#quasi bricks

[gregdotorg]

As someone who blogs regularly about random stuff I see coming through art auctions, I think I have a pretty good sense of this stuff, and personally I would just not build a private museum for the 600 things I bought in one year. I guess Kankuro Ueshima's just different that way.

[mcgnussen]

How are you taking the news about Kevin?

It hit me like a ton of bricks, even if it is not a big surprise it still hits.

Especially because I will most likely never see him irl in F1.

i have avoided talking about this because i wanted to write a long post about it, but the more i think about it, the more i feel like it's the right time for him to say goodbye to f1. so I'll keep it short and sweet, and use matt bishop's words about k-mag.

among the many drivers with whom i have worked in my long f1 career, magnussen is without doubt the most passionately besotted with racing for racing’s sake. moreover, having tried my best to cheer him up in what was for him an annus horribilis, 2015, when he was bored and frustrated in the role of mclaren’s f1 reserve driver, i fervently hope that he does not agree to take on the kind of quasi-managerial role to which komatsu has apparently alluded. let’s be blunt. kevin is an old-school racer. as i say, his racing hero is stirling moss, who retired 30 years before he was born. many times, over a coffee or a beer, i have held his rapt attention by reeling off the stories i know so well and love so much, about antonio ascari, tazio nuvolari, achille varzi, bernd rosemeyer, rudolf caracciola, b bira, alberto ascari, juan manuel fangio, stirling moss, jim clark, graham hill, jackie stewart, jochen rindt, ronnie peterson, james hunt, carlos reutemann, mario andretti, gilles villeneuve, ayrton senna, michael schumacher, mika hakkinen, and many more. he absolutely loves all that. by contrast the only aspect of 21st-century f1 that he genuinely enjoys is the bit in the cockpit, even though he has raced a podium-worthy f1 car only once, in his first ever grand prix, since when he has started 175 more, the highlights being four fifth places.

k-mag is a racing driver, not just a f1 driver. i'm tired of seeing him struggle in a car that can sometimes make it to the points, while he sacrifices so much time with his girls. i want him to retire from f1, and go dominate in another racing series that allows him more freedom to be at home as well. i don't want him to take on an advisor role, at least not if that keeps him from racing.

kevin made his f1 debut 10 years ago, and he has a podium and a pole, despite being in a backmarker car for most of his f1 career. while i will miss him during the f1 weekends, i'd be happy to cheer for him wherever he goes next. he will always be a racing driver before he's a f1 driver.

[beatcroc]

everyone saying yes is putting so much more thought into this than i did 😭

i'm standing by 'no' on the basis of like, in its normal everyday operations, absolutely the fuck not. don't get me wrong i definitely don't think it's awful or disgusting or anything, he definitely cleans well, but like there is way too much weird shit going on there to pass it off as a normal and safe regular restaurant

but yeah """"realistically"""" [for as much as the word can mean in a setting like this jfjkf] if he already went through the whole tower ordeal, a health inspection is NOT gonna be what takes him out. he definitely knows what the standards ARE for the most part; as long as he knows it's coming it wouldn't be too hard to make things presentable.

also this application of cartoon [show] logic is making me lose my mind you are trapping this man in some kind of hellish sisyphean limbo. he can't win [stress-free business ownership] and he can't lose [actually get shut down]. incredibly funny and incredibly fitting additionally for everyone talking about stress-cleaning/not wanting to be too idle bc Anxiety...you are so right you fucking get it.

[justamakeshifttorch]

posting the longer version of my previous reblog bc it was being weird and glitchy

Thoughts after watching this trailer a few times:

Are we seeing this quasi-ragtag group just getting their bearings? Or could this possibly be a glimpse into the struggle they will continually face. I've thought about this before (as im sure many have) but this trailer has me wondering again: will the lack of cohesion in the kitchen and the looming deadline to pay Cicero back cause The Bear to crumble?

We love an underdog story. We root for the characters we love to beat the odds, making the impossible possible. However, this show hasn't shied away from showcasing the way many restaurants in the area have failed. How unrelenting and unforgiving this industry is, in general. One of the restaurants Sydney went to on her "tour" shut down soon after that visit. So it isn't unrealistic to think that The Bear is being set up to be an example of putting blood sweat and tears into this industry and coming up short.

I'd hate for this to happen mostly because Sydney has already dealt with this heartache. She's already started a business from the ground up and suffered from its failure. At one point, when talking to her dad, she expresses that she doesn't think she could do this again, if she has another one in her. Her feelings are understandable. But our girl is just too good, too talented for this to be the end. Yet, I can also understand feeling burnt one too many times by an industry you thought could be a forever one.

I also want The Bear to succeed for Richie. His time at Ever showed him how he could grow and change with The Bear. He doesn't have to be stagnant. He can see his purpose. He talks about struggling with that in S2 'Beef'. I don't want the potential failure of The Bear to derail Richie's growth. If The Bear is destined to fail I want everyone to come out of it with other prospects, but I especially want Richie to continue to pursue this new purpose. Maybe at Ever. Maybe somewhere else.

As for Syd, I truly want to the world for her. If this is the end of The Bear I hope she becomes CDC (or EC) somewhere else. Maybe she's able to open up her own place (brick and mortar) down the line. I want her to get her stars because she deserves them. I want her to love going into work every day (or atleast most days like let's be realistic lol).

[formlab]

Negative quasi brick wall, Olafur Eliasson, 2003

[intothedysphoria]

Stevie absolutely hated the term faghag.

It felt outdated and misogynistic and just plain mean. Gay men were just safer than straight men and she’d never really gotten along with other straight girls. Plus, one of her best friends was a lesbian and nobody ever had anything to say about that.

But that was how people saw her. When she was walking arm in arm with Billy down the sidewalk, semi paying attention to what was going on, semi reading Heartstopper, she knew what she looked like.

Obviously she knew that fetishisation was a very real issue for gay people. Andy’s remarks about lesbian porn sneered across the classroom to Robin and Vicki, the only out lesbians in the year. The way other girls would talk about Billy like he was an accessory, not a real person. But Stevie wasn’t like that.

It was only when she watched a short film about being trans for her gender studies class that things started to change.

Billy had watched it with her, snorted slightly and called it clishe during some scenes but Stevie was rapt. There was just something about the way the young man spoke about his experiences with not fitting in and dysphoria that fascinated her.

She fell down a rabbit hole of Googling that night then quietly changed the pronouns on her Instagram bio from she/her to she/they.

Billy didn’t notice. He was too busy with getting his car fixed and drag brunch and starting arguments on Twitter to pick up on Stevie’s swiftly spiralling internal crisis.

They were enjoying an evening of yelling at Masterchef contestants, as was the norm for Tuesdays, when Stevie brought up shortening her name to Steve. She got a slightly quirked up eyebrow in response but no protests.

Steve took over their life fairly quickly. The dresses Stevie had fawned over were thrown in the trash, the hair Stevie had adored was cut into a quasi quiff and Steve’s pronouns slowly changed from they/she to they/them to he/they to he/him.

He never really came out to Billy officially. They just fell into the new friendship dynamic like a well loved sofa. Billy would buy him polos and go to the movies with him and take him to all of the clubs they used to go to but this time as a queer person himself.

It was all great. Really, it was. Steve just didn’t love the way Billy treated him now that he was out.

It was like all the closeness had been sucked out. Billy would call him bro or man not babe, they wouldn’t cuddle on the sofa anymore, hell Billy wouldn’t even sign off his texts with kisses

It fucking sucked and then the realisation that he’d always had a crush on Billy hit him like a ton of bricks. Which was not ideal.

Sure, Billy liked sex and didn’t exactly discriminate with his preferences but he didn’t do relationships. At all. Steve didn’t even know his opinion on sleeping with a trans guy. He’d be nice about it but he definitely wouldn’t.

Robin found him moping about it then dragged him out. Steve didn’t even register where they went, just that Robin was having the time of her life and he was absolutely miserable.

Billy was there of course, with his tongue stuck down some random guys throat. Ignoring the burning wish that he could switch places with said guy, Steve sunk further into the shadows until a familiar obnoxious laugh rang out next to him

“Stevie Harrington! Aren’t you meant to be clinging to Hargrove’s coattails?”

It was one of the guys who only came to Steve’s part of town for a chance with Billy, ironically enough. He rolled his eyes and stuck his earbuds in but one word still stuck out.

Tranny.

The first time he’d been called a slur and it wasn’t even by a straight person. It was by some desperate for attention twink.

Steve barely registered Billy storming up to them before he was being pulled away by Eddie, Patrick and Jonathan, fists raised.

Billys chest was heaving, face crimson as he snarled into the guys face then placed a gentle hand on Steve’s shoulder.

Steve couldn’t help himself, he subconsciously leaned into the touch, hands creeping up to Billy’s.

Their fingers linked.

And neither of them needed to say anything.

Billy was his. And Steve wasn’t letting him go.

(Not posting harringrove as frequently but I’ve had a really shit day and needed some comfort)

@shieldofiron @oopsiedaisiesbaby @robthegoodfellow @thatgirlwithasquid @dragonflylady77

[fourseasonsfigs]

Building Block Figs - Catching Light

Continuing on from the last Building Block Figs - Basking in the Sun and Building Block Figs - Beautiful Fight Scene in the Middle of the Lake, Part 1 and Part 2, we have this wonderful set.

These figs make me laugh - I love them so much! I don't know why, I just find them ridiculously charming.

This building block set is 1,544 pieces, measures 8.4 x 17.6 x 15.6 cm, and is rated 10 hours. I did indeed take all 10 hours to build this, if not a little bit more.

Here is the sales pic of what the finished product is supposed to look like:

Cute, isn't it? As usual, sellers do a much better job of setting the scene than I do. I will say, though, that I did make two little tweaks to the set to make it a bit more canon compliant. Can you spot them?

It'll be easier to tell as we get better pictures, so I'll get into it!

First, here's the box of doom bricks. Like the others, this came in a generic sales box, with a super handy little unsnapping tool, and a sticker with a black and white image of the set and QR code instructions.

Once again, you'll notice my line up of extra bricks from the previous sets hanging out in quasi-neat little rows. Originally I figured I'll leave them all out in case I ran short of any, but in reality, this set maker gives me extras of each color every time. Which is handy, as you will see for later posts, when I make some adjustments to the fig sets to make them a bit more canon compliant.

As you can see, there's a LOT of extra bricks left over. To be honest, there shouldn't be so many white bricks - those are from another set that I made a major change to. I'll post about that one tomorrow.

Here's the different order of assembly - I went ahead and started with the base and tree, as they suggest.

As you can see, this is a very beautiful terrain here. I did not remember this area being so green and flowery from the show - in fact, I remember it being kind of sandy and desolate, but my memory is pretty lousy, there might be a scattered flower or so. Let's check.

HUH. There is not a flower in sight, is there. Hmmm. Well, this is kind of gonna bother me. Maybe I should have looked up the inspiration before putting together the entire 10 hour plus set, huh! Well, the little flowers are easy enough to lever off.

Hmm, anyway, moving on (for now).

So a couple things here. First, as you can see, there are only two green colors. I mean, one normal color really - the light green here is actually a neon green. It's brighter than it looks here. It looks great here, don't get me wrong, but now all I can see is the very sandy terrain of that screenshot.

Second, I tried something a little different here. It actually takes a long time to sort all the individual bricks, so in an attempt to shave off some time, I decided to experiment with this set. As you can see, I dumped the entire bag out to the right and am just picking out individual pieces as I go.

You'll note it's now evening. This tree took a LONG time to build. I actually timed myself up to this point, and to get to this mostly-done state took 2 hours and 58 minutes. I was pushing hard, too, because I really, really wanted to get the whole tree done that evening before I went to bed. But there was no way. I was too tired and was hitting the point where it was less fun and more work. So, despite really not wanting to, I summoned my inner adult and called it a day here.

Fast forward through time to the next day, and I'm all bright eyed and ready to bust this tree out. And it's done! I like this tree a whole lot...I think they did a beautiful job modeling it. Imagine if they had the full Lego suite of colors and special pieces! It would be really something. I kind of like it this way though (although I would take more colors, I can't lie). It really has an old-school style charm.

You can see the grey rock there where Lao Wen will be propped up against. And of course, the cheerful greenery and pink and yellow flowers.

Feeling VERY accomplished, I put the tree aside, and moved on to A-Xu.

Yep, looks pretty good. I was a little surprised they picked the medium blue color instead of the dark blue color, considering how bright the dark blue color actually is. But this looks fine too.

I am going to proudly say that I did, in fact, knock this fig out in record time. I've put together two and a half A-Xu figs by now (the half is going to be explained tomorrow, I promise!), so this third one went like a breeze.

As you can see in the back, I couldn't help myself, I was starting to make a few little piles of the colors I was working on. The big messy pile of bricks was kind of a pain, and I had to keep resisting the urge to sort them out.

And here he is! All done. He has a very solemn no-expression on his little brick face, which is appropriate. Can you see how there's a little bit of a neck (nothing too saucy or anything), the thin white layer of his under-robe, and then the lighter blue layer? I love it. Very charming. We also have his black belt with a bit of the tails.

It was yet another evening by this time, but since I did manage to finish him before I went to bed, I did indeed sleep the sleep of the righteous.

I woke up even brighter eyed and with pep in my step, ready to rock this last fig out. 10 hour assembly time? I don't think so!

I had now made three Wen Kexing brick figures, so the fourth one was gonna be just as quick as A-Xu was, no doubt. I pulled up the instructions on my phone, and got ready to go. 95 steps for our battle-weary Valley Master, huh? Huh. That's kind of a lot. But considering A-Xu was 85, not too bad. The tree was 119, by the way.

As I looked at the picture, however, I noticed that they had Lao Wen's (virtually) omnipresent hair wispies here. Given that this red wedding costume is the one outfit where his hair is pulled back all the way, it kind of bugged me. Which is funny because I've never liked how he doesn't have the wispies with this hair style on the show. It's my least favorite look on him, which is too bad, because I did like how they at least mixed his hairstyles up some. In my defense, I feel like I'm right (so right!) about how much better he looks with the wispies with this hair style, because you could see it at the concert. And he looked spectacular.

Anyway. Warring between my extreme desire for him to have the wispies and the simple fact of it not being canon, I started to build.

I got the first big chunk done very quickly indeed. Many of these figs are done where you do a big piece, and then set it aside while you work separately on the next piece. This is where I was.

And that's where I stayed, for a long time. I built this piece three times. I had to completely disassemble the entire thing the first time I built it, because I was off on my brick count, and the second time I had to disassemble it down to the first third.

Part of the problem was the way the directions were. As you can see, they still have the first "set it aside" part showing up on the directions directly under the new piece. Unfortunately, all that red blended into each other when I rotated the image around, and it was very easy to accidentally think I needed more or less pieces than I actually did.

I went ahead and built it with the wispies, as directed...and then just couldn't do it. I disassembled half the head and re-built it again without them. I also think that this fig, just like Lao Wen, does not look as good without them, but canon is canon.

Unfortunately, it was so late and I was so tired by the time I finished him (and yet also pretty jubilant), that I forgot to take a pic of the finished fig! Yes, I literally finished this set late last night, despite my best intentions of finishing it up and then triumphantly posting about it on the same day. It did, in fact, take longer than the 10 hours build time.

It took a long time, in general. My finger tips have actually toughened up a bit, so they don't feel sore from snapping the bricks in place, but my neck isn't all that pleased with me from hunching over these various sets for so long. So, I've been taking a few more breaks to stretch and do other things.

But, I woke up early today, and very happily took this set's beauty pics in the clear light of the morning. I love it!

I love how this set all fits together. We have the tree growing over the edge of the base, and Lao Wen there leaning up against the rock. A-Xu is standing with his elegant posture, and their little brick hands are reaching out to each other. Cute cute cute!

Wow, this light is great. I clearly should get up early to take fig pics more often.

The tree looks great, I think (and not just because I spent hours building it!).

This is a good view of the rocks behind Lao Wen here, and his big ponytail (I do like this part of his hairstyle).

The green doesn't look so bad on the ground, I think. I'll pull off the yellow and pink flowers, and maybe make a brown patch on the corner closest to A-Xu. That'll keep it colorful but make it a bit more like the show.

A-Xu's hair looks great, as usual. You can also see how I removed the wispies on Lao Wen's hair. I'll get a close up later so you can see it better.

Shoot, not my best pic - can't really see any of the detail on A-Xu's glorious night-black hair.

There we go, now you can. Oops, I see I knocked a tiny piece out of kilter on the bottom of his hair, I'll have to fix that. But! Here you can see both changes I made from the instructions - the lack of wispies of course, and then I made Lao Wen's guan gold instead of white. This took a while too, because I didn't have enough yellow pieces. The only yellow I had from any of the sets was literally from the yellow flowers here and the few extra they gave me of it. I actually pulled a few yellow flowers off the base there and replaced them with green or pink, just because I needed them for his guan. I then also carefully checked to see what internal yellow bricks were covered up by the black of his hair, and replaced them with black so I could save the yellow ones for the parts that did show. I'm very happy with how it turned out! It looks just like the white one, except, you know, yellow.

I don't know why they didn't originally design it with yellow, given that it is gold on the show, and they had already included yellow bricks with this kit. Maybe they felt the white stood out more or something. Anyway, it was bothering me it was white, so I'm glad I was able to figure out a way to make it work.

Alright, we're back around! And a bit of a different angle here, so you can see the poses a little bit more clearly.

Alright, a true top-down pic here. May I just say one more time how much I like this tree! The detail in A-Xu's guan is really nice too.

The bottoms-up pics are always tough here with the bases. Not a flattering picture, sorry A-Xu!

A close up of our noble shixiong with his little hand outstretched...

...and our weary shidi. What a great set, I love it! I'm so delighted by it, I can't even tell you.

Alright! come back tomorrow, for the much hinted at next set. And the last one, for a while - I have to wait for the remaining sets to be sent to me.

(Come back tomorrow, she says, as she still has some assembly on the last fig to do! I'll wake up bright and early tomorrow, and hopefully finish up).

Material: Plastic bricks

Fig Count: 506

Scene Count: 35

Rating: They're actually both reaching for their light

[link to the Master Post Index]

[mellori]

More Jod Bullshit

Oh hey, anybody notice how when Harrow confesses to Jod that she broke into the tomb that “somebody else helped me build it” is the absolute worst possible argument for “I know for a fact there’s only one way to get in there”.

And it’s Anastasia! He killed her cavalier right in front of her. She’s literally the worst possible person for him to pick as a partner for such a personally sensitive construction project. There’s just no way John “there’s no such thing as forgiveness” Gaius could ever trust her with something so crucially important to him after that.

So why does he say that?

He’s doing the same thing he did when Harrow confronted him about *cough* Ortus the First *cough* and his constant murder attempts where he neglects to mention that the person who ‘convinced’ Ortus that Harrow was a threat to his life is, in fact, himself and that he absolutely could call him off at any time.

He’s saying something that is true - because he has to be a good person, and good people tell the truth. If Harrow doesn’t understanding what he means, then that must be her fault, it couldn't possibly be his.

When he says “I built that tomb with Anastasia” he wants Harrow to hear “the quasi-mythical founder of your cult helped me build the tomb” so that her fanaticism will lead her to ‘realize’ it’s impossible to break into it. But that’s not what he means.

He doesn't mean with as in together, he means with as in out of.

Anastasia couldn’t bypass the blood ward, she’s not his daughter and she didn’t have his blood. At least I don’t think there’s any indication anywhere in the text of either possibility being true.

So how are her bones inside of the tomb at the end of Nona the Ninth?

Because Jod put her there. She’s the lock on the door, ready to roll the rock back should anybody ever manage to do the impossible and make it inside.

What he’s actually saying is “I knew I couldn’t trust her anymore, so I made her into bricks and mortar before she could betray me and sneak in a back door while I wasn't looking.”

[direwombat]

Hey! What's the The Horror and The Wild about? 👀

@marivenah and @cassietrn also asked for this (thank you~~!)

The Horror and the Wild!!!! the sybeli to jakesyb werewolf au! chapter 1 is on ao3!!!

a quasi/modern little red riding hood and assorted fairytales creature feature au of a fic. syb (little red riding hood...ish) and eli (the huntsman/werewolf hunter) are a couple but syb doesn't know about the existence of werewolves. after taking a wrong turn while going to check up on chad (one of eli's (werewolf) hunting buddies), syb accidentally ends up at the veterans center, and of course, the local werewolf and mountain man decides that after a single interaction she must be his Mate and he has to turn her and steal her away from eli

here's a brief dialogue exchange from Act II: Incubation, after syb chases jacob down (using her newfound werewolf senses) and she slams him face first against a wall:

“The fuck did you do to me?” Sybille growls, giving [Jacob’s] arm a harsh twist behind his back for good measure.  “Nothing,” he grunts, but even with a cheek pressed against the rough brick-face of the building, he manages a smug grin. Those too-sharp, too-white teeth flash, and the spot on her shoulder where they once pierced her skin prickles hotly. “Just gave nature a little push, that’s all.”

[bestworstcase]

I'm sorry if you're not familiar with the RWBY game Grimm Eclipse but I was wondering how you imagine Salem interacting with the games antagonist Dr Merlot if they ever met.

not only have i played grimm eclipse this specific question is something i have spent a normal amount of time thinking about. although i am going to be brief (<- actually) because i may or may not have Plans™ for him

(with the asterisk here that my feeling on grimm eclipse generally is that it has interesting ideas but is also fundamentally and to its detriment a video game uninterested in worldbuilding and most of this thinking has been in the context of picking the things i like out of the broader framework of “toxic slime mutates grimm into grimmier grimm” and amalgamating those bits and pieces more thoroughly with the text being alluded to, which is to say that in my head dr. merlot isn’t trying to make bigger and badder grimm he is trying to make people, dr. moreau animal vivisection style. i have to shout out jeff williams for giving me a solid leg to stand on here bc lusus naturae Gets It.)

grimm eclipse is really interesting in this regard because i do not remotely get the sense that merlot even knows of salem, let alone knowing her personally—contrast it against V1-2 and the dearth of subtle hints toward her existence is very noticeable. so on the one hand we have an actual immortal quasi-divine grimm lady, and on the other a mad scientist trying to transform the grimm into sapient beings primarily to feed his own god complex. the grimm lady despises her creators and has dedicated untold millions of years to getting rid of them forever; the mad scientist sees the grimm as mindless raw material that he is sculpting in order to ‘perfect’ it and be worshiped by it for doing so; and, importantly, the common perception that grimm are mindless beings (or at best acquire a crude sort of intelligence over centuries if they survive long enough) does not seem to be accurate at all, as we’ve seen even very young grimm exhibiting emotion and individuality as well as coordinating with each other and even using tools (<- bricks my beloved).

i think there is a fundamental incompatibility here. i think salem would find merlot’s quest to twist grimm nature into a vehicle for self-aggrandizement repulsive, and i think merlot would both take her existence as living proof of his own rightness (that the grimm can be remade into “higher beings”) and want to subjugate her (because he styles himself as god to the grimm). it is difficult for me to imagine a scenario where they come face-to-face that doesn’t end with merlot a messy smear on the floor unless he does a very good job of masking his true ambitions—which isn’t impossible, given that merlot industries seems to have been a well-regarded corporation prior to the destruction of mountain glenn. (that he knows ozpin socially/professionally well enough to call him oz is also suggestive—while ozpin’s opinion of him now is obviously quite poor, there’s grounds to think they were on friendly terms at one point, prior to the destruction of mountain glenn and subsequent discoveries of what merlot industries had been doing.)

[maraeffect]

really long quasi -spiritual post below cut

i just got this sharp, weird, specific ache in my chest seeing a cute little art about good days... wtf....i always get these weird flashes of this place that feels very familiar and bittersweet, but idk where it's from. and i think i just unlocked a different flash after like 6-8 months. i think what i'm seeing flashes of are images of the life i idealized for myself; from an amalgamation of daydreams and things i saw elsewhere that were beautiful and sweet to me.

idk what the images mean. i still don't know where they're from. one is just me standing in a snowy street in the middle of the night. there's huge trees lining each side of the road. i think maybe it's from a memory in Asheville as a child? on our way back home.

tonight what the new one was a flash from inside a car, that was driving through a historic/brick town district in the snow. the wipers were going to get the snow off the windshield. idk why, but i instantly felt so....sad. in the image i felt like things were calm for me. like there was a life there that i'd always dreamed of, where everything came easily and things were always beautiful. and then i snapped back to real life and felt so, so sad.

i'm not ever going to have these memories or flashes in time back to myself. i can hardly remember them anyway. but it feels like at some point, my life took a very sharp turn away from the things i had dreamt about. and that some ghost of me, in some alternate universe, might still be living life on that pathway. and they get to experience the version of my life that wasn't so traumatic. idk. as much as the images are so beautiful, and interesting. they hurt just as bad or worse when i realize that they're never going to come back for me.

[mundagenta]

Knock knock, KaiOS.

The ephemeral taste of innovating nearly obsolete bricks might be reaching its inevitable demise.

Nokia 8110 4G displayed in a kiosk at Mobile World Congress 2018. Image courtesy of Kārlis Dambrāns.

Despite the recent boom of feature phone sales over digital minimalism and dopamine detox trends, the future for KaiOS remains bleak as they fail to be consistent with their promises, thus miserably lagging against established giants in the market.

The good start

KaiOS is a partially open-source operating system developed by the Hong Kong-based company, KaiOS Technologies Inc. It was initially released in October 2017 and was forked from Boot 2 Gecko. Their name is from the Chinese for open – 开 (kāi) which “captures the idea of being inclusive.”

In just one year, they have overtaken Apple’s iOS as the second most popular operating system in India, with Android remaining on top, despite losing their 9% market share. In that same timeframe as well, they managed to sell around 450 million devices worldwide. Furthermore, their platform is compatible to WhatsApp, Twitter, YouTube, Google Maps, and Google Assistant.

To oversimplify things, KaiOS took the Boot 2 Gecko code (based from FirefoxOS) and modified it to run on hardware similar to that of feature phones and added the KaiOS Store. Other than that, they also implemented recent innovations that are becoming today’s standard, like 4G LTE and 5G, GPS, and Wi-Fi. By doing so, they effectively just created a separate phone segment, which some people call as the quasi-smartphones or smart feature phones.

KaiOS specifically chose the hardware present in their devices for an appealing approach to developing markets, like India and Pakistan, to bridge the digital divide and bring cheaper internet access. They removed the touch screen which they consider as the most costly part of the device, and replaced it with a cheaper T9 keypad input. Additionally, their devices only need 256MB to work and are also compatible with cost-efficient Spreadtrum chipsets.

What went wrong

By doing so, they effectively avoided the mistakes that Mozilla made. They chose a target audience first and offered them a product. They made an operating system out of the web but used that as a tool rather than the end goal, the latter being their approach to the digital divide. But not all products are perfect on their own, as their approach is a double-edged sword.

The T9 keypad meant that the apps had to be optimized to work on such inputs. Likewise, dissimilar to FirefoxOS, not all webpages can run on KaiOS devices due to hardware restraints. Such disadvantages make it an appealing short-term solution while their users save up for better entry-level Android devices.

Platform immaturity

The platform is still quite immature, despite five years since its initial launch. Some users claimed that their devices sometimes cannot receive calls, and crashes on related functions constantly. The battery also does not live up to its expectations and provides a ‘disappointing’ performance. Additionally, the calendar’s sync and date functionality is unstable, the alarm clock doesn’t ring from time to time, and the lack of note-taking, file browsing, multitasking, and wide audio format support. Besides, the platform lacked proper app quality control, bug reports, and feedback system, along with a slew of advertisements. Perhaps, the most lambasted functionality of the platform is the T9 input. Users characterized the input as slow and unreliable, thus ineffective for efficient user interface navigation. The predictive text input, which might sound good, is something they’d rather have disabled due to its restraints such as inaccurate suggestions and buggy input.

Some have mentioned that users may be over-estimating KaiOS and pitching it against smartphone platforms. Then on, we can’t deny that a platform still has to be stable and reliable, albeit hardware-restricted. Some went on to compare the system to its older counterparts such as Nokia’s Series 40, Microsoft’s Lumia, Vodafone’s MobiWire, and Blackberry’s Blackberry 10, which the users characterized as more ‘stable.’

Unfortunately, version 2.5.4 onwards faced a downward trend as certain apps were no longer maintained and supported, due to the decrease of development activity. For instance, the optimized Google and YouTube apps have been pulled out from the app store, around the same time as the update. In version 3, WhatsApp support has already been dropped and new app submissions to the store also plummeted. Google Assistant, the primary tool for users to voice type and issue commands (albeit stripped-down in comparison to Android), also dropped KaiOS support last June 30, 2021. Some users reached out to the company regarding this matter, to which they replied that they are developing an in-house voice assistant alternative. Until now, it is nowhere near worldwide coverage, given the limited devices it was shipped upon.

The company and its partners

Even more worse, the problem rests beyond that. The project development of has been consistent enough until the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the company’s blog statement “the growth was still not like how we achieved in the pre-COVID times, but these numbers and new partnerships are going up and in the right direction in this second year of the pandemic.”

In 2022, the project updates has since then plummeted. There weren’t any major announcements across all their social media platforms, even from the company website. Their Github repositories are no exception as well, as they still haven’t received any commits until now. Their only active repo is the gecko-b2g, which serves as the operating system base.

It is not implicit that their users are complaining about the bugs and speculating on the project’s downfall but it seems that they have no proper public relations and customer support as the company fails to actively respond to these messages.

Nokia

Nokia, or should we say, HMD Global has been a primary partner of KaiOS Technologies over the years. They manufactured the higher-end devices of the platform that were considerably the most popular in KaiOS’ lineup, such as the Nokia 6300 4G, Nokia 2780 Flip, and the Nokia 8110 4G.

Regardless, their approach is somehow vague as enthusiasts are confused over what their target audience is supposed to be, and what were they trying in the first place. Their approach started with the reboot of their classic devices, so it’s safe to assume that their target consumers are the ones who are nostalgic over their retro bricks. HMD, for a matter of fact, might have just been the worst example of a KaiOS partner.

Their devices are the most expensive ones of the platform, almost close to the entry-level Android Go smartphones. HMD Global has also been long criticized over the failure to deliver software updates from KaiOS to their devices, as they provide only about a year of support for these. The users also cannot help to complain over the significant bloatware present in such a limited hardware they provide.

Just recently, HMD Global took a step back from this approach and cherished their barebones Series 30 and Series 30+ platforms once again. Their last KaiOS device is the 2780 Flip from November 2022 and was then on followed by a series of Android Go and dumbphones from their C and 1xx series. In a reply to a user inquiry, they reportedly blamed KaiOS as the Google Assistant support for the platform was dropped.

Alcatel and TCL

Alcatel and TCL are also major partners of KaiOS. In fact, TCL Corporation is the largest shareholder of KaiOS Technologies. Both of them are popular for their Go Flip line. Despite the successes of Go Flip 1, 2, 3, and V, they didn’t get to experience the luxury of getting updated to the latest version of the OS, unlike the Go Flip 4. A user reached out to the company, to which they replied that they are still planning to serve these said updates to such devices, although there is still no update to talk of until now. 

Unfortunately, similar to HMD Global, they seem to be diverging away from the platform as recent releases from both manufacturers are focused on midrange to high-end Android devices, as well as the Tab series of TCL.

Jio

The Indian telecommunications company, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited is the catalyst of KaiOS’ takeover against Apple in the country, all thanks to their aggressive marketing approach. They offered the competitively priced JioPhone for free to their users who are subscribed to their data plans.

Unluckily, even Jio is also straying away from KaiOS. There have been rumors that the JioPhone and the JioPhone 2 have been discontinued, as they are no longer sold. They last received the version 0258 update back on May 22, 2021, and clearly missed version 3.0 by a long shot. On June 24, 2021, Reliance Jio announced the JioPhone Next, a budget Android Go smartphone made in collaboration with Google. Recently this year, they partnered with Karbonn to release the Jio Bharat K1 Karbonn and V2 to provide access to UPI payments, Jio ecosystem, and cheaper 4G to the rural areas of India that remain untapped by recent advancements in technology.

What happened?

Fast forward to August 2023, users speculate that the project has already died out due to lack of activity and stagnation since the release of 3.0. Their company's social media platforms are inactive, except for the usual, seemingly AI-generated content every national holiday across countries. On the other hand, KaiOS Technologies partnered with the cybersecurity firm Trustonic to expand their device affordability efforts in Africa. There have also been infrequent new device releases for the platform, such as the AT&T Cingular Flex in February, Cricket Debut Flex in June, and Logan Technology’s Panita this August. Truth be told, I find this section rather short and lacking. Unfortunately, I could say the same for the company’s recent efforts. Nonetheless, I hope that things eventually get better. As users worldwide expected a reliable feature phone platform, all these issues contributed to a downward trend of interest for KaiOS. It seems that they might end up like FirefoxOS, failing to keep up and desolate in the past. Whether they wake up to innovate again, or continue dormant and inevitably die out is up for them to decide.

For now, one thing’s for sure, if they fail to address these issues, they’ll be no better than the obsolete bricks of the bygone era.

[lostaff]

Mio caro Tumblr,

Mamma mia. Tutte queste reazioni che fluttuano nell'aria della dash mi fanno sentire un po' agitato. Sono dannatamente inebrianti!

Mentre ve lo dico, sono sopraffatto dal dolce profumo del successo… Sapete, di solito non sono un ragazzo emotivo. Vengo da una lunga stirpe di Bricks e siamo orgogliosi di essere, beh, Bricks. Ma accidenti, sto quasi per piangere per la bellezza dell'arcobaleno di reazioni che vedo davanti a me. Probabilmente avrei dovuto includere un 🌈 come reazione!

Potrebbe davvero accadere? Che lancio un nuovo prodotto e che non si chiuda entro un giorno, rimandandomi subito in esilio a Clawland dove atterro sulle mie innominabili con un forte THUMP?! È qualcosa di cui posso davvero, veramente essere orgoglioso?!??

Signore e signori, non so cosa dire…

Ma so cosa VENDERE!

Prendete i vostri MERCHANDISE delle Reazioni astratte proprio qui, all'Emporium! Il mio fedele vice Roberd ha preparato una serie di [toppe/adesivi/spille] assolutamente strepitosi basati sulla serie di reazioni, dichiaratamente incompleta, di cui vi siete deliziati per tutto il giorno.

Solo per un periodo di tempo limitato, potete reagire alle cose NELLA VITA REALE! Allora, cosa state aspettando? C'è un nuovo pulsante da cliccare e dice ACQUISTA ORA!

Il vostro reattivamente,

Brick Wartley Chief Reactions Officer Chief Officer of Merchandising and Physical Engineering (in congedo)

[thefvrious]

@ghostsxagain didn't ask for this, either.

Twenty-three years and some change he'd spent in a single cell without a window. Nothing but white cinder block walls and cement floors to stare at; nothing to do but read or write or draw to keep himself out of his head. He was no longer the boy he was when he'd shown up for his first day at prison, but it hadn't completely worn him down, either.

Everything that belonged to him that he actually wanted to keep fit in one box, the rest he trashed on his way out of his pristine cell. He gave it a forlorn look -- uncertain of how his life was going to unfold outside of this place. He'd spent half his life behind bars, what was he going to do with his new relative freedom? He wasn't certain, but he was terrified.

The process of making it all the way out of the prison was obnoxious, and Dawson was handed a box full of letters that never got delivered. He stacked it on top of his other box and accepted back his belongings from when he'd been brought in. "All this shit is useless." He said with a laugh to the CO, signing that everything was there -- including the three bucks and some change in his snap wallet with the chain. Were those still cool?

Heading out into the sunshine in a plain white t-shirt and some poor sucker's old Levis, Dawson half-expected to have to walk to some public transport and use his three bucks for a ticket as far as it would take him. What he wasn't expecting was a quasi-familiar face in the parking lot with a young man standing right next to him who looked an awful lot like Dawson himself.

Pausing in his steps, it hit him like a ton of bricks when he was mere feet from the two of them. His gaze wandered over Jules' face then the stranger's, and dropped the boxes, briskly walked forward, and wrapped up Jules in a suffocating embrace that lifted the smaller man straight off his feet. "You look incredible." He said, he'd heard about trans-people and had figured out some time ago that his ex-partner probably fit into that category. He'd spent a lot of years wondering what Jules got up to.

It was difficult to let Jules go, especially since it meant he'd have to face whatever truth was right beside them. He turned his head a little, looking at the young man right in the face. Everything about him screamed young Dawson with very few pieces of Jules intermixed. "Is this... is he...?" He couldn't even get it out, just fumbled, looking at Jules again.

[journeytothecenterofmyminduk]

BIANCA PEDRINA ‘Desired Lines’ @kluckyland_dnalykculk Vienna Bianca Pedrina strolls through cities like Brno, Basel, Glasgow, Siena or Vienna, letting her gaze wander and stopping where no one else would look. Behind the surface of the façades, she sees oddities that do not fit into the perfect picture: a wall light on an antique replica, window openings that have been bricked up and rebuilt, glue residue on historic marble façades, a handprint on a sandstone column - all absurd or incongruous structural details, if one sets standards for "correct" architectural execution. In Pedrina's artistic practice, these moments represent set pieces of a parallel reality that develops away from the logic of bureaucratic planning somewhere in the open space between wild appropriation and misconduct. Her documentary photographs reflect these observations detached from their context as pars pro toto of an entire system. They subtly point to inadequacies in architecture and in doing so raise many questions, not only those that directly concern the efficiency of building processes, but also questions related to economic, ecological and social conditions of urban space. What does it mean when instrumental reason no longer takes hold and quasi-autonomous actions are left free to leave traces in the cityscape? Desire Lines or Desire Paths are self-authorised paths in public space that express shortcuts or "materialisations of needs" (Pedrina) of very different people (or animals). Thus, the "irregularities" that are uncovered are also due to various motivations: be it inability or the need to intervene in a construction process in a self-defined way or simply a faulty execution. The result, however, always marks a weak point, something that was not intended and which discreetly upsets the cityscape. Excerpt from text by Patricia Grzonka (en Vienna, Austria) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn6ZaB5o32L/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[fourseasonsfigs]

Happy Birthday Swiss Rolls

My friends, if you have been following this blog, you may recall my dismay at the Gong Jun figs in the shape of Swiss roll desserts. Or rather, just Junjun's head poking out of the rolled up pastries.

You may also happen to recall me mentioning I was inadvertently overexposed to ghost stories (illustrated ghost stories) as a very young, impressionable child, and as a result it's a little unnerving to me to have disembodied heads or limbs just floating around. Some things just kind of stick with you, you know?

So you might be asking, why would anyone go ahead and spend their hard-earned money on things that kinda wig them out?

Well, my much more intelligent and thoughtful figthusiast friends, that's a great question. I can only say my quasi-obsessive completionist fig tendencies combined with the seller unloading her excess stock together with the sheer ease of simply clicking on "add to cart" created a perfect opportunity to leave myself to regret things later.

And if I happen to be regretting any certain life choices, well, as they say, sometimes your choices may serve as a warning to others.

These figs were sold separately, so per my own rules I should post them one at a time, but I only have it in me to do one post of these and move on with my life! So here we go.

The inspiration for the green Vegetable Roll, as it is called, is the cabbage dog from Gong Jun's post:

The inspiration for the blue Jun Roll is of course the sunhat from Go Fighting Season 8!

Which is of course my excuse for one of my favorite pictures of him! I love this one.

But maybe a few more pics before we have to dive into the figs...

Ahhh I feel fortified. Ok, let's brace ourselves and get this done, shall we?

So these are clearly resin, because they're snuggly packed in a custom polystyrene box. Normally I pay a little bit extra to bubble wrap resin figs to protect them on the long ocean voyage to the US. For these, well, I decided I'd leave it up to fate if they made it or not.

Oh, they made it just fine, gentle reader. And no wonder - they're as solid as bricks. I could probably use this as a self defense weapon. These will probably survive a major natural disaster.

Wow. What the heck. I'm not sure this fig needs any commentary, so I'll just drop the roll of pics here...

Ok, that's Swiss roll one down. They're not poorly done or anything, they're just...something. I'd say something like, who thinks of this concept?!?! but artists are artists, after all, they're bound to be creative. The more relevant question is, who buys this concept??!

Yep, it's me. I will say I wasn't even drinking when I bought them. I thought, well, if I was ever curious about these or wanted to complete my collection, now is the time since I'm certainly not going to pay Xianyu pricing for them.

I mean, I would take a drink now, that's all I'm saying. But in the meantime, I'm just gonna keep grimly forging ahead.

I kind of like that this is actually more swiss-roll like - you can see where the sponge cake is kind of wrapped. It's curious it's not like that on the other one. Maybe the other one is like some other variety of the swiss roll.

They are immensely heavy and very, very solid. They would make excellent paperweights or even bookends because they're so solid.

For context, here they are with a regular sized fig. The Swiss roll might be the same size in terms of relative height, but the gigantic disembodied face and of course the sheer solid mass makes these feel very big on the shelf up with the rest of the figs.

Yep, these are from the Happy Birthday dessert collection.

Never have I blown through a fig post as fast as this one. No lingering over the figs here!

Material: Resin and some childhood heebie jeebies

Fig Count: 317

Scene Count: 23

Rating: Aiya wo de tian ah

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]