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not-the-conversation-starter · 2 months ago

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The Death Of A Website.

tl;dr click source to see an AU of my blog.

As many of you may not have heard, Cohost has gone read only. The website infamous for "Zero Discoverability" and its users "Not Being Funny." Servers will close down at the end of 2024, if not earlier, being backed up on the Internet Archive before that. Since their user counts were still low after 2 years (about half of all sign ups ever were from people evacuating twitter, which then didn't know how to use the site so most left almost immediately. Kind of hilarious) they didn't feel like anymore money bleeding OR the fact that a staff of only four people being on call 24/7 was worth it anymore.

However,

the people who DID use the site loved it. And they did some genuinely cool things on it, far cooler than anything I ever saw even in the glory days of Tumblr. You know, like Finn and Jake hi-fiving between 2 posts. Stuff like a playable maze, or a fully navigable 3d room you move around in with your mouse entirely within a post. They really did some cool stuff.

There were also a ton of really talented people, people like the composer Lena Raine(Celeste/Minecraft) who loved the site because you could just. Actually talk to people on it! Without an algorithm to boost their posts, the only people who saw it were genuinely looking for it.

Also some of them were just good posters, we did get Pikmin 18 billion and eleven from Cohost after all.

The point is, I think if anyone outside of Cohost actually knew what was being done on Cohost, it would of succeeded. There would of been enough active users for them to invest more. If I knew about all of this I would of been there way more!

But rather than just you blindly believing me, I decided to spend (almost) every hour I would of on Tumblr, on Cohost instead. Clicking that link, or the source, or the link on the source above in the tl;dr, will take you to my Cohost blog. At least while it's still read-only.

You should check it out. I reblogged a lot, but the first page or 2 (every 20 posts, I kept trying to stop but I got sentimental and reblogged more) is pretty much just people's last posts. I'd say give it 3 pages to see if you're interested or not in exploring more of what the website has to offer.

If you've ever wondered what people would post on a dying website,

If you ever wondered what some of the best posts people were making on Cohost that got shared again in its last dying moments were,

If you want some reference for what inside jokes would look like to an outsider,

If you're just bored and need something to scroll through,

if you ever wondered what I would of reblogged on that website if I remembered my password easily enough to log back in easily...

You could think of my blog as a small encapsulation of a small website. There's only 60 pages, including the ones from before the announcement from me just rarely using the site!

I reblogged all kinds of posts. Goodbyes, sarcastic hellos, mourning, long speeches about the spirit of Cohost set to sad music, nothing burgers, inside jokes I didn't understand, The New Garfield, posts I flat out didn't read past the title because they were too long and I just wanted to move on really there's a lot of posts to archive, CSS crimes, stuff I found funny, "Where to find me" and webrings and website posts for people I never knew, Love Honk, reviews for movies and games I never intend to play or watch, 88x31 buttons, music recommendations and history, entire games, signing up for RSS feeds, asks and answers related to other stuff I didn't share on accident, regular memes, Intern Secretary Eggbug, a post that's just an image hosted off-site so it'll update even after readonly, and so on.

(Nothing overtly NSFW. Tag search still works if you want that)

One that I, personally, am sad is gone. That I'm glad I got to see at least in its dying days. That I genuinely hope someone makes another attempt at creating.

#Cohost #The Death Of A Website #The Global Cohost Feed #<- there was no algorithm or 'new' section so a lot of people just tagged everything with this to do that. Kind of funny tbh #yes btw the 4 people also handled all of the site moderation. This did in fact cause: problems sometimes #if it's not read only by the time this scheduled post goes up uhhhh. Go Hog Wild I Guess.#I would go through people's blogs and random tags whenever my following tab dried up #so post type can get kind of clumpy sometimes. Feel free to skip forward or back pages if that ever gets annoying.#If you genuinely want to buy Cohost go make them an offer it is absolutely for sale btw.#The Cohost Global Feed #I definitely did not mix it up and am just being thorough

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ooops-i-arted · 3 years ago

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I really really wanna cosplay Din Djarin

I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I love costumes and costume making and it’s been so long since I had a project. And I’ve dressed up as all my other faves so why not Din too?

Tbh I’m really intimidated by the armor + have a thing about “it has to be made by me or it doesn’t count” stuck in my brain. But the idea won’t let go, I really wanna do it, and I think it will be a fun challenge, especially now that I’ve done more research on my options. Looks like foam patterns are out there as well as premade 3D printed pieces. I honestly have zero interest in doing all the careful cutting and trimming and so on with foam, and I’m not convinced foam would be super sturdy, so I’m leaning towards 3D printed, since I will still get to finish/sand/paint it myself. And for the helmet I have the Black Series helmet as an option too, though that then becomes an issue of matching color to it. But I find from drawing them that Mando T-visors look “off” from the slightest imperfection so that worries me!

Damn there’s a lot of pieces to this when I broke it down though.

I found this pattern which looks to be really good for all the soft parts. And I’m not opposed to making parts of say, the boot decorations or belt out of foam or pleather, I just don’t really want to fiddle with and glue up a whole foam armor set.

And I can just pick and choose which accessories I want and still be accurate. The rifle ammo cylinder things are obviously a requirement, and I already have multiple options of Grogus, so I can play around with the rest. (I didn’t include the spear because sorry, the amban rifle is WAY cooler than a pointed stick and I know which one I’d want to have with my cosplay!)

Pros:

I get to dress up as Din Djarin!

I do enjoy a challenge and this will be something new and exciting and different to try

Having a long project to work on is good for my brain

I could rig up a baby carrier customized to fit all my Baby Yodas and have a 101 Yoditos version of Din

I am transferring to another site to teach with summers off. And I would really like to actually go to conventions once the plague is over and would LOVE to show off lol, and could with more time off. So it’s not like I’ll just wear it once.

Cons

My most very, very, very conservative estimate is that this will cost at least $500. Probably more. Which cosplay is an expensive hobby but I was raised in a family of savers and I still wince looking at that. I could swing it especially doing it gradually but still. Wince.

I have no access to a 3D printer so I can’t use files, so that option is closed to me

Potentially hot and clunky and maybe difficult to pee in. Although I planned from the start to make the flightsuit two pieces for peeing purposes. (Having to use a movie theater bathroom in this was life-changing, man.)

Tl;dr I’ve pretty much already decided I’m gonna, but I’m a little intimidated by all the options and feel a bit out of my depth. I would appreciate any thoughts y’all have. Especially on armor options (handling 3D printing stuff, foam versus 3D, should I invest in the Black Series helmet or get a 3D printed one, etc.)

#the mandalorian #the mandalorian cosplay #din djarin #cosplay #star wars cosplay #din djarin cosplay

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hopefulfestivaltastemaker · 4 years ago

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September 13, 2020

My weekly roundup of things I am working on. Topics include wildfires, exotic energy sources, speculative energy sources, the Biden housing plan, and creative outlets.

Wildfires in Oregon

Oregon, along with the rest of the West Coast, has been in the news for devastating wildfires that are still ongoing. This is certainly the worst I have experienced, much worse that the 2017 fires in California. Both Oregon and California are having their worst seasons on record.

In Oregon, it started last Monday, when a strong (and unseasonably early) east wind came over an already dry state, drying the air further and spreading fires rapidly. The Portland metro area experienced sporadic bad air quality on Monday and Tuesday, and it has been consistently bad since Wednesday. Today is no noticeable improvement. The weather forecast is for clouds on Monday and some rain on Tuesday, which should finally bring about some improvement.

So far there have been dozens of deaths in the West and several dozen more people unaccounted for and significant property damage. My guess is that most of the damage will be harder to see: the impact of the poor air quality on people who are already vulnerable. These events bring about yet more disruption in a region that has already been reeling from the pandemic, economic hardship, and civil unrest.

I made a facetious remark on Twitter about solar radiation management, but I really have been struck at how much the weather has cooled down. The temperature is at least 20 degrees (F) cooler than it should have been, due to soot particles reflecting sunlight. In my neighborhood, the light-sensitive streetlights are on during the day. I can look directly at the Sun without hurting my eyes. Needless to say, I will need to be convinced that any solar radiation management scheme will not significantly harm air quality before I will believe it’s a good idea.

If anyone is actually reading this, I would implore you not to use the fires merely as a talking point for your pet climate policy. This is something that irritates me greatly. In the immediate term, we need relief and a stronger firefighting force. In the medium term, we need better forest management practices. Greenhouse gas mitigation helps only marginally in the long term. Don’t try to tell me that building a bike lane in New York City is the solution we in the West are looking for. Once the fires are extinguished, most climate activists will lose interest in our land use needs and move on to the next disaster.

Exotic Energy Sources

This week I added an Exotic Energy section to Urban Cruise Ship. I had been considering this for a long time, and I went ahead and did it mainly because I have been stuck on some harder projects and wanted to do something relatively easy. There are no graphics planned, as I don’t see the topic as important enough to justify assigning more work to our graphics guy, but there are a few interesting things.

One recurring scheme is various ways to capture piezoelectricity, which is generated through pressure on a surface, such as when people walk over a plate or cars drive over it. One study in Australia found that with more advanced generators, an educational building at Macquarie University might recover 0.5% of its electricity usage by installing generators at high traffic points. With technology that was current at the time of the study, it’s probably more like 0.06%.

As for roadways, I cited several studies that report levelized costs of electricity in the range of multiple dollars per kilowatt-hour (wholesale prices tend to be in the range of 3-6 cents/kWh and retail on the order of 10 cents). The exception was a California study that reported 8-20 cents/kWh, which as far as I can tell is just an uncritical repetition of claims from the vendor. Also not discussed is the fact the source of energy is kinetic energy from cars, so unless the car is braking, the generators are stealing energy from motorists. We might as well be using diesel generators then.

If I were to make a guess, the pilot project is little more than California burning several million dollars on a patently unworkable scheme because of some marketing by a shady vendor. I’m all for trying bold ideas that are not guaranteed to succeed, but one must draw the line at ideas that clearly won’t succeed or where basic feasibility questions haven’t even been asked.

Biomechanical energy harvesting is an idea that got a bit of hype a few years ago, but now few people seem to still be interested. Making some extremely generous assumptions, I estimated that it would have a theoretical of about 1 exajoule per year, or about 0.2% of primary energy supply. More medium-case assumptions would cut that by at least a factor of five. Plus that doesn’t account for extra exertion required by the person or embodied energy in the devices.

There are probably some niche use cases for piezoelectric generators and biomechanical systems, such as low power distributed sensors and personal electronics respectively.

I even commented on the power from rainfall paper earlier in the year, an idea too silly to take seriously.

Speculative Energy Sources

But even with the above we’re not done. I decided to venture into the realm of speculative physics.

In quantum physics, even a system with zero temperature must have some latent energy due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This has been termed the zero point. So naturally that leads people to speculate that zero point energy could be harvested for useful purposes. The near-consensus seems to be that this is impossible, that it must violate thermodynamics somehow, though I found it surprisingly difficult to find a rigorous explanation of why this is the case. This paper from 2019 is all I found, and even then, it only rules out two of three proposed ZPE extraction methods based on thermodynamic principles. Incidentally, the authors hold a patent on the third method and claim there is inconclusive evidence that it works.

Additionally, there is the NASA Eagleworks project to use the quantum vacuum to develop a spacecraft that can operate without onboard propellant.

There is a lot of interesting physics here that I don’t understand. I was expecting to write a short, dismissive comment for the website, but it would seem that ZPE is a legitimate area of scientific research. Maybe this will actually work for energy production someday. But there is no solid evidence yet, and any claims of a currently working ZPE device can be safely rejected.

Some other ideas that pop up, based in speculative physics, including hydrinos, neutrinos, quark fusion, and the ever popular perpetual motion machine. At least neutrinos and quark fusion are legitimate physics, but as far as useful energy production goes, these are all pathological ideas. I’ll add more as I see them. I briefly covered cold fusion a while ago on the Fusion page.

I expect that when the site is finally done, of the many things people could fairly accuse me of, not being comprehensive will not be one of them.

The Biden Housing Plan

Evidently I am a few weeks late, but the Biden-Harris campaign has a housing plan. The tl;dr is that there might be a few good things here, but I’m not too impressed.

When it comes to housing affordability, the principle I’ve tried to reiterate over and over again is that it comes down to supply. If there are 1,000,000 people who want to live in a city with a zoned capacity for 800,000, then 200,000 people will not be able to live there. It doesn’t matter if you impose rent control, eviction moratoria, inclusionary zoning rules, offer Section 8 or other subsidies, or whatever. As long as the supply is fixed, all these do is change the rationing mechanism from price to something else. Which, it must be acknowledged, is often the intent.

Traditionally, the federal government has a limited role in zoning. That could change of course; the federal government today has major roles in many areas where it previously had a limited or no role. As it is now, I see two plausible hooks for federal involvement in the near term. The first is the Fair Housing Act, where it can be argued fairly convincingly that zoning rules have disparate impact on protected groups, and in some cases intentional impact; and the second is to tie zoning reform to federal Community Development Block Grants or transportation funding, where reform is a matter of insuring that federal spending is actually used effectively.

The Biden plan calls for reinstatement of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, which while imperfect, I think is better than what the Trump Administration decided to go with, which is nothing. As for the second, I momentarily got my hopes up when I saw that they were promoting legislation to do just that. But upon reading the details of the HOME Act (which was introduced last year but I was unfamiliar with until now), I see that the list of measures the bill calls for to promote “inclusive land use” are wide-ranging, and only some of them can reasonably be expected to increase the housing supply. It could be a good piece of legislation, but much rides on the implementation. Zoning reform advocates at the state level routinely underestimate the creativity that municipalities will show in evading the intent of their laws.

Anyway, there is a lot of other stuff here on racial discrimination, energy efficiency, and the Davis-Bacon Act (which probably makes housing less affordable by running up construction costs), but I won’t belabor the issues. All in all, it’s a plan that reflects the set Democratic interests pretty well, has a lot of stuff in it, and would do little to achieve broad-based housing affordability.

Creative Outlets

Like many people, I have been continuing to struggle with a variety of stressful circumstances. I took more time than usual this week on some creative projects, which has helped.

The newest one I am calling Project Epsilon, which for now is a maze generator. I’ve long had a fascination with generative content, and I would like to see how far the concept can be taken, but for now it is really just for fun. It is not deployed, but someone knowledgeable with Python and Flask in particular can download and run it fairly easily. Not that there is much to see yet. All it does it let the user input a few parameters and make a maze.

The other is Repair the Cosmos, which is deployed but hasn’t been updated publicly in a long time, despite considerable local activity. This is an incremental game that is meant to tell the story of humanity from the Paleolithic to the far future. I started it in January and have been working very intermittently since then, but I finally have a burst of creativity going for the first time in months. I still expect at least a few weeks before the next update, and I can only go for so long before I start feeling guilty about not doing real work.

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acatnamedlulu · 7 years ago

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My Thoughts on Channel Awesome- Part 1: The Walkers

So, full disclosure, this is going to get dramatic. This isn’t going to be an “objective look” on the whole controversy surrounding Channel Awesome. This is going to be a biased, unfiltered rant. And it’s gonna get loooooooooong. I’ll put a TL;DR at the end of this, and I’ll try and keep the deep anger and frustration to a minimum to prevent any rambling tangents or “CAPZLOCK YELLING BCUZ I AM ANGER, RRAAAAGH!”

Ok, I’m sure many of you already know by now the recent shitstorm of events surrounding Channel Awesome over the past couple weeks, but for those of you unaware, how about a little context:

A few weeks ago (at the time of this posting), several former producers/content creators of Channel Awesome compiled a 70+ page google document titled “Not So Awesome”, each detailing their own shitty experiences working at Channel Awesome. Many of these allegations range from minor jabs, to full legitimate complaints regarding Doug and Rob Walker and especially Channel Awesome CEO Mike Michaud’s behavior. So while maybe one or two points brought up in the document could come off as petty, or just throwing shade, I don’t think that’s a reason to discredit the entire thing.This is nearly a dozen or so ex-producers affiliated with the “TGWTG” website as early as 2008, all with their own experiences and grievances. And even though everyone has a different story to tell, they all seem to be tied together by the same goddamn themes: Not just about the shitty behavior/poor business etiquette of Mike Michaud, but also poor behavior by the Walkers. And although Michaud is absolutely the worst out of all the people being named, I wanna talk about Doug Walker first. And by extent Rob Walker. Although, Rob is more of an issue when it comes to the business end of Channel Awesome as opposed to the actual entertainment, so maybe I’ll talk about him more when I go into a rant about Michaud. Granted, I have a feeling that my opinions on the Walkers are going to be met with a more negative response, and believe me, I completely understand why, but just... just here me out. More bullshit context and backstory, oh happy fucking day!

Alright, so when I was a dumb, hormonal young teen exploring her “edgy” side, I came across the Nostalgia Critic circa 2009-10ish? And after finding the character’s harsh judgement, foul colorful language, and humorous approach to critiquing to be right up my alley, I became an extremely loyal fan of TGWTG. Even after the NC reboot in 2013, I still stuck around and tuned in every week. For as much as I hated some of those goddamn skits, and clipless reviews, I still wanted to hear Doug’s opinion on a movie. He helped me understand film on a critical level that I didn’t think I could reach. And while I don’t consider myself a “critic” in any sense of the word, it was cool to have someone help guide me through an entire medium and look at it in a meaningful and thoughtful way. I eventually started watching Doug and Rob out of character, and both of them seemed like passionate, humble people who enjoy what they do. Watching the NC behind the scenes were sometimes more fun than watching an episode because Doug Walker truly looks like a man who’s dedicated to his work. But as I say this now, this also seems to be one of his biggest flaws. I know this is already longer than it has any business being, but the reason I’m going on this lengthy diatribe, is because I need you guys to understand where I’m coming from, and why I have such a strong stance on this. Which is why I’ll finally get to my fucking point:

I think Doug Walker needs to be held more accountable for his actions. Or at least his actions need to be taken more seriously/into consideration.

As stupid as this sounds, this has been bugging me since the day the “Not so Awesome” google document has been released. Not so much the contents of the document itself, but rather, some of the reactions around it. The general consensus is that Mike Michaud is a terrible person, and something absolutely needs to be done about him... which is absolutely true. But what bothered me is people’s quick need to, maybe not justify, but brush over the shit that Doug has caused too. One of the biggest issues that many of the producers discuss in the document is the absolute production hell of the CA anniversary movies.

From “Kickassia” all the way up to “To Boldly Flee”, it just baffles me how incompetent and incapable Doug Walker is, both at making a film, and caring for his crew at even the bare minimum. Going back and watching TBF, you don’t even have to read the full extension of what it was like working on the set, because you can practically see it on the actors’ faces! You can just feel the exhaustion of everybody involved except Doug, but that’s because the man was so severely wrapped up in this self-serving ego project, that everyone else gets stepped on as a result. Remember what the stupid plot of TBF was anyway? The Nostalgia Critic brings everyone from CA into space to fight an anomaly called a “plot hole”, only for the NC to make his big damn sacrifice and die as the noble hero, killing off the character for good... until the reboot in 2013. With none of the other producers being notified of this until they received their scripts just a few weeks before filming.Yeah, it’s kinda fucking heartbreaking to know that other contributors and producers were treated as such an afterthought, that they were told this information in this short amount of time, in a movie that they were starring in.

Several people have pointed out the lack of basic necessities needed on a film set such as catering and water. Guys, this isn’t a group of kids dicking around with a camera and a computer for a few hours and making a home movie. This was an actual production supervised by grown adults who needed to be told during filming that “people need food and water”. Across the course of several films. One of which was filmed in the Nevada desert. How difficult would it have really been to stop off at a fucking Walmart, gather up some coolers and ice bags, some of those 24 packs of water in bulk and keep it at a safe location on the damn set? This isn’t something that requires a goddamn film degree to understand, it’s common fucking sense. It’s just baffling to me that these painstaking efforts from the producers were just “voluntary” positions, too. The document itself goes into much more detail of how that shit works, so I’ll be posting it at the end of this rant, you’re welcome.

And this is where I draw the line of giving Doug a pass. You can’t convince me that this level of negligence is just some kind of mistake that can be easily forgiven. I can’t believe that people can defend Doug on the grounds of “well, he’s just the pawn in this” or “he was just being naive and selfish”. No, this type of naivete and lack of basic human decency has caused people physical harm. Several actors sustained injuries throughout the production of the anniversary films. This usually ended with both Doug and Rob shrugging some of these off, while others had to sign contracts in order for CA to avoid a lawsuit. That is fucking insane!

A couple producers in the document recall how Doug was more involved with the business aspect of CA. He was more than just a puppet for Mike Michaud. Remember, the anniversary movies were written by him and Rob. And while Michaud was most likely the one who had the final say of what went on, Doug was the overseer of these projects. These were his creations, and he should have taken full responsibility for what was going on. And for him to have such a cynical and uncaring approach to the treatment of both the characters within the film, and the producers portraying them is sickening. This man has put on the persona of being this nice, approachable, easy to work/converse with person for years, and to hear how egotistical and negligent he truly is. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there was always something a bit self-centered about Doug, but knowing what I know now... like, it’s hard to explain why I feel so guilty about supporting Doug for as long as I did. I know we all can say “oh, well, it’s not like we knew”, but see, the thing is, I kind of did. The incidents with Obscurus Lupa weren’t completely unknown beforehand. Since like, 2015, people have been bringing this shit up, and I willingly chose to ignore it because I was such a huge NC fan. I just blindly kept watching the show and pretending CA was this cool, friendly place and nothing was wrong. Yeah, I’m not gonna act like I’m such a good person for bashing Doug, and I know that I shouldn’t have had such blind support. But the good news is, I don’t now. I know better, and I hope we all can move on from this, and learn.

Ok, so going back and reading this overly dramatic tripe, I realize I may have gone off the rails at some points. So before this turns into an “amateur hour smear campaign”, I think I’m going to split this up into two parts. I already said all I want to say about Doug and Rob. But I still have issues with Mike Michaud that are probably the same opinions everyone and their mother has expressed on this insane human being. But I still wanna get some stuff off my chest. Anyway, this is now Part 1 of the “Lunatic ravings of a disgruntled former fangirl” saga, maybe some of you would like to join me for My Thoughts on Channel Awesome Part 2: Electric Boogaloo.

and now for the TL;DR

I think Doug Walker is an inept, egotistical man who has hurt people both emotionally, and sometimes physically to get what he wants. And people shouldn’t excuse his actions just because he doesn’t run the CA site in the way Mike Michaud does. If he’s going to go through the trouble of making a fucking movie, especially one that’s nearly four hours long, he should make sure the crew is at least hydrated and not exhausted all the goddamn time. Doug is a grown ass man, and he should carry these responsibilities like an adult. Maybe then, the CA anniversary movies would be at least a little less cringey to watch. Rant on Michaud coming soon. Peace out, dickholes.

The “Not So Awesome” document

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WZFkR__B3Mk9EYQglvislMUx9HWvWhOaBP820UBa4dA/preview#heading=h.smmxroimnosh

#changethechannel #channel awesome #nostalgia critic #i immediately regret this #get to the point

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hundesumpf · 7 years ago

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where do you get your mori clothes from? ive heard thrift shops are a good resource, but i can rarely find things thatd be suitable for mori boy at the ones ive gone to x(

This is going to be TL;DR, skip to the end for styling pointers.

Honestly like 80% of my wardrobe comes from Ross. It can take a bit of digging to find the good stuff, but I promise its in there. Other common shops I’ve been had luck with include Target and H&M. I would recommend H&M for the Mori Boy styles over anything else, since they tend to have more of the j-fashion inspired looks and looser designs than most other mainstream brands and storefronts. Forever 21 occasionally has decent items, as does Rue 21. If you can find one, Uniqlo tends to have a decent selection of basics that work well for Mori styles. Unfortunately, most of these stores primarily stock feminine clothing, with H&M probably having the best selection (the one in Pearland Town Center has a great Men’s section).

I’ve also had a bit of luck on the Wish app by searching “Mori”. This tends to return a lot of taobao type styles, though they are again overwhelmingly feminine. The prices are insanely good on Wish as well, so that’s a super bonus.

I do a bit of thrifting but the selection is fairly limited unless you’re really dedicated to upcycling. You can also occasionally find some decent items at antique shops, though this primarily applies to accessories. I personally shop a lot of clearance racks and I’ve found a few specific brands adhere spectacularly to the Mori style, though they are, once again, primarily feminine brands. Some of these brands include:

1. LC by Lauren Conrad; this brand is exclusive to Kohls but it goes to clearance fairly quickly as they release new sets every month or so, so check the clearance first! LC features a lot of dainty lace pieces and unique dresses, and her recent lines have featured a heavy Scandinavian influence. This brand also features some plus size options so it’s one of the more accommodating brands I’ve found. She also just added a maternity line so there’s that too.http://m.kohls.com/search/clothing.jsp?CN=Department:Clothing&search=lc%20lauren%20conrad&S=0&WS=0&N=Department:Clothing&submit-search=mobile-ta-keyword

2. Arève; this brand is a little more difficult to find as its a boutique brand that caters to a more “country” market. It can usually be found at livestock shows and rodeos that feature boutique markets. Check for local boutiques or western wear stores in your area for this brand. Unfortunately they only go up to size L, and run a bit flat in the hips and chest. Of the distinct brands I’ve found, this one is the best for Mori and almost entirely uses natural materials. I can’t find a website for them, but there’s a few items on poshmark.

3. Umgee; very like Arève. Another boutique brand, but I have also found it in the women’s section of Ross. A little more forgiving in the hips and chest than Arève, but still only goes up to L.http://m.umgeeusa.com/ I believe you need a retailer account to order from their site but I’ve found some stuff on poshmark.

4. Altar’d State; very expensive! I only but from this store during the semi annual sale (which i think is going on rn actually). They’re technically one of those Christian boutiques, which can be a little uncomfortable while shopping in store thanks to the weird country jesus music, but their style tends to be super on point for Mori co-ords. I don’t know if they actually carry men’s clothing, but I have a few items from them that are pretty gender neutral and are great for Mori co-ords. They have a shop in a couple of my local malls but I’m not sure how prevalent they are elsewhere.http://www.altardstate.com/

Of course, these are North American brands and as far as I know are not available elsewhere.

SKIP TO HERE

I also design and make some of my clothing. This tends to be a larger investment due to both the materials and time put into creating them but the result is a unique item tailored to my particular tastes. If you’d like to exchange designs I can put together some sketches for you for some Mori Boy basics to coordinate around. You can then either utilize them yourself or commission their manufacture.

Additionally, some basics to include in your wardrobe for Mori Boy coordinations, as a basic rule, would be:

a. loose linen pants; not oversized, but fitted at the waste with a straight leg, or a slight outward taper if you’ve got larger thighs. I also personally use skinny jeans a lot under my co-ords because they fit neatly in my boots, and I’ve noticed a number of Mori Boys often use neutral colored jeans. The most important aspect of the Mori style is comfort, so whichever style is most comfortable.

b. loose fitting shirts; I would recommend cotton, for the most part, of varying thicknesses to accommodate your climate. These can have any length sleeve as it is your base layer. Since the Mori Boy look doesn’t rely as heavily on lace as the Mori Girl look does, you want to be very picky about fabrics, using only natural fibers. These shirts should be about mid-thigh length, ideally, and of natural tones. You’ll want to use a shirt that either has a fairly wide, open neck, or a turtleneck in colder seasons. You can even through a button-down shirt over another shirt to instantly layer.

c. loose fitting, or oversized, sweaters; these can be of varying lengths but my general opinion is the longer the better. Cable-knit cardigans work very well for this look and if you can’t find them in Men’s sizes the Women’s section cardigans are basically the same thing, so don’t be afraid to cross sections. Plus, the Women’s cardigans tend to be a bit longer than the Men’s.

d. unique outerwear; this part is pretty flexible, so it can difficult to decide on a piece. Alot of Mori Boy co-ords opt for a canvas or heavy woven blazer, but I’ve also seen floral jackets, wool peacoats, and even letterman-style jackets used. Personally I have a mock-military jacket I picked up at a Rue 21 that I use when its cooler out. Its cotton and the dark green coordinates well with any number of styles. I would suggest trying a few different styles.

e. vests; this is, in my opinion, the one item that can make a Mori Boy outfit. Mori style is hallmarked by layering, and a vest is a perfect way to add an extra layer without necessarily adding warmth, which is great for warmer climates. In summer, I would suggest a looser fitting vests, like an oversized linen vest or even an upcycled scarf when the temperature gets crazy. In winter you can trade that out for a woolen or more fitted vest in a darker hue, which you can coordinate with turtlenecks and coats.

f. scarves; this is another must-have. In summer you can use a thin viscose scarf either wrapped loosely around your neck, or tucked under the collar of your shirt. This can add a measure of layering without adding warmth. In winter, you can a blanket scarf to keep warm by wrapping it snugly around your face and neck, or by draping it across your shoulders like a cloak.

g. cloaks; speaking of which! These may be a bit on the tricky side to get ahold of, but luckily they are ridiculously easy to make. The cloak essentially replaces your outerwear and should really only be used when its cold out, but it chas the potential to step up your Mori game by 9000%.

h. headgear; love ‘em or hate ‘em, hats are a popular item in the Mori Boy look. Winter styles tend to see woolen or fur hats, ranging from fedoras to beanies, while summer styles implement lighter styles, even replacing proper hats with headbands. The most popular style seems to be the bucket hat, but I would never tell you to wear that because quite frankly they are atrocious.

i. shoes; shoes should be a natural material. Linen shoes such as Toms would be appropriate, as would many leather shoes or boots. If you don’t want to wear natural leather, you could also use a vegan, or faux, leather shoe. Recommended shoe styles are Oxfords and sturdy, round toed boots. Personally I like the look of laced boots over pull-ons, but to each their own.

j. accessories; a broad category, I know. The paramount accessory for the Mori look is the bag or satchel. This again should be a natural material, either heavy canvas or leather is best (again, you can substitute for faux leather if the real stuff is displeasing to you). This bag is what you will use to carry your journal, camera, and any trinkets you find on your adventures, so it should have a bit of space to it. Other accessories to consider include gloves, belts, and jewelry. Fingerless linen gloves can be worn with light shirts with the sleeves rolled up; belts can either hold up your breeches or hold down your cloak on a windy day; and jewelry can be used to dress up an otherwise understated ensemble.

The great part about the Mori style is it can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be, so long as it is comfortable for you. There’s a lot of simple pieces that can work well together to create the Mori look if you know what to look for. When shopping for styles, don’t be afraid to try out several items together to experiment with a look. If you have access to a fitting room, excellent, but even if you don’t, hold items together and try to picture them as a whole outfit. I also frequently use polyvore to put together looks and then shop to match those looks, which can be a useful tool when thrifting.

Also! Don’t be afraid to take a risk with an accent piece! If you’ve got a fairly monochromatic outfit, throw in a bright accessory or a loud outerwear piece. You can also use your base as an accent, like an embroidered shirt, or floral pants. A general rule of fashion is to stick to three primary color groups in your outfit, so if you’ve got two cool color groups, like blue and green, you can add in a warm color group, like orange, to offset them and add visual interest. The last image is a good example of this, with the browns and greens of the main body of the outfit being offset by the red bag.

TL:DR

H&M has a decent men’s section with usable pieces for Mori Boy co-ords. If you want some outfit sketches hit me up, I can also commission items if you’re interested or looking for specific items.

#mori #mori boy #mori girl #mori style #fashion #shoopping #tips and tricks #i'm sorry for the lack of image sources these are from my inspo file on my pc #and i think i got most of those from pinterest #>.>#spiralsunshine

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niartnithoughts · 8 years ago

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Kong: Skull Island review

It’s not a great movie. Good at times, run-of-the mill at others. But then it’s not like the other 3 King Kong movies I’ve seen (’33, ‘76, ‘05) were great either (though I’ll believe that the original was in 1933). TL;DR, don’t watch it unless you like giant monster special effects, in which case you’re probably used to watching movies of mixed quality and you should watch it, and may end up liking it quite a bit.

As advertised, it’s sort of like a cross between being a King Kong remake and an Apocalypse Now homage. Yeah, I get it, the director liked Apocalypse Now, But ease up a little on the sunset shots! Then calling Tom Hiddleston’s character Conrad after Heart of Darkness author Joseph Conrad and throwing in a riverboat trip to the coast... Marlow is named after Marlow, and I guess Samuel L. Jackson is meant to be a bit like this movie’s Kurtz, (but they threw in one of his Jurassic Park quotes too [”hold onto your butts”]) a role that didn’t exist in the original Kong. Other than that and being in the Vietnam War era it could basically be a Kong remake, though one that’s willing to try new things.

The cast of characters is too large, so they’re pretty poorly developed and we’re not attached to many of them, so their motivations (including the main characters’) seem very weak, so the overall conflict/plot is too. The ‘70s setting is fun, the special effects do the trick and are sometimes really great. It’s fun to have so many monster fights in swampy water, the water effects look perfect. There are some occasional really fun shots and edits. I do love that there’s way way more monster stuff than the 2014 American Godzilla, and, honestly? I’d look forward to this Kong vs Godzilla. Somehow I doubt they’re going to take much of an antiwar/antinuclear/proenvironment stance, but... give me Godzilla.

The skullcrawlers aren’t an amazing monster antagonist but their face design is much cooler than I realized from the trailers, with them having small real eyes behind the much larger skull-looking false eyespots. That’s a cool design that a real creature might have. Hilariously, the director said that Cubone, the Pokémon, was one of the influences for them. The bugs’ designs are real fun, like a giant ‘stick’ insect that mimics an entire rotting log, but as with every Kong movie they don’t add anything to the Kong-related plot, they’re just there for disgusting human peril. The bamboo spider scene was very well done though.

Honestly the least believable thing is that nobody’s clothes get torn or dirty or bloody, at all. I guess that’s true of like every Kong movie. But it’s especially ridiculous for John c Reilly’s character, who’s supposedly been on the island for decades, yet has never needed to patch his old uniform once.

Improvement for the franchise in this reboot: the tribe living on Kong’s island are, for a change, nice people, good guys, with a positively portrayed society, as opposed to previous movies where they’re human-sacrificing kidnappers. Still not a great portrayal. Also this time around the natives look more Southeast Asian, unlike the very dark skin-toned natives of previous Kong movies, so like, in watching 2005′s King Kong followed by this one you’d get a sense that lighter-skinned uncontacted tribes are nice and good while darker-skinned uncontacted tribes should be feared. But they shouldn’t be held responsible for the racism of past movies, and I do believe that they went with a more Asian-looking tribe purely because of the switch to a near-Vietnam setting for the island itself. So perhaps I shouldn’t have even brought up the past movies. I’m not sure of all of my potential thoughts on race in the movie. They included a more-diverse cast than this movie would have had if it were made 20 years ago, and then don’t mention or include it in dialogue at all.

Like, in keeping with the ‘70s setting, a dude is surprised to find that Brie Larson is a woman, having just seen her initials beforehand, but the closest the script comes to acknowledging race is that we’re told Marlow and Gunpei, crashed American and Japanese WWII pilots became best friends and brothers through their experience on the island. It probably isn’t realistic for a group of soldiers in the ‘70s to never use any racial slurs or comment on anyone’s race, but then giant apes aren’t either, so I’ll happily embrace this fantasy movie version. On the other hand, it would absolutely be wrong for every movie set in the early ‘70s to ignore race. Like, 1970 and opposition to Vietnam went hand-in-hand with like the peak of the Black Panther Party and all that. Then there’s still race at work in the overall production in the sense that there is in Hollywood movies across the board. Might have been nice to have a Vietnamese character or two, since the Vietnam War is a big part of the setting, but instead you get Tom Hiddleston’s toughness established by beating up unnamed hostile Vietnamese extras in a bar. But I do like Brooks and San Lin, though they don’t have enough to do and probably get like 20 lines total, again because of the overlarge cast. Brie Larson and Tom HIddleston have lines but honestly don’t do as much as you’d expect either, and they have top billing. Idk, the movie really focuses on giant monster stuff and capable/incapable individual men, not on humanity as a whole, and half the time people only get to talk to provide minor exposition on their backstory before getting killed or eaten. Cutting 80% of Toby Kebbell’s scenes and fleshing out other people’s motivations would be better.

Super minor spoiler, probably the highlight of the entire movie is after a long, drawn out single-shot sequence of a helicopter crashing with people clinging on for dear life, the helicopter being picked up by Kong and one of the dangling men finally falling down, down towards Kong’s gaping mouth, it abruptly cuts to a closeup of a guy taking a bite out of a sandwich. That cut is fantastic.

Anyway, blah blah, don’t watch it unless you like giant monster special effects, in which case you’re probably used to watching movies of mixed quality and may end up liking it a lot.

#king kong #kong: skull island #movies #movie review #skull island

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qwertsypage · 7 years ago

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The Node.js Community was amazing in 2017! Here's the proof:

Let me just start by stating this:

2017 was a great year for the Node.js Community!

Our favorite platform has finally matured to be widely adopted in the enterprise, also, a lot of great features have been merged into the core, like async/await & http2, just to mention a few.

The world runs on node ✨🐢🚀✨ #NodeInteractive http://pic.twitter.com/5PwDC2w1mE

— Franziska Hinkelmann (@fhinkel) October 4, 2017

Not only the developers who contribute to Node make this platform so great, but those who create learning materials around it were also exceptional.

In our final article of 2017, we collected a bunch of longreads which were created by the Node community. We used data from Reddit, Hacker News, Twitter & Medium to search for the most read, most shared & liked stuff out there. We intentionally omitted articles written by RisingStack (except 1, couldn't resist) - if you're interested in those, please visit our top15 of 2017 post!

I'm sure we left a bunch of amazing articles out - so if you'd like to get attention to an exceptional one you read, please let us know in the comments section.

Also, keep in mind that this post is not a classic "best of" list, just a collection that shows how amazing the Node community was in 2017! I figured that a big shoutout to the developers who constantly advocate & teach Node would be a great way to say goodbye to this year.

So, here come the proof I promised in the title:

1. We have insanely useful community curated lists:

If you'd like to gain useful knowledge quickly, you can count on the Node community. These lists were created in 2017, and contain so much best practices & shortcuts that you can definitely level up your skills by going through them.

The largest Node.JS best practices list is curated from the top ranked articles and always updated.

Awesome Node.js is an extensive list of delightful Node packages & resources.

The Modern JS Cheatsheet contains knwledge needed to build modern projects.

These lists have over 300 contributors & gained around 50K stars on GitHub!

Also, we recommend to check out these articles written by Yoni Goldberg & Azat Mardan which will help you to become a better developer:

Node.JS production best practices

10 Node.js Best Practices: Enlightenment from the Node Gurus

2. There are actually insightful Case Studies available!

One of the best articles on using Node.js was written by Scott Nonnenberg in April. The author summarized his Node experiences from the past 5 years, discussing basic concepts, architectural issues, testing, the Node ecosystem & the reason why you shouldn't use New Relic.

"I’ve already shared a few stories, but this time I wanted to focus on the ones I learned the hard way. Bugs, challenges, surprises, and the lessons you can apply to your own projects!" - Scott

Also, did you know that Node.js Helps NASA to Keep Astronauts Safe? It's hard to come up with something cooler than that.

NASA choose Node.js for the following reasons:

The relative ease of developing data transfer applications with JavaScript, and the familiarity across the organization with the programming language, which keeps development time and costs low.

Node.js’ asynchronous event loop for I/O operations makes it the perfect solution for a cloudbased database system that sees queries from dozens of users who need data immediately.

The Node.js package manager, npm, pairs incredibly well with Docker to create a microservices architecture that allows each API, function and application to operate smoothly and independently.

To learn more, read the full case study!

Also, shoutout to the Node Foundation who started to assemble and distribute these pretty interesting use-case whitepapers on a regular basis!

3. Node.js Authentication & Security was well covered in 2017:

When it comes to building Node.js apps (or any app..) security is crucial to get right. This is the reason why "Your Node.js authentication tutorial is (probably) wrong" written by micaksica got so much attention on HackerNoon.

tl;dr: The author went on a search of Node.js/Express.js authentication tutorials. All of them were incomplete or made a security mistake in some way that can potentially hurt new users. His post explores some common authentication pitfalls, how to avoid them, and what to do to help yourself when your tutorials don’t help you anymore.

If you plan on reading only one security related article (..but why would you do that?!), this is definitely one of the best ones!

Also, we recommend to check out the Damn Vulnerable NodeJS Application github page, which aims to demonstrate the OWASP Top 10 Vulnerabilities and guides you on fixing and avoiding these vulnerabilities.

Other great articles which were receiving a lot of praise were Securing Node.js RESTful APIs with JSON Web Tokens by Adnan Rahic, and Two-Factor Authentication with Node.js from David Walsh.

4. API development with Node.js has been made even more easy:

One of the main strengths of Node.js is that you can build REST APIs with it in a very efficient way! There are a lot of articles covering that topic, but these were definitely the most popular ones:

RESTful API design with Node.js walks beginners through the whole process in a very thorough, easy to understand way.

Build a Node.js API in Under 30 Minutes achieves the same result, but it uses ES6 as well.

10 Best Practices for Writing Node.js REST APIs (written by us) goes a little further and includes topics like naming your routes, authentication, black-box testing & using proper cache headers for these resources.

5. We're constantly looking under the hood of Node.js.

Luckily, the Node/JS community delivers when you want to go deeper, in fact there were so many interesting deep-dives that it was really hard to pick out the best ones, but one can try! These articles are really insightful:

Understanding Node.js Event-Driven Architecture

What you should know to really understand the Node.js Event Loop

Node.js Streams: Everything you need to know

How JavaScript works: inside the V8 engine + 5 tips on how to write optimized code

ES8 was Released and here are its Main New Features

6 Reasons Why JavaScript’s Async/Await Blows Promises Away (Tutorial)

What were the best articles that peeked under the hood of JS/Node in your opinion? Share them in the comments!

6. Awesome new Tools were made in 2017:

Two of the most hyped tools of the year were Prettier & Fastify!

In case you don't know, prettier is a JavaScript formatter that works by compiling your code to an AST, and then pretty-printing the AST.

The result is good-looking code that is completely consistent no matter who wrote it. This solves the problem of programmers spending a lot of time manually moving around code in their editor and arguing about styles.

Fastify was introduced by Matteo Collina, Node.js core technical commitee member during Node Interactive 2017 in Vancouver.

Fastify is a new web framework inspired by Hapi, Restify and Express. Fastify is built as a general-purpose web framework, but it shines when building extremely fast HTTP APIs that use JSON as the data format.

..just to mention a few.

7. There are Amazing Crash Courses Available for Free

If you'd like to start learning Node, you can count on the commmunity to deliver free, high-quality resources that can speed up your journey!

One particular author - Adnan Rahić - received a huge amount of praise for releasing crash courses for different topics on Medium. Here they are:

A crash course on testing with Node.js

A crash course on Serverless with Node.js

We hope Adnan will continue this series and create crash courses on other areas of Node as well!

8. Miscallaneus Topics are Covered as Well

What do we mean under miscallaneus topics? Well, those are topics that go beyond the "traditional" use cases of Node.js, where the authors describe something interesting & fun they built with it.

For example there were exceptional articles released that used the OpenCV library for either face recognition or just regular object recognition.

Chatbots were a hype topic too, and there was no shortage of blogposts describing how to build them using different languages.

Building A Simple AI Chatbot With Web Speech API And Node.js was one of the most praised articles. In this post Tomomi Imura walked us through building a chat-bot which can be controlled by voice. Yep, it's pretty cool.

We also recommend to check out Developing A Chatbot Using Microsoft's Bot Framework, LUIS And Node.js too, which is the first part of a series dealing with the topic.

What other fun projects did you see? Add them to the comments section!

9. The community can attend great conferences, like Node Interactive!

Node Interactive Vancouver was a major event which provided great opportunities for it's attendees to meet with fellow developers & learn a lot about their favorite subject.

Fortunately every prezentation is available on YouTube, so you can get up-to-date even if you couldn't participate this year (just like us.)

The 10 most watched right now are:

Node.js Performance and Highly Scalable Micro-Services by Chris Bailey

New DevTools Features for JavaScript by Yang Guo

The V8 Engine and Node.js by Franzi Hinkelmann

High Performance JS in V8 by Peter Marshall

The Node.js Event Loop: Not So Single Threaded by Bryan Hughes

Welcome and Node.js Update by Mark Hinkle

Take Your HTTP Server to Ludicrous Speed by Matteo Collina

WebAssembly and the Future of the Web by Athan Reines

High Performance Apps with JavaScript and Rust by Amir Yasin

TypeScript - A Love Tale with JavaScript by Bowden Kelly

Of course this list is just the tip of the iceberg, since there are 54 videos upladed on the Node Foundations' YouTube channel, and most of them are really insightful and fun to watch.

10. Node.js is finally more sought after than Java!

Although Ryan Dahl recently stated in an interview that..

for a certain class of application, which is like, if you're building a server, I can't imagine using anything other than Go.

.. we have no reason to doubt the success of Node.js!

Mikeal Rogers, one of the core organizers of NodeConf, community manager & core contributor at the Node Foundation stated that Node.js will overtake Java within a year in a NewStack interview this summer!

We are now at about 8 million estimated users and still growing at about 100 percent a year. We haven’t passed Java in terms of users yet, but by this time next year at the current growth, we will surpass. - Mikeal.

Mikeal is not alone with his opinion. There is hard data available to prove that Node is becoming more sought after than Java.

According to the data gathered by builtinnode, the demand for Node.js developers has already surpassed the demand for Java devs by the summer of 2017 in the Who is Hiring section of Hacker News!

Since Node was already adopted and is being advocated by the greatest tech companies on Earth, there's no doubt that it will remain a leading technology for many years ahead!

We hope that the Node community will continue to thrive in 2018 as well, and produce a plethora of exellent tools & tutorials.

At RisingStack, we'll keep on advocating & educating Node in 2018 as well, for sure! If you're interested in the best content we produced in 2017, take a look!

The Node.js Community was amazing in 2017! Here's the proof: published first on http://ift.tt/2w7iA1y

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iyarpage · 7 years ago