#it was either have them be way too fast or have them be so laggy they look insane

[pseudophan]

obviously.

#daniel howell #amazingphil #dan and phil #phan #mine #my gif #pretend these aren't on speed please #it was either have them be way too fast or have them be so laggy they look insane

[prismit]

alright, here's my thoughts on the current state of online tera raids and how i think they could be improved. excluding glitches in this post, since while yeah there's quite a few that should be addressed, i think the biggest flaws in this system are all just poorly designed mechanics.

under a cut because this got kind of long lol

problem 1: right now it's pretty much impossible to get into one of the 8 displayed raids on the front page unless you click on it within the first few seconds of the page loading (and even then it's pretty much a 50/50 shot). and instead of immediately telling you the raid is too full to join, it makes you wait a full 40 seconds for no reason.

two easy solutions to this: either decrease the time it tries to let the player in to ~10-15 seconds, or ideally just make it so pressing B while trying to join lets you cancel. also, since the front page raids fill up so fast, the refresh button should have a MUCH shorter cooldown; maybe 30-45 seconds at most.

problem 2: the random button is really the only way to consistently get into online raids. because of this, i feel like the time penalty for leaving a raid before it starts is too harsh (especially when you still get penalized even if the host cancels the raid, which is entirely unfair). i understand that the penalty is probably there to "encourage" people to help out lower level players. but on the opposite hand, i had a lot of times earlier in the postgame where i just didn't have anything to counter a difficult raid boss, so i had to choose between being a hindrance to the rest of the team - likely costing them the win - or backing out and taking a penalty for being courteous.

so i have a couple ideas for this: first of all, i don't think there should be a penalty at all for backing out before a raid starts. instead, give players who have beaten the game bonus rewards for participating in lower level raids. nothing too crazy, maybe just some extra exp candies and money items. don't punish players on the assumption that they're being selfish - instead, reward them on the assumption that they're being helpful.

on top of that, it could also be a good idea to have the random button take you to a second page where you can choose what tier of raids you want to join. this would also be a good place to show that lower tier raids can give higher tier players bonus rewards, which can encourage people to join those lower tier raids by choice. this is less necessary than the previous idea, but it'd be some nice quality of life.

problem 3: the raids themselves are way too slow with all the animations. the most noticeable example of this that i can think of is a rock type garganacl raid. every single turn, you have the player's animation (which is even longer if you're using a tera-boosted attack), then garganacl's tera-boosted animation, followed by its actual attack animation, and then the animation for being hurt by sandstorm, and finally the animation for being salt cured. sometimes also leftovers/shell bell and/or grassy terrain heals. every single turn. also, whenever you do something that heals your whole team, you're unable to do anything while you watch every pokemon do its healing animation. and that's not even mentioning how laggy it is online.

they already had a solution to this in sword and shield! abridge the move animations during raids. particles out of the attacker, particles into the target. don't make me watch shadow ball slowly creep towards the boss while a timer ticks down; that lost time really stacks. also this one should just be for every battle, but mention every stat boost/decrease at once instead of having a new text box for every stat. and of course when doing something that affects the whole team, do it all at once. there's a timer, i can't be sitting still for 10 seconds while every teammate is healed individually. the online lag is something i can't give any suggestions on really. that's on nintendo to improve their servers and it's on gamefreak to optimize their game.

problem 4: my final complaint might be more of a nitpick, but i really think the health cheer is way too rng-reliant. it feels like it only heals 1/5 of everyone's max hp most of the time. sure it also heals status conditions, but that doesn't really matter when you're knocked out this turn thanks to a tiny heal anyways. the other two cheers are always a net positive (unless you time them poorly and get your stats wiped immediately, but that's avoidable), but the health cheer way too often ends up doing more harm than good.

i can see that it might be hard to balance this one, but i just think it should never heal any less than 1/3 of everyone's max hp. maybe it heals 1/2 max hp 50% of the time, 1/3 40% of the time, and a full recovery 10% of the time. it doesn't have to be those numbers specifically, but the important part is that the minimum heal needs to be actually kind of decent, at least. otherwise its too much of a risk for something that's supposed to be a benefit.

there might be some other things that could be improved, but i think these are the worst of them. i also doubt they're actually going to fix raids in any way, but one can still hope! at the very least, i hope they learn and improve on these co-op game modes in future games.

#ghost town... 2! #pokemon #also 1 more as a joke: there should be a popup when you open the raids menu to remind you to consider what moves the boss might have. lol #stop bringing belly drum iron hands to a 6 star normal type sylveon raid challenge (impossible difficulty) #(the actual post has genuine gameplay mechanic critiques btw lmao i'm only complaining about other players here in the tags)

[fandomsideworks]

PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows

Third Person POV

Horror/Sci-Fi/Action

Overall, it was... Not great.

The limited good:

The acting was great, thought the dialogue was fairly realistic and well-delivered (...Except for the Warden).

Almost no glitching or graphics issues. The graphics were a little laggy and my game crashed at the very beginning (right after Jacob’s ship crashes, ironically) and after downloading the patch everything improved considerably. No graphics issues or crashing after that.

And the numerous bad:

The horror got stale fast. It heavily relied on jump-scares- at the beginning of the game they work fine, especially since you’re not used to the atmosphere yet, but quickly the monsters screaming and rushing me from a vent or a doorway got old. The monsters were okay, but didn’t have a lot of diversity in appearance. If you’ve seen one space-zombie, you’ve seen them all more or less.

The story was meh- the characters are not well-developed, with Jacob being the best-developed just by virtue of being the main character, but that’s not saying much. Ferris? IDK, a dickhead security guard. Dani? Freedom Fighter Maligned as Terrorist. Elias? Vaguely nice tech guy. Warden Cole? Distant Big Bad. That’s about as deep as any of them run.

The world-building is similarly thin. The in-game government is literally [Insert Corrupt Sci-Fi/Fantasy Government Here], and the Outer Way is [Insert Sci-Fi/Fantasy Freedom Fighters Maligned as Terrorists Group Here.] I’m not saying the game needs to info-dump on me, but like... Give me enough information to care about what the hell’s going on here.

In the same vein as the monsters, the environment of the game wasn’t terribly diverse either: Dark metal halls covered in gore and tentacles, crates everywhere, blood spatter and corpses. Once or twice this is broken up by a walk in the snow or the oxygen production habitat in one chapter, but mostly it’s same same.

My main, major issue with the game, is the same as many others who have played it: The combat.

So many things:

Healing happens real-time. You have to open the menu, select the healing item, and then watch an animation of Jacob injecting it. This can be interrupted by enemy attacks.

Subsequently the Health you have at the beginning of a swarm of enemies/boss fight is pretty much the health you’re gonna have until you’re done with them.

Jacob is slower than the monsters, so you cannot run from them effectively.

There are also few obstacles to hinder them from chasing you.

Reloading a gun is slower than the time it takes for a monster to run you down.

Switching weapons during a fight is much slower than the time it takes for a monster to run you down. Like with healing, you have to open a menu and scroll to the right gun. Sometimes, for whatever reason, selecting the gun does nothing and you have to open the menu and try all over again.

And I cannot stress enough that if you get hit at any point while trying to change or reload your gun, even if you’ve selected it from the list and the character is visibly in the process of pulling it out, the gun will not change/reload and you have to try again.

One weapon, the GRP glove, is virtually useless unless you have an environmental hazard nearby to use against enemies. You have to upgrade the glove in order to damage enemies just by throwing them into walls. Often the quarters are too close and the enemies are too fast to make use of the glove before they’re on top of you anyway.

Almost the entire game is fought in close-quarters. So not only are the monsters faster than you in every way, you have no space to maneuver away from them as you try to reload or change weapons or heal.

And then we have the dodge mechanic.

You dodge with the left stick (on a PS5)- left and right to dodge in either direction, and down to block.

Now, the left stick is also how you, you know- move the character. And so naturally the game must accomodate for this so that the player isn’t dodging left and right outside of combat every time they try to move the character normally.

In practice, this leads to fights where dodging doesn’t work if you don’t pull the left stick exactly the right way- because otherwise the game thinks you’re just trying to run left or right. And it isn’t JUST enough to pull left or right, oh no! You have to pull in one direction or the other depending on where the very fast enemy (or enemies) is striking from, even if you have Dodge Assist enabled (which I didn’t, until the last hour or so of my gameplay).

Or, you know, if you’re fighting Captain Ferris for the first time, maybe it just lets you dodge the first three and then you get the last two hits no matter what direction you pull the stick in. Details, details- it’s not like he’s a boss and can kill you with a couple of hits or anything like that.

(Or one hit, in the final battle.)

When you put together the

wonky ability to dodge

with the inability to switch out or load weapons if you are so much as bumped by an enemy

and the speed and aggression of those enemies

add the fact that you cannot apply health items without leaving yourself open to attack (unless a dead monster happens to drop one, which isn’t super common)

as well as a final boss that can and will kill you in, LITERALLY, one hit

and throw it all into close quarters where you cannot afford to fuck up too many dodges or run out of ammo or get injured too severely

you get a game that becomes downright infuriating to play, even on Easy Mode.

This game is not balanced. There is a difference between “this game is hard, but doable with patience and effort and adapting to the enemies’ patterns” and “this game is clunky as shit, the combat abilities provided do not reasonably fit the enemies that I’m supposed to be fighting”.

This game, unless you get it discounted somewhere, is $69.99. That is the price I paid for it, and I am regretting it. I wish I had looked at reviews before purchasing it.

The weak storytelling and janky combat just do not justify the price for me- I don’t care enough about the characters or the story or its mystery to want to drag myself through this again, for trophies or anything else.

2.5/10

#the callisto protocol #spoilers #horror #video games #scifi #long post #review

[rizahawkais]

Hi Nia! You're gifs are so pretty! Is it possible for you to show how you get your WandaVision gifs too look so clear and hd? And how do you do your colorings too? (specifically the wanda maximoff in episode 3 gifset ITS GORGEOUS) I'm new to giffing and all the tutorials are kind of old. It's okay if you don't want to though! I understand it may be time consuming.

omg no! never feel intimidated to ask!! i don’t mind at all!

so, i’m going to show you how i made and coloured this gif

mostly bc it’s the only gif in that set w text and i’m going to share my text settings too!

tutorial is below :)

WHAT KIND OF VIDEOS ARE BEST?

.mkv files (the bigger the better BUT i usually think anything above 5 gb is excessive and unnecessary for an episode of television BUT for a movie worth it) itunes downloads (logolesspro on twitter, hd-source on tumblr, live-action-raws on tumblr have some DEPENDING on what you’re looking for) (also, there’s a chance that if you search "show/movie hd download tumblr” you’ll find a tumblr with its itunes download available)

THAT IS IT NO OTHER TYPE OF FILES MAKE YOUR GIFS LOOK GOOD

- my suggestion is always if its new (like just came out the past month) t*rrent it! it’ll be downloaded quickly and .mkv files look the best! BUT if not check the sources above see who has the BIGGEST file if they even have what you’re looking for and then if not then you look to t*rrenting!!

here are the wandavision files i use so you can see!!

SCREENCAPPING

-if you have windows use potplayer! i have a mac so i can’t show you how to use it and it’s not available for me :( HOWEVER back when i had a windows potplayer was the best method in screencapping!!

-I HAVE A MAC! so i use mpv!! (go to mpv.io and follow the directions) BUT DON’T DOWNLOAD THE LATEST ONE (it has a bug that skips frames) try each before the latest one bc from what i heard different ones work differently for everyone!! and i don’t know which one i use (yikes!) THERE ISN’T THAT MANY I PROMISE AND IT’S WORTH IT BC MPV IS THE BEST (i used to use adapter but they didn’t take impressive screencaps in my opinion and it was evident in my gifs you can see it too! )

create a folder for your screencaps! and make sure to rmb the directory order! now we want to create a text file on our built in textedit app on mac! type up all this down below (i like jpg but you can replace jpg w png if you want) AND SAVE THE FILE AS mpv.conf THIS IS IMPORTANT SO DON’T FORGET IT! save it somewhere you’ll find easily and NEVER delete it until you don’t use mpv anymore

just in case you don’t know what to insert after, go to your screencaps folder

now you want to open mpv and go to the corner towards mpv -> preferences and they’ll tell you that there is no .conf file SO GO LOOK FOR THE TEXT FILE WE JUST MADE AND DRAG IT TO THE FOLDER THEY OPENED FOR US AFTER SAYING THERE IS NO .CONF FILE

(i learned all this from @kylos tutorial!! so if any of what i just said about setting up mpv makes NO SENSE to you check out their tutorial at kylos(.)tumblr(.)com/post/178497909311)

now we can screencap!

so let’s find the scene we want RIGHT BEFORE and MAKE SURE SUBTITLES ARE OFF

i pause and then press (option/alt + s) and then SCREENCAPS ARE BEING TAKEN!! and to end the screencaps being taken you once again press (option/alt + s)!!

now we want to delete the excess frames! and put it all into one folder!! DO NOT DELETE FRAMES IN THE MIDDLE OF WHAT YOU WANT TO GIF!! WHEN YOU SKIP FRAMES IT WILL BE NOTICEABLE!!

MAKING THE GIF

this method isn’t used that much BUT I LOVE IT so this is how i put my frames in! first i check to see the size of my frames: 1920 x 1080

so i create a NEW file on photoshop with those dimensions w these settings

now i set my tool on photoshop to path selection tool bc if you have it set on smth like move tool or crop tool at the end you might end up moving or cropping frames you don’t want to!

ok so now we select ALL our frames and drag it on top of our new file on photoshop and the MOMENT we see our first frame in photoshop JUST KEEP CLICKING ENTER until all the frames are loaded!!

you can do file -> scripts -> load files into stack but it is WAYYY slower in my opinion!

now i crop out the excess BUT i don’t resize the gif yet! the dimensions wandavision is filmed in is 4:3 so i go to crop and set the settings to this:

MAKE SURE IT’S ON RATIO SO WE’RE PRESERVING THE ORIGINAL SIZE JUST CUTTING OFF THE BLACK EDGES!! We are going from 1920 x 1080 to 1440 x 1080 this is the dimensions after i cropped

WE ARE KEEPING THE QUALITY BY NOT CHANGING THE DIMENSIONS OF ANYTHING INSIDE !!

now we want to go to actions and create an action!! open up actions w one of these two depending on what your dash looks like!!

so we create an action with this button on the bottom of actions and we’re gonna title it making a gif and hit record!!

NOW LET’S GOOOOO!!

1. make sure you have timeline on your dash!

2. create frame animation (if you see create video timeline just click the arrow next to the button to see your other option which is frame animation!!)

3. now let’s meet our best friend!! the little bar in the top right corner that has all the commands for making our gifs and MAKE FRAMES FROM LAYERS

4. WE HAVE TO SHARPEN OUR GIFS NOW BUT TO DO THAT WE NEED TO CONVERT TO A SMART OBJECT SO NOW WE ARE GOING TO CONVERT TO VIDEO TIMELINE there are two ways: the button in the bottom left corner or the button in the top right corner w all the other commands!

5. select -> all layers DON’T MANUALLY SELECT THEM ALL BC THE ACTION WILL ONLY SELECT THAT SAME NUMBER OF FRAMES SO IF THERE ARE MORE FRAMES YOU WON’T GET THEM IN THE SMART OBJECT!!

6. filter -> convert for smart filters

7. NOW WE SHARPEN!! (filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen) i sharpen twice!! first, make sure we are on legacy w more accurate and remove gaussian blue! the first sharpening will be 500% with 0.4 px radius. NOW SHARPEN AGAIN (filter -> sharpen -> smart sharpen) also w legacy, more accurate and remove gaussian blur BUT this time 10% with a 10.0 px radius!

8. it’s hd now!! so let’s flatten frames into clips!! go to the top right magic button again!! and you should see a pop up saying layers are being made

9. now we convert back to frame animation w either the bottom left button or our magic top right command center!

10. make frames from layers

11. select all frames w our magic command button

12. set the animation delay to 0.05 THAT IS THE BEST ONE ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS only use 0.06 when the character is moving really fast in the video itself and it makes the gif itself look awkward BUT NEVER GO ABOVE 0.06 it’ll look slow and laggy and we don’t want that and don’t go below 0.05 bc then it’ll be tooo fast and we don’t want that either!

13. now delete the very first frame on the timeline bc it is an oversharpened duplicate of the second frame! end the recording w this button!

this is what your action should look like expanded! if you made mistakes on the way and it shows up you can just click the specific step and press the trash can on the action tab to delete in from the order!!

NOW AFTER LOADING YOUR FRAMES AND CROPPING THE EDGES OF YOUR FRAMES IF YOU NEED TO JUST PLAY THE ACTION AND THEN YOUR GIF WILL BE MADE FOR YOU!!!!

now i delete some unnecessary frames in the beginning and end and this is what my gif looks like (the size was 46 mb and the limit is 10 mb so the dimensions of the gif are 540 x 405 to get it to 5 mb BUT I HAVEN’T CROPPED IT YET SO THIS IS ME CROPPING JUST TO SHOW YOU WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE)

CROPPING THE GIF

in my opinion if you want your gif to look hd you shouldn’t crop before you sharpen!! i believe that if you crop before you sharpen you don’t allow photoshop to sharpen all the pixels whereas if you crop beforehand there is less to work with!!

dimensions is all up to you!! just make sure to go by tumblr rules!! 540 is the max width and if you want to make two gifs per row then my suggested width is 268 and for three gifs per row my suggested is 177 px! Just have the right width and the length can be whatever you want!!

now i’m going to crop my gif to 540 by 590!!

NOW THIS IS WHAT MY GIF LOOKS LIKE!

COLOURING BASICS

let me show you the best adjustment tools in my opinion and a brief explanation for what they do!!

brightness/contrast: pretty simple increase/decrease the brightness/contrast BUT one of my techniques for when i first start colouring a gif is i select all my frames and do nothing to the settings of the adjustment but i set the layer to screen LIKE THIS

curves: ik others use curves to change brightness/contrast w the squiggly thing BUT i like it to set a white point and black point, this is also a technique i use when i first start colouring a gif when screen doesn’t look good for me SO you use white point to select a pixel on the gif to set as the lightest color on the gif (setting the white point) and you use black point to select a pixel on the gif to set as the darkest colour on the gif (setting the black point) usually the white point makes it TOO bright and that’s why we use the black point to counter it and same goes for when i use screen with brightness/contrast, it gets too bright so i use black point to counter it below is the button for white point and the button for black point, respectively they are shaped as color picker tools

vibrance: generally, i never use this except for color p*rn sets but they work really well in making colors seem more strong

hue/saturation: like vibrance, i never use this except for color p*rn sets but this adjustment is to help change the colors or hue of a color for example: turn blue into purple or turn a blue into a little lighter shade of blue

color balance: I ALWAYS USE THIS!! except for in black and white gifs BUT THIS IS MY GO TO AND IF I DON’T USE IT MY GIFS ARE JUST BLAND i feel like color balance is what essentially balances the colors on your gif and adds dimension to it, it makes your gif go from looking way too yellow to a more golden neutral look and it is an essential adjustment in my opinion

channel mixer: i rarely use channel mixer BUT it is so so useful when you are working w a dark scene just play w the settings and all of a sudden all the blue in a dark scene will be a little more yellow and red and your scene will kind of just look brighter and more visible

selective color: THIS IS ALSO AN ESSENTIAL this helps SPECIFIC colors pop you’re working on a scene where there is too much red on someones face you use this tool to remove the magentaness from the yellow section OR when you feel someones face is TOO yellow and needs more blush you add more magenta in the yellow section of selective color

gradiant map: gradiant map is perfect when you’re lazy if you feel like your gif looks more neutral and you want some red in it but you don’t want to mess with any other adjustments just set a red to black gradiant on soft overlay with a very low opacity and BOOM slightly red but not too much red added!

NOW TO COLOR THE GIF!

today i have decided to start with a brightness layer set on screen

and this is what we got!

now that’s a little to bright and washed out in my opinion SOOOO to counteract it, i’m going to use my black point tool in curves and i’m going to select this point on the gif (it’s better to choose smth in the background and not smth that’s paid attention to such as monica’s hair or either of their eyelashes)

now my gif looks like this! the base color is complete!

now i think i need to balance all this yellow and red! SOOOO WE GONNA USE COLOR BALANCE!!

i think the best way to use color balance is to keep swinging the balancer until you see what you like and then keep going midtones i think i want more red and i don’t want a cyan midtone and then for shadows i think i want more cyan to counter the redness of the gif but highlights i don’t touch that much NOW HERE ARE MY SETTINGS SO YOU CAN SEE

and this is what my gif looks like

now you can stop here if you want but in my opinion i think the gif looks a lil too dead still SO IMMA USE SELECTIVE COLOR

i think there needs to be a lot lot more RED so i amp up the yellow magenta and black in the red! but i also think the yellows need to be LESS RED so i remove magenta from the yellow! and bc there’s some cyan and blue bc of monica and the flowers in the background im going to make the cyans more cyan and the blues a lil more black! i’m going to remove some yellows from the magenta!! and i add more black to the neutrals and black!! i think it’s always important to add more black to neutral and black bc it adds more depth to the gif by not just making it a bunch of bright colors and having dark colors to contrast to!! my settings are below!

and the result!

now let’s see everything together!

and the before and after!

I HOPE MY COLOURING EXPLANATION MADE SENSE!! if not you can always ask me more questions i don’t mind!!

ADDING SUBTITLES

we want to grab the text tool!

make a text box from anywhere in the middle from the left to right edge. this is so we can make sure our text is centered and will be in the same place for when we have sets w more than one gif w text!

type your text out and make sure you highlight the whole text so that all the settings apply to EACH character! you can find the alignments (for center) in the paragraph tab!

now lets right click on the text layer and go to blending options! add stroke and drop shadow!

now drag it to the desired height you would like and make sure to keep it in mind for when you have more than one subtitled gif in a set!

NOW TO MAKE SURE THE TEXT STAYS IN PLACE AND THE BLENDING STAYS YOU HAVE TO CONVERT TO SMART OBJECT!!

if you want to only have the text applied to certain frames instead of all frames, select the frames you don’t want by clicking the first frame in ur don’t want section ON THE TIMELINE and WHILST HOLDING SHIFT click the last frame of ur don’t want section and then toggle the eye switch next to the text layer

now you see the text

now you don’t

tip: use opacity to fade the text in and out!

the text is going to be on all my frames so i don’t need to toggle the eye but i just wanted to show you just in case!!

now here’s my FINAL RESULT

save for web (file -> export -> save for web) 

your gifs have to always be under 10 mb! so, if your WAYYY overboard YOU HAVE TO DELETE FRAMES! or you can divide the gif in two and have two gifs instead of one! however, if you plan on going the deleting frames route MAKE SURE YOU DELETE FROM THE BEGINNING OR END OF YOUR SELECTION i promise you that most of us won’t notice that your characters dialogue is being cut off BUT WE WILL NOTICE IF FRAMES ARE BEING SKIPPED so, don’t delete frames in the middle of ur gif!! idc how little you do it IT WILL RUIN YOUR GIF AND I SAY THIS FROM EXPERIENCE i would delete every fifth frame to cut down my gifs and that may seem like not that big of a deal BUT IT IS my gif looked choppy and poor so it is way better to cut from the end/beginning of the gif

ANOTHER LAST PIECE OF ADVICE in the bottom left of when the save for web menu shows up THERE’S A PREVIEW BUTTON click on it! it’ll show you your gif on your default browser and show you what it’ll look like once uploaded! this is perfect to check the speed of ur gif and the colouring and to notice if there’s a problem with your subtitles or maybe there’s an obvious jump in frames you never noticed before!! i always use preview bc the built-in photoshop viewer of ur gif shows the colors differently and the speed is NEVER ACURRATE!

I USED THESE SAVE SETTINGS!! many say to use selective pattern but i DISAGREE and i think these save settings are the ✨ best ✨

OK NOW THAT IS THE END OF THIS VERY LONG GIF TUTORIAL!! I HOPE THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED!! IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS DON’T BE AFRAID TO ASK I SINCERELY DON’T MIND!! JUST DON’T BE RUDE OR ANYTHING BC PPL HAVE BEEN RECENTLY :(

I WISH YOU ALL THE LUCK AND FUN IN YOUR GIFFING ADVENTURES !!

#tutorials #asks #sourceblog #allresources #completeresources #itsphotoshop #dailyresources #resourcemarket #chaoticresources #onlyresources #hisources #sibylresources #dailypsd

[timetocode]

The Peeker’s Compromise: A Fair(er) Netcode Model

Many first person shooters are plagued by a netcode artifact known as the peeker’s advantage. I propose here a technique for correcting this bug, based around normalizing gameplay in such a way that human reflexes and skill decide the outcome of competition (as opposed to network latency or artifacts of varying netcode designs, discussed shortly).

When a player in a first person shooter is moving around the game world they exist in a position on their own game client that is slightly ahead of their position on the server. This is a solution/side-effect of clientside prediction which is ubiquitously used in first person shooters giving the player instantaneous movement and controls that feel like a single player game despite controlling a character that is moving around on a remote server. 

If we were to visualize the difference between the clientside player position and the serverside player position it would look like two characters chasing each other. How far apart the two characters are depends (in descending order of usual importance) on how fast movement is in the game, the latency of the player, and the tickrate of the server. But how big are these differences in the actual games of the current era? Are the two states of characters practically overlapping? Or is one several meters behind the other? The answer -- which varies by game and by internet connection -- is that the desynchronization between these two positions is significant. Over amazing internet connections in games with slow moving characters the desynchronization is usually on the order of 1 player length. So imagine any fps game character (valorant, cs:go, apex, overwatch, fortnite, cod, etc) -- and then imagine them creeping or walking around slowly. In this scenario the desync between the two states is such that one could picture the character being followed by its clone, touching. If they move *really* slowly then they’ll be overlapping. However as the characters break into a run their clone will trail them by more -- maybe 2-8 player lengths depending how fast characters are in the game. If a player has a high latency the clone will be ever farther behind in all scenarios except holding still.

Now when a player shoots their gun in all of the above games, the game engines will calculate the shot based on where the player perceives themselves. That means that as you play the game what you see is pretty much what you get. You don’t have to manually correct for lag while aiming in modern shooters -- just aim for the head right where you see it. However this introduces the peeker’s advantage. A defender can hold a corner with their crosshair primed to shoot anything that appears, but an attacker (the peeker) who comes around that corner is ahead of their server position and thus they get to a bit of extra time to "peek” and shoot at the defender before they themselves are visible to the defender. Depending on the actual amount of lag and the game itself the defender perceives themselves as either having been shot insanely quickly right as the attacker appeared, or maybe if the lag is not as bad they perceive themselves as having gotten to trade shots with the attacker, but ultimately they lost. The attacker perceives nothing special -- they just walked around the corner and shot the defender b/c they were playing aggressively and have superior reflexes (or so they think).

How big is the actual peekers advantage? Well it varies by game, but an article put out by Riot Games about Valorant goes into detail about how much the peeker’s advantage affects gameplay, and how their engine attempts to minimize it. It’s a great read: https://technology.riotgames.com/news/peeking-valorants-netcode. But to summarize, using 128 tick servers (very fast) 35 ms of internet latency (fast) and monitor refresh rates of 60 hz (standard) they calculate an advantage of 100 milliseconds after extensive optimization. That’s fast, but is it fast enough? Well back in 2003 I used to be a competitive Counterstrike 1.6 player at around the same time that I was obtaining a psychology degree with a particular interest in human perception (reaction time, how our eyes work, perception of subluminal images that are shown very quickly). I tested the reflexes of myself and all of my teammates. Competitive gaming didn’t have the same structure back then as it does now (everything has a ladder now -- back then it was private leagues), but by modern standards we were probably top 3% ladder players or something like that. Generally speaking there isn’t much of a speed difference in the whole pool of pro-gamers, at least when compared to new players. They are all pretty fast. Response time for watching a corner and clicking as you see a player (already perfectly lined up) fall into the range of 150-190 ms. Tasks that involve moving the crosshair to react quickly (as opposed to having had perfect placement already) slow that down another 50-150 ms. But generally speaking the competition between two similarly fast players with good crosshair placement comes down to very tiny units of time with even 10 ms producing an advantage that is measurable (both Riot and I agree about this). This means that had the server allowed for a double K.O. (which these games do not) we would find that in fact both players were very good and would’ve killed the other just 20-50 milliseconds apart. Valorant and CS:GO don’t work like that however, and instead the game essentially deletes the bullets from one of the players and leaves the other alive. Unfortunately this difference in human reflexes amongst competitive gamers is entirely gobbled up by 100 ms of peeker’s advantage -- meaning that at high skill levels the peeker will very often win and the defender will very often lose. So while the Riot article celebrates the success of engineering that allowed Riot to reduce the peeker’s advantage as much as they did, if you read the fine print you’ll find that the peeker’s advantage remains huge.

I don’t mean to pick on Riot, far from it. They’ve clearly done an amazing job. The other games I mentioned earlier are presumably in the same approximate ballpark, though I can tell you from personal experience that some of them are a fair margin worse. Not all of the games I mentioned use a 128 tick server (only one does). They also have longer interpolation delays and other little engine details that slow things down further. Riot is also an insane company that literally owns/builds the internet just to reduce latency for its players -- so if we want to take away a general sense of how bad the peeker’s advantage is in most games we should assume it to be worse than the scenario described above regarding Valorant.

Now that I’ve discussed at length the peeker’s advantage, allow me to present a related netcode model that attempts to solve these problems: The Peeker’s Compromise. If we delay the time of death on the serverside by the timing difference between the attacker and the victim, then we can allow the defender an equal opportunity to shoot the attacker. The server can then determine the winner (and the remaining damage) based on the performance of the human (instead of using the ~100 ms of engine-related advantage and internet latency). So let’s use some numbers for a hypothetical situation. Let’s say our game has 128 tick server, the players have 35 ms of latency, and 60 hz screens (like the Valoran example from earlier). Right as a player peeks another player they essentially get to shoot 100.6 ms sooner than their victim. As their shots arrive at the server the server might calculate that the victim has died -- but rather than killing the player it will keep them alive for 100.6 ms PLUS their own latency, which in this scenario puts the total at 135.6 ms. If during these 135.6 milliseconds the server receives shots where the defender hits the peeker, it will enter a section of code that attempts to settle this discrepancy. First off, it is entirely possible that after compensating each shot for the difference between the players we find out that one truly was faster than the other -- the game could use this information to decide which one lives and which one dies. It also might make sense to allow damage to legitimately trade kills and to build double K.O. situation into more first person shooters.

Let’s talk about the artifacts of this new and proposed system. In low-latency games with a high tick rate this change would be subtle -- we would just have no more peeker’s advantage. As latency increases all way up to 200 ms we will have a new artifact. Instead of having a more severe peeker’s advantage we’ll end up with a scenario where it looks as if players are taking 1-3 extra bullets beyond what would normally kill them -- although if you stop shooting early they still end up dead a few milliseconds later. The Vandal in Valorant (similar to the AK in cs:go) fires 9.75 shots per second, which is one bullet per 103 ms. So in a best case scenario the player death is delayed by the time it takes to fire one extra shot at full auto, and in a worse case scenario we add 1 bullet per added ~100 ms of waiting done by the engine. It would also make sense to cut off certain shots from being counted from a laggy player (existing systems already do this in their own way).

Gameplay at lower skill levels wouldn’t really be affected one way or the other. It isn’t affected much by the peeker’s advantage either -- players have to know where to aim and thus be involved in legitimate reflex test before we’re down to something so close that milliseconds of delay have an effect. If players are oblivious to each other, or place their crosshairs incorrectly as they come around a corner then the added slow down of the human having to make a new visual-search-decision-plus-adjustment is too slow for any of this to matter. But at higher skill levels there would be some actual changes to gameplay. The most significant change is that players would be able to hold corners -- and if they’re truly faster than the peeker they would win. In such a design it really would make much more sense to allow two players who fire at essentially the same time to kill each other which if adopted would need to be addressed at a game design level. Also games that had an alternate method of very indirectly addressing peeker’s advantage, such as weapon instability during movement as a major element (arma, h1z1, pubg, tarkov, etc), would have more options, and may need to tune existing timings to get the same feeling back.

The underlying netcode behind the peeker’s advantage affects more than the classic peeking situation. It also affects two players picking up an item at the same time (it decides the winner here). And it also is present when you’re playing a game and you duck behind cover and take damage after you should already have been safe (the peeker and the victim are on slightly different timelines). Neither peeker’s advantage nor my proposed peeker’s compromise actually removes lag of the underlying systems of the network connection nor the game engine ticks, both simply *move* delays around such that the controls feel responsive and the latency is suffered elsewhere. There’s a certain physics to the realm of network programming. As I like to half-jokingly say: “Lag is neither created nor destroyed [by compensation techniques.]” So the same problems would still exist, though the Peeker’s Compromise is philosophically different. Where the peeker’s advantage says let the fastest internet and the more aggressive player win, the Peeker’s Compromise says let the more skillful (in terms of accuracy and speed) human win. Outside of a double K.O.esque duel however, this is subjective. Who should pick up an item when both players tried to pick it up at the same time? Well the old method says the one with the better internet gets it, the new method suggests perhaps that we should compensate the timing to remove the internet/engine delay and award it to whomever was faster. But what about getting shot after reaching cover? This is really up to the game designer -- is it more impressive to tag someone barely as they run off? Or more impressive to slide behind a barrier right as you get shot? It’s a design decision. It’s also possible via this proposed system to compromise. The engine design I propose has more data in its context with which to make decisions, courtesy of temporarily allowing ties to occur which get addressed after both players take an action. It could say well that was an amazing shot, AND it was an amazing dodge. After crunching the numbers the decision is to deal a hit but cut the damage in half as a compromise between the feats of the two players.

#netcode #network programming #peeker's advantage #Peeker's Compromise #multiplayer #first person shooter #Riot Games #Valorant #Valve #Counterstrike

[bangtanlalaland]

venezia | knj (m.)

synopsis ↳your trip to Venice, Italy takes an unexpected turn when you unintentionally get lost. what happens next is all in fates’ hands.

--

— idol!au

→pairing: idol!kim namjoon x tourist!female reader

→genre: smut, pwp

→word count: 3k

→contents ⨯ warnings: dom namjoon x sub reader, swearing, dirty talk, heavy petting, tongue kissing, spitting, oral sex (f receiving), pussy slapping, delayed orgasm

a/n: I was debating if I should make this into a series. let me know what you guys think in the comments! I’m not sure if I have any grammar errors since I was slightly rushing to post this since it’s Namjoon’s birthday! So, if I do then please forgive me. I would also like to add that this was inspired by the photos Joon posted of himself while in Italy. 😏 anyways I’d really appreciate any feedback, especially since this is the first smut I’ve ever written.

--

Your 1 week trip to Venice, Italy with your two best friends was supposed to be a vacation well spent. But no. Here you are. On the streets of Venice. Lost. You couldn’t believe you failed to complete one simple task. Charge your phone! Now, you’re walking around with a map you either: 1. don’t understand or 2. just don’t want to understand. Either way, it’s way too hot to continue walking around with a useless piece of paper being held by your now sweat-drenched palms.

Of course with today's technology you had grown accustomed to using Google Maps for your everyday ventures, but this time your luck had run out. Life was obviously testing your survival skills. And you flunked the test. Sigh. You give up. You fold the map and stuff it in the back pocket of your jean shorts. You continue along your journey, passing by numerous cafes, shops, and restaurants.

One in particular caught your eye. It was different from the others. It not only was an indoor restaurant, but there were patio seating as well. It was very open. You could tell it was even bigger inside. You notice a host standing outside the restaurant. With the burning heat of the sun toasting your skin, you desperately give in and approach the man. You greeted him with a simple: Hello. Do you speak English? He shyly grinned and walked away. You had hoped he only walked away to get help. If not, you were shit out of luck.

As you patiently wait for the host to return, you had to think of what exactly you were going to say or do. You quickly scan your surroundings. There were a lot of people dined at the patio seating. Bingo. You are going to ask for a charger. It’s stupid, you thought. But it’s worth giving it a shot because you dread having to pull that piece of shit paper out again to try and reason with it. You step back and clear your throat. You pull yourself together to voice: Does anyone here have an iPhone charger? You? No? Do you have an iPhone charger? Anyone?

To your surprise you hear an “I do!” from behind. You turn around so fast that you’re surprised you didn’t fall right on your ass. You see a slender, brown-haired guy with sunglasses waving his hand. You notice another guy (with black hair & all black clothes) sitting at the table, turning around to see who his friend is talking to. Oh, thank God. You think to yourself. For some reason you become extremely nervous as you approach him. You hadn’t realized from a distance how hot he really is. He smiled, and fuck did that set it off for you. But you manage to play it off.

“You’re a lifesaver, seriously. I’m lost and my phone is dead. I have no idea where I am, and I have to charge my phone to call my friends.”

“No worries. I am sorry that you’re lost, but hopefully this will help.”

The mysterious male grabs an iPhone charger from his sling bag and inches it towards you. "Thank you so much...” You added, extending your hand, hoping he would respond with a name. He removes his sunglasses and at that moment, you were ready to risk it all.

“Namjoon. And you are?” he grabs your hand to firmly shake. “Oh, I am Y/N!”

“That’s a pretty name. It’s nice to meet you, Y/N.”

“Same here.” Your entire body is on fire at this moment as you both are literally having eye sex right now, and you can’t believe that this hunk is actually holding your hand. You try playing it off by giving a shy smile. In the opposite hand, you nervously squeeze the phone charger and bite your bottom lip. You could literally stare into those coffee-colored, almond shaped eyes all day. You felt another pair of eyes on you, and you completely forgot there was another person at the table. To break the silence, you look to your left and let go of “Namjoons” hand.

“Oh, I’m so rude! And you are?”

“Hi, I’m Jungkook. Nice to meet you!”

“Ahh, lovely.” You gently shake his hand and smile. To your luck, you notice the host pointing in your direction and another male begins to approach. You had assumed that he was the supposed “help.”

“Hello. How can I assist you today?”

“Hi. I wanted to speak with someone about being lost. My phone is dead, and I have not been able to contact my friends to let them know where I am. But luckily, a fellow gentleman here has lent me his charger so that I could get in touch with my friends. Is there anyway I could possibly charge my phone inside? If I have to pay that’s fine. I just really need to get back to my friends.”

You hoped that God would save you in this moment so you could move on from now. Just as the man was about to speak, you hear a familiar voice say:

“Valencio?!”

You noticed the man shocked as he looks past you. “Namjoon? Kim Namjoon?!” He instantly brushes past you and welcomes both Namjoon and Jungkook. You had no idea what was going on, but you figured they knew each other.

“So tell me! How are the guys? Where are they?”

Guys? You thought.

“They’re good. We are just on a break for now. Jimin is in France. And the rest are back home in Seoul.”

“Que bueno! That’s great to hear. You guys need a vacation! You work so hard.”

“Yes, yes thank you, Valencio.”

“Anything you want is on me, okay?”

You continue to stand there, confused. All you wanted at this moment was to charge your phone so you could get the hell out of this burning sun. You clear your throat in a firm manner to get their attention. Their faces snap towards you. Namjoon smiles, saying “One last thing. She’s with me. Do you mind?”

“Oh, of course not. Follow me this way. I will take you to my office.”

Namjoon glances at you to reassure you’re good to go. You wave him down to come along with you. He stands up, and begins walking towards you. You are completely taken aback at how delicious his full figure really is. Long legs, broad shoulders, handsome face. You're occupied with taking his appearance in that you don’t realize he’s calling your name. You snap back into reality, and look up at him. He’s way too close to you now.

“Oh. Y-yeah.. you should join me. Didn’t want you to think I would run off with your charger.” You weren’t sure why you asked him to come with you. Instantly regretting this, part of you hoped he would turn down. Because at this moment, you were literally boiling on the inside because of how close he is standing in front of you.

“It’s all good. You can keep it. But... I would still like to take up on that offer of joining you. That is, if you don’t mind?”

God, that sexy dimple when he smirks. You felt your stomach churn with nervousness. “Of course not!” You turn around on your heels, muttering silently to yourself: Fuck. Time felt laggy as Valencio lead the both of you into the restaurant. You felt for certain that Namjoon was probably looking at your ass in the tight jean shorts you’re wearing. Just the thought of that had your nerves jumping, and any unexpected circumstance could possibly lead you to shit a brick.

You pass through the kitchen, grasping the attention of the cooks and servers. Then you stop. Valencio grabs his key to unlock the door of his office. The door flies open, and he welcomes you both in. You gulp. As you walk inside the office, he gestures that the outlet for your charger is on the wall behind the desk where his office chair is. Just before Valencio could say anything else, you quickly blurt out: “Could I please have some water?”

He simply smiles and runs off to your request. You notice Namjoon standing in front of a painting displayed on the left wall of the room. You manage to use this time of him not eyeing you down, to plug the charger into the wall and finally charge your damn phone. Valencio comes back with a glass of water. You grab it and as you’re gulping down, you point your index finger up - signaling for him to wait.

You sucked it out of the glass like a vacuum and handed the glass back to him. He walks away and the sound of the door shutting makes your heart drop. You’re now alone in a room with a smoking hot guy you’ve just met. This whole time, you hadn’t realized that Namjoon was staring at you with hungry eyes, licking his lips.

You pretend you don’t notice and respond with another shy smile. But all hell breaks loose when he walks over to the window that’s facing the kitchen, and closes the blinds shut; then he swiftly locks the door. Your reflex reacted to this and you instantly bounce out of your seat. What are you doing...

“Come on.. You think I didn’t notice how you were checking me out earlier?”

“Didn’t think it was that obvious.”

“I’m only curious to know how that pretty face of yours would look while I’m eating the soul out of your little pussy.” He steps closer towards you, rubbing his member through his dark jeans, looks down at you and moves toward your ear. You can feel his warm breath hitting your earlobe, and it makes your entire body shiver. “Makes me so fucking hard just thinking about it.”

You’re on fire at this moment, but you decide to test his ego. Not knowing what consequences lie ahead of you. “I bet you couldn’t even make me cum.” Namjoon slides his slender fingers towards your core, tracing the cameltoe-like shape through your shorts. “Hm, you’re cute. But let’s see what you’ll be saying 5 minutes from now.”

And that was it. Namjoon grabbed your waist to pull you in closer, your bodies literally pressed together. He lifts your chin up to gaze in your eyes for a moment, and presses his lips against yours. You couldn’t help but think how amazing his plump, soft lips felt. You didn’t want this moment to end. Just by his kisses, he was already making your pussy ache for more. You follow his gestures, tilting your head right, switching positions and entangling your fingers through his luscious straight hair. He glides his hands down to your ass and firmly squeezes, making you softly moan.

You feel his tongue glide across your bottom lip, asking for entrance. You let him in and intertwine your tongue with his. Next, you suck his tongue, managing to get a moan out of him. Then you pull away and let him suck yours. He gives you one last rough kiss before pulling away, kissing your neck. You let out another soft moan while throwing your head back. He moves his hands from your ass to your tits, gently massaging them as he slides his tongue from your neck to your earlobe, lightly sucking on it.

That shit drove you to your breaking point. “Just fucking eat me out already! Fuck.” You wished you didn’t open your sassy mouth yet again, because now he stopped. “Impatient little princess, huh?” You nod your head. “Well too fucking bad.” He lightly grasps your throat. “You don’t get to have your way.” You whimper at his response, and he evilly smirks that sexy smirk that drives you wild. He kisses your neck again and goes back to massaging your breasts. He pulls away, admiring your figure. You are completely thrown off track when he pulls your cropped tight-fitted shirt down exposing your bra.

He grabs your tits, shaking them left and right. With your bra still on, he pulls your left boob out and the right one after. He traces his index finger over your right nipple. Just that simple action sends a wave of “tingly-ness” washing over you and you’re clenching your thighs together trying to overcome the massive horniness that won’t go away until you’ve reached your limit. “Please..”

Before you could finish your sentence, he grabs you by your waist and lifts you up. He pushes any contents on the desk that may be in the way, then places you on top. He looks into your eyes yet again before diving towards your right breast, encasing his lips around it. Sucking and softly grazing his teeth on it, while playing with your left breast.

He traces your nipple with his tongue, flicking it and watching your face as he does it. “Oh fuck” slips from your lips. He moves to your left breast, repeating the same action. Gaining more moans and “oh fucks” from you. He moves towards your thighs, rubbing them softly while crashing his lips with yours. He eases his hand on the button of your jean shorts. He unzips them, and you lift yourself up. He teases you by tracing wet kisses along the inner parts of your thighs.

Then he pulls your panties down to remove them and toss them aside. He pushes your legs apart, and your aching core is finally revealed. “Fuck. Such a pretty little pussy.” He uses his index and middle finger to pry open your soaked pussy lips. “As innocent you look, I never would have thought you’d be such a dirty little princess sitting in front of my face so fucking wet for me.”

“Life is full of surprises, right?”

“Which brings me to one question. What was all that shit you were saying earlier?”

“What do yo-” You’re immediately cut off and let out a loud gasp when you feel Namjoon’s tongue lick one long strip from your pussy lips to your clit. Then he spits on your pussy. Your head falls back again and you moan. You feel a slap on your clit that makes you jump involuntarily. “I asked you a question. I need a fucking answer.”

“Mmm. I-I-” He spits on your pussy again then slaps it again and again and again before flicking his tongue on your clit. Drawing circles with it.  Your moans are now hard to control. He slaps your clit one last time, and you squeal. “Such a naughty girl. Don’t want to obey simple commands? Naughty girls don’t get pleasure.” That’s when you realized he pulled away and stopped. He teases you yet again by lightly running his nails across your inner thighs. “No, no please.”

“Please what?” he responds with a firm voice.

“Please just make me cum! Please, I need it. I need you.”

“That’s not how it works princess. I want my answer. Or else, I can’t give you what you so desperately need.”

He stops playing with your thighs, as he’s awaiting your response. You look down at him between your thighs and say,

“I said that you can’t make me cum. But.. I didn’t mean it, I-I swear. I-”

He immediately wraps his arms under your thighs and dives head first into your pussy, tongue fucking you. You look down at him as he looks up at you straight into your eyes while he eats your pussy like his life depends on it. Shaking his head left and right, up and down, gliding his tongue all around.

“Mmm.. you taste so fucking good,” You hear Namjoon whisper.

Your eyes roll back. You’re dripping wet at this point and he rubs your clit with his finger. He spits on your pussy, mixing your juices with his and spreads the wetness all over and around your pussy, even going towards your inner thighs. Your moans are now so loud, you wouldn’t be surprised if the cooks and other staff members outside the door could hear you. That’s when you let out an even louder yelp and could care less if anyone heard you. “Oh shit... Yes! Don’t fucking stop, please.”

“Yeah? You like that shit, don’t you? You like watching me devour this pussy?” The sight and sounds of Namjoon eating you out is just enough to make you cum. It feels so damn good that you can’t even think straight at the moment. He licks and sucks on your clit, changing his rhythm and pace. He inserts one finger slightly curving it, and sliding it in and out. He inserts a second finger and pumps vigorously as he sucks on your clit.

He uses his left thumb to rub your clit while he fingers your pussy, leaving more wet kisses on your thighs and pussy again. Then he attaches his lips to your clit again, while still fingering you. And that sends you over the edge. You warn him that you’re ready to release. “Mmm, that’s right. Cum for me, princess.” That was literally all it took for that tight knot in the pit of your stomach to finally snap. You can’t help your legs shaking uncontrollably, your back arching off the desk, your fingers grazing through Namjoon’s hair and your loud cries of his name as your orgasm washes over you.

You notice him watching your body jerk as you try to gather your thoughts and come down from your high. He chuckles saying,

“Can’t make you cum, huh? Well look at you now.”

He gives you that sexy smirk again. “Oh, fuck you.” You retort.

“We’ll save that for another time. I have to get back to Jungkook. He’s probably wonder-” Namjoon is cut off by the sound of the door flying open. Your heart drops, thinking to yourself: Shit, Valencio has the key. We are fucked.

Then your worst nightmare came true. There he was standing in the doorway, with his jaw dropped.

“Dio mio!”

You shyly smile back at him. Namjoon follows suit, also smiling back and waving his hand in a nervous manner.

#bts smut #kim namjoon #rm bts #bts rm #rm smut #bts #bts imagines #bts one shot #my first smut ever #omg #i'm crying #i'm so dirty #ahhh #y am i like this #cherryseoulmates #magicshopnet #bangtanlalaland

[hydrus]

Version 420

windows

zip

exe

macOS

app

linux

tar.gz

I had a great week fixing a whole bunch of bugs.

bugs

I fixed taglist drag-select, which was not moving the to-be selected indices down with the scroll. Sorry for the trouble here. You can now also ctrl+drag-select to deselect.

There was a bug in the new virtual siblings and parents lookup system that meant some grandparents and siblings were not appearing. For instance, for parents, 'samus aran' might have 'metroid', and 'metroid' would have 'nintendo', but 'samus aran' would not have 'nintendo'. Thanks to help from users, I was able to reproduce it and fix the problem. When you update, the client will spend a few seconds regenerating the lookups and finding the missing links. It will queue up a bit more work for the background display sync to do later on. In my test situation, the PTR went from 189,000 sync rows to 192,000.

Autocomplete results in manage tags now list parents beneath every tag they apply to. Previously, parents could only exist in the list once, so they were accidentally de-duping and only ending up beneath the last applicable tag. Now you get plenty.

Also, these 'write' autocomplete results now show sibling and parent data for the tag that matches your input text even if that tag has no count. When that tag has sibling data, all the siblings are loaded as well. This sounds obscure, but you'll notice when you next start entering tags on a service with a lot of siblings. It should make it easier to quick-type complicated tags in manage tags.

Typing to get autocomplete results in search pages with thumbnails is now significantly faster and more responsive when 'searching immediately' is turned on. This routine gathers count-accurate results based on the thumbnails in front of you and then sends that data down to the database for sibling population. This suddenly got laggy with the new virtuals system, but I have improved how it schedules its searches and performs its tag lookups, and it should be much better now.

An unusual situation with a 'null character' tag that could not be displayed in the client should be better. This tag is detected, the rendering problem caught, and the user notified. The database routine that corrects bad tags now also fixes this tag and forces a tag presentation refresh once it is done.

speed

I spent a bunch of time in the siblings and parents system this week, and autocomplete and tags in general, running profiles on complex data and optimising various calls. I also sped up a critical new optimisation used across the program. Tag searches, autocomplete lookups, tag processing, tag display sync, and anything that runs frequently in small amounts should now be a bit faster. The only thing that may run a bit slower is tag display sync for very complicated tag parent situations, due to the more thorough logic in the fixes above. Thank you to users who helped with profiling here.

Tag display sync now only tries to run every 30 seconds (up from every ~3 seconds) when allowed to run in 'normal' time. It also takes breaks when it thinks a bunch of other work is going on. It was running hotter and faster than we needed, and it made the client too laggy, so I am pulling it back until I can make it more intelligent. I am also considering breaking the main display sync maintenance job into even more granular pieces. I will keep working.

full list

misc:

fixed the bad position indexing when drag-selecting taglists that were scrolled down. this also caused some weird selection when scrolled and clicks included a little mouse movement. sorry for the trouble!

ctrl+drag-select now deselects!

fetching tag autocomplete results when you have thumbnails and 'searching immediately' on, which has been way too slow recently, now cancels much faster. in some large page situations, it was adding multi-second lag on the first character-press. it also runs faster overall

hydrus should now deal better with invalid tags that contain the null character (there it one we know about on the PTR, from a decode of botched Shift JIS, which could crash the client from too many errors during critical paint periods). when a tag like this turns up in a taglist, thumbnail, or canvas background, it now renders as an appropriate 'invalid tag' string, and a one-time 'woah, bad tag, run fix tags now' popup appears

regular tag cleaning now looks for and removes null characters, so all new sources of these bad tags should now be eliminated

_database->check and repair->fix invalid tags_ now fixes tags with the null character. it also fixes tags so broken that after cleaning they have no subtag left. it also now forces a full media tag reload when it is done for all media

the 'regen storage mappings', 'regen display mappings', and repopulate from cache' database routines now have an additional step where you can order them only to work on one tag service, so regenning or repopulating local tags, which usually takes a couple seconds, doesn't need to wait two hours for the PTR to go as well

added some menu help to the 'profile modes' debug menu, and gave 'reducing program lag' help page a pass

fixed virtual display regeneration on service delete

.

parents and siblings:

fixed situations where some grandparent and sibling relationships would not appear in the virtual system. it was a bug when certain links of a multi-part display 'chain' were updated at different times. when repopulating chain data, the sibling and parent update routines now correctly chase their complete chains both when wiping ideal data and repopulating from raw data, hitting all levels of the chain, ensuring to go back up and down chains when there are multiple grandsiblings/children/parents, and chasing parents where one or both members have better siblings. thank you to the several users who reported and helped figure out this problem, which was not simple to reproduce (issue #725)

your ideal display data will be regenerated on update, which should not take more than a couple of seconds. it will likely correct some siblings and add some grandparents to be filled in by the siblings/parents sync. my PTR test environment went up from about 189,000 display rows to 192,000

while sibling and parent lookup is more thorough (and hence more expensive), I also optimised many parts of lookup week. I believe tag display sync and tag processing will be much faster for tags with simple sibling and parent relationships, and slightly slower for tags with complex relationships and many instances to files on your drive. as always, let me know what sort of processing speeds and lag you get, and if you know how to make a db profile, please send them in when it gets bad

when a 'write' autocomplete results list includes parent expansion rows (as in _manage tags_), parents now show duplicated and properly for all the tags that have them, including siblings and other children/grandchildren (previously, a parent label could only exist once in a list, which meant parents were ending up hanging off the last valid tag for which they applied)

'write' autocompletes now show results that exactly match the text entry, and all their siblings, when they do not have count but do have sibling or parent data. so, if you type in 'samus aran', and it has a sibling to 'character:samus aran', but 'samus aran' doesn't actually have count, you now get it and all siblings anyway. this may need tuning, but it solves a persistent and annoying lookup and quick-sibling-access problem in _manage tags_

copying tags and their indented parents now removes the parent indent whitespace

tag sync display now takes way longer breaks (now 30 seconds, was 2.5) between 'normal' background work periods. this thing was hammering people far harder than needed and could clog up db write/commit time and nobble UI responsitivity when big bumps collided

the tag display maintenance manager now also tries to detect when many siblings or parents are streaming in (from a migration or a repository process with a heap of data), and pauses work while that continues

greatly sped up mass imports of sibling and parent data, either from tag migration or big dialog pastes. what was 40 rows/s should now be about 1,000 rows/s

fixed the database menu's 'regenerate tag parents lookup cache', which wasn't hooked up

.

boring changes:

gave tag parents and siblings update, regen, and chain fetch a full pass, correcting bad queries to fix the above, fixing raw pair chain level navigation and parent-sibling idealisation, and optimised these lookups as well

fixed some tag_id vs ideal_tag_id nomenclature (and related bugs) in tag parents cache

optimised 'all known tags' autocomplete count fetching a little. tag autocomplete and search should be a bit faster in this domain

reduced display sync pre-processing overhead by about 30% with a better random pair sampling routine

reduced the overhead of my now very commonly used single integer memory table select optimisation. this now recycles tables after use, which reduces overhead about 50% in small number scenarios. all features of the database will enjoy this speed improvement, particularly small repetitive tag lookup jobs (such as the new display sync and repository tag processing)

reduced overhead on some sibling chain lookup code

reduced overhead on the sibling lookup used by manage tag dialog taglist

reduced overhead on some parent chain lookup code

tiny optimisation on single sibling chain lookup

sped up the ancient OG single tag->tag-id fetching routine, seems to work about twice as fast now

more misc optimisations, mostly list/set/dict comprehension rewriting to reduce overhead, across virtual sibling and parent code

added a full combined siblings and parents unit tests for the main missing parent chain link problem solved this week

added a full combined siblings and parents unit test for large real world data added in multiple pieces

'a file identifier was missing!' critical errors now print a stack trace to the log for further debugging info

updated the 'help my db is broke.txt' document with a couple new comments

next week

I want to do some code cleanup, catching up on bad old code and making the duplicate potentials search non-interrupting. I'll also prototype a database mode that may improve performance on HDDs. Other than that, I want to properly plan and start work on the big network improvements that I will finish the year on.

#release

[allamericansbitch]

Hello! I got asked a few days ago if I would make a git tutorial and I had the time so I thought I’d give it a try. If you are left with any confusion or have any questions please feel free to send them to my inbox and i’ll try to help! 

This is everything you will need for this tutorial:

Photoshop (i’ll be using CS5 and you can try and find a download here)

KMPlayer (x)

4K Video Downloader (x)

So, first things first, you're gonna need to download the video you want to gif and that’s what 4K Video Downloader is for. Open the app

Where it says “paste video link”, that is where you paste the link from the video you want and when you click on that green button it will read the link and find the video for you. 

After that, this window will pop up and this is where you choose the quality (make sure you save it as the highest quality possible and never save any clip as a quality with 60p after it like 1080p60 because photoshop freaks out and those gifs will come out laggy and weird). Also make sure that you are saving it where you want to, which is where that last bar next to the ‘browse’ button comes in handy.

After that, we will open KMPlayer. This is where we will get the frames for the gif. There are a lot of ways to get frames for a gif so if this doesn't work for you or you would like to have some options here is a tutorial that uses another way inside photoshop.

Okay so back to KMPlayer, after you open you can right-click and press the ‘Open File’ option

Then track down the video you want to gif. Once you open that file you can hit the key command Ctrl + G. That will bring up the ‘Frame Extraction’ window.

These are my settings and make sure you know where the frames are going and that it’s KMPlayer/Capture. Once everything is ready, you can click Start and it will start capturing the frames to the scene you want to gif, so go to that scene in particular and be ready to click start. 

Now once you’ve gathered your frames, go to wherever you saved them in your computer and just clean up the frames, for example:

I don’t need the shots of the crowd cheering, so I’ll select those one delete them now, it saves time later so it’s a nice habit to get into. 

Now we finally get into Photoshop. Once you open it you go to File, Scripts, Load Multiple DICOM Files.

This opens a window where you select the same place the frames you captured are stored. 

Once you hit OK, this should bring up the frames you pulled from the video.

Now we need to start getting the files into the right format. As you can see, there is a timeline at the bottom of photoshop where, on the left, is one frame. On the right at the top of the timeline is a down arrow and 4 little lines next to it, click on that and select Make Frames Into Layers.

This should get all of your frames separated and into layers, now we need to go to the same place and now select Flatten Frames Into Layers.

This will now add the frames to the section on the left and will have frames labeled ‘Frame 1’ ‘Frame 2’ ‘Frame 3’ etc.

Now we need to time out the layers, go to that same window with the downward facing arrow and 4 little lines, select Select All Layers.

Click on any of the highlighted layers black arrows next to the 0 sec on the bottom of the frame.

You will always change this to 0.05, ALWAYS. some people try to do things differently and it always looks bad. It either goes too fast, too slow or some people time it on every other gif? which makes no sense to me and the gif just looks laggy and rough instead of smooth. 

Now we are going to size these gifs. Tumblr has set some size guidelines that must be followed in order to maintain the quality of the gifs. The Wifth option is where these guidelines come in. For example, the gif i’m making for this tutorial is one that goes fully across the post, the largest gif possible on this site and the width must be 540px, if you’re doing gifs that are smaller and are half that (like a set where there are two gifs per row instead of one) then the size would be 268px, and a gif with 3 per row is 177px.  The place where you can pick and choose is the Height of the gif, i want this gif to be large so i’m making it 295px, but you do whatever you want with what you are making, this part is a preference. 

Let’s go back to the side timeline for one moment and do some garbage collecting. if you scroll down past all the Layer 1, Layer 2, Layer 3 etc. you will see there is left over layers that are unnecessary and that are just named the title of the download. Delete all of these layers that do not say Layer and then a #.

It’s now time to start sharpening your frames. The sharpening action I use got taken down because the account got deactivated and I cannot find it anywhere in my computer so sorry about that, but i can offer the sharpening action @nicole-kidman uses here. 

Once you download that got to the actions button (which is a small play button on the right) scroll down to where you see the action, and before you press the play button on the bottom of the window, make sure you have all the layers selected and the first layer highlighted and well as the first frame (see pic below if confused)

Once all that is done you press that play button and it should start sharpening, it will go through each frame (depending on the action you use, you can run out of action before you sharpen all of the layers, my action goes up to 130 frames so make sure to stay under that just in case) and once it is done you will get this window:

Just click Stop.

Now we are moving on to coloring, this is all about preference and what type of look you are going for on any given project, but i tend to stick to pretty natural and basic coloring. I’ve been using this amazing psd and just adjusting it with every gif i make. 

I’ll go over how i changed it for this specific coloring of this gif. I got rid of a few layers I didnt deem necessary and was left with these:

I lowered the curves to what you see above that this is what we got:

now we move on to brightness, i changed it to these settings and this is what we are left with:

Now we adjust levels:

With the gradient map, i didnt change anything and it’s exactly the same from what’s originally on the psd and we are left with this:

Next is exposure:

Now selective color:

And finally Photo Filter:

Now I am ready to save out the gif. Go to File and Save As to save the working File in case you need to come back and change something. Now go to File and then Save for Web & Devices.

When this window comes up there are a few things you need to double check. Make sure, under Present on the top right corner, you are saving it as a GIF and on the bottom left corner, above the 100%, the GIF size is under 3M (that’s tumblrs limit and if you upload a gif over 3M it will not move).

Once you’ve done that be sure to save it. Then go onto tumblr and hit Photo (this goes for gifs, edits, graphics, etc. as well)

Click Upload Photo

Then find where you saved the gif and there you go!

Also, here is a tutorial on how to make gradient text just in case anyone wanted to know!

And please be sure to tag me in all your gifs! I track #usersar. Like I said at the beginning of this tutorial, feel free to ask me any questions you have left! Happy Creating!

#gif tutorial #tp #edits*

[mattpitman]

Premiere.

Well, the countdown is now on to the first day of what is being called the “new normal” in education. Personally, I am not a fan of the use of “normal” in this case. What we used to have was “normal”. I want better than what we used to have...

A new reality for education. Meh. It’s getting there.

The point is, this is the premiere of the new educational landscape post-isolation. I say premiere because I miss new movies. What a first world problem to have. But I do. So I have been forced to look through my catalog of old movies. Some classics, some personal favourites and some randoms thrown in for fun.

The premiere of “new school” is much like what I imagine the premiere of a movie to be like for an actor or a director. You spend hours and hours trying to put something together that ticks all of the boxes, something that the community will get behind and support but ultimately, it could go either way. 

Will the premiere of “#school2020″ be a rousing success or a resounding flop?

The best way to look forward is in this case, is to look back at the astonishing remote learning period and the rapid adaptation of a whole system to maintain continuous learning. 

What better way to do that than with the help of the movies?

Apollo 13 🚀

In March we were stranded in an unfamiliar “space”, desperately contemplating “where to from here”. We looked at what we had on hand, what we had managed to pack from our offices and desks and started designing. Like the team at NASA we had to find a way to fit a “square peg in a round hole”. A way to keep the life in our learning programs. Many of us had a familiarity with the technology, the applications and the platforms, but never had we expected to completely rely on them. We had success early, but then faced a new challenge.

Groundhog Day ⏰

Like Phil Connors before us, we found ourselves in our own Punxsutawney, a repetitious environment characterised early on by hours of video conferencing, emails and quizzes. Every day we put in long hours to ensure we had differentiated our lessons, but each morning felt like waking up to the same tune on the alarm clock. As the weeks ticked over we found small successes in communicating with our students and like Phil, we learned the value of the little things. We come out of this remote learning period treasuring what we had before COVID-19, but understanding that there is greater work to be done. We came to appreciate the technology when it worked, but when it didn’t, well that was a different story.

Jurassic Park 🦖

When you have just managed to accept everyone into a lesson from the waiting room and then the internet drops out you start to feel a little agitated. It only happened a few times, but every one of them felt a bit like Dennis turning the power off and the letting the monsters out of the cage. When the video stream got a little bit laggy in the middle of a question and answer session, I felt a bit like the “blood sucking lawyer” sitting on the toilet about to be an entree. It was unpredictable at times, but we teachers adapt. “Life finds a way” and so do we, I wasn’t joking about the students being monsters though.

The Parent Trap 📱

I had the pleasure of contacting home quite often during this period. Quite a few students took a little while to warm up to the realities of learning remotely. It seemed like everything they had ever wanted; wake up late, watch TV at lunch, no more trains to catch. Unfortunately for some, the reality of being at home, surrounded by their creature comforts and their teachers confined to a box, was a little too tempting. Netflix seemed more valuable than studying the intricacies of Australia’s healthcare system. Like Hallie and Annie, they tried to pull a fast one on their parents using the tried and tested “I haven’t got any work to do” (at 11am? Nice try!) When the teacher came calling the truth came out and ultimately it brought teachers, parents and students a little bit closer albeit digitally.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back 🌌

What a great movie... moving on...

The Dark Knight 🦇

Small gains locally didn’t stop the “jokers” claiming that quote/unquote “homeschooling” had to stop and young people had to return to school immediately. The educational discourse has been a little bit chaotic and like good old Bruce, we teachers find ourselves in a battle we can’t really win. There is inequity across this great nation of ours and many students need to return to school. Is it safe is a big question I can’t answer, but I was hopeful this whole ordeal would increase the overall respect for educators in general. I am no Batman, but it does feel like we are being chased back into the classroom. This, despite our actions over the past few months proving that things can be different. We found a way to maintain order despite the whirlwind of chaos. Speaking of...

The Wizard of Oz 🤖

We now find ourselves in an educational world of opportunity. There isn’t necessarily a Wizard to seek out (or a giant head) and grant our wishes but we can still work to create a brain (creative & critical thinking), a heart (empathy) and courage (resilience). It’s time for us to band together and head off down our yellow brick road to the brighter future beyond the chaos. Sure, there might be a wicked witch or two, hopefully no flying monkeys, but if anything, school staff have proved that they can band together and work through anything. Like the random group found across the road, educators have collaborated without anything more to connect them than a Twitter account, that’s incredibly impressive. Let’s carry some water just in case.

Back to the Future 🚙

We can’t afford to treat this future recklessly like Marty did with his. We need to realise our past mistakes, identify what has worked recently and attempt to create real change for our students future. There is no Delorean for our students. They need our help now. We can’t afford to be looking at our remote learning programs like Marty looking at his photo, watching the gains we have made fade away. We need to take drastic steps (maybe not as drastic as his) to ensure we are preparing our students for their future. There is no going back and there is no almanac. We need to do this together.

This is it.

It is almost time to premiere. There is a mixture of nerves and anticipation. The big question: what will the future hold for education?

Time to decide. 

Are you one of the directors of this new future? Or are you in the audience?

Action!

Here’s a few things that have inspired me this past week as an educator and a leader:

President Obama’s Message to the Class of 2020

(https://youtu.be/H8Ego3_43lQ)

“With so much uncertainty, with everything suddenly up for grabs, this is your generations world to shape”. A powerful message for young people everywhere from a truly inspirational leader.

Staff 2030: Future-Ready Teaching

(https://lnkd.in/gYSQYC2)

Essential reading for educators who want to be the directors of this new future.

Image by Sabine Lange from Pixabay 

#theexistingreality #education #relfection #films #remotelearning

[pkgam]

Google Stadia Thoughts

You knew I had to cover this one! Long story short: This obviously will never work! XD

Well, I mean yeah I’ll bet they’ll successfully sucker people to their platform like they always do and make a fortune. But the way the platform works requires them to handle all the game’s inputs, processing power AND send it through the net completely lag free to maybe 10ms at most (Remember Display Lag deems anything at 20ms or lower to be "excellent”, so you’d also need a screen at 10ms or better. 9ms is the lowest I have seen. But remember that this is supposed to be possible to do even on MOBILE). Google’s incompetence can’t even get Youtube consistent, so you can only imagine how they handle something a billion times more complicated. Game Streaming services aren’t new either and all the ones that have been out (even for a long while) have had latency issues. If veterans can’t work out all the bugs in it, the below average workers of Google have little chance of pulling it off.

Even if Google’s servers can handle the needs of the game, they still need to show you your input instantly. That’s where the player’s internet connection needs to be fast and stable enough to stream themselves playing the game. Because that’s basically what it is: A video player for your own gameplay. Given how inconsistent the internet runs in general, that is impossible to fix unless they are providing perfect internet to you somehow. Well........ for the most part. You see, they plan to implement a “negative latency” feature to Stadia that will supposedly predict player input. That’s right. They will be using algorithms to predict how you will move, shoot, navigate menus, etc... sometimes. So there will likely be situations where you’re trying to jump a pit and you just don’t jump or you move into a hazard because no algorithm they have ever made has been good. It also begs the question that if algorithms are going to do inputs it thinks you’ll do, are you actually “playing”?

I also question their skills in getting games to run properly. Oftentimes you have to reconfigure your own system to get things to not bug out. Users can get their own systems configured properly relatively quickly ether through their own experience or by looking up the answer other members of the community have figured out and posted to help others with DuckDuckGo, but getting Google to fix anything is an uphill battle. Since they also claim to update the games as patches are released and whatnot, they are likely going to have to keep reconfiguring their own systems accordingly to get them to run right. Knowing them, theyll just set them to update automatically and not even test, leaving players to send bug reports and wait for them to fix a broke game, if they ever do because bug reports usually end up unread in their proverbial paper shredder.

What I think they are trying to do though is fill a niche of players who want to play the high-end PC games but don’t know enough about gaming and the internet to understand why it won’t work and don’t want to commit to buying/learning to build a high-end system. Thinking they will have a solution to their desires. So when people see Google fronting the hardware and only saying that you need a internet connection speed of so-and-so much, they’ll jump on it, until they use it for a while and find that it doesn’t work well. But of course Google is never about making the best service, they just want to get into every field they can for data collection and the money.

Also, you know my qualms with digital-only game distribution? You can bet that I have those same stances times 1,000 with Stadia. Google is not known to keep their products running for a very long time. This is relatively known by people already, but if you didn’t know and were curious, I know of two websites that have documented the things they murdered through the years:

https://gcemetery.co/ https://killedbygoogle.com/

That doesn’t give me much confidence that Google will keep it going for long or at the very least allow for game preservation. Remember that the very service of Stadia is a “game streaming” service. Meaning by the very nature of it, you never have even a downloaded copy of the game. In fact, one of their selling points is that you don’t fill up your hard drive with games, but that also means you never have a copy of the game. Not even digital to try and put on some backup physical media or something. You rely entirely on Google to play and have access the game. Good luck with that.

So all this talk about games though... Maybe you don’t care if they will have lag because you just want to play the games and you trust Google to stay online consistently for years to come. Then the game lineup must be something that’ll sell itself... Right? Hate to break it to you but...

https://store.google.com/us/product/stadia_games

That is about as mediocre of a game lineup as it gets for the most part with some of today’s worst gaming companies that likely just want to put their micro-transactions on as many places as they can. XD EA, Bethesda, 2k, etc... Mostly games out for a while too, but there a few that require high system specs, which may be what Google was going for to try and show off the power and entice people into signing up. There is a single exclusive at launch: GYLT, which actually looks good. But is it $120/year plus the cost of the game itself good?... I’d much rather wait for it to be ported to other platforms, which is a very likely scenario because as with all other games on there: They are made by third parties. So chances are when their contract with Stadia exclusivity ends , it’ll be plopped on other platforms. like “Get Packed” will be doing. Google is not making any games for it themselves as far as I am aware actually. Maybe they will do so in the future, but I can’t see them commit to bigger game projects than something like Chrome Dino unless they plan on keeping Stadia around. But even then I don’t see them making something masterful. They can’t even match online puzzle cube simulators made years before their tribute to the Rubik’s Cube. Their cube is so laggy and so inconsistent with movement tracking on all the PCs and browsers I’ve tried it on it’s unreal. Yeah... I actually thought it was something on my end at first which is why I tried a bunch of things because I just couldn’t believe they messed up something that was already mastered by many...

Your thoughts? Thanks for reading and have a good one!

#google #stadia #video #game #games #streaming #service #stream #lag #latency #internet #alphabet

[stylo-xx]

Eyes Closed (M)

G-Dragon: Angst/Small amount of fluff/Smut

PART 10:  A Repeated Seesaw Game...

A/N: I’ve been in my own feelings lately...

completely rewrote the rewrite, it was way too sad...

P.S: songs for your listening pleasure: (Suga)

(Part One)||(Part Two-A)||(Part Two-B)||(Part Three)||(Part Four)||(Part Five-A)||(Part Five-B)||(Part Five-C)||(Part Six)(Part Seven)||(Part Eight)||(Part Nine-A)

                           A boring seesaw game, someone has to get off this seesaw

                                                                 though, I can’t...

In life, oftentimes there are constants that exist that we’d wish were only temporary, but unfortunately for us wishing things into existence isn’t practical; and frankly only leaves things to be desired. If only things were as easy as they make it out to be in fairytales; or at least on Gossip Girl.

Life also has its ups and downs much like the childhood game of seesaw; as someone and their partner teeter and totter back and forth it's like an unspoken constant battle for balance; for unity. At first  you run head first toward your end and sometimes you wait for your partner to catch up, other times you begin before they even have time to get their leg over to either side and just hope they catch up. Picking up the pace while laughing and  joking and  playing ‘the sand is lava’ and kicking up your feet to try and keep your feet from hitting the ground or worse your bum. But sometimes someone leaves unexpectedly and you suddenly drop hard on your end feeling alone and hurt; both physically and emotionally. You’re left there with noone to balance you out anymore and to bounce you back up when you’ve gone down into the sand. All you can do contemplate getting off the seesaw, but what if you just can’t bring yourself to? Do you just wait for someone else to arrive? Or do you wait on that same person to comeback, just at the possibility that they could drop you again unexpectedly of their own volition? Then you answer to yourself the latter and you start to question whether or not you’re an emotional masochist. But I digress...

Love, is a hell of an addiction and one that is hard to kick, sure one could say their ‘I wish I could quit you!’s and their ‘you ain’t shit’s and my personal favorite ‘I wish I never met you’, but truly once that person had made their indent in your heart whether it be good or bad could you truly forget them? Could you truly rid yourself of all these feelings you had for a singular person in an instance? Sure, in the heat of the moment you may scream infidelities into the sky and spit utter disdain and all the vitriol you can muster about this someone who has broken your trust, and most importantly you heart, but why scream these things and hide the fact that we are hurt? Why pretend like in that moment the one person you loved and cherish more than anyone, hadn’t just severely hurt you?

Your friends may come to your rescue and reassure you that they weren’t worth it and that they weren’t good enough for you and you think to yourself ‘if you thought that about them, then why the hell didn’t you tell me this before I wasted two years of my life with that asshole?!’. And other times despite all the hatred spilled from both your mouth and your friends’, there is sometimes a vile part of you that still festers away at a dark crevice in your brain that tells you that you still want them, that in a momentary lapse of judgment you would take them back in a heartbeat. A part of you that’s still waiting on that seesaw…

“You’re insane”

“Sure yeah, but who said yes and got in the car?” he smirked as he closed the car door behind him.

She stayed silent, biting her lip as the sound of her heart racing filled her ears.

“Seatbelt” he signaled tapping the top of her thigh with two fingers then rested his hand on her thigh when she buckled herself in.

From the outside the venue to the award show was dead, as opposed to when they arrived as it was lined with people as far as the eye could see, she’d be lying if she had said that she wasn’t worried about leaving the venue in the first place risking not only getting spotted by some paparazzi or even worse some fan site ‘photographer’; he’d be lying if he said that he shared that same fear. He was more preoccupied thinking about what comes next between them.

“Ji-Yong…”

“Yeah?” he turned the car wheel with his empty hand.

“I-I umm…”

“shit was this the turn off for the airport…? He muttered to himself leaning forward.

“What if when we get there--to Vegas I mean and we end up--I don’t know...are you freaking out because I’m freaking out?”

He nodded his head absentmindedly, eyes flickering back and forth between the laggy car GPS and the exit signs on the freeway.

“Oh really? Thank god!” she exhaled “because you just seem so calm about it all and everything is just going so fast I just I don’t--oh Jesus H. Christ I haven’t even told Jun-Meyon and you and I--we just left! Oh god, Ji-Yong what are we gonna do? I’m technically still in a relationship and you--you still have a whole ass other award to recieve! Maybe we should go back” she turned to face him.

“Yeah maybe…” he hummed.

“You agree? Oh thank god! I thought--”

“Is it just me or is this stupid GPS like two exits behind where we actually are?” he squinted his eyes “oh sorry, were you saying something?”

“Ji-Yong!” her mouth dropped “nope, no this was a mistake, go back!”

“What? Why? What the hell happened? Baby I thought we were--”

“Ji-Yong what are we fucking crazy?! We can’t do this, I’m in a relationship and you--you’re--fuck we can’t do this!”

He inhaled deeply and quickly pulled off the road onto the off hand shoulder and turned on his hazard lights.

“Alex--” he turned to face her.

“I really think we’re really in over our heads here Ji-Yong! We’re so stupid, why did we think this was a good idea? Why did we think we could do this?”

“Hey, hey listen to me, we’ve been wanting to do this--I’ve been wanting to do nothing but start this over with you; I’ve wanted nothing but to do this with you, I want a family with you, I want you” he cupped her face with his hands “just breathe for a minute everything will be okay, okay? I love you, I know I’ve said a lot of things I didn’t mean but that’s not one of them. And I know I’ve done a lot of things that I regret but loving you isn’t one of those things”

She looked into his eyes and all that came through was the sincerity behind his words. She nodded her head and gave him a small smile before leaning into his hands.

“I love you too...”

“I want to forget all the shit that happened between us, and I want to start over--”

“I know you’re trying to be romantic but we are in the middle of god knows in Hong Kong, in a rental car pulled over on the side of the freeway” she lightly chuckled.

He giggled back and pecked her nose prompting a smile back from her earning a full gummy smile back from him.

He paused for a moment “I do mean it though, I know to some people it might seem insane that I’ve held onto you for as long as I have but I would rather spend the rest of my life insane with you than to never have to deal with your pain in the ass ever again”

“Gee thanks” She chuckled as she playfully shoved his shoulder “I do”

“Oh are we preparing our vows now?” he smirked tucking a piece of hair behind her ear..

“What you have better material?”

“Fine, I vow to you my future wife” he smiled “to love you, and make love to you--” he laughed making her poke his side.

“I vow to be with you through sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, until you tell me no. and even then I’ll still love you until you hate me….again”

“And to you, my lover and my best friend, I vow to be with you until my very last breath. I vow to, find a way to make you fall in love with me every morning when I wake up and by the time we go to bed I vow to bed the only you’ll ever need to dream of”

He tilted his head  and smiled “you trying to one up me?”

“What? No?” she laughed.

“Too serious, give me one you’d wouldn’t say in front of God and Elvis”

“Who said we’re getting married before Elvis?” she giggled.

“Vegas wedding why not?” he smiled.

“Okay, okay fine!” she cleared her throat “I vow to give you road head when you ask for it--”

He groaned “you don’t even need to say anymore, I do baby I really do” He smiled cupping her face with his hands and capturing her lips with his.

Running his fingers through her hair he deepened the kiss as he  gently parted her lips with his tongue the moment she gave him any room to budge. He pulled away from the kiss and moved her hair back away from her neck and peppered kisses down along her jawline and onto her neck. Pulling away again, he looked her in the eye and smiled before placing a chaste kiss on her lips again before placing his hands back on the wheel and turning to face her one last time.

“So, are you ready?” he smiled.

#bigbang scenarios #bigbang fanfic #bigbang fanfiction #bigbang fluff #g dragon scenarios #g dragon smut #g dragon fanfiction #g dragon imagines #g dragon fluff #gdragon scenarios #gdragon imagines #gdragon fanfiction #gdragon smut #gdragon angst

[yoiku]

I’ve kinda dropped out of the FFXIV wagon since last december or so, and I seem to be unable to grab onto something to pull myself back into it. More rambling and complaining(?) about a variety of stuff beyond cut.

Don’t get me wrong, I still love the game above all others, but I was pretty much forced to take a long ass break due to being busy with school and the exchange period from late november 2017 until late may 2018. And now I find myself unable to get back into things. I missed some major patch stuff, and I’ve managed to spoil myself most things like MSQ, so I don’t really feel...hyped(?) enough to go do it. I tried for like 3-4 quests and found myself skipping cutscenes or dialogue, which I  usually never do for new content.

I tried finally furnishing Lo’s house in hopes of rekindling some character development ideas, but it ended up feeling bleak and boring even though I tried to inspire myself with some cool housing ideas.

A few lovely FC peeps invited me to clear HoH a few weeks ago, and we did, without wipes and all. I don’t know if I genuinely didn’t enjoy it or if my head was just in a very wrong place and mindset about it, but the only thing I enjoyed about it was the company. It felt both boring and overly difficult at the same time, and the rewards didn’t feel rewarding in the least. Well, I never got huge into PotD either, so that likely was partly why I just felt kind of lost and useless in there.

I’ve always been rather critical about my own play, maybe even unneccessarily so, and even though I do enjoy challenging content, it can also drain me of any traces of relaxement if I feel like I am dragging the group down in some way, or if I’m simply just not satisfied with my own play. I just completely forget that any of it actually matters. It’s even weirder because I don’t expect the kind of perfection from others I play with. People make mistakes and it’s okay, some may be having a bad day, some may not be able to concentrate fully due to whatever reason, and I find it to be entirely okay. Just not when it applies to myself.

Now that I look back on to the few months I did raid savage last year, it seems unhealthy how I went on about it. I tried to always give 100%, did all the prep I possibly could both IRL and ingame. The first few progressions and kills were insanely fun, but certain points were somehow just a huge challenge to me, and I felt like everyone else learned to do them way faster, so slowly but surely it started to feel like a mandatory treadmill run that was going way too fast for me each week. And some days I was just really laggy or didn’t even want to play at all, but I also couldn’t just go and say “Hey, I really don’t feel like raiding today, could we pass by any chance?” Because well, that would be selfish. I didn’t want to dissapoint the others so I could never say it. Instead on some of the worse days I’d just have my mic muted and cried angrily at my mistakes as we raided. I felt like I had a much more relaxed mindset on the game until that point. I always thought that raiding wouldn’t be for me fbecause of the commitment, but turns out it isn’t for me because of my self criticism. For better or worse though, it did atleast make me realize that this is a very real problem for me in games as well.

I guess the biggest thing that’s keeping me from getting back into the game now is that the break has been so long that I’ve forgotten my weaving for skills, heck I’ve even forgotten what most skills do exactly. So I feel like I should know how to do stuff but the initial bar is set too damn high.

I made a few alts and tried leveling them to get back into the groove in a more relaxed way, (also I do really want to level a few other characters too) but somehow it just felt lonely to level a character by myself. Tried asking a few people if they’d want to level alts with me but seems likely most people already have enough alts leveled. I’ve been trying to play other games, but none seem to keep me interested for more than a week or two. This whole wall of text has propably not been the greatest prelude to an advertisement, but uhh... If anyone on wants to adventure together on Omega (EU), hit me up? Or just come by and whack me senseless with a blunt weapon of relaxing.

#self criticism #how to get rid of it #feels good to get this stuff out though #I like how I realize things like... a year later :'D

[sassysweetstories]

Can’t Forget You//Blurb

Summary: You and Shawn are dating but you’re bitchy and rude until you both get into a car crash that changes everything. 

Ship: Shawn Mendes x Fem!Reader

Warnings: angst, swearing, mentions of a car crash, fluff, tears, crying, etc. 

Notes: none of these gifs are mine, credit to owners. 

Tagged: @bailey-hoover @kiralivelove @thalia-prior-of-ravenclaw@anamcg317@bellasett @queentiffanyyy @archer-whovian-violinist @beingmadinwonderland@princessisabelle19@violence-and-velvet@lachicadelamanzana

Your P.O.V

We’re fighting again. About what, I do not know. I’m sure it was my fault again, always is. I’m his highest anxiety producer, after-all. He’s screaming at me so loudly, the veins on his neck ignite like fire and he’s redder than the tomato’s he oh so loathes. But I’m not helping the situation as I yell just as loud, cursing to the moon and back. This is just another run, chasing circles in a duel that we do beautifully. If I wasn’t so mad, I would think his angered face would be hot but I’m too clouded by rage to think about anything other than what we’re disagreeing on. There is so much sound around it, it’s hard to decipher which goes to what. That is until I turn my head to see a gigantic truck gearing towards us at an unstable speed. I whack Shawn’s arm to pull his attention and then everything goes black. 

When I jolt awake, I’m in a white gown and in a porcelain room. A hospital? But why? There are wires attached to my arms that I’m sure are linked to my erratic heart rate and unusual blood pressure. I don’t know how I’m able to read those things but all I know is that I need to get out of here and fast. There’s a stack of clothes on the chair next to me and I don’t hesitate to unhook my cords, change and slip out into the hallway. I keep my head low to the ground in hopes to just sneak under their noses but I fall short when a group of people on the opposite side of the hospital notice my presence. They seem to know me based on how their faces light up but I don’t show the same love. I don’t know who they are. “HEY! YOU NEED TO GET BACK TO YOUR ROOM!” A series of nurses say from the left of me. 

Automatically, I run from both of the groups in hopes to get outside into the cold, clean air. There are a plethora of voices, all of which I don’t recognize calling out a name that I suppose is mine but feels unfamiliar. I slide under one of the security guards legs, slipping past everyone in hopes to free myself from this white devil chamber. When I see the doors to the escape, I run faster until I’m catching for air. The rain coming down is soft but heavy enough to wet your clothes and just being outside brings me more comfort than anything I would have imagined. Overcome by emotion, I fall to my knees and let the water droplets fall onto my neck and back. The cool wet substance makes time and everything around me stop. But as I finally take it all in, I realize I don’t know who I am. I don’t my name, where I lived, who I was, anything. All of it hits me and I begun to sop uncontrollably before a hand made its way to my shoulder, once of the nurses it seems, who coaxes me back into the building for an examination. 

Luann, the nurse, sat opposite me in a CSI type interrogation room. I knew from basic knowledge that there were a series of examiners that were most likely behind the mirror. “Why do you keep looking at the mirror?” I’m sure she asks because she’s trying to get an analysis or thinks I’m selfish, I can’t figure out which one it is yet. “I just-” I tell her honestly. “I have a huge nose. Like, I could rest a mountain on my shnoz.” I pull myself from my chair, pacing back and forth. “You seem calm.” She tries to examine. But I’m nothing but calm. Yes, I look high due to the fact that I haven’t had much to eat and I’m also a little laggy with the medicine but I’m lowkey freaking internally to the lack of memory and control I have in my body. “Yes, I’m using humor as a self-defense mechanism because I’m afraid. I can remember common everyday things like how to wash my hair or brush my teeth but I’m having trouble remembering important events in my life, ya know?” 

The more I think about it, my more shaky my hands become. I can feel my breathing becoming rigid. As I close my eyes, I literally can’t for the life of me think as to what I was doing before today, before any of this. None of this makes sense and I’m so god damn scared my fingers start to shake so instead I ask her about me. “So what was I like? Before the accident?” Maybe if I can get a better understanding of who I was, maybe I could remember everything, jog something back. “(Y/n), I don’t know if the doctor told you, but there isn’t any chance your memories will come back. I’m sorry. . . The old you and your old life is gone forever. . .” I feel my feet crumble beneath my knees before my brain registrars the action. I lean against the table, feeling dizzy as she hands me an item before explaining, “Here’s a computer where you can see who you were.” My heart drops to my throat and now I don’t want anything to do with this piece of technology. 

All I want to is sit alone and cry until I can’t no more. Luann pats my shoulder gently before leaving me to rot in the CSI investigation room. A god damn car crash did this to me. I sit by the desk for the next few minutes, glancing at the computer before curiosity got the best of me and I open it up, typing in my apparent name. (Y/n) (Y/L/N). Hundreds of articles popped up, all ranging from the car crash to my personality and extremely rude behavior that I’ve displayed over the various years. I was an actress and model apparently. My previous self was a dick, no doubt about it. The longer I watch, the more my skin crawls with disgust. Whomever that was, was no longer me. I wasn’t this monster, not now, not ever. I close the computer with a loud click before rubbing my tired, droopy eyes. I don’t even know who my parents are? Do I even have parents? Am I married? Do I have siblings? 

The thoughts come in a rapid fire motion and my hands start to shake in fear. “I-I have no one. . .” Instinctively, I curl myself up in a ball and start to sob. “I’m all a-alone. . .” All of a sudden, the room is too much and I can’t breath. I push the table in a spur of the moment and get as far away from my chair as possible, light headed. “I-I don’t even k-know who I a-am. . .” I’m having a panic attack and there’s no way to stop it at this point. All of a sudden, a warm body envelopes me as I crumble to the ground. They feel both familiar and foreign all at once and it’s a terrifying feeling. The pair of arms aren’t much bigger than mind and they bring me a surprising amount of comfort as I sob into the persons shoulders. When I pull away, the woman holding me has some of my features and sports a broken expression. “Honey. . It’s me. . Your mom. .” Since I can barely breath, I opt out to not say anything and instead hold her close to my heart. 

Third P.O.V

Shawn, his team, family and (Y/n)’s family watched her mom cradle her body as she sobbed into her shoulder. None of them really cared for her except her family and Shawn but in this moment, they felt for the young woman. She looked so scared and alone and Shawn felt as though he was the one to blame. I did this to her. . . He thought angrily to himself as he watched the love of his life weep on her mothers blouse. Aaliyah hugged her brother from the side, knowing that he’s taking the guilt, the pain. She never liked (Y/n) but looking at her now, she’s different. All of them know it. Her posture and mannerisms are entirely shifted. She even looks different, almost as if her old life died and a new soul hopped into the that same one. Everyone knew that things would be different from now on. 

(Y/n) looks around her parents home, trying to take everything in. Clutching the journal Luann gave her like it was life support, she tries to calm down after being bombarded by the paparazzi. With shaky hands, she puts her stuff down and is suddenly swarmed with two pairs of arms. They scare (Y/n) but feel both foreign and familiar all at once. And because of that familiarity, she doesn’t pull away, can’t. Her mom and dad explain, “Your brothers, David and Jeremy.” She hugs them back even though (Y/n)’s meeting them for the first time in this new body. When they finally pull away from her, she notices that they've both been crying. Even though they’re both twice her height, they seem to slump down, eyes red and puffy from crying. Of course she doesn’t really know either of these men but something takes over her and pulls them back in to a tightly knit hug, one both of them needed. By the looks of it, they were her younger brothers, not by much but protective enough it seemed. 

The rest of the day, none of the family leave her side and for (Y/n), she really needed the support. But that night, after all the trauma of forgetting everything, she fell right into a deep slumber. Except her sleep was nothing but normal. Her dreams warped and shifting into something she couldn’t grasp, understand or even control. All she can see is the road, faint music playing in the background while the sky gleams above. That is until she turns her head to see whom was driving the vehicle. Of course she doesn’t know who he is but there’s this familiarity that (Y/n) can’t quite place, a feeling that festers in the pit of her stomach. He has the warmest chocolate brown eyes with matching fluffy, curly locks. A jawline that could cut a diamond and a body of a basketball player. But he’s not. She’s not sure how or why she knows that but the more she analyzes him, the more sure she is. He’s knuckles are soft but his palms are calloused. A musician, no doubt. She can’t help but admire his gorgeous white smile as the sun shines down on his rosy cheeks. 

All of a sudden, the perfect image turns black and cold. (Y/n)’s suddenly back in the hospital, surrounded by hundreds of people she doesn’t know. The man that was there is gone and now, more than ever, she feels completely empty and alone. She wants him back even though she doesn’t really know him. He’s the closest thing to familiarity in her life. (Y/n)’s suffocating again until she jolts out of her slumber, drenched in a panicked sweat. Her mother runs in, scared for her daughter and the banshee like wail she seemed to emit. Holding her child close to her heart, Mrs. (Y/L/N) can’t help but tear up, heartbroken that she is unable to do anything for her. The next few weeks are unbearable for the family. The young model/actress doesn’t sleep or eat much anymore, too afraid that if she does, she’ll slip back into that bittersweet dream. And even though she’s not sleeping, it never breaks her ever-growing and warm personality. 

When the Mendes family would come to visit, Aayliah had gotten very close with the new (Y/n). They would be up late watching movies or gossiping about boys and she loved it. But today was the day Shawn would come over for the family dinner and the poor boy was nervous as hell to say the least. He came out of the crash with little to no damage and felt nothing but guilt towards himself for what happened to his girl. It also didn’t help when Aaliyah wouldn’t stop talking about her. But today was the day he was gonna face it. (Y/n) stood across Aaliyah while she helped their moms with the fajitas, smiling as their dad’s and brothers talked about hockey. This was by far one of (Y/n)’s favorite times, when they all got together as a family. “Hey mom, where do want these-” (Y/n) says as she walks out of the kitchen. But she doesn’t get far before a new body comes into view, a new face that shocks her so much that she drops the plate with a loud crash, catching everyone’s attention. 

It’s him, the man from her dreams except he’s not a dream. He’s real, standing right there in front of her. “OH MY GOD, HONEY!” Both moms cry in unison. Everyone stands there, eyes shifting between the pair with gaped expressions. Mrs. (Y/L/N) grabs a hold of (Y/n) as if to guide her except she doesn’t need one. “Y-You’re him. . .” She mutters softly. “I-I thought I was going c-crazy. . . T-The doctors told me I-I was gonna remember anything. . Except. . I remember you. . Y-You’re the boy who drove with me. W-We were driving by the b-beach.. With John Mayer playing in the background...” (Y/n) closes her eyes for a minute to think before saying, “Daughters, was song we were humming.. Track number eight off of his album, Heavier Things.. I thought I was dreaming. . . But here you are. . I can’t forget you. . I’ve been having nightmares for weeks, always starting out with seeing you smile.. It’s almost bittersweet..You’re name is Shawn..”

The second his name leaves her lips, he breaks down into tears. It’s not long after that she brings him close to her chest, completely fine that he’s probably ruining it. She runs her hands through his long locks and the action makes him smile. Even her hands felt kinder, softer than before. Everyone watched with hope in their eyes that one day, each of them would be remembered in (Y/n)’s life. From here on, things would be drastically different. But as long as they had one another, it would all be fine.

(I hope you guys liked it! Please comment below) 

#Fandoms #shawn mendes x reader #fanfic #fan #fandom #fanfiction #anxiety #angry #such angst #angst #ANGSST #mentions of a car crash #Conflict #fluffy #flirty #flirting #fluff #fighting #swearing #TEARS FOR YEARS #Cuteasf #so many tears #crying #holy shit #shawn mendes #shawn being an adorable fuck #shawn mendes x fem!reader

[the-voice-of-hell]

Rent is Theft, part 23

Read from the beginning here, read the previous chapter here.  Note:  My MC is a Filipina trans woman and I am not.  If you have notes on that or anything else, hit me up.

                                                      ***

      I turned on the fans, turned off any lights I’d missed before.  Don’t panic.  The quick increase in the heat was counter to what the internet said about concrete, but maybe that was just because it’s a rather thin layer of the stuff.  Nothing supernatural in that, right?

      We drank our water.  I unlashed the twine that bound the ottomans into my fake bed, so we could space our bodies out a bit more as we lay there.  I retied them into two beds, as much as I didn’t want the extra labor.  You lay on three ottomans in a row, they’ll slide apart on you over time, and your body will be unconsciously tense as you try to hold them together.  That would be more work, ultimately.

      So we were on two improvised mini-beds, three feet apart, like a Hays Code era film about a married couple.  No implied fucking in this household.  The conjugal bed is hidden in the attic, along with the gay stuff and prospering criminals and other contraband concepts.

      “Did I apologize for this yet?,” I asked.

      “Yeah, stop doing that.”  She rolled the bottle on her forehead.  The cooling effect wouldn’t last.

      “Maybe we should talk about something to take our minds off the heat.”

      “I can’t think of what.  I don’t wanna tell cute stories when it’s like this, because when I think about the story after that, I’ll think about being hot.”

      “Yeah.  I could play music.”

      “But... same thing.”

      “Oh yeah, even worse.  I know whenever I hear a song I’ll remember other stuff that was going on when I played it before.  Maybe we’ll just talk about cold things, see if we can trick our imaginations.”

      “I don’t think my imagination is that good.”

      “Alright I thought of something I can do, but will you be OK just layin’ there alone?”

      “You’ll be here with me, right?”

      “You bet.  I was gonna go on my laptop and try to get more job interviews.”

      “Good idea.  Thank you, Courtney.”

      “You don’t have to say that.”

      I got my laptop out of the living room and brought it in.  I knew running it in that heat was a bad idea, but was getting desperate.  I lay down on my belly, chin propped with a thin pillow, arms dangling over the edge of the ottoman to my compy.  I turned it on.

      It took only a little longer to start up from nothing, but once I was past the loading screens, I found performance still very laggy.  Slow background startup operations, I’m sure.  But I had a bad feeling and kept my eye glued to the bottom right of the taskbar.

      I was waiting for a specific program to load - one that monitored motherboard performance.  I wouldn’t have to open it, because once it loaded from startup, it would display the processor temp right there in thumbnail.  A useful little thing.

      The thumbnail was only part visible glowing red beneath a pop-up window from the program.  “Excessive heat alert.  Shutdown recommended.”  Shit.  That made it official.  I couldn’t afford for my computer to melt now, so I turned it off.

      “My computer won’t work.  There goes that idea.”

      “Ugh.  I’m sorry.”

      “We apologize a lot, don’t we?”

      She seemed like she wanted to turn her head to face me, but that it would be too much exercise in her current state, and gave up after the most fleeting glance.  “Sorry about that.”

      “Love you.  I’ll think of something to talk about.”

      “OK.  Just remember.”

      “Nothing that will remind you of this later.  Roger.”  I drank my warm water and pondered it.  There was another knock at the door.  Fine.

      The doorknob was as hot as a hot shower now, initially shocking to the touch, but not scorching.  I got it open.  “Deandre.  Kids.  Pretty messed up, huh?”

      Deandre said, “Yeah.  Feels like we should all get out while we can.  This can’t be safe.  What are the odds they see us if we just use the stairs, go down one more floor, and hide out in the hall?  Ain’t nobody lives on that floor.”

      Knobby asked, “Are we gonna be alright?  I’m, eh, gettin’ kinda...”

      “I don’t know guys.  You could try it, I just...  I’d hate so much for any of us to get caught now, y’know?  It makes me sick.”

      “Heat can make you sick,” said Olivia.

      “I know it,” I said.  “I say, do what feels right.  I can’t tell you what to do and I wouldn’t want to.”

      “That’s the problem.  Nothing feels right,” said Deandre.

      “Well, until you make a move, drink plenty of water and rest as much as possible.  Guy said one hundred twenty-five degrees for three hours, but that’s up there.  Shouldn’t be that bad down here.  It shouldn’t.”

      “Yeah.”

      Me and Leimomi drank more water, as best we could.  It’s hard to chug when your body is starting to cook like a hot dog.  I searched my mind in increasing desperation.

      “Erotic Grime thriller.”

      “What?  Why?,” she asked.

      “Because it was the first thing I thought of, and the less we think of that guy sexually, the better.  You won’t wanna remember this later and you won’t.”

      “Heh.  Fuck it, OK.”

      “So Grime is a fast-paced computer programming man in the fast-paced world of computer programming.  The office is abuzz with activity.  It’s crunch time.  That’s when a product is about to hit a big milestone and we’re lagging behind expectation, so we all have to work extra hours.”

      “You’re there?”

      “Naw, no thanks.  Funny I was thinking of myself as part of that world.  I never do that, these days.  Maybe it was because I’ve been looking at job listings.

      Anyway, Grime is burning the midnight oil.  He’s wearing his skinny jeans and one of those ‘communist party’ t-shirts that has Karl Marx and Lenin with lampshades on their heads and bottles in hand.”

      “Don’t know that one.  Hard to imagine.”

      “It’s a bright red t-shirt.  It shrank in the wash a little bit.  Not enough he would throw it away, but a tighter fit than he’d usually go for.  In the cold late fall weather his nipples are pressing against the cloth.”

      “Ooh.”

      “Yeah, they’re ‘green’ buildings, so management skimps on AC in summer and heat in winter.  So Grime is there, nippin’ out, but typing so fast, like Sick Boy in Hackers, green matrix code raining down across his screens.  He’ll win the day.”

      “Does he have cool sunglasses?”

      “Is that hot?”

      “We’re all too hot right now, Courtney.”

      “His midnight black wraparound shades are ink dark portals to a level of Hell that is pure ice.  I think there was one of those in Dante’s Divine Comedy.  But yeah, frost is forming on the keys.  He has to step back, lest he freeze the whole desk like a liquid nitrogen bath.”

      “I can’t imagine it.”

      “Point is, he’s sexy action cool.  And he thinks he’s alone, but he’s wrong.  A sound from several cubicles away makes him leap for the katana at his deskside.”

      “Like a ninja sword?”

      “Exactly.  They let guys have those if they have enough corporate spirit.”

      “OK.”

      “His blade flashes like blue lightning, but nobody falls to his deadly moves.  He sees a guy step into the hall.”

      “A guy?  Huh.  A guy?  Are they gonna..?  Is there a girl in this one?”

      “No way.  It’s old school slash, baby.”

      “Does that mean..?”

      “Yup.  So he sees the guy stretching and is embarrassed.  He tosses the sword into a nearby cubicle, hoping he isn’t noticed.”

      “What’s the guy look like?”

      “He’s a silver fox.  Name is Michael Haeckel, he’s like six foot four.  Not chubby like Grime but not too skinny either.  You can tell just because he’s that tall and has big hands, he’s packing *redacted*”

      “Whoa.  Is he real?  Did you used to work with him?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Is it OK to make a dirty story about somebody else?”

      “I dunno.  We’re getting broiled like baby back ribs in here.  Ethics can wait.  Anyway, Michael was kinda sleepy and started to get *redacted*”

      “Can that happen?”

      “If you’re sleepy enough and you are packing *redacted* in my story.  So the outline of *redacted* is pretty visible in his acid wash jeans, and Grime is like, whoa, shit.  He hopes he wasn’t noticed.  He lucked out.  Michael does notice his situation though and picks up a clipboard fake casual to hold over his *redacted* while he goes to say hi.

      ‘Hey Graeme,’ Michael says.  ‘Hey,’ says Grime.  They talk about work, and how other guys don’t have the dedication like they do, to work so late on crunch.  Randomly, the subject of donating to charity comes up.  All the tech boys do it for tax breaks.”

      “That’s nice.”

      “It would be better for the world if any of those pricks paid their taxes.  Michael mentions that he’s giving to some LGBT charity.  Grime says that’s cool, but wonders why Michael feels like that’s a good one.  After all, he’s married to a lady and stuff.”

      “Hm.”

      “He says he’s actually bi.  One time in college he had sex with a dude and feels like it was beautiful and nobody should be judged for love.  Grime is like, cool, but you have been with nothing else but ladies forever.  Do you still feel bi?”

      “That seems rude.”

      “So does the funky bass music starting to play out of thin air - the sounds of love are soon to come.  Michael says, ‘Yeah,’ and they have a big moment.  Sexual tension in the air so thick you could cut it.”

      “Hm.  He’s six foot six?”

      “Yup.”

      “Silver fox?  Like a furry?”

      “Sure, why not?  So the guy says, ‘Maybe my wife doesn’t mind if I do stuff sometimes,’ and Grime is like, ‘Oh shit, I’ve never been with a dude before.  Is this really happening?’  And Michael is like, take it slow, and they do.”

      “Like taking off their clothes slow and stuff, or *redacted* slow?”

      “The first one.  Michael suggests they just watch each other *redacted* for a few minutes, see how it feels.  Grime and him are alone, think it’s funny.  Why not take advantage?  They *redaaaaaaaacted*”

      “Cool.  But I can’t *redacted* myself right now.”

      “Good.  That would be unethical, maybe.  I don’t know, whatever.  So the guys are showing each other what they got, and Michael is like, ‘Damn, Graham, what you wanna do now?,’ and Grime says ‘Graeme,’ but kinda chokes on it because he’s *redacted* like it’s water in the desert.  Oh. reminds me, drink some water, babe.”  I did the same, hard as it was.

      “So,” I continued, “Grime is *redacted*  Michael has to push him back a little and say, ‘Easy there, tiger.’  And that makes Grime all sad because he was fixin’ to experience *redacted*  That thing is too magnificent.”

      “What’s it look like?”

      “It’s like a white dude’s *redacted*, y’know, all *redaaaaacted, includes missile metaphor*”

      “Wow.  Haha, his *redacted* is the bomb.”

      “True.  So Michael says he wants to *redaaaaaaaacted*”

      “What’s it feel like, for somebody to have their *redacted* on a *redacted* ?”

      “Kinda crazy, like you got two *redacted* in a wrestling match, daring each other to make a move, but they can’t.  Not without help.  So Grime grabs *redacted*  He remembers to check in with Michael, because he doesn’t want to lose his privileges.  Michael lets him know, yeah, he’s doing it too *redacted*

      So he loosens up his grip a bit, and *redaaaaaaaaaaacted*

      “Yeah.  So they’re *redacted*?”

      “Yeah, y’know *redacted*  Does that make sense?  Anyway, it feels real good.  They’re feeling it, because *redaaaacted* lightly while *redaaaacted* tightly.”

      “That was a rhyme.  You should be a rapper.”

      “Oh yeah.  That’s a good job.  Where do I interview for that one?”

      “Sorry.”  She drank more water.  “Go on.”

      “They can’t take much more of it.  *redaaacted* so they gotta step back.

      So Grime is looking at the big man’s *redacted* and feeling inadequate, feeling like a child.  The guy senses his hesitance and says, ‘I like what you got, kid.  Let me see that.’  Then he goes down to his knees, taps an office chair to suggest Grime sit down in it.  Our boy rolls into position.

      He isn’t feeling it that much, like, *redaaacted*  But Michael gives him a look, so kind and beautiful like Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Then the older guy nuzzles Grime’s *redacted*  He feels Michael’s beard on his *redacted*  It feels crazy, but he knows he can't just *redacted* because it would scratch up his *redacted*

      Then Michael *redaaacted*  Grime is lightheaded, feeling like he might *redacted* at any moment, *redaaaaaaacted*

      But then Michael relents, right as Grime is about to *redacted*  He leans back and says, ‘You wanna feel this *redacted*?’  He’s gesturing to his *redacted*  Grime is speechless.  How can he say yes?  He’s never done anything like that before.  But still, he agrees.  Sometimes you hafta jump in the deep end.”

      “Whoa.  You think Grime would take a *redacted* in the *redacted*?”

      “Probably like it better if it was *redacted* but I bet he would.  Y’know, it’s just a story though.  Grime could have two *redacted* and taste like rose water if we wanted.”

      “Two *redacted* and he can *redacted* a furry?  OK.  Tell me about it.”

      “For real?  Grime has two *redacted* now?  And I’m supposed to get real about the furry thing?”

      “You mean he wasn’t really a furry?”

      “I guess he could be.  What kind of furry do you like?  Wolf boys?  Horse boys?”

      “Um, you said he was a silver fox.  And now Grime has two *redacted* and he wants to get a *redacted* in his *redacted* for a first time.”

      “Hm.  So Grime’s *redacteds* are kinda hanging there, like *redacted* but as soon as the older guy suggests *redacted* they both *redacted*

      “Why couldn’t Grime have had two *redacted* instead of the red hands thing?”

      “You really picturing that?  Because it’s just kinda abstract to me.  Hard to call the image to mind, really.  For me.”

      “I was thinkin’ like what it would feel like to have both in my *redacted* at the same time, be all filled up like that.”

      “Damn, baby.  I’d like to see that.  But I can’t *redacted* right now.  It’s too hot.”  I took a drink.

      “I know.”

      “Before I go on, should I describe the fox *redacted* looking like a fox *redacted* or a human *redacted* that maybe has some more hairs on it?”

      “What’s a fox *redacted* look like?  Don’t do it if it’s real weird.  That’s just gross.”

      “I don’t know, but I’d imagine they look like regular dog *redacted* which are pretty fuckin’ gross.  Moving on then, the silver-furred fox man stood up to his full height, his long human-like *redacted* brushing against Grime’s *redacted*  It was time for Grime to *redacted*

      They pushed all the printers and folders and three by five cards and highlighters and shit off of the desk, and Grime sat himself there with his legs up in the air.  Fox Michael probably made a sound like a fox makes, whatever that is.”

      “A howl, probably.”

      “Probably he howled.  Sometimes a howl is a mournful sound, the baying of bloodthirsty creatures on the moors, singing how theirs is a life of pursuit, of famine and violent feast, and eternal scraping in a social order from which the only escape is death.  But for the horny fox man, the howl is of Looney Tunes-esque hubba-hubba awooga-styled lust.  He rubs Grime’s *redacted* all over with his big fox paws, giving him little scratches with his short sharp claws.  Grime finds that exciting and bites his lip.

      Then Michael *redaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacted*

      “What are Grime’s two *redacted* doing?”

      “They’re wondering why they only have three *redacted* between them and not four.”

      “Three *redacted*?  What would that be like?”

      “Three *redacted* is good when you’re rubbing them on a regular set of two, because the *redacted* go between each other, don’t butt against each other and get sore.  It’s pure sensation, like God intended.”

      “Damn.  That makes me wish I had three *redacted* Courtney.”

      “Would you also like two *redacted*?  While we’re handing out body parts, it’s OK.”

      “No, I don’t know if I could have *redacted* right.  I don’t know.”

      “It’s OK, I prefer you with *redacted*  I mean, if you have a *redacted* and three *redacted* that might be kinda hard to *redacted* without being like you’re getting kicked in the *redacted* all the time, so you have some decisions to make.”

      “I don’t know what to do.”  She seemed a little upset.

      “It’s OK, babe!  It’s just a game.”

      “Ugh, sorry.  It was just the heat.  That would be weird if I was sad about pretend *redacted*”

      “Oh good.  I love you too much, honey.”

      “I’d laugh but it’s too hot.”

      “I understand.  Do you want me to keep going?”

      “Can you?  It’s bad in here.  Real bad.”

      “We’re just trying to kill time.  How much time have we been doing this?”

      “I dunno.  Feels like hours.”

      I got up the will to look at the time on my phone.  “Oh Christ.  It’s only been eleven minutes.”  I sobbed once, before I even noticed what I was doing.

      “Don’t cry, Courtney.”

      “You’re right,” I choked it down.  “Gotta conserve my water.”  I took another drink.  “So Grime is holding his *redacted* together loosely, one palm over the *redacted* kinda *redacted* so he doesn’t *redacted* before the fox even gets started.  Michael *redaaaaacted*”

      “Uh huh.”

      “Maybe I should be doing Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”

      “Whatever’s easiest.”

      “I guess we’re already here.  And I’ll have time to get through the whole fucking Grimm Brothers catalog.”  I almost cried again.

      “It’s OK.  You can stop, and we’ll just...”

      “No, no.  I can do this.  So Michael has his *redacted* all *redacted*  It’s *redaaaaacted*  I think if Michael is basically so humanoid his *redacted* looks like a *redacted* he’s gotta have a tail and an animal head.  So his tail is wagging like a happy dog and his face is all, again, awooga awooga.  You know, like a cartoon wolf when he sees a hot chick.

      He *redaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacted*

      Meanwhile, Grime is losing his mind.  He’s insane with ecstasy, didn’t even know it was possible to feel that good.  But he can’t get it together to help out, or say something, or do anything yet.  His mind is a technicolor CG explosion, like a commercial for expensive fruit juice.  Meanwhile his grip on his own *redacteds* has firmed into a stiff claw shape, like he’s clutching a stick shift in a muscle car.

      Finally, sometime around *redacted* Grime gets his brains back.  He says, ‘*redacted*’  Michael is ready and *redacted*  Grime knows if he actually *redacted* he’s gonna *redacted* on the spot, *redaaacted*”

      “Holy shit, Courtney.”

      “So Grime knows it’s basically game over, but he doesn’t wanna go out like a bitch.  He’s gotta get Michael to *redacted* somehow.  He knows he has practically no chance, but he begs for it, hopes that’ll work.  ‘Michael, *redacted* please.  I need your *redacted* dude.’  Michael likes that, but will he do it?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “You could make that up.  No pressure.  But does he *redacted* first?”

      “Yeah, but I can’t say it like you.”

      “OK, maybe I can teach you how someday.  You can be my bard apprentice.  In the meantime, Michael felt his *redaaacted*  His mind turned inside out, his mirthful expression went slack as lust stole the blood from his brain, then his eyes bulged and nostrils flared as...  I forgot he has a fox head.  Let’s say his long pink wet tongue flopped out the side of his mouth and he rolled his muzzle around and his ears went like... helicopters or whatever.

      Just for funsies, let’s imagine *redacted*  When it’s *redacted* hitting Grime’s *redacted* he feels a thrill *redacted* and he knows he actually won.

      He gets each *redacted* in a medium firm grip and they *redacted*  For whatever reason, *redacted*  Each got *redacted*  Grime’s *redacted* was *redacted* but in his excitement, and with his *redacted* it *redacted*  A *redacted* in a magic instant, then *redacted* their *redacted* like in the fancy grocery store, where they got those little pipes that spray water on the lettuce heads.  You know what I’m talking about?  Remember seeing one of those?”

      “OK, but it’s *redacted*?”

      “Yeah, it’s Grime’s *redacted* and it’s *redacted*  He yells in joy and then sucks in his mouth and bugs his eyes.  Oops, he thinks, somebody might be around.

      Michael *redacted* hastily, but not too fast, just to avoid accidents or discomfort, and uses his tall vantage to look around over the tops of the cubicles.  There’s nobody in sight, and he says as much.  He takes a wad of tissues out of a box and dabs up the *redacted* on himself while he watches Grime recover.

      He’s not recovering fast.  When Michael *redacted* the sensation prolonged his *redacted* even more, though there wasn’t much *redacted* left to *redacted*  It was kinda pathetic, just his two *redacted* rapidly *redacted*  Michael could see Grime’s *redacted* in the crappy green lights and the way they *redacted*  Grime’s head lolled and all he could say was ‘oh man’ over and over again.”

      “Oh fox man.”

      “Good catch.  I guess Michael’s probably lapping up the *redacted* from his muzzle and chest, leaving dabbed tongue shapes on his shirt.”

      “They didn’t get naked?”

      “I don’t remember.  That’s a missed opportunity.  Coulda said what they look like naked.”

      “Fox man and two *redacted* Grime.”

      “It’s true.”  I exhaled.  It would have been a sigh but I didn’t have the strength to muster a good inhale at the beginning, just weakly deflated my shallow lungs.  I had to hork down some air a moment later to make up for it.

      “You OK, Courtney?”

      “Ugh.  Sorry.  Let’s drink more water.”

                                                        ***

   Read next chapter here.

#Rent is Theft #part 23 #nanowrimo july 2021

[droneseco]

Lanq PCDock Monitor Stand Tries to Do So Much, but Fails at Nearly Everything

Lanq PCDock

5.00 / 10

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The Lanq PCDock is a competent monitor stand with RGB lights, a fingerprint reader, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and some USB ports. But I can't quite figure out ... why?

Key Features

All-in-one desktop hub

Specifications

Brand: Lanq

Connection: USB-A

Ports: 2 x USB3.1, 2 x USB-C, Fingerprint reader, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 5.0

Pros

As a monitor stand, it's solidly built

Qi charging pad is convenient

Cons

Drivers requires for the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and fingerprint reader

RGB lighting doesn't integrate with anything

Buy This Product

Lanq PCDock other

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The Lanq PCDock claims to be the new standard of monitor stand. With a built-in USB hub, fingerprint sensor, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, Qi charger, and RGB lights—everything except a kitchen sink, in fact—is it everything you could want from a monitor stand? Probably not.

Crowdfunding Disclaimer

The Lanq PCDock is currently seeking backers on IndieGogo, with about a week left on the campaign. Back it now to save around 40-50% off the eventual RRP. Or don't.

The usual disclaimer applies here: crowdfunding is not a pre-order system, and there's no legal responsibility for the company to deliver anything to backers. Lanq—or Langqun Yunchang (Shenzhen) Electronics Co—appears to be a new company, with no previous products or crowdfunding history.

PCDock As a Monitor Stand

Two sizes of Lanq PCDock monitor stand are available—the Pro and Max—and they only differ by width. The largest Max size (as tested) measures 43.5W x 8.62D x 3.27H inches (1105W x 219H x 83D mm), while the smaller Pro measures 24.8 inches (631mm) wide.

One benefit of a monitor stand is that it frees up desktop space, allowing you to store a keyboard, mouse, and other bits underneath it when they're not in use. Both sizes of the Lanq PCDock offer 2.24 inches (57mm) of clearance underneath. That's just about enough for a mouse, but just shy of what's needed for an Xbox controller. It's deceptively small, in fact.

The PCDock Max size is designed to accommodate dual monitors, side-by-side, though I "only" have a 55-inch TV to test with on my gaming desk. It handled that fine, thankfully not collapsing at any point during testing. With ABS plastic legs on the side, the main frame is made of an unspecified metal (probably steel), and certainly feels sturdy.

If I did have two, or three monitors, I suspect I'd rather attach them to adjustable VESA mounting arms, so as to give me more control over the angle and tilt.

Lanq claims the PCDock stand will raise the monitor to the correct viewing height, thereby easing neck strain. I can't help but think monitor manufacturers have already considered this rather fundamental design aspect into their products, so this statement may be a little presumptuous. My work monitor actually includes a height-adjustable stand, as do many designed for use in an office.

RGB Lights

RGB lighting is not to everyone's taste, but it's a key feature of the Lanq PCDock. Offering either 60 or 120 LEDs depending on the size of the dock, these are pixel LEDs rather than a single color strip. A remote control is included, and a variety of attractive, if somewhat distracting, animations are pre-programmed.

You can also choose static colors, or you can change the speed of the animations to be less annoying. It really does look quite impressive, if you're into that sort of thing, which I am. I want all the RGBs.

Unfortunately, there's no integration here between the lights and desktop controller software. Your only method to choose how the lights behave is through that small remote control, so don't lose it.

Keen gamers who already have a lot of RGB kit will likely have already bought into a specific system, such as Razer Chroma, Corsair iCue, or even Philips Hue. This is therefore not going to appeal to them.

As a Hub

The Lanq PCDock is also a generic hub, offering two USB-A 3.0 ports, and two USB-C 3.2 ports, which have fast charging capability. However, these aren't Thunderbolt, so don't expect to be running a monitor off of them.

The exterior right-hand side of the dock feels like a sub-optimal placement. I'd much rather hide my keyboard and mouse cable underneath the monitor stand, and keep the cables off the desk. Useful as quick access for plugging in a USB stick perhaps; but my Razer keyboard also does that.

Ultimately, you wouldn't be purchasing the Lanq PCDock for the USB hub alone, so I'm not going to dwell on it; it's an ancillary feature that's useful to have.

10W Qi Charger

Also on the right-hand side you'll find a smartphone-sized rubber pad embedded into the top surface; this indicates the location of the 10W Qi charger.

This functioned much as expected, reliable triggering a wireless charge when my phone was placed onto it. But I can't say I found it all that useful. Modern smartphones tend to last me the entire day if I'm sat at my desk. It's only when heading out and about, using GPS, or taking videos that the battery doesn't last a whole day. In which case, I'm not at my desk.

Fingerprint Reader, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi

I've grouped these features together because they all require a separate driver download. The drivers come as a RAR file, and extract to reveal a bunch of DLLs, as well as a INF file, which you should locate and right-click on, then select "Install" in order to add them to your system. In 2021, I expect much better. A single driver package with an install executable should be an absolute minimum. But moreover, the fact you even need to install drivers for such generic features is almost unheard of nowadays.

It seems even more curious when you consider that in order to activate the Wi-Fi functionality, you either need to already have Wi-Fi, or an Ethernet cable plugged in. Are you going to unplug your faster, Gigabit Ethernet, to replace it with a less reliable and potentially laggy Wi-Fi connection? I doubt it. The only reason to use this Wi-Fi adaptor is if your existing one is a decade old, and only capable of 2.4Ghz. The Lanq dual-band Wi-Fi apparently goes up to 5.8Ghz.

The Bluetooth chip (BlueSoleil), worked briefly after a lot of fiddling and allowed me to connect to an Xbox controller. Until Windows decided something was wrong and disabled the driver. Fixing it required a restart and USB dance each time, which seemed like far more effort than it was worth.

I was unable to test the fingerprint reader, but in fairness, I don't think this is Lanq's fault. I disabled Windows login years ago, and now it won't let me re-enable it again. As a gaming-only Windows user, I don't need to secure my desktop in any way. Supposedly it can be used for Windows Hello, but there doesn't seem to be any deeper integration such as web payments, as I'm accustomed to on my Macbook Pro. That said, this might be the one killer feature for you, and if it is, you can probably justify the rest of the package too.

Should You Buy the Lanq PCDock?

The sales page seems to be aiming the Lanq PCDock at professionals and office workers, but the inclusion of RGB lighting would suggest gamers. Yet, the RGB lighting isn't integrated into any existing RGB system, which means gamers won't be interested in it unless this is their first foray into this kind of lighting system.

If the lighting was exposed to the connected PC system through the third-party "works with Razer Chroma" plugin or similar, it'd be a whole lot more useful. As it is, the reliance on a single point of failure (a tiny remote control) makes this aspect of the dock difficult to recommend.

Then there's the fact that the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and fingerprint reader require separate driver downloads. I can't remember the last time I had to install drivers for such basic features. My experience with Bluetooth dongles thus far on Windows 10 has been "plug and play". And even if the Lanq Bluetooth had worked reliably for me, which it didn't, a plug-and-play dongle from Pluggable is less than $10, and only a fraction bigger than the USB port it plugs into.

The whole thing feels like it was thrown together as part of a "design your ultimate monitor stand" competition. It's a mish-mash of nice-to-have features (if they worked), but none of them are individually compelling, and the whole is, well, less than the sum of its parts.

The Lanq PCDock is a sturdy monitor stand with some cool lighting and a USB hub, but at $200, the value for money simply isn't there.

Lanq PCDock Monitor Stand Tries to Do So Much, but Fails at Nearly Everything published first on http://droneseco.tumblr.com/

[nancydsmithus]

Monthly Web Development Update 8/2019: Strong Teams And Ethical Data Sensemaking

Monthly Web Development Update 8/2019: Strong Teams And Ethical Data Sensemaking

Anselm Hannemann

2019-08-16T13:51:00+02:002019-08-16T12:19:12+00:00

What’s more powerful than a star who knows everything? Well, a team not made of stars but of people who love what they do, stand behind their company’s vision and can work together, support each other. Like a galaxy made of stars — where not every star shines and also doesn’t need to. Everyone has their place, their own strength, their own weakness. Teams don’t consist only of stars, they consist of people, and the most important thing is that the work and life culture is great. So don’t do a moonshot if you’re hiring someone but try to look for someone who fits into your team and encourages, supports your team’s values and members.

In terms of your own life, take some time today to take a deep breath and recall what happened this week. Go through it day by day and appreciate the actions, the negative ones as well as the positive ones. Accept that negative things happen in our lives as well, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to feel good either. It’s a helpful exercise to balance your life, to have a way of invalidating the feeling of “I did nothing this week” or “I was quite unproductive.” It makes you understand why you might not have worked as much as you’re used to — but it feels fine because there’s a reason for it.

News

Three weeks ago we officially exhausted the Earth’s natural resources for the year — with four months left in 2019. Earth Overshoot Day is a good indicator of where we’re currently at in the fight against climate change and it’s a great initiative by people who try to give helpful advice on how we can move that date so one day in the (hopefully) near future we’ll reach overshoot day not before the end of the year or even in a new year.

Chrome 76 brings the prefers-color-scheme media query (e.g. for dark mode support) and multiple simplifications for PWA installation.

UI/UX

There are times to use toggle switches and times not to. When designers misuse them, it leads to confused and frustrated users. Knowing when to use them requires an understanding of the different types of toggle states and options.

Font Awesome introduced Duotone Icons. An amazing set that is worth taking a look at.

JavaScript

Ben Frain explores the possibility of building a Progressive Web Application (PWA) without a framework. A quite interesting article series that shows the difference between relying on frameworks by default and building things from scratch.

Web Performance

Some experiments sound silly but in reality, they’re not: Chris Ashton used the web for a day on a 50MB budget. In Zimbabwe, for example, where 1 GB costs an average of $75.20, ranging from $12.50 to $138.46, 50MB is incredibly expensive. So reducing your app bundle size, image size, and website cost are directly related to how happy your users are when they browse your site or use your service. If it costs them $3.76 (50MB) to access your new sports shoe teaser page, it’s unlikely that they will buy or recommend it.

BBC’s Toby Cox shares how they ditched iframes in favor of ShadowDOM to improve their site performance significantly. This is a good piece explaining the advantages and drawbacks of iframes and why adopting ShadowDOM takes time and still feels uncomfortable for most of us.

Craig Mod shares why people prefer to choose (and pay for) fast software. People are grateful for it and are easily annoyed if the app takes too much time to start or shows a laggy user interface.

Harry Roberts explains the details of the “time to first byte” metric and why it matters.

CSS

Yes, prefers-reduced-motion isn’t super new anymore but still heavily underused on the web. Here’s how to apply it to your web application to serve a user’s request for reduced motion.

HTML & SVG

With Chrome 76 we get the loading attribute which allows for native lazy loading of images just with HTML. It’s great to have a handy article that explains how to use, debug, and test it on your website today.

No more custom lazy-loading code or a separate JavaScript library needed: Chrome 76 comes with native lazy loading built in. (Image credit)

Accessibility

The best algorithms available today still struggle to recognize black faces equally good as white ones. Which again shows how important it is to have diverse teams and care about inclusiveness.

Security

Here’s a technical analysis of the Capital One hack. A good read for anyone who uses Cloud providers like AWS for their systems because it all comes down to configuring accounts correctly to prevent hackers from gaining access due to a misconfigured cloud service user role.

Privacy

Safari introduced its Intelligent Tracking Prevention technology a while ago. Now there’s an official Safari ITP policy documentation that explains how it works, what will be blocked and what not.

SmashingMag launched a print and eBook magazine all about ethics and privacy. It contains great pieces on designing for addiction, how to improve ethics step by step, and quieting disquiet. A magazine worth reading.

Work & Life

“For a long time I believed that a strong team is made of stars — extraordinary world-class individuals who can generate and execute ideas at a level no one else can. These days, I feel that a strong team is the one that feels more like a close family than a constellation of stars. A family where everybody has a sense of predictability, trust and respect for each other. A family which deeply embodies the values the company carries and reflects these values throughout their work. But also a family where everybody feels genuinely valued, happy and ignited to create,” said Vitaly Friedman in an update thought recently and I couldn’t agree more.

How do you justify a job in a company that has a significant influence on our world and our everyday lives and that not necessarily with the best intentions? Meredith Whittaker wrote up her story of starting at Google, having an amazing time there, and now leaving the company because she couldn’t justify it anymore that Google is using her work and technology to get involved in fossil energy business, healthcare, governance, and transportation business — and not always with the focus on improving everyone’s lives or making our environment a better place to live in but simply for profit.

Synchronous meetings are a problem in nearly every company. They take a lot of time from a lot of people and disrupt any schedule or focused work. So here’s how Buffer switched to asynchronous meetings, including great tips and insights into why many tools out there don’t work well.

Actionable advice is what we usually look for when reading an article. However, it’s not always possible or the best option to write actionable advice and certainly not always a good idea to follow actionable advice blindly. That’s because most of the time actionable advice also is opinionated, tailored, customized advice that doesn’t necessarily fit your purpose. Sharing experiences instead of actionable advice fosters creativity so everyone can find their own solution, their own advice.

Sam Clulow’s “Our Planet, Our Problem” is a great piece of writing that reminds us of who we are and what’s important for us and how we can live in a city and switch to a better, more thoughtful and natural life.

Climate change is a topic all around the world now and it seems that many people are concerned about it and want to take action. But then, last month we had the busiest air travel day ever in history. Airplanes are accountable for one of the biggest parts of climate active emissions, so it’s key to reduce air travel as much as possible from today on. Coincidentally, this was also the hottest week measured in Europe ever. We as individuals need to finally cut down on flights, regardless of how tempting that next $50-holiday-flight to a nice destination might be, regardless of if it’s an important business meeting. What do we have video conferencing solutions for? Why do people claim to work remotely if they then fly around the world dozens of times in their life? There are so many nice destinations nearby, reachable by train or, if needed, by car.

The team at Buffer shares what worked and what didn’t work for them when they switched to asynchronous meetings. (Image credit)

Going Beyond…

Leo Babauta shares a tip on how to stop overthinking by cutting through indecision. We will never have the certainty we’d like to have in our lives so it’s quite good to have a strategy for dealing with uncertainty. As I’m struggling with this a lot, I found the article helpful.

The ethical practices that can serve as a code of conduct for data sensemaking professionals are built upon a single fundamental principle. It is the same principle that medical doctors swear as an oath before becoming licensed: Do no harm. Here’s “Ethical Data Sensemaking.”

Paul Hayes shares his experience from trying to live plastic-free for a month and why it’s hard to stick to it. It’s surprising how shopping habits need to be changed and why you need to spend your money in a totally different way and cannot rely on online stores anymore.

Oil powers the cars we drive and the flights we take, it heats many of our homes and offices. It is in the things we use every day and it plays an integral role across industries and economies. Yet it has become very clear that the relentless burning of fossil fuels cannot continue unabated. Can the world be less reliant on oil?

Uber and Lyft admit that they’re making traffic congestion worse in cities. Next time you use any of those new taxi apps, try to remind yourself that you’re making the situation worse for many people in the city.

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—Anselm

(cm)