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When it comes to creative writing, you can’t just wing it. You either have a knack for the art or you don’t. As you may expect, there’s more to creative writing than telling a good story. Between the pace, style, word choice, and ability to get the reader hooked, you have to keep your audience front and center at all times. If you let them slip away, they’ll stop turning the pages and just move on to something else.

On top of that, your writing should be grammatically sound and error-free. The last thing you’d want to do is send out a short story, novella, or novel replete with grammatical mistakes or spelling errors. Luckily, you can straighten out your narration and get rid of any grammatical errors by running it through https://prowritingaid.com/grammar-checker. This nifty online tool analyzes manuscripts thousands of words long quickly and efficiently. So now you can focus on getting better at your writing and delivering clean copy every time.

Lots of Reading and Developing Your Voice

One thing that all successful writers have in common is that they each have their own unique voice. Once you have read a few books by Stephen King, you can recognize that prolific writer’s writing even if you haven’t looked at the front cover. That’s what successful writers spend years developing. To find your voice, you’ll need to do a lot of writing. Naturally, not all of this writing will be great. Some of it will be amazing, but the majority will be awful. That’s only normal. When you tap into your creative energies, sometimes your hands come away empty and your writing is flat and uninspired. Don’t panic. It will get better with practice and time.

And if you’re wondering how you can develop your voice and make sure that your creative juices flow every time you sit down to write, the answer is simple: you need to read. In the early part of your journey as a creative writer, you need to read more than you write. If you write two hours a day, then your reading time should be three times that. The more you read, the better a writer you’ll become. And you don’t have to limit your reading to the niche you write in. If you’re a thriller writer, you will need to read romance, horror, biographies, memoirs, mysteries, and even graphic novels. Your reading appetite should be large enough to devour every style, genre, and writing category out there.

The process of reading for you as a creative writer is different from the way a regular reader consumes a book. Your reading is more analytical. You’re paying attention to how the writer is putting their thoughts into words, and whether there is a better way to phrase that sentiment in fewer words. In other words, your reading is critical reading. You’re evaluating the piece of writing in your hands and admiring, criticizing, and grading the writer all at once.

Knowing Your Audience

Despite what many writers and idealists might think, writing is, at its heart, a business. You can have as many lofty and pure goals as you like, but if you want to be successful in your endeavors as a creative writer, then you have to think of it as a business. And by being successful, I mean commercial success where your writing pays your bills.

Stephen King once said that if you turn in a piece of writing you wrote and you get a check in return, then you’re a professional writer. That’s the sole criteria. But it’s not always easy to write something that sells. What makes it difficult is that most beginner writers usually write for themselves without considering the audience they’re writing for. In the end, it’s those readers who pay to read your books. So you have to understand their interests. A successful writer always has the reader in the back of their mind. When your writing takes you down a rabbit hole, try to get out of there quickly.

Creative writing doesn’t follow a straight route, even if you know how the narration will end. It deviates and takes detours. It gets sidetracked, then it doubles back to the main path and powers ahead. As a creative writer, you don’t have much power over your characters. After a while, they become sentient beings who do as they please. Your task is to try to coax them toward the end line. When they dig a deep hole and refuse to get out of it, you need to take a break from writing and come back later. Hopefully, by then, you’ll find a way out for your story and bring it home safely.

It’s not easy to be a creative writer. Unlike non-fiction writers, your writing comes from the inside. You still research your topics, but you mainly write from your heart. Your background, education, and life experience all play a role in giving you a unique voice and distinct style. Reading as much as you can means that you become a melting pot where all styles and writing genres mix. Then you distill all those different influences and use them to build yourself as a writer.

When you have developed your voice, you can become selective in your reading choices. As long as you keep writing regularly and steadily, your writing will improve and you will be on top of your game and achieve the success you deserve.

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As the winter comes to a close and spring comes knocking, we all can’t wait to feel the warm rays of the sun on our skin once again. Sunny days have their magical appeal on the way we look and dress. When the sun hits your hair right, you practically glow and even the simplest attire makes you look glamorous.

But it’s not always so easy. With so many clothes choices in your wardrobe this summer, you might practically spend long hours looking for the best outfit and accessories for the day. Much like Hawaiian leis with their captivating charm and effusive joy, your summer attire should also bring out the best in you. This summer is all about comfort, simple lines, and daring cuts that make a bold statement while making you look more chic and elegant than ever. And one of the best items of summer clothes that fit this bill is the romper.

A Romper vs. a Jumper vs. a Jumpsuit

A romper is a comfortable summer dress where the top and bottom pieces are stitched together to make one piece. It’s different from both a jumper and a jumpsuit in many ways. For starters, a jumper is a sleeveless dress that comes in one piece and is often worn on top of a blouse, a shirt, or a T-shirt. Since the top and bottom are attached, the jumper often has suspenders at the front which give it a certain elegance as a summer dress.

A jumpsuit on the other hand is also a one-piece unit where the shirt or blouse and pants are sewn together. The trousers come in different cuts to suit every figure and body size. If you have a pear-shaped body, then wide legs are an excellent choice. Wear them with high heels to show off your best points. You can also choose a jumpsuit where the top has different patterns from the bottom but they both compliment each other.

And finally, we have the romper. It’s also a one-piece made out of two pieces. But unlike the jumpsuit or jumper, it’s much looser, less formal, and more comfortable. Moreover, it consists of a blouse or shirt at the top and a bottom made of bloomer pants or shorts. Nothing says casual attire on a bright summer day like the romper.

Besides their comfort and casual appeal, rompers are quite easy to mix and match with other clothing items. From denim jackets and cardigans to beachwear, casual mornings, and loungewear, your romper will be a staple of your summer wear this year.

How to Wear a Romper

Before you start shopping for rompers, you need to know which one best suits your body shape and size. Because of their daring cuts, a romper can end up being more revealing than you had anticipated. If you have a long torso or legs, then an extended romper is the best one for you. It doesn’t have a high crotch and will keep you comfortable and confident throughout the day. For smaller bodies, you can pick a petite romper that hugs your hips and reaches the middle of your thighs.

I mentioned that rompers can have patterns and those patterns can be different on the top from those on the bottom. Wearing patterned rompers can be a little tricky especially if you wear them on the wrong occasion. These rompers are more suited to festivals, casual excursions, and brunches with close friends. They don’t require accessories and are by themselves cheerful enough to spend a good summer morning out and about.

Rompers also come with long pants. Admittedly, these long-legged rompers are not for every woman or work for every event. They tend to have a bohemian look and give you a carefree yet assertive and confident look. You’ll have to feel comfortable wearing them to get the best look you’re going for. You can try out the rompers with tapered legs for more formal events. They have an upscale appeal that makes them a good replacement for soiree dresses or even evening gowns.

Rompers and high heels go together. In fact, it seems that the original designs of the rompers had high heels in mind. Even the recent incarnations of the romper, especially those with long and tapered legs, are specifically tailored for high heel sandals. So much so that, you can spend the whole day in a patterned romper then in the evening change into high heels and that’s all you need to start a fun night out in the same romper. That just shows how versatile and multi-purpose those casual summer clothing items can be.

But what if you don’t want to wear high heels with a romper for a brunch or just spend a casual morning in town? Luckily, rompers look just as elegant with sneakers as they do with high heels. Sneakers are casual and comfortable too which is the very essence of what rompers are all about. When you combine those two pieces together, you’re all set to have an enjoyable day with friends wherever you want to go.

Rompers combine elegance and comfort as only a few summer casual outfits can. You can wear them any way you like to have the look that matches the occasion and time of day. And if you want to accent your waist, just wrap a belt around your rompers and strut your stuff with the new sexy chic look.

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Why is Bitcoin relevant with regards to the Great Reset?

Probably you have noticed. There is a lot of buzz about an ongoing or upcoming Great Reset conducted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) under the supervision of Claus Schwab. What does this entail and why is Bitcoin in this context discussed as well?

The fact of the matter is that the chairman of the WEF, Klaus Schwab, has written a book about the Great Reset. His vision for the world order in this book is supported by world leaders and a powerful financial-economic club of wealthy CEO´s. These politicians, influencers and powerbrokers meet up yearly at Davos in the Swiss alps, or lately virtually due to the pandemic.

According to Schwab offers the pandemic a unique window of opportunity to restructure the current global economy for rebuilding a better post-corona world with the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals in mind. A more sustainable form of capitalism is needed: stakeholder capitalism. A business should not be run based on profit only. It should go above the interests of shareholders and entail the wellbeing of all stakeholders associated with the business. A business should create long-term value for all stakeholders and not to maximize profits for only shareholders at the expense of other stakeholders. Free market forces should be constrained, neo-liberal principle tamed. The world should strive for a more equitable form of capitalism with more equal outcomes for all.

In order to create more growth and prosperity the use of new technologies should be used in order to bring a fourth industrial revolution. The power of 3D-printing, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), data mining and cloud computing should be used. The global economy should be more digitized and connected with the Internet of Things (IoT). Even humans could get integrated. The Great Reset has a trans-humanistic agenda. Biology and technology are getting merged.

The WEF and the book of Claus Schwab do not dive deep into the financial aspect of this Great Reset. This is the domain of the IMF and the BIS. Nevertheless, it has become clear that central bank digital currencies (CBDC) are an essential component for the financing and smooth operating of this new social-economic order. The current fiat-financial system is not able to support the Great Reset vision. A new digital infrastructure is required for, for example, the facilitation of IoT-networks and the implementation of special direct stimulus programs, like Global Basic Income. CBDC´s are programmable and could be used for efficient taxation, stimulus programs and surveillance of the currency streams. More effective monetary and fiscal policies could be contrived for realizing the Great Reset and creating the equal outcomes the WEF and UN is looking for.

Nevertheless, this top-down all knowing approach is problematic as in fact the current stakeholders of the system are centralizing their power. The WEF, IMF and UN will gain further in importance. Supranational entities are in fact to gain, like the supranational, so called multinationals, have gained financially the most during the pandemic. More importantly, the Great Reset does not address the elephant in the room: unstainable exponentially growing global debt based on fiat-money printers of banks and central banks. Inflation is everywhere and interest rates are falling. In fact, the current financial system with negative interest rates and negative yielding debt is debasing the purchasing power of normal working people around the world. The Great Reset does not address this and thus will not improve this. In contrary, according to the World Economic Forum own words people will own nothing and be happy. A central bank digital currency will be easy to distribute for social programs, easy to tax, inflate and of course confiscate. This is digital money is not sound money people do not own, can save and spend as they do see fit. This type of unrestricted centralized control over the money of people is problematic.

This is why Bitcoin is important. Bitcoin is digital gold and an alternative sound money system for this globalized digital information age. It provides a necessary alternative decentralized financial system for long term savings. It is a safe haven for realizing financial sovereignty during a Great Reset of which the outcome for regular working people is still unclear. For example, increasing inflation and the further debasement of weak currencies in developing countries. There are many unknowns. Besides, as the history of collective top-down programs have often shown: the way to hell is based on good intentions. We might proactively start to accumulate some bitcoin before it is too late, just in case….

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If you’ve been on the board of a condo or co-op or a landlord for an apartment in New York City or any large city in the U.S., chances are you would have met the dreaded property manager. There is no shortage of horror stories about property managers that are rude, inefficient, and incompetent. But that era is coming to an end. Resident satisfaction is more important than ever, and property managers need to up their game. Here are some tips for owners to find the right property manager for their building.

Fluent in Communication

A large component of property management is communication. A property manager is the liaison between the building owners and the tenants, and will often be expected to find the happy medium that keeps both sides satisfied. They may also have to manage in-house maintenance staff, contracted construction vendors, or public officials.

A property manager never sleeps. They are expected to be ready to respond to issues at any hour of the day and solve pressing problems that are affecting the residents. Some property managers have website portals with forms for residents to submit maintenance requests and urgent inquiries. However, unless they can reply to these forms promptly, these forms can be more hassle than help.

Aside from troubleshooting, property managers should be able to communicate clearly with building residents about any scheduled maintenance such as elevator repair, pool cleaning, or lobby disinfection. Residents should receive these notifications at least two weeks before the scheduled dates so that they can respond accordingly to requests. The same goes for routine unit inspections.

On Top of All Things

Maintaining the value and quality of the property in question is central to the property manager’s role. Routine inspections and preventative maintenance will allow you to have a good overall view of the health of the property and remedy small issues before they become big problems. Keeping the building in tip-top shape not only makes owners happy but also shows residents that you are serious about their wellbeing.

Property managers should use checklists to ensure that they do not miss any tasks that have to be done. From a daily maintenance checklist to a broader monthly property health inspection, working off a checklist can assist managers and building maintenance staff in covering all bases. Keeping documentation of all repair and maintenance actions can also help owners prove due diligence if there are any disputes.

Although you may be taking fabulous care of your property, accidents do happen. A burst pipe or a stuck elevator can rapidly take your resident satisfaction level down to zero. In such cases, property managers need to have a team of trusted staff and vendors ready to fix problems. If your manager responds quickly but the repairman takes several days to show up, the bad press will still fall on your shoulders.

Engaging and Proactive

Resident satisfaction is important for property managers. Happy and contented tenants are stable tenants and consistent sources of income for owners. Resident feedback is a valuable way for property managers to improve their service. Property managers should be able to respond to feedback—positive or negative—with grace and authenticity. You can also allow direct feedback from residents to hear unbiased reviews on how your property managers are doing.

The property manager is the curator of the community. They screen new tenants, keep existing ones happy, and deal with problematic residents. Some large properties hire a community manager for the specific purpose of engaging residents and building a community vibe. Community managers keep residents updated on social events happening in the area and host resident gatherings such as potlucks or pool parties.

For properties with fewer doors, the property manager will often take on the role of the community manager. By building individual relationships with the residents, property managers will become trusted confidants and will receive genuine feedback and suggestions. When they understand the residents, property managers can be proactive in making adjustments that will make your tenants happy and your building a wonderful place to live.

Taking it Online

Last but not least, use technology to your advantage. It is the 21st century and we can order transport and groceries at the press of a button, so why not bring that innovation into property management? A group of creative property managers has revolutionized NYC property management by creating a digital property management platform.

The platform offers instant chat, personalized updates, building feeds, and a host of features for residents to get the information and assistance that they need in seconds. For building owners, it provides vendor recommendations, maintenance scheduling, and digital financials. The platform can even renegotiate vendor contracts and save you thousands of dollars.

Modern problems require modern solutions. Letters, forms, and telephone calls are a thing of the past. The tech-savvy residents of today love responsiveness and progress updates. By streamlining the communication and property management process, both building owners and residents can look forward to more comfort and contentment. Say goodbye to the grumpy property managers of yesterday and hello to better customer service and building control.

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While many of us may be familiar with the IVR voice talent that you hear over the automated answering machine or the increasingly human-like responses of virtual assistant technology such as Alexa and Siri, not many of us know how they came to be. Especially in the case of fully automated programs such as the artificial intelligence (A.I.) seen in sci-fi, it may seem improbable or nearly impossible that they are able to respond to just about any question without hesitation.

The process behind how these voices are curated and generated is complex and labor intensive, and certainly takes more than a single recording session in order to develop. Not to mention the fact that such programs have to be able to “read” any piece of text thrown at them no matter the subject matter. Furthermore, over the years, software developers have been doing their best to make A.I.s seem human-like, both in terms of responses as well as how they sound. Although to some it may cross into uncanny-valley territory, the fact of the matter is that as the capabilities of voice synthesis software have continued to develop, the voices on everything from Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to that in the latest action movies are increasingly able to be pass as human. So how do they do it?

Break It Down

All speech, no matter if it’s from an organic vocal tract or a computer’s speakers, is made from small units of sound. The technical name for these small units are “morphemes.” The smallest morphemes are captured in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), in which each symbol of the IPA represents a single type of sound. However, it is remarkably difficult to make some of these sounds in an isolated manner and even more difficult to artificially create in a way that sounds accurate to the human ear.

So how do programmers and developers get past this? Well, the simplest solution is to bring in experienced voice actors and have them read a variety of texts. This description is of course deceptively simple. With over 160 symbols in the IPA and thousands of ways to combine them into even a simple consonant-vowel pair, to try and record the whole scope of sounds a human is capable of making in a single recording is nearly impossible.

Does This Sound Right?

To be completely fair, no language in the world uses the full suite of 160 IPA symbols, and in fact most of them use only a small proportion of the sounds. However, with the increasingly multi-ethnic and global reach of the internet, this also brings in many new sounds and words that a language might not use on a regular basis. For example, monolingual speakers of English may find it challenging to differentiate between the tonal languages such as the Chinese languages and Vietnamese. So what happens if Siri is asked to read an article talking about various tourist attractions in China that have Chinese names?

Therefore, trained voice actors often have to carefully listen to the original source language and to study how the words are pronounced in order to best replicate them. Trained voice actors are often acutely aware of how they sound and will do their best to accurately convey the correct pronunciation of a word while trying to remain sounding natural. This is, of course, no mean feat, and it involves constant updates and recording sessions that utilize a variety of texts in order to maximize the range of sounds from a single voice actor.

Get The Right Tools For The Job

While it may seem that all you need to do is to remix the sounds from an audio recording in order to form a new sentence, it’s actually not that easy to do. Although anyone can get their hands on cheap (or even free) audio mixing software, actually developing a program that can understand questions and respond appropriately is actually a lot more difficult.

Think about it: There are over 5 billion searches on google each day and around 500 million of them use Siri. How can you possibly anticipate all the possible whacky internet searches that come with the sheer size of the user base?

The current ability of many such programs is mainly due to advances in how we train various pieces of software. Many use either Deep Neural Networking or Hidden Markov Models, and the math behind them is more than a little horrifyingly complicated. However, the main thing to note is that such training programs are able to cycle through thousands of possibilities and permutations with every new piece of information that you feed it.

Computer programs have come a long way from the huge monstrosities in the 60s that worked using a punch card system. Now they are incorporated into a majority of households and are an integral part of life. Today programs are becoming more and more human-like, finding their voice, and seemingly gaining more and more awareness. As technology continues to progress, we are likely to see this trend towards life-likeness continue.

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Restoring old places is a rewarding and exciting project for anyone with the resources to do it properly.

Some really great spaces have been created through this type of initiative. A two hundred year old flour mill can become a restaurant offering artisanal sourdough breads and craft beers. An abandoned train station can be transformed into an art gallery, attracting international guests and promoting local talent.

Farmhouses, long bereft of roof and floor, can once again become a home to a family of laughing children, filled with the aromas of wood smoke, baked cookies and turkey dinners. It is all possible, with vision and just enough money.

In fact, with the recognition of urban decay and regeneration projects, it is happening all over the world. New is replacing old. You might think this is a simple process of knocking down some walls, building up some others, adding roofing, flooring fittings and a coat of paint.

In some cases, this might be all that is required. In others, you might need to bring in water pipe locating equipment, or specialists to evaluate the foundations. It can get complicated pretty quickly if the building is protected, and cannot be altered in certain ways. There are other factors to consider, too.

Historical Value

Old buildings sometimes have a particular significance to a community. To a new owner, the place might look shabby, run-down, ugly or worthless. To longstanding members of a town, who have grown up with that building as part of the backdrop of their lives, they may take your intention to refurbish it as an open act of hostility.

It may seem backwards to a city-dweller, who lives in the concrete jungle of ever-changing and upgrading spaces, and which is too big to foster a genuine sense of shared history and community. The smaller the town, the deeper the roots, and this should not be dismissed, if you have plans for a place in one.

If you have bought, or are intending to buy, an old building to repurpose it and use it for a dwelling, business or event venue, you should first look up the state laws on this kind of activity. States such as New Hampshire have taken an active interest in their old buildings, and how they are used or altered by new owners.

There are laws which govern how an old building may be changed, and they are aimed at preserving the state’s cultural heritage, in the face of massive socio-economic development, spreading outwards from commercial hubs.

Social Value

Your new and improved building should add value to the society in which you plan to operate. Try, therefore, to find out more about the social norms and values of the community before creating your business plan, instead of expecting it to fit in with you.

For example, you might not have much success if you rejuvenated a two hundred year old barn to open a new age shop selling crystals and tarot readings in Enon, Arkansas. If you tried to open a Starbucks, you also might fail. But, if you opened a Christian bookshop, or a small farming co-op, the community would probably welcome you with open arms, and you would receive their support.

This is not to say that a good old fashioned plucky, “can-do” attitude and lots of money won’t win out in the end, but outside of Hollywood, it really does take a group effort to make small town enterprises work. For this reason, your business concept should align with the prevalent norms, and contribute to the community’s shared aims, in some way.

Also take note of the relevant permit requirements. Each large city should have a similar set of forms and information for all aspects of building and trading. This is to ensure that if you are doing work on an old house with no drawings on record, the authorities can make you aware of any utility pipelines or other government infrastructure running through the property that may be damaged or destroyed by contractors.

Material Value

And that brings us back round to the actual work involved in bringing an old building back to life. Historical buildings, or even just the really old buildings, were not built with today’s quick-fix mentality. The materials were real and honest, and the work was done with pride. To do an old building justice, you can’t skimp on materials or finishes or fittings, or cut corners with safety aspects or health and safety codes.

Do it properly, using, if at all possible, the same grade and quality of materials as were used to build it the first time round. For example, ff there were stained glass windows, find an artist to restore them, don’t just replace them with clear plate glass and aluminum frames.

The term “progress” is sometimes used to justify the destruction of history and tradition because it is easier to make new, simple, cheap buildings than to restore the cumbersomely beautiful and intricate designs of the bygone ages. Being able to return an historical piece of architecture to its former glory is an undervalued legacy that will be missed only when it is too late.

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Social media and the internet have completely changed not just the ways we socialize, shop and do business, but also academia and even the ways we write essays. It used to be the case that a fast-approaching deadline was a cause of great stress among students. To be fair, fast-approaching deadlines still cause stress, but now, thanks to online options, there’s a lot more support to be found, and it’s easier to find solutions, meaning less stress and better results.

One of the most popular and helpful sites, when people are looking for help with their writing, is Reddit, but what is so special about this online destination, and how is it of value to aspiring academics?

Why is Reddit Useful?

A key thing about Reddit that differentiates it from other social media, is its communities. The site is divided very clearly into groups and sub-groups, each gathered around their own particular topic, and in general, it’s required that members of a community stick to discussing the topic at hand, and follow the guidelines.

This means when you join a writing community, it’s exactly that: all about writing. And when you’re looking for the best essay writing service Reddit, it can help you to join groups that are specifically dedicated to essay writing and nothing else. Additionally, this means that not only will you find useful services, but you’ll be part of a community that can provide tips, advice and general support, all relating directly to the problem you’re trying to solve.

Reddit serves as a vibrant, ever-changing hub, that is organized logically and efficiently to help you zone in precisely on what you need. But what about essay writing providers themselves, what are the benefits of using these services?

Save Time and Reduce Stress

These are two of the most common reasons that students seek out essay writing support. The reality is that most of us are extremely busy with multiple demands on our time. You can go to class, understand the subject matter in great detail, and have a full comprehension of your academic specialty, but nonetheless, putting that understanding down on paper is a major time commitment.

Simply put, many of us don’t have the luxury of being able to free up that kind of time, in which case, utilizing a professional essay writer is an invaluable option. And with your schedule now freed up, you’ll be able to commit fully to any other responsibilities that require your attention.

Additionally, there is the stress factor. When you’re under pressure, running out of time, and constrained by deadlines, it can take a real toll on your mental and physical health. What’s worse, this is a vicious circle. If you’re stressed because you don’t have time, then you neglect things like healthy eating and exercise, further impacting your mental condition, and so on.

By using social media to find an essay writing service, that stress is gone, and you can recalibrate, take the time to look after yourself, and become healthier and more productive.

Professional, Expert Content

Understanding your field, and being able to utilize your knowledge in a practical way, are not the same as being able to organize what you know into a clear and coherent written form. Basically, you can be an expert in your area of specialization, but not especially proficient at writing essays. And the opposite is also true: the people who craft the best written presentations of their ideas don’t necessarily have the strongest knowledge within their field.

What an essay writing service does is allow you to play to your strengths, by taking care of the areas in which you don’t excel. When you use a professional writer, you can expect quality content, written by people who are experienced in their niche. And with the writing taken care of, you can get on with the rest of your studies.

Affordability and Support

There are now more essay writing services than ever before, and this competition is great for both clients and providers. A bustling online marketplace results in wider choice and better deals, and now you can get very high quality content at prices that are accessible to everyone. Furthermore, if you have particular needs, or want assistance in a specific niche, you’ll very likely find someone who can cater to your particular circumstances.

What this also means, is that you’ll usually get better all round service overall, not just in terms of price. Through social media and the internet, we now expect and receive full customer support, often around the clock, along with the ability to track the progress of our orders.

The internet and social media have made it very easy to find support and solutions for all kinds of everyday problems. The challenge now is simply in making sure that you take full advantage of the options available.

Submitted by Admin

That time of the year is coming again. That special time where we dust off the Christmas decorations and rack our brains on what to gift to the people that we love. The last two years have been challenging for the younger members of our family, to say the least. Confined at home and deprived of the opportunity to play with their classmates at school, then threatened by the spread of the Covid-19 Delta variant, our children deserve to have a brilliant festive season. Here are some unique gifts that will delight kids and bring wonder back to their lives.

Building Blocks

A great gift for children should not only be fun, but also enriching. As children do puzzles, build towers, and work with their hands, they activate their brains and learn to think and solve problems in ways that are smarter and more creative. Because of this, blocks have been a perennial favorite in the gift repertoire of parents. However, the blocks these days are way more advanced and versatile than the ones from our time. Lego has Harry Potter, Minecraft, and Star Wars sets that can allow our kids to create their very own piece of their favorite fantasies.

If there is something that children like more than dinosaurs, it would probably be robots. By themselves, robots are incredibly cool. But, a robot that can be built from blocks takes the cake! There are now robot block building kits where children between the ages of 7 and 12 can build their very own robots from scratch and program them to move using basic coding. As science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) becomes increasingly important in our modern education system, robot building kits are a great way to introduce our kids to programming languages.

Let’s Play Together

For parents who would like their children to get off the couch or computer and move around more, there are many gifts that will entice kids to get active. An example of a ball game that is easy for children to pick up is spikeball, a two-on-two sports game that can be played in your living room or backyard. It is basically a game of mini volleyball where you take turns to spike the ball into a round net. The nets are small and collapsible, which means that you can pack them up and take them with you to the beach or park. By playing simple ball games, your kids will learn hand-eye coordination, communication, and teamwork.

If your kids are up for more challenging activities, capture the flag kits are fantastic for an awesome outdoor team activity. You can even get capture the flag kits that glow in the dark for playing in the evenings. Similarly, fans of obstacle course game shows such as Ninja Warrior would love outdoor obstacle course kits for kids. With slacklines, rope ladders, gymnastic rings, and more, setting up an outdoor obstacle course can help your children to train their balance, coordination, strength, and confidence. For the ultimate treat, pair the gift with a ninja outfit as well!

Back to the Future

While we try to discourage our children from spending too much time on screens, not all technology is bad. In fact, certain hi-tech toys can be absolutely thrilling. For example, a kid’s hoverboard would elevate your child into the coolest kid on the block. Before you get too worried, it is worth noting that hoverboards for children do not actually fly. They are merely fancy, hands-free electric scooters with a futuristic look. Many of them even come with LED lights and Bluetooth speakers to guarantee that your child will turn heads. Hoverboards are a good way for your children to practice their balance, and can be a fun way to get them to and from school.

Virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) toys are another excellent tech option for kids. View-Master has come a long way since the thin cardboard reels of our childhood. The modern View-Master VR headsets come with headphone connectors and provide 360-degree interactive VR experiences that include National Geographic wildlife and Discovery underwater worlds. If VR feels slightly overwhelming, parents can instead opt for AR toys where children can use apps to bring anything from coloring books to rotating world maps to life. By providing an immersive experience, VR and AR can assist our children in learning and retaining information about various topics.

Christmas is an important time of year where we can release all the tension from the earlier months and celebrate our mutual appreciation and love. For our children, Christmas is a magical time where they can put aside the pressures of school and return to their natural wonder and curiosity. By thinking of out of the box, parents can make sure that what they put in the box for their kids will be much more than just another present.

Submitted by Admin

Don’t be fooled by all the expensive-looking bells and whistles you see at your local coffee shop. You can put together a delicious cup of coffee using only the tools available in the average kitchen. Here’s how you can take your home-brew coffee to the next level.

1 – Choose the right beans

Have you heard of coffee cupping? If you start looking into specialty coffee beans, you’ll see the SCAA cupping protocol mentioned all the time. It refers to a method used by professional coffee tasters to give coffee beans an objective score based on different attributes.

Trying to dissect the ins and outs of the coffee cupping procedure can get complicated fast. But all you need to know as a consumer is that the higher the cup score of a coffee bean, the more delicious they are. On top of that, the cupping scale is logarithmic. This means the gap between 90 and 95 is many times bigger than the gap between 80 and 90 on the scale.

All of this means that if you are used to just getting cheap ground coffee from your local market, you can immediately make your coffee many times better by buying ground coffee with a cup score of 80 or above from a specialty shop.

2 – Grind your own beans

Coffee tastes better when it’s freshly ground, and grinding your own beans isn’t difficult. You can do it with a coffee grinder, or in a pinch, you can use a regular blender. Grinding your own coffee also allows you to control how finely ground you want the coffee to be.

The final size of the beans affects how fast water will pass through them, which in turn affects the final taste of the coffee. You can experiment with different grind sizes to figure out the best choice for your brewing method.

3 – Try different additives

The simplest and easiest way to change the flavor of your coffee is to add stuff to it. There is a lot to love about a purist’s coffee, one where not even sugar is added. But if you want to spice things up, you can try adding different types of milk, sweeteners, creamers, and more.

Some people even add a dash of salt to neutralize the bitterness of a strong coffee, and there are even special flavored syrups made specially to match with specific types of coffee and create unique flavors.

4 – Lookup coffee shop recipes

Those fancy tools found at your local coffee shop aren’t there just for show. There are indeed types of coffee that are hard to make without special equipment. But you will be surprised at how many recipes you can get done with just a regular stove and the right ingredients.

Look up DIY recipes for your favorite coffee shop drinks — there’s a good chance you have the ingredients and tools needed to make at least one of them, if not several.

Submitted by Admin

There is no shortage of advice when it comes to weight loss. Some advice is accurate and based on evidence, some not so much, and a huge portion of advice is completely and utterly false. That’s why It’s always a good idea to consult a doctor or a professional dietitian before starting a weight-loss strategy. It’s often hard for those who are concerned with their health and weight, to navigate through the sea of myths that pollute the weight loss industry. However, we have compiled a list of simple and effective tips that can get you closer to your ideal healthy weight.

Tip No.1: Increase Your Protein Intake

When it comes to muscle building, the importance of protein is no secret. But a protein-rich diet is also effective for weight loss as it helps the body to modulate appetite, energy intake, and metabolism. The energy received from protein has a higher satiation effect than the same amount of energy taken from fats and carbohydrates partly because it takes more energy for the body to digest protein.

Eating more protein not only helps you to maintain muscle mass but also helps you to lose fat, especially when combined with exercise.

Tip No.2: Intermittent Fasting

Everyone knows about the benefits of controlling the number of calories we consume for weight loss, but a few might know the benefits of managing its timing. Within the first two hours of eating, our body is in a fed state and considers the recent food as its primary source of energy. In this period, the body stores the excess energy as glycogen in the muscles, liver, and kidneys. After the first two-hour period, the body changes its energy consumption behavior and starts using the stored energy taken from the food. After eight hours the body changes the proportions again to avoid the depletion of glycogen and starts to look for other sources of energy mainly the stored fat.

So by extending this period, we can burn more fat around the body as fat cells are long-term reserves for providing energy. For example, you can have two 12-hour fasting periods in a day by having meals at 7 am and 7 pm. Alternately, you can have all your meals and snacks within 6 hours to have an 18-hour fasting period. Cramming all your food consumption in a limited window of time also naturally reduces your calorie intake.

Tip No.3: Supplement Options

Unfortunately, there is no easy or global rule for evaluating the efficacy of supplement options. There are occasions and instances where supplements are beneficial, and there are supplements that are actually effective. But given the fact that FDA does not regulate supplements and companies don’t need FDA’s approval to put their dietary supplement products on the market, it’s important to do thorough research about any option you’re considering to take.

For instance, glucomannan is a water-soluble fiber that contains natural prebiotics that helps to feed probiotics which results in digestion improvement. Glucomannan also causes a more gradual sugar absorption, decreases the absorption of fats, and absorbs up to 50 times its weight in water. So, taking it before a meal causes it to swell inside the stomach and give a feeling of satiety which decreases your calorie intake.

To learn more about which supplements have scientific evidence to back them up, check out independent sites, and read up on reviews, such as this Night Shred review.

Tip No.4: Drink Black Coffee

Drinking coffee in the morning doesn’t just increase your mental alertness and physical energy, but helps you lose fat as well. Caffeine is a stimulant that boosts your brain activity and increases your metabolism which leads to burning more calories. Black coffee has no calories and the nutrients in a cup of black coffee are not significant enough to change the metabolism so, in effect, it keeps the fast going and is perfect for those who practice intermittent fasting. Just skip sugar, cream, or milk to avoid excess calories.

Tip No.5: High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

High intensity interval training involves short periods of extreme exercise (as hard as you can) followed by periods of active recovery and rest. These extreme exercises can be any sort of activity such as sprints, cycling, or jump roping so long as they are very intensive. Those who have limited time for exercising can greatly benefit from HIIT as its short bursts of activity allow for getting intense exercise in a short amount of time.

Since the intensity of the workout has a larger effect on EPOC—which is the burning of the extra calories long after a workout due to the body’s increase in oxygen consumption—than its duration, HIIT is an efficient way to lose weight through workouts.