#me looking at my unfinished application and 100+ page readings to do

[drewlypso]

i cant bring myself to do any work idk whats going on

[xbaebsae]

Changes and Deleted Content Part 2 - Far Cry 5: Features and Missions

This is a small passion project series of posts where I share some insight of what’s hidden in the game(s) files, but also some general observations. The main focus will be on character changes or deletions with a few words about functions and deprecated missions.

What will not be touched upon are a lot of the things the Resistance Mod on PC restores, namely deleted store weapons and clothes, weather systems and general gameplay related things like skinning animations. I also won’t go into audio files and their content, as @lulu2992 is already working on an amazing series for FC5 that summarizes them per character.

This part will be significantly shorter Edit from post finishing-Angy: This post turned out really damn long despite only discussing some scrapped or changed features and a couple of deprecated mission strings. I still hope you find this as interesting to read as I found writing and investigating it :)

1. Changed and Scrapped Features

1.1 Guns/Fangs for Hire

Just for reference, the release version of the game has 9 unique GFH/FFH available + 3 slots for random specialists you can hire throughout the world.

Among the game’s UI textures for tutorials is this image, showing an earlier version of the GFH screen.

What this indicates is that the planned amount for active GFHs you can have was originally 4; or the top row could function as some sort of favorites tab. We will probably never know for certain. 

Interestingly though, this version has slots for 20 GFHs in total, 18 either filled a character icon or a locked symbol, suggesting the originally planned unique GFH count was 18.

Considering almost every NPC in-game has spawn-able archetypes with battle audio fully in place it is possible that we were supposed to be able to recruit more of them. I will return to the matter of recruitment shortly.

Another thing I’d like to open up for consideration is that there may have been plans for (ex-)cultist GFHs or at least areas where they act friendly towards the deputy. Reason for this assumption is the fact that cultists have recorded lines for when you meet them (spawn them), aim weapons at them (the taunts GFH and friendlies do too), along with idle lines when you use mods to spawn them as friendly followers. The game has no purpose for most of these lines, as you never walk into peaceful cultists outside of the intro. In the intro you have no weapons to aim at anyone, making it impossible to trigger these lines. 

You may argue they were recorded for the arcade, but the Seeds are also featured in it and have none of those. However, they may also be a leftover from scrapped missions that would feature cultists that don’t shoot you on sight. 

Additionally to that early menu screenshot, I have also found an old reddit thread discussing the game’s Uplay page near release because of the following image:

Unfortunately I was not able to find this particular page myself anymore, and knowing how short lived everything is nowadays, it might be lost in time forever. The commenters discuss that the three additional slots here refer to potential DLC characters, but we don’t get to use any of the DLC companions in the main game (nor do the DLCs share the main game’s art direction). So, this might be another indicator for additionally planned GFH/FFH we never got to see.

One of these was likely the Eagle FFH called ‘’Freedom’’ (Character/Unique/FFH_Eagle_Freedom), which was partially restored through mods on PC as its loaders and everything are still present. It is unknown why this was scrapped.

It also appears that there once were inventory (purchaseable?) items for almost each GFH (Boomer and Jess have none), as these placeholder icons exist inside the game’s ui\icons\inventory folder:

Possible functions: Quest items you needed to obtain to recruit them (implying changed missions); Gift items (for potential level up?)

Now to return to the matter of recruitment: Deprecated mission strings suggest that originally you had to hire unique GFHs similarly to random ones; and that was part of quest lines. These lines appear in ‘oasisstrings’, the game’s main language file(s):

HIRE Jess RECRUIT Adelaide Drubman ADD Adelaide to your squad

In light of the old GFH screen I actually looked up the definition of ‘Squad’, and on wikipedia it is listed that a Squad is a team of 5+ members, further strengthening the theory that originally you could have 4 active GFH (plus the Deputy they’d be 5, therefore a squad). 

1.2 In-game Wiki menu

Some of the previous Far Cry titles have a sort of wiki menu that features short bios of characters, explanations of locations, resources and weaponry. New Dawn sort of brought part of this back with the ‘Survival Guide’ (accessible from the pause menu), but 5 does not have this at all. However, in the ui files there are still texture leftovers, implying this feature was planned and it had sections for Animals, Base Jumps, Characters, Destructible Structures, Fish, Locations, Parking Spots (Garages), Plants and Treasure Hunts. The following image shows the ‘undiscovered’ symbols arranged in that order.

Again, no text entries along with a lot of duplicate and unfinished images imply this was scrapped early.

You can view the additional images (minus characters, because they will be handled in the next posts) here.

2. Abandoned Missions

This section will focus on mission strings that still exist in ‘oasisstrings’. For the sake of readability I removed the style code the game uses and the line numbers. You can easily find them by searching part of the text in the files or website listed in References. Please keep in mind that only the mission titles themselves are 100% like that in the files, any assumption as to what they might have been used for is purely speculative, but I attempt to always provide a reasonable explanation with evidence for the theories presented. Also I am not perfect, so it is possible I missed something in-game. In that case please do correct me!

2.1. Investigation Type objectives

There is a set of objectives listed that imply a different setup for Willis Huntley’s mission. It introduces the objectives PHOTOGRAPH, TAG, LISTEN and INTERROGATE:

PHOTOGRAPH potential property PHOTOGRAPH an animal slaughter TAG the target PHOTOGRAPH the target LISTEN to the conversation INTERROGATE the target PHOTOGRAPH cult signs and rituals: BRING the photos back to Willis

The release build mission has you tail someone and steal a VHS tape. None of the above objectives appear. It’s interesting to see that at one point there were mechanics in consideration that included intel gathering.

2.2. Quest centered around Melvin

The only Melvin I could find in relation to Far Cry 5 is Nadine Abercrombie’s grandfather. Melvin Abercrombie joined the cult. It isn’t assured that these objectives refer to him, but if they do it’d mean a potential mission where you speak to a lower ranked cultist.

Please Note that mission strings are not always in correct order.

TALK to Melvin LOOT Melvin's corpse REACH Melvin's house WAIT for Melvin to arrive GO MEET Melvin

2.3. The ‘Redeemer’ Objectives

At some point there was a quest-line revolving around something called the ‘Redeemer’ in Holland Valley. I could not find out what this thing really was supposed to be, but it sounds like it was either a boat or a submarine (???). In this line it appears that the garage in Fall’s End had actual relevance.

FIND a similar engine BRING engine to Mary's garage TALK to Mary's assistant TOW Redeemer Back the Garage (this typo is also in the file) SUBMERGE the Redeemer FLIP the Redeemer upside down GET IN the Tow Truck PUT the Redeemer on the Flat Bed

What this also implies is the inclusion of tow trucks and that there was a ‘Mary’s assistant’ character.

2.4. A few seperate Entries before we focus on plot relevant ones

In light of the afore mentioned wiki menues there is also an objective type that goes very well with its character section:

DISCOVER this character.

This could be attached to unknown entries in the character list.

There also is an unused objective called:

FIND the cow in the field

Which at first glance made me believe it was related to the mission at Cattle co., but it is not used there or anywhere else. I suppose we will never find out what was so special about this mysterious cow.

TAKE Joseph's writings

is also an interesting entry, as it is not related to the mission where you burn his book. This is again an unused string with unknown original purpose.

2.5. Mary May and John Seed

There are two particularly interesting unused mission objectives in relation to these two characters. 

For one, it looks like originally we were supposed to rescue Mary May from John’s ranch:

RESCUE Mary May From John Seed's Ranch

This could either be a replacement for saving her in Fall’s End or it is a mission that appeared later on in which John possibly captured her. It gets more possible applications with the next one, though.

FIND John and Mary May's secrets

Now, this one caught my attention immediately, because there are two big things that come to mind in terms of possible application. It could refer back to the novel Absolution in which Mary May gets captured and tattooed by John, heavily implying that part of the plot that made it to the novel was originally intended to be shown in the game (we will get back to this in the character episode when talking about Holly). 

Additionally, keeping the previous objective in mind, it could also imply that Mary has been converted during her capture (or her capture was planned) and played a different role in the story overall. Of course, all of this is only speculation as we will probably never know, but the objective specifically says ‘John AND Mary May’s secrets’, refering to shared secrets, not just one of Mary herself (which would fit more into the tattoo theory). 

   If you have ever even considered the possibility that Ubisoft might have cut a lot of stuff from the Whitetail region of the game, the rest of this Mission section should finally prove this to you. I’d like to make clear here that this is unbiased. I have tried to dig up deleted content equally in all regions but it just turns out that this is the one they really went wild with. There is nothing that stands out in terms of deleted or changed missions in the Henbane area and the Holland Valley content is mostly not that plot relevant minus the last examples just mentioned.

2.6. Eli and the Wolf’s Den

In the final version of the game we are told that Eli is an important character, but he is not very active in any way. Where Mary May assists you on the way to John’s Ranch and Tracey and the others at the prison fight by your side in defense missions, Eli will stay at the Wolf’s Den and have you run his errands for him. Just like the other mentioned characters he has full fight capabilities though. His AI is capable of using that bow, despite him never leaving the bunker.

As it turns out, he used to be a far more active character and there were multiple ways you could encounter him for the first time. For reference: In the game as it is now you will only meet him when he and his people rescue the deputy after Jacob’s first trial. You cannot enter the Wolf’s Den prior to this point.

Inside the game’s animations folders are these three subfolders including the respective files (JJ and Key03 is how Eli is often referred to in the files, I will get back to this in the character post):

This means there were three ways that you would encounter Eli: Inside a cabin, through being captured in a net or by being released by Perkins. This was most likely Doc Perkins, giving her a bit more significance in the game.

The main cutscene files for these are not present anymore, only the animations remain so I could not find out where the exact locations for these were supposed to be at. I however, loaded these animations into a game cutscene so we get to look at them anyway. I have chosen Jacob’s death cutscene for the simple reason that there’s only the player + 1 NPC, it is daytime and there’s no intrusive DOF blurring everything. The video below shows all of them. 

Keep in mind that only the player animation matters in the first two! Ignore the rest. The third one features Doc Perkins and has her animation applied to her. As you can see it is very very unfinished, but it shows that she possibly unties the deputy or opens an animal cage, then drives away in a car.

This unused mission string supports the theory of these different ways further, as it implies that you met him somewhere and he would guide you to the den:

FOLLOW Eli into the Wolf's Den

There are several other objectives that suggest a more active Eli, who might have accompanied you on some missions:

WAIT for Eli to arrive GO with Eli GO inside the Wolf's Den

2.7. Jacob and the Veteran Center

Before swan diving down a very deep rabbit hole, let’s address this unused mission string first:

TALK to Deputy Pratt

Sounds very unspectacular and like something you would do at some point, but this is never an objective in the game. The intended function will forever remain unknown most likely, but possibilities are vast, especially with the upcoming abandoned objectives.

There are hints at an alternate useage of Jacob’s bunker (specifically called bunker here and not armory). Mission strings are:

FIND a way out of Jacob's Bunker LEAVE Jacob's Bunker

Again, on first sight you’d think these are just what’s there in-game. But they aren’t. During the final mission it goes from RESCUE Deputy Pratt straight to ESCAPE Jacob’s Armory. There is no indicator that you’d need to find a way out. The objectives above hint that it was similar to John’s and Faith’s bunker initially, where you had to do a few more things before escaping. 

An observation derived from the game’s subtitle file is that at one point there might have been a differentiation between ‘Armory’ and ‘Bunker’ as, most likely, a random NPC says "I don't know where Jacob's bunker is. I'm not sure anybody does, but it's out there somewhere." The armory is (other than John’s and Faith’s bunkers) directly next to a main road, next to McKinley Dam. It is quite impossible to miss. Therefore this statement, along with the inconsistent switch between calling it ‘armory’, ‘bunker’ or ‘gate’, could mean there was originally a different bunker and the armory really functioned as such. 

Before moving on to more mission strings, there is one more subtitle entry worth mentioning: "When you tried to arrest Joseph, Jacob got wind of it and things got real crazy here in the Whitetail Mountains." It heavily implies that at some point, Joseph’s family might not have been intended to be present during the opening, and they instead found out about the arrest afterwards. As far fetched as it sounds at first, it does check out with the inactivity and absence of the three heralds after you cuff Joseph (and in case you ever wondered what the three of them are doing while you guide Joseph outside, they de-spawn and are gone as soon as you turn around).

But enough about that and let’s get back to more missions we never got to see.

For instance there is:

GO TO the Veteran's Center

Which, as most of you know, is impossible during the game because you get repositioned everytime you attempt to go close. This string implies a different kind of mission at some point. 

HUNT Jacob

No, this also does not appear in the game. The final mission goes from DESTROY Wolf Beacons to KILL Jacob Seed. Possibility in combination with the previous entry is that you were supposed to follow him back to the Veteran Center and that’s where the final fight would be. It could also imply a different kind of trial.

Small observation because we are talking about the final fight: The Prima Games’ guide (based on a pre-release build of the game, it will be featured more prominently in the next post) depicts Jacob at the bottom of the mountain during this encounter. WIth a lot of perseverance I’m sure you can somehow manage to replicate this in-game. But it is interesting regardless that they chose this image. It might imply that at some point he was not positioned on top of the hill, and instead closer to the area he finally dies in.

Before we move on, here are a few other interesting unused strings:

TRAIN TRAIN yourself INTERACT with Jacob for finishing takedown TALK to Jacob

They imply a different way to end the fight along with the possibility to talk to Jacob at some point (unrelated to each other mind you). I have no clue in what kind of scenario you were supposed to talk to him. The only explanation I have is that trials were possibly supposed to be different at some point and maybe they had more intentions to explore the whole brainwashed aspect of it to the point you casually took strolls around St Francis. Now before you say I just made that up, I implore you to wait till after the next part to call me out on it, because there are reasons I offer that possibility up for discussion here.

TRAIN and TRAIN yourself might not be linked to this region at all. But it is interesting to have these sort of objectives as they form the ‘Train, Hunt, Kill, Sacrifice’ part of the region’s theme, when you refer back to other mission strings: TRAIN (yourself), HUNT Jacob, KILL Jacob Seed.

Now to get to the main part. If you ever used mods on PC that let you access the Veteran Center, you will have noticed that the AI acts very strange. Your assigned GFH might wander around, aim at nothing or even attack civillians. Cultists inside the area will not always attack you, while civillians will do. This is most likely why the developers were so quick to patch out the tricks to access the region without mods.

I have seen multiple speculations circling around, but the one that always struck me as the most plausible one is that there was some kind of mission after Pratt rescues you from the cage. It is a very discontinuous cutscene, in which you transition from the cage directly to the top floor of the Veteran Center, implying there were no problems for Pratt and the Deputy to get there, despite having to cross the entire guarded frontyard and going through multiple building floors to get to the office. So, naturally I wasted some time of my life trying to dig up stuff that proves this theory right and I...well I did find something.

Important note so you understand what’s going on here: It is very common in games to load objects underneath the map (outside of sight of the player) to assure they are properly loaded in when they are needed. I have seen posts circulating around which depicted Pratt underneath the building, suggesting they eventually had an area planned there. The more likely case is that Pratt was loaded there for later use in a cutscene.

Why am I saying that? Well, this following screenshot was taken underneath the map during the cutscene where Pratt rescues the deputy and it transitions to the top of the building. I have changed the time to daytime for a bit better visibility.

What you see here is an entirely unused set of either cutscene or gameplay elements. A truck, Jacob (who’s absent in the cutscene we see), Pratt, a random NPC, a bag, a small table (unseen in cutscene), a single door (unseen in cutscene), a double door and 3 small pieces of paper (only two are in cutscene). I have kept watch on these assets for the entirety of the cutscene and none of them were moved into place. Meaning that all of these were here to be used in either a different cutscene or even a gameplay segment.

It brings me back to the mission theory, where there was a potential stealth segment between leaving the cage and entering the office.  Maybe there was an alternate cutscene for the case where you’d be caught and the one we see in the game is the one after successfully sneaking up there? We will never know for certain again but it is one possible explanation as to why these assets even still exist. It would also check out with the TALK to Deputy Pratt mission string, as you maybe had to speak to him after reaching a certain area.

Here are also some additional screenshots of the room in front of the office:

It was modelled and filled with a few detail props we never get to see much of.

Another potential mission, which would explain the broken AI behavior better, is the already mentioned theory that they might have planned to do more with the whole brainwashing aspect. Cultists inside the Vet Center area do not shoot and are allied, while civillians act hostile, implying while the player is there they are considered to be allied to cultists. TALK to Deputy Pratt, TALK to Jacob or TRAIN (yourself) could have taken place during this also. Something that could support this theory is also this unused timelapse marking days passing:

3. The Game’s Title and Closing Words

Internally the game is often called ‘fc zeta’, ‘zeta’ or ‘fcz’. So *sigh* of course I tried to find a deeper meaning behind it all and came to the sixth letter of the Greek alphabet ‘Zeta’. If you count Far Cry: Primal as a real standalone title, Far Cry 5 is the sixth Far Cry release. But because the Greek were special snowflakes or something, the sixth letter actually has the value of 7. So Zeta is actually 7 despite being the sixth. If you count Blood Dragon as a Far Cry release it’d mean FC5 is the 7th release. However, these theories exclude all the expansions and stuff for earlier Far Cry games.

Another indicator that Zeta might have been more than just a number, is this texture used as a decal on some clothing materials:

I have not found someone in-game who has this anywhere, and they might just disable the transparency and use it only for the American flag. But still, why would they make such a decal texture in the first place? Maybe very early name of the cult or resistance group? 

Before closing this incredibly long essay, here is an old, unused version of the logo found in the files :)

Phew, we finally reached the end. If you made it all the way down here: CONGRATULATIONS you just read a long af essay! Again, i’d like to remind you that a lot of what you’ve read is pure speculation. I tried to prove my arguments as best as I could with evidence that I provided but only Ubisoft knows what really happened. And they are unlikely to tell us.

The next post will focus on the expansive character list and I may split it into parts because there is a lot to say and show about some characters. 

I hope you have a nice day and thank you for reading ♥

_______________________________________________________

References:

text.farcry.info (website where you can look through Oasisstrings yourself!) languages\english\oasisstrings.oasis.bin languages\english\oasisstrings_subtitles.oasis.bin animations\narrative\cin_key03_q01_b00_meet_jj_cabin animations\narrative\cin_key03_q01_b00_meet_jj_net animations\narrative\cin_key03_q01_b00_meet_jj_release domino\user\fcz_proto_ld domino\user\zeta_dlcm ui\resources\textures\04_menu\tooltips ui\resources\textures\06_icons\inventory ui\resources\textures\05_hud\tutorials\_images __Unknown\XBT\AE800D066AB2E84A.xbt __Unknown\XBT\FD080AA2BBABE691.xbt Zeta on Wikipedia (english) Squad on Wikipedia (english) Prima Games guide (2018, collector’s edition, print and digital) reddit.com/r/farcry/comments/89nsf1/so_theres_3_missing_guns_for_hire_here_maybe_3/ __Unknown\BIK\C6AB10EDBC81E933.bik

[musepirations]

Hello lovely! Could we please get a review/opinion on the roleplay?! Much love xox

❞ HI HUN !! Mind you that this is just my opinion, and you know these can differ. The last thing I want to do is criticize or be rude. I hope this may help you out, sweetheart !! Find the opinion on INKEDLIES bellow the cut !! Xoxo ❞

RECOMMENDATION ? if the last finishing touches get done, then yes for everyone who is into fandom roleplaying !!

* ✰. — icon & url ❞

i like your icon, i think it looks very pretty. i think there is absolutely potential in your url as well, i would just suggest to maybe add a ‘rp’ or ‘hq’ in there somewhere ?? so people know it’s a roleplay and not an indie roleplay blog or something !!

* ✰. — main ❞

i like how you picked a theme that is easy to navigate on yet has a lot of room for extra features. i like your header as well, i love the beautiful skyline of new york city !! i only can’t help but feel like your main isn’t quite finished yet ?? like, the admin icon that is basically a tumblr icon, the locations page that hasn’t been worked on yet, the open day spot that has unedited titles ( like, event title, event months etc… i’m not sure whether those have been edited or whether they were generally on the theme like that, if that makes sense ?? ). so, i would really try to edit everything, make it all one coherent finished product before entering the tags, dear !!

* ✰. — pages ❞

i’m going to run over the most important pages here, cupcakes !!

navigation: simple, complete, easy to navigate – no remark there !!

plot: i now understand where the ‘inkedlies’ comes from !! i think you’ve come up with a clever and original plot !! i only noticed some grammatical errors in there, and it feels a little bit… stiffly written, at times ?? i would suggest asking someone to maybe edit it a little, take out the grammatical errors etc ( i’m always willing to do this, just let me know if you’d like the help, dear ). other then that, i think you’ve got a lovely plot thought out !!

rules: same thing here, darling, i feel like it’s a little stiffly written ( maybe english isn’t your native language ?? which is 100 % cool of course !! i would only recommend to have a native speaker or someone who is very fluent in english read though your written text and correct it where necessary !! because right now, some messages get a little lost ?? for example, where you write ‘if you are found to be 18, then you will be asked to leave the group’. i think you mean that any roleplayers under the age of 18 are not allowed ?? but this message has gone lost in translation a bit… ). other then that, your rules are pretty extensive and cover all the important matters, which is great !! the only thing i find a little confusing is the fact that the same faceclaim may be used for different roles… maybe it’s just me though, seeing i am not used to fandom roleplays. but it seems to me like that may get a little confusing !!

application & app count: i would definitely suggest adding a space to elaborate on the characters pronouns and gender in your application, seeing there is no mention of it whatsoever at the moment !!

characters: appless, so n/a !!

i think those are the main pages !! i looked through your banned faceclaims and banned movies list and i think you’ve got the most important ones written down there, so that’s great !! i would definitely suggest finishing all of your pages, darling, like for example your locations page !! it’s a great idea to include on, it’s only a little disappointing there isn’t anything on there yet.

* ✰. — over all impression & advises ❞

i think you’ve got a great plot on your hands, dear, especially seeing it’s a fandom roleplay and there already are a plethora of those in the tags. but, your plot is original and may definitely make it stand out, which is wonderful !! the biggest advises i want to give is, make sure to have your main and pages nicely finished before really hitting the tags ( to me personally, there’s nothing that disappoints me more when looking for a new roleplay to join than seeing an unfinished main ) and have someone help you out with your plot and rules, to tidy it up a little, get out the grammatical errors, maybe rewrite some things to make sure the message gets across a bit better !! but once all those things are done, i’m sure you’ll get there nicely, hun, you definitely seem dedicated enough and that’s great !!

* ✰. — recommendation ? ❞

yes, because i like your plot and i think it’s very interesting for people who are into fandom roleplays – but i would highly encourage you to take my advises at heart, if possible, hun !!

[thatrandogirl]

Real Advice For Freshman Year

By an incoming Sophomore

- If you need to memorize something, instead of cramming half an hour before, do it 10 minutes every day over the corse of a week, it gets in your long term memory and it's much easier to remember

- Drama will happen, being with people you care about for around 35 hours a week will inevitably result in some arguments and fights. Just try to not do anything rash while you're mad, remember to keep a calm head, apologize for things that you did wrong, and try to avoid it if possible in the future if you were in the wrong on something. But if you always have fights with someone or they deliberately argue with you for no reason, consider dropping them, you don't need that in your life. It doesn't matter how long you've known them, if they aren't good for you, drop them.

- Try not to procrastinate, it will be the death of you. If you have a 2 page paper due at the end of the week don't do the whole thing the night before it's due, work on it bit by bit throughout the week. But procrastination is inevitable. It's not the worst thing you can do but I don't recommend it.

- Get enough sleep.

- Aim to wake up at a reasonable time so if you're ever late you have time if you rush.

- About waking up, know when to wake up and know when is the absolute latest you can wake up without being too late, set an alarm for when you regularly wake up and a different alarm sound for the absolute latest so if you wake up at the absolute latest alarm you know to get the fuck up.

- Always carry pads with you if you have a vagina. Not just for you but let your other friends know you have them. The worst thing is getting your period and having no pad and it's a lifesaver if someone else can lend one so you don't have to suffer the whole day. You will be in that position a few times in your life and you will need to borrow a pad from someone so be that someone for others having an emergency. Guys this is also for y'all too, if you have friends who go through Satan's waterfall once a month and you can, keep a pad or two in your backpack and let them know you have one if they need it. Getting your period unprepared is the worst thing.

- Mind your manners, don't be rude

- This should go without saying but if you do drugs don't let your teachers know, this comes from experience, most of them really don't care if you smoke weed on your own time but if you tell them they have to report you. Keep it to yourself.

- Do your summer homework, it starts the year off on a good note, and it gives a good impression if you have it ready on the first day.

- Highschool isn't a bad as you think it will be, it's really chill, hang out with people you like, do things you like, and it won't be that bad. The best way I've heard it described is that it's just a bunch of sleep deprived kids trying not to get yelled at by their parents.

- Maybe it's different in your school but upperclassmen really don't care about underclassmen. They aren't going to bully you, they honestly probably don't care about you, they're just trying to get their grade and leave.

- Find a club you like and join it if possible. It looks better on college applications and it occupies you and gives you a sense of purpose.

- Do your homework, it really adds up if you don't do it and it will kick your ass of you try to make it all up the week before grades are due.

- Worry about yourself before you worry about other people.

- Talk to your teachers if you have a chance to, if they know you can be civil and normal with them they'll be better grading you. Remember they're normal people with lives outside of the classroom. If you don't particularly dislike them it's a good idea to befriend them in a way so they're nicer to you.

- If you need to turn something in and it's half way done, turn it in. Half credit will ALWAYS be better than no credit. Take the credit you can get.

- Highschool movies are lies highschool isn't really anything like that.

- Sounds cheesy but be yourself. You might have to put yourself out there a little bit just be yourself. In my experience if you're just yourself you will find others like you and you and people like you will gravitate to each other. They might not always be the perfect person but you might find some good people like that.

- A tip I've used is if you need to figure out something's symbolism, mainly in English, but if they ask you like what's an abject that symbolizes this character, look up flower language and just look for a flower that matches their personality and use that, it's quick and makes you look good.

- Have something to do in your free time other than your phone because sometimes you might not be able to use it but you'll have free time in a class so do your homework, or if you don't have any, have a book to read or a coloring page or something so you won't be bored out of your mind. Having to sit in a chair doing nothing for an hour is extremely annoying.

- Know where you're going in the hallway, stick to the correct side to avoid traffic.

- Physical fights aren't worth it, avoid them if they're not necessary but if you need to defend yourself don't hesitate to do so.

- Self care is important. Maybe buy yourself a bath bomb and save it for a particularly hard week and take a long bath. Maybe call your friend and talk to them after school. Maybe instead of starting on your homework as soon as possible put it off a few hours and read a book to destress. Life is twice as hard to get through if you're stressed the whole time. Take time for yourself if you need it. Know what your mind needs to stave off the stress that you will get about school, life, and family.

- Take a minute before you go to sleep and lay out your outfit for the next day. Especially if you need to wear something specific the next day like a uniform or a color. It saves you time in the morning and since you're not in a zombie fog after waking up you're less likely to forget something.

- HOMEWORK FOLDER. Get a folder, put it in your main binder or backpack or whatever. Label the left side "Unfinished" and the right side "Completed", when you get a homework assignment put it in the left side, when you get halfway through an assignment put it in the left side, when you finish a homework assignment put it in the right side, when your teacher gives you a worksheet and says "have this for next class don't lose it" put it in the right side. Put everything in there and you won't lose it. I can't guarantee you'll do it that's up to you but you'll know where it is. And it's so satisfying to see a thin left side and a thick right side.

- Just because you got all As in middle school doesn't mean you'll get all As in highschool, it's a lot harder and the grading is stricter. Don't panic the first time you get a B.

- Try to stay on top of your grades. It's a lot easier to maintain a good grade than it is to boost a bad grade. That is 100% personal experience.

- If you get a bad grade on something that you tried your best at or were proud of it'll hurt, but just remember that doesn't define you. It's easier to write off a bad grade if you didn't put in as much effort but seeing a grade you don't love on something you worked hard at is disheartening. Don't loose hope, it might not be with you it might just be the teacher was looking for something different or you just didn't do as well as you hoped. Take the bad experience and work harder and smarter next time.

- Stay on top of your easy grades especially. In my gym class as long as we dress in our uniform and do something we'll get credit, so it's my easiest class to get an A in. So if you get a good grade with minimal effort take it and it'll be a much needed boost for your GPA.

- Set realistic long term and short term goals for yourself. They'll help you, give you something to work towards, and put you in a good mood when you achieve them. For example my long term goal is to graduate highschool and get into a college I'm okay with with at least a partial scholarship. My short term goal is to do as much of my homework as possible and to get higher than a 80% in every class I can.

- Don't hold yourself to an impossible standard. Know what you're good and and know what you're not so good at, adjust your goals accordingly. If you're not very good at science don't set your goal for science class as a 95% or higher set it at 80% or higher. My goal that I go for is to try my best to get a B or higher in every quarter grade, the grades are good and it's not impossibly stressing me out if I get a bad grade on a quiz and it brings my grade down 2 points.

- Try to remember that as much as you have the right to drop people who are toxic or not good for you from your life, other people are allowed to drop you just the same. It might be your fault it might not. As long as they don't do it in a bad way respect their decision. I feel like this self care culture doesn't pay enough attention to that part of life. Sometimes you aren't good for people weather you did something or not and you're going to have to accept it. It hurts but other people deserve to be happy just as much as you weather you're in their happiness or not. If they do it in a bad way yes you can be mad at them, if they do it in a good way you're allowed to hurt, but keep it in mind.

- Try to find something that motivates you or inspires you. Maybe it's a song or a piece of art or an episode in a show you like, have that and look or listen to it whenever you feel lost or something important is about to happen. Mine is a speech by Neil Gaimen in 2012 called "Make Good Art"

That's all I can think of right now I'll almost certainly add more later as I think of them. Feel free to add more yourself if I missed anything. Good luck to all the freshmen! I hope this helps you

[bountyofbeads]

I am posting a series of articles on the misinformation campaign being waged by the Trump campaign and other nafarious actors including Russia, Iran and China..Its important we recognize, educate and share this information ahead of the 2020 election. The misinformation is 20 fold to the misinformation campaign waged in 2016. WE MUST DEFEAT DONALD TRUMP FOR THE SAKE OF OUR DEMOCRACY. PLEASE SHARE!!! TY🙏🏻🙏🙏🏼🙏🏽🙏🏾🙏🏿

THE BILLION-DOLLAR DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN TO REELECT THE PRESIDENT..... How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 Election

By McKay Coppins | Published MARCH 2020 Issue | The Atlantic Magazine | Posted February 13, 2020 |

(**Updated at 2:30 p.m. ET on February 10, 2020.)

(PART 1 /2)

One day last fall, I sat down to create a new Facebook account. I picked a forgettable name, snapped a profile pic with my face obscured, and clicked “Like” on the official pages of Donald Trump and his reelection campaign. Facebook’s algorithm prodded me to follow Ann Coulter, Fox Business, and a variety of fan pages with names like “In Trump We Trust.” I complied. I also gave my cellphone number to the Trump campaign, and joined a handful of private Facebook groups for MAGA diehards, one of which required an application that seemed designed to screen out interlopers.

The president’s reelection campaign was then in the midst of a multimillion-dollar ad blitz aimed at shaping Americans’ understanding of the recently launched impeachment proceedings. Thousands of micro-targeted ads had flooded the internet, portraying Trump as a heroic reformer cracking down on foreign corruption while Democrats plotted a coup. That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread. Right-wing websites amplified every claim. Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories. An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country, and I wanted to see it from the inside.

The story that unfurled in my Facebook feed over the next several weeks was, at times, disorienting. There were days when I would watch, live on TV, an impeachment hearing filled with damning testimony about the president’s conduct, only to look at my phone later and find a slickly edited video—served up by the Trump campaign—that used out-of-context clips to recast the same testimony as an exoneration. Wait, I caught myself wondering more than once, is that what happened today?

As I swiped at my phone, a stream of pro-Trump propaganda filled the screen: “That’s right, the whistleblower’s own lawyer said, ‘The coup has started …’ ” Swipe. “Democrats are doing Putin’s bidding …” Swipe. “The only message these radical socialists and extremists will understand is a crushing …” Swipe. “Only one man can stop this chaos …” Swipe, swipe, swipe.

I was surprised by the effect it had on me. I’d assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions. But I soon found myself reflexively questioning  every headline. It wasn’t that I believed Trump and his boosters were telling the truth. It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itself—about Ukraine, impeachment, or anything else—felt more and more difficult to locate. With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach.

What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world. Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes—jamming the signals, sowing confusion. They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets; they can use a megaphone to drown him out. Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.

After the 2016 election, much was made of the threats posed to American democracy by foreign disinformation. Stories of Russian troll farms and Macedonian fake-news mills loomed in the national imagination. But while these shadowy outside forces preoccupied politicians and journalists, Trump and his domestic allies were beginning to adopt the same tactics of information warfare that have kept the world’s demagogues and strongmen in power.

Every presidential campaign sees its share of spin and misdirection, but this year’s contest promises to be different. In conversations with political strategists and other experts, a dystopian picture of the general election comes into view—one shaped by coordinated bot attacks, Potemkin local-news sites, micro-targeted fearmongering, and anonymous mass texting. Both parties will have these tools at their disposal. But in the hands of a president who lies constantly, who traffics in conspiracy theories, and who readily manipulates the levers of government for his own gain, their potential to wreak havoc is enormous.

The Trump campaign is planning to spend more than $1 billion, and it will be aided by a vast coalition of partisan media, outside political groups, and enterprising freelance operatives. These pro-Trump forces are poised to wage what could be the most extensive disinformation campaign in U.S. history. Whether or not it succeeds in reelecting the president, the wreckage it leaves behind could be irreparable.

'THE DEATH STAR'

The campaign is run from the 14th floor of a gleaming, modern office tower in Rosslyn, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. Glass-walled conference rooms look out on the Potomac River. Rows of sleek monitors line the main office space. Unlike the bootstrap operation that first got Trump elected—with its motley band of B-teamers toiling in an unfinished space in Trump Tower—his 2020 enterprise is heavily funded, technologically sophisticated, and staffed with dozens of experienced operatives. One Republican strategist referred to it, admiringly, as “the Death Star.”

Presiding over this effort is Brad Parscale, a 6-foot-8 Viking of a man with a shaved head and a triangular beard. As the digital director of Trump’s 2016 campaign, Parscale didn’t become a household name like Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. But he played a crucial role in delivering Trump to the Oval Office—and his efforts will shape this year’s election.

In speeches and interviews, Parscale likes to tell his life story as a tidy rags-to-riches tale, embroidered with Trumpian embellishments. He grew up a simple “farm boy from Kansas” (read: son of an affluent lawyer from suburban Topeka) who managed to graduate from an “Ivy League” school (Trinity University, in San Antonio). After college, he went to work for a software company in California, only to watch the business collapse in the economic aftermath of 9/11 (not to mention allegations in a lawsuit that he and his parents, who owned the business, had illegally transferred company funds—claims that they disputed). Broke and desperate, Parscale took his “last $500” (not counting the value of three rental properties he owned) and used it to start a one-man web-design business in Texas.

Parscale Media was, by most accounts, a scrappy endeavor at the outset. Hustling to drum up clients, Parscale cold-pitched shoppers in the tech aisle of a Borders bookstore. Over time, he built enough websites for plumbers and gun shops that bigger clients took notice—including the Trump Organization. In 2011, Parscale was invited to bid on designing a website for Trump International Realty. An ardent fan of The Apprentice, he offered to do the job for $10,000, a fraction of the actual cost. “I just made up a price,” he later told The Washington Post. “I recognized that I was a nobody in San Antonio, but working for the Trumps would be everything.” The contract was his, and a lucrative relationship was born.

Over the next four years, he was hired to design websites for a range of Trump ventures—a winery, a skin-care line, and then a presidential campaign. By late 2015, Parscale—a man with no discernible politics, let alone campaign experience—was running the Republican front-runner’s digital operation from his personal laptop.

Parscale slid comfortably into Trump’s orbit. Not only was he cheap and unpretentious—with no hint of the savvier-than-thou smugness that characterized other political operatives—but he seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder that matched the candidate’s. “Brad was one of those people who wanted to prove the establishment wrong and show the world what he was made of,” says a former colleague from the campaign.

Perhaps most important, he seemed to have no reservations about the kind of campaign Trump wanted to run. The race-baiting, the immigrant-bashing, the truth-bending—none of it seemed to bother Parscale. While some Republicans wrung their hands over Trump’s inflammatory messages, Parscale came up with ideas to more effectively disseminate them.

The campaign had little interest at first in cutting-edge ad technology, and for a while, Parscale’s most valued contribution was the merchandise page he built to sell MAGA hats. But that changed in the general election. Outgunned on the airwaves and lagging badly in fundraising, campaign officials turned to Google and Facebook, where ads were inexpensive and shock value was rewarded. As the campaign poured tens of millions into online advertising—amplifying themes such as Hillary Clinton’s criminality and the threat of radical Islamic terrorism—Parscale’s team, which was christened Project Alamo, grew to 100.

Parscale was generally well liked by his colleagues, who recall him as competent and intensely focused. “He was a get-shit-done type of person,” says A. J. Delgado, who worked with him. Perhaps just as important, he had a talent for ingratiating himself with the Trump family. “He was probably better at managing up,” Kurt Luidhardt, a consultant for the campaign, told me. He made sure to share credit for his work with the candidate’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and he excelled at using Trump’s digital ignorance to flatter him. “Parscale would come in and tell Trump he didn’t need to listen to the polls, because he’d crunched his data and they were going to win by six points,” one former campaign staffer told me. “I was like, ‘Come on, man, don’t bullshit a bullshitter.’ ” But Trump seemed to buy it. (Parscale declined to be interviewed for this story.)

James Barnes, a Facebook employee who was dispatched to work closely with the campaign, told me Parscale’s political inexperience made him open to experimenting with the platform’s new tools. “Whereas some grizzled campaign strategist who’d been around the block a few times might say, ‘Oh, that will never work,’ Brad’s predisposition was to say, ‘Yeah, let’s try it.’ ” From June to November, Trump’s campaign ran 5.9 million ads on Facebook, while Clinton’s ran just 66,000. A Facebook executive would later write in a leaked memo that Trump “got elected because he ran the single best digital ad campaign I’ve ever seen from any advertiser.”

Though some strategists questioned how much these ads actually mattered, Parscale was hailed for Trump’s surprise victory. Stories appeared in the press calling him a “genius” and the campaign’s “secret weapon,” and in 2018 he was tapped to lead the entire reelection effort. The promotion was widely viewed as a sign that the president’s 2020 strategy would hinge on the digital tactics that Parscale had mastered.

Through it all, the strategist has continued to show a preference for narrative over truth. Last May, Parscale regaled a crowd of donors and activists in Miami with the story of his ascent. When a ProPublica reporter confronted him about the many misleading details in his account, he shrugged off the fact-check. “When I give a speech, I tell it like a story,” he said. “My story is my story.”

'DISINFORMATION ARCHITECTURE'

In his book This Is Not Propaganda, Peter Pomerantsev, a researcher at the London School of Economics, writes about a young Filipino political consultant he calls “P.” In college, P had studied the “Little Albert experiment,” in which scientists conditioned a young child to fear furry animals by exposing him to loud noises every time he encountered a white lab rat. The experiment gave P an idea. He created a series of Facebook groups for Filipinos to discuss what was going on in their communities. Once the groups got big enough—about 100,000 members—he began posting local crime stories, and instructed his employees to leave comments falsely tying the grisly headlines to drug cartels. The pages lit up with frightened chatter. Rumors swirled; conspiracy theories metastasized. To many, all crimes became drug crimes.

Unbeknownst to their members, the Facebook groups were designed to boost Rodrigo Duterte, then a long-shot presidential candidate running on a pledge to brutally crack down on drug criminals. (Duterte once boasted that, as mayor of Davao City, he rode through the streets on his motorcycle and personally executed drug dealers.) P’s experiment was one plank in a larger “disinformation architecture”—which also included social-media influencers paid to mock opposing candidates, and mercenary trolls working out of former call centers—that experts say aided Duterte’s rise to power. Since assuming office in 2016, Duterte has reportedly ramped up these efforts while presiding over thousands of extrajudicial killings.

The campaign in the Philippines was emblematic of an emerging propaganda playbook, one that uses new tools for the age-old ends of autocracy. The Kremlin has long been an innovator in this area. (A 2011 manual for Russian civil servants favorably compared their methods of disinformation to “an invisible radiation” that takes effect while “the population doesn’t even feel it is being acted upon.”) But with the technological advances of the past decade, and the global proliferation of smartphones, governments around the world have found success deploying Kremlin-honed techniques against their own people.

In the United States, we tend to view such tools of oppression as the faraway problems of more fragile democracies. But the people working to reelect Trump understand the power of these tactics. They may use gentler terminology—muddy the waters; alternative facts—but they’re building a machine designed to exploit their own sprawling disinformation architecture.

Central to that effort is the campaign’s use of micro-targeting—the process of slicing up the electorate into distinct niches and then appealing to them with precisely tailored digital messages. The advantages of this approach are obvious: An ad that calls for defunding Planned Parenthood might get a mixed response from a large national audience, but serve it directly via Facebook to 800 Roman Catholic women in Dubuque, Iowa, and its reception will be much more positive. If candidates once had to shout their campaign promises from a soapbox, micro-targeting allows them to sidle up to millions of voters and whisper personalized messages in their ear.

Parscale didn’t invent this practice—Barack Obama’s campaign famously used it in 2012, and Clinton’s followed suit. But Trump’s effort in 2016 was unprecedented, in both its scale and its brazenness. In the final days of the 2016 race, for example, Trump’s team tried to suppress turnout among black voters in Florida by slipping ads into their News Feeds that read, “Hillary Thinks African-Americans Are Super Predators.” An unnamed campaign official boasted to Bloomberg Businessweek that it was one of “three major voter suppression operations underway.” (The other two targeted young women and white liberals.)

The weaponization of micro-targeting was pioneered in large part by the data scientists at Cambridge Analytica. The firm began as part of a nonpartisan military contractor that used digital psyops to target terrorist groups and drug cartels. In Pakistan, it worked to thwart jihadist recruitment efforts; in South America, it circulated disinformation to turn drug dealers against their bosses.

The emphasis shifted once the conservative billionaire Robert Mercer became a major investor and installed Steve Bannon as his point man. Using a massive trove of data it had gathered from Facebook and other sources—without users’ consent—Cambridge Analytica worked to develop detailed “psychographic profiles” for every voter in the U.S., and began experimenting with ways to stoke paranoia and bigotry by exploiting certain personality traits. In one exercise, the firm asked white men whether they would approve of their daughter marrying a Mexican immigrant; those who said yes were asked a follow-up question designed to provoke irritation at the constraints of political correctness: “Did you feel like you had to say that?”

Christopher Wylie, who was the director of research at Cambridge Analytica and later testified about the company to Congress, told me that “with the right kind of nudges,” people who exhibited certain psychological characteristics could be pushed into ever more extreme beliefs and conspiratorial thinking. “Rather than using data to interfere with the process of radicalization, Steve Bannon was able to invert that,” Wylie said. “We were essentially seeding an insurgency in the United States.”

Cambridge Analytica was dissolved in 2018, shortly after its CEO was caught on tape bragging about using bribery and sexual “honey traps” on behalf of clients. (The firm denied that it actually used such tactics.) Since then, some political scientists have questioned how much effect its “psychographic” targeting really had. But Wylie—who spoke with me from London, where he now works for H&M, as a fashion-trend forecaster—said the firm’s work in 2016 was a modest test run compared with what could come.

“What happens if North Korea or Iran picks up where Cambridge Analytica left off?” he said, noting that plenty of foreign actors will be looking for ways to interfere in this year’s election. “There are countless hostile states that have more than enough capacity to quickly replicate what we were able to do … and make it much more sophisticated.” These efforts may not come only from abroad: A group of former Cambridge Analytica employees have formed a new firm that, according to the Associated Press, is working with the Trump campaign. (The firm has denied this, and a campaign spokesperson declined to comment.)

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, Facebook was excoriated for its mishandling of user data and complicity in the viral spread of fake news. Mark Zuckerberg promised to do better, and rolled out a flurry of reforms. But then, last fall, he handed a major victory to lying politicians: Candidates, he said, would be allowed to continue running false ads on Facebook. (Commercial advertisers, by contrast, are subject to fact-checking.) In a speech at Georgetown University, the CEO argued that his company shouldn’t be responsible for arbitrating political speech, and that because political ads already receive so much scrutiny, candidates who choose to lie will be held accountable by journalists and watchdogs.

"Shady political actors are discovering how easy it is to wage an untraceable whisper campaign by text message."

To bolster his case, Zuckerberg pointed to the recently launched—and publicly accessible—��library” where Facebook archives every political ad it publishes. The project has a certain democratic appeal: Why censor false or toxic content when a little sunlight can have the same effect? But spend some time scrolling through the archive of Trump reelection ads, and you quickly see the limits of this transparency.

The campaign doesn’t run just one ad at a time on a given theme. It runs hundreds of iterations—adjusting the language, the music, even the colors of the “Donate” buttons. In the 10 weeks after the House of Representatives began its impeachment inquiry, the Trump campaign ran roughly 14,000 different ads containing the word impeachment. Sifting through all of them is virtually impossible.

Both parties will rely on micro-targeted ads this year, but the president is likely to have a distinct advantage. The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign have reportedly compiled an average of 3,000 data points on every voter in America. They have spent years experimenting with ways to tweak their messages based not just on gender and geography, but on whether the recipient owns a gun or watches the Golf Channel.

While these ads can be used to try to win over undecided voters, they’re most often deployed for fundraising and for firing up the faithful—and Trump’s advisers believe this election will be decided by mobilization, not persuasion. To turn out the base, the campaign has signaled that it will return to familiar themes: the threat of “illegal aliens”—a term Parscale has reportedly encouraged Trump to use—and the corruption of the “swamp.”

Beyond Facebook, the campaign is also investing in a texting platform that could allow it to send anonymous messages directly to millions of voters’ phones without their permission. Until recently, people had to opt in before a campaign could include them in a mass text. But with new “peer to peer” texting apps—including one developed by Gary Coby, a senior Trump adviser—a single volunteer can send hundreds of messages an hour, skirting federal regulations by clicking “Send” one message at a time. Notably, these messages aren’t required to disclose who’s behind them, thanks to a 2002 ruling by the Federal Election Commission that cited the limited number of characters available in a text.

Most experts assume that these regulations will be overhauled sometime after the 2020 election. For now, campaigns from both parties are hoovering up as many cellphone numbers as possible, and Parscale has said texting will be at the center of Trump’s reelection strategy. The medium’s ability to reach voters is unparalleled: While robocalls get sent to voicemail and email blasts get trapped in spam folders, peer-to-peer texting companies say that at least 90 percent of their messages are opened.

The Trump campaign’s texts so far this cycle have focused on shouty fundraising pleas (“They have NOTHING! IMPEACHMENT IS OVER! Now let’s CRUSH our End of Month Goal”). But the potential for misuse by outside groups is clear—and shady political actors are already discovering how easy it is to wage an untraceable whisper campaign by text.

In 2018, as early voting got under way in Tennessee’s Republican gubernatorial primary, voters began receiving text messages attacking two of the candidates’ conservative credentials. The texts—written in a conversational style, as if they’d been sent from a friend—were unsigned, and people who tried calling the numbers received a busy signal. The local press covered the smear campaign. Law enforcement was notified. But the source of the texts was never discovered.

'WAR ON THE PRESS'

One afternoon last March, I was on the phone with a Republican operative close to the Trump family when he casually mentioned that a reporter at Business Insider was about to have a very bad day. The journalist, John Haltiwanger, had tweeted something that annoyed Donald Trump Jr., prompting the coterie of friends and allies surrounding the president’s son to drum up a hit piece. The story they had coming, the operative suggested to me, would demolish the reporter’s credibility.

I wasn’t sure what to make of this gloating—people in Trump’s circle have a tendency toward bluster. But a few hours later, the operative sent me a link to a Breitbart News article documenting Haltiwanger’s “history of intense Trump hatred.” The story was based on a series of Instagram posts—all of them from before Haltiwanger started working at Business Insider—in which he made fun of the president and expressed solidarity with liberal protesters.

The next morning, Don Jr. tweeted the story to his 3 million followers, denouncing Haltiwanger as a “raging lib.” Other conservatives piled on, and the reporter was bombarded with abusive messages and calls for him to be fired. His employer issued a statement conceding that the Instagram posts were “not appropriate.” Haltiwanger kept his job, but the experience, he told me later, “was bizarre and unsettling.”

The Breitbart story was part of a coordinated effort by a coalition of Trump allies to air embarrassing information about reporters who produce critical coverage of the president. (The New York Times first reported on this project last summer; since then, it’s been described to me in greater detail.) According to people with knowledge of the effort, pro-Trump operatives have scraped social-media accounts belonging to hundreds of political journalists and compiled years’ worth of posts into a dossier.

Often when a particular news story is deemed especially unfair—or politically damaging—to the president, Don Jr. will flag it in a text thread that he uses for this purpose. (Among those who text regularly with the president’s eldest son, someone close to him told me, are the conservative activist Charlie Kirk; two GOP strategists, Sergio Gor and Arthur Schwartz; Matthew Boyle, a Breitbart editor; and U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell.) Once a story has been marked for attack, someone searches the dossier for material on the journalists involved. If something useful turns up—a problematic old joke; evidence of liberal political views—Boyle turns it into a Breitbart headline, which White House officials and campaign surrogates can then share on social media. (The White House has denied any involvement in this effort.)

Descriptions of the dossier vary. One source I spoke with said that a programmer in India had been paid to organize it into a searchable database, making posts that contain offensive keywords easier to find. Another told me the dossier had expanded to at least 2,000 people, including not just journalists but high-profile academics, politicians, celebrities, and other potential Trump foes. Some of this, of course, may be hyperbolic boasting—but the effort has yielded fruit.

"PASCALE HAS SAID THE CAMPAIGN INTENDS TO TRAIN “SWARMS OF SURROGATES” TO UNDERMINE COVERAGE FROM LOCAL TV STATIONS AND NEWSPAPERS."

In the past year, the operatives involved have gone after journalists at CNN, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. They exposed one reporter for using the word fag in college, and another for posting anti-Semitic and racist jokes a decade ago. These may not have been career-ending revelations, but people close to the project said they’re planning to unleash much more opposition research as the campaign intensifies. “This is innovative shit,” said Mike Cernovich, a right-wing activist with a history of trolling. “They’re appropriating call-out culture.”

What’s notable about this effort is not that it aims to expose media bias. Conservatives have been complaining—with some merit—about a liberal slant in the press for decades. But in the Trump era, an important shift has taken place. Instead of trying to reform the press, or critique its coverage, today’s most influential conservatives want to destroy the mainstream media altogether. “Journalistic integrity is dead,” Boyle declared in a 2017 speech at the Heritage Foundation. “There is no such thing anymore. So everything is about weaponization of information.”

It’s a lesson drawn from demagogues around the world: When the press as an institution is weakened, fact-based journalism becomes just one more drop in the daily deluge of content—no more or less credible than partisan propaganda. Relativism is the real goal of Trump’s assault on the press, and the more “enemies of the people” his allies can take out along the way, the better. “A culture war is a war,” Steve Bannon told the Times last year. “There are casualties in war.”

This attitude has permeated the president’s base. At rallies, people wear T-shirts that read rope. tree. journalist. some assembly required. A CBS News/YouGov poll has found that just 11 percent of strong Trump supporters trust the mainstream media—while 91 percent turn to the president for “accurate information.” This dynamic makes it all but impossible for the press to hold the president accountable, something Trump himself seems to understand. “Remember,” he told a crowd in 2018, “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”

Bryan Lanza, who worked for the Trump campaign in 2016 and remains a White House surrogate, told me flatly that he sees no possibility of Americans establishing a common set of facts from which to conduct the big debates of this year’s election. Nor is that his goal. “It’s our job to sell our narrative louder than the media,” Lanza said. “They’re clearly advocating for a liberal-socialist position, and we’re never going to be in concert. So the war continues.”

Parscale has indicated that he plans to open up a new front in this war: local news. Last year, he said the campaign intends to train “swarms of surrogates” to undermine negative coverage from local TV stations and newspapers. Polls have long found that Americans across the political spectrum trust local news more than national media. If the campaign has its way, that trust will be eroded by November. “We can actually build up and fight with the local newspapers,” Parscale told donors, according to a recording provided by The Palm Beach Post. “So we’re not just fighting on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC with the same 700,000 people watching every day.”

Running parallel to this effort, some conservatives have been experimenting with a scheme to exploit the credibility of local journalism. Over the past few years, hundreds of websites with innocuous-sounding names like the Arizona Monitor and The Kalamazoo Times have begun popping up. At first glance, they look like regular publications, complete with community notices and coverage of schools. But look closer and you’ll find that there are often no mastheads, few if any bylines, and no addresses for local offices. Many of them are organs of Republican lobbying groups; others belong to a mysterious company called Locality Labs, which is run by a conservative activist in Illinois. Readers are given no indication that these sites have political agendas—which is precisely what makes them valuable.

According to one longtime strategist, candidates looking to plant a negative story about an opponent can pay to have their desired headlines posted on some of these Potemkin news sites. By working through a third-party consulting firm—instead of paying the sites directly—candidates are able to obscure their involvement in the scheme when they file expenditures to the Federal Election Commission. Even if the stories don’t fool savvy readers, the headlines are convincing enough to be flashed across the screen in a campaign commercial or slipped into fundraising emails.

'DIGITAL DIRTY TRICKS'

Shortly after polls closed in Kentucky’s gubernatorial election last November, an anonymous Twitter user named @Overlordkraken1 announced to his 19 followers that he had “just shredded a box of Republican mail in ballots” in Louisville.

There was little reason to take this claim at face value, and plenty of reason to doubt it (beginning with the fact that he’d misspelled Louisville). But the race was tight, and as incumbent Governor Matt Bevin began to fall behind in the vote total, an army of Twitter bots began spreading the election-rigging claim.

The original post was removed by Twitter, but by then thousands of automated accounts were circulating screenshots of it with the hashtag #StoptheSteal. Popular right-wing internet personalities jumped on the narrative, and soon the Bevin campaign was making noise about unspecified voting “irregularities.” When the race was called for his opponent, the governor refused to concede, and asked for a statewide review of the vote. (No evidence of ballot-shredding was found, and he finally admitted defeat nine days later.)

The Election Night disinformation blitz had all the markings of a foreign influence operation. In 2016, Russian trolls had worked in similar ways to contaminate U.S. political discourse—posing as Black Lives Matter activists in an attempt to inflame racial divisions, and fanning pro-Trump conspiracy theories. (They even used Facebook to organize rallies, including one for Muslim supporters of Clinton in Washington, D.C., where they got someone to hold up a sign attributing a fictional quote to the candidate: “I think Sharia law will be a powerful new direction of freedom.”)

But when Twitter employees later reviewed the activity surrounding Kentucky’s election, they concluded that the bots were largely based in America—a sign that political operatives here were learning to mimic Russian trolling tactics.

Of course, dirty tricks aren’t new to American politics. From Lee Atwater and Roger Stone to the crooked machine Democrats of Chicago, the country has a long history of underhanded operatives smearing opponents and meddling in elections. And, in fact, Samuel Woolley, a scholar who studies digital propaganda, told me that the first documented deployment of politicized Twitter bots was in the U.S. In 2010, an Iowa-based conservative group set up a small network of automated accounts with names like @BrianD82 to promote the idea that Martha Coakley, a Democrat running for Senate in Massachusetts, was anti-Catholic.

Since then, the tactics of Twitter warfare have grown more sophisticated, as regimes around the world experiment with new ways to deploy their cybermilitias. In Mexico, supporters of then-President Enrique Peña Nieto created “sock puppet” accounts to pose as protesters and sabotage the opposition movement. In Azerbaijan, a pro-government youth group waged coordinated harassment campaigns against journalists, flooding their Twitter feeds with graphic threats and insults. When these techniques prove successful, Woolley told me, Americans improve upon them. “It’s almost as if there’s a Columbian exchange between developing-world authoritarian regimes and the West,” he said.

Parscale has denied that the campaign uses bots, saying in a 60 Minutes interview, “I don’t think [they] work.” He may be right—it’s unlikely that these nebulous networks of trolls and bots could swing a national election. But they do have their uses. They can simulate false consensus, derail sincere debate, and hound people out of the public square.

According to one study, bots accounted for roughly 20 percent of all the tweets posted about the 2016 election during one five-week period that year. And Twitter is already infested with bots that seem designed to boost Trump’s reelection prospects. Regardless of where they’re coming from, they have tremendous potential to divide, radicalize, and stoke hatred that lasts long after the votes are cast.

Rob Flaherty, who served as the digital director for Beto O’Rourke’s presidential campaign, told me that Twitter in 2020 is a “hall of mirrors.” He said one mysterious account started a viral rumor that the gunman who killed seven people in Odessa, Texas, last summer had a beto bumper sticker on his car. Another masqueraded as an O’Rourke supporter and hurled racist invective at a journalist. Some of these tactics echoed 2016, when Russian agitators posed as Bernie Sanders supporters and stirred up anger toward Hillary Clinton.

Flaherty said he didn’t know who was behind the efforts targeting O’Rourke, and the candidate dropped out before they could make a real difference. “But you can’t watch this landscape and not get the feeling that someone’s fucking with something,” he told me. Flaherty has since joined Joe Biden’s campaign, which has had to contend with similar distortions: Last year, a website resembling an official Biden campaign page appeared on the internet. It emphasized elements of the candidate’s legislative record likely to hurt him in the Democratic primary—opposition to same-sex marriage, support for the Iraq War—and featured video clips of his awkward encounters with women. The site quickly became one of the most-visited Biden-related sites on the web. It was designed by a Trump consultant.

'FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE'

As the president’s reelection machine ramps up, Democratic strategists have found themselves debating an urgent question: Can they defeat the Trump coalition without adopting its tactics?

On one side of this argument is Dmitri Mehlhorn, a consultant notorious for his willingness to experiment with digital subterfuge. During Alabama’s special election in 2017, Mehlhorn helped fund at least two “false flag” operations against the Republican Senate candidate, Roy Moore. For one scheme, faux Russian Twitter bots followed the candidate’s account to make it look like the Kremlin was backing Moore. For another, a fake social-media campaign, dubbed “Dry Alabama,” was designed to link Moore to fictional Baptist teetotalers trying to ban alcohol. (Mehlhorn has claimed that he unaware of the Russian bot effort and does not support the use of misinformation.)

When The New York Times uncovered the second plot, one of the activists involved, Matt Osborne, contended that Democrats had no choice but to employ such unscrupulous techniques. “If you don’t do it, you’re fighting with one hand tied behind your back,” Osborne said. “You have a moral imperative to do this—to do whatever it takes.”

Others have argued that this is precisely the wrong moment for Democrats to start abandoning ideals of honesty and fairness. “It’s just not in my values to go out there making shit up and tricking voters,” Flaherty told me. “I know there’s this whole fight-fire-with-fire contingent, but generally when you ask them what they mean, they’re like, ‘Lie!’ ” Some also note that the president has already handed them plenty of ammunition. “I don’t think the Democratic campaign is going to need to make stuff up about Trump,” Judd Legum, the author of a progressive newsletter about digital politics, told me. “They can stick to things that are true.”

"EVENTUALLY, THE FEAR OF COVERT PROPAGANDA INFLICTS AS MUCH DAMAGE AS THE PROPAGANDA ITSELF."

One Democrat straddling these two camps is a young, tech-savvy strategist named Tara McGowan. Last fall, she and the former Obama adviser David Plouffe launched a political-action committee with a pledge to spend $75 million attacking Trump online. At the time, the president’s campaign was running more ads on Facebook and Google than the top four Democratic candidates combined. McGowan’s plans to return fire included such ads, but she also had more creative—and controversial—measures in mind.

For example, she established a media organization with a staff of writers to produce left-leaning “hometown news” stories that can be micro-targeted to persuadable voters on Facebook without any indication that they’re paid for by a political group. Though she insists that the reporting is strictly factual, some see the enterprise as a too-close-for-comfort co-opting of right-wing tactics.

When I spoke with McGowan, she was open about her willingness to push boundaries that might make some Democrats queasy. As far as she was concerned, the “super-predator” ads Trump ran to depress black turnout in 2016 were “fair game” because they had some basis in fact. (Clinton did use the term in 1996, to refer to gang members.) McGowan suggested that a similar approach could be taken with conservatives. She ruled out attempts to misinform Republicans about when and where to vote—a tactic Mehlhorn reportedly considered, though he later said he was joking—but said she would pursue any strategy that was “in the bounds of the law.”

“We are in a radically disruptive moment right now,” McGowan told me. “We have a president that lies every day, unabashedly … I think Trump is so desperate to win this election that he will do anything. There will be no bar too low for him.”

This intraparty split was highlighted last year when state officials urged the Democratic National Committee to formally disavow the use of bots, troll farms, and “deepfakes” (digitally manipulated videos that can, with alarming precision, make a person appear to do or say anything). Supporters saw the proposed pledge as a way of contrasting their party’s values with those of the GOP. But after months of lobbying, the committee refused to adopt the pledge.

Meanwhile, experts worried about domestic disinformation are looking to other countries for lessons. The most successful recent example may be Indonesia, which cracked down on the problem after a wave of viral lies and conspiracy theories pushed by hard-line Islamists led to the defeat of a popular Christian Chinese candidate for governor in 2016. To prevent a similar disruption in last year’s presidential election, a coalition of journalists from more than two dozen top Indonesian news outlets worked together to identify and debunk hoaxes before they gained traction online. But while that may sound like a promising model, it was paired with aggressive efforts by the state to monitor and arrest purveyors of fake news—an approach that would run afoul of the First Amendment if attempted in the U.S.

Richard Stengel, who served as the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy under President Obama, spent almost three years trying to counter digital propaganda from the Islamic State and Russia. By the time he left office, he told me, he was convinced that disinformation would continue to thrive until big tech companies were forced to take responsibility for it. Stengel has proposed amending the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which shields online platforms from liability for messages posted by third parties. Companies such as Facebook and Twitter, he believes, should be required by law to police their platforms for disinformation and abusive trolling. “It’s not going to solve the whole problem,” he told me, “but it’s going to help with volume.”

There is one other case study to consider. During the Ukrainian revolution in 2014, pro-democracy activists found that they could defang much of the false information about their movement by repeatedly exposing its Russian origins. But this kind of transparency comes with a cost, Stengel observed. Over time, alertness to the prevalence of propaganda can curdle into paranoia. Russian operatives have been known to encourage such anxiety by spreading rumors that exaggerate their own influence. Eventually, the fear of covert propaganda inflicts as much damage as the propaganda itself.

Once you internalize the possibility that you’re being manipulated by some hidden hand, nothing can be trusted. Every dissenting voice on Twitter becomes a Russian bot, every uncomfortable headline a false flag, every political development part of an ever-deepening conspiracy. By the time the information ecosystem collapses under the weight of all this cynicism, you’re too vigilant to notice that the disinformationists have won.

'POWERS OF INCUMBENCY'

If there’s one thing that can be said for Brad Parscale, it’s that he runs a tight ship. Unauthorized leaks from inside the campaign are rare; press stories on palace intrigue are virtually nonexistent. When the staff first moved into its new offices last year, journalists were periodically invited to tour the facility—but Parscale put an end to the practice: He didn’t want them glimpsing a scrap of paper or a whiteboard scribble that they weren’t supposed to see.

Notably, while the Trump White House has endured a seemingly endless procession of shake-ups, the Trump reelection campaign has seen very little turnover since Parscale took charge. His staying power is one reason many Republicans—inside the organization or out—hesitate to talk about him on the record. But among allies of the president, there appears to be a growing skepticism.

Former colleagues began noticing a change in Parscale after his promotion. Suddenly, the quiet guy with his face buried in a laptop was wearing designer suits, tossing out MAGA hats at campaign rallies, and traveling to Europe to speak at a political-marketing conference. In the past few years, Parscale has bought a BMW, a Range Rover, a condo, and a $2.4 million waterfront house in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “He knows he has the confidence of the family,” one former colleague told me, “which gives him more swagger.” When the U.K.’s Daily Mail ran a story spotlighting Parscale’s spending spree, he attempted deflection through flattery. “The president is an excellent businessman,” he told the tabloid, “and being associated with him for years has been extremely beneficial to my family.”

But according to a former White House official with knowledge of the incident, Trump was irritated by the coverage, and the impression it created that his campaign manager was getting rich off him. For a moment, Parscale’s standing appeared to be in peril, but then Trump’s attention was diverted by the G7 summit in France, and he never returned to the issue. (A spokesperson for the campaign disputed this account.)

Some Republicans worry that for all Parscale’s digital expertise, he doesn’t have the vision to guide Trump to reelection. The president is historically unpopular, and even in red states, he has struggled to mobilize his base for special elections. If Trump’s message is growing stale with voters, is Parscale the man to help overhaul it? “People start to ask the question—you’re building this apparatus, and that’s great, but what’s the overarching narrative?” said a former campaign staffer.

But whether Trump finds a new narrative or not, he has something this time around that he didn’t have in 2016—the powers of the presidency. While every commander in chief looks for ways to leverage his incumbency for reelection, Trump has shown that he’s willing to go much further than most. In the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, he seized on reports of a migrant caravan traveling to the U.S. from Central America to claim that the southern border was facing a national-security crisis. Trump warned of a coming “invasion” and claimed, without evidence, that the caravan had been infiltrated by gang members.

Parscale aided this effort by creating a 30-second commercial that interspersed footage of Hispanic migrants with clips of a convicted cop-killer. The ad ended with an urgent call to action: stop the caravan. vote republican. In a final maneuver before the election, Trump dispatched U.S. troops to the border. The president insisted that the operation was necessary to keep America safe—but within weeks the troops were quietly called back, the “crisis” having apparently ended once votes were cast. Skeptics were left to wonder: If Trump is willing to militarize the border to pick up a few extra seats in the midterms, what will he and his supporters do when his reelection is on the line?

It doesn’t require an overactive imagination to envision a worst-case scenario: On Election Day, anonymous text messages direct voters to the wrong polling locations, or maybe even circulate rumors of security threats. Deepfakes of the Democratic nominee using racial slurs crop up faster than social-media platforms can remove them. As news outlets scramble to correct the inaccuracies, hordes of Twitter bots respond by smearing and threatening reporters. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has spent the final days of the race pumping out Facebook ads at such a high rate that no one can keep track of what they’re injecting into the bloodstream.

After the first round of exit polls is released, a mysteriously sourced video surfaces purporting to show undocumented immigrants at the ballot box. Trump begins retweeting rumors of voter fraud and suggests that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers should be dispatched to polling stations. are illegals stealing the election? reads the Fox News chyron. are russians behind false videos? demands MSNBC.

The votes haven’t even been counted yet, and much of the country is ready to throw out the result.

'NOTHING IS TRUE '

There is perhaps no better place to witness what the culture of disinformation has already wrought in America than a Trump campaign rally. One night in November, I navigated through a parking-lot maze of folding tables covered in MAGA merch and entered the BancorpSouth Arena in Tupelo, Mississippi. The election was still a year away, but thousands of sign-waving supporters had crowded into the venue to cheer on the president in person.

Once Trump took the stage, he let loose a familiar flurry of lies, half-lies, hyperbole, and nonsense. He spun his revisionist history of the Ukraine scandal—the one in which Joe Biden is the villain—and claimed, falsely, that the Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams wanted to “give illegal aliens the right to vote.” At one point, during a riff on abortion, Trump casually asserted that “the governor of Virginia executed a baby”—prompting a woman in the crowd to scream, “Murderer!”

This incendiary fabrication didn’t seem to register with my companions in the press pen, who were busy writing stories and shooting B-roll. I opened Twitter, expecting to see a torrent of fact-checks laying out the truth of the case—that the governor had been answering a hypothetical question about late-term abortion; that a national firestorm had ensued; that there were certainly different ways to interpret his comments but that not even the most ardent anti-abortion activist thought the governor of Virginia had personally “executed a baby.”

But Twitter was uncharacteristically quiet (apparently the president had said this before), and the most widely shared tweet I found on the subject was from his own campaign, which had blasted out a context-free clip of the governor’s abortion comments to back up Trump’s smear.

After the rally, I loitered near one of the exits, chatting with people as they filed out of the arena. Among liberals, there is a comforting caricature of Trump supporters as gullible personality cultists who have been hypnotized into believing whatever their leader says. The appeal of this theory is the implication that the spell can be broken, that truth can still triumph over lies, that someday everything could go back to normal—if only these voters were exposed to the facts. But the people I spoke with in Tupelo seemed to treat matters of fact as beside the point.

One woman told me that, given the president’s accomplishments, she didn’t care if he “fabricates a little bit.” A man responded to my questions about Trump’s dishonest attacks on the press with a shrug and a suggestion that the media “ought to try telling the truth once in a while.” Tony Willnow, a 34-year-old maintenance worker who had an American flag wrapped around his head, observed that Trump had won because he said things no other politician would say. When I asked him if it mattered whether those things were true, he thought for a moment before answering. “He tells you what you want to hear,” Willnow said. “And I don’t know if it’s true or not—but it sounds good, so fuck it.”

The political theorist Hannah Arendt once wrote that the most successful totalitarian leaders of the 20th century instilled in their followers “a mixture of gullibility and cynicism.” When they were lied to, they chose to believe it. When a lie was debunked, they claimed they’d known all along—and would then “admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.” Over time, Arendt wrote, the onslaught of propaganda conditioned people to “believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true.”

Leaving the rally, I thought about Arendt, and the swaths of the country that are already gripped by the ethos she described. Should it prevail in 2020, the election’s legacy will be clear—not a choice between parties or candidates or policy platforms, but a referendum on reality itself.

______

This article appears in the March 2020 print edition with the headline “The 2020 Disinformation War.”

______

MCKAY COPPINS is a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of The Wilderness, a book about the battle over the future of the Republican Party.

*********

[wickedhandy1]

DIY Upholstered Bench

Upholstered benches are such a practical piece of furniture around the house. They are just one of those pieces that can be put just about anywhere to add a little style and functionality to your home. But who wants to spend hundreds of dollars on a bench that may not be your exact style or size you want? Not me! Hence, this super easy DIY Upholstered hairpin bench project.

This project really couldn’t be any simpler. It only takes 2 days to complete (mainly due to the drying of both the stain and polyurethane) and is so simple that anyone can do it in no time at all. This post will show you how to make a bench that you can customize to your specific style with minimal cost and tools.

Materials:

2″x12″x4′ Pine Boards

Hairpin Legs

Rags

Tack Cloth

Marker (I use a fine tip sharpie)

Minwax One Step Polyurethane

Minwax Coffee Gel Stain

Upholstery Fabric (at least 18″ x 54″)

1/2″ Thick Quilt Batting (45″ x 60″)

1″ Thick Project Foam (24″ x 72″)

Spray Adhesive

Kraft Paper

Tools:

Drill

Drill Bits

Table Saw or Circular Saw

Sander

Sand Paper

Ruler

Utility Knife

Staple Gun With Staples

Painter’s Pyramids Applicable Safety Equipment

Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links for products that can be purchased to complete this project. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post at no additional cost to you. Your purchase helps support this website.

To start this project you are going to need buy a 12″ x 2″ x 4′ board. If your hardware store only sells in 8′, you can just cut the bench to length (or even make 2 benches)! Next you want to sand down the wood until it’s smooth to the touch. I did this with my rotary hand sander, starting with 60 grit sand paper, then 150 grit, then 220 grit. I normally don’t go all the way up to 220 grit sand paper but I wanted this to be extra smooth since it’s a piece of furniture people will be using. Now, this is going to be the most time consuming and boring part of the project so just be patient with it (listening to music helps make this a little more fun). For the edges I rounded them over with a sander instead of a round over router bit to give it a more hand made look, imperfect look.

Once the sanding is done, wipe down the board with a tack cloth to get all the sawdust off. This is the point where you get to be creative and make the bench in your style. You can leave the wood plain, stain it, or paint it to get the look you want. It’s important to have your fabric picked out at this point so the finish you use on the bench goes with it. For my fabric, I picked a navy blue and white stripe that goes great with the dark color of Minwax Coffee Gel Stain. Plus, I love the deep brown color and it matches the industrial feel of the rest of my furniture. Whatever method you use, just make sure to follow the product’s instructions and to speed up the process you can use painter’s pyramids to finish both sides at the same time.

Unfinished Board

Coffee Gel Stain

Polyurethane Finish

Once your finish of choice has fully dried, it’s time to put a protective coat on it so it can withstand heavy use. I recommend using polyurethane (Minwax One Coat Polyurethane is my absolute favorite) for this because it will provide protection to the wood better than other sealants and literally only one coat is needed. Polyurethane will dry clear but still provide a hard protective coat over the wood.

Once that dries, it’s time to install the legs. All you will need for this is a ruler, drill, drill bits, tape, and a sharpie marker. Start by determining where you would like the legs to be placed. I picked 3/4″ from the corner. Using the sharpie, mark where all the screws will be. Now, wrap a small piece of tape around your drill bit a little shorter than the length of the screws. This will help you drill to the appropriate length without going too deep. Now simply install the screws.

Mark Screw Locations with Sharpie

Pre-drill The Holes

Install Hairpin Legs

Pre-marking the Drill Bit with Tape Will Make Sure You Are Drilling to the Right Depth without Guessing.

Depending on what your workspace looks like, you can make the upholstered top while your bench is drying or wait until afterwards. For this part a lot of it is personal preference on how you want the bench to look. For me, I wanted the fabric to line up closely with the dimensions of the bench but if you want overlap or not you can modify these dimensions to suit your personal tastes. What you will needs for the upholstered top is your fabric of choice, quilt batting, project foam, spray adhesive, staple gun, OSB board, and a retractable knife or other sharp cutting tool to trim the foam. Make sure with your fabric that you iron it out before adding it to the top so you don’t have creases in your bench top.

To start you will need to cut down a piece of OSB board. I like using this because it’s very inexpensive and while it doesn’t look great, no one will ever know! I cut my board 1/2″ less than my bench top, so 10 3/4″ x 47 1/4″. This will allow 1/2″ for the batting and fabric before it starts to overlap the wood top. Once you cut this down, it’s time to start putting everything together. I would recommend using something to cover your workspace like kraft paper so you don’t accidentally ruin it with the spray adhesive.

So the next step is to lay down your OSB board and spray it down with your adhesive. Quickly line up the edge of your project foam with the board and press down, making sure it adheres to the board. Carefully trim the excess foam because you will have enough to add another layer, giving you a nice comfortable bench top. Simply spray foam with adhesive, line up with the edge, press down and trim excess. A more practical route is to buy 2″ project foam to complete this step and if you have it I would recommend it, unfortunately it wasn’t available at my store when I was doing this project. That’s it!

Full View Single Layer of Foam

Up Close Single Layer

Double Layer Foam Top

Now it’s time to at the quilt batting. The point of this is not only to add a little more cushion, but to help soften the edges of the furniture so it’s not clunky looking. It will also wrap around the OSB board, helping not only to hide where the OSB and foam come together but also give a little protection to the fabric so it’s not rubbing against the rough sides of the wood. For this project you will have enough to add a double layer to the top of the foam and also a large wrap around piece that will smooth everything out.

Folded Double Piece of Batting on Top

Trimmed Down Batting

So cut your batting so that you have two pieces, one for the top layer and one to wrap around. The top section should be 21 1/2″ wide and 47 1/4″ long. For the second piece don’t trim it down until the end. Add adhesive to the top layer of project foam and press batting down after lining it up with the edges. Then spray batting foam with adhesive and fold over top piece, giving it a double layer.

Next we are going to wrap the whole top with the left over quilt batting. To do this you want to lay the batting flat on your workspace table, smoothing it out as best you can. This is important because if there are bubble or wrinkles in your batting, then your fabric is going to show it.

Now gently pull the batting tight against the OSB and secure with staple gun. You want to staple often and uniformly to get a nice clean end result. I stapled about 2 inches deep and 2 inches apart. For the corners you may want to spend a little time playing with different folding techniques to get a feel for it. I wrapped it under, then over to get a smooth rounded corner. Once it is stapled in place, trim excess batting off. Almost done!

Staples To Secure Batting

Fold Corners

Trim Excess Batting

Wrapped in Batting

At this point I got rid of my kraft paper and cleaned the top of my workbench. This is important because you are now applying the fabric and I didn’t want to risk anything getting stained or dirty. Once that is done you are going to repeat the same method as you did for the batting. Lay your fabric flat and put your top foam side down on the fabric. You want to take great care in lining up your fabric if you have a pattern like lines so it’s even on the top. When stapling, instead of stapling in a line, I would do the two ends, then one in the middle, then work my way in between the staples. I did this to help reduce any unnecessary pulling in the fabric. Since my fabric is striped, I also drew a line on my OSB to make sure I was securing the fabric evenly so I wouldn’t get wavy lines in my fabric. Once your fabric is all secured just trim off the excess and get ready to secure it to the bench.

This step is very simple. On the bottom of the bench you want to pre-drill your holes so the top is completely secured. I did this 5″ in and 4″ in at the corners, then 2″ in and every 12″ length wise. I then secured the top with #9 2 1/2″ screws. Make sure to line up the upholstered top well before drilling so the top is nice and uniform with the bench.

That’s it! Can you believe it? I know, it’s so simple but so many people just go to the store and spend big money for the same thing! But you have a leg up on them because you saved a TON of money and have something you are 100% satisfied with!

Disclaimer: Please make sure with all your projects that you have read your equipment’s safety manual and are following the recommended safety precautions. We are not responsible for the results of your DIY projects as results can vary based on your skill level, quality of materials, and age of your equipment.

source https://wickedhandy.net/diy-upholstered-bench/

[silvereaglesmagazine-blog]

Prompt: Blue

Jay walked into a white room. Thinking how he struck gold. It started like this:

It was a Saturday morning and he was finding himself bored out of his mind before he saw a notice in the corner of his newspaper, which was sitting on his dining table along with his unfinished dinner. The notice read: 

Need volunteers for Psychological Experiment. Will be compensated $100 for participation. Requirement: Above the age of 21. Duration: 15 minutes including briefing. Time: Any day except Sunday between 6am - 11pm. Location: National Institute of Psychology. Only applicable between 1 March until 31 October. 

Seeing the generous offer, Jay took it as students desperate for volunteers. He glanced at the calendar by his window. September 5. With nothing better to do, he decided to check it out.

Once there, he was met by some college students who gave him a form to fill about his personal details along with a terms and conditions which goes on for a full page long that he needed to sign. Albeit his lazy predisposition, Jay decided to carefully go through the entire list of terms and conditions, just to be on the safe side. Seeing nothing wrong with it, he signed of his name and filled in the form. Then came the briefing. No other volunteer was there, just him.

His task was simple, he will be lead into a room where he would be shown colored lights. Every time a light flash, he would have to do something. Here is the list of the commands:  Red: clap hands. Yellow: Jump. Green: Wave hands in the air. Purple: Crouch….. He could take as long as he needed to finish memorizing these commands, but it was assumed that the overall time needed would be two minutes, so they warned that if he goes over that time then it might be more than fifteen minutes like they promised. Just for five minutes, he had to be in that room and do these random activities. Then, a short interview before he gets that $100 he came here for, but that would only be the case if he performed well. To make sure that all the volunteers try their hardest, they said. Jay ignored that warning thinking that hundred grand is as good as his.

And here he is now, entering the white room, eager to get this over with. Thinking of all he could do with that hundred grand. Before he knew it, he sees a red light in a hole in the wall that he failed to notice upon entering. So he jumps. Green. Yellow. Orange. Brown. Red. Yellow. Red. Green. Orange. Purple. Color after color keeps on showing in that hole, slowly gaining in speed. Faster and faster, forcing him focus entirely on the task at hand; his body forced to constantly keep moving, producing sweat. Then, the unexpected happens. Two colors simultaneously lights up, half red, half yellow. It took Jay a couple seconds before he register this change, and started clapping and jumping at once. From then on, the speed no longer got faster but the light randomly showed one color or two. After the initial shock though, Jay followed the light signals to the best of his abilities. Three minutes goes by in this way.

And then, suddenly, the light goes dark. Jay stops, confused. The timer in the corner of the room tells him that he has only gone for three minutes, and fifty-two seconds. He wonders if there was some sort of error. Technical difficulties maybe. Then, after that long pause, a color lights up. Blue. Jay stares, dumbfounded. He tries to recall the action that he is supposed to do, only to reach a blank. On the timer, the seconds tick by. But he doesn’t pay any attention to that. His eyes remained glued to that glowing blue dot. Only now does he remember the warning about that $100. He starts worrying. Just because of this, would they take away his $100? He had thought that he had this in the bag, but now he isn’t so sure. Finally, the time ran out. That last minute, Jay stood staring at the blue light, which finally faded as the time ran out. Gloomily, he was led out by a student to be interviewed. Failing to contain his curiosity, Jay asked: “What does the blue light mean?” Hearing this, the student just chuckled and ignored him. With that, Jay stays silent and lamented.

In the interview room, he spots a table with two chairs, as well as a recording device sitting on the table. The $100 sits on the table, taunting him. On one of the chairs, someone was already waiting for him. Jay entered, now impatient to get this over with. If he did well enough to get it, he will find out after the interview. Likewise, if he didn’t, he will also find out after the interview. So all he wanted was to get this interview out of the way. Five minutes felt like five hours. He doesn’t pay attention to the questions asked, answering them instinctually while his mind was occupied with the money sitting on the table. His eyes, instead of looking at his interviewer, was fixed on the $100. After ages passed by, Jay heard the words he wanted to hear the most: “Alright, Jay, the interview is now over. Me and my friends would like to thank you for your participation.” Jay shook the offered hand. Inwardly, he is disappointed that he didn’t get the money. All he wanted was to get out of this place as fast as he can. Forget this place, forget the mistake he made which cost him $100.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Here, this money is yours.” Eyes wide, he glances back. The student smiles, “Did you really think that you wouldn’t get this just because of your fumble? The money served its purpose. It made you try your hardest in there, didn’t it?” Jay reaches out for the money, says his thanks, and hurries out of the room.

Months later, the event which happened is all but long forgotten. That is, until one fine Saturday morning. That morning, as he reads the newspaper something catches his eyes. Psychological Experiment Conducted tests the effect pressure has on people. Reading this, he chuckled. Maybe, that blue light didn’t have any commands associated with him after all. 

-Ebony (12)

(9/12/17). 

[taylorm2298-blog]

Future Proof

Personal Statement

To write a good personal statement there are a number of things you need to make sure of, first up is good English and grammar, this is vital as professionals will be reading this and overall it just makes it tidier and makes you seem educated. In your personal statement to also keep it neat and tidy it is best to split up each section into parts instead of one long boring paragraph, when moving onto the next section it's best to have it somewhat relating to what you wrote before. You also need around 4000 characters as well when writing, a 100 under or 100 above is also fine if needed, but that's the maximum.

When doing my personal statement at first I didn’t have a clue how to start it off so what I did at first was just write down everything I could think off and then go from there. What I did really overall was make a very rough copy and then re-write it to make it look neater, tidier and make it make more sense. When my tutor looked at it she gave me a lot of pointers in how to improve it and such though overall I had done very good without any help which I was really pleased about. At the time of writing I’ve only got a tiny bit to edit and then I’m done with it and can put it into my UCAS application. Where I mentioned how to write a good personal statement above was from what I learnt from my tutors.

UCAS

When filling out a UCAS application form the first thing is to note down every password, username and security question you have as it's very important you have all these as it'll be a pain to log back in if you forget it. When filling out all parts of the application form you have to answer honestly and correctly without any mistakes. You also need to include your personal statement as well.

When I did my UCAS application (which is still a little unfinished) I found it pretty straight forward and simple. I can’t really expand on this to much from what I just wrote, overall it’s just very simple.

Portfolio

https://taylormunn97.wixsite.com/mysite

This is my portfolio I have done for my future proof. I made it using Wix.

For my portfolio what I basically did was get all of what I feel is my best work and place them on the site with little descriptions on what they are. I also included links to my tumblr blog and the Facebook page for Eliza.

I feel to make a decent portfolio it should be very image heavy as that's what they're looking for instead of an essay of writing.

Interview

For this project I had applied for the role of Art Director first and foremost and that is what I had my interview for.

Before I go on I found out the audio didn't record for my interview so I will be reflecting in how I thought I did instead.

So, how do I think I did in my interview? I think I did pretty good but I know I slipped up in a few places here and there.

What I did well though. The whole time I was very confident, spoke clearly, always listened and always kept eye contact throughout the entire interview. This was really good as these are vital during any interview as it shows you're confident, interested and you're listening to the interviewer. Where I feel I slipped up though was some of the questions as some of them caught me off guard and I didn't really know how to answer them. What I was asked I hadn't really thought about so I should've done a bit more research to be prepared for them questions. What I did well though was that I had an answer for every question I was asked and even if it wasn't exactly the right answer I tried my very best to answer them. During the interview though, the interviewers did give me some tips and such as to what they meant by said questions and about the role itself.

Overall though I'd say I feel I did very well more or less even if I slipped up on some questions. To fix things for future interviews I will make sure to even do more research on the role I'm going for to make sure I can answer every single question well. On the other-hand though all the questions I knew I answered well and the interviewers said I did very well on my interview.

[endlessarchite]

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover

Now that we’ve completed our big brick house painting project, we’re sharing all the behind-the-scenes twists & turns of the previous week (believe me, the hits kept coming). A big task like this can veer off course pretty quickly… which it did… more than once! We’re also sharing why it turned out better than we expected and what’s next on the list. Plus, John needs advice from other gadget lovers out there and we’ve got more info about our upcoming furniture line launch.

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

If you missed last week’s post with ALLLLL the details and photos of painting our house white, be sure to check that out to get yourself up to speed.

You can also catch these other podcast discussions where we debated if we should do it, how we decided to go for it, and what we worried about most right before embarking on the project:

Episode #101: First presenting the idea of painting our house along with the pros and cons to doing it

Episode #105: Making the decision to move forward, and how our listeners helped

Episode #118: Our stresses and concerns going into the painting project

In the photo below you can see some of the areas of siding that had to be painted with the matching Benjamin Moore paint (and you can better appreciate how unfinished the project would’ve looked if they were still the old gray-brown color!).

And here’s a progress photo from our Wednesday Marathon Of Insanity (also known as Halloween). This was taken early in the morning while we were trying to get the porch reconstructed before trick or treaters came skipping up to our door. Note the two big holes in the brick on either side of that new doorframe we were actively building… which ended up being the perfect spot for some new lanterns to illuminate the stoop.

Just a few hours later, the electricians were here helping us get the new fixtures all wired up. We mounted them on white composite blocks to cover the brick holes, which is how we hung the front porch lanterns at the pink house too (some rot-proof backing behind them is really nice as a base – and in this case it safely sealed those holes in the brick too).

We assumed that to get the other fixture wired through the right side hole we’d incur some drywall damage inside, but they managed to make it work without that by snaking it down through the crawl space and back up the wall on the other side. MIRACULOUS! It did involve one guy yelling through the floor of our front closet to the other guy in the crawl space for about a half-hour, for which we’re eternally grateful (at one point the guy in the crawl space may have said “I don’t think I’m alone down here – I hear scratching… it might be a mouse”).

And we weren’t kidding when we said it was a photo finish a few days later on Friday. Lance, the painter, had just a few extra minutes to snap some “after” photos for his portfolio from waaaay up in the lift. Side note: our neighbors have never been more entertained and supportive of a project of ours – they all visited multiple times a day to cheer us on (which makes Sherry tear up every time she talks about it). 

Also, if you’re interested in checking out more of Lance’s work, he’s got lots of before & afters on his Instagram page. He also has his contact info there if you want to hire him for your own job. He mainly travels all over the US for his antique limewash applications (using this other product called Classico – you can see more on his IG account). So if that’s a look you’d like, he can definitely help you out.

Here’s one of the after photos where you can see what Sherry means about our “Target ball” landscaping. This is after she did lots of trimming to tame a lot of unruliness out there.

We’re Digging

If you haven’t had a chance to poke around and preview our new furniture collection, you can see it all now at YoungHouseLoveFurniture.com. We’ll keep you posted in a couple weeks as to when it all goes live for sale on Wayfair and Wayfair Canada. We’re beyond excited!

Those are the navy X-Back Chairs that Sherry mentioned, along with the mixed-finish Cinch Table that has a metal base and the glossy white top.

You can also see the white dentil molding detail that mimics our house on the Wisp Dresser and Debonair Dresser.

And below is the Noble Dresser, which was inspired by the vintage dresser in our bedroom that was handed down to us from my dad (he bought it secondhand for $100 decades ago – and we believe it’s from the 1920s). You should’ve seen his face when he saw this new one in person!

Lastly, please DM, message, or tweet us your thoughts on the Apple Watch. Is it worth me spending my birthday money on? Will it make me look like this when I do yoga?

And if you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we’ve recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Annie Selke for sponsoring this episode. Their big Cyber Sale kicks off next Monday, November 19th, meaning that in one week can you score 25% off anything on their site! So visit annieselke.com/YHL to start making your list.

Thanks for listening, guys!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post #119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover appeared first on Young House Love.

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[truereviewpage]

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover

Now that we’ve completed our big brick house painting project, we’re sharing all the behind-the-scenes twists & turns of the previous week (believe me, the hits kept coming). A big task like this can veer off course pretty quickly… which it did… more than once! We’re also sharing why it turned out better than we expected and what’s next on the list. Plus, John needs advice from other gadget lovers out there and we’ve got more info about our upcoming furniture line launch.

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

If you missed last week’s post with ALLLLL the details and photos of painting our house white, be sure to check that out to get yourself up to speed.

You can also catch these other podcast discussions where we debated if we should do it, how we decided to go for it, and what we worried about most right before embarking on the project:

Episode #101: First presenting the idea of painting our house along with the pros and cons to doing it

Episode #105: Making the decision to move forward, and how our listeners helped

Episode #118: Our stresses and concerns going into the painting project

In the photo below you can see some of the areas of siding that had to be painted with the matching Benjamin Moore paint (and you can better appreciate how unfinished the project would’ve looked if they were still the old gray-brown color!).

And here’s a progress photo from our Wednesday Marathon Of Insanity (also known as Halloween). This was taken early in the morning while we were trying to get the porch reconstructed before trick or treaters came skipping up to our door. Note the two big holes in the brick on either side of that new doorframe we were actively building… which ended up being the perfect spot for some new lanterns to illuminate the stoop.

Just a few hours later, the electricians were here helping us get the new fixtures all wired up. We mounted them on white composite blocks to cover the brick holes, which is how we hung the front porch lanterns at the pink house too (some rot-proof backing behind them is really nice as a base – and in this case it safely sealed those holes in the brick too).

We assumed that to get the other fixture wired through the right side hole we’d incur some drywall damage inside, but they managed to make it work without that by snaking it down through the crawl space and back up the wall on the other side. MIRACULOUS! It did involve one guy yelling through the floor of our front closet to the other guy in the crawl space for about a half-hour, for which we’re eternally grateful (at one point the guy in the crawl space may have said “I don’t think I’m alone down here – I hear scratching… it might be a mouse”).

And we weren’t kidding when we said it was a photo finish a few days later on Friday. Lance, the painter, had just a few extra minutes to snap some “after” photos for his portfolio from waaaay up in the lift. Side note: our neighbors have never been more entertained and supportive of a project of ours – they all visited multiple times a day to cheer us on (which makes Sherry tear up every time she talks about it). 

Also, if you’re interested in checking out more of Lance’s work, he’s got lots of before & afters on his Instagram page. He also has his contact info there if you want to hire him for your own job. He mainly travels all over the US for his antique limewash applications (using this other product called Classico – you can see more on his IG account). So if that’s a look you’d like, he can definitely help you out.

Here’s one of the after photos where you can see what Sherry means about our “Target ball” landscaping. This is after she did lots of trimming to tame a lot of unruliness out there.

We’re Digging

If you haven’t had a chance to poke around and preview our new furniture collection, you can see it all now at YoungHouseLoveFurniture.com. We’ll keep you posted in a couple weeks as to when it all goes live for sale on Wayfair and Wayfair Canada. We’re beyond excited!

Those are the navy X-Back Chairs that Sherry mentioned, along with the mixed-finish Cinch Table that has a metal base and the glossy white top.

You can also see the white dentil molding detail that mimics our house on the Wisp Dresser and Debonair Dresser.

And below is the Noble Dresser, which was inspired by the vintage dresser in our bedroom that was handed down to us from my dad (he bought it secondhand for $100 decades ago – and we believe it’s from the 1920s). You should’ve seen his face when he saw this new one in person!

Lastly, please DM, message, or tweet us your thoughts on the Apple Watch. Is it worth me spending my birthday money on? Will it make me look like this when I do yoga?

And if you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we’ve recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Annie Selke for sponsoring this episode. Their big Cyber Sale kicks off next Monday, November 19th, meaning that in one week can you score 25% off anything on their site! So visit annieselke.com/YHL to start making your list.

Thanks for listening, guys!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post #119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover appeared first on Young House Love.

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover published first on https://aireloomreview.tumblr.com/

[additionallysad]

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover https://ift.tt/2FqMxPA

Now that we’ve completed our big brick house painting project, we’re sharing all the behind-the-scenes twists & turns of the previous week (believe me, the hits kept coming). A big task like this can veer off course pretty quickly… which it did… more than once! We’re also sharing why it turned out better than we expected and what’s next on the list. Plus, John needs advice from other gadget lovers out there and we’ve got more info about our upcoming furniture line launch.

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

If you missed last week’s post with ALLLLL the details and photos of painting our house white, be sure to check that out to get yourself up to speed.

You can also catch these other podcast discussions where we debated if we should do it, how we decided to go for it, and what we worried about most right before embarking on the project:

Episode #101: First presenting the idea of painting our house along with the pros and cons to doing it

Episode #105: Making the decision to move forward, and how our listeners helped

Episode #118: Our stresses and concerns going into the painting project

In the photo below you can see some of the areas of siding that had to be painted with the matching Benjamin Moore paint (and you can better appreciate how unfinished the project would’ve looked if they were still the old gray-brown color!).

And here’s a progress photo from our Wednesday Marathon Of Insanity (also known as Halloween). This was taken early in the morning while we were trying to get the porch reconstructed before trick or treaters came skipping up to our door. Note the two big holes in the brick on either side of that new doorframe we were actively building… which ended up being the perfect spot for some new lanterns to illuminate the stoop.

Just a few hours later, the electricians were here helping us get the new fixtures all wired up. We mounted them on white composite blocks to cover the brick holes, which is how we hung the front porch lanterns at the pink house too (some rot-proof backing behind them is really nice as a base – and in this case it safely sealed those holes in the brick too).

We assumed that to get the other fixture wired through the right side hole we’d incur some drywall damage inside, but they managed to make it work without that by snaking it down through the crawl space and back up the wall on the other side. MIRACULOUS! It did involve one guy yelling through the floor of our front closet to the other guy in the crawl space for about a half-hour, for which we’re eternally grateful (at one point the guy in the crawl space may have said “I don’t think I’m alone down here – I hear scratching… it might be a mouse”).

And we weren’t kidding when we said it was a photo finish a few days later on Friday. Lance, the painter, had just a few extra minutes to snap some “after” photos for his portfolio from waaaay up in the lift. Side note: our neighbors have never been more entertained and supportive of a project of ours – they all visited multiple times a day to cheer us on (which makes Sherry tear up every time she talks about it). 

Also, if you’re interested in checking out more of Lance’s work, he’s got lots of before & afters on his Instagram page. He also has his contact info there if you want to hire him for your own job. He mainly travels all over the US for his antique limewash applications (using this other product called Classico – you can see more on his IG account). So if that’s a look you’d like, he can definitely help you out.

Here’s one of the after photos where you can see what Sherry means about our “Target ball” landscaping. This is after she did lots of trimming to tame a lot of unruliness out there.

We’re Digging

If you haven’t had a chance to poke around and preview our new furniture collection, you can see it all now at YoungHouseLoveFurniture.com. We’ll keep you posted in a couple weeks as to when it all goes live for sale on Wayfair and Wayfair Canada. We’re beyond excited!

Those are the navy X-Back Chairs that Sherry mentioned, along with the mixed-finish Cinch Table that has a metal base and the glossy white top.

You can also see the white dentil molding detail that mimics our house on the Wisp Dresser and Debonair Dresser.

And below is the Noble Dresser, which was inspired by the vintage dresser in our bedroom that was handed down to us from my dad (he bought it secondhand for $100 decades ago – and we believe it’s from the 1920s). You should’ve seen his face when he saw this new one in person!

Lastly, please DM, message, or tweet us your thoughts on the Apple Watch. Is it worth me spending my birthday money on? Will it make me look like this when I do yoga?

And if you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we’ve recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Annie Selke for sponsoring this episode. Their big Cyber Sale kicks off next Monday, November 19th, meaning that in one week can you score 25% off anything on their site! So visit annieselke.com/YHL to start making your list.

Thanks for listening, guys!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post #119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover appeared first on Young House Love.

[interiorstarweb]

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover

Now that we’ve completed our big brick house painting project, we’re sharing all the behind-the-scenes twists & turns of the previous week (believe me, the hits kept coming). A big task like this can veer off course pretty quickly… which it did… more than once! We’re also sharing why it turned out better than we expected and what’s next on the list. Plus, John needs advice from other gadget lovers out there and we’ve got more info about our upcoming furniture line launch.

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

If you missed last week’s post with ALLLLL the details and photos of painting our house white, be sure to check that out to get yourself up to speed.

You can also catch these other podcast discussions where we debated if we should do it, how we decided to go for it, and what we worried about most right before embarking on the project:

Episode #101: First presenting the idea of painting our house along with the pros and cons to doing it

Episode #105: Making the decision to move forward, and how our listeners helped

Episode #118: Our stresses and concerns going into the painting project

In the photo below you can see some of the areas of siding that had to be painted with the matching Benjamin Moore paint (and you can better appreciate how unfinished the project would’ve looked if they were still the old gray-brown color!).

And here’s a progress photo from our Wednesday Marathon Of Insanity (also known as Halloween). This was taken early in the morning while we were trying to get the porch reconstructed before trick or treaters came skipping up to our door. Note the two big holes in the brick on either side of that new doorframe we were actively building… which ended up being the perfect spot for some new lanterns to illuminate the stoop.

Just a few hours later, the electricians were here helping us get the new fixtures all wired up. We mounted them on white composite blocks to cover the brick holes, which is how we hung the front porch lanterns at the pink house too (some rot-proof backing behind them is really nice as a base – and in this case it safely sealed those holes in the brick too).

We assumed that to get the other fixture wired through the right side hole we’d incur some drywall damage inside, but they managed to make it work without that by snaking it down through the crawl space and back up the wall on the other side. MIRACULOUS! It did involve one guy yelling through the floor of our front closet to the other guy in the crawl space for about a half-hour, for which we’re eternally grateful (at one point the guy in the crawl space may have said “I don’t think I’m alone down here – I hear scratching… it might be a mouse”).

And we weren’t kidding when we said it was a photo finish a few days later on Friday. Lance, the painter, had just a few extra minutes to snap some “after” photos for his portfolio from waaaay up in the lift. Side note: our neighbors have never been more entertained and supportive of a project of ours – they all visited multiple times a day to cheer us on (which makes Sherry tear up every time she talks about it). 

Also, if you’re interested in checking out more of Lance’s work, he’s got lots of before & afters on his Instagram page. He also has his contact info there if you want to hire him for your own job. He mainly travels all over the US for his antique limewash applications (using this other product called Classico – you can see more on his IG account). So if that’s a look you’d like, he can definitely help you out.

Here’s one of the after photos where you can see what Sherry means about our “Target ball” landscaping. This is after she did lots of trimming to tame a lot of unruliness out there.

We’re Digging

If you haven’t had a chance to poke around and preview our new furniture collection, you can see it all now at YoungHouseLoveFurniture.com. We’ll keep you posted in a couple weeks as to when it all goes live for sale on Wayfair and Wayfair Canada. We’re beyond excited!

Those are the navy X-Back Chairs that Sherry mentioned, along with the mixed-finish Cinch Table that has a metal base and the glossy white top.

You can also see the white dentil molding detail that mimics our house on the Wisp Dresser and Debonair Dresser.

And below is the Noble Dresser, which was inspired by the vintage dresser in our bedroom that was handed down to us from my dad (he bought it secondhand for $100 decades ago – and we believe it’s from the 1920s). You should’ve seen his face when he saw this new one in person!

Lastly, please DM, message, or tweet us your thoughts on the Apple Watch. Is it worth me spending my birthday money on? Will it make me look like this when I do yoga?

And if you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we’ve recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Annie Selke for sponsoring this episode. Their big Cyber Sale kicks off next Monday, November 19th, meaning that in one week can you score 25% off anything on their site! So visit annieselke.com/YHL to start making your list.

Thanks for listening, guys!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post #119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover appeared first on Young House Love.

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover published first on https://novaformmattressreview.tumblr.com/

[billydmacklin]

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover

Now that we’ve completed our big brick house painting project, we’re sharing all the behind-the-scenes twists & turns of the previous week (believe me, the hits kept coming). A big task like this can veer off course pretty quickly… which it did… more than once! We’re also sharing why it turned out better than we expected and what’s next on the list. Plus, John needs advice from other gadget lovers out there and we’ve got more info about our upcoming furniture line launch.

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

If you missed last week’s post with ALLLLL the details and photos of painting our house white, be sure to check that out to get yourself up to speed.

You can also catch these other podcast discussions where we debated if we should do it, how we decided to go for it, and what we worried about most right before embarking on the project:

Episode #101: First presenting the idea of painting our house along with the pros and cons to doing it

Episode #105: Making the decision to move forward, and how our listeners helped

Episode #118: Our stresses and concerns going into the painting project

In the photo below you can see some of the areas of siding that had to be painted with the matching Benjamin Moore paint (and you can better appreciate how unfinished the project would’ve looked if they were still the old gray-brown color!).

And here’s a progress photo from our Wednesday Marathon Of Insanity (also known as Halloween). This was taken early in the morning while we were trying to get the porch reconstructed before trick or treaters came skipping up to our door. Note the two big holes in the brick on either side of that new doorframe we were actively building… which ended up being the perfect spot for some new lanterns to illuminate the stoop.

Just a few hours later, the electricians were here helping us get the new fixtures all wired up. We mounted them on white composite blocks to cover the brick holes, which is how we hung the front porch lanterns at the pink house too (some rot-proof backing behind them is really nice as a base – and in this case it safely sealed those holes in the brick too).

We assumed that to get the other fixture wired through the right side hole we’d incur some drywall damage inside, but they managed to make it work without that by snaking it down through the crawl space and back up the wall on the other side. MIRACULOUS! It did involve one guy yelling through the floor of our front closet to the other guy in the crawl space for about a half-hour, for which we’re eternally grateful (at one point the guy in the crawl space may have said “I don’t think I’m alone down here – I hear scratching… it might be a mouse”).

And we weren’t kidding when we said it was a photo finish a few days later on Friday. Lance, the painter, had just a few extra minutes to snap some “after” photos for his portfolio from waaaay up in the lift. Side note: our neighbors have never been more entertained and supportive of a project of ours – they all visited multiple times a day to cheer us on (which makes Sherry tear up every time she talks about it). 

Also, if you’re interested in checking out more of Lance’s work, he’s got lots of before & afters on his Instagram page. He also has his contact info there if you want to hire him for your own job. He mainly travels all over the US for his antique limewash applications (using this other product called Classico – you can see more on his IG account). So if that’s a look you’d like, he can definitely help you out.

Here’s one of the after photos where you can see what Sherry means about our “Target ball” landscaping. This is after she did lots of trimming to tame a lot of unruliness out there.

We’re Digging

If you haven’t had a chance to poke around and preview our new furniture collection, you can see it all now at YoungHouseLoveFurniture.com. We’ll keep you posted in a couple weeks as to when it all goes live for sale on Wayfair and Wayfair Canada. We’re beyond excited!

Those are the navy X-Back Chairs that Sherry mentioned, along with the mixed-finish Cinch Table that has a metal base and the glossy white top.

You can also see the white dentil molding detail that mimics our house on the Wisp Dresser and Debonair Dresser.

And below is the Noble Dresser, which was inspired by the vintage dresser in our bedroom that was handed down to us from my dad (he bought it secondhand for $100 decades ago – and we believe it’s from the 1920s). You should’ve seen his face when he saw this new one in person!

Lastly, please DM, message, or tweet us your thoughts on the Apple Watch. Is it worth me spending my birthday money on? Will it make me look like this when I do yoga?

And if you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we’ve recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Annie Selke for sponsoring this episode. Their big Cyber Sale kicks off next Monday, November 19th, meaning that in one week can you score 25% off anything on their site! So visit annieselke.com/YHL to start making your list.

Thanks for listening, guys!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post #119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover appeared first on Young House Love.

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover published first on https://carpetgurus.tumblr.com/

[statusreview]

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover

Now that we’ve completed our big brick house painting project, we’re sharing all the behind-the-scenes twists & turns of the previous week (believe me, the hits kept coming). A big task like this can veer off course pretty quickly… which it did… more than once! We’re also sharing why it turned out better than we expected and what’s next on the list. Plus, John needs advice from other gadget lovers out there and we’ve got more info about our upcoming furniture line launch.

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

If you missed last week’s post with ALLLLL the details and photos of painting our house white, be sure to check that out to get yourself up to speed.

You can also catch these other podcast discussions where we debated if we should do it, how we decided to go for it, and what we worried about most right before embarking on the project:

Episode #101: First presenting the idea of painting our house along with the pros and cons to doing it

Episode #105: Making the decision to move forward, and how our listeners helped

Episode #118: Our stresses and concerns going into the painting project

In the photo below you can see some of the areas of siding that had to be painted with the matching Benjamin Moore paint (and you can better appreciate how unfinished the project would’ve looked if they were still the old gray-brown color!).

And here’s a progress photo from our Wednesday Marathon Of Insanity (also known as Halloween). This was taken early in the morning while we were trying to get the porch reconstructed before trick or treaters came skipping up to our door. Note the two big holes in the brick on either side of that new doorframe we were actively building… which ended up being the perfect spot for some new lanterns to illuminate the stoop.

Just a few hours later, the electricians were here helping us get the new fixtures all wired up. We mounted them on white composite blocks to cover the brick holes, which is how we hung the front porch lanterns at the pink house too (some rot-proof backing behind them is really nice as a base – and in this case it safely sealed those holes in the brick too).

We assumed that to get the other fixture wired through the right side hole we’d incur some drywall damage inside, but they managed to make it work without that by snaking it down through the crawl space and back up the wall on the other side. MIRACULOUS! It did involve one guy yelling through the floor of our front closet to the other guy in the crawl space for about a half-hour, for which we’re eternally grateful (at one point the guy in the crawl space may have said “I don’t think I’m alone down here – I hear scratching… it might be a mouse”).

And we weren’t kidding when we said it was a photo finish a few days later on Friday. Lance, the painter, had just a few extra minutes to snap some “after” photos for his portfolio from waaaay up in the lift. Side note: our neighbors have never been more entertained and supportive of a project of ours – they all visited multiple times a day to cheer us on (which makes Sherry tear up every time she talks about it). 

Also, if you’re interested in checking out more of Lance’s work, he’s got lots of before & afters on his Instagram page. He also has his contact info there if you want to hire him for your own job. He mainly travels all over the US for his antique limewash applications (using this other product called Classico – you can see more on his IG account). So if that’s a look you’d like, he can definitely help you out.

Here’s one of the after photos where you can see what Sherry means about our “Target ball” landscaping. This is after she did lots of trimming to tame a lot of unruliness out there.

We’re Digging

If you haven’t had a chance to poke around and preview our new furniture collection, you can see it all now at YoungHouseLoveFurniture.com. We’ll keep you posted in a couple weeks as to when it all goes live for sale on Wayfair and Wayfair Canada. We’re beyond excited!

Those are the navy X-Back Chairs that Sherry mentioned, along with the mixed-finish Cinch Table that has a metal base and the glossy white top.

You can also see the white dentil molding detail that mimics our house on the Wisp Dresser and Debonair Dresser.

And below is the Noble Dresser, which was inspired by the vintage dresser in our bedroom that was handed down to us from my dad (he bought it secondhand for $100 decades ago – and we believe it’s from the 1920s). You should’ve seen his face when he saw this new one in person!

Lastly, please DM, message, or tweet us your thoughts on the Apple Watch. Is it worth me spending my birthday money on? Will it make me look like this when I do yoga?

And if you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we’ve recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Annie Selke for sponsoring this episode. Their big Cyber Sale kicks off next Monday, November 19th, meaning that in one week can you score 25% off anything on their site! So visit annieselke.com/YHL to start making your list.

Thanks for listening, guys!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post #119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover appeared first on Young House Love.

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover published first on https://ssmattress.tumblr.com/

[lowmaticnews]

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover

Now that we’ve completed our big brick house painting project, we’re sharing all the behind-the-scenes twists & turns of the previous week (believe me, the hits kept coming). A big task like this can veer off course pretty quickly… which it did… more than once! We’re also sharing why it turned out better than we expected and what’s next on the list. Plus, John needs advice from other gadget lovers out there and we’ve got more info about our upcoming furniture line launch.

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

If you missed last week’s post with ALLLLL the details and photos of painting our house white, be sure to check that out to get yourself up to speed.

You can also catch these other podcast discussions where we debated if we should do it, how we decided to go for it, and what we worried about most right before embarking on the project:

Episode #101: First presenting the idea of painting our house along with the pros and cons to doing it

Episode #105: Making the decision to move forward, and how our listeners helped

Episode #118: Our stresses and concerns going into the painting project

In the photo below you can see some of the areas of siding that had to be painted with the matching Benjamin Moore paint (and you can better appreciate how unfinished the project would’ve looked if they were still the old gray-brown color!).

And here’s a progress photo from our Wednesday Marathon Of Insanity (also known as Halloween). This was taken early in the morning while we were trying to get the porch reconstructed before trick or treaters came skipping up to our door. Note the two big holes in the brick on either side of that new doorframe we were actively building… which ended up being the perfect spot for some new lanterns to illuminate the stoop.

Just a few hours later, the electricians were here helping us get the new fixtures all wired up. We mounted them on white composite blocks to cover the brick holes, which is how we hung the front porch lanterns at the pink house too (some rot-proof backing behind them is really nice as a base – and in this case it safely sealed those holes in the brick too).

We assumed that to get the other fixture wired through the right side hole we’d incur some drywall damage inside, but they managed to make it work without that by snaking it down through the crawl space and back up the wall on the other side. MIRACULOUS! It did involve one guy yelling through the floor of our front closet to the other guy in the crawl space for about a half-hour, for which we’re eternally grateful (at one point the guy in the crawl space may have said “I don’t think I’m alone down here – I hear scratching… it might be a mouse”).

And we weren’t kidding when we said it was a photo finish a few days later on Friday. Lance, the painter, had just a few extra minutes to snap some “after” photos for his portfolio from waaaay up in the lift. Side note: our neighbors have never been more entertained and supportive of a project of ours – they all visited multiple times a day to cheer us on (which makes Sherry tear up every time she talks about it). 

Also, if you’re interested in checking out more of Lance’s work, he’s got lots of before & afters on his Instagram page. He also has his contact info there if you want to hire him for your own job. He mainly travels all over the US for his antique limewash applications (using this other product called Classico – you can see more on his IG account). So if that’s a look you’d like, he can definitely help you out.

Here’s one of the after photos where you can see what Sherry means about our “Target ball” landscaping. This is after she did lots of trimming to tame a lot of unruliness out there.

We’re Digging

If you haven’t had a chance to poke around and preview our new furniture collection, you can see it all now at YoungHouseLoveFurniture.com. We’ll keep you posted in a couple weeks as to when it all goes live for sale on Wayfair and Wayfair Canada. We’re beyond excited!

Those are the navy X-Back Chairs that Sherry mentioned, along with the mixed-finish Cinch Table that has a metal base and the glossy white top.

You can also see the white dentil molding detail that mimics our house on the Wisp Dresser and Debonair Dresser.

And below is the Noble Dresser, which was inspired by the vintage dresser in our bedroom that was handed down to us from my dad (he bought it secondhand for $100 decades ago – and we believe it’s from the 1920s). You should’ve seen his face when he saw this new one in person!

Lastly, please DM, message, or tweet us your thoughts on the Apple Watch. Is it worth me spending my birthday money on? Will it make me look like this when I do yoga?

And if you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we’ve recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Annie Selke for sponsoring this episode. Their big Cyber Sale kicks off next Monday, November 19th, meaning that in one week can you score 25% off anything on their site! So visit annieselke.com/YHL to start making your list.

Thanks for listening, guys!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post #119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover appeared first on Young House Love.

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover published first on https://landscapingmates.blogspot.com

[vincentbnaughton]

#119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover

Now that we’ve completed our big brick house painting project, we’re sharing all the behind-the-scenes twists & turns of the previous week (believe me, the hits kept coming). A big task like this can veer off course pretty quickly… which it did… more than once! We’re also sharing why it turned out better than we expected and what’s next on the list. Plus, John needs advice from other gadget lovers out there and we’ve got more info about our upcoming furniture line launch.

You can download this episode from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio, and Spotify – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you may have to click through to the post to see the player.

What’s New

If you missed last week’s post with ALLLLL the details and photos of painting our house white, be sure to check that out to get yourself up to speed.

You can also catch these other podcast discussions where we debated if we should do it, how we decided to go for it, and what we worried about most right before embarking on the project:

Episode #101: First presenting the idea of painting our house along with the pros and cons to doing it

Episode #105: Making the decision to move forward, and how our listeners helped

Episode #118: Our stresses and concerns going into the painting project

In the photo below you can see some of the areas of siding that had to be painted with the matching Benjamin Moore paint (and you can better appreciate how unfinished the project would’ve looked if they were still the old gray-brown color!).

And here’s a progress photo from our Wednesday Marathon Of Insanity (also known as Halloween). This was taken early in the morning while we were trying to get the porch reconstructed before trick or treaters came skipping up to our door. Note the two big holes in the brick on either side of that new doorframe we were actively building… which ended up being the perfect spot for some new lanterns to illuminate the stoop.

Just a few hours later, the electricians were here helping us get the new fixtures all wired up. We mounted them on white composite blocks to cover the brick holes, which is how we hung the front porch lanterns at the pink house too (some rot-proof backing behind them is really nice as a base – and in this case it safely sealed those holes in the brick too).

We assumed that to get the other fixture wired through the right side hole we’d incur some drywall damage inside, but they managed to make it work without that by snaking it down through the crawl space and back up the wall on the other side. MIRACULOUS! It did involve one guy yelling through the floor of our front closet to the other guy in the crawl space for about a half-hour, for which we’re eternally grateful (at one point the guy in the crawl space may have said “I don’t think I’m alone down here – I hear scratching… it might be a mouse”).

And we weren’t kidding when we said it was a photo finish a few days later on Friday. Lance, the painter, had just a few extra minutes to snap some “after” photos for his portfolio from waaaay up in the lift. Side note: our neighbors have never been more entertained and supportive of a project of ours – they all visited multiple times a day to cheer us on (which makes Sherry tear up every time she talks about it). 

Also, if you’re interested in checking out more of Lance’s work, he’s got lots of before & afters on his Instagram page. He also has his contact info there if you want to hire him for your own job. He mainly travels all over the US for his antique limewash applications (using this other product called Classico – you can see more on his IG account). So if that’s a look you’d like, he can definitely help you out.

Here’s one of the after photos where you can see what Sherry means about our “Target ball” landscaping. This is after she did lots of trimming to tame a lot of unruliness out there.

We’re Digging

If you haven’t had a chance to poke around and preview our new furniture collection, you can see it all now at YoungHouseLoveFurniture.com. We’ll keep you posted in a couple weeks as to when it all goes live for sale on Wayfair and Wayfair Canada. We’re beyond excited!

Those are the navy X-Back Chairs that Sherry mentioned, along with the mixed-finish Cinch Table that has a metal base and the glossy white top.

You can also see the white dentil molding detail that mimics our house on the Wisp Dresser and Debonair Dresser.

And below is the Noble Dresser, which was inspired by the vintage dresser in our bedroom that was handed down to us from my dad (he bought it secondhand for $100 decades ago – and we believe it’s from the 1920s). You should’ve seen his face when he saw this new one in person!

Lastly, please DM, message, or tweet us your thoughts on the Apple Watch. Is it worth me spending my birthday money on? Will it make me look like this when I do yoga?

And if you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes. You can also see all the books we’ve recommended on our Book Club page.

And lastly, a big thank you to Annie Selke for sponsoring this episode. Their big Cyber Sale kicks off next Monday, November 19th, meaning that in one week can you score 25% off anything on their site! So visit annieselke.com/YHL to start making your list.

Thanks for listening, guys!

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post #119: What Almost Derailed Our Painted House Makeover appeared first on Young House Love.