#Streamline Order Processing

[petrosoftsoftware]

Simple Online Order Management Software

Having an Order Management System is important in today’s business environment and especially useful in managing day to day orders received. For a small business owner or someone in charge of a rapidly developing company, the presence of an online Order Management System is as beneficial as a double-edged sword – both for the owner and the development of their business. Since each new order requires monitoring, invoicing, and inventory management, an order management system can take care of these tasks more easily and excellently.

Order management system for small business is one such investment that can greatly enhance the functional capabilities of a small business. It is useful right from the moment when a client places an order up to the time when the order is completed. You can track every order in real-time, thus customers will always be satisfied by the fast and efficient deliveries. It enables you to minimize mistake, eliminate issues with socks or lack of stock, and better your overall service delivery.

An online order management system is not only a tool for dealing with customer orders, it offers the ability to interact with sales channels, receive payments, and look at your sales data. In fact, what you can do is that with each single order you have, every single status of inventory, and shipping, and everything in one single dashboard you can run your business and expand it at a better pace.

In conclusion, regardless of the size of the store, being an offline store or an online store, the Order Management System will bring a big improvement to your work so that you can reduce time on other aspects and focus more on the development and improvement of your store and customer service. Check out our solutions and find out just how effortlessly you could enhance your order management right now.

[scrabblesnorton]

breasting boobily down the isles of department stores on a hunt for a bra that is actually my size and then breasting boobily to the exit empty handed

[m00sebaby]

i am putting this under a read more because its just a ramble and hardly serious but the main point of it is just "i don't really think my brain and i speak the same language sometimes"

how can i tie my inability to accomplish certain tasks if i cannot do them in the "correct" order back to one of my mental health hang ups? i want to do laundry but my boyfriend asked me to make rice for him while he naps. these things seem like they do not correlate BUT if i make the rice i need to dirty both the strainer and the rice cooker pot. i want to do the dishes before the wash because i want to make sure we have all clean dish towels (we have many and i could replace them three times over if need be but i want these specific dish towels because they're the ones we always have out). if i do the wash and then the dishes then the freshly cleaned dish towels will not be freshly cleaned. i could do a load of laundry that does not include the towels but that, for some reason, doesn't sit with me. so now, i am waiting to make the rice and once that's done i can clean the dishes, and then i can do the laundry with the first load including the dirtied dish towels. it's not an ocd thing i dont think because i dont have an overwhelming sense that cosmic evil will befall me if i do not do things in this prescribed order but also. it feels as though it might not be an adhd thing? or perhaps its a mixed cocktail of all my mental quirks teaming up to make one inconvenient experience.

[eatossolutions]

Order Food Using AI: The Key to Boosting Restaurant Revenue

Technology might be the ace in the competitive world of restaurants. One of the most interesting new developments is using artificial intelligence in ordering food. Integrate AI into the ordering system of your restaurant, and owners will definitely raise their revenues significantly, increase customer satisfaction, and even achieve operational efficiency. Here's how systems that let customers order food using AI can revolutionize your business.

1. Customer Experience

Personalized Recommendations

AI-driven systems can use customer data to make personalized food recommendations. Since AI knows about your previous orders and food preferences, it could very well suggest dishes that would cater to your taste buds. Not only will such personalization enrich the dining experience, but it could also be used for the possibility of upselling or cross-selling for more revenue generation.

Seamless Ordering Process

AI simplifies ordering through intuitive interfaces and voice-activated systems. This fast, easy ordering minimizes customer wait time, thus improving customer satisfaction. A smooth ordering experience will motivate repeat business and more frequent customer visits.

2. Higher Accuracy of Orders

Reduces Human Error:

Manual order-taking is prone to mistakes, which leaves customers unsatisfied and rips the business of money. AI systems reduce these mistakes with accurate order-taking and capturing every detail. With this, there will be reduced mistakes and more satisfaction among customers since the orders are made according to their desires.

Real-Time Updates

It allows for real-time order status updates to be provided to the customers right from food preparation to delivery. This kind of transparency will help in building trust while keeping customers updated on any orders placed by them. Such features reduce the number of inquiries and, hence, improve the experience.

3. Streamlined Operations

Order Management Efficiency

High volumes of orders can be processed quickly because AI manages orders using automatic systems that set priorities and allow proper organization. This ensures that the orders are out quickly and reduces the volume of staff, so there is more time to offer great service.

Streamlining Kitchen Workflow

The AI systems can also be integrated with the kitchen display systems so that the preparation is done in an orderly and time-saving manner. Orders are communicated directly to the kitchen, where they are streamlined and managed in a very organized way. This would reduce the preparation time and help in delivering the dishes faster and on time.

4. Increasing Revenue through Upselling

Intelligent Upsell

It can further gauge customer data to identify opportunities for upselling. For instance, if a customer has ordered a main course, AI will offer the best-matching sides or beverages. Intelligent upselling increases the average order value and maximizes revenues from each customer.

Targeted Promotions

AI can provide personalized promotions to customers as per the trends in behavior and ordering history. This step can incentivize repeat business and higher sales with special offers or discounts for repeat customers. AI-driven promotions are more effective since they are attuned to the preferences of individual customers.

5. Harnessing Information to Drive Strategy

Analyzing Trends from Customers

AI systems provide very useful insights into customer behavior and ordering patterns. Therefore, restaurant owners can analyze trends in this data to come up with informed decisions on menu changes, pricing strategies, and marketing efforts. Understanding customer preference helps in crafting strategies that drive growth.

Forecasting Demand

AI can project from past data and trend analysis, which helps with inventory management, employee scheduling, and optimal resource allocation. If demand can be forecasted accurately, then a restaurant is well geared up in advance for those busy times of the day when demand will be high enough to maximize revenues from your restaurant.

6. Improvement in Marketing Efforts

Data-driven Marketing Campaigns

AI will help you in segmentation and the creation of focused marketing campaigns. AI, knowing customers' preferences and behavior, makes it easier to draft personalized marketing messages that appeal most to your target audience. These campaigns are thus very effective in generating maximum traffic and increasing sales.

Social Media Integration

It can also be managed using AI tools and post-scheduling to analyze the interaction and engagement of social media. Ensure that your restaurant remains very lively on social media to hook more new customers and keep existing ones engaged. Relevance and visibility from social media integration with AI means increased interest in your restaurant.

7. Customer Retention Improvement

Loyalty Programs

AI may optimize reward programs by understanding the behavior of each customer and making personalized offers. When rewards are individually tailored to a diner's preference, he or she will likely come again and again, ensuring long-term loyalty. A good loyalty program would indeed transform diners into regular customers.

Seeking Feedback and Improvement

AI can collect and analyze customer feedback to point out their areas of improvement. It helps in understanding the level of customer satisfaction and solving their problems effectively improving service quality and maintaining a good reputation. With an emphasis on continuous improvement according to the feedback, it improves the dining experience overall.

Conclusion: Make Your Restaurant Thrive with AI

Ordering with AI isn't another fad; it is how your restaurant will increase its revenues and efficiency. From improving the customer experience and increasing order accuracy and smoothing operations to harnessing data, AI holds immense potential for changing how your restaurant functions and excels in a saturated market.

Explore AI-driven food ordering solutions available at eatOS for a whole new scale of growth and profitability opportunities. Make that bright future of restaurant management come through; let it start with AI! Book a demo now with us to learn more. 

[creolestudios]

Discover how ChatGPT's AI-powered solutions can increase your restaurant's productivity and profitability by optimizing menu offerings, predicting demand, and reducing wait times. Read more on Tealfeed.

[northern-passage]

The Northern Passage has been updated!

09.25.24: This update consists of what was previously the prologue; it's now our new Chapter 1. Heavy edits have been made and various scenes have been rewritten, as well as overall improvements with the combat system and lore to make the game more cohesive.

The demo, for the time being, will cut off at the end of this new Chapter 1. My plan is to continue editing and rewriting Chapter 2 (what was previously the first chapter after the prologue) and hopefully rerelease that relatively soon, and then complete the new content update and release all of Chapter 3. This process, while tedious, is helping me tremendously with streamlining code & fixing previous mistakes made by me when I first started this project, and while I wanted to avoid going back and editing originally until much later in the process, this is just something that I had to do in order to move forward with Chapter 3.

I've also updated the content warnings on the game page and allowed for players to turn on warnings in-game, so you get a more specific list of warnings at the start of each chapter (like with Blood Choke).

As always, please let me know if you run into any errors, especially since part of this rewrite included me redoing a lot of my messy code and renaming passages, etc. Thank you everyone for your patience and continued support of this game over the years 💕

Play it here!

Project Intro | FAQ | Tip Jar

[adafruit]

🎄💾🗓️ Day 4: Retrocomputing Advent Calendar - The DEC PDP-11! 🎄💾🗓️

Released by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1970, the PDP-11 was a 16-bit minicomputer known for its orthogonal instruction set, allowing flexible and efficient programming. It introduced a Unibus architecture, which streamlined data communication and helped revolutionize computer design, making hardware design more modular and scalable. The PDP-11 was important in developing operating systems, including the early versions of UNIX. The PDP-11 was the hardware foundation for developing the C programming language and early UNIX systems. It supported multiple operating systems like RT-11, RSX-11, and UNIX, which directly shaped modern OS design principles. With over 600,000 units sold, the PDP-11 is celebrated as one of its era's most versatile and influential "minicomputers".

Check out the wikipedia page for some great history, photos (pictured here), and more -

And here's a story from Adafruit team member, Bill!

The DEC PDP-11 was the one of the first computers I ever programmed. That program was 'written' with a soldering iron.

I was an art student at the time, but spending most of my time in the engineering labs. There was a PDP-11-34 in the automation lab connected to an X-ray spectroscopy machine. Starting up the machine required toggling in a bootstrap loader via the front panel. This was a tedious process. So we ordered a diode-array boot ROM which had enough space to program 32 sixteen bit instructions.

Each instruction in the boot sequence needed to be broken down into binary (very straightforward with the PDP-11 instruction set). For each binary '1', a diode needed to be soldered into the array. The space was left empty for each '0'. 32 sixteen bit instructions was more than sufficient to load a secondary bootstrap from the floppy disk to launch the RT-11 operating system. So now it was possible to boot the system with just the push of a button.

I worked with a number DEC PDP-11/LSI-11 systems over the years. I still keep an LSI-11-23 system around for sentimental reasons.

Have first computer memories? Post’em up in the comments, or post yours on socialz’ and tag them #firstcomputer #retrocomputing – See you back here tomorrow!

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

The PledgeManager has launched!

Thank you for bearing with us. We’re happy to say that, as promised, the PledgeManager has officially launched!

In case you missed it, we detailed earlier this week that the publication of the graphic novel has been pushed back from its original July 2024 estimate into Spring 2025 - you can read the full update here. We also want to take a moment to say that we have seen the outpouring of love and support on Kickstarter, and across various platforms, wishing Colleen well in her recovery and the time needed for the graphic novel - a huge thank you from all of the team for your understanding and patience, and for the genuine community and care we’ve seen these past few days. We appreciate you all.

PledgeManager

With this in mind, we think it’s important to underline: though PledgeManager has launched, you do not need to pay for your shipping fees immediately.

The PledgeManager is there for those who missed the campaign to order the graphic novel, and indeed for any backers who would like to upgrade, get some other add-ons, or the new items. You, as a pre-existing backer, should receive an email with information via Kickstarter and/or PledgeManager to inform you that this is now open to you - note, these are sent in waves of smaller batches, so if you don't get yours immediately, don't panic! It will likely take between 12-18 hours to process all the backers.

You are, of course, welcome to pay your shipping right away if you'd like, however we completely understand that you may want to wait until closer to the fulfilment time, or when more solid dates are confirmed, before actioning this.

For this stage, we have compiled a quick FAQ below covering some key questions:

Will the whole project be moving from Kickstarter to PledgeManager? No. This is just for the fulfilment side and logistics - all updates will still remain here.  

Do PledgeManager backers get everything that Kickstarter backers do? No. While the remaining tiers will be made available for those who missed it, with certain stretch goals (e.g. additions to the book, loot boxes, etc), Kickstarter backers have a number of exclusives such as the Good Omens HQ discount code for when the store launches, and the backers only events.  

My PledgeManager address will be different to what is listed on my Kickstarter. Is that fine? Yes. We are handling all logistics through PledgeManager and, as such, that is the only place where we will need your address. If you move or need to change any details, that will be the place to do so.  

Can I change my address? Yes. You can update your address until we are at the shipping stage. We will keep this option open for as long as possible to ensure maximum flexibility around this.  

How are shipping fees calculated? It is based on both weight and the country it is being sent to. We have been working over the past months to streamline processes and bring the costs down from their original starting point.  

Do I have to pay just now? You do not need to pay immediately, but payment will need to be made prior to your items being shipped. You now have a bigger window during which you can make payment. As above, we will keep updating you on the progression of the publication schedule, should you be waiting for firmer dates before doing so.  

What about taxes and import duty? UK: VAT is included in the costs UK backers pay, there should be no extra tax charges. US: We believe (but cannot guarantee) that imports under $800USD in value should not attract import duty, those pledges above may be taxed at import. EU & REST OF THE WORLD: If taxes or duties apply to your pledge, these will need to be paid at time of import into your country. We’ve spent months trying to integrate the costs at this stage, but in having the project open across the globe, it has proven too complex to be able to fully refine and cover all instances and locations, and we’ve been advised that this is the best route forward.  We know a lot of international backers, particularly in the EU – for example – will already be used to this process, and we will keep you all updated on any developments on this front. For all of our backers, we are working hard to make labelling and declaring all of the contents of your pledges as transparent as possible, in order to make taxing and importing as easy and affordable as possible.  

I want to buy the new items, but am waiting to pay shipping. Are they limited? The pins, mugs, notebooks - all the new items specifically added to the PledgeManager are not limited and will be available regardless of whether you get them now, or months down the road. The only limited items are the remaining tiers that have moved over from the Kickstarter (e.g. the Obsidian Tier) that were limited to begin with, and a very limited run of the Alien Parking ticket. Everything else is fully available, in perpetuity.  

Will you be adding extra items to the PledgeManager? No. What is there at launch is all we plan to include at this point - any new items afterwards will instead originate via the Good Omens HQ store.  

Will Kickstarter backers get items first? Yes. We will have a staggered approach for fulfilment: Kickstarter backers, then PledgeManager, then everything that is moving to the Good Omens HQ store will subsequently be made available.

You can also view the more general PledgeManager FAQ at terrypratchett.com.

We will keep PledgeManager and logistical notes present in all the monthly updates going forward, but felt this warranted a dedicated one-off. 

These are available as part of the PledgeManager. Another beauty from our pin designer, Carl Sutton.

Thanks again for your patience. Back in the April monthly update.

In short: :)

The Good Omens Pledge Manager has launched:

those who missed the Graphic Novel Kickstarter: Now you can order the Graphic novel, not all things that were in the original Kicstarter are available but there is stil a lot of options and fuckton of lovely ineffable add-ons! :)<3

those who participated inthe original GO GN Kickstarter: you should an email (Dunmanifestin needs more information to fulfill your reward) with a link that logs you (if not log manually) into the pledgemanager and lets you edit the order (add new add ons) (yep, my wallet weeps :D<3)

The addons:

I mean... how can one resist for example these I do not know... :D

[comicaurora]

Nick Bostrom's "Fable of the Dragon Tyrant," which CGP Grey adapted into a video, left me feeling unsatisfied, and I got a certain unsettling vibe about the entire story.

I don't think it was the dragon's lack of agency, that just makes it an unusually traditional Western dragon.

You're a master at picking narratives apart to figure out why they don't satisfy. Do you have any insight, opinions, or cracktheories about why this story might be unsatisfying to some folks?

Probably because it's a very unsubtle metaphor casting the dragon as death, and death itself as a cruel, malevolent beast devouring and subjugating humanity for its own whims. This is very much intentional on the part of the writer. The paradigm of the story is that the dragon is huge, terrifying and incalculably cruel, and everyone lives their lives in the shadow of its terror or are just too deluded to recognize that it's COMING TO EAT THEM OH GOD

Intrinsic in this metaphorical structure is the idea that the dragon, aka death, is an artificial imposition on the natural order, and if we just got rid of the big ol' mean dragon, everybody would live forever and be fine. Accepting that the dragon exists is framed as a sign of desperation or even cowardice. This is an understandable read when facing a monster that only SEEMS timeless and inevitable (like LeGuin's thoughts comparing the current state of capitalism to the historical acceptance of the divine right of kings) but becomes bizarre when applied to something as legitimately factual as biological death. It's not even framed as unnatural death - the dragon specifically gets sent mostly old people. The metaphor is very explicitly about trying to frame death from old age as a big horrible dragon that everyone only thinks is unstoppable.

I get what they're going for here. The purpose of this story is to make the audience question if death is a true inevitability or if it can be fought, staved off, even defeated. But in the process, the story frames the systems of the world that have formed around death - doctors, pallative caregivers, will executors - as macabre gears in the machine dedicated to the genocidal cruelty of feeding the dragon.

In the dragon tyrant framing, these people only exist to make the rest of the world more okay with flinging themselves down the gullet of the dragon and to streamline the process by which everybody dies. By casting death as the enemy, everybody whose jobs are based on the compassionate act of comforting and aiding people suffering from loss become reframed as collaborators with the incalculably evil enemy, and everyone who's ever accepted their own death becomes a loser. This is a deeply cruel way to frame people who dedicate their lives to helping people through one of the hardest and most tragic aspects of life.

Damn, that's fucked up. Look at this eloquent idiot, explaining why we should be okay with letting a big dragon eat us because it's the natural order. Clearly he is wrong and it's not debasing at all to want to stay alive and not get eaten by a big dragon. This is a fallacy of false analogy: death is like being eaten by a big mean dragon. All his arguments look ridiculous when applied to getting eaten by a big mean dragon, therefore they must be ridiculous when applied to dying when your organs start failing because they've been running nonstop for nine decades and biological systems accumulate wear and tear like literally everything else in the universe.

Entropy increases; systems break down, from DNA to planetary orbits. Successfully shoot down the dragon and you'll end up outliving everything you thought was eternal, even the stars. The goal of immortality isn't really to personally witness the sun exploding, it's to have more good time. It's to make your twenties last into your sixties. It's to keep your back painless and your vision good for longer. We want to postpone the story's end as long as we can, and so we extrapolate "more time" into "I never want to die, I want to be young and healthy and hot forever" even though "forever" doesn't exist. To look to "forever" is to understand that your culture and language will drift, your home will eventually crumble out from under you, your shoreline will erode and change, your climate will transform, your tectonic plate will subduct or shatter, your moon's orbit will slow and tidally lock, and eventually your sun will start burning helium and cook your planet. You don't want "forever" to look like that, you want it to look like your twenties felt. But at that point you aren't fighting the Big Mean Dragon That Eats People, you're fighting the ocean and the biosphere and the earth and the stars, trying to hold them in place against entropy so your immortality can have an equally immortal world to enjoy it in. No, this argument doesn't want true immortality, it wants their twenties to last longer. But it can't admit that.

Back to the story. There's a condescending and spiteful tone in the narration. Death (being eaten by a big mean dragon) is OBVIOUSLY awful and we should all be fighting as hard as we can to make it stop happening. Even a child can see it.

The story even helpfully adds a lengthy moral explanation at the end, in case you didn't understand that the dragon was the inevitability of death and we should dedicate all our resources to figuring out how to make a big rocket and shoot it.

"Nobody should ever die" is generally understood to be a childish dream with extremely obvious and unpleasant consequences that would turn its realization into an unending and waking nightmare, and once out of the confines of easy metaphor, the story tries to act like that wasn't what it was just saying. But its more realistic proposed substitute, "It would be great if people could live longer and have more healthy, youthful years in them," is probably the world's most uncontroversial statement. This story frames it like a bold revelation that the world will attempt to beat down and crush out of a misguided acceptance that Big Mean Dragon comes for us all. It's a morality fable whose conclusion is "I hope science improves the length and quality of our lives, potentially even to the point where we never have to die at all," which has been the number one goal of huge swaths of science since the invention of agriculture. This is not a bold or controversial take. It's just being written as though we're all looking at the naked emperor and pretending he's wearing pants.

[jstor]

I saw something about generative AI on JSTOR. Can you confirm whether you really are implementing it and explain why? I’m pretty sure most of your userbase hates AI.

A generative AI/machine learning research tool on JSTOR is currently in beta, meaning that it's not fully integrated into the platform. This is an opportunity to determine how this technology may be helpful in parsing through dense academic texts to make them more accessible and gauge their relevancy.

To JSTOR, this is primarily a learning experience. We're looking at how beta users are engaging with the tool and the results that the tool is producing to get a sense of its place in academia.

In order to understand what we're doing a bit more, it may help to take a look at what the tool actually does. From a recent blog post:

Content evaluation

Problem: Traditionally, researchers rely on metadata, abstracts, and the first few pages of an article to evaluate its relevance to their work. In humanities and social sciences scholarship, which makes up the majority of JSTOR’s content, many items lack abstracts, meaning scholars in these areas (who in turn are our core cohort of users) have one less option for efficient evaluation. 

When using a traditional keyword search in a scholarly database, a query might return thousands of articles that a user needs significant time and considerable skill to wade through, simply to ascertain which might in fact be relevant to what they’re looking for, before beginning their search in earnest.

Solution: We’ve introduced two capabilities to help make evaluation more efficient, with the aim of opening the researcher’s time for deeper reading and analysis:

Summarize, which appears in the tool interface as “What is this text about,” provides users with concise descriptions of key document points. On the back-end, we’ve optimized the Large Language Model (LLM) prompt for a concise but thorough response, taking on the task of prompt engineering for the user by providing advanced direction to:

Extract the background, purpose, and motivations of the text provided.

Capture the intent of the author without drawing conclusions.

Limit the response to a short paragraph to provide the most important ideas presented in the text.

Search term context is automatically generated as soon as a user opens a text from search results, and provides information on how that text relates to the search terms the user has used. Whereas the summary allows the user to quickly assess what the item is about, this feature takes evaluation to the next level by automatically telling the user how the item is related to their search query, streamlining the evaluation process.

Discovering new paths for exploration

Problem: Once a researcher has discovered content of value to their work, it’s not always easy to know where to go from there. While JSTOR provides some resources, including a “Cited by” list as well as related texts and images, these pathways are limited in scope and not available for all texts. Especially for novice researchers, or those just getting started on a new project or exploring a novel area of literature, it can be needlessly difficult and frustrating to gain traction. 

Solution: Two capabilities make further exploration less cumbersome, paving a smoother path for researchers to follow a line of inquiry:

Recommended topics are designed to assist users, particularly those who may be less familiar with certain concepts, by helping them identify additional search terms or refine and narrow their existing searches. This feature generates a list of up to 10 potential related search queries based on the document’s content. Researchers can simply click to run these searches.

Related content empowers users in two significant ways. First, it aids in quickly assessing the relevance of the current item by presenting a list of up to 10 conceptually similar items on JSTOR. This allows users to gauge the document’s helpfulness based on its relation to other relevant content. Second, this feature provides a pathway to more content, especially materials that may not have surfaced in the initial search. By generating a list of related items, complete with metadata and direct links, users can extend their research journey, uncovering additional sources that align with their interests and questions.

Supporting comprehension

Problem: You think you have found something that could be helpful for your work. It’s time to settle in and read the full document… working through the details, making sure they make sense, figuring out how they fit into your thesis, etc. This all takes time and can be tedious, especially when working through many items. 

Solution: To help ensure that users find high quality items, the tool incorporates a conversational element that allows users to query specific points of interest. This functionality, reminiscent of CTRL+F but for concepts, offers a quicker alternative to reading through lengthy documents. 

By asking questions that can be answered by the text, users receive responses only if the information is present. The conversational interface adds an accessibility layer as well, making the tool more user-friendly and tailored to the diverse needs of the JSTOR user community.

Credibility and source transparency

We knew that, for an AI-powered tool to truly address user problems, it would need to be held to extremely high standards of credibility and transparency. On the credibility side, JSTOR’s AI tool uses only the content of the item being viewed to generate answers to questions, effectively reducing hallucinations and misinformation. 

On the transparency front, responses include inline references that highlight the specific snippet of text used, along with a link to the source page. This makes it clear to the user where the response came from (and that it is a credible source) and also helps them find the most relevant parts of the text. 

[isagrimorie]

This is a really good interview with Jac Schaeffer about episode 7 of Agatha All Along.

Schaeffer orchestrates “Death’s Hand in Mind” to unfold with an emotional clarity that allows LuPone to shine in one of her best ever on-screen performances.

[snip]

What sort of feedback would she be giving?

She has a number of mini-monologues, and as we got closer, I tweaked a few of them. She came to me and was like, “Can we please just do it how it was?” And I was like, “You’re the boss, absolutely.” She’s a theater actor. She respects the page. I was trying to streamline and get us moving, and she was like, “No, I want to say all these things.” And bless her, I’m so glad she said all the things.

There are really two different tracks in the episode: the linear timeline as the other characters are experiencing it, and the emotional timeline as Lily is experiencing it. How did you and Patti navigate that?

Patti asked for a script in correct order so she could understand what she was doing. She really did have a solid handle on it, but she would get lost a little bit. Her focus was, “Where is the big emotion? When do I really unravel?” That’s why she wanted to see the episode strung out linearly, but I was like, “You’re the one bouncing around.” She’s the constant, so whenever she’s feeling the deep emotion of it, that is correct, because she’s being wrenched all over the place. So I think her process was finding when the pulling around really starts to trigger her vulnerability.

[SNIP]

The other thing that was very complicated about this episode was the practical part. Those swords are real, and they’re on piano wire. We had to number them and know the order and decide where they went before any actors set foot on the set. So we had this sword map that was nuts, and Ishi was my sword angel, keeping all that in both our minds. And the actors — they were so lovely — they were willing to let me say, “We cannot explore dancing around the space. I need you here right now, otherwise a sword is going to hit you in the face.”

THEY USED REAL SWORDS. When they said that they used minimal CGI… they were not kidding about it!

[snip]

Lilia, Alice, Mrs. Hart — are they all really dead?

I anticipated this question today, and I’ve been thinking about my answer. What I want to say is that this is a show about death. We actually have the character of Death in our show. I am interested in that conversation, and I am fascinated by how death is used in the comic space and in the MCU. Personally, I feel that when a person dies, you can still talk to them and feel them, and they can still be in your lives. But death is immutable. It is permanent. With this show, we wanted to pay respect to that. So this a more earnest and grave conversation about death than maybe you would find in another superhero project.

I like this actually. I like that in WandaVision the show dealt with grief and trauma. This time it’s dealing with death face to face and having an honest discussion what death is.

I think what it will end up showing is that death… is not evil. Death just is. It is a fact of life.

To paraphrase the Ninth Doctor: Everything has its time and everything ends.

So are the Salem Seven dead?

Yeah, the Salem Seven are dead. They’re off the board in our show, is what I will say. Lilia has saved everybody!

And true to my hypothesis, when Jac is fibbing or not telling the whole truth, she answers as succinctly as possible. Because it is technically true the Salem Seven are dead because the remaining Salem members are now just the Salem Two.

Since only five appeared in the Tower.

Lady Death has been a significant character in the Marvel Comics for a long time. When did you decide to include your version of that character in the show?

Oooh, it’s so fun to be talking about this now. We wanted a pursuant character. We wanted somebody who was going to be after Agatha, and therefore after the coven, because we liked the logic of whatever Agatha’s problem is, once they become a coven, it becomes the problem of the whole group. Very, very early, we had this character we called the Debt Collector. Witchcraft is a lot about intention and exchange and checks and balances. So we had this notion of someone being after them for unpaid debts of witchcraft. I don’t remember when we pivoted to death, but it was just so sexy. We were just like, who is the perfect ex-lover of Agatha Harkness? It was just so obviously Lady Death. It felt so right. 

It’s so interesting what they conceptualized for the ‘pursuant’ character before locking on to Rio/Lady Death. The ‘Debt Collector’, it says a lot about their initial thoughts and rules for Witchcraft which sounded (to me) something similar to Fullmetal Alchemist’s philosophy of ‘Equivalent exchange’.

The intention of checks and balances and unpaid debts of witchcraft.

Also, I still love that the person, the character who brought Lady Death, the cosmic being into the MCU wasn’t Thanos with his trillions of death via snap. It’s not Deadpool.

The character who brought Lady Death into being is Agatha Harkness.

Executive producer Mary Livanos and writer Giovanna Sarquis were instrumental in the character. Giovanna came in with the Dia de los Muertos [look] and having her be Latinx, and Mary was very much an influence on Rio’s darkness and toxicity and how enmeshed Agatha and Rio are. It was something that needed approval from on high. We had to get the sign off from Kevin [Feige]. There was a moment where we were all holding our breath, worried we weren’t going to get it. We were really delighted that we got the OK.

I love this, @mswyrr pointed out that Santa Muerte and Lady Death actually has similarities. And to know now that it’s deliberate? It’s so amazing.

Also, Mary pointing out the darkness and toxicity knowing that Mary Livanos is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan and quite possibly a Buffy/Faith shipper… The knife scene in the first episode feels more like a deliberate reference now!

This is what happens when fangirls become in charge! Wooo!

You said Rio is a “pursuant character” — is she a villain, or at least an antagonist?

Yes, I would classify her as an antagonist. I would classify everyone in the show as a villain and a hero at one point or another.

[snip]

Again with a carefully short answer. But also the emphasis that she is an antagonist and Jac’s insistence that in the show no one is purely a hero nor a villain. Because people are more complicated than that.

we designed this show to really take off dramatically in the back half. I’ve been really interested to see how that lands with people. I think for the most part, people are on the track that we hope they will be. It’s not about the specifics of characters showing up or cameos or revelations, really. But it sounds to me like what people are emotionally interested in, I hope that we deliver on that. There is more Agatha, there is more Rio, and there is a conclusion to this story, and there is some truth to be shared about Agatha.

I like that— for Jac it’s not the cameos or the revelations, it’s the emotional interest and investment. It’s the unpacking of Agatha as a character, its Agatha and Rio individually and together. This is what Jac and the writer’s room are interested in.

I love that in superhero show, they’re tackling the very heavy subject of death. And I trust this team of writers to bring it home.

[grizzcozine]

Production Update

It’s been a minute since our last production update, but we’ve got some exciting news to share!

We’ve received our die-cut stickers, badge holders, lanyards, enamel pin sets, and our controller grips! We hope you look forward to receiving these goodies with your order.

Controller grips update: All qualifying orders will receive two sets of grips now!

Prints, sticker sheets, and die-cut stickers are currently being assembled into bundles by our shipping mod. We hope to streamline the fulfillment process by preparing our merch items now.

Next week, enamel pins will begin QC and assembled into their respective sets.

And lastly, we’ve received notification that our books are en route! Expect a major announcement when those arrive. Thanks for your patience as we wrap up production!

[lime-bloods]

"Trolls think fashion is stupid" is code for 'trolls don't prioritise individuality' the same way "[t]rolls don't have mail" is code for 'trolls lack freedom'; while Sburb offers its human heroes the opportunity to launch into adulthood by customising their looks to express their unique personalities, the trolls are seemingly taught from a young age to avoid this kind of thinking in order to streamline the process of playing Sgrub. So for Vriska to finally graduate from the black tee with her astrological sign on it would also be a significant symbol of growing out of her Alternian mode of thinking in that respect

[mysticdoodles]

hi i saw a post about the fish playing with the human child and even though your addition to that post is 3 years old by now i would love to hear more about ftm sheephead fish :3 (no pressure btw!)

Fish curiosity, in my inbox?? It's more likely than I think, apparently! xD

First off, there's actually multiple fish dubbed 'sheephead'! There's the sheepshead- note the extra S in there- and they look like this:

And yes those are their teeth. Horrifying tbh, but they're very good at what they do- crushing invertebrates and other shelled snacks! They're an Atlantic species that sticks to temperate and warmer waters, and they max out at about half a meter in length.

That's not the fish we're talking about today. The focus of today is the California sheephead wrasse- note the lack of a second S- also known as the 'sheephead' for short. Not confusing at all! We definitely don't bash our heads into walls over the naming conventions and lack of record-keeping of our scientist predecessors.

THIS is the sheephead wrasse, the species of the lovely and now Tumblr-famous Red! :D With a length of up to a FULL meter, they're a whole different size class of fish! They can be found along the west coast USA from the Baja Peninsula all the way up to Monterey, and dwell almost exclusively in kelp forests and nearby environments. I will use one of Red's pics as an example of female coloration-

The lighting isn't great but you can see how her body is streamlined, and besides the white underside of the jaw, has a salmon-pink coloration! Females can be pink or a dull silver-beige. And much like other large marine wrasse, MALES have a drastically different appearance.

This thing is built like a damn tank!! Sheephead are a species of wrasse that shift colors to gain those striking black scales and physically bulk up when becoming males- because guess what? ALL OF THEM ARE BORN FEMALE! By default, all male California Sheephead are FTM trans :) They use that bulky head and extremely tough set of jaws to not only hunt their preferred prey- mollusks, gastropods, and bivalves, etc- but also to bash and chomp down on rival males. This one has won many battles, look at that scarred up muzzle!

The sex change is determined by several factors, as it's not guaranteed all sheephead will eventually become males. Because sheephead school in a harem system- many females to very few males- in order to maximize pressure of stronger offspring, the biggest and healthiest sheephead male will drive out competition from the school. Naturally, a sheephead that lives longer and gains a greater size will have a much higher chance of shifting from a female to a male, if the conditions are right. Stress induced from competition can suppress the hormones that stimulate this transition in females, so they're less likely to gain size and shift from female to male if there's already strong competition taking place. However, in the event there are too few males to mate with the females, or no males present at all, the biggest female will start transitioning to fill the empty slot! It's a long process that can take as few as a couple months, or up to years, depending on resources available.

Conversely, if there are TOO MANY males, they can revert back into females! This process also takes a long time, and is a lot more rare to witness, especially because right now male California sheephead in particular are being spear-fished into becoming an Endangered species :c Sheephead adult males in good condition are considered a trophy animal in spear-fishing and similar marine trophy hunting off the West coast, and because males in particular are being targeted, the gene pool is being reduced when it wrecks the harem structure of schools.

As a fun fact- they're also an incredibly smart fish, and can form relationships with humans, as demonstrated with me and sweetiepie Red cx There's many documented cases of large marine wrasses forming long-term friendships with divers! Here's a humphead wrasse that made friends with a diver she learned would crack snails open for her with a hammer:

I don't work at the facility with Red anymore, but I currently work with two unnamed adult male sheephead, and once again they both like me and seem to despise all my coworkers, even if I never had the opportunity to train them like I did with little Red xD They pick favorites I guess? Now if only I could make friends with the garibaldi...

[crowlines]

Hello! After forever and ever I finally have a store reopening date: Friday Oct 11 at noon PDT!

And after even more forever and ever, UK and EU customers will now be able to purchase from my store when it's reopened on Friday! You have been patient for literally YEARS — thank you!

For all international customers (e.g. outside the US), customs duties will now be collected at checkout rather than at the time of package delivery. This way you won't be surprised by extra fees later, and the delivery process will be streamlined. Packages will also now be delivered to customers outside the US via UPS and DHL, rather than USPS. This should speed up delivery time significantly by weeks.

Depending on the turnout on Friday/over the weekend, I may opt to cap international orders at some point since I'm adjusting to a new system. At this time no items are being restocked or added; that will come a little later. It's exciting to be back! Hope to see you on Friday!

[usergif]

RESOURCE DIRECTORY 2.0 + HOW TO NAVIGATE USERGIF

Hello! We hit 10k followers! I want to take this moment to thank all our wonderful followers and the talented members of usergif! We created this blog less than 2 years ago and are constantly blown away by your support and beautiful creations. As a thank-you, we're proud to announce our new and improved resource directory!!! Shout out to arithemes' custom page which allowed us to create a more streamlined and organized directory for everyone to use. Under the cut, you'll find a guide to help you find exactly the resource you're looking for on our blog. Happy gifmaking! :)

THE UPDATED DIRECTORY

All resources are in alphabetical order first by the creator's URL (at the time of entry), then by the resource's title. Each title is a clickable link that'll redirect you to the original post. Beneath that, you'll find the creator's URL and the resource's relevant filter tags:

As always, whenever I add new entries to the directory, you'll see the last date listed on the right side of the blog here:

If you don't see one of your recent tutorials listed there, please be patient. I update the directory on a monthly basis, but only add resources that have already exited our queue.

THE FILTERS

Please note: the Source section has exclusive filters, meaning you can only select one at a time. In the Type and Effects sections, you can select as many filters as you want. However, if you select 2 filters in one section, like "animated" and "blending," it'll show results for any resource with either of those tags, not necessarily resources that include both of those tags.

Here's a breakdown of how we categorize our resources:

Source: ↳ all: posted by any creator ↳ usergif: posted by usergif

Type: ↳ all: click this to reset filter selections ↳ action: pre-recorded photoshop functions that can be replayed ↳ basics: non-effects-related resources to help new gifmakers get their feet off the ground (please remember usergif is not a resource for beginner-level gifs and focuses on intermediate to advanced gif effects. however, we thought it would be helpful to keep some basic resources available) ↳ brush: various brush shapes like ripped paper edges or intricate textures ↳ fonts: names and links to fonts or font packs ↳ template: pre-made, downloadable layouts and designs ↳ texture: overlays that add a different finish to a gif such as Ben Day dots (retro comic dots) or glitter ↳ tutorial: any post that provides an explanation for a gif effects process ↳ other

Effect: ↳ all: click this to reset filter selections ↳ animated: an effect that applies movement to an element such as rotating text or wiggling shapes ↳ blending: aka double exposure, this effect combines two or more gifs layered on top of each other ↳ color: specifically for color manipulation, an effect in which the original colors are completely different (e.g. a blue sky colored to look pink) ↳ glitch: an effect where color channels are toggled and layered over the original gif to give a flickering effect ↳ layout: multiple gifs on one canvas like a collage (e.g. hexagon layout) or poster-style templates ↳ overlay: an added element layered above a gif (excluding text) such as a shape, another gif confined to a shape, a texture, etc. ↳ transition: an effect that stylizes the passage from one scene/clip into another, such as a fade, glitch, linear wipe, or motion blur transition ↳ typography: any kind of stylized text added over a gif (does not include basic captions)

You can find examples of all these gif effects via their respective tags on our Nav!

THE SEARCH BAR

This search bar functions the same way as the search bar in the upper right corner of our main blog and the search function on Tumblr's mobile app.

Tumblr search allows you to generate results using keywords found in the body of the post or the tags. So, if you're looking for a post but can only remember it having the word "rotoscoping," you can type that in either in the directory's search or blog's search and find any post on our blog that mentions the exact keyword "rotoscoping."

THE NAV & TAGS

Tags function differently from search keywords as these relate to exact words and phrases found only in the tags, not the body of the post. Our members use tags to categorize original posts and reblogs. Some of our most frequently used tags are listed on our Navigation Page and saved in the mobile search function pictured below:

But if you ever want to quickly navigate a tag, simply add /tagged/word to the end of our url to find that tag! For example, if you want to see all the posts we've tagged as a #tutorial, just go to usergif.tumblr.com/tagged/tutorial.

BROKEN LINKS

Whether it's due to a creator frequently changing their url, the absence of an automatic blog redirect, or my own mistakes when coding the directory — you may stumble upon a broken link. Here's what to do:

If a creator has changed their username but their blog doesn't automatically redirect you to the new blog, check if they listed their new user name in the title of their old blog like I did:

In this case, simply replace the url you landed on with this new url. For example, https://sith-maul.tumblr.com/post/692130400398704640/how-to-make-an-animated-google-search-overlay-a → would become → https://cal-kestis.tumblr.com/post/692130400398704640/how-to-make-an-animated-google-search-overlay-a

However, if you can't figure out the creator's new url or in the case that I messed up the link due to human error, feel free to send us a message so I can help find the source or correct the mistake!

WHERE TO FIND THIS INFO AGAIN

If you ever need to access this guide while using the directory, simply click the "i" button here:

And that's it! We hope this revamped directory is a lot more efficient and helpful. Thank you again for all your support and for helping us reach this follower milestone!