#but another expensive project

[nocterax]

I was blessed by Stormcatcher I guess on the lightning event. (I'm shadow momma's goopy child lol)

...this girl seemed bad for first...

Then this scry changed everything. :o

[comradekarin]

im sorry but social media “leftists activists” are some of the most unserious people? especially twitter ones? you don’t vote, you don’t donate, you don’t endorse candidates…. hell some of you have never taken a civics class before and it shows. y’all just bitch about trivial things like flag emojis and instagram posts and fucking twitter likes? play moral high ground? distress over the current state of affairs and then do absolutely NOTHING about it? project 2025 is probably the most terrifying thing I’ve ever read, and I foresee 2016 happening all over again. for an online group of people who preach about caring about human rights and civil liberties, you’ve been doing such a great job showing that. VOTE blue

[uniquezombiedestiny]

o/ been a while since ive posted here, but i got this g1 and i cant decide...

[bismuthburnsblue]

bought some fabric (that i did not need) because it reminded me of tree bark

what should i do with it? my first instinct is a corset, but i also think a skirt could be fun? maybe.... a tree themed outfit/costume....

im not sure how much i have because i bought it as a piece by weight, but i think its a couple meters!! ill measure it when i get home

[sherlock-is-ace]

.

[cosmicrhetoric]

should i.......preemptively buy 40$ worth of yarn before a designer picks me for a test knit.......

[itshomobirb]

autism moment: im sad that the phone i was running into the ground finally bit the dust (⁠>n<⁠；⁠) it was only a matter of time, it could barely hold a charge even if unused for ~6 hours and got unbearably warm if i did anything intense like appts over zoom. no data loss, aside from a few pics id downloaded but not yet backed up. and ive had 2 phones for awhile, this dead phone as my daily driver and then another phone w/ my sim card to just make calls & order ubers, so i just swapped over to the other phone no problems. need to redownload all my apps & set everything back up how i like it, which is a pain in the butt but not like life-ending or anything. still. (T n T)

[marshmallowgoop]

2022 AMV Review

It's a bit late, but since I do yearly writing reviews, I thought it might be fun to do AMV reviews, now that I've started seriously editing with DaVinci Resolve.

This video collects a piece of every AMV I posted last year, from my very first Resolve AMV to the one I made right before my previous laptop broke completely. If I continue this in the future, I think I'd limit it to Top 10 or one per month, but since I only have 10 Resolve AMVs under my belt right now, it felt right to include all of them!

One of my biggest struggles with video editing—and with Creating in general—is doing Too Much, going way overboard and making things worse with the additional time and effort. It's a real struggle to cut back, but I think I'm slowly learning to limit my clip amount to make my videos (slightly) easier on the eyes.

But all that said, I've always admired AMVs but never felt like I could actually make them, so that I uploaded 10 in 2022 is amazing to me! I'm excited to start editing some more on my new laptop!

[muirneach]

finished my knitting project last night and now im like. well now what 🧍‍♂️that was all i did for the past three weeks idk how to act anymore if im not constantly knitting

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[iamthepulta]

Finally got the crotchet pattern right for my planned Christmas gift, and, per usual, realized that there is NEVER enough yarn to link all the granny squares together i swear

[theskeletoninthegarden]

Spider enclosure came in, and I'm getting some ideas

[the-skin-inthe-bath-is-mine]

Finish embroidery on Rinne or continue crocheting Mom's birthday present?

[preserve-or-raze]

my tags got out of hand

i keep thinking about hobbies and how i often spill over myself to pick up new ones. i have adhd, i end up trying something for like a month and then just getting far enough in it that i move on, satisfied.

and that should be fine; but it's never fine.

i am a pretty decent artist; but i can't just make art for my dnd campaign, i should be selling dnd maps and character designs and scene setting pieces. i can't just make my friends matching earrings, i need to get an etsy and ship them internationally and take bulk orders. i make pretty good props and decorations and use them to throw my friends parties - but i should be running a party planning business and start taking paying clients and networking and putting my skills to actual use.

for some reason, i never figured out the specifics of pottery. it was a fun class and i enjoyed myself - and still, i'm embarrassed, years later, that i put in all that useless effort. everything i make has to be stunning. stellar. i should have applied myself more. maybe i'm too lazy. maybe i'm broken and selfish and needy. actually creative people would have kept going; they would be bettering themselves at every possible opportunity.

we find ourselves in this trap, even accidentally: we need to commodify our time, because it is a commodity. if we spend our efforts and our time not earning, isn't that the same thing as burning free money? and god forbid you ever take up a hobby that ends up being more expensive than you thought. you sit in your car and you look at the receipt and in your head you hear a conversation that isn't even happening - your mom or your friend or your partner all saying oh great. not this shit again. it's always something with you, and it never actually means anything.

i have realized this horrible thing, recently - i'll get excited to start a project, pick up a new hobby. and then i just... stop myself. i start thinking about the amount of time it will take, and how it'll look in my monthly budget. what if i can't even produce a good enough final product. sure, it's exciting to think about how i could make my friend her own custom dice. but i'm just polluting the earth if i don't get it right. better not bother. better not try.

restless, i get caught in the negative space. the feeling that oh god, i want to create. and that horrible sense - yeah, but i don't have the time to just put to waste.

[shikai-the-storyteller]

I don't really have a hard-set design for any of the QSMP characters in mind because I'll see all kinds of cool fanart that look totally different and just go "Yeah that's them!" because the designs are all flexible to me.

...This does, however, make it very hard to translate their designs into custom Figmas because I can't decide on a single look.

[reasonsforhope]

"With “green corridors” that mimic the natural forest, the Colombian city is driving down temperatures — and could become five degrees cooler over the next few decades.

In the face of a rapidly heating planet, the City of Eternal Spring — nicknamed so thanks to its year-round temperate climate — has found a way to keep its cool.

Previously, Medellín had undergone years of rapid urban expansion, which led to a severe urban heat island effect — raising temperatures in the city to significantly higher than in the surrounding suburban and rural areas. Roads and other concrete infrastructure absorb and maintain the sun’s heat for much longer than green infrastructure.

“Medellín grew at the expense of green spaces and vegetation,” says Pilar Vargas, a forest engineer working for City Hall. “We built and built and built. There wasn’t a lot of thought about the impact on the climate. It became obvious that had to change.”

Efforts began in 2016 under Medellín’s then mayor, Federico Gutiérrez (who, after completing one term in 2019, was re-elected at the end of 2023). The city launched a new approach to its urban development — one that focused on people and plants.

The $16.3 million initiative led to the creation of 30 Green Corridors along the city’s roads and waterways, improving or producing more than 70 hectares of green space, which includes 20 kilometers of shaded routes with cycle lanes and pedestrian paths.

These plant and tree-filled spaces — which connect all sorts of green areas such as the curb strips, squares, parks, vertical gardens, sidewalks, and even some of the seven hills that surround the city — produce fresh, cooling air in the face of urban heat. The corridors are also designed to mimic a natural forest with levels of low, medium and high plants, including native and tropical plants, bamboo grasses and palm trees.

Heat-trapping infrastructure like metro stations and bridges has also been greened as part of the project and government buildings have been adorned with green roofs and vertical gardens to beat the heat. The first of those was installed at Medellín’s City Hall, where nearly 100,000 plants and 12 species span the 1,810 square meter surface.

“It’s like urban acupuncture,” says Paula Zapata, advisor for Medellín at C40 Cities, a global network of about 100 of the world’s leading mayors. “The city is making these small interventions that together act to make a big impact.”

At the launch of the project, 120,000 individual plants and 12,500 trees were added to roads and parks across the city. By 2021, the figure had reached 2.5 million plants and 880,000 trees. Each has been carefully chosen to maximize their impact.

“The technical team thought a lot about the species used. They selected endemic ones that have a functional use,” explains Zapata.

The 72 species of plants and trees selected provide food for wildlife, help biodiversity to spread and fight air pollution. A study, for example, identified Mangifera indica as the best among six plant species found in Medellín at absorbing PM2.5 pollution — particulate matter that can cause asthma, bronchitis and heart disease — and surviving in polluted areas due to its “biochemical and biological mechanisms.”

And the urban planting continues to this day.

The groundwork is carried out by 150 citizen-gardeners like Pineda, who come from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds, with the support of 15 specialized forest engineers. Pineda is now the leader of a team of seven other gardeners who attend to corridors all across the city, shifting depending on the current priorities...

“I’m completely in favor of the corridors,” says [Victoria Perez, another citizen-gardener], who grew up in a poor suburb in the city of 2.5 million people. “It really improves the quality of life here.”

Wilmar Jesus, a 48-year-old Afro-Colombian farmer on his first day of the job, is pleased about the project’s possibilities for his own future. “I want to learn more and become better,” he says. “This gives me the opportunity to advance myself.”

The project’s wider impacts are like a breath of fresh air. Medellín’s temperatures fell by 2°C in the first three years of the program, and officials expect a further decrease of 4 to 5C over the next few decades, even taking into account climate change. In turn, City Hall says this will minimize the need for energy-intensive air conditioning...

In addition, the project has had a significant impact on air pollution. Between 2016 and 2019, the level of PM2.5 fell significantly, and in turn the city’s morbidity rate from acute respiratory infections decreased from 159.8 to 95.3 per 1,000 people [Note: That means the city's rate of people getting sick with lung/throat/respiratory infections.]

There’s also been a 34.6 percent rise in cycling in the city, likely due to the new bike paths built for the project, and biodiversity studies show that wildlife is coming back — one sample of five Green Corridors identified 30 different species of butterfly.

Other cities are already taking note. Bogotá and Barranquilla have adopted similar plans, among other Colombian cities, and last year São Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in South America, began expanding its corridors after launching them in 2022.

“For sure, Green Corridors could work in many other places,” says Zapata."

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, March 4, 2024