Labor pain and its relieving methods is one of the anxieties of mothers having a great impact on the quality of care during delivery as well as the patients' satisfaction. The propensity of using non-medicinal pain relief methods is increasing. The present study aimed to compare the effect of Acupressure at two GB-21 and SP06 points on the severity of labor pain. In this quasi-experimental single blind study started on December 2010 and ended on June 2011 in which 150 primiparous women were divided into three groups of Acupressure at GB-21 point, Acupressure at SP-6 point and control group. The intervention was carried out for 20 min at 3-4 and 20 min at 7-8 cm dilatation of Cervix. The pain severity was measured by Visual Analog Scale before and immediately, 30 and 60 min after the intervention. Then, the data were statistically analyzed. No significant difference was found among the 3 groups regarding the pain severity before the intervention. However, the pain severity it was reduced at 3-4 and 7-8 cm dilatation immediately, 30 and 60 min after the intervention in the two intervention groups compared to the control group (p<0.001). Nonetheless, no statistically significant difference was observed between the two intervention groups (p = 0.93). The results of the study showed that application of Acupressure at two GB-21 and SP-6 points was effective in the reduction of the severity of labor pain. Therefore, further studies are recommended to be performed on the application of Acupressure together with non-medicinal methods.

Friday, September 27 | 9:30 a.m. (PT) | Online Event Details and Recoding Here  Join us for Race, Rights, and Innovation: Cultivating Equity in the Digital World, a thought-provoking event exploring the intersection of race, technology, and legal frameworks. We’ll delve into the historical treatment of minority creators in copyright ...

The post 2024 Fall Symposium — Race, Rights, and Innovation: Cultivating Equity in the Digital World appeared first on Berkeley Technology Law Journal.

In Italy, the reimbursement provided to healthcare organisations for medical and surgical procedures is based on the diagnosis related group weight (DRGW), which is an increasing function of the complexity of the procedures. This makes the reimbursement an upper unlimited function. This model does not include the relation of the volume with the complexity. The paper proposes a mathematical model for the optimisation of the reimbursement by determining the optimal mix of volume/procedure, considering the relation volume/complexity and DRGW/complexity. The decreasing, linear, and increasing returns to scale have been defined, and the optimal solution found. The comparison of the model with the traditional approach shows that the proposed model helps the healthcare system to discern the quantity of the reimbursement to provide to health organisations, while the traditional approach, neglecting the relation between the volume and the complexity, can result in an overestimation of the reimbursement.

Underpinned by stakeholder and agency theories, this study adopts a qualitative multiple-case study approach to explore and analyse various stakeholder interests and how they affect digitalisation in the health sector of a developing country (DC). The study's findings revealed that four key stakeholder interests - political, regulatory, leadership, and operational - affect digitalisation in the health sector of DCs. Further, the study found that operational and leadership interests were emergent and were triggered by some digitalisation initiatives, which included, inter alia, the use of new eHealth software and the COVID-19 vaccination exercise, which established new structures and worked better through digitalisation. Conversely, political and regulatory interests were found to be relatively enduring since they existed throughout the pre- and post-digitalisation eras. The study also unearthed principal-agent conflicts arising from technological, organisational and regulatory factors that contribute to the paradoxical outcomes of digitalisation in the health sector.

Drawing on human capital theory, strategy scholars have emphasized firm-specific human capital as a source of sustained competitive advantage. In this study, we begin to unpack the micro-foundations of firm-specific human capital by theoretically and empirically exploring when employees perceive their skills to be firm-specific. We first develop theoretical arguments and hypotheses based on the extant strategy literature, which implicitly assumes information efficiency and unbiased perceptions of firm-specificity. We then relax these assumptions and develop alternative hypotheses rooted in the cognitive psychology literature, which highlights biases in human judgment. We test our hypotheses using two data sources from Korea and the United States. Surprisingly, our results support the hypotheses based on cognitive bias - a stark contrast to the expectations embedded within the strategy literature. Specifically, we find organizational commitment and, to some extent, tenure are negatively related to employee perceptions of the firm-specificity. We also find that employer provided on-the-job training was unrelated to perceived firm-specificity. These findings suggest that firm-specific human capital, as perceived by employees, may drive behavior in ways not anticipated by existing theory - for example, with respect to investments in skills or turnover decisions. This, in turn, may challenge the assumed relationship between firm-specific human capital and sustained competitive advantage. More broadly, our findings may suggest a need to reconsider other theories, such as transaction cost economics, that draw heavily on the notion of firm-specificity and implicitly assume widely shared and unbiased perceptions.

If partnering with local firms is an intuitive strategy with which to mitigate uncertainty in foreign ventures, then why don't organizations always partner with local firms, especially in uncertain settings? We address this question by unbundling the effects of uncertainty in foreign ventures at the venture and country levels. We contend that, while both levels increase the need for partnering with local firms in foreign ventures, country-level uncertainty increases the difficulty of partnering with local firms and decreases the likelihood of such partnerships. We also posit that experiential learning helps firms manage the two types of uncertainty, and thereby reduces the need for partnering—yet, experience in the host country makes partnering more feasible and increases the likelihood of such partnerships. To test our hypotheses, we conceptualize the decision to partner with a local firm in a foreign venture as a multilayered decision, and model it accordingly. Using a global sample of venture capital investments made between 1984 and 2011, we find support for the distinct effects of venture- and country-level uncertainty as well as for corresponding levels of experiential learning. These findings have implications for the literature on cross-border venture capital investment and international business in general.

Psychological empowerment has been studied extensively over the past few decades in a variety of contexts and appears to be especially salient within dynamic and complex environments such as healthcare. However, a recent meta-analysis found that psychological empowerment relationships vary significantly across studies, and there is still a rather limited understanding of how empowerment operates across levels. Accordingly, we advance and test a multi-level model of empowerment which seeks to better understand the unique and synergistic effects between unit and individual empowerment in hospital units. Analysis of data involving 544 individuals in 78 units, collected from multiple sources over three different time periods, revealed that unit empowerment evidenced a synergistic interaction with individual-level psychological empowerment as related to individuals' job performance, as well as an indirect effect on performance via individual empowerment, while controlling for previous performance levels. Notably, these effects were significant at relatively high, but not at relatively low levels of unit empowerment. Furthermore, we found that unit voice climate increased unit empowerment and thereby enhanced individual psychological empowerment. These findings suggest that, in complex and dynamic environments, empowering work units is an important means by which leaders can enhance individuals' performance.

After new ventures have exhausted the limited financial resources of founders, family, and friends, they often pursue initial external capital. To secure investment, entrepreneurs can signal about their venture's latent potential by aligning themselves with reliable third parties. Such affiliations affirm the new venture's legitimacy and provide substantive benefits in the form of mentoring, access to resources, and ongoing monitoring. However, early stage financing is an especially "noisy" signaling environment owing to the large number of startups seeking funding, many of which will not survive. The real value of third party affiliations in this context resides in their ability to unlock the potential of other more pedestrian signals, such as the entrepreneur's characteristics and actions that might otherwise go unnoticed. We borrow from the sensemaking literature to explain how third party affiliation signals disambiguate signals with multiple possible interpretations so that potential investors interpret them positively. Findings support our theory that a startup's characteristics and actions are signals that remain relatively unnoticed unless a startup combines them with a third party affiliation that enhances the signal's value, thus increasing the likelihood of receiving external capital.

A key finding in the literature on industry evolution and strategy is that knowledge "inherited" from the founder's previous employer can be an important source of a new firm's capabilities. We analyze the conditions under which knowledge that is useful for carrying out a key value chain activity is inherited, and explore the mechanism through which such an inheritance shapes an entrant's strategies and, in the process, influences its performance. Evidence from the early U.S. auto industry indicates that employee spinoffs generated from incumbents that had integrated a key value chain activity were also more likely to integrate that activity than other entrants, which, we suggest, reflects the application of knowledge inheritance relative to that activity. Moreover, we find that the integration of this key activity, stimulated by knowledge inheritance, contributed to the establishment of defensible strategic positioning, thereby enhancing the survival duration of inheriting spinoffs. We thus link together the phenomena of knowledge inheritance, vertical integration, and strategic positioning to explain entrant performance. These three phenomena tend to be treated disparately in the literature, rather than in combination.

"Best Places to Work" (BPTW) and similar competitions are a proliferating form of third party employment branding. Little is known, however, about how single or repeated third party employment branding occurrences relate to key human capital outcomes. Extending signaling theory by considering signal credibility and comparability, we use archival and survey data from 624 BPTW participants in sixteen competitions across a three-year period to develop and test hypotheses linking BPTW certifications to collective turnover rates and key informant perceptions of applicant pool quality. We find that certifications are associated with lower turnover rates, and in addition, propose competing crystallization and celebrity hypotheses that model turnover trajectories with repeated certifications, finding diminishing marginal turnover reductions across multiple certifications. We also examine company size and industry job opening moderators, finding that as certifications increase, applicant pool quality is (1) higher in smaller companies and (2) higher when job openings are scarcer. Finally, beyond being certified or not, we find supplemental evidence for effects of the specific certification level achieved (e.g., 2nd versus 15th). This investigation advances theory related to collective turnover, applicant pool quality, and employment branding, and is relevant to company decisions about seeking or re-seeking third party certifications.

Organizational theorists are increasingly interested in the antecedents of terminating interorganizational relationships, but have paid little attention to the disruptive consequences of such terminations on future tie formation. To redress this imbalance, the present study focuses on how venture capital (VC) firms' withdrawals from VC syndicates are associated with their subsequent syndication over the 1985 through 2008 period. We argue that withdrawals disrupt the relationships of the withdrawing VC firms with the coinvestors and reduce the likelihood of them entering into subsequent exchange (relational consequences). Furthermore, public information on the withdrawals can undermine the withdrawing VC firm's reputation for reliability, making it a less desirable exchange partner overall (global reputational consequences). Finally, we find that abandoned coinvestors can spread negative, private information about the withdrawing firm, reducing its chances of syndication with their other network contacts (local reputational consequences). We also show that the global and local reputational consequences attenuate each other, due to redundancy in the content of information each provides. We discuss the implications of our theory for the research on network dynamics and reputation.

The burgeoning economic inequality between the richest and the poorest is a cause of concern for social, political, and ethical reasons. While businesses are both implicated and affected by growing inequality, business schools have largely neglected to subject the phenomenon to sufficient critique. This is, in part, because far too many management educators rely on orthodox economic perspectives—often represented by neoliberal capitalism—which have dominated the curricula and the teaching philosophy of business schools. To address this issue, this article underscores the need for business schools to critically examine the relationship between neoliberal capitalism and economic inequalities, and to overtly engage with this nexus in pedagogical practice. The article concludes by revisiting the concepts of relationality and answerability as paths by which to address the current predicament. Relationality and answerability collectively offer: i) conceptual and reflexive tools by which to re-imagine business school education, and, ii) space for business schools to debate important questions about the taken-for-granted, but problematic, assumptions underlying the ideology of neoliberal capitalism

Resource dependence theorists argue that boards of directors with political capital can benefit focal firms by reducing uncertainty and providing preferential resources. Here, we develop theory regarding the downside of board political capital. As the principal-principal agency problem characterizes many parts of the world, we argue that board political capital can exacerbate this problem by enabling large blockholders to undertake more appropriation of firm wealth. Further, we explore how this enabling effect is moderated by ownership-, industry-, and environment-level contingencies. We find empirical support for our arguments using 32,174 directors in 1,046 Chinese listed firms over the period 2008 - 2011. Our study sheds light on new ways in which resource dependence and agency theories can be integrated to advance the extant research on board governance and corporate political strategy.

Money is a representation of wealth. A US dollar represents a fraction of the total wealth of the country. This definition underlies any discussion of currency, whether physical cash or digital tokens. Gold and silver have traditionally been used to represent a store of value that is intrinsic to a coin minted from

NEW DELHI: Residents of India’s capital New Delhi choked in a blanketing toxic smog Wednesday as worsening air pollution surged past 50 times the World Health Organization’s recommended daily maximum.

Many in the city cannot afford air filters, nor do they have homes they can effectively seal from the misery of foul smelling air blamed for thousands of premature deaths.

Cooler temperatures and slow-moving winds trap deadly pollutants each winter, stretching from mid-October until at least January.

At dawn on Wednesday, “hazardous” pollutant levels in parts of the sprawling urban area of more than 30 million people topped 806 micrograms per cubic metre, according to monitoring firm IQAir.

That is more than 53 times the World Health Organization recommended daily maximum of fine particulate matter -- dangerous cancer-causing microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants that enter the bloodstream through the lungs.

By midday, when air usually is at its best, it eased to about 25-35 times above danger levels, depending on different districts.

The city is blanketed in acrid smog each year, primarily blamed on stubble burning by farmers in neighbouring regions to clear their fields for ploughing, as well as factories and traffic fumes.

‘Alarming’

But a report by The New York Times this month, based on air and soil samples it collected over five years, revealed the dangerous fumes also spewing from a power plant incinerating the city’s landfill garbage mountains.

Experts the newspaper spoke to said that the levels of heavy metals found were “alarming”.

Swirling white clouds of smog also delayed several flights across northern India.

The India Meteorological Department said that at least 18 regional airports had a visibility lower than 1,000 metres (1,093 yards) -- dropping below 500 metres in Delhi.

India’s Supreme Court last month ruled that clean air was a fundamental human right, ordering both the central government and state-level authorities to take action.

But critics say arguments between rival politicians heading neighbouring states -- as well as between central and state-level authorities -- have compounded the problem.

Politicians are accused of not wanting to anger key figures in their constituencies, particularly powerful farming groups.

City authorities have launched several initiatives to tackle pollution, which have done little in practice.

Government trucks are regularly used to spray water to briefly dampen the pollution.

A new scheme unveiled earlier this month to use three small drones to spray water mist was derided by critics as another “band-aid” solution to a public health crisis.

The WHO says that air pollution can trigger strokes, heart disease, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases.

It is particularly punishing for babies, children and the elderly.

A study in The Lancet medical journal attributed 1.67 million premature deaths to air pollution in the world’s most populous country in 2019.

KUALA LUMPUR: A group of planters and stakeholders in the East West One Group (EWOG) schemes urgently calls on Pacific Trustees Bhd (PTB) to release the funds necessary for the company’s approved rehabilitation and restructuring (R&R) exercise.

The majority of EWOG’s investors, represented by Thirunavukarasu Illamurugan, Yong Chin Koi, and Mahadevan Kathirgamathamby, are concerned that PTB’s continued withholding of these funds could further damage the company’s financial health, potentially leading to irreversible losses.

To recap, EWOG obtained planters’ approval of the company’s R&R exercise across all three schemes: East West One Planter’s Scheme (EWOP), East West Horizon Planter’s Scheme, and East-West Planter Scheme 1.

EWOG, in a statement, said the past few years have seen significant challenges that have severely impacted plantation operations, including the global Covid-19 pandemic, La Niña weather phenomena, industry-wide labour shortages, land disputes with landowners, and repeated injunctions that prevented timely convening of planters’ meetings from addressing these issues.

These cumulative challenges have compounded the company’s cash flow problems, resulting in an inability to meet payment obligations.

According to a statement by EWOG, despite the overwhelming support for the R&R plan from planters and stakeholders at the August 12 Planters’ Meeting, critical rehabilitation work on EWOG’s plantation assets remains stalled due to this delay.

For over a year, the plantation palms have relied solely on natural soil fertility, with no structured fertilisation or agronomic practices.

Prompt initiation of the R&R program is essential to restoring the plantation’s productivity.

This program leverages enhanced agronomic practices and inputs to increase fresh fruit bunch (FFB) production.

With crude palm oil (CPO) prices currently above RM4,000 per ton and projected to hold through 2025, the company has a unique window to capitalise on these favourable market conditions.

Proceeds from FFB sales could also partially offset ongoing rehabilitation costs, creating a sustainable pathway to recovery.

“Every day of delay further impacts our ability to restore the plantation and diminishes potential returns for all investors,” said Thirunavukarasu in the statement.

“These funds, specifically held in trust for the plantation’s rehabilitation, need to be released without further delay,“ he said in the statement.

According to a recent court filing by East West Horizon Plantation Bhd, the management continues to face challenges due to PTB’s reluctance to finalise necessary trust deeds despite ongoing efforts from EWOG’s management and legal team.

This impasse prevents the release of funds crucial for the R&R efforts, posing increased risks to the plantation assets and investor returns.

The investors’ representatives stressed that “a swift resolution is essential to launch the rehabilitation efforts and generate returns for all stakeholders.”

“It is time to move past the standstill and allow the EWOG group to implement the R&R plan for the benefit of all involved.”

Hyundai Rotem, a subsidiary of South Korea’s Hyundai Group, has announced a pioneering development for the Republic of Korea (ROK) Army: a hydrogen-powered K3 main battle tank. Set to be among the most advanced military vehicles in the world, the K3 aims to redefine future warfare by leveraging eco-friendly fuel cells, autonomous technologies, and advanced firepower.

Hyundai Rotem’s K3 project is a collaborative effort with South Korea’s Agency for Defence Development and other national research institutions, with production tentatively scheduled to begin by 2040. The shift to hydrogen marks a historic step in South Korea’s commitment to reduce reliance on traditional combustion engines in defence equipment. The K3’s hydrogen fuel cell will eventually replace the diesel engines of the ROK’s K-series tanks, beginning with hybrid prototypes that combine hydrogen and diesel power.

In an online statement, Hyundai Rotem described the K3 as “a next-generation main battle tank that surpasses all capabilities of today’s MBTs (main battle tanks), optimised for evolving battlefield demands.” Key enhancements to the K3 include autonomous driving, AI-based fire control, and a 130-mm smoothbore main gun for increased preemptive strike capabilities. Additionally, the tank will feature improved stealth capabilities, a reduced heat signature, and the deployment of slave drones to enhance reconnaissance and support combat operations.

Fuel cell technology offers multiple advantages, including quieter operation, faster acceleration, superior fuel efficiency, and reduced maintenance due to fewer moving parts. With minimal heat output and sound, the tank achieves heightened stealth, making it less detectable in combat scenarios. Mobility is also improved, allowing the K3 to maneuver through steep and rugged terrains more effectively.

Designed to operate with a streamlined crew of three—a driver, commander, and gunner—the crew will be secured within a reinforced armoured capsule at the front of the tank. This layout ensures enhanced protection and operational efficiency.

The hydrogen-powered K3 demonstrates South Korea’s commitment to integrating sustainable, high-performance technologies into its military arsenal, setting a benchmark for modern warfare with cleaner and more capable military assets.

Philippine troops will join Australia's largest military exercise for the first time next year, while the Australian Defense Force will make their debut in Philippine-led war games, both countries' defense chiefs announced Wednesday, November 13.

The House of Representatives saw quite a toned-down but more gutsy version of former President Rodrigo Duterte as he refrained from swearing at the House probe into his bloody anti-narcotics campaign.

SHC dismayed over Sindh govt 'dragging its feet on the matter'

Actor was previously married to former model Aliza Sultan until 2022

Visa investing in building digital payment infrastructure in the country to make process less costly, more manageable

A fire at a Digital Realty Singapore datacenter by a lithium-ion battery explosion disrupts Alibaba Cloud services.

Hospital staff receiving bodies realised he was alive despite being shot five times

Ejaz shared birthday celebrations in her YouTube vlog; voiced concerns about inadequate private hospital facilities

Exhibition features over 25 art pieces of different artists

Senior minister urges motorbike owners to get fitness certificates

Alleged failures to address key issues lead to growing tensions between high-profile industry leaders in tech world

The study is the first to provide global picture of inadequate consumption of 15 micronutrients useful for humans

Meghan Markle is reportedly irritated by Kate Middleton and Prince William’s efforts to get Prince Harry back.

The Duchess of Sussex, who lives with the duke in California, is apprehensive any reconciliation efforts from the Royals could break her...

Say they want ‘hard facts’ on the matter.

FDA announced this week the formation of a new advisory committee – the Digital Health Advisory Committee – for the purpose of providing the agency with advice on matters related to digital health technologies (DHT). FDA does not form new … Continue reading →

A 2020 report had recommended investigations into 19 soldiers for the killing of 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners.

While technology is key for digital transformation in healthcare, the human element is equally, if not more, important

Posts circulating on social media claim that politician and lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan has accused two senior Supreme Court judges, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah and Justice Munib Akhtar, of facilitating a political party.

The claim is false.

On October 23, a user on X posted a...

Priyanka Chopra introduces daughter Malti to 'Citadel' world

Priyanka Chopra is keeping a smooth balance between work and life as shooting for the second season of Citadel begins.

The actress, 42, just announced the return via an Instagram post where the crew for...

Health department to restart contact tracing for coronavirus

Privacy: In the analog world of our parents, leaks to the press were heavily protected in both ends – both for the leaker and for the reporter receiving the leak. In the digital world of our children, this has been unceremoniously thrown out the window while discussing something unrelated entirely. Why aren’t our digital children afforded the same checks and balances?

Another area where privacy rights have not been carried over from the analog to the digital concerns journalism, an umbrella of different activities we consider to be an important set of checks-and-balances on power in society. When somebody handed over physical documents to a reporter, that was an analog action that was protected by federal and state laws, and sometimes even by constitutions. When somebody is handing over digital access to the same information to the same type of reporter, reflecting the way we work today and the way our children will work in the future, that is instead prosecutable at both ends.

Let us illustrate this with an example from the real world.

In the 2006 election in Sweden, there was an outcry of disastrous information hygiene on behalf of the ruling party at the time (yes, the same ruling party that later administered the worst governmental leak ever). A username and password circulated that gave full access to the innermost file servers of the Social Democratic party administration from anywhere. The username belonged to a Stig-Olof Friberg, who was using his nickname “sigge” as username, and the same “sigge” as password, and who accessed the innermost files over the Social Democratic office’s unencrypted, open, wireless network.

Calling this “bad opsec” doesn’t begin to describe it. Make a careful note to remember that these were, and still are, the institutions and people we rely on to make policy for good safeguarding of sensitive citizen data.

However, in the shadow of this, there was also the more important detail that some political reporters were well aware of the login credentials, such as one of Sweden’s most (in)famous political reporters Niklas Svensson, who had been using the credentials as a journalistic tool to gain insight into the ruling party’s workings.

This is where it gets interesting, because in the analog world, that reporter would have received leaks in the form of copied documents, physically handed over to him, and leaking to the press in this analog manner was (and still is) an extremely protected activity under law and indeed some constitutions — in Sweden, as this concerns, you can even go to prison for casually speculating over coffee at work who might have been behind a leak to the press. It is taken extremely seriously.

However, in this case, the reporter wasn’t leaked the documents, but was leaked a key for access to the digital documents — the ridiculously insecure credentials “sigge/sigge” — and was convicted in criminal court for electronic trespassing as a result, despite doing journalistic work with a clear analog protected equivalent.

It’s interesting to look at history to see how much critically important events would never have been uncovered, if this prosecution of digital journalism had been applied to analog journalism.

For one example, let’s take the COINTELPRO leak, when activists copied files from an FBI office to uncover a covert and highly illegal operation by law enforcement to discredit political organizations based solely on their political opinion. (This is not what law enforcement should be doing, speaking in general terms.) This leak happened when activists put up a note on the FBI office door on March 8, 1971 saying “Please do not lock this door tonight”, came back in the middle of the night when nobody was there, found the door unlocked as requested, and took (stole) about 1,000 classified files that revealed the illegal practices.

These were then mailed to various press outlets. The theft resulted in the exposure of some of the FBI’s most self-incriminating documents, including several documents detailing the FBI’s use of postal workers, switchboard operators, etc., in order to spy on black college students and various non-violent black activist groups, according to Wikipedia. And here’s the kicker in the context: while the people stealing the documents could and would have been indicted for doing so, it was unthinkable to charge the reporters receiving them with anything.

This is no longer the case.

Our digital children have lost the right to leak information to reporters in the way the world works today, an activity that was taken for granted — indeed, seen as crucially important to the balance of power — in the world of our digital parents. Our digital children who work as reporters can no longer safely receive leaks showing abuse of power. It is entirely reasonable that our digital children should have at least the same set of civil liberties in their digital world, as our parents had in their analog world.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

Privacy: We’ve seen how our digital children’s privacy is violated in everything they buy with cash or credit, in a way our analog parents would have balked at. But even worse: our digital children’s privacy is also violated by tracking what they don’t buy — either actively decline or just plain walk away from.

Amazon just opened its first “Amazon Go” store, where you just pick things into a bag and leave, without ever going through a checkout process. As part of the introduction of this concept, Amazon points out that you can pick something off the shelves, at which point it’ll register in your purchase — and change your mind and put it back, at which point you’ll be registered and logged as having not purchased the item.

Sure, you’re not paying for something you changed your mind about, which is the point of the video presentation. But it’s not just about the deduction from your total amount to pay: Amazon also knows you considered buying it and eventually didn’t, and will be using that data.

Our digital children are tracked this way on a daily basis, if not an hourly basis. Our analog parents never were.

When we’re shopping for anything online, there are even simple plugins for the most common merchant solutions with the business terms “funnel analysis” — where in the so-called “purchase funnel” our digital children choose to leave the process of purchasing something — or “cart abandonment analysis”.

We can’t even simply walk away from something anymore without it being recorded, logged, and cataloged for later use against us.

But so-called “cart abandonment” is only one part of the bigger issue of tracking what we’re interested in in the age of our digital children, but didn’t buy. There is no shortage of people today who would swear they were just discussing a very specific type of product with their phone present (say, “black leather skirts”) and all of a sudden, advertising for that very specific type of product would pop up all over Facebook and/or Amazon ads. Is this really due to some company listening for keywords through the phone? Maybe, maybe not. All we know since Snowden is that if it’s technically possible to invade privacy, it is already happening.

(We have to assume here these people still need to learn how to install a simple adblocker. But still.)

At the worst ad-dense places, like (but not limited to) airports, there are eyeball trackers to find out which ads you look at. They don’t yet change to match your interests, as per Minority Report, but that’s already present on your phone and on your desktop, and so wouldn’t be foreign to see in public soon, either.

In the world of our analog parents, we weren’t registered and tracked when we bought something.

In the world of our digital children, we’re registered and tracked even when we don’t buy something.

Privacy: At worst, our analog parents could be prevented from meeting each other. Our digital children are prevented from talking about particular subjects, once the conversation is already happening. This is a horrifying development.

When our digital children are posting a link to The Pirate Bay somewhere on Facebook, a small window sometimes pops up saying “you have posted a link with potentially harmful content. Please refrain from posting such links.”

Yes, even in private conversations. Especially in private conversations.

This may seem like a small thing, but it is downright egregious. Our digital children are not prevented from having a conversation, per se, but are monitored for bad topics that the regime doesn’t like being discussed, and are prevented from discussing those topics. This is far worse than preventing certain people from just meeting.

The analog equivalent would be if our parents were holding an analog phone conversation, and a menacing third voice popped into the conversation with a slow voice speaking just softly enough to be perceived as threatening: “You have mentioned a prohibited subject. Please refrain from discussing prohibited subjects in the future.”

Our parents would have been horrified if this happened — and rightly so!

But in the digital world of our children, the same phenomenon is instead cheered on by the same people who would abhor it if it happened in their world, to themselves.

In this case, of course, it is any and all links to The Pirate Bay that are considered forbidden topics, under the assumption — assumption! — that they lead to manufacturing of copies that would be found in breach of the copyright monopoly in a court of law.

When I first saw the Facebook window above telling me to not discuss forbidden subjects, I was trying to distribute political material I had created myself, and used The Pirate Bay to distribute. It happens to be a very efficient way to distribute large files, which is exactly why it is being used by a lot of people for that purpose (gee, who would have thought?), including people like myself who wanted to distribute large collections of political material.

There are private communications channels, but far too few use them, and the politicians at large (yes, this includes our analog parents) are still cheering on this development, because “terrorism” and other bogeymen.

Privacy remains your own responsibility.

Privacy: In a series of posts on this blog, we have shown how practically everything our parents took for granted with regards to privacy has been completely eliminated for our children, just because they use digital tools instead of analog, and the people interpreting the laws are saying that privacy only applies to the old, analog environment of our parents.

Once you agree with the observation that privacy seems to simply not apply for our children, merely for living in a digitally-powered environment instead of our parents’ analog-powered one, surprise turns to shock turns to anger, and it’s easy to want to assign blame to someone for essentially erasing five generations’ fight for civil liberties while people were looking the other way.

So whose fault is it, then?

It’s more than one actor at work here, but part of the blame must be assigned to the illusion that that nothing has changed, just because our digital children can use old-fashioned and obsolete technology to obtain the rights they should always have by law and constitution, regardless of which method they use to talk to friends and exercise their privacy rights.

We’ve all heard these excuses.

“You still have privacy of correspondence, just use the old analog letter”. As if the Internet generation would. You might as well tell our analog parents that they would need to send a wired telegram to enjoy some basic rights.

“You can still use a library freely.” Well, only an analog one, not a digital one like The Pirate Bay, which differs from an analog library only in efficiency, and not in anything else.

“You can still discuss anything you like.” Yes, but only in the analog streets and squares, not in the digital streets and squares.

“You can still date someone without the government knowing your dating preferences.” Only if I prefer to date like our parents did, in the unsafe analog world, as opposed to the safe digital environment where predators vanish at the click of a “block” button, an option our analog parents didn’t have in shady bars.

The laws aren’t different for the analog and the digital. The law doesn’t make a difference between analog and digital. But no law is above the people who interpret it in the courts, and the way people interpret those laws means the privacy rights always apply to the analog world, but never to the digital world.

It’s not rocket science to demand the same laws to apply offline and online. This includes copyright law, as well as the fact that privacy of correspondence takes precedence over copyright law (in other words, you’re not allowed to open and examine private correspondence for infringements in the analog world, not without prior and individual warrants — our law books are full of these checks and balances; they should apply in the digital too, but don’t today).

Going back to blame, that’s one actor right there: the copyright industry. They have successfully argued that their monopoly laws should apply online just as it does offline, and in doing so, has completely ignored all the checks and balances that apply to the copyright monopoly laws in the analog world. And since copying movies and music has now moved into the same communications channels as we use for private correspondence, the copyright monopoly as such has become fundamentally incompatible with private correspondence at the conceptual level.

The copyright industry has been aware of this conflict and has been continuously pushing for eroded and eliminated privacy to prop up their crumbling and obsolete monopolies, such as pushing for the hated (and now court-axed) Data Retention Directive in Europe. They would use this federal law (or European equivalent thereof) to literally get more powers than the Police themselves in pursuing individual people who were simply sharing music and movies, sharing in the way everybody does.

There are two other major factors at work. The second factor is marketing. The reason we’re tracked at the sub-footstep level in airports and other busy commercial centers is simply to sell us more crap we don’t need. This comes at the expense of privacy that our analog parents took for granted. Don’t even get started on Facebook and Google.

Last but not least are the surveillance hawks — the politicians who want to look “Tough on Crime”, or “Tough on Terrorism”, or whatever the word of choice is this week. These were the ones who pushed the Data Retention Directive into law. The copyright industry were the ones who basically wrote it for them.

These three factors have working together, and they’ve been very busy.

It’s going to be a long uphill battle to win back the liberties that were slowly won by our ancestors over about six generations, and which have been all but abolished in a decade.

Our children are right to demand Analog Equivalent Privacy Rights — the civil liberties our parents not just enjoyed, but took for granted.

I fear the failure to pass on the civil liberties from our parents to our children is going to be seen as the greatest failure of this particular current generation, regardless of all the good we also accomplish. Surveillance societies can be erected in just ten years, but can take centuries to roll back.

Privacy remains your own responsibility today. We all need to take it back merely by exercising our privacy rights, with whatever tools are at our disposal.

Image from the movie “Nineteen-Eighty Four”; used under fair use for political commentary.

Markus Schwital Is by far the best example that size doesn't matter at the BMX! Markus has been riding BMX Flatland for 11 years and his favorite spot is at the "Haus der Geschichte" in Stuttgart or when the sea is calling also in Barcelona

BMX Since: 2006
BMX Disziplin: BMX Flatland
Hometown: Mühlhofen
Residence: Stuttgart
Sponsors: kunstform BMX Shop / Maruel Clothing
Homespots: Haus der Geschichte in Stuttgart
Favorite Spots: Haus der Geschichte, BCN parc del forum
Favorite thing beside BMX: Party, Netflix, beer n fun!
Instagram: markusschwital
Youtube: markus schwital

BMX Flatland Stuttgart - Markus Schwital & John Krämer

Our team riders Markus Schwital and John Krämer filmed a new video on their favorite spot which is called "Kleiner Schlossplatz". How their session looked like, you can check in the video bellow. enjoy the video! Best regards, your kunstform BMX Shop

Video: Ulle

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Markus Schwital Is by far the best example that size doesn't matter at the BMX!

Yo Markus, where do you come from and how long have you been riding?

I'm from Lake Constance (Uhldingen-Mühlhofen) but I live for two years in Stuttgart now and got my first BMX Bike 12 years ago!

What is your favorite BMX video?

Circel of Balance 2004

What bike setup do you have and what can you tell about it?

What I can say about my current setup is, that I prefer strong high-end BMX parts, which are mostly street parts

Frame: Sunday Soundwave 21"
Fork: Autum Fork with zero offset
Bars: Sunday Bikes Excelsior
Stem: Subrosa Topload stem
Headset: Odyssey Pro Internal
Grips: Odyssey Broc Raiford
Barends: Odyssey ParEnds
Tires: Ares Bikes 1.9"
Rims: eclat Trippin XL
FW Hub: eclat Dynamic
BW Hub: KHE Crisman Coaster
Spokes: Salt
Hubguards: eclat plastics
Pegs: eclat Venom in 4,5“
Seatpost: Salt Pivotal
Seat: Demolition Paradise Pivotal
Crank: Odyssey Thunderbolt 165mm
Bearings: Shadow Stacked Mid BB
Pedals: Odyssey Twisted PC
Sprocket: Subrosa Speed 25T
Chain: Shadow Interlock Supreme
Brake: -

Anything else to talk about? Take your chance!

I'm really in love with my current bike setup and I would like to thank kunstform for the amazing support! Also thanks to my parents and everyone else for the motivation and the support in my BMX career!

Yo Markus, thank you for your answers! We are glad to have you on board!

On the 31st of March the Vans Invitational Contest took place again in Huntington beach. Huge Congrats to our bro Felix Prangenberg who visited California a few weeks earlier and ended up with the second place!

Enjoy the Video, your kunstform BMX Shop Team!



Video: Vans



Music: France Camp. Song: C'est La Vie



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Our boys Markus Schwital and John Kraemer filmed a little flatland split edit during their vacation in Lisbon, which you can watch right here!

Enjoy the Video, your kunstform BMX Shop Team!



Video: Markus Schwital



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Markus Schwital was recently in Garmisch-Partenkirchen for a video shoot. The location for this was the shell of the new youth hostel moun10, which is next to the Alps. The new modern moun10 youth hostel will open at the end of 2018. Since the start of construction, it has repeatedly served as a location for modern trend sports. If you want to win a free weekend for four people in moun10 with breakfast, sauna and free drinks, you should participate until 15 July 2018 on www.moun10-garmisch-jugendherberge.de.

Enjoy the Video, your kunstform BMX Shop Team!



Video: Moun10



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Markus Schwital produced a new Flatland BMX video with Robin Kachfi for kunstform, which the boys filmed within two days in Stuttgart. You definitely shouldn't miss that one!

Enjoy the Video, your kunstform BMX Shop Team!



Video: Robin Kachfi



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Our bro Markus Schwital has teamed up with the filmmaker Leo Doerfler and released a small but epic documentary about Markus and his passion for BMX Flatland riding. You can expect great shots from Stuttgart, interesting background information and of course the finest BMX Flatland action.

Enjoy the video!

Video & editing: @leo.doerfler
Rider: @markusschwital