Growing the Future – Page 6

Category: Growing the Future (page 6 of 8)

MAGA or ‘zines, amirite?

It’s funny, in that #NOCOINCIDENCES kind of way, how conspiracy theories from different parts of the internet are starting to collide.

From the Chans, there’s all the evidence of a child trafficking and money laundering ring based out of Haiti.

From the Hollywood blind item camp, there are the rumors that all your favorite celebrities are involved in shady business, everything from snorting coke to murder with a stop through for…wait for it…child trafficking and money laundering rings that just happen to run through Haiti.

Think they might have something to do with each other?

I remember sometime in the last 18 months, I forget when exactly, when yet another story broke about Human Abedin and Anthony Wiener. There was a video circulating on Twitter of somebody shouting uncomfortable questions as she ducked into a townhouse. The person holding the door for her was Anna Wintour.

It’s always been obvious that Anna Wintour is a shill for the democrats, especially democrats named Hillary Clinton. Stories about Hillary abound in Vogue-related publications (she’s on the cover of a special issue of Teen Vogue at the moment), and

(Fun fact: before she was picked for McCain’s running mate, I first heard of Sarah Palin through a story in Vogue on women politicians, and couldn’t believe my eyes that a republican governor had been featured in a mildly positive light.)

Magazines, especially fashion magazines, have always been problematic. The promote celebrity culture and degeneracy. They foster shallow thinking. Their advertiser/funding model has turned them into catalogs for product rather than being a trusted filter for products.

I didn’t realize until recently, when I fell back into the blind-item timesink, that tabloids are basically another arm of PR for celebrities. People is the New York Times of the theater that is celebrity personal life.

You know what that makes all those “high end” magazines that put celebrities on their covers?

Complicit.

I feel so dumb for taking this long to figure it out. It’s long been known that celebrities end up on magazine covers when they have something to promote, but I never connected the dots that what they have to say in those articles is promoting an agenda (mostly their own image and fame) just as much as its promoting their product.

Some of them are sincere, I’m sure. Others, not so much. The craft a public image that fits some sort of narrative, and then do despicable things behind the scenes.

At this point, with the amount of people that “knew” about people like Wienstein and Lauer and who did absolutely nothing about it for years, I have a hard time believing that someone like Anna Wintour knows nothing, who is close enough with Human Abedin that Huma appeared hiding from the media at her house.

I banned myself from buying magazines on the regular sometime around 2012. They weren’t providing enough ROI in my life.

I’m glad I did, though, because I don’t want to support the type of people who lie (excuse me, “do PR”) and provide cover for the horrible people of this world.

I still read some fashion blogs–I like the content. As much as I pretend I’m not sometimes, I’m still a girl who likes reading about girly things and who likes to fantasize about impractical fashion from time to time.

We need a ladies’ magazine for the MAGA agenda.

Unexpected gains

2018-01-11 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

You know how awesome it feels to find a$20 bill randomly in the pocket of a jacket?

Or the rush of endorphins in your head when you remember, again, that Donald J Trump is in fact the President of the United States of America?

Earlier today I had one of those moments: my income is now more than double what I made five years ago.

Funny what is factually true but you don’t really appreciate until you’re doing a mental rundown of your budget.

One paycheck now was my entire month’s budget then.

Back then, it was hard to fathom the possibility of making more money.

But what gets me is what the money has to say about my ambitions and abilities and how quickly I’ve risen in an industry that does not allow for bonuses or commissions.

Looking back, I’ve worked hard and made the best of my circumstances and I’m ridiculously more ambitious than I ever thought.

It’s nice to not have to worry about money anymore.

It’s even nicer to think about how far I’ve come. I can look back, and see a track record of (mostly) success.

I don’t have to bluff or pretend or fake it until I make it.

I’ve by no means made it, but now I’m extra motivated to absolutely kill it.

What has boosted your confidence lately?

Last New Year’s reflexion post of 2018 (for now)

2018-01-04 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I go a little overboard at New Year’s, reflecting and planning and all that. Because so many changes happened in my life (and the world) this year, I think my need to reflect went into overdrive.

This year I started extra early, back in November.

Here’s a note from my bullet journal:

On a micro scale, 2017 was…not great.

On a macro scale, it has been AMAZING. Trump, carnivory, new job, moving, etc.

2018: year of micro?

In my years of working, I’ve come to realize that the most useful vantage points are either on the ground, the front-lines staff who works directly with the data or the people or digging in the dirt–where you have an opportunity to make decisions on a personal and behavior level and impact the world in that way– or high up, the decision-bearing leadership who has responsibility and a clear view of the landscape–where you have the opportunity to craft a coherent strategy.

In other words, strategy and tactics.

But in a bureaucracy, there are a lot of other layers in between. Those tend to get muddy and lost and don’t add much value. The top and the bottom are where things get done. (Ideally. I realize politics is like fifty shades of grey.)

Looking at my micro/macro observations through this lens, it’s clear that 2017 positioned me in a different place strategically. I’m in a different town with a different job and a different way of eating with better health. That’s great.

What I didn’t do in 2017 was a lot of the projects that I had planned. Writing a novel. Working on art. Learning something new and useful. Making new friends. Improving my style. Focusing on fitness.

My macro changed, but my micro didn’t.

However, now that my macro is better, I feel like I can focus more on the micro.

Not the grand, sweeping decisions, but the small moments of my life, the things I do to propel myself through my day.

I’m trying to focus on the incredible gift it is to have the consciousness to be able to plan strategically, but the blessing to be only in one moment of time at once. Focus my consciousness on the task at hand.

(She writes as she pulls up a YouTube video in the background. SAD!) (I put it away.)

Habits, actions, and the doing of it. That’s what 2018 is going to be about–and has been so far.

I’ll check back at the end of March–my first self-imposed deadline.

The sweet feeling of being tired

2018-01-02 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

You know that tired feeling you get after binge-watching a show all day?

It feels hollow–unearned–because at the back of your mind you know you didn’t do anything to deserve it.

On days like this, I almost feel disgusted with myself. I’m tired, because I want to sleep, because I want a reset.

Contrast that with the tired feeling born of a long day of work.

The right kind of tired.

Your body is tired. Your brain is tired. Sleep pulls at you–but in a satisfying, tantalizing way.

Nothing like a good night’s sleep after a job well done.

Like “hunger is the best sauce,” a productive day makes any bed more comfy.

Public goals

2017-12-30 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

They say that the best way to build credibility is to make predictions in public, stand by them, and wait for them to come true.

Of course, that’s contingent upon one’s ability to ~~predict the future.

The next best way is to say you’re going to do something, and then do it.

It’s like predicting the future, but you get near-complete control over that future.

Instead of, say, trying to predict the stock market.

So it would make sense that I could list a bunch of New Year’s resolutions here, and then track my progress as I achieve them.

Truth be told, I am too chickenshit to throw my specific goals out for public consumption–or accountability.

Vaguely, my goals involve:

Using writing to develop a secondary source of income
Taking steps to further bolster my health and beauty

I’m sure I’ll chronicle some of my endeavors here.

Last year ended up being “year of macro,” in which I made some major changes in my life.

This year is “year of micro,” and I’m intending to focus a lot more on my individual actions. How the little actions accumulate over time.

That is the non-stressful way to get to goals. Don’t focus a lot on the decision, but focus more on the doing of it.

And, the volume of “doings” is convenient in letting one document extensively along the way.

Which feeds in to the credibility cycle.

Uncanny.

Image of the Week: “you can do it” edition

2017-12-22 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Originally, I was going to post that photo of Nikki Haley in the UN. It sufficiently summed up the week in politics. But it doesn’t jive with my personal experience for the week, so I’m not posting it.

This week has been long.

I’m growing tired of so much change in my life, and yet this week just piled on more: new boundaries to my conception of time thanks to the writing of Elliott Jaques, more layers to my understanding of the globalist cabal, the death by suicide of Kim Jong-Hyun of SM Entertainment (also YouTube’s algorithm keeps recommending me SHINee videos and it’s killing me) and changes at my workplace that will render me effectively isolated. I haven’t slept well. I’m tired.

But there’s good news. Reading between the lines of WordPress’ inflated pageview stats, a few real people have checked out Batfort this week. (Hi, people!)

Though I’m tired, I’m motivated.

So with that in mind, this is a photo of Jeff Bezos’ office when he was just starting out, in 1999.

I’m no Jeff Bezos, but we all have to start somewhere.

Productivity Reminder

2017-12-14 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

Warning: blogception ahead.

I’m blogging about a blog post. If we do that too many times, it’ll cause a recursive rift in the internet (although that may not be a problem anymore with whatever is happening to Net Neutrality) that may cause the catastrophic end of all time. Or something.

Anyway, I wanted to document Ramit Sethi’s “Productivity Advice for the Weird.” It’s a good reminder of the real priorities in life, although 1. I don’t really know anything about that because I haven’t accomplished much in life yet, and 2. I disagree with some of his philosophy. I suspect that habits provide a nest for inspiration and productivity to occur, whether they build up in small chunks over time or if they grow with leaps and bounds in one long binge.

If creative productivity mirrors physical healing at all, it’s both at once. You have to have the tiny habitual victories every day, which eventually reach a critical mass for something transformative to happen.

I am terrible at getting enough sleep, so anything that will help me convince myself to get more sleep is a good thing.

The small habits of productivity that nobody wants to tell you except Ramit Sethi:

Get enough sleep
“Clean your room” (live in a functional space)
Stick to a meal plan (make fewer decisions)
Set healthy boundaries
Optimize your calendar (always know what you’re going to work on before you wake up in the morning)

There’s more, but those are the most basic ones that set the stage for everything else. It’s kind of like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but for productivity.

It probably also helps to have some sort of plan of what you’re working on, or at least a general direction of some sort. The best system will never work if it doesn’t have some content to work with.

What is it that our dads always told us? Plan your work and work your plan?

That seems to be another version of what this is. Definitely worth a read.

It bothers me when people treat “data” as a plural noun

2017-12-10 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

There you go, the entire post is in the title. You can stop reading now if you want.

Some people still use data as the plural of datum (which is technically true), but then write something like “The data were crazy.” I believe that syntax like this makes the writer sound crazy, not the data–even if it is mandated by a house publishing style.

I think of “data” as a count noun; yes, there are multitudes of data points but they can be treated as one entity. Something more along the lines of “data set” rather than “chickens.”

“The chickens were crazy” totally works, you know.

To make sure that I’m not crazy, I ran a dictionary-check to be sure.

Mirriam Webster agrees that it’s “the data is plentiful,” not “the data are plentiful.”

This distinction has come up in my professional life a few times in the past few weeks, as some of the academic administrators who write about my job area love the make themselves sound smart. Apparently one strategy is to use data as plural when it doesn’t work.

Now I have ammo to fight against it, and so do you.

#PromoteSanity

Always A/B Testing

2017-12-04 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

One of the things I admire most about SM Entertainment is that they are constantly iterating and A/B testing the groups, songs, and concepts that they produce.

If you pay attention to how they operate as an entity, rather than focusing exclusively on one of their groups, you can see a real-time example of why they’re one of the biggest entertainment groups in k-pop.

They’ve created entire “entertainment properties” to showcase this A/B testing.

SM Rookies

Before NCT debuted as its various subgroups, SM conducted rigorous testing through the online series SM Rookies. They tried out various different configurations of trainee groups. Sometimes this is really rough, as with the “SR15B dance practice” video, or music-video quality in the case of “Bassbot” and “Super Moon.”

“Super Moon” is interesting because of the three members–Taeyong, Johnny, and Hansol–featured in it, Hansol did not debut with any NCT units. In fact, he’s no longer under contract with SM Entertainment.

I suspect this is because Hansol has an almost identical “look” as Yuta, who did debut with NCT 127.

[Warning: unknown quantities of confirmation bias ahead.]

With male groups, SM tends to assemble a variety of different types. For example, if you compare a photo of EXO with a photo of BTS, you can see what I mean. EXO members each have their own charm, while–with the exception of Rap Monster–BTS members have a similar vibe. NCT is no exception to this, as you can label each member as “The ______ One” even if you know nothing about their personalities.

If you compare Hansol and Yuta in other footage from SM Rookies, Yuta is hungrier. Despite being Japanese, Yuta has been described as “more Korean than the Koreans.” You can literally watch Yuta work solidify his status as “the sexy one” as NCT 127 has practiced, promoted, and performed “Cherry Bomb” this year. (I have the YouTube receipts for this–let me know in the comments if you want me to post them.)

From my completely outsider perspective, it makes sense that if you have two trainees who look almost identical but have different work ethics, you’ll pick the one who is going to work harder.

SM Station

One of SM’s staples on YouTube is SM Station, which features single songs that are collaborations, off-brand concepts for an existing group, or other “random” things. There are a lot of fun songs under this umbrella. (Don’t mind me plugging my boy Chen again.)

Right now, I suspect that they’re testing a subgroup or solo venture featuring Wendy from Red Velvet. In the past months, she’s been featured in two different SM Station releases.

One is a jazz version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which prominently features the fact that she’s an English speaker and a strong vocalist.

The other is a collaboration with singers Baek a Yeon and Jaehyun (from NCT). Another seasonal song, called “The Little Match Girl,” but it’s in Korean and puts Wendy’s voice in a different context than Red Velvet.

SM is also simultaneously running a test between Jaehyun and Doyoung as soloists from NCT 127. Jaehyun has gotten two SM Station songs so far versus Doyoung’s one (although Doyoung has been featured in some live stages), so we’ll have to wait and see what comes of this.

The one downside that I can see is that all of the tests attract at least some fans, so you still have a small contingent of NCT stans who wonder about Hansol. I could see this building up into ill will if SM made the wrong decision, but clearly NCT is succeeding reasonably well without Hansol so I doubt it will become a huge problem. I could see this negative feedback being another metric to check your decisions against.

I don’t really know what SM’s intentions are with SM Station, or what the outcome will be.If I can figure out a way to reverse-engineer YouTube views I’ll see if I can put together a predictive post.

In the meantime, I’m determined to learn from SM how to A/B test in real time while also producing quality product that people enjoy. The sheer volume of content that they produce is staggering, and I don’t doubt that it has a direct correlation with why they are so successful.

Arts and Habits

2017-11-16 / childlike empress / 0 Comments

I’m liking this notion of developing “arts and habits:”

At school you are engaged not so much in acquiring knowledge as in making mental efforts under criticism. A certain amount of knowledge you can indeed with average faculties acquire so as to retain; nor need you regret the hours you spent on much that is forgotten, for the shadow of lost knowledge at least protects you from many illusions. But you go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits; for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a moment’s notice a new intellectual position, for the art of entering quickly into another person’s thoughts, for the habit of submitting to censure and refutation, for the art of indicating assent or dissent in graduated terms, for the habit of regarding minute points of accuracy, for the art of working out what is possible in a given time, for taste, for discrimination, for mental courage, and for mental soberness.

The art: how you do it.

The habit: what you do.

I feel like I’ve developed most of these during my worklife moreso than in school. Even though I was one of those stellar students that everyone liked, school (and by extension, my teachers( never pushed me hard enough to have to tackle the basic arts and habits that make up my day.

That said, it would be worth taking a look at my own daily practices to evaluate what arts are being developed, and what daily practices spring into being.

The art of getting faculty to do what you want.

The habit of tracking all expense reports.

The art of translating university bullshit.

The habit of examining the truth.

Etc.

Batfort

Style reveals substance

Category: Growing the Future (page 6 of 8)

MAGA or ‘zines, amirite?

Unexpected gains

Last New Year’s reflexion post of 2018 (for now)

The sweet feeling of being tired

Public goals

Image of the Week: “you can do it” edition

Productivity Reminder

It bothers me when people treat “data” as a plural noun

Always A/B Testing

SM Rookies

SM Station

Arts and Habits

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