The Ugly Truth About World No Tobacco Day 2021

 

On World No Tobacco Day, See Rujuta Diwekar's "Injurious To Health" List

World No Tobacco Day 2021: Rujuta Diwakar tells us 4 things that are as bad as cigarettes

On World No Tobacco Day, celebrity nutritionist Rujuta Diwekar added chips, chocolates, colas and alcohol to the list of "injurious to health'' food and beverages. The four sugary and popular items "are the new cigarettes and they need to be treated like that," she said and underscored the need of a health warning on them just like cigarettes. Rujuta Diwekar's strong message came with #WorldNoTobaccoDay.

Here's what she posted on Instagram.  

A few days ago Ms Diwekar wrote on Twitter: "We are the diabetes capital of the world not because a few individuals are overeating and under exercising, but because of - -no regulations on junk food, unwalkable cities and towns, pollution, poor investment in public health. It's the same stuff that puts us at covid risk."

The award-winning nutritionist who keeps Bollywood A-listers like Kareena Kapoor Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Alia Bhatt, Varun Dhawan Shahid Kapoor among others in shape and fighting fit, is a believer of 'eat local, think global'. Without mincing words, she has busted myths like skipping rice, ghee for staying in shape. On World No Tobacco Day, Ms Diwekar took the opportunity to encourage people to avoid alcohol, chips and colas, known to be loaded with things that are unhealthy. 

Your Worst Nightmare About Facebook Dating Come to Life

 

Facebook Rolls Out Dating Feature in U.S.

Facebook Rolls Out Dating Feature in U.S.

05 Setembro 2019 - 12:28PMDow Jones News

By Kimberly Chin

Facebook Inc. (FB) is launching a dating feature in the U.S. that allows users to find romantic relationships on its platform.

Facebook users over the age of 18 can opt-in to Facebook Dating, as the feature is dubbed, and create a dating profile that helps them find people with common interests, events and groups. The dating profile will be separate from the users' main profile.

Instagram posts can be directly integrated into the dating profile. The company will eventually allow Facebook and Instagram Stories to be added to dating profiles as well.

Users will also be able to add Instagram followers and Facebook friends to 'Secret Crush' lists.

Facebook will only suggest matches who have opted-in to the service. Facebook won't match users with friends unless the user puts them in their Secret Crush list and both parties add each other to the list.

Dating activity won't be shared with the rest of Facebook, the company said.

The social-media company said that it has worked with security experts to ensure safety, security and privacy. Facebook Dating users will be able to report and block anyone, prohibit people from sending photos, links, payments or videos in messages, and receive accessible safety tips from the company.

The dating service is also available in 19 other countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Singapore and Thailand to name a few.

Write to Kimberly Chin at kimberly.chin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 05, 2019 11:13 ET (15:13 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

Facebook is testing a video speed-dating service where users have to pledge to create a safe space, be kind - and, please, don't ghost

© Facebook Facebook

Facebook is testing a new app that lets users speed date over video.

The app, called Sparked, matches users for 4-minute "dates." A second date would last 10 minutes.

Facebook already has one dating app, Facebook Dating, which is similar to rivals like Hinge.

See more stories on Insider's business page.

Facebook is testing out a new speed dating service that lets users date over video.

CONSTELLATION BRANDS, INC.

The new service, called Sparked, will offer "video speed dating for kind people," according to a landing page for the app. Users won't need public profiles and won't have to swipe through matches or direct message with people to set up dates. Sparked is free to use but does require a Facebook account, according to the landing page.

The Verge's Ashley Carman was the first to report about the new app. According to The Verge, which went through the sign-up process, the app will cycle through video dates that last for 4 minutes. If both users have a good time, they can schedule a second date that lasts 10-minutes. If the second date goes well, users are prompted to keep in touch on another platform, such as Instagram, iMessage, or email, according to The Verge.

Before going through the sign-up process, users have to agree to a set of rules: be kind, make the app a safe space, and show up for your dates. Kindness is mentioned several times during the sign-up process for Sparked, including a step where users will have to explain what makes them a kind dater. The responses will be "reviewed by a human at Sparked" before they can go on dates, The Verge reports.

Prospective users are also asked whether they're looking to date women, men, non-binary people, or trans people during the sign-up process, according to The Verge.

Sparked is made by Facebook's NPE team - short for New Product Experimentation - which tests new, standalone services for Facebook. When The Verge went through the sign-up process, it was placed on a waitlist, so it's unclear if and when the app will be live.

A spokesperson for Facebook did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on Sparked.

The video speed dating aspect of Sparked bears some resemblance to Chatroulette, the late-aughts website that cycled through randomized webcam feeds. The app skyrocketed in popularity just months after it launched in 2009, but quickly drew nudity and graphic content.

While video dating would be a new service for Facebook, it wouldn't be the social media giant's first foray into dating apps. Facebook launched Facebook Dating in September 2019, which competes with apps like Hinge or Bumble by allowing users to build a profile and sift through potential matches - like Hinge, users can "like" others' profiles and comment on their photos to start a conversation.

While Facebook Dating hasn't become as popular as rivals like Tinder, Facebook has a key advantage in the dating space: a user base that numbers in the billions, which makes it easier for users to have their profile information flow into a dating profile.

Many dating apps ban people convicted of felonies. Does that make anyone safer?

"Inside Out" by Keri Blakinger is a partnership between NBC News and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering the U.S. criminal justice system. The column draws on Blakinger’s unique perspective as an investigative journalist and formerly incarcerated person.

Jason Hernandez got out of prison in 2015 and started making up for lost time. He’d done nearly 18 years on federal drug conspiracy charges, and only escaped life behind bars because then-President Barack Obama granted him clemency. He settled down near Dallas, began volunteering in schools, visited the White House and wrote a book.

Then he decided to start dating, so he downloaded Tinder. He was open about his past, and at first, it was fine. But a couple months ago, he got a notification: “Your account has been banned.”

Jason Hernandez, shown at a park near his home, has been banned from multiple dating apps. Zerb Mellish / for The Marshall Project

Although he can’t prove the reason why, he’s been booted from half a dozen other apps with similar prohibitions tucked into their terms of service: People with felonies — anything from a $10 drug conviction to capital murder — are banned for life. These policies aren’t new, but their enforcement has been haphazard.

That could change. Match Group, which owns Tinder and a host of other dating sites, plans to launch a feature allowing daters to run background checks on potential matches. The company says its efforts are aimed at keeping users safe. But civil rights advocates say the record checks extend an unfair practice of imposing “collateral consequences” long after people have finished their sentences, and will disproportionately affect people of color without actually improving safety.

“Meeting strangers can be risky, and I worry that this approach will mislead people into thinking they’re safe,” said Sarah Lageson, a Rutgers University sociologist who studies the growing use of online criminal records. “It’s using the justice system as a barometer of someone’s worth.”

Jason Hernandez didn't make a secret of his past in his online dating profile, shown here on Hinge. Courtesy of Jason Hernandez

Match Group wouldn’t say when or why the company created its ban, but a spokeswoman said Match would “continue to develop and evolve” its policies. “We understand and share the concerns raised about the impact our policies have on people who have been incarcerated, many of whom are victims of the inequities of the criminal justice system,” she said.

The practice of banning people from certain rights or activities because of a criminal conviction was once known as civil death. People who were convicted of felonies lost all property and rights before the usual punishment: execution. Now, the collateral consequences of a conviction typically last far longer than any court’s sentence.

In some states, people with felonies cannot serve on juries or buy pepper spray, and can be disqualified from getting an electrician license or fostering kids. Employers often exclude applicants with criminal backgrounds, some schools won’t admit students with felonies, and many apartments ban people with misdemeanors.

As someone with a criminal history, these are problems I understand. More than a decade ago, I was arrested in upstate New York with 6 ounces of heroin and sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. Afterward, I stopped doing drugs, finished college and became a journalist.

I am white and grew up in the suburbs, but even for someone with such privilege, collateral consequences are everywhere — and they make it harder to reintegrate into the community. In the past decade, I’ve been turned down for jobs, rejected from volunteering at an animal shelter and told I don’t qualify for more apartments than I can count. When I was looking for a new place during the pandemic, I found that people cared far more about my decade-old drug conviction than about whether I took Covid-19 seriously. Hundreds of apartment listings barred people convicted of felonies, but I only saw one that mentioned pandemic safety.

Whether they’re tucked into terms of service or hidden in unspoken biases, collateral consequences have an outsize impact on communities of color.

“Even though only 8 percent of the population has a felony record, 33 percent of Black men have felony records, so any ban on people with felony records disproportionately affects Black communities,” said Amreeta Mathai, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who’s pushing the rental app Airbnb to stop banning people with “serious” felonies from using the service. (Airbnb did not offer a comment, but referred me to the company’s online policy.)

Most major dating apps ask users to verify that they haven’t been convicted of felonies when they sign up — but that language is easy to miss in the terms of service, and it’s on an honor system. Generally, it only comes up if another user makes a report. The policies don’t provide exceptions for nonviolent crimes, and the ban never expires.

When I started contacting the companies to ask about their policies, eHarmony said no one had time to comment, while Coffee Meets Bagel and Zoosk didn’t respond. (All three companies ban people convicted of felonies.) Bumble — which does not explicitly ban people with felonies but booted Hernandez anyway — asked to set up a call, then stopped responding. Facebook Dating and Grindr, which don’t have bans, didn’t respond on the record. A representative for Meet Group said that only two of the company’s apps — Skout and GROWLr — have a ban, based on policies it inherited when it acquired those apps. The representative said Meet Group would reconsider that part of the policy.

Match Group came under scrutiny after a 2019 ProPublica investigation found registered sex offenders on the company’s free apps, which include Tinder, Plenty of Fish and OKCupid. That’s because the company only did the pricey background checks needed to enforce the felony ban on its paid site, Match.com.

After implementing new safety measures last year, in March the company announced its investment in Garbo, a nonprofit aiming to create more accessible background checks, focused on preventing dating violence. When Garbo’s app launches later this year, users will be able to pay what the organization describes as a small fee, enter a first name and a phone number and in a few minutes get a stranger’s criminal record, or at least part of it. (A Match Group representative said any money collected will go to Garbo; Match won’t receive any profits.)

“We realized that the opportunity to build an equitable background check existed with the focus on reporting violence,” founder Kathryn Kosmides said. “We make the effort to filter out drug possession, loitering, things like that.”

But Garbo will also provide access to arrests and cases that never resulted in convictions. Pointing out that many abusers aren’t convicted as often as they’re accused, Kosmides said those records will help people make more informed decisions. Someday she hopes to expand the service to vet passengers on ride-share apps like Uber and Lyft.

Legal experts say that relying on arrests and dismissed cases undermines the presumption of innocence and won’t necessarily improve safety. And they note that while some dating app users may feel safer if people who committed certain crimes are filtered out of an app, prior convictions may not be an indication of danger.

The felony bans also have not stopped complaints of sexual violence linked to dating apps. A recent ProPublica investigation based on interviews with more than 50 current and former dating company employees found that they lacked clear policies to prevent and respond to alleged assaults.

“You could have someone with an old drug conviction, and how is it keeping anyone safer to ban them?” said Jenny Roberts, a law professor at American University who studies collateral consequences. “But a current drug user in a nice neighborhood that police aren’t policing, they’re allowed on that website. It creates a false sense of security.”

Hernandez received this notice from Tinder that his account was banned. Zerb Mellish / for The Marshall Project

Instead, experts said improved dating app safety could come from better identity verification practices. And helping people who are seeking long-term relationships could make everyone safer.

“The things that make us safer are things like having a stable family, getting married, being able to buy a house — participating in all these social institutions that have been around for a long time helps make sure the crime rate doesn’t go up,” said Lageson, the Rutgers sociologist. “So if you’re worried about public safety, the best thing you can do is bring people into relationships.”

Though Hernandez, the former prisoner, can’t prove that he got booted because of his felony, he says it was the only way his account violated the terms of service. “How can you hold something against me that I did in 1993?”

He’s hoping that the companies will reconsider their policies. But for now, he’s doing his online dating on Facebook.👫👫👫👫👫👫👫👫👌👌👌👌👌👌👍👍👍👍👍

What Make best hindi web series Don't Want You To Know?

 

10 Highly-Rated Indian Web Series You Cannot Afford to Miss

While popular Indian web series such as 'Sacred Games' and 'The Family Man'—with veteran artists in the leading cast—have managed to invite applause from viewers and critics, there are several other hidden gems that can be found across OTT platforms. 

These masterpieces—although not mainstream—are highly appreciated for their representation of common yet complex issues that are often faced by the people of the country. From highlighting the struggles of IIT, MBBS and IAS aspirants to showcasing a dysfunctional yet 'together' Indian family, or following the lives of teenagers who are entering a new life stage, these Made-in-India shows celebrate each one of us. 

1) TVF's Aspirants

A mini-series by The Viral Fever, 'Aspirants' follows the lives of three friends, Abhilash, Guri and SK, who aspire to crack India's most competitive civil services examination, UPSC CSE. Jumping back and forth from the past to the present, the series captures the struggles and drama in each of their lives. 

IMDb Rating: 9/10 

2) Please Find Attached

A Dice Media show on YouTube, the 5 episode mini-series revolves around two young millennials who attempt to strike the right balance between their personal and professional lives in suburban Mumbai. 

IMDb Rating: 8.3/10 

3) Kota Factory

The first black-and-white Indian web series ever made, TVF's Kota Factory is set in the city of Kota, which sees students from all across the globe each year, with the hope to get admission in a coaching center for a range of competitive examinations including JEE and NEET. The story follows the life of Vaibhav Pandey, who arrives in Kota to prepare for the JEE (IIT) exam. 

IMDb Rating: 9/10 

4) Panchayat

Panchayat is a Hindi-language comedy-drama web series with Jitendra Kumar in the lead. The story showcases an engineering graduate who becomes the secretary of a Panchayat office in a remote village in Uttar Pradesh, due to the inability to land a better job. 

IMDb Rating: 8.7/10 

5) Inside Edge

Inside Edge is an Indian sports-drama series on Amazon Prime Video, which centers on the Mumbai Mavericks, a fictional T20 cricket team, whose owners operate a league-wide spot-fixing syndicate.

IMDb Rating: 8/10 

6) Operation MBBS

Operation MBBS chronicles the lives of three first year students—Huma, Sakshi and Nishant—who are admitted to one of the best MBBS colleges in the country. The show follows their journey as they navigate through friendships, hardships and medical student life.

IMDb Rating: 8.2/10 

7) Gullak

Set in quaint by-lanes in the heart of India, Gullak is a collection of disarming and relatable tales of the Mishra family that includes Santosh and Shanti Mishra, and their two sons Aman and Annu. 

IMDb Rating: 9.1/10 

8) What The Folks

What The Folks is a journey of how modern Indian families are breaking stereotypes, overcoming generation gaps, and growing to love one another despite having starkly different world views. 

IMDb Rating: 8.2/10

9) Adulting

'Adulting' is a coming-of-age story that follows the lives of roommates and best friends—Ray and Nikhat—who help each other face the trials and tribulations of young adulthood, as they step into a new stage of life together. 

IMDb Rating: 7.6/10

10) Little Things

A cohabitating couple in their 20s navigate the ups and downs of work, modern-day relationships, and discovering themselves, in the bustling city of Mumbai.

IMDb Rating: 8.3/10

Maharani Web Series Release Date Live Streaming Review Rating Trailer Cast & Crew

One of the much-anticipated web series of India, “Maharani” has now released for the fans on 28th May 2021, that is, on Friday. The web series features, Huma Qureshi in the main lead role and in fact, is inspired by the life of Indian Politian, Rabri Devi Yadav. The web series solely depict the life of Rabri Devi who served as the Chief Minister of Bihar three times in a row. There are many movies and series that are based on the political life of male politicians. However, with this series, one will get to know the insight of what it takes for a female to establish a place in the male-dominated profession.

The genre of the web series is drama and is created and written by Subhash Kapoor, while the series is directed under the direction of Karan Sharma and is produced under the banner of SonyLIV and features, Huma Qureshi in the role of Rabri Devi. The web series is released in the Hindi Language and consists of a total of 10 episodes and is streaming on the popular OTT platform at Sony LIV.

Maharani Web series: Plot

The web series revolves around the life of “Rani Bharti” who is a housewife and also the wife of Chief Minister of Bihar, “Bheema”. Rani is a small-town woman and all she knows is how to take care of her family and her life revolves around her husband and her children. However, her life took a major turn when all of a sudden, her husband resigns from the post of CM of Bihar and the best part is that he announced that she will be the successor of the thrown. All the party members were extremely excited to hear who will be appointed as the candidate for the upcoming CM elections in Bihar, however, to their utter surprise, they got to know that Rani is appointed as the successor of Bheema.

Maharani Web series: Cast

Huma Quershi in the role of Rani Bharti

Sohum Shah in the role of Bheema Bharti

Kani Kusruti in the role of Kaveri Sridharan

Inaamulhaq in the role of Parvez Alam

Amit Sial in the role of Navin Kumar

Maharani Web series: Review

The web series, “Maharani” is definitely very inspiring and the way Huma has portrayed the role of Rani on the screen is definitely a treat to watch. She has done her absolute best and one must have to say that she has done a fabulous job. Besides her, Sohum has also done absolutely amazing and has portrayed the role of Bheema effortlessly. The web series showcases the life of Rabri Devi, who became a prominent figure in the history of Indian politics. One should definitely give a try to this web series and give your feedback in the comment section. Stay tuned with us, for the latest updates.

Vidya Malavade On Doing Web-Series Bamini and Boys, Mismatched and Flesh

A conversation with Indian actor Vidya Malavade who rose to fame with Shahrukh Khan starrer film Chak De India. Vidya has recently worked in popular web-series like Mismatched, Flesh and Bamini and Boys.

Here’s an excerpt from a conversation with her:

You have recently worked in a lot of web series. Was this transition from Bollywood to OTT planned or it happened gradually?

It wasn’t planned. Nobody knew a few years ago that web-series would take over and there would be so incredible content come to you at your house on your TV.

I am not a big planner anyway. I plan smaller things. But in the bigger picture, I let life happen.

I have done about six web-shows until now and all of them have done quite well and I am happy about it.

As an actor, what difference do you see in OTT and films in terms of your process and audience response?

As an actor, there’s no difference really. But most of the times, on a movie set, we have a little time to do retakes. But for a web-series, it feels like everybody is working really fast because there are so many episodes to be shot in a little time, so everybody’s is kinda running out of time all the time.

But otherwise, as an actor, my process remains the same because it’s a character, whether I am playing in a film or a web-show.

In your recent web-series Bamini and Boys, you play a sexy diva. It’s very different from what you have done before. So, what made you sign this project?

That’s exactly why I wanted to do it because everybody has always seen me in very serious roles and this is when I just decided, ‘Come on, let’s just have some fun.’ And I actually really had a lot of fun because as you said, Bamini is glamourous, diva-ish and sexy. She is a bit of a child woman. I have never played a character who is so animated. So, it was a lot of fun for me to do that. That was one of the reasons I decided to do this.

Also, I generally really like to watch sitcoms. It is one of my favourite genres. And I am very happy with the response we are getting on our show. It’s been at No. 1 on Disney Plus Hotstar since two weeks because it released exactly two weeks ago. So, I guess people are liking it. People are appreciating not just the way I look in it but also the way we have all performed. And it’s very light-hearted. Right now, the situation around is so heavy and depressing, so this is just a little light-hearted, fun thing to watch. It’s a little mindless as well but I am happy to do this.

How was your experience shooting Bamini and Boys? Did you have fun on sets?

Of course. The boys are great. They are such good actors. If you are working with such great talent, then you yourself have to lift up your game a little bit. And it sort of encourages and makes everybody come together to do better work.

It was great working with them and the entire crew. It was a small unit of some 50-60 people and we were shooting in a two-storey bungalow. It was very nice but hectic at the same time. There were days when I was changing 8-10 outfits one after the other. So, it was really crazy.

Your previous web-series ‘Mismatched’ that came out on Netflix last year was a huge hit. What was your experience working with Prajakta Koli who is a big YouTuber and much younger in age?

Praju is really sweet. I am not a big YouTube person. So, I had no idea who Prajakta was and what kind of stuff she did. So, when I went on set, I realised Oh my god! There’s whole other world. People are YouTube stars.

The girl is talented. She is so amazing. She has been doing this (Mostly Sane YouTube Channel) for, I think, the last 6 years and the number of people that love her, it’s so heartwarming to see that. And the kind of content that she makes really clicks with the audience of the country. It was great working with her and the entire cast and crew.

I think, it’s really nice to work with these younger actors sometimes because they are so prepared with everything. They have gone to their acting schools, they have worked on their characters and they come on set fully prepared with their lines and what they want to do with their character.

I remember when I reached the sets of Bamini and Boys, the boys were not able to get over me. They were like, ‘Oh my God! You have been our long time crush. You are the Chak De Girl. It’s one of our favourite films and we can’t believe we are shooting with you.’

So, there’s this whole Chak De Girl thing that happened on sets of Mismatched and Bamini and Boys. They are so impressed by the film and my character.

For people to remember the film and my character after 10-12 years, it is quite admirable. I feel really blessed.

You are recognized as Chak De Girl even after so many years. How has been your journey and what changed after Chak De for you?

I am the same person. But with time, I have become a little more aware.

Talking about the journey as an actor, I signed a few films right after Chak De. But the market crashed and either the films crashed or they didn’t start or got stalled. There was a lul for a while. But I am also a yoga teacher and that kept me going. My Instagram is full of that, if you know.

But the great times started about 3-4 years ago when the web world opened up. And not just stars, but really good actors started getting their dues. They started getting really good work. So, I am just glad that I am one of them who got to play such diverse characters in the last 2-3 years.

And you’ll see around in every web series, you’ll find somebody or the other who is so outstanding would have never got their dues in the movies. And not just actors, the web-world has opened a plethora of opportunities for technicians as well.

Any reunion plans for the Chak De Girls?

I have no idea. But I think, this is something you need to ask the Yash Raj Films. Maybe, they can do this!

But once in a while, we have our reunion anyways. Quite a few girls are away in their hometowns or have moved away or whatever. But the ones who are in Mumbai, and sometimes those who come down from Delhi, we catch up. We met before the first lockdown at my house. It was 7-8 of us. It was really cool. They had come for lunch and they stayed till late at night. It was very nice. It feels like you start off where you left the last time. So that feeling is very nice.

Once the lockdown is lifted, what’s the one thing you would want to do first?

As soon as the lockdown is lifted, we are going to start shooting again because we have 8 days of work left on Bamini and Boys. So, we need to finish with that ASAP and deliver that.

And then, I have to start another project that I am prepping for right now. It’s going to be one of the most complex characters that I have ever played. So, that’s the immediate plan. June is going to be full of shooting, I hope.

Apart from that, I really want to travel and go to the US because I haven’t seen my family in two years. I would want to go and see my sisters, their children and my mother. So, that’s the one thing I want to do.

The next project of yours will be a film or web-series?

It is a web-series with one of the most amazing directors. I remember I had written a message to him after I had seen one of his films and said that even if I get to play a tree in your film, I would do it because he is such a wonderful director. And I feel like it is a dream come true.

Which character of yours do you like the most- Zeenat Karim or Bamini?

(Laughs) You know thet both came out of me, so I like both of them. I can’t really decide but I do like Zeenat a lot because she is goofy.

Bamini also I like very much because she is really like out there. She is struggling with her professional and personal life but still, she is out there.

So, between Zeenat and Bamini, I don’t want to choose. But if I have to, I might just say 51% of Zeenat and 49% of Bamini. I love them both. But I like how clumsy and innocent Zeenat is.

You do keep up your Instagram game all the time, just like Bamini.

Yes, I guess. I don’t know if there wasn’t Instagram, then somebody would have thought of casting me as Bamini . I don’t know because everything I have always played is so subdued, proper, traditional and serious, more than anything.

So, this idea of me playing Bamini might have come from Instagram. I have no idea.

What was the difference between shooting Flesh and Bamini and Boys?

Flesh was an extremely dark series. What my character was going through and the entire storyline was very guttural and visceral. For me as an actor, I can’t stay in that space for a very long time because then I’ll just go mental. So it’s very important for me to come back to being Vidya after the pack-up. And I can do it. But when I am on set and just before the shot, is when I get into the character.

Just because it was so intense, I rememeber I have cried, it used to make my blood boil and it used to make me feel depressed and sad.

But on the other side, my director and the other team were mad people. There was also a lot of madness going on. So, it was fun also. Once all te crying was done, they;d be cracking jokes.

As opposed to that, doing Bamini and Boys was completely different. It was a lot of fun. Also, as it was shot very quickely, we were in this mad rush all the time. Eveything was falling apart on the set. There were a lot of problems and we were continuosly finding solutions or improvising.

Since it is 10-12 minutes of episodes, sometimes we used to finish it in one take.

On the other hand, playing Zeenat was a breeze. I had the best time.

👄👄👄👄👄👄👄👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

This Is Your Brain on Jobs At Amazon

 

Hundreds of job openings at Fresno's Amazon fulfillment center

The 855,000 square foot Fresno Amazon fulfillment center building has over 5,000 employees, and recently, hundreds of job opportunities in the Central Valley became open.

Video Transcript

JASON OLIVEIRA: ABC 30 has taken action to let you know about new job opportunities. Hundreds of positions are available in the Fresno Amazon Fulfillment Center. And for the first time since the pandemic began, we got an exclusive look at the changes implemented because of COVID-19. Action News reporter Elisa Navarro takes us inside the facility.

ELISA NAVARRO: In the last year, the way things run inside the Fresno Amazon Fulfillment Center have changed drastically from the everyday workflow to the consumer demand.

CRAIG NORRIS: Amazon has become more and more needed during this pandemic. And our goal is to be able to deliver for our customers.

ELISA NAVARRO: This 855,000 square foot building has over 5,000 employees and recently, hundreds of job opportunities in the Central Valley became open. General Manager Craig Norris says the safety of their employees has always been a top priority. And during the pandemic, they sprung into action and made some changes.

CRAIG NORRIS: The company spent $11 billion on this infrastructure in the past year.

ELISA NAVARRO: Money that went toward hiring social distancing ambassadors, adding secondary checkpoints, physical barriers, sanitation throughout the fulfillment, and there's more.

CRAIG NORRIS: Being able to provide a vaccination and testing site here on-site so our associates don't have to impact their daily lives.

ELISA NAVARRO: In addition Amazon is investing $300 million this year to provide a new program called working well huddle to reduce injuries in the workplace. Their trainings look like this. The pilot program from 2019 to 2020 showed a substantial decrease in injuries.

CRAIG NORRIS: We saw a 32% reduction in musculoskeletal disorder injuries. We saw a 50% reduction in lost time injuries due to those type of injuries. And our ultimate goal with these programs and others is to have a 50% reduction by 2025.

Story continues

ELISA NAVARRO: And while these Amazon Robotics continue doing most of the work, hands are still needed. Norris says with the industry growing so quickly, opportunities to move up the ladder within Amazon will always be there.

CRAIG NORRIS: I tell my team all the time that joining the Amazon is like hitting the career ladder, the career jackpot. With our growth and with how we're being able to deliver for our customers expand the business, the possibilities are unlimited.

Amazon to Start Hiring to Fill Jobs at New Erie Facility

👈👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

That announcement comes from the office of Erie Mayor Joe Schember.

A spokesman for Amazon, which has more than a million employees worldwide, could not be reached for comment Friday.

More: Amazon to create 100 jobs in Erie as it moves into former Steris Corp. building

According to the mayor's office, the tentative launch date for the new facility is July 14, but Amazon will begin hiring the week of June 6.

The company is asking prospective employees to text ERIENOW to 77088, according to the mayor's office.

By sending texts to that number, job seekers are signing up for automated updates about job openings.

Amazon is moving into the former Steris Corp. building at 2424 W. 23rd St. in Millcreek Township.

The building will be used to establish what Amazon calls a delivery station, which the company describes as a place where "customer orders are prepared for last-mile delivery to customers."

Amazon is leasing 112,500 square feet of a 360,000-square-foot building that had been used entirely by Steris Corp. until the Mentor, Ohio-based company announced plans to move manufacturing operations to Mexico in 2006. 

The company went on to close its offices in that same building in 2011.

While portions of the building have been used in years since, most notably for warehouse space, the Amazon project represents the most ambitious reuse of the building.

© FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-NEWS, FILE PHOTO/ERIE TIMES-NEWS This is a June 2011 file photo of the former Steris Corporation headquarters in Millcreek Township. Amazon has announced plans for a distribution facility at the site.

According to building permits granted by Millcreek Township, $5.3 million in renovations were planned for the building owned by Erie Commerce LLC.

Amazon hasn't been publicly precise about the number of employees that it's looking to hire in Erie, but the total has been publicly described as between "dozens" and about 100.

The company, based in Washington state, hasn't posted pay rates for its jobs in Erie, but it has been public about its overall pay scale.

According to Amazon, "Our starting hourly wages are at least $15 per hour for all full-time, part-time, and seasonal employees and contractors. In addition to fair pay, employees have opportunities to own Amazon stock, participate in 401(k) plans with 50% company match, and enroll in paid life and accident insurance."

The Erie delivery station and others like it — locations that will receive shipments from Amazon and then ship them to customers — is expected to have an expanded role at Amazon in the months and years ahead.

According to a September Bloomberg report, Amazon plans to open 1,000 small delivery hubs in cities and suburbs across the United States.

According to Freightwaves.com, an online publication that tracks the trucking and logistics industries, the new delivery locations are "part of Amazon’s strategy to grab the share of merchants who sell on Amazon but rely on others for fulfillment and delivery."

Contact Jim Martin at 814-870-1668 or jmartin@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNMartin.

Want an Amazon job?

Text ERIENOW to 77088.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Help wanted: Amazon seeks employees as it prepares to launch Erie facility.👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌👌

                                                                                                                                                                       Amazon.in | Amazon.jobs

How to Win Big in the Free Website Traffic Checker Industry?

 Talks about the mid-June Core Web Vitals release made SEOs worry. Google states that Core Web Vitals will become a ranking factor, but doesn’t say a thing about how important this factor will be. Still, when it comes to ranking, it’s always better to optimize anything that could somehow affect your positions than just leave things as they are. Moreover, Core Web Vitals optimization will be useful anyway, even if its impact on ranking appears lower than it is supposed to be now. Core Web Vitals are all about user experience, so your users will only thank you if they see your website works smooth and fast.

The hype around the CWV release made SEOs ask for some new tools that could let them turn the Core Web Vitals optimization into an SEO routine. This demand for new optimization opportunities made many SEO software providers release new modules for working with Core Web Vitals. Still, the functionality of most of these tools is too limited to let you analyze all of your website’s pages in-depth. The features that you do need to effectively audit and optimize CWV are as follows:

Possibility to bulk check all the pages of a website to have them all optimized and bringing you traffic;

Possibility to check both Core Web Vitals field metrics (to see how Google sees and evaluates your website) and Lighthouse lab metrics (to see and fix any page performance issues);

Possibility to bulk export the data to easily share them with web developers or clients.

All this said, let’s take a look at the 5 popular SEO tools and see what they offer for CWV optimization.

WebSite Auditor

WebSite Auditor is a well-known desktop SEO software solution. The tool loves the concept of “the more data the better”, which couldn’t but reflect in the new Core Web Vitals module. The tool features reports on more than 80 page speed metrics. What’s more, all the data are taken directly from Google via the official API, which means you see the same data and recommendations as Google does.

One of the WebSite Auditor’s undoubted benefits is the possibility to check all of your website’s pages at once. Thus, you don’t need to check any single URL manually as you’d have to in PageSpeed Insights.

WebSite Auditor lets you get all the CWV optimization details within a couple of clicks. Launch the tool, enter the domain and let the tool collect the information. Then, go to Site Structure > Pages, and switch to the Page Speed workspace.

Click the update sign on any column, put a tick on Page Speed data, and enter your Google API key. The tool will now collect the data and present them on the screen.

The Page Speed module will show you what pages pass the Core Web Vitals assessment and what don’t. The table will also specify what exactly makes your pages fall behind, and give you detailed instructions on how to optimize CWV.

One more advantage of WebSite Auditor is the possibility to save and bulk export CWV reports in CSV. So you can easily share these reports with your colleagues or send them to your clients.

Price: The most affordable edition — WebSite Auditor Professional — will cost you $125/year (unlimited number of pages to optimize). You can also use a free WebSite Auditor sandbox version to test the tool before the purchase. The free edition is nice for time-to-time checks for a smaller website (under 500 URLs).

Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog lets you check your website for all the SEO troubles and provides suggestions on how to fix them. It also uses direct data from Google for its new Core Web Vitals module.

Just like WebSite Auditor, Screaming Frog will require an API key from Google. This means that the number of pages checked per day will be limited to 25,000. To start your work, launch the tool, go to Configuration > API Access > PageSpeed Insights, paste the API key from Google, choose the user agent (either mobile or desktop), and set up the metrics you want to see (you can choose all of them, too).

The downside of Screaming Frog is the inability to bulk export the Page Speed report. In case you need to do that, you’ll have to manually copy and paste the lines into an Excel table. Still, you can export the reports with Page Speed optimization opportunities to hand them to web developers for fixing.

Price: Keep in mind that you can only check the Core Web Vitals of your website with the paid version of Screaming Frog. One license costs £149 per year (around $209; may vary due to exchange rate fluctuations).

DeepСrawl

DeepCrawl is the cloud SEO software for businesses and corporate clients. Literally — you will need a corporate email to log in to the service. Emails like @gmail.com are not accepted. DeepCrawl doesn’t seem to use the Google API key, and all the Core Web Vitals data are taken from their own controlled environment.

To see how your website handles the Core Web Vitals assessment, you’ll have to switch on the JavaScript rendering feature. Then, just let the software crawl your website, and go to the Performance menu.

Click on the i sign to see additional information on how to optimize a certain metric.

The reports are available in the Data Studio connector. To fetch new reports in the existing dashboard, edit and reconnect the source.

Note: Core Web Vitals will only be measured for the desktop version of the website.

DeepCrawl will not show you any data on the First Input Delay (FID) metric. FID is a field metric; to collect it, the field real user experience data are needed, which cannot be anyhow simulated in any lab environment. That’s why the DeepCrawl creators suggest using their tool together with your own CrUX dashboard to receive more accurate data.

Important! Any cloud SEO software will not provide you the FID data. This happens due to the physical impossibility to retrieve the field data (at least, none of the cloud tools does this now). As Google only uses the field data to evaluate your pages, you should keep in mind the possible inaccuracy of the lab data. If you need clear and accurate data, you’ll have to use desktop software that collects the data via Google API. You can also keep checking pages with PageSpeed Insights, but you’ll hardly appreciate checking all of your URLs one by one.

Price: DeepCrawl doesn’t have the price listed on their website, and you’ll have to request pricing individually (you’ll also need a business email to do that). Still, many reviews on various forums and marketplaces mention that the tool is pretty costly, and will probably suit businesses with bigger budgets on SEO software. There’s no information on if there’s any kind of free trial, but you can book a personalized demo.

SEMrush

SEMrush is one of the most popular cloud SEO tools. SEMrush creators decided to keep this popularity, and enriched the tool with the Core Web Vitals module.

Auditing your website’s Core Web Vitals with SEMrish is easy. What you need is to perform a general audit of your website. Go to On Page & Tech SEO > Site Audit, enter the domain you want to analyze, and choose the type of user agent.

As SEMrush doesn’t use Google API and takes all the lab data from Lighthouse, you will not get the FID metrics data. Moreover, the Lighthouse lab data don’t fully reflect the real assessment of your page and are less likely to be considered by Google when ranking your pages.

Note: SEMrush shows the Core Web Vitals data for the homepage only.

As for the exporting, you cannot export the CWV report from the tool. If you need to show it to your clients or website developers, you’ll have to take a screenshot of the page.

One more downside of the SEMrush Core Web Vitals module is that you will not get the improvement opportunities on the spot. Instead, it is suggested that you visit the Site Performance report and see the suggestions listed there.

Price: The cheapest edition — SEMrush Pro — will cost $119.95/month. This edition lets you work on 5 projects and crawl up to 20,000 pages per project monthly. The largest package (Business) is limited by 40 projects up to 100,000 pages each, but the general monthly crawling limit cannot exceed 1,000,000 pages. You can also get a fully customized edition if ready-made plans don’t suit your business needs. A 7-days free trial is available for Pro and Guru editions, but you’ll have to provide your credit card data to get it.

MOZ

MOZ is another well-known cloud SEO tool. The growing industry demand on Core Web Vitals checks made the MOZ team release a Performance Metrics module (beta version available yet). This module shows the data for both mobile and desktop website versions. As cloud tools don’t seem to use the Google API key, MOZ takes the lab data from Lighthouse. These data don’t reflect the real users’ behavior.

The Performance Metrics module is placed under the Site Crawl tool. You can check all of your pages, or you can save some time and choose to check your top pages by page authority, top-ranked pages, or pages with any crawl issues.

MOZ is probably the only cloud SEO tool that handles the bulk checks and collects the data for all types of devices. Despite the limited functionality of cloud software in terms of CWV checks, MOZ seems capable enough (mind that it’s just a beta version). The team also plans to enable exporting of the Performance Metrics report. As for now exporting is unavailable.

Price: The most affordable MOZ edition will cost $99/month. This edition is limited by 100,000 pages per week, but, as you remember, you are still limited to 6000 pages for CWV checks monthly. A free 30-days trial is available before the purchase (credit card credentials needed).

Bonus: PageSpeed Compare

PageSpeed Compare is not an SEO tool in the way it is usually meant. It’s a kind of free sandbox that can help you in competitor analysis. The tool lets you compare the Core Web Vitals of your page with the pages of your competitors. PageSpeed Compare will show you both lab and field data. Just like PageSpeed Insights, but you can enter several different URLs to compare them.

PageSpeed Compare is easy to use. You just need to check the URLs you want to compare one by one.

Facebook automates network peering to enable smoother web traffic management

Facebook Inc.’s engineering team today revealed how it overcame one of the most time-consuming problems in networking by automating a process called “network peering” that enables more efficient exchange of internet traffic across various networks and service providers.

In a blog post, Facebook engineers Jenny Ramseyer and Jakub Heichman explained that network peering involves sending internet traffic through something called a “peering exchange,” which serves as a common meeting point where lots of networks interconnect by establishing Border Gateway Protocol or BGP sessions between their routers. The peering sessions, as they’re often called, enable networks to establish the fastest, most direct route from an internet server to the user’s internet service provider, helping improve the performance, latency and reliability of the connections.

The only problem with peering sessions is that they need to be set up manually by each network provider, an incredibly complex, slow, inefficient and error-prone process, as Ramseyer and Heichman explain:

“Before developing our automated system, we suffered the same struggle. Peers would email us to request to establish peering sessions. Next, one of our Edge engineers would verify the email and check our mutual traffic levels. To confirm the traffic levels were appropriate, that team member had to check numerous internal dashboards, reports, and rulebooks, as well as external resources, such as the potential peer’s PeeringDB record. The team member then would use a few internal tools to configure BGP sessions, reply back to the peer, and wait for the peer to configure their side of the network.”

Facebook’s response was to create an automated system that lets peers request their own public peering sessions directly from the new facebook.com/peering page.

Networks must use the PeeringDB’s OAuth service, which is a part of the PeeringDB database, an open-source registry of network provider’s peering information.

“To ensure that peering requests made on our peering page are from an authorized person, we require the requester to authenticate using their PeeringDB login and leverage PeeringDB’s OAuth service on behalf of their network’s organization,” Ramseyer and Heichman said. “The peer does not need to provide any other authentication — no Facebook account is required. Once authenticated, the peer will see a list of all their network’s existing public peering sessions with Facebook and can submit new requests.”

Once the peer has requested a session, Facebook’s automated internal process takes over. Each request is sent to an auditing queue and, once approved, a second service will launch a workflow to set up peering. After that, the automated system emails the peer to confirm everything is ready on Facebook’s side. Then they just have to configure their side of the network.

“As soon our workflow detects that all sessions have been established, our workflow sends a final confirmation email,” the engineers wrote. “At that point, our peer should be able to see the new sessions as active in the table on facebook.com/peering.”

To ensure everything runs smoothly Facebook has created a monitoring system to sort through its peering@ mailbox. So whenever it detects a peering request, it automatically replies with instructions that direct the requester to the automated peering page.

Ramseyer and Heichman the system has so far processed more than 170 peering requests, approving 1,249 of them at the time of writing. As a result, it has automatically pushed more than 1,400 public peering sessions in total, saving its engineers about eight hours of work per week.

Analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said that most internet users have no idea of the herculean effort that goes into traffic management.

“Peering is the solution for higher, faster and cheaper throughput, so it is good to see that one of the major users of bandwidth, Facebook, is now offering an open-source solution with its PeeringDB OAuth to enable this,” Mueller said. “It should help Facebook to improve user experiences while reducing network costs. We will see in a few months how successful PeeringDB OAuth is with the number of peering requests provided and used.”

Facebook is now calling for PeeringDB Oauth to be made an industry standard in all public peering automation applications. In addition, it’s also exploring the possibility of using PeeringDB Oauth to automate private peering network interconnects, which are a larger-volume counterpart to public peering.

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How to Solve “Unusual Traffic from Your Network Computer” Google Error

While it usually doesn’t happen often, the “unusual traffic from your network computer” Google error is frustrating and confusing. You can get this error just from normal browsing, whether or not you have any “unusual traffic.” There are several different reasons you might see the error along with a few fixes to prevent or at least reduce how often you see it.

What Doers It Mean?

At first, you might panic seeing the “unusual traffic from your network computer” error. Your first thought is probably along the lines of “I have a virus.” That was my first thought when I saw it.

While it could be a virus, Google (no matter which browser you’re using) gives you this error whenever the search giant suspects automated traffic. According to Google, using bots, web scrapers, computer programs, and automated services to search can get you blocked. The same is true if you use automated programs to check website ranks.

If you are like I was and not using any of those things, you probably feel even more confused right now. While the above is Google’s official reason for giving the error, there are a few other reasons:

Too many searches in a short period (that period isn’t specified)

Using a public computer (when all computers are in use, there are numerous searches happening in a short period)

Using a VPN (Google may limit VPN searches more than standard searches)

Malware infection

Using search operators too often

While you’re getting this error, you can’t perform any more Google searches until you successfully solve a reCAPTCHA. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you won’t see a reCAPTCHA at all.

If you don’t see one or it doesn’t work, there’s still hope. Or, if you’re seeing this error often, there are still things you can do beyond solving endless reCAPTCHAs, which, let’s agree, everyone hates.

Scan for Malware

The first step is to scan your system for malware. If you’re not searching Google that much or using any automated search tools, malware is a real possibility. Free antivirus tools usually work well for performing a deep scan. Tools like Malwarebytes focus more on malware and ransomware. While free tools may not always offer real-time protection, they can help you remove any malware currently causing you issues.

Reset Your Router/Modem

The “unusual traffic from your computer network” could be a simple misunderstanding between Google and your router or router/modem combo. Simply resetting the router refreshes the connection.

Turn your router off, wait 30 seconds to a few minutes, and turn it back on. Some routers also have a reset button, though not all. Resetting your router is also a great troubleshooting step if you’re having general network issues.

Take a Break

It might sound just as annoying as the error itself, but if you’ve turned into a Google power user suddenly, taking a break may be the only way to stop Google from seeing you as a bot.

For instance, as a writer, I’m constantly doing research. I used to see the error every few months. Then, Google decided to crack down even more on automated searches. During one particular project, I was performing several searches a minute. No amount of reCAPTCHAs solved the issue. I just had to slow down my searches.

Actually, I ended up using Bing while Google calmed down. It’s important to note that even if you use alternative search engines, some of them still pull results from Google. So if you’re being blocked from searching Google, you may still get an error from them.

Turn Off Your VPN

Not all VPNs are created equal. In fact, some of them are worse than using no VPN at all. Naturally, Google doesn’t like any of them since it makes it difficult for Google to track you. Some VPNs, though, are incredibly unsafe. These are blocked by Google.

If you’ve started using a new VPN, especially a free one, and see the “unusual traffic from your computer network” Google error, turn off the VPN and try searching again. If everything works well, it’s the VPN that’s the problem.

Log in to Google

Though usually this isn’t the cause, I have personally had luck if I log in to my Google account and then search. Numerous searches while logged out can trigger Google into thinking you’re a bot and not a human user. This has helped me on occasion. While you’re never truly anonymous with Google, there are ways to make your searches more private.

You can also try using a different device if possible. It doesn’t always work, but if your phone is using mobile data, traffic appears from a different network than your computer.

Patience is sadly the best solution. As strange as it sounds, Google, the number one search engine, actually prefers you to search less often. Try the troubleshooting steps above to hopefully put an end to this frustrating error.

Related:

Is this article useful? Yes NoCrystal Crowder

Crystal Crowder has spent over 15 years working in the tech industry, first as an IT technician and then as a writer. She works to help teach others how to get the most from their devices, systems, and apps. She stays on top of the latest trends and is always finding solutions to common tech problems.

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