If you want to improve your writing speed, there are several steps that you can take to improve your efficiency and get assignments done faster. First, you'll want to do all of your research and organize your thoughts in an outline form. From there, you can set realistic goals for yourself and continue to practice until you improve. If you're struggling with the act of writing with a pen and paper, you should make sure that you're comfortable and have the right writing tools. With the right amount of practice and repetition, you can improve your writing speed.

Falling in love is beautiful, earth-shattering, magical, and sometimes really hard. Whether you're struggling to get over negative patterns, meet new people, or create a deep connection, your feelings are completely normal. So many people all over the world are asking themselves the same question: how can I finally find a deep, meaningful love? And luckily, there are tons of changes you can make today to raise your chances of romance—and, enjoy yourself more along the way, too. Let's get started.

If you really like spending time and hanging out with someone, you’re probably wondering if they feel the same way. While it’s sometimes pretty easy to tell if somebody is your friend, it never hurts to ask, especially if you want to pursue a more serious relationship with them. We know that it’s a little nerve-wracking to have this conversation, but there are a lot of ways to talk about it without any stress. Keep reading for a list of different direct and indirect ways you can pose the question.

We all have blind spots, especially when it comes to the ways we treat others (and ourselves). Unfortunately, it can be pretty tough to take a really objective look at what your own weak points are. We’re here to help. Hit “Start Quiz” to rip off the Band-aid and see what your blind spots really are. Keep in mind, though—this quiz is just for fun!

Easy ways to tell if she likes you as more than a friend (and what you can do about it)She glances your way, laughs at your jokes, and acts nervously around you. You’re not sure if she’s flirting, being friendly, or is simply uninterested. Whether you’ve had a crush on a girl for ages and are dying to know if the feeling is mutual or you just want to know if she likes you for curiosity’s sake, we’ll help you out. We consulted our dating experts to bring you 25 foolproof signs that a girl likes you.

Looking to improve your looks? Good news: there are actually tons of ways to become more attractive instantly, without too much work. Plus, at the end of the day, confidence and self-love makes anyone beautiful. From hair, to makeup, to clothes, to charisma, read on for our in-depth guide to becoming a more attractive person.

It’s easy to wish you looked like or acted like someone else, or had the cushy job or great boyfriend that someone else has. No matter who you are, you can learn to be happy and fulfilled with your life. Take time to appreciate your talents and characteristics while forming a healthy body image and self-esteem. Focus on the positive aspects of your job, hobbies, and lifestyle. Fostering strong and close relationships can help you feel more satisfied and confident in your lifestyle.

Overcome fear and get comfortable with discomfortIt can certainly be challenging and a little scary to step out of your comfort zone, but facing unfamiliar challenges can help you feel happier and more fulfilled in the long run. You can end up discovering a lot about yourself and your abilities when you make an effort to take risks and try new things. To help you begin this transformation, we’ve rounded up the best, most effective strategies for stepping out of your comfort zone, embarking on new adventures, and expanding your personal horizons.

If you've caught an adorable ladybug and you want to keep it for a while as a pet, they're easy to care for! In this article, we'll tell you how to set up a ladybug habitat and feed it so your ladybug is happy and healthy. Just remember to release your ladybug after a few days since they tend to thrive best in their natural habitat.

You already take diligent notes, but now you’re wondering how to up your note-taking game and start taking notes that are better and more useful for you. There are actually all kinds of note-taking methods and strategies you can use to make your notes as effective and clutter-free as possible, and we’ll show you how! We’ve also included some tips on the best ways to review your notes so you get the most out of them. Check out the steps below to get started.

Weird Al Yankovic, Alicia Keys, and Jodi Foster. What do all of these celebrities have in common? They were all valedictorians of their class. Though being valedictorian won't make you a supermodel or singer, it can set you on an impressive path that can lead you to succeed in your college career and in the world at large. All you need is to have mental toughness, endurance, and an unbeatable work ethic. So how do you do it? Just follow these steps.

Hoping to learn more about the world of palmistry? The love (or heart) line is a great place to start. Often considered one of the 3 most important lines on your palms, the love line provides a valuable glimpse into a person’s romantic and emotional tendencies. We’ve covered everything you need to know about this essential line, so you can have an easy time reading someone else’s palm—or even your own!

Texting is a fantastic way to connect with a guy that you're into, especially if you're nervous about talking in person. Sure, you can text whenever you want, but there are some key guidelines to follow so you don't overwhelm him or look desperate. Check out the following texting tips so you communicate with confidence.

Believe it or not, Spanish is the second-most spoken language on the planet. Developing your Spanish-speaking skills is a great way to meet new people, communicate with Spanish speakers, and immerse yourself in a new way of thinking. If you want to speak Spanish, start by learning the common phrases and vocabulary terms. Once you feel a little more comfortable with the language, you can learn a lot more by immersing yourself in the language, taking classes, and practicing to develop fluency in the language.

Learn the best instant coffee recipes, plus how to make your own from beans Are you craving a delicious cup of coffee but don’t want to wait for it to brew? Yes? Well, with instant coffee, just add hot water and you’ve got a fresh cup in seconds! You can even use it for your favorite specialty drinks, like lattes and frappés, if you want to make instant coffee more flavorful. No matter how you drink your coffee, we’ll walk you through exactly how to make it. Keep reading, and you’ll be sipping on a cup of joe in no time. Looking for how to brew regular coffee grounds? Learn how to use a coffee maker here.

Do you remember how to find the circumference of a circle? What about the capital of New Jersey? We’re about to quiz you game-show style with a variety of elementary school trivia questions, from math and science to history, geography, and language arts. Answer these 12 “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” questions to test your knowledge and see if you come out on top!

If someone you know has texted or messaged you a message with “WSP” in it, you may be scratching your head in confusion. Don’t sweat it—this one’s pretty easy and we’ll break it down for you. We’ll even walk you through a few corner cases where “WSP” might mean something unique, as well. Read on to learn everything you need to know about “WSP.”

Look for this symbol of good luck and connect with the spiritual worldDimes can have incredible spiritual meaning. Depending on when or where you found them or what side of the coin was facing up, they can be a sign from a departed loved one, an omen of good luck, a sign that your intentions are bringing the rewards you need, and more. In the article, we have all the answers to your questions. Let’s dive in.

Flirty and casual responses to send your crush or loved onesYou wake up, roll over, and grab your phone to find a message from your crush, “Good morning! How did you sleep?” You bolt upright in bed. You have to respond, but how? When someone asks, “How did you sleep?” they want to know how your evening was—they’re starting a conversation. So, what do you do if someone sends you this text first thing in the morning? Try sending them one of these friendly or flirty responses.

The real estate industry in Mumbai has suffered the most as a result of the heavy rains and the numerous cases of waterlogging that have been reported. Real estate experts claim that between July and August, during the monsoon, walk-ins … Continue reading →

Property in India’s Tier 2 cities has a bright future, presenting residents and investors with unmatched opportunities.  The global real estate market is changing dramatically, and new trends are changing the way cities expand and change. Greater infrastructure, faster urbanization, … Continue reading →

By 2026, the SM REIT market could be worth over $60 billion. Over 350 million square feet of commercial office space are ready for investment. Among the top cities, Mumbai leads with 75 million square feet of SM REIT-ready office … Continue reading →

A federal judge in Washington yesterday ordered the Interior Department to shut down most of its employees' Internet access and some of its public Web sites after concluding that the agency has failed to fix computer security problems that threaten...

Summary: The overhead of performing even simple tasks online is getting larger and larger. I question the security of almost all these supposedly "secure" messaging systems. And I'm tired of the 'Utopia of Rules' mindset pervasive in every organization. It's exhausting how they expect customers to constantly adapt to their needs.

I don't know if you recall the game Kerplunk. It's a classic children's game that has been around for decades. I remember playing it with my sister. The basic setup involves a transparent plastic tube, a number of sticks, and marbles. The sticks are threaded through the tube to form a web or nest at the bottom on which the marbles rest. We'd take turns removing a stick at a time, trying not to let any marbles fall through the web and out of the tube. At some point, the remaining sticks can't hold the marbles and everything falls down.

The modern web reminds me more and more of a big Kerplunk game and I think the marbles are about to fall. What started out as an easier way to do things like shop, bank, and get health care information has become increasingly complex over time. More and more of the email I receive seems to be simply directing me to log into some bespoke system to retrieve a message or engage in some workflow. And even with a password manager, the act of logging in is often a chore with different user interfaces, custom MFA requirements, and weird rules for passwords. Once you're on the system, session time-outs induce their own form of anxiety since stepping away for a few minutes to attend to something else might require going through the whole Kafkaesque process all over again. The modern web has turned into a dystopian theater of the absurd where even reading a simple appointment reminder from your doctor requires several minutes of stress-inducing interaction with baroque systems and processes.

And it's not just doctors, of course, banks, government agencies, hospitals, ecommerce sites, and customer service systems all adopt these special purpose messaging systems. If you ask these organizations why they use bespoke messaging systems, they'll list things like "timely and improved communication," "convenience," and "privacy and security." But the real reason is that it's more convenient for them because these systems are integrated with their backends and make their processes more manageable. There's certainly nothing about them that's more convenient, timely, or better than email for their customers¹.

I also question the privacy and security premise. Email can be insecure. And your email provider can see the contents of your emails. But the messaging system run by your doctor or bank is likely less secure than the email systems run by Apple, Google, and the others. And achieving privacy by making everything incompatible so that you have to use a different system for each correspondent is like chopping off your finger to prevent hangnails.

How did we get here? Bureaucracy. Not just government bureaucracy, but bureaucracy of all kinds. In Utopia of Rules², David Graeber talks about how power imbalances force the less powerful group to perform what he calls interpretive labor, the work of understanding and implementing what's better or more convenient for the more powerful partner. People are not equal participants in online interactions. We don't have the tools to be fully embodied online³. Because of this we are forced to play by the rules organizations online who are digitally embodied with servers, identity systems, customer management systems, and so on. And part of that is being forced to use their inconvenient and anemic messaging systems.

What's the answer? People need tools. I think digital wallets (a bad name for an important tool), autonomic (peer) identifiers with strong cryptography, and verifiable credentials are a huge step forward. These tools provide the means for people to be peers online rather that mere ghosts in someone else's machine. That's why I insist on using the term self-sovereign rather than decentralized to describe these systems. Cogito Ergo Sum.

Notes

1. For a deeper dive into why one-off messaging systems are never as good as email, see Rich Sharing and Personal Channels. Email and other useful messaging systems exhibit a property called rich sharing that makes them much more robust that the simple idea of "sharing a message" would bring to mind.
2. If you're interested in power imbalances and how they come about, I can't recommend Graeber's book highly enough. He had such a keen understanding of this problem and wrote about it in a way that's both informative and entertaining.
3. I talk about this in more detail in Chapter 17 of Learning Digital Identity when I discuss authentic digital relationships.

Photo Credit: Playing Kerplunk from DALL-E (public domain) Prompt: Draw a picture of a boy and girl playing kerplunk that's 1200x500 pixels

Tags: web identity authentication authorization verifiable+credentials

Roberto J. Rodriguez, et al., Office of Educational Technology, Nov 13, 2024

This is a longish (79 page PDF) resource from the U.S. government's Office of Educational Technology. "The Department heard educators say that AI is here to stay, AI will keep changing, and safely integrating AI in educational settings will require informed leadership at multiple levels across the education system." The toolkit is divided into three sections: migitating risks, strategy for AI integration, and guiding its use. The risks considered include privacy and data security, student civil rights, accessibility, and digital equity. The second section is weaker, focusing on the 'instructional core' (credited to Elmore, but basically Moore (1989)), with a corresponding focus on instruction. The third section begins with a discussion of AI literacy (limited to "includes the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to engage with AI safely") and promotion of "responsible use". 

Sean Goedecke, Nov 13, 2024

I remember a phrase from some technical conference a number of years ago: "quality ships." If you ever wondered what this means, this article is for you. It describes what it is to 'shop' a software product, and the sorts of concerns the person responsible has in order to ensure the project ships. After all, the default status for any project is 'not shipped'. There will always be something that could be added, something improved. The idea is to get it in front of as many ideas as possible, deal with the issues, earn the confidence of management, and deliver the result. Via Ben Werdmuller.

Anyone can become a power news consumer by taking advantage of the wealth information being published via RSS newsfeeds. You just need to learn where to find the feeds and how to read them. Bloglines, is a tool that allows you to do both and I hightly recommend it if you haven't already found an aggregator that meets your needs. Here are some tips on how to hit the road running with Bloglines.

The State of Missouri has created a number of departmental RSS news feeds. The most recent headlines of most feeds, but not all, are aggregated to a centralized agency news portal. Every hour the State Webmaster scours feeds on her agency servers to update this portal.

With the proliferation of government web portals and pages, it is becoming ever more necessary for agencies to reach their customers by email. You can no longer even expect your most devoted readers to visit your web sites on a...

Great news for agencies, developers and freelancers! We’ve heard that while many of you love our Webmail service, the 5GB storage limit is getting tight. That’s why we’re introducing our new range of expanded Webmail plans to help take your email capabilities to the next level. More Space, More Flexibility, More Power We’re expanding our […]

Can you imagine a Prius with a big, honking V8 engine stuffed under the hood? Neither can we buy Top Gear says it's happening.

The post Top Gear Exposes Plan To Convert EVs To Piston Power appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Innovators in the field of space solar power are outperforming expectations for commercial application, motivated by the potential for harvesting solar energy on a 24/7 basis, unimpeded by weather or climate.

The post A 30-Megawatt Space Solar Power Plant Is Scheduled For 2030 appeared first on CleanTechnica.

As I sit at my computer tapping out this article, the sun is shining in beautiful Brisbane, capital of Queensland, Australia. We are moving into summer and the sun is up long before I am. When I awake, the house battery is filling up and charging the car. Soon, the ... [continued]

The post Renewables Gallop Ahead Down Under — A Queensland Sample appeared first on CleanTechnica.

October saw plugin EVs take 23.6% share in Germany, down from 24.5% share YoY. BEVs in Europe’s largest auto market are now even below the levels of October 2021. Overall auto volume was 231,992 units, up 6% YoY. The bestselling BEV in October was the Skoda Enyaq. The October auto ... [continued]

The post EVs Take 23.6% Share In Germany — Below 2021 Levels appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Many citizens in Paris were caught off-guard on November 5 when a new ban on motorists in the first four arrondissements of central Paris came into effect. As they looked around their city neighborhoods, residents could see nearly forty signs for the ‘Zone à Trafic Limité’ (ZTL) — or “limited ... [continued]

The post The City Center In Paris Is Now Designated A Limited Traffic Zone appeared first on CleanTechnica.

By Kyle Julian, Regional Director, Commercial & Industrial Sales, U.S. West Without data centers, life as we know it would collapse. That may sound like hyperbole, but our entire digital economy relies on data centers. But it turns out that data centers use a lot of electricity. In fact, the ... [continued]

The post Behind the Curtain: Power Grid Resilience for Data Centers appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The 2024 Earthshot Prize awards were announced last week. Two winners have new technologies that could benefit the entire world.

The post 2024 Earthshot Prize Winners Announced In Cape Town appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The installed solar capacity of the global PV industry is poised for another round of rapid growth, with or without an assist from the US.

The post Global Installed Solar Capacity To Blow Past 2 Terawatts, USA Or Not appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Today, CleanTechnica’s Tesla Ethicist columnist answers a question about the tensions among being true to one’s morals, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s absolutist tendencies, and personal Tesla stock portfolios increases. Dear Tesla Ethicist: I’ve always prided myself on my personal wherewithal. I self-financed my own college education by working and extending ... [continued]

The post The Tesla Ethicist: How Can I Reconcile My Tesla Stock Gains With Musk’s Skewed Self-Interest? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

I can’t say how well Toyota will be able to change course in years to come when the company realizes that it’s really time to switch to electric vehicles (BEVs). What I can say is that I’m a bit shocked the company is still dragging its feet to such an ... [continued]

The post Toyota Is Digging Its Own Grave appeared first on CleanTechnica.

What difference would it make to be able to unlock ocean data at scale? How would deploying hundreds of marine sensing platforms improve marine weather predictability and accuracy? A company named Sofar is answering some of those questions these days due to their capacity to use real-time data to improve ... [continued]

The post How Networks Of Ocean Sensors Can Improve Marine Weather Predictability appeared first on CleanTechnica.

This year, the U.S. has faced extreme weather, including record heatwaves and intense hurricanes, like Idalia, causing widespread disruptions and power outages. In August 2024, Hurricane Idalia alone left over 2.4 million homes and businesses without power​. As these natural disasters become more frequent, the vulnerability of traditional electricity grids ... [continued]

The post BLUETTI Unveils Elite 200 V2 Power Station: 17-Year Battery Life for Resilient Backup During Extreme Weather appeared first on CleanTechnica.