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Lower My AWS Bill
Screaming in the Cloud
The Era of Virtual Events with Shelby Spees
The Era of Virtual Events with Shelby Spees https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/media.transistor.fm/b3f8b1dd/90ae222d.mp3
Shelby Spees is a developer advocate at Honeycomb.io. She brings five years of software development experience to the position, having worked as a DevOps engineer at true[X], a site reliability engineer at Grindr, and a software engineer at The Aerospace Corporation.
Join Corey and Shelby as they talk about the pros and cons of remote work, why it's so important to let employees work in whatever way they can be most effective, how everyone thrives in different environments, the downsides of being a superuser on Twitter, how Shelby keeps track of epic Twitter threads, why Corey thinks it's harder to speak remotely than in a live setting, the pros and cons of the hallway track at conferences, the aspects of virtual events Shelby prefers, and more.
Episode Show Notes and Transcript
About Shelby Spees
Shelby Spees has been developing software professionally since 2015 in a range of domains, which has made her appreciate the importance of learning how to learn and creating support systems for lifelong skill development. When she's not helping teams level up their observability practice, you can find her at home playing on her Switch or singing karaoke with her rescue pitbull Nova.
Links Referenced
Connect with Shelby on LinkedIn
Shelby's Personal Site
Email Shelby directly at [email protected]
Announcer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Cloud Economist Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.
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Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. I'm joined this week by Shelby Spees, a developer advocate at a company called Honeycomb. Shelby, welcome to the show.
Shelby: Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
Corey: It really is, isn't it? It's fun. Folks who were doing developer advocacy in previous years would always have a hard time arranging time to talk on a podcast because, "Well, I'd like to, but I'm about to hit 300,000 flown miles this year," and going from speaking engagement to speaking engagements. Now that we're all trapped at home, it turns out, it's a little easier to get on people's calendars.
Shelby: Yeah. It's been really interesting because I did a lot of internal speaking and lunch and learns, and workshops, and things like that at previous jobs, but this is my first time being a developer advocate. And I started this job in March, right as we were starting to do lockdown, so I never even got to be really part of the conference circuit. And so, there's a lot of things I'm learning now that I do speaking at events that some people take for granted because they've been doing events for years, and other things are brand new to them because everything's virtual now. And so, I think that the biggest challenge has been realizing if you give a 30-minute talk in the morning, and then someone signs up for a podcast or a webinar or something in the afternoon, that ends up being really draining.
And there's been a couple days over the last couple of months where we realized I have four speaking engagements on my calendar today. Like, that's going to be a lot. But for the most part, it's been really fun, and figuring out that transition between being public-facing and speaking. And then going back to my content work, or interacting with my teammates and things like that. Just having that all in one place is really convenient, at least. And I have a really nice desk setup now. So, [laugh].
Corey: Yeah, I think that's something that we're never going to be able to go back to in corporate offices. I mean, I discovered this a few years early when I started my company and realized that, "Wow, okay, I can bootstrap this and run it for a while, but I'm certainly not going to rent office space in San Francisco because, money." So, instead, I'm going to go all out and I put some sarcastic budget toward decorating out my home office, and I love what I've built; it's awesome. And it was—to be very direct—dirt cheap, particularly in light of what it costs to hire people.
So, I look at this now and then I look at all of the crappy startup offices I've worked in in the course of my career, and it's, "Wait a minute. You were fighting against getting me a nice standing desk or a good chair? Instead, you got the other one because you wanted to save $300. Are you nuts? Look at how much time I spend between sitting in the chair, and working at my desk, and yelling at my computer screen." Why cut money in the dumbest possible things? I don't want to go back to it.
Shelby: Yeah, I know. I realized that working remote isn't for everybody, but I do feel that for a lot of us, it's been a big improvement. I specifically wanted a remote role, and this is my first time working remote, so it just happened that I started when everyone else was going remote. And so it was really interesting because it was my first time working remote I didn't own a desk. I barely used my computer at home, I just did everything at work. Occasionally I would have to go online for on-call or something, but otherwise, it was just me at my kitchen island or me on the couch.
And so, when I started Honeycomb, right before I started, I talked to our HR manager, and I'm like, hey, is there, like, a budget or something so I can expense a desk? And this was the first time they encountered that. So, I mean, now we've onboarded a whole bunch of remote people in the last few months. But I'm responsible for us having even a protocol around that. And so that kind of felt cool, and I was happy to work with them.
You know, what's a reasonable amount of money to spend on a standing desk, or how many monitors does it make sense to have? And so Liz has been a big supporter there, where she was like, "You should make sure you get a really good mic and a really good camera because you're going to be doing a lot of events and stuff." And so it's been great. And I think remote work really does suit me because I'm very sensitive to background noise, I'm very sensitive to other people having conversations around me, and when I first started working in software, I was supposed to share an office, but my officemate worked in a lab, and so she was just gone all the time. So, I basically had this gorgeous office all to myself with a window that overlooked a courtyard, and it was the best possible scenario. But I could still hear my office neighbors talking on the phone during the day. And so I started wearing noise-canceling headphones and stuff.
And you think like that shouldn't be necessary if you have an office with a door that closes, right? And so I found myself not really being able to focus until, like, 3, 4 p.m. and I would just work from four to seven because I would have so much trouble focusing during the normal workday. So, yeah, this really suits me now because I can just be flexible about what works with my brain.
Corey: That's something I'm learning is that it's difficult for people to say that, "Oh, I love remote work," or, "I hate remote work," because the thing that really surprised me when I started doing it full time has been that I don't actually want to be remote all the time. And I don't want to be sitting in my coworkers' laps all the time. There's some areas where I want to be alone, and can work independently, and get things done super well. I'm emphasizing that type of work during the pandemic. There are other times where it's sitting in the same room as someone, having a conversation collaboratively is incredibly valuable. Both schools of thought are completely valid. The problem is when people try and build it into the same one, into this unified way of approaching all things must be like this all the time. That's where you run into trouble.
Shelby: Absolutely. And what's exciting to me, or the opportunity that we've had during the pandemic is figuring out how to do that in the same room collaboration stuff when we can't be in the same room. And my teammates have shown me so many cool tools, and strategies, and with pairing on code stuff, or doing product design or prioritization, meeting using sticky notes and a mural board and things like that, where it ends up being almost more productive than it probably would have been if we were in the same room, just because the tools are so well-designed for that use. But there's also just the camaraderie stuff. I'm figuring out right now, is it safe for me to just go walk to, like, a cafe and sit outside a cafe, one day a week? Because sometimes I just need that change of scenery, I just need it to be on a different screen size for my brain to process it differently. And so I miss that; I miss just the variety.
Corey: And that's part of the thing that I noticed when I started getting deeper into, I guess, what you'd call DevRel these days, has been that the role is different every time. And some days I'm on stage speaking to a bunch of people-less so these days—other times I'm depressingly speaking to a very silent, and more than a little judgy camera that doesn't give me any feedback or energy whatsoever, and other times I'm writing, and other times I'm building something myself to see how it works. And no two days look alike, and for some things—I don't understand, now that I'm doing a fair bit of coding, how the living hell people can do this effectively or well in large open-plan offices. And I look back at the times that I was coding professionally, and I have distinct memories of taking an almost sarcastic number of sick days or working-from-home days, not because I was sick: because it was the only way I could get an isolated area where I wasn't getting distracted constantly.
Shelby: Yeah. That was actually something that came up at my last job when they wanted to reorganize. We had two floors, we had the sales and marketing and media floor, and then upstairs was the tech and product floor. And so, everyone talked about how the third floor was just silent all the time, and we loved it. And then at one point someone moved and came upstairs and started putting on satellite radio things and I looked at my teammates, and it's like, "Okay, no. Mutiny. This isn't going to happen."
And then you go downstairs, and people are talking, and there's background music, and it's just a very different kind of work. And I think that's okay. And some people can code with background music. I can code as long as there's no lyrics to what I'm listening to, and as long as it's not catchy. But everyone has different ways that they can work, and I think the most important thing—and the reason why open offices are just going, the way of the dodo—is it's so hard to accommodate everyone's different work styles. You can't please everybody, so just give them the opportunity to make the office space that works for them.
Corey: I think that's actually one of the more empathetic and humane approaches to things. I've just never understood why, when you're hiring people who are incredibly talented and not to mention, incredibly expensive, you don't have a conversation with them as a part of that of, "Hi, now that we've made the offer and rest, great, how do you work most effectively?" And then do whatever you can in order to empower that. At some level with junior folks, the answer may very well be, I haven't worked in enough workspaces to really have a good idea. In other cases, it's great. When I'm doing this working in a conference room is great. During incidents, I like having a room with all the relevant people in, et cetera, et cetera.
Shelby: Yeah.
Corey: But I want to bring up something else that is fun. You and I both spend a—how do we say this—unfortunate amount of time on the Twitters. And you, at the time of this recording, recently had a tweet that went out that I replied to, and oh, boy did I get letters. I don't often get it wrong on Twitter, but I am convinced by the aspects of who has responded to my take on this, that I am in the wrong on this. Specifically—and what you said was completely innocuous—of a website where you list your speaking engagements historically.
Shelby: Mm-hm.
Corey: So, let's start at the beginning there. What inspired you to go ahead and list these things?
Shelby: So, Ian Coldwater, who's also awesome, was—
Corey: —Ian is amazing.
Shelby: Yes. I looked up to them so much, and they're a big speaker, and—
Corey: —they are technically surprisingly short.
Shelby: Oh, [laugh] good to know. And so, they were tweeting about, it's both of you I assume that remember all the talks I've ever done. And you quote to me that, and said something about, "Do you remember this tweet that you once made?" And I have written, like, 50,000 tweets or something ridiculous, and—maybe not on this account, but on my previous account—and so it's just like, "Yeah. No, I don't remember that."
And it's actually been a pain point for me, where I remember being remarkably articulate and smart in some tweet, or some thread at some point in the past, and I can never find it again. And so that's happened enough times that I actually went and created a threads page on my personal site, where I just embed tweet threads because it's too hard to actually keep track of them anywhere else. And it's really simple, it's just a Hugo embed code and stuff. And at the same time that all this was happening, I was talking to my manager about my speaking strategy and how I'm still learning how to propose talks and apply to CFPs, and come up with good topics and things like that, and he recommended that I try out Notist, which is a service where you can host your slides and link to events and things like that. And so I saw this, and I saw that Matt Stratton uses it and has a sub-domain for his speaking page.
So, I was like, "Well, I'm still a baby DevRel, but nothing wrong on having a speaking page and just keeping track of stuff there." And I'm, like, a little bit vain. And I just really like having a pretty personal site and things well-organized. So, I was like, "Oh, I'll get ahead on this, and I can just have everything organized and I'll never run into that problem where I'm trying to find stuff, and it's buried or lost until years or whatever." So, I don't expect people to find my speaking page and be like, "I need to have her come to my event," but it's nice to have it for me so that if I want to reference something like, "Oh, here's a talk I gave that I talked about that in more detail."
And that's usually the way it comes up is I'll be having a conversation with someone on Twitter or someone who's a Honeycomb user, and it's like, "Oh, here's a handy resource that I can point you to." We also have them on the Honeycomb site, too. There's just another place to store things. So, tell me more about what—like, there was drama?
Corey: Sort of. Indirectly. Because it turned into a bit of a downstream discussion. Because I love the idea, in the abstract, of publishing all of the talks I have given. I would want to remove a few of them just because, honestly, I'm ashamed of some of them, but that's a different story.
So, the problem that I ran into inadvertently was in the statement that I don't generally make my slides available to people after the talk. And the reason behind that, from my perspective, was relatively well-intentioned. It was that, first, my slides are not a report; there are remarkably few words on them and without the context of the presentation, it's not going to make much sense to people. Further, a lot of my slides rely heavily on accompanying sarcasm. And if you just get a picture of the slide, it might look like I'm making a point that I'm not intending to. In some cases, those points might be construed as actively problematic if you remove the context from them, which, from my perspective, makes perfect sense. It turns out, I'm wrong.
Shelby: So, why are you wrong [laugh]?
Corey: Because other people have reminded me, don't always think the same way that other people think. And they say, that's great and all. I might remember vaguely you gave a talk, and seeing the picture will jog my memory. Occasionally, there is useful stuff in one of your slides that would be helpful. And I'm starting to really change my perspective based upon the feedback that I've gotten. It turns out—and this might come as a surprise to some of the worst people on the internet—when presented with new information and given time to reflect, it's okay to change your position on something.
Shelby: Mm-hm. Absolutely. And it makes a lot of sense. And I've had that happen before where I've seen an event and I've listened to someone talk, but there's a point that they made that's like, the slide will ring a bell for me. I mean, that's kind of how I got through college is I took notes and I never really went back and referred to my notes.
But even just visualizing that page of my notes to that page of the textbook, I could answer the question… because I never studied, of course. But yeah, and so for people who—the slides can be a really good resource, and I think maybe I'm a bit more conservative than you about this, but I hesitate to write things in slides that could be misconstrued later on. And this is also, like, I'm new to public speaking a little bit, and I mostly present in a professional—representing my company and things like that. So, my approach would be cover your ass because someone's going to get access to your slides anyway. We also upload my slides to the website and make them available at Honeycomb, and make them available to anyone who wants to download them, and sign up for emails and stuff, and so that's another reason for me to just cover my ass.
But if you're out there and you're an independent speaker, and you're comfortable writing things on slides knowing that it's accompanied with the context, that's a perfectly understandable position. But I think the artifact of the slide deck can be really helpful for a lot of people. And especially, I think there's been so many times when I've wanted to go back and just see a graph, or a chart, or just a list of bullets or something—I'm very bullet oriented—to help jog my memory on a point someone made.
Corey: I guess I've been avoiding looking at this whole issue because I have a perspective on this that I don't know how to reconcile. I firmly believe that accessibility is incredibly important. We are all only temporarily abled, for lack of a better term. Our eyes, our ears will fail if we're fortunate enough to live long enough. And I personally do not have the kind of attention span that enables me to sit down and listen to a full 45-minute-long video; I'd rather read it.
I can consume the information faster. I don't provide transcripts of my talks. I don't do any sort of transcription work. And on the one hand, there is the argument of, well, this stuff is super hard, it's challenging, it becomes expensive, and it's a lot of extra work for, to be frank, most of my talk videos get maybe five views. It's not the primary vector for these things.
I mean, accessibility is important. Every episode of this podcast, dating back to the beginning has been fully transcribed in the show notes, by a human. Especially for the half of them or so, not some random service: we have a named person on contract who does all of these, and they're amazing.
Shelby: Yeah, I've gotten to the point—and I think it was a year or so ago—that I decided I'm not going to post any pictures on Twitter that don't have an alt text.
Corey: I'm so bad at doing that.
Shelby: It's really hard, and it's the standard I hold for myself. And what ends up happening is I almost never post screenshots anymore, and I rarely post pictures now because it's just, I know that I'm going to write alt texts, and if I'm busy, or it's a big long screenshot or something with a lot of text, it's a lot of work to transcribe. But I've also done it when there's something that I think is really, really important, I will sit down on my phone and thumb type all of the text in the screenshot, and switch back and forth between the original context and the Twitter app and stuff. And that's just a standard that I hold for myself. I don't think that's the perfect or ideal way of thinking of accessibility, but I think it can help a lot of people to think of it that way. And I've been streaming less—I have a Twitch channel that nobody watches and—because I feel bad streaming if I don't have captions, and it's sort of, right now, for me to stream independently, it's prohibitively expensive to hire a professional captioner to do live captions, and so—
Corey: Oh, it absolutely is. The reason we have sponsors on this show, in part, is to defray those expenses.
Shelby: Yeah. And so it's sort of this conflict for me between getting content out there that might help more people, but wanting to make it accessible to anybody who might benefit from it. And so the way I see it is if I can't make this accessible to someone who's using a screen reader, or someone who depends on captions, or whatever, then I'm not going to make it available to anybody, which is—some would argue that's throwing the baby out with the bathwater or something like that, but it's just… this stuff matters.
And I totally rely on subtitles, I rely on transcripts for a lot of things. If you ever watch me live tweeting-I'll sometimes stream myself live-tweeting, where I have the event open and the live captions open, and my Twitter window open, and I'll go back and reread the live captions to make sure I catch everything. And so, it's just—is a challenge, and I think it's something that we have solutions for, and I think it's less on individuals to make sure it happens. And that's where I'm trying to use my influence at Honeycomb a little bit, is just we have the bandwidth to make sure every single image on the Honeycomb website has alt text. So, I am now enforcing that.
My corner of the website is the blog, and so every image that goes on the blog should have meaningful alt text. I don't get to influence accessibility decisions in the product, but I can do it in my little corner of the world. And just help people start thinking about this stuff. Because that's usually the biggest issue. It's less that it's like, "Oh, I don't want people to be able to use screen readers." It's like, "Oh, well, I never even thought about that before; we just were ignorant of these alternative ways of interacting with our tools." And so I've gotten to the point where I've enabled the Android screen reader feature to just make sure that alt texts on my tweets actually shows up. So, alt text isn't the be all end all of accessibility, but it's the one that I understand a little bit and I have some influence there. But it's definitely a challenge.
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Corey: It really tends to be. It's hard to make things accessible. It takes work, it takes investment, it takes a focus on doing it in a way that is genuine, empathetic, and meaningful. And right now, I feel that's something the world needs a lot more of. And I genuinely hadn't considered that there are folks who would benefit from me putting my talks up there.
My secret shame—that also bugs me, and one of the real reasons I never did before—is I reuse talks a lot. If I give a talk at a meetup somewhere—back in-person—and 200 people show up, great. That should not be the only time I give that talk. It takes a lot of work to build a talk that's good. Even years later, if I'll give it a big conference, I'll still give it again because it is new to other folks, assuming it is still reasonable.
As a result, I will also reuse slides, or portions of slides, or even entire deck sometimes for different talks, and I feel like putting all my slides up there is, "Oh, he's not doing as much work as he thinks. He's phoning it in." Which I understand is a ridiculous fear, but it's still there, the back of my head that voice whispering, "You're a fraud. You've secretly suck at this. They're going to find out."
Shelby: Yeah. No, I feel like I've been so lucky to work with Charity and Liz and Christine—and now George joined us a little bit after I joined at Honeycomb—where I'm surrounded by people who are very experienced in doing DevRel work. And so I don't even get to question that stuff because they're just like, "Oh, these are the four talks that I'm giving this year," and I'm doing four talks this year for, like, 30 events, or 400 events, or—Liz has probably done 400 events this year already. And so there's no question about whether you're going to repeat a talk because it's probably a week of work that goes into writing a good talk and making the slides, and stuff, sometimes longer. And so it doesn't make sense for that to be a one-off outcome.
Being able to reuse it and especially—like you said, sharing to a new audience, or even the same audience seeing a talk for the second time, things will sink in better. So, that's something that I haven't even had the chance to question because it was just like, of course, you're going to repeat talks. That's been really helpful. And I've talked to Charity about this, where when she started her speaking career, and she was just figuring everything out by the seat of her pants and stuff, and she said, "You're so lucky you don't have to do all that." And so I try to acknowledge I really am benefiting from the experience of all my teammates and everyone around me who can give me advice that it's no big deal. So, there's still the things—and I think the hard part for me has been what talks to give and write, and things like that. But, of course, once I write it, it's not set in stone, but it's definitely going to get re-used.
Corey: I think that that's probably the right view to take. And, again, as mentioned earlier, I'm wrong on this.
Shelby: Yeah, it's hard, though. And I think it's harder when you don't h—I don't know, I just feel so lucky to have the network I have, and I've been able to grow since starting at Honeycomb, where people really believe in me. And it's kind of scary, but it helps keep me a little bit motivated. I don't have to even believe in myself. Because people have these expectations of me, I guess I'd better work on this. [laugh]. I certainly wouldn't be able to do all this as an independent speaker. And so, I don't really understand how people do that. That's super scary to me.
Corey: Speaking takes a lot of work. Something I've noticed is that it's harder for me to do it remotely than it is in person. There's something about the energy that changes things dramatically. I also don't prep super well for things, so most of my talks are improv. I have bullet points in the speaker notes but that's really about it. And it means that I'm going to give a different talk every time I give it, and I'm going to feedback from the audience. You get no feedback from a teleprompter. I've tried.
Shelby: Yeah. I think of it more like other kinds of performance. And maybe this is the difference is, I grew up doing orchestra, and I never learned how to improvise on violin. I had friends who were like, "Oh, you could totally do violin in jazz band." I was just like, "Okay, no, that's madness."
And so it was just like, well, of course I'm going to play something more interesting than Eine kleine Nachtmusik, but it's like you hear Eine kleine Nachtmusik everywhere you go. You hear, "Spring," or Für Elise, or all these super classic songs everywhere you go, and nobody questions it. And that's okay. It's okay to reuse material because a different performer, or even the same performer at a different event, it'll come out differently. And I think that's helped me with the public speaking side, as well.
It's just one, like, of the talks I give is a talk that Liz and Danyel wrote. I'm qualified to give it, and I understand it, and it's stuff that I've worked on before, but I didn't write it. And it was only my third speaking event that I actually gave the first talk that I wrote myself. And so it was actually easier to write the talk myself than it was to learn somebody else's talk. But it's the sort of thing where it's like, you put sheet music in front of me and I'll learn how to play it. And so I guess that's helped a lot with my mindset.
Corey: Yeah. That comes down to learning what works for you and what doesn't. And we're all learning as we go with this whole glorious pandemic thing. DevRel is sort of reinventing itself and I kind of like it. It also seems that companies are, "Oh, we're going to do a big online conference for three weeks, and it's a whole bunch of videos that we just throw out there."
The dynamic is changing; you miss the hallway track for one, which is the most valuable aspect of conferences, at least to me, and two, if I go back in time to my days as an employee of other companies, I can get my boss to sign off on a day or two for a conference, maybe even a week. But AWS doing re:Invent over a three-week span, for example; I don't know too many staff are going to be able to say, "Hey, I'm just going to spend three full weeks watching videos all day and that's going to be okay, right?" You lose something. They might have on in the background and that's great, but that means no one's paying full attention to these things. I don't know how you get around that.
Shelby: Yeah. And honestly, I'm even encouraged to attend events and I get to join on behalf of Honeycomb, or even just as myself, I join the conference Slack and stuff, and I'll live tweet people's talks and stuff, but it's gotten to the point where it's very hard for me to justify it in terms of, okay, this thing is in the middle of my workday, and I have all of these other priorities that I have tighter deadlines, or just are higher priority or whatever, it's been very hard for me to justify attending people's talks. And I want to attend people's talks so bad; people are putting out such good content. And so I can justify some of it because it's synchronous, and I'm there at the same time: I'm in the Slack, I'm talking to people. I really enjoy conference Slacks.
I know they're not for everybody, but the hallway track, I was never really part of it and it sounds super scary to me. I really hate mingling. I hate talking to strangers. I'm sure I would get over it for work stuff, but just the idea of approaching a speaker after their talk is just like, I could never do that. I never talked to my professors. I never went to their office hours.
Corey: I've got to be honest, I have the same exact problem as you do, and that is the reason—I'm not kidding—that I started speaking in the first place. I am terrible at approaching people and striking up the conversation. Give me a 10-second icebreaker and we're fine. It turns out when you're the speaker, people will solve that problem for you and that's what got me started.
Shelby: I really did not grok networking or just even talking to strangers my entire career. And so I feel like I'm in networking cheat mode now where people are just like, "I saw your talk. Let me add you on LinkedIn," or, "I'll start following you on Twitter. Let's have this great conversation over Slack," or whatever. And there's things about virtual conferences that are really exciting for me.
I think being able to bring in attendees who could never afford to fly out to an event and stay at a hotel, encouraging people to sign up for free events, and having company sponsorships, just cover the base-level logistics stuff. I mean, the one big conference I ever attended was re:Invent, which is, like, six conferences in one and so—
Corey: Oh, my God, that is like starting your drug experimentation by effectively, "Just give me everything injected directly into my veins, the entire pharmacy; go with it."
Corey: It's awful. That is not, [laugh] that is not a conference. That's a monstrosity.
Shelby: It was a lot. I think I only left the hotel, like, twice.
Corey: That's the problem. There are six hotels.
Shelby: Yeah. It was a lot. My idea of a conference is okay, maybe one of those hotels. I'm not going to bother with all of them. And I'm lucky that also my coworkers had been to re:Invent every year, and so they were like, "Oh, okay. Don't try and get to all the different places."
They gave me this whole strategy, so I was really lucky there. But yeah, I went to that and I went to a DevOps day in LA, once. And so my understanding of conferences is so warped. But it's so comfortable for me to interact with people online and over text, especially. It gives me a little bit more time to think about what I'm going to say, and especially in groups of more than two or three people, I really struggle to keep up with conversation and be an equal conversation partner.
I get really overwhelmed and intimidated and stuff. And so the mingling and the group conversation circles and stuff, the idea that just scares me. And so I think it's—not everyone, and especially not people in the DevRel space are going to agree with me, but I think it's encouraging to have online discussions and just bring in more people who are me and who aren't ever going to approach a speaker after their talk.
Corey: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today, talk about how you view, well, several aspects of several different things. If people want to learn more about you, where can they find you?
Shelby: I'm always on Twitter, @shelbyspees is my username. I have a website, shelbyspees.com that I don't really keep updated. Well, I've been playing around with styling stuff, but I'm working on blog posts and things like that. And those are the main two places. Twitter, especially, is great. You can also reach out to me at [email protected] is my personal email, and I check that, like, once every couple of weeks. I'm a very bad pen pal, but I love hearing from people and I'd love to talk more about any of this stuff.
Corey: Excellent. Well, thank you once again for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate it.
Shelby: It's been wonderful. Thanks, Corey.
Corey: Shelby Spees, developer advocate at Honeycomb. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, whereas if you hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts along with a comment telling me exactly why I'm wrong and that open-plan offices are the best, while shouting over the loud salesperson sitting three inches away from you.
Announcer: This has been this week's episode of Screaming in the Cloud. You can also find more Corey at ScreamingintheCloud.com, or wherever fine snark is sold.
This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.
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KSAT 12 News Nightbeat
The KSAT 12 News Team offers a report on the latest news of the day, as well as updates on sports, San Antonio area weather and rush-hour traffic issues.
Zelenskyy opens Cannes Film Festival, links war and cinema
After a canceled 2020 edition and a scaled back gathering last year, the Cannes Film Festival kicked off Tuesday which what organizers hope will be a fully resuscitated French Riviera spectacular.
'Titane' actor Vincent Lindon to lead Cannes jury
A year after starring in the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner "Titane," the French actor Vincent Lindon will preside over the jury that will decide the top prize at this year's festival.
3 Bollywood stars questioned in drug investigation
NEW DELHI – Three Bollywood actors, including top star Deepika Padukone, were questioned by India's narcotics agency on Saturday as part of an investigation into the movie industry's alleged links with drug peddlers and cartels, officials said. Padukone was the first to arrive at the Narcotics Control Board's office in Mumbai. She had received a summons earlier in the week while shooting a movie in the western beach resort of Goa. The narcotics agency said in a statement that it started the Bollywood drug probe after the death of young actor Sushant Singh Rajput, whose body was found at his Mumbai residence in June. His response came after an old video from a star-studded party at his residence surfaced on social media.
Here's who's going to Davos this year
Workers listen during a briefing inside the Congress Center, the venue for the World Economic Forum (WEF), in Davos, Switzerland, on Sunday, Jan. 20, 2019. Daniel Roland | AFP | Getty ImagesThe newly-appointed head of the European Central Bank is a well-known figure at WEF. Chris J Ratcliffe | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesThe 17-year old Swedish climate activist is due to return to Davos this year. NICHOLAS KAMM | AFP | Getty ImagesThe Bulgarian national was appointed head of the International Monetary Fund in the fall of 2019. Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury SecretarySteven Mnuchin, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, gestures as he attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland January 25, 2018.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Ever get writer's block when you try to come up with blog post ideas?
Or maybe the blog post topics you've published haven't taken off like you thought they would?
If you're wondering what to write about, you're about to learn how to find great blog ideas by validating the topics ahead of time in this step-by-step guide!
There are some simple strategies you can do to find great blog topics that will definitely work – before you even start writing.
Your audience will actually care about and want to read your content.
This can lead to more engagement, higher traffic, and more sales!
We use many of these techniques when coming up with killer topic ideas for our own blog, as well as with our product HOTH Blogger.
The first part in creating any blogging strategy is to start by defining the avatar or persona of the person you're writing to.
Think about your perfect customer and the kinds of problems they have.
We want to really hone in on who this person is, especially what kinds of things they would be interested in and be searching for online.
What kind of SEO strategy should I use?
How can I prevent penguin penalties?
What's the easiest way to do keyword research?
Writing blog posts on these kinds of topics will attract a general, but interested audience.
Notice we don't write about "what is seo" because we generally don't want to try to "sell" anyone on SEO. Instead, we want customers that already know about SEO and its value and just want help getting it done.
When we define our customer a bit more, our best customer is an SEO agency or an SEO consultant.
These kinds of articles are more specific, and they are meant to attract our perfect customer.
When you're creating your customer avatar, try to really hone in on who your perfect customer is.
Then think about the kinds of problems or questions they have that they would search for online. You should craft your articles based on this.
What do they need to know before they use your product or service?
What other types of products / services would they be interested in?
What kinds of questions do they ask every time before purchasing?
What kinds of problems / doubts / fears would prevent them from purchasing?
This can give you a great starting point for doing research!
Search Engine Optimization can be a very powerful factor to consider when coming up with blog post ideas. Every blog post you write is a chance to rank for new keywords, new topics, and bring in your target customer.
We like to take an SEO-first approach to writing content by first identifying potential target keywords, then creating a topic around them.
That's not to say that every blog post NEEDs to be SEO driven – There are lots of reasons to write non-seo driven content like news, personal stories, roundups, fun articles, etc. However, if you want consistent traffic over time, taking an SEO driven approach can be extremely valuable.
So what's the easiest and fastest method to generating a HUGE list of killer keywords that you can target?
We are absolutely in love with doing what's called a competitive gap analysis. Essentially, a competitve gap analysis looks at what your top competitors are ranking for that you are not. Usually with this process we can generate a list of over 1000+ keywords to target in a few minutes!
The first step is to find your top competitors in search. Think about companies that sell the same products you do, or sell to the same audience you do. Another good way to find competitors is to think about who is putting out the best content in your industry.
Once you have your list of competitors, you can hop over to The HOTH's keyword gap analysis tool and put in the competitors along with your domain name.
After you're done, our tool will produce a list of the top keywords that your competitors are ranking for that you are not!
If you are getting generic results, try putting in smaller or more niche specific competitor sites. If you put in a very large site, it can often rank for too many keywords and will make your keyword gap unusable.
Make sure you put in competitors that actually rank and have good content – Don't just put in a competitor that you're familiar with, put in a competitor that is competing in search.
Filter the list by CPC – We like to go after terms that have a CPC cost associated to validate that they are worthwhile keywords to go after.
You'll need to scrutinize this list and remove keywords that are difficult, have low search volume, or are not useful.
Ahrefs also has a great competitive gap analysis tool in their site explorer.
When you're done, take a look at the top-ranking content for your target keyword and make a better version of it!
A lot of great blog post topics answer questions people are asking in search engines.
With Answer the Public, you can input your target keyword and generate a list of all the common questions being asked about it in Google.
This is perfect, because we're trying to find out questions/topics we can write articles on, and this will tell us what kinds of questions people are typing in.
For instance, if you have to write an article about the topic of masonry paint, how would you make that interesting?
1. Go to Answer the Public here, and type in masonry paint.
2. Check out the answers.
Answer the Public will give you all sorts of ways to look at the scraped results. You'll want to click on 'data' and just check out what came up.
They have sections for questions, prepositions, and alphabetical. Any one of these sections could bring in cool topic ideas, so check them all out.
Here's one I found that looks interesting – "masonry paint for fireplaces".
By using answer the public you can quickly get a list of ideas or angles about your main keyword! This is a great way to start searching for what your audience cares about!
It can also be useful to take a look at what's trending. By covering hot stories or topics, you can be on the forefront of new trends.
Here's a few ways to keep your ear to the ground for HOT topics!
Reddit is AWESOME for finding ideas.
1. Find your subreddit by searching Reddit or by using Snoop Snoo.
2. Check out the topics.
For more active subreddits, you may find topics on the default view. For subreddits that are not as active, you may have to sort by top month, year, or all time.
3. Check out the comments section.
This can be GOLD when an expert drops knowledge bombs or extra resources.
You can find either seed content, more resources, or ideas in there too!
4. Bonus – Check out the sidebar of the subreddit.
Often times, there are links to guides that have already been written or popular subjects in that niche. You can find links to awesome resources/tools here.
Finally, another way to keep track of what's popular going forward is to take the subreddits, sites, competitors etc that you found in this research and create a feedly out them.
Feedly is an RSS aggregator that will let you quickly see what type of content is coming up in your niche.
1. Sign up for Feedly.
2. Search for or add RSS feeds of sites in your niche.
You can find sites in your niche by visiting alltop or by simply searching Google.
3. Keep an eye on trending topics.
Feedly will give you a "share" score right beside the article name, so you can easily identify what's getting shared.
This is a great way to keep your blog current and even take advantage of new topics / keywords that aren't showing up in keyword planner yet.
Now you have some simple, yet advanced methods for figuring out blog topics that will work for you.
The next step is to use the list below to get some solid ideas to write about.
Now that we covered how to find hot ideas and keywords, let's talk about the style of post that you're going to write. Below we list over 50+ types of blog posts to start getting your creative juices flowing.
With the ultimate list of blog post ideas here, you'll never be short on topics to write about. Create some linkable assets for your site that naturally attract backlinks.
Take 30 minutes to come up with a content idea for each list item now, and you have all of the blog content ideas you need for a year!
Valuable blog posts improve your audience's life. It's why you read your favorite blog.
Informative posts position you as an authority on the topic while making your audience like and trust you. So be useful!
List posts, known as "listicles" are probably the most common type of post. Why? Because they're useful and people enjoy reading them! Create a great list of anything that the audience in your niche would find valuable or interesting. For example, this post you're reading is a list of blog topics to write about, because content marketing is important for SEO.
Identify a problem in your post's title, headline and introduction.
Then use the rest of the post to present the solution to that problem.
This type of post can also be framed as a "How To," an Ultimate Guide, or another angle.
People often search their questions in Google and other search engines.
An FAQ post lets you create a piece of content answering those questions.
If you have a more detailed answer to a question, link to that post from your FAQ.
You can do this for your own video or a popular video made by someone else.
Turn the video into a blog post of text and images with the equivalent information.
Embed the video, take screenshots and add text.
This post recommends questions that your audience should ask, but usually don't.
It's a good way to inform and educate. You can format it like an FAQ.
Publishing a study you've conducted can get you referral traffic through social shares and backlinks.
Find a good angle and back it up with real data.
This type of post gives your audience a list of action steps to take. Crossing items off a list is engaging.
An ultimate guide should be a truly epic post on a topic.
It can be a tutorial or a definitive source of information on a topic.
If people are searching for "What is [topic]?" you can provide a post answering that question for them.
Separate a topic into a series of posts. Link them together as they get published.
Similar to a research post, you publish relevant numbers around your blog's topic.
If you can't come up with internal statistics for an interesting post, you can combine statistics from multiple posts and curate them into yours. Just be sure to give credit where it's due.
You can leverage someone else's authority by promoting them on your blog.
To get promoted by other people and brands, be generous by first promoting them.
Just be sure to do some blogger outreach and let them know they appeared in your article.
Are you reading other blogs?
If you're regularly consuming content, curate the best pieces of content around a topic into a list your audience would be interested in.
Add a description and link for each piece and you're done!
Frame a topic or ask a question, then aggregate them into a list of quotes from related influencers.
Quotes from movers and shakers are a great way to whip up a quick post.
You can reach out to influencers to get a unique quote from each of them.
Email 10 influencers or so asking them to answer a question in 100 words or less.
Have you thought about interviewing someone?
You'd be surprised at who might be willing to give you an interview.
Set up a call that you record through an app like Zoom or Skype.
Transcribe the interview (or have it transcribed for you) and publish the video interview with the transcription below it.
Similar to a link roundup, but with more of a reviewer's tone to the writing.
Create a list of the best tools, books, resources or other content with a description and link for each.
Create a list of your favorite things. Such as events, influencers, podcasts, Facebook groups, blogs, Youtube channels, etc. for your audience to follow.
Add links to the website, social media channels, or any relevant links to direct your audience to.
You can write a magazine-style profile of a relevant influencer.
Contact them to make sure they know you've profiled them.
Chances are, they'll share it to their network!
Identify content around a topic that's been getting a lot of social shares.
Curate it into one post of all that's going viral during the past week or month for that topic.
Make a short blog post that details a piece of content, resource or tool that your audience might find valuable.
It can be something on your site or another site. It's a chance to highlight a single thing your audience might like to see.
You can entertain people with your creative blogging ideas! It's hard but if you can do it right you'll get some very engaged readers.
Here are some fun blog post ideas.
Storytelling is a fantastic way to keep your reader's attention.
The surprising secret to creating a million dollar a month business that you love.
Can you make people laugh through satire? Use irony or hyperbole for timely topics and this can work well.
For example, our 2018 April Fool's post recommended cat-related content for Google's algorithm. Some people even believed what they read!
Meme's are humorous viral images or video that get shared on the web.
We love memes here at The HOTH, we sprinkle them in our blog posts sometimes.
You might not want to publish a post that is just a single meme, but a curated meme-roundup around a theme could be a great post.
A comic or illustration can get your audience giggling and thinking at the same time.
Similar to a satirical post. You can imitate a widely known brand or person in your niche.
You can turn them into a funny caricature and entertain.
Why do people read news? Because it's about what's happening right now!
Timely blog posts can be very effective because you're a source for trending information.
Write an honest review about a product, service, event, or anything else.
Be honest in your review rather than highlighting just the positives.
Survey your audience about a trending or newsworthy topic. Poll them through email, social media or in-person.
Present the results in a blog post and add your commentary on them.
Make a new post for every major current event.
You don't need to be the first to write about it, but you do need to present it in a way that your audience finds valuable.
We keep our audience up-to-date on Google's search algorithms.
If you can spot trends before they're popular, make a post about the trend itself and piggyback off its increasing interest.
What are some current challenges facing your audience?
Voice the concerns they might have about an issue that affects them and recommend a solution.
These personal blog post ideas can show that there's a real human behind the content you're putting out.
Add these personal blog topics to your lineup to help add variety to your content.
Inspiring content can be very engaging. We all want to be inspired.
This can take shape as a profile post, a story, a quote post…anything that is truly inspirational.
Lower your guard and write from a first-person perspective to describe a relatable personal experience.
Whether it's an epic failure or a sweet success, this post humanizes you as publisher.
Using this depends on your brand voice. It won't work for everyone.
A rant about a topic your audience is already thinking about and discussing can be engaging if you can make a coherent argument.
You want to make sure to bring this type of post back around to the value you offer your audience.
It can be very interesting to see a post with an off-topic angle from someone who you've grown accustomed to.
A controversial blog post can pique your audience's interest in the blog topic you write about.
Try presenting your side of an argument under debate to convince your audience.
If you can find someone to disagree with, give their side of the argument in the same post.
We're all curious about the future.
Speculating about it and making a prediction can generate debate.
React to a notable piece of content is published by someone else.
Give your thoughts on a blog post, a video, an online course, an event.
You can embed a video or social media post and react to it, as another way to do this.
Speculate on how things might be different by framing your post accordingly.
Make sure you pick something that people would actually care about or find interesting.
For example: What if X happened, what would the result be?
If you do this type of controversial blog post it can be very interesting.
Just make sure you're justified in your attack of the company, event, or person so that you don't end up the loser.
This can be a polarizing topic, but it can get people strongly on your side.
Like personal blog posts, a lifestyle post humanizes you or your business.
Use these posts to show them that yes, you're just like them! People engage with blogs that they like and trust.
This type of post lets your audience see what things look like from your perspective.
Show the process you did to make content, give an office tour, describe a recent experience at an event– all of these are good behind the scenes topics for you to create.
Rather than take a break during holidays, try using it to create a holiday-themed post.
This lets you celebrate with your audience.
Create content showing pictures and describing what you or people at your business wearing (hint: Swag). If you don't at least have a T-shirt with your blog logo made, you're missing out!
Selling your own branded apparel can be an added revenue stream for all kinds of businesses. You plan to grow your fans, right?
Depending on you or your company, you might use your blog for promotional purposes.
The key is not to annoy or frustrate your loyal readers. Keep providing them value through your promotional blog posts.
Make a quick blog post that rounds up the most popular content on your site.
If you have loyal customers, posting about happenings at your company or a new product can do well on your blog.
Sell products? Make sure your audience is getting the most value out of them.
Write a blog post that helps them get a better experience out of using your product or service.
Compare your product or service's features/benefits to other solutions out there.
If you're working on a big project, keep your readers excited about it by regularly updating them on its progress.
Mention what you've accomplished so far, and what you have left to do.
It can be intriguing to see an income report!
Give the people what they want and show them the money you or your company is making.
Reading is a passive activity.
Spice it up by asking your audience to interact with these engaging blog post ideas.
Have your readers participate in a challenge.
Showcase the people who are participating, and provide regular updates on the challenge as a series.
Tell your audience about something free that they'll like.
Describe what it is and what they need to do to get it.
You can prompt discussion on your own blog. Other people will make the content for you!
Pose a question to the audience and ask them to answer it in the comments section.
Ask a question and get answers from audience members. Ask it on social media, in the comments section of your blog, or in person.
Getting ideas for blog topics shouldn't be a random thought process.
With just a little research, you'll be able to validate blog topics that are already proven to be popular in your niche!
Want even more ideas? Try our free Headline Generator Tool.
When we start any new project at HOTH Blogger, we go through a similar process to research and validate topics and make sure each article is a winner before we even start writing.
We spent years building a network of hundreds of elite writers who take great care to create only high quality content.
We love our writers from all over the U.S. and the world, they consistently do an incredible job writing for any blog post topic.
Have any questions or other suggestions for blog post ideas?
We'd love to hear them in the comments!
Want to reference this guide at a later time?
Let us send you the downloadable version so you can read it whenever.
really really interesting post. I was thinking for getting ideas to work on my niche. I was just stuck on that for about 2 weeks. These tips are SUPER IMPRESSIVE than all other I've read over the internet.
TheHoth is really a complete solution Indeed.
Isn't Feedly about dead? I haven't used that in forever.
Learned a few new tricks, thanks!
Fantastic post with awesome detail. Love it when you guys send stuff out. Research, research, research is the foundation for a site. Learned the hard way several times. Then put forth the time, effort, and tools. As always, learned some good stuff from this post. Thanks for sharing!
Right on! I agree. Doing some research can make all the difference.
As I'm working on my blog material before launch day this was super helpful in terms of the longevity.
Solid. Actionable. Thanks for spelling this out step-by-step. So many people come to me with "I don't know what to write about'. Gonna send them to the post … everytime. Thanks!
Hey guys! Thanks a lot for featuring Ahrefs tools! 🙂 Much appreciated!
Yes, ahrefs supports Greek, I'm not positive on the other tools.
Awesome tips here to write great posts. I noticed that Reddit works too. Even for just titles. It's really helpful.
Great post! I'm sure we have all stared at a blank screen wondering what to write about! I've used a couple of your tactics and they really work.
By participating in a few Facebook groups centered on my blog topic, I have been able to come up with a constant flow of ideas based on the same questions being asked over and over again.
Also, researching the popular topics of competitors is certainly a goldmine for topics. Especially if you can do it better.
Thanks again for this fab ideas.
Thank you. Great article as usual. Do you think its worth buying the SEMRush package?
Phenomenal post with magnificent detail. Cherish it when you folks send stuff out. Research, inquire about, investigate is the establishment for a site. Taken in the most difficult way possible a few times. At that point set forth the time, exertion, and devices. As usual, took in some well done from this post. A debt of gratitude is in order for sharing!
Nice and Informative… worth considering… thanks…!!!
Fantastic article and video. I learned a lot about tools I already use but didn't know how much they could really do. Great tips. Thank you.
Being a Blogger I can understand the struggle behind blogging and really I found this comment very useful in every mean. Looking forward for more. Thank you.
Awesome, glad it was useful! Thanks!
Thank you so much for unselfishly sharing this valuable information for creating blog topics my audience will enjoy. I have been struggling to create fresh content for my site that my readers will appreciate. I am excited to use these techniques in order to enrich my site.
No problem, glad you found it helpful!
Now, I don't have to look anywhere else not even Hoth blog xD, except the places mentioned above. Haha.
Getting blog post ideas is 80% of the initial task.
Great SEO summary. Now it's time for me to put it into practice. Thank you!
Awesome glad you think so!
I think you'll find that these ideas transfer over to Greek SEO!
Thiѕ is ɑ topic that is near to my heart… Cheers!
Thank you so much for such an eye opening post about blog post ideas. One of the best post update I've found in my inbox for a while now.
It has really revived my writing spirit. No more blocks!
I just bookmarked and jotted out important must DO tasks.
This is a perfect blog guide. Must read for any blogger. Thanks for sharing.
'How to', 'meme' and 'review' posts are definitely among my favorites. This is a great compilation! Thank you for the share.


David A. Langbart writes "While the department's central files remain indispensable for this research, the post files have their special value."
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As the weather switches back and forth between the end of winter and the beginning of spring, many Neopians are busy trying to update their Neopets' old customizations. Below, I will list a few of the most stunning (and of course my favorite) spring-themed backgrounds, clothing, and other essential accessories!
So you want to be an Ultimate Stamp Collector, eh? Well, you've come to the right place! Don't worry, I won't waste your time with tons of useless pleasantries and introductory nonsense. We'll get right down to business.
The next day dawned bright and clear. Not that that made any difference to anyone living in Moltara, of course.


Home / Blog / 3 for 2 Mountain Bike package on now!
3 for 2 Mountain Bike package on now!
Mountain Biking in Thredbo is charging ahead. With new tracks and terrain and a new pricing structure for lift passes MTB is the NBF (new best friend) of just about everyone in Thredbo.
The best news is that the Thredbo 3 for 2 Mountain Bike package is now on so you can pay for 2 days and stay for 3. That is 3 nights 4 star apartment accommodation (twin share) and 3 days riding on a state of the Art downhill bike with full body armour. You will also get a free leisure cente pass so you can chill down after riding on the mountain with the heated pool, waterslide, climbing wall and gym. All for only $497 per person including a voucher to get an extra free day national park entry when you buy the 2 day park pass.
Thredbo's new flow track is pumping and February is a great time to ride, nice and warm and no crowds. The 3 for 2 mountain bike package is for riders who have been to Thredbo before. If you haven't ridden in Thredbo on the mountain you must do the introductory workshop which is a 2 hour initiation ride with local guide giving instruction on riding in Thredbo. This introductory ride costs an extra $30. You can book the 3 for 2 MTB package in our online shop when you book your accommodation, just click on the shop button and go to the Thredbo Summer shop.
Please note the the 3 for 2 package is not available over the Easter Weekend or the following MTB race weekends 21-12 February, 15-16 March, 12-13 April.


We first explore differences between bitmap and vector graphics. We also feature Gil Segal of ToolsToo in an interview where he talks about v7.2 of his PowerPoint add-in. Bess Gallanis looks at SOCO, that stands for single, overriding communications objective to make your stories stand apart.
PowerPoint 2016 for Windows users can explore Guide Options, Hierarchical Guide Options, and Picture Bullets. PowerPoint 2016 for Mac users can learn about Shape Combine and Shape Union commands. And if that wasn't enough for this week, make sure you do not miss the quotes, press releases, and templates released in the last week.


Although the recent eruption has already come to a stop, the Department of Ecology explained that the mountain must still be made to pay for the damage that was done over the past four years.
Mt. St. Helens did not return a call seeking comment.
4 Comments on "State Dept. of Ecology Fines Mt. St. Helens $250 Million"
I am sure the mountain's lawyer will be filing a timely appeal. We certainly have not heard the last of Mt St Helens.
Great; just the headline made me laugh.
Whew! I feel better know that this evil republican mountain is being severely punished for its crimes against the environment. We liberals should impose a "view" tax on this monstrocity. Are you viewing that picture? Cha-ching… just like the bag tax… pay up!
If the Washington Gov can put smelly toilets on Ebay that cost five million, they can darn sure get rid of one smoking mountain (not, by the way, at least 25 ft away from the nearest building).


Successful Home Remodeling: Don't Be in a Hurry to Jump to the End. Take it One Step at a Time.
When it comes to remodeling our homes, a lot of homeowners tend to jump to the end of the project. It's understandable. They get excited about how the new kitchen, bath, or addition will look, so they focus on the finishing touches such as cabinets, flooring, molding, and fixtures. Those are all important things, but the real keys to a successful home remodeling project begins long before the finishing touches are added.
While you want a remodeling project to leave your home looking better, the real goal is to make your home feel more comfortable and be more functional. But that doesn't happen without planning.
Know What You Want: Sometimes homeowners know they want to make a change, but they aren't sure what that change should look like. Create a list of things you like about your current home and then make a second list of specific things you'd like to change. You don't have to come up with the solution – just what results you want. For instance: More workspace in the kitchen. More light in the family room. Open space between the kitchen and family room. A multiple space room that doubles as a guest bedroom and a home office. Be as specific as possible.
Gather Ideas and Information: Once you've identified what you want to do, look around for ideas that fit your personality and sense of style. You don't have to mimic what you see – just gather ideas and examples.
Talk to Us: This is where you begin to turn your ideas and wishes into reality. Take your "wish list" and ideas/examples and ask us what it will take to make that happen. We can advise you about the feasibility (can you even do what you want in your current home). We may also give you other ideas that are more practical for your situation. And finally, we can usually help you set a realistic budget for what you want to accomplish, and how long it will take.
Again, don't be in a hurry to jump to the end of the project. There are lots of good things to enjoy at the beginning of the process. And if you take care of those, you'll be happier with the end results!
© 2016 Premier Building & Remodeling. All Rights Reserved.


According to Fitch Ratings, cost and retirement of some plants will likely keep a cap on U.S. nuclear development into the mid term. Last year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecast that nuclear generation will drop by approximately 10,800 MWe by 2020 on the low cost of natural gas and an expected lack of growth in electricity demand. Fitch believes this number could grow if more plant operators find upgrades and local political pressure too costly to continue operations.
The total cost to complete the Vogtle nuclear power plant expansion has risen to approximately $17 billion. Similarly, construction costs for the new units at the V.C. Summer plant have risen to approximately $12.4 billion. Both projects are approximately three years behind schedule. They are using a modular construction technique and technology developed by Westinghouse, the AP1000 PWR, which was designed to be less costly and faster. Four AP 1,000 reactors under construction in China have also experienced cost overruns and delays. In our view, the change in expectations about this technique could join other forces in keeping expansion down.
These pressures shut Dominion Resources' Kewaunee plant, Duke Energy Corp.'s Crystal River plant, Edison International's San Onofre plant, and Entergy's Vermont Yankee plant. Exelon's Oyster Creek is scheduled for retirement in 2019. Approximately eight additional merchant units, with an aggregate capacity of 6,334 MW, are also at risk of early retirement.


I have just recd your letter of the 12 & am glad mine to you arrived Safely. Do not put faith in rumours of adjustment. I See no prospect for it. It Cannot be while passions on both Sides are so infuriated. Make your plans for a several years war. If Virginia is invaded, which appears to be designed, the main routes through the Country will in all probability be invested, passage interrupted, & every one annoyed.
I fear Cousin Anna will be very uncomfortable at R. & you may be an embarrassment to her. Some retired spot in the Mts: as before observed would give more quiet & sense of Security than on the main routes. If you all Could agree on Some point & make yourselves happy & Contented, it would afford me infinite relief where I could embrace you together in my thoughts & heart. But to accomplish this you must reach there before the R. Roads are seized &c or you Cannot go. What do you think of the Soda Sulphur. Smith thinks they would never find you out there or any body else. He is looking towards Abingdon. But that is on the Main route to the Mississippi &c & Comes under the objects I have pointed out. Fincastle in Bottetourt I would recommend in preference to Abingdon if that Section of Country is desired. I agree with you in thinking that the inflammatory articles in the papers do us much harm. I object particularly to those in the Southern papers, as I wish them to take a firm dignified Course, free from bravado, boasting & vulgarism. As to the cooking utensils you propose custis Can decide. As I stated before I sent the chests of plate & two old trunks to Lexington. Nothing therefore Can be got out of them. My box of papers is still here. The bit Can be secured.
The times are indeed Calamitous. The brightness of Gods Countenance Seems turned from us, & his mercy stopped in its blissful Current. It may not always be so dark, & he may in time pardon our sins & take us under his protection. May that time Soon Come. Tell Custis he must consult his own judgment reason & Conscience, as to the Course he may take. I do not wish him to be guided by my wishes or example. If I have done wrong, let him do better. The present is a momentous question, which every man must settle for himself, & upon principle. Do not let him suppose therefore that I wish him to take any particular Course.
Our good Bishop Meade has just Come in to See me. He opens the Convention tomorrow, & I understood him to say would preach his fiftieth anniversary sermon.
Give much love to Cousin Anna[,] Nannie, daughter & Agnes. May God bless & guard you & all with you.


Is a vote for any Republican a vote for Cheetolini?
Since the GOP is now the party of Cheetolini, it stands to reason that any vote for any Republican is a vote for Cheetolini.
Yeah sure. But with that you could then say that any vote for any democrat is a vote to move the country towards Stalinism.
Another dumb thread brought to you by captain triggered.
*You* would make such a statement, idiotic as always.
What does a vote for any Republican (i.e., Cheetolini) move the country towards?
And that's all that matters to you.
It's all that matters to anyone. It's our nature as humans. I'm just honest about it.
Speak for yourself. Some of us see beyond our own persons.
It can be a little of both, it doesnt have to be all or nothing for either side.
You've forgotten that Cheetolini now owns your GOP.
Did you sniff your own fart when you said that?
Based on what? He isnt even really liked by most republicans.
True, the cuckservatives will never like him.
Weird that you came up with that.
Those of us not in your party can't tell that at all.
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There's a lot of talk about what it takes to be a writer. But no-one really tells you that writing is only the beginning. What about once you've created it? Maybe it's up on Amazon, maybe those books are sitting in your living room. Maybe you have a publisher, but you're still looking at those sales figures and sighing.
Sales are not necessarily about quality. It's about how you get the word out there.
When I published my first print book, I had no idea what I was doing. By the time I joined Carina, I realised that the life of an author is the life of a marketing manager, a social media guru, an advertising exec, a salesperson, and a whole lot more.
I remember how awful it was to feel panicked about your book not doing as well as it deserved. It's your baby after all.
So I got together with creative business genius Steven Sparling, and we decided to run a workshop for writers, that was specifically about how to promote your book. It'll be personal to you, of course. There's no point approaching Chick Lit bloggers when you write crime! It's a day of useful tips, marketing tools, and we'll create a personalised plan for you about how to go forward, based on your limitations and strengths, and what you want to achieve! PLUS we have the chance for a Q and A with a publisher, so you can ask them what they want from authors, and what's expected of writers in the digital age!
For a day packed with tips and tricks, a detailed marketing plan created for you, the chance to ask questions of a publisher, and much more, we hope you'll join us and get your book the recognition it deserves!
Next postWant to be a Creative Pioneer?


text:
ANC wants Zuma to be answerable to Luthuli House
20 December 2017 - 16:21 By Qaanitah Hunter
The outgoing president of the party Jacob Zuma sits with Cyril Ramaphosa before the announcement that Ramaphosa is the new president of the ANC at the party 54th electoral conference.
Image: Alon Skuy
The ANC's national conference wants President Jacob Zuma as head of state to be answerable to Luthuli House now that he is no longer at the helm of the party.
Following commissions on organisational renewal' the ANC resolved that power must now be vested in the ANC presidency at Luthuli House and not in the state at the Union Buildings.
This means Zuma would have to take instructions from Cyril Ramaphosa, who is his deputy in the state and the newly elected ANC president.
The report back on this commission was led by Febe Potgieter.
The plenary heard that the incoming ANC's national executive committee would have to "manage two centres of power" now that the head of the party is not the president of the state.
What the ANC needs is a priest' an undertaker and a headstone
There's still a whole lot we don't know. The whereabouts of those 68 votes' for example' and whether Cyril Ramaphosa will spend the next five years ...
The plenary also heard that that the ANC Youth League should not elect old leaders and that it should reconsider its age limit of 35.
The league should consider its cut-off age to be in line "with its youthful constituencies".
The organisation is often criticised for having leaders that are not considered youths – its president' Collen Maine' is far above the cut-off age limit.
There has been a suggestion that the ANC have a council of elders to guide its new leadership but, lacking agreement, that matter was deferred to discuss later.
ANC delegates have supported the need for a social media policy to govern what party members and leaders say on social media.
Potgieter also told the commission that most delegates supported a proposal by the ANC Veterans' League that the integrity commission of the party must have more teeth.
Ramaphosa due to give his first speech as ANC president
Newly elected ANC President Cyril Ramaphosa is on Wednesday expected to deliver his first official address as the party's leader when he closes the ...
Investors fear market euphoria over Ramaphosa victory is overdone
Businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, the new leader of the ANC, needs to fix a sluggish economy and a deeply divided society. Market euphoria after his ...
LIVE | #ANC54 closing session - as it happened
Follow the ANC 54th national conference as it prepares to elect a new president. Powered by writers from Sunday Times, TimesLIVE and BusinessLIVE, ...


The South Dakota Sheriff's Association has opposed the bill, saying it's too broad and could allow anyone to enter South Dakota while carrying a concealed weapon. The State's Attorneys Association has also opposed the bill.
With the current system, applicants for a concealed carry permit have to pay a $10 application fee and pass a background check administered by their county sheriff's office to qualify for their permit from the Secretary of State. There are 10 factors that disqualify an applicant from obtaining a concealed carry permit, such as past violent offenses or regular intoxication.
LEAP Forward has graded all legislative action on SB 47 and scored opposition to the bill. The full South Dakota scorecard can be viewed using the link above.


For many decades, a company's logo has been its central asset. It makes the company recognizable and inimitable. It is associated with certain parameters of quality, durability and design. Consider this: a company's logo is the first thing your potential client sees.
Logo animation is gaining increasing popularity now due to its ability to add livelihood to the brand and increase customers' loyalty due to involving motion design. Boost your company's competitive position with our logo animation services!
VideoGiri is a reliable logo animation company able to develop customized, non-trivial visual solutions suiting your company's vision, mission and values. Our team of creative designers and artists will prepare sophisticated animation for your needs to make your logo memorable and catchy. Set your clients logo in motion and help them catch some eyes. Impress your clients and get more business with us.


This weekend is a very busy one, there are 3 events in 3 days and yesterday ZST held their event in Differ Ariake. The card had lots more fights on it, but I have only been able to find the results for the main-card.
The main event was the grappling tag-team fight between Imanari/Tokoro and Yano/Yokoyama.
Any chance you could post the entire event results?
I havent been able to find the rest of the results... I will have another look.
1/4 Sengoku - Antonio Silva Debuting!
11/24 Shoot Boxing - Brian Lo-A-Njoe Out!
Order Your "HellBoy" Hansen Shirt NOW!!!
12/10 DEEP 39 - Lightweight Tournament Announced!


text:
package org.testng.internal.conflistener;

import org.testng.annotations.AfterTest;
import org.testng.annotations.Test;

public class FailingAfterTest {
  @AfterTest(alwaysRun = true)
  public void afterTest() {
    throw new RuntimeException("Test exception");
  }

  @AfterTest
  public void skippedAfterTest() {}

  @Test
  public void dummytest() {}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


not just for visual education, but for all learning.
Mollysworld equips children to participate in the Digital Revolution as creative producers, not just passive consumers; encourages them to think as future Citizens of the World; and fosters a concern for the natural world.
Molly's World begins as the creative app mollypic. This will be upgraded seasonally: like living things in the natural world it will grow organically to form a complete world. V1.1-1.4 of mollypic are illustrated above. V1.1 (July 2019), is based on PirateshipeMolly and a digital reinvention of beachcombing.
Inveterate travellers, Molly and Patch spend three weeks each season on overseas travel from where they send individually addressed postcards home to the children.
The highlight of mollypic's second season (October-December 2019) will be a Christmas Jewellery Design Competition.
Hosted by Antiques Roadshow expert, John Benjamin, it will invite children to design a piece of jewellery for a parent using mollypic'screative tools.
The winning designs will then be made by jewellery students at Birmingham City University and presented at the 'mollies' ceremony.
Mollypic enables children to draw and colour; make montages; and create repeat patterns.
V1.2 (January 2019) will add animation tools.
In the Workshop children can order a range of personalised goods as well as bespoke fabric, giftwrap and wallpaper.
The MollyBank will introduce children to money and budgets. It operates in Mollies (10p Sterling) and will enable them to buy personalised goods via the Workshop and Molly-brand goods from the Shop. Credit will be bought by parents, who may opt to review purchases above a specified amount.
Prizes in Molly's regular competitions will be awarded in her own currency.
This pattern is made with drawings by 6- and 7-year-old children. When the Head of Textiles at Cardiff School of Art and Design saw it, she said: 'If I were you I would take it straight to Selfridges.' The unique quality of children's drawings has universal appeal and Molly-branded goods will use them extensively. Molly will be a brand like no other, characterised not by a design 'look' but by the diverse efforts of creative children using a shared palette of colours from nature. The children will be duly rewarded by being paid royalties for their contributions, just like professional designers.
The Mollysworld interface could do for children what Apple's virtual desktop did for adults back in the 1980s.
The Home Page defies adult logic: everywhere you touch will take you somewhere – to Molly's Home or Studio, Museum or Laboratory, to the natural world or, if you touch Patch's Balloon, on a Journey of Discovery. Burners roaring, the balloon drifts to the 'Fields of Knowledge' and after a bumpy landing you start at a random beginning. Below it is the 'Water Volcano' in Molly's Garden. You can then choose to explore real volcanoes, fountains or glass, or take another random choice. With thousands of interconnected destinations, these journeys are labyrinthine and fascinating – and if you feel lost, Thumper is alway on hand to help hop you home!
Microscapes are captured from the surfaces of minerals and rocks and presented as 2D images, video tours (see link on Molly's World home page) and VR environments.
Children travel through the Mollyverse on the MollyRocket, land on alien planets, and explore them through videos – and, eventually, Virtual Reality. They can also make physical models of inhabitants and turn them into CAD models using simple photogrammetry techniques; the best will be added to the videos.


Natalia graduated from the University of Warwick with a BA (Hons) in History in 2012. She then completed her Graduate Diploma in Law at the University of Law in 2013 and was called to the Bar of England and Wales by Lincoln's Inn in 2016. Natalia went on to achieve a distinction in the Legal Practice Course.
Natalia is currently a trainee solicitor in the Public Law department. She initially joined the department as a caseworker in November 2016. Natalia predominantly assists the department in judicial review proceedings against public bodies and civil claims for false imprisonment. Natalia has also worked on a range of community care matters and asylum appeal cases. She has experience in working with very vulnerable clients including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, victims of trafficking and torture and clients with serious mental health problems.
In her spare time Natalia is a volunteer reporter for an online magazine about law and justice called The Justice Gap.
Prior to working at Wilsons, Natalia spent time volunteering as a legal intern at the Projects Abroad Human Rights Office in Cape Town, South Africa. This involved providing legal advice and representation to people unable to afford legal help on a range of matters, including immigration. Natalia also volunteered as a Victim Support Worker for the charity Victim Support whilst studying for her Graduate Diploma in Law in 2013.
Interests: Travel, reading, musicals and spending time with family and friends.


text:
Late and Terminal Classic power shifts in Yucatan: The view from Popola
by Johnson, Scott Albert Joseph, Ph.D., Tulane University, 2012, 780; 3519905
Popola was a small village in north-central Yucatan. The site has evidence of occupation from the Middle Preclassic through the Postclassic, with a demographic peak in the Late and Terminal Classic periods. Popola's population peak occurs at a time of local political upheaval. The large site of Yaxuna, 5 km SSW of Popola, had been the dominant regional trade and elite center since the Preclassic. In the Late and Terminal Classic, the site of Chichen Itza, just 13 km NNE of Popola, increased in population and status, eventually dominating Yaxuna and much of the peninsula. The rise of Chichen Itza has been characterized as a major sociopolitical transition in many studies. This project aims to understand the effects of this transition on the small peasant community at Popola.
Anthropologists and archaeologists have used community studies to discuss populations for years. In this project, the community concept has been used as an organizational framework to address the effects of political change on various segments of society at Popola. Some communities are defined through spatial arguments, while conceptual communities are identified by social correlates. The data collected over four years of field work identify a number of communities present at Popola: elites, commoners, political affiliations, potters, traders, households, and the village. Individuals may belong to more than one community, and the examination of various communities present within a single village gives a more complete picture of how it was affected by change.
Elites and politically affiliated communities may have been most strongly affected by the rise of Chichen Itza, while the non-elites and other local communities experienced relative stasis. The single elite structure at Popola showed strong architectural, iconographic, and material links to the elite community at Yaxuna. The local elite community does not appear to have been active after the rise of Chichen Itza. In contrast, the non-elite population at Popola showed great continuity of architecture, occupational density, and material remains throughout the Late and Terminal Classic periods. While the rise of Chichen Itza may have been a major transition for the elite communities across Yucatan, evidence from Popola suggests this change did not affect the majority of the population in a similar fashion.
Advisor: Andrews, E. Wyllys, V
School: Tulane University
School Location: United States -- Louisiana
Subjects: Archaeology, Latin American history, Latin American Studies, Native American studies
Keywords: Community studies, Late Classic, Maya, Mexico, Popola, Terminal Classic, Yucatan