#120 images and didn't cover everything

[datshitrandom]

Darren Criss | 2023

[cyclesprefectpress]

[image description: photos of a Breath of the Wild-themed hanafuda card deck, art rendered with hand-drawn inks and colors printed letterpress from linoleum blocks. hanafuda are a Japanese style of playing cards where the faces only use imagery, with no pips, ranks, or point values printed. there are 12 suits of 4 cards each, 48 total. in the classic deck design, suits are unified by particular flowers or plants; in this version the unifying elements for each suit are plants, creatures, or items from Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. suits of horses, Guardians, koroks, dragons, ex. there are also photos of the small linocuts used to print each color, one cut for every color on each card. cards are about 1 3/8 inch by 2 1/8 inch. end description.]

🎊🎊 tadaaaaa 🎊🎊 here tis, my craftalong project for Desert Bus for Hope 2024! the event starts Nov. 8th this year, and this card deck is up for silent auction starting 6pm PST on Saturday the 9th.

hanafuda!! very very fun to get familiar with this card deck and its games. i think about doing other formats of card deck all the time and always just have to wait for a subject matter that compels me to intersect with a structure that interests me. nintendo started out producing card decks, and maybe they have made LoZ hanafuda in the past—i didn't find one but i'm truly bad at web research—anyway there isn't one available now, only a 52-card deck with alternate Zelda art.

i limited the scope to BotW for lots of reasons, big one being keeping the suits tightly defined to specific things and places, & utilizing one singular map type/environment interface. even adding TotK seemed like a nightmare for keeping suit assignments tidy. each place is a specific location in-game (with some adjustments for better composition, like, Akkala tower is there behind Foothill Stable, but i made the angles of the view cleaner), and wherever applicable, items rendered with surrounding context are done as a specific location where that item appears in-game (the sword in the rock is a real place, where you can pick up a rusty sword and see the Great Plateau Tower beyond). i'll admit to some extra heavy lifting on Satori Mountain but i only actually cheated once: Silent Princess flowers don't grow at the Springs around the statues of Hylia. but that's it!! everything else is real.

the Brights are the Master Sword, Hyrule Castle, the Blood Moon, Hylia, and the Dragons; tanzaku are shrines and towers; instead of Boar-Deer-Butterfly it's Rudania-Naboris-Medoh; instead of sakura-viewing and moon-viewing parties there are…………oh no and oh NO parties?? (guardian stalker + hyrule castle, stalker + blood moon.) in these photos, the suits are laid out in order, January to December. I made a little guide to go in the box based on the one for Nintendo's Mario Hanafuda, which also includes instructions for playing Koi-Koi.

8 colors, 88 blocks, +1 very simple reduction cut for the Sheikah eye on the back side. the classic deck is completely blank on the back, but if i hadn't done the eye i think the deck would've been missing some kind of unifying umbrella. and if you're asking yourself, hey, even with overage it’s only 5 copies of each card, why not hand color the cards? i also asked this. i tried some things and unfortunately did not like the texture at all. Only 88 little lino cuts would do for my brain worms. each card is two layers of 120# cover cross-laminated together. the drawings went down first on each copy; the back sides were printed on separate sheets before lamination. laminated, pressed, colors printed post-lamination, then each card die cut out of the 3x3 inch sheet. i very much like the color palate that came out of it; since the pen drawings went down before colors i printed the grey first to find the bottom end of the value range, bookended it with the yellow, and filled in the middle. my favorite color of the bunch turns out to be the soft brown, or maybe the "gold" with no metallic in it.

i would say this card deck was about as much work as last year's tarot deck but it wasn't all the same kind of work—i didn't have to trawl through a novel of text for excerpts and battle feelings of intellectual inadequacy to have confidence in my reading comprehension, for instance. i had to learn how to draw, like, 20 things i hadn't drawn before, and carve 88 little lino cuts, but it's just not the same kind of effort. long hours, but largely calmer. the tiny but thicc little cards are so nice to hold. i am quite happy with the style of the illustrations i found, trying to make them recognizable objects, so small, and two-color. all in all very satisfying!! (confession: i logged quite a bit of footage from my own BotW playthrough to get reference material but i still haven't actually finished Medoh myself. or fought Ganon. i keep putting it off to mess around and get armor upgrades instead. gotta get to that finally.)

wip

under the cut: the body of the little game guide that went in the box, with instructions for Koi-Koi and explainers on the yaku.

[greentrickster]

a_real_nowhere_man: All of this is great. I love the idea that Chloe is smugly manipulating her team into having healthy schedules. Nino probably helps, he might not know what he's helping with but he knows it helps the team so by gosh he's gonna enable the fuck out of it.

greentrickster: ^U^ Thanks! And yeah, if Claw's the medic, Hesperia's the leader, Nino's the heart, and Alya's the data expert, then Chloe's somehow gone and turned herself into the team secretary. She's got everyone's schedules in her planner and also at least halfway memorized for the reoccurring stuff, sometimes better than they themselves do. It's kind of funny, because she's the sort of person who tends to aim for leadership and authority and that sort of thing, but I think this role actually suits her really well - she gets to be up in everyone's business, have a thumb on events and organization, and - probably most importantly for her - it means she's rarely left out of the loop. For a kid whose parents ignore and placate her on a good day and who doesn't actually have much power on her own besides the ability to 'call Daddy,' I think she'd really enjoy that. Pollen helps her figure out good organization techniques (bees are very structured, after all), and is openly approving of Chloe's efforts to keep the team functioning healthily as a whole, excellent bee behaviour.

And yes, Nino absolutely helps her with this. In fact, all of them do. Not even out of faith in Chloe or to support her, but for the simple reason... she's being really helpful. Seriously, she's in the perfect position to just be so incredibly helpful and useful with all this, since she's the only person who both knows everyone's identities and has strong reasons to interact with them in both her civilian and resistance member activities. She's in the same class as Alya, Nino, and Marinette, so it's natural for her to interact with them on a daily basis and plausible for her to decide she wants to start spending time with them, since they know Marinette, Marinette's interning for Gabriel, and Gabriel is Chloe's new boss, with Marinette having already made friends with Nino and Alya and thus being a pre-established friend group for Chloe to join. Likewise, since she's Gabriel's new top model and the face of his brand, it makes sense that he'd want to interact and spend time with her to test new potential looks and get a sense for what she's good at and what needs work, and being at his house (since his main studio is there) means it's natural for her to run into Adrien (and also Marinette) and thus start interacting with both of them as well, especially since Adrien's mentoring her in her new modeling career. She even coordinates with Nathalie, since Nathalie's the one organizing photo shoots and fashion shows. Girl's landed in the perfect position to just coordinate everything with almost no effort and she's taking advantage of it.

And this doesn't just mean in regards to coordinating schedules for resistance meetings. Chloe's whole life has been one big (and sadly ineffective) lesson in how to get and hold peoples' attention... which is a surprisingly useful skill when it comes to creating a distraction to cover another resistance member needing to leave a situation quickly or cover for them for whatever reason. Marinette didn't get enough sleep and forgot her homework? Good thing that (as far as Mari knows) being coworkers means any embarrassment that falls on her would reflect poorly on Chloe, and also that Chloe's bought the line that Marinette's 120% devoted to the Gabriel brand and image 24/7! "Of course she didn't do her homework, Ms. Bustier, we have an enormous show coming up at Gabriel, naturally she has to devote the majority of her time to planning how to make me and M. Agreste look good, it's her job. Are you implying that a literature assignment is more important than an internship that's going to open doors her poor, commoner little heart could only dream of without it? Maybe I should tell Daddy that this school doesn't support students pursuing formal careers-!"

Adrien's going to need a block of time to get through a task Chat promised to do or get in some extra studying? Schedule him to come watch over her for an upcoming photo shoot, have him there until five minutes into the shoot, then claim she's feeling super confident thanks to his brilliant teaching skills, and "Adrikins won't you please let me do the rest on my own so I can show you how well I can do without you here, I want to make you proud! <3" and boom, Adrien's got a free afternoon to get his stuff done.

Gabriel's schedule for the next month is in Alya's hands without the two of them having to do a thing because Chloe just already had it, Nino's able to actually plan the occasional group hang-out session with the whole resistance for moral and team-building exercises to help facilitate better teamwork and mental health, somehow scheduling changes and conflicts are being passed along and communicated more efficiently than ever before, and no one's pegged the changes as being a result of Chloe because she's managed to transition from 'entitled brat' to 'efficient yet overbearing secretary' with a smoothness hitherto unseen by man.

By a few months in she's reflecting that she should have made her vigilante name 'Busy Bee' instead of 'Lady Bee,' and she's going to be so incredibly smug when someone else finally catches on to what she's doing (aka, she's dominating, but for good instead of evil).

[padawanlost]

Oh I'm becoming wary of all this prequel content suddenly like damn I'm happy but I feel like Disney is gonna do to us what they did to OT fans milk our money because they now know there are takers for it all. Ugh why I can't just enjoy without side eyeing Disney. I wish we hadn't been so hurt in the past that now when we are getting things we wouldn't feel we are being used for gains. Sequels did damage SW image so they want fans back. I wish I didn't feel this way.

I’m surethat this is Disney course correcting (KK trying not to get fired) after thedamage TLJ and Solo did to the franchise. They are desperately trying to keepus happy and that’s why so much stuff is being announce at the same. However,if look at the whole picture, this is very little (very late).

Disneybought Star Wars in 2012. Do you know how many novels Disney published aboutthe main prequels characters in years between 2012 and 2018? None. In totalthere’s been less than 20 novels published set during the prequels (none aboutthe main characters), more than 80 novels set during the OT years and about 40set after ROTJ. So even with everything PT-related being released, compared tothe OT and ST the PT is still far being in terms of new content. Keep in mindthat the PT and the years leading up it covers a period of over 25000 years. TheEmpire lasts about 25 years and the post-ROTJ era about 30 years. So we have 20novels covering 25000 years of history and 120 novels covering 60 years.

What I’m tryingto say is that Disney is not milking the prequels YET. Now the OT on the otherhand…and I didn’t even count the comics. If we add the Darth Vader stuff oh boy…that’snext level milking :P  

I’m not the“uhh I love EVERYTHING and I’m ALWAYS happy” kind of fan. so I completelyunderstand your concerns and I do think they are valid. Tbh, I’m right therewith you. I don’t trust Disney around the Prequels. The only reason I’m notmore concerned about TCW and the Padmé’s novel is because we know what Filoniwanted for the rest of the show and E. K. Johnston showed the proper respectfor the PT characters in her Ahsoka novel.

[leapesportif]

iPhone 11 vs iPhone X - and Why I Didn't Buy the iPhone 11 Pro

iPhone 11 vs iPhone X - and Why I Didn't Buy the iPhone 11 Pro

I’ll start off be talking briefly about my experience with the iPhone X.

Just over two years since Apple launched it’s flagship phone, featuring a new design, new construction and heavily updated hardware, the makers of all things sexy (that man can legally pay money for anyway) have released the iPhone 11.

While the iPhone 11 may not be distinctly different to any of its predecessors, the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max certainly are - just flip them over and take a look at the back - you’ll know what i mean.

Having got my hands on my iPhone X at launch in 2017, my excitement was quickly culled by a screen issue. Well, basically, it didn’t work - apart from flashing and showing me a few colourful lines, i couldn’t really use it.

A trip to the Apple Store, and an amusing comment about Samsung having supplied the screens for the X, i left with a new replacement.

Two weeks later, i was back at the Apple Store with exactly the same problem! I started November 2017 with an iPhone 7, and entered December on my third(!) iPhone X.

This third handset served me well, and didn’t really miss a beat until the summer of this year - then the problem began…

First, Face ID failed. It took me a couple of days to realise that every time i opened my phone, i had to use the passcode.

I made an appointment with apple, and they diagnosed a problem with the Face ID sensor - this despite the fact that Animoji’s still worked flawlessly! This was something no-one could really explain, and owing to the €585 repair cost from Apple, the nice employee there whispered that i could get €500 cash back for my iPhone X and then i could use the money to buy a different handset - the iPhone XR.

Now, i had done my homework before making this trip to the Genius Bar. I know, at worst, the Face ID sensor would cost around €90, and i’m no stranger to taking apart iPhones (I have daughters who like to break the screens on the things), so i thought i would repair it myself.

One hour, and €24 later, i had installed the new Face ID sensor, which by the way also contains the front camera and proximity sensor (the part which automatically adjusts the brightness, and plays voice messages through the ear piece when you lift the phone to your head). The problem still remained. Everything worked as it should - just no Face ID.

I decided to leave things as they were - there was no way i was paying Apples repair cost - they would probably have done the exact same thing i just did, with the same result!

Going back two months ago, the shit really started to hit the fan as far as my phone was concerned!

I noticed apps were complaining about not being able to use location services. Sure enough, when i opened maps i had no location. My family couldn’t find me anymore on apples stalking service either! GPS dead now too?

Then, sure enough, the next problem occurred. And then the next. And then the next.

At the point where it (or I) finally gave up, my as new on the outside, but completly rotten on the inside, boasted the following list of ailments:

Face ID sensor failure

Proximity sensor failure

GPS failure

Battery in 'service' condition

It rattled (?)

Battery from full would run down to 3% in a matter of minutes, then stay at 3% for several hours

SIM card not recognised / Searching for network

Screen hanged or shudder while animating

Gyroscopic senor failure (this is a guess, but when you picked the phone up and tilted it in any way it would swith off)

Eventually, 10 days ago, my iPhone X decided enough is enough, and refused to switch on for any longer than flashing the Apple logo at me for a second or two.

So, with all this in mind, a had to pull the trigger and get a new iPhone - but which of the iPhone 11 range would be best suited to me?

Being a photographer of course, the new tripple lens system of the 11 Pro really appealed. However, the standard Pro has the same size as the X, and i wanted more real-estate under my thumbs. So, the Pro Max was clearly the way to go right? Wrong. Here's why. In one sentence. 4 characters...

€450

Yes, four-hundred-and-fifty-euros is what Apple deems a necessary bounty over the price of the standard iPhone 11. Why? Well, that's the big question! The short answer: A bigger, better screen, bigger battery (of course, it's a bigger phone) and the tripple lens rear camera.

My reasons for wanting the Pro Max were the camera system and the big-assed screen. However, there are two points of contention here for me where it makes it really difficult to justify the extra money:

1. The Pro Max features the tripple lens camera. BUT, the sparkly new toy of the ultrawide lens is available on the standard 11 at the cost of the telephoto lens of it's predecessor. The wide angle lens is the toy i wanted most, and the standard wide angle lens of the 11 is stablised and has up to 5x digital zoom - which in fairness is only really usable up to 2x - which is perfectly acceptable in most use cases.

2. The 11 is built around the chassis of the iPhone XR - which makes it, and therefore it's screen bigger that that of the iPhone 11 Pro. It's not that easy for me to understand why apple did this - they must of had a bunch of unused X and XR chassis hanging around in storage somewhere.

Of course, the 11 Pro Max is better, but just how much better? Here's a little, to-the-point-comparision to help you decide:

The Pro Max (both Pro's) has more RAM 6GB vs 4GB

The Pro Max has a better screen: 6.5'' vs 6.1'', 1242x2688 463dpi vs 828x1792 324dpi resolution and Retina vs LCD (as far as screen sizes go....it's a bigger phone! The 11 Pro for reference has a 5.8'' 463dpi retina display with 1125x2436 resolution.)

The 11 has the Aluminium/Glass construction, similar to that of the iPhone XR vs Stainless Steel / Glass akin to the rest of the X series - is this really a big concern?

Both Pro handsets have the tripple camera system - which we already covered.

The 11 Pro Max has 3400mAh battery - again, like the screen, it's a bigger phone, and that bigger screen needs more power - so this makes sense - and is it really an issue. The extra juice equates to about 3 hours more contiuous use over the 11 standard.

The forces swinging in favour of the 11 Standard vs the 11 Pro Max

Massive price saving - on contract up to €15 per month.

Same A13 processor as the Pro's.

Same 12mp f2.2 front facing camera with up to 120fps (in 1080p) video

Lighter weight compared to the Pros

Same 4k 60fps capability with the rear camera array.

Waterproof - just like the Pro's, allbeit up to two meters and not 4.

Same sound system as the Pro's.

Range of colours available (not that important to most).

All in all, my decision to pull the trigger on the 11 over the 11 Pro Max was influenced by not being able to justify the higher cost against the better quality screen, which most users won't notice anyway, and the extra camera, which the majority of users wouldn't miss either. Plus, i don't think i have any pants or jackets with pockets big enough for the Pro Max, which would mean i'd need to buy one of those silly round-the-neck-pouch-thingies!

Living with the iPhone 11

Well, it's been a good start!

There are, needless to say, some really noticable improvements in this phone when comparted to my iPhone X - apart from the obvious fact that it works!

The A13 processor is markedly faster than the A11 of the X. Lightning fast in fact. This has, so far, been most noticable for me when using Face ID. You look at the phone and it opens in the exact instant your face is in front of it. 4GB of RAM, compared to 3GB in X certainly play a role here too.

The screen is clear, sharp and blacks are nicer than on the X dispite only having an IPS LCD here - i really see no real disadvantage of not having the OLED of the X - it really is a pleasant experience. The larger screen of the 11 is really nice to have in a phone that is only 20g heavier. A 3110mAh battery means extra play-time when compared to the 2617mAh cell in the X. And the final, really noticable thing is the front camera. Snapping a selfie for the Mrs, it really is noticable there is an addition 5mp in the front camera!

So, what about the camera?

This is where things get fun.

Enter the camera app, and you're by default in the standard wide angle mode. Hit the 1x button to jump to ultra wide angle, and, fuuuuuuck! How does that happen! I love having a really wide, border fish-eye lens on a DSLR - and this thing is just as much fun!

Even though the screen is of a lesser resolution and pixel-density when compared to the iPhone X, images and videos just look so much better. This is potentially down to the new, faster A13 Processor combining with the new IPS LCD.

Portrait mode looks great and focuses better and faster than before. Although the filters on offer in portrait mode still leave something to be desired! One really cool feature of portrait mode, is now you can adjust the aperture when editing the shot afterwards, this adjusts how blurred the background is, which is pretty cool!

We also now have the ability to shoot 4k video at 60fps, which means when using the clips in editing software you can slow these down to 24-30fps and have slow motion which remains crystal clear and natively in 4k resolution!

As mentioned, the iPhone 11 packs 2 cameras, but unlike the X the 2x Optical telephone lens has given way to an ultra wide angle lens.

The specs:

26mm f1.8 Wide Angle, 6 element lens with 100% focus coverage and on-board image stabilisation. Focus areas as before can be selected in the camera app. This lens uses Apples new Deep Fusion engine. There’s no setting for this, and it only works with the ‘Photo Capture Outside the Frame’ turned off - more on this soon!

13mm f2.4 Ultra Wide Angle, 5 element lens with 120 degree field of view. Focusing on this lens is Phase Detection auto-focus. Which essential means you can't, and don't need to select your focus area. Selecting areas of the screen while in Ultra Wide will of course set your exposure levels as always in iOS.

Night Mode

Night mode is only available when using the default wide-angle lens. It effectively lengthens the shutter speed depending on what the phone decides the available light is. It really does work well, but i suspect there is some serious ISO hocus pocus going on behind the scenes, which could have a negative effect on what you can achieve in this mode.

So, be warned, Night Mode is cool, but your phone is slowing down it’s shutter speed, and it can shoot at 10 seconds depending on the light - so you need to keep still. The on board stabilisation of the wide angle lens will help you out to a degree - but anything over 2 seconds (which is shown in the moon logo on the top of the screen, and you’re gonna need some kind of tripod.).

Ready for something clever? And confusing?

Deep Fusion. Yeah we mentioned that already. Some kind of Apple hocus pocus going on in the background that only those in cahoots with the dark arts will understand. It makes pictures with the default lens look sexier - and that’s about it. We don’t need to know any more.

BUT

The camera has one final cool-assed feature…

When shooting in a 4:3 or similar ratio, the phone will effectively take an image of everything outside of the ratio up to the maximum ratio available. This means, you can come back later and expand the crop of an image to add the parts that were outside the frame of the original shot. Neat. Watch out though - this feature only works when it’s activated in the camera settings in the settings menu. Aaaaand when it is active, then Deep Fusion is no longer active! I said it was confusing right?!

Missing 3d touch?

Yup! It’s gone. Did you ever used to test your strength by pressing the bathroom weighing scales as hard as you could? Well, that experience with the iPhone has finally been taking away from us. Is it an issue? Well, we used to long press things to get them to move or provide an expanded menu so i’m not really seeing the issue. Many have complained, but many also complained when the headphone jack disappeared. No-one died right?

Conclusion

Well, it’s early days, and as you’ve seen by my two lazy-arsed pictures taken with the phone to demonstrate the wide-angle lens, i’ve not done much shooting with it. But i’m excited to. The ultra wide angle lens looks a lot of fun!

For users of the iPhone X, upgrading to the 11 is a must! For XR/XS users, if you don’t care too much for taking pictures then stay maybe stay where you are. The speed advantages of the new processor are really cool if you’re into gaming, but otherwise, sit it out - in September you’ll most likely be able to get the 11 at a bargain price.

If you’ve money to throw away, then get the normal iPhone 11 and send me the €450! Of course, if you’re a rapper, then your trousers will most likely have pockets large enough to accommodate the 11 Pro Max’s girth!

Get the iPhone 11 here!