The rise of e-boy is another sign that subcultures can be born in the digital ether. Discover how a group of Gen Z teenagers is shrugging off the manicured Instagram aesthetic for a grungy vibe and love of video games.

What is an E-boy?

E-boys are a youth subculture that emerged in 2018 and is nearly exclusively seen on social media. With 500 million users globally, the app is a force to be reckoned with regarding fashion taste and driving trends among Generation Z. Trends often come and go on the platform. Still, the e-boy phenomenon has lasted longer than most.

The e-boy aesthetic is a mishmash of influences, including emo, scene, punk, and goth style. The men wear their influences on their sleeves, often sporting black nail polish and a middle-parted hairstyle. They also draw inspiration from 90s skate culture, hip-hop, and Japanese manga.

As a result of this, boys are known for their unique fashion sense. The style combines 90s Leonardo Dicaprio curtain hairstyles, BDSM harnesses and chains, and K-pop with dangly earrings. 

You may not be able to spot an e-boy in public as quickly as you would a straight-edge emo or a play because they are more likely to hide behind their headphones and pass through places quickly without making eye contact with others. You may, however, find them at skate parks and electronics and gaming stores or at comic book and anime conventions, where they tend to hang out in cliques with other like-minded kids.

E-boys look

You can usually find them on social media, where they churn out clothing transformation videos and lip-syncing clips in the name of their e-boy persona. You'll also catch them on YouTube, where they often make content promoting their E-Boy lifestyle. Unlike their emo counterparts, these teens don't typically wear their looks in the real world.

This enables them to avoid backlash for their aesthetics from the non-digital world. You might see an eboy on TikTok wearing a black leather jacket, a pair of skinny jeans, and a long sleeve undershirt topped with silver chains, black nail polish, and a grey beanie. You might also find him choking himself while doing the e-boy dance or a video of him performing some other fetish move.

Like their emo cousins, they're heavily influenced by music. Some prefer emo bands, while others gravitate towards hip-hop and alternative rap artists. Fashion is another touchstone, with many boys taking cues from swoon-worthy South Korean idol groups. 

Despite wanting to be seen as excellent, these kids are mostly introverted. You'll rarely find them in public spaces such as shopping centers, bars, and concerts, and they will likely hide their face behind a pair of earphones.

E-boy Subculture

E-boys are a new subculture of teen boys that gained popularity on the video-sharing app TikTok. They follow a similar style to their e-girl counterparts but have a more emo-influenced aesthetic. While the e-boy phenomenon is mainly tied to TikTok, it also has roots in other popular websites that allow users to post content.

Members of the e-boy subculture share a familiar aesthetic, often dressing in oversized t-shirts and cuffed pants and wearing signature floppy curls or dreadlocks. They also follow a similar taste in music, embracing the sad boy genre popularized. 

In addition to their fashion, e-boys embrace a distinct lifestyle involving heavy media and internet consumption. This is especially true of memes and gifs, which e-boys use to make funny or entertaining videos for their followers on TikTok and other social media platforms.

While the e-boy phenomenon has only been around for a few months, it is here to stay. Some retailers have even started selling clothing lines that resemble the e-boy aesthetic. This trend will continue to grow and spread across social media, similar to other fads that have come before it.

Finding an E-boy

Social media has spawned many new trends, and one of the most recent to take off is the e-boy aesthetic. Originating on TikTok, the trend consists of alternative fashion choices that mix '90s grunge style with the season's hottest hairstyles. Combined with black nail polish and chunky chains, it creates a distinctive look that's easy to recognize.

You can find e-boys at skate parks, electronic and gaming stores, and thrift shops. They tend to be introverted and avoid large spots for social gatherings, instead preferring to hang out in small groups of friends. They'll also be spotted in various online spaces, from YouTube to Instagram to TikTok.

TikTok users often record parody videos to demonstrate the e-boy transformation process. 

Other common e-boy characteristics include baggy streetwear, dark makeup and lip color, and a hairstyle inspired by K-pop stars. They may wear black nail polish and a lot of silver jewelry, particularly dangly cross earrings. They'll often roll their eyes and stick their tongues out a lot.

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4 Reasons Why Every Business Needs a Network Mapping Tool

Network maps are a vital tool for monitoring and management. When you know your network, troubleshooting becomes much easier.

When issues such as excess traffic occur, IT teams can identify the devices involved using a network map and work on solving them. Here are some top reasons every business needs a network mapping tool.

Real-time Visibility

When it comes to ecommerce and delivery, consumers and companies alike demand real-time visibility to track the status of their orders. This is accomplished through dedicated GPS and telematics hardware on the truck, trailer, or container carrying the goods. With this technology, the company and consumers receive live updates on the whereabouts of their CDW shipment and are made aware of any delivery delays.

In addition to enabling real-time visibility, the best network mapping tools provide your organization with a wide range of benefits. These systems are often a component of multi-functional network management platforms that aid in security, monitoring, and troubleshooting. They can also be deployed as standalone applications that allow you to conduct a detailed inventory of your current network landscape.

The first step of any network mapping process involves analyzing and understanding the current infrastructure. This can be done by generating a topology map of your IT system. This visual representation of your infrastructure makes it easier to identify any blind spots or potential problems and then take steps to address them.

The best network mapping tools feature an easy-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) and offer point-and-click functionality. This helps IT managers detect issues quickly and resolve them accordingly. 

Detailed Alerts

When network issues arise, you need to know the status of each device on your network. A network mapping tool can provide this information and alert you to critical events that impact the health of your enterprise.

A professional network mapping tool allows you to see the most recent status of devices on the map and use color-coded icons to identify their status. This makes it easier to quickly identify a problem and drill down into the device for more detailed information.

In addition to the device status on the map, many mapping tools offer other details about individual devices. For example, you can view each device's host and user risk scores. The higher the risk score, the more likely the device is to have a security breach that could lead to an unauthorized person entering your network.

You can also find more detail in the Alert list. This list is sorted by the alert's severity (Critical, Severe, Major, or Warning) and displays the full alert payload from the monitoring tool that generated the alert.

If planning a new network, you should use the mapping features available in some software solutions. 

Enhanced Capacity Planning

Enhanced capacity planning helps businesses determine and plan for future network infrastructure needs. This reduces problems like poor performance leading to employees being unable to work, high latency on critical business services, and customer churn, all of which can cost your business dearly.

Network mapping is a great way to see the connections between different devices, which allows sysadmins to analyze and troubleshoot issues quickly and efficiently. It also allows them to predict when a device is nearing capacity and plan accordingly. This helps to avoid outages and saves your business money by preventing overprovisioning, which can lead to wasteful spending.

Regarding resources, it's not just availability that counts; it's the staff member's skillset and level of expertise. This is why it's important to have a good process that lets you know what each team member can do regarding their time and skill set. It also helps you root project plans in reality and not the optimistic guesses of your staff about how much they can churn out in a given time frame.

Capacity planning is especially important for those businesses that are product-based. For example, a hair and beauty salon will need raw materials for its products, such as shampoos, conditioners, brushes, and other equipment. A capacity planning tool can help you determine how many of each item your business needs at any time. This prevents stock-outs, which could leave you out of business while helping you meet your customers' demands and keep them happy.

Powerful Security Tool

The network map is not only a record of how the devices in your IT environment connect; it also reveals a lot about how data flows. This information is useful in understanding your IT infrastructure, which in turn helps you take corrective action. For example, if you discover that there is a path of least resistance for untrusted traffic, you may want to change your firewall policies so that it takes more steps to reach suspicious destinations.

Many mapping tools allow you to inspect any device on a given map and view its current attributes, such as IP addresses, serial numbers, etc., Using this kind of granularity. You can monitor any IT infrastructure aspect and promptly take corrective action if a problem emerges.

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Summer Outfit Ideas

Summer is a tricky time for fashion because when you're dripping sweat and dealing with humidity, you may not feel like primping and preening and wearing heavy material clothing.  So I put together 4 outfits that are light and airy...and of course stylish!

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Medicare Risk Adjustment - What You Need to Know

 

Risk adjustment is complex, but the right health plan can master three critical fundamentals: accurate documentation, effective member engagement, and the right technology.

Risk adjustment is used to determine Medicare Advantage enrollees' projected medical costs. This helps level the playing field for payers and providers and promotes health plan innovation and efficiency.

What is Medicare Risk Adjustment?

Many are still unaware of what is Medicare risk adjustment. For a certified medical coder, Medicare risk adjustment is about ensuring the diagnoses you capture on a claim accurately reflect the conditions the member is living with. For a health plan chief financial officer, it's about providing the CMS reimbursement for a member that matches the expected costs of the individual's clinical burden.

To calculate a Medicare Advantage beneficiary's Medicare risk score (their risk-adjusted factor or RAF medical abbreviation), CMS compares the patient's clinical conditions to those of a cohort of patients with similar demographics and healthcare needs. The resulting RAF represents the beneficiary's predicted cost to CMS for the upcoming year.

A higher RAF score indicates that the patient's medical records show a heavier-than-average disease burden. This is sometimes a result of poor chart documentation but can also be the effect of HCC coding that doesn't comply with best practice guidelines. Some experts suggest that using data from enrollees' encounters with physicians – rather than solely their diagnoses in a health risk assessment – could make Medicare Advantage risk adjustment more accurate and less prone to gaming. Others note, however, that this would be a costly change to the current system and could drive more people away from plans with lower premiums.

How is Medicare Risk Adjustment Calculated?

As you can imagine, it's complex. But the goal is to provide accurate information about enrollees to CMS so that it can properly compensate health plans for their risk-adjusted costs. That information consists of clinically related diagnosis codes submitted by providers on medical claims. The data is collected in two ways: prospective and retrospective.

Prospective risk adjustment involves predicting future healthcare costs based on the data of current-year diagnoses. This determines the per-member per-month (PMPM) payment CMS will make to an MAO. This payment is a portion of the Medicare reimbursement beneficiaries receive from CMS. To calculate a member's risk score, CMS uses a regression model that predicts an individual's expected future costs to the system based on an array of factors such as age, sex, and health conditions. This prediction becomes the member's risk score and is then used to transfer funds between insurers based on their relative average claims risk.

Health plans use this information to offer members valuable benefits such as enrollment in exercise programs, case or disease management, and transportation to medical appointments. An engaged partnership between the plan and its members is key to ensuring these programs are effective and deliver value. To do so, health plans must ensure that members' healthcare needs are accurately assessed and documented at the point of care and captured in medical records and claims data. This requires a high-quality, consistent cadence of encounters and supplemental submissions with strong oversight and quality control measures in place.

What are Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs)?

Hierarchical condition categories are a grouping of clinically related diagnoses that each has an associated cost to the healthcare system. They are the basis for risk adjustment models used to reimburse Medicare Advantage Organizations based on expected costs. HCCs are identified through submitted claims and encounter data. Only diagnosis codes that map to an HCC will be used in the model, which is why medical billing and coding are so important for healthcare organizations, especially those working with a risk-based payment model like an ACO or bundled payments. Without risk adjustment, Medicare Advantage plans would receive a fixed payment rate that doesn't take a patient's individual health status into account. This is why it's so important for physicians to document and code their patients correctly, especially when their disease state progresses or leads to serious complications. It's equally important for medical records to be reviewed annually to ensure that chronic diagnoses are documented and coded properly.

For example, HCC 17 Diabetes is a chronic disease that requires a lot of healthcare resources to manage. It's more expensive than HCC 18, which includes diabetic retinopathy, neuropathy, and kidney disease, which are less chronic and do not require extensive healthcare resources. It's also critical to capture all of the complications a patient is experiencing through documentation and coding, as a single diagnosis code may not be enough to qualify a patient for an HCC.

How is a Hierarchical Condition Category Calculated?

The risk adjustment model filters ICD codes into groups (or "hierarchies") of conditions that have similar associated costs to the healthcare system. Each of these HCCs then carries a numeric value that maps to a specific risk factor score. For example, patients with multiple chronic conditions may have HCCs grouped and assigned an HCC score of 2. This risk factor score represents the likelihood that this patient will generate high utilization and costs over time. The health plan receives payment based on the number of HCCs documented in each calendar year. It is vital that the health plan accurately captures and records all HCCs during each coding period. Otherwise, it will miss out on important payments. This is why training staff to understand the nuances of HCC coding is so important.

In addition to accurate HCC coding, the health plan must collect and report ICD-10-CM diagnosis codes related to a person's socioeconomic circumstances or psychosocial factors. Payers often use a subset of ICD-10-CM diagnoses called Z codes for this purpose, but whether and how these code sets can be used in risk adjustment is still being determined.

Some experts argue that CMS' current models undercompensate for selection by allowing insurers to avoid higher-risk enrollees. However, economic theory and empirical evidence suggest that this is unlikely to be the case. If anything, it seems likely that CMS' existing methods are underestimating differences in claims risk between plans that attract lower- and higher-risk enrollees and that a two-stage estimation procedure would make these differences even more pronounced.

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How Restaurants With a View Enhance the Dining Experience for Customers

When customers dine out, they often consider multiple factors when choosing a restaurant. Those factors include food quality, personal (past) experience with the restaurant, atmosphere, and price.

Today's customers demand great service and memorable dining experiences. They want to be recognized, greeted by name, and have their preferences – like allergies and table location – remembered from visit to visit.

Location

A restaurant's location is one of the most important factors in its success. The location must be where people are likely to visit for dining. This means it should be in a posh area with classy and hygienic surroundings. It must also be easy to find and have an attractive appearance.

Line of sight is another important aspect to consider when choosing a restaurant. Potential customers should be able to see the restaurant from the street without having to navigate around one-way streets, obstructions, or ongoing construction. 

The restaurants with the best view in San Francisco will make diners feel special and enhance their experience. This is why many people choose to dine at restaurants with views. In addition, the food and service are also very important. The food should be tasty and appealing, while the service must be friendly and helpful. Restaurants that offer a view are especially popular among families and couples, as they provide a relaxing environment for everyone.

Atmosphere

Whether you're an established restaurant or a newer eatery, your restaurant's atmosphere plays a major role in how customers perceive your business. Restaurants with a good atmosphere – from the music to how the tables are arranged and what colors are used – create an experience that appeals to all senses. That's why paying attention to every detail in your restaurant is so important to ensure it is as welcoming and inviting as possible for customers.

The perfect restaurant atmosphere is the one that matches your target audience and makes people feel welcome and special when they walk through your doors. Think about why customers come to your restaurant — are they celebrating something, are they on date night or with friends, etc? Creating the right ambiance tailored to your target audience will help them enjoy their time at your establishment and encourage them to return and tell their friends and family about it.

The atmosphere in a restaurant is more than just a dining room away from home; the food takes the spotlight, with guests becoming its audience. The atmosphere comes together with the right lighting, how the tables are positioned and set up, what type of music is played, and other factors to create a comfortable, intimate, or romantic setting.

Having fun with your restaurant's atmosphere can encourage customers to stay longer and order more drinks or food. That means you can maximize your revenue and profit by offering a positive atmosphere and great service to keep customers returning.

Views

Nothing can enhance the dining experience more than a beautiful scene. When restaurants have a view of the ocean or city lights, it creates an organic ambiance that can be relaxing and comforting for guests. Additionally, having a view can help boost customers' appetite to feel more satisfied with their meals. This can be a great way to encourage repeat visits and increase revenue for the restaurant. Moreover, the beauty of the view can make the meal more memorable for customers and their families or friends.

Food

Restaurants with a view can enhance the dining experience by making food and drinks taste better. This can be done by using fresh ingredients and offering delicious dishes that make customers want to return. Another way restaurants can make the dining experience more gratifying for guests is by letting them know they are appreciated. This can be done by greeting them by name, remembering their favorite table or beverage orders from previous visits, and being aware of any dietary restrictions or allergies. A great customer service experience is key to turning one-time diners into loyal repeat customers.

Providing these types of personalized experiences can help restaurants to set themselves apart from their competition. In addition, leveraging guest data and powerful technology to create a gratifying dining experience for your guests can help to boost their revenue.

Service

A few things make a great dining experience – excellent service, delicious food, and a relaxing atmosphere. But restaurants that also offer stunning views are a cut above the rest. The combination of awe-inspiring countryside, impressive cityscapes, and breathtaking ocean vistas make eating at these restaurants an experience for the senses. The guests should feel like they are getting the best possible treatment by treating them with courtesy and politeness. 

 

Ordering a Cheesesteak

A cheesesteak counter moves fast, and the line keeps moving because regulars know the shorthand before they reach the window. The choice usually comes down to the cheese: Whiz, provolone, or American and whether you want fried onions, which is where "wit" and "witout" come from. Knowing how to order a Philly cheesesteak means you can call out your order in one quick sentence instead of holding things up, and a spot that stays open around the clock means you can test the system at two in the afternoon or two in the morning. Say the cheese first, then onions, then any extras, and you'll sound like you've done it a hundred times. Get the order down, and the rest of the meal is just the roll, the meat and a napkin or three.

 

Fresh Air

As you know, air quality is key to a great dining experience. Unwanted odors, high humidity, or dust can make an experience unpleasant for customers. And a poor sense of smell may impair a person's ability to taste their food.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was important for restaurants to focus on their indoor air quality as part of their reopening plans. High-efficiency air purifiers help clear the air of odors, dust, and other particles.

Since epidemiologists have warned that airborne coronavirus can spread and linger for minutes to hours, restaurants need to assess indoor PM levels in their dining areas. The Fresh Air Restaurant System delivers 100% healthy, filtered outdoor air to dilute the concentration of possible contaminants and keep patrons comfortable and safe.

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Why Should I Spend 5 Minutes a Day on my Pelvic Health?

Have you ever sneezed, coughed, jumped and PEED? Just a little bit? Just enough to wonder if your pants are wet? Just enough to be wearing special underwear or a pad for it?

Well, you’re not alone! According to the Mayo Clinic, 50% of adult women are having urinary incontinence; which is the involuntary leakage of urine when they are not trying to pee. Alarmingly this number jumps up as we age, and 75% of women over 65 report urinary incontinence.

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