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Categorical Breakdown:

My name is Erik Makela and I propose to lead a new initiative to redesign the flag of Virginia Beach (VB). With the number of tourists in 2022 towering to 13.6 million visitors, I find it peculiar that this part of the city’s design has not been updated since the date of our original seal in 1963 (Virginia Beach, 2023; Virginia Beach, n.d.).

Back in 2015 a YouTube video labeled ‘Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed by Roman Mars’ list an example of poorly designed city flags - with Virginia Beach prominently at the middle-bottom of a TED talk viewed by over 5 million people (Image 1)

To be straight forward - a seal on a flag is the prominent loss of an even greater symbol for the city.

While our city seal is amazing our current flag design is lacking. I position that:

• VB’s flag design is poor and in violation of principle 4 of good flag design - No Lettering or Seals. “In most cases, a city flag should represent the entire city, not just the government. Thus, city-wide symbolism is preferred over a city seal or a city logo (government symbols)” (2022 New American City Flags Survey, n.d.).
• Out of 150 flags ranked by the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA - the organization of flag scholars) poll in 2004 VB places 125^th, Norfolk 116^th, and Chesapeake 69^th out of 150 flags (Flag Surveys, n.d.).
• VB’s tourist position can leverage a new flag design for increased revenue, recognition, and civic pride.

Hence, these points necessitate the need for a new flag design.

“Often, city leaders say we have more important things to do than worry about a city flag. My response is: If you had a great city flag, you would have a banner for people to rally under to face those more important things” (TED, 2015. 16:11; Kaye, 2006). A well-designed flag can be seen as an indicator of how a city considers all its design systems. Consider the American flag; It might seem frivolous, but it’s not.

Multiple case studies can be referenced from NAVA members that have successfully implemented new designs with the help of a special committee (Case Studies in Flag Design, n.d.). All previous redesigns have given a re-consideration of what the city is and what it has become; while garnering tremendous community involvement during the process. With sites such as SpeakUpVB, the process would be seamless for our city to implement competitions and opinion polls.

Some individuals have an American flag flying outside their homes. It shows that they are proud of the country that they are in and the design behind the flag. We can do the same for Virginia Beach citizens showing their civic pride. By updating our flag, we’re not just making a symbolic gesture; we’re making another statement about Virginia Beach’s commitment to staying relevant and forward-thinking. It’s time to update Virginia Beach’s flag. By doing so, we are joining over 300 other cities in revitalizing their identity (2022 New American City Flags Survey, 2022).

Thank you for your time,

References

2022 new american city flags survey. (n.d.). North American Vexillological Association. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from https://nava.org/2022-survey

Case studies in flag design. (n.d.). North American Vexillological Association. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from https://nava.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=622278&module_id=475718

Flag surveys. (n.d.). North American Vexillological Association. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from https://nava.clubexpress.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=622278&module_id=475720

Kaye, T. (2006). Good flag, bad flag: How to design a great flag.

TED. (2015). Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed [Video]. In YouTube. https://youtu.be/pnv5iKB2hl4?feature=shared&t=932

Virginia Beach tourism pours $3.7B Into local economy in 2022. (2023, November 15). City of Virginia Beach. https://virginiabeach.gov/connect/news/virginia-beach-tourism-pours-3-7b-into-local-economy-in-2022

Virginia beach, virginia (U.S.). (n.d.). Retrieved March 14, 2024, from https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-vavib.html

We don’t have a flag - we have a city seal on a blue backround

With the number of tourists in 2022 towering to 13.6 million visitors in VB, I find disturbing that this part of the city’s design has not been changed since the date of our original seal of 1963 (Virginia Beach, 2023; Virginia Beach, n.d.).

Back in 2015 a YouTube video labeled ‘Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed by Roman Mars’ list an example of poorly designed city flags - with Virginia Beach prominently at the middle-bottom of a TED talk viewed by over 5 million people (Image 1)

To be straight forward - a seal on a flag is the prominent loss of an even greater symbol for the city.

Flag design, from Kaye (2006), follows the five basic principles of:

• Keep It Simple. The flag should be so simple that a child can draw it from memory.
• Use Meaningful Symbolism. The flag’s images, colors, or patterns should relate to what it symbolizes.
• Use 2 or 3 Basic Colors. Limit the number of colors on the flag to three which contrast well and come from the standard color set.
• No Lettering or Seals. Never use writing of any kind or an organization’s seal.
  • “If you need to write the name of what you’re representing on your flag. Your symbolism has failed” (TED, 2015. 7:27; Kaye, 2006).
• Be Distinctive or Be Related. Avoid duplicating other flags, but use similarities to show connections.

While our city seal is amazing our current flag design is lacking. I position that:

• VB’s flag design is poor and in violation of principle 4 of good flag design - No Lettering or Seals. “In most cases, a city flag should represent the entire city, not just the government. Thus, city-wide symbolism is preferred over a city seal or a city logo (government symbols)” (2022 New American City Flags Survey, n.d.).
• Out of 150 flags ranked by the North American Vexillological Association poll in 2004 (NAVA - the organization of flag scholars) VB places 125^th, Norfolk 116^th, and Chesapeake 69^th out of 150 flags (Flag Surveys, n.d.). With 150th place being the worst flag.
• VB’s tourist position can leverage a new flag design for increased VB revenue, recognition, and civic pride
  • This can be seen from the case of Chicago’s flag change. “There’s probably at least one store on every block near where I work that sells some sort of Chicago flag paraphernalia” (TED, 2015,4:49; Whet Moser from Chicago Magazine).
  • “When a police officer or a firefighter dies in Chicago, often it’s not the flag of the United States on his casket. It can be the flag of the city of Chicago. That’s how deeply the flag has gotten into the civic imagery of Chicago” (TED, 2015. 5:26; Kaye, 2006).

Hence, these points necessitate the need for a new flag design.

“Often when city leaders say we have more important things to do than worry about a city flag. My response is. If you had a great city flag, you would have a banner for people to rally under to face those more important things” (TED, 2015. 16:11; Kaye, 2006). A well-designed flag can be seen as an indicator of how a city considers all its design systems. Consider the American flag. It might seem frivolous, but it’s not.

• Original Quote: “As we [people] move more and more into cities, the city flag will become not just a symbol of that city as a place, but also, it could become a symbol of how the city considers design itself, especially today, as the populace is becoming more design aware. A well-designed flag could be seen as an indicator of how a city considers all its design systems. Its public transit, its parks, its signage. It might seem frivolous, but it’s not” (TED, 2015. 15:32).

Multiple case studies can be referenced from NAVA members that have successfully implemented new designs with the help of a special committee (Case Studies in Flag Design, n.d.). All previous redesigns have given a re-consideration of what the city is and what it has become while garnering tremendous community involvement during the process. With sites such as SpeakUpVB the process would be seamless for our city to implement competitions and opinion polls. I propose to lead a new initiative to redesign the flag of Virginia Beach (VB).

You all may know some individuals that have an American flag flying outside their house. It shows that they are proud of the country that they are in and the design behind the flag. We can do the same for Virginia Beach showing their civic pride. By updating our flag, we’re not just making a symbolic gesture; we’re making another statement about Virginia Beach’s commitment to staying relevant and forward-thinking. It’s time to update Virginia Beach’s flag, joining over 300 other cities in revitalizing their identity (2022 New American City Flags Survey, 2022).

Draft example flag designs for Hampton Roads

References

2022 new american city flags survey. (n.d.). North American Vexillological Association. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from https://nava.org/2022-survey

Case studies in flag design. (n.d.). North American Vexillological Association. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from https://nava.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=622278&module_id=475718

Flag surveys. (n.d.). North American Vexillological Association. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from https://nava.clubexpress.com/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=622278&module_id=475720

Kaye, T. (2006). Good flag, bad flag: How to design a great flag.

TED. (2015). Why city flags may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed [Video]. In YouTube. https://youtu.be/pnv5iKB2hl4?feature=shared&t=932

Virginia Beach tourism pours $3.7B Into local economy in 2022. (2023, November 15). City of Virginia Beach. https://virginiabeach.gov/connect/news/virginia-beach-tourism-pours-3-7b-into-local-economy-in-2022

Virginia beach, virginia (U.S.). (n.d.). Retrieved March 14, 2024, from https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-vavib.html

This was written by a great friend during my adventure into technical analysis for stock prediction. It is one of the primary documents I refer to whenever I want to review the fundamental of how trend work. It is an extremely simple concept some nuances you will find useful.

If you’re still out there Adrian I miss you and hope you’re doing well.

Note: Some of this document may be a little difficult to read as he was a native Spanish speaker.

Prologue

In markets, the definition of Trend is in fact the most simple, basic and important concept among all, still, after reading this small manual, you´ll realize that what most people think trends are in reality just a derivation of a very more simple expression; Sadly, even though the concept of trend is really simple, it is quite difficult to apply it without proper practice and knowledge, but the more charts you eat and the more you practice by following the right structure, trends will start to pop to your eye and markets will start to make more and more sense, day by day, not only in markets but also in your daily life, so, let´s start.

This paper will not focus on classical technical analysis definitions, such as support or resistance, market indicators, moving averages, market cycles, Elliot Waves, Wyckoffian Structures or any other concept; This paper will only focus on the most important and basic concept among all, The Market Trend, Why? Because every other market tool, definition, indicator or methodology is derived from The Trend concept, and studying the most basic and important concept in markets will allow you to understand everything else more easily and clearly.

Module 1: What is a trend?

By Oxford definition:

“A trend is a general direction in which something is developing or changing”

Trends can be found every aspect of our daily life and most of them are ruled by pretty much the same laws; we can find them in your daily habits, like how much cups of tea you have in a week for example, one week can be less than the other, maybe because of stress, who knows; Movies, how have the super hero movies releases increased during the last decade?; Environment, how much has temperature fluctuated year by year in your home town?, how has this affected your monthly energy payments?; Food, how much have prices increased during this last few months?, which one are the ones that increased less, more and which ones decreased?; Markets, what about markets, when you talk about markets, you´re talking about trends, either prices are going up or down.

All of the prior describes a general direction or something in specific that is developing or changing.

Module 2: Market´s definition of Trend

Applied to markets, the direction of something (let’s call it a security, commodity, currency, token, wages or whatever you feel comfortable), is developing or changing, of course we´re talking about price development and change.

So, how can we translate this all this narrative into something productive and graphically understandable? Simple:

“A market trend is a price succession that creates consecutive highs and lows”

For markets that are going up or rising:

“An uptrend is a succession of Higher Highs (HH) and Higher Lows (HL)

For markets that are going down or declining:

“A downtrend is a succession of Lower Lows (LL) and Lower highs (LH)

Figure 1 Uptrend and Downtrend

Market either goes up or down all the time, there is always a trend regardless of the time frame or scale, they expand and contract getting weaker or stronger, but there is always a trend and must be identified because it is the only certain thing in markets, everything else is ambiguous, but the trend is always there and must be respected.

As a Market participant, your main priority must be:

To always have the trend spotted and defined through highs and lows concepts, because the trend is ABSOLUTE and it is the only certain thing in markets, if there is no higher lows, there is no uptrend, if there is no lower high, there is no downtrend

By understanding this simple concept, it will allow you to have a good understanding of what is going.

Module 3: Deeper in Market Trends: How market trends behave and why

Now that we know what a trend is, let´s get a little bit deeper, not too much, just the necessary in order to fulfill this paper´s purposes, which is, understanding trends and learn how to read them.

When talking about Trends and Markets, we can´t avoid talking about the Three Fundamental Market Laws or the Three Wyckoff Laws; Richard Wyckoff was legendary trader and investor during the 1900s, during this age, he was considered as relevant as Charles Dow, J.P. Morgan and R. N. Elliot themselves. During his times, he was so sick of seeing people losing their life savings on markets that decided to create The Ticker Magazine, later known as The Magazine of Wall Street, which whole purpose was to spread knowledge through market analysis. His work was so popular among small and big investors, he ended up writing several books, endless articles and even more month to month publications such as the ones released on his other exclusive magazine The Trend Teller, this one included buying and selling recommendations.¹

Richard Wyckoff was a technical analysis pioneer², his whole method was based on Trend analysis through pure supply, demand, price action and volume; during his time, he defined the Three Fundamental Market Laws, or as they´re known today, The Three Wyckoff Laws.

The Three Wyckoff Laws³:

1. The law of Supply and Demand

This Law in specific is what everything revolves around. Price on whatever thing, asset or service is the result of the interaction between a seller (supply) and a buyer (demand), when the amount of...

This idea originally came from watching a video by Luke Smith. The essence of the matter being - the internet in its current state is more centralized than decentralized in most consumer facing websites, leading to you being a product. What I mean by ‘censor everything’ is that by taking people’s creation away from them they would realize they actually have little control over the applications they use. This is one of the reasons why besides security I self-host my own password manager and file storage. They are two of the most important pieces of data in which having someone else be the primary caretaker of. For example, I am still ok with backing up encrypted data to a cloud server.

What are the problems? What are the solutions?

• Any Social Media Censors you? Host your own - Fediverse & Simon Willison’s Mastodon
• ISP censors you? Start your own - this is extremely difficult and one of the main barriers to a decentralized web
• Website get shut down? Get a better one
• Blocked from downloading files? Torrent it

What about illegal stuff?

It already exists on the dark web. There is nothing stopping you today other than the insanely obvious implications morals, ethics, and laws to explore the less tasty side of an open information ecosystem.