Gs-16 pay scale
Golf Classifieds - Buy & Sell Golf Equipment
2011.06.25 02:43 emptyvoices Golf Classifieds - Buy & Sell Golf Equipment
2020.10.30 18:03 gwern Scaling Machine Learning: Big Models/Data/Compute—More Is More
ML/AI/DL research on approaches using large models, datasets, and compute: "more is different"
2011.01.04 03:16 ScrambledOvaries GCX: Get what you really want!
Trade your gift cards with other redditors and get what you really want!
2024.05.14 00:18 lindstropicalsno Hiring and Training the Best Employees for Your Shave Ice Business
When it comes to running a successful shave ice or snow cone business, having a solid team is just as crucial as having a top-notch product. Today, we’re delving into the insights provided by some of the highest-performing shave ice businesses in the United States. These top sellers have honed their expertise in building a team that’s not only skilled but also genuinely enhances their business’s community presence. Here’s a comprehensive look at their approach to hiring and training, packed with actionable tips for fellow business owners, especially those just starting a shave ice business or looking to enhance their snow cone business plan.
Tips for Hiring the Best!
1. Customer-focused hires: The interview process is key to discovering why candidates want to join their team. Look for individuals who are genuinely customer-oriented—a critical trait since employees significantly influence customer retention and satisfaction in the profitable shave ice business arena. As one owner noted, their team’s ability to make customers feel valued is often what they hear praised in the community.
2. Avoiding Overstaffing: Understanding the ebb and flow of business across seasons helps in planning the number of hires. These owners have learned from experience to start small and scale up if needed, which mitigates the risk of overstaffing and underutilizing employees, a situation that can lead to dissatisfaction and high turnover rates in the mobile shave ice business.
3. Pre-Hiring Meeting: The most effective owners host a pre-hiring meeting with candidates and their parents, which helps set clear expectations from the start and ensures parents are onboard with the responsibilities of their kids.
4. Setting Clear Expectations: The job descriptions are clear about the roles and responsibilities, which include operating shave ice machines and engaging positively with customers. This clarity helps in attracting the right fit for their business needs and is crucial for those exploring shave ice franchise opportunities.
Creating a Place to Stay and a Place to Grow
1. Recognition and Rewards: Acknowledging hard work and providing incentives such as pay raises and gift cards are practices that the best owners use to motivate and retain staff. They also emphasize the importance of having fun at work, which enhances team spirit, important in fostering a positive environment.
2. Fostering Responsibility: By encouraging team members to handle their scheduling requests responsibly, they cultivate a sense of ownership and maturity among the staff, which translates into more reliable service for customers.
3. Comprehensive Onboarding: New hires undergo a detailed training process, including hands-on practice with the equipment and customer service scenarios. This ensures that each team member is well-prepared before the season begins, enhancing their confidence and capability in handling snow cone syrups and shave ice flavors efficiently.
4. Promoting Product Knowledge: Provide extensive training on the various flavors, toppings, and customization options available to customers. Encourage employees to sample different combinations of flavors to become familiar with the product offerings and make informed recommendations to customers.
5. Emphasizing Upselling Techniques: Train employees on effective upselling techniques to increase average order value, such as suggesting additional toppings, flavor combinations, or larger serving sizes. Provide scripts or role-playing exercises to help employees confidently upsell without appearing pushy or aggressive.
6. Continuous Learning: Regular feedback and ongoing training sessions are part of their strategy to keep the team well-informed and adept at handling various situations. This not only helps in maintaining high standards but also fosters a learning environment, crucial for managing a shave ice seasonal business.
7. Scheduling and Management Tools: Great owners utilize tools like Homebase or When I Work for scheduling and communication, which simplifies managing their team and keeps everyone aligned.
8. Implementing Feedback Mechanisms: Encourage employees to share their insights and suggestions for enhancing operations and customer satisfaction. This helps employees feel apart of the business in a way that encourages them.
9. Social Media and Marketing Training: Educate employees on the importance of social media in promoting the business and engaging with customers online. Provide training on how to create visually appealing shave ice presentations for social media posts and encourage employees to share their experiences and interact with customers on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
Conclusion: Building a Winning Team for Your Shave Ice Venture
By focusing on strategic hiring, comprehensive training, and fostering a supportive and enjoyable work environment, you can build a team that not only performs well but also significantly contributes to the business’s success. Implement these best practices to create a vibrant, efficient team that will keep your customers coming back season after season.
check out tropical sno for more fun shave ice info
submitted by lindstropicalsno to u/lindstropicalsno [link] [comments]
Tips for Hiring the Best!
1. Customer-focused hires: The interview process is key to discovering why candidates want to join their team. Look for individuals who are genuinely customer-oriented—a critical trait since employees significantly influence customer retention and satisfaction in the profitable shave ice business arena. As one owner noted, their team’s ability to make customers feel valued is often what they hear praised in the community.
2. Avoiding Overstaffing: Understanding the ebb and flow of business across seasons helps in planning the number of hires. These owners have learned from experience to start small and scale up if needed, which mitigates the risk of overstaffing and underutilizing employees, a situation that can lead to dissatisfaction and high turnover rates in the mobile shave ice business.
3. Pre-Hiring Meeting: The most effective owners host a pre-hiring meeting with candidates and their parents, which helps set clear expectations from the start and ensures parents are onboard with the responsibilities of their kids.
4. Setting Clear Expectations: The job descriptions are clear about the roles and responsibilities, which include operating shave ice machines and engaging positively with customers. This clarity helps in attracting the right fit for their business needs and is crucial for those exploring shave ice franchise opportunities.
Creating a Place to Stay and a Place to Grow
1. Recognition and Rewards: Acknowledging hard work and providing incentives such as pay raises and gift cards are practices that the best owners use to motivate and retain staff. They also emphasize the importance of having fun at work, which enhances team spirit, important in fostering a positive environment.
2. Fostering Responsibility: By encouraging team members to handle their scheduling requests responsibly, they cultivate a sense of ownership and maturity among the staff, which translates into more reliable service for customers.
3. Comprehensive Onboarding: New hires undergo a detailed training process, including hands-on practice with the equipment and customer service scenarios. This ensures that each team member is well-prepared before the season begins, enhancing their confidence and capability in handling snow cone syrups and shave ice flavors efficiently.
4. Promoting Product Knowledge: Provide extensive training on the various flavors, toppings, and customization options available to customers. Encourage employees to sample different combinations of flavors to become familiar with the product offerings and make informed recommendations to customers.
5. Emphasizing Upselling Techniques: Train employees on effective upselling techniques to increase average order value, such as suggesting additional toppings, flavor combinations, or larger serving sizes. Provide scripts or role-playing exercises to help employees confidently upsell without appearing pushy or aggressive.
6. Continuous Learning: Regular feedback and ongoing training sessions are part of their strategy to keep the team well-informed and adept at handling various situations. This not only helps in maintaining high standards but also fosters a learning environment, crucial for managing a shave ice seasonal business.
7. Scheduling and Management Tools: Great owners utilize tools like Homebase or When I Work for scheduling and communication, which simplifies managing their team and keeps everyone aligned.
8. Implementing Feedback Mechanisms: Encourage employees to share their insights and suggestions for enhancing operations and customer satisfaction. This helps employees feel apart of the business in a way that encourages them.
9. Social Media and Marketing Training: Educate employees on the importance of social media in promoting the business and engaging with customers online. Provide training on how to create visually appealing shave ice presentations for social media posts and encourage employees to share their experiences and interact with customers on platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
Conclusion: Building a Winning Team for Your Shave Ice Venture
By focusing on strategic hiring, comprehensive training, and fostering a supportive and enjoyable work environment, you can build a team that not only performs well but also significantly contributes to the business’s success. Implement these best practices to create a vibrant, efficient team that will keep your customers coming back season after season.
check out tropical sno for more fun shave ice info
2024.05.14 00:14 frostbirb Surgeon hit me with a wallop only three weeks out
My surgery is scheduled for May 29th. I was planning on going through insurance, got the pre-authorization, but I had my last consultation with the doctor last Thursday and she hit me with a few sudden shocks.
She had told me at my first appointment that I was a good candidate for a reduction. At this one she said, "You're actually a little small for a reduction and your insurance is wanting me to take out at least 500g from each breast. You have maybe 700g in each breast so I don't know if I can do that safely." She recommended I do the procedure and pay privately so she doesn't have to try and go as small as possible. I didn't even know that insurance could refuse after the fact so now I'm facing down a bill that's 3-4x higher than I expected.
My insurance uses the Schur scale and I already knew about the Schur scale but after digging into it some more it's some bullshit. I've always been dense but not overly large, growing up at one point I was in like the upper 2% range of weight for my age group when I was in soccer and in the best shape of my life. The doctor told me I needed to lose weight and my mom was like "where??!?!?" So I've always weighed more than I actually look and that always gets me on BMI cause my BMI is always high but I don't look as big as I should at that BMI. So seeing that the Schur scale is based on weight is such bullshit. My breasts aren't massive, but they're massive for my frame, but because of my density, the Schur scale is saying I have a bigger surface area than I really think I do, and so because of that insurance won't cover me. So I'm pissed off.
But yeah, after digging into it I don't think there's any way the surgeon can pull out as much as insurance demands. I'm frustrated, I'm stressed, and I'm pissed. Guess my pain means nothing to the stupid insurance :/
I am at a loss. I don't know what to do. I was looking forward to it all, getting ready for it, (I even already had my pre-op physical) but now I'm not sure if I can go through with it. It's one thing to expect a bill and then be told three weeks out that it's actually going to be 3-4x higher than expected. Any advice or ideas would be extremely helpful. I truly don't know what to do.
submitted by frostbirb to Reduction [link] [comments]
She had told me at my first appointment that I was a good candidate for a reduction. At this one she said, "You're actually a little small for a reduction and your insurance is wanting me to take out at least 500g from each breast. You have maybe 700g in each breast so I don't know if I can do that safely." She recommended I do the procedure and pay privately so she doesn't have to try and go as small as possible. I didn't even know that insurance could refuse after the fact so now I'm facing down a bill that's 3-4x higher than I expected.
My insurance uses the Schur scale and I already knew about the Schur scale but after digging into it some more it's some bullshit. I've always been dense but not overly large, growing up at one point I was in like the upper 2% range of weight for my age group when I was in soccer and in the best shape of my life. The doctor told me I needed to lose weight and my mom was like "where??!?!?" So I've always weighed more than I actually look and that always gets me on BMI cause my BMI is always high but I don't look as big as I should at that BMI. So seeing that the Schur scale is based on weight is such bullshit. My breasts aren't massive, but they're massive for my frame, but because of my density, the Schur scale is saying I have a bigger surface area than I really think I do, and so because of that insurance won't cover me. So I'm pissed off.
But yeah, after digging into it I don't think there's any way the surgeon can pull out as much as insurance demands. I'm frustrated, I'm stressed, and I'm pissed. Guess my pain means nothing to the stupid insurance :/
I am at a loss. I don't know what to do. I was looking forward to it all, getting ready for it, (I even already had my pre-op physical) but now I'm not sure if I can go through with it. It's one thing to expect a bill and then be told three weeks out that it's actually going to be 3-4x higher than expected. Any advice or ideas would be extremely helpful. I truly don't know what to do.
2024.05.14 00:13 Brief_Mycologist1225 Unleash Scalability and Performance: Elevate Your Business with IM Solution's Cloud Web Hosting
In today's digital landscape, a strong online presence is no longer a luxury; it's a necessity. Your website acts as your digital storefront, a platform to connect with customers, showcase your brand, and drive sales. But what happens when your website struggles to keep up with your growing business? Here's where IM Solution's Cloud Web Hosting comes in.
What is Cloud Web Hosting?
Traditional web hosting stores your website data on a single physical server. While effective for basic websites, it has limitations. If your website experiences a sudden surge in traffic, that single server can become overloaded, leading to slow loading times and even downtime. This can frustrate visitors and damage your brand reputation.
Cloud Web Hosting, on the other hand, leverages the power of cloud computing. Your website isn't confined to a single server; instead, it's hosted on a network of interconnected virtual servers. This offers several advantages:
Scalability: Cloud resources are elastic. As your website traffic grows, IM Solution can easily scale your resources up or down to meet your specific needs. There's no need to worry about outgrowing your server.
Enhanced Performance: Cloud servers offer superior processing power and bandwidth compared to traditional shared hosting. This translates to faster loading times for your website, leading to a better user experience.
High Availability: With a network of servers, if one server experiences an issue, your website remains unaffected. Cloud hosting offers exceptional uptime and redundancy, ensuring your website is always accessible to your visitors.
Improved Security: IM Solution prioritizes the security of your website. Cloud hosting offers advanced security features like firewalls, intrusion detection, and data encryption to protect your website from cyber threats.
Cost-Effectiveness: With cloud hosting, you only pay for the resources you use. This eliminates the need for expensive upfront investments in hardware and software.
Why Choose IM Solution for Your Cloud Web Hosting Needs?
IM Solution is a leading provider of cloud web hosting solutions in Egypt. We understand the unique needs of businesses of all sizes and offer a range of hosting plans to cater to your specific requirements. Here's what sets us apart:
Reliable Infrastructure: We utilize state-of-the-art data centers with robust security measures to ensure your website's optimal performance and uptime.
Expert Support: Our team of experienced professionals is available 24/7 to provide you with exceptional technical support whenever you need it.
User-Friendly Control Panel: Manage your website hosting with ease using our intuitive control panel. Easily install applications, manage databases, and monitor your website's performance.
Focus on Security: IM Solution takes data security very seriously. We implement robust security measures to protect your website and sensitive data from unauthorized access.
Scalability and Flexibility: Our cloud hosting plans are designed to scale with your business. Easily upgrade or downgrade your resources as your website's needs evolve.
IM Solution: Your Partner for a Thriving Online Presence
By choosing IM Solution's Cloud Web Hosting, you're investing in the future of your online presence. You'll benefit from unparalleled scalability, exceptional performance, and robust security, all backed by our commitment to exceptional customer service.
Ready to take your website to the next level?
Contact IM Solution today and let our team of experts help you choose the perfect Cloud Web Hosting plan to meet your specific needs. With IM Solution by your side, you can focus on running your business while we ensure your website is always performing at its best.
submitted by Brief_Mycologist1225 to u/Brief_Mycologist1225 [link] [comments]
What is Cloud Web Hosting?
Traditional web hosting stores your website data on a single physical server. While effective for basic websites, it has limitations. If your website experiences a sudden surge in traffic, that single server can become overloaded, leading to slow loading times and even downtime. This can frustrate visitors and damage your brand reputation.
Cloud Web Hosting, on the other hand, leverages the power of cloud computing. Your website isn't confined to a single server; instead, it's hosted on a network of interconnected virtual servers. This offers several advantages:
Scalability: Cloud resources are elastic. As your website traffic grows, IM Solution can easily scale your resources up or down to meet your specific needs. There's no need to worry about outgrowing your server.
Enhanced Performance: Cloud servers offer superior processing power and bandwidth compared to traditional shared hosting. This translates to faster loading times for your website, leading to a better user experience.
High Availability: With a network of servers, if one server experiences an issue, your website remains unaffected. Cloud hosting offers exceptional uptime and redundancy, ensuring your website is always accessible to your visitors.
Improved Security: IM Solution prioritizes the security of your website. Cloud hosting offers advanced security features like firewalls, intrusion detection, and data encryption to protect your website from cyber threats.
Cost-Effectiveness: With cloud hosting, you only pay for the resources you use. This eliminates the need for expensive upfront investments in hardware and software.
Why Choose IM Solution for Your Cloud Web Hosting Needs?
IM Solution is a leading provider of cloud web hosting solutions in Egypt. We understand the unique needs of businesses of all sizes and offer a range of hosting plans to cater to your specific requirements. Here's what sets us apart:
Reliable Infrastructure: We utilize state-of-the-art data centers with robust security measures to ensure your website's optimal performance and uptime.
Expert Support: Our team of experienced professionals is available 24/7 to provide you with exceptional technical support whenever you need it.
User-Friendly Control Panel: Manage your website hosting with ease using our intuitive control panel. Easily install applications, manage databases, and monitor your website's performance.
Focus on Security: IM Solution takes data security very seriously. We implement robust security measures to protect your website and sensitive data from unauthorized access.
Scalability and Flexibility: Our cloud hosting plans are designed to scale with your business. Easily upgrade or downgrade your resources as your website's needs evolve.
IM Solution: Your Partner for a Thriving Online Presence
By choosing IM Solution's Cloud Web Hosting, you're investing in the future of your online presence. You'll benefit from unparalleled scalability, exceptional performance, and robust security, all backed by our commitment to exceptional customer service.
Ready to take your website to the next level?
Contact IM Solution today and let our team of experts help you choose the perfect Cloud Web Hosting plan to meet your specific needs. With IM Solution by your side, you can focus on running your business while we ensure your website is always performing at its best.
2024.05.14 00:03 Ur_Anemone The Sleazy Rise and Humiliating Fall of Ashley Madison
 | The 2015 hacking of adulterous dating website Ashley Madison was a crime, and yet precious few felt sorry for those who were impacted by this offense, be they the company’s CEO and his employees or the 37 million users who were outed as cheaters. Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal, a three-part Netflix docuseries from directors Zoe Hutton and Gagan Rehill, focuses on a couple of sob stories—including a popular Christian vlogging couple caught in the cheating crossfire—which detail the fallout from this headline-making incident, all in an effort to put a human face on a tawdry scandal. No matter the tears and critiques dispensed by those individuals, however, there’s little here to lose sleep over—unless, of course, your profile was in one of the two infamous data dumps… submitted by Ur_Anemone to afterAWDTSG [link] [comments] Orchestrated by a collective that called itself The Impact Team, the hackers announced that if Ashley Madison didn’t shut down within 30 days, they’d release the personal information of all 37 million account holders. Thrust into turmoil, Biderman and his panicked companions hired Swedish cybersecurity experts Joel Eriksson and André Catry to track down who was behind this breach. Alas, they came up with nothing, and on August 18, the floodgates opened. While Catry initially suspected that Biderman might have had something to do with the hack (because the site believed that all publicity is good publicity), a second hack that contained all of Biderman’s personal and professional emails put that idea to rest. More than just revealing him to be an adulterer, this information exposed the wide-scale fraud being perpetrated by Ashley Madison, whose pledges of cybersecurity excellence (look at all those award badges on the homepage!) were a lie, and whose female users were largely fake accounts either manned by company employees or by bots. In other words, most men were paying through the nose and risking their marriages, reputations, and careers to chat with non-existent women. All in all, it was about as big a losing proposition as one could imagine. Much of this has been reported ad nauseam during the past decade, so Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal adds a human element by portraying individuals who were affected by the hack. The lion’s share of that attention goes to Sam and Nia Rader, a Texas couple whose seemingly perfect life as Christian vloggers was upended by the revelation that Sam had spent time on Ashley Madison. Sam and Nia’s story is told through lots of confessional interviews and their online videos, with Sam contending that he was motivated by a lack of self-esteem (and a longing for first-love excitement) rather than sex. Yet like so much of what’s said in this docuseries, his comments must be taken with a giant grain of salt, especially since he implies that, even aside from Ashley Madison, he strayed from the marital path for years and continually lied about it to his spouse. Despite Sam’s anguished recitation of his missteps, Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal fails to make him sympathetic. Similarly, its attempts to paint the media and public’s gleeful fascination with the hack—and the cheaters who were being shamed—as unseemly and cruel are largely unsuccessful. Even when it concentrates on Christi, whose seminary-teacher husband committed suicide because of the data dump, the docuseries doesn’t get far in making viewers feel bad for taking “self-righteous” delight in seeing louts grapple with the consequences of their risky actions. In the end, the blame for these ruined lives and fortunes falls squarely on those who willingly chose to do what they did, knowing full well the obvious potential costs. As a result, Hutton and Rehill’s non-fiction investigation is most notable for simply shining a light on the lengths people will go to indulge their selfish desires—a notion borne out by the fact that Sam and Nia are still together, as well as by Ashley Madison’s continued operation. |
2024.05.13 23:56 Pennervomland How do i catch up when I am "behind"?
Pretty new to the game so i don't understand a lot of the mechanics yet but it very much feels like the game difficulty scales up very fast. I thought I had a somewhat strong fleet but it seems like "difficult" bounties are almost impossible to me now (I lose a lot of ships when I try to do them at least). At first I could kinda do them but now they scaled up to where I have to fight 3 Legions and some other strong ships at once (and whatever the equivalent for the other factions is) and I only have one ship that could really match that in strength.
I am constantly running behind on my monthly payment I have to do (negative ~40k) so I basically don't gain any money whatsoever between flying to the next bounty / mission I can find, paying for the fuel and supplies to restore and then having to pay the monthly fee.
I think one reason for that is that I started my colony probably kinda late. Not sure how much that tells but I am in cycle 216 right now and only have a colony of tier 5 (10^5). I followed a guide on here but DAMN everything takes sooooo long to build.
Now for the main questions of the thread though:
submitted by Pennervomland to starsector [link] [comments]
I am constantly running behind on my monthly payment I have to do (negative ~40k) so I basically don't gain any money whatsoever between flying to the next bounty / mission I can find, paying for the fuel and supplies to restore and then having to pay the monthly fee.
I think one reason for that is that I started my colony probably kinda late. Not sure how much that tells but I am in cycle 216 right now and only have a colony of tier 5 (10^5). I followed a guide on here but DAMN everything takes sooooo long to build.
Now for the main questions of the thread though:
- What could I do to catch back up? By that I mean get a positive income flow and get strong ships and weapons for them
- How do I actually get strong weapons and ships? Is the only way to do that giving in to a commission with another faction? Only way I figured out so far is purchasing them for what apparently is double the price of a pirate who can create than for me. Also for weapons, whenever I wanna try a build I can't find the weapons I want anywhere. Is there a way to purchase them globally(or rather universally)? Really annoying having to jump between 10 different star systems to get what I want.
2024.05.13 23:48 jessthrowawayb How to attract financially stable men?
So before I get bombarded with hateful comments, let me explain myself. I am a single female in my mid twenties. My previous boyfriends typically were all middle to lower class on the socioeconomic and financial scale. In fact, I have had boyfriends in the past that I financially supported. So let’s start there. I also had an extremely traumatic childhood filled with abuse (drug addicted parents) and neglect. There were many nights as a young girl that I didn’t eat because my parents simply couldn’t afford groceries. I just feel like I’m at the point in life where I really want to curate a better environment for myself and people that inspire me to be better. I am currently finishing up school and my career choice makes a salary that is sustainable. Not glamorous by any means, but the goal really is to be self sufficient and at least comfortable. I just feel like as of recently, in terms of dating, I noticed I do get quite a lot of male attention. Some good, some bad. But a lot of these men (not all) that have asked me on dates seem to be someone I don’t see as financially stable. For example, this one guy is such a sweetheart but he does delivery driving (nothing wrong with that!) and was complaining about not being able to make his rent for next month. I just don’t want that. So men, is there like an art to attracting men that are well off or financially stable? What am I doing wrong? Or is it as easy as just saying no to men who don’t seem to be the level of financially stable I want? Also side note— I’m not looking for someone specifically “wealthy,” just stable and can provide for themselves and maybe me. I also go for personality over anything and would never date for money. If a guy js wealthy? That is a bonus. But also a guy who is struggling to pay bills, etc would be a deal breaker for me if that makes sense. Alright men, let’s hear it!
submitted by jessthrowawayb to AskMen [link] [comments]
2024.05.13 23:37 Brief_Mycologist1225 IM Solutions: Your Trusted Partner for Secure and Scalable Cloud Hosting
In today's digital age, having a reliable and secure online presence is crucial for businesses of all sizes. IM Solutions understands this, and that's why we offer top-tier cloud hosting solutions designed to meet your specific needs. Whether you're a small startup or a large enterprise, IM Solutions can provide the cloud infrastructure to power your success.
What is Cloud Hosting?
Cloud hosting is a type of web hosting service that stores your website's data on a network of servers, rather than on a single physical server. This approach offers several advantages, including:
Scalability: Cloud resources can be easily scaled up or down as your business needs change. This eliminates the need to invest in expensive hardware upgrades or worry about running out of storage space.
Increased Reliability: Cloud servers are geographically distributed, meaning that your website is less susceptible to downtime caused by hardware failures or natural disasters.
Enhanced Security: Cloud providers invest heavily in security measures to protect your data from cyberattacks.
Cost-Effectiveness: Cloud hosting eliminates the upfront costs of purchasing and maintaining your own hardware. You only pay for the resources you use.
Why Choose IM Solutions for Your Cloud Hosting Needs?
At IM Solutions, we are committed to providing our clients with the best possible cloud hosting experience. Here's what sets us apart:
A Range of Cloud Hosting Options: We offer a variety of cloud hosting plans to suit different needs and budgets. From shared hosting for basic websites to dedicated servers for high-traffic applications, we have a solution for you.
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24/7 Support: Our team of experienced professionals is available around the clock to assist you with any questions or issues you may have.
Security You Can Trust: We take data security seriously and implement industry-leading security measures to protect your information.
Focus on Customer Satisfaction: We are dedicated to providing our clients with excellent customer service. Our team is always happy to help you choose the right cloud hosting plan and ensure your website is running smoothly.
Benefits of Choosing IM Solutions Cloud Hosting
By partnering with IM Solutions for your cloud hosting needs, you can enjoy a number of benefits, including:
Reduced Costs: Eliminate the upfront costs of purchasing and maintaining your own hardware.
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Focus on Your Business: Free yourself from the burden of managing your own servers and focus on growing your business.
IM Solutions: Your One-Stop Shop for Cloud Hosting
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submitted by Brief_Mycologist1225 to u/Brief_Mycologist1225 [link] [comments]
What is Cloud Hosting?
Cloud hosting is a type of web hosting service that stores your website's data on a network of servers, rather than on a single physical server. This approach offers several advantages, including:
Scalability: Cloud resources can be easily scaled up or down as your business needs change. This eliminates the need to invest in expensive hardware upgrades or worry about running out of storage space.
Increased Reliability: Cloud servers are geographically distributed, meaning that your website is less susceptible to downtime caused by hardware failures or natural disasters.
Enhanced Security: Cloud providers invest heavily in security measures to protect your data from cyberattacks.
Cost-Effectiveness: Cloud hosting eliminates the upfront costs of purchasing and maintaining your own hardware. You only pay for the resources you use.
Why Choose IM Solutions for Your Cloud Hosting Needs?
At IM Solutions, we are committed to providing our clients with the best possible cloud hosting experience. Here's what sets us apart:
A Range of Cloud Hosting Options: We offer a variety of cloud hosting plans to suit different needs and budgets. From shared hosting for basic websites to dedicated servers for high-traffic applications, we have a solution for you.
Unmatched Performance: We utilize state-of-the-art cloud infrastructure to ensure your website loads quickly and reliably.
24/7 Support: Our team of experienced professionals is available around the clock to assist you with any questions or issues you may have.
Security You Can Trust: We take data security seriously and implement industry-leading security measures to protect your information.
Focus on Customer Satisfaction: We are dedicated to providing our clients with excellent customer service. Our team is always happy to help you choose the right cloud hosting plan and ensure your website is running smoothly.
Benefits of Choosing IM Solutions Cloud Hosting
By partnering with IM Solutions for your cloud hosting needs, you can enjoy a number of benefits, including:
Reduced Costs: Eliminate the upfront costs of purchasing and maintaining your own hardware.
Improved Website Performance: Enjoy faster loading times and a more reliable online presence.
Increased Scalability: Easily scale your cloud resources up or down to meet your changing needs.
Enhanced Security: Benefit from industry-leading security measures to protect your data.
Focus on Your Business: Free yourself from the burden of managing your own servers and focus on growing your business.
IM Solutions: Your One-Stop Shop for Cloud Hosting
IM Solutions is your one-stop shop for all your cloud hosting needs. We offer a comprehensive range of services, including:
Cloud Server Hosting: Get a dedicated server with complete control over your hosting environment.
Shared Hosting: A cost-effective solution for basic websites.
Managed Cloud Hosting: Let our team take care of all the server management tasks for you.
Cloud Storage: Store your data securely and reliably in the cloud.
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2024.05.13 23:18 NiyasDad1629 Lg and Sm 31 Sebenza MC
I have too many CRKs and just picked up a Zaan so these 2 need to go to homes where they'll see some use. Both in Magnacut, 2nd owner on the Lg. The small one is very bnib just had the lanyard removed other then that it's untouched, the Lg just came back from the spa and other then a tiny scale on the clip and some of the ano missing on the studs is like new, also comes with an extra lanyard pin
Sm 31 Sebenza MC Bday 4/9/24
SV400
Lg 31 Dp Sebenza MC Bday 4/18/23
SV485
https://imgur.com/a/CLlFOhZ
https://imgur.com/a/pqZC3Qf
https://imgur.com/a/EQVyutG
I'm not really looking for trades unless its something pretty special, USA made, customs, Shiros etc but will be very picky.
PayPal F&F, Venmo
Thanks for looking.
submitted by NiyasDad1629 to Knife_Swap [link] [comments]
Sm 31 Sebenza MC Bday 4/9/24
SV400
Lg 31 Dp Sebenza MC Bday 4/18/23
SV485
https://imgur.com/a/CLlFOhZ
https://imgur.com/a/pqZC3Qf
https://imgur.com/a/EQVyutG
I'm not really looking for trades unless its something pretty special, USA made, customs, Shiros etc but will be very picky.
PayPal F&F, Venmo
Thanks for looking.
2024.05.13 23:10 Saltie_Gurl 3 months in, at 7.5mg and maybe lost 4lbs?
It's so frustrating--after 3 months and easily 75lbs or more to lose, I have only lost about 4lbs, though today I'm up 2 again...so only 2lbs? I have a friend who just started at 2.5mg and is 6 weeks in and is down 15lb (and she probably only needs to lose about 35lbs). I'm following my nutritionist's advice, getting more protein in and not starving myself (initially between 1100-1300 calories because I wasn't hungry and is roughly where I typically ate prior to Zep, which apparently is insufficient). When I started to add more protein and got closer to 1700 calories, definitely saw a positive result, but now back to yo-yoing the same 3-4lbs. I"m trying to get 10K steps a day, which is harder with the hours I'm working, but it's more than before I started Zepbound. And now these delays with the next dose aren't helping. I'm offically due for my next dose (trying to go to 10mg) but it's out of stock.
Is there anyone who has had a similarly slow start to this where it changed when you got to a certain dose or changed something? I just wish I could influence this to work the way it seems to work for others. I would be thrilled if I was in the 'lost 15lbs over 3 months club'...or had any actual steady downward scale progress...it's hard to keep paying this much money without knowing if eventually it will start to work for me.
submitted by Saltie_Gurl to slowresponders [link] [comments]
Is there anyone who has had a similarly slow start to this where it changed when you got to a certain dose or changed something? I just wish I could influence this to work the way it seems to work for others. I would be thrilled if I was in the 'lost 15lbs over 3 months club'...or had any actual steady downward scale progress...it's hard to keep paying this much money without knowing if eventually it will start to work for me.
2024.05.13 23:07 docsuess84 Dock/Switch Question
I posted this in another sub but figured I’d try this one as well. I know what I need exists, and I’ve seen versions of what I’m looking for but the scale of cost and capability is huge, and I don’t want to pay more than I need to.
The current setup: I work in state government and work from home twice a week. They gave me a Dell Laptop and corresponding Dell dock that connects via a single USB-C cord. I have a keyboard, Kensington track ball, ethernet, ect all running through the dock with a duplicated setup at home. Dual displays are connected via DisplayPort, although HDMI is also an option.
The Problem: I bought a 2012 Mac Mini basically to be a Jellyfin media server, but also just to screw around and learn Linux stuff in general. Right now I have an HDMI cable running to one of my displays and I have to manually change the input on the monitor and either use a separate mouse and keyboard entirely or unplug my work peripherals and plug them into the Mini. It’s annoying and cluttered as hell. I would really like to just be able to push a single button and have my existing setup switch from one computer to the other seamlessly. I’m not gaming, or doing anything that requires 4K/high performance pass through requirements or anything. I’m just curious what I need for super basic desktop functionality, and would this work in conjunction with the Dell dock, replace the Dell dock? These are the parts I’m not totally sure about and the devices I’ve looked at range anywhere from 40-50 bucks to over 400 bucks depending on what they’re capable of.
submitted by docsuess84 to pchelp [link] [comments]
The current setup: I work in state government and work from home twice a week. They gave me a Dell Laptop and corresponding Dell dock that connects via a single USB-C cord. I have a keyboard, Kensington track ball, ethernet, ect all running through the dock with a duplicated setup at home. Dual displays are connected via DisplayPort, although HDMI is also an option.
The Problem: I bought a 2012 Mac Mini basically to be a Jellyfin media server, but also just to screw around and learn Linux stuff in general. Right now I have an HDMI cable running to one of my displays and I have to manually change the input on the monitor and either use a separate mouse and keyboard entirely or unplug my work peripherals and plug them into the Mini. It’s annoying and cluttered as hell. I would really like to just be able to push a single button and have my existing setup switch from one computer to the other seamlessly. I’m not gaming, or doing anything that requires 4K/high performance pass through requirements or anything. I’m just curious what I need for super basic desktop functionality, and would this work in conjunction with the Dell dock, replace the Dell dock? These are the parts I’m not totally sure about and the devices I’ve looked at range anywhere from 40-50 bucks to over 400 bucks depending on what they’re capable of.
2024.05.13 23:01 AcornTuesday Cannot tell if I'm actually a failure/incompetent or my boss just has unrealistic expectations
For context: This is my first job out of college. Spent months and months applying with nothing but rejection. I finished a master's, yet I don't think I know much or am very good at chemistry.
I have been working at this place for slightly less than 2 months so far. Training is very rough, I had to go out of my way and beg somebody to train me for HPLC, since I want to learn it as a skill. The QC head at first outright refused, saying something like "He doesn't have experience, he won't know how to do X, Y, Z anyway". If I need to learn how to insert myself on production batches, then I am at best a third wheel and I only inconvenience my coworkers.
The past few weeks my boss is getting worse with his criticisms and attitude toward me, to the point that it is greatly affecting my mental health. I'll be doing a reaction for the first time and he's essentially a drill sergeant while also being degrading about my potential as a chemist. "Where did you learn chemistry", "I'm disappointed", etc. - And no - no major mistakes where I failed a reaction or broke something expensive.
Today he said that I'm a disappointment to the company and that he expected more from me when I was hired. He also said my 2 coworkers (ones who are also young like me), do not want to work with me or like me, because I don't catch on quickly/am not a quick learner and "I just sit and watch" instead of inserting myself on large-scale production batches. He said I should avoid asking them questions too, because it might make me look dumb.
I've been trying my best to learn the processes. This is a small pharmaceutical production company with hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake if a reaction goes wrong. People who can independently run these will have at least 3+ years of experience, but even then, most of the time it is done by someone who's been here for 10+ years. I try to insert myself and always ask questions/offer help and I can tell I'm just annoying them.
My boss will nitpick and find little things to criticize me about. How I did a calculation, for example. It gave me the correct answer, yet he said I make it too confusing and write too much/take too long to do the calculation. If I'm using a new piece of glassware/fitting that I've never used before, he basically won't tell me what to do and act like my own intuition and problem-solving should tell me all I need to know - no training required, this isn't school, this is your job - his words.
He might actually show me how to do something one time and expect me to have mastered it if it needs to be done a month later. It could be something that has a good amount of steps such as adjusting several valves in a certain order on top of other things. I make one mistake on said process, I'll be berated and told I don't pay attention.
And lastly, there's quite the language barrier here. Both of the people who run this department including my boss, do not speak English well. I cannot always understand what they say and they get mad when I misinterpret it.
I just want to gain experience and eventually be a success. But from what he's been saying and what he said today, it makes me feel like a total failure and that I am too dumb to work and my degree is a lie. I'm so scared that if I lose this job, it will be another 8 months of my life down the drain, with nothing but rejection and unemployment... I just don't know what to do.
submitted by AcornTuesday to labrats [link] [comments]
I have been working at this place for slightly less than 2 months so far. Training is very rough, I had to go out of my way and beg somebody to train me for HPLC, since I want to learn it as a skill. The QC head at first outright refused, saying something like "He doesn't have experience, he won't know how to do X, Y, Z anyway". If I need to learn how to insert myself on production batches, then I am at best a third wheel and I only inconvenience my coworkers.
The past few weeks my boss is getting worse with his criticisms and attitude toward me, to the point that it is greatly affecting my mental health. I'll be doing a reaction for the first time and he's essentially a drill sergeant while also being degrading about my potential as a chemist. "Where did you learn chemistry", "I'm disappointed", etc. - And no - no major mistakes where I failed a reaction or broke something expensive.
Today he said that I'm a disappointment to the company and that he expected more from me when I was hired. He also said my 2 coworkers (ones who are also young like me), do not want to work with me or like me, because I don't catch on quickly/am not a quick learner and "I just sit and watch" instead of inserting myself on large-scale production batches. He said I should avoid asking them questions too, because it might make me look dumb.
I've been trying my best to learn the processes. This is a small pharmaceutical production company with hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake if a reaction goes wrong. People who can independently run these will have at least 3+ years of experience, but even then, most of the time it is done by someone who's been here for 10+ years. I try to insert myself and always ask questions/offer help and I can tell I'm just annoying them.
My boss will nitpick and find little things to criticize me about. How I did a calculation, for example. It gave me the correct answer, yet he said I make it too confusing and write too much/take too long to do the calculation. If I'm using a new piece of glassware/fitting that I've never used before, he basically won't tell me what to do and act like my own intuition and problem-solving should tell me all I need to know - no training required, this isn't school, this is your job - his words.
He might actually show me how to do something one time and expect me to have mastered it if it needs to be done a month later. It could be something that has a good amount of steps such as adjusting several valves in a certain order on top of other things. I make one mistake on said process, I'll be berated and told I don't pay attention.
And lastly, there's quite the language barrier here. Both of the people who run this department including my boss, do not speak English well. I cannot always understand what they say and they get mad when I misinterpret it.
I just want to gain experience and eventually be a success. But from what he's been saying and what he said today, it makes me feel like a total failure and that I am too dumb to work and my degree is a lie. I'm so scared that if I lose this job, it will be another 8 months of my life down the drain, with nothing but rejection and unemployment... I just don't know what to do.
2024.05.13 22:51 adventurepaul E-commerce Industry News Recap 🔥 Week of May 13th, 2024
Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth with sources in the full edition. Let's dive in...
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STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
___
Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
___
In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
___
Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
___
Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
___
Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
___
Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
___
Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
___
Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
___
Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
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Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
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Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
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Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
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Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
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FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
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800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
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Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
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TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
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eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
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Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
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A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
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Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
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Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
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Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
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Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
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Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
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The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
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Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
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Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
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E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
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Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
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I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter
PS: If I missed any big news this week, please share in the comments.
submitted by adventurepaul to ecommerce [link] [comments]
___
STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
___
Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
___
In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
___
Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
___
Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
___
Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
___
Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
___
Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
___
Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
___
Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
___
Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
___
Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
___
Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
___
Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
___
FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
___
800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
___
Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
___
TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
___
eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
___
Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
___
A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
___
Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
___
Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
___
Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
___
Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
___
Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
___
The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
___
Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
___
Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
___
E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
___
Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
___
I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-Commerce Newsletter
PS: If I missed any big news this week, please share in the comments.
2024.05.13 22:46 adventurepaul What's new in e-commerce? 🔥 Week of May 13th, 2024
Hi - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of the week's top stories, which I cover in depth in the newsletter. Let's dive in...
___
STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
___
Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
___
In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
___
Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
___
Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
___
Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
___
Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
___
Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
___
Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
___
Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
___
Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
___
Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
___
Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
___
Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
___
FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
___
800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
___
Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
___
TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
___
eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
___
Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
___
A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
___
Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
___
Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
___
Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
___
Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
___
Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
___
The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
___
Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
___
Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
___
E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
___
Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
___
I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
For more details on each story and sources, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/bigcommerce-for-sale-openai-gpt-4o-instacarts-unlikely-partnership/
What else is new in e-commerce? Share stories of interesting in the comments below (including in your own business) or on shopifreaks.
-PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter
PS: Want the full editions delivered to your Inbox each week? Join free at www.shopifreaks.com
submitted by adventurepaul to ShopifyeCommerce [link] [comments]
___
STAT OF THE WEEK: Kohl's sales have shrunk by $2.3B since 2019. During that same period of time, the company lost 1.3M customers who no longer shop with the retailer.
___
BigCommerce is exploring a sale after attracting takeover interest, according to sources who chose to remain anonymous due to the confidentiality of the information. The sources said that BigCommerce asked investment bank Qatalyst Partners to solicit interest from potential buyers that include private equity firms, but that the discussions are at an early stage and no deal is certain.
___
Squarespace announced that it will be going private in a $6.9B all-cash deal with private-equity firm Permira, who agreed to pay $44 per share (a roughly 30% premium). Although Squarespace never lost 90% of its share price like BigCommerce, it has experienced a tumultuous time on the market since its IPO in May 2021 — opening around $49.50 and at times trading in the low $20s. Shares rose nearly 13% to $43 in pre-market trading upon release of the news.
___
ByteDance filed a lawsuit in US federal court seeking to block the new law that would force the sale or ban of the app within the country. The lawsuit challenges the law on constitutional grounds, also citing commercial, technical, and legal hurdles, as well as opposition from Beijing. Legal experts say the legal battle will play out in the courts in coming months and likely will reach the Supreme Court.
___
OpenAI unveiled its newest model, GPT-4o, designed to turn ChatGPT into a digital personal assistant that can engage in real-time, spoken conversations and interact with users using text, screenshots, photos, documents, and charts. The new version of ChatGPT also has memory capabilities, which means it can learn from previous conversations. It will be available to both unpaid and premium customers alike. OpenAI also announced that it would be launching a desktop app with the GPT-4o capabilities, giving users another platform to interact with the technology outside of a web browser.
___
Amazon launched in South Africa last week, marking its first marketplace in sub-Saharan Africa, and bringing its total number of marketplaces worldwide to 22. To launch the new marketplace, Amazon is offering free delivery on first orders and on subsequent orders above R500 (about $27), access to 3,000 pick-up points, status updates via WhatsApp to track orders, 30 day refunds, and 24/7 customer support. The marketplace was supposed to launch in the country in 2023, but got delayed due to changes in priorities within Amazon.
___
In an unlikely partnership, Instacart is partnering with Uber Eats to expand into the restaurant delivery business. Instacart will add a new tab for restaurant delivery to its app in the coming weeks, the listings will be provided by Uber, and the food will be picked up and delivered by Uber Eats drivers. Customers will receive the same prices on both apps and Instacart will receive an affiliate commission on orders. It's a strange partnership though given that Instacart and Uber Eats actively compete on grocery delivery. Are they planning to merge? Uber says no.
___
Apple's advertisement for its latest iPad Pro sparked criticism for showing an animation of musical instruments, paint cans, cameras, record players, and other symbols of creativity being crushed by a giant machine, with the output being the new iPad Pro, which the company says is the thinnest Apple product ever. In this context, “crushing” was supposed to symbolize “consolidating” and “compacting” — with the visuals meant to showcase how the new iPad Pro puts the power of all these tools into the hands of creators in one thin device. However online commenters criticized the ad as insensitive and as symbolizing a “destruction of the human experience.” The ad hit the web on Tuesday, and by Thursday, Apple issued a mea culpa and apologized for the campaign.
___
Google is encouraging merchants to enable conversion annotations on their Google Shopping ads, which offer social proof that highlight a product's popularity. Conversion annotations like “best selling” or “3K shopped here recently” would provide visual cues about a product’s popularity or sales performance directly in the ad unit. Annotations like these are par for the course with e-commerce retailers including Amazon, Walmart, and Temu, which all employ similar tactics. They can provide valuable info for shoppers and also help with conversions. However they also open data privacy concerns, given that Google is not the actual retailer or marketplace selling the items, so a merchant would have to share this purchase history data from their e-commerce platform with Google — which technically most already do by giving access to GA4.
___
Shein is attempting to join the National Retail Federation as it pursues regulatory approval to go public in the US. The company believes that NRF membership would boost its chances of receiving SEC approval. However so far, Shein has been rejected numerous times. An anonymous source familiar with the matter said someone with heavy influence at the NRF is strongly against the Shein's admittance. However board members who spoke to CNBC said that Shein's membership application hadn't come up in meetings, and that they aren't involved in deciding which companies are granted access.
___
Amazon is leading the way with selling home goods, capturing 18.8% of consumer home furnishings spending, compared to Walmart's 7.3% market share. Notably, Amazon’s gains in the furniture category come in spite of the company’s decision to phase out two of its three furniture brands last year.
___
Stanley, which is projected to do $750M in sales this year, up from $73M in 2019, after seeing its water bottles become a status symbol thanks to TikTok, is now expanding into trendier accessories. The company is launching a line of bags called the All-Day Collection which include a mini cooler, backpack cooler, and Quencher Carry-All, designed for someone to sling their Stanley over their hip.
___
Jack Dorsey left the Bluesky board and deleted his account on the service he helped kickstart, claiming that Bluesky was “literally repeating all the mistakes” he made while running Twitter. Dorsey says he never intended Bluesky to be an independent company, but rather, an open source protocol that Twitter was supposed to be the first client of. He also confirmed that he is financially backing Nostr, another decentralized Twitter-like service popular among crypto enthusiasts and run by an anonymous founder.
___
Amazon is deploying 50 electric trucks in California, which it claims is the largest EV fleet in the country, as part of its mission to eliminate pollution from its global operations. The trucks will be integrated into first-mile operations, moving goods from container ships at the ports to fulfillment centers, as well as middle-mile operations, transporting packages from fulfillment centers to delivery centers.
___
Wix launched a new tool called AI Portfolio Creator, which allows a user to upload and organize large-scale image collections, select the type of portfolio they want, and then have the AI tool sort and generate a portfolio with clustered images, recommended titles and descriptions, and personalized layout options.
___
Amazon is now requiring all dietary supplements to be verified by a third-party testing, inspection, and certification organization — which is something that not even the FDA requires. Amazon is the largest supplement retailer in the US ahead of Walmart and Target, and its new requirements are expected to put more pressure on the industry, which is being scrutinized more than ever.
___
Alibaba is revamping its flagship retail website Taobao for the first time in seven years with a focus on providing a smoother search and buying process. The website overhaul comes ahead of the 618 sales event, China's second-largest annual shopping event. A few weeks ago I reported that Eddie Wu, the CEO of Alibaba Group, would now be directly overseeing its domestic e-commerce arm which includes Taobao and Tmall Group, and it sounds like he's hitting the ground running with his new responsibilities.
___
Amazon is hosting its first-ever Amazon Book Sale, a new shopping event starting on May 15th that offers up to 50% off print best sellers and up to 80% off Kindle Books. The six day shopping event will exclusively run in the US, and Prime-membership is not required to take advantage of the deals.
___
FTX reported that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded. The company owes about $11.2B to its customers and estimates that it has between $14.5B and $16.3B to distribute to them. The caveat is that customers will receive the USD value of their holdings at the time of the exchange collapse, and not the actual crypto holdings themselves, which means that they'll miss out on all gains during the past two years during which BTC went from around $16k to now over $60k. Better than nothing though, that's for sure.
___
800,000 consumers in Europe and the US were duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a network of fake online designer shops operated from China, which comprised one of the largest scams of its kind with 76,000 fake websites created. The scammers used expired domains to host its fake shops in order to help avoid detection by websites or brand owners, and more than 1M orders were processed in the past three years alone.
___
Beyond Inc, which owns Bed Bath & Beyond, Overstock, and Zulily, reported that its Q1 net loss swelled to $72M from $10M a year ago, while its operating loss widened to $58M from $8M. The company's active customers grew to 6M, up 26% from nearly 5M a year ago, however, its average order value dropped to $173 from $220 a year earlier.
___
TikTok will begin automatically labeling AI generated content when it is uploaded from certain platforms like DALL.E 3, Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Microsoft Copilot. TikTok will also start attaching Content Credentials to content, which will remain on the media when downloaded, allowing other platforms to read the metadata.
___
eBay is testing an Add To Cart button in search results that opens a Quick View window, allowing buyers to skip the listing page. Technically the button should probably not be labeled “Add To Cart” since it doesn't perform that action, but rather, displays a quick view window with three buttons: Buy It Now, Add To Cart, View All Details. Sellers are worried that buyers will miss crucial details in the product description that may lead to increased returns and negative feedback.
___
Amazon is planning to launch its fleet of drones in Tolleson, Arizona, but the city's extreme temperature is hampering its efforts. Drones can't operate in temperatures exceeding 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that Tolleson crosses for a full three months of the year.
___
A US district judge dismissed X's lawsuit against Bright Data, a data-scraping company accused of improperly accessing X system and violating X terms and state laws when scraping and selling data. The judge basically said that if X owned the data, it could perhaps argue that it has exclusive rights to control it, but then X wouldn't be able to enjoy the safe harbor of Section 230, which allows the platform to avoid liability for third-party content. Can't have it both ways!
___
Nintendo is discontinuing its X integration for the switch on June 10th, which means users will no longer be able to post screenshots or videos to the platform from their device. The drop in support also affects games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, which had game-specific options to send out tweets. Microsoft Xbox dropped support for X in April 2023 and Sony Playstation dropped the service in October 2023 due to the increase in X's API access fees.
___
Amazon claimed that its recordable incident rate — a metric that comprises all injuries requiring “more than basic first-aid treatment” — at its US warehouses has improved by 24% since 2019. However the National Employment Law Project challenged Amazon's injury data in a report last week, claiming that Amazon's overall injury rate in 2023 was 71% higher than that of other employers in the sector at 6.5 cases per 100 workers.
___
Amazon Ads announced three new advertising formats for streaming TV including shoppable carousel ads, interactive pause ads, and interactive trivia ads. Amazon did not say when the new ad types would officially launch, but noted that it will formally present them at a presentation on May 14th.
___
Meta is rolling out an expanded set of generative AI ad tools that can create full image variations with text overlays, expand images to fit across different aspect ratios, and generate alternate versions of headlines and other ad text. The features will become available globally to advertisers by the end of the year.
___
Square introduced a tool called Square Kiosk to allow self-service ordering at fast food restaurants. The device is a combined software, hardware, and payment solution that allows customers to select exactly what they want with customization options, upgrades, and add-ons.
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The European Parliament announced new measures to make packaging more sustainable and reduce packaging waste in the EU, including reduction targets of 15% by 2040 — which sounds far away but is only 16 years away?! As part of the new rules, the EU will set maximum empty space ratios for e-commerce transportation, ban certain single-use plastic packaging types, and beverage distributors and take-away food will have to offer consumers the option of bringing their own container.
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Indians who pre-ordered Teslas in 2016 are giving up and seeking refunds of their deposits after Elon Musk canceled another visit to the country last month. Disillusioned Tesla enthusiasts in India say they will now buy a car from the company only if they see it in a showroom, or they'll buy a different electrical vehicle from a company that actually exists in the country.
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Target is limiting its Pride Month collection to select stores this year instead of rolling out the merchandise nationwide like it typically has for the past decade, due to backlash the retailer experienced last year. Last May customers in certain stores knocked down LGBTQ+ merchandise displays, angrily approached store employees, and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.
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E-commerce spending from Jan 1 to April 30, 2024 rose 7% YoY to $331.6B, according to Adobe Analytics. One trend Adobe identified during the period is a shift of online spending to purchasing the cheapest goods across personal care, electronics, apparel, home & garden, furniture, and grocery.
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Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest, including Shopify's acquisition of Peel, a tool that integrates with a merchant's tech stack including Klaviyo and Recharge and helps them analyze their sales data to improve customer retention.
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I hope you found this recap helpful. See you next week!
For more details on each story and sources, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/bigcommerce-for-sale-openai-gpt-4o-instacarts-unlikely-partnership/
What else is new in e-commerce? Share stories of interesting in the comments below (including in your own business) or on shopifreaks.
-PAUL Editor of Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter
PS: Want the full editions delivered to your Inbox each week? Join free at www.shopifreaks.com
2024.05.13 22:39 PakistanArmyBall [Death and Asteroids] The Republic of Prometheus: A light in the dark or an inferno
![[Death and Asteroids] The Republic of Prometheus: A light in the dark or an inferno](https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/zXp7cg646J4c0m7oPIesuJrvOTECMrDLTpo-GIavtJU.jpg "[Death and Asteroids] The Republic of Prometheus: A light in the dark or an inferno") | Some quick memes to give an idea of their culture and broader actions submitted by PakistanArmyBall to WorldBuildingMemes [link] [comments] From the flames of Prometheus rises Mankind forged anew “Hear the sum of the whole matter in the compass of one brief word — every art possessed by man comes from Prometheus.” The History of the Promethean Republic was one born out of tragedy as millions looked onwards into space in shuttles to the outerworlds of UN colonized space with the promise of new life and settlement freshly dripping from their ears. When they arrived they were betrayed by these honeyed words as enmasse they were enslaved and subjected to mutilation and augmentation on a scale never before seen. The cries of millions silenced by the chatters of trillions of others in the stars. These betrayed were historians, mothers, fathers and scientists hoping to explore new frontiers only to be subjected to this by corrupt or rogue UN governors and industrialists looking to make a quick buck off of an “efficient” work force. They hoped to scrape away their free will and ability to rebel and leave only obedient and subservient “automatons” who while less physically capable than the cheaper robot would be more adaptive. Amongst those who betrayed them however was a man known as “Charon” who horrified at the deeds of his fellows set out to right what went wrong and bring the millions of people annihilated back. He would succeed but not in his lifetime as the title was merely one passed on to others like him. The various Charons subtly sifted through code and memories to try and identify what little he could bring back. It took the Galactic civil war between the LIS and UN to give them the right time to act. And so the cyborgs arose unleashing a massacre not seen since the French Revolution upon their slave masters after decades of encountering others they would realize that humanity was unlike them having retained their flesh and minds while also unwilling to accept them back into the fold. So emerged the Republic of Prometheus which would stand as the Cyborgs attempted to recover what they could of themselves and others. Some had awoken from their slavery to find their young children they took with them on their trip dead killed by their unrepentant slave drivers who saw little use or thrown into orphanages by the few with any semblance of a moral compass. Many tears were shed as children fled from their mangled parents and their steel husks as they said a rambling name that sounded semi-intelligible for their own. Prometheans disgraced and horrified vowed to stay in isolation in the hopes that maybe their children would have been better off without them. A myth of the “Republic of the Dead” emerged as the centuries went on of a region of space where the dead still walked. The prometheans eventually began to rebuild themselves and forge a new society one built around some semblance of patriotism and liberty. Eventually they developed from their faulty memories and eventually their own capabilities means of communication amongst each other via cybernetics with that the need for election dissipated as referendums took their place. The Prometheians could be regarded as of now as either the first cyber-democracy or perhaps a democratic technocracy. This would not dissipate as they founded their state religion, the cult of Libertas. By this point Charon and Prometheus had merged in their minds as one being with Prometheus developing into god in their eyes as the one who struck down betrayers and uphold oaths. By this point of course Charon had long perished having left to his home planet after the insurrection. Prometheus is a loving albeit harsh father who intends to force humanity to advance as one and despises “parasites” who prey on the week and advance only for themselves. He did leave them three principles: -The Principle of Spartacus(Unity), which was to uphold and embrace all members into their community in exchange for fully loyalty. It has also been interpreted as communal openness or universal brotherhood. -The Principle of Brown(Liberation), to end injustice wherever it may be and to liberate the people. It has also been interpreted as loyalty to god’s equality. -The Principle of Prometheus(Knowledge), the easiest to understand is to actively study the world both scientific, historical and cultural as well as to disseminate it beyond. While on paper positive the cult has by this point expanded to mandate cybernetics, worship of the three principles and universal mandatory service as well as a notoriously loose code of ethics. Notably including hiding information regarding medical research from participants till after the study has occurred, coercion via pay and even including prisoner coercion. When questioned they would merely state the individual has no free will as no man has accomplished anything by themselves with deviations from community norms often shunned. There is also the issue of the void whom many have started to regard as the personification of Prometheus to be freed while others denounce it as the being that had brought this corruption to the world and must remain imprisoned as per its punishment. It is not without its progress as work on stem cells previously slowed by regulation and cybernetics have exploded leading to a population regarded by many as technically immortal and without pain. Food is surprisingly abundant thanks to advances in Hydroponics and lower demand thanks to how far some augmented have went. The army is entirely adhoc largely composed of self-funded and organized militia charged with rooting out slavery, banditry and hostile forces at home. They would often engage in expeditions with state approval to liberate planets dominated by slavers and leave after transitioning power to the oppressed albeit often with a hefty booty of loot. These newly liberated planets deemed to be in the Promethean security network would find themselves guaranteed by the Republic and offered annexation at a later date pending referendum. However in case of invasion or an offensive war the state bureaucracy following a referendum authorizing it would select a Supreme Commander who would then select his subordinates who would then assume control of the various militias. Politically the dominant faction is the isolationists but two increasingly vocal interventionist factions have emerged: The Blues and Greens. Blues support a diplomatic approach gradually uniting the various planets underneath a cybernetic democracy and supplying technology as well as economic aid to develop them and build goodwill. Greens view humanity has squandered their inheritance and that their “elders” must take charge to guide them back to glory at all cost. Glory to Prometheus, Spartacus and Brown! |
2024.05.13 22:33 Leon_Steel Introduction to my fictional Shared Universe the JoeVerse.
 | I want to share a overview/introduction to my fictional universe that I've been slowly building overtime. I've unfortunately fallen into eternal world building hell where I build far more than I write but at least I thoroughly enjoy it. What I mostly want from this post is to see if the wild amalgamation that is my universe is at least on a surface level "Coherent". I'll answer any questions best I can. submitted by Leon_Steel to worldbuilding [link] [comments] Disclaimer: the pictures shown in the character summaries are not mine and are shown for concept art purposes. These character summaries are taken from across the JoeVerse universe. Notes: Some information is purposely left vague due to the requirement of story details and I tried to simply the explanations. It may see very unorganized but I created a continuity timeline to help keep track of the verse. I also created detailed guides for the many Stories, Races/Species, Factions, Locations and Dear God hundreds of Character profiles. Speaking of characters, I really enjoy casual power scaling of fictional characters etc, so when scaling my own universe I exclusively reference the Vs Battle Wiki Tiering system. It is undeniably superb I recommend everyone at least check it out https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Tiering_System?so=search Here is what a somewhat completed character profile would look like. https://docs.google.com/document/d/12KilbOVt5RFYg3IckKOYiLPt_UDjrBo5/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=111896033102767588703&rtpof=true&sd=true Lastly, I agree the name of my verse is terrible, it is a placeholder, I will also be sharing a Fun Facts towards the bottom for shits & gigs. Introduction: Welcome to the JoeVerse(Name Pending), a long time literary project that acts as both homage to what I love as well as a deep-dive into my creative mind. The JoeVerse is a fictional "Shared Universe" where a large number of characters, locations and stories created primarily by myself and in collaboration with others take place. The JoeVerse is depicted as existing within a large "Multiverse" consisting of a number of separate & distinct universes, all of which help make up the JoeVerse Multiverse. The most crucial aspect of the JoeVerse Multiverse is that it also incorporates a large number of genres from all major science fiction and fantasy concepts, such as how aliens, gods, magic, mythology, cosmic beings, parallel universes, interstellar travel and extremely advanced human-developed technology all exist prominently throughout the Multiverse. The JoeVerse primarily was created to express my love for "Action" and the many forms it comes in. For example the many pieces of media entertainment I consumed as a child. e.g Cartoons, Comics, Anime, Books, Video Games, Martial arts, Music, Movies, etc) all strongly and directly influenced the creation of the JoeVerse. The JoeVerse's many stories primarily focus on the aspects I like about these pieces of entertainment such as Action, Characters, Power-Scaling, Continuity, Worldbuilding and Paying Homage to these oh so cherished pieces of media. )))JoeVerse Prime: At the heart of this multiverse lies the mainstream continuity, which is known canonically as "JoeVerse Prime". JoeVerse Prime is based on a fictitious take on the real-world. For example, Earth found within the JoeVerse Prime has mostly all the features of the real one: same countries, same public personalities (politicians, movie stars, etc.), same historical events (such as World War II, the Cold War), and so on; however, it also contains many other fictional elements, such as new geographical locations, political organizations and a number of new & different historical events. Corners & Sub-Corners:(Re-read if needed) The JoeVerse Prime is divided into four separate major settings of distinct & “Broad '' genres known as "Corners". The four respective Corners are Earth, Intergalactic, the Naatherlands and the Interdimensional. All Corners house minor settings of typically more “Focused” genres & stories known as "Sub-corners". The Corners and their respective Sub-corners are liable to "Crossover" and even connect with one another. Four Corners explained: )Earth: Starting with "Earth", home to an abundance of "Action & Adventure" series featuring primarily humanity through various times in history (I.e stories can take place anywhere from Ancient times all the way to the Modern era and beyond).The majority of stories told on Earth feature subjects & characters such as war, criminals, detectives, espionage, politics, assassins, soldiers, super soldiers, spies, mutants, zombies, magic, warriors, martial artists and then some. There are also Earth's five sub-corners, starting with the "Underworld", home to the stories of "Urban Fantasy" about the supernatural & often cruel world of Vampires, Gargoyles, Lycans and much more all vying for survival and power while living just under the periphery of human civilization. The Underworld explores the supernatural civilization that has co-existed alongside humanity since ancient times. Then the second Sub-corner, the "Holy War", a myriad of stories using lore based on the many “Mythologies & Folklore” of various human cultures, these stories follow the secret, ancient, bloody war of the Celestial Church. The Celestial Church is a 2000 year old clandestine organization of holy; warriors, soldiers, mages, knights, nuns, monks and more gathered from the many religions & cultures from around the globe to be the stalwart shield & sharpened blade against the supernatural, the unending swathes of powerful demons attempting to invade Earth and the unspeakable evil entities from alternate dimensions all of which has threatened humanity since it's conception. Then the "West Coast Tales", a dramatic & grounded anthology series based in and around the West Coast of America. In every story we follow new characters in vastly different situations in life as they deal with family, drama, violence, romance, finances, sickness, coming of age, natural disasters, etc. Then, the "Virtual World", a video game-like dimension that is home to various "LitRPG" focused stories. The Virtual World is directly connected to Earth via the highly popular, full-body capsule operated VRMMO known as the T.B.G system(Name pending). The Virtual world naturally houses the concept of "Gaming" thus it converts anything that enters it into data that follows its unique laws of reality and thus it has NPCs, Boss fights, Exp, Quest, Stats, H.U.Ds, Builds, Classes, etc. Finally, the "Kaijin conflict" is the "Kaiju genre" focused storyline about the international conflict between the South Korean based Iskandar Industries with a human mutant sub-species known as the Kaijin. The Kaijin have superhuman abilities and are liable to become animalistic and go on a rampage; they also have the ability to transform into giant destructive monsters known as Kaijus. )Naatherlands: The next Corner, the "Naatherlands", a large somber dimension that is home to the land of the "Supernatural & the Macabre". With it having stories of Vampires, Lycans, Gremlins, Gargoyles, Witches & Warlocks, horrific wildlife & flora and warring factions led by barbaric warlords. There is also varying levels of industrialized magic-based technology all in the backdrop of a Victorian era-esque(Gaslamp) setting. And it's singular sub-corner the "Court of Blood", a "Political" focused series that shows the inner workings of the cunning, devious and often blood thirsty motives and actions of the royal members and leading factions of the upper echelon of the Naatherlands as they go about the cruel game of politics. )Intergalactic: Third Corner, the "Intergalactic" is the setting encompassing the vast Cosmos of which Earth is a part of. The Intergalactic is home to various "Sci-fi" stories full of aliens, robots, artificial intelligence, spacecrafts, advanced and futuristic weapons & technology, interstellar bounty hunters, psychic power wielding warriors as well as galaxy spanning empires and Interstellar warfare. Its first Sub-corner, "The War of Order & Chaos" is a "Mecha" inspired set of stories about the eternal struggle across the known universe between the immensely powerful chosen warriors of Order & Chaos known as the "Exuu'd". The Exuu’d are random individuals chosen from around the cosmos, if Chaos they are made to spread destruction, misery & death, if Order they are made to spread salvation, love & positivity. For the side of Chaos an Exuu’d can be criminals, scumbags or even prolific serial killers, for Order the Exuu’ds can be lawmen, samaritans or even average civilians. Regardless of origin the Exuu'd all fight each other for the very balance of the Cosmos. They are also gifted the powerful, sentient mechanized beings known as the Exxoms(Mechas) to assist in their endeavors. Exxoms all have unique designs, personalities and weapons & abilities. Its second Sub-corner "Aon", a "Sword and Planet" inspired storyline, planet and accompanying solar system. The Aon system is locked outside of time & reality and for unknown reasons travelers from the Intergalactic, Interdimensional and even across time get pulled into the mysterious system by an unknown force. Since being secluded by conventional time both the inhabitants & technology have progressed in a way that there are varying levels of technology. There are crude medieval swords & armor as well as lasers, bolters, throwers and other advanced energy weapons. All inhabitants of Aon regardless of age and race are magically kept in their prime age & appearance. There is also a special & powerful magic known as "Laasa", that only women can harness and use. This has led to the majority of the system being ruled or fought over by factions of women led armies and warriors. )Interdimensional: Lastly, the "Interdimensional", a catch-all term referring to the nigh-infinite Dimensions that make up the JoeVerse Prime. The Interdimensional is home to many genre blending stories of action, fantasy, science fiction and adventure all in the backdrop of numerous and radically different settings. This corner is populated by a myriad of exotic and powerful races such as the Angels of Heaven, the Demons of Hell, the reality warping Mymths, the cosmic beings known as the Balancers, the biologically altered insectoid empire known as the Urrglom, the humanoid Avian warriors known as the Harrpen, the technologically advanced bloodthirsty androids the Praeoids and much more. It's first Sub-corner the "Collegium Historia", an “informational” adventure series about an interdimensional group of like minded Scholars, Zoologist, Historians, Explorers and Warriors that work towards the detailed exploration & documentation of the untold number of dimensions and the species & culture they may hold. With the group being led by the renowned, cantankerous explorer and swordsman Scuto Magnus. Then it's second Sub-corner "The Fantastical Land of ORBIS"(Name pending), a standalone "High-fantasy" world full of adventure, danger, magic and awe. With ORBIS being an immense landmass the size of Earth. ORBIS is also full of creatures & beings such as Orcs, Elves, Dwarves, Dragons and so much more. There are also a slew of fantasy iterations of medieval humans cultures e.g Daiyomondo Empire(Feudal Japan), Gyellhaer(Viking Age Scandanavia), Kingdom of Stanum(Chivalric Knight era Europe) and the Shou Chongtu Empire(Warring States period China). JoeVerse Fun Facts: Shared Universe definition: A Shared universe is a fictional universe in which multiple independently created works are set. One or more authors may contribute works to a shared universe. The works within the universe may share characters and other story elements, with or without continuity.(For more detail please check the official Shared Universe Wikipedia. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_universe) The concept of the “Corners & Sub-corners" are inspired by and based on the genre, character & location organization of Marvel and DC Comics. Non-Canonically, the characters Cole Xaiver, Aiden Steel and Joseph were the first JoeVerse characters ever created in that order. With each of these characters being made to embody an aspect of the aforementioned media entertainment, Cole (Western media & concepts), Aiden (Eastern (Anime) media & concepts), Joseph(a mixture of both). The JoeVerse Multiverse is strongly inspired by and to some extent based on fictional works such as, the Marvel universe from Marvel Comics, the DC universe from DC Comics, the Image Universe from Image Comics, Star Wars from George Lucas, the Halo series from Bungie, the Dragon Age series from Bioware, the Borderlands series from Gearbox Software, the Godzilla series by Toho, the Resident Evil series by Capcom, the Gears of War series by (Cliff Bleszinski) Epic Games, the Skyrim & Fallout series by Bethesda, the Call of Duty series by Activision, the Metal Gear(Big Boss) series by Hideo Kojima, One Piece by Eiichiro Oda, the Spawn series by Seth McFarlane, Dragon Ball Z by Akira Toriyama, Overgeared by Park Saenal, Solo leveling by Chugong, Sword Art Online by Reki Kawahara, Psycho Pass by Gen Ubrobochi, the Elex series by Piranha Bytes, A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones by George R.R Martin, Starship Troopers series by Paul Verhoeven, Avatar by Nickelodeon, Samurai Jack by Genndy Tartakovsky, Ben 10 by Man of action, Bakugan by TMS, Kingdom by Yasuhisa Hara, One Punch Man by One, the Nasuverse/Type-Moon universe by Type-Moon, Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, RWBY by Rooster Teeth, the Tank girl series by Deadline, the Warhammer 40k universe by Games workshop, Street Fighter from Capcom, Mortal Kombat from Midway Games, the Transformers series by Hasbro, the Gundam series by Yoshiyuki Tomino, the Matrix by the Wachowskis, James Cameron's Avatar by James Cameron, Mad Max by George Miller, Fist of the North Star by Buronson, literally all Zombie Media in general and much much more. |
2024.05.13 22:24 SmartFella233 I am trying to fight my hatred. How can I do this?
Context and upbringing:
As long as I remember I always wanted to hurt people. Not animals, just people. I was a loud and charismatic child, though always ready to jump at someone if I felt like that. For some reason no one tried to stop me from occasionall bullying. Maybe because I was pretty charming towards everyone.
It all changed when I was 8 years old. I, can't remember why, lifted a boy and tried to run with him. I slipped. He fell with me and hit his head at the wall. He didn't lose consciousness immediatly, but couldn't stand and started to cry. At the moment I didn't feel anything. Maybe only that I messed up, though not because someone was hurt, but because I could get grounded. Grounded I got. Boy was vomitting and laying in bed for several days and that was first time I actually got problems because of my cruelty.
In my country as a kid you can't go to prison unless you commited very horrific crime, but you can get in special category in law system. Let's call it "The List". If you get there you will have big problems with getting in good university, finding a job and etc. It simply means that you commited crime, though not very severe, and now police watches over you. It damages your reputation a lot.
For some reason, I still don't know why for sure, his parents forgave me after 2 days of deciding what to do with me. Those were two messed up days, my mom crying, my dad silent, my siblings absent(can't remember why though) and I realised what was happening and what I could het with that. Maybe I went traumatised, because even after amnesty I never ever again started a fight myself (and always tried to avoid it at all costs) and started to slowly change from extrovert to complete introvert-sociophob.
I was 8 at the moment of "accident" and my peak of loneliness and self-destruction was at 14 years old. No friends, excpet few people I never opened to, no girlfriend (because I was scared of them like they were aliens), complexes(overweight, acne and no geneticly good face) and hatred. Hatred was a problem I underestimated, but I will leave it for now.
At 14 I started to go to the gym. My older brother was picking on me so I went without much enthusiasm, but I trying my best there since it was better than simply losing my time.
Time went by, I had nothing in my life but my PC, school and gym. I was a good student so my marks were good. Gym started to pay off after about a year or something. My social skills were still dead, but I decided that I should learn masks and small talks (I couldn't do it as easy as most).
At 16 I learned about self-improvement. Tried it. Liked it. Decided to dedicate my time for it. Ended up with a lot of hate toward myself since I couldn't beat my laziness, but couldn't just brush it off anymore knowing that I could do more. I did improve though in every aspect of life. It was just not ideal, so I couldn't praise myself for it as I shoud have.
At 16 I thought that I was somewhat ready for a girl and in a bold manner (like an actual autist) asked the most attractive (in my opinion at least) girl in my school. To my surprise se accepted even though my initial goal was simply to beat fear and ask her at all. Date went AWFULY. Every alpha-male would die from cringe if they saw me that evening, but I was happy. I got lots of experience and threw a nice jab at my fears.
Fast forward two years. I am 18, studying in university since my studies paid off. My looks are better than ever. My self-esteem is somewhat adequate. I even got in a relationship and lost my v-card (something I considered impossible) to a 9/10 (on my scale). I broke up with her though, because I was tired of wearing a mask of a perfect caring boyfriend and her illogical and idiotic whims were getting on my nerves. I am a dick for that, but I really tried to be as good as I could. The biggest reason of my breakup was that I couldn't ignore hatred any longer. And that's how we finally get to the main part
Main problem and present:
I feel deep resentment towards human species. I imagine torturing and killing people from 13 years old and I can't simply brush those thoughts off. My mother did good job at programming me, so I have sense of moral. I know this is bad, so I project my thoughts only on "bad guys". I can sit for hours imagining how I would torture and maul pedophiles, children shooters, rapists and others scums. Sometimes when I watch videos with accidents where people get hurt I catch myself smiling. I don't like it since those people are innocent in those videos. I fear it. I am 18 and those thoughts are stronger than ever. My psychologist (which I finally went to) after 4 sessions decided to leave me because my case is "too complex", so she gave me numbers of better specialists. She told me that I do have clear psychopatic tendencies and that I am true narcissist. What should I do? I, don't know how, developed strong sense of justice and moral and my main dream and goal - is finding a true, pure love. I know that I don't want to think this cruel sick way. I know that I want to change, but how?
I decided to actually face this hatred and try to fight it because of anime "Vinland Saga". I want to be at peace, I want to bring peace. I want to be a kinder, better and stronger person. Genuinely good and kind. I even considered suicide to not let even a chance that I hurt somebody, but my family loves me deeply. They don't know of how cruel my thoughts are even towards them, but my death will mentally destroy at least my mother and grandmother. I can't do that. What should I do?
submitted by SmartFella233 to Advice [link] [comments]
As long as I remember I always wanted to hurt people. Not animals, just people. I was a loud and charismatic child, though always ready to jump at someone if I felt like that. For some reason no one tried to stop me from occasionall bullying. Maybe because I was pretty charming towards everyone.
It all changed when I was 8 years old. I, can't remember why, lifted a boy and tried to run with him. I slipped. He fell with me and hit his head at the wall. He didn't lose consciousness immediatly, but couldn't stand and started to cry. At the moment I didn't feel anything. Maybe only that I messed up, though not because someone was hurt, but because I could get grounded. Grounded I got. Boy was vomitting and laying in bed for several days and that was first time I actually got problems because of my cruelty.
In my country as a kid you can't go to prison unless you commited very horrific crime, but you can get in special category in law system. Let's call it "The List". If you get there you will have big problems with getting in good university, finding a job and etc. It simply means that you commited crime, though not very severe, and now police watches over you. It damages your reputation a lot.
For some reason, I still don't know why for sure, his parents forgave me after 2 days of deciding what to do with me. Those were two messed up days, my mom crying, my dad silent, my siblings absent(can't remember why though) and I realised what was happening and what I could het with that. Maybe I went traumatised, because even after amnesty I never ever again started a fight myself (and always tried to avoid it at all costs) and started to slowly change from extrovert to complete introvert-sociophob.
I was 8 at the moment of "accident" and my peak of loneliness and self-destruction was at 14 years old. No friends, excpet few people I never opened to, no girlfriend (because I was scared of them like they were aliens), complexes(overweight, acne and no geneticly good face) and hatred. Hatred was a problem I underestimated, but I will leave it for now.
At 14 I started to go to the gym. My older brother was picking on me so I went without much enthusiasm, but I trying my best there since it was better than simply losing my time.
Time went by, I had nothing in my life but my PC, school and gym. I was a good student so my marks were good. Gym started to pay off after about a year or something. My social skills were still dead, but I decided that I should learn masks and small talks (I couldn't do it as easy as most).
At 16 I learned about self-improvement. Tried it. Liked it. Decided to dedicate my time for it. Ended up with a lot of hate toward myself since I couldn't beat my laziness, but couldn't just brush it off anymore knowing that I could do more. I did improve though in every aspect of life. It was just not ideal, so I couldn't praise myself for it as I shoud have.
At 16 I thought that I was somewhat ready for a girl and in a bold manner (like an actual autist) asked the most attractive (in my opinion at least) girl in my school. To my surprise se accepted even though my initial goal was simply to beat fear and ask her at all. Date went AWFULY. Every alpha-male would die from cringe if they saw me that evening, but I was happy. I got lots of experience and threw a nice jab at my fears.
Fast forward two years. I am 18, studying in university since my studies paid off. My looks are better than ever. My self-esteem is somewhat adequate. I even got in a relationship and lost my v-card (something I considered impossible) to a 9/10 (on my scale). I broke up with her though, because I was tired of wearing a mask of a perfect caring boyfriend and her illogical and idiotic whims were getting on my nerves. I am a dick for that, but I really tried to be as good as I could. The biggest reason of my breakup was that I couldn't ignore hatred any longer. And that's how we finally get to the main part
Main problem and present:
I feel deep resentment towards human species. I imagine torturing and killing people from 13 years old and I can't simply brush those thoughts off. My mother did good job at programming me, so I have sense of moral. I know this is bad, so I project my thoughts only on "bad guys". I can sit for hours imagining how I would torture and maul pedophiles, children shooters, rapists and others scums. Sometimes when I watch videos with accidents where people get hurt I catch myself smiling. I don't like it since those people are innocent in those videos. I fear it. I am 18 and those thoughts are stronger than ever. My psychologist (which I finally went to) after 4 sessions decided to leave me because my case is "too complex", so she gave me numbers of better specialists. She told me that I do have clear psychopatic tendencies and that I am true narcissist. What should I do? I, don't know how, developed strong sense of justice and moral and my main dream and goal - is finding a true, pure love. I know that I don't want to think this cruel sick way. I know that I want to change, but how?
I decided to actually face this hatred and try to fight it because of anime "Vinland Saga". I want to be at peace, I want to bring peace. I want to be a kinder, better and stronger person. Genuinely good and kind. I even considered suicide to not let even a chance that I hurt somebody, but my family loves me deeply. They don't know of how cruel my thoughts are even towards them, but my death will mentally destroy at least my mother and grandmother. I can't do that. What should I do?
2024.05.13 22:18 ahead-market SURG Q1 2024 Earnings: Revenue Decline and EPS Miss
SURG reported a revenue decline of 9.34% to $31.43 million and a significant EPS drop to $0.07, missing analysts' expectations.
Segment Performance
Future Business Drivers: - Expansion of prepaid wireless company, LinkUp Mobile. - Rollout and scaling of prepaid wireless business.
Additional Notes
SURG's reported revenue of $31.43 million is slightly above the average analyst estimate of $29.91 million for Q1 2024, but the EPS of $0.07 is significantly below the average estimate of $0.2. The company's year-over-year revenue declined by 18.10%, and EPS decreased by 78.13%, indicating a substantial underperformance compared to the previous year.
submitted by ahead-market to ahead_market [link] [comments]
Key Metrics
| Revenue | $31.43M | -9.34% |
| Operating Expenses | $29.68M | |
| Operating Expenses Growth | -0.13% | |
| Net Income | $1.22M | |
| Earnings Per Share | $0.07 | -78.13% |
| Cash and Cash Equivalents | $42.95M |
- Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO wireless) (revenue - $28.9M, growth - 0.7%) - Revenue increased slightly despite the pause in new ACP enrollments.
- Lead Generation (growth - -100%) - Revenue eliminated due to operational changes.
- Continued execution on growth strategy and solid profitability.
- Launched a comprehensive strategic plan to expand the SurgePays nationwide network.
Future Business Drivers: - Expansion of prepaid wireless company, LinkUp Mobile. - Rollout and scaling of prepaid wireless business.
Additional Notes
- The company has a substantial cash balance of over $42 million.
- The company believes it is well-positioned to become one of the country's largest distributors of prepaid wireless and underbanked financial technology services.
SURG's reported revenue of $31.43 million is slightly above the average analyst estimate of $29.91 million for Q1 2024, but the EPS of $0.07 is significantly below the average estimate of $0.2. The company's year-over-year revenue declined by 18.10%, and EPS decreased by 78.13%, indicating a substantial underperformance compared to the previous year.
2024.05.13 22:07 Betty-Adams Humans are Weird – Storm Watching
 | https://preview.redd.it/iz9fs2j8390d1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d2d65cef0923a5976fbb19bc61a9fda3a5548b47 submitted by Betty-Adams to humansarespaceorcs [link] [comments] Humans are Weird – Storm WatchingOriginal Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-storm-watching“Why did we even bother building a base on the land anyway?” Rollsaround asked as he absorbed the dim light filtering through the wide windows of the base. The windows gave an impressive view of what the humans in their generosity called a “coastline”. Instead of gently undulating coral beds easing down into the water the glittering volcanic rock dropped abruptly from the graminoid covered highlands and dove down dozens of meters to where it usually met the heaving surface of the water below. Today however the water had seemingly decided to express its objections to the separation and was attempting to scale the cliffs in massive waves. The base vibrated from the force of a gust of wind and Rollsaround hunkered deeper into his mineral bath. “Do you require another introduction of thermal-loaded water?” Tenth Cousin asked from where she perched on a Shatar couch, reading something that was supposed to be very masculine poetry from her homeworld. “I do not,” Rollsaround reassured her. “I was just reacting negatively to the storm.” She tilted her head to examine the weather conditions with a thoughtful set to her antenna. “I think it is a pleasant change,” she said. “The harsh, unfiltered lights of the suns here means that we have no real night. The clouds at lest allow the illusions of dusk, and the wind overhead is not entirely unlike breezes in Father’s canopy if you can focus your attention on some pleasant task.” “Well if we can’t go outside during clear weather without protection due to the radiation,” Rollsaround grumbled, “and we can’t go outside in stormy weather due to the, well, the storm, I say we should have just built a floating base that we could submerge during storm weather.” “There is perhaps logic in that,” Tenth cousin agreed, and very deliberately tilted her head back to the poetry. Rollsaround drooped his leading appendages over the edge of the bowl and absorbed the storm light in a slightly sulky mood. The airlock cycled open and Third Sister stepped in with the brisk stride that Rollsaround had noticed that high ranking sisters only used when they were looking for someone who had committed some infraction. Tenth Cousin brought the poem up closer to her face and started moving her mandibles as if she was completely focused on sounding out the words. Third Sister tilted her head the examine the cousin and then abruptly swiveled her body to focus on Rollsaround. “First Ecologist,” she began, “do you know First Mechanic’s current location? The exterior vents in my lab require percussive maintenance.” “He is off shift by now,” Rollsaround said. “You should check the washrooms and his quarters.” However even as he offered this sound advice Rollsaround felt a ripple of unease. Human Friend Conner almost never went to his quarters after his shift. He was highly social, even by human standards and usually came to the main room to chat first thing. “I have already checked both of those locations,” Third Sister stated. “He is not there and he is not answering his comm.” Rollsaround mulled over that. Clearly Third Sister needed to find the human. An improperly vented laboratory in such a base as theirs was a serious health risk. “Have you checked the storage areas?” he asked. “I did a ping for his comm,” she replied, “but it is not reading as in the base at all so I could not locate the room he was in. I was surprised as I didn’t think we had any shielding strong enough to block the comm signal in the base-” She cut off as Rollsaround suddenly surged up out of his mineral bath and crawled out of it. “What is the matter First Ecologist?” Third Sister asked in confusion. “He has gone out for a walk,” Rollsaround said, forgetting in his rush to add emotional undertones to his words. “Out?” Third Sister demanded, her antenna going lax with confusion. “Out to watch the storm from withing the wind currents,” Rollsaround explained. “How do you gather that?” Third Sister demanded. “He has described storm watching on his homeworld to me,” Rollsaround explained as he opened the hatch to the sub floor currents. “He also mentioned what he thought the perfect storm watching spot would be on these cliffs. That spot is behind enough rocks to block the signal. Now if you will excuse me I am going to go fetch him.” “He has broken regulations!” Third Sister clicked, her frill flashing red with alarm. “That on a secondary vine,” Tenth Cousin interjected as she came up to them. “The same regulations apply to you First Ecologist! The wind-” “I am rated as fully wind resistant under these conditions,” Rollsaround said with a dismissive wave, “one of the perks of not being built like a windmill.” “Your thermal mass-” Tenth Cousin tried again. “I am fully warmed at the moment and I will turn back if my core temperature drops too low,” he interjected again. “Now if there are no further objections?” Without waiting for their objections he dropped down into the sub-floor current and tapped the control panel to direct the current to the main outlet. He bundled his appendages and let himself be swept into the cold, but fresh exterior water. He bumped up against the smooth rise of the outlet and edged up out of the water. The wind was powerful. He could feel it tug at him if he raised a gripping appendage high, but at least over the main path there were eddies along the ground that were so comparatively we that he couldn’t even feel them. He began shuffling at top speed along the path. A the crest of the first high spot the winds did hit him, shoving his body sideways. However, as he had expected it required barely a fraction of his strength to grip the path firmly with his set appendages as he moved the free appendages forward. It barely even slowed him down, the roar of it was rather disconcerting when it wasn’t muted by the base walls however. He did wonder how the human had made it this far. After a long steady shuffle he rounded the corner that was blocking the signal and spotted a tall figure down at the cliff’s edge that wasn’t normally there. Rollsaround activated the comm he was holding pressed against the ground. There was a significant delay before the human responded. “Human Friend Conner,” Rollsaround said, trying to put firmness in his tones. “Come now and carry me back to the base. I am at the crest of the hill looking down at you.” There was an odd sound from the comm that suggested the human was trying to say something back, but human speaking organs were not optimized for shielding the microphone of a comm while speaking so the human simply gave two short radio bursts and the tall figure on the cliff’s edge began swaying back and forth as it moved towards the path. Rollsaround anchored himself more fully against the blasts and watched in grim interest as the gusts blew the tall human form to one side and then the other as the human struggled up the path. When Human Friend Conner finally did reach him the human didn’t bother speaking. He just reached down with a grin and tried to lift the Undulate off of the path. For one long moment Rollsaround hung on to the ground in a show of strength. He wasn’t sure if it would impress the human but a little dominance display did seem called for. He let go when the look of perplexity fully formed on the humans face but before he could give a more powerful tug and they headed back to the base. Being carried over a meter above the ground in this wind was another experience altogether. The swaying of the human in the wind felt far wilder than it had looked, and Rollsaround found himself clutching tightly to the human’s coat as the wind tried to rip him away. They finally made the base airlock and stepped through to the blessedly still air. Rollsaround dropped to the floor and shook the cold water off of himself. “I think Third Sister would like a word with you,” he said. Granted she would probably want a word with him too, but Human Friend Conner didn’t need to know that. https://i.redd.it/fm1fy76e390d1.gif Science Fiction Books By Betty AdamsAmazon (Kindle, Paperback, Audiobook)Barnes & Nobel (Nook, Paperback, Audiobook)Powell's Books (Paperback)Kobo by Rakuten (ebook and Audiobook)Google Play Books (ebook and Audiobook)Check out my books at any of these sites and leave a review! "Flying Sparks" - a novel set in the "Dying Embers" universe is now avaliable on all sites!Please go leave a review on Amazon! It really helps and keeps me writing becase tea and taxes don't pay themselves sadly! |
2024.05.13 22:07 Betty-Adams Humans are Weird – Storm Watching
 | https://preview.redd.it/430dn0fa390d1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a749df9d2520424786bee70f0fbaab5006c5913 submitted by Betty-Adams to u/Betty-Adams [link] [comments] Humans are Weird – Storm WatchingOriginal Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-storm-watching“Why did we even bother building a base on the land anyway?” Rollsaround asked as he absorbed the dim light filtering through the wide windows of the base. The windows gave an impressive view of what the humans in their generosity called a “coastline”. Instead of gently undulating coral beds easing down into the water the glittering volcanic rock dropped abruptly from the graminoid covered highlands and dove down dozens of meters to where it usually met the heaving surface of the water below. Today however the water had seemingly decided to express its objections to the separation and was attempting to scale the cliffs in massive waves. The base vibrated from the force of a gust of wind and Rollsaround hunkered deeper into his mineral bath. “Do you require another introduction of thermal-loaded water?” Tenth Cousin asked from where she perched on a Shatar couch, reading something that was supposed to be very masculine poetry from her homeworld. “I do not,” Rollsaround reassured her. “I was just reacting negatively to the storm.” She tilted her head to examine the weather conditions with a thoughtful set to her antenna. “I think it is a pleasant change,” she said. “The harsh, unfiltered lights of the suns here means that we have no real night. The clouds at lest allow the illusions of dusk, and the wind overhead is not entirely unlike breezes in Father’s canopy if you can focus your attention on some pleasant task.” “Well if we can’t go outside during clear weather without protection due to the radiation,” Rollsaround grumbled, “and we can’t go outside in stormy weather due to the, well, the storm, I say we should have just built a floating base that we could submerge during storm weather.” “There is perhaps logic in that,” Tenth cousin agreed, and very deliberately tilted her head back to the poetry. Rollsaround drooped his leading appendages over the edge of the bowl and absorbed the storm light in a slightly sulky mood. The airlock cycled open and Third Sister stepped in with the brisk stride that Rollsaround had noticed that high ranking sisters only used when they were looking for someone who had committed some infraction. Tenth Cousin brought the poem up closer to her face and started moving her mandibles as if she was completely focused on sounding out the words. Third Sister tilted her head the examine the cousin and then abruptly swiveled her body to focus on Rollsaround. “First Ecologist,” she began, “do you know First Mechanic’s current location? The exterior vents in my lab require percussive maintenance.” “He is off shift by now,” Rollsaround said. “You should check the washrooms and his quarters.” However even as he offered this sound advice Rollsaround felt a ripple of unease. Human Friend Conner almost never went to his quarters after his shift. He was highly social, even by human standards and usually came to the main room to chat first thing. “I have already checked both of those locations,” Third Sister stated. “He is not there and he is not answering his comm.” Rollsaround mulled over that. Clearly Third Sister needed to find the human. An improperly vented laboratory in such a base as theirs was a serious health risk. “Have you checked the storage areas?” he asked. “I did a ping for his comm,” she replied, “but it is not reading as in the base at all so I could not locate the room he was in. I was surprised as I didn’t think we had any shielding strong enough to block the comm signal in the base-” She cut off as Rollsaround suddenly surged up out of his mineral bath and crawled out of it. “What is the matter First Ecologist?” Third Sister asked in confusion. “He has gone out for a walk,” Rollsaround said, forgetting in his rush to add emotional undertones to his words. “Out?” Third Sister demanded, her antenna going lax with confusion. “Out to watch the storm from withing the wind currents,” Rollsaround explained. “How do you gather that?” Third Sister demanded. “He has described storm watching on his homeworld to me,” Rollsaround explained as he opened the hatch to the sub floor currents. “He also mentioned what he thought the perfect storm watching spot would be on these cliffs. That spot is behind enough rocks to block the signal. Now if you will excuse me I am going to go fetch him.” “He has broken regulations!” Third Sister clicked, her frill flashing red with alarm. “That on a secondary vine,” Tenth Cousin interjected as she came up to them. “The same regulations apply to you First Ecologist! The wind-” “I am rated as fully wind resistant under these conditions,” Rollsaround said with a dismissive wave, “one of the perks of not being built like a windmill.” “Your thermal mass-” Tenth Cousin tried again. “I am fully warmed at the moment and I will turn back if my core temperature drops too low,” he interjected again. “Now if there are no further objections?” Without waiting for their objections he dropped down into the sub-floor current and tapped the control panel to direct the current to the main outlet. He bundled his appendages and let himself be swept into the cold, but fresh exterior water. He bumped up against the smooth rise of the outlet and edged up out of the water. The wind was powerful. He could feel it tug at him if he raised a gripping appendage high, but at least over the main path there were eddies along the ground that were so comparatively we that he couldn’t even feel them. He began shuffling at top speed along the path. A the crest of the first high spot the winds did hit him, shoving his body sideways. However, as he had expected it required barely a fraction of his strength to grip the path firmly with his set appendages as he moved the free appendages forward. It barely even slowed him down, the roar of it was rather disconcerting when it wasn’t muted by the base walls however. He did wonder how the human had made it this far. After a long steady shuffle he rounded the corner that was blocking the signal and spotted a tall figure down at the cliff’s edge that wasn’t normally there. Rollsaround activated the comm he was holding pressed against the ground. There was a significant delay before the human responded. “Human Friend Conner,” Rollsaround said, trying to put firmness in his tones. “Come now and carry me back to the base. I am at the crest of the hill looking down at you.” There was an odd sound from the comm that suggested the human was trying to say something back, but human speaking organs were not optimized for shielding the microphone of a comm while speaking so the human simply gave two short radio bursts and the tall figure on the cliff’s edge began swaying back and forth as it moved towards the path. Rollsaround anchored himself more fully against the blasts and watched in grim interest as the gusts blew the tall human form to one side and then the other as the human struggled up the path. When Human Friend Conner finally did reach him the human didn’t bother speaking. He just reached down with a grin and tried to lift the Undulate off of the path. For one long moment Rollsaround hung on to the ground in a show of strength. He wasn’t sure if it would impress the human but a little dominance display did seem called for. He let go when the look of perplexity fully formed on the humans face but before he could give a more powerful tug and they headed back to the base. Being carried over a meter above the ground in this wind was another experience altogether. The swaying of the human in the wind felt far wilder than it had looked, and Rollsaround found himself clutching tightly to the human’s coat as the wind tried to rip him away. They finally made the base airlock and stepped through to the blessedly still air. Rollsaround dropped to the floor and shook the cold water off of himself. “I think Third Sister would like a word with you,” he said. Granted she would probably want a word with him too, but Human Friend Conner didn’t need to know that. https://i.redd.it/a6z7gwsc390d1.gif Science Fiction Books By Betty AdamsAmazon (Kindle, Paperback, Audiobook)Barnes & Nobel (Nook, Paperback, Audiobook)Powell's Books (Paperback)Kobo by Rakuten (ebook and Audiobook)Google Play Books (ebook and Audiobook)Check out my books at any of these sites and leave a review! "Flying Sparks" - a novel set in the "Dying Embers" universe is now avaliable on all sites!Please go leave a review on Amazon! It really helps and keeps me writing becase tea and taxes don't pay themselves sadly! |
2024.05.13 22:06 Betty-Adams Humans are Weird – Storm Watching
Humans are Weird – Storm Watching
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-storm-watching“Why did we even bother building a base on the land anyway?” Rollsaround asked as he absorbed the dim light filtering through the wide windows of the base.
The windows gave an impressive view of what the humans in their generosity called a “coastline”. Instead of gently undulating coral beds easing down into the water the glittering volcanic rock dropped abruptly from the graminoid covered highlands and dove down dozens of meters to where it usually met the heaving surface of the water below. Today however the water had seemingly decided to express its objections to the separation and was attempting to scale the cliffs in massive waves. The base vibrated from the force of a gust of wind and Rollsaround hunkered deeper into his mineral bath.
“Do you require another introduction of thermal-loaded water?” Tenth Cousin asked from where she perched on a Shatar couch, reading something that was supposed to be very masculine poetry from her homeworld.
“I do not,” Rollsaround reassured her. “I was just reacting negatively to the storm.”
She tilted her head to examine the weather conditions with a thoughtful set to her antenna.
“I think it is a pleasant change,” she said. “The harsh, unfiltered lights of the suns here means that we have no real night. The clouds at lest allow the illusions of dusk, and the wind overhead is not entirely unlike breezes in Father’s canopy if you can focus your attention on some pleasant task.”
“Well if we can’t go outside during clear weather without protection due to the radiation,” Rollsaround grumbled, “and we can’t go outside in stormy weather due to the, well, the storm, I say we should have just built a floating base that we could submerge during storm weather.”
“There is perhaps logic in that,” Tenth cousin agreed, and very deliberately tilted her head back to the poetry.
Rollsaround drooped his leading appendages over the edge of the bowl and absorbed the storm light in a slightly sulky mood. The airlock cycled open and Third Sister stepped in with the brisk stride that Rollsaround had noticed that high ranking sisters only used when they were looking for someone who had committed some infraction. Tenth Cousin brought the poem up closer to her face and started moving her mandibles as if she was completely focused on sounding out the words. Third Sister tilted her head the examine the cousin and then abruptly swiveled her body to focus on Rollsaround.
“First Ecologist,” she began, “do you know First Mechanic’s current location? The exterior vents in my lab require percussive maintenance.”
“He is off shift by now,” Rollsaround said. “You should check the washrooms and his quarters.”
However even as he offered this sound advice Rollsaround felt a ripple of unease. Human Friend Conner almost never went to his quarters after his shift. He was highly social, even by human standards and usually came to the main room to chat first thing.
“I have already checked both of those locations,” Third Sister stated. “He is not there and he is not answering his comm.”
Rollsaround mulled over that. Clearly Third Sister needed to find the human. An improperly vented laboratory in such a base as theirs was a serious health risk.
“Have you checked the storage areas?” he asked.
“I did a ping for his comm,” she replied, “but it is not reading as in the base at all so I could not locate the room he was in. I was surprised as I didn’t think we had any shielding strong enough to block the comm signal in the base-”
She cut off as Rollsaround suddenly surged up out of his mineral bath and crawled out of it.
“What is the matter First Ecologist?” Third Sister asked in confusion.
“He has gone out for a walk,” Rollsaround said, forgetting in his rush to add emotional undertones to his words.
“Out?” Third Sister demanded, her antenna going lax with confusion.
“Out to watch the storm from withing the wind currents,” Rollsaround explained.
“How do you gather that?” Third Sister demanded.
“He has described storm watching on his homeworld to me,” Rollsaround explained as he opened the hatch to the sub floor currents. “He also mentioned what he thought the perfect storm watching spot would be on these cliffs. That spot is behind enough rocks to block the signal. Now if you will excuse me I am going to go fetch him.”
“He has broken regulations!” Third Sister clicked, her frill flashing red with alarm.
“That on a secondary vine,” Tenth Cousin interjected as she came up to them. “The same regulations apply to you First Ecologist! The wind-”
“I am rated as fully wind resistant under these conditions,” Rollsaround said with a dismissive wave, “one of the perks of not being built like a windmill.”
“Your thermal mass-” Tenth Cousin tried again.
“I am fully warmed at the moment and I will turn back if my core temperature drops too low,” he interjected again. “Now if there are no further objections?”
Without waiting for their objections he dropped down into the sub-floor current and tapped the control panel to direct the current to the main outlet. He bundled his appendages and let himself be swept into the cold, but fresh exterior water. He bumped up against the smooth rise of the outlet and edged up out of the water. The wind was powerful. He could feel it tug at him if he raised a gripping appendage high, but at least over the main path there were eddies along the ground that were so comparatively we that he couldn’t even feel them. He began shuffling at top speed along the path. A the crest of the first high spot the winds did hit him, shoving his body sideways. However, as he had expected it required barely a fraction of his strength to grip the path firmly with his set appendages as he moved the free appendages forward. It barely even slowed him down, the roar of it was rather disconcerting when it wasn’t muted by the base walls however. He did wonder how the human had made it this far. After a long steady shuffle he rounded the corner that was blocking the signal and spotted a tall figure down at the cliff’s edge that wasn’t normally there.
Rollsaround activated the comm he was holding pressed against the ground. There was a significant delay before the human responded.
“Human Friend Conner,” Rollsaround said, trying to put firmness in his tones. “Come now and carry me back to the base. I am at the crest of the hill looking down at you.”
There was an odd sound from the comm that suggested the human was trying to say something back, but human speaking organs were not optimized for shielding the microphone of a comm while speaking so the human simply gave two short radio bursts and the tall figure on the cliff’s edge began swaying back and forth as it moved towards the path. Rollsaround anchored himself more fully against the blasts and watched in grim interest as the gusts blew the tall human form to one side and then the other as the human struggled up the path.
When Human Friend Conner finally did reach him the human didn’t bother speaking. He just reached down with a grin and tried to lift the Undulate off of the path. For one long moment Rollsaround hung on to the ground in a show of strength. He wasn’t sure if it would impress the human but a little dominance display did seem called for. He let go when the look of perplexity fully formed on the humans face but before he could give a more powerful tug and they headed back to the base.
Being carried over a meter above the ground in this wind was another experience altogether. The swaying of the human in the wind felt far wilder than it had looked, and Rollsaround found himself clutching tightly to the human’s coat as the wind tried to rip him away. They finally made the base airlock and stepped through to the blessedly still air. Rollsaround dropped to the floor and shook the cold water off of himself.
“I think Third Sister would like a word with you,” he said.
Granted she would probably want a word with him too, but Human Friend Conner didn’t need to know that.
Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams
Amazon (Kindle, Paperback, Audiobook)
Barnes & Nobel (Nook, Paperback, Audiobook)
Powell's Books (Paperback)
Kobo by Rakuten (ebook and Audiobook)
Google Play Books (ebook and Audiobook)
Check out my books at any of these sites and leave a review! "Flying Sparks" - a novel set in the "Dying Embers" universe is now avaliable on all sites!Please go leave a review on Amazon! It really helps and keeps me writing becase tea and taxes don't pay themselves sadly!
2024.05.13 22:05 Betty-Adams Humans are Weird – Storm Watching
https://preview.redd.it/292890cl190d1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=80452218955753005afd72dfd6f5c56b3cf0c658
“Why did we even bother building a base on the land anyway?” Rollsaround asked as he absorbed the dim light filtering through the wide windows of the base.
The windows gave an impressive view of what the humans in their generosity called a “coastline”. Instead of gently undulating coral beds easing down into the water the glittering volcanic rock dropped abruptly from the graminoid covered highlands and dove down dozens of meters to where it usually met the heaving surface of the water below. Today however the water had seemingly decided to express its objections to the separation and was attempting to scale the cliffs in massive waves. The base vibrated from the force of a gust of wind and Rollsaround hunkered deeper into his mineral bath.
“Do you require another introduction of thermal-loaded water?” Tenth Cousin asked from where she perched on a Shatar couch, reading something that was supposed to be very masculine poetry from her homeworld.
“I do not,” Rollsaround reassured her. “I was just reacting negatively to the storm.”
She tilted her head to examine the weather conditions with a thoughtful set to her antenna.
“I think it is a pleasant change,” she said. “The harsh, unfiltered lights of the suns here means that we have no real night. The clouds at lest allow the illusions of dusk, and the wind overhead is not entirely unlike breezes in Father’s canopy if you can focus your attention on some pleasant task.”
“Well if we can’t go outside during clear weather without protection due to the radiation,” Rollsaround grumbled, “and we can’t go outside in stormy weather due to the, well, the storm, I say we should have just built a floating base that we could submerge during storm weather.”
“There is perhaps logic in that,” Tenth cousin agreed, and very deliberately tilted her head back to the poetry.
Rollsaround drooped his leading appendages over the edge of the bowl and absorbed the storm light in a slightly sulky mood. The airlock cycled open and Third Sister stepped in with the brisk stride that Rollsaround had noticed that high ranking sisters only used when they were looking for someone who had committed some infraction. Tenth Cousin brought the poem up closer to her face and started moving her mandibles as if she was completely focused on sounding out the words. Third Sister tilted her head the examine the cousin and then abruptly swiveled her body to focus on Rollsaround.
“First Ecologist,” she began, “do you know First Mechanic’s current location? The exterior vents in my lab require percussive maintenance.”
“He is off shift by now,” Rollsaround said. “You should check the washrooms and his quarters.”
However even as he offered this sound advice Rollsaround felt a ripple of unease. Human Friend Conner almost never went to his quarters after his shift. He was highly social, even by human standards and usually came to the main room to chat first thing.
“I have already checked both of those locations,” Third Sister stated. “He is not there and he is not answering his comm.”
Rollsaround mulled over that. Clearly Third Sister needed to find the human. An improperly vented laboratory in such a base as theirs was a serious health risk.
“Have you checked the storage areas?” he asked.
“I did a ping for his comm,” she replied, “but it is not reading as in the base at all so I could not locate the room he was in. I was surprised as I didn’t think we had any shielding strong enough to block the comm signal in the base-”
She cut off as Rollsaround suddenly surged up out of his mineral bath and crawled out of it.
“What is the matter First Ecologist?” Third Sister asked in confusion.
“He has gone out for a walk,” Rollsaround said, forgetting in his rush to add emotional undertones to his words.
“Out?” Third Sister demanded, her antenna going lax with confusion.
“Out to watch the storm from withing the wind currents,” Rollsaround explained.
“How do you gather that?” Third Sister demanded.
“He has described storm watching on his homeworld to me,” Rollsaround explained as he opened the hatch to the sub floor currents. “He also mentioned what he thought the perfect storm watching spot would be on these cliffs. That spot is behind enough rocks to block the signal. Now if you will excuse me I am going to go fetch him.”
“He has broken regulations!” Third Sister clicked, her frill flashing red with alarm.
“That on a secondary vine,” Tenth Cousin interjected as she came up to them. “The same regulations apply to you First Ecologist! The wind-”
“I am rated as fully wind resistant under these conditions,” Rollsaround said with a dismissive wave, “one of the perks of not being built like a windmill.”
“Your thermal mass-” Tenth Cousin tried again.
“I am fully warmed at the moment and I will turn back if my core temperature drops too low,” he interjected again. “Now if there are no further objections?”
Without waiting for their objections he dropped down into the sub-floor current and tapped the control panel to direct the current to the main outlet. He bundled his appendages and let himself be swept into the cold, but fresh exterior water. He bumped up against the smooth rise of the outlet and edged up out of the water. The wind was powerful. He could feel it tug at him if he raised a gripping appendage high, but at least over the main path there were eddies along the ground that were so comparatively we that he couldn’t even feel them. He began shuffling at top speed along the path. A the crest of the first high spot the winds did hit him, shoving his body sideways. However, as he had expected it required barely a fraction of his strength to grip the path firmly with his set appendages as he moved the free appendages forward. It barely even slowed him down, the roar of it was rather disconcerting when it wasn’t muted by the base walls however. He did wonder how the human had made it this far. After a long steady shuffle he rounded the corner that was blocking the signal and spotted a tall figure down at the cliff’s edge that wasn’t normally there.
Rollsaround activated the comm he was holding pressed against the ground. There was a significant delay before the human responded.
“Human Friend Conner,” Rollsaround said, trying to put firmness in his tones. “Come now and carry me back to the base. I am at the crest of the hill looking down at you.”
There was an odd sound from the comm that suggested the human was trying to say something back, but human speaking organs were not optimized for shielding the microphone of a comm while speaking so the human simply gave two short radio bursts and the tall figure on the cliff’s edge began swaying back and forth as it moved towards the path. Rollsaround anchored himself more fully against the blasts and watched in grim interest as the gusts blew the tall human form to one side and then the other as the human struggled up the path.
When Human Friend Conner finally did reach him the human didn’t bother speaking. He just reached down with a grin and tried to lift the Undulate off of the path. For one long moment Rollsaround hung on to the ground in a show of strength. He wasn’t sure if it would impress the human but a little dominance display did seem called for. He let go when the look of perplexity fully formed on the humans face but before he could give a more powerful tug and they headed back to the base.
Being carried over a meter above the ground in this wind was another experience altogether. The swaying of the human in the wind felt far wilder than it had looked, and Rollsaround found himself clutching tightly to the human’s coat as the wind tried to rip him away. They finally made the base airlock and stepped through to the blessedly still air. Rollsaround dropped to the floor and shook the cold water off of himself.
“I think Third Sister would like a word with you,” he said.
Granted she would probably want a word with him too, but Human Friend Conner didn’t need to know that.
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Humans are Weird – Storm Watching
Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-storm-watching“Why did we even bother building a base on the land anyway?” Rollsaround asked as he absorbed the dim light filtering through the wide windows of the base.
The windows gave an impressive view of what the humans in their generosity called a “coastline”. Instead of gently undulating coral beds easing down into the water the glittering volcanic rock dropped abruptly from the graminoid covered highlands and dove down dozens of meters to where it usually met the heaving surface of the water below. Today however the water had seemingly decided to express its objections to the separation and was attempting to scale the cliffs in massive waves. The base vibrated from the force of a gust of wind and Rollsaround hunkered deeper into his mineral bath.
“Do you require another introduction of thermal-loaded water?” Tenth Cousin asked from where she perched on a Shatar couch, reading something that was supposed to be very masculine poetry from her homeworld.
“I do not,” Rollsaround reassured her. “I was just reacting negatively to the storm.”
She tilted her head to examine the weather conditions with a thoughtful set to her antenna.
“I think it is a pleasant change,” she said. “The harsh, unfiltered lights of the suns here means that we have no real night. The clouds at lest allow the illusions of dusk, and the wind overhead is not entirely unlike breezes in Father’s canopy if you can focus your attention on some pleasant task.”
“Well if we can’t go outside during clear weather without protection due to the radiation,” Rollsaround grumbled, “and we can’t go outside in stormy weather due to the, well, the storm, I say we should have just built a floating base that we could submerge during storm weather.”
“There is perhaps logic in that,” Tenth cousin agreed, and very deliberately tilted her head back to the poetry.
Rollsaround drooped his leading appendages over the edge of the bowl and absorbed the storm light in a slightly sulky mood. The airlock cycled open and Third Sister stepped in with the brisk stride that Rollsaround had noticed that high ranking sisters only used when they were looking for someone who had committed some infraction. Tenth Cousin brought the poem up closer to her face and started moving her mandibles as if she was completely focused on sounding out the words. Third Sister tilted her head the examine the cousin and then abruptly swiveled her body to focus on Rollsaround.
“First Ecologist,” she began, “do you know First Mechanic’s current location? The exterior vents in my lab require percussive maintenance.”
“He is off shift by now,” Rollsaround said. “You should check the washrooms and his quarters.”
However even as he offered this sound advice Rollsaround felt a ripple of unease. Human Friend Conner almost never went to his quarters after his shift. He was highly social, even by human standards and usually came to the main room to chat first thing.
“I have already checked both of those locations,” Third Sister stated. “He is not there and he is not answering his comm.”
Rollsaround mulled over that. Clearly Third Sister needed to find the human. An improperly vented laboratory in such a base as theirs was a serious health risk.
“Have you checked the storage areas?” he asked.
“I did a ping for his comm,” she replied, “but it is not reading as in the base at all so I could not locate the room he was in. I was surprised as I didn’t think we had any shielding strong enough to block the comm signal in the base-”
She cut off as Rollsaround suddenly surged up out of his mineral bath and crawled out of it.
“What is the matter First Ecologist?” Third Sister asked in confusion.
“He has gone out for a walk,” Rollsaround said, forgetting in his rush to add emotional undertones to his words.
“Out?” Third Sister demanded, her antenna going lax with confusion.
“Out to watch the storm from withing the wind currents,” Rollsaround explained.
“How do you gather that?” Third Sister demanded.
“He has described storm watching on his homeworld to me,” Rollsaround explained as he opened the hatch to the sub floor currents. “He also mentioned what he thought the perfect storm watching spot would be on these cliffs. That spot is behind enough rocks to block the signal. Now if you will excuse me I am going to go fetch him.”
“He has broken regulations!” Third Sister clicked, her frill flashing red with alarm.
“That on a secondary vine,” Tenth Cousin interjected as she came up to them. “The same regulations apply to you First Ecologist! The wind-”
“I am rated as fully wind resistant under these conditions,” Rollsaround said with a dismissive wave, “one of the perks of not being built like a windmill.”
“Your thermal mass-” Tenth Cousin tried again.
“I am fully warmed at the moment and I will turn back if my core temperature drops too low,” he interjected again. “Now if there are no further objections?”
Without waiting for their objections he dropped down into the sub-floor current and tapped the control panel to direct the current to the main outlet. He bundled his appendages and let himself be swept into the cold, but fresh exterior water. He bumped up against the smooth rise of the outlet and edged up out of the water. The wind was powerful. He could feel it tug at him if he raised a gripping appendage high, but at least over the main path there were eddies along the ground that were so comparatively we that he couldn’t even feel them. He began shuffling at top speed along the path. A the crest of the first high spot the winds did hit him, shoving his body sideways. However, as he had expected it required barely a fraction of his strength to grip the path firmly with his set appendages as he moved the free appendages forward. It barely even slowed him down, the roar of it was rather disconcerting when it wasn’t muted by the base walls however. He did wonder how the human had made it this far. After a long steady shuffle he rounded the corner that was blocking the signal and spotted a tall figure down at the cliff’s edge that wasn’t normally there.
Rollsaround activated the comm he was holding pressed against the ground. There was a significant delay before the human responded.
“Human Friend Conner,” Rollsaround said, trying to put firmness in his tones. “Come now and carry me back to the base. I am at the crest of the hill looking down at you.”
There was an odd sound from the comm that suggested the human was trying to say something back, but human speaking organs were not optimized for shielding the microphone of a comm while speaking so the human simply gave two short radio bursts and the tall figure on the cliff’s edge began swaying back and forth as it moved towards the path. Rollsaround anchored himself more fully against the blasts and watched in grim interest as the gusts blew the tall human form to one side and then the other as the human struggled up the path.
When Human Friend Conner finally did reach him the human didn’t bother speaking. He just reached down with a grin and tried to lift the Undulate off of the path. For one long moment Rollsaround hung on to the ground in a show of strength. He wasn’t sure if it would impress the human but a little dominance display did seem called for. He let go when the look of perplexity fully formed on the humans face but before he could give a more powerful tug and they headed back to the base.
Being carried over a meter above the ground in this wind was another experience altogether. The swaying of the human in the wind felt far wilder than it had looked, and Rollsaround found himself clutching tightly to the human’s coat as the wind tried to rip him away. They finally made the base airlock and stepped through to the blessedly still air. Rollsaround dropped to the floor and shook the cold water off of himself.
“I think Third Sister would like a word with you,” he said.
Granted she would probably want a word with him too, but Human Friend Conner didn’t need to know that.
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2024.05.13 22:04 Betty-Adams [Humans are Weird] - Part 187 - Storm Watching - Short, Absurd, Science Fiction Stories
| | https://preview.redd.it/sseb3o7p190d1.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=41f9688c2ecdfa32b73ed6338ae415a0a58921f3 submitted by Betty-Adams to redditserials [link] [comments] Humans are Weird – Storm WatchingOriginal Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-storm-watching“Why did we even bother building a base on the land anyway?” Rollsaround asked as he absorbed the dim light filtering through the wide windows of the base. The windows gave an impressive view of what the humans in their generosity called a “coastline”. Instead of gently undulating coral beds easing down into the water the glittering volcanic rock dropped abruptly from the graminoid covered highlands and dove down dozens of meters to where it usually met the heaving surface of the water below. Today however the water had seemingly decided to express its objections to the separation and was attempting to scale the cliffs in massive waves. The base vibrated from the force of a gust of wind and Rollsaround hunkered deeper into his mineral bath. “Do you require another introduction of thermal-loaded water?” Tenth Cousin asked from where she perched on a Shatar couch, reading something that was supposed to be very masculine poetry from her homeworld. “I do not,” Rollsaround reassured her. “I was just reacting negatively to the storm.” She tilted her head to examine the weather conditions with a thoughtful set to her antenna. “I think it is a pleasant change,” she said. “The harsh, unfiltered lights of the suns here means that we have no real night. The clouds at lest allow the illusions of dusk, and the wind overhead is not entirely unlike breezes in Father’s canopy if you can focus your attention on some pleasant task.” “Well if we can’t go outside during clear weather without protection due to the radiation,” Rollsaround grumbled, “and we can’t go outside in stormy weather due to the, well, the storm, I say we should have just built a floating base that we could submerge during storm weather.” “There is perhaps logic in that,” Tenth cousin agreed, and very deliberately tilted her head back to the poetry. Rollsaround drooped his leading appendages over the edge of the bowl and absorbed the storm light in a slightly sulky mood. The airlock cycled open and Third Sister stepped in with the brisk stride that Rollsaround had noticed that high ranking sisters only used when they were looking for someone who had committed some infraction. Tenth Cousin brought the poem up closer to her face and started moving her mandibles as if she was completely focused on sounding out the words. Third Sister tilted her head the examine the cousin and then abruptly swiveled her body to focus on Rollsaround. “First Ecologist,” she began, “do you know First Mechanic’s current location? The exterior vents in my lab require percussive maintenance.” “He is off shift by now,” Rollsaround said. “You should check the washrooms and his quarters.” However even as he offered this sound advice Rollsaround felt a ripple of unease. Human Friend Conner almost never went to his quarters after his shift. He was highly social, even by human standards and usually came to the main room to chat first thing. “I have already checked both of those locations,” Third Sister stated. “He is not there and he is not answering his comm.” Rollsaround mulled over that. Clearly Third Sister needed to find the human. An improperly vented laboratory in such a base as theirs was a serious health risk. “Have you checked the storage areas?” he asked. “I did a ping for his comm,” she replied, “but it is not reading as in the base at all so I could not locate the room he was in. I was surprised as I didn’t think we had any shielding strong enough to block the comm signal in the base-” She cut off as Rollsaround suddenly surged up out of his mineral bath and crawled out of it. “What is the matter First Ecologist?” Third Sister asked in confusion. “He has gone out for a walk,” Rollsaround said, forgetting in his rush to add emotional undertones to his words. “Out?” Third Sister demanded, her antenna going lax with confusion. “Out to watch the storm from withing the wind currents,” Rollsaround explained. “How do you gather that?” Third Sister demanded. “He has described storm watching on his homeworld to me,” Rollsaround explained as he opened the hatch to the sub floor currents. “He also mentioned what he thought the perfect storm watching spot would be on these cliffs. That spot is behind enough rocks to block the signal. Now if you will excuse me I am going to go fetch him.” “He has broken regulations!” Third Sister clicked, her frill flashing red with alarm. “That on a secondary vine,” Tenth Cousin interjected as she came up to them. “The same regulations apply to you First Ecologist! The wind-” “I am rated as fully wind resistant under these conditions,” Rollsaround said with a dismissive wave, “one of the perks of not being built like a windmill.” “Your thermal mass-” Tenth Cousin tried again. “I am fully warmed at the moment and I will turn back if my core temperature drops too low,” he interjected again. “Now if there are no further objections?” Without waiting for their objections he dropped down into the sub-floor current and tapped the control panel to direct the current to the main outlet. He bundled his appendages and let himself be swept into the cold, but fresh exterior water. He bumped up against the smooth rise of the outlet and edged up out of the water. The wind was powerful. He could feel it tug at him if he raised a gripping appendage high, but at least over the main path there were eddies along the ground that were so comparatively we that he couldn’t even feel them. He began shuffling at top speed along the path. A the crest of the first high spot the winds did hit him, shoving his body sideways. However, as he had expected it required barely a fraction of his strength to grip the path firmly with his set appendages as he moved the free appendages forward. It barely even slowed him down, the roar of it was rather disconcerting when it wasn’t muted by the base walls however. He did wonder how the human had made it this far. After a long steady shuffle he rounded the corner that was blocking the signal and spotted a tall figure down at the cliff’s edge that wasn’t normally there. Rollsaround activated the comm he was holding pressed against the ground. There was a significant delay before the human responded. “Human Friend Conner,” Rollsaround said, trying to put firmness in his tones. “Come now and carry me back to the base. I am at the crest of the hill looking down at you.” There was an odd sound from the comm that suggested the human was trying to say something back, but human speaking organs were not optimized for shielding the microphone of a comm while speaking so the human simply gave two short radio bursts and the tall figure on the cliff’s edge began swaying back and forth as it moved towards the path. Rollsaround anchored himself more fully against the blasts and watched in grim interest as the gusts blew the tall human form to one side and then the other as the human struggled up the path. When Human Friend Conner finally did reach him the human didn’t bother speaking. He just reached down with a grin and tried to lift the Undulate off of the path. For one long moment Rollsaround hung on to the ground in a show of strength. He wasn’t sure if it would impress the human but a little dominance display did seem called for. He let go when the look of perplexity fully formed on the humans face but before he could give a more powerful tug and they headed back to the base. Being carried over a meter above the ground in this wind was another experience altogether. The swaying of the human in the wind felt far wilder than it had looked, and Rollsaround found himself clutching tightly to the human’s coat as the wind tried to rip him away. They finally made the base airlock and stepped through to the blessedly still air. Rollsaround dropped to the floor and shook the cold water off of himself. “I think Third Sister would like a word with you,” he said. Granted she would probably want a word with him too, but Human Friend Conner didn’t need to know that. Science Fiction Books By Betty AdamsAmazon (Kindle, Paperback, Audiobook)Barnes & Nobel (Nook, Paperback, Audiobook)Powell's Books (Paperback)Kobo by Rakuten (ebook and Audiobook)Google Play Books (ebook and Audiobook)Check out my books at any of these sites and leave a review! "Flying Sparks" - a novel set in the "Dying Embers" universe is now avaliable on all sites!Please go leave a review on Amazon! It really helps and keeps me writing becase tea and taxes don't pay themselves sadly! |