Category Archives: Mind Uploading

For much of Leonard Novatis early upbringing, life was confined inside the walls of a refugee camp.

Like many Burundi families between the 1970s and 90s torn by civil war, Novatis parents were forced to flee their home country. They crossed over into Tanzania, and while the family found safety from the ethnic violence, rarely did they encounter the same freedoms or opportunities afforded to fully fledged citizens. They werent even to interact with the locals.

Novati grew up with his parents and eight sisters in a two-room tent, surrounded by walls stacked with mud bricks. There was no computer or telephone. In the stillness of the moonlight, he could hear lions roaring in the distance.

His favorite escape came through radio. Thats when he fell in love with music.

Music was a way to kill time, it was a way to transport, Novati told Technical.ly. Young people didnt have a radio, but our parents loved music. We would take it, turn on the music channels and listen to American music, African music. We loved hip-hop and R&B. 50 Cent, Biggie, the known guys. We didnt understand what they were saying, but they were our favorite artists.

In 2007, Novatis family moved to Milwaukee, where he was introduced to his second passion: computers. After his family was gifted an old Mac, he taught himself to code and pursued a future in tech.

I [saw the computers] and was like, What is this little thing that can do so much? he said. I fell in love with computers. So, I just started teaching myself as much as I could. Just like an artist, I needed to create. It lights up my day and I forget how much time Ive spent building software.

After completing a computer science degree at Floridas Stetson University, he returned to Milwaukee to work as a web developer. But his love of music was always beating in the background. On weekends, Novati worked as a DJ playing American pop hits at parties, weddings, and corporate events, and eventually created the music blog AfroCharts, playing tribute to his African musical roots.

Leonard Novati. (Courtesy photo)

In 2016, Novati combined his love of music and tech when he began transitioning AfroCharts into one of the first music sharing and streaming platforms for African artists. Last summer, AfroCharts reached a new milestone a repertoire of more than 7,000 artists music, more than 5 million users, and millions of streams across the continents.

Novati said artists, labels, and artist managers must go through a verification process before uploading music directly onto the platform. While the platform isnt restricted to a particular genre, all of the artists represent at least one of the 54 African countries. Artists earn roughly $20 for every 5,000 streams, similar to the other major streaming services, according to numbers Novati shared with TechPoint last year.

The goal is not just to reach African listeners; its for anybody listening to African sounds, Novati said of his early-stage venture. African music is being exported and listened to all over the world. On the artists side, its really to help the independent artists.

He hopes to change musical perspectives by uplifting African artists and exposing music aficionados to the sounds of Africa an entire continent he said is too often overlooked in the mainstream music industry.

AfroCharts homepage. (Courtesy image)

We have Spotify, Apple the big guys, Novati said. What about the independent artists, the big musicians of tomorrow? Why are [they] not blowing up? Their music rarely gets any play because nobody is going there to look for these particular artists.

Hes also hoping to capture a slice of the global music streaming industry, an $18.9 billion business.

So far, Novati has bootstrapped his entire venture while working full time as a programmer analyst for a major fintech company in Milwaukee. He did all the coding for AfroCharts himself.

When I turned to streaming, I already had experience with tech coding and working feature by feature, Novati said. I just figured out what I need to do now and then I built it up.

Now, hes hoping to share his vision with potential investors with the hopes of securing funding to take AfroCharts to the next level. Outside of funding, Novati said he is seeking mentorship. As a self-taught tech entrepreneur, he said hes lacking the support and feedback to make his business better. And in Milwaukees emerging tech scene, finding that guidance has proved to be a challenge. But hes not new to barriers.

Anybody I tell is like, its cool, but its just African music, Novati said. But theres this wave going on in African music, even [within] American music. So theres a future there where we can combine our continents together. But they dont see that.

Still, Novati is determined. Hes a regular at tech networking events across the city and is slowly making connections with fellow entrepreneurs, partners, and artists in New York, California and abroad. Through his conversations, hes received requests from independent artists and listeners to expand the platform to include Caribbean, Latin and Arabic musical expressions.

Is a world music streaming platform on the horizon?

I still think I can make it here, he said. Just because something sounds out of this world, doesnt mean it doesnt have a future. Something about founders we can see the future. Keep your mind open.

Because for Novati, walls dont exist. Anything is possible.

Subscribe to This Week in Milwaukee Rising:

Read the original:

This programmer and former refugee combined his love of beats and tech into an African music streaming startup - Technical.ly

Heres a common problem. Someone sends you a PDF file, and you need to make large-scale changes in it, the kind of wholesale editing that's impossible to do in PDF-editor apps like the ones you might use to do light edits to a PDF. How do you convert the PDF into a document that you can edit to add or remove paragraphs, move text from one part of the document to another, and so on?

Heres another problem: You need to convert a PDF into an image file to display on the web, insert into a document, or upload it to a site that only accepts JPGs. This problem is a lot easier to solve than the firstthe answer is at the end of this story.

The only way to make wholesale edits in a PDF file is to transform it into a word-processing document so that you can edit it in Word, Google Docs, or any other word-processing app. What makes it difficult is that the PDF (Portable Document Format) standard, an open standard created by Adobe in the 1990s, is completely incompatible with the DOCX word-processing format thats now standard in Microsoft Word and almost everything else. Dont believe any vendor who claims to make PDF editing as easy as it is in Word. That kind of editing is simply impossible in a PDF file. You have to convert the PDF to a different kind of document first.

Theres no perfect solution to this problem, but there are plenty of good-enough solutions. Which solution you should use depends on the kind of PDF that you need to edit. If the PDF was created from a Windows, Mac, or Linux app by exporting from the app to PDF, then the solution is relatively easy because the text of the PDF is embedded in the PDF file and can be extracted. However, if the PDF was created by scanning or photographing printed text, then the problem is a lot harder, because you need to use OCR (optical character recognition) on the scanned image to extract the text, and that process always risks introducing errors.

If you dont know whether a PDF was created by an app or by a camera or scanner, here's how to find out.

Open the PDF in your default PDF app, such as Edge in Windows 11, Preview in macOS, or Adobe Acrobat Reader. Try to select some text by dragging with the mouse. If you can select text, then the PDF was exported from an appor it has already had OCR applied to it, which is just as good. If you cant select text, then the PDF is scanned and needs to have OCR applied before you can convert it into a Word document.

Lets start with PDFs that dont need OCR, in other words, PDFs with embedded text. The simplest way to convert your PDF is to open it in Microsoft Word and let Word convert the content.

Open it as you would any other file in Word. Launch Word and go to File > Open and select your PDF. Or right-click on the file and select Open With > Microsoft Word. The file will likely take a moment to process and then open as an editable Word document.

This solution works reasonably well, but the content probably won't look exactly right. The content in a PDFs is "fixed" in one position on the page, and the PDF doesnt let you insert or remove paragraphs while preserving the flow of the document as you can in a word-processor.

Here's a list from Microsoft of what may not convert just right:

When you open a PDF in Word, you may see a warning:

"Word will now convert your PDF to an editable Word document," it says. "This may take a while. The resulting Word document will be optimized to allow you to edit the text, so it might not look exactly like the original PDF, especially if the original file contained a lot of graphics."

That said, the graphics will get pulled in, but they may not be exactly where you want them. And your text may end up in text boxes rather than freely flowing through the page. But at least youll have a document that you can work with.

If you want to export it as a PDF when youre done editing, simply use Words Export or Save As menus, and export your document to PDF format.

By the way, this conversion works not only in the Word desktop app but also in the free web app version of Word (found at office.com). You open a PDF in Word Online and it's viewable, but click the "Edit in Word" link and you may see a file conversion warning:

It's followed by another warning about changes to the layout, etc. But the content will be there and editable, even if the look went wonky. Give it a try.

Opening a PDF in Word is only one way to convert PDF files to DOCX format. You may get better results by using PDF-editing apps like Adobe Acrobat DC. In my experience, Acrobat does a better job than anything else of exporting PDFs to Word format.

Open the PDF in Acrobat, choose File/Export To from the menu, and export to Word format. Acrobat does a far better job than Word at sorting out page formatting like headers and footers. Word sometimes mixes up the text in the header with the text of the document, but Acrobat almost always gets it right.

The trouble with Acrobat is that it costs moneybut Adobe offers a free online PDF converter that you can use to get the same results you get from Acrobat.

You can find cheaper PDF software that convert app-created PDFs to DOCX format, but I havent found any that do it as well as Acrobat.

Dozens of other free online PDF conversion sites promise to spit out editable text, but I dont recommend any of them as a place to trust uploading your data. Adobe, however, is well-established enough for me to trust it with ordinary documents, though I wont upload anything that I seriously need to keep secret.

One more free app that I sometimes hear recommended for converting a PDF to Word is Google Docs. The instructions are similar to using Acrobat: Open the file for editing, and then download it in Word format. Every time Ive tried it, though, the results were terrible. Your luck may be better.

Everything Ive written so far focuses on PDFs that were exported from an app so that the text is embedded in the PDF. What can you do about converting PDFs made from a scanner or camera?

Depending on the quality of the scanned image, you may be able to open it in Word, and Words built-in OCR may be able to create editable text. Ive had success with clear single-page images, but Word simply cant handle anything complex, like a scan of a book, and tends to produce an unusable mix of text and images.

In converting scanned images to editable text, Acrobat does a decent job of creating a PDF, but nothing comes close to the power of our Editors' Choice winner for OCR tools, ABBYY FineReader PDF 15 ($199). FineReaders OCR engine is more accurate than anything else Ive tried, and it comes with a unique error-checking feature that works like a spellchecker in a word processor, so you can fix OCR errors before exporting the result. FineReader exports the results in Word, PDF, and other formats, and the resulting files are far more usable than anything else Ive found.

If you still have the original document that was scanned or turned into an image file, you can use a mobile scanning app with OCR to capture and extract the text.

If you need to convert a PDF into an image file, it's a whole lot easier on a Mac than a PC.

On a Mac, simply open the PDF in Preview. Use the File > Export menu and select the image format you want and the options you prefer, and you have your image file.

On Windows, the best no-cost method is to create a free Adobe account with Adobe and then go to cloud.acrobat.com/exportpdf. Drag a PDF onto the window. Go to Convert To > Image > Image Format (JPEG, PNG, or TIFF), and use the slider to select the image quality. Multipage PDFs get converted into separate image files. You can then download a ZIP with the image files.

If you're bothered by privacy concerns and don't want to share your data with Adobe, then you can use many image editors to export PDF to image files. My favorite is XnViewMP, which is free for personal and educational use. When you open a PDF in XnViewMP, you'll probably need to follow the prompts to install the open-source GhostScript app for working with PDF and PostScript files, but you can then use XnViewMP to export a PDF to any standard image format. Keep in mind that all fonts will be converted from scalable TrueType format into bitmap, and small text will look blocky.

If you want fine-tuned export options, any commercial PDF editor can export to image files. FineReader, Acrobat, and PDF-Xchange Editor all work with excellent results and include options to create small files suitable for display on the web, insert into documents, or use anywhere else where PDFs aren't supported or convenient.

Here is the original post:

How to Convert PDFs to Word Documents and Image Files - PCMag AU

Millions have watched the new series Pam and Tommy, retelling the mid-1990s story of celebrities Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee and their leaked sex tape. People involved in the show including the showrunner and actors claim that they are making a feminist statement and suggest that the portrayal of events favours Pamela Anderson. Lily James, who plays Anderson, said she hopes the show will make people look at their own culpability in perpetuating this unhealthy viral internet behavior.

However, the show contributes to this unhealthy behaviour by turning Andersons experience of a private sexual video being widely distributed and viewed without her consent into entertainment. Many have searched for - and found - the original video, watching it on mainstream porn sites, encouraging others on internet forums to watch and sharing links to wherever else it can be found.

The reality is that Anderson was not involved with the series, and has not spoken publicly about what she thinks of it. When we peel back the good intentions the series is using as promotion, we are left with a show that exploits and profits from an incredibly traumatic experience in someones life.

Unfortunately, Andersons experiences are familiar. While rarer in the mid-1990s, distributing sexual images and videos without consent - known as image-based sexual abuse is now alarmingly commonplace. During the pandemic, reports to the Revenge Porn Helpline have doubled.

Rather than society becoming more aware of the harm of intimate image abuse, the reaction to this new series suggests we are becoming desensitised. We accept as entertainment the retelling of a story that inevitably leads to the resurfacing of the original video.

The distribution and viewing of private sexual videos without consent can be devastating for survivors. The breach of trust and sense of violation is acute. Some describe it as a social rupture which divides their lives into before and after the abuse. One described it as torture for the soul.

The harms are constant and relentless, with each viewing of the image or video experienced as a new assault and abuse. Actor Jennifer Lawrence, whose private images were hacked and went viral in 2014, said just last year that my trauma will exist forever. Paris Hilton, whose private video was non-consensually shared, revealed she has been left with PTSD and the abuse is something that will hurt me for the rest of my life.

With this in mind, its right to question the ethics of making a series like Pam and Tommy. The series recreates the video, so the producers themselves must have watched the original in making the show. And in the aftermath users on internet forums have encouraged others to watch it and posted links about how to find it. Many have also made degrading comments about Anderson herself. All of this is an eerie echo of the original incident.

The creators of the series must have been aware this would happen, and they possibly knew it would mean an increased audience. This series facilitates the continuation of image-based sexual abuse by actively dredging up a traumatic experience. In doing so, it contributes to the constancy of harms that victims experience.

As well as challenging shows like Pam and Tommy, more can be done to reduce the prevalence and harms of experiences like Andersons. While many internet platforms claim to have policies against non-consensual material, it is nevertheless freely and easily accessible. The availability of this material normalises and legitimises image-based sexual abuse. It is also a primary concern of those who face brick walls when trying to get the material removed.

Legislation, like the UKs online safety bill, should hold social media and internet companies accountable for their role in perpetuating these harms. Porn companies should be required to identify users uploading material, moderate content to remove non-consensual material and swiftly respond to take-down requests. Platforms must also secure the consent of all those in uploaded videos, and it should be a criminal offence to upload material without consent.

While such steps would help to reduce the amount of non-consensual imagery online, we are fighting a losing battle if television and film producers are, in practice, trivialising these abuses. We can only hope that the actors and creators of Pam and Tommy will reflect on how they have exploited Pamela Anderson for profit, in just the same way that she was exploited when the video was originally stolen.

What did you think of this article? Great | Good | Okay | Weak

Originally posted here:

Don't watch Pam and Tommy the series turns someone's trauma into entertainment - The Conversation UK

This tutorial is about the How to Disable Uploading HD Photos/Videos to Facebook from iPhone and Android. We will try our best so that you understand this guide. I hope you like this blog How to Disable Uploading HD Photos/Videos to Facebook from iPhone and Android. If your answer is yes then please do share after reading this.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to disable uploading of HD videos and photos in the Facebook app. Addiction to social networks is something that is difficult to let go of. Were not just talking about browsing through feeds, but uploading and sharing moments with your circle of friends is something that many of us get into the habit of doing. Well, I have no complaints about that unless you have a limited data plan. There is still a large user base that hasnt been able to take advantage of the benefits of an unlimited data plan, and thats completely understandable.

However, if you use the Facebook app and often load a limited data package, there is one important thing to keep in mind. Unbeknownst to you, all of these uploads could be in Full HD quality. This can lead to some disadvantages for you. The first and most obvious is excessive Internet consumption (even more so in the case of video uploads). Next is also unnecessary battery drain. Although there is not much difference, the battery power will drain more when loading HD content compared to normal ones.

Fortunately, the social media giant has taken notice. Facebook has incorporated the feature to disable uploading of HD videos and photos through its app. In this tutorial, well show you how to do exactly that on Android and iOS platforms.

The steps to do so are nearly identical on Facebooks iOS and Android apps.

I hope you understand this article How to Disable Uploading HD Photos/Videos to Facebook from iPhone and Android, if your answer is no then you can ask anything via contact forum section related to this article. And if your answer is yes then please share this article with your family and friends.

Read the original post:

How to Disable Uploading HD Photos/Videos to Facebook from iPhone and Android - BollyInside

Soundwalk Collective is the core duo of sound art specialists Stephan Crasneanscki and Simone Merli, plus a seemingly infinite constellation of singers, players, actors, directors, poets, philosophers, and photographers. Founded in 2000 by Crasneanscki with Merli joining in 2008, they've worked with Patti Smith, Jean-Luc Godard, Nan Goldin, and many, many others. Today, they shared details of their next project, LOVOTIC, a double LP due out April 1 on Analogue Foundation, and released its title track and lead single. The new song features Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe, who starred together in Lars Von Trier's Antichrist many moons ago. The record will also include collaborations with Atom, Lyra Pramuk, and philosopher Paul B. Preciado.

LOVOTIC, like most of Soundwalk's previous work, is more a conceptual suite than a traditional album. Its focus is the future of sex and sexuality: how our progressing reliance on artificial intelligence will someday subplant our current notions of gender, intimacy, and arousal. "Where does the impulse of preference come from?" they ask as a single, amorphous entity in a press release. "What sets of words from our vocabulary can be communicated to the AI mind to generate a new identity for desire? Could the machine be another technology that brings us closer together?

"LOVOTIC," the single, finds Gainsbourg and Dafoe uploading to the mainframe in a disturbingly convincing performance of machine love. A hypnotic, mechanical beat pulses beneath them, and a robotic voice emits a steady ooze of zeroes and ones in the background.

Listen below.

Read the rest here:

Soundwalk Collective become the machine on LOVOTIC - The FADER

Non-fungible-token or NFTs have transformed the digital art world, making it possible for anyone to sell their work for substantial amounts of money. You dont necessarily have to be an artist to sell NFTs. Anything can be sold as an NFT including music, drawing, GIF, tweets and even a selfie can be sold for millions of dollars.

Demand for crypto art is only increasing, and users are flooding the market to bid on unique crypto tokens. In this weeks Crypto Knight column we explain how you can sell NFTs easily. But keep in mind you have tokenise your work and list it on marketplaces such as Opensea, Superrare, Rarible, etc., first. (Check our article on how you can convert your digital art and list it on marketplaces and circle back.)

Do not take social media for granted. When it comes to selling your digital art, all social media platforms play their part. Start showcasing your artwork on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and even on Reddit NFT groups.

Instagram is an important space to showcase your portfolio, if you have multiple NFTs, upload all of them. This will help collectors exhibit not only your current projects but also show your past work.

Twitter is the most underrated platform to sell NFTs. While the art world didnt consider Twitter to be a very visual platform, recent incidents have shown that NFT collectors have made millions by simply posting their NFTs on the platform. Twitter has become the go-to platform for spreading the word about crypto art sales. Twitters new NFT profile picture feature will also help you increase your visibility.

Adding hashtags or other phrases is important in your post caption. These tags are helpful on both Twitter as well as Instagram. Use hashtags: #crypto,#cryptoNFTs,#NFTsale #art on Twitter and Instagram.

Reddit is a community discussion platform which has the potential to make your work go-viral in a few minutes. Open a new thread, start discussing your NFT portfolio, and if the post receives a lot of upvotes, it goes up in the Reddit rankings, and consequently, more people can see it.

Join groups like reddit.com/r/CryptoArt, which has nearly 8 million users. Get involved in other discussions, the idea is the more often your name appears across various channels, the sooner people will remember it.

Discord hosts hundreds of NFT servers. These channels/servers are a popular place for discussing new NFTs. The chat platform now offers more professional features such as crypto galleries where you can showcase your NFTs and even ask users to bid on it.

The NFT Calendar platform showcases the best NFT drops from various marketplaces gathered in one place. This is a great source for NFT collectors who do not need to rush from one marketplace to another to discover the greatest releases.

It takes just a few minutes to add your drop to the NFT Calendar. Once you submit your drop, it appears in the list after a quick review from our team. The submission is free. In addition, some drops are also featured on the companys Instagram and Twitter social handles.

One way to weave into the NFT community is to share the story behind your digital art. If youre an artist, explain the backstory of the art, provide written introductions whenever and wherever you show your work. Explanations or descriptions dont have to be long- more like a paragraph or two, or even a sentence or two if you can be that concise.

Talk about how your NFT came into being, what its significance is, and where youre going as a collector. From an aesthetic perspective, you can call peoples attention to various physical aspects or characteristics of your work, their relative importance, your creative process as a whole, and so on.

For instance, Ross Ulbricht, 37, the alleged founder of dark web marketplace Silk Road, sold his first NFT, which is pencil sketch drawing titled Perspective, for $6.2 million (Rs 47 crore). The NFT collection that he put for sale came with a backstory. The Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection is a collection of writings and ten artworks by Ulbricht, from early childhood to teen to prisoner. It also includes an original animation created by an audiovisual artist Levitate, with voice over by Ross, inspired by his experience in prison.

Heres what the back story said: This NFT collection is Rosss creative journey of expression; it is his living and evolving story. Through drawings and video, we see glimpses of a mans unfolding existence. This is his way to reach outside the walls of prison, as we continue the campaign for his freedom.

Do not stick to a single NFT marketplace, make sure to upload your NFTs on multiple marketplaces to increase the chance of selling them. SuperRare is one NFT marketplace for single-edition digital artworks, while Foundation is a marketplace for trading any blockchain assets.

Here are some of the largest marketplaces for NFT:

OpenSea For art collectibles, rare digital items, cryptokitties, etc.

Rarible For all forms of crypto assets.

SuperRare For authentic and unique digital artworks.

Foundation For trading digital collectibles.

Just uploading your NFT portfolio on social media platforms wont suffice. You will have to ask your friends and followers to share your NFT Project on social media. Try generating more buzz around your NFTs and make them possible to be seen by more people.

Start collaborating with NFT artists and collectors. The first reason why you collaborate is to enhance your artworks with the aid of other professionals. The second reason is that to expand each others fan base. Its not strictly about monetisation when we speak about the collaboration but its definitely about recognition and reaching as many people as you can.

For more information related to cryptocurrency, NFTs, etc., check out our Crypto Knight column every Saturday.

Read the rest here:

Sell your NFTs: 5 tips to promote NFTs easily - The Indian Express

Manys the time Ive watched a YouTuber drive a beautiful road and thought, I wish I could drive there but for whatever reason (too great a distance, too tiny a budget, too little time) I havent been able to. Porsche wants to allow me, you, and everyone to drive beautiful roads around the world with a new project called Virtual Roads.

Being made in collaboration with a Swiss start-up called Way Ahead Technologies, the program will someday exist as an app with which user can mount their phone on their dashboard and record a road. At first, users will then be able to drive the roads on their phone but eventually, Porsche wants users to be able to upload that data to a racing sim. Porsche specifically namechecks Assetto Corsa but says others will be compatible, allowing users to drive public roads over and over again.

The app will record a whole 3D environment with trees, crash barriers, and other landmarks, though it is sure not to record any people or parked vehicles. The process takes less than one percent of the time required by big studios to digitalize the race tracks that are now common in racing games because there are no lasers measuring the exact height of the tarmac. Naturally, that will mean a slightly less realistic representation of the road but Porsche says that bumps and topography will be incorporated into the resulting track.

Read Also:Gran Turismo 7 Signals A Return To Form On The 25th Ann. Of The Franchise

If you ask people what they think is the most beautiful road, everyone has their own, very personal route in mind. The characteristics of the topography are what make a route particularly attractive, regardless of whether it is a unique Alpine pass or a legendary coastal road, says Robert Ader, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). We want to trigger these great memories with a much simpler digitalization process that allows anyone to drive their favorite route virtually.

The app will use special technology, including AI to record the roads, and uploading them to racing sims wont take a ridiculous amount of time. Roger Rueegg, from Way Ahead Technologies, thinks that the app could even use data from Porsches chassis control system and G meters in the future to make roads more realistic.

After several years of development work, our software is now so advanced that it can digitalize routes for virtual roads of up to eight kilometers (4.9 miles) long in less than an hour, depending on how complex the route is, says Roger Rueegg from Way Ahead Technologies. Were also looking at other options and functions at the moment.

Unfortunately, Porsche hasnt revealed exactly when it plans to roll the app out but well be watching this project closely.

See more here:

Porsche Wants To Allow Drivers To Record A Road And Play It Again In A Racing Simulator - CarScoops

Every jingle is about Valentine now. It ranges from sales slash to promotion and exhibitions of luxury goods for Valentine. The social media has spread its drones nationwide waiting for the news that will trend on Valentines Day. The social media influencers like they are called are on red alert waiting to flash their Paparazzi on anyone that performs lower than expected, especially Nigerian celebrities. The titans are also ready to set ablaze the comment section with emoji expressing their likes and dislikes for a trending topic.

Valentines Day, also called Saint Valentines Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14.

Every jingle is about Valentines Day now: adverts on print media, electronic, ranges from sales slash to promotion and exhibitions of luxury goods for Valentines Day gifts.

Valentines Day got its name when Emperor Claudius II ordered Saint Valentine, a priest who helped Christian couples in getting married, to be executed. Emperor Claudius II was against the marriage of single men and ordered that Saint Valentine should be beheaded. The execution happened on February 14.

Valentines Day is a day the world feels comfortable to renew their affirmation of love to anyone they feel comfortable with. It is also a day when lovers express their affection with greetings and gifts. It is also called St. Valentines Day.

The celebration has expanded to express affection between relatives and friends.

February 14 is a day people also know their positions among numerous relationships. It is a truism that men and women have the tendency to nurture heterosexual affairs. It is on February 14 the real colour of such relationships are known because neither of the parties can be among those relationships at a time that day. A fallout of this reality usually causes breaks and quarrels, leading to disappointments. Whoever among these numerous men and women gets lucky to get the attention of the day is the main guy or chic.

Valentines Day is really overrated. Reason for this assertion is for other kind of relationships that have made everyday a day of love, respect, outings and gifting a lifestyle. It is in their DNA to be romantic. They know how to put words together and show affection to their spouses and intimate partners. For these type of lovers, everyday is wrapped with affection and attention for their loved ones. They do not wait for Valentines Day to buy anything special, rather they buy and spoil their intimate partners with luxury items, always at the dawn of a new day. It is a continuation of a peaceful relationship where there is an atmosphere of Love.

For spouses who have had rough marriages, unromantic love partners, take this Valentines Day to treat your wife or husband to a solemn moment of love by rekindling and celebrating yourselves.

Write a poem for your lover and place it in a strategic place in your home. Desist from being a husband or wife that cannot laugh or play. Change those weakness and strengthen your relationship everyday. There are a lot of recreation centres, fun clubs, eateries, hotels. Surprise your partner, wife or girlfriend according to your financial ability, but simply make it a day void of fight.

For my young persons, it is a day for unhealthy experiments. Celebrate love with your friends and do not be carried away with the fallacy of the day that it is for lovers. I am not expecting young teenagers to celebrate Valentines Day but they should have a free mind and take instructions from their parents.

For slay queens, kindly look your best doing what you know how best to do, taking pictures of unique places and uploading same on your favourite social media stage.

To the men and guys, endeavour to spend wisely for that special person.

For the women, do not forget to appreciate whatever gift your husband or boyfriend presents to you and remain grateful because there will always be numerous Valentines. It will only get better by the year.

Valentines Day is not the end of the world if you do not find a Valentine or a gift.

Follow this link:

This Valentine fever!, by Lilian Mabeek - - The Eagle Online

Photo-Illustration: by the Cut; Photos Getty Images

Emely Betancourt would rather show you her Notes app before handing over access to her TikTok For You Page. Its too eerily accurate a virtual mirror, she tells me, one that took hours of scrolling to create. The For You Page is TikToks primary feed. At first, it shows you its most palatable offerings: videos with millions of likes, celebrities, Charli DAmelio milquetoast, likable content. As you start watching and liking posts, you go deeper into a niche youve co-created with the platforms famous algorithm. Betancourt knows it sounds intense, but she feels like her FYP truly understands her inside and out: I feel like its really a reflection of my subconscious thoughts; even things I never say out loud, it will know.

Like 100 million other Americans under lockdown, Betancourt started using TikTok during the early-2020 days of the pandemic if the now-20-year-old couldnt be in school and with friends, she could at least go on TikTok to interact with people outside her immediate family. Today, Betancourt spends anywhere between one to three hours a day on TikTok, her most-used app. My For You Page is literally a culmination of everything that I am, she says: a perfect reflection of her liberal politics and satirical sense of humor, but also of more personal things like her attachment style and trauma. Its not perfect, of course. No matter the platform, algorithms will never have the full picture of who we are they didnt watch us grow up and they dont know how we act around friends and family offline. She knows that an app shes only used for about a year and a half couldnt possibly fully know her, but I feel so seen! Betancourt said. She added that sometimes, its hard to say that it doesnt know me all the way because sometimes it does know me all the way.

So much of our lives from online dating, to search engines, to social-media feeds is mediated by algorithms. And we talk about them like we actually know much about them. We complain about the Facebook algorithm and we gush (Betancourt isnt alone) over TikToks. As I write this, some YouTube alpha male is out there uploading videos promising straight men advice on how to hack the Tinder algorithm to date like kings, and if you watch any of these videos, the sites algorithm will use that query to offer you more unsolicited dating advice the next time you log in.

In reality, we dont know nearly enough.

When we talk about the algorithm of any given platform, were sometimes talking about multiple algorithms that use artificial intelligence to metabolize the data that consumers (thats us) provide through our interactions with the platform. These algorithms use that information to then curate that platforms offering to its users (again, us). In other words: Our likes, swipes, comments, play time, and clicks provide these platforms up-to-the-minute updates on our needs and preferences and the algorithms use this information to determine what we see and when.

Exactly what that data counts for and how its used to offer us everything from TikToks to dating prospects is proprietary information thats kept secret from us. And it doesnt help that were only just becoming aware of the algorithms that shape and mold our digital worlds. Congress and the relevant regulating bodies, like the FTC, have recently begun honing in on commercial algorithms, which theyve deemed as having too great an impact to go totally unregulated.

By the way, what little we do learn can quickly become obsolete since these algorithms are updated, refined, and tinkered with almost endlessly in ways that sometimes make headlines like when Instagram phased out (and reintroduced) the chronological feed but are usually unannounced.

So we mythologize.

When we decide that an algorithm can understand us and it matches us with songs, people, and TikToks that align with our needs and desires, we slip into a sort of weird devotion. When we match with the same person over and over on dating apps, we wonder if its a sign. We say things like TikToks algorithm knew I was bi before I did and are so impressed with its perceived ability to know us that we often worry if more sinister surveillance practices are at play. Our algorithmically orchestrated encounters with people on dating apps or psychology buzzwords on social media start to feel preordained, as if the fact that the algorithm put something on our path Means Something.

Of course, that once-accurate mirror can easily and often does start to stretch and distort your reflection, and you begin to question if you even know what you look like. I get a lot of TikToks about high-functioning autism and ADHD, Betancourt tells me, and while she does have anxiety, the fact that the algorithm would think those videos applied to her made her think, Do I have ADHD? Do I have high-functioning autism? The habit of relating to things on her FYP made it easier to trust some of the algorithms more out-there suggestions: It kind of plants that seed. She says she has no reason to seek out a diagnosis for any of these conditions, but the fact that she even considered it made her realize how much credibility she gave her FYP. Although there are gems and really valuable stuff on TikTok, she explains, not all of it is necessarily applicable to you, and you kind of have to draw the line and say, This is relatable, but Im not necessarily autistic.

Algorithmically curated feeds like TikToks and even ones like Spotifys and Tinders can connect us with people and ideas that expand our worlds and minds while also making us feel more seen and less alone. But they can also make us feel really alienated, misunderstood, and commodified when they use our own data to show a warped version of ourselves.

Natasha Dow Schll is an anthropologist and an associate professor at New York Universitys Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, whose work focuses on the psychic life of technology and the relationship between data and the self. You can say all the smart reasons why youre against these things, but if you look at peoples behaviors, even my own, Schll says, at the end of the day, people like being recognized. Along with all the value we get from engaging with these algorithms, we also get what Schll describes as this sense of ambivalence that comes from being subtly aware of this risky tendency that sort of looks like a spiral that you get caught in, where youre at the bottom of this vortex or well and these forces are limiting your growth as a person and sort of pinning you and fixing you.

Both in research and in public discussions about the power of these commercial algorithms, we often run into that question of addiction by design. Just like a slot machine, every swipe, every date, every pull of the handle changes who you are in some way and further compels you and engages you, Schll says. Its this very dynamic flow of investment in both directions and we do not have any specific regulation that takes that into account. We give these algorithms our time, our personal information, our likes and make ourselves vulnerable in exchange for that connection and understanding. We are, to varying degrees, okay with being surveilled as long as we get to feel seen.

The stakes are even higher for the algorithms on dating apps. When those algorithms determine whom you see and whom youre shown to, they can easily start to feel like an authority on whom we should be attracted to and who should be attracted to us.

The way Tinder collects data, for example, is skewed: Users can choose from over a dozen gender-identity labels and select multiple sexual-orientation labels from a list of nine, but are asked to indicate if theyre looking to date men, women, or everyone. How can Tinders algorithm be expected to understand queer culture? In Hannah Sullivan Facknitzs experience as a nonbinary bisexual, it cant.

To Sullivan Facknitz, a 30-year-old grad student based out of Vancouver, being perceived by the algorithm felt the same as being perceived by any institution with power like, for instance, a university. The way I could be perceived by reading my rsum or my college transcripts, you see all the classes I took and the grades I got in them. They tell you something about me. But theres a huge gap in their transcript where I flunked out and then came back. A person reading a transcript with a gap might have to hear an explanation and learn more before making a decision. Any deviance from the norm could be counted against someone, even if they do get a chance to explain themselves. In the case of a dating-app algorithm (and even a hiring algorithm), we get sorted before we get a chance to explain ourselves.

On top of that, Sullivan Facknitz says, Tinder encourages quick-reaction swipes, and they tend to match with what they call their impulse type, the dating-app equivalent to the checkout counters candy selection: the familiar type theyve already dated, and it didnt work out, which is why theyre using Tinder in the first place. Instead of meeting someone new, theyre stuck in an unsatisfying, harmful even, swipe-right loop.

Interfacing with algorithmically curated apps like Tinder, for Sullivan Facknitz, worsened a feeling of being trapped in their worst pattern: I would match with people who were like the men who victimized me and I was very confused and I dug into myself, emotionally and in a really destructive way, to try to excavate what the hell the algorithm was seeing in me that made me bad enough to deserve these men. They felt like the algorithm saw something obvious they didnt and kept coming back to figure out what it was. It took time and some personal growth for them to realize, The algorithm was not smarter than me, it could [not] somehow see me clearer than I could see myself.

That clarity has helped Sullivan Facknitz establish better relationships with the algorithms of their life one that allowed them to wrestle back a bit of control. In fact, TikTok helped them realize they have ADHD, rather than convincing them. It helped me ask that initial question, they explain, adding that they then turned to members of their community who had been diagnosed for further guidance and then to medical professionals. And it was a question Id had my entire life. It wasnt something the algorithm figured out for me, this was just another piece of information that helped me put the question together.

Itd be totally nave to trust that the companies behind these algorithms have our best interests at heart. TikToks main source of revenue is ad sales, and we learned from a recent New York Times column headlined How TikTok Reads Your Mind that the app wants to keep you there as long as possible. Tinder, on the other hand, makes most of its money from subscriptions, so it makes sense that the algorithm is only good enough to hook you onto the product, to keep you coming back for new prospects rather than make good on its promise of actually helping you connect. Something that can be polar opposite in experience, in terms of healthy and harmful, Schll says, are equally productive in terms of capitalism.

The conversation sways between two extremes. Some people would say that the answer to all of this is that you need a better algorithm, Schll says. Maybe smarter algorithms (that use even more data) can do a better job of understanding us changes, ambivalences, inconsistencies, and all rather than boxing us into a fixed version of ourselves. This is the technological answer, Schll notes. But then there are those whod say more technology will jeopardize some unquantifiable human quality maybe our souls? and that we should just put down our phones. Thats an extreme humanist answer, Schll adds. And I dont go that way, either, because I feel like were all technological beings.

She doesnt have a clean-cut answer, but concludes that I find it just as ridiculous to say that there is something anti-human about algorithms that contaminates our experience. Weve had enough meaningful experiences with algorithms and technology to think its that black-and-white.

If youve ever read a horoscope that made you feel a wave of dread (or made you annoyed at the idea of having your fate handed to you), then you can see how our relationship to these algorithms and astrology are similar. In a blog post, astrologer Alice Sparkly Kat offers some useful insights on how algorithms see us: The predictable person that the algorithm imagines you to be is a corporate fiction. Sparkly Kat writes that, somewhat similarly, astrology is a language that can help people describe themselves, but it is also a technology that can try to tell you who you are. Once upon a time, astrology was invoked to reduce the whole of a person to what the stars said they were. We are not our sun signs, nor are we who our algorithms say we are. Weve learned to use astrology as a tool for interpretation, as a language to work through things were trying to understand. Maybe we can turn algorithms into better tools. For Schll, step one is obviously regulation (at the moment, its what we have to work with).

In the end, these algorithms are just human creations. Like the front-facing camera on your phone, they distort what we see. There is no such thing as a perfectly accurate reflection, and maybe, with more awareness of how algorithms distort what we see, we can harness their power for ourselves.

Get the Cut newsletter delivered daily

By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.

Here is the original post:

Examining Our Relationship With Social-Media Algorithms - The Cut

In the wake of lockdowns, which pushed many people to pick up new hobbies, Pinterest has experienced record traffic. In the past, Pinterest has focused almost exclusively on images to enable people to gather inspiration and organise their thoughts but the platform is breaking free of that mould.

Coinciding with the pandemic-driven spike in interest, Pinterest has branched out into short-form video. Pinterest recently launched Idea Pins, which resemble the Stories feature that users are familiar with from other platforms, as a fresh way for creators to share video content. Unlike competitors such as Instagram, where Stories expire in 24 hours, Idea Pins remain on a users profile indefinitely.

Now, the visual discovery engine platform offers new ways for creators to engage with everything from cooking to fashion, DIY, home dcor, and more. Pinterests shift to video boosts its appeal and enables creators to reach new audiences and engage users with a catalogue of interesting multimedia content.

Idea Pins are published directly to Pinterest and they appear at the top of a creators profile. Making video the first thing a viewer sees when they visit a creators page is no accident it marks a shift in Pinterests strategy.

Following the introduction of Idea Pins, Pinterest added a Watch tab beside the main Browse tab. This was to provide Pinners with a dedicated space to discover and engage with new Idea Pins, much like TikToks For You Page.

Pinterest has also drawn inspiration from TikToks thriving community engagement and collaboration features, Stitch and Duet. Later in 2021, Pinterest launched Takes, a new way for Pinners to respond to pins.

All of these steps suggest a consistent strategy: Pinterest is adopting the features that people love about video-based platforms like TikTok and, to some extent Instagram, and integrating them into their hobby-focused network. This shift, combined with the significant rise in Pinterest users, represents a major opportunity for creators.

Every platform is different, and influencers need to choose the ones that match their audience and will allow them to tap into their strengths. Pinterest is great for creative influencers, and its unique positioning as a search engine for hobby projects makes it an ideal way to drive audience growth. For influencers looking to get on board as Pinterest sets out on a video-focused strategy, here are four tips that will help you succeed on the platform.

The number one piece of advice for succeeding on Pinterest, as it is across all platforms, is to be active. Being successful depends on actually using the platform, Pinning material, posting new content and interacting with other users. Have no shame in uploading 50+ new Pins a day, as this is how youre going to boost your reach and impressions.

When it comes to posting Pins, creators need to remember that most users still find them through the search function. Giving every Pin and Board an accurate, detailed title and description is the key to reaching new users. Influencers need to put themselves in the Pinners shoes and try to imagine what someone searching for their content might type in.

Pinterests video features may be newer than competitors, but theyre clearly the platforms future. Video generates great engagement from the community, so influencers looking to expand onto Pinterest can experiment with repurposing their existing video content as Idea Pins. Once they have an idea of the types of videos that succeed on the platform, they can start creating videos that are tailor-made to get Pinned.

Creators need to make use of Pinterests analytics tools to determine what types of content receive the highest engagement, and then use this information to shape their approach. Pinterest designed video features, like Idea Pins, with analytics in mind. So its easy for influencers to develop a powerful presence using some trial and error.

The changes in Pinterests format mean that a fresh new video platform has entered the competition for peoples attention it just so happens to be one that most people have already heard of. While Instagram and TikTok are social platforms with content of all kinds, Pinterest is attempting to claim the creative and hobby-content space. This means that influencers have a new platform to experiment with, find followers, and produce content for and thats always good news.

Related

Original post:

What's Next for Pinterest and What Does it Mean for Influencers? - Talking Influence