#can you make money from youtube shorts

[gwensy]

sorry for reblogging fugly trends from 2012 it's for my enrichment

[radioconstructed]

⌖ HI, HEY, HELLO! IT’S ME, hi, I’m the problem, IT’S ME, SIMULCASTING LIVE ON AIR and LIVE ON CAMERA! I almost NEVER DO THAT! Are YOU tired of scam calls? I SURE AM! Let’s make these CLOWNS our little APRIL FOOLS! TUNE IN for WILD IMPROV, VOICE ACTING, SCAMMER MALDING, and COVERS OF THE SCAMMER PAYBACK SOUNDTRACK! ALL DAY!

[awkward-teabag]

It's old but here's a video from 8 years ago about one factor of it.

Some numbers from it:

The internet used 2% of the world's electricity in 2011

The internet used 91 billion kilowatt-hours in 2013 just in the US.

The internet data transfer rate was 28,000 gigabytes a second in 2013.

And those are numbers from over 10 years ago. I couldn't find any exact number but I see online advertising specifically uses the same amount of electricity as a small country these days.

And here's a study from 2018 about it if you want something long and crunchy.

From the highlight:

Online advertising consumed between 20.38 to 282.75 TWh of energy and 11.53 – 159.93 million tons of CO2e was emitted to produce the electricity consumed.

Of course there's no exact number as it's not recorded and, if it is, it's guarded (hence the wide range) but it's safe to say it uses a lot of electricity.

At least with TV commercials, they gave actors, directors, and screen writers a way into the film and TV industry and also employed a crew. There were even dedicated crews/houses for specific types of ads. They also had to be interesting or entertaining enough to draw attention given how many people used commercial breaks as bathroom/snack breaks and stopped paying attention to ads.

Sure they were trying to sell you something but at least there were others who were getting a paycheque and building up a resume from them. The more successful or viral an ad went (and going viral before the internet was a big thing), the better it was for the cast and crew and more than a few celebs got their start from a commercial or three.

Not so much now, especially when the whole ad is just CGI. They aren't interesting or entertaining and the production value is low to keep the costs down on that end. If an ad is more than lukewarm, odds are it was designed for TV first because internet advertising is all about quantity over quality.

honestly advertising is so fukcing wasteful not even just in the convincing you to buy shit you never actually wanted but like

how much electricity is wasted displaying ads that could've gone to keeping houses warm. How much paper is produced just to be turned into pamphlets and ads that will just be thrown away. how much internet bandwith is wasted just on the amount of ads that are on the internet nowadays. How many hours worth of labor went into producing ads that are going directly into my adblocker or my waste bin that could've been time spent doing literally ANYTHING useful?

[jasperxkuromi]

Play ideas for chronically ill, disabled, or otherwise bed bound/low energy littles

Hi all! I am chronically ill. I am not comfortable sharing my specific diagnosis, but I am more than okay with talking about disability in general. Everything below is based on my own personal experiences and activities I like to do while stuck in bed. Everyone's body and experiences are different. I may list some things that just aren't an option for you, and that's okay. You are more than welcome to add on to this post with activities you do too!

🐛 Open the curtains and cloud watch! I like to look for clouds that remind me of animals or characters and day dream a story about them. If the weather is nice, consider opening your window a little bit and letting some fresh air into your room.

🐦 Bird watch! I have a bird feeder outside my window that I painted myself from a kid's kit. There are also bird feeders that have suction cups that can be stuck right on your window. You can also make your own seed ornaments. You could pick yourself up a kids book or two on learning to identify birds.

🌷 Get a window planter. You may need someone's help to set one up, but once they are in place they are fairly easy to care for. I like pansies and marigolds because they remind me of childhood, and they are low maintenance and do well in containers.

📖 Audiobooks are great for middles who want to read chapter books. If you have a library card you can borrow tons of audiobook, ebooks, and comics through hoopla and Libby for free. There are some audiobooks for younger kiddo books, but honestly I think YouTube is better for that.

🖼️ Scrapbooks and journals! Being penpals with another little is also an option, but I do recommend using basic internet safety and common sense. (I don't think you should do this if you are under 18). You could always scan/take pictures of your letter and send it digitally to your penpal instead.

🛏️ If you spend a lot of time in bed, and have the money to do so, I really recommend getting items to make your time in bed more comfortable. Extra pillows, or even a reading pillow can be helpful. Lap desks or bed tables can give you space to color or set up play scenes with small toys.

🌟 You can also decorate the area around your bed to make it more child like! Fairy lights, glow in the dark stars, bed canopies, posters, and the like.

🪑 I have a floor chair I use for times I am playing outside of my bed. Being close to the floor helps me feel small, but not having back support hurts after a short while. I have an adjustable one that I can lay flat on the floor as a sleeping mat. Very helpful for the times when I need a quick nap after playtime.

🎨 Check the seasonal and kids sections at dollar stores and Five Below. I usually find fun craft kits that can keep me occupied for a bit for really cheap.

🧶 Do your own crafts! I like the knit and crochet. Some people can do them in bed, but I find it difficult to find a comfortable way to do that. However making friendship bracelets in bed works out pretty well. They make great gifts, even for non little friends. Or you could make matching ones for you and your CG or favorite plushie!

🪀 Make your own sensory bin! You can find tons of tutorials and ideas online. Bonus is you can get most of the items you would use at the dollar store. There are tons of other DIY sensory toys you can make as well if you look around. Glitter/shaker bottles are pretty popular too.

🐇 Cuddle with your stuffed animals. Tell them stories. Play pretend. Read to them. They will appreciate all of it.

🎮 If you have an old 3DS stuffed away in a drawer somewhere, pull it back out. 3DS are fairly easy to install homebrew and there are toooons of kiddo friendly games you could get (check 3ds.hacks.guide for this, do not follow tutorials on YouTube or random websites as they very well could be outdated)

💊 Decorate your medicine organizers with stickers. If you use mobility aids you can decorate them as well! Fake flowers are great for decorating mobility aids and there are tons of ideas you can find online.

🍼 I have stomach problems that makes it hard for me to eat enough. I often drink Ensure to make sure I am getting enough calories/nutrients. I get the strawberry flavor and sometimes put it in my sippy cup and pretend it is strawberry milk 😋

😴 If you need rest, rest! You deserve to get as much sleep as your body needs. Babies and toddlers take naps all the time! Trying to just exist with chronic health issues is difficult enough. You don't need to push yourself.

[all-the-fish]

Oh, you know, just the usual internet browsing experience in the year of 2024

Some links and explanations since I figured it might be useful to some people, and writing down stuff is nice.

First of all, get Firefox. Yes, it has apps for Android/iOS too. It allows more extensions and customization (except the iOS version), it tracks less, the company has a less shitty attitude about things. Currently all the other alternatives are variations of Chromium, which means no matter how degoogled they supposedly are, Google has almost a monopoly on web browsing and that's not great. Basically they can introduce extremely user unfriendly updates and there's nothing forcing them to not do it, and nowhere for people to escape to. Current examples of their suggested updates are disabling/severly limiting adblocks in June 2024, and this great suggestion to force sites to verify "web environment integrity" ("oh you don't run a version of chromium we approve, such as the one that runs working adblocks? no web for you.").

uBlockOrigin - barely needs any explanation but yes, it works. You can whitelist whatever you want to support through displaying ads. You can also easily "adblock" site elements that annoy you. "Please log in" notice that won't go away? Important news tm sidebar that gives you sensory overload? Bye.

Dark Reader - a site you use has no dark mode? Now it has. Fairly customizable, also has some basic options for visually impaired people.

SponsorBlock for YouTube - highlights/skips (you choose) sponsored bits in the videos based on user submissions, and a few other things people often skip ("pls like and subscribe!"). A bit more controversial than normal adblock since the creators get some decent money from this, but also a lot of the big sponsors are kinda scummy and offer inferior product for superior price (or try to sell you a star jpg land ownership in Scotland to become a lord), so hearing an ad for that for the 20th time is kinda annoying. But also some creators make their sponsored segments hilarious.

Privacy Badger (and Ghostery I suppose) - I'm not actually sure how needed these are with uBlock and Firefox set to block any tracking it can, but that's basically what it does. Find someone more educated on this topic than me for more info.

Https Everywhere - I... can't actually find the extension anymore, also Firefox has this as an option in its settings now, so this is probably obsolete, whoops.

Facebook Container - also comes with Firefox by default I think. Keeps FB from snooping around outside of FB. It does that a lot, even if you don't have an account.

WebP / Avif image converter - have you ever saved an image and then discovered you can't view it, because it's WebP/Avif? You can now save it as a jpg.

YouTube Search Fixer - have you noticed that youtube search has been even worse than usual lately, with inserting all those unrelated videos into your search results? This fixes that. Also has an option to force shorts to play in the normal video window.

Consent-O-Matic - automatically rejects cookies/gdpr consent forms. While automated, you might still get a second or two of flashing popups being yeeted.

XKit Rewritten - current most up to date "variation "fork" of XKit I think? Has settings in extension settings instead of an extra tumblr button. As long as you get over the new dash layout current tumblr is kinda fine tbh, so this isn't as important as in the past, but still nice. I mostly use it to hide some visual bloat and mark posts on the dash I've already seen.

YouTube NonStop - do you want to punch youtube every time it pauses a video to check if you're still there? This saves your fists.

uBlacklist - blacklists sites from your search results. Obviously has a lot of different uses, but I use it to hide ai generated stuff from image search results. Here's a site list for that.

Redirect AMP to HTML - redirects links from their amp version to the normal version. Amp link is a version of a site made faster and more accessible for phones by Bing/Google. Good in theory, but lets search engines prefer some pages to others (that don't have an amp version), and afaik takes traffic from the original page too. Here's some more reading about why it's an issue, I don't think I can make a good tl;dr on this.

Also since I used this in the tags, here's some reading about enshittification and why the current mainstream internet/services kinda suck.

[gigi-loveless]

could you maybe write something about abby comforting reader because she has past trauma from being in a toxic relationship?

kind of like reader does something wrong and freaks out but abby like helps her?

of course baby! hope you enjoy ‎♡₊˚ 🦢・₊✧

warnings - talks of past toxic relationship, dark inner thoughts

authors note - my messages are always open for all of you, no matter what.

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

the rejuvenating breeze whisks through the french doors that enter out to abby’s backyard. it’s been a quiet day, abby needing to go to a work meeting early in the morning, so you decided to help out and do some chores to surprise her when she arrived back home.

humming along to the taylor swift song soaring over the radio, you pluck out the sheets you just washed, going to throw them straight into the dryer before noticing the pinkish hue plaguing the typically bright white fabric.

darkness washes over your once bright demeanor, knowing that abby spent a good amount of money on those nice sheets with the high thread count. you rummage through the washer, fishing out your bright pink shorts you thought you threw in with the last load.

stupid bitch. this is all your fault. you deserve this.

the sound of the garage door opening, and abby’s keys jingling in the door makes your stomach turn.

“hey babe, brought you a coffee!” abby hums, turning the corner into the laundry room where you’re hyperventilating over the open washer. the dizzying weight of what you just inflicted crushing you.

“hey hey hey,” she coos, setting your coffee down on the ironing board, engulfing you in her endlessly broad arms. “tell me what happened.” the blonde girl insists, wiping a stray tear from your eye.

“n-no…no!.” you sob, mascara stained tears dripping onto abby’s luckily dark button up.

“okay, okay….” she replies, smoothing down your hair and lifting you up to sit on the washer. “can you breathe with me? that’s it, good job.”

abby knew about your last relationship well. she figured it out pretty quickly after you cried the whole night over dropping a glass one of the first times you slept over. but abby’s abby, and she would go to the ends of the earth for you. so that next morning she spent on youtube watching other women who recovered from toxic relationships, trying her best to understand where your nightmarish thoughts come from, and how she can assist in handling them. she knows the ins and outs, and always insists on doting over you, even when you express that you feel like a burden.

“deep breath in for four…i know, hold it for four…out for four…hold it for four. can we repeat that?”

you nod, pressing your forehead to abby’s, connecting your breath.

“m-m’ sorry abby…..i-i just wanted to help,” you pant out, “and wash your sheets but i’m stupid and- and i stained them pink.”

you wince, preparing for the worst reaction possible.

but it’s abby.

running a calloused hand over the stained sheets, she starts giggling.

“well, pink is your favorite color isn’t it love? now i’ve got a piece of you in my room.” she affirms, swiping a stray tear from your eye. “and you’re not stupid at all. it was an honest mistake baby and besides, they’re just sheets.”

“y-you’re not mad?”

“wouldn’t dare to think it.” abby reassures.

all that tortured your spirit mere moments ago immediately melted away into abby’s honey sweet manner. “c’mon, i brought you some coffee from that new place that opened down the road, you wanna try it?” you nod, as abby helps you down, pulling you into her pine scented chest and pressing her lips tenderly to your hairline.

─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───

join my taglist!

@abigails-gf @ellies2missingfingers @ellieslob @elliewilliamsloverrrrrrr @cowboylikeabi @pretty-forest-nymph @mxlti-fand0m-imaginess @luvhyekook @peachesnbows @drunkonnatasha @seraphicsentences @elliewilliamsmaingirl @asmrgirll

[clover-the-awesomest]

Me with basically half of my friends

the ability to say "i dont have a tiktok" in social situations makes me feel so powerful. like the general reaction is "shock, confusion, then this weird 'thats probably a good thing' response" its so fun

[forsoobado137]

🍨dolly_as_prez Follow

🍨dolly_as_prez Follow

It's been five years since I made this meme and nothing has changed lol

156,932 notes

🧻Dorpblorpw93 Follow

Watching Alfred's short films on youtube are always fucking hilarious because I never know if he's being ironic or not. They all look like they were written produced by an over-caffeinated film student but if they had an actual budget. Like they are legit the funniest pieces of media out there and I have no idea if the comedy is intentional or not.

🏞fromthevalley89 Follow

Where do I begin here? The fact that he basically plays everyone? The fact that he included Arthur but didn't let him play as himself and cast him as bad guys? The fact that he was able to get Roderich and Francois on board with this? The fact that he doesn't even name himself and just puts ME? The fact that the end credits are three times longer than the movie? AND HE LITERALLY CAST HIMSELF AS GOD?! This is peak cinema.

🧭justintime12oclock Follow

Also what is up with Tony? Did Alfred just rotoscope his roommate and make him an alien? is it CGI (Really badly done)?

47,459 notes

🌌galaxylesbian Follow

AGAIN?!

🐝beemybestie Follow

Translation: wahhh wahhh my president won't give me money for Louis Vuitton and my seventh mansion so I'm gonna sit on my ass while the stocks plummet and the trains malfunction 🥺

🌟bugdrinkbugrink Follow

Actual translation: I've literally fought in dozens of wars and bent over backwards for this government and all I get in return is a minimum wage paycheck, demeaning insults from my own politicians, and disrespect from tourists that I'm forced to put up with. I deserve better, and by not working, I'm going to demonstrate how fucked you all would be without me. I hope this opens people's eyes to the lack of rights me and my fellow nations have, and that it will force governments everywhere to actually give a shit.

🌷Azaleyaaaaah02 Follow

Also that mansion thing is such bullshit. The reason nations have so many houses is because they have been ALIVE FOR CENTURIES and they can't just stay in one place forever. Also they have had more than enough time to buy houses when they were cheap and pay off multiple properties. Nations aren't just secretly a bunch of out of touch millionaires. They have been homeless, in debt, and have lived in far worse conditions than you could ever imagine.

🌟bugdrinkbugrink Follow

For everyone trying to call nations "selfish" for going on strike because it has negative effects on their countries, that is literally THE ENTIRE POINT OF STRIKES. World leaders think that all nations do is look pretty and die over and over in petty wars. In the THREE DAYS that France (and other European countries) went on strike back in 1976, the stock market plummeted, trade slowed, transportation stopped working, and other citizens stopped going to work. The leaders realized pretty quickly that they fucked up. After they got better wages, the nations returned, and everything was up and running again.

Moral of the story: PAY YOUR NPS A LIVING WAGE! These people have literally sacrificed everything for their nations. So what if France wants to be able to afford iconic French fashion brands? If I was an immortal being who died thousands of times in mankind's worst wars, you better BELIEVE I would demand that I can afford to treat myself.

41,246 notes

[cyanidas]

hey this is actually one of the hardest things ive ever tried to do with my time as an artist. how the FUCK do etsy/shopvee/redbubble artists do this for a LIVING????

BIG News: I'm trying to make some really huge changes, and I'll need your help.

Before I grant any details, I gotta preface everything with the reality of our situation; Jay, the sole breadwinner, has been a victim of yet another "new hire surprise fire". He was booted without warning, written or verbal, about two weeks ago.

Evidently this is very common in the production wood/metalworking industry, otherwise this wouldn't have happened so many fucking times, because he's a great person with amazing work ethic and that's not just my bias talking - most of his coworkers have felt the exact same way as me across every company he's worked for.

Of course, THAT DAY we wasted no time in reaching out to contacts and applying for mountains of positions on Indeed, on company websites, and the state hiring portal. Nobody has contacted him back. ONE hiring agency gave him a "maybe". Even I have applied to several places for myself, with not so much as a rejection.

Seeing the trauma this caused him first hand was my final fucking straw.

I'm sick to death of suffering this tragedy. I'm sick to death of hearing the love of my life, my Fiancé, cry because of how he was fired. And I'm sick to death of coming here or crawling to my friends and family for money they don't have because we're legitimately hopeless for it.

I don't have the heart to continually beg for cash. It was never something I've been good at or proud of doing, and it kills me inside to DM people for commissions I don't even have the time nor energy to do. I'm sick of this. All of this. I need it all to stop.

So of course, I want to nip this in the goddamn bud.

I met a very sweet vendor in Iowa who gave me a load of resources on how to get started selling my art on actual things I get to see and hold for myself and hand to people in person, namely conventions. It's a hell of a risk but I need this to work. I'm so exhausted from asking for money so please help me make this be the last time I ever need to come here for help.

More details will come, because I'm also tired of making plans and leaping forward without having anything to show for it. When I actually have these products designed, that's when I'm going to show you guys everything I've made, with as much detail on my thinking and planning as I can get out there (because lord knows the internet has taken advantage of people's generosity before).

When that time comes, please *please* give me your support. It would legitimately be world-changing for us.

I just wanted to get this out here asap so people would know what I'm going through and, hopefully plan along with me. I don't just want this to happen, I *need* this to *succeed*. I don't have any other option. Right now, I'm busting my ass on product designs (literally because this chair hurts!!), and Jay can attest to that.

I plan on having *something* to show for all my hard work by next week, and soon after, a Kickstarter to make it a reality. Keep an eye out!!

[sirfrogsworth]

Even though the frenetic pace stresses me out I seem to keep watching Mr. Beast videos out of curiosity. My brain just wants to figure out why people have chosen him as the most popular YouTuber in existence.

Unrelated to that puzzle, I did notice something else weird.

I had to reduce the volume on my A/V receiver about 10 decibels to bring a Mr. Beast video in line with almost all other content on YouTube.

This is weird because YouTube has a maximum LUFS and if you go beyond your LUFS... you will get deLUF'd.

YouTube will automatically reduce the average volume of your video if you get louder than a standard volume they have chosen.

So how in the world was Mr. Beast getting an extra 10 decibels of volume into his video?

I thought perhaps it was a conspiracy. He is YouTube's big money maker so maybe they were allowing him extra volume and not reducing his LUFS.

So... I tested his LUFS.

YouTube caps the LUFS at -14 (it's a confusing scale that uses negative values) and he seems to mix his videos so he hits EXACTLY that. There are brief moments when he gets an extra 7 decibels of volume but still manages to fall within tolerance over the entire length of the video. But he also makes the volume of everything in the video loud. He takes no advantage of dynamic range. His narration is just as loud as his explosion sound effects.

And if you look at an MKBHD video (which has very good sound and more tolerable volume levels) you can see he mixes things to never quite max out. Even his short maximums don't go more than 4 decibels over the standard of -14.

In any case, it seems there isn't a Mr. Beast LUFS conspiracy, but he certainly juices his volume levels to be as loud as possible without breaking YouTube's rules.

I'm sure he does this for a reason but I'm not entirely sure what that is. Commercials do this to grab your attention, but that works because you go from a lower volume to a higher volume. This is just sustained volume throughout the entire video.

I guess just add it to the list of things that makes him a bit obnoxious.

[brehaaorgana]

ADHD money/budgeting system I'm currently using for my benefit is going well (I've been using it for like half a year now?), and I wanna recommend it.

You Need a Budget is EXCELLENT. 10/10 do recommend. Uhhh rambling about it and my generic disclaimers + gushing extensively under the cut but TL;DR I think it's great for ADHD ppl, I've used it for 6+ months now and I find it super SUPER helpful. also weirdly fun.

DISCLAIMERS:

Budgeting helps you understand/know your money, it can't make money appear where there is none.

Everyone should learn to budget even if you don't have much money (especially then)

This is NOT a magic trick solution. Just like everything else, it is an assistive tool. This is one of those adult things we can't simply opt out of without negative consequences, though.

My advice is based on something I am currently able to do. That is, I can spend an amount of money on this specific thing that works well for me. If you have no extra money to spend then previously I was tracking things in a notebook. So you can still do this.

I believe Dave Ramsey is a fundie fraud/hack and no one should listen to him about money.

DID YOU KNOW THEY CANCELLED MINT???

Okay? OKAY.

Ahem.

You Need a Budget is EXCELLENT.

It is called YNAB for short. The first 34 days are your free trial, and that is my referral link. If anyone uses it and then signs up for a subscription, we both get a month free. Also you can share a subscription with up to six people (account owner can see everything but individuals can pick and choose what they share amongst each other) so like...idk your whole polycule can be on one account. Or your kids. Whatever.

If you are a student, it's free for a year. If you aren't, a subscription is $99 for a year (paid all at once) or $14.99 monthly, which is equivalent to paying Amazon prime. Go cancel Prime and get this instead tbh.

They got a whole article just on ynab and ADHD. They also have like...a big variety of ways to access their info? They have a book, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, blog posts, q&A's, free live workshops you can join (you can request live captioning), emails they can send (if you want) a wiki, and so on. They got workshops on all kinds of topics!!

So whatever ends up working for your brain. It also has a matching app.

If you lost Mint this year they have a gajillion things for moving from Mint.

Also they have a "got five minutes?" Page which has a slider so you can decide how much attention/time you have before going on lol:

They only have 4 rules of the budget, they're simple and practical, and it doesn't get judgey or like...mean about your spending.

1. Give every dollar a job 2. Embrace your true expenses 3. Roll with the punches 4. Age your money.

THEN THEY BREAK THESE DOWN INTO SMALL STEPS FOR YOU! They even have a printable! Also these rules are great because there's built in expectations that things WILL HAPPEN and it's NOT all or nothing with a fear of total collapse into failure. Reality and The Plan don't always align, especially if you have ADHD. So it's directing our energy towards the true expenses and not clinging to The Plan!! over reality.

You can automate a lot of shit (you can sync with your bank accounts just like mint, but also automate tagging the categories of regular expenses/transactions). And if for whatever reason you accidentally do something that makes the budget look weird or wrong:

A) you can usually fix it somehow OR b) they have like, a button you can press that gives you a clean slate and archives the previous version of the budget for you.

So if you forget for a few weeks or months, or accidentally input something wildly wrong, or just don't want to look at a really terrible month anymore and feel like you need a fresh start you can usually either fix it or start fresh which is really nice.

The app also (for whatever reason) scratches my itch to have things like...have incentives or little game-like goals in a way mint never did? I don't know why. Filling up the bars or putting money into the categories to cover my expenses is satisfying lmao. You can also make a big wish expense category for all the fun shit you want, and fund it whenever you can and then you can see the little bar go up and that's fun.

Anyways I've been using it for like 6+ months now and I think it's really helped me when I use it.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Re-Introducing the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club & FAQ

Alright, so, we have this discord server called the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. A discord server, run by the A.N.I.M. Team, for reading, analyzing, and playing TTRPGs. It’s free to join, and at the time of writing this it has a community of nearly 200 members.

Also at the time of writing this, for a limited time, you can get a FREE PDF of the July 11th update of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy just by joining the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club! This is a huge upgrade over the free May 10th version!

Here’s how the book club operates:

Nominations. Members nominate RPGs they wanna play.

Voting. After we finish the current RPG, we vote on what the next one will be. You can vote for as many nominations as you want, and nominations with the most votes wins.

Reading. We encourage you to buy the winning game to support the developers, but if you can’t for any reason, we will find a way to get you a PDF. A rough deadline is set that will allow everyone to read the rulebook at a rate of about 10 pages a day, though reading faster or slower is okay.

Playing. We assign GMs on a volunteer basis, and players are assigned to groups with GMs based on schedule compatibility. Each group plays the same adventure module, so each group will have commonalities in their adventure that they can talk about and compare their experiences with, even with different GMs, players, and characters.

Repeat. Voting begins anew with the nominations that we have accumulated in the mean time.

A.N.I.M.’s current Patreon goal is also tied to the Book Club. If y’all can raise our Patreon income to $310/month, that will allow us to set aside manpower to carve out and organize a small additional space within the ANIM TTRPG Book Club server for other games which do not fit the nomination criteria for the main book club! At the time of writing this, it sits at $259/$310. Signing up to the patreon grants you access to monthly rulebook updates as we continue to finish the game, adventure modules, short fiction, and our patreon discord server.

Below is a bit of an FAQ as an attempt to quell any concerns or hesitations

“The Book Club games probably don’t fit with my schedule.”

They might! Because we assign multiple different groups based on schedule compatibility, the book club games are actually very very schedule-flexible! You might be surprised!

And if they still don’t, even just reading the rulebook and joining in on discussions is a valuable form of participation!

“I’m afraid to play with strangers.”

They won’t exactly be strangers if you hang out around them in the book club long enough! Yes we do get what you mean, but there’s nothing to worry about. The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club is a safe community, and we have rules and, more importantly, procedures designed to make playing with relative strangers as smooth an experience as it can be!

“What if I don’t like the RPG that wins the vote?”

While we encourage you to step a little out of your comfort zone, participation in any given round of the book club is not mandatory, there’s no punishment for sitting out! It’s cool to just hang around in the discord server and discuss virtually anything if you want to.

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but our Kickstarter page is still the best place to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, and where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more than just status updates, going forward you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and it’s adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[weaselle]

Let's talk chef knives

somebody in the comments on a cooking post is talking to me about knives and i figure, why not make a whole post about it

I worked in restaurants for two decades, and that means i was mostly too poor to buy expensive knives.. but i did learn EXACTLY what i was looking for in a knife, and eventually i did spend about $150 on one.

Now, you can easily spend $500 or more on a chef knife if you are the kind of person who cares about having the chef knife equivilent of a porche or lamborghini and i don't think many of you are looking for that, so I'm going to tell you what i looked for in my really-good-but-not-too-expensive chef knife

First of all, you don't need that block set of knives you see in like every kitchen ever. You know, this thing

You don't need that. Listen, theoretically each of those knives has a specific thing it is used for, but in all the restaurants i worked at, 99.9% of the stuff i did was done with one of these

We didn't go looking for a specific kind of knife, we just used one of these -- often a bunch of those were all that was provided. I uh, i didn't work at a lot of high end restaurants. But even in the nicer ones, most of what we used was a chef's knife.

So. In my opinion, instead of spending $100-$200 on a bunch of kind of shitty knives, spend the same money on one really nice chef knife, and a wetstone or some other sharpener you feel you can use. But really, like, just look at a wetstone tutorial on youtube, it's not hard, and it will make your life better.

NOW let me tell you what i looked for in my knife

This is the knife i use. It's a six inch Zwilling Pro

if you shop around, you can probably find it for close to 100 bucks. It's not Fancy™, it's just Quite Good. You can, if you want, find a chef knife for a couple grand, and that plastic-handled one in the first pic will run you less than ten dollars, so, this is a pretty good price point, on the low side of middle, with a knife quality on the high side of middle. If you take care of this knife, it could last you your whole life

Now let's talk about specific features I was looking for. First, inb4, metal quality. Zwilling is a good company, so the quality of their actual metal is pretty decent, and that's all you really need to know -- if you're getting your knife from a known decent knife company it's probably good enough quality. In this case Zwilling uses forged high-carbon German steel, which are some good key words to look for. That's all i have to say about that.

Now there are four specific things i was looking for that led me to choose this specific knife

1

Depth. This refers to how far the heel of the blade juts out from the handle (the heel of the blade is the part of the blade closest to your hand). When you have the blade resting with the edge flush against the cutting board, you want there to be plenty of room for the hand gripping the handle without knocking your knuckles against the board. A classic pinch grip doesn't need much room, but that's not the only grip you'll ever use, so give yourself some decent knuckle clearance. But not TOO much. Too much and your blade will kind of feel like it wants to flop over on its side when the edge hits the board.

2

Length. As an edgy 20 year old in restaurant kitchens, i always went for the biggest knife i could find, but because you're going to be using your chef's knife for everything, you actually want it short enough to use as a paring knife or whatever. The shorter the blade, the more control over the tip you have. Me, i never really need anything longer than six inches. I was a little bit worried when i first got it, but i've never wound up wishing it was longer.

3

Weight. Even though it's just about as short as a chef's knife can be, my knife has a good amount of weight to it. A somewhat heavy blade helps with chopping, and provides a good balance for other knife skills. When you are chopping and slicing, a decent amount of weight helps a lot. It doesn't have to be heavy heavy, but when you pick it up, it should definitely feel like a chunk of steel, not like a pressed aluminum toy. Plus, some of the weight will come from thickness, and a thicker blade will stand up to more sharpening and last you longer too.

4

Bolster Shape

If you look at the Zwilling Pro's bolster, it has a bolster that is sort of beveled into the heel of the blade with a nice curve. Right right, what's a bolster, hold on, here's the anatomy of a knife

on this knife, you can see that where the bolster meets the blade it makes basically a right angle where it goes from thick to thin. This is distressingly common in chef knives

now look at the bolster on the Zwilling Pro

and here's a similar bolster shape from a different angle

First of all, the bolster is diagonal, which is the right shape for me to hold in a classic grip. Every chef has their own grip, but it's always a variation on pinching the blade just above the bolster, and a diagonal bevel works better for my grip.

And just as important to me, it might be hard to tell, but the metal curves from the thickness of the handle to the thinness of the blade instead of using a right angled edge to go from thick to thin. This curve sort of follows the movement your knife makes against the knuckle you use to guide the blade when you do this

I tend to use the deepest part of the heel a lot, and, depending on what i'm doing with the knife, my grip can often be nearly off the blade it's so far back, so i have a tendency to knock a straight bolster directly against my index knuckle. Just a little, but after a few dozen times in half a minute it starts to irritate my finger. A curved bolster like on the Zwilling Pro sort of glides to a stop against my guiding knuckle instead of banging into it, provides a comfortable pinch, and makes my life in the kitchen better.

That might not be true for everyone, it's just important to pay attention to how you use a knife, especially if you find yourself thinking something like "it would be better for me if this part of the knife was different in this way" or "this knife would be easier to grip if it was shaped like this instead" or "i wish the shape of this knife didn't mean this was always happening" or whatever. Could even be how your knife fits in your dishwasher, just pay attention to what works and doesn't work for you personally so you know What you're looking for. But you for sure want to look at the Depth, Weight, Length, and Shape.

So. There you have it. Some things to pay attention to when selecting a knife that may allow you to get a good knife for yourself without spending tooooo much money.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Music commission prices!

Update: Editing my prices again bc I still think I was undercharging a little bit from my work and also the payment processor I use to transfer money from P*ypal to my bank account recently increased their fees.

Hey everyone! My name's Carlos, I'm a composer and producer. I'm one half of the technical death metal band Beyond Flesh, and I've been doing commissioned music work since 2021. I did all the battle themes for the RPGmaker game Those Infernal Girls! and several battle themes for the "Chillen in Chult" arc of the the D&D twitch show Dice Dynamics. I also did one bonus track for the album We Will All Sing One Song by the James Connolly Upstate New York IWW.

I can make music for your:

OC

Climactic TTRPG moment

Videogame

Short Film

Whatever else idk

The main genres I do are metal, synthwave, and dungeon synth, but I've done a bunch of commissioned work in different genres, from 8bit to jazz to EDM to hiphop backing tracks. If in doubt, ask me and I'll tell you if I can do a particular genre or not.

Prices:

Base commission price (Includes 1 minute of music, 2 instrument tracks plus percussion track) - $12 USD

Extra instrument track - $6 USD

Extra minute of music - $6 USD

Examples:

Some examples of my previous work so you can get an idea of my range:

You don't need to know anything about music theory or related language to commission me, but do have in mind that the more ifnormation you're able to provide the better the end result will be. Vibe descriptions, reference tracks that you want it to sound similar to, writeups of the character and/or scene it's for, and anything else you can think of are massively helpful. I'll be continually sending you WIPs through the entire process so you can judge the direction I'm going in and provide notes if necessary.

You get to keep all rights to the song to use it for any purpose. I, however, keep the right to post it on my tumblr blog, my youtube channel, or any of my socials for promotional purposes.

You may contact me through DMs here, or through the following media:

e-mail: juan.hernandez9903@gmail.com

Discord: carlos7318

I only accept payment via p*ypal invoices, as c*shapp and v*nmo don't work in my country.

[lady-raziel]

long reaction to the update

ok. so they put out an update video! since i've been commentating for the last three days i might as well subject you all to more of my thoughts today.

main takeaway: this was a good apology video. i mean it. short and to the point, no overproduction, heartfelt and honest (and not a ukelele to be seen. thank god.) they took ownership of the situation, apologized, and restated how much they value their relationship with the fandom.

their solution is to make the watcher tv platform into kind of an iteration of patreon where content is available for early access before it is released onto youtube later. this is clearly a better option than paywalling everything for everyone. i'm not sure what the relative breakdown of costs turns out to be when you compare how much they were making on patreon after the platform took their cut VS how much it costs in overhead to run and maintain their own platform (how much it costs annually to contract via Vimeo, essentially). but i'm sure that's part of the calculation.

all things considered, that does seem like the best option out of all the alternatives. it allows them to not completely abandon any of the pans they have simmering over the fire for the time being. i don't think i ever thought they were going to just say "oops, forget about the streaming thing! let's pretend that never happened!" because at this point they've invested quite a lot of time and money into it, and i don't disagree that keeping it in some iteration may help them make up some of the funds they're lacking.

i would say, it's fine to keep the streamer. this is one of the ok outcomes, all things considered-- but if they're going to do it, they've GOT to do it smart from this point forward. listen to both the fans and the consultants intimately. both are going to have valid points, and both are going to be right. listening to too much of either side will sink this thing because each has motives and expertise that the other doesn't. if the fans say $6 is too much, listen to them-- but have conversations with business consultants about how much you realistically need to charge to make things work.

also, i'd use this whole situation as a learning experience. watcher is a young company, and it's literally inevitable that mistakes will happen. what's different is that the watcher crew haven't really been in a position before where they've been on the receiving end of the internet-angry-justice-hammer to this extent. it's one thing to watch it happen to others, but it's a position of extreme privilege (and a bit of hubris) to think "but that won't happen to me, because i'm built different." naw, man-- two things in life are inevitable: death and fuckups. the callout posts get us all in the end.

what's really important is that they use this as a wakeup call that even the most loyal fandoms will only follow you so far to the cliff's edge, and you don't want to push that. you have to strike a balance between the passion projects that you think are worthy and the stuff that maybe doesn't excite you as much anymore but the people want to see. a little fanservice keeps the lights on, as unfair as that might seem. i'm gonna make 50 markiplier choccy milk memes just so i can make one niche political joke once and a while for 6 likes. it is what it is.

i'd also use this as a chance to take a very careful look at company structure and finances. it's not fun to do and nobody likes it. trust me-- this is hard whether you're a single adult trying to pay the bills or the freaking US government (speaking from experience on both-- i have to read the president's budget for work frequently). but you all have to ask hard questions about the ratio of creative staff you take on VS staff for administrative and other business roles, as well as the costs and benefits of everything you spend money on. how many staff members are essential to location shoots? can this video be shot with 2 cameras instead of 3 and thus you don't need another cameraperson? you might even have to come to the decision that instead of pitching a new show it makes more sense to use those funds to hire your essential non-creative roles or contract firms or freelancers.

paying staff a fair wage with benefits speaks highly of what watcher wants their values to be. it's hard to find such a position in a creative role and still actually get to work on things you care about. but it would be much worse if watcher didn't make realistic decisions about finances and it lead to the death of the company and everyone losing their jobs. the whole watcher company can work, in my opinion, but not without some sacrifices. they're going to have to run it more like a business and less like a youtube-channel-turned-business in the future if they want to survive.

last thing i'll add is that while i do think this was a good apology video, i still think they hurt themselves by not putting out some sort of statement on Friday or Saturday just to say that they were formulating a response. As i've said in other posts, it's ok and in fact beneficial to not make a kneejerk reaction, but it's also very important to communicate that you SEE what's happening. you SEE what people are saying and THAT'S why you need more time to respond. saying nothing and leaving the angry public to wonder if you dropped your phone off the Hoover Dam or just don't care? that's a fumble. it's a common mistake companies make in a crisis, but that doesn't mean it doesn't erode trust fast.

this could have been handled better in many ways. we see that, and i'm glad watcher says they see that too. crucial going forward is taking all this and patching the errors that caused all this to fall apart and learning from the experience.

tbh at this point what i'm most sad about is that the watcher crew have probably been too stressed out and upset to appreciate some of the absolute bangers people have been laying down to clown on them. i think if it wasn't about them they might be touched by the collective attitude and creative spirit. /j

[rjalker]

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, by Edwin Abbot Abbot, published in 1884, is public domain. That means it has no copyright, and belongs to everyone.

This post will have links to as many versions and adaptations of it as I can find, and will be updated whenver I find new links to add.

Feel free to copy and paste this whole entire post and make it a new post for your own blog too!

None of these links are piracy, because you literally cannot pirate what has no copyright. Anyone who tells you you must pay to read the original Flatland is scamming you.

The only time you should be spending money on Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, is if you find a cool physical copy that you want specifically.

Check the original post before reblogging to look for updates if you are seeing this post days, weeks, or months after I originally post it.

____

Visual books:

Public domain:

The Original Novel:

Read online or ownload the original book in multiple formats from Project Gutenberg

Read or download from Standard Ebooks

Read and download from the Internet Archive. This also includes a computer-generated audiobook.

_

The 2024 translation:

Read online or download the 2024 translation in multiple formats from the Internet Archive. This also includes a computer-voiced audiobook.

Read the 2024 translation here on tumblr @flatland-a-2024-translation

___

Audiobooks:

The original novel:

Listen to the original book on the Internet Archive, read by Ruth Golding

Listen to the original book on the Internet Archive read by David "Grizzly" Smith

The 2024 translation:

Listen and read-along with the lazy audiobook of the 2024 translation on Youtube

___

Free visual media with full stories:

Here’s an animation from 1965. Contains some flashing lights.

Here’s a stop motion film from 1982 in Italian with English subtitles

Here’s an animation from 2006

The 2007 Flatland film by Ladd Ehlinger is free on youtube. Unfortunately Ladd Ehlinger is a virulently racist and misogynistic conservative who thinks feeding school kids is the same thing as slavery. His film is filled with almost constant flashing lights and spinning cameras that cause headaches, motion sickness, migraines, and seizures.

Here is a link to timestamps for these if you still choose to watch it.

The film ignores all of the politics from the original novel because the creator of the film agrees with the bigotry the novel condemned. You are much better off watching another visual adaption or reading the original or translated book.

Especially if you suffer from photosensitivity or motion-sickness, this film will make you want to throw up.

___

Shorter visual media:

In-universe

Part 4 of a Korean animation. from 2010. Haven't found parts 1-3 yet.

A short animation from 2020 showing an Equilateral being taken away from his Isosceles parents

Flatland Heist from 2013, A short animation from 2013 where the Narrator and Sphere team up to rob a bank :)

Flatland a Romance of Many Dimensions Alternate Timeline (without audio yet) 2024 Here's the version with audio

No Nonbinary Door 2024

A Visit to Lineland 2024

Up, Up, and Away 2024

Meta:

A short TED-Ed summarizing the math parts of Flatland from 2014

Another short animation explaining the math of Flatland from 2012

A long presentation (38 mins) about the math in Flatland. from 2017

Youtube Shorts:

A very short animation about the narrator meeting the Sphere

___

Related books by other authors, in publishing order:

Public domain:

An Episode of Flatland: or How a Plane Folk Discovered the Third Dimension. With Which is Bound Up an Outline of the History of Unæa by Charles Howard Hinton. (1907) Public domain, unlimited reading and downloading. It's terrible. But you can rewrite it to make it not terrible.

Other copyright:

The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics by Norton Juster (1963) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. A short....poem? Nothing to actually do with Flatland.

The Incredible Umbrella by Marvin Kaye (1980) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. I have not read it yet.

Sphereland: A Fantasy About Curved Spaces and an Expanding Universe, by Dionys Burger. (1983) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. It's racist. Was intended to be a sequel to Flatland, but the author's racist and failed every lesson Flatland tried to teach.

“Message Found in a Copy of Flatland” by Rudy Rucker (1983) free to read online from the author.

The Fourth Dimension, by Rudy Rucker (1984). Can be read for free online from the author. I have not read it yet.

The Planiverse: Computer Contact With a Two-dimensional World by Alexander Keewatin Dewdney (1984) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. Good 2D worldbuilding, nonexistant plot and boring abrupt ending.

Flatterland: Like Flatland, Only More So by Ian Stewart (2001) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. it's useless crap that unironically defends the bigotry against Irregulars from the original novel by pretending it's just natural selection that's totally natural and not at all artificialy and violently upheld to uphold the supremacy of the Circles.

Spaceland by Rudy Rucker (2002) Can be borrowed by 1 person at a time. I have not read it yet.

VAS: An Opera in Flatland (2002) by Steve Tomasula. no copies donated to the internet archive yet. I have not read it yet.

__

Neopronoun short stories:

The Breaking Point, a short story of a Line and Isosceles in another country of Flatland, attempting to deal with an abusive officer of the military who's invited himself into their home. Almost 4k words.

First Day of School, a young equilateral has zov first day at school, and discovers that the "specimen" they're supposed to be studying is someone zo knows.

Gaining a New Perspective, a short story of the Sphere contemplating everything that's happened after throwing the narrator of Flatland back down to his plane. Almost exactly 5k words.

Other short fiction:

[link me your stories and a short summary to go here!!]

__

Please feel free to add more links and I'll add them to this original post.

Here's the first masterpost I made which has fewer links.