#crowdfuning

A friend of mine needs to replace their computer. Something spilled in one of the ports by a cat. They need to stream to support themselves and their cats.

Any amount will help.

Dear Agony Aunt, What exactly is crowdsourcing? And can I crowdsource people to take care of my laundry/missing hair ties/taxes? Love, Can’t Keep Up With My Responsibilities Dear Lazy, Something tells me you’re the kind of person that likes being so late to the party its practically over. Here, let me introduce you: Lazy, meet apps. Apps, meet lazy. All you have to do is download the apps onto your phone and rinse yourself of responsibility! It’s fantastic. Crowdsourcing, by definition, is the practice of engaging a ‘crowd’ or group in a common goal. It is fuelled by people with a variety of different skills and put into practice by new technologies, social media and the web. 

There are ample things that crowdsourcing can involve such as obtaining work and information, to dolling out the mediocre tasks you can’t be bothered to deal with to far more tolerant, motivated people. There are apps which crowdsource people to drop off your preferred Pad Thai from the dingy joint down the road to your door (Uber Eats) and others that allow you to book a jack-of-all-trades handy man with one gentle tap (Airtasker). But to limit crowdsourcing to the aid of your general laziness would be a disservice to its proficiency. Crowdsourcing is much greater than that. Take the Panama papers for example. That was a COLOSSAL crowdsourcing effort! The Panama Papers was an unprecedented leak of millions of files from the database of the world’s biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. 

As it turns out, Monssack Fonseca was a key player in a sprawling secretive industry that the worlds rich and powerful used to hide assets and skirt rules. They did this by setting up front companies in far flung jurisdictions. But the revealing information was buried in 11.5 million files! Eeeek! The stuff of movies, right? These juicy, exposing files and records were obtained by the German newspaper, Suddeustche Seitung, from an anonymous source. The German newspaper then shared them with the ICIJ, otherwise known as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The ICIJ then harnessed the power of the big-wide-web, by crowdsourcing the documents with a large network of international journalists. For two years, the 400 journalists from more than 100 media organizations in over 80 countries took part in researching these documents and somehow, managed to keep it on the DL. The journalists sorted through invoices, emails and paper trails. Each of them with different levels of expertise, understanding and skills. By crowd-sourcing this information to a wider group of journalists scattered around the world, they were able to comb through this large body information much quicker and far more thoroughly than if the ICIJ had taken it all upon themselves. And by connecting all the info, together, they created usable knowledge. They were able to compile lists of important politicians, international criminals and well-known professional athletes, among others, who were apart of the scandal. Think shmucks like Malcom Turnbull, Jackie Chan and Petro Proshenko, just to name a few. They were also able to reveal an inside view of the world of the shadowy realm of offshore finance for the first time, which is all too frequently used to stash ill-gotten proceeds of lousy-behaviour, criminal activity and fraudulent tax avoidance. This colossal uncovering of information and corruption would not have been possible without a crowdsourcing effort. So while your laundry, missing hair ties and taxes are all crowdsource-able, its be worth remembering that there are bigger things at play here. Crowdsourcing is huge and multifaceted realm. Now you may go forth and single-handedly colonise the app store. Love, Agony Aunt 

UpCoin Head of Communications, Viktor said:

“We welcome TeslaCoin at the UPcoin exchange and would like to officially announce the listing of TeslaCoin across all available markets. UPcoin is a crypto-to-crypto exchange, with plans to support fiat as we grow and develop.”

Sur tlenter, les angels peuvent avoir plusieurs profils. Il s’agit principalement d’hommes et de femmes qui, quel que soit leur âge, leur formation ou leur milieu professionnel, ont envie d’épauler des artistes, des sportifs, des scientifiques, des entrepreneurs. Ils peuvent aussi être spécialistes d’un domaine, dont le réseau et le savoir-faire peut s’avérer précieux dans de nombreux projets. D’autres encore, approchent de la cinquantaine ou de la soixantaine, ont accomplis beaucoup de leurs rêves, sont épanouis dans leur vie professionnelle et souhaitent désormais venir en aide aux nouveaux talents. Si vous avez quelque chose à offrir, n’hésitez pas et créez votre profil angel sans plus tarder !

Il vous suffira de vous présenter brièvement et d’expliquer pourquoi vous voulez soutenir des talents. Il n’y a pas de règle ici, laissez parler votre cœur et mettez-y de la bonne humeur. Quand on veut venir en aide aux autres, toutes les raisons sont bonnes !

On vous demandera ensuite de préciser de quelles manières vous pouvez venir en aide aux talents. Il s’agit d’un simple renseignement que vous fournissez aux autres utilisateurs de tlenter et cela ne vous engage à rien.

Êtes-vous en mesure d’offrir un soutien financier ? Vous pourrez le faire via le système de crowdfunding. L’argent est évidemment le nerf de la guerre et beaucoup de projets tomberaient à l’eau sans le soutien de généreux mécènes.

Vous pouvez également proposer un soutien matériel, en faisant des dons en nature qui permettront à vos protégés de pratiquer leur art. Instrument de musique, matériel sportif, dons pour les associations caritatives, outils pour artisans, ordinateurs dans le cadre d’un lancement de start-up… Les possibilités sont infinies, de même que la reconnaissance des gens que vous soutiendrez.

Le soutien organisationnel concerne le savoir-faire que vous pourrez mettre à disposition de talents dans le cadre d’organisation de projets. Il peut s’agir de proposer vos services de comptable pour un événement spécifique, de mettre à disposition une salle à titre gracieux ou encore d’aider à la réalisation d’une campagne de communication.

Enfin la mise en contact permet d’ouvrir votre carnet d’adresses à un jeune talent, pour lui permettre de rencontrer des financeurs, propriétaires de galerie d’art, coachs sportif, directeurs de casting… Bref, la rencontre qui pourra faire décoller sa carrière.

In the year 2005 I was in a really tough place in my life. I was just about to turn 30 and The 10 years leading up to that time I had become heavily dependent on drugs and alcohol. Near the end of 2005 I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with Hepatitis C. I was drinking heavily and the doctor told me that because of my liver I would need to change things or there would be serious complications.

So that’s what I did.

Immediately after that appointment I quit drinking. I started removing unhealthy items from my life and replacing them with healthy ones. One of the healthy things I started to do was riding a bicycle. At the time I was living in a very small town on the West coast of Florida and nearby was a small island called Manasota Key. I would ride my bike down to the key and wonder slowly up it’s beautiful tree covered coastal road on my bicycle alone. I found Manasota Key to be a very healing place.

I was very troubled at the time but kept riding my bike, and started meditating, reading books about different spiritual philosophies and kept at it. One by one I removed all substances from my life within a 2 month period. My brain wiring was a mess, but I just kept riding, going to Manasota, and working on music.

3 Months went by and I went to see a liver specialist about my disease. Much to my surprise the doctor came in and said, “well, you don’t have it.” He said that I either never had it, and it was a mistake, or somehow it just went away. I really felt blessed and that some type of miracle had just happened. I took that as a sign and never went back to drinking or or taking any type of drugs. It has now been nearly 10 years and I have never gone back to my old lifestyle.

I feel like without Manasota Key, and the isolation in such a peaceful environment I would have never been able to do what I did. Now that I am reaching the 10 year anniversary of these events, I’ve started working on new music and decided to call the project or “band” nameManasota. 

I would love to be able to honor this special place and experience with a very special musical release on vinyl to allow it to exist in a large physical form, which is what inspired me to do this Kickstarter.

The music I am making for this project is all made with acoustic guitar, acoustic drums, electric bass, synthesizer and some special percussion items. I am playing every instrument, recording, mixing, and mastering the whole LP myself. I am trying to capture the essence of a peaceful but mysterious and isolated place. I have completed 5 songs so far and have shared 2 of them publicly on my website www.manasota.us.

If the Kickstarter succeeds, the vinyl will be pressed through United Record Pressing on ‘audiofile’ grade 180 gram vinyl with a full color sleeve and label. The funds on this campaign are for pressing costs, metal masters (required for pressing vinyl) and the cost of shipping the records from the factory to where they will be stored for shipping.

I would like to dedicate this project to mother nature, the small island of Manasota, and to all of those who have struggles with addiction in their lives. I hope to see it succeed and serve as an inspiration to all of those with addiction problems. Life still has many challenges, but sometimes good things do happen.

Thank you for reading this and I hope you decide to support this project.

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