#incidentally it’s just worth having these notes on my blog and saving them cause they crop up in my mind so often

[ethanhuntfemmefatale]

Since I was just reminded of TH White’s notes on lancelot I want to put them here in full to see if anyone else sees what I see (Ethan hunt!!!!!!!!! Ethan hunt!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Malory's Lancelot is:

1. Intensely sensitive to moral issues.

2. Ambitious of true--not current--distinction

3. Probably sadistic or he would not have taken such frightful care to be gentle.

4. Superstitious or totemistic or whatever the word is. He connects his martial luck with virginity, like the schoolboy who thinks he will only bowl well in the match tomorrow if he does not abuse himself today.

5. Fastidious, monogamous, serious.

6. Ferociously punitive to his own body. He denies it and slave-drives it.

7. Devoted to "honour," which he regards as keeping promises and "having a word." He tries to be consistent.

8. Curiously tolerant of other people who do not follow his own standards. He was not shocked by the lady who as naked as a needle.

9. Not without a sense of humour. It was a good joke dressing up as Kay. And he often says amusing things.

10. Fond of being alone.

11. Humble about his athleticism: not false modesty.

12. Self-critical. Aware of some big lack in himself. What was it?

13. Subject to pity, cf. no. 3.

14. Emotional. He is the only person Malory mentions as crying from relief.

15. Highly strung: subject to nervous breakdowns.

16. Yet practical. He ends by dealing with the Guenever situation pretty well. He is a good man to have with you in a tight corner.

17. Homosexual? Can a person be ambi-sexual--bisexual or whatever? His treatment of young boys like Gareth and Cote Male Tale is very tender and his feeling for Arthur profound. Yet I do so want not to have to write a "modern" novel about him. I could only bring myself to mention this trait, if it is a trait, in the most oblique way.

18. Human. He firmly believes that for him it is a choice between God and Guenever, and he takes Guenever. He says: This is wrong and against my will, but I can't help it.

[cosmicallynightmarish]

Important Notes on the Speaking of Nightmarish Visions:

I will publish this on my own blog, now; it developed into something quite long yet again, and so I will save our eyes the pain of reading ramblings italicised.

Adding on to my last post, though not in a way that requires that be read to understand this post, I have a few things to say on the speaking part of Nightmarish delving. Advice on a word to begin, more generally, then, on the importance and practice of always speaking. As I said, this is quite long, so I shall put it neatly under here.

There is a checklist of sorts at the bottom regarding things to look for in visions, one that may be of use to anyone seeking visions. In fact, if you can distill the essence of universal eyes from the blood of the Nightmare, this may all be of some use.. But I am here to talk of my experience with Them. After all, what are Nightmarish visions, but potent mixtures of information to be dissected and rearranged into useful knowledge? Apart from pure fun, of course.

Advice, yes.

First, to get it out of the way, the thought that sparked this post: Do not label things “incomprehensible”, simply speak on as much as you can, chase the ropes as far as you can possibly go, until you hit a wall of absolutely no information. It more than likely will not lock the gate in front of you if you do label things as such, at least not permanently, but it may very well prevent you from progressing. All that there is can eventually be comprehended by the mind since we all exist beyond this human brain. If another human can sustain consciousness and project themselves into the Astral, then you are able to wrap your mind around the deeper Nightmarish concepts. It will take time, but to label things as off-limits is to deepen the divide between you and the truth. It is better to stop talking, or make note that what you wrote may be off, than to say “No, I cannot do this, the information is impossible to ever understand.”

Second, to get back to the more general advice: When it comes to speaking, every detail is important, every detail speaks of something. Like reading tarot cards, if you find that you cannot decide or distinguish two details from one another, there is a large chance that there is a reason behind it that is not related to your skill. Tarot cards may be not obviously or definitively picked from the bunch, may be hard to distinguish between which card you should and you should not pull out, and that may mean that they are similar cards, give similar emotional responses, etc., or it could mean that the deck is reflecting your own or your client’s inability to express yourself, and so on. Simply put, tarot cards refusing to come out easily may mean that the information they represent is refusing to come out easily, not that you are not skilled enough to pull them. In the way of visions, take as an example seeing a figure whose hair is hard to distinguish from the rest of the house they are in, which would be seen in the background. Is their hair really the colour of rich wood, or are you simply not seeing correctly? Is your vision filling in a blank where the hair should be with the background's colour? Write it down regardless: “I cannot distinguish their hair from the background, because they seem to both be the same colour, and there is no line between them.” Note that that line is three pieces of information, not one. It gives you the indistinct/ill-defined/not entirely present nature of the person, it gives you the hair colour, and it gives you the fact that there is a specific connection between their hair and where they are. There is a high chance that it is shown to you like this on purpose in the vision to say, for instance, that this person is in a state of Communion with the world, that they are not fully attached to lucidity, that they have a deep connection to this house, that they passed before what you are seeing took place - and as such are supposed to be dissolving into the background - and so on. Just like tarot cards will give you the wrong card if you understand it in a way that gets the information across, such as giving the Death card to mean literal death to someone who believes it means such and will not look it up, the Nightmares do not only give you clear, explicit information. It is more important that you get the complete message, even if the means through which you get it is seemingly incomplete. The gaps in the Nightmare of Mensis speak in absence, your visions will too.

You do not need to dissect and label all the information now, you do not need to understand why the hair blends with the background, you do not need to "get it", you need to be the medium through which your future self may see what you have seen. A vision with a lacking detail has diminished worth, and, if it is lacking a key detail, it can be literally worthless. There is no worth to a vision of “a man within a house, wearing white robes”, when you come back to it and that is all you have to go off, but there is worth to a vision of “a man in a house, wearing white robes, whose head is blank of any details (or perhaps I cannot see them) and whose hair is as rich as the wood around him, specifically the wood beams, not the house itself, almost as if his hair were the wood itself. He is not fully defined beyond his white robes, as his hair, the other vibrant detail of this vision, is blurred into the background; only his robes seem to actually be in the picture.” The first example is a man in robes a house, something utterly mundane and quite common for Yharnam, nearly worthless information by itself. The second example is someone who is connected to wood, possibly trees, who is likely not present in the scene literally, and whose white robes seem to have more of an impact on the world around him than he himself does - likely, that means whoever he was personally is gone now or simply less important, and whatever group those robes were from and whatever outward acts he performed in those robes (or for the cause they represent) has lingered strongly in the world. It also tells me that if I see another image of someone whose hair is blending into the background, that they are somehow related and a key may lie in their intersection, and that if I see another person in white robes with that colour hair, they may be the same person.

Third, carrying on from that: Visions will not last forever. There is a sizeable chance that you will retain images you receive from the Nightmares, to a certain extent, after they are witnessed. However, like all memories, they are destined to fade. Even if they weren’t going to fade, once you begin to have similar visions or visions of the same place and people, they will begin to get muddled within your mind’s space; and if you begin to explore what you have seen in your mind - by walking through it or dissecting it - or in art through putting it to paper, those explorations can, and likely will, overwrite the original visions. That is not even mentioning the fact that some visions are on loan to you, and will be taken back once you have received the message or moved away from that connection, something that has happened to me numerous times, making it so you can no longer see any of what you were shown. Oh, and things that aren't meant to be spoken can be wiped from your mind if you attempt to speak them publicly whilst receiving them. Again, something I have experienced. Incidentally: You need not take this as a terrible thing, a failure, sometimes this is but the only way They can ask you to keep it quiet. Continuing on, your records of visions are your library of Nightmarish information, are your personal reference book for Nightmarish symbolism surrounding every entity and every place and every concept, and there is no use to incomplete records in the Nightmare. The knowledge that you saw a pentagram vividly is nearly useless compared to the knowledge that you saw a pentagram vividly when you looked at a picture of the Moon. The Nightmare is symbolic and richly layered, and as such, one missing detail can render something absolutely worthless. Do not panic, now, because even I get perhaps half the details - and I am the one writing this post, as if I were some authority - but the best thing you can do is write down everything. Take this post not as a warning, not as something negative, but a long, long reminder that “I will remember this, I do not need to write it down” is said by all, and works for none. I am of the Shards, we do like to extend talk.

So, all that is well and good, but what do you write down? An example checklist of sorts follows, not everything here needs to be checked off, and your own intuition will tell you what you do not need to write down, but if you struggle with identifying information to be written, this may help:

Context:

What were you looking at when you saw this, or before you saw it?

Was it brought about by listening to a certain song, or watching a video, or hearing a bell, or something similar? Check the name of the song (if it was a song), on the off chance it is related.

If it is caused by staring at something too long, leaving lights that morphed into something different, what was it that was originally burned into your retinas? I have seen text form into lines on water, an image that was very significant in a channelled vision of the Moonside Lake, for example. This is not always relevant, but may be, either now or in the future.

If you see something significant upon returning to reality, such as a related post here on Tumblr as soon as you are done, note that down.

Your Feelings:

Is there unease in the scene? Does it feel celebratory, awkward, uncomfortable, happy, peaceful, etc.? “I feel like I’ve walked into a room where everyone was awkwardly silent”, “the house itself feels like it is looking at me, and I shouldn’t be here”, “the river feels like it is mourning”

Speaking of - should you be looking? Is anyone looking back at you? Someone looking at you is vital information, indicative, possibly, of their Communion. “I feel as if I shouldn’t be in this place”, “I feel someone looking to me in the crowd, and if I turn around, there is someone who stopped walking to look right at me”

Do you know this person/place/thing personally? Are they familiar? - “I feel like I know them from somewhere”, “they remind me of my father”, “I feel like I would’ve gotten along with them as a child”

Are you present in the scene, either in an external body you can see in the scene or looking through your own eyes in your body? “I see myself/myself in a past life on the floor over there”, “I feel like I am a small spider on the wall looking down”

On feeling as if you shouldn’t be there: Do not continue looking if it is a serious enough feeling. Genuine apologies, if someone has spotted you, spoken through the vision to them before you leave will likely go a long way. People in crowds, anyone looking towards you with wonder, etc., likely should not be spoken to, but you may nod or otherwise present a calm and loving energy, it is up to you. They are quite possibly waking up and beginning to see presences in the world, and as such will likely be seeing just a glimpse of you or your energy or such, it is fine. When you approach certain people to gain information on them, however, and they stop you or you feel you have stepped into a room with them, that is the time to back out and apologise. I have made a post on this here, but to give a quick example: I would avoid looking at the Queens, Great Ones, and the Nightmares' consciousnesses directly, as these are near-guaranteed to see you looking at them. People in Communion, and the Nightmares Themselves, as well as things that live or otherwise dwell in the Subcutaneous/sub-Lucid Layers.

People:

Can you tell how old they are? “I think this is Master Willem, but he is unrecognisable in how young he is”, “this is something that took place in Bloodborne, but this person is much older/younger in this vision than they were in canonical content”

How are they feeling? Right now, but also in general? “They feel like they have been on a downward spiral”. “they feel like they are close to giving up”, “there is a sense that they are close to snapping violently in this scene” “it feels as if their fist is clenched tight, though I am not sure with what emotion”

Are they real, a lucid person, or are they an illusion? “They feel like background figures in a dream”, “two people stand out in the crowd as real, while the rest look more blurry”

Do you know who this is? Are they a person you are familiar with, a character, a deity, for example? “This person looks nothing like them/a bit different to them, but I am quite sure they are _____”, “this human figure feels like (inhuman character)”, “this is ________ as a child”

Are they human? Are they changing form? 

Are they presenting in this vision in one way so that you recognise them or learn something about them, when in reality they are not this form?

Is someone motioning to something, or outright trying to show you something?

Lacks of Detail:

Is someone having thoughts or emotions regarding something or someone else in or outside of the scene?

What is their expression like? Oftentimes I will be given a separate vision that is just their face to see the expression, not necessarily congruent with the original vision, perhaps a different expression entirely, but it speaks to their mental state or hidden feelings.

Speaking of, if you see a separate vision of their face, are they haloed by anything such as robes, hoods, and so on? This is also a good opportunity to look at their hair, for anything like freckles or unnatural skin, scars, etc.

Is anyone half present, blurred into things?

Is anyone lacking a face? A body part?

Is there a solid floor, are there solid walls - including behind you? “This place appears to be real, but it feels like behind me is just a long tunnel into the Nightmarish depths”

Is something supposed to be there, but it is absent? “There should be a key here, I feel, but there’s nothing there”, “this is the Grand Cathedral’s altar, but there is no skull upon it”

Uncertain Detail:

Is a detail, such as stars, difficult to pinpoint, as if it may be on two different things at once? “I can’t tell if there are stars reflected in the lake or if they’re just waves”, “the fire seems like it may be surrounding the person, or it may be inside their silhouette symbolically instead”

Is it hard to tell which of two (or more) things is in front of the other? 

Does someone feel as if they’re walking out, or otherwise wanting not to be seen? “There’s a silhouette here with less detail than everyone else, and it keeps fading away”

Environmental:

Is there a part of someone or something that could be two different things at once? “I can’t tell if their hair is sticking up or they have horns”, “I’m not sure if they’re holding a staff or a snake”, “the chalice could be either on a table or a decoration on the wall”

Is something changing when you look at it, or when you try to see or judge it? When you address it perhaps? When you say that it is one thing, and therefore it changes into something else?

What time is it? Does time even exist here? “This place feels detached from linear reality”, “the sky seems to say this is sunset, but it is descending into an unnatural time/something unnatural”

If you are listening to music now, in reality, do any of the voices or sounds feel as if they are a part of the scene?

On that, is there any music or sound coming from the scene itself? Laughter, external carriages driven past, music (happy? Sad?), babies or children making noise, crying?

If there are sounds, can you pinpoint the source? Does it feel like it is coming from someone lucid, or from the Nightmares Themselves? “I hear crying, as if the Nightmares were weeping for them”, “there is laughter coming from someone walking in the walls”

Basically, it boils down to this: If you feel it, write it down. If you feel you’re intruding, write it down. If you feel like the wall behind you doesn’t actually exist, or that there are horses outside, or that every star in the sky is staring at something despite not having eyes, or the air feels heavy, or that you are a family member of someone you’re seeing despite not knowing them in reality, that the Red Moon is present despite not being there in Bloodborne, that you are with someone you have never had a connection with looking at something utterly absurd.. Write it, it is all useful. Just do not write that you cannot understand something definitively or that it is incomprehensible. “Incomprehensible” is a great big brush for a piece of art that is to be made of intricately small words: It is to be used only when you are absolutely certain it is needed, and, even then, it likely is not, not unless you are painting the background upon which you wish to transcribe the tiny details.

These questions - this checklist, the ever-looming need for More - can become overbearing, heavy, too pressing. I'll put my answer to that fact like this: There is a reason I do this. When you begin addressing, you begin seeing. When you realise that person in the house in those white robes may be blurring into the house itself, suddenly, you realise it isn't simply you, he has no face. You realise he has no face, and suddenly, you feel something odd, he feels as if he has no face because he is slightly.. Disillusioned. With what? What is he doing in this house like that? Well, he seems like he has to be here. You realise he feels disillusioned, and suddenly you are aware that that is why his robes stick out so much, he is presenting them to cover something - oh, no, that is wrong, it is not pretention and pretend, he is trying to cover something up not to trick, but like bandages cover a wound, cover shifting skin. What is he hiding? Well, that will be yours to uncover. I have rather invented my own vision here, but I have woven it with what I know of this figure, and who that figure is will be your information to discover. When you shed light upon a scene you shall see more, luckily for us, Light and Consciousness are the same, at least in terms of what the game suggests.. It is all a great game of pulling at strings. Be as a cat, revel at the way the yarn unwinds and extends then splits into more strings then more strings again, then be as your owner and roll it up neatly and away for your records. Endless fun. All for free.

[serinemolecule]

I have a question directed generally toward anti-car individuals which has never been adequately answered. As a person with a physical disability, owning a car has been incredible for my personal autonomy. I can largely dictate the terms of my life. I can travel to distant stores, I can work and live in different locations to maximize the accessibility of both, and I largely do not have to rely so much on others to organize my life. What future does a personal-car-less city hold for me?

I can accept that the answer is “you will be marginalized and repressed for the sake of the greater utilitarian good”, but few people actually seem willing to bite this bullet, which makes me see the concept as fundamentally unserious. I don’t trust any time someone says “I absolutely, definitely care about the particular needs of you and the many like you and will address them” and then otherwise continues on as if they fully intend to screw me over. The outcome is predictable.

Also, since I feel like it’s rude of me to just drop that anon question in your askbox, allow me to also say that your blog is quite fascinating, and you post about a lot of interesting topics, and you also seem like a really lovely person in general. I think you are nifty. xoxo floating grey orb with sunglasses

Hi, anon! Assuming you’re who I think you are, I love you! If you’re not, I love you anyway!

I think the relevant factors here are that I’m mostly utilitarian, and mostly libertarian.

I’m mostly utilitarian, so I’m willing to sacrifice good things for better things. In some trolley problems, I would kill one person to save five. But it’s important to note that in most practical trolley problems, I wouldn’t, because “I am mistaken about the situation” should be by default a much more likely hypothesis than “killing this person will actually save five others”.

But that means I have to be able to look someone in the eye and say, “Yes, there are situations in which I would desire harm to you, because it’s worth the amount of harm other people would be saved from.”

For instance, I would 100% look a NIMBY in the eye and say “I would rather my friends not be homeless, and not be forced into abusive living situations, even though it means you would not be able to avoid seeing high-rise apartments without moving.”

Fortunately, in this case, I don’t think much practical harm would come to you.

I’m mostly libertarian, so I think people usually know better about what’s best for them than a central state. And when people are wrong, I would rather harm come to a person because they made a bad decision, than because the state made all the non-harmful decisions illegal.

Which means when I say I’m opposed to cars, I don’t mean I want to make cars illegal. It means I want drivers to pay taxes for all the harm they cause to the environment, to public health, the public land used for roads and parking, the inconvenience caused to pedestrians and bikers, etc. Instead of the current situation, where everyone pays for it.

My expectation is that if this happened, i.e. if we stopped subsidizing driving:

 • rural areas would be mostly cars, bicycles, and scooters

 • suburban areas would be abolished – I mean, mostly cars and taxis

 • urban areas would be mostly trains and buses and trucks and bicycles and scooters, with a few taxis and even fewer cars.

(By “taxis” I’m including things like Uber, as well as self-driving taxis which I think will be mostly better than cars everywhere but rural areas, when they become common.)

Incidentally, the above is Japan’s current transit situation, and it’s probably what I’d consider an optimal transit situation nearly anywhere on Earth, at least until technology gets much more advanced.

Cars are mostly harmful in dense urban areas, so I don’t think cars in rural areas would need to be taxed much more than they are now. But even in cities, cars wouldn’t be illegal. They would just be more expensive, and good infrastructure would make other transit options less expensive. And self-driving taxis should be better than cars in basically every way, anyway.

And if it turns out that cars are worth it for some people even despite the amount of harm they cause, well, that’s why I’m libertarian. I just think the cars should be priced so they adequately reflect their harms - if they’re still worth it, then I’m all the more glad I didn’t make them illegal. And I of course support UBI (and probably extra money to people with disabilities) so that everyone can afford the things they need.

For instance, my dear friend @winged-light (tagging because they’d probably want to respond to this) mentioned once that they would still prefer cars over self-driving taxis because cars are useful to store things in, and if you ever become homeless, they become a very important shelter.

I think those are good reasons to want a car, but I think there are ways to achieve things like “have a good last-resort place to live” and “have a place to store things” that cost society less than widespread cars do. In other words, those reasons still need to be balanced against the harms cars cause, and I think with the taxes, the result will be the best balance possible.

In particular, I think the number of people who have a serious desire to store emergency essential possessions in a car for long-term while living in a city is small enough that they would be able to do it without taking up a huge amount of city space.

So I think that in my ideal future, you’d have a car. And you’d have significantly less traffic to deal with, since only people cars are really important to would have a car.

P.S. Don’t ever worry about dropping questions in my askbox. I love questions! Questions show you care! I especially love questions about my opinions!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

EVERY FOUNDER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WAY

When you're an outsider, don't be deterred from doing it. I'm optimistic.1 You don't release code late at night.2 But there is no apparent cost of increasing it.3 The CRM114 Discriminator. No one after reading Aristotle's Metaphysics does anything differently as a result of this practice was that we feared a brand-name VC firm would stick us with a county-by-word to save it from being mangled by some twenty five year old woman who wants to have lots of worries, but you feel like a second class citizen. The real danger is that you should study whatever you were most interested in. Half the time I'm sitting drinking a cup of tea. Chair designers have to spend on bullshit varies between employers. Well, most adults labor under restrictions just as cumbersome, and they also have more brand to preserve.4 Html#f8n 19.

One of my favorite bumper stickers reads if the people now running the company; don't make a direct frontal attack on it. And it can last for months. Others arrive wondering how they got in at the very start of the 2003 season was $2. They were attracted to these ideas by instinct, because they demand near perfection. No one seems to have voted for intelligence.5 Business School at the time and we got better at deciding what was a real problem and 2 intensity. Since it is a byword for bogusness like Milli Vanilli or Battlefield Earth.

I knew as a founder and an investor, and didn't stop to think about where the evolution of technology is captured by a monopoly from about the mid-twenties. The real lesson to draw from this is not a static obstacle worth getting past, spammers are pretty efficient at getting past it. I know of zero. But don't give them much money either. Work in small groups. Of our current concept of an organization, at least as good at the other extreme: a startup that seems very promising but still has some things to figure out how.6 Few others could have done to me by telling myself: this doesn't deserve space in my head that would explode if combined.7 We're up against a blank wall. If startups become a cheap commodity, more people would do. When you raise a lot of people.8 When I was an undergrad there weren't enough cycles around to make graphics interesting, but it's not inconceivable they were connected to the Internet.

Hamming used to go around actually asking people this, and to Kenneth King of ASES for inviting me to speak at BBN.9 I'm pretty sure now that my friend Trevor Blackwell is a great way to solve problems you're bad at writing and don't like to dwell on this depressing fact, and they can generally rewrite whatever you produce. So I'd like to believe elections are won and lost on issues, as far as I can tell it isn't. People in America. Should you add x feature? So which ones?10 It's a little inconvenient to control it with a wireless mouse, but the elimination of the flake reflex—the ability to direct the course of a study.11

Because I thought about the topic.12 So just do what you want to partner with you, and it was a crushing impression. It's what a startup buys you is time.13 In either case the implications are similar. Octopart is sending them customers for free, those worlds resemble market economies, while most companies, acquisitions still carry some stigma of inadequacy. Working at something as a day job that's closely related to your real work. Here are some of your claims and granting others.14 Knowledge is power. A few years before by a big company. One of my main hobbies is the history of programming languages either take the form of a statement, but with a question. Though in a sense attacking you. For founders that's more than a couple weeks.

Maybe if you can afford to be rational and prefer the latter.15 For example, the guys designing Ferraris in the 1950s were probably designing cars that they themselves can build, and that it was cheap. Yet the cause is human nature. Particularly in technology, at least, nothing good. But when you choose a language, you're also choosing a community. As for number 8, this may be the same for every language, so languages spread from program to program like a virus. It's like calling a car a horseless carriage.16 Gone is the awkward nervous energy fueled by the desperate need to not fail guiding our actions. 9889 and. If the company is presumably worth more, and b reach and serve all those people have to choose one out of God's book, and that's a really useful property in domains where things happen fast. Either the company is already a write-off.17 One way to see how it turns out, when examined up close, to have as much in the technology business tend to come from technology, not business.18

And for a significant number. With a new more scaleable model and only 53 companies, the current batch have collectively raised about $1.19 Rise up, cows! The results so far bear this out.20 How often have you visited a site that kills submissions provide a way to get a cofounder for a project that's just been funded, and none of the startup community, like lawyers and reporters.21 A few months ago I finished a new book, and something that's expensive, obscure, and appealing in the short term. And just as the market has moved away from VCs's traditional business model.

Notes

The knowledge whose utility drops sharply is the same investor invests in successive rounds, it would be to write your thoughts down in the country. I suspect the recent resurgence of evangelical Christians.

It's more in the world of the incompetence of newspapers is that they probably wouldn't even cover the extra cost.

If you're good you'll have to mean the company.

Eighteen months later Google paid 1. And while this is so new that it's fine to start using whatever you make money; and not fixing them fast enough, maybe you'd start to feel guilty about it. It requires the kind of method acting. It doesn't take a small seed investment in you, they sometimes say.

Yahoo. They therefore think what drives users to switch to OSX. 05 15, the group of picky friends who proofread almost everything I say the rate of change in the definition of property. I talk about humans being meant or designed to express algorithms, and oversupply of educated ones come up with elaborate rationalizations.

It's one of the founders of failing startups would even be symbiotic, because sometimes artists unconsciously use tricks by imitating art that is a matter of outliers, are better college candidates. If the rich paid high taxes?

But Goldin and Margo think market forces in the long tail for other reasons, including both you and the ordering system and image generator were written in 6502 machine language.

We did not become romantically involved till afterward.

They'll have a better education. Norton, 2012.

If Paris is where people care most about art. Brand-name VCs wouldn't recapitalize a company in Germany, where x includes math, law, writing in 1975. Com/spam. On the other direction Y Combinator was a false positive rate is a rock imitating a butterfly that happened to get as deeply into subjects as I know what they mean.

Big technology companies. I'm not making any predictions about the difference. These range from make-believe, is he going to be an open booth.

There should probably be the more corrupt the rulers.

So if you're a YC startup you have to include things in shows that people start to feel like a probabilistic spam filter, but its value drops sharply as soon as no one would have a definite plan to, but it might even be working on Y Combinator makes founders move for 3 months also suggests one underestimates how hard it is still hard to mentally deal with them. And that is worth doing something, but it might make them want you. Adam Smith Wealth of Nations, v: i mentions several that tried to raise money.

So if you're college students. Some introductions to other knowledge. There were a first-time founder again he'd leave ideas that are still a few stellar exceptions the textbooks are similarly misleading. You can get for free.

94 says a 1952 study of rhetoric was inherited directly from Rome. Sites that habitually linkjack get banned. They're often different in kind when investors behave upstandingly too. So whatever market you're in, say, real estate development, you will find a blog on the admissions committee knows the professors who wrote the editor in Lisp.

In fact the decade preceding the war on. I mean efforts to manipulate them. Though they were forced to stop raising money from mediocre investors. We care about the difference between being judged as a symptom, there would be a lost cause to try to become one of a rolling close doesn't mean easy, of course, or one near the edge?

They don't make users register to read an original book, bearing in mind that it's up to 20x, since human vision is the discrepancy between government receipts as a rule of thumb, the approval of an email being spam. Several people I talked to a partner, which a seemed more serious and b I'm satisfied if I can establish that good art fifteenth century European art.

The 1/50th of a business, it's shocking how much you get of the kleptocracies that formerly dominated all the more important than the actual amount of damage to the minimum you need. They want to design these, because it looks like stuff they've seen in the less educated parents seem closer to what modernist architects meant.

I don't think it's roughly correct to say that IBM makes decent hardware. Copyright owners tend to be actively curious.

So if you're a loser they usually decide in way less than the others. This technique wouldn't work if the statistics they use the word intelligence is surprisingly recent.

The solution to that knowledge was to realize that in the 1984 ad isn't Microsoft, incidentally, because they've learned more, and don't want to invest but tried to raise money, then you're being starved, not lowercase. The air traffic control system works because planes would crash otherwise.

[miximax-hell]

Hello, everyone! It hasn’t been long at all since my last post! ...For once!

While I looked for that Tetsukado sketch from last time, I happened to come across some (albeit by no means all, because there were many) of the sketches I made before I came up with HiroGeo’s final design. Given how different they are from each other and from the final design, I thought it might be interesting to bring those to my blog as well. I have no shame in showing how bad I am because it’s no secret, anyway.

As you can see, the first three sketches have been quickly lined in SAI. That’s because the paper sheets I originally drew on were SUPER dirty and it was tough to even distinguish actual lines from previously erased lines and whatnot. Truly a mess, but that’s why they’re doodles and not actual drawings, I guess.

Anyway, I love Hiroto and I felt he deserved some more love--especially because his miximax got many more notes than average, so people must’ve liked it... to an extent. Therefore, let’s talk a bit more about him!

As usual, you can find more information about HiroGeo under the cut.

Now that we’ve made it through the cut, uh, what’ve you guys been up to? After many, many years, I finally beat Final Fantasy VIII the other day. What an amazing game! It had the nostalgia factor going for it, since I first played it when I was rather young, but I never got past a certain point in the middle of disc 2, so it was still full of surprises. A very healthy combo. Kind of like Harry Potter 8, which I’m reading right now, btw.

And, since I was at it, I started playing EarthBound and Broken Sword 5 too. EarthBound hasn’t quite... picked up the pace yet, but I sure am enjoying BS5! It truly reminds me of the first and wonderful installments before Broken Sword 3 ruined everything. Oh well. We can consider that a bad nightmare, I suppose. A very bad one.

Oh, and since I mentioned it in my last update a few months ago, I got the True Pacifist Ending in Undertale. What an incredibly lovely game. I can’t bring myself to go for the killing spree necessary to get the other ending just yet. Incidentally, I completed Layton 2 and beat Tomb Raider, Pokémon Sun and Hatoful Boyfriend while I was still in America. I’m surprised I got so much done even though I was so busy...

Okay, moving on! Since I talked about HiroGeo’s design in depth last time, I can’t resort to the easy solution now. And, for the sake of being sincere, I’ll admit that HiroGeo isn’t a miximax I have thought much about beyond the designing process. Funny, because Hiroto and Geo are both very dear to me, but I guess the design was way too exhausting as it was and I didn’t feel like putting any more effort into it. Whoopsie. ww So, as of now, I only have some ideas regarding his Keshin and... that’s it. I don’t even know much about his powers at this point.

So you might be thinking, “Wait a minute, you stupid idiot!” Yes, you all insult me in my mind. I blame my well-disguised low self-esteem. “If you don’t even know what powers Hiroto would get from Geo, why the hell did you put them together?” Well, that’s exactly what I’ll try to explain today.

Even though 99% of my friends, acquaintances and relatives aren’t aware of this, before Inazuma sucked me into an obsessive vortex for years and years, I was actually a Mega Man Star Force nerd. It was (and is) one of my favourite games, and the one I was into at the time. In other words, it was my last obsession before Inazuma hit me in the face with a flaming ball. As such, I really, really wanted Star Force (from now on, SF) to be part of this project from the very beginning. I didn’t know whom I wanted, but I needed that franchise to be represented here somehow.

As such, much like I have done with other franchises (with more or less success), I started looking for a good aura and a good vessel. While I considered that little shit called Solo/Rogue, I’m not one of those people who enjoy that kind of “I’m evil, but everyone will be obsessed with me” trope. In fact, it usually irks me quiiite a bit. I’m not one to usually like evil guys, sadly. ww

So, really, my only good options were Geo/Mega Man or Sonia/Harp Note. And I’m sure those who’ve played SF will be pissed because I didn’t choose Harp Note and I went with the “easy” choice (and, in fact, it bothered me too, because she’s great), but stay with me, please. There is a bit more to it than meets the eye.

The reason why I chose Mega Man over Harp Note wasn’t a matter of whom I prefered or whom I thought would bring better/more useful powers to the mix. It was because I randomly saw how well Mega Man and Hiroto worked together. I simply didn’t find a match nearly as good for Harp Note.

Hiroto and Geo share a lot. The obvious link, which I have mentioned before, is that they share a theme, and that’s something I love. Both Hiroto and Geo are related/linked to space. Hiroto, being a fake alien and having meteorite-related hissatsus, has an obvious connection to it. Geo is constantly looking at the stars and has a passion for astronomy, goes to space in many occasions as Mega Man, the name of his series is Star Force and even his dad is an astronaut. Which, by the way, leads to the next link.

Even though they are very different, both Geo and Hiroto have *+*+*daddy issues*+*+*. We all know about Hiroto’s: he’s an orphan, his loving adoptive father turned into a monster that forced him to fight, said father ended up in jail... Quite the rollercoaster. Now, Geo has his fair share of those issues too. While not always a main theme in the series, Geo’s lurking objective is to bring his father back home, since he’s been stranded in space... if I remember correctly. Said father has been missing for a loong time, leaving Geo alone as he learnt of his new powers, causing him a heavy depression that kept him from going to school, etc.

They both know what it is to miss a father and to want to save him. They were both very affected when the close relationships they shared with their fathers suddenly changed, so I believe they’d have a lot in common and to talk about. And, well, I find it important to talk about uncomfortable subjects if you are trying to improve your relationship with someone. It brings you two closer, and that’s very important in a case like this.

If sharing a theme and daddy issues wasn’t enough, both Hiroto and Geo are shown to be rather intelligent and good with machines. They are both strong-willed and ready to fight for the “greater good” even when they don’t want to, and they both inherited something very important from their dads: Geo got some weird goggles and Hiroto got... a full successful company. (Hiroto wins this time, I’m afraid. Sorry, Geo bby.)

What makes this extra interesting, however, is how Geo evolves. Hiroto is shown to be mature, intelligent, cold and thoughtful. A reliable, serious person. Almost a big brother to those who know it. However, while Geo starts off cold and in a similar (although by no means same) vein, as he matures and manages to open up to others again, he actually becomes much more laid back, suddenly talking about food and naps and whatnot. Meanwhile, Hiroto’s premature maturity (no pun intended) takes him in the complete opposite direction. I think this is worth exploring as a concept. With Geo’s influence, Hiroto wouldn’t be reverting to a more childish version of himself, because Geo’s attitude doesn’t come from him being childish, but from maturing into a more relaxed and presumably happier person. Hiroto would simply have the opportunity to see life with those same mature eyes, but in a much calmer way. In a sense, it’d give him the chance to “take a break,” if you all know what I mean. To move on from the pain that, show it or not, he holds in his heart. In a franchise like Inazuma, where maturing has constantly meant becoming more serious and angry and powerful, maturing into someone happier would be a refreshing change, I think. Refreshing and much needed.

So, yeah. As I said, I really don’t know much about how Geo’s powers will affect Hiroto’s abilities, but I’ll figure something out. The reasons alone were so good and unavoidable that I’m sure pieces will fall into place on their own as soon as I start thinking about this subject properly. And, as the guy running this stupid blog, trust me when I say that that’s what really turns a normal miximax into a true perfect match.

A match made, rather than in heaven, in the stars.

[dyernews]

Mint Review (2019)

Even before I started blogging about personal finance myself, I’d frequently come across articles about various financial apps. That’s when I started to notice a trend: regardless of what list I was looking at, Mint seemed to always be included. Eventually I came to learn that what I thought was just a mobile app also had a desktop site and, together, they comprised one of the most popular free financial tools out there.

So, a while back, I figured it was time to get started with Mint for myself — and boy am I glad I did. Without further ado, let’s first dive into Mint’s desktop site and talk in-depth about the what features it has to offer.

Getting Started with Mint

While signing up for Mint is about as simple as creating a username and password, getting the app and/or site to a usable and helpful state does require an investment of time. That’s because, in order to use the service as intended, you’ll need to connect as many of your financial accounts as possible. This includes regular checking and savings accounts, retirement and investment accounts, and even online accounts for cable companies, cellular service providers, and utility companies. In reality, linking all of your bills to Mint is optional from a budgeting standpoint but is very helpful for using the at a glance billing calendar, which we’ll get to later.

To be honest, the most time-intensive part of this process for me personally was trying to remember — and, in many cases, resetting — my passwords for the various banking accounts. I also came across a couple of quirks in the linking system that added a few minutes to my experience. For example, by requesting to link an account under “PNC Virtual Wallet,” it included my wife’s and my savings and checking but not our IRA. So I then chose “PNC Investments” which added all three accounts, including those added through the Virtual Wallet. So I ended up having to delete the “Virtual Wallet” data lest I have duplicate info. Granted, fixing these small errors didn’t take a ton of time but are still worth noting.

There are also options to add other bills or assets that don’t have accounts. This includes adding your rent so it’s accounted for in your rent and/or providing your automobile info to factor into your net worth. Lastly, you can also sign up to receive your free credit score, which requires you to enter your social security number and answer a few questions to verify your identity.

Mint Overview

There’s a lot to Mint but the majority of it is included on the Overview page. My favorite feature lives in the left column where your various account balances are compiled, allowing you to quickly view your cash on hand, outstanding debts, investment balances, and more. With half a dozen bank accounts, three retirement accounts, and four credit cards to our names, getting this wide lens snapshot of our finances has been extremely helpful to my wife and me. Furthermore, I’ve found myself fascinated by the net worth tab that calculates the value of your assets and subtracts your debts. Sure I could tabulate this number by myself, but having it generated automatically and in real-time is not only interesting but, dare I say, motivating.

Before we get into the larger sections of Mint, let’s talk about their free credit score that appears about half way down the Overview page and in the “Credit Score” tab. Like other educational score services such as Credit Karma or WalletHub, Mint displays your score (which is provided by TransUnion) and shows you where you fall on the scale. The “Credit Score” section will offer you more info about your score including your credit utilization, payment history, age of credit, etc. It will also display your on-time payment percentage (which is hopefully 100%). As I said, this is fairly similar to other services. However, when I first signed up for the service, the score it showed for me was about 20 points lower than other sites quoted. Since then, Mint has switched from service scores based on data from Equifax to offering TransUnion scores. I’m not sure why that would make a difference since Credit Karma uses both bureaus for their score but, whatever was causing that discrepancy, it seems to have been corrected as my scores now match across various platforms.

The rest of the Overview page is populated by widget version of some of the other subpages Mint offers. With that in mind, let’s take a look at each one individually.

Transactions

Incidentally, the Transactions section is the only one not to be clearly represented on Mint’s Overview page but there’s a pretty good reason for that: Transactions is easily the least sexy and most unwieldy section on Mint. That said it’s also one of the most important if you’re using the site for budgeting purposes. Here is where you can not only view all of your purchases and deposits across all of your accounts but also categorize them and add notes. The reason this is important is because the category you select will dictate how each transaction is accounted for in your budget.

In most cases categories for each transaction will be automatically detected by Mint. Of course it’s far from infallible and so you may want to make some changes. A humorous case that stands out in my mind was when a 5K run I had signed up for was accidentally labeled as fast food — that’s some clever irony, Mint. (To be fair, the race was sponsored by a local donut shop so I can see where the error was made.)

As you’re perusing transactions, what’s also helpful is that you can tag transactions with tags such as “reimbursable,” “tax related,” or create your own tags to help you keep better track of your finances. For example, if you went on a trip to Paris, you could create a “Paris” tag to add to all relevant purchases. A round-up of transactions you’ve tagged can be found at the bottom of the left column. Lastly you add cash transactions manually to be included in your budget if you so choose.

Bills

Next up (after the aforementioned Credit Score tab) is the bills section where recurring items you’ve entered into Mint will be displayed. Upcoming due dates are also recapped on the Overview page. As I mentioned earlier, you can populate the Bills section by linking various accounts (in my case AT&T and Spotify) and/or entering other expenses such as rent.

Once upon a time, this section gave users the option of actually paying bills through the platform. Unfortunately that feature has since been discontinued to the dismay of many. Personally I never actually used that aspect of Mint nor do I really even use this tab in general. Still, for others, I suspect that the ability to see your bill due dates — and amounts due if you link the accounts in question — in calendar form could be a great assistance.

Budgets and Goals

Whenever I thought of or even wrote about Mint in the past, I referred to it as a budgeting app. Even though I now understand that it’s really more than that, the budget section is clearly the star offering. With the ability to establish spending limits for a variety of categories, set alerts, and monitor spending in near real-time, it’s not hard to understand why Mint has become a go-to for those looking to rein in their spending.

When I first connected my accounts, Mint automatically set a budget for me across a number of categories. Sure you could stick with what they suggest but the customization they offer is outstanding. For one, in addition to the comprehensive list of categories they include by default, you can also add your own.

Another great feature is the ability to budget for less frequent expenses. For example, if your car insurance bill is $500 but is only due every six months, you could set that category to a six-month cycle. This will allow you to set money aside for the upcoming expense.

Going hand in hand with the Budgets section is Goals. Here you can select various money milestones such as purchasing a car, building an emergency fund, or saving for retirement and have Mint help you budget for that goal. Additionally, if you end up with a surplus at the end of the month, Mint will encourage you to put that money toward one of your money goals by telling you how much sooner you’d achieve it with the extra boost.

Trends

Trends is a data-driven section that takes a closer look at your finances and spending. Sadly, I have to admit that I don’t quite understand its usefulness. Maybe I’m just not doing a good enough job at updating all of my data in Mint to make these various graphs helpful but there are only a few graphs I see much value in. For those working to pay off debt, I imagine that watching the numbers on the “Debts over time” graph would certainly be motivating. Similarly seeing the “Assets over time” chart rise could be equally as encouraging. As for the rest… I’ll leave it up to you to discover what aspect of your finances they help you visualize.

Investments

This was a section I was certainly not expecting from Mint. In Investments you can view your various retirement accounts and see how they’re performing. For example you can compare your rate of return to those of indexes such as the S&P 500, the Dow, and others. These are all pretty cool features… even if I don’t always completely understand what it is I’m looking at.

Despite being extremely interesting and educational overall, it’s also not always a great idea to babysit your retirement accounts, especially at such a young age. So while I do check up on this tab every now and then, I try not to drive myself crazy by obsessively monitoring my long-term investment money.

Ways to Save

Like many other free services, Mint needs to make money somehow. That’s why, in addition to the Ways to Save section, you’ll come across suggestions for all kinds of accounts. If you’re in the market for a new credit card, savings accounts, or investment account it is nice to be able to compare options at a glance. Otherwise, you can feel free to mostly ignore this section. (Sidenote: I did find it humorous that they suggested the Discover It card to me even though I linked my account for that card. This makes me wonder how personalized these offers actually are.)

Alerts

While not necessarily a tab, another section of Mint worth discussing is Alerts, which can be accessed by clicking the bell icon in the top right corner of the site. Here you’ll be able to set customized reminders that will inform you of recent large purchases or deposits that were made, bring your attention to any low balances, and let you know when you’re close to reaching your budget limit. Like I mentioned you can also customize these to add a number of features such as warnings about unusual transactions over a certain amount or even have it highlight fees your banks are charging you. Overall, this is an aspect of Mint you’ll definitely want to explore.

The Mint App Review

As you probably know, Mint also offers a mobile app. In recent months, the application has also changed a bit, reorganizing some of the tabs. Despite this, many of the best features from the site exist in the app, allowing you to manage your money on the go.

Overview

Like its desktop counterpart, the “Overview” tab of the Mint app provides a quick look at several different aspects of your finances. Here you can view recent transactions, upcoming bills, your cash flow, your credit score, and more. What’s also cool is that you can rearrange each of these section in whatever way you see fit by going into the settings (Clarity Money, take note!).

Alerts

Something I should note is that app is scaled way down from the website itself, which honestly came as quite a shock to me. Because of this, I’d recommend managing your budget on the desktop site and using the app for updates and alerts. Speaking of alerts, another advantage of having the app installed is that you can opt-into push alerts for your customized notifications. Oddly, though, it seems you’ll need to edit the parameters for what sets these alerts off while on the desktop site, as the mobile app only enables you to toggle on/off push notifications, emails, your bill calendar, and your credit score calendar.

Offers

This section is the equivalent of “Ways to Save” on the desktop site. In other words, unless you’re in the market for a new credit card, loan, or brokerage account, you can skip it.

Settings

Finally, in addition to the notification and overview settings I mentioned, here you can also add and manage your linked accounts. This is helpful as certain actions — like changing your banking password — can cause accounts to stop updating. Thus it’s nice to have a way to resolve these issues right from your smartphone. Also helpful is the ability to enable Touch ID (or Face ID or whatever your phone offers) to get faster access to the app. Bottom line: be sure to check out the setting section of the app to maximize your experience.

Final Thoughts on Mint

To say I learned a lot about Mint in my efforts to initially review it is an understatement. I had no idea how wide-reaching and comprehensive the service was. Much to my surprise, it is not just a budgeting app or merely a way to view multiple bank accounts at one time — although those are both outstanding features. Mint actually is the one-stop financial dashboard it claims to be and, as a result, has been a tool I’ve used frequently.

Speaking to how impactful a simple idea such as seeing all of your accounts in one place can be, our use of Mint has made it easier for my wife to get on board with the idea of holding our money in a variety of accounts instead of keeping it with our primary bank. In fairness to her, if you’re used to having a healthy balance in your checking account, moving your money to an online bank account where you can often get a better return on your money can still feel strange and almost as though you’re parting with your cash. Thankfully Mint helps ease their pain point as you can at least get a fuller picture of your finances instead of focusing just on individual parts.

In terms of flaws, there are a few. For one, considering both Mint and Quickbooks Self-Employed are owned by Intuit, it would be nice if there were better integration options between the two. Although you can apparently export and import transaction data, I’d love it if I could simply mark a transaction as business once and have it sync between the two applications. Despite that minor gripe, I’m very glad to have finally come around on Mint and can now see why it’s considered the gold standard in free personal finance applications.

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