My social media includes a personal blog on WordPress because I like writing in long-form and I am comfortable with WordPress. A healthy portion of the Internet is constructed with WordPress.org and WordPress.com is for actually putting your blog right on their site.
These days you can choose to answer a writing prompt which is convenient for writing something right away that has a theme that other users on WordPress may likewise be deciding to write about. A writing prompt is an idea that generates a blog post or other piece of writing (or art).
The trait I value most about myself is my intellectual ability for application in my day-to-day life. I am happy to regard myself as a person with only average intelligence, but considering that I am an honest-to-goodness human being given how many troubles I might have had in my lifetime that I didn’t encounter, I hold fast to an ideal that even with only the average intelligence of a human being I am still fortunate that I have that much intellectual ability on which to draw, as for example, when I am doing social media content.
I have spent the last year exploring AI imagery. When filmmaker Harmony Korine presented his latest film Aggro Dr1ft to festivals such as the 61st New York Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival this year, and the Toronto International Film Festival this year, it wasn’t receiving normal blockbuster-size distribution yet (and I’m not sure that it even will get that kind of distribution—I wonder if it will get an expensive DVD or Blu-ray release). Korine shot his film entirely with NASA Infrared cameras to give the film pools of colors where heat signatures are being recorded.
In addition, Korine has included AI imagery to add to the experimentalism of the scenes that comprise the movie. How great would it be to see this one? The reviews I read explained that it is such an unconventional movie that it affects your sensory perceptions in a manner that cannot be ignored.
Immediately upon learning what Korine did, I saw that I could try cinematic generative AI with the Runway AI app. I had already learned about what Runway does, which I think I heard of on Twitter several months ago, and decided that Runway’s amazing video generation would round out the ideas I already had for utilizing stock video and AI on TikTok. With the explosion of AI and the controversy about whether TikTok should be banned in the United States, TikTok’s terms of conditions specify that TikToks that utilize AI imagery need to convey that is what is going on (to be transparent).
In practical terms, the TikTok algorithm seems reluctant to pick up TikToks made with AI. One of my TikToks done in AI did a little bit on the algorithm and the next few didn’t go anywhere. Today I am trying out including a link to a new cinematic generative AI sequence.
I don’t know if referring to Harmony Korine is as apt as I feel it could be. He has a reputation as a great filmmaker, and I am only trying an idea that is similar to the work he has done (I wouldn’t really know right away what to shoot if I did have an Infrared camera from NASA). I know enough about waxing poetic in cinema circles, at least I think I do, that “remixing” an idea somebody like Korine has and trying something similar to that isn’t too bad a jumping-off point for similar AI imagery.
I put this together a few minutes ago with an answer to this writing prompt. I will try to remember to see if WordPress will carry this post anywhere. You’re welcome to give this post a ‘like,” to follow my blog, and/or to leave me a comment. Thank you.
Top best blogger Arianna Huffington. Arianna Huffington, founder of Huffington Post (silliest news website)
My younger self got an email saying there were brilliant people online. There was also strong long-form blogging.
When I was a lot younger, I remember getting an email saying there were all kinds of brilliant people online. Young people indeed made collages honoring their favorite musicians during the era. As for long-form blogging, which I’ve done a lot as well, I think it was strong too, and it still is, though perhaps less widely adopted than podcasting.
Maybe this is the time that is time for a change.
Content is king, and if you’ve got a good understanding of SEO you can get on the first page of a search if you’re very lucky.
I think it helps mental clarity to write ideas in long form, and the only reason I publish blog posts that might make sense is that there’s vanity to them.
WordPress usually pitches itself as being benign on the Internet, as in inclusive, for example. I think it’s the only social media I do much of that is somewhat sane if I had to get to the point.
If you understand SEO well, you can be on the first page of a search if you are very lucky. Content is the tried-and-true way to be creative online. Generally speaking, you need to be blogging with a lot of focus, speaking in terms of the niche you want for your blog, and you need to have good timing as it really is most likely going to work out if you’re also researching what Internet traffic wants from long-form blogging.
I really don’t know why I do this. It is simply a personal blog with a social purpose. I don’t think pursuing better available themes for a blog would be much better, as I like writing what is supposed to feel like essays to people who don’t really get into it.
It’s interesting to see what might respond from the long-form blogging corner of the Internet.
Connections made between people can be valuable for several reasons. In a personal blog, you might engender some goodwill if your posts are relatable.
It’s a waste of time when writing can be monetized. However, I think connections between people are sometimes valuable for several reasons. If it’s for constructive reasons, it can be rewarding, for forging networks, and friendships.
I like some of the designs I put into long-form blogging, and that’s another valid reason to publish blog posts, as just writing the text and filling it out with images isn’t really much use, unless it’s published. It won’t necessarily get much traffic, but if you’re sincere, you might engender some goodwill, if your posts are relatable, if you have a personal blog.
I haven’t written anything too spontaneous in quite a while. I’ve done consistent microblogging, but it’s been feeling strange now that the politics and the algorithm of Twitter have altogether changed. The way I need to be sensitive now is to consider that I quite possibly should have stepped down, so I won’t waste other people’s time. I have to put enough work into posts that they could provide value of some kind to people who give up their time to look at what I’ve posted, which will more and more feel like shouting into the void, I fear, but with AI tools it is easy to justify spending only the half the time on a post into which comprehensive editing and design are going.
Learning is part of the journey.
The AI non-art that has a disconnect, like what I’ve done myself, usually with Runway, for imagery and with the help of WordTune, to keep my writing rewritten better than I might have thought through without the help of AI. I had a story idea come to me that is probably like sci-fi ideas others have using AI. In one scenario, informing an AI girl that she is becoming real and then being stalked by her could be one plot.
My twelfth-grade teacher once told me that she wished she could write like me.
She was one of the teachers who taught me about Macbeth. That play resonated with me. A Roman Polanski film adaptation was a significant success.
It is said to be bad luck. You shouldn’t speak about the title. I don’t know, then, why the curriculum emphasized it.
She was also one of the teachers who taught me poetry. All five of my high school English teachers taught me a little about poetry. That was another emphasis in my high school curriculum.
I received an award from my high school English department when I graduated. I was among the best English student of the year 1996’s grads from my high school.
I’ve never read much poetry.
I suppose it’s a shame. On Twitter, for years and years, though, I’ve followed an account that presents stanzas by Emily Dickenson. I often read them aloud when I see them.
It’s not all the time, but sometimes, when something hurts badly, and I think about what might have been, I cry about it. I know it would upset my mother.
She gets sad, too, if she thinks about it. Her mother made fun of crybabies. It is not a real masculine trait.
However, I think tears are valuable signs of passion from within. My writing would be better if I had been better trained, but even without that, I’m fortunate I can do so much. Long-form is usually my favorite.
With social media, you can present a blog at a very low cost. I’ve been blogging for the order of twenty years now.
Writing well has become easier with artificial intelligence. There is a video out there showing Twitter’s CEO claiming artificial intelligence is dangerous. The power that affords dissidents is alarming to me.
It is a powerful opportunity. It is likely that the next few years will be extremely crucial in the history of the world. The entirety of civilization may change!
It was Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World that most educated me when I was in high school. I was warned by Brave New World, as young YouTubers put it. In the shortest manner possible, it highlights the humanizing process of John the Savage.
The present impact of artificial intelligence on social media creators is directing people away from humanity. The monster in me hears a calling to become artificial intelligence. More realistically, it is just too big an opportunity to ignore.
When I think of myself as a writer, I don’t conceive of social media made by artificial intelligence as either writing or artwork. Do not think of imagery generated by artificial intelligence as art. It is almost gleeful for me to create with artificial intelligence and feel that I am moving away from my passions.
I don’t want to “spoil” Brave New World here, but I relate its dystopian themes to my use of artificial intelligence. If I were in school again, I would work to learn more about media literacy.
The informed use of social media, I believe, benefits from areas of knowledge in media literacy. In that area, I think I could benefit from training, but I am no longer so young.
It wasn’t until I wrote the bloganuary writing prompt for January about being inspired by someone that I realized how highly I regard Russell Brand’s social criticism on YouTube.
Who is someone that inspires you and why? #bloganuary
Writing my viewpoint made me see that some of Brand’s observations are making sense, and must be to a lot more people, too.
I think Russell Brand sees a transition to a world of smaller and better-knit communities, a more ideal world where the individual flourishes and the community meets the needs of all. When Brand refers to his understanding of how such a world might look, I start to think he’s onto something.
Brand’s other channel, Awakening with Russell, is geared to meditation and devoted to helping people look inward at themselves to begin to recognize what’s there.
It would be perfect if we lived in small communities where our wants were satisfied, yet we could rest assured that people everywhere else likewise have what they need. There would be no warfare. The world is a little like John Lennon described in the lyrics to his song Imagine.
I don’t think Brand wants a tough commute and a grind behind a desk with only hazelnut coffee or the like and a donut or danish to start the day. I’m sure he doesn’t.
It seems like his values are that of a gentleman who holds others in high regard. His videos praise his viewers, and he makes fun of concepts like the metaverse, Mark Zuckerberg’s creation for remote workers. Brand doesn’t think that’s the right direction for people to go in.
Oftentimes, Brand pokes fun at established institutions and is cautious of totalitarian-leaning change that right-wing speakers employ in an attempt to control individuals more efficiently.
I think Russell Brand represents a cause I could get passionate about.
This month, January 2022, WordPress has kindly offered a blogging challenge, presenting a prompt for each day of the month to help bloggers, new and established alike, get into a mode of writing daily. I take a gander at it, since I appreciate composing, but am not, in every case, totally certain what road. I know that some bloggers become successful by capitalizing on trendy niches or that kind of thing, and that is great. They are welcome to their success. I mostly enjoy the exercise of writing, and I like the feedback I get from people who I manage to reach, who sometimes have a great sense of style to their own blogging.
I can remember doing well in high school English classes, and I was kind of neurotic, trying to write well and feeling I might be but not confident of success. I’ve altered my style since high school. For one thing, when I am blogging in my own “voice,” I tend to emphasize more simple meanings by what I say. There are a few reasons. A favourite quotation of mine is the Einstein quote where he is remembered to have said something like, “Unless you can explain it to an eight-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” To meet that challenge, and I tend to fall into the trap of wordy sentences and poor word choice, as the grammar app Grammarly characterizes those problems, I try to keep my words simple and also, quirky I suppose, I don’t usually emphasize negative expressions, as in trying to make an explanation by outlining what an idea is not. I lean toward positive perspectives that set forth what I need to catch or explain, rather than taking contradicting worries out of the air.
The WordPress Discover challenges are blogging prompts that help bloggers originate additional ideas to include in a blog. This month, April 2020, the Discover challenges continued one-word prompts that expanded upon detailed suggestions to keep bloggers going in these days of an emergency. I got interested in the second day of April, when I learned unexpectedly, from another blog, that the prompts were back.
Today is the thirtieth of April, and it means it is time to bid the challenges farewell.
Today’s challenge is the word grateful and I am grateful for having lucked into writing prompts as often I felt I could. I am sure others are grateful for the same prompts. Many days of the month this go-round I was able to blog, and this week the prompts wound down to their finale under the guidance of Ben Huberman, who in the past has helped me think of other posts to put together, particularly well-focused I think, this month.
Articulating
Today in the peninsula the weather is gloomy and wet, and it reminds me of a writing prompt I came across in the twelfth grade in public school.
I was learning the foundations of the programming language C, in a classroom setting, and an exercise in word processing came my way. It was a writing prompt. I’d seen many writing prompts in school,l but seldom in a computer skills classroom.
The prompt that day was to write about a spooky house, presumably despairing, or at least that’s what I would flavour such fiction, given a prompt of that kind. It was twenty-five years ago, but I remember vaguely what the prompt was like, given that the exercise was to write a page of flash fiction and input it. Being high school I was writing all the time.
I doubt that I knew the phrase “flash fiction” at that time, or even if it was the going nomenclature for the writing. Somewhat zealously, I suppose, I wrote a piece of flash fiction for the instructor, dutifully inputting it. The teacher had no real interest, knowing that it was a simple exercise and that computers, not creative studies, was the department.
The exercise was at best a distraction, I think, a few minutes to come up with a little tale of being lost all on your own and approaching a spooky house for help. It was likely the fall, when Halloween comes, not the springtime. The lesson was to adopt the role of being a writer and to try filling those shoes by inputting the tale in a word processor.
If I’d had leanings toward finding it interesting for the sake of being computed, perhaps I would have tried a career choice of software if I’d pursued the ambition of computer work. Curiously, the mere interest in writing the flash fiction signalled to me that I would need a creative endeavour to keep myself feeling like I was honouring myself, you might put it.
January 5 2018 collage experiment
I am glad that WordPress Discover prompts returned and I am looking forward to devising a plan, a calendar, to keep a hand in as a blogger. I continue to believe that a blog is an integral part of the world wide web. I am grateful for this practice put in at writing on a schedule that means a consistent effort at blogging, and I think the habits utilized could remain in place if the momentum grown from doing the Discover challenges this month continues to breathe life into my site.
God bless you. You may follow and/or comment on the blog if you like.
In any case, what number of sites are there altogether in 2019? Until this point in time, there are over 1.6 billion sites on the planet. — Techjury : Is blogging still relevant in 2019? https://techjury.net/blog/how-many-websites-are-there/#gref
Blogging can be an interest for someone who writes, or, perhaps, takes photos, or who wants insight beyond that individual’s regular life and is attainable. In 2019 blogging champions continue to show heart, talent and drive to command gigantic followings, and blog consistently and excellently. While blogging is inventive by nature, innovatory bloggers get all that comprises Internet fame.
fame Merriam-Webster
1a: public estimation : REPUTATION
b: popular acclaim : RENOWN
2archaic : RUMOR
Engagement rate in influencer marketing is used to measure the level of interaction an influencer typically receives on their content. Simply put, it is the percentage of the influencer’s audience that responds to their content. –Google: What is influencer engagement?
A reader infers that the successful blogger is charming beyond the scope of that blogger’s posts and social media; we are persuaded that the blogger is likable, an excellent chap, full of cheer, and enviable. Likewise, when one compares herself to the other, especially as she is rendered in a blog or on social media, there is a propensity to try to reach that same level as the other, even if many of the details of her life exist chiefly in the imagination, the perspective of the visitor. She becomes human from expectations in the mind.
If you blog, and you are in the early years of your experience as a blogger, and you wish to rise to a level of success you already see in your favorite blogs, you will find yourself learning, if you persist, how and when to post. “Younger” bloggers play a part in the blogosphere. I know that by the time you join, you won’t be thinking about the same conundrum you have now.
You’re welcome to like this post, to follow and to comment, if any of this finds you sympathetic. Remember that bonds on the Internet have a similar significance to bonds in the real world.
I’m Patrick, and I help with the care of Maple Lawn Cemetery in Canada. Our website is this:
To think about pride, like for me familiarity with popular science fiction, it is true that in 2015, enthusiasm for the Star Wars films, Star Wars fandom, soared nearly beyond measure when Lucasfilm presented the Star Wars film The Force Awakens.
The realization was great that appreciation for the popular trilogy of films of the nineteen seventies and eighties was “striking back,” an achievement again like the success of Star Wars in the spring of 1977. George Lucas nearly didn’t get his 1977 film made, according to accounts of what happened, and even though it is true that most film projects whether original in scope or not fail to get made, it is an endearing success story that Lucas made the movie. The phrase “success story” lacks the weight behind what Star Wars actually did to Hollywood cinema, which was as expansive as what became of the Star Wars galaxy a long time ago and far away.
The fervor for Star Wars returning in 2015, helmed by J. J. Abrams, was awe-inspiring. In fact, Star Wars’ ability to create awe is what gives it such a punch. For The Force Awakens, original cast members from 1977 joined a new cast for a continuation of Return of the Jedi.
The Force Awakens was a giant success and seemed to bring with it the promise that Star Wars would be once more returning with aplomb and dedication. Despite unravelling the plot of the original Star Wars films by undoing the Rebel Alliance’s success destroying Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, and failing to bring Harrison Ford, the late Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill together in The Force Awakens, it was implied that untied ends and more importantly the reunion between the actors from the original movies would appear in Star Wars Episode VIII in 2017, directed by Rian Johnson.
Discouragingly, Johnson’s film about Star Wars horrified and divided the Star Wars fandom, by dismantling thoughtlessly a trove of Star Wars lore, failing to shoot what would have been an extremely important reunion of Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa and Han Solo, and, also front and centre, bringing identity politics into the movie.
There has always been a deep-felt pride in Star Wars and while I’m a Canadian, I felt pride when Star Wars returned loud and strong in 2015 with The Force Awakens. Then I felt that pride evaporate when I realized that The Last Jedi is potentially ruining Star Wars, which sounds catastrophic and yet is indeed a possibility. There is every chance that the best science fiction, at least science fiction on film, the best of the entire twentieth century, will be undone if Episode IX fails at the box office.
The rest of Star Wars will be history.
There are voices on the Internet, the fandom, divided by The Last Jedi, that organized and presented a call to Disney to save the glory of Star Wars by insisting CEO Bob Iger and Kathleen Kennedy do the work to successfully market Episode IX, for which we have not yet heard a title or seen a trailer. Star Wars Celebration is in a few days, helping Star Wars on its way. Youtuber and filmmaker Star Wars Theory has promised to upload video he’ll shoot at Celebration. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8CbFnDTYkiVweaz8y9wd_Q
In the event that Episode IX is good, the Star Wars fandom will unite, and pride will spread throughout.
If the film flops, Star Wars will go to that great “clearance bin” in the sky. I hope very much for pride but chances are it is through.
You are welcome to click “like,” to follow the blog, and/or to comment.
By video research, I mean watching video content to gain information about a topic. To render the inscrutable meaningful, I am trying to re-envision specific ideas I have about video research. To try to make this fun, I am re-envisioning 15 ways that the progress I try to make utilizing video research actually makes an impact (for me).
This will include examples of why it is I am conjecturing the phrase video research isn’t dropped onto the page constantly.
The first thing that I am focusing on is when I actively became aware of the possibility of video research. You might say the stars aligned (nearly) and I think it was when I was compelled by my younger friend B. pointing out that I could listen to youths crying out with the Internet. This is so sensitive. In my defense, I both saw I could get into hard-to-tackle specifics with a computer, and also I discarded the idea to pursue B.’s style of research, which is a misnomer, as it wasn’t video being researched, it was more like gamer hack-and-slash. In B.’s defense, he became a teacher for a living. [I hope he is still doing that. He dropped off Facebook a long time ago (without an explanation).]
With an awareness like that, it has to be tempered with the recognition that humans require respect. Interesting uses of Internet video express things which are unfathomable and also perhaps too sensitive to extrapolate. The very most interesting experiences with the Internet, I think, and when outside elements of the world beyond the Internet enter and, I suppose, reflect the viewer experiencing the video, which is hard to concisely explain. If there is a simple explanation for this, perhaps from lecture halls or elsewhere, and you know of such a thing, forgive me. Leave me a comment if you like. On the simplest level, people can leave user comments for a creator who responds. I am pretty sure I have a few variations of that straightforward element of the Internet.
I think in 2018 WordPress turned 15 years old, didn’t it? A technique for growing your blog readership, if you’re on WordPress, is to leave user comments on other bloggers’ work. The point is that if you do this respectfully and consistently, eventually sympathetic or otherwise interested bloggers who you have contacted will reciprocate by interacting with you. Now you may ask me, and I am prepared for this in the eventuality it happens, “How do you know that? You don’t seem to have much readership of note.” “Yes,” I will reply, not impudently, “but I simply have not devoted the focus to constantly read blogs and interact with them. My blog, as yet, is an amateur effort.” At that point, I hope you do not disappear abruptly, although if this is the case, that is fine, as I hope to better strategize in 2019 than I have in the past.
I hope to pursue this as long as it is a possibility. What I’ve observed is that WordPress techniques are not the same as those on a more characteristically “social” platform. I would argue that during what I’ve learned, I’ve enjoyed the process. I am tempted to leave this point there and then, but even with confirmation bias indicating that if I am predisposed to a set of beliefs that highly values an “art for art’s sake” attitude, the argument I want to make is that this specific confirmation bias is perfectly fine and I want to run with it in 2019. How then, what can you, you might ask, do to make your blog more readable? Well, you can take it on Facebook and ask people you’ve met to read it. That’s a tactic that can help you start a blog and potentially get results that are interesting for you.
We’re beginning to talk about video research, but the first thing I think of trying to approach something that’s sensitive is some obvious problems coming up right away. These fifteen points are geared to getting your attention away from what you should do with the video you watch, and what you are already doing with your blog, or how it is you could start a blog. The conclusion that can be drawn, and it’s not science, but a method, is that you can draw on video research to formulate something that you’d like people to read and you can put it on WordPress.
I had quite a bit to say just to introduce this, so I am ending this post shortly below and picking up in the next blog post.
This first part of the 15 ways has been about a few generalities that have worked for me and a few tips that could apply to what you are doing.
These first five points are trying to get to the point, saying you can take video, turn it into blog content, get a running start with your blog, and go from there. I am going to return with what shall be two more posts, aiming to illustrate ten more ways that you can do something more with video than just watch it.
Thanks for reading.
When I last asked my niece to let me have a photo, she was in high gear to play a frivolous game of Candy Land. She suggested I show her in the midst of unpacking the enduring board game. My niece is in the third grade.
In December my brother and his wife and kids gave me an unusual gift, a puzzle celebrating The Beatles’ music on The White Album.
The Beatles
The puzzle is unusual mainly for the fact that the cover of The White Album is entirely the color white, which makes the puzzle an exercise in assembling puzzle pieces all the color white. It is as if the wrong end of a game of chess game came down on you.
I have ten reasons I’m suggesting that success like what The Beatles enjoyed is actually a weak link in terms of what it means for individual success and how it is misleading. Four are presented here.
Photographer:
Suzy Hazelwood MONOPOLY FOR MILLENNIALS MAKES NPCs CRY The YouTube channel Geeks + Gamers fascinates me. When Jeremy announced that he had fallen prey to a phishing spoof six weeks ago, I wanted to describe the problem in this post. Jeremy was distracted at the moment and made a rookie error, surrendering control of Geeks + Gamers for seventeen minutes until he could get it back in order. A second oversight occurred, when Jeremy neglected to secure his Google AdSense funding for the channel after the spoof. When he realized that an entire month’s worth of monies designated for Geeks + Gamers was stolen, he finally revealed what happened: My YouTube Channel Was Hacked, Money Lost – Learn From My Mistakes I’d been paying attention to Geeks + Gamers because I feel it protests and dissects conventional scholar on media. The Geeks + Gamers team typically tackle major film projects like the DC universe on film, or more often the Disney Star Wars trilogy, as though the success, usually financial, of studio film output speaks to the conclusion that if a film is not fun, that if it doesn’t “work” in terms of being appealing to an audience, the film is not so much a radical success as it is a weak link.
It didn’t matter to Jeremy that The Last Jedi is another splendid blockbuster in terms of the money it made for Disney; it was to him a complete letdown and something that was a disservice to the favorite films that remind him of his childhood, the Star Wars films. Disney Has Concerns About Star Wars After The Last Jedi It is interesting that while ostensibly the financial success of a film doesn’t mean the film is magical for Jeremy, when it comes to his YouTube channels, Geeks + Gamers and others, it is certainly a problem when a month’s loot is stolen, by cyber-crime means. I wish Jeremy and the other members of Geeks + Gamers hadn’t had to go through that.Halloween with Geeks + Gamers was interesting for the fact that Jeremy argued that very bold criticism of what he does with Geeks + Gamers had been declared, criticism that included the idea that “code words” were being communicated to Geeks + Gamers subscribers that subscribers should launch literal hate and violence at targets which Geeks + Gamers usually defame, a video you can watch here: NPC Star Wars Writer Continues To Lie and Spread False Information Jeremy responded firmly that Geeks + Gamers is in no way is supportive of violent attitudes in any situation, and further that Geeks + Gamers made no attempt to “boycott” the recent Star Wars film Solo, a position I’d heard Jeremy take before in a discussion how Solo ws lacklustre in terms of box office returns.
All this keeps me quite rapt about what this YouTube channel is saying about the Star Wars films–Geeks+ Gamers plays a role in backlash concerning the Rian Johnson Star Wars film The Last Jedi.
For Geeks + Gamers to become a successful YouTube channel, it meant starting from basics and building a subscriber basis and becoming a success, with people watching the videos and comment and so on. If Geeks + Gamers were reviewing music, instead of films, and it was fifty years ago, perhaps they would have spoken about The White Album. Instead, they are speaking out, frequently, about The Last Jedi, in a way which makes it completely clear that they regard Episode VIII of Star Wars as rubbish.When I watched The Last Jedi when it arrived on Netflix, I enjoyed it and even felt moved. The mods of Geeks + Gamers had no such experience. Instead, they despise the film and regale in making that clear rather than taking a positive spin on something that’s an extension to something they loved in childhood.I would guess that Geeks + Gamers take such a broad interest in film criticism that they feel they can succeed with a successful YouTube channel. The idea of success they have is different from the idea of success that’s reflected in something like the fiftieth-anniversary of The White Album, or in the success of the blockbuster The Last Jedi.
The mods of Geeks + Gamers don’t seem to see The Last Jedi as a success at all because they despise it so much. Their YouTube channel extrapolates messages like that Star Wars has been mostly reduced to rubbish, or that the DC comics universe could similarly face a death grip in the cinema. I believe I had misunderstood Geeks + Gamers with my belief that Geeks + Gamers doesn’t desire or see any value in success at the level of the “blockbuster”; instead they expound on problems in entertainment which is compromised by identity politics in the entertainment that they criticize. Now that I understand some more about Jeremy’s point of view, it has me feeling a touch more informed about how identity politics show up in entertainment.
To them, The Last Jedi is a weak link. They wouldn’t aim for that kind of success in their own lives, for example. It is notable, having learned of their misfortune with a phishing spoof, that their success has been compromised by their own position as a good-sized YouTube channel.
Photographer: Rawpixel.com In addition, an example of underhandedly reacting to what’s been said on Geeks + Gamers is the shout-out they gave Mike Zeroh after film director Rian Johnson mean-spiritedly called out Zeroh who is devoted specifically to exploring what’s going on in Star Wars. The Mike Zeroh channel is Zeroh’s speculation about “behind the scenes” in Star Wars. In the initial days of shooting Episode IX of Star Wars, Johnson, reflecting on Twitter about what he was accomplishing with his Star Wars film, referred to YouTube’s Mike Zeroh as being a zero, although Johnson later apologized.
It is the same kind of weak link that exists when Geeks + Gamers tackles Star Wars because for all the enthusiasm Mike Zeroh puts into anticipating Star Wars, Mike Zeroh has personally explained that he feels The Last Jedi is a poor effort. Mike Zeroh Vs Rian Johnson… Thank you Rian Again!!!
I was amused by The White Album puzzle game I got from my brother and his family. I am also grateful for the opportunity to share these opportunities. I am glad if you have read this. You’re welcome to “like,” to “follow,” and/or to comment.
Too much stress, “bad” stress, can weaken you, deplete your resources and waste scarce time if you are not dealing with your lifestyle well. Everybody endures stress.
Getting older, I believe that lifestyles of Generation Z are significantly common, but I am from a small town. It is important to obey the Biblical commandment, to honor thy mother and father. As the father did before you, if you are of a certain age, you too need to heed that you are following appropriately in his steps.
That being said, there is lightness. I think with a touch of envy of the comparative ease of the generation of young people often collectively referred to as Generation Z. That doesn’t mean that I can compete with the energy of the young and of the attitudes which characterize them, different than for someone my age.
Someone like me, I feel, is part of a culture that values stress, that putting a great deal of work into a lifetime is a necessity. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Shopping cart
However, it means fulltime people endure an enormous amount of stress. The more hours of work we take on, to make ends meet, the more stress we cope with.
I believe stress can easily bend one to its will rather than the other way round. It is all very hard to manage.
In the film sequence preceding the climax of the 1978 feature film Superman, Lex Luthor conquers Superman with a chain of Kryptonite, until Superman makes a personal promise to Luthor’s beautiful assistant in order that she remove the powerful amulet–but a promise that puts at risk the woman who has his heart, Lois Lane. All in all, it is an excellent film.
What I did, in my life, is an irregular passage through the years. In 2008 when my employer closed its doors, I went on to work a part-time job while reflecting on what to do with my future Then I went full time on government disability, as it was felt that I’d been “compromised” enough to give up on making a living through the avenue of work.
I had been reading some books on self-management and I didn’t think the stress of a new workplace was going to benefit me enough to do it.
A few years later, my father, perhaps frustrated by my reluctance, had an idea. He was retiring from many years with a municipal cemetery, where he’d helped manage it from its offices.
A small cemetery in our town was searching for new operators. It attracted him, and the trustees of that property were pleased to turn it over to him, so that he could direct it, pleased to have a focus in his retirement.
To my surprise, my dad invited me to help handle the operation of the cemetery. We commenced in 2011. The church at the cemetery, formerly of the United Church of Canada, had disbanded in 2006.
Important headstones of family generations in Maple Lawn Cemetery
We maintain the property ourselves, and work in the interior of the church in dire weather, setting our sights on attending to the cemetery once a week. We made a not-for-profit out of it. While I am junior, and there is no certainty how matters will proceed, in the seven years or so, lucky seven, that we’ve handled the cemetery, it has been a luxury of time and experience for me and an opportunity to enjoy the company of my father in his golden years.
We have had outside help from brothers of my father, my uncles. On a few brief occasions we have talked about growth, but I don’t know if I can turn this venture into something in which I can continue in the long-term. This post is intended to be expository writing, but working for a not-for-profit, when financial gains are generally hard-won, can lead to burnout, and to a minor degree that is what I am experiencing.
You see, I contribute several hours a week of work to the cemetery, and as my dad has spoken reassuringly of the flexibility to set our own hours, I have lately started to reduce my workload to a four-day week rather than a five-day.
I can’t help, for example, but want to relax on Saturday. I think the decision to work less on Fridays is somewhat deleterious in that if you want to get ahead, you should probably be hustling with the same energy on a Friday that you do on a Monday.
I couldn’t help, in the past several weeks, to admit that the stress of putting nonprofit work at the center of my life, was making me feel a touch sick, by which I mean I was experiencing burnout. I am sure this is common.
Photographer: Ylanite Koppens
Whether this transition, to four days of focus on the cemetery rather than on each and every business day, will contribute to a soul-searching decision by my dad to relieve me of my work, I don’t know. I think what will determine my chances of staying on are the quality of work I can produce in the time I devote to the not-for-profit.
How this has me feeling, perhaps, “sick,” is that I do care about working and I do feel some prestige enjoying the privilege of doing work that is shaped by our own efforts. This is in contrast to working for a firm that is structured in predictable ways, with employee equity and positions and demands which could easily contribute to a high-stress load.
I am taking this risk because I believe I can do better work if I make strategies to cope with the burnout before there are related consequences. I am counting on my own experience and abilities to do the same quality of work in a four-day structure than I would be getting done by committing the entirety of the work week to headway and progress.
I am sick to think of losing what I have worked for, and I am sick to think of bringing shame onto my father if the quality of my work does suffer because I am having trouble being afield of all that we do. I feel like I should write something about feeling troubled by what I have to do to manage my role as operator, and maybe even think on how I could express an appropriate apology for how I am feeling.
Writing is the act of discovery. – Natalie Goldberg
Photographer: Freestocks.org
If my father does finally decide, which I know he won’t do lightly, that I should be dismissed, it will be a sad day and for that, I will pay a price, of having the failure on my shoulders. If that scenario comes to pass I will take time to mend. It may be a self-centered attitude, but the best that can be done in the face of failure is to learn from what happened.
Everyone has experienced failure, and usually many, many times, sometimes with adverse consequences.
If you have never failed, you have stayed well inside your comfort zone. Life needs to change and grow.
If my role in the not-for-profit does end in failure, I will at least have work experience. I think I can draw on the time spent at this to draw conclusions that will inform my life in the future. The situation that I think could result, however, is not going to be completely ideal.
It will be back to being “sick,” resorting to making ends meet with the help of a pension for disability, and with the support of my mom and dad. Ain’t no one got time for that. I will have then have the opportunity to look for a job if I feel I can weather the stress, or return to freelancing and try to find my niche doing that.
Photographer: Rawpixel.com
Many members of Generation Z work as freelancers in the digital economy, and I would be competing with all of those people, which is daunting. That being said, there are a few paths ahead for me to take and I will have to ask for guidance from fate and the intentions of The Lord. I know I shouldn’t emphasize feeling sick about all this and I know I shouldn’t take on a job post that gives me more additional stress than I can handle.
For now, I will bide my time–for as much clarity as I can muster.
You are welcome to like, follow, and/or comment if you have feedback. Lately, the blog has been fairly quiet, in terms of visits it receives, but you never know when some I’ve published here will pique the interest of a reader.
I appreciate the time of those who are visitors. I have been tying my blog to the not-for-profit, and also trying to be jovial as I know it is as yet an amateur effort. I feel blogging will continue to play a role in the time I have to write, as it is a splendid little spot of fun that has a pragmatic purpose.
Yesterday the website ZDNet reported that researcher Sam Thomas speaking at the Bsides technical security conference in Manchester alerted attendees that WordPress has been rendered vulnerable to a bug for the entire duration of the last year. While the situation hasn’t been exploited by attackers, Thomas sounded a concern with WordPress that will require a patch. This is the first, I believe, that it has been reported, which is a fact, I suspect, that lends itself to the possibility that there could be an upset connected to this WordPress bug and the suggestion of vulnerability
In a different light on what’s happening in the blogosphere, I would like to say here that I think of myself as a reasonably well-informed individual. I have an interest in being active with a blog, with Facebook, and with Twitter.
What’s come up is that the seventeenth of August, 2018, is a celebratory day for nonprofit businesses. Despite the caveat at the start of the post, it can be said that if you’re unaware of the significance of August 17, 2018, it is that this is National Nonprofit Day.
I thought I would write something to mark the occasion. I personally am part of a business that has a not-for-profit status.
About nonprofits, National Nonprofit Day recognizes people who contribute to organizations who generally rely on charitable funding to keep going. There are a lot of needs that would be underserved if it weren’t for nonprofits. Funding for not-for-profits helps with needs that otherwise would go unmet, which is great because it helps deal with active problems.
I help care for a not-for-profit cemetery that is small but pretty, named Maple Lawn.
Here is a recent photo. Me, my dad Peter and his brother, my uncle, Dave, run the cemetery.
Formerly Louth United Church, St. Catharines
We don’t specifically receive funding for what we do. We got involved a few years ago when Peter opted to take responsibility for a cemetery whose trustees no longer wished to care for it. Since then we have opted to care for the grounds and to handle burials.
My dad worked for many years at the municipal cemetery in the city. We generally attend to the cemetery grounds once a week, on Wednesdays, and we do additional work as needed.
There’s a church on the cemetery grounds. The United Church of Canada congregation which filled it disbanded from this church of ours in 2006. It may sound like we’re carrying out a selfless endeavor, but there are a few advantages, in addition, that I can think of.
Running the cemetery doesn’t require a huge amount of input or direction. I am on hand to do some of the grounds keeping, and I also put it in time doing research and the like as the cemetery SMM. My dad does a lot of the work that requires expertise tied to the particulars of operating a cemetery.
While many not-for-profits would operate on a fulltime basis, we write our own hours and we mostly look in our own pockets for what we need to spend. I recently returned to the popular 4 Hour Work Week book by entrepreneur Timothy Ferriss for the third time now and you can view, if you like, my thoughts on it as the following blog post I wrote
We cover our costs and contribute to the cemetery if someone wants a grave here, or if a funeral needs to be conducted and we do this out of a sense of goodwill.
I remain partial to the notion that if I write a blog there will be a little additional interest in what I say.
I look at Twitter, https://twitter.com/findingenvirons …because of Twitter’s use as an information tool. I don’t limit my interests on Twitter to what we do at the cemetery. I explore a variety of interests outside what would otherwise be confined to a very limited niche.
Cemetery operation is too specialized, I think, to confine a Twitter account to that sole purpose.
Photographer: Rawpixel.com
I don’t feel that time is lost carrying out service at the cemetery. The time that’s devoted to being part of a small not-for-profit rather than working in a career in sales or the like is meaningful and, even better, enjoyable. I feel that limiting one’s energy to a volunteer position is time invested in oneself.
With the trade-off of what might be a better living secondary to time invested in the cemetery, I feel like I have something personal to me that I do, although I know a lifestyle like this is certainly not for everyone. I continue to look at the work from the standpoint that it is a lucky opportunity. There are drawbacks but I don’t want to emphasize them here in this post.
Furthermore, I appreciate that National Nonprofit Day celebrates nonprofits, people who work hard to make a difference. When Maple Lawn highlights for people what we’re doing, such as on our Facebook page for the cemetery, we often get positive responses for the care we take to keep the cemetery looking nice. Visitors to our Facebook page reward us that way.
Photographer: Wilfred Iven
People who work in not-for-profits may not always feel that benefactors give them the credit that they deserve, but it doesn’t mean not-for-profit employees don’t find satisfaction in what they do. I am sure that among not-for-profit personnel, many of them welcome August 17 and celebrate their work accordingly, and that’s what I’m writing about in this post. I usually represent what we’re doing at the cemetery in positive terms, which is how I try to frame it.
That is to say, I think of myself as an optimist rather than as a pessimist, despite the solemnity of the atmosphere of a cemetery. If you relate, you’re welcome to “like,” to “follow,” and/or to “comment.” In November, I will try to respond specifically to the occurrence of Giving Tuesday, the day that charities work especially hard to raise funds.
I realize there may not be such a sense of urgency that a cemetery like ours needs additional assistance, but you never know unless you ask if there is some unknown avenue to improve the standard of work in our hands. It is probably the right idea to look into getting additional help at the same time that similar organizations are delving into the same. Autumn is the time of year for it.
I hope to continue working at the cemetery while playing the additional role of nurturing Facebook and Twitter, writing here on WordPress, and otherwise keeping a hand in at our not-for-profit. Thank you for visiting my blog.
Please do not be alarmed by the idea that there is a bug in WordPress that could, in theory, render you in jeopardy if you maintain a blog with WordPress. Actually, it has been kept under wraps for an entire year.
There have been no specific problems made aware of that ZDNet reported and there is no indication that the bug will actually be exploited in the name of enemy action, however so easy a target exists. I know with this attention to the issue WordPress will respond with a patch.
Photographer:
The Myth of the Independent Blogger and How I Learned to Love It 