Month: November 2016

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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somnilogical:

brin-bellway:

somnilogical:

I like having long hair. I can see the ends vibrate with my pulse.

Wait, really?

*leans over arm of couch, watches waist-length hair dangle*

Huh. It does vibrate. Not sure whether it’s in time with my pulse.

My hair extends down to just below my shoulder blades. When I move it so that it cascades over my right shoulder, any tips that are not in contact with my body vibrate with my pulse. And (obviously) when I vibrate my head.

I think the ends were picking it up from blood flowing through my neck.

Depending on how you are leaning, I may be suprised. Is your hair in contact with your neck? Can you feel your pulse and see if the rates sync up?

Also. You have waist-length hair! I suddenly would like to braid your hair. And pet it and play with it.

[ Point of information: I am *human*. ]

The hair I was watching wasn’t in contact with my neck during the test. I had my hand pressed against my heart to check the pulse. Since I just washed my hair (after making the first post), and it’s now both lying flatter against my body and weighed down with water, I should probably wait before testing over-the-shoulder.

I’ve had hair going to slightly below my waist since before I even reached my adult height. There was a while in my pre- and early-teens where my hair length grew more or less proportionally to the rest of me, and it stabilised around the same time. (This is one of my favourite things about having long hair. The hair length of most short-haired people is always changing, and every so often they have to go out of their way to prevent it from going too far past their desired length. Mine just stays as it is, and has for over a decade. I like that stability.)

I am not in the San Francisco Gravitational Field (I’m in Ontario, and not the one in California), but if we’re ever together, there can probably be hair-playing.

(Mom–who has just-above-shoulder-length hair, and is the reason I thought to put a “most” qualifier on shorter-haired people not having stable hair length–asks to braid/play with my hair sometimes. I’m not sure what the big deal is, but I might just be spoiled by having access to long hair all the time.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #hair

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

onion-souls:

OH
So this guy’s purpose in life is to hang out in a Pokémon Center on Poni Island and tutor one move that only one Pokémon can learn, a Legendary postgame Pokémon from a Hoenn one/four generations ago. And that Pokémon naturally knows that move anyway.

Fuck me, I’m getting a new job. I’ll be standing in a Dunkin Donuts on Staten Island tutoring Spanish. But only if you’re early 19th Venezuelan military leader Simón Bolívar.

Tags:

#Pokemon #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #(I do not actually speak Pokemon) #(but the post provides enough context to make the joke at the end funny)

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

First paycheck!

Tags:

#like I know it’s not ~a lot~ of money #but it was more profitable than how I would otherwise have spent that time #while not being significantly more unpleasant or inconvenient #(well I mean having a transcript deemed unfit for use last night was unpleasant) #(but that’s technically *next* week’s paycheck) #(and in terms of emotional pain level probably comparable or better than fucking something up on Flight Rising) #((*also* something that affects other people)) #(so as long as I’m more careful not to bite off more than I can chew I should still come out ahead) #anyway unequivocal steps up are worth celebrating regardless of Objective Size #tag rambles #in which Brin has a job #oh look an original post

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destinationtoast:

TOASTYSTATS: Did the US election influence fanfic production?

I’ve heard some folks talking about using fanfic to cope with/distract themselves from the recent US election (I’m in this camp, though I’m not ignoring the real world), and others, like the hosts of @fansplaining​, discuss not being able to focus on fandom right now.  I wondered which of these impulses was currently stronger overall in fandom.

TL;DR: as of two weeks following the 2016 election, there’s been a big post-election spike in fanfic production on AO3 (~30% increase) – which is unusual for this time of year.  Though, of course, correlation is not causation – there could be some other cause(s) at play.  And while some people may be turning to fandom for distraction, there’s a bigger increase in ‘Angst’ than ‘Fluff.’

I gathered daily data from AO3 for the pat 5 years in order to compare this year to past ones.  I figured even if we did see a spike or a drop in fanworks, that might be normal following an election – or just normal for November.  The past 5 years have the benefit of containing another presidential election, as well as a midterm election and two off-years.  I looked at the total amount of fanworks produced in each of the two weeks leading up to the US election, and in each of the two weeks following it.  (If you look at the above graph, 0 on the x axis is Election Day – Nov 8, 2016.)

Based on the above graph, we can see that most years have a fairly flat production rate surrounding the election.  2016, however, departs strongly from this pattern with a 32% increase from the two weeks leading up to the election.

Keep reading

Tags:

#interesting #AO3 #election 2016

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

nihilsupernum:

@adzolotl says that “nj is in new england” is my worst opinion

what the hell is new england if not THE STATES THAT ARE CALLED “NEW” AND THEN A PLACE IN ENGLAND

I could go for Greater New England, but then I was raised in New Jersey by parents from Massachusetts, so I expect I have a stronger connection to New England than most New Jerseyans.

(Sometimes I go for “both part of the Northeastern Mega-City”, which may or may not be the same thing as Greater New England.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #home of the brave #my home away from home

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

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justice-turtle:

brin-bellway:

justice-turtle:

As a matter of fact I mathed a while back and my transcribing speed on KUEC is well up to professional standards (I get through one minute of audio in about 6-7 minutes of work on average, last time I googled it said professionals vary from 4-10 minutes of work per minute of audio). I’m not sure how those figures would hold up when trying to transcribe people I haven’t already listened to literally hundreds of hours of, though, and if it had to have every “um, uh” and “I, I, I think” literal I’d definitely be slower. On KUEC transcriptions I cut out a lot of the verbal static that normal audio conversation has.

It’s worth looking into, though. What’s the pay like, what kind of material does one work on, what are the minimum/maximum productivity expectations, other questions like that? :-)

Background:

The company in question is called Rev. This is the job listing that brought it to Mom’s attention, which gives a short ad and a link to a bunch of generally positive reviews. (Mom, it turns out, is too hard of hearing: when they gave her a test recording to transcribe, she couldn’t even hear it well enough to finish the test, let alone pass. When she told me about this, after consoling her I said “Hey, I’m not hard of hearing, maybe I can do it.”)

—

Note that despite that being a Canadian job-hunting site, the listed pay is in U.S. dollars. (The company is based in San Francisco.) Money-wise, what you see is what you get, and what *I* see is a smaller number than what I get. (My currency-conversion app has been getting a little more use lately.)

“Average monthly earnings: $241, top monthly earning: $1,440″: in other words, theoretically possible to make a living off it*, but most people don’t. (Of course, I expect a lot of people are just supplementing and aren’t aiming for a living wage, and that would drag the average down.)

So far, I have completed two transcriptions, for a total transcription time of 13 minutes, a total real time of slightly over two hours, and a total money of USD$5.76. (That is, as the old joke goes, $7.72 in real money.) However, I am a newbie and speed comes with practice. Also, people who have logged less than an hour of transcription time don’t get paid as much: 20% of what would otherwise be their pay goes to an experienced transcriber who double-checks everything to catch any beginner’s mistakes, for a pay boost of 25% (because fractions) once you finish the probationary period.

So yeah, the bad news is that it’s not minimum wage until and unless you get pretty good at it, and no benefits. Good news things:

There are no minimum productivity requirements. I mean, it’s one thing if you’re claiming jobs from the pool and then not doing them, but if you don’t claim any jobs for a while there’s no penalty (unless you count the natural consequence of not earning anything). There’s no official maximum, although I’d guess there’s some number at which they go “this is suspiciously ridiculous”, because it’d be strange if there weren’t.

As long as you have an Internet-connected computer, a set of headphones, and a reasonably quiet environment, you can work. No commute, sit in whatever chair you want.

—

By default, “umms” and “ahhs” and such are skipped. Customers can request verbatim transcripts (my first transcript was verbatim), but they cost(/you get paid) extra (an extra dime per minute, I think).

Payment for each calendar week is sent to your Paypal the following Monday. So I’m told, anyway: I haven’t gotten there yet. (I don’t think it will feel quite real until I see the money in my account. Then, I will be Employed.)

Material varies. Interviews, medical records, instructional videos, sermons, I’m told podcasts but I haven’t seen any yet… Audio quality varies a lot, and there’s been some I haven’t understood, but you can hear a recording without claiming it, and there’s a one-hour grace period after claiming where you can bail on it without penalty. (Also they have audio filter options that apparently help somewhat with recorded background noise.)

—

All in all, may or may not be enough on its own, but at the very least a potentially helpful supplement. If you have a spare hour and a half or so at some point, you might want to try applying; fair warning, they brag to their customers about rejecting 90% of job applicants (”only the best 10% work on your recording!”). I mean, who knows how many of that 90% were blatantly incompetent, but if it seems like something you might be interested in, it might be best to find out whether or not they’ll take you before you get desperate.

—

I feel like I might be missing something, but it’s past my bedtime. Let me know if you have any other questions.

—

*According to the cost-of-living figures in my head, which are based on averaged per-person cost for a family of four in southern Ontario circa 2014. YMMV by quite a bit.

How long does it take to hear back about whether you’ve been hired? And what’s the application like – I mean, do you need an up-to-date resume, or a list of seven years’ addresses for a background check, or is it more just “prove you have these current skills”, or what?

(I haven’t the time to apply at this very moment, cos I’m tryna catch up on a bit more sleep before work, but I’m trying to figure out how much time to block out and what to prepare before I do.)

More just “Prove you have these current skills.”

The application asked for my name, my email address, my typing speed (linking to an online test to take if I wasn’t sure), and my level of previous experience with transcription (options: “none”, “some”, “professional”; I picked none). Then they gave me a short quiz on grammar and choosing the correct homophone for the context of a sentence. Then they asked me to write a thing of one to three paragraphs on a provided topic. (600 word maximum, I think mine was about 250 – 300; since they expect the entire application to take an hour*, they’re clearly not expecting a highly polished essay, just something that shows competence with English.) Then they gave me their Style Guide to read, and a clip about 2.5 minutes long to transcribe in their text editor and according to their style standards. I saw in the background on one of their instructional videos–which was filmed on an older version of the interface–that there used to be an optional resume upload at the end, but now they don’t even give you the option.

Oh, and a Terms and a Privacy Policy to agree to. I did actually read them; it was pretty much what I expected, the usual “to the greatest extent possible, nothing is ever legally our fault” that most companies do with most things, and a warning that I was a freelancer and not technically an employee, and therefore not eligible for things like employee benefits. (I did hear on their forum that if you’re a freelancer and you need an official paper proving you work somewhere, Rev will give you one. I haven’t looked into it yet as I haven’t needed such a paper, so I can’t promise that.) (Also, you know, make sure to read it yourself and not rely on my summary, just in case that needs to be said.)

Email, November 21st, 10:46 PM Eastern: “Most likely you will hear back from us within one to two days. In particularly high volume times, it can take as long as three days to get through all of the applications.“

Email, November 21st, 11:21 PM Eastern: “Good news, your Rev account is now activated and you are ready to start working and earning money!

To get started, click here to complete your account registration.“

So they reserve the right to take a couple days, but mine was less than an hour. I can only guess that the application queue was deserted and somebody had nothing better to do than review my application immediately. (I was particular surprised given that I didn’t even submit within Pacific business hours.)

“Completing my account registration“ involved my home address, phone number, and the name and email of the Paypal I wanted them to send my payments to. (Which were the same as the name and email I’d given them previously, but the fact that they’re separate fields implies the option of having them be different.) They gave me a tutorial where they showed me around the employee freelancer-only sections of the site, gave me a few short sample audios (optional but recommended) that I could try to transcribe and/or watch a video of an experienced person explaining how to deal with the clip’s particular issues.

After that, I could start right away, and that evening I took a short (6-minute) clip that I could manage before bedtime (and I could, but only just). (I woke up to find that just after I’d turned off my computer for the night, a grader had checked my work. They said I’d done very well; the only flaw was one word that they had managed to hear but I had marked inaudible. The other word I had marked inaudible didn’t count as a flaw because the grader couldn’t hear it either.)

—

Things I thought of after finishing the last message:

I can’t be sure, and it’s probably still best to look into it sooner rather than later, but I suspect the 90% rejection rate isn’t as big a deal as it sounds. It’s in their interest to hire as many competent people as they can get their hands on: the larger the pool of freelancers, the more and/or faster transcripts they can complete, the more attractive their service will be to customers. (I saw quite a few positive customer reviews along the lines of “They told me to expect my transcript within 24 hours, but it came back in only 3!”.) Like I said in the footnote, quantity is good as long as it doesn’t compromise quality.

It’s not 100% true that there’s never a penalty for not working. They don’t fire you or dock pay for work you completed or anything, but people who are prolific enough while maintaining good grades are rewarded with first pick of new audios and the option to apply to become a grader, and if you don’t maintain your prolific-ness you drop down to regular transcriber.

Working in transcription would probably directly help with the feeling of your work requiring you to be mean to disabled people. In my last job, I made an instructional video more accessible. (Speaking of, Rev also has freelance captioning, but I haven’t applied to that and don’t know much about it. Rumour on the forum has it that it is more difficult than transcribing but higher pay.)

—

*Mine was more like an hour and a half, and so was Mom’s from when she started to when she gave up. I do tend to be slow and cautious and triple-check everything on tests, though, especially tests without strict time limits. (Or, in other words, I’ve demonstrated a willingness to take a significant cut to my own hourly wage to ensure a higher quality for their product. I don’t know if they’ve noticed, but they might think it’s a good sign if they did. Quantity is good all else equal, but only if it doesn’t compromise quality.)

Tags:

#I’ve been aiming for a transcript every school evening #(probably aim for more on non-schooldays) #but I ended up skipping yesterday because Thanksgiving was too tiring and I couldn’t focus enough #reply via reblog #in which Brin has a job #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #adventures in human capitalism

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

justice-turtle:

As a matter of fact I mathed a while back and my transcribing speed on KUEC is well up to professional standards (I get through one minute of audio in about 6-7 minutes of work on average, last time I googled it said professionals vary from 4-10 minutes of work per minute of audio). I’m not sure how those figures would hold up when trying to transcribe people I haven’t already listened to literally hundreds of hours of, though, and if it had to have every “um, uh” and “I, I, I think” literal I’d definitely be slower. On KUEC transcriptions I cut out a lot of the verbal static that normal audio conversation has.

It’s worth looking into, though. What’s the pay like, what kind of material does one work on, what are the minimum/maximum productivity expectations, other questions like that? :-)

Background:

The company in question is called Rev. This is the job listing that brought it to Mom’s attention, which gives a short ad and a link to a bunch of generally positive reviews. (Mom, it turns out, is too hard of hearing: when they gave her a test recording to transcribe, she couldn’t even hear it well enough to finish the test, let alone pass. When she told me about this, after consoling her I said “Hey, I’m not hard of hearing, maybe I can do it.”)

—

Note that despite that being a Canadian job-hunting site, the listed pay is in U.S. dollars. (The company is based in San Francisco.) Money-wise, what you see is what you get, and what *I* see is a smaller number than what I get. (My currency-conversion app has been getting a little more use lately.)

“Average monthly earnings: $241, top monthly earning: $1,440″: in other words, theoretically possible to make a living off it*, but most people don’t. (Of course, I expect a lot of people are just supplementing and aren’t aiming for a living wage, and that would drag the average down.)

So far, I have completed two transcriptions, for a total transcription time of 13 minutes, a total real time of slightly over two hours, and a total money of USD$5.76. (That is, as the old joke goes, $7.72 in real money.) However, I am a newbie and speed comes with practice. Also, people who have logged less than an hour of transcription time don’t get paid as much: 20% of what would otherwise be their pay goes to an experienced transcriber who double-checks everything to catch any beginner’s mistakes, for a pay boost of 25% (because fractions) once you finish the probationary period.

So yeah, the bad news is that it’s not minimum wage until and unless you get pretty good at it, and no benefits. Good news things:

There are no minimum productivity requirements. I mean, it’s one thing if you’re claiming jobs from the pool and then not doing them, but if you don’t claim any jobs for a while there’s no penalty (unless you count the natural consequence of not earning anything). There’s no official maximum, although I’d guess there’s some number at which they go “this is suspiciously ridiculous”, because it’d be strange if there weren’t.

As long as you have an Internet-connected computer, a set of headphones, and a reasonably quiet environment, you can work. No commute, sit in whatever chair you want.

—

By default, “umms” and “ahhs” and such are skipped. Customers can
request verbatim transcripts (my first transcript was verbatim), but
they cost(/you get paid) extra (an extra dime per minute, I think).

Payment for each calendar week is sent to your Paypal the following Monday. So I’m told, anyway: I haven’t gotten there yet. (I don’t think it will feel quite real until I see the money in my account. Then, I will be Employed.)

Material varies. Interviews, medical records, instructional videos, sermons, I’m told podcasts but I haven’t seen any yet… Audio quality varies a lot, and there’s been some I haven’t understood, but you can hear a recording without claiming it, and there’s a one-hour grace period after claiming where you can bail on it without penalty. (Also they have audio filter options that apparently help somewhat with recorded background noise.)

—

All in all, may or may not be enough on its own, but at the very least a potentially helpful supplement. If you have a spare hour and a half or so at some point, you might want to try applying; fair warning, they brag to their customers about rejecting 90% of job applicants (”only the best 10% work on your recording!”). I mean, who knows how many of that 90% were blatantly incompetent, but if it seems like something you might be interested in, it might be best to find out whether or not they’ll take you before you get desperate.

—

I feel like I might be missing something, but it’s past my bedtime. Let me know if you have any other questions.

—

*According to the cost-of-living figures in my head, which are based on averaged per-person cost for a family of four in southern Ontario circa 2014. YMMV by quite a bit.

Tags:

#in which Brin has a job #(even if it doesn’t quite feel real yet) #reply via reblog #(the following category tag was added retroactively:) #adventures in human capitalism

{{next post in sequence}}

thenkeepgoing asked: Why are kayaks Incredibly Rude to swans? I’m asking because we have a lot of wild turkeys on my college campus and they HATE cars. They will block you from opening car doors, circle you in your car like a shark, jump on top of cars and snap at tires.

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

comparativelysuperlative:

elodieunderglass:

       2/2 so I was wondering if large birds just hate human transportation or something haha. Thanks for your post, very interesting.

(In reference to a comment I made about kayaks being incredibly rude in Swan Culture)

I’ve been looking at my inbox like “I am not some kind of ECCENTRIC BIRD WHISPERER,” but I actually know the answer to this one, and it’s hilarious.

Large birds don’t have a particular hateboner for human transportation, but wild turkeys have two unique properties that make them behave ridiculously when they collide with human populations. For those who aren’t familiar with them, wild turkeys are large, boisterous birds that tend to interact with humans most frequently around the autumn which is convenient for Thanksgiving and mating season in early spring. Most of the time, they live peaceable lives in the woods, but around November they run around in flocks bothering innocent citizens and picking fights with vending machines, and then they usually go away again.

The toms, or dominant males, can stand up to 4 feet tall and weigh up to 24 pounds. They’re the ones that do the fancy displays:

Turkey Whispering 1

The First Unique Turkey Property: Now, wild turkeys are a little bit like betta fish, in that they perceive any shiny/reflective surface that shows them a reflection as actually containing Another Turkey, and they react accordingly. When they react to the Other Turkey – usually by posturing aggressively and flaring their fins feathers majestically – the Other Turkey ESCALATES THE SITUATION by posturing as well. At some point the real turkey loses its temper and attacks, pecking and scratching and trying to take the fucker apart, only to find that the Other Turkey has protected itself with some kind of force field.

So to a wild turkey that has encountered enough autumnal car-related psychic battles, the completely logical conclusion to take away from them is that cars contain demonic spirits that must be subdued. Other examples of things that wild turkeys are compelled to vanquish include… well, other reflective things.

To address this, cover reflective things (you can rub soap on your car to make it less reflective) and frighten off the turkey if it’s keeping you from leaving your car.

The Second Unique Turkey Property: This is a little bit embarrassing for all concerned, but you have to think about it like a turkey would. You see, humans are oddly compelling creatures to a hormonal turkey. We have bare faces with interestingly positioned lumps of flesh, we gobble our speech in a way that almost sounds like Turkey, we strut about on two feet showing off our long sexy legs, we strut about in family groups, we often have access to really good food, our clothing is big and bright and colorful. Turkey faces change color with their mood; human faces are all kinds of fascinating colors, plus additional fantastic decorations. To wild turkeys, humans are a type of turkey, and further: many humans are either Intimidating Sexual Threats, or Exciting Sexual Beings. 

Now, I am very sorry about this, but not only can wild turkeys be kind of reverse furries, they also have unexpected ideas about gender and sexuality. So to some female turkeys, “male” humans are excitingly sexy and they will follow one around for embarrassingly long periods of time, cooing attractively – meanwhile, the tom turkey and the subordinate males will be OUTRAGED by the COMPETITION presented by the interloper, and will attempt to subdue “him.” And “female” humans are likewise at risk of being passionately seduced by the dominant toms, or quietly propositioned by subordinate males – or the females may attempt to recruit you into their existing social system – as a junior member, of course. They have a strict pecking order.

Unfortunately for humans, your preferred gender may not necessarily actually translate to the gender that turkeys decide you are. And some turkeys may decide you’re “male” while others will decide that you’re “female,” so that will be confusing, and some dominant female turkeys have “male” sexual traits – like beards and tail fans – anyway. They recognize and remember humans, so if you had a particularly exciting encounter with a specific turkey, it will probably remember you.

Also unfortunately for humans, the fine distinctions between Turkey Seduction, Turkey Competition, and Turkey Networking are usually a little bit lost, and all of this behavior seems to be the same thing – it mostly consists of a large dinosaur-like bird trotting at you, possibly screaming and pecking and flapping, and can be worrying. If you are in the car and the turkey can see you, and it wishes to continue a previous encounter, it may well insist upon this in a frightening way.

Turkeys don’t give a shit about human “gender” and “authority,” as the many available videos on the internet of turkeys attacking police officers, reporters and mailmen will assure you. They just make logical decisions that are perfectly natural and reasonable to turkeys, and humans react by running away.

Turkey Whispering 2

So what do you do about this? Well, DO NOT RUN AWAY, this means you that you are a Submissive Turkey and their behavior will escalate. Turkeys can learn the meaning of “no,” and you don’t have to be bullied by them.

The Humane Society has some tips to establish Dominance over wild turkeys, which will lead them to see you as a Strong Independent Turkey Who Don’t Need No Man. This will reduce their attacking and nuisance behaviors, but it may make you look like a fool.

And the Massachusetts Fish and Game website has a huge resource explaining all the subtleties of wild turkey behavior and how to combat the nuisances. Essentially, you must not attempt to make friends with them or attract them; once they arrive, you must “be bold” and establish Dominance, and encourage everyone to do the same.

If the turkeys are aggressive around children and the elderly, all sources agree that if they become a danger, you can contact the relevant authorities and have the turkeys removed or destroyed.

Anyway, that’s why turkeys attack cars. The take-home message is: the cars are too shiny and you are possibly a sexy turkey.

I don’t know what you want to make of that

Wait.

You’re saying turkeys a) have a strict pecking order, b) have confusing-looking behaviors that are well-understood by the right people, and c) sometimes view humans as participating in that behavioral communication whether the human means to or not.

What do I have to do before I get to utter the sentence “band of wild turkeys that accepted me as their leader”?

# other than mess with English grammar until that counts as a sentence  # obviously

While it might not be a sentence in the strictest sense, it works perfectly in, for example, the following exchange:

”What is that?!”

”Band of wild turkeys that accepted me as their leader.”

Tags:

#turkey #reply via reblog