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porta-decumana · 3 years

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5.55 spoilers below:

The MSQ was good. I’ve been pretty critical of the MSQ since 5.0 (it’s pacing has left a bit to be desired imo except for 5.3) and 5.5 did not feel like the hype train it needed to be but 5.55 rectified it somewhat. I still feel as though most of my hype is from the 6.0 trailers/info from Fanfest, not from how the story is presenting the next expac. But I still enjoyed it overall and thought it was def above passable. Just lacking a certain ‘oomph’ aspect I feel would’ve made it better. Definitely an A- in my book.

The solo instance was by far my favorite part of the MSQ and probably the best thing about 5.5. I loved getting to swap between the characters and revisit spooky lunar versions of our old primal friends. I was very excited to see Old Lord of Crowns back again when I got to play as Urianger. I hope that’s a sign that they’re revising the cards again, at least to give AST something a bit more for DPS rather than Malefic, Gravity, Combust, and Earthly Star. I really miss old Lord of Crowns. Critting that felt good.

Poor G’raha was probably traumatized by my awful BLM play.

Aymeric with the “I beg your pardon” line had me actually chuckling irl. I am glad we’re finally putting to rest the beast tribes as secondary, passive antagonists. It feels like a plot point overdue in terms of needing to be wrapped up.

Estinien dodging Aymeric just to fail to dodge Aymeric = good shit. I hope Estinien is also ready to have Nidhogg roar when he’s in my Trusts. What is that Koji? He wants to make sure he doesn’t go too hard and hurt us? He didn’t seem to care during the Carteneau instance. .__.

Fourchenault was very much what I expected. I feel like he’s sus though for reasons the characters have stated.

I’m still waiting for Fandaniel and Zenos to do something that feels pertinent other than vague about things as they have for the past 3 patches. It’s been nice and we did get a tidbit more with the roar from the tower but... I was wanting a bit more. Just a smidge. Also there’s no way that roar isn’t Anima. Having just watched FFX footage, the roar sounds the same but louder in FFXIV. Runner up thought: the roar is some primal embodiment of Garlemald which terrifies me more because what if that means a primal version of Solus? Anima seems more likely though.

Venat being the person at Silvertear feels basically confirmed now with Hydaelyn-like dialogue to go along with it. I question why nothing more is made of that scene. The WoL at this point is probably seasoned enough to be like “hey guys... there’s some shit going down, I just saw a weird glowing lady over there that sounds like Hydaelyn” but I digress, maybe that’s me projecting a bit.

I’m not done with Bozja yet (gotta do the new instance) but some thoughts after hitting rank 25:

I’m ngl, once I would’ve been all for the Mikoto x Cid stuff but since I have a friend who ships her WoL with Cid, I’m just... hm. It’s reaffirming the fact that I like having the NPCs having ambiguous love lives instead of having shipping in the actual quests. I think Yoshi P has made good calls in the past about being as open with stuff like that as possible so people can headcanon whatever they want. So seeing it up front... has me with mixed feelings.

Where is Nero, where is my boy. This entire experience would be improved if 1 Nero tol Scaeva was present.

Gaius getting namedropped was nice considering the entire Zadnor arc feels super ARR-esque. Gabranth feels like a younger Gaius with less indoctrination and a different end goal. Gabranth was my favorite character in XII and I’m excited to see more of him.

Oboro and Tsubame being in Zadnor were both pleasant surprises. As well as the Nagxia lore from the field notes.

Overall, Zadnor being the exact same thing as Bozja is just... I mean, I expected this. They told us this. But that doesn’t make it any more palatable. At least the level grind isn’t too awful (looking at you Eureka). The first area was abysmally flat and uninteresting but the rest of the zone is okay. I wish if we were gonna continue to get instances like that, they would be... less bland and flat? It just makes the slog seem more sloggish imo.

SHEMHAZAI <3

Lilja is growing on me. I wish her a happy be in more content in the future and a very live through all of it.

I continue to be conflicted about Misija. I think if I resent her at all, it’s because she kicked my ass one too many times in DR. I’m... intrigued about what will happen to her, I guess.

Fran showing up again with the speeder and giving me big XII nostalgia.

Cid coming back for this arc of Bozja ALSO felt really good. I was sad when he wasn’t around for the last few installments. I’m glad he’s getting to resolve his feelings about the Bozja Incident.

#ramblings //#5.55 spoilers #ffxiv spoilers #spoilers #msq spoilers #bozja spoilers #long post

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amphii-writes · 3 years

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Random Haikyuu Head Canons I Have

these are all taken from my discord server cause i remember to write them there, if you want to request fanfics, my requests are W I D E open! there is also nO order! these are just all the headcanons i could find tbh

warnings: mentions of blood, and just overall wild times, swearing

Asahi loves knitting sweaters because his shoulders are broad and he also loves seeing the reactions from his teammates when they get a sweater from him! He says he buys them but he doesn’t

Aone likes knitting socks because he has big feet and he loves fluffy knee high socks but his team will never know

Asahi and Aone regularly hang out and knit together! (after asahi wasnt scared of him anyways)

Nishinoya gives you shiny rocks he finds because “your eyes shine like them!”

Yamaguchi likes to have your head rest on his chest while cuddling!

Aone likes to bake

Aone dressed like a polar bear because koganegawa told him to- halloween was amazing

daICHI HAS A KISS THE COOK APRON

Daichi secretly can make some kick ass steak and is amazing at grilling sorry

Okay but real talk, Kenma and Yaku swear like sailors and it scares everyone because they always whisper the most foul, insulting things under their breath. Hearing it is like seeing a cryptid

Speaking of cryptids, Fukunaga and Shibayama are THE most true crime, mythology, and mystery obsessed fanatics on the team and often fanboy about it together

Fukunaga’s obsession with moth man has gotten to an unhealthy stage

Kenma absolutely had a vampire phase and has read twilight. Only Kuroo knows and has sworn to secrecy via blood pact

Kuroo’s a musical nerd. Knows all of the lyrics to Hamilton, BMC, DEH, Heathers, Rent, Beetlejuice, Etc. Kenma considered dropping him because of it

Iwaizumi tells the worst dad jokes and Kyotani, wanting to beat him, started doing it too and it drives everyone insane

Yahaba and Matsukawa get along surprisingly well. Both are true crime freaks and bond over their forensic files obsessions

Matsukawa didn’t really like his thick eyebrows so he got one of his female friends to pluck it for him, but almost cried and gave up after the first hair. Oikawa called him a pussy for the next year

Hanamaki jokingly flirts with everyone on the team so most of them just got used to it, but it still confuses Kindaichi to the point of mental breakdown

Makki called Kyotani ‘puppy’ as a joke once and now mad dog is truly terrified of him

Kyotani’s dog absolutely ADORES Oikawa and it’s the funniest shit to the rest of the team

Mattsun and Makki play DnD and once convinced Yahaba and Kyotani to join. Kyotani kept rolling to fight everyone and Yahaba was a bard that kept rolling to seduce everyone. They kept yelling across the board so they had to kick them out

Outside of his school uniform, Goshiki specifically wears only plaid

Tendou makes little chocolates for the whole team every once in a while so they don’t think he’s scary

Semi and Shirabu once had a fistfight in an abandoned McDonald’s parking lot while Tendou filmed and Goshiki cheered them on

Everybody makes fun of Shirabu’s haircut but nobody dares to say it to his face. its gotten to the point where they say he got it done by a blind old lady

There’s a running joke about Shirabu also getting his haircut from prison but Goshiki is starting to suspect that it may not be a joke

Yamagata and Tendou are good friends with the mutual goal of collecting as much blackmail on their team as possible

Tendou loves animals generally considered to be ‘ugly’ like rats, crows, reptiles, etc.

80% of Goshiki’s playlist is shit overplayed on the radio. Him, Shirabu, Tendou, Kawanishi and Ushijima have a permanent ban from the aux cord

Nobody watches YouTube with Ushijima because he never skips the damn ads (other than tendou)

Suna once said y’all’dn’t’ve unironically and made a first year cry

Akagi once said UwU unironically and had an identity crisis.

Osamu has one of those rainbow gaming keyboards and is constantly on a discord call. Atsumu always yells weird shit in the background to embarrass him and once pretended to be him

During Seijoh group chat arguments. Hanamaki and Mattsukawa like to drop facebook minion memes in just to piss everyone off even more

mattsun and maki both have separate photo albums in their phones labelled ‘minion memes to piss everyone off’

Hinata carries a pocket knife and no one has no fucking idea why

mattsun and maki both have matching rat fursuits that look like they actually where in a sewer- they chased oikawa around

For all his talk of plant analogies and metaphors, Ushijima cant grow shit

Goshiki’s Bangs are the way they are because his favorite character was Rock Lee from Naruto

Oikawa has watched Ouran High School Host Club front to back so many times and he can quote all of Tamaki’s lines by heart -He keeps bothering Iwaizumi to “be his Haruhi, since you’re shorter than me”

Koganegawa has definitely gone as an Angry Bird for Halloween

Fukunaga has those reflective cat eyes, and he has terrified Yamamoto on several occasion

Hanamaki and Matsukawa have a teddy bear that they pretend is their child and they share custody

Suga always sprays whipped cream straight into his mouth whenever he sees a can

Nishinoya definitely bit people as a kid

Nishinoya would be the guy to wear shorts all year round and even if it's snowing, he'll insist he's not cold

Tendou is still stuck in his emo phase and would fangirl over Creepypasta with me and I appreciate that (me too buddy, me fuckin too)

Kyoutani LOOKS like he’d listen to viking death metal, but in reality he listens to Mother Mother and knows all the words to Ghosting

Sugawara would definitely encourage me to dumb shit and not stop me, and you’re all dumb for thinking he wouldn’t

KENMA IS NOT ‘uwu owo’ SHY, HE IS ‘your fucking gross’ SHY SO LITERALLY STFU

Bokuto listens to Nicki Manaj. And knows all the words. To every. Single. Song.

Ushijima for some reason knows an odd amount of 90′s-2000′s R&B and he will hum along to the songs if they come on the radio (he also loves Dolly Parton) ((he says he relates to her music))

Bokuto once ate instant ramen for an entire month

TERUSHIMA DID TRY TO FUCK A PLANT WHILE SHITFACED AND GOD I STAND BY WHAT I SAID

atsumu let’s you put makeup on him and pretends to eat the brushes (do yk what im talking about- like n o m)

tendou ran for school president as a joke but actually won

i 100% believe that all of karasuno’s third years apologize when they bump into inanimate objects, but when suga is really tired or stressed out, he’ll yell at them instead.

Tanaka, Nishinoya, and Taketora have a group chat called "Bros who want sum hoes" and they send each other hypebeast memes and shit

Sugawara knows how to do a bunch of flexible shit because he sometimes goes to yoga with daichi and asahi's moms, its fucking hilarious

tanaka and noya both breakdance- they work as a team and sometimes go to tokyo for underground competitions- saeko drives them

Daichi knows a little ballet- nobody other than Kiyoko knows because they saw each other at the ballet class and had to work together- dont tell tanaka and noya that he lifted her though

Osamu once put glitter on Atsumu's pillow- he still finds hot pink glitter on shit

kita knits and crochets with his grandma

Kita's grandma knows everyone's names because kita talks shit bout them, her favorite is Aran

Kuroo has burnt his eyebrows off doing an experiment. His goggles didn't cover all his brows,,, so he just showed up to practice like that. No eyebrows and a chemical burn

kenma has played all kinds of games, but he was dared to play corpse party by kuroo. He wasn't scared because of the gore, he was thinking about the trauma the characters went through. Punched kuroo the next day because that game was fucked up

Lev isn't a strong swimmer, so he often grabs people by the head to keep himself up. happened with kenma and lev couldn't walk due to the force of kenmas suprised water kicks

akaashi has those fancy pens that you have to dip in ink and they're so nice

Bokuto has and will eat pencil erasers again

Daichi once almost lost his shit at his team but instead he lost his shit at the door that decided to stub his toe on the way out of the gym. not the best thing to be found yelling to.

Yamaguchi for sure has been dragged to one of terushimas parties because he didnt wanna say no. oh and terushima has like frat boy level parties too. Yams has for sure had some wild nights and doubts anyone other than Tsukishima and the party-goers will ever know

Akaashi can actually flirt very well! He reads romance novels sometimes and has analyzed any and every book in his possession! so he's actually quite charming

Daihsou unironically posted on twitter after mika broke up with him "I still see her shadows in my room"

Mattsun and Maki run a fake oikawa account; its been going ever since twitter even started getting popular and they even started sending messages in spanish. The posts would range from "I love all my fans!" to flirting with them :) Oikawa is pissed cause the account got verified before he did and most of his fans also follow the fake oikawa. Tooru has no idea who runs it JUST IMAGINE OIKAWA JUST LIKE RANTING TO THE SEIJOH 3RD YEAR ALUMNI AND JUST "no Iwa-chan, you dont understand! they run a fake account and pretend to be me!" while makki and mattsun laugh their asses off

Oh, kenma for sure has pretended to be a girl on discord and has gotten someone to buy him stuff. after they do he says in his normal voice "fucking simp" and then hangs up and blocks the other persons discord

Yamamoto, despite his rough appearance, loves kids and has and will be a human jungle gym

suna in middle school had a game with his friends about who could make kids cry the fastest

The twins switched places back in middle school and nobody could tell because of how great they are at acting like eachother

Daichi once arrested coach ukai for public intoxication after a game :|

Daichi has arrested many people from his old volleyball team but the most memorable case was when he arrested tanaka and noya for reckless driving. poor idiots got so scared when they saw their old captains face in their mirror and started to pray

tanaka, while trying to intimidate someone, once said "You dont gotta tell me twice, i may be straight but these hands are bisexual" and he often cringes at night thinking about it

Kageyama, as a comeback to Tsukishima, said "one thing about us royalty is that we love to feast" and he also fuckin hates what he said

the third years made a cult for Kiyoko. they chant every wednesday "i'll do anything for kiyoko, she makes me go loco"

oikawas fangirls are known to be fucking rabid

yAMAMOTO AND KENMA AFTER THEIR FIGHT WERE FORCED BY KUROO TO MAKE IT UP: so they dyed their hair together

Makki and mattsun sang two trucks in front of the entire team. everyone was so confused. Makki: "twO TRUCKS HAVIN SEX!!" Mattsun: "oH yEs!"THEY'D SWITCH OFF AND HAVE LIKE CHOREOGRAPHY TOO LIKE THEY'D DO A TANGO WHILE THE SONG IS LIKE "two beer trucks, making love"

tendou once called Oikawa "mr. no-nationals" and got kicked in the shins before iwaizumi could save him

Tsukishima had a my little pony phase

you work with matsukawa at a morgue and he makes dead people jokes while you fix some dead guys face with wax and makeup he'd be like "so didnt he like,,, stick his head out of the sunroof of a moving fuckin car??" he'd be singing dumb ways to die the entire day

i feel like Kuroo has one crazy accident a year. like it might not be deadly but its fucking crazy like for example: Kuroo for sure has ridden in a shopping cart at past midnight with kenma (who pushed him down a hill) causing Kuroo to get scratched up hella well. he lied and said he spent the night with a girl and kenma fucking hated himself cause he would be the girl if that was true

Mattsun has flirted with the 4th years moms before (AS A JOKE), and because of this: he is known as “fuckin milf hunter” sometimes by the team

Warning, this next headcanon is talking about cannabis, weed, mary jane, the zoink root. so if your uncomfortable, please dont read below :)

dude i wanna get high as SHIT with Asahi

i think Asahi would be one of those mfkers who takes one hit and is gone

ASAHI ACCIDENTALLY GOING TO PRACTICE ZOINKED

IMAGINE HIM SEEING TSUKISHIMA AND JUST "he looks so judgemental,,, im scared"

OR LIKE A MAD DAICHI AND JUST "i'm gonna,,, im gonna go jump out the window now"

Noya and Tanaka would know tho, i feel like they'd have a 6th sense when it comes to weed. they probably get some from Saeko cause she'd rather they do it in the house. they'd smell asahi like fucking dogs and just so,,, big guy had fun without us huh?

DAICHI WOULD KNOW ABOUT ASAHI BEING ZOINKED, SMASH HIS FACE INTO THE WALL, TURN AROUND WITH A RED MARK ON HIS FOREHEAD AND WITH A BEAMING SMILE AND FEUX ENTHUSIASM SAY: "YOSH, LETS WARM UP!"

#haikyuu #hq #haikyuu!!#haikyuu crack #haikyuu boys #haikyuu x reader #haikyū!!#haikyu x reader

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theunseeliemperoress · 6 years

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Ultimate Custom Night: Voice’s

(I’ve decided to make a post of all the lines from the game [not including phone guy’s] and give my analysis/opinion on them)

This is the video I used as a ref

Foxy: “Yar I came for ye booty. That be treasure you know.” “Yar. You never stood a chance.” “I can’t run like I used to. But I can pull my self apart just fine.” (Could refer to how he’d run at you in the first game) “Arr. So much more spacious in here. I may stay a while.” “Yar har har. Never underestimate the cunning of a pirate. Or a fox for that matter.” He sounds exactly how I thought he would.

Nightmare Fredbear: “Let’s see how many time’s you can be pulled apart.” (pulling things/being pulled apart seems to be a reoccurring theme) “I assure you I am very real” “This time there is more than an illusion to fear.” (Both lines could be about how in FNAF 4 none of the animatronics are real) “We know who are friends are. But you are not one of them.” “Let me put you back together. And then take you apart all over again.” I like how his voice is gruff and distorted (actually I like how all the fnaf 4 animatronics have distorted voices). It also sounds layered to me. Or there could be a second voice underneath.

Happy Frog: “Everyone underestimates me. But then they turn their back and I’m like boo! And their like wagh!” “Move over Freddy Fazbear! Happy Frog is the new star of the show.” “We’ve only just begun. I will never let you leave. I will never let you rest.” (Said in a whispered tone. Sounds more sinister than her usual voice) “I bet you weren’t expecting me were ya? Turn your back for one second and I’m like wozoo! Ninja skills.” “You and I don’t get to talk as often as I’d like.” Very cute voice acting. I like how they throw in one creepy line. That should throw a few people off.

Jack-O-Chika: (voice is distorted) “I am a burning reminder of your misdeeds.”) “Greetings from the fire and the one you should not have killed.” (Player character killed someone. Who? My theory at the moment is they’re the purple guy (or maybe one of them) and they’re in hell. But we’ll see if that sticks) “Did things get really hot in here? Or is it just me?” “Come and burn with me. The fire burns eternal. And now you shall as well!” (Further supports my hell theory) A lot of their lines contain hints towards the lore. But due to the distortion they can be hard to hear. Typical of fnaf lore (in plain sight but hard to decipher). My fave voice from the fnaf4 animatronics.

Lefty: (whispers everything) “Shhh...Come spend eternity inside. With me.” (Inside where?) “Shhh...I’ve been looking for you. And now I’ll never let you go.” “Shhh...I’m so glad that I found you. Let me make room for you.” “Shhh...It will all be over soon.” “Shhh...There is room for one more.” (One more in the suit?) His voice is actually one of the creepiest to me. Especially as it sounds like a little boy.

Mangle: “I wanted to wait till just the right moment to drop in.” “It’s so much more fun hanging out in here with you.” “He’s here. And always watching. The one you shouldn’t have killed.” (”The one you shouldn’t have killed” is mentioned a lot) “Don’t be afraid. Soon you will look just like me. Beautiful.” “Now I get to play take apart and put back together. You won’t feel a thing.” The fact they have a male and female voice actor makes me really happy.

Marionette: “The others are under my protection.” “Seeing you powerless is like music to me.” “The others are like animals. But I am very aware.” (Did the other children/victims loose their humanity? Why not this one?) “I don’t hate you. But you need to stay out of my way.” “I recognise you. But I’m not afraid of you. Not anymore.” (Further evidence player character was/is a killer) The childish voice makes an already creepy character creepier. Are they the one “You should not have killed?” (Though their voice sounds like a little girl and Mangled clearly say “He’s here”.)

Ballora: “I could hear you breathing.” “Admit it. You wanted to let me in.” “These are strange circumstances. That have brought us together.” “Don’t be shy. Why do you hide inside these walls?” Her lines are very flirty. Which seems strange.

Toy Chica: “Where’s my beak? Lodged in your forehead of course.” “*Giggles* You won’t get tired of dying will you? You won’t get tired of my voice? Will you?” (further evidence towards the hell theory) “Let’s go somewhere more private. So I can eat you.” Interesting but very fitting voice acting. Nightmare Bonnie: “You will not be spared. You will not be saved.” “The shadows (indistinct) me. And (indistinct) you back to horror(?) “Your/You’re wickedness made of flesh.” “I’m here to claim what is left of you.” Creepy voice but I can barely understand anything he says

The Music Man: “Hear that. It’s the sweet sweet sound of your eternal silence.” “Hey keep it down would ya?” “When I’m here you play by My rules.” “A song was requested of me. And now I sing it.” “You and I will be making music together for a long long time.” A weird voice for a weird looking character.

Nedbear: “Stranger danger! *laughs* I was just waiting for you to drop your guard.” “Woops. That’s gonna leave a mark.” “This is how it feels. You get to experience it over and over and over again. Forever. I will never let you leave.” (A little girls voice can be heard just out of sync) “Don’t you hate getting killed by obscure secondary characters?” The hillbilly accent is fun. The little girls voice implies even these characters have dark secrets.

Nightmare Freddy (voice is distorted): “No light can save you now.” “I have always been hiding in your shadow.” “What a gift to relish a victim that can’t perish.” (Hell theory) “I am given flesh to be your tormentor.” “I am remade. But not by you. By the one you should not have killed.” Very creepy. Probably one of the easiest Nightmare to understand but still creepy.

Nightmare BB: “There just isn’t room in here for both of us.” “You knew I’d get you eventually.” “Come closer. Help me count my teeth.” “Flash that light all night/all you like. It can’t save you now.” “You’re not so big. Just a bite size morsel.”

Nightmarionette: (voice is distorted) “The nightmare is just beginning.” “Let’s taste (?) death again, and again and again.” “I am the fear of your reflection and the one you have created.” (The one you have created could be the Marionette) “This is a nightmare you won’t wake from.” (Hell theory?) “This time death can not save you.” (Hell theory) Voice is very hard to understand but very creepy.

Nightmare Mangle: Voice is covered by a lot of static and radio interference. I could hear something that sounded like “Come here come here” though it’s not clear.

William Afton: “I always come back.” Has a more human sounding voice despite being in a state of disrepair (like the nightmares and withered animatronics) which makes sense. The fact he and Springtrap are different animatronics throws a wrench in a few theories I’ve heard.

Orville Elephant: “I hope you enjoyed the grand finale.” “Now is my time to shine.” “He tried to release you. He tried to release us. But I’m not gonna let that happen. I will hold you here. I will keep you here. No matter how many times they burn us.” (a little girls voice can be heard just after his. Who are they?) “What did you think of my act? I don’t get out much. So you’ll have to forgive my enthusiasm. I love how he sounds like a sweet old man.

Pigpen: “Even monkey’s fall from trees.” “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” “The talented hog hides his claws.” “I consider it a dignified death. Not really it was actually quite pathetic.” “If you sit by the river long enough you’ll see the body of your enemy floating by.” The hillbilly voice really suits him, and the banjo makes me laugh.

Rockstar Bonnie: (Electronic voice, sings) “What a fine day to come here and say Your face and flesh I must flay” “What a treat, to come here and meet (?), your face as it hits concrete (?) “I found my guitar. now reach for the stars, As I bludgeon and pull you apart.” “Why so blue? You know I’ll be true. And now I’ll make slippers (?) out of you.” “So good to see you again. My truest friend. But now your life must end.” (Calls the player character his “truest friend”. Does he mean it? Why does he want to kill PC? Did PC kill him (if he’s one of the possessed animatronics) Interesting how he’s the only one who sings.

Rockstar Chika: “That’ll teach ya for trying to trick this old bird.” “Thought you could fool me with that sign. But I was too smart for ya.” “I may not like wet floors but the smell of fresh meet is just too enticing.” “Looks like you’re the one who slipped up this time.” “That’s right. And don’t you come back now you hear.” Her voice makes me think of a female rockstar from the 70s or 80s.

Scrapbaby: “Time for your controlled shock.” (said two different ways) “Let’s see how many pieces I can cut you into.” “You won’t die. But you’ll wish you could.” (hell theory) Sounds just like Baby’s voice. (personally I’d have made it a little different but it’s fine as it is) Toy Freddie: “It’s not my fault. I have these fat plastic fingers that can’t press the buttons.” “Mr hugs got me again.” “If I get jumpscared. You get jumpscared.” “That game was totally rigged.” “That’s what you get for leaving me hanging.” Voice could get annoying after a while.

Trash and the gang: (female voice, whispers) “Psst over here. Get closer.” “Excuse me could you come a little closer?” “Hey. Down here. Hello. I wanted to ask you something. Its something really important.” “Psst. I have something to tell you.” “Hey hey. I want to tell you something.” The voice seems to only be there to trick the player into listening more closely before they are jumpscared.

Rockstar Freddie: “Please deposit five coins.” (Said repeatedly during gameplay when active. After jumpscaring the player is said once and grinds to a stop)

Rockstar Foxy “Yar. Ye play with fire and sometime’s ye get burned.” Voice is very similar to Foxy’s but the slight difference is fitting.

Withered Bonnie: (voice has an electronic echo) “Time to face the consequences of your behaviour (?)” “Might as well face the facts. You were always destined to fail.” “You blinked.” “Why (indistinct)? Is it me (indistinct)? Or is it you? Perhaps it is us both.” “I’ve made (indistinct) fate. But (indistinct) taught (?)” Could someone please tell me what he’s saying?

Withered Chika: (Indistinct) through the vent. But now we are together.” “Let me show you how to break your face and look like me.” “I was the first. I have seen everything.” (The first what? Animatronic? Victim?) “Come closer. Let’s smile(?) together.” “I have seen him. The one you shouldn’t have killed.” The juttering voice is creepy though not the creepiest.

Baby: “I guess you forgot about me.” “Want to see the scooping room?” (Player character could be the main character from SL or Baby’s creator. Or both?) “Guess you forgot about me. Looks like something bad happened.”

Robot(?): “Now I will tell you a story.” “But he could not choose.” “He placed the remains together.” “He promised to never leave them.” Sounds like the War of the Worlds CD my mum has. Who’s story is it telling? The player characters? The Marionettes?

Mr Hippo: NOPE. NO. Not doing it. I’m not typing all his lines. I’d like to do other things today thank you very much. (His line “maybe I met some sort of demise of my own” is interesting though) Sounds like an old man.

#ultimate custom night #fnaf #long post bellow the read more #info dump

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thousandmaths · 7 years

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How Does One Do Mathematical Research? (abridged)

[ This post got a bit long, so I’m putting the main content in a readmore just to clutter up your dash a *little* less. ]

Something that I do occasionally way too damn often for my own good is indulgently read some fluffy piece about the culture of mathematics, academia, or research. In eight years of doing this, I’ve never come across an article as confusing to me as my most recent venture: Lee Lady’s How Does One Do Mathematical Research?.

To be clear, I can’t and don’t recommend you read this essay, at least not if you are forming your views on the titular question. There are a few reasons for this, but most important to me is that it has a very strong undercurrent of status-obsession that I’ve found to be very unhealthy in my own development— or, more accurately, that I’ve found very healthy to rid myself of in my own development.

[ It’s worth noting here that I’m a blogger with a BS in math, and Lady is a tenured professor and established expert in abelian group theory. So I’m certainly entitled to my opinion but maybe definitely you should take it with a grain of salt. ]

But on the other hand, I found it fascinating and the writing style is enjoyable. And while it never gets really technical, it does has some “grittiness” to it which gives it a feeling of authenticity. (The writing style is different from Villani’s book but the effect is similar.) Moreover, I thought that there were some genuinely good/helpful/productive thoughts in here. So I set myself the task of trying to make a (much shorter, to its credit; and much less personalized, to its detriment) account of these ideas that I could provide to a friend, without needing to send them to the original essay.

DISCLAIMER: If you’re the sort of person who is particularly bothered by omission as an editorial device, you probably should just read the article instead of this. Because although the words I’m using are almost entirely Lady’s, the arrangement here is very strongly my own.

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How Does One do Mathematical Research?

by Lee Lady, arr. @thousandmaths

A student once send me email asking me how one goes about doing research in mathematics. I guess that one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind was, “Boy, did you ever ask the wrong person!” Doing research was for me never easy, and certainly not a thing that I ever thought I knew how to do.

Most of my mathematical work, especially during the first few years, was mostly a matter of desperation. I was never much good at all in finding questions to work on, even though I could usually write nice papers when I did. So I usually wound up working on open-ended questions that many other mathematicians would not even consider. It's an approach that shouldn't have worked, and I still can't figure out how much of my success was due to sheer blind luck.

Ideas

There is a particular kind of open-ended idea which I call the “blue-sky idea”. Namely, someone sitting at their desk with their feet up and looking out the window has come up with some concept, and now hopes that someone they knows can come up with a good way of using that idea.

When one looks at the history of mathematics, it may seem that a lot of the most important developments have come out of blue-sky ideas. But in fact, from what I know, this is almost never the case.* Good ideas don't come out of nowhere; they always arise out of some existing line of thought.

However, I have found that the way of finding ideas used by most prolific mathematicians was very different from my own. They would look through very recent papers, preferably ones that had not yet appeared in print, looking for questions that are still open and which seem tractable. Whereas what I seemed to do for the most part was to look through articles that were often somewhat older, often in dealing with topics somewhat diverse from my own work. When left to my own devices, I was always learning about existing mathematics that fascinated me rather than diligently working on proving new theorems. (I think that what I liked most of all was to reformulate and repackage existing theory, whether my own or someone else's.)

But whenever I would learn something new, or discover something new, I would always be asking myself, “Is there any way this can be useful in my own work?” Or, “Is there any way these results can be extended even further?”. In this way, many of the results I proved that most impressed other mathematicians were obtained very cheaply, by using results that I knew from fields that seemed far removed my own and which most of my colleagues either weren't aware of, or at least had never paid much attention to. Simply a matter of stealing other people's results and seeing how they fit together. (This sort of theft is perfectly acceptable, even commendable in mathematics, but only if one fully acknowledges the sources one is using.) And as far as my not having done much work, well, certainly there was an enormous amount of work involved in reading all those damned papers. But I hadn't had to do a lot of work actually proving things.

( * To be fair, blue-sky ideas do occasionally pan out. For instance, while I was still in Kansas I read a series of papers by Maurice Auslander. These were the most extreme possible case of a blue-sky idea: an extremely complicated and outlandish functor-oriented approach to modules over a finite-dimensional algebra. But then a young Norwegian woman named Idun Reiten began to collaborate with him and together they showed that all the weird Auslander machinery could actually be used to obtain important new results about finite-dimensional algebras. It’s important to remember, though, that such instances are exceptions, and should be treated as such.)

Proofs

Proving a mathematical theorem or constructing a useful example involves taking a number of pieces and putting them together in a new way. It's also a matter of having experience in using the things that one knows. This is why, even though nearly every mathematician in a certain specialty has the same “toolbox”, it seems that each of them has certain preferred tools.

Finding a proof is also a matter of constantly making conjectures and testing them. Testing out one's conjectures is much easier if one has a big supply of examples. Of course, any mathematics course will tell you that an example is not a substitute for a proof. It's also true that in certain parts of mathematics, such as analysis, the use of examples is much more treacherous than in others, because there are so many really weird possibilities that one is not likely to think of. But, with experience, you can definitely see from looking at several of the right examples not only that a theorem is true, but how you might go about proving it.

When one can't make progress, it may be because one is not aware of enough pieces. Or it may be that one has all the pieces one needs, but can't manage to get them to fit together. Unfortunately, one usually doesn't know which of these two difficulties is the obstacle one is dealing with.

For instance: my dissertation was in abelian group theory, but it involved a particular fact in a rather distant field called topology*. In fact, it is easy to imagine that the reason nobody had proved it before I did was because this fact was not in the conscious mind of my colleagues. It wasn't that others weren't aware of it, but just that it was not a fact that was used very often, so I think that most others were not very aware of it. So they would have been unknowingly encountering the first of these issues.

I had my own struggles with my dissertation, but (at least in this particular case) they were more of the second kind. My familiarity with topology wasn't the main reason that I was able to prove the theorem I needed. The main thing involved was a lot of hard work, and a fair amount of desperation.

( * Later on, a topologist would say to me, “But what you abelian group theorists use is just a kind of kindergarten topology. You never use any really deep theorems from the subject.” And to the best of my knowledge, this is almost completely true. But I'm certainly glad no one said this to me at the beginning of my work on my dissertation, because I might have abandoned the topological proof as, if not a dead alley, then at least a pointless detour, and then I almost certainly would never have proven my main result.)

Writing

In addition to theorems and proofs, there's a social aspect to mathematics that for many of us is very important. When writing a paper, one needs an audience, beyond the hypothetical group of readers many years in the future that it is written for.

In part, the process of ‘selling’ a theorem to this audience is a matter of packaging. There is a certain conciseness and preciseness which is expected, which is several steps removed from the actual process of getting the results.

The path one actually follows to get to a theorem is like the path of little Billy in the Sunday comic Family Circus. One wanders back and forth in every possible direction, constantly encountering dead ends and No Left Turn signs, and constantly getting back to places where one realizes one has already been several times before.

But once you finally have a proof for a theorem, then you start to boil it down; to make it more concise, to make it clearer, to see places where you can invoke standard theorems to cut short the long explanation. And even when that process is done, mathematicians are usually not satisfied. We make up all sorts of fairy tales about the path we followed to get to the theorem: “Well, first I thought about X. And that led me to wonder about Y. And then I realized Z.” This is the sort of lie one tells when giving a lecture or teaching a class.

However misleading these narratives may be, from a social perspective, this packaging is really quite important. For instance, earlier I mentioned the Auslander-Reiten papers. I really liked these papers, and a good deal of my work initially used them. But these papers are very hard to read, in part because they were extremely long and difficult. But also in part because, before working with Reiten, Auslander would at each crucial point refer back to a previous paper, often without giving a specific theorem number, description, or specific page number. So I tried very hard (and eventually succeeded) to remove its dependence on their papers, because I didn't think I would get other people in my field to put in the enormous effort required to read them.

A final warning: If you can have good ideas, generate interesting theorems, and write proofs that others want to read, then you are very well on your way to writing a good paper. But there is also an element of serendipity. For instance, I once made an enormous blunder in a preprint for one of my paper, and I've always thought that this mistake was responsible for a part of the success of this paper. Because in the process of correcting it, I realized that I needed a name for a certain concept. I think that mathematicians are always attracted to a new word. They think, Oh, here's a new concept. Maybe it's something I could write a paper on. (But the concept does have to live up to the word, otherwise people feel cheated.)

Postscript: Category Theory

An interesting sidelight here is that fact that I came into mathematics about roughly the time of a great generational gap among mathematicians: namely, those who thought in terms of category theory and those who did not. Those in what might be called the Old School, told me that they could prove things just as easily without category theory, and a lot of it seemed to them like just a matter of stating fairly simple things in a very complicated way.

But category theory seems to me essential to my work with torsion free abelian groups. I don’t even want to imagine what it would be like to prove the theorems I had, or even to state them, without having the framework of category theory. Gradually, I came to think that category theory is not primarily a method for proving theorems, but rather a framework for structuring and organizing the knowledge one has.

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Editor’s Commentary:

by @thousandmaths

A little over a year ago, I mentioned that I was trying to get my posts looked at by our on-campus writing center. I’m still doing that fairly regularly, especially when I try something new with a post. Well, this is certainly something new, so I got some feedback. The consultant said that, since the article lacks a summary of its own, I should provide some concluding analysis.

Unfortunately, as I mentioned in the parenthetical above (far above), it’s not at all obvious that I’m qualified to do this. I am certainly hesitant to comment, any more than I already have through the editorialization, about the “accuracy” of the phenomena that he describes. Certainly, everything that found its way into this post is something that I more or less agree with.

I will say that one of the more exciting things for me about reading this essay was the discovery of an “ordinary” mathematician who approached research in this style (though not by choice, it seems XD). By that, I mean, it seems obvious that people like Arnold, Conway, Erdős, Gowers, Tao, & co. would have diverse interests and use ideas from other fields artfully in their own research. But aside from Vakil’s assurance, and my own confidence, that this technique could work for us mortals, I never had a real model for someone “like me” who did this with any success.

It’s also interesting to see Lady’s explanation of packaging, and I couldn’t help but turn my mind to Piper Harron, better known as Liberated Mathematician (who is also responsible for this delightful imageset I posted earlier, which... feels uncomfortably relevant to this essay XD). I don’t wish to caricature her: Harron’s disappointment with mathematics goes a lot deeper than just academic writing style. But the sort of packaging that Lady describes— and that the established community of mathematicians seek— does seem like the sort of thing that aggravates institutionalized discrimination and puts up barriers, of dubious necessity, to breaking in to the scene.

On that note: one of the most interesting things that the writing center consultant told me is that the title didn’t really match the essay. They said that the essay was about a lot more than “How to do research”, since it also included all the bits about writing and the community of mathematicians. Of course, I have to disagree with this: if you believe that proofs are an important part of mathematics, than the communication of those proofs is also vital, because the (pragmatic) notion of proof is socially constructed. But I think that the consultant’s objections are ones that any reasonable outsider might have, and so I hope the revised version does a little better at showing how closely these two ‘different’ facets are actually both important to the research process.

Well... at least the research process as it’s currently being done. When you start to read the essay— and hopefully the abridged version as well— with Gowers’ notion of specialization in mind (second bullet point of the first bulleted list), you can actually see a whole bunch of possible specialties:

Generating ideas

Reviewing current literature

Deep literature searching (for older materials)

Summarizing papers (more thorough than the reviewers)

Repackaging existing theory

Finding examples

Testing examples

Drafting results & proofs

Writing exposition

Editing for accuracy

Editing for conciseness

Illustrating

Publishing

Advertising

These smaller tasks are harder to see when you’re “in the trenches”, and in practice some of them probably wouldn’t actually make sense to split up in any particular project and some of them might not make sense at all. But it is an illuminating point of intersection between Gowers’ talk, which I found interesting if dreadfully theoretical, and Lady’s practical, if messier, perspective.

#math #maths #mathematics #mathema #research #math research #writing #publishing #advice #mad blogging experiment

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ladystylestores · 4 years

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How will we build the city of the future? – TechCrunch

Editor’s note: Get this weekly recap of TechCrunch news that any startup can use by email every Saturday morning (7am PT), just subscribe here.

Commercial real estate, the traditional heart of most cities, may have lost its reason to exist in the last few months. The world is about to find out what the situation is as more locations start to reopen.

First up in our ongoing coverage of the topic, Connie Loizos caught up with a couple proptech investors this week for TechCrunch, who saw existing trends accelerating — with many medically focused additions.

Brendan Wallace of Fifth Wall is looking for more aggressive pickup of smart tech in general, along the lines of what you already see in some other countries. “He notes sensors that can determine how many people are in a room or pass through a turnstile. He points to facial recognition tech that can help keep points of physical contact to a minimum. He imagines that more companies might embrace robots to patrol buildings and, possibly, to clean them, too.”

Darren Bechtel of Brick and Mortar saw tech remaking the construction site, with growing practices like using large-scale pre-fabricated components: “If you’re limited by how many people can work in the field, and you have to put in controls for people not working on top of each other, the question becomes: how can you do the work in a more controlled environment, with a next-gen HVAC system [to purify the air] and markings on the floor?…. People are now saying, ‘How much can we prepare off-site?’”

Buildings are also going to be focused on health features, Connie wrote. “[B]oth Wallace and Bechtel mentioned advanced air purifiers and air handling units used to recondition and circulate air as part of a heating, ventilating and air-conditioning plan. Both say it will likely become a growing area of interest for building owners and developers.”

What about beyond the buildings? A few writers here put together some thoughts in a post for Extra Crunch. Here’s Danny Crichton’s view from Brooklyn:

Few of us can live in the dreary confines of a suburban enclave our entire workweek. And so I expect to see a revitalization of the classic Main Street clusters that once dotted towns across America as people appreciate the close proximity of amenities that they need throughout their day and remote work makes it possible to skip the commute to the central business district.

It’s not going to be a simple transition, of course. The built environment alone will probably take decades to fully transition. But the spirit of Jane Jacobs lives on and will move beyond the downtown core neighborhoods she observed to spread to medium and perhaps even small towns across the country and throughout the world.

If you want more on the topic, check out our recent investor survey with six other top proptech investors from late March (for subscribers).

Just want to settle down at home and get to work? Check out Darrell Etherington’s TechCrunch guide to setting up a pro-grade videoconference studio.

The $100M ARR club continues to grow, despite everything

When Alex Wilhelm rejoined TechCrunch late last year, he kicked things off with a list of companies that he called “the $100M ARR club” to signify unicorns that were also generating a lot of revenue. It was a clever way of organizing which of the hundreds of highly valued companies heading towards IPOs were most set up for success, and our readers agreed.

But, with entire market categories whipsawed by the pandemic, it has been hard to find companies willing to share numbers lately. He still found a few, as he wrote up for Extra Crunch this week: ActiveCampaign, Recorded Future and ON24. Here’s a vignette from the CEO of ActiveCampaign:

While we had the CEO’s attention, TechCrunch wanted to know if ActiveCampaign was taking incoming fire from COVID-19 and its related economic and labor disruptions. As some other SMB-focused software companies have told us, the answer is no. Here’s [Jason] VandeBoom:

We anticipate continued growth in 2020 and are already seeing further acceleration to support this. The past four months have been the best in company history and we’ve seen monthly trials double in that timeframe and new customer acquisition numbers at 4500, 5500, 6000 and 7000 respectively from January to April.

He did hedge those results a little, adding that while his firm has “seen some acceleration from COVID-19 and the digital transformation that it is inspiring,” the CEO is more convinced that “the need for customer experience is what is fueling the majority of this growth.”

This week in China trade news….

The already basic trade agreement between the Trump administration and the Chinese government from last year looks ready to blow up; the administration banned selling more tech to Huawei; TSMC plans to open a factory in Arizona following urging from the US government; Foxconn profits crashed… Danny Crichton has a clear takeaway on TechCrunch for startups about the latest headlines:

[T]he world of semiconductors, of internet infrastructure, of the tech ties that have bound the U.S. and China together for decades — they are frayed and are almost gone. It’s a new era in supply chains and trade, and an open world for new approaches to these huge existing industries.

If your company is not already planning for a more chaotic, multi-polar world than what most of us can remember living through, it may already be too late.

(Photo by CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)

Investor survey: hospitals to increase tech focus after pandemic

Sarah Buhr talked to top investors in the healthcare B2B and infrastructure businesses for one of our investor surveys this week on Extra Crunch. They generally seemed to agree that the pandemic was going to push the system wholesale towards better technology. Here’s Bilal Zuberi of Lux Capital:

While a lot of our healthcare infrastructure will take a little bit of time recovering from the stress COVID placed on it, we anticipate this to provide a push to the system to adopt new technologies that enable distributed health, build resiliency in our delivery networks and deploy data-enabled healthcare. Hospital balance sheets might struggle in the short term to buy new technologies, but payers as well as large businesses might participate in infrastructure development and deployment in a bigger way. We anticipate selling to hospitals to be difficult in the short term, as they try to recover from the revenue shortfall they experienced during COVID-19, but will generally emerge more interested in adopting new technologies, digital and remote health solutions and automation in various functions. Needless to say, a wide-scale digital transformation of our healthcare industry is underway, and there is no looking back.

Don’t miss our other survey this week, on how the mobility investors are viewing the pandemic.

Protecting your equity as a startup employee

Wouter Witvoet of fintech startup SecFi wrote a guest post for TechCrunch going over some key points for anyone working at a startup right now (or recently). As an occasional startup founder and/or employee myself, I’d like to recommend this one for special consideration: “Negotiate for equity during a pay cut or furlough.”

Startups typically offer equity as a means of deferred compensation and as a way to incentivize employees to own a piece of the company they are building. The compensation is deferred as most startups are cash-strapped and cannot afford to pay you what a larger company may be able to.

If your company is now asking you to take a pay cut, or even take no pay during this time, you should consider asking for additional equity to make up for the lost compensation. While not all companies may be amenable to offering more equity, there is no cash outlay from the company’s standpoint, so it’s an efficient way for your company to compensate you for your sacrifice while preserving their cash.

In addition, offering more equity shows a commitment from management to their employees during this difficult time. It may be the win-win scenario for your company and yourself in the long-run so it’s worth having the conversation with management to discuss if this is available for you.

At first it seems weird when you consider typical venture dynamics. The founders have probably already lost leverage against the company’s investors. These investors have probably already lost leverage against their LPs. So nobody is naturally included to give up even more. And the employees were already last in line on the cap table and first to go, so why should founders do anything different?

Tactically, the best employees will be attracted go work at bigger more stable companies as the pandemic recession stretches on — and you might not have the cash to afford the effort to rehire. Strategically, now is the time to build the esprit de corp that will carry your company forward into better times… a few extra basis points for the team now could help deliver a priceless return.

Across the week

TechCrunch

COVID-19 shows we need Universal Basic Internet now

AngelList wants to improve comparing VC fund performance with new metrics and calculator

Seven viral futures

Where to shop online that isn’t Amazon, Target or Walmart

Extra Crunch

4 edtech CEOs peer into the industry’s future

Sequoia’s Roelof Botha is more optimistic about startups today than he was a year ago

These best practices maximize the value of your online events

Fintech startups amass war chests for the economic downturn

Around TechCrunch

Give the gift of Extra Crunch membership to anyone

Extra Crunch Live: Join Alexia and Niko Bonatsos for a Q&A May 19th at 2 pm EDT/11 am PDT

Extra Crunch Live: Join Revolution’s Steve Case and Clara Sieg on May 21 at 3pm ET/12pm PT

#EquityPod

From Alex:

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.

Are you a regular Equity listener? Take our survey here! We talk about it on the show.

From home once again this week, Danny, Natasha, Alex and Chris got together to pull the show together. But unlike last week’s episode (catch up here if you are behind), this week’s show features a game that actually worked. It’s at the end, as you’ll see.

But before that piece of the puzzle, there was a bunch of news to go over. We had to leave SaaS valuations, the Liftoff List, Brex and FalconX on the floor, but there was still so much good stuff to cover:

Then we played our game. Please hold us to account. And if you have listened to the show for a while, take our survey! It’s right after this next sentence.

Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.

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prettiestrice · 7 years

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Jour 33: Woah oh oh oh oh Mona Lisa, I pay to see you frown. Vendredi, 23 Juin 2017.

Today I went to the Louvre. But first, I woke up sharply at 7 when horrible construction men brought their trucks right outside my window and started raging their engine for 2 hours. It was miserable. But I got up. My host family ran out of bread so I had half a piece (very hungry) and then I met Morgan at 9:15 at the Louvre. We went in. (Stupidly bought 15 euro tickets when if we had SHOWED OUR FREAKING ID’S INSTEAD OF GOING TO THE MACHINE LIKE I TOLD HER TO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we would have been free) It was cool though. I’ll go back for free def! I saw some pretty cool paintings and sculptures. We started with older sculptures. Like 1200′s. Back then, they made everyone ugly. Weird faces.

Here is a pic of me in front! I’m cute! That pyramid thing was kind of cool. It was humongous.

Here is a pic of me with the filter for the 12e arr. That’s where the Louvre was. Once again, I am cute.

We started with sculptures from the 13eme siecles (13th century). This statue is of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus and is from somewhere between 1325 and 1350. It is crazy to me how they can date it so precisely like that. I specifically took a picture because I wanted to know what the ball in his hand symbolized.

A lot of sculptures back then of Jesus and Mary were kind of ugly. They had weird faces. Getting later in time, they get more attractive.

This is of the Resurrection of Christ from the XVIe Siecle. Look at how amazing that detail is. Just so insane and it’s so old and was preserved so well!

After I saw this, there was an old incense holder. My thought was “wow! This looks just like the one Dad bought in Disney. Lemme take a picture and I’ll send it to him later!” It’s amazing to me that it’s been almost 7 years and moments like this still happen when I just completely forget that he is dead. It made me very, very sad. But Dad would have been happy for me, for being in Paris and traveling and he wouldn’t have wanted me to be sad. I assume he can probably see everything I am seeing anyway. God is cool like that.

This is literally a chess board from the 15th century. THATS SO COOL!

These lil homies look like coppertone models. I wonder if they are related?

This was worn by Louis XVI. HOW INSANE IN THAT. A man who was killed during the French revolution by guillotine wore this. Just, wow.

Reminded me of the dog from His Master’s Voice.

Then we went into the art section. My apologies for taking so many pictures instead of just listing. The titles were so generic on a lot and there were no artists that it would have been more difficult just to try to look it up later like at other museums.

Just thought this room was cool!

This is a painting of Jesus by Giovanni Bellini (as you guessed we were now in the Renaissance painting section of the Louvre) vers 1465-1470. I liked this painting very much not because it was particularly attractive, because frankly it is terrifying, but because Jesus looks so in pain. I find that in a lot of representations of Jesus, his ribs may be showing that he is skinny and he may look dead or whatever. But this one just showed more than that. I felt that in this painting, he really really really looked ill and tiny tiny skinny and his eyes were sunken in and he looked weak and like he had suffered. And I think that’s so much more accurate to post-cross Jesus….That being said he was dead after he got off the cross and then was resurrected so I mean should he have looked ill? IDK. I ain’t no theologian.

There was a couple more Bellini’s and a couple Da Vinci’s that I really liked. Then came the most overrated painting of all time. You guessed it.

Selfie Central. La Joconde. Monna Lisa. Mona Lisa. People were massed around this pathetic thing. Of course I got a selfie. Post this trip, I am going to start a blog that’s just dedicated to me with selfies with famous pieces of art work. It was so tiny!! It was hilarious because it was the only painting on this gigantic wall and there were signs for it all around and in the room there was a million other more amazing photos. For example, across from it is...

You can’t tell by my photo how big it is. It’s Paolo Caliari’s Les Noces de Cana. Or, the Wedding at Cana. It’s like as tall as 4 people probably and doubly wide. And it is amazing. Theres like 14 million dogs in this photo and it’s beautiful and a million times bigger than the Mona Lisa. And yet?!

I saw some more photos. Plenty religious, because Italian lol. Also, at the Louvre was the biggest abundance of American accents I have heard since coming here. I barely heard any French people. Only American!

So. I’m going to tell another story now. There was this 9 year old boy and his dad. He saw a photo of a an angel (St. Michael) fighting a demon. And was like “whah! Cool dad! Look at that angel fighting that demon!” and the dad said “Yeah! That’s Saint Michael the Archangel. It was painted by [I don’t remember who]. Do you remember what I told you about him? He uses a lot of contrasting colors and likes to illuminate people’s faces. Can you see it here in this painting?” It was so cute. He then talked to his son about Saint Michael the Archangel and the painter etc and it was just the cutest darned thing. I stood there and listened and the dad saw me smiling at him and he smiled back. I love hearing dads (or parents in general) teach their children about art or history or art history. It’s so beautiful.

I walked away from then and then looked at this painting seen below.

Then I heard the little boy’s voice again. He asked his dad what this painting meant. His dad explained to him that it was a painting of the Passion of Christ by Antonio Campi. If you look you can see all the different parts and stations of the passion. He explained them all and pointed them out one by one. So cute.

Honestly, after being so sad about my dad earlier and truly believing that God makes everything happen for a reason, I do think that God made me look at those paintings at the exact moment I did so that I could hear that man talk to his son so that I knew that dad was with me even though he isn’t physically there. The dad’s words reminded me of my dad so much and his patience and love for his child. It was so beautiful and it made me so happy.

Then I saw this painting. It was cool. All the little paintings inside the big painting are of things in Rome. On the bottom right you can see the Trevi fountain. The reason I took a picture though, is because on the bottom left you can see a lil painting of the Rzym Fontanna Czterech Rzek (Fountain of the four Rivers) at Piazza Navona in Rome. When in Rome, Theresa explained to me the symbolism of the fountain and the four men and the obelisk. I won’t explain it because it would take very long and this post is long enough, but you can read and use the internet so here is the wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piazza_Navona

Oh apparently this is a famous sculpture of Cupid (l’Amour) and Venus (I think?).

We grabbed lunch and then I had to go meet my sociology class for the Italian Immigration exhibit at the Musee d’Immigration. That last around 2 hours and Morgan decided not to come back since we saw everything that was interesting (a lot of other stuff was grecque and egyptian .. I’d like to com back though).

Then I went home and went on a VERY DIFFICULT 7 mile run. It hurt. I’m still in pain.

I ended up walking over 30 thousand steps for the day.

Later, we went to a restaurant (me and Morgan). We walked to go Italian but it was all booked so we went to a traditional French place. I wanted to be adventurous so I had beef tartare for the first time. Ya know, considering it’s like raw, cold ground beef it wasn’t bad. Morgan and I also talked about important things and it was a very nice night with her. She’s so sweet.

On the way home I saw Cinderella.

Then sleep. That’s all.

#study abroad #paris #louvre #running #cinderella #dead dad #love #painting #la joconde #pathetic

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ramialkarmi · 7 years

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How a startup went from building servers out of wood to a $20 million business — without giving control to outside investors

Over the last 10 years, Silicon Valley startup BackBlaze has quietly established itself as a useful and popular service, letting you back up your entire PC or Mac to the cloud for $5 per computer per month.

On Thursday, BackBlaze CEO Gleb Budman revealed to Business Insider that the company just closed a $5 million sales quarter, putting it on track for a $20 million annualized run rate (ARR), the amount of money that BackBlaze projects it will bring in this year if its current rate of business continues.

Compared to certain other Silicon Valley startups, BackBlaze isn't necessarily a standout. Dropbox, one of BackBlaze's biggest competitors, is also ten years old this year. Dropbox, valued at $10 billion, is free cash flow positive as of mid-2016, and recently announced that it was on a $1 billion run rate.

But there's a very big difference between BackBlaze and the so-called Silicon Valley "unicorns." Over the last decade, Dropbox has raised over $600 million in venture capital funding, plus an additional $1.1 million in debt financing. BackBlaze, for comparison, has only ever raised $5 million in 2012, well after the business was already profitable.

It's a far cry from the company's modest start, where its self-funded beginnings meant that they built their first storage servers out of wood (seriously). Now, with about 50 employees, including all five founders, BackBlaze has gone from nothing to sustainable business, in an industry where profitability is not taken for granted.

"Never in the realm of possibility" did Budman think BackBlaze would ever get this far. Now, as the company plans to enter its second decade, Budman reveals the ins and outs of building a Silicon Valley startup the non-Silicon Valley way.

The money problem

When Budman and his four co-founders started up BackBlaze in 2007, they made a pact: They would pool most of their personal savings together to get the company off the ground, and take no salary for their first year, regardless of how the business was going.

That agreement carried two additional stipulations, still in effect to this day.

First, while none of them were interested in taking cash from outside investors at the start while they figured out their business, they would meet every six months to discuss the possibility of raising a traditional round of funding. That twice-annual meeting was where they decided to take their $5 million round in 2012.

Second, they would tie their salaries to each other and the company. If they could afford to pay their people $10 an hour, all five men would get $10 an hour. And so on, as the company grew and could pay more competitively, with all of them getting exactly the same pay package even to this day.

There were downsides to this, especially at first — "I can't live on ramen forever," Budman says of the lean times — but as the company found its footing, it became a real boon. Budman says that he's seen startups fail when their founders fight over money and who's getting paid what, but team BackBlaze was, and is, all in the same boat.

"We don't really talk about it," Budman says.

Leverage

That by-your-bootstraps approach has other benefits, too, including allowing the founders to do what they wanted, when they wanted, without having to succumb to investor pressure.

"It's certainly nice not to have to raise money," Budman says.

The temptation was there, Budman says, and they could have ridden the Silicon Valley startup boom to raise massive funding rounds at inflated valuations just like many of their peers. But the question that always stopped them was simple: "Do we really know what to do with this money efficiently?"

"Sure, we would have come up with ways to spend," Budman says, but none of them would have been particularly smart or strategic for the company. When BackBlaze did raise the $5 million in 2012, it was with the specific purpose of building new products like the B2 storage cloud, a service for software developers, and a new version of BackBlaze specifically for businesses.

The disadvantage of taking venture capital money, he says, is that it means that their investors will "have to get their money out somehow." That means either an IPO or selling to a bigger company. But Budman isn't concerned about being rushed to any outcome: BackBlaze is starting to prepare for a possible IPO, but not planning on it.

And if the day ever comes when their investors start leaning on them for a quick sale or a faster IPO, Budman says, BackBlaze has potential parties waiting in the wings who could buy out their shares, buying them more time. Because the company is stable, there's plenty of time to make the right decision, he says.

Unicorn chasers

The appeal of working at a lot of high-flying Silicon Valley startups is the notion that, thanks to their stock grants, they could possibly cash out big when their company goes public or gets acquired for billions. Basically, it's like playing the lotto, betting that long hours or frustrating management will pay off when your options vest.

Because BackBlaze is taking that more considered approach toward a possible exit, it's unattractive to a certain kind of Silicon Valley programmer; Budman says a friend recently used the term "unicorn chaser" for engineers who just go from one billion-dollar to the next hoping to hit the jackpot.

Instead, Budman is looking for employees willing to take a longer-term approach, not because they're locked in with stock options (though they do get equity in the company), but because they want to be there. Budman notes that unlike lots of long-running startups, all five founders are still in the BackBlaze office daily, working.

"We are hoping this'll be the last job they'll ever have," Budman says, noting that it's a "weird concept" for Silicon Valley. "We hope BackBlaze pays them well; we hope they will stick around for a while."

In the decade that BackBlaze has been in operation, Budman says, he can think of four times when people quit the company of their own volition (as opposed to being otherwise let go). He says employees come to him with offers from competitors that they turned down.

He says that it's something he's particularly pleased with. As he gets older, he says, he appreciates more and more that having a dream job isn't about getting paid well or strategic career moves, it's "am I happiest here?"

SEE ALSO: Dropbox just hit a billion-dollar milestone

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