Gus Bofa’s drawings suggest the existential darkness that overtook a Europe defaced by war and modernization. The illustrations he made for Mac Orlan’s moody novel of espionage Mademoiselle Bambù—of spies, prostitutes, sailors, and drifters—compliment the tale of a web of interconnected characters as they circulated around Europe’s port cities, a depiction of the dark unease of the early twentieth century. Bofa’s contributions appear in rough black and white, sketch-like, as if somehow disappearing into themselves. In these drawings, his style is dark, almost resembling the aesthetics of film noir, though at times it is also goofy or playful.
Month: January 2018
Interior employees are happy to be back at work, welcoming…
Interior employees are happy to be back at work, welcoming visitors to America’s public lands like Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. A half inch of rain two weeks ago brought relief and a rainbow to this wildlife refuge in southwest Arizona. Running down the Kofa Mountains and spreading across the Sonoran Desert, the water was quickly sucked up by towering saguaro cacti, spiky prickly pears and rare fan palm trees. The refuge was established in 1939 following a campaign of local Boy Scouts hoping to preserve habitat for desert bighorn sheep. Their dream really did come true. Photo by Tom Brown, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service volunteer.
The Transition
As windows into the anxieties of modern living go, few are quite as clarifying as trip to a newsstand. Magazine cover lines blast a consistent message of encouragement and promise, varying the theme depending on whether the magazine is targeted at women (“20 ways to drive him wild in bed!”), men (“killer abs in 10 days!”), investors (“the next tech companies set to soar!”), or just a self-aware human (“scientifically proven steps for mindfulness!”). The lines are engineered to make you to open your wallet for the magazine and whatever it’s shilling inside, and I trust I’m not alone in habitually reversing their sentiments to expose how they judge you: you’re not having sex right, you’re out of shape, you’re bad with money, you lack calm, you lack, you lack, you lack.
Karl, the middle-class British suburbanite at the center of Luke Kennard’s debut novel, The Transition, embodies the anxiety and entrapment of everyday capitalism, the way you can be a critic of commercialism’s abuses even while you can’t help being one of its victims. Karl is on the verge of a prison term for being a mostly (but not entirely) unwitting accessory to an online money-skimming operation, and badly overextended financially, maxing out even the “one beautiful, transparent credit card which shimmered like a puddle of petrol.” He has one last-ditch option, his accountant friend informs him: The Transition, a public-private outfit of vague origins that promises a path out for Karl and his schoolteacher wife, Genevieve, so long as they sign on to be mentored — practically drill-sergeanted — into getting with the program of being an effective consumer-investor widget.
Those mentors, the couple Stu and Janna, are the kind of hyper-confident, go-get-’em capitalist achievers that have been the target of many a corporate satire in the past twenty years. Stu has interesting hair and a fearsome workout regimen; Janna is a straight talker who blunts her candor with Karl by also appearing to be sexually available. A wall in their home has a poster that parodies the British stick-to-it-ive-ness of “Keep Calm and Carry On,” transforming it into a Nike swoosh: “Get Things Done.” But their dynamism is seductive to Genevieve, who has a history of anxiety, dislikes her job, and feels a dose of “economic house arrest” couldn’t hurt, if all it involves is keeping a diary on the tablets they’re given. And giving some of their earnings to the Transition. And weaning herself off drugs, which Janna says are harmful. And . . .
You get the idea — the Transition is a malevolent force in debt-refi clothing. And though Kennard is wise enough to know that we, like Karl, are skeptical of the scheme from the start, he ably spaces out the increasingly troubling revelations about the Transition across the novel. A hefty manual of dark, gnomic parables has the air of the cultic, while Stu and Janna’s pronouncements about pharmacological cleansing and separation from mainstream society have a strong whiff of Scientology; Karl’s discovery of a resistance to the Transition, via a message scraped in tiny letters on his Transition-provided bed, is torn clean from the “don’t let the bastards grind you down” samizdat in The Handmaid’s Tale. Karl’s investigations ultimately lead him to an occult novel that suggests just how rapaciously the Transition behaves. It is, creepily, getting things done.
Kennard presents Karl’s enlightenment (and horror) as a kind of intellectual thriller — can our hero save his life and save his marriage and find a meaningful path to a comfortable middle-class existence? That’s a pleasure in itself, though The Transition also reflects an anxiety similar to Karl’s — the problem of how to effectively braid a thriller and a social novel. The Transition itself is unquestionably a menace, but Kennard is strenuously avoiding the more stormclouded rhetoric of dystopian novels like 1984 or even The Handmaid’s Tale, which means he only glancingly considers the social structures that prompt the scheme’s existence in the first place. Little is made, for example, of the fact that Karl’s post-arrest career — writing positive reviews of products he hasn’t used and ghostwriting term papers — is soaked in immorality. Karl is designed to be a recognizable Everyman, with a deep store of sarcastic remarks and indie-rock T-shirts, but he’s a harder sell as the slacker leader of a resistance — his complaints have more to do with how he’s personally affected than how millions are. The sole character who seems to point to a deeper rot is the accountant who suggested the Transition in the first place, and who’s prone to ugly Mephistophelean diktats: “Institutions have their flaws, Karl, but ultimately they’re just tools and structures. There’s no right or wrong, there’s no morality whatsoever; it’s irrelevant.”
Believing in that ugly sentiment, Kennard suggests, is the oxygen that the Transition needs to breathe. But though the shame in that rightly belongs to the kind of political and commercial interests that would create something like the Transition, we don’t get a clear sense of what those interests look like. Instead, we mainly see how it trickles down, the kind of self-blame that it produces: “A generation who had benefited from unrivalled educational opportunities and decades of peacetime, who nonetheless seemed determined to self-destruct through petty crime, alcohol abuse and financial incompetence; a generation who didn’t vote; who had given up on making any kind of contribution to society and blamed anyone but themselves for it.”
Kennard’s not wrong there; humans do have their flaws. But so do institutions. The best dystopian novels recognize both.
The post The Transition appeared first on The Barnes & Noble Review.
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Facebook’s Fake News Fix
There is no way to know, yet, if outsourcing discernment—if that’s what polling a random collection of two billion people is—will cut down on the amount of propaganda, lying, and deception on Facebook, or if such a survey will simply replicate existing ideological divisions. But it is also unclear where the more than 50 percent of Facebook users who get their news from the site will get it now, if anywhere, since there will be so much less of it. And maybe that is the point. This diminution of news might be a way for Facebook to walk away from the public sphere—or, at least, appear to walk away—at a time when it has been taken to task for its overweening influence there.
Things to Do Without Internet: How to Make Your Internet Snow Day Better
Remember snow days?
You’d wake up, turn on the television, and wait to see your school’s name scroll along the bottom of the screen. Seeing your school’s name followed by “Closed” or “2-Hour Delay” was probably the best feeling.
It meant being able to lay around in your pajamas, play video games or go out with other neighborhood kids.
Now, as an adult, snow days usually mean working from home if you can, or losing out on a day of pay if your kids are out and you don’t have that option. Adulthood can be a real bummer sometimes. But one thing that can still save you is an Internet snow day. What do you do when the Internet goes out and you can’t work?
The Internet Is The New Office
What did people do all day before the Internet and even before there were computers?
There were physical letters that had to be typed on a typewriter, physical filing cabinets where things had to be properly stored, and do you remember Rolodexes?
My goodness, the Rolodexes.
There’s so much in the office of yesteryear that most people today would not even recognize. Today, people in offices report:
- 78% of people who work in offices say the Internet is crucial to work getting done
- 60% of workers say they lose the majority of their productivity when there is an Internet outage
- 65% of office workers choose their location based on the Internet signal there
The Internet Is In Near Constant Peril
Solar flares and sharks can cause Internet outages.
Yes, real sharks can attack the undersea lines that connect the Internet between continents. Solar flares can knock out communications satellites, too.
The biggest threat to the Internet, however, are hackers. DDoS attacks have been responsible for many outages, including one that seized the unsecured WiFi connections of things like cameras and IoT to overwhelm Dyn, the system that routes traffic on the Internet. This knocked out access to popular sites like Twitter and Netflix for nearly a day.
For ordinary consumers though, sharks and hackers take a backseat to frustrating ISPs.
Things To Do Without Internet
Congratulations, you are embarking on your very own Internet Snow Day! If you are fortunate enough to work with really fun people, you could:
- Go for a walk in the park
- Check out an art museum
- Head to the nearest thrift shop to rummage for interesting stuff
- Have coffee from somewhere other than the break room
- Play a trivia game
And if you are still stuck in the office waiting and hoping for the Internet to come back on, there are still a few things you can do without Internet access:
- Play the jumpy dinosaur game on Chrome
- Pop a DVD into your drive and watch a movie or show
- Write out your next blog post or social media post and just upload it once the Internet is back up
Will Internet Outages Soon Be A Thing Of The Past?
With great technology comes great frustration when it fails. That’s why ISPs are trying to improve the reliability of their service whenever possible.
Fiber Internet is one option for making the Internet more resistant to outages. It is physically stronger and lasts longer than cable. It’s also faster and this can decrease outages caused by traffic overloads.
Until the world is covered by Fiber, you should have a plan for your next Internet snow day. What will you do the next time there’s no internet?
You don’t get many snow days as an adult, so a little preparation can help you make the most of it. Learn more about the best things to do without internet from this infographic!
The post Things to Do Without Internet: How to Make Your Internet Snow Day Better appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
Are You a Slave to Money? (and How This Belief Is Hurting You)
You’re reading Are You a Slave to Money? (and How This Belief Is Hurting You), originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
How often have you heard these sayings about money?
- I’m just a slave to money.
- I work hard to serve the Almighty Dollar, but I never seem to make enough money.
These may sound like irrefutable truths. Yet, having these very thoughts about money is hurting you from welcoming more money into your life.
When you put yourself in the servant’s position, you relinquish all power you have. It’s playing into the victim mentality. It’s believing you are powerless to do anything about your financial situation, so why even try?
But what happens when you shift this relationship to one in which you are the master and money is your faithful servant, ready to do your bidding?
Money Is Just an Idea
First, let’s learn about what money really is. Before money, people traded with each other. If I was a blacksmith, I might have traded my metalwork for some bread with the local baker. But if the blacksmiths had nothing the baker wanted, then trade freezes.
So, money was invented to keep that trade flowing. Money is just a representation of stored value. The more value you are able to provide to the world, the more money comes into your life. Likewise, money is just an indicator of success.
Money’s Purpose
Money has several purposes.
- Enables you to live comfortably.
- Extend the good you are able to do in the world.
- Amplifies the time in which you can do it in.
The more money you have, the more comfortable you are able to live. Anyone who’s ever not have enough money knows how much it sucks to wander how she is going to pay for a dental procedure for a lingering toothache.
Once you’ve reached a certain median of income (about $75,000), money no longer brings you happiness. Instead, many people start looking at the changes they can bring to the world.
Money Is an Amplifier
Money is an amplifier of the good you can do in the world. For example, your deep desire is to help other people reach a higher-level within themselves. But they might be living in a country where access to safe and clean drinking water is next to impossible.
Then money helps you help them reach their goals. After all, when their basic necessities are taken care of, they can start working on self-actualization through education in order to build better lives for themselves and ultimately for their country.
Money enables you to help build their clean water infrastructure more quickly than if you went over there and did it yourself. Money enables that good to come more quickly into the world.
Key to Freedom: Awareness
Like any other thoughts that enter our minds, awareness is the key. Once you are aware you are having these destructive thoughts about money then you will be more likely to change those beliefs.
After all, thoughts lead to emotions. Emotions create a belief system. A belief system causes us to take action. Finally, actions create results. If you want to know what someone is thinking, then take a look at their results.
Changing your relationship with money involves an increase in awareness about your money beliefs.
Changing the Dynamics of Money and You
You’ve likely experienced a negative thought train. It goes something like this:
If I lose my job, then I can’t pay my bills. If I can’t pay my bills, then I’ll be out of a place to live. If I don’t have money, then I can’t pay for my new car and the medical bills. I can’t pay for my son’s education.
It goes on and on and on. Pretty soon, your stress levels go through the roof. Having an increased awareness means stopping this negativity train before it goes way out of control.
Once you stop this train, you can make it go in a new direction. This often involves thinking new thoughts about money, new thoughts such as…
- How can I cut my spending to create more money?
- How can I invest my money to make more money?
- How can I make more money to invest in the causes and movements I care about?
Money is energy. It represents our thoughts and feelings as well as our stored value. The first step to changing the master-slave dynamic is to see and believe it in your heart. Then the whole relationship dynamic changes. You will start attracting more money into your life.
Benson Wong is the Money Freedom Guy and helps people align their energy so that they can have more prosperity of wealth, health, and relationships into their lives. Find out how with your free eBook, Align With the Energy of Money.
You’ve read Are You a Slave to Money? (and How This Belief Is Hurting You), originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
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Patience…
How to Choose the Best Site for Online Casino Games
Online casinos are fun. They can help you pass time, double your money, and earn points without the need to spend on gas and drive all the way to a casino. They can even lessen your anxiety and stress.
Now, despite all the great things you hear about online casinos, not all of them can give you the best experience. In fact, if you fail to find the right one, you can end up falling victim to identity theft and fraud.
To make sure none of these things happen, check out these best tips on how to find the safest and best online casino.
Reliability
Since you’ll be depositing money into the online casino, you have to make sure that you can rely on it in keeping your money safe. The last thing you’d want to happen is to find all your money gone even before you start betting.
One good way to verify a casino’s reliability is to check its licensing company. You should also verify if its random number generator is legit. Otherwise, the casino could be swindling its customers and that’s not legal.
Reputation
As much as possible, stick with online casinos that have a proven track record for treating their clients fairly. AskGamblers, named one of the best casino portals, is a great example.
Now, how do you check?
You can do a quick search online to see what others are saying about the online casino you like. Take the time to read each review so you’ll know what to expect.
You can also try asking your friends about which sites they trust and how long they have been using them. Having lots of long-term users is a sign of a good reputation.
Take note that searching for and reading reviews isn’t a foolproof way to determine a casino’s reputation. However, they can give you an idea about which sites are trustworthy and which ones are shady.
Remember, try to stay away from sites that are plagued with negative reviews.
Selection of Games
Once you know your money and information will be safe, it’s time to get to the fun part.
In choosing the best online casino, you need to find out what makes it great and that includes the game selection. You’d want to have as many options as possible if really want to have fun.
Imagine this:
If you sign up for an online casino with a narrow selection, there’s a good chance that you’ll find yourself searching for another online casino in just a few days. That isn’t only time consuming but frustrating, too.
So, before you start playing, make sure that the online casino you’ll be playing in is offering all the games you’re after.
Check if the site offers all types of games as well. An online casino that has about 40 types of video poker and only 5 table games won’t give you the best experience since it can force you to play the same type of game over and over again.
Graphics
Of course, you want your games to give you the best experience. And for that to be possible, you need to make sure that the online casino you choose uses the latest technology and graphics. You also need to make sure that it offers the latest games.
Excellent customer support
This might not sound that important but once you experience a problem, you’ll find the true benefit of having an excellent customer support. It won’t just help solve your issues quicker and easier but it can also make problem-solving a lot less stressful.
Now, testing a casino’s customer support isn’t that hard. All you need to do is send them an email with a few questions. Check how fast they’ll respond and how helpful their answers are.
If there’s a live chat support, try using it. Don’t wait until you have an actual problem before you test it out.
If you encounter a problem and that live chat support don’t work, you’ll have a hard time fixing your problem.
Deposits and Withdrawals
If you prefer a particular method for funding your account, you might want to check a casino’s depositing options. You should also check if you need to pay any additional fees to process your money.
Now, remember:
Most sites allow players to withdraw money from the same method they deposited their funds. This means that if you are going to use the bank method, make sure that your account allows deposits and withdrawals for the site you’re after.
Verify this before you deposit any money into your playing account.
Apart from deposits, you need to check the casino’s withdrawal process, too. Not all casinos process cash-outs at the same speed. There are casinos that follow a range of processes and that can delay your cash-outs.
Rewards
Online casinos usually post their rewards and bonuses so you can easily spot them the moment you visit their sites. In fact, they are the first things you’ll see.
Now, here’s the thing:
Although big bonuses and rewards look attractive, not all of them are great. Some of them can have hidden terms and conditions you need to keep an eye out for. Others require a higher wager which can make the rewards not that valuable.
If you are an occasional player, a welcome bonus is something you should look forward to. However, if you a regular gambler, try to find the best rewards for your wagers. The list includes reload bonuses, leaderboard contests, cashback deals, and VIP clubs.
See Also: Top 5 Strategies To Maximize Your Online Casino Profits
Conclusion
Playing online casino games are great as long as you can find the best sites to play. If you aren’t careful, you won’t just waste time and money but you can also end up compromising your security.
So, do your homework and use the factors above in choosing the best online casino. It may take more time and may require more effort but the peace of mind and sense of security can make your gaming experience a lot more enjoyable.
The post How to Choose the Best Site for Online Casino Games appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
The Literary Intrigues of Putin’s Puppet Master
What really triggered the sensation over Okolonolya, or Almost Zero, was the identity of its author, an unknown named Natan Dubovitsky. Dubovitsky was soon suspected, courtesy of an anonymous tip to the St. Petersburg newspaper Vedomosti, of being a pseudonym for Vladislav Surkov. It was this elite Kremlin adviser, variously called a “political technologist,” the “gray cardinal,” or a “puppet master,” who had created and orchestrated Putin’s so-called sovereign democracy—the stage-managed, sham-democratic Russia, the ruthlessly stabilized, still-rotten Russia that Almost Zero was savaging.
6 Apps That Can Make You More Productive
If you want to be productive, the first thing you have to do is break free from your bad habits and focus on implementing powerful changes to your lifestyle. There are a couple of tools that can help you with that, but the best one is probably your smartphone. It’s that one device that rules most of your day so it’s only practical to use it to start your behavioral changes. Here are some of the best productivity apps you can download today.
Way of Life
To achieve productivity, you have to kill your bad habits and develop good ones. Way Of Life is a great app that promises to do it for you while tracking your progress. With the app, you can list down all the tasks you want to accomplish. It can be any habits you want to start or stop. At the end of the day, you can evaluate which tasks you were able to accomplish and which ones you still need to work on. And since you’ll be able to track your progress, you’ll know if you need to exert more effort or spend more time in making the necessary changes in your life. For instance, you decided to lower your sugar level. Habit trackers, like Way of Life, can keep you motivated to achieve your goal. You can download the app on Android and iOS devices.
Cold Shower Therapy
A cold shower can do a lot of good things for your body. For one, it can reduce your stress level. CST is an app that can help you track your cold shower schedules. It provides a 5-minute timer, which you can use while showering. And while you are at it, the app will play your favorite songs. Now, before you actually spend a long time showering with cold water, try it for a couple of minutes first. This is to make sure you can tolerate the temperature.
iCare Health Monitor (BP & HR)
If your work is taking a toll on your health, then this is the best option for you. This app can measure your blood pressure and other essential parameters on the go. You won’t need any additional equipment, but you have to make sure that the app is compatible with your phone. You can also use it with any other professional blood pressure monitors. You can look for information on how to choose the right blood pressure monitor over the internet.
Meal Reminders
Skipping meals can have detrimental effects on your productivity as your brain needs glucose and other important nutrients. If you don’t eat, you won’t be able to concentrate and focus, making you more prone to errors. Meal Reminders is an excellent app to address that. It can help keep track of your food intake, ensuring that your brain receives all the nutrients it needs to perform well.
Spin Me
Spin Me isn’t just an app that wakes you up. By forcing you to spin in a circle, it makes sure that you wake up and get out of bed. Its alarm won’t stop until you have spun a circle.
Brain.fm
Some types of music can help your brain relax and make it more productive. Brain.fm lets you listen to scientifically engineered music so that your brain can get into a productive mode. You can set it to play for 30, 60 or 90 minutes depending on your task. The app can work on both Android and iOS devices.
In Conclusion
These productivity apps can only work if you use them consistently and if you pair them with discipline and commitment. Remember, no app can boost your productivity level if you’re too lazy to do your part.
See Also: Lacking Motivation? Try These 6 Best Health Apps That Pay
The post 6 Apps That Can Make You More Productive appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
Sig Nordal 