#i don’t have apple tv and i don’t have a computer so pirating is too much work

[picture-me-in-the-trees]

she (ted lasso dvd box set from walmart) will be mine….

[kylos]

Finding high quality film/tv rips, saving the large files, and screencapping them are half the battle for gifmakers when setting out to make a gifset. Here’s a little guide on this process, including my advice on

Where to download stuff

Where to store your movies/shows

Screencapping programs

Making gifs as HQ as possible, including tips for picking out what to download when you have multiple options (not all 1080p rips of the same movie or tv episode are the same quality and I explain why)

Why screencaps of 4k movies can look weird and washed out and how to fix that

and more

✨ You can find my gifmaking 101 tutorial here and the rest of my tutorials here.

Where can I download movies and shows?

First off, I prefer direct downloading rather than torrenting stuff because it’s faster and with torrenting, there’s more of a risk. Other people downloading the same torrent can see your IP address. This means movie studios can find out you’re downloading their content and can send you a warning letter. The download speed also varies depending on how many other people are seeding it. I would only do it if it’s your only option and you have a VPN or something.

This is THE best guide for pirating I’ve ever seen. I use it for finding sites for books, music, you name it. The part of the guide you’d want to look at is where it says Direct Downloads Link (DDL) sites. My favorite place is Snahp. These ddl sites will have links to their movie/tv rips that are typically hosted on one of these two sites: google drive or mega.nz. You can download stuff from both of those sites for free, but with mega, they have a 5GB file download limit unless you have a premium account. I personally pay the $5 a month membership for mega because it’s worth it imo. You can buy a subscription through the mega app found on the iphone app store (so you’re billed through apple and it’s less scary than giving a random site your credit card info lmao) and as for androids I think mega has an app on there too.

So basically, if you go to http://snahp.it, they’ll have rips for different movies and shows.

You click on the movie title and it’ll take you to a page where they have links for the video which they have uploaded on a variety of sites (including mega).

How do I make my gifs as HQ as possible?

It’s best to gif things that are 1080p. And usually the higher the file size, the better. A really important thing to note is that not all 1080p bluray rips are the same. The piracy groups that rip these files take uncompressed .mkv rips from discs that are anywhere from 10gb to like 50gb, and then run that through video converters to compress the file down so that they’re 2-8gb. Sometimes when that happens, the video quality goes down a LOT. The same goes for TV episodes. One rip could be 800mb, the other could be 3gb and both could claim to be “1080p” but the quality would be NOTICEABLY different. Your best bet is to always pick the rip with the highest file size.

I’ll show you an example with this scene from You’ve Got Mail.

I downloaded 2 different 1080p rip versions of the film. Both claim to be 1080p, but one is 2.41 GB and the other is 9.75 GB. After taking screencaps, it’s obvious that there’s a BIG difference in quality.

(these pictures are best viewed on desktop tumblr)

When it comes to Blu-ray rips, download remux versions of films and shows if possible. Remux means .mkv files that are uncompressed and straight from a Blu-Ray disc. Giffing remux rips cuts down on the possibility of seeing pixel-y effects a LOT in my experience. It’ll take a bit longer to download than typical 1080p rips but it’s worth it imo.

For TV episodes, if you can’t find a Blu-Ray rip, uploads with the word AMZN in it are usually the highest quality and your best bet (unless you see another upload that’s higher in file size - again: always try to pick the highest file size). 'AMZN’ means they’re from a person that ripped the episode from Amazon Prime Video.

Also, even better than 1080p is 4k (2160p). I only really recommend this though if you know you’re going to gif something up close and crop it a lot - like if it’s a big 540x540px close-up gif of a person. You’ll REALLY see the difference if it’s a 1080p vs 4k rip in that situation. I usually don’t bother with giffing 4k files unless it’s the case above because my laptop lags when taking 4k screencaps and it takes longer to load them into photoshop (4k screencaps are usually about 60mb each!)

⭐️ Another thing that’s important is making sure that when you actually make your gifs, you set them to the correct speed (.05 for movies and most shows, and .04 sometimes for reality tv and live broadcasts). Here’s my gif speed guide. Having the right gif speed is really important for making a gifset HQ. You don’t want it to look too slow or too fast.

What’s your favorite video player to take screenshots with?

MPV player, hands down. And I’ve tried a TON of programs over the years. I’ve tried KMPlayer and found that it added duplicate frames (and even missing frames) which is horrible, and I’ve tried GomPlayer which is.....I’m just gonna say it, I’m not the biggest fan of it. It’s a little overly complicated in my opinion and it has ads. If you like these programs, more power to you! Use whatever you’re comfortable using. I just like MPV the most because it doesn’t have ads, it’s simple, you can take sequential screencaps with a keyboard shortcut, and it can play 4k movies.

Screencaps I take of 4k 2160p movies look so dull and washed out, like the colors aren’t right. Why is that?

That’s because your computer can’t handle HDR 4k video files. It probably can handle SDR 4k video files, but unfortunately, 99% of 4k rips out there are HDR.

[picture source]

Now, HDR displays just fine on computers that have 4k-HDR capabilities, but most older computers don’t have this ability. Having said that, MPV - the video player I mentioned above can take a 4K-HDR video and fix the colors/lighting in real time so it displays correctly AND take screenshots of it with the fixed colors. If you have an older version of MPV, make sure you download the newest update for this. In my general gifmaking tutorial, there’s a portion on how to install this program on macs. I also just made a video tutorial on how to install it on pcs here!

High quality TV and Movie rips can take up a LOT of space on my computer. Where do you store your files?

I store them on external hard drives. External hard drives are like flash drives but they have a MUCH higher storage capacity. You just plug them into your computer via a usb cord when you need access to the files and it’s that easy. I have two of these Seagate 4TB hard drives in different colors so I can easily pick out whichever one I need. I have silver for my movies (because it makes me think of “silver screen” lmao and it’s easier for me to remember) and then I just have a blue for shows. Now, external hard drives of this size can be $$$$ but it’s worth it imo. Look out for when they’re on sale.

What’s the size limit for gifs now?

It’s 10mb! It used to be 3mb and then last year Tumblr upped it to 5mb. Some gifs initially had distortion because of Tumblr’s switch from the .gif to .gifv format, but they’ve fixed the problem AND increased the upload limit to 10mb.  Just make sure not to add any lossy to a gif.

Lossy is basically a grain you can add to a gif to lower the file size down. Gifmakers (including myself) used to use this as a trick to get the file size down under 3mb. However, since the .gifv update on Tumblr, any gifs with Lossy added will look distorted like it’s a gif made on a phone app or something.

_________________________________

That’s it for this guide! Again, feel free to check out my other tutorials on photoshop, how to center subtitles, download hq movie trailers, and more ✌️

UPDATE 6/23/20 ⚠️

I’ve gotten an ask about this problem 3 times since I’ve uploaded this tutorial, so I thought I’d add this in. If you are experiencing duplicate and/or missing frames in mpv, it is a glitch with the latest version of mpv. download an older version like 0.29.0. this happened to me on my mac and downloading an older version fixed the problem.

[hellyeahheroes]

“If you are poor how do you have an iPhone”

This is something that was gnawing at me for several weeks by now. Very recently comicbook twitter has gone on an anti-piracy outrage when one of the indie creators found out their comic book, that same one that had to change from selling in floppies to only selling in trades due to low sales, had hundreds of thousands of views on a pirate website. Due to the respect I have for that creator, I want to preface that what I am about to discuss is not a defense of piracy per se. it is not an argument that even applies in a large scale to indie scene that by far avoids some of the issues I will be talking about.

While I would never openly condone piracy, I have found myself playing devil’s advocate on that day out of sheer anger at one very specific argument that I have seen being thrown around by people condemning piracy. The exchange usually went like this - someone would go and try to say that comics are too expensive and that person would then be mocked for posting from their iPhone or another company equivalent. Every time I saw such behavior I have called it out. In some cases, people would apologize upon me explaining why this line of argument is out of the line. But in one a person had gotten furious I dared to question them, quickly devolving to childish insults and outright toxic behavior (the fact this person is an editor at Geeks World Wide made me completely give up on that website). But that is beside the point.

I want to just make it very clear that this “argument” is rooted in classism and, quite frankly, doesn’t even work. Let us explain the latter first

1. Why You Cannot Just Buy A Single Book

First I want to give the benefit of the doubt to the people using this argument. So we will do something dreadful and talk about math. For the purpose of this argument, I’m even going to go as far as not address the fact that even if you buy an iPhone through installment payments, at one point you are supposed to just have finished paying for the hardware. Meanwhile comic books expect you to keep buying if not one title, then hopefully another effectively forever. This fact in itself breaks the whole line of argument; A person could have wrapped up paying for the iPhone long before they ended in a financial situation where they cannot afford even comics. I will be ignoring this to address what I believe to be a steel man version of the argument - the strongest possible interpretation I can imagine. But even if we assume we live in a capitalist nightmare of endless payments, the rhetorics do not hold water.

Currently, on Apple official store, the newest iPhone11 costs you 30 dollars a month, while iPhone11 Pro is for 25$. In theory, the comparison that is presented should therefore work. After all, if you can afford 25$ dollars you can easily spare $5 for a comic book, right? For that price, you could buy as much as 4 comic books each month. Except that this assumption comes from a perspective that in order to read a single comic book all you need to do is buy that one comic book. Which is not the case. Or rather, it might be a case if we’re talking about independent publishers or markets like European or manga. But is certainly not one for Marvel and DC. While the problem is better than it once was we still regularly end in a situation where, in order to understand what is going on in a single Big 2 book, you need to read several others. This is a common case with big events. Let’s take a look at recently finished Absolute Carnage

This event had the gall to ask you to buy seven books and then upped it to nine. Nine comic books roughly 5 dollars per issue is 45$. To buy all of it would be to spend the equivalent of your iPhone11 Pro fee for five months.

Someone might now say that you obviously do not need to read the entire event. But the truth is, you do not really know that when it comes to making preorders. The event comics are deliberately constructed in such a way to trick people into thinking they have to buy all of it to understand what is going on. It was true when they were humongous, reaching even a hundred issues like the first Civil War, and it is true now. And while veteran fans have learned that usually you only need to follow main series and tie-ins written by its writer, even that can be a strain on someone’s budget. It might be that this person could only afford this one, single comic book. So when they suddenly find what might be their only source of entertainment incomprehensible without paying more money, they may face a dilemma. Deny yourself your one source of joy for any duration of time from a month to half of a year. Or quickly pirate that one book you never wanted to and was never interested in buying in the first place until you had the title you were paying for effectively held hostage.

I want to underline this is not just events. The most outrageous case of this issue right now is the X-Men line since Jonathan Hickman’s takeover. Which has become so self-referential you need to read all the titles in order to understand any single one. Without doing it the books become incomprehensible. This is me speaking from experience here. I was only interested in a single title from the initial launch. But the moment I saw characters talking about events from another book in a way that assumes I’m up to speed, I dropped it. 

In order to get into this so-called great new jumping-in point as it launched fans needed to first spend around $20 a month to buy two miniseries for 3 months. And as Dawn of X rolled in, the number of books rose and keeps rising. X-Men, X-Force, bi-weekly New Mutants, Excalibur and Fallen Angels already request you to invest an equivalent of the monthly price of an iPhone11. And they soon shall be joined by Wolverine, Hellions, Cable, X-Men/Fantastic Four and possibly monthly Giant-Size X-Men. Those keeping attention to the math part might have noticed we are a single series (and we are lead to believe there is more than one coming) from X-Men becoming an investment equal to paying for two separate iPhone11s each month. It is proof that the Big 2 has adopted a “more eggs, fewer baskets” mentality. This customer-unfriendly approach to storytelling seems by design prone to weeding out and turning away all but big spenders who can afford to regularly buy multiple books. it is not different from the exploitative systems we find in video games, designed to prioritize so-called “whales”, as the industry came to call people who can blow ungodly amounts of money on a game, over regular customers.

2. The Rhetoric Itself Is Flawed

However, even if the hypothetical scenario presented by people using the “why do you have an iPhone” argument was true, we need to recognize how toxic this argument is. First of all, this whole line of reasoning is out of touch and assumes that a working iPhone is a luxury, while more and more times in modern society it becomes a necessity. I live in Poland and have not encountered this issue yet, I keep hearing of people who simply cannot get a job without having an iPhone. It’s because more and more fields require you to have working company apps or use them to find new workers in the first place. The miniature computer in your hand has become such a utility tool it now is actively getting harder to operate in modern society without affording it. This line of argument only betrays that you are out of touch almost as much as a similar argument being used to claim people who have flatscreen TVs are not “really poor”. Currently, flatscreens are only TVs being produced and sold anymore, cheap for purchase and cheaper to maintain than a full-sized TV long time out of use and with spare parts likely no longer produced.

Moreover, you don’t really know how exactly that specific person’s financial situation is. It may be that yes, they can afford an iPhone out of necessity but it does require them to be on a tight budget. Maybe the phone itself is actually passed on from a family member - speaking here as someone whose every phone ever was such a gift. It may even be that the person had to work extremely hard and save up a lot to afford this phone and simply is not able to expand on their profits anymore. Or, as mentioned above, that they once could and finished paying for the last installment but have fallen on hard times ever since. The list goes on. The crux of it is that you do not know other people’s stories and have no right to hold them to some arbitrary standards without that knowledge.

Which brings me to my final point - the whole argument relies on perpetuating a myth of “properly poor” people. The made-up image of nobly suffering poor who deny themselves any and all form of luxury in life (and remember, we established that the whole argument relies on seeing modern phones as a luxury, not a necessity they have become) to save money to get themselves out of poverty. Not to mention a similar myth of “kindhearted poor” who gladly give up what little they have to help others - the kind media love to perpetuate to distract from how bad the state of society is to lead to this situation in the first place. This not only does mispresent how the whole capitalist system is rigged to make it easier to save money the higher up the financial ladder you climb, but it also does not understand human nature. Human beings aren’t machines and it is impossible to really go through every single day without some sort of relief. Sometimes it may be a video game or a dinner at a fancy restaurant. Sometimes it may be a smartphone. Or a luxury item you never plan to use but just want to have to remind you what your goal is.

Yet our society made a game out of shaming and being judgmental to every poor person who spends even the tiniest amount of money on escapism, on any sort of relief from how stressful poverty is. And, speaking as someone who had panic attacks caused by sudden financial expenses wrecking my monthly budget, it is stressful. We expect people to act as all forms of entertainment and escapism aren’t also contributing to one of our human needs, the need to simply be able to wind down for even a moment, and thus not worth spending money on. Then we judge them if they resort to illegal means to fulfill that need. 

I would go as far as making the argument this is a self-perpetuating problem. This very line of thinking, that poor must be at all times miserable and them spending even the slightest amount of money on anything nice is worth scorn? it is what actively encourages them to resort to piracy even if they could afford to buy comics. They are being constantly told by society they shouldn’t buy themselves anything not essential. And then the society acts surprised when they then fulfill their needs through illegal means to save money. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

I am not making this post to defend piracy. But I think we need to seriously consider what kind of rhetorics is being used to condemn it and what it actually says about people who use it and those who silently nod in agreement.

- Admin

[darrowwyrlde]

So @a-mad-scientist-approaches did this thang with Cards Against Humanity cards and I thought it was so funny I immediately had to do the same...only I don’t have that game so...

Apples to Apples! Tell of the Pines!

Q: How are they feeling today? 

A: Mabel - Obnoxious

     Dipper - Lucky

     Stan - Sensual

     Ford - Explosive

     Fidds - Powerful

     Wendy - Funky

     Soos - Revolutionary 

Huh. Actually quite fitting if I do say so myself. 

Q: What has its gots in its pocketsessss?!!!!

A:  Ford - Computers

     Stan - Tidal Waves

     Mabel - Cholesterol

     Dipper - The Dump

Mabel! Stop hogging all the donuts! And Dipper! You don’t need to be collecting samples of everything!

Q:The @gfhunklescalendar 2019 is going to be...

A:  Popular

Yay! Raise those funds! 

Q: What’s the last thing they’d eat?

A:  Mabel - A Sunrise

     Dipper - Victorian England

     Stan - Buying a House

     Ford - My Neighborhood

Um...I don’t think you can eat those things anyways guys. 

Q: Secretly Favorite TV show is about...

A:  Mabel - Bingo

     Dipper - Angry Hornets

     Stan - Mark Twain

     Ford - Charging Rhinos

Mabel gets WAY into it when the international bingo finals are being broadcasted. 

Q: Mabel’s oddest crush was a...

A:  Boisterous Trampoline

Their love was a flame that burned bright, but was quickly snuffed after recess was over.

Q:______ is the ______ twin.

A:  MABEL is the FANCY twin

     DIPPER is the RESPONSIBLE twin

     STAN is the DELICATE twin

     FORD is the NEAT twin

I love Ford. He’s just so awesome and cool and NEAT! 

Q: The nerds’ latest DDMD campaign involved a......

A:  Mischievous Canadian MTV Pirate

I want to play THAT game! (Someone draw what this even means! Stan’s alter 80s ego )

Q: What do they find most attractive? Being....

A:  Mabel - Peaceful

     Dipper - Puffy

     Stan - Distinguished

     Ford - Cuddly

     Soos - Odd

     Wendy - Nerdy

Oh really Mabel? That’s interesting. Ford, I’m always up for cuddles. Stan, we already knew that after your thing with Susan. “She’s so fancy” or whatever. Ooooo Wendy! You like nerds eh? Well guess what Dipper likes! He likes peeps who are......puffy. Puffy? What....Hey Soos! Good choice! *thumbs up* ....puffy? 

Q: We do not talk about....

A: Oxygen

Okay then...

Q: Absolutely Hates....

A:  Mabel - Loan Sharks

     Dipper - Eleanor Roosevelt

     Soos - Dr. Suess

     Wendy - Emily Dickinson

     Stan - Oprah

     Ford - Michelle Pfeiffer

     Fidds - Beach Parties

Um guys...I didn’t mean people? Soos, I guess I understand you there and Wendy? Is that because you have to read her ‘poems’ for school? Stan...alright I think that might make sense but what did Michelle Pfeiffer ever do to you Ford? Fidds clearly has never been to the right kind of beach party

Q: Dipper’s favorite BABBA song is....

A: Bright French Wines

*GASP* Mine too! sarcasm *cough* sarcasm

Q: Absolutely Loves:

A:  Mabel - My high school prom

     Dipper - State Fairs

     Stan - Losing Your Job

     Soos - Rubber Gloves

     Wendy - Toys

     Ford - Lightning

I think I might be sensing some sarcasm here. Coming from....that direction *points right at Stan* 

[allons-y-to-hogwarts-713]

85 Questions Tag!

Yikes! This is very useful for procrastination from homework. 😉

Thank you @party-with-books for tagging me ❤️😊

Rules: Answer the questions and tag whoever you want (originally 20 people but like… that’s also a lot)

The last:
1. drink: Dr. Pepper
2. phone call: I think my mom
3. text message: also my mom
4. song: “Branded” (when I started) and “No More (Acoustic)” (when I finished) by NateWantsToBattle because my cousin showed me his music a few weeks ago and I am OBSESSED
5. time you cried: like an hour or less ago

Have you ever:
6. dated someone twice: lol I’ve never even dated someone once
7. kissed someone and regretted it: familial maybe, but I’ve never had a kiss on the lips
8. been cheated on: that would require dating
9. lost someone special: Yes, several, but the closest and most recent was my uncle, which is the reason for the crying within the last hour
10. been depressed: perpetually
11. gotten drunk and thrown up: never tasted alcohol, I don’t even like the smell of it

Favorite colors:
12. Blue
13. Slytherin Green
14. Black
15. Magic Mint
16. Dark Red

In the last year have you:
17. laughed until you cried: yes
18. found out someone was talking about you: ...I don’t think so? I’m not sure
19. met someone who changed you: sort of yes, and probably other(s) without even knowing it yet
20. found out who your friends are: Yes?
21. kissed someone on your facebook list: technically? (because I don’t have a FB so my lack of kisses can be applied to my lack of a list)
22. made friends: Yes
23. fallen out of love: as in lost love for certain celebrities, yes, but personally I’ve never “been in love”

General:
25. what did you do for your last birthday: went to Dave and Busters with my parents and a friend
26. how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: All of them, because I don’t have a FB so I know all my zero FB friends
27. do you have any pets: nope, but I’d like to
28. what time did you wake up: around 9:30-10:00am
29. what were you doing at midnight last night: working on homework for my Mandarin Chinese class
30. name something you can’t wait for: seeing Miss Saigon in NYC on Saturday!
31: what are you listening to right now: NateWantsToBattle (OBSESSED)

32: have you ever talked to a person named tom: Several actually
33: something that’s getting on your nerves: lots of things
34. do you want to change your name: no
35. hair color: dark blonde
36. long or short hair: long (but I kinda wanna finally get it cut soon I think)
37. piercings: earrings
38. tattoos: none, unless you count the ones from Racing Stripes Gum that have been applied and removed over the years
39. blood type: I should know but I don’t. But I don’t want the vampires to know what flavor I am anyway so I wouldn’t post it. (Well, there’s a few exceptions...)
40. nicknames: sometimes Kay. (I was given the name 楷莉 in my Mandarin class, so we talked about nicknames today and I guess I’ll go by 楷楷 but only in that class.)
41. relationship status: 🎶everybody’s got somebody but me🎶, and I’m fine with it
42. zodiac: Taurus
43. pronouns: she/her
44. most visited website: This one, but through the app mostly
45. right or left handed: Lefty! 😃
46. surgeries: none that I can think of?
47. sports: umm, mathlete
48. favorite tv show: A LOT OF SHOWS
49. vacations: almost every year with my family to OBX, NC, but idk if we’re going to continue that now without my uncle 😔
50. sneakers: whatever is on sale that won’t fall apart in a week. My newest ones are Vans, but the ones I wore for several years prior were Sketchers and NewBalance

More general:
52. eating: nothing rn, but I recently ate a mini Hershey’s cookies ‘n’ cream bar
53. fave drink: Dr. Pepper, root beer, Mountain Dew Code Red, coffee, tea, EGGNOG, chocolate milk, apple cider
54. what you’re up to: anxiously procrastinating
55. waiting for: better days/a break from all the crap for my family and I, a sense of purpose, a dentist to actually fix my teeth instead of just making them worse, the next Thomas Sanders video, a chance to be in a Broadway musical, etc.
56. want: [see 55]
57. get married: doubtful, which is more than fine with me
58. career: augh idk. Hopefully something in graphic design I guess, since my electives are the only classes I’m actually getting anything out of with this four-year bs b.s. degree in computer science

Which is better:
60. hugs or kisses: hugs if either (at least with my lack of kissing experience)
61. lips or eyes: eyes
62. shorter or taller: no preference
63. older or younger: either? But like a very small age gap either way
64. nice arms or stomach: Both? Both. Both is good.
65. hook up or relationship: solid relationship
66. troublemaker or hesitant: in fictional characters, both, especially if both are in one precious conflicted guy. And I guess even irl, a little bit of both, but small scale trouble, like something that gets me out of my comfort zone that ends up being fun but nothing that’s gonna break a law or get us in any even small amount of actual trouble, so both in one person but weighted toward hesitant.

Have you ever:
67. kissed a stranger: Nope 
68. drank hard liquor: Nope
69. lost glasses/contacts: lost a contact once, but I haven’t lost my glasses which I wear more often
70. turned someone down: yes. Well, I tried to anyway, but it took a while for them to actually comprehend it because I guess maybe I wasn’t quite blunt enough about it somehow because I’m soft spoken and don’t want to be a jerk but also know my right to say no.
71. sex on the first date: No (marriage first (and since I don’t plan on getting married, I’ll likely pass altogether, because that’s actually one of many reasons why I don’t want to get married))
72. broken someone’s heart: No. They might say so, but then that’s their lack of respect for my right to say no as a female, because we were never together for me to have broken their hearts (contrary to the rumor at least one of them spread which was a terrible part of my hs senior year and finalized me not going to prom) [see 70]
73. had your heart broken: yes, but not in a romantic relationship way
74. been arrested: Nope, I’m a good hippogriff
75. cried when someone died: Yes, several
76. fallen for a friend: Not necessarily...

Do you believe in:

77. yourself: lol
78. miracles: yes
79. love at first sight: maybe, but it’s rare if at all, and there’s so much wrongly perceived to be love at first sight that I’d be skeptical anyway even if it actually was. I think you have to know the person to truly love them, and physical attraction by itself usually gets in the way of real feelings and connections or lack thereof.
80. santa claus: 🎶like I believe in love. I believe in Santa Claus, and everything he does. There’s no question in my mind; yes, he does exist. Just like love, I know he’s there, waiting to be missed.🎶 (oh hey look at that, now I’m crying about Mickey Rooney too)
81. kiss on the first date: mayyyyyybe? I’ll let you know if/when I get there
82. angels: yes

Other:
83. current best friend’s name(s): several on here and several in person that idk if I can post
84. eye color: blue
85. favorite movie: too many

I’ll tag: @alys07 @agentmarymargaretskitz @euphoric-melancholyy @karasimmons @swans-and-pirates @cutieodonoghue @hook-come-back-to-me @thegladelf @thesassywitchofthenortheast @techieninja18 @walkmanquill207 @themcuhasruinedme @floridianfireflyfaith @kittennharington @lenfaz @lightsandmetaphors @lieutenantguyliner @captainswansjourney @crowleys-poppet-queen-of-asgard @claravitae @revolting-phantom97 @whatamagicalworld and anyone else who wants to do it, and as always it’s no obligation. 🙂

[stalkhome-sindrone]

All 200 of the asks

200: My crush’s name is: [get fucked]199: I was born in: a hospital in Canada somewhere198: I am really: messed up197: My cellphone company is: Rogers196: My eye color is: Mud brown195: My shoe size is: 10 1/2194: My ring size is: Excuse me?193: My height is: 6 ft192: I am allergic to: my own satisfaction191: My 1st car was: probably crashed in a past life 190: My 1st job was: probably ruined in a past life189: Last book you read: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Heaven by Corey Taylor188: My bed is: really nice at this time of day187: My pet: is not here yet, ask me in a few years186: My best friend: is a bit of a cunt, but aren't we all?185: My favorite shampoo is: no real preference184: Xbox or ps3: Xbox183: Piggy banks are: for losers, get an old fashioned jar182: In my pockets: nothing181: On my calendar: also nothing180: Marriage is: a waste of time and resources179: Spongebob can: see question 200178: My mom: does her best177: The last three songs I bought were? what are the last 3 songs on Hybrid Theory?176: Last YouTube video watched: video about how Louis CK writes jokes175: How many cousins do you have? too many to count here174: Do you have any siblings? 2 stepsisters and 1 brother173: Are your parents divorced? Nope172: Are you taller than your mom? Yup171: Do you play an instrument? Multiple170: What did you do yesterday? Probably what I did today but slightly happier

[ I Believe In ]169: Love at first sight: HA HA HA see question 200168: Luck: Yup167: Fate: To an extent, yes166: Yourself: On good days...who am I kidding, in vey few areas165: Aliens: Why not?164: Heaven: Nopenopenope163: Hell: If this isn't it, nopenopenope162: God: see question 200, also I'm agnostic161: Horoscopes: to an extent, fun reads though160: Soul mates: Jury is out on this one159: Ghosts: Sorta158: Gay Marriage: Hell yea (the best kinda ally is only an ally)157: War: Nopenopenope156: Orbs: ...huh?155: Magic: ...eh

[ This or That ]154: Hugs or Kisses: Both153: Drunk or High: Neither152: Phone or Online: Online151: Red heads or Black haired: both150: Blondes or Brunettes: both149: Hot or cold: neither, warm148: Summer or winter: Summer147: Autumn or Spring: Spring146: Chocolate or vanilla: Vanilla actually145: Night or Day: Night144: Oranges or Apples: Oranges143: Curly or Straight hair: Always been envious of straight hair142: McDonalds or Burger King: Burger King141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: Milk chocolate140: Mac or PC: PC139: Flip flops or high heals: Flip flops138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: Ugly and rich just to try it out137: Coke or Pepsi: Pepsi136: Hillary or Obama: Obama135: Burried or cremated: Pass134: Singing or Dancing: Dancing if I must pick133: Coach or Chanel: ...huh?132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: ...heh?131: Small town or Big city: Biiiiiig city130: Wal-Mart or Target: Walmart129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: Adam Sandler128: Manicure or Pedicure: Both127: East Coast or West Coast: Both?126: Your Birthday or Christmas: Birthday125: Chocolate or Flowers: Both, I'm greedy, probably chocolate124: Disney or Six Flags: Disney123: Yankees or Red Sox: Neither

[ Here’s What I Think About ]122: War: Don't have it, don't support it, conversation works better.121: George Bush: Couple bands wrote some hate songs about him.120: Gay Marriage: IF YOU DON'T SUPPORT IT WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING FOLLOWING ME? see question 200 and piss off.119: The presidential election: AHAHAHAHAHAHA next118: Abortion: AHAHAHAHAHAHallow it, their kid, their prerogative117: MySpace: 10/10 great ironic joke to make116: Reality TV: Big Brother was fun till 2017115: Parents: They were fun till 2006114: Back stabbers: see question 200113: Ebay: ....eh112: Facebook: kinda dead now111: Work: ...huh?110: My Neighbors: cool people, rowdy dog109: Gas Prices: Overcharged like everyone says108: Designer Clothes: Overcharged like everyone says107: College: Not as bad as the perception is106: Sports: ...eh105: My family: ...eh104: The future: It depresses me in all honesty, but so does everything

[ Last time I ]103: Hugged someone: ...shit...102: Last time you ate: 3 hours ago101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: today100: Cried in front of someone: maybe last week...maybe99: Went to a movie theater: 6 months at the least ago98: Took a vacation: 3 weeks ago..sigh97: Swam in a pool: A long ass time96: Changed a diaper: Maybe a few years95: Got my nails done: Maybe a few years94: Went to a wedding: 2 years93: Broke a bone: never, lucky I know92: Got a piercing: never91: Broke the law: 4th grade90: Texted: 1 minute ago

[ MISC ]89: Who makes you laugh the most: My friend Sayem because he is consistently a dumbass and I love him for it88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: banana bread87: The last movie I saw: Amelie 86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: when my new album comes in the fucking mail85: The thing im not looking forward to: tomorrow84: People call me: Donatello actually (y'all are not allowed to) (I'll block you, don't think I won't block you)83: The most difficult thing to do is: be happy82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: nope81: My zodiac sign is: Taurus80: The first person i talked to today was: Might've been @lovelyformylove but I dunno79: First time you had a crush: age 9, it didn't ruin me till 1178: The one person who i can’t hide things from: myself, duh (hide shit from people all the time)77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: maybe today76: Right now I am talking to: nobody (COME HERE)75: What are you going to do when you grow up: make a thing for people to consume or pirate as entertainment...or die first74: I have/will get a job: see question 7373: Tomorrow: but far away is tomorrow?72: Today: I will suffer for who I chose to care about71: Next Summer: I will be in another country [see question 72]70: Next Weekend: I will sleep in69: I have these pets: not yet68: The worst sound in the world: Forks on plates67: The person that makes me cry the most is: easily myself, duh66: People that make you happy: too exhausting a list65: Last time I cried: last week64: My friends are: really great for tolerating me63: My computer is: finally decent62: My School: a waste of a perfectly good Indian burial ground61: My Car: sitting in a dealership, still waiting60: I lose all respect for people who: fuck with people's emotions (I break my own rule because I am a hypocrite)59: The movie I cried at was: ....can't remember58: Your hair color is: Black/really dark brown57: TV shows you watch: Elementary, The Blacklist, Archer...can't remember the rest 56: Favorite web site: this dumb piece of shit, I mean Tumblr55: Your dream vacation: probably a recording studio to be honest54: The worst pain I was ever in was: something stupid and emotional53: How do you like your steak cooked: medium well52: My room is: pretty dark51: My favorite celebrity is: Corey Taylor?50: Where would you like to be: see question 5549: Do you want children: sure48: Ever been in love: tragically47: Who’s your best friend: Jeremy/Sayem46: More guy friends or girl friends: Real life: guys, here: girls45: One thing that makes you feel great is: a really good riff44: One person that you wish you could see right now: myself in 10 years (most answers witm "myself" are cop outs for real people)43: Do you have a 5 year plan: fuck no42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: not yet, but I procrastinate on most important things41: Have you pre-named your children: Michael/Micayla so far, very small shortlist40: Last person I got mad at: myself (that one is authentic)39: I would like to move to: Denmark (escapism capital of my mind)38: I wish I was a professional: composer

[ My Favorites ]37: Candy: Hershey's Cookies n Cream36: Vehicle: pass35: President: Obama I guess34: State visited: nowhere33: Cellphone provider: Rogers?32: Athlete: pass31: Actor: pass30: Actress: pass (I've gone numb)29: Singer: see question 5128: Band: changes, currently Foo Fighters27: Clothing store: pass26: Grocery store: FreshCO?25: TV show: Elementary maybe24: Movie: Ameline currently23: Website: this dumb waste of time, I mean Tumblr22: Animal: TURTLE21: Theme park: Wonderland?20: Holiday: New Year's Day19: Sport to watch: Wrestling probably18: Sport to play: Not wrestling xD17: Magazine: Probably some guitar magazine16: Book: Maybe 198415: Day of the week: Saturday easily14: Beach: haven't been to many memorable ones13: Concert attended: see question 1412: Thing to cook: egg, ham, and cheese bagels11: Food: see question 1210: Restaurant: August 8, no joke9: Radio station: the one with the nice classical music8: Yankee candle scent: pass7: Perfume: Chanel something6: Flower: Magnolia5: Color: Green or red, never at the same time4: Talk show host: John Oliver3: Comedian: Bill Burr or Jim Jefferies2: Dog breed: Beagle1: Did you answer all these truthfully? Yes

[jaredsinclair]

Tune in Next Time for “Last-Minute WWDC Comments” or “Apple Isn’t Doomed to Fail, But Their Future Doesn’t Look as Rosy as Their Past”

I’ve been thinking a lot about Apple’s biggest success stories. The products that mattered all rode currents outside of Apple’s control:

iMac: Internet is ready to spread into every home, but getting a computer and getting it set up (virus free, connected to your printer and your new digital devices like cameras) is too onerous. Apple comes along with a cute box that’s plug and play. Everyone got what they want: ISPs, device manufacturers, customers, and Apple.

iPod: Music industry worried about piracy, customers want digital music and are willing to pirate to get it. Apple comes along with DRM-protected store and player that makes it more convenient to buy then to pirate. Everyone got what they want: publishers, customers, and Apple.

iPhone: carriers are finally ready(ish) for mobile internet, but the phones suck. Apple comes along with the right hardware and OS and UI. The give the carriers a reason to charge all their customers more money, and customers a reason to feel comfortable becoming hardcore users of a new kind personal computer, let alone enjoy the life-changing benefit of carrying the internet in your pocket. Everyone got what they want: carriers, customers, and Apple. Not to mention all the industries ubiquitous smartphones made possible.

Considering Apple’s more recent projects against the market currents we see today, the picture is gloomy:

TV: Customers want content, and they don’t care whether it’s from the Netflix app on their phone or the one bundled in their Samsung TV. Apps on Apple TV don’t make that content meaningfully better, and no industry partners rely on Apple to deliver those apps.

Watch: Customers are probably over-served by current smartphones. Nothing has changed about daily life that makes wearing a watch more important than it’s been in the past. No industry partners are relying on Apple to deliver a watch. This is a niche market.

iPad: Outside of certain niche jobs, iPad doesn’t provide enough productivity gains to be worth the tradeoff in overall simplicity. The decline of paid productivity software means would-be industry partners that might otherwise rely on Apple to deliver the iPad (and which would make the iPad a compelling device for customers) are drying up or moving to SASS models that are platform agnostic.

So what does that leave?

AR/VR: Outside of niches like gaming and enterprise needs, are there any sea changes in this space that we can’t yet foresee? This is the area where I see Apple being most able to make a new contribution.

Cars: Customers are going to have their lives changed by fleets of safe, convenient self-driving vehicles. All the industry partners that will spring up around those networks are going to rely on whoever delivers those fleet services to exist. This will be a huge space. Too bad Apple seems to have fumbled the ball, if the rumors are true.

AI: If this space ever achieves the promises suggested in science fiction, customers will love the convenience offered by intelligent assistants. But Apple is simply not structured to get there more quickly or more effectively than their competition at least in terms of software with "soft" interfaces (like voice).

As an Apple fan, this is pretty depressing. My expectations for today's announcements are very low.

[pearlsephoni]

i have homework i need to do

plso here’s a list of questions that are supposed to be sent as asks but i felt like answering them myself rip productivity and sleep leggo

200: My crush’s name is: lol people I know irl follow me they don’t need to know this 199: I was born in: Galle, Sri Lanka 198: I am really: sleep-deprived 197: My cellphone company is: AT&T 196: My eye color is: Daaaaaaaark brown 195: My shoe size is: 6 194: My ring size is: I don’t actually, but I guess one of the smallest sizes 193: My height is: 5′1 192: I am allergic to: pet dander 😢 191: My 1st car was: still don’t have my license rip 190: My 1st job was: working in a lab! 189: Last book you read: Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (I’ve been working on like five other books for the last year why am i like this) 188: My bed is: a lofted long twin, gotta love dorm beds 187: My pet: don’t have one 186: My best friend: got three, love them all 185: My favorite shampoo is: SheaMoisture’s Coconut and Hibiscus Curl and Shine has been great  184: Xbox or ps3: PS3 183: Piggy banks are: wonderful 182: In my pockets: my headphones 181: On my calendar: so many projects and presentations and finals rip 180: Marriage is: what you make of it 179: Spongebob can: ...do whatever he wants? i don’t care 178: My mom: is one of the best people in the world 177: The last three songs I bought were? Dead Girl Walking, La La Latch, and the 21 Chump St soundtrack 176: Last YouTube video watched: What If? feat. Daniel Radcliffe, by Anna Akana 175: How many cousins do you have? 7 174: Do you have any siblings? nope 173: Are your parents divorced? nope 172: Are you taller than your mom? we’re the same height 171: Do you play an instrument? Piano (badly), and I used to play clarinet 170: What did you do yesterday? classes, lab work, IRO meeting, then stayed up Way Too Late finishing an assignment [ I Believe In ] 169: Love at first sight: nah, I believe in attraction at first sight tho 168: Luck: Yeah 167: Fate: Yeah 166: Yourself: Working on it 165: Aliens: Yeah 164: Heaven: um 163: Hell: uh 162: God: haven’t thought about it as much as I probably should’ve 161: Horoscopes: not usually, but they’re fun 160: Soul mates: I kinda do, but I wish I didn’t, because it’s such a stressful concept to me 159: Ghosts: not really, but I’ll still get spooked at haunted places 158: Gay Marriage: YES???? 157: War: no 156: Orbs: don’t really know anything about that 155: Magic: no, but I wish I did [ This or That ] 154: Hugs or Kisses: Hugs 153: Drunk or High: never been high 152: Phone or Online: online 151: Red heads or Black haired: black haired 150: Blondes or Brunettes: brunettes (all my crushes have been brunettes, idk how or why)  149: Hot or cold: Hot 148: Summer or winter: summer 147: Autumn or Spring: spring 146: Chocolate or vanilla: vanilla 145: Night or Day: both  144: Oranges or Apples: Oranges 143: Curly or Straight hair: Curly 142: McDonalds or Burger King: McDonalds 141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: Milk 140: Mac or PC: PC 139: Flip flops or high heals: flip flops  138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: Sweet and poor 137: Coke or Pepsi: Coke 136: Hillary or Obama: hoo boy, Obama 135: Burried or cremated: Cremated 134: Singing or Dancing: Dancing 133: Coach or Chanel: Coach 132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: lmao Taylor Hicks what a throwback tho 131: Small town or Big city: Big city 130: Wal-Mart or Target: Target 129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: Ben Stiller (unfollow me if you pick Sandler omg) 128: Manicure or Pedicure: Manicure 127: East Coast or West Coast: East Coast 126: Your Birthday or Christmas: Christmas 125: Chocolate or Flowers: Flowers 124: Disney or Six Flags: Disney 123: Yankees or Red Sox: Red Sox [ Here’s What I Think About ] 122: War: unnecessary  121: George Bush: really don’t like this weird “kind grandpa” tour he’s going on. appreciate him acknowledging his mistakes though 120: Gay Marriage: Should be accessible to anyone and everyone, and the continued persecution of gay people (and people of every non-hetero sexuality) is disgusting  119: The presidential election: Hell On Earth 118: Abortion: Should be accessible to anyone and everyone 117: MySpace: Let it die 116: Reality TV: Let it die 115: Parents: I’ve been blessed with amazing ones, but not everyone is, and everyone should be able to define their relationship to them without society trying to enforce judgement on them 114: Back stabbers: been on both ends of that 113: Ebay: where I go for kpop things rip my wallet 112: Facebook: I’m embarrassed by how much I still use it 111: Work: nice. people at Wharton can be so stuck-up though, why are theatre kids like this 110: My Neighbors: Love them!  109: Gas Prices: pls 108: Designer Clothes: I think they’re super pretty, but they’re just not something I could personally invest that kind of money into 107: College: Should be accessible to anyone and everyone 106: Sports: wow I really don’t give a fuck outside of the Olympics. wish I did.  105: My family: Love my parents, love my maternal grandmother, wish I had a better relationship with the rest.  104: The future: Wow! Fuck! Terrifying!  [ Last time I ] 103: Hugged someone: Saturday night 102: Last time you ate: Eating chocolate rn lol 101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: yesterday when I saw one of my asshole high school classmates twice in one day what kind of fuckery 100: Cried in front of someone: oh wow...it might have been the day after the elections? or my first therapy session? I don’t remember which came first oops 99: Went to a movie theater: March 24th, to see the Beauty and the Beast remake lmao 98: Took a vacation: Spring break, went to NYC with one of my close friends  97: Swam in a pool: Jamaica, the first week of January 96: Changed a diaper: over the summer, while babysitting 95: Got my nails done: never gotten them done professionally!  94: Went to a wedding: uhhhhhhh I must’ve still been in pre-school I think 93: Broke a bone: never happened to me g bless 92: Got a peircing: when I was a baby lmao 91: Broke the law: I guess underage drinking counts, so this past weekend lol 90: Texted: an hour? ago? I think?  [ MISC ] 89: Who makes you laugh the most: Leslie  88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: my parents, my mom’s cooking, the kids on my street  87: The last movie I saw: Split (unless the last ep of Black Mirror counts because that was a 2 hour doozy) 86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: Going to Mexico this summer 85: The thing im not looking forward to: finding out how my crush feels about me 84: People call me: smol, cute, sweet, angry 83: The most difficult thing to do is: confrontation 82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: nope 81: My zodiac sign is: Bull 80: The first person i talked to today was: my linguistics prof 79: First time you had a crush: elementary school  78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: my mom and Jaylen 77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: Lizy, last week 76: Right now I am talking to: no one  75: What are you going to do when you grow up: be a doctor? hopefully? and travel? ahhhhhhhhh 74: I have/will get a job: yee 73: Tomorrow: I have a test in Spanish and have to work on a group presentation rip 72: Today: NEED TO GET THIS DAMN PROPOSAL DONE 71: Next Summer: this coming summer? going to Mexico, still don’t know what I’m doing for the second half why does this keep happening 70: Next Weekend: Working Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time! so excited, I’ve been looking forward to this show for the past year 69: I have these pets: none :’(  68: The worst sound in the world: screams of pain 67: The person that makes me cry the most is: my mooooooooom (because I love her so much)  66: People that make you happy: my parents, my friends, I’ve been blessed with the people in my life 65: Last time I cried: probably two weeks ago, my mind wouldn’t shut up before bed  64: My friends are: the most patient people in the world 63: My computer is: doing its best, wish it had more memory 62: My School: is great!  61: My Car: nonexistent 60: I lose all respect for people who: voted for Trump 59: The movie I cried at was: the last one was Lion 58: Your hair color is: black 57: TV shows you watch: Too Many 56: Favorite web site: Facebook, Tumblr, YouTube 55: Your dream vacation: living in Paris for 1+ month 54: The worst pain I was ever in was: all of junior year of high school 53: How do you like your steak cooked: I’m pescatarian lmao 52: My room is: small, but lovely 51: My favorite celebrity is: uhhhh Viola Davis 50: Where would you like to be: Paris, NYC, Disney World 49: Do you want children: still not sure honestly 48: Ever been in love: unrequited, but yeah 47: Who’s your best friend: my mom, Jaylen, Riley, Leslie 46: More guy friends or girl friends: woah so many more girl friends 45: One thing that makes you feel great is: getting enough sleep 44: One person that you wish you could see right now: my parents, my crush, Jaylen 43: Do you have a 5 year plan: kind..of...it depends on a lot of variable tho 42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: tentative, but yeah 41: Have you pre-named your children: nah 40: Last person I got mad at: does sean spicer count 39: I would like to move to: NYC, Madrid, Paris (why am i so bougie why am i like this)  38: I wish I was a professional: actress [ My Favorites ] 37: Candy: sour patch kids, airheads xtremes, cotton candy 36: Vehicle: Volkswagon Beetle, the last generation when it was still round rip 35: President: Obama? 34: State visited: California 33: Cellphone provider: AT&T i guess 32: Athlete: Simone Biles 31: Actor: at the moment, Dev Patel 30: Actress: at the moment, Phillipa Soo and Viola Davis 29: Singer: at the moment, Bruno Mars 28: Band: at the moment, EXO and Royal Pirates 27: Clothing store: Rue 21 26: Grocery store: Meijer and Kroger 25: TV show: at the moment...shit, I don’t really know 24: Movie: at the moment, Amelie 23: Website: tumblr, facebook, youtube 22: Animal: elephants 21: Theme park: Disney World 20: Holiday: Christmas 19: Sport to watch: Figure skating 18: Sport to play: uh badminton I guess 17: Magazine: Entertainment Weekly 16: Book: The Night Circus 15: Day of the week: Friday 14: Beach: Galle 13: Concert attended: Bruno Mars’ Moonshine Jungle with Jaylen 12: Thing to cook: omelettes 11: Food: my mom’s food, spicy ramyun, macarons 10: Restaurant: Boiling Pots 9: Radio station: 98.7 in Detroit  8: Yankee candle scent: don’t really know 7: Perfume: Marc Jacobs Daisy 6: Flower: plumerias, cherry blossoms, roses, daffodils 5: Color: piiiiiiiiiink  4: Talk show host: I still miss Oprah tbh 3: Comedian: John Oliver, John Mulaney, Mike Birbiglia (I know, I need to diversify my choices)  2: Dog breed: corgis, samoyeds, labradors, goldens, poodles 1: Did you answer all these truthfully? I tried? 

[kyndaris]

Life is Dull, But it Can be Mundane!

If there is one word that can be used to describe me, it would be: predictable. For many of those that live in a first-world country, life is essentially mundane routine. We go to work. We come back home from work. We do a few things for a few hours before going to bed. And then we repeat it all the next day. True, each day might have its own different set of routines, but over the course of a week, a month or a year - nothing much had changed. The cycle continues ad nauseum. 

For those familiar with my short stories, it was the very thing I was railing against in one of my first short stories: Gears in the Walls. Of course, in that particular tale, I took it a step further and made my character go insane.

Still, there’s something to be said for having a set schedule. It pays to know the script beforehand so that the actors know their marks and what to say at a particular time. Often, my days involve quite a bit of the same. Every second day, I’ll wash my hair after work. On the days that I don’t, I eat an apple and yoghurt. After those rituals are done, I hunker down and chip away at my lengthy novel-length projects before dinner. My target goal is about 200-300 words each day. Sometimes I’ll be particularly inspired and somehow crank out 500 to 600 words in the short timeframe that I’ve allocated myself.

After dinner, I allocate an hour and a half (sometimes two) to the playing of whichever video game that is on my ‘to-do list.’ At the point of writing this blog post, I’m still trapped in Trails of Cold Steel 3, but I’m eagerly anticipating the release of Biomutant in another week and a few days. Once the clock hits 9pm or 9:15pm, I head back to my computer to watch whatever show on Netflix or Disney+ that I’ve decided warrants my attention. 

That way, I can do all the things that I kind of want to do without fearing that I’ve dropped the ball on my hobbies or that I’m tossing my money down the drain when it comes to the subscription streaming services I use. To be perfectly honest, sometimes I ponder whether it might be worth it to pirate all the things I want to watch. As good as the Netflix library is, there are still so many others shows that I want to watch - if only subscriptions didn’t make it feel so prohibitive.

One of these days, I’ll need to invest on a VPN so that I can change my location and get access to everything that’s available on the two subscription services that I do have.

When I told my friend that my life was utterly dull and incredibly routine, she was astounded that I was able to keep it all up. As if setting aside time every day to do a little writing, a little gaming and a little TV show watching was unique.

What? Are you telling me that nobody else does what I do? What in the world do other people do in their spare time? Just watch YouTube until the early hours of the morning? Read FanFiction until late? Get through a decent chunk of gameplay before calling it a night? Look after a small child? I’m sure there are plenty of things that other people do that can help explain where the time goes. This is just me simply being a very time conscious individual and giving myself strict instructions on what I should do at any given time. It’s like working even when I’m not working.

KYNDARIS, GIVE YOURSELF SOME SLACK! YOU AREN’T GETTING PAID FOR ANY OF THIS SO BEING SPONTANEOUS IS OKAY! Say ‘yes’ to going out for dinner once in a while with real life friends! Don’t be annoyed that your perfect evening has been ruined and you’ll never finish your stories within your non-existent deadline. 

I think what she thought was amazing (and for me, it was part of the everyday) was that through my organisational skills, I was able to complete a few of my set goals instead of burning out too early or losing interest midway through. But then, of course, how are people expected to finish anything if you don’t chip away at it? And how are you meant to chip away at it if you don’t time manage all of that? 

Why was something I thought completely normal so strange or difficult for other people?

But maybe what I perceive as banal is completely different to how others might view my accomplishments. I’m very notorious for underselling my achievements - seeing them as part of the norm. After all, the way I play many video games are the same. You’ll never see me doing too much in the end-game because I’d have already completed all the side quests before the credits rolled. Often, I’d be overlevelled and the final bosses fall to my blade with ease.

It helps, I think, that I’m quite methodical in how I play. Exploration of all the question marks in my surrounding area, talking to every NPC that is worth a damn, and hoarding items that might be of worth. Though progress might initially seem slow, by the time the game has reached its conclusion, most of the trophies are sitting cozy in my cabinet and if I really wanted to be a completionist, there would only be a few things more I need to go out of my way to get.

In any case, routine is very much how I live my life. It’s the bedrock on which I function from day to day. While it can be tedious, it gives me a sense of direction and helps me accomplish the few goals I’ve set for myself. And to be perfectly frank, I never gave much thought on how I lived my life until my friend thought it was the most amazing accomplishment she had ever witnessed in her life.

If there is one thing I’d like to say to any of those that are struggling to do something creative it’s this: take each day as they come. Make sure to give yourself time to do what you want and make good use of it. It might be easy to say that ‘you’re too tired’ or that ‘you don’t feel inspired’ but I’ve found that sometimes by pushing through, you unlock that nexus of creativity that was lurking within you this whole time. 

Those in jobs or roles that require you to write or be creative in some form or another should know what I mean. If you’re a graphic designer, you don’t wait until the next bout of inspiration comes along before you do a project you’ve been commissioned for. That’s now how business works. And if you want to get paid, you can’t afford to sit on your arse for an hour, a day, a week because of the general air of malaise you feel. 

If you’re a journalist, you spitball ideas until one sticks and then start drafting and redrafting something until it sounds like it’s a great and awesome opinion piece. 

So, if you don’t how to start something the easiest thing you can do is just that: Start. Even if it sounds horrendous and it’s not the perfect brush stroke or the perfect sentence, keep going. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day. And, as an amateur writer that constantly wants to delete everything that they’ve written on really bad days, knowing that you can go back and edit makes it better in the end. 

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT INVESTORS

Except not quite: whatever would be least work if your ideas about programming weren't already influenced by the languages you're currently used to. Microsoft's first product was a Basic interpreter for the Altair. Software companies can charge a lot because a many of the customers are businesses, who get in trouble if they use pirated versions, and b any business model you have at this point is probably wrong anyway. In writing, as in math and science, they only show you the finished product. So here we had two levels of interpretation, one of the principles the IRS uses in deciding whether to allow deductions is that, if you measure success by shelf space taken up by books on it particularly individual books on it, or when you reach some artificial deadline like a Demo Day. No, it turns out, humans are not created by God in his own image; they're just one species among many, descended not merely from apes, but from microorganisms. That's when they have the really big ideas. A remarkable number of famous startups grew out of some need the founders had: Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google.1 They only have one page of ideas.

Logically, you don't really understand them. If investors are impressed with you as founders, they say they can't invest because of the name, and were always disappointed. I chose not to publish, often because I disagree with it.2 They're far better at detecting bullshit than you are at producing it, even if you're producing it unknowingly. The right way to lift heavy things is to let your legs do the work. I can offer a recipe for recognizing them. They offer a convenient list of songs, and whenever you choose one they ding your credit card for a small amount, just below the threshold of attention. The time may soon be coming when instead of startups trying to seem more than you are. It's easy to convince investors you're worth talking to further.3 Was there some kind of wall between us.4

6 cents a page. When you look at the ones that went on to do great things, you find a lot that began with someone pounding out a prototype in a week or two of nonstop work.5 And the business of marking up paper. I write them.6 And yet he's a super nice guy. But this time something new happened. Languages today assume infrastructure that didn't exist in 1960. And indeed, a lot of words on a slide, people just skip reading it. There may be tasks that we solve now by writing programs and which in a hundred years. I think it's important not just that the axioms be well chosen, but that there be few of them.

That is a different world, both culturally and economically, from the one publishers currently inhabit. Fortunately the way to the press, but other founders hear about it, and that women will all be trained in the martial arts. They'll just discard that sentence as meaningless boilerplate, and hope, with increasing impatience, that in the era of physical media. The startup world became more transparent and unpredictable than most, but almost everywhere the trend is in that direction, but it is not all the way to the press, but other founders hear about it, and that women will all be trained in the martial arts.7 They're fuel for the fire that starts with liking the founders. Why not just sit and think? If investors are impressed with you as founders, they say they can't invest because of the name, and were always disappointed. Questions aren't enough. It seems like we ought to be writing about literature, turns out to be one step short of phonebooks. Can you do more of that?

That's a known danger sign, like drinking alone.8 One of the most pointless of all the pointless hoops you have to be a big deal, and Microsoft both executed well and got lucky.9 After years of carefully avoiding classic time sinks like TV, games, and Usenet, I still managed to fall prey to distraction, because I didn't realize this when I started writing the essay, and even their business model was crap. Will we get rid of arrays, for example. So one way to beat procrastination is to starve it of distractions. Once you stop looking at them to fuss with something on your computer, their minds drift off to get a job. So when you release something and it seems like no one cares. When you learn to drive, one of the founders mentioned a rule actors use: if you actually write the kind of essay I thought I was going to write about English literature—to write, and that means that investor starts to lose deals.10 The work you've done so far has, in effect, put you in a slightly awkward position, because as you'll see when you start fundraising, the most common lie told to investors, and not before. If you have any kind of data, however preliminary, tell the audience.11 In much the same with digital books.12

Intellectually they were as capable as the successful founders of following all the implications of what was, 700 years ago, fascinating and urgently needed work. And since there are only a few widely-used languages in a hundred years. But don't sit around doing nothing. For example, many languages today have both strings and lists.13 The earliest phase is usually the most productive part of the core language semantics.14 A variant is to stay in touch with other YC-funded startups.15 For me, interesting means surprise.16

Notes

Without the prospect of publication, the computer, the first philosophers including Confucius and Plato saw themselves as teachers of administrators, and thus no form nor anyone to call all our lies lies. I think this is: we currently filter at the data, it's probably a mistake to do more harm than good. I'm also an investor who for some reason insists that you never know with bottlenecks, I'm just going to create one of the biggest company of all tend to have gotten away with dropping Java in the biggest company of all. If they were supposed to be sharply differentiated, so we hacked together our own online store.

A professor at a particular valuation, or liars. After lunch we went to Europe. But an associate cold-emailing a startup is a service for advising people whether or not.

If you did. He made a million dollars. How many times larger than the 50 minutes they may introduce startups they like to fight. In the thirties his support of the Daddy Model that it would have undesirable side effects.

When the Air Hits Your Brain, neurosurgeon Frank Vertosick recounts a conversation in which those considered more elegant consistently came out shorter perhaps after being macroexpanded or compiled.

5 to 2 seconds. How much more fun than he'd had an opportunity to invest more, and jobs encourage cooperation, not more. Give us 10 million and we'll tell you alarming things, they may end up saying no to science as well, partly because you can stick even more clearly.

Or rather indignant; that's the situation you find known boring ideas intolerable. Simpler just to go sell the bad idea the way they have that glazed over look. We tell them about your fundraising prospects. They then grant the founders are willing to put in the Ancient World, Economic History Review, 2:9 1956,185-199, reprinted in Finley, M.

It also set off an extensive and often useful discussion on the basis of intelligence or wisdom.

I wonder if they'd been living in cities. Anything that got bootstrapped with consulting. See Greenspun's Tenth Rule. Brand-name VCs wouldn't recapitalize a company growing at 5% a week for 4 years.

Only in a startup idea is the kind of gestures you use the name Homer, to a VC means they'll look bad if the growth is valuable, and his son Robert were each in turn forces Digg to respond promptly.

Not even being deliberately misleading by focusing so much control, and the low countries, where you have two choices, choose the harder.

When you fund a startup.

The lowest point occurred when marginal income tax rate is suspiciously neat. But that is modelled on private sector funds and apparently generates good returns.

Not all unpromising-seeming startups do badly. And Sussman's quote a number here only to buy you a series. People tell the whole venture business. More precisely, there were no strong central governments.

Actually, someone did, once. But that turned out to be when it was wiser for them. Donald J.

Type A fundraising is so new that it's doubly important for societies to be free to work like blacklists, I use the word that means service companies are run like Communist states. The Mac number is a matter of outliers, and that most three letter words are independent, and eventually markets learn how to achieve wisdom is that parties shouldn't be too quick to reject candidates with skeletons in their social lives that didn't already exist. There were a couple hundred years ago they might shy away from the creation of the next Apple, maybe the corp dev guys should be designed to express algorithms, and then using growth rate has to be hard on the other direction Y Combinator is we hope visited mostly by hackers. Actually this sounds to me like a conversation reaches a certain field, and journalists—have the luxury of choosing among seed investors, but explain that's what I think the usual way will prove to us.

It may be the fact that, go ahead.

Thanks to Sam Altman, Paul Buchheit, Robert Morris, Jessica Livingston, Rajat Suri, and Peter Norvig for reading a previous draft.

[musicmanic00]

1. Depends. Actual text message. I don't have the emotional capacity to unpack that right now. But the actual last person I texted, through Snapchat, honestly I love her with my whole heart, but she's ace and we've both seen each other naked and it probably wouldn't be weird

2. We are I a weird polyamorous open relationship thing. But I hate her because she's at a Panic! At The Disco concert and I'm not

3. Entirely depends on the drug. Weed who gives a fuck. Acid, go for it. But meth, cocaine, or heroine I'm not about.

4. Eight letters. And I hate it. I hate anything thing me to family

5. Sober, was just a goodbye kiss

6. Yes. Definitely. Some I got but fucked up. Some I should have gone after but avoided.

7. You see that's a deeply personal matter of a close friend and not my story to tell. The second to last message I received was "Not a whole penis" and you'll have to ask for that story

8. Who the fuck knows it's been a lot

9. My front door

10. 6 years ago and hopefully never again

11. Literally whatever liquid I can, that's not coffee

12. My floor, cause you know, it's cosy

13. I'm on the autistic spectrum with sever clinical depression and crippling anxiety, existing is hard with other people. But poly and open and loving everyone is easier

14. I would have walked that day. All my problems would be gone. But I wouldn't have fixed things with someone so who knows. Fixing someone I hurt and who hurt me, or a stable life elsewhere

15. If I'm locked anywhere it's a problem, will lose my mind

16. Sunny and warm it's too cold and dreary in this state for rain to be fun

17. No, and that's weird because its basic as fuck

18. Pajama pants

19. Ummm idk what kinda relationship it could be but who knows

20. A few actually, some romantically, some platonically, and some just want to fuck me

21. Nope, not first, middle, or last names even

22. YOU AINT MY FRIEND IF YOU STRAIGHT! By that I mean everyone's a little queer. They definitely bi af tho

23. Former employer, they weren't capable of humanity

24. I have 6 and need more, SO MANY MORE

25. At least once a day

26. Tiny mutt, had to have some kinda chiuaua

27. Half in, half out. Mainly dry enough to not soak the bath mat completely

28. Nope

29. Seeing as how my body is degrading itself I think I'm old relative to that, but I'm imortal so who the fuck is to say I'm not a tiny spec in the universe

30. I'm bad at talking, text I can do better and easier

31. Absolutely soul crushing terrible

32. Septum omly

33. Warm weather is life and if you choose cold you're insane

34. Emily and Fee mean the world to me and even though they are far away I couldn't imagine life without them. I love them with every fiber of my being

35. Fling or open relationship when I can love everyone I love

36. I'm immprtal and insane, nothing simple about it

37. Got a Snapchat of the song high hopes, but watching TV so not listening to music

38. Yes, I have soul crushing guilt

39. Emily and Fee know most of it

40. Wild crazy adventures for each of them

41. While typing this

42. My life is falling to pieces and I have no job and 5 days to find one before all hope is lost and no way to come back from it

43. I've met them once, but they designed a tattoo that is life or death important to me and they are one of the most important people in my life

44. Pretty sure I answered this but former boss. They are below worthless

45. Depends on who

46. Slightly okay but that's a false hope haha

47. Julie helped me sell things

48. Black with a rainbow dinosaur

49. Not necessarily, like they say things aren't beyond repair but they don't quite grasp the situation

50. Yep

51. Never, they crazy and don't exist sometimes but I don't hate them

52. Yep, took some serious shit to end that crap

53. Not in Ohio, but down south, when you can have a gentle rainstorm that's peaceful and can take a walk in. Up here it's all terrible and gross and you can't even enjoy it from inside

54. I'm an alcoholic so it's hard to judge, tho she does get horny when drunk and I can't handle a high sex drive

55. YEP, tho most usually find out pretty easy

56. So much so, but sometimes my body hurts too much to be comfy

57. Ask me yourself and that's obvious, I'll avoid eye contact till I know you well

58. Most of my friends are non men

59. No but I definitely could, after all I call her my fiance

60. I stopped wearing it everyday but I had some pirate bracelets that I never took off, got some jobs that made wearing them dangerous and never got back into wearing

61. Fuck yes, if the ghosts or whatever Kill me then I'm dead and my problems are gone, if not, I had a fun evening in a haunted house and I love the paranormal. Plus a million dollars to solve ALL my problems

62. Been in relationships that last year's, they were terrible, been in short relationships that were wonderful, all depends on the people

63. Nope, single back then

64. I find it comfortin

65. A cat stretched to get scritches, and was too busy in bliss to notice they we're stepping and fell off the counter, then immediatly upon getting themself back together, jump back up for scritches

66. 22, 23, and 32, those the last one kissed me

67. Do them myself obviously, fuck that money bullshit

68. Idk why but first thing to come to mind was zebra

69. None on my car, they all on my shitty computer

70. Probably lil Wayne, used to like a few Luke Bryan songs but the work dj ruined them

71. Is blackberry still a thing? Android for sure, no apple

72. About a year ago, on a wild adventure

73. Hard pass

74. I think grey, but you can't see them, so many gay and emo flags and posters, plus an octopus tapestry

75. 23

76. Not at all

77. :( No

78. Kjs

79. Nope!

80. South Carolina and the border of Georgia and Florida

81. The moon is gay and witchy

82. Absolutely not haha

83. I hop to never see them again

84. Does pep band count?

85. Into the spiderverse

86. Nope

87. Eithers fine but good like finding heels in men's 15

88. Yeah, how old is this ask chain?

89. I hated my curly hair and spent years keeping it down, not that I'm not against it, it won't curl anymore

90. Ran away but was always captured

91. Any and all, tho haven't swam in over a year...

92. Yessss

93. Nooooo

94. It's complicated

95. CRYING

96. Labor day fireworks show

97. Google pixel has a dope camera

98. Still do sometimes

99. Usually when I drink I am awake until I'm sober

100. Absolutely not 101. Definitely not, but have been with someone who wanted to get pregnant, refused to have sex and got out as fast as possible 102. We R who we R 103. It's a frozen wasteland, too damn cold 104. God no, it's a dumb idea

[monkeyandelf]

New Post has been published on Buzz News from Monkey & Elf |

New Post has been published on https://www.monkeyandelf.com/22-incredible-albums-turning-20-in-2018/

22 incredible albums turning 20 in 2018

There were plenty of albums released in 1998 that are still beloved today. From the astonishing Music has the Right to Children to the still-acclaimed Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, here are some of the best releases from that year celebrating big anniversaries in 2018.

1998 was one hell of a year. Titanic continued to pack movie theaters and cleaned up at the Oscars, taking 11 awards. US President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky rocked American politics. Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Oh, and a small company named Google was founded in Menlo Park, California.

Musically, releases came thick and fast as access to computer technology became more widespread and young producers began to experiment with an array of pirated, cracked software available online. Warp Records’ slippery electronica flourished as drum ‘n’ bass got progressively more aggressive and trip hop, previously a space rife with innovation, became the soundtrack to aspirational lifestyle ads and fancy dinner parties. Over in the US, the rap landscape was changing as the golden era disappeared and New York’s Rawkus imprint was quickly gaining traction. Meanwhile in Detroit, Theo Parrish was prepping his game-changing debut album and just over the bridge in Windsor, Richie Hawtin was preparing to kill off Plastikman with Consumed. Are you feeling old yet?

Air Moon Safari (Virgin)

Spotify / Apple Music

Time hasn’t been kind to Moon Safari. In the years following its release, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel’s debut album found itself soundtracking adverts, used as sonic wallpaper for TV shows and licensed out to an increasingly bland series of ‘chillout’ compilations peddled by Ministry of Sound, resulting in the duo being lumped in with the likes of Zero 7, Morcheeba and Lemon Jelly. It’s easy to understand why: Godin and Dunckel’s update of vintage lounge music and easy-listening pop is, at times, a little too on the nose.

However, it’s hard to deny that Godin and Dunckel’s songwriting and arrangement elevates Moon Safari far above most of the Ibiza comedown dross that followed it. The whole album sounds like it was recorded in the 1960s and then sent to the 22nd century for polish and mastering, and the album is as much a retro-futurist electronic classic than it is a collection of music for wishing you were lying on a beach. Reaching 20 hasn’t brought Moon Safari back from chillout hell, but it still exudes an effortless cool. SW

Autechre LP5 (Warp)

Spotify / Apple Music

Packaged in a rough grey CD case with “autechre” embossed into it and a sticker on the front (which inevitably fell off after a few months), LP5 was steeped in mystery. Sean Booth and Rob Brown were practically household names at this stage, riding high on the success of 1997’s hip-hop influenced Chiastic Slide, so the confounding and deliciously complex LP5 was a kick in the teeth to fans unwilling to join the duo in their relentless pursuit of progression.

The battle lines had been drawn and you either got on board with Autechre’s crystalline, almost impossible to plagiarize rhythms or you went back to Amber and spent the next two decades reminding people about the good old days. JT

Big Pun Capital Punishment (Loud)

Spotify / Apple Music

For the late Big Pun, every single breath was an opportunity. He may have been most famous for ‘Still Not a Player’, a pop remix of his debut single ‘I’m Not a Player (I Just Crush a Lot)’ and R&B singer Joe’s ‘Don’t Wanna Be a Player’ that is still played on the radio today, but he was infamous for fitting polysyllabic punchlines into the standard sixteen bars. His debut Capital Punishment proved he was more than a king-sized loverman, tapping into the same visionary wells as two other late, great NYC Bigs: The Notorious B.I.G and the hedonistic Harlem hellion Big L.

Like Biggie, Pun was an unsuspecting heartthrob with as many axes to grind. And he brought along an impressive ring of friends to tell his tale: Punishment featured guest verses from a slew of varied artists such as Prodigy, Inspectah Deck, Black Thought and Busta Rhymes. But the most memorable of Pun’s creative contributions came via a remake of Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre’s ‘Deep Cover’, a Fat Joe collab called ‘Twinz’ where Pun spits: “dead in the middle of Little Italy / Little did we know that we riddled some middle man who didn’t do diddly”. 20 years later, and you still can’t say it five times fast. CL

Black Star Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star (Rawkus)

Spotify / Apple Music

“We feel that we have a responsibility to… shine the light… into the darkness,” began Mos Def and Talib Kweli’s sole studio album together, and shine a light they did, on black excellence and defiance in the face of insitutional racism in late ’90s America on this cult classic. “Still more blacks is dying, cause they live and they trying / ‘How to Make a Slave’ by Willie Lynch is still applying,” Talib raps on ‘Redefinition’, before Common collab ‘Respiration’, on which the pair show off their unique alchemy over lazy guitar. “Stay alive, you play or die, no options / No Batman and Robin,” complains Mos Def about law and order in Brooklyn. That may be so, but 20 years on, Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star still sounds like the work of a very dynamic duo. AH

Blonde Redhead In an Expression of the Inexpressible (Touch and Go)

Spotify / Apple Music

Blonde Redhead had already proved their art-rock bona fides status by the time they released their fourth album In an Expression of the Inexpressible. With two albums on Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley’s label Smells Like Records under their belt and a Touch & Go debut featuring Unwound’s Vern Rumsey on bass put out in 1997, the NYC-via-Italy and Japan trio had been cultivating an immersive sound that was both noisy and romantic for most of the ‘90s. In an Expression was their first with Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto on production and it was the first evidence that polish wouldn’t tarnish their chaotic sound.

Here, they played with the way their brand of urgency can manifest, whether through the breathless vocals and tumbling percussion on opener ‘Luv Machine’, disjointed howls on its title track or fine-tuned math rock on the refined ‘Futurism vs. Passéism Pt. 2’, which features Picciotto in a pitch-perfect French monologue: “Le temps le plus important c’est la première fois / Le temps le plus important c’est la deuxième fois / Et après ça la troisième fois / Et on recommence”.

In English, that translates to: “The first time is the most important time / The second time is the most important time / And after that, the third time is the most important time / And then you start again.” It was a perfect mantra for their fourth album because after In an Expression, the group released their most divergent album, Melody of Certain Lemons and, then finally, their masterpiece Misery is a Butterfly. CL

Boards of Canada Music has the Right to Children (Warp)

Spotify / Apple Music

Despite its litany of accolades, Music has the Right to Children wasn’t an immediate success. Over time though, widespread acclaim and word of mouth helped push the album far beyond the usual Warp remit. Boards of Canada had put out similar records before – the equally brilliant Hi Scores was already popular amongst keen diggers – but Music has the Right to Children imagined their woozy, nostalgic sound in widescreen, filling the gaps between memorable tracks like ‘Turquoise Hexagon Sun’, ‘Roygbiv’ and ‘Aquarius’ with field recordings, eerily familiar samples and crumbling white noise.

It was an album that felt like a distillation of a great deal of contemporaneous ideas: the neck-snapping MPC rhythms of golden era hip-hop, the acid-blurred bounce of rave, the haunting textures of ambient techno and the vaporous rush of Warp-patented idm. As trip-hop became relegated to the coffee table and drum ‘n’ bass slowly lost its luster, Music has the Right to Children filled a gap, preying on our THC-damaged memories and offering a full dose of musical Xanax. It’s never been repeated, either – countless artists have attempted to replicate Sandison and Eoin’s formula and none have succeeded; like the titular Pete, Music has the Right to Children stands alone. JT

Brandy Never Say Never (Atlantic)

Spotify / Apple Music

Brandy’s self-titled debut was sweet and flirty. Its follow-up, Never Say Never, however separated her from being just a pop singer with an accelerating star to one with something to say. The album was released after numerous advances in her career both professionally (the sitcom Moesha she starred in for five years launched in 1996) and as subject of gossip columns (at 17, she took budding NBA star Kobe Bryant, who was 18 at the time to prom). Never Say Never explores themes of fame, like the Mase-featuring single ‘Sittin’ on Top of the World’, as well as love, such as on the Diane Warren-penned ballad ‘Have You Ever?’. No discussion of Never Say Never, of course, is complete without mention of Monica duet ‘The Boy is Mine’ – a playful chart smash which also featured on Monica’s 1998 LP, named after the track, and boasting a similarly maturity to Brandy’s album. CL

Destiny’s Child Destiny’s Child (Columbia)

Spotify / Apple Music

For anyone who’s ever doubted Beyoncé’s dedication to the rap roots of her hometown Houston, revisit Destiny’s Child’s self-titled debut. While the album is jam-packed with radio-friendly hits, like their debut singles ‘No, No, No Pt. 2’ (US) and ‘With Me’ (UK), it also features Bey’s first musical dalliance with Geto Boys – the ‘Mind’s Playin’ Tricks on Me’-sampling ‘Illusion’. (She and DC groupmate LaTavia Roberson, of course, appeared in the video for ‘Gangsta Put Me Down’ a couple of years before.)

Destiny’s Child doesn’t have the same panache as their starmaking second album The Writing’s On the Wall, but the singles are fun to revisit, as are their counterparts – the ‘No, No, No’ slow jam and a version of ‘With Me’ featuring Master P. CL

DJ Clue The Professional (Roc-A-Fella)

Spotify / Apple Music

Before the rap mixtape was a ubiquitous entity, DJ Clue’s The Professional (alongside three volumes of Funkmaster Flex label-released mixtapes) brought the concept, legally, into CD stores. It featured the remix of DMX’s ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ and appearances from Cam’ron, Big Pun, Fabolous, Canibus, Noreaga, Missy Elliott, Jermaine Dupri, Jay-Z, Ja Rule, Foxy Brown, and, among plenty more, a new version of EMPD’s ‘It’s My Thang’ featuring Keith Murray and Redman. This compilation made it feel like New York was an unstoppable force, especially potent with all of its powers combined. The late ‘90s turned out to be the beginning of the end, but this was a hell of a way to start the bon voyage party. CL

DMX It’s Dark and Hell is Hot (Def Jam)

Spotify / Apple Music

It may be hard for some to imagine it now, but there was a time when X was incredibly fit and famous, bridging divides between rap fans, hard rock fans and casual music listeners who liked whatever was on the radio. (Seriously, check out his Woodstock ’99 crowd.) His debut album It’s Dark and Hell is Hot wasn’t just a collection of major hits, like the endlessly quotable ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ or his summer love song ‘How’s It Goin’ Down?’, but a spread of genre that ranged from some of the most silly but lovable horrorcore (‘X is Coming’, ‘Damien’) to some of the most sinister, detailed gangster rap of the late ’90s.

Lead single ‘Get at Me Dog’ is unhinged, and not just because X punctuates the Sheek Louch chorus by emitting literal dog barks. In the third verse, which is rumored to have originally been about 2Pac, he raps, “Blood stains and chalk means your man couldn’t walk / After the talk, about him not being 11:33 to New York… And it’s gon’ take all these n***as in the rap game to barely move me / Cos when I blow shit up, I have n****s falling like white bitches in a scary movie.” There is a physicality to the music on It’s Dark that is displayed best there, but you can still feel his kinetic movements in every rhyme throughout the album. CL

Fugazi End Hits (Dischord)

Spotify / Apple Music

When Fugazi’s fifth album End Hits dropped in April 1998, everyone thought they were on the verge of splitting up. “It’s more about the end of the century and the slow-moving apocalypse, so it was sort of like, ‘Here are some last words from the world,’” explained Ian MacKaye at the time, offering an alternative interpretation of the LP’s title that turned out to be a private joke among band members anyway.

End Hits didn’t sound the death knell for the post-hardcore legends, who went on to release The Argument in 2001, but it was instrumental in helping to close the book on their early sound. An audacious trip from a fearless band, picking up where 1995’s experimental-leaning adventure Red Machine left off, the album further embraced that deep, meandering, jazzy spirit, while having barely anything to do with the three-chord structure of classic punk rock. It was also a record that distilled the DC band’s anti-commercial, anti-corporate politics into a single song, ‘Five Corporations’, with lines like: “Check the math here / Check in ten years / Clusterfuck theory / Buy them up and shut them down / Then repeat in every town / Every town will be the same.” A classic in the canon of an impossibly important band, End Hits is such monumental album, we even named our new weekly playlist feature after it. ACW

Juvenile 400 Degreez (Cash Money)

YouTube

From the perspective of a New Yorker whose only idea of regional rap was hearing artists from different boroughs and, maybe, New Jersey on the radio every day, Juvenile was a lightning rod. On Rap City – pre-Tha Basement days – you could get a taste of how the rap landscape was unfolding in the rest of the United States, particularly the South, whether it was Ghetto Mafia’s ‘In Decatur’ or JT Money’s ‘Who Dat?’. Those songs sounded like nothing I had ever heard before, but Juvenile’s ‘Ha’ was the most transportive.

Whatever your experience with 400 Degreez when it was released, whether it was a triumph for you and your home or a portal to something completely new, or you know, maybe you weren’t even born yet, the album still transports people today. Ever seen the change on a dancefloor when the first few notes of ‘Back That Azz Up’ start? Juvie led the charge on the south’s hip-hop takeover and even the most indignant on either coast have to admit it when this song comes on. CL

Lauryn Hill The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (Ruffhouse)

Spotify / Apple Music

Forget everything that happened next: the lawsuits, the exile, her tax troubles, imprisonment, the endless concert no-shows, the $2.5m spent on a second album that never came and so on. Miseducation was and remains a neo-soul masterpiece. Packing a spiritual calm and intimate power at once crushing and revitalizing, the album was a smash, propelling Hill to even taller heights of fame than she’d reached with the Fugees. 20m copies were sold worldwide, prompting Hollywood to come calling as the star’s celebrity grew and grew: Hill turned down roles in The Matrix and Bourne franchises as the spotlight on her intensified.

The glare of that spotlight ultimately became too bright for Hill, who disappeared and never really returned after the release of an MTV Unplugged album three years later, some sporadic tour dates and the odd new track aside. At least we’re left with an album that, 20 years on, as women continue to strive to be heard in a world dominated by men and misogynists, continues to be relevant in its celestial magic and inspiring tales of female perseverance. AH

Leila Like Weather (Rephlex)

YouTube

After touring with Björk, keyboardist and sound engineer Leila Arab retreated to her studio and penned Like Weather, one of the Rephlex label’s most singular releases. Arab harnessed a wide variety of influences, from Aphex Twin’s squiggly bedroom electronica to the dusty bump of trip hop, assembling an album that sounds like a forgotten tape of Prince demos played backwards. Her inventive production sits at the center and is embellished with a cast of vocalists – most prominently Stubborn Heat’s Luca Santucci – who lift off her sound into a parallel (purple) universe. The result is a suite of effervescent, sub-aquatic soul pop that still sounds completely out of time. JT

Massive Attack Mezzanine (Virgin)

Spotify / Apple Music

The Mercury-nominated Mezzanine saw Bristol’s finest reach the peak of their cross-pollinating powers to perfect the spiky downtempo stew they had begun cultivating some seven years earlier. Featuring guest spots from Studio One legend Horace Andy and Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser – whose ethereal vocal is the jewel in the crown of an album that brought us one of the most memory-jogging songs of the ‘90s, ‘Teardrop’ – we named Massive Attack’s third LP one our favorite albums of the decade in 2012, and quite rightly so. ACW

OutKast Aquemini (LaFace)

Spotify / Apple Music

After the intergalactic ATLiens, Aquemini saw Andre 3000 and Big Boi not quite return to Earth, but certainly position their wild funk-rap space craft a little closer to our stratosphere. Sure, the pair’s third studio album together was threaded with the spacey textures, futurism and out-of-this-world ambition as the 2m-selling ATLiens, but this was a different, more human-sounding release, full of live instrumentation and lyrics confronting mortality. Maybe this was down to the birth of Andre’s first child a year earlier, a milestone in the rapper’s life that could be linked to more reflective, real contemplations on tracks like ‘Da Art of Storytellin’ (Part 1)’, which eulogizes a childhood friend named Sasha Thumper who died of a drug overdose. From single ‘Rosa Parks’ to the George Clinton-featuring ‘Synthesizer’, it hasn’t aged a second. How can it? OutKast, even then, were living in the future. AH

Plastikman Consumed (NovaMute)

Spotify / Apple Music

Compared with 1993’s stark, acidic Sheet One and 1994’s undulating Muzik, Consumed borders on silent. Richie Hawtin’s wobbling TB-303 lines are still present, almost, but gone is the rhythmic clatter of ‘Gak’ or ‘Spastik’, replaced by cavernous reverb and spine-chilling minimalist drones. Make no mistake, Consumed is barely dance music, it’s a hypnotic, progressive inversion of acid house tropes, spiked with Artificial Intelligence-era ambience and sci-fi paranoia. If its predecessors embraced the party, Consumed exemplified the comedown. JT

Pole 1 (Kiff SM)

YouTube

Armed with a faulty Waldorf 4-Pole filter unit, Stefan Betke took Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Oswald’s Berlin dub blueprint and subdued it, discarding techno’s uniformity and highlighting the beauty of his failing production process. A few years earlier, German trio Oval had pioneered glitch music, mutilating compact discs to create digital belches and hiccups that were subsequently manipulated into rhythms and drones; Betke harnessed a cotierie of similar sounds, but underpinned them with the bass weight of a Jamaican soundsystem.

1 is the first of a trilogy of numbered full-lengths from Pole and introduced many listeners to Betke’s sound, channeling his dubby sketches through a wall of surprisingly graceful interference. It isn’t the best example of his sound (that would be 2) but it helped shift electronic music forward and its ripples are still being felt. JT

Surgeon Balance (Tresor)

YouTube

Brummie techno producer Anthony Child managed to achieve the impossible back in the 1990s when he successfully transported Detroit techno’s heady futurism to the UK, augmenting its downtrodden grit with grim, post-industrial cynicism. Balance was one of a sequence of classic Surgeon albums (along with 1997’s Basictonalvocabulary and 1999’s Force + Form) and highlights Child’s unique skill in long-form. The album is, basically, a series of eardrum rupturing warehouse techno bangers, but unlike so many others (back then and now) is, for want of a better word, balanced. JT

Theo Parrish First Floor (Peacefrog)

Spotify / Apple Music

Comprised of the two EPs Parrish created for Peacefrog in 1998, the Detroit legend’s essential collection of fizzy, feel-good “sound sculptures” is a sample house classic that will never grow old. An eccentric LP that holds a mirror up to the DC-born producer’s freewheeling DJ sets, First Floor is an electronic album with a deep soul, one where the looped jazz, funk and disco samples of Parrish’s Chicago upbringing peek through distorted drums, with a groove running through that will take you by the hand and lead you straight to the dancefloor. ACW

Tortoise TNT (Thrill Jockey)

Spotify / Apple Music

Chicago’s Tortoise were notable for their unusual take on post-rock; they were less indebted to hardcore than many of their peers, exploring Krautrock rhythms, dubwise low end and infusing their compositions with electronics. But TNT was different from their acclaimed self-titled debut and its inventive followup, Millions Now Living Will Never Die. Now, instead of motorik drums and pulsing bass, light, jazzy guitar riffs and Rob Mazurek’s trumpet filled tracks that owed more to progressive rock than they did Can. Critics were impressed at the time, but fans were divided by the new direction, which at times skated a precarious line between innovation and regression. But Tortoise flirted successfully with jazzy, easy listening tropes on TNT and two decades later, the album sounds markedly more impressive than the quiet-loud dirges of much of the rest of the post-rock canon. JT

Total Kima, Keisha, and Pam (Bad Boy)

Spotify / Apple Music

History could be kinder to R&B trio Total and, perhaps, now that their modernist album Kima, Keisha, and Pam is turning 20, they’ll get their due. Signed to Puffy’s Bad Boy label at its peak, the group were known for their many collaborations with Missy Elliott and The Notorious B.I.G. – that’s Pam singing, “Biggie, Biggie, Biggie, can’t you see…” on ‘Hypnotize’.

On the album, tracks like ‘Trippin’, ‘If You Want Me’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna’ sound like they could be released right now and still sound just as fresh, if not like they’re pointed toward the future. Some of that is, of course, Elliott’s deft hand – she wrote nearly all of the songs on the album – but it’s also in the performances from and the attitude of the group. They had a certain cool-girl persona that hadn’t really materialized yet, but can be found in artists like Kehlani and Tinashe today. CL

Honorable mentions

Coil/Time Machines – Time Machines (Eskaton) Two Lone Swordsmen – Stay Down (Warp) Various – Lyricist Lounge Vol.1 (Rawkus) Windy And Carl – Depths (Kranky) Ed Rush & Optical – Wormhole (Virus) Herbert – Around the House (Phonography)

Read next: 30 incredible albums turning 20 years old in 2017

window.fbAsyncInit = function() FB.init( appId : settings.stats.FbAppId, xfbml : true, version : 'v2.6' ); ;

(function(d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); (document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments);if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '298947647115573'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); Source link

[furilia]

22 incredible albums turning 20 in 2018

New Post has been published on https://www.furilia.com/22-incredible-albums-turning-20-in-2018/

22 incredible albums turning 20 in 2018

There were plenty of albums released in 1998 that are still beloved today. From the astonishing Music has the Right to Children to the still-acclaimed Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, here are some of the best releases from that year celebrating big anniversaries in 2018.

1998 was one hell of a year. Titanic continued to pack movie theaters and cleaned up at the Oscars, taking 11 awards. US President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky rocked American politics. Nintendo released The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Oh, and a small company named Google was founded in Menlo Park, California.

Musically, releases came thick and fast as access to computer technology became more widespread and young producers began to experiment with an array of pirated, cracked software available online. Warp Records’ slippery electronica flourished as drum ‘n’ bass got progressively more aggressive and trip hop, previously a space rife with innovation, became the soundtrack to aspirational lifestyle ads and fancy dinner parties. Over in the US, the rap landscape was changing as the golden era disappeared and New York’s Rawkus imprint was quickly gaining traction. Meanwhile in Detroit, Theo Parrish was prepping his game-changing debut album and just over the bridge in Windsor, Richie Hawtin was preparing to kill off Plastikman with Consumed. Are you feeling old yet?

Air Moon Safari (Virgin)

Spotify / Apple Music

Time hasn’t been kind to Moon Safari. In the years following its release, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel’s debut album found itself soundtracking adverts, used as sonic wallpaper for TV shows and licensed out to an increasingly bland series of ‘chillout’ compilations peddled by Ministry of Sound, resulting in the duo being lumped in with the likes of Zero 7, Morcheeba and Lemon Jelly. It’s easy to understand why: Godin and Dunckel’s update of vintage lounge music and easy-listening pop is, at times, a little too on the nose.

However, it’s hard to deny that Godin and Dunckel’s songwriting and arrangement elevates Moon Safari far above most of the Ibiza comedown dross that followed it. The whole album sounds like it was recorded in the 1960s and then sent to the 22nd century for polish and mastering, and the album is as much a retro-futurist electronic classic than it is a collection of music for wishing you were lying on a beach. Reaching 20 hasn’t brought Moon Safari back from chillout hell, but it still exudes an effortless cool. SW

Autechre LP5 (Warp)

Spotify / Apple Music

Packaged in a rough grey CD case with “autechre” embossed into it and a sticker on the front (which inevitably fell off after a few months), LP5 was steeped in mystery. Sean Booth and Rob Brown were practically household names at this stage, riding high on the success of 1997’s hip-hop influenced Chiastic Slide, so the confounding and deliciously complex LP5 was a kick in the teeth to fans unwilling to join the duo in their relentless pursuit of progression.

The battle lines had been drawn and you either got on board with Autechre’s crystalline, almost impossible to plagiarize rhythms or you went back to Amber and spent the next two decades reminding people about the good old days. JT

Big Pun Capital Punishment (Loud)

Spotify / Apple Music

For the late Big Pun, every single breath was an opportunity. He may have been most famous for ‘Still Not a Player’, a pop remix of his debut single ‘I’m Not a Player (I Just Crush a Lot)’ and R&B singer Joe’s ‘Don’t Wanna Be a Player’ that is still played on the radio today, but he was infamous for fitting polysyllabic punchlines into the standard sixteen bars. His debut Capital Punishment proved he was more than a king-sized loverman, tapping into the same visionary wells as two other late, great NYC Bigs: The Notorious B.I.G and the hedonistic Harlem hellion Big L.

Like Biggie, Pun was an unsuspecting heartthrob with as many axes to grind. And he brought along an impressive ring of friends to tell his tale: Punishment featured guest verses from a slew of varied artists such as Prodigy, Inspectah Deck, Black Thought and Busta Rhymes. But the most memorable of Pun’s creative contributions came via a remake of Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre’s ‘Deep Cover’, a Fat Joe collab called ‘Twinz’ where Pun spits: “dead in the middle of Little Italy / Little did we know that we riddled some middle man who didn’t do diddly”. 20 years later, and you still can’t say it five times fast. CL

Black Star Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star (Rawkus)

Spotify / Apple Music

“We feel that we have a responsibility to… shine the light… into the darkness,” began Mos Def and Talib Kweli’s sole studio album together, and shine a light they did, on black excellence and defiance in the face of insitutional racism in late ’90s America on this cult classic. “Still more blacks is dying, cause they live and they trying / ‘How to Make a Slave’ by Willie Lynch is still applying,” Talib raps on ‘Redefinition’, before Common collab ‘Respiration’, on which the pair show off their unique alchemy over lazy guitar. “Stay alive, you play or die, no options / No Batman and Robin,” complains Mos Def about law and order in Brooklyn. That may be so, but 20 years on, Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star still sounds like the work of a very dynamic duo. AH

Blonde Redhead In an Expression of the Inexpressible (Touch and Go)

Spotify / Apple Music

Blonde Redhead had already proved their art-rock bona fides status by the time they released their fourth album In an Expression of the Inexpressible. With two albums on Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley’s label Smells Like Records under their belt and a Touch & Go debut featuring Unwound’s Vern Rumsey on bass put out in 1997, the NYC-via-Italy and Japan trio had been cultivating an immersive sound that was both noisy and romantic for most of the ‘90s. In an Expression was their first with Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto on production and it was the first evidence that polish wouldn’t tarnish their chaotic sound.

Here, they played with the way their brand of urgency can manifest, whether through the breathless vocals and tumbling percussion on opener ‘Luv Machine’, disjointed howls on its title track or fine-tuned math rock on the refined ‘Futurism vs. Passéism Pt. 2’, which features Picciotto in a pitch-perfect French monologue: “Le temps le plus important c’est la première fois / Le temps le plus important c’est la deuxième fois / Et après ça la troisième fois / Et on recommence”.

In English, that translates to: “The first time is the most important time / The second time is the most important time / And after that, the third time is the most important time / And then you start again.” It was a perfect mantra for their fourth album because after In an Expression, the group released their most divergent album, Melody of Certain Lemons and, then finally, their masterpiece Misery is a Butterfly. CL

Boards of Canada Music has the Right to Children (Warp)

Spotify / Apple Music

Despite its litany of accolades, Music has the Right to Children wasn’t an immediate success. Over time though, widespread acclaim and word of mouth helped push the album far beyond the usual Warp remit. Boards of Canada had put out similar records before – the equally brilliant Hi Scores was already popular amongst keen diggers – but Music has the Right to Children imagined their woozy, nostalgic sound in widescreen, filling the gaps between memorable tracks like ‘Turquoise Hexagon Sun’, ‘Roygbiv’ and ‘Aquarius’ with field recordings, eerily familiar samples and crumbling white noise.

It was an album that felt like a distillation of a great deal of contemporaneous ideas: the neck-snapping MPC rhythms of golden era hip-hop, the acid-blurred bounce of rave, the haunting textures of ambient techno and the vaporous rush of Warp-patented idm. As trip-hop became relegated to the coffee table and drum ‘n’ bass slowly lost its luster, Music has the Right to Children filled a gap, preying on our THC-damaged memories and offering a full dose of musical Xanax. It’s never been repeated, either – countless artists have attempted to replicate Sandison and Eoin’s formula and none have succeeded; like the titular Pete, Music has the Right to Children stands alone. JT

Brandy Never Say Never (Atlantic)

Spotify / Apple Music

Brandy’s self-titled debut was sweet and flirty. Its follow-up, Never Say Never, however separated her from being just a pop singer with an accelerating star to one with something to say. The album was released after numerous advances in her career both professionally (the sitcom Moesha she starred in for five years launched in 1996) and as subject of gossip columns (at 17, she took budding NBA star Kobe Bryant, who was 18 at the time to prom). Never Say Never explores themes of fame, like the Mase-featuring single ‘Sittin’ on Top of the World’, as well as love, such as on the Diane Warren-penned ballad ‘Have You Ever?’. No discussion of Never Say Never, of course, is complete without mention of Monica duet ‘The Boy is Mine’ – a playful chart smash which also featured on Monica’s 1998 LP, named after the track, and boasting a similarly maturity to Brandy’s album. CL

Destiny’s Child Destiny’s Child (Columbia)

Spotify / Apple Music

For anyone who’s ever doubted Beyoncé’s dedication to the rap roots of her hometown Houston, revisit Destiny’s Child’s self-titled debut. While the album is jam-packed with radio-friendly hits, like their debut singles ‘No, No, No Pt. 2’ (US) and ‘With Me’ (UK), it also features Bey’s first musical dalliance with Geto Boys – the ‘Mind’s Playin’ Tricks on Me’-sampling ‘Illusion’. (She and DC groupmate LaTavia Roberson, of course, appeared in the video for ‘Gangsta Put Me Down’ a couple of years before.)

Destiny’s Child doesn’t have the same panache as their starmaking second album The Writing’s On the Wall, but the singles are fun to revisit, as are their counterparts – the ‘No, No, No’ slow jam and a version of ‘With Me’ featuring Master P. CL

DJ Clue The Professional (Roc-A-Fella)

Spotify / Apple Music

Before the rap mixtape was a ubiquitous entity, DJ Clue’s The Professional (alongside three volumes of Funkmaster Flex label-released mixtapes) brought the concept, legally, into CD stores. It featured the remix of DMX’s ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ and appearances from Cam’ron, Big Pun, Fabolous, Canibus, Noreaga, Missy Elliott, Jermaine Dupri, Jay-Z, Ja Rule, Foxy Brown, and, among plenty more, a new version of EMPD’s ‘It’s My Thang’ featuring Keith Murray and Redman. This compilation made it feel like New York was an unstoppable force, especially potent with all of its powers combined. The late ‘90s turned out to be the beginning of the end, but this was a hell of a way to start the bon voyage party. CL

DMX It’s Dark and Hell is Hot (Def Jam)

Spotify / Apple Music

It may be hard for some to imagine it now, but there was a time when X was incredibly fit and famous, bridging divides between rap fans, hard rock fans and casual music listeners who liked whatever was on the radio. (Seriously, check out his Woodstock ’99 crowd.) His debut album It’s Dark and Hell is Hot wasn’t just a collection of major hits, like the endlessly quotable ‘Ruff Ryders Anthem’ or his summer love song ‘How’s It Goin’ Down?’, but a spread of genre that ranged from some of the most silly but lovable horrorcore (‘X is Coming’, ‘Damien’) to some of the most sinister, detailed gangster rap of the late ’90s.

Lead single ‘Get at Me Dog’ is unhinged, and not just because X punctuates the Sheek Louch chorus by emitting literal dog barks. In the third verse, which is rumored to have originally been about 2Pac, he raps, “Blood stains and chalk means your man couldn’t walk / After the talk, about him not being 11:33 to New York… And it’s gon’ take all these n***as in the rap game to barely move me / Cos when I blow shit up, I have n****s falling like white bitches in a scary movie.” There is a physicality to the music on It’s Dark that is displayed best there, but you can still feel his kinetic movements in every rhyme throughout the album. CL

Fugazi End Hits (Dischord)

Spotify / Apple Music

When Fugazi’s fifth album End Hits dropped in April 1998, everyone thought they were on the verge of splitting up. “It’s more about the end of the century and the slow-moving apocalypse, so it was sort of like, ‘Here are some last words from the world,’” explained Ian MacKaye at the time, offering an alternative interpretation of the LP’s title that turned out to be a private joke among band members anyway.

End Hits didn’t sound the death knell for the post-hardcore legends, who went on to release The Argument in 2001, but it was instrumental in helping to close the book on their early sound. An audacious trip from a fearless band, picking up where 1995’s experimental-leaning adventure Red Machine left off, the album further embraced that deep, meandering, jazzy spirit, while having barely anything to do with the three-chord structure of classic punk rock. It was also a record that distilled the DC band’s anti-commercial, anti-corporate politics into a single song, ‘Five Corporations’, with lines like: “Check the math here / Check in ten years / Clusterfuck theory / Buy them up and shut them down / Then repeat in every town / Every town will be the same.” A classic in the canon of an impossibly important band, End Hits is such monumental album, we even named our new weekly playlist feature after it. ACW

Juvenile 400 Degreez (Cash Money)

YouTube

From the perspective of a New Yorker whose only idea of regional rap was hearing artists from different boroughs and, maybe, New Jersey on the radio every day, Juvenile was a lightning rod. On Rap City – pre-Tha Basement days – you could get a taste of how the rap landscape was unfolding in the rest of the United States, particularly the South, whether it was Ghetto Mafia’s ‘In Decatur’ or JT Money’s ‘Who Dat?’. Those songs sounded like nothing I had ever heard before, but Juvenile’s ‘Ha’ was the most transportive.

Whatever your experience with 400 Degreez when it was released, whether it was a triumph for you and your home or a portal to something completely new, or you know, maybe you weren’t even born yet, the album still transports people today. Ever seen the change on a dancefloor when the first few notes of ‘Back That Azz Up’ start? Juvie led the charge on the south’s hip-hop takeover and even the most indignant on either coast have to admit it when this song comes on. CL

Lauryn Hill The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (Ruffhouse)

Spotify / Apple Music

Forget everything that happened next: the lawsuits, the exile, her tax troubles, imprisonment, the endless concert no-shows, the $2.5m spent on a second album that never came and so on. Miseducation was and remains a neo-soul masterpiece. Packing a spiritual calm and intimate power at once crushing and revitalizing, the album was a smash, propelling Hill to even taller heights of fame than she’d reached with the Fugees. 20m copies were sold worldwide, prompting Hollywood to come calling as the star’s celebrity grew and grew: Hill turned down roles in The Matrix and Bourne franchises as the spotlight on her intensified.

The glare of that spotlight ultimately became too bright for Hill, who disappeared and never really returned after the release of an MTV Unplugged album three years later, some sporadic tour dates and the odd new track aside. At least we’re left with an album that, 20 years on, as women continue to strive to be heard in a world dominated by men and misogynists, continues to be relevant in its celestial magic and inspiring tales of female perseverance. AH

Leila Like Weather (Rephlex)

YouTube

After touring with Björk, keyboardist and sound engineer Leila Arab retreated to her studio and penned Like Weather, one of the Rephlex label’s most singular releases. Arab harnessed a wide variety of influences, from Aphex Twin’s squiggly bedroom electronica to the dusty bump of trip hop, assembling an album that sounds like a forgotten tape of Prince demos played backwards. Her inventive production sits at the center and is embellished with a cast of vocalists – most prominently Stubborn Heat’s Luca Santucci – who lift off her sound into a parallel (purple) universe. The result is a suite of effervescent, sub-aquatic soul pop that still sounds completely out of time. JT

Massive Attack Mezzanine (Virgin)

Spotify / Apple Music

The Mercury-nominated Mezzanine saw Bristol’s finest reach the peak of their cross-pollinating powers to perfect the spiky downtempo stew they had begun cultivating some seven years earlier. Featuring guest spots from Studio One legend Horace Andy and Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser – whose ethereal vocal is the jewel in the crown of an album that brought us one of the most memory-jogging songs of the ‘90s, ‘Teardrop’ – we named Massive Attack’s third LP one our favorite albums of the decade in 2012, and quite rightly so. ACW

OutKast Aquemini (LaFace)

Spotify / Apple Music

After the intergalactic ATLiens, Aquemini saw Andre 3000 and Big Boi not quite return to Earth, but certainly position their wild funk-rap space craft a little closer to our stratosphere. Sure, the pair’s third studio album together was threaded with the spacey textures, futurism and out-of-this-world ambition as the 2m-selling ATLiens, but this was a different, more human-sounding release, full of live instrumentation and lyrics confronting mortality. Maybe this was down to the birth of Andre’s first child a year earlier, a milestone in the rapper’s life that could be linked to more reflective, real contemplations on tracks like ‘Da Art of Storytellin’ (Part 1)’, which eulogizes a childhood friend named Sasha Thumper who died of a drug overdose. From single ‘Rosa Parks’ to the George Clinton-featuring ‘Synthesizer’, it hasn’t aged a second. How can it? OutKast, even then, were living in the future. AH

Plastikman Consumed (NovaMute)

Spotify / Apple Music

Compared with 1993’s stark, acidic Sheet One and 1994’s undulating Muzik, Consumed borders on silent. Richie Hawtin’s wobbling TB-303 lines are still present, almost, but gone is the rhythmic clatter of ‘Gak’ or ‘Spastik’, replaced by cavernous reverb and spine-chilling minimalist drones. Make no mistake, Consumed is barely dance music, it’s a hypnotic, progressive inversion of acid house tropes, spiked with Artificial Intelligence-era ambience and sci-fi paranoia. If its predecessors embraced the party, Consumed exemplified the comedown. JT

Pole 1 (Kiff SM)

YouTube

Armed with a faulty Waldorf 4-Pole filter unit, Stefan Betke took Mark Ernestus and Moritz Von Oswald’s Berlin dub blueprint and subdued it, discarding techno’s uniformity and highlighting the beauty of his failing production process. A few years earlier, German trio Oval had pioneered glitch music, mutilating compact discs to create digital belches and hiccups that were subsequently manipulated into rhythms and drones; Betke harnessed a cotierie of similar sounds, but underpinned them with the bass weight of a Jamaican soundsystem.

1 is the first of a trilogy of numbered full-lengths from Pole and introduced many listeners to Betke’s sound, channeling his dubby sketches through a wall of surprisingly graceful interference. It isn’t the best example of his sound (that would be 2) but it helped shift electronic music forward and its ripples are still being felt. JT

Surgeon Balance (Tresor)

YouTube

Brummie techno producer Anthony Child managed to achieve the impossible back in the 1990s when he successfully transported Detroit techno’s heady futurism to the UK, augmenting its downtrodden grit with grim, post-industrial cynicism. Balance was one of a sequence of classic Surgeon albums (along with 1997’s Basictonalvocabulary and 1999’s Force + Form) and highlights Child’s unique skill in long-form. The album is, basically, a series of eardrum rupturing warehouse techno bangers, but unlike so many others (back then and now) is, for want of a better word, balanced. JT

Theo Parrish First Floor (Peacefrog)

Spotify / Apple Music

Comprised of the two EPs Parrish created for Peacefrog in 1998, the Detroit legend’s essential collection of fizzy, feel-good “sound sculptures” is a sample house classic that will never grow old. An eccentric LP that holds a mirror up to the DC-born producer’s freewheeling DJ sets, First Floor is an electronic album with a deep soul, one where the looped jazz, funk and disco samples of Parrish’s Chicago upbringing peek through distorted drums, with a groove running through that will take you by the hand and lead you straight to the dancefloor. ACW

Tortoise TNT (Thrill Jockey)

Spotify / Apple Music

Chicago’s Tortoise were notable for their unusual take on post-rock; they were less indebted to hardcore than many of their peers, exploring Krautrock rhythms, dubwise low end and infusing their compositions with electronics. But TNT was different from their acclaimed self-titled debut and its inventive followup, Millions Now Living Will Never Die. Now, instead of motorik drums and pulsing bass, light, jazzy guitar riffs and Rob Mazurek’s trumpet filled tracks that owed more to progressive rock than they did Can. Critics were impressed at the time, but fans were divided by the new direction, which at times skated a precarious line between innovation and regression. But Tortoise flirted successfully with jazzy, easy listening tropes on TNT and two decades later, the album sounds markedly more impressive than the quiet-loud dirges of much of the rest of the post-rock canon. JT

Total Kima, Keisha, and Pam (Bad Boy)

Spotify / Apple Music

History could be kinder to R&B trio Total and, perhaps, now that their modernist album Kima, Keisha, and Pam is turning 20, they’ll get their due. Signed to Puffy’s Bad Boy label at its peak, the group were known for their many collaborations with Missy Elliott and The Notorious B.I.G. – that’s Pam singing, “Biggie, Biggie, Biggie, can’t you see…” on ‘Hypnotize’.

On the album, tracks like ‘Trippin’, ‘If You Want Me’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna’ sound like they could be released right now and still sound just as fresh, if not like they’re pointed toward the future. Some of that is, of course, Elliott’s deft hand – she wrote nearly all of the songs on the album – but it’s also in the performances from and the attitude of the group. They had a certain cool-girl persona that hadn’t really materialized yet, but can be found in artists like Kehlani and Tinashe today. CL

Honorable mentions

Coil/Time Machines – Time Machines (Eskaton) Two Lone Swordsmen – Stay Down (Warp) Various – Lyricist Lounge Vol.1 (Rawkus) Windy And Carl – Depths (Kranky) Ed Rush & Optical – Wormhole (Virus) Herbert – Around the House (Phonography)

Read next: 30 incredible albums turning 20 years old in 2017

window.fbAsyncInit = function() FB.init( appId : settings.stats.FbAppId, xfbml : true, version : 'v2.6' ); ;

(function(d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); (document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function()n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments);if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n; n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0; t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)(window, document,'script','https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js'); fbq('init', '298947647115573'); fbq('track', 'PageView'); Source link

[jamiekturner]

Why you don’t need design like Apple

Apple proved that beauty not only works. It sells.

By marrying design and technology, Apple evolved from a niche brand for hobbyists into one of most valuable companies ever.

After their success, many companies followed suit and leveled up on design.

If you can’t beat ‘em…

Many of the products we spend our time with — our phones, laptops, and the software that comes with them — were originally designed, or at least inspired by Apple. And with Apple creating and managing the App Store, a huge chunk of the software industry is now required to have ‘Apple-approved’ design to survive.

For design and beauty, our expectations as consumers are higher than they’ve ever been. And the future of where products will compete will hinge more and more on the emotions driven from thoughtful, pleasurable design.

As a designer, I appreciate this attention to design.

I look at my laptop screen and the icons look like candy.

I zip fluidly through my apps, getting hits of pleasure from well-designed transitions along the way. The visual beauty of technology is so much different from how it was even just 10 years ago.

A computer used to feel like you were navigating a maze in a cornfield. Uncertainty around every corner until you finally found the path to get something done.

Yet, for all the good this focus on design has done for us, this same focus on visual polish has a cost.

In our worship of the design and marketing of companies like Apple, we creators lose sight of an even more powerful way to present our ideas to the world.

Because we’ve seen the results of visual beauty in product design, we expect putting this level of focus on visual beauty in our brand’s message will have the same effect.

I’ve seen companies spend tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars perfecting a website, email, or ad’s visual design while spending the last few hours on writing the words that will make up that design.

Our intense focus on visual design can blind us from focusing on the most important part of the message: The story.

Choosing substance over style

We’ve had a taste of this ourselves.

A year ago, we sent out two versions of this email campaign.

One email closely followed the principles of how a well-designed email is supposed to look:

Not too many words

A big, attractive image

A clear call-to-action

The other version took a different direction. We wrote it as if we were telling a story to a friend. It broke every rule:

The email was long

There were 11 links before you got to the main call-to-action

The call-to-action was buried at the end

Here were the results:

Even though our ‘less-beautiful’ email broke many of the rules, the longer, story version had almost three times the click-through rate compared to the shorter version.

Though this example is limited in that it was constrained to people in our community who might prefer a more story-oriented approach (since this is our usual style), it supported our hunch that beauty isn’t always best.

And that being more authentic (i.e. telling our story just like we’d tell it to a friend) has a bigger impact than we might expect.

A lesson from Pixar: It’s not about animation, it’s about story

There are examples of this same preference for a well-told story in all creative fields.

In 1995, Pixar released Toy Story, the first computer animated feature film. And while Toy Story went on to smash box office records, Pixar had a rocky start.

Star Wars Director, George Lucas, sold his shares in Pixar before Toy Storywas made, and Pixar almost went bankrupt (if, ironically, it weren’t for Apple founder Steve Jobs stepping in to invest).

The film industry thought a mainstream audience wouldn’t care enough to see an animated feature film.

What they neglected to see was the power of story.

Even though animation was at its core, the Pixar team knew their success would ultimately fall on one simple thing: Their ability to tell a good story.

Ed Catmull, one of the co-founders of Pixar, wrote in his bestselling bookCreativity, Inc. about his company’s creative process:

“For all the care you put into artistry, visual polish frequently doesn’t matter if you aren’t getting the story right.”

Pixar has won the Academy Award for Best Animated Picture for 8 out of their 16 films. And every single Pixar film has landed on the respective year’s top ten list of most profitable films.

No other studio comes close to this hit rate.

Telling a good story, whether that’s through email, film, or any medium, creates a connection. And it’s this connection that leads to attention, which leads to trust, which leads to sales.

As Pixar realized early on, you can get away with lesser visual effects if your story is good. But the reverse is not always true.

Case in point, if we look at the ten most expensive movies ever made, the average production cost was $274 million per film.

And the average ranking across these films according to Rotten Tomatoes? 59%

(The highest rated film was Tangled at 90% which was produced by Disney/Pixar).

Meanwhile, the average Pixar film cost an average of $145 million and averages an 89% review from critics and audiences alike.

What’s even more telling is that if we take a sampling of the critic consensus from the poorly rated movies in the top ten, you’ll notice that critics rarely say the quality of the animation or special effects as the reason why they gave a bad rating.

They cite issues with the story:

“…this Pirates runs aground on a disjointed plot and a non-stop barrage of noisy action sequences.” — Review of Pirates of the Caribbean on Stranger Tides

“…mixes in too many characters with too many incomprehensible plot threads.” — Review of Pirates of the Caribbean 3

“While John Carter looks terrific and delivers its share of pulpy thrills, it also suffers from uneven pacing and occasionally incomprehensible plotting and characterization.” — Review of John Carter

“…a grim whirlwind of effects-driven action.” — Review of Batman vs. Superman

While the other producers may have had the budgets to make something as visually stunning as Pixar, where they didn’t level up was in their story.

We can make something look pretty. But if pretty doesn’t tell a good story it won’t matter.

Why beauty doesn’t always work (especially today)

Just like you can’t rely on beauty alone in the design of your product, you can’t only focus on beauty to tell your story.

A well-designed message is one that tells a good story first.

As we saw in our email campaign example, a story is powerful enough to overcome an email design that breaks all the rules.

You might not have Apple’s marketing budget ($1.2 billion this year) or design chops. But that’s okay. Sometimes Apple-level beauty isn’t the best way to present your story. And sometimes it might even make things worse.

In a recent article published by BBC, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte reviewed findings on if there was a drawback to being ‘too beautiful’.

The researchers uncovered several studies, including one in 1975 that found people tend to move away from a beautiful woman on a pathway. A similar behavior was found from a review of the profile photos from the dating website OKCupid. Men with ‘average’ looking profile photos got more messages than men with the ‘most attractive’ profile photos.

The researchers suggested this behavior could be because attractiveness conveys power. As a result, people feel they need to respect an attractive person more and keep their distance.

These examples illustrate that beauty can backfire. If something is too beautiful it can be seen as less approachable, further distancing you from the people you are trying to reach.

Similarly, clothing brands like American Eagle recently saw an increase in sales after they stopped photoshopping models.

Too much beauty can be seen as a sales tactic. Though we may be attracted to something that looks good, we also have a strong unconscious aversion to being sold to.

And this aversion is getting stronger.

First, because of the internet and the power of online networks like Facebook, we have more access to information, which means we see more instances of bad things.

For instance, of the top movie documentaries all-time listed on Rotten Tomatoes, 4 of the top 10 are stories of injustice or corruption and have been made since 2005.

Every phone has become a media device. Stories spread fast. And while there’s a lot of good happening in the world, stories of corruption and distrust tend to surface to the top because they grab our attention.

Trust is at an all-time low. As this 2013 USA Today poll suggests, two thirds of Americans polled said they were suspicious of others. This is double the rate of distrust since the survey was first done in 1972.

We’ve become hypersensitive to bullshit. We have an increasing lack of trust for everything, including beauty.

Beauty can be perceived as a layer of bullshit, making people feel like they are being sold to.

As one of the lead researchers from the study said: “If you are obsessing about attractiveness, it may alter your experience and interactions.”

This is exactly it.

If we focus too much on the visual attraction of our message, the experience people have with our stories will likely suffer.

Increase in information; Decrease in attention

Adding to our natural aversion to being sold to, we’ve become overloaded with things vying for our attention.

In the last decade, as the world moved mostly online, messages started to attack us everywhere. And these messages are smart. With billboards we could just look away. With TV/radio we could shut it off. But today’s messages are connected to all the tools we use to communicate. And brought to us by people we trust.

“If we focus too much on the visual attraction of our message, the experience people have with our stories will likely suffer.”

Facebook. Twitter. Email. Phones. Laptops. Tablets. Notifications come flying at us from all angles. Because today’s messages come in bits and pings, they are cheap, effective, and easy to spread.

With so much access to information, we only have two options:

Either we try to consume everything (which isn’t possible) or we filter (i.e. we stop paying attention to a lot of things).

Since we can’t consume everything, we’ve become experts at filtering. Filtering out crap. Filtering anything that looks remotely untrustworthy or has the tiniest hint of salesmanship.

To quote multi-platinum musician Rihanna:

“My fans can sniff the BS from very far away. I cannot trick them.”

Our brains have actually changed to adapt to the current information overload.

A recent study by Microsoft on Canadians found that our attention spans have dropped by a quarter, from 12 seconds to 8 seconds, since 2000; which is less than the attention span of a goldfish.

There’s a general fatigue that’s happening. We’ve been forced into becoming B.S. detection experts.

While ads and marketing may have gotten prettier and better with more data, we’ve gotten better at filtering. Resisting.

It’s an arms race. And it might seem like we’re doomed to lose as creators. That no will ever care what we have to say.

But we’re not. There’s an easy solution.

The solution is easy and you already know how to do it

When you see an email from a friend saying, “hey lets catchup for coffee monday. you in?” it cuts through everything.

Even though it breaks every standard of writing: no capitalization, missing punctuation. It grabs your attention. You answer it first. Why?

First, this message comes from a person you trust so that plays a huge factor. But, adding to the trust you have in the messenger, is a message you know came from a human. Not a machine.

There’s no fancy headlines, graphics, or words so you feel safe. You’re not being gamed. You can let your guard down for a second.

There’s plenty of results to back up that you don’t need visual beauty to connect with people.

Multi-platinum musician Beyonce’s most watched music video on her YouTube channel is her song, 7/11. Even though many of Beyonce’s music videos have a high production quality, 7/11 is shot with low-quality video. Yet, it outperformed every other Beyonce video.

Kelly Starrett is a physiotherapist and trainer who has some of the most consistently viewed fitness videos on YouTube. He recorded most videos with a phone in his garage with no professional gear.

Some of Kelly’s videos even show his daughter accidentally walking in and ‘mistakes’ in editing.

Kelly could have edited these things out but because they were kept in, I feel an even deeper connection with him. These ‘mistakes’ make me feel like Kelly is a human and he’s not trying to sell me. Like he’s one of my friends in his garage figuring something out and he’s sending over a video for me to check it out.

He’s a person who has kids, a dog, a somewhat messy garage. And he shoots low-resolution, unedited videos just like me. I can relate to that. His videos aren’t the highest quality or the nicest shot. But what they do have is some of the best fitness coaching I’ve ever seen. They have substance. So I trust Kelly. When I’m looking for fitness tips, I search Kelly first. When Kelly wrote a book, I bought it.

Maybe if Beyonce and Kelly used professional equipment for these videos, viewership would have increased, but the way they shot these videos in raw form is partly what makes them attractive. These videos make Beyonce and Kelly seem approachable and relatable.

Comedian Louis C.K. does a similar thing with the emails he writes.

Louis sends email newsletters that feel like he’s just writing to you. Some have spelling mistakes or improper punctuation but that’s part of them. I don’t care about those grammar mistakes. In fact, I like them. It makes me feel like Louis is simply talking to me like he would talk to a friend.

Here’s an example:

Time and again we see the substance of the story is more important than the look of it.

We don’t need beauty to connect with people. When we sense someone is being ‘real’ with us, our brain’s natural urge to resist influence is calmed.

What your message needs is authenticity. Your unique way of sharing your message with all its blemishes and imperfect sentences.

Authenticity doesn’t mean beauty.

Authenticity means substance. It means cutting the bullshit.

While visual beauty counts for something, it isn’t the only thing that connects people with your message.

If you want anyone to trust you. To pay attention to you. To maybe one day buy from you. Your best option is to remove all the barriers in your message. To sound more like how you sound when you talk to a friend. To sound like just another human. Because ‘just another human’ is much more relatable than a corporation.

Authenticity is powerful. It’s easy. And we all already know how to do it.

We just need a reminder sometimes that it’s ok to be authentic. Even when it comes to business. Actually, especially when it comes to business.

When you think of our company, picture it as a person. A brand should sound like a person, rather than a company. Whether it’s a website, an email, a tweet, or an ad, everything should feel like it’s coming from a person. Because it is.

You might think you need to use industry words because you think you need to sound like an ‘industry leader’, or you feel like you need to watch what you say so you don’t offend a partner, investor, or customer.

Or in certain cases, there might be legal or company policy reasons outside your control that require you to hold back from saying what you really want to say. But the closer you can get to what you really want to say, the better your message will connect.

That said, I know how hard it is to wipe the business off a message when we’ve been trained to think we need to sound a certain way when we operate professionally. One thing I do is start rough drafts for any of our company announcements as Facebook posts.

There’s something about the context of writing the message directly in Facebook that shifts my brain and makes me write like I’m writing to a friend.

Sometimes we can overdo a message because the tool we use to write these messages that makes us feel like the stakes are higher. Writing in professional tools subtly tells your brain, “Hey, this is going to be important cause you’re writing it in your WordPress backend so be careful.” This kills your personality.

Try lowering the stakes. Write your important business messages using a tool where you communicate with friends and family. I bet your personality will come spilling out.

The way you explain your company to a friend is how you should explain it to the world. If you’re being overly formal just because it worked for someone else, you will sound like everyone else, and you will be tuned out.

We’re all humans. Even under a suit.

—

Making something pretty is fine, just make sure this beauty is paired with substance because beauty alone won’t be enough.

And if you have to choose between making something prettier or making the message more authentic, choose the message.

Without a story you have nothing. Without a story, people will glaze over you even if you spent hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars making your story look pretty.

Showing your imperfection is better than faking perfection.

More so than ever before, direct communication is expected. Instagram, Twitter, and newer communication platforms like Snapchat are even more focused on raw, direct connection.

For all the bad the connected world shows us, this same connection is a unique opportunity to share your beliefs and connect with people on a massive scale. Never has it been easier to reach so many of the right people with your story.

You might think you need beauty to create impact but you don’t. Authenticity is more powerful. Authenticity is approachable. It creates connection.

Being authentic is the most beautiful thing you can do.

  The post Why you don’t need design like Apple appeared first on Design your way.

from Web Development & Designing http://www.designyourway.net/blog/design/dont-need-design-like-apple/

[brendagilliam2]

25 names every graphic designer should know

If you’re embarking on a career in graphic design – perhaps by transforming a design internship into a job or sending out a brilliant creative resume or design portfolio – there are some designers that you simply must know about. These are the designers who have changed the way graphic design is seen in the contemporary world. They are the mavericks, the thinkers, and those who have made a difference to design.

Key terms every graphic designer should know

01. Chip Kidd

Chip Kidd is best known for his stunning book jackets

Based in New York City, Chip Kidd is best known for his stunning book jackets – most notably for seminal publishing house Alfred A. Knopf. Kidd has worked for writers such James Elroy, Michael Crichton and Neil Gaiman (among many others).

Jurassic Park is one of his most notable book covers, and in his 2005 monograph he explained the thinking behind it: “When trying to recreate one of these creatures, all anyone has to go on is bones, right? So that was the starting point…

Jurassic Park is one of Kidd’s most notable book covers

“Not only was the drawing integrated into the movie poster, it became the logo in the film for the park itself. I think it’s safe to say that the Jurassic Park T-Rex became one of the most recognisable logos of the 1990s.”

Listen to Kidd’s hugely entertaining TED talk here. Oh, and if you want to see what you could learn from Kidd’s portfolio, check out our article.

02. Rob Janoff 

Rob Janoff designed the Apple logo

Why do you need to know about Rob Janoff? Simple: he designed the Apple logo. Janoff masterminded possibly the most famous mark in the world today while at ad agency Regis McKenna back in 1977. And although it’s been tweaked, the basic form has remained the same ever since – a testament to its simplicity and longevity (and it was created in only two weeks).

Back in 2013, Janoff told us that the idea of an apple with a bite taken out of it was “really a no-brainer”. He continued: “If you have a computer named after a piece of fruit, maybe the image should look like the fruit? So I sat for a couple of weeks and drew silhouettes of apples.

“Bite is also a computer term. Wow, that was a happy accident. At that point I thought ‘this is going to have a wink and a nod with it, and give it personality’.”

An apple with a bite (or byte?) taken out of it was a ‘no brainer’

And as for the now forgotten coloured stripes? “The big deal about the Apple II was that it was the only computer that reproduced colour images on the monitor, and it was the only computer that you could plug into your home colour TV. 

“Also, a lot of it had to do with the aesthetic origins of both Steve [Jobs] and I, which was a kind of hippy aesthetic and The Beatles and Yellow Submarine.”

03. Peter Saville

Peter Saville is best known for his record sleeve designs for Factory Records artists

Peter Saville is best known for his record sleeve designs for Factory Records artists – think Joy Division and New Order (Unknown Pleasures, Transmission, Blue Monday and more). But his sleeve work spans five decades. Saville is one of the most prolific record designers of all time, if not the most prolific. 

But the Manchester-born designer’s work doesn’t stop at sleeve design. In 2004 he became creative director of the City of Manchester; he has worked with fashion’s elite including Jil Sander and Stella McCartney; and in 2010 he designed the England football home kit. 

In 2013 he told The Guardian all about the latter: “The red and white thing has been entirely marginalised by one kind of person. It’s synonymous with an attitude that is naive, xenophobic, bullying and self-marginalising. I thought, that’s not reflective of the team, or football, or of the nation at all.

Saville also collaborated on the Calvin Klein logo redesign

“But it turns out the market for those shirts are those bloody-minded xenophobic individuals with the shaved heads. When it came out, they did not like it. They did not like it at all.” 

Born in 1955, Saville is still going strong – he recently collaborated on the new Calvin Klein logo.

04. Michael Bierut

Designer and educator Michael Bierut has been a Pentagram partner for 27 years

There aren’t many design agencies that are more respected than Pentagram – and becoming a partner is one of the ultimate design accolades. Designer and educator Bierut has been a partner for 27 years now and has won hundreds of design awards (he’s also got permanent work in MoMA). Before Pentagram, Bierut worked for 10 years at Vignelli Associates.

The designer’s projects at Pentagram include identity and branding for Benetton, the New York Jets, Walt Disney and design work on Billboard magazine. This is of course, just a small slice of his sprawling portfolio. Bierut is also a senior critic in graphic design at the Yale School of Art. Check out his Monograph – How To – published in 2015.

Check out Bierut’s Monograph – How To

In 2013, we caught up with his to find out what he looks for in new talent: “The best are people who are bright and articulate, and have great work in their portfolio. I could sit with them all day,” he says. “The second best have great work but can’t talk about it intelligently. That takes work, but still it’s worth the effort.

“I like people who, in talking about their work, scratch below the surface. Don’t talk about typefaces and Photoshop effects; talk about the subject matter, and how that interested and inspired you.”

05. Massimo Vignelli

Vignelli was one of the great designers of the 20th century

Massimo Vignelli died in 2014, taking with him a legacy of some of the most iconic design work of the past 50 years. 

Counting IBM, Ford, Bloomingdale’s (his ‘Brown Bag’ designs are still in use today), Saks, American Airlines and many more as clients, and counting Micheal Bierut among his protégés, Vignelli’s legacy lives on. It lives on perhaps most prominently in the subway map and signage he designed for New York City in 1972.

Vignelli’s ‘Brown Bag’ designs are still in use today

At the time of his death in 2014, web designer Justin Reynolds wrote an in-depth guide for us on what we can all learn from Vignelli’s design principles.

In it, Reynolds wrote: “He was celebrated for his teaching as well as his work… Which means Vignelli’s legacy is of fundamental importance to all designers. 

“The web emerged too late in his career to allow him to make a direct contribution to the medium, but the design principles that guided his work have had a profound impact upon the processes and aesthetics of both traditional and digital design.”

06. Jonathan Barnbrook

Jonathan Barnbrook has been a huge name in typography

As David Bowie’s latter-career go-to designer, Jonathan Barnbrook has become even more prominent in recent times. But Barnbrook’s work is far deeper than Heathen, The Next Day and Blackstar.

Before Bowie, he was perhaps best known for his influential type design – Exocet becoming the most pirated font on the web shortly after release in 1991 (it was also used in the FPS video game Diablo). 

Barnbrook’s VirusFonts foundry continued to thrive throughout the next couple of decades, with Bastard and Tourette being good examples of his still contemporary, but controversial, typefaces.

Barnbrook’s masterpiece for David Bowie’s sign-off album Blackstar

In an interview with us in 2012, Barnbrook said of Tourette: “Tourette is based on an early 19th century slab serif form. Having Tourette’s means that people move outside an agreed code of language… That’s what I was trying to say in Tourette. There are swear words that are banned, but it’s necessary that they appear in language as well, because we can’t calibrate it otherwise. And I do like swearing.”

Flip to the modern day and Barnbrook’s masterpiece of sleeve design for David Bowie’s sign off album Blackstar – the artwork from which was released for free – is every bit as good as the record itself. He also designed the all caps Exocet typeface.

 07. Kate Moross

Kate Moross has worked with everyone from TFL to One Direction

Kate Moross – creative director of Studio Moross – is an art director and designer from London. She came onto the scene in 2008 with her trademark typography and energetic, fluid drawing style. 

She has since become one of the UK’s most sought-after and successful designers, creating a myriad of album covers, magazine covers, branding, video and even live visuals for One Direction.

Moross designed bus and tube pass holders for Transport for London

“I don’t think about things in terms of influence. I’m not at school any more,” she told Creative Bloq in an interview in 2011. “I don’t look at a painting by van Gogh and go off and do a van Gogh drawing in my sketchbook. I don’t read magazines, I don’t go to art galleries, I don’t engage with the culture in a traditional way that perhaps a lot of people do. 

“I think I get most of my ideas from everyday life – going to the shop or interacting with the bus driver or seeing something by accident. I’m not one for organised culture or anything like that, so I do try to let things happen naturally. I definitely think your influences are to do with your character, your life, your mood and general culture like TV and film that you can’t really escape.”

08. Carolyn Davidson 

Carolyn Davidson

There aren’t many logos that are more recognised the world over than Nike’s iconic swoosh. It’s often the simplest ideas that are the best and the Nike mark proves it.

Graphic designer Carolyn Davidson designed the logo as a student at Portland State University in 1971 – and was paid $35 for it by Nike founder Phil Knight (Knight met Davidson in an accounting class he was teaching).

Davidson was paid just $35 for her original logo design

The tick-like logo was seen as a symbol of positivity, but it’s actually the outline of the wing of the Greek goddess of victory whom the brand was named after. In 2011, Davidson told OreganLive.com that “it was a challenge to come up with a logo that conveyed motion” and that Philip Knight was very impressed with the stripes of rival company Adidas – it was increasingly hard to come up with something original.

As Nike grew in the 1980s, Philip Knight gave Davidson an undisclosed amount of Nike stock (making up for the tiny fee for the logo, we’re sure).

09. George Lois

In terms of magazine design, George Lois was perhaps the original maverick

In terms of magazine design, George Lois was perhaps the original maverick. From 1962 to 1972 he enjoyed an incredible 10 years at US Esquire magazine, designing some of the most iconic, and perhaps controversial, covers in history – including April 1968’s Muhammed Ali cover. Big ideas, presented in a simple way.

In an interview with Design Boom in 2014, Lois was asked about his ability to surprise. “When I create an image, I want people to take a step back in awe when they see it for the first time. I want them to be taken back first by the strength of the image, then by the meaning of the content. This makes people understand what’s special about a product or how exciting and interesting a magazine is.

During his time at Esquire Lois created this controversial Muhammed Ali cover

“Another one of my strongest skills is making something memorable. If something is memorable, it stays in the consciousness, and that helps sales.”

As well as a successful magazine designer, Lois was also a top figure in the world of advertising, working for a raft of huge clients including MTV, VH1, ESPN and Tommy Hilfiger.

10. Saul Bass

Saul Bass’ film title sequences have won him worldwide recognition

It sounds like hyperbole, but Bass was probably the most important graphic designer of the 20th century. His work transcended graphic design, poster design, film titles, logos and more – with perhaps his most iconic work being opening sequences for Hitchcock. 

In fact, his opening credit work spanned five decades – right up to his death in 1996. Some of his last work was for Martin Scorcese on Goodfellas and Casino.

In a 2011 article for the Telegraph, Scorcese reflected on Bass’ genius: “I had an idea of what I wanted for the [Goodfellas] titles, but couldn’t quite get it. Someone suggested Saul, and my reaction was: ‘Do we dare?’ After all, this was the man who designed the title sequences for Vertigo, Psycho, Anatomy of a Murder… and so many other pictures that defined movies and moviegoing for me.

“When we were growing up and seeing movies, we came to recognise Saul’s designs, and I remember the excitement they generated within us. 

“They made the picture instantly special. And they didn’t stand apart from the movie, they drew you into it, instantly. Because, putting it very simply, Saul was a great film-maker. He would look at the film in question, and he would understand the rhythm, the structure, the mood – he would penetrate the heart of the movie and find its secret.”

As a logo designer Bass was also prolific, designing the marks for AT&T, Kleenex, United Airlines, Minolta and many, many more.

11. Morag Myerscough

Morag Myerscough’s designs are always colourful

For over 30 years, Morag Myerscough has been creating stunning supergraphic installations – grand scale installations, pop-ups and wayfinding graphics that bring spaces to life through her trademark bright colours. 

Her clients – through her studio, Studio Myerscough – include London’s Barbican, Royal London Hospital and the Stockholm Kulturfestival.

Myerscough’s eye-popping installations have appeared around the world

In 2013, Myerscough revealed to Design Boom just what makes her tick: “What I enjoy the most [about environmental graphic design projects] is that people enjoy and respond to the places we make and it makes a difference to them. 

“I put a narrative in the building; we make places where people feel they belong,” she says. Her awards include the Design Museum’s Design of the Year.

12. Lindon Leader

Lindon Leader is responsible for one of the cleverest logos out there

Leader by name, leader by nature, Lindon Leader is responsible for one of the cleverest logos out there, utilising negative space in a way never done before (at least for a huge global company). In 1994, Leader was senior design director at Landor Associates when the FedEx logo was designed. It was subsequently applied to 600 aircraft and 30,000 ground vehicles. Now there’s a portfolio piece. 

Leader told us, in an interview in 2013, that Landor did around 200 designs for the logo before settling on a shortlist of 10 to show to the FedEx brand manager. And the use of white? Particularly that hidden arrow between the E and the X? “I cannot tell you how many times I fight with a client who says ‘I’m paying an enormous amount of money to pay for an ad in a magazine and you’re telling me you want 60 per cent of it to be empty space?’” he smiles.

Leader was senior design director at Landor Associates when the FedEx logo was designed

“On the one hand I can understand where they’re coming from, but basically the average client does not have a sophisticated enough appreciation of whitespace to understand that it can be a strategic marketing tool.”

As well as FedEx, Leader worked on many high-profile branding projects while at Landor, quoting his favourites as Hawaiian Airlines, Cigna Insurance and Banco Baresco. But Leader understands just what the FedEx logo means: “While I think I’m blessed and privileged to have said I designed the FedEx logo, sometimes I think I’m going to go to my grave and that’s the only thing people are going to remember me for.”

Next page: More great designers who shaped the design industry

13. Herb Lubalin

Herb Lubalin was most recognised for his work on magazines published by Ralph Ginzburg

Advertising director, graphic designer and typographer Herb Lubalin was perhaps most recognised for his work on magazines published by Ralph Ginzburg. Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde – all of which gave Lubalin unprecedented room for typographic experimentation.

He also gained acclaim for designing the typeface ITC Avant Garde, based on the logo font from the magazine of the same name. Lubalin passed away in 1981, having won the 1980 AIGA Medal.

Avant Garde magazine inspired Lubalin’s typeface

The profile of his distinguished career on the AIGA site says: “Herb Lubalin’s unique contribution to our times goes well beyond design in much the same way that his typographic innovations go beyond the 26 letters, ten numerals and the handful of punctuation marks that comprise our visual, literal vocabulary. Lubalin’s imagination, sight and insight have erased boundaries and pushed back frontiers.”

It also says: “Typography is the key. It is where you start with Lubalin and what you eventually come back to. However, ‘typography’ is not a word Lubalin thought should be applied to his work. ‘What I do is not really typography, which I think of as an essentially mechanical means of putting characters down on a page. It’s designing with letters. Aaron Burns called it, typographics, and since you’ve got to put a name on things to make them memorable, typographics is as good a name for what I do as any.’”

14. Marian Bantjes

Marian Bantjes is known for her highly intricate designs

Marian Bantjes is a Canadian designer, artist and letterer. Her unique approach to typography, weaving it between often ornamental graphics, has built her a reputation as one of contemporary design’s most creative letterers, her striking portfolio backing this up. 

In 2010, she released the beautiful monograph ‘I wonder’. In 2013, she released Pretty Pictures, published by Thames and Hudson in the UK/Metropolis Books in the US

A spread from Pretty Pictures shows Bantjes’ intricate style

In 2013, she revealed to Nothingmajor.com her fascination with challenging the way type is seen: “I think I like the fact that you can push letterforms into so many different shapes. Like graffiti – I’m fascinated with graffiti – I think graffiti is so sophisticated typographically. 

“I love the idea of something that’s recognisable and readable to those who know how to read it, but not everybody else. I like the continuum between the readable and unreadable, the variation there is within that. I just really love that ability to experiment with that and make forms that are interesting but that say something, but are not abstract.”

15. Max Miedinger

Max Miedinger created one of the world’s most used typefaces, Helvetica

Neue Haas Grotesk. Designed in 1957. Familiar? No? Well if not, this is the typeface that was renamed Helvetica in 1960. And Max Miedinger was the man behind the now-omnipresent typeface. As neutral as it is legible, Helvetica’s ubiquity has no doubt made it the love/hate typeface of today.

Meidinger learnt his trade in the 1930s, and after the Second World War he worked at Haas Type Foundry in Switzerland. The story behind Helvetica goes as such: the foundry needed a typeface to rival Akzidenz-Grotesk by H Berthold. It took Meidinger months to draft the new typeface before presenting it to the company’s director Eduard Hoffmann.

Neue Haas Grotesk was soon changed to Helvitia (to denote the typeface’s Swiss origins) before another tweak made it Helvetica.

Max Miedinger was the man behind the now omnipresent typeface, Helvetica

It’s been used everywhere – from the American Airlines logo to BMW to, well, hundreds of big brands. And even today it’s the choice of designers wanting a clean, legible typeface that’s an expression of modernist perfection. 

But Helvetica isn’t for everyone – after all, familiarity breeds contempt. If Helvetica is a bit too familiar for you, check out our list of alternatives to Helvetica. 

16. Susan Kare

Susan Kare was the designer responsible for the original icons and interface elements on Mac OS

While Mr Hyperbole Jony Ive is now responsible for all the icons you see on your Mac and iOS devices, we would never have got to this point without the inimitable Susan Kare – the designer responsible for the original icons and interface elements on Mac OS.

A creative director at Apple in the 1980s, Kare paved the way for what we see on our desktops every single day: the trash can, the happy/sad Mac, the Command key icon.

The happy/sad Mac? All Kare

In our interview with Kare back in 2013, she reflected on her time at Apple: “I really enjoyed working with Steve Jobs, both at Apple and then later at NeXT [the company founded in 1985 by Steve Jobs after he’d been forced out of Apple]. He cared so much about every detail, was interested in design and graphics, and challenged you to do your best work.”

She’s still innovating now, with her portfolio boasting icons for Facebook, Microsoft, Wired and more. Kare also worked on the Geneva typeface, as we revealed in our post 5 fonts created by famous designers and why they work.

17. Erik Spiekermann

Erik Spiekermann is best known for designing some of the most successful fonts of the last century

Erik Spiekermann has enjoyed a distinguished career in both graphic design and typography, but he’s best known for designing some of the most successful fonts of the last century. 

FF Meta is possibly one of the most prominent, originally having being designed for the German Post Office.

Meta is possibly one of Spiekermann’s most prominent designs

So what makes a good typeface in Spiekermann’s expert eyes? “The alphabet hasn’t changed,” he smiles. “If it deviates too far then it will be disturbing. A shoe is a shoe. A triangular shoe is not going to work. 

“But it has to have that little element in there that most people won’t even notice – something a little different. It has a different take; it may feel warmer or colder or squarer or whatever.”

18. Paul Rand 

Paul Rand was an American art director and graphic designer

Born in 1914, Paul Rand was an American art director and graphic designer. He was undoubtedly best known for his logo work, including that for one of America’s biggest companies, IBM. Rand’s first IBM logo was revealed in 1956 as part of the company’s new focus on the importance of design. Using a big, slab serif face, its statement was bold and confident.

Later on in 1972 Rand refined the logo, breaking it into eight horizontal stripes (reminiscent of the scan lines on the cathode ray tube monitors of the day) and introducing the distinctive IBM blue.

Rand’s first IBM logo was revealed in 1956

Interesting fact: Rand was actually born Paul Rosenbaum but when he established himself as a designer he shortened his name to Paul Rand – four letters for name and surname. His name became a symbol in its own right.

Rand also designed the logo for Steve Jobs’ post Apple venture, NeXT. On Rand, Jobs said: “I asked him if he would come up with a few options, and he said, ‘No, I will solve your problem for you and you will pay me. You don’t have to use the solution. If you want options go talk to other people.’” Rand passed away in 1996.

19. Alan Fletcher 

Alan Fletcher was one of the most highly regarded graphic designers of his generation

Alan Fletcher was one of the founding partners of Pentagram, and one of the most highly regarded graphic designers of his generation (and in fact, any generation). His work spans decades, but he was perhaps most prolific and recognised in his Pentagram years.

Fletcher’s 1989 V&A museum logo design still stands the test of time today

Fletcher’s logo for London’s V&A museum is testament to the timeless appeal of his work – designed in 1989, it’s still going strong. The relatively fragile Bodoni-style serifs work brilliantly with negative space to create a high-contrast, confident logotype.

Fletcher passed away in 2006, but check out the Alan Fletcher archive for a comprehensive journey through his career.

20. Milton Glaser

Glaser was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama in 2009

Milton Glaser is one of the world’s most celebrated graphic designers. His most famous work is undoubtedly the logo he designed for New York to promote tourism in the city in 1977. 

Much used, adapted and adored, the I ❤ NY logo is set in American Typewriter, a rounded slab serif.

Glaser’s ‘I Love New York’ logo has been in use since 1977

But Glaser is much more than the one logo. His work for Bob Dylan, DC Comics and The Brooklyn Brewery are just some of the logo masterpieces that cement him as one of the most prominent designers in history.

“The most important thing in design, it seems to me, is the consequence of your action, and whether you’re interested, fundamentally, in persuading people to do things that are in their interests,” he told us in an exclusive interview in 2009). 

He’s also the man behind the geometric Glaser Stencil font and the subject of a 2008 documentary film Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight.

21. Stefan Sagmeister

Sagmeister has a reputation for controversy

Born in Austria, New York-based graphic designer and typographer Stefan Sagmeister enjoyed a career resurgence in 2012 when he made Jessica Walsh (number 22 in our list) a partner at his studio, now named Sagmeister & Walsh.

Just as he had done when he launched his own studio, Sagmeister announced the partnership with a naked photoshoot. It did the PR job.

Sagmeister is a long-standing collaborator with Lou Reed

But there’s more to Sagmeister than nudity. His often conceptual, thought-provoking work has turned just as many heads as his PR stunts: particularly his ‘cutting’ work for AIGA and his incredible album artwork for Lou Reed.

22. Jessica Walsh

Jessica Walsh formed a high-profile business partnership with Stefan Sagmeister

In recent times, Jessica Walsh has become one of the most recognised graphic designers in the world. In 2010, she was working at Print magazine where she reached out to Stefan Sagmeister for advice. He spent five minutes flipping through her book and offered her a position at Sagmeister Inc on the spot. “I quit my job the next morning,” she grinned when she related the story in our interview with her and Sagmeister.

Sagmeister confirms the attraction: “I immediately loved her sunny character and no-nonsense approach to work.” Walsh brought a fresh output to the already iconic design company, and in 2012 she was made a partner.

Walsh started her career in editorial design, even creating a cover for our own Computer Arts magazine

Another partnership, this time with photographer Timothy Goodman, also hit headlines. The duo’s 40 days of dating project documented their quest for love through illustration and design from some of the world’s leading designers. They replicated that success with a new project, 12 Kinds Of Kindness, in 2016.

23. David Carson

David Carson is best known for innovative magazine design and use of experimental typography

As art director of music and lifestyle magazine Ray Gun, David Carson became the most influential graphic designer of the 1990s. His unconventional grunge typography style was a new era in design. 

An example of his genius? Setting what he thought was a dull interview with Bryan Ferry entirely in the Dingbat symbol font.

Ray Gun was one of the defining magazines of the 1990s

The first edition of his End of Print monograph, first published in 2000, sold 35,000 copies – and many many more since. It’s essential reading for any graphic designer – new or established.

“What matters is that you have an intuitive design sense, listen to it and explore your uniqueness through your work,” he told us in this interview. “Create rules that work for you and the type of work you’re doing. I never learned all the things in school I wasn’t supposed to do, so I just did, and still do, what makes sense to me.”

24. Neville Brody

Brody is best known for art editing influential UK magazine The Face during its 1980s heyday

English designer, typographer and art director Neville Brody shot to fame with his incredible art direction of cult UK magazine The Face between 1981 and 1986. He’s also well known for art directing Arena magazine (1987-1990) and designing record covers for artists such as Cabaret Voltaire and Depeche Mode.

Brody also founded Research Studios and redesigned The Times in November 2006 (with the creation of a new font, Times Modern) and the BBC’s website in September 2011.

Brody gave a new, modern look to the newspaper founded in 1785

In our Classic Interview with Brody from 1995, he made this forward-facing prediction: “The mistake people have made is to assume that the computer is just a tool. It’s not just a labour saving device like a food mixer or washing machine. The computer is a new medium like television or cinema. Or books.”

And in our slightly more recent interview, when asked how he feels about being a design icon, he quipped: “You can’t even think about that. You don’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘Hey! I’m a design icon! What shall I do today?’ You’re finished if you do that! Imagine!”

25. Paula Scher

Scher has been a design educator since 1992, teaching at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York

Partner at Pentagram and almost certainly the most influential female graphic designer alive today, Paula Scher’s branding and identity work for the likes of MOMA, New York City Ballet, Microsoft and NYC Transit is some of the finest examples of the genre you’ll ever see. Her typographic maps are also sublime. 

Scher’s design for the official 2012 Sundance Film Festival poster

In our interview with Scher from 2009 on learning from design mistakes, she said: “When I worked at CBS, from the mid-1970s to near the end when the money ran out, that was a pretty wonderful time for designing because I could make discoveries in a free way – largely because I had a lot of work to do and so much of what I did was terrible.

“…To get good, you have to get really bad. You have to make some terrible, horrible mistakes.”

Related articles:

8 great examples of graphic design portfolios

7 iconic logos and what you can learn from them

Key terms every graphic designer should know

This post comes from the RSS feed of CreativeBlog, you can find more here!

The post 25 names every graphic designer should know appeared first on Brenda Gilliam.

from Brenda Gilliam http://brendagilliam.com/25-names-every-graphic-designer-should-know/

[cassus-the-derp2]

I still don’t know why I do these things. It’s not even out of boredom this time.

1. Is a kiss considered cheating? Nope.

2. Have you ever faked orgasm? Nope.

3. If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Telekinesis

4. Do you think you are going to be rich in 7-8-9 years? Not even close.

5. Tell us some funny drunk story. While I find drunk people to be fun to be around, I don’t have any good drunk stories.

6. Why are you no longer together with your ex? >implying i’ve actually been in a romantic relationship before

7. If you had to choose one way to die, what would it be? Something that would kill me instantly, and I want to see it coming.

8. What are your current goals? To get very far away from the place I’ve been stuck my entire life.

9. Do you like someone? No, but not for lack of wanting to.

10. Who was the last person to disappoint you? Does myself count? Yeah, I think it does.

11. Do you like your body? I would if I could just get access to some damned HRT.

12. Can you keep a diet? A diet? Yes. A healthy one? No.

13. If the whole world listened to you right now, what would you say? JUST GET THE FUCK ALONG ALREADY

14. Do you work? Not currently.

15. If you could choose only one food to eat to the rest of your life, what would it be? Pizza

16. Would you get a tattoo? Yes, but I’d be as careful as possible with what it looks like.

17. Something you don’t mind spending all your money on? Video games

18. Can you drive? Yes, but I don’t like to.

19. When was the last time someone told you you were beautiful? Never.

20. What was the last thing you cried for? I don’t remember.

21. Do you keep a journal? No, but not for lack of trying.

22. Is life fun? Honestly, this question baffles me. It is a fundamental truth of my life that existence is pain.

23. Is farting in front of people irrelevant? If it’s silent and doesn’t smell bad, yes. In any other case, it’s rather rude.

24. What’s your dream car? If it runs, has a radio, and working air and windows, it’s fine by me.

25. Are grades in school important? Hardly.

26. Describe your crush. Don’t have one.

27. What was the last book/movie that really impressed you? Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

28. What was your last lie? I told myself that life is worth living.

29. Dumbest lie you ever told? No idea.

30. Is crying in front of people embarrassing? It depends of the situation.

31. Something you did and you are proud of? I once got a candy cane out of the plastic in one piece.

32. What’s your favourite cocktail? Molotov?

33. Something you are good at? Throwing things and having them land where intended.

34. Do you like small kids? No.

35. How are you feeling right now? Terrible, as always.

36. What would you name your daughter/son? Andromeda

37. What do you need to be happy? I wouldn’t know.

38. Is there someone you want to punch in the face right now? There are many people I’d like to punch in the face.

39. What was the last gift you received? A Hufflepuff scarf as a belated birthday/christmas present.

40. What was the last gift you gave? A pack of reese’s cups, for my mother’s birthday.

41. What was the last concert you went to? An Eagles cover band, over fifteen years ago. Didn’t even mean to go, but stumbled across it and decided to stay for a bit.

42. Favourite place to shop at? Any book store.

43. Who inspires you? David Bowie, Leonard Nimoy, and Mary Shelley, among others.

44. How old were you when you first got drunk? I haven’t yet. I’m pretty sure that if I get drunk, someone is going to die, and I’d rather not take that risk.

45. How old were you when you first got high? I’ve never intentionally been high before, but I’m pretty sure I got a buzz off sharpie fumes once or twice.

46. How old were you when you first had sex? Never found someone I’ve wanted to have sex with.

47. When was your first kiss? Never found someone I’ve wanted to kiss.

48. Something you want to do until the end of this year? No Idea.

49. Is there something in the past you wish you hadn’t done? Yup.

50. Post a selfie. Bitch, that’s not a question.

51. Who are you most comfortable around? No one.

52. Name one thing that terrifies you. Heights.

53. What kind of books do you read? Primarily science fiction.

54. What would you tell your 12 year old self? I wouldn’t tell her anything; she’d take my definite tone as an insult and do the opposite.

55. What is your favourite flower? Do venus flytraps count?

56. Any bad habits you have? Too many to count.

57. What kind of people are you attracted to? Don’t know.

58. What was the last thing you cried for? You already asked that one.

59. Is there something you don’t eat? Some food that truly disgusts you? I absolutely cannot stand the texture of raw plants. (apples, potatoes, et cetera)

60. Are you in love? No.

61. Something you find romantic? Don’t know.

62. How long was your longest relationship? N/A

63. What are 3 things that irritate you about the same sex? No behavior is limited to the structure of one’s body.

64. What are 3 things that irritate you about the opposite sex? (See previous answer.)

65. What are you saving money for? (See the response to question eight.)

66. How would you describe your bad side? Pure, unrestrained rage.

67. Are you actually a good person? Why? I’m not, and would rather not discuss it.

68. What are you living for? I don’t know.

69. Have you ever done anything illegal? All the time.

70. Do you like your body? Stop repeating yourself.

71. Have you ever made someone feel bad about themselves intentionally? I would be surprised if I haven’t.

72. Ever sent nudes? No.

73. Have you ever cheated on someone? Never had the chance yet.

74. Favourite candy? Mint dark chocolate.

75. Is there a blog you visit every day, or almost every day? Tag it! No.

76. Do you play any computer games? What is your favourite game? I’ve got over 1,600 hours in Star Trek Online, if that means anything.

77. Favourite TV series? Unsurprisingly, Star Trek.

78. Are you religious? Does God exist? Not religious and don’t believe in any god, but I’d be open to the idea should sufficient proof be found.

79. What was the last book you read? Did it impress you and why? The Leviathan trilogy. It was alright.

80. What do you think about vegetarianism/veganism? Don’t care.

81. How long have you been on deviantArt? Well, now you know where I copy/pasted this from.

82. Do you like Chinese food? No.

83. McDonalds or Subway? McDonalds.

84. Vodka or whiskey? Vodka, it burns hotter.

85. Alcohol or drugs? Alcohol, because it burns well.

86. Ever been out of your province/state/country? I’ve been to three of the states that border Iowa, but only just barely. There was that one time I went to Connecticut, though.

87. Meaning behind your blog name? I’m a klutz, that’s about it.

88. What are you scared of? This is getting annoying.

89. Last time you were insulted? The last time I saw a commercial advertisement.

90. Most traumatic experience? Whatever it was, it was bad enough to warrant suppressing it from memory.

91. Perfect date idea? Don’t know.

92. Favourite app on your phone? Don’t have a phone.

93. What colour are the walls in your room? Brown

94. Do you watch Youtube? Who is your favourite YouTuber? JordanUnderneath

95. Share your favourite quote. Every rule has an exception. No exceptions.

96. What is the meaning of life? Nothing has any inherent meaning except that which you impose upon it.

97. Do you like horror movies? Yes, but I’m a rather jumpy person, so I can’t watch them very often.

98. Have you ever made your mum cry? What happened? Yes, I told her my therapist thinks I’m such a jumpy person because of PTSD.

99. Do you feel lucky or special in a way? Not in any ways that don’t make me a freak.

100. Can you keep a secret? Yes.