#full disclosure i did not draw any of this image i made it with free assets in canva

[stanuary]

New bonus challenge: Stanuary Bingo!

There are 24 prompts on this sheet; the ones with the dotted borders are the main themes for the month, and the rest are past themes that didn't win the poll.

This is a completely optional part of Stanuary (as are using any themes at all), it's just a fun way to incorporate more ideas into the month. Even if you only use the main themes, you'll still end up with two bingos!

Feel free to save and repost this image wherever you wish, just please don't remove the blog url at the bottom.

If you use it, don't forget to tag your posts with #stanuary bingo so they'll be reblogged here! Have fun!! ♥

Main Themes | Stanuary Info

[fullmetal-the-last-alchemist]

Where did you hear the owl house leaks were fake?

OK. WELL. SO. full disclosure: i'm not... 100% sure that they're fake. i have a lot of reasons as to why i think they're fake but if i'm being honest i'm only about 90% sure. my post was, admittedly, somewhat wishful thinking.

so! why do i think they're fake? [spoiler-free edition]

i'll start with the reasons that don't have to do with the images themselves. namely, i've seen several different posts of people talking about the leak, and the gist i've gathered is: someone on reddit/twitter (not sure which lol) claims that they have the full "thanks to them" special... but hasn't posted the actual full episode anywhere, and has only posted a couple of spoilery screenshots. i've also seen a few people in the toh tag asking for links to the full special (not cool guys) and none of them seem to have any luck so far. all of that leads me to believe that the special hasn't actually been leaked, and the images are fake.

now, i'll talk about the images themselves - putting this under a read more just in case (the images won't be under the cut btw, just my speculations about them)

so! i took a closer look at the images and they definitely look fake to me. in particular, hunter doesn't have his haircut; his hair looks the same as it was back in season 2 (with maybe a little bit of growth). several other people have thrown in their two cents, so from what i can tell, these images are just speculative fanart? or fake screenshots, which people do love making lol.

admittedly, the only leaked images i've seen are: the two of belos-possessed hunter (one with flapjack, one with luz), and the one of everyone gathered around hunter as he... dissolves? or, flapjack does?? well. ok then. anyways.

the first two, of possessed hunter, look pretty fake to me. hunter's hair, as i mentioned, is the same as it used to be, with maybe a little growth (i can see a fanartist drawing it like that to account for a possible timeskip). oh, and he's wearing a wolf graphic tee, which i can see being a reference to dana's art of hunter and hooty together (also possibly speculative from a fanartist's pov)

luz is in her luzura fit i think? which goes against what we've seen of the special so far, i don't think there's been a single image of her in that outfit (also it doesn't really match her vibe of the season of, um. depression lol). also! in the one of luz and possessed-hunter, luz is holding what i'm assuming is her palisman staff... which conveniently has the palisman itself hidden behind hunter's head lol. idk about you but that screams fake screenshot to me.

AND THEN... the third image. everyone gathered around hunter as he... dissolves. or, flapjack is dissolving on top of him and hunter is just conveniently passed out.

i gotta say, this one made me pause for a second. everyone's designs are updated - except for hunter, he still has his old hair, and luz, who's still in her luzura fit from the previous "screencap". but what you have to remember is that these leaked after the new footage was released on oct. 6th. i can absolutely see a fanartist hurriedly editing their fake screenshot to incorporate the new designs before posting their images.

if these are real, then... i could maybe, possibly see it. hunter getting possessed by belos, duh, i can picture that 100%. luz could be in her luzura outfit instead of one of her depression fits to symbolize her getting back into the game and regaining her determination or whatever. hunter's hair could be back to its usual look because belos, while possessing hunter, somehow made it grow back to what he's used to hunter having, to show that hunter will always belong to him or whatever. maybe hunter will die and that will allow a portal to be opened, so everyone can go back - or, flapjack sacrifices himself to bring hunter back, as one last act of love.

i kiiiiinda doubt it though lol. that shit is depressing.

but if i'm wrong then [points at possessed hunter] Fucking Called It, and [points at dying hunter and/or flapjack] lol rip

[echonidae]

let’s talk commission stuff!

hey folks !!  so i’ve been reorganizing myself to get commissions back on track, and i’ve got some things i’d like to get your input on, if it isn't too much trouble !! ;v;

it’s a long one, so under the cut it goes sdfghghj

a slightly too long tl;dr because apparently this is a 10min read (i'm so sorry): commission revamp on the works! no date for it yet. gonna be easing myself back with just icons for a while at first (no date for that either thoug, not yet), then the revamp will be in full swing with all the other commission options, and the pricetable for them will be changed in the future as well. 

some questions: 

1) i’m rethinking commission types, is there anything you’d like to see as a new option?  2) considering i tend to open only a handful slots every batch, i'm thinking about implementing a waitlist (with a bit of a twist: it's split between Current Batch and Next Batch; a little more complicated than a regular ol' waitlist, allows me to get through some of the waitlist queue as work gets done). would that interest you or is it too much of a headache? 100% open to suggestions! 3) i’m organizing a board on trello for commission stuffs !! any suggestions or specific things you’d like to see there?

so! it’s already been over a year since i last opened commissions and i’d very much like to get back to them ;o; it’s been way too long! i miss working with you folks aaa

i don’t have a reopening date yet, but i’m planning on opening only icons for a while to ease back into the process. later on, i'll open the other commission options too. you see, i’m working on a full revamp of the whole thing, including the terms of service and that info image with the examples (because looking back, i think it no longer really represents my current style and how i really do commissions in terms of just... plain old rendering and polishing), so i’ll be working on new drawings and a new layout too, and all that good jazz :D

for full disclosure, along with this overhaul of the terms and such, i will be updating prices too c: i’m still working on the new values though, since i need to figure out what commission types/options the overhaul will have. which brings me to the first question here: what would you like to see as a commission option? for reference, here’s the og options:

(hoo i need to redo those examples *sweats*)

also, one more thing i’d like to note about this revamp situation: there isn’t a whole lot that’s changing really haha it’s just been a long, long time since i last did commissions, so i’m reviewing terms and i might change stuff that’s become outdated, or that needs clarification. if you’ve commissioned me before, the process itself is still the same so no worries! once the revamp is out, i’ll point out anything that has changed too c:

in regards to price changes, those first icon-only batches will be in their original price, and the new prices will only take effect once the revamp with the other options is out. it will be quite a while before until that, but if you have any concerns, feel free to message me any time ! either way, i’ll keep you folks posted !! i guess i also could post the new prices before implementing them, if that helps!

so, moving on! now to the waitlist situation <:3c as in, i’ve never had one, a while back someone asked if i did, and now that i’m reorganizing things, i’m wondering if it would be good to implement one :3c feel free to send any questions !! or suggestions!! i'm all ears!!!

usually i only open a handful of slots for each batch, right, and once they're all claimed, the commissions are closed until all the slots are finished. folks who missed the slots have to wait until the next batch, and sometimes those batches take a while to come back, and i usually just message those who missed the opening once the new batch is announced.

what i'm thinking for the waitlist is, i'll open it along with the batch of commissions, and limit it to a specific number of spots or close it by a specific date, whichever comes first. to apply for it, people would just need to send the form and i can tell them immediately whether or not i can draw their request, and then they'll be placed on the waitlist in the order they’ve been accepted c: pretty standard stuff.

here’s the important bit: that list is basically split in two. the first handful of people on the list, corresponding to the amount of slots for the current batch, will be reached out to as i finish working on the claimed slots, and then anyone else on the waitlist will be contacted shortly before the next batch. if, by the time the list closes, not all the opened slots have been claimed, folks on the list will simply be moved up the queue accordingly c: all of it would be discussed individually, of course, and very well disclosed in the commission info!

there are other points to it as well: anyone would be able to request a spot on the next batch's waitlist instead of the current one, and anyone can leave either list at any point. folks who had already claimed a slot when it first opened would only be able to apply for the next batch's waitlist (to give everyone a chance of getting one), and people on the list, either for the current or the next round of commissions, can be skipped up to a limit if they're unable to continue the order once i get to them.

oh and, before i forget, with the waitlist in place, i think i’d no longer be able to put slots on hold as i used to (as in, before paying the first invoice), as it’d be unfair to folks on the list. in that case, the person would be placed on the list as well if they want to, and contacted as soon as possible : )

also the "up to 2 slots per person" thing would be on thin ice too haha

anyway, this is kind of what i intended to do back then, with reopening slots as work gets finished, but never got around to. i want to make sure i don’t swamp myself with work, but also have it so that folks who want slots have a good chance of getting them, whether for the current batch or the next, as there's only so many slots i can open and work on at once, and time zones and irl things are to be considered too for anyone interested c:

it also makes it easier for me to keep track of messaging folks about new slots and such, and the list would be made public and easily available for consulting too : D more on this later!

so how's this looking? i've never done waitlists before and barely knew how they're supposed to work before starting to reorganize things, so please do feel free to voice your thoughts !! i’m 100% open to suggestions !!! do you think this system would work out for you? any concerns? if anything is unclear feel free to point it out, i'll do my best to explain the process or change stuff that doesn't quite work!!

so!!! now to the very last thing i wanted to talk about ! trello! 

i’m making a little trello board for updates on commission stuff! my commission info page here on tumblr and on deviantart both have this little section for updates on each slot’s progress, but i admittedly didn't do a good job keeping them updated (and constantly updating two things in different places just. kinda sucks.), so i’ve been diving into trello to unify that update section in one place and keep things nice and organized and transparent : ) it would be super useful for keeping track of the waitlist too, if that becomes a thing, or for updates on commission status and such!

so far i’m only testing things out, so it’s looking like this right now (sorry for the tiny image!):

(the board is lying btw, commissions are very much closed haha) (also if it’s basically unreadable, here’s the upload on sta.sh)

with all those little lists, the “available slots” and “sketch” and “lineart” and whatnot, i would be moving the card along the process : D and adding the appropriate labels, of course

this way i can have those halfsteps labelled too (working on/halfway through/finishing), since there’s only so many colors i can use without making it confusing (and tbh i’m already not too thrilled about color labels as it is, but it beats typing each individual status, and i’d imagine it’s more readable for folks consulting the list as well)

i really like how this looks so far in terms of organization but i’m unsure if the horizontal scrolling is anything but annoying, specially to folks on mobile (with the way i divide my screen on desktop, it certainly isn’t ideal either), so if you have any experience with that, feel free to let me know your thoughts!! there are a thousand different ways to organize this, and this is all a work in progress too c:

so! anything specific you folks would like to see on trello? i know this is a fairly common tool for commission queues and info and such but i’m super new to this platform, so please feel free to send suggestions! ♥

anyway yeah! that’s it! ;0; !

i’m sorry for the super long post, i’ve just been thinking about a lotta stuff haha i feel like i don’t interact a whole lot as it is, and since commissions are very much a team effort, i do want to get input from you folks on it c: it’s good to get a fresh perspective as well!

thank you so much for reading this far !! let me know your thoughts !!! :D ♥

[grimoire-of-geekery]

Detect Magic: the Sixth World Tarot by Echo Chernik

(pictured here- the deluxe edition [left] and the Arcanist edition of the Sixth World Tarot by Echo Chernik)

Y'know, it's been a long time since I did one of these, but here goes. It's time for another Detect Magic review. I haven't put the Dork Magician hat on for a while, so let's give this a whirl!

Today we're taking a look at the Sixth World Tarot, by Echo and Lazarus Chernik. She has this available on her website (click the above link), which come signed by the artist and the author. I'm a bit bummed, I bought a copy of this deck juuuuust before she started signing them. Not her fault, but still. XD

For those of you unfamiliar with Shadowrun, it's a cyberpunk dystopian magic-and-mech RPG setting and fantasy novel universe which originated in the late 80's. The premise is that magic is growing stronger, the world experienced a big Awakening in the early 2000's, right around the same time that corporations managed to gain extraterritoriality. So, you have dragons running huge megacorps, which basically enslave people to be lifelong wageslaves from birth (or as soon as they can get their hands on a desired talent), immersive VR Matrix hackers, cyberware enhanced fighters and magic practitioners acting as "deniable assets" to said corps for all sorts of shady business.

Hence the name "Shadowrun."

This setting, one of my absolute favorite settings out there, has had the misfortune of developing a sort of eerie prophetic element akin to the Simpsons and its bizarre track record of prediction of ludicrous world events. Shadowrun was intended to be a cautionary tale, not an oracular one. That being said, that does make a tarot based on Shadowrun more than a little on-the-nose for predictive purposes. After all, they're telling the future without even trying. Wait until they actually put some effort into it...

All right, time to Detect Magic!

Accessory- Crit (4 out of 4) Stunning artwork, evocative imagery... this deck is gorgeous. It's so beautiful, and so intricate and well made, that people who don't even read tarot (or even particularly like tarot) buy several copies for their geeky collections, and even people who don't particularly care about Shadowrun have dropped their jaw when I showed the deck to them.

A bit busier than I'm used to working with (not the art, but the extras which I'll explain later), I was pleasantly surprised at how much I loved the cards when I first got them. The box for both editions I own are a nice durable gloss with a magnetic foldover closure, there's a ribbon inside each to help pull the cards and book out of the box, and the decorative artwork is gorgeous and fitting with the setting. Definitely aesthetically pleasing enough to take places, and durable enough to resist scuffing or tearing for on-the-go divination and gaming use.

Tome- Crit (4 out of 4) So, the Tome section of this review is supposed to be about how well the cards help one in the pursuit of learning magic and practicing geekomancy. And... really, I don't think I've found a deck (or any artifact of fandom) quite as good as this.

Let me explain.

Tarot, in the sorcery practice I teach, are already basically a pictorial grimoire, describing life in a way that allows us to learn the hidden movements, mysteries, and forces at play in our world. Art is good for things like that in general. It helps you see the world through a special lens, one which allows you to see things you might have missed.

The thing is, the lens of this deck is the Shadowrun continuity, which as I said earlier, has proven to be more than a little prophetic, and alarmingly so.

The magic system of Shadowrun is pretty adjacent to our own. Life force lines, spiritual power sites, astral projection and spirits and magical "energy" forms, initiatory mysteries... it's all pretty much the same as our own reality, just juiced up a bit, with some extra game elements added (don't even ask me about insect spirits).

This makes the deck particularly helpful if one wishes to learn magic in any of the myriad ways described in Shadowrun (and they're particularly respectful and diverse and true-to-life in their tradition descriptions).

BUT, it also has an entire lore-book called the Book of the Lost associated with it, which explains all these little secret sigils and images and easter eggs stored throughout the deck, which can be used for gamebuilding and storytelling, but are designed to be arcane indicators and omens, among other things. And the kinds of symbols they use range from sentences or mottos in dead languages, all the way to waveform patterns and dot-matrix maps. I swear, if you're one of those people who like puzzles and cryptography, this deck is even more fun than the Hermetic Tarot.

In summary, while you'll have to get some Shadowrun sourcebooks to really get deep into the canon lore, there's so much of it that the cards really show you on their own that I don't consider this a setback at all. Feel free to deep-dive with this deck, you'll learn a TON about magic if you let it guide you.

Relic- Success (3 out of 4) If you read the Book of the Lost, or Unearthed Arcana, or any of the 5th edition Shadowrun magic sourcebooks, you'll see that "tarot magic" is an up and coming thing in their canon. Each text helps you see how practitioners use the cards in-game for spellcasting, ritual magic, initiation practices and spirit summoning. The Tarot are already really valuable as central objects of importance to certain kinds of magical practice. This particular deck is designed to be so handy a central object that there's an entire book dedicated to it.

Weapon- Success (3 out of 4) The only reason I'm rating this a success instead of a crit is because they don't provide enough spreads in the various associated books for one to immediately begin casting spells with them, which means you'll have to do some designing. They do have a couple solid unique spreads for basic divination though.

The deck's canon in-game suggests ritual practices like gathering and doing a ritual with sets of related cards, and one such ritual was easily adapted in my own practice, into the Lucky Kimono spread I designed (which people can read about on my Patreon at the higher tiers). So, even without outright including spell-spreads, they sort of gave us clues anyway.

Again, you're going to need the sourcebooks, but it's only a few of them, and they're well worth a read even if you're not planning on playing the game (and I don't play in the actual Shadowrun mechanical system, though I do like the sourcebooks for campaign setting ideas).

Overall Rating: Critical Success (14 out of 16)

Achievement Unlocked: Novahot Echo's artwork is already legendary in the dork realms of geekomancy. She's done work for Dungeons and Dragons, Mage: the Ascension, House of Night... she's even working on a Fate: the Winx Saga playing card deck right now. Her art-nouveau delicacy combined with the powerful non-pandering way she draws women means that her paintings pack a punch!

That being said, it's rare that we see professional artists create a tarot deck of this magnitude as a gaming accessory. Most tarot decks of this caliber are found in professional occult catalogues or as independent projects by artists just wanting to flex their skills for their own reasons. To have a deck like this, clearly a labor of love by all involved, as a major element of gameplay within a franchise is really very special. And something this diverse, deep, and absolutely saturated with layers of ciphers and riddles... it's a geekomancer's dream come true.

Level Up: 2 Levels I think the only way anyone's going to be able to top this deck is if they manage to design a tarot deck that's also a fully immersive VR video game AND an AR game and divination tool useable with one's iPhone or Android. Legit, Echo and Lazarus left everyone in the dust. I haven't been this excited about Shadowrun since Shadowrun Returns first came out, and I got a set of dogtags that had a USB drive with the game on it.

It's just... crazy cool.

Full disclosure, I've had the deluxe edition of these cards for a while now, so I've basically been low-key squeeing about this deck since I first heard about it in 2018, even before I got it. I've been utterly astonished that people weren't more excited about them, and I wasn't hearing about them everywhere.

Before this, I created my own Shadowrun tarot method using the Universal Transparent Tarot (cuz, y'know, plastic and see-through and weird little mosaic readings all in one place, seemed fitting to me), and when I got the Sixth World Tarot? I don't think I've opened the UTT since!

Anyway, this is my review of this deck! Go follow the link up at the top of this post, and buy yourself one! And hey, let me know if you figure out the cool little map trick. My jaw literally dropped when I was shown that!

[higuchicons]

tanizaki anon! your icons are wonderful! i was wondering how you make the pride ones? especially the outline on the inside of the circle!! i hope you're having a good day

Trying to steal my secrets, are ya……

So full disclosure, I’m not any good at photoshop. Most of the time I just click around and do what works and there’s usually an easier way to do things. In fact, the method I’m gonna show you today was one I just learned and the weird back alley thing I WAS doing stays between me and kit and carys (and the 30 other people I told) because I’m embarrassed ffdkfjkls

Before we start, I’m going to be making a few assumptions here, which are

You have a basic grasp of photoshop (and by basic, I mean basic. This isn’t hard at all.)

You can cut characters out of images

Finally, I’m using Photoshop 2020.

And I think that’s all you need to know! For the example I’ll use the lesbian Kouyou icons I just made, which you can find here!

GRADIENT OUTLINE TUTORIAL

Your first step is to draw a circle using the ellipse tool, which you can find towards the bottom of your left sidebar menu. If the rectangle tool is selected, right click to find the full drop down menu. Hold shift and drag from one corner to the other to get a perfect circle, making sure it fills the whole square without cutting itself off. Using the move tool or Edit > Free Transform, make sure your circle is centered. You can delete the white canvas background, or just make it invisible.

Next, add your pride border. I found mine by searching “(blank) flag icon border.” This border should always be your top layer. In a layer BENEATH the border, place your image and cut out the character if needed.

Pro tip: don’t worry about cutting the details if they fall outside your border. Use that as a template for what’s important and what’s not.

Pro tip: if photoshop tells you it can’t delete the background because the layer is not directly editable, don’t fret! Simply go to the top bar and hit Layer > Resaturize > Layer and you’re good to go! Your selection still should be kept, so you won’t have to redo anything!

If you haven’t done so, go to your gradient tool (right-click on the paint bucket) and, using the color picker, make a gradient using the colors of your flag. I like to keep them evenly spaced, but you can move the tabs around however you want. Then, if your character is positioned where you want them to be, right click on their layer and duplicate it. Add another layer above that one and click and drag from one corner to the other with your gradient tool.

Right-click on your gradient layer and select “create clipping mask.” There should now be an outline of your character in the gradient colors.

Move the first character layer (the one that is NOT masked by the gradient) so it is above your gradient layer. Then, select the character layer that IS masked (beneath the clipping mask) and using Edit > Free Transform, resize it so it makes an outline around your character. (If you didn’t delete most of the bottom of the character image just like I did, make sure in your outline layer you erase the parts that might slip past the flag border!)

Pro tip: If you go to the top menu and select View > Snap so that there is no checkmark but “snap,” you can move the image freely without it snapping into place along an imaginary grid.

Pro tip: Sometimes it helps me to duplicate the soon-to-be masked character layer and slide one of them to the left and the other to the right so there’s more of an even outline. Merge the two layers one they are adjusted and re-set the gradient layer to a clipping mask and it has the same effect!

Add another layer between your unedited character layer and the pride flag border. Put another gradient on it, then change the layer mode from “normal” to “soft light.” Lower the opacity until you get the desired effect.

Using the elliptical marquee tool, draw a circle that falls along the line of your border like so. This does NOT have to be a perfect circle, you just have to make sure the dotted lines do not fall anywhere inside or outside the border.

Go to your top menu and hit Select > Inverse so the dotted lines are around your flag border AND the outside of the icon, like so.

One by one, click on your gradient overlay layer, unedited character layer, clipping mask layer, and masked character layer and hit delete on your keyboard on each one so there is nothing on the outside of your icon. (You can hit Select > Deselect to get rid of those pesky dotted lines.)

Finally, go to “Save As” and make sure you save as a PNG (NOT a jpeg), et voilà! You made a pride icon!

(Of course, the icon I used for a tutorial is a bit messy around the edges - but you get the idea!)

Let me know if you have any more questions, nonnie, or if you wanna know how I do anything else! I hope this made at least a little bit of sense!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Pluralistic, your daily link-dose: 28 Feb 2020

Today's links

Clearview AI's customer database leaks: Sic semper grifter.

The Internet of Anal Things: Recreating Stelarc's "Amplified Body" with an IoT butt-plug.

Oakland's vintage Space Burger/Giant Burger building needs a home! Adopt a googie today.

Fan-made reproduction of the Tower of Terror: Even has a deepfaked Serling.

Drawing the Simpsons with pure CSS: Impractical, but so impressive.

Let's Encrypt issues its billionth cert: 89% of the web is now encrypted.

AI Dungeon Master: A work in progress, for sure.

How to lie with (coronavirus) maps: Lies, damned lies, and epidemiological data-visualizations.

This day in history: 2019, 2015

Colophon: Recent publications, current writing projects, upcoming appearances, current reading

Clearview AI's customer database leaks (permalink)

Clearview is the grifty facial recognition startup that created a database by scraping social media and now offers cops secretive deals on its semi-magic, never-peer-reviewed technology. The company became notorious in January after the NYT did a deep dive into its secretive deals and its weird, Trump-adjascent ex-male-model founder.

(the Times piece was superbly researched but terribly credulous about Clearview's marketing claims)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-recognition.html

Yesterday, Clearview warned its customers that it had been hacked and lost its customer database. Today, that customer database was published.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/clearview-ai-fbi-ice-global-law-enforcement

It seems that the NYT weren't the only ones to take Clearview's marketing claims at face value. Its client list includes the DoJ, ICE, Macy's, Walmart, and the NBA. All in all the dump includes more than 2,200 users, including "law enforcement agencies, companies, and individuals around the world."

Included: state AGs, university rent-a-cops, and clients in Saudi Arabia.

"BuzzFeed News authenticated the logs, which list about 2,900 institutions and include details such as the number of log-ins, the number of searches, and the date of the last search."

What does Clearview, a sercurity company, say about this ghastly security breach? "Unfortunately, data breaches are part of life in the 21st century."

Big shrug energy.

"Government agents should not be running our faces against a shadily assembled database of billions of our photos in secret and with no safeguards against abuse," ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, said to BuzzFeed News.

It is amazing that this needs to be said.

"More than 50 educational institutions across 24 states named in the log. Among them are two high schools."

They are:

Central Montco Technical High School in Pennsylvania

Somerset Berkley Regional High School in Massachusetts

The log also has an entry for Interpol.

The Internet of Anal Things (permalink)

In 1994, the notorious/celebrated electronic artist Stelarc did a performance called "Amplified Body" in which he "controlled robots, cameras and other instruments by tensing and releasing his muscles"

https://web.archive.org/web/20120712181429/https://v2.nl/events/amplified-body

Now, artist/critic Dani Ploeger has revisited Amplified Body with his own performance, which is very similar to Stelarc's, except all the peripherals are controlled by Ploeger tensing and releasing his anal sphincters around a smart butt-plug.

https://www.daniploeger.org/amplified-body

He calls it "B-hind" and it's a ha-ha-only-serious. The buttplug is "an anal electrode with EMG sensor for domestic treatment of faecal incontinence," and the accompanying text is a kind of art-speak parody of IoT biz-speak.

https://we-make-money-not-art.com/b-hind-celebrating-the-internet-of-anal-things

"B-hind offers a unique IoT solution to fully integrate your sphincter muscle in everyday living. The revolutionary anal electrode-powered interface system replaces conventional hand/voice-based interaction, enabling advanced digital control rooted in your body's interior. Celebrating the abject and the grotesque, ‍B‒hind facilitates simple, plug-and-play access to a holistic body experience in the age of networked society."

B-hind was produced in collaboration with V2_, the Lab for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam, and In4Art.

Oakland's vintage Space Burger/Giant Burger building needs a home! (permalink)

Giant Burger was once an East Bay institution, known for its burgers and its gorgeous googie architecture.

https://localwiki.org/oakland/Giant_Burger

One of the very last Giant Burger buildings is now under threat. Though the Telegraph Ave location was rescued in 2015 and converted to a "Space Burger," it's now seeking a new home because it is in the path of the Eastline project.

https://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2015/02/24/space-burger-launches-in-uptown-oakland/

The Oakland Heritage Alliance is hoping someone will rescue and move the building: " Do you have an idea for a new location for this mid-century icon? Please contact info@oaklandheritage.org if you know of an appropriate lot, project, or site, preferably downtown."

(Image CC BY-SA, Our Oakland)

Fan-made reproduction of the Tower of Terror (permalink)

Orangele set out to re-create the Walt Disney World Twilight Zone Tower of Terror elevator loading zone in the entry area to their home theater. He's not only done an impressive re-make of the set, but he's also augmented it with FANTASTIC gimmicks.

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/community/threads/the-tower-of-terror-theater.365747/

It's not merely that's he's created a rain, thunder and lightning effect outside the patio doors…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QMzN0v4mJQ

Nor has he merely created props like this gimmicked side table that flips over at the press of a button.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY7gQLMnbeA

He's also created HIS OWN ROD SERLING DEEPFAKE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=MIsjYJwOXSU

I kinda seriously love that he left Rod's cigarette in. The Disney version looks…uncanny.

Not shown: "exploding fuse box with simulated smoke and fire, motorized lighted elevator dial, motorized/lighted pressure gauge, video monitor playing Tower of Terror ride sequence seen through the elevator door wrap, motorized "elevator door'"

He notes, "I was once married, but now as a single person, I can do whatever I want, haha. NEVER getting married again."

Drawing the Simpsons with pure CSS (permalink)

Implementing animated Simpsons illustrations in CSS isn't the most practical web-coding demo I've seen, but it's among the most impressive. Bravo, Chris Pattle!

(not shown: the eyes animate and blink!)

https://pattle.github.io/simpsons-in-css/

#bart .head .hair1 { top: 22px; left: 0px; width: 6px; height: 7px; -webkit-transform: rotate(-22deg) skew(-7deg, 51deg); -ms-transform: rotate(-22deg) skew(-7deg, 51deg); transform: rotate(-22deg) skew(-7deg, 51deg); }

I especially love the quick-reference buttons to see the raw CSS. It reminds me of nothing so much as the incredibly complex Logo programs I used to write on my Apple ][+ in the 1980s, drawing very complicated, vector-based sprites and glyphs.

https://github.com/pattle/simpsons-in-css/blob/master/css/bart.css

Most interesting is the way that this modular approach to graphics allows for this kind of simple, in-browser transformation.

Let's Encrypt issues its billionth cert (permalink)

When the AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein walked into EFF's offices in 2005 to reveal that his employers had ordered him to help the NSA spy on the entire internet, it was a bombshell.

https://www.eff.org/tags/mark-klein

The Snowden papers revealed the scope of the surveillance in fine and alarming detail. According to his memoir, Snowden was motivated to blow the whistle when he witnessed then-NSA Director James Clapper lie to Senator Ron Wyden about the Klein matter.

Since that day in 2005, privacy advocates have been fretting about just how EASY it was to spy on the whole internet. So much of that was down to the fact that the net wasn't encrypted by default.

This was especially keen for @EFF. After all, we made our bones by suing the NSA in the 90s and winning the right for civilians to access working cryptography (we did it by establishing that "Code is speech" for the purposes of the First Amendment).

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/remembering-case-established-code-speech

Crypto had been legal since 1992, but by Klein's 2005 disclosures, it was still a rarity. 8 years later — at the Snowden moment — the web was STILL mostly plaintext. How could we encrypt the web to save it from mass surveillance?

So in 2014, we joined forces with Mozilla, the University of Michigan and Akamai to create Let's Encrypt, a project to give anyone and everyone free TLS certificates, the key component needed to encrypt the requests your web-server exchanges with your readers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Encrypt

Encrypting the web was an uphill climb: by 2017, Let's Encrypt had issued 100m certificates, tipping the web over so that the majority of traffic (58%) was encrypted. Today, Let's Encrypt has issued ONE BILLION certs, and 81% of pageloads use HTTPS (in the USA, it's 91%)! This is astonishing, bordering on miraculous. If this had been the situation back in 2005, there would have been no NSA mass surveillance.

Even more astonishing: there are only 11 full-timers on the Let's Encrypt team, plus a few outside contractors and part-timers. A group of people who could fit in a minibus managed to encrypt virtually the entire internet.

https://letsencrypt.org/2020/02/27/one-billion-certs.html

There are lots of reasons to factor technology (and technologists) in any plan for social change, but this illustrates one of the primary tactical considerations. "Architecture is Politics" (as Mitch Kapor said when he co-founded EFF), and the architectural choices that small groups of skilled people make can reach all the way around the world.

This kind of breathtaking power is what inspires so many people to become technologists: the force-multiplier effect of networked code can imbue your work with global salience (for good or ill). It's why we should be so glad of the burgeoning tech and ethics movement, from Tech Won't Build It to the Googler Uprising. And it's especially why we should be excited about the proliferation of open syllabi for teaching tech and ethics.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jWIrA8jHz5fYAW4h9CkUD8gKS5V98PDJDymRf8d9vKI/edit#gid=0

It's also the reason I'm so humbled and thrilled when I hear from technologists that their path into the field started with my novel Little Brother, whose message isn't "Tech is terrible," but, "This will all be so great, if we don't screw it up."

https://craphound.com/littlebrother

(and I should probably mention here that the third Little Brother book, Attack Surface, comes out in October and explicitly wrestles with the question of ethics, agency, and allyship in tech).

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

AI Dungeon Master (permalink)

Since 2018, Lara martin has been using machine learning to augment the job of the Dungeon Master, with the goal of someday building a fully autonomous, robotic DM.

https://laramartin.net/

AI Dungeon Master is a blend of ML techniques and "old-fashioned rule-based features" to create a centaur DM that augments a human DM's imagination with the power of ML, natural language processing, and related techniques.

She's co-author of a new paper about the effort, "Story Realization: Expanding Plot Events into Sentences" which "describes a way algorithms to use "events," consisting of a subject, verb, object, and other elements, to make a coherent narrative."

https://aaai.org/Papers/AAAI/2020GB/AAAI-AmmanabroluP.6647.pdf

The system uses training data (plots from Doctor Who, Futurama, and X-Files) to expand text-snippets into plotlines that continue the action. It's a bit of a dancing bear, though, an impressive achievement that's not quite ready for primetime ("We're nowhere close to this being a reality yet").

https://www.wired.com/story/forget-chess-real-challenge-teaching-ai-play-dandd/

This may bring to mind AI Dungeon, the viral GPT-2-generated dungeon crawler from December.

https://aidungeon.io/

As Will Knight writes, "Playing AI Dungeon often feels more like a maddening improv session than a text adventure."

Knight proposes that "AI DM" might be the next big symbolic challenge for machine learning, the 2020s equivalent to "AI Go player" or "AI chess master."

How to lie with (coronavirus) maps (permalink)

The media around the coronavirus outbreak is like a masterclass in the classic "How to Lie With Maps."

https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo27400568.html

Self-described "cartonerd" Kenneth Field's prescriptions for mapmakers wanting to illustrate the spread of coronavirus is a superb read about data visualization, responsibility, and clarity.

https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/product/mapping/mapping-coronavirus-responsibly/

Both of these images are representing the same data. Look at the map and you might get the impression that coronavirus infections are at high levels across all of China's provinces. Look at the bar-chart and you'll see that it's almost entire Hubei.

Here's a proposed way to represent the same data on a map without misleading people.

Another point that jumped out: stop coloring maps in red!

"We're mapping a human health tragedy that may get way worse before it subsides. Do we really want the map to be screaming bright red? Red can connotate death, still statistically extremely rare for coronavirus."

This day in history (permalink)

#5yrsago Ad-hoc museums of a failing utopia: photos of Soviet shop-windows https://boingboing.net/2015/02/28/ad-hoc-museums-of-a-failing-ut.html

#5yrsago First-hand reports of torture from Homan Square, Chicago PD's "black site" https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/27/chicago-abusive-confinment-homan-square

#1yrago EFF's roadmap for a 21st Century antitrust doctrine https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/02/antitrust-enforcement-needs-evolve-21st-century

#1yrago Yet another study shows that the most effective "anti-piracy" strategy is good products at a fair price https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kg7pv/studies-keep-showing-that-the-best-way-to-stop-piracy-is-to-offer-cheaper-better-alternatives

#1yrago London's awful estate agents are cratering, warning of a "prolonged downturn" in the housing market https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47389160

#1yrago Bad security design made it easy to spy on video from Ring doorbells and insert fake video into their feeds https://web.archive.org/web/20190411195308/https://dojo.bullguard.com/dojo-by-bullguard/blog/ring/

#1yrago Amazon killed Seattle's homelessness-relief tax by threatening not to move into a massive new building, then they canceled the move anyway https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/huge-downtown-seattle-office-space-that-amazon-had-leased-is-reportedly-put-on-market/

#1yrago The "Reputation Management" industry continues to depend on forged legal documents https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190216/15544941616/pissed-consumer-exposes-new-york-luxury-car-dealers-use-bogus-notarized-letters-to-remove-critical-reviews.shtml

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources: Allegra of Oakland Heritage Alliance, Waxy (https://waxy.org/), We Make Money Not Art (https://we-make-money-not-art.com/), Sam Posten (https://twitter.com/Navesink), Slashdot (https://slashdot.org), Kottke (https://kottke.org) and Four Short Links (https://www.oreilly.com/feed/four-short-links).

Hugo nominators! My story "Unauthorized Bread" is eligible in the Novella category and you can read it free on Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Upcoming appearances:

Canada Reads Kelowna: March 5, 6PM, Kelowna Library, 1380 Ellis Street, with CBC's Sarah Penton https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/cbc-radio-presents-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-96154415445

Currently writing: I just finished a short story, "The Canadian Miracle," for MIT Tech Review. It's a story set in the world of my next novel, "The Lost Cause," a post-GND novel about truth and reconciliation. I'm getting geared up to start work on the novel now, though the timing is going to depend on another pending commission (I've been solicited by an NGO) to write a short story set in the world's prehistory.

Currently reading: Just started Lauren Beukes's forthcoming Afterland: it's Y the Last Man plus plus, and two chapters in, it's amazeballs. Last week, I finished Andrea Bernstein's "American Oligarchs" this week; it's a magnificent history of the Kushner and Trump families, showing how they cheated, stole and lied their way into power. I'm getting really into Anna Weiner's memoir about tech, "Uncanny Valley." I just loaded Matt Stoller's "Goliath" onto my underwater MP3 player and I'm listening to it as I swim laps.

Latest podcast: Gopher: When Adversarial Interoperability Burrowed Under the Gatekeepers' Fortresses: https://craphound.com/podcast/2020/02/24/gopher-when-adversarial-interoperability-burrowed-under-the-gatekeepers-fortresses/

Upcoming books: "Poesy the Monster Slayer" (Jul 2020), a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Pre-order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627?utm_source=socialmedia&utm_medium=socialpost&utm_term=na-poesycorypreorder&utm_content=na-preorder-buynow&utm_campaign=9781626723627

(we're having a launch for it in Burbank on July 11 at Dark Delicacies and you can get me AND Poesy to sign it and Dark Del will ship it to the monster kids in your life in time for the release date).

"Attack Surface": The third Little Brother book, Oct 20, 2020.

"Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a very special, s00per s33kr1t intro.

[nikki-writes-stuff]

Quiet

Eli got up from his desk the moment he put the handset back onto the cradle. He crossed the bullpen area of Ranger Capital’s Queens Branch to get to the perimeter offices and knocked on his supervisor’s door to get his attention. “Jack, you got a second?”

Jack looked away from his laptop screen at him. “What’s up, Eli?”

“Updates on Mr. Derringer.”

“Sweet!” Jack gave him his full attention. “Talk to me—what have you got?”

“His policies are still within surrender so I don’t want to touch them yet, but the brokerage stuff is good to go. I’m heading out there this afternoon to open the account with him.”

“That’s my boy..!” he cajoled with a grin. “You got the forms you need?”

Eli took a mental inventory of his go-kit. “Everything except Seventeen Thirteen Echo. You know, the disclosure statements.”

“Yeah, not a lot of those around the office these days,” Jack noted. “Talk to Kelly, my assistant. She’ll get one for you. You’ve met her before, right?”

Eli thought of the week he and Kelly first met, recalling images of her small breasts and erect nipples bouncing as he had her pinned against the supply room wall, her fingernails dug deep into is back, her teeth at his collar bone. “I’ve met her,” he said.

“Cool.” Jack got up from his desk and closed his laptop. He started for the door to walk with Eli for a little. “Anne and I are running interviews the rest of the day, and then I’m out to Long Island for the regional conference, so if you need anything shoot me a text.”

“You got it, boss.” Their paths split after a few steps and a fist bump, Jack went to meet Anne in one of the conference rooms down the hall while Eli strode up to Kelly’s desk.

Kelly, in a white paisley blouse and black business skirt with matching tights and ankle boots, tapped away at her keyboard before Eli knocked on her cubicle wall and stole her attention. She turned in her seat to look up at him. “Hello,” she said warmly.

“Hey,” Eli returned, leaning on the entrance a bit. “You think you can get a form for me? Seventeen Thirteen Echo?”

Kelly broke eye contact to consider where she’d be able to find one. “I don’t have any printed,” she told him. “We’ll have to run you a copy.” She looked back at her monitor to pull a digital version of the booklet and sent it to print. “How many copies do you need?”

Eli thought for a bit. “I’ll take three. That way I’ll have spares if I screw it up.”

“I thought you didn’t make mistakes,” she jested.

“Hey, even the Yankees make mistakes,” he returned, grinning. “I’ll be back around five-thirty,” he disclosed. “You gonna be around?”

“I should be,” she said. “Why, do you have plans?”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to hit up Sunswick afterward.”

“That sounds nice, actually. I can use a reset after the week I’ve had.” She handed him her keycard. “Three copies, printed front-and-back. Stapled together.”

“Thank you much..!”

Eli made it to the office printer and queued up to print his forms. When he was done he organized them and put them in his kit and returned Kelly’s keycard to her on his way out the door.

When he returned from his meeting with Mr. Derringer, he deposited his things at his desk for a moment before heading over to Kelly’s desk.

“Knock-knock,” he said. “You ready to go?”

“Actually,” Kelly said as she turned to face him, “there’s something I’d like your help with before we go.” She stood up, leading him toward Jack’s office.

“Sure,” Eli said. “What do you need?”

“I just have to de-stress a little before we go anywhere,” she said, unlocking the door.

“I thought that’s why we were going out.”

Kelly shot him a look over her shoulder. She reached around the doorway to turn the light switch on with one hand, and with the other she started unbuttoning her blouse. “You’re a smart kid, Eli. Do I really have to spell it out for you?”

Eli got the message. “No,” he noted. “I suppose you don’t.”

Kelly pulled her skirt up past her thighs and sat wide-legged on top of Jack’s desk, the top four buttons of her blouse undone to give him a glimpse of her bright pink lace bra. Eli stepped forward, finding his place between her legs, placing both his hands on her perfectly round derièrre and pulling her closer to him. Her legs curled around him as she slipped her hands under his jacket and they kissed fervently, her tongue between his lips and his between hers.

Eli shrugged off his jacket and moved his hands first around to Kelly’s thighs, and then her hips, and finally to her waist, pulling at her blouse to untuck it from her skirt while she undid the rest of the buttons. He buried his head into the side of her neck, kissing her skin down to her collarbone and then her chest, lost in the scent of her floral perfume as she held his head in place with both hands.

She let a moan slip the instant she felt is hand ride up the inside of her thigh and make it to where she was most sensitive. She twitched as his fingertips teased her, moving one of her hands to keep his in place while his fingers moved, his other hand on her back holding her up against him as her mouth reclaimed his.

“Right here,” she breathed into him. “Give it to me right here on his desk..!”

“I intend to,” he said with a libidinous grin. He took a step away from her to undo his belt and unzip his fly. The he turned her around so she leaned over the desk and pulled her skirt up over her behind, admiring the shape it took under her tights. He ran is hands over the thin fabric once again, taking a moment to appreciate her warmth he felt through it before snaking his fingertips up underneath her skirt to pull her tights and panties down.

They both straightened up immediately when they heard the opening of a door near them.

They sprang to the corner of Jack’s office, tucked away from the tall, narrow pane of glass beside his door. Eli held Kelly tightly against him, wrapping his arms around her chest and waist; anybody curious enough to poke is or her head around the corner could still see them.

Who was still in the office on a Friday after business hours? It couldn’t be the custodial staff, they didn’t come in until the night. Another agent, maybe?

Kelly let a quiet, quivering moan slip free, bringing Eli back to the moment and reminding him where his hands happened to be—his left was on her right breast underneath her open blouse, and his right was tucked between her legs, her thighs squeezing it a little. He felt how wet she was through two layers of fabric.

Much to his delight, he found she was just as switched on by this whole thing as he was. He moved his fingers a little and she twitched again, stifling a gasp. She moved her hands to his, holding them in place as she rolled her hips side to side, rubbing herself against both his hand and his arousal.

He knew she was tempting him with her warmth and muted moaning, and he didn’t resist. He pulled his hand away to lower her tights and panties. Rubbing her again with nothing between them, he felt every single twitch and pulse he sent through her body with just his hands.

Kelly turned her head a little to reestablish eye contact; Eli could see the glow in her cheeks and the rising and falling of her shoulders with each breath she took. “Don’t leave me hanging here,” she whispered.

So he didn’t.

One-handed, he pulled his slacks and underwear halfway down his thighs and slid right into her.

Kelly loosed a moan that filled the room, which Eli stopped with a hand placed quickly around her mouth.

“Shhhh..!” he went, looking her in the eye as he moved.

Kelly nodded, her body rocking in concert with his.

After a while, Eli moved his hand away from her mouth and onto her hip, adding leverage to his steady thrusts and pushing deeper into her with each one. She let a quiet whimper free as her body shook, holding his left hand with hers, squeezing it and pressing it against her breast.

A door within earshot of them creaked and closed again, and Eli stopped moving to listen for the tock-tocking of whoever’s shoes he was hearing on the floor fade into the distance.

Kelly moved her right hand to the back of his neck and pushed herself against him, driving him deeper into her than before and coaxing a quiet moan from him. She rhythmically drove herself backward and forward along his length to reclaim their previously established rhythm.

“Don’t… stop… fucking me..!” she murmured between thrusts.

Slowly at first, Eli started moving his hips again in concert with hers, and when he was sure whoever was in the Branch with them was gone, began pushing harder against her, drawing more stifled gasps from the both of them until she finally bucked back, clenching around him as he released into her. Kelly’s eyes shut tight as her mouth hung open in a silent scream, just as it did the day she and Eli snuck into the supply room.

She leaned against him as they both slid down the wall to take a seat on the floor, catching their breaths as her head fell backward onto his shoulder. “Is it me?” she put forth, maintaining a low volume, “or was that even hotter than before?” She tilted her head a little to look him in the eye, a smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.

“It definitely not is just you, trust me,” he replied, returning her grin at a similar level. He took a moment to appreciate their shared ecstasy, her open blouse and pink bra, her glow, her warmth against him. Her fingers remained laced between his on her chest while her other hand caressed the back of his head. His free hand rested on her stomach.

Then her attention was called to their combined mess in her panties and tights. She looked down at them, removing her hand from his on her chest to dab her fingertips in it and examine the slick. “Dammit,” she jested. “I really liked these ones.”

Eli shrugged. “I guess your next pair is on me, then,” he laughed.

“I’ll hold you to that,” she added, looking back at him and smiling. Their eyes held each other for a few more seconds before Kelly straightened her posture to stand back up. She returned her panties and tights back to their place and fixed her skirt as Eli stood back up and zipped his slacks before fixing his belt again and reclaiming his jacket.

Kelly turned the knob of Jack’s office door and peered around the corner before letting Eli follow her out. Then she re-locked the door, turned into Eli, and pulled him in for a deep kiss before heading back to her desk to gather the rest of her things to leave with him to go to the bar.

--Brendan M. Lubin, June 7th 2020

__________

Well, as always after reading your work, I feel like I need a cold shower.

Haha, thank you so much for this submission! I loved the familiar faces, and I have a secret penchant for public sex that this definitely appealed to. ;)

Wonderful writing as always, Brendan!

[mysticsparklewings]

Daises on Strawberry Hill‪

Well, this looks a bit different from my usual content, doesn't it? Full disclosure that this art was made primarily as art inspired by one of my favorite books of all time (seriously, I have three different editions of this thing)--Looking for Alaska by John Green--as an excuse to talk about the new Hulu series of the same name that's based on the book. Because if you know me at all, you know I am notoriously hard on book-to-screen adaptions, particularly those based on books I love as if they were family members. And originally, this description was going to include a pretty blow-by-blow, lengthy review of my thoughts on the series. However, it's been quite a while since I first started trying to type out said review, and frankly, I've decided instead to, after I talk about the art, to just give some general, spoiler-free thoughts; the most important opinions I have on the series and leave it at that. I am still planning on completing and putting my full-length, in-depth thoughts out, but that'll be at some other time. Perhaps I'll put them in a journal/blog post instead of adding to the description here. Whatever happens, I'll update this description so that those who are interested in my deep-dive can find it when the time comes. That said, let's talk about the artwork now :) LfA isn't a fantasy or sci-fi book, so it doesn't have any cool dramatic scenes or neato devices/objects that have a lot of significance to the plot that would be fun to draw, which is why I never made any fan art or inspired-by-art for it before. But I really wanted an excuse to talk about the series, and so I pondered what symbols or imagery the series might have that I could make into art, even if none of it was terribly relevant to the plot or exciting on its own. This led me to the cheap wine that's mentioned a few times throughout the book: Strawberry Hill. Drawing just a bottle of wine seemed kind of boring and not very specific to the book/series, so I ended up adding in some white daisies since white flowers and daises specifically do have some significance to the plot. (In a way, they're a bit of a crux to it, at least for a key epiphany moment.) Originally, I was going to make this piece traditionally, and I did start with a traditional sketch of the wine bottle and one daisy to use as a template for more to follow. However, I pretty quickly got the idea for doing something more line-art heavy on a black background, as the cover for the book is black and the sort of chalkboard/blacklight look I was picturing in my head seemed fitting for the tone of the story, and despite my best efforts I couldn't think of a way/combination of media to accomplish what I wanted traditionally without also giving myself a major headache and making the project take infinitely longer than I wanted it to. So while I stalled in production, I ended up on my tablet for something else and figure I'd scan in my sketches and maybe make a line art to print off and manipulate into what I wanted traditionally later. But then, just as I started working on that, I figured, "You know what, if I'm going to go through all of the trouble to ink/line this digitally and I wanted it to be more line-focused anyway, I might as well take a crack at just doing the full artwork digitally. I'll get the lines done either way, and if it doesn't work out then at least I can say I tried, I know some of what not to do, and I end up with a digital mock-up for the final version." Fortunately, things ended up working out much better than I expected. I purposefully wasn't too fussy about the lines, partly because I just didn't have the patience at the time to be super precise about it, and also because for this specific project I kind of liked the idea of a more doodle-ish look (even though it's not super doodle-y in the final product). This also made things move a lot faster, which was nice and pretty satisfying. I started with the wine bottle from my sketch, including trying a new liquid drawing technique I half picked up from an art Youtuber I just recently started following that makes drawing liquid in a style similar to this look like a lot of fun. I knew I wanted the bottle to be mostly transparent/just lines, so the goal here was more about getting the wine bottle shape/structure familiar enough than it was about anything else. The label took a bit more though since in my mind, ever since I read the book, I had a pretty specific image of a pinkish bottle with a yellowish liquid and this cream-colored label with dark brown/sepia text, and I had not previously considered the label into that whole primarily line-focused image in my mind.  So in the end, I decided the label would be solid so I could get the proper imagery across and the text and stuff could still be seen properly. Additionally, you'll notice I couldn't help myself being a little on-the-nose and sticking a tiny strawberry and mountain/hill on the label for good measure and to fill some space without having to look up wine bottle references just to stare at the labels for a ridiculous amount of time.   The daises were also infinitely easier to do digitally since I could just copy, paste, and rotate first the petals to make one flower, and then copy, paste, rotate that one flower a few more times, instead of having to draw individual petals and flowers every time. This also gave me a little more freedom in that I could re-size the flowers pretty easily to make it more visually interesting than just a bunch of flowers that were all the same size. All that ended up being less line-focused than I originally intended, but I acknowledged that happening as I worked, and I'm not upset about the shift in focus. I think what I ended up with still has about the same visual impact I was hoping for, and that's all I really wanted anyway. And as sort of the icing on the cake, I ended up adding in that wisp/smoke trail in the background because of 1. It seemed kind of empty and unfinished with just the flowers and wine bottle and 2. When I tried adding a green vine to fix that issue, it just wasn't working for me. That's when I realized I could have a stronger reference to the book by putting something similar to smoke in the background since the original cover of the book has a smoke plume front-and-center. It took a few tries and some tweaking to get something I was happy with on that front, but I am so glad I stuck with the idea. It just adds something I can't quite place that the piece really needed before. The content is pretty different for me--I don't drink and I don't really endorse the idea--and the style is a little beyond my usual realms, but I do really like how it turned out. I feel like it's done well enough that you can appreciate the symbols and references if you know the book, but it also works as just a kitsch art piece if you're completely unfamiliar with the source material too. I don't think it's super accurate to when a bottle of the stuff shows up in the Hulu series, but it was on screen so briefly and my mind was focusing on other aspects while I was watching, so I didn't get a super good look at it.  But I still think it'll suffice well enough despite that. I'm happy with how it turned out, and that's all that really matters, right? Now, then, as for the thoughts I have on the Hulu series that I think need to be shared sooner rather than later. I'll start by going on record to say, as someone that is notoriously hard on book-to-screen adaptions, that I did actually like the LfA series pretty good. I'd say it's about a 7 out of 10, which an exceptionally good score coming from me. It's not my most favorite show of all time, but it's notably better than "just okay," which is historically the highest praise I've ever been able to give a book-to-screen adaption. It had its faults and things I would've done differently if it were up to me, but fortunately, it did an infinitely better job than I was expecting. My main issues, as with all book-to-screen adaptions, come in the form of some of the changes that were made between the book and the screen. Fortunately, this time around the problems I do have are not egregious offenders. Most changes that were made still make sense within the story and while the overall message isn't quite the same as the book, it didn't totally squander what the book was trying to say. All of which are problems that most book-to-screen adaptions suffer from horribly. And while I won't talk too much at length about this (that's for the long-form review later ) I think this has a lot to do with the series being roughly 7-8 hours of content, as opposed to the either extremely rushed 2-hours-or-less a movie would've been, or the more-time-than-we-know-what-to-do-with 13+ hours of...certain book-to-screen adaptions that failed miserably at their job. (*cough* 13 Reasons Why *cough*) As I said, it's not perfect, but I do think as far as allotted time and time-management that they hit something of a sweet spot so that they'd have enough time to give the plot the room it needs to breathe without having so much time that they have to start making stuff up to fill it all. The other thing I'd like to point out is that, honestly, they did what 13 Reasons Why wanted to do way better than that series could ever hope to. They told the story of teenagers experiencing darker themes and elements of life so much more tactfully, and, in my opinion, more realistically. And they didn't wait for a controversy to spike and then do something about it--they didn't bank on the publicity of a controversy. Right from episode one, every episode starts with a warning that this series is meant for an adult audience (because of its themes) and viewer discretion is advised. And at the end of every episode, as the series does featuring smoking and drinking on more than one occasion, they provide resources to visit if you or someone you know has a problem with either of those things. I don't know if the people at Hulu saw what happened to Netflix with 13 RW and learned from their mistakes or if they just knew better, but either way, I'm so glad it was handled so much better, regardless of why or how it happened. As far as recommendations, if you're a John Green and/or Looking for Alaska book fan, I'd say it's definitely worth the watch. For outside viewers...I think you have to really be into the YA drama scene to appreciate it. Just be prepared for some more adult content than you might typically find in a YA movie. It's all done pretty tastefully and the majority isn't there senselessly; most of it serves some kind of purpose to the story, which is why it doesn't bother me (a very prude-ish person) all that much. I think that's everything I feel like needs to be said right now about the series until I can get the long-form review finished. (It's maybe 1/3 of the way done currently...and already getting on the long side )   I have to admit, this does make me more hopeful for the future of book-to-screen adaptions, at least those that end up being handled the way this one was. In fact, I'm actually really hoping that if Turtles All the Way Down, John Green's newest book, ever sees a screen adaption that it's handled in a series form and is done at least as well as LfA was. Time will tell, I suppose. In fact, I believe any day now, Let it Snow, a book that John Green wrote 1/3 of is supposed to have its movie adaption dropped on Netflix. I'm not super confident in Netflix's handling of adaptions for reasons mentioned earlier, but maybe just maybe it'll be okay? ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings I do not own Looking for Alaska and/or associated content ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble |   Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

[rhysand-vs-fenrys]

Page Admin: Where I Draw the Line Re: Images

Over the last few days I have received multiple hateful anon messages calling me “stupid” and a hypocrite over my decision to post images to my blog (the messages specifically called out aesthetic posts but on their personal blog the anon broadened it to photographs).

I blocked the URL in question for sending anon hate (though I reached out and informed them a window is open if they want to discuss), and I thought I should make my stance clear to you all.

Their position: Reposting fan art and posting photographs is the same thing and both are unacceptable. Again, their anon messages specifically mentioned aesthetic posts but their own post on the issue seems to open it to photos in general.

Personally, I don’t find that realistic. That would mean no edits, fashion references, photos captioned with book quotes, and frankly even screen shots of a sentence from any book. No tumblr would be able to post any image they did not create themself (or any photograph they did not personally take). Even if they just meant it was wrong to post un-sourced images, I also don’t think that’s realistic the way simple photographs are passed around and shared.

Yes, photography is a form of art. I am a camerawoman IRL-believe me, I know better than most how much work goes into a single image. But when I decided where to draw the line on my page, I had to decide what was both realistic and logical. 

I do not re-post fan art. That is easy to source and track down the original to reblog. Those wonderful artists deserve the attention and notes for their hard work.

I did reach out to the blogger in question to apologize for a petty quip I made regarding IQs (full disclosure). I try to bite my tongue in most cases when I disagree with an opinion, and in this instance I failed to live up to my own standards of behavior. 

Also, considering that the anon hate came from a longtime follower, I have temporarily disabled anons on my pages. I welcome discussion on where I draw the line, and if it bothers you feel free to say. I do accept that the request the discourse remain civil is hypocritical in light of my own snarky comment to that blogger, but multiple wrongs do not make a right. 

All discussion will be face-first with no one hiding behind an anonymous mask.

[egoiistas]

022218 Warm Embrace

@b-griveros: It was nice to do a first collaboration with Mar;  she sent me the reference and I couldn’t get the image out of my head. I needed to draw.  And then, with this new perspective Marilyn captures perfectly the atmosphere between them two. I f*cking love this woman and I’m thankful she’s been inspiring and motivating me to improve over the past months. Thank you so much for existing, Marilyn, and I hope everyone gets a little warm ache in the chest.

Rated: T for cursing. || Words: ~1400

“Come here.”

“Colonel.”

“Lieutenant, give me your hand.”

She didn’t lack the temptation, but - “At any moment, someone can walk in.”

“So Breda will let us know.”

“It’s really… it’s all right, I’m all right. Your coat… it’ll be enough.”

“No…” From his seat, he reached blindly for her hand. “Come here. ….just rest now.”

A mixture of determination, ire, concern, and adrenaline surged through her veins. Rebecca Catalina was hellbent on finding Riza, but even hell hath no fury like a woman on a mission to find her comrade-at-arms, her closest friend…  

The only sister she’s ever known.

After victory was assured, amidst the mayhem, literal hours went on trying figure out which hospital Riza and the Colonel had been sent to and her heart plunged, desperation brimming at the cusp, because only Mustang’s wellbeing had been reported. What about his adjutant, the Lieutenant? She had asked. The blonde who was always next to him, where was she? She’s important too. If not more. The hours of radio silence felt like decades, and her exhaustion served to irritate her more than she already was. How difficult was it, really, to find someone who had been in the heart of it all? How do you misplace the decorated matchstick?

Eventually, coms were re-established and she pestered a military police officer who wasn’t shit. She successfully coerced the “sensitive information” she needed from the MP, commandeered the nearest vehicle she could find, and Rebecca floored it soon after.

Surprisingly, the roads maintained orderly traffic, but her destination… this hospital could only be properly described as jungle. The outside was busy with temporary medic tents erected outside of the building. The sheer amount of people, the amount of blood, the amount of disorganization. She faltered, momentum lost as the reality of their actions began to set in. She weaved through rushing doctors in bloodied coats, patients hobbling in crutches, and the injured yet to be processed.

Inside, the chaos crackled through the atmosphere like lightning with thunderous volume. Orders were shouted. People were crying, searching for relatives, hoping they were alive. The noise overwhelmed her internal ramblings. For that one second stolen breath, she thought to herself any one of these could have been Riza: wounded, missing an arm, or worse, killed in action.

Mustang’s battle had been won, to be sure, but it was the footsoldiers, the normies, and the people that didn’t use alchemy that took the brunt of someone else’s ideals. They were the ones that got burned. Each day that Riza was in Central, Rebecca worried that one day she might not call back. She threw away the notion that soldiers died valiantly for their cause, because no death was valiant enough to ever vanquish Riza Hawkeye. The feeling that she would possibly not come back felt like a knife to her ribs.

In between skirting through throngs of people, Rebecca wondered the extent of Riza’s injuries. She was thankful when she wasn’t immediately redirected towards the morgue, but her blood pressure began to rise at the thought she had sustained injuries for him. Her friend’s indomitable loyalty to the Flame Colonel was a mystery, despite her full disclosure as to why. No matter the amount of pleading Rebecca would do, Riza would not be moved; even when they went so far as to place her in a fucking hostage position as the Fuhrer’s - well, former Fuhrer’s assistant, she thought savagely as she turned down another corridor.

At the end of it, an innocuous pair leaned casually against the wall, but Rebecca knew a post when she saw it. Fuery noticed her quickly enough and Breda stood at attention soon after.

She didn’t care how she must look to the two of them, storming down the hallway at full tilt, hair a mess and blood staining her pants.Hands on her hip, she asked, “Are they in there?”

The older one raised his eyebrows. “They could be.” He turned to look down the hall. “Or they could be elsewhere.”

It was not the answer she was looking for. Her vexed glare shifted to the smaller one, “Is she in there?” Honestly, it was all she cared about. But if he was in there, she would be too.

She saw the Adam’s apple bobbing in Fuery’s throat. Rebecca had heard from Jean he’d been sent to the front lines in the south, but no matter how many times that crossed her mind, he still looked like a kid just out of the academy.

Breda sighed loudly as Fuery’s saving grace. “They’re both in there,”  Breda interrupted as he stepped forward. He dipped his head with his unfortunate haircut, urging her to do the same. “But it’s on a need to know basis. Better if they’re not disturbed,” he said lowly.

Rebecca scoffed. “For the love of-” She was interrupted by stretchers being carried past them, like a procession. Some were covered. She whispered with exasperation, “What, are they fucking in there?”

Fuery choked inelegantly and Breda’s brow flattened. “If you have to, then go in quietly. They’re refusing treatment until everyone else is taken care of. Pretty reckless if you ask me, considering the Lieutenant’s condition.”

Rebecca began to vault forward and she nearly tore off the arm that was set in front of her.

“We’ve already tried to convince her.” Breda’s voice betrayed the exhaustion she knew they were all feeling, in the comedown from hours of adrenalin and gunfire.  “She refuses to get seen until he does and vice versa. If you really know her, then you know how stubborn she is - both of them are.”

Rebecca frowned.  

“But there aren’t enough doctors to go around,” said Fuery, as if he caught on to her displeasure in Breda’s answer. “There are too many wounded, even more dead,” he continued solemnly, like he knew it first hand. She supposed he did. The field of battle today wouldn’t have been a far cry from his stint in the south.

“Go in, if you can promise to be quiet.”

She rose an eyebrow that said, “Me? Quiet?”

The two of them glared at her, clearly not buying it.

She threw up her hands in surrender, and after a moment he opened the door for her.

She walked into a small room, the kind of waiting rooms designed for family members to privately wait for a relative’s operation or the like. When the door closed behind her, it was as if the maelstrom outside simply faded away into obscurity. Here, the room was washed in a softer spring light. It was a significant contrast to the hard, sterile fluorescents outside, free from the turmoil outside, like a separate, tranquil haven from the rest of the world. In here it was like the Promised Day was a figment of her imagination; a hazy machination conjured up in the midst of a fevered dream. It made no sense for such an undisturbed space to exist alongside the events of today.

Until, she spotted them and her heart pulsed out of her chest.

In the corner, crowded on one of the more comfortable armchairs, they rested, curled up against each other. They were unmoving and silent, but their sounds of sleep filled the room once she toned out the noise outside. She stepped closer. Her muddied boots suddenly seemed far too loud - but they didn’t stir.

There was so much blood; it horrified her. It splattered on her friend’s cheeks, stained her clothes and hair, and smeared his hands; which, she realised had deep cuts in the middle of them. The blood had obviously congealed in an effort to stem the flow of bleeding, but Rebecca could still see it glistening on the back of his hands, sluggish and dark with oxidisation. Despite his injuries, his hands clasped over her sleeping figure in a protective hold like she was his lifeline or better, to hold her steady while she was wearing so thin.

It couldn’t have been very comfy, she surmised, huddled together like with the cuts and blood and sweat, limbs bunched up over his. She studied Riza’s face, pale and anemic, even under the softer afternoon light; how her ashen complexion only served to highlight the dark and sagging skin under her eyes - like she hadn’t slept well for weeks. Her expression told another story. The lines Rebecca had become familiar with were gone. The tension in her body had vanished. It looked like it was the best damn sleep she’s had in a long time. And he wasn’t wearing that stupid coat because she was.

Crossing arms over her chest, Rebecca favored and shifted to one leg, sighing, and without wanting to, Rebecca smiled.

The sneak, she went and found herself a nice man in Central before her.

a/n: MEGA BIG SHOUTOUT TO @tsaritsa who basically shaped and shined this better than i had it. ilysm. AND BARBARA. KSDFJHDJKSFHSJ YOUR WORK IS CONTINUOUSLY INSPIRING ME ;_; ilysm too kfdjhdjkfhs (wheres my moon emoji)

[scentedsublimehologram]

Serial Number For Stage Plot Pro

Serial Number For Stage Plot Programming

Serial Number For Stage Plot Project

Serial Number For Stage Plot Processing

Serial Number For Stage Plot Proposal

Let me offer a recent, real life example of why sending an up to date stage plot and input list when advancing is critically important.

Stage Plot Pro 2.9.8 Serial Number Key Welcome to SerialCore.com your number one source for the latest serials! We are a new surfer friendly serial site without annoying advertisements, updated almost every day to make sure you find the serial number key code. That you are looking for:). Question: Q: Logic Pro 8 Serial number HELP!! My G5 recently died on me. (I think it's the power supply, but that is another story entirely!!). Stage Plot Pro 2.9.8 Serial Number Key. Welcome to SerialCore.com your number one source for the latest serials! We are a new surfer friendly serial site. Stage Plot Pro Serial Number 13 stage plot pro serial number stage plot pro serial number mac stage plot pro 2.9.5 serial number stage plot pro serial number windows serial number stage plot pro 2.6.1 Mac version 2.9.8.2. Windows version 2.9.8.1. Stage Plot Pro: 13-Mar-2018: 2,263 KB/s. All retail software uses a serial number or key of some.

We had a fly date into a festival in San Francisco, with a tight window of arrival. Our window became even tighter when our flight out of LAX was cancelled, and we were bumped to a later flight, now arriving across the bay in Oakland. It was one of those moments on the road where things are out of your control, and travel is either going to work out, or it isn’t, so it’s best to simply relax. With pre-arranged ground transportation botched, the festival hustled and sent us a runner van to get us on site. With traffic from Oakland into San Francisco, we ended up arriving on site 29 minutes prior to stage time. Woof.

There is a certain due process to arriving on site at a festival. Artist check in, meeting up with the festival liaison, getting your bearings, settling into the dressing room, checking in with production, checking in with backline, loading or crossloading gear to stage, building gear, grabbing a bite to eat, potential press, using the bathroom, etc. The picture that I am trying to paint is that there are a lot of things that happen before your set, and when you arrive so close to set time, things you have done in advance become even more important.

Walking onto stage, it was as if an ethereal force had descended and backline, monitors, and mics were all placed exactly where they needed to be. How did it get to be this way? How did they know to put it like this? Allow me to introduce you to the Stage Plot and Input List.

The stage plot is a visual representation of how gear is organized on stage. What do you need to include when creating a stage plot?

Band name – Imagine not putting your name on the plot if you are playing a festival with 100+ other bands. You want people to be able to find and utilize your plot, right?

Serial Number For Stage Plot Programming

Date – I like to title things with the season and year. IE:Summer 2015. This allows the person receiving the plot to know that what they are looking at is current. If it is dated Fall 2012, and it’s Winter 2015, audio begins to question the validity of the plot they are looking at.

Contact information – the production contact for your band. Your name, role, phone number, and email address should suffice. Put it right on the plot. No one wants to dig up an email to find your info.

Names of band members – People don’t always use it, but sometimes it’s nice to have the people you’re working with for the day know your name when you are thousands of miles away from home. First name and instrument does the trick.

Ok, so the above is important in its own way, but this is the part that really matters.

Placement of gear – use labeled shapes to show where a piece of equipment is going to live on stage. Guitar, Bass, Drums, Keys, Horns, Vocals, Doom Reverbinator, Strings, etc. Doesn’t have to be fancy; simply write it in a box, and plunk it down where it’s going to be set.

Placement of monitors – use labeled rectangles (IE: Monitor 1, Monitor 2, etc.), and number the monitor mix. Place the rectangle in front of where the player will need their monitor positioned. On a separate page, you can include notes for the monitor engineer, as far as what a player wants in their mix.

Placement of power – Until future technological developments arrive, we are tethered to the archaic system of “power cords” where we have to “plug in.” Wireless electricity, can you get here already? Need to plug in an amp? Need to plug in a pedal board? Need power for something else? Denote where you need to plug in on your stage plot. Oh, shit! What kind of power do you need? Are you using American or European gear? Bollocks, we haven’t the step down convertors!

Placement of mics – Maybe you are cruising with a non-standard piece of equipment. Telling the engineer how you want a mic placed (on axis, off axis, distance, etc.) helps them work more efficiently and quickly. This means more time for your sound check or line check. Is your singer on wireless? Make it known. Need an extra long XLR? What kind of mic stand do you want? Boom? Straight? Include all of that information either on the stage plot or input list.

To be even more specific, I’ve seen people label their plots with measurements of how things should be laid out. I encourage you to do this. Someone will appreciate it. Additionally, actual photographs of your stage layout are useful and provide a true visual for those setting things up before your arrival. Keep in mind that fine tuning will be required upon arrival. These documents are simply meant to get things close.

Serial Number For Stage Plot Project

The input list describes to an engineer what each channel is being utilized for. In the left hand column you will see ascending numbers. These are the channels that are being used. In the middle column, you will see what is being utilized on that channel. In the right hand column you will see what microphone we have requested, to mic or DI that element. For example, input #1 is the kick drum microphone placed inside of the kick drum. We’ve asked the engineer to use a Shure Beta 91a. Sometimes the house will not have certain mics available, and you will have to be flexible, unless you are traveling with your own mic package. Further, but not included in the example above would be effects that an engineer could apply to certain channels. I’ve seen where people will specify compressors, or gates on certain channels. I tend to let the engineer do their thing, and if something is grossly inaccurate to my ear, I will tastefully let them know.

**Please for the love of God, if you are a local engineer, do not put any vocal delay in the house mix unless explicitly requested. That is the peeve of all pet peeves. I will never understand the thought process that is occurring moments before letting that delay rip-roar through the lead vocal channel. Why would you ever do that? Reverb is commonly requested, but delay… NEVER!!

Full disclosure: I am not a FOH nor a MON engineer.

Serial Number For Stage Plot Processing

There are a slew of resources available online, both free and paid, to put together both. I personally have enjoyed success using Google Draw that is available for free in Google Drive. It is simple, intuitive, and has all the options one could want to effectively create a stage plot. The examples I provided above were created using Google Draw. Photoshop is another option, but it is more complicated, and costs money. I try to use the K.I.S.S. system whenever possible. Keep it simple, stupid.

Serial Number For Stage Plot Proposal

Stage Plot Pro is another option, and can be checked out here. I’ve personally never used it, but if you search stage plot in Google images, someone certainly has.

If all else fails, you can actually DRAW a stage plot. Crude, but it gets the point across and it’s better than nothing. (Photo credit: RockOnColorado.com)

As far as making an input list, any word processing software will do the trick. Simply create a table and wa-lah!

///

Sometimes despite sending an updated plot and input list, the engineer is looking at an ancient technical rider that has somehow made its way to them. That is the worst feeling when you arrive and see lines run to the tune of an old plot. Despite your best efforts, unintentional sabotage does occur. I like to keep a stack of correct stage plots and input lists on hand for arrival. Make it a priority to provide management and your booking agent up to date copies of your technical rider to avoid this issue. These documents are only useful if you can get them in the hands of a skilled production staff.

///

I highly recommend checking out Mark Workman’s book, One for the Road: How to be a Music Tour Manager. He is the one who turned me onto using Google Draw to create a stage plot, and I would be remiss if I did not give credit where credit is due. It’s a great read if you are fascinated by this subject matter, and I can’t recommend it enough.

[darkmoondancer]

A promise & dA/griffia drama

The promise & an explanation

So, you might have no idea what this post is about, or have any context to understand it. If that’s the case, it’s okay. It’s not actually important then. This post is for the huge amount of my past, current, and future clients who have commissioned works from me for the Deviant Art, Art RolePlaying Game, known as Griffia. Structural changes to that game have left some of you being extorted by that game’s owner for more money. In that extortion some of the public relations spin by said owner has put some entirely false but very public blame on me. So firstly. If you have ever bought art from me for this game. Please know, that I deeply did and still do appreciate your business and regardless of any and all drama over there, you can always reach me here to support your purchase. You bought character art from me, if you need more art, I am committed to fulfilling it. I simply can’t do it for free though, but I’ll do my best to help you out. I’m sorry I can’t do more, but despite the “spin” that griffsnuff (owner of the game) has put on this debacle I am not at fault and simply can’t afford to indulge her. I am not abandoning you and please don’t take anything said about me in places I can no longer defend myself as truth. Please just come speak to me. Secondly. Below is the full text of my last letters to griffsnuff and the first in bad faith. It is both exculpatory and personal. It’s not exactly something I’m proud of, but I feel as both an act of self-care and of conscious, it is something I needed to put out in the most wide reaching manner I have. But, there is a character limit on Deviant Art, and I am not exactly a concise writer. So here it is. If you have no idea what any of this post is about, I’m sorry to hurl it upon you. Trust me, you’re better off not reading it. It’s mostly drama.

The Open Letter

I'm not going to beat around the bush about this, but you are very much cornering Qvi, as well as all of the rest of us GAs or ExGAs, and in addition to that you are dismissing Qvi's very valid concerns. (Replying to this comment chain: here)

You are functionally forcing us to re-upload art that we may already have hosted, (or given our permissions for your old MLs to host), or else hazard looking like we don't value our past customers if we don't. By limiting art to the original artist's gallery, you aren't providing any sort of option for people to get permission to rehost art, especially when it comes to reference sheets, batch uploads, deleted artwork, and variations or edited artwork! In this way, you are very much cornering us. You are strong arming us and using this as an excuse to rip off your most loyal players.

This could easily have been avoided if you had taken ANY sort of courtesy to contact us GAs/ExGAs before the VML went live, and make any effort to sort something out that worked for all parties involved.

Why were we not contacted in any form to try to find some sort of amiable solution? Full disclosure: I am pissed off about not being contacted. I am pissed about being fired in the GA purge when you told all of us that you would be contacting us(GAs) again in the new year. You didn't even have the courtesy to reach out individually and tell us 'thanks for your efforts but we aren't asking you back'. You chose to let us sit there with our hopes up for months on end in silence? That's a dick move. Now, when some of us have moved on, or are in the process of trying to, we are being contacted by past customers about a game we might not even play anymore (because it broke our trust and our hearts) all because you decided to put up new random rules on your website? A website that is actually displaying direct image links[1] instead of doing something sensible like coding in a pop-up permissions window that shifts the upload liability to the user instead of the site? You know? Like every modern website doing business inside the bounds of effective DMCA enforcement? Which, FYI, you clearly are not within. I'm not either, as a Canadian. Youtube and DeviantArt are, as corporations existing... INSIDE AMERICA! And don't mumble about WIPO, it's a freaking diplomatic tool, not an actively enforceable legal instrument! Neither is the DMCA, in practise. But that is way beyond the scope of this rant. Seeing as you'd need to have a basic understanding of the history surrounding DMCA and the ensuing voluntary policies put in place as a protective measure by the pre-tech bubble western tech hegemony against the insanity that is the actual base law. Which clearly evidenced by your own words and actions is leagues beyond you. That being said, I am not upset with my customers, or anyone who has contacted me in hopes of getting their art sorted out. I am all on-board to help them get things working, because I respect them and am grateful that they supported me in the past and bought my art. However, I am sick of the abuse that players, mods/exmods and GAs/ExGAs continue to endure in this community simply because you keep changing your product on a whim. Griff, these customers bought art that represents a character in your game from someone you granted license to do so. This art was expressly sold for use in your game, which includes being hosted on the game's ML. All art that GAs made for your game was sold to the customers, as a product that works within the World of Griffia. This was explicit by your own actions, words, declaration and by the license you implicitly extended to your agents. Your employees, the GAs! You know, the people you paid with licensing rights to do work for you? Licensing rights that had DIRECT monetary value! The people you also paid with access to monetary instruments known as proxy currencies, or by game speak, ITEMS! For fuck sake, you prattle on about DMCA while ignoring the actual laws you are beholden to? How in the hell have you not seen the rulings on digital goods that can be exchanged for real money?!? You are Norweigan! You are PART of the fucking European Economic Area. Those portions of EU laws explicitly apply to you! THEY ARE LAWS REGARDING ECONOMIC ACTIONS! How can you be so comfortable quoting laws with such blatant inaccuracy? And now, through all of this, you are telling your customers that it is not your problem? If they don't get to use the art they purchased with real money, in the context it was bought for, then they are clearly suffering a loss. Their character is being devalued by your actions unless they give YOU money? Their investment, as is the case with a great deal of players, is now worth less! They have no other option other than to suck it up? To deal with the n/a page or to pay a now select-few artists (your agents, your employees) real money to fix it? To give you or your agents money or suffer the consequences of a depreciated asset? And make no mistake, your "guest artists" are your agents. They are your employees. Just because you don't understand the most basic principles of money doesn't make it any less so. You are paying them in rights. Your most loyal fans (customers) now must shell out even more money to get a new rebase, or draw themselves new art that can't go in this official slot at all? The least you could do is allow people the option to make themselves a rebase on your official bases that can count as official art. 

On top of it all, you aren't actually providing credit to the original artist since you just have direct image links. Embedded images that only exist so long as dA continues to host that particular library file. Images that don't even link back to the artists original post, but steal it directly from the hosting infrastructure[1]!?! Hosting infrastructure that will clear eventually. Whether by an inactive user, scheduled maintenance, or malice, the links will die. Data costs real money. Somewhere in the world it is taking up warehouse space. Regardless of whether it's a digital set of bits on a storage drive. It costs actual money to host. Likely the real reason you don't want to host the images yourself? The DMCA explanation is gibberish, at best, as noted above. So no, dA isn't going to be hosting the current image files forever, and yes, you will inevitably have images go missing again, which means you are going to be right back at square one (missing images because they got deleted), which is what you've been trying to say you are attempting to avoid this whole time! Asking for a 'stable dA link' is literally nonsense. An entire point of having your own website for a game like this, is so that you are not dependent on dA hosting your stuff… and yet you are making this exact mistake again. You are making a mistake, while in the same breath, freaking out about that exact mistake? Are you insane? You are integrating automation and other features, but to have waited a whole year to see that this new VML doesn't even provide credit to the original artist (either by text, via link-through, or ANYTHING), and be greeted with arbitrary restrictions like no background, no pets, only individuals AND all has to be posted by only the original artist specifically only on dA galleries… AND to be followed up with dismissals that hosting this art is our own problem, when it's in fact all for YOUR game… and to support YOUR livelihood… I'm infuriated that I'm not seeing you taking any responsibility for this or respecting your customers for having put money into your game economy by buying a product that's value was solely granted by it's rights of use within your game! You keep breaking your promises, Griff, and there's only so much ground left to stand on.

I feel like you are not only being flippant towards us GAs/ExGAs, but trying to make this the GA's problem. Is this just so you can hide from your responsibility and milk even more money of your most loyal fans? Some of us aren't even a part of your team anymore and don't have any obligations to your game whatsoever. But you're trying to sell some bullshit to shift the blame regardless? You are breaking your promises to YOUR customers, who are trying to play in YOUR game! Before you go saying that I'm simply blaming all of this on you directly, Griffsnuff… I am. Griffsnuff, you are the owner of Griffia. I don't give a flying fuck what your godly levels of gibberish have to say otherwise. Especially since the words included in that gibberish changes with the seasons of your feelings. You ultimately carry all blame. Responsibility ultimately falls on… that's right… you! You are the owner. That is how reality works, and I agree it sucks, but that is the responsibility you take on when you decide to run a business. You can't keep telling everyone you are doing this all with the intent to have fun and make a game for you and your friends to play. No. If this was all for fun, you would not be selling characters… for large amounts of money… that explicitly say in them that they can be used in this game… and encouraging people to buy these characters to play in this game with you…. That is literally a business. (A proprietorship is still a type of business, so yes, even you as a singular artist are running a business when you sell anything!) So if you're upset that people are expecting to continue to use their characters within your world… who made up the rules that the characters could be sold into your world? You did. You allowed us GAs/ExGAs to freely make in any capacity, quantity and quality the species that you assigned us, as well as Rebases in literally any form/style/quality/etc we wanted. So long as they were on a transparent background, were solo, and at least vaguely followed (when you could be arsed to double check) the non-existent species information that you scribbled across three groups, countless stashes, and numerous google docs. Yes, eventually even you, started to realize that not giving us structure and real (consistent) written rules to follow was starting to backfire on you. It seems you even finally realized that you were giving away actual value. You were in fact using licensing as a proxy for cash. I think even you realized you were losing money out of your own pocket from your utter failures to comprehend your own decisions. But wait, this is the part where it's everyone else's fault right? Wrong. You gave out those license rights. You told people that they were buying a shiny special character design that could do things based on their status, subtype or species. Then you were surprised that people were upset that you made yourself out to be a liar when you changed those things to have less value? You allowed GAs to make as many of their designs as they wanted… and then act surprised when the market tanked because suddenly there was more supply than demand for any given thing? You create new and exciting things with nothing more than whimsy and then act defensively when people get upset with you when you randomly alter your half baked ideas?

You have created all of this for yourself. 

TL;DR: You have clearly, and repeatedly, over many years shown a complete inability to comprehend markets, or market forces. Regardless of creed, philosophy, or ideology the inscrutable fact is that Griffia is first and foremost a market. Griffia is not art. Griffia is not stories. Griffia is not a game. It is a marketplace in which people (yourself included) create stories, play a game, and trade art. Trade makes a market. Gravity makes apples fall. The sun makes life possible. Your job, your profession, and your livelihood is the production and management of this marketplace. The ramblings in which you lament otherwise are no defense from reality. You sold a marketplace, to sell your art. You hired artists to work for you and paid them in licensing rights. Your incompetence left buckets of money on the table, and when you finally noticed it, your reaction is to fuck over every one of your customers who didn't predict the future collapse of your idiocy? Fuck you, Griffsnuff. 

I'm done giving you my attention, my effort, my work, and all the space you have rented in my brain over the last 3 years. I would have been better off dedicating that time to literally anything else. I only have myself to blame for sticking around for so long and continuing to hope that maybe things would improve. 2 years ago, I told you all of this in less jargon and kinder words[2] because I wanted to help you grow. A year ago, I despaired and wrote you a second letter[3], urging you to reconsider your actions and warning you that you were leaping off a cliff-face. Today, 3rd time is the charm and I'm fucking done. This letter was for me, not for you. I'm so fucking done. This is where I draw my line. I hope for their sake, that others do so too- players, mods/exmods and GAs/ExGAs alike. They deserve to be treated with respect, not whatever this web of constant lies, broken promises, ass-kissing, randomly enforced unwritten rules, favouritism, and arbitrary yet crushing lore/anatomy changes is pretending to be. This is my third and final letter I will write to you Griff, as I fear it yet again will fall on deaf ears as my second one did. I sincerely hope you will read it, and take the time to thoroughly understand it. But I doubt it. Past clients, I'm still supporting you. I'm only done with Griff and Griffia, not with you. Check my blog here for the preamble to this letter where I address this.

PS: I would like you to answer 'one' question. If I choose to leave dA entirely to get away from this mess of a game once and for all, how do you propose to deal with the artwork I made for others? How will you honour that agreement? The agreement in which you licensed me to make art for your customers in exchange for services rendered. How will you cope with your resentment that you lost a bunch of money because you are shitty at your fucking job? The one where you run a marketplace for art governed by licenses you don't understand? It certainly wouldn't be fair to punish your customers by taking away their access to the art they bought from me. But, that seems to be your current choice? You have currently cornered everyone and provided no solution for those who are affected. If I were to simply go through and delete all my artwork or account to get a fresh start what would happen? If granting them permission to rehost my artwork isn't enough, and granting your past MLs permission to do so isn't enough, and granting your current VML permission to use any and all Griffian art I have made up until today isn't enough… then I'm at a loss. Is your completely mindless understanding of a set of laws that doesn't affect you, enforced by a policy guideline voluntarily adhered to, and failed to be managed by you due to sheer ignorance, going to stop you from doing what's right? So my 'one' question?

Are you really willing to be an extortionist? Because, despite your massive inability to comprehend reality, I suspect at the very least you can wrap your head around the facts. If you continue this tact; You are simply and plainly extorting your most loyal players while lying to their faces about your intentions and covering it all up with blatant defamation of your past artists. You are telling people that if they don't give YOU money, the things they own, will be worth less. By any and all moral definitions, that is extortion.

PPS: Now legally? Well holy shit that is WAY more scary seeing as how you are Norwegian and are not as protected by the disgusting monster that is crony capitalism. You NEED to see a Norwegian corporate lawyer regarding your legal requirements of disclosure. Because, according to your own nations Criminal Code (as translated to English) "Chapter 25. Extortion and Robbery", if you are altering the marketplace in an unlawful manner then you are using "unlawful conduct" as a tool to cause another party to suffer "loss". The unlawful conduct being your actions and the loss being the devaluation of artless characters in a market (in your words "a game") about character art. You could be facing your nation's minimum sentence of prison time for extortion. How strong are your consumer advocacy groups? How focused are your cops on white collar crime? How much do you trust your law enforcement to protect individuals over business interests? Morally speaking you are clearly extorting people, but you need a lawyer to give you advice on whether you are doing so criminally. You absolutely fucking need to go see a lawyer! In your own country!! To see if you are even allowed to abruptly change a market in this way. Your nation will have its own complex legislation prescribing your conduct as a market provider. It will likely fall under contract law. PPS:PS: Please keep in mind, when you do your due diligence (reading your own countries laws) before doing the smart thing and talking to a lawyer, that in legal writings, subsequent statements and sections are subservient to the prior. Seriously, go see a lawyer. You could be in actual real danger. The minimum sentence for extortion is jail time with the option of a fine in addition! (Not even touching the whole loot box/winning flower/treasure bean stuff that you are laughably under protected from if other EU web presences are to be used as an example.)

I'm not an expert, but I can read. You should too. Then pay a fucking expert.

[1] Inspect the source and URL, WIXMP is Wix Media Platform, the backbone of the DA hosting architecture. They switched to it while ramping over for the move to Eclipse. [2] The first letter, written in good faith.

[3] The second letter, still in good faith, but much more upset.

[webart-studio]

Why You Ought to Begin a Enterprise Solely Whereas You Have a Job

If you’re dreaming about beginning your personal enterprise, I say go for it — however do it correctly!

December 17, 2018 7 min learn

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their very own.

Many individuals that I meet inform me that they dream of beginning their very own enterprise. I at all times ask them, “Then why not?” They sometimes reply by saying that they’ve so many monetary and private duties, that they cannot simply give up their job to begin an organization, and many others. Then I inform them my story …

Associated: Tips on how to Use Your Present Job to Begin Your Subsequent Enterprise

I had an incredible job within the monetary providers business and labored with unbelievable individuals, however one thing was lacking. I had real-world duties like everybody else, however I actually needed to do one thing I used to be captivated with. Life’s challenges started to stack up: the monetary disaster, a divorce and lots of of my shut pals getting laid off from their company jobs. By these experiences I used to be decided to achieve management over my very own destiny.

At across the similar time, I noticed the famend British polar explorer Robert Swan communicate in New York. Swan is the primary individual in historical past to stroll to each the North and South Poles and one of the crucial essential environmentalists on the planet. He lives by his coronary heart. His ardour for his life pushed me towards a change. I knew one factor: Finance wasn’t for me. I frolicked reflecting on the concept that if I might get up day-after-day and do precisely what I liked, what would that appear like? I liked journey. I liked historical past. And I liked unbelievable tales of individuals doing the not possible. I made a decision to construct an journey journey firm that may incorporate these three elements. I might construct it on the aspect till it was financially steady sufficient to be my full-time job. My firm, The Explorer’s Passage, took me almost seven years of working nights and weekends on the aspect to make it occur, however it turned a full-time job in February of this 12 months. (Full disclosure: Swan is now one in every of our journey leaders.)

Many profitable corporations began this fashion. Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger labored nights and weekends on their picture sharing app. Their preliminary foray into the market was an app that was just like Foursquare, the place you’ll test into places. Nonetheless, it was not getting traction. They ended up altering their mannequin to images solely and it turned the success we all know at the moment. Having a day job provides you the time and suppleness to hone your corporation mannequin and create a product that might be commercially possible.

Associated: Constructed My Multimillion-Greenback Facet-Hustle Whereas Working a Full-Time Job and So Can You

There are an a variety of benefits to this method. One is that you’re much less more likely to must take out loans, as you possibly can proportion a few of your earnings towards constructing your corporation. Secondly, you’re much less seemingly to surrender priceless fairness to buyers as properly. For me, I needed 100 % management of my firm! Whereas I might need needed to put in additional hours than if I had a accomplice, I now have the liberty and suppleness I craved.

Lastly, it’s estimated that solely 39 % of small companies become profitable over the course of their lifetime. This is a crucial statistic to keep in mind when launching your new enterprise. It’s totally difficult to outlive the ups and downs of the preliminary years with no steady supply of earnings, so you need to plan your yearly price range accordingly.

The British billionaire and adventurer Richard Branson is a grasp at defending his draw back danger. He’s additionally an enormous supporter of the method of beginning a brand new enterprise on the aspect. It’s possible you’ll not have realized it, however lots of his companies, like Virgin Information and Virgin Atlantic Airways, began out as aspect initiatives whereas he was engaged on a separate core enterprise.

This is some recommendation about beginning a enterprise on the aspect:

1. Discover one thing you’re captivated with.

I used to be very lucky to have had an incredible job. Nonetheless, my long-term objectives shifted to residing my passions. You’ll undergo powerful occasions beginning your corporation and I will not lie — it’s extremely onerous. It was my love and keenness for my enterprise concept that made it profitable. Whereas the hours had been lengthy, it didn’t really feel like work. Discover one thing that you just love sufficient so that you just will not thoughts spending your free time on it.

Associated: This Co-Founder’s Former Boss Turned Her Mentor — and Inspired Her to Depart Her Company Gig

2. Simply take a single step ahead.

Many individuals say they do not know the place to begin to launch their enterprise. It is all too overwhelming for them. Simply put one step in entrance of the opposite. Child steps are the important thing! Provide you with the identify of your organization. Work in your firm emblem. These will get issues rolling. The subsequent steps unfold one after one other. While you look again one 12 months later you can be amazed at what you achieved with just some hours of additional work per day.

3. Maintain working onerous at your day job.

There isn’t any assure that your startup might be profitable, so preserve working onerous at your day job. Except for the regular earnings and safety it supplies, you’ll nonetheless have a chance to develop and study every day and you may apply these classes to your personal enterprise. I used to be lucky to work for an unbelievable supervisor who had a deep understanding of danger administration, advertising and marketing and gross sales. This helped me tremendously in constructing my enterprise. Be taught as a lot as you possibly can at your day job.

4. Look to the consultants.

You are not more likely to know the whole lot from the beginning. I’m an enormous proponent of bringing in assist, resembling mentors and coaches, to assist in your entrepreneurial journey. Having different opinions will assist reveal issues that you just may miss. That is the important thing to breaking by to new heights. I discovered this the onerous approach. After my firm launched I used to be having a really troublesome time with gross sales. Whereas I used to be decided to make my firm succeed, I used to be attempting to do all of it on my own. I noticed that if I didn’t change myself then I might fail. I then introduced in coaches and mentors and requested them to take a tough have a look at me. I requested them to assist me change. It wasn’t lengthy after that the gross sales began to return in. My recommendation to you is to hunt out assist. It could actually make all of the distinction.

The day I give up my banking job, I left to run a thriving entity. As a result of I constructed up my firm on the aspect I didn’t need to take a leap of religion. Take your time and solely depart your day job whenever you really feel totally snug. Constructing my enterprise has been one of many biggest adventures of my life. Daily, I get to do what I really like. I did all of it by taking part in it sensible, minimizing my danger, and considering long-term.

If you’re dreaming about beginning your personal enterprise, I say go for it — however do it correctly!

Supply hyperlink

source https://webart-studio.com/why-you-ought-to-begin-a-enterprise-solely-whereas-you-have-a-job/

[technato]

“You’ve Got Mail!” for the 19th Century

As mailboxes proliferated, inventors rushed to devise electrically enhanced versions

Photo: National Postal Museum/Smithsonian Institution

Photo: National Postal Museum/Smithsonian Institution

During the 1870s and ’80s, inventors filed more than a dozen patent applications in the United States for electrical improvements to letter boxes. But why did mailboxes and letter slots, surely among the simplest mechanical devices, have to be electrified? It was primarily a matter of convenience, for people who wanted to know exactly when the mail had arrived and didn’t want to waste time checking.

Free home delivery of the mail had begun in the United States in 1863, but mailboxes were not yet standard. Instead, a postman would knock on the door (perhaps with a handheld wooden knocker), wait for someone to answer, and then hand over the mail. If no one was home, the carrier returned later or the next day. Although this created great trust in the system, it wasn’t very efficient. In 1909, postal officials calculated that on a typical day, carriers made 360 stops and spent an average of 15 seconds per delivery, or an hour and a half a day, simply waiting.

Photos: National Postal Museum/Smithsonian Institution

A Smarter Mailbox: Ephraim E. Weaver’s electric mailbox [front and interior shown here] came with a key that the delivery person could use to ring a bell, signaling that a package had arrived.

Beginning in the 1880s, the U.S. Post Office Department began encouraging people to install a mailbox or letter slot, although they didn’t become a requirement until 1923. (For a nice concise history of the U.S. Postal Service, see The United States Postal Service: An American History 1775–2006 [PDF].)

And so, many of the early patents for electrical indicators for letter boxes tried to replace or augment the postman’s knock. Inventor Henry R. David thought that large office and apartment buildings in cities had a particular problem. His 1875 U.S. patent [PDF] detailed a system of circuits that would inform people in far-flung corners of the building that mail was waiting for them at the main entrance.

Many of the electric letter boxes, including the device that William H. Rodgers described in an 1879 patent [PDF], worked by closing a battery-powered circuit when the postman deposited letters in the box. The circuit would ring a bell inside the house. Sometimes, though, the weight of a single letter wasn’t enough to engage the circuit, as Rodgers noted in another patent that same year [PDF]. The inventor’s improved design engaged the circuit when the postman opened the box. The circuit, after ringing the distant bell, stayed locked in the on position, until the box was reopened. Obviously, Rodgers never imagined that pranksters might repeatedly open and close the box to set off the mail bell.

Charles H. Carter did spot this problem, claiming in his 1880 patent [PDF] that owners of such mailboxes were inconvenienced by “any person raising the lid or inserting any unimportant circular.” In his design, the postman would sound an alarm by means of a skeleton key. Unfortunately for Carter, the Post Office Department issued standards that required mailboxes to, among other things, allow carriers to withdraw and deposit mail “without delay.” A design that required a separate key to indicate delivery was unlikely to be approved.

Carter applied for another mailbox patent that introduced a visual indicator [PDF]. Once a letter closed the circuit, a configuration of electromagnets would expose a flap labeled “mail.” Carter suggested that the flap could also have numbers or other visual cues to call attention to the change in status.

Despite the many patented designs for electric mailboxes, Alice H. Ewing clearly believed there was room for improvement when she applied for a U.S. patent in 1915. Patent 1,228,193 [PDF], issued to Ewing two years later, opted not for a bell or flap but for an electric light. A convenient push button next to the light would reset the circuit.

A great benefit of reviewing the history of invention through patents is that all of the technical details are well documented. But a century or more after the fact, historians often struggle to determine whether a particular idea was ever put into production, unless there is additional supporting evidence. In the case of Ephraim E. Weaver’s 1885 patent [PDF], a surviving mailbox does exist [top photo], at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, in Washington, D.C. (Full disclosure: I used to work as a curator at the museum.) Weaver’s patent was for an indicator for items that didn’t fit in the box and thus didn’t trigger the bell. His electric mailbox came with a key that the delivery person could use to close the circuit and ring the bell.

The box in the museum’s collection doesn’t conform exactly to its patent drawing. Curator Lynn Heidelbaugh reports that it has no external handle like the one labeled “E” in the patent drawing below:

  Image: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Change of Plans: Weaver’s patent for his electric mailbox included an external handle (which he called a “circuit-closing key”), but the actual mailbox didn’t have one.

For now, the inconsistencies will remain a mystery because this particular mailbox was found in the museum’s collections without any associated information. Curators don’t know where it was used or for how long, or whether its owners found it useful. Just as there are limits to the information that can be gleaned from a patent, physical evidence doesn’t always want to give up its story either.

Although electric mailboxes never became mainstream, the idea has recently resurfaced as a playful exercise to teach basic circuit design. For example, Electronics Hub, a website that posts DIY projects and tutorials, has an Electronic Letter Box Project Circuit that uses blinking LEDs as the indicator. Instead of physically closing a circuit, as all of the 19th-⁠century inventions did, this one uses an LDR (light dependent resistor). When a letter blocks the photoresistor, the circuit registers that you have mail.

SparkFun, a company dedicated to electronics literacy, upped the ante with an interactive letterbox for Valentine’s Day cards. It relies on an infrared transmitter to count the number of letters that pass through the mail slot. Upload a bit of code to your Arduino, and the LED counter shows how many letters have been received.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Postal Service has introduced Informed Delivery, which sends customers scanned images of the letters they can soon expect along with notifications of packages. Multiple people at the same address can sign up for individual notifications. The service isn’t yet available everywhere, and it’s not always 100 percent accurate. Critics of the system say it poses potential security risks.

Personally, I still love walking down my driveway to check my mailbox. And on sunny days, when I am looking to procrastinate, I have no problem making that trip more than once. Compare that to my first email account, which currently has over 106,860 unread messages. My work email inbox is marginally better, with 6,067 unread messages. Long ago I turned off any digital indicator announcing the arrival of a new email. There is simply too much. In the prescient patent of Charles Carter, I too prefer not to be annoyed by all those “unimportant circulars.”

An abridged version of this article appears in the June 2018 print issue as “A Better Mailbox.”

Part of a continuing series looking at photographs of historical artifacts that embrace the boundless potential of technology.

About the Author

Allison Marsh is an associate professor of history at the University of South Carolina and codirector of the Ann Johnson Institute for Science, Technology & Society there.

“You’ve Got Mail!” for the 19th Century syndicated from https://jiohowweb.blogspot.com

[chocdono]

The Simplest Trick to Hang a Gallery Wall

Krista is here again today with her latest project — an easy and simple trick to hang a gallery wall of frames. Using this simple hack (with something you probably already have around the house), she was able to hang an entire large gallery wall of 47 frames in just TWO HOURS with zero holes in the wall!

How to Plan and Hang a Gallery Wall of Framed Photos

When I built my home nearly four years ago I knew I wanted to do a gallery wall in my entry. Along the course of construction the size of that wall changed dramatically! The ceiling was supposed to be nine feet, but when the trusses came they were designed to match the second floor ceiling height. Taking my wall and almost doubling it! To say I was intimidated is an understatement.

This wall is no joke! 16 feet long and 13 feet tall! This needed to be a massive gallery wall. My two biggest issues?

Layout

Photo selection

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Planning a Gallery Wall & Choosing Frames

To address the layout I used Google Sketchup to play with balance and arrangement of photo sizes. (You could use any image editing/drawing program, or even graph paper!)

This was the original plan. I didn’t want perfect symmetry, but I wanted over all balance. I started with the center photo, and built around from there. Ambitious right?

Having a plan with the sizes of photos gave me direction for photo selection. Selecting the photos was probably the most enjoyable part of this project! Who doesn’t love looking at pictures of their babies? To be fair I made sure I had equal amounts of photos for each child. I didn’t want the kids to count (because you know they will!) and find that there were more photos of their siblings. That would be a great topic for a therapist someday!

In order for the wall to not be overwhelming I chose to print all the photos, with the exception of the largest center photo, in black and white.

Then I gathered all the frames I already owned, maybe begged a few from my mom, and purchased the rest.

What a delightful hodgepodge of frames! Trust me, I don’t plan on hanging them all in their various hues!

Enter spray paint! I laid them out in the garage placing smaller frames inside larger frames to utilize the over-spray. That helped use the paint more effectively.

  Next I cleaned all of the glass, and placed all of the photos in the frames. I set the frames out on my living room floor according to the layout I created, and adjusted the locations of the photos to account for the differing frame sizes.

A Simple Trick to Hang a Gallery Wall with LOTS of Frames

Now to the scary part! Hanging a gallery wall with 47 pictures! I made a very simple guide that really sped up the process.

I grabbed a scrap piece of 1×3, measured and marked the center. Then I marked one inch increments along both sides from the center.

The second time saver is of course Command Picture Hanging Strips! (and this is not sponsored, just a product we Remodelaholics love!) I recommend removing the support stands from the backs so that the frames sit flat against the wall, and that you pay attention to the weight limits on the Command Strips you are using.

I only used one strip on the majority of the frames I hung, so depending on the size of your frames, you’ll likely want a variety of small, medium, and large picture hanging strips. I placed them centered along the top of the frame, but be sure to follow the directions on the package based on your frame size and layout.

At this point I am sure  you have measured your wall a million times, I know I did! I wanted the colored photo to be the main attraction of the gallery wall so I placed it a little above eye level on the wall.

First I marked the center of the wall.

Then I marked where the bottom of the frame would be (5′). I also made a small mark on the bottom of the frame to help align the frame to the markings on the wall.

I lined up the frame, and with the assistance of my lovely daughter holding the level, I placed the first photo. This step is extremely important! Make sure it is level because the rest of the frames’ placements will be based off of this first frame! Press and hold the frame in place as directed on the package of picture hanging strips.

Next line up your guide with the center of the first frame.

Then with Command Strips in place, align the photo below so that it is centered, and press into place.

Continue around the first frame. I lightly marked the middle of the side of the frame on the wall (since the frame was slightly bigger than my scrap wood piece).

I placed the guide on my mark on the wall, and use the markings on the guide to space the two smaller frames equally from the center.

Then I used the guide to verify the spacing. Repeat for the other side.

Just a side note. You’ll notice that the bottom frame is larger than the top. I used the guide to place the bottom frame first. Then placed the guide to center the smaller frame above the lower frame.

I wanted the negative space around the center frame to be equal around the entire frame. So I placed the guide between the two frames on the wall already. If you have worked with lumber you know a 1×3 is really 3/4″ x 2 1/2″. That means the space between the frames is actually 2 1/2″. I lined up the guide so it was midway between two guide marks, and then placed the new frame right on the line 2 1/2″ from the already placed frame.  I placed another frame to the right, and repeated the placement above the center frame.

I then placed the remaining frames on the right side, and then the left in stages to make sure I maintained balance.

Here I added 2 11×14 frames

Then 4 8x10s above and below those frames.

Next I placed 1 8×10 and 2 5x7s in the upper corners

  I decided to keep the center of these “pinwheel” 5x7s equal even though the frames are different widths, and placed a 11×14 above each.

  Keep adding photos as your wall allows! Mine just kept going!

Here is the gallery wall in all it’s glory! With the guide board this project took about 2 hours to complete, and that includes attaching the Command Strips to the frames. In the end it was more symmetrical than I planned, but I love how it turned out! I just stand in my entry now and remember all of my babies!

  My entry is so much more inviting now! Surprisingly the wall seems much smaller now, which is a relief!

Be sure to pin this to save it for later and share with your friends!

Do you have a gallery wall in your home? How did you plan and hang your gallery of frames? 

Read more about gallery wall decor here:

tips for creating a modern balanced gallery wall

rainbow Instagram collage style frameless gallery wall

40+ free printables for gallery walls

create a kids’ art gallery wall

ideas for decorating with  gallery wall around a TV

  The post The Simplest Trick to Hang a Gallery Wall appeared first on Remodelaholic.

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The Simplest Trick to Hang a Gallery Wall

Krista is here again today with her latest project — an easy and simple trick to hang a gallery wall of frames. Using this simple hack (with something you probably already have around the house), she was able to hang an entire large gallery wall of 47 frames in just TWO HOURS with zero holes in the wall!

How to Plan and Hang a Gallery Wall of Framed Photos

When I built my home nearly four years ago I knew I wanted to do a gallery wall in my entry. Along the course of construction the size of that wall changed dramatically! The ceiling was supposed to be nine feet, but when the trusses came they were designed to match the second floor ceiling height. Taking my wall and almost doubling it! To say I was intimidated is an understatement.

This wall is no joke! 16 feet long and 13 feet tall! This needed to be a massive gallery wall. My two biggest issues?

Layout

Photo selection

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Planning a Gallery Wall & Choosing Frames

To address the layout I used Google Sketchup to play with balance and arrangement of photo sizes. (You could use any image editing/drawing program, or even graph paper!)

This was the original plan. I didn’t want perfect symmetry, but I wanted over all balance. I started with the center photo, and built around from there. Ambitious right?

Having a plan with the sizes of photos gave me direction for photo selection. Selecting the photos was probably the most enjoyable part of this project! Who doesn’t love looking at pictures of their babies? To be fair I made sure I had equal amounts of photos for each child. I didn’t want the kids to count (because you know they will!) and find that there were more photos of their siblings. That would be a great topic for a therapist someday!

In order for the wall to not be overwhelming I chose to print all the photos, with the exception of the largest center photo, in black and white.

Then I gathered all the frames I already owned, maybe begged a few from my mom, and purchased the rest.

What a delightful hodgepodge of frames! Trust me, I don’t plan on hanging them all in their various hues!

Enter spray paint! I laid them out in the garage placing smaller frames inside larger frames to utilize the over-spray. That helped use the paint more effectively.

  Next I cleaned all of the glass, and placed all of the photos in the frames. I set the frames out on my living room floor according to the layout I created, and adjusted the locations of the photos to account for the differing frame sizes.

A Simple Trick to Hang a Gallery Wall with LOTS of Frames

Now to the scary part! Hanging a gallery wall with 47 pictures! I made a very simple guide that really sped up the process.

I grabbed a scrap piece of 1×3, measured and marked the center. Then I marked one inch increments along both sides from the center.

The second time saver is of course Command Picture Hanging Strips! (and this is not sponsored, just a product we Remodelaholics love!) I recommend removing the support stands from the backs so that the frames sit flat against the wall, and that you pay attention to the weight limits on the Command Strips you are using.

I only used one strip on the majority of the frames I hung, so depending on the size of your frames, you’ll likely want a variety of small, medium, and large picture hanging strips. I placed them centered along the top of the frame, but be sure to follow the directions on the package based on your frame size and layout.

At this point I am sure  you have measured your wall a million times, I know I did! I wanted the colored photo to be the main attraction of the gallery wall so I placed it a little above eye level on the wall.

First I marked the center of the wall.

Then I marked where the bottom of the frame would be (5′). I also made a small mark on the bottom of the frame to help align the frame to the markings on the wall.

I lined up the frame, and with the assistance of my lovely daughter holding the level, I placed the first photo. This step is extremely important! Make sure it is level because the rest of the frames’ placements will be based off of this first frame! Press and hold the frame in place as directed on the package of picture hanging strips.

Next line up your guide with the center of the first frame.

Then with Command Strips in place, align the photo below so that it is centered, and press into place.

Continue around the first frame. I lightly marked the middle of the side of the frame on the wall (since the frame was slightly bigger than my scrap wood piece).

I placed the guide on my mark on the wall, and use the markings on the guide to space the two smaller frames equally from the center.

Then I used the guide to verify the spacing. Repeat for the other side.

Just a side note. You’ll notice that the bottom frame is larger than the top. I used the guide to place the bottom frame first. Then placed the guide to center the smaller frame above the lower frame.

I wanted the negative space around the center frame to be equal around the entire frame. So I placed the guide between the two frames on the wall already. If you have worked with lumber you know a 1×3 is really 3/4″ x 2 1/2″. That means the space between the frames is actually 2 1/2″. I lined up the guide so it was midway between two guide marks, and then placed the new frame right on the line 2 1/2″ from the already placed frame.  I placed another frame to the right, and repeated the placement above the center frame.

I then placed the remaining frames on the right side, and then the left in stages to make sure I maintained balance.

Here I added 2 11×14 frames

Then 4 8x10s above and below those frames.

Next I placed 1 8×10 and 2 5x7s in the upper corners

  I decided to keep the center of these “pinwheel” 5x7s equal even though the frames are different widths, and placed a 11×14 above each.

  Keep adding photos as your wall allows! Mine just kept going!

Here is the gallery wall in all it’s glory! With the guide board this project took about 2 hours to complete, and that includes attaching the Command Strips to the frames. In the end it was more symmetrical than I planned, but I love how it turned out! I just stand in my entry now and remember all of my babies!

  My entry is so much more inviting now! Surprisingly the wall seems much smaller now, which is a relief!

Be sure to pin this to save it for later and share with your friends!

Do you have a gallery wall in your home? How did you plan and hang your gallery of frames? 

Read more about gallery wall decor here:

tips for creating a modern balanced gallery wall

rainbow Instagram collage style frameless gallery wall

40+ free printables for gallery walls

create a kids’ art gallery wall

ideas for decorating with  gallery wall around a TV

  The post The Simplest Trick to Hang a Gallery Wall appeared first on Remodelaholic.

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