#Product description optimization

[liveblack]

Ecommerce SEO Tips | Liveblack

With search engine optimization, explore how you can improve your ecommerce website performance. SEO strategies for ecommerce websites will help you drive traffic and increase sales. As we all know, ecommerce is a growing industry, and a lot of competition is out there. So, it is important to apply potent SEO strategies for better and expected results.

When you are looking to improve your ecommerce website, these SEO Tips for Ecommerce Websites will help you rank your website higher in search engines.

Keyword research in SEO -

Keyword research is an important part of SEO optimization for websites. You should be aware of the right keywords that your target audience uses to search. Different keyword planner tools will help you find relevant keywords for your ecommerce website. Once you’ve got to know the keywords used by your audience, you’ll have to update your website content accordingly.

In addition, long-tail keywords are the real deal. Long tail keywords can help you attract more traffic, and increase conversion rates, and all of these promote higher search engine ranking. Analyze which long-tail keywords people use to find their requirements, this way you can better understand their interests and craft your content marketing strategy accordingly.

Use keyword research tools to get the right keywords, gain insights into what your audience is searching for, and write content by that.

Link Building -

One thing ecommerce website owners have to remember is that ecommerce SEO is crucial for the success of your online store. Link building for SEO is an important aspect of improving your online business. Link building is all about obtaining backlinks from other websites to yours. Focus on getting high-quality backlinks from authenticated websites. High-quality content on your website will prepare other websites to link to your content or set them up for a link exchange program.

With the help of link building, search engines will find you authoritative and help you earn high rankings. It’s a potential way to develop long-term relationships with key influencers to make your online business more reliable.

Have a user-friendly website -

Designing a beautiful website is not enough, it’s crucial to be attentive to designing a good user experience. Having a well-designed website has benefits. Ensure people can have a good experience while visiting your website without the interference of unnecessary things. Have a clear user’s view that people can effortlessly navigate your website.

Give people a reason to visit your website easily and quickly, engage them with your products and services, and content. An appealing site and enhanced UX can offer your visitors a great experience and get higher search engine rankings.

Optimizing URL structure through SEO makes search results more substantial.

Improve website content -

Content is the king and engaging content plays an important role in ecommerce strategy. What does high-quality content bring to your business, let’s check out.

Builds trust among your audience

Increase traffic and conversions

Improve SEO rankings

Increase your store visibility

There are many types of content you can have on your website such as articles, blogs, updates on new product launches, photos, videos, Q&A, etc.

Observe your audience’s behavior and know them better as this analysis helps you create content that takes care of their requirements. Through this way, you can suggest a product, service, or solution that satisfies your audience.

Get to know what type of content your audience likes the most. Craft your content according to your audience’s taste and maintain a content calendar to publish time-to-time content so that it will be updated regularly.

On-page optimization -

This will include optimizing website content and its structure. Product description optimization is a process of making descriptions more engaging by providing necessary information. This will also impact search engine rankings. Optimize titles, descriptions, headings, images, etc. because a well-structured website keeps you ahead of competitors.

Make sure your ecommerce website has a clear sequence and interlinked pages so users can navigate easily.

Optimize site for mobile screens as people nowadays are more inclined to mobile phones to buy or search for what they want.

There are search engine optimization tools that will help you in improving your rankings in search engine result pages. Increased visibility and brand awareness lead to more sales.

Content marketing strategy -

One of the great ways to help your ecommerce business improve is to use content marketing. Drive traffic to your website through a content marketing strategy by crafting infographics, blogs, and creative social media posts.

Prepare high-quality and relevant content to engage your audience in every way possible. Also, don’t forget to add the right keywords and meta tags so that your content reaches an audience. Because SEO optimization in content can increase visibility.

You can also promote your content through internal linking as well as reach out to other websites for guest posting.

When you are looking forward to getting website rankings without spending a single penny, organic search engine optimization can help you in a way. This is a marketing strategy that is planned to improve rankings through unpaid search results.

Organic SEO is a free way to enhance conversion rate and organic traffic. With every update that comes in Google, users can get benefits from it. Google Search Generative Experience(SGE) is one of the most advantageous updates users can ask for. This is an AI feature where a search engine will provide users with relevant information. SGE uses AI technology to provide answers to any complex query.

Merchant Center is a free tool for your ecommerce business that lets you manage product information. This tool can benefit you in ways -

Online listing of Google’s products

Get personalized reports

Brand recognition

Increase sales

Convert leads into customers

Optimize product feed

If you are thinking of improving your online presence, local SEO can help which leads to increased traffic, brand recognition, and visibility. When people or your loyal customers nearby will find your business, they choose you. This strategy also aids you in converting leads into customers in specific geographical areas.

Google’s ecommerce website review also builds trust amongst people for your ecommerce website. In short, there are ways you can create a trustworthy and the most advanced ecommerce website for your business. Ecommerce isn’t a business with a physical presence so customers can buy anything at any time.

We at Liveblack have a team of expert and experienced developers who have skill sets to develop websites in HTML5, WordPress, Shopify, Wix, PHP core, PHP Laravel, Bootstrap, etc. Tell us your requirements, and we’ve got you covered.

[muu-kun]

Although a chronic insomniac, Muu also has maintained an unrelenting fear of the dark over the years. Hence why not only is his room filled with quite the abundant array of nightlights of varying sizes and styles, he also prefers to aim for slumber at as early as 9pm in the evening as a means of existing under the stars as limited in quantity as possible.

Additionally aimed to provide him comfort, he routinely shares his bed with both his dog, and his most beloved stuffed animals. Including that of a very well loved hedgehog plush in particular named Aime Jr, a posable yellow bear from Ikea, and many, many others. It is actually more surprising how he fits onto his own bed more than anything else. If at all inquired as to why so many in the first place, his answer is quite consistently an admittance that he is aiming to not be seen by an intruder, or monster, no matter how rare it would be for one to enter his home just in general.

[mcmansionhell]

we've found it folks: mcmansion heaven

Hello everyone. It is my pleasure to bring you the greatest house I have ever seen. The house of a true visionary. A real ad-hocist. A genuine pioneer of fenestration. This house is in Alabama. It was built in 1980 and costs around $5 million. It is worth every penny. Perhaps more.

Now, I know what you're thinking: "Come on, Kate, that's a little kooky, but certainly it's not McMansion Heaven. This is very much a house in the earthly realm. Purgatory. McMansion Purgatory." Well, let me now play Beatrice to your Dante, young Pilgrim. Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

It is rare to find a house that has everything. A house that wills itself into Postmodernism yet remains unable to let go of the kookiest moments of the prior zeitgeist, the Bruce Goffs and Earthships, the commune houses built from car windshields, the seventies moments of psychedelic hippie fracture. It is everything. It has everything. It is theme park, it is High Tech. It is Renaissance (in the San Antonio Riverwalk sense of the word.) It is medieval. It is maybe the greatest pastiche to sucker itself to the side of a mountain, perilously overlooking a large body of water. Look at it. Just look.

The inside is white. This makes it dreamlike, almost benevolent. It is bright because this is McMansion Heaven and Gray is for McMansion Hell. There is an overbearing sheen of 80s optimism. In this house, the credit default swap has not yet been invented, but could be.

It takes a lot for me to drop the cocaine word because I think it's a cheap joke. But there's something about this example that makes it plausible, not in a derogatory way, but in a liberatory one, a sensuous one. Someone created this house to have a particular experience, a particular feeling. It possesses an element of true fantasy, the thematic. Its rooms are not meant to be one cohesive composition, but rather a series of scenes, of vastly different spatial moments, compressed, expanded, bright, close.

And then there's this kitchen for some reason. Or so you think. Everything the interior design tries to hide, namely how unceasingly peculiar the house is, it is not entirely able to because the choices made here remain decadent, indulgent, albeit in a more familiar way.

Rare is it to discover an interior wherein one truly must wear sunglasses. The environment created in service to transparency has to somewhat prevent the elements from penetrating too deep while retaining their desirable qualities. I don't think an architect designed this house. An architect would have had access to specifically engineered products for this purpose. Whoever built this house had certain access to architectural catalogues but not those used in the highest end or most structurally complex projects. The customization here lies in the assemblage of materials and in doing so stretches them to the height of their imaginative capacity. To borrow from Charles Jencks, ad-hoc is a perfect description. It is an architecture of availability and of adventure.

A small interlude. We are outside. There is no rear exterior view of this house because it would be impossible to get one from the scrawny lawn that lies at its depths. This space is intended to serve the same purpose, which is to look upon the house itself as much as gaze from the house to the world beyond.

Living in a city, I often think about exhibitionism. Living in a city is inherently exhibitionist. A house is a permeable visible surface; it is entirely possible that someone will catch a glimpse of me they're not supposed to when I rush to the living room in only a t-shirt to turn out the light before bed. But this is a space that is only exhibitionist in the sense that it is an architecture of exposure, and yet this exposure would not be possible without the protection of the site, of the distance from every other pair of eyes. In this respect, a double freedom is secured. The window intimates the potential of seeing. But no one sees.

At the heart of this house lies a strange mix of concepts. Postmodern classicist columns of the Disney World set. The unpolished edge of the vernacular. There is also an organicist bent to the whole thing, something more Goff than Gaudí, and here we see some of the house's most organic forms, the monolith- or shell-like vanity mixed with the luminous artifice of mirrors and white. A backlit cave, primitive and performative at the same time, which is, in essence, the dialectic of the luxury bathroom.

And yet our McMansion Heaven is still a McMansion. It is still an accumulation of deliberate signifiers of wealth, very much a construction with the secondary purpose of invoking envy, a palatial residence designed without much cohesion. The presence of golf, of wood, of masculine and patriarchal symbolism with an undercurrent of luxury drives that point home. The McMansion can aspire to an art form, but there are still many levels to ascend before one gets to where God's sitting.

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams.

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! Student loans just started back up!

[isubhamdas]

Ecommerce Product Page SEO

Boost your ecommerce product page SEO to drive sales and increase visibility. Learn how to find and map keywords, optimize meta tags, and create high-quality content. Continue reading to discover expert tips and suggestions to improve your product page SEO. Ecommerce Product Pages for SEO: How?Find and Map KeywordsOptimize Meta TagsCreate High-Quality ContentAdd Internal LinksUse High-Quality…

[amazonmarketingagency]

Lab 916: Your Partner in Crafting Winning Amazon Strategies

Introduction: Lab 916's Expertise in Amazon Strategy

In the ever-evolving world of e-commerce, Lab 916 stands as a beacon of expertise, providing businesses with tailored Amazon strategies to succeed in the competitive marketplace. With a deep understanding of Amazon's algorithms, trends, and best practices, Lab 916 helps businesses navigate the complexities of selling on the platform and achieve their goals.

Strategic Planning with Lab 916

Lab 916 takes a strategic approach to Amazon strategy development, focusing on optimizing product listings, implementing competitive pricing strategies, leveraging advertising tactics, and fostering customer engagement. By customizing strategies to align with each client's unique objectives and market dynamics, Lab 916 ensures that businesses can maximize their potential on Amazon.

Optimizing Product Listings for Maximum Visibility

A crucial aspect of Lab 916's Amazon strategy is optimizing product listings to enhance visibility and drive conversions. Through meticulous keyword research, compelling product descriptions, and high-quality imagery, Lab 916 ensures that each product listing is optimized to rank higher in Amazon search results. By improving the visibility and appeal of product listings, businesses can attract more customers and increase sales.

Implementing Competitive Pricing Strategies

Lab 916 assists businesses in developing competitive yet profitable pricing strategies tailored to their market segment. By analyzing competitor pricing data, market trends, and consumer behavior, Lab 916 helps businesses set prices that maximize sales while maintaining healthy profit margins. Additionally, Lab 916 provides guidance on leveraging dynamic pricing tools and promotional strategies to stay competitive on Amazon.

Leveraging Advertising Tactics for Enhanced Visibility

Advertising is a key component of Lab 916's Amazon strategy, aimed at increasing product visibility and driving targeted traffic to product listings. Lab 916 utilizes Amazon's advertising platform to create and optimize sponsored product ads, sponsored brand ads, and sponsored display ads. By strategically targeting keywords and audience segments, Lab 916 helps businesses maximize their advertising ROI and generate sales on Amazon.

Fostering Customer Engagement and Loyalty

Lab 916 emphasizes the importance of fostering strong customer relationships to drive long-term success on Amazon. Through proactive customer service, timely responses to inquiries and feedback, and strategies to encourage positive reviews, Lab 916 helps businesses build trust and loyalty with their customers. By delivering exceptional shopping experiences and maintaining positive seller ratings, businesses can enhance their reputation and drive repeat purchases on the platform.

Conclusion: Achieving Success with Lab 916's Guidance

In conclusion, Lab 916 serves as a valuable partner for businesses seeking to excel on Amazon. With Lab 916's expertise and strategic guidance, businesses can optimize their Amazon strategies and achieve success in the competitive e-commerce landscape. By leveraging Lab 916's insights and best practices, businesses can unlock their full potential on one of the world's largest online platforms.

Introduction: Lab 916's Expertise in Amazon Strategy

In the ever-evolving world of e-commerce, Lab 916 stands as a beacon of expertise, providing businesses with tailored Amazon strategies to succeed in the competitive marketplace. With a deep understanding of Amazon's algorithms, trends, and best practices, Lab 916 helps businesses navigate the complexities of selling on the platform and achieve their goals.

Strategic Planning with Lab 916

Lab 916 takes a strategic approach to Amazon strategy development, focusing on optimizing product listings, implementing competitive pricing strategies, leveraging advertising tactics, and fostering customer engagement. By customizing strategies to align with each client's unique objectives and market dynamics, Lab 916 ensures that businesses can maximize their potential on Amazon.

Optimizing Product Listings for Maximum Visibility

A crucial aspect of Lab 916's Amazon strategy is optimizing product listings to enhance visibility and drive conversions. Through meticulous keyword research, compelling product descriptions, and high-quality imagery, Lab 916 ensures that each product listing is optimized to rank higher in Amazon search results. By improving the visibility and appeal of product listings, businesses can attract more customers and increase sales.

Implementing Competitive Pricing Strategies

Lab 916 assists businesses in developing competitive yet profitable pricing strategies tailored to their market segment. By analyzing competitor pricing data, market trends, and consumer behavior, Lab 916 helps businesses set prices that maximize sales while maintaining healthy profit margins. Additionally, Lab 916 provides guidance on leveraging dynamic pricing tools and promotional strategies to stay competitive on Amazon.

Leveraging Advertising Tactics for Enhanced Visibility

Advertising is a key component of Lab 916's Amazon strategy, aimed at increasing product visibility and driving targeted traffic to product listings. Lab 916 utilizes Amazon's advertising platform to create and optimize sponsored product ads, sponsored brand ads, and sponsored display ads. By strategically targeting keywords and audience segments, Lab 916 helps businesses maximize their advertising ROI and generate sales on Amazon.

Fostering Customer Engagement and Loyalty

Lab 916 emphasizes the importance of fostering strong customer relationships to drive long-term success on Amazon. Through proactive customer service, timely responses to inquiries and feedback, and strategies to encourage positive reviews, Lab 916 helps businesses build trust and loyalty with their customers. By delivering exceptional shopping experiences and maintaining positive seller ratings, businesses can enhance their reputation and drive repeat purchases on the platform.

Conclusion: Achieving Success with Lab 916's Guidance

In conclusion, Lab 916 serves as a valuable partner for businesses seeking to excel on Amazon. With Lab 916's expertise and strategic guidance, businesses can optimize their Amazon strategies and achieve success in the competitive e-commerce landscape. By leveraging Lab 916's insights and best practices, businesses can unlock their full potential on one of the world's largest online platforms.

[prachibisht16]

Mastering Amazon Listing Optimization: A Comprehensive Guide for Sellers

Amazon marketplace is a pinnacle for e-commerce. The competition here is quite high so optimizing your product listings is essential for you to get noticed. However, staying ahead of the competition isn’t a big deal as the proven strategies and 8 easy steps of writing product descriptions are enough for you to excel. 

Boosting search visibility, increasing conversions, and building customer trust aren’t impossible anymore. You can now elevate your brand presence by discovering the art of keyword placement, compelling product descriptions, and eye-catching images.

[babu-2022]

TubeBuddy: Powering Your YouTube Success

TubeBuddy is a browser extension and mobile app that offers a suite of tools to help YouTube creators optimize their channel for increased views and subscribers. The platform is trusted by leading creators, and its mission is to make the YouTube community a happier and more productive bunch. TubeBuddy offers a range of packages for different types of users, including Pro, Legend, and Enterprise, each with its own set of tools and features. The platform offers features like A/B testing for thumbnails, keyword research, comment moderation, and live subscriber counts, among others.

TubeBuddy offers a mobile version of its platform, which offers features like best practice checks, keyword research, comment moderation, and more. The app is available for download on the App Store, and it offers a free trial for new users. The app has received mixed reviews, with some users reporting glitches and bugs, while others have praised its features and functionality.

TubeBuddy is designed to help YouTube creators optimize their channels for increased views and subscribers. It offers a range of tools and features to help users achieve their goals, including keyword research, A/B testing for thumbnails, comment moderation, and more. The platform is available in different packages to suit different types of users, including Pro, Legend, and Enterprise. Each package offers a different set of tools and features, and users can choose the one that best suits their needs.

TubeBuddy is a highly rated tool that offers a range of features to help YouTube creators optimize their channels. The platform has received positive reviews from leading creators, who credit it with the success of their YouTube SEO strategy. TubeBuddy's suite of tools includes features like keyword research, best practice checks, and live subscriber counts, among others. The platform is available in different packages to suit different types of users, and it offers a range of benefits, including faster publishing times and the ability to create winning thumbnails.

GET STARTED TODAY

[ecommenchanter]

How to Optimize Your E-Commerce Website for Increased Conversions

Introduction

With the e-commerce industry growing exponentially, it's more important than ever to focus on optimizing your online store for increased conversions. In this article, we'll dive into the top strategies for making sure your website is functioning at its best and turning visitors into customers.

1. Mobile-first Design

As more and more people use their mobile devices to shop online, it's crucial that your website is optimized for mobile users. This means having a responsive design that adjusts to different screen sizes and making sure your site loads quickly on mobile devices.

Keywords: mobile-first design, responsive design, mobile optimization

2. High-quality Product Images and Descriptions

One of the biggest challenges in online shopping is not being able to physically see or touch the product. To combat this, make sure your website has high-quality images and detailed product descriptions to give customers a clear understanding of what they're buying.

Keywords: product images, product descriptions, high-quality images

3. Streamlined Checkout Process

A lengthy or confusing checkout process can lead to abandoned carts and lost sales. Keep your checkout process simple and straightforward, with minimal steps and clear instructions. Additionally, consider offering guest checkout as an option for those who don't want to create an account.

Keywords: streamlined checkout, checkout process, guest checkout

4. Utilize Social Proof

Social proof, such as customer reviews and testimonials, can help build trust and credibility with potential customers. Showcase these on your website, especially on product pages, to help visitors feel more confident in making a purchase.

Keywords: social proof, customer reviews, testimonials

5. Offer Multiple Payment Options

By offering a variety of payment options, you make it easier for customers to complete their purchase. Ensure you accept major credit cards, PayPal, and other popular payment methods to cater to a wider audience.

Keywords: payment options, payment methods, credit cards

Conclusion

Optimizing your e-commerce website is crucial for driving conversions and growing your online business. By focusing on mobile-first design, high-quality product images and descriptions, a streamlined checkout process, social proof, and multiple payment options, you can create a user-friendly experience that keeps customers coming back.

[dmkhaledmc]

[genshin-impact-updates]

Artifact Management and Enhancement Screen Optimizations Are Here~ | Developers Discussion - 12/06

Hello, Travelers~

In Version 4.3, we will implement a series of system optimizations in the game. We will be introducing some of these in this Developers Discussion. Let's take a look together~

〓Archon Quest "Requiem of the Echoing Depths" Unlinked From World Quest〓

To ensure that Travelers have a smoother experience with the Archon Quest, from Version 4.3 onwards, "The Chasm Delvers" quest series will no longer be prerequisites for this Archon Quest. When you reach the objective "Enter The Chasm: Underground Mines" in the Archon Quest "In the Depths, an Unexpected Reunion," a Teleport Waypoint will be automatically unlocked in The Chasm: Underground Mines so you can continue with the Archon Quest.

The Archon Quest "Requiem of the Echoing Depths" requires Travelers to head to The Chasm: Underground Mines, but this location will be locked until Travelers have completed the corresponding World Quest that allows them to enter and continue pursuing the Archon Quest.

〓One-Click Features〓

▌Dispatching Characters on Expeditions

One-Click Expeditions will become available in Version 4.3. This will allow Travelers to claim Expedition Rewards with a single click, as well as repeat expeditions with a single click.

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

▌Ingredient Processing and Forging Screens

Aside from expeditions, you will also be able to claim processed ingredients and forged items that have been completed with a single click in Version 4.3.

▌Mystic Offering

When performing Mystic Offerings at Crafting Benches, you'll now be able to add multiple Artifacts in batches with a single click.

In future versions, you'll also be able to claim created Furnishings from the Creation Screen in the Serenitea Pot with a single click.

〓Optimized Artifact Management〓

As the journey goes on, the number of Artifact Sets you can collect will continue to increase. To help Travelers quickly find and manage Artifacts, a significant optimization has been made to the Artifacts filter function.

Automatic Locking and Quick Unlock functions have been added to the Inventory > Artifacts screen. Travelers can use these to automatically lock and unlock Artifacts according to the requirements they set.

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

Additionally, as a reference to help Travelers when choosing Artifacts, recommended Artifact set information based on recently active players will now be shown on characters' Artifacts screens.

For more details about Artifact management optimizations, please stay tuned for future official descriptions.

〓Optimized Enhancement Screens〓

In the current version of the game, when Travelers level up characters or enhance Weapons and Artifacts, a pop-up appears showing how the corresponding values changed before and after enhancement. In Version 4.3, enhancement information will be integrated into the original screen instead. This will make the enhancement experience smoother for Travelers by getting rid of the frequent pop-ups.

Apart from integrating enhancement information, there will also be some small targeted optimizations on these screens:

▌Character Level-Up Screen

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

The speed of interface special effects related to leveling up characters has been increased, and you can now use Auto Add to add sufficient Character EXP Materials to get the character up to the highest level they can reach before Ascension with a single click.

▌Artifact Enhancement Screen

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

Other optimizations:

1. You can now consume up to 15 items per time when enhancing Artifacts.

2. Added the "Enhance to Next Tier" function. Once activated, when there are still open slots to add Enhancement Materials but this action will already cause the Artifact to reach Level 4/8/12/16, no more additional Enhancement Materials will be automatically added.

3. In Settings > Other, you can choose whether or not 5-Star Artifacts can be auto-added as Enhancement Materials.

Combined with the Automatic Locking function mentioned above, we hope that these changes will make managing 5-star Artifacts more convenient for Travelers.

▌Weapon Enhancement Screen

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

You can now consume up to 40 items per time when enhancing Weapons on, and select multiple materials when refining Weapons.

We hope that these optimizations make the enhancement experience smoother for Travelers.

〓Character Reload Spot When Challenging Domains Repeatedly〓

In Version 4.3, after entering the Domain or if you continue to challenge the Domain after claiming rewards, characters will reload nearer to the Domain challenge location. This means you won't have to run over from the Domain entrance to this location again.

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

〓Other Optimizations〓

To improve your gaming experience, some other optimizations will be implemented in Version 4.3. These include:

1. The way enemy avatars display in Adventurer Handbook: Enemies will be adjusted to help you find them. Also, you can now select "Cancel Navigation" on this screen to stop navigating towards the corresponding enemy on the map.

2. On the various creation screens (Crafting/Cooking/Forging/Create Furnishing), if there are no selected character records on the Traveler's device, the first character that can provide a bonus when creating the selected item will be chosen by default.

3. On the map screen, you'll now be able to check bosses' current remaining respawn times by clicking their avatars.

(This is under development and is not indicative of the final product.)

And that's all for this Developers Discussion. We'll have more information about new version content and optimizations for you in the future, so please stay tuned for further official announcements. If you have any thoughts or feedback, feel free to send them to us through the various channels within and outside of the game~

[thedevilrisen]

Hospital - 5

TW: HOSPITALS, nothing bad, just a description of someone in a hospital.

Nova Crosby -

1:16am

Theorising while sitting in an intensive care waiting room at quarter past one in the morning is never a good idea. Particularly after being given fodder such as an unplanned emergency surgery, both men had their own ideas on what could have happened. Knowing the extent of Nova's condition before she was whisked away at the emergency room Luke was trying to use Sid's aged wisdom to conclude what happened. But both of them had absolutely nothing.

Standing, leaning against the granite kitchenette counter which was more so holding the exhausted form of Sidney up while he skulled the dregs of his third coffee. Religiously Sid only had one coffee a day on decaf, but in such a drastic situation where he needed to be as awake as possible if the promised Nurse ever actually came. Each time a pair of lone footsteps clacked down the hall Sid or Luke, whoever was closest to the door looked out to check if it was a Nurse.

Two times it was the food delivery, bringing in product for the next day, one it was the cleaner and three times orderlies who were moving wheelchairs back to the spots they needed to go to. Every time Sid became more agitated, the patient Canadian niceness was wearing thin, exceptionally fast. Each time it wasn't a nurse with answers and every minute that ticked by that the phone didn't ring with answers his frustration exponentially increased.

"I think I'm going fucking insane Luke." Sid mumbled, pouring hot water into another cup loaded with instant coffee. His incessant grumbling and almost permanently creased brow was giving away the fact that he hadn't had an emotional outlet since he left the game almost six hours prior. He had held Luke through his initial crash when he first arrived and had gave him a pat on the back and or shoulder rub depending on where he was when Luke needed a little extra comforting.

Luke was now almost apathetic, but Sid. Sidney was dangerously toeing the line of complete and utter meltdown. He prided himself on his sturdy and tentative nature. He was kind, never raised his voice, except when Nova goes joy riding with a bunch of college boys to New Jersey for the weekend- ... but thats a different story. Sidney solidly believed that any rebellious situation Nova had been in would be better than this right now. He could control it, make sure she was safe and okay. See with his own two eyes, not matter how red they were hazed with his rage that she was okay.

"I know what you're talking about Sid. I feel like I could drop asleep any minute but it's Murphy's law. I do that and suddenly she's awake and we can see her." Luke half slurred, half grumbled.

"This is fucking ridiculous, where did they say the ICU room is?" Sid spoke firmly, leaving no room for argument, although Luke tried.

"Sid, I'm as upset as you. It's only been a little while since the call, they are probably getting her sorted." The optimism coming from Luke slathered in monotonous tonality fell about as flat as a crepe to floor.

"No, that's my fucking daughter!" Sid launched back, the string holding him up seemed to fray ever so thinner. "Give me th-"

A gentle knocking sounded from the door, as a young Nurse, clad in burgundy scrubs poked her head in, pushing the door open, "Are you with Nova Crosby?"

"About fucking time!" Sidney crows, the clench of his fist in the fabric of his suit pant pocket is enough to give away the fact that he is fuming.

"I'm sorry Sir, we've been as quick as we could, you can come see her now if you want." The Nurse was desperately trying to diffuse Sid's anger, not directed at her but rather the situation.

"We'd love that." He spoke through gritted teeth. Checking Luke was following him as they began down the hall where they met a coded door that the nurse typed in and were led into a a white room with two sinks.

"If you could please wash your hands before coming in, it assists us in making sure the patients aren't compromised." before she had even finished both boys had started scrubbing, very thoroughly for their waning patience. When they finished the nurse led them through the ICU department towards the back where surrounded by a blue medical curtain was a bed. In that bed Nova laid, a fraction of consciousness, behind her bed was a plethora of machines which beeped and rang in their timely fashion. Sidney couldn't figure out when he went from fine to hyperventilating as he stared at his daughter, so young and fragile swaddled in white hospital blankets, akin to the ones she was handed to him for the first time he held her.

The ugly tubes coming out of her arms, cannulas in her elbow and top of her hand, a feeding tube coming out of her nose, a heart monitor connected directly to her chest. It was all too much, he didn't know he was crying and how obvious it had become that his mental capacity for the situation was declining greatly.

"Sir." A middle aged man in a white coat coxed him towards a door, leading him away from Nova. Pushing him outside as he looked a Luke who had sat down beside her, the moment romantic but catastrophic.

"That's my girl!" Sid roared in anguish, "Thats- THATS MY BABY."

"Sir, you need to calm down."

"NO DON'T TELL ME ANYTHING. Thats my baby girl! I have raised her for nineteen years, I of all people deserved to know what happened to her as soon as I arrived! Do you know how much she means to me, seeing her like is equivalent to ripping my heart out and piercing it with a stake!" Sid was hysterically now, loud voice echoing throughout the deserted hallway. "I need to know! I need you to do your fucking job and not be incompetent! Please."

The doctor led Sid to a chair and sat him down. "I'm a father too, I understand your anguish." he took a deep breath, "I will tell you everything but I must warn you, it will hurt and be a shock to the system. My team and I are dedicated to helping your daughter though, I want you to trust we will do everything in our power to help."

Sid took a deep breath, this was going to be a long conversation.

[ohthethingswedoforlove]

Found

Character: Tim Wright/Masky from Marble Hornets

Summary: You might have let your memory grow distant, but he never did. Despite everything, he still remembers. And now he has found you again.

Warnings: yandere character; description of violence and blood; death;

  This wasn't meant to happen.

  There's blood on your hands, on your shirt, pooling on the floor. Staining you. Staining him.

  Just a few days ago, this moment would have been inconceivable to you. He had barely even been on your mind then, just a rather distant memory from your college days, back when you had been roped into helping your friend Alex around the set for his student film project. Well, your involvement had been more out of a mix of convenience on his part and curiosity on yours, but still, it had been a long enough involvement for you to get to know his impromptu film crew a bit.

  And him, well... He was in a similar situation. Being convinced to participate in the movie's production only due to the insistence of his friend Brian and equal amount of convenience for Alex. 

  You admit, you remember the times you all spent together as a group more than you remember the individual people. But they are memories you hold some endearment towards. Even after Alex started to act strange, even after the crew started to fall apart, even after this strange cough started to cling to you ever since you walked out of their set for the last time. You thought you wouldn't remember him much. A face blurred with others you both spent not that much time with.

  But then. Somehow, years later when you started to catch vague shapes following you from the corner of your eye...

  They felt familiar.

  It started a few months ago. You started to feel watched. Followed. And, with a certain flimsy optimism and some reassurance from your roommate, you tried your best to not pay much attention to the feeling. You're just tired, life's been hectic, you should get some sleep. And you're obviously sick! Why else would your coughing fits have gotten worse and more frequent?

  But then you couldn't ignore it anymore. You had started to see its... Face? Whenever you looked over your shoulder as you walked back from work, whenever you looked out a window. It followed you home.

  Its build, the posture, the mannerisms. You knew it. You knew him.

  When you finally got a proper look at him, he was crouching in a corner of your room. Wearing a mask and a strange blot of darkness that shrouded him almost as if it had a mind of its own. And you called him by name like it had been on the tip of your tongue for years.

  "Tim...?"

  What happened next was so fast it became a blur, the only remaining image in your mind was that of his abrupt movements, and the panic as he tackled you to the ground. There had been someone- no, something else in the room too. A presence you didn't and still don't want to understand. 

  You remember screaming too. But, as you finally came to and woke up in an unfamiliar place, you quickly realised that the screaming might have not even been from you.

  And so you're finally back to the present, stained with blood belonging to the corpse on the corner of this abandoned building. You barely recognised them as your roommate. 

  And there he was as well, clinging to you like he's somehow trying to reassure you, or maybe even himself, that everything would be fine.

  He wasn't talking. And for a moment, you wondered if he even could, with the way he sounded so out of breath and pained. Like he was struggling against something.

  You quickly find out what.

  You feel it, but at first you don't see it. The masked man covers your head in a movement that makes you jolt, thinking he was planning on hurting you. But he doesn't. Instead you start having a shortness of breath as he clings to you like his life depends on it.

  You can't stop yourself from violently coughing, whatever is currently happening does not spare either of you.

  Something shifts in this dilapidated place, feeling like it's somehow violently scratching inside your head. You catch a quick glimpse of an impossibly tall "person" in the corner where the corpse of your friend lays, its limbs as if they have been grotesquely stretched. 

  You wish you hadn't. It felt like death. It looked like it, too.

  But it disappeared as quickly as it had manifested in your vision, leaving behind a feeling of dread and emptiness like you never felt in your life.

  The masked man wheezes in pain, but still refuses to let go of you. As he starts to stumble himself into a standing position while dragging you along to stand as well, you notice it.

  Something's missing.

  The body. The body is gone.

  He grabs your face and abruptly forces you to look away from the corner of the room and instead at him. The mask he's wearing does not help with the way you're shaking, but his eyes look so, so familiar. You almost felt inclined to trust him.

  Little do you know how long he has been looking for you. How long he has watched, how long he waited to get rid of that obstacle that lived with you and whose stupidity and naiveté could put you in danger. And look at what just happened.

  Now that he has you, he can help you. He can, he can, he promises he can. And he'll be damned if you're going anywhere that isn't with him.

 Your eyes widen as he pulls something out of his pocket and clumsily flips it open. A switch blade, serving clearly as a warning. He brings it closer to your face, eyes darting to read your reaction, and then motions with his head as if to tell you to follow him.

  You're both still pretty shaken up, but you choose to not try your luck. Instead you nod and he immediately starts dragging you, guiding you out of this abandoned building with the alarming precision of someone who's very familiar with the layout.

  You don't know where he's taking you, but you have a feeling you're not coming back home.

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-Fi Prompt from Eli:

do landlords have price wars? it seems like with the insane way rents are going it wouldn't be hard for them to undercut competition. but it also doesnt feel like thats happening.

Oh, this is a fun one. Let's talk about price elasticity!

Note: I will be including graphs in this post. While it's helpful as a visual aid, there is no way to describe it that actually helps explain the premise that isn't already in the post's body of text. As such, I will not be providing image descriptions beyond the short sentence before or after stating what it's meant to represent, since further information wouldn't be of any use to those with screen readers.

In the field of microeconomics, one of the basic models everyone learns is the supply and demand curve. Here's a visual example:

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Traditionally, a product with an elastic price is one where demand fluctuates directly in response to cost, isolated from other factors*. A basic example is affordable luxury goods, say, a nice steak. If the cost goes up by a dollar, a certain portion of the population will decide it's no longer worth the cost, and will switch to something cheaper, like a chicken breast, instead.

* Other factors include, but are not limited to, luxury appeal, subsidized costs, and the lipstick effect. This post is already pretty long, so I can't go into many details on those situations.

The Demand curve is specifically a visualization of how much of a product can be sold for, not necessarily how much the product can be sold in quantity. As a general rule, it's easier to think of Price as the independent factor for Demand (and quantity as the dependent), and quantity as the independent factor for Supply (and price as the dependent).

With a traditional S&D curve, the intersection of the Supply and Demand curves is the optimal price point from both ends. The X-axis is supply quantity, which a lot of people find unintuitive... but that's where it's been for years and that's where it's staying.

If there is a great quantity of a product, with healthy competition levels, then the supply line moves to the right. The intersection of the lines then drops, and prices go down, as businesses lower prices to gain more customers.

If there is a small quantity of a product, due to limited raw materials or unique patents or skills, then the supply line moves to the left, and they can charge more for the product.

Here is a visual of what I mean by the supply curve moving:

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The text is fairly small, so I'll describe here: The image states that factors that can increase supply (shift to the right) include favorable conditions for production, falling input prices, improved technology, and lower taxes or regulation costs. The second graph describes a decrease in supply, causing a shift to the left, the factors of which are the exact inverse of the first graph for increased supply.

A good example of a shift in supply resulting in a change in cost is gas: prices go up when supplies go down, whether due to higher taxes/regulations (e.g. the current refusal to trade with Russia), or disappearing raw materials (diminishing quantities of oil and natural gas, as finite, unrenewable resources). Comparatively, other forms of energy, like solar, have had their quantity lines shift to the right (cheaper) as the technology becomes more efficient and cheaper to produc.

Now, in areas that genuinely do not have enough housing, this is part of why prices go up: options are limited enough that they can get away with charging more. Due to zoning laws, construction costs, etc. they cannot add more housing, and so the supply curve is further to the left (pricier).

Here is a similar example image for the Demand curve, and how it shifts:

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The factors, here, are more intuitive. If demand goes up for reasons like trends, population, rise in general disposable income, changes in the costs of competitors or accessories, or expectations of investment viability, then the demand curve shifts to the right, and costs can increase without losing market share. For the reverse causes, the curve shifts to the right, and fewer people are willing to buy at that same cost.

Let's consider laptop computers: they have gotten more popular. A larger portion of the population has reason to buy them than twenty years ago. For that reason, the price can go up without necessarily losing market share (shifting to the right). However, income across the board has dropped, and there is a reasonably cheaper substitute (smartphones) for some uses, so the demand is lower (shifting to the left).

If you are in a city where there are suddenly a lot of people moving in for some shiny new company, then there is a greater population trying to buy, and so the demand curve shifts to the right, and prices can safely go up without losing market share.

...but that's with elastic pricing and competition.

Elastic pricing and costs are for most traditional goods. For specific foods, you can usually just... buy something else. If a plague wiped out half the crop of lettuce for the season, the costs will rise on the supply side (shift to the left), but there are unaffected substitutes, like broccoli and cabbage and tomato, for general use, so demand will also drop (also shift to the left). This means that prices go higher, but they are further to the left for both, meaning the quantity sold is lower.

Selling four million units at $3 vs. selling two million units at $6. The final amount of money changing hands is the same, but it's at a different cost and quantity.

Summary:

Supply moves to the left: less product, higher price from the seller to cover costs

Supply moves to the right: more product with healthy competition, lower price from the seller

Demand moves to the left: less interest in the product, customers need a lower price to buy the same amount

Demand moves to the right: more interest in the product, customers will tolerate a higher price to buy the same amount

But again, this is for elastic products.

What's an inelastic product?

Well... housing, actually, but let's start on the other side this time.

Products with inelastic demand are ones where customers cannot respond to changes in cost or supply. It doesn't matter if the cost goes sky high, and you know the profit is 96% because the cost of production is 4% of the price you paid; you can't afford to not buy it.

You know how insulin prices in the US spent decades being prohibitively expensive because diabetic individuals could not survive without buying it? That's inelastic demand.

(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

If you look at the image above, you see a 'perfectly' inelastic demand curve. It is a straight, vertical line, where the quantity is immovably stuck at 150 no matter how high the cost goes.

In the real world, very, very few products are perfectly inelastic. Even insulin is... well, some people can move abroad. Not many, so it's pretty close to vertical, but some.

With housing, demand is fairly inelastic. The vast, vast majority of people do need housing. There are very few substitutes for this need, and while there is a range of prices and options, it does sort of... flatten out early.

If you demand that people spend $3000/month in order to live within 50 miles of their place of work, and everyone else is also demanding $3000/month, then there aren't any other options. The person either gets a new job elsewhere, spends a few hours a day on a commute, or pays those $3000.

Inelastic supply is the other side of that coin. The very limited quantity, and the high costs of expanding that supply, mean that the line shifts pretty far to the left, causing prices to rise. The line is also nearly vertical. With housing, there exists an argument that it is often cheaper to let the apartment sit empty than to rent it out too cheaply, due to maintenance costs and property taxes or what have you. Unless there's an exorbitant mortgage that needs to be contributed to by the tenants, though, those numbers don't quite work out.

So... if the Demand curve is nearly vertical, and the Supply curve is also nearly vertical, and there are no viable substitutes other than exiting the market entirely, you have a situation where the Supply side has nearly all the power and an excuse for why they're raising prices that doesn't actually reflect the reality.

Because there's plenty of housing being built, just, you know, not in the tax bracket that needs it. (Remember, a very large portion of Billionaire's row is currently unoccupied.)

You could argue that this is a form of price-fixing, which is an illegal act in which competitors in the same industry agree to collectively raise, lower, or stabilize pricing of a product. If 90% of microprocessor companies raise their prices simultaneously without cause, consumers will have to bite the bullet and buy the product at that new cost, as there aren't enough substitutes to find another option.

(If this sounds like a monopoly to you, good job! It's the same principle: control pricing for enough of the market that you can raise it higher than demand justifies. It's just done by making deals with the competitor instead of buying them out.)

However, due to the shape of the supply and demand curves in this housing market, and the very gradual way in which this situation has developed, it's not really a deliberate, organized price-fix, just something that came about as landlords realized that tenant's rights and alternate options (e.g. the council/public housing, affordable housing lotteries) weren't keeping up with their ability to continue to nudge prices upwards without losing out on money.

(Most of the time. Price-fixing does still happen, in pockets.)

Long story short: landlords don't have price wars because the demand curve is so inelastic that they can basically get away with anything.

(Prompt me on ko-fi!)

[debonairrose]

thermodynamics and our insanity.

A* (A-Star) Pathfinding Algorithm

i think that everything in the universe is taking the path of least resistance. well, not really- i don't believe that our consciousness is the sole product of our minds i think we're more than this. i think people have souls, they can be kind towards strangers even though for a fact in some cases we know that we're not getting any benefit back out of it. it might even cost us yet we still choose to help others.

i think our actions are highly deterministic, but not fully. we can go with the flow of life or we can be bothered about something and make a change. make a choice that doesn't make sense, put more effort than what's it worth.

even our computer algorithms are just slaves to thermodynamics, we frown upon using programs that "lag" or are slow, we find faster alternatives or we abandon the program altogether. we try to organize concepts and thoughts as efficient algorithms that run on these processors. even the processors themselves, when they get faster, they're not really "getting faster"- they're just using the same amount of electricity more efficiently.

in essence, everything is converging towards the least amount of effort, the shortest path.

human societies also converge towards the path of least resistance, in the form of: road networks, social networks, internet routing hubs, government procedures, data collection and privacy, ads, fuel economy, google search,,, etc.

we do things that are useless in terms of reproduction and thermodynamics. if we're strictly machines whose purpose is to reproduce and slow down entropy as much as possible, then most of what we do doesn't make sense and violates this assumption.

i think we're more than that. i think we can accelerate entropy and give a big middle finger to thermodynamics, a big fuck you to the laws of physics despite being completely slaves to them.

please slow down and try to open up the images and gifs and admire them one by one. some images contain "alt" description which can be viewed by hovering a mouse over the images on a computer. what's the hurry for?

i think nature is lazy and it's just following the same recipe whenever it can. it feels fractal, it's always converging to the same boring and eloquent solution. it's obsessed with the least resistance path.

what about food, and over consumption? how people choose cheap sugar filled food and drinks? social relationships? the steps you take in order to be attractive to others? the amount of exploration you need in order to pick a movie to watch? war? the forming of stars? the shape of planets? the separation in their orbits? daily traffic? the taste of ice cream? what makes you laugh at a joke? the shape of cities? language?

all these concepts are in their own fucking universes and have their "whatever-the-fuck-x-dimension" problem space.

and all these pretty patterns that we just saw are only patterns we could recognize. but our minds are too simple to recognize patterns that hide in high dimensional spaces. but they're still there, they're probably even prettier, it's lost beauty that we cannot see or even think of.

all these patterns that we're recognizing are there only because our brains are optimized to recognize things in 3d space. ok... what about higher dimensional spaces? 4? 6? 1337 dimensions? i'm not talking spacetime dimensions, i'm talking about all concepts, prices, star formation, molecular chemistry, fuel prices, the rate of foreign words infiltrating a language. they're all still canvases for "shortest pathways" to emerge, even if it doesn't look straight to your naked eye, in a higher dimension they're the shortest path.

let me demonstrate an example, suppose you wanna travel from the U.S. to Spain, the shortest path would be a line right?

well it depends, where is this line? in what dimension? can the line be "curved"? are there any obstacles on the way?

in this case, you warped and deformed a 3-dimensional sphere surface onto a 2d rectangle, do you really think you're going to maintain information without deformation? absolutely not, and that's why on the rectangular map view on the left, the shortest path isn't the red straight line, it's the blue curved path, which is counter intuitive for a person used to walking from point A to point B in a straight path.

well, the same concept applies to our reality, our perception of it is limited and deformed, it's not real. that's why things may seem chaotic, illogical or inefficient.

in our physical reality the actual shortest path would be going through the fucking earth, piercing it, but i don't think that this is the most efficient path for an airplane to take.

just like how a person chooses to abandon easy sugar and junk food even though it's more effort to eat healthily, when including more dimensions into the bigger picture, suddenly you find it's more "efficient" and more of a "lesser curved path" to just put more effort and willpower into eating more healthy, you live longer, you are happier because you have a higher quality life.

now you might ask, since this is the most efficient path, why aren't most people taking it? well, you see... you can't take a path if there's a big ass rock blocking it. we're so hardwired into consuming as many calories as we can for the sake of surviving the bad days. but nature isn't perfect on its own. it didn't set for us a "max limit", it didn't account for the imbalance that our brains would do as a consequence of efficient farming and food production. so we had to rely on our brains in order to build a bridge over that rock sitting over the most efficient path. ( you can say that i'm wrong and our brains built that bridge, we're still a part of nature- well fuck off :3 ).

there's a person who's alive right now, who's aware of the passage of time and how brief everything is. i love this person. i love this person from the entirety of my soul. my soul is not a slave to the universe, my soul will outlive it, my soul is illogical and rebellious. i don't want the shortest path, i don't want the least effort path. i want to live, and i want to suffer, and i want to experience everything with this person. i want to be present, i want to be in the moment.

sometimes i'm scared.

i'm scared of happy moments slipping away from my fingers. and in my fear, i try to save everything, write everything and record it all. i want proof that it was all real. this however, is a distraction from being in the moment, and i think there's a balance between writing everything down and letting everything pass as if i don't really care. and right now this balance is yet to be found by me.

sometimes i'm scared of forgetting.

but that's how we are. we're logarithmic creatures. our bodies are slaves to thermodynamics, our brains too. just like a CPU, they don't have infinite memory nor infinite thinking capacity. having that would be very expensive. our brains are captive to the same rules. we can't remember everything.

people who say that forgetting is a bless are just coping. they're high on copium. embracing forgetfulness is just fake existence. it's incomplete. our brains and senses are slaves to mathematical power law. we remember and forget following a power law rate.

but, there's a secretly beautiful thing about forgetting. it's remembering things again. or, at the bare minimum, being told about things you've lived through with someone else. revisiting a story from a perspective that isn't yours. seeing things from the eyes of someone else, i think that's beautiful.

the reason we can't remember everything is solely because of thermodynamics, memory costs extra neurons, extra connections, more chemical reactions. and at some point adding more becomes just extra baggage to the system and isn't really a net positive due to the limitation imposed by chemical reaction speeds in the brain. information flow within the brain is just limited by reaction speeds. just like how we can't increase a CPU's clock cycles beyond 10Ghz because of excess heat, the few extra cycles become extra baggage due to the problem of electrical resistance. the more electrical resistance in a wire there is, the more heat it generates. and the more heat is in a system the higher its resistance is.

we're simply forgetting for the exact same reason a CPU is never allowed to work faster even though it can. pure theoretical physics limitations.

showing how simple laws physics determine the "spacing", "size", or "frequency". pay attention to the graph's x and y axis spacing. 1) notice how properties of planets and electrons are following the exact same pattern. 2) on the audio spectrogram on the right; the top graph is incomprehensible because it's linear, if we just change the scaling to logarithmic, your eyes will function like your ears and you will be able to spot details. 3) notice how the CPU wirings (the gray image) exponentially grow due to electrical resistance laws 4) same with animal size vs bone thickness 5) zip's law on word usage frequency in a given language.

this logarithmic nature of the universe is repeating, it's fractal, no matter whether you look inward or outward, the fractal pattern doesn't care about which point in the scale you are. it's following the same behavior. these are entirely separate branches of physics, one of them is planetary and the other is quantum, they operate with different scales and are totally irrelevant in relation to each other in terms of their effect on one another. yet guess what, they're following the same behavior, even though they're weaving their waves on different invisible fabrics of the universe, but the universe is fractal so i guess it doesn't matter.

despite how the entirety of your sensory inputs work logarithmically (non-linearly), because of standard education, people think that the universe operates linearly, one of their mistakes is in the difference between the audio and brightness controls in Linux vs windows. on windows they behave how you expect them to behave, but on Linux, the controls are non-logarithmic (linear) making the use of them very frustrating, most of the brightness slider is just low brightness and then it suddenly exploding in brightness (or volume in the case of an audio slider) in the last portion of it, making it feel imbalanced only because the slider was linear.

the concept of phase criticality is the middle point when complex systems change from one state to the other. like when you pressure water so much and give it enough heat at the same time it becomes both liquid and gas at the same time. there is a theory that the same behavior emerges in complex systems like the brain. the neurons there also follow the same pattern, they can be too "hot"; firing chaotically all the time, people call it a seizure. or too cold; being in a coma. the optimal state is the critical phase state where your brain is at right now as you're reading this post.

and "obviously" in the video, you can see that the state in the middle (critical phase) is fractal. which is consistent for a complex system such as the brain.

that's just another way concepts and patterns are constantly repeating in the universe across different things.. and honestly saying that the universe is fractal or logarithmic becomes meaningless. because you can obviously see that everywhere, it's easy to do so, it's just that people don't use their brain.

and i think it doesn't matter at this point, since that's the default in the universe, but maybe people are obsessed with it because it gives them a sense of value, like they're not stupid or blind and can see. to me right now it feels like they're saying "liquid water can take any shape!" ok. so?

i suggest you watch this video. it's really a roller coaster of ideas and this shit is like brain candy- well, candy for the brain. :3

the 80-20 rule says 80 of things are responsible for 20 percent of things or vice versa. like… 80% of profit can come from 20% of customers. or that 80% of our misery would go away if only we solved 20% of the problems, or that you can learn 20% of a subject to be able to achieve 80% of things. or that 80% of blog interactions come from 20% of reblogs or followers.

so what? what the fuck are you looking for? why are we treating 80-20 as if it's some golden ratio shit, oh don't even get me started on the golden rashitio where people randomly fit a standard spiral png on random images on call it "wow the universe is so beautiful" bro stfu the thing doesn't even fit the image. so what about the million other beautiful things that don't follow that "rule"?

this is confirmation bias. what about all the other ratios? what about all the numbers you aren't looking for, are 80% of your words are made by 20% of your keys on the keyboard? it's really easy to actually just google "letters frequency in english" and run a calculator for 10 seconds (it's a 50-20 ratio). boohoo, the results didn't fit this silly cognitive bias.

and actually wake up. 80% isn't good enough, it's not good enough at all. are you really okay with a fleet of airplanes whose survival rate is 80%? is it okay if your heart surgeon read only 20% of the books he should've read? is it okay if your CPU did 80% of its operation correctly, the whole fucking modern world would fall apart. most things in life are not crucial, but so many things require perfection, fuck the 20% effort 80% results thing, fuck that, it's not the most we can achieve, give me a 900% effort 99% results lifestyle. give me perfection, give me awe, inspire me, give me beauty. i don't want to live in a world filled with inventions that are 80% of what could've been achieved, i want to live in a world filled with fewer things that are a testament to human perfection.

the same applies to my love. i don't want an 80% love, i want perfection, i want it to hurt, i want to suffer because of it, i wanna love for real. i wanna pay for that true love. i wanna remember more. i wanna put more effort, more effort, more more more MORE MORE MORE FUCKING EFFORT. i don't wanna be comfortable i don't wanna be comfortable, i don't need to be comfortable, i don't want comfort, i want something real. i wanna love fully, i wanna deserve that love, i want something so beautiful, and i don't wanna give up so easily, i don't wanna forget beautiful memories due to me succumbing to the fucking universe and physics and power laws and logarithmic tendencies. i want to put my maximum effort. i feel like i'm not doing enough, i am not enough. i can always do more, i can achieve more, i ought to do more, why the fuck put a limit to myself? i can do it. i can perfect my time management and i can achieve what i want i can learn how to balance things in my life.

i can love beautifully.

i'm not a machine, my body is. my soul isn't i'm not a slave to it. my body will die, my soul won't. my soul is insane, illogical and i say fuck you to the universe. even after i die, i give you a big fat middle finger because my soul will rebel against this place.

i don't want least resistance love. i don't accept forgetting even though i will forget a lot. my soul refuses to let go of all the moments we've had together. sometimes i try to cheat by recording everything. but i want to live in the moment, i want to find the balance.

i don't accept being a slave to some shitty power law. i might just be delusional, and i might forget anyway. but i know that i did not accept this and i know that i did put effort and it wasn't the shortest path.

sometimes i'm scared of getting used to things.

but i take nothing for granted, things are always moving and are always changing, i don't want things to be fake or stale. i want everything that is real, even if it's sad. i want my existence to be truthful.

written by: debonairrose.tumblr.com

as a gift to @lusi-1 (i hope you like my brain vomit darlingo)

[aortaobservatory]

what are your thoughts on the time aspect? ive always loved the theme of clocks, rhythm, death, and of course dave and aradia are the best characaters ever lmfaoooo. also random rambling: i feel like i often have this sort of ticking metronome in the back of my head that makes me feel very time-y and ive always LOVED music and cool antique stuff. im not sure how much of that is an indication of my actual claspect though lol

(apologies for the ramblings xD)

Apologies; you sent this months ago and I am only answering it now! I hope these thoughts of mine are still satisfactory to read about.

I feel as though Time's inverse, Space, is understood to be "creativity", and those who may not entirely understand what an aspect is meant to be tend to take its inverse's opposite. However, the "opposite of creativity" doesn't paint a very fun picture. While "creativity" isn't necessarily wrong for Space, I understand Space to be a journey, joy in the traveling. Time, therefore, would be an ending goal, the satisfaction of victory.

From The Extended Zodiac, I pulled these keywords from the Time Aspect description. These would be the "canon" traits; they are what I adhere to when analyzing, but it should also be understood that this concept encompasses much more to do with than these keywords. Its "vibe", if you will, is much more than what is written.

TEZ Time Keywords: Struggle, restless, action, goal-oriented, relentless, empathetic, problem-solvers, (ruthless, defensive, impulsive)

The keywords I chose to represent Time are "Repetition, Goals, Efficiency, Restlessness". This aspect, like all the other aspects, is inherently neutral. It is not good or bad, but has the potential to be either.

Time is about optimization. Timebound do not create new solutions; they use what they are given within the finite and refine it into the tools they use to achieve their goals. Their satisfaction comes from the end product of their labor, and they are not satisfied if they are not working towards something; anything can be a goal to work towards for the Timebound. If Space is an infinite destiny (a course of events within the present moment), then Time is a finite fate (the future outcome).

If it's not broke, don't fix it; an efficient method is a good method, and a good method is an efficient method. It is the nature of Time to stick to what it knows works well rather than attempt to figure out some other way of achieving the same goal. (Code, and the action of coding, is a good example of this.) This repetition of methods can certainly translate into a metronome of sorts; monotonous and keeping a beat. While music is the logical conclusion to draw from this, I could make a case that it is specifically rap that is Time's purest form of music, since it focuses on the rhythm of the words rather than singing a tone. At the very least, I would say each Timebound has their own rhythm and way of doing things that is simply what makes the most efficient sense for them to do. (Perhaps that is why Dave is so fixated on being ironic when he grew up under the care of a Prince of Heart...)

Dave is the poster child for all Timebound everywhere, of course. As the Knight of Time (Active Utilizer), Dave is extremely skilled with his aspect; since Time is about efficiency, Dave would be able to achieve a great deal of things in a very short amount of time. And he does! I would almost say that if he were any other class but a Knight, the beta kids probably would have crashed and burned hard. Meanwhile with Aradia, the Maid of Time (Passive Enhancer), she would rely on others for her aspect; this manifests in a few different ways. She documents the code on the frog temple for Sollux to then adapt into SGRUB. Ghosts are considered to linger behind after their deaths due to a state of unrest and "unfinished business", which is quite in line with the nature of Time. She relies on the destruction of alternate timelines to guide her choices, which ends up amassing an army of Aradiabots to passively help the trolls in their battle against the black king.