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raymondsecurityadventures · 5 years ago

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Project Update - Machine Learning Basics

So far, my project really has had nothing to do with security, I’m just posting these updates so I can prove I can manage to crank out blogposts (and hence manage time) ^_______^ in spite of 3 exams and 2 assignments and work. Hopefully, I’ll have actual code next week.

Components of Machine Learning in Image Classification Problems:

Data

◦ Extraction of particular features (referred to henceforth as class labels) in our images such as brightness, position of objects/shapes etc. as well as the corresponding data associated to these features

Scoring

◦ Given said data, the algorithm should process it and map the data to a particular classification. If we were classifying images of dogs, then a correct scoring function would map those images as dogs

¥ Loss function:

◦ Quantifies how well predictions agree with the ACTUAL labels, given those actual labels.

¥ Weighting and Bias:

◦ Certain labels may be more common and certain features may add more information to our classifier (higher entropy gain). We bias those labels to emphasise their commonality with the bias vector, and we weight those features using a weight matrix.

◦ Since features are consisted of lists/vectors of numbers corresponding to pixel values, the bias weights must also be in vector form.

In the process of image classification, we must flatten the images out into a list of all their pixel intensities and their respective rgb values. So a 32 * 32 * 3 image would be turned into a 3,072 * 1 vector.

The weight matrix considers the importance of all this data pertaining to each class label so it will be a 3,072 * 3 vector if there are 3 class labels. Bias vector would be 3 * 1.

We then plug these values into an equation to obtain the scoring function. With a linear classifier:

¥ we simply dot product the weight matrix W with the flattened image vector x, and add the bias vector to obtain a scoring function.

When we are training our algorithm, we are simply making it optimised to learn the weight matrix and the bias. It does this through gradient descent.

Sidenote: Useful trick

The left visualisation below is the linear classification function. X is the data point/image vector, w is the weight, b the bias. We can incorporate b into w using a math trick involving vector multiplication and shit.

Loss Functions We'll need these to optimise our model using gradient descent so it'll be useful to discuss them now:

What are they??? Functions that calculate scores that pertain to the error between the correct result/label and the calculated label that the scoring function tried to find. Hinge Loss: • Super basic loss function that just sums the scores of all the incorrect classes that the scoring function scored for. • Recall that the scoring function took the flattened image vectors and scored them using different bias vectors and weight matrices for each one. • Bad

Cross-Entropy Loss Yada yada yada lots of math to get:

Within the log function is the denominator. It refers to e^(Score of the correct class). The bottom is sum of e^(Score of the wrong classes). Of course, this is just the loss score for each image vector/datapoint we're passing in. We just take the average to get the cross-entropy loss over the entire dataset.

Stochastic Gradient Descent

The bread and butter of machine learning algorithms.

But first Vanilla Gradient Descent: Since I've go a bit of a bg in machine learning, I'm quite familiar with this algorithm. I'll quickly give a high level overview.

This is a super simplified 2D graph of a simple loss function. Most loss functions will be multi-dimensional due to the sheer sizes of the vectors we're using. What gradient descent attempts to do, is minimise the loss given a bunch of weights and obtain the weights at the global minimum, which will be the weights with the least error. Recall that our weights were used to score the image vectors we passed in. Why don't we just jump to the global minimum if we know the mathematical function? Imagine you're blind, deaf, have no sense of orientation, no sense of touch and you just got yeeted off a plane into a mountain range and your only sense allows you to compute your coordinates and the corresponding altitude you're at and you're trying to get to as low an altitude as you can because there's your ride home. What do you do? You blindly try to head downward by following the downward slope. That's basically what gradient descent tries to do, except the mountain range is the loss function. It drops us into the 'loss landscape' (literally what people refer to it as) and takes a step at a time. If the step is upward i.e. the previous loss score was lower, it changes direction and if downward it keeps walking in that direction. Stochastic Gradient Descent Recall that computing gradient requires your score and thus loss/error to be calculated. Also recall that we said you need to average the loss of your entire dataset to get your loss at the particular weight. Well we don't do that with stochastic gradient descent: we take a small random sample and obtain the loss with that sample at a particular and while it may lead to higher error with regards to loss at a particular weight, it also lets us take more steps along the loss function landscape and the trade-off is more than worth it. Gradient Descent Optimisations Momentum: Recall our previous example of the mountain range and the blind guy. In that example, we assumed each step the guy took was the same size but realistically, the steeper the mountain, the larger or faster the steps he would take as gravity would drag him along. Same deal with gradient descent. The steeper the gradient, which would be calculated by the size of the change in loss from the previous 'step', the larger the 'step' we take. This speeds up our descent to the bottom by a lot. However, this may have the issue of 'overstepping' the minimal point we're trying to reach when our momentum builds up too much because our steps are discrete in nature and we can't see the local minima. Nesterov Acceleration: This fixes that. Basically, we make a test step before momentum is added to our step, save the results of the test step, make the momentum added step and then compare the results. If the test step is smaller, we know we've overstepped the minima. Regularisation: A lot of the time, our weights are TOO tuned for a specific dataset due to a variety of reasons. E.g. In classifying cat and dog pics, maybe most of the pictures of cats consistently had a watermark in it. Now if we got a new dataset with dogs in it, and some of those dog pictures had that same watermark, we obviously don't want to classify pictures of dogs with that same watermark in it as cats, just because of they have that watermark and our model was fit to that earlier dataset and thought that the watermark meant cat. This issue is called overfitting. We reduce this problem by reducing the weight that the scoring function places on that watermark for cats and there a number of techniques that do this. I probably won't go into the details since I don't have that much time this week.

#project #cyka-blyat #secs

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annashipper · 7 years ago

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Megapost Nr. 1 - May 17th, 2018

Nonny Nr. 1: "Now don't forget to hold hands just like we practiced." Come Onnnnnm. who drags their luggage through the airport holding hands! sooooo stoopid! That and the pretending to be angry at the paps you called - lol! And the nans actually buy this crap. There's no learning curve with them.

Anna: I don’t think either of them were pretending to be put off by the paps Nonny. Frowning like that is Ben’s default setting when Weirdo is within 5 feet from him and trying not to look smug is Weirdo’s default setting when paps’ flashes are going off ;o)

Nonny Nr. 2: So ben and sophie leave the kids w the help back in london? or they make them fly separately?

Anna: Pilo probably knows how to pilot his own plane by now Nonny. He’s very advanced for his age :P

Nonny Nr. 3: whattsamattah ben? couldn't convince any parents of young boys to fly w you to NYC? Aww.

Anna: FrugalBatch is frugal Nonny. Just look at the outfit Weirdo is wearing from 2 years ago... A proper pap walk extravaganza like the one I described this morning (LINK) would not only involve a lot of moving parts, but would also put him out of pocket for tickets and renting fees for the pilows.

Nonny Nr. 4: So what happened to taking the kids everywhere? if anything it would b EASIER to take BOTH kids w BOTH parents there. it would be the first time we ever saw them both w both kids. oh right, they would have to stage blurred photos on one end, then blurred photos on the other, w kids who matched sizes etc. very hard. better to pretend they left the kids home *sob*

Anna: But ... but ... but ... there is a way Nonny. Read to the end of this post: LINK. I honestly don’t know if I can be any clearer with laying out instructions to PR that would make this whole thing look more realistic. If only I could draw, I would make storyboards for them, but alas, I’m rubbish with a sketching pad.

Nonny Nr. 5: I don't know why they don't just pay a family to fly with them?? carry the kids on the plane and carry them off, make sure the faces are blurred so they don't have to keep using the same family over and over? i know blurring the face in the US will make it clear they hired the paparazzi to shoot their family for the media, but that ship sailed long ago

Anna: Because it doesn’t make any sense for children’s faces to be blurred out when the pics go on sale on American pap sites, and the pics are taken on US soil nonny. They did try that in October of 2016 at JFK, and all that pap walk did was send more people our way...

Nonny Nr. 6: if we do see the kids going through the airport, it WON'T be in a way that shows they were on the plane. it will be just outside the terminal. pay attention. we will NOT see them w two kids getting on to a plane and getting off. IF WE DO the FACES WILL BE BLURRED and they will hand the kids off to the real parents who were pad to fly w them. even tho its the US they will hire a pap agency that blurrs the photos to no one can recognise the kids

Anna: That’s why I’ve been asking for pics at Heathrow airport (blurred), and then pics at JFK or LAX (unblurred) Nonny. And then I want pics at JFK or LAX (unblurred) and pics at Heathrow (blurred) on the way back. Not because it will convince me of anything, but because the least I expect from Ben, who wanted to let everyone and their pets know his family is not a PR stunt 2 years ago, is for him to finally try to be a bit more consistent. Instead we get silly quotes about always travelling with his pillows one week and then a pap walk at an airport negating his quote...

Nonny Nr. 7: Once again these two are ONLY SEEN WHEN THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO SELL. A product, service, or EVENT is for SALE because they have to MAKE MONEY, so for the first time in ages ben is seen at the airport. Ben can travel unnoticed whenever he wants, but when he needs to make money, he gets his PR STUNT WIFE to show up and calls the paps

Anna: Hmmmmmm. *runs the numbers quickly on ticketmaster*

The pap walk didn’t help move many tickets so far. Only 19 tickets for Friday and 15 for Saturday. They’ll need to to something more drastic to sell the venue out for both nights. Perhaps Weirdo could do some juggling on the Great White Way? That way she can add working on Broadway to her CV! :D

Nonny Nr. 8: Remember what Enty said about showmance stunt families who are only seen when they are selling something. case and point

Anna: When did Enty say that? Are you confusing Enty with JT Nonny? Or am I forgetting some of the blinds again?

Nonny Nr. 9: Anna, we wil never see the kids travelling with them. if they blur their faces on US soil, then that means they had a deal w the pap taking the pictures, something they have already attempted to deny whilst simultaneously using paps that only work for hire. if they unblur the photos to make it look like a genuine invasion, the people who know the kids in real life may recognise them as not BC and SH kids. hence, ben will forever never travel w his kids

Nonny Nr. 10: anyone waiting to see the kids at multiple airports w unblurred faces will be waiting a long time. ben may lie and say he has his kids w him ever day he travels, but if he does, he doesn't parent them on the plane. he makes the unwashed help do the parenting on another flight. also, he can't risk the kids faces being exposed. not when C is so old and Hal had his photos taken down for being faked

Anna: I really really really really really can’t be any clearer with pointers to PR. If they want to keep this looking as unrealistic as it does, they’ll only be doing the Skeptics’ work for us and sending more people our way with each passing airport pap walk where Weirdo sells shoes and Ben sells his dismalness... For that matter, with the way this showmance started, where Ben couldn’t for the life of him avoid the paps back when the unsaleable showmance was being shoved down the general public’s and the Academy’s voting members’ throats during his Oscar campaign of 2014-5, it only looks bizarre when people know he’s globetrotting for work constantly but doesn’t get spotted at airports anymore. He’s damned if he arranges for pap walks and damned if he doesn’t...

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jiminpoppins · 7 years ago

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Note: this is a continuation of a post // extremely long

101 reasons why Jikook/Kookmin is my ultimate OTP or 101 times Jikook made my heart flutter (Part 2)

PART 1

51) A jikook compilation wouldn’t be a compilation without THE back hugs.

Hands on waist...

Chin on shoulder...

52) Not long after Jimin tweeted a pic of ramen, Jungkook indirectly replied to him by posting FOUR selcas of him along with a message telling him his ramen looked bland. idk about you but i found this interaction cute.

53) The artistic couple.The muscle pig and manggaetteok drawings that were featured in Snow App. They even drew the chicken drawings on the menu at Isac. I can imagine them sitting and drawing random things together. ㅠㅠ

54) Jimin posted not one but three videos on Jungkook’s birthday, which means he wished Jungkook three times on SNS and made my head spin thrice.

55) Jimin and Jungkook took photos of each other sleeping.

56) When Jungkook thought there was no camera around when they were rounding the corner so he went up to Jimin and slid his hand around his waist. Little did he know they got caught on camera. I’d like to thank Yoongi’s vj for this awesome footage.

57) The many times Jimin has summoned Jungkook for Armys. In simpler words, Jungkook always tweets something after Jimin, and we all know how seldom he appears on Twitter.

58) “hyung has cute toes” Okay but like who lingers around his friend’s photo shoot and randomly blurts out that he has cute..toes????

59) The look! Jungkook’s expression when he’s feeding Jimin earns him a spot on this list haha. Tbh They’re kinda like eyefucking eo when jimin’s being fed. look at Jimin’s eyes. Apart from that I like how Jungkook fed him.

60) Their interactions the whole ISAC. Masterlist 👣

61) How can I miss this? Jikook in Japan..this one has a special place in my heart. Back in 2016, it had been just a casual discussion between me and my friends on kakao. Never thought jikook would continue displaying PDA every single time they go to Japan. What’s more when they have very strict no-camera policy during concerts.

62) The amount of heart eyes they shoot at each other.

63) When they had a dinner date in the dorm to promote Mala Hot Chicken. What baffled me was that Jungkook mentioned beforehand he wanted to sleep but he still accompanied Jimin. I’m soft.

64) Jimin has made it very apparent, truly obvious that he likes jungkook. Whether it’s liking him as a dongsaeng, or just someone he’s extremely comfortable with, Jimin always, without failing, reminds us who he dotes on. “Why do I like you so much?” Lately, I’ve been crazy because I like Jungkook so much. I think of this as a start of something beautiful, and I am so glad Jimin didn’t even hesitate in expressing his feelings towards the maknae. I think this might have helped jungkook unwind. Look at jungkook now. That’s some character development right there :)

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65) Massage. Quoted line from AHL mentor, Tony Jones “They are very touchy feely and to them, it’s nothing. I’d walk into the room and Suga’s massaging V’s neck or Jimin’s giving Jungkook an intimate back massage..”

66) When Jungkook bent down so he would get closer to Jimin and put the rein-kook headband on Jimin’s head. They’re separated a lot of times during fansigns but somehow they managed to get tgt at the end.

67) When Jungkook blows a kiss, then turns to Jimin whose lips are puckered and does the same to him, using the same fingers he used earlier. Okay I’ve been meaning to say this. Realistically speaking, if you pucker your lips and you put your fingers on them, wouldn’t your saliva stick to your fingers? I’m not trying to imply anything here, just genuinely asking haha. 140529 Ameba Studio

68) When a webtoon artist gave Jimin two dolls, but Jimin decided to give one to Jungkook. She even posted a webtoon of them. To be honest who wouldn’t?

69) *screams to the people in the back* ALL-NIGHTER FRIENDS!!! As written by the man himself, “ALL the time, it’s just the two of us doing something at night. I don’t know what we do”

70) Jungkook scribbling hearts all over Jimin’s birthday drawing. He’s one whipped man.

71) Just other instances Jungkook and Jimin flirting on stage.

//gif above isn’t mine//

72) When Jimin and Jungkook chose each other when asked “if you were a girl, who would you date?”

73) The shocking fact that Jungkook demanded an apartment from Jimin as a graduation gift. Like, apartment? of all things? What kind of domesticity is this?

74) The way Jungkook takes care of Jimin even though he’s the younger one, and how Jimin is there when he’s the one seeking comfort.

75) I will never forget the Gayo Back hug, ever. I’ve mentioned back hug somewhere above, but this is different.This deserves a point of its own.

76) When Jimin took off one of his rings at the airport and gave it to jungkook.

77) When Jungkook stopped in front of Jimin during his part in For You at Osaka concert, and kind of directed the lyrics for Jimin. Jimin just couldn’t stop smiling afterward :((( The lyrics are: It smells like you The road that I walk on I plug my earphone to my status My true feelings lie beyond there

78) When Jimin and Jungkook steered away from the bunch and instead opted for some alone on the cruise. people say you smile the brightest when you’re with someone you love, yes?

79) The fact that Jimin wanted to become napa cabbage after seeing Kook dressed up as a bunny, so he could eat him, albeit choosing to be cheese initially. What even is that statement lol 👣

80) The morph of their dynamic. I kind of miss their old moments, when Jimin was bolder, more carefree, and Jungkook seemed to be too shy to reciprocate. (on camera). Now they have matured. They have grown up well. A wave of nostalgia sweeps over me. The transition of their relationship is extremely beautiful.

81) When Jimin became Jungkook’s makeup artist for a day, hovering around the set, even drawing a pic of a bird that’s used as a prop later.

82) their size difference might be exaggerated at times, but you really can’t deny that it is cute, even if it’s not much.

83) When Jungkook changed the lyrics in Spring Day to Jimin. Like a small piece // Of Jimin // That floats in the air

84) When Jungkook showed to the world what a sweet boyfriend he is,making jimin laugh, sitting him on his lap, hugging him on his birthday. Sweet sweet jungkookie.

85) Let’s state the obvious- 21CG choreos!!! i love how they evolved, just like their remarkable, legendary nmd lift.

86) Their sensual dance covers.

87) When Jungkook guides and encourages Jimin during games/missions.

88) The many times Jimin has been spotted wearing Jungkook’s clothes, despite the well-known fact that Jungkook doesn’t share clothes. Newsflash: Jungkook wears Jimin’s too!

89) We know Jungkook knows Jimin like the back of his hand, but that doesn’t mean that Jimin knows any less. I think they spend time together way too much.👣

90) How often the word “JIMIN” trips off Jungkook’s tongue- this what fascinates me the most. At one time he even mistook Jin for Jimin.

91) Jimin’s eagerness to kiss Jungkook for his Coming of Age, being the first one to hold out a hand for a game of Rock Paper Scissors. Bon Voyage season 1

92) When Jimin waited over an hour for Kook to finish filming BTS Flower Boy mini drama, even though he’d finished his part. Jimin couldn’t even stay mad at him for not telling, like how fond is he?

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93) The fact that Jungkook is more than comfortable speaking in banmal with Jimin.He once said in Idol Party that he prefers talking in jeondaetmal (polite language) with his hyungs but look at the amount of times he’s dropped the honorific and called Jimin by his name. uhm, let’s talk about treating the other as equals?

94) Jimin and Jungkook, the human embodiment of Piske Usagi.

95) When Jungkook’s bro drew Jungkook as Muzi and Jimin as Con, the inseparable duo on Kakao. Bro knows. 👣

96) In Kkul FM 2016, When Jungkook and Jimin nearly intertwined their fingers . Scoffs bh seemed to think it’s okay to abruptly cut off their scene. What intrigues me most is that they weren’t even looking but their hands still somehow managed to find their way around. Also other instances they hold hands. I love how Jungkook’s slightly bigger hands envelop Jimin’s smaller ones. *Jimin’s pinky tho!*

97) How they’re destined to meet. The fact that they’re both from Busan, have matching moles, Jungkook’s bro named Junghyun and Jimin’s bro named Jihyun..imagine what would’ve happened had Jimin not been the last one to enter Bangtan.

98) When Jimin said he'd be looking at the ocean with Jungkook but Jungkook straight up rejected him and chose to go on a trip with his bro instead. It was quite a strong statement but a moment later Jungkook proved it wrong by reaching out and squeezing Jimin’s hand underneath the table, kinda like a reassurance that it’s all part of a joke. He cares. He truly does.

99) During Jin’s birthday prank at MAMA, these two couldn’t keep their hands off each other. The moment they entered the bathroom, they almost shut everything out-talking to themselves, picking on the cake- until the members gave them the signal to stop w/e they’re doing. Months later Mama kindly revealed another footage, this time consisting of just them, in the bathroom, jungkook right in the middle of buttoning up his jacket, wearing nothing underneath. How was I supposed to sit still?

100) When Jungkook and Jimin take skinship to a whole new level, or simply put, the times Jikook makes us question the real intention behind their acts and excessive skinship.

101) Last but not least, Perhaps my all time favorite moment- When Jungkook was caught observing Jimin’s every move, literally had his eyes only on him.

(Mark 1:17 onward)

I super love this video bc the song chosen matched so well with the situation- like they wanted to reach out but couldn’t so they stayed put, could only observe the other from far...

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and that’s it! thank you, you made it to the bottom of this post! In short, everything about jikook makes me feel content. I had thought of doing more but despite my brain literally screaming at me “Include this! You forgot this!”, I had to stick to 101. Anyway, I hope this mends your longing hearts. Have a lovely day! Thank you for reading!

Bonus because I have to:

when the members revealed on BTS KKul FM 2017 that Jungkook bought a birthday present only for Jimin. Am I your favorite hyung?

When Jungkook, the youngest in the group, called Jimin who is 2 years older than him a baby. 애기야가자 !

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allenmendezsr · 5 years ago

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Muscle Gaining Secrets 2.0: Skinny Guy/hardgainer Niche

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Printable Workout Sheets

You get a fully detailed, step-by-step raw beginner program as well as the 90-day main Muscle Gaining Secrets 2.0 program. These workouts were designed with you, the skinny “hard-gainer” in mind and will pack on size and strength like nothing you’ve ever tried before.

The exact number of sets, reps, rest periods are all laid out for you in beautiful, printable workout sheets. All the guesswork and confusion has been removed.

All you need to do is follow the program to the letter for 90 days… then sit back and smile while you watch the new muscle start piling on.

30 Days Free Access to Our Private Coaching Community

That’s where you’ll be able to watch instructional videos of every exercise in the program, interact and develop lasting friendships with thousands of other members, have your questions answered, and get coaching from our professional staff.

The most important, and often missing, element in making a lasting transformation is social support. We’ve got you covered in that department. You’ll be able to post your workout logs, before and after pics, and questions for accountability to ensure the fastest rate of progress.

Kyle Gained 21 Pounds of Muscle

“Jay, I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done for me. My entire life has moved on to the next level and I feel like I owe it all to you. You’ve provided me with so much determination it can’t be expressed in words. I gained 21 lbs of mass and lost an equal amount of body-fat using your program!” Kyle Matthews

Brian Gained 23 Pounds of Muscle

“When I first started following Muscle Gaining Secrets I weighed 169. Today I’m a lean 192 pounds, can squat 365, deadlift 435 and bench press 300, respectively. By following all of his advice on nutrition, training and recovery to the letter I was able to make size and strength gains that I would’ve never imagined possible.” Brian Eskow

Geoff Gained 14 Pounds of Muscle

“I’m in the best shape of my life, because of your program. My goals: be about 210 but jacked and chiseled, able to deadlift 550, squat 400, and do a body-up or one armed pull up. Currently I deadlift around 490 & squat 405. Before picture is how I have looked for the last 4 years. After picture is due to Muscle Gaining Secrets.” Geoff C. Morehart

Christian Gained 14 Pounds of Muscle

“Stumbling upon MGS was like the answer to everything. I have complete faith in your training philosophies and feel that the words “thank you” ain’t enough. So far I have gained 14 pounds of muscle while simultaneously losing fat!

Thank you again.” Christian Bylsma

Steve Gained 10 Pounds of Muscle

“I really thought i knew everything about building muscle and gaining weight, I read every muscle magazine, and followed every stupid strength training phase that they invented. After giving myself a good slap for what an ass I had been I got into Jason Ferruggia’s Muscle Gaining Secrets. The results speak for themselves.” Steve Pharr

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q: What equipment do I need & can I train at home? Barbells and dumbbells. A basic home gym will cover you as there are no machines or fancy gym equipment required. A chin up bar and a power rack would also be a huge plus. But if you don’t have these things I’ll show you a few substitutions.

Q: How soon can I expect to see results and how much muscle can I build using this program? You should notice results within the first two weeks. After a month you’ll have made some noticeable changes, and by two months you’ll see a big difference. How big you get is ultimately determined by your genetics.

Q: Am I going to have to spend countless hours in the gym every week? Absolutely not. You’ll only have to train four days per week and you’ll be in and out of the gym in just 45 minutes!

Q: What if I don’t want to get big like a bodybuilder? Can I still use your program? Yes, you can. If you just want to achieve muscular male model type physique or the look of a pro fighter this is the best program to get you there. Getting big like a bodybuilder will take many years and a lot of steroids.

You can control how big you eventually get simply by controlling your caloric intake each week. So you determine exactly how much muscle you want to gain… a lean 10 or a massive 30+. It’s all up to you.

Q: Is this program suited for a complete beginner? Yes. We have an introductory program for those who aren’t ready to start on the main program just yet.

Q: I want to start building muscle today. How long do I have to wait for you to ship everything to me? You don’t! Because the entire MGS 2.0 system is fully downloadable, you will get INSTANT ACCESS to it as soon as your payment is accepted. There’s no waiting at all. You can get started in the next five minutes.

Neil Gained 11 Pounds of Muscle

“Following the Muscle Gaining Secrets program I have gained 11 pounds of muscle mass while shredding 15 pounds of fat. Jason’s training principles and workouts work for all ages as I am about to turn 46 and am still gaining muscle and strength. This is the real deal for the natural strength athlete looking to get big. Cheers Jason!” Neil Archibald, UK

Gary Gained 22 Pounds Muscle

“I have used Muscle Gaining Secrets with great success from the beginning to help pack on a solid 22 pounds of muscle. Not only has your program helped me personally, but by using the knowledge I gained have from reading your work to become a successful personal trainer with more than twenty clients, doing 120 plus sessions a month.” Gary Deagle

Eddie Gained 12 Pounds of Muscle

“Since I started training with Muscle Gaining Secrets I’ve gained 12 pounds of muscle and lost over twenty pounds of bodyfat . My conditioning has improved dramatically and the sore joints I used to deal with are a thing of the past. ” Eddie Santana

Check Out Some More MGS 2.0 Success Stories From Facebook…

Download the entire system right now for just $19.95

NOTE: Muscle Gaining Secrets is a downloadable e-book. No physical products will be shipped. After you order, you will get INSTANT ACCESS to download the e-book onto your computer. The e-book format is adobe acrobat PDF, which can be viewed on Mac or PC. At the end of your 30-day free trial in the Renegade Strength Club you will be re-billed $19.95 every month for access to brand new workouts, videos, and the coaching community. Cancel hassle free at any time.

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reecito · 5 years ago

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The familiar pattern has returned.

When I say pattern, I mean the loss and regrowth – but I could just as easily mean the holes on my head where hair should be. This time I have done something slightly different to deal with the oh-so familiar cycle of hair loss.

Covering up

Since mid 2018 – I’ve been hiding (hair loss) in plain sight. I’ve been using a spray and fibres to cover patches – which help me feel more comfortable in everyday life. Times such as:

going out somewhere

heading to work

standing in a queue

sitting in front of someone on the train

Times where you just want to blend in and deal without the paranoid feelings creeping in that people may be looking at your strange hair pattern.

Why did I do it?

I always thought I wouldn’t do this and ’embracing the bald’ was the way forward for me – this was also the reason I shaved all my hair off the first time. But this time, with experience – I knew that every time I shaved it – the bald patches would be really visible due to my dark hair regrowth – so I decided not to.

I only applied to the huge patch/Friar Tuck spot in the front of my head and (very occasionally) on the larger patches at the back of my head. Here’s the huge patch which has been growing and actually changing in size over 2018/19

August 2018

The middle patch in August 2018

The spot remained the same – and covering it helped me feel more confident and able to walk around without feeling like people were staring at the spot in the middle of my head.

June 2019

Still hanging around in 2019

As you can see – it didn’t budge in 2019. And it is still here in 2020! However it is slightly different this time – more on that later…

How I did it

If I wasn’t working, going out or heading off somewhere – I didn’t bother spraying anything at all. I feel comfortable with my family and friends seeing the patches – and if I needed to go out and couldn’t be bothered spraying – I could always wear a hat if I really wanted to.

I used a spray and fibres and it looks like this (This post is not sponsored and unfortunately I have paid for every item I have bought). Though I bought the ‘black’ version, not the dark brown ones as pictured.

If I was going somewhere or wanted to cover the patch then I:

styled my hair with wax

sprayed the black ‘disguise spray’ onto the bald patch

dropped some fibres over the area

finished with a fixing spray (strong hairspray)

– et voila. It seemed to work.

Here’s a video of the daily spray – it takes under a minute

youtube

How has it worked for me?

Well nobody has ever noticed the spray – or were too polite to say.

As far how I felt using it – most of the time, I was fine with it – unless I was:

under a mega bright light

already feeling low

caught in a sudden downpour of rain

And even when I was caught in the rain – it didn’t ever ‘run’ or stream down my face.

The times I felt uncomfortable were few and far between and it just allowed me to get shit done without obsessing about my hair – which lets be honest – I (and anyone else reading this) has probably done enough of over the years.

It allowed me to give my brain a break for very little effort.

I was sceptical at first and didn’t want to use it and have constantly been asking my partner and friends – is it time to shave it all off? And they keep saying ‘No’.

Abi and the eyebrows 🙂

But these were the same people who encouraged me to use that god awful eyebrow pencil and we all know how that turned out… WHAT WAS I THINKING?!?!?!?

So what’s happening now?

I’m posting now as I’m aware I have been consistently losing and gaining hair. I have been spraying and didn’t really want to give a depressing update to anyone that follows this looking for hope.

But a number of people have asked how I am doing and wanted an update and some of you who have now become friends keep saying “your hair looks fine in your pics on social media” so I thought it was time to come out with the truth.

I HAVE BEEN SPRAYING THE BALD AWAY

I am still using it when I feel like it – not everyday – though have been reaching a point over the past 6 months where I want to shave it all off again – as I feel like a fraud and just want to be more comfortable in my own skin.

This would then mean shaving my head everyday and I don’t know if I want to do that either.

2020 update

Here’s the big ‘Friar Tuck’ spot with white regrowth – at the end of January 2020

What’s Next?

I will continue to use the spray occasionally, until either the hole finally closes up or I get too pissed off and shave my head. Either way – I will try to update you in real time.

I have noticed that some of the hairs in the spots I was spraying are actually growing back – but white. I now have an ever increasing collection of white patches all over my head. Have a look:

Left

centre

Right

Now I can’t be too sure if this is just normal ageing and I’m getting grey. Or is this the non-pigmented hair coming back before it turns black again (which is what happened last time).

I also can’t be sure that the huge spot isn’t just a part of male pattern baldness at the age of 42 – but it is a very alopecia sized spot and there is grey hair growing back in there. so who bloody knows?!

Anyway – that is my very overdue update for 2020. I’m happy to carry on looking like a monochrome leopard – for now.

Photo by Adriaan Greyling from Pexels

The 'monochrome leopard' look How I am coping with the ever present alopecia areata spots and have started embracing my inner leopard. The familiar pattern has returned. When I say pattern, I mean the loss and regrowth - but I could just as easily mean the holes on my head where hair should be.

#alopecia #alopecia areata #alopecia shave head #auto immune #balding #baldness #covering alopecia #disguise spray #hair loss #hair regrowth #hairloss #hairspray #hiding alopecia #jamie stevens #male alopecia #patches in the beard #regrowth #shaving

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bentonpena · 5 years ago

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Master Fitness Instructor Who Lost 60 Pounds After Partying Too Hard Gives Advice On Losing Weight And Making Changes

Master Fitness Instructor Who Lost 60 Pounds After Partying Too Hard Gives Advice On Losing Weight And Making Changes http://bit.ly/2nG7mPh

image provided by Jesse Alexander/CycleBar

It has been about 13 months since I started making radical changes to my lifestyle in order to lose weight and get healthier. Flashback to late Summer 2018 and I was the heaviest I’d ever been in my life, I was having daily hypertension headaches because I was eating unhealthy, my doctor told me I had high blood pressure and needed to get healthy, and I’d just found out I was going to be a dad. Change was needed.

I’ve always thrived on the ‘strength in numbers’ style of exercise with the peer pressure and accountability pushing me on the in the class. A friend told me about CycleBar and how locals got their first class for free so I checked it out and I was hooked almost instantly. CycleBar is an indoor cycling class with a mixture of sprints, climbs, push-ups, ‘tap backs’, arm exercises, and a brief bit of meditation. It’s all done in a dark room with mirrored walls, club lights, and loud ass music. I love it.

Last October, I started ramping up my fitness and went on to lose 40-pounds between October 2018 and March 2019 by doing 4-7 indoor cycling classes a week and getting my portion control in order. Along this fitness journey of mine, I came across Jesse Alexander (@ja__tapback22) who is a Master Instructor at CycleBar. He’s based out of NYC/NJ but also gets to travel the nation and teach master classes at their over 200 locations throughout the U.S.

I’ll be honest, when someone tells me “you have to take this class, this person is AMAZING” I immediately assume that person’s full of shit and probably way too into things like horoscopes and astrology but I was blown away by his enthusiasm for exercise and his motivational. It was infectious. So when I received an email a while back asking if I wanted to interview him about fitness my interest was piqued.

View this post on Instagram

When I was VERY comfortable living the XXL lifestyle. Possible poor choice in color scheme. #Wellness #WellnessJourney #ChangedTheBrainBeforeTheBody

A post shared by Jesse Alexander (@ja__tapback22) on Apr 1, 2018 at 3:21pm PDT

Jesse reached 230 pounds and was looking quite ‘puffy’ due to too much late-night snacking, drinking, and partying. He’s now 44-years-old, has lost more than 60 pounds, and he’s in the best shape of his life (picture above). I asked him a series of questions about how he stays fit, what’s the best clothing for men to work out in, how to preserve that athletic apparel so it doesn’t get worn out in a few weeks, and how he helps clients take it to the next level.

Cass: When did you know you wanted to lose weight? What was the first step you took in getting healthy? And something I’ve been wondering myself, when did you realize you’d reached a point in life where you were healthy?

Jesse Alexander: For me, it was never an issue of not liking what I saw in the mirror. I was always a confident guy. I think the biggest thing is you have to like yourself before you set out on a weight loss journey. If you do it out of self-hatred you aren’t going to be happier when the weight comes off. I always tell the story of being out to Chinese food with my father, and over an egg roll he said to me I had “gotten puffy”. My lifestyle wasn’t great – I was out partying a lot, eating whatever, not in a consistent routine.

I knew it was time to make a change, not because I didn’t like myself, but because it was time to get healthier. I cut out things like soda, eating 2 breakfast sandwiches a day (yes I did that), and started indoor cycling. Finding SoulCycle was my first indoor cycling class and a true game-changer for me. I had never before been a part of that kind of community experience.

I was quickly addicted and having a fitness routine combined with small changes in my diet the weight came off. Eventually, I auditioned, got rejected, auditioned again and became a founding instructor for FlyWheel. My fitness routine changed again when I found HIIT classes and strength training. Today I feel I’m in the best shape of my life and look better than I ever did when I was younger.

View this post on Instagram

M O O D. Here’s to a summer of of vibes, feels, tapbacks, beach trips, park trips, Sojo, outdoor workouts, tequila, baseball, family, friends, @cyclebar, @cyclebarcloster @cyclebarfortlee, and living your BEST DAMN LIFE. #fitnesslifestyle #wellnessjourney #summer2018

@robertrcrespo

A post shared by Jesse Alexander (@ja__tapback22) on Jun 19, 2018 at 3:33am PDT

Cass: As someone who burns a ton of calories every day but needs to stay fully energized, could you take me through what a typical Monday-Friday diet might look like? Does it differ from the weekends in any way?

Jesse Alexander: I teach 10 classes a week in addition to my own daily workouts so eating throughout the day is a priority to make sure I stay fueled. Breakfast is usually protein pancakes, or eggs with avocado toast. I’m on the go a lot so I’ll try to get a protein shake or two in throughout the day. I’ll try to grab whole foods for lunch that includes greens and protein.

I get home late from work but I’ll always cook so I’m not just eating whatever’s around – usually I’ll make some form of protein like burgers, steak or chicken and something green on the side. Since my schedule isn’t the typical Mon-Fri work week, I tend to eat pretty similarly all week long – I go for an 80/20 mindset daily instead of eating well through the week and letting loose on weekends. I try not to deprive myself too much – I’m going to have pizza with my kids if they want to go get pizza.

Cass: A lot of people start exercising after reaching that invisible ‘I can’t believe I’ve hit this weight’ number that we all have in our heads. It’s different for everyone. Then they hit the gym and expect to see results overnight. The ones that stick with it are always happy they do because they’re lighter, healthier, stronger.

As an instructor, do you notice when clients hit this invisible barrier of self-confidence and health? What are some ways to keep people motivated to exercise in those early days before they start seeing the weight loss results and body changes to stop guys from losing interest?

Jesse Alexander: As an indoor cycling instructor, a lot of milestones I see my clients hit have nothing to do with weight loss. Of course they start to look and feel a lot better and we will always praise and notice that but I try to also recognize the smaller moments that have more to do with them gaining the confidence they didn’t have before.

The moments like moving from the back corner of the room to a front-row bike, hitting a personal goal of a number they’ve never sprinted to before, and especially gaining the endurance to stay out of the saddle at faster speeds for longer which is generally difficult for beginners. Even wanting to take pictures with other clients or being more involved in the community is a huge step forward.

View this post on Instagram

One of my favorite pics of us. Happy anniversary to Mrs. Tapback, @farrahroxx. My co- Captain, my friend, my partner. I’m a better human with you by my side. Eternally grateful I found my person. Through such powerful highs and just as powerful lows, it’s you and me. I love you. #happyanniversary #thealexanders

A post shared by Jesse Alexander (@ja__tapback22) on Aug 25, 2019 at 3:18pm PDT

Cass: There seems to be a day when every serious gym rat ditches the sleeves and starts wearing tank tops to the gym whether it be for cardio or weight lifting. I’m a Sleeves Guy

. In fact, I’d prefer to workout in a collared tennis or golf shirt made from smart fabrics if I can.

Each guy is unique and this is an issue the fitness/athleticwear industry seems to grapple with. When you look at the athleisure industry for ladies, there are very clear frontrunners on which brands are dominating the market. For guys, the best options are usually shopping online or hitting a discount store and buying workout clothes that we know will last a few months before you can’t clean them anymore.

Do you have advice on the best athletic apparel for a guy who does cardio every day if not several times a day? What tips do you have for getting the most life out of this clothing when it’s constantly getting hit with sweat? When should a guy know it’s time to toss away his favorite gym shit because its lifespan has passed?

Jesse Alexander: My two favorite brands that consistently deliver great quality are Lululemon and Nike. These materials recover better from intense workouts and are consistently good quality for the price. In terms of getting the most life out of clothing, I try not to let my sweaty clothes sit in sweat bags after a workout.

Hang them to dry out before you wash them and use a good quality detergent made for athletic wear (I like Tide Sport). Another tip is to add plain white vinegar to your wash cycle – this absorbs odors. If I notice a shirt isn’t smelling clean even after a wash or two, then I know it’s time for it to go.

Cass: I love food. I love eating food. I love all cuisines and I’m not the type of person who can eat the same thing every single day. I recently lost 40-pounds from doing 6-7 days a week at CycleBar but have hit this plateau and can’t lose the 10-15 more I’d like to.

What sort of advice would you give someone like myself looking to hit that next gear? And what sort of advice would you give to someone who has hit their target weight? Do they maintain the same daily routine that got them there or is a shift in lifestyle needed to maintain?

Jesse Alexander: Indoor cycling was the biggest game-changer for me when I lost the weight I needed to, but consistent weight training put me over the edge to see the final goals I wanted to come to life. CycleBar is incredible for cardio and doing it almost every day will definitely help maintain and continue to lose weight but adding in strength training will help you build muscle and continue to burn fat as well.

If you’ve hit your target weight my advice would be to continue doing what you’re doing but adding in cross-training keeps your body guessing. I think a shift in lifestyle is definitely the key – you aren’t just going back to old habits once you’ve hit your goals, you’re now a new version of you.

Also, rest! People underestimate how important rest days are to weight loss and building muscle. Your body needs to recover to perform efficiently. Add in an extra rest day and see what happens!

Cass: For any aspiring instructors out there, how do you develop the lung strength to speak constantly throughout a workout? I know people who are in immaculate shape but can’t hold a conversation on a jog or they’d be winded. What are some tips to develop that lung strength to be able to lead a group while working out?

Jesse Alexander: This truly takes building vocal endurance which takes time and practice. Newer instructors build their stamina talking and riding and it gets easier – a huge game-changer is the perch on the bike! Instructors shouldn’t be crushing their ride like a rider does. Stop pedaling so you can efficiently look, talk and coach your riders – plus you’ll get your breath back too. When I came back from my honeymoon, I was out of shape from not teaching for weeks and this forced me to develop this new style of coaching while perching and being off-bike more. It really upped my game and forced me to connect in a newer way to my riders.

You can find Jesse Alexander on Instagram at @ja__tapback22, at CycleBar Fort Lee where he’s a Master Instructor, or at CycleBar locations throughout the nation where Jesse regularly travels as a guest Master Instructor. You can find me on Twitter at @casspa, regularly riding at CycleBar UTC in Sarasota, on Peloton at username ‘CassPA’, and on Instagram at @BroBible.

Men via BroBible.com http://bit.ly/2Z1jdnl October 2, 2019 at 10:33AM

#IFTTT #Feedly

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orindasfinest · 5 years ago

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TDFL PR W#1

Welcome to the first installment of the TouchDongers Foobaw Lig Power Rankings yadda yadda this doesn’t really require any introduction – reading this is kind of like waking up in a virtual gulag in a Black Mirror episode. You can feign ignorance all you want, but you know deep down why you’re here, Mohamed Jetta.

I’m hosting this on tumblr because it’s barely more public than a google doc thanks to the porn ban that whisked away all my piss bookmarks just as I was starting to make real inroads on a new fetish. Thanks for nothing you Puritan technocrats. If the pageviews from this post give you 35 more cents in your next worthless sale I demand compensation in the form of 45 second clips of coeds soaking granite countertops.

Pay your league dues so I can indulge my second favorite fluffing pastime of mailing people ostentatious shit they don’t need. I’m accepting submissions for the name of the championship trophy. Current front-runner is The Shiny Hiney so you might want to get on that (and I’m not talking about scaling Griffin’s stark-white cracked mountainside prone to avalanches and civilian suffocation)

WITH PLENTY OF FAFFING ABOUT

10. Leaguema Balls (Dirty Mike)

Record: 0-1 | PF: 73 | PA: 167.7

Playing Next: Airstrip One Ezekiels Engels (Derv)

Questionable Decision of the Week: Living with the knowledge that he gave himself forehead welts

The only man in double digits for team score created a gulf between himself and the rest of the field almost as big as the space between his eyeballs. I’m not saying Mike’s squad is already done for, but on the heels of many players demanding trades from Miami after their week one demolition, Travis Kelce called his agent and said he wouldn’t do another mind-numbingly stupid McDonald’s commercial until he was cut loose to go play for another Dongers contender. Not only was this performance abysmal, but I can’t even label it an outlier because Devonta Freeman is now hurt and his 3 other major skill players are from the NFC North where points are harder to find than Josh Gordon’s 2 week AA chip.

9. Airstrip One Ezekiels Engels (Derv)

Record: 0-1 | PF: 120.9 | PA: 151.6

Playing Next: I just fukcing did this one

Questionable Decision of the Week: the Mets

Writing a summary of Derv’s fantasy prospects feels a lot like breaking the news to a wounded soldier that he’s had to have his dick amputated. Sure, you’re not technically dead, but what is there to live for? Derv has two good quarterbacks in a league where you can only start one, which marks the first and last time she’ll have two men vying for one of her slots. Zeke ended his holdout just in time to put up 12 points a game because Jerruh will be GOT DAMNED if he pays anyone an obscene amount of money and then has them succeed. Her best wide receiver made softcore porn with Pete Carroll. I’d rather read The Sun Also Rises again than keep looking at this roster to make any more jokes.

8. James White is Right (Tori)

Record: 0-1 | PF: 131.2 | PA: 173.4

Playing Next: The Queen’s Booty Lickers (Liv)

Questionable Decision of the Week: Thinking that being introverted is a substitute for a personality

Tori ran into a Clemson-scented buzzsaw this week and was really not at fault for the enormity of her loss, which is more than I can say about the fact that 85% of her Sundays vanish into her duvet cover because she got alcohol poisioning after gagging down 3 jello shots and looking at her bottle of listerine before she got into bed. That considered, though, she’s going to need Austin Ekeler to keep putting up 40-point games like he’s not a body double from ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ AND she’ll need Matt Ryan to learn what side of a football holds the white thingies for her to get any kind of consistent production going forward. Much like she would say about Sacramento being a gangrenous taint, “I just don’t see it.”

7. Sean’s Hard Mangos (sean)

Record: 0-1 | PF: 130.7 | PA: 136.2

Playing Next: Mark Ruffalo’s Ruffalo Bills (Aidan)

Questionable Decision of the Week: Paying more than the cost of a Notre Dame education for a military-grade laser-guided beard trimmer

Sean dropped his game versus Griffin in the closest fight since the donnybrook between his ex-girlfriend and sanity. A couple breaks here and there and he might have come away with a W. Unfortunately, Tyreek Hill will be out for an indefinite period of time after finding out that it’s hard to box with people who aren’t 5 years old and Evan Engram is going to put up 28 points again as soon as Father Jenkins decides it’s high time to adhere to his vow of poverty. His third-leading scorer this week was his kicker. Last time everyone discovered so obviously that something fishy was afoot Sean needed his location tracked to a downtrodden dormitory fuck-barn.

6. Mark Ruffalo’s Ruffalo Bills (Aidan)

Record: 1-0 | PF: 151.6 | PA: 120.9

Playing Next: Reading comprehension

Questionable Decision of the Week: $45 says he’s still doing Fontaine to all of his roommates and they’re plotting in equal measures to cut him out of the will and to put a steak knife in his femoral artery

Big boy trade man saw his wheeling and dealing pay off, running contrary to his favorite Silver-and-Black organization, and to the time he swapped his dignity for his desktop toaster oven. Drew Brees stepped up, and not just on the baby footstool he uses to properly gaze into the bathroom mirror to examine his face birthmark that looks like Spaghetti-O cum. Julio and JuJu took the field, which is worth 15 points apiece in standard ESPN scoring. Outside of that, though, we have another aberrant kicker performance, this one from Harrison “Anal” Butker, and Josh Jacobs putting up 25 against a Broncos defense more porous than an Aidan snap group selfie. Expect a greater fall from grace than that of the Robert Pattinson Porsche launching itself from the car WTC.

5. Cartoon Colt Copulation (Gabe)

Record: 0-1 | PF: 127.1 | PA: 145.3

Playing Next: The Birds Have Arrived (John)

Questionable Decision of the Week: Drafting from Hawaii during my last day on that particular vacation because I value disposable carnal pleasures more than lasting memories with my aging and loving parents

This ranking is like the number of inches I used to tell Tinder hookers after snapping them at 2AM: obviously inflated because I think I’m in control. A charitable read tells you that all of my risky/reachy picks paid off in spades and that I was one Desean Jackson start from starting the season off strong. A realistic assessment brings you back to the reality of the fact that depending on Desean Jackson for a victory is a lot like expecting me to bring you to orgasm. I’m just going to drop out before anyone crosses the line. Can’t wait to be 0-6 by the time AJ Green and Golden Tate come back, leaving me in a scramble for respectability that nobody respects, much like how I acquired my college degree.

4. Poo Poo Point Diarrheas (Griff)

Record: 1-0 | PF: 136.2 | PA: 130.7

Playing Next: TEAM DUMPSTER BEARS (Lauren)

Questionable Decision of the Week: Being really fucking amped about his band despite ostensibly not being under the influence of cocaine

Griffin’s starting lineup is the quintessential example of boom or bust, which is odd, because I thought the quintessential example of boom or bust was his nightly decision between offing himself and masturbating. Every single one of his starting skill players suits up for the Panthers, the Chargers, or the Rams. That diversity is so poor that it makes Mendoza look like the fucking United Nations. I’d tell you to branch out, Griff, but your bench is thinner than you if you were half your size and if half your size wasn’t also still fat. Will Lutz, your kicker, almost tripled the score of your quarterback. As the signal-caller in question is none other than Cameron Newton, I imagine that we won’t be hearing from Tori for a while, as her resultant pussy surge at a black man’s failure sent all of her electronics into traction.

3. TEAM DUMPSTER BEARS (Lolo)

Record: 1-0 | PF: 173.4 | PA: 131.2

Playing Next: What cruel twist of fate caused me to do the rankings like this

Questionable Decision of the Week: Letting me find out you actually own a Deshaun Watson jersey as if I didn’t already have enough roasting ammunition

Wowie! High score! Hope you’re hard at work roasting up some tasty crow for me to eat after my little draft-day Clemson jab because A) You cook so infrequently you thought a “burner” was one of the twitter accounts you use to solicit Hunter Renfrow dick pics and B) this is the last week you even sniff this stratosphere of point-getting. It is not often I flex my fantasy football “expertise” because clearly I don’t know shit about fuck but anyone who’s played this sick game of roulette for more than one season has learned the unalienable truth that you CANNOT TRUST SAMMY WATKINS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Holy god that 46.8-spot is a bigger mirage than someone looking at your hair under favorable light and thinking it has volume. Sammy will get run over by a stock car, Deshaun will have his spleen removed in week 6 when Laremy Tunsil turns his back on a bootleg to get fitted for a new nicotine gas mask, and your chances of success will disappear faster than your willingness to take on any more of my emotional baggage once I let you in the cargo hold. Much like our relationship, enjoy it while it lasts.

2. The Queen’s Booty Lickers (Liv)

Record: 1-0 | PF: 145.3 | PA: 127.1

Playing Next: James White is Right (Tori)

Questionable Decision of the Week: We won’t find out till next week, when she gets in contact again and sends 14 messages, 13 of which relate to topics nobody remembers and 1 of which is feloniously horny

It is cruel fucking fate that the Eagles stans would fly to the top of the power rankings from the word go. I know I attract toxic elements to my life, but being friends with multiple people from Philadelphia is like trying to run a fever to get out of going to school and instead having both your arms fed into an original Eli Whitney cotton gin. Liv didn’t even draft her squad, which probably explains why both Dak and Amari are both properly valued and are on this roster, ready to put up a combined 245 points a game because NFC East teams treat defense like Louis CK does consent. They don’t really think about it much. Hey Liv, hope that reflective road vest is enough to save you when Griffin trips coming out of a show and rolls downhill for 5 miles. It’s a good thing you have OBJ because you both look like closeted lesbians trying to stand out in Catholic school.

1. The Birds Have Arrived (John)

Record: 1-0 | PF: 167.7 | PA: 73

Playing Next: Cartoon Colt Copulation (idk some guy, poor bastard)

Questionable Decision of the Week: Getting piss on the floor of his bathroom, totally missing my mouth

This is a truly upsetting squad about which to write a recap. John’s team put up the second-most points with consistent performances across the board despite having AB and Melvin Gordon on the shelf. I haven’t been this worried about two people returning since John’s parents told him they were just going down to the store for a pack of cigarettes. It’s tough to not look at this lineup and be intimidated, so now we all know how John’s organs feel when they receive the message from his tastebuds that there’s a combination of peanut butter, salsa, Drano, and barbeque sauce slathered on a cheesesteak coming down the hatch. At least that sub is still more palatable than his dating life. John wanted me to hear two words: Antonio Brown. I got 2(1) words for ya, John: You’re the Anthony Fantano of book reviews if Fantano looked like Steve Brule and had the follower base of the Shakers.

See ya next week!

-Commish

0 notes

gyrlversion · 6 years ago

Text

20 Ways To Make Old Furniture Look Fancy

We hope you love the products we recommend! Just so you know, BuzzFeed may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. Oh, and FYI — prices are accurate and items in stock as of time of publication.

Cover a formica table surface with a roll of marble-print contact paper for a luxe look on the cheap.

amazon.com

Promising review: “I love this product! I used it to re-cover an old Formica picnic table at my house, and what a difference! It was easy to use (even for one person) and looks beautiful. It looks like real marble and added a gorgeous touch to my patio.” —Meagan W.

Get two 15.9″x6.5′ rolls of the shown contact paper from Amazon for $16.88.

And the same goes for much smaller tables for a fab makeover that screams “I SPENT MORE THAN $15 ON THIS!!!”

Feeling pretty ambitious? Flex your painting skills with some floral stencils for something that looks (and really, is) totally custom! Swap out the drawer pulls and then you’re set in style.

amazon.com

Get some similar floral stencils from Michaels for $7.39 and a 10-pack of the pictured glass drawer knobs from Amazon for $8.99.

Add some fanciful drawer pulls like these antique-style keys for a low-effort, high-impact makeover.

Transform a no-frills IKEA STOCKHOLM sideboard into something that looks like it cost you a couple months’ of your mortgage thanks to some well-placed brass strips.

Kristi Murphy

Check out the full tutorial for this project on Kristi Murphy here.

Get five brass strips like the ones used in this project from Hobbylinc for $8.69.

Coat some curbside finds with gloss spray paint for a high-end look that’ll more or less be compliment bait.

Organize & Decorate Everything

Revive the look of a dinged-up dresser with some scratch cover that’ll make it look brand spanking new like you just bought it right off the showroom floor.

amazon.com

Promising review: “This product is amazing! A friend gifted me a five-drawer dresser about two weeks ago. It was definitely scratched and dinged up, but the drawers worked great and did I mention that the dresser was completely free? I thought about going through the hassle of refinishing it, but I’m pretty lazy lol. So, I looked around for a quick fix and found this product. Boy, am I glad I did! I’m not even sure HOW it works, other than pure sorcery. I’ve attached pics (or at least tried to) so you can seen the magic for your self. This bottle was $8.17, the new drawer pulls were $16/pack of 10, and the whole ‘updating process’ took me about an hour/hour and a half. DEFINITELY worth it!

I ended up using about a tablespoon of this product on my whole dresser. When I started the process, I thought: ‘I don’t care if I use this whole bottle to make this thing look better.’ But nope — turns out, a little goes a looooooong way!” —Ashley Thiessen

Get the scratch cover from Amazon for $4.82 and five similar drawer pulls for $24.99+ (available in two sizes).

Use that same scratch cover to revive any worn wood surface on tables (as seen here), doors, kitchen cabinets, floors, really most anything! Plus, a small bottle goes a looooong way.

amazon.com

Promising review: “I am not a Big Project person. My sister would have stripped, sanded, stained, and varnished this old table. I was able to do this in my living room. I cleaned the surface with soap and water, wiped, let dry, and proceeded. The original style was ‘distressed’ and nearly 20 years of careless kids and husband, spilt beverages, and puppy claws had added authenticity. Our newly remodeled living space made distressed look just plain beat up. My goal was to achieve a neutral finish; you simply wouldn’t notice it. The photos are before, after application but before wiping, and after wiping showing my application tools. No mess, no fuss can’t beat it for a quick fix.” —S. Ackermann

Coat a sideboard in a deep hue of chalk paint to make elaborate drawer pulls POP.

amazon.com

Promising review: “I paint lots of furniture and have tried many kids of chalk paint. This is by far my favorite so far.. I love the consistency and coverage. No bad smells and easy to distress. Will be ordering more colors!” —Jason Hollback

Get the chalk paint starter kit used for this project from Amazon for $84.99 (available in a range of colors).

Pssst, lots of reviewers say this chalk paint is easier to work with than pricier brands.

10.

Or go back to (really fancy) basics by transforming an old china cabinet with white chalk paint.

amazon.com

Promising review: “I’ve never been a thrift find person but…..I went for it and found this beautiful china cabinet. I saw the vision of how I wanted it to look. Here is the before and after it was a bright turquoise color. I recreated such a beautiful piece it looks so great! I used two cans because trying to cover up turquoise was a small challenge but the chalk paint goes on so much better than regular paint. Now I want to chalk paint everything LOL #chalkpaint” —Keya Williams

11.

And in case you’re not on this white-furniture bandwagon just yet, take a gander at this corner hutch that looks so much nicer with a fresh paint job that matches the room’s trim.

amazon.com

Yep, done with the same chalk paint as above ^.

Promising review: “I painted a pair of oak corner hutches in linen white. The big size of the can is great. My only complaint is that it required multiple coats and not as a good coverage as other brands I have used. I had to finish with another brand but now I need to buy another of each to get the same color for the pair. I did not distress it.” —Lragone78

12.

And if neutral furniture just isn’t your thing, make over that end table with some bold chalk paint for a stunning after.

amazon.com

You guessed it, this was accomplished with that same chalk paint kit!

Promising review: “Since discovering Renaissance chalk paints in Amazon, I’ve ordered multiple colors for my hobby of refinishing furniture for the old farmhouse my hubby and I are renovating. Every color I’ve used is beautiful and goes on smooth and covers in two coats or less. One quart of Old Linen stretched through our dining room table, four chairs, a bench, and our coffee table; two coats apiece. I’ve done a dresser in Black Indigo and an accent table in Vermilion Red. I also use both the clear and dark wax to finish my pieces and I love them too! I can’t recommend these paints enough.” —Christie Myers

13.

Revamp some worn-looking patio furniture with some hammered metal paint for significantly less than shopping around for a new outdoor dining set.

amazon.com

Promising review: “My metal patio furniture was quite faded…decided to try this, in brown, before tossing the set and buying new — very happy I did ! I was worried I would not be able to do a good job on it, but this hammered paint went on easily, covered very well. I put one coat on, then touched up a few days later only because I missed some areas. I was so thrilled with the outcome, that I decided to do all of the four chairs, two chaises, and two small tables. There is still paint left in the one quart can I bought, perhaps I will do the swing set too

Here is a pic of one faded chair (approximately 8 years old) and a finished one. While others didn’t think the color was what they thought it would be, I would have to say, in my opinion, it did turn out a very nice bronze-like finish. I used foam paint brushes and wore gloves, as the paint was difficult to wash off. Regular paint brush did not work well at all, stick with the cheap foam ones!” —Sophie from Boston

Get this hammered paint from Amazon for $12.98+ (available in eight colors).

14.

Mask an unsightly crate (and give your pup some privacy) with a dog crate cover.

Amazon

Get this cover from Amazon for $19.99 (available in five sizes and three patterns).

15.

Swap plain furniture legs for some interesting pegs for some creative detail work.

Pretty Pegs

Get four of these legs from Pretty Pegs for $76 (costs vary by size, color, and type of furniture).

16.

Opt for some hairpin legs on an old coffee or side table if your design tastes lean a little more industrial.

Amazon

Get four of these 16-inch legs from Amazon for $34.95 (available in five lengths and two finishes).

17.

Dress up that water stain on your dining table that won’t quit with a charming burlap table runner because people will just assume that you’re always ready to entertain.

Amazon

Get this runner from Amazon for $17.99+ (available in 7 sizes, and 10 color combos).

18.

Deck out the corners on a dresser with some artful brackets.

amazon.com, Amazon

Promising review: “Easy accent to a plain dresser. Turns it into a statement piece. Love it!” —DeidreB.

Get a four-pack of these brackets from Amazon for $7.99 (available in two finishes).

20.

Reupholster old dining chairs (or new, disparate finds) for a chic look that’ll give the impression people pay you the big bucks to decorate their homes.

You thinking about all your furniture makeover projects:

Universal Media Studios

Reviews have been edited for length and/or clarity.

Looking for more stuff to help make your house a home? Check out the best places to buy inexpensive furniture online, the best places to buy couches online, cute home decor you’ll wish you knew about sooner, or check out all of our home content for even more great ideas.

Looking for the perfect gift for any occasion? Check out all of BuzzFeed’s gift guides!

Allison Krausman / BuzzFeed

The post 20 Ways To Make Old Furniture Look Fancy appeared first on Gyrlversion.

from WordPress http://www.gyrlversion.net/20-ways-to-make-old-furniture-look-fancy/

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cytaoplasm · 8 years ago

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Yeah I'll make sure to search for the tutorials. And I'd love it if you gave me a few tips! Your edits are just so aesthetically pleasing and beautiful.

Alright! (Sorry for replying you so late. Finding people to contact about north Korean defectors and regime to interview is very tiring especially when you get rejected)

Ok so anyway, my tips for you when making something aesthetic and minimalist is to:

1. Be mindful of the font and the font style:

You use serif font when you want to for a classy B&W vibe look. It doesn’t have to be necessary B&W but I think serif always look good together with B&W filter tbh.

Like the first pic in my xiumin edit:

http://daery.co.vu/post/155329179642/10pm-paradise-a-xiumin-photobook-concept

or my Baekhyun bloom edit:

http://daery.co.vu/post/152670174072/10pm-bloom-a-baekhyun-concept-photo

Time News Roman is a staple serif font you can use. I alway use Time News Roman for serif font.

But tbh nowaday I use sans-serif font more because I always like to go for a contemporary modern look for my edits. I use bold sans-serif when I want to emphasize something. I use regular sans-serif when I put in small paragraph text to complement my picture in my edit.

Also don’t space your font out way too much. I notice that some of the people edit on here kinda failed when they tried to do a similar style to mine because of how they spaced out the text out too much and doesn’t know how to pick fonts to complement each other. They also don’t know how to size texts small enough to look minimal.

My advice for you is to space on only heading font but not the paragraph font if you want to space out something. Also when you decided to use serif font, make sure to stay consistent with it especially with all the header/title font. You can use pair serif header with san-serif paragraph text too but don’t go overboard with anything other than that. But if you decided to use sans-serif, use sans-serif throughout with your edit. Don’t use serif as body paragraph text if you decide to use sans-serif title text. It just doesn’t look good together in my opinion.

If you’re editing on PS, click on the four plus arrow moving thingies on the first tab on the left then check the show transform control. Then just size your text using the shift key so it doesn’t change its form accidentally while you’re sizing it.

Also, try Lato and Arial for sans-serif text. You can use Montserrat or Helvetica for the title text. I don’t personally use that two font for paragraph because I think it looks way too weird and kinda thick. You want a font that is thin and not as noticeable for a paragraph text.

2. Photos quality and arrangement:

When looking for photos and stuff for your edit, make sure to find the best quality photos/scans. I don’t really encourage people to edit fan taken photos unless they credit the fansite and doesn’t do any major editing it in. I always like to use magazine photos because they don’t really whitewash the idol that much and I don’t have to go look and find other photos that are similar because magazine always released similar photos in a set. I also don’t have to worry about people being mad at me for “whitewashing” the idol when editing those photos because like I mentioned before, magazines doesn’t whitewash that much in my opinion.

Photos arrangement in your edits is very important. If you’re not good at arranging photos in a certain way to have texts to compliment it then your edits are going to fail (I’m talking about minimalist edits, not the pastel edits). You want people to look at the photos but you don’t want it to look too plain either. You have to arrange the photos in a way that it will capture the audience’s attention immediately and it looks good with the text you put in without the text overpowering it.

The thing about my editing style is that I like to make all of my edit pieces complement each other while making it very minimalistic. I made this possible by being mindful of the way I arrange my photos and also the space that my photos take up. I don’t know how to explain this well but if you look at my edits, they’re always in a certain pattern and very consistent with each other. That’s the key to achieving this style.

3. Colors, details, and align.

Another thing people always make a mistake of. Don’t go overboard with the details and stuff. This is not a pastel edit. This is a minimalist edit. In pastel edit, people always like to make it complex and pay extra attention to the colors and the edit. Minimalism is not that. Minimalism is all about the high-quality original photos, the arrangement of it with texts and space to complement it. For the canvas, I always like to do a pastel photo book now and then but usually, I prefer to use white canvas. If I want the photo to have a sexy vibe, I use black with a mix of white or sometimes all white. I mean colors is somewhat an important role in minimalism but there are not a lot of colors you can use you know? Don’t slap like a sudden neon green into it. Use a mute color. You can use a bold color but only when you want the viewer to pay attention to a certain detail so bold color might be a good choice if you want to catch their eyes.

Also align your text and photo equally. Don’t go all over the place. Minimalist is all about being organized and clean. Center photos if you have to.

4. Don’t copy people’s layout

I cannot stress this enough. If you were gonna copy someone’s edit layout, credit them. Sometimes, I would come across edits that look exactly like mine in term of layout but they never credit me. Just don’t be that one person that copy everyone’s style in order to get notes for your edit. It’s ok to be inspired by something and wants to apply into to your style and your edit but it’s not ok to copy someone’s layout and claim credits for it. Just be creative and think of something new. Not only will people acknowledge you as being creative but you’re also gain attention for doing something different from other people.

I used to do pastel edits (bad ones) but later on, I experiment with a lot of stuff to see what suited me. Then I found minimalism suits me the most. I then applied that style into making mockup websites and photobook inspired style edit. So be creative.

Who knows? Maybe you will be the next one to invented a new style of edit? Just keep editing and experiment. Once you found your style. All those hours of editing will be worth it.

5. Notes & Practice

I know this is hard but try not to care about the number of notes and stuff for your edit especially when you’re new to editing and still trying to find your style. The number of notes doesn’t matter in the long run. What matters is what you gained from all those time you edit. It’s hard I know and I feel you because I feel the same way too.

What I did to help me not obsessed with the number of notes is that I would set a number of notes I want my edit to reach. Once my edit stops at that certain number, I stopped reblogging it. Back then when I’m still a newbie, my edit notes goal was 200 notes. Once my edit stops at 200 notes, I moved up and keep editing. The thing about doing this is that it help me to not feel disappointed with myself if I failed to reach like idk 500 notes. As I edit more and more and become more experience, I raised the bar a little bit more (by like 2)

I noticed that some people hope that their edit will reach 1k notes but it didn’t and they would get disappointed and blame it on themselves for being a bad editor. But that’s just not the case. There’s no such thing as a bad editor. Every person is capable of being good at editing as long as they willing to spend their time and invested in practicing and learning.

Just don’t be so hard on yourself and set the bar low and slowly raise it up as you go.

That’s all I can think of right now. If you want something specific just hit my inbox up and I will help you :)) Have a nice day

#message #sarrgentblue

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couponrim · 5 years ago

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holytheoristtastemaker · 5 years ago

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The world as we know it was recently taken by storm. That storm was the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has in turn created a shortage of ventilators world wide which has led many people to foray into the world of ventilator design. There is just one problem: many people are basing their designs around the Arduino platform. While this may be good for a proof of concept, you do not want to use it for actual life support unless absolutely necessary. This is because platforms like the Arduino were designed as a platform to be used in a learning environment. They were not designed for the real time, safety-critical design that is required to build ventilators. However, there are some workarounds you can employ to adapt the platform for use in a makeshift emergency ventilator if one isn't available. In this post we will discuss real time systems and safety-critical systems. Hopefully you can use some of these principles in your own ventilator control system designs to improve their safety and reliability. Since the target audience is mainly web developers trying their hand at embedded design, I will try to make this post as self contained as possible. Join me as we dive from the browser into the realm of embedded systems design and move closer to the hardware to design our ventilators. Embedded Systems For all its usefulness a ventilator is simply an embedded system. An embedded system is a system that is designed to carry out one function and to perform it well, with high reliability and minimal user intervention. To accomplish this an embedded system consists of two components: a hardware system as well as a software component to run the hardware configuration. A classical embedded system is typically powered by a control device which generally integrates RAM, ROM, as well as a host of embedded peripherals on board to allow the system to accomplish its task. Modern embedded systems can sometimes be based around an applications processor, which may integrate a GPU, multiple CPU cores, multimedia codecs and other devices. Though applications processors can be used in embedded systems, they are mainly used in general purpose computing systems such as a smartphone. The software that runs on an embedded system is called firmware. It is called firmware because once written into ROM, it is not expected to change frequently. Components of An Embedded System Think of a ventilator. Its main purpose is to provide mechanical ventilation to keep patients alive. It performs one function and does it with a high degree of reliability, to such an extent that it can be used as a life support system. Very rarely do you find someone changing the firmware in such a device once deployed. The Hardware Component As stated previously, the embedded system has a hardware component which integrates RAM, ROM and other devices in one package. This device is called a microcontroller. There are several popular microcontrollers today. The PIC and AVR from Microchip Technology and the STM32 from STMicroelectronics are the most popular. The classic Arduino uses an AVR microcontroller at its core. Regardless of the manufacturer, the microcontroller will consist of a processor core, memory and a means to provide input and output also known as I/O. Microcontrollers also consist of memory which are divided into two categories: data memory and program memory. Data memory is memory that is used to store data that will be used by the microcontroller during run time. It is typically a few tens to a few hundred kilobytes of SRAM. Data memory is volatile and is lost when power is removed from the device. Program memory on the other hand, actually stores the memory that will be used by the microcontroller. It consists of Flash (think the memory in your USB flash drive) or FRAM (Ferroelectric RAM) and is not volatile. The size of program memory typically ranges from a few bytes to a couple of megabytes on modern systems. The Input and Output (I/O) pins on the microcontroller are what allow the device to communicate with external devices such as sensors and other chips that perform various functions such as memory expansion and even adding additional I/O to the device. A microcontroller will also integrate peripherals for performing analog to digital (A to D) and digital to analog (D to A) functionality. This is because our world is analog in nature and Analog to Digital Conversion (ADC) will convert real world data into a format our microcontroller can process. If you have a voice recorder, a microphone sensor together with a microcontroller will convert your voice into a digital format and store it. The microcontroller may also have means to perform Digital to Analog Conversion (DAC) whereby digital data can be converted into an analog format that we can utilize in the real world. In our voice recorder example, this would be applicable when you must play back your recorded voice. The stored digital information is converted to sound we can detect in our analog world. When we combine all this we get a block diagram of typical microcontroller hardware. Crude Microcontroller Block Diagram Now that we have a basic understanding of the hardware, let's look at the software component. The Software Component As great as your hardware is, without the software to control it, it just becomes as useful as a paper weight. Software in embedded systems typically fall into three basic categories: cyclic execution systems, finite state machine based systems, and systems build using a real time operating system. The difference between these three types of software systems is based on the way they handle tasks. When we speak about tasks, what we are talking about is the smallest unit of execution within your firmware. Cyclic Execution Systems A cyclic execution system works by having all the program tasks contained in an infinite loop. These systems have one main program entry point, and then the system cycles through a list of tasks. This is the simplest type of firmware design and is used for basic systems. Cyclic Execution System This system will have a program entry point which would typically configure hardware and set up systems clocks and basic bring up tasks. Once the program enters into the infinite loop, it will perform Task one, then Task two and finally Task three. Finite State Machine While the cyclic based execution system is simple and effective for most tasks, sometimes you need a little more control over program flow. When this occurs a designer may use what is known as a Finite State Machine (FSM) system. In a FSM, we can think of each task as a state the machine can be in. The FSM will have an initial state and after that each state will execute based on some conditional statement. The coin acceptor turnstile is usually used (like the hello world of state machines) to explain the concept of a state machine. "Coin Acceptor Turnstile FSM". (Source Codeless Data Structures and Algorithms by Armstrong Subero). We have a black dot which represents the initial state along with two states, locked and unlocked. The turnstile in a locked state will become unlocked once you insert a coin. Even if you push on the machine it will not unlock until you insert a coin. Once you insert a coin the machine enters into the unlocked state and will remain in that state as long as a coin a present. If you push on the turnstile while in the unlocked state, that condition will cause the machine to transition into a locked state which it will remain in until a coin is entered again. As simple as it seems, this method of modeling program tasks as states which transition based on conditions is a powerful method of embedded system firmware design. It is the method I use most often when designing my own systems. Ventilators are Real Time Systems Real Time Systems or RTS are systems which must meet strict requirements in terms of response times. In a real time system there is no room for compromise. Such systems must guarantee that they will perform an action within a given time period. Failure to perform action within a certain time may lead to loss of life or serious damage to property. This is the category of systems a ventilator falls into. When a patient requires a ventilator, it is because they cannot breathe properly and need mechanical assistance to breathe required by a ventilator. A ventilator can perform Continuous Mandatory Ventilation (CMV) which means that the patient will be required to get a minimum number of breaths from the machine guaranteed. Failure to provide the minimum number of breaths required will result in death of the patient. That means that the control electronics must be able to perform without failure. To accomplish this most real time systems will utilize what is known as a real time operating system (RTOS) to ensure that the many tasks to be performed by the device can all be performed without fail. RTOSs use a scheduler to manage tasks and limit how each task utilizes resources. The kernel would manage how each task can utilize the hardware resources based on their priority. Think of the current makeshift ventilator designs that exist. The most promising ones are built using a bag-valve resuscitator that uses motors to actuate mechanical arms that press on the bag-value resuscitator and perform the ventilator functions. However what will happen if the motor fails? Maybe we can add an infrared or ultrasonic sensor that will measure distance of the the mechanical arm from a certain point and ensure it reaches a particular distance. These sensors can also ensure that it returns to the starting point. However the main microcontroller reading those sensors needs time to process the information. What if a sensor fails? Must the microcontroller lock up waiting for sensor data? Will a failure in sensor prevent the motor from being actuated on time? To ensure each task takes place at a certain time, the scheduler will only allocate processing time to the task as designated by the system designer. That way if a sensor fails, once the time allocated to reading that sensor has passed, the microcontroller will move on to the other task of actuating the motor which will keep the system running. Using a Real Time Operating System in your design will guarantee that your device will be able to perform its function within the specified time. Ventilators are Safety Critical Systems In the previous section we discussed real time operating systems. I think we should expand our discussion a little and talk about hard real time vs soft real time systems. In hard real time systems, the requirement of operation is that it MUST happen within the specified time at all costs, and failure to meet deadlines is not acceptable. Air traffic control systems and ventilator systems fall into this category. Hard real time systems are not allowed to miss deadlines. In soft real time systems, it is preferred that deadlines are met. But if deadlines are not always met it means that it may upset the end user but may be acceptable. Think of an online gaming platform. We would like to have real time response of our games, but if you miss a few frames it will not result in loss of life. Soft real time systems are allowed to miss deadlines. Now, a lot of people mistake a real time system with a safety critical system. Not all real time systems are safety critical systems. Think of the example above with online gaming or video conferencing: such systems require real time performance but they are not safety critical in nature. What makes a safety critical system (SCS) different from a regular real time system is that failure to meet a deadline within a safety critical system will result in death or serious property loss. In a safety critical system, stoppage of the system is NOT an option. For example a high availability system real time system may be specified as having an up time of around 99% in a 24 hour period. Think about a ventilator system. Which 1% of the day is it acceptable to have the ventilator not operational? Since we have 1440 minutes in a day, which 14.4 minutes of the day should the patient not be allowed to breathe? The Arduino Platform At this stage in our discussion, I think it's best we talk about the Arduino platform for use in safety critical systems. In our discussion of embedded systems, we talked about hardware and software, however did you know that there is also the development tools component of the design process? You see, in order to put the software you have written into the microcontroller device running the hardware, you need to use development tools such as an IDE and toolchain to program the device. Setting up and using a toolchain was a painful process depending on the device you were using. Many microcontroller vendors used to provide clunky IDEs that you had to be a seasoned embedded designer to use (though this has changed in recent years). Additionally you also needed knowledge of the underlying hardware, and configuring registers and clocks can be daunting even for experienced designers. Even if you overcame these hurdles on the software side, you needed to have a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) or have experience using a breadboard to get your microcontroller running. It you did not know how to properly connect your hardware, even if your program was correct, the device would not run and troubleshooting the hardware also required some experience. In order to address the problem, the Arduino platform was introduced as a way to provide synergy between hardware, software, and development tools to allow students control hardware with ease. The Components of the Arduino Platform The Arduino provides a physical board with the chip that is in a configuration known to work along with a simple IDE with tons of libraries. This seamless integration makes a less intimidating foray for beginners looking to get into the realm of hardware design. The Problem with Using Arduino in Safety Critical Systems There is one problem: since the Arduino is so easy to use, this has led many people to use the Arduino far beyond what the platform was originally intended for, including use in real time systems. It's not recommended to use the Arduino for real time systems. Why? Some people may argue that you can use an operating system such as Amazon FreeRTOS on the Arduino and make it real time. That is true. But while the platform does become real time and it will make it high reliability, it will not make it a safety critical. What makes the Arduino not suitable for use in safety critical systems? The answer lies in abstraction and its relation to the testing and debugging capability of the platform. The Arduino is a good platform for learning, and as such it adds a lot of software abstraction to make things easy. Abstraction in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Abstraction allows for code reuse and can help eliminate bugs if used correctly. Properly tested code that abstracts away a lot of the hardware can be a powerful tool in the right hands. However abstraction does NOT eliminate bugs and there is the problem. Even if code is abstract, if it had faulty logic to begin with then abstraction will not save you. If you find a bug, usually you would rely on a debugger and software tests to help you figure out the source and improve the system reliability. Therein lies the problem. The Arduino platform has no debugging capability. Having no debugging makes bugs difficult to track. Having software that a bug free is crucial in a safety critical design. Additionally running tests on your code is not easy as the IDE is too simple for the powerful debugging and testing that is required for safety critical system design. If you have no choice you can use the Arduino for design of a ventilator system. But the lack of debugging makes it difficult to do so and increases the likelihood of bugs in your firmware, and increases the risk of failure within the system. How Can I Design a Good Makeshift System? If you must design a ventilator system there are some specific things you can do to improve your design based on the Arduino: You can improve the software design and improve the hardware design. Improving Design on the Software Side All hope is not lost. To make sure your system has reliable software consider doing the following: Consider using Another IDE - Atmel Studio is a great IDE that provides the option for debugging if you use an external debugger such as the Atmel ICE or ICD 4 debugger. Additionally MPLAB X can be used. These IDE's will assist with debugging. Adhere to a C/C++ coding standard - Using a code standard can improve your system reliability and make your system design more efficient. Consider rewriting the libraries you are using to adhere to MISRA, JSF++ or even the Barr Group's embedded C coding standard Use an RTOS - Many of the ventilator designs based on the Arduino utilize the platform as is with a cyclic execution system in place. Consider using the Amazon FreeRTOS to make your system real time. This would avoid system lockup and make your system more reliable. Consider using a Platform with Libraries that meet Safety Requirements – While not ideal for inexperienced designers, using a device that has libraries that already have existing safety requirements will help make your design more robust. For example even though our device is a makeshift medical device, using IEC 60730 requirements for Class B safety can help make your design more robust. Microchip Technology (company that makes the chip that powers the Arduino) has other devices that has libraries that meet Class B safety requirements and would aid in improving device safety. Implement Sensor Data Analytic Redundancy - When designing your device consider using sensors to ensure the device is still operational and when you do, consider using analytic redundancy methods to aid with more accurate sensor data. Consider using SAFERTOS - While it may require you to change systems SAFERTOS is pre-certified for use in medical systems and will provide a higher level of safety that the software of the Arduino platform. Improving Design on the Hardware Side You can also improve your design on the hardware side by: Consider using a Watch Dog Timer - If you don't have time to use an RTOS, a simple way to ensure your device keeps operating is to use a watchdog timer in your design. The watchdog timer ensures the device resets if a problem occurs in the execution of your code. Use a Hardware Device with Pre-existing Safety Certifications and Libraries - Some devices are better suited for the task of a ventilator design. Rather than entrust a safety critical design to an Arduino, consider using a control device that can use software that is already certified for medical device use or provides safety libraries. The SAFERTOS supported platforms is a good place to start. The Microchip Technology web page on Class B safety software is also a good place to start. Add Feedback Systems - It is not enough to have your device up and running. You also need feedback systems to ensure devices are operating as they should. Integrate sensors to provide feedback on mechanical parts that are subject to failure. Consider Distributed Hardware Control- Though many persons base their designs on a single chip consider using multiple microcontrollers in your design. Consider having one device for control and another for notifying the end user if a component is failing. Implement System Redundancy - Having a proper shutdown system with a proper transfer system is crucial for such designs. Implement a proper shutdown procedure in case the system fails as well as have a proper switch over mechanism to ensure you have a 100% up time on your system. Wrapping Up In this post we looked at embedded systems, briefly talked about their hardware and software components, and touched on firmware design paradigms. We also talked about real time systems and safety critical systems as it relates to ventilator design. Finally, we talked about how to improve the safety and reliably of your Arduino-based ventilator designs by improving the hardware and software design. By the end of this post you should have some understanding of how to enhance your makeshift Arduino ventilator system. If you wish to learn more about microcontrollers, pick up my book "Programming PIC Microcontrollers with XC8" where you will learn about the PIC microcontroller and how to program it. This microcontroller can also be used to design your ventilators and will give you a greater degree of control and debugging capability than the Arduino platform.

http://damianfallon.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-to-improve-your-arduino-ventilators_4.html

#SEO #Local SEO training

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allenmendezsr · 5 years ago

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Muscle Gaining Secrets 2.0: Skinny Guy/hardgainer Niche

New Post has been published on https://autotraffixpro.app/allenmendezsr/muscle-gaining-secrets-2-0-skinny-guy-hardgainer-niche/

Muscle Gaining Secrets 2.0: Skinny Guy/hardgainer Niche

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additionallysad · 7 years ago

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Making A Concrete Coffee Table Top https://ift.tt/2IzVEdg

Hey, good news! I finally have a place to put my feet up in the beach house living room. Or, as Sherry would state this good news: we finally have a coffee table!

And it was a DIY that was SO MUCH CHEAPER than the high end alternative, so three cheers for that. Oh and people who follow our InstaStories know we’ve switched out the rug in here for this rug since taking these pics, so there will be a post all about that (and the other dining room tweak we’ve made) coming up in a week or two. But back to the coffee table.

We’ve actually had the table base for a while, but it’s been completely topless for months. We scored this wooden octagonal table base from a neighbor who had planned on adding a top to it at some point, but after months of doing nothing with it she put it on our neighborhood buy/sell board for a whopping $7. After paying 700 pretty pennies for it, it remained topless in our garage for several months before moving to the beach house last fall (see below)… where it remained – still topless – until last month.

Our grand scheme was to get a stone top custom cut for it. Marble would look great, but we also considered more durable options like quartz. But quotes from two different stone yards – even for remnant pieces – came back between $700 – $900. I KNOW. They were MUCH higher than we expected, partially because of the size (it’s 38″ at its widest, which makes it deeper than a standard countertop by a fair amount) and the octagonal shape.

So we quickly shifted from “buying a stone top for it” to “DIYing a stone-like top for it” – and after weighing all sorts of solutions (faux stone laminate, a wood top we painted white or even tried to “marble”, etc) we landed a white concrete top that would give us a nice chunky stone look, but at a much cheaper cost. Unfortunately, the project kept getting nudged behind bigger tasks like installing the kitchen and building bunk beds. Hence why I was forced to uncomfortably prop my feet up on this edge of this puppy each time we visited. Feel bad for me, please.

We feared that a solid poured concrete slab would (a) be very heavy and (2) be very prone to cracking or breaking – especially without adding lots of extra support under the table top. Plus little kid heads + a solid hunk of concrete sounded worrisome. So instead we decided to create a wood top and then cover the wood with Ardex Feather Finish, which is a thin concrete material that we used years ago to give our laminate kitchen counters the appearance of solid concrete.

Making The Wood Coffee Table Top

We picked up a 4 x 4′ sheet of 3/4″ plywood because we wanted something sturdy enough to span the tabletop without sagging. To mark my cuts, I simply flipped the table over on top of the plywood and traced the edges with a pen. Don’t worry, I’ll show you how I made it overhang the table’s edge in a moment.

Using my circular saw outside, I trimmed off the edges to get an octagon that perfectly fit the top of our table base. No overhang. Yet.

Next I cut 8 pieces of 1 x 2″ whitewood to create a border around my cut plywood. After summoning some of my 8th-grade geometry, I determined that I needed to cut each one at a 22.5-degree angle to fit them around the octagon. But surprise-surprise, my miter saw was one step ahead of me and already had that as a preset angle.

Then, with the plywood laid on top of the base with the edges flush, I started nailing each of my 1 x 2″ pieces around the edges (into the plywood, not the table base). I put wood glue on it before I nailed, which help things hold for the long haul. Adding this border did a few helpful things:

It made the wood top slightly larger than the base, giving it a nice overhang

It made the wood top look twice as thick as it really is, without adding much more weight to it

It helped keep the top in place by making it almost like a snug shoebox top. I still screwed it to the base from underneath just to be safe.

Once it was all nailed in, I used wood putty to fill in all of my gaps and nail holes. This probably wasn’t a super critical step (I was going to coat this with a skim coat of concrete, after all) but I discovered the table isn’t a perfect octagon, so some of my corners weren’t as tight as I’d hoped. This shot is from before I sanded the excess wood filler off:

Applying The Concrete Finish

We haven’t used Ardex Feather Finish since our first project with it: our old kitchen’s laminate counters (here’s the tutorial for applying it and then sealing them to be food safe). While we decided the application was awesome for a quick makeover, they did get a little oil-stained around the stove since we used food-safe sealer as opposed to some of the more heavier duty sealers. No worries, we just added a cutting board to cover the small splatters – and we loved the imperfections and movement that was created in the application process. Definitely a whole lot better than the old plastic-y counters the house came with. Overall: we’d definitely recommend this method for a kitchen counter update – especially if you use a stronger sealer.

For the coffee table we decided to use the white Ardex instead of the standard gray color, so we tracked down a 10 pound bag online for $40. The dry Ardex mix just combines with water, so to apply it all you really need are some mixing/measuring buckets and various sized trowels to apply and smooth it. Oh, and sandpaper and a power sander (this is the one we have).

The bag suggested a 2 to 1 mix of Ardex powder to water, but I read our old post and reminded myself that I had liked a bit more water than that – it helped keep the mix looser and easier to spread. So I started by measuring one small batch at a time (I think I needed about twice this much to complete one coat).

I mixed them together using a small trowel, making sure to getting any remaining powder mixed in. I aimed for a thick pancake batter consistency – like it would sorta hold to my trowel for a moment before dripping off on its own.

Then I just scooped everything onto my table and started spreading it smooth, using larger trowels on the top and smaller ones on the edges. Note: whatever surface you’re doing this on should be sanded enough to be rough. Our plywood was already slightly textured, so I could skip this step, but if you’re doing it on the top of a piece of furniture, be sure to take a pass with low-grit sandpaper first (like 60-80 grit).

Ardex takes more than one coat (we did two this time) so my first pass was really about coverage, not smoothness. I was worried about sanding too much off during the next step, especially on the edges and corners, so I threw caution to the wind and really laid it on thick around the edge.

I gave it several hours to dry and then came back to start smoothing. The first thing I did (and my favorite part) was to use a putty knife to scrape all of the stalactites that dripped down the bottom edge. It was so satisfying and it gave us a really clean edge on the bottom.

Then I took some low-grit sandpaper (80) and went to town on the rest of the top with my palm sander. Since I knew another coat was coming after this one, I wasn’t concerned about getting it flawlessly smooth. I mostly wanted to eliminate any hard ridges that would catch clumps of Ardex during my next application.

This is what the top looked like after I sanded the first coat. Obviously, you can see lots of my trowel marks as well as little pockets where the Ardex didn’t spread completely smoothly. It’s a bit rougher than we wanted for the final product, but it was fine for a first coat.

The second coat went on in pretty much the exact same method – except I did mix the Ardex a bit thinner and I took a bit more care getting a smoother application since this would be the top one that’s seen by everyone. Plus, when I sanded it, I moved from my initial low-grit (80) sandpaper down to 120 then 220, so that the finished table was super smooth. I didn’t remember to snap any photos of the coffee table after we sanded the second coat, but took lots of them once it was sealed and finished, so if we skip ahead for a second, here’s the finished result:

Sealing The Concrete

There are lots of products out there for sealing concrete. As I mentioned, we used food safe eco-sealer on our kitchen counters, which we think might be the reason tiny little grease spatters sunk in next to the stove – but since we’re not planning to prepare food on this table, we went with something heavier duty for a nice super-durable finish this time. Our final choice? This “Wet-Look” Sealer by Behr. Sherry suggested something high-gloss, which would really mimic that glossy stone look, and we were both really happy with how it turned out. Almost a mirror-like shine – which you can sort of see in the photo above.

I just used a small foam roller to apply a thin coat along the top and all of the sides. Once it had dried for a few hours, we did a second coat (and later a third coat, just to be safe). I barely made a dent in the 1 gallon container (it was the smallest one they sold) but at least I have some on hand to do a touch-up sealing coat every year or two, just to be safe.

Once it was all fully dry, we brought it in and let it cure for a week before putting any objects on it (not that it needs that long – we just weren’t at the beach house for a week). And BOY DOES IT FEEL GOOD TO HAVE A COFFEE TABLE!

The white top breaks up the darker rug and couch nicely, and also helps tie together some of the other bright white accents like the bookshelf and the curtains.

It’s hard to tell from these photos, but although the concrete is super glossy and chunky, it still has imperfections, which is definitely part of the charm. Instead of looking like a big block of shiny plastic, it gives off that raw concrete vibe – even in the glossy white color. This next picture probably best shows a few light trowel marks. It all feels smooth to the touch, but when you look closely they’re definitely there. Again, this is some of the “interest” that we expected from the Ardex process (or at least my version of it – ha!) and for us it takes the place of the movement we would’ve gotten from a stone like marble.

Sherry and I have also discussed everything from staining the wood base a little bit darker (especially to disguise the light edges) to painting the while base a glossy white to emphasize the interesting shape of the legs. But for now I’ve argued that we should just kick up our feet and enjoy having a place to actually kick up our feet. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?

And don’t even get me started on the other furniture adjustments we’re thinking about in this room. Actually since we took these photos we’ve painted and recovered two armchairs for that wall on the right, so there’s a lot more comfy seating in here now (although we’re thinking about a few other adjustments before calling it done). But that’s a topic for another day!

P.S. Do you get our free weekly emails? We love sending bonus details, design tips, random style thoughts, and other house-related stuff. Click here to get them delivered right to your inbox. And thanks to everyone who is on the list already – Sherry loves putting them together for you each week.

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Making A Concrete Coffee Table Top appeared first on Young House Love.

#additionally sad home renovations

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beautiful-day-blog · 7 years ago

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We spent the morning in Santa Monica yesterday visiting the Museum of Flying and the Flight Observation Deck at the Santa Monica Airport. The boys had a great time seeing all the airplanes, sitting in the cockpits of two different airplanes (including the FedEx cockpit of the plane protruding from the building in the main image of this post!), trying out different seats, seeing all the airplanes and the Airport Crash Tender. After the museum we visited the flight observation deck and even found small park on the way out…this is a great morning activity in Santa Monica! If you are on a budget you can skip the museum and just visit the Flight Observation deck and picnic n’ play in the park!

The Museum has two stories of retired airplanes to peruse. The retired planes were predominantly vintage military airplanes from WWII. There are short shows set up to watch all over from airplane seats, and there is a movie theater upstairs. We didn’t see a movie in it, but its available at no extra cost.

The kids especially loved the Crash Tender:

Inside the cockpit of the FedEx Plane was their other favorite activity inside the museum (there are two real cockpits to explore)- a real cockpit with all the buttons and switches and a view of the runway:

There was a flight simulator which I am SHOCKED didn’t interest my kids…but kids just a few years older would probably LOVE THIS!!

At the front desk you can pick up an instruction sheet to get to the flight observation deck. I snapped pics of where to turn in, and the elevator you are looking for. The Flight Observation Deck is FREE…its not a part of the museum and anyone can go at no cost. There was only one older gentleman there when we went, we essentially had it all to ourselves.

You turn in at 3321-3239 Airport, and will take the glass block elevator to the 3rd Floor.

The observation deck is no frills (as to be expected for free right?)…you might want to bring a picnic blanket if you want to sit down…or if your kiddos are real plane watchers you might grab a beach chair for yourself.

Directly across the street we spotted this cute little park with TONS OF SHADE, picnic tables and a play structure. We didn’t play this time (it was lunch time and I hadn’t packed a lunch)…but we will definitely be returning this park to check it out. There is also Spitfire Grill across the street…I considered trying it but solo with two little boys is hardly worth eating lunch out LOL.

Note: I spotted a board room on the second floor of the museum- there appear to be two small meeting rooms and a larger reception room (not large…but larger than a boardroom)…it would be a cute venue for an off the beaten path business meeting, stockholder meeting, etc.

Have you been? Let me know your thoughts below!! Mama loves comments 😉

From The Museum of Flying:

The Museum is currently operating on it’s Summer hours. We are open Wednesday – Sunday 10 AM to 5 PM (last entry at 4:30 PM)

Originally established in 1974 as the Douglas Museum and Library, the Museum first opened in 1979 at 2800 Airport Avenue. The Museum was founded by Donald Douglas Jr, the second President of the Douglas Aircraft Company. The collection consisted primarily of artifacts and the ephemera of Donald Wills Douglas Sr., the Founder and President of the Douglas Aircraft Company, however the collection did not include any aircraft.

In the late 1980’s a discussion began between Donald Douglas Jr. and a local entrepreneur, David G. Price. It was agreed that a new building would be constructed on the north side of the Santa Monica Airport as the future location of the renamed Museum of Flying. The new Museum opened in 1989 with the original collection and the compliment of many vintage aircraft with an emphasis on World War II fighter aircraft.

Over the years the Museum was host to a number of special events that included annual gala events honoring the aviation and aerospace leaders, famous test pilots, and the original Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts. Other memorable events held at the Museum included a tribute to the Tuskegee Airman, a Mustang Wing’s and Wheels event, and a 60th anniversary celebration of the Battle of Britain.

In late 2002, the Museum was temporarily closed due to economic hardship. A search began for a suitable new location in a smaller building. Several potential locations and scenarios were entertained by the Museum’s Board of Directors over the next few years. Eventually in 2008, a new location was established on the south side of the Santa Monica Airport just a half a block away from the original location. In addition to the new Museum project moving forward, a plan was finalized for the long discussed concept of building a monument to the iconic Douglas DC-3 aircraft. Construction on the DC-3 Monument began in late 2008 and was completed and dedicated on the same day that the Museum signed a lease with the City of Santa Monica on March 21, 2009.

Construction began on the new Museum in early 2010 and the Museum celebrated its grand opening to the public in the new building on February 25, 2012. The Museum collection consists of the many original artifacts related to the Douglas Aircraft Company, a variety of exhibits, aviation art, and features an array of aircraft from a Wright Flyer replica to aircraft of the jet age.

Museum of Flying We spent the morning in Santa Monica yesterday visiting the Museum of Flying and the Flight Observation Deck at the Santa Monica Airport.

#Airport #children’s museum #Flight Observation Deck #kids #Los Angeles #Museum of Flying #Park #Santa Monica #Santa Monica Airport #things to do

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