#i find multi-tasking while watching movies to be pretty easy. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

canarycontessa · 3 years

Text

four writing tips that helped me get out of my own way

- Use a pen for drafts.

Get used to scratching things out, cramming things in the margins, breaking up pages as new tangents form and then zigzagging back to the original WIP. Go out of your way to not only forget making any of it look pretty, but to make it as ugly as possible (while still being readable to you, of course). And don’t even think about typing it yet because that backspace key is just another eraser. Get over the idea of erasing or covering over your mistakes, because there are no real mistakes in the first draft stage.

The more you desensitize yourself to your rough draft legit LOOKING rough, the less you’ll have any self consciousness and/or perfectionism shutting you off from your creative flow. Once you get used to the sloppiness, you stop giving a fuck about appeasing your inner critic/editor (editorial input isn’t needed until several drafts later, after all) and just let the words come at will.

This enables you to have fun with your rough draft and therefore keep coming back to it. You become a kid again, splashing paint all over the walls and not caring that you can’t take anything back. It’s about the journey.

- Deliberately multi-task while writing.

Emphasis on "deliberately". This sounds really counterintuitive, right? Why would I set out to intentionally half-ass something?

It probably doesn't work this way for everybody, but if I sit down to write in complete silence and with nothing else going on, I will get jackshit done. It's too much pressure. Instead, all I can think about is the blank page mocking me, the deafening silence around me and how my entire future happiness is riding on whether I can get anything down. Then I start thinking about what I fake I am, how I’m bring dishonor to my family ... etc, etc. I’ll probably end up closing my document and getting up to do something else. I’ll come to dread the empty page and write less and less as time goes on, all the while beating myself up for it. It’s not pretty.

If, however, I have my notebook in front of me, pen in hand while I watch the news, flip channels, listen to a podcast or Youtube video, have a conversation with two other people, then half my focus is elsewhere. There’s less room for those unhelpful thoughts, the pressure is off me and, best of all, I open myself up to free associate and draw inspiration from what’s around me. My pen is moving. Words are happening. And before I know it, I’ve added 10 more pages to my project.

As far as what your other task should be, it can be practically anything. I’m a cinephile, so I love movies; I’ll have films, video essays, music videos, etc. playing while I write. Sometimes I go to the park, watch people play chess or walk their dogs while listening to music. The best of all for me is boring data entry. Something about having to keep up the pace of my keystrokes while still having a notepad for me to jot down whatever floats up out of the abyss. I’ve had some of my best ideas and especially dialogue while doing data entry.

This really goes back to that first tip and the idea of letting go of your self consciousness. It’s easy to get bogged down in it when you’re taking the rough draft phase too seriously. Plus I find that after a while I’m shunting more of my focus over to my writing as I pick up speed anyway.

- Your downtime is sacred. Respect your downtime.

Momentum can’t last for hours and hours on end. Let yourself wind down, set your notebook/document aside and come back to it later. This can take the form of switching gears by working on a completely different WIP, shifting formats (going from a manuscript to a rap verse or essay or tv pilot script), or just stopping your writing altogether and doing something else. It's not a flaw if you can't keep going that day, esp if you're back again the next day.

This goes well beyond the usual cliche of "be patient with yourself uwu" or “let inspiration guide you”, though there is a little truth to both. This isn’t about patience, or self care, or anything like that. It’s about an inner alchemy that can only take place if you know when to come to a stopping point.

There's this concept called "the boys in the lab" or "the boys in the basement" and it goes like this: you give the boys (your brain, your imagination, subconscious, whatever you want to call it) enough juicy raw material to work with (whatever you've written or outlined that day, notes, dialogue snippets, essay fragments, etc) and then back off. Exit the laboratory. The boys can’t work if you’re still in there nitpicking every little thing and micromanaging them. Get the hell out of their way, and I promise that when you poke your head back in tomorrow, you’ll find all sorts of new things being cooked up in there.

This is where those lightning bolt ideas come from. When something that never occured to you hits you at a traffic stop. When you wake up out of a dead sleep and scramble for a pen and paper so you can jot down something that came to you in a dream. When you get the solution to a problem while you’re in the shower.

That inner alchemy is no joke. And even if you don’t get some grand epiphany, there’s the more mundane but still highly useful phenomenon of viewing your work with “fresh eyes” (especially useful while editing/revising). Your words will run together if you stare at them for too long. Step back when you notice this happening.

- Don’t talk about your projects with others until they’re finished/published.

And even then, learn to be your own cheering section. Cultivate a quiet sense of pride in your own achievements and let your portfolio speak for itself. This applies to so much more in life, but with regards to writing: You can talk an idea to death, if you’re not careful. It happens all the time. Don’t get addicted to the rush of achievement you feel when you talk about what you’re going to do, when you haven’t even done anything yet. Stop putting your self-esteem in other people’s hands by seeking their validation and opinion on everything you do your writing. And as cynical as it sounds, not everyone wants you to prosper and thrive. So with all that in mind, remember:

#writing #flow state #rough drafts #writerblr

8 notes · View notes

vios-rockland-corner · 4 years

Text

Life in Rockland 1

[Author’s note: “Life in Rockland” is a creative writing project utilizing a specific OC in place of the MC for the “Rumors of Rockland” series. I do not own any part of the Rockland universe, only my OC. Fair warning, creative writing is not my forte. This is a means of practice and a fun way to enjoy the content further].

Sasha Holmes is new to Rockland and just had quite an interesting day.

Setting: After game events

Play: Rumors of Rockland- Article 1

[Spoilers below for RoR Article 1]

Sasha’s Choices:

[“Like the guy from Resident Evil?”]

[“Ah ha, what exactly do you have to do to look like you’re from around here?”]

[“Are you serious?”]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I can’t believe you’re still not unpacked yet. Hasn’t it been almost a week since you moved?”

The voice came from Sasha’s laptop. She was busy multi-tasking while video-chatting with her best friend Pierce. Well she could see his face IF she turned over from rummaging through boxes and laying out things on the floor. Some might consider this rude, but Pierce just found it a little hilarious.

“Look it’s a lot of stuff okay? Besides, I was busy this week going back and forth with work preparations and trying to get the layout of the place,” Sasha said with a huff, looking over her shoulder at the computer.

“Sounds like too much work. You should’ve just stayed home. What’s wrong with waiting a few more years before moving out?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with it. I just...”

“Wanted to break your best friend’s heart?” Pierce gives a very exaggerated pout. Sasha turns around and smiles coyly. She crawls over to the computer and lays in front of it, resting her chin on folded arms.

“No. Even though you kind of deserve it sometimes.”

“I COULD always go easy on you in pool you now? I don’t mind toning it down. You’re not gonna beat me otherwise.”

“First off, I don’t want a pity play from you. Second, you know damn well how close I got last game.”

“Yeah, only to hit the eight-ball into the complete opposite pocket you called. Gotta say, it was almost impressive how you hilariously made a masterful bounce into the wrong fucking pocket,” he grins, holding back his laughter.

“Well I mean that counts as skill doesn’t it?”

“Yeah like scoring a basketball shot for the other team.”

“Whatever, jerk.”

“But back on topic…”

“Okay yeah, look. I love my hometown, my parents, and even your obnoxious butt. But I just…didn’t want to get rooted. I didn’t want to be living with my parents the whole time. I didn’t want to know ONLY my home.”

“You worry too much. The rest of the world’s not going to get up and leave if you take too long to hit the road Sasha.”

“I know that, but I wanted…a challenge.”

“A challenge? You? I thought you liked everything neat and controlled. You want to throw things out of wack now?”

“Nothing elaborate. Just a life challenge. Take care of my own expenses and start from the ground up. Meet people on my own and establish a career.”

“I feel like you’re letting your childhood slip away here.”

“Pierce, we’re not kids.”

“YOU sure as hell aren’t. You always took freakin part-time jobs during college, and full-time jobs in the summer. I had to DRAG you out to the pub and parties for your own sanity.”

“Well moving and covering the cost of living is EXPENSIVE, Pierce.”

“Jesus, how much did you have saved up?”

“Enough so that I could get a place living by myself,” Sasha smiled proudly.

“Not that I don’t think that’s an impressive achievement girl, but I think I would have felt a little better if you had a roommate. You’re out there by yourself I mean.”

“Look I worked hard for this, so I want my privacy. I also didn’t really feel comfortable with finding a roommate way out here.”

“You didn’t pick your roommate in college either though.”

“Yeah, but that was our local college Pierce. I had friends and family right nearby, so if things got weird I had help. I’m a few hours away from all that now.”

“A ‘few hours’ you say. It’s like, you’ve gone too short a distance to even warrant a move, and yet just far enough to making it a hassle with visits.”

“I disagree. I think it’s the perfect distance. I wanted to be able to visit home, but I didn’t want the temptation to go running home every chance I could get. Not impossible to go home though. The point here Pierce is for me to be ‘independent,’” she huffed.

“Whatever.” Pierce rolled his eyes.

“Say what you will, the deed is done.”

“So uh…Rockland. Why?”

Sasha shrugged. “No particular reason. Just seemed like the best choice. I looked at job advertisements for surrounding areas by distance, looked at their reviews and job pay and what kind of areas they were located at. The job in Rockland was just better pay from my current job, and the place is small but still attracts tourists. Means I don’t have to worry about being overwhelmed, but at the same time it SHOULD have just enough amenities and attractions to keep me entertained.”

“Oh? Entertain yourself huh? Last I checked that was my job. Isn’t your idea of fun sitting at a café and going through files?” He smirked.

“Very funny. Did you forget all the movies we’d watch together too? I don’t need a buddy for that, and I’ll find other hobbies here. Maybe I’ll start running again.”

“Well good. Not like you’re gonna get any excitement from your current job. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want to push yourself to do something a little more interesting.”

“Thaaat’s what the hobbies are for Pierce. The job is just for stability.”

“Could have added a little more drama to your life if you’d just decided to follow your namesake.”

“Pierce, literally no one in my family has ever been a detective. DESPITE our last name. It’s just a random name picked by a random author for a character that became randomly popular. It is not a go ahead to pursue a career in criminal justice.”

“Seriously, why has NO ONE in your family ever tried to be a detective?”

“Because it requires you to see a lot of messed up shit? I think I’ll pass. I mean…if it makes you feel better, I had a great uncle who was a PI.”

“Really?? What was that like!?” Pierce looked a little excited.

“Honestly? From the stories I heard, he just got a lot of crazies paying him. People paranoid about being stalked or just using him as a way to harass others. Wasn’t exactly fun work.”

“Bummer,” he said in a dejected tone. “Well, I guess if you’re in a place like Rockland, probably wouldn’t get much action anyway.”

“What makes you say that? Haven’t you been here before?”

“Just SOUNDS plain to me. LITERALLY makes me think of rocks. Yeah I’ve been there. But that was like, when I was a kid? Just visiting. Was never for long. Uncle was there.”

“Right. Younger you was probably also too busy running around and sticking his hands in the dirt to actually pay attention to what was around you.”

“Yeeeeep that sounds like me,” he smirked.

“Well, I don’t know if the place has changed since you were little or you literally just have zero awareness of what’s around you, but I wouldn’t EXACTLY call this place boring. Not after today.”

“Oh?” Pierce leaned in, curious. “I’m so sorry, what WAS your day like dear Sasha?”

“Well, I was…looking for a place for a regular hangout. I found this one bar in the Town Central. At least it felt a lot more welcoming than some of the clubs around here. Most of the people in general seem friendly here…but they can tell I’m new. Like…ALL of them can tell. It’s a little nerve-racking.”

“Look if you didn’t want to want to stick out like a sore thumb, you should have moved to a city. I told you that. Much easier to blend in there.”

Sasha shook her head. “No, I didn’t want to get overwhelmed like that. The best city choices were too big. Then I’d really feel lonely. It’s not bad here, I just…have to be sure I make a good first impression is all. I don’t…think they hate new people?”

“You JUST said they were friendly, didn’t you?”

“Yeah but…see the bartender…” Sasha shook her head again, “No, no you know what? I think I was just getting jittery since it’s a new place. Forget it.”

Pierce tilts his head. “What about the bartender?”

“He…OH! His name,” she quickly recovered and laughed. “His name is Whesker!”

“Like Resident Evil Whesker?” Pierce chuckled.

“EXACTLY LIKE RESIDENT EVIL WHESKER! Dude even knew what that was!”

“SHIT FOR REAL?! That’s actually pretty sick. Points for the bartender. What’d you order from him?”

“Nothing, actually. Him and the other bartender had to do something out back. Didn’t actually get to drink anything the whole time I was there.”

“Boo. Points deducted.”

Sasha chuckled, “Well I mean they were busy. I wasn’t really mad. Kind of got distracted with this one guy having…a mental breakdown?”

“Woah. Like, what do you mean?”

“I mean he was…really off kilter. Not gonna lie, dude was kind of terrifying. He kept cussing up a storm and saying he was gonna slit someone’s throat. He did SOMETHING awful. Could not figure out for the life me what EXACTLY he did. He had a friend with him and I was certain this dude was going to punch him in the face or toss him across the room. He didn’t though. He just…kinda…slumped down into a weeping mess. It was weird. He said something about drinking. I think the dude was an alcoholic. It was kind of scary to watch. At first I was kind of quivering from the raw temper he had. Then…I felt a little empty.” Sasha went a little quiet.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Pierce said in a reassuring tone. “Dude was probably just drunk. Lots of people probably get a little emotional when they’re drunk. Met a ton of guys who say a lot of shit they don’t really mean when they’re wasted. Did he go near you?” Pierce looked a little concerned.

“Oh no, no I didn’t get caught up in any of that. His friend I guess took him to some place to cool off. The alcoholic kept saying something about disappointing someone for…whatever he did.”

“That’s good. If you were to guess what he did though, what would you say?”

Sasha shrugged. “Maybe he got in a fight? Broke someone’s nose? Or maybe he’s got a gambling problem?”

“Yeah. Could be those. He could also literally have just spent all his paycheck on booze, and now he’s gotta figure out what to do for rent. I’ve seen that a few times. Whatever the case, just…keep your distance Sasha. Dude was probably just being overly emotional, but I suggest you stay away from wildcards like that you know?”

“Oh yeah don’t worry. I don’t do so great anyway with very…loud people.”

Pierce laughed. “Yeah I know. Just saying that if it’s a small place, you MIGHT spot him again.”

“I’ll be careful. Should be easy to tell if he’s been drinking again anyway.”

“Sounds like his friend can keep him under control. Don’t worry, I’m sure the next person you come across won’t be as scary Sasha.”

“Well…by all accounts…I suppose you’re not wrong, even though I feel like you should be,” Sasha laughed nervously.

Pierce cocked an eyebrow. “The heck is that supposed to mean?”

“I..ummm…I never thought I would say this in my entire life…”

“And that would be?”

“….I met a drug dealer.”

Pierce blinked. “YOU. Met a DRUG DEALER? You are shitting me right now.”

“No, no this is a thing that happened. Right after the alcoholic left.”

“What, you parked close to the back alley and he came out to hassle you?”

“No this was in the bar.”

“Oh, oh so you’re telling me that a drug dealer just walked right the fuck up to you and said ‘Hey wanna buy some drugs?’” Pierce was grinning and trying to hold back his laughter.

“…Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“YES! I’m not joking! This happened! And the dude collects snow globes and friendship bracelets too!” Sasha blurted out, exasperated.

Pierce burst out laughing, “NO FUCKING WAY! No, I’m not believing that shit for a second. Sasha you must have misinterpreted something there or this dude was just fucking with you.”

“THERE’S NO WAY TO MISINTERPRET THE LINE WORD-FOR-WORD, ‘You want to buy drugs, kid?’”

“Sasha no drug dealer is going to deal that stuff in public. Cops eat at those places too.”

“Yeah, about that…apparently the cops here are either inept or can be ‘persuaded.’ I don’t know. Tyler’s plan was apparently to give them a blow if he got caught.”

“Okay one, who’s Tyler? And two, which blow you talking about?”

“Tyler is the drug dealer and…both?”

Pierce stares for a full 10 seconds, stunned. He then burst out laughing again, falling over on his side this time.

“OH MY GOD! OH MY FUCKING GOD! Sweet innocent Sasha left home for no less than a week and you’re already hooked up with the world’s nicest drug dealer. Oh man. Sasha I take back what I said about Rockland. Sounds like a riot.” He had a large Cheshire grin on his face, but was holding his sides from laughing so hard.

Sasha rolled her eyes and said in a deadpan tone, “Well I’m glad through this long conversation, the thing that finally seems to get you to approve of my move is my association with a drug dealer. Of all things. Your reaction also makes me understand Dylan’s pain even more now.”

Pierce sighed, “Oh man, that just, that just made my day. Thank you….wait who the hell is Dylan?”

“You’re welcome, and Dylan is Tyler’s friend. He was mostly horrified about how open Tyler was. Probably one of the more sane people in the bar that night. He dragged Tyler away at the end.”

“Aww, so you didn’t get any drugs?”

“No? No number, no drugs.”

“Why would you NOT get drugs?!”

“What th-YOU KNOW ME! That’s not me. Plus my parents would have a heart attack if I tried anything.”

“But Sasha! It’s not enough to just not buy a product from a vendor whose actions you don’t approve of. You gotta purchase from their competition whose conduct you prefer!”

“…Okay I get what you’re saying. Like if I want to support humanely raised animals, buy the food in the store that’s only from farms with humane raising tactics. But, Pierce…you’re talking about DRUG DEALERS here. That’s ALL illegal.”

“Same difference. I’d rather pay the friendly snow globe collecting drug dealer in the bar than the creepy freak in the dark alley. It’s how you make the world a better place Sasha! Illegal or not, not like they’re going away.”

“You are…just…I think I understand Dylan’s feelings even more now.”

“Let me come visit sometime. You can take me to see Tyler.”

“Oh hell no! If I have any say in this, I’m gonna try my hardest that you two never meet. I will NEVER hear the end of it otherwise.”

“Boo. Fine, be that way. …Hey can I tell your parents about Tyler?”

“NO. You’ll make THEM start to question my choice in coming here.”

“Okay okay.” Pierce settled down. “So in summary, you walked into a bar where the bartenders dipped out, an alcoholic was in hysterics and the drug dealer was trying to get you in his books….Eh, you know when I say it out loud it doesn’t sound like the craziest bar ever. May even be pretty normal compared to some standards,” he grinned.

Sasha chuckled, “Yeah, I think I’ll pay the place another visit sometime. It was…interesting.”

“You could use a little spice in your mundane life girl. Sounds like this place could be a gem. Let me know who else pops up there next time, kay?” he winked.

“I will. Have a good night Pierce.”

“Say hi to Tyler for me!”

“GOOD NIGHT Pierce.”

Sasha clicked “End Call.”

Sasha sighed. She felt emotionally exhausted.

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Did I forget something? I think that was all the news. There was something though…” Sasha thought to herself. Something was nagging at her.

“The…bartender? What am I…oh no I mentioned his name! Pretty sure that was it,” she chuckled.

Sasha looked at the boxes and just shook her head. She’ll finish it later. Right now, bed sounded like the best idea after all that excitement.

#Rockland #Rockland Games #rumors of rockland #runawayoutlaw #rottenbonethief #my OC #sasha holmes #Life in Rockland #RoR

16 notes · View notes

cleverbroadwayurl · 5 years

Text

Compromised Retrograde (Michael Mell x Reader)

Word Count: 2801

A/N: Ahh! I finally finished it! I also definitely watched the movie and honestly, it was really good! I’m happy that this was requested so I could watch a movie! Uhh but as always, if you want something different or want it revised, please don’t hesitate to ask! And keep your eyes on this blog, I have more coming and I’m finally going to do some congratulatory 200 follower things that were requested!! Enjoy!

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of smoking weed, a bong, IF I MISSED ANYTHING PLEASE LET ME KNOW

Michael practically jumped down his basement stairs, hang-time caught at an all time low as he bounded down each wooden structure. He was lucky that his socks didn’t cause him to slip and possibly hurt himself, but his mind was preoccupied. As soon as his feet hit the basement floor, he turned on the lights and looked around. Friday night, meaning you’d be over there in about an hour and a half; meaning that he’d have to clean up literally any mess that he and Jeremy had made from the nights before. He spies the vacuum next to the all too white bathroom that he knew one of his moms just cleaned, because they too had gotten used to the typical ritual of you coming over and spending your evening, and sometimes all night, with Michael.

“Boy smell” as his moms called it practically lingered with heaviness that could only be beaten with a candle; the one his moms specifically bought for downstairs. It was the same candle they’d bought when Michael was smaller; it had become a comfort and the common scent of home for him. He lit a match, followed by the candle, before walking around the room and picking up stray wrappers, empty chip bags, and extra things he’d just forgotten to throw away while Jeremy was there. There’s a second; a pause that Michael looks around to see what else needs to be done. The lamp has new bulbs, the candle is burning, there’s a Spencer’s gifts bag sitting next to the couch; where it should be—sushi. He almost forgot to order the sushi so his mom could pick it up for you two. It would be an easy task, his favorite place now taking online orders instead of in person or over the phone. He was eternally grateful for that; ordering in class before running off to get it was that much easier. As soon as the sushi order was placed, Michael texted his mom and told her what place, what time, and exactly what he got so she could check his order when picking it up.

The room settled again. He decided on vacuuming the crumbs that littered the ground, especially by the beanbags. Shit, he should really be more careful while stoned so that cleaning before you got there wouldn’t be so heinous. Then again, high him wasn’t going to listen to reason, especially coming from sober him. He let the thought drift out of his head and into the space, knowing it was better forgotten than anything else. Michael walked across the room and grabbed the vacuum, the appliance whirring to life as he ran it over the carpeting—the tropical scent now warmer and gentler than before. When he stopped vacuuming, Michael turned on his sound system, allowing a special playlist for you slipping into the scene. With the sun setting and the golden hour approaching, the room suddenly basked in the beautiful light—you coming into Michael’s mind.

He’d gone to Spencer’s the night before, knowing that this task of cleaning the basement might take a little more time than he anticipated. Jeremy hadn’t gone with him, but instead met him at his house later that night—Thursdays were for best friends, Fridays were date night. So he’d gone alone, choosing that the lead on the newest retro soda in stock was more important than just sitting around at home and waiting for his best friend to show up. But of course, going without Jeremy had its downfalls: he couldn’t use Jeremy as a scapegoat or split the price if it got too high. But that ended up not being a problem, the guy hooking up with something reasonable and actually kind of delicious. He’d bought more than one, too excited to count how many, so he’d decided to just try it. In fact, Michael had to go through the events again, he was pretty sure that Jeremy had managed to pry one from his hands too—wait, no, he’d just tried Michael’s.

He warped back into the present, a digital clock’s blue letters reading that you’d be there in just under a half an hour. Doing a quick check of the room again, Michael noted the controllers that were still out, pillows strewn about, and cabinets underneath the TV open, displaying the dusty consoles and not-so-dusty games that he’d bought before indie games were cool and he hadn’t gone almost completely digital. Each one was sorted almost perfectly, consoles, colors, and names aesthetically pleasing to any eye that was searching.

Moving around, he quickly coiled up the cords to the controllers and placed them on top of their corresponding consoles. There was a moment that he thanked himself for doing that, knowing that he’d be searching for it later. He shut the cabinets, each closing with a satisfying snap. Immediately the area is neater, everything feels less chaotic and feels more in place. It feels more like you’re about to come over and have date night—it feels more like a wonderful night with the person he really enjoys spending time with.

His eyes scan the room once again before they settle on a multi-colored piece of glass poking out from behind the couch—his bong making an entrance into the room. Michael walks over to the small loveseat that had made its way down into the basement when his moms realized that sometimes he fell asleep down there and after they’d bought the new couch. He places the bong further behind the couch, sure that it can’t be seen to anyone who wasn’t looking for it, out of the way of his moms, and that his older brother wouldn’t find it and use it whenever he decided to come home and visit. Of course, the placement was also for easy access when he was too tired or too socially drained to go upstairs to grab it. Suspicion was also avoided when it wasn’t in his room, and would stop Michael from pulling anything too risky with it in his room. As soon as his hand came off of the smooth glass, Michael realized that he wasn’t sure if you wanted to smoke tonight. He decided to just leave it there for now, if you wanted to, you’d ask, right?

As soon as the thought leaves him, Michael can hear your light footsteps above him and his moms welcoming you into his home. He pauses for a second, imagining you gliding across the room with lighter footsteps, the sun hitting your features and giving you a glow that only his dreams could see. He could solidly see you walking towards the basement like you’d done many times before. Your footsteps tapped lightly down the stairs, and Michael quickly adjusted his position so it wouldn’t look like he had just spent the last several minutes cleaning up before you got there. Your smile rivaled the sun that streamed in through the blinds, and he couldn’t help but shoot you one back, one that felt goofier, one that felt more like a laugh that came from sheer surprise and happiness. He can feel his face blooming red, heating more than the candle that was still aflame, home still being inhaled and exhaled as the moment continued.

You walk over to Michael’s TV base and open up a cabinet. Your hand hits the “on” button, green squares coming up onto the large flatscreen. The sound of the Xbox booting up pulls him out of his thoughts, knowing that you thought it was going to be a typical Friday night filled with him playing video games while you marveled at lore. “What are we gonna play today, Michael?” you smile at him, almost as clumsy as he had before, but yours seemed to be beaming extra admiration at him. It was cute, there was no denying that much.

“Actually, I don’t think I want to play anything, if that’s okay with you.”

You let out a giggle, eyes slightly closing at him. He returned the gesture, so excited, so delirious that he had something special for you. Something he’d managed to get his hands on sat upon that couch, and it wasn’t soda. “What are we doing then?” you asked.

“I got a movie for us to watch.”

“Oh! Cool!” You smiled before sitting down in a beanbag, letting him get everything queued up. Michael’s hand grabbed the Spencer’s bag, excitement pulsating through his veins as his fingers gripped the cheap plastic. “Which one?”

Somehow, Michael feels his smile grow wider. You have no idea. His cheeks begin to hurt, answers almost bursting out of him. “I don’t know, but I think someone told me that you really like Charlie Chaplin.”

“Of course, he’s only one of the—Wait.” Realization makes its way through your features, a smile bursting into them after you understand exactly what you two were going to watch. Michael can’t help but smile at your adorable antics, excitement matching his. “Michael, did you—”

“The guy at Spencer’s has a friend who also works there and I managed to get my hands on an actual VHS tape. And it just happens to be The Great Dictator, which is apparently pretty good, but I don’t know, a little cutie just told me that, I think.”

There’s a pause, a moment of breathing, an inhale, before you scream and jump up, your arms wrapping around Michael. He can’t hug back at first, his entire mind racing as the action happens, but wraps his arms around you and returns the hug after a second, his smile turning musical, laughter encasing the room into a sanctuary around you. He can feel your smile against his shoulder, muffled “thank you”s coming out of your mouth at a speeding rate. His hands find a rhythm, gliding across your back as the seconds pass. You pull away first, almost dizzy with happiness and completely infatuated with the boy who stood in front of you. “What happened to Resident Evil 2?” You ask, eyes batting, but the happiness not fading even for a second.

“It can wait! I’m excited about this. I thought we could do something you’re into.”

“Michael, you’re the best!” Another breath, and you’re whisked away, sitting back into the beanbag eagerly as Michael picks up the Spencer’s bag and starts for the TV cabinet that holds everything needed for any entertainment. The door comes open with a little force, a thicker layer of coating covering his VHS player, knowing that it hadn’t been used since his older brother was still living at home—and probably just starting kindergarten. He wipes it down with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, buttons and their descriptions now becoming clear. Michael takes a second before putting the tape into the player, hoping that he wouldn’t have to rewind it for the next 20 minutes. As much as he loved vintage items—the retro eras were the best—if there was one thing he didn’t miss, it was waiting for the VHS tapes to rewind.

The tape didn’t need to be rewound. It actually ran perfect, just like the guy said it would. The music began to play, credits rolling across the screen as Michael walked to the back of the room. He flicked the light switch off before heading over to the small windows that lined the room. He pulled out the darkening fabric and almost immediately, the candle, along with the TV screen were the only two things lighting the room, dark tones seeming to sweep the area without a moment’s grace. As soon as everything was dimmed, Michael pushed his beanbag towards yours, the two cloth—essentially giant pillows—touching, creating a makeshift couch.

Michael pushed up his glasses, checking around to make sure that nothing else needed to be done before sitting himself down and sinking into the beanbag. He made eye contact with you, but you just smiled back, grabbing his arm and wrapping it around yourself. You kissed his cheek as you descended onto his chest, his heart being jumpstarted from 0 to 60 in less than a millisecond. He hoped that you couldn’t feel him trying to even out his breathing, the moment becoming more and more perfect as time elapsed. Sure, World War I was happening on the screen, but Michael couldn’t pay attention to 1940 humor and antics. All he could focus on was you, knowing that this was special, this moment burning into his memory, coded for later and stored for nights when it felt like he was by himself or insecure that he wasn’t a good boyfriend to you. This moment was special; he’d done something nice and completely basically changed his dynamic just for you. Who cared about a new game that he was sure Jeremy would be playing? He had you, who didn’t care for the same virtual worlds, but instead found passion and love for vintage movies. Michael didn’t care about the money he’d spent, your face, your happiness, you were priceless to him. Every moment of hunting down this random guy was worth it, just to feel you smile against him and to relax with you.

There’s a good 15 minutes before his mom comes down, sushi in hand. She smiles, setting the food down in front of the two beanbags, chopsticks sitting on top of the stack of boxes; different rolls almost pouring out of each one. She smiles, knowing just how important moments like this were, how much they meant to each of you, before stepping lightly out of the basement and closing the door behind her.

After the soft click made its way through space, Michael handed off some chopsticks to you, opening his own one handed. He had practice with opening them in such a way, a controller didn’t allow for any fault or for any mistakes as you do things one handed. You smiled at him before taking the chopsticks into your hand, opening them yourself. Boxes were opened, displaying all different rolls and options for even the pickiest sushi eater, Michael knowing he’d like pretty much all of them. So, if you didn’t like one, Michael was happy to just, go for it. Soy sauce and wasabi is laid out, little plastic dishes providing both strewn about the floor. He goes for one roll but sees you going for the same one. He retracts and lets you grab it, knowing that this night is about you. It’s a date; he wants you to be comfortable, he wants things to be near perfect.

As time goes on, the World War I scene forgotten, sushi gets eaten. Roll by roll, the boxes empty and food disappears. The movie is almost forgotten at some points, affectionate looks and side glances preventing focus on the one thing that actually brought this night into existence. But it didn’t matter. As long as you were happy with the events, Michael could be flexible. If you had requested specific pizza or sushi or whatever from somewhere even as wild as New York, Michael would’ve driven there without any hesitation.

Within the next half an hour, the sushi depletes to one last roll, both of you too full to eat it. Each of you look at it, the roll almost mocking you as it just sits there. With a sigh, the two of you lean back, resuming the position that was given up to eat dinner. The movie continues to play, but nothing is said between you two for a little bit as the leading lady gets made over by the barber. You smile as the scene continues, older physical humor coming from the screen. There’s another second before you nuzzle into Michael’s chest, his heart speeding up faster than it had before. “Thank you,” you mumble, and Michael can feel the vibrations course through his body, almost like light radiating its way through his veins.

“Anytime,” comes his response as he turns his attention to you and kisses the top of your head. Sure, it wasn’t the new Resident Evil 2 that he was sure Jeremy would brag to him about later, but that didn’t matter. He could put up with his best friend’s dumb antics when it came to you. Sweet and amazing you who deserved to have little nights full of things you’re passionate about. A balance between you two, working towards a common, happy goal. He was happy to play his equal part, happy to make you happy, and happy to sit down and really dive deep into something that you were passionate about and loved, because if he was honest with himself, he was passionate and loved you. In this moment, in every moment, Michael wouldn’t have it any other way.

#Michael Mell x Reader #Michael Mell Imagine #bmc imagine #bmc x reader #be more chill imagine #be more chill x reader

165 notes · View notes

ipadrepairsydney-blog1 · 5 years

Text

Why Do People Fall In Love With I pads?

I love the iPad because it is a simple gadget without any complex functions. I can access the Sydney iPad repair when I need so. The device is portable, lightweight and ideal for traveling. The battery life is 10 hours which is pretty good for long use. The device has a high-resolution screen and the user loves to watch the movies. The cam is of high quality and produces beautiful pictures. If something happens I don’t delay in iPad repairs to keep it in good condition. I don’t need to adjust the brightness as the screen does it automatically. From music to videos, I enjoy the high-quality resolution and sound system. A wireless gadget goes well with all models like headphones, speakers, and Wi-Fi. My previous experience with iPad screen repairs was excellent because I am still using the same screen.

Sydney iPad Repair

Several new companies are emerging with iPad repairs but they are not as good as iExperts. The device is delicate with modern features and one needs a special training to repair. You can also find original parts from the market but it is hard to replace faulty parts. I prefer to have an expert’s advice when it is about my iPhone or iPad because both are expensive. I don’t like to stop my tasks so the quick Sydney iPad repairs keep me going. I took unlimited pictures with a high-quality camera and my gallery still has lots of space. The gadget is app-friendly so I can install any new app. The drivers are also easily available online which enable easy printing and other tasks. I use my handy device for both personal and business use because it is multi-purpose. I am not afraid of damage because I know that iPad repairs are always successful.

Don’t Ignore iPad Repairs

If scratches appear on the screen, don’t avoid them and immediately reach for iPad screen repairs Sydney because they are reliable. A delay would lead to screen failure, eventually, it will become useless. If you drop water on the screen, make it dry with a soft cloth or tissue paper. Keep the tea and coffee away while working, but if the screen gets wet, see a specialist to clean it from all around. With care and right parts, you can keep a gadget for many years. However, update the software regularly for proper functioning. It would be good to replace a very old model with a new device as it will get less issue. Try the iPad screen repairs by iExperts because they have a top quality.

1 note · View note

sometimesrosy · 2 years

Note

Heya! I seem to have a problem. I can't, for the life of me, entertain myself while I'm at home. I had a pretty bad work schedule, where I'd go in at 12pm or 13:30pm and then would get out at 20pm. I got so used to it that now, even in the mornings, I don't really know what to do. I have a million shows to watch, million books to read, million rooms I could clean, I could also go to the gym, go see the beach, etc etc, but I just don't. I literally do nothing. Weekends are hard too. What to do?

Hmm. Tough question. We don't know WHY you're unable to do things.

Are you perhaps burnt out?? After that tough work schedule, that might be part of it.

Instead of trying to force yourself to be productive, why don't you consciously decide NOT to do anything for a bit. Go to bed with snacks, do some light, easy reading while there or binge that comedy on your tablet.

After I finish a job, I often just take it easy for a while to get my strength back. Do whatever feels like self care to you. Maybe you need to do dance parties or bake bread or sit outside on the front steps, I don't know. Because you've listed a lot of things and they're all hard for you. Maybe if you stop expecting yourself to be productive you could pick up one of the things.

Another possibility is that you have just forgotten how to get started on those things. Or you're overwhelmed with too many choices. Try making a physical list of the things you want to do. Sometimes having it right out there in front of you helps you to take action, because the to do list gives you a place to start.

If a list still feels too overwhelming, pick the thing you WANT to want to do, and break it down into smaller tasks. Like, hmm. Go to the beach. It might look something like this.

Find my swimsuit

Buy snacks

Buy sunblock

Wash beach towel/blanket

Check the weather.

Pick paperback

Pack beach bag

make plans with X

get up early

"Go to the beach" is actually a multi step goal. You can't just get up and go, there are things that need to be done first. It's easier to "find swimsuit" than it is to "go to the beach" but you need the swimsuit to go.

Or maybe the easier task, like read that book on your bedside table is too overwhelming, not because it's hard to pick up the book, but because it's hard to choose, or you feel guilty reading if you have to vacuum the living room, you know? So solve that one a different way. Set a timer for fifteen minutes to vacuum the livingroom, something you don't particularly want to do, but if you don't do it you can't sit down and read. Then once the timer dings, go take a break and read your book. You can set the timer for fifteen minutes or thirty if you want, and then get back to cleaning for fifteen minutes. I believe that's called the pomodoro method, but it might be a bit more complex than that. I just find timers help me tackle things I'm avoiding or are overwhelming.

Also maybe get a buddy to do something with you. Go to the beach. Or watch a movie. Or do a book club so you have to finish before you meet with them.

Or put on some music to do the things you've been avoiding. Washing dishes while listening to Lizzo. Rearranging the books to classical. Or do two things at once. Put on a movie while you're cleaning the living room.

This is a lot of suggestions and I hope that doesn't make it too hard to process. If something here seems like it might help, give it a go. And remember, you aren't required to be productive all the time. It's okay to just chill, too. Especially after a hard work schedule. Listen to your body.

#rosy answers #rosyanswers #productivity #burnout #adhd

0 notes

tech-battery · 4 years

Text

SAMSUNG’S ODYSSEY G9 DOES THE WORK OF THREE MONITORS

I have been a technology cheapskate most of my life. I’ve rarely bought a monitor brand-new; I’m pleased to say I pieced together my current three-screen articulating swing-arm setup primarily from Craigslist and hand-me-downs. But this fall, I had an opportunity to temporarily replace my three aging displays with the most ridiculous, most advanced gaming monitor ever made: the super-ultrawide, super-curved, ultra-high resolution 49-inch Samsung Odyssey G9.

The Samsung Odyssey G9 is a monitor so big, so wide, so curved, it can fill a midsized desk and wrap around your entire field of view. It’s also simply a phenomenal screen: speedy (240Hz, 1ms, G-Sync, and FreeSync 2), high resolution (5120 x 1440-pixel), and bursting with brilliant color thanks to a QLED panel that tops out at an eye-searing 1,000 nits of brightness. I’m not kidding when I say I have to avert my eyes when I launch Destiny 2 in HDR, and I could swear I felt the flames the first few times my Star Wars: Squadrons’ TIE Bomber blasted an X-Wing into oblivion.

As they say on Reddit, I have ascended — and the past few weeks have been a gaming and productivity experience like few I’ve had before.

But gradually, I’ve been coming back down to Earth.

DESIGN

The Odyssey G9 is a showstopper, and I don’t just mean that figuratively: last January, attendees of the world’s biggest technology show were dazzled by its unprecedented curvature and sci-fi inspired frame.

When I put that same monitor on my humble IKEA sit-stand desk, the effect is otherworldly. Compared to my old hodgepodge of screens and rat’s nest of cabling, this G9 looks like a terminal aboard a Star Trek spaceship... even if my physical keyboard and its long braided cable ruin the illusion a bit.

The sheer size of the Odyssey G9 and its broad-shouldered stand do limit your options. I’m lucky that my small-form-factor Ncase M1 can fit behind the screen, and there’s just enough clearance (a little over six inches) for my Audioengine A2+ speakers to fit underneath the monitor at the stand’s highest position. But if I had a bigger PC or bigger speakers, I might have also needed a bigger desk — or else had to use the included 100mm x 100mm VESA adapter to mount the nearly four-feet wide, one-foot deep, 31-pound screen to the wall. My current monitor arms can’t carry nearly that much weight, though you can buy some TV arms that do.

As it is, I’m a fan of the way this monitor brings my whole desk together. Two DisplayPorts and an HDMI 2.0 port let me switch between three video sources easily, including a side-by-side mode which lets me display two at once, effectively giving my PC and game console (or a second computer) each their own 24.5-inch, 2560 x 1440 displays.

There’s also a two-port USB-A 3.0 hub and a 3.5mm audio output, which worked perfectly with my keyboard’s USB and 3.5mm audio passthrough. As you can see from my photos, I can do a lot with only a single visible cable thanks to those ports. And while the narrow V-shaped stand might seem a little minimal for a monitor this hefty, it takes a decent shove to get it to tip forward even at its highest position.

You can adjust the monitor’s settings using a tiny five-way control nub underneath the power LED, and it’s remarkable how much you can tweak — including the ability to crop the entire panel to 4:3, 16:9, or 21:9 aspect ratios instead of stretching out the image. You can effectively have a 27-inch HDR panel for your game console or TV whenever you need. It’s just a shame that the monitor’s biggest benefits don’t necessarily translate to its side-by-side mode, where your 240Hz HDR screen generally becomes a pair of 60Hz SDR ones.

PRODUCTIVITY

My first big test for Samsung’s Odyssey G9 wasn’t a console or even PC gaming — last month, I co-hosted The Verge’s industry-famous Apple event live blog, capturing every screenshot you saw. I normally run three monitors because I switch tasks like mad, and if there’s a better multitasking test than an Apple event, I haven’t met it yet.

At first, I wasn’t sure this epic screen would work. Most apps and websites aren’t designed to display across the vast expanse of a single 32:9 monitor, so you have to live in windows. I couldn’t simply toss one or two apps onto each monitor like I usually do. But while Samsung doesn’t ship the G9 with any good windowing software and Windows 10’s default Snap is woefully insufficient, Microsoft’s free downloadable FancyZones windowing manager worked wonders.

l built my own set of dedicated snappable spots for the Apple live stream; The Verge’s live-blogging tool; Slack; a browser window to keep track of any Apple press releases that might pop during the show; and even a narrow strip of Windows Explorer so I could see which images I’d already captured and weed them out as necessary. The only other wrinkle was the additional Chrome extension I had to download to ensure YouTube could launch “full screen” in a browser window, instead of taking over my entire ultrawide monitor.

In general, while I did occasionally miss my two vertically oriented monitors for scrolling long webpages, Google Docs, and Tweetdeck, I found the G9’s gigantic horizontal expanse of real estate nearly as effective for most tasks. Where I could only squeeze four narrow columns of Tweetdeck onto my old portrait-orientation screens, the G9 would comfortably fit five, plus a 30-tab web browser, a nice vertical strip of Evernote for note-taking, and our Slack newsroom alongside.

I wouldn’t say it’s better than having three screens for work, but it seems like a sufficient substitute — except maybe that toast notifications now pop up in the corner of my eye where they’re pretty easy to miss. Still, it’s nice not to have to match color, contrast, and brightness across three screens at a time, or adjust how my mouse crosses from one monitor to the next. Having a single, vast, unbroken expanse of real estate that’s always the same distance from my face (as I spin in my chair) is an absolute treat. And while the Odyssey G9’s unprecedented curve does tend to catch ambient light, the matte screen does a great job of diffusing any glare.

The ultrawide aspect ratio didn’t work as well for video as I hoped, though. While you might imagine 32:9 being great for movies, I had a hard time finding anything I could play in ultra high definition that wasn’t 16:9. Most streaming platforms won’t easily let you access their 4K and HDR content on a Windows machine to begin with — YouTube’s the primary exception, though Netflix works if you’ve got a recent Intel processor and use Microsoft Edge or the native app — and you’ll want 4K to take advantage of a screen this high-res and this close to your face. The 4K YouTube videos I played were definitely clearer than 1080p — I could really peep these pixels in Dieter’s iPhone 12 video review. And while standard 16:9, 1080p content does display just fine full-screen with black borders on the sides, it feels like I’m wasting a lot of screen real estate that way. Plus, the blacks are a bit gray, not the deep inky black you’d get from an OLED screen — particularly with HDR on and Samsung’s iffy local dimming enabled.

GAMING

The first thing you should know about gaming on the Odyssey G9 is that you’ll want a serious graphics card to go with it. Technically, 5120 x 1440 resolution isn’t quite as many pixels as a 3840 x 2160 4K UHD screen... but remember we’re also talking about a monitor that goes up to 240Hz. To properly review the Odyssey G9, I borrowed an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 to get enough horsepower, since my GTX 1080 couldn’t even run games like Death Stranding or Destiny 2 at 60fps smoothly at that resolution.

The second thing you should know about gaming on the Odyssey G9 is that it may not be quite as immersive as you’re imagining.

Don’t get me wrong: having an X-Wing cockpit wrapped all around you is an epic experience, and it feels like a true advantage to be able to use my peripheral vision in competitive shooters like PUBG and CS:GO. But it wasn’t long until I noticed something weird going on.

Look carefully at these images: notice how the sides are warped? Imperial deck officers and Novigrad Temple Guards aren’t generally this pudgy.

I tried game after game after game on the Odyssey G9, digging into my Steam, Epic, and Uplay libraries and tweaking a variety of settings, and this is simply the reality: every 3D game gets warped when you’re viewing it in a 32:9 aspect ratio, and there’s not much you can do about it. Changing your field of view in a game doesn’t get rid of the effect; it simply changes how much of the game world appears in the center of your screen (where things look normal) and at the edges (where they look stretched and zoomed). I actually pulled out a tape measure and checked: video game content that measures 4.75 inches at the center of the display can get stretched to a full 12 inches at the edges.

Now, this isn’t Samsung’s fault; it’s just the way games are built. Most games have a single virtual camera that exists at a single point in space, and while Nvidia once proposed changing that (see link above), the company’s Simultaneous Multi-Projection doesn’t seem to have made it into any of the games I tested. And in games with pre-rendered cutscenes, like Final Fantasy XV, you’ll be watching them at their original aspect ratio.

But before you write off 32:9 ultrawides right now, there are three things I’d like you to consider:

You might get used to it.

It’s not that distracting in some games!

2D games aren’t affected at all.

Let me give you some examples.

CS:GO and PUBG are incredibly competitive, nail-biting games where focus is everything, where you always need to have your gun at the ready and be scanning for any sign of movement. I don’t have time to turn my head left and right to appreciate the scenery or think about whether it’s warped. The G9 simply gives me enhanced peripheral vision, and it helps — not hurts — that things which appear in the corner of my eye are zoomed in by default. I got used to treating it as my peripheral vision and nothing else. (The 240Hz also comes in pretty handy in games like CS:GO where you can actually hit that frame rate.)

Genshin Impact, Abzû, Rocket League, and BioShock Infinite are games with gorgeous, colorful worlds whose proportions aren’t “normal” to begin with, and I love having them wrapped around me.

In Destiny 2 and XCOM 2, I found I could forgive the warping because of the enhanced field of view and the ability to easily zoom whenever you want. It’s nice to see more of the battlefield at once in XCOM while planning out how my soldiers will move each turn, and it’s pretty cool to aim down the sights in Destiny without the typical claustrophobia that comes with zooming in, since you’re still able to see what’s going on around you.

2D / 2.5D games like Worms W.M.D and Disco Elysium do look fantastic on the G9 — when you can find ones that actually support an ultrawide screen. That’s not a given: I managed to launch Soldat at 5120 x 1440 resolution, but it didn’t stretch across my monitor. Games with fixed widths like Streets of Rage 4 and Hyper Light Drifter won’t either. Even Disco Elysium only offers 21:9 support, not 32:9, unless you apply a hack.

And for every one of the 3D games that worked, I also found a Borderlands 3 or The Witness or Goat of Duty or The Witcher 3 where the warped geometry really bugged me, either because I wanted to sit back and look at the beautiful vista or because the edges of my screen were moving faster than the center.

In games like the hack-and-slash Mordhau or the road-tripping Final Fantasy XV, the distraction can also be when a piece of geometry that’s critical to the game constantly looks wrong. (Your Mordhau sword or axe often extends into the warped area of the screen; the road itself in FFXV looks curved instead of flat!)

Frankly, the most annoying game I played on the Odyssey G9 was figuring out which games would work in the first place. Here, I have to shout out Rock Paper Shotgun’s Katharine Castle, whose brilliant example-filled guide showcases nearly three dozen titles that do work, complete with GIFs so you can see for yourself. But if you’re willing to work at it (and understand the risks), a community at the Widescreen Gaming Forum (WSGF) and PCGamingWiki can help you hack and patch many existing titles to work at 32:9, too.

For instance, I installed a trainer that let me run Death Stranding at full-resolution 32:9, with an infinitely adjustable field of view, instead of the 21:9 that designer Hideo Kojima and company shipped.

Using a common tutorial, I hex-edited my Persona 4 Golden .exe and remarkably wound up playing what was originally a 480p PlayStation 2 game — and later a 720p, 16:9 PlayStation Vita game — at a glorious 3840 x 1080 at 32:9. (I do still need to figure out how to un-stretch the UI.) And there’s an old, unmaintained program called Widescreen Fixer that helped me revisit an old favorite:

I wouldn’t say the community is robust enough that you could necessarily find a fix for any game in your library. But the WSGF does now have a Discord you might want to check out.

THE ULTIMATE ULTRAWIDE, BUT THE BEST MONITOR?

The Samsung Odyssey G9 costs $1,479.99 — a premium price for a premium monitor like nothing else on the market. You can find other 49-inch 32:9 panels for less, but none with this combination of resolution, brightness, curvature, and refresh rate. The closest you can come is last year’s $1,200 Samsung CRG9 which maintains the resolution and brightness but with half the refresh rate at 120Hz and a notably less pronounced 1800R curvature — which, I imagine, wouldn’t be as good at giving you convincing peripheral vision in games.

If you’re looking for the ultimate ultrawide, this is currently it. I’m just not convinced that I am, personally, even if I had that much money earmarked for a new screen. For $1,500 and the enormous amount of space the Odyssey G9 consumes, I could buy a 48-inch LG OLED TV instead. I’d get a screen just as gigantic for my multitasking, but taller, with 120Hz G-Sync and FreeSync support, incredibly deep blacks, HDMI 2.1 for variable refresh rate for the PS5 and Xbox Series X, and no need to troubleshoot aspect ratios for my videos and games. Linus Tech Tips has a video that dives deep into the pros and cons of that LG screen, and I came away fairly convinced.

It wouldn’t be the same experience that the G9 offers, of course, and I might regret it if Nvidia and AMD ever dust off Simultaneous Multi-Projection for real. The TV might also cut off access to a large portion of my desk, and I might not be able to place my PC and speakers within easy reach without blocking a bit of the screen. But I’d have a more obviously future-proof setup; an equally, if not more gorgeous image; and a lot less ambient annoyance when I want to game. At the very least, here’s hoping Samsung adds HDMI 2.1 to this epic monitor next year.

0 notes

cosmosogler · 7 years

Text

hello. when i went to therapy on friday my therapist recommended i start writing every day again. then i didn’t write on friday. but i am writing today!

been having a lot of trouble sleeping. between feeling super restless and having nightmares i don’t get a lot of sleep. i tried taking wiley out for a long walk today and we’ll see if that helps me get a little more settled in when i try to go to bed.

i realized several days too late that i had left my pokemon in a timed mini game in poke pelago, where if you leave them in for a while their happiness goes up, but if they’re there too long their happiness starts to go down instead. so all their happiness stats were at 0 again and i accomplished nothing. i’ll try to be on top of it this time and take them out in the morning.

i have been utterly unable to eat more than a few bites at a time for the last three days. i try to break up my meals into halves and eat the leftovers the next day and i STILL can’t handle the half portions. it’s like, no matter how small i make my meals, i can still only eat a fraction of whatever i make. i guess i was hoping that exercising with the dog would bring back my appetite but it didn’t. i’ll have to try again tomorrow. i get super nauseous every time i try to eat even a little bit, to where i almost threw up immediately after getting halfway through a pb and j sandwich. that is not a hard to digest meal.

i’m not sure what to write about now... i haven’t really talked to many people the last week or so since my last entry. i am trying to build some new friendships since i don’t have the other physics majors to spend time with any more. but meeting new people is like trying to climb a wall using only my fingernails.

i am trying to be at the very least nice, if i can’t be kind. i wonder if my trepidation makes me a bad person.

star vs the forces of evil is an interesting choice for disney to broadcast. i guess the tv channel doesn’t mind letting its relationships get messy. the show has a lot of elements that i like in OTHER tv shows- but the way they’re put together in this particular show is somehow unsatisfying. i still can’t figure out why. i want to say the villain is too straightforward, but the lich from adventure time does that too and i like that villain in that show’s context. i think it’s really interesting how ludo is an ineffective villain without being sympathetic or too multi-dimensional. everything you need to know about him you learn in the first episode he shows up in. he never really shows hidden depths. you learn his dad was real hard on him and it’s like “yeah, i could have extrapolated that” and also i still didn’t feel sorry for him. i don’t think he deserved what happened to him toward the end of season 2, but it didn’t come as a surprise. he gets in way over his head and then he finds too late that he can’t swim. but having watched his first appearance, i KNEW he couldn’t swim.

i dunno. it’s a character i’ve seen before played in a way i haven’t seen before. like a captain planet villain that wandered into the horned king’s castle. the horned king is from, uh, the black cauldron. it’s not the most widely-known disney movie but it’s the best comparison i can think of.

i do have problems with the way it handles the protagonists. i was hoping that two seasons would sharpen up marco’s character but he still feels really... vague and not as perceptive as i thought he would be. i can’t get a handle on what his character is about, because it changes completely between the first and second episodes and i guess i never got over that confusion. i could forgive early installment weirdness, but the first episode is not the pilot. and marco doesn’t change over time the way finn or steven universe do. it’s a stark difference between the first and second episodes. like “these are his main character traits” differences. and the love conga line is frustrating at best. it’s not even a love triangle. it’s just a line of people pining for each other. but we know how it’s going to end because of the “blood moon destiny” thing so i don’t know why they’re bothering with all this unnecessary drama. the only thing i can hope for is that the whole “destined soulmates” thing gets directly subverted somehow.

i also am not sure how to feel about how it “gets dark.” but it’s not because i have a problem with kids’ shows getting dark? because i liked it in gravity falls, it seemed appropriate. and i liked it in adventure time and homestuck, i guess because i like getting mood whiplash. it’s been a few days and i still can’t put my finger on why it doesn’t feel right in this situation. the moment i realized i didn’t like it was very specific though. it was when queen moon goes to the monster king guy’s shack in the forest of death. ludo’s parents’ house. and you see the monster queen for the first time, and she has a black eye, and it’s very obvious that there’s some domestic abuse going on there. i saw that character and i said to myself “hmm, no, that’s too much.” but WHY did i say that to myself? i don’t expect every cartoon relationship to be happy or healthy. i guess i got too used to steven universe or something. the abusive relationship between the joker and harley quinn in the batman cartoon didn’t feel so... out of place. maybe because harley has a personality outside of “battered girlfriend/wife?”

hey look at that! i typed for like 40 minutes. most of it was navel gazing about a children’s cartoon.

i am beta reading an acquaintance’s story too. i want to talk about that now, but i think i’ve talked long enough about the media i consume for one night. i think i’ve said everything that is helpful to him, and everything that is not helpful to asher. so at least i’ve said it at some point. the story is not personally to my taste, but looking at other books that have become popular, i don’t think that the premise and direction necessarily make it a bad story. so i try to keep my critiques to the guy focused on the mechanics of the story rather than ruminating on potential metaphors and emotional payoff.

my therapist says i think a whole lot. i wondered how she knew that before we even spoke for a whole hour, but looking back at what i just wrote i feel like some things about myself might be really obvious. i’m not really as inscrutable as i’d sometimes like to be. i wonder if, since it seems easy to get a handle on my personality, that makes me a less interesting person.

i talked to asher last night about how i feel life is going for me right now and how my dreams might reflect that. he described my dreams as “fruitless tasks” and i think that is an accurate assessment. i don’t know how to summarize the feeling right now. i spent like an hour describing it last night and i don’t have that much energy left right now.

he did say something really interesting that i’ve been thinking about all day though. he said i could always choose to not do the tasks my dreams set up for me. i realized that that’s what my jumbi story is kind of about. the climax of the story, and where it kind of abruptly cuts off, is jumbi’s decision to NOT do something, and then the story ends there because she’s kind of refusing to participate in the narrative any more. she quits and goes home.

i think the only way i wouldn’t do one of my dream tasks though is if i realized i was dreaming and specifically remembered to try that, which doesn’t always happen. otherwise in my dreams i always feel like i’m going through the motions even suspecting or knowing that there’s absolutely no “reward.” feels like that when i’m awake too.

hey, sorry i talked so much. i didn’t think i had so much to say. i’m not sure how to wrap this up. everything just kind of fell out and i don’t have a pretty bow to tie it all up with. sorry, i guess.

2 notes · View notes

cdrforea · 4 years

Text

Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Review: A Slice of Luxury

New Post has been published on https://bestedevices.com/samsung-galaxy-tab-s5e-review-a-slice-of-luxury.html

Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e Review: A Slice of Luxury

"The Galaxy Tab S5e is an almost perfectly designed Android tablet for your home and a great companion for games and movies."

Slim and light

Breathtaking AMOLED screen

Attractive, simple software

Long battery life

Inexpensive

Audio disappointed

Camera is simple

Would you like this vacation an excellent price for a tablet? Check out our favorite Black Friday tablet deals.

We all want a little bit of luxury. A slightly more expensive hotel than usual when we go on vacation, tick the leather when ordering a new car and buy a mobile device that feels more expensive than it really is. This is the definition of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e. Together with the stunning screen, this is one of the main reasons why you will buy one in the store.

I spent a few weeks on the tablet and can happily say that you won't put it back on the shelf when you take it home.

Luxurious design

Samsung has distinguished itself with the style of the Galaxy Tab S5e. There are no new ways – it is a tablet and therefore quite fixed – but it manages to get all the crucial individual aspects right. The screen is the right size at 10.5 inches, the metal unibody weighs only 399 grams and is surprisingly light, while the 5.5 mm thickness contradicts virtually every belief. Any thinner and lighter, and it would be a piece of paper.

The frames around the screen are narrow, but there is still enough to grab and hold the tablet. But they're almost acceptable – you have to hold them loosely – otherwise it's too easy to accidentally touch the screen and rewind when viewing content, even with normal sized hands. The slim, cool-looking metal housing and the thin screen bezels give the Tab S5e the decisive luxury air. You really want to hold it and it puts a smile on your face when you do it.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

The thin housing on the back means that the camera lens is in a bump. This in turn means that it comes into contact with any surface on which the tablet is exposed. In addition to the Samsung and AKG trademark on the back, the camera lens and antenna bands are the only distractions. It's incredibly clean, simple, and stylish. On the sides there is a connector for a Samsung keyboard, four speakers, a microSD card slot and a USB charging port of type C. It doesn't have a 3.5 mm headphone jack, which is a shame.

Any thinner and lighter, and it would be a piece of paper.

Where's the fingerprint sensor? It is located in the power switch on the right edge directly above the volume rocker. Samsung has used this with great effect on the Galaxy S10e. The Tab S5e is precise and fast, but a little too small and possibly a little too high on the body. I searched for it too often and felt my thumb along the side. I would look for it sometime and that is unfortunate. It's not that Samsung has room on the side of the Tab S5e, and a longer sensor – like that of the Sony Xperia 10 Plus – would have been a welcome ergonomic addition.

The tempting slenderness of the Galaxy Tab S5e is one thing, but it worried me a bit. Even though it never hurt, the thin frame worried me about durability. I took it on a long flight and it spent a lot of time in a backpack where I feared it would be subjected to loads that would bend the frame. It never happened, and even when the tablet is physically rotated, there is no excessive movement. I would be happier if I kept the slim, attractive Tab S5e in a bag or case on the go.

Breathtaking screen, average sound

Samsung makes good screens. No, not good, I mean stunning screens, and the Tab S5e is another one to look at in astonishment. The 10.5 AMOLED panel has a resolution of 2,560 x 1,600 and looks great in any situation. There is so much color and life that even videos you are familiar with get a new look. I saw the last two episodes of Stranger Things 3 on an airplane and had to turn down the brightness almost all the way down, but the picture was still excellent and the shadows and dark scenes didn't suffer at all.

It’s not just a video that’s great. The low weight also makes it an excellent alternative for e-book readers and is ideal for games. I read with the Amazon Kindle app for many hours and changed the background color from white to a paper-like tone, which didn't tire my eyes. The light, easy-to-hold body enables longer gaming sessions even when playing. Reckless Racing 3 is fun and is visually enhanced thanks to the breathtaking colors and the screen.

Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

There's no question about the Tab S5e credentials when it comes to the visual experience, but what about the sound? The Tab S5e has four speakers that have been tuned by AKG – Samsung's audio experts. The speakers support Dolby Atmos. The audio is realigned when the tablet moves from portrait to landscape and vice versa. Despite all of these efforts, the sound is good, but not great.

There is a lot of volume, but voices are often lost in the mix, and increasing the volume only aggravates the situation. The chassis vibrates with noise, but not really with bass, because there is simply not that much. This is to be expected as there is not much space in the body for loudspeakers and sound chambers and the loudspeakers can be easily dampened when the tablet is held. We also had a similar listening experience with the Galaxy Tab S4.

Power and battery

On paper, the Galaxy Tab S5e doesn't impress with its technical data, since it deserves a relatively simple smartphone – a Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 processor and 4 GB or 6 GB RAM (corresponds to what is included in the Google Pixel 3a). In reality, it's more than enough to drive the tablet for the tasks it is meant to do – watch, surf, and read movies. I never had any problems playing.

Here are some benchmark results:

AnTuTu 3DBench: 152.646

Geekbench 4 CPU: 1,604 single core; 5,627 multi core

3DMark Sling Shot Extreme: 1,536 (volcano)

These numbers cannot keep up with the more expensive tablets with higher performance, but they are not displayed in daily use. The Galaxy Tab S5e never feels like a midrange smartphone despite the numbers and processor. It is wiped out in tests by Apple iPad Air, its direct competitor in terms of price.

The willingness of the Tab S5e to only sip energy increases its usefulness.

The battery on which the show runs has a capacity of 7,040 mAh and provides more than enough energy for long-term use. When used daily for a few hours, with apps and while watching videos, the battery lasted five days before it needed to be charged. The best thing is that it is in standby mode for days and uses almost no power. Tablets are not always used every day, so the Tab S5e’s willingness to drink only energy increases its usefulness.

Another great performance aspect of the Galaxy Tab S5e is WiFi, where I found signals I received more reliably than my phone when I was far from my router. This is important if you are streaming videos at home.

Basic camera

Would you like to take photos with your tablet? Sure, it's not ideal, but if necessary, the Galaxy Tab S5e will take it with its single 13-megapixel lens with a 1: 2.0 aperture on the back. On the front there is an 8 megapixel camera with the same aperture. The results are decent, with some attractive colors and contrasts, details in the shaded areas, and a nice blue sky with no oversaturation.

The pictures don't have much life and you don't want to take many in low light. Close-ups suffer from a lack of detail. The camera app has an editing suite with filters and basic tools to adjust your picture. Use the selfie camera and there are Snapchat style face filters and a live focus mode for a software generated bokeh effect. Everyone works very well, but their attractiveness will be a niche.

Whenever the Galaxy Tab S5e camera is put into action, it does more than provide enough results, but you can get a better camera experience on Apple's iPad Air.

A UI software

Samsung has installed its own One UI Version 1.1 software via Android 9 Pie. The experience is very similar and pleasant to that of a Samsung Galaxy smartphone. A user interface is clear, logical and clear. No, it doesn't look like Android on a Google Pixel, but its consistent layout makes it stylish and modern, and that's a big plus. App icons are uniform in size and shape, and navigation is quick and responsive, if a little slow at times.

Slowness is not a performance issue, but rather a design decision, as Samsung wants you to admire the transitions and scrolling. I don't know – sometimes it's a bit blurry – and I just want to find my app.

One problem that can affect others like me is the transfer of video content from a computer to the tablet. Connect it to a MacBook via USB, and you're out of luck if you want to transfer files. Android Device Manager is not working, and Samsung's outdated Mac app is not. It simply refuses to recognize what pain is when I want to have a video on my tablet. In the end I loaded a video with Google Drive. Yes, it worked, but it's awfully lengthy.

Then there's Bixby. On the home screen, swipe right to display Bixby Home, where a selection of maps contains information from some apps, Google Play, News, YouTube, and the tablet gallery. Among the helpful cards like the news, there are some curiosities like Giphy. Fortunately, you can edit which cards appear, but you can't mix the order.

The software of the Galaxy Tab S5e is easy to use, easy to adapt and also pretty.

I certainly haven't used Bixby Home very often, but Samsung has worked hard to improve the virtual assistant. The Galaxy Tab S5e has Bixby Voice, and you can activate the virtual assistant with the power button. Set this up and what can you do? Bixby's voice is surprisingly lifelike; It recognized my commands most of the time and the wake-up word "Hey Bixby" made sure it was always on. Many of the features are designed for use on a smartphone and not on a tablet that stays at home. For example, Bixby's quick commands are useful when you change profile settings for work or in the car. I don't take my tablet much out of the house, which makes this and many other commands superfluous.

Apart from that, the software of the Galaxy Tab S5e is easy to use, easy to adapt and also pretty. It makes a significant contribution to ensuring that the Galaxy Tab S5e is pleasant to live and use.

Price, availability and guarantee

The Galaxy Tab S5e costs $ 400 with 64 GB of storage or $ 470 with 128 GB and can be purchased from Samsung, Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers. In the UK, the 64 GB Tab S5e is £ 380 and the 128 GB is £ 420. If you want a 4G LTE version, it is only available from Verizon in the US and costs $ 480 plus the data plan you choose. In the UK, the 4G LTE model is unlocked and starts at £ 430.

Samsung provides a one-year warranty on the tablet against manufacturing defects in the United States, but not against accidental damage. The UK warranty is two years.

Our opinion

The Galaxy Tab S5e is an almost perfectly designed Android tablet for your home and the perfect companion for playing and watching movies and videos. The sophisticated software and performance ensure that it does not irritate, and thanks to the long-lasting battery it is always ready for use. The price is $ 399 (MSRP), and sales often drop to around $ 350.

Is there a better alternative?

Yes, and it's the tablet most people will think about – the Apple iPad. You should take a look at the Apple iPad Air, which has a 10.5-inch screen. It starts at $ 500. The smaller 9.7-inch iPad starts at $ 330, but the larger screen bezels make it look older. IPad software is great, app support is better, the screen is similarly good, and it will keep its value for the future – important if you want to resell it to fund an annual update.

If you want a more productive Samsung Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab S4 remains a good buy if you're on a tight budget. On the other hand, the new Galaxy Tab S6 is available if you want the latest Samsung Galaxy Tab hardware.

For more information, see our best tablet guide.

How long it will take?

The Galaxy Tab S5e is not waterproof and also not particularly durable. So you have to treat it well if you want it to last a long time. If you do this, there is no reason why the Tab S5e will not last for years. In contrast to smartphones, tablets are not so quickly out of date. Since drastic improvements are rare in subsequent models, there is less temptation to change them regularly.

There is no reason why you can't use the Tab S5e for three to four years if you only use it as a media player and for basic apps.

Should you buy it

Yes. The Galaxy Tab S5e is luxurious, powerful, and not overly expensive. It's not the best tablet, but it's a solid mid-range pick and will appeal to Android loyalists.

Editor's recommendations

#Galaxy #Luxury #Review #S5e #Samsung #Slice #Tab #Product Reviews

0 notes

bxtchinalexxcc · 5 years

Text

Dell Inspiron 15 3000 Series (3558) Reviews

Dell Inspiron 15 3000 Series (3558)Dell Inspiron laptop features 1TB HDD and 6GB RAM for glitch free performance. This Dell Intel core i5 laptop is preinstalled with Windows 10 Home OS. If you are tired of lags and glitches hampering your work, movie watching and gaming experience then it's due time you opt for a better and more efficient work station. The Dell Inspiron Laptop is the perfect computing device that will enable you to enjoy multimedia like never before. It is equipped with the powerful Intel Core i5 7200U processor and 6GB RAM module to let you switch between multiple tabs and multi task seamlessly. This processor and RAM combo also guarantee fast operation and smooth performance at all times. With its 1TB HDD, you get ample storage space to store all your favorite movies, videos and graphics intensive games. The 15.6inch screen displays content in crisp, detailed, and colorful picture quality at 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. Get an interactive experience with this Dell Intel Core i5 laptop that comes preinstalled with Windows 10 OS. Charge this Dell Inspiron laptop once, and work on it nonstop for hours on the go with its long lasting battery life. For easy file transfer, this Dell laptop comes equipped with USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports.

Build and Design

The updated Inspiron 15R N5110 features a number of design changes compared to last year’s Inspiron 15R. The overall look is essentially unchanged with a clean and sleek exterior, but at its core the 15R remains a budget laptop with a mostly plastic construction. The new 15R uses a hinge-forward LCD lid design that Dell first used in the premium Adamo series. I’m sure Dell designers will say it’s a way of reducing the size of the screen bezel with a 16:9 ratio widescreen display. However, as far as most people are concerned, it just means the back of the notebook sticks out more behind the screen. Build quality is generally pretty strong for a mostly plastic notebook, but you’ll notice some minor flexing in the plastics if you firmly squeeze the notebook in your hands or press hard on the keyboard while typing. The main chassis, while reasonably strong, has a “hollow” feeling which makes you think there is some unused space inside this black box. Speaking of black, that’s the standard color for the Inspiron 15R. You can select an optional “Fire Red” or “Peacock Blue” for an extra $35 when you order your laptop from Dell, or you can choose a more artistic lid for an extra $60. Honestly, I feel like customers should be able to pick black, red, or blue at no additional cost and the artistic lids should be half their current price … but that’s just my opinion. At least with the new “SWITCHable Lids” you can buy a fancy screen lid at a later time if you want. One additional (and probably unintentional) benefit of the new “SWITCHable Lids” is that the screen is slightly more protected from exterior pressure. The new screen cover offers moderately more protection for the LCD than the old 15R, which means ripples don’t show up as easily on this screen if you press on the back of the lid. Anyone looking to upgrade the RAM inside the Dell Inspiron 15R will find the process is very simple. There is only one access panel on the bottom of the notebook secured by a single Phillips head screw and some plastic retention tabs. Remove that one panel and you can add or replace to the system memory. Unfortunately, removing the hard drive requires almost a complete disassembly of the notebook chassis

Ports and Features

When it comes to budget 15-inch laptops, Dell has a history of packing their notebooks with enough inputs and outputs to keep any tech enthusiast happy. The new N5110 is no exception. This Inspiron 15R features two USB 2.0 ports (one of which is an eSATA/USB combo port), two “Super Speed” USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and VGA-out, audio jacks, and Ethernet. It also featured a SDHC-card reader and a CD/DVD optical drive.

#laptop #laptops #best laptop #dell #dell laptop

0 notes

lorrainecparker · 7 years

Text

Easy, fast and secure media file transfer–the Bigfoot of post

I have a long list of “It’s 2017, how come we haven’t figured out how to…” questions. Topping that list (alongside why Siri still can’t look up a phone number for me without mistakenly calling someone to whom I owe money instead) is the issue of transferring video files securely across the web. There typically seems to be a choice: send files easily or send them securely. The easy way is an email attachment if it’s small enough, wetransfer.com if it’s a little bigger, or a thunderbolt drive couriered across town if it’s colossal. The secure way is an expensive, industrial service that typically requires the installation of software on your client’s machine whether they like it or not. So taking all that into account I was curious to try out Signiant’s offering, Media Shuttle. This is a service specifically geared toward ease-of-use and is perfect for small to mid-sized companies (i.e. boutique post houses). It promises the simplicity that busy people demand without compromising security. Let’s take a look.

You can hold my hand, but don’t waste my time

I’m not a big fan of user guides or guided tours. I’ll waste a couple of hours trying to figure things out by myself before asking for help. (In other words, I’m a typical male.)

Having said that, I was pleasantly surprised by the screenshare introduction to Media Shuttle. Maybe I got lucky with the session being hosted by Signiant’s Tyler Cummings, but within about 20 minutes of my time (thirty counting my obnoxious questions) Tyler had pretty much shown me the entire system from start to finish.

So what exactly is Media Shuttle and how does it work? There are three main ways to move files across the internet using Media Shuttle: “Send”, “Share”, and “Submit” (the first two are for sending, the latter is for receiving to your server).

The Send Portal

The Send Portal option is a very simple email web page–think wetransfer.com. Type in a recipient’s email address, drag the files you want to send to the browser, and click send.

Now when I make the comparison to wetransfer.com it’s a pretty shallow one; there’s a whole lot more going on here than your standard WeTransfer session.

First of all, there’s no file size limit. That’s a bigger deal than it seems at first. Even with open source, self-hosted systems like ownCloud large transfers frequently fail to deliver successfully.

Secondly, you can send entire folders and subfolders without zipping them first. This is huge if–like me–you’re constantly dealing with massive EXR and DPX image sequences. A multi-layered EXR can easily weigh in at over 100MB per frame; trying to zip those suckers up first (if you actually succeed) can take longer than sending the actual files.

Media Shuttle actually uses its own proprietary transfer protocol optimized for large file sizes rather than the office documents that generic transfer services are designed for. We’ll talk a little more on that later, but in essence it means that your transfer speeds won’t suffer from being uncompressed. (In fact, media files rarely benefit from being zipped–they’re already compressed at the file level.)

Next, you can send with whatever level of security required. Is the content extremely sensitive? You can require that the recipient logs in securely to the Media Shuttle portal before downloading the files. For additional protection, you can require a user-generated password for download. Or do you have a technology-challenged client that wants a straight download without the hassle? Assuming the content isn’t too sensitive, you can make set up for the download to be a single click from the email.

Another nice touch is the ability to customize the look of each portal page. This can make your one or two man shop feel a lot bigger and slicker than it really is. (After all, the client never needs to know that you finished the conceptual art for their campaign in your bathroom on a laptop.) Unique pages can be created for different clients or projects, at no additional cost.

The Share Portal

Now I’ve worked on small campaigns and big Hollywood blockbusters, and I’m amazed at how often proprietary information just gets thrown on an unsecured FTP server for me to download. This is especially true in the last two weeks before picture lock on a movie; studio execs with little tech savvy will find the path of least resistance when they need to get files to a post house during crisis hour. Security goes out the window and production staff find FTP servers an easy way to give vendors instant access to a set of files.

Media Shuttle offers a no-nonsense “FTP-like” interface to entire folder structures, so a client can browse and choose the files and folders they want to download. But it’s not FTP–it uses 256-bit AES encryption system, the security scheme recommended by the MPAA.

Security is, of course, paramount, and FTP is an inherently insecure way to share files. SFTP is better, but typically frustrates non-savvy users who have to configure an FTP client to the correct protocol.

As the host of the files, you’re completely in control of which folders a given client can have access to. Permissions are easily configured from the portal management page. On numerous occasions I’ve been frustrated trying to set permissions on SFTP servers only to end up either locking out the client or showing them too much. The Media Shuttle configuration is blissfully simple in comparison.

The Submit Portal

A third transfer option pushes files to your storage. This is basically a drop box that allows a client to send you a file (and add an optional message). Again the emphasis here is on simplicity: drag files or folders to the browser and you’re done. To benefit from Signiant’s advanced transfer over UDP, the Signiant app needs to be installed (it’ll be automatically triggered by the browser page).

The only thing I would have liked here is an option to automatically generate a timestamped folder name for incoming files (e.g. incoming_05_31_17_1500) to help keep versioning straight under deadlines, but again this starts to add custom complexity. That kind of thing can always be handled via a local watch script sitting on the server anyway.

Simplicity beats complex efficiency

I feel the need to digress for a moment on this point. I can’t emphasize enough how simplicity trumps level of customization. The obvious example in the world is Mac vs. PC. But I’ve seen it time and again in the post-production world. Complex systems break down in crisis. And production staff are great organizers but not always the best technologists. They’re also way too busy to spend a day in a seminar learning how to use a proprietary digital asset management system.

So even though Media Shuttle emphasizes simplicity, it no doubt fits well with the larger studios. I remember when we first implemented Shotgun at my studio: for the first three months I had a PA translate the reports and enter data for me because I simply didn’t have the downtime to learn how to use the interface. Media Shuttle does its job and hides the complexity. No need to write a thousand lines of python scripting just to get files moving.

As a quick note: APIs do exist for larger studios looking to implement Media Shuttle with their DAMs and MAMs; they’re just not necessary for taking advantage of Media Shuttle’s file transfer services.

Managing the system

Configuring a file transfer service is typically a nightmare for those of us who don’t spend our lives grepping, piping, and rebooting Apache services on Linux servers. What surprised me as I went to work on Media Shuttle is the fact that I didn’t need to pull up a single help doc or call for tech support. Let me give you an example workflow:

To add a client to the Share Portal (the “FTP-like” web page) I choose “Person to/from File System” from the choice of portals at the top of the management page.

Then I select the members tab and click Add. I type in their name, email address and the expiration date–the date I want their access to the site to cease. By default they have access to the entire server. But if I simply click the Change button, I can choose a specific directory level of limited access. Finally I check the boxes for upload access, download access, and edit access and I’m done. The client is now able to access the relevant files and only the relevant files.

There is a help section at top right of the page that explains options in plain English. At no point did I feel like I needed to be a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer to manage the system. I’ve had a harder time configuring my home wifi router.

You can create as many of these portals as you like to help partition work between clients, or tasks (e.g. VFX vs editorial). So the system can be extremely flexible, even while keeping the complexity to a minimum.

Hosting

Just to be clear about one point: Media Shuttle is a transfer service, not a hosting service. They don’t own the storage your stuff sits on. Who does? Well, you do probably. Media Shuttle works either as an application sitting on top of your existing Linux or Windows file server, or in partnership with a cloud-based hosting service.

The only bummer here is lack of OS X server support. While many studios have switched to some kind of Linux file server, there are plenty of small creative boutiques still serving their files from a Mac Mini, so that’s something to consider when switching to Media Shuttle. When I mentioned this to Signiant they recommended using a virtual machine like Parallels on the host server. Seems like that would work just fine; data transfer to/from the outside world would be a bottleneck long before the overhead of the VM became an issue.

As far as configuration goes, Tyler from Signiant assured me that the install was painless and that if any complications arise Signiant’s tech support can walk you through configuration in a matter of minutes.

For my evaluation I took advantage of the cloud-based hosting option. Media Shuttle is ready to work out of the box with either Amazon’s S3 offering or Microsoft Azure. In the case of cloud hosting, Signiant attaches to either of the services. The process and offering is the same, albeit with the addition of a monthly payload allotment to account for cloud service transfer fees. I can’t speak to the locally hosted experience (although I have a feeling I’ll be implementing it sometime over the coming year), but the cloud-based service behaved flawlessly.

Security and transfer rates

I am not an internet security expert, nor a dark web hacker, so I can only take Signiant’s word as to the security of their system. However, having previously endured the process of MPAA certification at my own studio and having been involved in security audits while working on the lot at one of the majors, I can attest that Signiant’s transfer process being in line with MPAA recommendations is no small thing.

As far as transfer rates, in my very informal testing I found them to be “alarmingly fast.” How fast is that? Well, 2.1 GB of EXR files took 52 seconds to download from the Amazon host server. 20 seconds of that time was file prep and handshake (which I imagine would be pretty consistent even on larger pulls), so that puts the actual transfer speed at around 525 Mbps. Now my connection on speedtest.net measures at around 370 Mbps. How can Media Shuttle be that much faster? I have to assume it’s because speedtest.net is measuring based on highly-redundant TCP packets, while Media Shuttle is leveraging its proprietary protocol sitting on top of UDP. Whatever the case, it’s fast. (In a very unscientific comparison test, 150MB of EXRs took less than 10 seconds to upload–including the handshake period at the front end, while the same files took over 3 minutes to send via the free wetransfer.com service.)

What’ll it cost me?

When enterprise-style solutions are discussed in the post-production world, most people assume that “if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.” As we’ve mentioned though, Media Shuttle is perfect for boutique studios, so the price obviously needs to work for that market segment. The “professional” packages begin at $7,500 a year but there’s special pricing for companies with fewer than 20 employees. Everything is based on the number of active users per month; there’s no limit to how much data you’re permitted to transfer. The Signiant definition of an “active user” is someone who sends a file or receives three or more files in a given month. These are floating user licenses, so you can have as many users as you like in the system (e.g. multiple clients) and in a given month only those users that meet this definition of “active” will be counted against your quota.

If you’re just getting started and running a lean ship, that might seem a little steep. But one thing that was clear to me from my conversations with Signiant: their pricing structure isn’t set in stone. Signiant is eager to make the service work for smaller companies (under 20 employees) and will endeavor to design a package around the needs of the client.

Overall, I’ve been impressed by the flexibility and transparency of the pricing structure. Want to create separate portals to the physical storage at your studio and a different setup at your house? No extra charge. Have media storage pools distributed between offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Sydney? Create a unique portal for each. What about local storage for team collaboration and an Amazon S3-based portal for clients? Again, no additional hidden fees.

Of course if you’re trying to court bigger clients, even the $7,500 annual base could end up being a trivial cost in comparison to the payoff. Larger client businesses will instantly balk at unprofessional work practices and media transfer is one of the first encounters a new client will have with you in this connected world.

Conclusion

As you’ve probably already guessed, I was impressed with the Media Shuttle ecosystem. It’s rare that I come across enterprise level software that has as much intuitive usability. With the caveat that I’m yet to test the system on my locally-hosted file server, I’ve found little not to like with the service.

Boutiques already well established will instantly see the value proposition here. The alternative is to run your own file services. This might seem like a good (cheaper) approach out of the gate, but once you add configuration, IT costs, lack of security, and the sheer amount of time spent trying to manage permissions and maintain everything, $7,500 a year can be a downright bargain.

Visit Signiant’s Media Shuttle site for more information.

The post Easy, fast and secure media file transfer–the Bigfoot of post appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

First Found At: Easy, fast and secure media file transfer–the Bigfoot of post

#viddy find

0 notes

apsbicepstraining · 7 years

Text

The Words You Use To Describe A Relationship Matter More Than You Speculate

You know that seeming you get when you’re at dinner with pals — or perhaps it’s someone you’re simply to know — and roused talk of enormous journals or new movies carries on long past the scrounging up of your meal’s last shred?

In Spanish, it’s called sobremesa , but in English there’s no direct rendition. It’s a little like eagerness, a little like a comforting expel, but Americans are likely to liken it to something broader: happy .

A recent study in The Journal of Positive Psychology revealed that, relative to other languages, English is starved for emotionally positive messages, relying instead on one large-hearted descriptor to express everything from simple amusements to the glee knew when the workday aims.

The problem with giving pleasure do all of our oral copes is that, according to some psychologists, the experience of a tendernes is often understood through the words we use to describe it. So, if our speech shortfall a particular parole, we’re less likely to experience the specific seeming attached to it.

This is a pretty good case for expanding our dictionaries beyond a single catchall adjective. Not simply could we deduce more amusement from tasks like the Norwegian utepils ( “drinking beer outside on a hot day” ), but we might be less likely to evaluate the ups and downs of most long-term affairs on such a restrictive scheme: glad versus unhappy.

English is starved for emotionally positive texts, relying instead on one large-scale descriptor to enunciate everything from simple gratifications to the hilarity suffered when the workday ends.

The first time I fell in love , I wasn’t joyous . Not precisely.

I was sitting on the floor of a friend’s dormitory room been speaking with indefensible assertiveness about the likely outcome of the 2008 Republican primaries when I was interrupted by a insolent neighbour. Overhearing me, he butted in to kudo Mike Huckabee. A Hillary backer, I was appalled .

I did notice, however, that he wore his blonde hair in these greasy, unwashed tufts that belied his fad alternatives, who the hell is literally straight-laced and buttoned-up. I was intrigued .

When everybody else on our floor invested Mondays gulping cans of Lone Star while watching “Flavor of Love, ” he remained holed up behind his table investigating differential equations. I asked him to explain his homework to me; he chortled and told me that it’d perhaps be lost on a “word person, ” but he could try. I was intimidated .

Slowly I learned through these wild formulas that arriving at a specific judgment isn’t ever the quality; a problem can be both chaotics and terminated. That a few questions could have multiple answers, or no response at all, pushed against my comfortable minds about “the worlds”. But I was determined , because I was smitten .

When he agreed to a lunch appointment, a skipped class, a camping excursion, I was flattered . When we invested pulls of long, lazy Saturdays swimming in a shadowy, private discern on Town Lake, I felt giddy . When we moved my books and his messy stacks of hoarded newspapers into an suite off campus, I felt hopeful , much to the chagrin of my “word person” acquaintances. When those pals asserted that he was pompous and awkward, I was defensive , but when I stopped appreciating them as much, I was ashamed . What was all of this for? Was I even glad ?

Influenced by the binary proliferated by concerned mothers and self-help shelves everywhere, I set out to lieu my first, messy rapport into one of two nifty columns: glad or unhappy .

This supposed number of self-betterment only muddied circumstances further. Was the find I got after resolving an unnecessary wrangle happiness ? What about the entertaining air of mystery that hung all over the kitchen table at 2 a.m. when we sat together, silently scribbling away at separate questions? That was something; objectivity without loneliness.

But without a word for the affection, it was less valuable to me than those I was able to describe pithily.

So why do so many beings — Americans in particular, it seems — preserve returning to the incomprehensible seek of happiness, rather than redefining their excitements in lovelier, or at the least more appropriate, expressions?

I was, of course, very young . But the conundrum exists in its own language we use to describe adult affairs, too. Psychologists don’t agree for purposes of determining whether the words we use determine our affections or vice versa, but when certain negative adjectives are foremost ( fulfilled , captured , noncommittal ), while others are nonexistent, it’s easy to see how person or persons would shepherd her spirits into a preexisting descriptor, like joyous .

The problem arise where the same nebulous parole is used to describe both uncommon moments of euphoria and the various kinds of sustained thought of satiation we’re told sought for. Happiness can come from physical fitness, destination fulfillment, spontaneity, and myriad other things, but ideally all of them concurrently. That’s a heavy consignment for a single word, or a single relation, to permit.

In addition to being maddeningly ambiguous, joyous is somehow also too specific. It has contributed to appraise, to judge, to determine whether a cognitive state and the circumstances contributing to it are good or bad. This won’t do to summarize the complexities of an individual, let alone the see and bonding of two, over any amount of season other than a lovely, strong instantaneous — like a first kiss.

So why do so many parties — Americans in particular, it seems — prevent returning to the incomprehensible pursuing of merriment , rather than redefining their feelings in lovelier, or at the least more appropriate, expressions?

According to The Journal of Positive Psychology study, it might be since we are simply don’t have the right statements at our disposal. Aiming to “enrich our emotional landscape, ” the authors gathered 216 terms with no direct English translation. All positive, they describe rapports, experiences and persona in specific ways that English precisely can’t.

A survey of the happiness-related texts reveals that while the sensitive is framed in English as a point sought for, most other languages refer joy to luck, and uncontrollable good fortune. Furthermore, greater nuance is applied to the experience of joy in many other languages; linguistically, its a colorful, multi-faceted spectrum. In German and Spanish, the amusement is coming from food is distinct from psychological atonement. In Thai, sabsung “signifies being regenerated through something that livens up one’s life”; In Balinese, rame describes “ something at once chaotic and joyful.”

Had these terms been at my dumping, I might’ve stopped trying to describe my first, messy relation utilizing monotonou, insufficient terms. Or, had I truly listened during my( restriction) math lessons, I would’ve acknowledged years ago that if prosperity is “x, ” “x” doesn’t ever have an intrinsic cost, a unique solution. Sometimes, the outside variables to weigh are infinite.

The post The Words You Use To Describe A Relationship Matter More Than You Speculate appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2xAFQ9s via IFTTT

#IFTTT #WordPress

0 notes

touristguidebuzz · 7 years

Text

Designing an Airline Seat From Scratch Is Not as Easy as it Looks

Lift by EnCore is creating new coach seats. A lot goes into designing new seats, including crash testing. EnCore

Skift Take: Building a coach airline seat is not like creating home furniture. Building stuff for aircraft is remarkably complicated. We got an inside look recently at the production center for an aircraft seat maker. Here's some of what we learned.

— Brian Sumers

When EnCore, a company that makes components for aircraft interiors, including galleys, which might cost $300,000 per plane, set out to build coach seats, it didn’t try to disrupt the industry by creating the world’s most innovative product.

It could have — its employees have the technological acumen— but airlines are risk-averse, and most want versions of what they’ve always had. For its new segment, called Lift by EnCore, the company went simple, promising a functional seat that will be comfortable for passengers but thin enough to satisfy requests from some discount carriers seeking to install as many seats as possible.

Encore is new to the market, but it has a competitive advantage. Last year, Boeing said Lift would create its preferred seat for new 737s. Airlines can choose other seats, but these will be the only ones designed to complement the aircraft’s signature “Sky Interior,” with its blue LED lighting simulating the sky.

“Boeing spends so much time and effort in the Boeing Sky Interior and thinking about perception of space and perception of in-flight comfort, but the big missing piece for them is they had no influence over the seat, which is such a big piece of passenger experience — the thing you actually sit it,” said Elijah Dobrusin, Lift’s vice president for development & strategy.

Lift has signed up India’s SpiceJet and two European customers, neither of which it will name. The company’s Huntington Beach, California production center is already churning out seats, with the first ones expected to fly by late next year. Lift is also creating a 787 seat, though it has no customers.

Boeing is working with Lift in part because it wanted to give airlines a seating option likely to be completed on time and on budget. Some of Lift’s competitors, including France’s Zodiac Aerospace, have had trouble meeting contractual requirements to airlines, and when seats are not ready, Boeing must store the airplanes until delivery.

“We believe our customers would benefit from a wider range of options and more reliable, on-time performance in the interiors and seating market,” Blake Emery, director of differentiation strategy for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in an email.

We spent some time recently at Lift’s headquarters. Here is some of what we learned.

This is a rendering of Lift’s proposed 737 seat. It is slim, like most other seats on the market.

MAKING MICRO-IMPROVEMENTS

Lift designers say most of today’s seats are about as effective in possible, because they’re an efficient use of space. That makes them hard to disrupt.

“We’ve found a really good ratio to weight, to cost, and to comfort,” said Tom Eaton, Lift’s director of design. “If you change something, you can make something more comfortable but you probably lose out if something else becomes heavier or it becomes too costly.”

Since Lift couldn’t make its seats more plush, or add leg rests, it sought smaller improvements. One is a mobile device holder Eaton promises will snugly hold devices, like an iPad, so passengers can watch movies and other content. Other manufacturers make them too, but Eaton said passengers sometimes fear the holders will cause their devices to, “fall off or rip apart.”

Perhaps Lift’s biggest advance is the armrest. Often, they’re two inches wide, but Lift’s will be 1.6 inches. Lift will use the extra space to make seats slightly wider — a better use of limited room. Generally, Boeing 737 seats are narrower than on the similar Airbus 320, because the Airbus has a wider fuselage. This will close that gap, possibly making it imperceptible to travelers.

“Even though seat width is not a key predictor of overall flight satisfaction, it is a good idea to ‎get as much seat width as a given fuselage cross section will allow,” Boeing’s Emery said.

While researching seats, Eaton said Lift’s team discovered standard-sized armrests make little sense, because they’re wider than required for one person, and too narrow for two to share.

“After a while, you start to think, ‘We’re not really benefiting from the two-inch wide armrest,'” Eaton said. “This idea is that it can never be shared. It’s only one person’s arm rest.”

Lift chose 1.6 inches based on trial and error.

“We found the sweet spot for something to be wide enough to be comfortable, and yet narrow enough to give the benefits of passenger space,” Eaton said.

Lift’s proposed Boeing 787 cabin. It’s not always easy to decide where the screens should go, because they must be accessible to the tallest and shortest passengers.

SEATS DESIGNED FOR EVERYONE

What makes seat design so vexing is that the product must work for all passengers. Lift is designing seats to accommodate everyone from a woman in the fifth percentile — she’s roughly 4-foot-10 — to a man in the 95th, who stands about 6-feet-7, according to Eaton.

“It’s what differentiates an aircraft seat from domestic furniture or a car seat or from everything else you know,” Eaton said. “The seat can’t move to accommodate those different people.”

Designers must decide how high to place the seat from the floor, ensuring tall passengers are comfortable while shorter passengers won’t dangle their legs. On planes with in-seat entertainment screens, designers must determine where to place them so all passengers have a good view. Designers may also struggle with deciding where to put tray tables, and where to place power outlets.

Technology could solve some problems, allowing seats to move depending on a passenger’s size. But no one wants to make an economy class seat too complicated.

“All this stuff could be solved with more moving mechanisms and making the seat more complex,” Dobrusin said. “But that adds weight, that adds cost, and pretty much everything that moves is going to break, right? We try to make the seat as simple as possible while still achieving those goals of comfort and amenities.”

RUDIMENTARY FOCUS GROUPS

Occasionally, Lift will put an advertisement on Craigslist and offer $50 to people to sit in a seat for an hour or less.

One time, after tall people complained about seat comfort, Lift hired the biggest people it could find. The employees watched a handful of people sit in the seats, while taking photographs.

“We had them sit down, go into recline,” Eaton said. “We watched them go through and put the tray table down and act like they’re reaching and multi-tasking.”

The team soon discovered the problem.

“It was because their shins were hitting particular places we couldn’t simulate,” Dobrusin said. “We have comfort dummies, and we would stick the dummies in the seat and we’re like, ‘Oh, it looks good.’ And we all sat in it, but none of us were 6-foot-7 and 300 pounds.”

Lift made some adjustments that should make taller people more comfortable. But since some airlines might install seats with 28-inch pitch — the distance between one place on a seat and the same place on the seat in front of it — taller passengers may want to temper expectations.

“It’s about making the most of the situation you have,” Eaton said. “Often you can actually do quite a lot. You’d be surprised. You think, the space is the space and that’s it, but when you start to make minor adjustments to this and that, you’re going to actually change somebody’s perception of comfort really quickly.”

PEOPLE abuse AIRPLANE SEATS

A Boeing 737-900 may fly four legs per day, and with that many people flying, some travelers will abuse seats — on purpose, or by mistake. That means Lift must design nearly indestructible seats.

“A lot of people believe, because they’ve paid for it, that they can do whatever they want to it,” Dobrusin said. “They can step on it, they can try to break it, or they can take off pieces of it and steal it, which is absurd. People literally steal whatever thing is removable.”

Sometimes, he said, passengers try to take seat belts and turn them into belts for pants. One of Dobrusin’s employers once “put a security lock on the seatbelt because before, you could unclip them,” he said.

LESS PADDING

Recently, airlines have preferred thinner seats, allowing them to put more passengers in the same space.

Passengers often complain, but Dobrusin and Eaton argue new seats don’t have to be less comfortable. Lift’s seats are thin, but the two executives say the seats won’t be less comfortable than plush coach cabins of yesteryear.

“In the past, people always looked to try to sell the seat on comfort — that immediate impression of comfort — so they would overly pad it and use softer cushions,” Eaton said.

“And so if somebody sits in, you sink in, and immediately you think, ‘Wow this is amazing.’ But actually over the course of a flight, that can lead to a really uncomfortable journey if your body’s not supported,” he said. “Today, I think everybody understands that you need to develop an ergonomic seatback that supports your body in the correct way.”

Eaton noted office chairs once had inches of padding, but today many are sleeker, with only mesh supporting a worker’s back. “These office chairs are great for a couple of hours, or even longer,” Eaton said. “It just shows you what you can get from a relatively thin panel.”

Yes, airlines want to fit more seats, but they’re still focused on ergonomics. “The last thing they want is a second-rate product,” Eaton said.

CONCEPT SEATS not VIABLE

Over the years, rival manufacturers have created concept seats they promise will give passengers extra room. In one, some seats face forward, while others face backward. In another, seats in the same row are slightly staggered so each passenger has more personal space.

But no airline has adopted the configurations, and Lift has no interest in them. Passengers often view them as too dense, even when they might be more travel-friendly than current configurations, Eaton said.

“From a designer’s perspective, I looked at them, and it was always done for the passenger’s benefit,” he said. “We looked at how to create more shoulder space, more leg space. But from a passenger’s perspective, they see it as just a way of cramming in more people.”

The forward-backward seating has more problems, he said, because some passengers must face each other. “People feel very uncomfortable when they’re put quite close into social contact with each other,” he said.

Eaton said he expect airlines will install traditional seating plans for the foreseeable future.

“We’re learning to focus more on the micro improvements than the macro,” he said. “I don’t think we’re focused on flipping people around anymore, but I think there are going to be ways that we can create marginal gains in terms of space and comfort. But they’re going to be incremental and small.”

0 notes

rollinbrigittenv8 · 7 years

Text

Designing an Airline Seat From Scratch Is Not as Easy as it Looks

Lift by EnCore is creating new coach seats. A lot goes into designing new seats, including crash testing. EnCore

— Brian Sumers

We spent some time recently at Lift’s headquarters. Here is some of what we learned.

This is a rendering of Lift’s proposed 737 seat. It is slim, like most other seats on the market.

MAKING MICRO-IMPROVEMENTS

Lift designers say most of today’s seats are about as effective in possible, because they’re an efficient use of space. That makes them hard to disrupt.

“Even though seat width is not a key predictor of overall flight satisfaction, it is a good idea to ‎get as much seat width as a given fuselage cross section will allow,” Boeing’s Emery said.

While researching seats, Eaton said Lift’s team discovered standard-sized armrests make little sense, because they’re wider than required for one person, and too narrow for two to share.

Lift chose 1.6 inches based on trial and error.

“We found the sweet spot for something to be wide enough to be comfortable, and yet narrow enough to give the benefits of passenger space,” Eaton said.

Lift’s proposed Boeing 787 cabin. It’s not always easy to decide where the screens should go, because they must be accessible to the tallest and shortest passengers.

SEATS DESIGNED FOR EVERYONE

“It’s what differentiates an aircraft seat from domestic furniture or a car seat or from everything else you know,” Eaton said. “The seat can’t move to accommodate those different people.”

Technology could solve some problems, allowing seats to move depending on a passenger’s size. But no one wants to make an economy class seat too complicated.

RUDIMENTARY FOCUS GROUPS

Occasionally, Lift will put an advertisement on Craigslist and offer $50 to people to sit in a seat for an hour or less.

One time, after tall people complained about seat comfort, Lift hired the biggest people it could find. The employees watched a handful of people sit in the seats, while taking photographs.

“We had them sit down, go into recline,” Eaton said. “We watched them go through and put the tray table down and act like they’re reaching and multi-tasking.”

The team soon discovered the problem.

PEOPLE abuse AIRPLANE SEATS

A Boeing 737-900 may fly four legs per day, and with that many people flying, some travelers will abuse seats — on purpose, or by mistake. That means Lift must design nearly indestructible seats.

LESS PADDING

Recently, airlines have preferred thinner seats, allowing them to put more passengers in the same space.

“In the past, people always looked to try to sell the seat on comfort — that immediate impression of comfort — so they would overly pad it and use softer cushions,” Eaton said.

Yes, airlines want to fit more seats, but they’re still focused on ergonomics. “The last thing they want is a second-rate product,” Eaton said.

CONCEPT SEATS not VIABLE

Eaton said he expect airlines will install traditional seating plans for the foreseeable future.

0 notes

gemmafunkychick-blog · 7 years

Photo

I started my book buy watching my favourite film as a child, The Parent Trap. When I think back to when I was younger, I would watch tv and multi task. I am designing while half my screen is a tv.

My books content explores the story line of the movie, without using content from the movie. I am sourcing images and type that suggests and translates the story.

I am using photographs I find online as a reference a how the post-digital makes it so easy to find and use photographs. We can pretty much take anything we like off the internet and use it.

0 notes

arthur36domingo · 7 years

Text

16 Pieces of Advice From Steve Jobs

I want to put a ding in the universe.

—Steve Jobs

You don’t have to be a fan of iEverything to recognize the tremendous impact Apple has had on technology and business. Steve Jobs led the company he co-founded in 1976 with charisma and an insatiable drive to innovate and succeed. When Jobs died in 2011, he left a legacy that will continue to shape our world for generations. Here are sixteen pieces of advice inspired by his words to help you make your own dent in the universe.

1Trust in something

You have to trust in something; your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever, because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart.

Jobs believed in going where inspiration led him. Those leaps of faith require us to trust that things will work out as they should. Even when taking risks leads you to unexpected or even undesirable outcomes, knowing you’ll be able to tackle those outcomes inspires the confidence necessary to take chances on big ideas.

2Love what you do

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.

When your work is also your passion, it doesn’t feel like work. Jobs believed in the importance of following your bliss.

3Remember that revolution isn’t easy

I’ve always been attracted to the more revolutionary changes. I don’t know why. Because they’re harder. They’re much more stressful emotionally. And you usually go through a period where everybody tells you that you’ve completely failed.

4Persevere

Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith.

The world sees Steve Jobs as a success story, but his successes didn’t come without failures. Want to talk about a blow to the ego? Consider how Jobs must have felt when he was dumped by the company he co-founded. Apple ousted him in 1985, then hired him back in 1997 when the company was struggling financially.

5Turn losses into wins

I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

Jobs often said that being fired ultimately inspired him. While separated from Apple for more than a decade, he bought Pixar (then known as Graphics Group) for $5 million and played a major role in turning it into the multi-billion-dollar studio behind blockbuster movies like Toy Story (the first ever computer-animated feature film) and Finding Nemo.

//giphy.com/embed/OSUvN1q2ovbPO

via GIPHY

6Understand that saying no is as important as saying yes

I’m as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things.

Jobs realized that saying no plays a big role in the creative process. Choosing which paths not to follow is as important as choosing the one to take. He celebrated the role saying no played in the decision-making process.

7Learn to tell your story

Anyone who’s ever watched an Apple product unveiling understands that Steve Jobs was a masterful corporate storyteller. Broadcasting your message isn’t enough—tell a story. In business, as well as in life, people are moved by those who don’t just present but rather inform, enlighten, inspire, and entertain.

youtube

8Be aware that small steps are important, too

Things don’t have to change the world to be important.

Jobs said that things didn’t need to change the world in order to be important. He realized that small shifts and minor wins can create a ripple effect and advocated embracing them all. When progress seems slow, celebrating minor victories can help maintain your energy and even build momentum.

9Don’t let success make you lazy

I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.

Scoring a win is amazing, but it’s how you react after the win that matters. Jobs didn’t rest on his laurels following a success, but quickly put the gears in motion to figure out what his next innovation would be. Everyone needs to take a moment after completing a major project to take a breath and enjoy the feeling of accomplishment. But when that moment’s over, it’s time to put that positive energy back to work.

10Pay attention to the simple things

Simple can be harder than complex; you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.

Anyone who’s ever tried to write a 250-word bio or distill the essence of an article into a two-sentence blurb knows that just because a task seems simple doesn’t mean it’s easy. Practicing the sort of clear-headed, logical thinking required to accomplish small but significant feats can become a hugely beneficial life skill.

11Cultivate crazy dreams

Arguably, Steve Jobs’ most famous quote is “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” He believed that the key to accomplishing big things was to nurture big dreams, dreams that might even seem too crazy to be within the realm of possibility. “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world,” he said, “are the ones who do.”

12Take stock and make changes

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And whenever the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Jobs was never satisfied by maintaining the status quo; he wanted to accomplish big things. He learned that life is too precious to waste by spending time doing things that aren’t gratifying.

13Don’t let others run your show

Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.

It’s important to be able to accept and grow from feedback, but Jobs knew that it’s equally important to be able to listen to yourself and, ultimately, be your own decision maker.

14Be bold

Have the courage to follow your heart and your intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.

Being a leader and innovator means being perceptive enough to tune in to your own intuition and bold enough to venture where it leads.

15Spend your time wisely

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

Facing death and being told to get his affairs in order helped Jobs realize that time is our most valuable commodity. His 2005 Stanford commencement speech echoed those sentiments, reminding us that life is short, and every minute needs a purpose, whether that purpose is to achieve, dream, create, or just relax.

youtube

16Keep a sense of wonder

Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow.

—Steve Jobs’ final words

Although the meaning of his last words remains mysterious, it’s clear that Steve Jobs’ sense of wonder and curiosity was a force that propelled him. Remember to take time to have a look around, be amazed, and say, “Oh, wow!”

The post 16 Pieces of Advice From Steve Jobs appeared first on Grammarly Blog.

from Grammarly Blog https://www.grammarly.com/blog/advice-from-steve-jobs/

0 notes