#(stickers and 'post card' are from amazon btw)

[green-aesthetic-inspo]

[forestryfae]

small business tiktok is so fucking annoying half of them are like GENUINELY good businesses that sell stuff like homemade clay pins or stickers, clay tableware figurines, pots, etc. homemade watercolours or yarn of other art supplies, metalware and jewelry, glass, prints and canvas art, woodworking, clothes and other fabric products, soaps, etc. most of them also, while maybe not making The Worlds Most lno waste ecofriendly products atleast try to make their their packaging as low-waste and recycleable as they can, and the ones that are independent or self made are genuinely independent or have a small team of coworkers meanwhile, the other half and the most prominent parts of small business tiktok, not to mention the most WHINY and guilt tripping, we have resin and earring tiktok. first off, the fucking audios they use!!??? “PLEASE STOP SCROLLING!!!111!!11!! im just a small business, and tiktok is shadowbanning and hiding my videos so noone can see them ever :’((((( i know im just a small businesss and most people dont care about me at all :’(((( but itd mean the world to me if you liked, shared, and commented on my video 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 pwease? for me?? pweeeaaasseeee???? 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺” its worse than the fucking “like comment subscribe and turn on notifications” shit youtube creators are pulling. and the fucking way they talk and word it? its so fucking entitled and whiny

and its not just resin tiktok, its a very specific part of homemade jewelry tiktok ive decided to refer to as earring tiktok, because they primarily sell those. idk if they bulk buy their studs off of amazon or aliexpress or if they go to target or hobby lobby or whatever yall have in the us, but they then try to frame it like their design is an original one of a kind? i dont have a number on how many times ive seen a small business with a guilt trippy audio complain that noone wants to support or buy their items and then its like. a mini watercolor set or a rubber duck or a pair of cards from a cardstock they bought at dollar store, or some charm or premade stuff that is very obviously bulk-bought from aliexpress or some company that sells bowling alley gacha prices. like yeah theyre cool and they definitley dont sell those at H&M but its also not something id pay over 30 dollars plus shipping for, and not after that guilt trip. not that it wouldnt be hard to find another shop to buy fromt with the exact same or similar product. and then theres resin tiktok. ive seen youtube woodworkers who use resin to spice up their wooden tables, and ive heard about some people who put wedding bouquets or a late relatives ashes in resin to rpeserve them, and im onboard w that! that fuckin dope! but resin tiktok consists of resin coasters (STILL dont understand wtf coasters are good for just wash your table if you spill something), resin jewelry holders (yall ever heard of a jewery box??), resin nonfunctional guns? what???? resin combs (wooden combs? hello?) resin ashtrays and tableware which i am so mad about they need an entire post of their own, resin jewelry (which i can understand to a certain degree because i saw someone put resin on slices of fruit and make jewelry from which looked so tasty and absolutely amazing and i stll want to buy them because they were pretty and not just trendy), resin dice (acceptable as resin dice are used frequently and even if you get tired of them you can sell or give them away to other people instead of throwing them away, and there are people who collect them so theres an interest so if you get rid of them someone would want them, but there are still non-resin options as well which would be cool if people looked into too) starting off with the designs, just like w the earrings i talked abt, theres basically no originality. clear resin with some dried flowers and glitter, or witchy holographic stickers stuck into a mold, btw everyone uses the same 15 molds, i could go to any resin tikok and id find the exact same product and the only difference would be where they placed the flowers and what color it is. usually daisies. i love daisies but not like this. theres also that fucking stop scrolling🥺🥺🥺 audio, so thats fun. and a common issue between all these small businesses, and some jewelry businesses too, is the packaging. there is no need for those tiny cloth pouches. yes theyre pretty but what the hell are you supposed to use them  for after youve unpacked the stuff you bought? they last for like two weeks if you try to use them for ANYTHING else and they fray and fall apart instantly. then the pouch is put in a box or envelope with a ton of shredded paper, then the shredded paper and pouch is wrapped in a fucking silk paper sheet?? what??? thats so much! i bought vintage christmas ornaments\ off of etsy and it was wrapped in less shit than a pair of metal earrings! just put some shredded paper in an envelope, and put the jewelry in a paper envelope in that envelope. better yet, i saw a guy design a special envelope to put his stickers in. do that! anyways, my hot take of the day is basicallly i love small busniess tiktok but i could do without the guilt tripping ans SUPPORT ME!!!! and that resin is a waste. its plastic, its not biodegradeable, and im gonna make a post aout how much i hate ashtrays now

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Persona 5 Royal Import guide

I realized the past week some people who might be interested in buying P5R but dunno how or didn’t know they can play the JPN ver on their non-JPN PS4. So I thought I’d help make a guide as to how to buy it and make a JPN account. That being said the game WILL be in Japanese but if you don’t mind playing it you should be good (trust me P5 OG isn’t that bad of a game to play with a language barrier imo, as long as P5R doesn’t do anything SUPER crazy with like a puzzle or something I think it’ll be about the same experience). But yeah for those of you who want to play the game despite it being in Japanese but didn’t now how to, this guide is for you!

For the most part this is to get you the game in the cheapest and fastest fashion, or at least a good starting place for you to look.

Tbh I found Amazon.jp to be the fastest and most affordable (and easy to navigate) for physical editions. Usually comes within 2-3 days, shipping is usually just $10 (but again, pretty fast shipping). I used to do Play-Asia (recommended if you are trying to hunt down a certain edition), but they do bloat their prices and take MUUUUUUCH longer. BUT I do recommend their services if you are just purchasing foreign DLC cards (because you get the code for that pretty quickly, like within minutes via your account and/or emailed to you). 

Anyway with this being said, I’ll start with the digital and then a guide to buying it physical (from Amazon Japan, you can try other places but I figured I’d give you a quote on one place and you can branch out from there). 

Buying Digital:

But let’s start with the fastest and cheapest way and that’s digital only. All you need is a PS4 and a 2nd email address. Next you want to make a JPN account, videos down below for a step by step guide (first video is a really fast step by step, the 2nd video is a bit more slowed down step by step in case that’s more your speed):

Keep in mind you can change your language it English or any language you want on your Japanese PSN (link to how to change). But I recommend having it on Japanese when you go to buy the game (because you’ll need to type in Japanese, esp if it’s not on the feature page, but if you set your keyboard to english ya gonna have a bad time ;w;). 

So anyway we’re gonna just check to see how much it is on the PSN (with tax), btw you wanna type “ ペルソナ“. Or to make it easier (cause typing it can be a bit funky on the PS4 if you don’t know what you’re doing), you can also sign in via your computer and here’s the links to both (note you can’t be signed into your non-JPN account to view these, you need to sign out and/or sign into the JPN account you just made). 

Reg Edition (¥ 9,680) and Digital Deluxe ( ¥ 12,980)

From the looks of it, it seems that there will also be a separate deluxe DLC available on Oct 31 for those who didn’t preorder the Digital Deluxe to begin with. Anyway, preorder bonus for both is a special Mona sticker. As for what’s in the Digital Deluxe/Deluxe DLC I’mma just copy and past googletranslate cause it’s not that inaccurate:

■ "Persona 5 The Royal" Game Main Part ■ Early Purchase Bonus: "PS Store Limited Morgana Car Sticker" * Until 11/14/2019 ■ "Persona 5 The Royal" PS Store Theme ■ "Persona 5 Complete recording of newly created songs for The Royal] Soundtrack Set “P5R”! ■ DLC / Kaitou Costume DLC Set + Velvet Room Costume & BGM Special Set + P5D Featherman Costume & BGM Special Set In addition to the costumes that can be worn in the phantom thief in the game, Battle BGM & Jingle is a special version! ■ DLC / Persona Set + Orpheus & Orpheus, Bandit (f) Set (I think they mean Fem!Orpheus/Orpheus Picaro female) + Iki Naki Daijin & Iyo Naki Daijin, Bandai God Set (Oh neat Izanagi No Okami is gonna be DLC!) 

Well at least this DLC is new/different. 8U Anyway pick your poison, you can always get the deluxe kit DLC later and get the base game now. 

After this you’ll need money, and you can’t use your debit/credit card if it’s not Japanese. Soooooo that means you need to buy foreign currency, and one of the best places I go to is Play-Asia (I’m sure you can do this with Amazon Japan too but Play-Asia I know how it works and yeah 8U). They don’t gouge the prices, and after the payments gone through they email it/post it on your account. Anyway get what you need, and....low-key I didn’t.....see....any tax when I went to put this through....So I guess what we see is what we get in price. But sadly Japan’s price in games are a bit more steep, so you’ll probs have to get the ¥10,000 at least (unless you are getting the Deluxe edition). But now you know how to buy the game digitally as well as obtain any DLC you want (and there might be some free DLC, there were for P5 OG so yeah keep an eye out)

Buying Physical:

Now let’s look at Physical. Now you can buy from Play-Asia if you want, they have the Royal Flush edition if you want. I don’t recommend it unless you don’t mind either paying even more shipping wise or waiting about a half a month. Cause they are sloooooooow and their prices are a little more than Amazon.JP imo. 

Personally I’m gonna go with Amazon.Jp, you’ll also get a preorder bonus if you buy the Amazon version but that’s the ¥ 9,680. There are a few versions still available on there, and maybe you want the special FamtisuXD one (your best bet is probably ebay at this point). But I want to try and find you guys the most convenient and/or cheapest one. So instead I’m gonna point you in the direction of the  ¥7,989 edition (note: you can still view the other editions on that website, if you want the preorder bonus or just a different version then more power to you! just wanted to focus on the cheapest option because it’s not the most talked about one). It has a price cut for whatever reason, and that will cover the cost of shipping tbh. When I went to check out it comes out to $81.51 with shipping (the digital is about $90.31, but you have to spend whatever the Play-Asia card is so you technically have to spend $100ish). And it arrives about 2-4 (usually 2-3 in my experience) days, so it has a better price than Play-Asia and is also faster for cheaper. 

Now it’s possible you can find some e-cards cheaper somewhere else (I encourage to go looking) or even physical copies somewhere else, this is just a how-to guide to help you get started. As for if you should go with Digital or Physical it’s up to you. Wanna play it ASAP (and have some money kinda set aside for possible DLC)? Then go Digital. Don’t mind waiting a few days and want a case for your wall? Then go physical. 

[allabouttoys]

New Post has been published on All About Toys

New Post has been published on http://allabouttoys.info/391-2/

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

No company was closer to being a trash fire in the past year than Samsung. There were the exploding Note7 batteries, then the exploding Note7 battery replacements, then the exploding washing machines, and then, finally, the exploding Samsung battery factory.

Needless to say, the Korean conglomerate, which recently lost its #1 smartphone maker ranking to Apple for the first time in eight quarters, is looking for a win.

Enter the Galaxy S8, the headliner of Samsung’s Redemption Tour.

During my five days of testing, the Galaxy S8 did not catch fire. In fact, the S8 turned out to be exactly what I had expected after my first hands-on: a gorgeous device with great technology inside. Samsung crammed as much screen into this phone as possible. The Galaxy S8 hardware is 83% glass slab and 17% everything else — and it has all the promise of an iPhone/Pixel killer.

The only problem? Like all Samsung phones, it’s pre-loaded with redundant apps and features you don't need. And, though the Galaxy S8 ships with the latest version of Android (7.0 Nougat), eventually the phone will be about five months behind Google’s future operating system updates.

All that aside, the S8 is a *really* good phone, and Samsung devotees with contract renewals coming up are going to want to upgrade ASAP. But those looking to switch will have a lot more to consider.

There’s nothing else on the Android market quite like it.

If you’re looking to get a new high-end Android phone right now, here are the three phones I think you should be considering: the Google Pixel, the LG G6, and the Galaxy S8. (For the purposes of this review, I’m not looking at Motorola, Sony, HTC, or Huawei. Don’t @ me.)

Aesthetically, it’s clear which one is the standout: the Galaxy S8. In my initial review, I loved everything about the Pixel, except its uninspired hardware design. LG’s G6 and its small, display-maximizing borders are, in many ways, similar to the Galaxy S8, but it’s a heavy phone that feels bulky.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

The S8, on the other hand, is wrapped in a slick, polished case. This is especially true of “Midnight Black.” It is Posh Spice wearing an all-leather catsuit and Samsung's other color offerings (“Arctic Silver” and the purplish “Orchid Gray”) pale in comparison. The S8 looks modern and clean, and you’d be hard-pressed to find another Android phone with its looks.

The mind-bogglingly good edge-to-edge wraparound display is crisp and saturated, which we've come to expect from Samsung. The blacks are extra dark and text appears sharp, pixel-less. The display bleeds into the surrounding hardware, and it’s hard to tell where the screen ends and the phone begins.

The only “bezel” is a centimeter-ish border at the top and bottom. There are no physical buttons on the front of the phone, just a pressure-sensitive, virtual home button area. Every other leading Android phone maker has already removed the home button, and Samsung finally followed suit. To maximize the immersive screen experience, the home button is sometimes invisible (like when you’re watching a video full-screen or playing a game) and you can simply press down on the bottom of the screen to return to the main page.

These screens are huge. There are two models: the S8 with a 5.8-inch display and an S8+ with a 6.2-inch display; both are at 2,960×1,440 resolution. The viewing area has been increased by 36% from the previous versions, the S7 and S7 Edge.

But it doesn’t feel like you’re toting around a mini tablet. The nearly half a million extra pixels were added to the S8’s height, and its edges are curved on all four sides, so the phone is surprisingly grabbable.

The curved edges do, however, make texting with two hands in portrait feel a little cramped. When turned on its side, the phone is too wide for my hands to reach the keys in the middle. Perhaps big-handed users will have better luck.

It’s a very tall phone (nearly 6 inches for the S8 and slightly over 6 inches for the S8+), so enabling the phone’s “one-handed mode” has proven very useful for me. You can swipe your thumb diagonally from either bottom corner to use a mini, more manageable version of the software. Although, my frequent use of this feature reveals that perhaps I don’t need a big screen at all?!?!

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

Apparently the S8 is “mobile HDR premium certified,” which means that when you watch shows or movies, you see the same colors and contrasts “that filmmakers intended,” according to Samsung. So I did what any other reviewer would do “for journalism”: I bought the Planet Earth II “Mountains” episode and poured myself a glass (or three) of wine (spoiler alert: ibex goats are badass AF). The display is very bright and vibrant — good for getting into Planet Earth, but ultimately worrisome because I fear it will eventually burn my eyeballs to a crisp.

The S8 is 83% screen, so it’s only fitting that this review is also almost 83% about the screen. Here comes the other 17%.

I tried my hardest to trick the S8’s face recognition unlock, but to no avail.

Reports that Samsung’s face recognition technology had been defeated with a photo surfaced last month. I tried to replicate this with a printed-out photo, with a photo onscreen, and with a Photobooth video of me staring at the camera and blinking. The phone was unfazed. I will never be a hacker.

Trickery aside, face recognition is more a matter of convenience than security. It makes up for the awkwardly placed fingerprint sensor and I found myself relying on it quite a bit.

The fingerprint sensor has moved to the back, much to my chagrin.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

The fingerprint unlock feature has traditionally been programmed into the device’s home button. Seeing as the S8 ditched the button, it’s now on the back of the phone. The S8’s fingerprint sensor and the camera feel basically the same, which means I kept smudging the camera lens and unlocking the phone at the same time. It’s really too bad because, minus the finger smears, the camera is quite good.

Speaking of the camera, it’s the same as the Note7’s and the Galaxy S7 before it.

The phone’s rear camera hasn’t changed. It’s a 12MP lens with f/1.7 aperture, and it notably does not have the “dual lens” setup (a camera with two lenses) that Apple, LG, and Huawei introduced with their most recent flagship devices. But I didn’t really miss it in the S8.

Samsung likes to tout its primary camera’s low-light capabilities and fast auto-focus, even with motion. At full zoom, it handled capturing this surfer fairly well (in the rain!):

And this darting newt:

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

And this amazing lemon poppyseed bundt cake my friend Lauren made:

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

The real news is the S8’s upgraded front-facing camera, which is now 8MP (up from 7MP in the Note7) with the same f/1.7 aperture. Here’s an unedited Samsung selfie:

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

And an iPhone’s (the iPhone’s camera is just 7 megapixels):

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

The main difference is that, because it’s a higher-resolution image, you can zoom in more on the Samsung selfie. I've showed these photos to multiple people — and votes are split right down the middle. The look of a photo is ultimately a matter of preference and I will let you, Internet, be the final judge.

There are also new Snapchat-style stickers built-in, which…sigh.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

Bixby, the S8’s artificially intelligent assistant, is kind of…dumb right now.

Samsung created its own version of Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant. It’s called Bixby, and it’s really an umbrella term for three different “intelligent” features: computer vision/image recognition software, a voice-enabled assistant, and a namesake app called Bixby that shows you different personalized “cards” that offer information like weather and upcoming flights (essentially this Google app feature).

Bixby Voice What makes Bixby different from other assistants is that anything you can do on your phone with touch, it can allegedly do it with your voice instead. You can say things like, “Set display brightness to maximum” and more contextual requests like, “Rotate this photo to the left.” Unfortunately, Bixby Voice doesn’t launch until later this spring and I didn’t get to test it out myself.

Bixby Vision I was, however, able to try Bixby’s vision recognition software, which uses the phone’s camera to “see.” For example, you can hold up a QR code and Bixby can take you directly to the link, or you can scan a business card and Bixby will isolate the text, then automatically add a contact from the camera app. It does those two things perfectly fine, but it’s not exactly groundbreaking tech. There are plenty of apps that can do the same thing.

One of the seemingly cooler features is being able to point your camera at a piece of furniture or clothing so Bixby can use use Pinterest-powered computer vision to find out where to buy it. I was excited to try this and hoped it would eliminate “where did you get that” small talk with more stylish ladyfriends.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News

But when I tried it out (on my boyfriend’s white Adidas shoes and a pair of amazing culottes), Bixby showed me Amazon results that matched the general shape/generic version of what I was trying to search for — and nothing else. In fact, for the culottes, Google reverse image search fared much better and found a Pinterest pin with the specific brand in the description (they are Oak+Fort, btw). I then tried taking a pic of the pin with the hopes that the Pinterest-powered software would pick it up. Nada.

Bixby Vision results are like asking your mom for a custom American Girl doll that’s designed to look just like you, and getting a Secret Hero Mulan from a KB Toys closeout sale instead.

Bixby App I didn’t find the Bixby app too helpful. It showed me details for an upcoming flight and the week’s weather, plus trending topics on Facebook, which was cool. There was a random puppy napping GIF from Giphy as well, though I’m not sure if that was personalized content.

Right now, it’s hard to assess whether Bixby is a success, because so much of the technology is still in development. As it stands, Bixby is a gimmick that’s fun for showing off to friends but not smart enough to actually be useful. Plus, Google Assistant, which ALSO comes with the S8, can do just about everything Bixby can do and then some.

The battery didn’t explode.

The 3,000 mAh battery in the S8, the version I tested rigorously, performed well. The phone, as I’ve previously mentioned, is all screen, so it isn’t surprising that the display was my #1 battery suck for three days in a row.

The phone’s battery takes about an hour and 40 minutes to fully charge via USB-C cable, and has lasted me about a day and a half on average. This is with reading articles in an hour-long round-trip commute, watching 30-minute videos, followed by 30 minutes of gameplay, and with the usual slew of Facebook and email notifications enabled. Batteries, of course, decay over time, so I’m not sure how long that’ll last. I’ll update this review if that changes.

It feels fast enough.

The Galaxy S8 is the first device to ship with the newest Qualcomm processor: the Snapdragon 835, which is faster than its predecessor (the Snapdragon 820) but uses less power than other chips. The phone felt zippy during this first week of testing, but, like batteries, its processor will decay over time.

I played Super Mario Run, a casual sidescroller, and CSR Racing 2, a 3D graphics-intensive racer, a LOT during the testing period. They played smoothly and didn’t significantly drain the battery.

The processor is apparently robust enough to power a computer, using the new Samsung Dex portable dock accessory (price TBD) that can be hooked up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The dock essentially turns the phone into an instant, lightweight Chromebook — in the demo I saw, the phone ran two apps simultaneously. I didn’t get to test the Dex out either, but once I do, I’ll update this review.

And now, a rant.

As gorgeous as the hardware is, the S8 is a Samsung phone, and I can’t review this device without noting this disclaimer: Samsung phones are (still) filled with so much crap. Samsung’s OS (called “TouchWiz”) looks cleaner than ever before, and it’s getting better. But it remains full of bloatware.

For example, I tested a T-Mobile version of the device. Right off the bat, there are four T-Mobile apps on the homescreen that I’ll likely never use, including “T-Mobile TV.” Then there are Samsung apps, like the mobile browser aptly named “Internet,”plus the Google versions of those exact same apps, like Chrome, already installed. There’s Android Pay, and Samsung Pay. There’s Gallery, and Google Photos.

Then there are Galaxy apps (which are apps made by Samsung or special “themes” to customize how your phone looks), in addition to apps you choose to download from the Google Play Store. There’s a dedicated side button for Bixby Voice, and OK Google can be activated by longpressing the home button. It’s a hot mess.

All of this is pre-loaded on the phone — and I know it can be removed from the home screen or uninstalled, but…ugh!

Samsung deeply alters the Android experience, down to the way windows scroll in the app switcher. You’ll see on the Pixel that there’s a smooth, continuous scroll and on the S8, a clunkier unit scroll.

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