along with the usual challenges of IT implementations, the cost involved and ensuring the right partners are onboard.”

The influence of new technology can’t be ignored. Over the past decade, artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data are increasingly impacting how businesses conduct operations. With companies worldwide searching for ways to leverage new tech in a bid to speed up their existing processes and differentiate from competitors, this has led to AI and machine learning (ML) becoming prominent features of businesses’ digital transformations. However, Junghanns believes there is still room for development before AI is considered an essential tool industry-wide. “Technology is becoming increasingly important, but is AI a key part of all businesses’ strategies at the moment? Not yet,” explains Junghanns.

The scale of what tomorrow’s technology could be is staggering. The supply chain industry remains keen to introduce technologies such as ML and AI to enhance productivity and streamline operations. “We primarily use AI for demand and network planning as well as fulfillment management,” he says. “We’re continuously looking at how we can include AI to better serve our clients but we certainly don’t rely on it.” With staying ahead of the curve paramount to success, Junghanns believes in the importance of juggling innovation with customer-centricity. “It’s our responsibility to identify a pragmatic solution that helps our clients. We have to be ahead of the latest trends,” he explains. “However, we must ensure we tailor-make solutions to our clients’ needs and integrate new technologies based on what they really want.” It’s fair to say Capgemini values its customers. With customer-centricity recognised as a core part of the company’s corporate values, Junghanns believes his firm’s success rests on how it treats its customers. “We’re fair, frank and open. We believe that we can help our customers achieve their targets more efficiently than anyone else. It’s about putting our client’s needs at the heart of what we do.”

Looking to the future, Junghanns has a clear vision for the future of the supply chain industry. “It’s clear that technology is the future of the supply chain space,” he says. “We’re currently working with our customers on ‘no touch supply chains’. We want to free up supply chain professionals and allow a greater focus on strategic thinking to enable better decisions to be made. We want to make life easier for the millions of executives working in supply chain. The future is full of uncertainties and exceptions but it’s how you manage these challenges that ensures you succeed in the future.”

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