#and still Novid

[dicapiito]

Took the updated Covid vaccine shot and the flu shot

Now to pass out until November 😭

[dream-cake]

so I woke up with covid this morning 🙃🙃 I was planning to go to the store today, but the fever is making me shaky and being hungry definitely isn't helping that 🫠

would anyone like to send me a lil money for a lunch delivery? I don't wanna go out and infect anyone else, but I'm so hungry!!!!! I'm happy to send a folder of content for any amount if you DM me a screenshot of payment, and thank you in advance 💖💖

ca$happ: $dreamcake87

venm0: dreamcake

paypa1: dreamcake87

[television-for-dinner]

after like 2 years and 3 different doctors quitting their jobs I finally got a bunch of conditions ruled out for my cognitive and physical decline and am starting on my new treatment plan TONIGHT

new doctor started his own clinic to prioritize medically complex patients so they have a mask mirroring policy and air purifiers in every room in case masks need to be removed for any reason, so I feel super safe and respected as a disabled person for once :')

[jbluphin]

Skyping with my bf between rooms of the apartment so I don't give him covid.

Thought I was done with this shit when he moved in with me. Long-distance relationship flashbacks...

[captawesomesauce]

Thoughts at 1020am...

Dude! What is going on with y'all???

People who have been novid this entire time, are starting to get it left and right.

... and it's always the same story it seems. Got lazy with their boosters, stopped masking, got tired of avoiding crowded places... all 3.

And trust me, I get it. I am so sick and tired of this shit. W and I were even going round and round, night after night, trying to think of SOME way to go to a conference next month ... but it's such a big event, so crowded, and so poorly ventilated that everyone we know always goes home sick with something.

But so many of y'all aren't getting the mild version either... and that's the really bothersome part, especially those who are still suffering weeks later.

Fuck this shit. I just want to go back to how things were!

[vickiabelson]

Toto’s Joseph Williams Live on Game Changers with Vicki Abelson

Hold the line! What a way to reenter this arena - with arena rockstar Joseph Williams of Toto! I had the best time - can’t stop smiling. Joseph could not have been more accessible, personable, humble, willing, thoughtful, informative… entertaining, and warm––like a fuzzy blanket on a cool summer night. Just loved every minute. 

I watched quite a few interviews with Joseph to get to know him a bit before sitting down with him. All that I saw were centered around the music of Toto and Joseph’s solo work––the songs, the musicians, the concerts. Fascinating!  I wanted to know about the kid, the son, the man, the artist, the vocalist, the composer, who thrived, who struggled, who acted out, who cleaned up, and that’s exactly what generous Joseph gave us, no holds barred, no lines held, as it were. From his earliest days with his dad, John Williams, making genius in the other room, his actress-singer mother, Barbara Ruick, turning life into songs, he and his siblings performing on cue for their parents’ esteemed party guests, and forming their first band, together, picking up his first drink, finding mischief, getting busted, breaking bones, boarding school leading to his first gig… jingles, Vegas, Star Search - one story better than the last - to auditioning for Toto - how he got it, what it meant - how he lost it - what he did to ensure that it would never happen again - composing, scoring- working with a guy named Snuffy, guesting with Toto and Bobby Kimball, rejoining the band in 2010, now he and Lukather the two remaining old guard… full circle - still touring - and miraculously still a Novid! 

I easily could have chatted with Joseph for hours more. Can’t wait till September to see Toto at The Hollywood Bowl and to celebrate Joseph’s 64th birthday. He’s sober, a grandpa, a good son, making great music, and living his dream. He’s honored his legacy. Bravo! Standing O! 

Joseph Williams Live on Game Changers with Vicki Abelson

Wednesday, June 5, 5 PM PT, 8 PM ET 

Streamed Live on my Facebook

Replay here:

[mumblelard]

i got my bivalent booster today or the contagiously fun game that never ever ever ends

i am still novid, but there is a creepy news article that has been following me around the internet. it asserts that people who think they haven't had covid are fooling themselves and are most likely asymptomatic superspreaders. since there is no practical way to find out which is true, i guess i will have to continue to live in a world where both are correct?

[lickingyellowpaint]

Today's a short workday, then a friend's scooping me afterward to take me shoe shopping, which I do so sorely need when everything's either falling apart or just plain uncomfy. May end up tossing some beloved kicks as a result of having new, but that's life. Just grateful she's willing to take me on a little spree.

Then home, work out, curling hair for overnight, and tomorrow is another dance event I plan to attend if I'm not sniffly. So far so good on that front - still a NOVID as far as I can tell (though I'm sure it's just a matter of time.)

But. Indigestion like a motherfucker from pizza last night. Body is NOT happy I broke my good semi-healthy streak. Ugggghhhh. Hoping the long walk to work helps sort me back out.

Hope everyone has a chill Saturday! Love to my pocket friends. ❤️

[salamanderinspace]

COVID test negative. Still NOVID.

[misterjt]

Good Good

We ain’t good good, but we still good. Usher Photo by visuals on Unsplash I’m currently in Bedroom Jail. I can no longer count myself among the NOVID crowd as I tested positive for COVID-19 Wednesday evening. I probably contracted it on January 1st. Happy New Year! I’m not alone. My case has been mild so far, with two rough nights of sleep (last night was better) and a fever for about 36 hours…

[dicapiito]

I hope my Novid streak continues because holy hell… I still feel gross.

Well…I am current with my Covid shots at least. Jeez…

I will never understand how one can be that unhygienic and think she wouldn’t be reported for being so fucking disgusting. What an asshole.

[mubashirnews]

These 11 People Still Haven't Had COVID. We Asked Them To Share Their Secrets.

Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of Americans have had COVID at least once, with the new immune-evasive XBB.1.5 subvariant driving up the numbers of new cases and reinfections. Even the lucky few who still haven’t gotten the novel coronavirus may have actually had it before; in many cases, “never COVIDers” (or “Novids,” if you prefer) have contracted the virus but weren’t…

[dearvicme]

These 11 People Still Haven't Had COVID. We Asked Them To Share Their Secrets.

Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of Americans have had COVID at least once, with the new immune-evasive XBB.1.5 subvariant driving up the numbers of new cases and reinfections. Even the lucky few who still haven’t gotten the novel coronavirus may have actually had it before; in many cases, “never COVIDers” (or “Novids,” if you prefer) have contracted the virus but weren’t…

[marcymassura]

A play in two acts. Still never had it. Official #Novid!!! But I am 4x vaxxed because I know I CAN still get it. By the way- I’ve never had the flu either. Weird or related? 😬😬😬 But I am still sick. Doc thinks it’s moving into pneumonia. So that’s super fun. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cjk8mQOrpIh/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[maximelebled]

How to launch a symlinked Source 2 addon in the tools & commands to improve the SFM

I like to store a lot of my 3D work in Dropbox, for many reasons. I get an instant backup, synchronization to my laptop if my desktop computer were to suddenly die, and most importantly, a simple 30-day rollback “revision” system. It’s not source control, but it’s the closest convenience to it, with zero effort involved.

This also includes, for example, my Dota SFM addon. I have copied over the /content and /game folder hierarchies inside my Dropbox. On top of the benefits mentioned above, this allows me to launch renders of different shots in the same session easily! With some of my recent work needing to be rendered in resolutions close to 4K, it definitely isn’t a luxury.

So now, of course, I can’t just launch my addon from my Dropbox. I have to create two symbolic links first — basically, “ghost folders” that pretend to be the real ones, but are pointing to where I moved them! Using these commands:

mklink /J "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\dota 2 beta\content\dota_addons\usermod" "D:\path\to\new\location\content"

and

mklink /J "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\dota 2 beta\game\dota_addons\usermod" "D:\ path\to\new\location\game"

Now, there’s a problem though; somehow, symlinked addons don’t show up in the tools startup manager (dota2cfg.exe, steamtourscfg.exe, etc)

It’s my understanding that symbolic links are supposed to be transparent to these apps, so maybe they actually aren’t, or Source 2 is doing something weird... I wouldn’t know! But it’s not actually a problem.

Make a .bat file wherever you’d like, and drop this in there:

start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\dota 2 beta\game\bin\win64\dota2.exe" -addon usermod -vconsole -tools -steam -windowed -noborder -width 1920 -height 1080 -novid -d3d11 -high +r_dashboard_render_quality 0 +snd_musicvolume 0.0 +r_texturefilteringquality 5 +engine_no_focus_sleep 0 +dota_use_heightmap 0 -tools_sun_shadow_size 8192 EXIT

Of course, you’ll have replace the paths in these lines (and the previous ones) by the paths that match what you have on your own machine.

Let me go through what each of these commands do. These tend to be very relevant to Dota 2 and may not be useful for SteamVR Home or Half-Life: Alyx.

-addon usermod is what solves our core issue. We’re not going through the launcher (dota2cfg.exe, etc.) anymore. We’re directly telling the engine to look for this addon and load it. In this case, “usermod” is my addon’s name... most people who have used the original Source 1 SFM have probably created their addon under this name 😉

-vconsole enables the nice separate console right away.

-windowed -noborder makes the game window “not a window”.

-width 1920 -height 1080 for its resolution. (I recommend half or 2/3rds.)

-novid disables any startup videos (the Dota 2 trailer, etc.)

-d3d11 is a requirement of the tools (no other APIs are supported AFAIK)

-high ensures that the process gets upgraded to high priority!

+r_dashboard_render_quality 0 disables the fancier Dota dashboard, which could theoretically by a bit of a background drain on resources.

+snd_musicvolume 0.0 disables any music coming from the Dota menu, which would otherwise come back on at random while you click thru tools.

+r_texturefilteringquality 5 forces x16 Anisotropic Filtering.

+engine_no_focus_sleep 0 prevents the engine from “artificially sleeping” for X milliseconds every frame, which would lower framerate, saving power, but also potentially hindering rendering in the SFM. I’m not sure if it still can, but better safe than sorry.

+dota_use_heightmap 0 is a particle bugfix that prevents certain particles from only using the heightmap baked at compile time, instead falling back on full collision. You may wish to experiment with both 0 and 1 when investigating particle behaviours.

-tools_sun_shadow_size 8192 sets the Global Light Shadow res to 8192 instead of 1024 (on High) or 2048 (on Ultra). This is AFAIK the maximum.

And don’t forget that “EXIT” on a new line! It will make sure the batch file automatically closes itself after executing, so it’ll work like a real shortcut.

Speaking of, how about we make it even nicer, and like an actual shortcut? Right-click on your .bat and select Create Shortcut. Unfortunately, it won’t work as-is. We need to make a few changes in its properties.

Make sure that Target is set to:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C "D:\Path\To\Your\BatchFile\Goes\Here\launch_tools.bat"

And for bonus points, you can click Change Icon and browse to dota2cfg.exe (in \SteamApps\common\dota 2 beta\game\bin\win64) to steal its nice icon! And now you’ve got a shortcut that will launch the tools in just one click, and that you can pin directly to your task bar!

Enjoy! 🙂

[iamafireplace]

mmmmm i’m sick and don’t like it i’m novid but it still sucks