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How does Covid-19 affect young people?
The Coronavirus pandemic strongly affected young people. They are frequently blamed for spreading the virus. They also face widespread unemployment. In this vlog, FRA Director Michael O'Flaherty points to the need to address such challenges. On FRA's side, young people, as human rights champions, will be at the heart of the debate at the Fundamental Rights Forum from 11 to 12 October.
Video blog Michael O'Flaherty: How does Covid-19 affect young people? mp4 file (105.95 MB)
When we look back at COVID times, I think we'll see that young people were among the most impacted.
Right now, it's about how they're unfairly being blamed for spreading the virus.
It's also about how they risk being put to the back of the queue for the re-opening of services and normal life.
But it's much more than that.
It's about the shocking unemployment figures for young people in many places in Europe.
It's about the particularly difficult experience of young people in already marginalised communities.
Think of the migrant – the young migrant – in a reception facility.
Think of the young LGBTI person forced to live in a place where they were not welcome.
We're frequently told also by young people that a problem right through the period has been that they're not being listened to by the rest of us.
We need to fix this.
One part of the fix will be the discussion at the Fundamental Rights Forum that takes place on the 11th and 12th of October, where the theme of young people as champions of rights in our societies will be at the heart of the debate.
Please join us – visit the registration online at the Forum website.


home » company_news » LAWSGROUP received "Happy Company" Recognition again!
LAWSGROUP is honoured to receive the"Happy Company"recognition organized by HKPC for 5 consecutive years! Our Deputy Chairman and CEO Mr. Bosco Law and HR Director Ms. Miko Cheung received the certificate from Secretary for Food and Health Ms. Sophia Chan. LAWSGROUP will continue to enhance the work environment for our staff going forward!


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Q: Understanding the SD Card Specification I am looking buy a 256GB microSDXC-III (or microSD with 624MB/s theoretical max) but I am not sure I understand the SD card specifications, ratings, and markings.
I have been searching for better guidance on this and I've arrived at the following questions I can't seem to answer and hope someone can help:

https://satechi.net/blogs/news/ultra-high-speed-uhs-sd-memory-cards-differences-between-uhs-i-vs-uhs-ii

https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/speed_class/
I understand difference between SDHC and SDXC
1) What is the actual marking for UHS-III? ("U3" or XC-III) and what is the difference?
2) Can read/write speeds be compared directly amongst all speed classes?
3) Does the XC-I correspond to "U" rating/marking, the XC-II correspond to "V#" rating marking - if so what would the rating/marking look like for XC-III?
4) Based on 2), what is the "fastest" SD card - the V90 of the Video Speed Class?
5) Is there an explanation for the discrepancy in write speeds of the two sources (pictures)?
6) Is there a microSD counterpart for all of these SD cards?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


What is another word for admit?
declare to be true or admit the existence or reality or truth of; " He admitted his errors"; " She acknowledged that she might have forgotten"
brought out into the open.
acknowledged, accepted, recognised, assumed, conceded, Denied, said, Allowed.
AM, accept, accords, Got, appreciate, acknowledge, permit, say, allow, realise, recognize, reckon, grant, tell, realize, understand, assume.
acknowledged, accept, tolerate, countenance, appreciate, entertain, acknowledge, permit, incorporate, say, condone, allow, realise, affirm, recognize, integrate, embrace, deny, commit, grant, tell, realize, introduce, understand, intake, assume, recruit, assimilate, confirm, succumb, conclude.
concede, agree, support, accommodate, confess.
erase, debar, disregard, abstain, confute, dispute, exclude, eject, stop, refuse, oust, sell, repel, veto, give, dissent, gainsay, offer, ignore, reject, dismiss, shut, deny, turn away, expel, repudiate, disallow, disagree.
hide, disown, cover, differ, secrete, suppress, invalidate, protest, keep, conceal, decline, disapprove, contradict, listen, prevent, withhold, oppose, object, argue, misunderstand.
exile, kid, shut up, quiet, ban, rebut, blacklist, hush, contend, negative, obscure, demur, ostracize, clam up, bar.
I admit that a clean sweep would have saved much trouble.
adenoid, adenota, addend, attended, adamant, automated, atonement, attuned, attenuate, attaint, adient, autoimmunity, attainment, attenuated, automat, automate, attained, attend, adnate, attend to, at hand, attendee.


I always make a conscious effort to not look like a total hot mess in public. I don't always succeed, but even when I'm not planning on blogging an outfit I like to be somewhat put together. This weekend was full of festivities, from canoeing down the Caddo River to watching my friends Amy and Elizabeth play kickball. Comfort is key on these sorts of days, so I'm glad that cute sneakers are all over the place this season.
Also, I'm thrilled that slip-on sneakers are back. Mmmm, smells like high school. OnlineShoes.com sent me this pair to review and the verdict is - I love them. They're super comfy and way cute. I actually just went to look up the link for these and found a bright pink pair I want now. Go figure. Anyone else loving on these style sneakers right now?
Jeans, JustFab (similar from The Limited).
Shoes, SeaVees c/o OnlineShoes.com (exact).
Bag, Kate Spade (exact in a navy/red/white combo that I love).


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Don't Knock Twice – Release Date: 31st March 2017
Despite a constant creepy atmosphere that elevates this film, 'Don't Knock Twice' ultimately fails to deliver with awful dialogue, a unneccesarily confusing and vague story which ultimately ends on a cliffhanger that sours the entire experience.
The story follows the turbulent relationship of Mother Jess (Katee Sackhoff) and teenage daughter Chloe (Lucy Boynton) as Chloe unwittingly summons a demon by knocking twice on a door of a supposed witch. The one plus here is that the film doesn't mess around with slowly building up the tension, it jumps straight into the creepy atmosphere and within fifteen minutes, the first big horror set piece sets the tone for the rest of the film. It's creepy, tense and at times downright scary. Unfortunately, the story is one of the worst parts of this film and it quickly erodes from passable to downright terrible in the final half hour.
The acting itself is passable. As you'd expect from a horror there's a lot of heavy breathing, screaming and fear but beyond that there's little else that elevates the film. The big draw here is of course the scares and thankfully, 'Don't Knock Twice' actually does a pretty good job of delivering on this front. A great use of lighting, camera angles and sound make the creepy atmosphere sustain throughout the life of this 90 minute horror.
Overall though, 'Don't Knock Twice' fails to deliver a memorable experience despite the good scares. Awful dialogue, poor story writing including massive expository dumps and a hideous cliffhanger at the end combine to really make this a forgettable film. It's a shame as it has potential and with better editing and a rewritten story, this could have been a very good horror. As it stands, the only thing I can recommend is to those who've already watched it, don't watch twice.
Verdict - 4/10
Categories Film Review Category Archive Tags 2017, demon, horror, March 2017, Red & Black Films

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


1xBet fulfills the classic betting markets. There are bets on the match winner, the winner's region and the tournament winner. Next in the text, there are also various special bets, such as "First Blood, number of cards, Frags and much more". Depending on the sport, you can click through various explanatory portals, as there are various differences (depending on the title) among the eSport bets. As an additional factor one can emphasize the clarity for 1xBet eSport betting. All bets are neatly screened and so you can see at first glance, in which betting market you are currently.
1xBet live betting besides a special value. There are only a few bookmakers who can offer such a wide range of live bets. Because the bookmaker with license from Curacao must probably set up hundreds of analysts to serve as many live bets. In the main menu there is even the possibility to go directly to the live area, and to get no more conventional bets to face. But even apart from eSport betting, 1xBet is well positioned. For example, you can also make bets on various classic sports. Just to name a few examples: American, football, baseball, tennis, golf, horse racing, surfing and much more. In addition, the bookmaker also offers a live casino area and so-called 1xGames. Under 1xGames are mostly simulations to find, on which also a large offer of bets, or automated bets can be closed.
The quota key for 1xBet is above the normal quota level. The experienced eSport bookmaker scores here with a constant average of 94%. This is very good and is sometimes far higher than the competition. In general, the situation looks even better when decoupling eSports bets from conventional sports bets. First, depending on the game title even better odds key at 1xBet. Therefore, the quotas are itself, a reason to register with 1xBet.
The 1xBet eSport bets are sweetened to the user with a promising welcome bonus. New users get a 100% deposit bonus on the first 120 €. The individual bet rate for individual games must be above 1.9. For combination bets in a discipline, an individual minimum calculation is made. The minimum rate is much lower for other providers, but is overall in the midfield. There are certainly providers who demand a much higher minimum rate. Also important to know for all eSport fans: All major games (like LoL, CS: GO and Dota2) are supported by the new customer bonus.
There are only a few special bets that can not be placed by the bonus balance. The deposit bonus is available immediately after the first deposit and can be redeemed with the button "100% bonus on the first deposit". We recommend redeeming the bonus immediately after registration, so that you will not get any nasty surprises in the back. In terms of payment methods, 1xBet can score points. It supports sometimes all classic payment methods, but also new innovative payment methods. For example, you can also complete 1xBet eSport bets with cryptocurrencies.


Although the classical and flamenco guitar are quite similar, there are some important differences.
above the 12th. This allows the player to attack the strings for greater volume and a cleaner sound.
The flamenco guitar is thinner and the traditional use of cypress for the back and sides creates a sharper more percussive sound when attacking; yet this guitar is more than capable of producing clear, bell like trebles when playing melody. With the flamenco guitar, the buzzing of string against fret is part of the musical style and with a low action, the player can move over the fretboard quickly, with less hand fatigue.
This "action", for both the classical and flamenco guitars, cannot simply be set up, it has to be built into the instrument. Known as a "pitch angle", this procedure is accomplished by pitching the neck or sloping the board. Mr. Foye uses a solara upon which he builds his guitars. This is the traditional Spanish method of construction and allows Mr. Foye to properly dome the tops for strength and power. When the sides and back are assembled, minimum stress is added through these construction techiques; wood is not unduly forced into shapes for the purpose of saving time. Thus, though his methods are slower, the quality is always assured. These fine details, invisible to the casual observer, nonetheless play a most important role in the lasting quality and pleasure that an owner of one these fine instruments enjoys.
A variety of finish woods are available depending on your choice of instrument: Indian rosewood, Koa, mahogany, maples, Monterey cypress and more. All woods are well seasoned, some more than 25 years. Fretboards are fine ebony; brace woods, neck woods, soundboards are again a variety of top quality woods. For specifics, refer to the applicable instrument type. Optional custom inlays of precious abalone and mother-of-pearl are also available on request. The fine finish, thinly applied for better acoustics and polished to a high gloss, can be lacquer, oil varnish or spirit varnish.


The U.S. Air Force has released aerial footage of Tech Sgt. John Chapman's final moments in 2002 as he fought against al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan. Chapman, 36, voluntarily returned to Takur Ghar mountain in an effort to save a stranded teammate on March 4, 2002. He will posthumously receive a Medal of Honor later this month for his actions.
Chapman's aircraft was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, ejecting his teammate Neil Roberts, the White House said in a news release last month. His squad would return for Roberts, but they didn't know he was already killed.
The newly released video shows Chapman running up a steep mountain slope and shows him charging an enemy-filled bunker and killing its occupants. He then moves from cover to attack a machine gun and is severely wounded but keeps on fighting. He engaged enemy positions and was killed in action.
Navy SEAL Britt Slabinski was leading the team of seven SEALs on the rescue mission, which became known as the "Battle of Roberts Ridge," one of the most controversial of the Afghan war. In May, he received a Medal of Honor for his efforts.
Slabinski said he was next to Chapman when he was shot and killed. "John went down right away and I could feel the bullets passing through my clothes," he said.
He ordered his team to pull back off the ridge, but first he checked on Chapman. "I go over to where John was and crawl right over the top of John and I'm looking for some sign of life from John. I didn't get any, any sign from him," he said.
Analysis of the surveillance footage indicated that Chapman may have been alive, raising the possibility that he was left behind. But Slabinski maintains that he saw no sign of life in Chapman.
Chapman's wife, Valerie Nessel, will join President Trump at the White House on August 22 for the ceremony.


The Weight Watcher: Does magical thinking help people lose weight?
Finding it difficult to cope with the stress and strain of being overweight and dieting? According to Canadian researchers you might just benefit from "magical thinking".
This is the belief that something out there is on your side, rooting for you and aiding you in your weight loss. It's that hope and faith that could just inspire you to reach that seemingly impossible goal.
Through interviews, memoirs and weight loss blogs, HEC Montreal marketing professor Yannik St James undertook a study which analysed how dieters used this magical thinking in their slimming efforts.
So, can you? Well, you just might be already. I know I am! Food does indeed 'seduce' me and my body 'works against me' all the time! And through it all I remain not only hopeful, but confident that I WILL get there... and so will YOU.


Treaty of San Stefano, (March 3 [February 19, Old Style], 1878), peace settlement imposed on the Ottoman government by Russia at the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. It provided for a new disposition of the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire that would have ended any effective Turkish control over the Balkans if its provisions had not later been modified.
The treaty's most important provision established an independent Bulgarian principality, which included most of Macedonia and extended to the Danube and from the Aegean to the Black Sea. The independence of Serbia, Montenegro, and Romania was recognized. The boundaries of Serbia and Montenegro were extended so as to be contiguous, while Romania was compelled to cede southern Bessarabia to Russia, receiving the Dobruja from Turkey in exchange. Bosnia-Herzegovina was to be autonomous. Parts of Asiatic Turkey were ceded to Russia, and the Ottoman sultan gave guarantees for the security of his Christian subjects.
The treaty was opposed by Austria-Hungary, which disliked encouragement of Slav nationalism, and by the British, who feared the new Bulgarian state would become a Russian satellite and, as such, a threat to Istanbul as well as to British influence in the eastern Mediterranean. The treaty was modified by the terms of the Treaty of Berlin, which was signed four months later on July 13.


Kyojin-san is playing with a miniature car!
Kyojin-san has been on the 'Wonhobby News Watch' for the past three months and the 'Live WonHobby TV' broadcast, but he is actually a member of the planning team as well!
From Danny Choo's TV show, 'Culture Japan' comes a Nendoroid of the show's mascot character, Mirai Suenaga! She comes with the expression you see above based on an illustration by Nao Shirahane as well as expressions based on the Moekana card illustrations by Ikkyuu!
The petticoat just visible under her skirt, braided hair at the side and expression all look just like the original illustration! Mirai's friend 'Retrokyu' is also included and can be put on display floating beside her!
A big smile and a Japanese flag!
Definitely a pose that suits the ideals of spreading Japanese culture overseas! She also comes with two hands to hold the flag up just like this.
That carefree smile is also adorable! You can't help but smile yourself!
A miniature itasha is also included!
Ah-hah! This must be the car that Kyojin-san was playing around with in the first picture! The car will come blank with a set of decals allowing you to customize the itasha however you like!
In the image Mirai-chan looks like she is riding in the car, but all I've done is removed her legs and placed her in the car – it looks quite fitting though!
Retrokyu fits in the car quite comfortably :P. The round design of Retrokyu really suits the way Nendoroids look – plus it's super cute!
A Moekana Ver. Smile and Moekana!
The super popular 'Moekana' cards illustrated by Ikkyuu for learning hiragana! Another smiling expression based on Ikkyuu's illustration is also included along with an arm holding a Moekana card!
A 1/8th scale pack of 50+ Moekana!!
They come on a sheet to be cut out, but to think you get a full set of Moekana is amazing!! The 6 cards you see above are also included as bonus cards – Sonico-chan is so cute!!
The expressions are great for swapping!
I decided to try swapping expressions with Haji-Miku-san! The Moekana expression will definitely work with pretty much any character!
If you have any preorder queries please contact our partner shops!!


We recently started offering Design courses (Social Media, Web & Graphic Design) and basic computer (Microsoft programmes & Windows) training. If interested, please contact us. We can work out a package to suit your needs.


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You are here: Home / Big wind industry / Hide & Seek: The Staggering Cost of Offshore Wind Power Revealed
Hide & Seek: The Staggering Cost of Offshore Wind Power Revealed
March 4, 2021 by stopthesethings 4 Comments
Renewable energy rent seekers and their propagandists are diligent in their efforts to hide the true costs of wind power from the punters. Their smoke and mirrors 'accounting' religiously ignores the cost of providing power from a meaningful source, whenever calm weather sets in. And their 'wind power is cheapest of all' claims always gloss over the fact that, for every MW of unreliable wind power hooked to the grid, there has to be another MW instantly available from a reliable, dispatchable source somewhere in the system.
Where the true cost of onshore wind power is phenomenal, the cost of the offshore stuff is astronomical. But that's to compare a pair of energy lemons.
A MW of intermittent offshore wind power capacity costs up to 17 times the cost of a thoroughly reliable MW of gas-fired power generation. And, whereas, the latter is available around-the-clock, the former is available when Mother Nature deems fit. And she tends to be a temperamental, old cow.
Paul Homewood homes in on the numbers below.
What Does Offshore Wind Power Really Cost?
Paul Homewood
By Paul Homewood
Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, we keep being assured that offshore wind costs have tumbled to under £50/MWh.
The US Energy Information Administration however don't agree. They regularly assess the levelised costs of all power sources, and only a year ago calculated that the cost of offshore wind was $115.04/MWh, roughly £84/MWh, at current prices.
Their figure does include transmission costs of $3.15, so excluding this we are looking at £82/MWh.
You cannot of course simply compare generation costs, which the EIA have done, as there are associated system costs involved, as BEIS explain:
As Table 7.1 shows, these hidden costs could range between £15 and £35/MWh for offshore wind. By contrast, CCGT actually results in lower wider system costs (note the levelised cost of £82/MWh for CCGT includes a fake carbon cost of £32/MWh).
Adding these extra system costs onto the US costings will take the true cost of offshore wind power to £100/MWh or more.
Filed Under: Big wind industry, Big wind politics, Offshore, power prices Tagged With: Cost comparison offshore wind power, cost comparison wind power, Cost of subsidised wind power, cost of wind power, cost of wind power compared with gas, Offshore wind power costs, True cost of offshore wind power, UK wind offshore power costs, UK wind power costs, US wind power costs, wind power costs
« Renewables Rethink: Americans Ready to Reject Wind & Solar After Big Freeze Blackouts
German Hi-Tech Firms Driven Offshore By Unaffordable & Unreliable Renewable Energy »
Lorena Maddox says:
This was loovely to read
Peter Pronczak says:
If the biggest concern over climate change is the often repeated threaten problem of sea-level rise, particularly flooding low lying countries or heavy sinking cities like London, then putting more things in the ocean, beggars belief of science ignoring water displacement.
And this comes on the recent breaking off of ice from Antarctica the size of New York and 5 kilometres thick.
Is the logic crazy, the problem attributed to human activity non existent, the figures don't add up, or the financial intention by the World Bank (USA) and IMF (UK, France and Germany) Malthusian?
Alexander Jack says:
The reality is I cannot think of a single case of sea level rise that can be attributed to global warming as much as the beliers point fingers at it.
What is happening is the land surface elevation is subsiding or rising due to both natural and man-made forces over which we have no control over.
For London, and the shores of the southern Baltic along with the Chesapeake in the U.S. the main force is isostatic correction from the removal of the continental Ice sheets from the continent. For the mouth of the Mississippi, Bangladesh and the Sacramento Delta it's the forces of lenticular faulting, organic oxidation of plant debris and hydro compaction that causes the situation.
Man-made sources include the removal of fresh water and oil from the formations below. Channelization for navigation causing erosion and more tidal movement as the case of Venice. Miami as another example was built on nothing but uncompacted dredge spoils as part of a real estate scheme in the 1920's. As the dredge spoils through time de-water the land sinks and Miami find itself being part of the swamp they area once came from. No rising sea level !
Many disagree but as long as there is ice on Greenland and Antarctica the last Ice Age isn't finished. Recently a large tree stump with roots was found on Antarctica and it is claimed that it was once covered in forest.
What geo-climatologists don't much mention is that once the weight of ice is removed from tectonic plates the land rises, how high Antarctic would rise is unknown. Like much to do with climate and planetary physics knowledge gaps allow spurious claims to be made such as solar and wind can save everything from extinction until about 5 billion years time.
It's much like believing that somewhere time has stood still and a prehistory 'natural environment' has continued to exist. Most creatures can't tell a natural from a constructed environment and care little other than to have sufficient food.
What we can do is green deserts and plant water absorbing trees on a planetary scale.
What is known is that RE is the biggest con job of transferring public funds into few private pockets and that nuclear energy is the safest most reliable form of producing electricity. As Michael Shellenberger says it was a fear campaign based on lies and deceit that manipulated the public mind; this has allowed the financial rip-off to grow. The common western two party political party system is the private usury system's handmaiden. With the definition now limited to an exorbitant or unlawful rate of interest, rather than the basis of the Roman Empire system being protected by NATO, and the UN powerless to do anything as its rules have not changed to reflect its membership base.
Ask a voter or politician how the role of the Remembrancer fits in with the UK's parliamentary democracy and a blank stare is the usual response.
An aspect of compulsory education is to provide a workforce to businesses that increasingly reduce their taxation as they grow. Nobody gets rich without bludging on the increasingly shrinking slave-wage taxbase. What is needed is people havens not tax ones.
According to Bruce Douglas, "Global Sea Level Rise: A redetermination," Surveys in Geophysics, 18:279-272, 1997. With an updated graph courtesy of GlobalWarmingArt.com, as cited by Robert Zubrin in Merchants of Despair, sea leavel has been rising at 3mm/yr since 1880.


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Labor on the Move: David Bacon's "Illegal People" Explores Ties Between Repression and Migration
Renee Feltz Dec 12, 2008
Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants
By David Bacon
Beacon Press, 2008
Government repression in Mexico rarely makes headlines in the United States, and the few stories published almost never mention the northern migration patterns it sets in motion. This is the context David Bacon provides in Illegal People.
Using anecdotes gathered from two decades of labor organizing and reporting, Bacon follows the way "economic reforms promoted by the U.S. government through trade agreements and international financial institutions displace workers, from miners to coffee pickers, who join a huge flood of labor moving north." He examines the impact of these "reforms" on both sides of the U.S. border. The result is well-rounded analysis of the forces shaping and benefiting from migration.
Many critics of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) focus on the way it undermines labor rights and environmental regulations in order to clear the path to more profits for U.S. corporations. When these economic changes led to lower wages, workers for companies such as mining giant Grupo Mexico went on strike. Unlike pre-NAFTA campaigns, these strikes ended in destroyed unions and terminations.
"Most of the miners who lost their jobs at Nacozari [a Grupo Mexico mine] also had to leave their homes," explained Jorge Luis Morales, president of the Vigilance and Justice Commission of the union at the Cannanea mine. "I'm sure most of them are working in Tucson or Phoenix now, or even California. They are very skilled workers, but where else could they go?"
Bacon argues NAFTA also serves as a cheap labor supply program for U.S. corporations on this side of the border, providing undocumented immigrants as an exploited class of workers. Paid less than minimum wage and forced to work long hours in often unsafe conditions, these workers are cowed into silence lest employers report them to immigration officials.
Corporate lobbyists are working to enshrine these working conditions into law in the form of temporary visa and guest worker programs. First considered under the Bush administration as part of immigration reform efforts, these programs will likely be supported by Democrats under Presidentelect Obama as a way to avoid being accused of supporting amnesty. In a chapter entitled "Fast Track to the Past," Bacon outlines the true cost of these programs from the worker's point of view.
Starting with contract workers' memories of the two-decade-long Bracero program that brought an army of transient workers to the United States from 1942 to 1964, he moves into the present with accounts from agricultural workers with temporary visas who found themselves blacklisted for speaking out about dangerous conditions such as lack of protection from exposure to pesticides. The most harrowing story is told by Edilberto Morales, the lone survivor of one of the worst accidents in the history of guest worker programs in which 14 of his co-workers died.
Morales describes how he and his friends were speeding across a bridge deep in the woods of Maine in order to shorten the unpaid time it took to travel to their job planting trees. The men worked for Evergreen, a company contracted by paper manufacturing giant Kimberly Clarke. When one of its tires popped, the van skidded off the bridge and fell into the Allagash River. In the freezing water, Morales tried to save his friends, "but they were dead."
Despite years of being fined by the U.S. Department of Labor for violations in how they paid, and not counting hours of unpaid overtime, Bacon reports that Evergreen continues to receive the certification required for employing H2-B guest workers.
Perhaps not surprisingly, a poll of San Francisco's street-corner day laborers by the city's Day Labor Program found that workers rejected guest worker programs as the solution to immigration reform. "They feel that a temporary visa status would make them as vulnerable to exploitation as the undocumented status most of them now share," program director Renee Saucedo tells Bacon.
Looking outside the circle of politicians and lobbyists, Bacon brings to the reform discussion voices of those who can help solve the riddle of immigration reform with workers' rights in mind. They provide the evidence of the abusive and often deadly effects of the current immigration system.
Indeed, Bacon argues, "it would be a terrible misuse of the fate of those workers if their deaths were used to justify a new system enshrining the abuses of the old."
Renee Feltz is the co-producer of businessofdetention.com


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Tag Archives: Technology Imperialism
Utility Imperialism v. Liberal Imperialism
Posted on 28 March 2018 by Xiaoyu Wang
In this post I will discuss the contrast between Chinese and Anglo-American Imperialism and its implications in both development and politics.
Aside from imitating American business and development strategies like we saw in the cases of Huawei & IBM tech centres in Africa, Huawei also practices China's famous 'no-strings attached' policy when doing business abroad. One big example is the telecom deal between Huawei, ZTE and the Ethiopian government. It is an $800 million deal that aims to expand the country's mobile phone and internet infrastructure. Here we can see how China specialises in providing utility to foreign countries and in this way perpetuates its imperialism.
"Ethiopia Signs $800 Million Mobile Network Deal with China's ZTE", Rueters, Aug 2013, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-china-telecom/ethiopia-signs-800-million-mobile-network-deal-with-chinas-zte-idUSBRE97H0AZ20130818
No strings attached, providing infrastructure – utility imperialism & critics
But it draws attention that the Ethiopian telecom business is state owned and Ethiopia has refused to liberalise its telecom industry, critiques have said this Huawei and ZTE deal further ruled out the chance of liberalising Ethiopia's economy.
"The deal with Huawei and ZTE will preserve Ethiopia's state dominance and further put off the opening up of one of Africa's largest economies. "
"Telecoms in Ethipia, Out of Reach", the Economist, Aug 2013, 21584037-government-expands-mobile-phone-network-tightens-its-grip-out-reach
This was back in 2013. Last year Xi has announced the strategy of one belt one road which is doing more business and investment abroad by providing infrastructure. Some have said it is similar to the post WW2 Marshall Plan America offered to Europe and China's imperialist ambition is revealed.
"Some analysts have compared the One Belt One Road enterprise to the Marshall Plan. After World War II, the United States was such a strong manufacturing entity that it was forced to seek markets for its industrial products. The Marshall Plan required that aid to Europe involve a quid pro quo of U.S. investment and imports."
On the other hand,
"If Trump is too tied up with the Deep State and China leaves a bit of clean water, electricity, and road infrastructure – so be it."
"China Extends Her Silk Road to Haiti", the Huffington Post, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/china-extends-her-silk-road-to-haiti_us_5984927ae4b0bd8232029723, Aug 2017
However in general China's warns us how the West might not understand Africa better than anyone else – that might be a beneficial insight risen from the power rivalry between Chinese and American Imperialism, from a development point of view. One could say that developing countries and their people might want to seek their own way into democracies or whatever they want to and can achieve for their own good, ideally without Western intervention such as aids that come with patronising conditions and sometimes what locals see as hypocritical charities.
I have noticed, in recent years there has been a gradual shift in Western commentators' judgements on Chinese business and developed approaches abroad – from mostly critical to curious and reflective nowadays.
"The fact that Western media sources consistently condemn China's no-strings-attached attitude towards dealing with African regimes as proof that this is a disservice to Africa's peoples actually demonstrates a certain lack of understanding that the West has of the worldview of many Africans."
"What China Knows about Africa that the West Doesn't", The National Interest, May 2016, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-china-knows-about-africa-the-west-doesnt-16295
"If China is ultimately successful in bringing about a new surge in African economies, something the West has tried and failed to achieve for decades, then the global conversation on development will be rewritten. At the same time, China find itself one step closer to achieving the "Great Power" status it so longs for."
"China's Investment in Africa: The New Colonialism?", Harvard Politics Review, Feb 2017, http://harvardpolitics.com/world/chinas-investment-in-africa-the-new-colonialism/
Let's see some local African's opinions:
"As an African, I don't really think they care. They're here for business anyway. What i think many Africans like about them is that they don't meddle in our affairs. Sorry to say this but the west treats Africans as objects of pity that need to be controlled like kids. Not that we don't appreciate being helped but stuff like aid has done more harm than good here, in my opinion."
"We rather work hard to buy the things we need than having someone give it to us as charity in the name of caring. Why subject myself to pity and charity when I have the ability to earn the money fairly?"
Quora question: "Do Africans really think that China cares about them?"
Some Western professionals actually recognise this concern and have similar opinions too:
"These are fundamental shifts in thinking about what is achievable in the developing world and what the developing world wants to achieve for itself."
The UN'S Efforts in International Development: Relevant or Not?
"David Rieff, a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine and contributing editor to The New Republic, says: "The problem with aid, in short, is that it sets itself up as the kind of know-all and end-all. …Aid, by definition, is outsiders telling people in a place how to do it, and telling them if they don't behave satisfactorily — that is, the best practices that you now see in humanitarianism: if you're not democratic, if you are not transparent, if you don't do this, that or the other thing — then we will withdraw the aid. Well, if ever there was an example of any unequal form of relations, I would submit to you that that's it, which is why, precisely, in depriving people of their agency, aid does more harm than good."
"Is Aid to Africa Doing More Harm Than Good?"
"Foreign aid atrophies, and weakens, the state in Africa, and the only people who grow stronger are the donors: governments and NGOs. It damages the prospects for ordinary people to better their lives, and turns ordinary Africans into victims. Africans are hard-working people who like to have an enterprise culture. They are natural capitalists and do not need to be patronised by NGOs, who often have left-wing agendas."
"Aid helps the rich at the expense of the poor"
"Giving money can feed the hungry, and help the sick — but it does not free people from the institutions that make them hungry and sick in the first place."
"Does Foreign aid to Africa Do More Harm Than Good"
This would also beg the questions asking whether developing countries know the best about themselves and whether their people understand the significance of long-term development vision and the importance of issues such as human rights.
It is true that Western conditions might just be imperialist expansion in disguise in the name of liberalism and politicians might not really care about Africans. But you cannot say there aren't indeed countless Western institutions, professionals as well as commoners that continuously offer genuine ideological and educational help and research in their pursuit of a better Africa and a better World. In direct contrast, China's focus on business partnerships and providing utility and infrastructure might be seen as opportunist, self interested and short-visioned.
"I believe that certain types of health aid — offering vaccinations, or developing cheap and effective drugs to treat malaria, for example — have been hugely beneficial to developing countries." (Ibid.)
"Humanitarian aid, mostly, does a lot of good. It saves lives and helps rebuild livelihoods. When you think of this, think 15 million starving people in the Horn of Africa in 2011 who would have mostly perished had it not been for aid."
Quora question: "Does foreign aid to Africa do more harm than good?"
"I would say, though, it is important to remember, while all of that is true, for the overwhelming majority of the developing world, the story is good rather than bad. Of course, the stories we focus on are the stories of great distress, but in much of the developing world, where people would certainly like to be richer than they are and they would like to have more opportunities for their kids as they grow up as well, the last 30 years or so have been very, very good, and those countries have had more to do with that than we have."
All in all,
African development: utility first or ideals first? Perhaps both can work side by side in pushing the development of Africa forward and it is also of great importance that cultural, regional, social and racial preferences should always be taken into account in tailoring particular development strategies and approaches.
Politics: But African development falls under the eyes of global powers like the US and China and might have been and will probably continue to suffer from their power contest and imperialist pursuit.
Posted in Globalisation Group B	| Tagged African Development, anglo-ameircanisation, Capitalist Imperialism, Cultural Imperialism, Development, Globalisation, neo-colonialism, politics, Technology, Technology Imperialism, Telecom	| Leave a Reply
Cultural Imperialism, Anglo-Americanisation & Tech-Platform Imperialism
Some updates of key definitions that are essential to our project:
"Cultural imperialism is the economic, technological and cultural hegemony of the industrialized nations, which determines the direction of both economic and social progress, defines cultural values, and standardizes the civilization and cultural environment throughout the world."
Anglo-Americanisaton
"the hegemony of western culture and the process that is leading to the establishment of a common world culture"
– Matti Sarmela, "What is Cultural Imperialism?", in Carola Sandbacka (ed.), Cultural Imperialism and Cultural Identity, 13-36. Transactions of the Finnish Anthropolological Society 2, Helsinki 1977, (in Finnish 1975)
Technology Imperialism
"It is clear that the notion of imperialism has gained a new perspective in the midst of the rapid growth of new technologies."
"The panacea of technology may reduce imperialism and domination to vestiges of the past; however, technology will always be the reality of human hierarchy and domination (Maurais 2003, Demont-Heinrich 2008), and digital technologies have buttressed U.S. hegemony.
Platform Imperialism
In particular, when the debates reach platforms, non-Western countries have not, and likely cannot, construct a balanced global order, because Google (including its Android oper- ating system), Facebook, Twitter and Apple's iPhones (and iSO) are indices of the domi- nance of the U.S. in the digital economy. These platforms have penetrated the global market and expanded their global dominance. Therefore, it is not unsafe to say that American impe- rialism has been continued with platforms. As in the time of Lenin between the late 19th cen- tury and the early 20th century, there has been a connection between platform and capitalist imperialism. Platforms have functioned as a new form of distributor and producer that the U.S. dominates. Arguably, therefore, we are still living in the imperialist era."
"Therefore, it is certain that American imperialism has been renewed with platforms, like the old form of American imperialism sup- ported by politics, economy, and military, as well as culture."
– Jin, Dal Yong (2013), "The Construction of Platform Imperialism in the Globalization Era", TripleC, 11 (1): 145-172
Posted in Globalisation Group B	| Tagged Americanisation, anglo-ameircanisation, Cultural Imperialism, Platform Imperialism, Technology Imperialism	| Leave a Reply
Tecno in Africa- Selfies and Technology; Business or Chinese Colonialism
Clara talked about how American tech companies such as Google use algorithmic neutrality and I wanted to discuss Chinese capitalist imperialism as a counter example to Anglo-American "liberal" imperialism.
Overview: "brand penetration and market dominance in Africa":
present in 35 African countries
41.1% and 31.1% market share in Tanzania and Nigeria
has sold over 45 million mobile phones in Africa as of 2017
25% – 40% of the African mobile phone market
Why it succeeds in Africa:
relatively reasonable price: $120-280 (The annual average Kenyan wage is $1,200)
"most innovative designs":
Four-sim phones
"Tecno also noticed that the African telecom market is highly fragmented, which means customers using different telecom operators need to pay hefty fees to call and text each other.
Given this situation, local people tend to use dual-sim phones to save money. Tecno pushed the envelope and introduced four-sim handsets, enabling customers to use up to four carriers.
Again this is not groundbreaking technology, but the minor adjustment made Tecno phones hugely popular in Africa."
"The look is also crucial. Most global mobile brands have shifted toward simplistic designs, but Africans prefer sharp colors and shiny handsets. Tecno wasted no time in appealing to the local taste."
More Tailoring for each different African country
"For example, in Nigeria customers wanted a mobile phone that had a longer battery life due to the electrical power shortage and in Kenya, customers wanted mobile phones with better picture quality. These requirements were looked and the Camon CX was launched (Tecno's new product of 2017). "
Most interestingly –
Specialising in making selfie camera for dark-toned faces
"…the picture system of most mobile phones is based on white or yellow skin tones. When African users take selfies, the pictures are often either too dark or blurred."
"To solve this problem, Tecno collected a large number of pictures taken by African customers and tweaked the picture function of its handsets based on the data. The superior selfie quality soon became a major selling point."
"The Camon CX uses a smart image sensor which composes of 16-megapixel sensors in the front camera 'which detects light, captures individual images and converts the information into signals before forming the final image, resulting in selfies that are 30% brighter, making it the ultimate selfie phone.'"
Technology and the Selfie Culture in the 21st century
"Generally globally people like to take photos of themselves and then share it on the social networke, we have been in the African market like Kenya for a long time and we do studies…one of the demands from consumers is Selfies and so because of this insight that really drove us to bring the latest visual technology in our latest smartphone..' – Marketing Officer at Tecno
Techno clearly realises the contemporary global phenomenon of selfies. Having done thorough investigation on the African market, it realises the overwhelming selfie culture applies to Africa just as much as everywhere else across globe. However, the selfie cameras on all the mobile phones were designed for light-toned skin, namely Apple. Tecno is the first and mobile phone company that aims to provide selfie camera for dark-toned skin. What is more is that the technology market of Africa is still relatively underdeveloped and new compared to many other parts of the World, Tecno saw an opportunity and made use of its discovery in Africa. In contrast, Apple's lack of specialised strategy in Africa and high prices have led its unpopularity in the African mobile phone market. By 2017, it had only 5.2% market share in Africa.
Attai Oguche, a Lagos-based deputy marketing manager for Tecno, told CNBC via telephone that Chinese companies are "good at spotting trends."
They "adapt easily and come up with a product that everyone likes," he said.
Oguche added that the "very conservative" European approach means companies risk falling short of their Chinese competitors.
A 21st century kind of (Chinese) colonialism/imperialism?
"In big ways and small, China is making its presence felt across the continent.'
"China has also spread its influence in less visible ways."
Clearly, Chinese mobile phone companies like Tecno, have really dived into the African market and it is interesting to consider their intentions and implications.
Business & Opportunism
It can be argued that they are in Africa for the profit. Africa is the fastest growing mobile phone market and Tecno benefitted from thinking outside the box in terms of some novel ideas such as selfie camera suited for dark skin and making 4-sim phones. The ideas of tailoring for different African countries and communities and specialising in the African market are to be considered as a huge success from a business point of view.
Neo-colonialism & Capitalist Imperialism
On the other hand, regarding China in African in general, the term neo-colonialism has been raised very often.
But in the case of Tecno, it is hard to see how it neo-colonises Africa in terms of cultural intervention – it specialises its products for Africans and there is essentially nothing 'Chinese' about these phones apart from it is designed and made by a Chinese company.
Further, it sets out a sharp contrast against Anglo-American mobile phone companies such as Apple who do nothing like what Tecno does, and still sell their phones at a very high price for Africans. Is Apple only targeting on the richest Africans? Or it simply does not care much? It is hard to say who embodies neo-colonialism more.
However, it has been argued by Lenin that imperialism is spread across the globe with the help of capitalism and the division of territories are divided by the biggest global capitalist powers. Contemporary scholars have renewed Lenin's theory by adding that technology has helped the growth and expansion of capitalism. Here we can see how Chinese tech companies like Tecno gradually capitalises and dominates Africa's market, hence a rising global power of capitalist imperialism.
Dal Yong Jin (Jin, 2013) has argued that with the rise of new technologies in the context of globalisation from the end of 20th century, brought about a new meaning of imperialism, namely technology and information imperialism. Jin suggests like Lenin thought, cultural imperialism is spread with the help of capitalism.
"capitalism at that stage of development at which the domination of monopolies and fi- nance capital is established: in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced im- portance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun; in which the division of all the territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed (Lenin,1917, 237, cited in Jin, 2013).
Moreover, the idea of capitalist imperialism in the 21st century is helped with capitalising technological products.
"Capitalist imperialism, which focuses on the flow of economic power across and through continuous space through the daily practices of trade, commerce, capital flows, labor migration, technology transfer, flows of information, cultural impulses and the like". (Harvey, 2003, 26f, cited in Jin, 2013)
Social and Racial Preferences
In addition in a globalised and anglo-americanised world, Tecno's approach to Africa and its success inspires us to rethink how much social preference and here more importantly racial preferences weigh in business and even development approaches.
"We read quite a lot about the economies of other countries. We read about their political situation. It's more unusual for us to read about how they function as societies and what their social preferences are and how these might differ from those of neighboring countries and how there might be different social preferences within a given country."
"The UN's Efforts in International Development: Relevant or Not?", David Malone's speech at the Carnegie Council of Ethics in International Affairs, May 2015
https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/studio/multimedia/20150512-the-uns-efforts-in-international-development-relevant-or-not
"Africa's leading mobile maker, TECNO, is disrupting the global mobile market with its latest flagship duo", Ventures Africa, Sep 2016
http://venturesafrica.com/africas-leading-mobile-maker-tecno-is-disrupting-the-global-mobile-market-with-its-latest-flagship-duo/
"African's crave for selfies Inspires Tecno latest Smartphone", PulseLive, March 2017
http://www.pulselive.co.ke/bi/tech/camoncxlaunch-african-s-crave-for-selfies-inspires-tecno-latest-smartphone-id6418602.html
"TECNO: China's home grown smartphone manufacturer has quietly taken over the African smartphone market", Kapron Asia, Sep 2017
https://www.kapronasia.com/asia-payments-research-category/item/895-tecno-china-s-home-grown-smartphone-manufacturer-who-has-quietly-taken-over-the-african-smartphone-market.html
"How a little-known brand conquered African mobile phone market", Ejisight, Jan 2017
http://www.ejinsight.com/20170118-how-a-little-known-brand-conquered-african-mobile-phone-market/
"Why Africa's Smartphone Market Still Dragging", Tech in Africa, Dec 2017
http://www.techinafrica.com/africas-smartphone-market-still-dragging/
"China goes to Africa", The Economist, Jul 2017
https://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21725288-big-ways-and-small-china-making-its-presence-felt-across
"'China is everywhere' in Africa's rising technology industry", CNBC, July 2017
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/28/china-is-everywhere-in-africas-rising-technology-industry.html
Jin, Dal Yong (2013), "The Construction of Platform Imperialism in the Globalization Era", TripleC, 11 (1): 145-172
Posted in Globalisation Group B	| Tagged Africa, African Development, Apple, Capitalist Imperialism, Chinese colonialism, Cultural Imperialism, Mobile Phones, neo-colonialism, Selfies, Technology, Technology Imperialism, Tecno, Telecom	| Leave a Reply


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Browse: Home / 2014 / March / 12 / TCA partners with AmWest to help t'breds
TCA partners with AmWest to help t'breds
By Susan Salk on March 12, 2014
General Biltmore enjoys retirement at TCA-funded charity Equine Encore Foundation or Arizona
LEXINGTON, Ky. – In a new partnership between AmWest Entertainment and Thoroughbred Charities of America (TCA), horseplayers will now be given the option to donate to the national horse charity through their wagering accounts.
Through a simple click on the TCA logo, which can be found on the dashboard of a player's AmWager account, a horseplayer can send funds, which will, in turn be used to fund TCA grants to horse charities.
In 2013, the TCA supported 72 nonprofit organizations with more than $500,000 in donations, according to a press release. And the partnership is a welcome addition to that effort, says TCA Executive Director Erin Crady.
"Thoroughbred Charities of America is thrilled to partner with AmWest Entertainment to offer an easy and convenient way for players to make a donation," Crady says. "We are extremely grateful for AmWest's support of our efforts to provide assistance to Thoroughbreds and the people who work with them. We hope that many horseplayers will show their support of TCA by using this easy donation mechanism."
Nelson Clemmens, founder and CEO of AmWest Entertainment, says the partnership is one his organization is proud to participate in.
"This opportunity for our organization and our players to contribute to the wonderful support that TCA provides for the post-racing care and retraining of so many of our sport's precious equine athletes, is a commitment made with an enthusiastic spirit from all of us involved with AmWest," he says.
The Thoroughbred Charities of America has granted nearly $20 million to 200 Thoroughbred-related charities over the past 23 years in an effort to provide a better life for Thoroughbreds, both during and after their racing careers. The TCA is the charitable arm of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA).
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Responses
3 responses to "TCA partners with AmWest to help t'breds"
Delrene in Carlsbad, Ca. March 12, 2014 at 3:40 pm | Permalink | Reply
Good to read about and hope horseplayers/bettors do the right thing. Thanks for the information.
cheri vaughan March 12, 2014 at 2:27 pm | Permalink | Reply
Powerful stuff!!!
Susan Crane-Sundell March 12, 2014 at 12:53 pm | Permalink | Reply
Very glad to see that AmWest Entertainment is continuing and expanding the ways that it contributes to the care and retirement of Thoroughbreds. By allowing horseplayers a readily available opportunity to contribute to the athletes that make their pursuit possible in a quick and easily accessible fashion, AmWest will be reinforcing the connection between TBs and fans. It is great to see businesses involved with the industry finding innovative ways to give back to the horses.


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Home Retirement
Demaryius Thomas announces retirement after brilliant NFL career
in Retirement
Thomas' career hit just about every single high one can reasonably hope for. The 2010 first-round pick holds multiple team records. He's behind only Ring of Famer Rod Smith in most career receiving marks. He once set the Super Bowl record for receptions. He won five AFC West championships, two AFC title games and one Super Bowl. He was selected to five consecutive Pro Bowls, an achievement only three other players have done as Broncos. Simply put, Thomas is a practical lock for the Ring of Fame.
As the first receiver drafted in that 2010 class, Thomas arrived in Denver with boundless potential but a lot of work still to be done to fulfill it.
After recovering from a broken foot that he suffered during the draft process, Thomas made his debut for Denver during the second week of the season. With a team-leading eight receptions for 97 yards and a touchdown, Thomas had the third most productive first game by a receiver in team history.
It was a promising start, but his rookie season was soon derailed. He had just 14 more receptions the rest of the season, which ended early for him because of injuries.
The months that followed were no less rocky; he tore his Achilles tendon in February and then, after making a stunning recovery that would have allowed him to return early in the 2011 season, he broke a finger and missed more time.
Given all these hurdles, Thomas admits he faced some doubts about his future in the NFL.
"I came in with … the broken foot, and then coming off the Achilles, it was some doubt there because there was other things going around ball that bothered me," Thomas said. "But at the end of the day, I still chased it. I kept my head on and I still chased it. I got around some people that could help me get better and get healthier. I was still chasing the goal of being the ultimate best receiver, you know, being the best I can be and trying to get a Super Bowl."
Those achievements were still a long way away then in 2011, but he'd find his groove later that year, finishing the season with one of the most unforgettable moments in team history.
In a wild-card game matchup against Pittsburgh, the Broncos were underdogs by more than a touchdown despite playing on their home turf. The Broncos built a large lead, gave it up and then clung to a tie game as regulation came to a close. Then, on the first play of overtime, Thomas dashed across the field on a crossing pattern, caught a pass from Tim Tebow, turned the corner, stiff-armed a Steelers defensive back and then sent the stadium into hysterics with the sudden-death win. When the NFL celebrated its 100th season in 2019, the league named Thomas' touchdown the 76th-best play in league history.
The next season, with newly signed free agent Peyton Manning under center, Thomas developed from a promising, evolving player into one fully blooming in an explosive offense that would help him fulfill his potential. A physically imposing receiver that could build speed quickly in space, he became a matchup problem that most teams struggled to contain.
In 2014, Thomas put himself into the Broncos' record books with a 226-yard game and a 1,619-yard season, both of which still stand as the best marks in team history. But perhaps of more significance to him that year was his part in making league history as the recipient of Manning's 509th career passing touchdown, then an NFL record.
But even as the Pro Bowl selections started rolling in, Thomas kept his focus on the team.
"I wouldn't say took off for me, I would say took off for us as a whole group," Thomas said. "We learned as a group because I had games where I had over [100] yards before he got there. … And then having the group learning together as a whole, as one, thinking like one, that's when the best came out of all of us."
A year later, Thomas and the rest of the Broncos reached the pinnacle as the team advanced to Super Bowl 50 and took down the Panthers to secure Denver's third Lombardi Trophy.
With all that on his resume, why would he feel any remorse?
"No regrets at all," Thomas said. "There's no reason to. I'm here, I'm blessed. … I tried to do what I could do every play — if it was catch a ball, if it was to block somebody. I tried to put my everything in it every time."
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Behind the Scenes of a Covid-Themed Zoom Porn
"Am I masturbating with my mask on?" Cherie Deville asks, reclining on her bed. She is playing Kate, a woman so germophobic that she sanitizes her whiteboard to-do list; the Covid-19 pandemic has thrown her into overdrive, and she barely leaves the house, sleeping in goggles and retrieving her delivered groceries while in a full hazmat suit. Yet with her honey-blond hair and perfectly glossed lips, Cherie bears little resemblance to a frazzled germopobe; instead, she looks like a bustier Rita Wilson.
"No, you're not," says Bree Mills, from her chair in her office. Via Zoom, she's directing Deville in Future Darkly: Pandemic, the latest installment in the pornography production company Adult Time's (link NSFW) series of dystopian sci-fi films. "We are all shooting with our masks on, but we are not masturbating with the masks on," says Mills. Deville nods and proceeds to enthusiastically masturbate in front of the camera, manned by two crew members, shooting one X-rated version of the scene and one R-rated version for release on YouTube, her nude body concealed underneath a sheet. Just moments earlier, she, the two crew members, and Mills were making small talk about going camping, the weirdest places Deville has had sex on camera (it's a tie between a glacier and on the back of a truck in the middle of the Mojave) and an airplane passing by her home overhead. "One of the most important things to know about being on an adult set," Mills tells me, "is the number of times you have to stop for airplanes."
Future Darkly: Pandemic is an experiment in Covid-era adult filmmaking, a feature-length adult movie consisting of segments that were shot either with only the aid of a skeleton crew, or entirely over Zoom. All of the performers are either solo or paired with their real-life partners, and they shot and co-produced the segments at their own homes. Mills started working on the project in late February 2020, at the very start of the pandemic, when the world was just starting to shut down and our understanding of the virus was so limited that people were Googling hazmat suits and frantically scrubbing down their groceries. She invited Rolling Stone to virtually sit in on the development of the film in the spring of 2020, and on the set that fall, to observe the remote filmmaking process, and see how directing intimacy — or, as Mills puts it on set, "s-e-x" — translates in an era when actual intimacy is prohibited.
As it turns out, watching porn being made over Zoom is not dissimilar to participating in any other Zoom event: it's mostly mundane, interspersed with the occasional moment of levity or absurdity. Later that day, I will watch Deville pretend to seduce a character called the "Free Man," a maskless MAGA protester meets Marlboro Man, by balling up her panties, inserting them into her vagina, and stuffing them into her mouth while masturbating on a teal table. Mills is unfazed. "Hang on her while she does that so you can hear her say, 'I want you to put your cock inside me,' " is the only thing she says to her sound man.
"Kate and the Free Man"
"Kate and the Free Man," as Deville's segment is called, is one of four vignettes that make up Future Darkly: Pandemic. There's also "Laura's Delivery," about a bored housewife caring for a Covid-19 patient who falls into bed with an Amazon deliveryman; "Alex and Anna," about a couple reuniting after lockdown (complete with PPE sex); and "Anthony's Date," a Her-inspired tale about a lonely man who falls in love with an AI assistant. Future Darkly: Pandemic isn't the first or only Covid-19-themed porn on the market, but it is among the more ambitious, in that it attempts to capture "the desperation of having a basic human need" — intimacy and human connection — "deprived," says 3X West, a member of Adult Time's writing team who worked on the treatment.
Mills is a longtime industry veteran with short spiked hair and an endless supply of lightly distressed band T-shirts. As the chief creative officer for Adult Time and the mind behind what the Daily Beast refers to as "the Netflix of porn," she produces relatively high-budget, narrative feature films, releasing R-rated versions on YouTube and X-rated versions for paying customers. "I always say I'm a lousy pornographer," she tells me. "I just like making movies and sex is a fun subject." Although Mills' films are glossier and more high-end, the titles of many of her films are decidedly quotidian in the world of porn; 2020 entries on her IMDB page include "Let Me Lick Your Tits," "In Bed With My Stepsister," and "Lesbian Revenge Fantasies Volume 3."
Mills directed Future Darkly: Pandemic from her office in her Los Angeles home, calling into the set and providing direction remotely similar to a typical Zoom meeting, except much of the time people were having sex on the other end of the screen. (Mills will occasionally interject from her desk chair to remind her crew members to put the masks on, which they do dutifully.)
Shooting the most intimate acts remotely during a pandemic "felt like the porno science fair a little bit," says Siouxsie Q, who with Mills was the director of "Anthony's Date." Q shot her partner Michael Vegas as the titular character, a lonely man who falls in love with an AI assistant, played by Ana Foxxx. "There was such a spirit of experimentation. All the rules had been thrown out the window," says Q. "Anyone who wanted to do things the old way, that wasn't really going to fly in this new way of life post-COVID."
"Anthony's Date"
Deville says that all things considered, the virtual shoot Mills and her crew had set up was much more like a traditional shooting experience than most of the content she's made during the pandemic. "All the other at-home shoots were more, 'Here's what we'd like you to do, here's what app we need you to use on your cell phone, here are the things you need,' " she told me in December. "This shoot at least felt closer to what we'd done pre-Covid, in that I had an actual director."
Over the past eight months, the industry has changed dramatically. At the start of the pandemic, a months-long moratorium imposed by the Free Speech Coalition (FSC), an industry lobbying group, shut production down immediately, causing widespread panic within the industry. At the time, insiders predicted that a shutdown would have a disastrous effect on performers, the vast majority of whom are independent contractors and do not have health care or other benefits upon which to rely if they are unemployed.
Yet as the pandemic has raged on, something surprising has happened: those at the upper echelons of the industry — the producers, directors, distributors, and people who have traditionally held the most power in the industry — have floundered, while performers have thrived. "The pandemic really slapped the studios in the face," says Mills. "But it didn't stop the performers with the assets they had built, the fan bases they had built, and the ability to provide content for their audiences."
With many studios on hiatus from shooting due to a resurgence in cases, performers are pivoting to making solo content at home and selling it on subscription content sites. "If this had been back in the Nineties or early 2000s where most pornographic performers were dependent on being on-set, I'd be in trouble," says Deville. "But now, we have our OnlyFans and our clip stores and our Pornhub accounts." (The only types of performers who are hard to book, says Deville, are MILFs, whom she has heard from talent bookers are not working as frequently: "I do wonder if they're worried, like, 'we're so old we're gonna die [of Covid],'" she says, jokingly.)
"Alex and Anna"
Jake Adams, a compact adult performer who resembles a young Robert De Niro, plays a delivery person in "Laura's Delivery," featuring his partner Scarlett Scandal as a bored housewife caring for her Covid-positive, housebound husband. For performers like Adams, who lives with Scandal and has a shoot house that he rents out to other producers, the pandemic has been nothing short of a business opportunity. "It gave me a unique opportunity to get in contact with companies to sell them some content," he says. "People were in desperate need so they were buying it like crazy."
Siouxsie has had a similar experience, referring to this period as a "renaissance" in the adult industry for performers and small, independent content creators. "This has been an opportunity for independent content producers and activists like myself to really step forward and be producers in a real way. We have ultimate control over a set now," she says. "When I'm walking onto a set, it's my set. I have the ability to provide the PPE and be in control of that and who exactly is on my set, and that was something we didn't have before. We weren't having big studios come to us and be like OK, will you please shoot for us? It's really in the best interest of these companies to come to these performers and give them the autonomy they've been asking for for generations."
Of course, this trend does not apply to all performers; those who haven't built substantive online followings continue to work with studios that are still using traditional in-person shooting methods, albeit with PPE, scaled-back crew, and testing at least 24 hours in advance. Yet some performers like Deville are not comfortable with these safeguards, due to rifts in internal testing systems and a lack of faith in other performers' quarantine habits. "Even just looking at some people's Instagrams you can tell they're out and about, and I can't control the social life of the entire industry," she says. Fortunately for her, she has a large enough fanbase and sufficient name recognition that she makes a decent amount of money producing her own content, and theoretically would never have to shoot for a studio again. "It's not so much the direct income of shooting i want or even need," she says. "It's more that it keeps me relevant in the pornographic market."
With such a seismic shift going on within the industry, production companies like Adult Time are obviously not in prime position to make money right now. But Mills says she's not particularly worried, and that projects like Pandemic: Future Darkly provide a prime prospect to show how studios can adjust their traditional output models. "What we did with the pandemic is a perfect example of how easy it is to adapt to make something and how more opportunities can come out of it afterwards," she says. "It's on the studios to embrace the path forward. It's sort of like when people started making videos on YouTube and then YouTubers were looked down upon for the establishment. Now everyone's trying to make YouTube stuff."
Correction Tues., Jan. 26, 2021, 2:15 p.m. An earlier version of this article stated Scarlit Scandal's last name was Siren.
Tags: coronavirus, covid-19, long re
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text:
Language Science Ph.D.
The Department of Language Science offers the first Ph.D. in Language Science in the country.
Students are trained to be innovative thinkers at the forefront of language science, equipped for research and teaching careers in academia, industry, and government.
Training emphasizes empirical grounding, state-of-the-art methods for hypothesis generation and testing, and effective scientific communication.
Our research is highly interdisciplinary, with links to linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, computer science, neuroscience, logic, philosophy, mathematics, engineering, hearing, speech, language studies, education, and anthropology.
Special attention is given to curricular flexibility and providing hands-on research experience early in the graduate career.
As the first of its kind in the country, our program provides a new, integrative approach to the science of language that enables exciting opportunities for deep collaboration and cross-fertilization.
We prepare students to be at the forefront of change in the field, empowering them to be the future leaders driving innovation.
Our approach draws on methods broadly from all fields of science, and explores connections between traditional and contemporary methods, results, and theories.
Our faculty are experts in innovative technologies for quantitative, neuroscientific, and behavioral approaches to language science.
Graduate training incorporates curricular flexibility, development of technical communication skills, and prioritization of research early in the graduate career.
Graduates are equipped for a broad range of careers, both within academia (as research professors, research scientists, and teaching professors) and in industry (as language engineers, knowledge engineers, language analysts, social media analysts, computational linguists, speech scientists, and educational technologists).
Expertise in languages other than English makes graduates even more competitive for industry and government positions.
Normative Time to Degree
Capstone Type
Accordion Section
Applications must be submitted using UCI's Online Application for Graduate Admissions.
The deadline to apply is DECEMBER 1. Admission decisions for our program are made in March.
The following items are required as part of the application:
Application Fee (subject to change) - Current fee is $120 for U.S. Citizens and lawful U.S. Permanent Residents, and $140 for all other applicants beginning for the Fall '17 quarter of admission.
NOTE: Application fee waivers are available to qualifying US citizens and permanent residents. Fee waivers are not available to international applicants.
GRE scores - please choose institution code 4859.
TOEFL or IELTS - please choose institution code 4859.
Three (3) Letters of Recommendation
Sample of technical writing
For further information about these requirements, please visit UCI's Graduate Division website at: https://grad.uci.edu/admissions/applying-to-uci/index.php
Information specific to the School of Social Sciences can be found at: https://www.gradstudies.socsci.uci.edu/admissions/overview.php
In addition to meeting the above requirements, we strongly encourage applicants to have the following:
Advanced coursework in some of the following fields: linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, computer science, neuroscience, logic, philosophy, mathematics, engineering, hearing, speech, language studies, education, anthropology
If you have further questions, please visit our FAQ page or contact the Graduate Admissions Office at socsci.gradinfo@uci.edu or (949) 824-7352.
Graduate Record Exam (GREs)
The GRE test scores are required for students planning to apply to our program. We cannot waive this requirement even when the applicant has completed an advanced degree at another college or university in the United States.
Please note that:
We cannot accept GMAT, LSAT, or MCAT scores in place of the GREs.
We do not require applicant file scores from any of the various GRE (subject) tests available.
GRE test results are not valid for more than five years.
For further information about this requirement, please see: https://grad.uci.edu/admissions/applying-to-uci/gre.php
To assess both the potential for academic research and the current technical communication skills of applicants, a sample of technical writing is required as part of the application. This should be a paper on a scientific topic written solely or primarily by the applicant. (For example, an honors thesis or term paper is a good technical writing sample, but a manuscript where the applicant isn't the first author is not.)
English-Language Proficiency Requirement (for International Applicants)
The internet-based Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL-ibT) is required by the School of Social Sciences for all international applicants whose primary language is not English. (This requirement does not apply to citizens of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.)
International applicants are required to submit language test scores with the application for admission. US citizens are not required to provide TOEFL scores. The School's TOEFL policy for US permanent residents and international applicants is here.
We cannot waive this requirement for admission and financial support consideration even for those who hold or are completing an undergraduate or advanced degree in the United States. However, an exception can be made for applicants who graduated high school in the United States after four full years of attendance. In such cases, an official copy of the applicant's high school transcript must be submitted.
For a listing of countries where English is considered the primary or dominant language and for further information about this requirement, please see: https://grad.uci.edu/admissions/applying-to-uci/english-proficiency.php
Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and International English Language Testing System (IELTS)
Applicants whose primary language is not English are required to demonstrate proficiency in English for admission consideration. A student may receive a waiver to the requirement for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) Internet-based Test (iBT) or a paper-based test (PBT) or International English Language Testing System (IELTS) if they completed all the requirements for their high school diploma, bachelor's degree, or an advanced degree in a country where the primary and/or dominant language is English and English was the language of instruction of the school where the requirements were completed.
For a list of countries where English is considered the primary or dominant language, as approved by the UC Irvine Graduate Council, please visit: http://www.grad.uci.edu/admissions/applying-to-uci/english-proficiency.php
Note: For financial support consideration, the following minimum scores are required:
26/30 on the speaking component of the TOEFL-ibT; or
8/9 on the Speaking module of the IELTS exam.
All applications for PhD admission are considered also for financial support, and all admission offers to Language Science currently include five years of funding. Applicants are not required to apply separately for admission and financial support.
Our competitive, merit-based funding packages include annual registration fees and comprehensive student health insurance; a combination of TA or Graduate Student Researcher (GSR) appointment with individual members of faculty, and fellowship quarters in lieu of employment. Summer support and, in limited amounts, graduate student research and travel funding are also available.
All offers to non-residents of California, including non-US citizen international students, include nonresident tuition in the first year or two of study.
Financial assistance based on need (loans, primarily) is available to qualifying student applicants, through UCI Financial Aid & Scholarships: www.ofas.uci.edu/content/
All students applying for need-based financial aid are required to file a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA): www.fafsa.ed.gov/
International students who are not US citizens or permanent residents are not eligible to apply for federal need-based financial aid aid.
Further information on assistantships and funding resources can be found at https://grad.uci.edu/funding/index.php
Graduate/Credential Student Fees 2019-20
Fall 2019 Winter 2020 Spring 2020 Annual
Student Services Fee 376.00 376.00 376.00 1,128.00
Tuition 3,814.00 3,814.00 3,814.00 11,442.00
Assoc. Grad Students Fee 9.00 9.00 9.00 27.00
Student Center Fee 139.69 139.69 139.68 419.06
Bren Events Center Fee 23.00 23.00 23.00 69.00
Recreation Center Fee 88.00 88.00 88.00 264.00
Document Fee * 80.00 0.00 0.00 80.00
Student Health Insurance 1,459.18 1,459.18 1,459.18 4,377.54
Total California Resident $ 5,908.87 $ 5,908.87 $ 5,908.86 $ 17,726.60
Nonresident Supplemental Tuition 5,034.00 5,034.00 5,034.00 15,102.00
Total Nonresident $ 10,942.87 $ 10,942.87 $ 10,942.86 $ 32,828.60
Posted 12 July 2019 at http://reg.uci.edu/fees/2019-2020/graduate.html.
The tuition, fees, and charges posted to your billing statement or account are estimates based on currently approved amounts. These figures may not be final. Actual tuition, fees, and charges are subject to change by the Regents of the University of California and could be affected by increases or reductions in State funding, or other developments. Accordingly, final approved levels (and thus your final balance due) may differ from the amounts shown.
* The Document Fee provides lifetime access to official transcripts and academic verifications without a fee for in-person pickup or delivery by USPS. In addition, there is no fee for mailing the initial diploma. Effective Fall 2018, new undergraduate, professional, and graduate students are assessed the one-time document fee. Eligible students are able to use financial aid to cover the Document Fee.
Richard Futrell: linguistics, natural language processing, Bayesian modeling
Gregory Hickok: neuroanatomy of language, neural plasticity, neuroimaging, cognitive neuroscience
Judith Kroll: bilingualism, cognition, language processing, cognitive neuroscience
Virginia Mann: reading ability, speech perception
Lisa Pearl: language development, linguistics, computational sociolinguistics, cognitive modeling
Gregory Scontras: formal semantics, computational and experimental studies of meaning, heritage languages
Bernard Tranel: linguistic theory, phonology, phonetics, morphology, Optimality Theory, Romance languages, French linguistics, tone languages, Margi, Mixtec
Alyssa Brewer: neuroimaging of visual perception, visual deficits, neurological disorders
Carol Connor: reading comprehension, executive function, behavioral regulation development, technology & assessment
Brandy Gatlin: language, reading, writing, cultural and linguistic diversity, measurement and assessment, instruction
Glenn Levine: applied linguistics, theoretical linguistics, foreign language pedagogy, German-Jewish literature, Yiddish language and literature
Elizabeth Peña: bilingualism, language impairment, language development, assessment bias and measurement
Sameer Singh: large-scale machine learning, information extraction, natural language processing, probabilistic programming, interactive machine learning, distributed & parallel inference, semi-supervised learning
Julio Torres: heritage and second language acquisition, bilingualism, cognition, task-based language learning, curriculum & instruction
Kai Wehmeier: logic, philosophy of logic and language, early analytic philosophy, philosophy of mathematics
Data not yet available as this is a new program.
APPLICATION OPEN
Jennifer Gerson; jennifer.gerson@uci.edu
https://www.langsci.uci.edu/grad.php
#langsci #languagescience #quantitative #neuro #phd #uci #gradschool #socialsciences